Jun 01 2008
That liberal (Maixine Waters) is all about wrecking the U.S. economy. Goes to show how politicians act like spoiled little children, and with very little understanding of economics.
Needless to say, if Maxine has her way, we may as well get into the rickshaw business.
Mar 17 2008
A list of articles worth perusing to grasp the depth of our problems:
Jan 23 2008
Stunning jump in foreclosures
Foreclosures and default notices skyrocketed to record peaks in California and the Bay Area in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a report released Tuesday. The information was a fresh reminder that the slumping real estate market is continuing to have a serious impact on homeowners, particularly those with risky subprime mortgages. enders repossessed 31,676 residences in California in the October-November-December period, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a La Jolla research firm. That was a dramatic 421.2 percent increase from 6,078 in the year-ago quarter.
Unhappy home buyer, feeling misled on price, sues agent
Marty Ummel believes she paid too much for her house. So do millions of other people who bought at the peak of the housing boom. What makes Ummel different is that she is suing her agent, saying it was all his fault. Ummel claims that the agent hid the information that similar homes in the neighborhood were selling for less because he feared she would back out and he would lose his $30,000 commission.
Real estate lawyers and brokers say the case, which goes to trial in North County Superior Court on Monday, is likely to be the first of many in which regretful or resentful buyers seek redress from the agents who found them a home and arranged its purchase.
“When your house appreciates $100,000 in the first six months, you’re not quite as concerned that maybe the valuation was $25,000 or $50,000 off,” said Clifford Horner of the law firm Horner & Singer. “But when your house goes down, you ask: ‘Who might have led me astray here?’ “
Jan 22 2008
Cramer was blindsided like every other popular analyst, but to his credit he’s now calling BS when he sees it.
Host Question: How come AMBAC still has a AAA rating?
Cramer: Because the truth is too painful.
You can hear his comments and rants about the rampant “fiction” on Wall Street in this CNBC round table. He’s talking about fiction that includes the ratings agencies like Moody’s. It should blow you away not because Cramer is a blowhard, but because in this case he’s finally catching up.
Continue Reading »
Aug 29 2007
If you don’t take my word, take that of David Walker, U.S. Controller General, whose been on tour telling the truth about the real Federal deficit vs. the headline number. The numbers used by politicians: $315 and $265 billion in 2005 and 2006. The real numbers: $3.5 and $ 4.6 trillion, when the slight of hand that returns to the balance sheet the many social obligations that were removed thanks to the creativity of L.B.J and Congress back in the 1960s.
Cut programs? Raise taxes? Show me a politician who’d dare run on that — a scarcity confirmed in this video.
To us, this smells like more money printing in the future. Add that to the current credit market fiasco, and suddenly there’s a real issue regarding the slumping dollar!
Jun 29 2007
If someone were to walk into the local gym and paint bigger numbers on the weights they lift, and then start boasting to everyone else about how much stronger they’d become, they’d immediately be laughed back to reality. But the financial news appears to not be as critical. The news wires today are telling us — without really digging into why – that the millionaires of the world increased by 8.3% in 2006, up to about 9.5 million individuals estimated to have that much or more in financial assets, measured in U.S. dollars.
That’s not surprising given the amount of liquidity (expanding credit) flowing around the global system these days. Which begs the question, is the world really getting wealthier, or are these folks just the beneficiaries of asset inflation measured in the heavily expanded dollar? Well, given the global M3 numbers alone, we think it’s the latter. U.S. M3 continuations raise lots of concern:
Let’s also not forget that U.S. M3 has increased by over 5 times since 1980.
Meanwhile, you can do a simple calculation on your own over at the Federal Reserve’s own CPI calculator site to find that $1 million today ain’t the $1 million of the Tycoon era.
Now, that’s merely adjusted to CPI! With CPI itself being a suspect stat given how it discounts food, energy and housing, the real adjustments are probably much worse.
All this is another reminder that those navigating these markets need to be exceptionally aware of what liquidity is doing to asset prices. In particular, investors need to be mindful that liquidity mixed into bubble psychology (which always grows blind to risk and reality) is a recipe for natural price relationships to grow very dislocated.
It’s been said the market is always right. But don’t forget, that’s often a concession to the reality that the market can remain irrational much longer than the average person can remain solvent betting against it. The question today on the minds of many on Wall Street is, what is the real value of over $ 1 trillion in mortgage backed derivatives given the Bear Stearns debacle? Given the vast amount of leverage supporting asset price trades, the same could be asked of most any asset price.
That said, anything you own today should be something you want to own five years from today in an economy that might be vastly different than what we perceive right now, and in an environment where the U.S. dollar commands far less respect, and interest rates are climbing in order to keep the heavily debt dependent U.S. economy above water.
And, as we have been saying for some time now, don’t just measure your returns in your local currency. Measure them in terms of exchange with other currencies, and especially in terms of hard assets. Can you buy more or less oil, gold, or gas than last year? More or less house? More or less health care or college? Then you will see your real rate of return. Since 2000, those returns year to year are not so good as we many think — and that’s a paradigm shift!
At any rate, if you’re new to the millionaires’ club — good for you — Better to have it than not! Just keep it all in perspective, and don’t forget that you’re now also an even bigger taxing target!
Jun 09 2007
NASA chief, Michael Griffin, raised the hackles of the Global Warming Industrial Complex recently during an NPR interview by declaring pointedly, “I have no doubt that global — that a trend of global warming exists… I am not sure that it is fair to say that is a problem we must wrestle with.” Continued Griffin, “I guess I would ask which human beings, where and when, are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.”
