Nassim Taleb: We Still Have The Same Credit Disease

by ilene - September 17th, 2009 11:23 am

Nassim Taleb: We Still Have The Same Credit Disease

Courtesy of Mish

Reflation or not, end of recession or not, the global economic fundamentals have not changed one bit thanks to the misguided actions of central bankers. Nassim Taleb, author of the Black Swan says: ‘We still have the same disease’

Here are some clips from a Globe and Mail interview including some thoughts on Canada.

Margaret Wente: Happy days are here again. The central bankers say the recession is over. The markets are buoyant. Can we relax?

Nassim Taleb: Not at all. Central bankers have no clue. In the first place, the financial crisis was not a black swan. It was perfectly predictable. They ignored the phenomenal buildup in leverage since 1980. They acted like airline pilots who’d never heard of hurricanes.

After finishing The Black Swan, I realized there was a cancer. The cancer was a huge buildup of risk-taking based on the lack of understanding of reality. The second problem is the hidden risk with new financial products. And the third is the interdependence among financial institutions.

MW: But aren’t those the very problems we’re supposed to be fixing?

NT: They’re all still here. Today we still have the same amount of debt, but it belongs to governments. Normally debt would get destroyed and turn to air. Debt is a mistake between lender and borrower, and both should suffer. But the government is socializing all these losses by transforming them into liabilities for your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. What is the effect? The doctor has shown up and relieved the patient’s symptoms – and transformed the tumour into a metastatic tumour. We still have the same disease. We still have too much debt, too many big banks, too much state sponsorship of risk-taking. And now we have six million more Americans who are unemployed – a lot more than that if you count hidden unemployment.

MW: Are you saying the U.S. shouldn’t have done all those bailouts? What was the alternative?

NT: Blood , sweat and tears. A lot of the growth of the past few years was fake growth from debt. So swallow the losses, be dignified and move on. Suck it up. I gather you’re not too impressed with the folks in Washington who are handling this crisis.

Ben Bernanke saved nothing! He shouldn’t be allowed in Washington. He’s like a doctor who misses the metastatic tumour and says the patient is doing very…

Tags: central bankers, credit disease, debt, Nassim Talib, Obama

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The Continuing Disaster of Wall Street, One Year Later

by ilene - September 15th, 2009 12:20 pm

The Continuing Disaster of Wall Street, One Year Later

Courtesy of Robert Reich at Robert Reich’s Blog

As he attempted to do with health care reform last week, the President is trying to breathe new life into financial reform. He’s using the anniversary of the death of Lehman Brothers and the near-death experience of the rest of the Street, culminating with a $600 billion taxpayer financed bailout, to summon the political will for change. Yet the prospects seem dubious. As with health care reform, he has stood on the sidelines for months and allowed vested interests to frame the debate. Nor has he come up with a sufficiently bold or coherent set of reforms likely to change the way the Street does business, even if enacted.

Let’s be clear: The Street today is up to the same tricks it was playing before its near-death experience. Derivatives, derivatives of derivatives, fancy-dance trading schemes, high-risk bets. “Our model really never changed, we’ve said very consistently that our business model remained the same,” says Goldman Sach’s chief financial officer.

The only difference now is that the Street’s biggest banks know for sure they’ll be bailed out by the federal government if their bets turn sour — which means even bigger bets and bigger bucks.

Meanwhile, the banks’ gigantic pile of non-performing loans is also growing bigger, as more and more jobless Americans can’t pay their mortgages, credit card bills, and car loans. So forget any new lending to Main Street. Small businesses still can’t get loans. Even credit-worthy borrowers are having a hard time getting new mortgages.

The mega-bailout of Wall Street accomplished little. The only big winners have been top bank executives and traders, whose pay packages are once again in the stratosphere. Banks have been so eager to lure and keep top deal makers and traders they’ve even revived the practice of offering ironclad, multimillion-dollar payments – guaranteed no matter how the employee performs. Goldman Sachs is on course to hand out bonuses that could rival its record pre-meltdown paydays. In the second quarter this year it posted its fattest quarterly profit in its 140-year history, and earmarked $11.4 billion to compensate its happy campers. Which translates into about $770,000 per Goldman employee on average, just about what they earned at height of boom. Of course, top executives and traders will pocket much more.

