tyb
>>18438741, >>18438818 lb Worst-ever economic crash coming – Nouriel Roubini
>>18438592, >>18438636, >>18438754, >>18438788, >>18438969 lb March Madness=S.E.C
US Treasury Introduces CBDC Working Group, Discusses Potential Routes For Digital Dollar
The Treasury’s statements explore the potential forms and implementations of an American CBDC…The U.S. Department of the Treasury has released comments from Undersecretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang on the “Next Steps to the Future of Money and Payments,” addressing CBDCs and the approach the American government is taking to their potential implementation. The original Treasury report released in September 2022 described the formation of a CBDC working group that would advance work on a CBDC. Liang’s remarks confirmed the formation of that group. “One of the central tasks for the CBDC Working Group is to complement the Fed’s work by considering the implications of a U.S. CBDC for policy objectives for which a broader Administration perspective is helpful,” Liang said.
“To give you a sense of how we are pursuing this work, I will describe our approach to thinking about CBDC options, the policy questions we are attempting to answer, and the kinds of recommendations we hope to develop.” Highlights from this description include a look at the potential forms that a CBDC could take, the potential for a separate retail and wholesale CBDC and the possible core features of the CBDC.
Also discussed is the idea that a “potential U.S. CBDC, if one were created, would best serve the United States by being ‘intermediated,’ meaning that the private sector would offer accounts or digital wallets to facilitate the management of CBDC holdings and payments. In terms of technology, a retail CBDC might involve a different architecture compared to a CBDC that is intended solely for wholesale use.”
In his piece for Bitcoin Magazine, Mark Goodwin described how Bitcoiners may have “spent so much time looking for CBDCs, we missed the private-entity stablecoin monster right in front of our eyes.”
The Treasury’s released remarks suggest that a CBDC may well come on the backs of private entities, with major incentives to participate. The United States has gotten serious in regards to its consideration of a CBDC. And all this just as legislation has been introduced by Republican lawmakers that would “prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a CBDC directly to anyone.”
Although this bill may not have much of a chance of passing, notable is the specific angle of preventing a Federal CBDC, potentially leaving free those “intermediated” by private parties. The remarks also described how a CBDC is one of many directions for the government to take, another being real time payment systems. The Federal Reserve, according to Liang, “has indicated that it expects to launch the FedNow Service this year, which will be designed to allow for near-instantaneous retail payments on a 24x7x365 basis, using an existing form of central bank money (i.e., central bank reserves) as an interbank settlement asset.” This would differ from a CBDC in that it would utilize an existing form of central bank money versus the new form a CBDC would introduce, in addition to a potential new set of payment rails. Regardless of the path that the Treasury takes, new payment systems are seemingly on the horizon for the United States.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/legal/u-s-treasury-introduces-cbdc-digital-dollar-working-group
> the SEC is preventing a free market.
Because Gary is deeply involved in it's creation and management (aka as picking the winners and losers) taught crypto courses at MIT-which then proliferated over to Stanford-and boss wuz Caroline Ellison's father
President's Working Group on Financial Markets
The President's Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) was created in March 1988 by Executive Order of President Ronald Reagan, specifically precipitated by the events surrounding a 508-point drop in the DJIA on Oct. 19, 1987, known as "Black Monday." Within one day, $500 billion "evaporated" from the Dow Jones index (22.6 percent of its value), with other global indexes falling in line over the remainder of the month.[1]
As established by Executive Order 12631[1], Working Group principals in 1988 included:
Nicholas Brady, Secretary of the Treasury (chairman of the Working Group)
Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the board of Federal Reserve System
David Ruder, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
Wendy Gramm, Chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Today, only the faces and issues have changed, but the members of the Group come from the same official government or quasi-governmental groups.
