Discussion:All joking aside, sobering news from Bloomberg
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Discussion Forum Index --> General Chat --> All joking aside, sobering news from Bloomberg
| 4 September 2008 | |
| U.S. Must Buy Assets to Prevent "Tsunami"....http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&refer=home&sid=aZLLPW9YEa60 | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 6 September 2008 |
| The shoe dropped; now the Treasury must buy out Fannie and Freddy. | |
| 7 September 2008 | |
| D&T: I think they had the plot of the play mapped out, they were just being coy and teasing us until after the Conventions. Now there seems to be a scramble on to prevent a massive deflation, and it's probably bigger than Fannie and Freddie. It's gonna be interesting. I was hoping, and I am still hoping, for a mere stagflation. About the only thing to take the peoples' mind off this will be panem et circenses, or egad, bellum. | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 8 September 2008 |
| Seems the stock market likes the certainty of the buy-out and that the printing presses will keep pumping dollars. Meanwhile one candidates hedges and blames those in charge, while the other says a scaled down Fannie & Freddie is the answer. Maybe they plan to sell the profitable parts to Bear Stearns. | |
| 8 September 2008 | |
| They've even found some pundit out there that says the taxpayer will actually make money off this bailout. Well, we made money on the Chrysler bailout, so anything is possible, but I doubt it on this one.
The irony here is that the mega-banks and the Wall Street crowd are more than willing to take a handout in times like this, yet the same crowd cries about handouts to "welfare" mothers. It seems that if you put the stamp of "Necessary" or "Too Big to Fail" on the matter, all is forgiven. And, while it's true that shareholders will likely lose all, banks owning bonds in F&F are protected, and that is pure welfare, call it necessary welfare, but it's still welfare. I certainly do hope this works, but the idea seems to be to "get the mortgage market perking again"... I'm not so sure that that industry will ever be the sole engine for the economy as it was from '03-'07, especially if good underwriting is adopted. Fraud essentially enabled most of our economy this decade, stop the fraud, and it's back to dullsville. | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 11 September 2008 |
| Here is the latest on this sweetheart deal. Let's make sure the taxpayers don't make a profit on this. Henry, it's your old buddy David, holding out his palm for a handout. Henry, don't ya see me?
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/12079734/c_12079931?f=home_todayinfinance | |
| 12 September 2008 | |
| David: the government is going to need all the revenue it can get pretty soon. The US govt. is taking on massive debt, and because we sell so much of it to foreigners, they will demand we get our US balance sheet at least somewhat in order. Seems to me that it's no question now that we will be forced to raise taxes, call it what you will.
I turned on the TV today, and wish I hadn't. We are living thru history, and I've lived through too much history for my taste already. Seems that everyone agrees the final solution to this in 3 years or so is to inflate out of it (i.e. inflate the debt away). So, those than can afford to pick up cheaper commodity positions now will make a killing if they can wait it out. Colassal mess. | |
| 15 September 2008 | |
| No Lehman. Merrill sold. AIG desperate. Just a normal weekend; yawn. Gold up...flight to safety? | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 15 September 2008 |
| just how is BOA going to afford Merrill after taking over Countrywide and its mess? Many birds are coming home to roost.....here wife and I are at a B&B in Lewes DE with our new doggie, and wondering what the hell is happening. When Yahoo shows leads like 'is your money safe' bad times are brewing....Kevin has it right....to the egress. | |
| 16 September 2008 | |
| Yes, and they seem to be making another mistake in talking about this situation. They keep saying that the dominos will only stop falling if real estate stabilizes. I think they are right by half. The next shoe to drop (and the other half) will be massive defaults on credit card debt, and other consumer debt. I don't hear the pundits addressing that too much. This will be a real roller coaster before it's over, I would guess. The concensus seems to be it will be bad until at least 2010.
P.S. I just heard on TV that Moody's and S&P have both downgraded AIG's paper (actually, it's long term counterparty rating), so unless the Fed or govt. can engineer some deal tonight, tomorrow will be extraordinarily, uh, interesting. | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 17 September 2008 |
| Now we all own 80% of AIG.....can we get a discount on auto insurance? | |
| 18 September 2008 | |
| LOL. We are in deflation now; but I think this is going to end in inflation two or three years out. With the war debt, and the debt the Treasury took on for Fannie and Freddie, added to the Fed's taking warrants in exchange for handing 85B to AIG; you have transferred a lot of debt to Uncle Sam's books.
Uncle Sam is likely to do the same thing that Henry VIII did in a like situation, and that is to add base metal to silver; or in modern terms, increase the money supply (print money) to pay off this debt with cheaper dollars. Foreigners will not like this, so there are countervailing winds, but... Today, gold was up by a one day amount never before exceeded http://www.cnbc.com/id/26759053. Some of this was for safety, but you have to believe that some buying was as an inflation hedge. We shall see. | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 19 September 2008 |
| It is the age of the socialization of risk and the contraction of credit. | |
