Archive - Sep 3, 2009 - Blog entry

That gasping sound you hear coming from the commercial real estate market just means it's alive and kicking.

I feel it appropriate to help distribute Karl Denninger's video response to the currently in vogue effort of the government-subsidized media to discredit those AMERICANS who question current government policy and who suspect that the economy will get worse before it gets better.

Like I said at the start of this post, the world is awash with liquidity, so keep buying them dips and pay attention to the hedge fund heave-ho. It looks like things are getting bubbly all over again.

Americans will have to reach into their wallets and buy some Treasuries. POMO is almost over. Someone has to buy this paper. The problem is that at the current yield the adjusted return is less than 1/2 percent per annum. Who's buying that?

There is debate (and confusion) over whether the average American has actually increased his saving rate or whether this is a mirage. Ha!... Felix Salmon points out that some economists actually think that buying stocks and bonds is consumption - not saving. Much of the confusion arises from the need to distinguish between "investors" and "savers".

The dirty little secret in the pension world is that kickbacks are more common than people think in the private markets and hedge funds where funds try to bribe underpaid pension fund managers. How do I know? Because I have been approached in the past (very subtle, using words like 'facilitate') and witnessed my fair share of shady deals across many pension funds where I asked myself why the heck is this pension fund manager so gun-ho on that fund?

Gold and silver are outperforming a basket of currencies.