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In simple terms, this time around, when Europe goes down (and it will) it’s going to be bigger than anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes. And this time around, the world Central Banks are already leveraged to the hilt having spent virtually all of their dry powder propping up the markets for the last four years. Again, this time it is different. I realize most people believe the Fed can just hit “print” and solve everything, but they’re wrong. The last time the Fed hit “print” food prices hit records and revolutions began spreading in emerging markets. If the Fed does it again, especially in a more aggressive manner as it would have to, we would indeed enter a dark period in the world and the capital markets.

When one cuts out all the noise, the only true purpose of aggressive (or not) central bank asset expansion, is to be a "buyer" of last resort of sovereign debt funding. Think of it as the source of credit money demand (and hence supply) when every other sector is deleveraging, and when a given Treasury authority needs to pump trillions in debt into the market but when nobody can afford to lever up and buy said incremental debt. Call it monetization, call it funding the deficit, call it whatever: that's what it is. And when people think of monetization, they think, first and foremost of the Chairman, who recently was caught praising the fiat system at a university named for a person who said the following prophetic line: "Paper money has had the effect... it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice." Irony aside, when one cuts to the chase, and ignores even further noise about monetization being direct, indirect, sterilized, shadow, etc, there are just two metrics that are relevant: change in sovereign debt and change in Central Bank Assets. In this regard, of the US' $5.5 trillion in sovereign debt increase, the Fed matched Geithner for $2.0 trillion of the total, or 37%. An admirable number and certainly better than the BoE's 29%. Yet who gets the absolute top prize? Why none other than the ECB, which with $2 trillion in expansion (of which about 60% took place under Goldman apparatchik Mario Draghi in just the past 6 months) represents a whopping 63% of total Eurozone sovereign debt expansion of $3.1 trillion!

In the first of two major bankruptcy stories du jour (the next one coming up shortly), we learn that AFA Foods, best known for being the maker of "pink slime", and a portfolio company of labor unions and Clinton afficionado Ron Burkle and his PE firm Yucaipa, has just filed for bankruptcy. The reason? The sudden public realization what pink slime is, and just how prevalent it is - perhaps it is best to think of it as the Bernie Madoff of the food industry - it was always there, yet it took a wholesale shift in public awareness and consciousness for the firm to realize it would have been prudent to come up with a slightly different name for its ground-beef product. As for whether or not the company is going to the pink sheets, well no. But one thing is certain: the management team is about to get a pink slip.

What a quarter! The Dow up 8% and enjoying a record quarter in terms of points — 994 of them to be exact and in percent terms, now just 7% off attaining a new all-time high. The S&P 500 surged 12% (and 3.1% for March; 28% from the October 2011 lows), which was the best performance since 1998. It seems so strange to draw comparisons to 1998, which was the infancy of the Internet revolution; a period of fiscal stability, 5% risk-free rates, sustained 4% real growth in the economy, strong housing markets, political stability, sub-5% unemployment, a stable and predictable central bank. And look at the composition of the rally. Apple soared 48% and accounted for nearly 20% of the appreciation in the S&P 500. But outside of Apple, what led the rally were the low-quality names that got so beat up last year, such as Bank of America bouncing 72% (it was the Dow's worst performer in 2011; financials in aggregate rose 22%). Sears Holdings have skyrocketed 108% this year even though the company doesn't expect to make money this year or next. What does that tell you? What it says is that this bull run was really more about pricing out a possible financial disaster coming out of Europe than anything that could really be described as positive on the global macroeconomic front. What is most fascinating is how the private client sector simply refuses to drink from the Fed liquidity spiked punch bowl, having been burnt by two central bank-induced bubbles separated less than a decade apart leaving David Rosenberg, of Gluskin Sheff, still rightly focused on benefiting from his long-term 3-D view of deleveraging, demographics, and deflation - as he notes US data is on notably shaky ground. This appears to have been very much a trader's rally as he reminds us that liquidity is not an antidote for fundamentals.

Think the Fed's policy of market intervention is only impacting savers and investors? Think again: courtesy of ZIRP, companies are investing increasingly less in CapEx, and thus long-term growth, and merely focusing on instant bang for the buck projects, like M&A and dividends. Sustainable? You decide.

Inflection point, yes. There yet, no. 

In the US, we instead chose to undermine capitalism and the economic cycle. In the process we’ve undermined trust in the system. Until this is remedied there will be not REAL recovery.

In the not quite 100 years since the founding of your institution, America has exchanged central banking for a kind of central planning and the gold standard for what I will call the Ph.D. standard. I regret the changes and will propose reforms, or, I suppose, re-reforms, as my program is very much in accord with that of the founders of this institution. Have you ever read the Federal Reserve Act? The authorizing legislation projected a body “to provide for the establishment of the Federal Reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper and to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes.” By now can we identify the operative phrase? Of course: “for other purposes.” As you prepare to mark the Fed’s centenary, may I urge you to reflect on just how far you have wandered from the intentions of the founders? The institution they envisioned would operate passively, through the discount window. It would not create credit but rather liquefy the existing stock of credit by turning good-quality commercial bills into cash— temporarily. This it would do according to the demands of the seasons and the cycle. The Fed would respond to the community, not try to anticipate or lead it. It would not override the price mechanism— as today’s Fed seems to do at every available opportunity—but yield to it.

