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Frontrunning: November 18
- Bloomberg censorship alert? Inititally this Bloomberg article had a quote by Mizhuho's Hiromasa Nakamura saying "there will be a double-dip recession." Subsequently any reference to the gentleman and the quote below was "editorialized." Here is a snapshot of what the original Bloomberg article said (please google the bolded text):
Treasury three-month bill rates turned negative yesterday for the first
time since financial markets froze last year on concern that prices of
everything from stocks to commodities are too high given the outlook
for economic growth.The global average government bond yield dropped to 2.20 percent as of
yesterday from 2.50 percent in August, according to the Merrill Lynch
Global Sovereign Broad Market Plus Index. Bill Gross, who runs the
world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said
the “systemic risk” of new asset bubbles is rising with the Federal
Reserve keeping interest rates at record lows.“There will be a double-dip recession,” said Hiromasa Nakamura, a
senior investor at Mizuho Asset Management Co. in Tokyo, which oversees
the equivalent of $21.4 billion and is part of Japan’s second-largest
bank. “The Federal Reserve’s low-interest-rate policy will continue for
a long time, maybe two years. Treasury yields will decline.”The three-month bill rate was 0.005 percent as of 10:46 a.m. in Tokyo, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Rates turned negative on some bills maturing in January, according to
Sarah Sobeck, a Treasury trader at Jefferies & Co. one of 18
primary dealers that trade directly with the Fed.Bill rates were negative last December for the first time since the
government began selling them in 1929 as investors sought to preserve
their principal following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
- Goldman stock holders miffed at bonuses (WSJ)
- White House rebuke: angry Democrats shut down vote (HuffPo)
- Fed makes monitoring bank capital foremost concern (Bloomberg)
- Risk fatigue sparks correction speculation (FT)
- Treasury yield plunge sends warning (Barrons)
- Trichet says not all measures to be needed in the future (Bloomberg)
- Krugman on AIG: the Big Squander (NYT)
- Why Krugman is wrong about the Yuan (Forbes)
- Harvard poker pro says Texas Hold 'Em can teach traders when to fold (Bloomberg)
»
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et to Bloomberg?
I think you were meaning:
et tu Bloomberg?
Bump.
Bloomberg is supposed to be one of the good guys!
bitxez...
*shakes head*
what about ICE cancelling dollar trades this morning that caused a spike in the dollar and a plunge in S&P futures, while they "investigate"?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ice-investigating-spike-in-dollar-index...
There has been a long understanding between the powers that be and the major news outlets to repress, ignore, omit or out right not investigate certain "things" that might be extremely uncomfortable to those very same powers that be.
I suspect this incident is more along the lines of self censorship, where someone in lower management read the blurb and acted before they got a call from the executives upstairs or the powers that be. IMHO self censorship is a particularly egregious form of censorship because it's done in silent agreement with no actual words needing to be exchanged.
In fact, I've written here before how most conspiracies are silent, with no real direct communication expressed or received. The desired outcome is accomplished because everyone "understands" what the goals are and what they need to do. The method used is self censorship.
In the corporate or governmental setting and in society generally, the proper term is a "culture" of dishonesty or corruption.
Like this....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DA-Notice
Yes, the very fabric of American culture itself these days.
I've been referring to it as the Nod and Wink reality. We all live in and work in it, although, of course, it can't be talked about. It may explain much about alot of things, ranging from a massive proportion of the population being on psychotropic drugs (particularly antidepressants) to our general moral inertia.
Apparent causes that I see change from day to day. One that I haven't heard talked about in this context is our addiction to television--the Bible of Modern Life--and the time we spend exercising suspension of disbelief. Perhaps it changes our brain chemistry similarly to chronic cocaine or other drug abuse over time (getting permanently stuck in fantasy land). How many folks recognize professional liars for what they are when we see a television commercial? How many withdraw from the slavish unremarked accomodation of the corruption of their daily lives to movies and video games where they vicariously become heroic agents of moral authority--and prefer spending most of their "free" time there?
Just musings.
