machinehead Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) blurts out the shocking truth: Sen. Joe Biden rallied supporters for John Kerry's presidential campaign Tuesday with a blistering attack on Bush administration policies that he said hurt retirees and working-class Americans. "He is brain dead," Biden said of the president. His comment was greeted with loud applause at the UAW Local 435 union hall in Cranston Heights ... Zombie prez Joe, Joe ... if you shared a lobe with Bush ... you could both reach 20 on the IQ scale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Einstein Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 its all about how much pain the Credit card companies are willing to take. once they start taking cards away. then it is really over NE I was debating with a friend yesterday. Let's say you walk away from a credit card debt. How much do you have to owe, before it's worth their while to come after you? "Collection agents" are one thing ... talk is cheap ... but lawyers to actually sue in court are another thing. I know, I'm trying to collect a $6,500 bad business debt ... 14 months after fronting the lawyer $1,300, we're still trying to serve the deadbeat corp. or their agent with the lawsuit papers. It's wasted many hours of time. So-o-o-o ... at what threshold will credit card banksters actually bother to obtain a judgment against an unsecured debtor ... $10K? $20K? $50K? Or it based on a pre-lit asset search to see whether the deadbeat has a job, or any money? Inquiring minds need to know ... Thats a damn good question. To date credit cadr companies have chosen to sell nonperforming loans. There are four small cap players: ECPG ASFI AACC PRAA Based on their projections it doesn't sound like the credit carrd companies can do much about a customer that walks away from debt. The average portfolio owned by these collection companies was bought between $0.03-0.06 per dollar of debt. Using employees and collection agencies they typically collect $0.08-0.12 per dollar of debt Thanks, rog. That adds to my impression that it's mainly 'persuasion' and threatened 'damage to your credit rating' that's employed. Attaching a bank account (the one the customer's last payment was drawn on) or garnishing a salary ought to be the easiest means for the banksters to collect judgments. But even that, I'm guessing, is labor-intensive and doesn't really pay on an industrial scale when you've got tens of thousands of aging bad debts. NWD - thanks. Yes, we're serving the agent now. Had to get court permission to do so. Don't know why the attorney didn't do that in the first place. Incompetence, maybe. MH, I don't think it matters . my point isn't even if they ever collect, my point is when they start turning off the credit machine. debt is just a number carried on one side of the ledger, better to keep the debt there than write it off if you want to fool the sheep. What I am saying is IF IF they start shutting off some of the free credit to the idiots that are in way over their head consumer spending will slow big time I know people that have 50k in credit card debt and they are still charging and they have collection agency's chasing them, but they cannot stop themselves. they keep on charging. someday their cc company will shut them off. then we will see consumer spending really slow down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rog Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 Kudlow says that the chance of a recession in 2005 is Zero, primarily based on the slope of the yield curve. That's pretty much what he said in 2000 also. Then he thought it was a short inventory correction. The corporate scandals and final 9-11. At no time has he ever recognized that corp spending had gone parabolic and then collapsed. If he did any anbalysis at all he could see: 1) The yield curve has been flattening for nearly 9 months 2) A 10yr at 4% is hardly screaming strong growth 3) Even if the yield curve was a vertical line, when the consumer is tapped out you have a recession. Period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian4 Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 Schaeffer in his commentaries this week in his evening letters has been listing the 3 last Bastions of support for the Markets. Last night he dwelt at length on how a break of 530 on the Oex (which is hanging by its fingertips) removes one pillar. Tonite in a commentary entitled "Dour Days for the $"- he says a break of 87 cents which has been tested and re-retested removes pillar number two and the 3rd Pillar is 9800 on the Dow (Which almost gave way today) if those 3 go- Say G'nite-Dick! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The End Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 Funniest thing I have seen yet in regards to bush / Kerry elections. http://web.utanet.at/lauseck1/images/Voting_Machine.wmv Speakers ON. I can't stop laughing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rog Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 How do you know its a bubble? The newly opened Target in White Plains, NY city center sent us a coupon for one free valet parking while shopping at their store. First of all charging people $5 to park at a discount retailer is beyond stupid. But offering valet parking for $15 has to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hiding Bear Posted October 20, 2004 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 PS I did finally learn to read Baristers posts and found his knowledge(especially history) and humour to be first rate. Nice summary BB. But how did you learn how to read BAREister's POsts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BudFox Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 Pistolpapa, Thank you for responding!? Perhaps part of the problem is trying to understand what might happen, price wise, by using the limiting terms of deflation and inflation. The term inflation, particularly, should be retired? as you've shown that there can be no inflation (as it is traditonally