UBS is an interesting case to me because they have already acted differently from the Wall Street crowd:

UBS actually already charged losses against some of their WEALTHIEST clients' money market funds instead of just lying, covering up, and holding out their hand for alms. Is that evidence that some of the smart ones actually see what's coming at them?

Perhaps in response to this scandal about tax evading clients: They will state that tax issues involving accredited investors are the investors' business: UBS has told its clients it expects them to use their own discretion and the advice of their own tax attorneys regarding any questionable services their wealthy clients are asking for.

What I wish to see eventually happen is that UBS KEEPS its charter to operate in the U.S. and is caused (I wish I knew how to influence their executives) to protect law-abiding clients and throw the law-breaking clients (wealthy lying ones!) to the wolves, and also exhort other banks in the U.S. who are now protecting their "wealthy" clients (all over the world) at the expense of their working-class clients in the U.S. to do the same: Make the Fraudsters eat their own cooking!

If the U.S. investigators have any brains, (or even just cojones) they will make UBS plea-bargain, and bite the bullet, and loudly sing whatever songs are necessary to coerce the likes of Chase J.P.Morgan to follow suit, thus saving the World economy in aggregate from a lot of loss it cannot afford, and charge it back against the profits of the rich guys that tried to get away with all those "rocket-science-models justified" white lies.

These wealthy people, we could guess who they are, can't we?, could afford to pay, and they would still be wealthy afterward, and more law-abiding to boot!

After all, they can afford the best lawyers, can't they? And I doubt that they would come out on the streets with pitchforks and protest.

I would like to see

1.UBS penalized to the max (Possible - IRS needs money)

2. Clients in orange jumpsuits

3 UBS executives in orange jumpsuits


My worthless politicians notified again to do something.

Quote:

The Fed, along with others, wonders why people might be stashing their money in things like oil, where you know how many gallons of gasoline you can refine from a barrel?

I see this also in the Transports index. You know you are buying 'last man standing' business. I'll guess UPS and Fedex are about to report productivity gains via more deliveries per mile as shoppers eliminate a trip or two a month and opt for quality by mail instead. UPS, the new 'block ice'.

Hope you were fishing today Gen. Little late with the ticker but if you were fishing you must not do it like me. Bait the hook and throw it in. Then open the cooler. And do it again and again till the cooler is empty. I don't think I could write a blog after fishing.

Nice ticker again. Pull their charter (ubs). I'd give them 90 days to either uncover all tax evasion and pay double in fines or sell their US operations.

Enjoyed the chart depicting the most severe home price declines since and including the Great Depression. I am including it in an appeal to my county tax appraiser since they have decided to jack up the value of my home well beyond its Fair Market Value in order to******me on property taxes.

Son of a bitch Kudlow represents everything that's wrong with this nation. Scumbag corrupt liar!

Great ticker.

What a fun, yet frightful Friday Ticker. I recall a sunny day last August when I saw Cramer go berserk on CNBC about the Fed and recall thinking, he could be right. I think I sent it to everyone I know. Most people did nothing.

Now three are broke. Another has lost a small fortune trading stocks. Others piled into treasuries and have seen a dramatic drop in their income.

But what still amazes me is that so far, apparently only one municipality has gone broke, and the FDIC has only seized 2 banks.

From the humor department courtesy of the Detroit Free Press 5/30/08.

"Greektown Casino has asked a federal court for approval to reorganize its finances and continue business operations under the protection of Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians announced today."

“We are not closing, we are not bankrupt,” said spokesman Roger Martin.

Now there you have the ultimate DOUBLE FREAKING SPEAK. They petitioned for bankruptcy, but they aren't bankrupt. The article goes on to say they have a "liquidity issue".

When people here in Las Vegas have a so-called liquidity issue, they go to local Dollar Loan Center for a short term TAF at an astonishing 199.99% APR.

Idiot Nation?

I'm not sure California, or any state, can start distinguishing between those who are illegally in the country and those who aren't. To do this turns not only every local police officer into a Federal INS agent, but every doctor and nurse, every teacher, every social services representative, and every state clerk. A lot of these folks don't want to be INS agents and I can't say I blame them.

On the other hand if Homeland Security can't or won't enforce federal immigration laws, then the States are faced with either paying the bill for doing the job for them, or paying the bill to handle the increased workload.

