Top Hillary Clinton Aide Walks Out In Middle Of FBI Interview

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 17:36
With the FBI's noose closing around Hillary and her closest State Department cohorts as the Federal agency nears the end of its criminal probe, some are getting increasingly concerned about what they will and will not say on the record. One such person is Hillary's former State Department Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, who according to the WaPo walked out of an interview with federal investigators when an FBI official began to discuss a topic considered off-limits.

The Washington Post Accuses Stingy Americans Of Ruining Obama's Recovery

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 13:37 Dear broke American consumers which once made up the world's most vibrant middle class: please stop being such a nuisance and source of confusion to nice Op-Ed columnists at the WaPo, the WSJ and, of course, the Fed and their $4.5 trillion in direct injections into the offshore bank accounts of America's wealthiest 1%, and instead go ahead and splurge all your savings on trinkets, gadgets and gizmos you don't need. Only that way will Obama's recovery be truly complete.

WTF Chart Of The Day: "Dead Retirees" Walking

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 17:15 When 70% to 80% of that net worth is tied up in your house, you are nothing but a dead retiree walking. You should acquire a taste for cat food and learn how to panhandle for money.

Caught On Tape: This Is What Happened When An MEP Tried To Read The TTIP Text

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 17:01 Democracy, this is not...

"This Is The Most Obvious Disaster In Finance. Central Bankers Don't Understand..."

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 16:55 Throughout all of the meticulous planning done by the creaters of the Federal Reserve, nobody bothered to ask what would happen if the central bank suddenly couldn't influence the attractiveness of lending money, thus not being able to affect the real economy - which is precisely where we are today.

Stocks Up, Bonds Up, Credit Up, Commodities Up, Dollar Up... Volume Down, Economy Down

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 16:45

Oil Slides After Crude Inventory Surges Most In A Month

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 16:44 Following Genscape's 1.4mm build estimate at Cushing, and expectations of a 1.1mm build, API reported a 1.46mm build. Chatter across trading desks was that API data had been leaked and that is what drove oil prices higher (after their Genscape-driven dump) which proved 100% incorrect as total crude inventories soared a shocking 3.5mm barrels (against expectations of no change) - the most in 5 weeks. Gaosline built less than expected and Distillates saw a draw but the damage was done and prices of WTI started to give back the days gains.

Fossil Stock Plummets 25% On Abysmal Results As US, Global Consumers Choose To Save Instead Of Spend

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 16:28 This was the latest confirmation that something is very badly broken with not only the US but also international consumer, who as the WaPo "determined" earlier is actively seeking to sabotage the Obama recovery by not spending on such products as Skaggen watches, but instead selfishly is saving away all available funds. Expect even more weakness in the coming quarters, especially among comparable consumer companies, if this unpatriotic saving behavior does not revert back to what made the US consumer class the most beloved across the entire world.

The Inevitability Of Unintended Consequences

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 16:25 Why central planning efforts will ultimately backfire - Anyone involved with managing projects, people or systems knows that the only thing that can be planned with absolute certainty is that things will never go 100% according to plan. History is full of examples where governments' best-laid plans failed in spectacular fashion, exacerbating the very problems they were intending to solve. Here are a few of our favorites...

This Is What The "Main Street Serving" Fed's Wall Street Advisors Told It To Do About Future Rate Hikes

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 15:57 "U.S. economic recovery remains fragile, and downside risks to the economy are still present. Provided the data improve, the Council believes one or two well-timed and well-communicated increases in the federal funds rate between now and year-end would be prudent to accomplish the Fed’s mandates, enhance central bank credibility, and create policy latitude in the event of an unexpected economic downturn."

Angry White, Rich, Educated Men? Trump Voters Are Smarter And Richer Than The Average American

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 15:40 It's not just "angry blue collar white men," that are supporting Donald Trump. Having received a record number of votes in a Republican nomination campaign and winning in some of the richest and best-educated counties in the country adding to victories in his more traditional strongholds of white working-class neighborhoods, statistician Nate Silver found - after reviewing exit poll data in 23 states - that Trump voters' median household income was higher than the median in every state, sometimes by a wide margin; and that 44% of Trump voters have college undergraduate degrees, compared to 29% of US adults.

Hey Paul Krugman: That's Not Insulin You're Injecting; It's Heroin!

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 15:20 In a recent New York Times column, economist Paul Krugman tried to justify central bank interventionist monetary policy by comparing it to giving insulin to a diabetic. However, as Peter Schiff explains, it isn’t insulin central bankers are injecting into the economy. It’s heroin.

