Posted on 10/22/2010 12:04:56 PM PDT by Kartographer
Fresh from Fitch Ratings — one almighty ratings watch call.
It seems the ‘Too Big To Fail’ fix announced by the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation last week, is too formidable to satisfy Fitch’s ratings ‘uplift’ requirements.
The agency thinks the measures will eliminate the government support currently implicit in its ratings on US financials. That, incidentally, is rather different to what rival Moody’s said on the same (support) subject earlier this week.
(Excerpt) Read more at ftalphaville.ft.com ...
The market is now propped up by HFT volume. Even as there are billions of dollars of outflows from funds in the market every month for the last umpteen months, the indices continue to totter ever higher on wispy thin volume.
Part of the problem here is that the SEC refuses to do anything about the HFT’s.
The second part of the problem is the expectation of a QE2, which I would add, would NOT be needed if the economy were doing oh-so-peachy.
The thing that pisses me off the most here is this: we have clear evidence of massive fraud in the banking sector now, (I mean fraud on a scale of “steal the nation out from under our feet” level of fraud - a fraud that makes even Madoff look like a street corner three card monty huckster), there is clear evidence that the markets are a) rigged and b) the retail investor can sense this (hence the pullout of funds), even some previously successful hedge fund operators are pulling out and closing up shop, it is so bad.
And what does the political leadership do?
Not a damn thing. The Democrats are knowledgable and complicit in this; they know full well what is going on and there are many among them who know how the markets work, how they’re rigged and who is making a fat roll from the scams being run on the taxpayers and investors. For this, I think that they’re corrupt beyond redemption.
The Republicans are, in some ways, worse. To me, the GOP now appears to be run by witless bought-off dupes who cut deals behind the backs of the rank-and-file in order to gain campaign contributions. The leadership is so feckless and ignorant of how the markets work, they cannot comprehend what they’re doing.
The new GOP candidates are so ignorant of the situation in the financial markets that they might as well be martians who just blew in from beyond the asteroid belt. They’re earnest yet utterly clueless, and they give me no evidence that they have the mental capacity to quickly learn the information necessary to understand the markets, much less write effective legislation to undo what Phil and Wendy Gramm, Bill Clinton, Bob Rubin, Larry Summers, Hank Paulson et al have wrought.
Such is now the end game for the US: A choice between the cynically evil and the earnestly ignorant.
BTW — the “short” in “short bets” truly is a short time.
Some 65%+ of the volume in the markets now is held for only about 10 to 11 seconds.
Dunno if you’ve seen this:
http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/finance/High_Frequency_Trading_special_report.pdf
For those who pooh-pooh HFT, there has to be a lot of business there for cisco to set up a solutions group for that market segment.
WOPER “The only way to win is not to play”.
They are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic..
It is unsinkable...
There’s a whole slew of things going on in order not to scare the investor as well as the public....it’s intended as a holding pattern until the International Groups have all the ducks in a row.
G-20 met over the week end...any news other than further stalling?
Yep...that is more than concerning...we can only hope they have some ducks in a row to counter their lack of mental capacity. One thing about Bush...he did know to appoint those wiser than himself for the most part. Tricky ground we are on...but I will still go with those less experienced and pray hard they will be wise in who they choose to support their positions.
Yea. The Germans put a shot across our bow by telling us that the QE’s may amount to manipulation of the dollar.
Bruederle also said that Bernanke’s QE plans are the wrong way to try to stimulate the economy.
Bill Gross has speculated earlier this month that the Fed might buy up $1.2T of government debt in the next year. That’s causing the Europeans and Japanese some serious heartburn, I’m sure.
In other news, the G-20 released PR twaddle saying that they’re in agreement to “move towards more market determined exchange rate systems that reflect underlying economic fundamentals and refrain from competitive devaluations of currencies.”
I’ll believe it when I see it.
On Bush: Yes and no.
Where his Treasury Secretaries are concerned, he had two capable men who were telling us early that the explosion of debt was unsustainable and that the economic figures were not adding up. So Bush sacked both of them, and then hired Paulson, the former Goldman head.
Paulson is perhaps one of the worst people who anyone could have hired as SecTreas. Conflicts of interests up the whazzoo.
The “crisis” under Paulson was basically a planned crisis.....those in the know knew well this was coming but the idea was how to use it to spread the effects in such a way as to position both the US and EU on the track of consolidating their monies while at the same time managing the fallout and affects on the citizens to prevent full-blown rebellion on the streets.
Europe's banking system was set up with investing in these bad mortgages and deliberately so...Europe fell for the bait and the game was on. “Explanations” given to the populaces have all been about calming the public across the globe enough to continue the International Powers Agenda of uniting monies, trade etc. all under a specific group who will oversee it all. Timing is important and we consistently see various “stalls” while things take shape.
Examples of which the IMF and The G-20 meetings know well it's simply a matter of time to get all the ducks in a row...they recently met yet again and the results remain that the buzz word is “stall” some more. But all know the time is coming where they will indeed appoint a central governance over the major monetary systems...and most have openly called for this.
My personal opinion is Europe can only go so far without the assurances that the US becomes less and less powerful. Of course we see this administration is happy to comply. Obama has international aspirations so he is absolutely useless in fighting to maintain our sovernity and power...rather he is a large part of our problem as well as the congressional members we are trying hard to get out.
When one keeps their eye on the money, who has it and who is trying to control it...the whole picture is really quite clear. Europe wants control and will in time truly wrestle with us to attain that...we see pockets of this happening now. When you watch who are members of the IMF and World Bank, as well the G-20 you can pretty much see they're all positioning for individual power amongst themselves, and who will be involved in the final run to control the monetary systems....it's a boxing match among those men who seek that power.
Looking at the situation in France, and now the situation stirring in the UK... I think that their timetable won’t accomplish much because they’re late to the party.
The most eye- opening information about the stock market is obtained by looking at it valued in the price of gold, not dollars. It seems to be more reflective of what’s really going on in the economy.
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