Reads for Wednesday, 25 February 2015

U.S. Postal Service, FedEx Have New Competition…from Waffle House: Roadie Is Going To Be The Uber Of Package Delivery (MSN Money)

Oldie, but Goodie: Co-Founder of Motley Fool, Dave Gardner, On "The Greatest Secret Of All" (Motley Fool) 

What Dodd-Frank Didn’t Fix: The Worst Conflicts on Wall Street (Wall Street On Parade) 

The Easy Oil Is Gone So Where Do We Look Now? (Oilprice.com)

President Obama Vetoes Keystone Pipeline Bill; Republicans Gear Up For Override Bill But Might Not Have The Votes (Politico) 

Oil rigs fall idle after global crude prices drop (BBC)

Nobel Prize Winner Robert Shiller: Buying A Home Isn't Necessarily A Good Investment (Yahoo Finance) 

Bill O Reilly Threatens Another Reporter  (Talking Points Memo) 

Another Big Merchant Dumps American Express (Megan McArdle for Bloomberg) 

Apple now twice as big as world's second-largest company, ExxonMobil (The Daily Telegraph - UK) 

Investigation: Why are cargo pilots excluded from new rest rules? (CBS News) 

Two Ex-Army Rangers Believe Flip Flops And Sarongs Will Defeat ISIS (Gizmondo)

Goodbye, Putin (Foreign Affairs Magazine) 

U.S. military vehicles paraded 300 yards from the Russian border (Washington Post blog)

75% of Air and Rain Samples Contain Monsanto’s Round Up (Natural Society) 

Obama administration to allow sales of armed drones to allies (Washington Post) 

US 3rd quarter earnings warning second worst since 2001

Student Loan Defaults Rise to 14.7%

Shutdown will cost the USA $300 Million per day

What Recovery? FHA Asks For $1.7 Billion Bailout

Robert Shiller says a new housing bubble is nigh

87.2% of the S&P 500 has bullish trend

Watch Frontline's Feb. 12, 2013 investigative piece "Cliffhanger" which beautifully explains how America is brought to the fiscal cliff again

Robert Shiller of Case-Shiller Says His Firm's Forecasts Are Turning Increasingly Pessimistic

The Robert Shiller interview yesterday with the Wall Street Journal gives us some insight to the bad housing numbers just released this week:

• Shiller admits this month's huge fall in prices caught Economists off guard. He says both Bloomberg and his firm poll Housing specialists and no one saw the pessimistic numbers just released for November coming.
• Shiller says that if this keeps up through December (numbers to be released in January 2011), the overall housing market will have lost another 10% or more for the year 2010.
• On one hand, Shiller says the latest downtrend in housing prices has only been in effect for the past few months, that a clear downtrend is not clearly seen.
• Still, Shiller admitted, "But if home prices continue on this pace down, I think the Economy has serious reasons to worry.
• "We just had six of twenty big cities we follow report new lows below the lows of 2009," points out Shiller. He believes the reason for that last plateau low in Spring 2009 is that in early February 2009 the US Government instituted the short-lived Homebuyer's Tax Credit. As he said, "That was a major turning point for the market. It suddenly turned up. And we saw price increases for much of 2009 . . . "
• Shiller speculates that there will more than six new lower lows out of the 20 cities he and Case follow in the coming months.
• He also expresses he though the 2009 Homebuyer Tax Credit was a good government stimulus but ponders, "How willing is Congress going to be to do it again?"
• Despite what is happening at this moment in housing, Shiller tells us some forecasters from his firm Macro Markets are predicting a rise in housing prices by 7% by 2014 (or three years from now). And yet, he admits, more of his forecasters are becoming increasingly pessimistic.

Rodney Anderson Says We Are "Absolutely" Heading For Double Dip Recession And In Housing; Robert Shiller Says Housing Optimism Is "Fading"

Rodney Anderson Says We Are "Absolutely" Heading For A Double Dip Recession And In Housing

Latest report from the Case-Shiller Index shows home prices in major cities across the USA dropping. At the same time, despite Quantitative Easing II, rates on 30 year mortgages are rising, not falling. As long term rates rise, houses and big ticket items become less affordable. As rates rise, the pressure will build on home prices to keep falling. As a Fox Business News anchor says in his intro to the following piece, "...no end in sight for the decline in house prices." His first guest Rodney Anderson, author of "Credit 911" tells us long rates have been going up for 6 weeks now and we have still not seen any influx of potential buyers thinking, "You know what? I want to get it (that house and lower rate loan) before it goes higher!"

Anderson also emphatically says, "Double Dip Recession in 2011? Absolutely!"

Is a Double-Dip Ahead for Housing?


Robert Shiller Says Housing Optimism "Fading"

Robert Shiller, Economics Professor from Yale University and the man who co-founded the Case-Shiller Index on Housing is every bit as glum as Rodney Anderson in the previous video. Shiller was interviewed by Bloomberg TV earlier today. He said his latest numbers are not good for the overall economy. He did say this could be a temporary "blip", but if the numbers continue downward, it will mean some big trouble for institutions and people.

Shiller, unlike Robert Anderson, is not as positive that we will suffer a Double Dip Recession. He seems to think Keynesian policy has saved us from a worse fate, that we have seen a mild recovery, but he hedges his words by saying we have to see what will happen next. The question in Shiller's mind is if this is like 1938-1939, when the economy started moving down again, and here today the people are in no mood for more stimulus or bailout packages.

Shiller also says the problem in Housing dates back to artificial government subsidies since 1934, that people are starting to question these subsidies, and that these questions are leading to anxiety and worry which hurts public optimism about the Housing Market.

As Bloomberg TV just removed the video clip from youtube moments ago, you may click here to go directly to the Bloomberg TV site to see the Robert Shiller interview.