The Economy, stupid

[Cknolls]

I believe we test 960 S&P.

 

 

[southsider2k5]

I can believe the big snap back, what I can't believe is that we aren't selling off right now. My prediction is a quiet day until 1:15 with the Fed rate cut coming, and then a big (4-5%) selloff at the end of the day.

 

It wasn't quite as big as I thought, but if you take it from top to close, we lost almost 500 points from where this thing started to sell off. We still ended the futures own about 2.5%.

[Cknolls]

It wasn't quite as big as I thought, but if you take it from top to close, we lost almost 500 points from where this thing started to sell off. We still ended the futures own about 2.5%.

 

 

49 SPU points on the 2:50 10 minute bar. UNBELIEVABLE!!!

[Balta1701]

Calculated Risk

[mr_genius]

looks like the DOW could tank -500 today

[southsider2k5]

looks like the DOW could tank -500 today

 

And its down another 100 out of the open today. The big indicator is that the futures are trialing the cash index, which is never a good sign.

[Balta1701]

This can either go here or in the Dems thread, but the company "Sands" that owns the Las Vegas Venetian/Palazzo resorts amongst many others and who's owner, Sheldon Adelson, is one of the richest people in the world and is a big Republican donor, is facing bankruptcy if they can't secure financing for some of the projects they started during the boom times.

[mr_genius]

Down 10% in 2 days. DOW loses another 440. Bad news.

[kapkomet]

Down 10% in 2 days. DOW loses another 440. Bad news.

But Obama's gonna fix it!

 

[southsider2k5]

This can either go here or in the Dems thread, but the company "Sands" that owns the Las Vegas Venetian/Palazzo resorts amongst many others and who's owner, Sheldon Adelson, is one of the richest people in the world and is a big Republican donor, is facing bankruptcy if they can't secure financing for some of the projects they started during the boom times.

 

I didn't realize how many projects in Chicago were halted as well.

 

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/th...hicago-spi.html

 

Deep trouble: How would you fill the Chicago Spire hole?

 

With major construction halted on the Chicago Spire, skyline wags already have started making sport of the giant hole from which architect Santiago Calatrava's twisting, 2,000-foot-tall tower is (or was) supposed to rise.

 

Might the hole, 76 feet deep by 110 feet wide, be filled with water and become the world's deepest swimming pool? Perhaps demonic sports federation directors would threaten to send losers in Olympic swimming races there, forcing them to backstroke in circles for the rest of their lives.

 

Kim Metcalfe, a spokeswoman for Spire developer Garrett Kelleher, insists that work on the skyscraper will resume, though she won't say when. If the Spire doesn't get built, experts sketch out three scenarios that a developer could follow: 1) Ignore what's on the 2.2-acre site now and build something different; 2) Pour a thick concrete mat over the Spire's caissons, which ring the hole, and use them to support a typical, right-angled skyscraper; 3) Use the caissons to hold up a shorter, cylinder-shaped skyscraper. Instead of the Spire, it could be called the Spud.

 

Let's hear your ideas on what to do with the great Chicago Spire hole.

 

[southsider2k5]

This one is a little more detailed... Going back again to the theme of the banks, this is the type of stuff that starts to happen when they aren't lending. Just to reinforce the point I had made before about how this stuff cascades through the economy, think of this specific project. Leins have been slapped on, and contstruction is halted. How many contractors and construction workers do you think it takes to build a 2000 foot building? Its not a big leap to see when that many people laid off and to imagine the multiplier affect that their contraction of spending has on the economy.

 

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/da...1106chicago.asp

 

Chicago’s “Twizzler” Fizzles

November 6, 2008

 

By Blair Kamin

 

Santiago Calatrava’s planned Chicago Spire has earned its share of nicknames, among them “The Drill Bit” and “The Twizzler.” Now it has a new one: “The Lien-ing Tower of Chicago.” Crain’s Chicago Business coined that phrase after Calatrava in October filed a lien against the Irish developer of the 2,000-foot condominium tower seeking $11.3 million in payment. While major construction on the tower has stopped, the liens keep coming.

 

Construction of Santiago Calatrava’s Chicago Spire has come largely to a halt. If ever completed, the 2,000-foot-high condo tower would be the tallest building in America.

 

In addition to Calatrava’s lien, filed through his Lente Festina Ltd. against Shelbourne Development Group Inc., Perkins+Will, the Spire’s architect of record, is seeking nearly $4.85 million from Shelbourne. Meanwhile, New York-based Thornton Tomasetti, whose Chicago office was working with Calatrava on the project’s structural engineering, has filed its own lien for $1.3 million.

 

Kim Metcalfe, a spokeswoman for Shelbourne president Garrett Kelleher, says the liens were anticipated and that the developer is working with Calatrava and the other consultants to resolve the payment issue. Just how much the firms might be paid, however, is a matter of debate. About 30 percent of the tower’s 1,200 condominiums are sold, including the penthouse, originally priced at $40 million and snapped up by Beanie Babies magnate Ty Warner.

