Archive - May 27, 2015

Government Will Use “Secret Interpretations” to Get Around Legal Prohibitions

"Today, six and a half years after the collapse of Lehman, there is a Bigger Short cooking. That Bigger Short is long-term claims on paper money, i.e., bonds."

"It’s mostly not about trade. Only 5 of the 29 chapters are about traditional trade." What little we know about the TPP has come from whistleblower site, Wikileaks. This is what Julian Assange thinks of this “trade” treaty in his own words...

"Japanese day traders, colloquially and collectively known as 'Mrs Watanabe', are buying the yen as it nears eight-year lows," Nikkei reports. For their part, private equity firms are cashing out at what they figure may be the top for Japanese stocks.

The emperor has no clothes: there are markets (finance included) screaming out for disruption!

When has crony capitalism really gotten out of control? How about when a major U.S. corporation (a huge defense contractor, no less) is publicly threatening government officials to leave the country if the federal government doesn’t continue to boost their profits through government handouts...

Presented with no comment...

You know it's bad when...

What do we really know?

The Man in the Moon studies the pathology of Earth’s global economy and markets from a distance where there’s no gravitational pull towards empiricism or consensus. His findings: 1) the global economy is over-leveraged, fragile, stagnating, and increasingly centrally managed; 2) capital markets and asset performance have been captured by the perception of the ongoing value of money, and so; 3) unconventional investment analysis is prudent.

In spite of all of the 'apparently good' outcomes of Cuba’s experimentation with equal sharing of wealth; in recent years Cuba seems to be moving away from the planned economy model. Instead, it is moving to more of a “mixed economy,” with more entrepreneurship encouraged. While we don’t have explanations for all of the things that are going on, here are a few insights on what is happening...

As another example of "has the world gone mad?" - we present the following words of wisdom from BoJ Governor Kuroda-san:

*KURODA DOESN'T SEE ANY ASSET BUBBLE OR STOCK MARKET BUBBLE, OR ANY 'FINANCIAL EXCESS' IN ECONOMY

And in the interests of sanity, we highly suggest he not look at the chart below...

"Total hero to me; total hero... Not necessarily [for] what he exposed, but the fact that he internally came from his own heart, his own belief in the United States Constitution, what democracy and freedom was about."

In Part 1 of “The New Silk Road,” we examined the China’s plan for rebuilding the Silk Road, stretching from Europe to Asia. In Part 2, we look at currently proposed projects, and geopolitical rivalries that could stall and hamper progress. Until very recently, it was widely assumed that the US would lead its western allies in a campaign against the Russian/Chinese deal to develop the Silk Road, but events have been reversing with remarkable speed.

The US and China are racing towards a maritime conflict stemming from Beijing’s construction of what Washington has condescendingly called “sand castles” in the Spratly archipelago. With Beijing set to enforce what is effectively a no-fly zone over its new sovereign ‘territory’ we bring you an infographic which shows that when it comes to sheer size, China’s air force and Navy are beyond compare.