Every other big bank feels it has to match Goldman’s pay packages if…

Tags: Banks, derivatives, health care reform, Obama, Robert Reich, Wall Street

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Reality Receding

by ilene - September 15th, 2009 3:24 am

Reality Receding

Courtesy of James Howard Kunstler

     Now that everybody in the USA, from the janitors in their man-caves to the president addressing congress, has declared the "recession" over, is exactly the moment when what’s left of the so-called economy is most likely to implode. If there were still shoeshine boys on Wall Street, they’d be starting their own hedge funds now, and CNBC’s Larry Kudlow would be toasting them in the Grill Room of The Four Seasons. What we’ve seen in the vaunted rally for the last six months is the triumph of wishing over facts, combined with the most arrant market manipulation by floundering banks backstopped by a panicked government — all pounding sand down a rat-hole of hopeless non-performing debt, while pretending that the machinery of capital finance still grinds on.
     Despite what a few elderly Mr. Naturals may say about abolishing "capitalism," we’re not going to have an advanced economy without a coherent banking system, and by advanced economy I mean one in which the lights stay on. By coherent I mean a system that is able to deploy accumulated wealth for productive purposes, in the service of continuing civilization. (And, yes, I know that the followers of Daniel Quinn are not so sure that civilization is worth the trouble, but unless you support the killing-off of about six billion humans right away, things on Earth are not favorably disposed just now for a return to hunting-and-gathering.)
      I would hasten to cut through the fog of despair to reassert — for the thousandth time — that a true American perestroika is possible, if the public could overcome the plague of cognitive dissonance sweeping the land and form a consensus for action that comports with reality’s agenda. But that is looking less and less likely. Instead, what we see is a rush into delusion, seasoned with grievance and gall. Spectacles like last weekend’s march on Washington don’t happen for no reason, of course. From where I sit, the uproar can be attributed to comprehensively bad American leadership, a crisis in authority and legitimacy that has left a functional vacuum in every executive office throughout the land — from the White House to the state houses, to the lairs of the CEOs, to the towers of the deans and department chairs, to the glitzy sets of the nightly news deliverers, to the makeshift quarters of the NGO chiefs. In former times,…

Tags: Banking System, debt consumer economy, Glenn Beck, military spending, motoring, Obama, Palin, Recession

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Monday Markets - Mr. Obama Goes to Wall Street

by Phil - September 14th, 2009 8:29 am

Today should be very interesting!

One year to the day after Lehman Brothers collapsed and precipitated a financial crisis that reverberated across the globe, President Obama will deliver a major speech on the financial crisis at Federal Hall in New York City at midday on Monday. According to the White House: "He will discuss the aggressive steps the Administration has taken to bring the economy back from the brink, the commitment to winding down the government’s role in the financial sector and the actions the United States and the global community must take to prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again."

As I had mentioned in our Year One Review of the Stock Market Crash, Obama and Wall Street did not get off to a great start but, even after the March crash, we are still up 20% since he was sworn in in January as the President has been EXTREMELY accommodative to Wall Street’s needs (ie. free money) so far. That has been the carrot - perhaps now it is time for the stick…

The Treasury just released a document entitled: "The Next Phase of Government Financial Stabilization and Rehabilitation Policies" which, at 51 pages, is a pretty neat review of the crash as well but I still prefer mine as it saves you an hour and has much better pictures. There are many charts in the government’s documents and they are not all that encouraging. As the report concludes:

We must address the structural weaknesses in our financial system that this crisis revealed. The Administration is working to gain approval of a detailed set of proposals to reform our regulatory system to address these weaknesses and keep our financial markets and economy on track to a sustainable recovery.

In addition to Obama speaking at noon, we have 3 Fed Governors making speeches today. Duke speaks on Regulatory Reform at 8:30, Lacker talks about Financial Regulation at 12:30 (right after Obama) and Yellen gives an Economic Outlook at 3:50, just in time for a stick-save into the bell so we could have a wild ride this morning!

