Posted on 07/24/2009 8:46:57 PM PDT by george76
The commercial meltdown is phase two of the crash in stages.
Or Clintonomics, without the tech boom and Y2K.
EXCERPT G/S morphed into a commercial bank to take advantage of gov't handouts, yet Goldman is really a hedge fund on steroids, with trading accounting for 69% of gross revenue in the first quarter. A big chunk of its trading involves US govt debt -- federal, state and local. G/S has a huge vested interest in the US digging a deeper and deeper hole. Trading govt IOUs is big business.....one of the few growth markets on Wall Street. IPO's, M&A's, etc, have yet to recover but the US will borrow a record $3.25 trillion in the current fiscal year -- four times as much as in 2008.
With its biggest competitors out of business, G/S is a major toll collector on Washington's red-ink railroad, a "debt tsunami" that will lift Goldman's fortunes. G/S plays on the bankrupting of America -- the more we borrow, the more they make........ but the American public should know this side of the G/S profit miracle. Through savvy trading and management, G/S set aside $11.4B this year to compensate its employees on a playing field cleared of its top competitors and soon after Uncle Sam bailed-out G/S with $10B TARP-----and millions more through AIG-----all paid for by taxpayers.
TERRY KEENAN anchor of Cashin' In, Fox News Sat 11:30 AM. http://www.nypost.com/seven/07192009/business/good_for_goldman__bad_for_america_180130.htm Machine
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Goldman Sachs and the Next Bubble
American Spectator, July 13, 2009 | Robert Stacy McCain
FR Posted by RobinMasters
Goldman Sachs is expected to report record profits this week. Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi calls the giant investment bank a "vampire squid," and notes how many Goldman alumni were involved in last year's financial bailout, which benefitted the firm. Taibbi concludes:
It's early June in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs - its employees paid some $981,000 to his campaign - sits in the White House. Having seamlessly navigated the political minefield of the bailout era, Goldman is once again back to its old business, scouting out loopholes in a new government-created market with the aid of a new set of alumni occupying key government jobs.
Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites. . . . And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits - a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an "environmental plan," called cap-and-trade. Hope and Change!
“Delinquencies on commercial mortgage backed securities soared $10 billion in June, hitting a 12-month high of almost $29 billion...
California led the nation with the highest amount of delinquent loans, closely followed by Texas and Florida.
Late loans across the country are up an “astounding” 585 percent from a year ago when just $4 billion were delinquent... “
Change you can BELIEVE in!!
This thread should be required reading for the midterms and finals coming up in 2010 and 2012.
Sob.
Bought GE at 6.1 a few months ago, sold at 12.1. Time to short GE again ;-)
1) The govt controls the money
2) Too much govt regulation for business to think about profit
3) Too much political correctness. business money for homos and politicians.
The model for me is from the book Vampire Economy. There was a stock market in Germany, it continued to exist but everyone knew it didn't mean anything.
There is no real stock market under socialism. It is a lottery ticket, betting on what will go up and down.
If I’m not mistaken, the stock market in Weimar Germany absolutely screamed! We should check.
Forget not that, reality be damned, if there is that and only that way to make money during these times, then money will pile in far, far beyond anything that we might imagine. If the market itself is the only remaining bastion of capitalism, then money will bet on the winners and will almost certainly win.
I’m just saying, purely as a practical matter: Even with our hatred of scoialism; with our disdain for the types of business practices and overregulation we might imagine, let us simply open our eyes and allow for the possibility that we’re wrong. Not about socialism, but about the behavior of the market. It’s not necessarily a given that money will make the same types of statements we will about political systems.
Finally, the market before, during, and after socialism, is betting/gambling. But I’d not call it “a lottery ticket”, because the odds are gargantuanly better than 3,000,000:1. During the November and March swoons, the market resembled a lottery more than at most other times, because *every* stock was a loser. So, it can get that way, but it’s usually not that way for long. (though it has been) I will confess, the 50% recovery off the March lows we’ve seen is far, far beyond what I thought would occur as I make these platitudinous statements.
From The Vampire Economy (1939):
THE Berlin Stock Exchange still exists—as a building,
as an institution with large offices, with brokers and
bankers, with a huge organization for daily announcement
of stock and bond quotations. But it is only a
pale imitation of its former self and of what a stock
exchange is supposed to be. For the Stock Exchange
cannot function if and when the State regulates the flow
of capital and destroys the confidence of investors in
the sanctity of their property rights......................
http://www.mises.org/books/vampireeconomy.pdf
Thanks to the Freeper who brought the book to my attention whoever you are.
It shows the success of the One’s programs, doncha know? Without his stimulus package the commeercials would have committed even more crimes, those delinquents! Only the One and his annointed can community organize the markets like they do.
Very nice turn of the phrase...
bfl
Ah, the good old days. In the Gerald R. Ford Museum here in GR, there’s a huge reproduction of an editorial cartoon (screed/hatchet job/propaganda piece) that was used for a mag cover I think; it shows President Ford and SoS Kissinger in combat gear, and Ford is referring to “the wogs”. It’s a classic piece of partisan shilling by the partisan media shills of that time.
If we had a media which consistently followed its own myth of taking an adversarial role — that’s a role it only plays when Republicans, conservatives, Christians, Zionists, etc are discussed — we’d be seeing stuff as incendiary as the above plastered on mag covers, but referencing Obama and his various stupidities. He should have been run right out of office after bowing to his Saudi master — but there was little coverage.
Chicago area sees upswing in home foreclosures
July 30, 2009
BY FRANCINE KNOWLES fknowles@suntimes.com
The number of Chicago metropolitan area homes hit with a foreclosure filing spiked 30 percent in the first six months of the year compared to the same period a year earlier, according to a RealtyTrac report that signals rising unemployment is driving up foreclosures here and in other markets.
http://www.suntimes.com/business/1692664,CST-FIN-foreclose30web.article
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