Tomorrow Happened Yesterday

A shocking figure came out last week. In the US, fewer new houses were sold last month than in any month since they started keeping records in 1963.

How is it possible? Simple. The houses that would have been sold to today’s able buyers were built and sold years ago. That’s what excess credit does. It doesn’t really enlarge or enrich an economy…it stretches it, bringing things that would have happened tomorrow forward, to yesterday. Only a certain number of people every year can afford a new house. If in 2005, you give credit to buyers who won’t be ready for many years, or perhaps never – who will buy a new house in 2011?

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The Probability of More Quantitative Easing

It would be an understatement to say that I was flabbergasted to see that the monetary base jumped $130 billion dollars in two weeks!

Well, using an exclamation point as punctuation seems to confirm my suspicions that I was, indeed, flabbergasted, as the term seems, somehow, appropriate since I felt something more than the usual crushing pains in my chest, numbness running down my left arm, my guts heaving and sphincters tightening kind of reaction I get when I see horrifying, huge increases in money and credit created by the damnable Federal Reserve.

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Healthy Correction or Ailing Recovery?

Bad day for stocks, yesterday. A bad day. Not a terrible day. Not a crash day. Just a bad day.

The Dow fell 140 points. This was baaaad…because it shows that the stock market does not really buy Bernanke's storyline.

You'll recall that when we left off last week, Ben Bernanke assured the world that while the recovery was not exactly what he had hoped for, he nevertheless had the situation in hand. He said he had the tools necessary to fix the problem and would do whatever was required.

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Too High to Notice the Bubbles?

Markets make opinions, the old-timers say. Today, we have empirical proof. Or at least a litmus test on the “mood? out there.

Gone are the days of the stereotypical high-rolling cokehead on Wall Street, says the drug screening firm Sterling. After conducting tests at 270 firms over the past three years, positives for cocaine have dropped 60%…down to just 7% of all failed tests.

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Bad Debts of the World Unite!

Back in the USA, its still fat city. Thanks to fear of European debt, the waiters are bringing the sundaes to the US.

And heres our own Number One ice cream salesman Tim Geithner in Europe. He was in Berlin on Thursday. What flavor was he pushing onto the Germans? Tutti Frutti!

He told the Germans that the US was totally behind a cooperative, worldwide approach.

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Good News for the Grandchildren

Excerpted from his presentation to the Ira Sohn Investment Research Conference on May 26, 2010

I have titled todays talk Good News for the Grandchildren. By that, I mean that I do not believe that there is a need to worry that todays debts will be passed on to our current youth…I believe the government response to the recession has created budgetary stress sufficient to bring about the crisis much sooner. Our generation not our grandchildrens will have to deal with the consequences. If we do one thing, lets stop bemoaning the fate of our grandchildren on this topic. We might take the issue more seriously if we realize that our own future is at risk.

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Inflation Up; Stocks Down

Weve opened earnings season with a market reaction more erratic than usual. Some stocks got pounded after missing earnings estimates by a hair. Other stocks drifted upward, despite nosebleed valuations and unimpressive earnings.

Banks are making out like bandits…at least on paper. They simply post whatever earnings they feel like reporting, because loans and securities no longer have to be marked to market. So why not mark down bad loans at a glacial pace? Doesnt matter that they might be in non-performing status and arent producing cash flow. Some banks have even lowered their credit-loss provisions because they feel theyve adequately reserved for what will be the biggest credit loss cycle in history. Such banks may surprise to the downside next quarter if they re-accelerate their provisioning.

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Fab Finance

This week, Fabulous Fab Tourre was forced to appear before the US Senate. The senators may not have been able to tell a derivative from a hole in the ground, but they knew what the mob wanted blood. The poor French lamb was bled on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, an Englishman wrote to the TIMES, suggesting that media was being distracted from the big story:

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Fear is Cheap: One Good Way to Bet on the VIX Spike

Fear gives intelligence to fools, says an old proverb. Turning it around a bit, we might say that lack of fear makes fools of wise men.

In the market, fear or lack of same finds expression in many forms. The Volatility Index, or VIX, is one of them. Known as the fear gauge, the VIX bounces up and down based on what people are paying for options on the S&P 500.

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