On Feb. 5, 2009, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner convened his first meeting as head of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets. Other participants in the early February of 2009 meeting were Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro, acting Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Dunn, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair, Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart
https://marketswiki.com/wiki/President%27s_Working_Group_on_Financial_Markets
Ghana Missed Interest Payment Sparks Default Coverage Payout
A panel of investors and banks has ruled Ghana’s missed coupon payments on its foreign denominated bonds counts as a failure-to-pay event, paving the way for a payout of the default-insurance contracts tied to the country’s debt. The Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee (CDDC) made the decision at a meeting held on Monday, according to a notice on the panel’s website on Friday. Ghana skipped payment of interests on Jan. 18 of a $1 billion eurobond maturing in 2026. The missed payment triggered a 30-day grace period, which eventually expired at the end of the day on Feb.17.
The ruling triggers the payout of the insurance protection on Ghana’s sovereign debt. Credit-default swaps covered a gross $66.4 million and net $34.4 million of Ghana’s debt as of Feb. 10, according to data from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. The nation’s eurobonds were unchanged following the decision, with the majority of the notes trading at a discount of 60-65% versus their face value, according to CBBT pricing compiled by Bloomberg. The swaps panel had already ruled in January that Ghana’s decision to suspend debt servicing on its eurobonds, commercial term loans and most of its bilateral debt met the definition of a “potential repudation/moratorium.” This happened before the grace period on the first missed payment had expired.
Ghana has been engaging investors since November to restructure about $30 billion of its $46 billion in local and international debt. It recently completed the first part of a domestic restructuring, with investors exchanging 83 billion cedis ($6.5 billion), or 64% of holdings, for new securities, against an overall target of 80%. It aims to start “substantive” discussions with international bondholders and their advisers in coming weeks, Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta said Feb. 16. Meanwhile, the African nation has also kicked off talks with China to restructure bilateral loans, as reported by Bloomberg News earlier this week.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/ghana-missed-interest-payment-sparks-default-coverage-payout-1.1890870
Car debt piles up as more Americans struggle to make payments
Car repossessions grow as Americans still struggle with high car prices and inflation. A growing number of Americans are falling behind on their car payments, an ominous sign for the U.S. economy as high car prices and persistent inflation strain household budgets.
Car repossessions tumbled in the early days of the pandemic when the government sent $5 trillion in stimulus money to American homes and businesses. But they have progressively ticked higher as sky-high prices for used and new cars alike forced consumers to take out bigger loans. In January, the percentage of auto borrowers who were at least 60 days late on their bills climbed 2% from December and 20.4% from a year ago, according to the latest data from Cox Automotive. The percentage of severe delinquencies surged to the highest level since 2006.
Although the high level of severe delinquencies has not led to equivalent growth in defaults, those are also on the rise: Loan defaults increased 6.2% over the course of January and were up 33.5% from a year ago. Unsurprisingly, vehicle repossessions are climbing as well: The number of repossessed cars increased 11% in 2022 compared to the previous year, although they still remain below pre-pandemic levels, according to estimates by Cox Automotive. "With new car prices as high as they are, it's getting more and more difficult for most Americans to stomach these payments," Ivan Drury, Edmunds director of insights, told FOX Business. "It just becomes something where even though it's affordable for you today, is it going to hold in the future? That's where we're seeing the repossessions come through."
Prices for used and new vehicles surged last year as a result of a semiconductor shortage as well as other COVID-19-induced disruptions in the global supply chain. Although there were fewer cars being produced, consumer demand remained strong, driving prices higher. Prices started to subside toward the end of 2022, but the average cost of a new car is still near $50,000 — a record. Rapidly rising interest rates have compounded the pain of higher car prices. The average new auto loan rate jumped to 6.9% in January, up from 4.3% one year ago, according to Edmunds, an online resource for auto inventory and information. That, combined with steeper stick prices, pushed new-vehicle affordability to the lowest level of 2022. For many Americans, rising interest rates and high car prices have pushed their monthly payments above $1,000. "This is getting to the point where interest rates are definitely curbing buying behaviors," Drury said. In fact, the percentage of consumers paying at least $1,000 a month for their cars surged to a record in the final three months of 2022, according to data from Edmunds. About 16% of consumers who financed a new car in the fourth quarter have payments that are that costly, up from 10.5% one year ago. That also raises the threat of trouble ahead in the auto industry, should more consumers continue to default on their loans. "What we see here is really that inflation is the problem at hand," Drury said. "You can only work so many jobs. People are employed. Are they underemployed, underpaid? That varies wildly. What we know for sure is that virtually every aspect of daily life today is more expensive than it was a year prior, five years ago, 10 years ago."
