Rising Canadian dollar

Good article in the Montreal gazette, thought I would share. -Bradley

Loonie's rise made in U.S.A.



By JAY BRYAN, The Gazette October 14, 2010 With the Canadian dollar rising near parity with the U.S. greenback yesterday, it's reasonable to ask why this is happening and how far it can go.

While nobody has an entirely clear crystal ball, the answer is that we might see this period of currency strength last for several months, maybe longer. It depends largely on developments south of the border.

This is because the ultra-easy monetary policy of the U.S. is probably the single biggest reason for the loonie's apparent strength.

While Canada has real, durable economic advantages, they aren't enough to push our currency up as far and fast as it's moved in the past several weeks -a gain of about five cents since early September. It's more a case of shrinkage in the yardstick against which we measure our dollar: the once-mighty U.S. greenback.

How long will this be the case?

While we've seen the loonie rise to equality with the U.S. dollar before, it's not usually a long-lasting phenomenon. Canada's economy is far less productive than that of the U.S., and most economists would agree that the fundamental value of our currency is well below that of our big neighbour: maybe 85 to 90 cents.

On the other hand, a currency can stay far above or far below its fundamental value for years if flows of capital keep it there. During most of the 1990s and early 2000s, one could argue convincingly that the loonie should have been trading well above its market value, which was below 63 cents U.S. as recently as 2002.

About then, it began strengthening, until by late 2007, soaring global prices for oil and other resource products, which are big export earners for this country, helped to push our dollar several cents above parity for a few weeks.

It then hovered near parity through the first half of 2008 -until the global financial crisis brought it down to Earth with a thump.

With Canada enjoying a milder downturn and stronger recovery from the recession than the U.S., the loonie bounced from recession lows below 80 cents to hover in the high 90s most of this year, even touching parity briefly last April.

The dollar is now benefiting from rising belief that the U.S. Federal Reserve system is about to resume using a technique it tried in the depth of the financial crisis last year. It's known to economists as quantitative easing, but most people just call it printing money.

The idea is that if an economy doesn't perk up much once a central bank has cut interest rates as low as they can go, this is the major weapon it has left.

It can work largely because the only interest rates a central bank controls directly are short-term ones, but in a very tough economy, it can create new money in order to buy up longer-term bonds and other securities, forcing down longer-term rates, too.

The lower long-term rates could help support the deeply troubled U.S. housing market by making it even cheaper to take a mortgage loan and might also have some impact on businesses that need long-term funding in order to expand.

How does all this affect the Canadian dollar? Well, when it's clear that U.S. interest rates are going to stay low for a long time, the incentive for investors to look elsewhere for a better return on their money becomes pretty strong.

An investor looking for a two-year government bond recently could get 1.32 per cent on a Government of Canada issue, but only a paltry 0.35 per cent on an equivalent U.S. government bond.

This creates enormous pressure for funds to flow out of the U.S. and into countries with higher yields, like Canada.

As well, Canada's resource-heavy stock market has recently looked like an increasingly good bet as the price of commodities like oil and copper soared. Copper is up 32 per cent from its low point in July, calculates Diana Petramala, an economist with the Toronto-Dominion Bank.

How long will the party last? Petramala suspects that with the Bank of Canada likely to halt its campaign of rising interest rates next week, the flow of funds supporting the loonie could taper off, leaving it to subside a bit later this year.

But Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, thinks this could be a longer-lasting phenomenon.

The next round of quantitative easing in the U. S, which is likely to begin within another month or so, could have an impact that will last for many months. Meanwhile, resource prices remain strong.

Porter thinks this will maintain pressure on Canada's dollar to reach and surpass parity -he's guessing about $1.05, probably next year -although it's not clear how long this will last.

jbryan@montrealgazette.com.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Loonie+rise+made/3669514/story.html#ixzz12KufpnR2

US housing struggles

Got an e-mail this morning from Larry Levin, a popular investment trading expert. I thought you might find his information about the housing situation worth a read. In Canada (where I live) we are not seeing the same situations although the significant drop in real estate values can be seen in some of the most urban centres.
Here is an article which shows you what I am talking about:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Housing+much+longer/3444387/story.html

Back to the article of Larry Levin (just so you know he does have a free newsletter that sometimes has some really good material. Enjoy-

Housing Part III


I have already given the details of the two recent housing reports; however, today I'd like to give you "Rosie's" perspective today. Breakfast with Dave is always a good read.

Burning Down the House

Once again, the consensus was fooled. It was looking for 330k on new home sales for July and instead they sank to a record low of 276k units at an annual rate. And, just to add insult to injury, June was revised down, to 315k from 330k. Just as resales undercut the 2009 depressed low by 15%, new home sales have done so by 19%. Imagine that even with mortgage rates down 100 basis points in the past year to historic lows, not to mention at least eight different government programs to spur homeownership, home sales have undercut the recession lows by double-digits.

