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by **mxsquid** » 15 Aug 2008, 01:50

Norilsk of Siberian slave labor Gulag fame controls ~60% of the world market for Nickel and Platinum Group Metals. PGM are extremely rare, strategic metals. These include platinum, palladium, rhodium and the lanthanide "rare earth metals". I still remember Norilsk stealing the U.S. based Stillwater Mining for $7.50/share in 2002.

by **mxsquid** » 16 Aug 2008, 15:28

by **mxsquid** » 16 Aug 2008, 19:32

Jim Puplava calls it the "Confidence Game"

The Devils Tears and the Great Game.

Interview with Lutz Kleveman January 24, 2004 on the Great Game, predicting the military moves on Caspian oil.

by **mxsquid** » 17 Aug 2008, 22:06

by **mxsquid** » 20 Aug 2008, 13:05

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac shares plummet
Wednesday August 20, 3:08 pm ET
By Stephen Bernard and Alan Zibel, AP Business Writers

NEW YORK -- Shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost more than a quarter of their value on Wednesday as fears mounted that the mortgage financiers will soon need government support and any bailout would hang stockholders out to dry.

Since Monday, stock in the two companies -- which together hold or guarantee half the U.S. mortgage debt -- have plunged more than 45 percent and are now trading at lows not seen in nearly two decades.

"There's a big negative feedback loop and there's no way out of it," Friedman, Billings & Ramsey Co. analyst Paul Miller said in an interview. "As the stock falls more and more, it's more likely the government steps in and more likely equity holders get wiped out."

Fannie Mae's chief executive sought to reassure investors that no bailout is imminent.

"They haven't offered anything and we haven't asked for anything," Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd said in a public radio interview Wednesday morning. "I don't anticipate that they will do that."

Mudd said the company's financial position "remains very strong," and that he intends to remain the CEO.

Executives with McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac met with Treasury department officials on Wednesday morning, according to two sources familiar with the meeting who were not authorized to discuss its contents publicly. They described it as part of a regular series of meetings that have been occurring since last month when the Bush administration announced a plan to aid the two companies.

Armando Falcon, who served for six years as Fannie and Freddie's chief government regulator, expects a full-fledged government takeover before year-end. The companies' financial picture is far worse than they have acknowledged, he said, particularly for riskier loans they purchased as investments.

"They can't keep playing games with the accounting rules to avoid taking their losses," Falcon said.

The first intervention, he said, is likely to be government support for sales of the companies' debt. After that, he said, "everything quickly snowballs."

The two government-sponsored companies are the largest source of funding for home mortgages in the U.S. But they have struggled with soaring losses from mortgage defaults. Washington-based Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have lost a combined $3.1 billion between April and June, and investors fear the losses will continue to grow.

Fannie Mae's stock fell $1.61 to $4.40 in afternoon trading. Shares of Freddie Mac fell $1.05 cents to $3.12, after earlier hitting a low of $2.95.

Freddie Mac, in particular, has investors and analysts fearful. The company earlier this year promised to raise $5.5 billion -- more than double the company's $1.95 billion in market value Wednesday afternoon -- to shore up its finances.

Fannie's market capitalization was about $4.50 billion in afternoon trading.

The precipitous slide in Fannie and Freddie's stock prices are a sign investors assume the government is on the brink of taking control of the mortgage giants.

"It could be tomorrow, it could be six months from now," Miller said.

The Bush administration on July 13 unveiled a plan to provide unlimited government loans to the two mortgage giants and to purchase stock in the two companies if needed for a period covering the next 18 months. Congress ultimately adopted those proposals as part of a broader bill that also seeks to help keep 400,000 households from losing their homes to foreclosure.

Critics charged that the open-ended nature of the support for Fannie and Freddie would expose taxpayers to billions of dollars of potential losses.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has insisted that the package needed to be structured in this way to boost financial markets' confidence as the companies deal with mounting losses from mortgages that have gone bad.

