So this morning when getting my coffee I saw a hot, scruffy, muscly, inked skate boarder. Thank God I had my Oakleys on and I did not get caught staring. He had a buzz cut too. It was a nice way to start the day with my coffee.
According to Ben the recession is probably "technically" over. I can't help but feel he is trying to talk his own book up and has been designated Cheerleader in Chief. Then you get the other side of the argument from one Lewis Raneiri. This guy is basically the granddaddy of securitization. He said the problems are not gone and that the financial system "only looks fixed." I have to agree with the guy. Those toxic assets are all still sitting on the bank balance sheets, the rule how they account for them just got changed not the assets themselves.
Speaking of rule changes if you think the CRE market is not about to blow up or become a huge problem for the banks then ask yourself why the U.S. Treasury changed the rules for them. Now bans will not incur certain tax penalties for modifying commercial real estate loans. Funny how that happens when CRE delinquencies basically double, no? I also have issue with how it was done in a almost stealth manner.
I kept thinking about the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off yesterday and Ben Stein's role especially the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. One of the main causes of the Great Depression was protectionism. President Obama imposed 35% tariffs on Chinese tires. Several points here: President Obama is not the first President in recent history to impose tariffs. Reagan did it with steel. Bush the second did it with steel too. I believe even Clinton did but I am not positive. The difference is that they all did it in a growing global economy and a super-bull market. President Obama is facing a dramatically different global economic scene.
Judge Rakoff rules! The guy basically told BAC and the SEC to shut the fuck up and stop trying to screw the shareholders. He is going to get to the bottom of this mess, let's just hope it doesn't end up like a plot to a Grisham novel.
On the way home at the PATH station there was a hot cop randomly stopping passengers and checking packages. I was hoping he would stop me so he could examine mine but no such luck.
Karate tonight was good. I was partnered up with a relatively new student who is big and beefy and very cute. Classes again tomorrow night and that is it for the week.
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