Archive - May 2015

Successive rounds of government bond monetization have worked to destroy the Treasury, JGB, and EU core markets while the post-crisis regulatory regime has seen dealers back away from providing liquity in the secondary market for corporate credit just as the very same monetary policy that broke government bond markets has led to an explosion of new issuance from corporate borrowers, creating the potential for a self-feeding catastrophe in the event of selloff in corporate bonds.

The primary job of modern American regulators is to protect entrenched status quo interests. Protecting the public doesn’t even factor into the equation.

Just days after David Cameron's "I promise a referendum" victory in the British elections, which JPMorgan warns now looks likely to happen as early as 2016, France's far-right National Front party has called for an in/out referendum on the EU at the same time as the UK holds its vote. As EUObserver reports, Florian Philippot, an MEP and the party’s deputy head wrote to French President Francois Hollande this week, "the time has come to ask everybody in Europe Yes or No - if they want sovereignty to decide on their own future."

Combination of important events/data and large move in last two weeks, the dollar may pullback/consolidate in the days ahead.

Warren Buffet isn’t one of the richest men in the world with the flair for making a fast buck or two for nothing.

Meet Gulmurod Khalimov, the US-trained and funded former commander of Tajikistan's special forces, who, as Reuters reports, has now gone to Syria to fight with ISIS. He has a message: "Listen, you American pigs, I’ve been three times to America, and I saw how you train fighters to kill Muslims...God willing, I will come with this weapon to your cities, your homes, and we will kill you." The big question is - was he 'recorded' as a moderate when America considered funding and training his elite special forces unit?

Following today's "successful" vote confirming Sepp Blatter's 5th term running the farce called FIFA, and amid soccer's governing body being investigated by US and Swiss authorities over claims of corruption, we thought a summary of just where the money comes from and (apart from the $150 million in bribes and kickbacks to 14 executives) where it goes for the Swiss-based entity...

 "Not knowing how to start"...

To avoid a violent militaristic clash with China, or another cold war rivalry, the United States should pursue a simple solution: give up its empire.

Candelia is one of a number of so-called “Potemkin” companies operating in France. Everything about these entities is imaginary from the customers, to the supply chain, to the banks, to the “wages” employees receive and while the idea used to be that the creation of a “parallel economic universe” would help to train the jobless and prepare them for real employment sometime in the future, these “occupations” are now serving simply as way for the out-of-work to suspend reality for eight hours a day.

Yesterday, New Yorkers walking by the Ocean Luxury Rental apartment building at 1 West St around 10:40am, were greeted with a gruesome sight: a 29-year-old man had just jumped to his death from the 24th floor. Today, we learn that the tragic incident was merely the latest banker suicide, when according to the NY Post the still unidentified jumper was the latest in a long series of investment bankers who have decided to take their own life.

Humans desperately need a new story to live by. The old one is increasingly dysfunctional and rather obviously headed for either a quite dismal or possibly disastrous future. One of the chief impediments to recognizing the dysfunction of the old story and adopting a new one is the most powerful of all human emotional states: Denial. But here we are, 40 years after the Club of Rome and 7 years after the Great Financial Accident of 2008, collectively pretending that neither was a sign warning of the dangers we face -- as a global society -- if we continue our unsustainable policies and practices that assume perpetual growth.

"U.S. surveillance imagery shows China has positioned weaponry on one of the artificial islands it is developing in the South China Sea," WSJ reports. US Defense Secretary says the US will "fly, sail, and operate" wherever it wants.

LendingClub is offering a "no collateral required" $35,000 P2P loan to those looking to refi their credit card debt. Does this prove the P2P bubble is official?