Jay's Daily News

Very good find ak4x.

Very good find.

Why Default on U.S. Treasuries is Likely

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel


http://www.econlib.org/library/Colum...meltbills.html

About half of U.S. mortgages seen underwater by 2011

Wed Aug 5, 2009 5:12pm EDT
By Al Yoon

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The percentage of U.S. homeowners who owe more than their house is worth will nearly double to 48 percent in 2011 from 26 percent at the end of March, portending another blow to the housing market, Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday.

Home price declines will have their biggest impact on prime "conforming" loans that meet underwriting and size guidelines of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the bank said in a report. Prime conforming loans make up two-thirds of mortgages, and are typically less risky because of stringent requirements.

"We project the next phase of the housing decline will have a far greater impact on prime borrowers," Deutsche analysts Karen Weaver and Ying Shen said in the report.

Of prime conforming loans, 41 percent will be "underwater" by the first quarter of 2011, up from 16 percent at the end of the first quarter 2009, it said. Forty-six percent of prime jumbo loans will be larger than their properties' value, up from 29 percent, it said.

Apparently so...

Unclaimed dead stack up in Wayne County morgue

Charlie LeDuff / The Detroit News

Detroit -- Poor Grandpa.
His corpse lies at the bottom of a pile of other bodies unclaimed at the Wayne County morgue. But Grandpa -- whose name has been withheld to avoid embarrassing his family -- is a special case. He has been in the cooler for the past two years as his kinfolk -- too broke to bury him -- wait for a ship to come in.

"There is destitution," says Dr. Carl J. Schmidt, the chief medical examiner of this, the nation's poorest big city. "But when you're so destitute that nobody has claimed you, that's a whole different level of being destitute."

Recession is over, says economist

According to Dennis Gartman, a number of indicators point to a recovery that is just getting started.

By Scott Cendrowski, reporter
August 6, 2009: 12:41 PM ET



http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2009/...gartman.03.jpg
Dennis Gartman: "It's over."

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- When economist Dennis Gartman told subscribers of his newsletter in the fall of 2007 that the U.S. was entering a recession, the Dow was at 13,500, and the official government call wouldn't come for another full year.

Now he's ahead of officials and forecasters again. According to Gartman, the U.S. recession that started in December 2007 is done.

"We saw it happen two weeks ago -- it's over," he said in a recent interview.

Monumentally Tragic Disappointment on the Horizon

Aug 4th, 2009 | By James Howard Kunstler

Whenever the herd mentality lines up along a compass point leading to “permanent prosperity,” or a yellow brick road lined with green shoots, or something like that, I tend to see the edge of a cliff up ahead. We are now completely in the grips of the deadly diminishing returns of information technology. The more information comes to us about How Things Are, especially from TV, the more confused or wrong the conventional view gets it.

A broad consensus has formed in the news media and among government mouthpieces and even some “bearish” investors on the street that “the worst is behind us” in this tortured economy. This view is completely crazy. It will only lead to massive disappointment a few weeks or months from now, and that disappointment might easily transmute to political trouble. One even might call the situation tragic, except a closer look at the sordid spectacle of what American culture has become — a non-stop circus of the seven deadly sins — suggests that we deserve to be punished by history.

US food stamp list tops 34 million for first time

"Enrollment surged by 2 percent to reach a record 34.4 million people..."

Let's crunch some numbers shall we?

Population of the United States of America. 303,824,640 (July 2008 est.)

People on the US Food Stamp List. 34,400,000

34,400,000/303,824,640 x 100 = 11.32%

So 11.32% of the U.S. population is currently on the Food Stamp List.

So, I believe it's fair to say that there are some people on this board right now tonight who are on this list.

No wonder spam and scams has been skyrocketing on this board lately. Desperate times calling for desperate measures I suppose.

Green shoots of the economy my fat overfed ass!

Refrigerator Recycling Programs Take Off


Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Hummers

As Jon Stewart said, cash for Badonkadonkers

And now, cash for refrigerators

Take note of this article. I mean, REALLY take note of this article. This will the the subject of my very first AUDIO Rant coming up this Saturday on my YouTube channel.

This is huge stuff

http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/f...-auction/23880

The United States HAS OFFICIALLY HIT THE TREASURY DEBT WALL
Aug 7th, 2009

http://www.doomdaily.com/wp-content/...inglePhoto.jpg

Just when Krakatoa starts to erupt, as well. Don't all my problems always come at once.

I placed the picture on an image hosting service because the site it's from doesn't allow hotlinking.

http://i30.tinypic.com/4iimuo.png

Thanks, Jay. Appreciate it.

The Screwing of the Average Investor

Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Robert Wenzel

Probably one of the best ways for an average to small investor to participate in the ecommodities markets is through exchange traded funds. By using ETF's you can limit your risk and trade with small sums.

So what is the government up to? Changing rules in a manner that will make it difficult for commodity ETF's to operate.

So difficult as a matter of fact that the world's largest ETF backed by natural gas said today that it will stop issuing new shares on concerns regulators will set limits on the number of futures contracts it holds.

