So as I understand it, retailers are claiming that sales increased inHiggenbotham wrote: > The Gallup daily spending patterns for November show reversion
> back to the lower levels earlier this year among high income
> earners. Lots of interesting graphs.
> http://www.gallup.com/poll/124634/Upper ... ormal.aspx
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/busin ... odayspaperThat had to be what Citigroup, with its firsthand expertise with bailouts, must have been thinking when it lent $8 billion to Dubai last year. Oh, and here’s an interesting fact: Citigroup made the loan to Dubai on Dec. 14, 2008. Take a look at the calendar — that’s after it received tens of billions in TARP funds. Citigroup’s chairman, Win Bischoff, said at the time, “This is in line with our commitment to the U.A.E. market in general, and reflects our positive outlook on Dubai in particular.” Good call.
Here are the additional items I read earlier this week that made the government's number seem doubtful.John wrote:Dear Higgie,
So as I understand it, retailers are claiming that sales increased inHiggenbotham wrote: > The Gallup daily spending patterns for November show reversion
> back to the lower levels earlier this year among high income
> earners. Lots of interesting graphs.
> http://www.gallup.com/poll/124634/Upper ... ormal.aspx
November, but according to the Discover study and the Gallup survey,
people are reporting that they're spending 15-20% less.
So what the hell is going on? Are the retailers lying?
John
Not sure why you're just getting angry now -- I've been furious andHiggenbotham wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/busin ... odayspaperThat had to be what Citigroup, with
its firsthand expertise with bailouts, must have been thinking
when it lent $8 billion to Dubai last year. Oh, and here’s an
interesting fact: Citigroup made the loan to Dubai on Dec. 14,
2008. Take a look at the calendar — that’s after it received tens
of billions in TARP funds. Citigroup’s chairman, Win Bischoff,
said at the time, “This is in line with our commitment to the
U.A.E. market in general, and reflects our positive outlook on
Dubai in particular.” Good call.
Now I'm starting to get angry! Where is the oversight? Bailout
money goes down the rathole in Dubai. Where does this
end?
These estimates from ShopperTrak seem consistent with what I'd been reading prior to the release of the (phony) government report. When will the lies stop? Yes, I am angry!Recent efforts to gauge activity have been mixed. The Commerce Department said yesterday that retail sales rose 1.3 percent in November, a report that was contradicted by ShopperTrak, which said retail sales slipped 0.1 percent for the month. Additionally, ShopperTrak said retail sales for the week ending Dec. 5 fell 0.3 percent compared with the same period last year.
John, it's one thing for a crooked operation like Citibank to take the money of those who voluntarily give it to them, play around with it, and then reach the point of implosion. But it's quite another once the implosion point is reached for politicians and bureaucrats to give them another chance by taking money from those who would not give it voluntarily and then (here is the worst part) do nothing while Citibank then throws that money into a black hole like Dubai. Granted, we all have our level of tolerance, but this crew of idiots has got to be taken away from the levers before they destroy Western Civilization and we go into Dark Age II. After reading this, I'm pretty well convinced none of this other nonsense I'm talking about really matters and that is where we are headed. As you like to say, with absolute certainty.John wrote:Dear Higgie,
Not sure why you're just getting angry now -- I've been furious andHiggenbotham wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/busin ... odayspaperThat had to be what Citigroup, with
its firsthand expertise with bailouts, must have been thinking
when it lent $8 billion to Dubai last year. Oh, and here’s an
interesting fact: Citigroup made the loan to Dubai on Dec. 14,
2008. Take a look at the calendar — that’s after it received tens
of billions in TARP funds. Citigroup’s chairman, Win Bischoff,
said at the time, “This is in line with our commitment to the
U.A.E. market in general, and reflects our positive outlook on
Dubai in particular.” Good call.
Now I'm starting to get angry! Where is the oversight? Bailout
money goes down the rathole in Dubai. Where does this
end?
disgusted for a long time. And the end is nowhere in sight.
John
Hi, John -John wrote:Dear Higgie,
We are in a deflationary spiral, and it is 100% certain that there
will be a major correction -- probably 30-40% to begin and then,
following the 1929-32 pattern, a further plunge to Dow 1500 or so over
the next few years. The shock will be much greater than it would have
been if the crash had been allowed to happen earlier.
John
MR. GREGORY: Let me turn to another question about the role of government, and that is the role of the Federal Reserve. Dr. Greenspan, Paul Krugman, liberal economic economist for The New York Times columnist, wrote this this week about what the Fed ought to do: "There's also," he wrote, "I believe, a question of priorities. The Fed sprang into action when faced with the prospect of wrecked banks; it doesn't seem equally concerned about the prospect of wrecked lives. And that is what we're talking about here. The kind of sustained high unemployment envisaged in the Fed's own forecast is a recipe for immense human suffering--millions of families losing their savings and their homes, millions of young Americans never getting their working lives properly started because there are no jobs available when they graduate. If we don't get unemployment down soon, we'll be paying a price for a generation." Does the Fed have more to do?
DR. GREENSPAN: I think the Fed has done an extraordinary job, and it's done a huge amount. There's just so much monetary policy and the central bank can do, and I think they've gone to their limits at this particular stage. And you cannot ask them to create more than is physically possible. They, they stopped what essentially was a major financial collapse by interposing sovereign credit for private credit for commercial paper, for essentially blocking a number of problems which emerged especially, incidentally, in conjunction with the Treasury, the so-called TARP program, where they put capital into banks.
MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.
DR. GREENSPAN: I thought at that point was essential. The difficulty is there is a limit. And if the Federal Reserve does not, in fact, pull in all of the stimulus it's put into the economy, then down the road is inflation. It's a long way down the road and it's not immediate. But the question is, you cannot ask a, a central bank to do more than it is capable of doing without very dire consequences.
The clip from September 9 is on youtube and it was interesting. He showed a comparison with the 1938 Dow, then showed his Nenner Cycle. The Nenner Cycle projected a high in the market in October and the 1938 comparison projected a high in December. Since my August projection was blown out, I've been thinking December but it's sure been bumpy. I had thought the December 3 reversal was the end of it, but the market is still at about the midpoint of where it traded that day. If we are to believe this is still a bear market rally and believe in charting, this chart I posted yesterday would seem to confirm the view that the market has either made its last gasp or is about to. As late as early September, I could never have imagined a scenario where it would have gotten to this point.thrive wrote:Hi, John -
It would be interesting to hear your feedback and that of others here on the forum about Charles Nenner's comments on CNBC.
http://charlesnenner.com
If you go to Nenner's Sept 9, 2009 video clip you can see his latest thoughts on future market performance.
Nenner charts the current markets side by side with the markets of the 1930s, with the premise (as I see it) that the timing of peaks and valleys are similar.
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