Corruption

Events are rapidly unfolding in Europe which may bring something more than the “blink, wink and nod” of the famous children’s poem to the forefront of everyone’s thinking. There is great wisdom in Pinocchio actually beyond what is generally known. At one point the puppet heads into the “Field of Miracles” where he plants his gold and waits for it to grow. Pinocchio then heads off to “Catch-fools” which is a place where everyone has done something exceedingly foolish and suffers as a result. The world presently believes that there is no “event risk” and upon this foothold and the money poured into the streets by the central banks the markets rest in peace. Roads do not go on forever, the day eventually fades into the night and the peace of the morning is often shattered by the shrill cry of the dove being attacked by the falcon. The Great Game is not “Toyland” and great care is now called for before we awaken to find that we have turned into donkeys, or worse, ourselves.

Food stamps are just a payoff to the poor. It keeps them off the streets.  It’s an unspoken bribe plain and simple.  The oligarchs do not want angry, roving, hungry masses on the streets while they strip mine what’s left of the economy. However, the oligarchs have another problem to deal with - the huge group of people that resides in between them and the poor. The average person can feel themselves getting poorer despite the nonsense spewed by the mainstream media; and this is where the stock market comes into play. More than any other group, the 1% has been convinced that the stock market represents some sort of leading indicator of wealth and prosperity. A rising stock market today is actually a leading indicator of the destruction of the middle class, cultural destitution and a society in collapse. The stock market is like slop in a pigpen.  It is a key instrument used to keep the 1% from getting antsy.  Unlike the middle class (a group that isn’t falling for any of the tricks), many of the 1% work on Wall Street or related industries and own stocks. They must be kept quiet as the coup that started in 2008 is brought to fruition. So as the 1% sits around analyzing a casino, the poor collect food stamps and the middle class dies.

It appears the Spanish, not to be outdone by the Italians - with their growing BMPS debacle, have found their own epic political SNAFU. For decades, El Pais reports, the ruling Popular Party (PP) leaders were paid regular sums of money aside from their official salaries, via donations from companies (especially construction firms). Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is at the top of the secret files list (kept by former PP Treasurer Barcenas) having started to receive these extra 'kickbacks' in 1997. Of course, the establishment is not responding to any questions on the matter - until exhaustive internal and external audits are undertaken - but this appears to be payback by the former PP Treasurer who was 'busted' earlier in the year (by Rajoy) for keeping millions of Euros in a Swiss bank account. If this wasn't so uncomfortably believable in a Europe that has proved itself capable of gross negligence and untruths, it would make for a great mafia-based movie transcript - unfortunately, it is all too real. Meanwhile, Spanish youth unemployment approaches 60%...

Anyone who spends any amount of time on the internet has seen them. They are the moonbats, the wingnuts, the whackjobs, the Conspiratorialists. They are America’s new Lunatic Fringe, and their numbers are growing. To the uninitiated this all seems rather humorous, albeit slightly unsettling.  It would be both wrong and unwise just to slough it off as the ramblings of the insane.  The reason such beliefs are gaining favor is because many Americans have lost faith and lost trust in the government and in America’s elected leadership.  Given what has happened over the last decade, this is not only understandable, it is even, in an odd way, reasonable.  A continual drift to the fringe can be expected because of the many very real things that make the foolish things suddenly more believable. The American people are well aware they have been lied to by the leadership. They know that a lobbyist has an infinitely greater chance of getting his way than an entire nation of voters. When trust is gone, everything becomes an affront, a conspiracy, a power grab by the elite. 

An uncomfortable reflection...

The 2008 crash resulted from the bursting of the biggest bubble in financial history, a ‘credit super-cycle’ that spanned more than three decades. How did this happen? Some might draw comfort from the observation that bubbles are a long established aberration, arguing that the boom-and-bust cycle of recent years is nothing abnormal. Any such comfort would be misplaced, for two main reasons. First, the excesses of recent years have reached a scale which exceeds anything that has been experienced before. Second, and more disturbing still, the developments which led to the financial crisis of 2008 amounted to a process of sequential bubbles, a process in which the bursting of each bubble was followed by the immediate creation of another. Though the sequential nature of the pre-2008 process marks this as something that really is different, in order to put the 'credit cuper-cycle' in context, we must understand the vast folly of globalization, the undermining of official economic and fiscal data, and the fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamic which really drives the economy.

