Obama Administration

According to a loosely-organized apocalyptic Christian movement, May 21, 2011 will be the "end of days." On or about that same date, the price of oil in the United States will begin to climb to $4 a gallon, according to two savants of the oil industry. The former is highly unlikely but the latter is very probable. The escalation in the price of oil is predicted by the legendary oil man T. Boone Pickens, known for his financial acuity as well as his oil expertise, and John Hofmeister, who retired as president of Shell Oil Company, to sound the alarm about the rate of U.S. consumption of oil. In an interview with a trade publication, Hofmeister predicted that oil would rise to $4 a gallon this year and to $5 a gallon in the election year 2012. Separately, Pickens—who has been leaning on Congress to enact an energy policy that would switch large trucks and other commercial vehicles from imported oil to domestic natural gas—predicts that oil currently selling for just over $90 a barrel will go to $120 a barrel, with a concomitant price per gallon of $4 or more.

History is littered with the carcasses of men that in their exaggerated hubris attempted to stop the forces of nature and the markets only to fall flat on their faces. We tell the stories of these men in history books and myths from prehistory, but it never stops men of successive generations from trying it all over again. What the current political class the world over (at the behest of Wall Street financial terrorists and other big corporate interests) are doing falls into the same exact formula of prior historical failures. Some of the historical figures that attempted to beat back nature were great warriors or kings that just reached too far. Some of them were evil megalomaniacs whose desire was nothing short of absolute power in their hands over any of the unfortunate human beings that happened to be in the way. Ben Bernanke is neither of these. He is a just a little dweeb with an electronic printing press. Tragically, because of modern technology and the way the monetary system works today he has the ability to cause more damage than any other one person in the history of mankind and he is doing it. I shudder to contemplate the ultimate effects of the inflationary holocaust he has unleashed on the six billion mesmerized and helpless souls present on earth at this time. The signs are starting to show up again just like in early 2008. Food is becoming scare at a “reasonable” price in many parts of the globe and the symptoms of this are starting to bubble up to the surface. For example in recent days we have witnessed food riots in Algeria and Tunisia where at least 14 people are reported to have died in each country. These types of events were easily predictable and have been predicted by people like me and many other whose views will never be seen in the mainstream media. Fortunately, the alternative media is taking over (which is why the Obama administration is certain to increase its crackdown on the internet) and people are becoming very informed and linked all over the world. The divide and conquer strategy that has worked so well for millennia will be much harder to pull off this time around.

Over one year after Zero Hedge made POMO, and the Fed's open market operations group a household name, and Brian Sack a household curse, the NYT has finally decided to write an expose on the people who are charged with enforcing America's transition to central planning. And they just happen to be the grizzled 40 year old Mr. Sack, a 34 year old supervisor, two 29-year olds and a 26 year old ... who goes to NYU. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these are the people who are gifting billions in commissions to the Primary Dealers on a daily basis. You see, the FRBNY whiz-kids have a "computer algorithm that works out which [offers] to [lift]. The computer compares the offers from Wall Street against market prices and the Fed’s own calculation of what constitutes a “fair value” price." In other words, taxpayers are getting raped during each and every single POMO but that's ok - the Fed's algorithm, probably created by yet another ex-Goldmanite, determines that said raping is "fair" and with absolutely no transparency anywhere in the process, except of course the Fed telegraphing in advance what bonds will be monetized, there is no way to ever check... Because that kind of mutually assured destructive disclosure would mean the financial world would promptly implode in a case study of total protonic reversal. After all, only smart people (and we are talking Wall Street smart) can handle the responsible truth... of daily Primary Dealer Subsidies.

Yup. Gozer must be coming, cause the Stay Puft marshmallow man recently quit the Obama administration.

"The 112th Congress just began today, but House Republicans have already laid out plans that are aimed at rolling back or not funding as many of the Obama programs as they can. As the Democrats control the Senate and the President has the veto as well, the programs are likely to survive the House challenges. However, these divisive tactics assure that pleasantries will be hard to come by in the Congress during the next year. Even the Fed looks like it will be dragged into this mud. If some decisions are necessary – the financial crises in state and municipal financing comes to mind – who is going to make the compromises to get the job done? God help the US if it goes into a recession and some real economic decisions, benefiting the workers or supplying capital or spending money, need to be made. It will be almost impossible to get a decision. Trench warfare is what we see and a deep recession is what we fear. Even growth below 2.5% would be very problematic and a big disappointment for the markets. Although we see equities down significantly, the dollar should rally and commodities decline as the US economy slows."

