Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public: Alice Schroeder
Commentary by Alice Schroeder
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) — “I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.
I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.
While we wait, Goldman has wrapped itself in the flag of Warren Buffett, with whom it will jointly donate $500 million, part of an effort to burnish its image — and gain new Goldman clients. Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein also reversed himself after having previously called Goldman’s greed “God’s work” and apologized earlier this month for having participated in things that were “clearly wrong.”
Has it really come to this? Imagine what emotions must be billowing through the halls of Goldman Sachs to provoke the firm into an apology. Talk that Goldman bankers might have armed themselves in self-defense would sound ludicrous, were it not so apt a metaphor for the way that the most successful people on Wall Street have become a target for public rage.
Pistol Ready
Common sense tells you a handgun is probably not even all that useful. Suppose an intruder sneaks past the doorman or jumps the security fence at night. By the time you pull the pistol out of your wife’s jewelry safe, find the ammunition, and load your weapon, Fifi the Pomeranian has already been taken hostage and the gun won’t do you any good. As for carrying a loaded pistol when you venture outside, dream on. Concealed gun permits are almost impossible for ordinary citizens to obtain in New York or nearby states.
Thought of the Day:
Do you not see it as unusual that F-TV is doing their level best to extend the Dubai situation into a global crisis when the dollar is flirting with .7400?
They seem quite disappointed that markets, maybe the dollar market, is not following the action of last Thursday morning.
Who knows, maybe I am, as Trader Dan is, so shocked by what is happening that I am beginning to see many things as MOPE controlled or attempted MOPE control.
F-TV is falsely convinced that the dollar is a safe haven.
With respect to those that thought gold topped last week, check out the current spot price of $1200.40.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
When fat sharks feed on each other eventually there is only one enormous fat shark left with no other sharks to eat. The fat shark then starves.
According to Goldman this has already been occurring. That is the only way these market destructive traders lacking any redeeming human qualities will be stopped.
They have to ruin their own game by breaking their own playing board.
Quant hedgies must fish in fresh waters-Goldman
Tue Dec 1, 2009 1:01pm EST
By Laurence Fletcher
PARIS, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Computer-driven hedge funds must hunt for new areas to exploit as some areas of making money have become so overcrowded they may no longer be profitable, according to Goldman Sachs (GS.N) Asset Management. Robert Litterman, managing director and head of quantitative resources, said strategies such as those which focus on price rises in cheaply-valued stocks, which latch onto market momentum or which trade currencies, had become very crowded.
Instead he said opportunities could come in areas such as event-driven strategies — which focus on special events such as mergers or restructuring — and catastrophe reinsurance, although he added they can just as quickly disappear.
He also pointed to credit, emerging markets, volatility trading and commodities.
"You have to adapt your process," Litterman said at the Quant Invest 2009 conference. "What we’re going to have to do to be successful is to be more dynamic and more opportunistic and focus especially on more proprietary forecasting signals … and exploit shorter-term opportunistic and event-driven types of phenomenon." Computer-driven or quantitative hedge funds attempt to make money by quickly exploiting trends or anomalies in markets such as equities, government bonds or currencies.
However, some funds such as Goldman’s controlled a large share of some markets in summer 2007 and many were caught in a vicious circle of selling. "I think the world has fundamentally changed for quants," he said, adding that his funds now allocate a greater share of assets to newer strategies since that crisis.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Allies for sale? That will not work in Pakistan.
Yes, Pakistan will take the money, but that is all.
Obama offers Pakistan expanded strategic ties
Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:29:39 GMT
Washington has reportedly offered Pakistan an enhanced strategic partnership, including additional cooperation in military and economic fields.
The Washington Post reported Monday that US President Barack Obama, in a two-page letter to Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari, offered expanded ties in a bid to ease tension between Islamabad and Washington.
Obama’s letter, delivered to the Pakistani leader via US National Security Adviser James Jones, came as uneasiness develops in Pakistan over the US troop surge in Afghanistan.
Islamabad maintains that the move will drive militants out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan.
