Archive - May 3, 2015
Why The Powers That Be Are Pushing A Cashless Society
Submitted by George Washington on 05/03/2015 23:23 -0500Fiat Money May Be Junk ... But a Cashless Society Controlled by the TBTFs Is Dictatorship
Major U.S. Retailers Are Closing More Than 6,000 Stores
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 22:30 -0500If the U.S. economy really is improving, then why are big U.S. retailers permanently shutting down thousands of stores?
Legal Corruption In The US: Meet The 1% Of The 1% Who Drive American Politics
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 21:00 -0500"In the 2014 elections, 31,976 donors - equal to roughly one percent of one percent of the total population of the United States - accounted for an astounding $1.18 billion in disclosed political contributions at the federal level. Those big givers - what we have termed the Political One Percent of the One Percent - have a massively outsized impact on federal campaigns.They’re mostly male, tend to be city-dwellers and often work in finance. Slightly more of them skew Republican than Democratic. A small subset - barely five dozen — earned the (even more) rarefied distinction of giving more than $1 million each. And a minute cluster of three individuals contributed more than $10 million apiece."
TEPCO Admits Fukushima Is Leaking Again - Over 600x 'Safe' Radiation Levels
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 20:15 -0500Having killed a robot by underestimating the level of radiation present in the Fukushima power plant, and after delaying its previous admission of a leak, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has quickly admitted that the nuclear plant has sprung another leak. As EFE reports, a small quantity of radioactive water has leaked from a storage tank with 70 microsieverts per hour of beta-ray-emitting radioactivity detected on the surface where the water had leaked, far exceeding the recommended maximum exposure of 0.11 microsieverts per hour. But apart from that it's "contained."
What Bubble? Wall Street To Turn P2P Loans Into CDOs
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 19:30 -0500When student debt and subprime car loans aren't enough, you have to get creative. It now appears Wall Street is set to feed its securitization machine with a new kind of debt: peer-to-peer loans. You read that correctly. Soon enough, the pool of micro loans that are facilitated by sites like LendingClub will be used to create CDOs.
Socialists, Central Banks & Credit Is Not Capital
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 18:45 -0500As with all good socialists, central banks have locked the global economy onto but a single path without any possibility of choice. The purpose of all this intrusive nature through finance is actually to dethrone the defining quality that makes capitalism so useful in society’s advance – dynamic destruction. Despite the radical alteration as to what is taught in “business” schools, credit is not capital and it will never be. No amount of math will make it so, but the longer it remains operative the greater the potential we all end up with something even worse.
HFT + Inept Regulators + Fed Distortion = More Flash Crashes
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 17:15 -0500"I think we have to blame central bank intervention. How can we not? It’s all around the world. They’re setting interest rates at a ridiculous level. Quantitative easing is distorting all sorts of prices of assets. How do you price things anymore when you have such a giant manipulator out there?"
Varoufakis' Father Defends His Son After EU Praises "Significant Progress" Without Finance Minister
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 16:29 -0500It has been a bad week for the Greek finance minister: first, under pressure from Europe, Tsipras was forced to sideline the "combatied" Varoufakis from future Troika negotiations, then his wife had to protect him from an attack by "young anarchists", and now - adding insult to injury - an anonymous EU source said that, without Varoufakis present, Greece and its creditors have made "significant progress" and that there were "encouraging" signs from meetings over the weekend. Meanwhile, the maverick economist's 90-year-old father jumped to his son's defence, claiming his European counterparts were jealous of him.
Why Deflation Is Unlikely
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 15:45 -0500The prices of gold and silver reflect the deflationary view to the exclusion of the likely outcome of all this experimentation. There is no doubt that many dealers believe that gold and silver are merely commodities, otherwise they would be chasing their prices upwards in a dash for cash. Future historians should be puzzled.
Obamanomics Summed Up
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 15:00 -0500Just keep banging the same old drum...
There Is No Solution To The Crisis
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 14:15 -0500The end result of Fed policy appears to be to keep us in perpetual economic malaise, to keep us all confused. They keep interest rates low masking the huge structural issues of huge federal budget deficits and whenever the economy appears to be picking up a bit, they threaten to take away the government props of QE and low interest rates faster thereby slapping down the economy. All this happening while the ticking time bomb of huge Federal Debt accumulates more potency. There is no solution to the crisis, merely a choice of which roads to choose, a deflationary debt collapse, or a hyperinflationary dollar collapse or World War III. Pick your poison...
China's True Gold Holdings To Remain A Secret After All
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 13:44 -0500QUESTIONER: Just a few questions about other countries. A quick clarification on SDR, in January the managing director mentioned there would be an informal board briefing in May. Is that still happening, or has it been pushed back?
MR. RICE: .... the board meeting has been deferred because the work is underway and we'll let you know as soon as that board meeting is scheduled again....
Why Central Banks Hate Physical, Love "Earmarked" Gold, And What Is The Difference
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 13:30 -0500Until the advent of the BIS, gold held by central banks came in one version. Physical. It was only after the BIS arrived on the scene did gold's macabre doppelganger, so-called paper, registered or "earmarked", gold emerge for the first time. Here is a brief history of how earmarked gold came into being...
Suddenly "You Can't Ignore The Data" Has Turned Into "Trust Me"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 12:45 -0500The week that passed has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride for many nervous investors. And for some: a realization that the once hyped, hawked, and levered Billion dollar babies can indeed “come off the rails.” Turning the once joyride into something more in common with a free fall into the abyss. However, you’re told not too worry: For if you loved the ride when the prices were higher, then surely you should be ecstatic to “ride again” since the new ticket prices are clearly “on sale!”
It's Official: The Top Is In For Chinese Stocks
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/03/2015 12:05 -0500Presenting, a contrarian indicator...



