Economic Mournings

[ScottinCrimea]

Scott, can you ask your wife if the stores have a lot of mink coats in stock.  I found that Simefropol had the best deals and quality of mink coats two years ago and if the stores are full of coats on sale will need to go in December there.  The mink coats in Kiev tend to be of poor quality and high price.

I asked my wife about this and she says they are there and very cheap (relatively speaking, of course). The same newspaper I read says prices have recently dropped 20% on these coats.

[GoodOlBoy]

I see why women like them.  There very warm.

Kievstar, if I am not being to personal.....UHHH, how do you know how warm they are? Did you wear it? 

[OlgaH]

Hi Olga, I do not know much about Mink but have never heard of China and Greece being a good spot - so I think your joking.

Kievstar,

China, Greece and Emirates are, I would say, one of the major countries where mink coats come to Russia and Ukraine from, and also from Italy and Germany. The fur coats' quality and prices depends on brands and what parts of fur they are made of (as backs, legs, tails, whole plates or small pieces )  As sellers say  the one of the best fur is Russian fur, because of animals' fur undercoat, of course prices also not cheap. Also it is good to know some tips how to chose a fur coat of good quality. 

[GoodOlBoy]

Went to my bank today only to find it has been shut down by the Federal Reserve.  Doors were locked tight, everyone there lost their jobs. 

Mishenka, I went through the same thing 2 month's ago. My local branch of "Washington Mutual" closed for one day, before reopening as JP Morgan.

I hope your bank was FDIC insured?

[I/O]

Was watching a TV interview with a couple of representatives of the Auto sales industry in Texas the other night. Heading off to lobby the Gov't for bridge loans etc along with the manufacturers. One comment simply blew me away. "We need the Gov't to get money flowing again so we can get these sales financed". Un effing believable. Their only view of sales is financed sales. Until there is a refocus on creating some personal wealth (To use a phrase) the cycle will only repeat and under those circumstances I feel the Fed is right to refuse the manufacturers.

The irony (Perhaps typically Gov't) is they have given them what? 2 weeks to come up with a business plan and all but indicated they will hand over cash. They have been going fat side up for years and now they can come up with a viable plan in 2 weeks? 

A very experienced and well to do guy I know quite well who has spent much of his life around the finance industry was shaking his head two years back regarding auto credit. He said to me "This is BS, I've been around this game for 30 years, I've made bucket loads (He has made and invested very well, a serious amount of money, don't think millions, think 10's of) and I'll continue to make money but this is going pear shaped in a big hurry. The auto industry here will downsize, Japan will take a hit and the USA auto industry is effed, 20 years effed (He is not given to bad language usually) and they had better get used to the idea, they will pour squillions into it in patch ups but until it is torn to pieces and rebuilt from the ground up, it is effed".

The 200 car train wreck? The wreck is in progress, doesn't mean the rail line won't continue to operate at a slowed or reduced rate. My feeling is we are 140 cars into the pile up with some of the luxury cars (Big end of town) near the back of the train and yet to take their hit. In market terms, 50% reduction in the Dow, ours is fairly similar although too small to have any international effect, the crystal ball is fairly clouded but is suggesting to me that the Dow at 5-7000 points could be a reality in the second 1/4 or '09 and from there we might see some gradual stability creeping in. :noidea:

I/O

[SANDRO43]

Mink fur coats ! This reminds me of an experience I had a lifetime ago, when I was hired as interpreter by a Jewish mink-pelt trader from Seattle, visiting Milan's major fur dealers (mostly Jewish, too ).

Being shown through their atéliers, I remember him picking up coats in the process of being tailored and blowing repeatedly on the fur . I was puzzled by this, and discovered only much later that one of the few activities permitted to Jews by various local laws, alonside with sinful money-lending  - notably by the Papal State -  was the rag trade. The always-imaginative Jews had developed this into fur-coat production, ably stitching together small strips of whatever furs they could find among rags.

Apparently, the US fur trader was aware of this long tradition .

[daveyj]

Another 1% weakening in the rouble.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8071824

[kievstar]

Regarding mink coats - Olga and Scott thanks on information and good ol boy I wish I had one on some cold days.  My ex girlfirend was the expert on mink coats so I let her look and decide on quality.  5 days was a little long for me on the shopping for a mink coat. 

[kievstar]

I worked in the auto industry and one thing General Motors likes is 5 year business plans.  They have one already done and it is always updated.  The problem is the plan needs 18 million cars sold in USA per year to be profitable not the 10-11 million they have right now.  The current 5 year plan will show $50B plus needed to survive unless the economy recovers very quickly.  The plan will also show all new investment and jobs overseas.  Not exactly what congress wants the tax payers to fund. 

GM, Ford, and Chrysler will create a fake business plan to look like it will create jobs or prevent jobs from going overseas.  Anyone with half a brain should let them go into bankruptcy. 

[Mishenka]

We live in some intense times. I think over the next year or two, maybe even 10, this time in history will make the great depression look like Disneyland in comparison. Time will tell. The writing is on the wall reads " there is no way out"  No way out but up^

Mishenka.

[Mishenka]

I worked in the auto industry and one thing General Motors likes is 5 year business plans.  They have one already done and it is always updated.  The problem is the plan needs 18 million cars sold in USA per year to be profitable not the 10-11 million they have right now.  The current 5 year plan will show $50B plus needed to survive unless the economy recovers very quickly.  The plan will also show all new investment and jobs overseas.  Not exactly what congress wants the tax payers to fund. 

GM, Ford, and Chrysler will create a fake business plan to look like it will create jobs or prevent jobs from going overseas.  Anyone with half a brain should let them go into bankruptcy. 

