Duration : 0:3:9

Technorati Tags: Budget, cbs, cbsepisode, ceiling, Debt, default, early, economy, Geithner, measures, Obama, show, The, timothy, treasury, US

Duration : 0:2:32

Technorati Tags: barack, Business, comedy, economy, funny, news, Obama, onion, recession, Room, satire, treasury

Duration : 0:21:19

Technorati Tags: Bank, congress, economy, europe, financial, Geithner, Obama, politicalcapital, rules, sovereign-debt, treasury

Duration : 0:10:48

Technorati Tags: Adviser, African, Americans, ARM, bailouts, banking, black, Bonuses, bush, cenk, Citigroup, clinton, congress, crisis, Democrats, depression, Deregulation, economy, Fed, federal, financial, foreclosure, free, glass-steagall, Goldman, Greenspan, housing, income, interest, Interview, john, Lainto, Liar, Loans, Market, Mattes, Minorities, Obama, People, poor, rates, Reform, regulations, Repeal, Republicans, reserve, risk, robert, rubin, Sachs, Secretary, stock, TARP, Taxpayers, treasury, turks, TYT, uygur, WaMu, Young

Pressure (Countdown) Toward Breakdown

http://www.kitco.com/ind/willie/aug132009.html

By Jim Willie CB
My best sources of information report that some unexpected deep shocks are coming from USGovt creditor nations. They are simply fed up, frustrated, and astonished at the manner of lost control, spiraling debts, and blatant monetization amidst lies in denial of that same monetization.

The USTreasury auctions now have domestic hidden elements, and global hidden monetization elements. The USFed is purchasing through Permanent Open Market Operations the bonds grabbed by the primary dealers. Some of the auctions are actually underbid, and fortunately for the statistics, the bid/cover ratio includes obligated dealer bids.

The USFed liberally uses its USDollar Swap Facility to enable strong bids by foreign central banks, except that they are highly likely coming from USFed accounts on foreign soil, or else from money lent by the USFed itself. Warning after warning have come not to monetize, not to debauch the USDollar currency, not to permit skyrocketing deficits.

Yet they continue, and worse, little if any reform or actual stimulus has occurred. Mainly what we witness is more channeled funds to the big banks, more coverage of credit derivative fires, and more announcements of bond support. See the $1.25 trillion support for Fannie Mae bonds, aka USAgency Mortgage Bonds.

The Green Shoots have now been dismissed as a marketing ploy. The Stress Tests have now been dismissed as a marketing ploy. The Stimulus Plan has now been dismissed as a marketing ploy. The only USEconomic recovery will be a statistical recovery. A Jobless Recovery is a recovery for stocks and a redemption for the bankers. Main Street continues to be discarded.

As a last footnote, never overlook the continued urgent Chinese initiative to spend their USTBonds quickly, for useful tangible purposes, before any damaging sequence of events occurs. Simon Black (aka the International Man) wrote, I have been spending a lot of time this week talking to my sources in China, one of whom is inside one of the countrys sovereign wealth funds (SWF). He also indicated that the SWF analysts were working around the clock trying to put deals together.

For China it is a race against the clock for how fast they can convert their $2 trillion in USDollar holdings into strategic assets, namely oil and gold. At todays deflated prices, putting together a really good billion dollar deal is a difficult thing to do. Putting together 2000 of them is impossible. Doing it before the dollar collapses? Not a Chinamans chance. And they know it.

Duration : 0:9:46

Technorati Tags: american, assets, banks, behind, Ben, bernanke, Bilderberg, bob, bullion, CB, Chapman, China, chinese, closed, conference, cramer, Debt, depression, dollar, don, doors, faber, Fed, federal, foreign, Geithner, going, gold, greece, Green, GSE, harrold, inflation, ivy, jim, joseph, Keiser, kitco, marc, Max, Monetization, monetize, nuts, peter, poison, price, reserve, rogers, schiff, screaming, security, selling, Shoots, stiglitz, sylver, tbills, Tim, treasuries, treasury, US, vouliagmeni, Willie, yuan

The markets for debt, both public and private far exceed the entire stock market in value and importance. The U.S. Treasury issues debt of various maturities through auctions, which are open only to authorized buyers. Corporations issue debt with investment banks as intermediaries. The interest rates are not set by the Treasury, the corporations or the investment bankers, but are determined by the market, reflecting economic forces about which there are a number of theories. The real and nominal rates and the coupons of a bond determine its price in the market. The term structure, which is the plot of yield-to-maturity against time-to-maturity indicates the value of time for points in the future. Forward rates are the future spot rates that can be calculated using today’s bond prices. Finally, indexed bonds, which are indexed to inflation, offer the safest asset of all and their price reveals a fundamental economic indicator, the real interest rate.

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Spring 2008.

Duration : 1:10:45

Technorati Tags: annualized, ask, bid, bid-ask, bills, bonds, broker, discount, fixed, incomes, indexed, investment, rate, spread, structure, term, treasury

A musical parody of the Crewe/Nolan song “Lady Marmalade,” about credit cards and the crisis.

