Archive - Mar 2011 - Blog entry

What goes around usually comes around...Charlie.

The truth is that that the market’s moves are in fact controlled by just three factors:

1) The Fed’s money pumps
2) High Frequency Trading Programs
3) The suspension of accounting standards and permission of endless fraud in the financial system

Odds and ends on the usual crap.

The final move would involve pouring tonnes of concrete on the reactors to seal them in tombs and ensure radiation does not leak out.

“Lisa Epstein, is an advocate for the People of Florida and her arena is the public. Her strengths are in her First Amendment rights as a journalist and an Advocate. That is why your letter and this response will be posted on her Blog, www.foreclosurehamlet.org, as well as, www.4closurefraud.org.”

The mainstream financial media always tries to offer fundamental reasons for why stocks do what they do. If stocks rally it’s because on good earnings or improved consumer confidence or some other development. So don’t expect to ever hear any of these folks tell the truth, which is that that the market’s moves are in fact controlled by just three factors:

1) The Fed’s money pumps
2) High Frequency Trading Programs
3) The suspension of accounting standards and permission of endless fraud in the financial system

There are so many Federal programs to aid housing it looks like a tag cloud graphic that you see on some web sites. Yet they all have one thing in common: failure. The more they try to keep the corpses of the housing boom alive, the worse the problem becomes. Every program to forestall a quick economic readjustment has only served to prolong the problem. Here's why.

If you trust the EPA to tell you if radiation levels are unsafe, then ignore this article. If you don't, wouldn't letting your water or milk sit for a couple of weeks before drinking it go a LONG way towards reducing risk?

Stress test results are out. Ireland now has the ammunition to get real. For those who don't think an Irish haircut is realistically on the table, just remember that this was a campaign platform for the new government. This is what they used to get into office. In addition, the Danish lopped a sizable bang of hair off of its banks bondholders, and Denmark is still on the map. Yes, you can cut your lender's head and survive. Governments have a history of it. If Ireland goes that route, the "Euraclypse" (yeah, I stole that one from Tyler) floodgates are open.

A guest post by C. Douglas Lummis...

Another federal election campaign in Canada (sigh!) and this time pension politics are front and center...

I was recently on a trip to South America looking at real estate. While there I was told repeatedly by developers that they didn’t want to sign a contract in US Dollars. Instead they wanted to do it in the local currency. This has NEVER happened before during my trips abroad (even as recently as 2009). When I pushed for having contracts based in Dollars, the price went up EVERY week. The reason? The US Dollar is falling in relation to the local currency on a daily basis.

The news is only going to get worse for WTI longs, as the next couple of weeks will bring the total storage at Cushing close to the max capacity of 44 million barrels due to the fact that more traders took delivery on WTI on the last CL rollover.

John Maynard Keynes once said of inflation:

"There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."

It's going to be a long haul for housing and there is nothing on the horizon, such as an improving economy, lower unemployment, and climbing wages to stem the flow.