Janet Yellen

Americans have taken on more revolving debt (credit cards basically) since March than they did the previous three years combined. Economists are, as you would expect, nearly ecstatic over the impoverishment. To them, it signals the final capitulation of consumers to that which Janet Yellen has been professing since her term began. But there is a huge problem with that view; if consumers are borrowing, what are they doing with the balances? Instead, this discontinuity can only be consistent where consumers are completely out of options. If there are noticeably fewer goods being shipped here and within here, the US, and borrowing has just exploded at the same exact time then it is rather easy to conclude far more of full recession than recovery.

Janet Yellen’s astonishing letter to the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, is a sign that the central bank is panicking over the fact that Congress is unhappy with the job it has been doing.

"The reason for our recession concern is not so much because of what the Fed is about to do – likely embark on a slow hiking cycle beginning in December – but because it did not start the tightening much sooner."

Having detailed the "perverted nonsense" that is the collapsing and negative US swap spreads (here, here, here, and here) and noted money manager's concerns that the big question remains whether there is "something bigger brewing under the surface that so far hasn’t been pinpointed yet," it appears Goldman Sachs feels the need to 'explain' the anomaly in what appears an effort to calm fears about the broken money markets. Of course, we don’t have to figure out what the “market” is saying about a negative spread because it isn’t saying anything other than “something” is wrong and even Goldman admits this signals funding and balance sheet strains are worsening since August.

Well, we’re less than one hour away from the release of the October Fed minutes. Who’s excited? Despite the fact that the October NFP print came after the FOMC meeting, market “bird watchers” will still be keen on parsing every last word for hints around what the very “data dependent” Fed may or may not announce next month. Here's an early take on what to look for.

I had never heard the term "safe space" until just a few days ago, but it's a zone in which free speech is completely forbidden, for fear of hurting the feelings of some special snowflake.

Once you examine the finer details, it quickly becomes clear that there are five key reasons that the Fed is unlikely to raise rates anytime soon.

Over the past 3 months, the name Marko Kolanovic, head of JPM's Quant Team, has become one of the most loved, or feared (depending on which way he is leaning) and respected on all of Wall Street for one simple reason: think Dennis Gartman, only correct every time. Well, the man Bloomberg calls "Gandalf" just did it again - "nailing" the top in stocks last week.

There's been no shortage of discussion about the weather among economists this year as "snow in the winter" took the blame for a bevy of bad data in H1 while summer is Citi's new scapgoat for any weakness in August and September payrolls. Meanwhile, unseasonably mild temps took the fall for poor October retail sales and now, going into the winter, it's all about El Nino.

Ooops ...

The biggest event overnight came from Europe, where Draghi managed to once again jawbone the Euro lower by ober 50 pips when he told European lawmakers in a prepared testimony that downside economic risks are "clearly visible," repeating his October press conference statement, adding that the ECB will reexamine degree of accommodation in December as "inflation dynamics have somewhat weakened." And the statement that crushed the Euro: "If we were to conclude that our medium-term price stability objective is at risk, we would act by using all the instruments available within our mandate to ensure that an appropriate degree of monetary accommodation is maintained." I.e., another "whatever it takes" moment.

On the heels of placing its third former employee at the Fed this year alone, Goldman explains why the market is wrong about inflation and whyv a handful of ex-Goldmanites will hike by 200bps in the next two years.

The failure of the Fed’s policies of massive money creation, corporate bailouts, and quantitative easing to produce economic growth is a sign that the fiat money system’s day of reckoning is near. The only way to prevent the monetary system’s inevitable crash from causing a major economic crisis is the restoration of a free-market monetary policy.

"On our estimates $360bn of capital left China during the previous two quarters and an additional $210bn left from the rest of EM." That folks, is what you call an exodus...

Does it really take courage for unelected economic bureaucrats to print up trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in order to bail out Wall Street banks? I’m sure it will certainly take courage if the taxpayer finally wakes up to the ruse before it fails. And sooner or later, every ruse does fail, even when run by the world’s most powerful cartel.