• OTC Derivatives: Is the DTCC Too Big To Fail?
    rc whalen
    02/09/2010 - 08:06
    At our firm we frequently receive calls from clients and readers asking about the likelihood of the passage by the Congress in Washington of reform legislation regarding over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, financial regulation and/or mortgage securitization. Our answer is small to none given the political trends and the state of the lobbies in Washington, most specifically the large bank lobby that protects the Sell Side monopoly in OTC derivatives and securities. The fact that Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) is still apparently not comfortable with the entirely watered down House proposal to reform OTC derivatives, for example, tells you all you need to know. Stick a fork in it.
  • Greece Implements Pension Reforms
    Leo Kolivakis
    02/09/2010 - 08:44
    Greece just implemented pension reforms in an attempt to shore up its public finances and others will follow suit...
  • Why Casinos Deserve Our Trust More than Banks
    smartknowledgeu
    02/09/2010 - 02:23
    Today, casinos have much more integrity in their business dealings than do banks. In general, casinos have more cash and more transparent business dealings with their clients than do banks. That's why it's so ironic that most large commercial banks, as part of their "moral code", do not allow private bankers to do business with casinos. It appears today, that the bankers got that one entirely wrong.

Frontrunning: November 24

Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/24/2009 08:50 -0500



  • The Goldman "leak" was right all along: Q3 preliminary GDP at 2.8% (Hatzius had it at 2.7%), massive drop from previous fudged number of 3.5% (Bloomberg), ex CfC and other stimuli Q3 GDP was negative
  • More central bank secrecy: HBOS and RBS bailed out with secret last minute emergency financing (FT)
  • Russian central bank cuts interest rates to record lows (BBC)
  • It's beginning to look a lot like a "W" (MarketWatch)
  • Huffington: Will the unemployment disaster be Obama's Katrina (HuffPo)
  • A real-time view of the commercial real estate market, or lack thereof (CoStar)
  • Cohan: Goldman Sachs: the case for the defense (FT)
  • China sees share fall on banks' fundraising fears (BBC)
  • Icahn outbids Penn National Gaming for starting bid on Fontainebleau (WSJ)
  • Rajaratnam denies SEC insider trading charges (Reuters)
  • IMF chief outlines risks of an early exit (FT)
  • Government deficits and private growth (WSJ)
  • How "global" are global imbalances? (CFR)
  • Foreclosures will keep rising through 2010 (LA Times)

 

0
Your rating: None

»


by LoneStarHog
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 08:59
#140417

Goldman Leaks:  "That's one small squirt for man; one giant leak for mankind."

by tip e. canoe
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 10:34
#140499

"one giant leak for squidkind."

by Anonymous
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:00
#140418

You've gotta love a 25% error in the GDP. Can't say I didn't see that one coming.

by docj
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:00
#140419

Q3 preliminary GDP at 2.8%... ex CfC and other stimuli Q3 GDP was negative.

Gee, what a shock.

by trillion_dollar...
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:02
#140420

Come on now. It was "only" a 20% revision downwards. Let's not be so hard on our economic overlords.

by Cognitive Dissonance
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:07
#140422

Which is more insane? The official Government economic statistics or people who believe them? Did you notice the question was which was "more" insane, not if one or the other is insane?

The powers that be (place here any bogeyman you wish to include) are weaving an alternative reality filled with economic numbers, official statements and various supporting characters and entities. Which leads to a simple question. The answer can be as complicated as you wish but I like to distill things down to its simplest form.

Why are the powers that be creating an alternative reality for public consumption and why is the pubic rejecting real life first hand experience to the contrary and basically accepting the alternative reality at face value?

by LoneStarHog
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:17
#140431

Why? For the same reason that virtually all humans require a belief in some religious/spiritual power.

by suteibu
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:20
#140433

I think Bradbury touched on that in Fahrenheit 451 with his description of interactive TV which allowed people to create their own past and present.  Marx's opiate for the people.  Boy, was Bradbury (and Marx) right about how easy it is to control the populace by lying to them.

by tip e. canoe
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 10:31
#140496

cog, baudrillard explored this question quite extensively.

"The real is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, and memory banks, models of control-- and it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times from these. It no longer needs to be rational, because it no longer measures itself against an ideal."     J.B. Simulacra and Simulation

just found this on a google:

http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/articles_rcw/baudrillard-dream.htm

maybe not directly relevant to your exploration, but on other levels, perhaps quite poignant, especially if you consider cyberspace to be the interface between "reality" and the unconscious.

by gatopeich
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 10:58
#140536

Because as Julius Caesar, or Demosthenes, said long ago: "What we wish, we readily believe."

by WaterWings
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 11:47
#140593

People, unlike sheep, keep each other in line.

This is like any situation in the history of human beings when enough psychopaths gravite to positions of control and start pillaging en masse - it gets top heavy and they all point fingers.

The only recovery without total collapse is the majority of the US as a 3rd world country - a slide into Orwell's 1984: most of us will either be proles or part of the hyper-surveilled buffer class.

by tip e. canoe
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 12:41
#140667

i choose the end of blade runner.

by Shameful
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:14
#140427

Wow It's almost like Goldman had the inside track, what a shock!  So will markets shoot up on the "good news" that the GDP number was way worse than initially reported?  The old investment strategy of buy on bad fundamentals...I know I heard Cramer talking about it before.  Now I have to wonder how Kudlow will spin this turd into an excuse to be bullish.

by Duke of Con Dao
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:17
#140432

hmm... I don't I don't remember the preliminary estimate coming with a ±25% error band.

time to roll out one more viewing of Old Boy versus Evil Goldman Squid ...

they've been re-co-located in a dark pool they're unfamiliar with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9yvSmSGjNg

 

by Anonymous
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:47
#140453

Very nice!

by Anonymous
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:21
#140434

Yup Goldman is brilliant. They can tell us the truth and still take us to the cleaners. I'm starting to have a new found respect for those guys. and yes, it is sad.

by omi
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 10:33
#140497

Goldmanites are good.

 

Russia's interest rates record lows at 9%.

by Miyagi_san
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:22
#140435

duke that was ah!!some

by Anonymous
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:32
#140440

Hummmmm.

http://www.thesmartasset.com/mini-madoff-goldman350.jpg

by Anonymous
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:35
#140443

HSBC gives retail goldbugs the boot:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125902295608261455.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTWhatsNews

by lsbumblebee
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 09:56
#140462

Nice trampoline for the dollar at 75. Boing! Boing! Boing!

by Keyser Soze
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 10:28
#140492

Of course it looks like a "W" - it's Dubya's final message to the world

by Steak
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 10:39
#140505

So does that mean when the dollar goes down to 0 that will be Obama's final message to the world :-P

by JacksWastedLife
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 10:35
#140500

It was obvious that the GDP data was leveraged.

by Steak
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 10:38
#140503

I put up a sticky note in the office calling for 2.4% GDP before the print...i was a little red faced that day but the revision today brings some good validation.

by Anonymous
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 13:24
#140740

Why revise the # at all if it is a fantasy # anyway?

by Anonymous
on Tue, 11/24/2009 - 14:48
#140876

They knew that a 'more positive than expected' GDP would trigger a stock rally, but a later downward revision would have only a minimal effect.

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