But investors started dumping shares of Fannie and Freddie this week after a Barron's article on Saturday -- citing an anonymous Bush administration source -- said the government is pressing the companies to raise more money to guard against losses but doesn't expect them to succeed.

The Barron's report said the government is likely to buy preferred stock in the companies, wiping out common shareholders. Paulson has declined to comment on whether a rescue is imminent.

Many observers say Paulson is not interested in shareholders and only in Fannie and Freddie's ability to provide support to the battered mortgage market. That means a government rescue might not occur until there is evidence the mortgage companies' are unable to roll over short-term debt -- an indication they would no longer be able to operate normally.

Bert Ely, a banking consultant and longtime critic of the pair of mortgage companies said, "the rationale for government involvement is to maintain (Fannie and Freddie's) role in the marketplace, which comes through buying mortgages."

Recent debt sales by Freddie Mac indicate the sale of short-term debt is becoming more difficult and expensive.

A $3 billion offering of five-year notes by Freddie Mac was priced Tuesday at 1.13 percent above five-year U.S. Treasury notes. Freddie Mac's most recent sale of five-year notes, which took place in May, was priced at just 0.69 percent above Treasury notes of a similar length.

When companies issue debt, prices are often compared with those of similar-length Treasury bonds. Treasury yields are considered a benchmark because they are considered the safest investments since they are backed by the government. The wider the gap, or spread, between corporate debt and treasury yields, the riskier investors deem the corporate debt.

Two-, three- and 10-year notes issued by Freddie Mac since May all have had narrower spreads than Freddie Mac's most recent sale of five-year notes.

The current lack of action by both Fannie and Freddie to raise capital and the government's silence is freezing up liquidity in the mortgage market, Miller said. That lack of liquidity is trickling down to traditional retail banks that rely on Fannie and Freddie to purchase loans and provide cash to originate new mortgages.

Fannie and Freddie "cannot be active" in the current environment to provide the necessary liquidity for the mortgage market, Miller said. "Until they get funding, it hurts everyone," Miller added.

AP Business Writer Alan Zibel reported from Washington, and AP Business Writer Martin Crutsinger in Washington contributed to this report.

by **mxsquid** » 21 Aug 2008, 06:19

Ike found this:

David Bond, Editor: Silver Valley Mining Journal
Wallace, Idaho

Wallace Street Journal:

by **mxsquid** » 31 Aug 2008, 11:11

by **mxsquid** » 09 Sep 2008, 21:52

Federal regulators on Sunday took over the failing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage companies, quasi-government entities that got into trouble with subprime lending.

Officials with the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Housing Finance Agency seized control of embattled mortgage giants in hopes of stabilizing the housing and financial markets.

"We have closely monitored financial market and business conditions and have analyzed in great detail the current financial condition of the GSEs - including the ability of the GSEs to weather a variety of market conditions going forward," said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson "As a result of this work, we have determined that it is necessary to take action."
.
.
.
The government pledged to inject taxpayer dollars into the companies to prevent insolvency -- up to $100 billion total for each company. It also will also start buying mortgage-backed securities from the companies.

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stor ... aily9.html

``We no longer have a free market in the United States, we have a government controlled free market,'' Bunning said in an interview. Paulson, a former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., ``is acting like the minister of finance in China.''

Bunning, 76, criticized Paulson's successful effort in July to obtain congressional authority to pump unlimited amounts of money into Fannie and Freddie to keep them afloat.

``When I picked up my newspaper yesterday, I thought I woke up in France. But no, it turned out it was socialism here in the United States,'' he told Paulson at a July 15 Senate Banking Committee hearing.

Following Paulson's Sept. 7 announcement of the takeover of Fannie and Freddie, Bunning said he now feels like a citizen of China.

``No company fails in communist China, because they're all partly owned by the government,'' said the former pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies.

Bunning accused Paulson of deception when he told Congress in July that the Treasury's plan would instill such confidence among investors that it would never have to be used.

