the peak was 17+mill in 2000, but yeah it's kinda depressionary.
there's more involved with just comparing the two stats, but new autos sales have been a canary in a coal mine. do you have the 1930-31 figures? my guess is those would be even lower
<< <i>the peak was 17+mill in 2000, but yeah it's kinda depressionary.
there's more involved with just comparing the two stats, but new autos sales have been a canary in a coal mine. do you have the 1930-31 figures? my guess is those would be even lower >>
The replacement range is somewhere in the 13 million + per year.
Those positioned to survive to the other side will do well.
I know the auto industry hates my wife and me. Our two vehicles are a 97 Ford Ranger and a 2000 Dodge Intrepid. They are both well maintained and run fine - although we do belong to AAA just in case. We could easily afford to trade them in but what for? As I said, they get us where we want to go and we get to spend the money on other things.
Interesting news for those of you in Montana..... if you believe in right to to bear arms to protect your gold and silver stash....
The State's rights movement seems to be escalating.... first with Texas, then Oklahoma, now Montana. Makes you wonder if there is going to be a smack down soon.
If the Montana law holds up in the Supreme Court, the implications are HUGE. (the implications do not just apply to the right to bear arms). In fact, if it holds up because of the original intent of the Constitution, what's next? Perhaps the clause that only gold and silver lawfully constitute money??? The Feds cannot afford to let this escalate...
The stress test results found that $75 Billion in additional capital for a group of 10 banks was all that was needed to make things right. If that's truly the case why has the govt funneled hundreds of billions of dollars over the past few months to various banks and institutions with a scheduled total of over $10 TRILLION to support the economy? $75 BILL vs. $10+ TRILLION doesn't seem to make sense. On top of that, each of the top 4 banks (JPM, BoA, Citi, GS) each has a minimum of $30 TRILLION in derivatives still on their books. $75 BILLION sure goes a long ways today while $700 BILL in TARP over several of the past months went basically nowhere.
If $75 BILLION was all the banks needed, whey didn't we just give it to them 6 months ago?
Elliot Spitzer's article in yesterdays WSJ has resulted in the Gov. of the NY Fed to resign. His interview on CNBC yesterday is linked on Sinclair's website.
Lots of stuff percolating right now.
Q: Are You Printing Money? Bernanke: Not Literally
I was very surprised that gold did not break out above $920 and into the $930's today with the dollar tanking, commodities and oil doing well this week, and treasury yields jumping up sharply. I guess the S&P and DOW are riding so high on the crest of that Tsunami that anything else right now is just not important. Getting the job losses under 600,000 was received as great news by the bulls. A few analysts have noted that insider trading is at a peak not seen in years (7X or 8X normal). If this is a real bull market wouldn't those guys be hanging in?
But on the flip side, I was surprised that gold slowly moved up into the teens today after being pummeled from $920 down to $904 early in the morning. It almost had the scent that it was going down a lot further. The longer it stays in this $900-$920 range, the better chance of it breaking out to much higher levels. A couple of the gold miners (GSS, BVN) have gone near parabolic in the past few days so that's a sign of what should await the others.
<< <i>Interesting news for those of you in Montana..... if you believe in right to to bear arms to protect your gold and silver stash....
The State's rights movement seems to be escalating.... first with Texas, then Oklahoma, now Montana. Makes you wonder if there is going to be a smack down soon.
If the Montana law holds up in the Supreme Court, the implications are HUGE. (the implications do not just apply to the right to bear arms). In fact, if it holds up because of the original intent of the Constitution, what's next? Perhaps the clause that only gold and silver lawfully constitute money??? The Feds cannot afford to let this escalate...
once the stock market has the perception of a gambling casino...watch out
When I gamble in a casino I feel confident that the dice aren't loaded and the house doesn't know the outcome in advance. The casino does not manipulate the outcome to screw me out of a fair chance. That is not the same as the stock market where everything is rigged in favor of the elite insiders.
Hasn't the past year proved to the public that the little people are the sheep to be fleeced? I don't understand how anyone can be comfortable playing in that game anymore.
<< <i>once the stock market has the perception of a gambling casino...watch out
When I gamble in a casino I feel confident that the dice aren't loaded and the house doesn't know the outcome in advance. The casino does not manipulate the outcome to screw me out of a fair chance. That is not the same as the stock market where everything is rigged in favor of the elite insiders.
Hasn't the past year proved to the public that the little people are the sheep to be fleeced? I don't understand how anyone can be comfortable playing in that game anymore. >>
i agree with what you are saying....would one look to build a nest egg via stock purchases, 401-k,today ??.. after reading your post the market IS a casino now.
In looking back at my own personal situation over the past 20 years, I would have fared much better if I had just put away my taxed income into silver bullion each week than into a company matched 401K. On top of that I would have full control of that right up until age 59-1/2 with no strings. I have a hard time seeing a bright future for 401K's right now unless one is putting a good % of their funds into commodities incl precious metals. I'm also very concerned about the govt looking to "fondle" the 401K's and change the terms and conditions to our detriment. That's what's happening to secured bond holders so why not "secured" owners of 401K's and IRA's? They could even come out and stipulate that 20% of everyone's 401K must be in AIG/Fannie/Freddie/Chrysler/GM stock/bonds.
One of the few areas of the stock market where I see true money being made and a brighter future whether deflation or inflation are various commodity producers and in particular the precious metal miners. The PM miners are far from insolvent like most major banks and are sitting on hundreds of BILLIONs in honest and proven assets (ie not paper). They currently make up a tiny % (<5%) of total stock market worth. Yet in times of distress their share of stock market value has risen to as high as 20%. I am more comfortable investing in companies that have a real story to tell rather than to count on corporations and banks that are beholding to govt handouts. While there is no doubt rigging of bullion prices on the Comex as well as miner share prices on the various stock exchanges, it's still not enough imo to toss in the towel and stick with physical metal.
The miners tend do better well before the inflation gets going, such as now. A potential big downside is that the govts can decide to nationalize mines, tax them to death, or revoke environmental or operating permits.
I think every asset class is what you make of it. Some have made millions in real estate, distressed debt, PM's and equities.
