Nikola

World leaders publicly snub U.K. PM Gordon Brown's bold pitch for a global tax on financial transactions, which would be used to fund future bailouts. Treasury's Geithner says economic leaders don't think taxpayers should have to pay for future financial sector foibles.

What an idiotic proposal, and from a former finance minister no less. How would this prevent another crises? Crises happened because Wall St (and their international counterparts) were encouraged to take bigger and bigger risks with no penalty on the down side, and 2-big-2-fail insurance policy. How would a tax solve this? Insurance fund? That would only encourage them to take ever more risks. And may I ask what would happen with that fund? Would it be invested in the stock market creating an even bigger bubble? Does anyone understand the idea behind this tax?

Premature Top Calls Continue After GDP Report

Last time I read this guy he said Sarah Palin is a Wall St candidate because she sold off Alaska state jet on eBay.

Olympics Rally Ends for Brazil Index Fund

There is no doubt in my mind that the Olympics will bring a lot of good things to Brasil in the way they did to China, and this will be reflected in the price of EWZ (and BRF) over the next six years. So I agree with the premise here but disagree with the headline: the Olympics rally is far from over. It has just begun, short term market corrections notwitstanding.

Sources say Las Vegas Sands (LVS +3.1%) has received approval from the Hong Kong stock exchange for a $2B-3B IPO of its Macau unit. Sands will kick off pre-marketing next week, and launch its roadshow on Nov. 9, with a trading debut set for the end of November. Goldman Sachs (GS), Citigroup (C) and UBS (UBS) are coordinating.

Wynn's Macao unit is down 10% from the IPO price. Went public early October while the going was still good.

This one probably not going to do too well.

Gross: Rally Has Reached Its Peak

Start of the rally:

finance.yahoo.com/tech...

"POSTED MARCH 18, 2009 03:55pm EDT by John Carney in Investing, Recession, Banking
Related: ^DJI, ^GSPC, TLT, UDN, UUP, XLF, SPY
Updated from 3:55 p.m. ET

Update: The Federal Reserve pulled out all the stops at Wednesday's policy meeting. Ben Bernanke & Co. declared the FOMC "will employ all available tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability."

[..]

Purchase up to $300 billion of long-term Treasuries.

end quote

Gross: Rally Has Reached Its Peak

Markets went down because big money started hoarding cash (because news of ponzi schemes leaked out, confidence went down, and cash became king). Markets went up because big money was awash with cash (in part) from bailouts financed by Fed's money printing machine (which also helped return the confidence).

The show will end when money printing stops. Fasten your seatbelt for a ..... "smooth transition"....

www.hedgeweb.net/News-...

"To promote a smooth transition in markets as these purchases of Treasury securities are completed, the Committee has decided to gradually slow the pace of these transactions and anticipates that the full amount will be purchased by the end of October,” the Fed’s Open Market Committee said in a statement in Washington. The program was previously scheduled to end in September."

A Strong, Stable Dollar Is Best for America

I don't think that Carl is implying that a strong currency will CAUSE a better economy, I think he is trying to say that the current policy of WEAK dollar will CAUSE a worse economy. You can't declare your currency strong. But you CAN wish your currency weak. How? Oh... I don't know.... how about by having your government overspending gazzilions of said currency, and borrowing like there is no tomorrow and printing money (Fed buying Treasuries). And spending a good chunk of it on unproductive activities like wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and ponzi schemes. AND THEN, when your currency goes down a bit, saying you don't really care, in fact, you are glad it did.

What happens is that your bankers start to worry, which CAUSES them to give you less money, under more and more unfavorable terms, which CAUSES your currency to go down even further, which CAUSES your economy to take quite a beating for the reasons which Carl explains, or .... at the very least because now you can't borrow more, you owe a whole lot, and you can't invest into anything new and productive.

Yes, you can then, if you are bold, employ hundreds of millions to make doorknobs, toothpaste, T-shirts and shoes and improve their living standard from official UN poverty level ($1/day) to a solid middle class making $12,000 2009 dollars per year.

If your vision of America's future is China's past (starvation, failed "economic" experiments and Cultural Revolutions), and you are happy that you will be able to recover from that just like China (sweatshops and human rights abuses), then, well, I don't think we have much left to discuss.

Inflation Concerns Slowly Rising in China

"At the end of 1993, the dollar was near CNY5.824. Today it is at CNY6.827, or about 17% stronger over the past 16 years."

If I remember correctly, it was also 8.25 in between?

Berkshire's Long Term Equity Capital Gains Are Gone

Wow what a coincidence that this is exactly the Dow loss since it's high....

Why the U.S. Dollar Is Vulnerable to Decline Now

And then?

Exactly what does China gain by crashing the dollar?

Don't forget that US holds an enormous amount of gold and China relatively little.

While Financials Drag Markets Down, Five Ways to Stay in Play

Yo, MarvinMBA, it's CAPITAL not CAPITOL.

Though, I would agree with you if you think about it in another way: the thing about it now is not the return on the CAPITOL (as in Democrats returning to the Capitol), but the return of CAPITOL, as in, we need to take it back.

Let AIG Go Bankrupt, Not America

Is it really different this time? New York / America will be destroyed one day, there is no doubt. They can't go on forever. But is this it? Is it really different this time? Or is this just a regression to the mean that just seems so terrible.

If America is not going to be the world's most powerful country than who is? China? Sorry, but China still has ways to go, and that's being sympathetic. It has a political system that is not particularly stable (50 years, failed in other places), and does not go well with capitalism, a recent bubble (fueled by excess in the US) notwithstanding. China is too overpopulated, lacks too many natural resources, and is culturally and historically too xenophobic to run the world. They will remain an "important international player," which is not bad for a country that was a total wreck for the entirety of 20th century.

Russia? Corruption and depends too much on price of oil.

EU? Please. I believe more that Germany by itself could rise again, than EU collectively.

Japan? Not in our lifetime again.

So, while America is certainly losing some of its goodwill and capital, and while it certainly lost a lot of its "soft power" during the Bush years, there simply isn't anyone to take over. We could disintegrate into a multi-polar world, with no one super power running the world. That's possible, though America will remain the leader of the Western world, at least one pole.

It's bad these days. America will pay the price for its excesses. But, unfortunately when it's bad some people tend to panic. "We are all gonna die," is not helpful at this point, nor is it true.

When This Bounce Comes, It Should Be a Doozy

It's called a "dead cat bounce."

I think he's right: hourly traders, clean your mice!

Jim Rogers: It's Better To Let Financials Fail

I assume there's supposed to be a video embedded here but it's missing...

How Much Downside Could Still Exist?

I liked the first two paragraphs. The rest is incoherent and non sequitur.

The paragraph about emerging markets is wide sweeping and isn't supported by a single number.

I suppose the argument is that the world is a messy place today and so.... S&P will go down. But world's been a messy place for the last.... oh... twenty thousand years. Was the world more stable back during the Cold War? Around the two World Wars? In 1800s Europe? When?