Quote from Kevmeister:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/new...cial.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009072416
Alright everybody -- fess up. How many of you thought this was another thread started by ByLoSelHi?
LOL
This is a very good article.
I came home 20 minutes ago, and boy, did I get a dose of very negative facts from a former commercial mortgage broker for Flagstar Bank.
I won't elaborate, but suffice it to say that you can buy residential, commercial/office/retail assets for literally 1/3 or less of the loan value of just 2 years ago.
The severity of the bad assets the banks are holding onto, which was granted to them by the congressional permission to change they way they use accounting rules, is so unbelievable, unless you know someone in this industry who will tell you the truth, you wouldn't believe the particulars of what I heard tonight.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is no stabilization, long term, of the banking system, and the massive write-downs that will have to be taken are so beyond the comprehension of anyone other than those who work in this industry that there is absolutely no hope of avoiding a deflationary depression in the U.S.
My mind is absolutely made up. We're headed for a deflationary death spiral and unemployment levels that will shock people. In two years, almost everyone here, even the bearish among you, will absolutely not believe how bad things have gotten.
The flood of bad assets keeps rising, it is unrelenting in its pace and aggressiveness, and there is absolutely no way that this inventory can even be remotely dented unless extreme discounting on a level not considered now is done.
This discounting will help dent this inventory of the bad assets and non-performing loans with time, but even with extreme discounts, the demographic trends will act as a stop as to full inventory work downs, as more people approach retirement and refuse to speculate or invest in these assets, and go to annuities and fixed income for their retirement years, instead.
Simply put, there are no where near enough buyers given the supply.
We are now staring into the abyss, and there is absolutely no doubt that we are turning Japanese, but with the added nefarious bonuses of extremely high unemployment and record deficits as a % of our (shrinking) GNP for decades to come.