cleetussnow

Winter of ‘78 was a good one...just saying...

Dudes.  This is nuts

Confirm SN+ here in Westchester.

40 minutes ago, DeltaT13 said:

One of buffalos most exciting years erased by covid. Such a Billsy way to lose out. 

So true.  Watch the season and playoffs get shortened, but the bills win the Super Bowl...with an asterisk...

1 hour ago, DeltaT13 said:

I’m not condoning China in any way, just saying it’s not all bad. Americans are absolutely addicted to cheap stuff and China makes that happen.

All the rest of the social issues I’m right there with you. But I also think China is in for some huge challenges going forward. They have an enormous and potentially hard to control population, that has nowhere near enough young people to support it (one child law will be there downfall).  A communist regime that will always be fighting off the potential of uprising (see all of history, and also recently Hong Kong), automation Issues, food shortages, pollution woes, and apparently deadly diseases.  China isn’t just skipping along this road of life.

I thought the US was absolutely on a perfect trajectory coming into 2016 and poised for continued world leadership and dominance.  We were leaders of science and innovation, working on universal healthcare, had a focus on the environment and conservation, funding for all renewables and energy sources, phasing out fossil fuels.  Times were we’re looking good.
We definitely let China back into the race with this current admin. Such a shame. It will be really hard to recover after 4 more years of science crushing nonsense. What a shame. 

China is the number one consumer of all that science you speak of.  They steal it.  We haven’t done anything in 20 years to stop it either. Until huewai.  

2 hours ago, DeltaT13 said:

We don’t need links, it’s just the basic numbers from the past few years. Trade wars squeeze the consumer and we all saw the stories of literal mountains of soybeans sitting on the plains.  We all saw the massive insane socialist bailout when tariffs rocked the agriculture section.  It’s clear as crystal. You are also smarter than this. Most sides agree the trade war accomplished nothjng excepting ****ing us over.  
 

 

Not going to go too far into this...yes farmers took a hit. No bueno.  The point of the tariffs was in part to send the message to China we can stop feeding them anytime.  

Australia was recently threatened economically by China, and they may come to the same conclusion that the US did, and stop feeding China as well.  Neither country wants to be bullied by China  

China cannot feed itself.  Of all the threats to China, this is near the top.  They need food imports.  If China is perceived and understood to be materially reckless with the virus by the western world, and they decide to sanction and choke China, they can.  The implications are huge.  

3 hours ago, Syrmax said:

I thought Herr Oberst Cuomo "banned" private antibody testing in NY?  I have read that NY DOH (?) is doing pop up antibody testing bc they don't want long lines.  So they aren't preannouncing locations.  Since I don't go out very often, doubtful I'll stumble onto an active testing location.

I can get one at my local walk in clinic with a questionnaire.  I check a lot of boxes due to my travel.  I may go and see.

Quote

 

.  we saw this a couple of years ago.  February had warmer highs than much of May (up to mid month anyway - cant recall dates) at my station.  i think it was 2017 we hit like 78 or something in the February blow torch and then spring was awful. 

On 4/25/2020 at 6:14 PM, Syrmax said:

Wow. A friend of mine, bartender, told me about 2 months ago that he lost taste and smell for a week or so. I didnt think anything of it at the time other than it was weird with no other symptoms.

I don't think that I had it based on timeline (although emerging studies saying it was around as early as September in China), but I was sick with flulike, walking pneumonia symptoms for almost the whole month of October as soon as I got back from Europe. I didnt go to China but I can tell you that China came to me with all the Chinese tourists in Prague, Salzburg and Amsterdam especially....

absolutely possible.  The Italians got it from Chinese expats coming to Italy to their second homes in Lombardi. there's thousands of them.

5 hours ago, Syrmax said:

You hit on some good points and I had read the same article recently (NYT?). Part of the problem with all these numbers, covid-19, seasonal flu, model projections, is that the final infection/mortality values are estimates.  Not everyone that gets the flu, dies or even gets tested.  Same with covid-19, so there are a lot of extrapolations that occur. Which means a lot of uncertainty...esp with modeling, which appears to have been overly pessimistic.  

I could be wrong here but wasn't the main objective of distancing to "flatten the curve?" It's not so much to directly prevent infection / deaths but to string out the number of cases at any given time so as to not overburden the healthcare system and wind up with higher mortality. I think in the end the models project roughly the same number of infections.  I suppose if the R0 value gets low enough the virus will just "go away" as they all do so that could be another good reason to isolate but there's also a gigantic cost to this.  So, trying to figure out when to sound the "all clear" is really problematic as we are using a lot of projections and guesstinates... but not sure of a better way.

