Bulls, Bears & Bucks #59: The Lost Decade

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Op dinsdag 7 juli 2009 10:35 schreef Ali_Kannibali het volgende:
Zijn er hier nog steeds mensen die denken dat het goed gaat komen?

Dat overheden en grote namen in het centrale bankwezen er echt alles aan doen om de vrije markt economie te redden?

Of ziet men hier ook een geplande crash, een vestiging van corporatisme en plundering van de burger?

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The weak development of the economy requires a somewhat more expansionary monetary policy. The Executive Board of the Riksbank has therefore decided to cut the repo rate by 0.25 of a percentage point to 0.25 per cent. The repo rate is expected to remain at this low level over the coming year. At the same time there are several signs that economic activity will improve.

Deep economic downturn

Economic activity abroad is very weak and this hits Sweden hard. Exports have fallen substantially and the situation on the labour market is continuing to deteriorate rapidly. The information received in recent months points to the economic downturn in 2009 being somewhat deeper than the Riksbank forecast in April.

Low repo rate over a long period of time

A lower repo rate and repo rate path are needed to counteract the fall in production and employment and to attain the inflation target of 2 per cent. The Executive Board of the Riksbank has therefore decided to cut the repo rate to 0.25 per cent. The repo rate is expected to remain at this low level until autumn 2010. The Riksbank’s assessment is that cutting the rate to 0.25 per cent will not threaten the functioning of the financial markets.

The Riksbank’s assessment is that after cutting the repo rate to 0.25 per cent it will have reached its lower limit in practice, and that the situation on the financial markets is still not completely normal. Supplementary measures are necessary to ensure that monetary policy has the intended effect. The Executive Board of the Riksbank has therefore decided to offer loans totalling SEK 100 billion to the banks at a fixed interest rate and with a maturity of 12 months. This should contribute to lower interest rates on loans to companies and households.

Stable underlying inflation

Despite the expansionary monetary policy, production and employment will be lower than normal over the next few years. Inflation will be kept up by weak productivity and a weak krona. However, there will be large fluctuations in CPI inflation during the coming period. This is primarily due to the fact that changes in the repo rate affect mortgage rates, which are included in the CPI. The CPIF underlying inflation rate (the CPI with a fixed mortgage rate) will on the other hand remain stable close to 2 per cent during the forecast period.

Signs of a turnaround

In recent months there have been several signs that economic activity will improve. At the same time, the financial markets in Sweden and abroad have begun to function more effectively, which creates the potential for an acceleration in international and domestic demand. The low repo rate and current fiscal policy will also contribute to the recovery. GDP growth is expected to be positive in 2010, but the labour market will lag behind and employment will not begin to rise until 2011.

Considerable uncertainty

The economic outlook is still uncertain. When the turnaround comes, the upturn may be stronger than in the main scenario. However, it could also be the case that the recovery will take longer than expected. The future direction for monetary policy will therefore depend on how new information on economic developments abroad and in Sweden will affect the prospects for inflation and economic activity in Sweden.

Deputy Governor Lars E.O. Svensson entered a reservation against the decision and advocated cutting the repo rate to 0 per cent and a repo rate path in line with the scenario for a lower repo rate in the Monetary Policy Report, so that the repo rate would be kept at this level for one year. He considered that such a repo rate path entails a better balanced monetary policy, with lower unemployment and higher resource utilisation without inflation deviating too far from the target.

Deputy Governor Barbro Wickman-Parak supported the decision to cut the repo rate to 0.25 percentage points, but entered a reservation against the growth forecasts, and thereby the repo rate path these entailed, in the Monetary Policy Report. Ms Wickman-Parak said her stance was due to a more positive view of economic activity both abroad and in Sweden further ahead, which would mean that the repo rate would need to be raised earlier than is forecast in the main scenario of the Monetary Policy Report.

The minutes from the Executive Board’s monetary policy discussion will be published on 16 July. The decision on the repo rate will apply with effect from Wednesday, 8 July. The deposit rate is at the same time cut to -0.25 per cent and the lending rate to 0.75 per cent. A press conference with Deputy Governor Barbro Wickman-Parak and Anders Vredin, Head of the Monetary Policy Department, will be held today at 11 a.m. in the Riksbank. Entry via the bank's main entrance, Brunkebergstorg 11. Press cards must be shown. The press conference will be broadcast live on the Riksbank’s website, www.riksbank.se/.

