Mad Money

If the economy is getting better, then why does poverty in America continue to grow so rapidly?  Yes, the stock market has been hitting all-time highs recently, but also the number of Americans living in poverty has now reached a level not seen since the 1960s.  Yes, corporate profits are at levels never seen before, but so is the number of Americans on food stamps.  Yes, housing prices have started to rebound a little bit (especially in wealthy areas), but there are also more than a million public school students in America that are homeless.  That is the first time that has ever happened in U.S. history. So should we measure our economic progress by the false stock market bubble that has been inflated by Ben Bernanke's reckless money printing, or should we measure our economic progress by how the poor and the middle class are doing?  Because if we look at how average Americans are doing these days, then there is not much to be excited about. Unfortunately, that bubble of false hope is not going to last much longer.  In fact, we are already seeing signs that it is getting ready to burst.

Over two years ago, while scouring through TheStreet.com's filing we stumbled upon something interesting: "As a result of the need for the Company and its independent registered public accounting firm to focus attention on matters related to the Company's previously-announced review of the accounting in its former Promotions.com subsidiary, which subsidiary the Company sold in December 2009 -- including matters related to the preparation and filing by the Company in February 2010 of a Form 10-K/A for the year ended December 31, 2008, a Form 10-Q/A for the quarter ended March 31, 2009 and Forms 10-Q for the quarters ended June 30, 2009 and September 30, 2009, respectively, and matters related to an investigation commenced by Securities and Exchange Commission in March 2010 -- the Company requires additional time  to prepare its financial statements, assess its internal controls and file its Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009 ("2009 Form 10-K")." Oops. We can't wait to see how Mr. Cramer will explain to the Mad Money faithful this particular twist on the hangover of the show's five year birthday bash. Also, we wonder if CNBC will finally cancel the ludicrous Jim "truth" Cramer campaign once this news breaks. We doubt it- in the quest for evaporating eyeballs, all is fair." This was in April 2010. Today, we got resolution on the matter, as the SEC finally has put the matter to close.

Okay, the Fed's recent decision to boost its monetary stimulus (a.k.a. "money printing," "quantitative easing," or simply "QE") by another $45 billion a month to a combined $85 billion per month demonstrates an almost complete departure from what a normal person might consider sensible.

To borrow a phrase from Joel Salatin: Folks, this ain't normal.  To this I will add ...and it will end badly.

• Our markets are now truly broken; they don't send accurate price signals anymore
  
• Markets are now just a giant and rigged casino, where a relative handful of big firms and other tightly coupled players are gaming their orders to take advantage of this flood of money
  
• Expect the Fed balance sheet to quickly expand by an additional $3-4 trillion, resulting in runaway inflation and a possible currency crisis

Gold has risen to new record highs in pounds and euros as concerns about contagion in the eurozone and stagflation in the UK deepen. The euro has fallen sharply in international markets and is down 1.5% against gold so far this morning. European Council President Herman Van Rompuy has called an emergency meeting of top officials dealing with the euro zone debt crisis as concerns deepen over the sovereign debt crisis spreading to Spain and Italy. Spain’s 10-year yield spread over Germany widened to a euro-era record of over 300 basis points. Italian and Portuguese bonds are also under pressure with Portuguese 10 year yields surging to 13.4%. The risk of contagion affecting European and international banks and a new banking crisis rises by the day. Meanwhile, in the U.S., President Obama is seeking a massive $4 trillion in a deficit reduction package. Failure to do so may lead to a U.S. and global sovereign debt crisis.

Another must read from one of the "less cheerful" people on MarketWatch. His 7 reasons why "kicking the can" should no longer be the official policy of the ponzi banker syndicate: 1: Capitalism’s now a lethal soul sickness, needs a reawakening; 2. We’re already in the early stages of a Great Depression; 3. Good Depression exposes our self-destruct bubble-thinking; 4. Good Depression will stir outrage, force real reforms; 5. Good Depression forces Wall Street to think outside the box; 6. Good Depression will deflate America’s warring soul; 7. Good Depression now … avoids a far bigger depression later

Ben lies: we're sheep; No more; and by being sheep we suffer the heart-ache and the thousand pricing shocks unmeasured by the CPI, 'tis a consumer tax, despite what you had wish'd. Ben lies; we're sheep: living a dying dream: Aye, there's the rub; when fleecing sheep what jobs may come when we have scuttled all their buying power?

Why is it that the average investor has a firmer idea of what his next $50 clothing purchase should be than his next $5,000 stock purchase?

Ignoring real estate, most people invest their hard earned money in paper things. Stocks, bonds, annuities, insurance - it’s all paper, and it sits nicely in our bank accounts and shows up on our computer screens. Halfway across the world, investors in China and India have never trusted paper investments as a store of value - and they’re converting their hard earned paper money into gold and silver bullion. Not that this is anything new. It isn’t. But the scale and speed with which they are accumulating precious metals IS new, and it’s driving the fundamentals that we believe will lead to higher prices in 2011. - Sprott Asset Management