In the aftermath of a credit bubble burst and a massive asset deflation, trauma has set in. The rupture to confidence and spending from our central bankers’ and policymakers’ willingness to allow the prior credit cycle to go parabolic has come at a heavy price in terms of future economic performance. Attitudes towards discretionary spending, credit and housing have been altered, likely for a generation.

The scars have apparently not healed from the horrific experience with defaults, delinquencies and deleveraging of the past two years — talk about a horror flick in 3D. The number of unsold homes on the market exceeds four million and that does include the shadow bank inventory, which jumped 12% alone in August, according to the venerable housing analyst Ivy Zelman.

Nearly 1 in 4 of the population with a mortgage are “upside down” and as a result are now prisoners in their own home. We have over five million homeowners now either in the foreclosure process or seriously delinquent. The government’s HAMP program was supposed to bail out between 3 and 4 million distressed homeowners and instead we have only had a success rate of fewer than half a million.

Now back to the new home sales data. Every region in the U.S. was down, and down sharply. The homebuilders did not cut their inventory levels and as a result, the backlog of new homes surged to 9.1 months’ supply from 8.0 months in June, which means more discounting and margin squeeze is coming in the homebuilder space. As it stands, median new home prices were sliced 6% in July and this followed on the heels of a 4.7% drop in June. And, at $235,300, average new home prices are down to levels last seen in March 2003, down nearly 30% from the 2007 peak. If the truth be told, if we are talking about reversing all the bubble appreciation that began a decade ago, then we are talking about another 15% downside from here. The excess inventory data alone tell us that this has a realistic chance of occurring.



The high-end market, in particular, is under tremendous pressure. In fact, it is becoming non-existent. Guess how many homes prices above $750k managed to sell in July. Answer — zero, nada, rien; and for the second month in a row. Only 1,000 units priced above 500,000 moved last month. That’s it! Over 80% of the homes that the builders managed to sell were priced for under $300,000. Just another sign of how this remains a full-fledged buyers’ market — at least for the ones that can either afford to put down a downpayment or are creditworthy enough to secure a mortgage loan (keeping in mind that 25% of the household sector does have a sub-600 FICO score).

This is going to sound like a broken record but it took a decade of parabolic credit growth to get the U.S. economy into this deleveraging mess and there is clearly no painless “quick fix” towards bringing household debt into historical realignment with the level of assets and income to support the prevailing level of liabilities. We are talking about $6 trillion of excess debt that has to be extinguished, either by paying it down or by walking away from it (or having it socialized).

Trade well and follow the trend, not the so-called “experts.”

Behold the age of infinite moral hazard! On April 2nd, 2009 CONgress forced FASB to suspend rule 157 in favor of deceitful accounting for the TBTF banksters.


Larry Levin
larrylevin@tradingadvantage.com
Trading Advantage
(888) 755-3846__

Part 2: trading Covered Calls with LEAPs

OK, so let’s pretend that you have a general understanding of the “Covered Call”. Let’s mention just a couple items that you have to keep in mind before you start on this.

1- You must always be working in what is called “board lots” this means multiples of 100 shares. So, if you have 1 share of IBM stock that your grandpa gave you, you need 99 at least more to trade options on it. 1 contract means 100 shares worth of stock.

2- Make sure that you like the company that you trade Covered calls on. You might have this stock for a while, so if you hate the company, or what they do, don’t buy them. They are plenty of other companies. For example, I eat Kosher, so even Campfire Bacon company is making some great moves, I still don’t want my futures set on a company that I don’t ideologically support.

3- Principle 3: if you don’t understand what this company does, or how they make money, this is generally not one I want to be involved. I like to be able to know how my success is working. In these covered calls, I am owning a portion of a business (although there are other ways to do this as well, but that’s beyond this example). I have to feel confident how their success is coming.

4- You will also notice that options are not always available for all companies. These are usually only traded on larger companies, actively traded, significantly of interest to the public. For me, this is more often US companies, or a Canadian company that trades on a US exchange. This is hardly ever a ‘flash in the pan’ new penny stock.

Which brings me to my second possibility. What if you are dealing with a company that you want to trade options on, but the cost is high.

Case in point: Google (trade symbol GOOG) trades on the Nasdaq) and as of today is trading at 484.78 (business close: June 7). Personally I like this company, I think it could trade a lot higher (the trend however is going the exact wrong direction), but I will pretend for this, that it isn’t. However, 100 shares would cost me almost $50,000. That’s a substantial cost for 1 contract. But, let’s say I really wanted this. The trend is going the right way (remember, this is just an example, the trend is actually dropping a lot). Other indications are also looking positive, so I want to trade this company.



