Archive - Aug 13, 2014 - Story

At least 70 SWAT moving civilians along: "this is not open for discussion", "your rights to assemble are not being denied", 2 reporters arrested for "not packing bags fast enough"

Police are firing rubber bullets and tear gas - "This is no longer a peaceful assembly. Go home or be subject to arrest," says the loudspeaker.

Protesters exclaimed, "we have a right to assemble, a right to freedom," said Paul Muhammad. "But here we are facing what looks like a military imposing martial law. It is not acceptable." Interestingly, President Obama's official response "urging reflection" has been rejected as insultingly inadequate by many African American residents of Ferguson.

Having expressed his dismay at President Obama's decision to embark upon Iraq War 3.0, Ron Paul explains "it's a little bit late to salvage all the mistakes that we've made for the past 24 years," adding that he is worried "it will end up with a lot more violence because they are putting more troops in there right now." Simply out, Paul concludes, "the sooner we get out of there the better," as it "jeopardizes our national security and is bankrupting our country... this is exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted."

The US is clearly now pushing Russia towards war. But if you read the signs correctly, Russia has been preparing for exactly this outcome for many years.

Conventional wisdom, now so habituated to getting all the cheap credit it can get, did not anticipate such a dramatic collapse in Chinese credit last month, is eagerly expecting a proportional response from the PBOC, one which would potentially involve significant easing, which is precisely what US equities priced in today when they closed near the highs of the day, even as there was not a single piece of good macroeconomic news overnight. Pretty cut and dry right? Well not really. Recall that as we reported in the last week of July something odd was revealed: namely that China quietly unveiled and implemented its Pledge Supplementary Lending line, or as it is increasingly better known: China's QE.

According to a new analysis from CareerCast jobs, seven of the top 10 careers are in the healthcare industry and, as expected, require an advanced degree. As CBS reports, while these jobs are all pegged to show strong earnings growth through 2022, there is a downside: Becoming a surgeon or physician requires years of graduate school and training, which requires an investment of time and money. "There is a tradeoff for every job," Oh well, at least it doesn't require stealing from widows and orphans, and one can even sleep at night without the help of industiral amounts of horse tranquilizer. So without further ado, here are the ten top paying jobs for 2014...

UPDATE: U.S. SAID TO LAND TROOPS ON MT. SINJAR IN IRAQ, ABC NEWS SAYS

U.S. military officials say an armed American MQ-1 Predator drone has attacked and destroyed a mortar position of Islamic militants in northern Iraq. As WaPo reports, the drone attack marks a departure for the U.S. military, which had said previously that drones were flying missions over Iraq only to collect intelligence. No boots hit the ground in the carrying out of this action...

U.S. energy independence, we're told, is at our fingertips thanks to the so-called “shale revolution”. Offsetting declines in conventional oil and gas production, shale gas and tight oil (shale oil) are being heralded as the means by which the U.S. will become energy independent – a net exporter of natural gas and once again the world’s largest oil producing nation. But two new reports by Post Carbon Institute and Energy Policy Forum show that the hype simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

On a lighter note, as American society collapses - Forget Asian "over-saving", there is a new conundrum for Alan Greenspan and his merry band of PhDs to figure out... as China.org reports, purchasing power increases as bra sizes go up according to Taobao.com, one of China's largest online commercial sites.

If you are fortunate enough to have a job in America today, the phrase "just over broke" probably describes you.  Yes, there are a handful of jobs that certainly pay very well, but most Americans that work for somebody else are just barely making it from month to month.  More than half of all working Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and more than half of all working Americans make less than $30,000 a year.  Something has gone horribly wrong, and yet our leaders just keep telling us how wonderful our economy is.

Forget conjecture - Crony Capitalism is alive and well at The SEC and a new study proves it statistically. As The LA Times reports (via IBT), Maria Correia's research finds that - perhaps not surprisingly - the more a company spends on political donations, the more lenient the treatment it gets from the SEC. For all the cheaters out there, the math is clear - a $1-million contribution to a political action committee can reduce the probability of an enforcement action from the SEC by more than half (from 8.58% to 3.43%).

Dan Popescu of Goldbroker has interviewed Ronald-Peter Stöferle of Incrementum Liechtenstein AG, co-author of the In Gold we Trust 2014 report, covering gold, Austrian economices, and broad range of other topics... “We are currently on a journey to the outer reaches of the monetary universe. We believe that the monetary experiments currently underway will have numerous unintended consequences, the extent of which is difficult to gauge today. Gold, as the antagonist of unbacked paper currencies, remains an excellent hedge against rising price inflation and worst-case scenarios."

With Japanese and Italy 10Y bond yields hitting all-time record lows (0.505% and 2.626% respectively), one could be forgiven for thinking that all-is-well as term or devaluation premia are oddly missing. However, as the following two charts show, Japan and Italy just broke another record - sovereign debt loads (1.038 quadrillion JPY and 2.17 trillion EUR respectively).

Last week, the barbaric Islamic State seized the vitally important Mosul dam, dramatically impacting tactical options against them and potentially changing the future of the Middle East. When the US coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003, military intelligence developed invasion scenarios.  One scenario included Iraqi forces placing detonation charges at the vitally important dam.  If US forces were able to safely secure the dam, then they had a contingency plan to operate it and ensure critically important maintenance.  The US quickly discovered the necessity for $27 million worth of frantically urgent repairs. A dam break does not require sabotage.  Maintenance failure has the same result.

Since 2011 Cisco has repurchased $21.9 billion in stock. Since then, it has fired 21,000 people.

This just happened...

1645ET *PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR SAYS TRUCE EXTENDED BY 5 DAYS
1659ET *THREE MORE GAZA ROCKETS HIT ISRAEL, ARMY SAYS
1729ET *IDF TOLD TO RESPOND TO PALESTINIAN CEASEFIRE BREACH: HAARETZ
1740ET *ISRAELI WARPLANES BOMBING GAZA: AL JAZEERA

For the record, Hamas denies responsibility for the rockets. We presume that "ceasefire" means something different in Gaza?