Nortel

• Romney dominates presidential debate (FT)
• What Romney’s Debate Victory Means (Bloomberg)
• Obama Lead Shrinks in Two Battlegrounds (WSJ)
• "Everything will fall apart unless the Spanish conditions are extremely tough" German policy-maker (Telegraph)
• Draghi Stares at Spain as Brinkmanship Keeps ECB Waiting (Bloomberg)
• RBS facing loss after Spanish property firm collapse (Telegraph)
• Burdened by Old Mortgages, Banks Are Slow to Lend Now (WSJ)
• The Woman Who Took the Fall for JPMorgan Chase (NYT)
• European Banks Told to Hold On to $258 Billion of Fresh Capital (Bloomberg)
• Europe Weighs More Sanctions as Iran’s Currency Plummets (Bloomberg)

• No Joy on Wall Street as Biggest Banks Earn $63 Billion (Bloomberg)
• And more good news: IMF’s Blanchard Says Crisis Will Last a Decade (Reuters)
• Hobbit Returns to Find Middle Earth Has Become Expensive (Bloomberg)
• Freddie's Foreclosure Plan Hits Roadblock (WSJ)
• Who will buy the FT? Pearson CEO Scardino Will Step Down as Fallon Takes Over (BBG)
• Jeremy Lin Said to Be in Talks With Harvard on Licensing Deal (Bloomberg)
• Jon Weil tears apart the NYAG "prosecution" - Eric Schneiderman Will Have to Do Better Than This (BBG)
• Portugal Offers to Exchange Bonds as It Seeks Debt Market Access (Bloomberg)
• Is unlimited growth a thing of the past? (FT-Martin Wolf)
• European Bank Capital Results Overtaken by Tougher Global Rules (Bloomberg)
• China’s Slowdown Reverberates as ADB Cuts Forecasts (Bloomberg)
• Tokyo has no plan to extend currency swap deal with Seoul (Reuters)

Falling interest rates are a feature of our current monetary regime, so central that any look at a graph of 10-year Treasury yields shows that it is a ratchet (and a racket, but that is a topic for another day!).  There are corrections, but over 31 years the rate of interest has been falling too steadily and for too long to be the product of random chance.  It is a salient, if not the central fact, of life in the irredeemable US dollar system. Irving Fisher, writing about falling prices (I shall address the connection between falling prices and falling interest rates in a forthcoming paper) proposed a paradox: “The more the debtors pay, the more they owe.” Debtors slowly pay down their debts and reduce the principle owed.  This would reduce the NPV of their debts in a normal environment.  But in a falling-interest-rate environment, the NPV of outstanding debt is rising due to the falling interest rate at a pace much faster than it is falling due to debtors’ payments.  The debtors are on a treadmill and they are going backwards at an accelerating rate. How apropos is Fisher’s eloquent sentence summarizing the problem!

• Jon Huntsman Will Leave Republican Presidential Race, Endorse Mitt Romney, Officials Say (WaPo)
• Dont laugh - Plosser: Fed Tightening Possible Before Mid-2013 (WSJ)
• Greece’s Creditors Seek End To Deadlock (FT)
• France Can Overcome Crisis With Reforms – Sarkozy (Reuters)
• Nowotny Says S&P Favors Fed’s Bond Buying Over ECB’s ‘Restrictive’ Policy (Bloomberg)
• Bomb material found in Thailand after terror warnings (Reuters)
• Ma Victory Seen Boosting Taiwan Markets as Baer Considers Upgrading Stocks (Bloomberg)
• Japan Key Orders Jump; Policymakers Fret over Euro (Reuters)
• Renminbi Deal Aims to Boost City Trade (FT)

Adding insult upon injury...

Disabled Nortel employees, just weeks away from losing their medical benefits on Dec. 31, watched what appears to be their remaining lifeline dissolve before their eyes...

"Take a position. Do the right thing. Pass Bill C-216. It is the right thing to do. By doing nothing, by leaving us hanging, in my opinion, they are effectively giving their blessing to the court judge and lawyers we are dealing with to bury us alive. I do not know why. I do not understand what I and 400 other sick people did wrong to be treated like this."

- Jackie Bodie, Nortel disabled employee

According to Jack Mintz, the Canadian pension crisis is all a myth. Tell it to Nortel's disabled that are still fighting for their pensions and benefits, and like many other disabled Canadians are caught in the disability poverty trap.

When I testified on Parliament Hill last April, I knew it be a matter of time before pensioners would be protesting their cuts in pensions and benefits. As much as the images of Nortel pensioners taking it to the Hill disturb me, they are nothing compared to the mass protests we'll see all around the world in the future when the pension crisis reaches a boiling point. Politicians should take this as a wake-up call and act in the best interests of all citizens.

Liquidating Nortel has more troubles to add to its plate. Not only is the Canadian firm seeing a major push back to its liquidation plans by recently notorious private equity firm MatlinPatterson, which refuses to go gently into that good night and write off its $400 million investment in the failed telecom maker, but now it has to deal with its own employees who have threatened to blow up a French plant unless they get preferential layoff terms. The Globe and Mail reports that "workers had placed gas cylinders in front of the plant in the Yvelines
area near Paris, where 480 jobs are set to be axed following bankruptcy
proceedings."

As we wrote extensively two weeks ago when discussed the ISDA CDS dutch settlement auction, we came to the conclusion that it presents a terrific one-time arbitrage opportunity due to the fundamentals-to-liquidity disconnect in the valuation of a given defaulted security (much more in linked article).

Bloomberg reports that Charter Communications, which as we noted, did not pay its Jan. 15 interest payment and has hired Rick Cieri and his mega-bankruptcy law firm Kirkland and Ellis...

In an example of what we will be seeing a whole lot more of in the next few days, Flextronics issued a press release, claiming "it has been proactively engaged in executing a risk mitigation plan with respect to its relationship with Nortel for a period of several months. In December 2008, Flex engaged The Blackstone Group as it financial advisor to assist with evaluating the Nortel relationship and planning for any Nortel restructuring strategy." In addition, Flextronics will provide more specific financial details associated with today's news on its January 28, 2PM earnings call.

Despite our assumption that this would be a Southern New York Case, and in fact was a Delaware filing, the overall parameters turned out right.

Despite our assumption that this would be a Southern New York Case, and in fact was a Delaware filing, the overall parameters turned out right.