It had to happen ! Police arrive to take the ball off the football Dad's

The football dad's and boys were asked to leave the pitch on Saturday due to the terrible condition of the park, something which we hope will be addressed sooner rather than later by the RBKC Council.

Whilst football is played on all pitches and parks in the local area, Holland Park is now closed to organised and casual players.

Many thanks to the un-named officer of the Parks Police who was very good natured ! But please Mr Officer, can we have our ball back ?

Charlotte's Joke!

They used to say "Pigs will fly if we have a black president!"
Barrack Obama came into office. A week later- Swine Flu!

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income. (Hah!)

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND (VENTURE) CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States , leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least you are now a Democracy.

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive

Tombeur de femmes

courtesy of Alessandro:

Football Club Valuations

Exclusive - you may have wondered what Mattias gets upto on holiday!

It's all here:

Outside Bristol Zoo is the car park, with spaces for 150 cars and 8 coaches. It has been manned 6 days a week for 23 years by the same charming and very polite car park attendant with the ticket machine. The charges are £1. per car and £5 per coach.

On Monday 1 June, he did not turn up for work. Bristol Zoo management phoned Bristol City Council to ask them to send a replacement parking attendant.

The Council said "That car park is your responsibility." The Zoo said "The attendant was employed by the City Council... wasn't he?" The Council said "What attendant?"  Gone missing from his home is a man who has been taking daily the car park fees amounting to about £400. per day for the last 23 years...!

I make that about £2.7 million !

Quite possibly the most sensible way to stimulate growth!

 Blonde Parade Lifts Spirits in Gloomy Latvia

Latvians may be feeling depressed as a result of the economic crisis which has hammered the Baltic state, but over 500 blonde women did their best to lift spirits in Riga on Sunday with a parade and other "Blonde Weekend" events.

The global economic crisis has hit the Baltic state of Latviaparticularly hard and left the population feeling blue. But one group of Latvian women has taken a novel approach to fighting the pervasive feeling of doom and gloom.

PHOTO GALLERY: LATVIAN BLONDES ON PARADE

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Click on a picture to launch the image gallery (11 Photos)

On Sunday, a procession of more than 500 blondes paraded through the capital Riga wearing pink and white. Many were escorted by lap dogs wearing the same cheerful hues. Their goal: to use their beauty to shine a little light into the dark mood caused by the global downturn.

Though it was far from being a protest march, some women used the opportunity to counter stereotypes. "I am beautiful, but I'm not dumb," Ilone Zigure told the news agency AFP. The student added that she hopes that those of her countrymen who are depressed about the economic crisis will find her "positive energy" contagious.

 It's a sentiment that many observing the parade shared. "Finally, something positive," one 70-year-old woman watching the parade told AFP. "I just can't stand listening to people talk about the crisis anymore."

The parade was just part of a range of events making up Riga's "Blonde Weekend," which also included a golf tournament, a fashion show, a ball and a drawing contest for kids. TheLatvian Blondes Association, which organized the events, hoped to use any proceeds from the weekend's activities toward a playground for handicapped children.

Good old Bill Kenwright (Chairman of Everton FC)

This is a true and heart-warming story about Bill Kenwright, Chairman of Everton Football Club, written by a Liverpool Supporter:

What A Lovely Man Bill Kenwright Is

Now, before I start, I'm a Liverpool fan.

However, my mum's boss is an Evertonian (no one's perfect eh?), now with his team getting to the Cup final this year he was hoping against hope he could take his young lad to the final and so called to book tickets on the day they became available, the lady at the ticket office takes his credit card details and says he has two tickets for the game - up in the gods, but still, he would get to take his son to Wembley to watch his team - a special day out (especially as they don't get there very often eh?).

So, last week comes around but still no sign of the magical tickets - so my mums boss (we'll call him Simon...because that's his name) rings the club to ask what's going on, should he come and pick them up? Only to be told (4 days before the final) that no, he doesn't have tickets!

