A crise precipita-se. O ouro a 1700 dólares!!!

A Staandard & Poor,s baixou a notação da Fannie Mae e a da Freddie Mac, bem como a cinco companhias de seguros,a setenta e três fundos de investimento e a tres câmaras de compensação. Estas Baixas vão ter importantes repercussões nos E:U e em todo o mundo.
Na Europa o mercado obrigacionista registou uma certa acalmia com a intervenção do BCE , comprando dívida Italiana . Mas por quanto tempo?

O Instituto alemão de conjuntura DW prevê uma baixa de notação da dívida francesa o que segundo este Instituto desestabilizaria O Fundo de Estabilidade e provocaria a explosão da zona euro !

Uma outra opinião
"L’intervention supposée de la BCE fait son effet, mais pour combien de temps ? Tout dépendra de la réalité de son engagement, et de son ampleur. Il faudra attendre une semaine, lundi prochain, pour connaître les chiffres officiels. Mais les marchés n’attendront pas pour signifier, s’il n’est pas à la hauteur attendue. Quel serait un engagement significatif ? De l’ordre de 200 milliards d’euros pour l’Italie et 60 milliards pour l’Espagne, selon un ancien économiste de la BCE interrogé par Bloomberg.

La surprise est venue de l’implication directe de la BCE dans la gestion des affaires italiennes. En rupture avec les canons en vigueur, mais destinée à justifier ce qui hier était écarté. Comme si la BCE, pour trop avoir attendu, préfigurait la nouvelle gouvernance économique qu’elle ne cesse de réclamer. Si ce n’est dans sa forme, tout du moins fort explicitement dans son contenu.

La stratégie ne change donc pas, qui consiste à faire entrer des ronds dans des carrés. Le fonds de stabilité doit prendre le relais de la BCE, qui n’intervient que dans cette attente. Le hic étant que le gouvernement allemand vient de faire savoir qu’il n’était pas question pour lui d’en augmenter la capacité financière, ce qui rend pratiquement ce passage de relais impossible.

Si le gouvernement allemand n’a – au contraire – aucune objection à la mise en œuvre d’une politique d’austérité renforcée, telle qu’elle s’amplifie encore en Espagne et va l’être en Italie sous les auspices de la BCE, il n’est pas prêt à endosser la responsabilité financière que celle-ci veut lui faire supporter. Partout, il n’est question que d’accélérer la réduction des déficits publics dans l’espoir de calmer les marchés…

En attendant, l’Italie est selon l’opposition « mise sous tutelle », à la manière des pays qui bénéficiaient du soutien du FMI et, sans nul doute, avec les mêmes résultats en perspective. Quant à la soi-disant indépendance de la BCE, elle n’est même plus là pour la figuration.

Quant à l’Allemagne, en refusant d’avancer sur le terrain de la mutualisation de la dette, elle oblige la BCE à intervenir sur le marché obligataire, ce qu’elle refusait auparavant…" François LeC. Blog P . J.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Monday downgraded the credit ratings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other agencies linked to long-term U.S. debt.


Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP
Freddie Mac's corporate offices are seen in McLean, Va., on July 13, 2008.
Enlarge
Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP
Freddie Mac's corporate offices are seen in McLean, Va., on July 13, 2008.
Ads by Google
The Biggest Day of 2011?
A wealthy businessman says a single
day will soon change the US forever
youtube.com
Ganhar Dinheiro Online
Negocie Ouro, Forex, Acções e Mais
Bónus de €25 Gratis. Comece Agora!
www.Plus500.pt/Portugal
USA AAA Rating to Fall
What happens to you if our rating
is downgraded? Free report.
MoneyMorning.com/DebtCeiling_Crisis
The agency also lowered the ratings for: farm lenders; long-term U.S. government-backed debt issued by 32 banks and credit unions; and three major clearinghouses, which are used to execute trades of stocks, bonds and options.
All the downgrades were from AAA to AA+, reflecting the same downgrade S&P made of long-term U.S. government debt on Friday.
S&P said the agencies and banks all have debt that is exposed to economic volatility and a further downgrade of long-term U.S. debt. Their creditworthiness hinges on the U.S. government's ability to pay its own creditors.
Stocks plunged further after the downgrades. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 400 points, or more than 3.7%. The S&P 500 stock index tumbled more than 4.7%. Investors seeking safety drove gold prices up and Treasury yields down.
Monday's downgrades of the mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie reflected their "direct reliance" on the U.S. government, S&P said.
Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages, or nearly 31 million home loans worth more than $5 trillion. As part of a nationalized system, they account for nearly all new mortgage loans. Their downgrade might force anyone looking to buy a home to pay higher mortgage rates.
Freddie Mac declined to comment on the move. Fannie Mae had no immediate comment.
Officials at Standard & Poor's say they will also indicate shortly how local and state governments will be affected by their decision to lower the long-term U.S. debt.
S&P on Friday said it downgraded U.S. debt for the first time in history because the credit rating agency lacks confidence that political leaders will make the choices needed to avert a long-term fiscal crisis.
The downgrade of long-term debt issued by the U.S. government affects the banking and lending industries because many interest rates are pegged to the yields on Treasury securities. In addition, many companies use the securities as collateral that they would surrender if their bets lost value.
The lower credit rating for long-term U.S. debt means that it might be considered less valuable for those purposes. It might become more costly for companies to borrow or trade.
Some analysts said the downgrades were unlikely to have much effect on the companies named by S&P or the broader markets. They noted that Treasury yields remain low and the dollar is getting stronger — signs that the world still sees the U.S. as a safe harbor in volatile economic times.
The downgrades "are as meaningless as the original action," said Daniel Alpert, managing partner at the investment bank Westwood Capital LLC in New York. He said that investors are rushing into Treasurys, and that they will do the same for "anything backed by the full faith and credit" of the U.S. government. That includes debt issued by Fannie and Freddie and bank debt that was guaranteed by regulators to ease lending after the 2008 financial crisis.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.38% from 2.57% late Friday. Analysts say traders are shifting out of bonds and European banks are snapping up U.S. debt to steel themselves for a regional financial crisis.
S&P Managing Director John Chambers said that the credit rating agency believes the dollar won't be weakened "under any plausible scenario." He said it will remain the dominant international currency, and that will reduce interest rates for governments and the private sector.
The downgrades of Fannie and Freddie were expected widely. The government took control of the companies in September 2008, hoping to stabilize the housing industry. As the cost of bailing them out surpasses $150 billion, calls for dismantling the companies have increased.
Some analysts believe the downgrade will force mutual funds and other big investors to sell bonds issued by the Fannie and Freddie. That would increase borrowing costs for the companies and further hamper home sales. The housing market is still reeling after millions of homeowners defaulted on their loans after the real estate bubble burst.

E ainda outra opinião

Paul B. Farrell


Aug. 8, 2011, 1:44 p.m. EDT
2011-20: Decade of U.S. economic hell
Commentary: More bad news for ‘America’s Worst Decade’

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
This update publishes Paul Farrell’s complete commentary and also corrects a typographical error.

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Next decade? Toxic politics promises to make economic matters much worse than even today.

“The U.S. economy appears to be coming apart at the seams,” warned Columbia Prof. Robert Lieberman earlier this year in Foreign Affairs.

S&P DOWNGRADES U.S. | MarketWatch Topics: Credit
Markets tank after S&P downgrade
Dow ends 635 points lower after S&P downgrade of U.S. credit rating.
• S&P strips coveted U.S. rating
• How downgrade affects investors (SmartMoney)
• China rips U.S. on debt-rating downgrade
• Geithner keeps heat on S&P
• U.S. unlikely to regain AAA rating soon: S&P
• Obama says U.S. will always be Triple-A

NEWS ANALYSIS
• Three trades to make after downgrade
• Reeves: S&P’s downgrade means nothing
• Harrison: What matters and why (Minyanville)
• How to brace a portfolio for another recession
• ‘Optimism index’ suggests recession is here

MULTIMEDIA
• Obama: Need a balanced plan for deficit
• International reactions to U.S.'s cut rating
• GOP hopefuls point fingers for downgrade
Now, over at Foreign Policy magazine, Josh Rogin warns: “This Fight Ain’t Over: Think the debt ceiling gridlock was ugly? Congress is just getting warmed up. Here are eight more foreign-policy battles right around the corner,” when they get back to sinking the economic recovery even deeper this fall.

