i like Kyle Bass. i really like him. but i see things differently on 2 points:

1.  he's stacked a crapload of gold i'm sure.  probably the same as i had relative to my net worth (i'm nowhere near in his category).  i don't think he knows about Bitcoin.  i think that's a problem given what you know my opinion on the metals is at this point.

2.  i understand he's constructed a huge fortified ranch somewhere in Texas i believe?  complete with jeeps and men armed with AK-47's.  probably with rocket launchers, etc?.    i'm more of an optimist in that regard.  although, i think things will get very rough when the collapse comes, i think it will mostly hurt Wall St as most retail investors have left the stock mkt knowing how crooked it is.  at least i'm hoping so.  i think Bitcoin will grind this corruption down into the ground over several years.  perhaps fast, perhaps slow, i don't know for sure.  but i think we'll all come out of this much better for it in the end so in that sense i'm very optimistic for myself and my family.

if you were a bank and were faced with going thru the normal foreclosure process and losing money in a declining market vs. keeping those homes on your books and getting bailed out by the Fed at mark to model prices (inflated) which would you do?  who cares about the homes anymore?  they've essentially been bought by the rest of us via the debasement of our currency.

that's really not true at all.  those who speculated on homes during the run up who had ARM's have been "bailed out" essentially by the rest of us as Ben has lowered interest rates over the last 4 yr.  their monthly payments have actually decreased allowing many to stay in their homes.  

look at municipalities that were duped into buying ARS's which were essentially bets that interest rates would rise.  these were sold by Wall St as a hedge against the muni bonds which municipalities sold.  Jefferson County and many others have lost millions if not billions on these bets.  a conspiracy theorist would say that Wall St sellers of these instruments knew that Ben would be there with the free money to bail them out via further suppression of rates as the bubble popped.  they have made fortunes at the expense of the municipalities.

this is a forum for christs sake.  ppl post their opinions on where they think this or that investment is gonna go all the time with collapse or rocket descriptions.  who do you think you are coming in here and laying down "ground rules" for everyone's opinions as to what they think is gonna happen with this or that?  i don't see you asking for "evidence" as to exactly when other ppl stake their positions.  what's wrong with you?  is it perhaps that you're suffering from the permabull gold/silver religion that has afflicted so many?  are you afraid that they are reallly going to collapse?  i truly do see this as a possibility and you should respect my opinion just as i respect yours even though we disagree.  give me a 6 mo projection as to where gold and silver are going.

you asked me for transparency and i provided it in the form of a screenshot that i've posted on my GG position for all to see.  you know its valid as i announced it publicly here on this thread in Sept and in my updates to my subs.  you even questioned me about it at the time.  there is a date of 9/28/12 when i staked the position and you whooped it up assuming i established it before it went over $46.  so why do you have the audacity to claim i did a mockup based on exactly zero evidence?  so Mr. Transparency, where is your screenshot of GPL?  is it that the losses are way greater than 17%?

as you can see i'm a patient man with my investments and do not let emotions get involved in my trading.  many of my short positions on stocks, like Apple, were established initially back in the Spring.  waiting has been profitable.  you're clearly an impatient individual.  tops and bottoms are processes and the whole point of technical analysis is to call things before they happen to allow time for investors to prepare.  the analogy would be if you worked in the Twin Towers.  would you want to be warned a few days before or after the planes hit the buildings?  

here's where i got short initially.  yes, rode the thing down and then up.  hedging along the way has protected part of the profits.  hit some major homeruns along the way with PCLN, CMG, BBBY, WU, and now Apple.  i don't consider that a failure at all.  in fact, i'm having a great year by my measures.  a collapse is a collapse whether it slow or fast.  i'll take my shorts down if i'm proven wrong but not until then.

and yes, Bitcoin is destroying your precious gold and silver and GPL:

miscreanity:

you are incorrect about securitization as well.

as of April 2012:  http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr559.pdf



securitization has not increased; in fact, its terribly impaired:

as of Dec 2012:  https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2012/sdn1212.pdf



finally, this is the graph i meant to put up above.  the drop in shadow debt is greater than the rise of traditional debt

they know that not all of them will survive.  just like they threw Lehman overboard when it came right down to it.  and Merrill and Bear.  the point is, they know the irrationality can only go on so long.  at some point no one makes a stupid investment based on a White Horse.

Update:

silverbox's long GPL:  -17%  (let's see a screenshot silverbox!)

cypher's GG short:  

Bitcoin:  +148

Gold:  0%

Difference:  +148% advantage Bitcoin (destroying gold and silver)

silverbox, i'll never forget when Bitcoin went from $5.40 to $4.50 and you were thrilled to see that just so you could whoop it up that i was wrong despite everyone else's disappointment in the price drop.  

lol!  yup, as long as your GPL keeps collapsing i'll be satisfied. 

theoretically.  but banks are facing all sorts of increased regulatory scrutiny and aren't just going to lend to anyone at this standpoint.  the only loans they've given out the last 4 yr are those backed by the taxpayer or student loans which are non-dischargeable in a bankruptcy. now that lending is getting pulled back as student loan defaults have gone over 20% recently.  

and then you need to think like a criminal.  if you were a bank, why would you want to buy any assets after a 4 yr runup from the March 09 lows and after a doubling of the stock market.  why not just let the whole thing deflate and then swoop in and buy for pennies on the dollar?

since silverdick won't answer your question i will.

