Deutsche Bank

I told you it probably wouldn't work. Now, you really have speculators lining up to put on the short trade of the a lifetime. Methinks those lines may start to get pretty long as well as I spy the Asian markets as well as the US and European futures drop like rocks in desalinated pond water. Asking 2 trillion euro, can I get a bid for 2 trillion euro, going... going... gone!

So everybody is asking if "Greece will make it through the Pan-European Sovereign debt crisis and if not, then who's next?" Well, we have spent at least 3 man-months answering this very question, and I am finally getting around to publishing these answers in a formal report. It is the calculations behind this very same report that has allowed me to call this Pan-European Debt thing quite accurately for the last 4 or 5 months - calls that were in direct contravention to practically every quoted political leader and most Wall Street banks may I add. Let's walk through recent history...

This article was inspired by a conversation in January 2010 with fellow directors of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee: Chairman Bill Murphy, Secretary/Treasurer Chris Powell, and Directors Adrian Douglas and Ed Steer. In speaking about the growing role of the exchange traded funds in the precious metals market, it was clear that the disclosure that the precious metals ETFs described below were providing to investors was inadequate. However, was there a material omission under securities law? I found the issues complex. Understanding the commodities markets can seem daunting to someone like myself with a securities background. Meanwhile, the securities markets and related legal and regulatory issues can be unfamiliar to those with a background in commodities. I decided to ask my attorney to help me gather the relevant information into one document to make it easier for GATA supporters and other interested parties—whether from the commodities or securities markets—to examine these issues and to better understand and price these securities. - Catherine Austin Fitts, Solari Report

After seeing its demands for secrecy rejected soundly twice, once in district court and once in appellate, the Fed is now appealing the "Pittman" decision yet again. As Bloomberg reports, "attorneys for the Fed today asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals in New York to reconsider a unanimous ruling by a three- judge panel." On the other side of the Fed is, as usual, the Clearing House Association: the organization of bankers that stands to lose the most should its secretive bailouts by the Fed no longer be subject to unconstitutional secrecy. There is no reason to expect that the second appeal will work. However, it is the escalation from there that will be most critical. " If the court refuses the request, the Fed may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court." That Supreme Court Decision, which will likely come around the time of Obama's mid-term elections, may prove to be more critical for Obama' reelection chances than unemployment, healthcare and regulatory "reform" combined. If the Supreme Court does ultimately side with the Fed, it will become clear once and for all who truly runs this country (and the world), and the the US constitution is at best something the oligarchy uses when it runs out of one ply Treasury Paper.

EuroWeek magazine reports that Greece has hired Lazard in an advisory capacity: it is not a stretch to assume that this is in connection with a potential, and some say inevitable, bankruptcy... unless the country is really serious about procuring a stalking horse distressed M&A bidder for Santorini. We also note that DebtWire has yet to report on this development: looks like the FT is really starting to slip. It would not be a stretch to see why Greece and Lazard are on good terms: after Greece basically put all banks on the kleptocrata non grata list, the pseudo-French company seems like a legitimated candidate (not to mention that France will fail first should Greece default). Additionally, in March 2009 the firm advised the Hellenic Government on the sale of various Olympic Airlines assets to Marfin. Lazard is also no stranger to sovereign reorg, having worked with Nicaragua, Ecuador and Cote d'Ivoire on various restructuring assignments. However, while those deals were a walk in the park, Jim Millstein and and new (and critical) addition Felix Rohatyn will find Greece, where 80% of the population does not want a bailout and in fact is rooting for a default, a much tougher nut to crack.

Gold, now?

Goldman employees have incriminated the company in the quest for compensation, but I have the solution...

Here comes the next witchhunt: The Atlantic, citing two Deutsche Bank traders, reports that the German bank is guilty of an identical transgression that Goldman (and to a much lesser extent, John Paulson) is in hot water for currently: i.e., DB arranged a deal for IKB designed by JP. Look for DB's stock to drop as expectations for a Wells Notice hit fever pitch. The reason one has not come yet is because, as we reported this weekend, Robert Khuzami has recused himself from investigating Deutsche due to his long tenure there as a lawyer (presumably supervising CDO issuance). The reason one most likely is in the making, is that, as we also reported, Greg Lippmann, or the head Deutsche CDO trader mysteriously departed last week. Look for much more weakness in fins over the next few days.

