Bill Gross Bets On Deflation

PIMCO's Bill Gross has a switch of heart. He has gone from hating treasuries to liking them. Please consider Pimco�s Gross Buys Treasuries Amid Deflation Concern.

Bill Gross, who runs the world�s biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said he�s been buying longer maturity Treasuries in recent weeks as protection against deflation.

�There has been significant flattening on the long end of the curve,� Gross said in an interview from Newport Beach, California, with Bloomberg Radio. �This reflects the re- emergence of deflationary fears. The U.S. is at the center of de-levering as opposed to accelerating growth.�

Gross had said during the midst of the credit crunch that Treasuries offered little value as investors seeking a refuge from turmoil in global financial markets drove yields to record lows in December. He boosted the $177.5 billion Total Return Fund�s investment in government-related bonds to 44 percent of assets, the most since August 2004, from 25 percent in July, according data released earlier this month on Pimco�s Web site. The fund cut mortgage debt to 38 percent from 47 percent.

Yield Curve Flattening



click on chart for sharper image

I am very familiar with the yield curve flattening. The above chart is one I run constantly, in real time, on my computer. The curve represents weekly closes. The flattening from the actual peak is even greater. The intraday high in the 10-Year Treasury Note is just over 4%.

What's The CPI?

Properly adjusted for housing, I have the real CPI as of July at -6.2%. That number is arrived at by substituting the Case-Shiller CPI for Owners Equivalent Rent (OER) in the CPI. Please see What's the Real CPI? for details.

Inquiring minds might also be interested in Real Treasury Yields Highest In History. If real treasury yields are high, it should be no wonder that Bill Gross in interested in them.

Rents Falling Everywhere

Given that the official measure of CPI is based on rents not housing prices, please consider the following collection of links courtesy of Lanser on Real Estate: Really? Rents fall almost everywhere.

• Manhattan:Apartment Rents Drop as Employers Cut Jobs
• Houston: Renters are snagging deals in a slowing local market
• Tuscon: On your mark, get set, go! Apartment firm makes game of it.
• Nashville: Apartment rates squeezed by lower demand
• Nationwide: Renters look for thirfty comfort, not style
• Tokyo: Apartment rents under pressure
• Middle East: 17% fall in rents seen in Qatar this year
• Orange County: O.C. renters get twice the freebies

Look for downward pressure on the official CPI because of falling rents.

As I have said before, the treasury market is increasingly skeptical of the reflation effort taking hold. Bill Gross is clearly in agreement.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

The Ins & Outs of DSLR Cameras

It can be difficult to choose a DSLR camera, all of your needs, whatever fits the occasion. Think about what types of photos you take, in most cases and select the DSLR camera on what your needs basis. If you know what type of photography that focus your attention to choosing the right camera for you to be much easier.

For example, the concentration on the images of nature means that you consider digital SLR cameras should come to itwith a larger optical zoom and the camera may be combined with a frame. This will insure that you can make the best shots when it comes to nature, even if the subject is a longer range.

If your desire makes sports photography, then you can use a digital SLR camera with a fast shutter speed, good focal length and a motor drive is fast coming to concentrate. You need speed if you want to quickly be able to photographs. In sport, the speed is very important, because otherwise you run the risklacking at the moment the time you take the photo.

If you prefer to travel and photography of architecture, you should buy a digital camera, lenses as wide as possible so you can avoid keystone correction, and to provide you with some extra space in the vicinity of the building she has photographed. This effect will be to publish the photo to see how the building will fall. Some digital SLR cameras are additional options such as shift or tilt control lenses, which is being updatedIssue.

The case is different if you do look around the underwater photography. In this case, you need a couple of obvious possibilities: camera housing, underwater and digital SLR cameras that are water-works. In some cases, the price for a camera that works under water is smaller than a normal digital camera. The disadvantage is that underwater digital cameras will have a smaller resolution. While you can store more pictures if the quality is lower, it also means that you do not or can not zoomso many things with which photos.

