Jetlag Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 A $9 billion fund of funds made a cash request of $500 million from the money market fund where they hold their idle cash. For the first time ever, they didn?t receive the funds immediately. It?s been two days. They are still waiting, and there has been no word on how long it will take until they get their money. This is a fund that earlier took a $600 million hit on the Amaranth fiasco. And they are still waiting for the $165 million or so that they were supposed to receive from the liquidation. This is just one fund folks. There are others in similar situations, perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands of funds. 601242[/snapback] Someone here mentioned in the early days of summer that the fun managers worst nightmare would be underweighting their exposure only to lose out on a summer rally and having to come back to the market at much higher levels. Actually it's turning out that the worst nightmare is not having your "liquidity" stashed away in MMF accessible, or in other words, simply gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linrom Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 Anyone here have acces to Barron's online.....if you do, could you copy and paste the last section of Up & Down Wall Street....the section starts, "How did this all come about?"....it closes the loop nicely on what has been discussed on this site for years, and most notably pondered by WNDY in his old M2M openings, "where the the hell are they off loading all this toxic derivative crap to? apparently, as quoted from the article, to the "UNWITTING BUYERS IN ASIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE" 601263[/snapback] I don't have Barron's, but I do have the hedge fund's July 30th investor letter in which the original & widely-circulated claim is made: I recently spent some time with a senior executive in the structured product marketing group (Collateralized Debt Obligations, Collateralized Loan Obligations, Etc.) of one of the largest brokerage firms in the world. I was in Roses, Spain attending a wedding for a good friend of mine who thought it would be an appropriate time to put the two of us together (given our shared interests in the structured credit markets). This individual proceeded to tell me how and why the Subprime Mezzanine CDO business existed. Subprime Mezzanine CDOs are 10-20X levered vehicles that contain only the BBB and BBB- tranches of Subprime debt. He told me that the ?real money? (US insurance companies, pension funds, etc) accounts had stopped purchasing mezzanine tranches of US Subprime debt in late 2003 and that they needed a mechanism that could enable them to ?mark up? these loans, package them opaquely, and EXPORT THE NEWLY PACKAGED RISK TO UNWITTING BUYERS IN ASIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE!!!! He told me with a straight face that these CDOs were the only way to get rid of the riskiest tranches of Subprime debt. Interestingly enough, these buyers (mainland Chinese Banks, the Chinese Government, Taiwanese banks, Korean banks, German banks, French banks, UK banks) possess the ?excess? pools of liquidity around the globe. These pools are basically derived from two sources: 1) massive trade surpluses with the US in USD, 2) petrodollar recyclers. These two pools of excess capital are US dollar denominated and have had a virtually insatiable demand for US dollar denominated debt?until now. They have had orders on the various desks of Wall St. to buy any US debt rated ?AAA? by the rating agencies in the US. How do BBB and BBB-tranches become AAA? Through the alchemy of Mezzanine-CDOs. With the help of the ratings agencies the Mezzanine CDO managers collect a series of BBB and BBB- tranches and repackage them with a cascading cash waterfall so that the top tiers are paid out first on all the tranches ? thus allowing them to be rated AAA. Well, when you lever ONLY mezzanine tranches of Subprime RMBS 10-20X, POOF?you magically have 80% of the structure rated ?AAA? by the ratings agencies, despite the underlying collateral being a collection of BBB and BBB- rated assets... This will go down as one of the biggest financial illusions the world has EVER seen. These institutions have these investments marked at PAR or 100 cents on the dollar for the most part. Now that the underlying collateral has begun to be downgraded, it is only a matter of time (weeks, days, or maybe just hours) before the ratings agencies (or what is left of them) downgrade the actual tranches of these various CDO structures. When they are downgraded, these foreign buyers will most likely have to sell them due to the fact that they are only permitted to own ?super-senior? risk in the US. I predict that these tranches of mezzanine CDOs will fetch bids of around 10 cents on the dollar. The ensuing HORROR SHOW will be worth the price of admission and some popcorn. Consequently, when I hear people like Kudlow on Crapvision tell their viewers that the Subprime problem is ?contained?, I can hardly bear to watch. 