Warren Buffett says there won’t be another recession. So there won’t be another recession. Next topic.
Today is the last day in Q3, which was the worst quarter (in terms of equities) since the financial collapse. I imagine that to recoup these losses, we will start seeing holiday shopping ads before Halloween this year. Watch it happen. Santa Claus and the Dreidel Monster and Kwanzaa-bot will save us all.
Someone named Chris Christie is said to be considering entering the Republican presidential race. That would bring the total of candidates up to 74. Marky Mark had no comment.
Everyone is pissed about Bank of America charging a $5.00 monthly fee for debit card use. Regions just stuck me with a similar $4.00 fee. Is everyone else paying to use their own money? Just curious.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Let's party until the economy fixes itself!
I want to lead this one off by inviting all of you to my lovely bride’s 29th birthday party. It is going to be a family-friendly event over at Wekiva Island (1014 Miami Springs Road, Longwood, FL 32779) on Sunday October 9th from 1pm until 4 pm. We will be providing a cabana and food and soft drinks for everyone and the entire event will be a benefit for Child Rescue Network. So in lieu of gifts for Erin, please consider making a donation to CRN which advocates the education and protection of children from predators. Please visit the Facebook invite here.
And now onto the “news”.
When Chubby Checker implored us repeatedly to “do the Twist”, I am somehow not thinking he was referring to a macro-economic act of last resort where we essentially exchange an equivalent amount of short-term debt for longer-term debt. I think he wanted us to shake our asses in front of the opposite sex in the hopes of gaining their favor and eventually practicing the reproductive act.
But we’re going to do the boring first version, not the awesome Chubby version. It’s essentially QE3 lite sans the printing of more money. But what will it accomplish?
Ever done a balance transfer from one credit card to another? Yeah. That’s basically what we’re doing. I believe this is the step right before begging one’s relatives for cash which is followed by reluctantly taking a loan out from your “friendly” local bookie/Amscot which inexorably leads to having your knees broken by said bookie/Amscot.
Yes. Amscot will break your knees. And by Amscot, I mean China.
A recent Federal Reserve study elucidated the fact that about 2.3 million homeowners could have refinanced last year had lending standards not been so strict or had they not owed more than the home is worth. You don’t say. Well I’ll be goll-derned. You mean to tell me that this whole mortgage situation would be better if people still had home equity? Man. I gotta get me some of THAT stuff.
Existing home sales jumped upwards 7.7% while new home sales dropped 2.3% month-over-month. Translation: the waters are still choppy. No clear trend-line has emerged giving investors or prospective homeowners a clear direction as to where the market is heading. I’d love to give you the rose-tinted approach to these numbers, but that would be disingenuous of me.
Amidst that choppiness, Moody’s ratings agency cut the ratings for debt issued by Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, claiming that the U.S. is now more likely (due to political pressures) to allow a defunct bank to go under (as opposed to an AIG-style of taxpayer subsidized bailout). Good to know that major bank failure is still at the forefront of our minds. That worked out ever so well back in 2008.
Palestine has applied to the UN for independent statehood and recognition as a full member in the world body. I’m sure that will end well. Or with a nuclear holocaust. Either or.
Republicans have debated across pretty much every major network in a borderline comedic series of back-and-forths between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, a Florida straw poll showed Her-man Cain (the only person who has never served in public office) winning the republican bid for presi-dent by a double-digit margin. Seriously Florida, didn’t we do enough damage during the Gore/Bush recount fiasco? We keep this crap up and the rest of the country is going to saw us off at the Georgia border and let us float over to Cuba.
Come out and party with us on the 9th. There will be cookies. And who doesn’t love cookies? Chubby loves cookies. Kind of a stretch jumping from being booted out of the nation a la ice floe to cookies, but I think I pulled it off. COOKIEEEEEES!!!!!
And now onto the “news”.
When Chubby Checker implored us repeatedly to “do the Twist”, I am somehow not thinking he was referring to a macro-economic act of last resort where we essentially exchange an equivalent amount of short-term debt for longer-term debt. I think he wanted us to shake our asses in front of the opposite sex in the hopes of gaining their favor and eventually practicing the reproductive act.
But we’re going to do the boring first version, not the awesome Chubby version. It’s essentially QE3 lite sans the printing of more money. But what will it accomplish?
Ever done a balance transfer from one credit card to another? Yeah. That’s basically what we’re doing. I believe this is the step right before begging one’s relatives for cash which is followed by reluctantly taking a loan out from your “friendly” local bookie/Amscot which inexorably leads to having your knees broken by said bookie/Amscot.
Yes. Amscot will break your knees. And by Amscot, I mean China.
