China’s stock market is on fire but its economy is cooling off.  Can the divergence last? And what’s next for China? Stay tuned to find out.

A week ago, we were surprised to learn that one of the most prominent critics of HFT, Joseph Stiglitz, had been barred from an SEC Panel that will "advise regulators on issues facing U.S. equity markets."  Today, a day after the SEC busted DirectEdge for failing to "accurately describe the order types being used on the exchanges" namely the infamous Hide not Slide, even after said order had repeatedly made the front page of the WSJ, the SEC finally announced the full list of members of the "New Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee" which will focus on the structure and operations of the U.S. equities markets. Alas most of the committee members are, sadly, placeholding figureheads. Because there is only one person on the list whose participation matters, and whose presence is not at all surprising...

Einstein advised “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”. Yet that’s mostly what I see happening today on many levels.

American comedian Chris Rock's flair for offensive but incisive comedy is well known. But his knowledge in other fields is lacking, and in some cases utterly misinformed. In a recent interview with Frank Rich of New York Magazine, the stand-up joke spitter has it all wrong when it comes to economics. No surprise there; the entertainment industry, despite raking in billions every year, is the brain trust of economic ignorance.

Remember when that absolute disaster of a Q3 GDP print hit Japan and the world of talking-heads proclaimed... "yeah, but.. capex revisions and stuff and things will make it all better" or some such nonsense? Well that's exactly what it was - utter nonsense. Going entirely the opposite direction to expectations of a revision up to -0.5% QoQ, Japanese GDP was revsied even lower to -1.9% QoQ (from -1.6% QoQ initial) confirming the quadrupled-dip-recession. Add to that the fact that Abenomics has ushered in record bankruptcies this year as small- and medium-sized businesses have been crushed by soaring import costs amid the collapsing JPY and you have a recipe for domestic disaster... and having rallied in anticipation of the exuberant revisions in Friday's US session, Japanese stocks are sliding quickly off the 18,000 level.

The Federal Reserve and its owners print and party, while the rest of us work and weep..................

Money is stored labor. Labor is part of human life. To devalue money is to debase life itself.

Money is stored labor.  Labor is part of human life.  To devalue money is to debase life itself.

In the final part of Hugh Hendry's 3-part (part 1 and part 2 here) interview with MoneyWeek's Merryn Somerset the Sanguine Scot, perhaps surprisingly to some given his previous negativity - though fitting with his world view of fiat currency destruction - believes "to bet against China or Chinese equities, or the Chinese currency is to bet against the omnipotence of central banks. One day that will be the right trade, just not ready or sure that that is the right trade today."

The only discernible difference we see from the Wall Street version of a casino it’s now so prominently become, and the one we find on some island or strip is this: At the least, when we have a great winning bet placed on Red or Black... The odds that someone from the house bank coming down to floor and yelling 'Fire' as the wheel is about to stop right on my stop is far, far less than a Central Banker coming out touting 'Well maybe we should or shouldn’t do...' the moment the true free hand of market is about to expose itself. At least at a true casino – they do have some level of integrity.

The Doomsday Machine has been unleashed in Tokyo...........

"Western economies have lost the ability to generate real new wealth of the type that their debt-based monetary systems require for ongoing operations (such as paying interest on old debt). I suspect the subject will force itself on the national consciousness in the year ahead as one company after another in the shale oil regions craps out on a shortage of available investment capital. That’s the inflection point where fake wealth is unmasked for what it really is: crippled capital formation. The disappointment from that looming event will thunder through our society." In the meantime, the distractions are many and powerful.

Contrary to the opinion of Obama the Great, The One True Indispensable Chief of the NWO, the three principal threats we currently face are not Ebola, but QE-bola; not the locally disruptive Islamic State but the globally detrimental Interventionist State; and definitely not the Kremlin’s alleged (though highly disputable) revanchism being played out on Europe’s ‘fringe’ but the Kafkaesque reality of stifling and undeniable regulationism at work throughout its length and breadth. We might end by reminding the would-be wearer of the One Ring, as He lurks warily, watching the opinion polls from His lair in the White House, that in being so active in propagating each one of these genuinely existential threats to our common well-being, he will not so much ‘help light the world’ as help extinguish what little light there still remains to us poor, downtrodden masses.

And no, it certainly can not be characterized as doing God's work............................

"In conclusion, this analysis finds little evidence of the permanent structural damage to the economy’s productive potential that many commentators see as the main culprit for the subpar recovery from the Great Recession..." and Surprise... "our model suggests that monetary policy played an important role in cushioning the blow from the financial crisis and in sustaining the recovery, which could have been significantly more disappointing without the aggressive actions undertaken by the Fed."