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Post by 3bid on Dec 17, 2015 9:16:00 GMT -5
2,200 pages, $1.8 Trillion, Dead of Night Omnibus
Sessions: Omnibus Explains Why ‘Voters Are In Open Rebellion’
Published on Dec 16, 2015 BACKGROUND:
In the dead of night after 2am this morning, Congressional leadership unveiled a more than 2,000 page 'omnibus' year-end funding bill which would, among other things: fully-fund the President's refugee expansion; fully-fund sanctuary cities; fully-fund the resettlement of illegal aliens youth and their families crossing the border; lock-in tax credits for illegal aliens; and quadruple the highly controversial H-2B foreign worker visa being used to replace Americans as truck drivers, construction workers, theme park employees, and in blue collar jobs across the nation.
Sessions, the Chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, issued a statement about the bill as it speeds to a vote before it can be read, observing in part that GOP voters: "have come to believe that their party’s elites are not only uninterested in defending their interests but – as with this legislation, and fast-tracking the President’s international trade pact – openly hostile to them." On the floor today, Sessions further reminded his colleagues that their duty is the American people - not special interests, immigration advocacy groups, or lobbyists for narrow business concerns.
Sessions observed that - as the omnibus paves the way for a huge immigration increase beyond today's record-breaking highs - that more than 8 in 10 American voters want the level of immigration in American frozen or cut, and yet the GOP-led Congress is about to surge it even higher.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau - even without these increases - immigration will add the population equivalent of 1 new Los Angeles to the country each 3 years.
The U.S. has admitted 59 million immigrants since 1965. As historical context, after the numerically-smaller 1880-1920 immigration wave, future immigration was reduced to promote wage growth for US-born and immigrant workers: there was zero net growth in the foreign-born population over the course of the next half-century (in fact, it declined markedly). Now, after five decades of unprecedented immigration, the U.S. is on path to add another five decades of unprecedented immigration on top of that - setting new all-time records every single decade to come.
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2,200 pages, $1.8 trillion, dead of night
What’s really in the year-end tax and spending bill?
By Bernie Becker 12/16/15
Congress released more than 2,200 pages of legislation in the dead of night — containing $1.1 trillion in spending, about $680 billion in tax cuts and a string of other policy changes.
Both the fossil fuel and alternative energy industries can count themselves as winners, following a trade of the decades-long ban on crude oil exports for an extension of wind and solar tax credits.
Syrian refugees, 9/11 first responders and the District of Columbia’s elementary and middle school sets are among the other winners. Obamacare, banks and even portrait artists look to be among the losers. And don’t forget hard apple cider — a winner, thanks to Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is helping out upstate New York apple growers by updating tax laws surrounding the alcoholic refreshment.
Here's a look at some of the other winners and losers:
WINNERS
Syrian refugees: A big, bipartisan majority in the House just voted to place new limits on Iraqi and Syrian refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. But that measure didn’t make it into the omnibus spending measure, which instead includes an even more bipartisan proposal to require more visas for certain travelers.
9/11 first responders: The Zadroga Act, which provides benefits for first responders who got sick at Ground Zero, actually got a 75-year extension in the omnibus. The extension came about two weeks after Jon Stewart, the former "Daily Show" host and longtime supporter of the measure, made another trip to Capitol Hill to “shame” lawmakers into not forgetting the program.
Vladimir Putin: If you ask Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) at least. McCain accused a pair of senior appropriators, Sens. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and thingy Durbin (D-Ill.), of choosing “to reward Vladimir Putin and his cronies with a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars” in the omnibus, and he even threatened to vote against the spending bill. That’s because Shelby tucked a provision into the omnibus that removes restrictions on using Russian-made rocket engines for military space launches. The provision directly overrides the National Defense Authorization Act, which limited United Launch Alliance to nine Russian engines for competitive military space launches. Why? ULA, a Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture that builds its rockets in Alabama, has argued it won’t have enough Russian-made RD-180 engines for military launches until a U.S. alternative is ready.
