My call is DB but just for some big writedown news going forward. Been quiet, way too quiet at that tapeworm bank methinks.
More Wall St. Bullshit. when I was a kid, my Grandfather fell off a 40 ft ladder. On the way down, he hit some awnings which probably saved his life. But when I saw him, he had a body cast from the neck down. Still can see him 47 years later. Anyway, when he had fallen twenty feet, he was half done, and still in pretty good shape. 54 fucking million dollars a year, and this is what he comes up with ? Half over???? Put this in the joke thread.
About 400 billion is "showing". This started about 01JUN 06, at this point we are at 12,000 on the DJ and going through 1300 on the S%P. The figure for the mark to market is about 800 billion and most are not filing according to the regs. There was a thread at the end of the year on what's coming up for 2008. I attached this chart as an adjustment on the OP's chart (without the text). I don't do predicting but I do think things over and I always have during the last 50 years. Making money requires a neutral bias and the task is pool extraction. The talking heads state that down is "bad" and it certainly is for people who live in the CW by their choices. What makes money for those of us that extract from the markets is simply price movement that gives segments of profits. I estimated about seven parts for this year and within those there are two or three levels of fractals where the price changing is going on. The bias is there and it shifts from time to time. It is just a context way out beyond each day of trading. Personal wealth is tied to some things but not very many. daily needs do not depend on the bias of the markets over a year. and housing in terms of ownership relates more to replacement value than anything else. Most things we own depreciate because they wear out. This year we get to make a lot more money than the average simply because there are more unknowns operating in parallel. The quant era has also come to an end by inducing illiquidity in artificial securitization designs and mini markets. Sorting out 800 billion in readjustments is just a consequence of not having a connection to reality established well enough. Looking at the successors to all of this by looking out 5, 10 or 50 years for the sake of symmetry; it is probably beyond the imagination of most people. I got to look back 50 years during about 20 days recently. It was fun and seeing the base that people who are living like people lived 50 years ago makes it simple to see how soon they will be catching up to the contemporary scene. It will not take 50 years by any means. On one fiord of many I saw what amounts to 25% of the Earth's salmon being grown using a pristine natural setting, local labor, and rocket space level technology. I also got to see the telescope where the super nova was discovered and monitored. I sat down and made a chart of all the parts of the system in which GS resides. It will be fun to see "outsiders" take control of the weaker players in the opportunity that was created. By opening up CIT operations in Australia and especially the East, "new money" is going to ride on in using paper that was not envisioned by the perps of the present consequences. Try taking a boat ride for a month with people who aren't American and who can afford to say what they think. When you see the American Embassies in seeral countries, they all have one thing in common: they are all fortresses and practically no one wants to come to the US as the place of hope for the future. It took the US from about the mid 80's to dig the securitization and trading hole it has now. The CW doesn't provide a path out. The huge pools are all tapable simply by anyone who wants to extract the capital. You only have to be on the right side of the markets at all times. This has little to do with the big IB's and their CIT's and their inability to deliver to HF's the $ from pension funds, endowments and families. FRC's (GA and LHW) have noted the priorities of organizations in trouble (Lipper shows 58% is spread over three PB's (MS. GS and BS). Big HF's rank capital as 10th and only small HF's rank capital as 1st. Sovereign capital goes where then??? To growth in start ups that are bringing the rest of the world up to date and this means to not get tangled in securitization that becomes illiquid. Take a look at the Forbes billionaire list shifting from one distribution of interests to another. Read the strategy column of any HF listing; there are no entries on quant secruritization fiascos or reinsurance of debt. Good money does not chase bad money. The US has shrunk the dollar to such small value and the curve is steepening. The future is going to be a blast: bad money is going to be written down and new money is going to go to the best opportunities. So we cross some lines like 12,000 and 1300 soon.
i would'nt believe a word that Blankfein has to say............he does'nt believe a word of the shit he's shoveling.