Let me tell you something. You think you know that things will get bad with the banks, right? I mean, there's been doom & gloom all over the news, and predictions of bank failures by the hundreds, right? You are all prepared, right? Nothing will shock you? Things are 100x worse than what anyone has publicly been saying. How do I know this? It's not insider information. It's not a national secret. It's not privileged, nor confidential information. I have two very friends that work for two different law firms, and they have been taken out of their regular practice areas and reassigned to the foreclosures department. Most of you have ZERO clue as to how many PROPERTIES (not just residential homes, but commercial, retail, office and industrial) are being foreclosed upon. They are both telling me that their firms can't hire paralegals or attorneys fast enough to handle the onslaught, and that the senior most partners at their firms view this as unprecedented. It's so bad, and these people are anything but lazy, that they are considering quitting their jobs. They both refer to it as a black hole. They have told me stories of people just quitting on the spot, in the middle of the day, as a frequent occurrence. If you have access to any database that lists foreclosed properties, you would be stunned at the broad array of properties - everything from single lots to factories to shopping malls - that are being foreclosed on right now. Everything I'm telling you is public record. Once banks file foreclosure proceedings, it's all public record. So, if you have any doubts that we are headed for an absolute crisis, or that properties from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of millions, from New York to Boston to Cleveland to California to the Hamptons to Mercer Island are being foreclosed upon in record numbers - just go check out the public records - whether in your immediate area, or on a national level. No one can understand the size and scope of this crisis until they actually view the reams and reams of foreclosure listings, and see that no price point, location, category, size or shape is immune. You will come back to this thread, if you do this, and be able to do nothing but say "wow, you're right." A tidal wave is about to hit. It's 60 feet high, just off shore, and building in velocity and height at a rapid clip.
*yawn* So it is a lot worse. Properties become available on the cheap. Troubled banks go under. The govt gives out $750 billion in large bills so they can blow their noses with it. That is how crises work out. There is blood in the streets. People weep and wail. Many businesses close. Unemployment goes up. Prices go down. Excesses and bad or weak organizations are weeded out. But people need to eat. They need some place to live. They need to wear clothes. There are always people and businesses that prosper, that use this time to buy up key assets in preparation for when the sun comes out. If the dollar becomes REALLY weak, our goods and services will finally be competitive. We will stop importing as much. Commodities will plummet. Prices will become cheap. That is often the best time to invest.
Our goods and services? What praytell would those be? We produce fuckall.. Hence our 80 billion$ a month trade deficit. Of course people need food, shelter, employment.. But it is likely that we are heading to an inflationary depression rather than a DEflationary one... In this case, prices for Americans will rise substantially and all we will be able to afford is food and shelter...
So you say this is public information, yet you don't think the market has priced this all in? You think you are smarter than the market?
Dear "ByLoSellHi".. I thought the market of the last couple of days has priced all this in, thus it has been discounted. Stocks are future looking. So it is not as bad as you say. ************************* NOTE: Naaa just joking INDU to 10,000 minimum !
I agree with your sentiment, but dude your bringin me down. I've got a bad enough attitude about the econ, gov, and people in general without all these threads about the end of the world as we know it. Got to slow down on the new disaster threads, you've got the ET fade indicator blinking buy. JIM
The fade. You mean like the constant barrage of "how/where can I short bank stocks" posts that have been made on this forum ever since last Thursday?
Guys, blow everything off I'm saying. It really doesn't matter. Anyone who claims things aren't going to get a lot worse very quickly is not grounded in reality. I didn't post this to depress anyone. I'm just telling you that the write offs these banks have been taking are only going to get more frequent and more shocking in size. I don't even care if we get a massive rally here over the next few week. I just got a massive dose of truth from the people who are closest to ground zero of this catastrophe. They are not bullshitters, and this meeting was the culmination of them telling me these things for months, but now in exasperated tones. They told me over dinner and drinks at Morton's that the volume of work and size of foreclosures is growing like a plague. They both said they are contemplating quitting, because their firms can't hire enough people to handle the work, and paralegals are asking for 20% pay raises, and getting it - no arguments at all. The bottom isn't even close.