It’s worth noting that Monday’s auction for 3-year debt was met with ravenous, near-record demand and that Tuesday’s 10-year sale met a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.8… historically high for the 10-year, but not even close to the 3.3 ratio for the shorter dated bonds the day before.

“The market is sending many errant signals right now,” notes Dan Amoss. “U.S. policymakers are trying to reinflate stocks, houses and wages, while also recapitalizing an undercapitalized banking system with overt and covert subsidies. All of these actions are extraordinarily costly — so costly that creditors are getting nervous.

For the rest of the article, read Ian Mathias at The Daily Reckoning.

“The Chicago Fed’s national activity index,” notes our macro adviser and fellow data dork Rob Parenteau, “continues to point to a second-half 2009 real GDP recovery. With the September release, investors focused on the index — a composite of more than 80 monthly indicators that provides a reasonably good proxy for real GDP momentum — slipping to -0.9 from -0.46 the month before. We have never seen this index climb consistently straight up after a recession month after month, and this decline is well within the range of monthly variation we tend to observe in this series.

“To be sure, growth above the long-term real GDP trend is not signaled until this index crosses the zero threshold. Typically, it takes until year two of a recovery to get there. Right now, all we are shooting for is growth, rather than recession. As displayed below, year-over-year growth at a 1.5-2% real GDP pace is within reach by year-end, given the sharp V-shaped recovery in the Chicago Fed index to date. We believe this will be sufficient to bring actual inventory accumulation into view in Q1, which can carry the economy in to midyear 2010 or so, at which point the unwinding of the fiscal stimulus becomes more of an issue.

“We continue to believe that is much more of a second-half 2010 concern, when the fiscal tide starts to go out, revealing a U.S. private sector that will still be leery of adding to its existing debt and will still be very keen on keeping spending growth below income growth.”

Source: We’re Back to Growth… For Now

So with some historic irony, one year and two weeks after Lehman Bros. bit the dust, another debt-burdened, credit-reliant, potentially “too big to fail” institution is looking to either stick its bondholders with a raw deal or enter sudden bankruptcy. We won’t pretend to know exactly how this one will end, but the market has certainly voiced its opinion:

Heh, and of course, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) has a horse in this race. They stand to make about a billion bucks if CIT goes into bankruptcy — the fruits of a smartly designed loan agreement. Hank Paulson, despite his GS pedigree, didn’t make such a deal when he put $2.3 billion in TARP funds on the line… a CIT bankruptcy would mean a near-total loss of taxpayer bailout loans.

CIT is one of the biggest lending sources for small- and medium-size business in America… what happens to this recovery when this well runs dry?

With or without CIT, “The real job creators in the U.S. economy, small businesses, will not expand hiring as expected,” forecasts Dan Amoss. “There are many reasons for subdued hiring plans; an emerging reason to avoid expansion and hiring will be heightened expectations that tax rates will soar in the future to pay for out-of-control government spending.

“So I expect over the next several months, mainstream pundits and forecasters will start worrying about tepid hiring, even as the pace of job losses slows. As we ‘lap’ the 2009 corporate cost cutting by early 2010, and top lines fail to rebound, earnings estimates will have to come back down. I’m amazed at how many sell-side analysts are modeling V-shaped recoveries in 2010 earnings. Most stock prices are disconnected from reality…

“The labor market is dealing with a structural imbalance fueled by government-sponsored housing and credit bubbles. Many will call for the government to ‘solve’ this labor market problem, which will cause a new type of market dislocation. By early 2010, some will push for the federal government to start hiring the chronically unemployed in ‘New Deal’ types of programs.”

Source: The Lehman of 2009

As always, the drama’s in the details. “Cash for clunkers” was by far the biggest driver of new spending, almost single-handedly pumping up durable goods orders 5.8%. Interestingly, August’s rise was the biggest since October 2001 — right after Sept. 11, when retailers slashed prices and President Bush urged us to go shopping and “Get down to Disney World.” Heh… looks like only government decree can whip us into such consumption frenzies.

And for our 1.3% leap in spending, American incomes rose just 0.2%. In fact, when adjusted for inflation and taxes, what the government calls “real disposable income” actually fell 0.2%. What’s more, we as the collective “consumer” spent over $129 billion more in August, but chose to save $112 billion less. Savings as a percentage of personal income is now down to 3%, from 4% in July.

This “indicates economic improvement”? Must be reading the wrong release…

Source: Spending Soars, Savings Suffer

Still, this is the fourth consecutive official drop in GDP — the longest U.S. economic losing streak since records began in 1947. The economy has contracted 3.8% since then, the deepest pullback since the Great Depression.