Royal Bank of Scotland Says We're In Deep DooDoo ... Worst Economy Since Before Queen Victoria Was Crowned

This objective report concisely summarizes important macro events over the past week.  It is not geared to push an agenda.  Impartiality is necessary to avoid costly psychological traps, which all investors are prone to, such as confirmation, conservatism, and endowment biases. 

The attack on BP-operated Amenas gas facilities in the Algerian Sahara was a spectacular lesson for the energy industry: No amount of high-tech security is invulnerable to Sahelian militants. Billions will now be spent on securing Western energy interests across the region and investment will take a hit at a time when the big news was that the industry’s junior players - particularly American and Canadian - were growing ever so bold and willing to take risks in unstable regions. Their markets may not be able to sustain this bravery much longer. The biggest mistake the industry makes is to ignore regional and geopolitical dynamics. The markets - like the industry - do not respond to complicated geopolitics. They respond to specific incidents and there will be another one. That is to say, the markets will not take the Algerian incident as seriously as it should.

Forget the Housing, Bond or Derivatives Bubbles ... Fraud Is the Biggest Bubble of All Time

From a valuation perspective, Chinese equities do not, at first glance, look to be a likely candidate for trouble. The PE ratios are either 12 or 15 times on MSCI China, depending on whether you include financials or not, and do not scream 'bubble'. And yet, China has been a source of worry for GMO over the past three years and continues to be one. China scares them because it looks like a bubble economy. Understanding these kinds of bubbles is important because they represent a situation in which standard valuation methodologies may fail. Just as financial stocks gave a false signal of cheapness before the GFC because the credit bubble pushed their earnings well above sustainable levels and masked the risks they were taking, so some valuation models may fail in the face of the credit, real estate, and general fixed asset investment boom in China, since it has gone on long enough to warp the models' estimation of what "normal" is. Of course, every credit bubble involves a widening divergence between perception and reality. China's case is not fundamentally different. In GMO's extensive discussion below, they have documented rapid credit growth against the background of a nationwide property bubble, the worst of Asian crony lending practices, and the appearance of a voracious and unstable shadow banking system. "Bad" credit booms generally end in banking crises and are followed by periods of lackluster economic growth. China appears to be heading in this direction.

Earlier today, we reported that "Assistant Attorney General Admits On TV That In The US Justice Does Not Apply To The Banks" when we commented on last night's PBS special "The Untouchables." Explicitly, we said that it was "Lenny Breuer who made it very clear that when it comes to the concept of justice the banks are and always have been "more equal" than others. He does so in such shocking clarity and enthusiasm that it is a miracle that this person is still employed by the US Department of Justice." As of minutes ago that is no longer the case as his employment contract has been torn up. The WaPo reports, that Lanny A. Breuer is leaving the Justice Department "after leading the agency’s efforts to clamp down on public corruption and financial fraud at the nation’s largest banks, according to several people familiar with the matter....It is not clear when Breuer intends to leave, nor what he plans to do once he departs, but it is certain that the prosecutor’s days in office are winding down, according to people who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter."

Things are so corrupt in China, that as soon as the new Government stated it would crack down on corruption, a fire sale of luxury properties began as corrupt officials sought to dump their illegal holdings.

MARTIN SMITH: Is that really the job of a prosecutor, to worry about anything other than simply pursuing justice?

LANNY BREUER: Well, I think I am pursuing justice. And I think the entire responsibility of the department is to pursue justice. But in any given case, I think I and prosecutors around the country, being responsible, should speak to regulators, should speak to experts, because if I bring a case against institution A, and as a result of bringing that case, there’s some huge economic effect — if it creates a ripple effect so that suddenly, counterparties and other financial institutions or other companies that had nothing to do with this are affected badly — it’s a factor we need to know and understand.

• Doubt Greets Bank of Japan's Easing Shift (WSJ)
• Japan hits back at currency critics (FT)
• Japan upgrades economic view for first time in eight months (Australian) - only to lower them in a few months again
• GOP critics get opportunity to grill Secretary Clinton on Benghazi (Hill)
• Global economy set for ‘slow recovery’ (FT)
• Obama to back short debt limit extension (FT)
• Unfinished Luxury Tower Is Stark Reminder of Las Vegas’s Economic Reversal (NYT)
• Draghi Says ‘Darkest Clouds’ Over Europe Have Subsided (BBG)
• High-Speed Dustup Hits a Clubby Corner (WSJ)
• U.S. Budget Discord Is Top Threat to Global Economy in Poll (BBG)
• Sir Mervyn King says abandoning inflation target would be 'irresponsible' (Telegraph)
• Spain Says It May Cover 13% of 2013 Funding in January (BBG)