Archive - Aug 26, 2015 - Story

On Tuesday evening, we quantified the staggering cost of China’s near daily open FX operations in support of the yuan. In short, the new currency regime has led the PBoC to dump more US paper in the past two weeks than it had YTD. In conclusion, we asked if anyone else was set to join China in liquidating US Treasurys at a never before seen pace. Here's the answer and what it means for the US economy and monetary policy going forward.

Just as the Roman Empire ended in the destruction of the Roman people, the American Empire will end in the destruction of the American people. Judging from histories, Roman citizens were superior to American citizens; yet, Rome failed. Americans shouldn’t expect any other outcome. The price to be paid for insouciance, self-satisfaction, and complicity is high.

“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…”

"Yes, it will sound like I am angry...I am. And I have every right to be. But when I leave this Earth, the only emotion I want to feel is peace....”

“The church shooting was the tipping point…but my anger has been building steadily...I’ve been a human powder keg for a while…just waiting to go BOOM!!!!”.

The night began much like any other morning in Asia - with pure comedy gold from Japanese leadership with BOJ's Kuroda saying he is "not concerned about currency wars, there is no currency war," adding that he has "no plans for further easing." That coincided with a drift lower in Japanese stocks from the US close - but mots of Asian stock markets were green buoyed by America's victory against malicious sellers for the first time in a week. Meanwhile, in China, margin debt drops to a 7-month lows (but is still up 133% YoY). But as rumor-mongers face death squads and any broker caught not buying with both hands and feet faces prison, it is no surprise that Chinese stocks are higher in the pre-open (A50 +5%, CSI +2.7%) but large corporate bond issues are being canceled willy nilly even as China devalues Yuan to fresh 4-year lows (6.4085) and adds CNY150bn liquidity.

You could see the writing on the walls years ago. In an increasingly authoritarian, lawless, surveillance state like America, it was always inevitable that drones would be weaponized. In North Dakota, this is now a reality.

China has been the epicenter of recent market concerns as global markets focus on China's growth trajectory. Equity markets have been hit hard but the question is - how much further is there to go before it's over? Goldman Sachs looks at what the options market telling us? With HSCEI implied volatility over 40, a significant term structure inversion, and high skew, Goldman warns options all signal caution ahead.

Both the stock market and oil prices have been plunging. Is this “just another cycle,” or is it something much worse? We think it is something much worse...

"Much like buying other pricey items such as cars, houses or jewelry, you’re now able to finance goods (borrow money) from a credit company as long as you agree to pay it all back, with interest. Partnering with AFFIRM, Flight Club kicks such as the ”Fragment” Air Jordan 1 is at $123.01 USD a month, while the Nike Air MAG is at $702.90 USD a month."

Too big to control, too volatile to be predictable, and too full of contradictions to achieve stability, China is a society that is on the edge of coming completely unglued. And so, appealing to the typical American conceit that nothing that ever happens to us is our own fault, scapegoating is a reflection of widespread economic ignorance. For the reality is that the policies of our own rulers limn those of the Chinese: pump-priming the currency, flooding the US economy with money, and creating massive bubbles is something they learned from us. And those policies are having the same effect here as they are having in China.

Why does one need a handheld flamethrower, you ask? Here are some "ideas" from the Ion Productions' official XM42 website: 1) start your bonfire from across the yard, 2) kill the weeds between your cracks in style, 3) clearing snow/ice, 4) controlled burns/ground-clearing of foliage, 5) insect control.

In the current deluge of wannabe leaders clamoring for attention and trying to convince us that they are the boss who should be applying rules to us, it strikes me that all of them are looking backward and none are looking forward. So, since none of this crowd is going to venture anywhere outside of their hermetically sealed status quo, we’d like to offer an example of something a real leader might say...

The question we appear to be getting answered this week is, as Grant's Interest Rate Observer's Jim Grant so poetically explains, "how much of this paper moon market is real, and how much is governmental whipped cream?" In this brief but, as usual, perfectly to the point interview with Reason.com's Matt Welch, Grant asks (and answers), "are prices meant to be imposed from on high, or discovered by individuals acting spontaneously in markets?" noting that, while many readers here may know the answer, "they’re regrettably in the minority." The always entertaining Grant then goes on to discuss the underlying causes of the recent market turbulence, why we don’t really "have interest rates anymore."

The idea of a change towards a domestic consumption-driven economy is being revealed as a woeful disaster. You can’t magically turn into a consumer-based economy by blowing bubbles first in property and then in stocks, and hope people’s profits in both will make them spend. Because the whole endeavor was based from the get-go on huge increases in debt, the just as predictable outcome is, and will be even much more, that people count their losses and spend much less in the local economy. While those with remaining spending power purchase property in the US, Britain, Australia. And go live there too, where they feel safe(r). I fear for the Chinese citizen. Not so much for Xi and Li. They will get what they deserve.

In the past week, ever since the Fed's FOMC minutes which sent the S&P tumbling from 2100 to their lows in the overnight session, some 13% lower, the US economy underwent the functional equivalent of a 15 bps rate hike, or more than half the rate hike that the Fed has been so terrified to engage in for years.