Category: Odds ‘n Sods

Thanks to RBS, who sent this from The Times of London‘s web edition: There’s a chance Northern Rock is worth zero    o o o Those of you that have enjoyed reading the entertaining Hillbilly Housewife blog should be advised that they are no longer sharing web space. They bought their own domain name: HillBillyHousewife.com/. (Please update your links and bookmarks.)    o o o The demographic handwriting is on the wall: First Baby Boomer Files For Social Security Benefits. JWR’s comment: My favorite snippet from the SSA press conference: “There is no reason to have any immediate panic…” As …

Mish Shedlock has recently posted some interesting items on his blog about Super SIVs and troubled Countrywide Financial’s ) CEO Angelo Mozilo bailing out of his own shares in the company.   o o o SHTF Daily (one of our daily “must read” blogs) recently posted links to seven sobering economics articles: Mass auction reveals depth of foreclosure crisis, Even the renters now feel the mortgage crisis, Subprime crisis won’t peak until 2009, The dollar era is over: a long, slow collapse and a central bank firesale, Meltdown still has plenty of steam ahead, Global finance leaders gather as economic clouds …

From SHTF Daily comes this sobering article and accompanying CBS News video clip: Builders Giving Up On The Sinking Market.  Now it is not just defaulting buyers that are “walking away.” The article indicates a loss of “$1.2 trillion from the value of American homes. And the losses are mounting, going to $4 trillion by one estimate, by the end of next year.”One observation on the video clip: Is wearing one’s baseball cap backwards a key indicator of sub-prime borrowing, sub-prime intelligence, or both? I’d hate to tell that real estate “investor” what sort of house and how much acreage $597,000 …

RBS sent this: U.S. Foreclosure Filings Nearly Double in September Over Same Month a Year Ago   o o o Thanks to L.W. for sending this link: Only Now, the Full Horror of Burmese Junta’s Repression of Monks Emerges    o o o Morgan Stanley Traders Lost $390 Million in One Day    o o o Hawaiian K. sent us this: Windbelt, Cheap Generator Alternative, Set to Power Third World

Steve H. and Ben L. both mentioned this: New fire-retardant gel can save homes. Ben’s comment: $12,000 to $20,000 may seem like quite a bit of money, but compared to the total price of a house, is it really that much?    o o o I just noticed that JRH Enterprises had a couple of scarce Gen 3 AN/PVS-14 night vision weapon sights available. With the current heavy government contract demand to support the war in Iraq, these don’t hit the civilian market very often!    o o o The price of wheat has gone up 75% in just the …

By way of SHTF Daily, James Saft of Reuters reports: Americans charge it as Bank of Subprime closes. A collective $909 billion balance on credit cards? ¡Ay Carumba! Meanwhile, we read at The Baltimore Sun: Credit card debt is ready to blow: (Thanks to Hawaiian K. for sending that link.)    o o o RBS flagged this: Heating Oil Prices To Jump 22 Percent Over Last Winter, Says Energy Department    o o o RBS also sent us this: Mortgage Lender Thornburg ups estimated loss on loan sales    o o o I hope that most of you took my …

More “ARM Twisting” ahead: It has been widely reported that nearly one trillion dollars worth of adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) will reset to higher interest rates in the next 18 months. That is nearly 20% of all mortgage loans outstanding. Are the majority of sub-prime borrowers ready for the higher monthly payments? Probably not. So we can expect to see a lot more delinquencies and foreclosures in the next two years. As previously mentioned in SurvivalBlog, a small portion of rural foreclosures may represent a retreat buying opportunity. Monitor the market closely, either through a cooperative agent in your selected …

Speaking at the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole, Wyoming conclave in August, Yale University Professor Dr. Robert Shiller said that residential house prices might fall as much as 50% in some former real estate boom areas. As evidence, he cited how much home prices have escalated in comparison to rents. Personally, I think that 50% is an optimistic figure. Given the pendulum-like nature of macro market swings, I think that prices in some cities like Phoenix and San Diego may drop at much as 65% from their peak. And it may take five or six years before prices hit bottom. I …

Writing in the September, 2007 issue of The American Rifleman magazine, Walter J. Kuleck reports that there is a logistical support problem for the thousands of M14 rifles that have been issued to US troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kuleck writes: “…there is essentially no support available through Department of Defense channels–no parts, accessories, magazines, tools or documentation beyond a new Preventive Maintenance [PM] Magazine comic book and a 40-year-old manuals printed from on-line PDF files. The Army has made some efforts to buy back parts surplused decades ago and to purchase new walnut stocks, for example. Most components, …

Via SHTF Daily comes this commentary from Robert P. Murphy: The Worst Recession in 25 years?    o o o Typhoon Season: China Evacuates 1 Million As Storm Hits    o o o Blair recommended this article by Dr. Gary North (my hero): A 10-Step Personal Self-Defense Strategy Against a Coordinated Bioterrorist Attack    o o o RBS flagged this piece from The Age (in Australia): Food shock as ‘agflation’ sees prices rise

Alphie sent us this: “Adding Insult to Injury Department ” news story: Lost your home? You may owe IRS    o o o Homebuilders: Lennar’s Loss Deepens the Pain    o o o DV sent us this item: Bird flu virus mutating into human-unfriendly form. The article begins: “The H5N1 bird flu virus has mutated to infect people more easily, although it still has not transformed into a pandemic strain, researchers said…”    o o o Found at the Drudge Report: Adventurer ends 13-year human-powered world trip

Sam M. sent us this: CIBC Economist: $100 Oil by End of ’08–Expert: Oil Prices Set to Hit $100 by End of ’08, and Will Likely Stay at Triple-Digit Level. Perhaps the “alarmist” Peak Oil crowd was not far from the mark.    o o o A hat tip to Ben L. for forwarding us this article link: Tamiflu may create resistant bird flu    o o o The folks at SHTF Daily linked to a great primer on sound, specie-backed money being replaced by fiat currency: The Rule of Planned Money    o o o Chuck suggested ED-Day–Dead Sydney, …

Pending Home Sales Index Hits Record Low   o o o From Newsweek‘s Daniel Gross: There’s No Inflation (If You Ignore Facts)    o o o Green Mountain Gear has found a limited supply of some more original German HK91/G3 alloy magazines. This new batch is in new-in-the-wrapper condition. These are in the original factory wrappers, with factory labels and anti-corrosion paper strips on the followers. (Just as they left the factory in the 1960s.) They don’t come any better than this.    o o o DV and David L. both suggested this article: Dollar’s double blow from Vietnam and Qatar

The Chartist Gnome chided me in a recent e-mail, after I had mentioned that after having dropped decisively through the 80 level: “Some analysts suggest 75 or perhaps even 72 as the next support level for the US Dollar Index.” He said that I was being overly optimistic. By his calculations, “the next logical support level for the USD Index is 72 and then if that fails to hold, we can expect a step off the cliff with no support until 42.” Lest you think that this is some wild-eyed exaggeration, Jordan Roy-Byrne (editor of The Trendsman) came up with …

Frequent contributor RBS sent this article link: Credit derivative volumes rise 32 percent to $45.5 trillion. I’ve warned SurvivalBlog readers about the threat of a derivatives implosion before, but for the sake of new readers, I’ll mention it again: Derivatives–The Mystery Man Who’ll Break the Global Bank at Monte Carlo    o o o The bidding is now at $500 in the SurvivalBlog benefit auction, for a scarce pre-1899 antique Finnish M39 Mosin Nagant rifle from my personal collection. This rifle was rebarreled by Valmet during WWII, and is in excellent condition. It comes with a replica bayonet, original sling, …