Nations go crazy. It’s terrifying when it happens, especially to a major nation with the ability to project its craziness outward. We look back on the psychotic break of Germany in 1933 and still wonder how the then-best-educated population in Europe could fall under the sway of a sociopathic political program. We behold the carnage and devastation left in the wake of that episode, and decades later you still can do little more than shake your head in bewilderment.
China had a psychotic break in the 1960s in its "cultural revolution," provoked by the mad neo-emperor Mao. He sent cadres of Chinese baby boomer youths rampaging across the land, turned every institution upside down, and let millions starve. Mao’s China lacked the ability then to export this mischief, but enough of his own people suffered.
Cambodia was the next humdinger of a national nervous breakdown when the Paris-educated classic marxist Pol Pot decided to make the world’s biggest omelette by cracking a million eggs. He took everybody wearing eyeglasses, everybody who appeared to have a thought in his or her head, and sent them out to the bush to be worked to death, or shot in ditches, or disposed of otherwise. The mounds of skulls remain to tell the tale.
Lately we’ve had the Hutu-Tutsi genocides in Rwanda, the craziness in former Yugoslavia, the cruelty of Darfur, the international suicide-bomber craze (including today’s blasts in Moscow). Surely, I’ve left a few out… but these are minor episodes compared to what be coming next.
Am I the only one who senses it might be America’s turn to go nuts? I don’t mean a family squabble, like the Boomer-Hippie-Vietnam uproar that was essentially an adolescent rebellion against bad parenting in the national household. I mean a genuine descent into madness, with the very high probability of persecution, violence, murder, and mayhem — all more or less sponsored by various authorities and institutions.
The Republican Party is doing a great job in provoking such a dangerous episode by making consensual governance impossible in a time of awful practical problems and challenges. They’re in the process, right now, of transforming themselves from…
When a company wants to fend off a hostile takeover, its board may seek to put in place so-called “poison pill” defenses – i.e., measures that will make the firm less desirable if purchased, but which ideally will not encumber its operations if it stays independent.
Large complex cross-border financial institutions run with exactly such a structure in place, but it has the effect of making it very expensive for the government to takeover or shut down such firms, i.e., to push them into any form of bankruptcy.
The Citigroup situation is simple. They would like to downsize slightly, and are under some pressure to do so. It is hard to sell assets at a decent price in this environment, so why don’t they just spin off companies – e.g., quickly create five companies in which each original shareholder gets a commensurate stake?
The answer is that Citi’s debt is generally cross-guaranteed across various parts of the company. US and foreign creditors have a claim on the whole thing, more or less (including the international parts), and you can’t break it apart without upsetting them. The cross-border dimensions make everything that much more knotty.
Senator Kaufman explains what this means – essentially the “resolution authority” proposed in the Dodd legislation is meaningless. How would any administration put a huge bank into any kind of “resolution” (a FDIC-type bank closure, scaled up to big banks) when it knows that doing so would trigger default across all the complex pieces of this multinational empire?
You could do it if you are willing to accept the costs – and if you understand there are big drawbacks to providing an unconditional bailout of the 2009 variety. But will a future administration be willing to take that decision? The Obama administration was not – and big finance will only become bigger and more complex as we move forward.
If you look into the eyes of the decision-makers from spring 2009, they honestly believe that taking over Citi or Bank of America would have caused greater financial trouble and a worse recession. You can argue about their true motivation all you want; this…
What follows is a more comprehensive re-write of my take on the latest bailout proposals by the Obama Administration. I felt the original write-up was a bit rushed and one-sided. I have tried to outline the objectives of the bailout plans more dispassionately. And I have added some historical references from prior posts to demonstrate the basic merits of the idea.
Clearly the mindset will not change. It’s all bailouts, all the time in the Obama Administration, as it was at the end of the Bush Administration. I want to talk about the most recent bailouts, why they were proposed, what’s wrong with them and why bailouts generally don’t work. My remarks will concentrate on the principal reduction program since this is the newest bit.
