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Ym's +43, Nq's, +9.00, Es +4.25. No APPL yet.
Lee- On topic...your post tonight roused my inner-14-year-old-boy-sense-of-humor from a deep slumber.
Enjoy!
A Floating Crap Game
A Sewer Snake To Release
AM BM
Anaconda Action
Arsefire
Auditing Your ASSets
Back One Out
Backing The Big Brown Motorhome Out Of The Garage
Backing The Bus Out Of The Garage
Baiting The Trap
Bajsa
Bake A Hot Icicle
Bakin’ A Cake
Baking Brownies
Balance The Budget
Becoming The Porcelain Assassin
Bio Break
Blasting A Dookie
Bloop-Bloop
Blow The Load
Blow Up Heroshima
Blowing The Butt Trumpet
Bomb The Bowl
Bomb The Porcelain Sea
Bombing The Tidy Bowl Man
Brown Girl In The Ring
Building A Log Cabin
Building A Poo Cabin
Burn A Mule
Burying Some Cable
Bust Out A Nug Nug
Butt Cobras
Butt Gherkin
Bakin’ A Cake
Caca
Carpet Bombing Afghanistan
Catch Up On Some Reading
Cause A Collision
Charm An Upside Down Brown Snake
Check My Messages
Check The Pipes
Chocolate Rain
Chocolate Time
Choke A Brownie
Chop Some Butt Wood
Chopping A Log
Chuck The Football
Cleaning Out The Vertical File
Cleanse The Colon
Clear Out Some Inventory
Clear The Hallways
Code 3
Code Brown
Colon Bowlin’
Committing Yourself To The Dumpatorium
Commune With Nature
Contemplate My Existence
Contributing To Nature
Coronating Gluteus Maximus III
Crackin’ Off A Couple Of Bricks
Crimp Off A Length
Cripping A Crapple
Crowning
Curl One Down
Curl One Off
Cut A Cable
Cut Some Weight
Cut The Line For The Log Flume
Cutting Rope
Deceiver Of Farts
De-Corking The Borking
Dirty Squirties
Dispensing Some Soft-Serve
Dispose Of Hazardous Waste
Do A Dog
Do Some Spring Cleaning
Doing A #2
Doing Brown
Doing The Loose Poops Dance
Doing The Royal Squat
Doodey
Dookin It Out
Download
Download A Brownload
Downloading Some Brownware
Dr. Benjamin Fartlin
Drop A Biggie Smalls
Drop A Billy
Drop A Biscuit In The Basket
Drop A Bomb
Drop A Brick
Drop A Duke
Drop A Nuke
Drop A Scafuri
Drop A Stink Pickle
Drop Anchor
Drop Bombs On Hiroshima
Drop Off Some Logs
Drop Some Mud
Drop Wolf Bait
Dropping A Bomb
Dropping A Deuce
Dropping A Hoopsnake
Dropping A Load
Dropping Science
Dropping The Kids Off At The Pool
Dropping The Mexican Boll Weevil
Dropping The Weights
Evacuate The Building
Exorcise The Demons
Feed The Fish
Feed The Sewer Gators
Feed The Toilet
Feed The Water Gods
Feeding The White Monster
Fertilize The Ferns
Fertilizing The Plants
Fight With Turdzilla
Fill The Bowl
Fire Away
Fire Off A Missile
Foraging For Dungleberries
Free A Bog Crocodile
Full Moon Over Troubled Waters
Fumigate The Bathroom
Get Rid Of Some Lunch
Give Back That Corn
Give Birth To A Black Eel
Give Birth To A Brown Baby Marine
Give Birth To A Politician
Giving Birth
Giving Birth To A San Franciscan Love Child
Giving Birth To The Spineless Brownfish
Giving The Neighbors Some Food For Thought
Go Boom Boom
Go Number Two
Go Phone Elvis
Go Take A Billy
Go Lose Some Weight
Go To The Thinking Room
Go Upstairs And Check
Go Whack
Going For A Dump
Got The Hershey Squirts
Gotta Take A Squirter
Got To Go Bake The Brown Biscuit
Got To Go Put One On The Radar
Green Apple Splatters
Grow A Monkey Tail
Grow A Tail
Hang A Rat
Have A Crap
Have A Mud Baby
Have Some Alone Time
Having A Code Brown (at work)
Having A Food Baby
Heave a Havana
Helping The Groundhog Find His Shadow
Hershey Squirts
I Gotta Heave Ho
Igniting A Rectal Rocket
I’m Going To Go Sit Down
I’m Prairie-Dogging
I’m Touching Cloth
Jettisoning The Alien
Jumpers In The Door
Knit A Brown Sweater
Launch Torpedoes
Lay A Brick
Lay Down Some Spicy Brown
Lay Some Cable
Lay Some Pipe
Leaving A Floater
Lengthen The Spine
Let The Corn Out
Let The Dogs Out
Letting Loose
Letting The Toilet Know Who's Boss
Logging
Logging Into The Toilet And Making A Huge Download
Logging Out
Load Your Pants
Lose A Few Pounds
Lose Ten Pounds In One Minute
Losing Some Weight The Quick Way
Lucy Placing A Charlie Brown Kick
Make A Cleveland Steamer
Make A Delivery To American Standard
Make A Donation To The Porcelain God
Make A Food-Rollup
Make A Witches Hat
Make Fudge
Make Some Butt Coffee
Make Some Room
Making A Baby Ruth
Making A Deposit In The Porcelain Bank
Making A Grunt Sculpture
