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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Thursday Morning Ramblings -- Absolutely Nothing To Do With the Bakken -- Some Political -- Read At Own Risk

1. I was out and about yesterday from about 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. so I didn't see any news on CNBC. When I got home, I watched the Boston-Philadelphia basketball game, so didn't see any news after dinner either. But I got to thinking. (Yes, I know its dangerous.) My hunch: the Euro is in much deeper trouble than folks are letting on. One reason this is much more dangerous than folks realize: this is completely uncharted territory -- how will this all play out. No precedent. Perhaps vaguely reminiscent of the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Maybe they will kick this can down the road once again, but the problem is not going to go away. What I don't understand is how a country with a GDP of about $300 billion is causing such a headache. That's about the same as the state of Maryland (2010 -- wiki). Including Maryland, the US has about 15 states each with a GDP greater than Greece.

2. Drudge links a story stating "The Amateur" is will debut #1 on the NY Times book list.  Wow.

3. Wow, I love this. Drudge has the link to a story that says a Florida judge says one has a constitutional right to flash headlights as a "speed trap" warning. Good.

4. H-P to lay off 26,000 in restructuring. I thought I had posted something regarding H-P once upon a time: here it is.  H-P CEO says her company will be introducing a Windows 8 tablet for "back-to-school" crowd.  Two words: too late. I take the bus into Boston or Cambridge almost every day. It is amazing to see the number of folks using Apple products. Last week, at the rear of the bus three of us were using our iPads. Yesterday a middle-age gentleman was scrolling through his Shuffle -- I hadn't seen a shuffle in months. Later, he took out his iPhone. I assume at home he has an Apple computer, and will be getting an iPad if he doesn't already have one. At Starbucks at Harvard Square, it appears that 7 out of 10 laptops are Apples. Many use the old white MacBook -- the current workhorse of the Apple line up (no longer produced); and many more MacAirs than I would have expected. According to some of the folks sending me notes regarding my blog, it's only a matter of time before Apple attaches little wind turbines to each laptop to charge the batteries. I don't post those comments.

5. Former Senator calls retirees "greedy geezers" for wanting their promised social security benefits. Wow.  Something tells me his government pension is not up for discussion.

6. Back to the EU. Reading this story suggests two things: a) Germans feel it's time for Greece to go; b) more importantly, they want to send message to rest of PFIIGS that Germany is serious about demand that countries honor commitments to change their behavior. It's my understanding that Greece has reneged on promises to implement necessary austerity measures in return for financial aid from EU. I could be wrong on that, but I seem to recall something along that line.

7. For newbies: the US is experiencing an energy revolution. The only folks not participating are those in the Federal government.

8. On CNBC, they are quoting a story suggesting Greece will leave the EU on January 1, 2013, and the drachma will be devalued 60%. I guess it's from a Citi report.

9. I was thinking this yesterday and then forgot to post it. Romney has one job as far as I know: running for presidency. Obama has two jobs: a) running the country; and, b) running for re-election. And now he's running late.

2 comments:

  1. Bruce, it's not Greece's debt that's the problem, it's the associated trillions in synthetic CDS held on their debt by the world's biggest banks that's the problem. If/when they trigger we'll see another global meltdown probably bigger in magnitude than that when Lehman's CDS were triggered.

    Synthetic CDS last year were estimated at $1.2 QUADRILLION. Because of accounting "adjustments" they are now estimated at $700 trillion. Imagine what happens if even 10% of that goes bad. Look what happened at MF Global. Overnight the company had a margin call on their CDS bets & $1.6 billion of their customers' money was stolen to pay it off.

    How does all this play into the Bakken? If there's a global liquadiation event again, we "could" see a meltdown in the price of oil. While it seems inconceivable right now to imagine a barrel of oil below $60ish, we are in uncharted financial waters.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This suggests to me a global depression.

      I'm an eternal optimist.

      Delete

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