EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

[Uncle Jack]

Surfing around this p.m. and I found the calendar link. Upon clicking I see EJ turns 50 on Dec. 10th. Happy Birthday a few days early!

[Guest]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

Same birthday as my dad, and he was the most stubborn guy I've ever met. This is a very stubborn birth date. - Etymology : Middle English stibourne, stuborn / 14th century / unreasonably unyielding / (or) justifiably unyielding / suggestive or typical of a strong stubborn nature / synonyms see obstinate

[Guest]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

I am sure many iTulipers would be pleased to offer Mr. Janszen their best wishes?

Please do not then allow my post above to inhibit you from expressing your appreciation to the author of this website in your own various ways?

I apologize for putting forward my own tribute, which was in the form of a "back-handed compliment" (to the discerning ear, that's the most sincere kind of compliment, because it is not "sugary" or "fawning"), but that may be lost in the translation here).

Evidently this form of compliment seems to cause some of you discomfort, or otherwise incomprehension, as I percieve a deafening silence on a thread that would otherwise be crowded with comments. I'm sorry to see the readership here is more attuned to the "Mao Tse Tung" form of pasteurized tributes than they are to the "freethinking" school of tributes.

Have at it! Your most earnest expressions of appreciation may perhaps then atone for my unpardonable lack of conformity.

(Sigh).

[Uncle Jack]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

Hey Lukester, for the love of pete, just say Happy Birthday, man.

[jk]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

happy birthday, ej! [btw-don't get worked up over turning 50. i just turned 60 and it's got my head spinning a bit.]

[Chris Coles]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

happy birthday, ej! [btw-don't get worked up over turning 50. i just turned 60 and it's got my head spinning a bit.]

Just for once I can even better that as I am well on my own way to 64.

EJ, Great, have a wonderful Birthday and many more to come.

See, thats the way to do it Lukester......

[bill]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

Happy birthday
Wow, two gifts one month.
You lucky rooster 08

[Spartacus]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

What do you get for a doomer that has everything?

Happy doomer-50 EJ, from a doomer-just-past-40

[bart]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

Happy Birthday in advance EJ.

As a friend observed about 10 years ago when I crossed that marker, 50 isn't old if you're a tree... ;)

[Andreuccio]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

Happy Birthday in advance EJ.

As a friend observed about 10 years ago when I crossed that marker, 50 isn't old if you're a tree... ;)

Or a geological formation. Happy Birthday, EJ.

(If you think about it, 50's not that old if your 70, either. )

[Mega]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

Happy Brithday EJ
Say, would you like me to get Peter Schiff to oragize a party for you?

By the time His Staff gets round to it your BIG 70!
Mike

[jimmygu3]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

Happy birthday, EJ! Thanks for all that you do.

[metalman]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

Happy birthday, EJ! Thanks for all that you do.

happy 50th! it ain't so old. i'm turning 300 in march. call me yoda.

thanks for this great place... bringing to together this bunch... for the ideas over the years that have made me $$$ and saving me more, and for making this old brain think. don't give up on the tough road... don't give in to ideology... there's enough of that out there. everyone's got an angle and a racket. i don't know what, but you're shooting for something bigger. keep fighting!

[EJ]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

Surfing around this p.m. and I found the calendar link. Upon clicking I see EJ turns 50 on Dec. 10th. Happy Birthday a few days early!

Thank you Uncle jack for posting the thread and to all for your kind words.

The really big day happened yesterday, for that was the big day that we've all been waiting for, the day the Fed's thrilling quarterly Flow of Funds report came out.

I know, I know. You can hardly contain your excitement. But this report is one of the few left that is put out by our government that defines what the U.S. used to represent, and now is little more than fantasy in the minds of old timers, the idea of a government that deals in facts; issues them and then lets them lay where they will, allowing the political process to deal with the consequences of the facts rather than trying to massage and spin the data on delivery to meet political ends.

We'll work it over and see if where the money is coming and going. Paul Kasriel of Northern Trust has for years done a yeoman's work on it, and we'll see if we can find any meaningful major trend changes.

One jumps out immediately:

Federal Reserve: Home equity falls in 3Q

The amount of equity homeowners hold in their homes slipped in the third quarter to the lowest level on record, just above 50 percent, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Thursday.

In its quarterly U.S. Flow of Funds Accounts, the central bank reported that homeowners' percentage of equity dipped to 50.4 percent from 51.1 percent from the previous quarter. On average, housing is Americans' single largest asset.

Economists expect this figure, equal to the percentage of a home's market value minus mortgage-related debt, to tumble even further as falling home prices eat into equity. It could easily drop below 50 percent by the end of next year, some experts say, marking the first time homeowners will owe more than they own since the Fed started recording the data in 1945.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. The government will continue to try to rescue banks and the homeowners they lent to from loans that are going bad because the loans were uneconomical to begin with, or are becoming uneconomical due to ARM resets, but as the value of the collateral continues to fall, more and more loans will become uneconomical. Then the recession will hit, and incomes will fall, and the true housing crisis will begin–Houston 1980s writ large.

The main event hasn't started yet, and won't until unemployment begins to rise and incomes decline. The full extent of the collective dysfunction of the credit issuers, bankers, regulators, lawmakers, and other players in the system will then be revealed, especially the fiction that the "banks will be ok," a refrain we heard consistently from our conference calls with Lehman, Goldman, and others until August this year. The credit machine will shut down even more completely than it did in the early 1990s, resulting in the drastic changes in reserve requirements and the creation of sweep accounts in 1995. Follow the logic: if credit creation was handed off to the credit markets from the commercial banking system, and the credit markets shut down, where will the credit come from? It will have to come from the banking system again. What will that mean for monetary inflation and the functioning of the FIRE Economy? We will be looking into these questions next year.

[GRG55]

Re: EJ BIG Five-Oh Birthday Thread

Thank you Uncle jack for posting the thread and to all for your kind words.

The really big day happened yesterday, for that was the big day that we've all been waiting for, the day the Fed's thrilling quarterly Flow of Funds report came out...

...We'll work it over...and we'll see if we can find any meaningful major trend changes...

EJ: I suspect most of us would prefer to celebrate by digesting a little bit of birthday cake, not a government report. Thank gawd we have you here to do that sort of stuff for us...

On you birthday, at just the right moment, don't forget to whisper those three special words in your wife's ear...





..."More cake please!"

Have a great one!!