-- Posted Monday, 29 September 2008 | Digg This Article
| Source: GoldSeek.com
The following are some snippets from the most recent issue of the International Forecaster. For the full 27 page issue, please see subscription information below.
US MARKETS
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You might have been wondering why all these big banks like JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America are buying up and absorbing toxic waste dumps like Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Countrywide and Washington Mutual, seemingly without fear that their toxic waste might poison them and put them under. Wonder no longer, because all the Illuminist scum running these big banks were told in advance that the Paulson Plan would be slam-dunked down the throats of our Congress by the peerless Caligula Administration. All that toxic waste, they were told months in advance, would not affect them, because the Illuminist operatives in our government were going to pawn it off on the dopey sheople, who would be sold down the river by their traitorous, so-called representatives in our government.
The Paulson Plan will start with $700 billion, and end up being $7 trillion (plus) as they extend the bailout to include not only real estate derivatives but credit default swaps and interest rate swaps as well. The average family of four gets a stimulus check for $1,200 from their government, and then they pay out 8 times that much back to their government, almost $10,000, just for the opening volley on the Paulson Plan as initially proposed, not to mention the Fannie and Freddie bailout, which will also cost roughly the same, just for openers. Twelve hundred for you, ten thousand for them. That is the Illuminist way, and it will create a hyperinflationary recession and a Very Large Depression that will make the 1930's look like a cake-walk, while simultaneously removing any remaining pretense of free and open markets. The Illuminist reprobates and sociopaths want to make you reap what they have sown. Rules and concepts of fairness are now whatever the Illuminati say they are as the quest for moral hazard replaces the quest for liberty and freedom.
But not so fast. Could it be that a group of conservative GOP politicians from our House of Representatives have discovered their backbones and don't particularly want the fascist Paulson Plan, or are they just trying to put on a show for the sheople? Are they really concerned about the future of America, or are they merely attempting to make it look like there has been due deliberation, and consideration of some alternate plans to the Paulson Plan, to prevent voters from getting the impression that they have been fraudulently railroaded by their corrupt representatives under threats to their jobs, homes and pension plans? If these GOP patriots stick to their guns, they will become folk heroes. Otherwise, they will be recognized as pusillanimous, puss-sucking, political opportunists, and will get vaporized by voters in November.
Note also how the stock markets are being moved up and down and all around, with the volatility being a message to Congress that things will go well for their reelections as long as they do as they are told. The plan of the aforementioned conservative republicans may be to get voter credit for rejecting the corrupt Paulson Plan, which can be passed anyway without them by the remaining Republicans, along with the Democrats, who have suddenly become Bushites to save their political skins. If you wanted proof that there is not a dime's bit of difference between Jackasses and Dumbos, here it is, "in yo' face!" Obviously, the Jackasses and Dumbos in favor of the Paulson Plan don't want to get all the credit for what they all know will be an unmitigated disaster, so it should be interesting to see what they end up doing.
The conservative GOP plan puts the burden from losses generated by real estate derivative fraud on the pirates of Wall Street instead of on taxpayers, and rightly so. They have called on the government to insure the toxic waste, with premiums for insurance to be paid by the Wall Street fraudsters, not by the sheople. The idea is to make what are now unmarketable securities marketable again by insuring them with the full faith and credit of the US, which now has about as much weight as the full faith and credit of a Banana Republic. But of course the hope is that the full faith and credit of the US will not yet be perceived that way.
