Boiler Room

Welfare recipients took out cash at bars, liquor stores, X-rated video shops, hookah parlors and even strip club - where they presumably spent their taxpayer money on lap dances rather than diapers, a NY Post investigation found. From Bronx strip clubs to gay dive bars in the East Village, US taxpayer-sponsored EBT cards have been inserted into ATMs and food stamp 'cash' has presumably been used to feed another need. The Post found dozens of pubs, nightclubs and tobacco shops where welfare dough was dispensed - and presumably spent. We should not worry too much though as Hilda Solis put us straight on how many millions of jobs these EBT-card fund recipients are creating and while we pass no judgment on those receiving and using the funds in whatever they see most fit, Cato's Michael Tanner summed it quite succinctly: "This is morally scandalous, I have nothing against strip clubs, but that’s not what benefits are for. I don’t blame [recipients]. If you are poor, it’s a crummy life and you want to have a drink or see a naked woman. I blame the people who are in charge of this." 32oz sodas made us gulp; rare steak tough to swallow; but take away the strippers and liquor - anarchy.

And now for something completely different. Instead of scary tales of horrifying Math 101 (soon to be banned in one of the many upcoming Eurosummits), which confirms that no matter how it is spun, the global reality is ugly and getting worse (and ever more diluted in paper format), courtesy of Spiegel we present a photographic journey through Vogelsang: formerly one of the biggest Soviet military garrisons housing nuclear weapons and numerous nuclear launch pads, home of the 25th tank division protecting the USSR's most prized external asset, located in the forest near Berlin and housing over 15,000 people. It is now a surreal ghost town, and as haunted as any of the "cities" one can find deep in China.

Ron Paul has another illustrious supporter - Jim Rogers. The Quantum fund co-founder, who has been spot on about pretty much everything for the past 3 years (see Roubini Versus Rogers Is Right Debate for 2010: Investor Jim Rogers thinks gold will double to at least $2,000 an ounce. Economist Nouriel Roubini says that’s “utter nonsense.” As these well-known market personalities duke it out, they’re doing us a favor by highlighting a critical debate: Which is the bigger threat -- inflation or deflation?), not to mention gold (to the amusement of such Keynesian soundbites recorded for posterity as the following: "Maybe it will reach $1,100 or so but $1,500 or $2,000 is nonsense"), and especially inflation (perhaps the only thing that will prompt a chuckle out of Gadaffi and Mubarak these days is someone telling them that their multi-decade reigns are over due to hyperdeflation and plunging food prices), was caught on tape voicing his endorsement of the only sane person who can possibly do something for this country. "In this election if Ron Paul gets anywhere near the nomination I would certainly support him. He is the only one that I've seen in American politics that seems to have a clue about what's going on." Zero Hedge agrees on all counts.

The most memorable scene from the movie Boiler Room is when the character of Ben Afleck tells the room full of wannabe brokers to "Act As If" (and in the tangent regarding male genitalia, the head of the IMF would have been wise to take the advice instead of opening his fly and disproving it). Who would have thought that a few short years later, it would be none other than insolvent countries taking this advice: specifically, America acting as if it wasn't insolvent, and Greece acting as if it was beyond saving. The irony, as William Buckler observes in his latest edition of the Privateer, is that while US debt continues to trade (if no longer be accepted) as the "Rock of Gibraltar" and Greek paper is trading with a certainty of bankruptcy, it is Greece that has taken proactive steps in taxing and spending policy, while the US has merely retrenched its profligate ways, and while much political theater takes place, nothing ever really changes. For some of the more perverse consequences of this bizarro world inversion, read below.

The pump tweets by 50 Cent may have turned a potential $412,500 paper loss to a $8.7-million profit in a company he owns 13%, but the dump part is yet to be seen...

“McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled.”--Joe McCarthy

Politics has a charming way of bringing reality to lame-duck politicians. The Republican gains in the House and Senate have apparently prompted President Obama to do the unthinkable: freeze the pay of civilian federal workers for two years. His constituency is very upset by this apparent betrayal by Obama.

A week ago we presented an extended research piece by Muddy Water Research, that slammed the Chinese company, essentially calling it a scam, and slapping a token price target of $2.50 on it. Some took this as nothing but a glorified book talking attempt by the two-man research outfit. Yet this morning's horrendous earnings release and outlook cut seems to be validating the bear thesis. And now, adding fuel to the fire, is Canaccord analyst Michael Deng who has just downgraded RINO from Hold to Sell, stating the obvious, namely that "Fraud allegations are difficult to clear." With countless Chinese IPOs having recently gone public on the NYSE, is the world's once most reputable stock exchange about to be deemed the stomping ground for an endless supply of Chinese boiler room names as more and more Muddy Waters' type reports emerge dissecting how the NYSE allowed fraud after fraud to take advantage of its gullibility?

"The legislation will send a message that we’re trying to respond to what got us into this economic meltdown and trying to set up mechanisms to prevent future economic meltdowns” - Barney Frank

We will revisit this quote in 12-18 months

You should be out there pushing Webistics Zero Hedge.

Compliments of the melt-up market, brokers are so giddy they have opened up the "2007 - Boiler Room" folder and are selling whatever 2 year old toxic garbage is left to the most unwitting dumb money they can find. This is how excrement attempts to move from the balance sheet of a trillion asset BHC to the back pocket of potential investor XXX (luckily, XXX was smart enough to not only say go to hell, but to share a warning with the rest of Zero Hedge readers who may soon be targeted by comparable snakeoil salesmen).

A frail attempt to explain some of the stranger performance reported previously on Zero Hedge.

SPY heatmap: New (financial) trash leads the way, inflation up, deflation down.

A must read piece in The National Review Online from Richard Epstein, director of the law and economics program at the University of Chicago. Despite its legalese tint, the article focuses on the two most troubling developments for private market players as a result of flawed policy after flawed policy: i) the notion that the government may be permitted to disrupt financial transactions between parties in ways that frustrate the unambiguous expectations of the parties and ii) the idea that the government need not honor its own promises in dealing with private individuals.