The market had an up day. That's different.

Odd day - the leading sectors took it on the chin:
Materials -1.5%
Energy -.6%
Industrials -.95%
Tech -.66%
while the others tried to bounce:
Health Care +2.3%
Utilities +2.1%
Staples +1.5%
Financial +.8%
Con Discretionary +.36%

SoCal Stucco Mini Crapbox Blowout Sale!

Nobody wants to live in these termite-infested toy houses.

They were just useful fraud chips on the way up the housing bubble.

On the way down, they're worthless.

Worse than worthless.

MaSSive negative $caSShflow for those left BagHolding when the music stopped.

No music again for approx 8 to 20 years.

It's always funny no matter how close they crop these pics it's hard to hide the fact that the neighbors' crapboxes are only six inches away on both sides.

Dirty deeds: As housing crisis deepens, cities fight lenders over abandoned homes

While formal ownership remains with a borrower who has fled, the bank retains its lien on the property. That opens up a dispute over who is responsible for taxes and maintenance.

Even when lenders do complete the foreclosure, they may walk away from the property, leaving it to be taken by a city for unpaid taxes, a process that can take years.

Orphaned properties quickly fall into disrepair, the deterioration sometimes hastened by vandals who trash the interiors, lighting fires and ripping out wiring and pipes to sell for scrap. Squatters or drug dealers may move in.

In Chula Vista, a number of houses have been trashed by college students who have held parties in the vacant properties.

In other cases, pillagers pull up in rental trucks to cart away cabinets, wood flooring, and fixtures stripped from the homes.

I think the hard drive on my PC crashed today. Luckily I saved my stuff on an external hard drive back on 10/30 so only minimal loss. Loaded and working on my wife's PC while the Geek freak takes a look.

I will probably replace the drive and give the computer to one of my kids. I bought that computer back in 2003 and it worked fine. But I'm going shopping and was wondering what some of you more computer saavy people might recommend. Brands? I hate Dell support. Any reason to try Vista, or re-load XP? Any thoughts and comments would be appreciated. TIA

I'm interested too....

I just got a new Dell today. Tradestation was locking up my PC so I bought this one so
I could run TS off it as a standalone. My favourite brand is Dell especially for business purposes. I have always found their (business) support great.

For trading purposes, I would stick with XP. Vista seems to use a lot of memory and I have heard that many applications are not compatible including tradestation.

What is really important about this article is the degree of hostility it reveals on the part of local officials toward the banksters. For the moment, finaglers may be able to count on Federal pre-emption to save their sorry asses, but the time is coming when the Feds will turn and lunge for their throats. All politics are local -- just ask Obama, et. al. Fear and loathing in Buffalo and Chula Vista will be transmuted into witch hunts and show trials for scapegoats in DC. Political risk for banksters and borkers is huge; Mr. Market will come to appreciate this more in the very near future.

I can't diagnose a hard drive crash from here, but I had an interesting little problem with mine this morning. Seems that Windows gave me one of those 'Updates available' things over the weekend and per usual, I ignored it as long as possible. Well this morning my network/wireless link crapped out.

Usually that's a sign that something is getting a bit piquish about me doing it's update. So I went into the Windows updater to see what was up (choose install, select 'custom' ). The choice of updates was an upgrade for IE ( which I don't ever use ) and some new app that would test my computer to see if my copy of Windows was 'genuine'. I declined both, it downloaded some other stuff, rebooted, and is working fine.

Who knows, I may be running this dog on some cheap foriegn clone op system.

"Life on the edge my friends"

CB, Bung et al...

I'm a part-time system builder and network administrator and would offer the following:

Most new name-brand PCs are going to come with Vista. It's not revolutionary from an end-user standpoint, but I've been running it at home and it works fine, despite the bad reviews. You may find it annoying at first due to the fact that everything is not where you are used to seeing it... kind of like moving into a new house. Feature-wise, the sidebar thingy is kinda nice, and the home networking setup is improved, but other than that, there's not a whole lot vastly different from XP.

The User Account Control is a bit annoying as it prompts you frequently in an effort to protect you from yourself... this can be disabled if preferred. Any programs that have a problem with Vista can be run in XP Compatibility mode without any problems, from my experience. I've only had to do this for a couple of programs.

