Summer is over, and now the real scramble for performance begins with just 3 weeks left in the quarter. Here is a look at the key economic events in the upcoming week, from around the world.

The ever insightful Don Coxe of Coxe Advisors has released a transcript of his recent discussion on why the rally is fizzling. Aside from everything else, which as usual is spot on and must read, any paper that has the following statement: "In the New York Times today, Paul Krugman got into one of his splenetic rages but he is a terrific and articulate exemplar of the post-Keynesian (that claims to be Keynesian) school, which basically doesn’t believe that government deficits are bad, (they are good) and paying for things in the next generation or the generations after it is okay where it to get us out of what we are in now, so as far as he’s concerned, stimulus has to be done by increasing government deficits" is worth its weight on tungsten. Coxe also does the best summary of why the market has is barely changed both YTD and on a 1 Year basis: "We have a buildup in cash (in print money that is) and we have a buildup in gold, and beyond that there’s not much going on. That’s why the S&P is up about 1% year over year and it’s hardly of the kind of environment that’s going to get those investors who left the stock market after the Flash Crash, saying “We don’t believe the market is any realistic place for ordinary individuals anymore”— this is not going to get them running back in to buy stocks." But don't believe him- after all, there are thousands of paid for newsletters and momentum models, that promise they can time each and every up and downtick, and will certainly make you a trillionaire if not a billionaire (sic).

Roubini's latest media appearance, and now that the spectre of a double dip has fully arisen there are quite a few of them, is with the FT's James Blitz in which the NYU professor does a quick 5 minute summary of what he sees as the main threats to the US economy, among which are a 40%+ chance of a double dip, a sub 1% GDP growth in H2 2010, the disappearance of all stimulus pushes (and the conversion of the fiscal stimulus from a tailwind to a headwind), an awful job market, bigger bank losses, declining home prices, a drop in the stock market, widening spreads, a feedback loop from stock markets into the economy, and much more. We are happy the professor has revised his call from a few months back seeing virtually no chance of a double dip. As to policy, Roubini thinks the US has run out of policy bullets on both the monetary and fiscal side: he is sure the Fed will do more QE, but it will be impotent as there is already over $1 trillion in excess reserves (of course, it simply means excess reserves will be $2 trillion, $3 trillion... etc. And IF the economy picks up, this money will hit broad money. But no, aside from that, there is no threat of inflation. Because the Fed is fully prepared to absorb $3 trillion in excess money....). As to Europe, Roubini thinks austerity will also result in a disaster, first for the periphery and then for Germany, so basically damned if you do and damned if you don't vis-a-vis stimulating, which is precisely what we have been saying for over a year: the central banks have boxed themselves in a corner from which there is no escaping, regardless of what they do. Lastly, on Asia, and specifically China, Roubini notes the obvious that even the world's most overheating economy is faced with so many problems that it can only do what the US has been doing so well to date: kick the can down the road.

"Welcome to Wall Street Executive Air flight 2009 with service to Economic Disaster." All you need to know about the endangered species of Wall Street Faticus Caticus, and why it is about to cannibalize itself into oblivion, in a simple cartoon even Saturday night drunks can comprehend.

The other day, I came across an article that said, while individuals may be moving their money out of equities, they have been moving into bond funds – and in a big way. It’s called jumping from the frying fan into the fire. Based on my experience as a co-founder of a mutual fund group, I can tell you that if there is one sure thing in this world, it’s that when investors rush en masse into an investment category, it is invariably at almost exactly the wrong time to do so. Is that the case with today’s rush into bonds? To shed some light on that point, Casey Research Switzerland-based editor Kevin Brekke volunteered to look into the correlation between bond flows and performance. Here’s his report…

In his most recent Popular Delusions piece, SocGen's brilliant Dylan Grice once again rightfully demolishes the shamanic rituals of the "alternate universe" theory, better known as economics, ridicules economists for the hack priests of financial paganism they are, and concludes what may be the key principle of modern cynical thought: "Some have said that the key risk investors face today is of ‘policy error’. But isn’t that always the key risk? Financial history is one long series of ‘policy errors’ and while policy makers labour under the delusion that they know the unknowable it will remain so. All investors can do is try to see the funny side, and focus on things we can know." Incidentally, focusing on the funny side is precisely what Zero Hedge has been doing for just over a year and a half (much to the dismay of our ever growing detactors and critics). Add some intelligence to the discourse, and one gets in 18 months more actual policy changes (Fed Audit, the end of Goldman Prop (a topic we were digging into long before Volcker was resurrected from the dead), banning Flash trading, inquiry into High Frequency Trading and daily market manipulation), more than others who in lengthy, rambling, somnolent, rants and essays have achieved in decades. Since mixing humor and "focusing on what we know" is all we know, we will continue doing it, until we succeed in terminally discrediting the most worthless voodoo "science" ever conceived by man - economics, and overturning its one most destructive construct - the central bank and the implicit central planning that goes side by side. But in the meantime, here is Dylan's most recent fusion of humor and scathing condemnation of the idiots who will gladly destroy the US economy in their pursuit of a theory which is proven to be more and more flawed, fake and destructive with each passing day.

