this ain't close to over
Oct. 26th, 2007 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdThat was neat, some of this went away. Lemmie try again.
This article makes it sound like the credit crisis is mostly a problem in BBB CDOs, which is to say Collateralised Debt Obligations. Here are the graphs for all classes. Note AAAs are trading at under 90c/dollar, which is to say, trading at a capital loss. That ain't right. (AA is around 65c, and it gets worse from there, bottoming out at BBB's 20c/dollar.)
Also, that "new home sales rise" report is basically just a lie, which, pleasantly, Marketwatch notes; sales are only "up" if you compare this unrevised number against last month's heavily-revised downward "revised" number. The problem with that is that this month's number will also be revised, so you are comparing apples to oranges, as it were. Comparing to the unrevised number - making the apples-to-apples comparison - you have a 3.2% drop month-to-month, aside from the 35%-odd drop from a year ago. And, of course, existing home sales weren't pleasant either.
Meanwhile, in ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! news, over at Global Guerrilla, we have an introduction to the concept of oil production peak, with this amazing little codicil:
Other items of interest:
Fox News floats the theory that the California wildfires were caused by al Qaeda, lying about key facts to make it seem more likely; Rudi Giuliani just comes out and says that whether torture is torture depends upon who is doing it, clearly meaning that if it's the US, it's not; the new Atty. General nominee refused to testify whether he considers the torture technique known as waterboarding to be torture, so some of the Senators on the committee - none of the Republicans, but I think all the Democrats - wrote a letter, oooooooooo; Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee repeats the fundamentalist canard that "most" of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were clergy; this is a lie that has been gaining some popular-knowledge traction in that community as of late. And Bernard Lewis in the Wall Street Journal writes that we should be more like the Soviet Union in application of terror tactics, somehow managing to miss that hello, the USSR fell, you moron; accordingly, they probably weren't the "strong" ones. Stop emulating the oppressive torture-wielding failures. Christ on a fucking pogo stick.
And finally, in a momentary gasp of sanity, Senator Chris Dodd is fighting the Democratic leadership to stop a deal with the White House granting retroactive immunity to telecom industry lawbreaking in the warrantless-wiretapping cases. Since Congress won't investigate these, and the Justice Department won't either, the only avenue remaining open are the private lawsuits; retroactive immunity would shut those down. Senator Dodd has a page of people up to contact. I suggest doing so.
This article makes it sound like the credit crisis is mostly a problem in BBB CDOs, which is to say Collateralised Debt Obligations. Here are the graphs for all classes. Note AAAs are trading at under 90c/dollar, which is to say, trading at a capital loss. That ain't right. (AA is around 65c, and it gets worse from there, bottoming out at BBB's 20c/dollar.)
Also, that "new home sales rise" report is basically just a lie, which, pleasantly, Marketwatch notes; sales are only "up" if you compare this unrevised number against last month's heavily-revised downward "revised" number. The problem with that is that this month's number will also be revised, so you are comparing apples to oranges, as it were. Comparing to the unrevised number - making the apples-to-apples comparison - you have a 3.2% drop month-to-month, aside from the 35%-odd drop from a year ago. And, of course, existing home sales weren't pleasant either.
Meanwhile, in ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! news, over at Global Guerrilla, we have an introduction to the concept of oil production peak, with this amazing little codicil:
One of the reasons I brought up this topic is that I was surprised to find that nearly all of the top people in the CIA, NSA, DHS, DoD, etc. that I have talked to/with over the last few months didn't know anything about the topic. Hopefully, I can put this on their forward looking radar.Christ, I hope that's wrong. I mean godt dammit. [ETA: that codicil has been redacted. Good.]
Other items of interest:
Fox News floats the theory that the California wildfires were caused by al Qaeda, lying about key facts to make it seem more likely; Rudi Giuliani just comes out and says that whether torture is torture depends upon who is doing it, clearly meaning that if it's the US, it's not; the new Atty. General nominee refused to testify whether he considers the torture technique known as waterboarding to be torture, so some of the Senators on the committee - none of the Republicans, but I think all the Democrats - wrote a letter, oooooooooo; Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee repeats the fundamentalist canard that "most" of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were clergy; this is a lie that has been gaining some popular-knowledge traction in that community as of late. And Bernard Lewis in the Wall Street Journal writes that we should be more like the Soviet Union in application of terror tactics, somehow managing to miss that hello, the USSR fell, you moron; accordingly, they probably weren't the "strong" ones. Stop emulating the oppressive torture-wielding failures. Christ on a fucking pogo stick.
And finally, in a momentary gasp of sanity, Senator Chris Dodd is fighting the Democratic leadership to stop a deal with the White House granting retroactive immunity to telecom industry lawbreaking in the warrantless-wiretapping cases. Since Congress won't investigate these, and the Justice Department won't either, the only avenue remaining open are the private lawsuits; retroactive immunity would shut those down. Senator Dodd has a page of people up to contact. I suggest doing so.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 08:31 pm (UTC)- character actor is not the same as a leading man
- movie/TV actor who can film scenes a few lines at a time is not the same thing as a stage actor who can do the whole Presence Thing.
I don't want to totally write him off, since if he ever does get his act together he could be more dangerous than Reagan.we're not dead, yet.
Latest is that the Iowa caucus has been moved back to the point where the college students will still be home for New Years -- which means it'll be Iowa college students scattered around the state rather than non-Iowa students clustered in a few cities, which I suspect will make a big difference w.r.t. turnout at the rural caucuses where more of the delegates are and not particularly good news for Hillary.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-27 12:10 am (UTC)College students attending out-of-state schools are not generally known for high turnout numbers, so I don't see that as being a decisive factor. Also, it seems to me that as a group college students would be more likely Obama or Edwards voters, so if anything the schedule helps Clinton. For Iowa, it comes down to ground-level operations, and it's too early to say who has the best operations. But I don't get the sense that any campaign is misspending in the way Howard Dean did in 2003-2004. If it's just a matter of money, Hillary's going to win. Edwards can rely upon his 2004 groundwork, so he's probably going to do well. I think Obama's going to have trouble out of the top three, and my hunch is that Richardson will do better there than most places. I suspect we'll quickly have a top-two primary season that includes Clinton and one anti-Clinton. How long the campaign lasts depends upon how long it takes to settle on an anti-Clinton and how formidable that candidate is going out of the first wave of states.
I have to say that Obama is not impressing me at all, and aside from his position on the war I don't see any reason for voting for him over Hillary right now. My current plan is to show up at the caucus uncommitted and see how I can most affect the balance of power in my precinct.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-27 01:08 am (UTC)eh, np.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-27 02:10 am (UTC)(and yes, if they all vote for Obama, I'll be somewhat annoyed, but the main thing is Hillary has really low support amongst this group).
no subject
Date: 2007-10-27 02:13 am (UTC)Of course since I'm most likely going to be the Area Convener (...unless being Jurisdiction Coordinator for the entire 41st burns me out -- we have 17 schools to lock down this week...), my precinct will probably have to spend a fair amount of time running itself while I go around putting out the various fires.