Archive - Jul 2013 - Story

Late on Friday, with little fanfare, the government's Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) reported that the secret FISA court - the "legal" administrators of the NSA's assorted domestic espionage programs - would be granted an extension of its telephone surveillance program. And while so far the US public has shown a stoic resolve in its response to learning more details about how the US government spies on its day after day, things may soon be changing. As McClatchy reports, "Congress is growing increasingly wary of controversial National Security Agency domestic surveillance programs, a concern likely to erupt during legislative debate - and perhaps prod legislative action - as early as next week." Among the measures considered are legislation to make those programs less secret, and talk of denying funding and refusing to continue authority for the snooping.

As expected, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc won a decisive victory in an upper house election on Sunday, setting the stage for Japan's first stable government since Koizumi left office in 2006. The Japanese people voted for moar of the same irresponsible monetary policy and this provides a three-year window without a national election and strengthens PM Abe’s hand to supposedly deliver on the promised reforms. As Reuters reports, "people wanted politics that can make decisions", and, "'Abenomics' is proceeding smoothly and people want us to ensure the benefits reach them too." So moar trickle-down wealth-creation for the Japanese, moar surging energy prices, moar currency wars, and moar leverage. There will now be a significant tradeoff among his 'three-arrows' strategy - between monetary and fiscal/reform policy - as the reform agenda may actually enable less monetary policy, increasing the chances of higher inflation in Japan without additional monetary stimulus. This may be just what Kuroda needs to save the JGB market from failure (at least in terms of jawboning if not actuality).

Overnight there has been a flood of viral reports that 'there was a fire at JPM's gold vault' based on a self-made video showing a barrage of fire trucks located on Broad Street between Wall Street and Exchange Place, further subsantiated additionally by a @FDNY tweet around 6:30 pm on Saturday which indeed confirmed there had been a "commercial fire in a vault." So did a sweeping fire "take place" (in broad daylight and in front of video camera armed streetwalkers) provide the fire brigade a pretext to abscond with JPM's gold, or merely give JPM an alibi to say it's gold is "gone... all gone" or rather "burned... all burned" (leaving aside the propensity of a fire to propagate in the confined oxygen constraints to be found on top of the Manhattan bedrock and far below street level)? No.

Detroit’s bankruptcy filing is one depressing read. Poverty, crime, blight – you name the malady and there’s plenty of data to back it up. And unfortunately, Detroit’s not alone. You may be wondering which city hits the wall next...

In a wide-ranging interview with Xinhua, the Chinese finance minister Lou Jiwei started from the normal fantasy-land of central-planners by noting that the topic of a Chinese hard-landing "was not discussed at the G-20," because "no participant believes in the existence of that risk." Commenting on calls for the Chinese to launch new stimulus (to save the world's economy), Lou admonished the other nations, adding "I suggest they fulfill their own due work rather than counting mainly on others." He remained adamant that China is still growing and creating jobs but fears what everyone else fears: "The global market will sustain negative impact should the Fed fail to interact properly with other components of the market." In other words, "get to work, Mr. Bernanke, and don't remove the punchbowl," because as Lou notes, "some countries are overly optimistic on their outlooks."

Ron Paul wrote this scathing assessment and prediction about the newly created DHS eleven years ago. He was outraged by the $3 billion price tag. The DHS 2014 budget is $60 billion. Were his warnings about the American people being spied on by our government accurate? Are you safer today than you were in 2002? Do you have more or less liberty and freedom than you had in 2002? Was it worth it? 

Based on eight years of continued prosperity, presidents and economists alike confidently predicted that America would soon enter a time when there would be no more poverty, no more depressions - a "New Era" when everyone could be rich. Then 1929 began - a time when the stock market epitomized the false promise of permanent prosperity... it's only when we learn the lessons of the past can we avoid the mistakes of the future - or this time it's really different.

Are we likely forming a market top? It is very possible.  We saw the same type of market action towards the last two market peaks.  However, it will only be known for sure in hindsight.  The many similarities between the last cyclical bull market cycle and what we are currently experiencing should be at least raising some warning flags for investors.  The levels of speculation, leverage, price extensions, duration of the rally, earnings trends and valuations are all at levels that have historically led to not so pleasant outcomes. The reality, however, is that the current "liquidity driven exuberance" could keep the markets "irrational" longer than logic, technicals or fundamentals would dictate.