Making Gravy
Making Some Trouser Chili
Melt The Paint
Montezuma's Revenge
Mud Butt Fire Storm
Murder A Brown Snake
My Band’s About To Have An Ep Release
My Poop Is Playing Peek-A-Boo
Nugg Nugg
Numero Dos
Open Up A Can Of Soup
Open Wide For Chunky
Park My Breakfast
Park Your Supper
Paving The Hershey Highway
Pay Homage To Burger King
Pay The Band
Peeling The Wallpaper
Pinch A Grumpy
Pinch One Off
Pinching A Loaf
Pinchin’ A Stink Pickle
Plant Some Corn
Play Craps
Poke Out The Turtles Head
Poopy Doo
Press Coil
Produce A Brown Baby
Pump A Clump Of Dump Out Of My Rump
Punch A Growler
Punish The Toilet
Push Brown
Push Some Putty
Put My Knuckles To The Ground
Put My Thoughts Down On Paper
Putting In My Two Weeks Notice
Read A Book
Recreate Hurricane Katrina
Red Light Flashing
Release A Chocolate Hostage
Release The Beasts
Release The Hounds
Releasing The Chocolate Hostages
Releasing The Kraken
Ring Of Fire
Rob The Bakery
Roll Some Logs
Rolling A Cigar
Rondevous With Last Night Supper
Rumbling Bowels
Saturday Morning Special
Say Goodbye To Mr. Brown
Scatter Bombing
Secret activity #1
See A Man About A Horse
Send A Fax
Send Some Cigars Back To Cuba
Sending A Message To The White House
Serving Up A Poo Poo Platter
Shee-Shee
Shoo-Shoo
Shoot Some Craps
Shooting Out A Sewer Pickle
Sink Submarines
Skita
Slide One Out
Somethin's Bump'N Me Undies
Spray-Painting The Porcelain
Squash Out A Fun Log
Squash Out A Yule Log
Squeeze One Out
Squeeze Out A Lincoln
Squeezing Out A Flesh Slurpee
Squirt Juice
Squirt Some Dirt
Stocking The Pond With Brown Trout
Stranglehold On A Darkie
Stretch The Anus
Take A Seat On The Throne
Take The Browns To The Superbowl
Take The Kids For A Swim
Taking A Dump
Taking A Signal 92
Taking A Slam
Taking Bill Cosby’s Kids To The Lake
Taking The Browns To The Superbowl
The Brown Crown
The Brown Is Down
The Three S’s
Thinking Of Your Face
Throw A Wild Deuce In The Pot
Throwing a Curve Ball
Turn On The Sausage Maker
Turtle Head Pokin Out
Turtlin’ it
Twist Out A Nine Coiler
Visit Fortress Of Solitude
Visit The Library
Visit The Throne
Visiting Fonzie’s Office
Visiting The Brown Mound Of Rebound
Visiting The Crapper
Vote For President
Waking Winnie The Pooh
"Besides, who do you think really gives a shit?"
Lee...final answer.
lol...I'm telling you ahead of time...I'm stealing this one!
pants
There is some trading done by others. Even myself occasionally. I try to post my trades, few as they are. Some kind of a good book said, "better to light one candle than curse the darkness". I'd be glad to hear what you are trading if you are so inclined. I take critism from others constructively as long as it is civil, like yours seems to be. Thanks for the heads up.
Sounds like you had a substantial increase in "GDP" as a result of the prunes.
Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)
Really?
Is there any trading being done here by other than Lee?
I'm just a lurker here. Regular (frequent) trader on Option Traders Coop.
Followed Zeev in detail years ago. Learned a lot.
Assange and Anonymous As Elite Helpers?
The Daily Bell
Thursday, March 29, 2012
by Staff Report
Julian Assange
Anonymous Supposedly Plans to "Kill" the Internet on March 31 ... Planned DDOS campaign against DNS is meant to highlight piracy legislation issues. Al Gore may have finally met his match. While members of Anonymous aren't planning on inventing the internet, they are planning on destroying it – supposedly ... The DDOS campaign is expected to target the world's 13 domain name servers (DNSs), that allow the public to use the internet by translating human legible text-string URLs into machine-readable IP addresses. If the attack indeed materializes and if the DNS servers are all taken down, the Mayan apocalypse could come early -- the internet could blink offline. – DailyTech
Dominant Social Theme: We're fighting against the power!
Free-Market Analysis: Julian Assange wants to run for public office in Australia, his home country, and Anonymous wants to destroy the Internet, temporarily anyway. We are not surprised. Once more, it would seem, Anonymous is acting as a friend of the powers-that-be. More toward the bottom of the article.
