ETC

Is it possible that capitalism’s underlying focus on profits, and the necessity for endless purchases of goods and services, has a practical limit?

Long has the government waged war on the privacy and freedom of its citizens. Government has an insatiable appetite for more power and control. This is ultimately how it expands itself and exerts its dominance and ability to tax / steal the wealth of its people.

I’m sure when Talking Heads wrote "Burning Down The House" that they didn’t exactly have financial collapse and environmental degradation in mind. Although with a verse like “Hold tight wait till the party's over. Hold tight we're in for nasty weather. There has got to be a way. Burning down the house” it’s hard not to see that song as strangely prophetic.

Like many of our prevailing social constructs, this education system is on the way out...

If America is the Land of Opportunity, why are so many parents worried that their princeling/princess might not get into the "right" pre-school, i.e. the first rung on the ladder to the Ivy League-issued "ticket to the upper middle class"? The obsessive focus on getting your kids into the "right" pre-school, kindergarten and prep school to grease the path to the Ivy League suggests there aren't as many slots open as we're led to believe.

Back in September 2013 we wrote "Coming Soon To A Theater Near You: MBIA's $1 Billion World War Z" in which we explained why MBIA will soon have a substantial problem (amounting to just about around $600 million) with several CLOs which we dubbed "Zombie CLOs" or as they were actually known, Zohar, on which it had written insurance, and which would become evident sooner or later once someone took a long, hard look at the collateral manager of the CLOs, namely Lynn Tilton's Patriarch Partners. Well, finally someone did take a long, hard look and today, our warning comes full circle following a shocker out of the SEC accusing Lynn Tilton of fraud and of "hiding the poor performance of loan assets in three collateralized loan obligation (CLO) funds they manage."

As the deadline for Iran nuclear talks looms, the possibility of a deal which in some way lifts crude export sanctions is starting to be realized. As we warned 2 weeks ago, despite all the rhetoric, a confluence of political factors makes a deal highly likely at this point; and as The Telegraph reports, Iran is a sleeping oil giant holding 9% of the world’s proven oil reserves and with an estimated 2m barrels per day of excess supply already sloshing around international markets, any significant increase in Iranian output could easily trigger a further rout in prices. While OPEC may well clamp down on this in June, as The Telegraph concludes, by then a barrel of oil may already be selling for $20.

This is the death rattle of the American dream, which was built on the idea that no one is above the law, that our rights are inalienable and cannot be taken away, and that our government and its appointed agents exist to serve us.

Americans still say they believe in free markets, democracy and financial rectitude. But only as platitudes and hypocrisies... the free market was one of the first casualties of the post-1971 fiat money period. In a free market, people earn money by working (income) or by saving and investing it (capital growth). But credit-based money needed neither work nor saving; you just had to know the right people.

The Sunlight is Fading … and America Is Falling Into Darkness

When the phantom wealth evaporates and risk assets go bidless, cash will once again be king, for the simple reason there will be so little of it.

At first glance, the title to this commentary seems facile, especially to those readers in higher income brackets. The reality, however, is that “investing in food” is a risk-free means of generating an annual return on one’s investment that would likely exceed the return one could earn on almost any other investment – despite the fact that nearly all other asset classes carry significant risks.

BNP is out with a note calling China’s equity bubble “a microcosm for the overall economy: unsustainable growth in leverage masking ever-deteriorating fundamentals and increasing future downside risks. Margin purchases are now accounting for almost 20% of equities daily turnover which itself has soared to wholly unprecedented levels in another sign of self-feeding speculative frenzy. What happens next is clearly an ‘unknown-unknown’."

The collapse of phantom-wealth bubbles could occur in the next year or two, or be delayed for another 5 to 6 years. But the implosion of phantom-wealth bubbles is assured by the internal dynamics of bubbles.

"...markets can turn from tranquil to turbulent in short order. It is worth noting that in 2006 volatility was low, and companies were generating record pro?t margins, until the business cycle came to an abrupt halt due to events that many people had not anticipated. Although investor appetite for equities may remain robust in the near term, because of positive equity fundamentals and low yields in other asset classes, history shows high valuations carry inherent risk... potential ?nancial stability risks arising from leverage, compressed pricing of risk, interconnectedness, and complexity deserve further attention and analysis."