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/car-debt-piles-up-more-americans-struggle-make-payments
S&P/Experian Auto Default Index
https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/indicators/sp-experian-auto-default-index/#overview
>>18437337 pb Mortgage Rates Now Back Above 7%
>>18417037 pb Economic Schedule for Week of February 26, 2023-expect some really shitty data points in housing, autos, retail
>>18439115 lb
PlaneFag CONUS Update: AF2 is heading to San Francisco Int'l first before Los Angeles -see below
Kamala Harris visits the Bay Area
Kamala Harris will be arriving in San Francisco Friday afternoon for a fundraiser and a roundtable discussion about small business. Vice President Harris has not been to the Bay Area since October 2022 when she was talking about climate crisis. This time, she’s got a full agenda highlighting the Biden-Harris Administrations investments in America’s small businesses and some other stops.
>Harris is expected to leave Friday by 4:30 p.m.-(and go to LAX)
https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/vice-president-kamal-harris-visits-the-bay-area/
CHEAT21/22 PUMA6062 C-130j Hercs back to Little Rock AFB from MacDill AFB (CENTCOM) overnight
PATTY22 E-4B Nightwatch heading to Dyess from Offutt (STRATCOM) SAM340 G5 NW from JBA depart
Mexi AF FAM5210 Beech Super King Air 350i departed Culiacan (where Chapito was arrested a few weeks ago and the Narcos shot at the 737 that took him to Mexico City and Mexi Policia ANX1208 Learjet 45 left Guaymas (in the Gulf of California) after about 75m stop
12-3085 USAFSOC 'Special Ops' Wolfhound heading to Turks and Caicos Islands from San Juan PR depart
TEAL83 WC-130 Hercules SE from Mather AFB 'Hurricane Hunter'
>>18316348, >>18361964, >>18362016, >>18400477 pb
New York Federal Reserve currency swaps: EURO/$ swap/prop: 0301 $409.1m to ECB (the standard amount now) and 0228 $2m to BoJ
Both at 4.83% and for 7 days…look for the ones for the Swiss National Bank towards the middle/end of the month for Credit Suisse with a Franc/$ swap at the $B level
https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/desk-operations/central-bank-liquidity-swap-operations
These are still really small going to the BoJ but they have been 'busy' this week selling US Tnotes and eventually will be told to stop and then this facility will take over that function for them-the 10y JGB been stuck at it's "cap" of .50%. They keep these amounts snall and call them "tests" but it's really just keeping an open line to them when they lose control of it-eventually they will
They (BoJ) went "in" on Tuesday to buy moar-see cap #3 and our Treasury markets are totally affected by all that -they won't say it but that is what is doing the Yield spike(s)/value drops with that-in out longer dated debt
https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/government-bond-yield
dubs confirm
stale
kek
>>18438905 lb
SAM266 C-32ABlinkendeparted Ramstein AFB after arriving from New Delhi depart
Popped out Cap#2 while on ground at Ramstein
"Today the United States announced a critical new package of military assistance for Ukraine to repel Russia’s aggression. We stand #UnitedWithUkraine"
https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1631714283280113670
Cap#3 the 'wave to no one' when he left New Delhi
https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1631607549643587584
SAM272 C-40B still on ground at Rzsesow
aye