Fisher

• Scotland split jitters send sterling to 10-month low (Reuters)
• S&P 500 Beating World Most Since 1969 Doesn’t Spark Flows (BBG)
• Happy ending guaranteed: Vietnam building deterrent against China in disputed seas with submarines (Reuters)
• China Posts Record Surplus as Exports-Imports Diverge (Bloomberg)
• Russia, U.S. to hold talks on 1987 arms accord (Reuters)
• Halcon’s Wilson Drills More Debt Than Oil in Shale Bet (BBG)
• Deadly Disappointment Awaits at Ebola Clinics Due to Lack of Space (WSJ)
• Latinos furious at Obama on immigration delay, vow more pressure (Reuters)
• Japan GDP Shrinks at Fastest Pace in More Than Five Years (WSJ)

A recent Fed paper reports that the Fed's wild money printing orgy has failed to produce much CPI inflation because “consumers are hoarding money”. It is said that this explains why so-called "money velocity" is low. Sadly, they are misinformed: In short, “hoarding” cannot possibly harm the economy. The same, alas and alack, cannot be said of money printing.

Even as the NATO summit began hours ago in Wales, conveniently enough (for Obama) at the venue of the 2010 Ryder Cup, so far today geopolitics has taken a backseat to the biggest event of the day - the ECB's much hyped and anticipated announcement. So anticipated in fact that even as it has been priced in for the past month, especially by BlackRock which is already calculating the Christmas bonus on its "consultancy" in implementing the ECB's ABS purchasing program and manifesting itself in record low yields across Europe's bond market, Reuters decided to milk it some more moments ago with the following blast: "Plans to launch an asset-backed securities (ABS) and covered bond purchase programme worth up to 500 billion euros are on the table at Thursday's European Central Bank policy meeting..." The notable being the size of the program, which at €500 billion, is precisely what Deutsche Bank said a week ago the size of the ABS program would be. Almost as if the bank with the world's biggest derivative exposure is helping coordinate the "Private QE"...

This month's Bill Gross letter, notably shorter than usual, is as close to the bond manager discussing an Austrian economics worldview as we will likely ever see him: in brief, it's all about the credit/money creation, with an emphasis on the use of proceeds of said creation under ZIRP, i.e., malinvestment , or as Gross puts it: "credit growth is a necessary but not sufficient condition for economic growth. Economic growth depends on the productive use of credit growth, something that is not occurring."

Despite all the massive monetary pumping over the past six years and the lowering of interest rates to almost zero most commentators have expressed disappointment with the pace of economic growth. This should not be surprising though, since, any policy, which artificially boosts demand, leads to consumption that is not backed up by a previous production of wealth. This means that monetary pumping leads to the squandering of real wealth. All this however, can be reversed by shrinking the size of the government and by the closure of all the loopholes of the monetary expansion.

Today, the world economy is in uncharted territory. Never before has the developed world carried this much debt. Never before have the central banks of those same countries expanded their balance sheets so much. Never before has so much sovereign debt been outright monetized. Never before have major financial institutions been officially designated as “too big to fail” and thereby been granted special license to assume gigantic risks. Dr. Lacy Hunt, economist and current executive vice president of Hoisington Investment Management Company, expects the macroeconomic situation to get worse from here...

The FOMC has used experimental tools for so long to keep the accelerator pressed that it fears what happens when the car stops. Therefore, the FOMC believes they have little choice other than to keep the car going forward, which works until it doesn’t. The risk/reward tradeoff continues to skew unfavorably. The farther markets move into the right-tail side of the distribution curve, the deeper they will eventually more into the left-tail. Vrooom...Crash.

Asked what could happen during the next crisis, John Burbank's response: "it could fall fast"... "there is the possibility of a 1987 dislocation that does not reflect long-term economic stress but could reflect illiquidity in the market." His conclusion: "When there is a signal to sell, there won't be a lot of buying." That is assuming selling hasn't been made illegal by then or, as the recent bankruptcy of Banco Espirito Santo showed, if and when the time to sell comes, all sellable stocks are suddenly halted indefinitely while a committee of conflicted banks decides behind the scenes that no event of default has actually occurred.