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Op maandag 6 juli 2009 18:51 schreef pberends het volgende:

7/5/09 Gerald Celente on Fox News: Obamageddon is coming!

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We have a group of individuals, entrusted with the job of reading the economic tea leaves and enacting policies in response, which not only failed to anticipate the worst financial crisis this century, but has yet to make a usefully accurate forecast since the disaster started. Remember, Chairman Bernanke is the individual who maintained that the subprime meltdown would remain "contained." He also said in March that he could see the now elusive "green shoots" sprouting throughout the economy.

And once the crisis began to unfold in earnest, what was the response of those charged with looking after our nation's economic and financial interests? Cynica might describe it as Keystone Cops-like chaos. On the one hand, we've had a reactive whirlwind of aggressive monetary measures that, while creating the semblance of stability, have resolved little and stymied desperately-needed restructuring. Worse still, a broad swath of corporate America is now dependent on government support for its continued existence.

Add that to the alphabet soup of Fed-devised bailouts and rescue plans, nearly all of which seem to have been designed to reward failure, subsidize mostly insolvent but politically powerful businesses, and obscure the reality of how bad things are, and you have a system that could be characterized as even more dysfunctional than it was before the bubble burst. While it might seem like tranquility, it is more likely the calm before the (next) storm.

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Op woensdag 8 juli 2009 07:53 schreef Perrin het volgende:
How Long Before the Fed's Days Are Numbered?

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Debt Relief USA Inc., an Addison debt settlement company, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has ceased operations.

In its court filing, the company listed $4.65 million in assets and $5 million in liabilities.

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Bloomberg: At a court appearance July 4 in Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Facciponti told a federal judge that Aleynikov’s alleged theft poses a risk to U.S. markets. Aleynikov transferred the code, which is worth millions of dollars, to a computer server in Germany, and others may have had access to it, Facciponti said, adding that New York-based Goldman Sachs may be harmed if the software is disseminated.

“The bank has raised the possibility that there is a danger that somebody who knew how to use this program could use it to manipulate markets in unfair ways,” Facciponti said, according to a recording of the hearing made public yesterday. “The copy in Germany is still out there, and we at this time do not know who else has access to it.”

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Op dinsdag 23 juni 2009 22:31 schreef pberends het volgende:
Complot!
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Lees verder op:

http://www.prisonplanet.c(...)d-for-september.html

On the Edge with Max Keiser - 03 July 2009 (pt4 of 4)

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Op donderdag 9 juli 2009 10:19 schreef SeLang het volgende:
Er vindt momenteel gewoon een directe transfer plaats van (toekomstige) rijkdom van jongeren naar babyboomers, want babyboomers dumpen hun shit en schulden op de jongere generatie. Jong Amerika is er gewoon massaal ingestonken met die Obama.

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July 7 (Bloomberg) -- A record 33.8 million people received food stamps in April, up 20 percent from a year earlier, as unemployment surged toward a 26-year high, government figures show. Spending also jumped, as the average benefit rose.

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Op donderdag 9 juli 2009 10:10 schreef Zero2Nine het volgende:
Eigenlijk wel. De komende decennia moet er grof bezuinigd worden om de staatsschuld terug te betalen. Dat betekent dus zeker geen lagere belastingen maar wel steeds minder service vanuit de overheid daarvoor terug.

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Op donderdag 9 juli 2009 11:41 schreef henkway het volgende:

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juist de staatsschuld is nu 380 miljard, de 2.500.000 woningwetwoningen van de corporaties totaal 350 miljard euro moeten op de staatsbalans en dan is het weer goed, de komende 20 jaar verkopen die dingen aan bewoners of liefhebbers en klaar.
weg staatsschuld

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Op donderdag 9 juli 2009 12:19 schreef SeLang het volgende:

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Zijn de wooncorporaties eigendom van de staat? Dan lijkt me dat lijkt me een prima idee! Ik had vroeger best m'n huurflat voor een redelijke prijs willen kopen.

