China

Greek 10-year government bond yields, after having graced 8.73% merely a good week ago, are back with a vengeance (9.67%). Where is the insatiable demand for Greek bonds from China? The Germans are suspiciously quiet. Could it be that Germany officially condemns the worst offender of the “stability treaty” of Maastricht, while at the same time still booking fat defense orders from the Greek army and navy? According to “Die Welt” Greece has spent some EUR 50bn over the last decade on defense. Per capita, it features Europe’s largest army. During the last five years, Greece has been among the top five purchasers of conventional weapons world-wide. No prize for guessing who builds those frigates and submarines.

• Foreclosure Lawyers Go to Gardner's Farm for Edge on Lenders (Bloomberg)
• Employers in U.S. Start Bracing for Higher Tax Withholding (Bloomberg)
• Fed leaks more data via WSJ: Fed Gears Up for Stimulus, and will buy
  trillions, $100 billion at a time as long as Depression continues and
  bonds available for purchase don't run out (WSJ)
• Fed looks set for new round of monetary easing (Reuters)
• Florida Foreclosure Auction Cancellations `Frustrating' to Judge (Bloomberg)
• Asian Leaders Head to Hanoi Amid Concern at China Yuan (Bloomberg)
  
• Fed Won't Join Banks in Discount-Window Appeal (WSJ)
• CNBC now just 9 months behind the curve, discovers insider selling: Insider Selling Volume at Highest Level Ever Tracked (CNBC)

It is settled: the only country that may have more pathological liars than the US, is Greece. Eurostat, whose revision of Greek GDP numbers in April was the catalyst that led to the country's insolvency and riots in early May, and subsequent bail out, is on the scene again, and has once again confirmed that Greek authorities can be relied on 100%... to lie. Reuters reports that Greece's much-revised 2009 budget deficit will be set "once and for all" by Eurostat at above 15 percent of GDP, the country's finance minister said on Wednesday. And the revision is certainly a little more than just "modest": "Remember the 2009 budget was projecting a deficit under 3 percent, then a few days before the (Oct. 4) election the reported deficit to the EU Commission was 6 percent," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told a conference in Cyprus. "We realised it was over 12 percent. And actually, even after the final revision by Eurostat ... which will validate Greek numbers for 2009 once and for all, it will be above 15 percent. We are talking about a five-fold difference." This is data fudging that will make not only China but the BLS blush with envy.

Add in the cost of our military presence in the Middle East and the true, fully costed price for Saudi crude is a staggering $219/barrel! We are literally spending $100 billion extra to buy $60 billion worth of oil a year. Bail on Afghanistan and Iraq, and oil prices would fall, our military budget would plunge, the federal budget deficit would shrink, and our taxes would likely get cut. Please don’t tell ExxonMobile or BP I told you this.

Sovereign wealth funds are a force to be reckoned with. Some like Singapore's GIC have started to selectively take on more risk while others, loading up on domestic debt, are in for a nasty surprise...

Here is my latest article in the October issue of Institutional Investor. But first I want to bring to your attention two articles from the NY Times.

And following up on the previous post demonstrating the escalating war of words vis-a-vis the increasingly hostile stance on Sino-US monetary relations, is the following recently released letter by Paul Tudor Jones in which the legendary traders discusses the critical relationship (among many other things) of the USD-CNY: "As someone who has traded foreign exchange since 1980, I believe the
RMB/USD rate is currently the single most important of all exchange
rates. It not only drives the largest foreign trade relationship in the
world, it also drives virtually every other exchange rate globally.
Dozens of other emerging market countries suppress their exchange rate
against the US dollar because the RMB is effectively pegged to the
dollar. And what is remarkable is the lack of any concrete policy initiative in the US to change this." In other words, we are stuck in an impasse that will not change for a long, long time, as both countries are terrified to really "defect", and neither country has a material advantage in any one regard, plus are entwined, despite all the jawboning, in a symbiotic relationship whose status quo is more valuable than standalone existence. Sorry Schumer.