You can imagine how annoyed he must have been!! So he sits down at his desk and writes the strongest of strongly worded emails to all and sundry (including the Everton supporters club apparently). Thursday afternoon the office phone rings and Simon picks up the phone (they're solicitors so sitting round doing nothing is their idea of hard work) - its only Bill Kenwright!

"Hi Simon, I have seen your email and I'm sorry you have had such a hard time about the tickets - its unacceptable that you should be told you would have the tickets and then not get them and not get told until a few days before the game, I'd like to offer you 4 tickets, pitchside, right next to the tunnel to make it up to you!"

Now I know football these days is all about money (they are businesses after all) but I thought this was a really nice touch, and I can hardly imagine Roman (or many of the other premier league chairmen...sorry, chair-people) doing something similar.

So nice one Bill - you went someway to restoring my faith in there being at least some decent people left in the game and even though you lost, you made Simons young lads year (probably decade judging by their ability to get to major cup finals)!

Market manipulation, short-covering rallies and cyclical bulls

An interesting piece by Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns


There has been a lot of chatter in the markets about why U.S. equities continue to rally. Three distinct viewpoints have surfaced, two of which are bearish and one which is bullish. Let me share those theories with you.

1. Market Manipulation aka. the Plunge Protection Team

In this storyline, someone (probably the famed Plunge Protection Team) is manipulating the market to push it higher. Michael Panzner pointed out this view last Friday in a post called “Manipulation, Anyone? Now, Michael’s site is called Financial Armageddon, so you know he’s bearish and the post reflects this.

Coming as it did on the last day of the week at the end of a month, some might find the action that took place near today’s close to be rather interesting.

From 3:54:28 pm to 4:00:02 pm, S&P 500 e-mini futures rallied 17.25 points on approximate volume of 356,300 contracts, or 19.3% of the total turnover from 9:30 a.m. until futures finished trading at 4:15 p.m.

Hmmm. Manipulation, anyone?

2. Short-covering rally

But, while Panzner thinks outright manipulation is to blame, he is not alone in seeing this upward move as suspicious. Others point to technical factors as responsible for why the market(s) is rallying (It is not just the U.S. - as I write this the Dax has rallied 4% AND the S&P 500 is up over 2%). Yves Smith pointed out a post over at the Market Ticker which sees short covering as very much a factor in Friday’s late-day rally.

What does this all mean? A few things:

The stops up there are gone. They were potential rocket fuel for next week and the propellant to take us to - and potentially through - the 200DMA on the cash.
A bunch of someones had a lot of contracts that were short taken out on them. Those nearly 250,000 E-mini contracts did change hands, and odds are a very large percentage of them constituted stop-loss orders on contracts sold short from when we were up toward 933 a few weeks ago. Those traders are going to be quite pissed off, but that’s the risk of the game.
Next week is very likely to be extraordinarily violent, especially Monday. /ZN (10 year Treasury futures) has seen an insane drop in open interest over the last few weeks. This little game undoubtedly severely damaged open interest in the E-Mini /ES contract.

Thin markets are dangerous markets. While the E-Mini still is very liquid, the removal of these stops from the order book leaves the door open for both little resistance if the market decides to move higher early next week, and also provides the potential for irritated shorts to re-establish their positions short, driving the market lower. Those who wound up long during that little ramp job are likely to be rather nervous as well.

For my part I shorted that spike. Not large, and I am fully prepared to hedge it Sunday evening if necessary or just take it down, as there is every possibility, this close to the 200MA, that we will at least hit it on the cash, and blowing through it on volume and continuing higher cannot be ruled out.

I will note, however, that the last time we saw this sort of dislocation activity start up into the close it it too began with these sorts of “rocket shot” moves higher - and once the shorts were all blown out by having their stops run, the market essentially pancaked.

Look sharp - the sharks are in the water and you taste good.

For those of you who need a translation of what this means, I would say this: someone who was short had to liquidate a very large position due to a margin call and this forced the market up. In fact, many people believe (Meredith Whitney included) that much of the recent rally has nothing to do with fundamentals and is a short-covering rally plain and simple. Even so, it is a powerful rally nonetheless, and the shorts are getting killed.

