I did some shuffling into some domestic and foreign bonds the past month and it has paid off the last few days. I don't think we've seen bottom just yet though so before I went on a buying frenzy I would wait to see what shakes out for at least the next couple of days.....people lose their minds at times.
C.H.U.D.
Another brutal day. Buy and hold no longer applies.
C.H.U.D.
The politics of an economic nightmare
No U.S. leader wants to admit how bad the damage may get from the one-two punch of the credit crunch and housing slump.
By Robert B. Reich
Jan. 23, 2008 | A possible economic meltdown is worrisome enough, but a possible meltdown in an election year is downright frightening. For months now, Republicans have been pushing the White House to take some action that looked and sounded big enough to give them some cover if and when things got worse. President Bush has now responded with a stimulus package more than twice as large as the one Bill Clinton briefly entertained at the start of 1993 but couldn't get passed.
Not to be outdone, Democrats want to appear at least as bold, which means they'll suspend pay-go rules and throw fiscal responsibility out the window. In other words, hold your noses, because the "bipartisan" stimulus package that's about to be introduced could be a real stinker, including tax cuts for everyone and everything under the sun -- except, perhaps, for the key group of lower-income Americans. These are the people who don't earn enough to pay much if any income taxes, but who are the most likely to spend whatever extra money they get and therefore are most likely to stimulate the economy. The real behind-the-scenes battle will be over whose constituencies get what tax cuts, and for how long. Don't be surprised if the only thing Congress really stimulates is campaign contributions.
Meanwhile, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and Co. have surprised everyone with a rate cut larger and sooner than expected. The three-quarters of a percentage point ("75 basis points" in biz-speak) cut announced Tuesday morning may not sound like much, but it's bigger than any rate cut in decades. The politics here are more subtle because Bernanke and his Federal Reserve governors are supposed to be independent of politics. But as witnessed under the reign of previous chairman Alan "it's prudent to reduce the surplus with a tax cut" Greenspan, Fed chairs can have political agendas. Bernanke has been under a lot of pressure lately to cut rates big-time -- and the pressure has come not only from Washington Republicans but from panicked Wall Street Democrats, including, apparently, my old colleague Robert Rubin, formerly President Clinton's treasury secretary. (By the way, what could Rubin have been thinking when he allowed Citicorp to sell all those fancy securitized debt instruments, while agreeing to buy them back if they couldn't be resold?) Expect lots and lots more Washington activity -- enough seemingly bold strokes to convince voters that our nation's capital is doing whatever is necessary to stop whatever seems to be going wrong with the economy.
The problem is, people have different views about what's going wrong. Wall Street sees it as a credit crisis -- a mess that seems never to reach bottom because nobody on Wall Street has any idea how many bad loans are out there. Therefore, nobody knows how big the losses are likely to be when the bottom is finally reached. And precisely because nobody knows, nobody wants to lend any more money. A rate cut won't change this. It's like offering a 10-pound lobster to someone so constipated he can't take in another mouthful.
Main Street sees it as a housing crisis. Homes are the biggest assets Americans own -- their golden geese for retirement and their piggy banks for home equity loans and refinancing. But home prices have been dropping quickly. It's the first time this has happened in many decades -- beyond the memories of most Americans, which is why they never expected it to happen, why they bought houses so readily when credit was so easily available, and why so many people bought two or more of them, speculating and fixing up and then flipping. But now several million Americans may lose their homes, and tens of millions more have only their credit cards to live on and are reaching the outer limits of what they can spend. As consumer spending shrinks, companies will reduce production and cut payrolls. That has already begun to happen. It's called recession.
How much worse can it get? The housing bubble drove home prices up 20 to 40 percent above historic averages relative to earnings and rents. So now that the bubble is bursting, you can expect prices to drop by roughly the same amount, and new home construction to contract. The latter plunged last month to its lowest point in more than 16 years. A managing partner of a large Wall Street financial house told me a few days ago the scenario could get much worse. He gave a 20 percent chance of a depression.
Even if a stimulus package were precisely targeted to consumers most likely to spend any money they received, the housing slump could overwhelm it. According to a recent estimate by Merrill-Lynch, the slump will hit consumer spending to the tune of $360 billion this year and next. That's more than double the size of the stimulus package President Bush or any leading Democrat is now talking about. And the Merrill-Lynch estimate is conservative.
In reality, the crisis is both a credit crunch and the bursting of the housing bubble. Wall Street is in terrible shape and Main Street is about to be in terrible shape. And there's not a whole lot that can be done about either of these problems -- because they are the results of years of lax credit standards, get-rich-quick schemes, wild speculation on Wall Street and in the housing market, and gross irresponsibility by the Fed, the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency.