Preschool programs: Head Start gets a funding bump of $570 million in the spending bill, up to $9.2 billion, in just the latest reflection of how early education has become a top priority for the White House and congressional Democrats. The Child Care and Development Block Grants would also get an extra $326 million, while grants designed to help states expand and improve pre-K education are also included.
Michelle Obama’s lunch program: The first lady and her nutrition standards won for another year. Schools that could show they were having trouble with a requirement of including whole-grain items in meals can still seek a waiver, and future restrictions on sodium would also be put on hold under provisions continued from last year’s year-end spending bill. Still, it remains a far cry from the all-out waiver that Republicans sought to put into appropriations legislation last year, a controversial move that sparked a public spat with Obama.
The IRS: The tax agency gets graded on a curve, after spending the last 2½ years in the GOP’s cross hairs for its improper scrutiny of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status. But the IRS actually got a funding bump from a Republican Congress this year, after it disclosed that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers had their personal information compromised through an agency application.
Charitable groups: The nonprofit sector gets several of their tax priorities extended permanently — including incentives for contributing from retirement funds, donating food and land preservation.
Trans fat: The FDA’s decision to basically toss artificial trans fats out of the U.S. has caused no small level of concern within the food industry. But lawmakers inserted language into the omnibus that gives the industry some cover from lawsuits by declaring that partially hydrogenated oils basically can't be considered unsafe until at least 2018.
LOSERS
The Affordable Care Act: Say what you will about past efforts to dismantle Obamacare, there was broad bipartisan agreement to delay or pause three major taxes in the Democratic health care law. The two-year pauses on the Cadillac tax and medical device tax, along with a one-year break in the health insurance tax, will subtract about $35 billion in funding for the ACA. More importantly, they represent the most significant hit to the president’s signature domestic achievement since it was passed more than five years ago. While the tax breaks are temporary, most experts predict they’ll be very difficult to reinstate given the broad bipartisan opposition. And the “risk corridors” language in the omnibus will lead to a $2.5 billion hole in the program.
The financial services industry: Banks got a few odds and ends in the omnibus, including a provision that keeps the Securities and Exchange Commission from mandating that companies disclose political donations. But banks and Republicans fell short in efforts to pare back Dodd-Frank regulations and in replacing capital lost in the recent transportation bill. On top of that, there was no serious effort to block the Labor Department from implementing a new fiduciary standard rule for retirement brokers, and efforts to impede Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rules were also brushed aside.
MIXED BAG
Immigration groups: Republicans pushed for much harsher provisions to stop improper payments of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, refundable incentives to poor families that were extended permanently in the tax deal. The measure will keep many newly documented or undocumented immigrants from retroactively claiming the incentives, but Democrats had feared the so-called integrity provisions could be much worse. Still, the National Immigration Law Center called it “shameful that anti-immigrant legislators continue to feel a constant need to add an anti-immigrant imprimatur to their legislation.”
ODDS AND ENDS
The alcohol industry: Cider, beer and rum — oh my! It’s no surprise that the extenders bill would bring back an incentive to prop up the rum industries in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, one of the temporary tax breaks often labeled as a poster child for special interest handouts. But the tax extenders bill also gives relief to smaller brewers and distillers who were forced to cough up excise taxes to the government multiple times a month.
And the Schumer-backed CIDER Act would allow wine made from apples, pears, apple juice concentrate or pear juice concentrate to be defined as cider as long as the alcohol content didn’t exceed 8.5 percent. “You could say the CIDER Act is moving. How about them apples?” Schumer said at Senate Finance markup of tax provisions in February.
Portrait artists: Though something about Washington suggests committee chairmen and other bigwigs will find other ways to pay up. From page 590 of the omnibus: “None of the funds made available in this or any other act may be used to pay for the painting of a portrait of an officer or employee of the federal government, including the president.”
Sledders: The omnibus contains language, which already passed the House Appropriations Committee, asking the Capitol police to take it easy on sledders who want to take advantage of the steep hill on the West Front.
