That’s enough ‘kicking ass’, Mr President: Barack Obama’s attacks on BP may play well at home, but they are damaging millions of British people (London Times)
Banks with state debt ignore not-if-but-when default (Bloomberg)
As reported, Caja Madrid, Bancaja start moves to form Spain top savings bank, as BBVA says Spain may need €50 billion of capital to infuse into insolvent banks (Bloomberg)
Lehman emails that say “stupid” didn’t stay “just between us” (Bloomberg)
US firms holding record piles of cash underscoring worries about sustainability of financial recovery (WSJ)
Hungary PM says to issue second economic action plan in H2 (Reuters)
The bearish forecasters who rose to fame in the market crash of 2008 have, for the most part, not surrendered their pessimism. Their moment could be coming back around (BusinessWeek)
Daily humor from disgraced car czar Steve Rattner at the only venue desperate enough for clicks to still have him: How Wall Street stokes populist fury (MSN)
There’s been many letters and symbols used over the last year to describe the shape of the U.S. economic recovery. There’s the strong V-shaped recovery; the square root shaped recovery to connote a strong recovery followed by a period of flat to no growth; and the W-shaped recovery favored by those believing in a double dip recession.
Tech Ticker guest Michael Pento has a new twist on the discussion. Pento, senior market strategist with Delta Global Advisors believes this is a tee-pee shaped recovery with the top of that tee-pee having already formed in the fourth quarter.
Pento is negative on America’s near term economic prospects for three main reasons: too little bank lending, too few jobs and too much public and private debt. “I’ve never seen a v-shaped recovery occur when commercial bank lending was down 7% year over year. So, small business are not getting loans to create capital goods and to expand and hire individuals,” he observes.
Exacerbating the problems at home, is what he describes, as a weak economy abroad. With China looking to clamp down on growth, the EuroZone struggling with its own debt problems, Pento asks, “Where is the growth going to come from in demand from overseas?
When he says “demand” he’s referring not only to products and services but also to our growing debt burden. As the price of servicing our deficit grows, when the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy, Pento is confident others will realize what he already does: the situation in the U.S. is “worse than Greece.”
The way he sees it, there’s a strong potential for a bond and dollar crisis when China starts selling Treasuries. “Tell me which shape recovery that will yield for the United States?”
It’s official: the double dip is here. Goldman’s Jan Hatzius just lowered his GDP forecast for 2011 from 2.5% to 1.9% (kiss goodbye all those 93 EPS estimates on the S&P), increased his unemployment forecast from 9.8% to 10.0%, boosted his inflation expectation from 0.4% to 1.0%, and said that QE lite is now on the table, as he expects that “the FOMC to announce that they will reinvest the paydown of mortgage-backed securities in the bond market at next Tuesday’s meeting.” Look for all other sell-side “strategists” (here’s looking at you Neil Dutta) to lower their economic outlook in kind, and the 2011 S&P consensus to decline accordingly.
From Goldman Sachs:
Over the past two to three months, the US economic recovery has lost a considerable amount of its momentum. As a result, our forecast of a significant slowing in US growth in the second half of 2010—widely regarded as implausible just three months ago—is now increasingly accepted as the baseline. As the data disappointments intensified in early July, we indicated that we would consider revisions to our economic outlook. With the annual revisions to real GDP now behind us, we are making the following changes: (more…)
It’s official: the double dip is here. Goldman’s Jan Hatzius just lowered his GDP forecast for 2011 from 2.5% to 1.9% (kiss goodbye all those 93 EPS estimates on the S&P), increased his unemployment forecast from 9.8% to 10.0%, boosted his inflation expectation from 0.4% to 1.0%, and said that QE lite is now on the table, as he expects that “the FOMC to announce that they will reinvest the paydown of mortgage-backed securities in the bond market at next Tuesday’s meeting.” Look for all other sell-side “strategists” (here’s looking at you Neil Dutta) to lower their economic outlook in kind, and the 2011 S&P consensus to decline accordingly.