investment

US Bank Run Imminent? FDIC Expanded Deposit Insurance Ends Dec 31st

"With the media fixated on the fiscal cliff, no one seems to be noticing the fact that the FDIC’s expanded 100% coverage for insured deposits ends January 1st, 2013. As of January 2013 the FDIC stops offering 100% coverage for all insured deposits. That amounts to $1.6 trillion in deposits, 85-90% deposited with the TBTF mega banks. Once the insurance ramps back to $250,000 the FDIC risk amelioration offered to large depositors will cause them to flee from the insecurity of the much reduced FDIC coverage." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUS Bank Run Imminent? FDIC Expanded Deposit Insurance Ends Dec 31st

Marc Faber: Prepare for a Massive Market Meltdown

"Faber told CNBC that central bank stimulus was useless and the implosion of markets was the only way to restructure the financial system. 'I think the whole global financial system will have to be reset and it won’t be reset by central bankers but by imploding markets — either the currency [markets, debt market or stock markets,' he said. 'It will happen — it will happen one day and then we’ll be lucky if we still have 50 percent of the asset values that we have today.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMarc Faber: Prepare for a Massive Market Meltdown

Chinese demand for robots increases as labor costs rise

"China’s growing affluence and family planning laws have had dramatic effects on its workforce. Improved medical care has enabled older generations to live longer, and the one-child policy has effectively capped the younger generation’s size. In 2000 there were six working-age citizens for each Chinese person aged 60 and up; 20 years from now, population experts predict, there will be only two. Young Chinese have no choice but to seek skilled, high-paying work to support their parents. They’re better educated than their forebears, and less interested in menial assembly-line labour. Robots may fill the jobs they’ve left behind." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingChinese demand for robots increases as labor costs rise

Sony’s credit rating heads toward junk pile

"Japanese tech mega-corporations, including Panasonic and Sony, aren’t doing too well. After Sharp posted its most recent loss, its financial rating fell to junk status, and the company is now seeking a government bailout. Panasonic was also hit with a near-junk rating by Fitch earlier this month, after it posted a loss 30 times larger than analysts had estimated. Now, Sony—the biggest of Japan’s big dogs—can’t escape the bad news either. On Friday, Moody's downgraded Sony’s long-term debt rating from Baa2 to Baa3, one notch above junk status." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSony’s credit rating heads toward junk pile

Illinois Debt Takes Toll On Services, Study Finds

"For years, Illinois has racked up billions in public debt to plug budget holes, pay overdue bills, and put money into its mismanaged pension funds. And for the people who live there, this has resulted in decrepit commuter trains and buses, thousands of unsound bridges, 200 hazardous dams and one of the most inequitable public school systems in America. Illinois has the lowest credit rating of the 50 states and has America’s second-biggest public debt per capita, $9,624, including state and local borrowing. Only New York State’s debt is bigger, at $13,840 per capita." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIllinois Debt Takes Toll On Services, Study Finds

Traders Getting Replaced By Machines

"Wall Street’s credit-derivatives traders, who before the financial crisis commanded $2 million of annual pay, are being replaced by machines as banks cut costs and heed new regulations. UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest bank, fired its head of credit-default swaps index trading, David Gallers, last week, with no plan to fill the position, according to two people familiar with the matter. Instead, the bank replaced Gallers with computer algorithms that trade using mathematical models." Continue reading →

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Fed’s Williams Says Bond Buying May Exceed $600 Billion

"Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said the central bank may buy more than $600 billion in bonds by extending its third round of quantitative easing well into next year. The Federal Open Market Committee last month affirmed its decision in September to buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities each month without specifying the total size or duration of the purchases. Williams, who holds a vote on policy this year, was among the first Fed officials to advocate open- ended bond buying." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFed’s Williams Says Bond Buying May Exceed $600 Billion

Karl Denninger: Watch for Market Dislocations

"The big picture is this: We have all lived for the last 30 years in a world where we believe that the price of certain things will always go up – houses being one of them, stocks being another. We have also lived in a time when an insane amount of monetary inflation has taken place. Most people look at the Consumer Price Index or some other government-provided thing, or they look at M1 OR M2, the growth of the money supply, for example. But what you really ought to be looking at for the growth of the monetary base is the total amount of money and credit that is in the system, and add those two together. When you do that, you find a very ugly picture." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingKarl Denninger: Watch for Market Dislocations

How Going Over the ”Fiscal Cliff” Will Affect You

"Kahn projects that a kick the can deal will increase taxes by $530 billion. Specifically, he sees strong support for an end to the payroll tax cut, an end to Bush tax cuts, and broad support for short-term 'tax extenders.' On the spending side, no further extensions of unemployment and a cut in Medicare payments (the doc fix). Total spending cuts $170 billion. Got that? Tax increases of $530 billion and cuts of only $170 billion. In other words, the 'kick the can deal' is a huge tax increase. They are set to scare the public and then take more money out of their pockets." Continue reading →

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Obama Won. Now What Will You Do?

"Washington is headed for gridlock. This is good. This is not a dysfunctional government. A dysfunctional government passes lots of laws. The laws are almost always bad laws. Then the federal bureaucracy interprets and implements these laws in the Federal Register. What little that might have been good gets bad. A gridlocked government is the best we can hope for. My suggestion: start making major changes in your life’s plan. Make them in terms of reality: the unfunded present value of future federal liabilities: $222 trillion." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama Won. Now What Will You Do?