Archive - Jul 2011

July 31st

Tyler Durden's picture

Goldman's Jim O'Neill "Go On President Obama And Congress; Give Us A Nice Pleasant Summer Surprise!"





While there are some undertones of caution in the latest letter from the head of Goldman's worst performing group ("I suspect the reason why the bond market has rallied and the Dollar and equities have fallen, is because there is going to be a budget deal, which the markets worry will weaken the cyclical GDP growth outlook further"), his bottom line (literally) is precisely what everyone on Wall Street, and everyone else who writes rants against responsible fiscal management (wait, wasn't Congress responsible 1 year ago? or two years ago? No of course not. It became an emergency a week ago) thinks. And it is as follows: "Go on President Obama and Congress; give us a nice pleasant Summer surprise!" Indeed, when you cut out all the hollow rhetoric of all those whose livelihood depends on the status quoTM and on "borrowing" from the future (cold fusion will certainly help with our energy problems one day... so will the tooth fairy), this is what it is all about.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Key Macro Catalysts In The Upcoming Week





Goldman's Themistoklis Fiotakis summarizes the main events in the upcoming week, which will likely see a very short term bout of buying frenzy on the debt ceiling deal, following by the realization that America can kiss fiscal stimulus goodbye and that real GDP is set to contract over the next quarter to a negative print as the last benefits from QE2 vanish and are replaced by nothing. Also, with the upcoming weekly earning focusing on financial companies as announced yesterday, there will be little help from the only bright spot in the so-called economy, especially with the flashing red sign of the July Nonfarm Payroll Print (consensus +95K, Goldman +50K, even LaSagna +50K) due on Friday. The half life of Europe's second bailout was under 5 days. We give America about the same.

 

Leo Kolivakis's picture

Smoking Some Bad Debt Dope?





I want everyone to take a deep breath and stop inhaling all that bad debt dope...

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Round Up Of This Morning's Key Political Soundbites





With a debt ceiling deal now a given and purely a matter of dotting i's and crossing t's, potentially pending a several day debt "breathing room" extension to be approved by Obama, whose TV appearance we expect shortly to provide a conclusion to this "grand compromise" farce, here are some of the key soundbites from the three primary constituents as of their media appearances this morning.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Highlights From This Morning's "Meet The Press"





Below are the key clips from this morning's Meet The Press which is devoted exclusively to proponents of the status quoTM, whose entire argument boils down to the syllogistic: "cut spending yes... but not today...never today" In fact, it is best to make any cuts the next administration's problem. So assuming Obama gets reelected, and there is another debt ceiling hike, which there will have to be, it means about $7 trillion on top of the currently debated $3 trillion, whoever inherits this mess from Obama (who in turn inherited his mess from Bush, who in turn inherited his mess from Clinton, and so on), will have $24 trillion debt to deal with on day 1, with about $16-17 trillion of GDP. And that person will have to cut spending? What idiot would want that job? Anyway, we fully expect the paid government workers from the rating agencies to shortly upgrade the US to AAA+ on renewed growth prospects courtesy of 140% debt to GDP in 5 years...and that excludes the $7 trillion in off balance sheet GSE debt.

 

Miles Kendig's picture

Disorderly Conduct





Resolved for a moment or not it's time to give this chasm in American political and economic life a closer look from a decidedly off South Main Street USA perspective.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Moody's Chief Economist Says Proposed Deal Will Avoid US Downgrade





And there you have it. Mark Zandi, better known for predicting at least 18 occurrences of a US recovery in the past 4 quarters, and being as wrong on the shape of the US growth curve as everyone else on Wall Street (although being Moody's head economist that is a perfectly normal track record), just told CNN's State of the Union that the deal is substantive enough to where Moody's will not move to downgrade the US' AAA rating. Naturally, the fact that this is merely another massive can kicking exercise which will see the US debt ceiling raised by $3 trillion with actual cumulative cuts of about $100 billion tops by November 2012 at which point yet another debt ceiling hike will have to be planned is irrelevant. All that matters is to get the S&P back to the year's highs, 120% debt/GDP (same as Greece) be damned.

