Archive - Nov 2015

“Consider for example a tax cut for households and businesses that is explicitly coupled with incremental Bank of Japan purchases of government debt – so that the tax cut is in effect financed by money creation”

- Ben Bernanke, Some Thoughts on Monetary Policy in Japan, 2003

Having surged to the lead (according to some polls) in the GOP presidential nominee race, Ben Carson may have a problem. As Politico reports, Carson's campaign on Friday admitted that a central point in his inspirational personal story (his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point) was fabricated. This admission comes as serious questions about other points of fact in Carson’s personal narrative are questioned, including the seminal episode in which he claimed to have attempted to stab a close friend.

In what amounts to a contravention of the recently inked nuclear deal, Iran has reportedly purchased passenger jets from the UK and is now using them to transport The Quds Force to the front lines in Syria. 

For the 10th consecutive week, the US oil rig count declined. Dropping 6 to 572 rigs, this is the lowest since June 2010. WTI Crude prices were unmoved by the drop having tumbled earlier after the 'great' payrolls data.

As of the week ended October 28, Primary Dealer corporate holdings tumbled across both IG and HY, plunging to the lowest level in years in what can only be called a rapid liquidation of duration risk.

"I think it will be reasonable to suspend all Russian flights to Egypt until we determine the real reasons of what happened."

"When are we going home?"

Sick from being overweight, tired of bombing brown people to steal their oil, and want something you can do about it, today, that will also improve your personal financial situation?

"The truth is, the debt ceiling doesn’t actually limit government spending. It’s a farce. Every time government debt gets close to the debt ceiling, Congress just raises it.”

"I am thinking that you are going to see something out of Congress, because we, as Americans, are embarrassed by this – this is an embarrassing situation. Obama is embarrassed, the State Department sounded quite embarrassed when they briefed Congress. I think we are looking at somebody taking some action."

After seven long years, and following the State Department's denial of TransCanada’s request to suspend its permit application, the Obama Administration, according to The Wall Street Journal, is set to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline (the controversial project to link oil sands in Alberta to U.S. Gulf of Mexico refineries). Speaking from The White House shortly, President Obama is expected to cite the urgency of climate change as a key reason behind his decision (though is unlikely to name the biggest winner from this decision..).

We know that 271K jobs were added in October; we also know that workers 55 and over got a whopping 378,000 of the jobs (this was the biggest montly gain for this age group since January 2012, a month when total job gains were 380K, the third highest since the crisis), while males aged 25-54 lost 119,000 jobs. But who was hiring in October?

The 'crapification' of jobs is the direct result of the 'crapification' of the economy.

"The most liquid capital markets in the world," were halted for 5 seconds this morning as "great news" on surging jobs sent bond markets into turmoil...

Well that escalated quickly...