Authored by EconomicPrism's MN Gordon via Acting-Man.com,
Bernanke Redux
Somehow, former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke found time from his busy hedge fund advisory duties last week to tell his ex-employer how to do its job. Namely, he recommended to his former cohorts at the Fed how much they should reduce the Fed’s balance sheet by. In other words, he told them how to go about cleaning up his mess.
It was supposed to be China's day of celebrating massive infrastructure spending for the sake of spending (read ghost towns, only now outside China's borders) as Xi Jinping pledged $124 billion on Sunday for his new Silk Road plan to forge "a path of peace, inclusiveness and free trade" while calling for the abandonment of old models based on rivalry and diplomatic power games. However, it did not go quite as smoothly as expected.
Having single-handedly hounded Home Capital Group - the company which we predicted in 2015 would be "ground zero" for any potential Canadian financial crisis, and has emerged as the Canada's equivalent to the infamous New Century which in 2007 presaged the upcoming global financial crisis - into near oblivion, noted chicken-farmer and short-seller, Marc Cohodes, over the weekend revealed the full details behind his latest short thesis: Canadian oil and gas service provider, Badger Daylighting.
Submitted by Mish Shedlock of MishTalk
In response to California Banker: Views from the Business Banker’s Chair I received a pair of emails from readers tuned into Virginia.
Livs in Virginia (LIV) writes …
Hi Mish
Richmond VA, where I live, is inundated with radio commercials to get rich quick by flipping houses. And I’ve seen articles in the paper about flippers. I, too, viewed this as being indicative of a top.
We’ve also seen a huge surge in new restaurants.
Another day, another warnings about China's fading credit impulse (see here in February, and Pimco most recently), and market complacency about what the recent monetary tightening and drop in commodity prices in Chinese markets means for global markets, this time from Citigroup.