Chinese Rating Agency Warns Coming Crisis Is Worse Than 2008, Blames US "Printing Press"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 18:45
"...we’ll have to face a new world financial crisis in the next few years... the growing volume of debts and the unsteady development of the economies of the US, the EU, China and some other developing countries mean the situation is even worse than ahead of 2008."

Gallup CEO Fears He Might “Suddenly Disappear” for Questioning U.S. Jobs Data

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall Street on Parade:
Years of unending news stories on U.S. government programs of surveillance, rendition and torture have apparently chilled the speech of even top business executives in the United States.
Yesterday, Jim Clifton, the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, an iconic U.S. company dating back to 1935, told CNBC that he was worried he might “suddenly disappear” and not make it home that evening if he disputed the accuracy of what the U.S. government is reporting as unemployed Americans.
The CNBC interview came one day after Clifton had penned a gutsy opinion piece on Gallup’s web site, defiantly calling the government’s 5.6 percent unemployment figure “The Big Lie” in the article’s headline. His appearance on CNBC was apparently to walk back the “lie” part of the title and reframe the jobs data as just hopelessly deceptive.
Read More @ WallStreetonParade.com

Audioblog #75 – The Big One Has Started – Protect Yourself Now!

from Miles Franklin:

Why the Current Financial System Will Blow Up, and What You Can Do About It

from Daily Reckoning.com:
Once a central banker, always a central banker…
Former Reserve Bank Governor Bernie Fraser reckons the economy and consumer confidence need a boost. The only way to do so, apparently, is via an interest rate cut.
Gee, Bernie, what happened to all the former confidence boosting interest rate cuts? They didn’t work. What makes you think this one will be any different? What about the confidence sapping effect on all the people who rely on income to support themselves?
Read More/Watch Video @ DailyReckoning.com

Shunned Greece Agrees To Boost Economic Cooperation With Russia

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 21:50 It's been an odd few days for Greece's new PM Alexis Tsipras. From being lambasted by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, shunned by Angela Merkel's henchmen, holding hands with Jean-Claude Juncker, and losing a key funding channel from Mario Draghi; Tsipras' anti-austerity platform has been 'supported' by Barack Obama and he has been invited for a visit to Russia by Vladimir Putin, and reminded that Russia is willing (and able) to provide financial aid if asked by finance minister Anton Siluanov. So headlines this evening from ekathimerini should not be entirely surprising that Putin and Tsipras have agreed to boost cooperation in the economy and energy, tourism, culture and transport sectors; and discussed the possible creation of a pipeline to carry natural gas from Russia to Europe via Turkey and Greece.

The Death Cross Of American Society

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 15:26 Presented with little comment aside to ask (rhetorically of course), who is The Fed working for?

"Catastrophic Shutdown Of America's Supply Chain Looms" As West Coast Port Worker Talks Break Down

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 14:25 according to the latest update from the 29 west coast ports that serve as the entry point of the bulk of Asia/Pac trade into and out of the US, things are about to get far worse for America's manucaturing base, because as RILA reported earlier, talks between the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) representing port management, and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) officially broke down on Wendesday, and without an agreement, experts have suggested that nearly 30 west coast ports could be shut down within a week. As RILA reports, "a work slowdown during contract negotiations over the past seven months has already created logistic nightmares for American exporters, manufacturers and retailers dependent on an efficient supply chain. A complete shutdown would be catastrophic, with hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk if America’s supply chain grinds to a halt."

The End Of Guitar Center (And An Irrational Addiction To Growth & The Scourge Of Unregulated Structured Finance)

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 20:15 The fact is, the die is cast. In a couple of weeks, Guitar Center will need to report its Christmas performance to its bondholders. If things do not look good, its bonds will be ripped apart like RadioShack’s. Here’s what this really means: it’s the end of big box retail, an irrational addiction to growth, and the scourge of unregulated structured finance. For a few years, unwise urban planning and unregulated banks created a new bubble in the American suburbs. The objective truth is that the growth of the last decade was financed by banking fraud, and that financial trickery of this sort only fools people in the short-term. Eventually, you must have a product people demand, sold by competent people who care about the business, financed in a way that makes sense.
 

