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The Fed and Treasury appear to be attempting to blow a bubble in US equities. Considering that it has little underpinning it, on a significant event it could fold rather handily. Still, better to stay out of their way while they try to print their cronies way to prosperity while beggaring the many, and of course, their bondholders.
These sorts of wide swings in sovereign debt can be extraordinarily profitable for the trading desks of the banks and hedge funds, especially if the boss has the ear of the Treasury and the Fed. But they play hell with planning and execution in the real economy.
Che Cosa Ora? What Now
The boys threw a threat on the table today, as Larry Summers, ombudsman for the pigmen, predicted that if the Congress did not pass the President's deal with the Republicans the US economy would suffer a double dip.
I thought it was a rather neat trick how Obama took an obstructionist Republican minority and cut a deal with them, thereby placing the onus on his own party and holding their feet to the fire with some particularly high-handed moralisms and snippy rhetoric on top. No Clinton he who called the Republican bluff and let them shut down the government. Wall Street shill or nincompoop, hard to decide.
Wall Street financials rallied into the close as AIG filed a recapitalization plan to pay back the huge amounts of capital it borrowed from the Treasury and Fed to pay Goldman and its ilk the full amounts of their leveraged bets.
And then Bloomberg TV cut away and spent the next twenty minutes talking about the imperative to cut 'entitlements' like Social Security and Medicare.
