Archive - Nov 5, 2010

George Washington's picture

Oil and Dispersants are Changing the Gulf Ecosystem





What's going on in the Gulf now?

 

inoculatedinvestor's picture

Will the Real WEB Please Stand Up Part 5: The Investor Businessman





Here is the fifth and final part of Simoleonsense's interview with author Alice Schroeder of "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life" fame.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Mort Zuckerman: America's Love Affair With Obama Is Over





Obama's biggest fan-turned-critic is back, this time with a gloating epitaph to what has been a disastrous two years for the US economy, which has so far been prevented from collapsing, thanks to the trade-off which is making Wall Street richer than ever, the middle-classes poorer in real terms than ever, and letting the country to plunge to a record level of indebtedness, which merely guarantees that when the inevitable day of reckoning comes it will be that much worse.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Confusion Continues As Spec Dollar Longs Jump, While Investors Bet On Commodity Inflation And Treasury Price Increases





Nothing makes sense anymore. At least that is the conclusion one would reach from looking at today's CFTC update (and keeping track of the market for the past two years). In today's CFTC Commitment of traders update, the most notable feature was that net non-commercial spec positions increased for the fourth week in a row as ever more dollar shorts are getting spooked that the dollar is due for a violent pullback (of course, only if the most honorable chairman allows it). Other currencies were relatively flat, with the CHF unchanged, EUR longs declining minimally, while net contracts betting on a rise in the GBP jumping to their highest level in 2010. Elsewhere, a sample of commodities (Wheat, Soybeans, Coffee and Corn) all saw a non-commercial increase W/W: expect these push-pull feedback loops to result in a surge in all food products by the time the holidays roll in. Lastly, the indicative Treasurys (2,5, 10Y) after seeing a substantial drop last week, once again resumed their move higher (the 5 and 10 Y), except for the 2 Year, which non-commercial speculators are now believing will drop. It would be funny to see a square root shaped curve: the 5 Year at 0%, while the near and long ends taper off ever higher.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Department Of Labor Comes Begging: Hilda Solis Asks For Extension Of Emergency Unemployment Compensation Program





Not even two full days have passed since the announcement of what will become the single biggest monetary stimulus/experiment in the history of the world (since anything that never ends is by definition "biggest"), and here come the fiscal aid panhandlers. In an email just sent out by the Derpatment of Labor, Hilda Solia has officially requested an extension of the EUC program which is expiring in November and which will leave 2 million unemployed Americans without insurance benefits after November (and 6 million by the end of next year). Obviously this plea for fiscal heroin will be granted: how else can the country that has now become a utopian experiment in socialist-fascist fusion, supposed to delude the world that 42 million Americans on food stamps are actually not going to benefit from Ben Bernake's actions? And after all, if the DOL is denied, how else will the bankers defend themselves when 60 million cold and hungry Americans come knocking on their door, asking for a little of that $3+ trillion of Fed luvin'?

 

George Washington's picture

Noam Chomsky: No Evidence that Al-Qaeda Carried Out the 9/11 Attacks





DON'T READ THIS ... Nobel prize winner Joe Stiglitz said that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan basically have bankrupted our country and crowded out spending on domestic stuff, but anything having to do with those wars is ... er ... irrelevant to ... ummm ... deficits and economics and business and spending and unemployment and ... uh ... DON'T READ THIS!

 

MoneyMcbags's picture

Economy Stops Blowing Jobs





Hells yeah. The jobs report was released today and the economy added a headline 151k new jobs which means we will be back to a Keynesian healthy unemployment rate sometime around the year 2172, just in time for the third Tralfamadorian invasion of Earth, OJ to find the real killers, and Rocky XVII to be released.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

How Ben Bernanke Sentenced The Poorest 20% Of The Population To A Cold, Hungry Winter





