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

To: mishedlo who wrote (91439)	12/11/2008 1:00:55 PM
From: Keith Feral	1 Recommendation Respond to of 116555

I guess we can see why the banks needed the money from TARP. $2 billion in excess reserves to $800 billion in excess reserves since September. No wonder why the credit markets were frozen. Great post! Personally, I think deflation gets a bad rap. I look at lower home prices and lower gasoline prices as price stability. I'm in no rush to witness the return of insane speculation in real estate and commodities

To: mishedlo who wrote (91439)	12/11/2008 1:02:51 PM
From: koan	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Very useful Mish and very good. I think AIG is exposed big time. The reason they have given it over 150 billion so far, no questions asked. I think the key here is that everything keeps collapsing which further exposes AIG. IMO, given the severity of the situation, if the car companies go under, while congress and the president fiddle around, god help us all. The additional weight of that collapse of three million jobs and god only knows how many businesses we will lose, and what debt will show up, on top of everything going on, would cause devastating economic damage to our financial infrastructure beyond comprehension. I think maybe the world is seeing this more clearly now and with much more trepidation ergo higher gold. I am in real estate and can see with very good clarity just how bad things are. And to add insult to injury (as you point out), the money the banks got they are using to put in interest bearing accounts and buy smaller companies and not loaning it out. And the banks have actually raised the requirements (credit scores and down payments) for a loan, not lowered them. That 350 billion did nothing but give the banks extra money. So I see one collapse after another, which brings down another, which brings down another. Every bank, title company, appraiser, realtor, engineer, plumber, builder, etc are scared and almost broke!! Half the people and business's in my town are right on the edge business has slowed so much.

To: mishedlo who wrote (91439)	12/11/2008 2:11:10 PM
From: Chispas	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Ken Silverstein - ............................................................................................................................................... From the Dallas Morning News: After losing a valuable piece of online real estate to enterprising cyber-squatters, the Bush presidential library has replanted its flag into that e-territory. But the squatters—a North Carolina Web development company called Illuminati Karate—had the last laugh, making a huge profit off an embarrassing oversight by the GOP-connected company charged with overseeing the Web site for the George W. Bush Presidential Library, which will be built in Dallas. Illuminati Karate paid less than $10 for the www.GeorgeWBushLibrary.com domain name—and sold it back for $35,000 to the library’s contracted Web developers, Yuma Solutions, who had accidentally let it expire. Incidentally, Yuma Solutions also got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the McCain campaign. Which somehow isn’t surprising. ................................................................................................................................................ harpers.org

To: mishedlo who wrote (91439)	12/11/2008 4:20:18 PM
From: Sweet Ol	Respond to of 116555

Some anecdotal evidence of lack of credit freeze. I have talked to several banker friends, some CPA friends, some realtor friends, and businessmen in my Rotary Club. The only one reporting any problem with credit is a guy who does sub-prime auto loans. Car business in our area is off 40%. Everyone else says creditworthy people and companies get funding for good projects. I am in Tulsa where our foreclosure rate is way down over last year, so we are probably an anomaly. I wonder if the credit problems are not mostly regional and from the money center banks? Blessings, JRH