Paul Wilmott on High-Frequency Trading
via Zero Hedge.
Linkage
34% of Adults 35 and younger live at home – (AFL-CIO) According to a study by the AFL-CIO, “They’ve put off adulthood—put off having kids, put off education—and a full 34 percent of workers under 35 live with their parents for financial reasons.”
$8,000 tax credit not very efficient – (Calculated Risk) “And look at the cost of the tax credit! If NAR is close to being correct, 2 million buyers will claim the tax credt – times $8,000 – is $16 billion. But this only resulted in “approximately 350,000 additional sales”
The CRE tsunami is curling over – (Market Ticker) – Classic Denninger “But we don’t live in a nation with honest regulators. We live in a nation where the mathematically impossible is not only allowed to be sold and the suckers (that would be you, your pension fund, etc) money harvested, but when the mathematically inevitable blowup comes we instead (try to) bail out, once again, the purveyors of these scams with taxpayer money.”
Shadow Inventory Proof, Banks Delaying Losses for Another Day – (Dr. Housing Bubble) – DHB debunks the recent meme that the shadow inventory is a myth.
Bailout Propaganda Begins – (True Slant) – Another good one from Mr. Taibbi, “This is sort of like calculating the returns on a mutual fund by only counting the stocks in the fund that have gone up”
And now: a table showing bankruptcy filings by quarter, from the ABI. Up 64% from last year so far. Green shoots, indeed.
Taxes by State
From NewGeography.com
The lowest tax burdens are not surprising – Alaska (6.4) and Nevada (6.6), but the next lowest, Wyoming (7) and Florida (7.4), may be a surprise. The highest tax burdens, as may be expected, are megalapolitan New Jersey, New York (11.7), Connecticut (11.1) and Maryland (10.8), but Hawaii (10.6) in this group may be a surprise. The states in the middle, besides Massachusetts, include a contiguous set centered in Chicago – Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Kentucky and West Virginia (all 9.3 to 9.5).
Dr. Marc Faber on “Recovery”
Another good one from publisher of the Gloom, Boom, and Doom report. Though I have to disagree with his assessment that war will result from an American debt collapse. War between major powers is impossible with the nukes we have today. Mutually assured destruction.
There were some good gems here though, especially (paraphrased), “Buy bank stocks. It’s easy to make money when the government gives it to you”. He also has some choice words on Bernanke’s reappointment, and like many of us laments Volcker’s lack of involvement.