All this was punctuated last week by S&P’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, as well as the one-day, 513-point market drop into a double-dip recession.

Another Foreign Policy expert, James Taub, warns of what the “debt-ceiling deal tells us about the Tea Party’s grim vision of American power.”

There’s a disaster ahead, Taub writes: “All Guns, No Butter … depleting the national treasury to pay for the military … when many Americans want to reduce the role of government at home and especially abroad, the debt deal just concluded is likely to preserve the country’s hypertrophied defense budget, at least if congressional Republicans get their way.”

Mitch McConnell, the GOP’s Darth Vader, is doing just that, doubling down on his vow to make certain Obama is a one-term president, intentionally ignoring the collateral damage, killing economic recovery.

How? Ol’ Mitch is already sabotaging the new congressional debt “super-committee,” vowing to appoint only Republicans who have signed Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes” pledge.

Expect more deadlocks as economists warn that recovery is impossible without new revenues.

But it’s beyond toxic nondemocratic pledges. America really is “coming apart at the seams.” Both parties: Dems for lack of strong leadership. The GOP and the Tea Party with their bizarre Schumpeterian conviction that destroying the economy is the only way to save America and pave the way for a revival of their anarchistic, free-market Reaganomics.

Politics sabotage economy

Yes folks, our politicians really are out of control, utterly unable to manage the economy. They’re irrational, and worse, clueless and myopic in economics.

No surprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI:DJIA) crashed 513 points in one day last week. Nor that pundits are pointing to high-tech multiples, warning of a new dot-com crash and double-dip recession, as well as a collapse in commodities, in emerging markets and endless debt problems for Europe.

Click to Play
What should investors do?
SmartMoney's Jack Hough outlines how investors should look at the long-term economic picture for the U.S. following the downgrade, as well as the impact on the housing market. (Photo: AP)

Warning, in short, that we’re headed into a perfect storm rivaling the disastrous political insanity of the 1930s that prolonged the depression, driving the economy into far reaching global problems that added fuel to an irrational zeitgeist and world war.

Over the past decade we predicted the 2000 crash, the 2008 meltdown and the short-lived 2009 rally, and now it seems quite clear that future historians will indeed look back on the 2011-20 decade as the “Worst Decade in American History.” Worse than the “Great Depression” of the 1930s. Totally predictable, totally denied.

Early this year we made 10 predictions of a chain of events that would reach a critical mass and consume America in a torrent of “creative destruction,” finally crippling our too-greedy-to-fail monetary/banking system, our capitalism for the super-rich and our corrupt political system.

The recent debt-ceiling deal is a wild red flag, warning that it’ll be much worse for a long time. Dead ahead, a protracted new civil war between special interests and the super-rich versus the middle class and disadvantaged, a wasteful internecine war that will further downgrade America as the world’s superpower, while enemies cheer loudly. So buckle your seat belts folks, it will get uglier and uglier for years.

So here’s an update of my 10 annual predictions, a year-by-year look at a decade of economic battles between the haves and have-nots, with no room for compromise between the three ideologies destroying our nation from within. The “wealth gap,” the greed, the entitlements, the hostilities are now so entrenched, compromise is impossible. Only a catastrophic 1929-style collapse of capitalism, democracy and a descent into economic hell will force America to restructure. Here’s how it will unfold in the coming 10 years:

2011: Wall Street’s super-rich control Washington

Thanks to the conservative takeover of America’s so-called democracy over the past three decades, from Reagan to Obama, our activist Supreme Court delivered the coup de grace into America’s psyche last year, overturning long-established precedent giving rich owners of zombie corporations the same rights as live citizens. That decision would have gotten a failing grade in my constitutional-law class back at the University of Virginia.

2012: Super-rich solidify absolute power over our political system

That bizarre Supreme Court decision legalized political bribery. Now, billions pass through lobbyists to politicians with one goal: a promise that every politician vote in line with their ideology. Wealth rules. America is no longer a democracy, not even a plutocracy. Today our middle class is in a rapid trickle down into Third World status, while the rich get richer and the “gap” between the super-rich and the rest steadily widens. It is now irrelevant who wins the 2012 race, because money corrupts and Obama is already a puppet of this system favoring lobbyists and wealthy donors.