Speaking of the Fed, I just read a great book called "The Creature from Jekyll Island," which our man Ron Paul calls: "What every American needs to know about central bank power. A gripping adventure into the secret world of the international banking cartel." The book tears down the wall of our monetary system and the secret meetings that…

Tags: CPI, Federal Reserve, Industrial Production, Obama, PPI, Ron Paul, The Creature from Jekyll Island

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Obama Risks Global Trade War With Misguided Tariffs

by ilene - September 14th, 2009 1:39 am

Obama Risks Global Trade War With Misguided Tariffs

trade war Courtesy of Mish

On Wednesday, in a dispute over the price of steel pipe, the US Fires Opening Salvo In Trade Wars With China. Late Friday evening, trade wars heated up again as Obama Fired the US’ Second Shot In Trade War With China.

In what is widely considered a test case of the president’s union support, Obama slaps duties on tire imports from China.

U.S. President Barack Obama slapped steep additional duties on tire imports from China on Friday in a move that pleased domestic labor groups but drew a strong rebuke from Beijing.

The United Steelworkers union, which represents workers at many U.S. tire production plants, filed a petition earlier this year asking for the protection. It said a tripling of tire imports from China to about 46 million in 2008 from about 15 million in 2004 had cost more than 5,000 U.S. tire worker jobs.

An additional 35 percent duty will be placed for a year on Chinese-made passenger vehicle and light truck tires, the White House said in a statement.

"For far too long, workers across this country have been victimized by bad trade policies and government inaction. Today, President Obama made clear that he will enforce America’s trade laws and stand with American workers," United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said.

The ITC had recommended starting with a 55 percent tariff that would fall to 45 percent in year two and 35 percent in year three. The steelworkers asked initially for a quota of 21 million that would grow by 5 percent each year.

Analysts expect Friday’s action to encourage other labor groups or domestic manufacturers to seek relief under Section 421, which does not require petitioners to prove unfair trade practices are responsible for a surge in imports.

No American tire manufacturer supported the case and one, Cooper Tire, publicly opposed it.

"We are certainly disheartened that the president bowed to the union and disregarded the interests of thousands of other American workers and consumers," said Marguerite Trossevin, counsel to the American Coalition for Free Trade in Tires.

Obama Faces an Early Trade Test

Prior to the decision, the Washington Post was writing As Cheaper Chinese Tires Roll In, Obama Faces an Early Trade Test.

ALBANY, Ga. — At the vast Cooper Tire plant here, workers heard for years about their rivals in Chinese factories.

The plant employed 2,100 people in this small south Georgia city is being shut down, and the…

Tags: CHINA, domestic labor groups, Obama, tires, trade wars

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Checking in at Op-Toons Review

by ilene - September 13th, 2009 4:00 am

Op-Toons Review reports on the NY Times’ trend-setting money-saving strategy, while President Obama adjusts to life as an ordinary politician. - Ilene

New York Times to Reduce Costs and Increase Transparency By Not Using Ink and Paper on Reports Critical of Administration Agenda

New York, NY–The New York Times — after years of losing revenue in the face of competition from other media outlets providing more accurate and balanced sources of news — announced a major cost-savings initiative that includes eliminating all the ink and paper that would otherwise be used to print stories reflecting poorly on the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress.

"We’re launching a program of unprecedented openness," said the Times’ editor-in-chief. ..

Continue NY Times cost-cutting article here. >>

Obama Adjusts to Life as Ordinary Politician

Obama Washington, D.C.–After being elevated to a god-like status during the presidential campaign, President Obama took a series of inconsistent and implausible policy positions that led to a dramatically steep decline in his popularity as he lost the trust of independent voters.

Administration officials downplayed recent events, saying “This is not an unprecedented situation.” They pointed to other instances in which entities were immortal but later became mortal,..

Continue reading about Obama’s new normal here. >>

Tags: cost cutting, NY Times, Obama, Op-toons Review, transparency

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‘You Lie!’ Rep. Wilson’s Outburst

by ilene - September 10th, 2009 2:29 pm

‘You Lie!’ Rep. Wilson’s Outburst

By Michael Scherer / Washington, courtesy of TIME

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouts as U.S. President Barack Obama addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Sept. 9, 2009

"You lie!"

Those words cut in politics. When directed at the President of the United States, during a prime time address to the nation no less, they cut deep.

