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New York, 6:51 AM
Thu Nov 26
45 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/04/09
11/04/09
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11/04/09
Lady Gaga? #trendwatch
11/04/09
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11/04/09
Already happened! Loan loss reserves are already creeping to like 10-15% at major owners of assets backed by CC debt.
Commercial real estate hasn't deflated yet.
But the biggest asset bubble of all is in the underlying currency at this point - the sheer amount of USD and the unwillingness of the Fed to constrain the availability of dollars means you're starting to see pricing impacts that are a direct result of dollar weakness. Across all asset classes! At some point that will hit the real economy. #trendwatch
11/04/09
Complete agreed on the Credit Card thingee. #trendwatch
11/04/09
But why worry about currency deflation when we can charge it all to our credit cards, right? Also, I'm all right with the government loaning the banks money to cover their CC gambles, but only if banks give government the right to call everyone of their employees during dinner and harangue them about their "obligations" to their creditors. #trendwatch
11/04/09
Things weak and weakening currencies do, holding all else equal:
1.) Make your exports more attractive
2.) Decrease the "real" value of debt relative to assets not denominated in the currency
3.) Makes your debt less attractive to investors
4.) Increase the nominal value of assets denominated in the currency
How will those factors affect us? There is no consensus. #trendwatch
11/04/09
It's been a pretty big splat.
Deflation is horribly for debtors. If the "real" value of a dollar increases, your debt has more value. If it decreases, it has less. Debtors (read: the middle class) should be rooting for inflation to make their debts irrelevant in real tearms. William Jennings Bryan was asking for inflation in the "Cross of Gold" speech.
Example of this effect: say tomorrow we go full Zimbabwe and suddenly $100,000 is the purchasing-power equivalent of $1 today. Your mortgage is paid! Congrats! #trendwatch
11/04/09
11/04/09
Think about it. These people have made their bones. Whatever they're drawing down on the long slow march off the cliff is what they've got. They've paid their mortgages. Once they run through it, it's gone.
I'm sure the most powerful lobby in America, the almighty association of relegated pricks, will do all it can to ensure their fully paid health entitlements are for them alone and that nothing changes ever amen.
But yeah, I've lived in countries post-hyper-inflation. You have to carry around your cash in grocery bags. It sucks.
10/07/09
10/07/09
If one were to make their own barcodes and if they were to print it on the right kind of tape, trying to get a refrigerator for a dollar or shooting for a 25¢ DiGiorno might be called indicative of the economy.
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10/07/09
Interesting factoid #23: complete.
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