CRAP

Don't believe those Press headlines that paint a rosy picture for SS. There's no good news in this report card.

For most people, the collapse of civilizations is a subject much more appetizingly viewed in the rear-view mirror than straight ahead down whatever path or roadway we are on. Jared Diamond wrote about the collapse of earlier civilizations to great acclaim and brisk sales, in a nimbus of unimpeachable respectability. The stories he told about bygone cultures gone to seed were, above all, dramatic. No reviewers or other intellectual auditors dissed him for suggesting that empires inevitably run aground on the shoals of resource depletion, population overshoot, changes in the weather, and the diminishing returns of complexity. Yet these are exactly the same problems that industrial-technocratic societies face today, and those of us who venture to discuss them are consigned to a tin-foil-hat brigade, along with the UFO abductees and Bigfoot trackers.

UPDATE 1: They are panicking... BOJ injected 2 trillion yen ($19.4 billion) into the financial system to stem volatility following a circuit breaker in JGB futures trading.

UPDATE 2: Nikkei 225 is now down 1500 points from its highs and down 1150 (over 7%) from yesterday's close

UPDATE 3: The Final closing data is a disaster with JPY surging back to 101.50 (carry trades getting baumgartner'd everywhere), stocks down over 7%, and 10Y JGBs swinging from +11bps at the open to -6bps at the close for the second biggest range day in a decade...

All the time it is just the quadrillion JPY second-largest bond market in the world that is experiencing volatility on an unprecedented scale, the BoJ and her partners in crime are more than willing to 'officially' say "please do not worry." But when the equity market - that barometer of everything good and holy about Abenomics starts to crater, you can bet the excuses will come fast and furious. Today's drop of over 1500 points (over 9%) from the earlier highs is the largest drop for the Nikkei 225 since March 2011. The Nikkei 225 just lost the all-powerful 15,000 level and is suffering another VaR shock with a 6-sigma move today. In fact given the price levels this drop is on par with the post-Lehman moves in 2008. The question now (with US equity futures also fading fast -20 points and JPY crosses getting hammered) is how will the Japanese risk appetite for peripheral European crap hold up with this crimping in their plan as Japanese bonds and stocks dump?

The political class set in motion the eventual obliteration of our economic system with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Placing the fate of the American people in the hands of a powerful cabal of unaccountable greedy wealthy elitist bankers was destined to lead to poverty for the many, riches for the connected crony capitalists, debasement of the currency, endless war, and ultimately the decline and fall of an empire. The 100 year downward spiral began gradually but has picked up steam in the last sixteen years, as the exponential growth model, built upon ever increasing levels of debt and an ever increasing supply of cheap oil, has proven to be unsustainable and unstable. Those in power are frantically using every tool at their disposal to convince Boobus Americanus they have everything under control and the system is operating normally. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Earlier, we presented a captioned photo profile of one of the two alleged terrorists, the 26 year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev who died last night in a shoot-out with the Boston Police. As a follow up, Bloomberg has conducted an interview with one of his gym sparring partners, "Jon K" who trained with Tamerlan in the same Boston gym, and who told BBG TV that "he seemed like a really nice guy, to himself and a little bit arrogant and cocky, but he helped people at the gym all the time with their boxing and was friendly with everyone. It's a complete shock." Jon, who asked that his last name not be used, said: "All week, I have been wondering who the psycho was and it turns out that it was somebody I interacted with. It is shocking, especially as an athlete, he was an athlete, that he would do this to other athletes and just anyone in general."

While We’re Waiting to Learn Who the Boston Terrorists Were … Let’s Review How Stupid Our Anti-Terrorism Policies Have Been

MERS: The Center of the Mortgage Scam

Now is the time to think about how you would live your life if your real value was appreciated and fairly compensated.

There is the potential for some drama - a Cyprus style raid on wealth is a potential outcome.

Synthetic securities based on putrid shipping loans

This is what the world's "smartest" economist is calling for.

The clowns are the politicians and technocrats in Berlin and Brussels.

$6 Trillion Dollar Mistake Screwed Up the American Economy ...

The stock market has now been up for ten straight days. Many on Wall Street are singing “Happy Days Are Here Again.” For them, that is probably the case. They finally have something to sell that will bring the rubes back into the markets. We are not in Kansas anymore. Fear is ebbing and greed is coming back. Those on the outside looking in are rounding up cash so that they don’t get left behind. The shills assist them with their pictures of economic recovery, new era crap and whatever other nonsense they can peddle successfully. So the cycle goes, as it has since the New York Stock Exchange came into existence. We are in another game of musical chairs where the music is playing joyfully. As in all such events, there are too few chairs to accommodate the participants when the music stops. And it always does!