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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (29725)	2/22/2008 4:44:56 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 217800

Here: mercurynews.com mercurynews.com mercurynews.com Those are actual completed sales. Still a lot slower than it used to be, though. Wanna move? :-)

To: Ilaine who wrote (29725)	2/25/2008 12:23:36 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217800

Latest: mercurynews.com mercurynews.com mercurynews.com Now I'd hardly clain this is representative of the state. Several of the top 10 worst cities in the nation in the nation are in this state and you don't have to go too far from some of these areas to get to some of them. We've been lucky- -so far. That can change. The economy is largely based on technicalese expertise and that is looking like a fragile commodity in today's world. I also have trouble believing in the loan reinsurer bail-out. On Friday, the market was continuing its attempt to find the bottom of Hell - down 150 on the DJIA. Then rumors hit that AMBAC, the loan insurer, would be bailed out by a consortium of banks. news.yahoo.com dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com Read the comments on the 2nd article. They are enlightening. Now several things strike me about this: (1) The smaller, not the larger, of the 2 main loan insurance companies is being bailed out. The larger is at present being left to flail and sink. Maybe it'll be rescued later. Maybe not (2) Many of the banks doing the bailing are the very ones in trouble, such as C, WB, and UBS. The bailing seems to consists filling a pail in one part of the boat and dumping it in another rather than over the side. (3) factfinder.census.gov. US housing stock has a value of US $6.6T, of which 70%, or US $4.6T, is mortgaged. MBIA has US $1.5B in loan guarantees from banks. I heard rumors MBIA has about US $350M in loan guarantees. Their exposure appears to be AMBAC's US $524B + MBIA's $679B, or US 1.4B. These companies might be nearly covered, but hundreds of billions in mortgages must be either not covered by insurance or not in danger. If uncovered and in danger, there remains a serious problem. If not in danger, then Wall Street has been lying to us for months.