Archive - Nov 2015

Why is the price of oil so low now? In fact, why are all commodity prices so low? We see the problem as being an affordability issue that has been hidden by a growing debt bubble. As this debt bubble has expanded, it has kept the sales prices of commodities up with the cost of extraction (Figure 1), even though wages have not been rising as fast as commodity prices since about the year 2000. That period is ending as the productivity of additional debt is falling.

Trucks, Trains and now Ships: suddenly everything seems to be in freefall.

You don’t actually have any savings. When you make a deposit, you’re trading your money for a banker’s promise to repay you. And there are countless regulations giving them the authority to break that promise. (If you want to test this premise, try withdrawing $25,000 just to see how your bank reacts.) That’s the system that controls your wealth today. It’s almost entirely digital. And it’s run by unelected bureaucrats whose interests are not aligned with your own. This is not a free system. And any rational person should consider parking at least a rainy day fund outside of this system.

and his legacy.

Today's most anticipated earnings report was Facebook, and moments ago the social network reported Q3 results which confirmed that while the American middle class is increasingly unable to find work, it has a lot of free time to spend on their Facebook account. Here is how it did.

The real interesting part of the latest Quinnipiac University National Poll, is not the fact that 60% of Americans think Hillary Clinton is dishonest, but that 40% of Americans don’t.

In a "difficult but necessary" decision, Kraft-Heinz will cut 2,600 jobs in the latest post-mega-merger "synergy" bloodbath. Thanks Warren.

FAA SAYS FLIGHTS BARRED FROM LANDING AT SAN DIEGO ON SHOOTER:AP

Ripped from the scenes of the latest Bond movie, former Walmart CEO Bill Simon, piloting a small plane over Fayetteville, was forced to pop the aircraft's emergency parachute, to slow its landing, as a severe loss of oil pressure sent the plane plunging. No one was severely injured, but as the following clip shows, while things could have been a lot worse, the parachute-slowed plane still took a beating upon 'landing'.

With helicopters hovering overhead, and surrounded by an army of security forces,  this is how America transports its nuclear weapons. However, as this onlooker captures, amid police harrassment for filming, it appears one of the military trucks was just a little too close and rear-ends a truck carrying a nuclear missile.

"Equities are in denial. Stock buybacks at all time highs and discounting future earnings at zero rates is an odd long- term strategy at this point. If the Fed gets what it seems to want in December, markets will look back on this and wonder what they were thinking."

There's a long way to go for the Saudis and the UAE to get back into the black and indeed, even Qatar is now set to post red ink...

The production structure has long since adapted to ZIRP and “short-term gambling, punting on momentum-driven moves, on levered buybacks” are further lifting the opportunity costs of abandoning it. In order to try to rescue its credibility, the Fed may decide to try some timid, quarter-point increases. But what will they do if markets really crash?