Transparency

Debunking U.S. Claims about UN Weapons Inspections In Syria

Remember all of the propaganda ahead of the USA’s “democracy unleashing” invasion of Iraq in 2003. It went something like this: “We have evidence that Saddam Hussein has stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and even worse he has a histroy of using them, even against his own people!” Well unsurprisingly, Mr. Hussein had a little help from his friends. The United States of America. Let’s bear this in mind as our Noble Peace Prize winning President attempts to involve us in another unconstitutional war based on the fact that chemical weapons have been used. The message is clear: one man's propaganda bogeyman is another (CIA supported) man's mustard gas.

"Anyone who could claim that an attack of this staggering scale could be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass. What is before us today is real, and it is compelling."

German Federal Office for Security in Information Technology: "Loss of Control Over the Operating System and the Hardware"

It has been revealed, thanks to Edward Snowden, that Google and other US tech companies received millions of dollars from the NSA for their compliance with the PRISM mass surveillance system. So just how close is Google to the US securitocracy?

"Google is getting WH [White House] and State Dept support and air cover. In reality they are doing things the CIA cannot do"

That Google was taking NSA money in exchange for handing over people’s data comes as no surprise. When Google encountered the big bad world, Google itself got big and bad.

When you add High Frequency Trading exchange 263 and  High Frequency Trading exchange 264 (read all about DirectEdge over the years here), you get a whole lot of happy algos. It also means that MtGox is on its way to becoming the world's most stable exchange. We now expect the market to crash in celebration. We joke, of course, but if anyone trips over the BATS extension cord that sends AAPL under $500 and the NYSE Arca and NASDAQ shutting down again, we take no responsibility. Finally, in continuing the spirit of full transparency and openness of everything HFT-related, the terms of the transaction will not be disclosed.

The 10Y Treasury yield has jumped nearly 130bp from its low point in early May. Given the tight ranges and low volatility of yields during the most of QE era, this kind of move in just over 3 months seemed stunning to some investors. Consequently, the question that has come up often recently is: what has been driving Treasury yields? As UBS' Boris Rjavinski notes, several years ago a rate strategist would give you a straightforward and predictable answer: inflationary expectations, economic growth projections, and current and future monetary policy. But now, as Rjavinksi notes, central banks and politics in the driver seat. Volatility will remain elevated as we await key messages from the Fed in September, and U.S. political calendar will start to heat up as we approach the “drop-dead” dates to fund the government and extent the dent ceiling.

US court martial jails Bradley Manning for 35 years for leaking secret files to whistleblowing website Wikileaks http://t.co/fyUM53TlYA

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) August 21, 2013

More of the same downward drift this overnight trading session, with early Asian outflows coupled with a fresh record low in the Indian currency, driven in part by reports the Fukushima leak severity had been raised from Level 1 to Level 3, which however subsequently reversed following a weakening in the JPY and pushed the Nikkei from a steep early drop to a modest green close. China was unchanged even as Fan Jianping, chief economist at the State Information Center, said that a new reasonable range for China’s growth is 7%-9%, Xinhua said and ongoing liquidity additions by the PBOC. In Europe, newsflow was dominated early on by a Suddeutsche report that the third Greek bailout would be likely financed in part by EU budget as the reality that nothing is fixed in Europe slowly returns and fears that the latent and non-existent OMT will eventually have to be used. US futures have seen a modest risk off bias in part driven by concerns what today's key event, the FOMC minutes due out at 2 pm, would reveal (if anything new). Also on deck are Existing home sales at 10:00 am which expect a slight pick up to 5.15 million from a 5.08 million prior print.  Moments ago the latest weekly MBA Mortgage Applications number came out and, to nobody surprise, it posted the last weekly decline, dropping another 4.6% with conventional refis dropping for the 10th consecutive week.

That China faces a number of serious economic (and potentially social) problems is no surprise and as Guggenheim's Scott Minerd notes, trying to predict when persistent structural problems will lead to a shock for markets is extremely difficult (as we noted here). However, from a symbiotic collapse in the previously 'virtuous' bond-market-to-banking-system relationship, to the drying up of easy credit for all but the largest (and least over-capacity) firms, it appears that China's private sector leverage has crossed the tipping point that signalled crises in the US, UK, Japan and South Korea. Although the recent data (believe it or not) show signs of a stabilization in the Chinese economy, the elevated debt burden should continue to cast doubt over its growth sustainability and the "childish" and non-transparent nature of China's bond market offers little or no hope for a free market solution.

As JPM's Michael Feroli notes, the September FOMC Taper announcement (which certainly isn't assured, although if the Fed does not taper, it will end up monetizing 0.4%-0.5% of the total private TSY stock per week before year end) may just be a sideshow to a previously undiscussed main event: the Fed's first forecast of 2016 interest rates.

One solution to Leviathan on the loose!

The American narrative is quickly changing. There has long been criminality and degeneracy within our government (Democrat and Republican) and the corporate cartels surrounding it, but what we are witnessing today is the final step in the metamorphosis that is totalitarianism. The last stage accelerates when the average citizen is not just complicit in the deeds of devils, but when he becomes a devil himself. When Americans froth and stomp in excitement for the carnival of death, and treat the truth as poison, then the transformation will be complete.

With calls for a European renaissance and a general belief in stability through the German elections, it is perhaps worth a reminder of the structural problems that the supposedly bottoming union is facing. Nowhere is that single monetary policy-facing dilemma more evident than in the massive economic growth divergences across the EU nations and the current huge gap in unemployment rates from Greece to Austria and beyond. It seems the world is waiting for Merkel's re-election and fold on austerity (seemingly confirmed by the leaked BuBa report recently) but EU stress test transparency may remove the symbiotic safety net of bank bond buying sooner than many believe. With monetary policy somewhat euthanized across the EU, what's left for the fragmented transmission channels but more promises as pension funds and banks are stuffed to the gills with their own domestic bonds.

While Janet Yellen's chances of becoming the next head of the Fed are plunging, those of Larry Summers are soaring, and it may be all due to a simple Freudian slip by the president. For those who missed, below is the full transcript of Obama's Friday's Q&A on the topic of who will succeed Ben Bernanke. Perhaps the most notable component: the president's pre-slipped reference to Janet Yellen's gender. Because if "he" occupies so little of Obama's attention, then what really are "his" chances of becoming the most important woman in the history of the world? To wit: "I have a range of outstanding candidates. You've mentioned two of them — Mr. Summers and Mr. Yellen — Ms. Yellen. And they're both terrific people."