Governor Chris Christie telling the truth is deemed a "rookie mistake" by Miller Tabak

“The market is very sensitive

to the word ‘bankrupt.’”

(telling the truth is a rookie mistake)

By Brendan A. McGrail
Jan. 14, 2011 (Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s comments that rising health-care costs might “bankrupt” the state, made on the same day of a planned bond sale, drew criticism for their poor timing and may have driven borrowing costs higher.

About 20 minutes after Christie, 48, made the bankruptcy reference in a town-hall meeting in Paramus yesterday, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority cut its tax-exempt school bond offering by almost half to $777.5 million.

“He is scaring some people when he says the state is going bankrupt,” said Gary Pollack, head of bond trading at Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management in New York.

“It wasn’t timed well,” said Pollack, who oversees $6 billion and said he continues to buy New Jersey bonds.

Linking the governor’s remarks with the decision to reduce the debt sale is a “completely bogus interpretation and an irresponsible connecting of unconnected events,” Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Christie, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News. A spokesman for the Treasury Department also denied any connection, as did the deal’s main underwriter.

Christie, a first-term Republican, said health-care spending “will bankrupt” the state unless it requires its workers to pay more for medical coverage. New Jersey will spend $4.3 billion on employee and retiree health insurance this year, and that cost will rise 40 percent within four years, he said. He wants all public employees in New Jersey to contribute more than the current 1.5 percent of salary toward medical benefits.

‘Rookie’ Error

“Mr. Christie made a rookie mistake,” said Mike Pietronico, who oversees $360 million as chief executive officer of Miller Tabak Asset Management in New York. “The market is very sensitive to the word ‘bankrupt.’”

The Christie administration rejected that interpretation.

“The governor has been making these comments and warnings for months, all while instituting and pursuing reforms to fix the well-documented policy failings of prior administrations -- which, by my recollection, analysts have recognized and applauded,” Drewniak said.
Complete article

Munger Tells 25 Million Americans To "Suck It In", And To "Thank God For Bank Bailouts" GREAT ZERO HEDGE POST

Zero Hedge

There is a reason why many countries institute mandatory retirement age: it is so that when dementia strikes, and people spout any damn thing that comes to mind, only the nearest four walls are subject to their insanity.

Alas, when it comes to Berkshire Hathaway, no such luck. And while we have extensively discussed Warren Buffett's recent inexorable decline from merely a successful rider of the biggest cheap credit bubble in history to a captured puppet of Wall Street courtesy of his tens of billions of Wall Street-related investments, little has been said about his even older, and apparently even more affected by the unpleasant side-effects of a public televised senescence, sidekick, Charlie Munger.

Luckily, courtesy of Bloomberg we now know just how deep the rot runs in the Berkshire family. During a discussion at the Universtiy fo Michigan, the 86 year old told the 25 million of Americans who comprise the 16.7% of the underemployed population in the country, to "suck it in and cope." Not only that, but apparently, all those who have been without a job for 99 weeks and more and no longer have recourse to insurance benefits, should "thank God for bank bailouts."

Why of course he would say that: after all $26 billion worth of direct BRK investments were the recipient of over $95 billion in bailouts. So when it comes to him, thank god for the bailout indeed... But when it comes to the little man, old Charlie is all about doing the right thing.

It Gets Better

Bank rescues allowed the U.S. to avoid what could have been an “awful” downturn and will help the country as it deals with the housing slump, Munger, 86, said. He used the example of post-World War I Germany to explain how the bailouts under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were “absolutely required to save your civilization.”

“Hit the economy with enough misery and enough disruption, destroy the currency, and God knows what happens,” Munger said. “So I think when you have troubles like that you shouldn’t be bitching about a little bailout. You should have been thinking it should have been bigger.”

Germany was unable to stabilize its financial system in the 1920s, and, Munger said, “We ended up with Adolf Hitler.”

Complete Zero Hedge Post...WORTH THE READ