Corruption

At the end of the day, Friedman jettisoned the gold standard for a remarkable statist reason. Just as Keynes had been, he was afflicted with the economist’s ambition to prescribe the route to higher national income and prosperity and the intervention tools and recipes that would deliver it. The only difference was that Keynes was originally and primarily a fiscalist, whereas Friedman had seized upon open market operations by the central bank as the route to optimum aggregate demand and national income. The greatest untoward consequence of the closet statism implicit in Friedman’s monetary theories, however, is that it put him squarely in opposition to the vision of the Fed’s founders. As has been seen, Carter Glass and Professor Willis assigned to the Federal Reserve System the humble mission of passively liquefying the good collateral of commercial banks when they presented it. Consequently, the difference between a “banker’s bank” running a discount window service and a central bank engaged in continuous open market operations was fundamental and monumental. In short, the committee of twelve wise men and women unshackled by Friedman’s plan for floating paper dollars would always find reasons to buy government debt, thereby laying the foundation for fiscal deficits without tears.

“That’s the whole dilemma!” As the G-20 is already getting cold feet....

Nearly a year after revelations of financial fraud involving the Vatican Bank, and months after a German lawyer was picked to become the new head of the bank that is collateralized by the full faith and credit of Catholicism, the scandal is back following news tha a cleric, a spook and a banker were arrested as part of the ongoing Italian investigation into the troubled bank.

It was roughly four years ago when details surrounding such Goldman SPV deals as Titlos first emerged, that it became clear how for over a decade, using deliberately masking transactions such as currency swaps, Greece had managed to fool the Eurozone into believing its economy was doing far better, and its debt load was far lower than it actually was in order to comply with the Masstricht treaty's entrance requirements. As for the Pandora's Box that was opened following the disclosure of just how ugly the unvarnished truth in Europe is, following the Greek disclosure, leading to the general realization that the European experiment has failed and it is now only a matter of time before its final unwind, any comment here is unnecessary - ths has been widely discussed here and elsewhere over the past several years. Now it is Italy's turn. Overnight, the FT reported that "Italy risks potential losses of billions of euros on derivatives contracts it restructured at the height of the eurozone crisis."

Company founders routinely get shafted by "promoters" and get sold on taking their pride and joy public. Watch out for them!

The market deals extremely poorly with paradigm shifts or cycle changes. One reason for this is that there has been no need for any strategy except for the just-buy-the-dip mantra. This may have ended and that could be the best signal to the markets since the global financial crisis started. Sorry to be the messenger, but the only way for investors to understand risk and leverage is by having them lose money. Essentially then, the balance of this year could be an exercise in re-educating the market to long-lost concepts such as loss, risk, inter-market correlations and price discovery. We even predict that high-frequency trading systems will suffer, as will momentum-based trading and, most interestingly, long-only funds. Why? Because, at the end of the day, they are all built on the same premise: predictable policy actions, financial oppression and no true price discovery. We could be in for a summer of discontent as policy measures and markets return to try to search out a new paradigm. This will be good news for all us.

If the Brazilian government thought that caving yesterday to popular demands against a $0.10 bus and subway fare hike would be enough to placate the millions and see a peaceful dissolution to the protests that had gripped the country in the past two weeks, it found out in less than 24 hours that ceding to the angry mob only emboldens the public to demand more (and with a list a grievances including corruption, violence, police repression and failed politicians the list of demands is sure to escalate). Sure enough, the very next day, the public emerged with newfound energy and momentum, as 300,000 people took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro and hundreds of thousands more flooded other cities in the largest protests yet.

Over the course of decades we have allowed ourselves to be corrupted by the love of material possessions, the lure of a debt based faux wealth, the money for nothing entitlement promises of dishonorable politicians, the evil of currency debasement, the effectiveness of mass media propaganda, and the belief that we could sacrifice freedom and liberty for promises of safety and security made by a cabal of powerful rich men. Power has been concentrated into the hands of the few, who operate in secrecy and despise the people. They don’t want transparency or open debate. Freedom of speech is nothing but a thorn in their side. They believe they are smarter than the serfs and have no morality when it comes to committing illegal acts and disregarding the Constitution. They are not acting in the public interest. Their abuse of power and looting of the national wealth have put us on a path towards a bloody revolution. This is not a time for conformity, obedience or submission. It’s time to stand up and expose the evil doers. It’s time to rally around those who care about this country. Who are the real traitors? You know the answer.