3. Bull-Market/Secular Bear Market Rally

Then there is the bullish view. This view sees the market rally as a real bull market based on the potential for economic recovery sometime in the second half of 2009. Some think this is a secular bull – a view I am not discussing in this post. Others see this as a cyclical bull-market a.k.a bear market rally I would put Jeremy Grantham in this category. I would also put myself here, although I do think short-covering has made this rally dangerously over-bought. Paul Kedrosky recently made the bear market rally story very well in an interview with Tech Ticker’s Aaron Task (see the attached video as well).

Kedrosky thinks the S&P could approach 1100 by year-end, which would translate into the Dow well above 10,000.

Nonetheless, he believes it’s a bear market rally and unlikely to continue into 2010 as the market to get hit by fears of a “double-dip” recession.

How long the rally last is dependent on how long authorities can prop up the economy artificially. Remember the huge rally from 2002-2007 that took the Dow and S&P to new highs? That was a very long bear market rally. So, it is not altogether clear where the market is headed over the medium term. In my view, the U.S.market is going to eventually re-test its 2009 lows (which are 14 year lows when adjusted for inflation).

For now, there are enough doubters about how ‘real’ this rally is to provide road kill for the uptrend, making the kick up that much more powerful. Witness today’s breathtaking surge to the upside. When and whether systemic weakness re-asserts itself is another question altogether. For now, the bulls have gained hold.

Breaking News - Burglary at Stamford Bridge

Chelsea Football Club was broken into in the early hours of this morning.....

Metropolitan Chief of Police asked Guus Hiddink if any cups were stolen.....

"We're not sure" replied Guus "We haven't checked the canteen yet"


Boom Tish !!!!!

U.S. Inflation to Approach Zimbabwe Level, Faber Says

From Bloomberg:

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy will enter “hyperinflation” approaching the levels in Zimbabwe because the Federal Reserve will be reluctant to raise interest rates, investor Marc Faber said.

Prices may increase at rates “close to” Zimbabwe’s gains, Faber said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong. Zimbabwe’s inflation rate reached 231 million percent in July, the last annual rate published by the statistics office.

“I am 100 percent sure that the U.S. will go into hyperinflation,” Faber said. “The problem with government debt growing so much is that when the time will come and the Fed should increase interest rates, they will be very reluctant to do so and so inflation will start to accelerate.”

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said on May 21 inflation may rise to 2.5 percent in 2011. That exceeds the central bank officials’ long-run preferred range of 1.7 percent to 2 percent and contrasts with the concerns of some officials and economists that the economic slump may provoke a broad decline in prices.

“There are some concerns of a risk from inflation from all the liquidity injected into the banking system but it’s not an immediate threat right now given all the excess capacity in the U.S. economy,” said David Cohen, head of Asian economic forecasting at Action Economics in Singapore. “I have a little more confidence that the Fed has an exit strategy for draining all the liquidity at the appropriate time.”

Action Economics is predicting inflation of minus 0.4 percent in the U.S. this year, with prices increasing by 1.8 percent and 2 percent in 2010 and 2011, respectively, Cohen said.

Near Zero

The U.S.’s main interest rate may need to stay near zero for several years given the recession’s depth and forecasts that unemployment will reach 9 percent or higher, Glenn Rudebusch, associate director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said yesterday.

Members of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee have held the federal funds rate, the overnight lending rate between banks, in a range of zero to 0.25 percent since December to revive lending and end the worst recession in 50 years.

The global economy won’t return to the “prosperity” of 2006 and 2007 even as it rebounds from a recession, Faber said.

Equities in the U.S. won’t fall to new lows, helped by increased money supply, he said. Still, global stocks are “rather overbought” and are “not cheap,” Faber added.

Faber still favors Asian stocks relative to U.S. government bonds and said Japanese equities may outperform many other markets over a five-year period. “Of all the regions in the world, Asia is still the most attractive by far,” he said.

Gloom, Doom

Faber, the publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom report, said on April 7 stocks could fall as much as 10 percent before resuming gains. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has since climbed 9 percent.

