Freddie Mac

It’s happening. As expected, dynastic politics is prevailing in campaign 2016. After a tease about as long as Hillary’s, Jeb Bush (aka Jeb!) officially announced his presidential bid last week. Ultimately, the two of them will fight it out for the White House, while the nation’s wealthiest influencers will back their ludicrously expensive gambit. And here’s a hint: don’t bet on Jeb not to make it through the Republican gauntlet of 12 candidates (so far). After all, the really big money’s behind him.

Prepare to laugh. A lot.

There are large signs of stress now present in the credit markets. You might not know it from today's multi-generationally low interest rates, but other key measures such as liquidity and volatility are flashing worrying signs. While some may hope that rising yields are signaling a return to more rapid economic growth, or at least that the fear of outright deflation has lessened, the more likely explanation is that something is wrong and it’s about to get... wronger.

Whatever the eventual financial costs to EU taxpayers of a Greek default, the political costs of a Greek exit are likely to be seen as unacceptable. Most likely the EU will allow a covert Greek default, disguised for the time being by extended repayment schedules, bogus refinancing formulae and possible delayed haircuts as bonds mature. They may insist that such moves are not a technical default. Despite that absurdity, our obedient press corps may even concur with such a characterization, and investors may be so thrilled that a relief rally occurs in stocks and bonds. Extend and pretend will once again be the only acceptable manner to confront our intractable problems.

• Greek central bank issues 'Grexit' warning if aid talks fail (Reuters)
• Kerry says 'patience wearing thin' on Syria's Assad (Reuters)
• Juncker accuses Athens of misleading Greek people (FT)
• Al Qaeda kills two Saudis accused of spying for America (Reuters)
• Hedge-Fund Bet Hits Pensions (WSJ)
• ‘Flash Crash’ Trader Navinder Sarao Worked With Fund Network Now Under Investigation (WSJ)
• 'Me? Rich?' U.S. presidential hopefuls play middle-class card (Reuters)
• You’ve Been Warned: Central Bankers Turning Less Market-Friendly (BBG)

Will we never learn...

Elizabeth Warren may or may not understand the "global banking system" as Jamie Dimon alleges, but the JPM CEO certainly does as the following 14 "reasons" clearly confirm...

20 years ago this month, Bill Clinton unveiled the National Home Ownership Strategy, a 100-point plan designed to drive the home ownership rate in America to all-time highs. The plan succeeded — and now it has unraveled completely.

New rules at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conjunction with lower FHA premiums helped to drive down payments on single family homes to their lowest level since Q1 2012 in the first quarter.

The next several weeks are likely to be relatively eventful in Washington...

Two years ago, bank analyst Mike Mayo asked JPM chief Jamie Dimon a simple question: why should affluent customers not pick UBS over JPM due to a mismatch in capital ratios, to which Dimon's response was even simpler: "that's why I'm richer than you." To which we then added: "No logic, no rationale: all about the bottom line, which to Jamie at least is all that matters. The bottom line was indeed all, because as Bloomberg calculated overnight, over the past several years, Jamie Dimon quietly became not just "richer than you", but "much" richer: his net worth is now well over $1 billion!

The rising risk to the housing recovery story lies in the Fed's ability to continue to keep interest rates suppressed. It is important to remember that individuals "buy payments" rather than houses. With each tick higher in mortgage rates so goes the monthly mortgage payment. With wages remaining suppressed, 1 out of 3 Americans no longer counted as part of the work force or drawing on a Federal subsidy, the pool of potential buyers remains tightly constrained. While there are many hopes pinned on the housing recovery as a "driver" of economic growth in 2015 and beyond - the lack of recovery in the home ownership data suggests otherwise.

• Bonds Extend Global Rout as Europe Stocks Slide, Dollar Weakens (BBG)
• Verizon Communications to Buy AOL for $4.4 Billion (BBG)
• Fresh Nepal earthquake kills dozens, triggers panic (Reuters)
• Sen. Shelby to Unveil Legislation Heightening Fed Scrutiny (WSJ)
• Bill Gross: The Amount of Money I'll Give Away 'Is Staggering, Even to Me' (BBG)
• U.S. rejects notion that Gulf rulers snubbing Obama summit (Reuters)... what about AIIB?
• In Asia, Debt Market Gets Tougher (WSJ)
• Iran’s Mahan airline defies sanctions in shadowy aircraft deal (FT)

To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, anyone who wants the government and Federal Reserve to create a housing recovery, deserves to get it good and hard, like a four by four to the side of their head. Subprime mortgages, subprime auto loans, and subprime student loans driven by preposterously low interest rates are the liquefying foundation of this fake economic recovery. Most rational people would agree that loaning money to people who will eventually default is not a good idea. But it is the underpinning of everything the Fed and government apparatchiks have done to keep this farce going a little while longer. It will not end well – Again.

The law of unintended consequences is becoming ever more prominent in the economic sphere, as the world becomes exponentially more complex with every passing year. Just as a network grows in complexity and value as the number of connections in that network grows, the global economy becomes more complex, interesting, and hard to manage as the number of individuals, businesses, governmental bodies, and other institutions swells, all of them interconnected by contracts and security instruments, as well as by financial and information flows. It is hubris to presume, as current economic thinking does, that the entire economic world can be managed by manipulating one (albeit major) subset of that network without incurring unintended consequences for the other parts of the network.