Archive - Nov 18, 2015 - Story

“Apparently, it’s a kind of a ‘honey is sweet, but the bee stings’ situation: they want IS to weaken Assad as soon as possible to make him leave somehow, but at the same time they don’t want to overly strengthen IS, which may then seize power."

No outside force can end freedom in America. The only force that can end freedom in America, is the American government itself. This is the main lesson of the 15 years since 9/11.

The market's reaction to today's FOMC Minutes was, to some, a little odd given the "December is on" hawkish narrative being sold to the public. Stocks rallied, longer-dated bonds rallied, gold managed gains, and the US Dollar sold off... not exactly the reaction one would expect from a 'hawkish' Fed statement. But there is one thing that would explain those moves... and it appears Goldman Sachs found it buried deep inside the 12 pages of Minutes...

Obama drops that 'C' word again...

One week after the gold scheme's official launch, we take a look at how has it has done so far. In one word, so far the "gold monetization" plan has been a disaster with a laughable 30 kilograms in gold tendered by the people from physical into "government-backed" form.

Today’s financial world is a tough place for the average person but paradise for rich guys. As easy money raises asset prices, the owners of those assets make effortless profits. Then they buy expensive toys and trophy properties. Hence the recent boom in fine art, high-end real estate, yachts and private jets. But like all financial trends, this one has a limit, and that limit is now in sight. The 1%, it seems, is rolling over...

Well, we got a look at the IBC-Br monthly real GDP indicator on Wednesday and as you can probably imagine given the stagflationary nightmare currently unfolding in Brazil, the picture was not pretty. If fact, we just witnessed the largest Y/Y contraction in series history.

If having to slash valuations by 30% from the latest private financing round was not bad enough, Square's IPO just priced notably below the expected (already lowered) range of $11-13 (and even further below the $15.46 at which it raised private money last year):

*SQUARE SAID TO PRICE 27M IPO SHARES AT $9 EACH, REUTERS REPORTS

So from a private valuation around $6 billion to this, and along with Fidelity marking down its SnapChat valuation, it appears that without another massacre in a major city, risk appetite for these paper-behemoths may have gone the way of the mythical unicorn itself.

Central planners around the world are waging a War on Cash because, as Ron Paul so eloquently put it "the cashless society is the [government]’s dream: total knowledge of, and control over, the finances of every single [citizen]." It is perhaps ironic then that Sweden, which became the first country in Europe to issue paper money in 1661, is probably going to be the first in the world to entirely eliminate it.

"The equilibrium, for now, is QE infinity – but political risk could be the breaking point"...

Even if nothing else doomed the status quo, the widening gap between household incomes and costs will push the corrupt contraption over the cliff by itself. The status quo (whatever you wish to call it) requires "growth" to sustain itself--growth in consumption, spending, sales, debt, asset valuations, profits and of course taxes, and ultimately all of those "growths" depend on household incomes. Incomes even for the most highly educated workers are stagnating..

Perhaps even more stunning than the photo of the alleged bomb contained in a beer can, which ISIS says was used to blow up the Russian airplane, is its admission that it would have used the explosive  to bring down "a plane belonging to a nation in the American-led Western coalition against the Islamic State" only to change its mind in the last minute.