Why bailouts won’t work
What should be clear to you as an observer by now is that these bailouts implicitly assume that government can stuff financial institutions full of taxpayer money and in so doing adequately recapitalize them so that they can lend again.
The thinking is that, these policies, while "deeply unpopular, deeply hard to understand," are necessary to prevent another systemic breakdown and a deflationary spiral.
Also implicit is the assumption that economic weakness depends in large measure on supporting home price values by increasing the supply of credit via bank lending and securitizations. But, as I argued 14 months ago when Barack Obama came to the White House, the financial system is so fundamentally unsound that bailouts are like catching a falling knife. The writedowns that needed to be taken – in the absence of serious house price appreciation – are just too large to be handled quickly via bailouts.
Moreover, it is the demand for credit which is critical here because households are over-indebted and reluctant to take on further debt. While I do believe officialdom can be successful in creating mild but brief cyclical upticks in consumer demand, weak consumer spending will last for years. The secular trend is clearly going to be toward increasing savings and reducing debt.
So bailouts alone cannot address the debt problem which is behind the reduction in credit demand growth. Nor are they likely to be adequate to deal with the scale of unrealized losses on bank balance sheets.…
Here’s another terrific article by Mish. If you’ve wondered like I have about the 45B the Fed apparently made last year, towards the end, Mish questions that figure. Op-Toons has a suggestion to improve the accuracy of reported numbers (keep reading). – Ilene
The Fed is pulling out all stops to defend its secrets, including publishing self-serving mathematical gibberish. Please consider the St. Louis Fed article on the Social Cost of Transparency.
Unless you are an academic wonk, you will be stymied by pages that look like this …
There are 24 pages of such nonsense with titles like
2.2 Private Information and Full Commitment
2.3 Private Information and Limited Commitment
3.2.1 Decision Making in the Day
3.2.2 Decision Making at Night
3.2.4 A No-News Economy
Just for good measure here is the page describing 3.2.4 A No-News Economy
The article culminates with …
For an asset economy then, the prescription of “full transparency” is not generally warranted.
Approaching the problem under the premise that fuller transparency is always desirable may not be the right place to start.
Hiding Behind Empirical Formulas
The problem is Bernanke places his complete faith in such gibberish, so much so that he has lost all sense of real world action by real people. The result is that in spite of his PhD, he could not see a housing bubble that was obvious to anyone using a single ounce of common sense.
Moreover, had Bernanke simply opened his eyes instead of relying on a poor interpretation of an already fatally flawed Taylor Rule, the credit/housing bubble would not have gotten as big as it did, and we might not be discussing the above ridiculous mathematical formulas that supposedly show us the Fed needs to be secretive.
Appeals Court To Hear Bloomberg’s Freedom of Information Suit
Bloomberg has been in a battle with the Fed for two years over the Fed’s “unprecedented and highly controversial use” of public money. In August it "won" the lawsuit but the Fed has appealed.
Now that foreign terrorists are being treated like ordinary criminals and given lawyers along with the right to remain silent, the Obama Administration is focusing instead on torturing domestic airline passengers with even more onerous security procedures.
"The days of making terrorists stand naked in the cold while being subject to interrogation are over," said President Obama. "The days of making Americans stand naked in airport security lines have just begun."…
Matt Taibbi is one of the few commentators in the mainstream media who is not worried about ‘access’ and has, therefore, been free to write much more critically about the economic crisis and reform efforts on Wall Street.
His first piece was a polemic against Goldman Sachs, which triggered a backlash against the venerated Wall Street firm due to its incestuous relationship with Washington. Afterwards, he took on health care reform. Now, he is taking on the Obama Administration and its status quo bias. I have an excerpt below and a link to the full article. But, first, let me say a few words.
As you probably know, I have been quite disappointed with this Administration’s leadership on financial reform. While I think they ‘get it,’ it is plain they lack either the courage or conviction to put forward a set of ideas that gets at the heart of what caused this crisis.
It was clear to many by this time last year that the President may not have been serious about reform when he picked Tim Geithner and Larry Summers as the leaders of his economic team. As smart and qualified as these two are, they are rightfully seen as allied with Wall Street and the anti-regulatory movement.
