Archive - Dec 2014

Joseph Goebbels had nothing on US and European media today.

That propaganda as a strategic and political instrument has been refined to a huge extent over the past 70-odd years since Goebbels first picked up on Freud’s lessons on how to influence the unconscious mind, and the ‘mass-mind’, as a way to ‘steer’ an entire people, not just as a means to make them buy detergent. These days, the media can make people believe just about anything, and they have the added benefit that they can pose as friends of the people, not the enemy. But there is a reason why such a large ‘industry’ has developed on the web with people writing articles that don’t say what the mass media say. That reason for is, obviously, first and foremost that not everybody believes whatever they are told. The problem is equally obvious: not nearly enough people are being reached to make a true difference, and to question the official narratives.

United Parcel Service expects to handle four million returns the first full week of January, up 15% from two years ago as online sales continue to grow as returns "represent a larger percentage of overall sales." As WSJ reports, more than 20% of returns happen during the holiday season - representing $60 billion in merchandise. While returns may be a boon for delivery companies, they are costly for retailers as returns, replacements and damaged goods represent about 10% of revenue. With return rates as high as 50%, one manager explains "'returns' is just a dirty business... Retailers are really losing their shirts on it."

On July 15th 2014, The Federal Reserve uttered the following warning to exuberant equity investors, "Valuation metrics in some sectors do appear substantially stretched -- particularly those for smaller firms in the social-media and biotechnology industries." 5 months later, Yellen Capital LP is half right...

"Blind faith in policymakers remains a bad trade that’s still widely held. Pressure builds everywhere we look. Not as a consequence of the Fed’s ineptitude (which is a constant in the equation, not a variable), but through the blind faith markets continue to place on the very low probability outcome – that everything will turn out well this time around."

Britain has inched out France as the world's fifth-largest economy thanks to what The Telegraph calls "a shake-up" of the national accounts this summer. UK gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to total $2.828 trillion (£1.816 trillion) this year, compared with French GDP of $2.827 trillion, as The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said Britain's acceleration was boosted by the inclusion of sex and drugs to UK growth (as part of new pan-European accounting standards). Official estimates show prostitution added about £5.7bn to the UK economy in 2013, while illegal drugs were worth about £6.62bn. One question - how did they estimate it?

Presented with no comment...

During a state-TV "interview" which many are dubbing pure fear-mongering propaganda ahead of Monday's final 'vote of confidence', Greek Prime Minister Samaras unleashes his most assanine M.A.D. comments yet. "It's not a question of what's good for me or New Democracy. It's best for the country that there are not snap elections."  Translation: you don't need no stinking democracy, trust us - your benevolent rulers - to do what's best for the Greek people (and by Greek people, he means 'unelected European bureaucrats').

2014 was awash with potentially status quo destabilizing 'realities' to the "we're back on track and world economic growth is about to reach escape velocity" meme... but time after time, the well-conditioned 'investor' was rescued... here's how...

Simply put: We've lived well beyond our economic, energetic and ecological budgets. It's time to change that.

Amid the heartbreak and sorry of the funeral of Rafael Ramos (one of the two assassinated NYPD cops last week), hundreds of police officers turned their backs away from the large screen outside the church as New York mayor Bill De Blasio began to speak...

The US dollar closed higher against all the major currencies during the holiday shortened week. The lack of liquidity may have exaggerated the weakness of Swedish krona and Norwegian krone, the poorest performing major currencies.  Both lost about 1.5% against the greenback. 

The least weak currencies were in the dollar-bloc. The Canadian and New Zealand dollars were practically flat, and the Australian dollar slipped 0.2%.   The euro and sterling slipped about 0.5%, while the yen shed 0.7% of its recent gains. 

Do you see what happens Larry, when you, supposedly, use all of your crack 16MHz 80286 supercomputers to dictate to Americans what C-grade comedy flops they can and can not watch?

On the old continent, this December 29th, a succinct political showdown is scheduled to take place which may well become a defining moment for our entirely unsettled new millenium. 

The entire world is watching Putin play poker with the Western politicians lead by Obama and followed by Washington quislings in London, Brussels and Berlin. America's goal since the end of the Cold War has been to weaken by financial, economic and, if necessary, military means any real competition to its global financial and resource domination through the petrodollar and dollar world reserve currency status. We hope Putin realizes the US is not playing games here, as this is a financial and strategic game to the death for Washington and it's Western allies that have foolishly followed the Goldman Sachs/central banking cartel's deadly sovereign debt recipe and for growth and prosperity. The time is up; the debts can never be repaid and sooner or later must be repudiated one way or the other.

After two years of economic torture and financial destruction, Abenomics has finally claimed the Keynesian prize: real wages crash 4.3%, the most in the 21st century, and Japan's legendary savings rate, which peaked at 23% in 1975, just turned negative for the first time ever. Game over Japan.