Economic stimulus naysaysers!

[ehall]

Stop being so NEGATIVE!:laugh:

LOL you people were NEGATIVE when Bush had POSITIVE growth that was below the rate of population increase. Now your boy is on a JOB-LOSS STREAK and you are weeping with joy

 

[XJEEPER]

I don't think I mentioned Fannie Mae, did I?

I said Freddie Mac, not the same company. Freddie Mac is not asking for any more money, and they just payed the US Treasury 1.1 billion dollars in preferred share dividends, so that went into the Tax payers pockets, not out. Freddie Mac reported a profit, about 3/4 of a billion for the June 30 quarter close.

Not so long ago, AIG and Freddie Mac had been written off as a lost cause.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/business/04bonus.html?_r=1

Zebra's with different stripes.......BTW, please provide clarity and define "written off" in this application.

• If the debt was written off, where did it go?
• Who is responsible for it and how will if be paid back?
• If if won't be paid back, who got screwed?
• How does this effect our economy?
• How does this effect our taxes?
• Where any of my tax dollars used to prop up Freddie and/or Fannie?

 

[Ecomike]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/business/04bonus.html?_r=1

Zebra's with different stripes.......BTW, please provide clarity and define "written off" in this application.

• If the debt was written off, where did it go?
• Who is responsible for it and how will if be paid back?
• If if won't be paid back, who got screwed?
• How does this effect our economy?
• How does this effect our taxes?
• Where any of my tax dollars used to prop up Freddie and/or Fannie?

Meaning in general, written off by the public in particular, and by most investors. Everyone was jumping overboard while the ship was sinking, public was up in arms (people like you), over the government bail outs, saying the tax payers were never going to get payed back much less get dividends, or interest on the investments and loans, and tax payers were going to end up eating ALL the losses.

The stock went up 128% today.

A few more days like this and I may buy some more clunkers!:laugh3:

 

[REVROK]

Since a great deal of it has not been spent as such, yet, but a lot of it has been promised, which means those who are expecting it are acting differently than they would have if there was no expected stimulus cash coming in just around the corner, the turn around is coming sooner, and should happen much faster, and in a more robust, and faster pace, than would have happened with out the stimulus.

8Mud,

Chear up guy! The sky is no longer falling, LOL!

Actually I took my entire IRA retirement out of MM cash, and started buying stocks this year, for the first time since 1987! Not everyone ran overseas with their cash. I invested in old and new energy tech, bulk shipping, biotechs that were selling for 99.9% off their highs last year (the ones I bought are up already up 300 to 500%), and other fire sales that screamed BUY ME!

Seems I am the only one here that is bullish on the stock market, and the recovery, which is fine with me. Just me tells that I am right, as it means stock prices did bottom, as they always bottom when the public is the most pessemistic about the future. I all see here (other than me) is absolute stark pessemism. If you go back and check I was talking about buying stocks for the first time since 1987, here at the beginning of the year (and very late last year). The markets are at new highs for the year, and are up nearly 50% since the crash bottom on March 9th.

I have been buying stocks since about March 15th, and have not sold anything I bought since then.

On the jobs report, for all the naysayers and pundits here, the drop in unemployment was also the result of a MAJOR drop in layoffs (like about a 65% drop from recent highs), not the other government number rigging you have referred to (which is sometimes the case, but not the entire story this time, if at all!). The point is, investors are coming back and business is turning around, which means jobs are coming back. This is just the kind of news the market needed right now.

So go ahead, keep your heads in the sand (or is it rocks and mud here, I forget?).

Kastein,

I agree there are major house bargains out there now, and great interest rates, and deals. Just make sure the garage is big enough for several jeeps!:wave1:

All that proves is that our economy is resilient... it is not a ringing endorsement of the stimulus package. Even most progressives agree it was a pathetic boondoggle with massive amounts of pork. Yet it is true that when you throw that much money at the economy there will be some benefit. I hope it lasts.

My opening statement was quite bullish, I believe in the US economy... I just don't believe that the stimulus will offer much other than reducing the money supply in the long term by adding to an over bloated deficit. Please don't quote me in "soundbites."

