Daily Digest - July 25

• Cash for Trash, Transparency & Accounting (Video)
• A.P. Cracks Down on Unpaid Use of Articles on Web
• Sprott: It's the Real Economy, Stupid (White paper, Repost)
• The Vice Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia destroys any last germinating green shoots (Video)
• Financial Reporting in Today’s Economy (Video)
• Treasury Auction Schedule
  
• Commercial construction down 71% in June
• Not many stocks powering the rally
  
• Bloomberg's Weil on Proposed New FASB Mark-to-Market Initiative
• 7 Reasons not to trust the bull
• Preserve, Preserve, Preserve (Chart, catch the date, seen on Biiwii)

Economy

Cash for Trash, Transparency & Accounting (Video)

A.P. Cracks Down on Unpaid Use of Articles on Web

Please note: I have to leave off some good articles, time permitting I will look for similiar ones from a source other then AP.

By RICHARD PEREZ-PENA

Published: July 23, 2009

Taking a new hard line that news articles should not turn up on search engines and Web sites without permission, The Associated Press said Thursday that it would add software to each article that shows what limits apply to the rights to use it, and that notifies The A.P. about how the article is used.

Tom Curley, The A.P.’s president and chief executive, said the company’s position was that even minimal use of a news article online required a licensing agreement with the news organization that produced it. In an interview, he specifically cited references that include a headline and a link to an article, a standard practice of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, news aggregators and blogs.

Sprott: It's the Real Economy, Stupid (White paper, Repost)

The Vice Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia destroys any last germinating green shoots (Video)

Financial Reporting in Today’s Economy (Video)

Treasury Auction Schedule

Let's see if I can count this up....

70 day CMBs, $30 billion (tomorrow)
13 week Bills, $32 billion (July 27th)
26 week Bills, $31 billion (July 27th)
52 week Bills, $27 billion (July 28th)
2 year Notes, $42 billion (July 28th)
5 year Notes, $39 billion (July 29th)
7 year Notes, $28 billion (July 30th)
19 year, 6 month TIPS (reopened), $6 billion (July 27th)

That's two hundred thirty-five billion dollars over the next week!

Almost one quarter of a trillion.......

Commercial construction down 71% in June

Agree that a 71% month to month decline is obviously not sustainable and that the declines for the rest of the year are more likely to fall in line with the 22% year over year figure. But hello, 22% decline is nothing to sneeze at! Again, it’s a collapse of historic proportions.

Can you see how the collapse of the credit bubble is rippling through the economy? Subprime to homebuilders, to banks, to sales, to exports, and now to commercial construction…

Will it be a short term blip? Are consumers now out of debt and able to borrow ever increasing amounts against their homes? Are their wages going up? Sorry, but I think it’s more than just a short term blip.

Let’s take a look at the financing that underpins commercial construction… below is a chart showing the percentage of non-performing commercial loans. Note the angle of rise is much steeper than the 2000-2003 recession and that this indicator tends to peak AFTER the recession has been declared over:

Not many stocks powering the rally (Table on page)

Bloomberg's Weil on Proposed New FASB Mark-to-Market Initiative

From Jonathan Weil at Bloomberg: Accountants Gain Courage to Stand Up to Bankers (ht James, Michael)

The scope of the FASB’s initiative, which has received almost no attention in the press, is massive. All financial assets would have to be recorded at fair value on the balance sheet each quarter, under the board’s tentative plan.

This would mean an end to asset classifications such as held for investment, held to maturity and held for sale, along with their differing balance-sheet treatments. Most loans, for example, probably would be presented on the balance sheet at cost, with a line item below showing accumulated change in fair value, and then a net fair-value figure below that. For lenders, rule changes could mean faster recognition of loan losses, resulting in lower earnings and book values.

I'll believe it when I see it!

7 Reasons not to trust the bull

The government has bought time by buying, questionable assets from financial institutions. Now, these “assets” to use the term loosely, are on the balance sheet of the Fed and the US Treasury.

Preserve, Preserve, Preserve (Chart, catch the date, seen on Biiwii)