A Lesson On Unintended Consequences

| September 3, 2010

This from Art Cashin on the floor of The New York Stock Exchange On this day in 1666, a massive fire broke out in the city of London, England. It began in a bakery on Pudding Lane, which was on the East End (between London Bridge and the Tower).  The fire raged into the shop […]

Cell Phone Growth In The United States

| September 2, 2010

Consumers are eschewing fixed-line alternatives for their cell phones, opting to keep connected to a single number whether they’re at home or in the car. www.dailyreckoning.com

New ICI Report Just Out: It Shows The 17th Consecutive Weekly Outflow From Domestic Equity Mutual Funds

| September 2, 2010

Key message here is…..  for liquidity ratios, equity fund portfolio managers are at an all-time record low of 3.4%, down from 3.8% in June. Tack on the fact that there are less shorts to be covered – being that the market peaked in April,  and short interest is now 4.3% of the S&P 500 market cap (in August 2008 it […]

It’s Called The New Normal…..International Monetary Fund Warns G7 On Debt

| September 2, 2010

Key words here are…..”public debt had served for decades as the ultimate shock absorber — rising in bad times but not declining much in good times.”  Now things have to change as  the wealthiest nations face years of belt-tightening.  International Monetary Fund Warns G7 on Debt Thursday, 2 Sep 2010  By: Sewell Chan The world’s most […]

ECB Keeps Interest Rates At 1%, Maintaining Crisis Mode Because Of A Fragile World Economic Situation

| September 2, 2010

Crisis mode? Hmm…..their words not ours! ECB Keeps Key Interest Rate at 1%, May Maintain Crisis Mode By Christian Vits   Sep 2, 2010  The European Central Bank kept interest rates at a record low today and President Jean-Claude Trichet may signal the bank will stay in crisis mode into next year. The ECB’s Governing Council […]

Quote Of The Day………

| September 1, 2010

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson, Writings, 1743-1826   I predict future happiness for Americans if they […]

Auto Makers Take A Record Hit In August….Worst Since The Early 1980’s

| September 1, 2010

This looks like the worst sales performance since the early 1980’s………If autos looked this bad then one would asume that housing should fare no better as consumers still have too much debt…..Here is a quote from Toyota, “We are bracing ourselves for the coming crisis.”.    Toyota Motor Corp., General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., […]

Cumberland Associates…..Front Running The Fed

| September 1, 2010

Front Running the Fed September 1, 2010 “… the public is no longer investing in stocks, but rather in bonds.  So far this year through July, bond mutual funds have attracted $224.4bn in net inflows including reinvested dividends.  Equity funds have attracted only $17.2bn ytd, with $32.2bn going into International funds while $15.0bn flowed out […]

Storm Watch…. Hurricane Earl

| August 31, 2010

Storm Watch…. Hurricane Earl www.ingerletter.com

About Sums It Up

| August 31, 2010

Government Anti-Poverty Aid Is Rising Fast…..Sets New Record

| August 31, 2010

More then one in six Americans are currently on government anti-poverty programs and the number continues to rise.  The chart is below. WASHINGTON — Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand. More than 50 million Americans are […]

Record Low Temperatures Hit Southern California

| August 31, 2010

August 30, 2010  Record low temperatures for the day were set Monday in Long Beach and Santa Barbara amid cooler weather that has settled over Southern California, forecasters said.  Long Beach recorded 58 degrees, breaking by one degree a record set in 1989, the National Weather Service said. Santa Barbara bottomed out at 48 degrees, […]

Stratfor’s George Friedman On: Rethinking American Options on Iran

| August 31, 2010

Rethinking American Options on Iran August 31, 2010 | 0856 GMT   By George Friedman Public discussion of potential attacks on Iran’s nuclear development sites is surging again. This has happened before. On several occasions, leaks about potential airstrikes have created an atmosphere of impending war. These leaks normally coincided with diplomatic initiatives and were […]

Bonds Vs. Equity…….Money Flows From ICI

| August 30, 2010

According to the Investment Company Institute (ICI), bond mutual funds have attracted more money than equity mutual funds for 30 consecutive months through June, the longest stretch in more than 23 years.