Some background ... The Internet is like the Gutenberg Press before it. During the era of the Gutenberg Press, the social order was overturned. The Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment rolled like waves over Europe and America.
While history – real history – is admittedly a foggy occupation, it would seem that in the modern era, history is shaped by the competing forces of elite control and communication technology. When the Gutenberg Press came along, it had an explosive impact on the Way the World Worked.
People read books and the result was the reestablishment of logic and science – and a growing discontent with the Catholic Church, which was evidently and obviously misrepresenting the Bible.
The elites of the day fought back by trying to get ahead of public discontent. Instead of letting the Gutenberg Press take its course, the elites apparently supported the inevitable social upheaval by apparently funding both Martin Luther and John Calvin.
These two religious visionaries helped split up the Roman Catholic Church, which was apparently to the advantage of some controlling elites. But in the end, it seems obvious that the elites could not entirely control the forces that the Gutenberg Press had unleashed.
The elites of the day apparently encouraged war and social chaos. They seem to have helped fund Oliver Cromwell, who overthrew England's royal system, and tried to use people's burgeoning discontent to shape society in a certain way.
We know they were not entirely successful because of the creation of first the US confederation and then the United States of America. It would take several wars over nearly 150 years to even begin to turn the tide against freedom and individual human action.
The 20th century was the apogee of the modern elite's success. Using dominant social themes, the power elite of the modern era was able to frighten citizens in the West into giving up power and wealth to globalist facilities. The elites dream of global government and a global money.
But as what we call the Internet Reformation proceeds apace, the ability of the elites to counteract it is looking as hopeless now as back when the Gutenberg Press was being confronted and its manifestations manipulated.
Human beings – naked apes – tend to use tools to their fullest extent over time. Why wouldn't this historical trait hold true as well for the Internet?
In the 21st century, the Internet has done tremendous damage to elite memes of social control. Everything from global warming to the so-called war on terror to the real, tested efficacy of vaccines has come under attack.
By allowing people to read source material for themselves, the Internet has eviscerated many of the controlling myths of the day in much the same manner as the Gutenberg Press exploded myths propounded by the Roman Catholic Church some 500 years ago.
And we think we can see the same power elite manipulations today as then. War, economic upheaval and outright repression are the chosen tools of power elite pushback. But still the Internet Reformation rolls on, in our view.
The result is a massive subterranean conflict. In order to martial support for their perspectives, the elites have, in our view, begun cultivating a number of false flag facilities. Among the most prominent recent ones may be Julian Assange and Anonymous.
The parallels to Luther and Calvin would seem somewhat clear. The idea is to create a controlled opposition that rolls back the truth-telling of the Internet by confusing the larger message.
When the Assange/WikiLeaks phenomenon first began we wrote a series of fictional stories that might have applied to him, indicating the possibility he was part of a controlled opposition. The same goes for Anonymous. The first story was "Comes a Blond Stranger," followed by some further commentary in "Truth About WikiLeaks?"
We also predicted that Assange would run for public office. We did this by using the career of other modern "controlled opposition" figures as a blueprint. Sure enough, we now read the following, courtesy of InfoWars:
Wikileaks founder and accused sex offender Julian Assange wants to turn his notoriety into a job with the Australian government. He has announced he will run for the Australian senate as a "libertarian."
Assange says the United States is in "serious decline" and will lose its super power status over the next few years. In response, Assange believes the average Australian should be taxed more and the money spent on defense and intelligence.
He says his political model is Malcolm Fraser, the former Australian prime minister who sold himself as a free market Thatcherite but instead increased government taxes and spending. He supported U.S. foreign policy and Indonesia's annexation and occupation of East Timor which led to over 100,000 deaths.
Assange's political philosophy seems to be based on the un-libertarian concept of government force, although he told The Age he is a defender of liberty and "the right of citizens... to live lives free from state interference."
Meanwhile, Anonymous continues to pursue what we consider somewhat doubtful protests. In fact, if Anonymous DOES succeed in destabilizing the Internet, it will likely only upset people.
It won't necessarily make them reflect on the world's growing authoritarianism. It may make them look with more skepticism at the alternative media movement that Anonymous is supposedly aligned with.
More ominously, even, it will feed into the elite meme that the Internet is a dangerous and unpredictable place, one that needs to be rigorously controlled and scrutinized. Anonymous, within this context, has just reaffirmed its place as a great argument for SOPA and increased Internet censorship generally. Coincidence?
Well ... who actually knows what Anonymous is? There have been allegations all along that the group was in a sense a controlled opposition because its targets were almost invariably private enterprise. And recently, it was revealed that the FBI had "turned" one of its leaders, who is now facing a trial and jail.
Ironically, Anonymous plans its project to as a PROTEST of SOPA! Here's how the group puts it: "To protest SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun, On March 31, anonymous will shut the Internet down."
Will Assange win election to the Senate? Will Anonymous shut down the Internet? We submit the bigger question is: Who is actually in charge and why are they making the moves they are making? The elite uses dominant social themes – false-flag promotions – to manipulate people into going along with global government. The Internet Reformation stands athwart that.
