default

During his testimony before the House Budget Committee, when asked about the recent move in the price of gold to a fresh all time high, the Princetonian, who usually has an answer for everything, was stumped: "the signal that gold is sending is in some ways very different from what other asset prices are sending" he said, adding that "the spread between nominal and inflation-indexed bonds, the break even, remains quite low, suggesting that markets expect about 2 percent inflation over the next 10 years." The fact that TIPS are linked to the most manipulated indicator in the government's arsenal the CPI, was not mentioned. But back to gold, Ben Shalom concluded "gold is out there doing something different from the rest of the commodity group." Yes, Ben - it is indicating that your policy of endless fiat dilution is about to come to a forced end. But don't take our word for us. Here is a report from Credit Suisse which explains not only why the firm sees gold rising promptly to $1,360 but possibly going much higher - and this is from a bank whose very existence is contingent on gold prices staying sufficiently low for some marginal credibility in fiat to still remain.

Some reality to go with your reported fiction?

Update: ok, the 10,000 people that just hit the server didn't help.

We apologize for the extended downtime. European server hosts responsible for the crash will be promptly punished when their sovereign CDS shortly catch up with BP's defaults risk (+108 now to 368bps, 27% implied default probability for 5 Y). We are comforted by the fact that Ben Bernanke sees no future crash for Zero Hedge servers, ever again.

The week's biggest (sovereign) CDS movers have been released, and we have some new entrants in the most endangered species list. While by now nobody will be surprised that the UK is a consistent top 2 player (coming in this week with $319 million in net notional derisking, this making it the 8th week or so the country has made the top 3), only behind Italy and its $452 million in net notional, and just in front of last week's #1 Brazil, the presence of the United States at #4 should be a little unsettling. It has been months since the US appeared in the top 5. And just like in the long gold case, the same types of existential questions once again arise when the interest in US CDS picks up: who gets to pay off your contracts in the case of an event of default? Elsewhere, the presence of Korea and Turkey (or Australia) in the top 10 should not come as too surprising. On the other end, short covering was violent in CDS of Spain, Hungary and Portugal - Europe's newest lepers. Is the CDS community concerned the EU can actually pull out a rabbit out of the hat that actually works for once? Hardly. The top 10 reriskers also saw the inclusion of France and long-forgotten insolvent Greece.

Something interesting just happened.

Simply copying the US style of Central Bank Crisis mitigation is a bad idea, particularly since I believe the US has not mitigated the problem at all, but simply kicked a soda can down the road until it gained the unstoppable momentum of a dumpster. Now, the ECB is actually trying to kick that dumpster, and appears to be stubbing its toe!

A team at Goldman, decidedly different team from the one which this morning said the EUR could drop to a 1.16 level shortly, looks at recent fund flow data and notes that with the US now perceived as a safe haven to the rest of the world, particularly Europe, a fact which implicitly is a huge benefit to the treasury supply onslaught as buyers for USTs no matter the yield or maturity, are easily found in this environment of insecurity. No surprise there: it is almost as if Europe's problems were engineered, courtesy of a EURUSD which was kept too high, for too long, by too many market participants. Goldman's conclusion is that the dollar is not the fundamental safe haven it is portrayed to be, but is, once again, merely the best of the worst. As Goldman's Robin Brooks highlights: "non-Treasury portfolio inflows are still falling short of covering the monthly trade deficit, in contrast to before the crisis when they were more than enough. This is consistent with our often repeated view that the BBoP (broad basic balance) for the US remains weak and is why – even in the face of strong foreign inflows into Treasuries – we remain cautious about the USD outlook." The primary reason for the increasingly strong bid for gold is explained by Brooks' observation: while unwinds in existing FX carry pairs continue to implicitly benefit the dollar, when it comes to allocating capital to a safe haven, the only recourse continue to be gold. And as FX is fickle, all it takes is one massive short covering spree to invert the balance of power once again in the direction of the EUR: all that would be needed is a wholesale realization that the consolidated US balance sheet is in far worse shape than that of Europe, and for the herd to shift from one side of the boat to the other.Yet should more volatility come into FX markets, gold would benefit even more.