Like anything you get out what you put in. Those that made money in RE took the time to scout out the best locations and had patience. I devote my life to studying economics, mass psychology, and the stock market. My IRA is up over 400% since 2001, hitting an all time high this week, and my trading account returns average between 40 and 120% yearly. Personally I would rather take my chances in the stock market than at a casino because I can pick and choose my fights. If I went to a casino, I would only play roulette and would only bet when red or black came up 8x in a row. Now the odds of a color change are much more in my favor. I would "time" the casino, just as I "time" the stock market.
So far this is working out well..... 4-29-09 I expect a 500-1000pt move (up or down, perhaps both) in the DOW over the next few weeks. Its gonna get wild again after a relatively benign last 4 weeks.
I think every asset class is what you make of it. Some have made millions in real estate, distressed debt, PM's and equities.
I think you're right on with that. There are opportunties at every turn. Most don't see them or see them for what they are, and therefore cannot take advantage of them. As far as the current stock rally, just by counting waves of various components (VIX, DIA, SPY, Nasdaq, % stocks over their 200 dma, etc.) it seems like we're in the last 1 or 2 mini-waves of a set of 3 distinct upward impulse moves. The $BKX shows this most clearly. It doesn't look like this would easily afford an additional movement of 500-1000 pts up but would easily fit into a 3 wave (20%-38%) correction after hitting the 200 dma line on S&P (950), Dow (9000), and banking index. Those 200 dma lines track back into resistance from Nov-Dec. Still, another 400 pts on the Dow from here takes it to 9000 which fits. The S&P also has another stronger resistance point at 1000 where it runs into the longer term down trend line as well as the first major pullback point from early November.
If I went to a casino, I would only play roulette and would only bet when red or black came up 8x in a row. Now the odds of a color change are much more in my favor. I would "time" the casino, just as I "time" the stock market.
I hope you don't put this theory into play in real life because the casino would eventually get all your money. Unless a roulette wheel is "rigged' to either red or black, and it stays in that state, then your odds of getting black or red on the next spin are still 50/50 no matter how many reds or blacks in a row occurred previously. Since the wheel has an extra slot in the house's favor, they will win in the long run. The fact that any combination came in 8 times in a row has no bearing mathematically on the 9th spin. The bell curve of probability shows that 8 reds in a row will eventually come up even if it takes a few hundred or thousand spins to do so (256-1 odds). But the chances of a 9th red are only 512-1 on the next spin assuming that you placed the bet before the 1st spin and specified that you wanted 9 reds in a row.
True, but I would take my chances. I limit my loss and dont press my "luck". Over the course of the lifetime of the roulette wheel, black and red will have nearly identical outcomes. And for that brief time when red has the advantage over black is when I make my move.
I've been to a casino maybe 10x in the last 20 years. I dont like them at all, except for the free drinks.
But this brings up another point. You dont have to play all the time. If you are in a casino 24/7, you will most assuredly lose. When I trade stocks I am 100% in the market maybe 1% of the time, but I can play 100% of the market. Those in 401K plans can only play 50% of the market--the upside. If you cant play both sides then you are at great disadvantage
But this brings up another point. You dont have to play all the time. If you are in a casino 24/7, you will most assuredly lose. When I trade stocks I am 100% in the market maybe 1% of the time, but I can play 100% of the market. Those in 401K plans can only play 50% of the market--the upside. If you can't play both sides then you are at great disadvantage
Professionals essentially play the casino 24/7 or the closest thing assuming they get sleep. Professional slot players run dozens of slots at a time pushing the odds into their favor. I've never understood why anyone plays roulette or craps since they appear to not require any skill, hence the odds would always favor the house. But professionals or top amateurs who can keep track of the flow of cards in a deck certainly can tilt the odds to their favor in games of skill such as blackjack.
Some of the "better" 401K's offer options outside the normally restrictive "house-only" options. I had that option in my old plan and could have up to 50% of my funds in any listed offering on any major US exchange. So for a while I had gold stocks and other items selected. I could have picked any number of short funds along the way. Too bad those options weren't available to me prior to 2004 as I would have probably done much better. One of my biggest beatings came at the hands of company stock as we went into chapter 11. Many senior execs got wasted along with us more common folk. And the only reason I was in the stock in the first place was that the rest of the market was doing poorly during the 2000-2001 recession and our branch of the company was doing very well. Yet unknown to me other branches of the company were carrying "time-bombs" in debt that eventually went off following 9-11.
If was still with my old company you can bet there would be times to play the short ETF's. For those companies with 401K's where one can only pick bonds, treasuries, company stock or growth mutual funds, that is just not keeping up with the volatility in the markets and the trying times we are in. It was a great recipe from 1987-2000, not so good since considering that stocks have not outpaced the drop in the dollar since 2001.
People need to try to understand how SIGNIFICANT the decision by the NY BK judge re: Chrysler and the reasoning given by the judge for dealing with the debt holders who were previously hanging tough with respect to their "rights" as bond holders.
This is a decision that will affect a lot of people. While it is not precedent setting......it may be a harbinger of things to come.
I have heard of a lot of strong arming that went on.
Your 401k's maybe next on the hit parade with respect to the "rights" you THOUGHT you had. I trust NO ONE right now that has the power to confiscate assets. Chrysler bond holders assets, your assets or my assets. NO ONE.
The BLS just reported the April job loss numbers at -539,000. This was a significant drop from March's 600,000+. And not a real surprise in that the April numbers assumed +226,000 new jobs from the BDM right from the get go. Without this turbo-boost the April numbers would have been as lousy as the March numbers. The fact that this is the best number in 6 months is no surprise because the BDM creates far fewer "paper" jobs in the months of Nov-March.
The annual input of new jobs via the BDN black box is +943,000 jobs per year. This is approx the same number that was being added from 2003-2007 when the economy probably was adding new jobs. Now that we're losing jobs you would think the BLS would put this dog to bed. The model was created during the 2000-2002 recession to boost the job numbers and it has done that wonderfully. But, it was also slow to show the job losses as things started to turn in 2007/2008. Watch for a sharp revision downward in the April numbers in future months. But the positive jolt to the stock market was already felt this week. Nobody will notice the downward revision of -100,000 jobs over the next few months. May, June, and July also will add 176K, 176K, and 165K jobs respectively so that will help the spin for a few months longer. But after that, these will be of little help all the way through Feb again. But it's nice to know that nearly 1,000,000 jobs per year are front-loaded into the equation regardless of what the economy is doing. This model could have done wonders to restore business confidence during the great depression.
