Economics Update

The first two bits are easy to understand, New home sales are the lowest since 1995, which matches with the horrid existing home sales data that I posted yeaterday, and Factory orders fell off a cliff in February.

First, things are simply getting even weirder in the never-dull world of monoliner insurers, with the Federal Home Loan Banking looking at offering bond insurance for municipal infrastructure project bonds.

It's a dull, but very profitable racket, because there has been some sort of freaky deal between the monoliners and the rating agencies for years that has them offering artificially low ratings to muni bonds, which pretty much forces said governmental agencies to buy bond insurance.

If it works, it kills the monoliners, because this business is the only thing keeping them afloat on a sea of collateralized debt obligations (CDO).

Additionally, we have monoliner insurer FGIC notifying regulators that due to some "dodgy" dept that it is ensuring, that it is insolvent under New York State law, "FGIC in notes to its consolidated financial statements said it plans to submit a plan to the New York superintendent to reduce its risk. FGIC also said it has voluntarily ceased writing new business to preserve capital."

This means that, theoretically at least, regulators could seize the FGIC, though they are in litigation with the borrower of the aforementioned debt, and they are filing a recovery plan.