Archive - Jun 22, 2015 - Story

“If you distort markets for long periods of time and then you remove those distortions, you’re subject to unanticipated volatility,” TCW's Jerry Cudzil tells Bloomberg, adding that the firm is "as defensive as [it's] been since pre-crisis.”

Under pressure from all sides (and most importantly from Mario Draghi who holds the fate of the Greek banking sector in his hands) Greece looks to have folded and is now set to accept an extension of its current bailout program. PM Alexis Tsipras now faces an uphill battle to unite Syriza around what is likely to be an unpopular agreement. If he fails, the country could plunge into political and social turmoil. 

Just when you thought it was safe to buy the 12% collapse (the biggest since Lehman) in Chinese stocks, they re-plunge another 3-4% with no dip-buyers evident. The drivers are twofold: first, China PMI beat expectations modestly (uh oh no more QDII, QE, PSL, etc.); and second - and much more critically - The PBOC Operations Office has called for stricter regulation of brokerage liquidity (implicitly clamping down on the seemingly infinite expansion of margin lending required to fuel the boom). CHINEXT has entered a bear market (down 21.5%) and the rest of the Chinese complex is down 3-5% today (down 15-20% from the highs).

Wherever government officials sense a credible threat to their power, they invariably take every opportunity to crush it by any means necessary: this is the first principle of how governments function, and every libertarian is all too familiar with it. this latest tragedy, you can be sure, will be used to accomplish the same anti-libertarian ends: the calls to investigate “hate groups,” and even to ban “hate speech,” are already being heard. Of course, who and what constitutes a “hate group,” and who is hating whom are subjective evaluations that no government official is qualified to make...

In a remarkable document, which is not posted at the English version of the website of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, but which is widely reported outside the United States, including Russia, Poroshenko, in Ukrainian (not in English), has petitioned the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (as it is being widely quoted in English):  "I ask the court to acknowledge that the law ‘on the removal of the presidential title from Viktor Yanukovych' as unconstitutional.”

In principle, there could not be a more spectacular game-changer-in-waiting. A royal Saudi caravan offering tribute, in the form of incense, gold and myrrh (or higher oil prices)? No one knows, yet, how this will play out in the New Great Game in Eurasia, of which a major spin-off is Cold War 2.0 between the US and Russia. Putin and King Salman – very discreetly — had been in touch over the phone for weeks. The King’s son invited Putin to Riyadh. Accepted. Putin invited the King to Moscow. Accepted. But is this real life? Or smoke and mirrors? Who's allied with whom?

There are effectively no tools left for governments and central banks to deal with another major crisis. Like Paris in 1940, they have no Plan B. They’re completely defenseless to support the financial system or the currency in the event of a major shock. We should all take a moment to appreciate this level of incompetence. This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes decades of “blunder and neglect” to engineer financial vulnerability on this scale. But they’ve somehow managed to pull it off.

Caught on tape: "Peak" Banker (again)

“The real problem is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

Over the past several months, tensions between Russia and the West have escalated meaningfully. While it’s certainly true that, since Crimea, US-Russia relations have deteriorated steadily (baskets of potatoes notwithstanding), recent events suggests the situation may come to a head more quickly than either side cares to admit. In the latest provocation, Europe has extended economic sanctions against Moscow for another six months or, until the Kremlin agrees to abide by the terms of the Minsk agreement which Europe, on the word of Kiev, assumes Moscow is violating. Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter blasts Russian "nuclear saber rattling."

In the latest populist act of America's largest retailer, minimum-wage-raising, mysterious store-closing Wal-Mart has decided to remove all Confederate Flag merchandise from its stores. Apparently it will continue to stock handguns, rifles, crossbows, ammunition, and other land-of-the-free-to-choose merchandise.

Prepare to laugh. A lot.

A 'region' divided... because nothing says 'recovery' like 45-55% of young peripheral European adults (25-34 year olds!!) living with their parents.

If the United States and China are supposed to be such “great friends”, why are both sides acting as if war is in our future? There were years of diplomatic troubles before Japan finally made the decision to launch a “surprise” attack on Pearl Harbor. Right now, it appears we are moving into a similar period of diplomatic trouble with China.

Whatever one wishes to believe about the veracity of BLS statistics, one thing is certain: for some US states, the ill effects of the crisis on employment still linger some seven years later.