PIRATES REPRISE
by Rob Kirby
May 18, 2005

To say that today’s news headlines are chock full of reporting about possible hedge fund problems arising from the downgrade of GM and Ford’s credit ratings is an understatement. In fact, news outlets like yourselves at CNBC have flooded the airwaves with reports and have even gone so far as to investigate this story and question names like GLG partners as to whether or not they have been negatively impacted by this developing situation with the automakers’ debt. We aren’t the only ones who have noticed this development, with folks such as Eric Fry at the Rude Awakening reporting,

“..If a few big hedge funds are in trouble, as CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo has been breathlessly reporting, are a lot of us little investors also in trouble?..”

I say Kudos to both the Rude Awakening and CNBC on this point. Now I have a question along these same lines that we are all owed an honest and frank answer to:

When officialdom boldly claimed that a huge increase in January 05 TIC data was in response to Caribbean Hedge Fund buying of long US Treasury obligations back in March of 05 – Why did news outlets like CNBC fail to report concerns regarding massive implied hedge fund losses in these Caribbean based funds then? If anyone cares to recall, the yield on 10 year treasuries was about 4.00 % in January, when these subject securities were allegedly purchased by hedge funds - and by the beginning of March the 10 year yield had ballooned to 4.50%? Blood should have been running in the street then, which media outlets like CNBC should have been reporting on. Instead, they remained silent.

I would like to draw your attention to January TIC data that was published by the US Treasury March 15, 2005. Make special note of the reserve holdings of China, Japan and Great Britain for the month of Jan. 05. This data set [which appeared in the Pirates of the Caribbean article] was copied from the Treasury’s web site in March 05:

Now, if you take a look at the latest release of TIC data – you might notice that these numbers have been dramatically altered – after the fact. On May 16, 2005 - we received our latest installment of TIC data from the good folks at the Fed and Treasury. It is appended here.

Economic history has apparently been rewritten folks. The inconsistencies and conflicting data being fed to us by officialdom are brazenly astonishing. In the month of Jan. 05 alone, Japan’s holdings of US securities have been retro altered to the tune of over 20 billion, China’s by close to 30 billion and the United Kingdom’s by more than 60 billion. Can any of us really believe anything these folks have to say? Imagine, a restatement of this magnitude without as much as an explanatory footnote or a press release? Somehow, none of this is even deemed to be newsworthy? What’s beginning to scare me; if the US Treasury tells us the world is flat – what happens to the South Pole?

On Monday morning, May 16, 2005 at 11:40 am. I listened to CNBC reporter, Rick Santelli, reporting from the Chicago Board of Trade. He made the claim that this latest [March] ‘anemic’ TIC data does not really matter. He went on to claim that foreigners continue to have strong demand for American debt – so much so claimed Rick, “that they’re even talking about bringing back the 30 yr. bond”.

Well, I see things differently. His claims that this data deserves little to no scrutiny are misleading. His candy coated assessment is tantamount to treasonous fraud being perpetrated on those that rely on CNBC for accurate and timely financial reporting. Clearly, America’s two major financiers – Japan and China – have completely stopped accumulating American debt. In fact, the data suggests that they have been completely absent from the bidding process at the debt auctions over the last 3 months. If you go back and look at the Treasury auctions in March [where a lot of the latest TIC data is drawn from] you will see that the Fed proudly announced robust bid to cover ratios on their debt auctions [2Yr. on Mar. 30, 10yr. Mar. 10, 5yr. Mar. 9]. – yet the latest TIC data suggest that both China and Japan were not even at the table?

The proposition that hedge funds 'slipped in' and completely replaced the machinations in the auction process of both the central banks of China and Japan is completely and utterly preposterous. With each successive release of TIC data, it’s becoming clearer that traditional buyers of US debt are not and have not been in the picture for a few months - this is reality - according to the Fed and Treasury's own numbers.

A very special thanks goes out to Mr. Willem Middelkoop, a sharp journalist with RTL Nederland for drawing my attention to this altered data. I must admit I never even noticed the change – until he pointed it out.

© 2005 Rob Kirby
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Rob Kirby
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