Paulson ``saw and knew what was happening, and didn't tell the truth to the banking committee,'' Bunning said yesterday.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

By Aline van Duyn
Financial Times, London
Monday, September 8, 2008

One of the largest defaults in the history of the $62,000 billion ($62 trillion) credit derivatives market has been triggered by the US government's seizure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, raising questions about how dealers will unwind billions of dollars worth of contracts.

Although the $1,600 billion of debt issued by the troubled mortgage groups is regarded as safe after the US government's move to take control of the companies, their move into "conservatorship" counts as the equivalent of a bankruptcy in the credit derivatives market.

This triggers a default on credit default swaps -- instruments that provide a form of insurance on fixed-income assets. Dealers in the market are now working to settle these contracts.

The exact amount of CDS on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not known, reflecting the private nature of the market, but they are part of widely traded indices and the amounts are likely to be significant. Analysts at Lehman Brothers said: "There is likely to be a considerable amount of notional protection outstanding."

The industry body, International Swaps and Derivatives Association, said on Monday it would launch a protocol to facilitate settlement of credit derivative trades involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and would publish further details in due course.

The uncertainty surrounding the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CDS contacts highlights the need for improved settlement and trading procedures. Already, regulators have put pressure on CDS dealers, including all the large financial institutions, to reduce settlement and trading risks.

The near-collapse of Bear Stearns in March highlighted the extent to which many large financial institutions were linked together through the CDS market, and the Federal Reserve and other regulators want to reduce such systemic financial risks.

The growth of the CDS market over the past decade has outpaced development of settlement systems and trading infrastructure. One worry is the lack of standard procedures in contracts for dealers to agree ways to settle defaulted credit derivatives.

The actual payments on credit default swaps on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are expected to be limited because the value of the mortgage agencies' debt remains high after the US government stepped in to back it.

That means that meeting any claims on CDS may not be that costly, although the details are still being worked out and the impact is unknown.

Analysts at Creditsights said regulators could "use the bailout as another lever" to enhance the CDS market's efficiency.

http://gata.org/node/6567

by **mxsquid** » 20 Sep 2008, 09:19

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/edito ... /0918.html

by **mxsquid** » 20 Sep 2008, 12:54

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/ ... 4720080919

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... 4020080918

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... 9820080920

http://www.startribune.com/business/286 ... anchO7DiUr

by **mxsquid** » 21 Sep 2008, 10:45

by **mxsquid** » 22 Sep 2008, 17:01

by **mxsquid** » 12 Oct 2008, 00:16

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_08 ... 00908.html

by **mxsquid** » 20 Oct 2008, 04:53

The $54trillion credit derivatives market faces a delicate test ....

The collapse of Lehman Brothers, is expected to trigger credit default swap (CDS) protection pay-outs of about $400bn but because the contracts were sold many times through different counterparties it is not yet known who will be liable.

One commentator said: “This will be the greatest illustration of the follies of Wall Street and how unnecessarily complicated the wild off-track betting became in the past few years.”

“This will arguably be the biggest cash-exchange day and somebody will fail,” one analyst warned last week.

by **mxsquid** » 02 Nov 2008, 18:53

Editorial by Michael Hudson

by **mxsquid** » 26 Nov 2008, 00:19

Quantitative easing, last event ahead of hyperinflation? "Everything gets rescued"

On quantitative easing, an article from FT Alphaville.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/11 ... -happened/

by **mxsquid** » 26 Nov 2008, 02:32

.
.

Whenever I discussed the current bailout situation with people, I find they have a hard time comprehending the actual numbers involved. That became a problem while doing the research for the Bailout Nation book. I needed some way to put this into proper historical perspective.

If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars. People have a hard time conceptualizing very large numbers, so let’s give this some context. The current Credit Crisis bailout is now the largest outlay In American history.

Jim Bianco of Bianco Research crunched the inflation adjusted numbers. The bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

______________________________________________________________________

data courtesy of Bianco Research

That is $686 billion less than the cost of the credit crisis thus far.

The only single American event in history that even comes close to matching the cost of the credit crisis is World War II: Original Cost: $288 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $3.6 trillion

The $4.6165 trillion dollars committed so far is about a trillion dollars ($979 billion dollars) greater than the entire cost of World War II borne by the United States: $3.6 trillion, adjusted for inflation (original cost was $288 billion).

