We The Sheeplez- The Coming Economic Collapse.."A Nation Of Sheep Ruled By Wolves" Thomas Jefferson

Here It Is: Presenting Goldman's "The World Is Ending So Let's All Profit" Report

A few days ago the WSJ made waves by disclosing that Goldman was in the process of recreating another "Abacus", by pitching to clients a global "pain trade" presentation created by Goldman's Alan Brazil, which, among others, speculated that funding needs for European banks would be far, far greater than the IMF-proposed $200 billion, and would in fact be closer to $1 trillion. This emphasis is actually odd, because Goldman focuses as much if not more attention on the end of the Chinese bubble as it does on the end of the European ponzi. It of course also did the usual Goldman thing, which is to allow select clients to piggyback with its prop, pardon flow, desk, in recreating the same fiasco for which it already had to pay a half a billion settlement to the SEC last year. Yet to date, nobody had actually seen a public version of this report....That is, nobody, until now - presenting Goldman's top secret "State of the Markets - Long and Short Risk Strategies"

Markets continue to Beg Bernanke for more Jelly Beans

Trader Dan at Trader Dan's Market Views - 16 minutes ago

By now you have all learned about the absymal payrolls number. What more can be said at this point except for the fact that the current Administration seems intent on gutting the American economy. Remember at the last FOMC statement when the Fed announced that short term interest rates were going nowhere for the next two years? They then went on to say that there is only so much a Central Bank can do and if the economy is going to grow, it is going to require policy changes that reduce structural impediments to growth. That was a not so subtle dig at the current clueless occupants o... more »

Did Greece Crush Keynesianism?

In an excellent treatise on sovereign subtleties, Morgan Stanley's Arnaud Mares (the same analyst who nailed the Greek situation long before most others) once again lays out the increasingly bifurcated path that a broken European 'union' may and must take. Most interesting, and highly prescient in our view, is his consideration that the 'private sector involvement' in the restructuring of Greek debt was not only a major policy error but opens the door for the peasantry to finally comprehend that when sovereign debt is not 'risk-free' then fiscal (and monetary) policy can become pro-cyclical. With the entire Keynesian dogma resting on this very tenet, we think it well worth a read and as he writes: "Pandora’s Box has been opened. Only fiscal integration accompanied by centralized financing of governments can bring about full stabilization of the market in Europe, in our view. The alternative could eventually be a resumption of the run on governments and a wave of public and private defaults." Bottom line, in attempting to do things half-assed, Europe may have just destroyed the entire credibility of the one primary economic theory driving global "growth" (or stated better, borrowing from the future) since the beginning of the 20th century.

Abrupt Iran Decision To Move Nuclear Production Deep Underground Dubbed "Provocation" By US

It always seems that just when there is a lull in news of geopolitcal tension, we get an update that the Iranian situation gets that more unstable. After a nearly year long hiatus brought courtesy of allegedly Israeli supervirus Stuxnet taking out Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure offline for many months, the topic of Iran's nuclear capability is once again back, and starting to stink up the join. The NYT has just reported that in an attempt to preempt a possible air strike by the US or Israel, "Iran is moving its most critical nuclear fuel production to a heavily defended underground military facility outside the holy city of Qum, where it is less vulnerable to attack from the air and, the Iranians hope, the kind of cyberattack that crippled its nuclear program, according to intelligence officials." Not surprisingly, Iran has ceased any ties with the US in terms of nuclear fuel delivery: "We will no longer negotiate a fuel swap and a halt to our production of fuel,” head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, Fereydoon Abbasi said “The United States is not a safe country with which we can negotiate a fuel swap or any other issue." Well, it took the US minutes to respond: "Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that the Iranian plan “to install and operate centrifuges at Qum,” in a facility whose existence President Obama and Europeans leaders made public two years ago, “is a violation of their United Nations security obligations and another provocative act." Next up: an update of US Naval assets in the just passed week. Time to start focusing on those Straits of Hormuz again.

Fundventures In Broken Capital Markets: What Is The Bid/Ask Spread Of This Stock?

Take a good look at the chart below of the best bids and offers of the stock TDI. The red circles are new best ask prices and each new circle (ask) cancels and replaces the previous one. The green circles are best bid prices -- which never change on this chart. All quotes (both bid and ask) are from one exchange. We selected this example for its simplicity. Many stocks are much more complex to analyze, as there are multiple exchanges involved and all four quote components change: bid price, bid size, ask price, and ask size.Using the chart below, see if you can answer these questions: 1. What is the Bid/Ask spread of this stock at 9:43:13? 2. What is the average Bid/Ask spread for the time period shown? The answer to both questions of course, is that the Bid/Ask spread depends greatly on where you live.

Focusing On The Wrong Zero...

The NFP print of 0 today is clearly big news, but Greek 1 year bonds trading at 63 imply an almost 0% chance that they don't default. 2 year bonds are trading at 53. Certainly at those prices, default and recovery are the drivers. If you give any benefit for shorter maturities (which often do get slightly higher recoveries in sovereigns as opposed to corporates) it is hard to see that default isn't being priced in with almost 100% certainty

In the Bowels the Jobs Report: 15.4 Million Missing Jobs

Posted by : testosteronepit

Post date: 09/02/2011 - 12:58

The long-term problem in the horrendous jobs report is the strangely inconspicuous "Employment-Population Ratio" that has been nosediving for over a decade. It's the definition of a comatose economy.

Guest post: Inner Freedom Comes First

In America, in the midst of economic crisis and government driven moral hazard, millions of people are scrambling for “solutions”. The term is used rather haphazardly and often without proper context. There are, indeed, very evil men out there in the dark precipices of global infrastructure, and, these men often instigate very bad events. However, “doing away with them” is NOT a solution. It is NOT a plan. It is merely a goal. A solution requires more than an end result; it also involves the steps necessary to achieve said result. The Liberty Movement, as it is commonly called, tends to run into so much frustration and angst, I believe, because it consistently attempts to skip to the end of the story without traveling the rest of the very necessary journey. End the Fed! Sue the Fed! March on Washington! Vote the bums out! Take up arms! These are not actions, but reactions triggered by the confusion of the moment. Not only are they single minded responses that lack the strategy and logistics inherent in a successful counter-offensive, but such cries ignore the other devious culprit responsible for our national heartache; ourselves. Yes, the world must change, and soon, if our principles are to survive. But, for this to happen, we must change first. Instead of looking up, down, and all around us for some magical all encompassing answer, we have to question our very assumptions and world views.