Best of Blogging Week ending 1-19-2008

Mish was on FIRE this past week. His blogging is always top-notch, but he really went to town this past week. All of his posting are well worth the read, I tried to cut out the lesser posts.

MISH'S Global Economic Trend Analysis
Social Mood Will Define The Future
Excellent summary of a long history of Mish's thoughts on what will it take to put in a "bottom", and start to rebuild the economy.
Bernanke Hints Banks, Economy In Much Worse Shape Than Previously Admitted
Excellent dissection of Ben Bernanke speech this past Tuesday, basically Mr. Bernanke hinted things are very dangerous in the world economy, and the USA.
Massive Taxpayer Backlash Over Pension Crisis Is Coming
Pensions have lost massive amounts of money, and unless the market rebounds, which I suspect it won't, millions of people will have a pinch in either pension benefits or tax payer increases to cover losses.
CRE Loan Distress Levels Escalating Rapidly
Commercial Real Estate is the next domino to fall, now that the subprime crisis has past the hump.
CPI at .1% Annually, Smallest Increase Since 1954
Good look at why inflation is not likely in the near future (1-2 years). This is also one of the reasons why I am scared to buy gold as an investment/hedge, but not gold miners.
Fed and BOE Shell Games to Bailout Insolvent Banks
Great recap of Mish's statements back from July 2008, and why it still applies to today. World finance shell games do not fix the issue, but do prolong and exasperiate the situation.
Ohio Governor Asks For Across The Board Union Pay Cuts
An unfortuneate reality middleclass America will face. Unions are dead, middleclass wages will remain under assault for years to come. At the end I suspect a greater divide between have's and have nots to the likes America hasn't seen since the 1800's.
Three Ideas that should scare the hell out of you
Frightening Global Downturn


The Smart Money Tracker
Possible 1-2-3 reversal
Basically echo's Mish's and some other bloggers on how we are set up for a rally. Glad I got out of those longs Thursday........
The most important chart
Gary's view is of a very strong dollar for months if not year to come. If this is correct, resources will get even cheaper, as the dollar becomes worth more. Hence why I am recommending slowly over the year, move into resources when cheaper, no need to jump in. What Gary is NOT considering is a possible (though not highly probable) crisis event to cliff dive the dollar down.
Gold
Gary's thoughts on Gold, which, I lend high credance to. Where I differ is the fear of gold miners collapsing. So far, they have been extremely strong since DOW 7.552.

The Market Ticker
Hey CONgress wake up!
Another classic "on the money" rant by Karl, this time, on congress waking up to the fact that hiding Trillion + dollar in taxpayer money being "spent" in secrecy is not proper nor legal.
On Hyperinflation
Yet another rant by Karl on why inflation is impossible, and why gold is a bad investment. No arguement here.
And your Excuse is?
Long, repeating rant by Karl on why everyone must be active in contacting their congress to regain sanity and fiscal responsibility. What Karl fails to realize is its human nature to wait until all other options are tried before the correct one is, since the correct one is always the harder path in the near term. I do fax my congress periodically, and I encourage everyone to do so too, its the least you can do.

The Slope of Hope
Finesse and foibles
Good video summarizing Tim Knights market views. Good watch.
It pays to be nimble!, USO & UNG , Sheer Energy, Increasing energy exposure
Interesting that Tim is bullish on resources such as oil at these levels. Nice to see someone else with same view, doesn't mean its right. :)
Support at 8000
Pretty much mirrors my "bottom" line I keep quoting in my blog
List of all of Tims posts for this week
Tim is a chartist, quite a bit of posting this past week. Worth scrolling to see what catches your eye.

Robert Reich's Blog
One thing I can say for Mr. Reich, he can't seem to make a title shorter than 15 words!
How the Ensure that an Aggregator (or Bad) Bank Isn't Another Taxpayer-Financed Boondoggle for the Banks That Got Us Into This Mess
Yet another commentary on how the government "should" handle creating "bad bank". Frankly, there is no good way without setting up the taxpayer to eat the costs, while the companies that created the situation keep the past bonuses/profits from bad behavior.
What Should Be Done With The Next $350 Billion of Taxpayer Bailout Money: Criteria for TARP II
Great comments on how to use TARP II, now lets hope he has some influence with democrats...
I very much like this statement, but it shows Mr. Reich opinions are not based on a likely reality... Require that any bank getting TARP II funds be reimbursed by its executives, traders, and directors 50 percent of whatever amounts they were compensated in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. This compensation was, after all, based on false premises and fraudulent assertions, and on balance sheets that hid the true extent of these banks' risks and liabilities.

Mises Institute
Filling the Holes in Krugman's Analysis and Does "Depression Economics" Change the Rules?
Two Great dissection on Economic Nobel Laurette Krugman is just plain wrong on his analysis.
Does Capitalism Need Adjustment?
Review of some books, and great rant on how issues today are caused by government not capitalism
How This Happened?
A sharp critique of the "New Deal" and the parallels of today.

And the winner of the week is:
Mish's comments on Most Galling Statement Of The Week.
To top off Mish's comments, my own "outrage" with how this administration is perceived I wrote here. This isn't financial commentary on the future, but how we got here.