Wall Street Journal

Ten months after we asked whether "The SEC Is Asking These Hedge Funds Why They All Rushed Into Allergan Last Quarter?" we find that the US market regulator indeed reads this website on a regular basis. As the WSJ reports the SEC has answered our question, and yes: the  SEC is finally asking not only "these" hedge funds why they all rushed into Allergan, but into every other collusive activist take out target.

There will be a tipping point where the advantage to be gained by badly impacting the dollar and positioning the yuan as new reserve currency will be greater than the disadvantage suffered by a collapse in the value of the dollar. The tipping point is closer than many believe.

Memo to the Fed and its media tool Hilsenrath: we're not here to further enrich your already obscenely rich banker and corporate cronies by buying overpriced goods and services we don't need. Our job is not to spend every cent we earn on interest to banks and mostly-garbage corporate goods and services. Our job is to limit the amount we squander on interest and needless spending. Our job is to build the financial security of our families by saving capital and prudently investing it in assets we control (as opposed to letting Wall Street control our assets parked in equity and bond funds).

The fact that civil asset forfeiture continues to exist across the American landscape despite outrage and considerable media attention, is as good an example as any as to how far fallen and uncivilized our so-called “society” has become. It also proves the point demonstrated in a Princeton University study that the U.S. is not a democracy, and the desires of the people have no impact on how the country is governed.

For all who are still confused why there are no wage hikes despite the Fed's relentless efforts to micromanage the economy and stimulate wage growth via trickle-down record high stock market prices, the answer is that there is wage growth. Just not for 83% of the working population. Now, with pundits parroting the “robust” jobs market refrain on the nightly news, “everyday Americans” are beginning to ask “where’s my raise?”

FTW (For Those Who Say I Just Don't Get It... Get This!) There seems a shift showing itself in dramatic fashion unseen since the 2008 financial meltdown. Not only are some key players, or institutions beginning to notice some troubling signs; but rather; those very signs that everyone was told 'won’t or shouldn’t happen', not only are, they’re starting to rear their ugly heads in much greater frequency.

Dear Mr Hilsenrath and your Central Bank Team,

This is Joe from the disappearing Middle Class in America.  You asked me the other day to drop you a note if I felt that something was wrong.  What I’m having trouble with is “why” you’re asking me if anything is wrong!?

So let me explain.

Although a slew of ‘experts’ say the darndest things (e.g.Bloomberg ‘Intelligence’s Carl Riccadonna: “You had equity markets benefit from QE, but eventually QE also jump-started the broader recovery.. Ultimately everyone’s benefiting.”), we can’t get rid of this one other nagging question: who needs an expert to tell them that today’s markets are riddled with bubbles, given that they are the size of obese gigantosauruses about to pump out quadruplets?

Yesterday, in what he has since dubbed "a tongue-in-cheek and ironic letter" to "stingy" US consumers, Fed mouthpiece Jon Hilsenrath asked, why even though "the sun shined in April... you didn’t spend much money." It appears that in the 24 hours that followed, America's "stingy" middle class decided to write back to Hilsenrath. This is what it said...

Dear American Consumer,

This is The Wall Street Journal. We’re writing to ask if something is bothering you. The sun shined in April and you didn’t spend much money. You have been saving more too. You socked away 5.6% of your income in April after taxes, even more than in March. This saving is not like you. What’s up?...  The Federal Reserve is counting on you too. Fed officials want to start raising the cost of your borrowing because they worry they’ve been giving you a free ride for too long with zero interest rates. We listen to Fed officials all of the time here at The Wall Street Journal, and they just can’t figure you out.

The six-month clock is up. OPEC is convening this week in Vienna, as it does every six months, to discuss and decide on how the group will coordinate. So what should we expect from OPEC’s upcoming meeting on June 5? More of the same. Having made the decision to fight it out, there is almost no reason to back off now. US shale producers have hung on longer than many anticipated. OPEC has inflicted a lot of damage across the US shale patch, but it hasn’t yet struck the deathblow that it had wanted. OPEC’s strategy could still work, but will need more time. That points to a stay-the-course approach heading into the June meeting and beyond.

Just hours after being force to admit that they were hacked (by Russians apparently), an inspector general's report shows that The IRS has rather remarkably continued to pay refunds on hundreds of thousands of fraudulent tax returns in recent years, and sent dozens of checks to the same addresses, including in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. While some progress has been made, $2.3 billion of real US taxpayer's money was wrongfully refunded to fake US taxpayers... but with this new cyber-attack, we suspect that number will soar.

When we first brought the world's attention to the 330ET daily ramp in US equity markets, we were shrugged off as conspiracy wonks once again, but 2 years later - as trading activity has become increasingly focused in smaller and smaller windows during the trading day, so the mainstream media has finally been forced to admit that the US equity market has become nothing but Ebay - where everyone waits til the last second.

The ‘war’ word is being increasingly heard internationally as the U.S., EU, Russia and China adopt provocative postures over various disputes including Ukraine and in the Pacific. War with the U.S. is “inevitable” if the U.S. involves itself in the dispute which has arisen over the Spratley Islands in the South China Sea according to China's state controlled newspaper the Global Times.

Rare is the person who is a realist. We collectively live in a world of pretend and extend. Every one of us wants our present civilization to continue, though for countless millions the world has already turned upside down as unemployment has soared and war and terrorism proliferate. The very structure of life in our world is threatened because madmen have undermined the financial system through the creation of debt instead of wealth. We have collectively borrowed against our children’s future until their very future is in doubt.