Helena Bottemiller Evich, Paul Demko, Jeremy Herb, Jon Prior, Maggie Severns, Patrick Temple-West, Zachary Warmbrodt, Colin Wilhelm and Austin Wright contributed to this report.
www.politico.com/story/2015/12/what-is-in-federal-budget-216877#ixzz3uaMwt052
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Dec 18, 2015 20:05:21 GMT -5
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Post by vulcanized crawler on Dec 18, 2015 20:23:54 GMT -5
crazy huh? we can spend all that money on non americans and let our seniors go with zip cola. since 1965 we have had 58 million immigrants come into the usa, at the expense of salary increases and yes, social security increases. ah yes, cat food tastes good fresh from the can. thank you congress and mister president
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Post by 3bid on Dec 26, 2015 17:05:56 GMT -5
Gaping hole in plastic
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Dec 30, 2015 8:50:00 GMT -5
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Jan 4, 2016 16:31:35 GMT -5
Dow closes down triple digits, posts worst opening day in 8 years Evelyn Cheng | @chengevelyn 26 Mins AgoU.S. stocks closed lower Monday, the first day of trade of the year, weighed by renewed concerns of global economic slowdown and increased tensions in the Middle East. An overnight drop in Chinese stocks that triggered a new circuit breaker rule also pressured sentiment. "Anytime a big market stops trading and it spills over to Europe, investors are nervous," said Marc Chaikin, CEO of Chaikin Analytics. "Ex-China we were expecting a positive (market). At the end of the day, except for a few companies like Caterpillar, this really shouldn't have an impact on our markets," he said. The major averages ended down more than 1.5 percent, with the Nasdaq composite underperforming with a decline of more than 2 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average closed about 275 points lower, recovering from session lows as the close approached. The index closed down 1.58 percent, for its worst start to the year since Jan. 2, 2008, when the Dow fell 1.66 percent. ( Tweet This ) Earlier, the index fell 467 points, or more than 2.5 percent, temporarily on pace for its largest percent decline on the first trading day of the year since 1932. In the close, the Dow held above the psychologically key 17,000 level after falling below in intraday trade for the first time since October. "I think it's just some bottom fishing going on. Maybe some overreaction (earlier) to the news coming out of China. Oil still has a chance at a rebound," said Robert Pavlik, chief market strategist at Boston Private Wealth. READ MORE....... Worse opening day in 84 years #2215529 cimster 5 hours ago www.cnbc.com/2016/01/04/us-markets.html
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Jan 8, 2016 19:00:18 GMT -5
amperstand DIAMOND JEDI MASTER Post by amperstand on yesterday at 2:03pm IS ANYONE ELSE CONCERNED?I went to do some on-line banking yesterday. In the middle of the screen popped up a disclaimer window that customers were to check as having read and thereby agreeing to it. The print was very small and the scroll bar hardly moved as I started reading it. Instead of trying to read the screen, I copied the disclaimer and put it on a word processor. I used size 18 type and it took 135 pages on the word processor! I started reading through it and was surprised to see some of the contents. Much of it was how accounts were to be governed, but I was surprised to see limits put on transfers of money. Only so much for a day (like $2500), not to exceed a certain amount much for a week ($5000), and the same for a month ($7500). (Numbers are close, but not exact. I erased the 135 pages and the bank disclaimer is not longer available!) The bank also retains the right to question you on how you are using the money in the event you start to withdraw monies from your own accounts. There were also provisions that stated that several types of payments could not be made in cash - like the mortgage or a car loan. THEY ARE ACTING AS IF THE MONEY BELONGS TO THEM! When I went back to the on-line banking page, the disclaimer was no longer there! I talked to a manager at the bank later in the day and they said that the disclaimer would only appear once! That tells me that the bank never really expects anyone to read and find out what is in the disclaimer, IMO. When most people see a disclaimer, like on an iPhone, they click to agree and go on with it without ever really reading the disclaimer. But this disclaimer is an important one. The same manager, who was very defensive when I questioned her about the length and single appearance of the disclaimer, said that ALL the banks had to put out the same disclaimer, and that it wasn't just the BoA, but these were Federal guidelines that all banks must follow. Then I came across this article: New Stimulus Program Surrenders Your Savings to the Banks Here were the main points in the article:
