Saturday 29 September 2012

Zerohedge Articles Compilation 2.0

For your reading pleasure, I present to you the second batch of compiled ZeroHedge articles from yours truly:

Fitch Warns UK Likelihood It Loses AAA Rating Has Increased - UK may lose its AAA rating - with growth numbers revised by Fitch from 0.8% growth to a forecast of a 0.3% contraction.


Why A Soft-Landing Is Back For China - China needs private sector investment into things like infrastructure. Growth is slowed and may only be around 7-8.5% over the next few years. Very basic overview, check out the article!

Friday Humor: Don't Drink and Trade - Story about the drunk trader who traded 69% of the global oil market ($520 million worth of oil contracts) in one drunken night of trading, incurring losses of almost $10,000,000 to clients before the company realized the trades had not been authorized by clients.

Spanish Bank Capital Shortfall As "Good" As Expected: Live Press Conference Webcast - The Spanish banking system is completely broke. They owe €412 bln to the ECB in LTRO and MRO money, as well as having a roughly €60 bln capital shortfall, making the banks completely and utterly insolvent.

Charting the Death of Europe's Bond Markets - Spanish bonds are dragging down the entire secondary European bond market, dropping below €40bln/ day trading volume for the first time since 1996 - prior to the Euro. It's reminiscent of a kangaroo hopping over the edge of a cliff.

Gold And Silver Lead Everything Week-, Month-, Quarter-, & Year-To-Date - Bam! Also, charts and stats for equities markets - tech and financials lead the way.

Winners and Losers Since QE3 - Is QE3 benefiting anything other than the price of Gold and Silver? It would appear not - with the two obvious exceptions of JPM and Wells Fargo holding gains, while all other major banks (citi, BofA, Goldman Sachs, etc) all losing ground as the S&P sees worst drop in 6 months. Also, front running long term treasuries before the fed begins those asset purchases in January is proving to be a good idea, before the $45bln/month 10-30 year purchases begin

The Next Subprime Crisis is Here: Over $120 billion in Federal Student Loans in Default - Of Particular Interest:
"[...] Of course all else is never equal: Federally funded student loans are now increasing at a rate of over $60 billion per quarter. This means that in just about 18 months, the total size of the Federal student loan market will hit $1.3 trillion. Why is that number important? Because that is how big the subprime market was at its peak in late 2007, when everything went to hell and the last credit bubble popped [...]"
The Student Loan Bubble In 19 Simple Charts - This is mind-boggling. Huge props to ZeroHedge for putting this together.
Just one of the incredibly enlightening charts:

"There will likely be lasting effects on the economy from the high cost of education and large debt burden. About 68% of students in private four-year schools have taken on debt, 60% in public four-year and nearly 85% in for-profit four-year. The average debt for an undergraduate upon graduation is $25,000; more than half of the average starting salary. Underutilization in the labor market and high student debt has delayed life decisions such as household formation and discouraged new credit creation. Graduating during a recession leads to permanently lower earnings growth, making it that much harder to service the debt burden."

Guess Who Was The Biggest Beneficiary From The Fed's POMO Bonanza - Quote of note:


"So the next time someone asks you how a firm can have just 2 trading days of minimal losses in a quarter..."
"... and 7 days of $100+ million trading day profits, such as in this case Goldman Sachs (source: Sept 30, 2010 10-Q), now you know."

Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go? - A great little video they link (not originally credited to ZH, I must add) that demonstrates in 3 minutes exactly how US tax dollars are spent. For speed's sake, I'll provide an embedded video here:


Here Is The White House Spin On Today's Disappointing Economic Data - More of the Obama administration passing blame for the financial woes of the country on to other people. The US is "making progress" alright... progress towards complete economic and financial ruin.


40 Deutsche Bank Employees Injured After Inhaling "Dangerous" Substance in Schkeuditz, Germany - A white powdery substance was send to a Deutsche Bank building, causing evacuation of the building and 40 people to be "injured" by the mysterious and yet-undetermined substance. It seems like people are getting fed up with having their bank accounts pillaged and basic freedom and means of survival barraged with constant attack - and are deciding to fight back.

It's a dangerous world to live in today for everyone... But especially if you're a banker. Want to reduce your risk of being attacked? STOP STEALING PEOPLES' LIVELIHOOD!


And finally... Chart of the Day: The Misery In Spain Is Everywhere... And Has Never Been Higher - Focusing on the misery of Spain and how much worse of they are than the rest of Europe, with their inflation rates soaring from 2.7% to a whopping 3.5% - 0.7% higher than the previously-projected increase to a 2.8% rate of inflation.

Stay tuned for my next set of compiled articles. I will probably do ZeroHedge articles in their own post, and follow up with other articles from around the web in a secondary post.

See ZeroHedge.com to read all of these articles - and more!

EDIT: I knew I left a few out that I had read. Check them out below

Greek Bad Loans Climb To Record 25% Of Total - Already terminally insolvent Greek banks are being hit even harder, with new numbers coming out indicating that 25% of all loans - mortgage, credit card, or otherwise - are not being paid. That is to say, 1 in 4 of all loans have not been paid for at least 3 months, which is further starving the cash-strapped banks of morsels of much-needed money. 


The proposed solutions include extending the repayment period of loans from 20 to 40 years (essentially extending debt-slavery indefinitely) or having fiscally-responsible people who have no-to-little outstanding debt - or are making payments on their debt without missing any, in spite of the crisis - essentially subsidize the debt of the rest of the country by removing 30% of the debt borrowers have to pay down, and un-blacklisting those who have failed to repay loans, allowing them to borrow more on the backs of the entirety of the Greek population.

How Bad Was The Great Depression? - This link is one I definitely wanted to share. The video (which I will embed below) is a phenomenal and brief explanation of why the Great Depression got so bad - and how government intervention exacerbated it exponentially.



Will history repeat itself? It would seem it's already starting to... and it is up to us as citizens to stand up and stop the same thing from happening again, because in the world we live in the stakes are far higher than they were in the 1920s and 30s.

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