• Barack Obama's 'vacation from hell' (Politico)
• Russian aid convoy checked; military vehicles mass near Ukraine (Reuters)
• Ukraine Says APCs Entered From Russia to Aid Insurgents (BBG)
• Islamic State Said to Challenge Al-Qaeda for Leadership (BBG)
• Missouri protests calmer after governor puts black police captain in charge (Reuters)
• Finally someone will prove the US is a pyramid scheme (in a 1000 page presentation): Ackman’s Pershing Square Sues U.S. Over Fannie, Freddie (BBG)
• Banks, Financial Firms Load Up on Cheap Debt (WSJ)
• Putin to Meet Finnish President as Threat of Cold War Grows (BBG)

• Gunshots, tear gas in riots over shooting of black Missouri teen (Reuters)
• Russia sends big aid convoy to Ukraine, West sounds warnings (Reuters)
• Maliki Bid to Block Successor Escalates Crisis in Iraq (BBG)
• Poor German data pushes euro toward 9-month lows against dollar (Reuters)
• Derivatives Reincarnate Boosting Debt Wagers in New Era  (BBG)
• Israel Says No Gaza Talks Progress as Hamas Warns on Truce (BBG)
• Traders brace for research crackdown as easy money dries up (Reuters)
• U.S. Bank Profits Near Record Levels (WSJ)
• Unproven Ebola Drugs Are Ethical to Use in Outbreak: WHO (BBG)
• Caesars’ CEO Loveman Says No Qualified Bidders for Revel (BBG)

Junk bond investors are running for the hills. But there are no hills.

Ten times a year, once a month except in August and October, a small group of well dressed men arrives in Basel, Switzerland.  Carrying elegant overnight bags and stylish brief cases, they discreetly check into the Euler Hotel, across from the railroad station. They come to this quiet city from places as disparate as Tokyo, Paris, Brasilia, London, and Washington, D.C., for the regular meeting of the most exclusive, secretive, and powerful supranational club in the world.

"More of the same," should summarize today's FOMC statement. There will be no press conference or refresh of the 'dot plot' economic projections. The Fed is expected to continue to taper by $10 billion with confirmation that the "growth meme" is playing out just as they projected (especially after today's GDP print). Goldman believes the focus will be on the jobs 'dashboard' and recent inflation data enables the dovish Fed to argue recent moves were noise and stay easier for longer. The downside risk (for markets) may be that Fed hawks will likely have little luck in altering the way forward guidance is employed by the Fed (and chatter over a Fisher dissent is possible).

Overnight markets have been a continuation of the relative peace observed yesterday before the onslaught of key data later in the week, with the biggest mover standing out as the USDJPY, which briefly touched 102 before sliding lower then recouping losses. This sent the Nikkei 225 up 0.57% despite absolutely atrocious Japanese household spending data, coupled with a major deterioration in employment: at this rate if Abenomics doesn't fix the economy it just may destroy it. Aside from that the last 24 hours could be summed as having a lot of noise but not a lot of excitement. This was best illustrated by the S&P500’s (+0.03%) performance which was the second smallest gain YTD. And while the SHCOMP is starting to fade its recent euphoria and China was up only 0.24%, Europe continues to cower in the shade of Russian sanctions as both German Bund yields rose to record highs, and Portugal's BES tumbled by 10% once again to 1 week lows. Today Europe is expected to formally reveal its latest Russian sanctions, which should in turn push Europe's already teetering economy back over the edge.

Having provided his clarifying perspective on why the markets are extremely fragile and due for a 20-30% correction, Marc Faber was assaulted by CNBC's Scott Wapner reading off a litany of recent calls that have not worked out as planned. His response was notable: "I started to work in 1970, and over that career, somehow, somewhere, I must have made some right calls; otherwise I wouldn't be in business." What CNBC then edited out of the transcript was Faber pointing out his 22% annualized return in his publicly-viewable funds since then and asking - sounding somewhat frustrated at the anchor's mockery (and background snickers) - "I wonder what the CNBC portfolio would look like since 1999?" The response: silence.