According to the BLS here were some of the categories where jobs "were added" this month with my estimate of what those jobs might have been.
76,000 Leisure and hospitality (red light district jobs, ebay sellers?) 25,000 Education and health care (swine flu related jobs?) 38,000 Construction (building Yankee Stadium or demolishing partially completed new construction homes that won't sell?) 65,000 Professional and business services (mortuaries, bankruptcy advisors, expert tax help, psychiatrists & therapists?)
My company announced they were stopping the company match on their 401k, I immediately stopped my contributions. Time to move more monthly money in to PM.
I have a very strict gun control policy: if there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it - Clint Eastwood
That data tells me I should not be living in Connecticut, Mass, RI, or the areas of NY or NJ closer to the major cities. I'm not in the top 15 but comfortably in the top 100. The taxes on my house are up 2.7X since I purchased it 12 years ago. But the value of the house as of today is probably only up 60% since then. After price depreciation, RE taxes are the next biggest reason why renters are doing far better right now. Good thing the northeast is not being taxed on smog per acre or it would really be up there...but I don't want to give the tax assessor any new ideas.
The new rule of thumb here is 2% of your homes value. How's that for a rip off? So, 2005-2007 appears to be ancient history.
Edited to add: I did not include houses that have the "homestead" provision. That means if you are a Fla resident you can protect your property from future tax increases by getting it homesteaded which is about a 15 minute deal at the county/city hall. Then, the MOST they can raise your property taxes is by a couple percent a year. It's a screwy system. On a block of houses in wellington where my last house was, my property taxes were m$3500 and the house was worth around $600K. This is back in the ooooold days, 1999. I sold that house in 2001 when I was living overseas and the proerty taxes have since zoomed to $21,000.00 and now down to $14,000.00 a year because of the appraised value which they say went to 1.4 Million, and because apparently the house was not homesteaded. So if you wanted to buy that house TODAY, you can probably buy it for 600K. But your property taxes will be in the $12,000 range IF you can convince the tax collector/appraiser that it's worth less than what they say it's worth and no, they do not necessarily go by sales records.
<< <i>That data tells me I should not be living in Connecticut, Mass, RI, or the areas of NY or NJ closer to the major cities.
Lousiana here I come!
roadrunner >>
Ridiculous isnt it? Worse yet is to live in a high tax state away from the cities. A house on Long Island priced at 3x mine in upstate NY pays the same in RE taxes. HTF is that fair??? And the average income here is 1/2 that of Long Island.
There are 2 other very interesting points I found in the data.
1. A house in Wash DC is among the priciest in the country, yet they pay the 48th lowest taxes. Way to go Mr. Representative. 2. California ranks 44th in taxes based on a % of homes value. This may be higher now as this was based on 2007 home values and we all know Cali has been crushed. But, it also tells me that Cali has a lot of room to raise RE taxes. This would further depress prices and hurt the banks, esp. WFC.
Is U.S. buying back gold pledged to IMF for $100 billion? Submitted by cpowell on Sat, 2009-05-09 14:44.
Snip Snip ------------------------------
"An increase in our participation in the NAB requires the Congress to pass legislation authorizing such participation, which is what we are requesting. Such participation effectively represents an exchange of assets rather than a budgetary expenditure, and it will not result in budgetary outlays or any increase in the deficit. That is because when the United States transfers dollars to the IMF under the NAB, the United States receives in exchange another monetary asset in the form of a liquid, interest-bearing claim on the IMF, which is backed by the IMF's strong financial position, including its significant holdings of gold. Similarly, our increased participation in the NAB does not constitute a request for budget authority; it is conceptually similar to investing government funds in a financial asset with minimal or no risk and is consistent with the findings of the 1967 President's Commission on Budget Concepts."
So the United States is to loan the IMF $100 billion and get an interest-bearing claim against the IMF, secured by the IMF's gold, which in turn is a claim against gold pledged to the IMF by the United States as a provision of U.S. membership in the organization. This indeed could look as if, for $100 billion, the IMF is surrendering its claim to the U.S. gold reserve or selling to the United States, rather than, say, China, the gold it long has been threatening to sell.
"That is because when the United States transfers dollars to the IMF under the NAB, the United States receives in exchange another monetary asset in the form of a liquid, interest-bearing claim on the IMF, which is backed by the IMF's strong financial position, including its significant holdings of gold."
Hey, wait a minute...I thought folks were telling us that gold is not a monetary asset anymore, that it was just some kinda inert metal that it wasn't used in trade or exchange or that it had no value other than for baubles and occasionally a little semiconductor action so, I sit, confused (not!).
Hey, not a bad deal, we get our pledged gold back in exchange for some of those FRN's that seem to be so popular. Or you could read it as we don't have to have our pledged gold (that we may or may not actually have) sold to China (where we might actually have to buy on the open market and deliver) and we just print some more paper for it...hee hee, AND, we get interest; I like it. We don't have to deliver US gold, we get interest, and we just give them some printed paper and the whole thing works. Heck, this is better than one of The Donald's deals.
Ridiculous isnt it? Worse yet is to live in a high tax state away from the cities. A house on Long Island priced at 3x mine in upstate NY pays the same in RE taxes. HTF is that fair???
That's a big reason (aside from the weather) why my wife and I retired from the Albany, NY area to South Carolina four years ago.
Some quotes/comments to remember. These were brought up in an article by Paul Mylchreest at the recent London GATA conference:
Alan Greenspan's testimony to the House Banking Committee in 1998: "Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise."
Volcker's comment about the gold bull market in the 1970s: "Joint intervention in gold sales to prevent a steep rise in the price of gold, however, was not undertaken. That was a mistake."
Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser, wrote "Gibson's Paradox and the Gold Standard" (http://www.gata.org/files/gibson.pdf), which argued that suppressing the gold price would enable interest rates to be kept artificially low -- which is exactly what caused the credit crisis in the first place.
With all the old economic war horses of previous administrations coming together in the current one, it would appear that the "quickening" is at hand. Aye McCloud.
