Archive - Mar 2015

Ripped from the pages of The Onion, this is not. California Democrat Barbara Lee proposed a resolution in the House of Representatives that claims women will eventually be forced into prostitution since they face "disproportionately harmful impacts from climate change." So, first 'we' blame weakness in economic growth on excess cold, and now excess global warmth - according to Lee's House Concurrent Resolution 29 - will drive women to "sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage."

Metaphorically "not" winning...

The black line's trend is nobody's friend.

If, as one claims, one is innocent of i) using a personal email account to send out confidential information and/or to take advantage of one's political position to abuse opponents and ii) deleting said confidential emails against government regulations, what would one do when faced with a government subpoena demand? If one is the IRS' Lois Lerner, one would claim, against subsequently revealed facts, that a hardware error led to a permanent loss of all demanded emails, even though by email protocol definition, said emails are always stored on at least one off-site server. Or, if one is Hillary Clinton, one would just format the entire server.

"When an HFT that is not a member of an association executes an off-exchange trade, the HFT’s identity is usually not reported to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, which is the only association currently in existence. This frustrates FINRA’s surveillance efforts as it cannot quickly link trades to the HFTs responsible for them. This is a serious problem because, according to FINRA’s current Chairman, certain market participants disperse their trading activity across multiple markets in an attempt to hide various forms of market abuse, including layering, spoofing, algorithm gaming, and wash sales."

- SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar.

Americans still say they believe in free markets, democracy and financial rectitude. But only as platitudes and hypocrisies... the free market was one of the first casualties of the post-1971 fiat money period. In a free market, people earn money by working (income) or by saving and investing it (capital growth). But credit-based money needed neither work nor saving; you just had to know the right people.

As Moscow and Seoul throw their support behind China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the question is no longer about the end of dollar hegemony but rather about the extent to which the new venture will be used to institute a global shift towards the yuan. 

The imperial spiral into the stratosphere of stupidity is well underway. With zero accountability for those in power, there’s no way to realistically stop it before crash and burn. The best we can hope is to bring the responsible to justice afterward and pick up the pieces by going back to the Constitution.

The Greek energy minister kicked the hornet's nest point blank earlier today when he said that "Greece is at more than breaking point; urgently needs big, bold alternatives to “German, incumbent Europe"and that "creditors behaving as unscrupulous imperialists towards distant colony, threatening submission or economic suffocation."  More importantly, Lafazanis has some ideas where to find said "big, bold alternatives." In Moscow. Greece's Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis will meet his Russian counterpart and the CEO of energy giant Gazprom in Moscow on Monday, as he hit out at the EU and Germany for tightening a 'noose' around the Greek economy.

World sleep walking from ‘Cold War’ to ‘Hot War’ and new World War ... It will lead to financial decimation in the coming years when the monstruous financial bubble of today eventually collapses ... and it will as sure as night follows day

Among the many things that mystify economists these days, the biggest might be the lingering perception, despite six years of ostensible recovery, that the average person is getting poorer rather than richer. Lots of culprits come in for blame; but one that doesn’t get much mention is the changing nature of the bills we’re paying...

"An electric car does not make you green... You’re better off filling up at the pump," if you live in Canada. According to a new study by professor Chris Kennedy, even if every driver in Canada made the switch - from gas to electric - the total emissions might not actually go down... since in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, electric cars generate more carbon pollution over their lifetimes than gas-powered cars. Paging Al Gore...

A carnivorous Koot...

If Tsipras and Varoufakis should elect to give in to Brussels and Berlin, that decision would still need to be put before the people to vote on, because it would mean a prolongation of austerity. And that is not the mandate. By the same token, if the leadership decides an exit is the only option, and that further negotiations are hopeless because Europe won’t accept anything else than strapping the proud Greek people in a straitjacket, that too will have to be put before a vote. They know there will come a moment when a referendum can no longer be postponed no matter what the polls say. In that, Greece is living up to its glorious past as the cradle of democracy. Still, make no mistake: of course they’re preparing to leave.

A non-bombastic look at the week ahead in the capital markets.