Still in Kansas City, had great fun and got to hang out with fellow bloggers, snow here tomorrow, so may have transit hassles, but hope to be back to a more normal schedule by tomorrow evening.
Key Metric: The F/R Ratio Josh Marshall, TPM Cafe (hat tip reader Scott)
The Model That’s Killing Pension Funds? Pension Pulse
35% fresh grads employed: survey China Perspective (hat tip reader Michael)
CAPEX cuts – Credit Suisse warns steelmakers to shelve all plans Steel Guru
Dire growth data fuel Asian fears Financial Times
Weekend Reading: The Social Dynamics Of The Trading Desk Tyler Durden
Bill Gross, the $747 billion bond man, declares the death of equities Peter Cohen
Antidote du jour:
21 comments
Comments are closed.
YS:
We can agree to disagree, i.e., Bill Gross and myself. I read the Fortune piece on Gross and did not think much of it. I have said and continue to say, the bull market in bonds which began in 1981 with 30-year Treasurys yielding 14% is over. I expect to see the most vicious bear market in bonds in US history. Got gold? Get more. Got bonds? You fool.
The problem with the Fact-to-Rage metric is that it is (in fact) not measurable. And that makes me really, really, really mad.
Super cute photograph of the cat and puppy! Loved it!!
So what’s the goss Yves?
IA says …
“We can agree to disagree, i.e., Bill Gross and myself. I read the Fortune piece on Gross and did not think much of it. I have said and continue to say, the bull market in bonds which began in 1981 with 30-year Treasurys yielding 14% is over. I expect to see the most vicious bear market in bonds in US history. Got gold? Get more. Got bonds? You fool.”
IA does agree with Bill Gross. Bill Gross is trying to persuade suckers to buy his bonds, so he can buy commodities, emerging market equities, and other things.
Re Pension Pulse: a chap called John Ralfe used to be in charge of the pension fund at Boots, a large British retailer. He moved them from largely equities to entirely bonds with, as it turned out, immaculate timing. But, not long after, they parted company with him and began buying equities again. Being right on the big issue is not guaranteed to advance your career.
Obama says he’ll fight the lobbyists over his budget: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Business/wireStory?id=6979566
Complete BS. Obama isn’t fighting the bank lobbyists. He is handing them free money in bailouts. And in his budget he is cutting Bush tax breaks for oil companies and manufacturers, but keeping them for banks. Obama is a puppet of the banks. So is Barney Frank. Look at his interview in the FT, saying bondholders need to be protected. Banks are not dictators that can impose debt on the people. They have no authority to do that. Iceland should have refused to pay its banks debts.
Re the F/R ration link:
This site continues to link to left-wing ranters and even once a Communist site.
Cancel my subscription.
Thanks for the info along the way.
Anon@8:01 proves Josh Marshall’s point.
kthxbye
Puzzling Globe and Mail essay. It simultaneously dismisses and lauds N. Ferguson and N. Roubini, attempts to discusses the profitability (prophetablility?) of being dire, and hints at a psychological imperative to love destruction (misanthropy?). A decent read, even if you’re disposed to reject the author’s case.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090228.DOOMSTERS28/TPStory/?query=ian+brown+divas
PS he does take some liberties with the charming Mister Ferguson.
PPS Word verification is “psycho.” How do they know?
ignorantmike
moving in from the Plainss Snow and lots of it will blanket much of the eastern part of the nation with ground zero from DC into the Northeast starting Sunday afternoon accumulating as much as foot.
Video Michael Hudson, British Economist Explains how solve this finincial problem. His explanations is simple and makes sense to me. For sure he does NOT pull any punches.
The problem with the TPM link is not that it’s left-wing. It’s that the Bobby Jindal flap is the political blogosphere’s version of stories on Oprah’s latest diet.
Weekend Reading link.
Hogwash. More of intellectuals using their own large intestines as a self-validating echo chamber.
The Michael Hudson youtube link is interesting, though a little wacky (the financial sector is a parasite living off the production sector). His solution is to cancel all debt, which he makes sound painless. When everyone’s pension fund goes broke, it will not be painless.
Financial Crisis: The Good News Is Coming From The Vatican
“Hogwash. More of intellectuals using their own large intestines as a self-validating echo chamber.”
The echo chamber is all the Fed and Treasury economists who think they can force the US taxpayer to pay debts of the wall street banks. Congress should start sending subpoenas to Treasury and the Fed to find all personel that support bailing out the wall street banks, and issue legislation firing them.
Then they should impeach Geithner, Bernanke, and Summers, for willfully putting the interests of the wall street banks ahead of the taxpayers.
The regional and community banks can do everything the wall street banks can.
I will be happy to pay more taxes to support Obama’s left-wing social programs if he shuts the NYC bankers down. C, GS, JPM, MS, BAC, and WFC are all insolvent an pose a threat to the country.
Let the FDIC seize and restructure the big 6 by forcing stakeholders (shareholders, creditors, and counterparties) in the institutions to bear losses, not the taxpayer. Obama won’t do it though. Him, Dodd, and Frank have taken way to much campaign contributions from the fat cat NYC bankers. And Rahm and Summers worked for the nyc bankers and funds. And Geithner worked for them too because the NY Fed’s board of directors is all nyc bankers and their clients.
Yves,
I hope you liked KC. I live there, so I hope the snow wasn’t too much of a burden.
Here are the best barbeque places: Boulevard Barbeque (formerly Danny Edwards, formerly Little Jakes–eat it and beat it), LC’s, and Oklahoma Joe’s for the pulled pork sandwiches.
I’m happy to give other tips! Like stay away from Olathe…
U2 Responds to Critics of Their Deal With the Taxman
Criticism of the band’s business decision from fellow Irish residents with less elaborate tax arrangements started almost immediately. As Slate noted in 2006, Fergal O’Brien of Bloomberg News began an article from Dublin this way:
Bono, the rock star and campaigner against Third World debt, is asking the Irish government to contribute more to Africa. At the same time, he’s reducing tax payments that could help fund that aid.
Bono mounted a somewhat more robust defense. “We pay millions and millions of dollars in tax,” he said, and went on to defend the group’s right to act as any other business would. According to Bono, it is his critics in Ireland who are being hypocritical, because the country benefited greatly in recent years from offering low tax rates to attract foreign businesses to the country. U2, in his view, is simply availing itself of Dutch laws that do the same thing for the Netherlands. As he told The Irish Times:
What’s actually hypocritical is the idea that then you couldn’t use a financial services center in Holland. The real question people need to ask about Ireland’s tax policy is: ‘Was the nation a net gain benefactor?’ and of course it was — hugely so. So there was no hypocrisy for me –- we’re just part of a system that has benefited the nation greatly and that’s a system that will be closed down in time. Ireland will have to find other ways of being competitive and attractive.
That answer is not likely to satisfy critics of the band’s tax arrangements, even as attention turns to the band’s new album, which was released today (excerpts are available on the Irish Times Web site). In what may be a sign that he is not completely unscathed by the criticism, Bono himself raised the H word in a discussion of the new music on the “Today” radio program on the BBC, telling John Wilson on Tuesday:
Probably the biggest thing I’ve had to take on is […] my own hypocrisy, and the hypocrisy of every human heart, which is there. And that’s finally your subject matter, and its hard to go back to, “goodies and baddies,” when you finally discover that.
Keep the kitten-puppy action coming. With those revised GDP figures we’re going to need it.