Also, although this chart comes from the program I use, almost every on-line trading program uses these types of charts. They may look different, but if you can get used to looking at them you will gain a lot of understanding.

There is a cheap way to get into this holding without the full cost investment. This is called a LEAP (Long term Equity Position). So, rather then buying the stock I actually buy an option far into the future, and then sell calls on this month over month.

To make this work, you need to understand the principle behind options. Every Option has two parts that make up it’s cost. The first is a built in value. For example, if you have a stock like GOOG and you want to buy the option for $450 (the stock is already trading higher then that, so the difference is it’s built in value). You would have to pay at least the difference between the “strike price” and the price the stock is trading for. (484.78- 450.00= $34.78) remember this is a per share price so in an option of 100 shares (single contract this is still $3478.00).

The other part of an option that makes it’s value is the “time value”. How long does it take before it expires. When an options expires, the time value reaches 0. It drops everyday until that expiration date. You can sure see this in the last few days before the option expires. However, if you have a very long term option (a year or two) there is so much time available that the time value is not really significant. It is mostly the embedded value that makes the difference.

So, let’s go back to our GOOG example. I can buy a Call for GOOG that expires in January 2012 (deep in the money) , a $350 strike point for $167.90. The reason you buy a deep in the money, is you want wiggle room. You don’t want a sudden drop in price that suddenly makes this not work for you. Back to our example, 167.90 for 1 contract is $16,790. It still costly, but not nearly as costly as owning the stock (almost $50,000).

So, now that you have the call, you can sell an option of the stock. In this case, you likely don’t want to really sell the stock. You actually want the ability for the system to create you money. So, I wouldn’t pick an option that is as likely. So, rather then sell a Call at 490.00. I would more likely sell an option at 500.00 or maybe 520.00. So, a June option for 500.00 would make 4.80 per contract (remember this is times 100 $480.00) for 8 days. If you don’t sell the stock (which we don’t really want to do), you turn around and sell an option for July, and August.

What happens if the stock does reach the strike price you set? Well, then you use your “option” to buy the stock cheap (LEAP) which should have also gone up in value to get your stock and then sell to the person who called you out of position. A bit of a pain, but certainly possible.

Your desire is to use this as a system to continue to make you money

What if you get tired of this stock. Maybe Google gets upstaged by some new company, or for some reason you just don’t want this trade anymore. All you have to do is sell of the option for whatever value is left. You chose to be deep in the money so as long as the stock is still trading higher then your option there will always be embedded value.

If you want to hear an audio on this, then listen to the “covered calls with LEAPs” pod cast. This is episode 99.
http://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail?pid=17574

Like I said before some good education…and the price is right (free). God’s continued grace to you and yours. -Brad

Line by line what I do for monthly income

I have been getting requests from friends to show the how of what I have been doing. My business is based on running an investment company. My company (entitle Financial Wisdom Inc.) has a trading account that buys and sells stock and options. There are about a million ways to do this, but I will show you line by line a real example that I am running.
The first tool I will explain is called a “covered call” I own some stock. Some I purchased simply to sell covered calls, some are leftover from my former employers (BMO and BNS). For this example I am using Crocs Inc.