 

[goodburbon]

Mike your brain is so riddled with left thinking I don't know that there is a way to shake you out of it. You're making profit, that's great, I'm glad that you had the resources available to capatalize on a buyers market. It's just peachy that the unemployment rate is going down, that is indeed a good thing. Even though the stimulus isn't spent yet, that is just fanfukingtastic.

Tell me one thing though. How is this even remotely sustainable? Yes the numbers are better, people are buying more, borrowing more, and selling more. What exactly are we producing more of? We have become a nation of consumers that no longer produces anything in any great volume. Our country is now the equivalent of a household who was on the brink of forclosure but just got a lucky letter from the local loan store that their credit had been approved for $30000. The loan is made, the day is saved, the family can continue it's way of life. Only problem is that dad isn't making any more than when they couldn't afford all of the bills to begin with. What happens when the loan money is gone and the bills come due?

I worry that we have temporarily put off the inevitable, and the consequence will potentially be much worse than the original crash. The only way out is to produce our way out. I don't see resource production in that stimulus on any scale large enough to counteract the direction this country is headed.

Not to mention the fact that our government has just voluntarily inflated our currency (see minimum wage increase) You might want to enjoy that money while it's still worth something.

 

[karstic]

Hmmm...unemployment just reached 14% in Riverside County, CA.

Some stimulus

 

[urban yan]

A million mortgages have-been modified to prevent foreclosure.

 

[XJEEPER]

Meaning in general, written off by the public in particular, and by most investors. Everyone was jumping overboard while the ship was sinking, public was up in arms (people like you), over the government bail outs, saying the tax payers were never going to get payed back much less get dividends, or interest on the investments and loans, and tax payers were going to end up eating ALL the losses.

The stock went up 128% today.

A few more days like this and I may buy some more clunkers!:laugh3:

Nice diversion.....I'd call it a speed bump.

If things are looking so optimistic and our economy is rebounding, please explain why the US is struggling to sell Treasury bonds?

In addition, why is Geithner asking Congress to remove the ceiling on our debt limit, if the recession is predicted to be over in the 3rd quarter of 2009?

I'm really am hoping that things are on the upswing..........

 

[XJEEPER]

A million mortgages have-been modified to prevent foreclosure.

That's great!



Foreclosures up nearly 10 percent nationwide
The overall U.S. foreclosure rate was 1.19 percent, or one home in 84. A total of 1.5 million U.S. homes reportedly received foreclosure notices in the first half of the year, representing a 9.5 percent increase over the last six months of 2008.
Above-average levels of foreclosures were reported in a number of states where homeowner defaults had previously remained low, suggesting that rising unemployment was beginning to show up as a factor in markets like Provo, Utah and Boise, Idaho, which posted increases in excess of 60 percent and 45 percent, respectively, compared to the previous six months. Oregon, Arkansas, Illinois and South Carolina also saw areas of sharp increases.

Report Predicts Half of Mortgages Underwater by 2011
Nearly half of U.S. homeowners with mortgages could soon end up owing more on their loans than their property is worth, according to a new report from Deutsche Bank.
The report predicts that 25 million borrowers, or 48 percent of all U.S. residential mortgage holders, could be "underwater" - i.e., have negative equity - on their loans by the first quarter of 2011. That's nearly double the 14 million homeowners, or 27 percent of the market, the report says were underwater at the end of March.

Let's Hope the reports are wrong..........

 

[Ecomike]

Yes, mortgage foreclosures is still a problem area. I heard that one of the 3 big banks (Chase) had already modified a huge number of loans under the new government program, about 75%, or 750,000 that were in foreclosure the last quarter , but that B of A, and Wells Fargo were just getting started, late start but were expected to make a large number of refinancings this quarter.

But then if you read the other thread here, "Mad as Hell", :flame:who knows what games the lying the b*stards will try next.