What should happen here is that the toxic waste should be categorized according to rates of return, risk based on default and foreclosure experience, and the degree of impairment of collateral through reduced real estate values for homes covered in any particular derivative. The fraudsters should start by selling the best stuff first, which should be easier to value, to break the logjam in the derivative markets. They can net fund the government insurance premiums from the sales proceeds. They can then put the sales proceeds from the good stuff into payment of government insurance premiums for the not-so-good stuff as they continue their ominous cascade of de-leveraging. Values on faltering real estate derivatives should rise up as the once toxic waste gets the full backing of the US government, thus minimizing losses due to the lack of marketability and liquidity. The real crap should be saved for last and be written off without insurance for the tax benefits which will help them keep future profits from what will hopefully be more legitimate operations. Even with this help, we note that some financial institutions have so much toxic waste that they will still go under, especially when the quadrillion dollar Derivative Death-Star detonates, which is inevitable. If there is a failure, the insolvent institution can then choose to shore up what will be their horrifying net worth situation by getting a private equity injection, and if that doesn't work, and the amount of losses are not at impossible levels, they can choose between bankruptcy and a government bailout where the government gets super-priority bonds, ahead of all other interests, in return for the bailout money, but the amount would not be unlimited and the pool of bailout money available would have to be kept at reasonable levels to protect the dollar. Those with impossibly high losses would have to go bankrupt. Also, aid to foreign banks stung by the Illuminist flimflam fraud should be given consideration to restore confidence in our government and our system. That would be a fair way to handle this situation. Nevertheless, even this plan would still be inflationary as our profligate money and credit system became unclogged and as some bailout money was created out of thin air to save the borderline institutions. But such a plan would be far less inflationary than the Paulson Plan, which would require money to be created out of thin air in quantities that would break the dollar's back and start the mass exodus from treasuries that will bury and destroy the United States of America. In addition, we believe such a plan would only buy time and at best save a few borderline financial institutions that might otherwise have failed. The intertwining of counterparty risk on a quadrillion dollar derivative problem is going to take the whole system down in the end. Then we will have to start from scratch, which is fine by us.
The House conservatives' plan also offers temporary tax relief to free up capital for companies to lend to one another, temporarily suspends the payment of dividends by financial institutions, requires participating firms to disclose to the Treasury Department the value of mortgage assets on their books, private bids received for those assets in the past year and their last audit reports, forbids the now nationalized former GSE entities Fannie and Freddie from issuing securities on unsound mortgages, and requires the SEC to investigate the performance of credit-rating agencies. Bravo, if they succeed.
Let's now take a look at the new financial landscape in the aftermath of the initial carnage of the derivative debacle and credit-crunch. We are left with the Fed as overseer of the Big Four. Who are The Big Four? First, there is JP Morgan Chase, which bagged and tagged Bear Stearns with help from the Fed and Treasury and which just rescued Washington Mutual, preventing the FDIC from being wiped out in by far the biggest bank failure in US history. Next is Bank of America, which went bonzai for toxic waste dumps Merrill Lynch and Countrywide in buyouts that are certain to come back to haunt them. Rounding out the pack are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, who just became bank holding companies, abandoning their investment bank status for the stability of a commercial bank, but with far less leverage. You can rest assured that Goldie and Morgan will now dump their toxic waste on the Fed through the Term Securities Lending Facilities and will borrow from the Fed like fiends under the other plans of taxpayer largesse provided courtesy of the Fed.
These four are now the too-big-to-fail Illuminist flagships which will continue to bilk the sheople out of their hard-earned money and assets ad nauseam while the Fed continues to lead the pack. Also note how the Fed has been given more regulatory power just by virtue of the failures and mergers. They now have control over what used to be all the major investment banks, or their remnants, that were once outside of the Fed's jurisdiction. Our traitors in Congress will probably give the Fed even more power to prevent future financial fraud, even though the Fed is the biggest perpetrator of financial fraud in the history of mankind. Yes indeed, the fox will be given charge over the henhouse.
Note that Goldman was in such bad shape that Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway had to rescue Goldie with a 5 billion equity injection in preferred stock with another 5 billion in warrants for common stock at a favorable price, while Sumitomo and Mitsui Financial pony'd up a goodly chunk more. Morgan Stanley fared little better, and had to get an 8.4 billion equity injection from Mitsubishi Financial. Note how Morgan Stanley's talks with Wachovia broke down, probably because Morgan was scared to death over Wachovia's toxic balance sheets, and the same goes for Citigroup and Wells Fargo, who we did not hear a peep from as mergers were discussed, because they, like Wachovia, are about to become crispy critters as they explode and go down in flames like the Hindenberg as their fraudulent balance sheets detonate.
Fannie and Freddie are now of course nationalized, and Lehman has been fed to the piranhas. Drawing first blood on Lehman is Barclays, which acquired Lehman's North American Operations, and Nomura Holdings, which acquired Lehman's European and Middle East Operations. Then there is AIG, which has been placed in a state of suspended animation with a government guaranteed Fed loan of 85 billion, as they try to figure out what to do with it because of the trillions in counterparty risk. Citigroup, Wachovia and Wells Fargo are likely to join AIG on the suspended animation list as fodder for all the surplus dollar holders who will need a place to dump the cash from their coming fire-sale of treasuries which they will soon unload in order to prevent being hyper-inflated into oblivion. They will either go bankrupt or be eaten alive by the hungry piranhas who will wait until they smell the blood that is about to flow anew in the streets, to mix with the copious amounts of other blood that is already flowing in those streets.
