FT.com / Capital Markets - Fed passes China in Treasury holdings

The time to buy gold or silver is now. It is only a matter of time before the masses realize that Madoff's ponzi scheme was petty theft compared to the ponzi scheme being run by Bernanke at the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve has surpassed China as the leading holder of US Treasury securities even though it has yet to reach the halfway mark in its latest round of quantitative easing, according to official figures.

Based on weekly data released on Thursday, the New York Fed’s holdings of Treasuries in its System Open Market Account, known as Soma, total $1,108bn, made up of bills, notes, bonds and Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or Tips.

According to the most recent US Treasury data on foreign holders of US government paper, China holds $896bn and Japan owns $877bn. 

“By June [the Fed] will have accumulated some $1,600bn of Treasury securities, likely to be in the vicinity of China and Japan’s combined holdings,” said Richard Gilhooly, a strategist at TD Securities. “The New York Fed surpassed China in the past month as the largest holder of US Treasury securities,” he noted.

The Fed is buying Treasury debt under two programmes. The largest is QE2, which began in November and is scheduled to involve $600bn of purchases by June. 

It is also buying $30bn of Treasuries a month as it reinvests principal payments from its large holdings of mortgage debt and debt issued by government housing agencies – a programme dubbed QE lite.

Read more: FT.com / Capital Markets - Fed passes China in Treasury holdings

Is the Federal Reserve buying equities?

A massive shift in fund flows is currently underway among investors. Charles Biderman, CEO of TrimTabs Investment Research, has the details.

Even Jon Stewart knows that Ben Bernanke is full of sh*t

Sorry but I can't post the actual video because it keeps crashing the site so you have to go to Stewart's site to view it.  The Big Bank Theory

Dead Cat Bounce - Bernanke Dumber Than Gold - Get Out Of Stocks - Mike ...

Who was right about the euro?

Sounds like the Europeans had the same person in charge of their economy over the past few years as we had in the United States.

Lets not forget all the great things Greenspan said about our economy:

Then we got Helicopter Ben:

Aren't we just the luckiest country on earth to have had these two guys in charge of our economy.

WSJ: 107 Months to Clear Banks’ Housing Backlog

According to Helicopter Ben the recession was officially over in May 2009 but if that is true then how come  we have almost 9 years of housing inventory that needs to be sold by the bailed out banks.

Number of the Week: 107 Months to Clear Banks’ Housing Backlog

By Mark Whitehouse

107: How many months it would take to sell banks’ current and shadow inventory of foreclosed homes.

Banks’ vast pile of foreclosed homes doesn’t appear to be diminishing. That’s a troubling sign for the future of the housing market.

Back in April, this column tallied up all the foreclosed homes sitting in banks’ inventory, as well as the “shadow” inventory of homes in the foreclosure process or on which owners had missed at least two mortgage payments. At the time, we reported that at the current rate of sales, it would take 103 months to unload it all.

Over the past six months, that number has actually risen. Banks managed to pare down the shadow inventory, but largely by taking possession of foreclosed homes. As of September, they owned nearly 994,000 foreclosed homes, up 21% from a year earlier. The shadow inventory stood at 5.2 million homes, down 7% from a year earlier. Grand total: 107 months of inventory.

The numbers aren’t exactly comparable to the April analysis, as the providers of data have changed. The inventory data now come from RealtyTrac, the shadow inventory data from LPS Applied Analytics, and the sales data from Core Logic. But no matter how you slice it, the housing market faces almost nine years of foreclosure hangover.

Over the summer, banks appeared to be making some headway. The government’s mortgage-modification program helped some people get current on their payments, taking their homes out of the foreclosure pipeline. At the same time, homebuyer tax credits helped boost sales. Combined real and shadow inventory fell to 91 months of sales in May.

Lately, though, a new wave of defaults appears to be coming in, in part related to the high rate of failures on government modifications. As of September, some 1.9 million homeowners had missed one payment on their mortgages, up 14% from March. Meanwhile, home sales have slowed sharply with the end of government stimulus.

Homeowners might reasonably hope that banks’ latest troubles with foreclosure paperwork might prop up prices by at least temporarily easing the flow of homes onto the market. So far, though, that doesn’t seem to be happening: According to housing-market consultancy Zelman & Associates, banks listed 15% more repossessed home in October than in September.

