Pater Tenebrarum's Blog

Even though it did not come entirely unexpected, the day has finally arrived. President Obama has decided to nominate Mel Watt instead of Ed DeMarco as the Director of the FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Administration).

Germany's constitutional court in Karlsruhe is traditionally buried in complaints with every major new decision concerning the bailout regime and every major new policy initiative by the ECB.

Italy finally has a new prime minister, Enrico Letta, who is expected to be supported both the center-left (its leader Bersani has recently resigned, as he was unable to get the bloc to vote for his choices for the job of president) and Berlusconi's center-right coalition.

Over the entire so-called 'recovery' and in spite of corporate profits reaching all time highs relative to total economic output, small business confidence in the US has failed to rise to any appreciable extent.

This is one to be savored…a prominent member of the highway robber brigade that is the French government has now been found to have squirreled money away in a bank account in Switzerland, after months of denials.

Last week saw a full court press in defense of the current money printing exercise. It started with Bernanke telling us the Fed is making the whole world happy … even if the world hasn't asked for it.

As our readers are no doubt aware, we have documented the strange dichotomy between stock market action and global economic fundamentals for some time. Obviously, increasing economic confidence due to massive money printing...

A headline from Reuters last week: "Blackstone eyes first-ever REO-to-rental securitization". I believe this marks the official arrival of Wall Street in the single family real estate market.

There is an interesting interview in 'Der Spiegel' with Luxembourg's prime minister and ex-euro-group chief J.C. Juncker. What is so remarkable about it is that Juncker seems to have realized that the one of the intentions that motivated the introduction of the euro has completely backfired...

Imagine the following: you read in a newspaper that a group of investors has sold US dollars to the tune of $820 million over the past two months for other currencies. This incidentally represents approximately 0.082% of the broad dollar money supply TMS-2 (which amounts to roughly $9.3 trillion at present).