Archive - Dec 20, 2015

The problem with all of this is that it’s now becoming apparent to everyone. The amount of mal-investment along with just how intertwined all the subsequent carry trades and more is becoming frightfully obvious and can no longer be hidden from view. The real problem now facing the Fed. which I believe they themselves did not fully comprehend was the extent in which all of this was: so blatantly obvious. Again: to anyone who truly wanted to look. Without the Fed’s interventionism – there is (and was) no market. And now with the raising of rates; no one will be able to miss or avoid that fact any longer. No matter how hard they try.

With the unprecedented surge in unicorns and incessant faith in the ever-increasing productivity of a globalization-crushed American worker, it is perhaps a surprise that the "office space" provided to the intellectual capital-providing, wage-stagnating middle-American, has never been smaller...

Fire the Bums!

On the heels of Hillary Clinton's comments during the third Democratic debate regarding the appropriateness of America's pursuit of regime change in Syria, Vladimir Putin is out reiterating Russia's position that "outsiders forcing change of legitimate powers in other countries is intolerable."

The Fed is now - for the first time in adult memory for half the world’s traders and money managers - tightening rather than loosening monetary conditions. A quick look at financial history is all it takes to lead anyone with leveraged money at risk to lighten up. Equally important - and vastly more strange when you think about it - this tightening comes at a time when major parts of the global economy are either grinding to a halt or imploding.

“If you’re pushing for lower management fees to save minimal basis points on a fund where you are unhappy with performance, as a fiduciary, you have to decide whether you want to keep that fund at all.”

"My minions in the Federal Reserve - such loyal servants! - continue feeding an orgy of leverage and debt, spreading ruination under the false guise of prosperity. What a delicious irony, that the fools doomed to eternal damnation in my Empire believe themselves prosperous as they absorb the poison of exponentially rising leverage and debt."

"I am not confirming or denying anything to do with this matter, but it is good that people like Samir Qantar will not be part of our world.

"Such acts of the Zionist regime, which have become a consistent method, are the most dangerous forms of state terrorism."

"Rather than the economy driving markets, as is supposed to be the case, the risk is that central banks have now created a monster such that markets drive the economy, if not on the way up, then certainly on the way down."

If you missed the third democratic debate, don't worry, you are not alone: the President himself had much more important pursuits to attend to when the potential successor from his party was laying out her (or his) ideological vision for the future of America.

Al-Qaeda inspired terrorism is a threat to the Western countries but the Islamic countries are encountering a much bigger threat of inter-sectarian conflict. For centuries the Sunni and Shi’a Muslims have coexisted in relative peace throughout the Islamic World but now certain vested interests are deliberately stoking the fire of inter-sectarian strife to distract attention away from the Home Front: that is, the popular movements for democracy and enfranchisement in the Arab World.

"Typically rate rises start when profits are growing faster than debt and when companies are still deleveraging. This is around “half-past two” on our leverage clock2: 1994 and 2004 both fit this pattern. Now, with companies having been leveraging up for the past four years, and net debt/EBITDA in both Europe and especially the US at its highest non-recessionary level ever, it feels more like eight o’clock, or possibly even later."

Presenting an "exhilarating, disheartening, infuriating, touching and powerful" mini-documentary on last summer's Greek saga.

So, everything is going great in the US economy, uh?!