Archive - Nov 2014

While forcing citizens to work for no money may appeal to European policy-makers as a solution to their youth unemployment problem (as we discussed here and here), it is a problem that covers a stunning 35.8 million people in the world who are classified as slaves, according to the latest data.

Something is dreadfully wrong in America.

Despite The Fed's Jim Bullard proclaiming last week that inflation expectations had rebounded (by which we assumed he meant the Dow), 5-year forward 5-year inflation expectations just dropped in the US to the lowest since 2008. The rest of the world is no better. In spite of promised and delivered policies Japanese and European inflation expectations are also near multi-year (if not all-time) lows... which must mean only one thing - we need moar money printing.

A losing bet for the rest of us...

Since Ben Bernanke reminded the world of the existence of government printing-presses, echoed Milton Friedman's "helicopter drop" solution to fighting deflation, and decried Japan for not being as insane as it could be... it has only been a matter of time before some global central bank decided that the dropping of cash onto the populace was the key to economic recovery. Having blown their wad on QQE (and been left with a triple-dip recession), it appears Japan has reached that limit. As Japan's News47 reports, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has instructed his cabinet to develop economic measures such as handing out 'gift certificates' to the poor to "support personal consumption directly."

How many teachers does it take to proctor 1200 students taking college exams simultaneously in Baoji, Shaanxi...

... and 10 times more "folksy" than Clinton.

Pension debt in the Land of Lincoln is a big problem. So big, in fact, that it would take three years of a complete government shutdown, during which the entire general fund went toward pensions, just to break even. Illinois politicians have looted and mismanaged public-employee pension funds for decades. The system is no longer sustainable or affordable.

It seems Carl Icahn will not be going activist on the S&P500 after all. During the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York on Monday, the 78 year old billionaire said that "I am still concerned that one day you'll see a break like you had a few weeks ago but it won't come back."

Politicians, Media and Wall Street May Be Trying to Hide the Size of the Gap

No, this is not a joke.

“In a Ponzi game you exhaust the lenders eventually, and of course Japanese taxpayers may revolt. But otherwise there are always new taxpayers, so this is a feasible Ponzi game, though I'm not saying it's good.”

Despite the promise of increased transparency, if you felt that deciphering Fed policy (other than uber-dovish, lower-for-longer, willing-to-wait, BTFD) became more and more confusing as the last few years progressed, you would not be alone. In fact, the complexity of the Fed's statements (not just the wordcount which we have noted numerous times) has surged from "Secondary School" reading level throughout Greenspan's era to "Post-Grad" comprehension at the peak of Bernanke's reign. Yellen, so far, has reverted modestly. As The Economist notes, this increased baffle-em-with-bullshit "Fedspeak" complexity is very reminiscent of the George Orwell's 1984-esque "oldspeak" or "doublespeak" used to keep a quiescent public bemused.

There, standing on the brick sidewalk on the corner of Bryant and University Avenues was a person unlike any I had ever seen before.

Presented with no comment...