October 08, 2008

OK, I'm back. I miss anything the past 48 hours?

You know, like a global economic meltdown, bank failures, country failures, and I hear there was a really boring debate too.


Anonymous said...

No Keith the debate was not boring.
I thought the most telling was the question Is health care a privilege, responsibility or right.
McCain: Responsibility
Obama: A Right.
Well that is it....
Obama is the leader we need. If anyone can sit here and justify what McCain said I would like you to visit St. Judes Hospital and explain that to the sick children without health Insurance. Hell even with health Insurance you are ruined financially if a member of your family gets ill.
What a thing to say.

Anonymous said...

You know... what I loved about this blog were the stories that people told of what they're friends, neighbours or family were doing before, during and after the housing panic.

Could you start another thread so that people can say what is going on in their lives that has been caused by the banking panic? How did people forsee this and what they did to prepare? What are they doing to prepare now?

Just a suggestion. Thanks.

Ross said...

What a thing to say.

Go back and listen to what he actually said.

Anonymous said...

Nah, ya didn’t miss much.
Europe is still pretending they are uber smarty pants.
And it’s all someone else’s fault.
European Engineers graduated in American collages are working on an even tiny’er car
that will only allow a shot glass size cup holder,
plan is show them environment destructing Americans the ‘grave impact’ Coffee has on Global warming.
By reducing the cup size from 8oz. to 2oz. the bold headed uber centralized committees in Brussels claim to delay a temperture drop of .0000036 Celsius in the next 500years.

So as you can see not much news,
aside from the fact that the violent and self righous soccer game rioters will not take it litely when they find themselves in a massive financial disaster.

Anonymous said...

Trichet has cut European Central Bank rates in 0.5% and considers dropping them more.
He freaked out. He stated that he will give unlimited loans and liquidity to banks in need, for as long as it takes... This sounds absurd to me.
European governments are saying that no one will loose any of their savings and that all savings are assured (literally, although they dont say were will they get the money from).
I think we are somewhat close to panic and (hope not) bank runs in europe. Thats what I make of all these statments by politicians and the head of ECB.


Anonymous said...

McCain lectured America about personality responsibility, then said the government should give homedebtors the difference between what they paid for their house and what it's worth now.

Anonymous said...


Anonymous said...

My cat just hurked up a hairball on the rug.

Well, it was news to me

Oh, and McCain refered to us all as'my fellow prisoners' at his rally today.

Anonymous said...

Anon 9:13pm,

If healthcare is a right, please tell us is it a right for every patient to demand servitude from the doctors and nurses for nothing? or is it a right for doctors and nurses to bill the taxpayers for whatever procedure they can think up thereby condemning all taxpayers to involuntary servitude? Which is it? Who is going to pay for the bureacrats watching over this "right"? and who will be their watchers? That is, unless you expect Obama himself to sit by the bed side of every patient in hospital 24/7 and perform miracles of healing; no doctors, nurses, medical administrators or taxpayers necessary. BTW, is the "right" to medicine really a superior "right" to, say, the "right" to food, clothing, shelter, etc. etc.? Where's my right to lobsters? That's what my doc says I have to have; chickens and beef just won't do for my current clinical obesession for lobsters.

St. Judes Hospital was founded as a private charity and operated for decades without government intervention. Fundamentally, medicine can only be cost effective when practioners go into it for the geuine love for fellow humanity, and patients seek help only when they really really need it; that's what beneficiary paying their own bills, with occasional help from private charities accomplish. Government throwing a ton of money at it, money robbed from third parties at gun point, would only lead to massive waste, exploitation of medicine for profit, and prohibitively expensive medical cost for all, like we have now.

Anonymous said...

Uncle Benny what part of the words - "YEN Carry Trade will unwind more if you lower interest rate" - did you not understand.

TED SPREAD widen more after you lower interest rate.


Financial market participants concerns' about the global banking system remained intense even after coordinated central bank interest rate cuts, and triggered a flight to safety.

The gap of London interbank offered rates over the 3-month U.S. Treasury bill rate widened to about 403 basis points on Wednesday, its biggest in at least a decade according to Reuters data.


The largest financial rescue package in history has so far failed to rally stock market investors or unlock frozen money markets despite receiving a cautious welcome from many economists and bankers.

Anonymous said...

Keith maybe you should answer this one.


Not long ago, I was addicted to real-estate blogs.

More precisely, I was fixated on what you might call the Internet's real estate disaster genre: HousingPanic.com, HousingDoom, FlippersInTrouble and, my favourite, ICan'tSellMyHouse.

As you might have guessed, my resolve had finally weakened.

So, in the spring of 2007, I bought a piece of paradise. The odds seemed on my side, I decided. At first the prices seemed to keep soaring.

Soon I was telling people at dinner parties how much my house had gone up, too.

Now I'm back to where I started.

The real-estate-disaster bloggers actually were prescient.

Wall Street is melting down because of the junk mortgages.

Bay Street is in a tailspin.

Now my almost daily question is what's going to happen here?

All I know is that I haven't the foggiest idea what's going to happen to the value of my house.

And now I've also got something other than real estate to obsess over.

My banker is mailing me my RRSP statements.

I'm afraid to look.

Anonymous said...

If hedge fund managers and speculators just tap the heels of their shoes together at the same time then just maybe the whole mess would all go alway.


A majority (55 per cent) of hedge fund managers believe the short selling ban will materially affect their ability to implement their investment strategy, according to a survey by the Alternative Investment Management Association of Australia (AIMA).


Japanese Yen Continues Rally as S&P 500 Volatility Index Hits Record-Highs


The Japanese yen outperformed, as usual, as risk aversion remained the dominant trend in the markets.


Yen Rises Beyond 100 level Against US Dollar As Carry Trade Unwinding Intensifies

In carry trade, investors borrow money from Japan where the interest rate is low to buy high yielding assets in other countries.

So, an unwinding of carry trades results in traders liquidating their investments and scrambling for yen to repay their yen-denominated loans, which pushes up the value of the Japanese currency.


It's redemption season for hedge funds, and as they give money back to their investors, that takes money out of the stock market.

While hedge fund redemption isn't the only, or even principal, reason for the Dow Jones Industrial Average's 15% drop this month, it is certainly one of the culprits.

edd browne said...

Googled ….

"failure of american education": 12,500
"america is joke" : 76,000
"america is dying" : 94,000
"americans are stupid": 298,000

Anonymous said...

Did any you make money last month, if so what strategies did you used.


The Hennessee Hedge Fund index, which tracks the performance of hundreds of managers, dropped 6.24% last month, leaving it down more than 10% so far this year, industry consultant Hennessee Group said on Wednesday.

"Despite being defensively positioned, September was the worst month for hedge funds in over a decade," Charles Gradante, Co-Founder of Hennessee Group, said in a statement.

The Securities and Exchange Commission ban on short selling of financial company shares "caused significant losses across most strategies and required funds to alter their trading models," Gradante explained.

The ban kicked in during September and most hedge fund losses happened after that as the intervention forced some managers to buy back stock to close bearish bets - a so-called short squeeze, he added.

Anonymous said...

The US is in a RECESSION according to economists.


By almost all accounts, the U.S. is now in a recession, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Anonymous said...

John McCain is my A-#1 choice for U.S. Presidential Prisoner of War!

Yay! Go go go McCain! Poop on Commies! Go Navy! Beat Army!