Reader J.L. sent this piece describing the impact of a new Federal regulation: “New safety rules for children’s clothes have stores in a fit”. J.L’s comment: The thing that galls me, is that the thrift/resale arena is one of the few bright spots in the economy, and they are some of the few places people can go and get low priced clothes to help them get through this recession.”
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Frequent content contributor Bill N. found a web site with a useful comparison of civilian MRE equivalents.
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Reader Paul B in Texas found this 60 Minutes television segment linked over at iTulip: The Next Wave of Mortgage Defaults. Paul’s comment: “This indicates the real estate market still has four to five years to continue its downward fall. Things are getting worse, not bottoming out!” JWR’s comment: The scary thing is that the Alt-A and Option ARM defaults that they mentioned are just a small fraction of the threat posed by the huge overhang of Credit Default Swap (CDS) derivatives. Beware!
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My old college friend Mike (now back in Iraq for the third time) sent me this article: U.S. Facing Debt Time Bomb. One oddity: This January 3rd piece appears to have been partially spiked. It can no longer be found with a search at The Washington Post web site, nor at the MSNBC site. Where (Mike found it, on January 4th.) I suppose that some editors would prefer to see such sans culottes articles go away quickly. So it took me some searching to find the full text. Luckily, it had been re-posted by several discussion forums.
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And here is the latest batch of news and commentary from The Economatrix: Obama Plunges Into Pre-Inaugural Talks — US Millionaires Lose 30% of their Wealth — McMansion Trend in Real Estate Slows as Economy Slumps — Billionaire Kills Himself Over Financial Crisis — Obama Says US Economy is “Very Sick” — Crunch Puts Car Buyers in Negative Equity Loans — Beware, Commodity Index Rebalancing Ahead — Looming Collapse of Russia and China (Marty Weiss) — Empty Offices are on the Rise — Barron’s: Get Out Now