Yankee Running Dog

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

"We’re paying a big price for past excesses, primarily from bubbles caused by easy money policies of the past combined with the demise of Glass-Steagall in 1999. So the lying and cover-ups just continue apace since, given the election cycle, politicians would just as soon inflate as admit mistakes and make the hard choices. It’s all quite shameful but that’s what we have and it might be the undoing of our democracy."

Well said, all I would add is that it might go back to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (also the year that income taxes were started, who knew the connection?) . Something has to be done about the Fractional Reserve Banking that controls the world. As long as the fools in charge of the financial oligarchy can print air money at 10 to 1(what they are supposed to, more like 30 to 1 after they finish their accounting tricks) we will continue to go through the boom bubble bust and dust cycle. They have coined a nicer name for the game, the business cycle. A total rethink on leverage (air money) needs to brought to the table, but I doubt that the people in charge want to change the rules. It is shameful to watch what is going on.

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

I think the big picture to keep an eye on is the Treasury buyback of its own product. The treasury has said over the last few months that it has plans to buy back its long term bonds if there are not enough buyers. With the TIC data out yesterday of -43 billion when the market expected a positive 45 billion starts ringing the dive, dive, dive bells... One would think that if the Treasury starts buying its own bonds (equivalent to freely printing money) that the dollar will start to lose its luster, inflation will take off and oil, gold and commodity prices will rise and Uncle Wen will not be pleased.

Does anyone have a good source on where to monitor if the Treasury is buying back its own bonds?

Friday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

Dave,

By the way, Kudlow the Clown is now pimping changing the mark to market rule. Who could have guessed...

Friday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

Changing the rules on Marked to Market? What shameless fraud. When the 30 to 1 air money was pouring down on everyones heads and Marked to Market helped pump the whole Ponzi scheme up, up up, no one was complaining about Marked to Market. Of course not, that is what it is designed to do, pimp and pump the bull market version of reality of air money. When things turn south (just take a look around!) and no one can quite seem to get their hands on the disappearing air money, the Ponzi scheme gets a little shaky. So just move the goal posts, rewrite the marked to market rules so all of that bad air money can dissappear or at least be hidden under a rock somewhere. And who knows, if the Zombie banks like Citi and Bank of America get nationalized with taxpayer money, then the taxpayer will have to pay top retail dollar for crap. Think that would make the Wall Street banking crowd smirk. Quoting David Fry, innocent people are losing their jobs while the fraudsters are still on their yachts ( except for Madoff, the sacrificial lamb!)

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets

Nothing like a whipsaw to make us all humble. I still have my ETF shorts and am thinking along the lines of Nationalize Everything above. There still is going to another nasty downdraft. I start to feel naked without the shorts.

Here is my dime store philosophy for the day:

The quick and dirty cure for the financial meltdown is for the world to basically declare itself bankrupt and all debt is written off at 9 am tomorrow morning and there is a new beginning.. 95% of the worlds population would love it, 5 % that controls all the money and power would hate it, as they would have to go to end of the line. It is a shame that the fraudsters are going to make the 95% go down with them, just so they can keep their position at the top of the pile.

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets

Two comments today.

One is just about all of my short ETFs are gone. I put very high limits on them, most above any previous rocket high, and almost all have been taken out. Its like watching a rocket punch up and hand you some money.. So I am now waiting for the next dead cat bounce or sucker rally or whatever it will be to load up on Ultra short ETFs.

Two, are we going to see deflation or inflation. After reading some history from 1929 to 1933, after the banks seized up, prices of just about everything went down... Not hard to imagine if no one is buying. Seems like that mentality is starting to take hold now. I am not sure what gold will do if there is deflation now. Back in the 1930's currencies were rolling off the gold standard and then Uncle Bucky seized all the gold in the USA so we cannot look to that as a lesson. I certainly agree with the billions soon to be trillions pumping out the Fed window, there has to be a dilution of the buck and many argue for inflation. Right now, my instinct tells me that deflation is just around the corner.. and capitalism does not work well in deflation, nothing to feed the greed. This could be back to Hobbs natural state where life is "short, nasty and brutish". How long can you make a living shorting the market?

The Global Economy: Is Deflation the Next Macro Story?

BudH

Don't be so sure on the min wage cut.. One of the canidates for govenor in Washington is proposing just that, a cut in the min wage.

The Global Economy: Is Deflation the Next Macro Story?

I can see Ben cutting interest rates to 0.0% and then realizing that he cannot cut further. I believe that Greenspan actually said that he needed to raise rates from 1.0% so that sometime in the future he could drop rates again. This would be similar to Japan on a historical note. The interesting thing to watch is will foreigners continue to buy Treasuries at 0.0% ??? They seem to be a hard sell right now. A rate increase any time soon would really seize up markets.

Also in the 1929 to 1932 period, people simply quit spending money and prices of just about everything dropped. I think that this is a very probable scenario today.

An interesting question is that if deflation is coming, what will happen to gold. It's hard to look to the Depression for answers there when the countries were abandoning the gold standard and US citizens were forbidden to own gold from 1933. Will gold be a safe haven independent from deflation or will its value fall like everything else?

My intuition (not nearly as complicated and rambling as the author’s words!) tells me that deflation is just around the corner. And capitalist theory does not work very well in deflation. I know Ben spent all his academic energy figuring out how to stop deflation, let’s hope he has something up his sleeve, otherwise our sage George Bush could be correct when he said, "This sucker could go down."

Thursday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets

I have been enjoying this post since March. The comments seem to fit into my way of seeing the world, very refreshing. Enough of the intro, I'll cut to the chase.. I'll ask three questions

You brought up a very interesting "incident" with CNY. It dropped from about 36 to 30 in one hour with no movement on the Yuan. Is this the result of some derivatives gone bad or one of the financial backers choking on its own black hole?

One of the money market funds is now at 97 cents. Is this more derivatives going down a hole... With so much cash in money market funds, do you think they are at risk?

TIP is slowly going down hill. I bought some in Feb at 107 and have been pleasantly surprised with the yield. In seven months of monthly dividends, the annual yield is at 7.78%. Not bad for AAA gov bonds. Maybe somewhere in the government data banks, there is a real number on inflation?

Yankee Running Dog

Wednesday Outlook: Caught in a Holding Pattern

Dave,

I enjoy it to