The capital well is running dry and some economies will wither
2009-04-27 Telegraph.co.uk
Unless this capital is forthcoming, a clutch of countries will prove unable to roll over their debts at a bearable cost. Those that cannot print money to tide them through, either because they no longer have a national currency (Ireland, Club Med), or because they borrowed abroad (East Europe), run the biggest risk of default.
Traders already whisper that some governments are buying their own debt through proxies at bond auctions to keep up illusions – not to be confused with transparent buying by central banks under quantitative easing. This cannot continue for long.
Commercial Real Estate Time Bomb Goes Off But No One Notices
2009-04-23 Mish’s Global Economic blog
The Commercial Real Estate Time Bomb has gone off but it has been lost in the euphoria of economic cheerleading and bottom calls based on dubious (at best) earnings reports from banks. Here are a few headline items from the past week or so to consider.
Malls shedding stores at record pace
CNN Money is reporting Malls shedding stores at record pace
Strip malls, neighborhood centers and regional malls are losing stores at the fastest pace in at least a decade, as a spending slump forces retailers to trim down to stay afloat, according to a real estate industry report.
In just the first quarter of 2009, retail tenants at these centers have vacated 8.7 million square feet of commercial space, according to the latest report from New York-based real estate research firm Reis.
That number exceeds the 8.6 million square feet of retail space that was vacated in all of 2008.
Reis’report shows that store vacancy rates at malls rose 9.5% in the first quarter, outpacing the 8.9% vacancy rate registered in all of 2008, and marking the largest single-quarter jump in vacancies since Reis began publishing quarterly figures in 1999.
For Housing Crisis, the End Probably Isn’t Near
2009-04-22 NYTimes.com
In 2006 and early 2007, the official housing statistics were still showing that house prices were holding up. But that was largely because so many sellers were refusing to sell. The auctions, made up mostly of foreclosed homes, showed the truth: house values were starting to plummet in many places.
So a few weeks ago, I decided to go to an auction at a hotel ballroom in Washington — and to study the results of several others elsewhere — with an eye to figuring out whether prices may now be close to bottoming out.
That’s clearly a huge economic question. Last week, JPMorgan’s chief financial officer told Eric Dash of The New York Times that JPMorgan, and presumably other banks, would be under pressure “until home prices stabilize and unemployment peaks.”
A Backdoor Nationalization of Banks?
2009-04-21 WallStreetJournal.com
It seems we are off to the races with the gov’t being the primary shareholder of bank interests. Good Lord, what’s next?
Is That Recovery We See?
2009-04-11 Ritzhoild.com
Is That Recovery We See?
By John Mauldin
- Is That Recovery We See?
- Those Wild and Crazy Analysts
- The Shadow Inventory of Homes
- Commercial Real Estate Starts a Long, Slow Slide
- P/E Ratios Go Negative!
- The Effect of Earnings Surprises
- Corporate Earnings and Recovery in Recessions
- The Implosion in Social Security
The market, we keep hearing and reading, is telling us that there is recovery around the corner. And pundits point to data that seems to suggest the worst is behind us. The leading economic indicators, while still down significantly, seem to be in the process of bottoming. There is a large amount of stimulus in the pipeline. Mark-to-market has been modified. Housing seems to be finding a bottom, if you look at the rise in sales from January. And so on.”
Gerald Calente – The World’s #1 Trends Forecaster
www.trendresearch.com - Meet Gerald Calente
If Nostradamus were alive today, he’d have a hard time keeping up with Gerald Celente. — New York Post
Read this terribly frightening article Greald wrote about the economy to come.
“It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many more.” …..
“We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well. It’s going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs – over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension.”
Close Look at the Accelerating Rate of Unemployment
2009-04-09 Mish’s Global Economic Blog
The trend in unemployment is unmistakably up and accelerating. Let’s start with a discussion of widely followed data followed by many additional charts that you may not have seen before.
Here is a closeup from Jobs Contract 15th Straight Month; Unemployment Rate Soars to 8.5% courtesy of the BLS.
JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Wells Fargo and More Than 1,800 Other Institutions Believed to Be at Risk of Failure Based on Fourth Quarter 2008 Data
2009-04-09 Businesswire.com
JUPITER, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Several of the nation’s largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Wells Fargo, Sun Trust Bank, HSBC Bank USA, plus more than 1,800 regional and smaller institutions are at risk of failure despite government bailouts, according to Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D., president of Weiss Research, Inc., an independent research firm.
The analysis is based on Fourth Quarter 2008 data from TheStreet.Com and the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Several large institutions received significant ratings downgrades from the prior quarter, including Citibank, downgraded from C- to D; Wells Fargo, downgraded from C- to D+; and SunTrust Bank, downgraded from C- to D+.
California Foreclosures About To Soar
2009-04-09 ZeroHedge Blog
The bottom line is that there is a massive wave of actual foreclosures that will hit beginning in April that can’t be stopped without a national moratorium — this wave is so big I would not put it past them trying it.
CA foreclosure background – in mid-2008 the foreclosure wave was artificially held back as a result of the CA law SB1137 enacted in Sept 2008. This also kept NOD’s and NTS’s at much lower levels than the actual defaults that were occurring. Other bubble states and several banks/servicers also went on random moratoria and the foreclosure wave was held back for the past six months. But just like so many other intervention and moratoria in the past, the problem just comes out the other side even more violent than if they would have done nothing. Adding insult to injury, the GSE’s announced this week that they were coming off moratorium, which could increase foreclosures by 20-25% alone.
Moyers Interview: Sharing the Blame for the Economic Crisis?
EXCELLENT!
Must Watch!
Bill Moyers Journal
Sharing the Blame for the Economic Crisis?…
William K. Black, former senior bank regulator
3 parts
wow.
Be Prepared for “Extraordinary Circumstances”
2009-04-02 Mishes Global Trends
The last words you want to see in an appropriations bill from Congress are the words “in case of an emergency” or their twin sister “in the event of extraordinary circumstances“.
When you see those words it is a near certainty that an “emergency” or that “extraordinary circumstances” are right around the corner.
50 Truths about the Economy…. Run for Cover!!
2009-03-26 – blogspot.com
These are just a few simple realities under which we currently exist. To deny the existence of one or more of these truths does not make it go away. And as time goes by, the effects of these truths becomes magnified and the gravity of our situation becomes more clear. The worst is yet to come. Please prepare wisely
50 truths: The simple, underlying fundamentals of a dying system. The Top 10:
- Unemployment is increasing
- Federal tax revenues are decreasing
- Consumer spending is decreasing
- The risk of catastrophic Deflation is increasing
- The risk of catastrophic Hyperinflation is increasing
- The U.S. debt is increasing
- The U.S. deficit is increasing
- The risk that the U.S. government will eventually find itself unable to service its debt is increasing
- Homelessness is increasing
- Poverty is increasing
See all of them at the link below…
Which Trend Do You Think We Are On?
So, we are on the blue continuum. It appears that it almost matches the 30′s Depressionary numbers. I feel we will see another deep, dark drop shortly. The current upswing has very little bering on the condition of the full economy.
Full Size Chart here: http://dshort.com/charts/bears/four-bears-large.gif
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