Conclusion: Each individual must make up his or her mind as to the validity of this paradigm and all the conclusions that flow out of accepting such a vision or rejecting it. Assange and Anonymous will then be seen within the context of these perceptions – for better or worse.
http://www.thedailybell.com/3742/Assange-and-Anonymous-Acting-as-Predicted
Gold has bottomed at $1,650, silver at $32, Turk tells King World News
Submitted by cpowell on 03:00PM ET Thursday, March 29, 2012. Section: Daily Dispatches
6p ET Thursday, March 29, 2012
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk tells King World News tonight that gold has bottomed at $1,650 and silver at $32.
Turk adds:
"Sentiment is near rock-bottom as everyone's patience is being severely tested, even the old-timers'. That is another reliable sign that we are near an end of this correction. The longer the correction, the bigger the base that is formed. The bigger the base, the more prices will soar when they finally start heading higher."
From Turk's lips and the King World News blog to the Great Market Manipulator's ear, and we don't mean Bernanke:
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2012/3/29_James_Turk_-_Quiet_Gold_Market_Masks_Important_Development.html
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
<<<A few hours later, in bed, my stomach felt strange, so I went potty. And a while later I went potty again. I'm not sure how many times I went potty because I stopped counting at 23.>>>
That's considerably more detail than was necessary, Lee.....
Besides, who do you think really gives a shit?
Cap, these kind of articles are always suggesting assumptions designed to scare their intended audience.
Just ask yourself, if the risk is so great for these bondholders why would they settle for so little return?
I'm not saying that there is no risk, but as Paul Volker said of Ben's QEII and I'm paraphrasing "Bernanke will need to be careful in unwinding this program". Certainly interest rates will be interwoven into his unwinding, but I am not going to lose any sleep over this. Interest rates and inflation are part of the Fed's job.
Matt Taibbi: Push to End Too-Big-To-Fail Goes Mainstream
Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images
Matt Taibbi
March 29, 12:35 PM ET
Wall Street is buzzing about the annual report just put out by the Dallas Federal Reserve. In the paper, Harvey Rosenblum, the head of the Dallas Fed's research department, bluntly calls for the breakup of Too-Big-To-Fail banks like Bank of America, Chase, and Citigroup.
The government's bottomless sponsorship of these TBTF institutions, Rosenblum writes, has created a "residue of distrust for government, the banking system, the Fed and capitalism itself."
The report (PDF), entitled, "Choosing the Road to Prosperity: Why We Must End Too-Big-To-Fail Now," ( http://tiny.cc/0piybw ) is written in a surprisingly readable style and is illustrated with reader-friendly cartoons and pictographs. It uses rhetoric that, for the Fed, is extremely candid and colorful, going beyond an arcane analysis of monetary policy to focus on the cultural damage of Too-Big-To-Fail.
"These psychological side-effects of Too-Big-To-Fail can't be measured, but they're too important to ignore," Rosenbaum writes. "People disillusioned with capitalism aren't as eager to engage in productive activities. They're likely to approach economic decisions with suspicion and cynicism, shying away from the risk-taking that drives entrepreneurial capitalism."
Much of Rosenbaum's report sounds like it could have been written by Dylan Ratigan, Nomi Prins, Tyler Durden, Barry Rithotz, or any of the other countless critics of Wall Street that have grown out of the crisis era.
He sounds many of the same themes pressed by all of these critics: He calls for higher capital requirements, hammers home the notion that capitalism can't work without failures, and talks at length about the moral hazards of the Fed's limitless zero-interest-rate lending, which he notes can be seen as "taxing savers to pay for the recapitalization of banks whose dire problems led to the calamity."
Moreover, he talks about an inherent perversion of the system that has led to a two-tiered regulatory environment: a top tier where the misdeeds of TBTF banks are routinely ignored and unpunished ("virtually nobody has been held accountable for their roles in the financial crisis," he writes), and a lower tier where small regional banks are increasingly forced to swim upstream against "the law's sheer length, breadth and complexity," leading to a "massive increase in compliance burdens."
To me, the dichotomy outlined by Rosenbaum helps explain the appearance of two seemingly contradictory major protest movements: a Tea Party movement fulminating against a repressive, overweening regulatory regime, and the Occupy movement railing against an extreme laissez-faire system bordering on lawlessness.
The situation described by Rosenbaum explains how both movements could be right. Just as Tea Party leaders argue, there really has been an enormous flowering of new regulatory burdens in recent decades. It's just that one group of actors has been given de facto license to ignore those burdens, while everyone else has not. Thus two movements protesting lawlessness on the one hand and an excess of laws on the other – that doesn't necessarily strain the imagination.
Rosenblum lists many reasons why he thinks the TBTF banks must be broken up, but the one that might be the most damning is his criticism of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, which ostensibly created a mechanism for winding down troubled TBTF institutions with reduced cost to the taxpayer. Under Dodd-Frank, banks are supposed to create "living wills" that contain plans for orderly wind-downs in the case of a Lehmanesque disaster.
