Archive - Jul 5, 2014 - Story

The USA is fast running out of friends to support its 'exorbitant privelege'. Having alienated the Germans over NSA-eavesdropping, 'boomerang'd the Russians into de-dollarization, tariffed and quantitatively eased China into diversification, and finally 'punished' France into discussing the dollar's demise; it appears no lessor person than the CEO of Total (the world's 13th biggest oil producer and Europe's 2nd largest), believes "There is no reason to pay for oil in dollars." Clearly, based on Christophe de Margerie's comments, that we have passed peak Petrodollar.

...a not so far off future in which martial law, economic collapse, and the destruction of civil liberties stood imminent...

The selloff last year was a desperate warning about the lack of resilience in credit and funding. That repo markets persist in that is, again, the opposite of the picture Janet Yellen is trying to clumsily fashion. Central banks cannot create that because their intrusion axiomatically alters the state of financial affairs, and they know this. It has always been the idea (“extend and pretend” among others) to do so with the expectation that economic growth would allow enough margin for error to go back and clean up these central bank alterations. That has never happened, and the modifications persist. Resilience is the last word we would use to describe markets right now, with very recent history declaring as much.

"... for now, the message is that the average stock making up the Nasdaq 100 Index is not confirming the bullish message of the NDX’s higher price highs...the divergence does not absolutely have to persist; the market could just power through it, but that is not usually the way things usually work out."

Euthanasia of the rentier appears to be increasingly the modus operandi of the central planning caste of the world. As we noted previously, Bernanke's (and now Yellen's) plan to exterminate savers is wholly unsustainable, The Fed's insistence that "our savers collectively have to hold all the assets of the economy and a strong economy produces much better returns in general" must be juxtaposed with comments from a money manager that "I don't think that's a fair-trade" for money intended to be invested safely." No matter how hard they herd the masses, the elderly (and still working) respond, "At our age, we can't be a risk taker anymore."

We might think that Washington is as pitchfork-worthy today as France was in 1787, or Tsarist Russia in 1917; however, we are still likely a few leagues away from the igniting point that sparks a true revolution, where reality sets in and replaces the mirage created by economic-political brainwashing. .. Just in time to celebrate Independence Day, our illusionist government came out with “great ‘job numbers’” to keep the fireworks flying high, exploding in spectacular multi-colored brightness, lifting our spirits of eternal hope for a “recuperated” economy following course to a Dow Industrials that would surpass the 17,000 mark on the day 288,000 jobs were said to be added by employers. But all of this hoopla is an exercise in farce-economics, stats in Affluence Economics that have little to do with the economic condition of the have-nots, where unemployment rates, jobs created and rate of inflation need to be extracted from other data applicable to them, stats that reflect Have-nots Economics, not Washington’s generic bullshit.

Pro-Russian separatist forces have been forced to retreat from their stronghold in Slavyansk following "massive shelling" in the early morning from Ukraine's 'anti-terrorist' forces. Armored vehicles entered the city and the rebels, according to RT, decided to move back to their headquarters in Kramatorsk to 'prepare' in advance for further offensives. Just days after the cease-fire was lifted, newly-appointed Defense Minister Valery Heletey commented the "order to free Slaviansk from the (separatist) fighters has been carried out," but pro-Russian supporters are not done yet and exclaimed: "Pass on these words to Putin: the people of the Donbass believed him for some reason when he said he would help. But now they (government forces) are killing peaceful civilians and if that is not genocide I would like to know what is."

Under the influence of the neo-Keynesian interventionists and the professors at the Fed, the public has been brainwashed into believing that governments can revive economic growth. However, as Hayek notes, “the more the state ‘plans’ the more difficult planning becomes for the individual." As the Rahn Curve states, the larger the government becomes beyond a certain point (about 20% of GDP) the slower economic growth will be. Always remember, Faber warns, echoing Barry Goldwater, “The government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

It's common sense - everyone knows that interest rates are going to rise (how can they fall any lower?) Inflation will come back (because the Fed said so), economic growth will flourish (because the Fed said so), and longer-term bond yields will surge in a bond-bull-destroying renaissance proving stock market speculators right all along. Except that isn't what history shows us... When a central bank dominates the domestic bond market, all bets are off (whether economically rational or not). When a sovereign simply cannot afford higher interest rates, all bets are off (no matter what your economic textbook says).

With the "Islamic State" grabbing all the headlines, it appears the Taliban have had enough. As Reuters reports, Taliban insurgents set fire on Saturday to about 400 oil tanker trucks supplying fuel for NATO forces in an attack just outside the Afghan capital Kabul, police said. It was unclear how the fire was started. Some Afghan media reported that insurgents had fired rockets at the tankers late on Friday. The attack precedes Monday's preliminary announcement of Afghanistan's presidential election winner - in which both sides have accused the other of mass fraud. The Taliban had vowed to disrupt the process.

No lesser mortal than commodity-king Andy Lees (ex-UBS and current manage of ALM Macro) explains that today's declining global productivity is and was always a consequence of government policy of taxing productivity in favor of social transfers. The gradual dumbing down of capitalism and move towards social democracy over the last 50 years relied on building a Ponzi scheme of financial innovation to keep the illusion alive. But, he offers hopefully, system dynamics of the natural environment (how land that was once lost to the desert by over taxing it can be returned to a productive use) offer hope that this ponzi trend can be broken. Simply put, Lees concludes, "the system has to change. The issue is whether government and ultimately society can survive during the change; whether the public can unite behind a leadership that can implement tough decisions and allocate capital productively, or whether further sacrifice will be needed first, and how that sacrifice may come"

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamist militant group Isis, has finally broken his video silence, and has called on Muslims to obey him, in his first video sermon recording. The video appears to have been filmed on Friday during a sermon at the al-Nouri Mosque in Mosul, northern Iraq. It surfaced on Saturday amid reports that he had been killed or wounded in an Iraqi air raid.

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win." Mahatma Gandhi

"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics... but it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance." - Murray Rothbard

In what has quickly become viral as yet another example of extreme (and unchecked) police behavior against the people, California Highway Patrol says that it is investigating footage posted on YouTube that shows a policeman repeatedly punching the face and head of a prostrate woman. "If you look at the video, there are 15 hits. To the head, and not just simple jabs. These are blows to the head. Blows. Really serious blows. And this is ridiculous to me... I find it hard to believe there [was] no other remedy in this situation." Life, liberty, and no pursuit of police brutality?

The biggest congressional leakage scandal in the past year is the most recent one to cross the rabit hole of all-out absurdity: According to Reuters, the Ways and Means panel said on Friday it should not have to comply with a federal regulator's demand for documents sought for an insider-trading probe involving the staff director of a subcommittee and a lobbyist. The House Ways and Means Committee argued in a court filing that U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in New York should deny the Securities and Exchange Commission's attempt to subpoena documents from the committee and its healthcare subcommittee staff director Brian Sutter.