My early morning reads:
• Trickle of Libor lawsuits from rate-fixing scandal likely to become deluge (Washington Post) see also Bank of America, Barclays, Credit Suisse Sued Over Libor (Businessweek)
• Bartlett: The Fed Should Stop Paying Banks Not to Lend (Economix)
• What would Keynes do? (BBC News) see also Procyclicalists Across the Atlantic Too (Jeff Frankels Blog)
• Corn for Food, Not Fuel (NYT)
• Questioning El-Erian (Reuters) see also Bill Gross on Cult Figures (PIMco)
• Why being bad is better on Wall Street (MarketWatch)
• Tiger Management Helps Next-Generation Funds (DealBook)
• The Other Barbarians at the Gates (NY Mag) see also U.S. Army Purchases Riot Gear As Fears Over Civil Unrest Grow (Info Wars)
• Guy Adams: I thought the internet age had ended this kind of censorship (Independent)
• Facebook ‘likes’ and adverts’ value doubted (BBC News)
What are you reading?
Presidential Election Year Markets
Source: BeSpoke
Category: Financial Press
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor implied. If you could repeat previously discredited memes or steer the conversation into irrelevant, off topic discussions, it would be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
Where are all those partisan clowns who mock the US strong dollar policy NOW with Obama and Geithner in charge?
so maybe deflation is raging. its just not showing up because of commodities being used to replace real investments? and its not just business that not interested in loans, nor are customers (consumers) they were burned once using easy credit to make up for falling incomes. and that didn’t work out well for them at all. and with the rest of the world also in deleveraging mode , and in much worse shape than we are, exports aren’t going to make up falling local demand (even the biggest speculative play, oil, is having a large head wind because of falling demand. down almost 10% since 2007). since we are in a demand economy (capitalism) where demand falls, jobs and incomes do to.
so if the Fed stopped paying interest on bank money held as reserves, then banks would put more money into commodities (driving prices up even more). but loans? not so much they seem to have taken the lesson from their great experiment in fake economies to mean dont do loans. unless you have to. and dont pay interest on savings. make your money the old fashioned way. FEES! and more FEES!
That NYMag piece show that at least there are some 1%’ers smart enough to realize that “tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the rest” is a recipe for their own demise. Question is whether it is to few and to late to turn things around. After all there are a lot of billionaire morons ready to use substantial parts of their wealth to take over the law – and not realizing that such an act will simply force the 99% to act outside of their newly purchased law system.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-31/women-as-directors-beat-men-only-boards-in-company-stock-return.html
Where’s the “wmen” etf?
“Corn for Food, Not Fuel (NYT)”
This is merely regurgitation of propaganda from Big Oil.
It has previously been debunked that corn ethanol production deprives the marketplace of feed corn (it’s not “food” corn). If we had turned to a sugar crop for ethanol production, they would have ginned-up a complaint about that as well.
(Note the one contributor is from the ‘Hoover Institution’. Now there’s some policies we want to emulate.)
If you happened to make money because of the LIBOR shenannigans, then why can’t we claw back your profits, Madoff-like. You’re all on the hook for this one.
Russian Prosecutors Charge Protest Movement Leader
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/world/europe/aleksei-navalny-charged-with-embezzlement.xml
We ‘won’ the Cold war!
“The Other Barbarians at the Gates (NY Mag)”
These people Jeff Greene is talking to, who he’s trying to convince, like Charles Murray, Niall Ferguson, David Koch, and Steve Schwarzman, remind me of Ceausescu.
An investigation of Facebook scamming. This page will probably be gone soon, but it confirms what the article in BR’s post says:
https://www.facebook.com/limitedpressing/posts/209534972507958
Put on to this link courtesy of NC
American cutting spending.
http://economywatch.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/31/13049935-americans-cut-spending-for-1st-time-in-a-year?lite
demand is falling
I would like to know how Gross is planning for a potential rise in interest rates and a loss of capital.
