Bentham’s Panopticon crossed with Posturegate, Doom appreciates the many levels of irony in the Pickett’s Charge of Tech Bubble 2.0 happening as an oh-so polite but massive introverts’ riot peaking at 6:30 in the morning.  While Generation Y’s Fitzgerald will eventually feature this moment in a serious candidate for The Great American Novel, we can confidently count on Coupland to have a beta version up in plenty of time for this year’s Xmas ebook season.  That weren’t no Cemetery Ridge they done tooked But let’s not allow a side show to distract us from the main event.  It would seem…
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I was thinking earlier this week how much I missed the late “Tanta” of Calculated Risk.  She had a better understanding of the mortgage securitization  market than anyone I know.  Sadly, she passed away in 2008, leaving a hole in the economic and housing blogging world. On the lighter side, I enjoyed her “Saturday Rock Blogging”.  I thought in honor of those old Rock Blogging posts, I’d share my favorite Saturday song from Cat Stevens (Josef Islam).  

Sometimes the camera doesn’t lie (Onion-ready pic from the article, I’m so tempted to make it my desktop background): NYT (1/27 ’12): “New Fraud Investigation Group Issues Subpoenas to Financial Companies” Mr. Donovan said that a separate settlement being worked out between state attorneys general and mortgage servicing companies would not thwart the new group’s investigations, even if the settlement released companies from further law enforcement efforts related to mortgage servicing. // “We would not be standing here today if we were not absolutely confident,” Mr. Donovan said, adding that any releases being contemplated “are narrow enough to allow us…
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Here at Housing Doom blog we’re always on the lookout for really worst case scenarios, especially the ones where grownups, the MSM and recognized authorities all get together and say: “Why are we even bothering to debunk something that dumb?” Which is why we’ve got a soft spot in our heart (hearts for pet dragon Igor, head for yours truly) concerning the idea that a tidal wave is supposed to engulf Mt Everest at the next Winter solstice  But on the other hand … 12/21 ’12 just happens to be smack in the middle of a US congressional / presidential…
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Sometimes these guys are way too smart for their own good … Economist (1/19 ’12): “Perry exits” … You have to wonder why a man of such towering ignorance ever thought he had the right to aspire to the White House.   Meanwhile, Igor credits WaPo with the most dangerous 51 seconds of MSM coverage yet in the present primary cycle. Plus 10 for [candidate's name redacted] if SC ever sees that one

I’m not a US person, or at least not anymore, so Housing Doom’s pet dragon Igor had to clue me in about this plant that’s been in the news so much recently. It grows in South Carolina, and Igor also tells me that it’s there, over the next six days, that most of the juice of this year’s presidential election will be squeezed.  Pollsters predict primary election or caucus outcomes by measuring the intentions of likely participants / voters, but this week’s Republican party aspirants are depending so heavily on un-likely supporters that the statisticians are severely off-balance.  So some…
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A headline worthy of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald’s Bill Smith, circa 1975 … CBC News (1/12 ’12): “Same-sex divorce options explored by Harper government” The mind boggles.  Meanwhile, the foreign central banks continue to steadily reduce their holdings of US obligations … more on this in due course

Well, Igor, it’s been quite a while since we’ve tried one of these Monday posts, but for some reason I couldn’t let this opportunity slip by.  Wikipedia has that my birthdate (and Charles Bernstein’s, go figure!) is within a few days of this guy’s (we’ll need lots of silly coincidences like this in future, it would seem): NYT (12/29 ’11): “Charles Krauthammer: Are we alone in the universe?” … As we inevitably find more and more exo-planets where intelligent life can exist, why have we found no evidence — no signals, no radio waves — that intelligent life does exist?…
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It’s a holiday weekend, so I don’t feel guilty indulging in a little off-topic humor.  I was forwarded this photo by a friend: Apparently Santa should have registered with Air Traffic Control.

I’ve had occasion to drive by Occupy Austin a time or two, as well as seeing the Occupy Wall Street protests on TV.  For the most part, I haven’t been impressed much by the signs I’ve seen. [I don't think signs that say, for example, tax the rich or corporations are evil are clever, informative, or very useful.] I saw one online today though that I really liked:

The proliferation of “too big to fail” banks may be playing havoc with our economy, but at least we can have fun singing about it.  Here’s the latest video from our friends at VersusPlus:   IPO, anyone?

Doom contributors and I have often noted that commenters on MSM articles are often smarter than the reporters. [Granted, commenters are often dumb as a post too, but we can't have everything.] Even when comments aren’t stellar, you can get a feel for reader sentiment by perusing them. In 2006  commenters in the Arizona Republic overwhelmingly ridiculed the idea that housing could crash.  Today, we’ve seen that sentiment reverse.  Today Catherine Reagor, reporter for the Republic wrote about foreclosures being down in September and a slight uptick in the median home price.  To her credit, Reagor did admit that one…
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On of the bigger chuckles I’ve had this week was an explanation of how junk bonds work, forwarded to me by L.  For those of you who wondered what “mortgage bond securities” were and how they worked, this is one of the clearer explanations of how bond markets work that I’ve seen. I understand it’s been floating around the internet awhile, but it was new to me. Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve…
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Would you buy a used currency from this man? MarketWatch (8/15 ’11): “Gold-standard debate back, 40 years after Nixon” LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Exactly 40 years ago Monday, the U.S. dollar formally became a fiat currency, as then-President Richard Nixon “closed the gold window” and ended the greenback’s precious-metal guarantee. It was about the same time that Johnson and Nixon diverted the unaffordable cost of the Vietnam War onto the newly semi-privatized housing GSEs Fannie Mae and (newly created for the purpose) Freddie Mac. With the costs of the present wars added to their books, the newly semi-unprivatized F&F make…
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We’ve been watching the debt ceiling talks and wondering how this will all play out.  Whatever the final outcome, it is likely to affect interest rates, investor confidence and the general health of the economy, all of which can impact the housing market. It’s been frustrating not to have more information on the plans and negotiations going on in Washington.  I did, however, find this informative clip and comment from Jane Wells of CNBC: They don’t seem to be making much headway in Congress with this whole debt thingy. Rep. John Boehner says there’s “no deal” being negotiated behind closed…
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