Yeah we are all going to get it until the point where the virus runs out of vectors, or we get a vaccine.  Herd immunity might obviate that I suppose.  Whichever comes first.  Same difference though, but a faster vaccine esp. for those at risk is the better outcome.

and unless you are high risk, you won’t get vaccinated in the first instance.  Healthy low risk will get the illness before they get a vaccine if i had to bet.

PS I am pretty sure I had this already.  I was in China a day before lockdown and live near and work in NYC.  No symptoms but my kid did, lost taste.

2 hours ago, BuffaloWeather said:

How many would have died anyways from flu/pneumonia/old age/cancer/heart disease? Impossible to decipher this. 

Good reasons to think about this.  The cdc instructed that anyone who tests positive with corona virus and then dies, the cause of death is corona virus.  Which is odd. An asymptomatic person can “die of covid” even though they had a heart attack?  

I read an article which I cannot now find where a number of doctors wondered where the heart attack and stroke victims they normally see in ERs went. They said they thought these victims must have stayed home and died there instead because they didn’t want the virus to infect them at the hospital.  I need to find the article because maybe the doctors were looking at statistics and noticed causes of death from the normal, more common factors were down.

The numbers are messy I’m sorry.  It’s a lethal illness no doubt, but there seem to be questions abound. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-the-return-of-inflation-11587659836

There will be inevitable side effects of these government monetary and stimulus programs,  as with most any drug intervention.  

2 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

30 million unemployed, markets still going up. 

The government's hand is slapping away the invisible hand which would depress valuations normally,  

39 minutes ago, Syrmax said:

Spot on @cleetussnow

I would just add, for posterity:

During the run-up to the 2008 crisis i followed a blog - Calculated Risk - that was run by (IIRC) a couple of individuals that were well experienced in the R/E financial field.  It was shocking to read about how the entire residential mortgage loan system was shot through with corruption, greed, and ignorance, from the people agreeing to mortgages with preposterous terms, to the mortgage companies arranging the loans, to the Appraisers (the f@cking appraisers even), who were matching home appraisals to whatever the loan was going to be as they were incentivized to support loans because they were paid per appraisal...by the mortgage companies (or lenders).  Then you get to the Wall Street financial "engineering" and it was even worse.  Sure enough, it all blew up.  

The only other thing i'd add as a backstory to 2008 (and this has been missed / forgotten by vapid Democrats and Republicans), is that pressure for the Financial Crisis stemmed back to what were thought to be good ideas in the 1990s.  It's a sordid story full of players that are still cited as "experts" (looking at you Larry Summers and Alan Greenspan), but basically there was political pressure from the Left to expand Home Ownership.  The Right, (and Libertarian Greenspan) rationalized this with the noble lie that expanding home ownership to lower income people would make more of the population "invested" in the economy, jobs, supporting the status quo...neither of which were wrong ideas.  But...then the Banks were deregulated in the late 1990s because they were crying they couldn't make money and compete globally with new Investment Banking.  So...Congress (a bipartisan effort) sh!tcanned the last of the 1930s Glass-Steagall rules that were still in effect from the heinous excesses that helped trigger the Great Depression (reckless lending, excessive leverage, etc.).  So then the banks did what banks do...create new financial products to maximize gains and a derivative "insurance" system that promised to distribute losses should an R/E downturn occur.  Except that it too was shot through with fraud and corruption from top to bottom...all while Regulators (SEC, etc) were asleep at the wheel kissing the asses of the likes of Bernie Madoff and surfing internet porn at the office (SEC staffers were fired over this, for real).

End rant.

 

thanks man, and spot on here as well!  

7 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

This is great stuff, you have any more information? 

tons - 

I could try to breakdown what a securitization is, what tranches are, and what credit ratings roles are...and the concept of what a rating enhancement is.  ratings play a big part in the landscape.

then I can talk about the crazy derivatives that Rochester Dave was talking about

then we can talk about TALF, and go back to TARP. 

