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Oil futures drop ahead of petroleum supplies report
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures fell nearly 2% on Tuesday, as traders reacted to concerns about the health of the economy in China...
Best Buy adds $197 HP laptop to Black Friday lineup
Available in-store beginning Friday, Nov. 27, the HP laptop features an Intel Celeron 900 processor, 2GB memory and a 160GB hard drive.
Holiday Shopping: This Year It's a Game of Chicken
"Being frugal is in, and being lavish is out," says Beth Strobel, director of marketing at PayPal. So shoppers are programmed to wait for huge bargains.
Black Friday is just 3 days away.
Real Estate Newsletter Articles this Week: Existing-Home Sales Increased to
4.15 million SAAR in November
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At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:
[image: Existing Home Sales]*Click on graph for larger image.*
• NAR: Existing-Home Sales Increase...
18 hours ago
12 comments:
As KD over at 'The Market Ticker' would say:
"Merry Grinchmas!"
watchtower,
Recession's Greetings!
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19741209,00.html
Sue Herera on CNBC just summed up what we know.
She said that we know that the Fed is being accommodative and we know the dollar is in decline. She also said that we know that the decline has been orderly so far.
Here are my thoughts. We don't know squat.
1. We don't know for sure if the Fed is being accommodative. What if the Fed is stuck at 0% but it would take -6% to actually be accommodative? Our economy is in peril. I have no idea how low interest rates would really need to go in order to offset the enormous deflitionary pressures and I doubt anyone else does either.
2. We know that the dollar HAS been in decline, but we don't know for sure what will happen next. That's especially true in the short-term. If we did know for sure, then we could all become filthy rich simply by making the bet.
3. We know that the decline in the dollar has been orderly so far. That tells us nothing. It could become very disorderly or it could actually jerk higher if another deflationary event occurs.
The biggest risk in all of investing is to assume you actually know something to the point you think it is a sure thing. I believe that with every fiber of my being.
Stag,
"Being frugal is in, and being lavish is out," says Beth Strobel, director of marketing at PayPal. So shoppers are programmed to wait for huge bargains.
Beth is CONfusing being frugal and being broke. Where DOES the MSM find so many dingbats for all these inane quotes? Never mind....Wall St.
mab,
From that same article...
"But discounting can only go so far before it no longer makes financial sense."
And his point would be?
Can't you just picture "smart" retailers hoarding their deflating electronics goods in back storerooms on the hopes of selling them at higher prices NEXT Christmas? Good luck with that one!
Stag,
What if the Fed is stuck at 0% but it would take -6% to actually be accommodative?
Zero percent clearly wasn't enough to preserve all the non-eCONomic debt in the system. The Fed/Treasury had to resort to bailouts, quantitative (dis)easing and a myriad of alphabet soup programs too.
And to what end are we preserving all this bad credit? I'd argue we are sacrificing the productive economy and the prudent in order to save the ponzi eCONomy. I think it's time to let the ponzi debt deflate.
What good does the fed think will come from devaluing productive work to preserve the value of fraud? I really would like to know.
For cryin out loud, core inflation is STILL close to 2%. Bank and mortgage bond holders are still receiving interest payments. Don't get me started on the record bonuses on Wall St. I mean, Wall Streeter did EARN the bonuses. The bonuses had NOTHING to do with reflation efforts by central banks and governments the world over.
GRRRRRRR!
mab,
"Don't get me started on the record bonuses on Wall St."
Heads they win, tails we lose.
Oops. Wasn't supposed to go there. Sorry.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2009/11/massive-deflation-sighting-noted-in.html
more food for thought?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/175271-commodities-multi-week-highs-if-this-isn-t-inflationary-we-re-missing-something
Stevie b.,
Just to play the other side for a moment...
When oil hit $140 and was rising charts of it and similar commodities looked not just stagflationary but hyperinflationary.
What we got instead was a crash in all assets that had turned parabolic with oil leading the way.
That said, there is stagflation in my name and that is how the bulk of my nest egg is positioned long term (even though I am deflationary short term).
Stag,
When oil hit $140 and was rising charts of it and similar commodities looked not just stagflationary but hyperinflationary.
Despite the huge run up in commodity prices, CPI stayed surprisinngly tame (especially the core). At the end of the day, people just can't afford more stuff at higher prices. And credit can only be a substitute for incomes for so long.
I'm bearish on the future of American incomes so it's hard for me to buy into the high inflation meme. Speaking of incomes, the reported increases in recent years (small though they were) are very deceiving. A large portion of the reported income "gains" were not in spendable wages, but in benefits or "supplemental" income.
From 1950 to 1970, wages were ~ 65% of personal income. That percentage has been dropping ever since. Today, wages are ~ 51% of personal income. Perhaps there's a reason personal savings rates dropped and debt levels rose. And even the savings data is misleading as it effectively counts all benefits as savings. I think most would agree that even the benefits that have been put towards saving/investing have been largely siphoned off by Wall St. hucksters selling shams. It may come as a shock to many, but granite counter tops and two story foyers don't yield 8%.
In addition to the above, the distribution of income is worse than ever and makes our situation far more precarious than the aggregate data show. Private wages are really struggling. It's gotten so bad that government wage gains are actually hiding the pain in the private wage sector.
We turned our economy over to the fed and wall st. and the results have been disastrous for the majority.
And here's a final point. If tapped out Americans can't afford high commodities, just how are Asians making $1/hr going to afford them? I'd really like to know?
Without the fed, we would have had a 1930's style deflationary crash. With the fed, I expect Japan.
mab,
"We turned our economy over to the fed and wall st. and the results have been disastrous for the majority."
They were spending some time talking about what they were thankful for on CNBC today. One thing that came up was the talk between Pelosi and Dodd about the chances of Martial Law if the banking system failed last year.
Good thing that's all behind us. Things look so rosy going forward (for those who managed to get their rose-colored glasses back on after the panic).
"If tapped out Americans can't afford high commodities, just how are Asians making $1/hr going to afford them? I'd really like to know?"
Me too, especially since the Chinese currency is pegged to ours. They don't even get the benefit of a falling dollar to cushion the blow.
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