As for brands, I'm the type to assemble my own machine, however I just set up an HP machine for my folks over the holidays... Dual Core processor, 2 GB RAM, 256 MB video (not shared memory)... it was bought at Future Shop (Canada) for $500 and is actually good bang for the buck (these are minimum specs that I would consider for Vista). Also, my first priority when I buy a name brand machine is to uninstall all the proprietary crap that comes pre-loaded, but that's just me. The less stuff running, the faster she goes.

Hope this helps.

* Now, if you intend to use Vista on a corporate network, I'm slightly less enthusiastic.

The Tan Man will be an ideal candidate as CFC kareems toward ZERO. Closed today @ 7.57, a nice number.
I bought some in the money WB FEB putz, 10c premium Those Golden West prime mortgages ought to start showing up soon.

If you are going to build a PC from scratch, you may as well get rid of both XP and Vista and run OSX86. Google if you don't know what OSX86 is.

check out what a crapbox costs here. Everyone still thinks that prices will rise another 10% this year! they just don't see it comin. Ream estate goes up 10% a year don'tcha know.

http://tinyurl.com/3a8fjc

this is 3km from the the lake too! and it's on native lease land to boot....Oh canada, our home on native land.

So much tech talk and no mention of THIS?

Hillary is having a meltdown as it seems sure she will be buried in New Hampshire.

I personally don't think it shows any weakness of her to show emotion, but others may.

All I'll say is that I'm glad that the possibility of a Clinton succession is dead. The whole Clinton attack machine inspired by 'da former Prez adds little value to the process. Not to mention the Establishment's preferred Democratic candidate.

I wonder if she realizes people didn't discern too much difference from her and Bush on Iraq, or that they're stupid enough to not realize that most of her dinero is coming from big money types.


oh, and bye-bye John-John. You purrty thing.

the sheeple in OZ are still madly scrambling to get into the Stucco Mini Crapboxes Shorty refers to.

FIRST-home buyers are losing out to cashed-up investors as Brisbane becomes the nation's third-most unaffordable city.

In an analysis of 309 Brisbane suburbs, property research company RP Data has found only 32.7 per cent – or 101 suburbs – have a median house price under $350,000.

According to RP Data, Perth is the least affordable city in the country, with only 9.6 per cent of suburbs having a median price under $350,000. In Sydney, a mere 26.2 per cent of suburbs had affordable housing.

First-time buyer Fabian Lim said he and his partner Grace Alto have spent the past year searching for a home.

They are waiting for settlement of their new home at Springfield Lakes, southwest of Brisbane.

With a median house price of $323,000 for the suburb, Mr Lim was able to secure the property for the bargain price of $308,000.

"Our budget was between $300,000 and $320,000 – $330,000 max," he said.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0...61-3102,00.html

I'm gonna miss Ed words. He spoke my language going after those filthy slimy corporate robber barons.

So that's that. We don't do polly tics here, unless dreckly related to the mahkit.

An interesting article I posted on IDS.

All politics is local, after all, and when the local economy is slumping and your neighbors are losing their homes, this has a way of making voters more cautious on the issues and more conservative in terms of personal choices -- like spending money. Losses to public pension funds also inspire aspiring politicians to conduct witch hunts to punish the guilty and enact new laws to ensure that these terrible things never happen again. Thus our three themes for 2008: valuation, attestation and litigation.

Back to the overhang from $500 billion in subprime paper and trillions in CDS. We're impressed by the fact that Citigroup (NYSE:C) has finally come round to the reality that the SIVs really must be brought back "on balance sheet," this despite repeated statements to the contrary made to investors. No doubt this decision was encouraged by C's auditors and lawyers, who must sign off on the company's annual report in a few weeks. Paulson, Bernanke and SEC Chairman Christopher Cox need to make clear that all other holders of moribund structured assets must follow suit.

The SEC has indicated that fund sponsors like C must in future disclose same, thus the off balance sheet shell game is effectively over for this generation of banksters. Hopefully the process of moving from "mark to model" to markdown will cause state and federal regulators to reconsider whether banks and public funds should deal in assets which, by design, cannot be traded on exchanges and for which there is no information.
http://us1.institutionalriskanalytics.com/pub/IRAMain.asp

HOV and BZH just getting relentlessly beat on. Starting to cross Index and Fund threshold requirements. It's like watching it in slow motion, fascinating.

