Lower Your Home Price Expectations ♦♦ By: AAA Staff ♦♦ The Mess That Greenspan Made06/23/2010The assumptions of home affordability just don't capture the true cost of purchasing a home when the potential homeowner's income production is in question.
Inflation or deflation? ♦♦ By: James Hamilton ♦♦ Econbrowser06/21/2010Living for the moment with eyes glued to ... what ... hints that Congress will become fiscally responsibility some time in the future?
Bubble, Bubble...Where's the Bubble? ♦♦ By: John Mason ♦♦ Mase: Economics and Finance06/16/2010Tiny bubbles in the wine ... makes me happy .... make me feel fine ... well ... at least until I have an hangover in the morning.
Commercial Banking: Still Hanging On ♦♦ By: John Mason ♦♦ Mase: Economics and Finance06/14/2010Too Big To Fail is turning into Too Big to Compete with -- Little banks can't compete with Ben Bernanke's choosen few.
FX Comments ♦♦ By: Bruce Krasting ♦♦ Bruce Krasting Blog06/09/2010Manipulated free market costs with no reward.
Re-Animating a Debt Dog ♦♦ By: The Mogambo Guru ♦♦ Daily Reckoning Australia06/05/2010If debtors were simply solvent we wouldn't have this problem
Goldman's bid didn't disclose probe to Calpers ♦♦ By: AAA Staff ♦♦ Reuters06/01/2010Goldman Sachs Group Inc, seeking a consulting mandate from Calpers, assured the pension fund giant in March that it was not "the target of a formal investigation," according to a document obtained by Reuters.
That was six months after U.S. securities regulators notified the powerful Wall Street bank that it was likely to be charged with fraud in connection with the underwriting and marketing of a $1 billion subprime-mortgage-linked security.
On April 16, the Securities and Exchange Commis
New Home Sales Set to Plunge in Former Bubble Markets (Update1) ♦♦ By: Priscilla Peters ♦♦ Bloomberg06/01/2010New home sales in Phoenix and Las Vegas, two U.S. markets hardest hit by foreclosures, are set to plunge as a federal tax credit for homebuying expires, according to data from real estate researcher Metrostudy.
A sample of subdivisions in both cities showed sales contracts for new homes “pulled back sharply in May and contract cancellations spiked,” Houston-based Metrostudy said in an e-mail. Would-be buyers canceled about 40 percent of new home contracts in San Diego in May, up from 10 per
The Hollywood Set Recovery ♦♦ By: Michael J. Panzner ♦♦ Financial Armageddon05/30/2010Gee ... can't you folks just get on the bandwagon so this recovery can take place? Then again ... maybe rocvery preachers might not know what they're talking about.
Atlanta Fed asks: How "Discouraged" are Small Businesses? ♦♦ By: Mike "Mish" Shedlock ♦♦ Global Economic Trend Analysis05/29/2010If your loan is with recourse, your rate is some 5% higher than annointed Too Big To Fails and your clients have all cut back ... why would you want to borrow? It is, after all, your money. You want to help small business? Cut the costs of having employees. Stop making paperwork efficiancy a competitive advantage. And ... instead of UN-employment assistance ... how about Employment assistance to employers.
Extend and Pretend Reaches A New Level ♦♦ By: Yves Smith ♦♦ Naked Capitalism05/25/2010GAAP has been reduced to ... meaninglessness. Why buy a stock based on clearly manipulated data in a manipulated market?
Next on the Contagion List – UMS? ♦♦ By: Bruce Krasting ♦♦ Bruce Krasting Blog05/20/2010Where was your money when the earthquakes started to roll. In Spain? In Italy? Oh ... no ... not Mexico.
Housing Roundup ♦♦ By: Tom Lindmark ♦♦ But Then What05/20/2010V shaped recoveries just don't happen in real estate. Especially when future sales are dragged forward with government stimulus money.
Still Here ♦♦ By: Michael J. Panzner ♦♦ Financial Armageddon05/11/2010Commercial real estate is still in trouble and the bottom is not in. VUltures are waiting in the wings but extend and pretend is keeping nature's housekeeping locked out. Oh ... right ... Washington things they can bring the dead back to life.
The Sea-Change ♦♦ By: Macro Man ♦♦ Macro Man05/07/2010Oh Obama, sir ... we're ready now for change we not only believe in ... but ... change we know is not another bait and switch -- aka real change. Real change starts with a entirely new cast of charachters in Washington and on Wall Street. End TBTF and open the Fed's books for ever more.
The Laughable Nature of GDP Growth ♦♦ By: The Mogambo Guru ♦♦ Daily Reckoning Australia05/05/2010Too bad the government's stats are proof of the old adage -- lying with statistics.
Still Unbalanced ♦♦ By: Tim Duy ♦♦ Fed Watch05/05/2010The teeter tatters are swinging. Europe's recovery is definitely in doubt. If the dollar goes up Europe will not be buying much American stuff. A race to the bottom? Hardly a race to win.