You had best buy gold and silver quickly to protect yourself from the coming catastrophe. While the ancient Israeli's had lamb's blood to put on their door posts to protect them from the Destroyer, you will have to settle for gold and silver. We also note that God is still available as well, and we suggest you call on His services for the ultimate in bailout protection.
Orders for U.S.-made durable goods sank in August, falling 4.5% on weaker demand for a broad range of goods, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
Excluding the 8.9% decrease in transportation goods, orders fell 3.0%, the sharpest drop in nineteen months. The decrease exceeded the expected 2.0% fall forecast by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. It was the largest drop in total orders since January.
Dozens of Arizona communities, counties, school districts and other government entities could lose nearly $40 million combined as a result of the collapse of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers.
Pima County alone is looking at a potential 45.2 million loss, Tempe could be down $3.5 million and the small communities of Maricopa and Goodyear each could see $1.4 million in savings from home-building boom days disappear if all the funds they have invested in Lehman’s are wiped out by the firm’s bankruptcy proceedings.
In addition to local governments, investors in this fund include non-profits, school districts, irrigation districts, universities, airports and insurance groups.
Premiums for job-based health insurance are up 5% in 2008 and have more than doubled since 1999; a growth rate that far outpaces inflation and the increase in workers’ wages over the same period, according to an annual survey of employers released Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a growing number of workers at smaller firms are getting less coverage for their money as health plans with high deductibles and fewer benefits become more prevalent.
The portion of workers with single coverage who pay a deductible of at least $1,000 has jumped to 18% from 10% in the past two years. Among smaller firms with three to 199 employees, the rate has more than doubled to 35% from 16%.
On average, workers now pay $3,354, about 27%, toward the $12,680 annual cost for family coverage, according to the survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.
Within hours of revealing his dramatic, confidence-boosting investment in Goldman Sachs yesterday, Warren Buffett had made a $783 million notional profit. $10 billion in fresh capital - $5 billion from Berkshire Hathaway, Mr. Buffett’s main listed company, and $5 billion through a public share offering.
In a separate public offering, Goldman raised $5 billion through the issue of new shares at $123 a share.
Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported Thursday that 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.32% this week, a sharp increase from 6.09% last week. It was the highest level for 30-year mortgages since they averaged 6.33% for the week of Oct. 25th.
Amid uncertainty about the plan’s prospects, US money market funds controlling thousands of billions of dollars in assets led a stampede to safety, buying short-term government debt, selling commercial paper and withdrawing funds from the interbank market. As a result, the rates that banks charge each other soared, while yields on Treasury bills plunged.
The U.S. Federal Reserve agreed to channel $30 billion into the global financial system by opening currency swap lines with central banks in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Australia. The Fed set up the currency exchange to address “elevated pressures” in dollar funding in markets, the Board of Governors said today in a statement.
Overnight rates for U.S. dollars in Europe surged to more than 10 percent last week during the worst of the financial turmoil following the Lehman Brothers collapse. On Wednesday, dollar overnight rates in London fell to 2.6875 percent from 2.95 percent on Tuesday -- but were still well above the Fed's percent target rate.
More “major” financial companies will collapse or lose their independence before the global credit crisis ends, said Lazard Ltd.'s Gary Parr, who's advised Bear Stearns Cos., Fannie Mae and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. this year.
“One question that's posed frequently is, `Where are we in this crisis?''' Parr said. ``I can only observe we are in the middle and there are sizable losses still to come.'' Parr, a Lazard deputy chairman, is a veteran adviser to financial companies. He represented the Kuwait Investment Authority on its investment in Citigroup Inc. and China Investment Corp. on buying a stake in Morgan Stanley.
Someone should inform Congress that there are approximately $1.4 quadrillion (notional) of derivatives floating around the globe. If 1% is bad, that’s $14 trillion. If we’re lucky only 1/10 of one percent is bad, which would be $1.4 trillion. The derivative numbers (BIS) are as of the end of Q2 2008.
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