Archive - Sep 28, 2009

Today seems the perfect day to remind readers about our piece: An Open Letter To The Financial Media.

If the American people want to get the US financial system under control, then the first areas of investigation, we submit, must be fiscal and monetary policies. And if Americans do not soon get control over the habit of borrow and spend practiced by the Congress and facilitated by the Fed, then end result must be a populist backlash against Washington and incumbents in politics and the corporate world. As Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) writes in his latest book, End the Fed: "Nothing good can come from the Federal Reserve… It's immoral, unconstitutional, impractical, promotes bad economics, and undermines liberty."

What better way to celebrate Goldman's recent Conviction Buy optimism on Top 20 Bankruptcy Candidate Textron, and the private jet industry in general, than by clamping down and preserving liquidity at all costs? That's precisely what Textron competitor (and Goldman Sachs portfolio company) Hawker Beechcraft did earlier today.

REIT stocks benefited mightily from Merrill Lynch's generosity earlier in the year, when the ML REIT team issued follow on equity offerings, followed by prompt upgrades to the stock, although not necessarily in that order. The bottom line - roughly 5% in underwriter fees on almost $20 billion worth of new equity issued. And while last week's REIT massively downsized IPOs were an indication that the top for REIT stocks has come, that has not prevented Ken Lewis' firm from continuing to profit handsomely from the next shoe to drop in real estate.

Project Mayhem reviews the most important financial and geopolitical news of the past week and takes a look at the week ahead.

• World Bank chief to take shots at the Fed (WSJ)
• Taleb: "Bernanke, Geithner and Summers didn’t see the crisis
  coming so why are they still there?" (Bloomberg)
• More taxpayer funded bailouts coming up (Bloomberg)
• Andy Xie: When one bubble burst deserves another (Caijing)
• Obama's Too-Big-To-Fail is Too Dumb To Pass (Bloomberg)
• Federal Reserve reverse repurchases (Econbrowser)

• Asian stocks decline on concern at US economy, Yen strength.
• China formally starts investigating some "unfair" imports of chicken products from US.
• China Investment Corp.. to invest about $1B with Oaktree Capital Management.
• Companies indicating willingness to spend more on tech: reports.
• Consumer sentiment, new-home sales showed signs of improvement; while sales of durable goods fell.
• G-20 unites on bank rules, aligning policy as focus moves away from crisis.

Yet another amusing media interlude. Zero Hedge appreciates the gossip pages' attempt at profiling our zany cause. Even if, as the case may be, these particular gossip pages are in fact owned by the very same Establishment that our "conspiratorial" disclosures attempt to represent for the motivated and deeply embedded wealth redistribution enterprise it is. And while it is very late on a Sunday, here are some of our preliminary thoughts...