Monday, September 24, 2012

Confirming US Dumbification, Verbal SAT Scores Just Hit Record Low


All we can say is that the need for the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too has never been greater. At least the data below explains why the Chairsatan will soon monetize SAT scores and his infatuation with morer, greaterest QEternity+1...



You Know You Are A Conspiracy Theorist If...

If you answer 'yes' to more than five of the questions below, you might be a conspiracy theorist.  You also may be on the government’s terror watch list.  Be very alarmed and report it to the authorities immediately should you discover your neighbors engaged in such uncivilized thought.





Meanwhile In Downtown Camden

As we reported earlier, Camden may be broke, the local police may now be history, unemployment may be 50%, it may be nothing more than one big crack cocaine depot and driving through downtown at less than 88 mph may be hazardous to your health, but that wasn't always the case. In fact, back in 2009 the city had enough money to afford billboards. Such as this one on the intersection of Dr Charless Brimm Blvd and S. Broadway, courtesy of Google StreetView (sorry iPhone 5 users: you can't see this). Brought to you by www.joncorzine09.com


Spanish Military Threatens Treason As Catalonia Seeks Secession Referendum

"Do not play with the feelings of the Catalans" is the totally unveiled threat after Catalonia's beggars-can-be-choosers demand for an unconditional bailout fell on deaf ears. The traditionally separatist-minded province has decided, according to ANSAmed, has decided to pull a Greece - and escalate with a move to secession. A resolution, on the right of the Catalan people to cut off ties with the Spanish state, will be voted on Thursday by the regional parliament. This statement of "the will of Catalan people to vote on the bond with the State of Spain" opens the way for forthcoming elections on November 25 to become a referendum on the sovereignty of Catalonia. The Spanish military are not taking this lying down with the counter-threat that these 'separatists' and their 'inappropriate and unacceptable' threat to break-up Spain shall be, according to El Economista, charged with high treason. We are sure Draghi has a 'grand plan' for this.


Q.E. to Infinity Unintended Consequences

By John Mauldin, The Market Oracle:
There is an intense debate going on in the first-class cabin of Economics Airlines about the direction in which our plane should be pointed. And while those of us back in the cheap seats don’t get to help decide, knowing where we will land is of intense interest to all of us. This week we listen in on the debate, in the form of speeches and academic postings passed back from first class for the rest of us to read. This type of debate also occurred when Greenspan held rates down at an abnormally low level for a very long time. The unintended consequence of that move was a housing and debt/leverage bubble. Are there potential unintended consequences to Bernanke’s current monetary policy, which some are calling Quantitative Easing Infinity? I suggest you put up your tray tables and fasten your seatbelts – the ride could get bumpy as we explore QE Infinity: Unintended Consequences.
The Federal Reserve (that is, the FOMC – Federal Open Market Committee) last week gave us an open-ended quantitative easing policy. Most of the world thought they would only give us QE3, and more than a few observers expressed surprise that the Bernanke-led Fed decided not only to continue Operation Twist at its current level but also to buy an additional $40 billion a month of agency mortgage bonds. This latter easing policy will continue “(i)f the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially…”
Read More @ TheMarketOracle.co.uk


The Election Is Irrelevant

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 5 hours ago
As far as I’m concerned, the election is irrelevant. One happens to be from Boston and one from Chicago, and whoever wins, their friends are going to do well, but other than that America is not going to do well. There’s very little difference in any of these guys. None of them understands the problem. These are the guys that got us into trouble. You expect them to get us out? - *in The Fiscal Times* *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall St... more » 

Winners Lose As Safety Outperforms


UPDATE: CAT is sliding AH after noting higher chance of recession and cuts 2015 EPS guidance from $15-20 to $12-18 - Slide attached
Following Friday's two-year high volume levels on the NYSE - as OPEX and rebalancing dominated - today saw reversion to the dismal mean in both cash and futures market volumes. It seems sell-the-news was the meme today as builders (LEN earnings exuberance) and AAPL (less than whisper sales) sold off and broadly speaking we saw the month/quarter's winners lagging as safety and stability lead the way.
 

