Following misses in yesterday's Markit Service PMI, Existing Home Sales and the Dallas Fed report, and today's Durable Goods numbers, we just made it a pentafecta for misses in US econ data, when the just released August Case-Shiller data for August confirmed once again that US housing is rapidly slowing down, when the Top 20 Composite Index (Seasonally Adjusted) posted another decline in August, its fourth in a row, declining by -0.15% and missing expectations of a modest 0.2% rebound (following last month's -0.5%) decline. The best summary of the situation came from S&P's David Blitzer: "The deceleration in home prices continues... The Sun Belt region reported its worst annual returns since 2012, led by weakness in all three California cities -- Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego." But who cares what the birth (and death) place of every housing bubble is doing, right?

What do an old German bank note, a current $100 bill, and an apple all have in common? The answer, according to ConvergEx's Nick Colas, is that these simple objects can tell us much about the current investment scene, ranging from Europe’s economic challenges to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s attempts to reduce unemployment. Colas takes an “object-ive” approach to analyzing the current investment landscape by describing 10 common items and how they shape our perceptions of reality. The other objects on our list: a hazmat suit, a house in Orlando, a barrel of oil, a Rolex watch, a butterfly, a heating radiator in Berlin, and a smartphone.

• Dallas County May Declare State of Disaster From Ebola Virus (BBG)
• Markets on edge after worst turmoil in four years (Reuters)
• Central bankers may have no quick fix as markets swoon, economy weakens (Reuters)
• Risk of Deflation Feeds Global Fears  (Hilsenrath)
• U.S. health official allowed new Ebola patient on plane with slight fever (Reuters)
• Texas Hospital Fights Allegations About Ebola Protocols (BBG)
• Treasuries Gain as Oil Drops Below $80 While Stocks Slide (BBG)
• Greek Bonds Slump on Bailout Concern as Spain Misses Sale Target (BBG)
• White House shifts into crisis mode on Ebola response (Reuters)
• Obama Confronts Slippery Slope as Islamic State Advances (BBG)

The last time the stock market reached a fevered peak and began to wobble unexpectedly was August 2007. Markets were most definitely not in the classic “price discovery” business. Instead, the stock market had discovered the “goldilocks economy." But what is profoundly different this time is that the Fed is out of dry powder. Its can’t slash the discount rate as Bernanke did in August 2007 or continuously reduce it federal funds target on a trip from 6% all the way down to zero. Nor can it resort to massive balance sheet expansion. That card has been played and a replay would only spook the market even more. So this time is different.  The gamblers are scampering around the casino fixing to buy the dip as soon as white smoke wafts from the Eccles Building.  But none is coming. For the first time in 25- years, the Wall Street gamblers are home alone.

• No Happy Ending for Investors in Central Bank Fairy Tale (BBG)
• Ebola Response Strains Hospitals (WSJ)
• Obama, foreign military chiefs, to thrash out Islamic State plans (Reuters)
• Draghi’s ‘Whatever It Takes’ Plan on Trial at EU Court (BBG)
• Too-Big-to-Fail Banks Face Up to $870 Billion Capital Gap (BBG)
• Iran’s Message to World: You Need Us to Fight Islamists (BBG)
• Facing new oil glut, Saudis avoid 1980s mistakes to halt price slide (Reuters)
• Ukraine Grannies Outprice Banks on Hryvnia Black Market (BBG)
• HK police use sledgehammers, chainsaws to clear protest barriers, open road (Reuters)
• Gazprom Quarterly Net Rises 13%, Misses Estimate on Ukraine Debt (BBG)

While the memory of a financial market participant can be measured in nanoseconds, it appears that the average American has also become goldfish-like as RealtyTrac reports a total of 797,865 home equity lines of credit were originated nationwide, up 20.6% from a year ago and the highest level since 2008. As Jim Quinn so eloquently notes, after a two year Wall-Street-engineered fraudulent boost in home prices in the exact markets that led the bubble in 2003 through 2007, the delusional dolts are now acting like the increase in home equity is real: As RealtyTrac's Blomquist exudes, "this recent rise in HELOC originations indicates that an increasing number of homeowners are gaining confidence in the strength of the housing recovery."