What we really need is for the Federal Government to enforce its laws (where have we heard that before).

Anybody want to be directly involved? Border Patrol is hiring: http://www.cbp.gov

The hell they can't Sonder.

They are in fact explicitly refusing.

Since you are citing The Economist Magazine on housing.........

A couple of weeks ago this article was presented by The Economist:

http://www.economist.com/finance/display....

I know that the "Map of Misery" has been posted before, but the article above used two different methods to analyze home price declines (both I believe are based on flawed assumptions, but on the right track).

Using both methods......the conclusion:

House price declines in America are only halfway done.

I'm ambivalent about the illegals.

There are obvious costs from the illegals such as medical care and education. But there are also benefits such as industries that would likely be shipped abroad (or just shutdown) if not for the cheap labor, and taxes (an illegal that uses someone else's SS# has money taken from their paycheck, but that money is NOT credited to the legitimate owner of that SS#... it just goes straight to the govt coffers forever and ever).

I'd want to see an exhaustive breakdown of all the pros and cons before staking out a position on this. Even if the net affect is negative, I suspect that California has bigger problems.

Oh yea, Adrenaline how do you outsource picking strawberries and grapes?

You don't. You close the business completely and grow strawberries and grapes in another country.

Is it possible that the attack on UBS is due to them taking the hits and not playing "hide the sausage" along with the other banks or at least not to the extent? Or that the American banking industry is trying to scare American capital harbored abroad back to America?

I'm thinking there are additional motives behind recent events other than the most obvious and those presently trumpeted. Wealthy Americans have kept some funds in Europe for decades so why all the recent fuss? Also I would have thought that Volker when he made his big investigation of the Swiss banks some time back would have uncovered a few accounts held by Americans but nothing in this area came to light.

No video today?

Quote:

Yes, the credit crunch is over, and the economy is not going into recession.

So said Kudlow last night.

Oh Really? Well, we had our first emergency call Friday morning for a short sale that had jumped through all the hoops and the Title Company had called the lender to let them know we were ready to close.

The Lender had yanked the loan program the buyer was pre-approved for to submit the offer. (You have to submit proof of ability to fund when you make an offer on a short sale.) We had just put our first two short sales into the ready to close bin and there is a deadline to close, already set by the bank that has the short sale, we can't change for this transaction. The woman who called our office to tell us said this was the beginning of what was going to become the nightmare. She had stacks and stacks of loan packages that were ready to close but now needed to be informed they had to go find another loan. They didn't even offer another loan program, which kind of makes me think they aren't capable of funding anything at the moment.

Luckily this buyer is financially astute and credit worthy. He already has another Bank writing the loan and he'll have approval by Monday. The paperwork was done by the end of the day. He should be able to make the deadline.

But, I think we have a lot of surprises coming down the road, as we have seen reported that many banks are yanking loan products that have already been approved. Perhaps another reason the Banks in pre-foreclosure and short sale situations better streamline their process if they want a sale to close. They are taking too long to process offers, and some of the buyer pre-approvals are going to dry up before they can get to the closing table.

We're only talking about a $100,000 loan here, and these are distressed properties in what are still good neighborhoods, so the buyer with the willingness and ability to get them back up to standards need to be brought in now, before the neighborhoods turn into more vacant houses than occupied homes. It's just getting tougher and tougher to try and turn this around, no matter how low the prices go. The sale price is at 2001 levels. Long before the boom even hit this area. Scary!

There have to be some very simple ways to have immigrant worker visas. And have those people here legally. Hell we can put ankle bracelets on prisoners and keep them in their homes. Bracelets can detect alcohol in past DUI offenders. And I'm sure technology can be improved. I don't necessarily advocate ankle bracelets but its an idea to be kicked around. And the employer could be responsible for the cost.

There is no doubt that we need immigrants here to fill some jobs, but there is also no doubt that we as a country do not need to be burdened by the cost. Perhaps we require that the companies that pay these workers carry health insurance for them, or we require as a condition of entry that immigrants purchase insurance. But to not require this in some form and then mandate that we provide medical care is in fact a subsidy for the strawberry growers,etc.

