A regular commentator on BoomBustBlog has been attempting to make the case for a housing recovery based upon rising employment metrics. One of his primary arguments was rising hourly earnings. I thought I would take this time to point out that average hourly earnings can rise due to the fact that less people are working. The aggregate employment in the US has literally fell off of a cliff. Since you know that I love pictures, let’s do this graphically…
What do you think would do the most damage, the default of three EU nations or the collapse of Lehman Brothers? This may very well be a trick questions since the default of EU nations may very well bring on a banking collapse in and of itself.
Verizon inched past estimates, but actually turned lower subscriber
growth than AT&T, despite getting the iPhone and AT&T losing the
exclusive. Verizon’s net gain of post paid subscribers was much larger
than that of AT&T’s (who aggressively pushed high end Android phones
for the first time last quarter) – largely due to the introduction of
the iPhone, but the economic advantage of the iPhone in regards to
Verizon’s business appears to have be significantly overestimated. As a
result, AT&T is trading up on the news and Verizon is trading down.
The quarter AT&T loses iPhone exclusivity is the quarter they report record numbers. Why? They started pushing high end Android phones that more than made up for the iPhone loss. You really can't compete with "less than free"!
Google's post Q1 earnings reaction is one of the most blatant examples of nearsightedness I have seen for awile, rivaling the S&P AAA rating of subprime NINJA loan CDS writing monoliness using 120x leverage at the top of the housing market in 2007.
Of the major economic powers, China is the only economy that is
facing true inflation as I see it and China is primed for a hard landing
– at best. The US, EU, and UK face stagflation. After the AP excerpt
below is a clip from my recent keynote presentation at the ING Real
Estate Valuation seminar in Amsterdam on this very timely topic.
I’m fresh back from my trip to Amsterdam where I lectured hundreds of ING institutional clients/staff on the potential of a European banking collapse. Below are a few clips from the first of two lectures. The admonitions look to be quite timely as Greek spreads to Bunds break the millenium mark and head to the North Star. For those who haven't connected the dots, these bonds are held on many EU bank balance sheets as risk free in the hold to maturity category, and are levered up many, many times. Who's larger, the peripheral EU states or Lehman Brothers?
If you really don't think a Pan-European bank collapse may be in the cards, you really haven't been paying attention. Things are coming to a had much more quickly than even I anticipated, and you know I'm far from optimistic in this regard.
Here’s a quiz for you. An ages old correlation that has pretty much remained rock solid is now upon us. Real estate has been highly correlated to inflation and has acted as an inflation hedge for a very long time. This makes sense, since hard assets that both throw off income and have an actual demand for physical use (in other words, they have have intrinsic value) that hold when fiat currencies assimilate toilet paper in both value and use as input prices skyrocket. But that correlation is now broken - or is it???!!!
As I warned last year, Portugal is on the verge of getting bailed out. Just like its already bailed cousins in insolvency, Greece and Ireland, Portugal declared to the very last minute that they didn't need, and would not ask for a bailout. Credibility is the key!!! What many may be missing is that the cause of all of this mess is the overleveraging of banks into over valued real estate. The default or restructuring of debt in Portugal, Greece or Ireland (or realistically a combination that may include larger countries) will spike rates that will make the 2008 real estate crash look like a bull rally. Here's the lay of the land...
Stress test results are out. Ireland now has the ammunition to get real. For those who don't think an Irish haircut is realistically on the table, just remember that this was a campaign platform for the new government. This is what they used to get into office. In addition, the Danish lopped a sizable bang of hair off of its banks bondholders, and Denmark is still on the map. Yes, you can cut your lender's head and survive. Governments have a history of it. If Ireland goes that route, the "Euraclypse" (yeah, I stole that one from Tyler) floodgates are open.
One can be rest assured those Irish haircuts are coming. Will the other indebted EU nations just sit back as Ireland clips its debt without following suit? Doubtful! Remember, I have been warning of this event for over a year, and the daisy chain effect is still being ignored.
