Dear CIGAs,

I would like you to take a quiz. I am sure 90% of you will be shocked by the results.

Call the servicer of your mortgage and ask them to identify who owns it. You will be stone walled like you have never been in your life.

Continue up the line of supervisors directly to the office of the president, then think securitization.

 

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

The bailout of Greece:

It is on.
It is off.
It is on.
It is a maybe.

It is amazing how we got to the "It is a maybe" right at the euro breakout from a downtrend line.

That is not TA. That is painting TA. You are facing investment banking houses who behave like rogue nations in markets trading today.

 

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

I believe that when it is all said and done, the unfunded massive guarantee of the US government being accumulated daily will be the undoing of the US dollar.

 

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

This is what makes for a bull market in lobbyists. Wall Street will not like this at all.

Right now and due to FASB capitulation to political pressure, all financial instruments are marked to whatever the hell the bank wants them to be marked to.

To carry a loan today at full value is the essence of a capital crime. This initiative will more than likely fail.

Mark-to-market back in the spotlight. ^[1]
The Financial Accounting Standards Board is likely to propose an expansion of mark-to-market to include assets such as loans. At present, banks hold loans at their original costs and create reserves based on their own view of potential losses. If the proposal moves forward, it will mean major changes for banks’ balance sheets; looking at JPMorgan (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and Wells Fargo (WFC), the proposal could affect $2.8T of loans, or around 40% of their total assets. Smaller banks would see an even bigger impact.

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Playing hardball with China over the Yuan and trade is a very dangerous exercise in economic diplomacy.

Note the standard procedure MOPE in this article.

China trims holdings of Treasury securities
China trims holdings of US Treasury securities for third month as US federal deficit soars
Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer, On Monday March 15, 2010, 9:05 am

WASHINGTON (AP) — China retained its spot as the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury debt in January although it trimmed its holdings for a third straight month. The string of declines are likely to underscore worries that the U.S. government could face much higher interest rates to finance soaring budget deficits.

The Treasury Department said that China’s holdings dipped by $5.8 billion to $889 billion in January compared to December. Japan, the second largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt, also trimmed its holdings but by a much smaller $300 million to $765.4 billion.

Net foreign purchases of long-term securities, a category that includes both government and corporate debt, totaled $19.1 billion in January, as net purchases of private corporate bonds fell by $24.8 billion, the biggest drop on record.

A month ago, Treasury initially reported that China had cut its holdings so sharply that it had lost its top spot as America’s largest foreign creditor, a position it had held since it’s holdings overtook Japan in September 2008.

However, 10 days later, Treasury released its annual update of the figures. The revised data showed that China, while reducing its holdings, still retained the top spot.

More… ^[2]

 

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

As reasonable as it seems, pushing China on Iran does carry extreme risks.

China has now sold US Treasury instruments for 3 months.

Newly powerful China defies Western nations
Analyst: ‘This is a fundamental shift … It’s a change in national attitude’
By John Pomfret

BEIJING – China’s government has embraced an increasingly anti-Western tone in recent months and is adopting policies across a wide spectrum that reflect a heightened fear of foreign influence.

The shift has accelerated as China has emerged stronger from the global financial meltdown, with a world-beating economic expansion rate and a growing nationalist movement. China has long felt bullied by the West, and its stronger stance is challenging the long-held assumption shared among Western and Chinese businessmen, academics and government officials that a more powerful and prosperous China would be more positively inclined toward Western values and systems.

China’s shift is occurring throughout society, and is reflected in government policy and in a new attitude toward the West. Over the past year, the government of President Hu Jintao has rolled back market-oriented reforms by encouraging China’s state-owned enterprises to forcibly buy private firms. In the past weeks, China announced plans to force Western companies to turn over their most sensitive technology and patents to Chinese competitors in exchange for access to the country’s markets.

Internally, it has carried out more arrests and indictments for endangering state security over the past two years than in the five-year period from 2003 to 2007, according to a report released Friday by the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based human rights organization.

China has also reined in the news media and attempted to control the Internet more vigorously than in the past. This month, it announced regulations designed to make it harder for China’s fledgling community of nongovernmental organizations to get financial support from overseas. In foreign affairs, after years of playing down differences, it has reverted to a tone not heard in more than a decade, condemning recent U.S. decisions to sell weapons to Taiwan and to have President Obama meet the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama.

More… ^[3]

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

The dollar is no safe haven.

U.S., U.K. Move Closer to Losing Rating, Moody’s Says (Update1)
By Matthew Brown

March 15 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. and the U.K. have moved “substantially” closer to losing their AAA credit ratings as the cost of servicing their debt rose, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

The governments of the two economies must balance bringing down their debt burdens without damaging growth by removing fiscal stimulus too quickly, Pierre Cailleteau, managing director of sovereign risk at Moody’s in London, said in a telephone interview.

Under the ratings company’s so-called baseline scenario, the U.S. will spend more on debt service as a percentage of revenue this year than any other top-rated country except the U.K., and will be the biggest spender from 2011 to 2013, Moody’s said today in a report.

“We expect the situation to further deteriorate in terms of the key ratings metrics before they start stabilizing,” Cailleteau said. “This story is not going to stop at the end of the year. There is inertia in the deterioration of credit metrics.”

The pound fell against the dollar and the euro for the first time in three days, depreciating 0.8 percent to $1.5090, while the dollar index snapped a four-day drop, adding 0.3 percent to 90.075.

More… ^[4]

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

There is a rule among thieves that if you steal, do it big enough so you can buy a dream team to get you off.

Click here to watch the video… ^[5]

 

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

This is but a start. Now the snowball meets gravity.

This is a creative way to cull the gene poll.

Still no money for Prichard pensioners
City given two months to figure out payments
Updated: Thursday, 11 Mar 2010, 3:12 PM CST
Published : Tuesday, 09 Mar 2010, 9:38 PM CST

PRICHARD, Ala. (WALA) – A bankruptcy court judge has given the City of Prichard two more months to figure out how they will pay retired city workers. Prichard pensioners have gone six months without a pension check.

Prichard is operating under the protection of Title IX Bankruptcy, and for many people, that means no promised pension payments.

After six months with no pay, Prichard pensioners put their faith into the courts. They hoped a judge would force the city to pay some, if not all, of the pension money it owes. However, the bankruptcy court judge said the city is not obligated to pay the retired workers just yet. The judge gave the city two more months to restructure the budget and present it to the courts.

The city got more time, but unfortunately reality has already set in for Bobby Holifield and his family.

"You can’t begin to know the stress of this. My daughter is in college right now, my son just graduated from high school, he wanted to go to college. My daughter had to miss last semester in college and she will have to miss this semester. I can’t afford to pay it. My son wants to go to technical school; I can’t afford to pay for it. It makes me feel like a failure more than anything, when I did my part. I worked 32 years to get my pension. They owe it to me, it’s not something I’m asking them to give me," Holifield said.

More… ^[6]