The mountain of foreclosed homes casts a long shadow.

NPR's Toxic Asset Has Died

Weren't we told by Bush, Bernanke and Paulson that TARP would purchase these toxic mortgage securities  from the Banks and that by doing so we would save the economy. Guess what though they changed their minds after getting their hands on our money and the majority of these assets remain on the banks ledgers. The only thing that changed is that the banks got a new accounting rule, which allowed them to stop marking to market mortgage securities but based on this video its clear that these assets are worthless.

What is the Federal Reserve trying to hide?

On November 7, 2008, Bloomberg filed a lawsuit seeking access to documents detailing, which banks borrowed money from the Federal Reserve. Since that time both the Fed and the banks have fought releasing this information. Why? Well some have argued that the amount of money loaned exceeds the reported $2 Trillion acknowledged by the Federal Reserve by Tens of Trillions of dollars.

This argument is completely unfounded but it does make you think when you hear the Federal Reserve's argument against the release of this information. The Fed argued in the case that disclosure of the documents threatens to stigmatize borrowers and cause them “severe and irreparable competitive injury,” discouraging banks in distress from seeking help.

Why would these banks be stigmatized by borrowing a measly $2 Trillion? We know for a fact that Bank of America according to its 2009 10K borrowed a total of $45 Billion of TARP money. At the time BOA had assets totalling $2.2 Trillion. Ladies and gentlemen that means that the loan was only for 2% of BOA's total assets. Personally I wish my student loans only totaled 2% of my assets. If that were true I would be worth $3.3 Million. 

Something is rotten on Maiden lane and I smell a cover-up.   

Fed Seeks Delay of Bank Data Release While Considering Appeal

Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Board sought to delay the court-ordered release of documents identifying banks that might have failed without the U.S. government bailout while it considers an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Fed asked the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York yesterday to delay implementation of a ruling that compels the central bank to release the documents.

“The stay is necessary to permit the board to consult with the Department of Justice regarding an appeal to the Supreme Court,” Fed spokesman David Skidmore said.

The appeals court on Aug. 20 denied the Fed’s request to reconsider its decision requiring it to release records of the $2 trillion U.S. loan program.

Rick Santelli goes nuts again- time to get him nominated as the Fed Chairman

Rick Santelli went a little nuts this morning, in a rant (at the 5:40 mark) that easily qualifies in his Top 3 of all time. Rick gets wound up based on earlier disclosure by Bill Gross that if the government guarantee of the GSEs were removed, he would only participate in the mortgage market if there was 30% down payments by first time homebuyers (oh, and, tee hee, guess who will be present and providing "eye of the monopolist beholder" advice at next Tuesday's panel). As Rick summarizes: "the people holding, the Treasury or institutions, are locked up in this place where the subsidies can't come out; extrication is going to be difficult much less getting out of the way of anything they may do in the future." Yet what sets Rick off is the debate over why the Fed should not let housing crash to its fair value bottom, instead of artificially pushing rates lower and lower, which benefits nobody except those serial refinanciers who hope to lock in a 30 Year at 0.001%.

Interesting quote about the currrent financial crisis

“The U.S. turned 234 years old yesterday, and yet over half of the nation’s money supply was created since Helicopter Ben took over the flight controls four years ago. No wonder gold is in a full fledged bull market . . .”

-David A. Rosenberg Chief Economist & Strategist
Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc.

Ben Bernanke was Wrong

If Helicopter Ben was this wrong in the past, why should we believe anything that comes out of the little weasel's mouth now, when he says the economy is turning around.

White House fights to save Bernanke

Contact your Senators and let them know you want an up and down vote on Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill before they even consider Bernanke's reappointment as Fed Chairman.


White House fights to save Bernanke

Ponzi Scheme: The Federal Reserve Bought Approximately 80 Percent Of U.S. Treasury Securities Issued In 2009

Ponzi Scheme: The Federal Reserve Bought Approximately 80 Percent Of U.S. Treasury Securities Issued In 2009 Before It's News

Despite denials, Feds knew of Merrill bonuses

Yet, we are supposed to believe that the resssion is over, our money is safe and that our fiat currancy will never collapse because we are the good old U.S. of A.

Despite denials, Feds knew of Merrill bonuses

Alan Grayson Grills Federal Reserve Chairman Again

This Representative really gets it. By the way he is a Democrat.