Archive - Oct 2011

October 30th

4closureFraud's picture

Steven J. Baum | Foreclosure Mill Fraud Busted by Susan Chana Lask-MERS and Mortgage Fraud Detailed (VIDEO)





If you are reading this "Sloppy Stevie," you might want to watch your back. Looks like you just pissed off all of America...

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: The Greatest Short - Why All Correlations Are Moving To 1





The entire fractional reserve banking system rests on the premise that the short currency long assets/loans trade works, by creating a future economy that provides real greater output to sustain the circulated currency, because expunging it through deleveraging is a dangerous process for bank balance sheets and a deflationary event. The great question at the present time is: Has the recent credit expansion provided the US or Europe with an economy which can sustain the currency stock in circulation with it's accruing interest or has the malinvestment been so bad, that the currency amount in circulation is unsustainable and the resulting deflation will be met by central bank debt forgiveness to the currency shorters. When banks create currency on their balance sheet and trade it for an asset, they sell something they do not have and which they have to repurchase in the future! This mechanic in an environment of latent deleveraging, and massive policy intervention by central banks and governments generates 'Risk on, Risk off' and the banking systems gyration towards selling short currency or covering versus all possible assets is pushing all correlations to 1.

 

ilene's picture

Stock World Weekly: Europhoria





"Unless the FCBs step up to the plate much more than they have in the past couple of weeks, either the Treasury market will collapse, or the stock market rally will fizzle, or both. We’re not there yet." Lee Adler

 

Tyler Durden's picture

"When Money Dies" Author Adam Fergusson And James Turk Discuss (Hyper)Inflation In The Past, In The Present And In The Future





When it comes to discussing monetary history, and specifically what happens when it all goes wrong, there are two must read tomes: one is "The Dying of Money" by Jens Parsson (pdf link) and the other one is "When Money Dies" (pdf link) by Adam Fergusson. Today, we are lucky to bring to you a must watch interview between James Turk of the GoldMoney Foundation and the author of the former, Adam Fergusson. They discuss the fateful decisions that led to hyperinflation in post-First World War Germany, and how central bankers as well as ordinary members of the public today would be well advised to heed this warning from history. Fergusson discusses how the hyperinflation affected different groups in German society in different ways – with debtors benefiting and huge numbers of middle-class savers wiped out. Riots, corruption and political extremism were just some of the malignancies encouraged by the hyperinflation. He points out that those who held hard currencies as well as people who held tangible assets like gold and silver were in-large part protected from the worst economic consequences of the hyperinflation. In his words: “gold remained at all times in Germany the measure of what was important to them.”

 

Tyler Durden's picture

EUR Opens Lower As Bailout Disenchantment Returns





Following another weekend of consistently disappointing news on the latest and greatest bailout front, where the #1 question of just who funds the €560 billion EFSF hole remains unanswered, it is not surprising that the EURUSD has entered the pre-market session modestly lower. If China continues to posture as it has over the last 48 hours, expect this to trend lower as Asia wakes up, with the only possible saving grace the fear that weak-hand residual EUR shorts, which as noted on Friday remain at stubbornly high levels, may cover on any slide.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

"The Decade Wall Street Went Insane": A Front Row Miniseries On The 'Generation Of Excess' Alongside Trader Monthly Magazine





There was a time, half a decade ago, when contrary to what they declared in polite (and not so polite) public, every young aspiring hedge fund manager on Wall Street secretly hoped to appear in Trader Monthly's Top 30 under 30. Since then Trader magazine, the symbol of all the excesses of the "zeroes" appropriately went bankrupt, then reappeared once again, though completely stripped of its cachet as the media of choice for Generation XS$. But for the sake of memory lane, and in remembrance of days when it appeared that the flow of money would never cease, and children in their late 20s were disappointed if they did not get an 8 digit bonus, below we present The Decade Wall Street Went Insane - the Zeroes, in which "we get a ringside seat alongside Trader Magazine to some of the biggest parties of the decade, including a Wall Street "Charity" boxing night held at Manhattan's lavish Hammerstein Ballroom. This 5-part web series pits the fantasy of unlimited growth against the wheeling-and-dealing of Wall Street's glitzy surface. We urge any #OWS fanatics with heart conditions to skip this if at all possible.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

