Love him or hate him (and based on some recent appearances, notably side by side Hugh Hendry , he hasn't left much room for amorous intentions), Joe Stiglitz once again takes center stage, this time in this appearance at the Commenwealth Club, in which he discusses various things (among which are his grading of Obama, which compared to Dubya' administration, he gives an A+ , and since this is roughly in line with where the rating agencies rate the US, it should raise all sorts of red flags). One of the key topics of discussion is his claim that efficient markets are a myth, and that Adam Smith's "invisible hand" appears as such because it was never truly there
Update: Nope. It's not what everyone expected
Greece in no rush to sell bonds, debt chief says ( Bloomberg ) Greece puts bond sale on hold as it hopes bail out will let it borrow at sub-7% ( Guardian ) Banks raise pay as U.K. efforts to cut bonuses fail ( Bloomberg ) John Crudele: Hey Washington! Economy has us very worried ( Post ) Hedge funds move to euro after Greek CDS trading is the now the "old trade" ( Reuters ) Sovereign CDS trading to be probed by EU ( Bloomberg ) as shorting euro is now borderline illegal Man who broke the Bank of England, George Soros, "at center of hedge funds plot to cash in on fall of euro" ( Daily Mail ) Singapore, Abu Dhabi face $10 billion loss on UBS ( Bloomberg ) Bond yields, earnings yields and inflation ( Hussman ) Paul Farrell: 8 reasons why Wall Street loses another 20% this decade ( MarketWatch ) Cut pay for government workers ( Forbes ) Remembering the lessons of the last market bubble ( WaPo ) And more CDS "experts" chime in: time to outlaw naked CDS (nothing about "naked" selling or "naked" put buying yet) ( FT ) graphic of the day via Richard
Not a good day for consumer confidence. First, the vastly irrelevant Conference Board crashed and burned earlier, dropping nearly 10 points below consensus expectations after its only driver, the market, turned down in January, showing just how unreliable this index is, and now the ABC Consumer Comfort came in at the "dreaded" -50 level (and don't get us started on UMich, whose entire rolodex consists of the home phone numbers of Blankfein, Dimon and Pandit). The is the lowest reading for the index since -51 recorded in October 2009, and just 4 points above its 24 year record low.
With Geoffrey Batt With everyone's attention drawn to each and every step the IMF takes, while contemplating the imminent Greek bailout, which without exception and with the grace of a drunk 3-ton bull in a China store, leaves nothing but annihilation and currency boards in its wake, is the popular opinion once again getting the Houdini treatment courtesy of the mainstream media? One thing learned over the past year is that everything is a distraction for something else, and that something else, quite usually without failure, ends up being the Marriner Eccles building on Constitution Avenue in D.C
The following chart from Stateline will be quite critical to evaluate going forward as states increasingly ponder just how to tweak their revenue formulas in order to not only get away from the precipice of insolvency, but to pay back the tens of billions borrowed from the Federal government to fund unemployment pay. And as for the abovementioned borrowings to fund unemployment insurance payments, the Post and Courier has the following story highlighting that not only are states in the red, they also have a $31 billion hold to repay to Uncle Sam.
The deflationist: a profile of Paul Krugman ( New Yorker ) China new village makes Chanos see Dubai times 1,000 ( Bloomberg ) Goldman cranks up p.r. engine to turn sinner into saint ( Post ) Hey recovery.gov, The "stimulus" actually raised unemployment ( IBD ) Another one jumps on the bandwagon - Nathaniel Rotschild calls for ban on sovereign CDS ( Les Echos (in french), via DealBook ) Euro worst to come as Greece hammerlocks ECB on rates ( Bloomberg ) Bernanke can tell congress he stiffed banks ( Bloomberg ) The woman behind Greece's debt deal ( WSJ ) Bailout anger undermines Geithner ( WSJ ) Don't believe the hype - Wall Street cautious despite strong earnings ( Reuters ) More on an order cancellation tax: exchanges now make $500 million a year for just reporting quotes ( Themis Trading ) The Bush syndicate chimes in - Brown Brothers Harriman on China's bond sales ( BBH ) Millions of unemployed face years without jobs ( NYT ) Attachment Size BBH 2.22.pdf 27.86 KB
You read about it here a week ago , not to mention here . Now read about it (almost verbatim) in the Wall Street Journal .
Two weeks ago we warned readers who wanted to get 2009 tax refunds to file their taxes asap. It appears we were prescient.
Is that what we have come down to? Earnings beats based on simple fraud?
Sunday, March 7, 2010
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