you might want to turn this into an Instapopulist.
I saw it too and it's really damning....14.5%
That's of people who could even get a credit card are literally abandoning their debt, which I think for most people is pretty serious for them to do that. I don't know what the ratio is for charge-offs vs. people declaring bankruptcy soon after, that would be of interest...
So, ok, now we're hearing from a variety of places:
1. we won't get any real financial/regulatory reform
2. some are starting to realize the U.S. has major structural problems with the economy
(to the point of cyclical people I am wondering if they live in a vacuum, and yes that is also a physics geek pun)
Looks like the small uptick in the 2nd quarter is over.
(Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. credit- card lenders, said defaults climbed in August as the unemployment rate jumped and the impact of tax refunds waned.
...
The industry’s data may signal that the second quarter’s improvement will be short-lived as tax refunds and federal efforts to stimulate the economy run out. Defaults tend to track the jobless rate, which dipped in July for the first time since the start of the recession before resuming its climb to 9.7 percent in August.
The rise “suggests that the past several months’ data may have benefited from seasonal factors and that the consumer credit cycle has not yet run its full course,” Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Chris Kotowski wrote today in a research note.
Bank of America said write-offs rose to 14.54 percent, the highest among the six U.S. lenders reporting today. That compares with 13.81 percent in July, according to a federal filing by the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company.
Citigroup’s soured loans rose to 12.14 percent last month, from 10.03 percent, while JPMorgan said write-offs advanced to 8.73 percent from 7.92 percent in July, according to a federal filing. Both are based in New York.
I believe that the majority of the stimulus was under contract. The Green Corps stuff isn't, and certain states and localities might route things through their Department of Public Works, but most of it is probably private contractors.
Then again, this is something of an exception - normally, private contracting limits the number of jobs created, because contractors generally already have a workforce, tend to use a small number of skilled workers plus lots of machinery, and only therefore hire at the margins.
However, with unemployment at 9.7% officially, and unemployment so centered in the construction industry, it's probably more efficient than it would be in a normal recession.
It's getting tougher and tougher to find embeddable (legally) online documentaries but I dug as best I could on infrastructure this last Friday.
It's much worst than I originally thought and it's so obvious just focusing in on these not only would be a great jobs program, complete with skills training because a lot of the work is not unskilled, but also is such a great way to invest in America.
I haven't dug into as much as I'd like to find in terms of contracts in Stimulus for infrastructure, it could use a lot more research as a topic, but I saw that one system was using the Iraq no-bid system as well as corruption, cronyism in state disbursements...
And point to you to his blog post on asking about the same things we are, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders has said from the beginning....if banks are so big they can bring down a global economy, i.e. "too big to fail" they obviously they need to be broken up.
Great blog post (and please go read it because this particular visual takes a while to put together), noticing no one mentions anti-trust laws these days. Perhaps it's because of all of the woes with Microsoft, only to have the whole effort ignored, buried and never mentioned once the Bush administration got into office.
The Empire Survey, which is a manufacturer's survey in New York State really popped up.
I don't have any correlation to this survey vs. national manufacturing stats so I decided to put it in a comment.
The Empire State Manufacturing Survey indicates that conditions for New York manufacturers improved in September, following the upturn first observed in August. The general business conditions index increased 7 points, to 18.9, its highest level since late 2007. The new orders index was positive and higher than last month, while the shipments index dipped. The prices paid index rose several points to its highest level in many months, and the prices received index, while negative, inched close to zero. The index for number of employees remained in negative territory, while the average workweek index moved above zero for the first time in a year. Future indexes remained relatively high and close to their August levels, suggesting that conditions are expected to improve further in the months ahead. Indeed, the future general business conditions index reached its highest level in several years.
This is assuredly a very good sign, although their employment numbers are still negative.
Folks, EP is a community blog a team blog. We need more people to comment, participate and don't forget to promote posts to the front page you believe are worthy of it.
Seems like the readers are still around but the group participation and contribution rate is way down.
Dylan Ratigan has written pretty much a. the truth and b. a Populist manifesto on the entire financial crisis and bail out.
If you don't know who he is, he used to be on "everything's fine, don't worry, be happy" CNBC in Fast Money, doing daily stock picks, Pops & Drops after the market closed.
