Posted in volatility on May 30, 2008 | No Comments »
via
May 30 (Bloomberg) — Iceland’s lawmakers passed a bill allowing the central bank to sell as much as 500 billion kronur ($6.76 billion) of foreign-currency bonds, equivalent to more than a third of the country’s gross domestic product.
The bill was passed late yesterday, Thorsteinn Thorgeirsson, chief economist at the Finance Ministry in Reykjavik, said in [...]
Posted in bush, doomsterism, geopolitics, iraq, politics, war on May 29, 2008 | No Comments »
As noted here time and again, Iran has nothing to lose by waiting out the end of George Bush’s term.
May 29, 2008 | 1944 GMT
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said May 29 that Iran thinks U.S. voters want to change the foreign policies of President George W. Bush, and he said that the present U.S. [...]
Posted in china, global macro, inflation, monetary policy on May 29, 2008 | No Comments »
Setser on the PBOC:
What cann’t go on still hasn’t slowed, let alone stopped (Chinese reserve growth)
Posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 by bsetser
… Back in 2004, it was considered rather stunning when China added close to $100 billion to its reserves ($95 billion) in a single quarter, bring its total reserves up to around [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, economy, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics on May 28, 2008 | No Comments »
“With Bold Steps, Fed Chief Quiets Some Criticism”:
[...]
“It has been a really head-spinning range of unprecedented and bold actions,” said Charles W. Calomiris, professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School, referring to the Fed’s lending activities. “That is exactly as it should be. But I’m not saying that it’s without some cost and [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy on May 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Posted in dollar, inflation, monetary policy on May 28, 2008 | No Comments »
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Using figures compile [sic] by independent research house GFMS Ltd., the council says the consumption of 31.5 tons in the first quarter shows a steep increase of 110% year-on-year and accounting for 43% of the world’s net retail investment demand of 72.2 tons in the period.
Vietnam’s arrival into pole position in the retail investment sector [...]
Posted in dollar on May 27, 2008 | 3 Comments »
“Sometimes anecdotal evidence is the best evidence” …
For decades, the Drug Enforcement Administration has measured the price and purity of illicit drugs. Its methodology is cryptic, but the dea says it’s a reliable way to spot trends.
And it says it has spied one: The cost of pure coke rose 44 percent in the United States [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, geopolitics, politics, war on May 27, 2008 | 1 Comment »
During a somewhat heated argument with some Jewish friends over Israel’s recent backstabbing of the US, a national security hobbyist recommended the following article as a defense of recent Israeli policy. Phrases which jumped out at me are highlighted in bold.
Hizbollah’s Increased Strength: Risks and Opportunities for Israel, INSS Insight No. 57, May 26, [...]
Posted in dollar, economy, inflation on May 27, 2008 | No Comments »
Soros must be fuming that he dumped commodities and called a bottom in equities when he did.
Soros’s public pronouncements are consistently somewhat at odds with how he actually invests. (He couldn’t have made money any other way; the track record of his public pronouncements is awful.) This instance, presumably, is no exception.
Not that he has [...]
Posted in geopolitics, war on May 25, 2008 | No Comments »
Hezbollah’s coup was formalized with Gen. Michel Suleiman’s election today as president of Lebanon. Suleiman directly disobeyed Fouad Siniora’s orders to put down the Hezbollah coup. Siniora and Hariri are finished politically. Druzes and Maronites associated with the pro-Western majority leaders of their factions face dhimmitude and gradual tribal exile.
Western media may, for a time, [...]
Posted in doomsterism, federal reserve, global macro, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on May 24, 2008 | No Comments »
… underwritten by PIMCO’s Bill Gross.
Just in time for the huge TIPS burp a couple of nights ago, when massive buying pushed the 5-year TIPS yield down to -.77.
I’ve been a huge fan of the SS hypothesis for a long time, so it’s good to see the world’s biggest fixed income guru practically copy-paste from [...]
Posted in china, inflation on May 24, 2008 | No Comments »
Apparently luck had it that every single Chinese ADR, and more than a few others, trooped to the United States to make their pitches to US investors. I got to listen to more than a few of them over the past four days (one reason why the post count has run low).
American institutional investors are [...]
Posted in dollar on May 21, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Shortage fears push oil futures near $140
By Carola Hoyos and Javier Blas in London
Published: May 20 2008 19:06 | Last updated: May 21 2008 00:52
Fears of a shortage within five years propelled long-term oil futures prices to almost $140 a barrel on Tuesday, further stoking inflationary pressures in the global economy.
Investors rushed to buy oil [...]
Posted in dollar on May 19, 2008 | No Comments »
lolol…
The brand spanking new Airbus 340-600, the largest passenger airplane ever built, sat in its hangar in Toulouse, France without a single hour of airtime. Enter the Arab flight crew of Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) to conduct pre-delivery tests on the ground, such as engine runups, prior to delivery to Etihad Airways in Abu [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, geopolitics, iraq, politics, war on May 18, 2008 | 3 Comments »
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Sunday night, May 11, the Israeli army was poised to strike Hizballah. The Shiite militia was winding up its takeover of West Beirut and battling pro-government forces in the North. When he opened the regular cabinet meeting Sunday, May 11, prime minister Ehud Olmert had already received the go-ahead from Washington for a military strike [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, doomsterism, economy, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, shitigroup, volatility, wall street on May 18, 2008 | No Comments »
The credit crisis has separated true libertarians from phony libertarians, and separated true liberals from phony liberals.
The phony liberals have inadvertently mocked themselves throughout the entire credit crisis, manning the barricades to defend the greatest act of socialism for the rich in US history. Ditto for supposed “libertarians,” eg Robert Rubin, Bruce Kovner, and the [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence on May 18, 2008 | No Comments »
Exclusive from US sources: Washington urged Israel to seize opportunity and clobber Iran-backed Hizballah
May 18, 2008, 2:51 PM (GMT+02:00)
DEBKAfile’s US sources disclose that Saturday, May 10, Washington gave Israel the go-ahead to attack Hizballah during its takeover of Beirut and knock out its capabilities in the south. The IDF was given the chance to [...]
Posted in iraq, war on May 17, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Iran has puzzled the global oil market by having 20 large tankers filled with crude oil. Why is Iran holding on to so much oil, given what a suppliers’ market oil is right now?
Iranian oil is not just oil. It’s very “heavy”/ “dirty” oil. Iran could coagulate strategic parts of the Persian Gulf with massive [...]
Posted in haha, politics on May 16, 2008 | No Comments »
… [W]hen Bush was last in Riyadh in January, his appeals to the Saudi government to increase oil production were quickly, albeit politely, rebuffed, allowing his political opponents at home to criticize him and accuse him of “begging.”
But this time around, a plan appears to have been in store between the Bush administration and the [...]
Posted in global macro, inflation, monetary policy on May 16, 2008 | No Comments »
The entire economy of Iceland has come under massive speculative assault in the past several months, as the most ludicrous example of an overextended, overleveraged, underfunded European economy.
As of December 2006, its rolling annual trade deficit was 26 percent of GDP. That has come down to “only” 15 percent as of January 2008.
However, Iceland’s currency [...]
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