Barron’s: Greens Shoots = Ganga
Randall Forsyth elicits chuckles via his clever phrase-turning. He turns his poison pen on the ubiquitous nonsense known as “green shoots” that has been so in vogue amongst the perma-wrong crowd:
“So, why the attraction of green shoots? One can only speculate that they must be in some ways intoxicating. Perhaps not the shoots exactly, or the stems or seeds, but the leaves of a certain plant. Those might be smoked or otherwise ingested to bring about a euphoric effect. From what I’ve read, the current crop is far more potent than the commodity available in years past. How else to explain the mind-bending notion that an economy that is declining less quickly is somehow improving?”
Like all great inventions, it obvious in hindsight.
Once someone else has invented it, everyone says (or at least thinks to themselves) “How on earth did I not come up with that myself . . . ?”
>
Source:
Do Be Wary of Green Shoots
RANDALL W. FORSYTH
Barron’s May 25, 2009
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB124303129632948467.html
~~~
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:06 am
” Perhaps not the shoots exactly, or the stems or seeds, but the leaves of a certain plant. ”
good article, I too share his views but Mr. Forsyth and others should know that it’s not the leaves, but the flowers, that bring about that “euphoric effect”. ( ;
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:28 am
I still find it most interesting that Bernanke announces he will force interest rates lower and has simply been unable to carry this out. Actually it is fascinating in a way. One arm of our government says, “This is what we are going to do” and then it doesn’t happen. What is really interesting is to consider where this leads now. Actions do have consequences…
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=azrzVBwEJmrk&refer=asia
Dollar Slips Beyond $1.40 per Euro for First Time Since January
“The yen touched a nine-week high versus the dollar after Japan’s Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said the government won’t intervene in the currency market and the Bank of Japan raised its economic assessment. The dollar recorded its biggest weekly drop versus the euro since March after Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross said yesterday the U.S. will “eventually” lose its AAA credit rating.”
I think I am glad I don’t have to live close to Bill Gross….
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:31 am
I-Man:
Mountains after breakfast this morning…daughter got in at midnight. Wish you could see Charlie’s Bunion too…
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:40 am
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2009/05/this-week-couldnt-end-fast-enough-for-the-treasury-bond-market-or-the-dollar-both-of-which-were-hammered-again-today-as-inv.html
Why Wall Street is deserting Treasuries and the dollar
“When the market is against you it’s very hard to have a successful intervention,” warns Dominic Konstam, an interest-rate strategist at Credit Suisse in New York.
…Ya think?
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:05 am
I think this weeks Trader column in Barron’s is much more interesting. Calling for the rally to continue through June.
I thought this past Thursday’s action in equities was instructive. Financials didn’t go down – granted on a GS call – and the market didn’t fall apart completely. Didn’t feel very bear marketish to me. Looking for the cyclical bull to continue with commodities tearing it up. I think that hyperinflation fears will continue to increase.
What’s especially worrisome is the idea that the U.S. can print money whenever it desires and the world just has to accept it. That’s the consensus…… not making me sleep comfortably.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:23 am
Bruce:
Have fun on the Bunion. We did Chimney Top last time we were down your way. More of a mountain goat path than a trail. Realized the ibuprofen was better placed in the ruck sack rather than in the car at the trail head parking lot.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:25 am
Mish has a column this morning about “no notice” evictions. This is the social change that I and many others have been concerned about. We’ve kicked the can down the road and, when reality reasserts itself, the results are remarkably ugly and dehumanizing.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/05/friday-night-videos-inflation-or.html
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:32 am
Last post before we leave…this is more my thinking with regards to the recession ending…
http://markettalk.newswires-americas.com/?p=2121#more-2121
Is it really possible to feel “conviction” that non-performing consumer loans will peak “sooner rather than later” when there’s no tangible sign of turnaround in the job market?
While initial claims may stabilize, or even ebb sooner rather than later, there remains a “persistent unemployment as validated by the continuing claims,” that’s miring us in an “economic malaise,” notes market strategist Joan McCullough at East Shore Partners.
