Saturday LinkFest!
I always end up with a ton of stuff to read on the weekends — bookmarks, things I hadn’t gotten to all week, new materials. Here is what I will be perusing for the rest of the weekend:
• Preparing for the Inevitable Bursting Bubble (NYT)
• Barron’s cover story: GM Is Back! (Barron’s)
• Grantham’s ‘Horrifically Early’ Calls Challenge GMO (BusinessWeek)
• Steve Cohen (SAC) Trades Secrecy for Golf With Investors Lured by 30% Gains (Bloomberg)
• Martin Wolf: How unruly economists can agree (FT)
• How To IPO Your House (Forbes)
• Oh, goodie, another Housing Bottom Caller! Buffett Says U.S. Housing Market to Recover in ‘Year or So’ (Bloomberg)
• Billions of Songs, Billions of Apps, Not Much Profit (All Things Digital)
• Compressed sensing: The fascinating mathematics of Sparsity (Wired)
• Vast Antarctic iceberg breaks free (BBC Video) see also New evidence on Antarctic warming (BBC)
• Relieve Wall Street stress and downward-facing dog your way to relaxation (Bing)
What are you reading?
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February 27th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
How about the earthquake in Chile?
February 27, 2010
Earthquake in Chile
At 3:34 am local time, today, February 27th, a devastating magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck Chile, one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. According to Chilean President-elect Sebastian Pinera, at least 120 people are known to have been killed so far. The earthquake also triggered a Tsunami which is right now propagating across the Pacific Ocean, due to arrive in Hawaii in hours (around 11:00 am local time). The severity of the Tsunami is still not known, but alerts are being issued across the Pacific. As this is a breaking story, I will be adding more photos to this entry, as warranted, throughout the day. (24 photos so far)
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/02/earthquake_in_chile.html
February 27th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Tsunami Cam! http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/category.asp?C=176904&nav=menu55_1_1
February 27th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Interesting read…should their be some accountability…or is it all behind us? Mike Whitney has an interesting read.
———-
The Case against Greenspan and Bernanke
By Mike Whitney
Created Feb 27 2010 – 11:44amIs there enough evidence to indict Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan on charges that they aided and abetted the banks and other financial institutions in the sale of fraudulent loans to investors?
That depends on whether there is sufficient proof to show whether the two men KNEW that the nation’s lenders were engaged in large-scale predatory lending and chose to do nothing. As we’ll see, both Greenspan and Bernanke were warned repeatedly about the mortgage/derivatives scam by credible professionals and industry regulators, but failed to act.
ZERO INDICTMENTS, ZERO CONVICTIONS
William Black: “In the savings and loan crisis… we had over 1,000 convictions of senior insiders…. At this stage among the subprime lending specialists, we have zero convictions. We have zero indictments.”…”In September 2004, the FBI began publicly warning that there was an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud, and it predicted that it would produce an economic crisis, if it were not dealt with. The FBI has also said that 80 percent of the mortgage fraud losses occur when lender personnel are involved. So, Fitch looks at a small sample of these loans, finally, in November 2007….And what did they find? They said…that there was the appearance of fraud in nearly every file we examined. And they said that normal underwriting would have detected all of those frauds. More at…..
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/27045
February 27th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
@Dan – thanks for the link. Interesting to watch the ebb and flow in that channel. Looks like the surge in Hawaii topped out around 3ft, so fortunately nothing like the Hilo 35ft tsumani of 1960.
February 27th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Well while we’re all awaiting for the * Global Disaster Watch Channel* to deliver the goods ( Hey , it beats the All O.J. All the Time vigil for useful substance ) I thought this recent ( 2/26/2010 ) WStJ article reporting on the discovery and capture of a shipment of weapons bound for the People’s Republic of the Congo originating from the People’s Republic of Pyongyang *greatly* aided and abetted by those newly found friends of the global free market , the People’s Republic of Beijing.
Now I know what investment strategies I can imagine from this timely info , but i’d prefer y’all to use your own imaginations to conjure & compose as ye so choose. I just know I’d be wary of any financial conglomerate dealing in the bundling of life AND homeowner’s insurance in the Congo currently & anytime soon.
Anyway I think this article *relevant*.
Of course your milage may vary. ;-)
FEBRUARY 26, 2010
Pretoria Seized North Korean Weapons
Containers of Concealed Tank Parts Passed Through China, South Africa Tells U.N. in Report; Beijing’s Balancing Act
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704479404575087411640791960.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories
February 27th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
yeah, i expected it to be worse. . . thankfully it was not, but it is still very interesting to see the bay drain back and forth in between the surges. It seems like they were well prepared in any event.
