Archive - Jul 2015

As President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is compared to Richard Nixon’s opening to China, Bibi Netanyahu must know how Chiang Kai-shek felt as he watched his old friend Nixon toasting Mao in Peking. The Iran nuclear deal is not on the same geostrategic level. Yet both moves, seen as betrayals by old U.S. allies, were born of a cold assessment in Washington of a need to shift policy to reflect new threats and new opportunities. Several events contributed to the U.S. move toward Tehran.

In consequence-less America, the stigma of defaulting on one's personal responsibilities is a badge of honor for a risk-seeking public. No matter what, the government has your back if you want to buy a fridge, boat, or car - serial defaulter or not. However, hot on the heels of their proclamation that "malicious selling" of stocks is illegal, the Chinese government has extended its punitive measures against defaulting citizens, who are now banned from traveling on high-speed trains.

One of the many destructive myths Americans like to tell themselves is that the U.S. government is a staunch defender of human rights and democracy around the world. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Something is very rotten in the state of China, and its crashing, manipulated stock market is merely the tip of the iceberg.

"Mr. Martin-Artajo is in Spain, where a court has refused to extradite him, and Mr. Grout is in France, which typically does not extradite its own citizens. Although the investigation in the United States officially remains open, it appears no one, in all likelihood, will be held legally accountable. 'When risky behavior is repeatedly tolerated or concealed, you have to wonder if higher-ranking people should have been targeted.'" 

"My faith is that governments and central banks will continue to run up debt and debase currencies until a crisis brings the whole experiment to a disastrous conclusion. There is simply no historical precedent to reach any other conclusion. I also have faith that human beings will always prefer a piece of gold to a stack of paper. Separate a paper currency from its perceived value and you just have a stack of paper and ink. However, if they would just print it on softer and absorbent stock and put it on rolls, it might have some intrinsic value if we run out of toilet paper."

The Centralized Powers have declared a War on Cash... and it is spreading throughout the globe.

Richard Nixon made hay of the term “Silent majority” back in November 1969 to defend his Vietnam War policy.  It has since been used by American politicians to legitimize and expand the nature of a non-descript huge following they claim as their own, quite often asserting the existence of magnified populism and an implied democracy.  Nixon’s baton seems to have been now passed to Donald Trump, as he submits his candidacy for the highest political office in the land, and grabs the microphone to broadcast his unfiltered stand on immigration.  A message that questionably-qualified experts in the media are quick to devour, then defecate, on a public more receptive to shallow issues dealing with celebrities than anything of social significance or depth. 

While we know now that Greece is irrelevant, and China is irrelevant (fdrom what we are told by talking heads), it appears the commodity carnage of the last few months is relevant for at least one nation. Having already warned about Australia, it appears New Zealand has got nervous:

*NEW ZEALAND CUTS KEY INTEREST RATE TO 3.00% FROM 3.25%, FURTHER EASING LIKELY AT SOME POINT

The Central bank blames softening economic outlook driven by commodity price pressures. Kiwi interestingly popped on the news to 0.66 before fading back a little, despite RBNZ noting a further NZD drop is necessary.

After investing $410 million in March 2013, two billionaires are about to make a $500 million return an investment they have held just over two years, with the blessing of a whole lot of debt investors. And all they had to do was pick up the carcass of a company which did nothing more than crush its unions.

When we discuss an "economic collapse," most people think of a collapse of the financial markets; and without a doubt, one is coming very shortly. But let us not neglect the long-term economic collapse that is already happening all around us. If you stand back and take a broader view of things, what has been happening to the U.S. economy truly is quite shocking. The following are 12 ways that the U.S. economy is already in worse shape than it was during the depths of the last recession...

Canada's capital city, Ottawa, is, as MSN reports, also it's most potentially adulterous. Around 1 in 5 of the population is registered on Ashley Madison - the recently hacked social network for married people looking for an affair. The hotbed of infidelity was also the seat of power: The top postal code for new members matched that of Parliament Hill, according to Avid Live chief executive Noel Biderman in a newspaper report published earlier this year.

How hard do you work compared to the rest of the world?