[JustWatch]

Jim Kunstler 3/5/06 (excerpts from his comments)

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hat's right, Ditech, the outfit that advertised incessantly on TV, promising that house-buyers could sleepwalk their way into mortgage approvals -- and thus frustrate all the smarmy, over-fed, punctilious bankers who obstructed such requests with pain-in-the-ass qualifying protocols and burdensome paperwork.
The poison at the bottom is a fetid mass of "non-performing" mortgages, billions upon billions of loans that strapped borrowers are not paying back, loans which, in the meantime, have been rolled over, rebundled into jive "securities" (ha!) and sold, and rolled over again and used as "leverage" for massive exotic bets and bloated arbitrages involving mere abstract figments of electronic digital pulses completely removed from any reality-based productive investment activity.
The crash of the house-selling bubble, based on absurd asset inflation for things built badly in the wrong places, is coinciding exactly with a permanent oil crisis that will only exacerbate the locational disadvantages of houses built in the newest and furthest suburbs.
No amount of corn is going save the Happy Motoring utopia, and that's really all our economy is now based on.
When the financial markets factor all this in -- and they really haven't yet -- I think we'll see a lot more of what they like to call "downside action."
Now it's unraveling and the only "performing" loans will be the ones paid to the accounts receivable department in hell.

[MrBill]

Thanks. I read Jim Kunstler from time to time when I can. No need to quote him in Trader's Corner. I like to think we do a little bit better analysis than he does with less rant. At least that is our goal.

His is more an angry OP-ED piece, but then you get the feeling he would be angry all the time for no particular reason other than the world was not perfect and therefore it must be someone's fault?

Seahorse/Seahorse2 has written a lot on peak oil dot com about the sub-prime mortgage market and its prospects. You should check his posts out as he is actually involved in the process personally at one level.

Here is the latest from MarketWatch.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')hares of subprime lenders including NovaStar Financial, Accredited Home Lenders and Fremont General dropped more than 25% on Monday as investors dumped holdings in an industry rocked by tighter regulation and bad debts. NovaStar (NFI ) slumped 41% to $4.28, Fremont (FMT ) lost 32% to $5.89 and Accredited.

"There's a lot of panic selling today," Rich Eckert, senior research analyst at Roth Capital Partners, said. "People are deciding they don't want to be exposed to this sector at all."

Subprime mortgages are offered to homebuyers who don't meet the strictest lending standards. Companies that specialize in these loans have suffered as housing prices stopped rising and interest rates climbed from record lows.

In the most acute example on Monday, shares of New Century(NEW ) lost more than two-thirds of their value to close at $4.56. The second-largest subprime lender in the U.S. said late Friday that it's facing a federal criminal probe and has breached a covenant with some major lenders that provide important financial backing.

[MrBill]

JustWatch, if you're going to make your post easier to read, so we can distinguish between quotes and your own comments you have to learn to use the [quote and /quote] function above on your control panel directly above where you can also create [url and /url] links. Thanks.

[MrBill]

I caught some of the bounce in crude today on the prospects of further product draws tomorrow. And this allowed me to unwind some misguided intermonth spreads I had put on in a fit of fleeting brilliance. Doh!

Oh well, a save is as good as a win in these markets.

However, I did not short the market at or near the interday highs and now we are much lower again on the back of the same old, same old, the slowing world economy story again. Although support did hold on the daily charts, now the shorter term hourlies are looking heavy, so I am not sure how long the daily can hol-up? It looks heavy?

Any bounce in the markets is coming on the back of very light volume. A typical dead cat bounce. Just enough to give the shorts a fright and cover, but then the fundamentals will re-establish themselves and stocks will head lower again. Even EURJPY stopped falling today, but I am still targeting 148.50 once selling (buying yen) resumes.

I wrote earlier:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ') RE the stagflation scenario got another boost in the arm today from unit labor costs and pending home sales as well as factory orders in the USA.

Q406 unit labor costs +6.6% vs. 1.7% (inflationary)
pending home sales -4.1% vs. 4.9% (economic slowdown)
factory orders -5.6% vs. 2.4% (slowdown)

10 year UST has compressed 4.50% yield vs. Fed funds at 5.25% and 1 year LIBOR is 5.18% down from 5.42% just weeks ago indicating the yield curve is inverting more, so the bond market is supporting a slowdown as well.