Faber, who said he’s adding to his gold investments, advised buying the precious metal at the start of its eight-year rally, when it traded for less than $300 an ounce. The metal topped $1,000 last year and traded at $949.85 an ounce at 12:50 p.m. Hong Kong time. He also told investors to bail out of U.S. stocks a week before the so-called Black Monday crash in 1987, according to his Web site.

Navigating the Natural Resource Curse

An interesting article from Freakonomics:

By DWYER GUNN

When oil was discovered in 2007 off the shores of small, sturdy Ghana, the country’s government officials called the discovery “perhaps the greatest managerial challenge” the country had faced since independence. John Kufuor, Ghana’s president at the time, warned that “instead of a being a blessing, oil sometimes proves the undoing of many … nations who come by this precious commodity.”

Ghana’s reaction no doubt surprised oil-starved observers in developed countries, but the Ghanaian officials were referring to the “resource curse” that has wreaked havoc in other resource-rich, developing countries. Natural-resource wealth not only increases civil violence but, in a bizarre development paradox, is linked to lower economic growth.

In The Bottom Billion, the economist Paul Collier cites three reasons why resource wealth results in low levels of economic growth. First, the discovery and extraction of natural resources can lead to the crowding out of other sectors, otherwise known as “Dutch Disease.” The booming natural resource sector draws labor and capital away from other areas, and the natural-resource revenues result in a stronger exchange rate, reducing the competitiveness of non-resource exports.

Second, commodity price volatility enables boom and bust spending cycles characterized by poor investments and irresponsible spending. Collier writes that during an asset-price bubble in Kenya, “one ministry raised its proposed budget thirteenfold and refused to prioritize.”

Finally, Collier argues that resource revenues can cause deterioration in governance and public institutions through a variety of channels. Bribery becomes a more efficient means of obtaining votes than the delivery of public services. Citizens paying low taxes thanks to resource revenues are less likely to scrutinize their leaders.

Last week, the Natural Resource Charter was launched in Oslo. Developed by a group of economists including Collier and Nobel Laureate Mike Spence, the charter is “a set of economic principles for governments and societies on how to use the opportunities created by natural resources effectively for development.” Essentially, the charter tells countries how to avoid the resource trap.

Will a charter actually do anything? There might be some lessons gleaned from the experience of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which was proposed by the British government in 2002 and is now widely supported by governments and industries.

Resource-rich governments that commit to the EITI agree to implement increased transparency measures. The EITI board announced this week that Albania, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, and Zambia will join the 26 candidate countries already committed to implementing the EITI protocols. The jury is still out on the effectiveness of the EITI in candidate countries, but preliminary results are encouraging.

Perhaps more importantly, the EITI is already shifting attitudes in resource-rich developing countries. Collier writes of sitting in a meeting of West African ministers as they discussed resource-revenue governance. The EITI served as a concrete rallying point for both reformist countries and for reformers in reluctant countries. Collier writes, “An international charter gives people something very concrete to demand: either the government adopts it or it must explain why it won’t.”

Link

Report from the EGM - Thursday 14th May 2009

The Agenda was set thus:

1. Opening of the Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders and Announcements

2. The Managing Board's and Supervisory Board's assessment of recent corporate developments and strategic options

3. A.O.B.

Minutes:

Due to his sterling work and dedication, it was agreed that the Social Secretary shall in future carry the title of Social Chairman. It was noted by the meeting that the Social Chairman had been using this title for some time prior to the meeting.

The appointment of, and subsequent removal of the post of Vice Chair to Jerome was discussed at length. It was felt by the meeting that whilst he possesses the necessary qualities and experience for the position, that neither the Shareholders nor Officers had benefited yet from his expertise. Therefore confirmation of his re-appointment can only be made following clear evidence of his commitment to the position.

The meeting was then privy to a number of highly confidential and sensitive presentations from officers and shareholders alike. Commercial and legal sensitivities do not permit publication here. However full briefings are available from the Chairman and Social Chairman on request.

Attendance at the EGM was down on levels seen at the AGM. Closer inspection of our Articles this morning shows that the meeting was in fact inquorate. Therefore it will be necessary to hold an additional EGM later in the year to ratify the decisions of this meeting.

