You just can’t beat a stupid government if you want big profits

Here, a miraculous recovery is explained in The Daily Reckoning.

“When it converted into a bank holding company back in 2008, Goldman became eligible to borrow cheap money from the Fed’s discount window. Morgan Stanley did the same thing. As a result, Goldman, Morgan Stanley et al. may borrow billions of dollars from the Federal Reserve and use the proceeds to purchase higher-yielding government securities of longer duration.

In other words, Goldman may borrow from the government at 0.75%, then loan the money back to the government at 3% or 4%. All in a day’s “trading.” Not surprisingly, all the major financial firms have been reporting blockbuster profits. Yesterday, for example, Morgan Stanley wowed the Street by nearly doubling its expected earnings result. Bond trading provided most of the juice, as Morgan’s fixed-income revenue more than doubled from the prior year’s first quarter.

Prior to Morgan Stanley’s results, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and, yes, Goldman Sachs, had all reported record quarterly revenue from fixed-income trading. On the surface, these monster profits would seem like good news. But this silver cloud contains a very dark lining: without the Fed’s low-cost financing, fixed-income profits will be much harder to come by.”

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

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