James Grant on what he is calling a Monster V recovery:
As if they really knew, leading economists predict that recovery from our Great Recession will be plodding, gray and jobless. But they don't know, and can't. The future is unfathomable.
Not famously a glass half-full kind of fellow, I am about to propose that the recovery will be a bit of a barn burner. Not that I can really know, either, the future being what it is. However, though I can't predict, I can guess. No, not "guess." Let us say infer.
The very best investors don't even try to forecast the future. Rather, they seize such opportunities as the present affords them. Henry Singleton, chief executive officer of Teledyne Inc. from the 1960s through the 1980s, was one of these enlightened opportunists. The best plan, he believed, was no plan. Better to approach an uncertain world with an open mind. "I know a lot of people have very strong and definite plans that they've worked out on all kinds of things," Singleton once remarked at a Teledyne annual meeting, "but we're subject to a tremendous number of outside influences and the vast majority of them cannot be predicted. So my idea is to stay flexible." Then how many influences, outside and inside, must bear on the U.S. economy?
Though we can't see into the future, we can observe how people are preparing to meet it. Depleted inventories, bloated jobless rolls and rock-bottom interest rates suggest that people are preparing for to meet it from the inside of a bomb shelter.
Read more. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204518504574420811475582956.html#mod=WSJ_hps_RIGHTTopCarousel
9/19/09
9/18/09
Japan cuts Y15,000bn stimulus plan
Japan cuts Y15,000bn stimulus plan
By Mure Dickie in Tokyo
Published: September 18 2009 05:36 | Last updated: September 18 2009 18:05
Japan’s new ruling Democratic party government formally decided on Friday to suspend parts of a Y15,000bn ($164bn, €111bn, £99bn) economic stimulus package.
By Mure Dickie in Tokyo
Published: September 18 2009 05:36 | Last updated: September 18 2009 18:05
Japan’s new ruling Democratic party government formally decided on Friday to suspend parts of a Y15,000bn ($164bn, €111bn, £99bn) economic stimulus package.
FHA
The expected report is out....
The Federal Housing Administration has been hit so hard by the mortgage crisis that for the first time, the agency's cash reserves will drop below the minimum level set by Congress, FHA officials said.
"It's very serious," FHA Commissioner David H. Stevens said in an interview. "There's nothing more serious that we're addressing right now, outside the housing crisis in general, than this issue."
The Federal Housing Administration has been hit so hard by the mortgage crisis that for the first time, the agency's cash reserves will drop below the minimum level set by Congress, FHA officials said.
"It's very serious," FHA Commissioner David H. Stevens said in an interview. "There's nothing more serious that we're addressing right now, outside the housing crisis in general, than this issue."
oops from Japan
# 4:17 AM In Japan this morning, the cost of protecting corporate bonds from default surged by as much as 59 basis points to 2.3% when consumer-finance provider Aiful said it will need to reschedule debt repayments after being locked out of credit markets. 1 Comment
9/17/09
9/16/09
Congressman Alan Grayson gave an interview to Wall Street Cheat Sheet's Damien Hoffman, which includes the following bombshells:
H.R. 1207 is one of the simplest bills imaginable. Unlike the healthcare bill which is over 1000 pages, H.R. 1207 is a page and a half. The bill lists the existing exclusion of the Federal Reserve from oversight by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and allows the GAO — an independent body — to audit the Federal Reserve Bank.
The Federal Reserve Bank has not had an independent audit since it was created almost 100 years ago, and it needs an audit. Many times we have exposed gross acts of irresponsibility on the part of the Federal Reserve. So, we need to dig in and get details.
Just a few weeks ago, while Chairman Bernanke was testifying to Congress, we examined the Fed balance sheet and P&L statement only to find what looked like the Fed handing over half a trillion dollars to foreigners. This was very surprising! When I asked Chairman Bernanke if this was true, he said, “Yes.” When I asked him who got the money, he said, “Fourteen foreign Central Banks.” And when I asked to who did they give the money, he said, “I don’t know.” “I don’t know” is not good enough when you’re talking about $500 billion. That’s $1700 for every man, woman, and child in this country...
They are performing a truly remarkable, surreptitious transfer of wealth from public to private hands. They are taking their ability to print money and shore up failed banks. They are simply stuffing money into the pockets of private interests.
In the case of the half a trillion dollars, they stuffed the money into foreign private pockets. In the case of another $230 billion, it has been tracked as a secret bailout to Citicorp in the US. The fact is the Federal Reserve continuously puts all of us on the hook for decisions they make to play favorites with private interests to the tune of trillions of dollars...
The Federal Reserve’s own website has some incredibly interesting information about the general state of the US economy and the distribution of wealth in our country. I was recently reading our national wealth capped out at $62 trillion two-years ago has crashed to $50 trillion since. Those are Federal Reserve statistics on their website.
The Federal Reserve Bank has not had an independent audit since it was created almost 100 years ago, and it needs an audit. Many times we have exposed gross acts of irresponsibility on the part of the Federal Reserve. So, we need to dig in and get details.
Just a few weeks ago, while Chairman Bernanke was testifying to Congress, we examined the Fed balance sheet and P&L statement only to find what looked like the Fed handing over half a trillion dollars to foreigners. This was very surprising! When I asked Chairman Bernanke if this was true, he said, “Yes.” When I asked him who got the money, he said, “Fourteen foreign Central Banks.” And when I asked to who did they give the money, he said, “I don’t know.” “I don’t know” is not good enough when you’re talking about $500 billion. That’s $1700 for every man, woman, and child in this country...
They are performing a truly remarkable, surreptitious transfer of wealth from public to private hands. They are taking their ability to print money and shore up failed banks. They are simply stuffing money into the pockets of private interests.
In the case of the half a trillion dollars, they stuffed the money into foreign private pockets. In the case of another $230 billion, it has been tracked as a secret bailout to Citicorp in the US. The fact is the Federal Reserve continuously puts all of us on the hook for decisions they make to play favorites with private interests to the tune of trillions of dollars...
The Federal Reserve’s own website has some incredibly interesting information about the general state of the US economy and the distribution of wealth in our country. I was recently reading our national wealth capped out at $62 trillion two-years ago has crashed to $50 trillion since. Those are Federal Reserve statistics on their website.
9/15/09
9/14/09
9/13/09
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