My son (Noah)
and I were looking at stock and saw that this company had a nice positive trend. Basically while so many companies have stock prices going down or sideways (nowhere), this one was actually going up, and going up at a pretty good rate. There is a lot more analysis I did with my son, but this will show you what interested us. The price was also very attractive (about $10.00 a share). So, I bought 1000 shares (or $10,000 worth of the stock). To be honest, my entry price was $10.25. The stock is doing fine, but to be honest, I have no loyalty to the stock. I can keep the stock and sell it as it has an up day, but I am using a covered call plan.
If you sell an option, those options expire on the 3rd Saturday of the month. Yes, I know the markets are closed on Saturday, but that’s just the way it works. US options can be traded (called) at any point in time in the month until expiration. So, today is June 7. The June calls will end on June 19. Since I own this stock, I can sell a contract which says. “Hey, if this stock reaches a certain I price I will sell it to you at that price.” For this contract, people pay money. In my case, I have said I would sell my stock if the price (called the strike point) reaches $11.00 on or before June 19. Remember, I don’t care about holding this stock. If it sells, it sells. There isn’t a lot of time left until expiration, so I only got a price of ($.15) which is a fancy way of saying I got $.15 per share of stock or (.15 X 1000) in this case $150. Had I chose a longer expiration date (3rd week in July) I would have gotten $550.
Whatever happens, I got that money up front, and if I still have the stock on June 20th, I will sell another option for July, and August, and September until someone buys my stock.
I told my wife, it’s a lot like renting a house. I bought a house for $10,000 (you can only imagine what kind of house you could buy for that), buy as a slum rent lord, I am making $150 a month on my apartment. The bonus is not bad tenant. No backed up toilets in the middle of the night. No excuses for rent checks being late.
So, what can happen?
Best case would be: the stock goes to $11.00 If it goes past $11.00 then I will dump my stock at exactly $11.00. Now if the stock price goes to a million per share (no fear of that), then I will say…”bummer I guess I lost that opportunity”, but if the stock hits $11.01 on or before market close on June 18, then I will likely be called out of position. They will buy my stock. I will have made .75 per share ($750.00) plus the $150 up front money. Total $900. I made the money with a $10,000 investment, so my yield is actually 9%. That sounds pretty good, but you need to understand, that would be 9% in a 30 day time line. If, I could keep this up, my yield would be 9% times 12 months or 108% for the year. So my $10,000 would make $10,800 (and I would still have the $10,000. By the way, this it totally utopian. This is not likely to happen under any circumstances, but I am laying out the best case scenario.
Possibility 2: I think Croc (trade symbol CROX on the NASDQ exchange) will hit $11.00 maybe not by June 18, but sometime. If, we reach June 19 and we are still under $11.00, then I will make sure I have the same deal set up for July, and August etc. until my stock is sold. I collect my slum lord rent checks.
Possibility 3: Bought the stock at $10.25 what if the stock goes down. Can I still sell options on it? Yup. It helps to curb even a small amount of loss month over month.
Possibility 4: Crox appears to be a flash in the pan (maybe they are lying about the money they are making). Maybe no one really buys those cheap comfy sandals. Maybe everyone finds out about this at once by a CNN expose. The stock collapses and 0. In this case, I have lost my stake $10,000. I still get to keep the monthly premium until the stock has no value. By the way, I also don’t think this is likely.
There are many variations of how we do this, but I wanted to put this one out. If you can follow this, you can also understand some more advance plans that I will explain later.

U.S. inflation expected to decline further: BMO

This article taken from the Financial Post. It sounds good (limited inflation for US economy, but if you read the details as to the why, you see all is not as roseyas one might suspect. Enjoy, Brad

By John Shmuel May 31, 2010 – 10:35 am

Inflation in the U.S. remains weak and is expected to decline further despite a surprisingly solid American economic recovery, according to BMO Capital Markets analyst Sal Guatieri.

Core consumer prices have risen 0.9% year-over-year from 2009. Much of that has been bolstered by a 38.3% hike in gasoline prices during that period. Without gasoline, consumer prices have increased a mere 0.5%.

Mr. Guatieri notes that inflation will likely continue to decline further because of several stress factors on the economy. That includes a high unemployment rate which is keeping consumer spending in check.

“The unemployment rate is about four-to-five percentage points above its steady-inflation level. The current high rate discourages workers from demanding wage increases, while draining pricing power from retailers,” he writes in his report titled Deflation Déjà Vu. A high vacancy rate meanwhile will also drag down inflation.

“Rents should continue to soften in the wake of a near record-high 10.6% rental vacancy rate and record-high mortgage delinquencies and foreclosure inventories,” Mr. Guatieri notes.

The disinflation, as Mr. Guatieri refers to it, contrasts with gains made in Canada, where the inflation rate rose in April and retail prices surged.

Canada’s April inflation rate was 1.8%, compared with 1.4% in March, according to Statistics Canada. The April increase caused the country’s core rate to edge up to 1.9%.

Despite continuing decreases in inflation in the U.S., Mr. Guatieri highlights a number of factors will prevent deflation from taking root.

Some services, such as medical care and education, are not considered to be in excess supply and will keep balance out deflationary elements such as rental prices. Mr. Guatieri also highlights that expectations remain near the preferred 2% inflation rate. He also points to a rise in commodity prices due to global demand and an expected GDP growth number of 3% as reasons that will alleviate the downward pressure on deflation.

“All in, these factors will likely prevent CPI inflation from slipping below 1% and core inflation from breaching 0.5% this year, and could lift inflation slightly in 2011,” he writes in his report.


John Shmuel

US Mortgage Delinquencies Rose and Spread in Q1 | EconomyWatch.com

US Mortgage Delinquencies Rose and Spread in Q1 | EconomyWatch.com

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Really good article comparing Quebec and Greece

Great article, wish I had written it, but thought it would be good to share. Enjoy.

