Reauxhan

+1 on the haven't been slammed despite offering a completely opposite take to Russian's.

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I almost fell out of my chair laughing + kfizz's response in the other thread which boiled down to :"click the link, dope."

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This all would be hysterical if it didn't require a new thread every day discussing where gold closed. Can those all be merged into one?

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Except for commodities ETF/fund offerings. There just aren't many out there to begin with and they usually have fairly hefty fees compared with other ETF's. However, the fees are usually in line with regular mutual funds, so I get some anyway b/c I want the exposure to that sector.

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That said, investors should pay careful attention to the tax implications of non-stock ETFs (metals in particular). Unless that tax treatment has changed, I don't think you can claim the long term cap gains rate for positions held over a year.

This is so absurd, enough to make anyone's blood boil.

Is there any instance in recorded history of a country getting out of a credit bubble by incentivizing its citizens to take on MORE debt?

For the life of me I can't comprehend why folks like Ken Rogoff, who studied these episodes back to 14th century England, get completely disregarded.

BTW, Jersey Tiger - I seem to recall your discussing housing in Kirkland, WA at one point. I can't find the thread but where in Kirkland were you looking? I used to own a house near 85th St and 124th Ave, about a mile north of that intersection. Bought in 04, sold in mid-08, wound up being quite fortunate timing.

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How can these no-good mutha f'ckers lie like this with a straight f'ing face?

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I guess they could just use GDP growth, since it was falling off a cliff in the 4th quarter of last year, and was positive in 3Q.

But all told, making that comparison...well, it's kinda like Obama's Special Olympics joke. I'll leave it at that.

+1000000 for getting Geithner the hell out. He is in way over his head.

Oh duh, I knew that. Thx

Edit: wrote that before I saw you posted the 90% number, meant regarding their not being originators. Thanks for digging up the stat. I did not know that number.

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FWIW:

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, Fannie Mae MBS held by third parties and other credit enhancements that we provide on mortgage assets, was $3.2 trillion as of June 30, 2009, or approximately 26.9% of total U.S. residential mortgage debt outstanding.



From teh Q.

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I'm guessing the number you're thinking of that's much higher than that is the % of mortgage originations they comprise now?

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t has a lot to do with central banking///fwiw

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What are you looking to get out of it? I don't think the concepts of CENTRAL banking have really changed all that much since 1983. Bernanke has certainly opened up the playbook in the past year in pretty creative ways, and if you're looking for an understanding of those mechanisms then I doubt that book will touch on them much (his moves have been very much outside the realms of normal central banking activity).

If you're looking for an understanding of how commercial banking operates, then as foshizzle noted, you're not going to find all that much. If you must read an 80s book to get some perspective on it, you might as well read Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball and The Blind Side). At least that one's entertaining, and will give you a glimpse of the early days of the mortgage securitization market that played such a huge role in this current mess. I can dig around for actual book recs emerging from this crisis if you're looking for more specifics on what the lay of the land is right now. (For instance, Goldman and Morgan Stanley and I think American Express and a few others who survived last year wound up having to turn themselves into bank holding companies amid the crisis. Someone else here can probably explain the implications of that far better than I can, but it's "kind of a big deal.")

Whew, exhaustive list there...I can't even imagine how I'd function if I had that much coming in on a daily basis!

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Corporate bond spreads have continued to tighten (even in the face of a massive supply boom, a record $1 trillion of new U.S. issuance has hit the market this year) and the “undervaluation gap” in this once-very-cheap sector has now closed given that it is de facto discounting 2.5% U.S. economic growth in the coming year (equities now are close to 5% — not far off from what they were pricing back at the October 2007 peak).

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Ahh cool, thanks for adding that. Yeah, I'm a week behind on my Rosenberg pieces, juggling a bunch of earnings reports and whatnot..that's interesting that the equity mkt is now discounting 5% growth. Good Lord!