$15,OOO,OOO,OOO,OOOBAMA! - It's Official: Total US Debt Passes $15 Trillion (More "Change You Can Believe In")
Too sad for commentary, but here is some math: total US debt has increased by 41.5%, or $4.4 trillion, from $10,626,877,048,913 on January 20, to $15,033,607,255,920, under Obama as president.
Citi Chief Economist Willem Buiter: A Spanish Or Italian Default Could Happen In A Few Short Days
Citi's Willem Buiter whose succinct analysis a few weeks ago sealed
the coffin of the worthless EFSF, has just come out with another knock
out punch this morning after telling Bloomberg TV what everyone else
knows is true, but is terrified to say out loud: namely that, "time is
running out fast." He adds: " I think we have maybe a few months
-- it could be weeks, it could be days -- before there is a material
risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or
Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European
banking system and North America with it. So they have to act now." In sum - a rehash of the Deutsche Bank
pitchbook to the ECB we posted earlier, only in Mutually Assured Terms
that would make even Hank Paulson blush. At this point Germany has an
option: tell Europe to take a hike, or go balls to wall in bailing out
250 million European's early retirement packages. The ball is in
Merkel's court, who unlike Citi, JPM, DB, and everyone else, has to
worry about this fickle, and potentially pitchfork bearing, thing called
"voters."There's Your Official Warning From The Fed
And in lieu of any rumors out of Europe (they have all been exhausted, plus nobody believes anything out of the doomed continent), here is our own Fed with its best attempt to talk the market up:- ROSENGREN: CRISIS MIGHT WARRANT COORDINATED ACTION BY FED, ECB
- ROSENGREN SAYS FED SHOULDN'T BE DISSUADED FROM TRYING TO HELP
- ROSENGREN: CENTRAL BANKS CAN'T SOLVE ECONOMIC PROBLEMS ALONE
Federal Debt Officially Pass 15 Trillion/Raid on Gold and Silver/More on MFGlobal
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen: I would like to announce to you that we officially surpassed the 15 trillion dollar federal debt level.Since the GDP is also around 15 trillion dollars, we are now at a Debt/GDP level of 1:1. The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It( Debt Held by the Public vs. Intragovernmental Holdings ) CurrentDebt Held by the PublicIntragovernmental HoldingsTotal PublicMore On Legal Stealing - The Infamous CFTC Rule 1.29
Dave in Denver at The Golden Truth - 3 hours ago
*Obfuscate - transitive verb: Darken, to make obscure; Confuse;
intransitive verb: to be evasive, unclear or confusing *(Merriam Webster)
Time to cut to the chase. Let me just preface this with my belief that the
missing $600 million from MF Global was money taken from segregated
customer accounts and used by MF Global to satisfy a massive margin call
issued by JP Morgan on MF Global proprietary accounts. I say JPM
ultimately has the funds in question because if you have been following all
of the news from the beginning, including the initial proclamation that the
missing f... more »
The Silver Bears Are Back With Part 8
Because
if we have to deal with constant and increasingly more ridiculous BS
out of Europe over and over and over, it is only fair to get an update
from the bears, if for no other reason than pure comedic enjoyment now
that the world has been taken over by the Banana Onion....As For Corzine - Your Chance To Either Own A Piece Of The Fastest Appreciating Asset, Or At Least Annotate It
A long, long time ago, back when we could barely rub together 10 visitors a day, we suggested an "Investment idea that gets you point with the ladies"
in the form of art conceived by the inimitable Geoffrey Raymond.
Judging by market clearing prices, anyone who listened to our advice
back then, when a typical Raymond sold for $20-$30K, has generated
returns well in excess of either gold or silver - an SAC-blush worthy
50% CAGR! Raymond's latest product has a starting bid of $85,000 and
will only go higher. If anyone has some devaluing fiat with Corzine's
name written all over it (literally) they can do the barter here.
For everyone else, this is your chance to not only annotate it as
Raymond will transcribe the wittiest Zero Hedge comments onto the
painting, but tell one of the biggest criminals, and we have to add
"alleged" for legal purposes but whatevs, of 2011, who will almost
certainly never be arrested, not even if he were to pitch a tent in the
middle of Zuccoti Park, how you really feel.Late Day Derisking As Sovereign Debt Crisis Is Becoming A Banking Crisis
The late day collapse in financials (thanks
to Fitch's comments that seemed to wake up a sleeping equity market to
the reality that credit has been screaming for weeks) helped
drag equities (and HY debt) significantly lower. Most notably, amid a
much higher than average volume day today, the dislocations of the last
few days - that we have highlighted - have converged very rapidly this
afternoon. ES significantly underperformed a broad basket of risk
assets (CONTEXT) into
the close as copper and oil gave back some of the day's gains. TSYs
closed at low yields for the day - and 2s10s30s dropped significantly -
as we warned it would have to sustain any sell-off as EURUSD tracked
back towards its lowest levels of the day dragging DXY up to almost
unchanged on the day (+1.7% on the week). On a longer-term basis, HY markets are priced for an S&P around 1190 currently
but as HY also collapses wider, we will rapidly see the 'expected'
S&P level drop further. Credit Anticipates and Equity Confirms is
often cited by old-school credit market professionals - it seems once
again that it is true. What is more evident, and discussed by Peter Tchir of TF MArket Advisors, is the morphing of the sovereign crisis into a banking system crisis as TPTB are unable to achieve anything of note.Financial Stocks Catching Up To Their Recent Credit Weakness
While
Fitch sees US banks having manageable exposure to the PIIGS markets
and having cut their overall exposure, the reality of the contagion of
further European banking system stresses (which we have been very vocal
about in our discussions) is a concern. We have highlighted again and
again that the credit market has not been as comfortable as stocks with
the US financial sector for the last few weeks and today it seems
reality is starting to sink in as BAC trades with $5 handle and $MS a
