Netherlands

Another Conspiracy "Theory" Admitted as Fact

As Americans, we tend to be pretty full of ourselves, and this is especially true of our young people.  But do we really have reason for such pride?  According to a shocking new report from the Educational Testing Service, Americans between the ages of 20 and 34 are way behind young adults in other industrialized nations when it comes to literacy, mathematics and technological proficiency.  Even though more Americans than ever are going to college, we continue to fall farther and farther behind intellectually.  So what does this say about us?  Sadly, the truth is that Americans are stupid.

This anti-capitalistic mentality has brought about today’s essentially bankrupt “middle of the road” welfare state system, in which governments and big business are in a tight embrace that utterly deadens economic progress. The EU’s latest “Four Year Plan” is yet another in a long list of examples of this prototypical continental tradition (incidentally, Europe’s moribund banking system is one of the end results of these economic policies as well). What is really required is a return to free market principles, not yet another “government plan”.

The luxury of paying your government to hold your money, once thought as absurd, hilarious and downright preposterous is now a reality.

The computerisation of European jobs - who will win and who will lose from the impact of new technology onto old areas of employment?

All is not what it seems. Markets are upside down. Some ‘risk?free’ assets can be purchased for a guaranteed loss. EU asset markets (ex?Greece) are soaring at the same time that EU disunity is rising. An interest rate hike by the Fed is likely to cause a rally in Treasury bonds and a steep correction in US equities.

Back in 2009, the United Nations Statistical Commission endorsed a revision to the System of National Accounts (SNA), which sets the international standards for the compilation of national accounts. As a consequence, Eurostat has amended the European equivalent of the SNA, the European System of Accounts (ESA) leading to a revision of GDP figures. Out of nothing but accounting smoke and mirrors, the reclassification has had a positive effect on GDP, increasing it on average by 3.5 percentage points for the EU and the Euro area as whole.

“It is only a matter of time,” says Nick Gartside, chief investment officer for fixed income at J.P. Morgan Asset management. The ECB is about to drive borrowing costs below zero for every government in the EMU and in the process lock in guaranteed losses for both itself and PSPP participating NCBs.

There is a major new buyer in the gold market - Apple  ... New Apple watch could use up to one third of total annual gold supply... Each watch to use up to two ounces of gold... May have enormous ramifications for gold market and propel prices higher

To be sure, we’ve written quite a bit lately about the ECB’s upcoming plunge into the world of 13-figure debt monetization (or as we call it, Draghi’s Waterloo), and while we hate to beat a dead horse, the sheer lunacy of a bond buying program that is only constrained by the fact that there simply aren’t enough bonds to buy, cannot possibly be overstated. Here is everything you need to know about Q€ ahead of the ECB's Thursday meeting.

The problem, as several sources told Reuters last week, is that there simply aren’t a lot of willing sellers. Ironically, the ECB’s own policy maneuvers are ultimately responsible for creating this situation. That is, the fallout from previous forays into ultra accommodative monetary policy is now hampering the implementation of quantitative easing - call it the ultimate easy money paradox.

The attacks demonstrate a shocking vulnerability in the highly interconnected global banking system. The Kaspersky Lab report gives a fascinating insight into the hackers operation.

Ultimately, then, we are still left with the same three-step process to reach a conclusion to the Greek crisis.

• Step 1 consists of a request for a new program or an application for a 3rd ESM program with Greece committing to some a prior conditionality.
• Step 2 consists of negotiating the substance around this conditionality, in particular the prior actions that would need to be fulfilled to disburse funding to Greece.
• Step 3 would consist of passing such prior actions through the Greek parliament and ultimately servicing Greece's loan obligations.

The more each of these steps is delayed, the shorter the timespans available and the greater the risks of failure.

Since late 2013, The NY Times reports that an unknown group of hackers has reportedly stolen $300 million ­- possibly as much as triple that amount - from banks across the world, with the majority of the victims in Russia. The attacks continue, all using roughly the same modus operandi...

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland earlier this week tweeted out a notice of a working paper titled: U.S. Intervention during the Bretton Woods Era:1962-1973... a detailed report on the massive interventions in currency markets that the Treasury and the Federal Reserve conducted and is exceptionally critical of the market manipulations that took place during that period. It is probably no surprise then that the paper is no longer featured at the Cleveland Fed, and the tweet was quickly deleted.