Jun
25
Market rife with complacency, deceit
Filed Under Economics
The market rallied in the face of some awful news today and my level of discomfort has never been higher.
A plethora of disturbing news:
In a nauseating display of government worship and corporate welfare, CNBC anchors act positively indignant that Bernanke could be fired over his handling of the Merrill Lynch/Bank of America (cough) merger. Fast forward to 3:20 to hear the insanity. Have they forgotten Bernanke’s record?
More auto fallout – Lear will soon file for bankruptcy protection.
California, eigth largest economy in the world, days away from bankruptcy is downgraded by Fitch, I have CNBC on all day at work and this was not mentioned even once. I guess we are supposed to believe it wasn’t as important as the manipulated 7-year note auction (see below).
From Karl Denninger: (paraphrased) The sudden increase in demand by foreign buyers for Treasurys, hailed as proof that the world’s central banks are still willing to help absorb the avalanche of supply, mightn’t be all that it seems. Iin a little-noticed switch on June 1, the Treasury changed the way it accounts for indirect bids, putting more buyers under that umbrella and boosting the portion of recent Treasury sales that the market perceived were being bought by foreigners….. The change involves buyers who place orders through primary dealers. Those had been counted as direct buyers, but as of June 1 they were classified as indirect buyers, making that group larger than before. Because investors view that group as being dominated by foreign buyers, they assumed foreign demand was higher.
My eyes and ears – The amount of people reliant on government aid is staggering. I am all for helping the poor and underprivileged, but is free breakfast and lunch year round (courtesy of the Federal Gov’t, last paragraph) lifting people out of poverty or creating a serious dependency?
Valuations are through the roof with a puffy P/E ratio of 60, yet no one seems to care.
This sense of complacency, level of deceit and crumbling fundamentals are setting the stage for another crash. I hope and pray that this dislocation in the market unwinds in an orderly fashion, rather than a painful drop which would lead to mass irrationality.
The only reason I am hopeful that Barack Obama is President is because he seems to be the only human on Earth eloquent enough and seemingly genuine enough to talk people through a crisis and deliver the truth to people, even if they don’t want to hear it.
So far, he’s shown no interest in changing things up from Bush, but maybe a crash will force his hand in the right direction.
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Hey, have you seen this news article?
New details about Michael Jackson’s Death Emerge
I was wondering if you were going to blog about this…