Go figure: WWII was a relative bargain.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/bi ... ger-bucks/

by **mxsquid** » 14 Dec 2008, 21:47

Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:53pm EST

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jim Rogers, one of the world's most prominent international investors, on Thursday called most of the largest U.S. banks "totally bankrupt," and said government efforts to fix the sector are wrongheaded.

Speaking by teleconference at the Reuters Investment Outlook 2009 Summit, the co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum Fund, said the government's $700 billion rescue package for the sector doesn't address how banks manage their balance sheets, and instead rewards weaker lenders with new capital.

Dozens of banks have won infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program created in early October, just after the Sept 15 bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (LEHMQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). Some of the funds are being used for acquisitions.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... CO20081211

by **mxsquid** » 06 Jan 2009, 02:58

By MICHAEL LEWIS and DAVID EINHORN
Published: January 3, 2009

AMERICANS enter the New Year in a strange new role: financial lunatics. We’ve been viewed by the wider world with mistrust and suspicion on other matters, but on the subject of money even our harshest critics have been inclined to believe that we knew what we were doing. They watched our investment bankers and emulated them: for a long time now half the planet’s college graduates seemed to want nothing more out of life than a job on Wall Street.

This is one reason the collapse of our financial system has inspired not merely a national but a global crisis of confidence. Good God, the world seems to be saying, if they don’t know what they are doing with money, who does?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opini ... =1&_r=1&hp

by **mxsquid** » 31 Jan 2009, 01:27

by Karl Denninger, Friday, January 30. 2009

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/arch ... Abyss.html

by **mxsquid** » 06 Feb 2009, 01:15

by **mxsquid** » 15 Feb 2009, 20:28

by **mxsquid** » 28 Feb 2009, 17:51

by **mxsquid** » 02 Mar 2009, 22:38

by **mxsquid** » 03 Mar 2009, 12:03

by **mxsquid** » 21 Mar 2009, 20:03

A
First published in the British humour magazine "Punch" on April 3, 1957:
As related by Bob Hoye

by **mxsquid** » 22 Mar 2009, 02:16

by **mxsquid** » 28 Mar 2009, 12:57

by **mxsquid** » 31 Mar 2009, 17:33

.

http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc090323.htm

by **mxsquid** » 11 Apr 2009, 14:04

by **mxsquid** » 20 Apr 2009, 17:23

by **mxsquid** » 21 Apr 2009, 19:38

April 21, 2009

http://www.philsgang.com (Scroll Down to Free Radio Archive)

by **mxsquid** » 22 Apr 2009, 20:55

by **mxsquid** » 02 May 2009, 21:02

http://www.thefinancialtube.com/video/3 ... Treasuries

by **mxsquid** » 12 May 2009, 18:26

by **mxsquid** » 23 May 2009, 10:29

In English with Spanish subtitles

by **mxsquid** » 27 May 2009, 01:25

by **mxsquid** » 09 Jun 2009, 21:51

by **mxsquid** » 27 Jun 2009, 14:53

by **mxsquid** » 03 Jul 2009, 12:53

by **mxsquid** » 12 Jul 2009, 11:43

by **mxsquid** » 26 Jul 2009, 06:05

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25164.html

From AboveTopSecret

New Federal Holiday Proposed - http://t.atsmix.com/t485564

by **mxsquid** » 14 Sep 2009, 20:51

http://farmwars.info/?p=1578

Narrated by Ian R. Crane, Devon England, October 2007.

by **mxsquid** » 23 Oct 2009, 16:38

by Daedal
on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 18:18
ZeroHedge Blog

At around 24 seconds into her speech, she says "I want to take this opportunity to reassure consumers that their insured deposits are absolutely safe."

Note the body language: As she is saying the above quote, she is shaking her head from side to side, indicating that she does not believe what she's saying.

by **mxsquid** » 28 Dec 2009, 05:15

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