Rebel Traders – Analysis Without The Hype

Bank failures, air traffic, profits from death, foreclosures, and more items from the web and the news wires. Also this weeks schedule of events.

Citadel Broadcasting files for bankruptcy

Busy (and very expensive) weekend for bank failures.

• First Federal Bank of California (cost to the FDIC: $146.3 million + $5.3 billion in loss-share agreements)
• Imperial Capital Bank (cost to the FDIC: $619.2 million + $2.5 billion loss-share agreements)
• Independent Bankers’ Bank of Illinois (cost to the FDIC: $68.4 million)
• New South Federal Savings Bank (cost to the FDIC: $212.3 million + $1.2 billion in loss-share agreements)
• Citizens State Bank (cost to the FDIC: $76.6 million)
• Peoples First Community Bank (cost to the FDIC: $556.7 million + $1.4 billion in loss-share agreements)
• RockBridge Commercial Bank (cost to the FDIC: $124.2 million)

And while we are talking about costs to the FDIC, consider just how bad the FDIC is at estimating the ‘real’ cost – FDIC estimated Colonial Bank cost would be $2.8 billion, but the real cost has risen to $5.8 billion.

2010 forecasts from the Market Oracle

$36 /hour to $13 /hour. White-collars turn blue

Global air passenger traffic drops by largest amount in aviation history

Obama’s “Home Affordable Modification Program” – Huge Failure

Foreclosure backlog is huge

Goldman Sachs ditches attempts to profit from death

Fewer states add jobs – Green shoot is dying (RT note: watch for the surge in layoffs in retail sectors in January and February)

AIG – cough up the e-mails

Washington for Sale – Bill Moyer video link , Robert Kuttner and Matt Taibbi guests.

Iceland – Sovereign rating at risk yet again over internal financial battles. One more rating cut and Iceland will be classified as junk.

Greece admits that sovereign rating may be cut by Moody’s

Things are big in Oklahoma – like their record setting deficit

United Kingdom – Property is a black hole, more bank losses.

(IQ) Earlier on Sunday, Iraq halted crude oil exports from its northern oil fields to the Ceyhan port near Turkey – Press (Update)
- The move came after it was reported that a main pipeline in northern Iraq was attacked.
- The attack occurred at around 8:30 p.m.on Saturday (1730 GMT)
- According to one estimate, the pipeline’s capacity is equal to about 450K bpd (approximately 23% of Iraq’s exports) (wire report)

Events for the week of December 21 to 25:

Monday:

08:30 -  Nov Chicago Fed Index (last -1.08)

Tuesday:

There are many ways to gauge the ’sentiment’ and/or the financial health of Americans. The Government conducts their own surveys, there are cold call surveys from independent research firms, and there are Wall Street analysts giving everyone who will listen their forecast of the consumer spending habits.

Thanks to the Internet (do we really have to thank Al Gore for the Internet?) and the giant search engines a vast amount of data is available to us that we could not obtain previously, at least not easily. We all know that Google keeps track of every search ever made. Privacy concerns have been raised about this time and time again. But tonight’s article is not about privacy issues, that is a whole topic in of itself.

This article deals directly with just what people in the United States are searching for on the Internet. There is a social stigma attached to asking for information on certain things. A person may be too embarrassed to ask for some types of information, perhaps they are fearful that a friend or relative might find out. So that brings us to the Google and what people search for in the privacy of their own homes (or wherever they access the net from).

Click on ‘read more’ for the shocking graphs of data I was able to extract…

(read more…)

Food Stamp use in the United States reaches another record high – One in Eight Americans now on food stamps

Law School Professor says just walk away from your mortgage

Larry Summers – While President of Harvard misguided the investments of endowment funds – $1.8 Billion Loss
(and this is the guy who Obama picked to be the head of the nations economic team)

Making Homes Affordable – Program to curtail foreclosures still does not work – Maybe Plan B will work

Retail Spending – Oh No!  Black Friday spending down 8%

Want to get into the Hotel business? – Hotel Owners Behind On Payments

Ben Bernanke – Leave us alone

Bankruptcy filings – Increase 34%

Not yet confirmed but definitely something to chew on – TARP recipients banned from making commercial loans ???