February 27th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Citigroup Adviser Rubin Said to Face Queries From Crisis Panel
By Ian Katz and Jesse Westbrook
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) — Robert Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary who later advised Citigroup Inc. as the bank piled up subprime-mortgage losses, may soon face his first public grilling on the 2008 financial crisis.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, investigating the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, plans to ask Rubin to testify in April, said two people with knowledge of the commission’s decisions. The panel may summon former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and former Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Charles O. Prince in its review of companies and regulatory lapses that fueled excessive speculation in the real-estate market, said the people, who declined to be identified before the hearings are announced.
Rubin, 71, has been perceived as “bullet-proof” because his Citigroup job was “framed as if he was only there to give advice,” said Charles Geisst, author of “Wall Street: A History” and a finance professor at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. “Unless they’ve actually got some stuff where he advised on some surreptitious deal that went bad or his advice was purposely misleading, they’re going to have a very difficult time with him.”
Rubin’s reputation dimmed after the U.S. bailed out New York-based Citigroup with $45 billion and American International Group Inc. had to be propped up because of losses on derivatives. When Rubin was President Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary, he fought efforts to regulate derivatives.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=awBxY8l.FeWE&pos=2#
February 27th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
It’s “complicated”.
China’s Wen confident in 2010 economy despite “most complicated” situation
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-02/27/c_13190584.htm
Its all about scale – a jobs bill for 150 million?
China still faces serious employment pressure, says Premier Wen
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-02/27/c_13190581.htm
Let the appreciation begin!
China tests firm yuan for impact on exports
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=429693&type=Business
February 27th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Future products from Apple revealed….
What Comes After the iPad?
http://gizmodo.com/5481923/what-comes-after-the-ipad
February 27th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
DiggidyDan Says:
February 27th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Tsunami Cam! http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/category.asp?C=176904&nav=menu55_1_1
———-
For those of us “stuck in house” with weather problems who were glued to the MSM on their “TSUNAMI WATCH” most of Today…..well …here’s a treat: You can CATCH YOUR OWN BIG WAVE…the ONE YOU MISSED… (Yeah it’s snark…but a good watch as antidote to the “Great Disaster-Popcorn Fest” the Media Gave us this afternoon!)
or for those still on Tsunami Watch….Here’s the Real Action!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlPqL7IUT6M
I got annoyed with the MSM who canceled all their commercials for the “Great Tsunami Watch”(And, OMG..Jeff Zucker of MSNBC gave up all day Commerical Airtime Commercials to Save Hawaii from Disaster) and they were expecting millions of eyeballs sitting in suspense waiting for the big one. The popcorn was popping and people waited for hours.
Thank God Hawaii evacuated! And, while the Media is looking for a Disaster Movie….it seems that this was a disaster averted. I think the early warnings worked in this case and hopefully the scientists will learn more from this earthquake which will save lives in the future. It’s just sad the MSM built up outrageous expectations that will cause people to become more cynical about Science.
But, for those who were waiting and are disappointed here’s a THRILL for YOU. Maybe the Cables should show this to feed the hungry crowd sitting in the bleachers.
This is kind of cool to watch for THE BIG WAVE! And to release the tension of the “BIG WAIT.”
BTW…Video Title is: “STUCK IN TSUNAMI!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlPqL7IUT6M
February 27th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Good NYT piece. I think Treasuries are the next bubble. But in a truly free market capitalistic system there would be no bubbles. Buffet’s right. Sooner or later all the ways in which we are propping up the housing market will gain traction. Re-fi’s will be back in vogue. Consumers will be flush with cash again. Hopefully, they learned their lesson from the last trip down this avenune and pay off debt. Who knows?
February 27th, 2010 at 10:02 pm
bsneath Says:
February 27th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Future products from Apple revealed….
What Comes After the iPad?
http://gizmodo.com/5481923/what-comes-after-the-ipad
———-
Some folks have said the problem with the “I-Pad” is that it doesn’t have a “Stand” to support it. I had a dream the other night that I’d invented a simple wire stand that would suppor the “I-Pad” at the pool, on the deck by by cutting board in the kitchen where I cook…and I could produce it in China for 23Cents….and sell it in the “Dollar Store” here in America for $1.50.
I dreamed I would end up with a FORTUNE (like the guy who did the “Pet Rock) …..but then I realized that Steve Jobs already has a “Stand” for his “I-Pad” and it’s out there in the Apple Store as an “add on” and that I was just dreaming something. I woke up…then REALITY HIT ME!