One of the most peculiar observations of this depression started in December 2007 is that while the total US population has increased by 6.8 million from 303.3 million to just over 310 million in July 2010, over the same 32 month period, the civilian labor force has declined from 153.9 million to 153.6 million. This makes zero sense, as all those aging into working age, or immigrating into the US need to find some job or some other paid activity (either legally or illegally). But let's assume that due to discouragement with economic conditions people simply refuse to look for jobs. The reality is that eventually all those people will come storming into the job market, once the economy recovers sufficiently. Which is why we make an estimate of what the "fair value" of the civilian labor pool is based on the historical average participation rate of 50.4% (as a percentage of total population). Backing into the cumulative population growth by this estimate, means that as of July 2010, the labor force has really grown by 3.4 million, once the one-time adjustment of a "recession" is eliminated (and after all that's what all modern economist claim right - that recessions are merely one-time blips on the road to perpetual Keynesian growth). In other words, the cumulative differential between the labor force as reported, and as calculated has hit an all time record of 3.7 million: this is a number that has to be added to the 7.6 million directly tabulated unemployed to get a sense of just how many jobs have been lost assuming a reversion to the mean for the US economy. In other words, after eliminating the statistical voodoo of the BEA and the Census Bureau, the US has lost just over 11.2 million jobs since the start of the recession.

I started looking at this issue back in May, as you can tell by the charts. As the baseline scenario for the economy looks weaker, it’s worth looking again at where the center scenario is situated and reposition. I didn’t look at futures because a lot of people don’t’ use them. I didn’t look at long training periods because most ETFs haven’t been around for too long. As with any pairs, relationships are probably fragile out of sample. I paired some commodity stocks with commodity ETFs on charts to see what they looked like. It is clear that not every commodity ETF is just a beta generator. Grain ETFs are less volatile than the stock I paired. GLD and Barrick look cointegrated with GLD outperforming over nearly the whole time series. Copper and CME look like a classic example of assets with the same drivers and different vol attributes. Stock vol is a slow climb up with abrupt downdrafts. Commodity vol is fast up and fast down. In these simple comparisons, oil is unique in reflecting inflation expectations and cost-pull factors. Or maybe I just picked a rotten pair. You decide.

Goldman's David Kostin, as usual, provides this week all you can eat chart buffett. In this latest edition we also find out that Goldman is also very good at hedging for every possible outcome: while calling for 1,200 on the S&P by year end (and 1,160 in three months, meaning in December the market will have to rise by 40 points), Kostin also admits that recommended sectors have generated -42 bps of alpha YTD, the recently introduced low operating leverage trade was down 1.9% in the past week, the long dividend growth stocks strategy lost 0.7%, yet all this was hedged with a long BRIC sales trade (up 1.1%), and a long Sharpe ratio strat (up 0.8%). Of course, all those strategies will likely net out to zero on a weekly basis going forward, as Kostin now has all bases covered. Some observations: "The S&P 500 was up 4.2% this week. Materials was the best performing sector this week (+6.0%) while Consumer Staples was the worst performing sector (+2.4%)." This is only fitting as Materials was the sector most beaten down going into the last week of August, and there is nothing like a little short covering rally to pass for a new bull market. All this and more inside.

Moderate inflation is good. This has been held as self-evident truth in modern monetary policy. But this will quickly become antisocial as the entire west goes through a structural change in demographics caused by babyboomer retirement. BoJ seems to have realized this early and well; they have managed their social transition with remarkably success, despite much sneering from western economists (I argued here that the Japanese lost decades is in fact a great achievement that US will only wish to match in 10 years). ECB seems to have realized this judging from their proclaimed resolve for austerity as opposed to unlimited simulus. The big question is: when will Fed and US government realize this?

This week's CFTC Commitment of Traders report, with some very interesting observations on speculative positions in the Treasury curve.

Your one stop shop for the week's summary of bullish and bearish events and news.

Since the beginning of the recession/depression there have been over 7.6 million total job losses (not just private jobs, which is all that the government is suddenly focusing on. What next: emphasizing the dramatic surge in janitors and trash collectors?). So which occupations are the biggest winners and losers over the past 33 months? Curiously, the split in job losses is spread about evenly between manufacturing and service jobs, with the top 2 biggest absolute losers are construction and manufacturing occupations. Things are not better in services either, as the bulk of professional segments have lost hundreds of thousands, with two exceptions: healthcare and education. Of course, the one sector that has never seen cumulative job losses in the recession is the government - for state and federal employees the recession has not only ended, but it never started.