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Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss.

Submitted by Tim Knight from Slope of Hope on 10/09/2013 19:07 -0400

First off, before I forget, if you are on an iPad or iPhone and haven't downloaded SocialTrade Mobile yet, please do so. If you like charts, you'll think it's pretty cool, and it's free.

It was a pretty interesting day in the market, of course, since two Fed-related items were happening. First, as was initially reported last night, "Damn It" Janet Yellen was nominated by Obama to be the Chairhuman, once bearded-wonder Bernanke splits in January. It's a little odd that in the midst of all this rancor Obama decided to address this bit of not-at-all-urgent business, but maybe he wanted to remind the market that all that matters is QE-infinity.

So why do I have such a bug up my butt about the Fed? It's simple, really, and this all comes from a simple soul. I wish the natural market had been allowed to finish what it started in the autumn of 2008. That is, an honest-to-God cleansing. A prolongation of the bear market (which was unnaturally terminated on March 6, 2009), a prosecution and imprisonment of hundreds of executives and bankers, and sweeping reform. No monetary easing. No artificial injections. Just the country staring boldly at the mirror and figuring out what went wrong, who should be punished, and how to avoid a repetition.

Instead, of course, all the culprits got off scot-free (and they're all much, much richer today), and we're $17 trillion in debt as a way of papering things over. So the natural cleansing that was avoided is now going to be ten times worse when it finally does come. I have a feeling Yellen is going to want to slash her wrists once things start going haywire, and more realistically, she'll probably wind up just resigning in shame.

Since Yellen is going to be front-and-center for years to come, I thought I'd set a couple of ground rules for myself, if for nothing else, for my own well-being.

The first thing is to avoid making comments about her personal appearance. Any time I do, someone gets upset, and I suppose the woman isn't being given this post for her dazzling good looks (that's Larry Summers' department, and he - wisely - doesn't even want the job). Just as I refer to Bernanke as 'the bearded one", I thought I'd just use "the albino" as a shorthand for Yellen, but maybe that would upset people who think I'm being a bully. So I'm going to avoid chiming in on her ghastly, ghostly, gnomish corporeal properties.

The second area I intend to avoid is her religion. I couldn't even refer to Bernanke as "Shalom" (his middle name) without getting hate mail. And anyway, it looks like the mainstream media is doing plenty enough to let the world know (and keep in mind, these are supportive articles):

It still seems a little weird that such a tiny sect can dominate an important body like the Fed. I tried to find another religion with a similar population, and the closest I got was Spiritism (which is actually larger!). I daresay if the vast majority of Fed leadership hailed from the Spiritist Church, year after year, decade after decade, some people might scratch their heads. But, in that case, they probably wouldn't be lambasted for doing so.

All the same, I best avoid the subject altogether. The woman, simply stated, is going to continue to make my life difficult, and I shall revel in the glorious day when it's payback time. That day will come, and by God, I'm never going to stop crowing about it. For now, we wait.

More immediately, what keeps me up at night is the thought that some Big Announcement will be made about some Great Compromise, sending the Dow 400 points higher. Even our friends in Gainesville are putting forth the idea that a huge rally to yet another lifetime high may be around the corner. That may well be, although I probably wouldn't be able to stop throwing up.

I do take solance in the Dow, however, which is looking ungodly vulnerable to a collapse....we just have to break that long-standing trendline that dates back to March 2009 to do so.

Trendlines are breaking, however. We've seen in with the DIA, the IWM, and the Russell 2000 itself. The cracks are modest, but this damage is helpful, and I hope it presages worse things to come.

That's it. Good luck with your trades......

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Thu, 10/10/2013 - 05:46 | 4040662 moneybots

"Just the country staring boldly at the mirror and figuring out what went wrong, who should be punished, and how to avoid a repetition."

How to avoid a repetition was already accomplished in the 1930's. It was all deliberately dismantled so that a repetition could happen. The damage has been done, so it is way too late to bother with how to avoid a repetition. It will happen again. Maybe not for decades, but it will.

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 03:57 | 4040614 Disenchanted

Best boiled down explanation of the 'Fed' I've seen yet:

The question Americans should be asking is this:

"When the U.S. Government "borrows" a trillion dollars from the PRIVATELY OWNED Federal Reserve, where does the PRIVATELY
OWNED Federal Reserve get the trillion dollars to loan to the
U.S. Government?   Answer:   The FED "creates" a
"credit" in the amount of one trillion dollars in the account of the
US Treasury at the Federal Reserve. And the Treasury then writes
checks on that account. That is what is meant when people say the FED
creates money "out of thin air."

     So what is the problem? To get that
credit "created out of thin air," The U.S. Treasury department has to
tender to the PRIVATELY OWNED FED, as collateral, a trillion
dollars worth of U.S. Government bonds.   And then, (this is the
best part) the American taxpayer, and subsequent generations yet
born, get to pay hundreds of billions of dollars in interest on those
bonds in perpetuity to the PRIVATELY OWNED FED.

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 04:22 | 4040621 ebworthen

Slavery by any other name.

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 03:50 | 4040612 Disenchanted

In that second pic down of Yellen, anyone else see a resemblance to David Rockefeller?

Maybe it's just me...

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 02:55 | 4040583 Nick Jihad

Is it really a powerful position any more? When Ben ascended, he had policy options - lower rates, declare QE. What options will Janet have? To announce a schedule for considering the option of beginning to taper QE? Not quite master of the universe.

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 02:16 | 4040561 TorchFire

Well fuck me running....Benny Hill was a prettier woman! The only tragedy greater than her unfortunate appearance, will doubtless be the devastation rained down by her arrogant allegiance to her handler's gameplan. The subsequent dark singularity which emerges, will make Yellen the fairest in the land among the tyrannical elite.....and supply us hetero male humans with another good reason to choose wisely, so as to avoid a miserable destiny as her companion in Hell.

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 02:10 | 4040555 dexter_morgan

So whats the deal - you have to be butt-ugly to get a position or nomination in this administration?

Or Jewish AND butt ugly?

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 04:19 | 4040620 ebworthen

Three birds with one stone; Jewish vote, Female vote, and more of a dove than Ben.

Can't you just see Hillary standing next to her at a news conference post 2016?

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 01:57 | 4040539 sodbuster

One of my all time favorites............

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 01:50 | 4040534 theliberalliberal

yep.

let a black man and a women be in control when things go to $hit so they can say. "told you us white men are superior, let's never give someone from a minority group a chance again"

Thu, 10/10/2013 - 06:17 | 4040681 enloe creek

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZADcJdFY-0w

Wed, 10/09/2013 - 21:44 | 4040018 DavosSherman

Fucking ugly economically clueless psychopathic skank who will bolster moron Summers asinine view of women when she is in charge and the second greatest empire burns to the ground.

Wed, 10/09/2013 - 20:07 | 4039764 Spectre