The Roof Is On Fire
by ilene - May 20th, 2010 4:00 pm
The Roof Is On Fire
Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker
The Euro Zone is in serious trouble, and Britain and we are next.
The game’s up folks.
Many people talk about us "printing" money. Indeed, there’s a large brokerage that runs advertisements on CNBS with that exact claim, over and over and over. Ron Paul and Peter Schiff have run this mantra for years.
This chart says something else entirely:
THERE HAS BEEN NO PRINTING GOING ON!
No, what’s been happening is worse.
Worldwide governments have borrowed and spent huge percentages of their GDP in a puerile attempt to protect a criminal class that has looted the public and bribed the legislature - THE BANKS.
There was always a point where this would fail, but it is flatly impossible for anyone to know exactly where it was beforehand.
But mathematically, there was a point where it would fail.
The gamble that Bernanke, Trichet, Obama, Bush, Paulson, Geithner and everyone else in the world took is that we could do this for a short period of time and that in doing so private demand would pick up and return us to "stability."
THESE PEOPLE DID NOT STUDY THE ABOVE CHART, AND THEY’RE F^#KING IDIOTS FOR BELIEVING THAT WHICH WAS TRIED IN 2003-2007, WITH A HIGHER DEBT LOAD THAN WE HAD THEN, WOULD WORK NOW WHEN IT FAILED IN 2003.…
Hugh Hendry Sees 1920′s Japan-Like Crash In China
by ilene - May 19th, 2010 2:17 pm
Hugh Hendry Sees 1920′s Japan-Like Crash In China
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
Hugh Hendry, whose previous appearances have been well-logged by Zero Hedge, and who is currently raking the money thanks to long Treasury bet and his EURUSD short from when the pair was 20% higher, has never been a fan of China, and almost got into a fight with Marc Faber recently discussing the country’s future prospects. In fact, Hendry uttered this memorable soundbite back in February, in which he mopped the floor with Goldman permabull Jim "BRIC" O’Neill: "I love Jim O’Neill. I love that Goldman Sachs guy. He says you either get it, or you don’t. I don’t get it. In the future there will be a Confucius saying: the wise man not invest in overcapacity. The flaw of the business model, at the center of it is a craving for power as opposed to profit." BusinessWeek reports that Hendry has now officially put his money where his mouth is and has bought puts on 20 companies that will profit from “a dramatic collapse” of China’s growth. With the Chinese stock market approaching 52 week lows, will Ecclectica soon become the next Paulson & Co. hedge fund iteration, even as the latter continues (allegedly) to bet on a US recovery, and thus stands to lose tens of billions if the thesis does not play out (although we are fairly confident Paulson’s long stock positions are matched by even longer CDS hedges… but without additional data, we can never be sure).
More from BusinessWeek:
“There are striking parallels with Japan in the 1920s, when ultimately the whole system collapsed,” said Hendry, 41, whose firm manages $420 million in assets. “China could precipitate a much greater crisis elsewhere in the world.”
Japan’s export boom collapsed after the war amid excess global capacity, slashing growth and sparking a stock-market crash and bank runs.
Hendry’s flagship Eclectica Fund, a global macro hedge fund with $180 million in assets, may gain almost $500 million from its options if China’s economy plunges into a recession, he said. The options cost the fund about 1.5 percent of its net asset value annually, Hendry said.
China’s vulnerability to a crash comes from the “inherent instability” created by a lending binge for infrastructure projects that’s “unprecedented in 400 years of economic history,” Hendry said. The country is also exposed to exports to
Roubini And Jim O'Neill Spar On Greece, China And Man U
by ilene - March 27th, 2010 6:53 pm
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
If there is one topic that has been beaten to death, reincarnated, then Friend-o’ed three more times by everyone in desperate need of a Google hit or a TV appearance, it is Greece and China (and also Manchester United if you live in the UK). This will not stop us from presenting this FT clip, in which Goldman’s Jim O’Neill and Nouriel Roubini spar over the Greek bailout and the Chinese economy (and, you guess it, Man U). Guess who is the optimist and who is the pessimist. For the most part a bland recreation of each pundit’s party line, although we do appreciate Roubini’s reminder that the immediate catalyst responsible for the 20% Black Monday drop (at a time when the market was poised on a precipice much as it is today) was a topic near and dear to everyone: the announcement of a trade war.
"20 years ago we had a large trade deficit with Japan and Germany. The dollar was weakening but the Germans and Japanese were resisting, and the US got angry. And the US Secretary of the Treasury Baker got on TV on Sunday and said if you don’t let if move we are going to retaliate. The next day the stock market crashed 20%."
Are the starts aligning for a repeat appearance of just such a crash, especially as the US has mere days left in which to brand China a currency manipulator?