When a week ago we reported that JP Morgan has denied it owned more than 90% of the copper positions on the LME, we suggested that this could very well mean that Blythe Master's firm could just as easily control 89.999% of the copper and still not misrepresent the truth per that non-commital press release. Turns out our unbridled cynicism was spot on as usual. The Wall Street Journal has just reported that in the copper market "a single trader has reported it owns 80% to 90% of the copper
sitting in London Metal Exchange warehouses, equal to about half of the
world's exchange-registered copper stockpile and worth about $3 billion." Oh and yes, while JP Morgan technically is not singled out, we will be delighted to issue a retraction the second JP Morgan approaches us with a refutation that it is not the trader in question. And while we are at it, we also will repeat our claim that it was indeed JP Morgan that reduced its massive silver position, as per the recent FT article: as above we will immediately issue a retraction and apologize should JPM's legal department contact us that we are wrong on this. Somehow we don't think that will be an issue. And so it is once again made clear that the biggest market manipulating cartel in the world is not only JPM's commodity trading operation, but the "regulators" at the CFTC, who are doing all they can do to delay implementing rules on position limit- a stalling tactic whose sole purpose is to make the life of Jamie Dimon as comfortable as possible while he corners the copper market (and offloads his PM shorts to some "foreign bank"), even if that means the complete collapse in faith in the commodity market. Presumably, this means that Mr. Gensler has received an outsized Christmas gift to assuage his conscience. As for the commodity market, well, just look at what has happened to the stock market now that everyone knows it is nothing but a house of cards scam where a few robots front run each other. We are confident to quite confident tomorrow's ICI report will confirm that 33rd consecutive outflow from domestic equity funds. It is a pity that the same fate will now happen to the commodities market, as everyone tells Gensler to shove his corrupt market, and moves to physical. Frankly, it couldn't happen to a nicer group of so-called regulators.

As a disgusted and powerless nation (save for a few irrelevant, ex-Enron consultants) is drowning its post-QE2 monetary sorrows in Blue Label courtesy of a recently, if very temporarily, discovered wealth effect, we present a comedic interlude which presents (in proper chronological order for facility of reading) the email chain that culminated with the decision to embark on the QE2.

Some rather scary predictions out of Paul Farrell today: "It’s inevitable: Wall Street banks control the Federal Reserve system,
it’s their personal piggy bank. They’ve already done so much damage, yet
have more control than ever.Warning: That’s a set-up. They will eventually destroy capitalism,
democracy, and the dollar’s global reserve-currency status. They will
self-destruct before 2035 … maybe as early as 2012 … most likely by
2020. Last week we cheered the Tea Party for starting the countdown to the
Second American Revolution. Our timeline is crucial to understanding the
historic implications of Taleb’s prediction that the Fed is dying, that
it’s only a matter of time before a revolution triggers class warfare
forcing America to dump capitalism, eliminate our corrupt system of
lobbying, come up with a new workable form of government, and create a
new economy without a banking system ruled by Wall Street." And just like in the Hangover, where the guy is funny because he's fat, Farrell is scary cause he is spot on correct.

In today's "less than surprising data point" category, the clear winner is Gallup's analysis of people's ever increasing distrust in the mass media. From 46% in 1998, the percentage of people who indicate they have "not very much/none at all" trust in mass media has grown to a stunning 57% currently. This is an all time record, as the general public perception toward the MSM has flipped over the past decade. Is it becoming increasingly more difficult to lie to the average American? In this time of unprecedented economic upheaval, where the political regime depends on just how far any given administration's lies can penetrate amongst the broader population, this may well become the most critical factor in determining policy for the future. And with ever increasing alternatives of non-traditional media, could the legacy ad-supported media model, which by definition is one which espouses the status quo, be doomed precisely by the slow but steady education of the average American, who intuitively realizes that nearly every "fact" appearing in the media, especially that supported by any given political party, is a lie? Which brings us to CNBC. If the above study is indeed correct, one would correctly guess that the viewership of the station once known for fair and objective analysis and breaking news reporting, and has now devolved to nothing more than the butt of jokes on financial media propaganda, should have plunged, even as the market remains as volatile as ever, with the VIX currently trading at levels not seen since the March highs. As the chart below shows, using data compiled from Nielsen, focusing on the ad revenue-critical target demo, this is in fact the case.

Ironically the only sane call on the now openly deranged market action comes from an long-term institutional establishmentarian in the face of none other than Templeton's Mark Mobius. His brief and spot on assessment : "The entire Petrobras issue is an abomination and a terrible violation of shareholder rights. We may be entering an IPO bubble. It means that people are just not looking at the values and irrationally buying these things." Oh shut up Mark, who cares about values... Yet perhaps someone can channel a little Mobius on CNBC so he can quell some of the overly exuberant lunacy that is spewing forth from the now leaderless TV station, which nonetheless does nothing to change the autopilot "ponzi propaganda" mode.

Just in case the consensus was that nobody could have possibly predicted today's market action, here is Jim Cramer... proving the consensus was spot on. From CNBC yesterday: "The “Fed said good things,” Cramer said. “Buy.”"

Zero Hedge recently posted several insightful pieces from Hinde Capital, among which the fund's presentation on the ECB's role as the European Commission's whore, and more recently, its presentation on Gold as the "currency of first resort" (recreated below). Last week, fund manager Ben Davies, who previously ran trading for RBS Greenwich Capital in London where he managed a macro portfolio, gave a must hear interview to King World News, in which Ben covers various in depth topics on the gold market and shares his views on "unimaginable price possibilities for the final culmination of the gold bull." Among the things covered are the Andrew Maguire whitsleblower case, David Einhorn's transition from paper to physical gold storage (he notes the storage and indemnification risk), on whether the US government actually owns the hold it represents to holding (noting the demonstrative busting of the very unimpressive Russian spy ring), Russian gold reserve accumulation, where he detours into noting that while gold was 25% of Russian reserve holdings in 2000, it has since plunged to just 5% even as the country has been hoarding gold indicative of the massive currency creation across the world - as currency reserves have grown globally by $7.5 trillion. Ben touches upon the recently popularized concept by Jim Rickards, about an alternative currency basket (aka a new China-Russia-Germany axis) backed by actual physical resources (a modified version of the much dreaded gold standard): "there will be a standardization, a basket of currencies somewhere in the world, that will then become a competing reserve currency very quickly overnight." Most relevantly, Davies answers what he thinks the fair price of gold is: "between $10,000 and $15,000."