its much easier to think of what happens in a default from the standpoint of the banks balance sheet.  that mortgage represents an asset.  remember that assets=liabilities + equity.  equity is composed of stock and deposits are part of its liabilities.  normally the leverage ratio would be 10% if they were fractionally reserving conservatively.  but in the rah rah leading up to 2007, companies like Fannie Mae were leveraged 120:1,  Goldman Sucks was maybe 50:1.  in the latter case it only took a 1/50 or 2% drop in the value of the houses backing those assets to wipe out the equity.  for a bank this is disastrous whereas for a homeowner you might just ignore it.  in this case the bank then becomes insolvent and the rating agencies have to adjust down the ratings causing stock investors to sell or short. banks would be forced to sell assets or raise more equity through stock dilutions as they scramble for cash.  this is deflationary and drives up the USD.  this is why banks so strongly resist taking the writedowns as it would wipe them out. this is why they are letting delinquent homeowners live rent/mortgage free for years on end.  this is what is happening to Greece and the Northern European banks; the ECB keeps extending loan packages to enable the Greeks to repay their loans to these banks.  it isn't sustainable as you can't solve a debt problem with more debt.

you are wrong.  the net difference btwn shadow banking credit and traditional bank credit is shrinking.  this is a much bigger problem than you realize:

why don't you have silverbox explain that to you? 

its really tough to argue with a guy that throws around figures and accusations so loosely like saying i said stocks would collapse 12 mo ago.  that was Dec 2011.  i was in fact bullish on stocks at that time.  this is from my blog back then.  read thru all the posts in Dec 2011: http://financialriskanalytics.weebly.com/1/previous/15.html

its laughable that you would make a claim that the only public trade i've made on this thread is one i lost on.  its clear you've made it your mission to try and make me look bad with your insulting behavior.  i'm constantly having to provide proof to you of what i've said and when.  it's tiring.

here's the thing.  i continually present reasoned economic arguments about what i think is going on.  this thread would not be so popular if i at the very least wasn't stimulating everyone to think about the world a little differently.  i present charts and figures and attempt to explain the logic and reasoning behind them.  i present links to articles i deem important for everyone to be aware of.  i try to share my experiences and insights that others on this forum might not have had the chance to go thru. i present anecdotes and trends and data.  i back alot of my claims to links of posts i've made other places on this forum.  i even share a screenshot of my GG short that is clearly not mocked up (yet you insinuate i would have the gall to do that).  

what do you contribute?  answer:  nothing.  you're just a troll who loves to criticize, insinuate, and accuse ppl of dishonesty.  go away from this thread or put me on ignore.

that certainly is a theory that is circulating.

just to present the other side of the story to be fair; Calculated Risk is bullish on housing even though i don't agree.

lots of clues can be gleaned from the stock market.  yes, i think we're in the process of rolling.  Toll Brothers had their earnings call yesterday at 11:00 AM and the stock went straight down a total of about 7% since by the end of today.

btw, the author of those 2 articles i posted above is Ramsey Su; from San Diego.

well that's the thing.  everyone thinks the banks are lending again but they're not.  they only have lent to students whose debts are guaranteed by Sallie Mae (gov't) and lent to homebuyers who qualify for Fannie/Freddie/FHA (gov't).  they never hold the loans cuz they know they're bad and only want the fees generated by the loans.

personally, i think its a very risky time to buy a house b/c interest rates are at all time lows.  if you qualify and i doubt you will if you can't get a gov't subsidized loan, make sure its fixed rate otherwise when interest rates rise you will be crushed.  the reason prices have been rising is that the banks have been keeping foreclosures off the market and any price rise will see an increased release of these foreclosures/REO's back onto the market acting as a price suppression mechanism that's built in.  also, much of the buys made the last few years have been cash buys from big investors whose goal is to flip these things when the price is right; if it ever gets there.

http://www.acting-man.com/?p=20728

http://www.acting-man.com/?p=20622

well i just showed you a screenshot of my GG short a page or so back.  why doesn't silverbox show us a screenshot of his for GPL?

this thread started in March.  12 months?  we got a big dip into June with a bounce.  we are now lower than we were in stocks when this thread started.

btw, how wrong have you been with your gold stocks?  massively wrong.  and we have the data to prove it.  and the other miners you bought in 2011 have to be way down as well.

i know my accounts are way up in Bitcoin and stocks.  and that's having been on the short side for stocks.  nice try.  

did you bother to look at misreality's graph a few posts back?  that's called hoarding.  they are doing a little bit of lending but no where near what they've done in the past.  they know consumers are tapped out and poor credit risks at this point.



do you not see a problem here that perfectly jives with the above?.  ppl's incomes are levelling off if not dropping:



did you not read my earlier post about how banks will only lend if they can immediately flip the loans to the taxpayer aka Fannie/Freddie/FHA?  the banks know the homes behind the loans are overpriced otherwise they would be glad to hold them for the yield or for the solid assets behind those loans.  this went on ad infinitum during the runup to the 2008 crisis and has been facilitated once again by Obama's unwillingness to clean out the bad acting banks.  the cost?  a doubling of the national debt in a mere 4 yrs compared to the entire history of this nation.  this debt is unpayable.  period.  and it will be defaulted.  this is going to wipe out more speculators on inflation than you can imagine.

precisely.  and what we have now is price obscurity and imperfect information promulgated by investment banks on a huge scale.  look at their resistance to moving derivatives to an exchange away from the OTC market.  look at the Libor scandal.  what were CDO's all about?  and on and on and on...  all this to inflate prices.  and what has been used to pay for those inflated securities?  debt.  why do you think Ben and the ECB are desperately trying to prevent Greece et al from defaulting?  b/c it would blow a hole in the asset side of the balance sheets of the Northern European banks. its all about the debt.  and debt is the main component of the money supply; by far.  Ben can't piss fast enough to fill the actively flushing toilet of debt defaults.  and all i hear you guys talk about is the minuscule part of the equation; money printing.  which quite frankly isn't occurring on that wide of a scale.  big whoop; $800 billion to 2.8 trillion of FRN's.  that's nothing compared to the magnitude of the debt contraction happening right now.