February 27th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
The Apple piece was plain silly.
The billion songs sold and “not much profit”???
Did the writer even bother to check AAPL’s latest quarter profit and cash reserve?
February 27th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
All the scare about a tidal wave wiping out Hawaii. MarketWatch reported earlier that the tidal wave hit with waves at their peak measuring 6 to 12 inches. Im not shitting you.
As for the BBC, their cutting their staff and programing. BBC is a big backer of the global warming fanantics. They continue to push the lies even after climate gate cracked open the fraud being perpetrated on us. Im sure that the Chili earthquake will be blamed on Global Warming or like the Haiti earthquake, blamed on the US for testing a new earthquake weapon.
February 27th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Foxmuldar
You’re a funny dude, please come again.
February 28th, 2010 at 12:20 am
foxmuldar Says
“…As for the BBC, their cutting their staff and programing. BBC is a big backer of the global warming fanantics. They continue to push the lies even after climate gate cracked open the fraud being perpetrated on us. Im sure that the Chili earthquake will be blamed on Global Warming …”
Oh my God, we got alive one here. Where to begin.
Oh ,I know , It’s *Chile* you Fox news nimrod
February 28th, 2010 at 12:28 am
I thought the same thing, Taliesyn…
February 28th, 2010 at 12:31 am
“Horrifically Early”. There’s a nice euphemism.
February 28th, 2010 at 1:02 am
Foxmuldar
By all means bring on the sarcasm, but that does not hide how painfully misinformed you are—but then what else should I expect given that the Great Anglo-Saxon Science Dumb Down has been running full steam ahead for nearly two full generations.
Speaking as someone who grew up on a diet of National Review, Firing Line, Buckley and Goldwater, helped found a YAF chapter and canvased for Jim Buckley’s successful Senate run in 1970, it has been more than a little galling to watch the movement metastasize into an inverse corporatist version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution where a relatively small group of oligarchies in order to maintain power and wealth mobilizes the masses in anti-rationalist campaigns against reality. The differences between then and now are ones of culture and skill, not of kind.
The Nazis attacked the Jewish physics of Einstein and quantum mechanics, the Soviets rejected Gregor Mendel’s insights in genetics in favor of the fantasies promulgated by a party hack named Lysenko and the Anglo-Saxon Corporatist Right (USA, UK & Oz are all sailing the same rusting model called the ‘Ship of State’) has launched an attack on chemistry and atmospheric physics. Bet you’re proud of the historical company you’re keeping.
So enjoy the emotional satisfaction that the consumption of mass quantities of talking points gives you– it increases the likelihood that someday your grandchildren or at the latest your great grandchildren will curse you and those who were like you. I won’t be here to enjoy it, but then I know that chemistry and physics are processes that generate facts, lots of them, and that they do so day in and day out regardless of whether several billion hairless hominids believe in them or not.
Sentience is an intermittent phenomenon… thanks for confirming it again for me.
Cheers
February 28th, 2010 at 1:25 am
This is outrageous and shows how government will harm their own citizens for the sake of profit. Then again, gambling has already proven that
Cities Shortening Yellow Traffic Lights for Deadly Profit
Some cities have been shortening yellow lights to nab drivers with a ticket. But studies show that they’re raking in the bucks at the expense of public safety.
http://tinyurl.com/yc37pq3
February 28th, 2010 at 2:13 am
Dear GrafSchweik:
Damn You’re Good! ;-)
You just stated the alpha & omega of the issue.
Case Closed!
February 28th, 2010 at 3:03 am
NSFU
(not safe for unbelievers)
As both a Christian and a trader this article really inspired me. It is very much where I am at in my mindset and it is great to know that there is at least one other person like this on mean street
Keep the top up
By Bill Provenzano
http://tinyurl.com/ykp32ce
February 28th, 2010 at 3:52 am
Appreciate your honesty for posting this link.
It is taken in the spirit it is given , as a sincere and guileless gesture of sharing something that *may* be of some worth , or not , to someone else.
Nothing more , nothing less.