The Disciplinary Committee was authorised to investigate further the absence of several individuals and to report back in due course.

The formal business of the evening completed, the meeting retired to the excellent surroundings of the Lanesborough courtesy of one our founding shareholders.

“This made me wonder if [the economy] is really that bad that even dead people will lose their resting places.

What will they do? Evict the dead?”

Warren Buffet - an interesting insight

An interesting, if short analysis of Warren Buffet - the only thing I disagree with (who am I to disagree with WB ? ) is the final comments about index funds.....

Bill Gross - Government intervention in markets will last

Bill Gross, the founder of the world’s largest bond fund, PIMCO, is out with his new monthly market commentary. His subject: government involvement in the world of finance and investment. Below is a little of what he had to say. I have highlighted in bold the bits I feel most important.

A photograph of Bernard Baruch looms ominously on the far corner of my PIMCO office wall. Vested, with pocket watch and protruding chin thrust prominently toward the observer, this well-known financier of the early 20th century at times appears almost alive.

It was Baruch who almost schizophrenically cautioned investors during the stock market’s speculative blow-off in the late 20s that “two plus two equals four and no one has ever invented a way of getting something for nothing.” Three years later during the depths of economic and financial gloom he opined just the opposite: “Two plus two still equals four,” he said, “and you can’t keep mankind down for long.” Homo sapiens, as it turns out, stayed on the deck for much longer than Baruch envisioned – some historians having suggested that it was only war and not the rejuvenating economic spirits of a capitalistic peace that eventually turned the tide – but his words, first of caution and then of optimism, typify the way that fortunes were, and still are, made in the financial markets: Get your facts straight, apply them to the current valuation of the market, take decisive action, and then hold on for dear life as the mob hopefully comes to the same conclusion a little way down the road.

I stare into Baruch’s eyes almost every day – not that we are simpatico or kindred spirits of any sort – but when I do, it’s as if I can hear him almost whispering to me over the portals of time: “Two plus two,” he commands, “two plus two, two plus two.” The message – fortunately, I suppose – ends there. If you thought I was receiving market calls from the ghost of Bernard Baruch I suspect PIMCO would have far fewer clients than we do today. But his lesson nonetheless remains clear: separate reality from exuberance either on the up or the downside and you have the ingredients for a successful market strategy.

Through the years here at PIMCO there have been numerous demarcation points where Baruch’s whispers almost turned into screams. Two plus two screamed four in September of 1981 with long-term Treasury yields approaching 15%, and two plus two boomed four in 2000 when the Dot Coms rose to prices that discounted the hereafter instead of the next 30 years. Similarly, 2007 was a screaming mimi with the subprimes – if only because the liar loans and no-money-down financing were reminiscent of a shell game, Ponzi scheme, or some other type of wizardry that was bound to lead to tears.

2009 is a similar demarcation point because it represents the beginning of government policy counterpunching, a period when the public with government as its proxy decided that private market, laissez-faire, free market capitalism was history and that a “private/public” partnership yet to gestate and evolve would be the model for years to come. If one had any doubts, a quick, even cursory summary of President Obama’s comments announcing Chrysler’s bankruptcy filing would suffice. “I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities. I stand with millions of Americans who want to buy Chrysler cars (sic). I do not stand…with a group of investment firms and hedge funds who decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.” If the cannons fired at Ft. Sumter marked the beginning of the war against the Union, then clearly these words marked the beginning of a war against publically perceived financial terror.

Make no mistake, PIMCO had no dog in this fight, and has infinitesimally small holdings of GM bonds as well. In turn, the rebalancing of wealth from the rich to the “not so rich” is a long overdue reversal, one that I have encouraged in these Outlooks for at least the past several years. But promoting and siding with the majority of the American public in their quest for change does not mean that as investors, we at PIMCO stand star-struck like a deer in front of the onrushing headlights, doing nothing to protect clients. Our task is to identify secular transitions and to preserve and protect capital if indeed it is threatened. Now appears to be one of those moments.