The incest continues: the WSJ has informed that the SEC's chief investigator, Robert Khuzami, used to be general counsel for Deutsche Bank, and presumably reviewed numerous CDO-related transaction, while on the "other side" of the wall. "As part of that job, he worked with lawyers who advised on the CDOs
issued by the German bank and how details about them should be
disclosed to investors. The group included more than 100 lawyers who
also defended the bank against lawsuits and vetted other financial
products, these people said." The good: he probably knows more about CDOs than any other person in government administration history, and thus would not have brought on the Goldman case without being aware of all the potential tripwire nuances (and yes, if the Goldman case gets to the discovery stage, which it will, it is game over for Goldman's defense strategy, which means settlement and/or much worse). The bad: who knows how many Deustche Bank CDO's of comparable or worse nature he allowed to see the light of day. The most interesting: "Because of Mr. Khuzami's old job and his financial interest in the
company, he has recused himself from any matters related to Deutsche
Bank, according to an SEC spokesman." With Greg Lippmann's (legendary head of CDO trading at the German firm whose assets are greater than all of Germany's GDP) recent sudden departure, and the SEC being prevented from bringing CDO-related charges against the bank (for the time being), is DB currently actively cleaning up its tracks? After all the firm was one of the top 3 CDO issuers in the period under consideration.

Interest rate derivatives certainly help many individual businesses control and hedge their costs.

But when a bunch of individuals all attempt to reduce their risks at the same time in the same way, it can increase the risk to the overall system.

The bottom is about to fall out for Goldman. First Reuters reports that Deutsche CEO Josef Ackerman will be asked to testify in relation to the near-collapse of German IKB, a bank that has gained sudden notoriety for being implicated in the alleged Goldman CDO fraud as a dumb buyer of anything pitched to it. As Deutsche Bank has previous been blamed for the near-collapse of IKB by its former CEO Stefan Orstfein, would not be surprised if Josef takes this chance to join the "blame Goldman" bandwagon to deflect attention from himself. Ironically, Deutsche Bank is certainly not without blame as its CDO-desk managed by just departed Greg Lippmann was one of the powerhouses in arranging Abacus-type deals in the 2005-2007 time period. And inseparate news, again Reuters notes that France is the latest, after Germany and the UK, to "mull" a Goldman probe. Whether British, French and other German companies will follow in BayernLB's footsteps and stop trading with Goldman remains to be seen. Certainly, there is an element of politics to all such actions, and political players in Germany and the UK are most in need of populist electoral boosts, while France not so much, at least for the time being.

The (in)famous Greg Lippmann is gone. The question is why? Is Deustche Bank about to report the next Wells receipt? Of course not: Goldman did not do so even though it held it for 9 months.

" in 2007 the liabilities of Barclays exceeded the UK’s GDP, the liabilities of Deutsche Bank stood at 80% of Germany’s GDP, and the liabilities of Fortis were several times larger than the GDP of its home country, Belgium ... such financial institutions may not just be “too big to fail”, but in fact “too big to exist” ... It was irrational to let Lehman Brothers fail, but it happened. Those who bet on that failure earned a substantial amount of money. So why not bet on a possible irrationality of European decision-making? "

I know I'll raise my hand to the aforementioned question. The issue is,
as I huffed and puffed about how overvalued GS is, particularly
considering the amount of risk that it faced, I got a lot of blow back. Goldman has a lot of risk surrounding it that no one wanted to recognize - until now!

Spreads widened dramatically today, closing at their wides, as overnight weakness from GOOG's miss combined with further contagious stress in European sovereigns and financials was slammed down following the SEC's charges against GS. IG widened the most close-to-close in over two months and HY underperformed as derisking, which started overnight, was clearly in play and perhaps the initial gappy nature suggest that this rally remains very fragile.