Archive - Jul 2014 - Story

Presented with no commentary but an awful sense of deja vu all over again...

Aldous Huxley would be doing the "told-you-so-dance" as control of the population (particularly the non-elites) has reached levels only he could have dreamed of. In the latest government plan, hot on the heels of "cash-for-clunkers" and minimum wage hikes, Berkeley - that bastion of California liberalism - has unveiled what can only be described as a "Pot-for-the-poor" scheme. As LA Times reports, under a new ordinance, at least 2% of the marijuana each dispensary doles out needs to be given free to members who have “very low” incomes (under $32,000). So not only is work punished in America, but not working now has 'benefits'... it's only fair.

The following excellent discussion waxes across the defining trends of our time, including market manipulation by central planners, monetary hijinks of the highest order, crony corporatism, clueless and complicit politicians, and the explosion of State control. John sees us hurdling towards an increasingly certain future of banana-republic wealth disparity, currency failures, and civil strife. That is, unless we rise up to assume ownership of our own destiny. Doing so will not be easy, or pain-free. In many ways, the most important important question concerning our collective destiny is: Will we have the courage to take control of it?

"Tear down this wall..."

The British government has just invested in water cannons because they are fearing the rising tide of civil unrest as austerity is forcing the reduction of state workers and their pensions. The British unions called for strikes nationwide. Teachers, firemen and civil servants joined the calls and and took the streets demonstrating for higher wages and pensions. Just where is this money supposed to come from they really have no idea. They merely argue to take it from someone else no matter what and give it to them. Simply put, it is the rising cost of government that is out of control and no level of tax increase can reverse this trend.

Amid consternation at the market's low levels of volatility - and concerns voiced regularly by Fed officials of 'complacency' - it appears the FOMC has never been more confident in its omnipotence. As WSJ reports, despite being consistently too optimistic about economic growth and too pessimistic about the falling unemployment rate, Federal reserve policy makers have never been less uncertain about their forecasts... With consensus 2014 GDP expectations collapsing to +1.7% (and the Fed still at 2.1 to 2.3%), it appears the Fed's peak complacency is perfectly anti-correlated to the actual uncertainty about the future.

"To the residents of Beit Lahiya, The IDF intends to attack terrorists and terror infrastructures in the area east of Al-Atatra and Al-Salatin St., and in the area west and north of Ma'bscar Jabalyia. Israel is currently attacking, and will continue to attack, every area from which rockets are being launched at its territory.

The civilians are requested to evacuate their residences immediately and move by 12:00 PM today, south of Jabalyia Al-Badr via Shar'a Al-Faluja.  The IDF's campaign is to be short and temporary. Those who fail to comply with the instructions will endanger their lives and the lives of their families.

Beware."

A first class, all expenses paid weekend trip to Vienna with full diplomatic and press cover, to explain to Germany why every day a new CIA spy is uncovered, and to again reach no resolution on Iran's nuclear program: millions of dollars. Relaxing at the end of a long, hard day for a job well done with a cold central European beer: priceless. Some things money can't buy. For everything else there's TaxpayerCard.

Blythe Masters is perhaps the most maligned human being on earth by silver investors due to suspicions of JP Morgan’s manipulation in the silver market (and rightly so). Well she’s back in the news, but it has nothing to do with silver. Rather, the news relates to the fact that her ex-husband and commodities traders, Daniel Masters, has just launched a Bitcoin hedge fund from the island of Jersey, a British Crown dependency.

1/2 BREAKING: IDF forces raided a site used to fire long-range rockets at Israel. The mission was accomplished

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) July 13, 2014

On the heels of John Kerry's accusation that Russia's behavior does not belong in the 21st century, Germany's Angela Merkel has come out swining against the escalating spying scandal with the US (which saw allegations that the US had recruited two Germans to sell secrets this week). During an interview with ZDF, the German leader blasted “that we have different perceptions on the work of intelligence services," adding that "we don’t live in the Cold War anymore." The White House's response, so far, a shrug of 'business-as-usual' from Josh Earnest; which fits with Merkel's conclusion: "I think it's not that easy to convince the Americans ... to completely change the way their intelligence services work."

With threats and promises over cyber-crimes fleeting back and forth between the US and China, it appears - through the 'back-channel' of the nation's state broadcaster CCTV - China has stepped it up once again. As AFP reports, China has accused US technology giant Apple of threatening national security through its iPhone's ability to track and time-stamp a user's location. While not exactly a 'new feature' of the phones, the timing of China's public lambasting reflects the escalating mutual distrust between the US and China over the extent of cyber-espionage.

Well, if you take the US Supreme Court and representatives of the Federal Reserve System at their own words, the case is pretty clear: the member banks of the Federal Reserve System are private corporations / banks.

This is a big deal. On the heels of our pointing out the surge in Treasury fails (following extensive detailing of the market's massive collateral shortage at the hands of the unmerciful Fed's buying programs), various 'strategists' wrote thinly-veiled attempts to calm market concerns that the repo market (the glue that holds risk assets together) was FUBAR. Even the Fed itself sent missives opining that their cunning Reverse-Repo facility would solve the problems and everyone should go back to the important business of BTFATHing... They are wrong - all of them - as yet again the Fed shows its ignorance of how the world works (just as it did in 2007/8 with the same shadow markets). As JPMorgan warns (not some tin-foil-hat-wearing blogger with an ax to grind) "the Fed’s reverse repo facility does little to alleviate the UST scarcity induced by the Federal Reserves’ QE programs coupled with a declining government deficit." The end result, they note, is "higher susceptibility of the repo market to collateral shortages" and thus dramatically higher financial fragility - the opposite of what the Fed 'hopes' for.

We earlier showed the close-up-and-personal images from the bombing raids between Hamas/ISIS/Al-Qaeda and Israel; but the following clip (which we still have not heard the final conclusion of) shows just how much of a 'surprise' these shellings can be... as a reporter is hit by a shell live on air.