Archive - Sep 4, 2015

With Labor Day upon us, newspapers across the US will be printing op-eds calling for a mandated “living wage” and higher wages in general. In many cases, advocates for a living wage argue for outright mandates on wages; that is, a minimum wage set as an arbitrary level determined by policymakers to be at a level that makes housing, food, and health care “affordable.” All in all, it’s quite a bizarre strategy the living-wage advocates have settled on. It consists of raising the prices of consumer goods via increasing labor costs. Real wages then go down, and, at the same time, many workers lose their jobs to automation as capital is made relatively less expensive by a rising cost of labor. While the goal of raising the standard of living for workers and their families is laudable, it’s apparent that living wage advocates haven’t exactly thought things through.

You know things have become bad when... Common core is so wonderful that Lily Tang Williams, a Chinese-American mother of three who grew up in Communist China, says it reminds her of her oppressive, statist nature of her childhood education.

"Following the RMB devaluation some weeks ago, markets have been erratic, fearful that the initial move was the beginning of a larger devaluation cycle that could disrupt global markets. Given how worried markets have been about China, a better-than-expected reserves number holds the potential for risk assets to rally as devaluation fears abate."

Like pretty much everything in the modern U.S. economy, wealthy and connected people fleecing taxpayers in order to earn even greater piles of money is also the business model when it comes to sports stadiums. Many cities have tried to make voter approval mandatory before these building boondoggles get started, but in almost all cases these efforts are thwarted by a powerful coalition of businessmen and corrupt politicians. Sound familiar? Yep, it a microcosm for pretty much everything else in America these days.

Just like in 1929, The Dow just dropped 13%, bounced, and is retesting the lows...as all the 'experts' comfort a restless investor crowd. So what happens next?

Thousands of investors with stop-loss orders on their ETFs saw those positions crushed in the first 30 minutes of trading last Monday, August 24th. Seeing a price blow right through your stop is perhaps the worst experience in all of investing because it seems like such a betrayal. “Hey, isn’t this what a smart investor is supposed to do? What do you mean there was no liquidity at my stop? What do you mean I got filled $5 below my stop? Wait… now the price is back above my stop! Is this for real?” Welcome to the Big Leagues of Investing Pain.

Back in May we highlighted a study from Georgetown that endeavored to show which college majors were most likely to help students land high-paying jobs upon graduation. The report was unequivocal. To wit: "STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), health, and business majors are the highest paying." Here's where to look for lucrative STEM employment.

"The room to ease policy further, i.e., to adopt counter-cyclical policies, is now much more limited than in the past. To the contrary, in some cases monetary tightening may be needed (despite weaker real business cycles) in order to continue to attract foreign capital, anchor domestic currencies and preserve the integrity of the respective inflation targeting frameworks. Hence, we may soon enter a period of weaker FX and higher policy and market rates: i.e., market dynamics that would resemble more the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis."

The most incredible aspect of Hillary’s e-mail scandal is the media’s total dismissal of a simple fact — Hillary DID NOT use the government’s e-mail system — she used her own. She claimed she was unaware that you could have two e-mails on one phone. That alone shows that she is not qualified to be president.

Should the Fed decide to raise interest rates, it will be the first Fed hike since June 29th 2006. In the 110 months that have since past, global central banks have cut interest rates 697 times, central banks have bought $15 trillion of financial assets, zero interest rates policies have been adopted in the US, Europe & Japan. And, following the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, both stocks and corporate bonds have soared to all-time highs thanks in great part to this extraordinary monetary regime.  A rate hike with a stroke ends this era.

"Time will tell who is right. But remember that we live in an era where computer trading dominates the American stock market. The "robots" that are making a lot of trading calls aren't sitting around pondering China's economy. They are paying attention to whether stocks fall below key levels. What are those levels? No one knows exactly. But these two metrics are worth watching. If these thresholds are crossed, both computer and human traders will consider it a game-changer point."

Sunday night looms...

We can look at official statistics to get a sense of inflation, but these numbers are totally meaningless. When I was a kid, my father earned enough money to support his family with a single salary. We had a house, a car, an occasional vacation, and we never missed a meal. All on one income. But those days are long gone. Now it’s almost obligatory to live in a dual-income household just to make ends meet. The official statistics never paint this picture.