The disturbing similarities between Quebec and Greece

By Licia Corbela, Canwest News Service May 11, 2010 In Greece, citizens on average, retire at age of 58.

Germans, who are helping bail out the bankrupt Greeks, work on average until the age of 65. Naturally, German citizens are wondering how this can be considered fair. Why should they work seven years longer on average so Greek citizens can live a life of leisure and be less productive?

What's more, in Germany, most working people pay taxes. In Greece, only 20 per cent pay taxes. Again, unfair. And yet equalization between "have" European Union states and "have not" European Union states continues, even though it's not making things equal -- it's rewarding laziness, leisure and possibly even criminal tax evasion. Why pay taxes if some hard-working Germans will do it for you? Thus the riots in Greece. They believe they are entitled to those entitlements.

Dysfunctional? You bet. Canadians would never stand for such a thing, right? Think again.

Equalization in Canada was established to ensure that "have-not" regions could enjoy the same programs as "have" regions and most Canadians wouldn't quibble with that. But that has not happened. In fact, the reverse has occurred. The have provinces have fewer services than the have-nots.

According to a Dec. 2009 report by the Institute of Statistics of Quebec, Quebecers' average age of retirement is 62 whereas in the rest of Canada it is almost 65. While the Quebec Pension Plan and Canada Pension Plans are identical and carry the same penalties for collecting your pension earlier than 65, those who stop working earlier are less productive and contribute less to Canadian society in terms of income and taxes.

In light of the fact that Quebec received $8.6 billion in equalization payments in 2010-11 out of a total equalization pot of $14.4 billion, it's safe to say that citizens in Canada's "have" provinces -- British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario -- are paying for Quebecers' early retirement, as theirs is the only province which has such a generous, early retirement benefit.

In other words, equalization is not very equal.

What's more, Quebecers can take advantage of $7-a-day daycare, whereas, in most other provinces, $7 wouldn't even buy you an hour of daycare.

Quebec has a generous pharmaceutical program unlike any other in the country, and Quebec university students pay considerably less for tuition within Quebec than students from elsewhere in the country.

To attend McGill University in 2010, Quebec students pay $3,475 for tuition and fees. An out-of-province student attending McGill pays $7,008, or $3,533 more than a Quebec student -- more than double. Five of the six cheapest universities in Canada are in Quebec -- but they're only the cheapest for Quebecers. Those same universities are among the most expensive in Canada for non-Quebecers.

Sherbrooke has the lowest university tuition and fees in the entire country -- but again, only for Quebecers, who pay just $2,381. To attend the same university, a non-Quebecer, from Alberta, for instance, must pay $5,914 or $3,533 more than his Quebec colleague. When that Alberta student works through the summer in Alberta to save for tuition and living expenses, the taxes he or she will pay helps subsidize the Quebec student's tuition.

Lately, Quebecers such as Conservative MP Maxime Bernier have criticized Quebec's overreliance on equalization, saying Quebecers are "spoiled children."

That's got Quebec's provincial government fighting back. In its 2010-11 budget document, the Jean Charest government is arguing that it should receive even more equalization than it's getting because Alberta's oil industry is keeping the Canadian dollar high, which in turn harms Quebec's manufacturing sector. This is not a joke.

"A rise in the world price of a barrel of oil favours provinces that have that resource," states the budget document in Section E. "However, the rise in the Canadian dollar that accompanies the rising price of oil hampers the exports of the other provinces.

"An adequate equalization program can mitigate this phenomenon by increasing the revenues of provinces that are negatively affected by the rise in the dollar, without reducing the revenues of provinces that benefit from the higher price of oil."

In other words, Quebec, which received $8.6 billion of the $14.4 billion doled out in equalization this year, is arguing that it's not enough. It wants more and it blames Alberta's oil industry for its troubles. It's a curious argument since it can be argued that Alberta's oil industry is fuelling Canada's economy and largely provided the money was sent as equalization to Quebec.

In 2007, the last year Statistics Canada figures are available for all provinces, B.C., Alberta and Ontario were the only provinces that paid more into Confederation than they received. Alberta paid a total of $37.064 billion in taxes and transfers to the federal government and the feds returned $17.567 billion in services and programs, meaning that Alberta contributed $19.5 billion net to the rest of Canada.

But Charest, who complained in Copenhagen that Alberta's oilsands industry "embarrassed" him, is making the argument that despite Alberta's largesse, it's to blame for the trouble Quebec is in.

In short, it's all Greek to Quebec -- and that's frightening.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun


Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/disturbing+similarities+between+Quebec+Greece/3011792/story.html#ixzz0nixkfSjU

Credit Debt Swap

I ran across this article from a very good source (Newsweek) not some conspiratorial group. It put very well the concept of the Credit Debt Swap and how this is similar to the MBS which caused so much difficulty in the last economic woe.