“Because we are now dealing with a virtually permanent drag on growth as a layoff is no longer a furlough, it is an elimination. And those eliminated continue to financially decompose,” she says. Only job creation will fix that.
“And that, ladies and germs, is a pipe dream at the present time,” McCullough adds. “We now stand at 5 applicants for every job opening. And each month that sorry reality worsens.”
and since we’ve decided in this administration to not let bad companies die (seems like they are anyway????)..then it will be some fun if interest rates start to climb…
Back late, good luck next week…
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:37 am
Bubbles Bernanke has embarked on a sisyphean effort. You don’t cheat Death without some severe consequences. The more he pushes, the more that boulder is going to roll down the hill.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:49 am
“How on earth did I not come up with that myself . . . ?”
Too many of dem green shoots in your ute, no doubt.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:49 am
@Bruce
Lucky dog. I wanted to take my girls hiking last weekend and this weekend, but we’ve had plenty of rain in Louisiana. Have fun and be safe.
WRT from the link, “While initial claims may stabilize, or even ebb sooner rather than later, there remains a “persistent unemployment as validated by the continuing claims,” that’s miring us in an “economic malaise,” notes market strategist Joan McCullough at East Shore Partners.”
Tyler Durdin at Zero Hedge had an excellent post yesterday that suggests we could see an uptick in initial claims.
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/mass-layoff-events-pick-up-faciliate.html
“The Bureau Of Labor Statistics’ Mass Layoff Events statistic indicates that the wholesale firing by corporations is accelerating once more again after a small respite in the January to March period.”
Perversely, these layoffs are the reason that companies are beating EPS estimates. If anyone on Wall Street cared to notice (too busy inhaling ganga shoots), most companies who have reported have either been in-line or below revenue expectations. In other words, this economy is still shrinking.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:51 am
OT – not so much – Screams, Shoots, and Screams:
http://tinyurl.com/oqatkb
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:52 am
BR, weird, but W T F’s post keeps appending to the bottom of the comments section. It’s like a puppy that keeps coming back (no offense, W T F).
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 am
Barry,
GanGa is a holy river in India. The plant you are refering to is GanJa.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:15 am
Thanks tyaresun. I was about to point that out but I was pulling a tube off the bong and you got to it ahead of me.
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:39 am
If everybody who caused or was assessing this situation would only smoke one spliff a day, we’d probably be in much better shape and/or looking at the situation more realistically. It’s the 3 martini/Prozac group (the same people who think weed makes a person trip) who got us where we are. Once again, Pot gets a bad rap.
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Re Cursive at 9:52: no offense taken. If BR wants to delete my post no problem. I understand, strictly speaking, it was off topic – however in a perverse way it seems related to the original topic.
I have not been reposting the comment so I don’t know why, if BR is in fact deleting it, it keeps re-appearing.
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Heartical BR… Heartical.
But we’ve been toking about this correlation for a few weeks now…
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I-Man,
did you mean: http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Heartical
or, heretical
ht tp://www.thefreedictionary.com/heretical ?
past that, you’re right, people on these boards have been making the “Smoking/Toking “Green Shoots”" reference way b4 this art..
past that, this: http://news.goldseek.com/GoldenJackass/1242973800.php is, probably, worthwhile for most people
May 23rd, 2009 at 5:36 pm
speaking about bringing about a euphoric effect….
ATLAS SHRUGGED
UPDATED FOR THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS.
BY JEREMIAH TUCKER
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2008/11/20tucker.html
1.
“Damn it, Dagny! I need the government to get out of the way and let me do my job!”
She sat across the desk from him. She appeared casual but confident, a slim body with rounded shoulders like an exquisitely engineered truss. How he hated his debased need for her, he who loathed self-sacrifice but would give up everything he valued to get in her pants … Did she know?
“I heard the thugs in Washington were trying to take your Rearden metal at the point of a gun,” she said. “Don’t let them, Hank. With your advanced alloy and my high-tech railroad, we’ll revitalize our country’s failing infrastructure and make big, virtuous profits.”