___________
Not proven to be fact yet but interesting:
I'd heard the story that when Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) went bust in 1998 it was short 400 tonnes of gold, but I didn't know the origin of the story. Indeed, it was the rapid capping of the gold price in the wake of LTCM's collapse (when the financial system as a whole was threatened) and the heavy selling of gold day after day by the same bank (you know the one) that helped to put Murphy on to what was really going on in gold. It turns out that Embry's closest friend knew the Comex trader who sold the gold for LTCM. To my knowledge, the gold was borrowed from the Italian central bank and has never been returned.
Middleton compares the FED's own chart assumptions as found on their website to those that the banks were actually graded on. No surprise, the FED's own estimates are much higher than what was put out to the media. For example, Alt-A base 2 yr loss rates were assumed to be 7.5-9.5%. The adverse case estimated at 9.5-13.0%. Current rate is 9.69%. Fed's estimated net charge off rate is 19.98%. This is repeated consisently for the various types of loans. Middleton also suggests that a significant % of foreclosures (esp Alt-A) were put on hold so as not to disturb the stress test "results."
Ridiculous isnt it? Worse yet is to live in a high tax state away from the cities. A house on Long Island priced at 3x mine in upstate NY pays the same in RE taxes. HTF is that fair??? And the average income here is 1/2 that of Long Island.
I think its Prop 13, or something that limits RE taxes in Cali. Wait till they repeal that and your taxes triple--to be more in line with the rest of the country. I pay almost 4% when RE and school taxes are combined. I wont be living in this state forever.
The state employees in The Peoples Republic of California are all unionized. Teachers are making 65K average with full medical and pension benefits and the same is with the other state employees. The unions control the Capital and the state is going broke but they won't consider any paycuts or benefit cuts. Some firefighters make over 140K a year and they seem to want to fight every grassfire down to the last smoking ember rather than let them burn out like in Mexico. At some point the checks will bounce and the police will quit and the gangs will finally take over.
Then it will be time to find another state. Till then I need to stock up on ammo.
Times that by the 50 states. The government is a boy's club. They will protect their own benefits even if it means going after Social Security and raising taxes. In the UK, the tax liablility of its citizens is at 60%.
We have an 'election' coming up in CAL. on the 19th for a rather disingenuous set of measures that center around taxes. Most probably will go down to defeat and it has gotten so bad in the campaign rhetoric that the pro tax people have come down to the gutter in their campaigning. The new low is....."unless we pass these pro tax measures....people will DIE."
The political environment in CAL is approaching BIZARRE. Might be time for a "French Revolution" out here.
We certainly cannot continue in out present course.
So, it looks like New Jersey's pension hole is about $ 30,000 per household, or roughly half of household income.
It is easy to fathom the politics of using all sorts of accounting tricks to cut funding during the 1990s, but I find it amazing that they sold almost $ 3 billion in bonds to buy equities. This is definitely not arbitrage, as suggested by the politician quoted in the article, but speculation.
I'm not a mean person, but I must confess that some part of me is going to find it amusing to watch politicians and bureaucrats squirm over the next decade as more and more holes pop up. These are problems created by their own egos, stupidity, and lack of courage.
I have "heard" that CALPERS is underfunded by .............(((((((((((((( 80 BILLION Dollars)))))))))))))). Now that is our state pension fund for public employees. They are terrifically mismanaged and over leveraged themselves and the taxpayer in the private sector is going to be expected to make them whole.
Furthermore, the County of San Diego is near bankruptcy. Los Angeles City is almost a BBBBBillion in the hole for the next fiscal year and the list of public entities that are in sad financial shape is almost endless. Vallejo has declared BK. The governor---our beloved Arnold took millions from the Republican coffers to "spend as he wished" according to the Republican hierarchy and he is advocating voting for the propositions 1a-1e which are 'tax increase and maintain new baseline levels' but are not worded so that the average voter can understand them. So the official position of the republicans is for more taxes.
Now the public employee unions have collaborated in their talking points and 1) the fire fighters say that unless we vote for more taxes..people will die because of our fire situation which is by anyones standards --pretty dire right now. 2) the prison guards say that unless we vote for more taxes....35,000+ out of the currant 170,000+ prisoners will be released and people will die because of more crime 3) the teachers union says that unless we vote for more taxes....XXXX amount of teachers will be laid off ---they , incidently lay off the untenured teachers who coincidently have the most motivation and retain the old sows who have tenure and are just waiting to get to that defined benefit retirement plan. Well. in LOS ANGELES UNIFIED HIGH SCHOOL District...the GRADUATION RATE IS 47 +/- %. Who cares if they teach or not.
The STATE tried cutting 10% off salaries and was told that 2-4 BILLION of the Federal porkulous plan would be withheld if the STATE did that.
More than HALF the people I know---much more than HALF--have transferred a lot of assets out of state the last five years and some have moved their entire operations out.
The recession in this state is just beginning. I fear that may be true in states where the public employees are so entrenched that they think they are untouchable. Actually I really feel empathy for public employees because most operate in a good decent trusted manner but lack the scrambling skills that private sector people have honed to stay on top of their game. Public sector employees may just become the 2010-2014 equivalent of the slow wildabeast on the Serengeti Plain
<< <i>I have "heard" that CALPERS is underfunded by .............(((((((((((((( 80 BILLION Dollars)))))))))))))). Now that is our state pension fund for public employees. They are terrifically mismanaged and over leveraged themselves and the taxpayer in the private sector is going to be expected to make them whole.
Furthermore, the County of San Diego is near bankruptcy. Los Angeles City is almost a BBBBBillion in the hole for the next fiscal year and the list of public entities that are in sad financial shape is almost endless. Vallejo has declared BK. The governor---our beloved Arnold took millions from the Republican coffers to "spend as he wished" according to the Republican hierarchy and he is advocating voting for the propositions 1a-1e which are 'tax increase and maintain new baseline levels' but are not worded so that the average voter can understand them. So the official position of the republicans is for more taxes.
Now the public employee unions have collaborated in their talking points and 1) the fire fighters say that unless we vote for more taxes..people will die because of our fire situation which is by anyones standards --pretty dire right now. 2) the prison guards say that unless we vote for more taxes....35,000+ out of the currant 170,000+ prisoners will be released and people will die because of more crime 3) the teachers union says that unless we vote for more taxes....XXXX amount of teachers will be laid off ---they , incidently lay off the untenured teachers who coincidently have the most motivation and retain the old sows who have tenure and are just waiting to get to that defined benefit retirement plan. Well. in LOS ANGELES UNIFIED HIGH SCHOOL District...the GRADUATION RATE IS 47 +/- %. Who cares if they teach or not.
