Archive - Nov 28, 2013 - Story

For Shawndraka Mack, a 100% pay rise from her current $7.60 "would do just fine." While some employees turn to blood plasma donation, and most are on food stamps (and other benefits), the mother of two teenagers (on Medicaid) told Bloomberg Businessweek, “I love what I do, but I don’t want to work for nothing." Between the 40 hours a week she works and the benefits, Mack explains, “I work at McDonald’s and I can’t afford to eat there. It’s crazy.” Of course, McDonalds has 'tips' for surviving on their state-subsidized wages but once again, despite Harry Reid's extrapolated charts, the reality of raising the minimum wage is lost on most who never stop to think of where the 'money' comes from; and besides employees have little to no leverage as we explained here.

Despite the US being largely on holiday, the demand for digital currencies continues to surge. Bitcoin has rallied another 10% overnight as Chinese appetite for alternative stores of value remains unabated (BTC China is nearing its record highs) as USD/BTC is trading at $1170 - on its way to crossing the Maginot line of gold's spot price (within a few hours at this pace). Bitcoin though has nothing on its smaller cousin Litecoin which has now run from $1.11 to over $48 in the last 5 weeks. In fact, almost every crypto-currency in the world - from Infinitecoin to AnonCoin is surging... with only the ironically named PhoenixCoin (-68% overnight) not rising from the flames of fiat torment.

On November 7, when the ECB announced a "surprising" rate cut, 67 out of 70 economists who never saw it coming, were shocked. We were not. As we observed ten days prior, Europe had just seen the latest month of record low private sector loan growth in history. Or rather contraction. Back than we said that "one of our favorite series of posts describing the "Walking Dead" monetary zombie-infested continent that is Europe is the one showing the abysmal state Europe's credit creation machinery, operated by none other than the Bank of Italy's, Goldman's ECB's Mario Draghi, finds itself in." We concluded: "we now fully expect a very unclear Draghi, plagued by monetary zombie dreams, to do everything in his power, even though as SocGen notes, he really has no power in this case, to show he has not lost control and start with a rate cut in the November ECB meeting (eventually proceeding to a full-blown QE) in order to boost loan creation." Less than two weeks later he did just that. The problem, as the ECB reported today, is that not only did M3 decline once more, to 1.4% or the slowest pace in over 2 years and well below the ECB's 4.5% reference growth value, but more importantly lending to companies and households shrank 2.1% in October - the biggest drop on record! Draghi's monetary zombies are winning.

• CME/CBOT/NYMEX Closed
• CME Globex -
  • Equity products halted (halted between 1030CST/1630GMT and 1700CST/2300GMT);
  • Interest Rate Products halted (halted between 1200CST/1800GMT and 1700CST/2300GMT);
  • FX halted (halted between 1200CST/1800GMT and 1700CST/2300GMT)
• NYMEX and Comex halted (halted between 1215CST/1815GMT and 1700CST/2300GMT)
• NYSE Closed
• NYSE LIFFE Regular Close
• Eurex Regular Close

• The second coming of Obamacare website - will it work? (Reuters)
• Winter Storm Moves North as Macy’s Waits to Make Parade Call (BBG)
• Eyeing holiday sales, more U.S. retailers to open on Thanksgiving (Reuters)
• It's all Verizon's fault: H-P Will Replace Verizon in Hosting HealthCare.gov Website (WSJ)
• Bitcoin Service Targets Kenya Remittances With Cut-Rate Fees (BBG)
• Embattled Thai PM easily survives no-confidence vote, protests persist (Reuters)
• For U.S. stores it is ugly out there: in more ways than one (Reuters)
• Japan and S Korea military flout China air zone rules (FT)
• UBS Restructuring Forex Unit (WSJ)
• Trader Messages Scrutinized as UBS Bans Chats Among Firms (BBG)
• ECB warns on external risks to eurozone financial system (FT)