Archive - Mar 2012 - Blog entry

Topped off with Wall-Street-esque hype ... how refreshing, and so unlike the congressionally mucked-up USPS.

Exquisite.

A great piece of misdirection by the master of inaction...

"We, the people," are in deep trouble.  

Even With Back Dated Deals Featuring Only One Party, One Can't Escape Greece's Problem Shared By Much Of The EU. Let's look at some nasty consequences...

Obama Expanding Program Started by Cheney

This entire deal is just stupid. And all it’s done is alert Spain and Italy to the fact that handing over fiscal sovereignty and implementing austerity measures in exchange for bailouts is a waste of time. Indeed, Spain just woke up and smelled the coffee. And it's told the EU to "shove it."

Lies, damn lies and charts.  Why no one in charge dares utter the "F" word (fraud).

Consumer spending in the Netherlands has been weaker than other countries in the eurozone for the past ten year and is currently also lower than during the severe economic crisis of the early 80s according the Dutch Central Bank (DNB). They continue that the low spending is an important factor in the recession the Netherlands is now in. Dutch spending patterns have deviated from other European countries which is noteworthy since the Netherlands had one of the highest rates of eurozone countries between 1992 and 2001.

Remember what the market did in 2011?

De Telegraph reported on Thursday that Van Lanschot bank had tapped the LTRO for 750 million euros. Quoting Floris Deckers, Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors, "What would you do if you saw a 50 euro note lying on the sidewalk. We're earning a nice margin on it. We don't need it for financing or liquidity."

More on this story at Reuters here:

"We are a hair's breadth or, more exactly, one recession away from a market panic on outright deflation -- a panic that will send the central banks into a printing frenzy that will make their balance sheet expansion so far seem like a warm-up act for the main show." Albert Edwards

All you need to read.

The European Central Bank's recent LTRO programs have effected a significant increase in the amount of encumbered assets -- those pledged as collateral in repo transactions, central bank funding operations, and covered bond issuance as lenders increasingly demand over-collateralized borrowing arrangements to protect against credit risk -- on balance sheets across the pan-European banking system.

Does the ECB stop printing? No, because it can't.