Gary Locke

Tim Geithner's time is almost done, but the former NY Fed head is only one of very many whose position is expected to be replaced in Obama's second term (just so there is a non-continuous chain of command if and when the time comes for the people to demand an explanation for the state of the US economy from the talented Mr. Geithner). Who else is out and who is expected to be in? The following list attempts to cover all upcoming rotations at the top of the US cabinet. What is not attempted is a prediction of where in the private sector people such as Geithner will end up: that is considered largely self-explanatory.

All you need to read.

In today’s financial world, a real life, real-time economic World Series of Poker is being played out before our very eyes between the Central Banks of the world’s largest economies. As opposed to the annual Las Vegas World Series of Poker tournament, the buy in at the Central Bank World Series of Poker table is exponentially steeper, in the range of trillions of dollars, yen, and Euros that have been used to monetize the world’s debt, and the stakes are default of sovereign debt and the accompanying collapse of that domestic fiat currency.

By now everyone has undoubtedly been reading reams of primary and secondary opinions based on Krugman's discussion that it is time to play hardball with China on the FX "manipulation" issue. Retaliatory implications aside (and we are confident China will be full of these) it was ironic that one commentator on CNBC today pointed out that since the CNY is pegged to the USD, shouldn't America be looking at itself first when it comes to currency manipulation, before blaming others. In essence, China is merely taking advantage of the exploding US balance sheet, and adding on top of it its own fiat printing largesse, yet offset by its positive trading surplus. Certainly, Bernanke should have thought of that before it set off on the greatest experiment of failed Keynesianism ever. But now that China has served its purpose and was the economic rebound leader for the past year, it may no longer be as needed. No matter the logic though. The people have spoken and they want CNY blood (or the inverse as the case may be -what is that: lymph?). And not just the people. We have just received a copy of a letter signed by 130 Congressmen, and sent to Tim Geithner and Gary Locke, urging the Treasury to immediately address the "growing problems associated with China's continued currency manipulation" and in essence serving as a springboard to the latent protectionism brewing between China and the US, but never really escalating into all out trade war.

In this Bloomberg clip, commerce secretary Gary Locke says that "if there is to be another stimulus -- and that’s being hotly discussed and very seriously considered within the administration as well as members of Congress -- it needs to be very targeted, very specific and we need to be very mindful of the deficit as well.In other words, with unemployment not improving after the first $787 billion was spent, and since at this point nothing matters since America will never be able to realistically service its debt, with mid-term elections coming up, and Obama's rating plummeting even despite an orchestrated 50% rally, it is a matter of months, if not days, before the President unveils another multi-trillion UST sinkhole. One that is likely to be promptly followed by the Chairman announcing the next iteration of Quantitative Easing.