FIRE BITES

Once again the expert economists failed to gauge the depth of how far and fast existing home sales fell in September-- No small discrepancy this doubling of negative numbers-- Originally reported August numbers were revised downward in a big way-- Wait until canceled contracts get figured into the mix-- What the experts are loathe to mention is that the losses surrounding the hissing leak of the real estate balloon are much graver and more far reaching than, say, recent stock market declines-- Aside from the headliner victims of this financial fiasco, the lenders, the bankers, the mega-builders and their immigrant laborers, the American family looks to be a major loser in this Faustian bargain but unable to muster an advertising account with conglomerate media concerns, their considerable struggle to stay solvent rarely merits attention--

Predictions vary from the lowball White House numbers of 500,000 predicted foreclosures on sub-prime mortgaged houses to a whopping 2,000,000 million indicated by a bi-partisan congressional group-- Estimates predict over a $100/billion in lost wealth from these sub-primers alone-- State and local governments, including fire-bitten California, Florida, Michigan and Ohio, will see their coffers deprived of estimated $900/million in lost property taxes as a result-- Pension funds find themselves suddenly in hock to zillions of worthless sub-prime backed securities-- There is no economic news around the bend sufficiently forceful enough to stem the falling prices of homes people can no longer afford-- Currently 2 million more home loans wait for interest rates to be reset....obviously, upward-- Gasoline onto an already raging fire-- The US dollar doomed!!!-- Pray for strength because no easy life awaits--

Meanwhile Mr. Bush continues his robust mumblings of World War III-- Slip of the tongue, no doubt!!!-- As if that were a solution-- His puppet-master Cheney intoning everywhere that Iran is the impediment to peace in the Middle East is a motion even seconded by the protean Surging General Petraeus-- Israel, back from practicing air routes through Syrian air-space for a potential joint-strike against Iranian nuclear facilities turns the electrical power off in Gaza to drive the population away from its only defenders, Hamas-- Yeah, that'll work-- If the White House and its most loyal of rogue state-allies need a canard to attack Iran, whose GDP is all of 2% of the current Defense budget, why do these cretins fail to see the obvious??--

The fictive WMD's Sadam supposedly had are simply hidden in Iran with all manner of chimeric mushroom clouds-- John McCain and ever-unctious Joe Lieberman will tout this ploy far and wide on the Sunday political shows and pocketed administration frontmen like Michael Gordon, now flying solo after his tandem operative, the useful-idiot Judith Miller, fell from grace due to her scorched but missing-in-action journalistic-integrity, all oxymorons not aside, will festoon the faux discoveries front page on the magisterial NY Times and away we'll go into the wild blue.........yonder!!-- Spineless and lost, the angst-riven demies will goose-step into oblivion and take off their clothes for little bits of AIPAC chocolate-- Whitman heard America singing but the song of manifest destiny embodied by the gargantuan freeway now has one eye on the traffic and the other on the needle resting precariously on the red line of the fuel gauge-- Running on empty...........running hard!!!!--

Immediate repercussions to an attack on Iran may include $300/barrel oil prices but glossy spin can attribute conservation value to such anomalies and assert toil-worn homilies about the Castor-oil of depression making all of us, especially those still capable of oxygen intake, better-off in the long run-- The media, of course, super-bored by the criminality of the mis-adventure in Iraq, mostly ignorant of economic ramifications surrounding the housing market collapse, and fraught with the calcifugous ennui induced by the current abjectly myopic '08 presidential campaign, will be disappointed by the sudden faux war-footing being foisted upon them just as the voyeurism attendant public bathroom sex involving a closet Republican senator with the 'wide-stance' proclivity for undercover cops was getting so interesting-- Despite California aflame and Atlanta athirst, big Winter is on the way--

Powered by ScribeFire.