In Chapter 3 of this continuing examination of our collective insanity, we begin to unfold the dynamics of the public lie, our often unconscious defense of the public lie, setting up our personal psychic firewalls, the Stockholm syndrome and the dynamics of the family when dealing with the addicted/abuser, Mother Nature’s nose candy, how we can break the conditioning and then reinforce the changed behavior.

The market opened under pressure Friday morning on the back of weaker-than-expected jobs numbers. Some estimates called for as many as 600,000 new jobs created, but that number was not even on the radar when the reflation reality-check of 431,000 was released. This caused most asset classes to sell off, precious metals included. The only thing that fared well was the US bond market. As we've said before, a deflationary selloff should occur before the much vaunted inflationary scenario can rear its head: a massive puke of all assets to cover margin calls, liquidations of profitable trades to cover losers, etc. Gold should not be spared.

On one hand you have the EURUSD telling you things are horrible and getting worse, on the other you have Goldman's Erik Nielsen. Here is the latest hilarious confirmation that Goldman managing directors are just plain clueless when the ponzi pulls a Madoff: "I don’t get the FX market these days. While I understand the technical and position-based arguments for the FX levels, on fundamentals, I don’t know why the Euro has remained overvalued for so long. That said, the triggers for moves are amazing: On Thursday, markets basically ignored the man with the world’s single biggest portfolio, Chinese central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, when he expressed full trust in Europe’s ability to deal with its debt crisis, while going into a virtual panic sending EUR/USD below 1.20 for the first time since March 2006 when the wire services botched the simple job of translating French PM Fillon’s statement on the FX. But here is the most fundamental of questions: How can one be bearish on both the Euro and on Euro-zone growth? Beats me – I assume you know which camp I am in."

By now everyone is aware that the G20 meeting failed to come to a consensus vis-a-vis strategic rescue approaches on the global bailout, with Tim Geithner pushing for uber-Keynesianism, while a far more prudent Europe saying enough to record deficits, and in essence potentially putting the end to the avalanche of endless bailouts and the Bernanke Uber-Put. At least such is the case until tomorrow when Europe's bureaucrats wake up and see a EURUSD at a level that rounds down to 1.10. The reason: Der Spiegel reports that Germany's high court is considering blocking Germany's participation in the European rescue package, a development which if it were to come to pass, would send the euro plunging to parity not with the dollar but with zero.

Treasury Inflation Protected Securities are government issued securities adjusted bi-annually for inflation. When the urban consumer price index (CPI-U) increases, the face value and the yield on TIPS also increases. If investors are concerned about inflation, TIPS are one method of protection (you can buy them directly from the government here: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tips_glance.htm) given that they are directly tied to inflation. Unlike other investments which “should” appreciate in an inflationary environment, TIPS do appreciate.

As we continue our exploration of our individual and collective insanity, we spend some time examining that lovable megalomaniac ego inside each of us, why and where it all went wrong, the sliding scale of insanity with lots of finger pointing, how we certify our madness for comfort and support, our mental toxic waste dumps and the first sighting of light at the end of the tunnel. Or is that just the crazy train express to DC? Here’s one car wreck we can all safely examine as we drive by in our economic suicide machine.

In continuing my data intense, hardcore, uber-objective dissection of the stuff that is proffered through the mainstream media (MSM), I bring you...

If you owned a Hungarian bond here and you found a bid you would hit it wouldn't you? So should everybody, and then comes Romania with a recently failed auction, and then Ukraine which already received one round of bailout and will clearly need more. Then comes Western Europe, even Germany with its exposure to Eastern Europe, Japan... If dominos start falling it will be nearly impossible to stop them unless theree is enough private wealth left at one point to back specific sovereign entity. With the overall leverage in the system that could mean very few people, though Japan has proved resilient for that very reason despite a huge debt-to-GDP ratio. And even though 4 PMs in 4 years shows that public opinion is losing its discipline in the empire of the rising sun, their politicians still have the good taste of resigning. This is the kind of event that can be the spark of a global systemic crash that would leave very few standing if any. Any optionality in an investment portfolio should be to the downside and there is a good chance a lot of bets would not be honored under that scenario. Cash, Gold, and maybe guns seems sadly to be the answer. Many will say once again that I am not very cheerful and would not make for a very good guest at a dinner or a conference, but it is looking for short term good news at the expense of any critical thinking or hard work that got us there in the first place so that will only help me make my point. - Nic Lenoir