Archive - Jul 25, 2015 - Story

"His legacy will be that of the nation's greatest destroyer, and he certainly is the greatest enemy that I, personally, and my family and employees, have ever had."

Minority Report, eat your heart out. The real system is worse than anyone could have imagined.

Presented with no comment...

"By stepping back and looking at the big picture, we can see that real estate should be correcting and trending down.  The reasons why our grandparents bought their homes have changed.  Government intervention cannot last forever.  It will change from accommodation to devastation, when they finally run out of ideas. As for buying a house, I would consider it more of a luxury as opposed to an investment, and one has to be prepared for the possibility of it being a depreciating asset, especially if one decides to move."

With almost everything turning lower this week under “dollar” pressure, it is imperative to keep in mind the apex asset class. In 2007, it was the ABX indices and various mortgage related structures that signified the how far along everything was; in this cycle it is clearly corporate credit. The disarray starts in the riskiest pieces and then moves inward and eventually, if left unchecked, eroding too much underneath with which to support what was once believed perfectly safe. Once there is no place to hide, the turn really begins.

On Thursday, we previewed a critical court ruling involving Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel’s effort to cut pension expenses and plug a yawning budget gap. As expected, Emanuel’s plan was determined to be unconstitutional by Rita M. Novak of the Cook County Circuit Court, further imperling the junk-rated city's financial future and perpetuating a pension ponzi scheme.

Years of growing resentment for the Japanese premier, who panders only to the rich, to the exporting corporations, to the Japanese military-industrial complex, and of course, to the US government and Goldman Sachs (whose idea Abenomics was from the very beginning) thousands of protestors rallied Friday night in downtown Tokyo in a campaign of "Say no to the Abe government," targeting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "runaway" policy. The protestors gathered at the Hibiya Park, Diet building and the prime minister's official residence, shouting "Abe step down."

If Trump took up a Third-Party, it might be the biggest shot we have at saving the country insofar as it would at least turn Capitol Hill into a new playing field. It really would not matter who the Third-Party candidate would be, Washington needs to be shaken and stirred vigorously to let these people know being a “representative” is supposed to be OF THE PEOPLE, not of yourself, the Party, and government.

When Top Gear front man Jeremy Clarkson left the show, the crowds of fanatical followers faded fast. When Zayn left One Direction, the band's insatiable devotees started to question their faith in the boy band's message. And so, as IB Times reports, the exodus of ISIS front-man "Jihadi John" from the terror group - citing irreconcilable differences with his "jealous" former terrorist colleagues - one wonders if the cracks of caliphate are starting to show...

But for those equity investors caught in the artificial glare of the goalseeked stock market to appreciate how truly ugly it has gotten in the junk bond space, here is a heat map showing the YTD change in junk bond prices (relative box size indicates total outstanding debt amount) when seen in terms of either the 31 subsectors or the 805 issuer companies that make up Citi's junk bond tracking universe.

Now that the AIIB and the BRICS bank have officially launched and are expected to begin operations soon, it appears that not only will the yuan play a key role for both institutions, but in fact, the two development banks will collaborate on their lending activities. 

Venezuela’s hyperinflation is reaching its final stages. It is probably already far too late for the government to stop the complete collapse of its currency. The bolivar is in the process of transforming from a medium of exchange to tinder for wood-stoves. Venezuelans who had the presence of mind to convert their savings into gold or foreign currency in good time are likely to survive the conflagration intact. Governments never seem to learn. They all believe they can somehow overrule economic laws by diktat. This is not only true of Venezuela’s government, but of practically every government in today’s world. Central planning of money has been adopted everywhere. Venezuela merely shows us what the end game for every fiat money system looks like.