THE BEN AND HENRY ACT II

Today's news ain't much better--Bernanke and Paulson, the Ben and Henry roadshow, again projected more worsening scenarios with extant woes enduring indefinitely for the problematic Housing sector-- Another building gauge, the US Architects index, pegged in at a fifteen month low adding to the surrounding gloom while Houston reported that it, indeed, did have a problem as slumping home sales continued to spread-- US housing starts plunged to a low not seen since 1993 while consumer prices took a bigger bite out of the anorexic dollars or the extended lines of credit they now bring home from the workplace in lieu of real wages--

Crude oil knocked on the door of $89/barrel before slightly backtracking but overconfidence did not greet T Boone Pickens' prediction of a 'dicey' fourth quarter with oil benchmarks topping the old $100 per....-- Basic supply running roughly 3 million barrels/day shy of perpetually rising world demand-- Home heating oil taps a record high and stunted auto production wears its slumpy coveralls-- On the way down coasters pick up speed--


Desire satisfied only increases the voracity of appetite as the world continues in almost unremarkable fashion to devour its seed corn-- Quaffing the lifeblood of the 'system' as if 400 afternoon colas would not count as calories and would certainly never be missed from the company's pantry-- The Self-Reliance once embedded in the American character appears to belong to a lost order or a vanished epoch-- The automobile drives us acquiescently ever onward to a fate the parameters of which no inkling, as of yet, ignites a cogent response of collective will-- The gears begin to grind--

Certainly China and Japan have not yet lost the will to act as they pulled the plug on the most US debt in five years-- The lipstick adorned US Treasuries no longer entice Asian financiers with the fanaticism that once mirrored the frenetic lust for Cabbage Patch Dolls found in overweight moms roller-derby-ing each other over the rails in big-box toy stores for a chance at the X-mas big-time-- Debt driven Christmas Smiles aside for the time being and maybe even the entire season as sovereign wealth funds seek higher returns beyond the US Treasuries' anemic dollar-- It is as if the US isn't as major a player in the game as he once thought-- Our Go pieces are already surrounded by self-inflicted debt riddled hubris everyone else is glaringly aware of except us--Spectators are leaving through the side gates and the back door when the fourth quarter has barely begun--

Meanwhile Mr Bush, foxier than a blind fox or a lame one, invites the Dalai Lama into the Oval Office to buff his bona fides and kiss his ring which infuriates our Chinese creditors who do have way more clout than his fuming clueless demie opposition whose ineptitude invites such erratic Bush eccentricity and dereliction without the substance or power to ever hold his feet to the fire of accountability-- Tweaking our creditors at such a financially perilous moment is irresponsible at best from a spoiled frat-boy never tasked by life to clean up his own mess-- The beat goes on

Powered by ScribeFire.

GAME UP

Treasury Secretary Paulson at the end of his tether opted not to continue his ongoing full-scale dispute with the obvious as he warned anyone still listening to his pronouncements that the housing market/industry's unchecked collapse continues to adversely impact the economy, the capital markets and, of course, those myriad millions facing the nightmare of foreclosure and job loss-- Future economic growth is directly threatened and DC, our proud but imperiled political echelon, is worried big-time despite the farcical spin of Paulson's ubiquitously 'strong economic fundamentals'-- Mr. Secretary, excuse me, but oil futures, unnerved by Turkey/Kurdish rebel dust-up, rocketed through the $88/barrel watermark overnight not exactly fortifying economic fundaments globally-- The Paulson assessment appears proverbially a day late and a weak dollar short--

The Homebuilder Index drops to a record low in October and big homebuilder DR Horton's near 40% quarterly decline in home orders does not, frankly, echo strongly any positive economic signals-- Euro central bankers, seeking to salvage easy export profits, are pleading for Paulson intervention to resuscitate the unabashedly ghostly dollar-- Shoring up the dollar to grease the palms of Euro competition (or is that collaboration) would crimp the budgets of those borderline-solvent Americans, though scarcer they become, still in absentia from the rosters of delinquency-- Fed Prez Ben also weighed in today with the solemnly sober outlook that Housing troubles create a 'significant drag' on the economy-- Another late-comer to the obvious, he has, at least and at last, ceased championing his 'containment' canard that the sub-prime morass would not spread beyond the low rent speed-bump employed to fleece the naively poor--