February 28th, 2010 at 4:34 am
I had been out of the Navy 3 or 4 years . Reagan was President. I was sitting in a bar in Wyckoff NJ have a beer and in came a guy i knew from high school. We had watched the Watergate hearings together and we had a joint or two together….He came in looking like Larry Kudlow looks today. I thought it might have been halloween or something. Nope, what was happening or what i was witnessing was something far more make believe than that, far more make believe than halloween. It was Rogar Ailes and his version of Adam Smith’s ” invisible hand ” …It was the birth of ” image ” , of appearance over substance. Ailes was a serious student of the Kennedy / Nixon debate and it was that debate that showed Ailes how to become the real ” Master of the Universe ” ………….What i was witnessing was the power of TV…Rogar Ailes understood it better than anyone else. He noticed the change in our every day dialogue , he noticed ” current events ” came to mean what we recently bought at the newly constructed shopping mall……Hell , they even put restaurents in those newly constructed shopping malls because they knew we would be there all day and might get hungry……Should it really come to any surprise that the only one who was right about Iraq , the only one willing to stand up for what was right , Cindy Sheehan was completely ignored and shunned ? ……Recall Bush and his ” Mission Accomplished ” or Reagan and photogenic battleships ? Oh my, you female business TV talking heads are so pretty..You are all so American….And if you question !! If you stray from the flock !!..If you are short !! …….Voting has become nothing but a opaite. Those who seek power over others , the top 5% with all the money well, you all have been bagged, been foxified.
February 28th, 2010 at 6:03 am
After listening to Congressman Ron Paul’s presentation before Chairman Ben, ( sorry didn’t catch it during the week, I have kids and didn’t need to daytrade a stock or two lol) ,
but after listening how Ron boy (and many others) are trying to use this all as a point of POLITICAL leverage, I can honestly say the following to any of my financial services “partners”.
I’m sorry. There was never any intention in our little game to allow this sort of rank political opportunism.
What Ron Paul said has absolutely nothing to do with the real world. What’s he looking to do ? Become a modern day Huey Long?
Yes we do have to address the system, but it’s not a conspiracy.
For god’s sakes, in some ways I can’t help but laugh because the quick ninny response of my supposed banking interests do deserve a bit of a slap across the side of the head, but the expansion of this all to some wierd conspiracy theories is just great entertainment.
You can be angry. The only other argument I hear though from somebody like the honorable Mr Paul is that You would like to be the recipient of depositor funds or federal reserve funds. This is political opportunism. Not a review of fiscal policy.
I’m not a bank. I think banks that made bad mortgage loans should have to eat them. I don’t like the concept of securitizing risk and passing it on whether it be for real or personal property. I think that people that financed these stupid houses should be forced to remain in them.
You’re not going to have a secondary market for any of this stuff that’s out here. Nobody wants to buy what you’ve left in your wake.
Use of Anagrams is not a substitute for actual financial activity.
Just my two cents.
February 28th, 2010 at 6:13 am
See now what they are going to do is use my use of credit markets, as some sort of political tool to try and gain access to something they believe they’ve been left out of for years.
So, somehow, I have helped to create yet another opportunity for those who are only interested in constantly saying what do I care? Nobody ever gave me nothing.
Oh god. Like I said, a full year or two of unintended consequences are on the horizon. Better get out the Canoe. Tides are going to rise and fall at will.
It’s like watching a group of 7 year olds debated whether Einstein should have finished his Unified Theory and what they would have done had they had Einstein’s brain in their heads.
We must somehow reestablish the difference between MACRO and MICRO economics.
One of the main problems here is that people see this , and they then apply it to their households. This is Industry regulation.
So the people who can access credit, won’t , and the people who shouldn’t have access to credit are trying to use it to try and make up for past wrongs in their minds. Pretty funny stuff.
All I know is I’m all for the reduction of principal of mortgage borrowers who are over their head. Please give us that.
And throw AIG into the middle of the Coliseum to have a sacrificial annihilation. In many ways, cable televison and the internet can be cited as a factor in this most recent crisis.
People completely misunderstand what they are hearing everyday.
February 28th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Cell phones show human movement predictable 93% of the time
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/02/cell-phones-show-human-movement-predictable-93-of-the-time.ars
We’d like to think of ourselves as dynamic, unpredictable individuals, but according to new research, that’s not the case at all. In a study published in last week’s Science, researchers looked at customer location data culled from cellular service providers. By looking at how customers moved around, the authors of the study found that it may be possible to predict human movement patterns and location up to 93 percent of the time. These findings may be useful in multiple fields, including city planning, mobile communication resource management, and anticipating the spread of viruses.It’s
February 28th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Wycoff New Jersey, ahhhhhh, know it well, very well, lol, Oakland born and bred, and and the extended familiy has tenticles all over Began County, TV ahhhhhh, so true so true, it is why I always say, we live in a HEARING WORLD
anyways, ordered two books on cycle theory from amazon and got them friday, a quarter way thru one, fascinating
predict human movement patterns 93% of time, seeing how we go the same places and do the same things for the most part, this information is stunning, roflmao,
February 28th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Hey, Taliesyn @ 3:52am
Thanks–glad to oblige. As a long time lurker & learner finally decided I had to start shouldering my fair share of the housekeeping…
February 28th, 2010 at 9:59 am
Torrie-amos I loved the Pleasureland Pub off route 202 in Oakland….I was in there once and the NJ Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control raided the joint. They found a pile of people drinking that were underage. They arrested many and the bartender and closed the place down for a few weeks. It was very exciting…..That was many years ago.