In Preview Of Inevitable Unhappy QEnding, Overeager German Safecrackers Blow Up Bank

It looks like someone took a page from the Bernanke open-ended playbook, who when tasked by Chuck Schumer to "get to work, Mr. Chairman", and realizing his job is on the line, literally bet the Fed's political ranch on the biggest liquidity tsunami ever conceived in Keynesian history with consequences which as Gary Kaminsky explained earlier, will be akin to a Kamikaze pilot, if one who has over 310 million passengers. That someone was one or more German safecrackers in the town of Nottuln-Darup, who were eagerly pursuing their New Normal patriotic duty to release some bank reserves into broad circulation by blasting through a safe on Sunday night, when they used some extra laced C-4, in the process blew up the entire bank, shattering windows across the street, and causing hundreds of thousands of euros worth of damage. Perhaps this, more than anything, is the best visual of just what Bernanke's attempt to unclog the "bank plumbing" will look like in the end, even better than Zimbabwe coordinated 1 million man flush. The silver lining: at least they added to German GDP: if today's Ifo number is any indication, Germany desperately needs it.


Why Size Matters, Fundamentals Don't, And What's Priced Into Stocks

QE3 is more like a longer but lighter version of QE1 Extension (given its size and composition) and as Morgan Stanley's Adam Parker points out, despite two outsized weeks of MBS buying the impact had a much more positive affect on HealthCare and Financials than on Technology and Discretionary sectors (though with oil prices already high this time - the negative feedback into the economy and equity markets is potentially different). However, as we noted recently, it seems fundamentals matter less than ever as S&P 500 return correlations to the Fed balance sheet are as high as ever and while hope springs eternal, unconventional policy remains a far more statistically significant driver of equity performance than European sovereign spreads, jobless claims, or even earnings revisions. Critically, the S&P 500 would be dramatically lower given over a year of rolling six-month negative returns if we adjust for the Fed's exuberance - and the symmetry of market-to-Fed reactions bodes ill for any deceleration in balance sheet expansion. So it truly seems to be QEternity or bust.


With $1.6 Trillion In FDIC Deposit Insurance Expiring, Are Negative Bill Rates Set To Become The New Normal?


As we noted on several occasions in the past ten days, as a result of QE3 and its imminent transformation to QE4, which will merely be the current monetization configuration but without the sterilization of new long-term bond purchases, the Fed's balance sheet is expected to grow by over $2 trillion in the next two years. This also means that the matched liability on the Fed's balance sheet, reserves and deposits, will grow by a like amount. So far so good. However, as Bank of America points out today, there may be a small glitch: as a reminder on December 31, 2012 expires the FDIC's unlimited insurance on noninterest-bearing transaction accounts at which point it will revert back to $250,000. Currently there is about $1.6 trillion in deposits that fall under this umbrella, or essentially the entire amount in new deposit liabilities that will have to be created as a result of QEternity. The question is what those account holders will do, and how will the exit of deposits, once those holding them realize they no longer are government credit risk and instead are unsecured bank credit risk, impact the need to ramp up deposit building. One very possible consequence: negative bill rates as far as the eye can see.


Pavlov's Dogs - An Overview Of Market Risk

It is always amazing to observe how people become less risk averse after risk has markedly increased and more risk averse after it has markedly decreased. The stock market is held to be 'safe' after it has risen for many weeks or months, while it is considered 'risky' after it has declined. The bigger the rally, the safer the waters are deemed to be, and the opposite holds for declines. One term that is associated in peoples' minds with rising prices is 'certainty'. For some reason, rising prices are held to indicate a more 'certain' future, which one can look forward to with more 'confidence'. 'Uncertainty' by contrast is associated with downside volatility in stocks. In reality, the future is always uncertain. Most people seem to regard accidental participation in a bull market cycle with as a kind of guarantee of a bright future, when all that really happened is that they got temporarily lucky. Perma-bullish analysts like Laszlo Birinyi or Abby Joseph Cohen can be sure that they will be right 66% of the time by simply staying bullish no matter what happens. This utter disregard of the risk-reward equation can occasionally lead to costly experiences for their followers when the markets decline.


The Greatest Trick The Devil Ever Pulled

Never try to teach a pig to sing, advised Robert Heinlein. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig. Similarly, never try to convince a central banker that his policies are destructive. After five years of enduring crisis, market prices are no longer determined by the considered assessment of independent investors acting rationally (if indeed they ever were), but simply by expectations of further monetary stimulus. So far, those expectations have not been disappointed. The Fed, the ECB and lately even the BoJ have gone “all- in” in their fight to ensure that after a grotesque explosion in credit, insolvent governments and private sector banks will be defended to the very last taxpayer. Conventional wisdom is that such moves are justified during this period of economic slowdown, as everyone agrees that the market is ’deleveraging’.  But as the consistently excellent Doug Noland points out, this idea of deleveraging (i.e. reduction of available credit) in the US is a myth.


