Archive - Nov 2009

There is nothing the administration hates more than the anti-propaganda truth, especially the kind that discloses the pathetic situation of the economy. Which is why Larry Summers must be positively loathing the most recent report from the Pew Center On The States, entitled "Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril", which, as the observant among you may surmise, discusses states in fiscal peril. In short, that would be all of them. A snippet: "California’s problems are in a league of their own. But the same pressures that drove it toward fiscal disaster are wreaking havoc in a number of states, with potentially damaging consequences for the entire country."

With the NY Composite and SPY hitting a "double top", the slide rule technicians operating the robots immediately sold stocks after the opening spike to "lock in profits". Now we have to use some forensics to see if another bear market is going to resume, or if this thing is going to keep going. Unfortunately for the bears, some favorite instruments of speculation were being dryhumped with a vengeance, showing no signs of weakness or distribution.

Let us bow our cephalopods:

Our Chairman,

Who Art At Goldman,

Blankfein Be Thy Name.

The Rally's Come. God's Work Be Done

On Earth As There's No Fear Of Correction.

Here we are approaching 2010 and we have not yet punished the thieves who caused the Greatest Heist in History. It’s one thing for justice to allude Osama bin Laden as he scurries through miles of mountainous terrain. It’s another when the assholes who screwed us are sitting in luxury high-rises going about their daily business in plain view.

Give us real, SIMPLE reform, not thousands of pages of loopholes ...

In the latest attempt to prove that nobody ever learns anything from history, the Bank Of England is practically betting the Devonshire farm that by putting the UK's economy on nitrous, it will recapture all the lost output during the recession, and that it will be able to time the stimulus exit perfectly, thus avoiding hyperinflation, or so thinks Citigroup economist Michael Saunders. We are fairly confident that the Weimar Republic also did not have hyperinflation as a policy end goal. Saunders was quoted by Bloomberg, that “Policy has been set to produce a boom to close the output
gap in the next few years.”

Contrary to what you might have heard, higher military spending leads to HIGHER unemployment and lower GDP...

CBS reports that the Justice department has submitted a subpoena request to Indymedia.us demanding the site turn over all reader visit details on June 25, 2008. Furthermore, the Justice Department had demanded that the site do so without even disclosing the existence of the subpoena. Without even bringing up the question of just how far into the "1984" rabbit hole our society has gone based on this development, this situation raises numerous questions about the anonymity of not onlyInternet browsing (at least that based in the US), but the transacting in visitor records behind the scenes. If this one case has made it to the public, one wonders how many other comparable gag order-cum-subpoeans the Justice Department has sent out to other websites?

With content about to become valuable once again, courtesy of Murdoch's initiative to make relevant information scarce (and Google inaccessible), M&A fever is gradually picking up in the media space. The latest development comes from The Wrap which reports that Hollywood Reporter and several other Nielsen Company publications are set to be sold to privately held News Communications (note: not Corp). Other publications on the block include Billboard, Backstage, Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek and Editor & Publisher. What is odd is that the entire package, which focuses on the B-to-B crowd, has seen a dramatic drop off in revenue and net income, courtesy of what once was branded a recession, and now is merely yet another Fed inflated omni-asset bubble. As such it is very unlikely that the Nielsen PE sponsors, which acquired the firm in 2006, will make much if any profit on the divestiture.

As we pointed out recently, excess reserves at banking institutions have hit yet another all time record over $1 trillion, courtesy not just of the Fed's burgeoning reliquification efforts via direct asset purchases, but also due to its strategy to wind down the SFP program, and keep the Federal debt level under the legal cap, thereby providing even more liquidity to banks, to the tune of$185 billion. Yet if you thought that this inability to pass liquidity over into the broader currency pool was something to be concerned about (you know, that whole lending to consumers thing), you were wrong. Or so claims Goldman Sachs in this extended expose on why central planning is in fact good for Communist America. Also, for anyone who still doesn't understand how modern Fed-subsidized cash hoarding works, this primer should explain it all.

The CRE crisis will hit a pinnacle when $500-700 billion of re-equitization becomes needed in a few years. Where that equity will come from is unknown as the US will need a lot of foreign investors to achieve this equity bubble reflation, and they are not there due to a foreigner-unfriendly investment regime.

And another one for the idiot anals of the Obama administration. After taking over the biggest nationalization in history (with the exception of the GSE's but those are a special case), and being paid to run a zombie bankrupt company instead of saving everyone a few dollars and packing it in, Robert Benmosche, who became CEO of AIG a mere three months ago, has threatened to quit in protest to stern governmental compensation oversight. At least Benmosche made some very powerful enemies during his short time in the hot seat, including the NY AG. Perhaps Ken Lewis will consider the corner office position once Mr. Benmosche returns to his palatial Croatian estate. Unless, of course, the lawsuit against the former BofA CEO does not go quite as well as expected. Ironically, running AIG out of jail cell would be the crowning achievement of what the current version of capitalism is all about.

A startling observation out of David Rosenberg is that with the current unemployment number (whatever it may be: 10.2%, 17.5%, 90%), even assuming an end to workforce outflows, there is a buffer equivalent to almost 11 million people, consisting of increased worker productivity and massive newly-created temporary positions, that can be drawn upon before even one person of those laid off recently, has to be rehired. This is disastrous for the Obama administration, especially at a time when it is actively speculating on Stimulus #2 in order to spur any kind of job creation ahead of mid-term elections.

• Goerge Soros: A new world architecture (Project Syndicate)
• Under attack, Fed chief studies politics (NYT)
• The real threat to Fed independence (WSJ)
• Bank of England to keep the heroin IV drip: King says BOE has "open mind" on more bond purchases (Bloomberg)
• Yet somehow, global confidence dips as policy makers begin exit strategies (Bloomberg)
• Hypocrite (lecteur) Geithner yaps about strong dollar policy, glances nervously at gold ticker every 15 seconds (FT, Reuters)
• Greatest trade ever: Paulson's $15 billion (Newsweek)

Gold hits another all time high of $1,117.82 an ounce. At this point the Fed must decide if the opportunity cost of the equity bubble and a few more S&P points is worth destabilizing the entire monetary system. Knowing the Chairman's M.O., the answer is an unequivocal yes, especially if it involves destroying the dollar's value