Archive - Nov 2013 - Story

Economic policymakers seeking successful models to emulate apparently have an abundance of choices nowadays. Led by China, scores of emerging and developing countries have registered record-high growth rates over recent decades, setting precedents for others to follow. While advanced economies have performed far worse on average, there are notable exceptions, such as Germany and Sweden. “Do as we do,” these countries’ leaders often say, “and you will prosper, too.” Look more closely, however, and you will discover that these countries’ vaunted growth models cannot possibly be replicated everywhere. The real heroes of the world economy – the role models that others should emulate – are countries that have done relatively well while running only small external imbalances.

What is more valuable than the life-giving properties of human blood? Why, in the new normal, it's the life-blood of the financial markets - printer ink!!

"We already live in a financial economy in which the debt and capital markets exceed the value of the real economy by far," Marc Faber explains to Germany's Finanzen100, "and that's before the current formation of bubbles." His most ominous warning, and one that fits perfectly with the seeming insanity of Federal Reserve (and all developed market central banks) is that "the next time a bubble bursts, then the capitalist economic system as we know will falter."

Obama: "When we buy I.T. services generally, it is so bureaucratic and so cumbersome that a whole bunch of it doesn’t work or it ends up being way over cost."

...and yet, we've been told we must buy a product, and things have been set up so we can only go through the government's market (the "exchange"), and the government has already demonstrated that its market doesn't work. But you can't walk away, you're forced to buy, and there's nowhere else to go. And yet, he wants us to feel bad about the cumbersome bureaucracy the government encountered trying to procure the wherewithal to set up the market it had already decided we would all need to use.

One day before the Senate's digital currency hearing titled "Beyond Silk Road: Potential Risks, Threats, and Promises of Virtual Currencies", Bitcoin is largely oblivious to any potential regulatory threats, either at the legislative or the city level, where as reported previously the New York superintendent is in a rush to enforce BitLicenses on businesses that accept BitCoin, and moments ago crossed $500 for the first time ever. Instead, it appears that as we also reported previously, the Chinese Bitcoin craze has reached the parabolic threshold, going so far as making Bitcoin an acceptable payment for real estate, which means that while for the time being Bitcoin becomes the alternative inflation protection medium for hundreds of millions of Chinese, all bets on how high it can get are off.

While hardly as dramatic as last week's revelation that Syrian Al-Qaeda cannibals apologized after chopping off the head of one of their CIA-funded "rebels" by mistake, the news that a US drone struck a US missile cruiser during training off Southern California, causing two minor injuries is maybe even more embarrassing. After all, with Al-Qaeda one can at least make a legitimate case of a friendly fire, er, beheading incident. When it comes to the coast off SoCal, it will be difficult to suggest the Chinese (or Russian) navies were running sorties next to the surfers off Point Mugu.

When last week's Iran nuclear talks were blocked by France, it provided a useful glimpse into just who it was that would benefit politically from a continuation of the regional confrontation. But while the French sabotage was an amusing distraction, it revealed a curious shift in middle-east alliances, namely old "enemies" Israel and Saudi Arabia, both feeling shunned by Big Brother, suddenly becoming the best of buddies. It was only a matter of time before this novel alliance moved beyond just paper and tested how far it could go in real life. Said test may come far sooner than expected: according to the Sunday Times, Israel's Mossad and Saudi Arabia are planning an attack against Iran if negotiations and talks don't come to an agreement, and that Saudia Arabia will permit Israel to use their air space for an attack on Iran including full technical support. According to the Sunday Times, the Saudis would assist an Israeli attack by cooperating with the use of drones, rescue helicopters, and tanker planes. "Once the Geneva agreement is signed, the military option will be back on the table. The Saudis are furious and are willing to give Israel all the help it needs,” said the paper citing an unnamed official.

Just a lucky coincidence?

...harsh, but fair...

The establishment desires to acclimate Americans to the idea that being anti-government is wrong; that it is a despicable philosophy embracing social deviance, aimless violence, isolation and zealotry. Looking beyond the mainstream position, my question is, is it really such a bad thing to be anti-government today?

Given our earlier discussion of Nobel winner Sargent's comments on Greece and the gold standard, and the ongoing melt-up in asset markets due to the 'limitless money-printing' of central banks around the world, we thought it worth a look at what a gold standard is (and is not). Before 1974, U.S. dollars were backed by gold. This meant that the federal government could not print more money than it could redeem for gold. While this constrained the federal government, it also provided citizens with a relatively stable purchasing power for goods and services. Today's paper currency has no intrinsic value. Professor Larry White asks, should the United States return to a gold standard?

Thailand is known for a lot of things – quintessential white sandy beaches, hard partying nightlife, quiet Buddhist reverence... But what a lot of people don’t realize is that Bangkok is probably one of the most important cities in the world when it comes to illegal trafficking. Human trafficking. Narcotrafficking. Money laundering. Weapons. Forged documents. Etc. Bangkok is just as vital to these industries as New York or London to the global financial sector. And now, thanks to India’s sagging economy, they can add one more to this list: gold smuggling... In Thailand, however, gold demand is up 125% from the 3rd quarter of 2012.

As the following Google Trends chart shows, we can now wave goodbye to BTFD and replace it with our own humorous creation to explain Bernanke's "market" - BTFATH.

UnitedHealth, the nation's largest provider of privately managed Medicare Advantage plans, has dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks citing "substantial funding pressure from the federal government." The WSJ reports that physician groups are protesting as many elderly patients are now unsure about whether they need to switch plans to keep seeing their doctors. Doctors in at least 10 states have received termination letters, some citing "significant changes and pressures in the health-care environment." UnitedHealth said its provider networks are always changing and that it expects its Medicare Advantage network "to be 85% to 90% of its current size by the end of 2014," due to the new health law (Obamacare). More job creation?

The only way to keep the status quo from imploding is to banish common-sense.