What Central Bank Defeat Would Look Like, In Charts

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 19:45 Deflation remains the enemy thanks to debt, deleveraging, demographics, tech disruption & default risks. US aggregate debt is today a staggering $58.0 trillion (327% of GDP); the number of people unemployed in the European Union is 23.6 million; Greece has spent 90 of the past 192 years in default or debt restructuring. 7 years on from the GFC... The massive policy response continues. Central bank victory means that lower rates, currencies, oil successfully boosts global GDP & PMI’s in Q2/Q3, allowing Fed hikes in Q4. Bond yields would soar in H1 on this outcome. Defeat, no recovery, and currency wars, debt default and deficit financing become macro realities.
 

A New Theory Of Energy And The Economy, Part 2 - The Long-Term GDP-Energy Tie

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 19:15 In Part 1, we described the world’s economy as one that is based on energy. The design of the system is such that the economy can only grow; shrinkage tends to cause collapse. If this view of the situation is correct, then we need an ever-rising amount of inexpensive energy to keep the system going. We have gone from trying to grow the world economy on oil, to trying to grow the world economy on coal. Both of these approaches have “hit walls”.  Now we have practically nowhere to go.
 

Greece: The Big Picture Update, And Why Deutsche Bank Thinks Europe Will Fold

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 18:30 All you need to know about the rapidly changing situation in Greece.
 

3 Things - The 5.6% Lie, Dividend Cuts, Valuation

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 18:15 We can certainly "hope" that the markets will continue to march endlessly higher. However, "hope" has never been an effective portfolio management strategy. Considering that the decline in oil prices is supposed to good for the consumer, even though personal spending declined in the most recently reported period, the decline in dividends will certainly have a negative effect on those depending on those dividends. The current detachment between spending and the stock market will likely be corrected rather harshly at some point.
 

"Investors Are Now Playing An Epic Game Of Chicken"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 17:45 "Central bank polices have ruptured the proper functioning of capital markets. Some investors myopically believe that 'money printing needs a home' and that it will end up in equities (the asset class with upside). However, such a belief needs to include a deep faith in the central bank’s abilities to navigate a soft landing. History is not on their side. Investors pouring into equities might be playing an epic game of chicken."
 

RadioShack Files For Bankruptcy

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 17:16 As credit markets have been indicating for 15 months, 94-year-old consumer-electronics chain RadioShack has finally pulled the ripcord...
*RADIOSHACK FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION AS LOSSES MOUNT
*RADIOSHACK WILTS UNDER BIG-BOX, ONLINE COMPETITION
RadioShack lists $1.2bn in assets and $1.38bn in debt. Additionally, Bloomberg reports that a post-bankruptcy deal is being worked on with Sprint.
 

January Payrolls Have Missed Expectations 9 Of The Last 10 Times

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 17:14 The US chief analyst of Nordea, Johnny Bo Jakobsen, points out a curious statistical finding: in the past decade, consensus forecast over-estimated January reading on 9 out of 10 occasions. As the chart below shows, the average overoptimistic consensus miss for January is just about 50K, with the last time consensus was lower than the final result taking place in 2012, and before that, one has to go all the way back to 2003 for the second payrolls "beat".
 

CME Hikes Silver, Brent, RBOB Margins

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 17:08 In case algos still haven't gotten the message to jump all aboard into the S&P, here comes the CME with a gntle nudge in the form of 90 pages of margin hikes including Brent, RBOB and, just in case there is still anyone who wishes to trade paper precious metals against the BIS, silver. In fact, at first glance it appears the only future  whose margin was not hiked was stocks: apparently stocks are never volatile enough for a margin hike.
 

