The $oker

We look at the leadership of the nations 3rd largest broker dealer and call him the Joker. Their take so far -$54 billion and counting. The street -$500 billion and counting. These losses are still just largely related to CDO's....the egg in the face of the recent fund raising is the "RESET" provisions for any new equity offered....everyone will now insist on these terms making future liabilities even larger. With the exception of this equity sale all other transactions have forced sellers to take notes in return....I.E. no new cash has been raised.

The ugly fact not talked about is that most if not all this paper has derivatives written against them and the "hedges" have not worked. Thus the worst is still in front of the Street. The traders got it wrong again!

Add to Natural Gas and Gold here.

Saudi Arabia now has the most profitable and valuable company in the world, Aramco.

The outstanding USA Public Debt as of today is $9,545,022,2257,472.

The national debt is now increasing at an average of $1,700,000,000 per DAY.

OTTI, means, Other Than Temporary Impairment. This is the expression banks and brokers are using now for Alt- A loans. writing down the next two years of anticipated losses. Just wait till they start with the private equity boys and their leveraged loans.....that is by the way next month.

The break down in the Doha talks is so unfortunate. The world has no current leadership and agriculture prices are going much higher. Today there are 1 billion people very short of water and another billion even more short of food.

We are still in July, and the "street" is now net short everything related to oil and thinking the financial nonsense is over...its just getting started!

Danny Boy seen here on his new favorite spot with the dog days of summer quickly approaching.