The biggest spin master in the Obama administration, Press secretary Robert Gibbs, who obstinately had refused to answer Zero Hedge questions about the economic "recovery" in his daily tweetersessions , has joined pretty much everybody else in dumping the titanic that is the Obama administration. There is one thing we can be sure of, however, Tim Geithner, the only man who is officially on economic retainer (yet gets about 1% the use of Goldman's Jan Hatzius when it comes to monetary and fiscal policy) will be forever by Obama's side.

Instead of wasting time with Byron Wien's Top 10 "predictions for 2011" we have decided to skip this latest and greatest worthless charade in prognostication, and instead we believe that presenting the list of what the man whose retirement age has come and gone, thought would happen in the past year, is a great example of why all these so called institutional Wall Street experts are nothing but two bit hacks. As may be expected, somehow Wien got exactly zero out of ten correct! The man is the contrarian indicator on Wall Street. Also keep in mind: it takes a lot of skill to be this bad.

There are too many year-end top ten lists, so I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do 12. I've chosen those things from The Daily Capitalist's perspective that I thought impacted our lives here in the USA. These 12 events created a lot of buzz, things we were all talking about.

One of Zero Hedge's greater contributions to society in 2010 was finally putting the "cash on the sidelines" BS that was every emptyheaded pundit's go-to line when cornered and with nothing else to retort, in the trash bin of intellectual sophistry where it belonged. What surprised us is that it took as long as it did before someone dared to point out the flagrantly obvious. That said, today Bloomberg has released a terrific piece of investigative reporting, that may very well refute much of what we said, since it appears that contrary to legal permissions, companies have been very busy using the gray area in the tax code (the same that gets ordinary citizens in lots of trouble with the IRS but not mega corporations, never mega corporations) to repatriate tens, if not hundreds of billions in the past few years. Meet the "Killer B” and “the Deadly D" just two of the strategies that have allowed the following to happen: Merck & Co. bringing more than $9 billion from abroad without paying any U.S. tax to help finance its acquisition of Schering-Plough Corp.; Pfizer Inc. importing more than $30 billion from offshore in connection with its acquisition of Wyeth and taking steps to minimize the tax hit on its publicly reported profits; Eli Lilly & Co. carrying out many of the steps for a tax-free importation of foreign cash after its roughly $6.5 billion purchase of ImClone Systems Inc. in 2008. In other words, despite America's deplorable budget condition, where every dollar in organic revenue is matched by one dollar of debt issuance, companies are doing more than ever to avoid paying any taxes... anywhere.

First president Obama becomes Bush in all but name with respect to his predecessor's economic policies, and now he follows by espousing Bush's interpretation of "civil rights" as well. According to Pro Publica, the White House is preparing an Executive Order for indefinite detention. And while the premise behind a comparable draft has been circulating around for 18 months, the uptake was seen as problematic. The "humanitarian" premise behind the order is that it will "provide for the periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay... and allow for the possibility that detainees from countries like Yemen might be released if circumstances change." That's the theory. The "practice" is that the Order will, as the name implies, afford the administration the option of "indefinite detention as a long-term Obama administration policy and
makes clear that the White House alone will manage a review process for
those it chooses to hold without charge or trial." In other words all those, and we assume that the Order is not merely targeting those involved in September 11, and is wider in its scope, who are perceived by the administration as "high value detainees" will be denied due process, and will be held in captivity essentially indefinitely with no legal recourse, for as long as the "review process" so deems fit. As for the "theory" aspect, Politico summarizes just how much of a bold lie Obama's promise two years ago to close Guantanamo has become: "Nearly two years after Obama's pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo,
more inmates there are formally facing the prospect of lifelong
detention and fewer are facing charges than the day Obama was elected." In other words, Obama has one upped Dubya not only when it comes to Republican economic policy, but has in fact surpassed his abrogation of basic human rights. And seeing how in the aftermath of the Assange arrest (speaking of which, Julian better run following this announcement), it is only a matter of time before that whole 'Internet free speech' premise is perceived to be a form of treason, by the likes of Biden, Palin and Lieberman, potentially punishable if not by death, then certainly indefinite, lifelong detention.