Step 1: Tax Your Savings Step 2: Abolish Cash Step 3:The Banks Declare War on Your Cash Here are some examples on what the banks will do/have done: >JPMorgan Chase recently informed customers that the bank will no longer allow cash to be stored in safety deposit boxes. >Chase instituted a new policy which “restricts borrowers from using cash to make payments on credit cards, mortgages, equity lines, and auto loans.” >The Justice Department has ordered bank employees to consider calling the police on customers who withdraw $5,000 dollars or more. >HSBC is now interrogating its account holders in the UK on how they earn and spend their money as well as restricting cash withdrawals for customers. >Banks in the U.S. are making it harder for customers to withdraw and deposit cash, with Chase imposing new capital controls that mandate identification for cash deposits and ban cash being deposited into another person’s account. >Chase banned international wire transfers while restricting cash activity for business customers (both deposits and withdrawals). Step 4: The Gov’t Seizes Your Cash The link for the article is below. www.wholesaledirectmetals.com/the-govt-plan-to-tax-abolish-your-cash/?cid=NewsmaxSponsored&st-t=NewsmaxSponsored
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Jan 12, 2016 20:03:32 GMT -5
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Post by John Winston Lennon O'Boogie on Jan 13, 2016 8:45:34 GMT -5
Rand Paul: The Fed is Squeezing the Middle Class By Julia Limitone Published January 11, 2016 Elections FOXBusiness During an interview with the FOX Business Network’s Dagen McDowell, GOP Presidential candidate Rand Paul says the first step to turning the markets and economy around is shedding light on the Fed and making them more accountable for their impact on the economy. “We’re going to have a vote on Audit the Fed [legislation]… The Fed is one of the most incredibly powerful and secretive of government institutions… I think the Fed bares a lot of responsibility for the boom and bust cycle -- particularly the real-estate boom in the early 2000’s that culminated in a devastating recession in 2008,” he said. Congress is scheduled to vote on “Audit the Fed” which could bring an end to the Fed’s lack of clarity on monetary policy decisions.
“We had one single audit, but we don’t have the power to have an annual audit -- and the audit that we did have excluded the auditing of some of the most important activities of the Fed that involved trillions of dollars,” he said.
Paul also explained how auditing the Fed would impact the average American. “What the Fed does, it provides billions of dollars to very large banks who get to use the money first but as the money trickles down into the system to regular people, by the time they get it, they’re getting no earnings on interest, but they are also seeing their prices rise -- so they are being squeezed.” When asked whether he will attend FOX Business Network’s Republican presidential primary debate in South Carolina on January 14, 2016 he said: “We need all the criteria for the first debate, so if FOX Business goes by their own rules we will be in the first tier and we will be there.” www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/01/11/rand-paul-fed-is-squeezing-middle-class.html
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Post by vulcanized crawler on Jan 13, 2016 9:00:26 GMT -5
if we ever get a true accounting audit of the fed, we will first crap in our pants and then the financial markets will fall off the edge of the earth
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Post by 3bid on Jan 14, 2016 22:28:40 GMT -5
Societe Generale analyst: brace for a 2008-style crash and US stocks to fall by 75%
Notorious "uber bear" Albert Edwards warns that the world is about to "reap the whirlwind" of the US Fed's quantitative easing
By Peter Spence, Economics Correspondent
Jan 13, 2016
Notorious “uber bear” Albert Edwards has warned of “global deflation and recession” in his latest notes to clients, predicting that US stocks could lose almost three-quarters of their value.
The Societe Generale analyst believes that the coming market “carnage is an indirect result of the failure of the [US] Fed’s quantitative easing”. He argued that investors would “reap the whirlwind” of central bank attempts to support their respective economies with looser monetary policy.