601274[/snapback] The famous HYMAN newsletter to clients : Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience. Admiral Hyman Rickover (1900 - 1986) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peek Paper Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 Been hither & yon, lurking frequently.? {Almost} nothing picks me up at the end of a long day like the stool in Stoolville. I've been away this weekend, so got a chance to think & reflect.? It occurred to me that the news about first bad China product for our animals (pet food), and now bad China product for our kids (toys- the Mattel & other stories of last week) comes after a failed attempt of the US to muscle China into allowing its currency to appreciate.? Hugs and kisses, Fokker. Hope all goes well, Fokker. I think a question for the ages is whether kids who lick Barbie Dolls and get lead poisoning were predestined for early insanity and infertility. A more immediate question/certainty is that the China bashing is no coincidence. The mine owner bashing is no coincidence. The NASA bashing is no coincidence. The West is in a Failure Mentality Mode. Everything is pre-destined to fail. It took a miracle hockey vicotry at Lake Placcid in 1980 to end the symbolic American psycho-slump. We are that point in history again. The more Hilary makes herself look like Reagan (I say this with all seriousness) the more likely she is to win. Not in what she says...but how she says it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patents Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 If it was just a matter of fraud and finagler derring-do, the players would ultimately get washed away when the scheme unravels. But this time is difference since the scheme involved the entire U.S. housing market. How much of the frothy gains over the past five years were predicated on the fact that borrowers had no skin in the game (no-down, teaser rates) and lenders largely had no skin in the game (MBS, ship 'em to Chairman Hu)? And now that values have bubbled higher on the back of this scheme, the prospect of housing prices coming back down is a frightening proposition because so much of the U.S. banking system is predicated on collaterized residential real estate. The crooks that fomented the dotcom and tech/telecom bonerama in the late '90s were a pimple on the ass of the economy compared to real estate. Sure, most of those companies lost 90%+ of their value from 2000-2002, and many went bankrupt and defaulted on huge bond issue. But the TMT sector was a tiny fraction of the U.S. economy. Real estate is the mother lode. And for Joe6, it's pretty much all he's got. 601280[/snapback] I hope that I am not misinterpretting what you are saying, but I agree (albeit I am scared to say so) that this time may be different. The "corruption" (for lack of a better word) permeates far more facets of the economy and society than in the past 50 years or so. Perhaps there has never been such a complacency and acceptance of lying, cheating and greed that touches upon so many people and will impact so many people and countries. Prior to the current times, each country had a natural cushion against economic impacts from other countries. With globalization and the off-loading of the toxic waste, everyone will feel the pinch. And it is not just our Fed and populace doing their part in the Ponzi scheme, but now the Japanese housewives and the Chinese peasants are also something more than bit players. I personally feel that when this thing really cracks, the end result is not going to even be fathomable by any of us today. That is why I believe in the short term indicators and the munbers now, but I think that when it blows, the indicators are going to be of no use at all. Can real estate go to zero? My monkey mind says no, but when there might be a rampant breakdown in society and government, then what is the value of land? I hate to say, but I just want to get over with it already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimi Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 Another thing that occurs to be is even though there is fear for capital preservation I haven't yet seen a lot of signs of financial distress outside of the foreclosures. I mean if you look at the phenomena of "selling shit" I don't see that going on. During several other down phases I've seen the "selling shit" thing. But if you look at eBay or Craigslist or some of the Buy and Sell type forums I check out for expensive items I'm not seeing any clearance sales or panic sales like I've seen in the past. Things are still demanding top dollar and selling, even exotic items. So I'm assuming people are pulling back from risk but there is still a lot of money available to the cohort in the top 1/4 or net worth. In other words things haven't gotten that bad yet. Nor are things overheated yet. I'm guessing there is money on the sidelines by small investors that could go back into the market. How that compares to the money from from the commercial players - I have no idea. 601288[/snapback] I watch for distressed vintage Fender guitars. Picked one up about 4 months ago from a guy with two mortgages on an enormous Marin property he was developing to sell. '64 Jazz Bass in near-mint condition - he was its second owner, I am its 3rd (and final). