Archive - May 2009

• Obama to nominate Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court
• Lenders [BofA, Merrill] rewarded with "Bookrunner" hirings by firms in need [REITs] (FT)
• "Purchase accounting" lets FDIC/taxpayers eat JPM's loss, gives it full, one-time benefit for all gains (Bloomberg)
• North Korea is obviously very concerned about stern Obama condemnation,
  

• Must Read: Henry Paulson - "I didn't understand the retail [mortgage] market, I just wasn't close to it" (Newsweek)
• Dallas Fed's Fisher: "Don't monetize the debt" [too late Dick] (WSJ)
  

Brand new development in the Porsche saga, and this one could easily be the last nail in the coffin of Porsche Capital Management LLC.

Amusing PR from Chrysler, in which the company tries to justify the presumably crappy outcome that those pushing for liquidation would get as a result of the "lack of bids" during the less than month long bankruptcy.

"David Rosenberg can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity or remorse... and he will absolutely not stop. Ever! Until all the baseless propaganda is dead."

On a day when the U.S. citizenry takes it easy, grilling, drinking and generally doing what it is good at - being lazy, hoping that things will get better, the economic terminator who recently moved to Canada, provides a steady stream of ammunition in the fight with ignorance and propaganda. Rosenberg's morning notes from this morning are a treat.

"David Rosenberg can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity or remorse... and he will absolutely not stop. Ever! Until all the baseless propaganda is dead."

On a day when the U.S. citizenry takes it easy, grilling, drinking and generally doing what it is good at - being lazy, hoping that things will get better, the economic terminator who recently moved to Canada, provides a steady stream of ammunition in the fight with ignorance and propaganda. Rosenberg's morning notes from this morning are a treat.

In a petition with the bankruptcy court, in which the affected dealers try a last ditch effort to fight the system, this time using an approach claiming their "interests" were affected (in a narrow sense), as defined by 363(f), the dealers and their special council Siller Wilk throw the kitchen sink at Judge Gonzalez in an attempt to derail the Good Chrysler sale. Seton Hall law professor Stephen Lubben did a nice job of dissecting the legal basis (or lack thereof) of their argument.

• Carmakers’ Woes May Cost Six Million Jobs, Union Head Says (Bloomberg)
• Mounting sadness behind the happy headlines (FT)
• Job losses push safer mortgages to foreclose (New York Times)
• In India, little demand for no frills car (

Update 2: Korean won, stocks tumble - Bloomberg

Update 2: Korean won, stocks tumble - Bloomberg

The recent addition of legacy loans to TALF caused CMBX spreads to turn on the nitrous and rip like all the commercial real estate concerns over the past 6 months have disappeared (especially in the top-most AAA tranche). Between financials, whose stocks have doubled on average, and CMBX (whose spreads have halved), there is, at this point, no doubt as to what lengths the administration is willing to go to funnel every single printed dollar into these otherwise doomed industries.

• Ben Bernanke's commencement speech at the Boston College School of Law (FRB)
• Obushma-Biney in the home of the frightened (FT)
• Geithner picking the best (for Wall Street) of all derivative worlds (Bloomberg)
• S&P: Britain will be the next stage of the global crisis (

Fast forward to 13:34 minutes in the clip below, in which the president, interviewed by C-Span, has the mother of all Freudian slips and discloses just what the real state of the economy is.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znZkxN0Ks0M&hl=en&fs=1]

There may yet come a time, when chasing Beta is no longer the preferred approach to generating returns, and together with Keno, Black-Jack, Craps and No Limit Hold Em, investors drop this most ridiculous of "investing" strategies.

There may yet come a time, when chasing Beta is no longer the preferred approach to generating returns, and together with Keno, Black-Jack, Craps and No Limit Hold Em, investors drop this most ridiculous of "investing" strategies.