But in his criticism of Dodd-Frank, Rosenbaum points to what Josh Rosner in our recent Bank of America piece ( http://tiny.cc/otiybw ) called "the worst-kept secret on Wall Street": the high probability that when "the big one" finally hits, no one in government will have the guts to let a TBTF company go down the drain. Why? Because these firms are so deeply intertwined and interconnected that when one of them starts taking water, they essentially all do -- and so any president who chooses to refuse to reach into the cookie jar for a big bailout would likely be signing off on the political suicide of a broad systemic collapse.
"In all likelihood," Rosenbaum writes, "TBTF could again become TMTF – too many to fail, as happened in 2008." He adds that, "For all its bluster, Dodd-Frank leaves TBTF entrenched."
The significance of the Dallas Fed report isn't that yet another person has come out to make public note of the impossible-to-miss, gigantic, oozing wart on the face of American capitalism that is the TBTF system. What's significant is that we're moving closer to a time when the extremely critical view of TBTF, and the demand for an end to the system, becomes bipartisan consensus.
On what we call the far ends of the political spectrum, in Occupy and the Tea Party, there are people who obviously have sharply contrasting views on all sorts of things. Your average Occupy protester and your average Rand Paul devotee probably couldn't make it through a game of Boggle without getting in a loud scrap about something, whether it's Obamacare or gay parenting or whatever.
But whether you think modern American capitalism needs to be fundamentally reformed or whether you think it just needs a few tweaks here and there, you probably can at least agree, for starters, that our system definitely can't work if corrupt, failing companies escape consequence by leaning on an endless supply of bailouts and low-interest financial patronage by the Federal Reserve.
The conservative argument on TBTF is beginning to blend in with, and become indistinguishable from, the progressive argument. You can say the current system is private enterprise corrupting government, or you can call it repressive government corrupting private enterprise, but it increasingly amounts to the same thing.
By now, virtually everybody who has an informed opinion on the matter thinks the TBTF system makes no sense and must end -- the only people who really disagree are the leaders of those firms, the politicians who depend on their money. There may not be many more papers like this Dallas Fed report coming down the pipe from influential political sources, but there will be even fewer arguing the converse, i.e that TBTF is a good idea that's been great for America. There isn't anyone outside Jamie Dimon's inner circle who'd even think about writing that paper.
Reports like this one by the Dallas Fed are important because they add legitimacy to the argument for breaking up TBTF. Intellectually, pretty much everybody likely agrees with Rosenbaum. But they need someone with the right credentials to tell them that saying so isn't revolutionary socialism. Once people on both sides of the aisle start realizing they agree about breaking up these banks, who knows? It might even happen.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/with-blistering-dallas-fed-report-ending-too-big-to-fail-goes-mainstream-20120329
Four Numbers Add Up to an American Debt Disaster
Consider the following numbers: 2.2, 62.8, 454, 5.9. Drawing a blank? Not to worry. They don’t mean much on their own.
1) 2.2 percent is the average interest rate on the U.S. Treasury’s marketable and non-marketable debt (February data).
2) 62.8 months is the average maturity of the Treasury’s marketable debt (fourth quarter 2011).
3) $454 billion is the interest expense on publicly held debt in fiscal 2011, which ended Sept. 30.
4) $5.9 trillion is the amount of debt coming due in the next five years.
For the moment, Nos. 1 and 2 are helping No. 3 and creating a big problem for No. 4. Unless Treasury does something about No. 2, Nos. 1 and 3 will become liabilities while No. 4 has the potential to provoke a crisis.
In plain English, the Treasury’s reliance on short-term financing serves a dual purpose, neither of which is beneficial in the long run. First, it helps conceal the depth of the nation’s structural imbalances: the difference between what it spends and what it collects in taxes. Second, it puts the U.S. in the precarious position of having to roll over 71 percent of its privately held marketable debt in the next five years -- probably at higher interest rates.
First Among Equals
And that’s a problem. The U.S. is more dependent on short- term funding than many of Europe’s highly indebted countries, including Greece, Spain and Portugal, according to Lawrence Goodman, president of the Center for Financial Stability, a non- partisan New York think tank focusing on financial markets.
The U.S. may have had a lot more debt in relation to the size of its economy following World War II, but the structure was much more favorable, with 41 percent maturing in less than five years, 31 percent in five-to-10 years and 21 percent in 10 years or more, according to CFS data. Today, only 10 percent of the public debt matures outside of a decade.
Based on the current structure, a one percentage-point increase in the average interest rate will add $88 billion to the Treasury’s interest payments this year alone, Goodman says. If market interest rates were to return to more normal levels, well, you do the math.
Some economists have cited the Treasury’s ability to borrow all it wants at 2 percent as an argument for more fiscal stimulus. Why not, as long as it’s cheap?
Goodman says the size of the deficit (8.2 percent of gross domestic product) or the debt (67.7 percent of GDP) is only part of the problem. The bigger threat is rollover risk: “the same thing that got countries from Portugal to Argentina to Greece into trouble,” he says. “It’s the repayment of principal that often provides the catalyst for a market event or a crisis.”