At a minimum, the picks of Geithner and Summers were a signal to Wall Street that the Obama Administration would be friendly to their interests. It is sort of like Ronald Reagan going to Philadelphia, Mississippi as a first stop in the 1980 election campaign to let southerners know that he was friendly to their interests.
I reserved judgment because one has to judge based on actions. But last November I did ask Is Obama really “Change we can believe in?” because his Administration was being stacked with Washington insiders and agents of the status quo.
Since that time it is obvious that two things have occurred as a result of this ‘Washington insider’ bias. First, there has been no real reform. Insiders are likely to defend the status quo for the simple reason that they…
Drunken fools and slush funds have one thing in common. No one ever acts to cut them off. Thus, it should be no surprise Treasury Extends TARP.
Facing opposition from Republican lawmakers, the Obama administration is extending its $700 billion financial-rescue program until next October, as expected, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday.
The Troubled Asset Relief Program, which has been a lightning rod for criticism that the government aided Wall Street while ignoring Main Street, had been set to expire Dec. 31. As of Dec. 9, the Treasury had roughly $309.5 billion in TARP funds available for new commitments and programs.
Some funds may be used to increase Treasury’s contribution to the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. Based on the statute that created TARP, the Obama administration would need Congress to approve any further extension of the use of TARP funds.
Mish: Approval?
Since when does the Treasury or the Fed ask for approval?
President Obama said Wednesday the extension is really a "winding down" with a changed focus on troubled homeowners, small banks and small businesses.
Mish: It’s an extension, we just don’t want to call it that.
Obama added that the TARP program has served its original purpose of stemming the financial crisis, cost less than expected, and given government officials a chance to reduce the deficit faster.
GOP lawmakers have sought to block the extension, arguing that that the White House’s plans to use TARP to fund more government spending violates the intent of the law and adds to America’s debt burden.
"TARP was supposed to be a temporary plan to restore the health of the credit markets and protect the economy from a ‘doomsday’ scenario," said Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee. "Instead, the Obama administration is turning TARP into a permanent bailout agency and petty cash drawer for politically favored interests."
Mish: The original purpose was met so we are going to use the money for a slush fund instead. Does the law allow that? Excuse me, I almost forgot ….
Approval?
Since when does the Treasury or the Fed ask for approval?
According to Geithner’s letter to Congress, Treasury does not expect to deploy more than $550 billion of the funds.
Yesterday on Counterpunch, Andrew Cockburn (co-producer of American Casino) gave voice to biggest worry in the financial reform movement today, namely, that the bill creeping through Congress will leave a loophole for derivatives big enough to drive a truck through.
As Cockburn notes, it has been “the hope and aspiration of reformers, and even, professedly, of the Obama Administration, to enforce trading in such derivatives as the infamous Credit Default Swaps onto exchanges where trading activity, pricing, would be visible for all to see. That’s what Congressman Barney Frank heralded for the bill gestating in his Financial Services Committee; that’s what Congressman Colin Peterson claimed for the amendment to Frank’s bill that emerged from his House Agriculture Committee.”
But is it happening? Doesn’t look like it, due to what Cockburn has referred to as a “poisoned loophole” that would allow “‘any voice brokerage facility,’ i.e. two people talking on the phone,” to continuing doing business in the dark. There are also serious questions about what, exactly, will count as an “exchange.” A report on these concerns penned by Cockburn made the rounds on Capitol Hill, and his ideas seemed to be getting traction. But that all came to a screeching halt over the weekend. A ‘friendly veteran’ wrote to Cockburn: “…It appears the forces of darkness never rest; the House Rules Committee has posted what is likely to be the new derivatives section of the House financial reform bill.”
The upshot is this: a new definition of an ‘alternative swap execution facility” has been created, which defeats the hope of transparency and exchange-like trading. The winners? Banks like JP Morgan, which raked in a whopping $3 billion from derivatives last quarter.
Chris Whalen does his usual good job of cutting through the fog of crisis to get to the bottom line of how Ben, Larry and Timmy have failed to discharge their responsibilities adequately.