(h/t Butch, Jennifer, Al)

• KB Homes (KBH) being investigated for accounting violations – Business Week
• United Kingdom to hold HUGE garage sale (will even sell the Channel Tunnel) to help with budget woes – BBC
• CitiGroup (C) was found to be helping foreign investors avoid paying taxes - FT
• The FHA is another ‘bail out’ in the making – Business Week
• Pay for your own health insurance in Massachusetts? You may be taxed for not having bigger polices – WSJ
• FDIC pays for milking cows – Money Rate
• More on the FHA meltdown in the works – NYT
• Are you planning to take a flight in Japan? You better you the toilet first so the airline can save on fuel – Dailymail
• And speaking of toilet… School children in Ireland now required to bring their own toilet paper to school – Telegraph
• Oil refinery to be shut down (recall that only a few years ago the Government was predicting that more refinerys would be needed) – WSJ
• Apartment vacancies reach 23 year high – Bloomberg
• California – the next bail out? – Guardian

(hat tip Butch for assistance with articles)

Link and more links of interest…

• Ghost ships – The unused shipping vessels – British Mail online (must read)
• Wisconsin sales tax receipts declines for the first time ever – Wisconsin Telegram
• Hundreds of homes to go up for auction, unpaid taxes – WFMZ TV
• Bank system safe? – Not so fast – American Thinker
• Retail Sales – Still dropping in the United Kingdom – The Independent
• California budget problems just won’t go away – San Jose Business Journal
• Credit Scores being impacted nationwide – LA Times
• PayDay Loans, Here we go again with ripoffs ( 7 day loan APR 970.90%) – Pay Day Loans Web Site
• Double Dipping – Financial Times
• Wells Fargo high level employee get fired for throwing ‘parties’ in foreclosed homes in their trust – Huff Post (just one more reason to hate the bankers)

And finally a debt revolt begins…

As the United States celebrates Labor Day it is fitting to acknowledge all of the issues facing those who are still employed, and to the millions who no longer have any jobs.

This year Labor Day should be called “Non Labor Day” in recognition of those who have suffered greatly at the hand of Washington, D.C. and their failed policies.

• People on Food Stamps continues to Rise
• Unemployment for Teenagers is at all time high
• Construction Loans Falter – NY Times
• Corus Bank – tick tick tick – Real Estate Channel
• China and Reserve Currency – US Buck in Trouble
• More Shoes To Drop – no Economic Recovery
• Back to School – Retailers Not Happy
• Computer server sales revenue down 30%
• Christmas goods shipping from China down 46%
• More people can’t pay utility bills
• More Americans in Poverty

(hat tip Butch for help with links)

And finally tonight we have this clip from an interview with California congressman Pete Stark. Congressman Stark tries to say that the more debt a nation has.. the wealthier it is.  Huh! I guess that makes California the richest state in the nation. If they are so rich then why did they have to issue IOU’s.. hmmmm

If more debt makes a nation wealthier then I wonder why it is that sovereign ratings are in jeopardy for nations with high debt. Congressman Stark is incredibility stupid and it is no wonder why California is in such trouble with a representative like this. I also get a hint of racism in Congressman Starks interaction with the reporter from Puerto Rico.

And one last item for the night.. New clothing for the H1N1 season.

This ensemble will look great at work or for a night on the town amongst the H1N1 infected people walking by. You too can be fashionable in the midst of a pandemic..

Who created this ugly crap!

• Buckle Up! – Economic Edge
• FDIC Bankrupt – Is There Any Money Left?
• Recovery in Germany – Could Just Be a Mirage
• Post Office Pension Trouble – No Money For Pension Fund (PDF file)
• Significant Job Cuts At Beechcraft – No Airplane For You
• Toxic Loans – The Smell of Rotting Loans is Getting Worse
• Ginnie Mae – The Nations Tax Payers Next Problem Child
• Cash For Clunkers – The Check Is In The Mail
• Deflation – Prices Keep Dropping
• Colonial Bank Failure – More Fallout:  Less Mortgages
• Lies, Lies, Lies – What Else Would You Expect From Washington?

• Bodies pile up in morgue – Families can’t pay funeral expenses
• End of the line – Stories of those trying to find work
• Mass numbers of people to begin falling off the Government unemployment data – USA Today
• Wall Street is doing great – Except that it’s losing money
• American society comprehensively bankrupt – James Howard Kunstler
• Fiscal ruin of the Western world – A glimpse of what awaits America
• California budget – Counties say they will fight state capital
• California pension system – Oops, big losses
• General Electric – Unit cut by Moody’s
• CIT – Bankruptcy still on the table
• California budget – Get out of jail free card

• President Obama is thinking about giving tax payer funds to homeowners – Obama Mulls Rental Option
• Will job lost in the auto industry ever come back – Don’t Bet on it
• Oil in North Dakota? – New oil fields
• Broadcasters Want Bailout – Timmy Geithner gets call
• Business Week – I’ll Buy That for a Dollar!
  
• Unemployment To Keep Rising – From the ‘Duh’ files
• The Economy Is Worse Than You Think – In other words, the economy is worse than CNBC will tell you
• Essential Air Services – Taxpayers pay for near empty flights to places no one wants to go