What you describe is not just musings but the basis for psychological operations and manipulation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSYOPS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare
Jeez, I figured it out for myself. Glad to hear it's being studied, though it is unfortunate that it's the wrong people doing the research and that nobody seems to be talking about it as a social problem (one operative even during "boom years".)
We seem to have become conditioned to look for meaning on display screens. Thank God for the internet. Perhaps.
Or perhaps it's just another Looking Glass.
Please take a few minutes today to contact you Rep and vote OUT this Health Care bill.
http://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Bloomberg is a joke (tv and online, the terminals are a different beast).
Their Washington bureau especially produces some of the most hopium filled fluff pieces of any media outlet.
I've noticed for a while that, on Bloomberg radio, they strategically cut to commercial whenever a guest starts to sound realistic (i.e., too bearish) or is about to say something nobody in their green shoot mind wants to hear.
I agree, Bloomberg TV used to be decent, but it is horrible now, I can't even watch it.
PROPOGANDA AND LIES from the NY Times
Panel Votes To Broaden Oversight Of The Fed
by Edmund L. Andrews
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/business/20regulate.html?ref=business
Damn Google web cache.
I mailed the original text to the email addresses at the bottom of the article, and reminded them. heh. (I know it probably wasn't they who removed it, but just the same.)
HuffPo has yet another Goldman front page splash headline.
Good for Arianna for continuing to press the cause.
If this wasn't already linked yesterday:
With F.H.A. Help, Easy Loans in Expensive Areas
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/business/20limits.html?_r=2&ref=business
Anyone tracking to see when they are going to be getting their many, many billions of 'aid' from the Treasury? Since it won't be reported by the Gov't.
Regarding the HuffPo piece on the delay on the financial reform legislation. Interesting that one of the leaders of the rebuke/shutdown is Maxine Waters, who voted against the Paul-Grayson amendment, along with some other members of the CBC. Could this be an intentional redirection and stalling tactic so as give opponents of meaningful reform time to cut backroom deals and water down or gut things like the Paul-Grayson amendment?
Of course bloomberg has censorship :) are you kidding? dont tell me guys it is a surprize for you!
last year they were one of the few leading lights - not that it changed a damned thing
Whoever pays for the media outlet stream controls the speech.
Freedom of Speech sounded good in elementary school but in reality..C'est l'vie.
Bloomberg wrote back to me. Response:
"The Treasury story is sort of a continuous story that tracks the moves trhoughout the trading day. However the quotes are generally dictated by what market its in. So when the story is trading out of Asia most of the quotes will be from Asian sources. Same with Europe. Since its currently the U.S. trading session most of the sources will be US sources, at least until the trading session ends."
global economy with local lies???
*writes down in running journal of apocalypse *
"Today, ICE cancelled suspicious trades of DFX at 82.21 or thereabouts. Today being Friday November 20th, 2009. This ought to be as propitious as July 14th, 2007 when the news broke of the first of Bears Stearns hedge funds going boom."
I suspect that it is more likely that Mizuho Asset Management Co. asked Bloomberg to retract Mr. Nakamura's statement.
Maybe that did happen.
But why did they change the end of the article? They could have just removed or replaced the quote. Instead, they tacked on a paragraph that was just weird in context of our censorship discussion.
“It was slow to sink in how low rates are going to be and for how long,” said Christian Cooper, an interest-rate strategist at RBC Capital Markets in New York, one of 18 primary dealers that trade with the central bank. “Sometimes you have to beat the market in the face with a little bit of Fed speak before the market understands what the Fed is saying.”
Beat the market in the face with Fed speak? Is this a covert confession about the modification of the article? Seems too ironic.
From Bloomberg:
John Mack, chief executive officer of Morgan Stanley, said banks’ behavior justified a Fed crackdown.
“We cannot control ourselves,” he said yesterday at a panel discussion hosted by Bloomberg News and Vanity Fair at Bloomberg LP’S headquarters in New York. “You have to step in and control the Street.”
I hope Greenspan prints this out and puts it on the mirror in the bathroom, so he can recognize the one responsible for the financial crisis. What were you thinking? Greedy bankers regulating themselves? prudently using derivatives? talk about irrational!