He abruptly left CNBC and now has his own show on MSNBC and is obviously now having a hell of a lot of pent up stuff on what he must have wanted to say on CNBC for years...
anyway, he's doing a great job and makes no bones about the financial oligarchy holding America hostage.
In that clip, was that a clown playing Geithner or was that Geithner the Clown???
Seriously though, I would truly support a 3-woman ticket for the presidency: Elizabeth Warren for president, Meredith Whitney for VP, and Cynthia McKinney to head the combined posts of Secretary of Labor, Commerce, State and Defense.
On an even more serious note: few realize that the US Chamber of Commerce is in actuality a multinational, with subsidiaries in India, China, Venezuela, Honduras and elsewhere (their sub in India is called the Indian Business Council, in Venezuela its also called the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, etc.).
Whether it is the US Chamber of Commerce, the Aspen Institute, the American Enterprise Insitute, the Heritage Foundation or the two most powerfuly lobbyist groups in the nation -- the Bretton Woods Committee and the American Securitization Forum -- they should all be permanently abolished.
This would make a great "once and for all, quit the spin" blog post because we, as well as Ritholtz, Naked Capitalism, Calculated Risk, even Bloomberg and the New York Times at this point are all saying the stuff is toxic because it's worthless. Yet trying to claim it's just a liquidity issue almost tries to mask the great swindle of history with those CDOs and corresponding credit ratings.
I haven't read Bail Out Nation, Ritholtz's book on this yet.
Pretty damn amazing, but also amazing how global trade is busy spending a lot of costs, energy, just to get goods made with cheap labor too. How much does that add to the costs, to ship around the globe cheap goods?
Remember, the values at which subprime mortgage bonds were trading at reflected "irrational fear" and "unreasonable expectations of default."
As of last week, the ABX index of sub-prime mortgage debt showed that AAA-rated securities from early 2007 were trading at 28 cents on the dollar – AA was at 4 cents, near all-time lows. No one can say that $2 trillion (£1.2 trillion) of sub-prime and Alt-A debt is still trading at panic levels, exaggerating losses. The dust has settled. What we can see is that creditors will never recoup their money.
More than a year later, it is clear: There was no panic; this was a JUSTIFIED level of trading and reflects the ugly reality - the investors in those bonds will NEVER get their money back.
They were swindled, to be blunt. "AA" bonds trading at 4 cents and "AAA" at 28? Remember folks, "AAA" credits are supposed to have a probability of default roughly equivalent to that of the Sun colliding with the earth.
There is not now and never was a "liquidity" problem. The problem is, has been, and continues to be a bankruptcy problem. Individuals, corporations and even governments are in fact insolvent. Most banks are and were insolvent.
It sounds like they are putting some of their toxic debt out onto the market but with a guarantee.
It's all revolving around this Fed emergency program, which frankly I never researched into.
FAQ on TLGP.
I mean it sure looks like the U.S. taxpayer is on the hook, guaranteeing the value of more derivatives but is that right?
Bloomberg at least quotes if Citigroup was interested in showing they were healthy they would issue not guaranteed by the FDIC debt bonds.
Ya just gotta love the blogs. I had said I didn't know if the Empire Survey correlated to statistical reality...
Well, ya gotta read this post where he went through the survey history and correlated it.
(it's way off). Great post.
you might want to turn this into an Instapopulist.
I saw it too and it's really damning....14.5%
That's of people who could even get a credit card are literally abandoning their debt, which I think for most people is pretty serious for them to do that. I don't know what the ratio is for charge-offs vs. people declaring bankruptcy soon after, that would be of interest...
So, ok, now we're hearing from a variety of places:
1. we won't get any real financial/regulatory reform
2. some are starting to realize the U.S. has major structural problems with the economy
(to the point of cyclical people I am wondering if they live in a vacuum, and yes that is also a physics geek pun)
Looks like the small uptick in the 2nd quarter is over.
I'll check that out.
FMN - Friday Movie Night, it's in the blog list at the top, marked Infrastructure.
Every week I try to locate as best I can good media on economic related topics and tried to grab infrastructure documentaries, reports.
Not familiar with the acronym.
I believe that the majority of the stimulus was under contract. The Green Corps stuff isn't, and certain states and localities might route things through their Department of Public Works, but most of it is probably private contractors.
Then again, this is something of an exception - normally, private contracting limits the number of jobs created, because contractors generally already have a workforce, tend to use a small number of skilled workers plus lots of machinery, and only therefore hire at the margins.