The "Dumb Money" Refuses To Play Along: China State Media Says It Won't Rescue Europe





A few days ago China telegraphed it refuses to continue to be seen as the world's rescuer and the dumbest money in the room. Many assumed China was only kidding: after all how would China let its biggest export partner flounder? And furthermore, all China does is provide vendor financing, right? Well, as it turns out, wrong, because to China the current state of Europe is far from the terminal crisis Europe is trying to make it appear. This is happening even as a thoroughly desperate and grovelling Europe, kneepads armed and ready, has said via the EFSF's Regling that it will even consider issuing Yuan-denominated bonds. Alas, China is less than impressed. As AFP reports, "China’s state media Sunday warned that the country will not be a “savior” to Europe, as President Hu Jintao left for an official visit to the region including a G20 summit. Hu’s visit has raised hopes that cash-rich China might make a firm commitment to the European bailout fund, but in a commentary, the official Xinhua news agency said Europe must address its own financial woes. “China can neither take up the role as a savior to the Europeans, nor provide a ‘cure’ for the European malaise. “Obviously, it is up to the European countries themselves to tackle their financial problems,” it said, adding that China could only do so “within its capacity to help as a friend." A friend, who at this point is quite sensible, and realizes far better deals are to be had down the line if one merely waits. That said, we are certain China is not the only one out there with an instant notification pending the second Santorini, Ibiza or the Isle of Capri hits E-bay.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Broken Market Chronicles: Nasdaq Proposes To Make Legal What Exchanges Have Been Doing Illegally For Years





A new proposal by Nasdaq has the market purists such as our friends at Nanex and all those (very few) who still care about how broken the market is and demand something be done about it, writhing in disgust, particularly this section:

\5\ The Exchange is also changing its policies and procedures under Regulation NMS governing the data feeds used by its execution system and routing engine. Current policies state that those systems use data provided by the network processors. In the future, those systems will use data provided either by the network processors or by proprietary feeds offered by certain exchanges directly to vendors.

Nasdaq's proposal admits that exchanges are supposed to use the SIP (CQS/UQDF) data for their execution system and routing engine! They want to formally change things to match what they've been doing all along so they can avoid fines and more! Why would you submit a proposal to change something you've already been doing? In other words, what the exchange is proposing, is already common practice. If exchanges are granted this proposal, Reg NMS, for all practical purposes, is no longer relevant, and there is no point in having the SIP calculate the NBBO, because it will have no meaning. Translated: the market will be, for all intents and purposes, officially two-tiered and terminally broken.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Goldman Summarizes The "Frightful Week Ahead"





In the big picture, the market continues to be torn between two conflicting desires. On the one hand, there is a need to remain nimble and keep any "risk-on" positioning light, given that a permanent solution for the Euro zone remains elusive and that US and global growth may remain slow as also indicated in our forecasts. On the other hand, in the wake of the risk sell-off in August and September the market, in our view, remains underweight risk, which was underscored once again this past week by the outsized rally following what was really a relatively tepid EU summit. In short, while substantial uncertainty remains, there is always a possibility this gets brushed aside into year-end. Given this uncertainty, we monitor two things. First, the European policy process obviously remains key, and we will be monitoring developments into the Nov. 3-4 G-20 Summit in Cannes and the Nov. 7 Eurogroup meeting in Brussels closely. The former will be key in fleshing out any emerging market contributions to the SPV announced in the EU summit statement from this past week. The Eurogroup has been tasked with finalizing the implementation of EFSF leveraging and the SPV in November. Second, we are closely watching cyclical data in the US and elsewhere, and whether downside risks to growth are abating. In this regard, the coming week brings the global PMIs, including the all-important ISM and October payrolls, where at 75k, we are below consensus (95k). In terms of central bank meetings, we expect the FOMC to leave policy unchanged on Nov. 2.... Mario Draghi's first policy meeting as President of the ECB will be important to watch on Thursday. We hold firm to our view that a rate cut will only come in December (50bp), and the market is pricing low odds for a cut this week.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Full Barroso, Van Rompuy Letter Begging For G-20 Money