.. And so, what do we have after a year of bailout action caused by no regulation and poor oversight. No regulation, no oversight, and continued risky use of derivatives. Just think, what if we have another financial panic due to high leverage use, and contract interdependence of derivatives?
After a whole year ofter meltdown legislators took no real action. No investigation into root cause, no grand juries, no new regulation (although something may be pending?), what do you say to this other than, unbelievable.
So Barny Frank, if we investigate root cause of the financial crisis, perhaps we may find you, your dereliction of duty to the American people. Could it be that this is why we do not have an in-depth report of root cause like after the Savings and Loan crisis. Makes you wonder.
Mark Beck
DeLong said it first http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/11/chance-of-great-depression-now-5.html
then Krugman picked it up on his blog http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/the-aig-report/
before he said it in the NYT. You'll notice that DeLong's not writing about AIG above, and behold, Krugman's not really writing about AIG either. The barely-concealed message is that they're on board with the move against Geithner http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/68459-house-dem-gorwing... , in the hope that scapegoating Tim. G. will increase the political headroom for more stimulus and QE.
Two other things are worth mentioning. One, DeLong is tiptoeing away from his conviction that another Great Depression won't happen. This is either an ominous shift in the weathervane, or just a brazen attempt to increase the pressure for more fiscal and monetary easing, or both. My money is on both. Two, the unified neo-classical/Keynesian get-out is alive and well. If any given amount of monetary or fiscal easing has failed to revive the economy, the solution is always to double the easing. Whenever the ignorant plebs finally balks at further easing, well then it obviously bears the blame for what comes after.
Bloomberg also deleted the entire article that previously existed here (and was linked to from w/in a ZH entry.)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aySZ9TS.aODA&pos=11
This was the link to the bit about Barclays & Goldman CEOs/Execs saying (in church no less) that Jesus endorsed greed and Greed was a Christian tenet.
Matt Taibbi (here: http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/11/04/goldman-one-ups-gordon-gekko-...) also ref'd the link to B-Berg.
It's vaporized now. Like it never even happened.
If I close my eyes you can't see me!
Hello all. I'm one of the Treasury market reporters at Bloomberg writing to hopefully assure you that there was no censorship here. If you take a look at a sampling of Bloomberg articles on any day you will see comparable quotes and many that are far more bearish. For example, the author of the article in question also wrote a story just a few weeks back suggesting that some investors are betting that the U.S. will become the new Japan (By far a more bearish stance than a double dip).
If you are familiar with Bloomberg market stories you will notice that they are updated several times daily with quotes generally adjusted for the reasoning for the current price action and adjusted for the main market Treasuries are trading in at that time. So if its trading in Japan the main voices will be Asian investors. if its trading in Europe or the U.S. than the voices generally will be market participants in those locales. Its not strange at all to see that quote or similar quotes in the Treasury Market story. There have been several this week and I suspect people with say it next week. The double dip theory is not a controversial viewpoint nor is it new. Afterall, Bill Gross, the biggest bond investor in the world, subscribes to the view, among several others. There is no reason for us to censor it. We quote him and many like him all the time talking about the potential for the double dip. And again, some stories we have written have been more bearish.
The "censored" story is still on the website and the Bloomberg Terminal for anyone too see. All you have to do is type "Treasuries" in the search box, and you can view every update and what time it was updated.
Treasury market stories follow Treasury market price action, and that's essential to keep in mind. Its the main reason stories are updated, to try and give the reason for price movement on any given day. We have economy reporters who report on the economy if you are interested. Please visit Bloomberg.com and check it out. And again, please feel free to check out past and future Treasury market stories and you will see the concept of a double dip is often a main theme in our stories when its on the market's mind that say. Sometimes there are other factors. Hopefully my rambling here has done enough to at least get you to look at past Bloomberg stories and notice that we talk about double dipping all the freaking time and will probably continue to.
Just noting that Bloomberg is a third of the links above--so which is it? Truth or liars?