Finally, you consider your own requirements from a digital SLR camera. Choose the model that everything you buy from him and it will do.

types-breast-cancer

The Ins & Outs of DSLR Cameras

It can be difficult to choose a DSLR camera, all of your needs, whatever fits the occasion. Think about what types of photos you take, in most cases and select the DSLR camera on what your needs basis. If you know what type of photography that focus your attention to choosing the right camera for you to be much easier.

For example, the concentration on the images of nature means that you consider digital SLR cameras should come to itwith a larger optical zoom and the camera may be combined with a frame. This will insure that you can make the best shots when it comes to nature, even if the subject is a longer range.

If your desire makes sports photography, then you can use a digital SLR camera with a fast shutter speed, good focal length and a motor drive is fast coming to concentrate. You need speed if you want to quickly be able to photographs. In sport, the speed is very important, because otherwise you run the risklacking at the moment the time you take the photo.

If you prefer to travel and photography of architecture, you should buy a digital camera, lenses as wide as possible so you can avoid keystone correction, and to provide you with some extra space in the vicinity of the building she has photographed. This effect will be to publish the photo to see how the building will fall. Some digital SLR cameras are additional options such as shift or tilt control lenses, which is being updatedIssue.

The case is different if you do look around the underwater photography. In this case, you need a couple of obvious possibilities: camera housing, underwater and digital SLR cameras that are water-works. In some cases, the price for a camera that works under water is smaller than a normal digital camera. The disadvantage is that underwater digital cameras will have a smaller resolution. While you can store more pictures if the quality is lower, it also means that you do not or can not zoomso many things with which photos.

Finally, you consider your own requirements from a digital SLR camera. Choose the model that everything you buy from him and it will do.

types-breast-cancer

How to draw Captain America, video and step by step.

How to draw Captain America, video and step by step. Learn how to draw comics characters series #004.

Drawing and sketching Comics Super Hero Captain America. A video series of drawing comic book characters will hopefully help you gain knowledge of anatomy and dynamics in the positioning of the figure and the details. The more you watch and draw, the more you will get better. :)

There are more videos on drawing comics characters series if you like to watch more go to How to draw comics superhero spiderman -This one is more stylize and dynamic pose drawing, How to draw comics character Hulk -This one has two part, drawing and coloring, "How to draw comics character Hulk 001" -more Hulk drawing...more like my first Hulk drawing there. There are also everyone's favorite How to draw Batman or Darknight. Enjoy
If you are interested in studying muscles and human anatomy briefly, we do have Drawing body muscle torso anatomy video & step by step and Drawing arm muscles bicep tricep video. Have fun watching.

A bit about Captain America, he was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Captain America was the alter ego of Steve Rogers, a sickly young man who was enhanced to the peak of human perfection by an experimental serum in order to aid the United States war effort. Captain America wears a costume that bears an American flag motif, and is armed with an indestructible shield that can be thrown as a weapon.

An intentionally patriotic creation who was often depicted fighting the Axis powers of World War II, Captain America was Timely Comics' most popular character during the wartime period. After the war ended, the character's popularity waned and he disappeared by the 1950s

Final quick sketch of Captain America

"I'm loyal to nothing...except the Dream." -Captain America

Here are step by step drawing Captain America tutorial:


Watch Drawing video tutorial: How to draw Captain America

Here is another Captain America Sketch:

Here are step by step drawing Captain America tutorial:


And another How to draw comics #007 Drawing Captain America:




FEATURE TUTORIALS: *Over 60 minutes to 2 hours of video.



-Draw and Paint Women Body Tutorial I: Female Manga Fusion I
-Draw and Paint Women Body Tutorial II: Female Manga Fusion II
-Character Design Tutorial: Dark Valkyrie

Economic Madness Is Repeatedly Endless

Demand for goods and services in Japan are plunging. Please consider Japan�s Deflation Deepens as Prices Fall Record 2.4%.

Japan�s consumer prices fell the most in at least 38 years in August, heightening the risk that prolonged deflation may hamper the country�s recovery from its deepest postwar recession.

Prices excluding fresh food slid 2.4 percent from a year earlier, topping July�s 2.2 percent decline, the statistics bureau said today in Tokyo. The drop, the sharpest since the survey began in 1971, matched economists� estimates.

