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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: orkrious who wrote (72820)	10/25/2006 11:42:21 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Respond to of 110194

that is about the only peak oil book i don't own. a year or two ago i looked it over at the bookstore and it seemed to be just a collection of obvious things that have been said a hundred times already by people more authoritative than the author. it struck my cheese-o-meeter as a "here's my chance to become a guru" get-on-the-bandwagon type book. i think it is directed at people who are not very serious investors--not the kind that follow the market daily and have nearly 15,000 posts on SiliconInvestor -g-. that's just my very limited opinion. if you like going to bookstores i would flip through it before buying it. for more substantial reads, i suggest people like Simmons, Michael Klare (Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency), Tertzakian, etc. oh, and do check out theoildrum.com

To: orkrious who wrote (72820)	10/26/2006 3:52:20 PM
From: ild	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

@tobacco -- trotsky, 12:47:43 10/26/06 Thu on CNBC Europe, the CEO of BAT was just asked: "how do you square your call for continued growth in the tobacco business with the moral side of it, the health question and so on" he replied: "well...people will smoke - that's a fact. you have a choice: do you want responsible, transparent, publicly listed companies to be in this business, or do you want illegal operators running this business?" this sensible argument , although it wan't mentioned, undercuts drug prohibition and the ill-fated 'war on drugs' in one fell swoop. it is exactly the same situation. people WILL take drugs, like it or not. and again, the choice is the same, only the choice 'we' have made, is that 'we' ARE allowing illegal operators to run the business. @housing bust -- trotsky, 12:29:22 10/26/06 Thu remember how the cheerleaders talked about an alleged 'shortage' of housing units only one year ago? at the time i opined: "this reminds me of the fabled 'DRAM shortage' of late 1999. it had turned into a glut 6 months later. this won't be different". it turns out it wasn't different, in spite of all the assurance that just THIS TIME, it WILL be different. it is time to think about the next batch of things that supposedly were going to be 'different this time' - and they concern the soundness of the banking system. banks have acquired unprecedented exposure to real estate related assets (mortgage loans and mortgage backed securities) during this boom, and the recent earnings reports by mortgage peddlers have them engaging in amazing accounting contortions to hide the intitial effects of the downturn as good as they can - in the hope that it will all blow over before they'll be forced to reveal losses. keep in mind that in this business, the term 'earnings' is about as malleable as it gets. no other industry has similar latitude in terms of cookie jar juggling and booking of imaginary profits as this one. this makes it very easy to 'tide things over' when there's a bad quarter or two (look at the most recent BKUNA quarter for undeniable proof of this), but it also harbors special risks , as things can then go from 'splendid' to 'total catastrophe' in the space of two quarters. imo the bust has no chance of coming within hailing distance of a bottom before we see several spectacular blow-ups at the financing end of the former bubble. note also, the fact that master contrary indicator extraordinaire, Alan Greenspan, is calling for a bottom in housing is a strong sign that the bottom is about to REALLY fall out.