From: Dale Weaver 8 Reco's Read Replies (2)of 2752
This is a time to see things with your own eyes and think for yourself.
Don't listen to a word tout TV says, they are losing their jobs left and right on wall street and will say anything to sell stocks.
Look around....
-bankruptcies,
--foreclosures,
---folks losing their jobs,
----losing war,
-----crashing currency,
------debt coming out the wazzooo
-------banks and mortgage companies blowing,
--------massive derivative speculation,
---------oil at $90,
----------empty houses sitting all around the nation,
i could go on and on.
Look how much they hid into the summer....then KABOOOOM!
Think about how much more is hidden that hasn't surfaced yet
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Dale, this recent post of yours resonated within me, but to a slightly different drumbeat, shall we say. May I elaborate?
You suggest we look around, and you call first attention to bankruptcies...
....I'm not sure I'd have started the list with that particular manifestation, however,
numbers of bankruptcies--both personal and business-- have been pole vaulting higher for decades now...and more than one city has filed for [CHAPTER 9] bankruptcy in the last 20 years.
This is hardly a recently observed phenom, since "this summer" as you suggest, or did I misunderstand you?
The numbers are so large, the "easy" bankruptcy days are over, because the federal code was altered in 2006, mandating re-orgs instead of wholesale "forgiveness." I wasn't able to find the current statistical support for whether or not this has reduced or slowed Bankruptcy filings--regardless of chapter--since the discharge options changed in 2006, but I sincerely doubt filings are down. Does anyone know?
then you called attention to foreclosures...
I suggest that there again, this is not a recent phenom...however, there is absolutely no doubt this trend has accelerated. None, whatsoever. I would be interested in seeing some kind of statistical breakdown, with one of the filters being foreclosures of those who didn't refinance their homes to use home equity, and those who, for example, are being foreclosed upon due to ARM resets.
then you call attention to loss of jobs...
By all accounts I've read, that has been going on since time immemorial, and also accelerated in recent decades due to American wage earner demands, be it benefits, hourly wages, S/S taxation creep, or whatever multiple causalities enter into job loss.
Again, I see a much longer Macro decay in this job loss...
you call next attention to losing war...
since you made that singular, I can only presume you are referring to the current Iraq conflict that the US is involved in.
I have 2 rather curious responses to your listing of this particular observation.
A are "losing wars" better for economic stimulus than winning wars are?
B is the entire "coalition of the willing" the only ones enjoying the economic stimulus of waring?
I count no less than 30 give or take a war, currently being waged on this planet. War must be good for business...there are so many of the world's populace engaged in one!
you call attention next to crashing currency...
That one calls forth a different response, once again, in me.
Our currency isn't crashing...it already has been engineered downward, as was pre-ordained in the Bretton Woods Currency Accord of 1942, when 56 nations agreed to a plan of 3 world reserve currencies--and we've only been introduced to the second one in the year 2000...we have yet another to go.
The move down since the Plaza Accord in 1985 has been nothing less than stellar...the fall from 160+ on the USDX to 74-ish currently. Why is it that "we the people" are only getting riled up about the US$'s downward long-term trend? Is it because we are now able to talk about such manifestations electronically, courtesy of the 'net? I wonder.
you next call attention to debt out the wazoo...
I'm so old, Dale, I remember the advent of the first paper derivative...the COUNTER BLANK CHECK in the 1950's. Up until that point, the word credit was a dirty word. Even Laural Ingalls-Wilder didn't find her father buying groceries on credit in the 1920s and 30's. It simply wasn't done.
I suggest this slippery slope that allowed us to disassociate ourselves from spending actual currency and coinage in our pocket to reaching for the blank "counter check" of the 1950s, which evolved into the familiar whipping out the plastic, which accelerated in the 1980s is also not a recent contributing phenom, yes?
You suggest we look around, call for our attention to banks and mortgage companies blowing...
Banks have always failed. We weren't around in the 20s, but they failed in the 20s. We can hardly turn on the tube this holiday season without being treated to the B&W rendition of a failing bank Jimmy Stewart style. This drew upon all too familiar collective human memory & images of the early 30's in this nation in particular.
Private state chartered banks are almost unheard of currently.
S&L's were wholesale flogged in the not too distant past, as we constantly get not too subtley reminded by oft appearances of the cigar chomping Bill Seidman on CNBC, who has proudly presided over the demise of hundreds of Japanese banks during the last decade or more as a primary advisor as to how it is done.
Failing banks are hardly a US phenom. Failing mortgages companies? I suspect they are hardly a US phenom, either. I do find it hard to muster up feelings of sympathy for the 125% no-doc loans phenom, now apparently behind us, as the industry regroups and comes up with a "new and improved toothpaste" [sic]Close-Gate.
you then call for our attention to the massive derivative speculation...
Ahhhhhh! The bugs under that rock are beauts, yes?
As a former short-tenured licensed commodity broker back in the early 80s, I was around when the 30 T-Bond futures contract was in its infancy. Now we have futures contracts on the probabilities of weather forecasting, or Bernake's beard length. It's ridiculous.
Again, I simplistically curse the first separation of our consciousness over spending what was in our pocket and the advent of the bank check-prominently displayed by the cash registers of the hardware stores and the Kresge's cookie counter, and the drugstore cage of the 50s.
Can I dare mention the paper gold now known as ETFs? I'm amazed at the reality of just one ETF which separates thousands from 600Tons of real gold they "own."
Will we ever learn?
you then call our attention to $90pb oil...
I regularly paid $0.19 a gallon for regular back in the "old days"...and I'm paying $3.17 now. I suspect I'll still be a buyer at $8 just like our motherland residents when the time comes...or I will walk, or bicycle or order through eBay. (G)
you then lastly call for our attention to the empty houses sitting all around the nation...
Again, my mind took a different path, as I recall the research I did into Sarajavo in the late 90's as I participated in the Y2K phenom. (The articulate FerFal's Argentine example hadn't yet occurred, Vi.)
What struck me when I read the last in your abbreviated depressing litany was this: The war ravaged residents of Serajavo moved in clutches from empty house to empty house, burning stairways and closets and furniture, to keep warm. After decimation, one of the groups scouts would find another "secure" location, and the gaggle would move to that building, and repeat the cycle. The ultimate in recycling, yes?
I personally wonder if America has an over-abundance of housing?
Oh, well...
Thank you, Dave for sharing your litany. It was thought provoking and food for thought this day.
G_T |
