Main Street

You Wont Believe What They’ve Done …

The three "de's:" deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization.

Too Big Leads To Destruction of the Rule of Law

The most corrupt moron of a Treasury Secretary the country has ever known...

Updated Executive Summary / Cheat Sheet ...

Gold inched up on Tuesday ahead of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's Congressional testimony today and Wednesday which should provide the market with information as to whether the US central bank will flood the market with more US paper.

While bad news may be good news for the market hoping that it will spur more stimulative measures from the Fed to boost asset prices - for Main Street America bad news is just bad news.  More importantly, the decline in consumer confidence continues to perpetuate the virtual economic spiral.  As the consumer retrenches the decline in aggregate end demand puts businesses on the defensive who in turn reduces employment.  The reduction in employment, and further stagnation of wages, puts the consumer further onto the defensive leading to more declines in demand.  It is a difficult cycle to break.

As JPM takes off, US equities go vertical, and EURUSD overdoses on erectile dysfunction stop-hunting-algo medicine, the good old US consumer - that bastion of demand and foundation of all things GDP-based just said sentiment levels are the worst of the year so far. UMich Consumer Confidence Sentiment just printed 72.0 against expectations of 73.4 - the biggest miss since December 2009. Worst still is the plunge in expectations (economic outlook) to the lowest in 7 months as the 2-month drop is the biggest in a year. It would appear all is not well on Main Street - as the massive schism between ISM Composite relative strength and the reality of the economy remains. As an aside, given this morning's hotter than expected inflation data, 1 year ahead forecasts for inflation fell to their lowest in 19 months.

Libor Manipulation Is Only One of MANY Types of Fraud Committed by the Big Banks

Cliff Asness, head of the quant hedge fund AQR, has been known to be a vocal opponent of various failed governmental policies in the past few years. Today, he has shared his "dictionary" (of "humorous" persuasion as he himself notes, with definitions "written sarcastically as a faux left-winger, some just conservative/libertarian interpretations of what the left really means.") of the key terms dominant in Progressive America right now. In a world in which other people's money has pretty much run out, and ahead of a rather historic Supreme Court ruling tomorrow, we believe some of these are quite relevant.

Two weeks ago, when we remarked with great satisfaction that Wall Street's original pentagram of bull had now been cut to three, with the departure of BlackRock's hypermabull Bob Doll, we had one lingering question: why would a strategist, and not a trader, leave Wall Street in the "prime" of his CNBC prime-time years? After all, it is not like Doll ever was right, or was judged by the quality of his predictions - if that was the case he would have been fired years ago. Basically, there was a big question mark surrounding this departure. Today, we may have gotten our answer: as Reuters reports, it appears Doll may have been dipping into the wrong model. Financial model that is.

All you need to read.

"Private Debt Doesn't Matter" Because "Banks Can't Create Money Out of Thin Air"

Last September we were delighted to bring you the following great news:

DAVID BIANCO NO LONGER WORKS AT BOFA, SPOKESWOMAN SAYS

Now, we are even more delighted to bring you the following breaking news:

BLACKROCK CHIEF EQUITY STRATEGIST BOB DOLL TO RETIRE

And then there were three...

The global monetary system which has evolved and morphed over the past century but always in the direction of easier, cheaper and more abundant credit, may have reached a point at which it can no longer operate efficiently and equitably to promote economic growth and the fair distribution of its benefits. Future changes, which lie on a visible horizon, may not be so beneficial for our ocean’s oversized creatures. Both the lower quality and lower yields of previously sacrosanct debt therefore represent a potential breaking point in our now 40-year-old global monetary system. Neither condition was considered feasible as recently as five years ago. Now, however, with even the United States suffering a credit downgrade to AA+ and offering negative 200 basis point real policy rates for the privilege of investing in Treasury bills, the willingness of creditor whales – as opposed to debtors – to support the existing system may soon descend. Such a transition occurs because lenders either perceive too much risk or refuse to accept near zero-based returns on their investments. “There she blows,” screamed Captain Ahab and similarly intentioned debt holders may soon follow suit, presenting the possibility of a new global monetary system in future years, or if not, one which is stagnant, dysfunctional and ill-equipped to facilitate the process of productive investment.