Fail

"Today, six and a half years after the collapse of Lehman, there is a Bigger Short cooking. That Bigger Short is long-term claims on paper money, i.e., bonds."

Another round of the Crisis is coming and the Powers That Be know it. This is why they’re preparing by buying up Gold bullion.

If millions of young Americans don't start earning more money, they can't afford to have children, or take care of them properly, and that is the end of us as a nation.

If governments have proven anything to us over the last seven years, it is that they will do anything to keep the banks from going down.  If just 10% of people hit their breaking points and withdrew their money in cash - there wouldn’t be enough cash in the system to support this demand. And the banks would subsequently collapse. When a government is bankrupt, the central bank is nearly insolvent, the banking system is illiquid, and an entire population suffers from interest rates that are either negative or below the rate of inflation, capital controls are a foregone conclusion. In fact, we expect the next round of capital controls will be designed to protect the banks... from you.

In real democracies, governments would do what the citizens who put them in office want them to do. The United States and other Western democracies make a mockery of that ideal. But, even so, there are limits; governments cannot defy public opinion on matters of great moment indefinitely. Enabling the Saudi ruling class, and the rulers of the other Gulf states, to direct American foreign policy to the extent that they do, and to get away with whatever they please, is hardly the least of it; but neither is it the only cause for concern.

There has to be a very clear line between central banks and governments. The latter should never be able to influence the former, because it would risk making economic policy serve only short term interests (until the next election). Likewise the former should stay out of the latter’s decisions, because that would tend to make political processes skewed disproportionally towards finance and the economy, at the potential cost of other interests in a society. This may sound idealistic and out of sync with the present day reality, but if it does, that does not bode well. It’s dangerous to play fast and loose with the founding principles of individual countries, and perhaps even more with those of unions of sovereign nations.

Having shown his true colors in recent months by embarking not just on an anti-gold crusade, but more recently on an anti-cash mission, Citi's Willem Buiter has once again exposed his newly minted CFR status-quo-embracing status this morning. During an appearance on CNBC, Buiter notes that there would be "havoc" if Greece left the euro zone and adopted an alternative currency; but then he went on the pre-prescription blasting that any kind of alternative currency tied to the euro "would be rubbish." These comments come just hours after German FinMin Schaeuble raised the possibility that Greece may need a parallel currency alongside the euro if the country’s talks with creditors fail.

"German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble conceded the possibility that Greece may need a parallel currency alongside the euro if the country’s talks with creditors fail," Bloomberg reports. Meanwhile, "sideline" negotiations between Greek PM Tsipras and Angela Merkel breakdown in Riga.

JPMorgan expects U.K. won’t delay the promised in out referendum on EU membership until 2017 but will put the issue to vote in late 2016 instead. Given the ruling Conservatives have only a small majority, any legislation could fail if euro skeptics within the party vote against it, suggesting the party leadership will want to get the issue resolved sooner rather than later. The prospect of a vote could weigh on the economy, again arguing for an earlier vote, so here are the pros and cons of Brexit simplified...

Since its inception, California has always portrayed itself as the land of opportunity. Kind of like a dream within the American dream. Of course, if you ask anyone who actually lives here, they’ll tell you the truth. The only people getting rich from the dream are the ones who made it up. They prey on the gullible masses who think they can move here and become movies stars, and tech CEO’s. But more importantly, this dream is the lifeblood of our vampiric state, and always has been. Like the myths surrounding the Great Wall of China, our foundations are layered with those who fell while chasing the dream. We owe our very existence to this ever evolving scam.

London high end property prices fall 6.3% in May, prices now 7.4% lower that this time last year. Average house prices in London dwarf those of the rest of the country. London prices average £581,074 - more than 15 times the median salary - whereas the national average is £285,891.

Many activists are clamoring for a higher minimum wage. That's an admirable goal, but is that where the worst problem is? Even at the abysmally low wages of the present moment, we still have 938,000 people being turned away from McDonald's because there aren't enough McJobs. The real problem is the lack of meaningful work. In a world of machines and social alienation, meaningful work is as scarce as water in the drought-stricken California Central Valley.

New research shows that European banks are as likely to fail today as they were preceding the global economic crash 7 years ago. Bail-ins are now the rule.

Here are the cliff notes of the Icahn letter:

1. Uncle Carl and his two analysts remain convinced they know how to run AAPL better than its CEO and his thousands of employees.
2. Uncle Carl and his two analysts have built up a massive stake in AAPL shares which however they can't get out of in this illiquid market without tipping the market they are selling - a tip which would promptly send the stock plunging - and as a result have come to the only buyer who is big enough to buy all of Icahn's shares without destabilizing the market: the company itself.