Reality

And we thought we were harsh on the EBA's second farce of so-called 'stress tests'. Enter SocGen's Hank Calenti and team: "The test does not reflect current reality, in our view; even if GIIPS sovereign are further stressed within this test, a €22bn shortfall and a relatively healthy average 6.2% core Tier 1 appear. The European banking sector is captive to politics at the moment. A political error can trigger a freeze in money markets, and a liquidity crisis could quickly turn into a solvency crisis. Only improved governance would avoid such a nasty scenario." We wonder what Calenti would say about the US in this case...

Just when it seemed things were shifting back to the optimists’ camp, Friday’s news about the state of the world threw another spanner in the works. In addition to a very disappointing US nonfarm payrolls report, Italy came into the spotlight in the European crisis. Subsequently, the earliest of the June data releases from China look somewhat of a mixed bunch too. China’s CPI came in at the high end of expectations and there was a notable rise in the trade surplus due to soft imports....I had been pretty strongly in the camp that the US recovery had only temporarily stalled during the past couple of months, and that higher food and energy prices, along with the disruption of the Japanese supply chain, were responsible for the softer data. But if Japan is witnessing a bounce back, it should be seen elsewhere too. I can’t see DATA.

On the two year anniversary of the original New Wall Street Reality list, it is time for a long overdue update.

Our global society needs a reset. The insolvency of Greece or the growing US fiscal imbalance are only symptoms of a much deeper problem. It is easy for market participants to sit behind their red and green charts and point blame at "the Bernank." It is easy for homeowners to forego their mortgage payment to fund the expenses they are "entitled" to. It is easy for the Mortgage Bankers Association to "strategically default," after all it's a "business decision."... The solution to the world's problems is simple. People know the answer. The convict who lives on the lam for twenty years is relieved at their capture for they are tired of the hunt. People have debt they know they are slaves to. People have jobs they know brings them misery. People are in relationships they know brings them unhappiness. Yet they do nothing until they are forced to act. Until they are confronted they will continue to run waiting for the day of capture when they must face reality and begin the process of healing.

Unwelcome crises are part of life. What's unnatural isn't crisis, it's pretending that life should be nothing but a smooth, uninterrupted rise in consumption. Yes, I'm talking about Greece and the EU. The situation is somewhat analogous to finding out your total cholesterol is over 300. Gee, I thought I was eating well, and was in pretty good shape... alas, that was all wishful thinking; normal is 180. At 300, you're at serious risk of long-term health problems
So the European Central Bank injects 120 billion euros of "medicine" to cure you, and a year later your cholesterol readings are 395. Hmm. The "medicine" didn't work; instead, it actively prolonged and deepened the crisis. Humans need time to accept new realities, and to make necessary adjustments. People lose their wealth, they adjust. They lose their successful careers, they adjust. They face health crises, they adjust. This kind of wrenching adjustment is not abnormal, it is utterly normal.

...And much more

A little over a year ago, when the Greek CDS scapegoating campaign was in full swing (you see, the reason why the first $1 trillion Greek bailout failed is because of those evil, evil CDS traders: it had nothing to do with Greece being, well, bankrupt), one of the most hilarious discoveries was that among the chief speculative villains was none other than the state-owned Hellenic Postbank. That's right: the government of Greece was profiting by betting on its own demise even as it was making a stink about others doing the same. Well, justice for the insolvent is short, swift and quite poetic. According to Reuters, the first entity to fall to Greece's privatization ambitions will be the very same bank. (Granted, this is not really news: Greek Reporter noted this some time ago, see below). What will be funny is when Greece puts up its insolvent banks on the block and discovers that nobody wants to come within 10 feet of them, unless, of course, it is JP Morgan buying it up with the assistance of Maiden Lane IV, also known as My Big Fat Greek Bailout Taxpayer Funded Conduit, for 2 drachmas per share.

A former CDO manager and investor says the "case" against Goldman is nowhere near as strong as Taibbi claims. Nowhere close...

As the market enjoys (and we use the term loosely) this brief lapse back into deflation, which given the economic contraction, so long anticipated at least by Zero Hedge, has finally materialized and put the ball straight back into Bernanke's monetary policy court, here is a brief reminder of reality: i) total debt subject to the ceiling increased by $2 billion overnight to $14,282,174, less than $12 billion away from a breach, and ii) more importantly, total securities held by the Fed increased by $27.3 billion in the past week to $2.5 trillion, an all time record. And yes, i) and ii) go hand in hand. Especially once the $2 trillion debt ceiling hike is announced.

We predicted Goldman would be first to cut its Q1 GDP back in January. We were right.  We predicted Goldman would be the first to cut its Q2 GDP in late March (around the time we said Goldman will soon start pushing for QE3). So far, said prediction is being met with staunch denial. That said, we give Jan Hatzius at most 2-3 more weeks before the firm's 4% Q2 GDP is cut to 2.5% or lower. Denial: "In conclusion, the report is a disappointment, and suggests some
downside risk to our Q2 GDP forecast of 4%, but probably not as big a
disappointment as the numbers suggest on the surface." Anger is next...We are looking forward to the bargaining part.

When the current stock market bubble pops, the last shreds of the Fed's legitimacy will be blown away. Strip away all the distractions, and the Fed's entire campaign to "restore confidence" and "animal spirits" so that the "recovery" magically becomes "self-sustaining" is based on one thing, and only one thing: the current stock market rally. The equities rally is the only metric of "success" the Fed can point to that isn't risible. Once the rally implodes, so too does whatever remains of the legitimacy of the Fed and the Federal agencies which have aided and abetted the Fed's unprecedented propaganda campaign to replace economic reality with happy-happy "managed perceptions." The "news" is always good, because who knows what the people might do if the flimsy official facades sway in the breeze of truth and then collapse in a heap? They might demand new leadership and systemic changes that would disrupt the cozy Status Quo partnership of cartel-crony Capitalism, Wall Street and the Central State fiefdoms.

We are right on track for the next American revolution but it's a slow train so grab those fish while you can, my friends - you may need them to barter with down the road!

The borg collective is out in full force, with more gibberish on 'transitory inflation' coming from Atlanta Fed's Lockhart: "As I've said before, my expectation is that commodity price increases that are now translating into accelerating headline inflation will be transitory. In support of this claim, I'll make three points. First, these increases have been driven by global pressures in markets for food commodities, energy, and other commodities. These pressures are largely the result of supply-and-demand factors, some of which are one-off in nature. Second, inflation indices are made up of a wide spectrum of goods and services that don't uniformly have these commodities as inputs. Roughly two-thirds of consumer spending is on services, which are not materials-intensive. And, third, to the extent that some goods and services have these commodity inputs, the pass-through to ultimate consumer prices is limited." Fair enough: on the other hand one can present the following point indicating inflation is only transitionary to higher prices: "reality."

Contrarian, yet common sense, perspectives on Apple that so few seem able to see.

Wouldn't it be awesome if spin could actually solve problems? Then, you could just say the word 'recovery' every time you gave a speech, ignore any negative data, assume the markets are up because of general economic health and not a mass infusion of cheap money, and it would be so.