Even as GM's cost of borrowing based on credit default swaps has ballooned to over 2.20% over 'safe' USTs as GMAC announced bad debt provisions for up to $1 billion to cover their sub-prime mortgage lending exposure. That is on top of the automaker's 7th quarterly loss totalling $13 billion. This is not your father's car company for sure!

[seahorse2]

Mr. Bill,

I'm interested in these comments you made:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his is the time when I am glad I cut all non-core positions and am sitting on cash in euros (2/3) and US dollars (1/3) along with some sundry currencies. I wish I had some bonds, but too late. I wish I would have sold even more equity, but too late. Here I need to wait for the dust to settle in those core energy and oil company shares. Now is not the time to add to those positions. I am not afraid of missing the bottom. I am afraid of paying too much a la post the dot com crash when some stocks were 75-90% below their peaks, but still declined further. Nortel for one!

[drew]

Yes Mr Bill's sentiments certainly echo my own, and that's scary. It makes me wonder how much people influence each other unknowingly, especially with the 'herd' mentioned above. I know for certain that I have reacted to commentary and analysis as well as simple conversation by selling, most often too early

I think that the only thing that has done me really well is the whole 'contrarianist' nature of PO. Now it is sort of out of the bag and the money is harder to find for many of us PO investor types.

I am now feeling somewhat lost as to where things are going because the contrarian arguments of the 'daily reckoning', for instance, are certainly closer to fruition than a year ago.

Is all this a matter of timing, if that is at all possible or is it very lucky or unlucky guesswork. An investor freind at work has pretty much sat on well over 100k for more than a year now because of his fears of a market collapse. I have teased him for some time about all the coin he missed making.

Funny thing is, this guy was dead on about the .com crash and had losts of fun teasing the office guys about their losses. BTW, just another well educated dumbf. truck driver like myself, but also a farmer.

Personally I can't see 200 dollar oil, at least not for very long. At some point it has to crash the economy. Looking forward I see nothing good investing wise until the many fiscal imbalances of the world stage get addressed. After this the whole business cycle will begin again. In the meantime where to park the funds? Am I missing something here?

Drew

[cube]

If the media is a barometer for public sentiment then I think it's safe to say right now Americans are more interested with Anna Nicole Smith rather then Iran's nuclear program.

With Iran out of the equation that explains the reason for such lackluster performance by the bulls so far this year. I agree with Drew...it's getting harder to make money in this game. Money used to come so easy in the commodity futures market. All you had to do was open a long position sometime in the beginning of the year and hold tight for a couple months then collect your profits in the summer time after you've doubled your money. Had you done that for the past 5 years all your friends would think you're some type of investment genius.

Of course that's not how I traded but I've noticed that when I first got into this game the trend was much more clearly defined.
up == up
down == down
If you opened a position and made a profit in the beginning. Then chances are all you had to do was sit tight a little longer, let the trend continue, and watch your profits grow.

Maybe it's my imagination but it seems "different" now. Now you can open 1 contract and be sitting on $1,500 of unrealized profit.....and wham bam the market does a whiplash U-turn and hits you in the face taking away ALL your "paper profits". It used to not be like that.

*sigh*
I still have my head above water...not because I'm smart, but b/c of discipline.
1) cut your losses short
2) never add to a losing position
3) never lose more then 10%
4) etc.. etc....

[MOCKBA]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '
')Maybe it's my imagination but it seems "different" now. Now you can open 1 contract and be sitting on $1,500 of unrealized profit.....and wham bam the market does a whiplash U-turn and hits you in the face taking away ALL your "paper profits". It used to not be like that.

[MrBill]

Thanks for all your comments. They are all very much appreciated.

As for my investing it is broken down into segments. One, and this is the largest and most important one, is based on my company's core holding of Russian energy assets. Therefore, the Russian stock market and all things Russian, like country risk and ruble risk, interest me.

Also, as Russia is in the emerging markets sphere I have to pay at least some attention to trends in other emerging markets. We all draw from the same pool of liquidity, so losses in Brazil or Thailand may cause EM investors to cut positions on the RTS to reduce risk or make margin calls.