Goldman Warns Central Banks May Unleash "Financial Turbulence, Rate Shock" As It Cuts Yield Forecasts

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 15:10 "On the policy front, all three major central banks can create financial turbulence if not careful in managing investors expectations. The Fed is tightening with very few hikes priced - a historical anomaly - increasing the odds of a 'rate shock'. The ECB and the BoJ are distorting the price of duration (and in Europe, sovereign credit) through their asset purchase programs. Any unanticipated shift in their behaviour could have magnified effects on asset prices."

Five Reasons Why The Pain For SolarCity Is Just Starting

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 14:40 One week ago, when SolarCity was trading around $30, prompted by Jim Chanos' bearish take on the company we wrote a piece asking if "SolarCity is the next SunEdison" in which we presented the Full Bear case as noted by Axiom's Gordon Johnson, who incidentally had the only "sell" rating on the company ahead of last night's earnings debacle (at which point there were also 12 Buys and 9 Holds), which has resulted in the company plunging 25% overnight, and is about 40% lower than when we first prompted readers to pay attention to Elon Musk's solar venture. Today, Gordon gives ZH readers an exclusive look at five points why the pain for SCTY has only just begun, and why - as we speculted - SolarCity may indeed be the next unfortunate bankruptcy in the sector.

"Bored" Chinese Workers Created "Uncontrollable Bubble" In Commodity Futures

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 14:19 With the collapse of China's smoke-and-mirrors commodity bubble comes the post-mortem as the horde of Chinese gamblers flood from one government-appointed market to another as the American dream of get-rich-quick schemes appears to have been adopted by the burgeoning middle classes now disillusioned with real work. As Bloomberg reports so shockingly, from the Dutch tulip craze of 1637 to America’s dot-com bubble at the turn of the century, history is littered with speculative frenzies that ended badly for investors; but rarely has a mania escalated so rapidly, and spurred such fevered trading, as the great China commodities boom of 2016..."you have far too much credit, money sloshing about, money looking for higher returns."

Headline Porn: Mark Cuban Exposes The Ugly Truth About The 2016 Election

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 14:01 "I learned it from watching Dennis Rodman and Paris Hilton.  Tell the media what they need and want to hear. Give them a place and time to talk to you about it. Watch the headlines roll in."

Greece’s Latest Financial Emergency is Both Tragic and Absurd

by Larry Elliott, The Guardian:
The Greek debt pile is larger than ever – and the solution seemingly ever more remote
It’s that time of year again. Greece is running out of money. There are violent protests in Athens. Eurozone finance ministers are gathering in Brussels in an “emergency” conclave to decide what to do next.
The International Monetary Fund has already made it clear what it thinks should happen. It says Europe should cut Greece some slack by easing the terms of its bailout agreement and offering a solid dose of debt relief.
Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, has said that if Germany and its allies in the Eurogroup of finance ministers insist on making unrealistic demands of Greece she will not risk any more of the fund’s money.
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Official “Labor Market Conditions” Give off First Warning Signs

by Wolf Richter, Wolf Street:
Jobs metrics were immune to worsening economic malaise.
The official labor market metrics in the US — unemployment rate, number of jobs created, weekly unemployment insurance claims, etc. — have been immune to the worsening malaise visible elsewhere:
Total business sales have declined since mid-2014.
Business inventories have reached crisis levels.
Corporate earnings, no matter how financially engineered, have fallen four quarters in a row.
Productivity is down.
Read More

Saving Is Dumb... Say The Central Bankers

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/10/2016 - 18:05 Central bankers have been waging a war against savers. What those central bankers want you to do is either (1) spend money to increase demand, or (2) buy stocks to increase capital. Well, it sure looks like American consumers are not doing the former...

From Golden Dollar To Petro Dollar To Narco Dollar – F. William Engdahl

by F. William Engdahl, The News Doctors:
The role as world reserve currency is something no financial hegemon in history has willingly surrendered. It took two world wars for the City of London and Bank of England to reluctantly concede hegemony of the Pound Sterling to the Dollar. As Henry Kissinger is said to have remarked decades ago, “If you control the money, you can control the entire world.” Whether or not Kissinger ever said that publicly, he and his patron, David Rockefeller, certainly believed it. Now, with US government debt shooting past $19 trillion and the true state of the American economy and its infrastructure at its worst since the Great Depression, with most Americans living on the brink of financial disaster, the brilliant financial engineers of Wall Street and Washington have once again come up with a scheme to prolong the role of Dollar as King in the world economy.
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