Warren Buffett

Tomorrow at 10:30 am Obama will present the balance of the details from his latest tax hike proposal, which obviously has no chance in hell of passing, but which will provide for substantial theater and hopefully deflect from the fact that Europe is closing an hour later. Courtesy of Reuters, here are some of the tax measures Obama has either already proposed, or may be looking at, to raise more tax revenue to help reduce the deficit, according to analysts, and what he will likely focus on tomorrow.

Over the weekend I wrote about what I thought the EU and the ECB needed to do to in order to prepare for a Greek default. Nothing that has been said or done this week goes against the view that Europe is preparing for Greece to default. In the past week someone went into all the EU officials' speeches and did a replace all and "default" became "controlled default". Notice how they have backed off how bad a Greek default would be and try and narrow it down to the fact that a default without adult supervision would be bad. After yesterdays conference call they said that Greece would remain in the Euro. They never said Greece wouldn't default. That conference call was as likely to be scripting out the roles for the next few weeks to control the default and arrange post default financing for Greece. The language was not that strong and I don't believe their words were chosen by accident. If Greece defaults the first obvious panic will be how do the European banks get funding, especially in dollars. Well, that question has been answered. The mechanism to avert short term liquidity problems after Greece defaults is now in place.

Let’s be honest here. Neither China, nor the ECB, nor the Federal Reserve can stave off the collapse that’s coming. Indeed, the Fed spent $900 billion and nearly one year to prop the markets up… and we’ve wiped out ALL of those gains in just one month.

All you need to read.

It’s probably the #1 question on every gold investor’s mind right now: Why are gold stocks underperforming gold? Aren’t they supposed to bring us leverage to the gold price? Yes, they are, and their performance been both disappointing and puzzling. There are some exceptions, to be sure, but in the majority of cases the stocks are lagging the metal. And it’s been happening for most of the year. What’s going on? I think part of the answer lies in the state of our current environment. Recent headlines and developments around the globe have ratcheted up fear… from the S&P’s downgrade to European bank solvency, from fears of another recession to worse-than-expected unemployment. The nervous climate has pushed investors toward gold for safety, simultaneously reducing the demand for gold equities. The investment implications here are twofold. First, if I’m right, then the strategy should be to buy when shares are relatively cheap and hold for the duration of the bull market. You may think we’d suffer “opportunity loss” if we have to wait too long, but that could be a dangerous game; you could buy after they take off and miss out on some of the easier gains. Further, I don’t know of another sector that is both cheap and imminently poised to break out. The second implication is that corrections wouldn’t be a time to get out, but a time to consider getting in. The ultimate prognosis, in my opinion, is that gold stocks are headed much higher. Sooner or later a catalyst will ignite interest in our sector, and the rush will be on. Now is the time to build positions in the stocks you want to own.

So, will this jobs bill do much? I don't see how. Employers get a tax break, but that will likely be used to increase profits, because they remain uncertain of what happens when the breaks end. No new jobs, and limited new spending. For the employees - he said an average of $1,500 next year extra in their pocket. Interesting but when he talks about cutting medicare and social security in the same speech, how much of that will be spent? I think a lot of that will go into savings to offset future needs. People making 50k a year aren't so dumb to just take this money and spend it, when they see future benefits getting stripped away. The $4,000 tax credit for hiring new employees covers about 14 weeks at minimum wage (the sort of job this economy has been able to generate). Maybe we will see a spike in layoffs ahead of that since it might be a good time to get rid of employees on the fringe, when you can get a free look at his replacement, courtesy of the government.

Perhaps this is the denouement of a week of scary market rumors that seem to have been designed to stop the markets from breaking too high.

In light of last week's surprise announcement of Buffett's bailout redux of Bank of America (the first one being Goldman back in 2008), and following today's even more surprising objection by the FDIC which threatens to scuttle the Bank of Ameria settlement and force Bank of Countrywide Lynch to raise far more capital, pushing Warren to double down on his investment throwin more good money after bad, especially if the legal case moves from an Article 77-friendly NY state court to Federal, here are the philosophical thoughts from the Berkshire's oracles contained, in his "Collected Writings", on his desire to put money into banks.

Placing one’s chips on the “Don’t Pass” line when Warren Buffett holds the dice may seem ill-advised, but we’re not so sure about that $5 billion bet he just made on Bank of America.  The news media inferred with all its might that it was a vote of confidence — not only in B of A, but in the U.S. banking system. Yeah, well, maybe. 

The one stop summary of the key positive and negative events in the past week.

All you need  to read

Earlier today, courtesy of the unbreakable bond between Warren Buffett and CNBC's Becky Quick, we learned that supposedly Warren came up with the idea to invest $5 billion in Bank of America (which really is $2 billion when accounting for the intrinsic value of the warrants, which in turn makes the dividend on his at risk investment a stunning 15% but we digress - more here) while in the bathtub on Wednesday morning. What is interesting, is that according to the just released Securities Purchase Agreement, between Warren's Archimedes moment yesterday, and the announcement this morning, here is what he contractually represents and warrants that he did...

Another deal I don't like.

Krieger is on fire today: "The interesting thing about today is that I had intended to write this piece on Warren Buffett all week. It was just really fortuitous timing that this Bank of America news came out today. Gosh where to start. First of all, this $5 billion preferred investment by Uncle Warren in preferred stock is extremely bearish for the market, the economy and the financial system. This is not an investment, it is political-economic strategy. It tell us so many things that we probably already suspected. It tells us that Bank of America did indeed need capital. Even worse they probably need so much that they went to Uncle Warren for five big ones so that people would just look the other way and gain “confidence.” This is how out to lunch these guys are. They don’t understand that the root of the lack of confidence is that the people see a country devolving into a Banana Republic led by greedy oligarchs and politicians stealing everything in sight as the ship sinks....This is 1789 France folks as I have said many times before. Second, the fact that TPTB are resorting to Uncle Warren for everything now may mean the Fed is out of the game. No one has confidence in the Fed to come save the day so they need the next thing. That next thing is Uncle Warren. Unfortunately it’s not working and it is not going to work. You can see it in the market today. People are waking up. They are starting to see through the matrix. Buffett is a fraud and a shill. If you follow him it will be right over a cliff."

Goldman bailout part 2 is here. And so the Octogenarian of Omaha doubles down on another taxpayer bailout. At least we can put aside all the lies that Bank of America did not need capital. It needed capital: $5 billion of it. It also confirmed it was completely locked out of both debt and equity public capital markets - the bank's only recourse was a private raise with a crony capitalist who is once again doubling down on the global ponzi.