Basically, my job depends on this one and it is the one least in my control. The 21% drop in the RTS (as a benchmark) has reduced our shareholder's equity by about $500 million, so it will be a tough bonus season despite having had a good 2006. It is like watching two years of hard work go up in smoke over a period of a few weeks!

The second investment horizon I have is my own day to day trading in crude and other commodities. This is to do something during the day that keeps me busy. It takes about 2-seconds to execute a trade on my electronic platform, so that does not fill the 10-12 hours a day I need to watch the market. And you can only read so much! A lot of financial news is repetitive in any case.

I have a lot of control over what I trade, but I am far from the market or the market makers. I do not see any flow, so I base most of my trading on my technicals. I try to have a longer view, but in the short-term I use the technicals for my entry and exit points. Basically, as Cube says, this one is all about discipline. Being a good money manager. Take your stop losses, get out and re-assess before getting back in.

But I think this day to day trading is very important as it keeps me in the game and focussed. When I have a position on I am reading more, watching more markets and looking for comfirmation I am right or an early warning sign that I am wrong. If I was not in it everyday then I my senses would dull. However, to survive with this kind of volatility, I need to keep my positions small, so I can get in and out quickly. I hate missing the BIG moves, but then again this is a hobby, not my main job.

The third area is like everyone else here. I have to invest for my own retirement. That is stocks, bonds, real-estate and knowing which currencies to be over-weight in. My track record is mixed. I am a great stock picker. Most of everything I buy goes up. But I never seem to know when to take profit, so sometimes I watch my gains disappear.

I developed a trading model to combat this, but I have not trusted it. My mistake. Basically, if 15% doubles your money every 5-years. The Rule of 72. I should be automatically closing my positions everytime one goes up 15-20% in a short period of time. Or at least taking profit on half that underlying position. There my self-discipline has been the worst. I am going to have to alter my approach if I expect to have long-term success. Otherwise, I should just get into some tracker funds and let someone else manage those assets.

My models are all based on a short, medium and long-term outlook. They are fully long or fully short when the indicators are all pointing the same direction. They get in scale up or scale down as the short-term indicators turn first, which forces you to take profit on those full long or full short positions. On a back-tested basis they work great. The trouble is having the discipline to follow them in real-time no matter what.

Yesterday the crude was sitting at daily support, but the hourly looked heavy. I was wondering if we would go lower? As it turns out the support held (duh) and we went higher overnight. But also there was some divergence between the Brent and the WTI with the WTI lagging gains in the Brent.

That is a quick & dirty summary. Although I have my models and my technicals a lot is still based on tummy talk. And I am biased by reading peak oil dot com and having a long-term view about resource scarcity. However, that is a 25-30 year time horizon and over the next 5-years we will see many contra-trends emerge based on hurricanes, geo-political events, new supply coming on-line, economic downturns, etc.

For me it is important to understand what is really driving the market. Even if my own trading or investment position is losing money. That is just part of the game. Being right is nice, but not if it is for the wrong reasons. As I like to say, even a broken clock can be right twice a day! But if you do not understand what is really happening today then good luck trying to understand the future? ; - ))

UPDATE: this guy is so out of touch with our future realities that it is just sad. fine for the baby boomer who is already retired, but past 2030 quite unrealistic given resource depletion.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')o please, forget assets. Here's another example to prove our point: Suppose you retire from government or corporate life, with a pension generating $60,000 annually, with no assets! Ergo, those silly asset-based calculators are misleading. I encourage you to go back and review our earlier, detailed example of the elements included in an income-based formula.

Focus on income: Pensions, Social Security, IRAs, and a new career, business or some part-time work. And remember, savvy families also quietly build wealth in home equity. Pay off the mortgage, live debt-free. Downsize. Maybe cut costs moving to a cheaper region. Go for a reverse mortgage. Be creative. Add up these pieces of income and you'll see how to reach whatever you need to live comfortably in retirement.

