Robert "Doom is Nigh" blog: 2009-02-01

Saturday, February 7, 2009

When money dies: The nightmare of the Weimar collapse

https://www.amconmag.com/pdfissue.php?pubID=AmConservative-2009feb09&page=09&

I urge you to read this. An Excellent abriaged version of this rare and out of print book.

Ron Paul on the Senate Vote of the Stimulus

#9 bank failure

http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2009/pr09019.html

As of February 2, 2009, County Bank had total assets of approximately $1.7 billion and total deposits of $1.3 billion. In addition to assuming all of the failed bank's deposits, including those from brokers, Westamerica Bank agreed to purchase all of County Bank's assets.

You can hear the drip drip from the FDIC fund.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Taxpayers Screwed Again; Nation Shrugs

http://www.minyanville.com/articles/index/a/21019

I would urge you to contact your senators and express your opionin about the bailout.

When it becomes apparent later this year that banks will need still additional money to survive, the fairness of this transfer of tax payments from citizens to financial elite will be questioned, possibly violently. These are the times we live in. It is real, and it is scary.

http://patdollard.com/2009/02/new-hampshire-fires-first-shot-of-civil-war-resolution-immediately-voids-several-federal-laws-threatens-counterstrike-against-breach-of-peace/
This is the kind of anger that I am talking about.

First calls for a revoultion in California?

http://pundits.thehill.com/2009/02/06/%e2%80%98falling-apart%e2%80%99-california-hits-bottom-calls-for-a-constitutional-convention-%e2%80%94-the-obama-republicans-and-the-republican-insurgent-governors/#more-4886

“We believe California’s system of government is fundamentally broken,” they write in a press release. “Our prisons overflow, our water system teeters on collapse, our once proud schools are criminally poor, our financing system is bankrupt, our democracy produces ideologically-extreme legislators that can pass neither budget nor reforms, and we have no recourse in the system to right these wrongs.”

Not the Declaration of Independence but close.

The Bay Area Council is holding a summit to discuss a California Constitutional Convention on Feb. 24, 2009, at Sacramento. The original California Constitution was adopted in 1849. It was superseded when the current Constitution was ratified in 1879.

Critics warn that once a convention is called, anything can happen and results may be unanticipated.

One only needs to read our the Constitution was drafted to see it was comprise document that produced several major problems as soon as it was enacted and arguably lead to the civil war.

Viva the revolution, just remember the French leader soon found themselves beheaded by the next bunch.

Krugman and Schiff

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06krugman.html?_r=1

You know it is bad when Krugman says you are a total failure.

http://clusterstock.alleyinsider.com/2009/2/peter-schiff-stimulus-bill-will-lead-to-unmitigated-disaster

Excellent Book

http://www.jamesgoulding.com/Downloads/WIC.pdf

Give it a read, it is only 94 pages. hat Tip to Urbansurvial.com

Moody's says U.S. financial position deteriorating

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/moodys-says-us-financial-position/story.aspx?guid={7DB52440-A28B-4834-A050-F844ECB90014}&dist=msr_4
Tied to this is the increase in tresury auction is causing some people a lot of concern. Time will tell. But I think we are coming to the limit of borrowing.

What I was thinking this morning

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2009/02/05/Bailout-Advice-to-President-Obama

This is not bold, this is not change. I did not support Obama, but I expect at least something to be different. Not the crap we are getting. You say you want to be FDR or Lincolin. Then Do something bold. Hell Try something new for god sakes.

Is it a depression?

http://www.247wallst.com/2009/02/suddenly-the-ta.html

Talk is increasing because things are just get worse by large measures.

Whops Governements gets .40 on the dollar.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5140SN20090206

But the new report provided more details on the methodology and it also concluded that the U.S. government received far less value than private investors did in recent major transactions in the financial sector.

So the investment did not pan out...

The report showed that the Treasury got the worst deal on second-round investments in American International Group for $40 billion and Citigroup for $20 billion under special aid programs tailored for the two institutions.

Worse deal, not a bad deal, the worse deal.

Bank desperation, mark-to-market edition

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/02/06/52164/bank-desperation-mark-to-market-edition/

If you abanaon fair accounting you are risking the whole thing. If you dont have trust you have a shell game.

U6 now at 13.9% U3 at 7.6%

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Vote is near

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29032370

Hmm..Unemployment numbers tomorrow morning, very ugly. Senate votes tomorrow passes stimulus. Market does not crash? Nah...Taking tin foil hat off now.

Third time in recent months the phones lines have been jammed

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/04/voter.anger/index.html

The last two time was the TARP and the Auto bailout. Not paying your taxes is clealry a raw nerve issue for americans. A surprising mistake for Obama to not sense this issue and deal with it. As a side note, either the tax code is too complex and we need to fix it or these people are idiots and should not in government. However I can hear the words, they are cheaters. Then send them to jail.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29025314/page/2/

The starkest contrast may be with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who at his 1933 inauguration accused the financial elite of "stubbornness," "incompetence" and "false leadership" that had been "rejected by the hearts and minds of men."

"The money-changers have fled their high seats in the temple of our civilization," he declared.

In 1936, Roosevelt said the "economic royalists" are "unanimous in their hatred of me, and I welcome their hatred."

