What Obama didn't say: "I implore your country and the rest of Asia to continue buying our USD treasury notes..."
Getting serious again, Japan already has enough in-house debt problems:
"Japan may already be past the point of no return," he ((hedgie David Einhorn)) said during a presentation at the Value Investing Congress in New York.
Japan's debt is equal to 190% of the country's gross domestic product and its government deficit will be 10% of GDP this year, according to Einhorn. Japan has been able to borrow money at roughly 2% a year to finance these deficits, partly because the country has many savers willing to buy low-yielding government bonds. However, some of these savers may begin spending instead as they enter retirement, Einhorn argued.
Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/einhorn-bets-on-major-currency-death-spiral-2009-10-19
Discussion on Einhorn's arguments regarding the Yen and the Japanese deficit here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=ay_85DJSvpac
PS: I always thought that, as a a foreigner in Japan, you either bow or shake hands depending on the situation ((but never both)), see for example...
http://www.how-to-bow.com/
PPS: For more frequent updates in between blog posts: Please see my Twitter page at http://twitter.com/talesftf
Why is GS a more powerful force than ever in Investment Banking ? Good article here...
Goldman is coining it again for two reasons. First, global markets are booming — up 50% from the credit-crunch lows, as new money, much of it from governments, has gushed into the financial system. Second, with Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns off the street, Merrill Lynch a crippled shadow of its former self, and neither Citigroup nor UBS the forces of old, Goldman has a bigger slice of a growing pie. "We didn’t f*** up like the other guys. We’ve still got a balance sheet. So, now we’ve got a bigger and richer pot to piss in," is how one Goldman banker puts it. Small wonder the bank is on course to set aside over $20 billion for salaries and bonuses.
...
So far, so lucrative. But isn’t it simply unfair? Isn’t Goldman acting as the modern equivalent of war-time profiteer, taking advantage of global crisis and emergency government action to mint millions? Even the veteran financier George Soros says the big profits made by Wall Street banks are "hidden gifts" from the state.
((more in the lenghty article. 7 pages, it's worth reading))
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6907681.ece
(( One poignant reader feedback says: If this is God's work, we should all be atheists. [ ;-) ] ))
PS: Also read this interesting insight into GS winning streaks of late...
And an indication of just how much of a hedge fund Goldman has become instead of a client servicer, the firm's Equities Commissions revenue for the quarter dropped to $930 million from $1.2 billion YoY, while prop Equities Trading skyrocketed from $354 million to $1.8 billion YoY! And just in case you were wondering someone, somewhere was motivated to destroy Fixed Income powerhouse Lehman and Bear, look no further than Goldman's Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities which did a gentle jump from $1.6 billion in Q3 2008 to $6 billion last quarter. And that explains all you need to know about motivations and backstops.
Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/absolute-perfection-goldman-loses-money-just-one-trading-day-q3
Vor einem Monat besprach ich in diesem Blog drei längerfristige Gefahrenherde für die westlichen Börsen. Plakativ jeweils mit einem I beginnend beschrieben (Irankonflikt, Inflation, Interhoch).
Dieses Mail soll es um mittelfristige Gefahren gehen, welche ich in den nächsten Wochen und Monaten aktuell werden könnten - vor allem, aber nicht nur in den USA. Ich habe diese mittelfristigen Gefahrenherde unter drei "C-Buchstaben" zusammengefasst:
- Commercial Real Estate:
Billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross Jr., said today the U.S. is in the beginning of a “huge crash in commercial real estate.”
Billionaire George Soros, speaking today at a lecture organized by the Central European University in Budapest, said a “bloodletting” may be coming for leveraged buyouts and commercial real estate.
- Consumer Credits ((inbesondere Kreditkarten))
Oct. 14 2009 (Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., the biggest U.S. credit-card lender, said the unit’s third-quarter write- offs rose and the company forecast more next year, signaling that the industry’s record losses may have longer to run.
...Credit-card defaults typically track the U.S. jobless rate, which climbed to 9.8 percent in September, the highest since 1983. Card losses may peak at 12 percent to 13 percent in mid- 2010, Moody’s has said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=adh5Vpzp8vc0
- Consumer Confidence
Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Confidence among U.S. consumers fell in October, indicating job losses will mute household spending even as the economy grows.
...Falling Expectations
The index of expectations six months from now, which more closely projects the direction of consumer spending, fell to 68.6 from 73.5 in September, which was a two-year high.
Zu diesem dritten Punkt erschienen letzte Woche wie zitiert neue, ernüchternde Zahlen in den USA. Zusammen mit immer noch leicht ansteigender Arbeitslosigkeit könnte dies schlechte Konsumentenzahlen für das Weihnachtsquartal 2009 in den USA und mit Verzögerung weltweit zur Folge haben.
PS: Update: Zu sinkendem USD und hoher Verschuldung der Privathaushalte / Abhängigkeit der USA von Binnenkonsum siehe auch ein aktuelles Interview mit Peter Schiff...
