[URL="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/uk-delarue-greece-idUKBRE84H0DH20120518"]UK banknote printer readies for Greek call[/URL]
[QUOTE]An exit from Europe's single currency would spark a major demand for the returning drachma and while the country's state printers could orchestrate its production, a handful of global firms like De La Rue could be called on to help.

Buffeted equity investors looking for respite from the Greek turmoil have been busy buying up De La Rue shares in anticipation, helping push them up 11 percent in the last month.

Panmure analyst Paul Jones said the firm would be in with a chance of work if extra capacity was needed and could also benefit from other work as Greek printers were less likely to be quoting for contracts elsewhere.[/QUOTE]
Looks like forward business plans proceed apace.

[QUOTE=Fusion_power;299806]Too late Ewmayer, you are a punster too. Mortgage loam![/QUOTE]

I am glad someone appreciates my latest unwitting-pun "feat of clay".

---------------------------------

In further economic-blogger news, I see Denninger has gone completely off the rails again with the "Obama birth controversy" - this time the fact that Michelle O referred to her husband as "a Kenyan" during a trip to Africa supposedly amounts to her admission that BHO was not born in the good ole US of motherf****** A, y'all. Apparently interpreting that phrasing as "of Kenyan extraction" or as referring to the obvious fact that most Kenyans think of him as "one of their own" is beyond the cognitive abilities of the birther loonies.

KD should stick to matters economic - And I just told him as much, via e-mail.

"Is GOP trying to sabotage economy to hurt Obama?"

[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/gop-trying-sabotage-economy-hurt-obama-135650274--finance.html[/URL]

(I'm not the only one who notices...)

[quote]WASHINGTON (AP) — Are Republican lawmakers deliberately stalling the economic recovery to hurt President Barack Obama's re-election chances? Some top Democrats say yes, pointing to GOP stances on the debt limit and other issues that they claim are causing unnecessary economic anxiety and retarding growth.

The latest Democratic complaint came after House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday that when Congress raises the nation's borrowing cap in early 2013, he will again insist on big spending cuts to offset the increase. Boehner, R-Ohio, continues to reject higher tax rates, which Democrats demand from the wealthy.

That led Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to say Boehner is virtually assuring another debt-ceiling crisis as bad or worse than the one that shook financial markets nine months ago.

. . .

Boehner responded in a statement: "Republicans have passed nearly 30 bills that would help small businesses create jobs and we are waiting on Senate Democrats to vote on these common-sense measures. The failure to act on these jobs bills, as well as our crushing debt burden,[/quote][strike]Crocodile[/strike] Politician tears about the debt from the party whose own strategists deliberately engineered the massive grown in federal debt since 1981 in order to put itself in a situation such as we have now, where they fool those who didn't notice, forget, or are too young to remember, the three-decade GOP pattern.

[quote]is undermining economic growth and job creation."

Democrats say Republicans loaded their jobs bills with provisions certain to doom them in the Senate, such as restrictions on unions and on regulatory agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

Regardless of whether Schumer's suspicions are right, there's evidence that unceasing partisan gridlock and the prospect of big tax increases and spending cuts in January are causing some companies to postpone expansions. Even small economic slowdowns are bad news for Obama, who is seeking re-election amid high unemployment.

The Washington Post this past week compiled a list of military contractors, hospitals and universities that are delaying hires and bracing for cuts, partly because of fears that Washington's partisan divisions will not abate.

. . .

Republicans say it's absurd to make such an accusation. They point to bipartisan efforts to pass jobs-creation bills, trade pacts and, after some arguments, an extension of the payroll tax cut that Obama originally had proposed for only one year.[/quote]... but for thirty years they've carefully avoided agreeing to anything that would actually represent responsible management of the nation's finances.

Before Reagan, Republicans acted as the sensible counter-party to keep deficits small. But not enough voters perceived that the long-term national value of that responsible policy outweighed the sensationalism of Watergate. The think tanks realized that appealing to fiscal responsibilities wasn't getting conservatives as many votes as they were losing to those more easily distracted by current events. So, they decided to start taking advantage of the public's fiscal short-sightedness instead of fighting it.

And now we have the new [I]Citizens United[/I] world where the right-wing billionaires can throw their weight around more openly than by just using the long-term think-tank strategies. Perhaps this very forthrightness will continue to wake up folks a la Occupy.

[quote]GOP lawmakers want Congress to act this year to ensure that none of the Bush-era income tax cuts will expire[/quote]... because that expiration would mark a major step back toward fiscal responsibility ...

[quote], as scheduled, on Jan. 1. Such assurance, they say, could lead investors and business owners to start expanding and hiring now.

Democrats say the move, by itself, would increase the deficit dramatically. They want to end the tax cuts for the wealthiest and they note that the economy boomed during Bill Clinton's presidency, before the big tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 were enacted.

Boehner's aides say the speaker supports tax law changes, including eliminating some loopholes and exemptions, that could result in greater revenue even if rates remain the same or are reduced.[/quote]Yes, the GOP always agrees to enough small stuff so they can point to that as evidence of fiscal responsibility.

