Haynes anticipates currency collapse; Norcini impressed by gold's strength

 

The Debt Ceiling Farce Is Ending... Or Is It? 

It may be time to rebrand Congress as the new CTU, although when it comes to who in D.C. should play agent Jack Bauer we are still unsure. The reason is that this morning we get two diametrically opposing fictions about the latest reality on the debt ceiling. On the one hand we read in the LA Times that, "Republican leaders in the House have begun to prepare their troops for politically painful votes to raise the nation's debt limit, offering warnings and concessions to move the hard-line majority toward a compromise that would avert a federal default. For weeks, GOP conservatives, particularly in the House, have issued demands about what they would require in exchange for their votes to increase the debt limit... Unwilling to risk the economic and political consequences of a federal default, which could come as early as Aug. 2, they have started the difficult process of standing down." That, however is not what The Hill heard: "House Republican leaders have missed a 36-hour deadline President Obama set during a Thursday meeting for lawmakers to give him a plan to avert a national default. The deadline came and went Saturday morning without a response from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Instead, Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) plan to move the Cut, Cap and Balance Act on the floor next week, which would require passage of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution before the debt limit is raised. A House GOP leadership aide said at noontime Saturday that Boehner and Cantor did not send Obama a revised proposal to raise the debt-limit, as the president requested." So which is it? And has M. Night Shyamalan been retained to write the surprise twist ending to this nail-biter? We doubt it. Unfortunately, we are still convinced the republicans, under the "wise" defection of Mitch McConnell will fold, Obama will get what he wants, and the republican tough stance will go up in a puff of smoke leading to an even great loss of credibility for the GOP. There is less than 168 hours in which we can be proven wrong. We hope we are, but we doubt it.




"They’re Going to Cut Back the Bone and They’re Going to Keep the Fat, Basically. They’re Going to Try to Panic the Population into Acquiescing ... While Making Sure that They Pay the Pentagon, They Pay the Foreign Aid, They Pay Wall Street"

Posted by: George Washington

Post date: 07/16/2011 - 14:36

Exactly.

 

 

 

 

With credit default swaps, banks loot world with a government guarantee, Rickards says

 

 

 

 

A Brief History Of Obama's Fiscal Record 

After working hard to compile a list of Obama's rather questionable record of fiscal promises and actual executions, the gist of which is represented best by the violent clash between myth and realty in Christina Romer's "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" whose epic failure is defined by one simple chart, we were disappointed to learn that Paul Ryan had already done this. And leaving Paul Ryan's politics aside, the facts do speak themselves. They speak even louder when one considers the din raised by the same president who back in 2006 said: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." Indeed they do president Obama. Indeed they do.So without further ado... A brief history of President Obama's fiscal record....

How The Pursuit Of "Light Speed" Broke Equity Markets, Or Why The NBBO Is No Longer Relevant 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/16/2011 12:36 -0400

After clearly demonstrating that last year's flash crash was essentially a byproduct of massive quote stuffing-induced churn surge, which cascaded into a full blown liquidity collapse, coupled with the bulk of HFT "liquidity" providers simply turning their machines off and subsequently reverberating by ETF "amplifiers" to the n^th degree, last week Nanex released what is probably one of the most critical white papers on why in its pursuit of ever higher speed (or, at least speed that is physically capped by the theory of relativity at 300,000km/sec) to gain a frontrunning advantage over everyone else, courtesy of a massively two tiered market in which there is the collocated Ph.D. braintrust focused on millisecond trading (day trading is so 20th century), and then everyone else, the core premise of the "fair and efficient market" - the National Best Bid Or Offer, which is at the heart of Regulation NMS which in turn sets forth the guiding principles behind modern "capital markets" is now an anachronism and is being overrun on a daily basis as the fastest to the market gets to set just what their own NBBO is, in the process literally destroying the premise of market fairness and efficiency, as those who have the newest and shiniest toys are guaranteed to win, while everyone else fights for a fraction of the scraps. Said otherwise, steroids are forbidden in sports but when it comes to capital markets, they are very much accepted.

Weekly Chartology, Or How To BS About "Strong Micro" When The Economy Is Below Stall Speed 

Never before has the job of Goldman's equity markets strategist been so difficult: on one hand he has to deal with an economy that is openly imploding after a readjustment of Q2 GDP to below subspeed, a drop in Q3 growth from his economic team as of last night to 2.5%, and a growth hockeystick that nobody (except for Joe LaVorgna of course) believes in any more. On the other he has to get paid for spreading propaganda to the firm's whale accounts even as GS is openly selling into any risk rally (Abacus deja vu). And while the latest weekly chartology from David Kostin is already very much outdated, after Jan Hatzius was forced to admit in his latest Friday night bomb installment that our view on the economy (i.e., absent stimulus = game over) is correct, he does make pretty charts. So ignore all the forecasts as they are 100% wrong as usual and focus on the pretty breakdowns of what has already happened. If nothing else, Goldman proves that billions in taxpayer bailout funds and secret Short Term OMO access can sure buy a damn good WP/Graphics department. 

 

 

 

 

 

Return of the Gold Standard as world order unravels

 

 

 

FATCA law is little known--but could be tricky 

 

 

 

Why QE2 Failed: The Money All Went Offshore 

 

 

 

Age of austerity to continue for decades, warns OBR 

 

 

 

UK:  Suicide Rates Rise as Debt and Cuts Take Their Toll



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Former Goldman Trader:  There's Huge Unforeseen Demand Coming In The Physical Gold And Silver Markets
 

 

 

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