Paging through the fine print, there’s only one outlier — one segment of blockbuster growth while the rest of the economy muddles through, at best: federal government spending, up 11.4%.

“In some ways, the whole GDP discussion is irrelevant,” says Chris Mayer. “As investors, we care about markets, and not GDP growth. There is a great fallacy out there that if the economy does well, stocks should do well (or if the economy does poorly, stocks should do poorly). Hence, too many so-called investors waste an inordinate amount of time talking about recovery, or lack thereof.

“It’s possible that GDP does expand strongly. But investors could still lose. We have one glaring historical example: From 1964-1981, GDP grew 370%. And the sales of the Fortune 500 more than sextupled. Yet the Dow Jones industrial average went from 874 on Dec. 31, 1964, to 875 on Dec. 31, 1981.

“As Warren Buffett once wrote: ‘Now, I’m known as a long-term investor and a patient guy, but that is not my idea of a big move.’

“For investors, it is all about the price paid. The really relevant question is not one of whether or not the economic recovery is real. The question is are stocks cheap enough? To answer that, you have to look at stocks and compare them with the alternatives.

“My answer is some stocks are cheap and some are not. It is hard to generalize. In my view, investing is a craft of the specific. It is in the picking of the trees in which investing skills pay off the most, not in assessing the forest. There are, undoubtedly, specific stocks that will prove nice investments over the next few years. Finding them is what we are all about.”

Source: US GDP is Irrelevant

“The issue is a disputed border between the two. They fought a 32-day war over it in 1962. China emerged victorious, but the whole thing settled nothing. The border between the two remains hotly contested. It is nearly 2,500 miles long and winds its way across difficult mountainous terrain. There is a northeastern state in India called Arunachal Pradesh, which China calls “Southern Tibet” and claims as Chinese territory.

“India claims last year there were nearly 300 border violations by Chinese troops and over 2,000 instances of ‘aggressive border patrolling.’ In the Indian media, it’s become a kind of sport to guess when China will attack India. And a recent essay by a Chinese analyst added fuel to the fire when it claimed China could ‘dismember the so-called “Indian Union” with one little move.’

“What would the effects be? It’s hard to say. But if the world’s two largest and fastest- growing emerging markets go to war, the results can’t be good for the global economy. China is even India’s largest trading partner. It all depends on how it unfolds.”

Chris will be getting a frontlines view of this flash point over the next few weeks. He and our executive publisher Addison Wiggin will be scouting potential joint ventures in the UAE and India from this weekend until mid-October. For highlights, be sure to check your daily 5 Min. Forecast. But for the nitty-gritty — and actionable advice — keep your eyes open for our new BRIC report… it’ll be ready very soon.

Source: Think China vs. India

Here’s a hint:

The House put the kibosh on the first rendition of The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 — Former Treasury Sec’y Hank Paulson’s three-page request for a $700 billion blank check for his buddies on Wall Street.

“Investors” threw a tantrum, crashing the Dow 777 points — its biggest point loss in history. Approximately $1.2 trillion in Wall Street shareholder value was wiped out, also a record. This day a year ago, the real market pain began. The S&P fell about 20% over the next two weeks.

The House eventually passed a package — aimed at cleaning up “toxic assets” on big Wall Street balance sheets, but also rife with pork barrel spending. A year later… the stock market has recovered, Congress has spent plenty o’ money, but has anything been done to stave off future CDO or mortgage-backed calamity? No.

Time and clever accounting have put us deservedly back to square one… right? Or as Addison argues in his latest investment report, is this the “biggest financial swindle in world history, engineered by none other than Wall Street and Washington, DC.”

Source: What Happened to Toxic Assets?

It’s probably a literary no-no to quote yourself. But we begin today with words we wrote last November not because we admire our own work, but we because we meant it then… and it’s becoming a reality today.

No matter which way you measure it, unemployment among Americans aged 16-24 is now at a post-World War II high. As typical in these kinds of stats, we’re seeing numbers all over the place… the NY Post reported yesterday that the rate has “exploded” to 52%, while the government’s latest tally (set to be revised this week) has it closer to 25%. Neither stat includes students not looking for work.

Both ends of this spectrum still mark the highest youth unemployment rate since at least 1948, when the government started keeping track. That’s especially interesting given the “official” unemployment rate for the total population — a 26-year high of 9.7%.

