Ben Bernanke

While Paul Singer, Kyle Bass, and Stan Druckenmiller got the headlines, there were in total 14 worthwhile speakers at yesterday's Ira Sohn conference. Though many of the themes were unsurprising, it is nonetheless useful to compare your own views to those of these professional money managers, many of whom are now bludgeoned daily by the 'idiot-maker' rally... of course, that is, until they are proved 100% correct.

The U.S. stock market rally has recently passed its fourth anniversary after the terrifying lows of March 2009. During that time, massive and unconventional reflationary policy from the Federal Reserve has managed to lift the S&P 500 to new all-time highs. But perhaps even more improbably, it has finally (for now?) built a floor under U.S. residential real estate prices. This 'Less Bad' Recovery continues in other ways as well. Jobs have been created. Not good jobs. Not high paying jobs. Not full time jobs. But some rudimentary sets of tasks and responsibilities that could be called jobs. There has also been deleveraging. But here, too, the scale of debt reduction is nothing close to the unadjusted figures often touted in the media. Americans, and more generally, OECD citizens, remain highly burdened by debt. When combined with poor wage growth, this explains the continued suppressed demand so pervasive in developed nations. And of course, oil prices – as expressed through prices at the pump – remain stubbornly elevated and are likely to persist at their new elevated level. Combined, these factors have kept a lid on consumer confidence and make for a precarious disparity between the stock market and the real economy. Welcome to the Great Constraint - a growing failure to thrive.

While notably 'not' the Fed's opinion, Dallas Fed head Richard Fisher provided more than a few compellingly truthy comments in this excellent discussion with CNBC's Rick Santelli. It is fiscal policy that is holding us back, he warns, "we have a massive fog here," and despite the extremely accommodation monetary policy, we are not seeing the transmission to job creation." The "conditions of total uncertainty," mean the politicians are holding us back; but it is when Santelli asks him about the Fed's exit that things get a little uncomfortable, "no central bank anywhere on the planet has the experience of successfully navigating a return home from the place in which we now find ourselves." When pressed he exposes the flaw (much to the chagrin of Kuroda and Bernanke we suspect), "somewhere we have to have practical limits as to where we can build the balance sheet. We're moving in the direction of a $4 trillion balance sheet. We know we can't go on forever."

Who's the lady in the Pic.?

“There can be no doubt that besides the regular types of the circulating medium, such as coin, notes and bank deposits, which are generally recognised to be money or currency, and the quantity of which is regulated by some central authority or can at least be imagined to be so regulated, there exist still other forms of media of exchange which occasionally or permanently do the service of money. Now while for certain practical purposes we are accustomed to distinguish these forms of media of exchange from money proper as being mere substitutes for money, it is clear that, other things equal, any increase or decrease of these money substitutes will have exactly the same effects as an increase or decrease of the quantity of money proper, and should therefore, for the purposes of theoretical analysis, be counted as money.”

When three hedge fund titans all explain in words so simple a financial media channel morning show host can grasp that there is nothing behind this rally but smoke, mirrors, and a bearded academic, it seems more than a few people start to pay attention. Following Paul Singer and Kyle Bass, Stanley Druckenmiller "loves the market short-term, but hates it long-term," since Bernanke is "running the most inappropriate monetary policy in history." He warns, for it is a warning, that "markets will melt up," until the Fed is forced to tighten. He recommends shorting the AUD, and sees the commodity super-cycle as over, because, "supply-demand... is deadly." He also likes Google but not "tech companies that engage in financial engineering under advice of hedge fund managers."

Gross: Central bank credit & hope for real growth drive risk markets. Both must continue to support current prices.

— PIMCO (@PIMCO) May 8, 2013

A panel of bankers warned the Fed in February that their extreme monetary policy is forcing institutions to "accept greater credit-risk" than "makes sense" and student debt and farmland prices are in a bubble. We first started to explain the bubble in student debt over two years ago and since then the bubble has become larger (and the underlying structure much more fragile as delinquencies soar). Farmland rose in price over 16% last year (according to the Chicago Fed) and has surged 8% per annum over the past decade. Credit risk is now at levels associated with the CDO-driven liquidity excess of 2006. "Further accommodation is not warranted," the minutes of this meeting show - uncovered by Bloomberg via the FOIA. The comments should cause Bernanke and his merry men to pause for breath but of course it is likely what he wanted all along. "Growth in student debt... has parallels to the housing crisis," and "agricultural land prices are veering further from what makes sense," are just two of the bankers' comments, adding that this "will ultimately result in higher loan losses," which is odd since every bank is adjusting down its loan-loss-reserves and juicing earnings.