This does not speak to motives for their failure. Are they merely the pampered products of the government and educational sectors, inadequately prepared for high positions, untempered by the push and pull of private industry and the commercial world? What some might call the new useful idiots of state corporatism?
Is the Obama Administration the product of the Clinton wing of the Democratic party and the Chicago political machine, or just the Children’s Crusade, a reform movement movie staffed by the casting agency of Spineless and Clueless?
Political corruption has been in vogue for the past twenty years or so in the US. As others have suggested, this is just a further example of the regulatory capture that ensnares the administrators and thinkers of big government, education and media with promises of grants, lobbying donations, and fat consulting positions to reward their cooperation with the corporate elite.
Whatever the cause, it is quite obvious to anyone who is looking at the big picture, the system as a whole, that prolonging the status quo is no sustainable solution, and is just painting a thin coat of whitewash over pervasive rot.
The banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, and balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.
To us, the confirmation hearings last week before the Senate Banking Committee only reaffirm in our minds that Benjamin Shalom Bernanke does not deserve a second term as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Including our comments on Bank of America (BAC) featured by Alan Abelson this week in Barron’s, we have three reasons for this view:
First is the law. The bailout of American International Group (AIG) was clearly a violation of the Federal Reserve Act, both in terms of the "loans" made to the insolvent insurer and the hideous process whereby the loans were approved, after the fact, by Chairman Bernanke and the Fed Board. The loans were not
They got the Dollar General IPO out the door and a few more deals were done so its "Mission Accomplished" for Wall Street. The SP 500 looks to be completing a hand off to the retail crowd of overpriced paper in this cycle of the price pump. Time to dump the bids and let it drop, with maybe one more push higher at most to suck in a little more money from the productive economy, or at least what is left of it.
Be aware. This rally is a ponzi scheme thinly disguised even by US Wall Street standards. But do not try and get in front of it, to short it prematurely.
The Obama administration is as asleep at the switch and coopted by its masters in New York as was the prior administration’s regulators under Chris Cox, and that is a real accomplishment in a failure to reform.
People forget what the markets were like in the late 1970′s when the pits were dead and the average person wanted nothing to do with the US equity markets. The creation of 401k’s and more gambling tables like the options exchanges helped to perk things up. This latest generation of jokers will not stop until they have trashed the markets once again.
Expect more token reforms like position limits out of this crew in key commodities, with loopholes big enough for a vampire squid to slip through without inconvenience like the other ‘reforms’ being crafted by Barney, Tim, Larry, and Chris.
America, what are you becoming?
"How are the mighty fallen, and their devices of empire perished…"
"It is no exaggeration to say that since the 1980s, much of the global financial sector has become criminalised, creating an industry culture that tolerates or even encourages systematic fraud. The behaviour that caused the mortgage bubble and financial crisis of 2008 was a natural outcome and continuation of this pattern, rather than some kind of economic accident...And yet none of this conduct has been punished in any significant way."
~ Charles Ferguson, Inside Job
"I know that my retirement will make no difference in its [my newspaper's] ca...
We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove. We have two opinions: one private, which we are afraid to express; and another one – the one we use – which we force ourselves to wear to please Mrs. Grundy, until habit makes us co...
The S&P 500 got off to weak start and, after retracing a modest morning rally, spent most of the day in the shallow red with an intraday low of 0.63%. But in the last seven minutes of trading, the index recovered enough to a make a small gain of 0.14%. This is the fourth advance, the first was Monday's 1.60 surge, but the last three have ranged from 0.05% to 0.17% with today's close near the high of the miserly three-day series.
The index is now up 5.02% for 2012, which is 6.93% off the interim closing high.
From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 95.2% above the March 2009 closing low and 15.6% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.
Below are two charts of the index, with and without the 50 and 200-day moving averages.
TIF - Tiffany & Co., Inc. – A surprise earnings miss and a reduced full-year profit and sales forecast from luxury jewelry retailer, Tiffany & Co., took some of the luster out of its shares today, with the stock trading down 8.5% at $56.55 as of 11:50 a.m. in New York. Options activity on Tiffany this morning suggests mixed sentiment on the st...
RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNWK) today announced that it has reached an agreement with the Washington State Attorney General over discontinued e-commerce practices. In accordance with the settlement agreement, RealNetworks has committed to:
Discontinuing the use of pre-checked boxes for purchases of RealNetworks subscription products; Spelling out more clearly the material terms of RealNetworks product offerings; Offering online cancellation of subscription offerings; Enhancing RealNetworks customer support guidelines regarding cancellation. Statement from Thomas Nielsen, President & CEO of RealNetworks:
"About two years ago, the Washington State Attorney General's Office contacted us regarding concerns they had with some of our e-commerce practices.
To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...
First we'll go to the technicals. Back in mid April I had opined a 'bear flag' formation was being created. [Apr 17, 2012: Potential Bear Flag Forming] But the market being the difficult beast it is, head faked everyone and rather than a break down from said flag it first went UP and nearly touched yearly highs. This caused everyone to think the bear flag had failed…. only to lead to a horrid May in the market. Generally a bear flag will resolve relatively quickly but the longer...
Despite the fact that U.S. equities are well-positioned and well-supported to go up, once again it is the headlines out of Europe—especially Greece—that are scaring off investors. Some are saying that it is now likely (and even desirable) that Greece will default on all its sovereign debt, withdraw from the euro, and severely devalue its domestic currency (Drachma?). This will allow them to operate a balanced budget while pumping cash into growth initiatives, rather than suffer the ravages of Germany-mandated austerity.
Some say, so what? Greece makes up only about 2% of the Eurozone’s overall economy. Nevertheless, you might say that t...
Markets died and then rallied to flat again as European leaders “prepared contingencies” for a possible Grexit
Markets died hard and fast earlier today as major indexes registered as much as 1.5% of losses after news that Euro zone officials were unofficially “preparing contingencies” for a Greek exit from the Euro. Unofficial statements were not enough to keep markets down however, as major indexes rallied back to flat levels by the end of the day.
So the world continues to wait on Europe, as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEACA:SPY) gained .05%, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEARCA:...
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This post is for all our live virtual trade ideas and daily comments. Please click on "comments" below to follow our live discussion. All of our current trades are listed in the spreadsheet below, with entry price (1/2 in and All in), and exit prices (1/3 out, 2/3 out, and All out).
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In this article, please revisit an article written two years ago titled, "The Calm Before the Storm." This article focused on the patent cliff that was looming in the pharmaceutical industry, that was later picked up by the New York Times and several other bloggers! Subsequent articles were written about big pharma company's revenue streams, and the pros and cons of of their later stage pipelines. Other articles have also attempted to identify smaller biotechs with the potential to reap big reward...
My last weekend update is dated from January 30 so after a long hiatus, here is an update of our virtual portfolio. Since the last update, we have closed the AA Money portfolio due to a lack of enthusiasm (and activity) and I have stopped tracking the FAS strangle as the low VIX makes it hard to get rewarded for the risk! But we have added a small $5KP virtual portfolio which does not use any margin.
FAS Money
We have had to recover from a big move up by FAS and a low VIX which keeps option prices low. But the portfolio has gaine about 10% since the last update.
Last update P&L - $5499.00
IWM Money
Not a lot of activity in this portfolio where the main focus is on the large IWM BCS. But the portfolio has grown over 20% since the last update.
Last update P&L - $1998.00
$5KP Portfolio
This is the virtual portfolio that replaced the AA Money portfolio. It does not use margin and we will keep holdings under $5K.
AAPL $50K P...
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Drunken fools and slush funds have one thing in common. No one ever acts to cut them off. Thus, it should be no surprise 
Chris Whalen does his usual good job of cutting through the fog of crisis to get to the bottom line of how Ben, Larry and Timmy have failed to discharge their responsibilities adequately.
First is the law. The bailout of American International Group (AIG) was clearly a violation of the Federal Reserve Act, both in terms of the "loans" made to the insolvent insurer and the hideous process whereby the loans were approved, after the fact, by Chairman Bernanke and the Fed Board. The loans were not
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
(