morph366

Why Isn't the Dollar Falling?

John
Not to be pedantic but you should have added the UK as also having a bigger debt load than the US - it is technically not part of the Eurozone.

We could be on the edge of some major re-alignments in terms of trade and current/capital account policy. To the extent that the US consumer no longer qualifies for the shopping cordon rouge award the BRIC countries will have less investable surpluses and less appetite to fund the spending habit.

IMHO some kind of currency union amongst the BRIC countries seems more and more plausible as time goes by.

David Rosenberg - Devaluing U.S. Dollar Could Be Next

It's not clear what the mechanics would be for a dollar devaluation.
In an era of floating rates (apart from those pegged to the dollar such as the RMB) there is no formal process for a central bank or government performing a surgical/overnight devaluation such as the UK government has done for sterling in the 60's and beyond.
The US administration could talk the dollar down and let the markets react by selling it against the major crosses.
But what would be the target rate against say the euro?
Does the US administration admit to this rate up front?
How are Treasury refundings likely to proceed if the markets do not know what limits to the extent of the decline the big purchasers are willing to tolerate?
This idea could have many unintended consequences

Forget Goldman, Start Worrying About the Government

Edward
I find myself violently agreeing with your diagnosis of the problem but increasingly feeling powerless about expecting any solution arising through the status quo electoral process.
Wasn't the last US election supposed to be about change?
What has changed at the Treasury and the cronyism of the financial elite?

What Went Wrong with Economics

The Economist doesn't answer the question it poses in this (lightweight) article - What went wrong with Economics?
Better to spend time on the hundreds of comments that their website received on this piece which are far more informative.

High Frequency Trading: Goldman's $4 Billion Wildcard

It is doubtful whether the SEC has sufficient understanding of the issue to really deal with it or is compromised somewhere along the way.

As Ergo said, any smart guys at the SEC would rather be trying to figure out how to join the firms they would be investigating, and also as Paulson's testimony this week in Congress revealed the SEC was kept right out of the loop on the whole BAC/ML matter

JPM and Maiden Lane: What the Fed Doesn't Want Us to Know

Tom,
You say AIG lost the money - but the story doesn't quite end there
AIG is effectively now part of the public balance sheet

Shedding Some Light on the Department of Justice's CDS 'Markit' Investigation

"If the DOJ aggressively investigates and pursues this investigation and holds the big Wall Street firms criminally and financially accountable for any wrongdoing, President Obama will have indeed made good on his pledge to achieve “Change We Can Believe In.”

I'm not holding my breath on this.

Why Is the U.K. Recovery Outpacing the U.S.?

Re David Wrixon
Much as I love the word bollocks - it really is rather offensive to use against an opinion expressed in these columns.

Bubble Detectives

The ideas conveyed in the second quote from Leigh Caldwell sound quite promising. The questions would have to be framed correctly to track cognitive biases and expectations and the trend or relative performance would be the key to interpretation rather than any absolute benchmark of irrationality or exuberance.

Sampling opinions of, for example, a cross section of university students, small business owners and those working in the media, about their expectations of their own future income, their appetite for risk and their return expectations and, through some well conceived questions, an attempt to elicit their implied discount rates would yield more revealing insights into cognitive biases than broad consumer confidence surveys which essentially call for opinions about the macro economy.

Unwise to Tax the Rich to Pay for Health Care

Extending Mr. Zimbardo's reasoning why should any of us be forced by governments to have to contribute to common causes?
Those who want voluntarily to donate to government programs such as TARP can do of their own volition.

Why Does Goldman Sachs Need a Fed Exemption for VaR Calculations?

Moon's comment is right on the mark.
When you're too big to fail the exact procedures and techniques used for risk management and VaR calculations are just a charade to make it look like they are being prudent

Ongoing $134.5 Billion Bearer Bond Mystery: Possible Link to Upcoming Bank Holiday

I agree that the story is interesting - but even if true - it still doesn't compare to the gravity of the admission some time ago, from the Inspector General of the Fed, that they cannot account for how it has disbursed more than a trillion dollars over the last year.

This clip regarding the need for an audit of the Fed is worth looking at
therealnews.com/t/inde...

Why Is the U.K. Recovery Outpacing the U.S.?

Not to rain on the parade but part of the reason for the greater confidence in the UK at present (I am a resident) is the fact that the government are concealing the true state of the public finances in a way that the US government has been unable to do so well.

All the bad news on public sector cuts, taxation are being postponed until after the next election. Let's see how confident UK taxpayers will be next year when taxes go up and services get cut dramatically.

California's Troubles Are America's

To take liberty with some well known lyrics the land of dreamers, schemers and telephone screamers seems to be running on empty now.
However this week's Economist magazine claims that just as before California will re-invent itself as part of the great American experiment.

The BIC-CAN economies will find it hard to flourish if the sixth largest economy in the world is heading for a terminal decline and I certainly would not hold out hope for the de-coupling thesis if the US follows suit as well.

In Support of Goldman Sachs

We should be mad at the GOVERNMENT for making this happen - I think that many of us are... but are you suggesting that GS were blameless in receiving 100% cover on their AIG exposure?