Florida

Whether or not it is an indication of potential legal troubles over Obama's horizon is unclear, but as Politico reports, the White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, a Georgetown Law graduate who assumed office on June 30, 2011, "has told President Obama she plans to leave by the end of the year" and a search for her replacement has begun.

Anniversaries and celebrations of past historic events are part and parcel of our everyday lives. We celebrate to remember and to grow up, to change and to learn from what happened.

In August 2012, when isolating one of the various reasons for the latest housing bubble, we suggested that a primary catalyst for the price surge in the ultra-luxury housing segment and the seemingly endless supply of "all cash" buyers (standing at an unprecedented 60% of all buyers lately as reported by Goldman) is a very simple one: crime. Or rather, the use of US real estate as a means to launder illegal offshore-procured money. We also identified the one key permissive feature which allowed this: the National Association of Realtors' exemption from Anti-Money Laundering provisions. In other words, all a foreign oligarch - who may or may not have used chemical weapons in their past: all depends on how recently they took their picture with the Secretary of State - had to do to buy a $47 million Florida house, was to get the actual cash to the US. Well good thing there are private jets whose cargo is never checked. It appears that a year later this too hypothesis has been proven. Earlier today the Post reported that "U.S. authorities announced Tuesday that they are seeking forfeiture of pricey Manhattan real estate linked to a fraud they say was uncovered by a whistleblowing Russian lawyer before he died behind bars. A civil forfeiture complaint filed against the assets of a Cyprus-based real estate corporation and other holding companies alleges that some of the proceeds from the $230 million tax fraud in Russia were laundered through the purchase of four luxury condominiums located in a Wall Street doorman building and two commercial spaces in prime locations in midtown and Chelsea."

War-weary 'real' Americans appear to have the ear of their representatives (for once). Message such as "you don't stop a war by getting involved and shooting more," and "once you start launching missiles, anything can happen," appear to have moved both the staunchest tea-party Republican and the most anti-war Democrats to shun the position of Boehner and Pelosi. As Bloomberg reports, only about 20 members (or 5%) of the House is publicly supporting a military strike. Against this, 68 lawmakers (an uncomfrtable alliance of Dems and Reps) are actively opposed to a strike. 350 House members are 'undecided', with 217 required to make or break the vote. With 60 votes required in the Senate, Obama can currently only count on 20 'confirmed' yesses. Obama's problem arises from the fact that whipping the members in line is tough with a number of different strains of thought resisting Obama's urgings.

While unlikely to surprise too many people, the chairman of the ironically-named "MainStreet Bank" used over one-third of the TARP-supplied funds his bank received to buy himself a luxury home. Darryl Woods plead guilty to using $381,000 of the TARP funds to buy waterfront Florida property "at a time when many Americans were losing their homes," the US District Attorney exclaimed. Disgustingly, Mr Woods had previously written to TARP regulators describing Mainstreet as a small community bank and saying the funds "will provide vitally needed infusions to a bleeding patient." As The BBC reports, his wrongdoing was uncovered when regulators began examining how the money was used - which has so far uncovered 140 cases of misused funds...

Murder (acquitted), armed robbery (convicted), kidnapping (convicted), and now foreclosure... It really hasn't been a good decade (or two) for O.J. Simpson. As NYPost reports, after 3 years of non-payment, none other than JPMorgan will foreclose on Simpson's 4,233 square feet, four-bedroom home in Florida. Still, he won't be entirely homeless, he has a 'big house' to share with a few 'friends' for the next 33 years...

A government that is operating under the credo "by the corporation for the corporation",  rather than "by the people for the people." 

• SURPRISE - Goldman Sachs won a preliminary victory to limit losses from a wave of erroneous trades that roiled U.S. options markets (WSJ)
• HP’s Whitman abandons 2014 revenue growth target (FT) - just keep doing those buybacks and ignore CapEx: revenue growth estimated in 2022
• Republicans in Echo Before Big Burn Defy Affordable Care (BBG)
• China's banks to take next step in rate reform push  (Reuters)
• Berlin’s Consistency on Greece’s Rescue (FT) and lack thereof
• Summers as Obama Voice of Authority Rides Car Rescue in Fed Race (BBG)
• Cuomo in Manure Fight as New York Promotes Yogurt (BBG)
• Yellen’s Ties From London to Shanghai Bypass White House (BBG)
• Sanctions Gap Allows China to Import Iranian Oil (WSJ)

The week ahead will be relatively quiet with few major data releases. The main focus will be on the Flash PMIs in the Eurozone and China as well as the FOMC minutes and Jackson Hole. In the US the relatively new Preliminary PMI has been found useful by our US team in forecasting the ISM. Existing and new home sales are additional data points of interest in the US.  The key focus this week will be on central bank action. Minutes from the FOMC and the RBA will be followed by rate decisions in Thailand and Turkey. Finally, on Thursday starts the annual Jackson Hole conference with lots of Fed speakers, including Yellen next weekend. Chairman Bernanke, whose term ends in January, will not attend.

