Succinct Summation of Week’s Events (4.29.11)
Succinct summation of week’s events:
Positives:
1) Bernanke in his press conference implicitly says, “party on wayne, party on garth” as the end of QE2 in no way means tightening soon to follow
2) UoM and Conference Board confidence #’s up a touch in April
3) New Home Sales a punk 300k but higher than expected
4) Pending Home Sales rise 5.1%
5) Milwaukee joins NY mfr’g survey as exceeding forecasts
6) China HSBC pmi holds steady
Negatives:
1) Bernanke implicitly says asset price speculation with an eroding currency is the path to prosperity while it destroys the living standard of the lower and middle class that isn’t speculating in markets
2) Chicago, Dallas and Richmond mfr’g surveys below estimates
3) Initial Claims disappoint for 3rd week, 4 week avg back above 400k
4) Durable goods orders ex transports bit below est (but prior month revised up)
5) MBA said purchases fell 13.6% to 2 month low
6) Inflation expectations in confidence data remain elevated
7) Gasoline prices up another .05 to within .20 of record high
8) Euro zone CPI up to 2.8% 9) PIG yields continue to spike
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April 29th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
I remember reading here, and elsewhere, years ago: There’s only two ways out of a debt crisis. Inflation or default.
I think it has been clear for years now that the our gov’t is not interested in the path of default. Will wage earners get crushed? Yes.
Is housing price (and other) deflation giving them enormous cover? Yes.
Getting the story right, and getting the investment timing right are two different events.
Barry, you have done a good job of both.
April 29th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
First Silver ETF Now 5 Years Old; Products Have Had ‘Transformational Impact’
http://lifeinthekeyofc.waterforlife.ws/index.php/archives/910
Why are CEOs compensated differently than quarterbacks?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/why-are-ceos-compensated-differently-than-quarterbacks/article1999742/singlepage/#articlecontent
April 29th, 2011 at 4:10 pm
“1) Bernanke in his press conference implicitly says, “party on wayne, party on garth” as the end of QE2 in no way means tightening soon to follow”
Isn’t the end of QE2 itself a tightening of monetary policy because it will reduce the flow of (easy) funds into the economy from the Fed?
April 29th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
“1) Bernanke implicitly says asset price speculation with an eroding currency is the path to prosperity while it destroys the living standard of the lower and middle class that isn’t speculating in markets”
Are you kidding? This is hard to believe. Anyone have a link to this language from Ben?
April 29th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
KJ,
there’s more to life than TARP.
Over 9 Trillion of corporate and banking welfare, that’s saving the world?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGq2B3XeGKo
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewives-of-wall-street-look-whos-cashing-in-on-the-bailout-20110411?page=1
April 29th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
I think we should change Ben’s nickname frm Helicopter to Transitory…does that freaking moron really think increased energy and food prices are transitory? Think money printing might have some effect Bennie? Never ever put a foolish academic in charge of anything in the real world
April 29th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
And out here on the street we have to “live within our means” which is like getting a hug from a boa constricter. Even the big wigs know what’s happening;
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/04/29/wal-mart-ceo-people-are-running-out-of-money/
April 29th, 2011 at 7:27 pm
the gaming of the economy?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_19/b4227060634112.htm
April 29th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
From our boy Jeremy Grantham:
Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever
April 29th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Boockvar protests that he gives a rat’s @ss about the poor? Has the world gone mad? Has Hell frozen over?
Nah, it’s just the crowings of a goldbug. The day a bond investor sheds a single tear over the plight of the common man is the day of the Second Coming.
April 29th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Any nation that always runs massive trade deficits should not fear a little “currency debasement” in fact the market are saying the US has it for a long time.
April 29th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
@BR: No 1 negative pretty much spells it out.
We are so, so totally …..
Except he saves pension funds that the gov would have to pick up.
April 29th, 2011 at 10:19 pm
@KJ Foehr Says:
“1) Bernanke implicitly says asset price speculation with an eroding currency is the path to prosperity while it destroys the living standard of the lower and middle class that isn’t speculating in markets”
“Are you kidding? This is hard to believe. Anyone have a link to this language from Ben?”
im·plic·it (m-plst) adj.
1. Implied or understood though not directly expressed
April 29th, 2011 at 11:11 pm
@Robespierre
April 29th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
@Robespierre
Thanks for the comment, but I am not quite that clueless. If I thought Ben said those exact words I would have simply Googled the sentence and found the source myself. I was asking for a link to whatever language (words) Ben used from which Boockvar came to this conclusion. I would like to see if it implies the same thing to me because I really doubt he would say such a thing either implicitly or explicitly.
April 29th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
Lol, Ben this, Ben that, Ben over…
I do apologize, Ben has the implicit right to a man-gina.
April 30th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Rather arrogant of Bernanke to inform the victims what is coming but then he realizes the sheeple will willing submit to slaughter. Not sure if Hitler or Stalin could match him.
April 30th, 2011 at 9:57 am
Short Life Expectancy for BP Whistleblowers?
The investigation, if it can properly be so called, of the unsolved murder of the former high ranking Pentagon official and presidential advisor John P. Wheeler III, who was also an expert on chemical and biological weapons, may be taking a turn in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Wheeler, 67, a West Point grad, was beaten and thrown into a garbage dumpster. His body was discovered in a Wilmington, Del. landfill last New Year’s weekend. Both police detectives and news commentators described it as “an apparent hit,” but little else was ever learned, and no suspects have surfaced.
There was great speculation by many at the time that Wheeler had begun to blow the whistle on the mysterious bird and fish deaths in Arkansas and Texas, and was about to expose the facts tying this to the chemtrails seen in our skies over the past decade.
Now the speculation may be reverting to British Petroleum and the gulf spill because a number of other BP whistle blowing scientists, before and since the Wheeler murder, have also died mysteriously, been jailed on questionable charges or disappeared without a trace.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/whistleblowers_266.html
This is almost making me nostalgic for the Clinton presidency
April 30th, 2011 at 6:14 pm
This guy is not very smart.
Has been bearish the whole time (including loudly bearish last summer), hes even been bearish on USTs.
His list of “positives” is always cluttered with his moronic language tilts and lack of understanding of modern capitalism. Follow him to poverty, while the world economy recovers.
April 30th, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Commodity price increases have REPEATEDLY been followed by large BUSTS ( see 2008, 1995, 1989, 1979).
It’s very logical to see them as “transitory”.
May 1st, 2011 at 12:09 am
My understanding is that the continuing roll over of the FED balance sheet after June differs from QE2 in that no new money will be printed… rather purchases will be made from the proceeds of maturing debt. In other words new treasury bonds will be purchased from the proceeds of maturing treasury bonds. It appears to me, the $100 bn / month of QE stimulus is coming to an end. Granted, they will not shrink their balance sheet, but I don’t see it growing either… unless they use interest collected for additional purchases, in which case their balance sheet would only grow at the blended interest rate of the securities on their balance sheet. This does not appear stimulative to me at all, and relative to the last 8 months of QE printing, represents significant removal of stimulus. I have the feeling the risk markets have not properly discounted this turn of events.