Archive - 2014

"I find it so disturbingly illogical that we Americans are willing to die so that our political class can enjoy ill gotten riches and power yet we cower when it comes to defending our great nation against the political class, something our founding fathers pleaded for us to do.  The truth, which the political class legislates so hard for us to overlook, is that they are powerless without us.   It is us that fight their fights, fund their wars and enforce their laws that enslave us yet we bow down and call them Mr. President and Madame Secretary.  And so I ask each and everyone of you, when will we wake up and recognize that we are the power and the wealth and that the political class has only managed, through deception, to harness our strengths and pass them off as their own?  For until that day of awakening, we will continue to live as an oppressed people ruled by others for others."

In what police called "a random act of 'I want something that person has and I am going to take it from them," a black teenager was shot and killed after attempting to rob a man of his $200 Air Jordans. After being unable to purchase the 'limited edition' shoes, 16-year-old Jawad "JJ" Jabar and 2 other Middletown, Ohio schoolmates, brandished a firearm at a man (of unknown color) who had just bought a pair. The man, who had a valid concealed carry permit, shot once and killed Jawad. Since the dead black teenager was not killed by a white policeman, we doubt there will be any protests, Al Sharpton commentary, or mainstream media blitz.

For about the first 22 years, being a parent at Christmas is a net losing proposition. But after that...

As Charles Dickens himself admits, Ebenezer Scrooge is a thoroughly peaceful man, guilty of no true crime, who has robbed no one. Therefore, we must conclude that his wealth is a sign of his ability to please at least some people, and as Michael Levin notes: “Dickens doesn't mention Scrooge's satisfied customers, but there must have been plenty of them for Scrooge to have gotten so rich.” As a miser and businessman, Scrooge provides numerous valuable services to the community including, as Walter Block has shown, driving down prices and making liquidity available to those who, unlike the wrongly maligned misers, have been either unwilling or unable to save in comparable amounts. His business prowess notwithstanding, however, a closer look at Scrooge’s economics suggests some significant blind spots in several areas. Scrooge, as displayed in many of his comments and observations, misunderstands some key economics concepts.

Over-burdened...

After weeks of preparation by an umbrella group that calls itself the Santa Claus Repudiation Organization Offering Greater Education, students at campuses across America spent Christmas Eve protesting what they consider a dangerous symbol of everything that is wrong with the world today.

Who needs helicopters? While China slashes reserves and unleashes its stealth-QE ('Pledged Supplementary Lending' - PSL), the streets of Hong Kong's salubrious Wan Chai district were awash with freshly-minted notes when a security van overturned spilling 15 million Hong Kong Dollars to the wind... We await the 'accidental' overturning of a security-van in Ferguson soon (if this works) to 'quell the masses'.

When "the retirement of the baby boomers is expected to severely cut U.S. stock values in the near future," is the ominous initial sentence from no lesser maintainer-of-the-status-quo than the San Francisco Fed's research department, one begins to recognize the Federal Reserve's overall need to hyper-inflate asset prices at whatever cost for fear of the 'wealth' destruction looming. As the following study reports, projected declines in stock values - based on the latest demographic and valuation data - have become even more severe. Our current estimate suggests that the P/E ratio of the U.S. equity market could be halved by 2025 relative to its 2013 level.

Olive-Skinned Gold Bug?

While the rest of the world was preparing to celebrate Christmas, China was busy easing its economy into growth, and its stock market into low earth orbit, by lowering non-bank deposit reserve rates to zero as reported previously, while Japan was enjoying the consequences of the BOJ monetizing 100% of all gross JGB issuance, when overnight the Japanese Ministry of Finance not only sold $22 billion in 2 Year paper at a negative yield of -0.003%: the first time ever a government note (not bill) has sold at a negative yield, but the Japanese 10 Year yield dropped to 0.31%, declining below the previously all time low hit on April 2013 when the BOJ first announced its unprecedented QE program.

Behavioral economists study human errors. People don’t always make the best choices for themselves, so there’s good reason to doubt whether they will always make the best choices for others. If you’ve ever received a useless gadget, a horrendous tie or some kind of bowl, you’ll know that when people buy Christmas presents, they can blunder badly.

Oh the economy outside is frightful,
But my 80-inch Big Screen's delightful,
And since our economy’s got no place to go,
Let It Blow! Let It Blow! Let It Blow!!

Since the Russian Ruble troughed at almost 80 RUB/USD, it has rallied an impressive 34% erasing most of the dramatic devaluation of December. However, as The CBR just announced, this 'strength' came at a price. Russia burned through $15.7 billion of reserves in the week ending Dec 19th - the biggest percentage weekly drop in reserves since Jan 2009, leaving reserves below $400 billion (still a significant amount) for the first time since Aug 2009. While CBR explained much of this will come back as repo trades mature, Vladimir Putin turned inward, blaming the government for "defects" in restructuring the economy.

Fed-inspired words sung to the classic tune (video).

In another Christmas surprise, China once again decided to adjust the cost of money, only this time instead of hiking, it eased, and in an effort to shore up the world's second-largest economy, China Business News reported that the PBOC will waive reserve requirements for non-bank deposits.  As the WSJ adds, at a meeting with big financial institutions on Wednesday, the People's Bank of China told participants that they will soon be able to add deposits from nonbank financial institutions to their calculations of their loan-to-deposit ratios, according to the executives. The move would add considerably to the banks' deposits and allow them to lend more. Chinese stocks, which had been pricing in further easing by the PBOC for the past 3 months, a period during which the Shanghai Composite soared over 50%, were delighted by the latest easing move and surged even more, surging higher by the most in the past three weeks.