|
Woe
to americans who Are All Prisoners Now All Americans are now imprisoned in a world of lies and deception
created by the Bush Regime and the two complicit parties of Congress, by
federal judges too corrupt, timid or ignorant to recognize a rogue regime
running roughshod over the Constitution, by a bought-and-paid-for media that
serves as propagandists for a regime of war criminals, and by a gutless,
ignorant public who have forsaken their self-respect.
CHEER: Ambrose
Evans-Pritchard: Bank Crisis may make '29 look 'walk in park'...
Alexander Tytler: "The average age of the
world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years JonesReport.com |
12-4-07
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two
hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from
bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from
courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to
selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to
apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again into
bondage."-- Alexander Tytler
Andrew Jackson:
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its
abuses."
AP: TOP 10 NEWS STORIES
'07...
Former
CIA Interrogator: We Carried Out Torture Because The White House Told Us To
Fire
out at building next to White House
FBI
agent threatened to arrest CIA interrogators in 2002.
Countdown:
Bushed! Countdown's list
of the top three Bush scandals you may have forgotten about because of all of
the new Bush scandals. This week's scandals: Habeas Corpus-Gate, Air-Gate and
NIE-Gate.
Bush administration:
Back off says war criminal and strategist dumbya bush on CIA tape probe CNN
HUCKABEE SLAMS 'ARROGANT' BUSH WHITE HOUSE
WYOMING DEM CHIEF: CLINTON WOULD
HURT PARTY...
LA's
gangland culture spreading chaos, violence into America's heartland...
Dodd ready to
mount filibuster to block telecom immunity
Naomi Wolf - "There hasen't been a real
investigation of 9/11."
Lee Hamilton Says the CIA Obstructed the 9/11
Commission
CIA
Failed To Fully Inform Congress About Destroyed Tapes CBS News
More
Evidence of Obstruction of Justice in 9/11 Investigation
Neocons Revise
WMD Entry on Wikipedia Propaganda Portal
Pelosi
and Harman Aided and Abetted 9/11 Cover Up
The
White House and Congress Knew about the CIA Interrogation Videotapes
USATODAYGALLUP POLL: Approval
of Congress sinks to new low...
9/11
Victims' Lawyers Blast Ground Zero Toxic Air Lies In Court
Bush
Authorizes Full Access to U.S. Roads for Even More Mexico-Based NAFTA Trucks
What is the CFR?: The Bush Clinton Bush Clinton
Administration
Olbermann:
Bush is a BOLD faced LIAR about NIE/Iran
Russia's
well-founded and rational deep suspicion of (particularly criminal america) the
West
Hillary
Campaign Tactic Backfires as Top Aide Quits
REPORT: FBI
Videotape shows Sharpton cutting a deal...
Victim:
Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR
Poland
does not need U.S. missile defense base - ex-PM
Iran
Is No Threat and That’s Official “They stole our threat”
goes a headline in the Israeli daily Haaretz. The author is, of course,
referring to the recently published US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)
composed by 16 American intelligence.....
Gov't official: No 'smoking gun' on Iran
Egypt Govt Accuses Israel of Meddling in Its
Ties With US
Paul: Israel Demanding U.S. Further Its Self-destructive
Pro-israel Mode and Invade Iran
Russia
warns of US missile shield retaliation
PA
Economy Worst Affected by Israeli Restrictions: WB
Israeli
Airstrikes in Gaza Kill 7
NASA 'on target for
return to the moon for the first time by 2020'…..riiiiight!..... UFOetry: We Never Went To The Moon -
The Award-Winning Documentary/Music/Video by John Lee
'The Mother of All Frauds'
History Channel Admits
WTC Tower Fell At Freefall Speed
FBI Now Admits Evidence
Used to Connect Oswald to Kennedy Assasination Was Bogus
Food
prices rising at highest rate for 14 years
Taj
Mahal Won't Accept bushit american Dollars as India Laments Lost Value
THE HILL: Dems Cave On
Spending...
China's Yuan at new high vs
dollar...
YEAR-ENDER: Home Sales
Plunge, Feed Recession Fears...
Morgan Stanley
issues full US recession alert Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Tuesday December 11, 2007 Morgan Stanley has issued a full recession alert for
the US economy, warning of a sharp slowdown in business investment and a
"perfect storm" for consumers as the housing slump spreads. In a
report "Recession Coming" released today, the bank's US team said the
credit crunch had started to inflict serious damage on US companies…..
Reuters House
prices seen falling 30 pct 12- 6-07 By
Julie Haviv NEW YORK (Reuters) - Housing markets from Punta Gorda, Florida, to
Stockton, California, will crash and suffer price drops of more than 30 percent
before the housing crisis is over, a report from Moody's Economy.com said on
Thursday. On a national level, the housing market recession will continue through
early 2009, said the report, co-authored by Mark Zandi, chief economist, and
Celia Chen, director of housing economics. The report paints a worsening
picture of the hard-hit housing sector, which is in the midst of its worst
downturn since World War II. While activity will stabilize in 2009, it will not
be until 2010 before a measurable improvement in sales, construction and
pricing will emerge, the report said…..
Earnings Recession Has Arrived U.S. corporate profits are in a recession, and the entire economy
can not be far behind. Slower sales and higher energy and labor costs are
forcing companies from Bear Stearns Cos. to Pitney Bowes Inc. to reduce
spending and hiring. Their efforts to keep earnings from eroding even further
raise the risk that the economy, already weakened by the steepest housing slide
since 1991, may shrink sometime next year. ‘The earnings recession has already
arrived, says David Rosenberg, North America economist for Merrill Lynch &
Co. in New York. We are going to see an economic recession in '08.…..’
BANK OF AMERICA Sees Bigger
Writedowns (12-12-07).....
MORGAN STANLEY first loss
ever; taps China for $5 Billion...
PAPER: Housing foreclosures
largest since Great Depression...
Home
Prices Fall for 10th Straight Month
Oil price spikes close to
$97...
CITIGROUP and MERRILL face
bigger writeoffs/dividend cuts, etc.....
CHEER: Ambrose
Evans-Pritchard: Bank Crisis may make '29 look 'walk in park'... As central banks continue to splash their
cash over the system, so far to little effect, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard argues
things are rapidly spiralling out of their control Twenty billion dollars here,
$20bn there, and a lush half-trillion from the European Central Bank at
give-away rates for Christmas. Buckets of liquidity are being splashed over the
North Atlantic banking system, so far with meagre or fleeting effects.
"Liquidity doesn't do anything in this situation," says Anna
Schwartz, the doyenne of US monetarism and life-time student (with Milton
Friedman) of the Great Depression."It cannot deal with ….. that lots of
firms are going bankrupt. The banks and the hedge funds have not fully
acknowledged who is in trouble. That is the critical issue," she adds…..
NEWS
FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of
new yoke, new joyzey, and now caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message
for the past several years: buy real estate (and watch the values go
down…..riiiiight!).
Bank sues Trump over Chicago
tower loan...
Trump casino to miss interest
payment...
ANALYST FORECASTS: BULLS
AND BEARS By Richard Shaw [there were 3 bull forecasts which are bull s**t and not
included in the following excerpt to preclude fraud and conserve space; even
the neutrals are a stretch]
…..BEAR - May 30: Morgan Stanley equity analyst Jason Todd says sell this
S&P 500 rally. He says Morgan Stanley does not see large upside above 825-850.
He said, “In the rush to buy a cyclical recovery, it seems earnings or
valuation no longer matters. We would be comfortable with this view if the
earnings trough was closer, but it is not.”
BEAR - MAY 28: Berkshire Hathaway possible successor to Warren Buffet, David Sokol, says they see no evidence of the green shoots that been a stimulus to the stock market. He sees the most significant headwinds to the electric utility industry in his 30 years, and see continuing housing industry problems.
BEAR?/BULL? - May 28: PIMCO co-CEO Bill Gross (manager of world’s largest bond fund) portrays “new normal” including accelerating inflation toward the latter part of a three- to five-year cycle, and the need to reexamine accepted notions about investing. He said stocks have not and will not always outperform bonds, and having 60% to 80% of portfolio assets in stocks may not always make sense. He believes the dollar will lose its status as the reserve currency; Brazil, India and China (forget Russia) will offer the best growth. The U.S. government will be selling trillions in Treasuries; the US savings rate may rise significantly, and the consumer economy may be shrinking long term due to the aging of the population.
BULL?/BEAR? - May 28: GMO CEO Jeremy Grantham predicts higher US savings and lower consumption with many postponed retirements. He sees some reasonable values within the stock market now and sees the third year of the presidential cycle (2011) as the most promising. He is not certain that a robust rally will continune. Like John Bogle, he believes in the principle of having your age as the percentage of bonds in your portfolio. He expects a bubble in emerging market stocks to develop.
BEAR - MAY 26: Comstock Partners portfolio managers Charlie Minter and Marty Weiner, say P/E’s on “as reported earnings” are too high in consideration of the long-term trend in earnings (now in down phase). “Over the past 75 years, most market peaks topped at around 20 times reported earnings, and the troughs occurred at around 10 times earnings. The financial mania of the late 1990s pushed P/Es to over 40 times reported earnings, and the following bust never brought P/Es below 18 times reported earnings. … Going back to 1950, every instance where actual earnings rose above trend-line earnings was followed by a period where actual earnings went well below trend-line earnings. Comstock Partners believes that we have entered such a period now, and that the market is trading at such a high multiple of trend-line earnings that it will be difficult to make money.”
BEAR - May 19: Gluskin Sheff analyst David Rosenberg (formerly of Merill Lynch) says this rally is a sucker’s rally based on short covering. “The FTSE All-World market P/E ratio on forward earnings estimates is now around 15x, well above pre-Lehman collapse levels and nearly double the lows for the cycle … this was a rally built largely on short covering, pension fund rebalancing and the emergence of hope wrapped up in ‘green shoot’ data points. … On average, the S&P 500 undergoes a correction of more than 20% … at a minimum, take profits”
NEUTRAL (BEAR?) - May 11: Baring Asset Management portfolio manager Hayes Miller says “Estimates suggest there isn’t that much further to run because equities are fairly valued … Earnings growth for 2009 and 2010 can’t support prices too much higher than where we are today.”
BEAR - May 11: HSBC Global Asset Management chief investment officer Leon Goldfeld, chief investment officer at HSBC Global Asset Management said it’s “hard to see” enough profit growth to justify higher stock prices. The firm’s strategy will be to reduce its holdings of equities and move into bonds and cash, he said.Bloomberg TV on June 1, said HSBC forecasts 900 as the year-end price for the S&P 500 index.
NEUTRAL - May 11: Bloomberg compilation of analyst forecasts of 2009 earnings for the S&P 500 is at $57.17 (not stated whether “as reported” or “operating”). As of June 1, that puts the S&P at about 16.5 times forecasted earnings. Yale economist Robert Schiller said the historic average is a multiple of about 16.3. [we note that we are not in an average situation or stage of a market, however].
BEAR - May 11: Bank of America CIO for private wealth management expects a 10% correction. He said, “We’re going to be in a very volatile, chop-and-grind type of market. We’ve been shown that there is a small light at the end of the tunnel, it’s dim but getting brighter, and that’s why stock prices have come this far this fast. Now, it’s all about ‘show me.’”
BEAR?/ BULL? - May Letter: PIMCO co-CEO Bill Gross wrote: “Do not be deceived by the euphoric sightings of “green shoots” and the claims for new bull markets in a multitude of asset classes. Stable and secure income is still the order of the day. Shaking hands with the new government is still the prescribed strategy, although it should be done at a senior level of the balance sheet. If the government indeed becomes your investment partner, you should keep the big Uncle in clear sight and without back turned. Risk will not likely be rewarded until the global economy stabilizes and the Obama rules of order are more clearly defined.”
BEAR - April 17: Barclay’s analyst Barry Knapp forecasts S&P 500 at 757 by year-end 2009. He said, “The equity market has priced this recovery and then some. It looks pretty expensive to us.”
(7-1) SELL / TAKE ANY PROFITS IN THIS SECULAR BEAR MARKET SUCKERS’ RALLY PROGRAMMED TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) [$$] Big Pay Packages Return to Wall Street as new fraud gains steam (at The Wall Street Journal Online) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... Job losses / job concerns realistically weigh on confidence, real estate values/prices continue downward trend as per Case / Shiller Index (-18.1%, -21% in california) Gerald Celente speaks on Cap and Trade and other handicaps to the US economy HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO THE SAME OR SIMILAR FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST RECENT MASSIVE SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM THE PERPETRATORS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW REFLATING THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND BULL S**T), CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE FROM WHICH THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF THEIR NEW FRAUD IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE BUST /DEBACLE, RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS COLLATERALIZED SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED), ETC., THE FRAUDS ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC! … THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING, CREATING, YOUR POCKETS, … NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ] TYPICAL END OF QUARTER FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , personal income up modest .2% and spending down, China calls for new reserve currency to supplant worthless dollar Dollar And Stocks Drop As China Calls For New Global Currency , continuing unemployment claims at or near record 627,000, weekly unemployment claims up 15,000, and GDP contraction –5.5%, all worse than expected (lennar wider than expected quarterly loss rallies stock…riiiiight!) Jobless claims rise; GDP dips in 1Q ; soothing words/b.s. from fed which previously predicted no recession that economy still contracting but that the contraction is somewhat slowing…what b**l s**t!…, analysts- buffet/economy in shambles, Hogan/negative GDP growth and inflation owing to debasement of the dollar as well as deficit spending/pump-priming in the trillions, joker stein/economy a mess and continued job losses, new home sales down .6%; U.S. Home Prices Drop 6.8 Percent in April as Foreclosures Rise foreclosure sales up 2.4%, prices down 17% year over year, [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical Damage Stocks tumble on bleak outlook for world economy U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year , Next Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
(6-30) SECULAR BEAR MARKET SUCKERS’ RALLY TO END WELL OFF SESSION LOWS TYPICAL END OF QUARTER FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED Job losses / job concerns realistically weigh on confidence, real estate values/prices continue downward trend as per Case / Shiller Index (-18.1%, -21% in california) Consumer confidence suffers steep fall... Home prices post 18% annual drop... Worldwide Depression: Review of Global Markets . Four banks fail, bringing 2009 tally to 19 more than all of 2008 at a total thus far of 44 Dollar Falls Most in Month as China Urges New Reserve Currency Gerald Celente speaks on Cap and Trade and other handicaps to the US economy HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO THE SAME OR SIMILAR FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST RECENT MASSIVE SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM THE PERPETRATORS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW REFLATING THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND BULL S**T), CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE FROM WHICH THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF THEIR NEW FRAUD IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE BUST /DEBACLE, RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS COLLATERALIZED SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED), ETC., THE FRAUDS ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC! … THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING, CREATING, YOUR POCKETS, … NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ] TYPICAL END OF QUARTER FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , personal income up modest .2% and spending down, China calls for new reserve currency to supplant worthless dollar Dollar And Stocks Drop As China Calls For New Global Currency , continuing unemployment claims at or near record 627,000, weekly unemployment claims up 15,000, and GDP contraction –5.5%, all worse than expected (lennar wider than expected quarterly loss rallies stock…riiiiight!) Jobless claims rise; GDP dips in 1Q ; soothing words/b.s. from fed which previously predicted no recession that economy still contracting but that the contraction is somewhat slowing…what b**l s**t!…, analysts- buffet/economy in shambles, Hogan/negative GDP growth and inflation owing to debasement of the dollar as well as deficit spending/pump-priming in the trillions, joker stein/economy a mess and continued job losses, new home sales down .6%; U.S. Home Prices Drop 6.8 Percent in April as Foreclosures Rise foreclosure sales up 2.4%, prices down 17% year over year, [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical Damage Stocks tumble on bleak outlook for world economy U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year , Next Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not Over” 6/9/2009 , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... The Next Bubble Is Here. Have You Bought In? foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
Tiny Tim says dollar assets safe... Laughter from audience... Why The Chinese Laughed At Geithner Paul Craig Roberts | The red ink that Washington is generating is a far greater threat to Americans than any foreign “enemies.”
(6-3) ONLY MODEST LOSSES RELATIVE TO REALITY WITH PROGRAMMED SHORT-COVERING/SUCKERS RALLY INTO THE CLOSE TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., mortgage apps. down, service sector job losses/factory orders worse than expected, new record continuing unemployment claims, bernanke spend more money you don’t have but cut debilitating deficit…riiiiight…sounds like a plan with more job losses to come, etc., Economic data disappoint, indicate slow recovery Worse-than-expected economic data thwarts rally Jobless rates in U.S. cities zoom higher in April Sector Snap: Homebuilders tumble (AP) As the Dollar Falls Off the Cliff … Bernanke warns on deficits as Treasury rates rise ----- GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8 TRILLION... The Big Collapse Is Very Near Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency Alternative AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., $100 Billion Bailout For IMF Tagged On To War Funding Bill Economic recovery is wishful thinking Gold, Silver Climb as Dollar Falls OPEC: OIL COULD REACH $90... ----- , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
(6-2) SUCKERS’ RALLY CONTINUES TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS The Big Collapse Is Very Near U.S. auto sales drop, but rays of stability seen Economic crisis boosts distrust of business: watchdog Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency Alternative Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM Gold, Silver Climb as Dollar Falls Home foreclosure sales up, no profit discount car sales better than expected
…When measured in ounces of Gold, the DOW has been in a secular bear market since peaking in late 1999. (Click charts, courtesy of stockcharts.com, for full size image). The markets, measured by the S&P500 (S&P500 Charts) and DIJA (DJIA Charts), may have recovered to new highs in 2007, but the DOW:Gold ratio told a different, truer story of just how unhealthy the US economy was…
BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? ‘…Most recently, the
S&P 500 soared 24 per cent over seven weeks ending in early January, only
to plunge to a new low. It was a fairly typical sucker’s rally and bear markets
often need more than one to create sufficient disillusionment for a definitive
bottom. The 2000–2002 bear market had three, with average gains of 21 per
cent in the Dow Jones Industrials over 45 days. The granddaddy of all bear
markets, 1929 –1932, had six false alarms with an average gain of 47 per cent.