The Brazilian protests, which swept through the country with the raging bear market (and the pulled mega-IPO) over the past week, and which had the goal of reducing a recent bus-fare increase among other assorted protest goals, appear to have succeeded. At least when it comes to the fare increase. As for the other protester demands, listed below, it may take a little longer.

With better access to credit, housing, jobs and overall standard of living than probably anyone in their family has ever experienced, you would think that the average Brazilian would have little reason to hit the streets. And yet, they are. While the credit-fueled boom has been great and looks likely to continue for at least a little while longer, the reality of a government that has made little real progress improving the overall standard of living is becoming all too obvious. The protestors are frustrated.  Frustrated with persistent inflation – that hits them much harder than the upper classes who in many ways benefit from it.  Frustrated with corruption – while the Brazilian congress tries to pass a law that would limit the number of corruption cases that can be brought.  Frustrated with inefficient government – the infrastructure development for the World Cup and Olympics is already running up against cost overruns with projects of questionable long-term value.  But mostly frustrated that due to all of this incompetence, they could lose all of the gains they made since 2002. Changing Brazil’s well-established rich/poor, connected/unconnected, boom/bust political and financial system will be difficult in the extreme.

To summarize, the SEC which admits it was clueless in analyzing the modern, fragmented market (yet which found definitively that the culprit for the May 2010 flash crash was Waddell and Reed, and nobody else, using what technology at the time, nobody knows), uses a platform developed by High Frequency Trading firm Tradeworx... to reach a conclusion that High Frequency Trading firms are innocent of every flash crash resulting from an HFT algo gone haywire...

As noted yesterday, and perhspa even more prescient now Anastasiades is back with the begging bowl, the debt crisis in Cyprus and the subsequent "bail-in" confiscation of bank depositors' money matter for two reasons: 1. The banking/debt crisis in Cyprus shares many characteristics with other banking/debt crises. 2. The official Eurozone resolution of the crisis may provide a template for future resolutions of other banking/debt crises. It also matters for another reason: not only is the bail-in a direct theft of depositors' money, the entire bailout is essentially a wholesale theft of national assets. This is the inevitable result of political Elites swearing allegiance to the European Monetary Union.

It started off a simple protest in Sao Paulo as a demonstration by students against an increase in bus fares from R$3 to R$3.20, and then quickly morphed into general demonstration of discontent with the nation’s political classes on both sides of the spectrum involving over 200,000 across the country, with those marching on Monday holding placards decrying everything from the enormous sums spent on the World Cup to the treatment by police of protesters last week. It got to the point where protesters invaded and occupied, peacefully, the roof of the national Congress complex in Brasilia. Then things turned less peaceful when a breakaway group from the main rally in Rio de Janeiro attacked the state legislative assembly building and attempted to set it on fire.

• Obama Says Bernanke Fed Term Lasting ‘Longer Than He Wanted’ (Bloomberg)
• Merkel Critical Of Japan's Credit Policy In Meeting With Abe (Nikkei)
• China Wrestles With Banks' Pleas for Cash (WSJ)
• Biggest protests in 20 years sweep Brazil (Brazil)
• Pena Nieto Confident 75-Year Pemex Oil Monopoly to End This Year (Bloomberg)
• G8 leaders seek common ground on tax (FT)
• Putin faces isolation over Syria as G8 ratchets up pressure (Reuters)
• Former Trader Is Charged in U.K. Libor Probe (WSJ) - yup: it was all one 33 year old trader's fault
• Draghi Says ECB Has ‘Open Mind’ on Non-Standard Measures (BBG)
• Loeb Raises His Sony Stake, Drive for Entertainment IPO (WSJ)

Why do the debt crisis in Cyprus and the subsequent "bail-in" confiscation of bank depositors' money matter? They matter for two reasons: 1. The banking/debt crisis in Cyprus shares many characteristics with other banking/debt crises. 2. The official Eurozone resolution of the crisis--the "bail-in" confiscation of 60% of bank depositors' cash in an involuntary exchange for shares in the bank (which are unlikely to have any future value)--may provide a template for future official resolutions of other banking/debt crises. In other words, since the banking/debt crisis in Cyprus is hardly unique, we can anticipate the resolution (confiscation of deposits) may be applied elsewhere.