$14 handle back to one-month lows. XLF is now down over 2% today alone
as the broad HY credit market is collapsing this afternoon. Once again
credit markets had it right!268 NY Credit Suisse Employees Learn They Are About To Be Laid Off Via Department Of Labor Website
Remember the DOL's very appropriately named WARN website we noted some time ago which warns investment bankers they are about to be made redundant (at least someone is being honest)? Well, it may be time to refresh, especially if you work at Credit Suisse (and sorrry, no bumping rights - should have thought about that before joining a non-union job).Guest Post: China's Real Estate Collapse
As I listen to all types of perma-bull talk about how the S&P would be at 1400 if it wasn't for Europe (which is the equivalent of: if my wife was 100 pounds lighter... she'd be a supermodel), I can't help but pulling my hair out. The situation in Europe is clearly bad, and after reading Michael Lewis' new book... appears almost impossible to be resolved without massive defaults. However, the other domino in the equation is the Chinese real estate market. The 'global growth engine', China, is running out of steam. Their policy of placing market orders on anything and everything to inflate stimulate the economy - surprise, surprise - is proving to be unsustainable.School Children Rejoice: California Is So Broke It Will Shorten The School Year
This is just getting ridiculous:- CALIFORNIA REVENUE MAY TRAIL FORECAST BY $3.7 BLN, ANALYST SAYS
- CALIFORNIA REVENUE SHORTFALL MAY MEAN SHORTER SCHOOL YEAR
Liquidity, Solvency, And Timing
In 2007 and 2008 the Fed instituted all sorts of programs to enhance liquidity. It was the first time they went beyond simple rate cuts (which they also employed). In the end it didn't help much. It ensured that banks could fund the positions they wanted, but it didn't stop the sell-off in assets, because the banks didn't want the risk. No one wanted the risk. Liquidity concerns and even some capital concerns are driving down Italian and Spanish bonds, but behind that, there are real solvency concerns. There are clearly liquidity problems again, but they are directly tied to solvency. The Euro basis swap isn't getting worse because US banks don't have money to lend to European banks, they don't want to lend to European banks. Maybe we should be worried the Fed knows something we don't about how bad it is and are trying this ploy again, because it is one of the few things they can do to help Europe?JP Morgan Hikes 2012 Crude Price Target To $110 On Seaway Reversal
JPM, which has been stuck holding on to reflationary assets for months and months expecting a QE3 announcement which keeps on not coming as the market always frontruns it and makes any actual reflationary progress by the Fed impossible, couldn't wait to release today's crude price update following the reversal of the Seaway pipeline. The bottom line: JPM is lifting its WTI forecast to $110/bbl in 2012 and $118/bbl in 2013, and see the Brent-WTI spread narrowing to $5 and $3/bbl in those years, respectively. Previously WTI was seen as hitting $97.4 in 2011 and $114.25 in 2013. Consumers everywhere rejoice as they will have to take even more debt on (never to be repaid of course) in addition to never paying their mortgage payments. As noted earlier, now that WTI is well north of $102, kiss any deflation risks goodbye and with that the announcement of MBS LSAPs. At least until tomorrow's post 3 am European gap down, which will be fully filled and then some in the period between noon and 4pm.
Guest Post: The Future Of Work
"What
is the future of work?" Given the "recovery’s" stagnant job market and
the economy’s slide into renewed contraction, it’s a timely question.
To answer it, we must first ask, what’s the future of the U.S. economy? In
broad brush, the Powers That Be have gone "all in" on a bet that this
recession is no different than past post-war recessions: all we need to
do to get through this “rough patch” is borrow and spend money at the
Federal level, and the household and business sectors will soon recover
their desire and ability to borrow more and spend it all on one thing
or another. We don’t really care what or how, because all spending adds
up into gross domestic product (GDP). In other words, we're going to
“grow our way” out of stagnation and over-indebtedness, just as we’ve
done for the past fifty years. Unfortunately, this diagnosis is flat-out
wrong. This is not just another post-war recession, and so the
treatment—lowering interest rates to zero and flooding the economy with
borrowed money and liquidity—isn’t working. In fact, it’s making the
patient sicker by the day. The best way to eliminate the signal noise
of official propaganda (“The stock market is rising, so everything’s
great for everyone!” etc.) and the high keening wails of Keynesian
cargo cultists is to construct a model of the underlying fundamental
forces that will shape the future. The best way to do that is to glance
at a few key charts.Italy Opts Not To Release Preliminary GDP Data As It Sets Off To Raise $600 Billion In Debt In 2012
We are trying to decide what is funnier: Italy cancelling bond auctions and telling the world it does not need the cash, even as its Treasury Director tells the world the country will need to raise €440 billion... that's €440,000,000,000 in cash, next year, or that as Reuters reported earlier, the country has simply decided not to issue preliminary Q3 GDP data. It makes sense: due to austerity Greece had to clamp down on ink costs and as a result was unable to print tax forms. And now Italy gets two ministers for the price of one (PM and FinMin) and now its statistic office is cutting back on calculator and abacus costs. Very prudent and we are sure the ECB will be delighted with this proactive expense management.Whatever You Do, Don't Look At The UniCredit Long Bond
Bond European Central Bank Sigma X Sigma X
....or
else you will figure out not only that there is such a thing as
sovereign crisis spillover into financials, but why UniCredit was once
again the most active name on Sigma X yesterday, and why earlier today it is rumored that the bank is scrambling for emergency ECB assistance. But such is life when your equity is €14.5 billion and your total holdings of Italian bonds ar... €40 billion! If we were betting people, we would probably out a dollar down that UCG is the next Dexia. 
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