Officially, the recession is behind us. That’s the good news. Officially, it ended in June of ’09. The bad news is – so what? Recession or no recession, people are having a hard time finding jobs and making ends meet. The US economy continues rumbling and trundling along.
September 24th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 0 comments | ContinuedAll Posts Tagged With: "mortgage"
US Real Estate Market Sits in the Waiting Room
…Maybe. We will leave the question dangling…and turn to real estate. Let’s imagine that Ben Bernanke succeeds. Let’s imagine that he nudges consumer price inflation upwards. What happens to mortgage rates? Well, they go up too. Then, what happens to the housing market?…
September 10th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 87 comments | Continued
The Needs Justify the Ends
Remember back in the good old days? Back when there was no government in Canberra and stocks rallied because investors knew there wouldn’t be any moron law makers to pass moron laws? Ah yes…the good old days. Sigh. If there’s a deal that puts a Labor/Greens/Independent government in place, you might expect that to be a negative for shares, inasmuch as it could mean mining tax and, down the track, some kind of carbon tax.
September 7th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 3 comments | Continued
Fed Vows to Maintain Public Financial Health
Extend and pretend…That’s the government’s way of handling the crisis. Extend credit and cash to those who don’t deserve it. Then, pretend that everything is okay…But the problems don’t go away. They just get stretched into the future…What did the feds do for GM? They took over the company.
September 6th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 8 comments | Continued
Oh, ok then
“The Coalition has started to put the heat on the three hold-out rural independents – saying it was ‘inconceivable’ any of them would back a Labor government that had joined the Greens to push a left-leaning agenda.”Oh. So it’s all over.Well, the market enjoyed it.
September 4th, 2010 | Nickolai Hubble | 0 comments | Continued
Nine Meals From Barbarism
It’s always a fun week when the big banks report earnings. This week it’s Commonwealth Bank (ASX:CBA), with NAB to give a trading update later in the week. What will CBA’s results tell you? Over the next month you’ll get to see how much the banks are actually hurt by higher funding costs, whether bad debts are rising, and if the housing market is causing them any trouble (loan losses).
August 9th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 12 comments | Continued
Housing Market Sinks Beneath the Waves
Already, millions of people are underwater. As housing prices fall, millions more will slip beneath the waves. Some will go down with the ship. But many will take to the lifeboats – sending back the keys instead. This will add to the number of foreclosures and to the inventory of unsold and vacant houses.
August 2nd, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 40 comments | Continued
Unusually Fed Up
Feeling besieged by the Welfare State? Tired of rising taxes, endless browbeating by unelected bureaucrats and insipid drivel in the news papers that passes for economic thinking? You’re not alone friend. You’re not alone. A big welcome to www.economics.org.au. We learned of the project when we were up in Sydney recently. If you’re interested in economics and more discussion on some of the ideas you find here in the Daily Reckoning, give the site a look.
July 23rd, 2010 | Dan Denning | 39 comments | Continued
Side By Side We Stick Together
What is collateral, anyway? The Latin etymology suggests it is something standing side by side with something else, like Collingwood fans sticking together to defend the Magpie name. But in the financial world, we take collateral to mean property, or something equivalent, deposited with a creditor to guarantee the repayment of a debt. The collateral gives the lender security against the risk that the borrower is unable to repay.
July 13th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 12 comments | Continued
Shouldn’t Do It; Couldn’t Do It Anyway
The US government disappeared almost a million jobseekers from the unemployment lists in the last two months to try to make the numbers look better. Still, fewer people have jobs now than when the stimulus began. Those workers with jobs earn less than they did then. And those who lose their jobs wait longer than ever to find a new one. Housing is sinking again, too.
July 12th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 10 comments | Continued
Flip Flopping in the Housing Market
The theories about economics and markets developed in the last 100 years are almost all nonsense. Markets are not perfect. They do not reflect the actual value of things. There’s no way of knowing what the actual value is. Instead, markets are always discovering value – in fits and starts – imperfectly. They reflect reality and fantasy…the future and the past…math and muddle.
June 16th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 33 comments | Continued
Rent Seeking in Canberra
The plunder begins on Sunday when the Rudd government finally unveils the Henry Review of Taxation, which, by all accounts, is likely to include a new federal resource “rent” tax to go alongside the royalties miners must already pay the States. The government could not have chosen a more apt word than rent. The government is the ultimate rent seeker.
April 30th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 71 comments | Continued
Australians More Interested in Investing in Property than on Stock Market
You’ll pardon the sense of inevitability in today’s Daily Reckoning. After all it’s raining. But even so, with over $1 billion in Melbourne property clearing auctions this week (at a clearance rate of 86%) it definitely feels like Australians have found a way to hasten their own financial day of reckoning. Of course not everyone agrees.
March 29th, 2010 | Dan Denning | 45 comments | Continued
Obama Lets Zombies Loose on US Health Care Industry
This new reform measure just increases the weight. Now, there’ll be more parasites than ever. Health care is about to turn into a zombie industry…run by brain-dead bureaucrats…
March 24th, 2010 | Bill Bonner | 1 comment | Continued
Don’t Bet on a Recovery
I would challenge those who fantasize about a consumer-led recovery to describe where the spending money will come from.
March 3rd, 2010 | Peter Schiff | 20 comments | Continued
