Another Not-Quite-a Linkfest

July 6, 2008 12:15pm by

20080703183733_3Another Not-Quite-a Linkfest, filled with random holiday weekend linkage . . .

~~~

INVESTING & TRADING

• The Bear is Back (Barron’s) but see also Barron’s: Back in the Pool

• How to stop the next bubble (Prospect)

• Markets calling Bernanke’s bluff (Reuters)   

• The aughts are well on their way to being the worst decade for stocks since 1930-40 The return on the S&P 500 was negative for the decade that ended on June 30. (Marketbeat)

• Lessons to be learnt from the financial crisis (FT)

• Just Who Are the Pervasive Pollyannas of Prosperity?

• Stock Market Performance: Nowhere to Hide (Investment Postcards)  See also Returns Show Just How Tough the Going Has Been Lately

• China to tighten capital controls in clampdown on ‘hot money’ (FT)

• Defending the Maginot Line (MacroMan)

• Why Does -20% = Bear Market? (TBP)

• Straight-talk on FAS 157: Blackstone and their Banker Buddies Have it Wrong (Information Arbitrage)

• 50 Things Being Blamed on Rising Oil Prices (Buzzwatch)

• European Banks May Need EU90 Billion, Goldman Says (Bloomberg) 

• Who is Right: Professionals or the Populace ? (TBP)

• Michael Lewis: Rules to Keep Your Skin in Wall Street Massacre (Bloomberg)   

• How Lehman lost its way  (CNN/Money) see also Lehman’s Hedge-Fund Deals Leave Public in Dark  (Bloomberg) 

• Lehman Brothers hits our $20 Price Target (Fusion)

• Twenty-Five Reasons We Remain Cautious (Atlantic Advisors)   

• Smackdown: Footnoted vs Seeking Alpha (Footnoted)

~~~

ECONOMY

• States Going From Bad to Worse (Real Time Economics) 

• Persons "Marginally Attached to the Labor Force" +B/D  (TBP)

• The Economy? Words Fail Me (Washington Post)
(The video, Economic Anxiety Disorder is hysterical) 

• Economists React: ‘Consistent Picture of Weakness’ on Jobs (Real Time Economics)
See also Number of Those Unemployed For at Least 6 Months Rises (WSJ)

• U.S. Energy Consumption as Percent of GDP (Calculated RIsk) see also Stay-at-Home Grillers on July 4th Still Pay More (Bloomberg) 

• U.S. Auto Sales Plunge to 10-Year Lows (Posterous)

• British household debt is highest in history (Telegraph)   

~~~

FEDERAL RESERVE

• The Shrinking Influence of the US Federal Reserve (Spiegel)

• Are Trichet’s Rate Hikes 1930 All Over Again? (Naked Capitalism)

• Treasury Bear Market to Worsen Under Bernanke’s Fed (Bloomberg) 

• ECB President, Jean-Claude Trichet, says inflation could ‘explode’ (London Times)   

~~~

HOUSING

• Housing market seen getting worse (Reuters)

• Should Congress Let Home Prices Fall ? (TBP)

• L.A Foreclosures Quadruple, Miami Doubles, Corporate Bankruptcies Soar (Global Economic Analysis)

•  Overdue Home-Equity Credit Lines Rise Most Since 1987 (Bloomberg)   

• Housing Industry Ramps Up Political Donations (WSJ) 

• Analyst sees ‘ghost town’ in Inland Empire  (LA Times)

• Loan Delinquencies Increase; Trend Likely to Continue (Real Time Economics)

• UK House prices won’t recover until 2015, ex-MPC expert warns  (Telegraph) 

~~~

MEDIA/POLITICS/ENERGY/WAR

• Capitol Words:
Capitol Words are determined by capturing the full text of the House,
Senate and Extension of Remarks sections of the Congressional Record
for every day, then running a query to calculate the most commonly used
words for a given day.

•  How the Rich Would Fare Under Obama, McCain  (Wealth Report)  see also McCain Allies Find Finance-Law Holes (WSJ)

• For Republicans, the Senate outlook is bad   (LA Times)

• American Energy Policy, Asleep at the Spigot (NYT)

• What China’s Stock Market Implosion Means For Oil   (Traders Narrative)

• Mandela taken off US terror list (BBC) 

~~~

TECHNOLOGY & SCIENCE

• Recessions are Good for Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia  (Infectious Greed)

• Assuring Scarcity / Fear of Abundance (Frankston)

• Wind: The Power. The Promise. The Business (BusinessWeek)

• AMAZING AIR CAR

• Tracking Air Fares: Elaborate Algorithms Predict Ticket Prices (Wired)