The U.S. is unlikely to go from all-you-want-at-2-percent to basket-case overnight. That said, policy makers would be wise to view recent market volatility as a taste of things to come.
Talking to Goodman, I was reminded of the Treasury’s standard sales pitch before quarterly refunding operations during periods of rising yields. Some undersecretary for domestic finance would be dispatched to tell us that Treasury expected to have no trouble selling its debt.
I had an equally standard response: At what price?
That seems particularly relevant today. The Federal Reserve purchased 61 percent of the net Treasury issuance last year, according to the bank’s quarterly flow-of-funds report. That’s masking the decline in demand from everyone else, including banks, mutual funds, corporations and individuals, Goodman says.
Of course, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke might look at the same numbers and see them as a sign of success. His stated goal in buying bonds is to lower Treasury yields and push investors into riskier assets.
Free to Borrow
Then there’s the distortion in the relative value of stocks versus bonds to worry about. Using the 10-year cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio and the inverse of the 10-year Treasury yield, Goodman says the relationship hasn’t been this out of whack since 1962.
The Treasury isn’t unaware of the rollover risk. At the same time, it’s trying to accommodate the increased demand for “high-quality liquid assets,” such as Treasury bills, as required under new international capital-and-liquidity standards, says Lou Crandall, the chief economist at Wrightson ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey.
In fact, when Treasury bills carry a negative yield -- when investors are paying the government to hold their money for three, six or 12 months -- borrowing “more is better,” Crandall says.
Still, the dangers are very real and were highlighted by Bernanke himself last week in the second of four lectures to students at George Washington University. Explaining why the decline in house prices had a greater impact than the drop in equity prices less than a decade earlier, Bernanke talked about “vulnerabilities” in the financial system. Too much debt was one; a reliance on short-term funding was another.
I doubt he had the Treasury in mind when he was explaining how the subprime debacle morphed into a global financial crisis, but the U.S. government would be wise to heed his advice. Currently its demand on the credit markets for annual interest and principal payments is equivalent to 25 percent of GDP, Goodman says, 10 percentage points higher than the norm. That’s real money. And with the federal budget deficit projected to top $1 trillion for the fourth year running, the funding pressure is bound to increase.
So the next time you hear someone say the Treasury can borrow all it wants at 2 percent, tell him, that’s true -- until it can’t.
(Caroline Baum, author of “Just What I Said,” is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
Read more opinion online from Bloomberg View.
The editors on Medicare's payment board. Ezra Klein on mandates, taxes and saving Obamacare. Amity Shlaes on Barack Obama and FDR. Robert H. Gertner on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Oleg Kashin on Russia's protest problem. Steven Greenhut on Californians for higher taxes.
To contact the writer of this article: Caroline Baum in New York at cabaum@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this article: James Greiff at jgreiff@bloomberg.net
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-28/four-numbers-add-up-to-an-american-debt-disaster.html
Just spent 2 months in California. While the doom and gloom wasn't outwardly present I do note that the nearest City to us, El Centro, has a 26% unemployment rate. (and that's just the legals)
I have no hope for Cali. I literally know dozens of people whom used to live in the State and now live in Nevada, Texas, Oregon and Washington. (yes I don't understand Washington either but ...)
I hear ya Zab, that's why i went back to the emini's. I don't have enough money to make trading stocks worth while and even if i had more, I would be flagged a pattern daytrader.
The futures allow me to have much more of a chance at making extra money and there's no pattern daytrader crap, there's no restrictions on how many trades a day that i can make and I don't have to have very much in the account, to have huge buying power. My commissions and exchange fee's, are only $3.50 per round trip.
I kinda like being out every day before the close, seems much safer now a days, but i would like to reach the level where i will have enough for overnight margin. Many of the moves start way before the regular hours open for sure.
Now i just need to get more consistent at it.
I still believe we are in a topping pattern here and tops can take forever, bottoms are very quick. I believe the Fed has a lot to do with prolonging this topping process and are making it very difficult for us to trade.
Scalping pennies can still be done, but unless you are playing a large position, the commissions can eat you up, and I pay $ 6.00 per trade.
The choppiness of the markets is what gets me, one day up, three down this week, thou we did rally back again today, its all for nothing if you wake up in the morning to a sell-off.
But at least we have a market, in 2008 I was wondering if the financial system was going to go under, or has everyone forgotton about those dark days. So it can always be worse than it is currently.
MF Global: Forbes Sums It Up Well, And My Take, 'Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here'
Posted by jesse
at 12:14 PM 29 March 2012
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate." -Dante, The Inferno
Forbes has been head and shoulders above the rest of the mainstream media in reporting on MF Global.
Francine McKenna provides an excellent summation of the entire three part scandal.
Part one. There was the conscious transferring of customer assets to meet a margin call by JP Morgan in London in what was intended to be an 'over the weekend' transaction with the funds replaced on Monday. Edith O'Brien is at the center of this, although it is almost inconceivable that she acted alone.