As a practical matter, our only real hope for avoiding a deep recession or worse depends on loans and investments from abroad -- some major U.S. financial firms have already gotten key cash infusions from foreign governments buying stakes in them -- combined with export earnings as the dollar continues to weaken. But this is something no politician wants to admit, especially in an election year. So we're going to go through weeks of posturing about stimulus packages of one sort or another, and then see enacted the big fat bonanza of a temporary tax break that will likely have little effect. That, perhaps along with a few more rate cuts by the Fed. The presidential candidates will be asked what should be done about the worsening economy, and they'll give vague answers. None will likely admit the truth: We're going to need the rest of the world to bail us out.
C.H.U.D.
Big Wall Street Rally!!!
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen
ARBA up 8.51% in one day! (9.69)
Missed opportunity
Good read on automobiles and oil....among other things. Long.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...HhA&refer=home
C.H.U.D.
These cars will be the future
http://www.smartusa.com/index.aspx
People use their cars for far too many things for these glorified golf carts to be "cars of the future." That and fat people don't like feeling like a sardine. And there are a lot of fat people.Originally Posted by LL2
"You're all very smart, and I'm very dumb." - Partial
Smart Cars are retarded. Way too small and light to be practical. Can you imagine driving one of those in a snow? At least Hybrids have heavy batteries adding some weight and friction.
HOFer
Maybe so, but they'd be fantastic and economical commuter cars in certain cities with horrid congestion problems and completely sucky and expensive mass transit...
"Greatness is not an act... but a habit.Greatness is not an act... but a habit." -Greg Jennings
Many families own two cars. They can get a smart car for tooling around and a dumb car for longer trips.
Another big story is that Israel is investing big time in electric cars. Could be a great fit. I will step and fetch a story ....
Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars
By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: January 21, 2008
JERUSALEM — Israel, tiny and bereft of oil, has decided to embrace the electric car.
On Monday, the Israeli government will announce its support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, embracing a joint venture between an American-Israeli entrepreneur and Renault and its partner, Nissan Motor Company.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with the active support of President Shimon Peres, intends to make Israel a laboratory to test the practicality of an environmentally clean electric car. The state will offer tax incentives to purchasers, and the new company, with a $200 million investment to start, will begin construction of facilities to recharge the cars and replace empty batteries quickly.
The idea, said Shai Agassi, 39, the software entrepreneur behind the new company, is to sell electric car transportation on the model of the cellphone. Purchasers get subsidized hardware — the car — and pay a monthly fee for expected mileage, like minutes on a cellphone plan, eliminating concerns about the fluctuating price of gasoline.
Mr. Agassi and his investors are convinced that the cost of running such a car will be significantly cheaper than a model using gasoline (currently $6.28 a gallon here.)
“With $100 a barrel oil, we’ve crossed a historic threshold where electricity and batteries provide a cheaper alternative for consumers,” Mr. Agassi said. “You buy a car to go an infinite distance, and we need to create the same feeling for an electric car — that you can fill it up when you stop or sleep and go an infinite distance.”
Mr. Agassi’s company, Project Better Place of Palo Alto, Calif., will provide the lithium-ion batteries, which will be able to go 124 miles per charge, and the infrastructure necessary to keep the cars going — whether parking meter-like plugs on city streets or service stations along highways, where, in a structure like a car wash, exhausted batteries will be removed and fresh ones inserted.
Renault and Nissan will provide the cars. The chairman of both companies, Carlos Ghosn, is scheduled to attend the announcements on Monday. Other companies are developing electric cars, like the Tesla and Chevrolet Volt, but the project here is a major step for Renault, which clearly believes that there is a commercial future in electric cars.
Israel, where the round-trip commute between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is only 75 miles, is considered a good place to test the idea, which Mr. Agassi, Renault and Nissan hope to copy in small countries like Denmark and crowded cities like London, Paris, Singapore and New York. London, which has a congestion area tax for cars, lets electric cars enter downtown and park free.
Project Better Place’s major investor, Idan Ofer, 52, has put up $100 million for the project and is its board chairman. He will remain chairman of Israel Corporation Ltd., a major owner and operator of shipping companies and refineries. “What’s driving me is a much wider outlook than Israel,” Mr. Ofer said. “If it were just Israel, I’d be cannibalizing my refinery business. I’m not so concerned about the refineries, but building a world-class company. If Israel will ever produce a Nokia, it will be this.”