Obama's latest quid-pro-quo with the republican party over a doubling down on fiscal stimulus in the form of mutual back scratching, funding by yet another trillion in debt, may have well be the start of his toxic spiral to the the bottom of political insignificance. According to Politico, "The tax deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is just the first part of a multistage drama that is likely to further divide and weaken Democrats." Next up on the path of what many see as the terminal alienation of the president from his liberal constituency, will occur during the next State of the Union Address, when the teleprompter in chief is expected to announce cuts in Social Security, according to Politico which quotes "well-placed sources." Why will the president pretend to espouse even an ounce of fiscal prudence? Because, around that time the discussion over the US debt ceiling will be in full heat: we expect total US debt to be about $14.1 trillion by the end of January: just a $200 billion buffer from the debt ceiling breach. Therefore, as Robert Kuttner of politico speculates: "The idea is to pre-empt an even more draconian set of budget cuts likely to be proposed by the incoming House Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), as a condition of extending the debt ceiling. This is expected to hit in April." And as Kuttner once again phrases it best: "How to put this politely? For a Democratic president, this approach is bad economics and worse politics."

Just out - BP is being sued by the US government. The suit is originating in a New Orleans court. Update: other firms sued include Transocean, Anadarko, Moex, and BP insurer Lloyd's. From Reuters: US seeks unspecified damages under clean water act, oil pollution act. US asks judge to hold companies liable without limits. Halliburton, Cameron International not included in Obama administration complaint

The man who probably more so than anyone else can be singled out as the person (behind the scenes) responsible for the destruction of America, first with his successful drubbing of every vestige of regulation, then his isolation of Brooksley Born and her all too prescient concerns on structured products and derivatives, and finally, with carrying over his debilitating management practices from Harvard over to the US in general for the past two years, just had his farewell speech, which in typical fashion can be summarized as follows: "I am smarter than you peasants, go to hell." For a more official summary of his valedictory, here is WaPo's Dana Milbank: "Summers's final performance was very much in character. He arrived 10
minutes late for the speech, his suit jacket open, his shirt pulling
tightly at the buttons, his suitpants stained on one of the knees. His
hair showed signs of bedhead, but it could have been mussed by Summers
during one of his morning meetings. He jiggled his legs while listening
to the introduction by EPI President Larry Mishel, who had some edgy
words for his guest. Although both men grew up in Philly, Mishel said,
"when he moved to Boston, he adopted the Boston Red Sox as his baseball
team. Me? I'm still a fan of the Fightin' Phils." Summers rushed to rebut this point - by insulting the home team. "If I
lived in Washington, I might still be a Phillies fan, too." There were
groans in the audience." And of course, it is not like it was Summers fault for doing anything to bring unemployment down even as total US debt under his watch increased by over $2 trillion: "On Monday morning, he went to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal
think tank, to give his "perspectives on the past two years." But in his
remarks, he spoke of not a single wrong decision he made." So now that the disastrous, and hopefully final, reign of this distant Tatooine descendant is over, here are the three finalist to fill his extra wide chair, two of whom promise to do absolutely nothing to break Wall Street's stranglehold over the White House, and thus increase the odds for a widespread populist mutiny with each passing day.

That’s STAGflation, as in stagnant economy, not the more benign INflation, as in the stuff the US pretends doesn’t exist.

A little-known program to aid the economy by distributing money to bloggers is gathering support in the White House and Congress. In the bruising fight to see which party can give away more borrowed money, Republicans and the Obama administration hammered out a compromise on the White House plan to pay "qualified" bloggers $100 per post, up to $100,000 each. The Obama administration had originally included income limits in its "Web Entrepreneur Program" (WEP) legislation, but Republicans forced the White House to drop the stipulations which would have limited payments to bloggers who earned more than $250,000 annually.