- As noted last week it is easier to state the negative case for almost anything than it is to state the positive case. So, we have a lot to easily talk about. To whit:
- Our Treasury plans on selling $135 billion in short term notes and bill……next week
- Two banks, one in suburban Chicago and another in Washington state, went out of business before the Feds could organize an orderly transfer of assets.
- Nouriel Roubini, who continues with his fifteen minutes of fame, screams on the op-ed pages of WSJ: “the world’s first global recession is just getting started….over time the ability and willingness of China and others to finance US deficits will diminish as they begin to run deficits of their own….only when insolvent banks are shut down and the debt level of insolvent households is reduced will conditions ease….we can expect further downside risks to equity markets….
- From Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital:US comprises less than 5% of world population, but account for more than 25% of global GDP. Given our debts and weakening economy, this disproportionate advantage should narrow.
- GE maintains its $13 billion dividend for a yield of 9.2% and shares fall 7%.
- Our Treasury Secretary nominee goes over the top saying China manipulates its currency, the yuan. Everyone seems to understand this but this bold affront will do little to charm the Chinese. And it will certainly protract the nominee’s approval process.
- As the UK spends to nationalize its banks sterling falls to a 25-year low.
- When Pam and I were first married we lived in Stuyvesant Town, in Manhattan. We loved it. The complex has 11,000 apartments and was purchased by Blackrock, California Public Employees and others in 2006 for $5.4 billion. Due to a slight error in figuring cash flow the owners may run out of cash to pay its $3 billion mortgage in six months.
- China’s GDP has been slashed in half in a single year. Still a high number at 9% for ’08 but 4Q dropped to 6.8% from 13% in ’07.
- And, in a how-to-fix-a problem moment: China sentences two to death for the dairy poisoning case. Others received sentences of 5-15 years.
- As our government continues to spend its way out of this mess my bet on TBT, the inverse treasury ETF, is looking better and better.
Some lighter moments courtesy of Harry at Harrynewton.com:
+ The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.
+ She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.
+ A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
+ No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
+ A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in ‘Linoleum Blownapart.’
+ A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.
+ Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
+ I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then, it hit me!
+ A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
+ When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
+ Don’t join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!
