XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Sunday 12 July 2009

America is now the world’s biggest debtor

Reading - America is now the world’s biggest debtor http://bit.ly/6aY8F

The latest Treasury auction of $19 billion of 10-year notes was at a yield of 3.365%. The bid to cover was 3.28 to 1, the highest ever. This was the third of four sales this week totaling $73 billion.


Consumer credit fell $3.23 billion in May, as credit fell 1.5% to $2.5196 trillion from $2.522 trillion in April. Four monthly declines matches June-December of 1991. Big loans fell $400 million, or 0.3%. Revolving credit fell $2.9 billion, or at a 3.7% rate.


We are now al most six months into the depression approaching a 1932 scenario. America is now the world’s biggest debtor. The US has had a fiat currency for 38 years and major trade deficits for more than 30 years. Is it any wonder we are in depression? Is it any wonder the dollar is under pressure even though our government supports it at every turn in the market?


The world is looking aghast at the dollar as the Treasury runs short of money to fund its deficit beyond revenues of $1 to $3 trillion and as the Fed monetizes trillions of dollars. What would you think if you had 64.5% of your foreign exchange in US dollars? That is almost $1.8 trillion. Some of these buyers have ceased buying and if that continues interest rates will head higher and the cost of carrying such debt will increase. As a result the dollar, of course, would move lower.


Higher yields on 10-year T-bills translate into higher mortgage rates as real estate inventory continues to grow, a terrible formula for the economy.

We estimate fiscal 2009 to have a deficit of more than $2 trillion and incoming revenues will only make up less than half of that. In spite of the protestations of our Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that the deficit will be reduced, our president guarantees $1 trillion annual deficits as far as the eye can see. Cuts will never come and the dollar will fall because that is the way the elitists want it to be. Only from the ashes of economic and financial collapse can the new world order rise.

Our government says one thing and does another. They want to maintain confidence and trust, but at the same time proceed with the destruction of the monetary and financial system.

We are told that next month the monetization will end, when in fact the Fed will not have completed its $3 trillion monetization of Treasuries and Agencies and bank toxic garbage.

Europeans, the Japanese and the British all want their currencies lower in value versus the dollar, believing that a cheaper currency is somehow a magic elixir for trade and, of course, that isn’t always the case. In fact, the latest efforts to subdue the euro haven’t been very successful. The dollar has been incapable of breaking up and out of 81 on the USDX. At the same time, for now the euro has retreated from $1.42 to just above $1.38, but it won’t last. Simply, the US is in worse trouble than the eurozone.


Continue reading - http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14318

Print Ad Losses to the Internet: It Ain't Over Yet

Reading - Print Ad Losses to the Internet: It Ain't Over Yet http://seekingalpha.com/a/36c4

It wasn’t Craig’s fault. It was the internet’s. Almost $10 billion in annual newspaper classified revenue has disappeared (since its 2000 high, versus 2008) and it was essentially replaced by an estimated, unverified $100 million for craigslist with fewer than 30 employees.

But the bleeding ain’t over yet. The stone still has a few more corpuscles to squeeze out.

Look at the newly enhanced Google real-estate search. It’s awesome: useful, fast, informative, entertaining. Put in an address, browse all the homes for sale around. Who needs a newspaper? Who needs a real-estate agent? Speaking of whose death, see Michael Arrington reporting that disruptive, inexpensive real-estate service Redfin is turning profitable. Now see how classified aggregator Oodle is distributing classified ads on Twitter, which has also become the new distribution channel for news (challenging not just newspapers but also craigslist if you’re in the news biz and in the mood for a little schadenfreude).

Of course, this adds onto the the closing of thousands of advertising car dealers; the death of swaths of retail (e.g., Circuit City; and that is far from over, I think); the consolidation of more retail (and then the consolidator, Macy’s (M), cutting ad spending by half).

But that’s just advertising. I think that other arenas of newspapers’ competence could be targets for similarly disruptive attacks.

In content, I’m seeing that it’s possible for someone to come along with relatively little investment and a much smaller staff that operates more collaboratively to compete with the big, expensive traditional newsroom at low cost.

Continue reading - http://seekingalpha.com/article/148180-print-ad-losses-to-the-internet-it-ain-t-over-yet