According to the Post officials in the Obama Administration do not view victory in Afghanistan possible without achieving a similar status in Pakistan.
"We can’t succeed without Pakistan," the paper quotes a senior administration official as saying.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Courtesy of CIGA JB Slear. Turn up the volume!
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Indoctrinate the little ones.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Commercial loans on the books of banks are improperly valued on many bank’s balance sheets.
US commercial property loan defaults soar-reports
Mon Nov 30, 2009 11:59pm EST
By Ilaina Jonas
NEW YORK, Nov 30 (Reuters) – The default rate for commercial real estate loans held by banks reached the highest in 16 years and the outlook looks worse, according to a report by a research firm released on Monday.
The picture for loans underlying commercial mortgage-backed securities looks as bleak, according to another report.
The national default rate for commercial real estate mortgages held by banks and other depository institutions reached 3.4 percent in the third quarter, up 0.52 percentage point from the second quarter, according to research firm Real Estate Econometrics.
It was the largest one-quarter increase since quarterly data became available in 2003.
At 3.4 percent, the U.S. default rate for commercial real estate mortgages — on office, industrial, hotel and retail properties — held by banks, thrifts and other depository institutions was the highest since 1993, when the default rate was 4.1 percent.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
This in the final analysis adds pressure to the US dollar.
Japan offers more liquidity.
The Bank of Japan agreed at a hastily-assembled meeting Tuesday to pump another ¥10T ($116B) into the economy using 0.1%, three-month funds – an attempt to address growing concern that deflation and a surging yen could derail Japan’s fragile economic recovery. The new facility should "further enhance easy monetary conditions" and is designed to "encourage a further decline in longer term interest rates," the BOJ said in a statement (.pdf). Analysts called the move "better than nothing," but said it was "relatively weak" compared to market expectations.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
No Yuan for Clunkers required
GM China Sales Pass US For First Time In History
Posted: December 1, 2009 at 2:09 pm
GM is being pulled out of US soil by its roots. For the first time in history the company posted monthly sales in a country that were higher than the domestic figure. GM’s November sales in China were up 110% last month to 177,339. GM’s sales in the US for the month were only 151,427. GM China sales include vehicles manufactured by joint ventures.
GM’s sales in China for the first eleven months of 2009 were 1.64 million. GM has sold 1.88 million cars in the US market during the same period.
The Chinese car market is growing at a current annual rate of over 50% year-over-year which should continue into 2010. The US market is running flat during a good month compared to 2008. The lack of a recovery in consumer spending next year could keep total vehicles sales flat in this country.
There is every reason to believe that GM’s China sales in 2010 could be above 2.3 million and that US sales will barely break the 2 million mark.
The news shows how much GM’s fortunes have moved outside the US and why other car companies, particularly Ford (NYSE:F), are trying to improve their modest market shares in the world’s most populous nation. GM and VW are currently the market leaders in China. Other large global car companies are chasing them with only modest success.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
North Korea is no model for anything economic except this reverse split of its money.
It does say something about mismanagement and fiat paper.
North Korea sharply revalues its currency
North Korea has revalued its currency by a factor of 100, causing chaos on the streets of Pyongyang.
By Malcolm Moore, in Shanghai
Published: 12:29PM GMT 01 Dec 2009
In an alleged bid to curb inflation and suppress its growing black market, North Korea implemented a currency revaluation on Monday, according to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency.
The exchange rate between old and new currencies is 100 to 1, with the old denomination of 1,000 won notes being replaced by 10 won notes.
It is the first time in 17 years that the hermit kingdom has revalued its currency and the effect in the capital was instant. "Many people were taken aback and confused," said one source to Yonhap. "Those were were worried about their hidden assets rushed to the black market to swap them for dollars or Chinese yuan. The yuan and the dollar jumped," he added.
"When the news spread in the jangmadang (markets), people panicked," reported the Daily NK newspaper, quoting a source in the North Eastern province of North Hamkyung. Another source, in the Western city of Sinuiju, on the border with China, told the paper: "Traders gathered around currency dealers. Chaos ensued when currency dealers tried to avoid them."
