Archive - Dec 2014

Today we'll learn more about whether Mr Draghi becomes Super Mario in the near future as the widely anticipated ECB meeting is now only a few hours away. We will do another summary preview of market expectations shortly, but in a nutshell, nobody really expects Draghi to announce anything today although the jawboning is expected to reach unseen levels. The reason is that Germany is still staunchly against outright public QE, and Draghi probably wants to avoid and outright legal confrontation. As DB notes, assuming no new policy moves, the success of today's meeting will probably depend on the degree to which Draghi indicates the need for more action soon and the degree to which that feeling is unanimous within the council. Over the past weekend Weidmann's comment about falling oil prices representing a form of stimulus highlights that this consensus is still proving difficult to build. It might need a couple more months of low growth and inflation, revised staff forecasts and a stubbornly slow balance sheet accumulation to cement action.

A desperate feeding frenzy takes its course.

Many people have noted that the more insidious or corrupt a law or agency, the more positive sounding its name. The most egregious example during my lifetime, was naming legislation that stripped Americans of most of their civil liberties the “Patriot” Act. In a similar vein, which red-blooded American could ever be opposed to something called the Small Business Administration (SBA). As such, the SBA is the perfect vehicle for cronyism, corruption and corporate welfare, which indeed appears to be its primary reason for existence.

The hypothesis that follows, if carried through, is certain to have a significant effect on gold and the relationship between gold and all government-issued currencies. The successful remonetisation of gold by a major power such as Russia would draw attention to the fault-lines between fiat currencies issued by governments unable or unwilling to do the same and those that can follow in due course. It would be a schism in the world's dollar-based monetary order.

In the 16th century, Spain was, in fact, the greatest power in Europe during a significant chunk of the renaissance, and she had her overseas dominions to prove it. How times have changed. Today Spain is in financial straits, and most of her former colonies are in far better economic shape. And as the gloomy economic landscape in Europe has dried up opportunities for young Spaniards, many have started to look to South America to start new careers.

A year ago, following the whole Supreme Court farce, a bevy of states proved there are more than just "idiot voters" left in the US, when they decided to sue Obamacare outright over one or more of its provisions. They were promptly shut down by a judicial system that is as corrupt as the government itself (needless to say, both working at the behest of their true financial puppetmaster: Wall Street). And yet, in the aftermath of the now epic fiasco that is Obamacare, and not to mention the violent reaction to the administration as demonstrated in the midterm elections, the president may have a tougher time to brush away the next round of adverse reactions against his latest hugely unpopular executive order, one involving the amnesty of over 5 million illegal immigrants. According to AP, Texas is leading a 17-state coalition in suing over the Obama administration's recently announced executive actions on immigration.

“There’s two things that I find incredible about this. First, that anyone would advertise in a resume that they know about a flaw in the system — signaling that they’re ready and willing to exploit that flaw. And, second, that somebody would hire the person sending that signal.”

When at least 3 readers receive, at exactly the same time the following Bank of America email, then two things become abundantly clear...

"We all are in a Ponzi world right now. Hoping to be bailed out by the next person. The problem is that demographics alone have to tell us, that there are fewer people entering the scheme then leaving. More people get out than in. Which means, by definition, that the scheme is at an end. The Minsky moment is the crash. Like all crashes it is easier to explain it afterwards than to time it before. But I think it is obvious that the endgame is near."

"Today central banks give money to institutions, which are not solvent, against doubtful collateral for zero interest. This is not capitalism."

The Fed can do only do two concrete things to influence these income and credit sources of spending - both of which are unsustainable, dangerous and an assault on free market capitalism’s capacity to generate growth and wealth. It can induce households to consume a higher fraction of current income by radically suppressing interest rates on liquid savings. And it can inject reserves into the financial system to induce higher levels of credit creation. But the passage of time soon catches up with both of these parlor tricks.

"...by the time euphoria sets in, most observers have a vested interested in avoiding stating the obvious - that delusion has replaced reality. Journalists and media companies that are supposed to objective are themselves benefiting from the bubble... ditto economic policy-makers..."

Once upon a time it was the Sicilian, or Russian, or Japanese, or Chinese mob that were some of the biggest sources of funding for corrupt government officials (incidentally, most of them). After all, the government is smart enough to realize that it is more lucrative to "cooperate" with the world's biggest criminal syndicates than to wipe them out and cut off a major source of funding (of course, when it comes to populist optics and reelection, there is always an easy low-level perp walk every week or so to keep the peasants in place... and Diebold).

After last night's marvelous Bloomberg profile of Bill Gross' last days at PIMCO, we were confident that no written material today could surpass Mary Child's fascinating narrative of the fallen bond king. And then we read Cannell Capital's activist letter to one James J. Cramer, of CNBC and TheStreet director infamy, which is hands down the blockbuster reading material du jour.