Archive - Mar 2015 - Story

Recency bias no doubt once again playing a role, but more likely it is this new-ish trend to deny any damaging economic possibility as it might disrupt the balance of financialism. Any system that cannot even countenance just a small possibility of contrary thought is not robust or “resilient” at all. As we saw in 2008-09, oil liquidations were entirely appropriate for economic conditions; how can “everyone” deny outright something even slightly similar?

After three hopeful months of greater-than-50 prints for Japanese Services PMI, February saw it plunge back into contraction with a considerably worse than expected 48.5 print. This drags the overall composite PMI for Japan to 50.0, its weakest reading in 4 months as New Orders drop to May 2014 lows and employment craters to its lowest since Oct 2012. On the heels of last night's weak JGB auction and sell-off in stocks on relatively hawkish comments from economists, tonight is seeing more of the same as the Nikkei 225 is having the worst 2 days in 2 months and JGB yields are jumping once again. Abegeddon is back...

Amid a booming housing market (home prices +14.4% YoY), and busting economy (PMI 44.2 from 55.1 2014 peak), Australia's Gold output in 2014 surged 4% to its highest since 2003. As Mining.com reports, the world's no.2 gold-producing nation (after China) has been forced to increase the grade of ore they were targeting and push their processing plants even harder, and mining consultants Surbiton Associates warns "it's not all good news."

Tens of thousands marched Sunday through Central Moscow to honor Boris Nemtsov, outspoken opposition critic of Vladimir Putin who was murdered Friday night and thousands more mourned today at his funeral (though notably not Putin himself) and more pointedly, The BBC reports, several EU politicians and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were barred from attending the funeral. Hours later, Mr Navalny accused the Russian authorities of responsibility for the murder, adding to slew of competing theories involving everything from the CIA to Islamic militants and Ukrainian nationalists.

Not to be outdone by his partner Charlie Munger (who offended many with his comments that "gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939,"), Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett decides to take on Europe (and The Big Lebowski), and particularly the Greeks in today's 'perhaps it's time to just STFU' moment. Responding to questions about Europe's future, Buffett compares Greece to a "dog peeing on the carpet" of Europe, suggesting Germany stop "rewarding behavior you want to get rid of."

Financial collapse is already baked in, and it's only a matter of time before it happens, and precipitates commercial collapse when global supply chains stop functioning. Political collapse will be resisted, and the way it will be resisted is by starting as many wars as possible, to produce a vast backdrop of failure to serve as a rationale for all sorts of “emergency measures,” all of which will have just one aim: to suppress rebellion and to keep the oligarchy in power.

In "an unprecedented move", the controversial head of Norway's Nobel Peace Prize committee was removed Tuesday and demoted to the rank of mere member.  Thorbjoern Jagland, a former Norwegian premier, drew criticism after becoming committee chairman in 2009 for awarding the prestigious Nobel to newly elected US President Barack Obama. He will be replaced by current Deputy Chair Kaci Kullmann Five.

The underlying concept of how Petrodollar recycling, or as some call it, petrocurrency mercantilism works, leaves some confusion. So in order to alleviate that, here courtesy of Cult State, is a quick and simple primer that should hopefully answer all questions.

Accommodative monetary policy, which is ostensibly supposed to stimulate aggregate demand thereby encouraging businesses to spend and hire, is now perversely causing people to work longer and preventing new employees from having access to a secure retirement.

A century of government meddling has turned the issue of water rights on its head, and further centralized control of waterways in local, state, and federal governments. Just as the residents of Los Angeles fought over water with local farmers, the residents of Las Vegas will soon find themselves fighting with surrounding states over what’s left of Lake Mead. None of the power players seem to care that the current population settlements of the southwestern United States cannot last. One day the water will run out. The sooner this reality is confronted, the better.

The last three times that API inventories reported (each notably greater than expected), crude prices tumbled (only to ramp hilariously the next day following DOE inventory data). Against Bloomberg estimates of a 3.95 million barrel build, API printed only a 2.89 million barrel build; and WTI crude prices surged to the day's highs.

As the world awaits to see if following his speech, Israel's PM will now proceed with launching a full on assault on Iran just to show he means business, or at least stage yet another false flag intervention to greenlight war in the middle east, several hundred kilometers to the northeast, the biggest offensive in the "war on ISIS" is now taking place after thousands of Iraqi soldiers and Shi'ite militiamen seek to retake the northern Iraqi town and birthplace of Saddam Hussein, Tikrit. And since there is much confusion all around since pretty much everyone in the middle east is now involved in this war on Iraqi/ISIS soil, here is a simple map showing who controls what..