Archive - Aug 27, 2014 - Story

First Russia and China, then UAE, Egypt, and Turkey... and now it appears Germany (following a phone call with Putin) is pulling the rug out from under US hegemony - just as Obama's warmongery ramps up...

*MERKEL SAYS U.S. CAN'T SOLVE ALL THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS ANYMORE

Which is odd because just yesterday, President Obama (who never lies) stated "The United States is and will remain the one indispensable nation in the world..." adding that "no other nation can do what we do." Perhaps he is wrong?

According to Russia's RIA Novosti, citing business daily Kommersant, Gazprom Neft has agreed to export 80,000 tons of oil from Novoportovskoye field in the Arctic; it will accept payment in rubles, and will also deliver oil via the Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline (ESPO), accepting payment in Chinese yuan for the transfers. Meaning Russia will export energy to either Europe or China, and receive payment in either Rubles or Yuan, in effect making the two currencies equivalent as far as the Eurasian axis is conerned, but most importantly, transact completely away from the US dollar thus, finally putin'(sic) in action the move for a Petrodollar-free world.

"The relationship between those who are constantly watched and tracked, and those who watch and track them, is the relationship between masters and slaves." - Chris Hedges

Yesterday, as the S&P closed above 2,000 for the first time, mainstream media pundits were trotted out to proclaim that either "stocks are 'fairly' valued" or "stocks are cheap" and the "money on the sidelines" must come in now. Aside from the 'idiocy' of the last comment, we thought BMO's Jack Ablin's comments were of note. "Valuation is the market’s biggest headwind,” he wrote, adding that sales “have to catch up” for stocks to sustain the rally. One glimpse at the following chart and it is clear that not only are stocks "not cheap" or "not fair" they are extremely rich with the only fall-back now being that "they're not as expensive as they were at the top of the biggest bubble in stocks ever." Seems like BTFATH makes perfect sense in that light...

Exactly one year ago Obama proposed to take Bashir al-Assad to the woodshed because he had allegedly unleashed a vicious chemical attack on his own citizens. That was all pretext, of course, because even the CIA refused to sign-off on the flimsy case for Assad’s culpability at the time - a reluctance corroborated since then by the considerable evidence that hundreds of Syrian civilians were murdered during a false flag operation staged by the rebels with help from Turkey. Now the White House is threatening to bomb Syria again. Washington should call off the bombers and get out of harm’s way. The American Imperium has failed and the prospect of bombing both sides of an irrelevant non-country’s ancient tribal wars ought, at last, to make that much clear.

Yesterday we noted the fact that Biotech stock investors has 'fought the Fed' and won (for now) in the last few months after Janet Yellen's "stretched valuations" warning. With bond yields continuing to collapse, despite Bullard's ongoing demand that the market 'sell sell sell', we thought a glimpse at just how dovish the market is compared to the 'hawkish' Fed would be useful...

You may be familiar with the story of how the US government confiscated gold bullion and then made owning it illegal back in 1933. Actually this event is more accurately termed a nationalization. Americans were forced under harsh penalties to sell their gold at an artificially low “official price.” Many have speculated that the US government could once again turn to gold confiscation/nationalization if it became desperate enough. But would the US government really turn to a 1933-style grab again? We would argue that they wouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean the threat to your gold has diminished. Quite the opposite.

The following sign on the grass in front of a Texas school sums up where we are with the militarization of education in America. As WSJ reports, public schools nationwide are greeting students for the fall term with a host of new security measures including adding armed guards, giving guns to employees, installing perimeter fencing, and bulletproof glass. "It's kind of the way of the world, unfortunately," notes one parent, but bulking up on security has led some parents and experts to question how it affects students. The idea of "hardening" schools against intruders took on urgency after Dec 2012: "Newtown was a nuclear bomb that changed the whole landscape of everything."

While weather may affect the economy, the recent contraction has little to do with winter’s bitter cold; the US economy is far too diverse and complex. Instead, we are witnessing the ongoing effects of failed monetary and fiscal policies. As the Wickersham Commission noted years ago, “These laws [of economics] cannot be destroyed by governments, but often in the course of human history governments have been destroyed by them.”

You want winners? You want me to put my Cramer Berkowitz hedge fund hat on and just discuss what my fund is buying today to try to make money tomorrow and the next day and the next? You want my top 10 stocks for who is going to make it in the New World? You know what? I am going to give them to you. Right here. Right now...

Yesterday it was Ambrose Evans Pritchard, today, in this 2nd of a series of London interviews that Lars Schall conducted for Matterhorn Asset Management this summer, Lars has a City of London streetside conversation with Alasdair Macleod right outside the Dutch reform Church in Austin Friars near the Bank of England. Together they talked about, inter alia: the challenges for The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA); China’s appetite for gold; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as THE future player in the gold market; and the problems related to Germany’s gold at the New York Fed.

The right to bear arms in the United States has been and continues to be one of the most hotly debated pieces of legislation in our modern era. But, as Nicole Pontius of CamCode notes, the reality is that gun laws and arms regulation is not simply a human rights issue and it certainly does not only affect the U.S. Arms regulation also impacts national security, economic interests, global commerce and foreign policy. As Pontius adds, the latest political solution to help improve international arms regulation is the ATT, or the Arms Trade Treaty. Among a number of potential benefits of the ATT, this treaty would require governments to report all arms sales, thus preventing the sale and transfer of weapons likely to be used in violation of human rights all around the world. We wanted to take a closer look at this important piece of legislation - this infographic answers what it is, who is involved, and why we need it.

David Rosenberg, in one of his recent missives, wrote: "...based on the current trend in the LEI and the level of the diffusion index, history suggests that the next recession is at least four years away." While anything is certainly possible, it is highly unlikely that the current economic environment is supportive of another four years of a "struggle along" economy. Given the artificial supports during recent years, the extreme extension in assets prices, record levels of margin debt and the chase for yield in "junk credits," it is highly possible that the next recessionary decline could be much larger than the historical average.

The market, in its infinitely rigged wisdom, has concluded that the worst Ebola outbreak in history is a non-event, even though it has put virtually all of western Africa on indefinite lockdown, and as Reuters reports, is "causing enormous damage to West African economies and  draining budgetary resources." In fact the damage from Ebola to Africa is already so acute, it is expected that economic growth in the region will plunge by up to 4 percent as foreign businessmen leave and projects are canceled, according to the African Development Bank president said. Revenues are down, foreign exchange levels are down, markets are not functioning, airlines are not coming in, projects are being canceled, business people have left - that is very, very damaging," African Development Bank (AfDB) chief Donald Kaberuka said in an interview late on Tuesday.

"Germany will flirt with recession by Q4 of this year," warns Saxo Bank's Chief Economist Steen Jakobsen, adding that "the US is in worse shape than most people believe." It's important to underline, he notes, that major US investment houses, and certainly every single sales person we talk to, believe US is about to accelerate in growth not slow down. Jakobsen warns though that Q3 could be ok but the real damage will come in Q4 as the lead-lag factor of geopolitical risk, lack of reforms and excess global supply leads to low inflation. His conclusion, "it’s time to be defensive... very defensive."