clocker bob wrote:Incoming torpedos at the US dollar. The Asian banks are squeezing the Fed like pythons. When China tripled their holdings of gold in their reserves back in the spring, commodities spiked.

Were you by any chance a screenwriter for Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace?

That movie had a plot about trade negotiations and politics. It did not make for a very good sci-fi movie.

Similarly, your yawn-a-thon thread doesn't make for good messageboard reading either.

matthew wrote:

clocker bob wrote:...Fed's equity and housing bubbles...

the tech/'net bubble of the gay '90's.

Aye, the times we had!

stewie wrote:
Similarly, your yawn-a-thon thread doesn't make for good messageboard reading either.

You have no idea what you are about to witness.

matthew wrote: she says that there's no bubble.

US house price fall steepest since 1970

By Daniel Pimlott in New York

Published: October 26 2006 17:37

Prices for newly built American homes have suffered their largest drop year-on-year since 1970, according to data released yesterday, highlighting the dramatic nature of the downturn of the US housing sector.

matthew wrote: The whole "housing bubble" is crap.

Manufacturing sputters as housing slump spreads

By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa Wed Nov 1, 4:47 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. manufacturing growth edged closer to stagnation in October as a housing-led economic slowdown hurt demand across a wide variety of sectors, according to reports on Wednesday.

Weak construction spending and pending home sales data suggested the housing market's misfortunes were far from over, and its effects were being felt in other areas of the economy.

Softer-than-expected car sales for October also indicated a recent pullback in consumption had yet to abate.

"The broader economy is now slowing, and slowing sharply," said Richard Iley, senior economist at BNP Paribas.

The Institute for Supply Management's factory index slipped to 51.2 last month from 52.9 in September, below Wall Street forecasts and its lowest level since June 2003.

The measure was close to the break-even reading of 50 that separates growth from contraction.

Norbert Ore, the head of the ISM Business Survey Committee, said he would not be surprised to see the ISM figure dip into recessionary territory.

The shakiness in manufacturing comes at a time when the U.S. economy is already facing considerable headwinds. Growth in gross domestic product slowed in the third quarter to a paltry annual rate of 1.6 percent, its slowest growth rate since the first quarter of 2003.

U.S. stocks fell on fears of an economic downturn, while safe-haven government debt prices climbed on expectations that such softness could lead to interest-rate cuts next year.

"There is more weakness out there than the average investor realizes," said Robert MacIntosh, chief economist at Eaton Vance Management.

The housing sector was leading the way. U.S. construction spending fell 0.3 percent in September led by a sixth straight monthly drop in private residential building. In a separate report, a real estate group said pending sales of existing homes dropped 1.1 percent in September.

matthew wrote:
The whole "housing bubble" is crap.

wall street journal / real estate journal, 11/6/06 wrote:Home Buyers Back Out Of Deals in Record Numbers

Now is not the time to close the deal, many buyers are deciding

By June Fletcher and Ruth Simon

A little over a year ago, buyers couldn't wait to sign contracts to purchase homes. Now, many can't wait to get out of them.

With real-estate prices falling around the country and even pro-industry trade groups predicting further declines over the next year, buyers are backing away from deals in droves. At a semiannual housing forecast conference in Washington, D.C. recently, economists reported that contract-cancellation rates for big builders were running around 40 percent — about twice as high as last year's levels. Anecdotally, real-estate professionals say they are seeing a similar dynamic in existing-home sales.

Some of the cancellations are by people who signed new-home contracts at one price months ago, haven't yet closed, and are now stunned to see the builder drastically cutting prices on identical properties. Some are by speculators caught short by other investments they can't unload. And some are by people trapped in a chain reaction: They can't sell their old home — or the buyer has canceled the contract — so they are being forced to cancel the deal on a new house they are buying somewhere else.

This is called: waiting for the floor ( or waiting to see how much air can be squeezed out of the bubble ).

Matthew: your sister's income depends on the market for new mortgages- do you really think she'll be the canary in the coal mine? Dork...

clocker bob wrote:The Hemmorhaging Dollar And The Crisis Response Team

I hate Panic! At The Disco.

matthew wrote:

clocker bob wrote:...Fed's equity and housing bubbles...

Brother Bob, you're a doofus. The whole "housing bubble" is crap. My sister is an associate VP of institutional sales at FBR and my brother-in-law is a senior analyst at a hedge fund which spun off of SAC (he was at SAC before he went over to the fund he's at now). I've had numerous discussions about the whole housing bubble thing with them and have done my own homework on it. My sister deals with mortgages all day long.......that's pretty much all she does......and she says that there's no bubble. It's not there....the whole housing boom (not bubble) is so unlike, say, the tech/'net bubble of the gay '90's that it doesn't even bear comparison. So please don't throw terms like "housing bubble" around so carelessly, Captain Kirk.

raw story wrote:Growing home foreclosure crisis could seep into rest of US economy
Josh Catone Thursday March 22, 2007

2007 could be a record year for home foreclosures in the US, reports BusinessWeek.

Perhaps as many as 2.2 million homeowners nationally could lose their homes in the next few years, said Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), chairman of the senate banking committee according to BusinessWeek.

"Officials blame the weak economy and housing market and a rash of subprime loans for the high numbers, and the unusual prevalence of vacant houses" for the large number of foreclosures, reports the New York Times.

That's a slip up right there. The government mouthpieces ( who include the President ) are never supposed to speak the words 'weak economy', and the business media cheerleaders are not supposed to connect the mortgage market crash to a weak ( gasping ) general economy. They're supposed to explain it away as 'overambitious loans' or something.

stewie wrote: your yawn-a-thon thread doesn't make for good messageboard reading either.

Chart?

The dollar has been getting pummeled by the Yen and the Euro for the past two months. The only way the Fed can protect it is to raise rates. If they raise rates, they move one step closer to tipping the whole mortgage market over.

syntaxfree07 wrote:You were belittling a tragedy in the Balkans to serve your interests.

Nope, I pointed out that the size of the war crimes committed by the Serbs were inflated to sell the bombing. I have the facts on my side, and you had your belief that your government and media told you the truth. Sorry if such misguided beliefs make you feel stupid and small.

It's obvious that you don't care to see the truth. You would rather condense a complicated mess into a conspiracy theory.

My theories are just as complicated as the mess they describe.

There is tragedy all over the world. No one person or administration is accountable.

Idiot. Occasionally, one person or administration is responsible for what they have done- ever hear of Iraq? You're just rambling now, like somebody talking to himself on a bus bench.

It is convenient for you to believe this because it makes you feel as though your smack-talk regarding the government is righteous. You're barely convincing yourself and you have lost sight of more important things.

Like what? The power of rock and roll?

You're an opportunist. A scavenger. Stop printing the articles' of others'.

You're nothing but a mouthpiece. You may as well be denying the holocaust.

You eat-up this shit you read on internet-news sites and regurgitate it (as if it wasn't mangled enough, already).

You mangle pretty well yourself, Mister Weird Hyphen Placement.

Think about it. Your elaborate theories have made the world very simple for you.

Jealous?