Washington D.C.

Is this really the reason why markets are rallying today? (or is it front-running the potential 'cone of silence' from a long-weekend in DC) We suspect neither, but Mike Krieger, having written extensively on the two-party political sham, notes the issue is that both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are at their core the same on the big issues most affect these United States at this time.  This past election should have been a wakeup call to the Republican establishment, but based on John Boehner’s recent actions, they have learned absolutely nothing.  The Republican Party is imploding from within since its leaders don’t actually stand for anything.  Here is how Mr. Boehner treats those within his party that do stand for something.

"When we finish with Assad, we will fight the U.S.!" one Nusra fighter shouted in the northeastern Syrian city of Ras al Ayn when he was told an American journalist present.

Did you catch that?  We are literally allied with some of the same fighters that we battled in Iraq!  The bigger point is we are supposed to be willing to give up our freedoms and civil liberties to fight an enemy that we are supporting in Syria?  Our “leaders” have no shame.

We find ourselves more amazed than ever at the ability of those in power to lie, misinform and obfuscate the truth, while millions of Americans willfully choose to be ignorant of the truth and yearn to be misled. It’s a match made in heaven. Acknowledging the truth of our society’s descent from a country of hard working, self-reliant, charitable, civic minded citizens into the abyss of entitled, dependent, greedy, materialistic consumers is unacceptable to the slave owners and the slaves. We can’t handle the truth because that would require critical thought, hard choices, sacrifice, and dealing with the reality of an unsustainable economic and societal model. It’s much easier to believe the big lies that allow us to sleep at night. The concept of lying to the masses and using propaganda techniques to manipulate and form public opinion really took hold in the 1920s and have been perfected by the powerful ruling elite that control the reins of finance, government and mass media. How many Americans are awake enough to handle the truth? Abraham Lincoln once said that he believed in the people and that if you told them the truth and gave them the cold hard facts they would meet any crisis. That may have been true in 1860, but not today.

Harry Reid's rebuttal full transcript - ES 1410 as he speaks...

*REID SAYS `WE'RE NOT GOING TO KICK THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD'
*REID SAYS HE HAD `NICE MEETING' WITH GEITHNER
*REID SAYS STILL WAITING FOR `SERIOUS OFFER' FROM REPUBLICANS

Absolutely remarkable... and in Texas to boot!  As we have said for years, pretty soon anyone that disagrees with Washington D.C., Federal Reserve policies and rule by TBTF Wall Street criminal banks will be labeled a" terrorist."  That is where all this is headed. 1984 has arrived folks.

A cyber attack does not have to be limited to a single country and its networks.  It could be used to strike multiple countries and fuel a global firestorm of systems failures.  Globalists need a macro-crisis, a world-wide catastrophe, in order to present their “global solution” to the desperate masses. This solution will invariably include more dominance for them, and less freedom for us.  A global crisis can also be used to manipulate various cultures to forget concerns of sovereignty and think in terms of one-world action.  Surely, a worldwide breakdown can only be solved if we “all work together and all think alike”, right...? Without a doubt, a cyber attack serves the interests of elitist entities and banking monstrosities like nothing else in existence.  Set off a nuke, start WWIII, turn the U.S. dollar into stagflationary dust; a cyber attack tops them all, because a cyber attack can lead to them all while maintaining deniability for the establishment.  The fact that whispers of cyber threats have turned into bullhorn blasted propaganda should concern us all.  Are we being conditioned for a cyber event in the near future?  That remains to be seen.  However, none of us should be surprised if one does occur, especially in light of the many gains involved for globalists, and all of us should be ready to dismantle and expose any lies surrounding the event before the American public is whipped into a 9/11 style frenzy yet again

Hurricane Sandy will negatively impact traffic and retail sales in the retail calendar’s November Week 1. Week 1 is historically ~22.4% of Nov’s sales and Citi's Retail analysts estimate traffic could be down ~40% for the week in negatively impacted areas. They calculate that Sandy could negatively impact November monthly comps by 2-3% based on 22% (Wk 1 mix of month) * -40% (Citi traffic/comp headwind assumption) * 24% mix (average mix of stores impacted). A negative impact of 2-3% in November would yield a negative quarterly impact of ~1-2%.

New York

• Storm tide and surge:

Long Island Sound -- 6-7 feet on top of tide with a 50% chance of exceeding 7 feet. Storm tide forecast for Port Jefferson is 13-14 feet.
Manhattan -- 4-5 feet on top of tide with a 40% chance of exceeding 7 feet.
Staten Island -- 4-5 feet on top of tide with a 60% chance of exceeding 7 feet.

• Wind: Long duration, damaging winds expected. 35 to 45 mph with gusts up to 80 mph. The strongest winds will occur Monday afternoon and night.
• Rain: Widespread totals from 2 to 4 inches, with isolated amounts up to 6 inches, especially in the higher elevations. 1 to 2 inches PER HOUR are expected where the heaviest rain bands set up.
• Inland Flooding: Widespread urban flooding is expected Monday and into Tuesday. Fast-responding streams are expected to flood, as well. The flooding will be exacerbated by blockages in storm drains as well as rising storm tide.
• Power outages: Power outages are possible, even likely, as wind takes down branches and trees.