A recent Federal Reserve study elucidated the fact that about 2.3 million homeowners could have refinanced last year had lending standards not been so strict or had they not owed more than the home is worth. You don’t say. Well I’ll be goll-derned. You mean to tell me that this whole mortgage situation would be better if people still had home equity? Man. I gotta get me some of THAT stuff.
Existing home sales jumped upwards 7.7% while new home sales dropped 2.3% month-over-month. Translation: the waters are still choppy. No clear trend-line has emerged giving investors or prospective homeowners a clear direction as to where the market is heading. I’d love to give you the rose-tinted approach to these numbers, but that would be disingenuous of me.
Amidst that choppiness, Moody’s ratings agency cut the ratings for debt issued by Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, claiming that the U.S. is now more likely (due to political pressures) to allow a defunct bank to go under (as opposed to an AIG-style of taxpayer subsidized bailout). Good to know that major bank failure is still at the forefront of our minds. That worked out ever so well back in 2008.
Palestine has applied to the UN for independent statehood and recognition as a full member in the world body. I’m sure that will end well. Or with a nuclear holocaust. Either or.
Republicans have debated across pretty much every major network in a borderline comedic series of back-and-forths between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, a Florida straw poll showed Her-man Cain (the only person who has never served in public office) winning the republican bid for presi-dent by a double-digit margin. Seriously Florida, didn’t we do enough damage during the Gore/Bush recount fiasco? We keep this crap up and the rest of the country is going to saw us off at the Georgia border and let us float over to Cuba.
Come out and party with us on the 9th. There will be cookies. And who doesn’t love cookies? Chubby loves cookies. Kind of a stretch jumping from being booted out of the nation a la ice floe to cookies, but I think I pulled it off. COOKIEEEEEES!!!!!
Thursday, September 15, 2011
I promise I’m not TRYING to find bad news
Weekly jobless claims rose to 428,000 which was 11,000 ahead of consensus estimates. It’s a vicious cycle: companies get spooked on renewed recession fears so they slow hiring which puts many out of a job which lowers overall spending which lowers overall company revenue which (tadaaaa) causes another recession. Ah, the circle of life.
And inflation is creeping back into the picture. The Consumer Price Index is up 0.4% while the Core CPI (excluding more volatile food and energy components) is up 0.2%. While many would claim this is just a by-product of all the quantitative easing floating around the globe, it is still worth an eye-raise.
Mortgage default notices surged 33% month over month in August, indicating that the delay between “stop paying” and “stop staying” may be rapidly diminishing. Now, there is the obvious downside of people losing their homes, however there is the second thought of WHY the banks suddenly want to snatch up real estate more aggressively. Could it be that they smell at least a small recovery coming? Only time will tell.
UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank suffered a $2 billion loss at the hands of one rogue trader. One dude. One guy. 2 billion. Damn, buddy. You really put the ‘epic’ in ‘epic fail’. And all the Bourne movies made me think Swiss banks were all high-techy and smart enough to prevent crap like this from happening. That’s Hollywood magic for ya.
And inflation is creeping back into the picture. The Consumer Price Index is up 0.4% while the Core CPI (excluding more volatile food and energy components) is up 0.2%. While many would claim this is just a by-product of all the quantitative easing floating around the globe, it is still worth an eye-raise.
Mortgage default notices surged 33% month over month in August, indicating that the delay between “stop paying” and “stop staying” may be rapidly diminishing. Now, there is the obvious downside of people losing their homes, however there is the second thought of WHY the banks suddenly want to snatch up real estate more aggressively. Could it be that they smell at least a small recovery coming? Only time will tell.
UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank suffered a $2 billion loss at the hands of one rogue trader. One dude. One guy. 2 billion. Damn, buddy. You really put the ‘epic’ in ‘epic fail’. And all the Bourne movies made me think Swiss banks were all high-techy and smart enough to prevent crap like this from happening. That’s Hollywood magic for ya.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Another day in the life...
Italy is going to China for assistance with their debt crisis. Is anyone else concerned that China is becoming the world’s bank? And aren’t they stricken by pandemic poverty? Why does none of this make any logical sense?
With his shiny new jobs creation bill, how does Obama plan to pay for it? Yup, ending tax breaks on the wealthy. I love how the same basic conversation gets re-packaged and re-argued in so many different ways. But it’s the saaaaaame crap again. Political gridlock, here we come. And in the run-up to an election year, we can expect a whole lot of very eloquent nothingness to happen.
According to Clear Capital, Jacksonville has finally eeked out Detroit for the coveted title of worst-performing real estate market. Yaaaayyy… wait what? Damn. Worse that Detroit?