This has the Obama administration worried enough to shell out $1.2 billion — an earmark in the stimulus bill which has (if anything) only kept the situation from getting REALLY ridiculous. In the meantime, the masses of disgruntled youth swell by the day. How dangerous is that in modern times? Ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Why do our youth have it so tough? For starters, competition for jobs is at a record high. Here’s a worthy alternative way to examine our jobs crisis:

There are 14.5 million officially unemployed people in the United States and 2.5 million job openings. In other words, for every six people looking for work, there is one job to fill — not counting those already employed who are looking for a new gig. And we hasten to add, these are Labor Department numbers… if the reality were twice as bad, it’d be no surprise.

So pity the youth. That English Lit degree might be useful one day, but not up against five other resumes with real work experience. Summer internships are over, and all that’s left are a few hourly, low-wage gigs. According to Northwestern University, half of college grads under 25 that do hold jobs are working in a position that doesn’t require a degree — also the highest portion on record.

Our biggest fear is that these jobless youths lose all hope and make the ultimate mistake — law school.

Source: Unemployed Young People are the Real Danger

So with that in mind, let’s check in on one “ultimate indicator” of the depression’s end.

5 Min. loyalists might remember that we first checked out this chart in late May, when Robert Gordon — one of the NBER economists responsible for calling the end of recessions — suggested that the peak in initial claims had marked the approximate end of this historic downturn. As you can see, that same thesis has worked pretty well in the past, so why not?

Yesterday, the Labor Department said 530,000 Americans filed for jobless benefits last week. That may be a slight improvement from the week before, but we note that since peaking this spring, jobless claims haven’t plummeted back to a historic norm, as in recessions past. Instead, they’re just hanging around, just 15% below the peak, almost 30% higher than this time last year and way above typical post-recession levels… actually higher than the peaks of yesteryear.

We realize that just by uttering these words we’re likely going to be wrong: But could it be different this time around? If the bread line is no longer at its worst, but still wrapped around the block, is it really fair for the Fed to say the recession is “technically” over?

And housing isn’t looking too pretty this week either. Yesterday saw a “surprise” fall in existing home sales. This morning, the Commerce Department says the median price of new homes in August fell 9.5%. That’s the biggest month-to-month decline in recorded history. The median price is now $195,000, down almost 12% from last year. Sales rose a statistically insignificant 0.7%.

The shred of good news from today’s report: New home inventory is down 36% over the last year, to a 7.3-month supply — the lowest level since January 2007. Still, on average, a newly completed home sits on the market for a record 12.9 months before it’s sold.

Source: Is it Really Over?

And par for the course in 2009, Washington will be crackin’ the whip:

First, the Federal Open Market Committee will reveal their latest interest rate decision today. Chances are they won’t even hint at raising rates for the foreseeable future, but the Street is in knots over whether they will extend quantitative easing plans. We care, but only a little… the damage has been done. More on that in a second.

Then after the Fed, we should start hearing whispers from the G-20 meeting in Pittsburg, which officially starts tomorrow. With world leaders mostly convinced the recovery is under way, we suspect talks of reform, regulation and exit strategies. Namely, they’ll be wondering what the hell to do about this:

The dollar — the money every G-20 nation holds in reserve — has quietly become little more than a carry trade currency. It’s lent at one of the lowest rates in the world. The biggest financial bailouts in modern history have made prospects for dollar inflation pretty high, to say the least. And with every day of this “recovery,” it’s worse.

More QE from the Fed or dollar reserve jitters from the G-20 should mark the next move for the dollar… we’ll keep an eye on it for you.

“The fact that the dollar has been the reserve currency of the world has allowed us to live beyond our means for a long enough period of time to get into trouble,” our executive publisher Addison Wiggin told the Pittsburg Post Gazette yesterday. “That’s what the crisis is. The deficit spending in Washington is the biggest threat to the dollar’s status as the reserve currency.”

“Most of our spending is financed through the credit market, which is heavily dependent on our ability to attract capital from the rest of the world. That ability is in serious jeopardy.”

“The popular explanation for dollar weakness is that investors have a fresh appetite for risk,” Chris Mayer adds. “But maybe there is more to it than that. As one analyst said, if the dollar is the new yen, ‘The greenback is in real danger.’ That’s because foreigners hold a lot of dollar assets, and selling them to swap into higher-yielding currencies could continue to keep fresh pressure on the dollar.

“This loss of purchasing power is like a subtle tax and eats away at your wealth. That’s why I’m bullish on gold and oil and other real assets. As the dollar weakens, these assets ought to reprice and hold their own.”

Source: The Dollar’s Next Move