Unemployment

"There no obvious solution. This is why we think that a second election around March 2016 is as likely as any of the alternatives. [In fact,] an early election in the short or medium term seems the most likely outcome."

Taken together with the rather steep drop in US industrial production, the risks of a full-blown and perhaps severe recession have undoubtedly grown. Unlike what the FOMC is trying to project via the federal funds rate, a rate that isn’t being fully complemented, either, at this point, visible economic risk is not just rising it is exploding.

The problem with all of this is that it’s now becoming apparent to everyone. The amount of mal-investment along with just how intertwined all the subsequent carry trades and more is becoming frightfully obvious and can no longer be hidden from view. The real problem now facing the Fed. which I believe they themselves did not fully comprehend was the extent in which all of this was: so blatantly obvious. Again: to anyone who truly wanted to look. Without the Fed’s interventionism – there is (and was) no market. And now with the raising of rates; no one will be able to miss or avoid that fact any longer. No matter how hard they try.

“To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious, but the stupid have an answer for everything.” ~Edward Abbey

Brazil has a new finance minister and the market is not happy. As BofAML puts it, "the focus turns now to the direction of the fiscal policy under the new FinMin, which should affect the recovery in confidence and thus growth. With mounting downside risks to growth that heavily weigh on the government’s revenues and the ongoing challenges in passing fiscal measures in Congress, tangible results over statements will now be needed to improve expectations over primary fiscal results ahead."

"The new rounds of rate cutting and Quantitative Easing that the Fed will have to unleash will echo the military "surge" in Iraq in 2007. Those fresh troops were needed to roll back the chaos that the Administration had ignored for so long. But just as that surge only bought us a few years of relative calm, look for the gains brought about by our next monetary surge to be even more transitory. That is a development for which virtually no one on Wall Street is preparing."

"In a worst case scenario, the real economy effects of the oil sector and the earnings slowdown hit the frothy commercial real estate and REIT sector, which in turn begin the widening of the contagion begun by energy high yield. Combine this with the sudden stop to lower quality energy credits I believe is inevitable and you likely have stall speed – or even recession. And that’s where subprime auto ABS, student loan securitization and US munis come into the picture for the US domestic economy. Those markets get hit in recession."

Yellen and her cohort have no clue, however, that all of their massive money printing never really left the canyons of Wall Street, but instead inflated the mother of all financial bubbles. So they are fixing to blow-up the joint for the third time this century. That was plain as day when our Keynesian school marm insisted that the Third Avenue credit fund failure this past week was a one-off event - a lone rotten apple in the barrel. Now that is the ultimate in cluelessness.

Brazil's Supreme Court green lighted House Speaker Eduardo Cunha's Rousseff impeachment bid on Wednesday, even as the high court is also considering a request for his removal. Meanwhile, the economy continues to deteriorate as we just got the highest unemployment reading for the month of November in seven years."

While campaigning ahead of elections, Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy was rocked with a right cross when a "selfie-seeking teen" approached and went full Balboa on the side of his face, breaking his glasses, before Rajoy's security detail wrestled the assailant to the floor. As El-Pais reports, the 17-year-old told police "I'm very happy I did it," while Rajoy later tweeted that he "was fine." It appears it is time for a European ban on teenagers (who are suffering massive unemployment) and fists.

Heading into the Fed's first "dovish" rate hike in nearly a decade, the consensus was two-fold: as a result of relentless telegraphing of the Fed's intentions, the hike is priced in, and it will be a "dovish" hike, with the Fed lowering its forecast for the number of hikes over the next year. Consensus was once again wrong on both accounts: first the rate hike was far more hawkish than most had expected (see previous post), and - judging by the surge in Asian, European stocks and US equity futures - the "market" simply is enamored with such hawkish hikes which will soon soak up trillions in liquidity from the financial system.

Sigh ...

In the end, the Fed did not surprise, and raised interest rates for the first time in almost a decade in a widely telegraphed move while signaling that the pace of subsequent increases will be “gradual” and in line with previous projections. The Federal Open Market Committee unanimously voted to set the new target range for the federal funds rate at 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent, up from zero to 0.25 percent.

"The irony in this year’s batch of outrageous predictions is that some of them are “outrageous” merely because they run counter to overwhelming market consensus. In fact, many would not look particularly outrageous at all in more “normal” times – if there even is such a thing!"