Archive - Mar 10, 2015

It appears that just as the administration is finally figuring out what HFT is, it also decided to take a look at the charts above and has made a decision: the next bailout is about to be unveiled, and it will involve a "streamlined" bankruptcy law allowing students to discharge their student debt.

Why Monetary Policy Is Failing

"The current market ecosystem is not sustainable, and significant changes are coming one way or another... conflicts of interest among brokers, a two-tier system favoring the speediest and a general sense that today’s rules have been crafted to the benefit of insiders."

Every dystopian sci-fi film we’ve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science, technology and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful. Having already used surveillance technology to render the entire American populace potential suspects, DNA technology in the hands of government will complete our transition to a suspect society in which we are all merely waiting to be matched up with a crime. No longer can we consider ourselves innocent until proven guilty.

Let's bone up...

First she tried to take over the credit derivatives world which she first had to create, and succeeded. Then, after Enron failed, she tried to take over the California electricity market and also failed. And all through this time she made sure the prices of the world's precious metals were right where she wanted them. Now, a year after an embarrassing attempt to become head of her former regulator ended in humiliation, she is back and has her sights set on the final financial frontier: Bitcoin.

"If inflation expectations remain muted, then the amount available for purchase by the BoJ is liable to be largely exhausted during the next 1.5 to 2 years, at which point supply/demand may tighten to unprecedented proportions," Morgan Stanley writes. Meanwhile, a BoJ "liquidity auction" intended to allay concerns around JGB availability attracts tepid demand a day after a dealer survey revealed concerns about the health of the market.

Russians view the United States much more unfavorably today than they did during the end of the Cold War era.  As you will read about below, an astounding 81 percent of all Russians now view the United States negatively, and only 13 percent have a positive opinion of this country.  In all of the years when Russians have been surveyed on their attitudes toward the U.S., they have never been this negative.  But of course Americans generally do not view the Russian people unfavorably.  Even while most Americans are extremely apathetic about what is going on over in Russia, an increasingly large chunk of the Russian population is angry enough to go to war.

In what some note could be a pre-emptive strike against rising social tensions in The Kingdom, new (and potentially crazy) King Salman bin Abdulaziz vowed to limit the impact of lower oil prices on economic growth, demanding that his regional governors "listen to their citizens." King Salman then specifically noted, he would work to "achieve justice for all citizens with no difference between one citizen and another, one region or another," adding that he will "confront the reasons behind schisms in society." Concluding with a warning that "we will never allow for tampering with our security," the King vowed to "boost security forces’ capabilities to defend the nation."

"...as with the car on a slush-covered highway, any fool can get it to spin out, but that same fool is then unlikely to have the presence of mind, the skill and the steel nerves to keep it from hitting one of the barriers. Same goes for the would-be builders of an “empire of controlled chaos”: sure, they can generate chaos, but controlling it in a manner that allows them to derive some benefit from it is rather out of the question, and even their ability to stabilize it, so that they are not themselves hurt by it, is in grave doubt."

It’s one thing to predict one person’s shopping or investment decisions. But can brain scans be used to forecast the entire market? Neuroeconomist Paul Glimcher says, “If we had access to that data, when people pick stocks, can these models predict macro-level changes in stock prices from individual-level models of angels picking stocks? There’s reason to believe it might work.” Already, neuromarketing consultancies advise large companies like Google and PepsiCo on which products will do well, and how to position them in the marketplace. Maybe one day there will be boutique equity research consultancies that scan the brains of focus group participants as they answer questions about individual securities, and investors could incorporate these neural inputs as they mull whether to buy or sell a security. 

No lesser trustworthy character than Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland explained this morning that the US can "confirm" new Russian weapons delivery to Ukraine and that they "can tell" when Russia sends in new weapons (though offering no explanation of this statement). This comment to the Senate Committee comes a day after the US delivered 'lethal aid' to Latvia - 120 armored units (including tanks) - with US Army General John O’Conner who witnessed the tanks arriving on Latvian soil said, "Freedom must be fought for, freedom must be defended." And finally, one more shot in the eye of the germans, deputy under-secretary of Defense Brian McKeon said the US is "actively considering more weapons for Ukraine," seemingly implying they alreadt sent some?

ISIS launches its own version of FaceBook just as a new report profiles the typical terrorist tweeter.