Misery Economic Theater 2011

[Zeta-Flux]

My dear CaseusCorpus,

While it surely must be the case that the internet masses hang upon your every word, it is my sad duty to inform you that with one brief sentence I am about to cast your post to the dustbin of irrelevancy. Of course, Prime95 had already accomplished this great task with a previous post, but I thought I'd follow his cue.

I do hereby decree and sincerely affirm that the phrase "point out" was meant as a contraction of the longer phrase "point out sincere acknowledgments of", and that all such instances of the phrase should irrevocably hereafter and forever be replaced by the longer phraseology.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

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R.D.,

I thought that was a decent gauge of how many people feel about the Obama administration. However, the sentence "I think Obama did a really good job up until the time the GOP took control of the House and created gridlock." doesn't really seem to fit with the rest of the critique, but rather appears to be a careless attack on the GOP. As far as I understand, it wasn't GOP gridlock which led to any of the faults that author pointed out. Guantanamo still being open? Continued wars? A new war in Libya? Lack of government creation of jobs?

About the only real beef he could have is in the lack of tax increases in the recent deal but, again, the Bush tax cuts were renewed by Obama in 2010, not due to GOP caused gridlock. But I'll grant that the GOP has prevented new tax increases, which could be useful (once we rein in spending).

One other thing: I think many of these critiques will vanish during the actual primary. Sure Obama didn't close Guantanamo, but he won't "double" it as Romney would.

[ewmayer]

Bob, appreciate the contributions, but please add links to your sources!

(I fixed it up you this time, but you just forfeited part of your rental-agreement cleaning deposit ;)

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ZeroHedge proposes an interesting "market topping' indicator - the share price of high-end auction house Sotheby`s:

Is "The Ultimate Indicator Of Easy Money Access" Rolling Over, And Absent More QE, Is This It For The Market?

Two weeks ago courtesy of Sean Corrigan, we presented what many consider the "ultimate shorthand indicator of easy money and speculative access" - the stock price of auction house Sotheby's. Well, the easy money may be about to end, and with it the latest bout of irrational market exuberance. As the chart shows, Sotheby's has timed the three previous armageddon with uncanny precision, with the red vertical lines marking the market tops almost perfectly. These occur when the i) RSI hits overbought, a condition that has been realized now; ii) when the stock price has a monthly closing below its 12 month Moving Average, also realized and iii) when the MACD crosses below its Signal line - this is about to occur any minute. We expect the 4th red vertical line to mark the end of this particular period of uber easy money any minute, and absent another monetary stimulus, to begin the at first slow, then very fast collapse to another market secular low.

My Comment: The bit in the title about "Absent More QE" may well be key here - Unlike the Treasury, the Fed`s money-printing is not subject to any kind of congressionally-approved ceiling. Previous similar indicators such as "Hindenburg Omen" may have well sent false (or at least premature) alarms as a result of the market-distorting power of Fed printing. In any event, the above "indicator" is at the very least amusing.

[Zeta-Flux]

Well, now that I know those were multiple authors being quoted, it makes sense that they don't say the same thing. :-p Thanks ewmayer for making half of my post irrelevant!

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

So 100% cash, and waiting for the inevitable "debt ceiling raise market orgasm"

"Almost inevitable debt ceiling raise market orgasm":

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

My dear CaseusCorpus,

< snip >

If you were actually being honest, you could've simply given us the specific location at which you did what I actually asked about.

Instead, you keep dancing.

[ewmayer]

Oh, get a room, you two!

[Don't tempt the mods to begin engaging in "heavy handed censorship" and other assorted kinds of unpleasantness].

[ewmayer]

[I took the link headline from Mish`s article on the same newspiece]

Italy Holds 2 Hours of Emergency Meetings with Juncker; EU says "Euro Area's Systemic Capacity in Doubt"; Italy Banks Have Difficulty Securing Funding

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said a surge in Italian and Spanish bond yields to 14-year highs was cause for deep concern and did not reflect the true state of the third and fourth largest economies in the currency area.

"In fact, the tensions in bond markets reflect a growing concern among investors about the systemic capacity of the euro area to respond to the evolving crisis," Barroso said in a statement.

He urged member states to speed up parliamentary approval of crisis-fighting measures agreed at a July 21 summit meant to stop contagion from Greece, Ireland and Portugal, which have received EU/IMF bailouts, to larger European economies.

Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti held two hours of emergency talks with the chairman of euro zone finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, in Luxembourg but neither disclosed anything of substance after the meeting.

The euro zone's rescue fund cannot use new powers granted at last month's summit to buy bonds in the secondary market or give states precautionary credit lines until they are approved by national parliaments in late September at the earliest.

The European Central Bank could reactivate its bond-buying program, which temporarily steadied markets last year but has been dormant for more than four months. Weekly data released on Monday show it has so far refrained from doing so despite market rumors to the contrary last week.