The STATE tried cutting 10% off salaries and was told that 2-4 BILLION of the Federal porkulous plan would be withheld if the STATE did that.
More than HALF the people I know---much more than HALF--have transferred a lot of assets out of state the last five years and some have moved their entire operations out.
The recession in this state is just beginning. I fear that may be true in states where the public employees are so entrenched that they think they are untouchable. Actually I really feel empathy for public employees because most operate in a good decent trusted manner but lack the scrambling skills that private sector people have honed to stay on top of their game. Public sector employees may just become the 2010-2014 equivalent of the slow wildabeast on the Serengeti Plain
chuck out. >>
During the Great Depression Okies abandoned their homes to find opportunity in California. Due to their own hard work and drive they succeeded. Are we seeing a reverse migration away from the high taxes, endless folly and bankruptcy of Califiornia back to the heartland? If that is happening they'll find that Oklahoma is just about the reddest of the red States.
During the Great Depression Okies abandoned the homes to find opportunity in California. Due to their own hard work and drive they succeeded. Are we seeing a reverse migration away from the high taxes, endless folly and bankruptcy of Califiornia back to the heartland? If that is happening they'll find that Oklahoma is just about the reddest of the red States.
Comments
there's more involved with just comparing the two stats, but new autos sales have been a canary in a coal mine. do you have the 1930-31 figures? my guess is those would be even lower
<< <i>the peak was 17+mill in 2000, but yeah it's kinda depressionary.
there's more involved with just comparing the two stats, but new autos sales have been a canary in a coal mine. do you have the 1930-31 figures? my guess is those would be even lower >>
The replacement range is somewhere in the 13 million + per year.
Those positioned to survive to the other side will do well.
i think replacement is about that, too...more used cars on the road
Member ANA, SPMC, SCNA, FUN, CONECA
Camelot
seeking alpha kid
The State's rights movement seems to be escalating.... first with Texas, then Oklahoma, now Montana. Makes you wonder if there is going to be a smack down soon.
If the Montana law holds up in the Supreme Court, the implications are HUGE. (the implications do not just apply to the right to bear arms). In fact, if it holds up because of the original intent of the Constitution, what's next? Perhaps the clause that only gold and silver lawfully constitute money??? The Feds cannot afford to let this escalate...
NoFedGunRegulations
Exciting times we live in my friend.....
The stress test results found that $75 Billion in additional capital for a group of 10 banks was all that was needed to make things right. If that's truly the case why has the govt funneled hundreds of billions of dollars over the past few months to various banks and institutions with a scheduled total of over $10 TRILLION to support the economy? $75 BILL vs. $10+ TRILLION doesn't seem to make sense. On top of that, each of the top 4 banks (JPM, BoA, Citi, GS) each has a minimum of $30 TRILLION in derivatives still on their books. $75 BILLION sure goes a long ways today while $700 BILL in TARP over several of the past months went basically nowhere.
If $75 BILLION was all the banks needed, whey didn't we just give it to them 6 months ago?
roadrunner
Lots of stuff percolating right now.
I knew it would happen.
A One day drop, I would call that "Falling off a cliff", but all is well on Wall Street, time to buy more equities!!!
But on the flip side, I was surprised that gold slowly moved up into the teens today after being pummeled from $920 down to $904 early in the morning. It almost had the scent that it was going down a lot further. The longer it stays in this $900-$920 range, the better chance of it breaking out to much higher levels. A couple of the gold miners (GSS, BVN) have gone near parabolic in the past few days so that's a sign of what should await the others.
roadrunner
<< <i>Interesting news for those of you in Montana..... if you believe in right to to bear arms to protect your gold and silver stash....
The State's rights movement seems to be escalating.... first with Texas, then Oklahoma, now Montana. Makes you wonder if there is going to be a smack down soon.
If the Montana law holds up in the Supreme Court, the implications are HUGE. (the implications do not just apply to the right to bear arms). In fact, if it holds up because of the original intent of the Constitution, what's next? Perhaps the clause that only gold and silver lawfully constitute money??? The Feds cannot afford to let this escalate...
NoFedGunRegulations
Exciting times we live in my friend..... >>
as to quote a "through the roof" ...gun sales in the 'you can take 'em anywhere State of AZ, have well, gone through the roof
i just can't see a long term bearish view at all, a dip or a slip here or there.
once the stock market has the perception of a gambling casino...watch out
When I gamble in a casino I feel confident that the dice aren't loaded and the house doesn't know the outcome in advance. The casino does not manipulate the outcome to screw me out of a fair chance. That is not the same as the stock market where everything is rigged in favor of the elite insiders.
Hasn't the past year proved to the public that the little people are the sheep to be fleeced? I don't understand how anyone can be comfortable playing in that game anymore.
<< <i>once the stock market has the perception of a gambling casino...watch out
When I gamble in a casino I feel confident that the dice aren't loaded and the house doesn't know the outcome in advance. The casino does not manipulate the outcome to screw me out of a fair chance. That is not the same as the stock market where everything is rigged in favor of the elite insiders.
Hasn't the past year proved to the public that the little people are the sheep to be fleeced? I don't understand how anyone can be comfortable playing in that game anymore. >>
i agree with what you are saying....would one look to build a nest egg via stock purchases, 401-k,today ??.. after reading your post the market IS a casino now.
One of the few areas of the stock market where I see true money being made and a brighter future whether deflation or inflation are various commodity producers and in particular the precious metal miners. The PM miners are far from insolvent like most major banks and are sitting on hundreds of BILLIONs in honest and proven assets (ie not paper). They currently make up a tiny % (<5%) of total stock market worth. Yet in times of distress their share of stock market value has risen to as high as 20%. I am more comfortable investing in companies that have a real story to tell rather than to count on corporations and banks that are beholding to govt handouts. While there is no doubt rigging of bullion prices on the Comex as well as miner share prices on the various stock exchanges, it's still not enough imo to toss in the towel and stick with physical metal.