Government programs created in the 1960s created a culture of dependency, government control, relentlessly higher debt, materialism, and willful ignorance. The incompetence, arrogance, ineptitude and insanity of government officials at the Federal, State, and Local level are stunning to behold. We need to ask ourselves whether we the people are getting better government service and efficiency today; with government spending at 35% to 40% of GDP, than we did in the 1950’s and early 1960’s when government spending was 20% to 25% of GDP. We doubt that most people are getting 60% more value from our benevolent government today than they did in the 1950’s. By encouraging dependency and reliance upon the all-powerful government, the motivation to educate yourself, get married before having children, work hard, and pull yourself out of poverty is diminished. Can a small minority of critical thinking citizens lead a revolution that topples the existing social order and restores the Republic to its founding principles of liberty, self-responsibility, civic duty, and mutual obligation to future generations?

Health Tip for Paper Money Users

Some time ago, before China's hard landing was virtually assured (see Iron Ore prices), there was a period when its data was a veritable cornucopia of Schrodingerian ambivalence, with various economic indicators representing either growth or contraction at the same time. It appears that the modified wave-particle duality has just shifted to the US, whose housing segment is the latest patient of wave function collapse as the July Case Shiller index printed both a beat and a miss at the same time. The Top 20 composite index beat in the NSA Year over Year price change, which was +1.2%, on expectations of +1.05%, and up from a revised 0.59. However, it missed in the sequential Top 20 Composite price change, which printed at 0.44%, below expectations and half off the June price increase of 0.91%. In fact, as the chart below shows, the July increase was now the slowest sequential increase in the past 5 months, and at this rate, the August, or September data at the latest, will show a sequential decline in prices, as the euphoria from the Rent-to-REO fades, and as the massively pent up foreclosure inventory is finally forced to come to market and drag prices far below where the currently artificially propped up market "clears" (read Foreclosure Stuffing).

If you wanted to sum up the just-concluded Casey Research/Sprott Inc. Summit titled Navigating the Politicized Economy, you could say "The situation is hopeless but not serious." More than 20 speakers – many of them world-renowned financial experts and best-selling authors – gathered in Carlsbad, CA, from September 7 to 9 to ascertain exactly how hopeless, and what investors can do to protect themselves.

First Responders – Like Veterans – Are Hypocritically Used and Abused to Promote the War Agenda of the Super Elite

Beginning in January of 2010, and continuing into July of this year, we explained how one of the most insidious attempts at capital controls undertaken by the authorities, namely to replace the $1.00 NAV method that money markets have employed since inception, forcing money markets to imposed capital buffers, and most importantly, to enact mandatory gating if and when the time comes for investors to withdraw their money when they so desired, was taking shape. In other words, to institute capital controls when it comes to money market funds. We already explained that the idea to kill money markets is not new, and originated at the Group of 30 many years ago (its members explain its interests vividly enough) , as an attempt to have investors voluntarily shift their capital allocation out of a liquid but very much inert from the fractional reserve banking system $2.7 trillion market into other liquid, but fractional banking levered markets such as stocks and bonds. In essence, this would generate an up to $2.7 trillion incremental demand as those invested in money markets would find it more "appealing" to keep their cash equivalents in the "security" of 150x P/E stocks like Amazon, or in the worst case, Treasury Bills. After all faced with the option of being "gated" or investing their money in other "non capital controlled" markets, one would be an idiot to pick the former. This is precisely what Mary Schapiro hoped would be the case when she put the vote to the SEC, only to find that she couldn't even get a majority to support her own proposal (which as a reminder was supported by two Fed presidents: uber doves Eric Rosengren of Boston and William Dudley of New York, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner) in her own co-opted house. It is also the reason one person decided to vote against Schapiro's proposal - Luis Aguilar. His explanation why he voted against money market fund capital controls is attached.

When first the speculation and subsequently the confirmation that in addition to suffering massive losses on its IG-9 position, JPM had engaged in massive, reckless and criminal CDS mismarking with the intent to defraud and to boost the appearance of profit for selfish reasons, we promptly concluded that "Jamie Dimon's "tempest in a teapot" just became a fully-formed, perfect storm which suddenly threatens his very position, and could potentially lead to billions more in losses for his firm." So far, the regulators which are currently on page two of "CDS for Absolutely Corrupt Criminal Morons", are only slowly catching up. And while the stench will eventually lead to Jamie, as what happened in the over the counter, unregulated CDS market has most certainly happened at the tens of trillions in other OTC products traded by JPM, most of which are IR swaps, tying it all back nicely to the Libor scandal of which JPM is also a part, the first person who will certainly experience some major pain as the JPM scapegoating plays out, is none other than the London Whale himself Bruno Iksil, who was loved by all at JPM when he was making money, and is now being hung out to dry, once the bank is in the prosecution's cross hairs.