The following chart prepared recently by JPMorgan demonstrates something rather scary, and makes it all too clear how the Chairman's plan to "assist" the US population via some imaginary "wealth effect" due to QE2, is about to backfire. As is now becoming very evident, the prices of energy and food products are about to surge, and in many cases have already done so, but courtesy of some clever gimmicks (Wal Mart selling what was formerly 39 oz of coffee as a 33.9 oz product for example) the end consumers haven't quite felt it yet. They will soon. There is a limit to how much every commodity can open limit up before it appears on the SKU price at one's local grocer. And while a marginally declining "core CPI" is irrelevant for this exercise as it measures only items that are completely outside of the scope of everyday life, what will be far more important to end consumers will be the push higher in food and energy costs. The problem, however, is that for the lowest 20% of Americans, as per the BLS, food and energy purchases represent over 50% of their after-tax income (a number which drops to 10% for the wealthiest twenty percentile). In other words should rampant liquidity end up pushing food and energy prices to double (something that is a distinct possibility currently), Ben Bernanke may have very well sentenced about 60 million Americans to a hungry and very cold winter, let alone having any resources to buy trinkets with the imaginary wealth effect which for over 80% of the US population will never come.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: Bernanke’s ‘Cash For Spelunkers’





Like “cash for clunkers,” the housing tax credit and other attempts to provide short-term fuel, the Federal Reserve’s second round of quantitative easing can only buy a little time to fix what ails the economy. Unfortunately, in the prior instances, the short-term fuel led to short-term complacency about the economic trajectory, leading policymakers to let down their guard. In the end, all that resulted was a letdown for the economy. What’s different about quantitative easing — an effort to lower market interest rates by bidding up Treasury debt — is that the Fed has no ability to direct its fire. What’s likely is that much of the investment capital freed up by Fed purchases of Treasury debt will overshoot its target — the U.S. economy — and flow to emerging markets and especially into commodities that serve as a hedge against a falling dollar.

 

RANSquawk Video's picture

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX -- 05/11/10





A snapshot of the US Afternoon Briefing covering Stocks, Bonds, FX, etc.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Surge In Non-Revolving Loans And Government Lending Pushes Consumer Credit Higher, Even As Revolving Loans Drop Most Since January 2010





A casual look at just the headline at total consumer credit, which increase on a SA basis for the first time since January 2010, could give on the impression that all is well in borrowing land, and that consumers have finally stopped deleveraging. Wrong. While the seasonally adjusted number indicated a rise of $1.1 in total credit the true story once again lies below the surface. To wit: revolving credit, or actual credit as represented by credit card borrowings, plunged by $8.3 billion, the most in 2010! What offset this was the surge in non-revolving credit, which increased by $10.4 billion in September: the biggest increase since August 2007, just before everything went to hell.Note the glaring move higher in September non-revolving credit (i.e., borrowing for car and school loans).

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Department Of Wealth Effects Pull SPY Borrow In Last Ten Minutes Of Trading, Causes Green Close





Just because a red close in the only index the Department of Wealth Effects tracks, the Dow, would seem oddly suspicious in a market that is now entirely controlled by Benny army's of Hewlett Packard inkjets, we get news from two trading desks that the SPY just went HTB in the last ten minute of trading, coupled with some forced buy-ins for good measure. The farcical result is presented below.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Bank Of America Reports No Day With Trading Losses In Q3, Announces MBS Complaints Over $375 Billion Worth Of Securities





In its just released 215 page 10-Q, BofA announced it has just overtaken Goldman, and where even Goldman ended up having days with trading losses, Bank of America was perfect. Gotta love all those 3rd grade BofA prop traders (as an FYI to all, BofA is where you go where the safety school equivalent of prop trading dumps you). What is more interesting is that the seemingly flawless trading machine which is BofA has just disclosed it has received a complains by the Chicago FHLB, Cambridge Place, and Charles Schwab (and others) that allege misrepresentations in over $375 billion worth of RMBS. It appears the FRBNY is not the only entity that now is gunning for the scalp of the last remaining flawless frontrunner.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

America Needs To Add 232,400 Jobs A Month To Get Back To Pre-Depression Job Levels By End Of Obama Second Term





When two months ago we looked at what the implied job creation rate must be for the US to get back to the same level of jobs as December 2007 when the original depression started (now that the recession is over) by the end of Obama's now extremely improbable second term, we arrived at a number of 229,300 per month. Updating for the data two months later, after today's NFP data, results in a breakeven growth rate of 232,400 per month. In other words, America now needs to create an additional 3,100 jobs per month compared to two month earlier, to merely revert to the state in employment last seen in December 2007, let alone create additional jobs. Keep in mind that unlike the economists in the government, we actually index the growth rate to adjust for the growth in the projected labor force which grows at 90,000 per month.

 

RANSquawk Video's picture

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 05/11/10





RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 05/11/10

 
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