The miners tend do better well before the inflation gets going, such as now. A potential big downside is that the govts can decide to nationalize mines, tax them to death, or revoke environmental or operating permits.
roadrunner
Like anything you get out what you put in. Those that made money in RE took the time to scout out the best locations and had patience. I devote my life to studying economics, mass psychology, and the stock market. My IRA is up over 400% since 2001, hitting an all time high this week, and my trading account returns average between 40 and 120% yearly. Personally I would rather take my chances in the stock market than at a casino because I can pick and choose my fights. If I went to a casino, I would only play roulette and would only bet when red or black came up 8x in a row. Now the odds of a color change are much more in my favor. I would "time" the casino, just as I "time" the stock market.
So far this is working out well..... 4-29-09
I expect a 500-1000pt move (up or down, perhaps both) in the DOW over the next few weeks. Its gonna get wild again after a relatively benign last 4 weeks.
Market up almost 500 this week.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
I think you're right on with that. There are opportunties at every turn. Most don't see them or see them for what they are, and therefore cannot take advantage of them. As far as the current stock rally, just by counting waves of various components (VIX, DIA, SPY, Nasdaq, % stocks over their 200 dma, etc.) it seems like we're in the last 1 or 2 mini-waves of a set of 3 distinct upward impulse moves. The $BKX shows this most clearly. It doesn't look like this would easily afford an additional movement of 500-1000 pts up but would easily fit into a 3 wave (20%-38%) correction after hitting the 200 dma line on S&P (950), Dow (9000), and banking index. Those 200 dma lines track back into resistance from Nov-Dec. Still, another 400 pts on the Dow from here takes it to 9000 which fits. The S&P also has another stronger resistance point at 1000 where it runs into the longer term down trend line as well as the first major pullback point from early November.
If I went to a casino, I would only play roulette and would only bet when red or black came up 8x in a row. Now the odds of a color change are much more in my favor. I would "time" the casino, just as I "time" the stock market.
I hope you don't put this theory into play in real life because the casino would eventually get all your money. Unless a roulette wheel is "rigged' to either red or black, and it stays in that state, then your odds of getting black or red on the next spin are still 50/50 no matter how many reds or blacks in a row occurred previously. Since the wheel has an extra slot in the house's favor, they will win in the long run. The fact that any combination came in 8 times in a row has no bearing mathematically on the 9th spin. The bell curve of probability shows that 8 reds in a row will eventually come up even if it takes a few hundred or thousand spins to do so (256-1 odds). But the chances of a 9th red are only 512-1 on the next spin assuming that you placed the bet before the 1st spin and specified that you wanted 9 reds in a row.
roadrunner
I've been to a casino maybe 10x in the last 20 years. I dont like them at all, except for the free drinks.
But this brings up another point. You dont have to play all the time. If you are in a casino 24/7, you will most assuredly lose. When I trade stocks I am 100% in the market maybe 1% of the time, but I can play 100% of the market. Those in 401K plans can only play 50% of the market--the upside. If you cant play both sides then you are at great disadvantage
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
Professionals essentially play the casino 24/7 or the closest thing assuming they get sleep. Professional slot players run dozens of slots at a time pushing the odds into their favor. I've never understood why anyone plays roulette or craps since they appear to not require any skill, hence the odds would always favor the house. But professionals or top amateurs who can keep track of the flow of cards in a deck certainly can tilt the odds to their favor in games of skill such as blackjack.
Some of the "better" 401K's offer options outside the normally restrictive "house-only" options. I had that option in my old plan and could have up to 50% of my funds in any listed offering on any major US exchange. So for a while I had gold stocks and other items selected. I could have picked any number of short funds along the way. Too bad those options weren't available to me prior to 2004 as I would have probably done much better. One of my biggest beatings came at the hands of company stock as we went into chapter 11. Many senior execs got wasted along with us more common folk. And the only reason I was in the stock in the first place was that the rest of the market was doing poorly during the 2000-2001 recession and our branch of the company was doing very well. Yet unknown to me other branches of the company were carrying "time-bombs" in debt that eventually went off following 9-11.
If was still with my old company you can bet there would be times to play the short ETF's. For those companies with 401K's where one can only pick bonds, treasuries, company stock or growth mutual funds, that is just not keeping up with the volatility in the markets and the trying times we are in. It was a great recipe from 1987-2000, not so good since considering that stocks have not outpaced the drop in the dollar since 2001.
roadrunner
This is a decision that will affect a lot of people. While it is not precedent setting......it may be a harbinger of things to come.
I have heard of a lot of strong arming that went on.
Your 401k's maybe next on the hit parade with respect to the "rights" you THOUGHT you had. I trust NO ONE right now that has the power to confiscate assets. Chrysler bond holders assets, your assets or my assets. NO ONE.
The BLS just reported the April job loss numbers at -539,000. This was a significant drop from March's 600,000+. And not a real surprise in that the April numbers assumed +226,000 new jobs from the BDM right from the get go. Without this turbo-boost the April numbers would have been as lousy as the March numbers. The fact that this is the best number in 6 months is no surprise because the BDM creates far fewer "paper" jobs in the months of Nov-March.
The annual input of new jobs via the BDN black box is +943,000 jobs per year. This is approx the same number that was being added from 2003-2007 when the economy probably was adding new jobs. Now that we're losing jobs you would think the BLS would put this dog to bed. The model was created during the 2000-2002 recession to boost the job numbers and it has done that wonderfully. But, it was also slow to show the job losses as things started to turn in 2007/2008. Watch for a sharp revision downward in the April numbers in future months. But the positive jolt to the stock market was already felt this week. Nobody will notice the downward revision of -100,000 jobs over the next few months. May, June, and July also will add 176K, 176K, and 165K jobs respectively so that will help the spin for a few months longer. But after that, these will be of little help all the way through Feb again. But it's nice to know that nearly 1,000,000 jobs per year are front-loaded into the equation regardless of what the economy is doing. This model could have done wonders to restore business confidence during the great depression.
According to the BLS here were some of the categories where jobs "were added" this month with my estimate of what those jobs might have been.
76,000 Leisure and hospitality (red light district jobs, ebay sellers?)
25,000 Education and health care (swine flu related jobs?)
38,000 Construction (building Yankee Stadium or demolishing partially completed new construction homes that won't sell?)