Neither man, however, has abandoned political reticence to inform, officially, the large swathes of the American middle class they no longer have the requisite bona fides to meet roster requirements for inclusion to the group-- Excessive commuting costs have seriously crimped the discretionary income stratas of suburbia and now the end of the month number crunch leaves the harried and the hassled with a damoclean dilemma-- Risk foreclosure for not meeting the mortgage bill or risk perpetually indentured servitude from the usurious late fees for failing to oblige their credit card blood-suckers-- Truth is that no matter how much cheap money gets funneled into the economy through the banking system, cash or credit, it is losing its power to pay the bills and succeeds only in ratcheting up the indebtedness of everyone involved-- The piper exacts his payment even of those who mis-dreamed they were so exceptional as to be above the laws of economic karma-- Capitalism's artful practitioners elsewhere have maneuvered the US, still believing that 'it can't happen here', into that proverbial spot between the rock and the hard place but did so not without our indulgent and fatuous acquiescence-- And for that, the feast of consequence is undergoing preparation-- Game up!!!

Powered by ScribeFire.

REALITY CHECK

Not sobered in the least by their lack of efficacious success surrounding the mindless foray into imperial overreach, the final throes of the Bush faux juggernaut appear bent on absolute self-destruction, going out with the proverbial whimpering bang by offering a fancy-wrapped (or rapt) scheme to bomb Iran-- The wussy demies capitulating to Bush even before winning back control of congress last year now renounce all pretense of manhood and principle to meekly go along with the feeble dead-enders on their fear-induced march into the twilight's last gleaming-- An American epoch, like the dollar that represents it, is winding down to an inevitable confrontation with hard-nosed boots-on-the-ground-- Reality check, anyone?--

The demies.....an opposition party??-- Give us a break!!!-- Breathe and these milquetoasts wither and fade-- As Robinson Jeffers once penned "....Protest, a bubble in the molten mass pops and sighs out and the mass then hardens.....Shine, perishing republic."-- The weak-willed party of Roosevelt will not defend the Constitution.....that simple!!!-- The offices they so obsequiously sought, rich in perquisite attachments, sparkling in the adulation from media and staff and all manner of subservient underlings, house their soiled honor and dereliction of honest duty-- Big Sister Hillary bloated by lavish corporate conviviality and plain old power-hungry money-grubbing waits revenant-like in the wings of orchestrated campaign nothing-speak for her two-fisted turn to grab the cudgels of wire-tapping while the decrepit repo-men seem blissfully willing to ride the downward route of the Bushies hoping to dump a ruined Middle East, a ruined oil-supply, and a ruined economy into the lap of any demie supplicant megalomaniacal enough to grovel for it-- Shine, indeed!!--


Meanwhile the Big Fed Bernanke decided to decimate the dollar as a stop gap for the insolvency threatening not only the, once, big banks and brokerages of Wall Street but also millions of ordinary Americans losing homes and jobs and confidence across the nation-- No historical precedent has yet been cited as evidence that currency devaluation leads to prosperity even of the short-term temporary variety-- Even disparate countries like Vietnam, Asia's bell-weather economic mine canary, and Middle Eastern emirate Qatar, quandaried by the prospect that increases in oil production could diminish revenue, dumped devolving dollars-- Harried American consumers used credit cards in a gargantuan manner in September cheered on by mainstream media as if pathological indebtedness is now somehow a patriotic duty without the ramifications of the usurious kind-- Something is happening here and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Ben??--

General Petraeus, the man who waited so long to assume a high level command apparently does not want to confront the reality his Surge failed to muster much security for the Iraqi people, between four and five million of whom have become refugees, now deflects attention away from the Iraq debacle by ratcheting up more and more allegations against Iran-- Moving the goalpost appears to be DC's most sure-fire M.O. employed to hang on to the perks of that command-- Somehow widening the war into Iran doesn't appear to be the most efficacious method of securitizing Middle Eastern oil fields or enhancing the precarious position of the demented Israeli government but careers must be maintained and the steps of compulsively driven mistakes must be taken-- Congress has turned a deaf ear to the American people and there is no organized opposition strong enough or brave enough to prevent this possible conflagration-- With more than ample support from the manifest cowards in the political and corporate arenas, Bush readies himself to fulfill his destined downfall bringing America to her knees--

Powered by ScribeFire.