By Daniel Gross | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Mar 17, 2010 | Updated: 5:43 p.m. ET Mar 17, 2010
Does it make sense to buy insurance against, say, a nuclear attack on Washington—if all the insurance providers' headquarters are inside the Beltway? Of course not. So why do investors buy insurance on U.S. government debt?
As many of us learned painfully during the economic meltdown, credit-default swaps are a form of insurance on financial instruments. They're contracts that pay off in the event that an entity fails to make good on its debt. You could, for example, pay a $2 premium to insure $100 in debt of, say, Lehman Bros. If Lehman goes Chapter 11, the party that sold the insurance pays $100 (or the difference between $100 and the amount Lehman can actually pay its creditors). Selling credit-default swaps is a fantastic business so long as the insured instruments or companies don't fail. That's what got AIG into so much trouble. It sold cheap protection on huge amounts of subprime mortgage bonds and collateralized debt obligations but never put money aside to make good on potential claims—leaving taxpayers on the hook to pay them off.
This brings us to the odd business of credit-default swaps on countries. In the sovereign credit-default swap market, investors can purchase (and trade) protection against the default of debt issued by governments, such as, say, Greece. In the wake of Greece's recent woes, there have been accusations that trading in CDS helped aggravate the crisis. Of course, Greece, it turns out, was never in real danger of defaulting on its debt—the notion that Europe's financial powers would have stood by while a euro-using country simply reneged on government debt was far-fetched.
So why bother with credit-default swaps on nations? CDS are a way of hedging existing positions: The value of CDS rise when the value of the bonds they insure fall. They can also be a cheap way of expressing a pessimistic view on countries' financial prospects without going to the trouble of selling short the bonds issued by the national government. Many people buying CDS for a country don't expect to collect the insurance, they expect to sell the insurance policy to somebody else. For investors, sovereign default swaps are not buy-and-hold insurance policies. They are a form of casino chip.
But in the long run, CDS only make sense as an asset class if they pay out in the event of default. This is why it's so curious that there is a market—albeit a small one—for credit default swaps on U.S. government debt. After all, if the U.S. government were to default, who would be able to pay the claims?
According to the Bureau of Public Debt, there is $8.15 trillion in U.S. government debt owned by the public. In addition, now that the United States has taken control of the failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government is formally standing behind the debts of those two entities, which surpass $5 trillion. Now, let's imagine a world in which the U.S. government, lacking the will to tax or cut spending, can't scrape up the cash to stay current on interest payments and can't roll over debt as it matures. That would trigger a huge decline in the value of treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. The balance sheet of every U.S. financial institution—JPMorgan, Goldman, Citi, your neighborhood bank, the Federal Reserve, money-market funds—would be decimated. There wouldn't be a single solvent bank, insurer, or company in the United States. The large multinational banks, which have significant U.S. operations and plenty of this stuff on their books, would likewise be wiped out. Oh, and foreign holders of U.S. debt—see this list topped by China and Japan—would be toast, too.
In this dystopia, who, precisely, would be able to make good on the insurance sold on U.S. government debt? The last time we had a set of events that were supposed to trigger large-scale payment of credit-default swaps, the system basically shut down. All the investors who bought insurance on financial instruments from AIG got paid off in full only because the U.S. government bailed the company out. Who would bail out the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve?
By definition, you can't collect an insurance payment on an entity that's too big too fail. That may help explain why the sovereign CDS market on U.S. debt is comparatively small. According to the Depository Trust and Clearing Company, there are about 415 contracts outstanding on about $2.25 billion in U.S. debt. That's tiny in comparison to the amount of total U.S. debt and in comparison to the market as a whole. According to DTCC, CDS on U.S. government debt are the 98th-largest position in the market today, between CDS on CenturyTel and Wal-Mart. By comparisons, investors have bought insurance worth $25 billion on Italy's debt, $15.6 billion on Spain's debt, and $6.4 billion on Bank of America's. (Here's more data and pricing on CDS form Markit.)
In 2008, we learned—or should have learned—that when a systemic crisis hits, hedges and insurance are worthless when the party on the other side of the table can't make good on its financial commitments. We learned—or should have learned—that much of the innovation that was touted as a new mode of investment, and as a spur to greater transparency, liquidity, and efficiency, turned out to be just another form of reckless gambling.
Daniel Gross is NEWSWEEK's economics editor and the author of Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation and Pop!: Why Bubbles Are Great For The Economy .
© 2010