65,000 Professional and business services (mortuaries, bankruptcy advisors, expert tax help, psychiatrists & therapists?)
roadrunner
White House: Budget deficit to top $1.8 trillion
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
I have a very strict gun control policy: if there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it - Clint Eastwood
Find out how much the ave property pays in taxes in your county and how that compares to the rest of the country.
My county is in the top 15 (in number) in Tax as a % of home value. And in the 10% (as a measure of income). Lets see you beat that.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
Louisiana here I come!
roadrunner
Edited to add: I did not include houses that have the "homestead" provision. That means if you are a Fla resident you can protect your property from future tax increases by getting it homesteaded which is about a 15 minute deal at the county/city hall. Then, the MOST they can raise your property taxes is by a couple percent a year. It's a screwy system. On a block of houses in wellington where my last house was, my property taxes were m$3500 and the house was worth around $600K. This is back in the ooooold days, 1999. I sold that house in 2001 when I was living overseas and the proerty taxes have since zoomed to $21,000.00 and now down to $14,000.00 a year because of the appraised value which they say went to 1.4 Million, and because apparently the house was not homesteaded. So if you wanted to buy that house TODAY, you can probably buy it for 600K. But your property taxes will be in the $12,000 range IF you can convince the tax collector/appraiser that it's worth less than what they say it's worth and no, they do not necessarily go by sales records.
Confusing? Yes.
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
<< <i>That data tells me I should not be living in Connecticut, Mass, RI, or the areas of NY or NJ closer to the major cities.
Lousiana here I come!
roadrunner >>
Ridiculous isnt it? Worse yet is to live in a high tax state away from the cities. A house on Long Island priced at 3x mine in upstate NY pays the same in RE taxes. HTF is that fair??? And the average income here is 1/2 that of Long Island.
There are 2 other very interesting points I found in the data.
1. A house in Wash DC is among the priciest in the country, yet they pay the 48th lowest taxes. Way to go Mr. Representative.
2. California ranks 44th in taxes based on a % of homes value. This may be higher now as this was based on 2007 home values and we all know Cali has been crushed. But, it also tells me that Cali has a lot of room to raise RE taxes. This would further depress prices and hurt the banks, esp. WFC.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
Linky
Is U.S. buying back gold pledged to IMF for $100 billion?
Submitted by cpowell on Sat, 2009-05-09 14:44.
Snip Snip ------------------------------
"An increase in our participation in the NAB requires the Congress to pass legislation authorizing such participation, which is what we are requesting. Such participation effectively represents an exchange of assets rather than a budgetary expenditure, and it will not result in budgetary outlays or any increase in the deficit. That is because when the United States transfers dollars to the IMF under the NAB, the United States receives in exchange another monetary asset in the form of a liquid, interest-bearing claim on the IMF, which is backed by the IMF's strong financial position, including its significant holdings of gold. Similarly, our increased participation in the NAB does not constitute a request for budget authority; it is conceptually similar to investing government funds in a financial asset with minimal or no risk and is consistent with the findings of the 1967 President's Commission on Budget Concepts."
So the United States is to loan the IMF $100 billion and get an interest-bearing claim against the IMF, secured by the IMF's gold, which in turn is a claim against gold pledged to the IMF by the United States as a provision of U.S. membership in the organization. This indeed could look as if, for $100 billion, the IMF is surrendering its claim to the U.S. gold reserve or selling to the United States, rather than, say, China, the gold it long has been threatening to sell.
Snip Snip -----------------------------
Hey, wait a minute...I thought folks were telling us that gold is not a monetary asset anymore, that it was just some kinda inert metal that it wasn't used in trade or exchange or that it had no value other than for baubles and occasionally a little semiconductor action so, I sit, confused (not!).
Hey, not a bad deal, we get our pledged gold back in exchange for some of those FRN's that seem to be so popular. Or you could read it as we don't have to have our pledged gold (that we may or may not actually have) sold to China (where we might actually have to buy on the open market and deliver) and we just print some more paper for it...hee hee, AND, we get interest; I like it. We don't have to deliver US gold, we get interest, and we just give them some printed paper and the whole thing works. Heck, this is better than one of The Donald's deals.
Nice article and nice post, reset.
That's a big reason (aside from the weather) why my wife and I retired from the Albany, NY area to South Carolina four years ago.
Member ANA, SPMC, SCNA, FUN, CONECA
Alan Greenspan's testimony to the House Banking Committee in 1998: "Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise."
Volcker's comment about the gold bull market in the 1970s: "Joint intervention in gold sales to prevent a steep rise in the price of gold, however, was not undertaken. That was a mistake."
Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser, wrote "Gibson's Paradox and the Gold Standard" (http://www.gata.org/files/gibson.pdf), which argued that suppressing the gold price would enable interest rates to be kept artificially low -- which is exactly what caused the credit crisis in the first place.
With all the old economic war horses of previous administrations coming together in the current one, it would appear that the "quickening" is at hand. Aye McCloud.
___________
Not proven to be fact yet but interesting:
I'd heard the story that when Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) went bust in 1998 it was short 400 tonnes of gold, but I didn't know the origin of the story. Indeed, it was the rapid capping of the gold price in the wake of LTCM's collapse (when the financial system as a whole was threatened) and the heavy selling of gold day after day by the same bank (you know the one) that helped to put Murphy on to what was really going on in gold. It turns out that Embry's closest friend knew the Comex trader who sold the gold for LTCM. To my knowledge, the gold was borrowed from the Italian central bank and has never been returned.
Reggie is sleuthing again - Bank Stress Test
Middleton compares the FED's own chart assumptions as found on their website to those that the banks were actually graded on. No surprise, the FED's own estimates are much higher than what was put out to the media. For example, Alt-A base 2 yr loss rates were assumed to be 7.5-9.5%. The adverse case estimated at 9.5-13.0%. Current rate is 9.69%. Fed's estimated net charge off rate is 19.98%. This is repeated consisently for the various types of loans. Middleton also suggests that a significant % of foreclosures (esp Alt-A) were put on hold so as not to disturb the stress test "results."
roadrunner
American capitalism gone with a whimper
Actually though it could easily ready "without even a whimper".
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
<< <i>Amazing from of all places "pravda"
American capitalism gone with a whimper
Actually though it could easily ready "without even a whimper".
"interesting " adverts in that link. Is that like the National Inquirer?
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
Life is never fair.
