I was preoccupied yesterday with my portfolio updates and my summary of Intersolar, so I didn't get around to my regular Monday sarcasm. That means Tuesday can be a sarcasm day too.
China's CNOOC is making a play for Canada's Nexen. That is a bold move and obviously a hemispheric security concern. I don't know if our neighbors to the north have figured out that any business deal of this size from Red China is a strategic penetration straight out of the Politburo's playbook.
Germany and the IMF are finally figuring out that giving money to Greece is throwing said money down a big drain. They've finally had enough and they're going to show Greece the door after months of bluster. Athens will learn very soon that it can't pay its bills in gyros. Once they're gone, other countries on the brink will have every reason to bail out too. September 2012 should be a fun month, just like September 2008.
No wonder the Germans can't afford to give Greece any more bailouts. Moody's just slashed their economic outlook. That figures; bankrupt trading partners can't afford to buy what Germany exports. Maybe I could buy a few tons of some leftover German chocolate they have lying around once the euro tanks against the dollar.
Speaking of the dollar's relative strength, clueless investors continue to buy U.S. Treasuries in the forlorn hope that their bonds will mature before federal spending goes over its fiscal cliff. I can't understand the desire to pick up nickels in front of a steamroller. Bond investors will be lucky to receive a fraction of the principal they invested if Helicopter Ben hits his print button sometime after Election Day 2012.
In a final note on the unfolding second act of the world's financial crisis, Spain and Italy enacted temporary limits on short selling in financial stocks. Recall that the U.S. market regulators did this at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 and yet the markets kept falling until March 2009. The Fed's actions to pump liquidity into failing banks did more to arrest that decline than any short-selling limits. Please do not take this as an endorsement of the Fed's actions. Read my blog posts from late 2008 and early 2009 to see my advocacy for the seizure and forced recapitalization of bankrupt institutions as a permanent solution to their impairment.
I can hardly wait for the excitement in the markets to really get going this fall. These headlines are making me salivate. I can once again profit from the learning disabilities of Wall Street mandarins.
China's CNOOC is making a play for Canada's Nexen. That is a bold move and obviously a hemispheric security concern. I don't know if our neighbors to the north have figured out that any business deal of this size from Red China is a strategic penetration straight out of the Politburo's playbook.
Germany and the IMF are finally figuring out that giving money to Greece is throwing said money down a big drain. They've finally had enough and they're going to show Greece the door after months of bluster. Athens will learn very soon that it can't pay its bills in gyros. Once they're gone, other countries on the brink will have every reason to bail out too. September 2012 should be a fun month, just like September 2008.
No wonder the Germans can't afford to give Greece any more bailouts. Moody's just slashed their economic outlook. That figures; bankrupt trading partners can't afford to buy what Germany exports. Maybe I could buy a few tons of some leftover German chocolate they have lying around once the euro tanks against the dollar.
Speaking of the dollar's relative strength, clueless investors continue to buy U.S. Treasuries in the forlorn hope that their bonds will mature before federal spending goes over its fiscal cliff. I can't understand the desire to pick up nickels in front of a steamroller. Bond investors will be lucky to receive a fraction of the principal they invested if Helicopter Ben hits his print button sometime after Election Day 2012.
In a final note on the unfolding second act of the world's financial crisis, Spain and Italy enacted temporary limits on short selling in financial stocks. Recall that the U.S. market regulators did this at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 and yet the markets kept falling until March 2009. The Fed's actions to pump liquidity into failing banks did more to arrest that decline than any short-selling limits. Please do not take this as an endorsement of the Fed's actions. Read my blog posts from late 2008 and early 2009 to see my advocacy for the seizure and forced recapitalization of bankrupt institutions as a permanent solution to their impairment.
I can hardly wait for the excitement in the markets to really get going this fall. These headlines are making me salivate. I can once again profit from the learning disabilities of Wall Street mandarins.
