Great Depression

We strongly suspect that both government debt growth and money supply inflation will continue unabated – any pause will immediately bring about the kind of short term economic pain these policies have explicitly sought to prevent and will therefore be quickly reversed. It is not unlike the situation the revolutionary assembly of France found itself in during the late 18th century: when it issued new money, industry seemed to revive. As soon as it stopped, industry slumped again. And so it was decided to issue ever more money, until the entire scheme blew up. There can be little doubt that modern-day governments are on the road to a similar date with destiny – and lately the speed at which they travel toward it has increased markedly.

David Stockman, author of The Great Deformation, summarizes the last quarter century thus: What has been growing is the wealth of the rich, the remit of the state, the girth of Wall Street, the debt burden of the people, the prosperity of the beltway and the sway of the three great branches of government - that is, the warfare state, the welfare state and the central bank...

What is flailing is the vast expanse of the Main Street economy where the great majority have experienced stagnant living standards, rising job insecurity, failure to accumulate material savings, rapidly approach old age and the certainty of a Hobbesian future where, inexorably, taxes will rise and social benefits will be cut...

He calls this condition "Sundown in America".

The US Federal Reserve’s recent surprise announcement that it would maintain the current pace of its monetary stimulus reflects the ongoing debate about the desirability of cooperation among central banks. Discussion of central-bank cooperation has often centered on a single historical case, in which cooperation initially seemed promising, but turned out to be catastrophic. We are thus left with a paradox: While crises increase demand for central-bank cooperation to deliver the global public good of financial stability, they also dramatically increase the costs of cooperation, especially the fiscal costs associated with stability-enhancing interventions. As a result, in the wake of a crisis, the world often becomes disenchanted with the role of central banks – and central-bank cooperation is, yet again, associated with disaster.

So much for the summer sugar rush. While last month's Non-manufacturing ISM print, and yesterday's Mfg ISM set the stage for a blowout expectation in today's September Non-Manufacturing ISM update, nobody expected a tumble from 58.6 to 54.4, resulting in the biggest miss in the index since April 2011, the lowest print since June 2013 and even the ISM's Nieves reporting that there has been "significant slowing." To be sure, this follows last month's spike to the highest print of the second Great Depression, but the drop shown below, shows this was all largely a one-time aberration. The leading Business Activity index cratered from 62.2 to 55.1 confirming the August spike was merely an a mirage, but what's worse is that the all important Employment Index (and remember: Services are far more important to the US economy than manufacturing) tumbled from 57.0 to 52.7, the lowest print since May, and biggest one month drop since March 2009!

There may be temporary 'benefits in terms of employment gains' if the Fed creates an even more gigantic echo bubble than it has already done. We are willing to grant that much. The Fed apparently believes these days that there should be no limits whatsoever to the Fed's monetary pumping. 'Inflation' targets? Forget about it! Asset bubbles? Who cares! It is as if the past 20 years had not happened – as if they had simply erased the whole period from his memory. Do they really believe that pumping up another giant bubble will have more benefits than drawbacks? Where does it all end? However, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and there cannot be an 'eternal boom' by simply continuing to print, as once envisaged by Keynes. All that will happen is that the ultimate disaster will be even greater. In fact, is seems ever more likely that the next disaster will be the last one of the current monetary system.

Don't Blame Free Market Capitalism ... We Haven't Had It for a While

Cheat Sheet on Inequality

Yesterday we highlighted the plight of Tom Palome and his cohorts as they face a need to work well into once-thought-retirement age. However, there are hundreds of formerly prosperous communities all over America that are being steadily transformed into rotting, decaying hellholes. The good paying middle class jobs that once supported those communities are long gone, and they have been replaced with low paying service jobs if they have been replaced at all. When you visit those communities, it is almost as if all of the hope has been sucked right out of the air. The following are 20 quotes from ordinary Americans about the economic despair that is rapidly growing around them.

A few years back Chairman Bernanke was asked by a financial reporter how confident he was that the Fed could easily start the process of withdrawing from the accommodation of “unorthodox” monetary policy. Some might argue (ourselves included) that the answer 'should' be something like “very confident” or “We feel we have the right tools and the right people to manage that process”. Instead the answer given was “100%”. At last week's press conference, Chairman Bernanke, in CitiFX Technicals' view, looked like the “cat that got the cheese", despite the more downbeat message he was giving? Why? Because he got his way. In their “conspiracy theory” interpretation it is likely that Janet Yellen’s nomination will indeed be announced in the near future and that tapering is now firmly back off the table despite the guidance given in recent months to the contrary. Bonds seem to agree (so far).

Investors may be trapped in a ‘greater fool theory’ in thinking they can all unwind risk at the same time. Over-regulation, shrinking bank balance sheets, and fewer market makers mean that market liquidity is challenged. Retracting Fed dollars is always far more difficult than creating them, particularly in the current environment.  The FOMC scientists have been working in their lab tweaking models to assess marginal benefits, but it is blinding them from seeing the underlying risks that are building. They openly ask what signs of troubles are evident, but the morphine drip has been in use for so long that they can’t see that the current calm may be replaced with an uncontrollable monster unleashed when the sedation fades.

Still Laundering Terrorism and Drug Money ...

This is The System Of The World. It lays out in logical frankness how the various layers of the facade we call “democracy” and “free markets” interoperate and together create a grotesque caricature of the ideals they purport to serve and keep us all enslaved. Join us on a trip through The System.

"The government’s bailout plan destroyed capitalism. In a capitalist system, those who stood to gain–and already made off with large gains—would have to bear the risk. The bailouts represented a corruption of capitalism. Crony capitalism violates the spirit of democracy established by the Founding Fathers of the republic known as the United States." - Janet Tavakoli

All of the suffering and hardships the majority of Americans are experiencing today are directly related to the coup pulled off by the crony financial oligarchs in the fall of 2008, and all of the media and political minions that helped them do it. People realize we have become a Banana Republic and they have now lost all hope.

One would think Laura Dimon, the daughter of one James Dimon, would be on familiar terms with such concepts as bonds, capital structure and finance (especially the more arcane substrata thereof). After all the father of the graduate from the Columbia School of Journalism (author of such previous pieces as "The Last Office Taboo for Women: Doing Your Business at Work" which examines "the lengths women go to avoid getting caught in the stall") is none other than the CEO of the largest bank in the US, best-known for such "one-time items" as constantly recurring legal charges associated with financial innovation gone horribly wrong (today's rumor of a $750MM settlement over the bank's London-based prop trading group being a case in point). As it turns out, one may be mistaken...

Amid the 100 year anniversary of the creation of the Federal Reserve, it is absolutely imperative that the American people understand that the Fed is at the very heart of our economic problems.  It is a system of money that was created by the bankers and that operates for the benefit of the bankers.  The American people like to think that we have a "democratic system", but there is nothing "democratic" about the Federal Reserve.  Unelected, unaccountable central planners from a private central bank run our financial system and manage our economy.  There is a reason why financial markets respond with a yawn when Barack Obama says something about the economy, but they swing wildly whenever Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke opens his mouth.  The Federal Reserve has far more power over the U.S. economy than anyone else does by a huge margin.  The Fed is the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world, and if the American people truly understood how it really works, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately.  The following are 25 fast facts about the Federal Reserve that everyone should know...