tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203920672024-03-23T11:15:13.589-07:00Clearcut BainbridgeThe purpose of this blog is to examine Bainbridge Island as an example of how the global credit bubble can impact a community, which believes they are immune to these forces, due to some sense of "specialness." This blog also seeks to continue a dialogue concerning macro-economic forces as they relate to people in the Westsound region.Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-39341322376758276212011-09-03T00:21:00.000-07:002011-09-03T00:21:33.129-07:00Undeniable Truths of Money #3: The Herd Is Always Wrong At Inflection PointsQ: What significance does October 10, 2007 have to investing?
A - It was the all-time high in the stock market
B - It was the most bullish day in the history of the stock market
C - It was the best day to sell in the history of the stock market
D - It was the worst day to buy in the history of the stock market
E - All of the above.
For those who still believe the stock market is a Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-20019178910311274782011-08-18T12:42:00.000-07:002011-08-25T11:35:27.831-07:00Undeniable Truths of Money #2: For You To Get Out Of A Trade, Someone Else Must Get Into The Trade
That's why they call it a "trade."
When you find yourself on the losing end of a "sure thing" trade, the one thing you want more than anything else is to find someone to dump it to - at full price. The problem is if you know it, everyone else does as well. In order for your problem not to be your problem, it must become someone else's problem.
This is why we have marketing Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-34821152138564921122011-08-15T05:00:00.000-07:002011-08-18T01:45:20.024-07:00Undeniable Truths of Money #1: Debt is the Antithesis of Wealth
Own yourself.
By borrowing money, you go into debt and as such you are pledging your future productivity to extinguishing that debt. This debt almost always carries interest, which is an additional claim against your productivity. As long as you owe your lenders, you are not free to put your excess productivity to the endeavors of your choosing - you owe it to someone else.
Let's Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-202005317793776642011-05-06T01:20:00.000-07:002011-05-06T10:47:25.746-07:00Commodity Crack-up
I guess SEAL Team Six went directly from Bin Laden's hide-out to the commodity exchange and brought its signature lethality.
If you want to know what happens when the "shoeshine boy" is in the trade, look at these charts.
Silver, Nat Gas, Oil, Australian Dollar
If I had a dog as ugly as those charts, I'd shave its rear and walk it backwards.
This is what happens when AM Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-66460454847501437622011-05-03T02:27:00.000-07:002011-05-06T10:45:09.187-07:00Peeking Around The Corner: Is The Dollar About To Rebound?
"Crush Depth" is the depth that a submarine can no longer resist the ambient pressure and will catastrophically fail...and die. It is the point of no return. All airplanes eventually land (in some form or fashion), but not all submarines surface.
The USS Dollar is approaching crush depth. Skipper Bernanke has gone guano-insane and has finger-fouled the USS Dollar into into theEleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-88844441449994785242011-03-31T12:15:00.000-07:002011-04-06T01:22:14.253-07:00Getting It Over With: IER Reviews Karl Denninger's Plan For Credit Market Recovery
Peer review:a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility.Today, we shall be reviewing Karl Denninger's "Four Point Plan" on how we can put this credit monster in the rear view mirror.
Citations of Denninger Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-34570589314830165232011-03-24T00:09:00.000-07:002011-03-26T12:33:37.522-07:00Nobody Makes A Commission for Moving You To Cash
I know, I know...the IER has been dormant since the Seachickens butterfingered their way out of the playoffs, and the vast and loyal readership of the Westsound's premier economic blog have been jonesing for a fix. Here is a little bit of sanity to tide all of you over until the senior fellows can unclog their inboxes and devote the time needed to keep all of us in the right frame of mind.
I Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-81039002677951956182011-01-18T00:05:00.000-08:002011-01-18T21:59:20.596-08:00Seahawks Post Mortem
Any questions?
Don't blame this loss on Matt. When one of only two guys that can catch a perfectly thrown ball gets injured on the second series, you are not going to have a good afternoon. The Seahawk receivers must have mistaken axle grease for Lester Hayes' bootleg bottle of Stickum.
