Archive - Oct 20, 2013
Druckenmiller Blasts Obama: "Show Me When You Initiated Budget Discussions Without A Gun At Your Head"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 21:45 -0500
One of the great ironies of the Obama presidency is that it has been a disaster for the young people who form the core of his political coalition. High unemployment is paired with exploding debt that they will have to finance whenever they eventually find jobs, and as Stan Druckenmiller explains in his WSJ interview, the "rat through the python theory," (that fiscal disaster will only be temporary while the baby-boom generation moves through the benefit pipeline and then entitlement costs will become bearable) is simply wrong; since, by then Druck exclaims, "you have so much debt on the books that it's too late." Unfortunately for taxpayers, "the debt accumulates while the rat's going through the python." The hedge fund billionaire adds that he "did not think it would be nutty to tie entitlements to the debt ceiling because there's a massive long-term problem. And this president, despite what he says, has shown time and time again that he needs a gun at his head to negotiate in good faith." The interview goes much, much further...
Why Have Young People In Japan Stopped Having Sex?
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 21:41 -0500
Japan's under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren't even dating, and increasing numbers can't be bothered with sex. For their government, "celibacy syndrome" is part of a looming national catastrophe. Japan already has one of the world's lowest birth rates. As The Guardian reports, 45% of Japanese women aged 16-24 are "not interested in or despise sexual contact". More than a quarter of men feel the same way. Is Japan providing a glimpse of all our futures? Many of the shifts there are occurring in other advanced nations, too. Across urban Asia, Europe and America, people are marrying later or not at all, birth rates are falling, single-occupant households are on the rise and, in countries where economic recession is worst, young people are living at home...
Strapped For Cash? Here's The Price List For Your Body Parts
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 21:02 -0500
As we explained last week, the sad fact is that cashed-strapped Americans are looking for new ways to make money and selling body parts is becoming a rising trend. Bloomberg crunched the numbers and found out what parts will earn the biggest pay day on and off the black market.
America Before And After The Government Shutdown (In One Cartoon)
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 20:41 -0500
Presented with no comment...
Alasdair Macleod Warns A Currency Crisis Is Dead Ahead
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 20:24 -0500
Alasdair explains how his "Fiat Money Quantity" (FMQ) is derived, as well as what it can tell us about the true levels of fiat money supply. In the case of the dollar, it reveals that levels are far above what is commonly appreciated – so far, in fact, that a currency crisis could arrive sooner than even many dollar bears expect... and how horribly mispriced gold remains.
The Obamacare "Glitch" Explained In 25 Quotes
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 19:39 -0500
While some have proclaimed the 36,000 enrollment in The Affordable Care Act "a good start," the online marketplaces that Obamacare has become more infamous for have been plagued with problems in the brief two weeks since launch. Politico provides 25 of the most telling and colorful comments made about the "glitches" the online exchanges have faced...
JPY Drops, Nikkei Pops On Japan's Worst Trade Deficit On Record
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 19:20 -0500
You have to laugh really... We presume the rally in Japanese stocks and weakness in the JPY reflects an assumption that this dismal miss for both imports and exports - leaving Japan's adjusted trade deficit the worst in Bloomberg's 20 year history - means moar Abenomics. Of course, the headlines will be all about Abe's 'any minute now' comments or Kuroda's 'just one more quarter' hope (as he speaks later today) but the reality is that things are not getting better in the radioactive nation as this marks the 30th consecutive trade deficit... but, like Venezuela, when has that even been reason not to buy stocks... S&P futures are up 2.5 points (below Friday's highs still for now), gold has given back its earlier gains and is unchanged, and Treasury Futures are down a tick.
How Europe's "Benefits" Stack Up To The US Entitlement Society
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 18:33 -0500
With an increasing focus in America on the ever growing entitlement society, we thought it might be useful to get some context of how the welfare states stack up across Europe. As Britain prepares to "test" immigrants in an effort to stymie "benefit tourists", The Telegraph's Ed Malnick, details what health care and child, unemployment and housing benefit a 30-year-old single EU migrant with a child but no job can access in each member state.
The Debt Ceiling Was Hit Back in May... So Why Did It Become a Crisis Five Months Later
Submitted by Phoenix Capital Research on 10/20/2013 18:20 -0500
The only problem is that this entire “crisis” was a lie. The US actually hit its debt ceiling back in May 2013, a full five months ago.At that time neither the Treasury Department, nor the White House, nor Congress talked about this.
Caxton: Goodbye To The Self-Sustaining Recovery
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 16:31 -0500
"It’s clear to us now that the US economy just isn't going to reach escape velocity," said Andrew Law, head of Caxton Associates (one of the hedge fund industry’s most successful money managers) in a wide-ranging and rare interview with the Financial Times. "Tapering is off the table for the foreseeable future." As we have explained numerous times, Caxton notes the Fed has little option but to continue its policy of extraordinary monetary easing indefinitely, adding "what happened [last week] was just another can kicking exercise. The problem has not been solved and the hopes for a grand bargain are in tatters." Simply put, he concludes rather dismally, "there are no incentives for the corporate world to go out and spend right now..."
Larry Summers Explains How He Would Fix The Economy (In 80 Seconds)
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 15:52 -0500
A physically deflated Larry Summers spoke with Charlie Rose about the US economy ("all we need is a few tenths of a percentage more growth..."), the political process ("nobody should be proud of the governance process..."), and the state of American education ("reward merit, remove tenure..."). The following 86 seconds summarizes the twice-denied would-be-central banker's thoughts...
Guest Post: Growth Is Obsolete
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 15:01 -0500
The sad, stark fact is that oil is now too expensive to permit further expansion of economies and populations. Expensive oil upsets the cost structure of virtually every system we need to run modern life: transportation, commerce, food production, governance, to name a few. In particular expensive oil destroys the cost structures of banking and finance because not enough new wealth can be generated to repay previously accumulated debt, and new credit cannot be extended without a reasonable expectation that more new wealth will be generated to repay it. Through the industrial age, our money has become an increasingly abstract and complex product of debt creation. In short, a society with deeply impaired capital formation has turned to crime, corruption, fakery, and subterfuge in order to pretend that “growth” — i.e. expansion of capital — is still happening.
What Each Country Excels In
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 14:01 -0500
Every country is Number One when it comes to something, relatively speaking - so Ricardo's theory of competitive advantage teaches - and this atlas from Bulgaria's Yanko Tsvetkov, author of the infamous and politically incorrect "stereotype maps", tells us just what these somethings are.
(In)Direct Slavery: We’re All Guilty
Submitted by Pivotfarm on 10/20/2013 13:38 -0500As we sit in our comfortable living rooms, loafing back into our sofas, munching on a bar of chocolate and slurping down the coffee whilst checking the smartphone for message most of us have little idea that the chocolate, the coffee and the smartphone were made by resorting to indirect slavery quite probably.
Mexico Overtakes US As World's Fattest Country; Begins Regulating Food Consumption
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/20/2013 13:05 -0500
Mayor Bloomberg's crusade to micromanage what New Yorkers put in their mouth has so far failed, but that just means the attempt to impose the first "New Normal" nanny state, in which individual calorie consumption is regulated for the greater good by the even greater government, has simply shifted its geographic location. In this case to Mexico, which according to the OECD has surpassed the US as the world's fattest country and is "notorious for its love of sweets, fried foods and pastries" where as the WSJ reports, the lower House of Congress passed on Thursday a special tax on junk food that is seen as potentially the broadest of its kind, part of an ambitious Mexican government effort to contain runaway rates of obesity and diabetes.




