just read a self described ” screed “
over at counter punch

by a mr chris ketcham of GQ and Vanity Fair fame

it launches itself gleefully straight from the heart of  wall street nation's present pickle

(i quote verbatim where possible )

“our economic system is a lunatic and suicidal system, and it deserves to go down”
(Why)….It is predicated on the delusion, accepted on every level in every modern society,

that unlimited Mahnolo Blahniks are possible on a planet of limited resources….(cure)

What might replace the current insane system I couldn’t venture to say…

.(next)……If events trend badly enough, a period of contraction, unemployment, economic depression, homelessness, tent cities, rising crime, boarded up storefronts, abandoned homes will be upon us faster than imaginable ….(end game)…Perhaps the crisis will bring about the devolution of the American living standard to something like sustainability….(or)..perhaps it will only bring out a lot of pissed-off middle-classers who refuse to accept that the American way of life is sick and crazy and has no future. ..”

what follows this soaring per oration is a not entirely predictable but none the less completely tiresome purple pantied cockroach and gun play ornamented rapsody on the beauty of a jean genet urban twlight zone known as pre guiliani new york
where one breathed in at every breath “the pervasive sense that bad things could happen at any time, which tends to raise consciousness to a fever range, the kind of sharp-sword animal consciousness where the coyote and the rat operate.” ie …”romanticized drivel”

wanna read it ????? nahhh don't … i'm not sure u need pour yourself even another drop from the bottle of this paraplegic souled boho

okay here's its finale
“… back to the collapsing markets, the product of fart-in-the-wind economics. I can foresee on 5th Avenue in Park Slope a beautiful resurgence of shuttered shops, rotted storefronts, the end of money’s welcome in its hypocrite hug, the end of surfeit, a return to normalcy. No more strawberries in January at the store on the corner – the strawberries were never meant to be eaten in winter anyway…”

amazing eh ???

to be fair he adds this last stab at substance and justice

“…perhaps we might even see a return to the city of people who manufacture something other than air. I will be driven out first – because this screed is all air! So be it! “

evidence of an examined life ???

fore sware class mates foresware … such elixir … worms the brain of all but the most oaken of  spirits

after thought:

we burger punks have little to our credit and yet we can agree i think …”satura quidem tota nostra est “
red and green tinctured satura both

ahhh but then again i wonder sometimes how some of us

the unfortunate ones gifted with too keen a sense

of the beauty in all ugly truths— -

especially those of us enlightened unto our very own parasitical depravity —-

can still find a wallowing sort of joy in our decaying sense of self loathing and superiority of insight

even as we drown

right along with the first dude named Palin

and the rest of the white wage goblins

Posted by js paine at 09:28 PM

“If you built houses, poured concrete, sold doorknobs, had a roofing company, etc., you benefited from the housing boom. “

???

off track here i think

get those who benefitted
from the lot value bubble

and the credit-security hussle

not the housing construction boom

wack the developers that rode the bubble yes
like the mortgage originators security packagers raters and insureres

that fueled the bubble

and the one eyed regulators and midnight legislators

that let it happenwhen they didn't make it happen

but

contractors and builders ???? no way

we have equity because
those who play equity games

gain “return”

by leveraging off debt players

we only tolerate equity as a society
because it provides a class of players

that in times of crisis

play the involuntary role of risk buffer

there are better risk buffers folks
for credit flow systems

end the equity rip off game

ps
of course

even equity is a sucker play

relatively speaking

there's another deeper
more decisive rip off

the skim
from the passive equity players

by the sifted few insiders

and sifted few insiders
would exist in pure debt funds as well

——-
too big to fail

really has nothing to do with the problem

the total system wide equity versus the total potential losses

that's the problem

whether its in one big firm or

fairly evenly distributed in ten thousand little firms

the problem is the possibilty of inadequate equity

and thus lender losses

imagine if by an invisible hand

the equity in every firm would always be

exactly emough

to cover all potential losses to that firm

then lenders could and would lend to them

but would folks buy equity issues by thm ???

not if losses of unknow proportions
still hung over them

ask yourself this

if transparency is voluntary
as free private firms insist is their right

how is it in the interests of insiders

to obscure on their balance sheet

their real financial prospects and conditions

to throw
a partial light or if the odds favor

non timely revelations

why not throw even a boldly blatantly

false light

on conditions

how does a market

filled with a zillion

little firms

hit with a crsis

differ in consequences

that a market with only one big firm

if the little firms act like a school of fish

if all the toxic shit was in one or a few big firms ??
it would be easy

for a public authority

backed by the redit of the whole society

to intervene effectively

take it over
clean out the gunk

and move on

voila fred and fanny

but
if every firm of many has some unknown amount of gunk ???