Mr Edwards has made a name for himself as an outspoken bear, frequently forecasting that the global economy and stock markets are in for a terrible time. In his latest missive he declared that recent anguish over the Chinese economy should have come as no surprise to money managers.
“The impossible trilogy of maintaining an independent domestic monetary policy and a semi-fixed exchange rate while loosening capital account restrictions is hitting home,” he said. Chinese companies have prepared themselves for a further fall in the yuan, Mr Edwards claimed, putting the country in “a better position to transmit a massive deflationary shock”.
Western manufacturing “will choke under this imported deflationary tourniquet”, he continued. “When an economy is hurtling towards recession it is almost always the manufacturing sector that takes the less volatile services sector by the hand and leads it into a recessionary underworld.”
Continuing his pessimistic analysis, Mr Edwards suggested that stocks would soon fall from their “obscene” levels. As Mr Edwards admits, “most believe a 75pc equity bear market to be impossible”, yet he predicts that the S&P 500 gauge of US stocks could fall to 550, from its recent 2,100 peak. His views put him starkly at odds with the Wall Street consensus.
The bear market of 2009 "was not completed", Mr Edwards said, arguing that it would take further economic downturns for equities to come down. "That obviously will be a catastrophe for the economy via the wealth effect and all the Fed’s QE hard work will turn to dust," he continued.
Mr Edwards believes that this coming collapse would result in a “trade war not unlike that in the 1930s”, mirroring the deflationary bust and trade war of the Great Depression era. “I realise most people think I am talking utter garbage but I'm used to that,” he added. His calls do not chime with mainstream economists, who believe that US GDP will rise by 2.6pc this year.
"I believe the Fed and its promiscuous fraternity of central banks have created the conditions for another debacle every bit as large as the 2008 global financial crisis," he concluded.
Mr Edwards' contrarian forecasts come days after Andrew Roberts, an RBS analyst, published a research note warning clients to “sell everything except high quality bonds” on worries that 2016 would be a “cataclysmic year” for investors.
Global disinflation could morph into global deflation this year, Mr Roberts said, as conditions appear “very dangerous for every investor in the world”.
Stephen Koukoulas, managing director of Market Economics, has challenged Mr Roberts to a Aus $10,000 (£4,900) bet that his pessimistic forecasts will not come to pass.
Mr Koukoulas said that he had emailed the RBS strategist to lay down the gauntlet. “I think you will be wrong and in the spirit of the market and healthy competition would like to offer you a chance to personally benefit from your forecast,” he wrote.
He added: “Please let me know if you are happy to take up the offer. I am willing to put my hard-earned money where my mouth is – I hope you are too.”
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12097262/Notorious-uber-bear-Albert-Edwards-warns-world-is-headed-for-another-2008-crash.html
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Jan 16, 2016 8:07:06 GMT -5
OT SEC Charges Goldman Sachs Improper Securities Lending
togi DIAMOND DIGGER Post by togi on 8 hours ago
Three cheers for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2016-9 Washington D.C., Jan. 14, 2016 —The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Goldman, Sachs & Co. has agreed to pay $15 million to settle charges that its securities lending practices violated federal regulations.
According to the SEC’s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding, broker-dealers such as Goldman Sachs are regularly asked by customers to locate stock for short selling. Granting a “locate” represents that a firm has borrowed, arranged to borrow, or reasonably believes it could borrow the security to settle the short sale. The SEC finds that Goldman Sachs violated Regulation SHO by improperly providing locates to customers where it had not performed an adequate review of the securities to be located. Such locates were inaccurately recorded in the firm’s locate log that must reflect the basis upon which Goldman Sachs has given out locates.
“The requirement that firms locate securities before effecting short sales is an important safeguard against illegal short selling,” said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division. “Goldman Sachs failed to meet its obligations by allowing customers to engage in short selling without determining whether the securities could reasonably be borrowed at settlement.”
The SEC’s order finds that when SEC examiners questioned the firm’s securities lending practices during an examination in 2013, Goldman Sachs provided incomplete and unclear responses that adversely affected and unnecessarily prolonged the examination.