Mr. Ofer has his eye on China, with its increasing car penetration, oil consumption and environmental pollution, where he has interest from a Chinese car company, Chery, for a similar joint venture.
Renault will offer a small number of electric models of existing vehicles, like the Megane sedan, at prices roughly comparable to gasoline models. The batteries will come from Mr. Agassi. The tax breaks for “clean” electric vehicles, which Israel promises to keep until at least 2015, will make the cars cheaper to consumers than gasoline-engine cars. “You’ll be able to get a nice, high-end car at a price roughly half that of the gasoline model today,” Mr. Agassi said.
He contends that operating expenses will be half of those for gasoline-driven vehicles, especially in Europe and Israel, where gasoline taxes are high. The company, and the consumers who use it, will normally recharge their batteries at night, when the electricity is cheapest, and they expect the batteries to have a life of 7,000 charges, though Mr. Agassi says he is counting on only 1,500 charges, which is roughly 150,000 miles, the life of the average car.
“Because the price of gasoline fluctuates so much during the life of a car, it’s hard to predict the cost basis for driving,” Mr. Agassi said. “But electricity fluctuates less, and you can buy it in advance, so I can give you a guaranteed price per mile, cheaper than the price of gas today.”
Mr. Agassi predicts that a few thousand electric cars will be on Israeli roads in 2009 and 100,000 by the end of 2010; Israel has two million cars on the road, and about 10 percent are replaced each year.
Mr. Agassi suggested this model for the electric car — concentrating on infrastructure rather than on car production — at a 2006 meeting of the Saban Forum of the Brookings Institution, which Mr. Peres attended. He was enthralled by the idea.
Mr. Peres, who is sometimes dismissed as a dreamer by more cynical Israelis, has in the past embraced and helped to develop some successful notions — like Israel’s nuclear weapons program. He is a strong believer in Israel’s mission to better the world, he says, and not simply sell arms to it. Israel is the 11th-largest arms exporter, as measured by dollar sales, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Mr. Peres, who knew Mr. Agassi’s father, said in an interview that after hearing Shai Agassi speak: “I called him in and said, ‘Shai, now what?’ I said that now is the time for him to implement his idea, and I spoke to our prime minister and other officials and convinced them that this is a great opportunity.”
“Oil is becoming the greatest problem of our time,” Mr. Peres said in an interview in his office. Not only does it pollute, but “it also supports terror and violence from Venezuela to Iran.”
“Israel can’t become a major industrial country, but it can become a daring world laboratory and a pilot plant for new ideas, like the electric car,” he said.
Mr. Peres sees this project as part of his “green vision” for Israel, arguing that what the nation may lose in tax revenue it will save in oil. He also supports a larger investment in solar power, saying that “the Saudis don’t control the sun.”
Mr. Ofer wants profits, but also thinks the project will help the environment, especially in developing countries. “China is on a very dangerous march from bicycles to cars without any notion of what they’re doing to this planet in terms of air,” he said.
And in Mumbai, he said, “you can’t even see the sky.”
James D. Wolfensohn, the former World Bank president, is a modest investor in the project.
“Israel is a perfect test tube” for the electric car, he said. “The beauty of this is that you have a real place where you can get real human reactions. In Israel they can control the externalities and give it a chance to flourish or fail. It needs to be tested, and Agassi is to be commended for testing it and the Israeli government for trying it.”
This is exactly my thinking. A car like the smart car would be perfect for me for commuting to work and short trips to the store, and the bigger car for when the family is together traveling here and there. People are going to have to start thinking this way. Gas pricing will continue going up, and I'm predicting it will be $4 a gallon by summer.
Jerome Kerviel.......a name that will live in finance infamy..........bets $73,000,000,000 of other people's money on European equity market indices.......uses extraordinary methods to coverage his tracks........personal profit?.........he's bound to be a psychopath.
So what were this guy's motives?
.................................................. .................................................. .....
PARIS (AP) — Societe Generale detailed Sunday how a young trader evaded all its controls to bet some $73 billion — more than the French bank's market worth — on European markets, saying he hacked computers and used other "fraudulent methods" to cover his tracks, causing billions in losses.
The bank says the trader, Jerome Kerviel, did not appear to have profited personally from the transactions and seemingly worked alone — a version of events reiterated Sunday by Jean-Pierre Mustier, chief executive of the bank's corporate and investment banking arm. But, in a conference call with reporters, Mustier added: "I cannot guarantee to you 100% that there was no complicity."