to big to fail only means
the market might turn radioactive if the big firm fails

and all the others will face a panic day

of senseless reckoning

all at once

How ironic would it be if the unbridled push toward free market capitalism brought about … dictatorship via economic chaos “

” ironic ” ???
perhaps “lapidary”

gets to the core meaning of this knee jerk boiler plate

what ystem have we ben operating here these past 30 years
and who's called the shots ???

so now they want to keep calling em

ironic ???

hardly

that te play must get more force filled

more state induced

even more gun barrel ish

a surprise ???
given the reagan coup

the feeling of irony here

among whole people oriented commentators

is the irony

uncle ronnie ..pinochet with a hollywood rewrite

Posted by: paine | Link to comment | September 22, 2008 at 05:32 AM

paine says…
zero equity funds that pay a risk premium on their portfolio

that outghta be the model entity

to replace these hyper geared

exiguously equitized

high wire acts

btw

such gigantic freak shows

will spontaneous re emerge

if equity plays re enter the model

if the only arbitage rents that flow out of these
loans to loaners who loan to loaners who loan to …

that paasses back up the chain
“final net earnings “

like a bucket brigade with sieves for pails ….

i submit public equity stakes
will only get re privatized

as the game boards and the play re heat

hair grows back
so

not a hair cut a scalping

“a spineless elite class”

hardly
…

knzn

is like elmer fudd

love-able but mock-able

his reversal on the bail
too little too late

but then

none of us can stop this rip a dip now

its …..bipartisan

the swines rouge and lashes ???

” allyou about to be greater
public debt carriers

meet your upside reflection:

ass hole choiceless

rube equity stake holder “

Posted by: paine | Link to comment | September 22, 2008 at 07:21 AM

paine says…
“I’d urge Congress

to pause for a minute,

take a deep breath,

and try to seriously rework

the structure of the plan”

how now
brown cow ???

“Because financial institutions have too little capital relative to their debt, they haven’t been able or willing to provide the credit the economy needs”

brake this into markets
oh u public servents u

house mortgages
not originated

student loans reduced

small firms'
“working capital ” squeezed

and their receivables flow slowed

appliances not financed

buildings not constructed

etc etc

putting aside easily uncle countered
macro effective demand reductions

— and mapping out
a fairly precise distribution

among various markets —

what is a decent envelope estimate
of

go forward real economy credit flow insufficiency

and what is its spontaneous time line

why after a whole year of fidle diddle
why this sudden bee stunk jack ass

like gallop toward

massively over paying out of public funds

for all this stale synthetic debt junk ..no

beter

this gigantic glob of toxic debt gunk ???

putting this all
in one big hi fi

uncle belt way

yuka mountain

might be the final solution

but isn't all about

the price

my take

it oughta be a forced sale a commandeering

like holding this gunk is a violation of the law

force it to be removed from

its zillion spider holes

it oughta be treated like
an illegal hand gun law

but with no biteless

voluntary pay for turn plan

only a forced sale to uncle pronto
and at a savage basement price

or else….

yer all headed for the danbury laundry detail

Posted by: paine | Link to comment | September 22, 2008 at 07:50 AM

paine says…
“Krugman has this spot on “

rather :

off off damn spot

turbo
please for my whale belly white

celtic ears' sake

turn off the tin can
anglo-cisms

what's wrong with home growns like :

right on target mr k
or

bull's eye paul

or …..

dirk

adding uncle buffer prefered to the equity layer
doesn't force out the gunk

and while the gunk remains in hiding

the ultimo loaners

will continue to take pause

after all

what's enough bufferfirm by frm

is a function of how much gunk they're holding

if offering to sell uncle prefered
is on a voluntary basis

one assumes

firms will be

unlikely to offer till its too late

there's a massive covert hold back motive here

uncle must force the firm's hand

“okay feelin lucky today …bub
go ahead make my day bub

don't show me your gunk “

show me the gunk
show me the gunk

Posted by: paine | Link to comment
the dumbest qustion of all

is the best one

if its to be voluntary
at what price??