“SEC exams ensure that market participants are following the rules, so there will be consequences, including in the determination of remedies, when a registrant fails to provide complete and clear responses to examination staff,” said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SEC’s New York Regional Office.
According to the SEC’s order, Goldman Sachs employees who were members of the firm’s Securities Lending Demand Team routinely processed customer locate requests by relying on a function of the Goldman Sachs order management system known as “fill from autolocate,” which was accessed via the “F3” key. This function enabled employees to cause the system to grant locate requests based on the amount of reliable start-of-day inventory reported to Goldman Sachs by large financial institutions, even though its automated system had already deemed this inventory to be depleted based on locate requests processed earlier in the day.
The SEC’s order finds that when Goldman Sachs employees used this function to grant locate requests, they relied on their general belief that the automated model was conservative and the granting of additional locates would not result in failures to deliver when the securities became due for settlement. In doing so, the Goldman Sachs employees did not check alternative sources of inventory or perform an adequate review of the securities to be located.
The SEC’s order also finds that Goldman Sachs’s documentation of its compliance with Regulation SHO was inaccurate as it failed to sufficiently differentiate between the locates filled by its automated model and those filled by the Demand Team using the “fill from autolocate” function. In both cases, the locate log simply mentioned the term “autolocate” to refer to the start-of-day inventory utilized by the firm’s automated model as the source of securities underlying the grant of a locate.
The SEC’s order finds that Goldman Sachs violated Rule 203(b)(1) of Regulation SHO and Section 17(a) of the Securities Exchange Act. Without admitting or denying the findings, Goldman Sachs consented to the order and agreed to pay the $15 million penalty. The order censures Goldman Sachs and requires the firm to cease and desist from committing or causing any violations and any future violations of Rule 203(b)(1) of Regulation SHO and Section 17(a) of the Exchange Act relating to short sale locate records.
The SEC’s investigation was conducted by John C. Lehmann, Jason W. Sunshine, and Charles D. Riely of the New York Regional Office with substantial assistance provided by John L. Celio, Katy Chiu, Josephine LaFata, and Jennifer A. Grumbrecht of the National Exam Program. The case has been supervised by Sanjay Wadhwa.
This post was written by:
Patrick Byrne - who has written 227 posts on Deep Capture.
I am a concerned citizen who has been focused on systemic instability since 2004.
Contact the author
« M.L. Nestel of The Daily Beast Serves The Dark Side
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Jan 18, 2016 7:11:44 GMT -5
More MSM news on Naked Short; must be real. #2219994 moneybelt 17 hours ago www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-15/goldman-puts-mortgages-and-naked-shorts-behind-it
Wall Street Goldman Puts Mortgages and Naked Shorts Behind It Matt Levine Jan 15, 2016 5:15 PM EST By Matt Levine Here's some good news if you have a mortgage with Goldman Sachs1:Under the terms of the agreement in principle, the firm will pay a $2.385 billion civil monetary penalty, make $875 million in cash payments and provide $1.8 billion in consumer relief. The consumer relief will be in the form of principal forgiveness for underwater homeowners and distressed borrowers; financing for construction, rehabilitation and preservation of affordable housing; and support for debt restructuring, foreclosure prevention and housing quality improvement programs, as well as land banks. READ MORE......www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-15/goldman-puts-mortgages-and-naked-shorts-behind-it
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Post by 3bid on Jan 22, 2016 11:25:37 GMT -5
World Economy: Cheer up, the worst is yet to come
Published time: 20 Jan, 2016
Those tricky things like reality and financial gravity are impinging upon dreams and sunny optimism.
Philander Chase Johnson is not a household name. Given the Christian name Philander, are we surprised? Adolf proved considerably more popular in The Times’ name rankings during the 1930’s. However Mr. Johnson, a columnist and wit, penned a memorable line while encouraging readers to plough through a particularly dire article early last century with the splendid invocation “Cheer up, the worst is yet to come.”
