Here's a paragraph from a letter from the Ohio AG.

"On the litigation front, my lawsuit against GMAC Mortgage continues. GMAC removed the case to federal court, and the case is now in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. I also continue to work with the 50-state multi-state investigation of robo-signing, and we are meeting with a number of interested parties to attempt to craft a solution that benefits both homeowners and lenders."

http://4closurefraud.org/2010/12/31/cord....

IMO, this does not start out 2011 the right way for two reasons.

1) GMAC somehow managed to move litigation from an Ohio state court to federal court. A federal judge is likely not to have the respect for state laws that have been breached (decimated).

2) The 50 state AGs should be coordinating investigations with an eye toward criminal prosecution and civil action, not "to attempt to craft a solution that benefits both homeowners and lenders." The solutions already exist under law. Prosecute the criminals and asset-strip the asset strippers.

Do these guys really want anarchy in the US?

BTW, the local papers say that local retailers are experiencing increased after-Christmas returns. People seem to want to walk out with the cash in hand rather than shop for other items. That was some quick liquidation of assets.

repukes and tea baggers will disappoint. Sell outs everywhere. Of course this will happen after the market dives in the first half. The banksters will force their will on the market. Fraud and corruption continues to be swept under the rug. American people continue to be sheep.

Mayor - We got our cell phone bill to $13.33 per month for two phones. My gasoline bill last year was $96, and I work full time (not at home). My SO's was a bit more though.

Mayor,

The thing is Ben wants to force you to spend your hard saved dollars without raising the rates. He doesn't want a nuclear explosion in .gov debt or the housing market.

So, he will make your dollars "worth" less. Thats what I meant when I said no one really wants to hold FRNs. I don't but I have too cause I don't have much choice, same with those institutions that are speculating on everything.

I have successfully acquired everything I needed over the last couple years (gold/silver, ammo, food supplies, land, etc). Now, I'm going to hoard FRNs and wait for rates to rise. Just cause I'm doing it doesn't mean I like it.

Karl, thanks for the predictions. I just re-read your 2007 post predicting 2008 -- unbelievable how right on you were.

I will rank Karl's predictions (including the ones he didn't want to commit to). Most likely to least likely:

1) no dollar collapse and gold < $3,000+/oz

2) Commodities will continue to ramp up

3) $100 oil

4) Housing mid-single-digit to 1x% decline in prices nationally

5) a cycle of write-downs which will further damage earnings

6) extreme volitility

7) States will try to tax their way out of pension trouble

8) double-dip in the general economy

9) 4% TNX

10) some sort of govt spending issue

11) The market: Hell will rain on earth later in the year and into 2012.

12) Ireland repudiates its deal immediately following elections

13) poor bond auctions raise mortgage rates and destabilize the mortgage market

14) The Fed will get neutered

15) regional war to break out

16) Civil unrest in Europe, unrest in the United States

17) one or more nations will leave the euro

I don't know what these mean so I'll leave them out:

?) the rug will get pulled of the master "credit card spending" support chart

?) Someone will pry open the REMICs in MBS-land for private-label deals

?) Margin compression will become realized

Happy New Year,

Chris

I believe the most interesting timeframe to compare where we are today is the mid '70s. The dip in the S&P graph of late '74 and subsequent run-up of two years is nearly completely identical, topping out late '76. If we're to follow this path, this year will be a year of margin squeezes and falling stock values.
What does not add up there is the goldprice, this went up into '75, almost ignoring the stock market dip, but falling 40% from early '75 to late '76, even in the face of high inflation.
While the plateauforming and shifts of the market around a certain level are obvious, the swings are now probably less predictable than they were then, because money can flow around the world much more easily into abroad markets, which wasn't possible then. The differences in the '70s seem to be mainly caused by money that came out of gold going into stocks and vice versa. I see the peak in gold of the early '80 correlate with the T bonds, too - lots of money came out of T's and needed to go somewhere.

While I see the possibility of margin compression mentioned by Karl, I also see a lot of companies just raising their prices and get away with it. You have to communicate, eat, drink, drive etc after all. I believe the coming years we will see some volatility but not that much, I think it will level out, swing around 10% or so around its mean and will generally be pretty boring, while inflation runs rampant. It will squick house prices though since most people will not be able to get their incomes raised, and people will need to be spending more on items that are not housing related, so affordability of housing will go down rather than up.

Basically my strategy has been to stock up on things I expect to need in the coming years that will be going up in price, mainly investing it in tools, a fuel efficient car, doing maintenance, buy clothing and stock-up other necessities that are relatively expensive, price volatile and for sure needed in the next few years. So short on cash, but long consumables and long lasting goods that I need for my personal life.
And as for what the stock market will do, who the hell knows.

EDIT: It is possible the peak in gold of 1975 should have been a lot higher and more extended. I do have the feeling the stock market is more likely to follow the '70s path regardless of gold, but the gold price is the only real anomaly I see.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/peak-th....

abigel doolittle at peak theories - dont know of her cred but made sense and prediction at end is bloody

Ding Ding Ding Ding.

You can mark up a point for social unrest. You just missed getting the point for it last year by a couple of weeks....
oh well.... like you say, timing is everything, but still , 1 down.. many more to go....

"The potential for a regional war to break out is extremely high"

This looks like its going to be a point for Karl with all the instability in the middle east.

Unfortunately.

Genesis - We're due for a mid-year update, no?

Yep. Usually do it over the 4th of July, and will this year.

Hey Gen, is the year in review forthcoming along with 2012 predictions?

Uh, it was posted last week. Look at the top of the forum page for the link if you're having trouble finding it.

Sorry Gen, was out of town the last 10 days and must have missed it. I'll go look for it.