Kaminsky: "The Bernank Is Now A Kamikaze Pilot"


In a little under four minutes, CNBC's Gary Kaminsky provides a voice of reason amid the 'Gold-and-Bonds-are-in-a-bubble-but-Apple-is-awesome' meme. Reflecting on some of the mind-blowingly crazy statistics of this market's recent inexorable rise, central bank balance sheet eruptions, and valuations; Kaminsky (an ex-PM as opposed to 'reporter') provides six clarifying words: "We know this will end ugly!" From the lack of credibility of any Fed exit, to the explosion of the monetary base, Gary moves back and forth from Japan as an ever-more-obvious template for our path past the Keynesian endpoint. Finally, he concludes that: "Bernanke is a kamikaze pilot... experimenting [in monetary policy] and is destined to fail."
 


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The Bernank’s Fed Transparency … Transparent Ploy?

by Staff Report, The Daily Bell:

Under The Bernank, a more open and forceful Federal Reserve … In what might be his final years as chairman of the Federal Reserve, The Bernank is transforming the U.S. central bank, seeking to shed its reclusive habits and make it a constant presence in bolstering the economy. The new approach would make the Fed’s policies more responsive to the needs of the economy — and likely more forceful, because what the Fed is planning to do would be much clearer. A key feature of the strategy would be producing a detailed set of scenarios for when and how the Fed would intervene, which would mark a dramatic shift for an organization that throughout its history has been famously opaque. – Washington Post

Dominant Social Theme: The Federal Reserve is maturing with the times.

Free Market Analysis: More Fed promotions; it never ceases, of course. Control money and you control society. And those “in charge” have a vested interest in ensuring the social solvency of the Fed.
Read More @ TheDailyBell.com



BTFD...

The Cartel And Hedgies Are Short Paper, But Long Physical Gold

by David Schectman, MilesFranklin.com:
The following bulletin from Jim Sinclair explains where gold is headed and who will benefit.  In typical fashion, Sinclair’s information is superb but his writing style isn’t exactly clear.  In fact, after reading it, my wife asked me what he meant by “7 touches”?  (See following bulletin)  Half a dozen years ago it was fashionable within the gold community to point out that a few bullion banks (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and a few friends) were always “short” gold. Sinclair stated then, that the bankers weren’t stupid and as the bull market advanced, the same bankers that were “short” would be the ones who were “long” and they would make a fortune on their gold holdings.  That’s right, they would be “long,” not “short!”  At the time, not many people believed him – but here he is, in the bulletin below, once again pointing out who is accumulating gold.  Low and behold, it’s the very same bankers that are being blamed for being “short.”  Of course, they are “short,” short paper gold and “long” the physicals.  That is exactly what Sinclair is alluding to.  But it’s not just the bankers that are accumulating physical gold; it’s also “big money.”  They are starting to protect their wealth against the coordinated central bank (QE) money debasement from the Fed, the ECB and Japan.
Read More @ MilesFranklin.com


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A Sharply Increasing Trend in U.S. Layoffs

from BusinessInsider:
The BLS’ report on the number of new jobless claims filed in the week ending 15 September 2012 indicates that the pace of layoffs in the United States is accelerating at the fastest pace since the 2007 recession began.
At present, the average rate of increase in the number of initial unemployment insurance benefit claims filed each week since the most recent trend began on 7 July 2012 has reached 2,800 per week. That figure is greater than the average rate of increase of 1,641 layoffs per week that was recorded as the U.S. entered into recession in December 2007. That figure held through 26 July 2008, when high oil and gasoline prices accelerated the recession into high gear, increasing the rate of new layoffs in the U.S. to 7,599 per week.
You can see how today’s rate of increase in the rate of new jobless claims being filed compares with those observed in the 2007 recession in our chart showing the residual distribution of the major trends for layoffs since the beginning of 2006 (see here for a description of the primary trends indicated on our chart below):
Read More @ BusinessInsider.com


Obama and FEMA Create Civilian Army Trained in Domestic Preparedness

by Susanne Posel, Occupy Corporatism:

On August 13th a new class of 231 FEMA Corps members graduated to assist the US government in future disaster preparedness whether state sponsored or natural. These members trained with at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and will be leaders at FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness where they will be assigned specific roles ranging from community relations to Disaster Recovery Center support.
The CNCS is a federal agency that “engages more than five million Americans in service through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America, and leads President Obama’s national call to service initiative, United We Serve.”
They utilize local communities for the sake of public-private partnerships to rework the structure of those communities to serve the needs of the federal government. By implanting pro-government propaganda, using rural resources for the benefit of private sector corporations under the guise of “fostering civic engagement”, the CNCS revisions the American landscape to reflect their agendas as directed by the US government.
Read More @ OccupyCorporatism.com


