Ahira's Hangar

And IIRC from comments Brinn has made in the 'Tank, Japan and China own a fair chunk of the treasury notes or whatever it is that the US sells to borrow money too. So that could have even bigger implications for the US economy right now.

--A

And now apparently AIG need more money?

--A

Madness.

--A

Well, at least these actions show that those in power are serious about preventing a total global meltdown. If I understand correctly, this sort of coordinated effort was absent in 1929.

Well, the third quarter financial data for many large US firms came in today, and most of it was not good. Another really bad day on Wall Street for our retirement accounts.

No one has said it yet from the government as far as I know, but I do not see how anyone could now deny that we are in a recession.

Sheesh, guess you might have to hang onto that job a while longer huh Duchess?

--A

and the weird result:



what would Moses say???

Just saw on the news that JPMorgan inherited about 400,000 bad mortgages when they bought out Washington Mutual. So they are now planning on a three month pause on foreclosures while they try to figure out which mortgages might be salvagable amongst the 400,000. Many of them are adustable rate flexible payment mortgages, where the home owners are making small payments that do not even cover the interest, much less touch the principle. They say they will try to redo all of that sort of mortgage, provided the people have been trying to make their payments - perhaps adding years/decades to the loans to make the monthly payments more affordable.

I really like this, as it would be coming from private rather than public efforts (and money, if money is needed). It also keeps people in their homes, who have been making good faith efforts to make payments on mortgages where it turns out that they bit off more than they could chew.

I am hoping Bank of America will do the same with its hundreds of thousands of bad mortgages they inherited from Countrywide, and that Wells Fargo will do the same with its hundreds of thousands of bad mortgages they inherited from Wachovia.

In other news, you can expect thousand of more layoffs from companies as diverse as Crysler, American Express, and the latest would be Circuit City which announced today it will be closing a hundred ot so stores, resulting in huge layoffs.

Yes, JPMorgan seems to be doing the right thing - showing a measure of compassion to homeowners caught in the mortgage debacle.

Re: trouble at other companies -- just saw on the news that auto sales figures in the US were down sharply for October. GM's sales were down 45% - apparently the company's lowest since the Second World War! Ford was down 29%. Even the Japanese automakers suffered, down around 30%. But curiously, according to the CBC, auto sales in Canada were slightly up.

Yeah, apparently global car sales are at their lowe3st point in 15 years. The crunch is there. At least our currency is starting to firm, and the oil prices continues low.

--A