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U').S. inventories of distillate fuel, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, probably fell last week as refiners shut units, a Bloomberg News survey indicated.
Distillate stockpiles declined 2.75 million barrels in the week ended March 2 from 124.5 million the prior week, according to the median of forecasts by 14 analysts before an Energy Department report this week. All of the analysts expected inventories to drop.
Refineries probably operated at 85.7 percent of capacity,
down 0.3 percentage point from the week before, according to the
survey. Refineries in the week ended Feb. 16 operated at 85.2
percent of capacity, the lowest since March 2006.
``A number of refinery glitches resulted in petroleum products being pulled from inventories,'' said Kyle Cooper, director of research at IAF Advisors in Houston. ``The refinery glitches also reduced crude-oil demand, which should lead to an inventory build.''
Crude-oil stockpiles probably climbed 2.03 million barrels from 329 million barrels the prior week, according to the median of responses. All of the analysts expected an increase.
Gasoline inventories probably fell 1.55 million barrels from
220.2 million, according to the survey. Thirteen of the respondents expected a decline and one said there was an increase.

[MrBill]

I have lost count, but I think this is the 5th or 6th week in a row when NET draws in stocks have exceeded expectations? And demand has been steady, steadily up that is! Here is a summary.

crude stocks -4.8 mio to 324.2 mio bbls vs f/c +2.0 mio
gasoline stocks -3.8 mio to 216.4 mio bbls vs f/c -1.4 mio
distillate stocks -1.3 mio to 123.2 mio bbls vs f/c -2.5 mio
heating oil stocks -1.5 mio to 43.4 mio bbls

net draw -11.4 mio bbls vs f/c -3.4 mio bbls (w/heating oil incl.)

Imports -650k bpd to 8.87 mbpd (lowest since OCT. 2005)
Product imports -691k bpd

net -1.341 mio boepd

refinery use -0.2% to 58.8%

gasoline demand +3.3% to 9.14 mbpd
distillate demand +7.8% to 4.66 mbpd
total demand +6.8% to 21.71 mbpd

net/net lower supply due to fog in Houston (temporary); lower inventories (again); higher than expected demand (again).

[grink1tt3n]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '
')The third area is like everyone else here. I have to invest for my own retirement. That is stocks, bonds, real-estate and knowing which currencies to be over-weight in. My track record is mixed. I am a great stock picker. Most of everything I buy goes up. But I never seem to know when to take profit, so sometimes I watch my gains disappear.

I developed a trading model to combat this, but I have not trusted it. My mistake. Basically, if 15% doubles your money every 5-years. The Rule of 72. I should be automatically closing my positions everytime one goes up 15-20% in a short period of time. Or at least taking profit on half that underlying position. There my self-discipline has been the worst. I am going to have to alter my approach if I expect to have long-term success. Otherwise, I should just get into some tracker funds and let someone else manage those assets.

[JustWatch]

Hi All,

I think a lot of your comments are very accurate. I’ve been watching all that’s been going on the last couple of years. These last six months especially, seems the economic news (for US) has been terrible. But the herd doesn’t seem to notice at all. Well, maybe the recent market action shows they may be starting to. I’ve been watching the VIX real close, totally dead, until just now. I look at the high corporate profits we’ve had up till now, and if anyone is reading the news I would think they would be getting the idea that those profits will fall going forward.

But I guess the herd is not paying much attention, which shouldn’t be surprising. The smart money has been seeing what’s going on, that’s for sure. But that’s a pretty small percentage, or at least I think it is. The herd is just going to party on dude until something happens, then they’ll wake up. So I’ve been wondering for a long time, when is that something going to happen? Of course I don’t have the glass ball, but I do watch the PO situation real close. I can’t help but think that is what’s going to throw the big monkey wrench into the gears.

My guess is that sometime within the next five years at the very most, the oil thingy will create havoc, at least in the US. I don’t give much thought to the worldwide issue, although it is important too of course. I only have personal investment here in US. I do hope that the oil thing will happen rather slow and not too disruptively, but I don’t have a lot of faith in that idea. It won’t take much of a disruption in supply to create a pretty big squeeze, at least in my opinion. If we do get some kind of quick and sudden disruption, the we’d better be ready or we’ll be toast. The herd will head for the hills.

