Oklahoma

My thoughts on what is headed our way

Enjoy your job in North Dakota while you can as in four years, those shale oil projects are no longer sustainable.

What a year 2012 has been!  The mainstream media continues to tell us what a “great job” the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve are doing of managing the economy, but meanwhile things just continue to get even worse for the poor and the middle class. Right now we are living in a bubble of debt-fueled false prosperity that allows us to continue to consume far more wealth than we produce, but when that bubble bursts we are going to experience the most painful economic “adjustment” that America has ever gone through.  We need to be able to explain to our fellow Americans what is coming, why it is coming and what needs to be done.  Hopefully the crazy economic numbers that we have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up.

“The Government Has Bought Into the Notion that Too Big to Fail Is Too Big to Jail”

Update: The focus now shifts to the mother, the first casualty of her son's murderous rampage, who was a "big, big gun fan" as the NYT explains, and who went target shooting with her children, one of whom had Asperger's.

As we reported last night, buried inside the NYT biopic of Newtown shooter Adam Lanza was arguably one of the most important missing pieces in the story, at least so far, which could provide clues into partially explaining yesterday's tragic loss of young life, namely that the 20 year old man suffered from Asperger Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism (two conditions which are being merged in the upcoming update of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) manual of mental disorders), which has been traditionally associated with social communication difficulties, including flat affect, and one which in some clinical studies has been shown to have a causal link to violence. In other words, in addition to the surge in the debate over national gun control and access limitations (ignoring that the perpetrator of the biggest school mass murder in US history - the Bath School disaster - used openly purchased dynamite and no guns, also ignoring that in the US there are roughly 300 million firearms), perhaps there should also be a broad discussion as to the risks of social misadoption of children with autism and other social and behavioral disorders.

Right now the world produces more Oil than it consumes each day, and it has for the past 16 months, this trend will only get worse in 2013.

Harry Reid's rebuttal full transcript - ES 1410 as he speaks...

*REID SAYS `WE'RE NOT GOING TO KICK THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD'
*REID SAYS HE HAD `NICE MEETING' WITH GEITHNER
*REID SAYS STILL WAITING FOR `SERIOUS OFFER' FROM REPUBLICANS

Secession:  Exploding Movement, Tempest In a Teapot … Or Something Else?

The last time we checked on the (funding) status of America's real presidential race - the one where America's uber-wealthy try to outspend each other in hopes of purchasing the best president money can buy - the totals were substantially lower. With November 6 rapidly approaching, however, the scramble to lock in those record political lobbying IRRs is in its final lap. And thanks to the unlimited nature of PAC spending, look for the spending to really go into overdrive in the next 2 weeks as the spending frenzy on the world's greatest tragicomedy hits previously unseen heights.

The Federal Aviation Administration is working towards putting the finishing touches on rules and regulations for widespread domestic drone use, and the agency expects as many as 30,000 UAVs will be in America’s airspace by the decade’s end. As Russia Today notes, given that the department has already addressed the issue of acquiring drones to give the DHS a better eye of domestic doings, though, those law enforcement operations in question could very well transcend away from legitimate uses and quickly cause civil liberty concerns from coast-to-coast. All drones will be equipped with Electro-Optical/Infra-Red sensors, as well as the technology to sniff out certain chemicals from thousands of feet above our heads. Have no fear though, since the "Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety" program is for your own protection, we are sure Janet Napolitano would suggest.

Spoiler Alert: They’re mostly still in office  (so much for building suspense).

On October 3, 2008, 338 elected officials (263 House reps, 74 Senators and 1 President) took it upon themselves to save America from certain financial doom by passing the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, completely ignoring the will of the American people,  opting instead to fulfill a Thomas Jefferson prophesy:

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” 
~ Thomas Jefferson

Just because millionaires are people too, and they too can apparently lose their jobs, we now learn courtesy of the Congressional Research Center, that in 2009, 2,362 Americans making over $1,000,000 in income (and just shy of a million people making over $200,000) collected unemployment benefits. The amount of money allocated to evil, evil millionaire benefits in 2009 was $20.8 million, amounting to $8,806 each for the year (out of a total of $83.5 billion, of which 90% went to those earning less than $100,000). Cue tar and feather fury because these evil, evil millionaires also dared to use a legal system that, at least so far, does not discriminate based on wealth or income level. Just as the US tax system allows everyone to use the same loopholes. Note that we said so far, because it may soon "not be fair."

Six weeks ago we detailed how watching intra- and inter-asset-class correlations can tell investors a lot about what is behind market movements and as Nick Colas, of ConvergEx, highlights in his monthly review of asset price correlations - it reveals a key feature of the "Mystery Rally of Summer 2012."  The move from the early June lows for U.S. stocks has come with increasing correlations across a wide array of asset types and industry sectors.  That's unusual, because rising markets over the past three years more commonly bring lower correlations.  For example, the rally from January to early April of this year saw industry correlations within the S&P 500 drop from +95% to 75-80% as the index went from 1270 to 1420 (a 12% return).  Conversely, the move from 1278 to 1400 (early June to present day) has come with increasing industry correlations – 82% in May to 86% currently.  To us, that's an important "Tell" about what's been taking us higher – hopes for further Federal Reserve liquidity at the next FOMC meeting in September and ECB liquidity to support the euro.  The rest of August will likely feature the kind of light-volume tape that loves to drift higher, but increasing correlations represent a flashing yellow light signifying the need for caution in trading over the balance of the month.

Corporations may or may not be people, but money has always talked, and the wealthy certainly do have a lot of excess cash lying around which they would rather prefer spending in hopes of generating the highest IRR possible by influencing the outcome of the presidential race. Below is a look of the uber-rich who have contributed at least $1 million to the major PACs as disclosed to the Federal Election Commission.

And so it begins...Last Friday the Spanish government published a proposal to cut government expenditure and raise taxes to reduce the fiscal deficit by 56.4billion euros by 2015.  I have outlined why austerity will not work in Europe, but it looks like this is a lesson Europeans will have to learn for themselves--for a second time.  The writing is on the wall in Ireland, who ailed in the same ways that Spain is currently ailing, but what Lord Merkel wants, Lord Merkel gets.  The immediate malaise from these austerity measures will be large-scale social unrest, which is already being planned by many of the 50% of the country's unemployed young people.  Regardless of one's stance on the economic merit of austerity, what is indisputable is that riots are real and riots do not end well.  With nothing to lose, this round of Spanish austerity protesting has the potential to end in catastrophe.