And the real unemployment number is….
Thanks to blog.mint.com for this awesome, scary diagram flowchart thingy:
JPM to GE: Sorry dude, we can’t keep up the charade anymore
Wow! Today JP Morgan said that GE’s dividend and AAA credit rating are unsustainable. I read it something like this:
“sorry dude. we tried, but this whole thing has gotten a little ridiculous. get ahold of yourself, and try to pay off that godforsaken pile of debt! have some self-respect! This hurts us more than it hurts you”.
Now if only they would change that “hold” recommendation on GE to a “SELL”. JPM reduced their GE target to $9, and today it trades at around $11.00. Unless you’ve been holding GE since 1995, the last time it traded this low, you don’t have any cap gains to worry about. Sell that crap and buy it lower.
Disclosure: long GE puts
Main Street Fears Flood of Idiots from Wall St.
President Obama’s pay caps on Wall Street are having unintended consequences throughout the economy. Analysts warn that this brain drain of executives from financial firms will inevitably release a flood of reckless, overpaid morons to other sectors of the economy.
Their concern is not entirely without warrant, according to Bob Flaterbean, a head-hunting consultant: “These guys aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, but can they bully their way into a cushy VP job at some textile company in Iowa? Yeah, definitely.”
Leaders of some industry groups are calling for the restrictions on financial pay to be repealed. Neal Patuvy, president of the Mid-Atlantic Waste Reprocessing Alliance, released a statement today saying, “Our industry supports job stability. Really. Please let these guys stay where they are. Increase taxes, subsidize them, just don’t unleash these a-holes on the rest of the economy.”
Only time will tell what effect these compensation caps and other regulatory changes have on America’s economy. But the great Wall Street Brain Drain of 2009 is sure to shake up history.
SOLVED: Pesky Bailout and Executive Compensation Issues
Where did I find the solution to this horrific problem? The WSJ? Barron’s? The Economist? Geithner’s Blackberry? Of course not. It was a comment on Clusterstock by some guy named “jrh”:
I propose a “modified Swiss plan”
- Let the banks name a price they feel confident in for their crappy assets
- The government buys half or more of the assets
- All executive compensation (beyond a minimal amount) is paid in aforementioned crappy assets, valued at the price stated by the bank
Housing inventories worse than reported
From CNN. Banks haven’t put many of their forclosed housing inventory on the market yet. That means the inventory of unsold houses is probably much higher than the 4.2 million number that’s being reported.
But banks might hold back listings in areas where they already have lots of homes for sale in order to avoid flooding the market, according to Michael Youngblood, a financial analyst and founder of Five Bridges Capital, an asset management company, “If lenders have a significant number of properties in a limited area, they may want to stagger putting them back on the market,” he said.
Not good for homebuilders or homeowners.
Disclosure: short CTX, long a house