We as a country can no longer afford free handouts to those who are not in need or deserving of them. Farm subsidies are one area that comes to mind and as a minority partner in a family farming limited partnership. I am paid by the gov to not grow crops on part of our farm, is this crazy when there is not enough food to go around. We are burning our food as fuel. We refuse to allow drilling offshores, we give tax breaks to those buying trucks over 3 tons. We don't have any tax incentives though for those who purchase fuel efficient cars. We have no transparency for our financial systems. Hide the sausage wherever.

And why do we have such problems? Because of our system of allowing our elected representatives to be bought and paid for and our electorate not holding those elected officials responsible. Hell this year I might just vote for all non incumbents, regardless of party affiliation or philosophy.

There was a mentioning in the last ticker of the two recent horrible Treasuries Auctions. Can anyone post a link to this info? Thanks in advance

350 trillion dollars in notional derivatives. The number i have heard bandied about has been a high of over 500 trillion. Is there a wide range of estimates, or has the bubble deflated 200 trillion?

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/ann....

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/ann....



dia: see above

Thank you.

A 15% drop in home prices and not even a recession?


"The next depression will not be televised". That was a comment i read on some web site. The apparent indication being that of a stealth depression- no soup lines, but people economicly squeezed.

The home builder stocks peaked in mid 2005. First quarter 2008 GDP was revised up to .9%. Unemployment numbers are creeping up, but not dramaticly. Feels like watching paint dry. Seems like a recession will never get here. But each one has felt that way to me.

I go to work and the young guys are all talking about the next DVD boxed set or whatever that they are going to buy. One guy just moved into a house to rent and talks about all the little modifications he has paid for out of pocket, on a house he doesn't own. The company just survived a writers strike and there is a potential actors strike, and they have no thought for what could happen tomorrow.

Meanwhile, everyone just got a pay cut, by way of the increase in the monthly employee contribution to health insurance. On top of that, a co-worker joked the other day, that his lunch cost him 78 dollars. Three dollars for food and 75 dollars to fill up his pick up truck. That was just as gasoline was hitting 4 dollars. It cost me 4.17 on Friday. Discretionary income is drying up.

Yet, the young guys are more concerned about getting the Indiana Jones boxed set, than whether they may need that money for food or rent, if there is an actors strike. There were not many lay offs last time, but i think this time would be different, if a strike does occur.

It seems that money still has to be pried out of consumers hands, to keep them from spending it.

Ultimately, i think we are going to wind up in an economic depression. All the lessons from the 1920's debt fueled boom have been deliberately unlearned.
I find that in light of the Great Depression, it is absolutely incredible, what has happened over the last 10 years. Quite seriously, i wonder why i bothered to save up money for retirement, when corporate and Wall Street insiders are intent on stealing my money. I fear my 401K not being there more than i fear Social Security not being there. This junk mortgage debt, credit default swap derivatives monster is hidden in everything. Everyone is at risk.

Wow, i could make a ton of money shorting the market when it collapses- except the brokerage could go bankrupt and the brokerage insurance company right along with it, just like the mortgage insurers. Then there are the life insurance companies. What is that million dollar life insurance policy really worth? Will the wife and kids really have anything if you die? All that money wasted on premiums for a worthless policy.

It is all extremely depressing.

The 120 year Kress cycle bottoms in 2014, along with a plethora of other cycles. I see an absolute disaster coming. With Hank Paulson wanting congress to hand over 50 billion in debt created treasuries to the FED, as a rainy day fund, even the Federal Reserve is facing potential bankruptcy.
Correct me if i am wrong, but i don't remember that being a concern during The Great Depression. It obviously is now.

I read around the time that that Greenspan was handing off to bernanke, that he told Bernanke not to resort to printing. This from a man who wrote that the monetary policy of the 1920's FED, lead into The Great Depression- then repeated that policy, as if it would somehow be different this time. On the Bloomberg crawl Friday, Greenspan was quoted as saying that inflation was a greater threat than bubbles. But what created the bubbles- inflation. So why was Greenspan creating what he now considers the greater threat? The man is so horribly corrupt to cast blame on the price inflation, which was created out of his monetary inflation.

15% home price declines and not even a recession? It is coming. Eventually, they will be calling it a depression. It is just a matter of time, Kudlow or no Kudlow. After all, he was the one crowing "growth leverage" and telling the CNBC audience that the housing boom would last into the next decade.

For your delectation.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/fe....