With the question of who will fund the majority of the EFSF, or the €560 billion of the €1 trillion, still outstanding, and with China no longer the slam dunk "dumb money" everyone had expected it to be, Europe turns to the next biggest beneficiary of maintaining the ponzi - the entire G20 itself. Below is the letter just sent out from the two Eurostooges in which they make it all too clear that money talks, or Europe walks. "We will implement these measures rigorously and in a timely manner, and we are confident that they will contribute to the swift resolution of the crisis. However, whilst we in Europe will play our part, this cannot alone ensure global recovery and rebalanced growth. There is a continued need for joint action by all G20 partners in a spirit of common responsibility and common purpose." Too bad Bernie Madoff went to jail before he could send out comparable letters to his own investors who by implication would have become "voluntary partners" with a gun to their head.

 

ilene's picture

THE UNFORTUNATE TRUTH ABOUT AN OVERBOUGHT STOCK MARKET





In addition to the unknown factors impacting the European “solution”, next week the Federal Reserve will have their regular FOMC meeting and statement.

 

October 29th

EconMatters's picture

7 Sectors Most Likely To Gain Jobs By 2015





The job market is terrible, and the situation isn’t getting any better.  So where will the new jobs be coming from? 



 

Tyler Durden's picture

Things That Make You Go Hmmm.... Such As An Empty Box Filled With Promises Of Money, And Europe's Soup Nazi





Some amusing weekend observations from TTMYGH's Grant Williams: "The EFSF is basically an empty box filled with promises of money - many of them from the very people who are most likely to need to borrow that same money. Should they need to borrow the money, they won’t be able to make good on their promises so there will be less money for them to borrow. Now the brain trust running Europe have decided, in their collective wisdom, to apply leverage to the non-existent money in the empty box that they have yet to actually borrow, so it can backstop even more of the hundreds of billions of Euros of sovereign debt issued by countries whose finances are in such dire straits that they either require the kind of robust growth that is hardly likely to materialize any time soon or the forgiveness by the holders of that debt of a large part of it....Of course, granting Greece the package they did this past week, the Eurocrats have rather incredibly found yet another corner into which to back themselves. You can hardly champion the ‘One Europe’ manifesto on the one hand but then, as the next country lines up at the counter, declare “No soup for you!” - but that seems to be the ‘plan’ at this stage."

 

Tyler Durden's picture

"We Are All Greeks" - SocGen Presents The New World Order





"We are all Greeks" - so begins one of the best reports on the unsustainability of the status quo, and on what "the new world order" will look like, created by SocGen's Veronique Riches-Flores. Her overarching observation: "No one can claim immunity from a Greek-style spiral" because "Our economies are mature, with weak potential GDP, especially post the financial crisis" and due to that old standby which everyone chooses so conveniently to forget, yet which is the biggest threat to the world's "welfare-state" stability, in existence since 1860 and which has been responsible for not only the longest period of peace in world history, but for the longest stealth plundering of middle-class wealth (there is indeed no such thing as a free lunch): "We are aging - we have no chance to see our future income improving substantially in the long run ; our savings capacities are shrinking and our health and pensions spending is increasing." That, in a nutshell, is it, no matter how many protracted essays one reads predicting the future (or war in Europe): the truth is there is increasingly less cash flow, coupled with increasingly more demands for cash.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Xtranormal Explains The European Non-Bailout Best - With A Cartoon





While it is not the bears doing the explaining in this latest all too realistic summary of the European non-bailout, it is the next best thing.

 
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!