Greece and Insolvency ♦♦ By: John Mason ♦♦ Mase: Economics and Finance05/04/2010Tough love? Hardly. It's all about saving the banks. No haircuts and lice are not a good combination.
Time To Whistle A Bit..... ♦♦ By: Karl Denninger ♦♦ Market-Ticker05/04/2010Whistling past a graveyard? Fingers crossed that there's a rabbit in that hat and not a tiger.
LEH Redux? ♦♦ By: Macro Man ♦♦ Macro Man04/28/2010Ooops somebody forgot to tell derivative yahoos about their patriotic duty to take it on the chin.
The Unrecovery? ♦♦ By: Michael J. Panzner ♦♦ Financial Armageddon04/27/2010The path forward seems to be shrouded in fog
U.S. newspaper circulation drops 8.7 percent ♦♦ By: AAA Staff ♦♦ MSNBC04/26/2010Figures released Monday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations show average weekday circulation fell 8.7 percent in the six months that ended March 31, compared with the same period a year earlier.
Sunday circulation fell 6.5 percent. The San Diego Union-Tribune's weekday circulation dropped nearly 23 percent from the year before to 241,330. At The Washington Post, average circulation fell 13.1 percent during the week to 578,482 and 8.2 percent to 797,679 on Sunday.
Follow the money ♦♦ By: James Hamilton ♦♦ Econbrowser04/26/2010Where did the money come from for all those mortgages?
9 Years' Worth of Homes ♦♦ By: Michael J. Panzner ♦♦ Financial Armageddon04/25/2010Shadow inventory -- is not going away any time soon. And ... yet we still build new homes. Gee ... somebody is smoking something funny to be encouraging new construction when there is 9 years supply of existing homes.
How Safe Is Your Bank? Texas Ratios of 7,500+ Banks ♦♦ By: Mike "Mish" Shedlock ♦♦ Global Economic Trend Analysis04/22/2010Is you money safe at your bank? If you don't know ... then maybe you should take the time to look them up in this handy dandy list of banks in America
Game Over: EuroStat News Blows Up Greece - 3 Year Spread At Ridiculous 870 bps, CDS Hits Record 806 ♦♦ By: Tyler Durden ♦♦ Zero Hedge04/22/2010Greece and Ireland had much larger budget deficits last year than expected and the Greek data may be revised further due to its unreliability, the European Union's statistics office said, sending the euro lower. "It looks like a terrible situation just got worse," said Nick Kounis, economist at Fortis. Greece, now negotiating a three-year emergency loan package with the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, had a gap of 13.6 percent of gross domestic pro
Are Interest Rate Derivatives a Ticking Time Bomb? ♦♦ By: George Washington ♦♦ Washington's Blog04/22/2010The interest rate derivative market is bigger than the world's GDP. Oooops ... sure hope interest rates don't go up. Bernanke and company sure have placed a BIG bet ... with our money.
The Sweet Spot ... whose sweet spot is it? ♦♦ By: Tim Duy ♦♦ Fed Watch04/20/2010When you don't have to worry about putting people to work ... the economy is fine. Is unemployment insurance for the unemployed or a means by which policy hacks in Washington keep their jobs.
In the wake of SEC/Goldman, the must-read Appendix ♦♦ By: Rolfe Winkler ♦♦ Reuters04/20/2010Goldman not only knew about Paulson’s CDS position, it sold it to him. It then misled ACA into believing that Paulson’s interests were aligned with its own and. By extension, it misled IKB into believing that ACA was an “independent collateral manager” when in fact Paulson gave ACA the bonds to put into the deal. Remember, Paulson as the perceived equity investor basically had the power to determine which bonds were included. Yet its undisclosed CDS position meant it wanted the most toxic bonds
All Things Magnetar ♦♦ By: Robert Oak ♦♦ Economic Populist04/19/2010For those of you who have not picked up Yves Smith's book, ECONned, perhaps you've never heard of the Magnetar Trade.
In the wake of the Goldman Sachs civil fraud charge, Journalists and Bloggers are wondering and hoping where the next investigative shoe will drop. Hence, the Magnetar fund, a hedge fund of synthetic CDOs, where buttloads of CDS bets were placed against them, is being revisited.
John David Lindsey Bankruptcy Takes Center Stage ♦♦ By: Rob Keys ♦♦ ArkansasSports360.com04/19/2010At 11 a.m. on April 20, John David Lindsey is scheduled to appear at the United States District Court in Fayetteville for his 341 meeting.
It is at this gathering court-appointed trustee John T. Lee and Lindsey's creditors will question him, under oath, about his financial affairs. Those affairs have sparked considerable conversations, from boardrooms to break rooms, since Lindsey filed for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy on Feb. 20.