Replies to post #394346 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[marketmaven]

Real Estate Bubble "aid-ers and abetters" in this tragic scenario:

1. The Fed (via low interest rates)

2. Fannie/Freddie (aka "sodom and Gomorrah") for providing way too much liquidity via MBA and holding mortgages directly

3. The private MBA and banks doing the same as above

4. The suckers who are buying the MBS issued by the above

5. The appraisers who are allowing themselves to be pressured into making outrageously high appraisals

6. All the speculators mentioned in these articles we post

7. The "regulators", who only recently have decided to tighten down on the:

8. Mortgage companies who are making ever-more bizarre and over-the-top loans to pile in:

9. Every sub-prime hoser and their brother

10. Finally, the media who have breathlessly reported about all the 'instant millionaires"

Sad, pathetic, and will all end in tears. Luckily, all risk is "socialized" these days so the taxpayer will bail out all of these entities.

[Train Guy]

This Rob Kirby isn't very bright is he? I guess you along with him didn't bother to read the fine print. To begin with, this along with most government data isn't based on the actual real world - we counted the actual real stuff. Nope, it's based on a survey. Oh ........ so much for accuracy. I don't know anything about the survey or it's frequency, but the first set of data is based on 2003 survey data. The second set of data that came out on May 16th is based on 2004 survey data. You'll notice that it has two June data points. One is series V, the other series IV, ie 2004 and 2003 survey data that serves as the base to which the monthly data is apparently added to. Just eyeballing the numbers the differences month to month are the same or close enough, ie Japan, Oct-Nov-Dec-Jan, .7-3.1-10.2, .7-3.1-10.1. So the big difference he is jumping up and down about is nothing more than a change in the "base" which comes from survey data.

If he wanted to look for any real changes, he would look at the June 2004 data in the first data set and the June 2004 series IV in the second data set to see if they are the same, which they should be. Again doing a quick eyeball, they look the same or close enough. It appears the differences are caused by preliminary and final survey results.

-- 1/ Estimated foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury marketable and nonmarketable bills, bonds and notes reported under the Treasury International Capital (TIC) reporting system are based on annual Surveys of Foreign Holdings of U.S. Securities and on monthly data.
2/ Denotes series break: Series IV positions data for this month and prior periods to June 2003 are based on the end-June 2003 annual Survey; Series V positions data for this month and subsequent periods are based on preliminary results from the end-June 2004 annual Survey.

What is of mild interest is the change in the "base" between the two series. The UK dropped 60 billion, Japan 22 billion, where China added 30 billion and Taiwan 10 billion. And the totals dropped about 53 billion. Hm, why are there two Canadas and Mexicos in the second set of data? Probably good enough (and accurate) for government work. (vbg)

Well it didn't rain. I can't use that excuse for not cutting the grass. I better stop screwing around and get to it.