It’s that herd mentality that makes me most fearful, because I feel they can be counted on to panic. My very best guess, but of course this is just futuristic assumption bs like anyone else’s, is that the overall market outlook for the next few years will be rather choppy. Unless, and that’s a pretty big unless, we have the proverbial monkey wrench enter the picture suddenly. Overall however, it’s all downhill from here in my opinion. I just don’t see any way that things can just go happily along because of the oil thing, especially after reading TOD very closely as I have these last two years. Don’t get the impression that I’m just another crazy doomer, I try to stay very realistic, and not focus on all the bad things that “might” happen.

Do any of you ever read or glance around at the mainstream investment advice columns and articles that are available on the Internet? I’m talking about the MSM stuff. Not the smaller, less known contrarian sites. If you do, you must see how lame and pointless they are. Hundred mile-wide generalizations and other idiot comments from neurotic 20 year-olds who don’t have a brain. “Everybody is doing so-and-so, so you should too!” “Buy Google!” Of course the smart ones such as yourself could take advantage of knowing how the herd thinks, and if you are a trader, I’m sure that’s what you try to do. I’m not doing any trading right now, I’m just sitting on the sidelines and watching, and laughing out loud, and trying to enjoy life.

I have a feeling that in the last few years, and increasingly in the next few years ahead, more and more people are waking up to reality about the inevitable oil woes. I can’t help but think it’s starting to make people nervous, and twitchy, and gun shy for anything disrupting to the money or financial situation.

My posting and writing, soon stopping re-ceding, seeing the future we’ll soon be a-peeping! Our trading and closing, is changing the winning, ending to be in our pockets for keeping! But being and willing, is thrashing and wrecking, concerning the time of all the oil weeping! It’s slowly but surely, seeping and creeping, looking for us to be caught with the sheep-ling! Stop hoping and wishing, and watching and waiting, hedging the bet with much care and by pleading! The needing of making, of winnings and losings, taking the profit to save the proceedings! The coming of surging, of leaving of oiling, scaring the heck out of us with our bleeding! By pumping and jumping, by leaping and soaring, pricing will come that will not be misleading!

Here’s hoping you all have a nice day!

[drew]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JustWatch', ' ') My posting and writing, soon stopping re-ceding, seeing the future we’ll soon be a-peeping! Our trading and closing, is changing the winning, ending to be in our pockets for keeping! But being and willing, is thrashing and wrecking, concerning the time of all the oil weeping! It’s slowly but surely, seeping and creeping, looking for us to be caught with the sheep-ling! Stop hoping and wishing, and watching and waiting, hedging the bet with much care and by pleading! The needing of making, of winnings and losings, taking the profit to save the proceedings! The coming of surging, of leaving of oiling, scaring the heck out of us with our bleeding! By pumping and jumping, by leaping and soaring, pricing will come that will not be misleading!

[JustWatch]

If you get the feeling that here’s a guy with way, way, way too much free time on his hands, you would be right!!

[drew]

I wouldn't feel too bad if I was you. Look at your stats vs mine vs someone like montequest or mr bill. I come here a fair bit and am a fairly long time member with almost 500 posts. Some of my fellow peakoilers have eclipsed that by a factor of 4 in a year or so of posting.

Obviously they have too much time on their hands too.

Truthfully I sometimes stay away 'cause this place can get depressing.

Drew

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'I') have lost count, but I think this is the 5th or 6th week in a row when NET draws in stocks have exceeded expectations? And demand has been steady, steadily up that is! Here is a summary.
....

[MrBill]

I am going away on a business trip for 10-days, so I will not be logging onto peak oil dot com while I am away. I am back after March 21st.

Just to re-coup what has happened up to now. On the continuation charts WTI

High $78.40
Low $49.80
0.382R = $60.72

that provided resistance for a while, and there was the risk of a sell-off when it was stuck under $59-60, but now we are free of that level. So, technically it should be providing support now. The next level is

0.500R = $64.10

We have been up to $62.30-62.50 twice now in the WTI. The WTI looks weaker than the Brent. Probably due to local supply & demand factors versus global issues.

On the fundamental side we are at the tail end of winter and despite some hefty supply draws in the past 5-6 weeks there is still adequate product levels available to meet demand. But demand has been very strong as well. If demand keeps running at +6.8% year on year in the USA then with strongish growth in Chindia and Asia we can expect prices to remain firm.

However, being at the tail end of winter we are heading into the shoulder season where plants will be shutting down for routine maintenance ahead of the summer driving period and of course the upcoming hurricane season.

