Archive - Jul 12, 2015

Me: How are the talks going?
EU source: "Shitty."
Me: "Getting more shitty or less?"
Source: "Pretty steady level of shittiness

If "everything is awesome'... and 70% of the US economy is personal consumption... and Q1 weakness was all weather and port related? Then why are these charts doing this...

We have detailed just what a total farce of a day this has been in Brussels, but even more farcical is the reaction in equity markets in the last few minutes...

A modestly positive open in China quickly turned negative as regulators un-halted 408 more stocks, reducing the number suspended to just 36% of all stocks. Along with disappointing trade data (and expectations of "extreme pressure in the next 2-3 months") and regulators cracking down on investors with multiple illegally-obtained margin trading accounts, early strength has faded (for now). Unsurprisingly, the three regions with the most exposure to the crash in stocks are Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangdong and, as Bloomberg notes, Chinese police have found their scapegoat some trading companies may have manipulated stock futures (lower we assume, as manipulating a price higher appears to be policy). Stocks are mixed with high beta ChiNext and Shenzhen higher and Shanghai and the CSI-300 lower (the latter having gone nowhere for the last 2 days).

As far as transatlantic security is concerned, the danger posed by the Grexit is not confined to the questions it raises over Greece's NATO membership, or the security ripple effects caused by the Greek economy's collapse. Grexit's danger lies in the fact that it serves as a symbol of the reversal of transatlantic institutions' fortunes in their attempts to build and maintain a hegemonic political, economic and military order in Europe.

"This is definitely the most difficult time to be an asset allocator," warns GMO's James Montier, telling conference attendees in Munich that he hasn't been this risk-averse since 2008. Having warned six months ago that "stocks are hideously expensive...in a central bank sponsored bubble," Montier sees three different "hellish" scenarios and as CityWire reports, warns investors, "I think it's best to stand a bit and hold onto some dry powder," despite the groupthink idolatry being practiced around the world.

Last month, the United States Supreme Court declined to take up a case involving Arizona’s and Kansas’s attempts to require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. The refusal of the Supreme Court to hear the case yet again sends a message to state and local governments that the federal government shall continue to centrally direct election and immigration law. The net effect is an imposition of a migrant subsidy scheme across all states regardless of the local economic and demographic realities, while ignoring the fact that residents of certain states bear a greater tax burden in subsidizing migrants.

The share of Americans living on more than $50-a-day dropped from 58% in 2001 to just 56% in Pew Research Center's latest report. The dubious disctinction of this depressing reality is 'exceptional' America is the only developed nation to see its standard of living drop... a narrative not even Greece suffered (but Iran did!!)

There is democratic capitalism, and there is fascist capitalism. What we have today is fascist capitalism; and the following will explain how it works, using as an example the case of Greece. Simply out - The whole system is a money-funnel, from the public, to the aristocracy.

"Russia intends to support the revival of Greece's economy by broadening cooperation in the energy sector. Accordingly we are studying the possibility of organising direct deliveries of energy resources to Greece, starting shortly."

For those who missed today's festivities in Brussels, here is the 30,000 foot summary: Europe has given Greece a "choice": hand over sovereignty to Germany Europe or undergo a 5 year Grexit "time out", which is a polite euphemism for get the hell out.

When Warren Buffet put $5 billion in Berkshire Hathaway funds into Goldman Sachs the week after Lehman failed, amidst total turmoil and panic, it appeared from the outside a high risk bet. Buffet had long tried to portray himself as a folksy engine of traditional stability, investing only in things he could understand, so jumping into a wholesale run of chained liabilities may have seemed more than slightly out of character. We have no particular issue with Buffet making those investments, only the pretense of intentional mysticism that surrounds them. The reason the criticism of crony-capitalism sticks is because this was not Buffet's first intervention to "save" a famed institution on Wall Street. If Buffet's convention is to stick with "things you know" then he has been right there through the whole of the full-scale wholesale/eurodollar revolution.

...or else a rather blatant Fox News error may be about to start a revolution.

Presented with no comment whatsoever...

Facing abject humiliation at the hands of the German finance ministry, Alexis Tsipras arrived at Sunday’s Eurosummit a broken man. Still, the PM did his best to fight the good fight, debating both the IMF's role in the third Greek program and the treatment of the country's debt with German Chancellor Merkel late Sunday evening in Brussels.