Archive - Mar 23, 2015
China Lands Hard: Rail Volume Plunges, PMI Tumbles Into Contraction, Employment Worst Since Lehman
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 21:50 -0500Chinese rail freight collapses 9.1% YoY; China Manufacturing PMI tumbled back to a contractionary 49.2 - lowest in 11 months; and the Employment sub-index plunged to its lowest since Lehman ... yeah but apart from that, everything is awesome. And for those excited about just how disastrous Chinese data is (and thus how huge the next stimulus unleashing will be), think again - China now sees exactly where the last trillion dollar QE went... a de minimus and unsustained blip in the economy and liquidity-fueled rampage in stocks (which is not what a corruption-crackdown politburo wants to encourage).
Regime Change: America's Failing Weapon Of International Deception
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 21:31 -0500After almost two centuries of political and economic meddling in Latin America under the Monroe Doctrine (1823) banner, much of it involving regime change, the US is finally coming to terms with the reality that its influence has not just waned but disappeared. To Washington’s despair, similar results, if for other reasons, are happening throughout North Africa and the extended Middle East; certainly not the results the US had hoped for or anticipated from the revolutionary wave in the Arab Spring, now entering its fifth year. The era of using regime change as a weapon of mass deception may have already ended for the United States of America… and hopefully for the entire world.
US To China: 'Infrastructure Bank' This! - Test-Fires ICBM As A "Visual To The World"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 21:09 -0500With allies migrating en masse to China's new infrastructure bank (and even the US having to admit it will 'cooperate'), it appears America has fallen back on what has worked for it in the past to ensure the world's largest creditor remains the world's reserve currency ad inifinitum - rattle its nuclear missile sabre... As the following clip shows, The US Air Force just test-fired a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from California, providing a "visual to the world."
US "Loses" $500 Million In Weapons Given To Yemen, Now In Al-Qaeda Hands
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 21:02 -0500Just when we thought it was logistically impossible for US foreign policy to be any more incompetent and cluless, we read this...
Fortescue Explains Why Failed Refinancing Didn't Really Fail
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 21:00 -0500Fortescue's refinancing effort, which many investors believe was hampered by collapsing commodity prices, wasn't actually a failure the company's CEO says. Besides, it was all Janet Yellen's fault.
The Real Reason The American Dream In Unraveling
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 20:30 -0500“I am for doing good to the poor, but…I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed…that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.” - Benjamin Franklin
Copper Baumgartner'd As China Opens
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 20:06 -0500Well that didn't last long. The utterly idiotic surge in Copper futures prices into the US cash equity close has been largely unwound with a small jerk higher on Japan's open and plunge as China joined the fray... retracing ~80% of the rampfest during the day on extremely heavy volume.
Japan's Pacific Rim Job: Build 250-Mile Anti-Tsunami Wall To Create Jobs
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 20:00 -0500It appears Japanese policy-makers are getting inspiration from Hollywood for their latest economic 'fixes'. Having begun the building of a giant 'Game of Thrones'-esque ice-wall to hold back the radiation leaking from Fukushima (only to fail miserably); AP reports the latest cunning plan from the Japanese is to build a Pacific-Rim-esque "massive, costly sea wall to fend off tsunamis." The $6.8 billion, 250-mile-long, 41-foot-high concrete barrier public works project is seen by some as a necessary evil, and by others as a jail... Perhaps The UN's head of Disaster Risk Reduction summed it up best - "There's a bit of an over-belief in technology as a solution."
Caught Between A Housing Bubble And Falling Crude Prices, Norway Will Invest Oil Riches In Foreign Real Estate
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 19:30 -0500Just as the central bank runs out of viable options, the country's sovereign wealth fund (which once famously loaded up on Greek bonds) is set to buy "a lot" of Asian property with the country's oil riches.
Russian Sub "Caught" By UK Fisherman After Moscow Threatens To Nuke Denmark
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 19:02 -0500Angus Macleod made a valiant effort to counter Russian nuclear aggression but in the end couldn't quite land Moby Dick...
How Much Time Do Americans Spend Plugged Into The Matrix Every Day?
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 19:00 -0500The average American spends more than 10 hours a day using an electronic device... and most of that activity is not even interactive. The vast majority of the time we are just passively absorbing content that someone else has created. Instead of humans being forcefully connected to “the Matrix”, we are all willingly connecting ourselves to it, as the system that defines our reality for us gains greater and greater hold over everything.
You Too Can Be A Texas Wildcatter With Crowdfunding
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 18:30 -0500"Equity crowdfunding, or raising capital directly from a large group of investors, is widely used for projects from technology to fashion. Now, at least two small Texas firms are testing the concept in the oil and gas industry."
Paul Krugman Is Wrong About The UK And Borrowing
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 18:00 -0500Krugman wants his US readers to believe that all proper economists now agree that cutting deficits was a bad mistake, and it’s only self-interested finance types and ideologically-motivated politicians and think-tankers that take a different view. But that’s nonsense. Just think about it: “Everyone agrees that austerity was a mistake”… apart from every government in Europe except the Greeks, and the economists and many of the civil servants that advise them. Krugman and his fan-club do not constitute all serious opinion, much as they might like to regard themselves that way. It’s all very nice sitting in a US university office preaching to the Europeans (or, indeed, preaching in the New York Times)
What The Sell-Side Thinks Will Happen To The Dollar Next
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 17:30 -0500"The Fed is a reluctant Dollar bull," explains Goldman Sachs, noting that Yellen inadvertently revealed the FOMC's expectation that coming policy changes will boost the greenback. Broadly speaking the rest of the sell-side has herded along into the strong US Dollar camp with only Unicredit (rate shift may slow recent very strong USD momentum) and Morgan Stanley (suggesting USD corrective activity) backing away from full dollar bull though most suggest adding to dollar longs on any dip as the most crowded trade in the world gets crowded-er. Then Stan Fischer added... "DOLLAR WON'T KEEP RISING FOREVER."
Fighting The "War on Terror" By Banning Cash
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/23/2015 17:29 -0500It was just a matter of time before Western governments used the trumped up "War on Terror" as an excuse to drastically ratchet up the very real war on the use of cash and personal privacy that they are waging against their own citizens.


