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Mauberly

An unwise owl has a hoot.

Name: Mauberly

Saturday, July 04, 2009

An unfortunate case (278)

On European real estate loans:

“With capital values having fallen on average by 43 percent, pretty much any loan that has a loan-to-value covenant if tested today would be in breach,” said Andrew Currie, head of Europe commercial mortgage-backed securities at Fitch Ratings in London. Most servicers of commercial mortgage bonds haven’t tested these conditions, “storing up trouble” for the future, he said before today’s announcement.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aQt_4Owd_ud8

Friday, July 03, 2009

An unfortunate case (277)

July 3 (Bloomberg) -- Australia’s economy, which has so far skirted the global recession, may stall after reports showed exports dropped to a 14-month low, bank lending fell and home- building approvals declined by the most since 2002.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aJkiwWwwe3cY

This supports the view that the global recovery is quite tenuous still. Australian exports are metals and coal, the fuel for expansion in China and others in the Far East.

Think Newcastle for coal.

Famous for its coal, Newcastle is presently the largest coal exporting harbour in the world, exporting 88,880,000 tonnes (87,480,000 LT; 97,970,000 ST) of coal in 2007-2008.[5] Beyond the city, the Hunter Region possesses large coal deposits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle,_New_South_Wales

Think BHP for the metals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BHP_Billiton

As to wool, it has to figure in the exports as well. Retail sales are down at clothing stores and have not started to recover.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

An unfortunate case (276)

Good news:

July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Orders placed at U.S. factories in May rose for the third time in four months, as demand for aircraft, computers and machinery increased.

Bookings gained 1.2 percent, the most since June 2008, after a revised 0.5 percent increase in April that was smaller than previously estimated, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Excluding demand for transportation equipment such as cars and airplanes, which tends to be volatile, orders rose 0.8 percent, also the biggest gain since last June.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=adVX5mNHfgP4

Bad news:

July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Employers in the U.S. cut 467,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate rose and hourly earnings stagnated, offering little evidence the Obama administration’s stimulus package is shoring up the labor market.

The payroll decline was more than forecast and followed a 322,000
drop in May, according to Labor Department figures released today in Washington. The jobless rate jumped to 9.5 percent, the highest since August 1983, from 9.4 percent.

Unemployment is projected to keep rising for the rest of the year just as the income boost from the stimulus package fades, undermining prospects for a sustained rebound in household purchases, analysts said. As companies from General Motors Corp. to Kimberly-Clark Corp. cut costs, the lack of jobs will restrain growth.

“This will be another jobless recovery,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We may get positive economic growth driven largely by federal spending, but people on the street will say, ‘Where are the jobs?’”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ahfK709b4uds

We have had jobless recoveries from the last two recessions. Private leverage was a key factor, especially in 2003 with loose mortgage lending that expanded home building.

But it cannot be these now that drive a recovery. Housing inventories are extremely high, then to be augmented by the churning of properties in foreclosure. Private lending is still shrinking.

So now it is up to government leverage which will probably not work all that well.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

For the better (23)

Just decline the inflation.

But no one ever did the like to Socrates. He buttonholed lots of folks and many did not like it. But they appeared to have endured it.

Collectively, and regrettably, they got even at the end. If he never swallowed a word, Socrates did swallow the hemlock.

Moreover, if no one was wiser than Socrates, social skills were not part of wisdom in those days.

An unfortunate case (275)

We had some good data today. Manufacturing showed muted declines. Pending housing sales improved slightly.

But the economy will, in the long term, turn on underwater mortages.

July 1 (Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will begin refinancing mortgages with loan-to-value ratios of as much as 125 percent as the Obama administration seeks to boost participation in its anti-foreclosure programs.

But...

Peter Cirillo, an independent mortgage broker in Long Island, New York, said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s risk-based pricing makes it “much too difficult” for borrowers to qualify to refinance, even if the companies already back their loans.

“All of these government programs are having little or no effect on the ability to refinance,” Cirillo said in an interview. “Even potential borrowers with great credit and low LTV’s, but reduced income, have no chance of refinancing to a lower rate or payment because of strict” rules on debt-to- income ratios, he said.

The data are still abysmal.

A drop in values has left about 20.4 million of the U.S.’s 93 million houses, condos and co-ops with mortgages higher than the properties are worth as of March 31, Seattle-based real estate data service Zillow.com said in a report May 6.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aHVHVQAbwbvY





Tuesday, June 30, 2009

New thought on Dash’s comment on yesterday’s post.

Think of it this way. You are talking to someone and you are confused because he seems to be saying the opposite of what he just said. You are in this position if you are a logician: there is a contradiction and it needs to be resolved or there is not one; there is just an apparent one.

But the fellow who is just trying to understand what somebody is saying is in no position at all. He is just talking to somebody.