LIFETIME LOW

Pending home sales fell nearly 7% in August, a very damaging drop (in fact, a record low) considering the elite economists from their manicured observatories had forecast a not less than serious but nowhere close to freefall number of negative 2%-- Such a widely disparate differential between projected and actual numbers is in recent time nothing new-- Bloomberg business news measures reality against prognostication in groups of housing economists, specialists and analysts on a bevy of issues it surveys and more often than not of late the hot shots have been found seriously disconnected from the boots on the ground-- Easy to do when the measuring perspective sits ensconced in the glass-towered-mahogany of denial while rapturing Mozart behind petite headphones and overdosing on double chubby-chuck lattes-- 'The Housing Market is too big to fail!!!!!!'--If one had the temerity to imbibe one of those lard-bomb coffees every time this glossy rubric spewed its self-deceptive hubris across the inattentive mega-complacent televised media-smear, the circus would certainly never want for fatmen-- Yo, Smiley Face, step right up!!--

Here's an amusing if unwittingly sardonic comment swallowed unchallengingly by a Reuters reporter named Heavens-- Citigroup, the nations largest Bank by market value announced recently that its third-quarter profit crumbled downward, off a whopping 60%-- Financial tremors aside the company's Top Dog averred a "return to a normal (mine) earnings environment in the fourth quarter" without stating how, mind you-- Reporter Heavens believed this optimistic blather helped drive the Dow Industrials to a record high on Monday-- Obviously an arcane coupling process eschewing nimbly elicited proof but, hey, in the era of faith-based build-it-they-will-come fantasia, facts, even the incontrovertible ones, as Mr.Reagan once avowed, are just 'stupid things'--

Never mind that the dollars, one would hope to accrue should the temptation to claim a profit from this stratospheric rally induce one to sell a position, would actually share the same purchasing power the still somewhat lean Canadian Looney, by world currency pegs, possessed last week-- Once again the hubris heavy commentators painted another reality amiss by claiming the Canadian Dollar had achieved parity with the US greenback-- In the US dollar-centered view of globalist economic supremacy the suddenness of such an astounding move might have merited some modicum of investigatory academics but no, not even the fact that it was our dollar that dis-achieved downward to parity with our northern neighbor's currency could escape the misplaced pride of journalism's obliviously inattentive stupor-- Facts, indeed, may be stupid but the US Dollar has fallen to a Lifetime Low signaling that a rise in one's stock holdings may not offer a commensurate rise in personal wealth and certainly not in buying power--Hardly, dismayingly so, a normal earnings environment--

For those born circa 1980-81 the onward surge of Gold prices to a Lifetime High clearly spelled out the disaffection held round the globe for the US dollar-- The inane gobbledygook about the worst of the credit crunch that "may be almost over' peddled by former Fed Prez Greenspan has merited some caustically unmuffled comment-- Ever the hedging master of doublespeak Greenspan may elicit more book sales with his omnipresent explanations and caveats designed to absolve himself of any complicity for the current crumbling financial and bond edifices he helped engineer and the book tour frenzy will certainly aid television's incessant chase for smiley-face infotainment space-filler in a comically buffoonish relief but the very predicaments that don't lend themselves to soundbite rectifications will continue to plague the global finance arenas with corporate borrowers increasingly a burdened focal point-- What would Big Al do if the rate cut that the arm-twisted Bernanke foisted upon the less than fully defined but definitely raging credit market turmoil fails to alter the fundamentals in any genuinely positive manner??--

Republicans for years argued that social problems could not be ameliorated simply by throwing money at them while the currently spineless demies of today are too timorously reticent to suggest that the radical disjuncture of real production economy in favor of the chicanery of a multitude of schematic variations on time tested ponzi themes will not lend themselves to any correction based on a senile dictum of more buck for the bang-- Short-sighted short-term bailouts for desperate banks on the perilous eve of insolvency only postpones the inevitable-- The dollar will continue to be the world's punching bag and consumer sentiment, even in good times a bit fickle, will have to find fight enough somewhere to prevent becoming accustomed to metastasizing demoralization-- Saviors will not be found in more credit cards--

Powered by ScribeFire.