Gone Fishing Again

I am off work until next Tuesday and thus I am going to the Quabbin Reservoir tomorrow! Very exciting. Here are a few notes:

-The vaunted S&P 500 level of 1040 was blown past today, but fear not, some low volume melts up to week end should remedy that.

-I would hope you have been following the 4 part series by Econophile over at Zero Hedge. Today he had up the final part and it is a good time to get all caught up. I found this section of interest due to a later read:

There are two other asset purchase choices the Fed may consider in its Open Market Operations. Neither alternative is good:
Alternative No. 1. Buy bad CRE loans (non-MBS) directly from regional and local banks.

Yes indeed.

Later Calculated Risk had some items from Dennis Lockhart of the Atlanta FED and here is a small section:

A third area of uncertainty is commercial real estate. Banks across the country, especially small and regional banks, are heavily exposed to the commercial property sector and face a heavy docket of loan restructurings that may require sizable write-downs.

You have been told in no uncertain terms what the next step will be.

I would add that Lockhart is the second FED player to chime in with:

A second source of uncertainty is ongoing state and local fiscal tightening.

Now either the FED knows some reason why state budget shortfalls will not matter (QE money??) or they are very scared of this and downplay it. Which is it?

In closing, Kevin Depew hits another monster home run and if you read ONE thing today this should be it:
The Modern Stealth Depression Revisited
This is required reading.

Oh yeah, my 4th of July package came in today: 4 10oz filets and 4 bone in ribeyes at 20oz each from Allen Brothers. USDA PRIME Beef and aged as well. An unreal experience:

Hello my pretties!:


Have a good night.