And Japan’s ongoing bear saw the Nikkei rise by at least a third four times in
its first four years with 10 more false dawns since then. Bear markets
typically end with a whimper rather than a bang, casting doubt on the latest
recovery according to Hussman Econometrics, which analysed numerous US market
bottoms and bear market rallies. With the exception of the 1987 crash, the
month before the lowest point of a downturn saw a gradual descent. By contrast,
bear market rallies were preceded by steeper declines and had sharper rebounds.
Another characteristic of bear market rallies has been modest volume on the
rebound compared to the decline. The current recovery fits the pattern of bear
market rallies in terms of volume and the “V” shape of the trough. Analysts at
Bespoke Investment Group noted that there have been only seven other periods in
the past 110 years with rallies of similar magnitude for the Dow. Three
preceded the Great Depression, three came during the Depression and one in
1982…’
New record for
continuing unemployment claims and as with all government data, adp data, etc.,
is fudged to whatever way necessary to help froth the market. Short-covering
explaining part of what remains of this continuing suckers’ bear market rally
and as admonished by analyst at Farr Miller is a bull trap. How about plain old
bull crap! One
analyst (Craig Brown) points out that we’re not at the bottom yet: excerpt-‘ I hate repeating myself, but I do not
see the economy at bottom just yet, so in some respects I will keep repeating
myself until either other people wake up to this reality or something changes
to wake me up. The markets were
down a bit yesterday and, according to Bloomberg, they were down due to fears
of the stress test results. I don't fear them; I fear what they hide. I fear
that a reported 10 out of 19 banks failed when the tests were not at all
stringent enough. I fear that the government will soft-pedal the results to
make them bad enough to have a tad of credibility but not so bad that people
run for the exits. Don't buy my word for it, others are saying the same,
including Nouriel Roubini. Nouriel has been complaining for weeks on how the worst case
scenario in the stress tests is already rosier than reality.’ Some
perspective from Sajal… Excerpts – ie., …Mark
Hulbert: That bullish bandwagon. Commentary: Some
sentiment measures showing too much optimism Art Cashin:
"This rally is still somewhat suspect. Albert Edwards : "Despite one of the biggest
economics and profit collapses in history, US stocks have failed to get cheap
in the same way that they have in Europe or Japan. My concern is that
the US equity bear market has not yet fully played out. "The
current pop in the market is not dissimilar to the many bear market rallies
between 1929-1933, where signs of economic stabilisation were met with 25% plus
rallies... This optimism was subsequently crushed." Charles Allmon … He still thinks the stock market
could decline to 3,200-4,200 on the Dow by 2011-2012 -- and that it could cross
the price of gold. Jim
Bianco: "I don't think we are getting out of this for
a long while. This has been a lousy stock rally. … …traders living in a
fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks
based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only
because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that
companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian
cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly,
although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting,
they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via
layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed
spend less money… U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in Worst
Slump in 50 Years "You
have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity
officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this
is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then
the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn
fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall
street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds
of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion
puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been
addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is
but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to
solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed,
etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight
Quarter of Steep Decline "You have to balance hope with reality," says
Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler
tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably
have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through Wall Street sags on oil; S&P ends
worst week in 2 months Following Chrysler, GM slashing U.S. dealers
SEC lawyers probed for insider trading
GM, Chrysler to drop 1,900 dealers by
end of 2010 The Financial Storm Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt
Load ‘Unsustainable’ “The Worst Is Yet to Come” China’s yuan ’set to usurp US dollar’
as world’s reserve currency Former Treasury Official who
Devised Formula for Rate-Setting Based on Outlook for Inflation and Growth
Warns that Inflation Looms, Slams Fed Policy Dr. Doom: Capitalism Could Fail
Like Communism New York Fed: Most Powerful
Financial Institution You’ve Never Heard Of along with the missing $4 trillion
you’ve never heard of Home
Prices Drop Most on Record... Federal Hiring Frenzy......average pay $75,419 A Coming Flood of Equity Issuance, aka
The Dilution Solution Fed cut banks' deficits after negotiations: sounds like a
plan…riiiiight!…report
Buffett's
Berkshire has first loss since 2001
Are stocks a loser's bet?YES!
Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama
budget... America is broke. How broke? White House forecasts higher budget
deficit
US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8T Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama
budget... STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest;
Auditors can't track transportation funds... Gas price jumps to 6-month high... Six GM executives sell more than 200,000 shares
John Hussman: Post Crash Bubbles
…Unfortunately, “fear” lows are only evident in hindsight, because as we saw in
2008, a deeply oversold market can become spectacularly more oversold before
recovering, and the “fast, furious” spikes off of those lows are often followed
by steep failures.... Fed
Inspector General Claims She Does Not Know Where Trillions Went Rep. Alan Grayson | Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman
responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Recovery? What Recovery? Newsweek | Don’t tell me that the economy is
getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. Prospects
of a quick economic recovery are but fool’s gold Boosting The Dying Dollar With A False Rally Suckers rally sets up the unwinding of the market,
Rally just like in 1933, wealth producers becoming impoverished, Fed officer
busted for fraud, troubles in the Economy are far beyond fixing,
interdependence of banks around the world expected to worsen economic problems.
New York Fed chairman Friedman
abruptly resigns BEWARE
OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and
Government FLASH:
Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect
Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich:
Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
Corporate CFR Members Get Most of the Bailout Money New American | Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner served as a staff member of the New York City-based Council on Foreign Relations before being hired in 2003 to head the New York City branch of the Federal Reserve Bank.Watch out for the fake government stress tests (they lie about everything!). Note the delay in the rollout. Bank analyst Cassidy says bank plan a failure. Business week business analyst /reporter says (tongue in cheek) the optimism (irrational exuberance) must be the advent of spring and the birds chirping (in the heads of the wall street lunatic/frauds…cukoos). Analysts/Economists comments include: slow release of stress test results, details and accuracy of data crucial for stress tests (good luck!), things have not bottomed out but pace of decline has slowed somewhat, bleak outlook for GM, Chrysler and bankruptcy probably necessary because of legacy costs, and public pension funds with ridiculously rich benefits the next shoe to drop. Oxdown Gazette sums up the crucial story | ‘The 12 trillion that is being floated to insolvent US banks is essentially being looted in the paper economy’ (ie., churn and earn by wall street fraudsters who must be prosecuted and forced disgorgement/forfeiture in the massive securities fraud that still goes unmentioned though the source of this economic debacle, etc.). Four more banks closed by regulators, this years closures exceeding all of 2008 as depression continues John Letzing, MarketWatch April 24, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Four banks in Georgia, Michigan, California and Idaho were closed by regulators Friday, costing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s deposit insurance fund nearly $700 million as the effects of the credit crisis continued rippling throughout the U.S. economy. Kennesaw, Ga.-based American Southern Bank marked the 26th bank failure of the year and the fifth in the state of Georgia, the FDIC said. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Michigan Heritage Bank then became the 27th failure of 2009, followed by the closure of Calabasas, Ca.-based First Bank of Beverly Hills. Alpharetta, Ga.-based Bank of North Georgia has agreed to assume American Southern Bank's deposits, the FDIC said in a statement…
All reasons for previous
reality plunge have been previously covered and warned of here in real time;
ie., new meaningless FASB accounting standards which wall street frauds rallied
on now have sold off on, worse to come in credit defaults/losses, leading
indicators down again, etc.. April
17 (Bloomberg) -- David Tice, the chief portfolio strategist for bear markets
at Federated Investors Inc., said the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index
will probably plunge about 62 percent. He spoke during a Bloomberg
Television interview today. The Federated Prudent Bear Fund that he founded
returned 6.7 percent last year as the S&P 500 plunged 38 percent, the most
since 1937. Tice said the benchmark index for U.S. stocks may slump to about
325. It closed today at 865.30. The measure has surged 28 percent since March
9, the most in five weeks since the 1930s. SUCKER'S
RALLY APPROACHING AN END by Peter Cooper: Whatever the technical reason for the 25 percent rise in
the S&P over the past five weeks, or a more modest eight percent bounce in
GCC regional stock prices, the absurdness of this sucker’s rally ought to be
obvious to all. Unemployment is still rising, house prices are still falling,
and the fundamentals of bank balance sheets are still deteriorating with total
bad debts unknown except that we know they must be getting worse. Global trade
fell off a cliff in the first quarter of the year. Even Mercedes car sales to
the oil rich of the GCC fell 23 per cent. The collapse of the world’s second
largest economy, Japan, has been unprecedented.
Bad news coming … The stock market pattern in 2008-9
has so far been a mirror image of the crash of 1929-30 with a halving of prices
from the autumn followed by a 25 per cent rally from March lows. In April 1930
stocks moved sideways and then they crashed another 50 per cent into the
summer… New record
continuing unemployment claims in excess of 6 million, -11% for new home sales
(unexpected but stocks and even homebuilders rallied), Bloomberg reports $13
trillion (much unaccounted for) taxpayer/bailout funds spent/lent/stolen by who
knows what/where/how (ie.,replace stolen funds?, etc.), second largest mall co.
to bankruptcy with more to come along with more commercial real estate
foreclosures. ‘…initial
claims for the week ending April 11 totaled 610,000, which is down more than
expected from the prior week, but continuing claims climbed more than expected
to a new record of 6.02 million. Separately, housing starts disappointed
investors hoping to find signs of a recovery in home building. Housing starts
for March totaled 510,000, which was below the 540,000 starts that were
expected and down from the prior month. Meanwhile, building permits in March
totaled 513,000, which is below the 549,000 permits that were expected, down
from February…’
SUCKER'S
RALLY APPROACHING AN END by Peter Cooper: Whatever the technical reason for the 25 percent rise in the
S&P over the past five weeks, or a more modest eight percent bounce in GCC
regional stock prices, the absurdness of this sucker’s rally ought to be
obvious to all. Unemployment is still rising, house prices are still falling,
and the fundamentals of bank balance sheets are still deteriorating with total
bad debts unknown except that we know they must be getting worse. Global trade
fell off a cliff in the first quarter of the year. Even Mercedes car sales to
the oil rich of the GCC fell 23 per cent. The collapse of the world’s second
largest economy, Japan, has been unprecedented.
Bad news coming
… The stock market pattern in 2008-9 has so far been a mirror image of the
crash of 1929-30 with a halving of prices from the autumn followed by a 25 per
cent rally from March lows. In April 1930 stocks moved sideways and then they
crashed another 50 per cent into the summer. What possible reason is there for
optimism to believe that history will not repeat itself? Government stimulus
packages have more than likely been too small and too late to prevent another
down leg in stocks, and will take time to revive the real economy, if indeed
they can do so. They might just stop the worst possible scenario but are they
going to prevent the plunge downwards? Governments have not managed it so far.
Consumers and
unemployment
…It will take more than weasel words from US bankers and ‘green shoots’ in the
waffle of President Obama to put things right. Eventually global stock markets
will reach a bottom but they are not close to having visited it just yet. Wall
Street and its friends are playing investors as suckers but they are in danger
of overdoing it. For once these guys are impoverished where will the next bunch
of fools come from? Goldman Sachs' (GS) results this week might well
mark the top of the rally, beyond that the only way is down.
THE FOLLOWING AT LEAST TO PREVIOUS (7-6-09) IS MUST READ:
April 17 (Bloomberg) -- David Tice, the chief portfolio strategist for bear markets at Federated Investors Inc., said the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will probably plunge about 62 percent. He spoke during a Bloomberg Television interview today. The Federated Prudent Bear Fund that he founded returned 6.7 percent last year as the S&P 500 plunged 38 percent, the most since 1937. Tice said the benchmark index for U.S. stocks may slump to about 325. It closed today at 865.30. The measure has surged 28 percent since March 9, the most in five weeks since the 1930s.
SUCKER'S
RALLY APPROACHING AN END by Peter Cooper: Whatever the technical reason for the 25 percent rise in the
S&P over the past five weeks, or a more modest eight percent bounce in GCC
regional stock prices, the absurdness of this sucker’s rally ought to be
obvious to all. Unemployment is still rising, house prices are still falling,
and the fundamentals of bank balance sheets are still deteriorating with total
bad debts unknown except that we know they must be getting worse. Global trade
fell off a cliff in the first quarter of the year. Even Mercedes car sales to
the oil rich of the GCC fell 23 per cent. The collapse of the world’s second
largest economy, Japan, has been unprecedented.
Bad news coming
… The stock market pattern in 2008-9 has so far been a mirror image of the
crash of 1929-30 with a halving of prices from the autumn followed by a 25 per
cent rally from March lows. In April 1930 stocks moved sideways and then they
crashed another 50 per cent into the summer. What possible reason is there for
optimism to believe that history will not repeat itself? Government stimulus
packages have more than likely been too small and too late to prevent another
down leg in stocks, and will take time to revive the real economy, if indeed
they can do so. They might just stop the worst possible scenario but are they going
to prevent the plunge downwards? Governments have not managed it so far.
Consumers and
unemployment
…It will take more than weasel words from US bankers and ‘green shoots’ in the
waffle of President Obama to put things right. Eventually global stock markets
will reach a bottom but they are not close to having visited it just yet. Wall
Street and its friends are playing investors as suckers but they are in danger
of overdoing it. For once these guys are impoverished where will the next bunch
of fools come from? Goldman Sachs' (GS) results this week might well
mark the top of the rally, beyond that the only way is down.
Madman Cramer – the ultimate contrarian indicator - CRAMER'S CALL: ANOTHER RALLY TOP INDICATOR Greg Feirman Wow, the bulls are really feeling good. “Wells Fargo Carries The Day” and the S&P and Dow closed at 2 months high and the Nasdaq is near its highs for the year. On Mad Money this evening, Cramer went so far as to call “a turn in the economy”, saying “the facts have changed”, “the situation has clearly improved” and “things are getting better”. This isn’t the first time Cramer has called a bottom and he’s been wrong before (For example, see “Cramer Declares The End Of The Bear Market” , Top Gun FP, July 31, 2008). The market topped out a couple weeks later. On Monday October 6, Cramer went on the today show and told people to sell any stock money they might need in the next five years. The market bottomed that Friday. It could run another couple weeks but this rally is running thin. Methinks me smells a top…..
Rational View Courtesy of ETF.COM: ‘…Due to our expectations of continued weakness in the financial sector, the looming deterioration of commercial real estate, the credit markets tepid backing of the equity rally, and the still very shaky and highly volatile global economy, it's our view at ETFdesk.com the recent run-up in stocks is unwarranted and presents an overly optimistic view of the months ahead. We believe investors should consider taking short term profits or use the recent run to reduce equity exposure they are weary of. We also believe investment grade debt (NYSEArca: LQD - News) represents an opportunity for investors seeking beaten down prices without the downside volatility of equities…’
Art Hogan recently summed up choosing stocks in
this environment thusly: ‘pick the best-looking horse at the glue factory’…..I
think he was as a courtesy to his industry overly generous. The administration
pitches hardballs to the auto industry while continuing to pitch powder puffs
to the wall street frauds who have perpetrated the largest (securities) fraud
in recorded history, turning a cyclical downturn into what is now unavoidably
depression, putting beleagered taxpayers in the unfathomable position of
funders/guarantors of the scam/fraud in bailing out the perpetrators of the
crimes (bush’s infamous base) who have financially benefited enormously (fees,
commissions, spreads, points, salaries, expenses, bonuses, etc.) from their
fraud/crimes. Still not even one prosecution from this
administration even though disgorgement, the legal remedy among other criminal
penalties, would aid the defacto bankrupt u.s. treasury!
ON WHETHER
BEN BERNANKE HAS REDEEMED HIMSELF AND WHAT THAT MEANS FOR STOCKS:
I do not
think so. On the contrary, I think what the government is doing and its
economic "dream team" under Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Geithner and Mr.
Summers are going to be, from a longer term point of view, rather negative.
But, you understand, we can all sit here and say it will all end in disaster.
That I'm sure. But, in the meantime, we can have big moves in markets.
On the new bad assets purchase plan:
I think he's doing the politically expedient thing from a very short term perspective. If you have cracks in your walls and just put paint on it, it will hide them and then you sell your house. But it won't solve the problems of the cracks - it's the next owner and these are the children of the current taxpayer who will pay for it. Marc Faber: 'It Will All End in Disaster'
China calls for new global currency (AP) Why Goldman Sachs Should Return Its TARP Money (at Seeking Alpha) Marc Faber: 'It Will All End in Disaster' Congresswoman presses Geithner on connections to Goldman Sachs Gerald Celente Predicts Economic Armageddon by 2012 Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers: Stiglitz
It bears repeating, so preposterous was 3-23-09 Pavlov dogs rally [conditioning to associate what’s good for fraudulent wall street, viz., privatizing profits – still not one prosecution for what now is the largest fraud/scam/swindle in the history of this planet – and socializing the losses, is somehow positive for america/the economy by the magnitude of this suckers’ bear market rally and prior market manipulations] when the same created the instant crisis in the first instance (don’t worry about the frauds on wall street, they’ll get their commissions again on the way down as they did in creating this financial debacle/fraud as they clamor for more taxpayer/treasury money). They’re still printing/creating those worthless Weimar dollars like mad, China Urges New Money Reserve to Replace Dollar ,don’t know what they’re doing, are clueless, and disingenuously seek to divert attention from the missing/stolen/bilked $14 trillion of taxpayer money with the subterfuge of outrage over the relatively miniscule though not unimportant million dollar bonuses (AIG, etc.), so-called fixes/plans, etc., so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! What the Pros Say: US Is Now ‘Bankrupt’ US is Already Bankrupt: Analyst U.S. Budget Office offers darker economic and deficit outlook The Geithner-Summers-Bernanke Plan to Prop Up Asset Prices Has Failed U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar
Fierman: How quickly things change…..
