Archive - Jul 17, 2015

"The IMF acts as a member of the Troika, yet has no elected position whatsoever. The second unelected member is Mario Draghi of the ECB. Then the head of Europe is also unelected by the people...This is authoritarian government if we have ever seen one... The Invisible Hand of Adam Smith works even in this instance – those in power are only interested in their self-interest and will risk war and civil unrest to maintain their failed dreams of power."

This contrarian play could be one of the most potent and profitable strategies in years.

As Nasdaq soars to record-er highs and CNBC just can't hold themselves back when Google adds as much in one day as the market cap of 415 S&P 500 companies, we have one question... should breadth look like this when the index is hitting new highs?

Greece’s and the European Union’s economic and political crisis will not be resolved through a new debt deal between the government in Athens and the European authorities. It will be merely one more stop-gag “solution” to a problem whose nature is endemic to the current ideology and politics of State-Power and collectivism. Its real solution requires something deeper and more comprehensive: a revival of the classical liberal ideal of individualism and the economics of free market capitalism. This, unfortunately, is not likely to occur any time soon.

Demagogue or not, The Donald continues to gain support among Republicans for the GOP Presidential nomination, according to the latest FOX News poll, and among Republican primary voters, Trump now captures 18 percent: more than his closest competitor, Walker.

Just a little over a month after we learned that Jamie Dimon recently became a billionaire, Bloomberg reports that yet another TBTF CEO has joined the billionaire banker club and frankly, we’re surprised it took this long because after all, when you’re the CEO of the blood-sucking cephalopod that holds the political and financial fate of the world in its tentacles, it seems only right that you would have been a billionaire long before any other banker on the Street.

One of the reasons we write is rooted in our deep fear of what might emerge after the current paradigm collapses. We have no doubt something very different is coming, we just desperately want that thing to be freedom, free markets and prosperity as opposed to the disaster that a $2 despot like Trump would bring. His ascension in the polls is very troubling, and makes us wonder whether the public will ultimately choose to rally behind some statist-demagogue wrapped in an American flag when things get bad enough, as opposed to something far more difficult: Liberty. We fear they may eventually choose someone like Donald Trump.

The people of Greece are facing further years of economic hardship following a Eurozone agreement over the terms of a third bailout. The deal included more tax rises and spending cuts, despite the Syriza government coming to power promising to end what it described as the "humiliation and pain" of austerity. With the country having already endured years of economic contraction since the global downturn, The BBC asks, just how does Greece's ordeal compare with other recessions and how have the lives of the country's people been affected?

Now that even the IMF has admitted Greece has an unsustainable debt problem with a debt-to-GDP ratio which will soon cross 200% after its third bailout (even if it leaves open the question what the IMF thinks about Japan's debt "sustainability") we wonder what the IMF thinks when looking at Greece's net government liabilities, which as SocGen's Albert Edwards reminds us are rapidly approaching 1000%. Which incidentally means that Greece is only marginally better than the USA, whose comparable net liability is a little over 500%, while its other nearest comparable is none other than France, whose next president may will be "Madame Frexit" and whose biggest headache will be how to resolve government promises to creditors and retirees that are five times greater than the country's GDP.

After a record $92.5 billion drop in March, "Belgium" sold another $24 billion in April, and another $26 billion last month, bringing the total liquidation to a whopping $142.5 billion for the months of March, April and May.

As Bloomberg reports, "an old debt for Peru has come home to roost..."

"In the water world, the pre-1914 rights were considered to be gold," exclaimed one water attorney, but as AP reports, it appears that 'gold' is being tested as California water regulators flexed their muscles by ordering a group of farmers to stop pumping from a branch of the San Joaquin River amid an escalating battle over how much power the state has to protect waterways that are drying up in the drought. As usual, governments do what they want with one almond farmer raging "I've made investments as a farmer based on the rule of law...Now, somebody's changing the law that we depend on." This is not abiout toi get any better as NBCNews reports, this drought is of historic proportions - the worst in over 100 years.

Greece... just another brick in the wall...

While the markets have improved since the "resolution" of the Greek crisis, in my opinion we would have expected substantially more given the overall "angst" that the situation was generating. Yet, the market remains in a bearish consolidation pattern. Furthermore, relative strength, momentum and volume remain a detraction from the "bullishness" of this week's "crisis resolution rally."