Part two. In part the failure of MF Global was caused by the refusal of certain parties to honor requests for wire transfers of legitimate funds. These parties almost certainly had insider knowledge of MF Global's finances, and may have even had a financial interest in MF Global's failure.
Part three. In hiding funds seized at the last hour from MF Global, and using influence to steer the bankruptcy to Chapter 11 versus the much more appropriate Chapter 7, certain parties, which may include some regulators most likely at the SEC and CFTC, and the hiding of the funds from investigators and the customers, it is quite possible that there was a conspiracy to obstruct justice.
And as in all scandals such as this, it is the obstruction of justice that can become the real giant killer in covering up 'a third rate burglary.'
Obviously neither Francine McKenna or I have all the facts. The way in which the bankruptcy was handled helps to insure that. And of course in the US people have the right to plead the Fifth Amendment, and are 'innocent and proven guilty.'
Plausible deniability and the 'CEO defense' are very much en vogue these days, which is ironic because as in the case of Enron, the defense if invoked by exceptionally well-compensated 'professionals' who were being paid for their performance and expertise. Until something goes wrong that is, and then no one knows anything. And this is why corporate America hates Sarbanes-Oxley, because it strikes to the heart of that plausible deniability, and says, 'you should know.'
From my perspective, MF Global is a symptom of what is wrong with the system in addition to being a shocking injustice. It has all the elements of a system gone wrong. White collar criminality, privileged elites, the double standard of law, secretive proceedings, craven media, posturing Congressmen, non-involved Justice Department, seizure of private property, compromised regulators, and a culture of fraud and deceit that serves the monied interests above all else, above oaths and honor. The sign on the entrance to the Anglo-American financial system should read, 'Abandon all hope. ye who enter here.'
There will be no sustainable recovery until the banks are restrained and the system is reformed.
The Story Behind Today's MF Global Congressional Testimony
By Francine McKenna
Forbes
3/28/2012 @ 5:15PM
If the only stories you read about MF Global come from the major daily media reports and congressional testimony, you’ll miss most of the truth and quickly become confused about who knew what and when. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Reuters, in particular, have gone back and forth on the story many times, flip-flopping around with every new leak, every new published document, every supposed scoop. I’d have whiplash by now if I’d jerked my head one way and then the other and back again as often as their reporters have when telling you, today, who done it.
What you should really wonder is why none of these reporters are doing any real investigative work. Why aren’t the reporters cultivating sources other than those who have a strong motivation for steering the story in one direction and then another, perpetuating misdirection and buying time until they they figure out the political and practical ramifications of what really went on? Why aren’t they reporting the corrections and contradictions to the versions they’ve been repeating?
I’m sticking to the same theory I’ve had since I published it here on November 9th: MF Global and its executives ran out of time and legitimate sources of funding for the growing amount of collateral demands on the sovereign debt repo-to-maturity transactions and customer redemption requests. By Wednesday October 26, 2011 they were out of options. They had no plan to file bankruptcy until they were forced to at least plan for the contingency and, according to the first day filings with the bankruptcy judge, hired Skadden on Friday the 28th.
Corzine and Co.’s goal was to sell the company or, at least, the broker dealer. To do that required keeping it all viable until that deal could be sealed. To do that, I believe, senior executives illegally pledged customer assets – Treasuries and Bunds – as collateral for a short-term loan over the weekend of the 28th. The plan was to put those assets back in the accounts when the buyer paid. Unfortunately for everyone, MF Global was forced to file Chapter 11 on Monday October 31. General Counsel Laurie Ferber did not admit until later that day that executives had “discovered a significant shortfall in its segregated funds account”.
Unlike similar bankruptcies before that – Lehman and Refco – the broker dealer was not sold cleanly. There was eveidence of potential fraud on day 1, October 31. The regulators never should have allowed the holding company to be put in Chapter 11 – debtor in possession – versus Chapter 7. By doing so, Judge Glenn allowed the pirates – the executives who caused the shortfall – to continue to control the ship until Freeh was appointed Trustee for the holding company a month later.
The customer assets that had been illegally pledged were seized by the “lender of last resort” as soon as bankruptcy occurred. I have evidence someone was worried almost immediately about a clawback. That party took the excess collateral for the loan as well as the value of what they lent. They will have to be forced to give it back.
And with that you explain the huge hole in the balance sheet.
Everything we’ve heard since then – revelations, testimony, secret emails and admissions – supports my theory. They only thing left is to identify the “lender of last resort”...
Read the rest here: http://tiny.cc/zd9xbw
"It is no use trying to escape their arrogance by submissiveness and good behaviour. They pillage the world. When the land has nothing left to ravage, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy, if he is poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satiate them.
Among mankind they alone covet with the same greed both the poor and the rich. To plunder, to massacre, to steal, this they call Empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
-Tacitus, Agricola
Posted by jesse at 12:14 PM 29 March 2012
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2012/03/mf-global-forbes-sums-it-up-well.html
44 here...same deal. AC-DC and Scorpions were a few another bad habits of years past. I was rockin my kids out this morning on the way to school to "Have a Drink on Me"...that spectacular riff at the end and they were all pumping their fists...made me proud.
pants
Trading sure has changed Zab, it's nothing like it used to be. I guess we have to just keep trying to adjust to their super computers.