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ageka Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 i saw 11 years ago the proof that plastisizer in carpets might make everything not including monkeys infertile So lets do the study on monkys cause interspecies reliability might not apply this time cause it makes money to slow down OK we signed the precautionary european principle so what Lets not forget that responsible care is per country and varies from country to country (ano1996) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetlag Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 there may be a trade in here ?? http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=6943263 601164[/snapback] "That means by 2010, the [Las Vegas] valley will be short 64-million gallons of water a day." Not sure what kind of a trade there is. Maybe if someone can invent a machine that can convert piss into drinking water, that would be a good bet. Plenty of piss in Las Vegas. ... 601170[/snapback] Lee About the miracle of turning piss in to water, Remember this" If you ever regress tot he point where you become, and for whatever reason:whether it be senility,or inspirational environmentalism,no matter, if for any reason you become reluctant to take a shower or bath even if its Saturday night, then please avail youurself of a film called "water works".... ... Its a must see ..if nothing else, than to investigate how vast the sums of money Hollywood can occasionaly squander... beardrech It was the only film in history where the audience was recycled.....the garbage on the screen serving as catalyst 601228[/snapback] Hey I liked water world and mad max and assorted post calamity b grade movies! Regarding the inverted alchemy of turning golden liquid into clear pure water there's already a machine that can do that. The price is a bit steep to waste on Las Vegians. "Tension is bound to flare over the $19 million toilet NASA purchased from Russian aerospace firm RCS Energia, as only half of the International Space Station will enjoy the upgrade?the American side. The toilet justifies its steep price by being able to recycle urine as drinkable water, " "The US-made filtration system separates water molecules from waste by not letting anything larger than tiny water molecules through." http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/potent-potables...e-it-275590.php http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/urine.html "After 30 seconds, water dribbles out of a nozzle and into a plastic cup. I raise it with a trembling hand. A toast to Alan Shepard and all the brave astronauts who endured the wrong stuff in their space suits for the advancement of science: This number one's for you. I take a big astronaut gulp, lower the cup, and wait for the noxious aftertaste. Nothing. The water tastes pretty good - it's definitely not Evian, but it is better than most city tap. Certainly more palatable than many light beers I've had, and not at all, uh, urinous. Move over, Tang: There's a new space drink in town!" Some pretty blue colored bottles, bling deco and real cork sealer and you can make yourself a nice collectible water bottle of recycled celebrity piss. Think about it: Lohan Dew, Paris Dew... it would be the epitome of this wanna be culture Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazy_ate Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 Note that the ones that recently got smashed have the lowset Dec fore-skin for Dec '07 Fred-Frunds Rate BWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH --------------------- Following are the results of Bloomberg's survey of primary dealers, conducted from Aug. 10 to Aug. 17: Firm Sept. Oct. Dec. BNP Paribas 4.75 4.75 4.50 *Banc of America N/A 5.00 5.00 Barclays Capital 5.25 5.25 5.25 Bear Stearns 5.25 5.25 5.25 Cantor Fitzgerald 5.25 5.00 4.75 Citigroup 5.00 N/A N/A Countrywide 5.00 4.75 4.50 Credit Suisse 5.25 5.25 5.25 Daiwa Securities 5.00 4.75 4.75 Deutsche Bank 5.25 5.25 5.25 Dresdner Kleinwort 5.00 4.75 4.75 Goldman Sachs 5.00 4.75 4.50 Greenwich Capital 5.25 5.25 5.25 HSBC Securities 5.25 5.25 5.25 J.P. Morgan 5.00 4.75 4.75 Lehman Brothers 5.00 N/A 4.75 *Merrill Lynch 4.75 N/A N/A Mizuho 5.25 5.25 5.00 Morgan Stanley 5.25 5.25 5.25 *Nomura Securities 5.25 5.25 5.25 UBS 5.00 4.75 4.75 Bloom-burger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwd Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 Within the last week or so someone posted some charts of food inflation. I thought it was on the weekend thread last week but I couldn't find them. Can that poster or someone repost those charts? Thanks! It really pisses me off when people like Bob Shtinker straight lie about things like inflation. Inflation is everywhere! I just found out my building owner intends to raise rents another 10% next february. Last feb he donged me for 10%. Food is going up. Gas has been going up, but has been coming down a little. Shtinker if all the things I pay for are going up in price, how can you tell me there is no inflation? It seems like the only people not lying in the media are the ones that are discredited as freaks. The mortgage industry is run by liars, crooks, and theives. Politics is liars, crooks, and theives. Wall street is liars, crooks, and theives. Same with journalism and many other institutions. It seems like all the blogs and websites I like to read have doubled in the posting volume over the last week. It's no longer possible to read everything. The one thing that is for certain is that the stool is only just beginning to hit the fan. 601230[/snapback] I just have to play devil's advocate for the moment since so many seem to be criticising commentators and