Of course I have to do the day job but I think the above stuff is important

On 4/19/2020 at 7:08 PM, rochesterdave said:

It’s unfortunate that we have to revisit the notion that mortgage borrowers were to blame for the financial crisis. It’s was the derivatives betting market that blew it all to hell. You guys always latch onto some convenient narrative that blames the poor. The amount that Freddy and Fanny contributed to the crisis was paltry. 
Were they lending to less than qualified people? Sure. You bet. But it was the 70x margin trading that was to blame. If the nut of the lend had failed, or even 10x of the nut, we would’ve been ok. It was the fact that the derivatives house of cards gave way that caused insolvency. 

Way over simplistic.  Fraud was the principal cause of the crisis.  My whole statement never mentions borrowers.  it does say the government relaxed rules to allow lending to sup prime borrowers, which ran against the government agencies charter (like Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, etc.).  Fraud ensued as all lenders, independent brokers, servicer, etc. all followed suit.  The whole market right up to the top looked the other way.  Borrowers were enabled to get in over their heads.  I don't blame them 100%, but I would say 60% since many were not truthful on their applications.  The worst part came when that information was deemed "verified"  (it wasn't) when the loans were put into securities.  Investors had no idea that they were buying junk.  Rating agencies affirmed that the underlying loans were investment grade when they were not.  The latter compounded an already ugly situation.  

Bush very pointedly said the market was broken.  Its on the record and you can check.   

The derivatives contracts were in response to the fraudulent lending.  Banks and a handful of investors discovered anomalies in the securities, and took out hedges.  The most famous one was when Goldman took out a contract with AIG to cover the derivative contract they made with a hedge fund.  The hedge fund and Goldman didn't do anything wrong in their transaction.  Where Goldman got in trouble is when they took out a insurance policy with AIG to cover this trade in the event it went south on them.  Goldman wanted to be risk neutral so they covered their butts.  They only wanted to receive fees.  The FLAW in this trade is they did not ask themselves if AIG would be able to actually cover the contract they made with Goldman.  That is called counter party risk.  Goldman wanted to receive the fees for the contract with the hedge fund, but they did not want to pay the $1 Billion.  Covering a risk with a contract with a counter party is common, just contracts this huge are not.  The hedge fund took advantage of information asymmetry to set up the trade, which is why markets exist.  

I won't argue that wall street didn't play a role because they were BAD actors.  They can't run their own books for example (See Volcker Rule). WHOLE other story.   But the entire mortgage system was rife with fraud, mismanagement, lax rules and LAWS, from stem to stern.  And so it exploded literally.  Many people spoke up about the potential risks, going back to 1998 even!  My own view is there are 2 factors:

Home ownership for everyone was viewed to be a noble cause (and it is)

Principal mortgage market participants looked the other way on fraud and anomalies in order to make money, taking advantage of the above sentiment.

it was a perfect storm!  Greed synced with public good in an effed up distorted way to create a global crisis.  

Lawn needs the rain.  Brain does not!

3 hours ago, BuffaloWeather said:

If we go to war with China, this world as we know it is done. Trump cannot be that dumb can he?

You may not be interested in a war with China, but the war will be interested in YOU.  

Cuomo and his alliance of governors has trump by the short and curlys.  The national economy won’t open until Cuomos group says so.  They control a lot of the economy and also have the most illness of course.  

46 minutes ago, DeltaT13 said:

What in the world is going on?  Is he calling people to arms. Pretty reckless. 
 

Wtf 

57 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

DOW back to around 24k...makes no sense. Should be sub 20k 

If it made sense you could predict the future.  

1 hour ago, cleetussnow said:

Fannie started it.  See my post.  

Well, everyone gets some of the blame...rating agencies, originators, banks.  Fannie broke the rules...ok fine.  But what followed was rampant fraud by guilty parties.  Borrowers who lied about income and work committed fraud too!  

Fubar Wall Street incentives fueled the inferno.  So investment banks and other banks own some of this.  

1 hour ago, DeltaT13 said:

Obama’s policies were working pretty well and then trump came along and undid it all with massive tax cuts at a time when we were finally bringing down the deficit.  Tax cuts during a fairly strong economic period is just plain stupid. It was a massive mistake and will have grave consequences over the next decade.  
 

The deficit was exploding (post tax cuts) before this pandemic, I have to imagine we will see a single year deficit of nearly 2-3 trillion dollars in 2021.  Certainly not surprised with one of the worst businessman in history at the helm. 
 

We have record tax hauls in 2 of the last 3 years.  We don’t have a revenue problem.  We have a spending problem. And OMG trump is as guilty as the next person!  I think we can get behind that.  The Starbucks CEO...that was his platform, before he bailed on running.  He had my vote.