�We�ll soon start to see that there isn�t enough domestic demand to push up wages,� said Kyohei Morita, chief economist at Barclays Capital in Tokyo. �As households� spending power falls, there�s concern that this deflation will lead to further deflation -- in other words, that we�ll enter into a deflationary spiral.�

Much of the drop in prices reflects last year�s peak in oil costs. Crude reached an unprecedented $147.27 a barrel last July, and has dropped more than 50 percent since then.

The oil effect �will diminish over the next few months, quite quickly,� said Richard Jerram, chief economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Tokyo. Even so, Jerram expects prices will keep falling for at least another three years as the country enters a period of �persistent deflation.�

Economic Madness Over Pork Prices

In what amounts to economic madness, Japan to Buy Domestic Pork to Boost Prices After Demand Drops.

Japan, the world�s largest pork importer, will purchase about 70,000 swine carcasses from local herds to boost prices after an economic slump cut consumption and sent stockpiles of the meat to the highest level in 20 years.

The government will spend 292.9 million yen ($3.3 million) on the purchasing program, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said in a statement today.

Pork wholesale prices plunged 26 percent from a year earlier to 380 yen a kilogram on average this month in Tokyo, according to government data. Consumers are eating less meat as the recession cut wages and boosted unemployment. Japan�s price- support measure may benefit exporters such as the U.S., Canada and Denmark as the domestic premium over imports may widen.

Japan�s pork imports dropped 14 percent from a year earlier to 61,981 tons in July, according to data from the Finance Ministry. Purchases declined as Japanese demand shifted to cheaper food products such as chicken amid deflation, Fujii said in an interview today. In the year ended March 31, Japan imported 815,063 tons of pork, up 8 percent from a year earlier.

Mad Facts

• The Japanese Government is buying 70,000 swine carcasses even though stockpiles are the highest in 20 years.
• Japan is the world's largest pork importer, stockpiling supplies.
• Japanese consumers are switching to chicken because it is cheaper.
• Japan's "remedy" is an attempt to force pork prices higher.

Does this make any sense at any level?

Japan Ponders Currency Intervention

Currency intervention, like pork intervention, like gold manipulation cannot possibly work. Yet Japan never learns.

Please consider Fujii Denies Support for Strong Yen in Reversal of Rhetoric.

Japanese Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said the government may act to stabilize the foreign-exchange market and denied that he supported a stronger yen, a day after the currency surged to an eight-month high.

�If the currency market moves abnormally, we may take necessary steps in the national interest,� Fujii said at a news conference in Tokyo today.

Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan said today that currency markets should be �as stable as possible� and he�s �carefully� monitoring the effect of yen moves on the economy.

Eiji Hirano, a former Bank of Japan executive director, said Fujii intends to retain the option of selling the yen should it gain excessively.

Japan hasn�t stepped into the foreign-exchange market since the first quarter of 2004, when the central bank at the behest of the Finance Ministry sold a record 14.8 trillion yen ($165 billion) to weaken the currency.

Currency Intervention And Other Conspiracies

Inquiring minds will want to consider Currency Intervention And Other Conspiracies for a flashback look at August 11, 2008.

At the time there was widely held belief in US dollar intervention, Euro intervention, and gold intervention (there is always belief in gold and silver intervention). I disagreed that intervention was the cause of the dollar rally and so did Marc Faber.

Here is a snip from the article about Yen manipulation.

Yen vs. Japan's Intervention 2003-2004



click on chart for sharper image

If ever there was proof of the absurdity of currency interventions there it is. Ironically the Yen started plunging shortly after Japan stopped trying to force down the value of the Yen.

So now we are supposed to believe the dollar rallied because of a so called "massive" one time 10 billion Euro trade when Japan produced negative results after spending $300 billion over the course of 7 months!?

Here we go again!

Economic Madness Is Repeatedly Endless.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Gold Manipulation Smoking Gun?

Numerous people have asked me to comment on the Zero Hedge article Exclusive Smoking Gun: The Fed On Gold Manipulation.

The "Smoking Gun" is a now declassified document about gold, sent to president Gerald Ford on June 3, 1975 by Arthur Burns, chairman of the Fed from 1970 to 1978.