• Hologram Google Earth  (G Earth Blog)

• From Microsoft comes VISTA — the most torturous computing experience ever devised. (Video) 

~~~

MUSIC FILM BOOKS FUN

• What you need is a little Fourth of July FUNK

• Book Review: Confessions of a Subprime Lender   

• This weekend, we saw WALL-E which was very very good, with amazing visuals (93 at metacritic) and Hancock — which could have been a great action comedy, but instead chose to be a pretty good flick with a few laughs thrown in (49 at metacritic).  "Intriguing enough that you wish it were better."

• Summer Grilling: Mr. Weber, Meet Mr. Brinkmann

• Ultimate Water Gun: Battlemodo Royale (Gizmodo) 

~~~

Got a comment, suggestion, link idea? Or do you just have something on your mind? The linkfest loves to get email!  If you’ve got something to say, send email to thebigpicture [AT] optonline [DOT] net.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

What's been said:

Discussions found on the web:
  1. Bystander commented on Jul 6

    Thanks for the linkfest! These are always helpful and enjoyable.

  2. SINGER commented on Jul 6

    this IS a linkfest!!!! much appreciated….

  3. Bob A commented on Jul 6

    It’s summer. Don’t forget to take some time to do something entirely decadent and selfish.

  4. Mark E Hoffer commented on Jul 6

    BR,

    this link: 50 Things Being Blamed on Rising Oil Prices (Buzzwatch)

    seems to be broken..

    Past that, I think, like others have noted, these linkfests are cool…

  5. BG commented on Jul 6

    Nice job on the LinkFest, Barry. A lot of good poop here!

    Barry, do you find yourself getting excited about this time every week? Asia will be putting the ball in play in a few hours and a new wave begins.

    Nearly all global markets are in unchartered territory in one way or another. You can’t help but get excited about it. Fascination is probably a better word; because, the probability of an unfavorable outcome has steadily risen well north of 50%.

    I’m strictly risk-averse/capital preserving in here and am (for the most part) just a spectator. You’ve got to have some big gonads to buy into this madness.

    From my perspective, the whole world is pushing on a spring. Will this be a week where, the spring will accept additional compression or will it be a week where the spring puts the pressure on us?

    Let the games begin.

  6. mal commented on Jul 6

    How about this link:

    http://www.american.com/archive/2008/july-august-magazine-contents/how-are-we-doing

    But there’s a price for pessimism. In the early 1980s, the U.S. economy had big problems, including slow growth and high inflation. A rational response for pessimists might have been to put their money into the safe havens of gold or Treasury bills. A $10,000 initial investment in gold would now be worth $22,525; the same amount in T-Bills would be worth $37,778 (Fig. 14). Early 1980s optimists might have bet on U.S. economic progress by investing in the Dow stocks. Their initial $10,000 would now be worth $288,163—even after the financial market troubles of recent months.

    W. Michael Cox is the senior vice president and chief economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm is the bank’s senior economics writer.

    ~~~

    BR: 1) I’ve addressed these two cheerleaders at length previously.

    2) In the early 1980s, we had just come off 16 years of negative market returns — the Dow was 1,000 in 1966 and 1982. I challenge whether it would be rational, as the authors allege, to expect more negative returns.

  7. Mike in NoLA commented on Jul 6

    Thanks for all the links, BR. I have a couple which I ran across that I found interesting. I suppose it is because they tend to confirm what I’ve theorized before about the Chinese economy having very serious problems since it was built on a bubble of selling exports to stupid Americans whose own bubble is deflating. And the Chinese are the ones looked to by the bulls to save the day for our tech stocks and exporters.

    China’s Negative Economic Outlook

    Hot Money in China

    Anecdotal Evidence of Risks in China’s Banking System

    The last two are by an American Professor teaching in Bejing.

  8. Mark E Hoffer commented on Jul 6

    mal–

    in the early ’80s, the U.S was a net creditor and its constituent, subsidiary, Govt’s, Businesses, and Individuals were no where near as levered as they are now..

    with the amount of cherry-picking currently extant in the pundity biz, I’m surprised Traverse City can still hold its Festival..

  9. Mike in NoLA commented on Jul 6

    Barry,

    Didn’t look at it at first since I had already read it, but it appears your very first link is broken.

  10. alan commented on Jul 6

    Sell Italian bonds. Italian public debt has reached a record high at 1646,7 billion euros.It is worse than 1992 when the country went very near to declare default(insolvency)

  12. chris commented on Jul 7

    Read some of the energy links and thought I’d throw this one into the ring.
    “A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.”
    *wanders of adjusting tinfoil hat*

Posted Under