Anecdotes from "Ask Fleck"

As you may have surmised, I'm a fan of Bill Fleckenstein of the eponymous Fleckenstein Capital. In addition to daily market-related commentary, he fields a bunch of daily reader questions and comments in his "Ask Fleck" section. Possibly best $120/yr value for investment insight around. And no, I'm not a shill, just a paid-up fan.

Anyway, today's "Ask Fleck" has a couple data points even I found slightly gulp-worthy (not as much so as raw egg, alas, and not nearly as tasty):

Checking in from the steel world. My company is a supplier of ferro alloys for steel mills. Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steel producer, told us today that they will not take delivery of ANY raw materials through the end of the year....that is the extent of Arcelor's production slowdown. This is a global, not North American, shipment freeze.

Also:

a quick data point from GEMB [GE Money Bank] in Texas. a family friend of mine just had a water softener installed in his home, and the installer struck up a conversation with him. my friend is in banking and lending. the next day, the installer called my friend and told him that his business is in jeopardy because GEMB, who usually lends people the $3500 to install his product has said they will NO LONGER LEND to ANYONE. obviously, this has serious implications for these small businesses that rely on the financing. this is an incredibly profitable business, borrowers usually have very high credit scores and the lender usually charges 18-22%. i guess GEMB really may be insolvent.

Funny how Immelt has seen fit to remind shareholders several times recently how GE has a AAA rating, and yet they run to the FDIC to get $139B in debt backing, not to mention getting themselves on the do-not-short list back in September.

In case anyone cares, by the way, I actually somewhat prefer sous-vided eggs (148F, please) to raw, but I'm not picky.