I think we predicted that Q2'07 would be sloppy in any case. At least we head into it above key technical levels with not a lot of resistance above us rather than below those critical points and looking vulnerable.

Daily support on the WTI is at $61.23 and $60.28 (today as moving average obviously change everyday, right?). On the weekly chart we have support at $59.33 and $58.93. The trading envelopes based on the 21-day moving average and 2.0 standard deviations give us a range of $57.50 to $63.10 right now (they also auto-adjust daily). There is a lot more support than resistance now. Therefore, we might see some near-term consolidation between $59-60 and the upside obective of $63-64 if we can clear $62.50 again on a third try.

Despite some very sloppy trading we are actually heading into the summer driving period and hurricane season from a very high plateau. Given inflation concerns as reflected by gold prices and comments by the Fed we should expect some support for nominal prices from either higher inflation or a lower US dollar. The outlyer or deciding factor being the health of stock markets, and whether the past two weeks was a wobble or the start of a longer downward trend? Weaker stock markets are likely to drag down a lot of everything with them.

I certainly hope markets remain calm for the next two weeks. Nothing worse than going to see asset & portfolio managers to flog emerging market fixed income and equity when global markets are tanking. Fund managers like most investors prefer to buy into rising markets. They get understandably nervous when everything goes pear shaped at the same time! So take care and speak to you in 10-days or so. Bye for now.

[MrBill]

I am back, but not really.

This is just a tidbit from Stephen Roach, but isn't he always negative something?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')tephen S. Roach, chief global
economist at Morgan Stanley in New York, comments on former
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan seeing a one-third
probability of a U.S. recession this year.
He also discussed Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's concerns over
the sustainability of China's economic growth. Roach spoke at a
lunch in Hong Kong after attending a forum in Beijing.

On the views of Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Alan Greenspan:
``Which Fed chairman has got it right? Well, the interesting
thing about Mr. Greenspan is that now that he's no longer Fed
chairman, for the first time in a long time he can actually tell
the truth. This is a huge breakthrough, it's a liberating
experience for a central banker who has not been allowed to
really speak clearly on any issue for nearly 18 years.''

On Greenspan and a possible U.S. recession:
``Greenspan is more right than Bernanke is on this issue, in
large part because the bubble that he created, Alan Greenspan, in
housing, is now bursting. So he knows a lot about the coming
recession, it will be known as the Greenspan Recession.''

On Wen's concerns and China's economic model:
``The point that he emphasized the most on Friday and again
on Monday afternoon when we had a private meeting with the
premier was the sustainability issue. Sustainability from the
standpoint of environmental degradation and open-ended resource
consumption, especially energy and particularly oil. The old
model is predisposed toward environmental degradation and excess
resource consumption.''

On China's monetary policy:
``The government is now almost three years into a tightening
campaign. It's a tightening campaign that has really not worked.
There are a few months when the economy slows, but in large part
it has not worked. And this is the year when it had better
work.''

On likely China government measures:
``Look for more in the way of tightening over the course of
this year. Especially administrative measures as will be
implemented by the National Development and Reform Commission.''

On a measure of Wen's success:
``If a year from now I go to the China Development Forum and
the economy has turned in another year like it did in 2006, this
will be bad news for Premier Wen Jiabao's credibility as a leader
and manager of the Chinese economy. I don't think he will allow
that to happen.''

On the relationship between the U.S. and China:
``The risk here is that Congress in Washington is moving
down a very slippery path, of considering, contemplating and
quite conceivably enacting protectionist legislation aimed at
China. And this, if it were to occur, would be a very serious
problem for China, for the rest of Asia, for world financial
markets, and the broader global economy. I have been warning of
the rising drumbeat of anti-China protectionism coming out of
Washington for the past year. The drumbeat is growing louder.''

On the U.S. economy this year:
``The U.S. economy, which has already slowed to 2 percent
with consumption still strong, is going to slow further. At a
minimum I think it will slow to 1 percent, and I think there's
the distinct possibility that it can move into the zero to 1
percent range, which would be right on the brink of outright
recession.''

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'I') am back, but not really.

This is just a tidbit from Stephen Roach, but isn't he always negative something?