B4 The Bell Weak-end Den, August 6 - 8

[soup]

I'm Back..... Hello all, profitable vacation . WIll try to catch up.

[DrStool]

Weak End Anals

[Hiding Bear]

Cokenose and Kermit on Crapvision should be quite a show tonight.

 

Today the bond's displayed their "safety" status a little. 

 

Once more with vigor, I'll say Al doesn't dare raise rates and will be in the unfortunate position of lowering them after the first of the year.  While Hyper's time frame closed out a tad earlier mine is still in play till the early stages of Q1 05.  Any stock market "mishaps" will speed the process, but the real lone hold-out for now is still construction.

 

Early in the year I said that sales would weaken by the edge of Summer, which they have, and that will be followed shortly by a reversing jobs market, which according to the feeble lie they came out with today, that is already occuring.  I think the next 60 days will show us the beginning of the breakdown in new construction.  That will be the final card to play.  From there it will be only a short matter of time before the sheeple reach the POR.  The election is only going to add to the general anxiety level.

 

Personally I'm still voting for the surprise comet strike on DC, that would end the true source of most of the world's terrorists.

Until the dollar starts crashing, the Fed may not have to raise interest rates again after next week. I am still looking a rate increase, but now I am only 80% sure after being 99% and 90% sure the last prior two days respectively. Another 200 points down Monday, and the Fed may re-evaluate the decision it probably already made.

 

Time frames as to when the credit bubble collapses are nearly impossible to make. The main difficulty being that events at some point may accelerate out of control at an exponetial rate in a few days after a period of relative calm. There probably won't be a 24 to 48 hour hurricane type warning, except maybe on this forum. The hedge hog funds Mark talks about will suddenly be liquidated when lenders realize trading capital has been wiped out.

 

Next week, the Fed will proceed more agressively with a policy of quantitative easing of the monetary base to offset the deleterious effects of interest rate hikes, higher energy prices, and a faltering credit bubble and economy.

 

[the following is from my earlier, similar post on July 30]

 

As you might remember, Ben the Printer Bernanke implied in his speech on January 14, 2004 that when interest rates reach a practical low limit other unconventional methods might be used.

 

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/sp...033/default.htm

 

The first and most significant unconventional method was "quantitative easing". Bernanke says:

 

"These days, most central banks choose to calibrate the degree of policy ease or tightness by targeting the price of reserves--in the case of the Federal Reserve, the overnight federal funds rate. However, nothing prevents a central bank from switching its focus from the price of reserves to the quantity or growth of reserves. That is, reserves can be increased beyond the level required to hold the overnight rate at zero--a policy sometimes referred to as "quantitative easing"."

 

While Bernanke was referring to what might happen when interest rates approach zero, they are still for all practical purposes about as low as they can go.

 

Further Bernhanke believes that quantitative easing reduces the negative effects of inflation:

 

"In expanding its balance sheet by open-market purchases, the central bank replaces public holdings of interest-bearing government debt with non-interest-bearing currency or reserves. If the open-market operation is not expected to be reversed too quickly, this exchange reduces the present and future interest costs of the government and the tax burden on the public. (Effectively, this process replaces a direct tax, say on labor, with the inflation tax.)"

 

It appears that the Fed has already committed to a policy of inflating and debasing money to fight the oncoming economic recession. As the inflation fire accelerates, they are ready to add more gasoline (repos) to stop the wood (the economy) from burning. This should continue to buoy energy and precious metal stocks up until the time that all conventional and unconventional methods fail to keep the credit bubble inflated.

[Guest Icky Twerp]

Every once in a while, almost a decade ago, I would get a skidding feeling. You know the feeling. You are in your car, listening to the radio or just thinking, and very momentarily, the wheels are not solidly on the road, which is wet from rain or snow. Subliminally you sense that slide, you snap back to awareness, you react. . .? .

Paper Money by Adam Smith, 1981

[Guest Icky Twerp]

In his book-lined office, Arthur Burns is smoking his pipe. That is no surprise. He is almost neer without it; he takes it to the House, the Senate, the White House; he can orchestrate the lighting of it between sentences like an actor. He wears rimless glasses, and his white hiar isparted in the middle. He is a former Columbia University professor, an authroity on business cycles. After we have talked for a while, I bring up my question.

 

"What," I say, "is an acceptable rate of inflation?"

 

A cloud of  pipe smoke rolls across the coffee table.

 

"An acceptable rate of inflation? An acceptable rate? Why, zero, Zero!"

