Testimony

The American justice system is broken. Completely and totally broken... "The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000."

Should Gary Gensler truly be Clinton's chief financial officer, and should Hillary become America's next president, then ladies and gentlemen, in the fine tradition started by Hank Paulson who nearly brought the entire wastern world to ruin, the next US Treasury Secretary will be the following fine former Goldman Sachs employee and "champion for everyday Americans."

Bloggers, conspiracy theorists and people who challenge establishment narratives on the Internet were all likened to ISIS terrorists during a chilling Congressional hearing which took place yesterday. As linguist Noam Chomsky said, “The idea that there should be a network reaching people, which does not repeat the US propaganda system, is intolerable” to the US establishment.

Three former Freddie Mac executives who understated the amount of subprime exposure on the GSE's book by a factor of 28 came to terms with the SEC today on a settlement which imposes fees no one has to pay and "limitations on future behavior" that "will not limit [anyone] in any practical way."

We know it will be next to impossible to wait until October when this book of toner repair and printer cartridge replacement wisdom comes out, here is a sampling of timeless soundbites by the former Fed Chairman and current blogger, that should be enough to hold readers over.

In a world seemingly bereft of consequences for all but the lower classes, the removal of an "illegally rigged gas supply" before a ConEd visit, appears to have been the cause of the deadly explosion in New York's East Village last week. A plumber who worked at the building has allegedly, according to NY Post, admitted to illegally tapping into a gas line there - saying that the landlord’s son ordered him to do it (who, perhaps karmically, was hurt in the blast).

Did Reuters fabricate a key part of its story about the downing of flight MH-17 in which the media outlet revealed "new evidence on downing of Malaysian plane over Ukraine." According to the main witness Reuters supposedly interviewed, the answer is yes: “When we talked about the Boeing on camera, I explained everything as I saw it. The things that I allegedly said off-camera, all this nonsense, was made up by the journalist himself. It's all lies, because off-camera, we never discussed the Boeing, and just spoke about life, about the current situation, so to speak.”

"When I was chairman, more than one legislator accused me and my colleagues on the Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee of “throwing seniors under the bus” (to use the words of one senator) by keeping interest rates low. The legislators were concerned about retirees living off their savings and able to obtain only very low rates of return on those savings. I was concerned about those seniors as well."

- Ben Bernanke first blog post

If, as one claims, one is innocent of i) using a personal email account to send out confidential information and/or to take advantage of one's political position to abuse opponents and ii) deleting said confidential emails against government regulations, what would one do when faced with a government subpoena demand? If one is the IRS' Lois Lerner, one would claim, against subsequently revealed facts, that a hardware error led to a permanent loss of all demanded emails, even though by email protocol definition, said emails are always stored on at least one off-site server. Or, if one is Hillary Clinton, one would just format the entire server.

"The Fed is a reluctant Dollar bull," explains Goldman Sachs, noting that Yellen inadvertently revealed the FOMC's expectation that coming policy changes will boost the greenback. Broadly speaking the rest of the sell-side has herded along into the strong US Dollar camp with only Unicredit (rate shift may slow recent very strong USD momentum) and Morgan Stanley (suggesting USD corrective activity) backing away from full dollar bull though most suggest adding to dollar longs on any dip as the most crowded trade in the world gets crowded-er. Then Stan Fischer added... "DOLLAR WON'T KEEP RISING FOREVER."

A look ahead at next week.

This week's main event will be the FOMC announcement on Wednesday at 2:00 pm and the subsequent press conference, the conclusion of the March 2-day Fed meeting, in which it is widely expected that Yellen will announce the end of the Fed's "Patience" with an economy in which resurgent waiters and bartenders continue to skew the job market even if it means consistently declining wages for 80% of the US labor force. Here is a summary of what else to expect this week.

Fed to lose patience.  Many expected Norway and Switzerland to cut rates.  Could they be disappointed? 

Must Have Been Wearing Tinfoil Hats ... And Living In Their Mom's Basement