(Thanks to contemporary digital wonderment where internet folks can crowd source their ignorance, many erroneously ascribe that remark to Mark Twain. Contrary to popular belief he didn’t attain the monopoly in quips which Standard Oil sought in greasy combustibles).
Mr. Johnson’s pithy remark sprang to mind when somebody asked me recently to describe the world economy. For those of you who can recall the longer term perspective in the 24 digital hour news cycle, like, say, last Thursday, it looked as if we were on the precipice of disaster. China had flung its equity markets off a cliff and that tricky gravity/kinetic energy intersection wasn’t implying a soft landing. Oil was in freefall, the House of Saud imperiled while volatility soared as markets tumbled.
A few days later, we’re vaguely pausing for breath. This is a common linear function. Markets simply cannot go down every day, just as in hyper-breezy good times, they don’t always go up either. Moreover, don’t be surprised if the early zeitgeist of looming disaster in January markets turns into a crisp rally. Once the mainstream media has caught hold of a downtrend, it’s usually time for a reversal of some sort.
That said, we’re at an inflection point. Call it masculine intuition if you wish, I sense a certain preponderance of elements coalescing, none of which encourage investor purchases. The political pygmy class loosely responsible for government across the West has lost the plot. The physics of debt denial - “Kickcanistan” - are unraveling. That said it is not all bad news – ‘Davos Man’ has returned to his annual blob nesting place for a convivial backslap and discovered he will soon be replaced by Davos Robot. (Having met folks who deem WEF-week a worthwhile trek I frankly think it will be tough to discern the difference between the robots and the average Davos delegate).
Having long lost the plot, none of the world’s governments have yet thought of launching a mission to find it again. Thus I fear we sit on the cusp of a Western lost decade leaning abyss-ward ho. There is no resolution to tackle the debt mountain, the EU has lost the growth habit, and Obama’s Presidency will end with US debt nearly doubling to $20 trillion while some 70000 pages of new regulation per annum strangle innovation. Mrs. Merkel sees her aging workforce labor crisis resolved by foreigners who are apparently groping in the dark without grasping the rudiments of Western civilization. (This comes as a disappointing reflection for somebody rather reflexively pro-immigrant).
Meanwhile the euro festers in the background, a ticking time bomb alongside Quantitative Easing, that massive parachuting of funny money into the banks for no other good reason so far as I can see, than politicians seeking lucrative directorships when the electorate ousts them. True, some rejected politicians end up running the EU (others jump before they are pushed). Thus Europe is run by one President whose eight years as Prime Minister involved looting the nation’s private pension funds while his counterpart, allegedly a legend in his own lunchtime, couldn’t manage the Luxembourg secret service, even during his most lucid mornings. Quick fixes with illusory economics are only postponing an inevitable ‘megashock’.
President Hollande’s latest artificial job creation agitprop clearly demonstrates the void between the political classes and economic reality. Even circulating a memo which begins “Contrary to popular political convictions, money does not grow on trees,” would be a start. Hollande indeed compares unfavorably even with all the other spendthrift economic illiterates who have presided over the 5th republic. An achievement, albeit of fiscal perversity. When France collapses (it’s essentially inevitable) then all bets are off. Fret not about Schengen or the Brexit pantomime, forget the euro...it’s the EU which is finished. The big Kahuna is coming to devastate the whole farcical notion of BDSM economics binding disparate continental countries into one ‘superstate’. Fifty shades of economic stupidity are coming to an end after the blob has swathed the populous in hair shirts. Asia will rise again while the US pulls through, provided somebody just burns a million pages of red tape and lets the invisible hand deliver growth once more. That road to salvation is open to anybody...but Europe is perversely fixated with the lure of becoming the next 1970’s South American economic disaster zone.
Welcome to the hiatus in world markets. It might last weeks, even months, but remember the broader trend: “Cheer up, the worst is yet to come.”
www.rt.com/op-edge/329567-economy-crisis-eu-world/
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Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Jan 27, 2016 15:39:47 GMT -5
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