well not “spot “market price for sure
since if that were adequate

the firms would be selling

their holdings already

no they've driven the market below sellers price

so unless its forced on em
the price has to be part of

a short-mid term more profitable for the firm option

that might mean knowing the chimp like minds
of these tower titans

at least aggregate brake even

then again
when compared to what ??

bruce w
makes this valuation game seem so easy

nope

eggs must be broken

will it be
the rich guy private eggs

or us sucker bet geefs' public eggs

given the regime's revealed class preference
beyond a few scape goats

guess whos' eggs will be broken here

Posted by: paine | Link to comment | September 22, 2008 at 08:15 AM

paine says…
blissex

you play to fast a hand
with these two cards

solvency is as circumstantial as liquidity

systemic states alter both if somewhat
less obviously

in the case of solvency

insolvency like were wolfing
may require a full moon

“$1.8 Trillion? Oh. My. God!”

we have a national portfolio of house lot mortgages

valued at 11 trillion or so

getting away with a mere 15% write off 
when lot values may crash by 5 trillion..

hey to me
that

smells like victory

—————————

“Since when are high house prices considered a good thing?”

when like gold prices
lot values are a store of wealth

…
“Congress would have to show a hell of a lot more backbone now than it did then”

right you are sir !!!!!

ryberg
at first u soar.1 -.4

but then you faulter .5
reclimb .6

but alas
then

your hobby horse farts .7

and

you flush peculiar .8

make a noble if klaghornian revanche .9

and arriving back at square one
ending with piquant twinkle

nice performance

…
“If you are going to socialize banking, you might as well cut out the middle man”

perfect pitch

…
“Expensive houses means that the cost of living is higher”

not if rents are not rising in tandem

the soaring lot bubble
left lease rates well behind

i think bob f
has the bull by the horn here

how much more adjustment is yet to happen ??

the house lot bubble burst
a year ago

how long will it ake and how much more is left to absorb

does the vast inverted v hierarchy
of synthetic securities

still face huge further devaluations

what more
if left to its own devices

is yet to happen

inside that hideous freak of a financial structure ???

have the towers all fallen ???

or will many more follow ????

maybe the frights are now
encouraged

by the wall street types

begging for a “refill”

at the public pump ????

my take….

nope

the fuckers are still sinking
and the prospect of uncle's pumps so far

ain't nearly enough

btw
we're goin down with em folks

“a mortgage purchasing federal entity could be set up to buy up the mortgages under these conditions. This would help dig out the banks who originated the loans, but would not bail out the speculators “

correcto

but its all abut hi fi here bob as u well know

curing eeble suffering is only a last resort expedient
if direct tower troll bail outs

aren't enough

recall

the dilemma

if it don't stop

the walk away threat might suddenly multiply

just how long how slowly and how far
are lot values going to fall

if say 30% of the housing stock

is owned

by folks with under water equity …

anything might trigger a walk way graze

like the dust bowl

farm abandonments of the 30's

handle this allwrong
and this time next year

McCainvilles might

start to pop up

like bavarian mushrooms

Posted by: paine | Link to comment | September 22, 2008 at 09:09 AM

paine says…
“This is likely to lead to a smaller financial sector “

oh great pundit

what in hell does this mean
specifically

smaller hi fi firm count

smaller total value of outstanding loans

society wide
portfolio value shrink

of bonds and equity

lower security trading velocity

lower hi fi sector share of national income

inquiring dip shits want to know

Posted by: paine | Link to comment | September 22, 2008 at 09:14 AM

paine says…
as to lot value bottom

the “natural” household income

to mortgage ratio (ie our proxy for

capitalized ground rent )

indicates

the long run trend ratio

is something not far from 50% below

this cycle's peak …

and we over shoot it to boot ….

Posted by: paine | Link to comment | September 22, 2008 at 09:20 AM

paine says…
bob and one other chap

are at opposite ends here

one wants a public equity buy in
and the other

a public mortgage buy up

shared good intentions are obviously
not enough

to settle on a plan

ken

if yellow legs like ick and his ilk
didn't exist

come the rev

after wackin'
the tower trolls themselves…

hell
if our blood lust

after decades of exploitation and oppression

remained unslaked

well…we'd be forced to shoot the innocent
“class neutrals”

instead of ick and his fellow members
of the kulack fools' reactionary posse

so god bless
ick and the rest of the hord of

talk radio listening midget

ever eager to lick

a rich man's ass ..as if they might get gold dust on their tongue not ….

Posted by js paine at 07:20 PM