Friday's news was about the munis

The big news Friday wasn't the decline in the stock markets, but the other one, in municipal bonds. There was a huge selloff - billions of dollars worth - over the last few days but Friday in particular. MaxFunds calls it a crash, which may be a little hyperbolic, but then, these kinds of moves - as small as they might seem in comparison to the stock market - are still pretty severe. Pimco reports that it's happening because of margin calls, which is how the 1929 market crash got going, which probably isn't very cheerful, but is the first thing that leaps to mind. The Bank of Montreal is an example of an institution facing these calls. In their case, the calls are worth Can$500M (US$510M at time of story).

Relatedly, AMBAC posted US$650M in January credit derivative losses, a number a variety of people think is understated, if anything, and MBIA - one of the big monoline insurers I've talked about repeatedly - says gosh, nobody wants to buy our insurance now. One has to wonder how they're going to be able to pretend to pay off claims if they're already broke and nobody is sending them any new business.

Finally, the bad-but-quite-likely case is finally reaching columnists at CNN - or one in particular, anyway - who talk with Dr. Roubini about how bad it's likely to get, vs. how bad it could get, but probably won't.

adventures on the bus

I was riding the bus from Bothell to the University District yesterday when it stopped at the stop nearest my house (the Uplake stop), and 19 Japanese schoolgirls crowded on in a gaggle. Yes, really. No, not in uniform. I listened to them, trying to pick out enough words to figure out what was going on, but couldn't - there were too many of them talking at once, and it was too loud. (Perhaps they were from Osaka. -_^)

Anyway, I wrote bad haiku about it. (And I'm sure I botched the grammar. But I'm not fixing it here, this is what I wrote in my little book. ^_^ )

十九日本人
このバスただいま
分かりません

19 Japanese people
stepped up onto this bus
I don't understand

alternatively, in intentionally mixed language:

19日本人
boarded my bus at Uplake
次桜木町

19 Japanese people
boarded my bus at Uplake
Next stop, Cherry Tree Train Station

Eventually I ran into some of them at U. Village, which explained things. But it was pleasantly unexpected (and a little bit surreal) at the time.

Tiny World

Tiny World