Archive - May 13, 2015

"You said you weren’t monetizing the debt when you talked to Congress. You said the Fed was going to sell the bonds, but none of them have been sold. They’ve all been rolled over. So how are you claiming victory when you haven’t exited? You haven’t raised rates, you haven’t shrunk the balance sheet. You were wrong in the past. You didn’t see the financial crisis coming. You told us there was no housing bubble. You said subprime was contained. So you were certainly wrong then. So how do you know you’re not wrong now? Is there anything that might change your opinion and get you to rethink and maybe admit that your outlook is wrong?"

Either you break free from the jackass things your parents have done to you... or you deserve what you get.

The evidence continues to mount...

Have you ever wondered why the Constitution begins with those three words “we the people”? It was intended to be a powerful reminder that everything flows from the citizenry. We the people are the center of the government and the source of its power. That “we” is crucial because it reminds us that there is power and safety in numbers, provided we stand united. We can accomplish nothing alone. Unfortunately, we have been ousted from that protected circle, by the courts, the politicians, and the corporations - replacing us with yes-men, shills who dance to the tune of an elite ruling class. To put it a little more bluntly, stop thinking like mindless government robots and start acting like a powerhouse of citizens vested with the power to say “enough is enough.”

Monetizing the entirety of gross government bond issuance and amassing an equity portfolio worth just shy of $100 billion on the way to cornering the entire ETF market may come across as insanely irresponsible even in a world that is now defined by insanely irresponsible central banks, but Haruhiko Kuroda does not care because when it comes to QE and the financing of governments via central bank-assisted ponzi schemes, no one does it like the BoJ.

If you want to know where social Marxism (collectivism) is headed, this is it: the labeling of individualistic philosophies as dangerous thought crimes and tribal communities as time bombs waiting to explode in the face of the wider global village. They desperately hope to conquer the world by dictating not only national boundaries and civil liberties, but the very moral code by which society and individuals function. They wish to bypass natural law with fear, fear that the collective will find you abhorrent and barbaric if you do not believe exactly as they believe. Individualism will one day be the new misogyny.

China has officially entered the realm of "unconventional" monetary policy, joining the Fed, the ECB, the BoJ, and a whole host of other global central banks in an attempt to bring the supposedly all-mighty printing press and the unlimited balance sheet that goes with it to bear on subpar economic growth. We suspect the results will be characteristically underwhelming (at least in terms of lowering real interest rates, although in terms of boosting risk assets, the results may be outstanding) meaning it's likely only a matter of time before LTRO becomes QE in China just as it did in Europe.

Amtrak Regional 188, with over 200 passengers aboard, was traveling at 106 mph just before "the entire train derailed" in Philadelphia, federal investigators said Wednesday, according to NBC News, more than twice the speed limit at the curve where it hurtled off the tracks. With the death toll now raised to seven, and officials still unable to account for everyone on board, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter exclaimed, "I don't believe that anyone standing here today has any memory of a derailment of this kind in 50 years," and judging by the following clip - we are stunned the fatality count was so low.

You know it's a bubble when... A listing has appeared online advertising a single bed in a house in London where the mattress is located in the kitchen.

Something for everyone.

With the state of California mired in its fourth year of drought and a mandatory 25% reduction in water usage in place, reports of water theft are becoming increasingly common. With a stunning 46% of the state in 'exceptional' drought, and forecast to worsen, huge amounts of water are 'going missing' from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and a state investigation has been launched...

Mainstream media reporting on the controversy over the Jade Helm 15 military exercises, set to take place over eight weeks across several U.S. states, was primarily about characterizing and demonizing Texans concerned about the exercises as backwater, paranoid rednecks with wild fantasies about an imminent government takeover. While exercises like these will always cause the imagination of some to run amok, the key point here is this: concerns that U.S. military exercises will be used to exert more power over states is not a fringe view.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?