主题：【原创】新年政治经济展望之二：中美博弈（一） -- 井底望天
但是明显地，当美国国债的市场CDS已经不低了，这些评级公司仍然用AAA，但动不动就downgrade其他国家的主权评级，似乎从来没有公正可言。
也许他们心里已经默认这是他们唯一的机会
应该是扩大对内投资，不光是基础设施投资，也不应只满足于满足人民的物质需求，更应该是对人的投资，一定要提高国人的科学素质，加强中国的第一第二和第三产业的科技含量。中国人是世界上最聪明的，放着不用，岂不是太可惜了吗。
First, senate control is over. Soon the end of year will end Demo's control over both houses.
Second, the country is highly polarized. Obama has no luck of FDR(Demo had absolute control and Americans were desperate enough to turn mostly Demo) as well as his profile (white, from old WASP political family, blue-blood, rich experience/connection inside the political establishment).
America is not desperate enough for a complete left-turn reform. Obama took the presidency at the wrong time.
Now China should think about form alliance with Republicans so that Obama will have no gut to "torture" China anymore.
This Mass election was almost a second 911 in terms of priority change in this administration.
have Bloomberg terminal with me now. But we need specific numbers for a meaningful discussion.
sovereign CDS is not my expertise, though I can comment a bit on corporate credit ratings and corporate CDS.
BTW, sovereign/corporate/structured finance credit ratings use TOTALLY different measures/model/methodologies. My comments are just FYI.
BUT
1.Validity of measure: CDS is quite volatile, academic community also disputes CDS as a GOOD measure of true entity default risk. During the 2008 credit crisis, the CDS quote can rise from 200 to 400 or 600 (600bp=$600,000 insurance fee for $10m entity bonds) in one week and then fell back to 300 in one week.
It CAPTURES PANIC, NOT the default risk of one entity. My question: which quote will you pick: 200bp, 300bp or 600bp? (one-time peak).
2.Rating is DISCRETE, AAA does not mean absolute no risk of default. It just means that its default risk is below one threshold level.
3.Given that "sovereign/corporate/structured finance credit ratings use TOTALLY different measures/model/methodologies"--thus gross negligence in one field does not necessarily imply that all other ratings are gross. The 2006-2008 corporate ratings (which rely on a well-tested model from 1960s) turned out to be quite robust.
BTW, I heard from Mood's MD that they have lay off all their STRUCTURED-FINANCE staff after the humiliating debacle in structured-finance line of business. But there is little impact on corporate entity rating line.
Not sure about the sovereign rating line of business. But you might be right, given the more subjectivity nature in that business, domestic bias does exist.
4.Another way to measure default risk is to look at the treasury bond yields ACROSS A GROUP OF NATIONS.
Below are sovereign ratings and government bond yields (Based on this Friday data from bloomberg.com)
Ratings 2-year Treasury Note Yield
US AAA 78bp (0.78)
Germany AAA 111bp(1.11)
Canada AAA 117bp(1.17)
Italy AA- 169bp(1.69)
I picked Euro/US because their central bank fed fund rates are close after excessive rate cutting. I could not pick Australia/New Zealand for comparison due to the huge difference in terms of overnight Fed rate.
Here, if US does not deserve AAA rating, then Germany and Canada should lose AAA rating too.
In sum, The bond market data are NOT in favor of your argument.
1月份德国十年期yield是3.19%，美国是3.60%。
从这里看德国政府信用似乎要高一些。
所以可以推行强势政策。
共和党的动作，大概是小布什马上要去中国。
ST reflects liquidity or panic level, long-term 10-year is widely used in loan contract and also reflects inflation expectation.
The current Germany-US spread difference is 40bp. US 10-year bond has its best performance in Nov when the difference at that time was only about 1bp. 10-year data are consistent with your deteriorating argument.
Actually, Germany is the not the best one. Switzerland's 10-year gov. bond yield is only 2.42. Canadian yield is very close to the American one. US/Canada are worse AAA nations.
UK bond indicates that UK gov. will be downgraded for sure. UK shall fall before America.
公众对大公司操纵政治很不满，最高法院这个ruling虽然对republican很有利，可以拿到更多的竞选费用，但大公司的出现对选票会有反作用。
总之两党都很烂，可能会继续烂下去，烂到像民进党和国民党那样互相对骂，使阴着，人身攻击。
竞选时，钱花的最多的地方是挖对方的老底，搞臭对方。今年会有好戏看的。
请了四位专家来评论奥巴马上任一年的作为，其中Peggy Noonan说：奥巴马没和美国大众走在同一方向上（Obama did not go in the same direction as American people）。她解释说：美国老百姓关心的是经济、外交安全等，而奥巴马的重心在医改、碳经济这个比较虚的事上。
她还讲：奥巴马是靠中间人士上台的，但是，医改让他尽失中间人士的支持。
另一个专家Sam Tannenhaus提出：奥巴马要象里根那样，坚持原则的同时要面对现实。
Robert Isaacson称：奥巴马不是大家希望的那样可以（在各派间）建立共识，呼吁他走中间道路，避免党派路线。
给林登·约翰逊写过传记的Robert Caro则以约翰逊为例子，认为奥巴马应该与国会议员们找到可以妥协、合作的地方以便推动医改方案的通过；认为如果奥巴马放弃了医改，就是背离了他自己的理念／原则。
－－－－－－－分割线－－－－－－－－－
节目最后，主持人Fareed Zakaria忧心重重地提到，据北京方面的报纸报道，tg把〈阿凡达〉2D撤下以便为〈孔子〉让路，－wow，现在其首页的标题是“CHINA'S AVATAR CRACKDOWN”（中国打击阿凡达）－，说〈孔子〉电影里有国家投资二千万，认为中国改革开放以来从外部资金、技术收益良多，现在（翅膀硬了）不要需要“我们”了（China does not need us any more)，要退回闭关锁国是对谁都没有好处的，还特意应用孔子的话：己所不欲，勿施于人。（这帽子可够大的。
）
政治伤亡。
他在大获全胜的时刻，没有猛追穷寇的勇气，不去压迫共和党议员做妥协，反而主动要和对手言和。
实践证明，共和党的党性是坚定的。他们的妥协是虚假的或暂时的。他们反咬的时候，是毫不留情地凶狠。
的确有点那个意思
“烂到像民进党和国民党那样互相对骂”，表面上可能是这样，但美国人比台湾人还是清醒的，知道自己在做什么，不会伤筋动骨耽误大事吧。