<edit>
Societe Generale said Kerviel misappropriated other people's computer access codes, falsified documents and employed other methods to cover his tracks — helped by his previous experience working in offices that monitor traders.
<edit>
The bank said Kerviel had built up a position worth some $73.5 billion — which was eventually closed or hedged by last Wednesday with a loss of $7.21 billion.
"The position was unwound over three days in a controlled fashion," it said.
Jean-Michel Aldebert, of the Paris prosecutors' office, told reporters Saturday that Kerviel gave himself up of his own free will. The trader had not been seen in public since the bank announced his unauthorized trades in a statement on Thursday.
His motives remained a mystery, and the bank said it appeared that he did not gain personally from the trades. Acquaintances described Kerviel as reserved and considerate, a young man who once taught children judo and held the door for elderly neighbors.
Not everyone has that problem.
Hold the phone.........there's more intrigue......
Rogue trader in £3.6bn fraud threatens to 'name names' as bank admits he may have had a gang
From JULIE MOULT and PETER ALLEN in Paris
The rogue trader accused of defrauding France's secondlargest bank out of £3.6billion is believed to have been part of a gang.
Executives at Societe Generale had originally insisted that 31-yearold Jerome Kerviel acted alone.
They compared him to a "lone arsonist who burnt down a big factory".
But yesterday they conceded that he was unlikely to have carried out his deception without accomplices.
And in interviews with detectives, Kerviel was said to be "naming names" and refusing to be a scapegoat.
As the hunt began for any coconspirators, Societe Generale admitted that although it was the victim of the biggest fraud in history, it could have been worse.
Paris-based Kerviel had gambled a total of at least £37billion as his investment losses spiralled out of control - more than the bank's entire market value.
In a statement, it said Kerviel built up two portfolios of investments - but that one of them consisted of "fictitious operations", leaving the bank hugely exposed.
Detectives are working on information that he made a series of phone calls to traders at other investment banks before news of the scandal broke - allowing them to make highlylucrative deals based on his tips.
But Societe Generale has made it clear that Kerviel did not personally benefit from the fraud.
Jean Pierre Mustier, one of its chief executives, said: "I cannot guarantee to you 100 per cent that there was no complicity."
Today, the junior trader is expected to be charged with an array of complex offences and brought before a court in the French capital.
If found guilty of charges including computer misuse and forgery he could be facing a 15-year prison term.
Kerviel, who earned a relativelymeagre £75,000 a year, was arrested on Saturday, a week after his catastrophic dealing was uncovered.
A team of police financial specialists quizzed him for 48 hours as they tried to unravel the extent of his astonishing deception - four times that of British banker Nick Leeson.
Because of the complexities of the alleged crime, it is likely to be many months before the case is ready to be brought against him.
Kerviel had been investing the bank's money by hedging on European equity market indices, meaning he betted on how the markets would perform.
It was reported yesterday that he is co- operating fully with police during hours of interviews saying: "I can explain everything".
Jean-Michel Aldebert, chief of the financial section of the Paris prosecutor's office, yesterday said Kerviel was providing some "interesting facts".
"He is collaborating and says he is ready to explain everything. He says he wants to co-operate fully. He's feeling fine.
"It's going well. The investigation led by the experts from the financial brigade is extremely fruitful."
Family and friends are rallying round Kerviel, whose family home is in Brittany. A neighbour at his apartment block in Neuilly sur Seine said: 'Do you expect us to believe he was the only one in on this?
"It's ludicrous in the extreme to believe that just one person could be responsible for all of this."
Kerviel's aunt Sylviane La Goff said he had spent the 48 hours before his arrest locked in his brother Olivier's apartment on the Boulevard Hausman with their mother Marie-Jose.
As the scandal unfolded, he assured her: "Mummy, I have done nothing wrong."
The bank's chairman, Daniel Bouton, is expected to be ordered before the French national assembly's finance commission this week to explain how the massive fraud went unnoticed despite a plethora of so-called safeguards.
Whoa....Microsoft offers some serious change for Yahoo.
Are they getting serious about taking on Google?
Microsoft to bid $44.6B for Yahoo
REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft Corp. is offering $44.6 billion in cash and stock for search engine operator Yahoo Inc. in a move to boost its competitive edge in the online services market.
The unexpected announcement Friday comes as Microsoft, the world's biggest software company, seeks new ways to compete more effectively against the search and online advertising powerhouse Google Inc.
In a letter to Yahoo's board of directors, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said the company will bid $31 per share, representing a 62% premium to Yahoo's closing stock price Thursday, and emphasized that the deal isn't subject to financing.