Italy and Spain could offer new austerity measures to try to placate the markets, but Rome has just adopted a 48 billion euro savings package and Madrid's lame duck government has just called an early general election for November 20.

Shares in banks exposed to euro zone sovereigns, particularly in Italy, have taken a hammering and are having growing difficulty in securing commercial funding.

My Comment: Barroso is in fact not lying - Once the true state of Spanish and Italian finances becomes known, yields demanded by bond investors will soar from their already-high levels into double-digits.

Lipstick-on-a-Pig Headline of the Week:

Yesterday`s edition of my local newspaper (the San Jose Mercury News) had a graphic depicting the breakdown of the various holders of the $14.3 Trillion in U.S. government debt. Next to the $2.7 Trillion chunk for Social Security, they have this description:

"Surpluses generated by the program that are invested in government bonds".

That is strange, because it seems to imply that if Social Security hits a sluggish-revenue patch, it can simply sell some of those bonds to raise cash needed to cover any shortfall. So when the debt-ceiling theater was heating up recently, why did the president say that absent a debt-ceiling raise, he could not guarantee that the next month's Social Security checks would go out? A closed-end-mutual-fund or fixed-term-CD "Substantial penalty for early withdrawal?" kind of deal, perhaps?

And On a Lighter Note:

From the risible writers at The Onion – The sad thing is, even though the Barfly-Ben bit is pure invention (I mean, a DC beltway insider not-in-campaign-mode showing up in Nebraska – yeah, right), the economic analysis behind the humor is spot-on:

Drunken Ben Bernanke Tells Everyone At Neighborhood Bar How Screwed U.S. Economy Really Is

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

From the risible writers at The Onion – The sad thing is, even though the Barfly-Ben bit is pure invention (I mean, a DC beltway insider not-in-campaign-mode showing up in Nebraska – yeah, right), the economic analysis behind the humor is spot-on:

Spot-on? The bit about "spiraling interest rates" seems very wide of the mark.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by R.D. Silverman

Spot-on? The bit about "spiraling interest rates" seems very wide of the mark.

I read that as being a reference to bond-market interest rates for the various indebted sovereigns ... which have not yet hit US debt, but the falling dominoes are getting closer all the time.

(Then again, it could just be the flaming shots of Wild Turkey talkin'. :)

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Yesterday`s edition of my local newspaper (the San Jose Mercury News) had a graphic depicting the breakdown of the various holders of the $14.3 Trillion in U.S. government debt. Next to the $2.7 Trillion chunk for Social Security, they have this description:

"Surpluses generated by the program that are invested in government bonds".

That is strange, because it seems to imply that if Social Security hits a sluggish-revenue patch, it can simply sell some of those bonds to raise cash needed to cover any shortfall. So when the debt-ceiling theater was heating up recently, why did the president say that absent a debt-ceiling raise, he could not guarantee that the next month's Social Security checks would go out?

As I understand it:

When Social Security redeems some of those bonds, the Treasury has to have enough cash for that. (Soc Sec can't sell the bonds to anyone else; it can only present them to the Treasury for redemption.) If Treasury happens not to have enough cash to redeem the bonds from Soc Sec, normally it would sell enough bonds to other parties to raise the cash. But if that would exceed the debt ceiling, it can't.

AFAIK it's not kosher for Treasury to receive bonds from Soc Sec, subtract that amount from the total outstanding debt (to get below the debt ceiling), then sell an equal amount of bonds (back up to the debt ceiling again) to other parties before it pays Soc Sec cash for its redeemed bonds. It needs to have the cash on hand in order to redeem bonds from Soc Sec, but it doesn't have that, and it can't raise any more cash by selling bonds to others as long as the Soc Sec bonds are still outstanding and the overall bond total is at the debt ceiling.

(Unless Obama were to invoke the 14th Amendment -- but he's not that bold.)

[Fusion_power]

There is quite a bit to read between the lines re the Eurozone instability. Here is a quote from an article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14404852

"Markets highlight, among other reasons, the global economic uncertainties due to both economic growth and the protracted decision on budgetary adjustments in the US but, first and foremost, the undisciplined communication and the complexity and incompleteness of the 21 July package."

You might be confused by all the blabbage and blurbage in that statement. It is summarized by the word "incompleteness". In other words, the bailout fund is NOT NEAR ENOUGH! I did a BOTN calculation of just how big it would have to be and came up with something just north of $3.5 Trillion. This would presume another bailout for Greece to the tune of $100 billion, $1.6 Trillion for Italy, and $800 Billion for Spain. There would also have to be a reserve to the tune of at least $1 Trillion.

Somehow, I don't see Germany going on the hook for them kind of bucks.



And on the home front, the USA is now set to hit $18 Trillion in total debt without meaningful reform of either spending or revenue increase. The can has been kicked, down the road it goes, next stop is only 2 years away.

Whats that? You think the "budget reform committee" has a realistic possibility of doing something about spending? Whatever it is that you are drinking, pass it around, everyone here needs a drink of some really good koolaid!

DarJones