Six ambulances have surrounded a plane this morning at McCarran International Airport amid reports that a passenger on a Delta flight from New York is showing symptoms similar to Ebola, according to NBC3 local news. A passenger on board said via Twitter, there are "two sick passengers, woman and child, came from Africa and have a fever," and "CDC is now on the scene."

• Liberian Rubber Farm Becomes Sanctuary Against Ebola (WSJ)
• The World’s Most Powerful Central Banker: Janet Who? (BBG)
• Islamic State moves into south west of Syrian Kurdish town (Reuters)
• Waldorf to Be Biggest Chinese Property Purchase in U.S. (BBG)
• Spain Seeks People in Contact With Ebola-Infected Nurse (BBG)
• Hong Kong protests at crossroads as traffic, frustration pile up (Reuters)
• Immigration: Grim Caseload at the Border (WSJ)
• China Cuts Thousands of ‘Phantom’ Workers From State Payroll (BBG)
• U.S., U.K. Regulators Push to Settle Deutsche Bank Libor Case This Year (WSJ)
• Wall Street Moles Go to NY’s Top Cop, Spurning SEC Cash (BBG)
• Pimco's outflow headaches only just beginning (Reuters)
• Japan Lawmakers Flag Need for Exit Strategy as Yen Falls (BBG)

Who can feel confident about the tending of things just now? The diminishing returns of the Information Age are about to bite our collective asses. The sum of all that digital magic is a nation completely incapable of telling itself the truth or acting honorably. Unemployment is down without employment being up. Candy Crush is making the world safe for democracy. We have the finest health care system in the world. ISIS is trying to compete with our homegrown videogame industry for supremacy in porno-violence (actually, I thought we already won that) but now we will obliterate all the bad guys in the world by remote control from the drone bunkers of Las Vegas, and that will show them. Thank goodness the long holiday season is almost upon us to juice the so-called economy ever-higher. There has never been a crazier moment in history.

There Might Be Some Truth to China's Accusation that the U.S. is Doing Its Best to Stir Up Hong Kong

For the 3rd month in a row, S&P Case-Shiller home prices fell MoM with July's 0.5% drop the biggest since November 2011. This dragged the YoY growth to 6.75% (missing expectations of 7.4%) and its slowest rate of increase since November 2012. Non-seasonally-adjusted the drop is even larger (-0.6% MoM). Perhaps most notably San Francisco was the biggest drag on the index.

When a former Goldman executive and the prior head of its housing research team comes out with a shocking analysis so contrary to what the same individual would do in his "former life" when he would be extolling the "inevitable" rise of home prices from here to eternity and beyond, and also throw in an open letter to none other than president Obama, predicting at least a 15% crash in home prices in the next three years, a move which would without debt catalyze the next US recession, it is time to pay attention. Meet Joshua Pollard, who in February 2009 took over coverage of US Housing at Goldman Sachs.  His point, in short: "House prices are 12% overvalued today. They have already started to decline. Today’s misvaluation matches the excess of 2006-07, just before the Great Recession... 5 of the last 7 US recessions were led by a weakening housing market... I am lamentably confident that home prices will fall by 15% within three years." Or, as some may call it, crash.

Those 4 C’s are: Confirmation, Crisis, Contagion, Catastrophe.

When Lee Goldsmith drives by one of the many fake cellphone towers being discovered throughout the U.S., his $3,500 CryptoPhone 500 will immediately display the warning message in the thumbnail image to the left. When you drive by the same fake towers, known as “interceptors,” your run of the mill iPhone or Samsung Galaxy won’t alert you to any potential security breach. And that’s exactly how those people who installed these interceptors, whoever they are, like it. What Lee Goldsmith and other users of the CryptoPhone 500 have discovered while driving across part of America will shock and disturb you.

The current bubbles in financial assets -- in equities and bonds of all grades and quality -- raging in every major market across the globe are no accident. They are a deliberate creation. The intentional results of policy. Therefore, when they burst, we shouldn't regard the resulting damage as some freak act of nature or other such outcome outside of our control. To reiterate, the carnage will be the very predictable result of some terribly shortsighted decision-making and defective logic.