Economy for 2013: San Diego worse than state, nation?

It will last as long as the Fed creates fiat money and purchases the treasuries. What do they care? And anyways, even though this market is rigged, it is still a real market with liquidity and a firm, narrow bid/ask. It's easy to enter either side of a position and put on size. What I think disturbs you is that you are more concerned with prices then the actual mechanics of whether there is a market or not. Just because one is unhappy with the price one's asset is going for doesn't mean that there is not an active market trading in said asset. I know a lot of soybean speculators who are very unhappy with the price because they paid $17 for their beans which are now worth $14. Yet if they looked at the big picture, beans were $6.00 a few years ago. Those same guys are saying that this is not a real market.
— December 28, 2012 10:20 a.m.

Economy for 2013: San Diego worse than state, nation?

Morgan was an expert at using other people's money and put together US Steel, didn't own it outright.. Notice how he never left a public legacy like Rockefeller or Carnegie et al. His legacies were the succeeding companies upon his death That's because he was influence rich and capital poor, the quintessential deal maker. I have another source showing that JP Morgan's estate was probated at 68.3 million, which is more accurate than the one I quoted. Remember, he was merely a partner in the bank that bore the Morgan name. When he died in 1913, the gross domestic product was 39 billion so 68 million was a chunk of change.
— December 28, 2012 10:13 a.m.

Economy for 2013: San Diego worse than state, nation?

But Waltons are new money.
— December 28, 2012 5:40 a.m.

Economy for 2013: San Diego worse than state, nation?

But then guys like JP Morgan, while quite wealthy, were not rich. Morgan's estate was only 45 million or so. His influence though, covered 90% of the economy. Hell,, he controlled a syndicate that bailed out the US government. But your contention of greater overall wealth today makes one ponder the size of the pond then and now..
— December 28, 2012 5:39 a.m.

Economy for 2013: San Diego worse than state, nation?

Actually, the Fed can keep buying paper forever. After all, they are the biggest customer at the treasury auctions right now,....what's a little more fiat money? This article was 6 months ago and it's getting much worse.http://www.moneynews.com/Headline/fed-debt-…, now it's up to around 80% with QE3+ and that extra 65 silent billion a month tweaking the short end of the curve(to add liquidity of course). But then again, what the Fed really wants you to do is to buy the 10 year note with overnight money. No sane person would buy the 10 year note at these levels, so the Fed is offering a kicker, an inducement so to speak. You can get your brokerage firm to loan you all the overnight money you want for 39bps(the broker or bank is paying 19 bps today). The 10 year is yielding 171 bps right now, so one can buy the 10 year, and either hedge it in the futures market or get a repo agreement with a bank, either of which will cost around 60-80bps, depending.An idiot should be able to make around 25 bps from this carry trade. Or, if the 10 year keeps going up, you can sell the damn thing and worry about capital gains in April. The Fed is artificially rigging the interest rate market, and that's why they are allowing this carry trade(which incidentally is responsible for a large portion of the profits of the banking system right now). One caveat about carry trades, although they usually work for years, when they stop, they crush you like a bug..
— December 27, 2012 11:14 a.m.

Economy for 2013: San Diego worse than state, nation?

I would respectfully disagree that we have a worse maldistribution of wealth than in the Robber baron days. Hell, guys like Fiske, Gould, JP Morgan, Rockefeller et al controlled a much larger percentage then the present 1% does. That single reason is precisely why the progressive movement got started and we ended up with presidents like T Roosevelt and Wilson, who promised to level the playing field but instead started us down this road to perdition.
— December 27, 2012 10:56 a.m.

Lou Schooler and John Schooler's dubious schemes

I don't know about the time thing, but I read the fine print of everything I sign...and I ask questions. I got burned on a deal once because I didn't read the fine print. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me
— November 5, 2012 2:36 a.m.

Mary Hoffman takes on CPUC

Greed is good.
— September 28, 2012 12:06 p.m.

Mary Hoffman takes on CPUC

I love St. Matthew Passion. Here's something else that is very sublime. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoMOuGOoA5g
— September 28, 2012 12:05 p.m.

Wall Street's High-Speed Gambling

So you haven't read Rand yet you make sweeping pronouncements and judgements about her work. Did they teach you to do that in J School? And here's my favorite Krugman Quote; "This is hard to get people to do, much better, obviously, to build bridges and roads and healthcare clinics and schools. But my proposed, I actually have a serious proposal which is that we have to get a bunch of scientists to tell us that we’re facing a threatened alien invasion, and in order to be prepared for that alien invasion we have to do things like build high-speed rail. And the, once we’ve recovered, we can say, “Look, there were no aliens.” Total gibberish and yet you discuss Rand without having read her works. Beautiful.
— August 24, 2012 11:48 a.m.