Putnam

News That Matters

News That Matters

News That Matters

"A Ku Klux Klan chapter and an African-American group plan overlapping demonstrations on Saturday outside the South Carolina State House, where state officials removed the Confederate battle flag last week", Reuters reports.

Greek 10Y yields are breaking back above 13%, bonds ar trading at 50 cents on the dollar, Greek stocks are near multi-decade lows, and Greek bank bonds have collapsed amid the ever-more-likely Grexit (or at least redenomination amid capital controls). But, there are some very smart chaps who must know something Tsipras, Merkel, and the rest of the world does not... because they are spending "Other People's Money" to buy the dip in Greek stocks and bonds. From Allianz and PIMCO (the world's lagest Greek bondholder ex-ECB) to Putnam and Wilbur Ross, it seems more than a few American investors will be impacted should Greece really implode.

“I am for doing good to the poor, but…I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed…that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.” - Benjamin Franklin

The divide between the rich and the poor is not only getting wider thanks to the central bank's efforts to inflate the value of the very types of assets that the poor are unlikely to own, but is in fact now destroying the American family.

While the #Blizarrdof2015 may have been a dud, it is the skies above New York, some 10,000 feet and above, that is where the real action lies. Or rather doesn't. As this real time snapshot of airplane traffic over New York, not a plan is to be found.

Pensions throughout the western world are in peril due to the pension Ponzi scheme. Powerful forces of both the inflation caused by 100 years of the Federal Reserve debasing the dollar and a possible deflationary crisis due to massive levels of debt globally will be a double whammy which will hit traditional investments such as stocks, property and bonds. Without an allocation to gold, you are not going to have a comfortable retirement ?

Bernanke may be printing the wealth effect to the benefit of the richest 1%, but that only serves to make the already wealthiest even wealthier. When it comes to the creation of new millionaire households, the epicenter of new wealth creation is about as far from Wall Street, West Putnam Avenue or Rodeo Drive as can be. In fact, the state that saw the fastest climb up in millionaire rankings in 2013 doesn't have a single Tiffany or Saks Fifth Avenue, and the closest BMW dealership is a six-hour drive from the capital (stats which are guaranteed to change by the end of the year). Presenting North Dakota: the state which jumped 14 spots in the latest ranking of millionaire households.

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

Fraud ... What Fraud?

By now you have certainly heard the opinion of one Paul Volcker who claims that the only useful financial innovation over the past 20 years has been the ATM machine. Now please indulge this video, in which Jeremy Grantham and Rick Bookstaber debate popular opinion that financial innovation boosts economic growth, as defended by Myron Scholes and Putnam's Robert Reynolds, and support the case (judged by a popular vote before and after the debate) that financial innovation in recent decades has done nothing but make the financial sector become a "large, heavy, and growing bloodsucker on the economy's back." (and yes, such brilliant developments as HFT, Flash trading, and all other "market efficiency and liquidity enhancing" gimmicks most certainly fall under the innovation umbrella).