Archive - Jul 28, 2011

BIS has private shareholders ...

As ES tumbled to 1285, there is a good reason why it was instrumental to halt the drop because should the 200 DMA in the S&P get taken out, at about 1284, then say hello to the next support which is at the March and June swing low trendline of 1258. Then again, in order to get QE3, which by the way is the goal here once all the smoke and pizza boxes clear, the market does need to plunge as has been warned again and again. Alas, it has to drop by another 20% from here. So, all those who traditionally keep buying the dip in advance of anticipated Fed intervention sooner or later will have to eat their losses. And considering that America may be bankrupt as soon as Tuesday unless the Fed sells its gold, it will certainly be sooner. So as Asian dealers scramble, and Europe wakes up (can UniCredit make it a trifecta of trading halts? Why of course), with America to follow thereafter realizing its Q2 GDP was just 1.7% (and to be revised to 1.4% in 2 months), the race for QE3 finally is on with just one month until Jackson Hole.

Tonight just got that Lehman Brothersy feel to it. After hours of delays, Boehner just experienced a supreme dose of humiliation after he announcing he would cancel tonight's much delayed vote on his deficit plan after apparently being unable to get the requisite 218 votes to pass his plan though the Congress (forget that it would never pass Senate or the President). Boehner has said he will instead hold an emergency meeting with members Friday morning but the damage has been done. The result: the markets are now in absolutely terrified mode, with ES just plunging by over 12 points on the news, the dollar hitting fresh post March 17th lows against the Yen following the Fukushima explosion, and overall total chaos appears to be on the horizon. And with Europe about to open, all hell is about to break loose. Something tells us that the deer in headlights will be on prominent display tomorrow, not to mention the bear cavalry.

When the US does default is when the Second Round of the Great Crisis will hit. At that point the financial systems/ economies of entire countries, not just private banks, will collapse. What will follow will be the equivalent of 2008 on steroids featuring market crashes, debt defaults, civil unrest, food shortages, spikes in crime, etc. The purpose of the reports is to help you prepare for all of these items.

The Debt Ceiling Reality Show approaches its grand finale in the next week. The world breathlessly awaits the shocking conclusion. The debt ceiling will be raised. The world will be saved. Wall Street will rejoice. Americans can focus on the important stuff again, like Casey Anthony’s upcoming book, who will win this week’s Toddlers and Tiaras pageant, and the latest app created for their iPads. Based on my observations over the last few weeks, I’m absolutely sure that 90% of the politicians in Washington DC would lose on Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? What the public doesn’t see is the rooms filled with PR maggots in the bowels of Congress generating talking points and testing them in over night polls of the public. Their sole purpose is to generate a message that will convince the public the fiscal debacle is the fault of the other party. The goal is to gain an advantage in the next elections. The long term future of our country is unimportant to the soulless autobots that get paid to misinform and mislead the masses. Leaving unborn generations with an un-payable debt so we can selfishly cling to benefits promised to us by corrupt politicians who only made the promises so they could be elected, is the ultimate in egocentric myopia.

Yesterday we reported of a dramatic dispersion between the just maturing July 28 Bills and the "post default" August 4th version of short-term funding. We also suggested that this is probably a spread that should be promptly collapsed as in the very unlikely event there is a default, the last thing on your counterparty's mind will be trying to collect the several MMs owed to him. Well, the July 28s matured today, and the spread appears to have evaporated. Not so fast. Those who so wish, can still put on the compression trade, although not using plain vanilla bonds, but CMBs instead. In fact, as of today, traders can capitalize on the Treasury's D-Day, with the spread between the August 2 and August 4 CMBs rising from 5 bps to 11 bps in 2 days. Now the reason why this trade, with lots of leverage would be ideal, is that, as mentioned above, if the US does default, Repo desks and Prime Brokers will have much muich bigger problems, and two, as we pointed out, it will imminently become "uncovered" that the Fed has a secret stash of cash, up to the amount of about half a trillion, which may easily carry the Treasury through the new year, in which case the spread will immediately collapse. Of course, we could be wrong, and everyone who plays the compression will blow up in an epic supernova that will make Boaz Weinsten's legendary basis trade annihilation seems like amateur hour.

The US has entered a debt spiral: a situation in which more and more debt needs to be issued at the same time that lenders are unwilling to lend to the US for any lengthy period of time (greater than three years). On top of this, the US must to roll over trillions in old debt at the same time that it needs to issue an additional $150 billion in debt per month to finance its current deficit.

