Archive - Apr 24, 2014 - Story

There have been 13 senior financial services executives deaths around the world this year, but the most notable thing about the sad suicide of the 14th, a 52-year-old banker at France's Bred-Banque-Populaire, is she is the first female. As Le Parisien reports, Lydia (no surname given) jumped from the bank's Paris headquarter's 14th floor shortly before 10am. FranceTV added that sources said "she questioned her superiors before jumping out the window," but the bank denies it noting that she had been in therpapy for several years.

If you thought that CCTV cameras tracking your every move in public was bad enough, you’re going to just love AISight (pronounced “eyesight” of course). The invention of a Houston, Texas based company called BRS Labs (which stands for Behavioral Recognition Systems) is headed by former secret service special agent John Frazzini, and this Orwellian surveillance platform brings artificial intelligence to all of those creepy cameras that have been installed everywhere around you. Apparently, this system is currently being installed in Boston, and has already been implemented in Chicago and Washington. The most disturbing part about this platform is that this artificial intelligence defines what is “normal” behavior and anything that falls outside of that narrow band can be flagged for “pre crime” potential.

Some worry about the quality of the drinking water in China, others fear the choking smog of the cities, still more are concerned about the inevitable collapse of their real-estate bubble; but none of these compare to the Gansu Province (in the Northwest of China) strongest sandstorm since at least 1996 that turned day into night Wednesday afternoon.

With President Obama in the middle of the pissing match between Japan and China's nationalist provocations, we thought it perfectly appropriate that none other than Justin Bieber would visit the Class-A war criminal housing Yasukuni shrine. As might be expected, his actions stirred up controversy... We are sure Obama was quick to point out that Bieber is Canadian...

On the subject of High Frequency Trading, our respondents are thus far unimpressed with the argument that HFT helps U.S. equity market participants.  Fully half answered that it is “Harmful” or “Very Harmful”.  Only 19% said it was “Helpful” or “Very Helpful” to participants. ... In short, the survey seems to tell a very clear story. Most professional investors and institutional brokers do not feel that markets treat all participants fairly. They worry about how fragile markets might become during periods of abnormally high volume. At the same time, they are cautiously picking their way through the minefield in which they find themselves and are unsure what role regulators should play. How the landscape will change as a result of their unease is still unclear. What is certain is that change is coming.

A ‘Perfect Storm’ of demography and debt will economically and financially doom almost every country on earth. It will be TEOTWAWKI – ‘The End Of The World As We Know It’. No, it’s not the end of life or even the end of civilization. However, when it’s all over, nothing will ever be the same and that includes the disappearance of much of the middle class.  The good news - The storm won’t last forever. The bad news is there will be much more pain before it ends unless you make an effort to understand what’s happening and why.

Since the centrally-planned market is so broken it no longer has the capacity to evaluate and respond to any geopolitical threats and shocks, here - lest anyone think that with the S&P a hair away from all time highs there is nothing to worry about - is a summary of all the simmering, and in some cases, searing and/or scorching geopolitical conflicts and other tensions around the world including Ukraine, Hamas, the US-Japan defense treaty, Syria, South Sudan, Catalonia, Scotland, Thailand, Nigeria, Turkey, Venezuela, Ivory Coast, Bolivia, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Algeria, Pakistan, Moldova, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece and more.

The figures are out and it looks like the United States exported a record amount of gold to Hong Kong in January.  Not only is this 3 times more gold exported than January 2013 (17 mt), it was 84% more gold than the record month set in August (31 mt).  As we can see, gold bullion is fleeing the U.S. and heading to the East.  Again... that 57 mt figure is just gold bullion. As the West continues to play games with Monopoly money and Derivatives manufacturing, the East accumulates as much gold as it possibly can.  While Main Stream Media and its Banker cohorts release bearish $1,050 price targets for gold, the Asians and Indians smile as they build the largest amount of gold stocks in the world.

If this evening's data from Tokyo on April's Consumer Price Inflation is any guage on the national inflation picture, those hoping for moar stimulus had better start praying for war. Thanks to favorable comps and the April 1st tax rise, Tokyo CPI jumped to 2.9% YoY - its highest since 1992 - and well above the BoJ's 2% inflation goal. Mission accomplished (almost)... except that the economy just won't play ball and now stocks are fading too (along with Abe's approval ratings).

A picture paints a thousand words - though perhaps only one is necessary to describe NATO...(for now)...

Presented with no comment... "Today, Bundy revealed himself to be a hateful racist... Bundy has endangered the lives of innocent women and children... it is unacceptable for individuals to use violence or the threat of violence to advance their radical views."

Who can forget the amazing story of Alex Hope which was all the rage two years ago? Probably everyone. So here is a timely reminder because as it turns out young master Hope, who struck the proverbial gold at the tender age of 23, was nothing more than the latest Ponzi schemer whose only success in life was finding the absolute, and quite rich, idiots who believed his lies. Well, that, and being able to transform himself from a catering manager working at Wembley Stadium into an FX trader.... even if a fake, criminal and absolutely terrible FX trader.

This should be good... how will Kerry explain the 2nd warship in the Black Sea and Poland troops as non-escalation but Russia military exercises as escalation when Ukraine has now re-launched its anti-terrorist operations...

Andrew Haldane, who is well known among readers as being one of the most outspoken and truthy central bankers in the world, will become Bank of England's Chief Economist in June. That fact is what makes his comments - however factually honest - extremely uncomfortable for the Keynesian status quo DSGE modelers alive and well in every central bank in the world. To summarize his thoughts in the following letter - the models are useless and it's time to rethink everything...

You just can’t make this stuff up. A few days ago the President of the United States signed into public law bill S. 2195, now known as Pub.L. 113-100. The law aims to “deny admission to the United States to any representative to the United Nations who has been found to have been engaged in espionage activities or a terrorist activity against the United States and poses a threat to United States national security interests.” In other words, if the US government thinks that if you have been spying on the United States, then they won’t let you in the country. Gee, let’s think for a moment - who has been engaging in espionage against the United States? Anyone? Ah, right. The US government. Mr. Obama himself.