So when Rep. Joe Wilson, a little known Republican and Army reserve veteran from South Carolina shouted them at the nation’s commander-in-chief on the night of Sept. 9, heads snapped. The House Chamber took a collective gasp. Nancy Pelosi, sitting behind Obama, tensed and scowled as if she had just witnessed a crime, her disgust unhidden.

Even Obama, who had just dismissed conservative claims that illegal immigrants would be able to take advantage of health-care reform, was taken aback. He looked to his left, adjusted his arm, part nervous twitch, part macho posturing, and shot back at Wilson, "That’s not true." And there, for a moment, the nation watched two men, elected to lead, call each other the worst thing in politics — dishonorable deceivers.

At the moment Wilson exploded, the outburst seemed like an assault on the President. Soon afterwards, it was clear that it had been a gift. Wilson had, in an emotional expression, proven Obama’s point: the summer of town halls had been less a discussion than a circus, a forum where misinformation was vindicated by passion, where disrespect was elevated as a virtue. Now the circus had come inside Congress.

The President’s seemingly simple statement, that "the reforms I am proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally," is not hard to check. In the Senate Finance Committee working framework for a health plan, which Obama’s speech seemed most to mimic, there is the line: "No illegal immigrants will benefit from the health care tax credits." Similarly, the major health care reform bill to pass out of committee in the House, H.R. 3200, contains a Section 246, which is called, "NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS." Some Republicans have claimed that these protections are too weak, since they do not require stringent eligibility checks that would prevent illegal immigrants from gaming the system.

It did not take long for the condemnations to rain down on Wilson. Republican Sen. John McCain went on CNN to call Wilson’s behavior "totally disrespectful," and ask for an apology. Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy…

Tags: Health Care, illegal immigrants, John McCain, lie, Obama, Rep. Joe Wilson

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Obama Wins Health Care Debate

by ilene - September 10th, 2009 3:10 am

Obama Wins Health Care Debate

Courtesy of Mish

Tonight President Obama did what he had to do - deliver a powerful speech on health care. The Huffington Post has full Text and Videos of Obama’s Health Care Speech for those who missed it.

Bear in mind this is NOT an endorsement of Obama’s plan. Indeed, president Obama does not even have a plan. Rather, he will pass whatever regulation gets passed by Congress.

Victory for Obama is getting something, anything, passed no matter how good or bad that legislation is. Moreover, we can easily see what he is willing to give up to get health care legislation passed.

For Republicans Something Better Than Nothing

The only standing ovation Obama received from the Republicans was on the issue of tort reform. That is the price Obama is willing to pay to get bipartisan support. All it takes is for a few senators to believe "something is better than nothing".

For icing on the cake, Obama praised Senator McCain. Once again, all Obama needs to do is win a handful of Republican senate votes to have this sail through as bipartisan effort. He will settle for a couple of senate votes.

Jeers Over Illegal Alien Coverage

Measured by very loud jeers, and rightfully so, no one in Congress believes Obama’s claim about illegal aliens receiving care. President Obama is being disingenuous and most in Congress know it. However, most won’t publicly admit it.

It is highly likely illegal aliens will not pay into the plan but will receive care anyway.

President Obama repeated his claim that no one will lose existing coverage. He cannot possibly know. If businesses decide it is cheaper to dump employees into the government plan they will do so in mass.

Where’s The Good Faith Deposit?

Earlier today Caroline Baum stated Obama’s Promises Could Use a Good-Faith Deposit

So what should the president say or do this evening in his attempt to enlist support for his health-care overhaul? He could start by explaining the seeming inconsistency in his plan to save money by spending money.

“If I went to my board of directors with a similar proposal for ‘cost reduction,’ they would laugh me out of the conference room — and then my job!” writes reader Michael Dunlop, vice president of operations/IT at Parts Associates Inc. in Cleveland.