The document concerns the "broad question as to whether central banks and governments should be free to buy gold, from one another or from the private market, at market related prices"

Market prices at the time were $160-$175 and the official price was $42.22 per ounce.

Arthur Burns states "It is an open secret among central bankers that, at a later date, the French and some others may well want to stabilize the market price within some range".

Arthur Burns also states "The Federal Reserve has sought to avoid taking a rigid position", while going "some distance to try and conciliate the French view". Yet... "If we do ever acceded to French views on gold, we should at least use our bargaining leverage to some major political advantage".

Finally Burns states "All in all I am convinced that by far the best position for us to take at this time is to resist arrangements that provide wide latitude for central banks to purchase gold at market-related prices."

Shocking Revelation?

Burns sought an agreement whereby central bankers and governments would not buy gold at market prices. Because gold prices never traded at $42.22 again, essentially that was an agreement to not buy gold.

After Nixon closed the gold window, why is it such a revelation that events like this happened? Did any governments cheat?

The most interesting thing in the document was Burns' willingness to bargain for "political advantage". However, the idea that governments are lying manipulators willing to sell their soul for the right political advantage can hardly be a considered a startling revelation.

Smoking Gun or Historical Footnote?

The importance of this document is only in the historical sense in that it helps shows us how the move toward an irredeemable fiat currency evolved around that time.

The document has no direct bearing on what is happening today, although it remains true that gold is the enemy of the welfare warfare state and its central banks.

The so-called "smoking gun" of 1975 is much to do about nothing. It is nothing more than a historical footnote with little current relevance.

Misplaced Fears

If governments today are still acting to suppress the price of gold by the same methods, let's have more of them because they clearly aren't working.

Given that the price of gold is roughly $1,000 an ounce, it goes to show that governments are not bigger than the market, and that such manipulation (even if it does still exist) can never work in the long run.

The fear should not be of government to government agreements that can never work in practice, but rather a fear that governments may tax gold sales profits at some phenomenal rate, thereby effectively confiscating gold a second time.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Architects Hawking Cars

Flipping through October's Architectural Digest, "The Architecture Issue," a couple advertisements stood out, each using architecture and architects to sell cars.

The first is a two-page spread for Lexus, its HS Hybrid sitting in front of a Richard Meier sketch of his "much-anticipated Italcementi Innovation and Technology Central Laboratory" in northern Italy. The fairly ho-hum sketch is accompanied by text that boasts the lab "will be built of TX Active concrete that will 'eat' smog and significantly reduce pollution caused by car emissions and industrial activities." Not surprisingly the pollution-mitigating cement was developed by Italcementi and tried out on Meier's Jubilee Church in Rome. The ad's text further states that the other features of Meier's building (insulated low-e glass, geothermal, solar energy systems) will supposedly "provide close to total energy self-sufficiency."



The second ad is one of those "special advertising sections" laid out like a magazine feature, fooling us into reading the content as if it didn't exist solely to sell a product. Across four pages the reader is shown the winners of Maserati's 2009 "nationwide call for entries of garages in which a Maserati might feel at home." Most of the photos are of the existing garage winner, Holger Schubert of Archisis (the other winner, in the conceptual category is shown in the gray box at bottom right). The 1,200sf (111sm) garage is the first of five for the L.A. architect's canyonside residence; it literally looks like a home for the car. A bridge gives access to the glass-walled garage. Features inside include radiant concrete floors, mechanically operated window screens, a library with homasote walls, some designer furniture and a ramp that raises six inches to allow Schubert to pull out of the garage without starting the engine. The top-right image shows that not only does the architect give the car a view he also gives onlookers a view of his car.



That architecture and architects are being used to sell cars does not surprise me; it is something I documented in 2005. Nor am I taken aback that it is done in these manners. Design and its relationships to the environment, in the first case, and luxury, in the second, are shared by both the building and car industries. And, while further differences between the two ads include the celebrity stature of one architect and the relative lack of name recognition of the other, they share a certain optimism about the future of architecture and cars. Sustainability, creativity and a drive (pardon the pun) to improve our situation links these two realms. Now if only architects could be paired up in advertising with bicycles or public transportation.