Term Sheet

Succinctly summarizing the positive and negative news, data, and market events of the week...

With the ECB's rate cut decision already wreaking havoc on logic and common sense everywhere, pushing the EUR much higher, and the USd and JPY lower, one can't wait just what non-standard measures Mario Draghi will come up with next to send the EUR to record highs, providing a boon to German IMports. Wait, but the GDP calculation said that net imports are... oh, nevermind. Perhaps Not so super Mario will announce a free Forex trading account for every unemployed European, with half functionality allowing only purchases of EUR, not sales. Look for that, and for further confirmaion from the former Goldmanite that the bailout mechanism at the heart of Europe's "sustainability", the OMT, still does not exist and never will, as it is simply impossible to actually agree on a legal term sheet which will govern it.

• *DRAGHI: CREDIT CONDITIONS FOR SMALL, MEDIUM-SIZED FIRMS TIGHT
• *DRAGHI SAYS ESSENTIAL TO REDUCE FRAGMENTATION FOR TRANSMISSION

As we reported well over a year ago coupled with some subsequent thoughts on what the inevitable launch of floating rate notes (FRNs) by the US Treasury means for the US bond market, we now learn that the launch of FRN Treasurys is imminent and the first US FRN note may come to the public as soon as a few months from now. As the Treasury's refunding statement issued moments ago announced, "we plan to issue a final rule on floating rate notes in the coming months, with the first FRN auction estimated to occur in either Q4 2013 or Q1 2014.  This timeframe reflects Treasury's best estimate for implementing required auction regulations and IT systems modifications. Treasury will provide additional information regarding the timing of the first auction at the August refunding."

The earlier ECB rate announcement came and went just as expected, and without granularity. Much more interesting will be the latest press conference. And if the last one was any indication, sparks will fly: recall that it was in March that "The ECB's Press Corps Realize They Have No Idea What OMT Is: "The Rules Are What They Are" Explains Draghi" - we look forward to FT's Michael Steen posting the same question to the former Goldmanite as it has been a month and... no term sheet, no details, nothing. Other expected questions: the "non-recurring yet blueprint template" nature of Cyprus, what the slowdown in LTRO repayments means, how the ECB will deal with the decelerating economy, and perhaps most importantly: what happens to deposits in other European banks? While we don't expect an actual answer to any of these, if indeed it is the globalist prerogative to accelerate the velocity of money by "spooking" it out of deposits and into circulation by spending or buying stocks, Draghi may have a stunner or two up his sleeve.

It took six months of humiliatingly empty rhetoric and bluster, before Europe's press corps, or rather just the FT's Michael Steen, finally asked perhaps the one most important question regarding the OMT, which does not stand for On Merkel's Tab, but rather "Outright Monetary Transactions" (full Draghi definition here) and is the magic "open-ended" bond-buying bullet and SMP replacement that has stabilized Europe: namely "what is it?" That it took so long for reporters, and by implication, the markets to actually point out that the emperor is indeed naked and inquire into the legal working of the ECB's deus ex machina is a testament to just what lengths the broader public has been zombified into believing that "the less you know, the better" historically, one of the KGB's better known slogans.

As is now confirmed, at least one of many JPMorgan margin calls directed at Lehman in the days before the world's biggest bankruptcy became fact, were based on glaringly erroneous information and an error so profound one wonders if this was not a premeditated "hit" on one bank by another bank. Yet a purposeful "hit" orchestrated by one bank, even JPMorgan, would require the involvement of the highest echelons of the US government. So was the US government complicit and give its blessing in this historic liquidation? The Abu Dhabi Investment Council would like to know.

Back in 2007, at the peak of the credit and housing bubble, Wall Street knew very well the securitization (and every other) party was ending, which is why the internal names used for most of the Collateralized Debt Obligations - securitized products designed to provide a last dash trace of yield in a market in which all the upside had already been taken out - sold to less sophisticated, primarily European, investors were as follows: "Subprime Meltdown," "Hitman," "Nuclear Holocaust," "Mike Tyson's Punchout," and, naturally, "Shitbag." Yet even in the last days of the bubble, Wall Street had a certain integrity - it sold securitized products collateralized by houses, which as S&P, and certainly Moody's, will attest were expected to never drop in price again. But one thing that was hardly ever sold even in the peak days of the 2007 credit bubble were securitizations based on personal-loans, the reason being even back then everyone's memory was still fresh with the recollection that it was precisely personal-loan securitization that was at the core of the previous, and in some ways worse, credit bubble - that of the late 1990s, which resulted with the bankruptcy of Conseco Finance. Well, in a few short days, those stalwarts of suicidal financial innovation Fortress and AIG, are about to unleash on the market (or at least those who invest other people's money in the absolutely worst possible trash to preserve their Wall Street careers while chasing a few basis points of yield) the second coming of the very worst of the last two credit bubbles.

• Guess who doesn't believe in the "great rotation out of bonds and into stocks": Abe Aids Bernanke as Japan Seen Buying Foreign Debt (BBG)
• AIG Sues Federal Reserve Vehicle in Dispute Over Lawsuit Rights (WSJ)
• JPMorgan Said to Weigh Disclosing Whale Report Faulting Dimon (BBG)
• Ugly Choices Loom Over Debt Clash (WSJ)
• Credit Suisse to cut bonus pool by 20 percent (Reuters)
• Brazilian Bikini Waxes Make Crab Lice Endangered Species (BBG)
• EU redrafts plan for bank rescue funding (FT)
• JCPenney stock plunges after bad holiday (NY Post)
• Regulator Comments Buoy Shanghai Stocks (WSJ)
• Japan voters back PM Abe's efforts to spur growth, beat deflation (Reuters)
• Cameron averts row over Europe speech (FT)
• Swatch Buys Harry Winston Jewelry Brand for $1 Billion (BBG)

Yesterday's "leak" of Draghi's comments that it is not monetization if just the tip only bonds with a maturity of 3 years or less are monetized, aka, legitimate monetization does not cause inflation was so horribly handled that the ECB huffed and puffed in a desperate attempt to appear angry, even though it was absolutely delighted that it had even more ammo in its war against Germany. Today, the leakage continues only this time nobody cares that Draghi's desperation is hitting the headlines left and right. As a result, Draghi literally pulled a carbon copy of Hank Paulson, and while he did not have a three page term sheet in hand, threatened that the Euro would end unless he was allowed to monetize short-term bonds. Here's looking at your Germany. From Bloomberg: "European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the bank’s primary mandate compels it to intervene in bond markets to wrest back control of interest rates and ensure the euro’s survival. Mounting his strongest case yet for ECB bond purchases, Draghi told lawmakers in a closed-door session at the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday that the bank has lost control of borrowing costs in the 17-nation monetary union."

“Greece is like a Rice Crispies Square. She’s snapped, crackled and now I am waiting for the final pop.”

The new Greek Prime Minister had an eye surgery and cannot attend the EU summit meeting. The new Greek Finance Minister became ill and cannot attend the EU summit meeting. Both a tragic turns of events; we are sure. Both coincidental you may think; but not us. Perhaps upon ascending to power and examining the books they have found that everything was not exactly, how shall we say this; Kosher comes to mind. Perhaps the records indicated a far more serious excursion from the facts than previously thought. The Germany Finance Minister came just about right out and said, “no more money.” Nothing of significance will happen in the European Union unless Germany approves it. (Please repeat this five times and write it on your whiteboard if necessary.)

Until this point virtually every pundit and financial journalist and blogger has opined on JPM, its prop trading operation (as first exposed by Zero Hedge), and its massive loss which due to its pair trade nature has potentially unlimited upside, but likely will top out at $5 billion (as also first explained by Zero Hedge over a week ago and subsequently by the WSJ). The one person who has kept silent so far was the man whose entire philosophy predicted just this epic flare out, by revolving around the assumption that humans operate under the illusion that they understand rare events: they don't (for more details read his books The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness which by now have been read by all traders in the world, but apparently not those formerly in charge of JPM's CIO unit). Courtesy of this BBC Newsnight interview, he breaks his silence and shares his opinion, which as one may expect are far from laudatory: "JPM has 10-15 times the risk of a regular hedge fund... They should not be using my to play in something that is way too dangerous and too complicated for them... What I want [for JPM] is the following - skin in the game. People when they make money should get the upside, should get the upside; and people should be harmed when they have the downside. Hedge funds have that."... Finally Taleb loses it by comparing Wall Street to the mafia: "I am not an idealist. I am someone who doesn't want to be paying the $14 million dollars for this lady Ina Drew, which is more than John Gotti the mafioso got." Well, neither does anyone else. But, sadly, even Nassim now realizes that it is the financial mafia who owns this country and calls all the shots.

All you need to read.

Solyndra was just the appetizer. Earlier today, in what will come as a surprise only to members of the administration, the company which proudly held the rights to the world's largest solar power project, the hilariously named Solar Trust of America ("STA"), filed for bankruptcy. And while one could say that the company's epic collapse is more a function of alternative energy politics in Germany, where its 70% parent Solar Millennium AG filed for bankruptcy last December, what is relevant is that last April STA was the proud recipient of a $2.1 billion conditional loan from the Department of Energy, incidentally the second largest loan ever handed out by the DOE's Stephen Chu. That amount was supposed to fund the expansion of the company's 1000 MW Blythe Solar Power Project in Riverside, California. From the funding press release, "This project construction is expected to create over 1,000 direct jobs in Southern California, 7,500 indirect jobs in related industries throughout the United States, and more than 200 long-term operational jobs at the facility itself. It will play a key role in stimulating the American economy,” said Uwe T. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Solar Trust of America and Executive Chairman of project development subsidiary Solar Millennium, LLC." Instead, what Solar Trust will do is create lots of billable hours for bankruptcy attorneys (at $1,000/hour), and a good old equity extraction for the $22 million DIP lender, which just happens to be NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, another "alternative energy" company which last year received a $935 million loan courtesy of the very same (and now $2.1 billion poorer) Department of Energy, which is also a subsidiary of public NextEra Energy (NEE), in the process ultimately resulting in yet another transfer of taxpayer cash to NEE's private shareholders.

A few days ago, before the definitive Greek PSI term sheet was available, we presented the complete preliminary BNP PariBas decision which despite having some assumptions was almost spot on in its flow chartness of Greek next steps. Today, to avoid any confusion on the matter, here is Bank of America with its take on the finalized Greek PSI Terms and the final final (until changed yet again) Greek decision tree.

It is only appropriate, and so ironic, that a politically motivated settlement whose purpose is to squash any claims of pervasive defective document fraud (and contract law but just ask GM bondholders about that - it's hardly news) is itself found to be... defective. American Banker reports that the reason why the terms of the so-called historic (just ask the Teleprompter in Chief) foreclosure settlement deal are not public yet, is "because a fully authorized, legally binding deal has not been inked yet." Wait, so America's cohort of AGs just all, pardon the pun, robosigned a piece of paper that does not exist? What next: there is a different Linda Green signature on every page of this yet to be produced document making a complete mockery of the rule of law?