Some stats from today’s rally:
S&P: +54 (7.1%) to 823
Dow: +497 (+6.8%) to 7776
NYSE Up Volume: 1,866,836,012
NYSE Down Volume: 44,683,760
NYSE Total Volume: 1,914,836,622
It was just 2 weeks ago (March 9th) that the S&P closed at 12-year lows and
the stock market felt like it was forecasting the end of the world. We’ve now
rallied 22% in 2 weeks! But if we look at the catalysts for this rally, they
really don’t seem to justify such an explosive move. Citi said they were profitable in
the first two months of the year and JP Morgan (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) said they were too. The Fed initiated some serious quantitative easing.
And now Geithner’s toxic asset plan this morning. I agree with the Capital
Spectator when he wrote this morning:
‘Treasury Secretary Geithner has released his plan to mop-up the toxic assets held by banks that threaten their solvency and the global financial system. Accordingly, the plan purposes that private equity firms partner with the Fed to purchase bank assets at some discount set by the private firms at auction. Then the Fed will leverage the purchase six-fold to buy more bank assets and assume all the risk of leverage. In other words, private firms will set the price and then put up half the initial purchase price. The Fed will then put up non-recourse loans to purchase six times more debt at the same price to be owned by the joint venture partners. If the deal works private equity splits the booty equally. If the deal fails, the government loses upwards to six times taxpayer's money and private equity loses only its original equity match equal to 1/6 the total loss.
Flabergasted? Don't be. How often can you cut a deal where you get to set the price and your partner puts in six times your money and you split the profit. IF THESE DEAL TERMS DON'T UNDERSCORE WHY THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT HANDLE YOUR MONEY AND WHY THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD STAY OUT OF BUSINESS, WHAT DOES? Other deal terms are that the Fed will designate the private equity players, at least initially. Could it be that the Fed is creating another pass-through mechanism to simultaneously bail out or reward its friends? If so, look for Goldman Sachs (GS), Merrill, Blackstone (BX), Carlye Group, Texas Pacific Group, and perhaps Bear Stearns to be players. Look also for the typical MOS of some Structured Investment Vehicle, not much different from the Maiden Lane III SIV, to backstop or divert money where it needs to be--by gratuitous selection that is. Oh, and never mind that Private Equity may be joined by the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA and Private Equity article by Financial Times) as Private Equity at present is having a bit of a liquidity crunch with their own deflated, illiquid assets. In short, the Geithner Toxic Asset Plan is just another bank bailout and footnote to this era of 'Dark Capitalism" where profits are reaped and losses socialized in an ever transparent way.’
Trevisani: ’…The beginning of quantitative easing calls all three ideas in question; it increases the supply of dollars effectively lowering US interest rates well below Europe’s; the need for such an unprecedented step undermines the hope for a US recovery; and a devaluing dollar cannot be a safe haven. Add the projected Federal deficits and the dollar begins to look very vulnerable. If the Europeans go down the same quantitative road then the dollar’s disabilities may be matched by the euro’s. But if they are not, then the Bernanke dollar call may not be an option to buy but a call to sell…’ China and most of the financial world outside the u.s. agrees with the latter. China Urges New Money Reserve to Replace Dollar Kremlin to Pitch New Currency...
EMBRACE THE BEAR By Rev Shark There is an old saying that in a bear market, we slide down the slope of hope. Unfortunately, we have seen plenty of good examples of how that works over the past year. We have had dozens of new initiatives to try to bolster the economy that create hope for a few days. The market will get excited and we'll have some big point gains, but then doubts begin to surface about how easily it will be to turn this economic supertanker that is going over a waterfall. The buying stalls out, a few dip-buying attempts are made, but eventually we break support levels and more downside ensues. That is classic bear market action but the standard Wall Street reaction is to not accept it…[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at $600+trillion] …INVESTORS …..FOOLED (at least today) By Rev Shark …..realization that economic stimulus isn't going to be nearly as simple or easy (or effective) as it sounds. We aren't going to spend our way out of this economic spiral …We'd probably be better off if the government did less rather than more. The great likelihood is that the unintended consequences we suffer will prolong the whole cycle. We have to let some bad businesses and financial institutions fail…
HERE’S THE REAL DEAL:
SUMMARY/RECAP OF LORIMER
WILSON 3-17-09 ANALYSES/REVIEW
Harry Dent, Jr.
Economy will be in a Depression by 2011
The worst of this next depression is likely to hit between mid-2010 and
mid-2013, especially around early 2011, but if the banking system continues to
implode a deep downturn or depression could begin sometime in 2009 instead of
2010.
Dow will Fall to 3,800 – 4,500 by 2012
Nasdaq will Fall Below 1,100, its 2002 low, by late 2010 or mid-2012 at the
latest.
Inflation will Increase until mid- 2010 and then turn to Deflation
Interest Rates will Increase
U.S. Dollar will Decline
Housing will Decline by 40 – 60% from Today’s Levels
Greatest Economic and Banking Crisis since the 1930s will Occur Between 2010
and 2012
Russell Napier is the author of the book “Anatomy of the
Bear”, a professor at the Edinburgh Business School and a consultant to CLSA
Ltd. which is one of the top research houses in Asia. Napier’s research
indicates (and I paraphrase) that:
The S&P 500 will Decline to 400 by 2014 (the Dow 30 to 3800)
The S&P 500 will then undergo a major crash that will see U.S. equity
prices bottom at almost 50% below current levels (i.e. to 400 or less; the Dow
30 to 3800 or less) sometime around 2014 as Tobin’s “q” drops to 0.3 signaling
the end of the bear market, as it has done at the end of the four largest U.S.
market declines in 1921, 1932, 1949 and 1982.
U.S. Treasury Sales Could Collapse Leading to End of U.S. Dollar as Reserve
Currency
Robert R. Prechter Jr. is author of a number of newsletters and
books including “Elliott Wave Principle” (1978) in which he predicted the super
bull market of the 1980s; “At the Crest of the Tidal Wave – A Forecast of the
Great Bear Market” (1995) in which he predicted a slow motion economic
earthquake, brought about by a great asset mania, that would register 11 on the
financial Richter scale causing a collapse of historic proportions; and
“Conquer the Crash: You can Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary Depression”
(2002) in which he described the economic cataclysm that we are just beginning
to experience and advised how to position one’s self financially during that
period of time.
Depression is Imminent
The Dow Jones Industrial Average will go down to at least 1000, most likely to
below 777 which was the starting point of its mania back in August 1982, and
quite likely drop below 400 at one or more times during the bear market.
Regulator: Before Banks Collapsed, They Pleaded With Feds To Let Them Fudge Their Books Ryan Grim | Before financial institutions collapsed, they went to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, pleading for a change in mark-to-market accounting rules so that they can continue to appear to be solvent on their balance sheets and hence, continue to defraud the public as they are now once again trying to do. This says it all! Will FASB remain viable by resisting fudge/fraud factor. Suckers’ bear market rally ( Citigroup Inspired Bear Market Suckers’ Rally ) to keep the suckers suckered and commission dollars flowing to the frauds on wall street
Why we think this is a (suckers’) bear market rally:
Citing 13 reasons that the bear will continue in spite of this rally seems appropriate.
1. Current P/E: the current 20+ P/E on trailing “as reported earnings” is too high for this set of negative sales, earnings and dividends growth conditions.
2. Forward P/E: the projected 2010 S&P 500 earnings by Standard and Poor’s at about $40 would only support 800 at best (20 P/E), and more likely would support 600 (15 P/E), assuming there was a general recovery under way — before that time, the current market should sell for less than 800, and perhaps less than 600.
3. Earnings: profits are still declining in the aggregate
4. Dividend Yield: banks and other companies continue to cut dividends, reducing stock appeal and putting total return in question until dividends stabilize and begin to grow (historically dividends generated about 1/3 of total return for the S&P 500)
5. Revenue: overall sales are down — declining sales, earnings and dividends are not reasons for bullish markets.
6. World GDP Growth: credible parties (Goldman Sachs, IMF, and noteworthy individuals, such as Nouriel Roubini, predict worsening global economies) — until forecasts for improvements within 12 months or less for the US or world economies become prevalent, the market is unlikely to “anticipate” with a sustainable trend reversal to a bull
7. Government Intervention: the US and global economies are currently highly government policy dependent, and while policies are becoming more clear, they are not all revealed, and there are suggestions more may be needed — the resulting uncertainty warrants low valuation until government policies to “save” and “stimulate” economies are no longer the centerpiece of investor hopes and earnings prospects
8. Real Estate: the US and global real estate asset deflation continues with waves of negative impact on household and institutional wealth — until property prices stabilize, or are believed to be about to stabilize, a new bull market will have difficulty gaining traction.
9. Other Bank Shoes to Drop: the major banks have not yet experienced likely future write-downs associated with non-mortgage asset types, such as credit cards and auto loans.
10. Auto Industry: the fate of GM, Chrysler and the entire supply chain is uncertain with unknown government involvement.
11. LBOs: private equity firms built on leverage may not be able to continue to service and rollover the debt they used to make recent optimistic acquisitions — those debts could be a further burden on the financial sector.
12. Retirees and Pre-Retirees: the 55 and over crowd who control the largest portion of US private assets are not as likely to risk their life accumulations in stocks relative to bonds as they were in the boom times of the last couple of decades — that will delay the onset of a bull and subdue the extent of a bull when it occurs
13. Credit Availability: the credit and leverage availability that helped the US stock market recover from the 2002-2003 bottom is not available at this time to increase household expenditures and corporate capital investment — even the US government may be put on credit rationing by China, which today said it is “worried” about the credit quality of their US Treasury holdings, which has implications about their willingness to support the borrowing our “stimulus” programs require and assume to be available. By Richard Shaw
Analyst Andre Egleshion points to continuing effect of credit default swaps and pegs the amount of the worthless, fraudulent (previously sold, commissioned, repackaged, resold, re-commissioned, etc.) securities at $600-$675 TRILLION, their continued effect on money pit AIG, that fed’s received $11.7 trillion since 2008 yet refuses transparency as to where funds spent, who received same, etc., agrees with comment that shockingly no prosecutions yet, economy re-tooling, need for stiffer regulation, points to historical fact that fiat currencies and private central banks have consistently failed, sees hyperinflation with dollar weakness (printed/created like mad) and higher oil. Hopes for funny assets [in addition to funny money, other fraud, relaxation of rules/laws/enforcement (real asset values) (remember the exemption from RICO garnered by fraudulent wall street-those campaign contributions really pay off, etc.) ], spur suckers’ bear market short-covering rally to keep the suckers suckered and commission dollars flowing to the frauds on wall street so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! NOW LISTEN HERE, FOR THIS IS TRUTH!: There is not enough money in the entire world to cover the fraudulent securities foisted/commissioned/ distributed/sold by the wall street frauds/perpetrators which if assumed/guaranteed by the u.s. government (don’t forget that social security/medicare are already technically insolvent/bankrupt - all monies/reserves going into the general account and already and continually spent) will only guaranty the insolvency of / worthlessness of the currency of the u.s. treasury. Cost to buy protection against U.S. government default surges Frank just said that he wants to prosecute those who’ve caused this crisis…waxman was supposedly doing just that in part (fog of war fraud-360 tons of $100 dollar bills stolen), etc…. If they don’t do this as said, among others, they should be forced resign as complicit. THERE IS NO MYSTERY HERE; HENCE, NONE SHOULD BE AFRAID TO LOOK, PROSECUTE, AND FORCE DISGORGEMENT! Celente: U.S. Has Entered “The Greatest Depression” …‘… Watch for fake reports and continued jawboning/spin/b.s. regarding bailout/stimulus as they are desperate yet remain protective of the criminals who caused the crisis with their fraud in staggering amounts far beyond the substantial scam by madoff ($50 billion) who now audaciously from his $7 million NYC penthouse seeks ownership of same along with $62 million (only in systemically fraudulent america). Why are they not seeking disgorgement from the criminals who benefited from the huge multi-trillion dollar fraud they perpetrated? No one yet has asked tiny tim geithner where the missing $4 trillion at the fed is…Why? Then there’s the $2 trillion in taxpayer money, the destination of which the fed refuses disclosure of…Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money …Why? How? This is criminal activity of monumental proportion, yet protected by the bureaucratic complicit frauds (I’ve experienced this directly in my RICO case), damaging lives here and abroad. Then there’s also the illegal wars, war-profiteering, war crimes, etc., that have bankrupted this nation, killed many innocents, etc., [remember, ie., the 360 tons of hundred dollar bills flown into Iraq that democrats/land of fruits and nuts henry waxman (doesn’t he look like a hedgehog or some other rodent) the lying fraud talked endlessly about while republicans were at the helm, yet nothing…no prosecutions…the frauds who stole that money should put same in the failed ‘stimulus fraud pot’…at the least, etc.]. An analyst previously said 2011-2014 earliest for bottoming at best. Another analyst previously pointed out there has been not one prosecution thus far and the frauds on wall street should be prosecuted and forced disgorgement. …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.]. Analyst Frank Cochrane looks ahead to 4,000 to 6,000 on the DOW, 700 to 900 on the NASDAQ, and 425 to 625 on the S&P, and says spending/stimulus programs will not work, a point on which he is correct and the low end of his ranges closer to reality. Not Just a Few Bad Apples - Corruption is Systemic in America In case you believe that there are only “a couple of bad apples” in the United States, here is an off-the-top-of-his-head (I could give many, many more including my RICO case) list of corruption by leading pillars of american society.
HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO THE SAME OR SIMILAR FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST RECENT MASSIVE SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM THE PERPETRATORS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW REFLATING THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND BULL S**T), CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE FROM WHICH THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF THEIR NEW FRAUD IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE BUST /DEBACLE, RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS COLLATERALIZED SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED), ETC., THE FRAUDS ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC! … THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING, CREATING, YOUR POCKETS, … NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ]
PREVIOUS 7-6,2-09, PREPOSTEROUS WAS THIS SURGE IN THE LAST 20 MINUTES INTO THE CLOSE FOR SECULAR BEAR MARKET SUCKERS’ RALLY PROGRAMMED TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) [$$] Big Pay Packages Return to Wall Street as new fraud gains steam (at The Wall Street Journal Online) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... America’s Effective Unemployment Rate at 18.7%? US loses 467,000 jobs, unemployment at 9.5% 'We're in the Middle of a Crash': Black Swan... (7-2)Seven more banks fail, bringing 2009 tally to more than double all of 2008 at a total thus far of 52; Private sector sheds another 473,000 jobs in June... US lurching towards ‘debt explosion’ with long-term interest rates on course to double Jim Rogers Sells Dollars, Plans to Short Treasuries ‘Sucker’s Rally Beginning To Unwind’ daaaah…? Calls grow to supplant dollar as global currency China officials call for displacing dollar, in time Tracking Two Depressions, 1929 and now this HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO THE SAME OR SIMILAR FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST RECENT MASSIVE SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM THE PERPETRATORS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW REFLATING THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND BULL S**T), CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE FROM WHICH THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF THEIR NEW FRAUD IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE BUST /DEBACLE, RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS COLLATERALIZED SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED), ETC., THE FRAUDS ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC! … THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING, CREATING, YOUR POCKETS, … NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ] TYPICAL END OF QUARTER FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , personal income up modest .2% and spending down, China calls for new reserve currency to supplant worthless dollar Dollar And Stocks Drop As China Calls For New Global Currency , continuing unemployment claims at or near record 627,000, weekly unemployment claims up 15,000, and GDP contraction –5.5%, all worse than expected (lennar wider than expected quarterly loss rallies stock…riiiiight!) Jobless claims rise; GDP dips in 1Q ; soothing words/b.s. from fed which previously predicted no recession that economy still contracting but that the contraction is somewhat slowing…what b**l s**t!…, analysts- buffet/economy in shambles, Hogan/negative GDP growth and inflation owing to debasement of the dollar as well as deficit spending/pump-priming in the trillions, joker stein/economy a mess and continued job losses, new home sales down .6%; U.S. Home Prices Drop 6.8 Percent in April as Foreclosures Rise foreclosure sales up 2.4%, prices down 17% year over year, [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical Damage Stocks tumble on bleak outlook for world economy U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year , Next Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 7-1-09, SELL / TAKE ANY PROFITS IN THIS SECULAR BEAR MARKET SUCKERS’ RALLY PROGRAMMED TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) [$$] Big Pay Packages Return to Wall Street as new fraud gains steam (at The Wall Street Journal Online) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... Job losses / job concerns realistically weigh on confidence, real estate values/prices continue downward trend as per Case / Shiller Index (-18.1%, -21% in california) Gerald Celente speaks on Cap and Trade and other handicaps to the US economy HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO THE SAME OR SIMILAR FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST RECENT MASSIVE SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM THE PERPETRATORS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW REFLATING THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND BULL S**T), CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE FROM WHICH THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF THEIR NEW FRAUD IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE BUST /DEBACLE, RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS COLLATERALIZED SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED), ETC., THE FRAUDS ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC! … THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING, CREATING, YOUR POCKETS, … NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ] TYPICAL END OF QUARTER FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , personal income up modest .2% and spending down, China calls for new reserve currency to supplant worthless dollar Dollar And Stocks Drop As China Calls For New Global Currency , continuing unemployment claims at or near record 627,000, weekly unemployment claims up 15,000, and GDP contraction –5.5%, all worse than expected (lennar wider than expected quarterly loss rallies stock…riiiiight!) Jobless claims rise; GDP dips in 1Q ; soothing words/b.s. from fed which previously predicted no recession that economy still contracting but that the contraction is somewhat slowing…what b**l s**t!…, analysts- buffet/economy in shambles, Hogan/negative GDP growth and inflation owing to debasement of the dollar as well as deficit spending/pump-priming in the trillions, joker stein/economy a mess and continued job losses, new home sales down .6%; U.S. Home Prices Drop 6.8 Percent in April as Foreclosures Rise foreclosure sales up 2.4%, prices down 17% year over year, [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical Damage Stocks tumble on bleak outlook for world economy U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year , Next Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 7-1-09, 6-30-09, SECULAR BEAR MARKET SUCKERS’ RALLY TO END WELL OFF SESSION LOWS TYPICAL END OF QUARTER FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED Job losses / job concerns realistically weigh on confidence, real estate values/prices continue downward trend as per Case / Shiller Index (-18.1%, -21% in california) Consumer confidence suffers steep fall... Home prices post 18% annual drop... Worldwide Depression: Review of Global Markets . Four banks fail, bringing 2009 tally to 19 more than all of 2008 at a total thus far of 44 Dollar Falls Most in Month as China Urges New Reserve Currency Gerald Celente speaks on Cap and Trade and other handicaps to the US economy HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO THE SAME OR SIMILAR FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST RECENT MASSIVE SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM THE PERPETRATORS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW REFLATING THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND BULL S**T), CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE FROM WHICH THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF THEIR NEW FRAUD IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE BUST /DEBACLE, RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS COLLATERALIZED SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED), ETC., THE FRAUDS ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC! … THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING, CREATING, YOUR POCKETS, … NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ] TYPICAL END OF QUARTER FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , personal income up modest .2% and spending down, China calls for new reserve currency to supplant worthless dollar Dollar And Stocks Drop As China Calls For New Global Currency , continuing unemployment claims at or near record 627,000, weekly unemployment claims up 15,000, and GDP contraction –5.5%, all worse than expected (lennar wider than expected quarterly loss rallies stock…riiiiight!) Jobless claims rise; GDP dips in 1Q ; soothing words/b.s. from fed which previously predicted no recession that economy still contracting but that the contraction is somewhat slowing…what b**l s**t!…, analysts- buffet/economy in shambles, Hogan/negative GDP growth and inflation owing to debasement of the dollar as well as deficit spending/pump-priming in the trillions, joker stein/economy a mess and continued job losses, new home sales down .6%; U.S. Home Prices Drop 6.8 Percent in April as Foreclosures Rise foreclosure sales up 2.4%, prices down 17% year over year, [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical Damage Stocks tumble on bleak outlook for world economy U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year , Next Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not Over” 6/9/2009 , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... The Next Bubble Is Here. Have You Bought In? foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-29-09, Worthless dollar/High oil price stock rally…riiiiight!...Then there’s the madoff propaganda event Fraudster Madoff gets 150 years, with prosecutors patting themselves on the back when the reality is that there has been not even one prosecution in the massive securities fraud which benefited the wall street frauds greatly and make madoff look like a piker. Four banks fail, bringing 2009 tally to 19 more than all of 2008 at a total thus far of 44 Dollar Falls Most in Month as China Urges New Reserve Currency Gerald Celente speaks on Cap and Trade and other handicaps to the US economy HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO THE SAME OR SIMILAR FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST RECENT MASSIVE SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM THE PERPETRATORS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW REFLATING THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND BULL S**T), CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE FROM WHICH THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF THEIR NEW FRAUD IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE BUST /DEBACLE, RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS COLLATERALIZED SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED), ETC., THE FRAUDS ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC! … THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING, CREATING, YOUR POCKETS, … NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ] TYPICAL END OF QUARTER FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , personal income up modest .2% and spending down, China calls for new reserve currency to supplant worthless dollar Dollar And Stocks Drop As China Calls For New Global Currency , continuing unemployment claims at or near record 627,000, weekly unemployment claims up 15,000, and GDP contraction –5.5%, all worse than expected (lennar wider than expected quarterly loss rallies stock…riiiiight!) Jobless claims rise; GDP dips in 1Q ; soothing words/b.s. from fed which previously predicted no recession that economy still contracting but that the contraction is somewhat slowing…what b**l s**t!…, analysts- buffet/economy in shambles, Hogan/negative GDP growth and inflation owing to debasement of the dollar as well as deficit spending/pump-priming in the trillions, joker stein/economy a mess and continued job losses, new home sales down .6%; U.S. Home Prices Drop 6.8 Percent in April as Foreclosures Rise foreclosure sales up 2.4%, prices down 17% year over year, [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical Damage Stocks tumble on bleak outlook for world economy U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year , Next Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not Over” 6/9/2009 , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... The Next Bubble Is Here. Have You Bought In? , foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-26-09, Worthless dollar/High oil price stock rally…riiiiight!...Then
there’s the madoff propaganda event Fraudster Madoff gets 150 years,
with prosecutors patting themselves on the back when the reality is that there
has been not even one prosecution in the massive securities fraud which
benefited the wall street frauds greatly and make madoff look like a piker. Four banks fail, bringing 2009 tally to
19 more than all of 2008 at a total thus far of 44 Dollar Falls Most in Month as China Urges New Reserve
Currency Gerald Celente speaks on Cap and Trade and other handicaps
to the US economy HOW MANY TIMES
CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO THE SAME OR SIMILAR
FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST RECENT MASSIVE
SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM THE PERPETRATORS AS
WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW REFLATING THE STOCK
MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND BULL S**T),
CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE FROM WHICH
THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF THEIR NEW FRAUD
IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE BUST /DEBACLE,
RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS COLLATERALIZED
SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED), ETC., THE FRAUDS
ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC!
… THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING, CREATING, YOUR POCKETS,
… NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ] TYPICAL END OF QUARTER FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP
SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the
Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS
FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report
(Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD
NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN
'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... ,
personal income up modest .2% and spending down, China calls for new reserve
currency to supplant worthless dollar Dollar And Stocks Drop As China
Calls For New Global Currency , continuing
unemployment claims at or near record 627,000, weekly unemployment claims up
15,000, and GDP contraction –5.5%, all worse than expected (lennar wider than
expected quarterly loss rallies stock…riiiiight!) Jobless claims rise; GDP dips in 1Q ; soothing
words/b.s. from fed which previously predicted no recession that economy still
contracting but that the contraction is somewhat slowing…what b**l s**t!…,
analysts- buffet/economy in shambles, Hogan/negative GDP growth and inflation
owing to debasement of the dollar as well as deficit spending/pump-priming in
the trillions, joker stein/economy a mess and continued job losses, new home
sales down .6%; U.S. Home Prices Drop 6.8 Percent
in April as Foreclosures Rise foreclosure
sales up 2.4%, prices down 17% year over year, [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical
Damage Stocks tumble on bleak outlook for world economy U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year
, Next
Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down world
economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference
between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead
of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices
/ higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy,
even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers
by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or
sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for
bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%)
pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial
production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed
will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing
index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at
record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and
that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation
which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted,
record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates /
yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record
continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing,
money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget
deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called
crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the
help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic
assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end
of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan,
recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not
Over” 6/9/2009 ,
new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that
previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts,
etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN
'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , world economy to shrink by worse than
previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and
getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull
s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital
requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same
old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.),
analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress
tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still
insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go,
$100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush
greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the
Fastest Pace in Two Years BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO
SIGNS OF RECOVERY... The Next Bubble Is Here. Have
You Bought In? , foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN
MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-26-09, SECULAR BEAR MARKET SUCKERS’ RALLY TO END
MIXED. HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO
THE SAME OR SIMILAR FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST
RECENT MASSIVE SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM
THE PERPETRATORS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW
REFLATING THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND
BULL S**T), CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE
FROM WHICH THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF
THEIR NEW FRAUD IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE
BUST /DEBACLE, RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS
COLLATERALIZED SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED),
ETC., THE FRAUDS ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL
MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC! … THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING,
CREATING, YOUR POCKETS, … NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ] TYPICAL END OF QUARTER
FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the
Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS
FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters)
] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS (
ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY
IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... ,
personal income up modest .2% and spending down, China calls for new reserve
currency to supplant worthless dollar Dollar And Stocks Drop As China
Calls For New Global Currency , continuing
unemployment claims at or near record 627,000, weekly unemployment claims up
15,000, and GDP contraction –5.5%, all worse than expected AND BULL S**T
ALONE (ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN
'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , world economy to shrink by worse than
previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and
getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull
s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital
requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same
old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst
who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only
with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent,
toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil
by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan,
recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the
Fastest Pace in Two Years BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO
SIGNS OF RECOVERY... The Next Bubble Is Here. Have
You Bought In? foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN
MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS
WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-25-09, HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO THE SAME OR SIMILAR FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST RECENT MASSIVE SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM THE PERPETRATORS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW REFLATING THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND BULL S**T), CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE FROM WHICH THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF THEIR NEW FRAUD IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE BUST /DEBACLE, RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS COLLATERALIZED SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED), ETC., THE FRAUDS ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC! … THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING, CREATING, YOUR POCKETS, … NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ] TYPICAL END OF QUARTER FRAUD/WINDOW DRESSING TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , continuing unemployment claims at or near record 627,000, weekly unemployment claims up 15,000, and GDP contraction –5.5%, all worse than expected (lennar wider than expected quarterly loss rallies stock…riiiiight!) Jobless claims rise; GDP dips in 1Q ; soothing words/b.s. from fed which previously predicted no recession that economy still contracting but that the contraction is somewhat slowing…what b**l s**t!…, analysts- buffet/economy in shambles, Hogan/negative GDP growth and inflation owing to debasement of the dollar as well as deficit spending/pump-priming in the trillions, joker stein/economy a mess and continued job losses, new home sales down .6%; U.S. Home Prices Drop 6.8 Percent in April as Foreclosures Rise foreclosure sales up 2.4%, prices down 17% year over year, [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical Damage Stocks tumble on bleak outlook for world economy U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year , Next Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-24-09, SECULAR BEAR MARKET SUCKERS RALLY CONTINUES FOR MIXED CLOSE TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , soothing words/b.s. from fed which previously predicted no recession that economy still contracting but that the contraction is somewhat slowing…what b**l s**t!…, analysts- buffet/economy in shambles, Hogan/negative GDP growth and inflation owing to debasement of the dollar as well as deficit spending/pump-priming in the trillions, joker stein/economy a mess and continued job losses, new home sales down .6%; foreclosure sales up 2.4%, prices down 17% year over year, world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not Over” 6/9/2009 , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... , world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years BUFFET: ECONOMY IN 'SHAMBLES'; NO SIGNS OF RECOVERY... The Next Bubble Is Here. Have You Bought In? foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-23-09, SECULAR BEAR MARKET SUCKERS RALLY INTACT TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED [ Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years ] AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., U.S. Home Prices Drop 6.8 Percent in April as Foreclosures Rise foreclosure sales up 2.4%, prices down 17% year over year, [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical Damage Stocks tumble on bleak outlook for world economy U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year , Next Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not Over” 6/9/2009 , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets , foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-22-09, ONLY MODEST LOSSES RELATIVE TO REALITY IN THIS SECULAR BEAR MARKET TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING [ Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses: report (Reuters) ] BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical Damage Stocks tumble on bleak outlook for world economy U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year , Next Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not Over” 6/9/2009 , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., world economy to shrink by worse than previously predicted 2.9% and big difference between not getting worse and getting better, leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Insiders Exit Shares at the Fastest Pace in Two Years [$$] Market Suffers Some Technical Damage ----- Existing home foreclosure sales up, and no profit discount car sales better than expected Diluting like crazy through new stock bubble issues Market Manipulation/Fraud: How Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-19-09, SECULAR BEAR MARKET PROGRAMMED SUCKERS
RALLY INTO THE CLOSE AS STOCKS END MIXED STILL IN DEFIANCE OF REALITY TO
KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING BASED ON CONTINUED BAD
NEWS ( ie., U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year
, Next
Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down market got
ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas
prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on
economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected
job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically
sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating
cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says
15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling,
industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but
if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire
manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard
defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock
rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful
reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should
be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher
interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits,
hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless
Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher
interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than
expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed
stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks
still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower
to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of
bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets
, new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed
downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low
for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., leading indicators
up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock
price component … more bull s**t … new reform with
same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the
overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no
will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says
inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent
change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more
toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year,
Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting
out of Dodge and u.s. assets, foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN
MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-18-09, SECULAR BEAR MARKET PROGRAMMED SUCKERS RALLY INTO THE CLOSE AS STOCKS END MIXED STILL IN DEFIANCE OF REALITY TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., U.S. regulators close their 40th bank of the year , Next Major Move In Stock Market Will Be Down market got ahead of itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices / higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy, even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., leading indicators up far more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price component … more bull s**t … new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. , foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-18-09, MORE TALK OF NEW REGULATORY SCHEME WHEN
PROSECUTION AND DISGORGEMENT WOULD REALLY BLUNT INCENTIVE FOR WALL STREET
FRAUDS PROSPECTIVELY, SECULAR BEAR MARKET PROGRAMMED SUCKERS RALLY ON
LEADING INDICATORS UP FAR MORE THAN EXPECTED … BULL S**T …BASED IN LARGE PART
ON INFLATED STOCK PRICE COMPONENT … MORE BULL S**T … AS STOCKS END MIXED STILL
IN DEFIANCE OF REALITY TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING
BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., market got ahead of
itself, stalled out, still depression/more job losses, higher oil-gas prices /
higher interest rates / heavy debt to pare down is 1-3 year drag on economy,
even if believed (I don’t) the labor dept. far better than expected job numbers
by increased debt (spending) to produce same is not economically sound or
sustainable, viz., record spending with record low revenues, rating cuts for
bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%)
pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial
production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed
will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing
index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at
record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and
that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation
which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted,
record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields,
higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing
unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing,
money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget
deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called
crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the
help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic
assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end
of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan,
recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not
Over” 6/9/2009 ,
new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that
previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts,
etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., leading indicators up far
more than expected … bull s**t …based in large part on inflated stock price
component … more bull s**t … new reform with same
old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the
overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no
will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says
inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of
fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even
more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year,
Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting
out of Dodge and u.s. assets foreclosure sales up, prices down
, ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-17-09, SECULAR BEAR MARKET PROGRAMMED SUCKERS RALLY INTO THE CLOSE AS STOCKS END MIXED IN DEFIANCE OF REALITY TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., rating cuts for bank sector, analysts concur in significant 5-15% (reality says 15-25%) pullback/correction for stocks , institutional selling, industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not Over” 6/9/2009 Markets See a Breakdown in Technical Support Levels Roubini: USA sees double-dip recession... Dollar drops on reserve currency doubts China sells US bonds to ’show concern’ BRICs May Buy Each Other’s Bonds in Shift From Dollar China’s holding of US bonds drops first time in 11 months Russia to Raise Reserve Currency Issue at BRIC International Demand for Worthless U.S. Assets Slowed in April IMF says worst not over Senator cashed out during big stock collapse -- after meeting with Fed, Treasury chiefs! America's AAA downgrade danger... Treasury faces pressure on price of TARP exit A depression so deep even teen shoppers scrimp US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive 1st quarter wiped out $1.3 trillion for Americans Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates Oil prices near $73 as energy rally continues Fed Would Be Shut Down If It Were Audited Fed says economy weak, but sees signs the slide increasing Mounting deficits spark jitters about U.S. economy Wall Street falls as realities dent recovery hopes Bonds fall on worries about government's debt load (AP) Oil prices strike new high for 2009 (AP) The depression quietly deepens CHINA AIRS FEARS ON DOLLAR, DEBT... Oil hits 7-month high over $70... Yes, We’re STILL In a Depression China Bank Wants U.S. Bonds Issued in Yuan Fake government job loss report near 40% better than private forecasts…I don’t think so!…9.4% unemployment rate…try well over 10% and with stopped looking included over 20% , Jim Rogers CNBC - Jun 4th, 2009 - Currency Crisis Ahead U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds US retailers report May sales declines Tiny Tim says dollar assets safe... Laughter from audience... Why The Chinese Laughed At Geithner ----- mortgage apps. down, service sector job losses/factory orders worse than expected, new record continuing unemployment claims, bernanke spend more money you don’t have but cut debilitating deficit…riiiiight…sounds like a plan with more job losses to come, etc., Economic data disappoint, indicate slow recovery Worse-than-expected economic data thwarts rally Jobless rates in U.S. cities zoom higher in April Sector Snap: Homebuilders tumble (AP) As the Dollar Falls Off the Cliff … Bernanke warns on deficits as Treasury rates rise ----- GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8 TRILLION... The Big Collapse Is Very Near Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency Alternative Dollar Falls Most In A Month Since 1985 Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink Gold jumps above $970/oz as dollar weakens Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault on the middle class Government will now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy to dip again next year... Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., new reform with same old frauds say increased capital requirements and oversight of the overseers/rating agencies (riiiiight!…same old,same old - already have but no will to enforce existing laws, etc.), analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Venture Capital Bubble Set to Burst, Kedrosky Says Obama Plans to Cut Bank Regulators, Allow Fed to Supervise Financial Holding Companies – The old fox guarding the henhouse tricks Federal Reserve unwisely to gain power under plan Federal Reserve Foolishly To Be Given Sweeping New Powers Yen Strengthens Most in Month as Asian Stocks Drop, Gold Gains RUSSIA CHALLENGES WORTHLESS DOLLAR... AIG says former top exec plundered retirement plan [video] The Too-Big-to-Fail Problem [6.8 min] (at MarketWatch) [$$] Too Big to Solve? (at The Wall Street Journal Online) Buy and Hold Is Dead. Long Live Buy and Hold! Financial Bailout Plan Keeps Zombie Banks Alive Bernanke then as now in denial about looming crisis 2005-2007 Retail sales, drop in jobless claims to a very high even if believed 601,000 yielding record continuing claims of 6.8 million fuel hope…if you’re a dope Lawmakers blast Fed, Treasury for BofA "threats" Oil climbs over $73 on hopes for rising demand U.S. Household Worth Fell by $1.3 Trillion in First Quarter Predictions of $250 a barrel on oil ECB Fears Reality of Banking Crisis in 2010: Report Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates Bill To Audit Federal Reserve Now Has 209 Co-Sponsors Russia May Swap Some U.S. Treasuries for IMF Debt Fed report shows losses on Bear Stearns, AIG holdings Congress subpoenas the Fed ... Finally! (AP) Brazil in recession, recovery unlikely this year What a “Jobless Recovery” Really Means: A Massive Redistribution of Wealth from the Little Guy to the Big Boys Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead America’s Fed Addiction “87 Percent of [Chinese] Respondents Believe China’s u.s. Dollar-Assets are Unsafe” Fed Said to Retreat From Seeking Power to Sell Its Own Debt/Bills WIRE: Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead... Long-Term Economic Memory Loss Obama’s economic model versus reality Reality bites Internet as 1Q ad sales fall 5 pct (AP) CHINA AIRS FEARS ON DOLLAR, DEBT government reports better than private estimates…riiiiight! President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Warns of Oligarchy U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now Benefit spending soars to new high $100 Billion Bailout For IMF Tagged On To War Funding Bill Economic recovery is wishful thinking Gold, Silver Climb as Dollar Falls OPEC: OIL COULD REACH $90... ----- Existing home foreclosure sales up, and no profit discount car sales better than expected Diluting like crazy through new stock bubble issues Market Manipulation/Fraud: How Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-16-09, SECULAR BEAR MARKET AND ONLY MODEST
LOSSES RELATIVE TO REALITY TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED AND COMMISSION DOLLARS
FLOWING BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., analysts concur in
significant 5-15% pullback/correction for stocks, institutional selling,
industrial production/construction down 1.1%, housing starts allegedly up but
if believed will only increase the plethora of unsold inventories, empire
manufacturing index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard
defaults at record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock
rally and that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful
reform/regulation which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should
be prosecuted, record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher
interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits,
hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless
Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher
interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than
expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed
stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks
still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower
to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of
bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets -----
mortgage apps. down, service sector job losses/factory orders worse than
expected, new record continuing unemployment claims, bernanke spend more money
you don’t have but cut debilitating deficit…riiiiight…sounds like a plan with
more job losses to come, etc, new record for continuing
unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for
suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., Analyst
who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only
with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent,
toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil
by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan,
recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN
MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-15-09, SECULAR BEAR MARKET PROGRAMMED SUCKERS
RALLY INTO THE CLOSE TO FINISH WELL OFF THE LOWS WITH MODEST LOSSES RELATIVE TO
REALITY TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING BASED ON
CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., empire manufacturing
index suffers unexpectedly severe decline…daaaah!, credit dard defaults at
record high, analysts concur that fundamentals don’t support stock rally and
that pac money(defacto bribes) might derail any meaningful reform/regulation
which is of concern to the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted,
record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates /
yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record
continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar
crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest
rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than
expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed
stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks
still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower
to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of
bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s., new
record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that
previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts,
etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., Analyst who called crash says inflationary depression,
banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting
rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and
a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed
policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s.
