Archive - May 2015 - Story

"As China seeks to make sovereign land out of sandcastles and redraw maritime boundaries, it is eroding regional trust and undermining investor confidence" -- US Deputy Secretary of State 

“Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority” (which was invented by the imperial President Richard Nixon in 1974, in order to advance his goal of a dictatorial Executive, that the Presidency would become a dictatorship) lowers the Constitutionally required approval from 67 Senators down to only 50 Senators. The difference between 50 Senators versus 67 Senators is, essentially, the difference between a treaty that is publicly discussed and widely acceptable to the American public (the people, after all, who voted for those members of Congress); versus a secret treaty that will be widely unacceptable to the American public when the America public will become informed of its contents, which won’t be until years after the treaty has already gone into effect.

"The U.S. Department of Education wants to remind you that you may qualify for a repayment plan that calculates your monthly payment based on your income. You will likely qualify for an income-driven repayment plan if your total federal student loan debt exceeds your annual income. Under an income-driven plan, your initial payment could be as low as $0 per month." -- US Department of Education

210 of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's 1,500 employees took the money and ran last month after the company's pay-to-quit scheme backfired amid a transition to a boss-less corporate structure. Now, things are just getting "weird"...

To preserve any idea that the US is not heading into recession, the FOMC is now wholly reliant on statistical processes within the BEA’s use of the Census Bureau’s updated ARIMA-X13 modeling system. It is amazing to see this policy body that once proclaimed, unequivocally and forcefully, that it could perform the monetary equivalent of sorcery and alchemy reduced to quivering about winter. The latest policy statement, a silly farce of its own accord, is, quite simply, an embarrassment.

While only 23.9% of low-wage workers in 1979 had a college degree, that group had grown to 44.2% by 2013. Yet low-wage workers’ hourly wages have not improved much over this time.

Since QE programs have not been effective at creating organic economic growth, the only effective monetary policy tool of the Fed to stave off the effects of a recessionary drag, lowering interest rates, is not available. This is why, despite weak economic growth, little inflation and a large amount of labor slack in the economy, the Fed has consistently hinted that they will likely raise the overnight lending rates in June. Therefore, since the Fed is "data dependent," a boost to GDP, via the recalculation of the numbers, would be vastly supportive in justifying that increase. However, is economic growth really stronger than currently reported? We can look at some alternative measures of the economy to answer that question.

Kansas, which is laboring under an $800 million funding gap, will limit cash withdrawals on state-issued benefit cards to $25 per day starting on July 1, forcing some beneficiaries to go to the ATM more often. Because the state charges $1 per trip, and because many low-income families do not have a checking account, the new law amounts to a sizeable 'poor tax'. 

"The Fed has dragged out the normalization of interest rates way beyond what is prudent... At some point... the market is going to say ‘on my god, we’re so far behind the curve’ and force an adjustment that is going to be wrenching... when this “wrenching” adjustment kicks in, it would turn into a market disruption at a level “seven or eight” on a scale of 10, with 10 being the worst."

“It is unacceptable, illegal and corrupt for anyone at the Fed to deliver inside information that could provide a financial advantage to the privileged few and lead to the manipulation of financial markets”: Hensarling

How is it that the company's GAAP EPS declined by a whopping 17%, from $0.66 to $0.55, and yet its non-GAAP EPS dropped by a tiny 1% from 0.88% to 0.87%? This is how...

Investors are the most 'neutral' and confused in 26 years with bullish sentiment and bearish sentiment hovering at multi-decade lows...

Gun to our head, this is what happens next: several false flag YouTube clips once again emerge just around the time Obama announces it is time to send a tactical, contained group of troops in Syria to retake the cultural "heritage that" is Palmyra, at which point the war against ISIS morphs into what it has been from day one: the western attempt to crush and topple the Assad government, and to hand over control of Syria to Turkey and Iraq, just so the US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar can control what happens behind the scenes, by which we mean finally allow that long overdue gas pipeline to traverse the nation. We expect this scenario to start unfolding within the month.