Meltdown

[BachQ]

2 Jan 2009: London Times: According to certain insiders, Microsoft may announce its first widescale layoffs in its 32-year history, with up to 15,000 jobs at risk (10 to 17 per cent of the company's 91,000 employees worldwide).   

[BachQ]

So Dm when will the Euro collapse?

First, you tell us when the dollar will collapse! 

My guess is summer 2009.

[ezodisy]

First, you tell us when the dollar will collapse! 

My guess is summer 2009.

The big question though is what happens to the EUR/USD pair when they both collapse? lol black hole. "After you sir" "No no I insist, after you".

Summer 2009 sounds okay. There's no rush after all, and probably no stopping it either.

[BachQ]

The big question though is what happens to the EUR/USD pair when they both collapse? lol black hole. "After you sir" "No no I insist, after you".

We'll know soon enough.

[BachQ]

New Yorker Jan 05 Issue:



Meanwhile,  UK pubs are offering the perfect credit crunch / economic meltdown menu: meals for £1.

Beer down to 99p a pint for first time since 1989

Buy car, get one free - NY Daily News

"Desperate car dealers today stunned experts by launching an extraordinary credit-crunch busting deal -- buy one new car and get another completely free."

[ezodisy]

lol!

[ezodisy]

Brown to create 100,000 new jobs

lol! He'll have to do better than that if his plan to take 500,000 or 1m or whatever number off of benefits and into jobs is to succeed.

[ezodisy]

Rosenberg, the chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York, by January had already called the recession that this month was officially declared to have started in December 2007.

Now, he predicts the carnage will cause a 2.5 percent contraction in gross domestic product in 2009, and sees historians calling the current era "GDII," a reference to the Great Depression.

The severity of today's housing bust, and the resulting collapse in credit, indicate that the U.S. won't soon emerge from the already yearlong recession, according to Rosenberg.

"What we know about periods of asset deflation and credit contraction is that the impact on the economy tends to last for years not quarters," he said, projecting housing is likely to contract through the end of 2009.

From the same report:

"In the oil market, Merrill's Francisco Blanch proved most accurate in calling the record price of $147.27 a barrel that was reached in July. Blanch, head of global commodities research at the firm in London, roiled traders this month by saying crude may move back to $25 next year. It was at $38.45 Dec. 23."

[ezodisy]

which led me on to this (5 is a beauty)

Bob Farrell's 10 Market Rules To Remember

Bob Farrell's (Merrill Lynch chief market strategist from 1967-1992) 10 Market Rules to Remember (link):

1) Markets tend to return to the mean over time.

2) Excesses in one direction will lead to an opposite excess in the other direction.

3) There are no new eras — excesses are never permanent.

4) Exponential rapidly rising or falling markets usually go further than you think, but they do not correct by going sideways.

5) The public buys the most at the top and the least at the bottom.

6) Fear and greed are stronger than long-term resolve.

7) Markets are strongest when they are broad and weakest when they narrow to a handful of blue chip names.

Bear markets have three stages — sharp down — reflexive rebound —a drawn-out fundamental downtrend.

9) When all the experts and forecasts agree – something else is going to happen.

10) Bull markets are more fun than bear markets

[ezodisy]

predictions for 2009 from someone who got most of his 2008 predictions correct.

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/689-Where-We-Are,-Where-Were-Heading-2009.html

[ezodisy]

a blog which includes all the latest videos from Rogers, Schiff, Faber and Paul. The Faber one on 29 Dec is a good lengthy one

http://financialtruth0.blogspot.com/

[BachQ]

predictions for 2009 from someone who got most of his 2008 predictions correct.

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/689-Where-We-Are,-Where-Were-Heading-2009.html

Excellent catch!  0:)  Denninger nailed almost all of his 2008 predictions, and I agree with most of his 2009 predictions.  It would be great to have Peter Schiff and Denninger debate, inter alia, whether the dollar will collapse in 2009 (Schiff believing that it will).

Says Denninger:

The Dollar will not collapse.  This is not because we're in great shape or will truly recover, it is because the rest of the world is in worse shape than we are.  Last year pundits were all calling for the dollar to collapse to 40 - it didn't happen.  Now they're calling the dollar's strength a "Bear market rally."  Nonsense; the simple truth is that while we're in bad shape the rest of the world is literally on the precipice of a full-on collapse.  European banks are more-levered and less-transparent than our banks as just one example.

