CA

Trading on State, City Defaults

The California Treasury has issued a press release on Big Banks selling their bonds and betting California defaults. The vehicle which the default bets are placed are.....CDSes or credit default swaps.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer today released data that show the top six fee earners among investment banks that sell California bonds have, since 2007, completed more than $27.5 billion of trades in a market where investors can profit by taking a dim view of the State’s credit risk.

Some Good News for Silicon Valley

This is a refreshing announcement. A new Venture Capital firm is starting and they will only invest in Silicon valley based companies (U.S. would be better folks!)

But what is interesting is they are also doing angel investing or the first $50k to get started, which has died down in recent years.

Now a lot of absurdity did happen in the dot con bubble, at the same time to truly obtain innovation, one has to fund a lot of fizzle to obtain that one true spark.

It's also great that this $300M fund will be investing in U.S. companies. About time we stopped hearing the offshore outsourcing mantra and had funds being directed exclusively to U.S. technical innovation.

An interesting fact from the article:

California Gets Real - Considers deporting thousands of illegal immigrant criminals instead of footing the bill

There is no doubt the illegal alien lobby will scream bloody murder over this, but due to the fact California is about to collapse and default, Governor Schwartzenagger is considering the obvious, instead of paying for illegal immigrants who are sitting in California's prisons costing the state money, how about handing them back and let that country be responsible for their own citizens?

What a concept and he's not releasing the violent felons either.

Calif. looks to immigrant inmates to save costs:

50 Days Until California Meltdown - CA Controller

Awesome. The California Controller says the state has 50 days until complete meltdown.

From his letter to the Governor:

On May 29, 2009, I informed you of the precarious nature of the State’s cash condition and alerted you to impending risks which threaten the State’s ability to meet its payment obligations.

The situation has not improved. Based on actual revenues received during the month of May, and finalized May Revision data provided by the Department of Finance on June 1, I have the following updates to the State’s 2009-10 cash outlook:

  • In the absence of legislative action, the State will not have sufficient cash to meet all of its payment obligations on July 28. By July 31, the cash deficit will increase to a negative $2.78 billion.