 

July 30th

williambanzai7's picture

To DeFauLT, or NoT To DeFauLT





SHAKESPEARE NOTE

Whether 'tis nobler at this time to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous financial misfortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of rising debts

 

Tyler Durden's picture

ABC Reports Tentative Debt Ceiling Deal Reached Between GOP And Obama





This could very well be another red herring like the NYT article from two weeks ago that proved to be a dud, but for what it's worth according to ABC's Jonathan Karl, the White House and the GOP have just reached a tentative deal as follows...

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Obama's Final Loophole: The "Catastrophic Emergency" Clause?





Politico's Ben White has pointed out something interesting, namely that while the 14th Amendment may or may not be practical under the current situation (especially not without a full blown constitutional crisis), one potential loophole that Obama may have comes from none other than former president Bush, in the form of the Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20, one which deals with such trivia as "Catastrophic Emergency", "Continuity of Government", "Continuity of Operations", and lastly, and perhaps somewhat ironically, "Enduring Constitutional Government." Considering the amount of doom and gloom spun by the government is bigger than anything seen even under Hank Paulson, could this "crisis" be interpreted by the constitutional scholar as one that merits the invocation of Homeland Security privileges? Is America's maxing out its credit card comparable to a nuclear or terrorist attack on the continent? We may find out in less than 48 hours.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Meanwhile The Global Economy...





While the biggest winner of the ongoing political melodrama is C-SPAN, whose ratings have likely never been higher, and the broad audience is logically largely distracted by the hourly lack of development out of the White House, what we do know is that QE2 has failed to generate any growth in the economy, with both Q2 and Q1 GDP crashing spectacularly to a point where post another revision Q1 will be the inflection point where America re-entered another recession. Furthermore, we have seen a stark example of the economic snake eating its tail, whereby the more than proportional increase in the price of commodities, courtesy of Bernanke's policies, has offset any potential incipient growth germs that may have been lingering in the economy in Q3 2010 through Q2 2011. Yet all of these are backward looking indicators. The question is what happens to the global economy going forward? For the answer we again turn to Sean Corrigan, who remarks on some very disturbing developments in the global macro arena, which when tied in to core tenets of the Austrian Business Cycle theory, indicate that the global soft landing may be a mirage, and that the downslope we are already in, may convert into a stall from which the global airborne Titanic does not recover.

 

Luc Vallee's picture

Policy for a Balance Sheet Recession





Economists will long debate the efficacy of our traditional policy response but, whatever the results so far, there are constraints that place severe limitations on the effectiveness of such policy going forward. The US deficit and the trajectory of US spending is unsustainably high and, as the late economist Herbert Stein famously observed, “what cannot last, will not do so”. Any further fiscal stimulus risks pushing US finances past the tipping point, which would be a reckless gamble. At near zero short term interest rates, traditional monetary policy has become impotent, QE has been ineffective and the Fed has entered uncharted waters with its massive increase in the monetary base, risking inflation once private sector deleveraging ceases and velocity picks up. So neither traditional remedy is available any longer.

With US unemployment lodged stubbornly above 9%, what is to be done? Our policymakers, economists and commentators appear trapped in the confines of a paradigm that is no longer viable. Is there any other policy that might help spur recovery, or must we become resigned to waiting it out?

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: White House Playbook: Arbitrary Numbers and Financially Ignorant Sloganeering





President Obama this Tuesday stated his case for increased taxes on “the rich” as part of his solution to balance the deficit. “Keep in mind,” he assured the American people, “that under a balanced approach, the 98% of Americans who make under $250,000 would see no tax increases at all.” I have a very basic question that I am not sure anyone has pressed Mr. Obama to answer: Where did this figure of 250k, north of which one is considered by him to be among “the rich” even come from? Its very roundness tells me that it was the result not of a detailed actuarial analysis but rather some sort of arbitrary caprice that only those completely isolated from any private sector experience can conjure up. I almost get the feeling it was something as off-hand as: “Hey 250k sounds right to me. Nice number. So whattya think?” Sure write it in there.

 

Bruce Krasting's picture

On More QE and the Recession that won’t end





The recession still has not ended, but Bernanke's hands are tied by inflation.

 
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