Regulatory Capture now appears to be accepted policy procedure as FASB bends over and gives up on even asking financial entities to report accurate market values, leaving only those who spend their lives in spreadsheets and arcane nomenclature capable of discerning trash from treasure. I guess it best that way. The truth has this proclivity to hurt people's feelings, not to mention certain ill gotten gains...
The overly optimistic Case Shiller index shows NYC as being the only major condo market to actually show an increases in prices. Anyone who lives here knows that it is damn sure not for a dearth of supply! Why are prices going up amid a glut of supply? Let's ask Dr. Bernanke, AKA Dr. FrankenFinance for a greater level of understanding. Warning: this will probably piss off anybody who's not a banker.
The title says it all... Except for a few metric blips borne from .gov bubble blowing, the housing market has been on a continuous nosedive since 2nd half of 2006. Anyone unfortunate enough to buy into the nonsense mis/dis/information styled propaganda of "This is the best time to buy" or the government's incentives to catch a falling knife with your bare hands (ex. tax incentives) have already been cut...
Not all debt is the same, so it would seem. Expect runs on Ireland, Greece and Portugal way before Japan despite the fact Japan has twice the debt as a proportion of GDP!
Google's Android is now the undisputed top selling mobile OS in the world, unseating Research in Motion's Blackberry, Apple's iOS and Nokia's Symbian/MeeGo in record time. Being that Android is essentially a front end to Google's cloud services and apps, does this mean that Google now has (or soon will have) more application reach than Microsoft - the world's largest software company? Pretty good performance for a search engine, eh?
What could the ruler of Egypt’s turmoils possible have to do with the
need to takeover even more banks in western Europe and the potential
default of several members of the PIIGS group? Read on, my dear friend…
It's not as if this couldn't have been seen coming. For those that believe this event, and all of the other events of the recent past, and the Pan-European Sovereign Debt Crisis, and the China bubble, and... Well I think you can taste the flavor of this post. Contagion is in the air. It's hard to determine precisely the where and the when, but I don't think the question is "if"...
I spent the majority of 2010 and a decent portion of 2009 warning
that massive debt simply does not just “go away”, particularly after
significant asset devaluation. The result of these two actions (once
combined) is the evaporation of equity, the waning of value, and the
ultimate destruction of capital. Sovereign nations and global financial
institutions alike have been dodging, ducking, weaving, fibbing, lying,
closing their eyes, sticking their collective heads in the sand and
kicking the can down the road for 3 years now.
Another entertaining video on the ultra-animated Max Keiser show discussing topics such as Goldman's
Facebook offering that never was, what happens when its the banks that
walk away from a home, phantom banking profits, Chuppies (Chinese Yuppies), and more
shenanigans that are the tour de force that is today's banking system
and economy. To skip directly to the Reggie Middleton interview, move to
11:55 in the video.
You've heard me say it ad nauseum! You've seen me demonstrate it in real time! Now read Bloomberg report it... Absolutely amazing that these guys can keep a client worth more than $15. I'm tempted to open up shop right next to them on West Street and hire the head marketing guy from Apple to go toe to toe!
As far back as 2009 (yes, over a year ago) I have been warning
readers and subscribers of the (not so) hidden risks of putbacks,
warranty and rep reserves, and the overly optimistic under reserving of
the big commercial banks.
