Archive - Oct 23, 2013

"The only true American value that is left... Buying Things..." There’s a reason for why education sucks and why it’s never going to be fixed, and that’s not the only hard hitting truths that George Carlin shares in this video...

Despite Ron Insana's insta-dismissal of all things "Austrian", and Maria Bartiromo's scoffing at his comments, Mark Spitznagel (who most recently discussed the problems we face here, here and here) ventured on to the unreality channel this afternoon and much eyebrow-raising ensued. Spitznagel, author of The Dao of Capital , explained why he believes "the market is setup for a major crash," and expects a 40% decline in stocks. The current market "entirely artificial" environment driven by zero-interest-rates and central bank asset purchases, along with valuations and sentiment, has distorted the 'markets' in the same way as "in all other major tops in history." His investing advice is simple, "step aside!" But doesn't expect many to heed his proven advice, because, "it is the hardest thing to do right now, "and makes you look like a fool."

Tokyo, and the entire country of Japan, which the documentary below describes as "a place where socially awkward people gather and use money to resolve their communication problems", has a ticking demographic timebomb: on one hand the population is getting so old that sales of adult diapers now exceed those for babies; on the other as the chart below courtesy of Mark Adomanis shows, the number of actual births each year has dropped to a record low. The issue: young people in Japan just don't want or have any interest, in commitment to the other sex, nor do they seem to have any interest in procreating in a narrow sense, or sex in a broad one (a topic further pursued in "Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex"). There is another angle. As this documentary from Vice investigates, "sex sells and the Japanese are buying." The reason: Japan has a "seemingly infinite menu of relationship replacement services." Watch the following clip to find out just what that menu is...

In his last book, The Five Stages of Collapse, Orlov viewed collapse through rose-colored glasses - after all, it is human nature to try to be optimistic no matter what; and so almost subconsciously crafted a scenario where industrial civilization fades away quickly enough to save what's left of the natural realm, allowing some remnant of humanity to make a fresh start. Ideally, it would start of with a global financial collapse triggered by a catastrophic loss of confidence in the tools of globalized finance. That would swiftly morph into commercial collapse, caused by global supply chain disruption and cross-contagion. As business activity grinds to a halt and tax revenues dwindle to zero, political collapse wipes most large-scale political entities off the map, allowing small groups of people to revert to various forms of anarchic, autonomous self-governance. Those groups that have sufficient social cohesion, direct access to natural resources, and enough cultural wealth (in the form of face-to-face relationships and oral traditions) would survive while the rest swiftly perish. Of course, there are problems even with this scenario.

While commission-takers the world over attempt to dispel the fact that throwing your hard-earned money into the US equity market is absolutely not gambling, Bloomberg has decided that the time is right to relaunch "Poker Night On Wall Street." Hosted by Trish Regan, David Einhorn, Jim Chanos, and Mario Gabelli are among the top-ranked investors and hedge fund managers facing-off in a winner-takes all charity poker tournament at the Borgata in Atlantic City. By way of guidance, we include what investors and gamblers have in common...

On Monday, Google rolled out three new initiatives to ensure the openness of the Internet and access to the service -- even in the face of government crackdowns on the web. As Foreign Policy notes, one of those tools is a proxy plug-in -- creatively titled uProxy -- that uses a peer-to-peer system to create secure Internet connections. Another tool, Project Shield, promises to protect human rights organizations and NGOs from so-called DDoS attacks, which take down a website by directing a flood of traffic toward it and overwhelming it or rendering it unusable. The last project rolled out this week is something called the Digital Attack Map, which is embedded below. It's a fascinating, interactive map that monitors DDoS attacks around the world -- an effort Google hopes will raise awareness about the problem.

The rest of the world has had enough of the monopoly of the credit-rating agencies that are largely biased towards the US economy and it’s about time that it all came to an end. 

It's different this time, right... even the CAT CEO found a silver lining of hope for the future (admittedly 5,10, 200 years in the future), but, the sad reality is we have seen exactly this kind of disconnect between CAT's idiocyncratic revenues and world GDP before... and it didn't end well...