After taking heat from the White House for nearly a year for its currency peg, a fact that in itself will never get China to loosen its regime as it would be perceived as yielding to pressure from D.C., China has once again gone on the offensive, this time via its commerce minister who earlier today said that dollar issuance in the U.S. is "out of control" which in turn is leading to an inflation assault on China. Of course, one simple way to deal with said assault would be to revalue the currency, but why do so if the world's biggest export economy benefits from the stupidity of the Federal Reserve. After all, the Fed's China monetary policy allows the US to continue to export inflation and to provide cheap Chinese goods to America's great unwashed masses of Wal Mart shoppers who enjoy cheap (but increasingly more expensive) products. Plus it is not as if China is not printing trillion in money of its own, however in the form of what the US used to do in the past, and do so in the form of cheap, NINJA credit. All in all, this is just another instance of a pot calling a kettle black, even as nothing ever changes.Well, one thing may change: imminent bubbles in ever more rare earth minerals, and soon, rice and rubber, will soon add to pressure in all other already inflating commodities. How companies will be able to pass through these costs to consumers, nobody seems to have either any idea, or care. Certainly not the Fed, which is very myopically welcoming this price change.

With vacuum tubes expecting QE next Wednesday to come anywhere between $500 billion a $10 trillion, it falls upon Marc Faber to naturally take the other side of the bet, who, in this interview with Margaret Brennan (sadly without Mr. T by his side), tells the impeccably coiffed Bloomberg anchor that instead of inciting the mother of all flash dashes and hitting the BlackRock 12 month target of Dow 36,000, Faber instead anticipates that the Fed decision "could disappoint investors and may prompt a correction in US stocks." In response to Margaret's question if size does in fact matter, Faber responds that anything under a trillion will "disappoint." And with Goldman now throwing out bogeys as high as $2-4 trillion, it is almost inevitable that a sell the news type day will be virtual certainty on mid-term election day. "The markets are stretched: weak dollar, strong PMs and strong equities - I think a correction is overdue. But I wouldn't think that a bear market is around the corner." In fact the opposite: "Maybe we will have a crack up boom in stocks and commodities like between the end of 1999 and March 2000 when the markets went up very strongly."

Two simple charts tell it all. Bonus: at the end, we explain how to make Paul Krugman squirm.

• Fed's `Pit Bull' Takes on Bank of America in BuyBack Battle (Bloomberg) - "Kathy Patrick can be as frightening as a pit bull on steroids."
• High US Unemployment, Chinese Growth May Spur Trade War (WSJ)
• Japan's Igarashi Says Yen Sales Most Effective When 'Surprise' (BusinessWeek)
• Debt Sales Highlight Abnormal Conditions (FT)
• Asia's economic history foretells Chinese slowdown (Reuters), compare to Is China's Growth Rate Destined To Be Cut In Half? (Zero Hedge)
• End Bailouts—No Ifs, Ands, or Buts (BusinessWeek)
• Malcolm Gladwell: Who really rescued General Motors? (New Yorker)
• Meet the leading contender to manage Berkshire's billions (Fortune)
• Greece Likely to Default Within Three Years, El-Erian Says (WSJ)

After all, if the Fed DOES announce such a program, then we are undoubtedly heading into outright trade wars, tariffs, and even MORE currency intervention.True, Bernanke has ultimately got his sights set on destroying the US Dollar. But with global tensions growing, he’s got to walk a fine line between saving Wall Street and pissing off the US’s biggest creditor (and the only country that still owns more US debt than the Fed).

A little knowledge of history can be a dangerous thing. We are trapped in a runaway Toyota, with the doors locked and broken, the accelerator stuck on the floor, careening towards a cliff at 100 miles per hour. Gridlock assures we can do nothing about it. Be careful what you wish for. This is what lost decades are made of.

And now it has come to this. With the Fed set to print more dollars than there is available rag paper (though they will soon be able to use the tattered clothing of the homeless and long-term unemployed to make up for that shortage), the US Treasury issued TIPS at a negative yield for the first time in history.

Timmy took a big doo doo on the rest of the World as he pressed fellow Finance Ministers into (in theory) setting mechanisms to address trade balances (which means export countries need to strengthen their currencies against the dollar) while importing countries (like US) should not try to manipulate their own currency. Well, that sounds reasonable EXCEPT, before the ink is even dry on the G20 release, Timmy flies off to China to get them to commit to revalue the Yuan...