It would be "imprudent" to accept new investment and purchase more futures contracts "when we believe that CFTC may shortly mandate new limits that would have the effect of capping our exposure in these areas and forcing us to reduce our current holdings," said Katie Rooney, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Commodity Funds, the Calif.-based fund manager that manages UNG and other energy ETFs, in an email interview with MarketWatch.

Jim Rogers is right. U.S. proposals to place curbs on commodities trading will drive business overseas, particularly to Asia:

It is remarkable because America is shooting itself in the foot again... It’s going to drive the business away and the rest of the world is going to welcome it with open arms...

"It is remarkable because America is shooting itself in the foot again... It’s going to drive the business away and the rest of the world is going to welcome it with open arms..."

The folks that make up these "new" rules know full well the consequences of their actions. That is the scary realization. I conclude that they must have a hidden agenda the average joe cant comprehend? or would be homicidal if discovered? something is going on or about to happen in our financial circles that wont sit well with any one. I just have a feeling-just cant shake it off though.

Harry Markopolos: CDS Fraud Will Make Madoff Look "Small-Time"

Lawrence Delevingne
Aug. 12, 2009, 2:01 PM

http://static.businessinsider.com/%7...X=375&maxY=281Memo to regulators: be forewarned about frauds in the credit-default swap market. They'll make Bernie Madoff's $65 billion fraud "look like small-time."
That's what Harry Markopolos -- Madoff's whistleblower ignored by federal investigators -- is saying, anyway.

New York Post: [Markopolos] says there are evildoers out there who will make the Ponzi scum "look like small-time." Markopolos gave a speech to 400 of the faithful at the Greek Orthodox Church in Southampton and predicted major scandals will soon be revealed about the unregulated, $600 trillion, credit-default swap market. "To put it in simple terms, it is like buying fire insurance policies from five different insurance companies on your neighbor's house and then burning down the house," he said.

It's not clear if there are frauds that he knows of, specifically, that he's not disclosing publicly, or if it's just his how the market works -- in which case, he's basically just parroting what a lot of people who hate "naked" CDS have been saying. Either way, we suggest Mary Schapiro or the CFTC pay him a call and get a clarification.

Amen!

I'm considering following him and move to Singapore. Anyone know how I can find a centrally located affordable flat?

Cap-and-Trade's Unlikely Critics: Its Creators

Economists Behind Original Concept Question the System's Large-Scale Usefulness, and Recommend Emissions Taxes Instead

By JON HILSENRATH

In the 1960s, a University of Wisconsin graduate student named Thomas Crocker came up with a novel solution for environmental problems: cap emissions of pollutants and then let firms trade permits that allow them to pollute within those limits.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/im...0812142924.jpg UW Photo Services When he was a graduate student in the 1960s working to reduce pollutants, Thomas Crocker devised a cap-and-trade system similar to one being considered in Congress.

Now legislation using cap-and-trade to limit greenhouse gases is working its way through Congress and could become the law of the land. But Mr. Crocker and other pioneers of the concept are doubtful about its chances of success. They aren't abandoning efforts to curb emissions. But they are tiptoeing away from an idea they devised decades ago, doubting it can work on the grand scale now envisioned.

"I'm skeptical that cap-and-trade is the most effective way to go about regulating carbon," says Mr. Crocker, 73 years old, a retired economist in Centennial, Wyo. He says he prefers an outright tax on emissions because it would be easier to enforce and provide needed flexibility to deal with the problem.

Corporate Bond Risk Jumps to Three-Week High on Economy Concern

By Abigail Moses and Bryan Keogh

Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The cost of protecting corporate bonds from default rose on concern a five-month credit market rally is “unsustainable” as Japan’s economy grew less than economists estimated and U.S. consumer confidence fell.

Credit-default swaps tied to U.S. debt climbed to the highest level in more than three weeks, according to a benchmark index, while contracts on a European index of corporate securities rose to the most since July 29. Yields relative to benchmark rates on speculative-grade bonds last week had its first increase since the period ended July 10.

Investors are concerned the recovery in Japan’s economy, which emerged from its deepest postwar recession in the second quarter, will falter once governments worldwide complete $2 trillion in stimulus spending. Speculation the U.S. consumer will help drive a rebound in global growth was dented last week when a confidence index fell to the lowest since March.

“While there is a rebound in economic activity, consumption is still impacted,” Philip Gisdakis, a Munich-based strategist at UniCredit SpA, wrote in a note to investors today. “This problem will not disappear in the short term and indicates that the current recovery might not be sustainable.”

In other markets, stocks fell globally and Treasuries rose as investors snapped up the safer assets. The MSCI World Index of 23 developed nations sank 2.6 percent, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slid 2.1 percent after China’s Shanghai Composite Index slumped 5.8 percent, the most since November. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped to as low as 3.47 percent, the lowest in more than a month.

It's been said that from all reading material read while sitting on the toilet, Reader's Digest is the one that was read the most.

The "digest" format of the stories and the size of the magazine could explain why that is.

Well apparently, people don't poop anymore. That or they are texting or surfing for pornography on their iPhone.

Reader's Digest plans prearranged bankruptcy