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Op donderdag 9 juli 2009 13:22 schreef henkway het volgende:

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De corporaties zijn opgericht door en van de gemeenschap net als de staat

Je bent ook gelijk van die frauderende corporatiedirecteuren af, die hebben ze op het spek gebonden, dat is een foute zaak

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Op donderdag 9 juli 2009 13:22 schreef henkway het volgende:

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De corporaties zijn opgericht door en van de gemeenschap net als de staat

Je bent ook gelijk van die frauderende corporatiedirecteuren af, die hebben ze op het spek gebonden, dat is een foute zaak
Kunnen de corporaties gewoon het onderhoud blijven doen de komende 20 jaar

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Op donderdag 9 juli 2009 09:44 schreef Drugshond het volgende:
in ieder geval had die G8 ballen genoeg om toetegeven
dat de z.g.n. recovery niet sterk genoeg is.

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Nationwide offers 125% mortgage

Nationwide will only offer 85% loans to new customers
The Nationwide Building Society has introduced a mortgage allowing borrowers to take loans worth 125% of the value of the home they are buying.

It will only be available to existing customers in negative equity who want to move house.

Negative equity means that the value of someone's home is less than the amount they owe on their mortgage.

Nationwide said the deal was a very "niche offer" and that not everyone in negative equity would qualify.

The Financial Services Authority is considering limiting mortgage loans to 100% of a property's value.

'No more risk'

The Nationwide only offers new customers mortgages worth 85% of the value of the home they want to buy.


NEGATIVE EQUITY: QUICK GUIDE
Negative equity is when the value of someone's home is less than the amount they owe on their mortgage
The Bank of England estimates that negative equity currently affects between 700,000 and 1.1 million UK households
Negative equity can make it harder to sell and move, or to borrow against the value of your home to pay off other debts, or to finance normal household spending during a period of unemployment
However, if you are not looking to move, negative equity is not necessarily a problem and can be overcome by waiting for the housing market to recover, while at the same time continuing to pay off your mortgage


Struggling with your mortgage?
Under its new arrangement, borrowers would take out a loan for 95% of the value of their new house at a fixed rate of 6.73% for three years or 7.48% for five years.

They would then be able to add on the negative equity from their old home, up to another 30% of the value of the new property, at a higher fixed rate of 7.23% for three years or 7.98% for five years.

As well as borrowers having their incomes and outgoings assessed by Nationwide, borrowers also have to pass a stress test to ensure they can still afford the mortgage repayments if interest rates have risen to 9% or 10% once the fixed-rate element of the loan has expired.

So far none of the Nationwide's customers have taken up its offer.

A Nationwide spokeswoman said although the deal was first made available in June, it was not being actively marketed.

It was, she said, aimed at helping only a few existing customers who came to the society and asked for help because they found they were in negative equity but were being forced to move house.

In effect they are being allowed to take their negative equity with them to a new home, up to a maximum of 125% of the new property's value.

"The borrowers have to meet our own affordability criteria," she said.

Wrong again?

There has been much criticism of the loans above 100% that were available at the peak of the housing boom, which immediately placed borrowers in negative equity.

The most notorious were those offered by the now nationalised Northern Rock bank.

The Nationwide's deal was a "really consumer-friendly move" said Ray Boulger at mortgage broker John Charcol .

He added that at least two other major lenders were looking at introducing something similar for existing customers.

But financial planner Jonathan Davis, of Armstrong Davis, said the building society's new policy was a "joke", and that it exposed the lender to further losses if house prices continued to fall.

"You are taking people in negative equity, pushing more money down their throat to back an asset that is still going down in value," he said.

"All the banks and building societies thought they were going to get their money back when they lent gargantuan sums in the run-up to 2007 - they were clearly wrong then and they are wrong again," he added.

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Op donderdag 9 juli 2009 14:02 schreef SeLang het volgende:
Nu wil ik het weten ook. Wie is eigenaar van Philipsdorp?

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Op donderdag 9 juli 2009 16:36 schreef lyolyrc het volgende:
De woningen in Philipsdorp zijn eigendom van de woningstichting 'Woonbedrijf'. Bij mijn weten zijn woningstichtingen geen eigendom van de staat.

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Op donderdag 9 juli 2009 18:12 schreef SeLang het volgende:

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Maar van wie dan wel?