Just thinking out loud on the screwy place we find ourselves in.

Many deep dilemmas face investors of Gold & Silver. First and foremost we feel an urgent need to defend ourselves against a crippled corrupted USDollar. The level of debilitation cannot be adequately put in words, as it has lost perhaps 70% of its value just since 1980 when the Jackass entered the workforce after years at the university. The USEconomy cannot be rebuilt or sustained on bond fraud, debt auctions covered by the printing press, endless war, phony accounting, outsourced industry, home equity extractions, rigged financial markets, constant deception on economic recovery, falsified economic statistics, and pursuit of the next asset bubble. The end game is fast along, gaining traction as much as public attention. The remedies put in place to date have centered on additional currency debasement of all major currencies, extension of sovereign debt when its burden is already at a staggering level. The rescue of the bank assets, largely toxic from the bust in housing and mortgage, has resulted is widespread redemption of nearly worthless bonds or heavily impaired bonds. The consequence has been a rapid rise in the entire cost structure to the global economy, without the benefit of rising incomes.

Any time Wall Street tells you something, ignore it. Case in point: the historical "consensus" forecast of Q2 GDP. We have presented this chart before, most recently as pertains to Q1 GDP, although when it comes to unmasking Wall Street's broad incompetence, repeated showings never hurt. And the chart speaks volumes not only to just how much more "insight" those experts have into the future of the economy (none, but that doesn't prevent them getting multi-million bonuses at the end of every year), but also that any hopes of a Q3 and Q4 economic rebound will be imminently dashed. Below is the dramatic(ally wrong) history of Q2 GDP consensus forecasts, one day ahead of the first estimate of the official data release which will now most likely come well below a contractionary level in real terms.

The firings June Clarkson and Theresa Edwards can be dismissed as inter-office politics; the campaign contributions are best described as bribes. How can you take campaign contributions from a company the AG Office is investigating?

By now some readers may have read ludicrous stories about the Fed coining multi-trillion precious metal coins in a way to loophole the debt ceiling situation. Granted, this plan is so far beyond ridiculous that we have not wasted the time to comment on it. That, however, does not mean that the Fed is powerless to assist the Treasury in a modestly long-term term fix of the debt ceiling fiasco. In fact, as Stone McCarthy's Raymond Stone observes: "The Fed does not want to be a player in this debt ceiling/potential default debate. It didn't want to be a player in the Bear Stearns debacle, or the Lehman situation. But when push comes to shove the Fed will do what it can to avoid a default." In summary there are three avenues that the Fed can pursue in order to help Tim Geithner prolong the cash illusion modestly longer. The three options for Bernanke are to i) book profits; ii) prepay expenses and, yes, iii) sell gold. Combined, these three approaches could squeeze out well over half a trillion dollars, giving the Treasury breathing room not only past August 2, but potentially into 2012! That said, "The Fed would not want to advertise to Congress the possibility of delaying default. It does not want to take Congress off the hook on increasing the debt ceiling." But it will, if it has to, and the end result will be a delay potentially of up to a month. And if it means selling off the Fed's gold, so be it.

Update: according to Eric Cantor's spokeswoman Laena Fallon the vote will be only delayed until later on tonight.

Boehner just informed the media that the congressional deficit plan vote will be delayed, presumably because Boehner has not amassed the requisite number of votes. The market reaction is fast and furious: ES dumping 6 points immediately after the notice which means that the delay could now cut into August 2, and there may not be a resolution until Tuesday absent a "grand compromise" plan, which we do not see happening without either party getting crucified by their voters.

Retirement funds have become the ultimate fudgemaking tool of corrupt fiscal policy around the world. Treasury Secretary Tim Geither has been robbing federal pensions for the last several months in the absence of a debt deal, and several governments overseas have also stolen from retirees in order to continue financing their largess. Bottom line- if these bankrupt governments and agencies owe to retirement funds, they’ll stop paying whenever it suits them. If they have access to steal from the retirement funds, they’ll steal. We’ve seen several examples of this over the last two years, and we’re seeing more all the time. This is one of the issues that concerns me the most because I know how many people are completely unprepared for this eventuality. Even private retirement accounts are fair game in the political calculus… and it’s a simple matter of arithmetic.

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