"In February 2007, I received a letter from your chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo board that "now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction," Ballmer wrote.
"According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo board's confidence in the "potential upside" if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment."
"A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved," Ballmer added.
Under terms of the proposed deal, Yahoo shareholders could choose to receive cash or Microsoft common shares, with the total purchase consisting of 50% each cash and stock.
Microsoft said it sees at least $1 billion cost savings generated by the merger, and intends to offer significant retention packages to Yahoo engineers, key leaders and employees. The software giant said it believes the takeover would receive regulatory clearance and close in the second half of 2008.
Well fuck it...I can't hold off any longer and am going to dump a bunch of gold. It's up 40 fucking percent in just 6 months or so and I started buy a long time ago.I've been real antsy about it for weeks now and I'm seeing some sells so I'm going to make some money and buy another piece of property and take a long vacation with the wife. It has to start tailing off a bit right?
My daughter who is going to start school in New Zealand in three months was thinking of ways to make some extra money before leaving so I told her to sell all the gold jewelry she bought in Asia a few years ago. A bunch of soft Thai stuff.....she made close to a 350 percent profit! It's freaking crazy.
C.H.U.D.
Timing is everything.
"The best laid plans of mice and men." - You make a plan, stick with it, prices go up, then you get "antsy." What to do? Stick with the plan or take what's on the table.
Always a tough decision.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/05/mark...ion=2008020516
Wall Street's worst day in 3 months
Stocks tank after an economic report and comments from a Fed official amplify recession panic. Dow loses 370 points.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks tanked Tuesday, after a report showing a big slowdown in the services sector of the economy and cautionary comments from a Fed governor amplified fears that a recession is underway or imminent.
According to early tallies, the Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost about 370 points, seeing its worst single session on a point basis in over three months. The decline equaled a drop of 2.9%.
The broader Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index lost 44 points, its worst single-day point loss since last August. The decline equaled a drop of 2.9%.
The Nasdaq composite (COMP) fell 73 points and saw its worst single-day point loss since mid-October. The decline equaled a drop of 2.6%.
"The pebble in the pond this morning was the ISM report and then the comments from [Fed governor] Lacker came out and that kind of pushed people over the edge," said Kim Caughey, senior equity analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Partners.
Stocks tumbled in January, with the Nasdaq seeing its worst start to the year ever, on fears that the credit and housing market crises will send the economy into recession, if it isn't there already.
After such a steep decline, stocks managed to bounce back for a few days last week as investors scooped up battered shares. But the rally was short-lived, with stocks tumbling anew this week.
"This is a very volatile time, everyone is nervous and the volatility shows the degree of nervousness," Caughey added.
"This is the most unequivocal sign we've had that the economy is weakening," said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital. "We've had data pointing in that direction, but they've been all over the map and it always seemed like there was a silver lining in the weak reports."
"There is nothing in this report that was redeeming," he added. "It's simply terrible."
Looking to the Federal Reserve. Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, in a speech Tuesday, said that the report raises the risks of a recession, Briefing.com reported. However, he said that inflationary pressures are also rising, which could limit further interest rate cuts. Lacker is an alternate member of the Fed's policy committee this year.
His comments seemed to suggest the threat of "stagflation," the combination of slowing growth paired with higher inflation, a miserable economic development investors are hoping to avoid.
Last week's monthly jobless claims report and fourth-quarter GDP growth report suggested an acceleration of the economic slowdown. Investors will next look to Wednesday's fourth-quarter productivity report to see if it shows a rise in unit labor costs, i.e. wage inflation, and next week's Jan. retail sales report, amid fears about a consumer spending recession.
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates twice in late January, leaving the fed funds rate, a key short-term interest rate that affects consumer loans, at 3%. The fed also cut the discount rate, which affects bank loans. The Fed has also injected billions into the financial system through a series of auctions.
The Fed actions have already started to have an impact, but it typically takes a good six to 12 months for rate cuts to work their way through the economy.
KB Home (KBH, Fortune 500) and a few other homebuilders were among the few gainers on the session, thanks to a Banc of America Securities upgrade, Briefing.com reported.
Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, losers trounced winners over four to one on volume of 1.65 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, losers beat winners by over three to one on volume of 2.48 billion shares.
In currency trading, the dollar gained versus the yen and the euro.
U.S. light crude oil for March delivery fell $1.32 to $88.70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
COMEX gold for April delivery plunged $19.10 to $890.30 an ounce. To top of page
Looks like investors are acknowledging the reality that the economy is heading into a recession, and Fed rate cuts aren't going to change that.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen
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