A month ago we showed the chart that we suspect scared Bernanke straight and required his verbal intervention to de-froth the US Treasury market. The huge surge in 'fails-to-deliver' in the US Treasury market meant something was very wrong as this critical indicator of both collateral shortages and technical carry trade unwinds was flashing a very angry red (and as Barclays notes "was ready to feed upon itself"). Bernanke's jawboning provided just the right amount of concern at the Taper that the market began to clear a little and 'fails' have been reduced (though we note are rising once again as un-Taper exuberance returns). The problem is - exactly the same critical dilemma is now hitting the JGB market and as JPMorgan warns, the sharp rise in fails in June suggests that there is perhaps more stress in the JGB market than that conveyed by the recent stability of JGB yields.

"Things are different now. I’ve turned my savings into spending, rung up thousands of dollars’ worth of purchases on my credit cards and in the process paid a lot more in taxes. And I’ll probably keep spending like this until I nearly run out of money. In other words, I’ve bought a house. Since the recession materialized in 2008, policymakers in Washington have been urging Americans to buy homes, because no single purchase does more to generate economic activity. The housing market and everything associated with it accounts for around one-sixth of the entire economy, which is why a housing bust can drag the whole nation into a recession (basically what happened starting in 2007) while a housing boom can make nearly everyone better off, including people who don’t even own homes."

Detroit just made the news as it filed for bankruptcy.  A model city in the century-old upsurge of American industrial enterprise, it has now become the prophet-messenger of its decline – over 70,000 decaying structures and pension-promises which won’t be kept in this city being an albatross for what’s to be new America.  At the end of the day, a productive society must create an efficient combination of building products and needed services… its GDP hardly to be represented by a ridiculous measurement of over-consumption and unneeded services. There’s little, however, that can be done to keep the curtain down in Oz.  It’s slowly going up… and soon the world will see us with our pants down.  And as the curtain goes up there won’t be a place for us to hide, and we’ll have no other choice than to return to the reality which is Kansas.

It's good to see that as more of the US spirals into chaos, someone still has a sarcastic sense of humor. For those who missed it, in the Kevyn Odd statement listing the primary reason for the bankruptcy of Detroit, this was the punchline: "For years, the City has spent more than it takes in and has borrowed and deferred paying certain obligations to make ends meet. The City is insolvent." In other words, a pure pyramid scheme whose final can kicking day has finally come. Which perhaps explains why the just appointed Judge to preside over the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history is none other than Judge Steven Rhodes, 64, who just happens to be the co-author of "The Ponzi Book: A Legal Resource for Unraveling Ponzi Schemes." In other words, if there is anyone qualified to oversee the biggest Ponzi scheme collapse to date in US public sector history, it would be Judge Rhodes. We can only hope, however, that he leaves some time in his busy schedule over the next several years, for that other, biggest of all Ponzi schemes, the United States of America.

It wasn't exactly like rubbing salt into the wounds of a US population that over the past month has learned it has no electronic communication privacy left, but it was close, when last night the US government's Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced that it was granting the secret FISA court - the same 11 people who decide behind closed doors whose email, phone or browser history is of national interest and thus subject to further "examination" - an extension of its telephone surveillance program. This is one of the two data surveillance efforts by the US (in conjunction with all major private telecom and internet companies) that Snowden leaked about. Why do we know this? Because the Obama administration is suddenly serious about being the most transparent ever: "The ODNI said in a statement it was disclosing the renewal as part of an effort at greater transparency following Snowden's disclosure of the telephone data collection and email surveillance programs." In short: "we will continue spying, but at least we are fully transparent about it."

In the classic fantasy rom-com The Princess Bride, the beautiful maid Buttercup orders the farm boy Westley to perform numerous tasks to test his servitude. No matter the magnitude of the request, Westley simply answers "As you wish" and makes it so. Buttercup eventually comes to view Wesley with similar devotion, and true love is born. Similarly, investors have fallen back in love with the capital markets, whose continual response their increasingly irrational hopes has been "As you wish." It's inconceivable!