This is a new era of big government and re-regulation. What does all this portend for the economy and investing. Gross says it means slower growth and higher risk premia for financial assets in the U.S. But, Gross does not believe this is a bad thing at all - it is a necessary change

Asia is de-coupling...

A post from Reuters in overnight trading in Asia caught my eye. It proclaimed “Asia faces up to challenges of global crisis." What I found particularly interesting about the post was the fact that the Asians had set up a $120 billion fund through the Asian Development Bank which excluded the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the go-to organization in a crisis. Reuters says the following:

Asia has been hard hit by the collapse in global demand largely because of the region’s heavy reliance on exports. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan are in recession and growth elsewhere is the weakest in years.

"Poverty is worsening in many countries. Businesses are struggling. The extremely urgent climate change agenda could be affected," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank.

"If all this goes unchecked, down the road we could see social and political unrest in many countries," he told representatives of the ADB’s 67-member countries, including finance ministers and central bank governors.

To counter the downturn, the ADB said it will raise lending by half and Asian governments agreed at the weekend to launch a $120 billion fund countries can tap to avert a balance of payments crisis.

You will recall that the Asians were forced to go cap in hand to the IMF for bailout funds after the Asian Crisis in the late 1990s. This experience was very humiliating for some and caused extreme hardship as the IMF programs were rather severe and deflationary. Resentment toward the IMF remains as a result. I see this development as an explicit measure to exclude the IMF in Asia. I am not the only one who noticed this. Marc Chandler the Chief Global Currency Strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman sent out a missive today titled "The Beginnings of an Asian IMF?" saying:

Back in the 1997-1998 Japan proposed an Asian-based IMF, the US objected and the issue seemed to be closed. However, during this crisis, a modified version appears to be in the works and without the international objections.

ASEAN+3 (Japan, China and South Korea) confirmed over the weekend that a $120 bln fx reserve pool will be established by year-end as the Chiang Mai Initiative is expanded. Participating countries can borrow up to 20% of their quote (agreed upon swap ). The other 80% can be accessed only after an IMF-like agreement. At first multilateral agencies, like the IMF and ADB, will be tapped for their expertise, but the intent to be independent is clear. Over time, their own surveillance unit will identify risks and provide oversight.

Separately, Japan offered a $60 yen-swap facility and to guarantee yen-denominated bonds (samurai) issued by developing countries. This is in addition to contributing $38.4 bln to the reserve pool (the same as China–including HK). South Korea will provide $19.2 bln. The four largest economies in ASEAN–Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore–will each contribute $4.77 bln each, and the Philippines will pony up $3.68 bln.

Now, you should note that the CLSA China Manufacturing Index for April also came out overnight (see Econompic Data’s charts), with the index registering expansion in China for the first time in nine months. The reading was 50.1 in April versus 44.8 March. This indicates that the stimulus efforts of the Chinese government are indeed having the wanted effect on demand as I suggested last week. Therefore, I am officially abandoning my downbeat forecast for Chinese growth (see my predictions for 2009).

Asia looks poised to break away from the West, dare I say de-couple. I am loathe to use that word because the inter-connectedness of the global economy has meant that negative demand-side shocks in the West will be felt in Asia as well. Nevertheless, Asia looks to be developing an Asia-only dynamic and re-focusing on internal trade and politics. This is good for Asia, but, for the West, not so much.



Source

Treasuries are getting crushed

On the 25th March I asked whether the bull market for treasuries was over, seems like it is:



So, my question is this. Are treasury yields rising because of:

* A reflation play i.e. inflation is coming?
* A recovery play i.e. we are seeing green shoots and that’s bearish for Treasuries?
* A Fed play i.e. Bernanke is not going to do any more quantitative easing, or at least not enough to stop rates from rising?
* A revulsion play i.e. too much debt is being issued?

Irrespective of why yields are rising, it’s not good for a potential recovery

Hardy Guevara

So beloved by the masses in Cuba, his image now appears alongside Che!

For us there is no valid definition of socialism other than the abolition of the exploitation of one human being by another.