News For Thought…..Unintended Consequences Of The New Health-Care Law

| August 30, 2010

News For Thought From Dr. Joe Duarte’s Market I.Q. Public Hospitals May Be A Thing Of The Past. According to The Wall Street Journal: “Faced with mounting debt and looming costs from the new federal health-care law, many local governments are leaving the hospital business, shedding public facilities that can be the caregiver of last resort.” […]

New Jersey’s Deep Crisis…..Inquiring Minds Wonder Who Is Next? Like Roaches, There Never Is Just One! First To Come To Mind Are Illinois and California

| August 30, 2010

Another fraudulent entity, this time it’s a state……The state of New Jersey’s most recent report said that as of June 2009, its pension funds should have assets of $112 billion to meet their future obligations, but have only $66 billion now — This is one of the largest shortfalls of its kind, and is known as an unfunded liability!    The state […]

New Statistic On The Stock Market

| August 30, 2010

Interesting facts we haven’t heard of before!   For the first time since at least 1997, fewer than 29 percent of ratings for stocks covered by brokerages worldwide are buys, according to 159,919 recommendations compiled by Bloomberg. Analysts are turning more pessimistic even as they push up estimates for profit growth among Standard & Poor’s […]

AAA Ratings: What A Sham

| August 30, 2010

The Daily Reckoning Presents                     AAA Ratings: A Grim Fairy Tale   How the ratings agencies have managed to emerge from the credit crisis unscathed and unregulated is a mystery…and a sham.”Nothing is ever clear or certain in public,” we wrote in The New Empire of Debt. “Every error is someone else’s fault. That is […]

Cumberland Advisors With Fed Comments And A Tale To Tell: The Emperor, The Gladiator & The Lion

| August 30, 2010

The Emperor, The Gladiator & The Lion August 30, 2010   The last surviving gladiator stood alone in the Coliseum as the crowd shouted approval of his victories.  The emperor called for a lion.  In bounded a fierce beast that loped to the gladiator.  As it was about to pounce on him, the gladiator whispered […]

In Some What Of A Surprise, State Tax Collections Rise Vs. Same Quarter A Year Ago

| August 29, 2010

Only three states had declining revenue,  Illinois revenue declined 7%, while Michigan’s collections fell 3.8%.   So, not sure just how this could happen, but….California, tax revenue declined 0.9%, despite 12% increase in income-tax collections,  this according to the Rockefeller Institute.  Hmm    Best to remember it’s just one quarter and most state budgets are still busted.    Question: Inquiring minds want to […]

China Cutting Back 72% Of Its Exports Of Rare Earth Metals

| August 29, 2010

Interesting to say the least….rare earth elemnts are used in almost everything that is high tech……. Bloomberg reports that China is cutting back 72% of its exports of Rare Earth metals.  China has said that environmental issues are the reason for the cutbacks. 72% drop in availability of any commodity is important. RE’s are important. Japan […]

George Friedman Of STRATFOR: China “Will Have A Collapse” In The Coming Decade And America Will Be The Primary Beneficiary

| August 29, 2010

Some food for thought from George Friedman, CEO of STRATFOR, who believes China “will have a collapse” in the coming decade due to internal striff, an export based economy, and low internal rates of return,  It will set America up as the primary beneficiary in a new Golden Era. Mr. Friedman’s views are controversial but well worth listening […]

The Economy: Where We Are Now!

| August 29, 2010

Last week, the Liscio Report posted an interesting comment on their blog, Where we are?: Here’s an updated guide to “where we are”—how the U.S. economy is faring relative to the average of previous financial crises around the world. Though individual details vary, we’re following the script pretty well. In the graphs of four major […]

Volcker-Led Economic Panel Pushes For Simpler U.S. Tax Code…..(One That The Average College Graduate Can Understand We Hope)!

| August 29, 2010

Yep, this is a true fact….Lawmakers have changed the tax code more than 15,000 times since the last major overhaul in 1986.  Unbelievable! The current income tax forms (other than the 1040 short form) are so complicated that the average educated person still needs a tax preparer to do their taxes.  This new report from Paul Volcker  proposes a […]

Let’s Revisit This Great Piece From Todd Harrison Of Minyanville!

| August 29, 2010

By Todd Harrison of Minyanville Seeking Solutions In An Uncertain World  We used to play for silver, now we play for life; ones for sport and one’s for blood at the point of a knife. –Grateful Dead We live in interesting times. During the last two years, a financial virus spawned and infected the economic […]

Pennsylvania Property Taxes May Worsen….Does This Set The Stage For The Same In Other States?

| August 28, 2010

This continues to be a hot subject and the problems continue to get worse.  Question: Why should communities have to support bloted state and government pension and benefit plans that are guaranteed no matter what the loses are, and totaly out of control while the rest of the country in the private sector has to live with less because of loses to IRA’s and […]

California Governor ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER On Government-Employee Compensation And Benefits

| August 27, 2010

Here is a summary of parts of a Wall Street Journal article by California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger on government pensions and employee benefit compensation.  Roughly 80 cents of every government dollar in California goes to employee compensation and benefits.  Spending on California’s state employees over the past decade rose at nearly three times the rate our […]