 

Since it was unveiled in 2005, the Spire captivated Chicagoans with an audacious design that made the tower appear to twist as it rose, an effect achieved by having each floor rotate slightly over the one below it. Calatrava became the project’s public face, disarming opponents by drawing his trademark watercolors on an overhead projector at public hearings. Seeking to create a total work of art, he even designed two model apartments, right down to the custom-designed doorknobs. His aim was to humanize the gargantuan project, which was to have been the tallest building in America and one of the tallest in the world.

 

Although construction began on the Spire last June, work ground to a halt this fall, leaving a circular hole on the 2.2-acre lakefront site, ringed by caissons that were to have supported the tower’s cylindrical concrete core. Kelleher’s spokeswoman insists that construction will resume and that the global credit crunch is to blame for the pause. “We’re waiting for the banks to start acting like banks again,” she says. Some real estate analysts, however, argue that the developer did himself in by starting work without a construction loan that would have carried him through the entire project. In the meantime, the hole, 76 feet deep by 110 feet across, is inspiring commentary of its own. Among the uses dreamed up for it by architecture buffs: an oversized golf hole guaranteed to produce a hole in one.

[BigSqwert]

IEA predicts oil price to rebound to $100

 

By Javier Blas and Carola Hoyos in London

Published: November 5 2008 19:01 | Last updated: November 5 2008 22:26

 

Oil prices will rebound to more than $100 a barrel as soon as the world economy recovers, and will exceed $200 by 2030, the International Energy Agency will say in its flagship report to be published next week.

 

“While market imbalances could temporarily cause prices to fall back, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the era of cheap oil is over,” the report states.

[southsideirish71]

But Obama's gonna fix it!

 

He could help it out by telling people that his plans to raise capital gains will be suspended during our economic crisis and will be tabled for review later.

 

 

[YASNY]

He could help it out by telling people that his plans to raise capital gains will be suspended during our economic crisis and will be tabled for review later.

 

Oh but that wouldn't be "fair".

[Cknolls]

Wait till Wall Street lays off another 50-75000 people. Schumer and Clinton will be crying for money to keep the state from going broke. But that's o.k. because we'll get that money back. Evil Wall Street and their million dollar bonuses will disappear, and with it so too will thousands of jobs that rely on those bonuses.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

Well let's just hope by 2030 oil isnt needed nearly as much as it is right now.

[Balta1701]

This one is a little more detailed... Going back again to the theme of the banks, this is the type of stuff that starts to happen when they aren't lending. Just to reinforce the point I had made before about how this stuff cascades through the economy, think of this specific project. Leins have been slapped on, and contstruction is halted. How many contractors and construction workers do you think it takes to build a 2000 foot building? Its not a big leap to see when that many people laid off and to imagine the multiplier affect that their contraction of spending has on the economy.

 

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/da...1106chicago.asp

So what you're saying is the government needs to take some sort of drastic steps to force the banks to start lending again? I have a suggestion. Let's go back in time over a month and give them $700 billion dollars. That ought to free up the credit markets by now, right? I mean, if we dumped a bunch of money in to the banks wouldn't they have to start lending it? They woulnd't hoard it or use it all to keep their dividend payments high would they?

[southsider2k5]

So what you're saying is the government needs to take some sort of drastic steps to force the banks to start lending again? I have a suggestion. Let's go back in time over a month and give them $700 billion dollars. That ought to free up the credit markets by now, right? I mean, if we dumped a bunch of money in to the banks wouldn't they have to start lending it? They woulnd't hoard it or use it all to keep their dividend payments high would they?

 

Which would have worked really well when the banks still went under because their capital ratios, which to some extent are dependant on stock price, weren't suffecient to keep it in existance.

[NorthSideSox72]

Obama giving his first post-election press conference right now.

 

Markets dipped a bit, but are still up pretty decently on the day.

 

[southsider2k5]

Obama giving his first post-election press conference right now.

 

Markets dipped a bit, but are still up pretty decently on the day.

 

They dropped off about 150 Dow points while he was speaking. They are still up about 160, but that was after being off over 900 points the last two days.

[Cknolls]

Anybody see Nobel Prize Winner Krugman say we need another stimulus package. $600 BILLION DOLLARS. WTF!!!

[Cknolls]

Granholm was present. WHY? Because of her expertise in high taxes, or high unemployment?

[NorthSideSox72]

They dropped off about 150 Dow points while he was speaking. They are still up about 160, but that was after being off over 900 points the last two days.

Rallying again, now up near intraday highs again.

 

Check that, passing highs.

 

[southsider2k5]

Rallying again, now up near intraday highs again.

 

Check that, passing highs.

 

Its amazing how the last half hour of the day exaggerates the trend of the day for the last six weeks or so.

[NorthSideSox72]

Its amazing how the last half hour of the day exaggerates the trend of the day for the last six weeks or so.

Options close first, baskets out, vol out and takers in.