My point of making the OP was to say there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully daylight, and not a train wreck. I read about 3-4 hours a day of wall street news lately, and the one thing that still scares the writers and supposedly investors is that unemployment was still rising, while many other indicators were showing signs that the recession is turning around (from an investors and business point of view). That (companies reporting profits and sales growth again) has to happen before companies start expanding their work force again.
Todays news showed that Germany and France's second quarter GDPs had turned positive again already, which was good news for the world markets.

China's new car sales the last 12 months hit an all time record, up something like 10% (or more, I forget the number, but it was big). Long story short, I have been reading a steady, slow increase in reports of positive signs that things are turning around, with unemployment and foreclosures being the last real drags news wise, so this report and news that many of the foreclosures are being refinanced right now, tell me that we may have avoided the abyss of long deep depression.

 

[Ecomike]

Hmmm...unemployment just reached 14% in Riverside County, CA.

Some stimulus

It reached about 80% in El Paso Texas in the 1980s.

 

[fscrig75]

My point of making the OP was to say there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully daylight, and not a train wreck.

I was listening to the radio (AM) the other day and someone was saying that we are kinda in the eye of the storm right now. We went through the 2&3 year ARMs already, next up is the 5 year ARMs. The person was talking about how people are trying redo their loans but because they are so "underwater" (owe more than it's worth). I tried finding some info on it but I couldn't.

There was a lot of bad news on CNN Money this morning.

 

[Ecomike]

I was listening to the radio (AM) the other day and someone was saying that we are kinda in the eye of the storm right now. We went through the 2&3 year ARMs already, next up is the 5 year ARMs. The person was talking about how people are trying redo their loans but because they are so "underwater" (owe more than it's worth). I tried finding some info on it but I couldn't.

There was a lot of bad news on CNN Money this morning.

The one difference between now and a year ago (or a little longer) is that the world governments have jumped in and started to bail water out of the ship instead of sitting idly by and letting the ship sink, and made massive commitments to keep bailing. Unlike the 1980s when they let everyone in Texas go belly up, this time there are programs to merge bank (mortgage owner-investor) and government help to help those people refinance those mortgages in many cases based on the new home value, so that they can get a new fixed rate mortgage (not another ARM) at an affordable rate.

In my opinion ARMs should never have been legal. All it did was plant the seeds of a ticking time bomb.

 

[Ecomike]

I was listening to the radio (AM) the other day and someone was saying that we are kinda in the eye of the storm right now. We went through the 2&3 year ARMs already, next up is the 5 year ARMs. The person was talking about how people are trying redo their loans but because they are so "underwater" (owe more than it's worth). I tried finding some info on it but I couldn't.

There was a lot of bad news on CNN Money this morning.

There was some good news, just gotta know where to look. The BDI went up 3% today. I don't trust that CNN bunch, but they are useful for estimating what their herd of followers are likely to be thinking and doing.

 

[fscrig75]

I don't trust that CNN bunch, but they are useful for estimating what their herd of followers are likely to be thinking and doing.

Honestly I don't trust any of them, they all have their own agendas. I just find CNN easier to navigate.

 

[urban yan]

I like fox because they never lie, skew numbers, or pass-off personal opinions as news.

 

[fscrig75]

I like fox because they never lie, skew numbers, or pass-off personal opinions as news.

As compared to who?

 

[Ecomike]

I don't trust Faux news either. I guess you can get some news from any of them as long as you are careful to separate the facts from the spin.

I get half of mine, mostly during the day from the stock market news wires. Later in the evening I cruise CBS, ABC, NBC and PBS. The PBS business news at 5:30 PM CST here is pretty good, as is their late night stuff like interviews with Charlie Rose. Their is a BBS news segment on PBS at 5 pm where I hear stuff that no one else ever seems to cover.

 

[fscrig75]

I agree all are bad, everyone has an agenda. I'll read something on one site and then read it again on another site.

I just don't like when people come out and say one station is worse than others. FOX, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC they are all the same.

 

[Ecomike]

FOX, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC they are all the same.

One must be careful with broad stroke statements like that. They are different too. Difference being they all have their own slants. People tent to watch the one that reinforces their own pre-conceived notions and slants.