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flipping Topic in The Credit Debacle Catalog

flip side (1); people flipping condos (1).

Thu 2010-09-23 09:33 EDT

Bob Rubin Just Wants to Be Cuddled

Iris Mack

[2010-04-29]...It's October 2007. I've just finished my morning jog on beautiful, sun-drenched Miami Beach and I'm getting a smoothie and a pastry at my usual place, Epicure Market. The subprime mortgage crisis is heading into full-swing mode; Jim Cramer had just done his crazy thing on TV, and you can feel the sky starting to fall all around you -- and that's a literal thing in Miami, where the cranes stopped on a lot of half-finished skyscrapers, the type where a few years back you'd hear about people flipping condos three times before the project even broke ground. (If there's ever a time that I don't regret leaving finance, it's now.) Anyway, I'm in line for the checkout, and a very familiar looking guy gets in line behind me. It's one of those situations where I'm not sure if I eyed him or he eyed me first, but I noticed him shortly when I turned to the left to swipe my debit card. He was standing right behind me in the checkout line - only a few feet away. He looked very familiar and famous, and while that's no rarity in Miami, it is when you realize it's because the guy looks like the former Treasury Secretary -- but maybe no, he's maybe not tall enough? -- and then somehow you finally just blurt out, "Hey, you look just like Bob Rubin!"...

Bob Rubin Just Wants; cuddling.

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis Tue 2010-08-03 12:11 EDT

Should China Dump Dollars for Commodities? What about the "Nuclear Option" of Dumping Treasuries? Can Global Trade Collapse?

Michael Shedlock

Every time there is a little blip by China in its purchasing or holding of US treasuries, hyperinflationists come out of the woodwork ranting about the "Nuclear Option" of China dumping treasuries en masse. Such fears are extremely overblown for several reasons...[Michael Pettis argues] the real problem is exactly the opposite of what most are ranting about: ``The problem facing the US and the world is not that China may stop purchasing US Treasury obligations. The problem is exactly the opposite. The major capital exporting countries -- China, Germany, and Japan -- are desperate to maintain or even increase their net capital exports, which are simply the flip side of their trade surpluses.'' ...If consumers decide to stop buying goods from China there is almost nothing China can do about it...Chinese exporters are already under severe price pressures...pray tell what is stopping a collapse in global trade? Nothing as far as I can see. It all depends on consumer attitudes. Certainly Bernanke and Congress will do their best efforts to get banks to lend and consumers to spend, it is by no means a certainty the Fed will succeed...consumer attitudes towards spending and debt will determine the global trade imbalance math...The result may be a collapse in global trade, not an inflationary event to say the least.

China Dumps dollar; Commodities; dumped Treasury; global trade collapsed; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis; nuclear option.

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