None

A libertarian mindset looks at the same results and concludes that if people are fallible, then the absolutely last thing in the world we should do is to give them sovereignty not only over themselves but over other people as well.

Yellen and her cohort have no clue, however, that all of their massive money printing never really left the canyons of Wall Street, but instead inflated the mother of all financial bubbles. So they are fixing to blow-up the joint for the third time this century. That was plain as day when our Keynesian school marm insisted that the Third Avenue credit fund failure this past week was a one-off event - a lone rotten apple in the barrel. Now that is the ultimate in cluelessness.

Grant Williams is very skeptical of the Fed’s ability to continue to control markets much longer.

The "long dollar" trade may be the most crowded ever but that doesn't mean there aren't disagreements where the greenback goes from here, especially after the Fed's historic first rate hike.

At 2 p.m. EST, the only thing the financial world will care about and discuss will be the Fed's [first rate hike in 9 years|epic disappointment]. So for those who still haven't made up their mind about what the Fed's [dovish|non-dovish] rate hike means, here is all you need to know.

... I found myself seeking refuge in the tiramisu staring back at me, a bit uncomfortable that I was only hearing the wah wahs of Charlie Brown’s adult voices. Until this, during the back and forth of Q&A: (Laughter around the room…) “We don’t remember how to raise interest rates. None of us worked here the last time we did it.”

"we moved to generally “neutralize” our positions by taking on derivative positions to hedge ourselves. We did so mid-morning yesterday and now are comfortable sitting through the Fed’s decision… or “non”-decision as the case may be… later this afternoon."

The president and his top advisers have kept an open door for CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, keeping almost 1,000 appointments with them, a Reuters review of White House records shows. Of the hundreds of appointments listed, Obama himself was present at about half. As the corrupting hand of government intervention spreads, so CEOs and the White House have become allies in advocating for immigration reform, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and reauthorization for the Export-Import Bank. So who really owns The White House?

Grant Williams sets the context for tomorrow's FOMC meeting, where the Federal Reserve is widely expected to hike interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade. To say he is very skeptical of the Fed's ability to continue to control market forces much longer is a gross understatement...

Since that transition in mid-year, oil prices have again persisted rather than rebounded and of late have turned to new “cycle” lows. Yet, neither transportation nor retailers have traded as if further benefits were accruing in terms of that “stimulus.” This is not to say that stock investors have boarded the recession view, only that there is a clear shift in risk perception that has undoubtedly rebalanced and reprioritized risk parameters. If the left side of the chart below was risks being viewed very favorable in terms of the economic fallout of low oil prices, the right is undoubtedly (much) less certain.

Soaring junk bond redemptions; rising investment grade (and high yield) yields pressuring corporate buybacks; record corporate leverage and sliding cash flows; Chinese devaluation back with a vengeance; capital outflows from EM accelerating as dollar strength returns; corporate profits and revenues in recession; CEOs most pessimistic since 2012, oh and the Fed's first rate hike in 9 years expected to soak up as much as $800 billion in excess liquidity. To Wall Street's strategists none of this matters: as Bloomberg observes, virtually every single sellside forecasts expects "no end to the bull market."

"It is time once again to seek the safety of the sidelines. This is not the time to be aggressively bullish of equities but rather this is the time for… as we say here in the South… “hunkering down,” for getting smaller, for curtailing exposure."

Official Washington is awash with tough talk about Russia and the need to punish President Putin for his role in Ukraine and Syria. But this bravado ignores Russia’s genuine national interests, its “red lines,” and the risk that “tough-guy-ism” can lead to nuclear war. In short, Russia is being offered only the binary choice: to acquiesce to the “benevolent” hegemon, or to prepare for war.

Chesapeake has hired restructuring advisor Evercore "to shore up its balance sheet as commodity prices extend their decline." This means that Evercore will seek to further slash its debt, almost certainly be equitizing a substantial portion of it, and handing it over as equity in the new company to CHK's bondholders. As a result the company's 2023 bonds, which were trading at par as recently as late May, just rumbled to a record low 27 cents on the dollar.