Archive - Aug 29, 2013 - Story

As everyone is now completely distracted with the looming prospect of yet another illegal war to be waged by the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, let’s look at a few other things going on while no one is looking.

There has been much confusion in the past several months relating to the US debt ceiling, and specifically the fact that total debt subject to the limit has been at just $25 million away from the full limit since late May. As we explained first in January 2011, there is nothing sinister about this. Any time the Treasury hits its physical debt cap, it activates its available "emergency measures" which include such money releasing options as disinvesting the Civil Service Fund, Suspending reinvestment in the G-Fund, Selling securities from the Exchange Stabilization Fund, and others, which cumulatively free up around $300-$350 billion. In essence the "emergency measures" act like a revolving credit facility that is slowly but surely being drawn down. Add to that sporadic cash creation over the past few months from cash inflows from the GSEs and one can see why the US has been able to be in breach of the debt ceiling for as long as it has. And why it still has just under two months of capacity.

Early-year tax increases and higher gasoline prices have probably dented U.S. consumer expenditures and as Bloomberg's Joseph Brusuelas notes, tomorrow's report of July’s personal income and spending report may illustrate the weakness that poses a significant risk to the much-anticipated economic growth renaissance in the second half of the year.

Gold looks to have found a base. Citi's FX Technicals retain a view that we can see a “low to high” percentage move in this gold bull market similar to what we saw in the bull market of 1970-1980. They add that if we extract the final leg of that move in December 1979-Jan 1980 which was totally driven by the USSR invasion of Afghanistan - almost doubling the price of Gold over 5 weeks - then we end up with a target of around $3,500 over the next 3 years or so. The charts below are compelling in that respect, but before we look at them we will indulge in some pontification...

Everything you wanted to know about the potential Syrian conflict (and didn't want to read) in 10 handy infographics...

Here’s another depressing list to ruin your day. You can tell a lot about a society by what they value, what they build and what they do. The only new buildings we see being built are banks and medical facilities. That tells us a lot. We look around and see that we value fancy new leased or financed cars, financed McMansions, fastfood, and lots of shopping outlets. And now this list tells us a lot about where this country is headed. Among the ten fastest growing jobs in America, only one can be considered well paying. Only two of the jobs are in industries that produce something. Only one requires a non-liberal arts college degree. Most of the jobs barely pay a living wage. Most of these jobs are non-essential service jobs that add absolutely nothing to society. A society that does not produce is destined to decline. We’re doomed. Based on the list below, we would describe the United States as a service based nation of aging, vain, obese, shallow, financially illiterate boobs with bad skin and muscle aches, who love sports and entertainment, but can’t understand each other, and are addicted to their oil based suburban sprawl debt financed lifestyles. 

BREAKING. Sr administration official tells @MajorCBS intelligence report on purported Syrian chem weapons strike to be made public tomorrow

— Charlie Kaye (@CharlieKayeCBS) August 29, 2013

Because "its always different this time..."

Moments ago the UK House of Commons, in a razor thin vote, rejected the Cameron proposal for military action in Syria with a vote 285 to 272. Cameron promptly said he would respect the will of the House of Commons and UK Defense Secretary Phillip Hammond confirmed there would be no UK military intervention in Syria. Incidentally, this may have been the best outcome for an already humiliated British premier who will avoid being dragged into an unpopular war having both sided with his greatest ally, the US, and also relented and listened to the voice of the people. More importantly, the "people" in the UK actually had a voice, which is more than can so far be said about developments in the US. And speaking of the US, the NYT reports that even as the Syrian war "option" is slowly being shut out for staunch US allies (except for France of course), that Obama is "willing to move ahead with a limited military strike on Syria even while allies like Britain are debating whether to join the effort [ZH: and have now voted against it] and without an endorsement from the United Nations Security Council" citing senior administration officials.

As the mainstream-media and its status quo "growth's around the corner" lackeys gloat hopefully over this morning's soon-to-be-revised GDP data beat, we noted a rather disturbing trend in a critical part of the report. Real Final Sales growth is collapsing. In fact, the current slow level of growth in real final sales has never occurred outside of a recession... So perhaps, as we commented (here, here, and here) things are not as 'great' as headlines would suggest.

Summarizing the latest updates in the rapidly changing Syria story.

Just as natural selection selects for traits that improve the odds of success/survival in the natural world, Economic Darwinism advances people and policies that boost profits and power within the dominant environment. If there was one phrase that summarized the current malaise, it would be "The Federal Reserve's 20-year policy of easy money created an environment virtually assured to select bankers, bureaucrats, educators, and elected officials who least understood the consequences of a credit crisis." In other words, a hyper-financialized environment of near-zero interest and abundant credit rewarded those people and policies that succeed in that environment.

Another very volatile day across asset-classes with no-one having a clue what is going on. Good-news (GDP) was instantly interpreted as bad-news (moar Taper) and bonds and stocks sold off notably but as the US equity market opened, JPY was sold and carry took over lifting stocks back to pre-FOMC-minutes levels once again... but bonds also rallied significantly with it (in a non-Taper-ing manner) as the USD rallied. But once that run-stop was covered on low volume levitation, stocks limped lower from the European (and POMO) close onwards, ending towards the lower-end of the day's cash range. Treasury yields dropped 7bps from their post-GDP highs leaving the 30Y -3bps on the day (and 7Y and less unch). VIX rose (turning higher before stocks topped), almost tagging 17% as it closed. But burying the lead, commodities were slammed with WTI slammed back under $108; gold, silver, and copper all hit with the latter -3.5% on the week. 'Average' volume day in futures.

A month ago we reported that US fast food workers in several US cities, namely New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Mo., and Flint, Mich., walked out Monday in a one-day strike demanding a doubling of their pay. Not unexpectedly, even though the president himself has been a strong proponent of rising the minimum wage, the corporations balked and the strikers achieved nothing and just in case there is some confusion, there is a lot of minimum skills, minimum wage applicants (not to mention robots) out there which translates into two words for the strikers: no leverage. However, these concepts may be foreign to a fast-food labor force that probably just wants a day out in the nice weather and to take a break from hard work for a change.

Update: it appears the photos posted on twitter are fake. Hopefully that means there are no B-2 in the vicinity of Syria.