President Obama

Natalie Heimel and her fiancé, Edward Mallue Jr., a pair of captains in the Army, received two letters from President Obama in less than 24 hours as they prepared for their wedding ceremony at Kaneohe Klipper Golf Course in Hawaii. The first, a nicely worded regretful but congratulatory RSVP to their wedding invite... and the second, as Bloomberg reports, informing them that their wedding would have to be moved since President Obama wanted to play through.

Amid floods that have forced 100,000 people from their homes, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been forced to defend his recent golf outing with President Obama in Hawaii. As The Hill reports, Najib has come under fire at home, cutting short his trip on Friday to return to Malaysia amid headlines such as the Malaysia Chronicle's "Stop Playing Golf, Najib," which appeared above images of the flooding and of Najib on the golf course with Obama.

While North Korea had made it very clear that it had nothing to do with the Sony hack, it did demand a full UN-backed investigation, a proposal quickly shot down by none other than the US which always demands full "transparency" of all actions except when actions are its own, or when the resulting transparency would shine an unwanted light on the hypocrisy behind US national interests. Furthermore, in its first statements regarding The Interview, North Korea was actually quite cordial, and said nothing offensive regarding Obama. All that changed overnight when in its first official statement since its Internet went dark - something which if indeed North Korea did not hack Sony, as it claims, would be seen as a clear act of war if it were to happen to any other "developed" country - North Korea finally lost it and decided that the time to troll the US president has finally arrived, when, as the TV anchor says beginning 1:10 minutes in the clip blow, "Obama always goes reckless in speech and action like a monkey in a tropical jungle."

Will 2015 be the seventh (7th) consecutive year of the current bull market cycle? It is possible. But with 100% of all analysts and economists betting on that outcome, it is quite possible that something else will happen.

Coincidence? Maybe not. Just hours after President Obama de-escalated himself from war to vandalism on the alleged North korea hacking of Sony, DYN Research reports North Korea's internet connectivity with the rest of the world has been spotty all day. As North Korea Tech blogs reports, North Korea’s Internet connection does suffer from periodic outages. but “I haven’t seen such a steady beat of routing instability and outages in KP before,” said DYN's Doug Madory.

"if anything defines 2014 for me, it’s the advent of incessant claims for which no proof – apparently – needs to be provided. Everything related to Ukraine over the past year carries that trait; the economy too, and now Sony/North Korea. Never any proof, you just have to believe what your government says."

Having confirmed unequivocally, in a statement by the FBI and reiterated by President Obama, that "the North Korean government is responsible" for hacking Sony, it appears the YouTube-less 'evidence' the FBI provided is being questioned by the hacking-collective 'Anonymous' and former Lulzsec hacker Sabu. As The Daily Beast reports, the hackers blasted, the North Koreans "don’t have the technical capabilities," and added "we all know the hacks didn't come from North Korea, and "all of the evidence FBI cites would be trivial things to do if a hacker was trying to misdirect attention to DPRK." Meanwhile, on Saturday afternoon, Guardians of Peace, the hacking group that’s so far claimed responsibility for wreaking havoc on Sony, posted a message online mocking the FBI’s investigation - a series of gyrating animated bodies shrieking, "You are an idiot!"

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!"

While the current episode of Russian geopolitical and economic turmoil may seem significant, the following chart from Goldman Sachs shows the tempestuous time the nation has had over the past 150 years...

Having become convinced that the North Koreans are responsible for hacking the Japanese company Sony (with the apparent help of China or some Chinese folks... though not Russia or ISIS yet), President Obama will hold a press conference to - we are sure - show us the proof, explain how bad the movie was anyway, discuss the "costs" to be imposed, and point out that the terrorists did not win...

If there’s one thing we have learned about Barack Obama, it’s that he is a master of deception and absolutely loves to lie to the public. He seems to enjoy conning the plebs to such a degree, I think he actually receives blasts of dopamine every time he does it. The bigger the lie, the better the rush: "President Obama has issued a form of executive action known as the presidential memorandum more often than any other president in history — using it to take unilateral action even as he has signed fewer executive orders. Like executive orders, presidential memoranda don’t require action by Congress. They have the same force of law as executive orders and often have consequences just as far-reaching. And some of the most significant actions of the Obama presidency have come not by executive order but by presidential memoranda."

Obama KNEW Drone Strikes Were Counter-Productive, But Did It ANYWAY

As we explained previously, quietly hidden within the humanitarian-sounding "The Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014", under the premise of enabling further sanctions on Russia, is the provision of "lethal aid" to Ukraine. Today, President Obama signed it into law...

*OBAMA SIGNED RUSSIAN SANCTIONS BILL TODAY, but SAYS HE DOESN'T PLAN TO IMPOSE SANCTIONS UNDER NEW LAW

Because he knows full well that is not the important part. The "lethal-aid" aspect is a direct provocation to Russia.. and he knows exactly how Putin will respond.

• Swiss National Bank Starts Negative Interest Rate of 0.25% to Stave Off Inflows (BBG)
• Putin Strikes Uncompromising Stance Over Crisis Gripping Russia (BBG)
• Sony cancels North Korea movie in apparent win for Pyongyang hackers (Reuters)
• U.S. Said Set to Blame North Korea for Sony Cyber Attack (BBG)
• China’s Short-Term Borrowing Costs Surge as Demand for Money Grows (WSJ)
• Russia Currency Market Bends But Doesn’t Break (BBG)
• Jeb Bush Puts Pressure on Chris Christie for 2016 (WSJ)
• From joy to outrage, Florida's Cuban-Americans greet new U.S. policy (Reuters)
• Russians Quit London Luxury Homes as Only Super-Rich Stay (BBG)

Let’s see. Between July 2007 and January 2009, the median US residential housing price plunged from $230k to $165k or by 30%. That must have been some kind of super “tax cut”.

The global oil price collapse now unfolding is not putting a single dime into the pockets of American households - the CNBC talking heads to the contrary notwithstanding.  What is happening is the vast flood of mispriced debt and capital, which flowed into the energy sector owning to the Fed’s lunatic ZIRP and QE policies, is now rapidly deflating. That will reduce bubble spending and investment, not add to economic growth. It’s the housing bust all over again.