TV personalities - First, IF AND ONLY IF one agress that the markets only go up over time, then why is a 7 percent decline from the all time high such a bad thing? Based on the underlying assumption, that 7 percent will be recovered shortly. Second, OUR GOVERNMENT is telling us that there is no inflation. Again, why should someone be dissed for not following the determined path of our government? Do you really expect someone with a public presence to have a position against the stated position of the government? If masses of people really thought that there was inflation now, do you not think that there would be a massive uprising calling for the truth to be told? The concept of "why would this time be different" is comparable to Einstein's Theory of Relativity in that it requires a frame of reference. If we look at recent history, then perhaps the commentators are right. If we take a longer time frame, then why are there not more people complaining? The bottom line is IF people on this board believe that there is going to be an appreciable downturn, then what is going to cause that and what are the indicators or flags that are going to foretell the event? Why is this time different that what has happened so far this millenia? For me, I think the economy is going to go to heck in a handcart based on the massive Ponzi scheme. But my wife thinks I am delusional. Compared to the newspapers, media, and just about everything else, I guess I am delusional considering the frame of reference most Americans have in mind. I appreciate the facts and cool thought analysis that this board sometimes gives. The ad hominem attacks on people who can not defend themselves, while propbably most appropriate, does not advance our knowledge. End of rant. 601250[/snapback] I think it is the height of hypocricy to state there is no inflation, when you have a good idea that is in fact inflation,especially if you are a public figure Someone mentioned last night, I think Jorma although I am too lazy to check it out, that the Fraudster's problem with Helo Ben is that so far he appears to be trying to run an honest operation. The funds fund rate is above the t-bill rate so there is ample credit available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beardrech Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 Sunday morning pondering. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/inve...2C6997DCB220%7D 601247[/snapback] Here we go again with these goddam dumbass sentiment indicators that haven't worked in the last 700 years. What an utter waste of time and mind power. You can't trade sentiment. It's worthless in that respect. Give it up already. Same thing with the put call ratio, which, in this era of machine driven dynamic hedging tells us absolutely nothing about directional bets on the market. Without knowing the net underlying position of the players, there's no way to know which way they are leaning. Sentiment hasn't had a contrarian correlation to stock prices in years. Why would they start "working" that way now. 601253[/snapback] Hulbert's sentiment studies is limited to investment newsletters which are almost exclusively marketed to indiv, small-time investors. Back in July, Hulbert wrote that, according to his way of looking at things, these newsletters were not boolish enough to indicate a market inflection point. Yet the market sold off 180 pts (SPX) in the next three weeks. Howzat possible? These newsletters are for Joe6. Joe6 isn't driving this market. It's a po'fesshinals market, largely led by herding riverboaters who are levered 5x/10x and more. For a markit like this, seems like Hulbert needs a way to track sentiment amongst the levered riverboaters. Problem is, they don't subscribe to market-timing newsletters. They use their Univacs to trade. And they switch sides all at once and on a dime. Since the levered funds have been driving this train, the big question now is whether they will pull their horns in (or have their horns pulled in for them.) If the big funds pull back on the use of leverage and take a wait-and-see attitude, no amount of buying from Joe6 is going to make any difference. I think Hulbert's sentiment indicators probably worked OK in the '90s when Joe6 was a big part of the festivities. But today, his work appears anachronistic at a time when Joe6 is a bit player at best. 601257[/snapback] With all of those hedgetarian Algorhithmic-filled blackboxes populating the economic universe it might illuminate things to once agin recall a few catchphrases: Things are in the saddle and ride mankind;Mechanism takes command;Its all relative... I wont bother citing their authors inasmuch as the phrases have become classic and belong to the ages.. Anyway, vast changes are underway and we no longer interpret our bread and buttered system under ptolamaic rules, although we still see them as such on a "daily" basis..and it is this bifurcation between scientific interpretation and everyday vision that disturbs normal conversation and existence.. People mouth these summary scientific pieties and laugh at the "flat earthers" without having an iota of proof as to why they have shifted their belief system. So when Stooly Patents makes an honest effort to emphasize difficulties in understanding the complexities of a universe more amenable to the excursion of Velikovsky "Collision of Worlds", all I need to do is take the path of least resistance, least effort and say "its all relative'.. I neednt work nor think; all I have to do is mouth this scientific cliche... A cliche which by the way serves a useful purpose in warning us of the very very postmodern circumstances we labor under...It tells us that we are all laboring under a very ponderous and almost overwhelming layer of perspectives that, on account of limited knowledge, makes them almost inpenetrable, non-tranparent, opaque.....