Archive - Jan 2011

Some interesting thoughts from Chris Whalen. This ain't going to be easy.

“I am horrified by the senseless attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and members of her staff. An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society. Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her staff, all who were injured, and their families. This is a sad day for our country."

From Breaking News: Local media is reporting Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a Democrat, was shot ‘point blank in the head at a town-hall like event in northern Tucson. Is this the beginning?

Update from NBC News: Dem Party in Tucson saying Giffords taken to hospital, 5 others also shot. Shooter apparently in custody.

Update 2: from Fox Phoenix: 12 people shot at Gabby Giffords community meeting. Congresswoman among the injured, while CNN reports 6 dead and 15 wounded.

Update 3: NPR confirms Gifford has died. Gawker has provided a description of the shooter.

Update 4: Reuters refuting the previous NPR news, and states that Giffords is still alive, in surgery, nine other patients brought in from shooting, per a hospital spokeswoman

U.S.O.F.C.: the United States of Organized Financial Crime. The Status Quo is dependent on a Financial Mafia for its wealth, and it is loathe to surrender it. What happens if fraud and misrepresentation of risk is expunged from the U.S. financial system? In President Bush's memorable phrase: This sucker's going down. There is a fascinating disconnect between the "law and order" society ceaselessly depicted on TV and the realities of the American financial system, which is now totally dependent on lies, fraud, embezzlement and misrepresentation of risk. Remove those and the system implodes.

Some observations...Also, we hope Goldman's high net worth SPV clients read the fine print on the PPM. You never know: that stake may suddenly be diluted to 0.000000001%.

Oh shit was it on yesterday as macro news flew faster than Goldman subprime securitizations in 2005 or...

As Zero Hedge wrote earlier, following revelations that the DOJ was going through line items of private data, including personal financial information on Twitter, WikiLeaks has demanded that Goldman darling Facebook as well as the firm that "does no evil" Google reveal any subpoenas they may have received, if any. And all signs point to yes: after all why would the DOJ go after just Twitter which is not a repository of any notable private data, unlike the other companies, one of which already has been in much hot water in the past due to its privacy policy, and especially now that Goldman's SPV has full access to who knows what information: courtesy of the brain dead parasitic zombies at the SEC nobody knows just who knows what vis-a-vis Goldman's "private placement." And since a positive answer will most likely not do anything good for the brand reputation of either firm, as it will be spun in the way that these firms not only did not disclose an incursion in user privacy, but only did so following a fluke act by Twitter, and may well be working behind the scenes with who knows who else on providing gobs of private data on a silver platter to whatever is the government's witch hunt organization du jour, then maybe, just maybe, the world's infatuation with MySpace v2 (and Friendster v3) may finally start to wane, explaining why just as there are buyers, no matter how wealthy and sophisticated, in Goldman's latest PR fiasco, so there are sellers, who just happen to be wealthier and more sophisticated.

Is mathematics a quantum leap forward compared to other methods of thinking? Sure. Its precision beats every other possible “system” and human intuition is limited by experience. One cannot “see” curves without tangents, nor intuit an n- dimensional space. But everyone lives and thinks with intuition in ordinary life. Successful trading is about buying cheap and selling dear: mathematical thinking is an indispensible means to that end. But it can also obscure intuition that necessarily deals with the inexact definitions of everyday life. Further, a mindset wholly engrossed in the mathematical development of an axiom base can take one far from practical relevance.

The DOJ, instead of pursuing actual threats to so-called justice, such as, among other, the fact that the entire US mortgage industry is based on churn-predicated fraud, that Goldman Sachs is an undisputed monopolist in the OTC market, and that JP Morgan uses its cartel power and FRBNY affiliation to control the commodity market, has decided to instead go after private user information on Twitter of all places. And while the excuse is that this is merely another expansion in the ongoing probe against that uber-terrorist organization Wikileaks (which as Salon's Glenn Greenwald points out is "doing nothing more than publishing classified information showing what the U.S. Government is doing: something investigative journalists, by definition, do all the time") it may have actually crossed the line by subpoenaning private data from an Icelandic member of parliament, Birgitta Jonsdottir, a one-time associate of Julian Assange. Furthermore, it appears that Twitter may be just one of many services which have received the DOJ subpoena (Wikileaks suspects that Google and Facebook are two other sites that may have received a Wikileaks-related subpoena but have so far not disclosed it), but is the only one which requested that the original order be unsealed. Most importantly, the question of just who Eric Holder consider a potential "threat" is completely unclear, which means that pretty much anyone can be the subject of complete disclosure of data previously considered private.One thing is certain: if anyone has ever donated to Wikileaks via Paypal or otherwise, they are now a target.

Federal Reserve Transit...

And fluoride lowers IQ ...

The man Time Magazine named the Person of the Year in 2009, just stood in front of America and said that there realistically won’t be jobs growth during his era as the nation’s Chief Central Banker. What he didn’t highlight is that total jobs in America during his 10 year tour as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is expected to be negative.

The employment situation is still very bad. It brings up the specter of long-term structural employment in our economy. Job growth is still weak, buoyed by temp and health care workers. There are some positives in this report but job growth is still insufficient to overcome layoffs and a growing labor force.

Who says the xtranormal bubble has popped? Today we present the latest "bearish" cartoon with one particular take on Chinese currency manipulation. While we don't necessarily agree with the argument that Chinese monetary policy is the "single most protectionist policy in the world" as China is merely holding up a mirror to the Fed's own monetary tools, it does provide some entertaining perspectives. On the other hand, the observation that China takes 6,000 jobs for every billion dollars in incremental trade deficit, is spot on.

Abigail Doolittle of Peaks Theories submits: "While I fully expect Treasurys to decline further this year, I think it will come in a volatile and range bound manner and at this moment there are some technical reasons to believe that we may see Treasurys rally in the coming weeks." Here's why...