Archive - Jun 2015 - Story

Of this touted €35 billion in bailout funding which Greece finally admitted it will cross "red lines" to obtain, the country will be lucky to pocket a little over €3 billion. However, considering that is how much the Greek government has already extracted out of various public pensions and municipalities as part of its quasi-capital controls unrolled previously to preserve the illusion of solvency, after the hard fought "deal" finally is inked, the Greek population will be left with... €0.

While China is rather proud of the fact that it hasn't yet implemented outright QE, Beijing has now put in place a bewildering hodge-podge of hastily construed easing measures that can't seem to get out of their own way.

Ten days ago it seemed as if America's corporatism would finally be slowed in its tracks after the House unexpectedly killed the fast-tracking of Obamatrade, aka the fast-tracking of the Trade Promotion Authority. Alas, it was not to last, and moments ago, in a "nailbiting" 60-37 vote, the Senate advanced Obama's fast-track tarde bill.

According to BofA's Jill Hall, "BofAML clients were big net sellers of US stocks in the amount of $4.1bn, following four weeks of net buying. Net sales were the largest since January 2008 and led by institutional clients—after three weeks of net buying, institutional clients’ net sales last week were the largest in our data history."

Many people see national finances as an impenetrable fog of numbers and acronyms, which they feel is best left up to financial specialists to interpret for them. But try to see national finances as a henhouse, yourself as a hen, and financial specialists as foxes. Perhaps you should pay a little bit of attention - perhaps a bit more than one would expect from a chicken?

President Barack Obama in 2014 said Mr. Gruber was “some adviser who never worked on our staff.” And then there's this:

“Thank you for being an integral part of getting us to this historic moment,” according to Sept. 9, 2009 email to Mr. Gruber from Jeanne Lambrew, a top Obama administration health adviser who worked at HHS and the White House. In a November 2009 email, she called Mr. Gruber “our hero.”

“I expect that we may have a similar encounter because we’re operating in this part of the world,” US Naval Commander Rich Jarrett tells Bloomberg, referencing the likelihood of a maritime confrontation between the US and China. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is concerned that Beijing is "closing the gap" when it comes to air and space technology.

There’s a specific sort of instability in the world today – a game theoretic instability – which means that it has an identifiable pattern and rhythm you can understand in order to improve your investment strategy. It’s the instability of the game of Chicken, and once you start looking for it, you will see it everywhere here in the Golden Age of the Central Banker. Greece vs. the Troika? Chicken. Western sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine? Chicken. OPEC vs. US energy producers? Chicken. ECB vs. the Swiss National Bank? Chicken. Fed monetary policy communications to markets? Chicken. Abenomics? Chicken. US policy towards China? Chicken. ISIS vs. the world? Chicken.

74% of American men are either overweight or Obese (up from 63% in 1994) according to a new report using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. As MSN reports, the researchers exclaim "obesity is not getting better. It's getting worse, and it's really scary. It's not looking pretty," warning that America's "car dependence" and poverty ("processed and fast foods are less expensive") are to blame and America's weight problem is an issue that will not be resolved through a purely medical solution. "This generation of Americans is the first that will have a shorter life expectancy than the previous generation."

Following the removal of Confederate Flag merchandise from WalMart; Sears, Ebay, ETSY, and prominent flag maker Valley Forge Flags have all joined the 'movement' and stopped selling the 'controversial' flag. However, as with any and all government-'suggested' actions, there are unintended consequences in the hypocrisy of implicitly banning this symbolic banner... sales of Confederate Flags are soaring everywhere else (as the "guns and ammo"-like threat of scarcity has led to a run on the products).

"It's June. Winter is coming..."

Welcome to the new normal efficient "market" - where 7 sevenths are worth 3.5% more than the whole...

"...my personal strategy for change has morphed from speaking to power in favor of becoming a monk rather than a martyr. If I could stand in front of a tank and have it force positive change I would do so but clearly that opportunity won’t happen or present itself in this leaderless, narrowing, putrefied, lying lawless system of festering corruption. Beyond 2015, I fear it will continue to be everyman for himself and thus divided we'll fall having rejected the spirit of one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Maybe WMT should start selling Confederate flags again...