Denninger makes a lot of sense.  But so does Schiff. 

[BachQ]

predictions for 2009 from someone who got most of his 2008 predictions correct.

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/689-Where-We-Are,-Where-Were-Heading-2009.html

OMG: Top 10 threats  facing the dollar in 2009

1) Foreign central banks selling US assets
2) The worsening US Trade deficit
3) Treasuries
4) Gold
5) China and the yuan
6) Bailouts
7) US budget deficits and (lack of) Tax revenues
8] The "flight to quality"
9) A loss of confidence
10) The dollar's former self

Notice the scary charts!

[BachQ]

2008 Russian oil output has fallen for first time in a decade -- MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian oil production fell by around one percent in 2008, official data showed on Friday, the country's first annual decline in a decade after large increases in previous years and a sign of things to come. The decline is widely expected to continue because of ageing reserves and plunging oil prices, which combine with heavy taxation to leave producers with limited cash to invest in maintaining production and opening new fields.

[ezodisy]

Schiff piece in the Wall Street Journal from a few days back

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123033898448336541.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[BachQ]

predictions for 2009 from someone who got most of his 2008 predictions correct.

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/689-Where-We-Are,-Where-Were-Heading-2009.html

James Howard Kunstler's Forecast for 2009 -- *** By May of 2009, the stock markets will resume crashing with the ultimate destination of a Dow 4000 before the end of the year. Meanwhile, jobs will vanish by the millions and companies will go bankrupt by the thousands, especially in the so-called service sector, and in all the suppliers of such, along with the landlords in all the malls and strip malls. The desolation will mount quickly and will be obvious in the empty storefronts and trash-filled parking lagoons. In the event, two things will become increasingly clear to the nation: that the consumer economy is dead, and that there is no more available credit of the kind that Americans are in the habit of enjoying. *** Borrowing from the future will become a practical impossibility as past bad debts from previous borrowings continue to unwind, cease performing, and get written off. This argument implies that the federal government will tend to flounder just as General Motors, Citicorp, Target Stores and other gigantic enterprises will tend to flounder. It would be sad to see a President Obama so hamstrung and helpless, and it is largely why I see his role as largely symbolic -- as a reassuring presence encouraging the distressed public to bravely bear their hardships, and to be kind and helpful among their neighbors. (cont'd)

Good for a daily dose of doom. 

[BachQ]

Schiff piece in the Wall Street Journal from a few days back

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123033898448336541.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Unfortunately, very few in Congress will heed Schiff's wisdom.

Senator McConnell Urges Caution in Debate on Economic Stimulus Measure -- Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) --   Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he wants to slow consideration of the economic stimulus package Democrats are drafting, warning that the measure sought by President-elect Barack Obama invites wasteful spending. Said he: "A trillion-dollar spending bill would be the largest spending bill in the history of our country at a time when our national debt is already the largest in history. As a result, it will require tough scrutiny and oversight. Taxpayers, already stretched to the limit, deserve nothing less."

[ezodisy]

Denninger makes a lot of sense.  But so does Schiff. 

yeah who knows, we might even make it through all of 2009 with the dollar intact. There's a new commodity watch radio interview with 4 esteemed pundits (including one from DollarCollapse.com). Worth adding to the ipod or whatever for listening during free/quiet time. There's too much out there to read, it's good to get some of these audio-only interviews which don't appear on TV ('cause they're not optimistic enough ).

http://commoditywatch.podbean.com/

[BachQ]

10 minutes ago, WTIC breached the $50/bbl threshold (NYMEX).  Mideast tensions?  Russian/Ukraine tensions?  OPEC's upcoming February meeting?

[BachQ]

a blog which includes all the latest videos from Rogers, Schiff, Faber and Paul. The Faber one on 29 Dec is a good lengthy one

http://financialtruth0.blogspot.com/

Thank you for that convenient resource.  Peter Schiff (Bloomberg, 2 Jan 09) nails it by concluding that the government (Obama) is attempting to re-inflate the asset bubbles, with the guaranteed outcome of sowing the seeds for a much more ominous crisis in the future.