The 46 Million Foodstamp Man March - An Infographic

 
America has over 44 million people on Food Stamps. The food stamps program's real name is Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The Food Stamp program is "hidden" from view through Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) Cards that work just as credit cards. This article visualizes the size of the program and the vast amounts of people participating.

Chart Of The Day: 55 And Under? No Job For You

Nearly two years ago, and progressing to this day, we first observed (and subsequently even the mainstream media caught on) that America's labor force is slowly but surely converting itself from a full-time to part-time worker society. The reasons for this are obvious: to corporations, the benefits associated with employing part-time workers are countless: avoiding substantial benefits-related costs, evading long-term job contracts, hourly basis wages, and many others. In fact, as long as there is slack in the economy, and there will be for a long, long time as the shift in labor demand is now secular, regardless of what the Fed wants to admit, employers will have ever more leverage, while workers have less and less (and are forced to agree to any employment terms, as long as they get some paycheck at all). This much has been known. What has gotten far less prominence is that of the much trumpeted 4+ million jobs added since the trough in late 2009, virtually all the job additions have gone to (part-time) workers 55 years and over. Indeed, as the chart below shows, starting since the official NBER end of the recession in June 2009, the US has cumulatively added 2.9 million jobs. However, when broken down by age cohort, 3.5 million of these jobs have gone to US workers aged between 55 and 69. Another 729K have gone to recent college grads aged 20-24. What about those workers in their prime years: between 25 and 54 years of age? They have lost a total of 729,000 jobs since June 30, 2009!

Coordinated Dump In Stocks, Bonds, Commodities And Crude

Equities slipped to their lowest close since Draghi's 'I-have-a-dream' speech and 4th red day out of the last 5. Things were choppy in a tight range before the FOMC and immediately after (aside from a little noise) but as the close approached S&P futures tested yesterday's lows, APPL slipped from its VWAP moorings (but ended green) and even FB eased lower (10% off its pre-open highs). The last hour saw selling pretty much everywhere as Treasury yields popped 2-3bps (even as stocks fell), Gold slid, Oil Slid more and the USD sold off into the close. Given the 'distance' between bonds and stocks, this compression might make some sense (thanks to a lack of anything new from Bernanke to keep the wolves from the depression door). Credit markets tracked stocks - though HYG tried to outperform, only to fade Baumgartner-like into the close. Stocks caught down to VIX's weakness from yesterday and then VIX decided to outperform flat into the close as stocks ended just 'off the lows' as CNBC would say. Only Citi remains green from post-QEtc. among the financials with Buffett's fave WFC -7.9% since 9/14.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Hunger Games

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - FOMC A Big Nothing

America's near poor: 30 million and struggling

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 3 hours ago

Thirty million Americans struggling, increasingly pissed off, and ready to blame someone for their troubles. Would either Administration support monetary discipline (end QE) and/or austerity programs under theses circumstance? I think hell no is the correct response. Those expecting significant changes after the Presidential election are unlikely to see them. Growing... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Raj Gupta Gets Two Years

This will learn him:

• RAJAT GUPTA GETS 24-MONTH PRISON SENTENCE FOR INSIDER TRADING
• RAJAT GUPTA FINED $5 MILLION

Moral of the story: steal $100 million (illustratively: nobody knows what the bottom line impact of the criminal activity was: could be more, could be less) -> spend two years in a minimum security country club, electric golf carts included. Look for a surge in insider trading cases with this ruling which makes risks to getting caught trading on inside information not only acceptable, but in fact welcome. The good news, for Jon Corzine at least, is that if the MF Global case ever gets to the sentencing stage (it won't), his sentence would be to fly coach class for 24-48 hours.

Credit Risk Appetite On Cusp Of 'Euphoria'

Presented with little comment except to note that the ebullience (pre-crisis spread levels and dramatically rising PIK Toggle issuance?) driven by flow/technicals and financial repression - even in the face of releveraging and fundamental deterioration will see an over-crowded euphoric group of investors knocking at Ben's door when this turns to dysphoria as the credit cycle inevitably does...

Post-FOMC Market Update: Gold Up, Stocks Down (Just)

 
UPDATE: Stocks are at the day's lows now as risk is reverting lower and USD higher
The market had a small conniption immediately after the FOMC minutes were released as algos were quickly switched off but since then little has moved. The main 'theme' if any is one of a lower USD, higher Gold, and lower stocks with Treasuries and Oil flat (for now)...

Fed, As Expected, Says Nothing New - Full Redline Comparison With September Statement

  As we noted earlier, the Fed tweaked the language a little on the latest economic data but chnaged nothing on their plans for our 'great recovery':

• *FED SAYS HOUSING SECTOR SHOWS SOME FURTHER SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT
• *FED SAYS U.S. HOUSEHOLD SPENDING ADVANCED `A BIT MORE QUICKLY'
• *FED REPEATS `EXCEPTIONALLY LOW' RATES AT LEAST THROUGH MID-2015
• *FED REPEATS IT WILL CONTINUE OPERATION TWIST THROUGH YEAR-END
• *FED TO KEEP BUYING $40B A MONTH OF MORTGAGE-BACKED SECURITIES
• *FED REITERATES `SIGNIFICANT DOWNSIDE RISKS' TO ECONOMY

Pre: 10Y 1.775, ES 1410.5, Gold 1701, EUR 1.2964
 

The Bernank's Secret Philanthropy...

Legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens famously calls America’s oil imports ‘the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world.’ Pickens is referring to the money that is paid each year to oil exporting nations, particularly those in the Persian Gulf which raked in around $100 billion last year. No doubt, this is an enormous transfer of wealth. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the TRILLIONS that Ben Bernanke gives the world’s elite. It constitutes, by far, the greatest transfer of wealth in history, vastly exceeding America’s energy imports. It’s an unconscionable, immoral, ridiculous game. But there’s good news– we can stop playing whenever we want. We don’t HAVE to hold their worthless currency. We don’t HAVE to keep transferring our purchasing power to an elite group. We can “opt-out”. Trade as much of their paper as you can for something REAL, especially physical precious metals.

Yet Another Lawsuit Against Bank Of America Over Countrywide's Legacy Toxic Mortgages

There was a time when the announcement of lawsuits against Bank of America for the fraudulent mortgage practices of the worst M&A acquisition of all time - Countrywide Financial - sent the stock of BAC plunging. Now, it has become a daily thing and any incremental news barely cause a budget in the stock. One just needs to look at the surging Reps and Warranties claims against the bank (most recently in the latest Q3 earnings report) for improper mortgage conduct in the past to get a sense that very soon the firm's entire market cap will be less than the liability and litigation reserve it will need to establish against the avalanche of lawsuits we predicted back in October 2010. The litigation against the bank now is so large, that it will soon have to pull its TBTF get out of bankruptcy card just to avoid being sued to death in a 1000 legal paper cuts. This explains why the just announced latest lawsuit against BAC by the NY District Attorney, seeking $1 billion or so, for fraudulent loan-origination practices barely caused a stir in the stock.

Big Brother’s New Toy: An EMP Cruise Missile

from John Galt FLA:

Just when you thought it was safe to leave your electronics out of the Faraday cage for a day or two, along comes Boeing with a new toy for Big Brother; a cruise missile which emits a microwave burst of energy which creates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) as it flies by disabling all electronic devices. In a story from Gizmodo, a test was conducted last week and per the article by Jamie Condlieffe:
Read More @ John Galt FLA

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