Soc Gen's Albert Edwards Forecasts S&P500 at 400

I'm looking for a bear market decline to 575 because I think 800 is fair value and these things overshoot to the downside just as they do to the upside, but hey! 400 is in the same town as 575, just don't go there at night alone:

Edwards said he has been long government bonds for the same amount of time [since 1996] and now feels vindicated with the yield on the 10-year Treasury having fallen from 7 percent to 1.75 percent, "a hair’s breadth" from his longstanding ... 1.5 percent target.

He dismisses those who argue that stocks are cheap historically and believes US stocks are overvalued based on Tobin’s Q , or the ratio of firms' assets to their stock prices; Shiller, Graham & Dodd’s normalized price-to-earnings ratios; and cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings measures.

Read it here, if you dare.

For the record the Shiller p/e stands tonight at a still rich 19.45. Don't unleash all 100 Dalmatians until it's well below 10. The last time that happened?

1974-1984.

France Blows Smoke Up The World's Ass: French Banks Have No Toxic Assets!

HaHaHaHaHa!

That's the lie of the decade, at the very least, betrayed by just one phrase: loans to Greece Italy.

From Bloomberg.com here:

Noyer, who is France’s chief financial regulator, dismissed reports that foreign companies such as Siemens AG (SIE) have withdrawn an unspecified amount of short-term deposits from Societe Generale, saying he’s confident in the health of France’s lenders.

“It’s a bit of a nonsense to look after every move from one bank to another,” he said. “I’m extremely confident” in French banks because “we know them very well. We know their balance sheets, their risk assessments. We know they have no toxic assets.”

Yes, well, I'll bet he also knows madam, and uses protection.

It's a bit of nonsense alright. Kind of interferes with the rhythm of the good life, which is about to come crashing down around your ears.

Siemens withdrew 500 million euros from a French bank it judged unsafe and placed it on deposit with the European Central Bank, according to widely circulated reports.

But of course that's just the old Germany vs. France thing, right?

What are the French going to say when Deutsche Bank comes crashing down with Soc Gen? And Bank of America, too?

C'est la vie?

U.G.L.Y. You ain't got no alibi, you ugly!