But that is being penny-wise, while the attempt to extend tax cuts that were never necessary is pound-foolish.

[quote]As for the debt limit, "allowing America to default would be irresponsible," Boehner said Tuesday at an economic forum. "But it would be more irresponsible to raise the debt ceiling without taking dramatic steps to reduce spending and reform the budget process."[/quote]But you didn't see the GOP taking that stand when a Republican president was in office.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;299851]KD should stick to matters economic - And I just told him as much, via e-mail.[/QUOTE]
He took it really well, too. :)
[quote]Yes it will get you on the blacklist as this is the SECOND confirmation of Obama's own bio which I posted on earlier in the week.

You should stay out of my mailbox and off my forum.[/quote]
I was never actually on his forum, but according to lots of ex-members thereof whose comments appear in other places like Ritholtz.com and Zerohedge, he runs it like a petulant child, utterly intolerant of any dissenting views whatsoever. That and his repeated embrace of flat-out nutty stuff explain why he will always be easily dismissed as a lunatic-fringe blogger. Ah, well, at some point the crazy becomes too much even for those who have a fairly high tolerance for such stuff.

---------------------

Robert Shiller (one half of the well-known Case-Shiller U.S. housing price index) has an Op-Ed arguing against "Austerian Economics" in the NYT today:
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/business/economy/how-national-belt-tightening-goes-awry-economic-view.html?ref=business]How National Belt-Tightening Goes Awry[/url]: [i]WHY is there such strong political support for fiscal austerity, for government cuts and layoffs, at a time of widespread unemployment?[/i]
[quote]I have previously argued in this column that a different approach, a “winter on the family farm” metaphor, should be stressed in bad times. When winter comes, and there aren’t the usual jobs in planting and harvesting, we should all keep busy anyway. We should demand that everyone help out with long-term projects on the farm, like fixing the barn, digging a well or building a fence.[/quote]

Prof. Shiller has obviously never tried to fix a barn (especially the exterior), dig a well or dig a post-hole for a fence in the middle of winter.

He also fails to mention how 3 decades of nonstop stimulus by way of EZ-credit and pulled-forward demand worked out for the nation, or why the *other* part of Keynes' 2-part recipe (shrink government spending in good times) never seems to get around to happening.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;299859]"Is GOP trying to sabotage economy to hurt Obama?"[/QUOTE]

ZH's Bruce Krasting expresses [url=http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-20-20/trust-america-%E2%80%93-not]similar thoughts here[/url].

-------------------------------

Some things I am reading today:

[url=www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/7997]Greece’s predicament: Lessons from Argentina | Vox EU[/url] - Focuses on the need to default, devalue (once back in one's own currency) and long-teem restructure a bloated public sector.

[url=http://www.zerohedge.com/news/mortgage-crisis-hits-france-front-and-center-are-french-bank-nationalizations-imminent]The Mortgage Crisis Hits France Front And Center: Are French Bank Nationalizations Imminent? | ZeroHedge[/url] - France's 2nd-largest wholesale mortgage bank is toast, posing an interesting test for incoming president Hollande

[url=http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/05/first-time-ever-majority-of-unemployed.html]First Time Ever - Majority of Unemployed Have Some College Education | Mish[/url] - More on the college-cost/student-loan bubble

[url=www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-17/dental-abuse-seen-driven-by-private-equity-investments.html]Dental Abuse Seen Driven by Private Equity Investments | Bloomberg[/url] - Drill, baby, drill, mouthful-of-Wall-Street-greedhead style

I'm surprised that KD's Wikipedia entry is such poor quality. I've been getting used to considerable backstory and fleshed-out details of just about any public figure that I look up.

Nasdaq's software of Facebook IPO manifests a brain cloud
 

Looks like the exchange execution of the Facebook IPO was badly botched.

[URL="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/05/21/bloomberg_articlesM4C7XG6JTSE801-M4DKP.DTL&ao=all"]Nasdaq CEO Blames Software for Delayed Facebook IPO Trading[/URL][QUOTE]Nasdaq's software for IPOs allows investors to cancel or update details of orders until the auction runs. Trade requests received during the 5 milliseconds it took to operate the auction disturbed the process, leading to an imbalance of buys and sells and sending the program into a loop.

Nasdaq officials manually intervened to allow the auction to occur at 11:30 a.m. The IPO software "didn't work" even after thousands of hours of testing for "a hundred scenarios" aimed at anticipating problems, Greifeld said. "We're not happy with our performance," he said on the call.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Orders totaling 30 million shares were submitted into the opening auction between 11:11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., Greifeld said. About half of them may involve "some level of dispute," he said.[/QUOTE]

Student Loan Bubble Putting Hundreds of Colleges at Risk
 

Greece is wobbling closer and closer to a disorderly exit from the EU. I won't comment further except that EU members are finally getting the picture. Greece is not the problem. Spain, Portugal, and Italy are.

