Archive - Dec 22, 2014

A second senior airline industry source has revealed his belief that there is some sort of conspiracy behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. As The Herald Sun reports, Emirates president and CEO Sir Tim Clark made world headlines in October when he revealed his doubts about the fate of the missing plane, which disappeared early in the morning of March 8 this year. Now a second senior airline industry source has voiced his doubts about the fate of the plane, with the even wilder claim that the Boeing 777 may have been shot down by US military personnel who were fearing a September 11-style attack on the US Navy base on Diego Garcia.

The story of Ukraine's corzined gold just got far better, and far, far more bizarre and surreal. As Bloomberg reports, Ukraine opened a criminal probe after several gold bars at the central bank’s storage in the southern city of Odessa turned to be painted lead.  The latest gold fraud involved a central bank employee passing lead bars covered with golden paint to the storage unit, registering them as gold, the Vesti newspaper reported today, citing an unidentified person with knowledge of the matter in Odessa’s police department.  In other words, the central bank was actually conned into buying the gold-plated lead.

From the outside America may seem to be a land of endless optimism and confidence. But, as Sky News reports, an increasing number of Americans seem to think it is danger of falling apart, and they're preparing for the end. "We're not talking about folks walking around wearing tin foil on their heads,; we're not talking about conspiracy theorists. I'm talking about professionals: doctors and lawyers and law enforcement and military. Normal, everyday people. They can't necessarily put their finger on it. But there's something about the uncertainty of our times. They know something isn't quite right."

Central banks and fascist governments control humanity through a virtual monopoly on money issuance and distribution, which is why I am doing my best as a father to make it clear that money can be anything. No one truly gets any added value from holding a stack of paper. It’s our time that is of value, and the things we own that make our lives better. But money itself is just a means to an end.

Since the early days of civilization, the ancients connected the brilliance of silver to the moon. Artemis, the Greek goddess of the moon, wore silver sandals and shot from a silver bow and arrow. This lunar comparison might be fitting because like the moon, silver also has many phases. The properties of silver make it the most dynamic of precious metals.

While the cancellation of 'The Interview' wiped billions off the US Box Office take in 2014 (</sarc>), ticket sales in North America will total roughly $10.5 billion, according to The NY Times, the lowest since 2000 (after inflation). Regal Cinemas and AMX Theatres have seen profits collapse and Carmike Cinemas has plunged to a loss as major movie delays (from Pixar and Universal), "pirating" of several movies (The Expendables 3 and Annie) before their release, and studios suffering one dud after another (Warner Bros.) the 4% YoY decline - for what is ultimately an affordable luxury - suggests the gas-price-savings are going anywhere but discretionary spending (just as we noted previously).

Be on your guard for those who claim to be able to improve our satisfaction and protect us from harm through expansion of government coercion in the market.

Forget the middle-aged belt-and braces stockbroker who 'knows' a good stock. Ignore the 5-star tech analysts who never saw a startup he didn't like (with your money). Meet 25-year-old math PhD Sam Barnett, CEO of SBB Research - a quant hedge fund - who, instead of wild extrapolations and Keynesian hockey-sticks, trades the market by "using data to mine information before it is encoded into the markets." While several of the CNBC team flounders to show why their commissions are worth it, and why a 25-year-old could not possibly 'know' anything, we for once agree with their premise - this IS the future of trading - 25-year-old math PhDs mining data faster than a fat finger can press buy.

It's not just the exponential rise in US debt that threatens the future 'freedom' of Americans...

Following the start of Abenomics in 2012, Japan moved back to the center of attention of global financial markets. After two and a half decades of economic stagnation, hopes were high that Japan would escape its long stagnation and deflation. Plenty of economists around the globe hoped that, in so doing, Japan would show the western world, mainly the Eurozone, the way to do the same and avoid a similar long period of low growth and stagnating incomes. Conversely, the failure of Abe’s plan for Japan’s recovery would not only be a disaster for the country of the rising sun. It would also be very bad news for central bankers and politicians in the west as well. It would prove that Keynesian policies don’t work in a world of too much debt and shrinking populations.

"Because moar is always betterer..."

New Yokr Mayor de Blasio had strong 'not-my-fault' words for the media during today's press conference about the assassination of 2 NYPD cops over the weekend. De Blasio begins blasting media, "What are you guys gonna do? ... Are you going to keep dividing us?" He then gets on a roll and blames reporters for inciting protesters to confront police - "you all [reporters] enable that [racial divide]... that's how you want to portray the world." Yep - all their fault...

The key is to understand why real median household incomes continue to decline and then how to correct it.  It all comes back to financial policies that incentivize investors to avoid economy-boosting investments and toward financial investments that have no economic benefit.  The result is a narrowing of income distribution exasperating the down spiral, while inflating wealth to the already wealthy.  As long as these policies remain intact the American quality of life will continue to spiral downward while the wealth at the top continues to accelerate until one day when the top pops off and all that wealth goes abroad.  And that Mr. Liesman is what we call economics.

When all is said and done, the swing factor in the decision to work (or not work) is the income it generates (and lifestyle it supports). So we found it intriguing that, as the following chart shows, the number of hours or work required for the average American to buy the S&P 500 has never been higher...