Is anyone else in on FED...DSL's crazy uncle in the basement? Getting killed on their REO's and California-centric lending.

It's a good one even for a trader, some great intraday swings.

Does this count?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...qjaE&refer=home

Bloomberg: Obama Has 91% Odds of New Hampshire Win, Traders Say

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has a 91 percent chance of winning the New Hampshire primary election and is likely to capture his party's nomination, online traders say.

Marc Faber interview.

http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/avp.htm?clipS...w1GsscBsGL0.asf

Looks like the entire CDO and structured finance team is gonna get axed....

=============

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...04gQ&refer=home

Moody's to Cut About 275 Jobs, Take Charge in Reorganization

By Lisa Wolfson

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Moody's Corp., the second-biggest credit-ratings company, plans to cut about 275 jobs, or 7.5 percent of the workforce, and take a pretax charge of as much as $52 million in the fourth quarter of 2007.

good interview by Faber,the talking heads on Bloomberg are not programmed for 'negative' news.

Bin trading URRE thrice now between 10ish and 13ish. Bought it back today at 10.71-79 after selling at 13.20 the other week. Since I haven't made any money on the short side in 4 years, I might as well post some trades from the other end. Until we break 1370 spx, I will not see this as anything but a normal short cycle correction.

Anudder Prick bites the dust

.......................

Source: WSJ

Cayne to Give Up CEO Post

Bear Stearns Chairman and CEO James Cayne, under fire from shareholders after the firm was badly burned by the downturn in the mortgage market, is stepping down as CEO, according to people familiar with the matter. He will remain chairman.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of Americans filing for consumer bankruptcy increased by nearly 40 percent in 2007, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.

In a report released Thursday, the ABI said that the number of overall consumer bankruptcy filings reached 801,840 last year, compared to 573,203 in 2006.


source


Pretty strange to have a BK increase in a "booming" economy. I guess when the fraudsters are shut down the only boom is they one you hear as they hit a wall.

SEATTLE (AP) -- Starbucks Corp. said Monday it is returning its chairman, Howard Schultz, to the chief executive's job to lead a major restructuring initiative, replacing CEO Jim Donald.

The move, coupled with plans to open new U.S. stores at a slower pace, comes as the world's largest chain of coffee houses has seen its stock plummet 50 percent over the last year amid declining traffic in its domestic stores.


The dumped CEO is getting out just in time.

Taser to Sell Leopard-Print Gun, Combine MP3 Player With Holster

The Taser C2, which shoots two electrically charged darts with the same shocking power as the police version, was launched last year. The company said Monday that it would also make the guns available in leopard print, "fashion" pink, and "red-hot" red.

"Women want whatever they're carrying -- from a lipstick case to their eyeglass case to their Taser -- to look nice and be something they won't mind if it falls out of their purse," Holran said.

The Taser MPH (Music Player Holster) will hold 1 gigabyte of music, enough to allow wearers to listen to a variety of songs while carrying a stun gun on their hip.

Hahaha.

looks like a fairly substantial correction in commodities is coming.

Maybe the Orbs is due a decent selloff as well.

Big money on commods after dull year for stocks


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors disillusioned by sluggish U.S. stocks and bonds look set this year to boost their exposure to commodities even more than they did in 2007, when money in the sector swelled by about 20 percent.

"Broker projections for 2008 are that we will see a growth of about 30 percent in commodity-linked investments," said David Buckart, senior portfolio manager in New York for Barclays Global Investors.

http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge...740538220080107

I think we have to consider the possibility that Bernanke's Fed is serious about putting an end to the Greenspan led era of Wall Street excess. It seems now that the silly stories in Nov/Dec about record 'printing' by the Fed provided excellent political cover for the Fed to put the Gang on a starvation diet. I don't have a clue if the Fed helped feed those stories to the press but in any case they can be seen as a propaganda coup.

That era is over now anyway but to be kicking them when they are down is a pretty astounding turn of events by Helicopter Ben.