He is not a logician or legal counsel or someone else intruding his order into the discourse to regulate it in some way, in the name of clarity or credibility or something else.

If the conversation ends and the fellow understands what someone is saying, the issue of contradiction does not arise or is at best moot.

“Well, there was a contradiction there at one point.”

“You can say that, or you can say that there never was one, that you just did not understand what the person was saying until the end.”

“Well, there was an apparent one.”

“For someone worried about word order or precision, maybe. But he got it all out by the end. You knew what he was saying. What is the point of worrying?”

“Are you saying I should not worry about these things?”

‘Yes, not here. You can worry about them when they matter, e.g., when certain conventions make them important.”

“Well, the fact that we note that there are contradictions in conversation shows that the law of the excluded middle is independent of the subject matter to which it is applied. So Brouwer is wrong.”

“No. You’ve made it independent by introducing it independently. In the conversation an opposition seemed to occur which was resolved by the end. Had it not been resolved, there would have been no understanding."

"Hmm."

“The opposition would have been in the things opposed. They would have been opposed not because of the law, but because of the way they lined up in the conversation. The law is simply an expression of their opposition.”

(Think of this case: “he had to have been talking about two different aunts and was running the two together, and I never could get straight what he was saying there. I did not know he had any aunts in the first place. I’ll have to try to ask him again tomorrow when he is fresh and if he is in the mood for talking.” )

An unfortunate case (274)

Soros:

"As markets revive, fear of inflation will drive up interest rates, which will choke off recovery," he said.

He also warned that while the worst of the 2008 crisis is past, investors do not appear to have learned their lesson.

"People want to pretend the crisis never happened," he said. "They want to go back to business as usual."
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Soros-predicts-stopgo-economy-rb-3788173021.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=4&asset=&ccode=

The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index now stands at 49.3, down from its revised May level of 54.8.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Consumer-confidence-falls-in-apf-2813989961.html?x=0

There is not business as usual yet.

Amid these economic woes, consumers are saving more. Instead of splurging at the mall, households used most of their federal stimulus payments to boost savings to the highest rate in more than 15 years in May, a government report last week showed.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Consumer-confidence-falls-in-apf-2813989961.html?x=0

Monday, June 29, 2009

For the better (22)

Euthyphro could have begged off politely by saying "I might like to talk about your theory at a later date."

It is especially true that he could have said this because philosophy adds nothing to the case that some other expert might add. A forensic expert on the murder site might have added something, and Euthyphro would have needed to listen to see if there was anything to add.

But nothing is added by talking about piety in principle. The murder case is what it is.

In principle, you do not have to listen to philosophy since it rears its head as a matter of principle. In principle, philosophy takes itself out of discourse by inflating what you were talking about into what it wants to talk about.

Just decline the inflation.

We all do philosophy when we want to make a point stronger. Once we see that we can do without it, we can imagine the peace possible in discourse.

Think how nice humanities classes might be.

An unfortunate case (273)

Current:

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s unemployment rate climbed to a five year-high in May and job prospects became the most severe on record, adding to signs the world’s second-largest economy is struggling to emerge from its worst postwar recession.

The jobless rate rose to 5.2 percent from 5 percent in April, the statistics bureau said today in Tokyo, matching the median estimate of economists surveyed. The ratio of positions available to each applicant dropped to 0.44, the lowest since the survey began in 1963, the Labor Ministry said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aFe2V.xa6uX4&refer=economies

Near future:

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Investors displaying “a bout of impatience” for a worldwide economic recovery may soon find relief, according to Tim Bond, head of global asset allocation at Barclays Capital.

“The hard evidence of recovery that the markets seem to require will be available in August and September,” Bond wrote in a June 26 report. His estimate is based on data for business cycles since World War II.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a06Tnuav1Mzs

As noted prior, numerous indices are turning up. A jobless recovery, however, will be shortlived.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

For the better (21)

Euthyphro could have said that his proceeding was about to begin, that he needed to be certain that his testimony would be in order, and that he did not need to answer Socrates' question to get his murder case in shape.

He could also have said that he that knew he was being pious in this case. He could have said that he was looking out for the slave whom his father killed and was going to leave it up to the court to decide what to do. That murder by anyone was wrong, and he could not let it stand, even with his father.

An unfortunate case (272)

Some good news.

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s industrial output rose for a third month in May as companies rebuilt inventories and the economy started to climb out of its deepest postwar recession.

Production increased 5.9 percent from a month earlier, the Trade Ministry said today in Tokyo, matching a gain in April that was the fastest since 1953. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted a 7 percent increase, and factories were still producing 29.5 percent less than in May last year.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZdV7ge82a04

We shall have to see how much demand firms. The May numbers for retail sales are still quite weak, especially for big ticket items.