The other problem is that Cutler had way too much time in the backfield to complete passes to Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-10999373919651134402011-01-12T15:50:00.000-08:002011-01-18T22:00:34.639-08:00That's Why They Play The Game
I thought it would be fun to have an entry that has nothing to do with economics, real estate, politics, Bainbridge Island twittiness, or longwinded, snarky bombasts.
This goes in the catagory of how the IER is a good fade when predictions come along, and since I have been Seahack fan since the Jim Zorn days (also a Raider fan for sanity purposes and a 49er fan by marriage), I Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-56630158672083091632010-12-24T00:02:00.000-08:002010-12-24T00:06:49.695-08:00Eating Fair Traded, Shade Grown, Free-range, Crow
One unfortunate feature of being an economic gadfly is the the field of economics is fraught with prediction, most of it coming from the third bend in an economist's colon. At the Institute For Economic Reality, the convocation of macro-economic realists strives not to source its predictions in the same manner. Even so, reality often intrudes in the most obsene fashion Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-72050466093909896512010-12-13T17:13:00.000-08:002010-12-24T19:09:41.319-08:00The Printers Are Coming! The Printers Are Coming!EX NIHILIO credit is the mechanism most of the pundits confuse with "printing."
When you go to your community bank to get a loan for a new Subaru Outback AWD, complete with "Wag More, Bark Less" and "COEXIST" stickers, your banker is extending you credit. The banker is loaning you money he borrowed from someone else at a lower rate (depositors). You take the money you borrowedEleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-1971221063358286432010-12-12T00:49:00.000-08:002010-12-12T14:06:44.725-08:00Is QE 2 Really The Titanic?
As the vast and loyal readership of Clearcut Bainbridge already know, the Institute For Economic Reality has been a pretty good fade for calendar year 2010. The IER predicted a rising US dollar and falling "everything else." This wasn't lost on the senior fellow level of the IER, and I had a short, but prosaic posting where I would be eating large helpings of corvus brachyrhynchos.&Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-11416721274642608762010-08-04T12:28:00.000-07:002010-08-04T12:28:22.301-07:00Sobering Up: A Policy Advocacy Series By The Institute For Economic Reality
Roman Bacchanalia
(early incarnation of the modern day "Rager")
This entry is the first in a what will hopefully be a multi-installment feature on Clearcut Bainbridge. The Institute For Economic Reality will be exploring and discussing with its vast readership how we can extracate our nation from the current economic clamity of our own creation. This is what you will NOT be hearing from our Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-92133995372630426252010-05-20T17:07:00.000-07:002010-05-21T23:37:38.685-07:00Judgment Day: Quick Update (and it is not good)
In last quarter's posing (am I so lazy, I'm down to posting every 13 weeks?), The IER layed out a road map on how the financial beating we will take will present itself.
The short version:
Dollar rises and causes,
-commodities to get crushed.
-then equities (that's stocks for you RE agents) get positively smashed
-then debt (bonds) get horrifically sold, which takes interest rates up
-finallyEleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-40438205321584733582010-02-16T22:44:00.000-08:002010-02-17T11:07:44.591-08:002010: Financial Judgment Day
Housing, Gold, Stocks, Interest Rates, Currency - An Intermediate Outlook.
