Archive - Nov 16, 2013

williambanzai7's picture

I HaVe HaZ ENuFFS!!!





Endeavor to perservere!

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Spot The Striking Similarity





Just a lucky coincidence?

 

 

Tyler Durden's picture

"I Can't Believe The President Lied"





...harsh, but fair...

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Guest Post: Is It Wrong To Be Anti-Government?





The establishment desires to acclimate Americans to the idea that being anti-government is wrong; that it is a despicable philosophy embracing social deviance, aimless violence, isolation and zealotry. Looking beyond the mainstream position, my question is, is it really such a bad thing to be anti-government today?

 

Tyler Durden's picture

What Is A Gold Standard?





Given our earlier discussion of Nobel winner Sargent's comments on Greece and the gold standard, and the ongoing melt-up in asset markets due to the 'limitless money-printing' of central banks around the world, we thought it worth a look at what a gold standard is (and is not). Before 1974, U.S. dollars were backed by gold. This meant that the federal government could not print more money than it could redeem for gold. While this constrained the federal government, it also provided citizens with a relatively stable purchasing power for goods and services. Today's paper currency has no intrinsic value. Professor Larry White asks, should the United States return to a gold standard?

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Not Exactly The Smartest Way To Smuggle Gold...





Thailand is known for a lot of things – quintessential white sandy beaches, hard partying nightlife, quiet Buddhist reverence... But what a lot of people don’t realize is that Bangkok is probably one of the most important cities in the world when it comes to illegal trafficking. Human trafficking. Narcotrafficking. Money laundering. Weapons. Forged documents. Etc. Bangkok is just as vital to these industries as New York or London to the global financial sector. And now, thanks to India’s sagging economy, they can add one more to this list: gold smuggling... In Thailand, however, gold demand is up 125% from the 3rd quarter of 2012.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

BTFATH Is The New BTFD





As the following Google Trends chart shows, we can now wave goodbye to BTFD and replace it with our own humorous creation to explain Bernanke's "market" - BTFATH.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Nation's Largest Healthcare Provider Cuts Thousands Of Doctors; Blames Government





UnitedHealth, the nation's largest provider of privately managed Medicare Advantage plans, has dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks citing "substantial funding pressure from the federal government." The WSJ reports that physician groups are protesting as many elderly patients are now unsure about whether they need to switch plans to keep seeing their doctors. Doctors in at least 10 states have received termination letters, some citing "significant changes and pressures in the health-care environment." UnitedHealth said its provider networks are always changing and that it expects its Medicare Advantage network "to be 85% to 90% of its current size by the end of 2014," due to the new health law (Obamacare). More job creation?

 

Phoenix Capital Research's picture

Economic Metrics Are Now Used As Political Tools





 

Economic data can be and is commonly used as a political tool. The EU is just the latest example of this. In the US we’ve seen this same game played out using GDP numbers.

 
 

Tyler Durden's picture

Have We Lost Our Common Sense?





The only way to keep the status quo from imploding is to banish common-sense.

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Nobel Winner Dares To Go There: "No Reason To Fear Deflation... Greece May Benefit From Gold Standard"





"Historically, there is no reason to fear deflation," Nobel Laureate Thomas Sargent explains to Germany's Wiwo.de, "we all benefit from lower prices." Crucially, he continues, "countries with declining prices, such as Greece, must improve the competitiveness they have lost in recent years," requiring falling wages and rising productivity (and falling unit labor costs) which will lead to companies cutting prices, "this is not a dangerous deflation, but part of the necessary correction so that these countries are internationally competitive again." That central banks pursue an inflation rate of around 2%, Sargent blasts, is because they consider it their job to "make bad debt good debt," adding that inflation is "a major redistribution machine - reducing the real debt burden for the benefit of creditors and devaluing the assets of the creditors." A return to a gold standard,he concludes, to prevent governments and central banks from limitless money-printing "would not be foolish."

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Bad News For Keynesians: Data Shows The Austerians Are Right





Not only is there a positive relationship between stronger public finances during the crisis and faster post-GFC growth, but the relationship holds both within and outside Europe.  We have two observations. First, the results may help explain why Keynesian pundits resort to nonsensical arguments. They often claim that poor performance in countries attempting to contain public debt proves austerity doesn’t work, which is like deciding your months in rehab stunk, and therefore, rehab is bad and heroin is good. A more honest approach is to compare fiscal actions in one time period with results in later periods, after the obvious short-term effects have played out. But if Keynesians did that, they would reveal that their own advice has failed. Second, the effects discussed by Aslund don’t receive enough attention. As Tyler Cowen (who gets credit for the pointer) wrote, Aslund’s perspective “is underrepresented in the economics blogosphere.”...  Until now, we haven’t offered research on intermediate-term effects – horizons of 2-5 years as in the charts above. 

 

Tyler Durden's picture

Entry Event: Tim Geithner To Join Private Equity Giant Warburg Pincus





When Tim Geithner announced his departure from the US Treasury in January, the only question was how long would it take the former NY Fed head to get a job with the only industry that he cared about as either a Fed or Treasury official: Wall Street. Tim did his best to diffuse such speculation with amusing stories about writing books, which were accentuated by his refusal to join the Fed chairmanship race. Why not? After all there was nobody that Wall Street would benefit more from as the head of the Fed than TurboTax Tim. Today, less than a year after his exit from public service, the answer has presented itself - Tim Geithner is joining private equity titan Warburg Pincus, his first private sector job in decades since working for Henry Kissinger early in his career.

 

CrownThomas's picture

Tim Geithner's New Home: Warburg Pincus





Shockingly from Government to Wall Street...

 

Marc To Market's picture

Dollar Remains Fragile





The US dollar looks vulnerable to additional losses next week.  While we had correctly anticipated the greenback's losses last week, we had expected it to begin recovering ahead of the weekend.   This did not materialize and, leaving aside the yen, the dollar finished the week near its lows.   Generally speaking, the technical outlook for the greenback has soured and, in fact, warn of some risk accelerated losses in the period ahead.  

 
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