What about student loans? This article puts some perspective on the question.

[url]http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/student-loan-bubble-putting-hundreds-colleges-risk-125000050.html[/url]

The essence of the article is that the educational institutions generating a disproportionate number of student loans are at risk of default because they are inadequately capitalized. In other words, when the student loan bubble deflates as it surely will, we will have a huge number of colleges deflate (go bankrupt) as a result.

[QUOTE]"Inadequate-capital institutions are less prepared to absorb potential revenue losses from drops in enrollment, alumni giving or investment income. They are less able to meet increased demands for financial aid for students or higher interest payments on variable rate debt. From whatever direction trouble arrives, these colleges may lack resources to weather the crisis, and their difficulties will tend to compound faster than will those of their better-off peers because they have less cash to spend, fewer assets to sell, and less budget "fat" to trim."[/QUOTE]

DarJones

[QUOTE=only_human;299983]Looks like the exchange execution of the Facebook IPO was badly botched.[/QUOTE]
Quite possibly so, but I'll be very curious to hear what the excuse is today, especially in a context of the broader markets enjoying a bit of a snap-back rally from short-term oversold conditions.

BTW, the underwriters (chiefly Morgan Stanley) did step in Friday to put a floor of $38 under FB's stock price - that is apparently part of the underwriting deal, but no longer in effect today. I took a snapshot of the Yahoo Finance FB page 1 minute prior to Friday's market close, and it showed the following interesting entry in the "Bid:" field
[i]
Bid: [b]38.00 x 9999900[/b]
[/i]
My guess is that MS's trading platform has a number-of-shares field allowing a maximum of 7 decimal digits, so the above is what someone instructed to "keep a maximal bid at @38 in" might type into that.

---------------------------

Thought some more about Robert Shiller's Op-Ed over the weekend, and sent this letter to the NYT today:
[quote]To the Editor:

Re. "[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/business/economy/how-national-belt-tightening-goes-awry-economic-view.html?_r=2&emc=eta1]How National Belt-Tightening Goes Awry[/url]", by Robert J. Shiller (May 19):

By way of advocating for a new round of misguided, entirely deficit-financed government stimulus, Robert Shiller trots out a "winter on the family farm" metaphor. Prof. Shiller has obviously never tried to fix a barn, prospect for a well or dig a post-hole for a fence in winter.

He also fails to mention how over three decades of nonstop stimulus by way of easy-credit and pulled-forward demand worked out for the nation, or why the other half of Keynes' two-part recipe, namely to shrink government spending and lay in a surplus in good times, never seems to get around to happening.

No, the real analogy in his "family farm" metaphor is this: Winter on the family farm is the time to live off the accumulated surplus resulting from all the careful planning and hard work that went into planting, husbanding and harvesting of the preceding year's crop. The members of a family which failed to put away enough for the winter simply must tighten their belts, make do with less, analyze what went wrong, and resolve to do a better job of it next year. Shiller and the rest of the one-way "consumption über alles" neo-Keynesians would have us instead hire dozens of laborers on credit and slaughter the milk cows to help feed them, in order to go on a wintertime barn-building and well-digging spree intended to bring about a plentiful harvest in future years, on the ludicrous premise that once the empty fields see those new barns and multiple wells all tapping the same aquifer the next spring, they will endeavor mightily to fill them. This is of course predicted by the classic economic "crop multiplier theory".[/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;299996]Quite possibly so, but I'll be very curious to hear what the excuse is today, especially in a context of the broader markets enjoying a bit of a snap-back rally from short-term oversold conditions.

BTW, the underwriters (chiefly Morgan Stanley) did step in Friday to put a floor of $38 under FB's stock price - that is apparently part of the underwriting deal, but no longer in effect today. I took a snapshot of the Yahoo Finance FB page 1 minute prior to Friday's market close, and it showed the following interesting entry in the "Bid:" field
[I]
Bid: [B]38.00 x 9999900[/B]
[/I]
My guess is that MS's trading platform has a number-of-shares field allowing a maximum of 7 decimal digits, so the above is what someone instructed to "keep a maximal bid at @38 in" might type into that.
[/QUOTE]


Yes it is pretty clear they were doing a prop-up job on Friday as they would have had egg on their face otherwise. Look at what happened today. A 10% decline already when the wider market is up 2%.

PS: I'll check a Bloomberg tomorrow to make sure what you saw wasn't just a data glitch.

[QUOTE=only_human;299983]Looks like the exchange execution of the Facebook IPO was badly botched.

[URL="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/05/21/bloomberg_articlesM4C7XG6JTSE801-M4DKP.DTL&ao=all"]Nasdaq CEO Blames Software for Delayed Facebook IPO Trading[/URL][/QUOTE]

I wonder how much HFTs are to blame for this. If algo firms around the world were sending tens of thousands of orders in those critical 5ms - in order to try and gain the upper hand in the auction - maybe NASDAQ's matching engines were unable to deal with the load.