Also….Where in the world do aspens turn red? Does $200 million buy one a red leafed aspen?
Read This: Patton Oswalt’s Keynote Address at the Just For Laughs Festival
http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2012/07/patton-oswalts-keynote-address-at-the-just-for-laughs-festival-a-post-louie-world
@VennData:
Don’t think you have to look to Russia for suppression of dissent. Just read some of the reports of the ways that some of the occupy occupations were taken down by paramilitary police units who kept the press out and brutalized some of the protestors.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/accusations-of-police-misconduct-documented-in-lawyers-report-on-occupy-protests/
http://www.theweek.co.uk/us/occupy-movement/46836/nypd-using-sexual-assault-defend-wall-street-paymasters
It all depends on who you make uncomfortable.
I don’t think we won any wars; oligarchies run both countries now. It’s just that the Russki’s are a little more brazen about enforcing their authority.
Didn’t i just read somewhere where the involved banks are asking for leniency?
“Kiss my ass. This is a holy site for the Polish people… Shove it!”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19052292
The GOP Media Machine concocts these fanciful tails about Obama’s deep-seated Socialist hatred for business people, gun owners, heterosexuals, white people etc.. etc.. on these flimsy psychological analysis and turn the idea of “let’s raise taxes on the very rich so we can pay down the deficit” into “He wants to punish the rich.”
I wonder if they took a dose of these hifalutin psychobabble, what it would say bout Romney’s team?
Maybe the idea is to divert people’s attention away from the fact the “investment” unit was buying on opening day in the first place.
“The equities unit’s revenue was hurt by what UBS called a “gross mishandling of Facebook (FB)’s market debut by Nasdaq.” The bank, which entered orders for Facebook shares multiple times because Nasdaq wasn’t confirming them “for several hours,” said it will take legal action against the exchange.”
UBS Profit Falls 58% On Investment Banking, Facebook Loss
http://goo.gl/nRa2B
Romney denies criticism of Palestinian culture at Israel fundraiser
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0731/Romney-denies-criticism-of-Palestinian-culture-at-Israel-fundraiser
This international trip has turned out quite well for Mitt. I guess if all you really care about is tax cuts for the top marginal rate payers, then it really doesn’t matter.
Corn for Food, Not Fuel
Removing the mandate would just help Big Oil. The 2012 drought is going to cause food prices to skyrocket due to lack of corn and soybeans. Cattle and pigs and chickens do just fine using corn, DDGs (corn remainder after it has been made into ethanol), and soymeal. Lack of DDGs is going to cause soybeans to continue to climb. Removing the mandate will only serve to raise gasoline prices. Blenders (Big Oil) will not be required to use ethanol, and thus they will lose the competition that the government forces upon them.
If I grow the grain on my own land, I should be able to sell my grain to highest bidder. Right now, ethanol plants are the highest bidder. They can make money (remember the tax credits and blender’s credits are now gone, since Jan. 1 2012) at higher rates than cattle growers, BECAUSE THE MEATPACKERS AREN’T PAYING AS MUCH, BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID CONSUMERS WON’T SPEND THE MONEY.
Cattle farmers are in dire straits due to lack of pasture (cows usually use pasture and baled hay), and that is due to drought. So, they sell their cows due to no grass, high cost of baled hay, etc. etc. and now you have glut of beef going to market.
Ethanol Industry was established in a well-thought out manner. RINS market allows for a severe one year drought, or 2-3 years of somewhat lower corn yields. Dropping mandate over a one-year drought (even one this severe) is just idiotic.
Price of corn, when compared to inflation of other items (car, house, medicine, etc.) is still extremely low. Inflation-adjusted prices would cause most to start cutting out that 2nd vacation, go to basic cable, start carpooling, etc. etc. etc. Jeez food is cheap in US.
Agriculture is still one of the few markets that is “free” from government regulation. Just ask a price taker (me) or a price maker (Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, Archer Daniels Midland).