Hedge Fund Falloff

Easter European and Former Soviet republics CEE current account deficits

Distressed Debt: A USD 10 trillion market

Global Credit Loss Estimates

Nouriel Roubini expects total credit market losses in this
credit downturn to build up to USD 3.6 trillion while the IMF
expects losses to mount to USD 2.2 trillion. I guess both remain
counting.

Both have updated their number in January and it is my
understanding that both are talking just about losses
from debt originated in the United States.

Given that this credit crisis is of a global nature I wonder
if anyone has an educated guess for a global credit loss number.

My simple guess would be a number in the area of USD 6-8 trillion.
We have seen about USD 1.07 trillion so far as per Bloomberg (WDCI).

My number would be about 7.5% to 10% of the USD 79.8 trillion
total world debt including public and private sector securities
as reported by IMF as per 2007.

At the same time World GDP was 54.5 trillion, total bank
assets where 84.78 trillion and stock market cap was 65 trillion
(we are below 30 trillion as per today)

International reserve assets (minus gold) are about 6.7 as per
Jannuary 2008.

Eastern European Bank Exposure

Description of a Great Depression

What is going on? READ HERE:

Obama protects the interests of Wall Street financial gamblers at the expense of taxpayers´ interests. Read about this pile of dirt!

Faced with the financial meltdown of the Great Depression, the Hoover administration created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation that poured taxpayers’ money into the coffers of the influential Wall Street banks in an effort to save them from bankruptcy. Like today’s Bush/Obama administrations, the Hoover administration used the “too-big-to-fail” scare tactic in order to justify the costly looting of the national treasury. All it did, however, was to simply postpone the day of reckoning: almost all of the banks failed after nearly three years of extremely costly bailouts schemes.

US vs EU economy and banking sector comparison

Some numbers to compare the european and US economies as well as the
size of their banking systems. To me this numbers suggest that european
banking problems are larger than those in the US.

The Mastermind neocon and former coldwarrior, Brzezinski: The US could witness riots

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security advisor, has warned that the US could witness riots if economy continues its downward spiral.

“There’s going to be growing conflict between the classes and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could be even riots!” said Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, in a recent interview with NBC.

The Obama Team has a big problem on their hands. The banks own congress just like they own the White House

Timothy Geithner. Geithner was picked as Treasury Secretary because he is a trusted ally of the big banks and has a good grasp of the intricacies of the financial system. The problem is that Geithner can’t handle the public relations part of his job. His big debut in prime-time last Tuesday turned out to be a complete dud. He was thoroughly unconvincing and looked like a nervous teenager at a speech contest.

He fizzled on stage for 25 minutes while the little red box in the corner of the TV screen–which shows the current Dow Jones Industrials–plummeted nearly 400 points. It was a total disaster and one that is sure to be repeated over and over as long as Geithner is at Treasury. Not everyone can be a charismatic orator like Obama and nothing short of a personality transplant will fix Geithner. He lacks gravitas and doesn’t inspire confidence. That’s a problem since, the administration’s main objective is to restore public confidence and get people spending again. They’re just shooting themselves in the foot by using him as their pitchman. Eventually, Geithner will either have to be tossed overboard or strapped to Obama like a papoose so he can share in the president’s popularity. Otherwise he will continue to be a millstone.