I have claimed to have coined the phase ” Foxification ” here on Barry’s blog.. Well i just googled it and i am not the first to use the phase… ” Foxification” was used by Dame Anita Roddick in ” Rupert vs. the BBC— The Foxification of Britain” in 2003 .. So i guess that explains Tony Blair’s fantasies.. It was also used by Marie Therese in 2006 when discusssing CNBC….Both used the term but offered foxified definitions of foxification….You need to review the real “Master of the Universe “, Rogar Ailes.
Maybe i’m dreaming but perhaps blogs will start to neutralize the highjacking of our brains.. No wonder CNBC’s Joe Kernan doesn’t like blogs.
February 28th, 2010 at 10:53 am
What you mean OTC derivatives haven’t been fixed yet.
It’s Time for Swaps to Lose Their Swagger
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/business/economy/28gret.html?ref=business
“USING these instruments in a way that intentionally destabilizes a company or a country is — is counterproductive, and I’m sure the S.E.C. will be looking into that.” Bernanke
Bernanke you idiot. As long as OTC drivatives are legal and aren’t regulated they will be used in ways that create systemic risk. Each individual action using these things probably aren’t intentional to destabilize a company or country. If these things are such a big well connected cancer that they can’t be cut out or controlled, we are all doomed. Bernanke clearly thinks derivatives are aOK as long as crashing a country isn’t intentional. Greenspan (from his book AGE OF TURBULENCE) and Bernanke, both seem to love the unregulated derivatives. Just as a company that would write fire insurance contracts on homes with no reserves (there is obviously no intention or hope that the house burns down) without regulations of reserves, companies will continue to write derivatives to increase short term profits, get lots of bonus money and hope they are gone before the derivatives blow up.
Frick’n Ayn Rand idiots.
Doomed I say.
February 28th, 2010 at 11:19 am
Troubled Times @ 4:34am
Great anecdote! It catches the Zeitgeist of the time perfectly.
From late 73 to late 79 I lived in the UK, but returned in time for the last15 months of the well-intentioned, micro-managing, nuclear powered peanut farmer and Reagan’s coronation which we now know was the inauguration of Magical USA Inc.
But there were other threads to our tapestry of national decline: I’ll mention two.
The MBA as Superman craze had already taken root and had begun it’s kudzu-like growth through the American economy.
Example: Anyone here old enough to have owned/followed General Mills in the early 80s? In the mid/late 70s they bought the Talbots, a women’s traditional clothing retailer started by friends of my grandmother around 1950, and at 2 year intervals began cycling through it about a half dozen 25 year old freshly minted MBAs from Hahvahd, Chicago and the like. I had family and friends on the inside: the results were brutal and the first of several near death experiences. General Mills unloaded it by the mid 80s.
The birth of the Long March of Neoliberal Economics had been midwifed by Bill Buckley in the early 50s when he joined forces with elements of the old and new Plutocracies in a campaign to undo the New Deal. He and they never understood that Roosevelt saved their asses, that otherwise a fate similar to the Romanovs had been a distinct possibility.
Bill’s gone, most of our industry and manufacturing are gone, but the Plutocrats still don’t get it and rule the roost with a smug disregard for Reality while Obama has shown he is no Roosevelt. I am very glad my life has provided me with a very broad range of survival skills…
February 28th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
[...] Hat tip The Big Picture. [...]
February 28th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
I would really like to have Steve Cohen working for me. Unfortunately I’m broke. Nevertheless I enjoyed the article; thanks for bringing it to our attention.
February 28th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
GrafSchweik is my new favorite poster. Your first post was so great, I had to go find my old password and log in.
You should have a blog. I’d subscribe. Keep posting.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:42 am
sunsetbeachguy @ 9:01pm
Thanks.
But I prefer BR and several of the contributers here to myself vast majority of the time.
Cheers