Comments on: Crisis Porn: SocGen Says ‘prepare for ‘global collapse’

By: Kiers

Kiers — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:51:21 +0000

BTW. Barry, where did you get 350% of GDP??????????? I am sure it is W R O N G. it is more like 60-65%. hardly un manageable. on the other hand we should all be watching JAPAN to learn.

By: colinjsmith81

colinjsmith81 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:35:08 +0000

At least some banks are forecasting the future and are acting accordingly. It is certainly possible. One area that has been significantly overlooked are the collateralized loans for LBO deals. Josh Kosman just wrote a great book called “The Buyout of America,” that documents the threat of LBO loans coming due and if there is anything that truly sink the banks again in a fatal way, that is it. But maybe the government will bail them out again. oh well.

By: Kiers

Kiers — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:47:06 +0000

hey din’t you post htis Fermon guy’s notes earlier on Oct 18th?
under “worst case debt scenario”?

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/10/sg-worst-case-debt-scenario/comment-page-1/#comment-236138

By: Transor Z

Transor Z — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:22:25 +0000

Great news, lalaland.

By: lalaland

lalaland — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:04:13 +0000

Happy to say the wife is starting a new job tomorrow after being laid off months back (lets say there was snow on the ground), and my tiny 1 man business did better than last year, so managing to pop back into shape after all. Keep your head up ashpelham2 – can turn around as quickly as it turned on you, always.

By: DeDude

DeDude — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:43:13 +0000

Rootless;

I agree, there are certain individuals and businesses that are in serious trouble and others that are just fine. I am just saying that from an overall perspective the amount of debt is not alarming. However, if I were holding any Citi debt I would be alarmed. The problem is that when the deleveraging is all done a lot of regular hard-working people who had saved for their retirement will find themselves with a lot smaller nestegg than what the experts had promised them. The outrageous part is that if those folks want to get rid of their own personal debt the way the companies use to get rid corporate debt (and destroy regular peoples savings), then they will discover that the GOP (Great cOrporate Protector) has made sure that only corporations can do that little trick. So as usual peple like ashpelham2 get screwed two ways and the rich get away with it.

By: DeDude

DeDude — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:28:56 +0000

HCF; all that BS about 50% paying zero of the federal income tax has been called out here numerous times including just a few days ago when someone pointed out that the relevant issue is the totality of taxes (federal, state, payrole, sales, real estate, registration, etc, etc,). So lets lift this above Rush and Fox level and cut out the stupid arguments. Sufficient to say that you cant collect a lot of hair cutting it from the head of a bald guy, so yes the rich are the ones to tax. We need to tax high incomes whether from capital gains or real work with at least 70% on income above 200K. I am sure that ashpelham2 will give the poor folks who whine that they “cannot live on that”, some good advice.

I have no problem with taxing specific assets such as real estate and land, but leave that to local government. The problem with to high tax on agricultural and forest land is that it basically ends up increasing the price of agricultural products and wood. Those businesses already have a hard time competing with imports from other countries so you would either kill them or be forced to erect huge trade barriers. If the rich are willing to move out of the country to escape taxes, I am sure they would be willing to move from their Manhattan penthouses. And it is a lot easier to block tax escapees who try to take income earned here around the tax system than those who move away from high real estate taxes.

By: ella

ella — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:27:12 +0000

Gotta love the guys… Debt is good when it bails their _____ out and debt is very good when it is the taxpayer doing the backing the bailouts. Now that SocGen has been bailed out by the us now they complain that the debt is to high.

What was their opinion of this debt when they had their grubby hands in my pocket? Maybe they should give all of the TARP and AIG money back. NOW WITH INTEREST.

By: ashpelham2

ashpelham2 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:16:00 +0000

The most fun part was having all of this job turbulance, as I call it, happen 45 days after having our second child.

Man, there is no end to the bitterness I have, but I keep chugging away at the new job, and I keep riding my bike, and Bama keeps winning. I feel pretty good overall, but I know that when her unemployment ends (whenever that is), she better have some good gainful way of being employed over and above the cost of childcare (talk about inflation!?!?!)

By: Transor Z

Transor Z — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:16:25 +0000

I meant to raise this point on another thread the other day.

The ball that’s hidden and overlooked in many of these discussions about taxation is the treatment of “closely held wealth.”

Here’s some light reading from the 2009 Scandinavian Journal of Economics re: our friends the Swedes, who are also reporting a 30-year trend toward wealth accretion at the top:
http://www2.hhs.se/site/homepages/JespersPDFs/PUBLISHEDsjoe_1558.pdf

And we all know the Swedes are homogeneous commie pinkos, so just think how things are developing here in the U.S. ;-)

We’re talking the tax treatment of trusts and inter-generational transfers of wealth within families. People who don’t file the EZ form on April 15.