25 Comments

Thank you, Mark for staying with the real story that is brilliantly laid out by TL. What do all the poster here who doubted, have to say now? Would you all like some sauce with your CROW?

Expand full comment

Thank you, Mark for staying with the real story that is brilliantly laid out by TL. What do all the poster here who doubted, have to say now? Would you all like some sauce with your CROW?

Expand full comment

Wow. This post and its links has been very illuminating. More and more pieces of the puzzle falling into place. If this is an accurate analysis of what’s really going on, it’s, dare I say, darned encouraging. So the Fed got control of the faucet? The faucet that gushed out countless “leveraged recycled offshore dollars coming back into the country to fund NGOs, summers of violence, politically connected AG campaigns, buying elections, vote fraud… migrant trains, fentanyl trade, the whole nine yards”? With the globalist commie cabal in control of just about every major power center in the entire West, J. Powell may be the last man standing against them. If so, he’s certainly in the right position as Fed chairman. TL concedes there are other faucets, but he got three of them, bound to put a considerable dent in the corrupt money flows. Still don’t know if it’ll be enough to turn the tide but we’ll see. If nothing else, it’s a great start - take away the money and you take away the power.

Expand full comment

If the enemy of my enemy is my friend...does that mean Jay Powell and Vlad Putin are besties?

Expand full comment

SVB loans - sorta like a home equity loan- they keep the money while you draw it out.

But it makes no sense for a borrower to put it back in the bank (any bank) - they pay you 0.05%; you pay them 5% (assuming that's what the Big Guys can get).

Expand full comment

The borrowers, startup companies, would use the money to grow the business - the contract was that in the meantime the cash had to be deposited at SVB - which then went and lent it again, and so on.

A leveraged ponzi, that existed only because of ZIRP (0% interest money) - and ZIRP conditions existed because of LIBOR (meaning that Europe unilaterally had a leash on the Fed).

Luongo's take is that the creation of SOFR removed that leash, allowing the Fed to leave ZIRP behind.

Expand full comment
author

I do find his explanation convincing.

Expand full comment
author

Really amazing level of corruption and pure audacity from beginning to end with SVB. But then Signature was much the same. I'm kind of dumbfounded at the lack of oversight. Where were the auditors? Were they given unsecured loans, too, to keep quiet?

Expand full comment

On a possibly related note (at least wrt the global financial war), did anyone see the March 19th article in Medium about Europe siphoning trillions of dollars from the US stock market via naked short-selling? I can't say I understood a whole lot of it...

Expand full comment

I had a Joe Kennedy in the elevator moment recently when I went to the local Philadelphia area credit union financing my new SUV purchase to open a savings account (accounts to lower my rate was the deal). The place was packed, and I had to wait for someone to help me, so I listened. Literally everyone was opening a savings account paying 3.25% (not as high as MMFs but hey....) Cash massively moving into this institution, and this must be happening all over the US. Disinflationary? I think so. JPow at work.

Expand full comment

I wonder if that money might have been coming from Banks.....

Expand full comment

Probably. The banks are not paying as much in PHL area, but the new Fed back up facility should free up more flexibility since the regionals won’t have to worry about UST holes in their balance sheet. I had a banker actually reach out to me about 3 weeks ago to put transfer savings account to their MMF. Who does that, not a huge account.

Expand full comment
author

Danielle DiMartino Booth

@DiMartinoBooth

HEADLINE ALERT

*FIRST REPUBLIC RESCUE MAY RELY ON US BACKING TO FACILITATE DEAL

(Has JY just tacitly asked JP to be a nice boy and not hike?)

Expand full comment

TL is right.

Expand full comment

Tom, bless him, does like his big, convoluted big conspiracies. Maybe he's right, but from my lowly vantage point, the impression I have is that most of the big players are totally overwhelmed by the scale of events and are flying by the seat of their pants. If Powell holds out against the massive pressure that is coming his way to restart QE, then I'll give Tom his fair due.

Expand full comment

TL was correct and you were wrong. I told you.

Expand full comment

We shall see.

Expand full comment
author

C'mon, man--out on the limb with the rest of us!

Expand full comment

I'm there already, Mark - along with the rest of the human race!

Expand full comment

Tom Luongo’s most recent blog post adds some details:

https://tomluongo.me/2023/03/21/fdic-insurance-credit-suisse-day-fed-killed-europ/

As well as a patreon post he made public:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/79871723

The CS deal Tom posits killed the AT1/coco tranche/ bonds, that were backstopping EU Banks for their capital requirements.

Expand full comment

Totally eye opening about the CoCos as a trap. Move Countermove. This is like watching a banker war movie in real time, sovereigntists v. Globalists. 25bps, 50 bps or none today, trust in and root for JayPow.

Expand full comment

Fascinating about the CoCos. Particularly "Only the AT1 bonds of Credit Suisse and UBS Group AG have language in their terms that allows for a permanent write-down and most other banks in Europe and the UK have more protections." Did the Swiss foresee this possibility ahead of time and want to protect their banks from the EU banks?

I hope Luongo is right that this event will dissuade the use of "permanent bonds" generally but given that the provisions appear to be different for other banks than for CS and UBS, I wonder.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment
author

Yes, I'm fighting some sort of bug but I read that this morning and liked it very much.. It's domestic in orientation, as usual, but presents things in an easy to understand way. Powell is simply the guy showing some courage and trying to clean up a mess that he inherited. From his words and actions as presented by DDB he clearly isn't simply in the pocket of the big banks.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Expand full comment

Sounds defeatist to me.

Expand full comment