Last month, the Institute For Economic Reality held a discussion on why the current fascination with commodities, especially gold, is a game that is about to turn. Since then, we have seen the stock market peak on January 19th, and then take a turn for the worse. While this was knowable, it is very difficult to Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-16087806370870138752010-01-06T22:37:00.000-08:002010-01-07T10:42:12.861-08:00Local NAR Hints at Housing Time Bomb???Today's Kitsap Sun had a great article by Rachel Pritchett discussing the direction of Kitsap's troublesome home resale market. It was surprising, not because Pritchett did some fine journalism (as that is her baseline), but that the real estate professionals seemed to be telegraphing an ominous development in real estate.While December’s numbers were encouraging, it’s too soon to say the marketEleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-9730716141352296172009-11-14T22:31:00.000-08:002009-11-16T23:17:35.569-08:00Real Estate Agents to the Left; Goldbugs to the Right; Here I Am...Stuck in the MiddleThis is a quick update on the insanity that passes for financial advice in our popular culture.The Institute for Economic Reality, Kitsap County’s original economic think tank, has recently relocated its campus to Western Poulsbo, due to the previous landlord expecting me to stay in a house on a month-to-month basis, only to leave if she ever found an economic illiterate from California to bail Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-89376376341869133792009-08-31T16:03:00.000-07:002009-11-14T22:31:22.710-08:00The Joke Is On UsThe IER attended the Inslee Town Hall at NKHS on Saturday, and was amazed at the widespread economic idiocy that passes for governance.Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-42406191882008181372009-08-23T22:14:00.000-07:002009-08-24T10:52:30.827-07:00The Deadbeat Next DoorI have good news and bad news.The good news is that foreclosure rates on subprime ARM mortgages fell last quarter. Wall Street is rejoicing with a 50% rocket-shot in the S&P since the March lows and everyone believes that the "all clear" has been sounded with the window-lickers on CNBC yammering about "green shoots" nonstop since that time. Yes, the biggest financial calamity in world Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-19625309678926031342009-05-27T23:04:00.000-07:002009-05-28T00:40:17.328-07:00Yelling "FIRE!" In A Crowded Bond MarketWhat happens when you are holding a trainload of ALT-A mortgage paper, and 40% (+/-) of the mortgages in those securities are 60 days delinquent? (Think every Money Market fund in the USA)You sell.What happens when you are holding 10year US Treasury notes and the government keeps "stimulating" itself at a $trillion per pop, and tax revenues are only 50% of total expenditures? (Think every Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-52918581821638821852008-11-10T13:27:00.001-08:002008-11-10T13:53:47.062-08:00The Bureau Of Labor Statistics Mind TrickJust a quick note for anyone who still trusts their government/media to tell them the truth.When you hear of the "official" unemployment rate put out by the government, you are only getting half the truth (actually, it's 55%, but who is counting?). The government wants you to believe that our unemployment rate is only 6.5%, up from 4.8% when compared to last October.The truth is the American Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-23780447803559732612008-11-07T09:12:00.000-08:002008-11-08T13:43:44.952-08:00Bainbridge Island: Post Election PsychosisNow that Bainbridge Islanders can't engage in their two favorite activities (endless yammering about home appreciation and wallpapering over the entire island with OBAMA '08 propaganda), we are going to have to brace for the next annoying, self-serving, short-sighted, hip-n-trendy corpus of mindless twaddle that they will lord over all of us in the name of neo-enlightenment.Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-52700458736125673532008-10-22T23:51:00.000-07:002009-04-18T11:52:25.080-07:00Bankers, Beanie Babies, Leverage and LiarsQ: How do you know when a banker is lying?A: He publishes his quarterly financial statements.The Institute For Economic Reality, a think tank based in Poulsbo, Washington, has been watching the "credit crisis" unfold for a few years, and has concluded that bankers are dumber and more dishonest than airline executives - a feat that was previously thought to be unassailable.Many have asked me if Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-2746566797076424912008-10-07T18:28:00.000-07:002008-12-11T12:52:24.542-08:00Blast From The Past: Rent vs OwnBecause I have been too preoccupied with the financial self-immolation of our nation, I have not been able to continue the unending string of high-quality postings that Clearcut Bainbridge readers have come to expect. So, in lieu of doing actual work, I thought I would just warm up some leftovers and throw them out for general consumption.Hopefully, this keeps me in the good graces of all the Eleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20392067.post-8267595982398706992008-10-04T21:11:00.000-07:002009-02-04T12:18:22.763-08:00Inslee Wins Immunity! On Friday, October 3, 2008, America was sold out to foreign bankers by the United States House of Representatives in a 263-171 vote.There were few bright spots in this disaster, but among the brightest for people in North Kitsap, Bainbridge, Shoreline, Kirkland and Edmonds was that our Congressional Representative, Jay Inslee, kept the faith with his district and voted "NO" on both occasions. AsEleuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248482892459370601noreply@blogger.com2