Well, now he’s back peddling some — very much under pressure from politicians looking to lead the parade to the pocket books of their largest donors, or as in the case of the global one-worlders — to lead the world’s economies to the control of the U.N. or some other global society of Utopian planning. Naturally, the hyper-green environmental crowd is up in arms as well.
At the time, of his initial comments, critics rushed to condemn Griffin as “totally clueless”, as a “deep anti-global warming ideologue,” and that his comments showed “arrogance and ignorance” given the presumption that millions will be harmed by global warming. We are reminded of Carl Sagan’s advice on using the “scientific baloney detector”, where one of the surest signs of baloney is “reducto ad hominum” arguments. Even the Bush administration distanced itself, desperate as it is to appear friendly on some popular (even if badly misunderstood) issue with its recent G-8 overtures. All we can encourage is for readers to beware of possible distortions and intimidations from the self-promoting Groupthinkniks looking to squelch debate, or the politically desperate — as aware as the bandwagon types are of the potential for influence from Big Energy interests.
Of course, regular readers of V.I. familiar with our Global Warming Series know that Griffin is hardly alone, and that there is a ideological rush to legislate on this issue, much at the expense of genuine debate given there is only an asserted predominance of opinion on the subject rather than a real one.
Griffin now admits he made a mistake by making his personal opinions public (gee: crime of crimes?!?), but not as a capitulation on the issue. Says Griffin, “unfortunately, this is an issue which has become far more political than technical, and it would have been well for me to have stayed out of it.”
Sadly, that’s just the kind of effect the demagoguing / rush to legislation crowd wants.
Jun 03 2007
The following is a continuation of our series designed to encourage a more reasoned assessment of global warming in the midst of the overwhelming rush to, and pro-media coverage supporting extremely intrusive climate change legislation.
“Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled.”
So said Al Gore … in 1992. Amazingly, he made his claims despite much evidence of their falsity. A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren’t sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn’t think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable.
Today, Al Gore is making the same claims of a scientific consensus, as do the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups around the world. But the claims of a scientific consensus remain unsubstantiated. They have only become louder and more frequent.
May 26 2007
Is academia biased towards proving man made global warming AND government ordained solutions? This is something worth considering. We’ve certainly heard a lot about the scientist that received some funding from Exxon as spouting lies for Exxon because they pay him to do so, but should grants being handed out — OR NOT — based on if the research sets out with the purpose of justifying one side or the other without clearly looking at counter-evidence be under similar scrutiny? Just because it comes through academia does not mean that it does not have a funding bias.
Now, while what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, we’re not fans of discrediting an argument simply based on funding sources along. Either the evidence holds up or it does not. However, we should be aware that one side or the other will clearly appear to be the correct side if 95% of funding goes to supporting the specific outcome — simply because the massive lopsided volume alone will give it an appearance of overwhelming academic support.
When we are told 95% of scientists think global warming is man made and the government needs to act now, perhaps we ought to weigh that 95% figure more carefully? Moreover, it should be noted that a counter poll suggested the numbers are closer to 1) 40% agree man’s the problem and the state is the solution, 40% 2) think man’s a contributor among a host of others, but not enough evidence suggests a prudent government forced solution given the lack of evidence, and 3) 20% who don’t buy it’s man’s fault.
In our lead off post about global warming, we presented our concerns about those who stand to gain financially and politically by hopping on the global warming bandwagon — especially anything that involves giving more power to government to regulate and doll out mandates and spending to “solve the problem.” The problem is that many with ulterior motives are a strong part of the lobby for “the government’s gotta do something to stop it before we all die” side. Big business interests with solutions to manufactured problems are nothing new, as are big business interests with theoretical solutions to problems that could be solved by the free market without government. Then there are the one-worlders and socialists who like every ounce of liberty, freedom and wealth to be dolled out by central planners who know better than us all. Many of both groups actually believe in the idea of the “noble lie” (ala Plato & Strauss) to justify their higher order objectives since they believe most commoners are too dumb to understand the world, hence it is up to the self-anointed types to tell us lies for our own good.
At any rate, with a multitude of special interests — the Exxon’s of the world included — don’t buy either side without knowing whose interests are what and getting a better understanding of the big picture.
May 20 2007
“It is time to attack the myth of global warming,” says meteorologist Augie Auer. “We’re all going to survive this. It’s all going to be a joke in five years…”
From New Zealand’s Times Herald:
Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.
“If we didn’t have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time.” Continue Reading »
Apr 27 2007
Recently we posted on global warming and the nuances and the appropriate role for man in response. We did so in response to the massive rush to legislate based on what we find to be suspect analysis of the problem, and even dicier — if not downright dangerous — proposals for solutions.
Consider this rebuttal to Al Gore’s highly popular “An inconvenient Truth”:
Part I
Part II
Apr 26 2007
As part of our prior stated objective of providing alternative views on the rush to legislate government solutions to global warming, here are a few fresh articles:
Again, our purpose is not to pick one side or the other, but to foster open discussion on what we find to still be an open debate. For our original post on why we feel this way, click here.
Apr 20 2007
While supporters of the recent (last 12 months) barrage of global warming alarmism are quick to say that the scientific community is in complete agreement, and that anyone who disagrees must be in the pocket of big oil, to that we say “not so fast!” Never mind the liberal elite lobbying for Al Gore to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for his film, An Inconvenient Truth.
Its not that we don’t believe man has made an impact. It is that we are not entirely convinced that we have enough information to fully understand said impact, and for that matter, to fully understand the hows and whys behind the environmental adjustments we see.
As well, we are entirely against the reflexive reactions that are shouting down those who bring up a contrary view.