With his shiny new jobs creation bill, how does Obama plan to pay for it? Yup, ending tax breaks on the wealthy. I love how the same basic conversation gets re-packaged and re-argued in so many different ways. But it’s the saaaaaame crap again. Political gridlock, here we come. And in the run-up to an election year, we can expect a whole lot of very eloquent nothingness to happen.
According to Clear Capital, Jacksonville has finally eeked out Detroit for the coveted title of worst-performing real estate market. Yaaaayyy… wait what? Damn. Worse that Detroit?
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Politics makes me grumpy
Mortgage rates have fallen to the lowest levels in four decades in response to continued international debt crisis concerns. So, at least we got that going for us. Now if we only had equity. Or jobs.
The ECB has vowed to keep rate hikes on hold, however they did not signal any additional liquidity measures were going to be implemented. But I’m sure, given the fact that they have a handful of countries teetering on fundamental insolvency that the “wait and see” approach will work out juuuuust fine.
Today we get to hear Obama discuss the process by when he will turn 300 billion dollars into jobs for Americans. I hear in the encore he’s going to tell us the secret of spinning thread into gold.
Mitt Romney and Rick Perry took some very eloquent pot-shots at one another during the Republican debate last night. I find this weird, as I’m fairly sure one is a clone of the other. I just don’t know who the original is.
The ECB has vowed to keep rate hikes on hold, however they did not signal any additional liquidity measures were going to be implemented. But I’m sure, given the fact that they have a handful of countries teetering on fundamental insolvency that the “wait and see” approach will work out juuuuust fine.
Today we get to hear Obama discuss the process by when he will turn 300 billion dollars into jobs for Americans. I hear in the encore he’s going to tell us the secret of spinning thread into gold.
Mitt Romney and Rick Perry took some very eloquent pot-shots at one another during the Republican debate last night. I find this weird, as I’m fairly sure one is a clone of the other. I just don’t know who the original is.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Aaaand we're back!
Europe stocks rallied because this time they’re really REALLY going to get tough on austerity measures and deal with their gaping chasm of debt. This is akin to someone on January 1st who is really REALLY going to stick to their diet this year. Riiiiiight.
U.S. banks are being put through yet another round of stress tests to examine if additional raising of capital is necessary. This will be as good a time as any to employ the “mark to fantasy” method of accounting so we can all sleep well. I love modern banking. It’s more theory than reality.
The President is going to give a speech about how 300 billion in spending will create enough jobs to hopefully make us back, I dunno, at least half of that. Hopefully. Republicans are unamused.
First blog post since I got back from vacation. I’m pacing myself.
U.S. banks are being put through yet another round of stress tests to examine if additional raising of capital is necessary. This will be as good a time as any to employ the “mark to fantasy” method of accounting so we can all sleep well. I love modern banking. It’s more theory than reality.
The President is going to give a speech about how 300 billion in spending will create enough jobs to hopefully make us back, I dunno, at least half of that. Hopefully. Republicans are unamused.
First blog post since I got back from vacation. I’m pacing myself.
It took me twenty minutes to come up with this needlessly alliterative first line
Oh the cornucopia of crap that creation has consigned upon me to collate and convey to you, my very own congregation of cohorts craving critical cognizance of current cultural circumstance.
Yes, I have been playing Words With Friends. A lot of it. And if the Count were here, he would tell you that today’s newsletter is brought to you by the letter C and the number zero.
Why zero? Because it segues quite conveniently (Yay! Another long C-word!) into our most recent jobs report. We, as a country, created EXACTLY zero jobs! Now the glass-half-full sort will doubtlessly applaud the fact that we didn’t lose any jobs, but sadly they cannot afford to even half-fill their glasses. Sad, though amusingly ironic.
But in all seriousness, we suck out loud on the creating jobs front. To the point where all of political punditry is up in arms about job creation. Obama himself is pegged to give a speech about it tomorrow to both houses of Congress. You’ll watch it. Or you won’t. Statistically speaking: you won’t. Chances are I won’t either. But I will read what someone else writes about it and report back to you. Because original thought is massively overrated.
It’s amazing how broke everyone seems to be lately. Not on the you and me scale, but on the iconic institutional scale. Apparently, not only is Europe still broke (which continues to be a really big deal, I’m just bored of writing about it), but the United States Postal Service is also broke. Given the fact that e-mail is way awesomer, I am in no way surprised. I vote that we the taxpayers bail them out if and only if they stop all the junk mail from coming through.
The horrible truth is that the exact opposite of that solution is what will probably do some actual good. Ugh.