Treasury International Capital Flow Stats

| August 27, 2010

By Brian Pretti on Fri, 27 Aug 2010    The most important information in the Treasury International Capital flow stats concerns equities. Have a look at the chart below. To the point, the top clip of the chart is the twelve month moving average of foreign purchases of US equities. Clearly there is cyclical rhythm here. […]

Robert Shiller Says Double Dip “May Be Imminent”

| August 27, 2010

08/27/2010 The WSJ’s Simon Constable interviews Robert Shiller.  He says that an economic double dip may be “imminent.”   Shiller also believes that when the NBER looks back at the data, Q3 of this year will mark the beginning of the second dip of the recession. Ironically, since up to now the previous recession has never actually […]

One In 10 Mortgage Holders Face Foreclosure

| August 26, 2010

Modest is putting it bluntly…..There was some modestly encouraging news. The percentage of mortgage borrowers receiving foreclosure notices fell slightly to 4.57 percent in the April-to-June quarter.  Government efforts haven’t made much of a difference. Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who have enrolled in the Obama administration’s main mortgage-relief program have been cut loose […]

Just How Important Are Labor Costs…..Answer: Very!

| August 26, 2010

One reason of many for a tough road ahead…..        From JPM……The latest profit recovery (the three red dots) is reliant on declining labor costs like none before it. A profit recovery whose foundation is so reliant on sustained high productivity and low real wage growth should not command a very high P/E multiple.   A recent JPM […]

Illinois Retirement Funds Selling Assets To Pay Benefits

| August 26, 2010

The Canary in the coal mine.     Sounds like a bad situation is setting itself up here…… We went over some of this just a few days ago……It’s an unfolding disaster…. Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, Springfield, plans to sell $3 billion in investments, or about 10% of its $33.1 billion in assets in the current fiscal year […]

Kicking The Can Down The Road….Then Stepping On It!

| August 26, 2010

Hmm…..Two months in a row, right in the middle of the traditional best seasonal time of the year for real estate….not one new home was sold valued above $750,000 in the whole U.S. according to David Rosenberg (he worked for Merrill Lynch and now resides in Canada as chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff). …..Attitudes towards […]

A Novel Idea, But Way To Logical To Catch On!

| August 26, 2010

In a bid to stem taxpayer losses for bad loans guaranteed by federal housing agencies Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn) proposed that borrowers be required to make a 5% down payment in order to qualify. His proposal was rejected 57-42 on a party-line vote because, …………Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) explained, “passage […]

So…..

| August 25, 2010

An economic recovery doesn’t look anything like this: www.dailyreckoning.com

Given A Choice, Commercial Property Owners Choose to Default

| August 25, 2010

The big players always knew that real estate loans were non-recourse loans. They walk-away voluntarily.  Remember  the commercial market is more professional than housing. As  more of the big boys bite the dust,  the huge bounce will  crest,  and down she comes. Pension funds, insurance companies, small banks, retirement accounts etc. get hammered. Commercial Property Owners Choose to Default By […]

When Dominos Fall…..Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System Enters The Death Spiral….Are Other Pension Plans The Next Shoe To Drop?

| August 24, 2010

Pension funds everywhere had better pay attention to what’s going on with the Illinois Teachers Retirement System.  It’s a wake up call……Hello, anybody there! When the financial crisis erupted, it first hit banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, real estate/ private equity funds, asset managers, and then hit pension funds. But pensions remain very vulnerable because […]

Existing Home Sales Fall Hard In July – Can Anyone Be Really Surprised?

| August 24, 2010

Existing home sales fell to their lowest level in over 15 years in July as inventories soared.   It portrays a grim picture for the housing market absent government support. Home resales dropped a record 27.2%  or nearly twice as much as analysts had expected to an annual rate of 3.83 million in July, according to the National Association of […]

Todd Harrison Of Minyanville…..Seeking Solutions In An Uncertain World

| August 23, 2010

By Todd Harrison of Minyanville Seeking Solutions In An Uncertain World  We used to play for silver, now we play for life; ones for sport and one’s for blood at the point of a knife. –Grateful Dead We live in interesting times. During the last two years, a financial virus spawned and infected the economic […]

New Housing Finance Ideas…….Can It Work?

| August 23, 2010

Let’s keep this in mind…..Quoting PIMCO’s Bill Gross on real estate mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac….”To suggest the private market can come back in and take the place [of the government] is simply impractical. It won’t work”. Sources say the Obama administration is floating the idea  that any federal backing of mortgages be paid for […]

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