Favoring “Friends” ... Harassing “Enemies” ... Propaganda ... Cyber-Warfare ... Track ‘Em and Whack ‘Em

The Justice department is said to plan to block the AMR-US airline merger:

*AMR-US AIRWAYS DEAL SAID TO BE SUBJECT OF U.S. ANTITRUST SUIT
*US AIRWAYS ALSO SUED BY TEXAS, ARIZONA, FLORIDA, DC, VIRGINIA
*JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SAID TO PLAN SUIT TO BLOCK AIRLINE MERGER
*AMR CAN EMERGE FROM BANKRUPTCY WITHOUT MERGER, U.S. SAYS

Both stocks are down notably on the news - AMR -22%, LCC -11%; and the rest of the airlines sector is weakening. Among the DoJ's 'gotchas - "A US Airways document said that capacity reductions have “enabled” fare increases." Perhaps the lowly lobbyists of the Airline industry should have 'donated' just a little more money...?

• JPMorgan Nears Settlement With SEC on London Whale Loss (BBG)
• Without even a wristslap: Iksil to face no U.S. charges in 'Whale' probe (Reuters)
• China’s Credit Expansion Slows as Li Curbs Shadow Banking (BBG)
• China slowdown shows signs of abating (FT), even as...
• Australia central bank Lowers Growth Outlook as Economy Transitions From Mining (BBG)
• SAC Business Plan Goes to Judge, Plan Would Allow Firm to Maintain Business Operations but Restrict Its Ability to Move Assets (WSJ)
• Another buyer of Herbalife? - Norway’s oil fund plans to turn active (FT)
• Mark Carney plays down scepticism over interest rate policy (FT)
• Orders Evaporate for Celebrity Perfumes (WSJ)

Even though the United States has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the world by a very wide margin, hundreds of communities all over America are being overwhelmed by crime and violence.  For many years, violent crime had actually decreased in the United States, but now the trend is going the other way. The frightening thing is that crime statistics are going up even though police departments in some major cities have publicly announced that they will not even respond to certain crimes anymore. So what is causing the rise in crime and violence?  Well, we live at a time when economic opportunities for young people are extremely limited.  The younger you are, the more likely you are to be unemployed, and poverty in America has been steadily rising even in the midst of this so-called "economy recovery". When people are poor and feel like they are out of options, they tend to get desperate.  And desperate people do desperate things.

"Financial institutions have intentionally made a mockery of market logic, forcing end-users to keep paying more despite rising global aluminum supplies. As the Times points out, each time you “open a can of soda, beer or juice,” GOLDMAN SACHS gets a cut....  By inserting itself into a healthy industry producing widely needed commodities, severely degrading functionality, and widely distributing costs while itself benefiting, GOLDMAN SACHS and JP MORGAN couldn’t fit a more archetypal description of a parasite on the markets. Hoarding in aluminum, however, is just one in a bevy of ever-multiplying non-innovations, demonstrating how the leeching of productive society has emerged as finance’s guiding light, and leeching that antitrust laws are designed to prohibit and make the economic sanctions and repayment to consumers for entering such destructive enterprises too high to pursue."

Back in late 2012, Goldman's Jan Hatzius did precisely what he did at the end of 2010: predicted that after many years of delays, the US economy would finally soar higher on the back of the reignition of the virtuous cycle driven by now endless Fed micromanagement of virtually every aspect of the economy. We mocked him in 2010 (6 months later he pulled his call following a series of embarrassing mea culpas), and did the same in 2012. So here we are, 8 months later, and this much-delayed recovery has been "delayed" again - just as we thought. Of course, once bitten by the fringe blogosphere, Jan is not willing to pull his recovery call for the second time in a row despite deteriorating GDP and employment data, and instead (like everyone else) if placing his faith with the Fed, despite five consecutive years of disappointment from St. Ben. Maybe this time it will be different... although it won't. In the meantime, from a glass fully full (which is where it was supposed to be by this time in the year), the Goldmanite has now reduced his economic assessment to half that.