Speaking of broke, America’s obvious brokenness has driven us to a very Mafioso decision: we’re gonna let all the big banks off the hook for auto-foreclosing on people in exchange for a large cash settlement. Funny story really: these banks used computer models to write a bunch of insolvent loans and then used other computers to automatically sign paperwork (which probably should have been signed by a human being, or at least some sort of advanced primate) that foreclosed on these loans. Classy. And somehow they’re in trouble for this. However, that trouble can disappear if they pay us. ‘Merica.
Hurricane Irene was lame. But everyone in Florida knew it would be. Stupid over-reacty New Yorkers. And speaking of natural disasters, everything is bigger in Texas including massive house-consuming wildfires. BOOM, Texans. Turned your catch phrase against you, didn’t I? I will also lump into this category the natural disaster of Steve Jobs stepping down as CEO of Apple. My iPhone will never be the same now. All the Angry Birds are now just depressed birds.
Apparently Gaddhafi is on the run, though I didn’t hear any Bush-esque “We won the war!!!” speech. So I don’t know what to think about that. Frankly, I lost interest. As did America a while ago.
The Federal Reserve is all sorts of divided on additional stimulus measures. Bernanke is of the opinion that we need to print more money, otherwise we won’t be able to afford all the ink we’re using to print all this money.
Aaaaaaaand that was the sound of your mind being blown.
Market turmoil continues to take its toll on equities. In a flight-to-safety play, bond investors drove the 10-year Treasury note’s yield to an all-time low yesterday. Translation: everyone’s freaking out and they’re driving rates down like crazy. ALL YOUR REFINANCES ARE BELONG TO GREG.
If you get the reference above, I love you. I mean, I love you anyway. But if you get that line, you are a special sort of nerd. And that’s awesome. But please do call me to discuss refinancing. ...now.
Yes, I have been playing Words With Friends. A lot of it. And if the Count were here, he would tell you that today’s newsletter is brought to you by the letter C and the number zero.
Why zero? Because it segues quite conveniently (Yay! Another long C-word!) into our most recent jobs report. We, as a country, created EXACTLY zero jobs! Now the glass-half-full sort will doubtlessly applaud the fact that we didn’t lose any jobs, but sadly they cannot afford to even half-fill their glasses. Sad, though amusingly ironic.
But in all seriousness, we suck out loud on the creating jobs front. To the point where all of political punditry is up in arms about job creation. Obama himself is pegged to give a speech about it tomorrow to both houses of Congress. You’ll watch it. Or you won’t. Statistically speaking: you won’t. Chances are I won’t either. But I will read what someone else writes about it and report back to you. Because original thought is massively overrated.
It’s amazing how broke everyone seems to be lately. Not on the you and me scale, but on the iconic institutional scale. Apparently, not only is Europe still broke (which continues to be a really big deal, I’m just bored of writing about it), but the United States Postal Service is also broke. Given the fact that e-mail is way awesomer, I am in no way surprised. I vote that we the taxpayers bail them out if and only if they stop all the junk mail from coming through.
The horrible truth is that the exact opposite of that solution is what will probably do some actual good. Ugh.
Speaking of broke, America’s obvious brokenness has driven us to a very Mafioso decision: we’re gonna let all the big banks off the hook for auto-foreclosing on people in exchange for a large cash settlement. Funny story really: these banks used computer models to write a bunch of insolvent loans and then used other computers to automatically sign paperwork (which probably should have been signed by a human being, or at least some sort of advanced primate) that foreclosed on these loans. Classy. And somehow they’re in trouble for this. However, that trouble can disappear if they pay us. ‘Merica.
Hurricane Irene was lame. But everyone in Florida knew it would be. Stupid over-reacty New Yorkers. And speaking of natural disasters, everything is bigger in Texas including massive house-consuming wildfires. BOOM, Texans. Turned your catch phrase against you, didn’t I? I will also lump into this category the natural disaster of Steve Jobs stepping down as CEO of Apple. My iPhone will never be the same now. All the Angry Birds are now just depressed birds.
Apparently Gaddhafi is on the run, though I didn’t hear any Bush-esque “We won the war!!!” speech. So I don’t know what to think about that. Frankly, I lost interest. As did America a while ago.
The Federal Reserve is all sorts of divided on additional stimulus measures. Bernanke is of the opinion that we need to print more money, otherwise we won’t be able to afford all the ink we’re using to print all this money.
Aaaaaaaand that was the sound of your mind being blown.
Market turmoil continues to take its toll on equities. In a flight-to-safety play, bond investors drove the 10-year Treasury note’s yield to an all-time low yesterday. Translation: everyone’s freaking out and they’re driving rates down like crazy. ALL YOUR REFINANCES ARE BELONG TO GREG.
If you get the reference above, I love you. I mean, I love you anyway. But if you get that line, you are a special sort of nerd. And that’s awesome. But please do call me to discuss refinancing. ...now.
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