]Paper Money by Adam Smith, 1981

[Guest Icky Twerp]

In the 1970s, ther wee two ways to notice that the behavior of Americans was changing. The first was to read the statistics that said that Americans were no longer saving as much and were borrowing as much as they could. The second was to listen to the talk, aomost obsessive talk, about prices, things, real estate, houses -- especially houses. How much is your house worth? What did you pay for it? How much is that apartment? The unarticulated theme of these conversations was this: How do I get out of the currency and into something that will hold its value, or increase? Where is the store of value? The assumption, quite correctly, was that simply to hold dollars was to lose.

]Paper Money by Adam Smith, 1981

[Guest Icky Twerp]

Although OPEC began officially in Baghdad, it really began in the beside notebook of a South American lawyer who was an admirer of one of our own institutions, the Texas Railroad Commission. The cartel that so aroused this man was formed by some grouse shooters at a castle in Achnacarry, Scotland. The action that triggered the formation of OPEC took place on the twenty-ninth floor of a Manhattan skyscraper. The banking system that received the vast flow of funds from the oil producers grew from the actions of a Russian bureaucrat in London. The grouse shooters, the lawyer, and the Russian all have something to do with the worth of a bank account and the price of a house.

]Paper Money by Adam Smith, 1981

[Guest Icky Twerp]

We have gotten so used to inflation now that we have forgotten what it was like to operate in an environment in which prices did not leap and sellers did not build in an extra piece for inflation. The inflation rate in the US in the first half of the 1960s was between 1 percent and 2 percent.

Paper Money by Adam Smith, 1981

[Guest]

Playing the FED tune @ Financialsence.com. that all stoolies understand and

especially Hyper.

 

 

The Pending Monetary Crisis Hyper link is Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve. 42-min video 256K connection.

[Guest]

Glad bags closing Cartersville, Ga. plant......

 

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/business/0804/06plant.html

 

Cartersville to lose plant and 350 jobs

 

By MARY LOU PICKEL

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 08/05/04

 

 

After 45 years of making plastic bags for sandwiches, frozen food and trash, the Glad Manufacturing plant in Cartersville will close its doors, cutting 350 jobs.

 

The hourly workers will lose their jobs by next June, plant manager Kent Barnhart said Thursday.

:cry:

[Guest Icky Twerp]

. . .So we began with the unpaid bill of the Vietnam War.

 

The inflation that President Nixon faced was modest by current standards, but ar roughly 5% it was still double its pre-Vietnam standard. . . .Nixon was running behind Edmund Muskie in a potential reelection fight. So Nixon adopted a twofold approach: he ordered wage and price controls, and at the same time his fiscal policies stimulated the economy. . . .Nixon's tactic worked in its timing; at election time the economy was rosy and prices by law, relatively stable. But once the election was over, the controls had to come off. The suppressed inflation burst forth again. . . .

Paper Money by Adam Smith, 1981

[Guest]

Icky......

 

I believe the Adam Smith of which you quote is a Non de Plume of a well known

public figure...the name escapes me at the moment. He was an interesting read

in the late 70's/early 80's.

 

Might be interesting to uncover his ID to see if more current work is published

in book form or essays.

[Guest]

Although OPEC began officially in Baghdad, it really began in the beside notebook of a South American lawyer who was an admirer of one of our own institutions, the Texas Railroad Commission. The cartel that so aroused this man was formed by some grouse shooters at a castle in Achnacarry, Scotland. The action that triggered the formation of OPEC took place on the twenty-ninth floor of a Manhattan skyscraper. The banking system that received the vast flow of funds from the oil producers grew from the actions of a Russian bureaucrat in London. The grouse shooters, the lawyer, and the Russian all have something to do with the worth of a bank account and the price of a house.

]Paper Money by Adam Smith, 1981

You will find that OPEC may have been formed in Baghdad, but the idea and mover behind the scene was a Venezuealian who accessed Texas RR Commission

files at University of Texas while a graduate student. TRRC allocated market shares for the 7-sisters.

[Hypertiger]

Everyone works hard...In fact everyone I have ever met claims they are the hardest workers and or work harder then anyone else...

[chiefywiefy]

Although OPEC began officially in Baghdad, it really began in the beside notebook of a South American lawyer who was an admirer of one of our own institutions, the Texas Railroad Commission. The cartel that so aroused this man was formed by some grouse shooters at a castle in Achnacarry, Scotland. The action that triggered the formation of OPEC took place on the twenty-ninth floor of a Manhattan skyscraper. The banking system that received the vast flow of funds from the oil producers grew from the actions of a Russian bureaucrat in London. The grouse shooters, the lawyer, and the Russian all have something to do with the worth of a bank account and the price of a house.

]Paper Money by Adam Smith, 1981

You will find that OPEC may have been formed in Baghdad, but the idea and mover behind the scene was a Venezuealian who accessed Texas RR Commission

files at University of Texas while a graduate student. TRRC allocated market shares for the 7-sisters.

If I remember correctly, the lawyer was Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso.