Treasury Department

• Al-Qaeda Links Cloud Syria as U.S. Seeks Clarity on Rebels (BBG)
• Administration Tells Lawmakers of Evidence Linking Assad to Attack (WSJ)
• Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper to publish numbers of secret spying orders (CBS)
• U.S., Switzerland strike bank deal over tax evasion (Reuters)
• Another Budget Deal Bites the Dust (WSJ)
• Contemplating Summers Drives Investors to Seek Beltway Expertise (BBG)
• Austerity Test Looms in Australia as Abbott Pledges Cuts (BBG)
• Gay Spouses in All States Now Married Under U.S. Tax Law (BBG)
• Shadow banks face limits to securities trading (FT)
• EU's Rehn sees European recovery strengthening in 2014 (Reuters) ... or 2015... or 2022... or never?

As everyone is now completely distracted with the looming prospect of yet another illegal war to be waged by the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, let’s look at a few other things going on while no one is looking.

This chart seems to sum up our fiscal challenges as well as anything else...

With president Obama taking his role as Warmonger-In-Chief ever more seriously, it is easy to forget that the only important function before the greatest presidential teleprompter reader in history, is that of Socialized Healthcare Provider-in-Comrade. And so today, in the fog of pre-war, the Obama administration released the final rules on the "Individual Mandate" component of Obamacare, which requires most Americans to buy health insurance starting in 2014 or be fined. Specifically, the rules list lay out the amount of penalties that Americans will face if they opt out of socialized healthcare. The WSJ was kind enough to read the Treasury Department release and summarize it as follows.

• Opposition figure: major decisions on Syria expected within hours (Al Arabiya)
• Syria challenges U.S. to "produce the evidence" that Assad regime launched chemical attack (CBS)
• British PM says world must act on Syria, weighs response (Reuters)
• U.S. Treasury to Hit Debt Limit in Mid-October (WSJ)
• U.S. could look beyond U.N. Security Council in any Syria strike (Reuters)
• Nasdaq, NYSE at odds on outage cause as SEC seeks facts (Reuters)
• Ackman’s J.C. Penney Sale Ends Failed Saga to Agitate for Change (BBG)
• Zandi, LaVorgna, Blinder, Rattner all is one con puff piece (BBG)
• Best Buy Founder Schulze Plans Stock Sale to Diversify Assets (BBG) - "diversify assets" = dump overpriced junk
• Zero Worship: Credit-Card Firms Compete With No-Interest Transfers (WSJ)
• Len Blavatnik wins $50m in JPMorgan lawsuit (FT)
• Danone Finds Yogurt’s All Greek as Oikos Chases Chobani (BBG)

As rising Taper (and QE unwind) uncertainty, the biggest trade driving the rate complex, and by implication, the entire risk complex, is being put (no pun intended) to rest. As BofA explains: "the FOMC (the biggest buyer of duration and convexity risk in the world) is long the option to taper asset purchases (and eventually raise rates) if the data improves. That leaves the market short the option that the Fed may decide to taper. The market has looked to hedge this “short gamma” exposure by selling duration and buying vol."

THE RESULTS OF THE 5-YEAR NOTE AUCTION COULD RESULT IN THE UNSCHEDULED REOPENING OF THE 7-YEAR NOTES OF SERIES P-2018 (CUSIP NO. 912828RE2)

If the auction of the 5-year Treasury notes to be held Wednesday, August 28, 2013, results in a high yield in a range of 1.500% through and including 1.624%, the 5-year notes will be considered an additional issue of the outstanding 1-1/2% 7-year notes of Series P-2018 (CUSIP No. 912828RE2) originally issued August 31, 2011. The additional issue of notes would have the same CUSIP number as the outstanding notes, which are currently outstanding in the amount of $29,886 million. If the auction results in the issuance of an additional amount of the outstanding 7-year notes rather than a new 5-year note, it will be indicated in the Treasury's auction results press release and by a special announcement. Any net long position reporting in this auction should be in regard to the 5-year notes.

The yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries is skyrocketing, the Dow has been down for 5 days in a row and troubling economic news is pouring in from all over the planet.  The much anticipated "financial correction" is rapidly approaching, and investors are starting to race for the exits.  We have not seen so many financial trouble signs all come together at one time like this since just prior to the last major financial crisis.  It is almost as if a "perfect storm" is brewing, and a lot of the "smart money" has already gotten out of stocks and bonds. Of course a lot of people believe that we will never see another major financial crisis like we experienced in 2008 ever again.  A lot of people think that this type of "doom and gloom" talk is foolish.  It is those kinds of people that did not see the last financial crash coming and that are choosing not to prepare for the next one even though the warning signs are exceedingly clear.  The following are 18 signs that global financial markets are heading for a vicious circle...

If you want to track how close we are to the next financial collapse, there is one number that you need to be watching above all others.  The number that we are talking about is the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries, because it affects thousands of other interest rates in our financial system.  When the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries goes up, that is bad for the U.S. economy because it pushes long-term interest rates up.  When interest rates rise, it constricts the flow of credit, and a healthy flow of credit is absolutely essential to the debt-based system that we live in. 

'Larry Summers for Fed Chair' proponents are working hard to reverse his generally poor reputation and seem to have gained some ground. They’ve tempted even Fed skeptics with reports that Summers doesn’t believe much in quantitative easing. But his supporters are also making claims that don’t stand up to the facts. Call us old-fashioned, but we think we should be wary of power-hungry egotists whose personal philosophy is to obscure the truth.

Problem ... What Problem?

There was a time when Jamie Dimon liked everyone to believe that his JPMorgan had a "fortress balance sheet", that he was disgusted when the US government "forced" a bailout on it, and that no matter what the market threw its way it would be just fine, thanks. Then the London Whale came, saw, and promptly blew up the "fortress" lie. But while JPM's precarious balance sheet was no surprise to anyone (holding over $50 trillion in gross notional derivatives will make fragile fools of the best of us), what has become a bigger problem for Dimon is that slowly but surely JPM has not only become a bigger litigation magnet than Bank of America, but questions are now emerging if all of the firm's recent success wasn't merely due to crime. Crime of the kind that "nobody accept or denies guilt" of course - i.e., completely victimless. Except for all the fines and settlements. Here is a summary of JPM's recent exorbitant and seemingly endless fines.

Based on media reports over the past few weeks, there are two clear front-runners in the competition to be named Ben Bernanke’s successor as Fed chairman. Current Vice Chair Janet Yellen sits in one corner, former Treasury Secretary and National Economic Council (NEC) Director Larry Summers in the other corner, and pundits are actively placing their bets. Yellen is "soft-spoken, even-tempered, 100% mainstream academic economist who boils the world down to simplistic concepts," so similarities between Bernanke and Yellen are far stronger than the differences. A hand off from one to the other would be about as eventful as a rainy day in Seattle. Compared to Yellen, Summers has a longer history as a heavyweight policymaker but as Charles Ferguson wrote, “rarely has one individual embodied so much of what is wrong with economics, with academe, and indeed with the American economy." And that’s what it seems to be coming down to: a choice between a yawn and a hiss. Why not appoint someone with a track record of getting things right, you ask? Well, that would require a culture of accountability in the White House. Does anyone remember when we last had that?

It seems that US investors has become so institutionalized in the new normal world of government bailouts and handouts that when the central planners make a decision that is not instantly accretive to the equity shareholders' bottom-line, the first instinct is to sue them. Following the conservatorship that was forced upon FNM/FRE in 2008, which required the companies to pay a quarterly dividend of 10% on the government's near-80% stake (and obviously implicitly benefited the tag-along bailout riders), the decision in 2012 to change the bailout terms to instead hand over most of their profits to the government (since they moved into profitability - thanks to a Fed-sponsored MBS market). This action "impaired shareholder value" according to Perry Capital - who, Reuters reports, is suing the government, noting "investors had every right to expect these rules to be followed." Indeed, just as the 'rules' have been followed in every bailout that has occurred since 2007.

The Financial Times has revealed that Italy is facing losses of €8 billion due to derivative contracts that were taken out in the 1990s and that were restructured during the Eurozone crisis.