Spend and Save

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of various health-care plans approved by House of Representatives committees at $1 trillion over 10 years. Obama…

Tags: health care debate, Mish, Obama, socialized medical scheme

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The Will to Power and Its Followers in the Socially Immature

by ilene - September 8th, 2009 9:48 am

The Will to Power and Its Followers in the Socially Immature

Courtesy of Jesse’s Café Américain

"I am afraid we may have, in the near future, friendly fascism. And I do not use the term lightly. I grew up under fascism, in Franco’s Spain, and if nothing else, I recognize fascism when I see it. And we are seeing a growing fascism with a working-class base in the U.S. This is why we cannot afford to see Obama fail. But his staff and advisors are doing a remarkable job to achieve this. Ideologues such as chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel (who, when a congressman, was the most highly funded by Wall Street) and his brother, Ezekiel Emanuel (who did indeed write that old people should have a lower priority for health care spending) are leading the country along a wrong path."

Vincente Navarro, Obama’s Mistakes in Health Care Reform

Vincent Navarro writes an amazingly insightful political analysis of health care reform and the Obama Adminstration. This is as we would expect, since Navarro, is an M.D., Ph.D., and professor of Health Policy at The Johns Hopkins University and editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Health Services.

But then he goes on to end his essay with this remarkably bad prescription.

"Given this reality, it seems to me that the role of the left is to initiate a program of social political agitation and rebellion (I applaud the health professionals who disrupted the meetings of the Senate Finance Committee), following the tactics of the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements of the 1960s and 1970s. It is wrong to expect and hope that the Obama administration will change. Without pressure and agitation, not much will be done."

The Will to Power has a bewitching siren call. It offers simple solutions to complex problems. It provokes the cycle of problem - reaction - solution, and the eye for an eye approach that ‘makes the whole world blind.’

"Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority." James A. C. Brown

And yet, like most dark powers, it decimates and destroys who pick up the sword, and lays waste to them, their country, and their children.

This is the lesson of history, the abyss of madness into which a great leader can bring…

Tags: friendly fascism, health care reform, Obama, Vincente Navarro

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US Equity Markets Look Dangerously Wobbly As Insiders Sell In Record Numbers

by ilene - August 30th, 2009 4:03 pm

More coffee and thoughts on the market and insider selling at Jesse’s Café Américain.

US Equity Markets Look Dangerously Wobbly As Insiders Sell In Record Numbers

"Investors Intelligence’s latest survey of advisory services showed an impressive 51% bullish and a meager 19% bearish…the spread hasn’t been that wide since November 2007." Alan Abelson, Barrons, Aug. 29, 2009

Next week we move into September, the riskiest month of the year for financial markets, with the federals escalating preparations for a flu pandemic, while Congress considers legislation providing a ‘kill switch’ on the Internet for President Obama to use in the event of ‘an emergency.’ There are widespread rumours of a bank holiday lasting one week after a market meltdown begins in the US, during which the banks would be restructured.

Risky times indeed, and those in the best position to know what is happening behind the scenes are hitting the exits in record numbers right now.

As TrimTabs reports in the attached news release, insider selling is reaching record levels, even as more speculators borrow to go long stocks. There are some obvious bubbles already formed in certain insolvent financial stocks like AIG, with disinformation rampant in the Wall Street demimonde.

The Obama Economics and Regulatory Team, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve, have accomplished no serious reform of the fiancial system. They have enabled the type of market inefficiency, soft fraud and price manipulation that is undermining global confidence in the integrity of US markets and financial products. And they have advanced a proposal to consolidate a huge amount of regulatory power under the Federal Reserve, a private banking agency that was at the root of our unfolding financial crisis.

The time has passed when Obama could have pointed to the past mistakes of his predecessors as the fault for our problems. Thanks to Tim Geithner, Barney Frank, and Larry Summers he now owns the financial crisis, and the coverups, policy errors, scandals, conflicts of interest and bailouts that have occurred since he has taken office. His reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman most surely tied a bow on his ownership package for the crisis, which is in danger of becoming his ‘financial New Orleans.’

Wall Street pigs out on public money while the nation suffers. This is not change, this is the same old thing.

TrimTabs
Insider Trading and Investor Sentiment Signaling U.S. Stock Market Top

Insider Selling in August Soars to 30.6 Times Insider Buying, Highest Level Since TrimTabs…

Tags: Bernanke, Economy, Equities, Geithner, insider selling, legislation providing a 'kill switch' on the Internet, Obama, Stock Market, Trim Tabs

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