New Normal

"I have lost everything. I don't know what to do... I trusted the government too much... I won't touch stocks again, I have ruined everyone in my family." "I will sell all my shares tomorrow if there is a chance." ... "I am pretty sure that if the government does not come to rescue us, the situation will get much worse," ...  "I managed to sell them all at a loss today, and so I lost 320,000 yuan in two days. I don't have confidence on the market any more. I don't want to get into the market again."

What authorities have created is a facsimile of a market. It looks like a market on the surface, but only gamblers and fools risk capital in markets based on false information.

Years of growing resentment for the Japanese premier, who panders only to the rich, to the exporting corporations, to the Japanese military-industrial complex, and of course, to the US government and Goldman Sachs (whose idea Abenomics was from the very beginning) thousands of protestors rallied Friday night in downtown Tokyo in a campaign of "Say no to the Abe government," targeting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "runaway" policy. The protestors gathered at the Hibiya Park, Diet building and the prime minister's official residence, shouting "Abe step down."

Across the board commodities are weak again today as CCFD unwinds and mal-investment booms collapse across the world. Copper is under the most pressure today, plunging to its lowest since June 2009... but of course, Dr. Copper now knows nothing about economics because eyeballs trump reality in the new normal... even as Goldman warns lower prices are to come.

Why are commodity prices, including oil prices, lagging? Ultimately, it comes back to the question, “Why isn’t the world economy making very many of the end products that use these commodities?” If workers were getting rich enough to buy new homes and cars, demand for these products would be raising the prices of commodities used to build and operate cars, including the price of oil. If governments were rich enough to build an increasing number of roads and more public housing, there would be demand for the commodities used to build roads and public housing. It looks to me as though we are heading into a deflationary depression, because prices of commodities are falling below the cost of extraction. We need rapidly rising wages and debt if commodity prices are to rise back to 2011 levels or higher. This isn’t happening.

The timing could not be worse from a visual perspective but within minutes of the Eurogroup confirming that they approved the €7.16 billion bridge loan (which will merely be recycled back to The ECB to ensure the appearance of normalcy continues), local reports that the Greek finance ministry says banks will not re-open on Monday (as promised). Welcome to the new normal Europe... where the elites get their mony and the people... not so much.

Even as Greek banks, severely depleted of cash and eligible collateral they can post with the ECB, stand to fight another day (and potentially face more withdrawals as soon as the Greek banks reopen supposedly on Monday) thanks to another €900 million liquidity infusion, investors in Greek bank shares will be less lucky: "to ensure a new bailout, investors in the country’s banks faced the prospect of their holdings being "wiped out" under the terms of a €25 billion recapitalization plan."

The BLS continues to perpetuate the distraction officially known as the "unemployment rate" to hide the grim reality portrayed by the labor force participation rate, which shows the true decline of employment in America. The labor force participation rate of college graduates has never been lower. In the new normal, McDonald's has a lower acceptance rate than Ivy League schools. Just when you thought you had seen everything, a new story emerges: Alfred Postell has three degrees - accounting, economics, and law - but he is unemployed and homeless.

While slightly later than expected, a comprehensive deal on Iran’s nuclear weapons program has now been reached. As Reuters reports, the agreement will be greeted with alarm in several quarters, both in Washington and Tehran and internationally too, and could yet unravel. Internationally, the deal will accelerate unease in some Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, but it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who remains the fiercest public critic and has issued a warning that the accord will "inevitably lead to a nuclear war." The deal profoundly changes the balance of power in the region, but averts the conflict that was likely otherwise, but as ECStrat notes, Iran offers exceptional investment opportunities, but the near term impact will be to continue oil’s decline back to its lows, potentially taking energy stocks with it.

If The Fed's dream of wealth creation by equity-levitated mandate is to be fulfilled then it is simply inevitable that QE Moar is on its way...

When you know precisely who your New Normal target audience is, this is how you should always lay out your resuts...

The reality is that financial insecurity is rising for everyone...

This morning we experienced an unprecedented surge in traffic which brought our servers to a grinding halt. We are happy to announce that we are now back up. In the meantime... a pre-emptive attempt at plunge protection (by breaking NYSE just like on Monday) failed as NYSE re-opens and stocks slumped. Seeing this, the NYSE decided to break again and stocks ripped...

"When I hear the Germans say that they maintain a very moral stance about debt and strongly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: what a huge joke! Germany is the country that has never repaid its debts. It has no standing to lecture other nations. ... Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the First nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up... "

Global central banks are afraid. Before Greece tried to stand up to the Troika, they were merely worried. Now it’s clear that no matter what they tell themselves and the world about the necessity or even righteousness of their monetary policies, liquidity can still disappear in an instant. Or at least, that’s what they should be thinking. The problem is that central banks have no plan B in the event of a massive liquidity event. In this cauldron of instability and lack of leadership, cash is the one remaining financial possession that Main Street can translate into goods, services and security. That’s why private banks want more control over it.