So true, now all we need is to find someone with half a brain to lead congress and the US treasury and quit the BS and create a real solution. Sadly there is no one with half a brain available, nor is there a solution. This band aid approach for something that requires major surgery will cause a rapid and certain death to the world economy. We are just at the anesthesia stage now, but soon we will all be numb to reality until finally we will breathe our last. Then it will be too late. We can only take so much deception from Washington, only so much BS. Change? Certainly not,  not change I can believe in, just more of the same old boys B-S-ing their way through life.
Mishenka

[Gator]

Who knows what will happen.  We do not know where we are going because we have never been here before (with the US Govt taking control of business in such a heavy manner). 

We can not turn the clock back.  All we can do is work ourselves out of this mess.  To guide us, I admit that Obama has selected an outstanding economic team (and I am a fiscal conservative who votes Republican). 

[Blues Fairy]

I admit that Obama has selected an outstanding economic team

Are you kidding?  The guy who screwed up Citibank - now the new Fed chairman?

[mark2353]

Agree with BF! Obama is starting in the wrong foot! All Clinton appointees! That was not the best administration we had. If Clinton had stayed in office one year longer he would have suffered drop of dot com... He was the creator of the first bubble economy. Clinton deregulation was what got us into this big mess. Obamas economic team leader had interest so high (18% on a car loan! yes I paid that!).  Not a very bright future??

[ScottinCrimea]

Yeah, I've been wondering what happened to all the talk of change.  All we're seeing as Obama's appointees are Clinton retreads.  So we just give them a second chance and hope they will get it right this time?

[BC]

Are you kidding?  The guy who screwed up Citibank - now the new Fed chairman?

Nothing better than hiring a burglar to plan your home security systems.

[Mir]

Who knows what will happen.  We do not know where we are going because we have never been here before

Exactly, no one knows the extent of the problems faced by the world. There is talk of a recovery in one year or two just because there is always a recovery (historically) but past performance is never a guarantee for the future.
I think that the whole credit/borrowing based system is dying. People will need to retrain themselves so that they only spend the money they actually have. But this would mean the death of capitalism as we know it. What will emerge from the ashes who knows.
All I can say it will get a lot worse before it gets better. Still we need to keep reminding ourselves that people have lived and done good in worse situations.

The night flowed on. During the second half the whole arc of the sky, the curtain that God has drawn across the world, was covered with stars.
Above the bank of the Deniper the midnight cross of St Vladimir thrust itself above the sinful, bloodstained, snowbound earth towards the grim, black sky. From far away it looked as if the crosspiece had vanished, had merged with the upright, turning the cross into a sharp and menacing sword.
But the sword is not fearful. Everything passes away --- suffering, pain, blood, hunger and pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?
(From The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov written in Moscow 1923-1924)

And to lift the sombre mood another quote from the great George W(What a bloody disaster) Bush:

'The future will be better tomorrow.'

[Gator]

BF, you are right of Right.  Nevertheless, I do not understand your question.

Are you kidding?  The guy who screwed up Citibank - now the new Fed chairman?

Bernanke will remain as the Fed Chairman until the end of his four-year term.

Do you mean Geithner, the future Secretary of Treasury who could be appointed to Chairman in 2010?  He has been with the Fed and if he did anything, it was to help resuscitate Citibank from the deathbed.   

Who brought Citibank down.  IMO, the ex-CEO, Prince.  He and Wall Street leveraging (aka “greed”) allowed by Clinton’s deregulation and sped by Bush’s lack of enforcement of even the lax laws.

[wxman]

Great depression of the 30s or rescession of the 70s? We are not close to either. We won't see 25% unemployment like the 30s along with yearly debt greater than total GDP. We won't experience the 70s with double digit inflation and interest rates of 20% along with double digit unemployment. We have too many television and media economic wannabee geniuses who are claiming the end is near, and many of them never lived through the 30s or 70s. There's money to be made in them thare hills. I love it when everyone panics, just more for me to buy in the fire sale. 

[Blues Fairy]

Who brought Citibank down.  IMO, the ex-CEO, Prince.  He and Wall Street leveraging (aka “greed”) allowed by Clinton’s deregulation and sped by Bush’s lack of enforcement of even the lax laws.

I actually meant Rubin (sorry, not the new Fed) - he's been the instrument of Citibank debacle, walked away with 100MUSD in bonuses just before Citi crashed, and is now Obama's chief economic adviser.  Just lovely.
And Citi got bailed out in record time just by coincidence. 

[wxman]

Rubin is a con artist. It's too bad that Obama can't see that. I will give Obama credit for bringing Paul Volcker into the fold. He was hated in the late 70s and early 80s for raising interest rates to 20% to stem the tide of runaway inflation. It caused quite a bit of hardship, but he likely saved the US economy from total collapse. He was despised by both Republicans and Democrats 30 years ago, and now is being praised by both parties. It's going to take time to get out of the current mess. We may have to look back 20 years from now to see if Obama's plans, but more likely Bush/Paulson's bailout plans, to see if they were the right decisions for the long term. Americans are too impatient and will expect results in 6 months. Obama will get that 6 months, and then the anger will turn on him. Decisions made now are for the long term. Little if anything can be done to change the short term (6 to 18 months). One must now grin and bear it.  20 years from now, if the Bush/Paulson plan worked out, Bush may be hailed for saving the economy, instead of being villified as he is today. Only time will tell.  

[Mir]

Interestna

http://www.kyivpost.com/business/31400

[Mishenka]

The ruble is now 28r to $1 USD 

[daveyj]

Another 1% drop. Now R28.20=$1.00
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aV9a5OPsFqYk&refer=home

[Makkin]

 I believe it's now and has been for 48 hours or so...29.45r =1USD