May 2008

The Commercial Real Estate (CRE) bust is coming to an office building near you. The latest story? The GM building in NY was flogged off with some other properties at the peak of the bubble for a cool $3.6 to $3.9 billion. Now, the…

George Soros claims that we are experiencing the most wrenching times in our financial system since the Great Depression. One has to be either appreciative of his advice or envious of his wealth. He made $3 billion in 2007 as a hedge fund…

This chart speaks for itself.See also:Unemployment Report: biggest rise in rate in two decadesChart of the day: Change in jobless claims

I am on record for expecting a serious downturn after the Tech Bubble crashed in 2001. We muddled through for a few years, but ultimately most of the damage was done and gone by 2004. The Tech Bubble was a bubble of asset prices that had…

The list of financial institutions needing capital because they lost so much in the credit crisis grows by the day. Now, its the insurance company AIG. After their abysmal earnings report, they need an enormous $20 billion to tide them…

I stumbled across an interesting blog over the weekend called "The Automatic Earth." I had been doing some research into writedowns at financial institutions due to loan losses and asset impairment when a great entry from The Automatic…

Since the beginning of the bull market in 1982, the U.S. has become a society hooked on debt. Total debt (including financial services companies) has nearly doubled as a percentage of GDP in those 25-odd years (from 133% of GDP at $4…

The financial services sector has been reeling from over $300 billion in writedowns due to the credit crisis that has spread globally. I expect further losses to hit this sector in the U.S. due to commercial real estate, credit cards,…

Update: A more thorough analysis of the Spanish economy is at my post Outlook for Spain: Recession.The leading Spanish Newspaper ABC is reporting that furniture sales are down 20% nationally for the first three months of 2008 due to the…

On Friday, the Spanish newspaper ABC reported that Spanish municipalities are being hit hard due to the tax revenue shortfalls emanating from the effects of the Spanish property market crash. The two local governments most affected have…