Krugman

If Americans were honest with themselves they would acknowledge that the Republic is no more. We now live in a police state. If we do not recognize and resist this development, freedom and prosperity for all Americans will continue to deteriorate. All liberties in America today are under siege. Reality is now setting in for America and for that matter for most of the world. We should not be discouraged. Enlightenment is not nearly as difficult to achieve as it was before the breakthrough with Internet communications occurred. I smell progress.

1. The number of households in Japan on welfare hit a record high in October, renewing the record for a 6th straight month.

2  51.1% of Japanese households said they’re worse off compared with year earlier, the most since December 2011, according to Bank of Japan quarterly survey released today in Tokyo.

3. Corporate bankruptcies linked to weak yen rose to a record 345 in 2014 from 130 a year earlier.

The surreal nature of this world as we enter 2015 feels like being trapped in a Fellini movie. The .1% party like it’s 1999, central bankers not only don’t take away the punch bowl – they spike it with 200% grain alcohol, the purveyors of propaganda in the mainstream media encourage the party to reach Caligula orgy levels, the captured political class and their government apparatchiks propagate manipulated and massaged economic data to convince the masses their standard of living isn’t really deteriorating, and the entire façade is supposedly validated by all-time highs in the stock market. It’s nothing but mass delusion perpetuated by the issuance of prodigious amounts of debt by central bankers around the globe. But now, the year of consequences may have finally arrived.

The problem is inherent in the knowing “that it will end badly” and yet turning a blind eye and making money anyway. For that’s what a good Wall Street aficionado does after all, right? I mean, who cares about arguing about real economics or fundamentals. Who cares – I’m up 8%!! As if that’s all that now matters. For if that’s all that matters why don’t we embrace crony capitalism, embrace stagnant wages, embrace the 99% vs the 1% as that’s the best it’ll ever be. Who cares, as long as we’re getting ours. This disgusting bloated behemoth of an adulterated Central Bank infused market is now getting downright scarier.

The author of what Paul Krugman called "the most important economics book of the year - and maybe the decade," has turned down a prestigious award from the French government because, he does "not think it is the government's role to decide who is honorable." The irony of Thomas Piketty's revulsion at the Legion d'Honneur award is juxtaposed with his socialist epithets that government should decide everything else... like confiscatory taxes, big government, and, as Mish perfectly describes it, the "save the local bookstore mentality." Even more ironic though, Piketty's rejection of the award occurred on the same day that Hollande finbally gave up on his 75% supertax scheme (which has led to record unemployment).

If you have a strongly held economic theory, you can always concoct a story ex post to “explain” the data. Rather, what I’m saying is that on the very terms Krugman himself chose to show the virtues of government spending, I can make a much more compelling argument that cutting government spending won’t hurt private sector hiring, and if anything will stimulate it.

If the BOJ’s mad money printers were treated as monetary pariahs by the rest of the world, it would at least imply that a modicum of sanity remains on the planet. But just the opposite is the case. Establishment institutions like the IMF, the US treasury and the other major central banks urge them on, while the Keynesian arson squad led by Professor Krugman actually faults Japan for being too tepid with its “stimulus”. Now comes several new data points that absolutely confirm Japan is a financial mad house...

After two years of economic torture and financial destruction, Abenomics has finally claimed the Keynesian prize: real wages crash 4.3%, the most in the 21st century, and Japan's legendary savings rate, which peaked at 23% in 1975, just turned negative for the first time ever. Game over Japan.

One group of Federal workers that is definitely not taking the day off, is the trading desk located on the 9th floor of the New York Fed, responsible for such things as preserving the "fair" value of the bond and the stock market and avoiding any sharp downward moves. Because if there is one thing on the "national security" agenda that must be avoided at all costs, it is a drop in the S&P in today's trading session - after all now is when the official Santa rally begins and judging by the futures, which after a steep selloff in the last minute of trading on Wednesday have restored all their losses and then some, we may finally hit Goldman's year end target of 2100, for 2015.

While the rest of the world was preparing to celebrate Christmas, China was busy easing its economy into growth, and its stock market into low earth orbit, by lowering non-bank deposit reserve rates to zero as reported previously, while Japan was enjoying the consequences of the BOJ monetizing 100% of all gross JGB issuance, when overnight the Japanese Ministry of Finance not only sold $22 billion in 2 Year paper at a negative yield of -0.003%: the first time ever a government note (not bill) has sold at a negative yield, but the Japanese 10 Year yield dropped to 0.31%, declining below the previously all time low hit on April 2013 when the BOJ first announced its unprecedented QE program.

It is truly amazing to see the contortions into which some analysts twist themselves, trying to make the historical facts fit their economic models.

It is a tyranny of the PhDs. It is a group-think mania that has gone global. It’s also only a matter of time before the central bankers’ money printing spree takes down the very bubble-ridden financial system it has so recklessly spawned.

Despite the authorities' best efforts to keep everything orderly, we know how this global Game of Geopolitical Tetris ends: "Players lose a typical game of Tetris when they can no longer keep up with the increasing speed, and the Tetriminos stack up to the top of the playing field. This is commonly referred to as topping out."

"I’m tired of being outraged!"

Every year, David Collum writes a detailed "Year in Review" synopsis full of keen perspective and plenty of wit. This year's is no exception. "I have not seen a year in which so many risks - some truly existential - piled up so quickly. Each risk has its own, often unknown, probability of morphing into a destructive force. It feels like we’re in the final throes of a geopolitical Game of Tetris as financial and political authorities race to place the pieces correctly. But the acceleration is palpable. The proximate trigger for pain and ultimately a collapse can be small, as anyone who’s ever stepped barefoot on a Lego knows..."

After the worst week for stocks in years, and following a significantly oversold condition, it will hardly come as a surprise that the mean reversion algos (if only to the upside), as well as the markets themselves (derivative trading on the NYSE Euronext decided to break early this morning just to give some more comfort that excessive selling would not be tolerated)  are doing all they can to ramp equities around the globe, and futures in the US as high as possible on as little as possible volume. And sure enough, having traded with a modestly bullish bias overnight and rising back over 2000, the E-Mini has seen the now traditional low volume spike in the last few minutes, pushing it up over 15 points with the expectation being that the generic algo ramp in USDJPY ahead of the US open should allow futures to begin today's regular session solidly in the green, even if it is unclear if the modest rebound in the dollar and crude will sustain, or - like on every day in the past week - roll over quickly after the open. Also, we hope someone at Liberty 33 tells the 10Y that futures are soaring: at 2.13% the 10Y is pricing in nothing but bad economic news as far as the eye can see.