Frontrunning: March 26

• Market forecast project Issue #8 - 2010 (Value Expectations)
• China announces it may pursue a "managed float" (China Daily)
• Europe agrees IMF-EU rescue for Greece (Telegraph) - the IMF's quota of $15 billion will only cover cash needs through end of May
• The VAT cometh (NRO)
• Budget 2010: interest bill on UK government debt set to soar (Telegraph)
• White house to announce more housing aid, principal reduction for everyone (Reuters)
• The bad news for RBS don't stop: RBS Tier 1 notes fall most in five months after swap, S&P cut (Bloomberg)
• Mortgage delinquencies rise to record 14% (Reuters)
• FSA probe said to focus on block trading front-running (Bloomberg)
• Squid goes to Poland - Goldman joins race for $10 billion polish asset sales (Bloomberg)
• Private Equity: The Cause of, and Solution to, All of Life’s Problems (PEHub)
• Good bye: Truth has fallen and taken liberty with it (Alex Jones)
• Lower home prices can fix what government can't (Bloomberg)
• Hulbert: Was Thursday a key reversal day? (MarketWatch)
• Fed officials signal asset sales will play bigger role in exit (Bloomberg)
• More insider trading busts: former Cazenove, UBS workers face charge in trading probe (Bloomberg)

Comments

[hedgeless_horseman]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=anW3hAG0Zw5k

They provide the broadest look yet at alleged collusion in the $2.8 trillion municipal securities market that the government says delivered profits to Wall Street at taxpayers’ expense.

Well look who decided to wake up today.  This is business as usual you fucking morons.  If they start to prosecute anyone who conspired to make a profit at taxpayer's expense then it is only justice if every Wall Street Firm, The Federal Reserve Bank of NY, the entire defense industry, and every single lobbyist get a subpoena.

The government charges that CDR ran sham auctions that allowed the banks to pay below-market interest rates to local governments.

Did some nasty-ass rat turn his nose up at the free government cheese?  Don't those idiots know that only the U.S. Treasury is allowed to run sham auctions? 

On the hypocritical scale, that's right up there with a fat surgeon general mandating kids not over eat.

http://kissmyassets.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/art-benjamin-nomination-gi.jpg

You stay away from my twinkie, Doc!

[Headbanger]

Yea yesterday did look like a key reversal day for stocks perhaps due to the higher costs implications of the Health Care Reform Bill now starting to sink in to employers, the states and anybody with money.

[crosey]

+1.  Plus, the collective effect of the singular realization, that the past year (if not the past several years) has all been smoke and mirrors.

If there is any glimmer of good news, is that so many retail dollars are out of the market.  They may be the only dollars that Mainstreet has left when the axe soon falls.

[Racer]

Good bye: Truth has fallen and taken liberty with it (Alex Jones)

And in the UK the police state is disgusting, there are so many CCTV cameras everywhere and more and more surveillance done in the name of prevention of terrrorism, when in fact is it robbing the people of their liberties

[docj]

White house to announce more housing aid, principal reduction for everyone 

Uh, no.  If, like me, you bought less house than you could maximally afford, paid it off faster than the minimum required, and didn't treat it like an ATM over the last 10-years, you decidedly don't get a reduction on the principal you owe on your above-water mortgage - you instead get the barbed c--- of Satan jammed up your posterior.

No good deed goes unpunished, you know.

[singlemalt]

At the risk of plagarizing, here is the balance of the article:

(Reuters) - The Obama administration on Friday announced a $14 billion effort to try to stem a rising tide of home foreclosures by giving lenders incentives to erase some mortgage debt and slash mortgage payments for the unemployed.

While we all of course know that this is yet more long term economic destruction,

The new aid programs, funded from the $50 billion allocated to housing rescue under the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program, will also allow borrowers to erase mortgage debt down to a maximum of 115 percent of their home's value by refinancing through the Federal Housing Administration.

So, $14 billion is going to cover the enitre country.  Methinks this is a bit underestimated, by orders of magnitude.

Can anyone find any more information on this?  My searches have turned up nil.

[docj]

I know, singlemalt.  I'm pretty sure we all know this is a joke - a photo-op and smoke screen designed to try to "regenerate confidence in the housing market".  It will be about as effective as the government's efforts to do that have been over the last 12-18 months.

$14B is enough to forgive $10K worth of principal on 1.4M mortgages.  I've seen estimates that anywhere from 10 to upwards of 30 percent of all mortgages are underwater at the moment (forgetting entirely about any HEOLCs or second-mortgages, let's just stick with the primary).  So no, this isn't nearly enough - it could never be enough - and, my point, ought not even be contemplated in the first freaking place.

[Abu Morpheus]

Seriously, how high can the marginal tax rate on being responsible go?  Foregone subsidies are mathematically equivalent to a marginal tax increase.  Mankiw had a good blog post in a similar vein a few weeks back.  Back-of-the-envelope math shows that marginal rates on many folks approach 100%.  Any wonder that tax receipts continue to plummet?

Of course, it doesn't matter because it is more important to pander to the sheeple.

[SteveNYC]

"Squid Goes to Poland" - brilliant, this ties into Taibbi's "blood funnel" analogy very nicely. Leave the poor Pollocks alone, they got it bad enough in the '30s and '40s, if their politicians are smart they'll lock out the squid NOW before it gets entwined in their government and society.

[Racer]

Ever see the film "The Ruins"?

The killer vines remind me of GS!

[mark456]

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