As noted earlier, futures this morning are higher despite a plethora of economic misses (and despite 57% of March US data missing as per DB), simply on regurgitated headlines of an "expanded" European €7/800 billion bailout fund. There is one problem with this: the headlines are all wrong, as none apparently have taken the time to do the math. Which, courtesy of think tank OpenEurope, is as follows: "The real amount of cash that is still available to back stop struggling states, should it come to that, is only around €500bn." Of course, that would hardly be headline inspiring: recall that that is simply the full size of the ESM as is. But even that number will hardly ever be attained, and the ECB will have to step in long before Europe needs anything close to a full drawdown: "The problem here is that if it’s too big and terrible to ever be used, it’s likely that it won’t ever be used. Even jittery markets will be able to figure out that a large fund which would damage French and German credit ratings if ever extended will never be fully tapped. So clearly some circular logic at play. And let's not forget that it’s still far too small to save Italy and Spain should if worse come to worse." Circular logic? Check. Another check kiting scheme? Check. Spain and Italy still out in the cold? Check. Conclusion -> buy EURUSD, and thus the ES, which has now recoupled with every uptick in the pair, but not downtick.

The guesstimates have all the accuracy of a coin flip.

Besides gold and silver, there is nothing that scares Central Planners (Bankers) more that oil.  In their delusional world where they play god with our futures, they think they can make the sheeple do whatever they want by adjusting the settings on a printing press and can thus determine the fate of the global economy and humanity itself.  What they hate more than anything else is when all of their money printing causes things like oil to rise because it exposes them for the charlatans that they are.  This is why Obama is constantly attacking speculators and oil companies.  It is all an attempt to scapegoat someone else for the financial nightmare that is hitting everyone’s wallet.  This is why they floated the absurd idea of releasing more oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve and then denied it once the market failed to react vigorously enough to the rumor.  This is also why Obama surely has called the Saudis up repeatedly as of later to remind them that they might see regime change unless they ramp up oil production to help his reelection.   This brings us to one of the most important aspects of the entire global economy at the moment.  Saudi oil production is hitting record highs at the moment.  In fact if you look at the chart below you will see that the Saudis have never consistently pumped more oil than they are right now.     

This is truly Orwellian: the latest and greatest Executive Branch/Federal Reserve power grab is labeled "consumer protection." I am indebted to correspondent Jim S. who seems to be one of the few Americans to have actually sorted through this monstronsity and gleaned its true nature: an unprecedented extension of Executive (i.e. Imperial Presidency) and Federal Reserve power. Let's start by recalling that the Federal Reserve is a consortium of private banks. Calling a private consortium of banks the "Federal Reserve" is the original Orwellian misdirection, for there is nothing "Federal" about the Federal Reserve. It is not a government agency. Now guess who will fund and control this vast new bureaucracy of "consumer protection"? Yes, the private consortium known as the Federal Reserve. "The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will be an independent unit located inside and funded by the United States Federal Reserve. It will write and enforce bank rules, conduct bank examinations, monitor and report on markets, as well as collect and track consumer complaints." Since managing the money supply and interest rates is the ultimate "consumer protection," we can ask how well the Fed managed those tasks in the past 15 years: alas, their management has been catastrophic for the nation and the middle class, which has been gutted by their policies of serial bubble blowing, leveraged speculation and bank predation.

The last time the S&P 500 rallied in such a serene manner as the current trend was March 1987 - a few months before monetary imbalances came undone and crashed in October 1987. Further, JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest notes that prior to WWII, the previous rally as calm and uninterrupted as this was in November 1928 - a year before the crash. The JPM CIO points out how the Fed's ZIRP has created a 'Portfolio Rebalancing Channel' (PRC) transmission mechanism from cheap credit to wealth effect through spending and profits (that has worked as planned) but the last leg on this mechanism has not functioned so well. Payroll growth has been underwhelming and the housing market remains stunted - leaving the real economy remaining fragile despite the market's appearance. The Fed remains committed to driving this 'channel' but, as Cembalest points out this could easily be derailed by inflation, a bond market revolt towards funding our 'Ecuadorean' deficits, or the pending fiscal cliff legislated for 2013. "So the PRC keeps chugging along, until the Fed's job is done (and Goldilocks continues), or something breaks." History does not rhyme; ninety years ago, money-printing led to calamity in Germany, and eventually, to disaster in Europe. Today, money-printing is designed to save it.

Sometimes, the biggest threat comes from within...

Rising geopolitical tensions and high oil prices are continuing to help renewable energy find favour amongst investors and politicians. Yet how much faith should we place in renewables to make up the shortfall in fossil fuels? Can science really solve our energy problems, and which sectors offers the best hope for our energy future? To help us get to the bottom of this we spoke with energy specialist Dr. Tom Murphy, an associate professor of physics at the University of California. Tom runs the popular energy blog Do the Math which takes an astrophysicist’s-eye view of societal issues relating to energy production, climate change, and economic growth.

In the interview Tom talks about the following:

Why we shouldn’t get too excited over the shale boom
Why resource depletion is a greater threat than climate change
Why Fukushima should not be seen as a reason to abandon nuclear
Why the Keystone XL pipeline may do little to help US energy security
Why renewables have difficulty mitigating a liquid fuels shortage
Why we shouldn’t rely on science to solve our energy problems
Forget fusion and thorium breeders – artificial photosynthesis would be a bigger game changer