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"The captain of my team is better than the captain(s) of your team at convincing us - the great credulous mass of tribalistic half-wits - that structural and relatively coincident (un)employment was determined mostly (solely?) by the omnipotence of our captain; and here is a fancy graphic...

They wouldn't be selling the gold. The gold is currently on the fed's balance sheet at ~$40/oz. It would just be an accounting change marking up the assets by about $400 bil and the corresponding liabilities (the treasury account) by the same, allowing the treasury to draw on those funds.

I'm having trouble deciding which network is more of a partisan joke: MSNBC or FOX. They really are in a heated battle on that front. Mathews is their O'reilley. That Mr. Ed guy is their Hannety.

Ya, it would not be easy or painless. He could use an iceberg and/or try to offset in something bigger. It's basically a time-risk vs. price-sensitivity trade-off: you can sit small on the offer and trade 1-2-3-4-5 lots into the bid and hope the market doesn't tank in the meantime or you...

An interesting point by economist Paul Kasriel @ Northern Trust ...Pushing Treasury Default Beyond August 2 If the federal debt ceiling were not raised by August 2, there still would be temporary means for the Treasury to keep paying all of its bills for a while. The Treasury could pull an...

Also, let's say he was able to double again, and got to ~1700 lots(even 1000-1200 lots.) How was he planning to exit that for a profit, coming into the lunch period? The 11:30 30-min bar that day did a whole 13.4k total, and that was an above average volume day, in a strong down-trend. It's...

It's hard to argue he's got any market savy when he turns a 1-lot loser into an 850-lot loser in about an hour and gets liquidated by his broker, in a relatively orderly market. Especially in TF where you can get slippage on a 10-lot.

sell vol, buy xanax

As for this whole Dem vs. Rep blame game: come on, they're both trying to use this crisis for the 2012 elections. Parasitic, power-hungry demagouges looking for another 2-4-6 years to feed off the host and find more suitable outlets for their god-complexes.

+1 Even if you're not a Keynesian purist you have to admit that slamming on the breaks after 3 decades of flooring it will not end well. The current deficit / public debt is nothing compared to the unfunded liabilities and private debt that has yet to be liquidated.

Some firms only offer those low day margins for positions under a certain size. The fact that he tried to add and couldn't means: 1) he lost his mind, had no idea of his remaining buying power, and tried one last desperate move or 2) he had the buying power but the brokers risk-control...

Nothing meteoric but the pre-market suprise fed cut during the crisis was good for a quick 40-50 handles in the ES. Also the suprise cut in early 2001. Can't really think of too many other "white swans".

Not sure if default is the right word. It's more like forced austerity. I agree that, in a perfect world, the debt ceiling should be raised and the budget shoud be cut slowly. What I'd like to see: 1) Move the upper tax bracket to 1 mil+ . As anyone who lives in New York...

I think the things you mentioned would probably have a large effect, but it would take time for the market to believe they are legit and price them in. I think most people would be skeptical of that news at first. The only major intra-day risk to the upside I see - on the order of +20% - is...

As others have said, years behind the screen and a lot of losses.

The fact that you thought in terms of max liability is a good sign. Theoretically the max liability is infinite since a short futures positions can rise indefinitely. But the only way something like that could happen is some type of collapse of the monetary system - causing the dollar to...

You're making a pretty big assumption there. Seriously though, it's probably a few things: 1) He's using the GD as an analog. There were huge bank failures and money supply shrank sharply in first phase of the GD. Our current problems are more on the balance sheet and demand side. 2)...

It seems like many believe a failure to raise the debt ceiling would lead to a debt default. Can someone explain why they believe the government not issueing more treasuries to cover the deficit will lead to a debt default? Do you really mean a default on spending promises? Federal...

In 2008 - when there was a crisis in the private sector - money flowed into the USD and then into treasuries. Fear of the U.S. fiscal/debt situation would reverse that flow. A selling off of assets doesn't necessarily mean proceeds will be leaving; it depends who is selling what, and why...

Selling of USD-denominated assets doesn't increase the FOREX value of USD. If people sell those assets, they either increase their USD cash balances or convert those dollars into other currencies, so they can buy non-USD-denominated assets. You are not buying dollars when you sell those...