IMF Chief Christine Lagarde Says US Needs to Rein in its Banks

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde has said that Europe can only solve its debt crisis if countries such as the US bring their banks under control.
by Andrew Trotman, The Telegraph:
Speaking ahead of key meetings for the IMF and the World Bank early next month, Ms Lagarde called on political leaders to “get beyond the crisis in the eurozone” as “we have challenges everywhere”.
Asked in an internal IMF interview what needs to be done to solve the current crisis, she replied: “It’s obvious it will take a lot of cooperative action between all players – and not just cooperative talk, but cooperative action by way of implementing some of the decisions that have been made and some of the decisions that need to be made.
“But if you were to ask me, it’s a question of really trying to get beyond the crisis in the eurozone, asserting a medium-term plan for countries like the US and Japan, and making sure that some of the issues that actually created the crisis back five years ago are really dealt with, not just half dealt with. And I’m particularly thinking about the financial sector.”
Read More @ Telegraph.co.uk


Only 15% ‘Not At All Concerned’ About Drones Invading Privacy

by Terence P. Jeffrey, CNSnews:
A poll conducted by Monmouth University and cited in a Government Accountability Office report published yesterday indicates that only 15 percent of Americans say they are “not at all concerned” that the use of drones by law enforcement will invade their privacy.
At the same time, 67 percent say they are opposed to police using drones to issue speeding tickets.
The GAO report said that law enforcement agencies are “the greatest potential users” of small drones within the United States.
“Domestically, state and local law enforcement entities represent the greatest potential users of small UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] in the near term because they can offer a simple and cost effective solution for airborne law enforcement activities,” said the GAO report.
“For example, federal officials and one airborne law enforcement official said that a small UAS costing between $30,000 and $50,000 is more likely to be purchased by state and local law enforcement entities because the cost is nearly equivalent to that of a patrol car and much less than a manned aircraft,” said GAO. “According to an industry trade group, local law enforcement can potentially choose from about 146 different types of small UAS being manufactured by about 69 different companies in the U.S.”
Read More @ CNSnews.com



The Cheeseburger Police

by Dan Denning, Daily Reckoning.com.au:
Let’s begin the week with a cynical thought experiment. It’s really a conclusion about what’s going on in the financial markets. And the conclusion is this: the value of financial assets and currencies is being deliberately crashed in order to transfer wealth from the public to a small group of global elites.
Sounds crazy right? Maybe even cranky? Call the Cheeseburger Police! We’ll get to them shortly. But first…
The typical result of credit booms and busts is to transfer ownership of real assets and productive businesses from the public to the insiders. In our thought experiment, the Federal Reserve exists to make this happen in a way that doesn’t alert to the public to what’s really going on. The insiders – or anyone who knows how these things work – sell to the public in the mania phase. The panic and crash phase of a bust is when the public realises the game is up.
Prices crash and liquidity disappears in the bust. Real assets and the share prices of real businesses are left lying around on the ground. If your money didn’t get destroyed in the crash, all the good assets can be bought cheap. The end result is that the middle class ends up poorer and the financial/political elites end up owning all the good stuff.
Read More @ DailyReckoning.com.au


Metals Thoughts: The Bernank Put Edition

by Bradley S. Yates, Silver Gold Bull:
QE3 is now a reality to the tune of $40B per month in mortgage backed security purchases. Markets had come to widely expect (90% probability was the number floating around pre-announcement in bond markets), but I certainly did not expect this aggressive of a move. I was expecting more of a UK-style funding-for-lending scheme that would promote direct lending to small business and individuals, but Fed officials seem to prefer market intervention instead of direct financing. They also extended their low-for-long pledge to maintain accommodative interest rate policy until late 2015, which interestingly is beyond Bernanke’s current term.
To put this number in perspective, the ‘normal’ level of Treasury securities held by the Fed was between $700-$800 Billion. QE1 (launched Nov 2008) brought peak holdings to about $2.1 Trillion. November 2010 brought about Son of Quantitative Easing or QE2, which purchased an additional $600 Billion over the course of 9 months (about $60B/month). Thursday’s announcement did not have a total figure in mind, but declared for $40B per month in mortgage purchases instead of Treasuries. Keep in mind with all of these numbers that a fair amount of the original purchases have since matured,
Read More @ SilverGoldBull.com

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