A man after my own heart

Monday, I was listening to John Gormley Live in Saskatchewan and heart their guest David Trahair, an accountant who published a book called "Enough Bull". I have the link for the radio interview, but they have segmented this by hours (4th hour), and I thought that was a bit long of a segment to hear. The link I have listed is a video link from the same author. Basically, he thinks far too much time is wasted on setting up early retirement plans while ignoring paying down debt. Totally backward. Any rate, I though this guy was excellent and worthy of a listen. Brad

Every little thing is goin’ to be alright:

As parents, you wonder if you are properly impacting your children. It is the secret dread of parents, and although there are lots of chances where you see things that prove you are doing OK, it is the events which oppose your values expressed in your children that come to the front. In fact, these small events usually get talked about (sometimes loudly). These events are the subject of a child’s punishment, or special attention. These events worry a parent into sleepless nights.
Such has been one of my worries. I have over the last few years, due to a variety of circumstances, embraced simplicity and am trying to push excessive materialism out of my world. I am examining much of my world to find what is important and what is of limited value. What I found in this experiment was a value on things that were often free and/or of limited real cost. Value is a characteristic we add to an object.
Right now I am wearing one gold ring. The gold ring was the symbol of my marriage to my lovely wife. I have not weighted it, but since the value of gold has gone up, I imagine the value of that ring has also gone up. However, the real value of that ring is the representation of the marriage which is 18 years old this Spring. That is true regardless whether the price of gold goes up or down.
Of course, this emphasis against materialism is not always easy and I worried about how my children would respond. My daughters responded in kind. They caught our vision right away. The younger boys, to be honest were too young to think things were too different. My eldest son was my major concern. This week, we took a walk around town together to visit. My wife had bought me a new coat, and following the Biblical mandate, I was taking my old coat to a mission in hopes that they could give it to someone in need (John 3:11). I mentioned to him my concern. He and I were almost going in opposite directions. I was trying to de-accumulate while he was accumulating. Again, I am 39, he’s 15, so it’s not a shocker that “cool” plays a larger role in his world, and dressing the part of High School was vital to his existence. Our conversation was not harsh, just observational. It came and it went. I didn’t notice any real impact. My eldest has learned the “poker face”.
This week, I finished a book I was writing and sent it off for peer review, and am working through picking out a publisher. It is on a new design of how to flesh out the church. A significant portion of what I wrote centered on the fact that we have so neglected “the least of these” (Matthew 25). So, as I was putting some material together I found it was amazingly cost efficient to send a poor family in Asia a gift that would change their world. A pair of chickens (hen and rooster) would be as little as $11. This pair can produce up to 40 dozen eggs a year. If they let the eggs grow into chicks they can have a flock that can keep a family well fed for years. Eggs can also be traded. They are good currency to buy other stuff. Also, since an average family lives on $200/year, a couple chickens is generally a luxury that most people really can’t afford. They would have to starve themselves to save enough to buy the chickens
Goats, are another wonderful gift. $60 and you can have a goat sent. They will breed the goats. They normally have 2 babies (kids) a year, but they also produce milk which can be made into cheese. It’s a wonderful gift.
Or you can “have a cow, man!” $375 and you will change their world for years. Lots of milk, they can be bred for a full “cattle industry”, it’s a wonder.
If you remember the old Veggie-tale song “everybody’s got a water buffalo”, it sounded silly at the time, but a water buffalo is quoting from Gospel for Asia’s web site:

A gift of a water buffalo to a poor South Asian family is good news indeed! Transportation, plough animal, cart hauler, milk giver and more-all in one sturdy creature that is often considered a "member of the family."

How much would it take for everyone to have a water buffalo? $475. Maybe Phil Vischer was on to something.

So, I was talking to my children about this and the idea came up that we could pull our change together. Years ago, my family kept a jar out and we threw extra change into it and that became part of our vacation fund. Why not have a fund for “the least of our brethern”? I had a couple dollars in change, so I dumped it into the cup. One of my little boys threw in a “toonie”, which was a lot of money from the little guy. A couple other children threw in some change. We scouted around the house and got $3.50 in returned bottles. I was hoping we might have enough to buy a pair of chickens at the end of the week. We’d do it just before Sabbath, and we have a good deed done to start the day of rest.
My eldest son, grabbed his wallet and dumped a large wad of money in there. My wife and I stood silent. I am not talking a $10 or a $20, but well over $100, and then my second oldest daughter dumped another large sum of money she made. I was so moved I didn’t know what to say.
Later that day, I was alone with my son, and asked him…”what was up with that?” He said, in his usual, casual way, he’d figured he’d bought enough cool clothes and stuff for himself, he figured he could he could give some money to people who needed this just to have enough food to eat.
He’s done many things that have brought me joy, but I have to admit, I don’t think I have ever been so impressed with him as I was that moment. For just a second, I could see that maybe we were getting through. Perhaps, everything will be alright.
What will we do with the money? Right now, we have a decision to make. We might buy a cow (that would change a family and perhaps a village forever), or we might buy something like 30 pairs of chickens and impact 30 families for years, maybe forever. I think we will also spring for a water purifier (they are only $30) and that would turn poisoned water into drinkable water. For us, they are simple gestures, but for the “least of our brethern”, it will change the world.

