Posted in doomsterism, politics on June 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Complacency triumphant:
The pollsters for John McCain’s campaign sent out a memo challenging the findings of a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg. Hundreds of polls are released during a typical campaign without such a public objection. One finding in particular caught their attention. According to the L.A. Times, 22 percent of those [...]
Posted in dollar, doomsterism, inflation, politics on June 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Limits Put on Some Oil Contracts On ICE Amid Outcry Over Prices
By IAN TALLEY
June 17, 2008
WASHINGTON — The U.S. commodity futures regulator Tuesday said ICE
Futures Europe has agreed to make permanent position and
accountability limits for some of its U.S.-traded crude contracts,
subjecting itself to the same regulatory oversight as its New York
based counterpart.
Following intense scrutiny and [...]
Posted in dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy on June 10, 2008 | No Comments »
on today’s seismic Treasury selloff:
“The point is that the world was long Treasury, and we can see how they’ve been suckered.”
In other news, more insanity from the federales, who think they can permanently reduce commodities prices by shoving out leveraged players.
Posted in dollar, doomsterism, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on June 9, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Didn’t get this memo. No sir.
Fetch your tin helmets once again. The European Central Bank is opting for a monetary purge. So too is the US Federal Reserve, now ruled from Dallas.
Über-hawks and Cromwellians have gained the upper hand at the great fortress banks. Whether or not they admit it, both are embarked on policies [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, wall street on June 8, 2008 | No Comments »
Thomas Palley, Open Society Institute pontificator emeritus cum DC-cocktail laude, mocks himself best when he’s most honest. As do most political people.
Defending the Bernanke Fed
Filed under: U.S. Policy, Uncategorized — Administrator @ 6:37 am
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has recently been on the receiving end of significant criticism for recent monetary policy. One critique [...]
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 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 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 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 dollar, doomsterism, economy, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on May 15, 2008 | No Comments »
IFR:
[13:57 US GOVTS: Fallout From Credit Crisis Seen in TIC Data]
Boston, May 15. Though foreigners continued to buy treasuries (a record $55 bln) and agency ($18 bln) paper hand over fist in the latest March TIC data the net flow for the month was actually a negative $48 bln. While far from an expert in [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, doomsterism, iraq, politics, war on May 14, 2008 | 5 Comments »
[edited and tempered a bit--EC]
I’ve wanted to talk about something that’s been simmering for a long time in my mind, namely the obvious institutional dysfunction of the West in the face of Muslim, particularly Shia, tribal fortitude.
There are two kinds of societies: unstructured, tribal societies, and structured, institutional societies. The Bush Administration’s Iraq odyssey has [...]
Posted in doomsterism, politics on May 14, 2008 | 3 Comments »
The MS-01 runoff was today.
Mississippi’s first congressional district voted 63-37 for Bush in 2004. There are 110 Republican House seats more competitive than MS-01.
Today, despite a desperate ~$2m in spending from the NRCC and Freedom’s Watch (a big neocon 527), a Democrat won the district, 54-46.
Once again the GOP tried to hang Jeremiah Wright around [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy on May 12, 2008 | No Comments »
Regular finance-focused readers have probably noticed that I’ve neglected economic commentary recently. That’s because 1) there hasn’t been much net marginal information recently to clarify what I see right now (monstrous reflation in the West, looming monstrous deflation in the East, looming war in the Mid-East, commodities as The Big Thing through late July). 2) [...]
Posted in doomsterism, haha, politics on May 7, 2008 | 4 Comments »
That’s what happens when you have someone like Fred Thompson run a fraudulent, stalking-horse campaign solely to fracture the southern white/ evangelical vote.
People don’t just “take” a limitation of choices, as Thompson inflicted upon the party. They stay unhappy.
Voters may be dumb. Just not as dumb as GOP strategists think. Black turnout across the South [...]
Posted in doomsterism, wall street on May 6, 2008 | No Comments »
More trash for the Fed to haul out?
Merrill Says Level 3 Assets Jump 70% in First Quarter (Update2)
By Joyce Moullakis
May 6 (Bloomberg) — Merrill Lynch & Co. said so-called Level 3 assets climbed 70 percent in the first quarter, as the largest U.S. brokerage reclassified commercial mortgages and other assets as hard to value.
Merrill’s [...]
Posted in doomsterism, geopolitics, inflation on May 5, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I can barely find anything about the Muslim Brotherhood’s May 4 strike in Egypt so I assume that Mubarak’s measures to jack up wages 30 percent fizzled the strike.
And what do you know, the *next day* Mubarak proposes a 35 percent increase in fuel prices.
May 5, 2008 | 1515 GMT
The Egyptian parliament’s ruling party proposed [...]
Posted in doomsterism, politics on May 4, 2008 | No Comments »
As someone who has spent an enormous amount of time analyzing what does, and what doesn’t, influence opinion polls, I have always maintained that the Obama “gaffes” — from the Pakistani nukes, to his general “lack of presidential stature” as proclaimed by overpaid Beltway bloviators, to Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers [1], and Jeremiah Wright today [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, volatility on April 30, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Forget about NYC ever recapturing London’s financial crown. What sane hedge fund manager would de-privatize all his information, and submit to “surveillance” by the very Praetorians who have exacerbated every shock of the last 20 years?
Treasury eyes stronger powers for Fed
By Gillian Tett in London and Krishna Guha in Washington
Published: April 29 2008 23:23 | [...]
Posted in dollar, doomsterism, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy on April 25, 2008 | 8 Comments »
What would happen when non-government T-bill chumps figure out that they’re getting between negative 5 percent and negative 9 percent real interest on a 2-year Treasury note?
… In March, consumer prices rose 0.34 percent, for an annualized rate of more than 4 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That’s only slightly lower than [...]
Posted in doomsterism, volatility, wall street on April 23, 2008 | No Comments »
the monolines (Ambac and MBIA — remember them?) are going to be the next “crisis” … again. (h/t Alea)
 | RG on The mystery of the Iranian oil… |
 | a Duoist on US regulators drive more specu… |
| a Duoist on Same script, different day: th… |
| a Duoist on Huh? |
 | NYT front page slobb… on Academic malpractice |
