Building the Next Bailout...and BUST

TWS:

In July, Illinois went to market with a $900 million BAB issue that attracted 93 investors, including 17 from overseas. The international investors accounted for about 30 percent of the offering. Illinois state officials even joined their underwriters, Citigroup, on a road show through Europe and Asia to drum up interest in the sale.

Setting up the next bust in Illinois and around the country.

Screwing up the current one. From e21 Morning eBrief:

In Foreclosure Controversy, Problems Run Deeper Than Flawed Paperwork (Round Up)

Millions of U.S. mortgages have been shuttled around the global financial system - sold and resold by firms - without the documents that traditionally prove who legally owns the loans. Now, as many of these loans have fallen into default and banks have sought to seize homes, judges around the country have increasingly ruled that lenders had no right to foreclose, because they lacked clear title. The court decisions, should they continue to spread, could call into doubt the ownership of mortgages throughout the country, raising urgent challenges for both the real estate market and the wider financial system. The White House has announced that President Obama will pocket veto H.R. 3808 which would have allowed banks to shortcut the current notarization process. See Alphaville for and the Washington Post for more more.

Goldman Sachs: The US Economy Is Weaker Than You Think (Seeking Alpha)

Goldman Sachs issued a very bullish note on the Euro this morning. Not because they think Europe is entering a period of robust growth. No, in fact they reduced their estimates for European growth based on the recent Euro strength; however, they see the U.S. economy simply deteriorating more than Europe. The chart in this presentation that jumped out was the ISM’s index compared to the orders & inventories. The orders and inventories data shows a very strong leading indication of future ISM growth. Currently, the orders and inventories data is forecasting ISM readings in the low 40s.

Peggy Noonan on Greece and America's reaction:

Mr. Lewis: "The Greek state was not just corrupt but also corrupting. Once you saw how it worked you could understand a phenomenon which otherwise made no sense at all: the difficulty Greek people have saying a kind word about one another. . . . Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate. And this total absence of faith in one another is self-reinforcing. The epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing makes any sort of civic life impossible."

Thus can great nations, great cultures, disintegrate, break into little pieces that no longer cohere into a whole.

Read it all.

Outrage. Outrage.

This election is so damned important.

Related post: Obama Desperately Trying to Save His Own Senate Seat