Lead vocal: JANIS LIEBHART
Background vocals: ANGIE JARÉE, JANIS LIEBHART, GARY STOCKDALE
Music Director: GREG HILFMAN

For this and many more great political musical parodies, visit VERSUS — where politics and culture do their time in rhyme — at http://versusplus.com.

Duration : 0:3:18

Technorati Tags: advance, AIG, analysis, Angie, animated, bailout, Bankruptcy, banks, bernanke, cards, cash, claims, commentary, Consumer, credit, crisis, Debt, delinquencies, economy, Fed, financial, gary, Geithner, Greg, Hilfman, humor, interest, Janis, Jarée, jobless, jobs, layoffs, Liebhart, limit, Marcy, minimum, musical, Obama, parody, political, rate, recession, retail, Rule, sales, Shaffer, shopping, song, State of the Union, Stimulus, Stockdale, TARP, treasury, unemployment, Volcker, Warren

In a slightly better hotel room in Denmark!

City alarm as Treasury fails to sell Government gilts:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/5051738/City-alarm-as-Treasury-fails-to-sell-Government-gilts.html

“One is not amused…” The Queen invites Mervyn King, Bank of England Governor, to palace:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/court_and_social/article5970954.ece

IMF rescues Romania with €20bn aid while Serbia handed €4bn:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/5051495/IMF-rescues-Romania-with-20bn-aid-while-Serbia-handed-4bn.html

Something similar is happening in the states…
Geithner gaffe roils markets:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/26/geithner-gaffe-on-dollar-roils-stock-bond-markets/

Peace

Duration : 0:2:35

Technorati Tags: Debt, Economic Collapse, Geithner, Gilts, IMF, Romania, SDR, Serbia, treasury, unemployment

Why do Japan and China keep on buying dollars?

The dollar has fallen about twenty percent against the Euro in the last year but China and Japan continue to accumulate large dollar surpluses. At the same time, many economists worry that they will dump their holdings, sending the dollar into a free fall.
Michael Dooley, Peter Garber, and David Folkerts-Landau suggest that this financial policy is no accident. They view the Chinese and Japanese as pursuing deliberate full employment policies. They buy and hold dollars, not as an investment, but rather to subsidize their own exports. Read this summary of the argument, or buy an NBER working paper here. Garber puts the point bluntly:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/01/why_do_japan_an.html

China is right to have doubts about who will buy all America’s debt

Chinese doubts about the value of US Treasury bonds highlight a crucial question: who will buy the estimated $2.7 trillion (£1.9 trillion) to $4.2 trillion of debt expected to be issued over the next two years?

With annual foreign purchases accounting for less than a tenth of the low end of that range, and domestic investors unable to bridge the gap, the Chinese are right to worry.
Yu Yongding, former adviser to the Peoples Bank of China, recently demanded guarantees for the value of Chinas $682bn of Treasury securities. Then Luo Ping, director of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said that China had misgivings about the US economy, but despite this it would continue to buy Treasuries. The two statements appear designed to raise the issue non-confrontationally before new chief US diplomat Hillary Clintons visit to Beijing on February 20.
China worries about the dollars value against other currencies, particularly the yuan. With US interest rates so low, the dollars value may slide. However, President Barack Obama has repeatedly said he wants a strong dollar, and indeed its trade-weighted value rose 13.9pc between April and December 2008.
The other area of concern for China is the value of its Treasuries. Given the US borrowing requirement and its lax monetary policy, Treasury bond yields could well rise sharply, causing a corresponding price decline. If Chinas holdings match Treasuries average 48-month duration, then a 5pc rise in yields, from 1.72pc on the 5-year note to 6.72pc, would lose China 17.5pc of its holdings value, or $119bn.
Foreign buyers have absorbed a little over $200bn of Treasuries annually, a useful contribution to financing the $459bn 2008 deficit, but only a modest help towards the $1.35 trillion minimum average deficit forecast for 2009 and 2010.
Unless that changes substantially, there will be $1trillion annually to be raised by the Treasury from domestic sources, more than double the previous record from domestic and foreign sources together, plus whatever is needed to bail out the banks.
Even if the US savings rate were to rise from zero to its long-term average of 8pc of disposable personal income, that would create only an additional $830bn of savings — not enough to fund the domestic share of the deficit. Interest rates would probably have to rise substantially to pull in more foreign investors.
Yu is right to worry.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/breakingviewscom/4611408/China-is-right-to-have-doubts-about-who-will-buy-all-Americas-debt.html

Duration : 0:3:37

Technorati Tags: buy, China, confidence, congress, crisis, Debt, deficit, dollar, doubt, faith, finance, fiscal, holding, interest, monetary, Policy, rates, states, treasuries, treasury, trust, U.S., united, value

Duration : 0:11:18

Technorati Tags: banks, federal, notes, reserve, treasury