defined) without rising wages. There is? definitely an oversupply of everything right now, so a future where there are inadequate supplies is counterintuitive. Part of the problem with the prices up or prices down debate is people are extrapolating from the? history of their own economy,when? they should be looking at what happens in banana republics in other parts of the world, for fresher more appropriate examples. The closest present analogy may be the currency meltdowns of the nineties in Asia and the reactions of prices (not wages) in Venezuela, when their currency was depegged from the dollar.? Though these are very rough comparisons, what struck me is that the price of housing went down while most everything else went up. Take for example a gallon of milk. Say it's 5.00 today and realistically can't go lower, as so much of the cost is delivery, servicing the dairy's debt, etc..etc... No pricing power. Say, all the other dairies are in roughly the same spot. What's to keep it from doubling in price? The average person will just drink less milk and pay the 10.00 per gallon. They may drink half the usual amount, if their income remains somewhat stable and they may drink one third to one quarter their former consumption if they experience dropping wages. I don't mean to sound pedagogic. It's not that I think anyone on the board is retarded, I'm just trying to clarify this for myself.? :wink2: We're all trying to clarify it for ourselves. We have to take it slow looking at one thing at a time and try not to use economic lessons of the past. It is different now. Any more price inflation in the items we need is deflationary in that it will send the system into recession. The consumer will have less money to spend on things he does not need. The service sector economy is mainly based on things we do not need. (car washes, fast food, pedicures etc.) As he quits spending money on those things, service businesses fail. When this happens, our service sector economy implodes. Hate to beat a constipated elephant here, but... As MH has mentioned previously, the inevitable recession that you are referring to in the form of a service economy slowdown does not necessarily mean that deflation will follow. Prices do not have to go down. Deflation is a combination of the following factors: The supply of money goes down. The supply of goods goes up. Demand for money goes up. Demand for goods goes down. So even if the supply of goods increases and the demand for those goods decreases, the govt. can increase the supply of money to offset the other two. Stagflation, by definition. Yes, a return to the 70's seems more and more likely. Sorry, if this explanation is too academic and tired for some of you. But I hope some will appreciate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The End Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 For all that is sacred in funnydom, Click my last posts link. I still can't stop laughing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orvack Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 Funniest thing I have seen yet in regards to bush / Kerry elections. http://web.utanet.at/lauseck1/images/Voting_Machine.wmv Speakers ON. I can't stop laughing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traderfromhell Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 Pat Robertson: Bush told me there would be no casualties in IraqPosted on Wednesday, October 20 @ 10:19:11 EDT (3948 reads) Submitted by RevMudd Robertson warned Bush of Iraq toll ? President's response: 'We're not going to have any' From CNN NEW YORK (CNN) -- The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, "We're not going to have any casualties." Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion. He described Bush in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life." "You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said on the CNN show, "Paula Zahn Now." "And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' " http://www.smirkingchimp.com/ Must have meant his own family and friends. Schmuck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purdymouth Posted October 20, 2004 Report Share Posted October 20, 2004 Just watched the first part of the BBC series "The Power of Nightmares". Basic premise was that US politics used to be about selling the people dreams.No longer--you sell them nightmares and tell them that you can prevent their worst nightmares becoming reality.You now give folks fear! Shows the neo-cons for what they are; con-men always lying and making stuff up to get their way.They've had the CIA hackles up since pre-Reagan times. Must see series--but I doubt that anyone in the US will air it. A really good Frontline next Tuesday night set the TiVo/DVR... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
depends Posted October 21, 2004 Report Share Posted October 21, 2004 This little chart stays on the sell side. It was supposed to crash today but it didn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brown Suguaro Posted October 21, 2004 Report Share Posted October 21, 2004 Anecdotal evidence: In todays local newspaper (sorry, no link) there was an article saying that tax collections for August on motel room rentals, food, and beverages (on a little over two million in sales) were down 17.2% from last year, breaking a four year run of annual increases. The city is anxiously awating the September numbers to see if a trend is developing. Locals say that this years weather did seem to be hotter than normal, and I reported many days of 120 degree temperatures on my patio, so perhaps it was a function of the weather. Or maybe it was a function of the tourists pulling in their horns. Time will tell. I will keep alert for furthur information, and post it if I hear anything. B. S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian4 Posted October 21, 2004 Report Share Posted October 21, 2004 TE-not only is it hilarious -it is also true! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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