PrefBlog

James Hamilton of Econbrowser has an excellent post on the Fed and the proposed term deposit facility:

We sometimes describe fiscal policy as determining the overall level of the public debt, while monetary policy determines the composition of that debt between money and interest-bearing federal obligations. By that definition, the Fed has clearly now entered the realm of implementing fiscal policy, by issuing debt directly in the form of interest-bearing reserves, reverse repos, and now term deposits.
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But I fear that as this marriage between fiscal and monetary policy becomes consummated, an amicable divorce is not the most likely outcome.

My advice would be the sooner the Fed can return to plain vanilla central banking, the better.

I have heard reports that driving in the country has become a process of counting windmills … but I have my own way of counting. Say a standard wind farm has the following specifications:

The facility is expected to be completed in one year at a cost of CA$285 million, and will generate 300 GWh of wind energy a year from 43 Siemens 2.3 MW turbines.

So each turbine costs about $7-million bucks and generates about 7.5 GWh electricity per year. Ontario will pay 13.5 cents per kWh for on-shore wind. A profligate energy user (i.e., somebody who uses a toaster while the kitchen light is on) will pay 6.7 cents per kWh. So the loss to Smitherman’s ex-ministry is … call it 7 cents per kWh … and remember, we have assumed that transmission and administration is free, never mind the fact that wind power needs back-up plants built, and will accrue extra costs as this back-up switches on and off.

So, a loss of 7 cents per kWh on 7.5GWh annually is … um … carry three … 52.5 megacents per annum; in more familiar units, over half a million bucks. Enjoy the view! And remember – it’s not just empty-headed feel-goodism … it’s also an exciting new class of parasitic pseudo-industry creating jobs for pseudo-entrepreneurs!

The US Municipal Bond Insurance market is still trying to find its feet:

Insured bonds reached a peak of 57.1% of new issuance in 2005, but as most insurers were downgraded after they unsuccessfully ventured into the hazardous territory of structured finance, that number dwindled to just 8.7% this month, according to Thomson Reuters.
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But responding to claims that the insurance market has a much-diminished future, Dominic Frederico, chief executive officer of Assured Guaranty Ltd., has a pretty simple reply.

“If there are naysayers, I would say, ‘Okay, then: explain my third quarter,’ ” he told investors in a conference call last month.

Assured, which operates the only two legacy insurers to have made it through the recession with investment-grade ratings, saw operating earnings — excluding net-realized investment gains and losses — jump to $70 million last quarter, compared to $26 million in the third quarter of 2008.

Preferred shares closed the year strongly on light volume, with PerpetualDiscounts up 26bp and FixedResets gaining 13bp.

PereptualDiscounts closed yielding 5.85%, equivalent to 8.19% interest at the standard equivalency factor of 1.4x. Long Corporates closed yielding 6.0% – maybe just a hair over – so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (also called the Seniority Spread) is about 220bp, a slight tightening from the December 16 and November 30 figures of 225bp.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 8:23 pm and is filed under Market Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.