Hong Kong Is Doomed! Foolishly Lowers, Eliminates Taxes To Stimulate Economy

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/05/2015 - 16:44 The Hong Kong government is so foolish that one official said: "There is a need to stimulate the city’s domestic consumption by introducing measures to leave more cash in the hands of the public." What are you talking about, man? Everyone knows that you stimulate the economy by increasing government spending, not reducing it and just leaving the people to decide what they’re going to spend it on. It’s insane.
 

Manufactured Terror, Not the Economy, Will Dominate 2016 Election

Like the Soviet Union, ISIS is a vastly overrated villain
by Kurt Nimmo, Infowars:
Propaganda and the endless horror of ISIS sensationalized by the establishment media will overshadow worries about the economy during the next election. According to McClatchy, terrorism is the number one issue dominating the political debate leading into next year’s election.

Americans are increasingly worried about terrorist threats and want heightened readiness and a tough response. A recent Pew Research Center survey found combating terrorism inching ahead of the economy as Americans’ top priority for Obama and Congress. Two-thirds were concerned that the Islamic State was a major threat to this country.

More than a decade has passed since the attacks of 9/11 and not one terror attack — excluding the highly suspicious and Hollywoodesque Boston marathon bombing — has occurred in America.
Read More @ Infowars.com

It Is About To Get Ugly: Oil Is Crashing And So Is Greece

by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:
The price of oil collapsed by more than 8 percent on Wednesday, and a decision by the European Central Bank has Greece at the precipice of a complete and total financial meltdown.  What a difference 24 hours can make.  On Tuesday, things really seemed like they were actually starting to get better.  The price of oil had rallied by more than 20 percent since last Thursday, things in Europe seemed like they were settling down, and there appeared to be a good deal of optimism about how global financial markets would perform this month.  But now fear is back in a big way.  Of course nobody should get too caught up in how the markets behave on any single day.  The key is to take a longer term point of view.  And the fact that the markets have been on such a roller coaster ride over the past few months is a really, really bad sign.  When things are calm, markets tend to steadily go up.  But when the waters start really getting choppy, that is usually a sign that a big move down in on the horizon.  So the huge ups and the huge downs that we have witnessed in recent days are likely an indicator that rough seas are ahead.
Read More…

16-Year-Old Launches Organization to Battle Warrantless Surveillance

by Tim Brown, Freedom Outpost:
Brandon Keibler is just your ordinary 16-year-old from Southern Indiana. At least that’s what some people might think. However, having become an activist at fourteen and helping to establish the Restore the Fourth organization, this young man has just launched an organization to encourage grassroots efforts aimed at a tyrannical government that wishes to disregard the fact that they are bound by law to gain a warrant before they search or seize anything of any American citizen. This also includes warrantless surveillance of individuals.
Project Digital Privacy was launched on January 24, 2015 as a result of increased social activism in regards to government surveillance.
According to the organization’s website, “Technology and global communication has reached a steady rate of advancement, with new forms of communicative devices and concepts being formed every day
Read More @ FreedomOutpost.com

Is The Mainstream Financial Media Questioning Central Bank Credibility?

from Gold Silver Worlds:

In yesterday’s post 16 Investment Insights – Money, Markets, And Metals In 2015, we provided a summary of the key investment insights from 6 top fund or money managers, including Jim Rickards and Ronald Stoeferle, from the quarterly Incrementum Advisory Board (www.incrementum.li).
In today’s article, we pick out an important excerpt from the Advisory Board, in which Jim Rickards discusses the observation that the financial mainstream media is increasingly questioning the credibility of central bank monetary policies.
Jim Rickards: “I don’t actually think that the fundamental state of the world has changed. What has changed, it has become more visible. Analysts, investors and mainstream media are starting to wake up to things like currency wars, the save haven nature of gold, etc.
Read More @ GoldSilverWorlds.com

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