ETC

Officially, the unemployment rate in the U.S. is 5.6%, meaning 5.6% of the work force is temporarily out of a job and actively seeking another one. But these do not feel like good times for most households, despite the low unemployment rate. By our reckoning, roughly 60% of the civilian work force is fully employed and 40% are marginally employed or unemployed.

For all of the longer-term, ancillary red flags and concerns that have materialized in the latter portion of this cyclical bull market (many of which, we have laid out), bulls have had the same response: price is all that matters. It appears to us, however, that a great many bulls preaching “price patience” have failed to recognize one thing: there is already evidence of a breakdown in prices. The “stock market” consists of many segments, not just the S&P 500, So it depends where you are looking.

• Tsipras Hardens Greek Stance After Collapse of Talks (BBG)
• Obama Fights to Save Trade Bill (WSJ)
• German Stock Market Pain Seen Just Beginning Should Greece Exit (BBG)
• Russia to boost forces in western flank if U.S. stations arms in east Europe (Reuters)
• Lab Nears Settlement Over Pricey Medicare Drug Tests (WSJ)
• China's $358 Billion in Margin Loans Points to Next Bear Market (BBG)
• Draghi Faces EU Court Ruling on 2012 Bond Plan as Greece Teeters (BBG)
• Sex, lies and debt potentially exposed by U.S. data hack (Reuters)

A classic tale of buying ridiculously low and creating massive value in the process

An odd occurrence took place this past week in the “Land of Unicorns” aka Silicon Valley. The first of what was once described as the “future of social media” canary’s Twitter™, was suddenly struck by the “Where’s The Money” kingdom aka Wall Street. Suddenly, what was once the dulcet tones for acquiring investment capital “eyeballs to monetize” is now being answered by the investment crowd in a much more sobering tone of “Where’s the monetized money?!”

The issue at hand is: far more people have discovered whether by chance or direct analysis of their own, both the Fed., as well as their gaggle of cohorts throughout academia, as well as in the financial media, are all watching and gaining their clues – from the same “rock.” Furthermore: It’s now self-evident to anyone willing to look. It’s not to see if the rock is wet, dry, or anything else. It’s to make the rock wet, dry, or anything else needed for the narrative. Because today; narrative trumps reality in today’s economic disciplines.

Step by step instructions on how to make money the old fashioned way in a new fangled technology world!

Once you funnel everyone into risk assets and then mask the risk to generate complacency, you guarantee a bidless market when risk reappears.

Are we QE'd out??? It was supposed to be about the quality of growth,not helping the oligarchy protect their collective arses

Greece should get out as fast as it can, all member countries should, especially the poorer ones. There is no benign or even economically viable future for any of them in the Union. A future inside the union is infinitely more frightening than one outside. What is evident by now is that the troika creditors don’t come to the table to negotiate, they come to impose their will. And those countries that carry the most debt are most vulnerable to the threats flung across the table. If you don’t get out, in time Germany will decide what you can eat, what your children learn in school, and how you are to behave. You will no longer live in sovereign nations.

“Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled, they cannot become conscious.” - George Orwell

It’s a shell game intended to keep us focused on and distracted by all of the politically expedient things that are being said - about militarized police, surveillance, and government corruption - while the government continues to frogmarch us down the road toward outright tyranny.

"These record profits that companies are reporting are not all they're cracked up to be."

The financial pundits gushing over "The China Story" - that the Middle Kingdom's industrialization is a permanent boon to the global economy and China's poor - never calculate the human cost of that runaway industrialization and the vast inequalities it has unleashed. The human cost is staggering...

What’s really at issue here is a transfer from national democratic sovereignty to, instead, international-corporate sovereignty, in which international coporations will have locked-in an international dictatorial control over a large portion of what it is that national governments do, and necessarily must do, in order to serve the public good. The whole thing is a corrupt con-job.