Corruption

Fasten your seatbelts; 2015 will be a whirlwind pitting China, Russia and Iran against what I have described as the Empire of Chaos.

Goldman head Lloyd Blankfein was completely wrong when he declared his firm was doing “god’s work”. That couldn’t be. In fact, Goldman and its principal competitors have become nothing less than the devils workshop during the modern era of Keynesian central banking instigated by Alan Greenspan. Greenspan’s “committee to save the world” did no such thing. What it did was bury the American middle class in debt, while massively outsourcing US goods production capacity to China and elsewhere in the EM.

To all those wondering if everything is rigged, we have a very simple answer: Yes.

China's Leading Index has fallen to its lowest since Feb 2009 this evening, down 4 straight months from credit-driven 18 month highs. This economic weakness has exaggerated the already weak tone in Yuan trading this evening pushing CNY to its weakest in almost 7 months (against the USD), its furthest on record from the CNY Fix (10-month highs), and very close to the PBOC's upper +2% band for CNY trading. At 6.23, USDCNY is over 1000 pips weaker than the CNY fix.

• European Stocks Drop as Greece’s ASE Tumbles After Vote Results (BBG)
• AirAsia Stock Drops Most Since 2011 After Flight Vanishes (BBG)
• Libya's NOC says firefighters had managed to extinguish the blaze at three of 6 burning oil tanks (BBG)
• Bomber kills 11 Shi'ite pilgrims north of Baghdad (Reuters)
• Hillary Clinton Faces Uphill Fight for White, Rural Vote (WSJ)
• Yen’s Slump Seen Longest Since Gold Standard Ended (BBG)
• The 94% Plunge That Shows Abenomics Losing Global Investors (BBG)
• Sony's 'The Interview' makes $18 million in opening weekend (Reuters)

In a blow to the constitutional rights of citizens, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Heien v. State of North Carolina that police officers are permitted to violate American citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights if the violation results from a “reasonable” mistake about the law on the part of police.  “By refusing to hold police accountable to knowing and abiding by the rule of law, the Supreme Court has given government officials a green light to routinely violate the law,”

• Russia says NATO turning Ukraine into 'frontline of confrontation' (Reuters)
• Oil Drillers Under Pressure to Scrap Rigs to Cope With Downturn (BBG)
• Demonstrators Defy NYC Mayor's Call to Suspend Police Protests (BBG)
• U.S. to send more private contractors to Iraq (Reuters)
• ISIS Shoots Down Jet From U.S.-Led Coalition, Syrian Monitors Say (NYT)
• Russians Race to Secure Mortgages Before Costs Spiral (BBG)
• Abe Brings in Former Soldier Nakatani as Defense Minister (BBG)
• At Coke, Newest Flavor Is Austerity (WSJ)
• Fear and retribution in Xi's corruption purge (Reuters)
• UBS Raises Flag on China’s $1 Trillion Overseas Debt Pile (BBG)

A form of society could undoubtedly exist powered by nuclear, wind and shale gas. But it would be a society supported by the state with far larger numbers working in the energy industries than now, producing lower surpluses, the energy production part perhaps running at a perennial loss. Those losses have to be covered by either higher price or via the taxation system. Either way, the brave new world that awaits us will be characterized as the time of less that will be in stark contrast to the time of plenty many of us enjoyed during the 20th Century.

The system itself is completely corrupt and thoroughly rigged folks. What started as the totalitarian tiptoe has now turned into an extremely dangerous crony capitalist state.

With the wind down of the record 2014 trading slump now in its final days (although judging by volumes throughout the year one may have a difficult time noticing just when the holidays began and ended), the already entertaining zero-liquidity market moves are sure to provide further amusement today in the context of the US economic data bonanza on deck, which includes Durable Goods, GDP, Personal Income and Spending, Richmond Fed, UMich, and New Home Sales. Beat or miss, all of the above are guaranteed to send the S&P to higher recorder highs because in the multiple-expansion euphoria blow-off top phase nobody cares about such trivia as fundamentals or the economy, especially when Japan and Germany are about to monetize all of their gross issuance. Just remember to occasionally keep an eye on the preferred rigging correlation pairs: the USDJPY and the VIX, whose every illiquid jerk will be followed by Citadel & NYFed's algos tic for tic.

Despite the authorities' best efforts to keep everything orderly, we know how this global Game of Geopolitical Tetris ends: "Players lose a typical game of Tetris when they can no longer keep up with the increasing speed, and the Tetriminos stack up to the top of the playing field. This is commonly referred to as topping out."

"I’m tired of being outraged!"

• Icahn, Paulson Suffer Large Losses as Energy-Related Bets Sour (WSJ)
• Oil Investors Keep Betting Wrong on When Market Will Bottom (BBG)
• U.S. to sell final $1.25 billion shares of Ally Financial from bailout (Reuters)
• Ally Financial Gets Subpoena Related to Subprime Automotive Finance (WSJ)
• Russia's parliament rushes through bill boosting banking capital (Reuters)
• How a Memo Cost Big Banks $37 Billion (WSJ)
• ECB considers making weaker euro zone states bear more quantitative easing risk (Reuters)
• How the U.S. Could Retaliate Against North Korea (BBG)

Yeah, that's right! Don't feel bad if you didn't know that banks were some of the world's larget data companies. Hell, Bank managment doesn't even know this! Likely why they are getting hacked so much, no?

Part I of this series demonstrated how/why all of our government debts incurred in recent decades are the result of obvious and egregious fraud. These debts currently cripple our economies (and societies) with roughly 25% of every revenue dollar taken in by our corrupt governments being utterly wasted, making interest payments to financial parasites – criminal parasites.

This means that not only is it morally defensible (and imperative) that we wipe away these recent, fraudulent debts, it can be justified legally, in clear and unequivocal terms. But the question which remained from the opening installment of this series was with respect to the morality/legality of our historical debts. Could we, should we also erase the debts incurred by past generations, after we wipe away all of the recent years of debt-via-fraud?