America, as a nation and a culture, is now being held hostage and tortured into submission on a grand scale using economic terror by the elitist establishment which dominates BOTH major political parties.  The goal?  To push our society to conform completely with the concepts of globalization, bureaucratic micro-management, and greatly reduced living standards.  We are being conditioned to accept defeat and failure, and like children, to cry out for a parental authority to save us in our state of helplessness and fear, even if that authority was the cause of our fear from the very beginning. With so many near misses culminating so close together, it may be wise to consider what could happen in the the next three months while we wait for debt debate theater part deux.  Like a prisoner in Abu Ghraib, America is trapped, waiting for the next humiliation, the next degradation, or the next session of pain.  Are we merely being acclimated to the idea of incessant crisis?  Are we learning to become apathetic at the edge of the chasm?  Or, are we being driven to madness, mass-madness, by a concert of  elitist interrogators seeking our acquiescence? Again, the central purpose of torture is to acquire consent.  Not just extorted consent, but voluntary consent. The globalist establishment wants us to beg them to save us from the tortures they create.  If we never give them this, they will never win.

Washington, DC, Wall Street, and central bankers around the world rejoiced this week as Congress came to an agreement to end the government shutdown and lift the debt ceiling. The latest spending-and-debt deal was negotiated by Congressional leaders behind closed doors, and was rushed through Congress before most members had time to read it. Now that the bill is passed, we can see that it is a victory for the political class and special interests, but a defeat for the American people.

After writing more than a dozen articles criticizing the finance of a major state-owned construction equipment-maker, journalist Chen Yongzhou was arrested (accused of defamation). Though not a 300 page PowerPoint presentation, Chen's arrest, which coincides with new curbs on journalists, lawyers and internet users in China, throws into question the role of whistleblowers even as the country's leadership moves to eradicate graft. Of course, as Reuters reports, no police comment was made but the company added, "we did it to safeguard the legitimate rights of the company," after Chen (ironically) reported that Changsha-based Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co. Ltd. engaged in sales fraud, exaggerated its profits and used public relations to defame its competitors, accusations strongly denied by the company. Media experts said the commentary was unusual but not highly controversial, though it definitely makes one wonder how soon "negativity" will be clamped down in the US.

Back on August 1, 2010, Alan Greenspan - who is once again making the media rounds in a desperate attempt to peddle his ridiculous book about forecasting (in which he explains it wasn't the Fed's models that were wrong; it was reality, and all those who inhabit it, that had a glitch) and is arguably the man who created the single biggest credit expansion in the Pre-New Normal era who no longer has access to the money printer so needs to sell books, and soon enough he may devolve to pitching newsletters - issued one of his most memorable post-Lehman bloopers. To wit: "if the stock market continues higher it will do more to stimulate the economy than any other measure we have discussed here." We decided to investigate his claim...

"I have been cursed at a Chinese border. In Dubai, my passport was studied by three veiled women for over an hour and my suitcase completely dismembered. In the Philippines I had to bribe someone in order to get my visa extended for a few days. Borders, they can be tough, especially in countries known for corruption.

But never, ever, will I return to the United States of America."

- Excerpt from a must read article by Niels Gerson Lohman

Credit markets remain notably less sanguine than stocks; VIX remains relatively well bid; and in a freakish state of affairs most US equity indices closed the day with an odd shade of red against their price... all that is, except for Trannies which soared 0.67% to new all-time highs once again. Nasdaq was the worst (-0.7%) as more momo slipped (TSLA's turn today), the S&P 500 oscillated in a very twitchy manner all day around its VWAP (for its first losing day in 5 sessions) tracking EURJPY once again, and CAT dragged on the Dow.  Sector dispersion off the lows from 2 weeks ago narrowed notably today. Elsewhere, the USD slipped further, now down 0.4% on the week; commodities drifted lower with oil worst  (-3.8% on the week closing below $97!); and Treasuries rallied very modestly (yields down 1-2bps).

Following his "can we get some mexican music to go along with that" Ted Cruz comments, the always "apolitical" Steve Liesman - who honed his 'economic' teeth while on a mission to communist Russia - has issued an apology. Explaining his remarks were not meant to be "offensive in any way," Liesman suggested perhaps country-western would be a better choice next time...