Archive - Apr 2015

DEA At Center of Yet ANOTHER Spying Scandal

"It’s like walking in a mine field. Many risks lie ahead of you. Even if you are in the middle class, if something unexpected happens, you could slip into poverty."

The memory of a PhD Moron...

The FOMC surprised the market on March 18 by lowering "the dots" by about 50 basis points. While Yellen gave a fairly exhaustive explanation for this in her speech on March 27 (and Dudley just managed expectations this morning), SocGen notes that market participants hope for more color from the FOMC minutes today. As for the timing of the rates lift-off, the FOMC minutes are unlikely to offer any new insight.

Curious how the third largest energy deal, and 14th largest corporate take over in history, happened? The answer, courtesy of Reuters, is simple: all it took was a phone call.

"We felt a great disturbance in The Farce, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. We fear something terrible has happened in Cushing."

Following last night's huge 12.2 mm barrel inventory rise estimate from API, DOE has just confirmed last week saw an almost all-time high 10.95 million barrel inventory build. This is the higest since March 2001. With today's 1.232 million barrel addition at Cushing, Goldman estimates only about 10% of storage capacity is left. And to complete the trifecta, crude oil production ticked back up again after last week's hope-strewn reduction.

A  simple discussion of what the ECB is buying and some of the potential implications.

The era of infrastructure investment and multilateral banks and financial institutions controlled, in large part, by Washington - often as an aggressive strategic policy tool - has come to an end. 

DUDLEY: CAN IMAGINE SCENARIOS IN WHICH JUNE LIFTOFF IS IN PLAY but DUDLEY SEES REASONS TO ERR ON SIDE OF BEING LATE ON RATES

Then he spewed the following previously undisclosed (though assumed - The Dow Data Dependent Fed)  "How we react after liftoff will depend on how the market reacts."  and the market front-runs.. as he indicates that weakness in March is due to the weather (hawkish) but that "the timing of the Fed's first rate hike is later" (dovish)...

The talks between Russia's Putin and Greek PM Tsipras have concluded and the much anticipated press conference has begun. Watch it live below.

S.S.D.D...

Ben Bernanke can now add another headline to his impressive resume... Fed Chair... Blogger... and writer of fiction. As AP reports, Blogger Ben's memoir will be released in October, and the title will be "The Courage To Act," apparently inspired by the Fed's "moral courage" in the face of "bitter criticism and condemnation." While we thought perhaps "The Courage To Print" was more appropriate, it appears the book is non-fiction and thus, we suggest, the title needs an additional word of clarification: "The Courage To Act ........."

The full breakdown of the biggest energy deal in the past decade and the 14th largest ever corporate takeover.

So what makes this structure Neofeudal? Simply this: the tax donkeys who pay most of the tax support the large class of modern-day serfs (working poor and state dependents) while their labor generates the great wealth enjoyed by the Financial Aristocracy.