Despite the Fed monetizing Treasury debt, treasuries are still having a terrible quarter.
Treasuries are headed for the worst yearly start since 1996 as record debt sales and the prospect of increased issuance as the U.S. seeks to revive economic growth dampen investor demand.
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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the 2010 deficit at $1.38 trillion, higher than the White House’s $1.17 trillion projection.
CBO estimated the deficit for the current fiscal year will be $1.85 trillion, $100 billion larger than the administration forecast.
China is ever so slowly using its enormous economic power to expand its influence in east Asia.
(Bloomberg) -- China’s central bank said it’s in talks to sign more currency-swap agreements to bolster international trade, after sealing six such accords since November 2008.
The People’s Bank of China has set up 650 billion yuan ($95 billion) worth of swaps to provide short-term liquidity, according to a statement today on its Web site. The central bank said the funding will promote bilateral trade and direct investment by allowing one country to pay for imports in another nation’s currency.
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Last week we received the last data for housing through February. New home sales as reported by both the Census Bureau and the NAR ticked up on a seasonally adjusted basis, but have not yet broken trend - a trend that would take them to zero by this time next year!
I've laid out my scenario for the housing market in transition in several posts beginning last December, on Feb. 27 for new home sales, and on March 16 for existing home sales. As of March 17, Calculated Risk adopted the virtually identical analysis.
While there are certainly other bloggers who get many more page views than I do, and there has been much commentary on the February sales data, there is a nugget of interesting information that nobody else has teased out of existing home sales.
The FBI and federal prosecutors are reportedly closing in on the AIG executive whose suspect investments cost the insurance giant hundreds of billions of dollars. The government is investigating whether or not 54-year old Brooklyn-native Joseph Cassano committed criminal fraud in virtually bankrupting the company
Not as exciting as Machine gun Kelly and shoot outs from the 1930's, instead assuredly the FBI and others are pouring over spread sheets, bank accounts, wire transfers and internal memos, but the idea of kidnapping an entire industry instead of a family is far more devestating!
Here's the real scam:
Cassano Kept Transactions Out of Sight of Regulators
Charlotte, NC - Bank of America will take over GM at request of the US government. When asked, Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America stated, “We think that GM will be a good strategic fit for Bank of America. Along with our forced acquisitions of Countrywide and Merrill Lynch we feel that this positions the company for excellent future growth prospects. We further expect this acquisition to be earnings accretive by mid-2010″
The chorus of naysayers to the Obama administration's response to our economic crisis must be raised to deafening levels. There is little time to waste, even if our government may already be bought and paid for by the financial elites. That does not mean that the citizens must go down quietly or meekly.
Earlier today, Robert Oak highlighted an effort to urge Obama to reconsider his policies with respect to the mega-bank bailouts. For me, one of the most important parts of this appeal is:
The White House is in full hypocrisy mode. While Obama Treasury Secretary Geithner tries to do a massive power grab, invites financial sectorCEOs to craft policy and cooperate in their multi-trillion dollar U.S. taxpayer money pig fest, the auto industry is shipped to bankruptcy court. Even worse, Chrysler is to be broken up into good cars and bad cars, yet Italy (Fiat) gets the good cars and the United States gets the bad.
Meanwhile Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs struggles as reporters immediately question the different standards:
"They lay there, clinging to one another and trying to shield the more vulnerable parts of their bodies from the blows of the nightsticks, while the police hauled them apart and dragged them bodily into waiting patrol wagons."
- NY Times, March 31, 1948
Every once in a while an underdog defeats a Titan.
This isn't one of those times.
It isn't the victory of an underdog that inspires us so much as it is the incredible courage it takes to even challenge the overwhelming champion.
Sixty-one years ago the labor movement took the fight literally to capitalism's door-step in one of the most lopsided battles in history. The name of the underdog that championed the cause was Merritt David Keefe.
There has been a lot of talk about the accounting concept of "mark-to-market" during this economic crisis. Some financial conglomerate defenders in the media have argued that "market-to-market" caused this crisis. Obviously, this far from the truth but financial conglomerates need to scapegoat something to cover for their complete incompetence. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the accounting board responsible for establishing financial accounting standards, was intensely lobbied by the banking industry to change the "market-to-market" rule. On March 16, FASB issued a change to "mark-to-market" rule that may improve financial conglomerates' profits instantly.
Shoppertrak has posted an update of interest. No data was posted for the week of March 14. The week of March 21 this year is best compared with the week of March 15 last year due to Easter being one week later this year. Making that adjustment, look what happened:
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