Time Magazine

"I happen to think that 2014 is a VERY different year than 2013 from a variety of viewpoints.  First, there appears to be a dispersion of opinion about markets, valuations, policy frameworks and more.  This is a healthy departure from YEARS of artificiality.  Artificiality in valuations, artificiality in market and policy mechanics and essentially artificiality in EVERY financial, and real, relationship on the planet based on central bank(s) balance sheet expansion and other measures intended to be a stop-gap resolution to  tightening financial conditions, adverse expectations of economic activity, and the great rollover" - Russ Certo, Brean Capital

Risks surrounding the looming release of the latest jobs report by the BLS later on in the session failed to weigh on sentiment and heading into the North American open, stocks in Europe are seen higher across the board. The SMI index in Switzerland outperformed its peers since the get-go, with Swatch Group trading up over 3% after the company said that it expects good results for 2013 at operating profit and net income level. At the same time, in spite of stocks trading in the green, Bunds remained better bid, with peripheral bond yield spreads wider as market participants booked profits following the aggressive tightening observed earlier in the week amid solid Spanish bond auctions, as well as syndications by Ireland and Portugal. Fake Chinese trade data failed to boost Chinese stocks, which dropped anoter 0.7% and is just 13 points above 2000 as Shanghai remains one of the world's worst performing markets since the financial crisis. The yoyoing Nikkei was largely unchanged. All eyes today will be fixed on the headline streamer at 8:30 when the latest nonfarm payrolls report is released.

Despite the best efforts of the search engines, the majority of the Internet is unsearchable with estimates of this “Unlit” Web as high as 90%. As ConvergEx's Nick Colas notes, some of this content (no one knows how much) is dark for a reason - hosting every form of criminal behavior known to man - but the rest from the increasing interest in anonymous Internet use in light of widely publicized government surveillance. Among the least well understood emerging themes in technology, Colas points out, is the “Dark Web”, adding that Oscar Wilde famously opined that “All human beings have three lives: public, private and secret.”  The existing structure of the Internet handles the first two very well.  The Dark Web is, apparently, for the third. The first innovation to move from “Dark” to “Lit” Web is bitcoin, but it certainly won’t be the last.

Desperate people do desperate things, and it appears that Americans are rapidly becoming a lot more desperate.  An epidemic of thievery is sweeping across America, and authorities are not quite sure what to make of it. So why is all of this happening?  Well, as we have written about previously, crime is on the rise in the United States, and poverty is absolutely exploding.  In fact, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, 49.2 percent of all Americans are receiving benefits from at least one government program each month.  Over the past five years, we have seen an unprecedented rise in the number of people that cannot take care of themselves without help from the government.  Millions upon millions of Americans that have been forced into poverty are becoming increasingly angry, frustrated and desperate.  And what we are watching right now is only just the beginning - all of this is going to get a whole lot worse.

Stunning Facts that Your History, Economics and Business Teachers Never Learned ...

Why are young people in America so frustrated these days? 

You are about to find out...

The system is failing, and young people are going to become even angrier and even more frustrated.

Financial volatility since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s announcement in May that the Fed would “taper” its monthly purchases of long-term assets has raised a global cry: “Please, Mr. Bernanke, consider conditions in our (non-US) economies when you determine when to end your quantitative-easing policy.” That is not going to happen. The Fed will decide on monetary policy for the United States based primarily on US conditions. Economic policymakers elsewhere should understand this and get ready.  All of this is just hard reality. The best way to prepare is to limit the use of credit in boom times, prevent individuals and companies from borrowing too much, and set high capital requirements for all banks and other financial institutions. The Fed surprised markets last week by deciding to maintain its quantitative-easing policy. But that underscores a larger point for non-US economies: You never know when the Fed will tighten. Get ready.

The high priests of academic and “official” history love a good villain for two reasons:  First, because good official villains make the struggles and accomplishments of good official heroes even more awe-inspiring.  And, second, because nothing teaches (or propagandizes) the masses more thoroughly than the social or political lessons inherent in the documented rise and fall of the world's most despicable inhabitants.  We get shivers of fear and excitement when we discuss the evils and the follies of ancient monsters like Nero, Attila the Hun, Caligula, etc, or more modern monsters, like Mussolini, Stalin Hitler, Goebbels, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and so on.  We take solace in the idea that “we are nothing like them”, and our nation has “moved beyond” such animalistic behavior.

Are you ready for Janet Yellen?  Wall Street wants her, the mainstream media wants her and it appears that her confirmation would be a slam dunk.  She would be the first woman ever to chair the Federal Reserve, and her philosophy is that a little bit of inflation is actually good for an economy.  She was reportedly the architect for many of the unprecedented monetary decisions that Ben Bernanke made during his tenure, and that has many on Wall Street and in the media very excited.  Noting that we "already know that Yellen is on board with Bernanke's easy money policies", CNN recently even went so far as to publish a rabidly pro-Yellen article with this stunning headline: "Dear Mr. President: Name Yellen now!"  But after watching what a disaster Bernanke has been, do we really want more of the same?  It doesn't really matter whether she is a woman, a man, a giant lizard or a robot, the question is whether or not she is going to continue to take us down the path to ruin that Bernanke has taken us.

The first clips from Charlie Rose's interview with Assad are being released and given the Russia-Syria discussions, Obama's skepticism, and now John McCain's 'dubious support' for "the US getting on board with Russia's proposal for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons," we thought this brief view of Assad's response was telling...

Who is Mike Grunwald? Why should we care?

So, when it boils down to it what does it take to become a 1-percenter in the US? You know, one of the elite, the people with power.

Call it what you will, a handshake or a parachute; the result is all the same. The rest of us just get elbow out of the way as we get pushed through the back door. The top executives leave by the front door and to boot they hop into a chauffeur-driven car (paid by the company, of course) as they drive off into the sunset. To parachute someone: send them elsewhere, relocate them, bundle them off, pack them off or dispatch.

Were you under the impression that your credit card transactions are private?  If so, I am sorry to burst your bubble.  As you will see below, there are actually multiple government agencies that are gathering and storing records of your credit card transactions.  And in turn, those government agencies share that information with other government agencies that want it.  So if you are making a purchase that you don't want anyone to know about, don't use a credit card. This is one of the reasons why the government hates cash so much.  It is just so hard to track.  In this day and age, the federal government seems to be absolutely obsessed with gathering as much information about all of us as it possibly can.  But there is one big problem.  What they are doing directly violates the U.S. Constitution.

What is wrong with men in America?  Why isn't our country producing lots of strong, independent, hard working men of character like it once did?  Well, many believe that it starts at a very young age. Society has told them that it is okay to be a "slacker".  Today, far too many of our young men are far more interested in their various addictions (beer, drugs, sex, video games, gambling, etc.) than they are in starting a family. In America today, the percentage of men in prison is at an all-time high, the percentage of men with a job is near an all-time low and the percentage of children living without a father is at an all-time high. Do we have a crisis on our hands?