“Oh, no, I got out of that suckers’ game. I now run my own hedge-fund firm, Rearden Capital Management.”
“What?”
He stood and adjusted his suit jacket so that his body didn’t betray his shameful weakness. He walked toward her and sat informally on the edge of her desk. “Why make a product when you can make dollars? Right this second, I’m earning millions in interest off money I don’t even have.”
He gestured to his floor-to-ceiling windows, a symbol of his productive ability and goodness.
“There’s a whole world out there of byzantine financial products just waiting to be invented, Dagny. Let the leeches run my factories into the ground! I hope they do! I’ve taken out more insurance on a single Rearden Steel bond than the entire company is even worth! When my old company finally tanks, I’ll make a cool $877 million.”
Their eyes locked with an intensity she was only beginning to understand. Yes, Hank … claim me … If we’re to win the battle against the leeches, we must get it on … right now … Don’t let them torture us for our happiness … or our billions.
He tore his eyes away.
“I can’t. Sex is base and vile!”
“No, it’s an expression of our highest values and our admiration for each other’s minds.”
“Your mind gives me the biggest boner, Dagny Taggart.”
He fell upon her like a savage, wielding his mouth like a machete, and in the pleasure she took from him her body became an extension of her quarterly earnings report—proof of her worthiness as a lover. His hard-on was sanction enough.
“Scream your secret passions, Hank Rearden!”
“Derivatives!”
“Yes!”
“Credit-default swaps!”
“Oh, yes! Yes!”
“Collateralized debt obligation.”
“YES! YES! YES!”
2.
Dagny and Hank searched through the ruins of the 21st Century Investment Bank. As they stepped through the crumbling cubicles, a trampled legal pad with a complex column of computations captured Dagny’s attention. She fell to her hands and knees and raced through the pages and pages of complex math written in a steady hand. Her fingers bled from the paper cuts, and she did not care.
“What is it, Dagny?”
“Read this.”
“Good God!”
“Yes, it’s an experimental formula for a financial strategy that could convert static securities into kinetic profits that would increase at an almost exponential rate.”
Hank studied the numbers. “The amount of debt you would need to make this work would be at least 30-to-1, but a daring, rational man who lives by his mind would be willing to take that risk!”
“Yes, and it’s so complex the government could never regulate it.”
“It’s perfect. There’s only one problem—half the pages are missing. Could you reconstruct it, Dagny?”
Her answer escaped her lips like air from a punctured galvanized-steel duct:
“No.”
“I didn’t think so, but why leave such an achievement to rot here? It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, made by a monumental genius, the sort of mind that’s only born once in a century … Dagny, why are you fondling your breasts?”
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Green shoots or yellow weeds is moot…the question on many traders’ minds lately is “yeah, but can you smoke it?”
:-0
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:55 pm
“Those might be smoked or otherwise ingested to bring about a euphoric effect.”
Quick! Call Arnold!! More fodder for is agruement to decriminalize pot in order to create one hell of a revenue stream.
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:28 pm
“How else to explain the mind-bending notion that an economy that is declining less quickly is somehow improving?”
Lying for money.
May 24th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Hi Barry: Saw your book at Barnes and Noble in Burlington, MA 01803. When I asked where I can find it (after searching for it under the market and finance sections), they directed me to the economy section.
Perhaps they can also put a few copies in the market/finance section. When I asked them why it was not on the table of new books as you enter the store (many other new books on finance/market appear there) they were not sure?! Perhaps you can have a talk with them to move your book front and center at the main entrance with the other new books, or at least have it visible under the other market books!
~~~
BR: Those front table spaces are coop — meaning the publisher pays the book store rent for the space (same for prime Supermarket shelf space). The official publication date is May 26, and the West Coast is just having them arrive the past few days. We should see them more prominently displayed at all Borders and B&N come next week . . .
June 9th, 2009 at 2:03 am
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