(Where have we heard those terms before?) The Newtonian spatial absolutism is no longer serviceable; Einsteinian Relativism, invasive and all conquering prevails...but who in the world understands Tensors,or Lobachevsky or the three body problem of Kolmagorov--I certainly dont--and yet there it is on my cognitive horizon a beacon warning me not to overestimate the significance of my surmises---and yet Im in the world and must act despite these scotomas... What to do?... Wearing a football helmet all day long or vacationing in a leadlined cinderblocked bunker isn't really a life... I think Leewees continually reflecting on every thing he perceives in the market,as if posessing the microscopic eye of the botanist or entomoligist is an appropriate model. He perceives one pattern after another and yet tries to counter them with nuanced patterns with very small differentiai outcomes...He isn't too theory laden thus crippling his vision, but posesses just enough conceptual power to sense an actioanble pattern--other ocular virtues could be cited as well, but you know them as well as anyone.. But one further paradoxical comment and then exeunt---They also serve who stand and wait in ignorance--I jest not in referencing todays Iowa debates...cynical as I am about politics, I was absolutely entranced at the forum's atmosphere compelling all of the candidates to excercise their intelligence.. None of them could get away with the typical shallowpated enunciations as if adressing a pack of morons.. Out of pride, if not a native honesty, they were all compelled to match and honor each others integrity, and thus by indirection educating each other.. And like Dok,Stephanopolus's orchestration of the "concert" was magnificent and miraculously created the following two embodied radiating essences: Kucenich, despite the statistical impossibility of his gaining the presidency as well as Gravel, because of the other candidates-- present or not-- will inhabit the office of the Presidency,whether Republican or Democrat , spiritually if not physically l... beardrech The same mode of spiritual ingestion applies to he board; an open public forum enables everyone to perpetually celebrate his/her Bar Mitzvah or confirmation by continually enunciating the Mantra in action,:Today I am a man... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lineup32 Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 A $9 billion fund of funds made a cash request of $500 million from the money market fund where they hold their idle cash. For the first time ever, they didn?t receive the funds immediately. It?s been two days. They are still waiting, and there has been no word on how long it will take until they get their money. This is a fund that earlier took a $600 million hit on the Amaranth fiasco. And they are still waiting for the $165 million or so that they were supposed to receive from the liquidation. This is just one fund folks. There are others in similar situations, perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands of funds. 601242[/snapback] Doc, can you give link to the above? 601275[/snapback] Nope. This is original reportage by yours truly. I am satisfied that the source is reliable and has reason to be in a position to be aware of the facts of the situation. 601289[/snapback] I am sure you are correct Doc, the evidence is pretty strong that we are having a run on cash. NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sentinel Management Group Inc., a U.S. futures commission merchant whose decision to freeze client accounts on Tuesday helped roil global financial markets, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late on Friday. The cash management company, which managed about $1.6 billion of assets, said its board decided it was in "the best interests of the corporation, its creditors and other interested parties that a voluntary petition be filed ... in an effort to restructure the indebtedness of the corporation," according to a filing in the bankruptcy court for the Northern District of Illinois. Sentinel told clients in an August 13 letter: "we are concerned that we cannot meet any significant redemption requests without selling securities at deep discounts to their fair value and therefore causing unnecessary losses to our clients." http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/070818/sentinel_bankruptcy.html?.v=1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwd Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 I had dinner last nite with a friend of mine who bought a SFH as an "investment" back in 2005. She's a single woman in her 40s with no assets and relatively low income. She doesn't own a home for herself and rents a studio apartment. Her aunt, a Reamtor, convinced her to "get on the RE gravy train" in 2005 so she bought the house using a liar loan with no money down and with a