CALI
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
The Obama administration has begun serious talks about how it can change compensation practices across the financial-services industry
Next it will be how much a Dr or dentist can charge. How much a car salesman can make. How much Billy Mayes can make? How much YOU can make.
Read the comments to the article.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
The bad thing here, is he isn't doing anything he didn't promise to do. I better leave that at that.
Then it will be time to find another state. Till then I need to stock up on ammo.
Times that by the 50 states. The government is a boy's club. They will protect their own benefits even if it means going after Social Security and raising taxes. In the UK, the tax liablility of its citizens is at 60%.
Box of 20
The political environment in CAL is approaching BIZARRE. Might be time for a "French Revolution" out here.
We certainly cannot continue in out present course.
It is easy to fathom the politics of using all sorts of accounting tricks to cut funding during the 1990s, but I find it amazing that they sold almost $ 3 billion in bonds to buy equities. This is definitely not arbitrage, as suggested by the politician quoted in the article, but speculation.
I'm not a mean person, but I must confess that some part of me is going to find it amusing to watch politicians and bureaucrats squirm over the next decade as more and more holes pop up. These are problems created by their own egos, stupidity, and lack of courage.
Furthermore, the County of San Diego is near bankruptcy. Los Angeles City is almost a BBBBBillion in the hole for the next fiscal year and the list of public entities that are in sad financial shape is almost endless. Vallejo has declared BK. The governor---our beloved Arnold took millions from the Republican coffers to "spend as he wished" according to the Republican hierarchy and he is advocating voting for the propositions 1a-1e which are 'tax increase and maintain new baseline levels' but are not worded so that the average voter can understand them. So the official position of the republicans is for more taxes.
Now the public employee unions have collaborated in their talking points and
1) the fire fighters say that unless we vote for more taxes..people will die because of our fire situation which is by anyones standards --pretty dire right now.
2) the prison guards say that unless we vote for more taxes....35,000+ out of the currant 170,000+ prisoners will be released and people will die because of more crime
3) the teachers union says that unless we vote for more taxes....XXXX amount of teachers will be laid off ---they , incidently lay off the untenured teachers who coincidently have the most motivation and retain the old sows who have tenure and are just waiting to get to that defined benefit retirement plan. Well. in LOS ANGELES UNIFIED HIGH SCHOOL District...the GRADUATION RATE IS 47 +/- %. Who cares if they teach or not.
The STATE tried cutting 10% off salaries and was told that 2-4 BILLION of the Federal porkulous plan would be withheld if the STATE did that.
More than HALF the people I know---much more than HALF--have transferred a lot of assets out of state the last five years and some have moved their entire operations out.
The recession in this state is just beginning. I fear that may be true in states where the public employees are so entrenched that they think they are untouchable. Actually I really feel empathy for public employees because most operate in a good decent trusted manner but lack the scrambling skills that private sector people have honed to stay on top of their game. Public sector employees may just become the 2010-2014 equivalent of the slow wildabeast on the Serengeti Plain
chuck out.
<< <i>Hello Communism.
The Obama administration has begun serious talks about how it can change compensation practices across the financial-services industry
Next it will be how much a Dr or dentist can charge. How much a car salesman can make. How much Billy Mayes can make? How much YOU can make.
Read the comments to the article. >>
Yup and and the masses which are comprised of a LARGE percentage of morons think this is all a good thing.
Coin's for sale/trade.
Tom Pilitowski
US Rare Coin Investments
800-624-1870
<< <i>I have "heard" that CALPERS is underfunded by .............(((((((((((((( 80 BILLION Dollars)))))))))))))). Now that is our state pension fund for public employees. They are terrifically mismanaged and over leveraged themselves and the taxpayer in the private sector is going to be expected to make them whole.
Furthermore, the County of San Diego is near bankruptcy. Los Angeles City is almost a BBBBBillion in the hole for the next fiscal year and the list of public entities that are in sad financial shape is almost endless. Vallejo has declared BK. The governor---our beloved Arnold took millions from the Republican coffers to "spend as he wished" according to the Republican hierarchy and he is advocating voting for the propositions 1a-1e which are 'tax increase and maintain new baseline levels' but are not worded so that the average voter can understand them. So the official position of the republicans is for more taxes.
Now the public employee unions have collaborated in their talking points and
1) the fire fighters say that unless we vote for more taxes..people will die because of our fire situation which is by anyones standards --pretty dire right now.
2) the prison guards say that unless we vote for more taxes....35,000+ out of the currant 170,000+ prisoners will be released and people will die because of more crime
3) the teachers union says that unless we vote for more taxes....XXXX amount of teachers will be laid off ---they , incidently lay off the untenured teachers who coincidently have the most motivation and retain the old sows who have tenure and are just waiting to get to that defined benefit retirement plan. Well. in LOS ANGELES UNIFIED HIGH SCHOOL District...the GRADUATION RATE IS 47 +/- %. Who cares if they teach or not.
The STATE tried cutting 10% off salaries and was told that 2-4 BILLION of the Federal porkulous plan would be withheld if the STATE did that.
More than HALF the people I know---much more than HALF--have transferred a lot of assets out of state the last five years and some have moved their entire operations out.
The recession in this state is just beginning. I fear that may be true in states where the public employees are so entrenched that they think they are untouchable. Actually I really feel empathy for public employees because most operate in a good decent trusted manner but lack the scrambling skills that private sector people have honed to stay on top of their game. Public sector employees may just become the 2010-2014 equivalent of the slow wildabeast on the Serengeti Plain
chuck out. >>
During the Great Depression Okies abandoned their homes to find opportunity in California. Due to their own hard work and drive they succeeded. Are we seeing a reverse migration away from the high taxes, endless folly and bankruptcy of Califiornia back to the heartland? If that is happening they'll find that Oklahoma is just about the reddest of the red States.
Edit for spelling - again
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/gold/liberty-head-2-1-gold-major-sets/liberty-head-2-1-gold-basic-set-circulation-strikes-1840-1907-cac/alltimeset/268163
<< <i>
During the Great Depression Okies abandoned the homes to find opportunity in California. Due to their own hard work and drive they succeeded. Are we seeing a reverse migration away from the high taxes, endless folly and bankruptcy of Califiornia back to the heartland? If that is happening they'll find that Oklahoma is just about the reddest of the red States.
Edit for spelling >>