Comments on: Stocks Rally While Big Companies Fail

By: J

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:29:30 +0000

What’s happening regarding all those empty houses (actually, IIRC, I read it’s 19 million, not 14 million, empty houses)? Well, here’s the story of some of them.
How to turn 4 housefuls into one: My landlords’ youngest daughter announced at Christmas that as soon as she graduated from grad school, she had to move back home until she got a job and paid off her student loans. She has yet to find a job, graduation is less than 2 months away, and she’s given her landlord notice that she’s moving out. One empty apartment coming up soon.
Next, their son reported that his job of several years went down the tubes and he has decided he has to go back to grad school. To pay for it, he has to sell his condo and move back in with mom & dad. One condo on the market.
This week their oldest daughter landed on their doorstep with her toddler — busted marriage. She & toddler need to live with mom/grandma & dad/grandpa until she finds a job and sells/settles their house.
So that leaves tenant in the in-law apartment having to move and find a place to share with whomever. Rents have yet to come down (in fact, they’re still rising as at least some homeowners turn into renters).

Are we having fun yet?

By: Bareister

Bareister — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 06:56:51 +0000

Would you PLEASE, Mr Bonner, refrain from disseminating the MYTH that it was “was most emphatically not the free-market, but rather central banking and misguided regulation, that got us into this mess.”!#@!!!???

It’s QUITE misleading and QUITE disingenuous to peddle that TRIPE that Wall St and industry seem so VERY fond of.

Why? If the private sector and free marketing had not gone CRAZY we WOULDN’T be here. They had a FIDUCIARY obligation to exercise SELF RESTRAINT. They, most EMPHATICALLY, did NOT.

The baloney you put forth in this column essentially is like a child, caught out in some egregious misdeed saying, I can’t help it, I’m hard wired this way! It’s YOUR fault you didn’t rein me in!

Like HELL it’s the regulator’s fault. A regulator only needs to regulate if there is a miscreant. Lax oversight does NOT absolve the perps from their egregious behavior. Capitalism is being brought to its KNEES BY that misbehavior, convulsive change is in the offing, God only knows what forms of retribution it has yet to assume, and that is, now, a certainty – something which should worry the myriad perps, who, as yet, don’t seem the repentant in the slightest (witness AIG and its bonus imbroglio of the hour). The malfeasors want to blame weak law enforcement for their misbehavior! The absurdity of this idiotic notion would be wryly amusing were the consequences not so profoundly tragic.

By: Spiderwriter

Spiderwriter — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:20:28 +0000

Tragically, some unknown number of the 14 million foreclosed upon and lost homeowners have moved in with their aging parents, and have begun sucking away at the now vanishing wealth of baby boomer’s retirement. Without credit and a job, their only hope is to someday inherit their parent’s homes, one way or another. The story gets more depressing once you start thinking through the tax consequences of their actions when the parents move on to a far, far happier place. Happy, multi-generational families might appear wholesome and attractive on television, but the reality is far more likely to be different.

By: Dillon Naidoo

Dillon Naidoo — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 01:00:42 +0000

I have observed and experienced on occasion that when warnings and potential dangers are pointed out, free and without any financial cost, most CEOs, senior managers and middle managers treat it like a joke and laugh it off. Is this what that saying about the higher up you go the less productive you become refers to?

By: airbil

airbil — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:03:57 +0000

In light of this closing line, “Sadly, the current generation is probably beyond help at this point.” I have the where with all to possibly make a video that the younger folk may grok this debacle. What might be an outline for this?
Where we started and how we got here?
What is money the Fed and how does it work?
Where does money come from?
How do we build wealth?
It would be a wonderful thing to see them assemble with torches and pichforks in Grant Park. Yes indeed.
Any thoughts appreciated.

By: Paul A

Paul A — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:28:56 +0000

regarding:
“Again, you’d expect these question marks to inspire a little serious thinking. If assets aren’t worth what we thought they were worth…well, what are they worth? And what is happening in the economy that makes things so uncertain?”

The deeper question is, “What is the value of THE MEASURING-UNIT by which we are measuring the ASSETS worth in?” I used to think I knew the answer to that question. It has a rather matrix-like ring about it:

Agent Smith: Have you ever stood and stared at it, marveled at it’s beauty, it’s genius? Billions of people just living out their lives, oblivious. Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world. Where none suffered. Where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. The perfect world would dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization which is of course what this is all about. Evolution, Morpheus, evolution, like the dinosaur. Look out that window. You had your time. The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time.
Agent Brown: There could be a problem.

I DO really like the articles sir!

By: Troofust

Troofust — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:21:31 +0000

It sounds like that reader should be a DR Guest Contributor. I’m sure he has a lot of funny/sobering anecdotes.

By: MyLessThanPrimeBeef

MyLessThanPrimeBeef — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:17:50 +0000

This one is for Bill from a not so prime reader who has never worked for Goldman, Morgan, Lehman or anything remotely close.

This question is related to the Paradox of Savings. As I understand it, savings are good for the individual; but if everyone saves, and saves a lot, it’s bad for the economy.

Now, my question is called The Paradox of Writing. I firmly believe writing is good for the individual; good writing or bad writing, it doesn’t matter so much. But if we all become writers, who will do the house cleaning? Isn’t that bad for the economy as well?