teaser rate. She lives here in Kali but comes from Minnesota, where the "investment" is located. She just got back from Minn because her tenants were "trashing the place" and she has to kick them out. She plans to move back to Minn in a few months once the tenants move out so she can repair the damage and sell the home. The home right now has negative cash flow, even with the tenants. When they move out, it will have no cash flow. The only thing keeping her from going under with the "investment" is because her loan has not re-set yet. Her loan is with Countrywide. Her broker advised her to lie about her income in 2005 to get the loan. She overstated her income by over 100%. I asked her what she thought of all the news about Countrywide and the mrotgouge mess. She was unconcerned. "My loan doesn't reset until 2009 and I'll have sold the home or re-fied to a lower rate by then," she said. She's complacently working off a number of assumptions: Selling her home for a profit will be no problem; refi'ing in 2009 to an affordable rate will be no problem; lenders will be lining up to lend her money even though she inflated her income by 100% on the original loan; interest rates will continue to be low out into the foreseeable future. She is optimistic that the best-case scenario will unfold and that her poorly-timed and fraudulently-acquired "investment" will pay off. Maybe it will. Maybe the gubermint will take pity on all the liar-loan aficionados and bail them out. But one thing is clear: if she applied for her loan today at a time when the subprime liar-loans are not welcome, she would not qualify for the home she "owns." But if the best-case scenario fails to unfold, then this mrotgouge situation will be with us for some time to come and will be made even worse should mrotgouge rates (not the Fed rate) actually rise over the next few years in concert with rising unemployment. My guess is that the outcome here will not be market-based but likely be hashed out in the political realm. It seems unlikely that the market, which created this problem, will have any interest in cleaning up the mess. So it will, as always, fall to the gubermint to provide the bail out.? Privatize profits, socialize losses and all that rot. Oh, by the way, my friend says she's diversified and not putting all her eggs in the RE basket. She's getting into the stock markit. She says her portfolio now consists of: 5 shares of GOOG. 601252[/snapback] I've heard nearly the identical story from dozens of friends and associates. It boggles the mind. However, I must concede my friends who used to ruthlessly make fun of me for saying that real estate was in a bubble back in 2004 and would top out within a year are finally starting to change their tune this summer for the first time. Even a few months ago it was the same old nonsense of "everyone wants to live here," and "real estate never goes down," crap. But finally I guess all the media hoopla about the "sub-prime" junk and all the stories about" so and so getting foreclosed on," and Zillow finally showing their house is now not worth quite as much as they thought... is all starting to sink in. They are now fussing more and more about real estate. The euphoria is gone. Depression is clouding up the sky. But I don't sense any fear. Plenty are still holding on to underwater properties. Some are telling me they are resigned to continue to hold these investments with negative cash flow until they damned get what they need for them. They're in no rush to unload. But things have changed. If mortgage lending really does tighten up and people in California really do need a down payment and are limited to $417K loans than next year I think we'll start to see fear as the market seizes up and the game starts to pull more people into foreclosure because they can't sell or refinance. The whole thing is very depressing to watch. It was depressing on the way up and now it is depressing on the way down. The worst part is how long it takes for the market to revert to the mean. The years are just going by and I'm sick to death of renting here in Silicon Valley. I can afford to buy no problem but I refuse to buy into a bubble. Dunno - may be time to follow the trend these days and migrate out of state to some low cost area like everyone else here seems to be doing. At least if the market goes to hell on a $250K house in Colorado you aren't losing much. But there is no way I'm plunking down $800K - $1.2M for a house here to watch six figures evaporate. I mentioned that a house went up for sale down the road for $859K. All previous comps including an identical house that just sold a month ago within two houses down the street were in the $659 range. I thought, what the hell is going on? Well the house after 30 days on the market just had the sign pulled down and has been pulled off the market. I guess they're in no rush. They'll wait until they can get what they need for it...or so they dream...I'm glad to see that no one was stupid enough to fall for it. 601262[/snapback] If you want reasonablely priced RE. try Texas. In this area you can get qualityhomes for 100d/sq ft Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrStool Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 Note that the ones that recently got smashed have the lowset Dec fore-skin for Dec '07 Fred-Frunds Rate BWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH --------------------- Following are the results of Bloomberg's survey of primary dealers, conducted from Aug. 10 to Aug. 17: Firm Sept. Oct. Dec. BNP Paribas 4.75 4.75 4.50 *Banc of America N/A 5.00 5.00 Barclays Capital 5.25 5.25 5.25 Bear Stearns 5.25 5.25 5.25 Cantor Fitzgerald 5.25 5.00 4.75 Citigroup 5.00 N/A N/A Countrywide 5.00 4.75 4.50 Credit Suisse 5.25 5.25 5.25 Daiwa Securities 5.00 4.75 4.75 Deutsche Bank 5.25 5.25 5.25 Dresdner Kleinwort 5.00 4.75 4.75 Goldman Sachs 5.00 4.75 4.50 Greenwich Capital 5.25 5.25 5.25 HSBC Securities 5.25 5.25 5.25 J.P. Morgan 5.00 4.75 4.75 Lehman Brothers 5.00 N/A 4.75 *Merrill Lynch 4.75 N/A N/A Mizuho 5.25 5.25 5.00 Morgan Stanley 5.25 5.25 5.25 *Nomura Securities 5.25 5.25 5.25 UBS 5.00 4.75 4.75 Bloom-burger 601299[/snapback] I never paid much attention to this before, but 10 of the 21 Fed PDs are non US institutions. So what, I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beardrech Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 there may be a trade in here ?? http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=6943263 601164[/snapback] "That means by 2010, the [Las Vegas] valley will be short 64-million gallons of water a day." Not sure what kind of a trade there is. Maybe if someone can invent a machine that can convert piss into drinking water, that would be a good bet. Plenty of piss in Las Vegas. ... 601170[/snapback] Lee About the miracle of turning piss in to water, Remember this" If you ever regress tot he point where you become, and for whatever reason:whether it be senility,or inspirational environmentalism,no matter, if for any reason you become reluctant to take a shower or bath even if its Saturday night, then please avail youurself of a film called "water works".... ... Its a must see ..if nothing else, than to investigate how vast the sums of money Hollywood can occasionaly squander... beardrech It was the only film in history where the audience was recycled.....the garbage on the screen serving as catalyst 601228[/snapback] Hey I liked water world and mad max and assorted post calamity b grade movies! Regarding the inverted alchemy of turning golden liquid into clear pure water there's already a machine that can do that. The price is a bit steep to waste on Las Vegians. "Tension is bound to flare over the $19 million toilet NASA purchased from Russian aerospace firm RCS Energia, as only half of the International Space Station will enjoy the upgrade?the American side. The toilet justifies its steep price by being able to recycle urine as drinkable water, " "The US-made filtration system separates water molecules from waste by not letting anything larger than tiny water molecules through." http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/potent-potables...e-it-275590.php http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/urine.html "After 30 seconds, water dribbles out of a nozzle and into a plastic cup. I raise it with a trembling hand. A toast to Alan Shepard and all the brave astronauts who endured the wrong stuff in their space suits for the advancement of science: This number one's for you. I take a big astronaut gulp, lower the cup, and wait for the noxious aftertaste. Nothing. The water tastes pretty good - it's definitely not Evian, but it is better than most city tap. Certainly more palatable than many light beers I've had, and not at all, uh, urinous. Move over, Tang: There's a new space drink in town!" Some pretty blue colored bottles, bling deco and real cork sealer and you can make yourself a nice collectible water bottle of recycled celebrity piss. Think about it: Lohan Dew, Paris Dew... it would be the epitome of this wanna be culture 601298[/snapback] Jetlag Because of the distant period, when I saw that movie last, makes my my bias somewhat dated, I'll agree that, because of the current H2O emergency, that my prejudices can be set aside... But its the excremental perception of the possibly recyclable product of the other side that causes me a deep concern...... beardrech I rarely get angry when someone in anger calls me a s**thead..espescially when I think about the billion yeared recycling and provenance of my cellular makeup... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwd Posted August 19, 2007 Report Share Posted August 19, 2007 Anyone here have acces to Barron's online.....if you do, could you copy and paste the last section of Up & Down Wall Street....the section starts, "How did this all come about?"....it closes the loop nicely on what has been discussed on this site for years, and most notably pondered by WNDY in his old M2M openings, "where the the hell are they off loading all this toxic derivative crap to? apparently, as quoted from the article, to the "UNWITTING BUYERS IN ASIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE" 601263[/snapback] I can't find the article you referring, but UNWITTING BUYERS IN ASIA AND CENTRAL EUROPE" sounds like an article written by a Dallas based hedge fund operator posted on M2M last week which showed how the big houses figured out how to unload the toxic mortgages by painting them as AAA paper and selling them to unwitting foreigners based on basically a fraudalent rating from Moody or Fitch : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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