Gold will reach $2,000 this year, Ben Davies tells King World News

 

Bawney Fwank Goes Apeshit Ovew S&P Insinuation The Dodd-Fwank Is A Misewable Failuwe, Hypocwitical Hilawity Ensues 

There is something oddly pot-meet-kettle-esque when Barney Frank, one of the men most responsible for the nationalization of the GSEs, sends out a letter bashing S&P head David Sharma, one of the men responsible for the credit crisis. Especially when the bashing is over something that is actually 100% true: that Dodd-Frank is the most pathetic and corrupt piece of legislation to come out of Washington since Gramm-Leach-Bliley. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

US Treasury Burns $90 Billion In Cash In Under Two Weeks 

Now that's what one calls prudent fiscal planning...

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Post: This Is What Passes For Democracy In Greece… And America 

Last night I had quite an unexpected surprise. You see, at my hotel here in Thessaloniki, there’s a delegation from some group of the European Parliament called the Committee on Regional Development. They’re here to help… Hey, isn’t that what they always say? The Committee wants to supervise Greece working its way out of the debt crisis and make sure that Greece’s poor are getting the support they need. The hotel’s restaurant was filled with these sycophantic parasites last night– an entire room full of people with a superiority complex who think that they are entitled to make decisions about other people’s lives and money. They sat at dinner drinking fine wine and polishing up steak tartare making proud, bombastic proclamations about the virtues of foreign aid, the democratic process, and the great progress of Greece’s austerity measures. Coincidentally, not 300 meters down the road, a campsite has been gathering for economic refugees, Thessaloniki’s former middle class that has been vanquished by the crisis. Some of the children swung by the restaurant’s outdoor terrace begging for change, only to be waved off by one of the delegate’s extended pinkie fingers as he sipped his wine. It couldn’t have been more ironic… the perfect image of what passes for democracy today, right here in the country that invented it. 

 

 

 

 

 

MBIA Settlement Approaches, Stock Soars, Triggers Circuit Breaker 

Back in February, when looking at the CDS of MBIA, we observed the dramatic tightening in the corporate opco risk which had seen levels tighten from 55 pts upfront to 37, we speculated that "MBIA recently succeeded in making life for mortgage originators a living hell, after it successfully challenged, and was allowed to use statistical sampling in pursuing repurchase demands. While it is unclear how actively MBIA itself will pursue this strategy, which would be a viable way to pick up at least several additional points of recovery courtesy of fat-check settlements, the loophole has already opened the door for Allstate to sue both Bank of America and JP Morgan, confirming what everyone has known, namely that the two banks lied and misrepresented their products with impunity when offloading them to hapless investors." In other words, by doing to Bank of America first what the NY Attorney General is doing to the firm right now, it was only a matter of time before the Charlotte-based symbol of all that is broken with America's mortgage system (courtesy of the Counterywide Acquisition, rapidly becoming, if not already is, the worst purchase in M&A history) those long MBIA risk were sure to experience a windfall upon any settlement announcement... or even rumor. Which is what just happened earlier today after Bloomberg reported that "Bank of America Corp. (BAC), the biggest U.S. bank, has made a preliminary offer to bond insurer MBIA Inc. (MBI) aimed at settling a legal dispute tied to defective mortgages, according to two people briefed on the discussions."




 

 

Guest Post: The 40-Year Cycle of Cultural Change 

The "too big to fail" banks and Corporate Cartels effectively own the Federal machinery of governance, the Savior State's fiefdoms are expanding their reach and power like uncontrollable cancers, and the "leadership"--mostly self-glorifying. grossly incompetent, self-absorbed, greedy Baby Boomers, but with a few equally clueless 40-somethings present just to prove that age is no protection against self-delusion and supreme greed-- has resolved to surrender to the Financial Power Elites and State fiefdoms, and fiddle around with "extend and pretend" strategies until they can exit the stage with bulging bags of swag. Their only goal is to not be the one blamed when the whole corrupt contraption finally collapses under its own weight. If there was ever a more pathetic, corrupt, cowardly and incompetent set of "leaders" in the nation's history, they must have done their skimming during periods of relative prosperity. Now we need real leaders, not TV-ready simulacra spouting bloated slogans that contain the magic word "change." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Presenting Bank Of America's Latest Product Offering To Hedge Funds: The Definitive Shorts Terminator 

Now that traditional alpha generation is long dead courtesy of central planning, and even levered beta no longer works as a strategy at least until such time as Benny and the Inkjets return with a whole printer cartridge full of goodies for the uberwealthy, and that old "sophisticated investor" go-to staple - insider trading - is no longer an option courtesy of the clamp down on "expert insider information leaking networks", what is a hedge fund to do to justify ridiculous terms such as 2 and 20 (or 3 and 45 in some soon to be Wall Street criminal folklore cases)? Simple: run, don't walk to Bank of America Merrill Lynch Countrywide and demand an immediate, if not sooner, hook up to the "Securities Lending GM Portal Locate System (SLGPLS)." Why the SLGPLS? Because it is the last remaining way to make money: isolate companies with large short interest and create a major covering spree. From the horse's mouth: "We are offering a brand-new technology for prime broker clients giving them the ability to do locates via the web. It is a user-friendly system that features instantaneous easy to borrow (ETB) locates and hard to borrows (HTBs) that are delivered to our securities lending desk personnel desktop. Additionally, clients have the ability to get color and email alerts on a select list of securities." Translated: BAC, seeing plunging PB revenues now that everyone is departing this bloated scam of a bail out with hundreds of billions in toxic RMBS, is offering the holiest of holies straight to the end user (for a price): all the names, that with just a little buying prod, would likely surge as shorts get spooked an cover en masse.

Guest Post: EFSF Bond Buying Won't Work, Is August 20th Default-Day? 

A default by Greece on the weekend of August 20th with IMF/EU secured financing in place would solve a lot of problems. Greece would get actual debt reduction and only have to re-prioritize who gets proceeds from asset sales. The IMF/EU would become secured or at least senior, making it more likely they get repaid on debt they have already promised to issue anyways. The IMF/EU can tell the banks that next time they ask for some voluntary help, they better get it, and they can tell their citizens they were tough on their own banks and on Greece. August 20th has about 8.5 billion euro of principle and interest payments due from Greece, and we all know the Troika likes weekends for big announcements because they have the most time to explain their plans and spin their story while the markets are closed.