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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (56793)	9/21/2006 6:09:02 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

New treasury secretary sticks with the herd The US's "independent" new treasury secretary looks to be pursuing the usual neocon agenda of the White House elephants William Keegan Wednesday September 20, 2006 Guardian Unlimited business.guardian.co.uk Henry Paulson: showed as much loyalty to the Bush agenda as his predecessor at the US treasury. Photograph: Martin H Simon/EPA It's terrible, is it not, how one year's nice metaphor is the next year's cliche? Your correspondent has lost count of the number of times in the past seven days that he has heard references to "the elephant in the room". Well, I have to say there were no elephants in any of the rooms I entered in Singapore over the weekend during the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Article continues But if I were to be tempted to use that metaphor in the way it is often employed - to denote a discussion topic that is being studiously avoided - I would say that the elephant in the IMF meeting rooms was George Bush, president of the United States. Ostensibly, the great and the good of the international financial world - given all those "gIobal imbalances" we hear about, I hesitate to call it the international financial system - were gathered together to discuss the outlook for the world economy; evolving changes in the role and power-structure of the IMF; and what the World Bank is up to. These annual meetings of the Bank and Fund are preceded by other meetings, followed by further meetings, and accompanied by lots of smaller meetings, not to say parties. You could hardly move in Singapore without bumping into delegates who, as they rushed from one party to another, claimed that all the financial "bulls" were ignoring the elephant which, after all, is a far bigger animal. Mostly, they did not see the elephant as Mr Bush. No, the elephant was, depending on whom you talked to, the threat of protectionism; the impact of even higher oil prices; the terrible things that lay in store for the world economy if the US slowed down dramatically as a result of a collapse in property prices; the growing threat of inflation; and the even worse outlook for inflation if the US Federal Reserve Board were to panic at the first sight of a serious slowdown in the US and cut interest rates while inflation was still not under control. A veritable, sorry, metaphorical, herd of elephants. So why did my elephant answer to the call of the name George W Bush? Simple. Let us take the press conference the new US treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, gave on Saturday night, after the meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors (the group comprising the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Canada). This was the first sighting of Mr Paulson at a G7 press conference. His appointment to the top treasury job had been announced in June, and we had been told that this man, who had risen to the top of Goldman Sachs and made over 70 trips to China on the way, was no pushover. His predecessor, the engaging John Snow, had been seen as a cipher, a mere satellite orbiting the White House. Paulson, by contrast was his own man, and would stand up to Mr Bush on issues such as global warming. So what happens? After a routine summary of the G7 hopes - that rapid world economic growth will continue; that the oil price will stabilise; that central banks will be "vigilant" in the fight against inflation (ie, that interest rates may have to rise further); and that the Doha trade talks will be resumed - Mr Paulson made it clear that what was really on his mind was encouraging his G7 colleagues to impose financial sanctions on Iran. Well, I spoke to some of Mr Paulson's European counterparts. They are not at all keen on this. They see Mr Paulson as pursuing a White House agenda. As one senior official said: "We are not going to ask our banks to stop financing road building in Iran simply for fear that one day a terrorist may drive along that road." I think this was a neat way of epitomising the European view of the paranoia being exhibited by Mr Bush and the neocons about Iran. Of course, one day there could be elephants on the roads in Iran.

To: RealMuLan who wrote (56793)	9/21/2006 8:12:55 PM
From: Square_Dealings	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116555

thats a buy signal mostly because its BS, it means they want you to stay away because they are supposedly dumping good sign sd

To: RealMuLan who wrote (56793)	9/21/2006 10:27:38 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

Home prices dip in East Bay contracostatimes.com East Bay median home prices dropped for the first time in years in August while sales continued to decline across the Bay Area. Alameda County reported a 28.2 percent drop in year-over-year sales and a 1.5 percent drop in home prices -- the first decline March 2002, DataQuick Information Systems reported Wednesday. In Contra Costa County, where sales toppled 23.5 percent, the median price was unchanged from last year, the worst year-over-year performance since November 1999, said DataQuick spokesman Andrew LePage. Solano County sales also dropped 34.3 percent, and sales appreciated 1.9 percent, the lowest level since August 1999. "To us, this is a leveling off," LePage said. "Some counties will see their median home prices dip below zero. We think the market is heading into a lull while buyers and sellers work out what the price level is." LePage said that many sellers are trying to recapture some of the 2005 housing market zeal while fence-sitting buyers aren't biting. "We really need to see a multi-month trend before we can say we have a drop in values," LePage said. "All this just points to a plateau and an end of appreciation as we know it. ... Now it's either going to stagnate or decline modestly." ==================================+ LOL what a bunch of nonsense plateau? Give me a break Mish

To: RealMuLan who wrote (56793)	9/21/2006 10:40:09 PM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Regulators hit backloaded mortgages washtimes.com

To: RealMuLan who wrote (56793)	9/21/2006 10:44:38 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

rental nightmare It's becoming quite common in Genesee County. A Burton couple just learned the house they've been renting is going into foreclosure. abclocal.go.com

To: RealMuLan who wrote (56793)	9/21/2006 11:08:23 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

Mobile home co-op hit with giant tax bill Deerfield residents fear for future By Susannah Bryan South Florida Sun-Sentinel Posted September 21 2006 DEERFIELD BEACH · Ray Blanchette, a New Yorker who retired to Tidewater Estates 30 years ago, says he fought "like hell" to keep his home. When the mobile home park's owner announced plans to sell to a developer last year, Blanchette and his neighbors took out mortgages to buy the park for $11.3 million, becoming the only mobile home park in Broward County to form a co-op in 15 years. Thrilled, Blanchette and his 37 fellow shareholders thought they'd saved the day for the park's 150 residents, not realizing the property's tax bill would rise drastically -- from $66,000 to $160,000. "People can't afford this," said Blanchette, an 86-year-old World War II veteran. "We have a lot of widows in here. Now where are they going to go?" sun-sentinel.com