If the American people truly understood how the Federal Reserve system works and what it has done to us, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately.  It is a system that was designed by international bankers for the benefit of international bankers, and it is systematically impoverishing the American people. The Federal Reserve system is the primary reason why our currency has declined in value by well over 95 percent and our national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger over the past 100 years. The Fed creates our "booms" and our "busts", and they have done an absolutely miserable job of managing our economy. So why is the Federal Reserve doing it?  Sadly, this is the way it works all over the globe today.  In fact, all 187 nations that belong to the IMF have a central bank.  But the truth is that there are much better alternatives.

The lessons of Jeremy Grantham's recent interview with Charlie Rose seem to be becoming increasingly prescient as the stock market surges to new highs amid a crumbling macro (and micro) economy. "Bernanke is whipping the economic donkey that can only grow at 1-2% as if it was a race horse growing above 3%," and unfortunately he will keep doing it "until the donkey is dead." As Grantham says, it is a "very dangerous situation to have the most powerful man in the world," doing this as simply put, the Fed, "does not have the tools to generate employment." But while Grantham's clarity on Bernanke's actions are unquestionable in their endgame, his views (below) on Keynes, debt, and wealth transfer are even more concerning. "We had this amazing experiment... but we have been conned into believing by the financial world that debt is everything."

The venerable UBS floorman asks (and answers) an interesting question. With the re-institution of the payroll tax and higher level rates and with spending lowered by sequestration, will the Treasury need to offer fewer bonds? And if so, will the Fed remain steadfast in its purchasing 'size' (good for bond bulls since secondary demand will increase) or reduce its 'size' to meet the lower monetization needs of the Treasury (bad for equity bulls since flow is all that matters.) Thoughts below...

Since it is Tuesday, and since the bubble formerly known as the "stock market" is once again completely disconnected from reality, fundamentals, math, logic, gravity and everything else, and watching its relentless climb higher on nothing but central bank liquidity tsunami and attempts to hit any remaining upside ES stops is about as exciting as watching Bernanke print electronic money, here is a small diversion courtesy of @911Buff:

• NEW JERSEY: PHOTO - GARBAGE TRUCK DRIVER SNEEZED, LOST CONTROL AND SLAMMED INTO HOME.

And the result...

Since the mid-November lows, the S&P 500 has gained a remarkable 268 points on the back of faith, hope, and Bernanke/Kuroda charity. But perhaps what is more mind-numbing is that this efficient market has given us more than 50% of those gains on Tuesdays. With 17 up-days in a row, Tuesday is the Monday dip-buyers dream. Since 1/18, absent Tuesdays, the S&P 500 has gone nowhere. Maybe Bob Geldof needs to write a new song for the US investor "I do like Tuesdays", or at least a slightly revised cover version of the Bangles' "Manic Tuesday".

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke is a Reverse Robin Hood, robbing from the lower 95% and giving to the financier class. It's worth understanding the mechanisms of this wealth transfer: in essence, the Fed extends low-cost credit (i.e. "free money") to the financier class which then uses this free money to buy rentier assets, that is, assets that generate economic rents for the owners, who add no value and create no wealth. This is of course the neofeudal model. Goebbels would approve of the Fed's masterful propaganda campaign: rob the bottom 95% to benefit the financier class, all the while piously proclaiming that its policies were aimed at increasing employment for the bottom 95%. In terms of propagandistic chutzpah, it doesn't get any better than this. Congratulations, Bernanke, Yellen, et al.

Gross: Dow hits 15,000 & PIMCO’s internal Corp & Hi Yield Index hits all-time yield lows. Thanks Chairman #Bernanke! Got any more?

— PIMCO (@PIMCO) May 7, 2013