Archive - Jul 17, 2014 - Story

While there are various questions that have already emerged from what was supposed to be Ukraine's "slam dunk" proof confirming Russian rebel involvement in today's MH-17 tragedy, perhaps one just as gaping question emerges when one looks at what is clearly an outlier flight path in today's final, and tragic, departure of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777.

The White House issued a full statement at 2238ET with regard the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 crash following President Obama's earlier brief comments: "The United States is shocked by the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, and we offer our deep condolences to all those who lost loved ones on board... It is critical that there be a full, credible, and unimpeded international investigation as quickly as possible... While we do not yet have all the facts, we do know that this incident occurred in the context of a crisis in Ukraine that is fueled by Russian support for the separatists, including through arms, materiel, and training."

Yellen’s acting routine is worthy of an Academy Award. In her role, she plays a caring, sweet, grandmotherly type figure all concerned about the poor and middle-class, when reality points to a career as a staunch, frontline protector of the bankster oligarchy.

Ripped from the screen of the latest Marvel movie, Reuters reports that researchers are to investigate a giant mysterious hole that has appeared in one of Russia's most isolated northernmost regions. 

Moments ago IBM reported revenues and EPS that both beat expectations and yet the stock is sliding after hours. We may have an idea why, and it has to do with the scariest chart in IBM's history, which we first revealed three months ago and which just got scarier.

"We would be far better served as a species if we were to turn our back on the NWO altogether and move swiftly in the opposite direction. Imagine what tomorrow would be like if there were no controllers, no statists, no despots and no philosopher kings. Imagine a tomorrow where people respect the natural-born rights of others. Imagine a tomorrow where people’s irrational fears are not allowed to inhibit other people’s freedoms. Imagine a tomorrow where interactions between citizens and government are rare or nonexistent. Imagine if we could live our days in peace, independently building our own destinies, in which our successes and failures are our own, rather than the property of the collective. It may not be a perfect world, or a utopia, but I suspect it would be a much better place than we live in today."

CEO's use of profanity in public changes with the economy. A Bloomberg review of thousands of conference calls recorded in the past 10 years shows CEO cursing spiked after the recession in 2009 and waned as the recovery strengthened. Here's a review of the four most common words of choice: the infamous F-bomb, the scatalogical S-word, the blasphemous G.D., and the derogatory A.H.

More basic suggestions for those who are seeking shelter from the coming storms of global financial crisis and recession (part 1 here).

Moments ago Ukraine released what may be just that missing "YouTube" link, when it unveiled a video supposedly proving that "militants of "Bes" group shot down with a Russian anti-aircraft missile a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 passenger jet heading from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur." And yet, something here smells very fishy...

No one is perfect and there is always room for positive change. If you look on the Internet, you will find a mind-numbing amount of advice from self-proclaimed "success experts" (Google it, we dare you); but when you cut through the fluff, most point towards one key piece of advice...almost all would agree that the single most important thing you have is your time. Life is about balance, too much of anything can be bad and moderation is key (except low rates, printed money, and 100-million-dollar apartments in NYC)...

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Following today's dramatic geopolitical escalations (which we hope are nothing like an "Archduke Ferdinand" moment); this evening has grown loud with the mainstream business media's deafening roar of BIS-deniers proclaiming that everything bad is priced-in and nothing good is priced-in and how "this is a teflon market." This is nothing new... as no less than The Financial Times proclaims on June 30th 1914 that "stock markets have been scarcely affected by the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne... there's no evidence that stock holders took fright" as it's priced in (or contained?). It seems things didn't quite work out as 'priced-in'.

Residents in the northern Gaza Strip said they could hear the sound of tanks entering from Beit Lahiya as we noted earlier and now the Army has confirmed:

*ISRAEL SENDING TANKS INTO GAZA: ARMY

As NY Times reports, the military released a statement saying the goal of the operation was to "establish a reality in which Israeli residents can live in safety and security without continuous indiscriminate terror." Judging by the images and clips below, they are deadly serious. Hamas warns, “The occupation will pay its price expensively, and Hamas is ready for confrontation.”

According to Russian news agency Interfax, Vladimir Putin remarked during a government meeting today that:

*PUTIN SAYS UKRAINE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MALAYSIA JET CRASH: IFX
*MALAYSIA CRASH WOULDN'T HAPPEN IF UKRAINE WAS AT PEACE: IFX

But ordered Russia's government to all it can to investigate the crash.

With virtually every airline now avoiding to fly above east Ukraine like the airborne version of the plague (observed recently in Denver) for obvious reasons, here is a snapshot of what the sky over east Ukraine looks like courtesy of FlightRadar 24. It is, in brief, a ghost sky.