Unethical behavior is still unethical if other people are doing it too. In the case of Amazon there isn't a physical evaluation of a product if it's "on and end cap" and promoted like a typical brick and mortar store. I've purchased the Amazon Choice item many times as I didn't have time to read reviews on a dozen similar products and assumed the one they recommended was well rated, reliable, the best choice. If it was properly labelled "Featured by Amazon," I'd have assumed something very different and inspected the product carefully.
In a physical store, I have ignored the end cap because the product was visibly a smaller volume than a competitor at a similar price. I can also go to the aisle section and directly compare all the options the store presents vs products filtered down and advertised to me by Amazon's algorithms. There is bias but more transparency like bottom shelf vs eye level. Amazon is a black hole unless you still trust their review system.
It's a gross simplification, but with the volume that is Danish housing vs demand for said housing the risk is very low.
One of many issues leading into the 2008 crash was how Us mortgages were bundled, rated AAA, then resold as an investment tool. However, the ratings were falsely boosted to promote investment and when the underlying junk mortgages fell through and demand fell off a cliff with the rest of the economy there was no way to flip foreclosed housing to make up losses.
In this case, Danish mortgages are not bundled, rated falsely positive, and not sold as an investment tool like in 2008. Current US auto loans may be much more similar than these Danish loans.
> In this case, Danish mortgages are not bundled, rated falsely positive, and not sold as an investment tool like in 2008.
Danish loans are definitely securitized and sold as investment tools. They are a classic interest rate risk hedge.
It’s been a while since I was adjacent to them but the bigger difference in Danish mortgage backed securities were a) no governmental guarantee on them b) less protections for the borrowers than in the US c) no derivatives d) much smaller market & e) much longer history.
So credit risk, which is what ratings agencies nominally judge is likely not a problem.
Interest rate risk is though, but given its more straight forward, it’s what investors are looking for exposure to & there is low leverage it’s unlikely to cause systemic collapse.
Everytime PV makes front page news its followed by obvious accusations of bias, editing, taking quotes pout of context, and recently was under felony charges. It's an attention seeking "Whistleblower" group with minimal intellectual value.
Like racist sites like the Daily Caller sometimes their reporting has facts in it. But also like the Daily Caller, it's a known terrible source until confirmed and expanded by a journalist with ethics.
Every major media group, from popular newspapers to television hosts, has on a regular basis committed the same sins you list - from bias to selective quotation to making statistically misleading “racist” pronouncements to facing litigation and settlements to occasionally mentioning facts in the fourth paragraph. Where are these mythical ethical gatekeepers you describe?
Ethics in journalism has fallen hard but was a huge chunk of my college roommates (polysci/journalism major) coursework. In the case of PV, they are 90% unethical disproven fraud and 10% at best real issues. Almost every major headline they produce is edited, photoshopped, staged, or aggravated whereas the opposite is true for major media outlets like the NYT, WaPo, and others. 105 might be partisan coverage or leaning but 90% is real information or at least not photoshopped evidence.
A recession will follow in 12-24 months, based on my understanding of the bond yield curve and close following of it in recent years. We can check in mid 2020 and see if that timeline holds.
The other ratios have inverted over the last 6 months, I think as early as the 5-1 ratio in January. The 10-2 is simply the more extreme indicator and the bigger signal that a recession will probably happen in the coming 12-24 months. I used 10-2 both as it is in the news this week and is the critical indicator that I studied in college. In January I was referencing the 5-1 as an early indicator that without correction would lead to the 10-2 inverting as well.
The bond yield curve inversion mentioned in the article has led every recession in the last 70 years by 12-24 months. It's an indicator, because we don't know the future, but it's historically accurate to a T. On some level it is self fulfilling but the evidence of past crashes is there too.
Auto loan defaults are at a high, as is student and household debt (higher than 2007). Those auto loans are often bundled almost exactly like junk mortgages in 2007 leading to a similar investment risk. More americans live paycheck to paycheck than ever before possibly increasing the number needing support should unemployment jump back up to 12%, where it was when Obama took over in 2009. It won't be as bad but the federal government under Trump/GOP has cut taxes and drastically pumped up the deficit putting us in a worse position to weather a recession of any length. Cuts to social programs will also extend a recession or at least increase it's effects as people will still need food and affordable housing. The number on social security will increase while less will be employed to pay in and as SS was used as a piggy bank for GOP spending decades ago that system could go from failing in a few decades to gone.
It could be 6-12 months of job losses and stock market falls like the .com bubble but it could quickly complicate as the government may be slow or unable to respond in traditional ways due to lack of funding, lack of staffing (an existing issue in the current admin), lack of experience of the current staffing, and continued conservative/GOP attacks on social programs and minority groups most likely to be hit hard by any recession.
It's like Jenga. In 2007 a core lower block was pulled and a lot of pieces went with it but we had the leverage federally to hold some in place or put back others like auto manufacturers. This time, the piece may be much higher up but automakers are already suffering under tariffs and the federal government won't have the funding capacity or push by the GOP led government to react in time and, like midwest farmers, that could be the end of an era for some industries.
"Deep state" is a conspiracy theorist level term for some underground, underhanded Hoover/FBI style group that doesn't exist or is really just career officials, most of whom have left the administration especially the state department. This has left a massive shortage in expertise and qualified or cleared workers slowing down how the government can handle ongoing processes/projects and new issues like the many foreign policy blunders and embarrassments Trump and his often unqualified appointees have made.
The trade war is one such blunder that no responsible and informed person thought would do any good long term but was spun as a hard core negotiation tactic. Tariffs are import taxes charged mostly to residents and businesses in the home country or passed to the consumer by the importing firm. This short term harms everyone but could be the straw that pushes a close deal to be ratified. Unfortunately, we didn't have a close deal beyond the TPP and this wasn't a cooperative negotiation but one of necessity framed as USA vs China.
It was never a smart move and was recommended against by nearly all experts or those with experience in the matter and we have reached the logical conclusion of such policies to find that there is no deep state outside of conspiracy forums and our economic outlook and foreign policy is a dumpster fire as Trump is not rational but likely narcissistic and mislead or misinformed by his staff to ignore reality such as the looming economic crisis.
99% is memes, random boards, or hate/bigotry/odd. The platform we need right now is proper enforcement of whistleblower protections.
Mainstream media is 30% Fox, by viewership, with most traditional publishers remaining trustworthy in most reporting. 4chan/8chan ties in with Daily Caller types too often to be of any value 99.9% of the time.