However, with unemployment at 9.7% officially, and unemployment so centered in the construction industry, it's probably more efficient than it would be in a normal recession.
It's getting tougher and tougher to find embeddable (legally) online documentaries but I dug as best I could on infrastructure this last Friday.
It's much worst than I originally thought and it's so obvious just focusing in on these not only would be a great jobs program, complete with skills training because a lot of the work is not unskilled, but also is such a great way to invest in America.
I haven't dug into as much as I'd like to find in terms of contracts in Stimulus for infrastructure, it could use a lot more research as a topic, but I saw that one system was using the Iraq no-bid system as well as corruption, cronyism in state disbursements...
Forgot to mention this was a cross-post from The Realignment Project.
.
We're getting picked up in a new feed as a major economics blog here.
All the more reason to write and write carefully, cited, well.
We're ranked about 29th and then 36ths in economics blog rankings...
so ya all, it's pretty clear by content we've built up a nice reputation.
across cable. To "debate" to "censor" Heckler during Obama's health care speech.
Good God, if this nation can jump on the trivial or business useless, say Shivo, Clinton's impeachment and so on, by God they will.
Think CNN, Fox and MSNBC would broadcast live a floor debate on say financial regulatory reform? Or even any legislation on executive bonuses? No way.
I'm going to borrow his well done graphic:
And point to you to his blog post on asking about the same things we are, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders has said from the beginning....if banks are so big they can bring down a global economy, i.e. "too big to fail" they obviously they need to be broken up.
Great blog post (and please go read it because this particular visual takes a while to put together), noticing no one mentions anti-trust laws these days. Perhaps it's because of all of the woes with Microsoft, only to have the whole effort ignored, buried and never mentioned once the Bush administration got into office.
Hopefully this data will translate nationally.
The Empire Survey, which is a manufacturer's survey in New York State really popped up.
I don't have any correlation to this survey vs. national manufacturing stats so I decided to put it in a comment.
This is assuredly a very good sign, although their employment numbers are still negative.
Folks, EP is a community blog a team blog. We need more people to comment, participate and don't forget to promote posts to the front page you believe are worthy of it.
Seems like the readers are still around but the group participation and contribution rate is way down.
I can pay off my mortgage at this rate? I'll get my checkbook.
Or maybe they can be packaged for the PPIP.
Frank T.
Dylan Ratigan has written pretty much a. the truth and b. a Populist manifesto on the entire financial crisis and bail out.
If you don't know who he is, he used to be on "everything's fine, don't worry, be happy" CNBC in Fast Money, doing daily stock picks, Pops & Drops after the market closed.
He abruptly left CNBC and now has his own show on MSNBC and is obviously now having a hell of a lot of pent up stuff on what he must have wanted to say on CNBC for years...
anyway, he's doing a great job and makes no bones about the financial oligarchy holding America hostage.
In that clip, was that a clown playing Geithner or was that Geithner the Clown???
Seriously though, I would truly support a 3-woman ticket for the presidency: Elizabeth Warren for president, Meredith Whitney for VP, and Cynthia McKinney to head the combined posts of Secretary of Labor, Commerce, State and Defense.
On an even more serious note: few realize that the US Chamber of Commerce is in actuality a multinational, with subsidiaries in India, China, Venezuela, Honduras and elsewhere (their sub in India is called the Indian Business Council, in Venezuela its also called the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, etc.).
Whether it is the US Chamber of Commerce, the Aspen Institute, the American Enterprise Insitute, the Heritage Foundation or the two most powerfuly lobbyist groups in the nation -- the Bretton Woods Committee and the American Securitization Forum -- they should all be permanently abolished.
This would make a great "once and for all, quit the spin" blog post because we, as well as Ritholtz, Naked Capitalism, Calculated Risk, even Bloomberg and the New York Times at this point are all saying the stuff is toxic because it's worthless. Yet trying to claim it's just a liquidity issue almost tries to mask the great swindle of history with those CDOs and corresponding credit ratings.
I haven't read Bail Out Nation, Ritholtz's book on this yet.
Src: Richard Jones, Sinopix
Pretty damn amazing, but also amazing how global trade is busy spending a lot of costs, energy, just to get goods made with cheap labor too. How much does that add to the costs, to ship around the globe cheap goods?
Pretty f*cked.
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