Obama's inaugural was mild by comparison, framing the recession as a "collective failure to make hard choices."

Clearly he shown little backbone to the world of finance. Not that Mccain would have done any better.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bdf4ee70-f2e4-11dd-abe6-0000779fd2ac.html

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/89251

http://www.reuters.com/article/Finance08/idUSTRE4AB7HT20081112

http://clusterstock.alleyinsider.com/2009/2/bank-of-america-bac-below-4

There is a lot a weirdness in the blogoshpere these days about camps, Marshall law and the collapse of the US government. While it is understandable in times of crises we to tend over react and in boom times over invest. It would take a major event to collapse the government. Look at England, Ireland, Russia, China and everyone else in trouble. So far we limp along. Even Iceland limps along. So to crash society you would a financial nuclear event. Do they exist? Sure. BAC and C going down the same month would be nuclear. But would it take out the government? No. There are only two events in site. The removal of our AAA rating which would stop government borrowing and the collapse or refusal of governments to buy Treasuries. Both would cause massive cuts from the government as it could not borrow more money. But like California we would limp along. I just don't see any set of events that would be that bad to bring down the government and cause marital law.

Time to clean house.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/02/sec-stonewalls-at-senate-hearings-on.html
SEC is clearly criminal negligent in this case. Protected as a government institution they can not be sued, but people should be fired. Fix the SEC or risk undermining the market as a whole.

Another excellent post from Mish

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/02/game-is-up.html

I hold that as Ireland goes, so goes europe. As Cali goes the USA.
Both trends are very bad.

Unemployment Claims Highest Since 1982

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/02/unemployment-claims-highest-since-1982.html

I am much more concerned in the acceraltion of the numbers then the actual number.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Big brother Amex is watching.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/31money.html?_r=2&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Spain's unemployments hits 14.4%

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/4448598/Spains-downward-spiral-spooks-bond-investors.html

"This is a national emergency. The government is being overwhelmed by events,"

With little interest from foriegn banks the governments is slowly startving.

We have exhausted our margin for manoeuvre

Time to cut spending. Otherwise you may experence a more violent downward trend.

S&P said euro membership had become part of the problem since it prevented the country resorting to aggressive monetary stimulus to counter the housing crash, or from devaluing to restore competitiveness.

Euro is a dead man walking.

IOU you money is that ok?

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2009/02/california-starts-issuing-ious-as-bankruptcy-nears.html
It is if you doing business or living in Cali.

FDIC seeks to triple Treasury Dept borrowing power

http://uk.reuters.com/article/usPoliticsNews/idUKTRE51164C20090202

"They have no immediate need for it, but they just want to make sure they're not constrained in the decision by a lack of the insurance fund,"

Not that anything bad is happen or anything.

One more reason America is failling.

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/2/ibm-to-north-american-employees-to-keep-your-job-move-to-india-ibm

If you think moving employees to india is the best solution you have no solutions.

Monday, February 2, 2009

One Reason it is still early in this downturn? ALT A

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_wasik&sid=a8vqJQKnq3iw
8 Million more forecloses. That dwarfs the current estimates of 2.5-3 Million. Much more pain to go.

20 Million Migrant Workers Lost Jobs

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123359977495740199.html?mod=article-outset-box

Chen Xiwen, who heads the Chinese Communist Party's office on rural policy, said Monday that about 20 million migrant workers -- nearly a sixth of the total -- lost their jobs in recent months.

Farming isn't really an option, because Shuangyao is massively overpopulated. The average family's landholding is just two mu, or about 1,300 square meters, enough that a family can usually survive off their harvest, but not to provide any real cash income.

Almost all revolutions begin with poverty and famine.

There is little doubt that if the Buy American provisions of the Economic Stimulus Package were to become law, this would amount to an economic declaration of war on the rest of the world.

I guess we are going to war...

We can go down in history as the generation that created the Great Depression of the Noughties. Just keep on beating the protectionist drums. Keep on the footdragging that prevents effective qualitative and quantitative monetary policy easing in the Eurozone and the UK. And go ahead with unsustainable fiscal stimuli in the US, the UK and elsewhere that will spook markets, push up long-term interest rates and raise the spectre of sovereign default by countries not belonging to the group of usual suspects. Yes we can! I hope we won’t.

Japan passes Depression level numbers.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/02/japan-on-edge-of-abyss.html

1)The Japanese industrial production data and METI forecast was bad beyond all imagining. Industrial production might fall by 1/3 in the 12 months ending in January. It could fall in a mere four months between November and February by more than half the U.S. Great Depression decline which took almost four years.

So all signs point to acceleration problems

If it is, Japan industrial production will have fallen 28% (non annualized) in four months. It will have fallen by a third in about a year. Nothing in the history of major nations compares. A 28% decline in four months would be more than half of the entire decline in U.S. industrial production over the 3 years and nine months of the U.S. Great Depression.

4 months versus 4 years. Ugly

As the ruble goes so goes Putin

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/02/02/51940/rumblings-in-russia/

This follows a weekend’s worth of protests, where Russians across the country took to the streets to demand high-level government resignations for the mismanagement of the economic crisis.

In the end Putin is seen as the leader and will have to take the fall.