Labor Day Thoughts

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has an interesting piece out today on his blog regarding the state of the labor force and the overall economy ahead of Labor Day. While I disagree with a number of his interpretations and prescriptions, he does share a few thought-provoking things. Many have been repeated over and over, while some are under-discussed:
-Laments both poor private job creation and low % of union representation in the private sector
-The "standard" prescription has not worked: stimulus, ZIRP, tax credits to small businesses, low yileds

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Stock.ly unveils new algorithm

I want to start this blog post with a sincere thank you to all of you that have been using stock.ly and supported the site. Our user base is growing 30% week over week and the site just passed 200k click throughs. That literally means that there has been 200k clicks on stock.ly shortened URLs! Keep in mind this has all happened in 9 weeks time with no capital raises.

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Mariner Energy Explosion

The USCG reports that an oil rig owned by Mariner Energy has exploded. It is being reported that 13 people were on the rig that was operating south of Grand Isle, Louisiana. The US Coast Guard is on the scene and we hope to know more soon.

UPDATE: From CNN "Oil rig is Vermilion Oil rig 380 owned by Mariner Energy."

Put activity increased significantly on Mariner Energy (ME) once the news hit the markets.

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GET TOUGH OR DIE SOB.........

In advance of Hurricane Earl, I spent the day staining decks at the homestead like most real market participants,(OK most big hitters are in the Hampton's nursing Mojitos) and today found us largely flat as mentioned here. Lets face it kids, today's euphoric money shot leaves us exactly nowhere but in the middle of a trading grange. With All major indexes still negative on the year, having essentially been sodomized since April, we will give you a quiet golf clap on today but, little else.

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Learning to Say Deflation In Arabic

I'm sure I could look it up online and learn how to actually say it, but this isn't a post about learning Arabic (According to Google Translate, it's “al-Ankmash;” long a's please, if you're going to enunciate it properly). No, this is about the latest and greatest news involving Dubai World. From Reuters:

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10 Things To Do When Buying A Rental Property

I’m writing this to follow up on my blog (Click to read) describing my experience investing in a rental property. If my last blog caught your interest in rental properties, than this list is for you.

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20 must follow investors on Stock.ly/Twitter

It has been a while since I have wrote my must follow list, but tonight I am reminded of the awesome people in the stream sharing day in and day out. My list has several different unique personalities and investor types. I think everyone can find something from this list.

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SHOW ME THE MONEY!

I am sincerely hoping that His Eminence Chairman Ben Bernanke gets a good nights sleep and eats his Wheaties tomorrow morning before the big event. With most economic numbers coming out bad of Biblical proportions and a market once again sliding into the abyss, it will take more than happy talk and fairy dust to turn this market around. Forget some artfully crafted speech and the inversion of a few words or the addition of a semi colon in to some boiler plate verbiage.

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Some Other Risk Metrics

While I normally talk about rates in relation to currencies which I in turn talk about in relation to gold, there are some other metrics I use. Sometimes they get related to other assets, other times not. In the case of these two, I’m just looking at interest rate spreads that are meaningful to me.

The first one is the spread between 2yr Treasuries and 3mth USD Libor:

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The Happy Bear Meets Eddie Mush

As  pessimism grows particularly amongst the former smug perma Bull types, I can't help but think of this scene from A Bronx Tale

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One of the "I's" in PIIGS

By now, I hope you know the term "PIIGS" refers to the five most troubled members of the EuroZone. Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. We already know that Greece was "bailed out," although current CDS levels on Greece do not imply all is just dandy.

Below I have inserted a very neat chart that I found showing the Euro debt crisis in pictures. It shows who owes what and to whom. Take a closer look before we move on. Here is a link so that you can view it in full size http://stock.ly/75xbq6.

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MS note of interest

Morgan Stanley had an interesting note out today discussing the fact that it is NOT if governments default, it is simply a matter of when. Said note is posted below and rather ranting and giving you my thoughts on the issue, I will simply let you read it and formulate your own.

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I'm Taking on the Bond Bubble

Well, not really. It's more like I'm taking on the bubble in talk about bond bubbles. And yes, it feels like there's a bubble in the talk about whether or not the bond market is in a bubble phase. So with that, I'm going to dissect some commentary, draw some parallels, and see if we can make some sense of this milieu.

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Dear Perma Bulls.........

Get back in there at once and SELL......SELL!

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As the IBORs Turn: Rate Recap Week of 8-16

Consider this an abridged recap, which is appropriate since this is expected to be a light week. Summer vacations are the prime activity for many, and who am I to blame them? First, a look at USD Libor rates across the maturities on the Libor curve:

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