Archive - Nov 15, 2015 - Story

It turns out that Obamacare's "affordable care" is affordable, as long as one doesn't actually have to use it! Here is what happens when one does.

Within one hour of the Paris attacks and without any evidence, the story was set in stone that the perpetrator was ISIL. This is the way propaganda works.

The already laughable story that the passport of a Syrian refugee had been found next to the bodies of one of the dead terrorists took an even more surreal twist when we learned hours ago that according to both French and US sources, the passport was most likely a fake.

It is important to keep in mind that the dollar’s attacks on gold always end the same way – in a painful knockout for the dollar. There have been no exceptions to this rule throughout monetary history, nor will there be this time. Hence the well-known market rule: “Any maximum of the gold price is not the last one.” It would be naive to believe that this golden rule is unknown to that grandmaster of patience, Vladimir Putin, and to Xi Jinping. By systematically increasing their gold reserves, Russia and China are relentlessly moving forward to strip the US dollar of its status as a global reserve currency. America’s standard military solution won’t work in this situation.

Presented with little comment, aside to say, WTF!!!

"We expect the economy to continue to face strong headwinds from higher interest rates, exigent financing conditions, high inflation, significant labor market deterioration, higher levels of inventory in key industrial sectors, higher public tariffs and taxes, high levels of household indebtedness, weak external demand, soft commodity prices, political uncertainty, and extremely depressed consumer and business confidence."

Over the past few years when it’s come to any criticism of business models, valuations, or other concerns encompassing the social media space, along with other dubious “hacking” inspired businesses emanating from Silicon Valley, the immediate rebuttal posed fell along the lines of first being looked as “you just don’t get it” (or just crawled out from under some rock) followed with, “It’s different this time.” But there are a growing number of clues that this won't end well...We’re going to find out much sooner than later. That we're sure of.

Back in July, during the depths of Greece's fraught bailout negotiations, we noted that the market cap of MSCI Greece was the same as Bed, Bath and Beyond. Well, if you've ever wondered how your favorite US companies stack up against other emerging economies, BofA is out with the full, updated global companies versus countries map.

We have transitioned from free markets to centrally-planned and financially-engineered markets as the PhDs attempt to control the greatest monetary experiment ever undertaken. But they are almost out of runway... and they know it as mainstream market participants belief in their omniscience is rapidly fading.

Because nothing says 'successful monetary policy' like 5 'technical' recessions in 5 years...

Global policymakers have gone to incredible measures to stabilize market, financial and economic backdrops. Yet reflationary measures will continue to only further destabilize. When policy-induced “risk on” is overpowering global securities markets, fragilities remain well concealed. Fragilities, however, swiftly manifest with the reappearance of “risk off.” Rather quickly securities markets demonstrate their proclivity for illiquidity and so-called “flash crashes.” So after an unsettled week in global markets, the critical issue is whether “risk on” is giving way to “risk off” dynamics.

As futures markets reopen, a flight to safety bid is evident with gold ($1090) and bonds bid as US equity futures extend Friday's losses (erasing half of the October surge gains). The Dollar is modestly bid against the euro (EURUSD 1.06 handle looms) and oil is holding slightly in the green (war premium)...

It’s easy to be frightened by these proposals. But if governments think they can force us to accept negative interest rates on our savings by abolishing cash, they need to think again. It’s preposterous to assume that savers will passively accept outright confiscation of their assets via negative interest rates or a ban on cash. Instead, people will simply revert to other stores of value.