It could all change tomorrow but for now it's time to consider the possibility that a fundamental policy shift has occurred. The high fliers on The Street are being shown the door, the Bear Stern's guy being the latest. It seems that in those quiet meetings in paneled rooms the last few months were not about bailing out the big boys on The Street but were rather about how to stick knives into them.

Thinking in those terms the TAFies can be seen as an end run around the Pig Men. Twisting the knife a bit.

I have some DSL puts.Today was a very bad day for DSL.

Are you suggesting that Ben lied during his job interview?

Now that's some cool looking headphones, move over ipod!





Electronic music never sound so good!

The Schultz return might be a good thing. In my neighborhood, there are literally two starbucks operations across the street from one another (although one is inside a grocery). The other two corners are filled by a new Peets and a Tullys. Not to mention the other coffee and tea shops (within a several block radius). Starbucks needs to expand their line of business interests under the brand rather than simply plunking more coffee shops down. Downtown is fairly well (over) saturated as well, especially since (I think) coffee is coffee and there are no dearth of places to get some, including the work trough.

It sounds like he reads the WSE. He is expecting a short term bounce in the stock market and dollar and a correction in gold and the other metals.

TE,Nice to see you posting.

The shills were really touting SBUX after hours today on CNBS.

He may have had an input from our major creditors like the Saudis or Chinese telling him to protect the dollar and their holdings, if he expected them to keep buying our paper. .

I once posted about a 'small business' program I used to watch on TV here in OZ.

THE PREMISE OF THE SHOW WAS FOR EXPERTS TO GO OUT INTO THE SMALL BUSINESS COMMUNITY AND GIVE PRACTICAL ADVICE TO SHOP OWNERS ON HOW TO IMPROVE THEIR BUSINESS ETC.

One such episode featured a small coffee shop.

The advice was fairly generic in nature.

The problem was that there were 7 other coffeeshops in one very small shopping strip.

This is the problem facing Starbucks and the other coffee chains,just too much overcapacity.

Coffee shops are literally a dime a dozen in OZ.

Then again,so are most shops you see these days.

The easy money making days are over.

Taser may be on to something. I was flipping channels this weekend and caught several minutes of a show (?) where women were having a blast test-firing tasers at a life-size dummy target. It was like a teen-age girls slumber party (not that I’d know). They were giddy as they blasted the target, looked at accessories, and told stories about the virtues of owning one. If Taser markets this right it could turn into a real fad.
Shorty, I think your pick for this year has real potential.

Thanks for the computer input. I've discovered you can pick Vista or XP to be loaded on a Dell PC. That's intriguing. Still researching.

I am happy to report Drano is alive (and hopefully well). Don't know the reason for the hiatus, but hope he returns to the board.

I can just picture some poor slug walking down the street minding his own business
and accidentally bumping into some babe. (She has her headset on listening to "Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses") She pulls out the Taser and blasts him for being a pervert.This is going to make for some humorous newsbytes in the future!

This 'Taser' thread is a joke..???

I can see it now...people tasering each other over a car parking spot...

or queue jumping in a supermarket.

Monty Burns used to use cattle prods on people who got in his way....

Bris: Gloomberg IMO are pretty good in allowing the bears to have their view. There is no way that Crapvision would allow Faber, Rogers etc on.

Bris- I know for a fact that the house parties are not a joke! A lady in our neighborhood had one!What happened to good old Tupperware or Kitcen utensils?

Captain,

I agree that Bloomberg does some very good interviews and do give the bears a decent go.

I think some of the interviewers are probably representative of the wider population and have no way of dealing or coping with news that is very bleak.

As a society we just can't cope with 'bad' news,it just doesn't compute.

here is a good article from safehaven.

No, it is something bigger than that. Public opinion or social mood, as we call it here at Elliott Wave International, has shifted from positive to negative. When that happens, financial heroes find themselves falling from their pedestals onto frozen earth hard as iron

http://www.safehaven.com/article-9172.htm

Brick,

I thought Shorty was pranking us.

I can't believe that they will let the public have tasers..OMG, thats unbelievable.

I want one now...

Thus doth a just end befall villains; a battle between municipal and financial Titans fought ignominiously amidst Garbage..

beardrech

HOT IPO's 2008

Debt Collectors, Bankruptcy Attorneys and Insolvency Firms