It's much harder than it used to be.
cap.
Nothing worse than watching a down opening, and seeing those small gains erased before you can even get in a trade. But the market isn't meant for the small investor, or trader, its here to provide money to those who know what Bernanke will do next.
Meanwhile I see some of my favorite industries fail to even catch a bid, so no matter what happens going forward, very few industries will enjoy the benefits of all of this easy money.
My sense is you will be correct. The problem with a topping pattern is the time duration phase. This could drag out a while, a long while. The longer the drag the more pronounce the move one way or the other. I'm of mind we will top out this year and descend into a multi year Bear market. Fundamentals are horrendous in a this propped up phoney market. Payback will be very hard.
Another nice last hour, but just like yesterday's effort, another chance to sell stocks to unsuspecting buyers.
SAH turned around.
AIG touched 30 once againOther than that, the excitement waned.
50, saw my first concert in 1975. And many many many more from 75 to 81.
I tell people that's what's wrong with me, when they ask what's wrong with you boy lol!
Most don't believe me, but it's true :)
cap.
Cap we are a kindred spirit. I don't know how old you are but that was one of the first albums I ever bought as a kid.
pants
Bull trap here? chart below
http://investorshub.advfn.com/uimage/uploads/2012/3/29/cjtwdspystuff.jpg
As soon as Bernanke was gonna open his yap,this market was jammed.What did The Four Tops sing?..."it's the same old song...".
I would recommend reading The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T.R.Reid. No matter what one current view is it will enlighten you to options.
Affordable = somebody else is paying for it.
Best post of the entire day.
pants
Good one, gottfried.... Thanks for posting it!
I thought it was very well written and I enjoyed it immensely.
Imo, their closing paragraph was especially poignant. <g>
"As the organization representing America’s funeral directors, gravediggers, embalmers and cremators, we are confident that the Supreme Court will ultimately do the right thing and decide that healthcare flies in the face of every American’s constitutional right to the pursuit of deadness. And when they do, we’ll be waiting for you."
Sincerely,
The National Alliance of Funeral Directors
I think we all agree on the need for affordable healthcare for all. The question is how best to reach that goal. I don't have an answer. I know what I don't like about current possible solutions, but I don't see an IDEAL solution. . .yet.
Newly
It'd be crazier to elect Romney or Santorum.Oops.<g>
OT ** "An Argument Against Healthcare
From the National Alliance of Funeral Directors"
http://www.borowitzreport.com/
I'm sorry I just noticed this post, Newly.
A lot of my posts that cause grief on this board are because the posters I'm responding to do not have valid arguments. And as to the name-calling, gt and Dan both know and understand what I'm saying is clear right-wing BS. They just happen to believe it and that is fine, however it doesn't suddenly make it not BS just because you agree with it. They both have complained about my posts ooozing with left-wing BS and they (I think) recognize it as all in fun.
It's unlikely that those posters and I will agree on much of anything, but I intend to continue to point it out when they (or you) go over the edge.
Hi Sally. Took a schnapple but can hardly read. I don't recall "getting on your case," but if I did I apologize. Can't understand the broo hah-hah. I'll look at it tomorrow, though I'll be out until maybe 10:00 a.m.
<<<If America is crazy enough to re-elect Obama she deserves all she gets>>>
When you get some time, Geoff.....
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=48040
I'll give you a pass for now, and head to the gym. Consider yourself lucky. :^))
No, never seen it before, but totally agree with it.
Newly, I like what you said about the history before insurance. Where I disagree though is your opposition to single payer,eg: federal gov.
If coverage is provided by the private sector, with share holder, management, bean counters and computer algo types, there will be the same hungry bunch as those who have always screwed everyone. The business of business (aside from rewarding management) is to show profit: Insure those not sick. You said it, "Once healthcare became the responsibility of institutions, costs spiralled out of control".
If it has to be done, where everyone pays, don't let it be a game for marketers, mathematicians, lobbyists and lawyers. Let it be the bureaucracy where the screwing is spread more evenly, imho. ;-/
GLDD- interesting little company with some news of late.
Its an issue that is not going away, and no solution is an end all to the on-going debate, but to ignore the issue, and to go back to the let's discuss it, just prolongs the uncertainty in the economy, and every corporation that gives it out as a benefit.
America is a country that has led the way in tackling issues and moving society forward, its also one of the reasons the stock market is being held up in its advance to 15,000.
Talk about taking personal responsibility for your actions, besides this plan is nothing more than the old Republican plan that Bob Dole put forth almost 20 years ago.
Lowering the odds from 1 to 5 to 1 to 10....Secretariat.
Set a bid for AAPL @450.It has a 50-50 chance of being executed.It does or doesn't.
All you need to do to answer your own question is look at what medicare has done to healthcare costs for those over 65. This isn't rocket science, either.
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