CRAP

Coincidence … Or Something More?

"Silicon Valley as a whole... is taking on an excessive amount of risk right now. Unprecedented since '99." The widely accepted model is that it's acceptable for companies to be "[b]urning cash and losing money.. with the emphasis on the losing." "It reminds me of 2000, when investment capital was flooding into startups and flooded a lot of marginal companies. If 2000 was a bubble factor of 10, we are at an 8 to 9 in my opinion right now."

While none of these people, many of whom are unemployed and paid by others to stay in line for days, will spend the $3,600 someone in China just paid for a "gold" iPhone, they will gladly pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket, or in many cases simply lease with zero money down, the latest and greatest aspirational gadget to show they are cooler than they actually are.

“... Just Before It Melted Down”

When you see the headlines touting strong retail sales, you need to consider what you are actually seeing in the real world. RadioShack will be filing for bankruptcy within months. Wet Seal will follow. Sears is about two years from a bankruptcy filing. JC Penney’s turnaround is a sham. They continue to lose hundreds of millions every quarter and will be filing for bankruptcy within the next couple years. Target and Wal-Mart continue to post awful sales results and have stopped expanding. And as you drive around in your leased BMW, you see more Space Available signs than operating outlets in every strip center in America.

If nothing else we have learned it doesn’t matter how obvious the lie is if people don’t want to know the truth.

Say hello to the next financial crisis, brought to you courtesy of the dumbest new bill of the week: H.R. 5148: Access to Affordable Mortgages Act.

Just three months ago, everyone was a believer: bonds traded well above par, Europe's recovery was on track, and Portugal's banking system was a shining example of how Europe's bailout program worked (and Goldman was pitching SPVs full of this crap to any and all greater fools). Today - the ugly truth is exposed as Bloomberg reports, Espirito Santo International debt attracted potential buyers at just 2% of face value. Of course, the words "contained" are trotted out to explain how this is a one-off and not at all representative of the rest of the European banking system. But... Howard Marks' Oaktree Capital seems to disagree - "We continue to think Europe will provide a substantial quantum of attractive investment opportunities for all of our strategies and in particular distressed debt," as a record amount of bad loans are being offloaded by European banks ahead of the stress tests.

The comedic value of developments out of Ukraine, especially when it comes to "de-escalation", truly has no equal. Case in point, events from the past three hours, when we learned that there is a new Ukraine ceasefire, there is no Ukraine ceasefire, Putin is looking for a ceasefire but can't be part to a agreement as he is not "firing", NATO is pushing again, Ukraine demands special treatment, the Ukraine rebels were never even consulted on the latest ceasefure, and so on. End result: futures just hit new all time highs.

Here are some of the choice excerpts from the man who is baffled by a new effort to punish him, proud of past triumphs and incensed by criticism: “You’ll have to ask those people, ‘What do you have against Mozilo, what did he do?’” he said in a 30-minute call with Bloomberg News before Labor Day, one of his few interviews since the firm’s downfall. “Countrywide didn’t change. I didn’t change. The world changed.”  Mozilo doesn’t understand why he and his firm, blamed by lawmakers and authorities for lax underwriting and predatory lending, have been seen as villains. “No, no, no, we didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, adding that a real estate collapse was the root of the crisis. “Countrywide or Mozilo didn’t cause any of that.” Yes, the Moz talks about himself in the third person.

Although I never thought it was possible, it makes me angry to write this book review. I'm not angry because I don't like the book. On the contrary, this is the best economics book I've ever read. Indeed, it may be the best and most influential book I've ever read in my life. I only wish I had read it the moment it was published in April 2013. 

Traders and market participants are pretty bad at decision making as it is, the last thing they need is inaccurate information via sensationalized and overhyped TMZ Style News reports to base their decision making process on.

Operation Desert Shield; Operation Desert Storm; Operation Provide Comfort I and II; Operation Southern Watch; Operation Desert Strike; Operation Northern Watch; Operation Desert Fox; Operation Southern Focus; Operation Iraqi Freedom; Operation New Dawn,

and...

Operation [Provide Humanitarian Aid]

U.S. Has Lost the Immune System Created by the Founding Fathers

Huxley’s Brave New World dystopian America had a good run from 1950 until 2000. Our keepers kept us fat, dumb, distracted, and in debt up to our eyeballs. Since 2000 Orwell’s 1984 dystopian Surveillance States of America seems to be taking shape, under the watchful eye of our very own Big Brother, the NSA. Fear, punishment, slogans (See Something Say Something) and appeals to non-thinking patriotism have replaced freedom, liberty, individual rights, the Constitution, personal responsibility for our own lives and questioning authority. Are you a believer? “One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.” – Aldous Huxley – Brave New World; Or a truth seeker? “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.” – Aldous Huxley