A Childrren's book worth the read

A children’s book that may surprise you:

As I have mentioned before. I have 7 children, and in fact, as of just a couple days ago I now have 8. It’s amazing. Our newest addition is Josiah Ephraim. His name means “the Lord is my help” and Ephraim means “double blessing”. Certainly, he is that, as all the children are. Yet, that is not what I wanted to write about. I wanted to recommend a children’s book. My little boys (Noah, Shamus and Shimone and even Shemiel) love listening to me read stories. I have a bit of the actor flare, and they gather around like I was the best television show going. Years ago, my daughters started to read Barbara Parks book “Junie B. Jones” I overheard one on a book on tape and thought the concept was cute. Last week I started to read one of these books a day to the boys. They loved it.

Yesterday, I read Junie B. Jones is a Party Animal. Which is the 10th in that series. I would encourage anyone to read it. It will take about ½ an hour read at roughly Junie B.‘s communication speed. I was hoping I could find a book review that captures what I read, but I am afraid that seems to be difficult. Too many people talk about Barbara Park’s writing style (which is very creative) or general information about the story, but so far almost no one seems to center on the point.
In summary: Junie B. has a friend named Lucille. She lives with her wealthy Nanna. Lucille is self center, and not always a lot of fun, but she is one of Junie B.’s best friends. Junie B convinces Lucille that if she invites her and another friend over for a slumber party they could all help beg the rich Nanna for a poodle for Lucille. Lucille finds this will work.
The house and home is amazing, from “castle-like gate” to crystal and china, and flowers and silk. However, Junie realizes that the “shows” of wealth are in a world that is almost unliveable for her. She breaks a crystal glass, and stains the linen. She doesn’t understand that the amazing stuffed animals are just for looks. You can’t sit on a bed with a silk bedspread.
There are many things to make Lucille a “princess”, but this world makes Junie B. miserable. In the end, she goes and has breakfast of blueberry pancakes with her own Nanna’s house (who isn’t a “Richie Nanna”, and who was described by Junie B. earlier as a “dud”).
Junie B wants a plastic cup, and perhaps a plastic cereal bowl, but it’s not available. Lucille thrills at the wealth and has lived to survive in that environment. Junie B. (the character that we love and embrace) find herself standing away from the table alone eating a banana because that is all that she finds “safe”.
Silly children’s story, a bit like Aesop’s fable about the city mouse and country mouse. Yet, the truth is embedded there. If we choose to amass the images of wealth, we may have conversation pieces. We may have the admiration of some. We may even feel a bit better about our “comfort” with these images of wealth, but what do we really have?


Let’s pretend, I have an original Van Gogh oil painting in my house. It’s hung in the living room and a conversation piece for people. Can the children play in that room? Of course not! They might damage the painting. Do I have to get an incredible security system and extra insurance to protect my fine work of art? Absolutely! I may have to repaint or redesign the living room for my fabulous work of art, and if that happens I should do the same for the rest of the house. It doesn’t take too long before one can see that I am no longer the Master who owns a fine work of art. In fact, I am a servant to a painting from a dead guy. It’s worse then that, the painting (like almost all Van Gogh’s) had almost no value while he was alive. Van Gogh lived in poverty. Sometimes his friends might buy a painting just to make sure he had some money to live on. I didn’t even say whether the “van Gogh” was a painting that was “nice or good”. The value was perceived from others. Amazing… just pause to think. The painting (which could be in fact ugly) has taken me as it’s slave and forced me to live to serve it, and I willingly ran to embrace it.
It’s even scarier then that. This is true of art. It is true of almost all collections. We amass for comfort. We amass for the admiration of others. We buy Curio cabinets to show off our collections. We protect, and encase these dear precious things.
This last month, I heard of a man I knew who has lost his family (and why did they leave?) for many reasons, but one of the items that came out was there really was no room for his wife and his children and his DVD collection.
Jesus (Yeshua) said:

“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also.”

John the Baptist took the idea further:

“And he answered and said unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath food, let him do likewise.”

The idea is foreign to our world, but we might just find that it is necessary for the salvation of our very soul. Not your normal wealth concept, I know, but I think it might be one that was worthy to share.