Archive - Sep 2, 2011

Because this time is never different...

We end this busy day of economic buffoonery with Goldman's scorecard for August ("the US economy has not fallen off a cliff", which we translate as a B+, and "far better than expected"), which in turn explains why Goldman, and everyone else, now assumes QE3 (yes, Op Twist is QE3; get over it) is not only a given, but why in Goldman's esteemed opinion, the Fed has at least 3 rationales for pushing for more QEasing. Incidentally, these are as follows: "First, unemployment is far above the Fed’s long-term forecast in the low 5% range; the longer high unemployment persists, the greater the risk that an erosion of skills and labor force attachment will result in permanent supply-side damage. Second, economic growth has been woeful this year and there is no convincing sign of the second-half pickup in growth that the majority of Fed officials seem to expect. The payroll report in particular will weigh heavily in the minds of many Federal Open Market Committee members. Third, there is limited prospect for near-term fiscal stimulus from a gridlocked Washington." The only thing Goldman is avoiding, of course, is the wipe out in stocks that will make QE3 a virtual certainty, as we have been predicting ever since March. Goldman is also avoiding to mention that the only outcome of more QE will be another record year of Wall Street bonuses, all at the expense of more joblessness, higher gas prices, a 120% debt/GDP ratio, and overall sovereign insolvency. Oh well - in the meantime we continue, as we have for the past 2.5 years, to buy gold... or spam for the Econ PhDs out there.

While the FHFA has targeted lawsuits at a whole bunch of employees of the 17 banks previously disclosed, nothing gives us as much amusement and frankly pleasure, as the fact that Goldman's definition of smugness - one Dan Sparks of "shitty deal" fame, is among the accused. Perhaps, even in uber crony communist America, what goes around eventually comes around. Now, if only someone can figure out how Warren Buffett's Wells Fargo, with its several hundred billion worth of Wachovia toxic biohazard, is not on the list of defendants...

Two weeks ago we had a "bear market" open thread in which we lamented the arrival of the recession, or the resumption of the depression, depending on one's proclivity for dramatic flair. It took the rest of the world about two weeks to catch up to what our commentators already knew. Today, in turn, we want to celebrate a peaceful, calm, (lack of) labor day holiday following which we are positive the markets will reopen calmly, in an orderly manner, with modest volume, declining 3M USD Libor, a collapse in the Libor OIS and with no invocation of Rule 48 whatsoever, by opening it up to our readers' very cool, calm, collected and politically correct stream of consciousness.

Evidence suggests that the conomy has already been in recession, mainstream conomist pundits continue to argue about whether the conomy will have a double dip or not. While they are trying to figure it out, the damage to the financial markets is fait accompli, and will get worse.

FHFA goes hog wild and potentially full retard in suing everyone, or specifically 17 global banks, up to an including such dead men walking as Barclays, RBS and SocGen. Oddly such crony capitalist favorites as Wells Fargo are suspiciously absent: we wonder what the cost of that particular Eureka moment was to the interested party. Either way, come Monday, this will get interesting when already scarce liquidity goes... poof. Full statement is below, while the link to all the individual law suits is here.

Remember when one month ago the US, to much pomp and circumstance, not to mention one downgrade,  announced a grand bargain raising the debt ceiling from $14.294 trillion to something much higher, with a stop gap intermediate ceiling of $14.694 trillion, or $400 billion more. Well, as of today, or less than a month since the expansion, total US debt is at $14.697 trillion. Yep - the total debt is again over the ceiling, which means the US debt increased by $400 billion in one month. Score one for fiscal prudence. And while the total debt subject to the limit is still slightly less, at $14.652, one week of Treasury auctions and will be time for Moody's to justify again why the US is a quadruple A credit.

And so it begins:

• FHFA Sues Barclays over mortgage securities over losses for $4.9 billion: RTRS
• FHFA Sues Merrill Lynch Bank of Americal over mortgage securities over losses for $30.85 billion: RTRS

Put a fork in Bank of Countrywide Lynch.

Trust Bloomberg's Jonathan Weil to put two and two together, and to remember that everything new is just well forgotten old. In this case Bank of America. And we are not talking comparisons to Lehman (or even SocGen) - those are boring. No, it is much more fun to compare the insolvent bank to another world con, in this case WorldCom. As Weil reminds us, the news that Moynihan's last stand was considering a tracking stock reported earlier by the WSJ, as a means to demonstrate to the Fed its "viability", is nothing short of the comparison of WorldCom's last ditch in kind method, which none other than a WorldCom director likened to, well, horseshit.

Perhaps this is the denouement of a week of scary market rumors that seem to have been designed to stop the markets from breaking too high.

You know those movies with the bomb set to a timer ticking down to øø.øø where the sweaty hero nervously cuts one wire at a time while holding his breath and then at øø.ø1 he stops the bomb? Well Europe is like that except that the bomb goes off and kills everyone.

 Market update as the BAC/NFP/WTF/QE initiated sell-off accelerates

Put this in the category of it ain’t over until it is over.

F.O.M.C. gang signs and the Ponzi event horizon...

I will be blunt here. Systemic risk is higher today than it was in 2008. Anyone who claims that the financial system is stable can look at either Treasuries or the credit markets. Look at Europe where the entire banking system is collapsing.