Archive - May 17, 2014 - Story

China began evacuating hundreds of its nationals from Vietnam (via at least 2 planes and 5 ships) as the anti-China protests have become increasingly deadly following Beijing's attempt to deploy an oil drill in Vietnamese dispuited waters (detailed here, here, here, and here)...

• *CHINA SENDING 5 SHIPS TO VIETNAM TO EVACUATE CHINESE: XINHUA
• *HUNDREDS OF VIETNAMESE SECURITY IN CENTRAL HO CHI MINH CITY
• *VIETNAM PRIME MINISTER ISSUES DIRECTIVE TO PREVENT PROTESTS
• *VIETNAM GOVT TAKES ACTION TO PREVENT RIOTS: BINH

Hundreds of police and security forces are in central Ho Chi Minh city and the Chinese consulate is under heavy guard. Tensions across the ASEAN region are growung as Taiwan is on "high alert" but the bloc’s inability to craft a united response to Chinese aggression signals a further decline in its regional clout.

In the past several years, one of the topics covered in detail on these pages has been the surge in such gimmicks designed to disguise lack of demand and end customer sales, used extensively by US automotive manufacturers, better known as "channel stuffing", of which General Motors is particularly guilty and whose inventory at dealer lots just hit a new record high. But did you know that when it comes to flat or declining sales and stagnant end demand, channel stuffing is merely the beginning? Presenting... Where the World's Unsold Cars Go To Die

As Jalopnik reports, a BMP light tank was reportedly left stalled on a city street near Mariupol... A gassed-up, fully-loaded tank. Ready to roll. Ready to obliterate some separatists. This is what happened next...

As spring unfolds here in the Northern Hemisphere, the future of the free and open Internet hangs in the balance. As such, I strongly believe everyone should have at least some understanding of what is at stake. When most people hear or read the words “net neutrality” their eyes glaze over with a feeling of confusion and despair: “I can’t remember, am I supposed to be for or against this?” This is exactly how the lawyers and lobbyists in D.C. want it, but unless the citizenry is informed we could lose the most important weapon of free speech in the history of mankind. The FCC voted on its proposal this week and it passed with a 3-2 vote... and this is a glimpse of the "room full of lawyers and cops... and a few real human beings speaking reality to them" before they were escorted out.

Forget all the talk about "dots", "6 months", or any other prognostication from the Fed's new leadership about what will happen in the near and not so near future. For the real answer prepare to shelve out the usual fee of $250,000 for an hour with the Chairsatan, or read Reuters' account of what others who have done so, have learned. The answer is a stunner. "At least one guest left a New York restaurant with the impression Bernanke, 60, does not expect the federal funds rate, the Fed's main benchmark interest rate, to rise back to its long-term average of around 4 percent in Bernanke's lifetime. "Shocking when he said this," the guest scribbled in his notes. "Is that really true?" he scribbled at another point, according to the notes reviewed by Reuters."

Be afraid... be very afraid. This is not your father's - or even your older brother's equity market. As we have discussed for over 5 years and Michael Lewis dragged kicking-and-screaming into the world's eyeballs, there is something very different about the world's capital markets than ever before. ConvergEx's all-encompassing "Traders Guide to Global Equity Markets" is, simply put, everything you wanted to know (and perhaps did not) about the world's stock markets but were afraid to ask. The subtle title they chose to explain the various order types and market structure dynamics - "Trading Minefields" - you can't avoid them unless you know where they are.

Hardly a day goes by without some new revelation regarding the US surveillance leviathan's reach. In the following (part 1 of a 2-part series), PBS' FrontLine reveals the dramatic inside story of how the U.S. government came to monitor and collect the communications of millions of people around the world - and the lengths they went to trying to hide the massive surveillance program from the public. From 9/11 to Edward Snowden and on to NSA reform - what must be done... a must-watch for all US citizens (if they can spare some time away from The Voice or Flappy Birds).

On Thursday GM shocked the world when it announced the latest 5 recalls in a seemingly endless series ever since it went under fire before Congress for hiding its unprecedented quality control problem earlier this year, in which it was revealed the bailed out company was willing to risk the lives of its customers just to avoid the cost of recalls, bringing the total number of recalls for 2014 alone to 24, resulting in some 12.8 million cars recalled globally. Putting this number in context...

Normally, prices are self-limiting, notes Citi's Matt King: yields rise - inflows hit - prices rise - yields drop - outflows hit - price drops, and back to yields rising. But, it appears for now that we are in a positive feedback (or hyperbolic) loop, where - thanks to central banks pushing too much money to chase too few assets - prices rising implores inflows creates "higher returns" which in turn encourages more inflows (as risk is ignored). King's analogy for this precaiorus situation is pulling a brick with a piece of elastic - nothing happens for a long time... and then - all of a sudden - woosh. Ring any bells?

As the price of meat continues to skyrocket, will it soon be considered a "luxury item" for most American families? This week we learned that the price of meat in the United States rose at the fastest pace in more than 10 years last month. This is really bad news if you like to eat meat. The truth is that the coming "meat crisis" is already here, and it looks like it is going to get a lot worse in the months ahead. Could rapidly rising food prices cause civil unrest in the United States eventually? It won't happen today, and it won't happen tomorrow, but some day it might. Meanwhile, you might want to start carving out a significantly larger portion of the family budget for food for the foreseeable future.

Welcome to the real world, debt serfs...

The world is overpopulated. The street are clogged, traffic is in a snarl, and people are living – both figuratively and literally – right on top of each other. There’s hardly enough room to swing a cat these days, right? Wrong.

There are a few images that scream to mind when one thinks about Brazil - dazzling soccer footskills, illustrious dancing, and of course dark-skinned, scantily-clad females... but as The World Cup draws near for the soccer-savvy nation, there will be another image that will likely dominate the headlines...

Since the Fed can't be bothered with an objective analysis covering both sides the most important debt issue for America, we go to Pew which recently concluded an analysis on the impact of student debt and found that "Student debt burdens are weighing on the economic fortunes of younger Americans, as households headed by young adults owing student debt lag far behind their peers in terms of wealth accumulation." 

American foreign policy is mindlessly driven by the machinery of our Warfare State - a vast accretion of economic, diplomatic, spying and military capabilities which are ceaselessly in search of missions and justifications for their colossal call on the nation’s resources. Absent a dismantlement of the Warfare State machinery, giant policy errors like the Bill Clinton’s double-cross on NATO and Obama’s foolish present confrontation with Putin are nearly guaranteed to recur.