TROUBLED DOLLARS

The Dollar has big valuation problems that aren't going away anytime soon but the twenty four hour news channels haven't much noticed gagging us and themselves over the latest chapter in OJ's sick saga-- These breathlessly smarmy gossip clowns haven't noticed the recent news pertaining to the banks either-- Europe's biggest bank, HSBC Holdings isn't just the largest bank in Euroville but the number three behemoth in the entire world tentacling business through an eighty-one country wide span and things are not going well--Business has slowed dramatically and guess who the instigator/culprit of this unwholesome backslide is??-- Or at least one of the main culprits??-- You guessed it the collapsing US Housing market-- The bank's investment arm has been hobbled by personal insolvency of a significantly high order of magnitude that is expected to continue sending the banks lending strategy to the sidelines for some serious cautionary R&R--Certainly the precarious US Housing position is not offering any resuscitative confidence-building to any financial institutions worldwide--

Likewise increased personal insolvencies in Euroworld won't buck up the battered homeowners in the US even if as Toll Brothers Inc., the largest U.S. builder of luxury homes, jumped into optimistic propaganda frenzy with a crescendo of waffling "We may be seeing a floor in some markets where deposits and traffic, although erratic from week to week, seem to be dancing on the bottom or slightly above." If your real estate broker layed that line on you would you believe that anything had hit the bottom of any barrel except maybe the credibility of the real estate industry's professional huckster of the week, Chief Executive Officer Robert Toll -- That Toll's net income in the three months ended Oct. 31 fell 44 percent to $173.8 million from $310.3 million, the Horsham, Pennsylvania-based builder said today in a statement. That the average home price was $710,000 in the quarter, up from $679,000 a year ago indicates it is mainly rich people buying new homes-- 2007 Forecast Fiscal 2007 earnings may drop as much as 62 percent, Toll said in the statement-- What he's really saying is a 60% drop in income has no further downward momentum in an industry occupying 25% of the nation's GDP-- It can't possibly get any worse-- Wow!!..... like that inspires confidence-- Since when is a 60% drop merely 'cooling'???-- Buckle your chinstrap and hope someone that rational didn't pack your parachute--

Planned U.S. layoffs rose 11 percent (totalling 76,773)in November from the previous month, led by a heavy round of job cuts in the automotive industry, an independent report showed on Tuesday-- Probably safe to say at least 75 thousand of those won't be looking to buy homes in the upward range of prices-- Hard hit in November, Ford sales fell 10% and the once Ford tough dropped into fourth place in the U.S. auto market--The sagging auto industry aside, employment slashing in the food, chemical, media and real estate sectors rose by more than 50 percent compared with 2005-- Haven't heard much from the recent winning-through-default demiCrats about economic issues except calls for a hike in the minimum wage which will obviously gall the bloated rich corporate titans that own both parties-- Backsliding into the 2008 primary season who wants to deal with real issues???-- Free face time on television from the mahogany perches of investigatory panels designed to increase personal name recognition nationwide and embarrass their rival fraternity-- It's beginning to look a lot like.....well certainly not Christmas in business as usual DC--

Late payments on subprime loans have surged, and the rosy scenario-ed Wall Street Journal Web site reported on Tuesday that economists don't expect major harm-- Why not???-- The 80,000 subprime borrowers (in any other era called high risk borrowers by rational creditors) who took out mortgages this year are behind on their payments. 80,000 delinquent 'homeowners' are scaring the hell out the the Euro banking community but The Wall Street journal????-- Not to worry we are too good or too big or both to fall-- ......Right!!!!

A record number of real estate foreclosures (17,782) have been filed in the Denver area in the first 11 months of 2006--Experts, there they are again, say other parts of the country that recently had hot real estate markets need only look to Denver to see what's in store for them but not to worry there either because some upscale neighborhoods are virtually untouched and those are the only folks that really matter-- Scams and fraud permeate the collapsing Housing sector countrywide with many 'uninitiated' homeowners being pilfered of their homes by foreclosure counselors who start their fraud by using the term " a not for profit institution'..... Still, today's foreclosure crisis hits a new record high in a different city/sector on a daily basis---

U.S. corporate bankruptcies are another trouble spot seeking refuge and not finding it-- Global Insight, a financial forecasting firm, predicts a 17% rise next year demolishing the good 2006 performance-- Metals, mining, and energy are sectors due the hammer and of course the entire real estate industry which endangers not just homebuilders but financial institutions and brokerages as well as regional banks whose top dogs now are practicing duck and cover exercises to escape the coming fallout-- Sort of a compounded interest-- The desks they are ducking under may be mahogany but its ability to withstand this danger is quite suspect-- Pressure from the curveballs the inverted yield curve is throwing still require the batter to stay in the batter's box-- Standard and Poor's predictions aren't exactly salutory-- Credit quality will deteriorate further and faster and the rise of the junk bond default rate will explain how and why they received such a moniker in the first place-- Currently the complacency embodied in 'It can't happen here!' insures that it will--Wake Up!!!!!