Archive - Jun 2015

Dear Mr Hilsenrath and your Central Bank Team,

This is Joe from the disappearing Middle Class in America.  You asked me the other day to drop you a note if I felt that something was wrong.  What I’m having trouble with is “why” you’re asking me if anything is wrong!?

So let me explain.

Recently, we outlined Hillary Clinton’s keynote speech requirements which include the customary $225,000 plus a “chartered roundtrip private jet”, $1,000 for a stenographer, and a host of other “incidentals.” But the Clintons actually come cheap compared to a certain former Fed chair. Here’s a look at speaking engagement rates for some well-known former and current US officials.

After all these years, he's finally into soccer.

Our general rule of thumb when it comes to legislation is that the more high-sounding the name, the more insidious the law.

Exhibit A: the just-passed USA FREEDOM Act.

Given the rather depressing plight of the average US laborer, it’s little wonder that some workers are inclined to “alter their mood” a bit before punching the clock. Indeed, over the past 24 months, a decades-old trend towards falling workplace drug usage has reversed itself, with 4% of workers now testing positive for either legal or illegal drug use.

The carnage in Europe and US bonds is echoing on around the world as Aussie 10Y yields jump 15bps at the open (to 3.04% - the highest in 6 months) and the biggest 2-day spike in 2 years.  JGBs are also jumping, breaking to new 6-month highs above 50bps once again raising the spectre of VAR-Shock-driven vicious cycles...

"Only if the economy is powered by the marginal borrower who will no longer borrow after a 0.25% hike, does it make sense to believe a hike will derail the economy.  Comparisons to 1937, where a hike pushed the US into recession, are incomparable and groundless.  On the other hand, maybe the FOMC is worried that the ‘no free lunch’ concept makes them suspicious of the possibility of a meaningfully deleterious market reaction which could have a negative impact on the broader economy.  However, under this logic, delaying a hike would only exacerbate such a response."

The next several weeks are likely to be relatively eventful in Washington...

In the ironically titled "Paying For The Past" presentation, none other than Dick Fisher, Al Greenspan, and Larry Lindsey appear to have crossed the Rubicon of denial, lies, and deception to the dark-side of accepting reality. As Bill Holter asks, why exactly would these former Federal Reservists hint that, mathematically, logically, intuitively and in real life, IT'S OVER! Do they now realize what the crazy gold bugs have been saying all along is true and the day of reckoning is very close at hand.  They must be trying to get "out in front" of what is coming so they're on the record for historical and "legacy" purposes.  Nothing else makes any sense.

Following this evening's "private" meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker and Jeroem Dijsselbloem, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras once again admits that there is no deal. Both sides issued statements - The EU's was a 3 sentence boiler-plate; and Tsipras was a brief press conference on Greek TV. In the interests of clarity we provide the statements (and their actual translations from "we have nothing to say" to "this is what we are trying not to say.")

Mysterious cartoons mocking “Goldman Rats” and Hillary Clinton are appearing all over NYC...

A man of distinction in today’s world is a man that throws his money in military monkey business, the shenanigans that our wealthiest nations excel at.

With The FBI now reportedly investigating the award of The Soccer World Cup to Qatar and Russia, it appears, as Mises' Lew Rockwell exclaimed, "FIFA has got to change its name, it’s going to have to take out the “I” and put in an “A” for American." This sudden act of imperialism by The US, putting itself in charge of world soccer, as Paul Craig Roberts notes, it "is another Washington-British scam against Russia," adding "law is a weapon that Washington uses to achieve its agenda." What happens next? As we predicted a week ago - following some dramatic procedural changes, Russia loses the hosting of the 2018 World Cup.

The revelation that the FBI assisted the Baltimore Police Department in monitoring April's violent protests prompted a wider investigation by The Associated Press. "The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government," AP reports.