assets foreclosure
sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND
GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL
CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-11,12-09, HOW MANY TIMES CAN THE WALL STREET FRAUDS, WITH CYCLICAL REGULARITY, DO THE SAME OR SIMILAR FRAUD WITH IMPUNITY (STILL NOT ONE PROSECUTION IN THE MOST RECENT MASSIVE SECURITIES FRAUD, BUT PLENTY OF OBFUSCATION EMANATING FROM THE PERPETRATORS AS WELL AS THOSE WHO SHOULD BE PROSECUTING /PURSUING THEM) NOW REFLATING THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE BASED UPON NOTHING AT ALL (BAD NEWS,FRAUD AND BULL S**T), CHANGING ACCOUNTING RULES TO FACILITATE THE COMMISSIONABLE BUBBLE FROM WHICH THE SOURCE OF FUNDS TO EVEN PAY BACK LOANS TO AVOID SCRUTINY OF THEIR NEW FRAUD IS GENERATED [SAVINGS AND LOAN DEBACLE, DOT.COM SELL THE SIZZLE BUST /DEBACLE, RECYCLED /REPACKAGED /RESOLD /RECOMMISSIONED WORTHLESS COLLATERALIZED SECURITIES /PAPER (IN THE TRILLIONS YET STILL NOT ADDRESSED), ETC., THE FRAUDS ARE GETTING LARGER, HENCE THE RIDICULOUS TOO BIG TO FAIL MANTRA … HOW PATHETIC! … THAT MONEY HAS TO COME FROM SOMEPLACE, IE., PRINTING, CREATING, YOUR POCKETS, … NOT OUT OF THIN AIR! ] , 300 - 1,000+ % SWING TO THE UPSIDE INTO THE CLOSE IN THIS SECULAR BEAR MARKET PROGRAMMED SUCKERS RALLY TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., record loss of wealth, higher gas prices, job losses, higher interest rates / yields, higher commodity prices, higher deficits, hyperinflation, record continuing unemployment claims at 6.8 million, worthless Weimar dollar crashing, money supply exploding with hyperinflation/higher interest rates coming, budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not Over” 6/9/2009 Treasury faces pressure on price of TARP exit A depression so deep even teen shoppers scrimp US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive 1st quarter wiped out $1.3 trillion for Americans Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates Oil prices near $73 as energy rally continues Fed Would Be Shut Down If It Were Audited Fed says economy weak, but sees signs the slide increasing Mounting deficits spark jitters about U.S. economy Wall Street falls as realities dent recovery hopes Bonds fall on worries about government's debt load (AP) Oil prices strike new high for 2009 (AP) The depression quietly deepens CHINA AIRS FEARS ON DOLLAR, DEBT... Oil hits 7-month high over $70... Yes, We’re STILL In a Depression China Bank Wants U.S. Bonds Issued in Yuan Fake government job loss report near 40% better than private forecasts…I don’t think so!…9.4% unemployment rate…try well over 10% and with stopped looking included over 20% , Jim Rogers CNBC - Jun 4th, 2009 - Currency Crisis Ahead U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds US retailers report May sales declines Tiny Tim says dollar assets safe... Laughter from audience... Why The Chinese Laughed At Geithner ----- mortgage apps. down, service sector job losses/factory orders worse than expected, new record continuing unemployment claims, bernanke spend more money you don’t have but cut debilitating deficit…riiiiight…sounds like a plan with more job losses to come, etc., Economic data disappoint, indicate slow recovery Worse-than-expected economic data thwarts rally Jobless rates in U.S. cities zoom higher in April Sector Snap: Homebuilders tumble (AP) As the Dollar Falls Off the Cliff … Bernanke warns on deficits as Treasury rates rise ----- GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8 TRILLION... The Big Collapse Is Very Near Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency Alternative Dollar Falls Most In A Month Since 1985 Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink Gold jumps above $970/oz as dollar weakens Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault on the middle class Government will now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy to dip again next year... Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., Analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Venture Capital Bubble Set to Burst, Kedrosky Says Buy and Hold Is Dead. Long Live Buy and Hold! Financial Bailout Plan Keeps Zombie Banks Alive Bernanke then as now in denial about looming crisis 2005-2007 Retail sales, drop in jobless claims to a very high even if believed 601,000 yielding record continuing claims of 6.8 million fuel hope…if you’re a dope Lawmakers blast Fed, Treasury for BofA "threats" Oil climbs over $73 on hopes for rising demand U.S. Household Worth Fell by $1.3 Trillion in First Quarter Predictions of $250 a barrel on oil ECB Fears Reality of Banking Crisis in 2010: Report Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates Bill To Audit Federal Reserve Now Has 209 Co-Sponsors Russia May Swap Some U.S. Treasuries for IMF Debt Fed report shows losses on Bear Stearns, AIG holdings Congress subpoenas the Fed ... Finally! (AP) Brazil in recession, recovery unlikely this year What a “Jobless Recovery” Really Means: A Massive Redistribution of Wealth from the Little Guy to the Big Boys Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead America’s Fed Addiction “87 Percent of [Chinese] Respondents Believe China’s u.s. Dollar-Assets are Unsafe” Fed Said to Retreat From Seeking Power to Sell Its Own Debt/Bills WIRE: Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead... Long-Term Economic Memory Loss Obama’s economic model versus reality Reality bites Internet as 1Q ad sales fall 5 pct (AP) CHINA AIRS FEARS ON DOLLAR, DEBT government reports better than private estimates…riiiiight! President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Warns of Oligarchy U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now Benefit spending soars to new high $100 Billion Bailout For IMF Tagged On To War Funding Bill Economic recovery is wishful thinking Gold, Silver Climb as Dollar Falls OPEC: OIL COULD REACH $90... ----- Existing home foreclosure sales up, and no profit discount car sales better than expected Diluting like crazy through new stock bubble issues Market Manipulation/Fraud: How Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-10-09, MODEST LOSSES WITH SECULAR BEAR MARKET PROGRAMMED SUCKERS RALLY INTO THE CLOSE TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., budget deficit at new highs and trade deficit worse than expected, analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Jim Rogers: “The Worst is Not Over” 6/9/2009 Fed Would Be Shut Down If It Were Audited Fed says economy weak, but sees signs the slide increasing Mounting deficits spark jitters about U.S. economy Wall Street falls as realities dent recovery hopes Bonds fall on worries about government's debt load (AP) Oil prices strike new high for 2009 (AP) The depression quietly deepens CHINA AIRS FEARS ON DOLLAR, DEBT... Oil hits 7-month high over $70... Yes, We’re STILL In a Depression China Bank Wants U.S. Bonds Issued in Yuan Fake government job loss report near 40% better than private forecasts…I don’t think so!…9.4% unemployment rate…try well over 10% and with stopped looking included over 20% , Jim Rogers CNBC - Jun 4th, 2009 - Currency Crisis Ahead U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds US retailers report May sales declines Tiny Tim says dollar assets safe... Laughter from audience... Why The Chinese Laughed At Geithner ----- mortgage apps. down, service sector job losses/factory orders worse than expected, new record continuing unemployment claims, bernanke spend more money you don’t have but cut debilitating deficit…riiiiight…sounds like a plan with more job losses to come, etc., Economic data disappoint, indicate slow recovery Worse-than-expected economic data thwarts rally Jobless rates in U.S. cities zoom higher in April Sector Snap: Homebuilders tumble (AP) As the Dollar Falls Off the Cliff … Bernanke warns on deficits as Treasury rates rise ----- GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8 TRILLION... The Big Collapse Is Very Near Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency Alternative Dollar Falls Most In A Month Since 1985 Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink Gold jumps above $970/oz as dollar weakens Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault on the middle class Government will now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy to dip again next year... Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., Analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates Bill To Audit Federal Reserve Now Has 209 Co-Sponsors Russia May Swap Some U.S. Treasuries for IMF Debt Fed report shows losses on Bear Stearns, AIG holdings Congress subpoenas the Fed ... Finally! (AP) Brazil in recession, recovery unlikely this year What a “Jobless Recovery” Really Means: A Massive Redistribution of Wealth from the Little Guy to the Big Boys Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead America’s Fed Addiction “87 Percent of [Chinese] Respondents Believe China’s u.s. Dollar-Assets are Unsafe” Fed Said to Retreat From Seeking Power to Sell Its Own Debt/Bills WIRE: Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead... Long-Term Economic Memory Loss Obama’s economic model versus reality Reality bites Internet as 1Q ad sales fall 5 pct (AP) CHINA AIRS FEARS ON DOLLAR, DEBT government reports better than private estimates…riiiiight! President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Warns of Oligarchy U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now Benefit spending soars to new high $100 Billion Bailout For IMF Tagged On To War Funding Bill Economic recovery is wishful thinking Gold, Silver Climb as Dollar Falls OPEC: OIL COULD REACH $90... ----- Existing home foreclosure sales up, and no profit discount car sales better than expected Diluting like crazy through new stock bubble issues Market Manipulation/Fraud: How Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-8,9-09, INFLATIONARY DEPRESSION IS THE CALL EVEN AS SECULAR BEAR MARKET PROGRAMMED SUCKERS RALLY CONTINUES TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED AND COMMISSION DOLLARS FLOWING BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., Analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets The depression quietly deepens CHINA AIRS FEARS ON DOLLAR, DEBT... Oil hits 7-month high over $70... Yes, We’re STILL In a Depression China Bank Wants U.S. Bonds Issued in Yuan Fake government job loss report near 40% better than private forecasts…I don’t think so!…9.4% unemployment rate…try well over 10% and with stopped looking included over 20% , Jim Rogers CNBC - Jun 4th, 2009 - Currency Crisis Ahead U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds US retailers report May sales declines Tiny Tim says dollar assets safe... Laughter from audience... Why The Chinese Laughed At Geithner ----- mortgage apps. down, service sector job losses/factory orders worse than expected, new record continuing unemployment claims, bernanke spend more money you don’t have but cut debilitating deficit…riiiiight…sounds like a plan with more job losses to come, etc., Economic data disappoint, indicate slow recovery Worse-than-expected economic data thwarts rally Jobless rates in U.S. cities zoom higher in April Sector Snap: Homebuilders tumble (AP) As the Dollar Falls Off the Cliff … Bernanke warns on deficits as Treasury rates rise ----- GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8 TRILLION... The Big Collapse Is Very Near Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency Alternative Dollar Falls Most In A Month Since 1985 Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink Gold jumps above $970/oz as dollar weakens Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault on the middle class Government will now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy to dip again next year... Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., Analyst who called crash says inflationary depression, banks passed stress tests only with the help of fraudulent change in accounting rules, banks still insolvent, toxic assets even more toxic, dollar falling and a lot lower to go, $100 + oil by end of year, Obama/bernanke continuing failed policies of bush greenspan, recommends getting out of Dodge and u.s. assets Congress subpoenas the Fed ... Finally! (AP) Brazil in recession, recovery unlikely this year What a “Jobless Recovery” Really Means: A Massive Redistribution of Wealth from the Little Guy to the Big Boys Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead America’s Fed Addiction “87 Percent of [Chinese] Respondents Believe China’s u.s. Dollar-Assets are Unsafe” Fed Said to Retreat From Seeking Power to Sell Its Own Debt/Bills WIRE: Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead... Long-Term Economic Memory Loss Obama’s economic model versus reality Reality bites Internet as 1Q ad sales fall 5 pct (AP) CHINA AIRS FEARS ON DOLLAR, DEBT government reports better than private estimates…riiiiight! President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Warns of Oligarchy U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now Benefit spending soars to new high $100 Billion Bailout For IMF Tagged On To War Funding Bill Economic recovery is wishful thinking Gold, Silver Climb as Dollar Falls OPEC: OIL COULD REACH $90... ----- Existing home foreclosure sales up, and no profit discount car sales better than expected Diluting like crazy through new stock bubble issues Market Manipulation/Fraud: How Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-5-09, SECULAR BEAR MARKET PROGRAMMED SUCKERS RALLY INTO THE CLOSE TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., Yes, We’re STILL In a Depression China Bank Wants U.S. Bonds Issued in Yuan Fake government job loss report near 40% better than private forecasts…I don’t think so!…9.4% unemployment rate…try well over 10% and with stopped looking included over 20% , Jim Rogers CNBC - Jun 4th, 2009 - Currency Crisis Ahead U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds US retailers report May sales declines Tiny Tim says dollar assets safe... Laughter from audience... Why The Chinese Laughed At Geithner ----- mortgage apps. down, service sector job losses/factory orders worse than expected, new record continuing unemployment claims, bernanke spend more money you don’t have but cut debilitating deficit…riiiiight…sounds like a plan with more job losses to come, etc., Economic data disappoint, indicate slow recovery Worse-than-expected economic data thwarts rally Jobless rates in U.S. cities zoom higher in April Sector Snap: Homebuilders tumble (AP) As the Dollar Falls Off the Cliff … Bernanke warns on deficits as Treasury rates rise ----- GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8 TRILLION... The Big Collapse Is Very Near Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency Alternative Dollar Falls Most In A Month Since 1985 Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink Gold jumps above $970/oz as dollar weakens Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault on the middle class Government will now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy to dip again next year... Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., Long-Term Economic Memory Loss Obama’s economic model versus reality Reality bites Internet as 1Q ad sales fall 5 pct (AP) CHINA AIRS FEARS ON DOLLAR, DEBT government reports better than private estimates…riiiiight! President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Warns of Oligarchy U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now Benefit spending soars to new high $100 Billion Bailout For IMF Tagged On To War Funding Bill Economic recovery is wishful thinking Gold, Silver Climb as Dollar Falls OPEC: OIL COULD REACH $90... ----- Existing home foreclosure sales up, and no profit discount car sales better than expected Diluting like crazy through new stock bubble issues Market Manipulation/Fraud: How Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-5-09, FAKE GOVERNMENT JOBS REPORT FUELS SECULAR BEAR MARKET PROGRAMMED SUCKERS RALLY TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., Fake government job loss report near 40% better than private forecasts…I don’t think so!…9.4% unemployment rate…try well over 10% and with stopped looking included over 20% , Jim Rogers CNBC - Jun 4th, 2009 - Currency Crisis Ahead U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds US retailers report May sales declines Tiny Tim says dollar assets safe... Laughter from audience... Why The Chinese Laughed At Geithner ----- mortgage apps. down, service sector job losses/factory orders worse than expected, new record continuing unemployment claims, bernanke spend more money you don’t have but cut debilitating deficit…riiiiight…sounds like a plan with more job losses to come, etc., Economic data disappoint, indicate slow recovery Worse-than-expected economic data thwarts rally Jobless rates in U.S. cities zoom higher in April Sector Snap: Homebuilders tumble (AP) As the Dollar Falls Off the Cliff … Bernanke warns on deficits as Treasury rates rise ----- GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8 TRILLION... The Big Collapse Is Very Near Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency Alternative Dollar Falls Most In A Month Since 1985 Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink Gold jumps above $970/oz as dollar weakens Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault on the middle class Government will now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy to dip again next year... Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., government reports better than private estimates…riiiiight! President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Warns of Oligarchy U.S. unemployment hits record but job losses slow if you foolishly believe fake government reports near 40% better than private estimates - I don’t think so! …now Benefit spending soars to new high $100 Billion Bailout For IMF Tagged On To War Funding Bill Economic recovery is wishful thinking Gold, Silver Climb as Dollar Falls OPEC: OIL COULD REACH $90... ----- Existing home foreclosure sales up, and no profit discount car sales better than expected Diluting like crazy through new stock bubble issues Market Manipulation/Fraud: How Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-4-09, SHORT-COVERING/SUCKERS RALLY TO KEEP
SUCKERS SUCKERED BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., US retailers report May sales declines Tiny Tim
says dollar assets safe... Laughter
from audience... Why The Chinese Laughed At
Geithner -----
mortgage apps. down, service sector job losses/factory orders worse than
expected, new record continuing unemployment claims, bernanke spend more money
you don’t have but cut debilitating deficit…riiiiight…sounds like a plan with
more job losses to come, etc., Economic data disappoint, indicate slow
recovery
Worse-than-expected economic data
thwarts rally Jobless rates in U.S. cities zoom higher in April
Sector Snap: Homebuilders tumble (AP) As the Dollar Falls Off the
Cliff …
Bernanke warns on deficits as
Treasury rates rise ----- GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8
TRILLION... The Big Collapse
Is Very Near Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency
Alternative Dollar Falls Most In A Month
Since 1985
Leap in U.S. debt hits
taxpayers with 12% more red ink Gold jumps above $970/oz as
dollar weakens Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure
that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why
We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault
on the middle class Government will
now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy
to dip again next year... Case-Shillers
index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil
coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded
Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh!
Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as
Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro ,
new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that
previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts,
etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., government reports
slightly better than private estimates…riiiiight! Benefit spending soars to new
high $100 Billion Bailout For IMF
Tagged On To War Funding Bill Economic recovery is wishful
thinking Gold, Silver Climb as Dollar
Falls OPEC: OIL
COULD REACH $90... ----- Existing home foreclosure sales up, and no
profit discount car sales better than expected Diluting like crazy through new stock
bubble issues
Market Manipulation/Fraud: How
Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring
About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at
Fortune)
foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN
MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 6-3-09, ONLY MODEST LOSSES RELATIVE TO REALITY
WITH PROGRAMMED SHORT-COVERING/SUCKERS RALLY INTO THE CLOSE TO KEEP SUCKERS
SUCKERED BASED ON CONTINUED BAD NEWS ( ie., mortgage apps. down,
service sector job losses/factory orders worse than expected, new record
continuing unemployment claims, bernanke spend more money you don’t have but
cut debilitating deficit…riiiiight…sounds like a plan with more job losses to
come, etc., Economic data disappoint, indicate slow
recovery
Worse-than-expected economic data
thwarts rally Jobless rates in U.S. cities zoom higher in April
Sector Snap: Homebuilders tumble (AP) As the Dollar Falls Off the
Cliff …
Bernanke warns on deficits as
Treasury rates rise ----- GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8
TRILLION... The Big Collapse
Is Very Near Dollar Declines as Nations Mull Reserve Currency
Alternative Dollar Falls Most In A Month
Since 1985
Leap in U.S. debt hits
taxpayers with 12% more red ink Gold jumps above $970/oz as
dollar weakens Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure
that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why
We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault
on the middle class Government will
now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy
to dip again next year... Case-Shillers
index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil
coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded
Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh!
Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as
Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro ,
new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that
previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts,
etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., $100 Billion Bailout For IMF
Tagged On To War Funding Bill Economic recovery is wishful
thinking Gold, Silver Climb as Dollar
Falls OPEC: OIL
COULD REACH $90... ----- Existing home foreclosure sales up, and no
profit discount car sales better than expected Diluting like crazy through new stock
bubble issues
Market Manipulation/Fraud: How
Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring
About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at
Fortune)
foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN
MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
ANALYST FORECASTS: BULLS
AND BEARS By Richard Shaw [there were 3 bull forecasts which are bull s**t and not
included in the following excerpt to preclude fraud and conserve space; even
the neutrals are a stretch]
…..BEAR - May 30: Morgan Stanley equity analyst Jason Todd says sell this
S&P 500 rally. He says Morgan Stanley does not see large upside above
825-850. He said, “In the rush to buy a cyclical recovery, it seems earnings or
valuation no longer matters. We would be comfortable with this view if the
earnings trough was closer, but it is not.”
BEAR - MAY 28: Berkshire Hathaway possible successor to Warren Buffet, David Sokol, says they see no evidence of the green shoots that been a stimulus to the stock market. He sees the most significant headwinds to the electric utility industry in his 30 years, and see continuing housing industry problems.
BEAR?/BULL? - May 28: PIMCO co-CEO Bill Gross (manager of world’s largest bond fund) portrays “new normal” including accelerating inflation toward the latter part of a three- to five-year cycle, and the need to reexamine accepted notions about investing. He said stocks have not and will not always outperform bonds, and having 60% to 80% of portfolio assets in stocks may not always make sense. He believes the dollar will lose its status as the reserve currency; Brazil, India and China (forget Russia) will offer the best growth. The U.S. government will be selling trillions in Treasuries; the US savings rate may rise significantly, and the consumer economy may be shrinking long term due to the aging of the population.
BULL?/BEAR? - May 28: GMO CEO Jeremy Grantham predicts higher US savings and lower consumption with many postponed retirements. He sees some reasonable values within the stock market now and sees the third year of the presidential cycle (2011) as the most promising. He is not certain that a robust rally will continune. Like John Bogle, he believes in the principle of having your age as the percentage of bonds in your portfolio. He expects a bubble in emerging market stocks to develop.
BEAR - MAY 26: Comstock Partners portfolio managers Charlie Minter and Marty Weiner, say P/E’s on “as reported earnings” are too high in consideration of the long-term trend in earnings (now in down phase). “Over the past 75 years, most market peaks topped at around 20 times reported earnings, and the troughs occurred at around 10 times earnings. The financial mania of the late 1990s pushed P/Es to over 40 times reported earnings, and the following bust never brought P/Es below 18 times reported earnings. … Going back to 1950, every instance where actual earnings rose above trend-line earnings was followed by a period where actual earnings went well below trend-line earnings. Comstock Partners believes that we have entered such a period now, and that the market is trading at such a high multiple of trend-line earnings that it will be difficult to make money.”
BEAR - May 19: Gluskin Sheff analyst David Rosenberg (formerly of Merill Lynch) says this rally is a sucker’s rally based on short covering. “The FTSE All-World market P/E ratio on forward earnings estimates is now around 15x, well above pre-Lehman collapse levels and nearly double the lows for the cycle … this was a rally built largely on short covering, pension fund rebalancing and the emergence of hope wrapped up in ‘green shoot’ data points. … On average, the S&P 500 undergoes a correction of more than 20% … at a minimum, take profits”
NEUTRAL (BEAR?) - May 11: Baring Asset Management portfolio manager Hayes Miller says “Estimates suggest there isn’t that much further to run because equities are fairly valued … Earnings growth for 2009 and 2010 can’t support prices too much higher than where we are today.”
BEAR - May 11: HSBC Global Asset Management chief investment officer Leon Goldfeld, chief investment officer at HSBC Global Asset Management said it’s “hard to see” enough profit growth to justify higher stock prices. The firm’s strategy will be to reduce its holdings of equities and move into bonds and cash, he said.Bloomberg TV on June 1, said HSBC forecasts 900 as the year-end price for the S&P 500 index.
NEUTRAL - May 11: Bloomberg compilation of analyst forecasts of 2009 earnings for the S&P 500 is at $57.17 (not stated whether “as reported” or “operating”). As of June 1, that puts the S&P at about 16.5 times forecasted earnings. Yale economist Robert Schiller said the historic average is a multiple of about 16.3. [we note that we are not in an average situation or stage of a market, however].
BEAR - May 11: Bank of America CIO for private wealth management expects a 10% correction. He said, “We’re going to be in a very volatile, chop-and-grind type of market. We’ve been shown that there is a small light at the end of the tunnel, it’s dim but getting brighter, and that’s why stock prices have come this far this fast. Now, it’s all about ‘show me.’”
BEAR?/ BULL? - May Letter: PIMCO co-CEO Bill Gross wrote: “Do not be deceived by the euphoric sightings of “green shoots” and the claims for new bull markets in a multitude of asset classes. Stable and secure income is still the order of the day. Shaking hands with the new government is still the prescribed strategy, although it should be done at a senior level of the balance sheet. If the government indeed becomes your investment partner, you should keep the big Uncle in clear sight and without back turned. Risk will not likely be rewarded until the global economy stabilizes and the Obama rules of order are more clearly defined.”
BEAR - April 17: Barclay’s analyst Barry Knapp forecasts S&P 500 at 757 by year-end 2009. He said, “The equity market has priced this recovery and then some. It looks pretty expensive to us.”
PROGRAMMED TRADES/SUCKERS’ HIGH OIL/LOW DOLLAR (RIIIIIGHT!) RALLY INTO THE CLOSE TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED BASED ON BAD NEWS ( ie., GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8 TRILLION... Dollar Falls Most In A Month Since 1985 Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink Gold jumps above $970/oz as dollar weakens Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault on the middle class Government will now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy to dip again next year... Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., Market Manipulation/Fraud: How Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 5-29-09, PROGRAMMED TRADES/SUCKERS’ HIGH OIL/LOW DOLLAR (RIIIIIGHT!) RALLY INTO THE CLOSE TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED BASED ON BAD NEWS ( ie., GOV'T OWES RECORD $63.8 TRILLION... Dollar Falls Most In A Month Since 1985 Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink Gold jumps above $970/oz as dollar weakens Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault on the middle class Government will now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy to dip again next year... Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., Market Manipulation/Fraud: How Financial Markets Really Work Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS 5-28-09, SUCKERS’ RALLY INTO THE CLOSE TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED BASED ON BAD NEWS ( ie., Double-Dip Depression , New Record Continuing Unemployment Claims, Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Obama continuing Bush’s assault on the middle class Government will now own 72.5% of 'New GM'... Roubini: U.S. economy to dip again next year... Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Foreclosure woes mount for those with good credit Fed Finds a Way to Use Stress Tests to Screw Bank Shareholders One More Time (at Seeking Alpha) Time Warner to spin off AOL, ending ill-fated deal [$$] Listen, But Don't Get Suckered Faber: Inflation to 'Approach Zimbabwe Level'... U.S. Weighs Single Agency to Regulate Banking Industry Yet Ignores Existing Laws, Prosecution, and Disgorgement in this Huge Fraud…Why
PREVIOUS 5-27-09, MODEST LOSSES RELATIVE TO REALITY TO KEEP SUCKERS SUCKERED BASED ON BAD NEWS ( ie., Double-Dip Depression Marc Faber: “I Am 100% Sure that the U.S. Will Go Into Hyperinflation” Why We'll See Another Serious Equities Sell-Off Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, $80+ oil coming this year Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro Britain's Debt Outlook Gets Bleaker: Same Implications for the U.S…how could anyone be surprised about that? Regulators shut 2 more, 35 and 36, failed banks this year in Illinois (AP) GM borrows $4 billion more, prepares for bankruptcy Job losses up in 44 states as recession drags on Florida's BankUnited fails, will cost FDIC $4.9B (AP) Regulators seize 34th bank failure of year Florida's BankUnited FSB (AP) , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) AND BULL S**T ALONE (ie., Economist Warns Fed Will Bring About Zimbabwe Style Hyperinflation The $4 trillion housing headache (at Fortune) foreclosure sales up, prices down Treasury Selloff Spiking Interest Rates GM bankruptcy seen near GM all but certain to file for Chapter 11 US Government to Take Up 70% Stake in GM FDIC Fund Running Dry Yahoo Finance | As the FDIC has had to step in to take over more and more insolvent banks, the fund has dwindled to dangerously low levels. At the same time, the number of problem banks continues to grow at a rapid pace. IRS tax revenue falls along with taxpayers’ income USA Today | Federal tax revenue plunged $138 billion, or 34%, in April vs. a year ago — the biggest April drop since 1981. ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through Wall Street sags on oil; S&P ends worst week in 2 months Following Chrysler, GM slashing U.S. dealers SEC lawyers probed for insider trading GM, Chrysler to drop 1,900 dealers by end of 2010 The Financial Storm Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’ “The Worst Is Yet to Come” China’s yuan ’set to usurp US dollar’ as world’s reserve currency Former Treasury Official who Devised Formula for Rate-Setting Based on Outlook for Inflation and Growth Warns that Inflation Looms, Slams Fed Policy Dr. Doom: Capitalism Could Fail Like Communism New York Fed: Most Powerful Financial Institution You’ve Never Heard Of along with the missing $4 trillion you’ve never heard of Home Prices Drop Most on Record... Federal Hiring Frenzy......average pay $75,419 A Coming Flood of Equity Issuance, aka The Dilution Solution Fed cut banks' deficits after negotiations: sounds like a plan…riiiiight!…report Buffett's Berkshire has first loss since 2001 Are stocks a loser's bet?YES! Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... America is broke. How broke? White House forecasts higher budget deficit US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8T Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest; Auditors can't track transportation funds... Gas price jumps to 6-month high... Six GM executives sell more than 200,000 shares John Hussman: Post Crash Bubbles …Unfortunately, “fear” lows are only evident in hindsight, because as we saw in 2008, a deeply oversold market can become spectacularly more oversold before recovering, and the “fast, furious” spikes off of those lows are often followed by steep failures.... Fed Inspector General Claims She Does Not Know Where Trillions Went Rep. Alan Grayson | Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Recovery? What Recovery? Newsweek | Don’t tell me that the economy is getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. Prospects of a quick economic recovery are but fool’s gold Boosting The Dying Dollar With A False Rally Suckers rally sets up the unwinding of the market, Rally just like in 1933, wealth producers becoming impoverished, Fed officer busted for fraud, troubles in the Economy are far beyond fixing, interdependence of banks around the world expected to worsen economic problems. New York Fed chairman Friedman abruptly resigns BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-26-09, suckers’ rally to keep suckers suckered based on bad news ( ie., Case-Shillers index shows new record decline in real estate prices, Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars Waterboard the Fed Obama: We Are Broke. Well, Duh! Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro Britain's Debt Outlook Gets Bleaker: Same Implications for the U.S…how could anyone be surprised about that? Regulators shut 2 more, 35 and 36, failed banks this year in Illinois (AP) GM borrows $4 billion more, prepares for bankruptcy Job losses up in 44 states as recession drags on Florida's BankUnited fails, will cost FDIC $4.9B (AP) Regulators seize 34th bank failure of year Florida's BankUnited FSB (AP) , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) and bull s**t alone (ie., fake consumer confidence reading 30+% better than private estimate sucker-rallies stocks , Current Recession Is Tracking the 1930s Bear Market , Another Bottom for Stocks Coming: Rogers (at CNBC) , The Sleepwalkers' Rally , Rogers Echoes Warning Of “Sucker’s Rally” , don’t forget that the suckers rally stock prices accounted for the very modest but ephemeral uptick in leading indicators Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars ) , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! America is broke. How broke? White House forecasts higher budget deficit US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8T Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest; Auditors can't track transportation funds... Gas price jumps to 6-month high... Six GM executives sell more than 200,000 shares John Hussman: Post Crash Bubbles …Unfortunately, “fear” lows are only evident in hindsight, because as we saw in 2008, a deeply oversold market can become spectacularly more oversold before recovering, and the “fast, furious” spikes off of those lows are often followed by steep failures.... Fed Inspector General Claims She Does Not Know Where Trillions Went Rep. Alan Grayson | Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Recovery? What Recovery? Newsweek | Don’t tell me that the economy is getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. Prospects of a quick economic recovery are but fool’s gold Boosting The Dying Dollar With A False Rally Suckers rally sets up the unwinding of the market, Rally just like in 1933, wealth producers becoming impoverished, Fed officer busted for fraud, troubles in the Economy are far beyond fixing, interdependence of banks around the world expected to worsen economic problems. New York Fed chairman Friedman abruptly resigns BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-22-09, only very modest losses relative to reality based on bad news ( ie., Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro Britain's Debt Outlook Gets Bleaker: Same Implications for the U.S…how could anyone be surprised about that? Regulators shut 2 more, 35 and 36, failed banks this year in Illinois (AP) GM borrows $4 billion more, prepares for bankruptcy Job losses up in 44 states as recession drags on Florida's BankUnited fails, will cost FDIC $4.9B (AP) Regulators seize 34th bank failure of year Florida's BankUnited FSB (AP) , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) and bull s**t alone (Current Recession Is Tracking the 1930s Bear Market , Another Bottom for Stocks Coming: Rogers (at CNBC) , The Sleepwalkers' Rally , Rogers Echoes Warning Of “Sucker’s Rally” , don’t forget that the suckers rally stock prices accounted for the very modest but ephemeral uptick in leading indicators ) , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Regulators shut 2 more, 35 and 36, failed banks this year in Illinois (AP) GM borrows $4 billion more, prepares for bankruptcy Job losses up in 44 states as recession drags on Bill to Audit Fed Wisely Gains Serious Momentum U.S. to Steer GM Toward Bankruptcy Gold tops $960 for first time in two months as dollar weakens South Afica gold coin demand hits all time high Peter Schiff called “Extremist” by Time Magazine Geithner Vows to Cut U.S. Deficit on Rating Concern…riiiiight!…con Gold Poised for Third Weekly Gain as Dollar Slumps Against Euro SEC lawyers probed for insider trading GM, Chrysler to drop 1,900 dealers by end of 2010 The Financial Storm Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’ “The Worst Is Yet to Come” China’s yuan ’set to usurp US dollar’ as world’s reserve currency Former Treasury Official who Devised Formula for Rate-Setting Based on Outlook for Inflation and Growth Warns that Inflation Looms, Slams Fed Policy Dr. Doom: Capitalism Could Fail Like Communism New York Fed: Most Powerful Financial Institution You’ve Never Heard Of along with the missing $4 trillion you’ve never heard of Home Prices Drop Most on Record... Federal Hiring Frenzy......average pay $75,419 A Coming Flood of Equity Issuance, aka The Dilution Solution Fed cut banks' deficits after negotiations: sounds like a plan…riiiiight!…report Buffett's Berkshire has first loss since 2001 Are stocks a loser's bet?YES! Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... America is broke. How broke? White House forecasts higher budget deficit US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8T Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest; Auditors can't track transportation funds... Gas price jumps to 6-month high... Six GM executives sell more than 200,000 shares John Hussman: Post Crash Bubbles …Unfortunately, “fear” lows are only evident in hindsight, because as we saw in 2008, a deeply oversold market can become spectacularly more oversold before recovering, and the “fast, furious” spikes off of those lows are often followed by steep failures.... Fed Inspector General Claims She Does Not Know Where Trillions Went Rep. Alan Grayson | Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Recovery? What Recovery? Newsweek | Don’t tell me that the economy is getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. Prospects of a quick economic recovery are but fool’s gold Boosting The Dying Dollar With A False Rally Suckers rally sets up the unwinding of the market, Rally just like in 1933, wealth producers becoming impoverished, Fed officer busted for fraud, troubles in the Economy are far beyond fixing, interdependence of banks around the world expected to worsen economic problems. New York Fed chairman Friedman abruptly resigns BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-21-09, only modest losses relative to reality as rally into the close keeps suckers suckered based on bad news ( ie., Russia Rationally Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency - Adopts Euro Florida's BankUnited fails, will cost FDIC $4.9B (AP) Regulators seize 34th bank failure of year Florida's BankUnited FSB (AP) , new record for continuing unemployment claims, fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) and bull s**t alone (Current Recession Is Tracking the 1930s Bear Market , Another Bottom for Stocks Coming: Rogers (at CNBC) , The Sleepwalkers' Rally , Rogers Echoes Warning Of “Sucker’s Rally” , don’t forget that the suckers rally stock prices accounted for the very modest but ephemeral uptick in leading indicators ) , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Britain's Debt Outlook Gets Bleaker: Same Implications for the U.S…how could anyone be surprised about that? GMAC receives $7.5 billion in new Treasury aid (AP) Dollar hits '09 low on rating fears; stocks dip (Reuters) U.K. to Lose AAA Rating at S&P as Finances Weaken U.S. Stocks Decline on Jobless Claims, greenspan, who helped create the debacle and should thereby know, Warning Gold May Test $1,200 (5-20) The Weimar Hyperinflation is Happening Again! With fed printing/creating like mad, what did they expect? Rogers Echoes Warning Of “Sucker’s Rally” Green Shoots: Too Small, Too Far Apart The Sleepwalkers' Rally Former head of pension agency takes the Fifth (AP) Global stocks slip, dollar tumbles after downbeat Fed Depression hits already defacto bankrupt Social Security hard Gold purchases up 36% as investors look to preserve wealth China Gold Reserves May Back Yuan Internationalization-Report 22 reasons why OBAMA will raise your taxes Federal debt is now $11.5 trillion. Add $1.4 trillion this year. That’s almost 100% of GDP. (5-19) Deficit surges at agency that insures pensions (AP) China and Brazil Plan to Dump Dollar HP's profit drops, more layoffs looming Japan logs record GDP drop Senator: More oversight needed at insolvent pension agency (AP) Inflating Our Way Out of This Mess? Why This Won't Work Japan's economy in record plunge Jim Rogers: Obama will Devastate the Economy This Economy Ain't Healed Yet (at Seeking Alpha) (5-18) Suckers’ rally (The Suckers Rally, Japan Style …high oil price rally…riiiiight! ) Bilderberg 2009 Attendee List (revised) Meanwhile: The Bilderbergers are advancing in Norway [ I realize that jones (who parenthetically it should be noted, hypocritically censored my comments) et als really overdoes this group’s (among others) effect on the u.s. , state of the world, etc.; truth be told, this group like most of the interest/pressure groups including the masses, in the u.s., etc., are no more than a just a bunch of f**k-ups/vegetables who like the aforementioned multitudes have really ‘mucked things up’ (for lack of a more precise yet concise term) on this planet, probably irrevocably, and like the many home-grown f**k-ups/vegetables, and in america particularly criminals, jones refuses to acknowledge as culpable for the many reasons he refuses to see, are but rather typically incompetent players contributing in there own very special eccentric, neurotic, sick, venal, corrupt, etc., way to this collective and cumulative result being this ever deflating (declining) ball of chaos /confusion /criminality called earth (there are exceptions to the foregoing, but in america, the same would be 5% or less) ]. Economy limiting services of local police Madoff Investors Probed by U.S. Prosecutors yet still not even one prosecution of the perpetrators of the largest scam/fraud in history foisted off on/funded by taxpayers Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-20-09, only modest losses relative to reality based on bad news ( ie., fed downgrades outlook that previously provided b.s. for suckers’ rally, record low for new housing starts, etc.) and bull s**t alone (Current Recession Is Tracking the 1930s Bear Market , Another Bottom for Stocks Coming: Rogers (at CNBC) , The Sleepwalkers' Rally , Rogers Echoes Warning Of “Sucker’s Rally” ) , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! The Weimar Hyperinflation is Happening Again! With fed printing/creating like mad, what did they expect? Rogers Echoes Warning Of “Sucker’s Rally” Green Shoots: Too Small, Too Far Apart The Sleepwalkers' Rally Former head of pension agency takes the Fifth (AP) Global stocks slip, dollar tumbles after downbeat Fed Depression hits already defacto bankrupt Social Security hard Gold purchases up 36% as investors look to preserve wealth China Gold Reserves May Back Yuan Internationalization-Report 22 reasons why OBAMA will raise your taxes Federal debt is now $11.5 trillion. Add $1.4 trillion this year. That’s almost 100% of GDP. (5-19) Deficit surges at agency that insures pensions (AP) China and Brazil Plan to Dump Dollar HP's profit drops, more layoffs looming Japan logs record GDP drop Senator: More oversight needed at insolvent pension agency (AP) Inflating Our Way Out of This Mess? Why This Won't Work Japan's economy in record plunge Jim Rogers: Obama will Devastate the Economy This Economy Ain't Healed Yet (at Seeking Alpha) (5-18) Suckers’ rally (The Suckers Rally, Japan Style …high oil price rally…riiiiight! ) Bilderberg 2009 Attendee List (revised) Meanwhile: The Bilderbergers are advancing in Norway [ I realize that jones (who parenthetically it should be noted, hypocritically censored my comments) et als really overdoes this group’s (among others) effect on the u.s. , state of the world, etc.; truth be told, this group like most of the interest/pressure groups including the masses, in the u.s., etc., are no more than a just a bunch of f**k-ups/vegetables who like the aforementioned multitudes have really ‘mucked things up’ (for lack of a more precise yet concise term) on this planet, probably irrevocably, and like the many home-grown f**k-ups/vegetables, and in america particularly criminals, jones refuses to acknowledge as culpable for the many reasons he refuses to see, are but rather typically incompetent players contributing in there own very special eccentric, neurotic, sick, venal, corrupt, etc., way to this collective and cumulative result being this ever deflating (declining) ball of chaos /confusion /criminality called earth (there are exceptions to the foregoing, but in america, the same would be 5% or less) ]. Economy limiting services of local police Madoff Investors Probed by U.S. Prosecutors yet still not even one prosecution of the perpetrators of the largest scam/fraud in history foisted off on/funded by taxpayers Rep. Paul’s bill to audit Federal Reserve nets 165 co-sponsors is the first of what should be many necessary wise moves American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper The Shrinking American Consumer The Suckers Rally, Japan Style Gold likely to test $950 level this week Blue collar males lose more ground; unemployment rate surges past national average...
PREVIOUS 5-19-09, only modest losses relative to reality based on bad news ( ie., record low for new housing starts, etc.) and bull s**t alone (Current Recession Is Tracking the 1930s Bear Market , Another Bottom for Stocks Coming: Rogers (at CNBC) ) , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Deficit surges at agency that insures pensions (AP) China and Brazil Plan to Dump Dollar HP's profit drops, more layoffs looming Japan logs record GDP drop Senator: More oversight needed at insolvent pension agency (AP) Inflating Our Way Out of This Mess? Why This Won't Work Japan's economy in record plunge Jim Rogers: Obama will Devastate the Economy This Economy Ain't Healed Yet (at Seeking Alpha) (5-18) Suckers’ rally (The Suckers Rally, Japan Style …high oil price rally…riiiiight! ) Bilderberg 2009 Attendee List (revised) Meanwhile: The Bilderbergers are advancing in Norway [ I realize that jones (who parenthetically it should be noted, hypocritically censored my comments) et als really overdoes this group’s (among others) effect on the u.s. , state of the world, etc.; truth be told, this group like most of the interest/pressure groups including the masses, in the u.s., etc., are no more than a just a bunch of f**k-ups/vegetables who like the aforementioned multitudes have really ‘mucked things up’ (for lack of a more precise yet concise term) on this planet, probably irrevocably, and like the many home-grown f**k-ups/vegetables, and in america particularly criminals, jones refuses to acknowledge as culpable for the many reasons he refuses to see, are but rather typically incompetent players contributing in there own very special eccentric, neurotic, sick, venal, corrupt, etc., way to this collective and cumulative result being this ever deflating (declining) ball of chaos /confusion /criminality called earth (there are exceptions to the foregoing, but in america, the same would be 5% or less) ]. Economy limiting services of local police Madoff Investors Probed by U.S. Prosecutors yet still not even one prosecution of the perpetrators of the largest scam/fraud in history foisted off on/funded by taxpayers Rep. Paul’s bill to audit Federal Reserve nets 165 co-sponsors is the first of what should be many necessary wise moves American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper The Shrinking American Consumer The Suckers Rally, Japan Style Gold likely to test $950 level this week New York Fed chairman Friedman abruptly resigns BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-18-09, suckers’ rally (The Suckers Rally, Japan Style …high oil price rally…riiiiight! ) accelerates into the close based on bad news and bull s**t alone (Current Recession Is Tracking the 1930s Bear Market ) , ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper The Shrinking American Consumer The Suckers Rally, Japan Style Bilderberg 2009 Attendee List (revised) Meanwhile: The Bilderbergers are advancing in Norway [ I realize that jones (who parenthetically it should be noted, hypocritically censored my comments) et als really overdoes this group’s (among others) effect on the u.s. , state of the world, etc.; truth be told, this group like most of the interest/pressure groups including the masses, in the u.s., etc., are no more than a just a bunch of f**k-ups/vegetables who like the aforementioned multitudes have really ‘mucked things up’ (for lack of a more precise yet concise term) on this planet, probably irrevocably, and like the many home-grown f**k-ups/vegetables, and in america particularly criminals, jones refuses to acknowledge as culpable for the many reasons he refuses to see, are but rather typically incompetent players contributing in there own very special eccentric, neurotic, sick, venal, corrupt, etc., way to this collective and cumulative result being this ever deflating (declining) ball of chaos /confusion /criminality called earth (there are exceptions to the foregoing, but in america, the same would be 5% or less) ]. Economy limiting services of local police Madoff Investors Probed by U.S. Prosecutors yet still not even one prosecution of the perpetrators of the largest scam/fraud in history foisted off on/funded by taxpayers Rep. Paul’s bill to audit Federal Reserve nets 165 co-sponsors is the first of what should be many necessary wise moves Gold likely to test $950 level this week Blue collar males lose more ground; unemployment rate surges past national average... (5-15)Highest credit card default rates in 26 years at 10+%, the real economy in terms of unemployment, income, and debt far worse than their rosy ‘green shoots’ scenario to help froth the market. Wall Street sags on oil; S&P ends worst week in 2 months Following Chrysler, GM slashing U.S. dealers “The Worst Is Yet to Come” Yahoo Finance | “If the consumer isn’t petrified, he or she is a damn fool.” (5-14)All news worse than expected, ie., weekly job losses higher than expected 637,000, wholesale inflation rate .3%, BEAR ALARM US ’sham’ bank bail-outs enrich speculators , The Secrets of the Federal Reserve Bob Chapman | A manmade disaster created by the Federal Reserve, banking and Wall Street, and these are the same corrupt group who our government has chosen to rectify the problem. The Economy Will Not Recover Until The Perpetrators Of Our Crises Are Held Accountable etc., It’s worth noting in a Wall Street Journal editorial hedge fund manager Andy Kessler said in no uncertain terms, “this sure smells to me a suckers rally,” largely because “there aren't sustainable, fundamental reasons for the market's continued rise.” I’m skeptical about this rally, reveals analyst Guy Adami. Wall Street sags on oil; S&P ends worst week in 2 months Following Chrysler, GM slashing U.S. dealers SEC lawyers probed for insider trading GM, Chrysler to drop 1,900 dealers by end of 2010 The Financial Storm Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’ “The Worst Is Yet to Come” China’s yuan ’set to usurp US dollar’ as world’s reserve currency Former Treasury Official who Devised Formula for Rate-Setting Based on Outlook for Inflation and Growth Warns that Inflation Looms, Slams Fed Policy Dr. Doom: Capitalism Could Fail Like Communism New York Fed: Most Powerful Financial Institution You’ve Never Heard Of along with the missing $4 trillion you’ve never heard of Home Prices Drop Most on Record... Federal Hiring Frenzy......average pay $75,419 A Coming Flood of Equity Issuance, aka The Dilution Solution Fed cut banks' deficits after negotiations: sounds like a plan…riiiiight!…report Buffett's Berkshire has first loss since 2001 Are stocks a loser's bet?YES! Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... America is broke. How broke? White House forecasts higher budget deficit US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8T Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest; Auditors can't track transportation funds... Gas price jumps to 6-month high... Six GM executives sell more than 200,000 shares John Hussman: Post Crash Bubbles …Unfortunately, “fear” lows are only evident in hindsight, because as we saw in 2008, a deeply oversold market can become spectacularly more oversold before recovering, and the “fast, furious” spikes off of those lows are often followed by steep failures.... Fed Inspector General Claims She Does Not Know Where Trillions Went Rep. Alan Grayson | Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Recovery? What Recovery? Newsweek | Don’t tell me that the economy is getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. Prospects of a quick economic recovery are but fool’s gold Boosting The Dying Dollar With A False Rally Suckers rally sets up the unwinding of the market, Rally just like in 1933, wealth producers becoming impoverished, Fed officer busted for fraud, troubles in the Economy are far beyond fixing, interdependence of banks around the world expected to worsen economic problems. New York Fed chairman Friedman abruptly resigns BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-15-09, only modest losses relative to reality as this suckers’ rally has been based on bad news and bull s**t alone, ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Highest credit card default rates in 26 years at 10+%, the real economy in terms of unemployment, income, and debt far worse than their rosy ‘green shoots’ scenario to help froth the market. Wall Street sags on oil; S&P ends worst week in 2 months Following Chrysler, GM slashing U.S. dealers “The Worst Is Yet to Come” Yahoo Finance | “If the consumer isn’t petrified, he or she is a damn fool.” (5-14)All news worse than expected, ie., weekly job losses higher than expected 637,000, wholesale inflation rate .3%, BEAR ALARM US ’sham’ bank bail-outs enrich speculators , The Secrets of the Federal Reserve Bob Chapman | A manmade disaster created by the Federal Reserve, banking and Wall Street, and these are the same corrupt group who our government has chosen to rectify the problem. The Economy Will Not Recover Until The Perpetrators Of Our Crises Are Held Accountable etc., It’s worth noting in a Wall Street Journal editorial hedge fund manager Andy Kessler said in no uncertain terms, “this sure smells to me a suckers rally,” largely because “there aren't sustainable, fundamental reasons for the market's continued rise.” I’m skeptical about this rally, reveals analyst Guy Adami. U.S. Economy: Retail Sales Unexpectedly Fall for Second Month GM, Chrysler to cut up to 3,000 dealers: sources (Reuters) U.S. Foreclosure Filings Hit Record for Second Straight Month Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve? Unemployment up to 8.9%, The Economy Will Not Recover Until The Perpetrators Of Our Crises Are Held Accountable , etc.. America is broke. How broke? NSN Money | Government obligations for Social Security and Medicare may soon exceed the combined net worth of every household and nonprofit organization in the country. "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through Wall Street sags on oil; S&P ends worst week in 2 months Following Chrysler, GM slashing U.S. dealers SEC lawyers probed for insider trading GM, Chrysler to drop 1,900 dealers by end of 2010 The Financial Storm Obama Says U.S. Long-Term Debt Load ‘Unsustainable’ “The Worst Is Yet to Come” China’s yuan ’set to usurp US dollar’ as world’s reserve currency Former Treasury Official who Devised Formula for Rate-Setting Based on Outlook for Inflation and Growth Warns that Inflation Looms, Slams Fed Policy Dr. Doom: Capitalism Could Fail Like Communism New York Fed: Most Powerful Financial Institution You’ve Never Heard Of along with the missing $4 trillion you’ve never heard of Home Prices Drop Most on Record... Federal Hiring Frenzy......average pay $75,419 A Coming Flood of Equity Issuance, aka The Dilution Solution Fed cut banks' deficits after negotiations: sounds like a plan…riiiiight!…report Buffett's Berkshire has first loss since 2001 Are stocks a loser's bet?YES! Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... America is broke. How broke? White House forecasts higher budget deficit US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8T Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest; Auditors can't track transportation funds... Gas price jumps to 6-month high... Six GM executives sell more than 200,000 shares John Hussman: Post Crash Bubbles …Unfortunately, “fear” lows are only evident in hindsight, because as we saw in 2008, a deeply oversold market can become spectacularly more oversold before recovering, and the “fast, furious” spikes off of those lows are often followed by steep failures.... Fed Inspector General Claims She Does Not Know Where Trillions Went Rep. Alan Grayson | Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Recovery? What Recovery? Newsweek | Don’t tell me that the economy is getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. Prospects of a quick economic recovery are but fool’s gold Boosting The Dying Dollar With A False Rally Suckers rally sets up the unwinding of the market, Rally just like in 1933, wealth producers becoming impoverished, Fed officer busted for fraud, troubles in the Economy are far beyond fixing, interdependence of banks around the world expected to worsen economic problems. New York Fed chairman Friedman abruptly resigns BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-14-09, suckers’ rally has been based on bad news and bull s**t alone, ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Highest credit card default rates in 26 years at 10+%, the real economy in terms of unemployment, income, and debt far worse than their rosy ‘green shoots’ scenario to help froth the market. Wall Street sags on oil; S&P ends worst week in 2 months Following Chrysler, GM slashing U.S. dealers “The Worst Is Yet to Come” Yahoo Finance | “If the consumer isn’t petrified, he or she is a damn fool.” (5-14)All news worse than expected, ie., weekly job losses higher than expected 637,000, wholesale inflation rate .3%, BEAR ALARM US ’sham’ bank bail-outs enrich speculators , The Secrets of the Federal Reserve Bob Chapman | A manmade disaster created by the Federal Reserve, banking and Wall Street, and these are the same corrupt group who our government has chosen to rectify the problem. The Economy Will Not Recover Until The Perpetrators Of Our Crises Are Held Accountable etc., It’s worth noting in a Wall Street Journal editorial hedge fund manager Andy Kessler said in no uncertain terms, “this sure smells to me a suckers rally,” largely because “there aren't sustainable, fundamental reasons for the market's continued rise.” I’m skeptical about this rally, reveals analyst Guy Adami. U.S. Economy: Retail Sales Unexpectedly Fall for Second Month GM, Chrysler to cut up to 3,000 dealers: sources (Reuters) U.S. Foreclosure Filings Hit Record for Second Straight Month Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve? Unemployment up to 8.9%, The Economy Will Not Recover Until The Perpetrators Of Our Crises Are Held Accountable , etc.. America is broke. How broke? NSN Money | Government obligations for Social Security and Medicare may soon exceed the combined net worth of every household and nonprofit organization in the country Oil jumps above $60 on weak US currency U.S. Trade Deficit Widens First Time in Eight Months U.S. Federal Deficit to Worsen due to Dismal Economic Projections Median home prices fall in 88 percent of cities Freddie Mac seeks $6.1B in US aid after 1Q loss Higher Taxes Coming, Just Like Obama Promised New York Fed: Most Powerful Financial Institution You’ve Never Heard Of along with the missing $4 trillion you’ve never heard of Home Prices Drop Most on Record... Federal Hiring Frenzy......average pay $75,419 A Coming Flood of Equity Issuance, aka The Dilution Solution Fed cut banks' deficits after negotiations: sounds like a plan…riiiiight!…report Buffett's Berkshire has first loss since 2001 Are stocks a loser's bet?YES! Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... America is broke. How broke? White House forecasts higher budget deficit US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8T Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest; Auditors can't track transportation funds... Gas price jumps to 6-month high... Six GM executives sell more than 200,000 shares John Hussman: Post Crash Bubbles …Unfortunately, “fear” lows are only evident in hindsight, because as we saw in 2008, a deeply oversold market can become spectacularly more oversold before recovering, and the “fast, furious” spikes off of those lows are often followed by steep failures.... Fed Inspector General Claims She Does Not Know Where Trillions Went Rep. Alan Grayson | Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Recovery? What Recovery? Newsweek | Don’t tell me that the economy is getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. Prospects of a quick economic recovery are but fool’s gold Boosting The Dying Dollar With A False Rally Suckers rally sets up the unwinding of the market, Rally just like in 1933, wealth producers becoming impoverished, Fed officer busted for fraud, troubles in the Economy are far beyond fixing, interdependence of banks around the world expected to worsen economic problems. New York Fed chairman Friedman abruptly resigns BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-13-09, modest losses relative to reality, ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’, so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! It’s worth noting in a Wall Street Journal editorial hedge fund manager Andy Kessler said in no uncertain terms, “this sure smells to me a suckers rally,” largely because “there aren't sustainable, fundamental reasons for the market's continued rise.” I’m skeptical about this rally, reveals analyst Guy Adami. U.S. Economy: Retail Sales Unexpectedly Fall for Second Month GM, Chrysler to cut up to 3,000 dealers: sources (Reuters) U.S. Foreclosure Filings Hit Record for Second Straight Month Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve? Unemployment up to 8.9%, The Economy Will Not Recover Until The Perpetrators Of Our Crises Are Held Accountable , etc.. America is broke. How broke? NSN Money | Government obligations for Social Security and Medicare may soon exceed the combined net worth of every household and nonprofit organization in the country. Everyone is familiar with the old saying, "what goes up must come down." Certainly the stock market has mounted a serious challenge to this old saying since bouncing off its lows in March and continues to defy gravity…In the face of unrelenting bad news, the market has been climbing because the news is "less bad," Gentle Ben and his Merry Band of Feds see "green shoots" and the financial press continues an unrelenting mantra of "recovery lies just ahead." It seems like the markets will never stop climbing, but they will, because contrary to what you hear on CNBC and read in the financial press, the laws of gravity have not been repealed and it's still true that "what goes up, must come down."
…When measured in ounces of Gold, the DOW has been in a secular bear market since peaking in late 1999. (Click charts, courtesy of stockcharts.com, for full size image). The markets, measured by the S&P500 (S&P500 Charts) and DIJA (DJIA Charts), may have recovered to new highs in 2007, but the DOW:Gold ratio told a different, truer story of just how unhealthy the US economy was…
Oil jumps above $60 on weak US currency U.S. Trade Deficit Widens First Time in Eight Months U.S. Federal Deficit to Worsen due to Dismal Economic Projections Median home prices fall in 88 percent of cities Freddie Mac seeks $6.1B in US aid after 1Q loss Higher Taxes Coming, Just Like Obama Promised New York Fed: Most Powerful Financial Institution You’ve Never Heard Of along with the missing $4 trillion you’ve never heard of Home Prices Drop Most on Record... Federal Hiring Frenzy......average pay $75,419 A Coming Flood of Equity Issuance, aka The Dilution Solution Fed cut banks' deficits after negotiations: sounds like a plan…riiiiight!…report Buffett's Berkshire has first loss since 2001 Are stocks a loser's bet?YES! Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... America is broke. How broke? White House forecasts higher budget deficit US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8T Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama budget... STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest; Auditors can't track transportation funds... Gas price jumps to 6-month high... Six GM executives sell more than 200,000 shares John Hussman: Post Crash Bubbles …Unfortunately, “fear” lows are only evident in hindsight, because as we saw in 2008, a deeply oversold market can become spectacularly more oversold before recovering, and the “fast, furious” spikes off of those lows are often followed by steep failures.... Fed Inspector General Claims She Does Not Know Where Trillions Went Rep. Alan Grayson | Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Recovery? What Recovery? Newsweek | Don’t tell me that the economy is getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. Prospects of a quick economic recovery are but fool’s gold Boosting The Dying Dollar With A False Rally Suckers rally sets up the unwinding of the market, Rally just like in 1933, wealth producers becoming impoverished, Fed officer busted for fraud, troubles in the Economy are far beyond fixing, interdependence of banks around the world expected to worsen economic problems. New York Fed chairman Friedman abruptly resigns BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-12-09, It’s worth noting in a Wall Street Journal editorial hedge fund manager Andy Kessler said in no uncertain terms, “this sure smells to me a suckers rally,” largely because “there aren't sustainable, fundamental reasons for the market's continued rise.” I’m skeptical about this rally, reveals analyst Guy Adami. ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’ so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Unemployment up to 8.9%, The Economy Will Not Recover Until The Perpetrators Of Our Crises Are Held Accountable , etc.. Everyone is familiar with the old saying, "what goes up must come down." Certainly the stock market has mounted a serious challenge to this old saying since bouncing off its lows in March and continues to defy gravity…In the face of unrelenting bad news, the market has been climbing because the news is "less bad," Gentle Ben and his Merry Band of Feds see "green shoots" and the financial press continues an unrelenting mantra of "recovery lies just ahead." It seems like the markets will never stop climbing, but they will, because contrary to what you hear on CNBC and read in the financial press, the laws of gravity have not been repealed and it's still true that "what goes up, must come down."
…When measured in ounces of Gold, the DOW has been in a secular bear market since peaking in late 1999. (Click charts, courtesy of stockcharts.com, for full size image). The markets, measured by the S&P500 (S&P500 Charts) and DIJA (DJIA Charts), may have recovered to new highs in 2007, but the DOW:Gold ratio told a different, truer story of just how unhealthy the US economy was…
BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? ‘…Most recently, the
S&P 500 soared 24 per cent over seven weeks ending in early January, only
to plunge to a new low. It was a fairly typical sucker’s rally and bear markets
often need more than one to create sufficient disillusionment for a definitive
bottom. The 2000–2002 bear market had three, with average gains of 21 per
cent in the Dow Jones Industrials over 45 days. The granddaddy of all bear
markets, 1929 –1932, had six false alarms with an average gain of 47 per cent.
And Japan’s ongoing bear saw the Nikkei rise by at least a third four times in
its first four years with 10 more false dawns since then. Bear markets
typically end with a whimper rather than a bang, casting doubt on the latest
recovery according to Hussman Econometrics, which analysed numerous US market
bottoms and bear market rallies. With the exception of the 1987 crash, the
month before the lowest point of a downturn saw a gradual descent. By contrast,
bear market rallies were preceded by steeper declines and had sharper rebounds.
Another characteristic of bear market rallies has been modest volume on the
rebound compared to the decline. The current recovery fits the pattern of bear
market rallies in terms of volume and the “V” shape of the trough. Analysts at
Bespoke Investment Group noted that there have been only seven other periods in
the past 110 years with rallies of similar magnitude for the Dow. Three
preceded the Great Depression, three came during the Depression and one in 1982…’
New record for
continuing unemployment claims and as with all government data, adp data, etc.,
is fudged to whatever way necessary to help froth the market. Short-covering
explaining part of what remains of this continuing suckers’ bear market rally
and as admonished by analyst at Farr Miller is a bull trap. How about plain old
bull crap! One
analyst (Craig Brown) points out that we’re not at the bottom yet: excerpt-‘ I hate repeating myself, but I do not
see the economy at bottom just yet, so in some respects I will keep repeating
myself until either other people wake up to this reality or something changes
to wake me up. The markets were down
a bit yesterday and, according to Bloomberg, they were down due to fears of the
stress test results. I don't fear them; I fear what they hide. I fear that a
reported 10 out of 19 banks failed when the tests were not at all stringent
enough. I fear that the government will soft-pedal the results to make them bad
enough to have a tad of credibility but not so bad that people run for the
exits. Don't buy my word for it, others are saying the same, including Nouriel
Roubini. Nouriel has been complaining for weeks on how the worst case
scenario in the stress tests is already rosier than reality.’ Some
perspective from Sajal… Excerpts – ie., …Mark
Hulbert: That bullish bandwagon. Commentary: Some
sentiment measures showing too much optimism Art Cashin: "This rally is still somewhat
suspect. Albert Edwards : "Despite one of the biggest
economics and profit collapses in history, US stocks have failed to get cheap in
the same way that they have in Europe or Japan. My concern is that the
US equity bear market has not yet fully played out. "The current pop in the market is not dissimilar
to the many bear market rallies between 1929-1933, where signs of economic
stabilisation were met with 25% plus rallies... This optimism was subsequently
crushed." Charles Allmon … He still thinks the stock market
could decline to 3,200-4,200 on the Dow by 2011-2012 -- and that it could cross
the price of gold. Jim
Bianco: "I don't think we are getting out of this for
a long while. This has been a lousy stock rally. … …traders living in a
fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks
based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only
because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that
companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian
cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly,
although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting,
they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via
layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed
spend less money… U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in
Worst Slump in 50 Years "You
have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity
officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this
is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then
the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn
fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall
street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds
of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion
puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been
addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is
but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to
solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed,
etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight
Quarter of Steep Decline "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug
Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells
Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a
lot of hope early, then the reality coming through Oil jumps above $60 on weak US
currency
U.S. Trade Deficit Widens First
Time in Eight Months U.S. Federal Deficit to Worsen
due to Dismal Economic Projections Median home prices fall in 88 percent
of cities Freddie Mac seeks $6.1B in US aid after
1Q loss Higher Taxes Coming, Just Like Obama
Promised New York Fed: Most Powerful
Financial Institution You’ve Never Heard Of along with the missing $4 trillion
you’ve never heard of Home
Prices Drop Most on Record... Federal Hiring Frenzy......average pay $75,419 A Coming Flood of Equity Issuance, aka
The Dilution Solution Fed cut banks' deficits after negotiations: sounds like a
plan…riiiiight!…report
Buffett's
Berkshire has first loss since 2001
Are stocks a loser's bet?YES!
Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama
budget... America is broke. How broke? White House forecasts higher budget
deficit
US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8T Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama
budget... STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest;
Auditors can't track transportation funds... Gas price jumps to 6-month high... Six GM executives sell more than 200,000 shares
John Hussman: Post Crash Bubbles
…Unfortunately, “fear” lows are only evident in hindsight, because as we saw in
2008, a deeply oversold market can become spectacularly more oversold before
recovering, and the “fast, furious” spikes off of those lows are often followed
by steep failures.... Fed
Inspector General Claims She Does Not Know Where Trillions Went Rep. Alan Grayson | Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman
responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Recovery? What Recovery? Newsweek | Don’t tell me that the economy is
getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. Prospects
of a quick economic recovery are but fool’s gold Boosting The Dying Dollar With A False Rally Suckers rally sets up the unwinding of the market,
Rally just like in 1933, wealth producers becoming impoverished, Fed officer
busted for fraud, troubles in the Economy are far beyond fixing,
interdependence of banks around the world expected to worsen economic problems.
New York Fed chairman Friedman
abruptly resigns BEWARE
OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and
Government FLASH:
Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect
Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich:
Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-11-09, only modest losses relative to reality, ‘SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY’ so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Unemployment up to 8.9%, The Economy Will Not Recover Until The Perpetrators Of Our Crises Are Held Accountable , etc.. Everyone is familiar with the old saying, "what goes up must come down." Certainly the stock market has mounted a serious challenge to this old saying since bouncing off its lows in March and continues to defy gravity…In the face of unrelenting bad news, the market has been climbing because the news is "less bad," Gentle Ben and his Merry Band of Feds see "green shoots" and the financial press continues an unrelenting mantra of "recovery lies just ahead." It seems like the markets will never stop climbing, but they will, because contrary to what you hear on CNBC and read in the financial press, the laws of gravity have not been repealed and it's still true that "what goes up, must come down."
…When measured in ounces of Gold, the DOW has been in a secular bear market since peaking in late 1999. (Click charts, courtesy of stockcharts.com, for full size image). The markets, measured by the S&P500 (S&P500 Charts) and DIJA (DJIA Charts), may have recovered to new highs in 2007, but the DOW:Gold ratio told a different, truer story of just how unhealthy the US economy was…
BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? ‘…Most recently, the
S&P 500 soared 24 per cent over seven weeks ending in early January, only
to plunge to a new low. It was a fairly typical sucker’s rally and bear markets
often need more than one to create sufficient disillusionment for a definitive
bottom. The 2000–2002 bear market had three, with average gains of 21 per
cent in the Dow Jones Industrials over 45 days. The granddaddy of all bear
markets, 1929 –1932, had six false alarms with an average gain of 47 per cent.
And Japan’s ongoing bear saw the Nikkei rise by at least a third four times in
its first four years with 10 more false dawns since then. Bear markets
typically end with a whimper rather than a bang, casting doubt on the latest
recovery according to Hussman Econometrics, which analysed numerous US market
bottoms and bear market rallies. With the exception of the 1987 crash, the
month before the lowest point of a downturn saw a gradual descent. By contrast,
bear market rallies were preceded by steeper declines and had sharper rebounds.
Another characteristic of bear market rallies has been modest volume on the
rebound compared to the decline. The current recovery fits the pattern of bear
market rallies in terms of volume and the “V” shape of the trough. Analysts at
Bespoke Investment Group noted that there have been only seven other periods in
the past 110 years with rallies of similar magnitude for the Dow. Three
preceded the Great Depression, three came during the Depression and one in
1982…’
New record for
continuing unemployment claims and as with all government data, adp data, etc.,
is fudged to whatever way necessary to help froth the market. Short-covering
explaining part of what remains of this continuing suckers’ bear market rally
and as admonished by analyst at Farr Miller is a bull trap. How about plain old
bull crap! One
analyst (Craig Brown) points out that we’re not at the bottom yet: excerpt-‘ I hate repeating myself, but I do not
see the economy at bottom just yet, so in some respects I will keep repeating
myself until either other people wake up to this reality or something changes
to wake me up. The markets were
down a bit yesterday and, according to Bloomberg, they were down due to fears
of the stress test results. I don't fear them; I fear what they hide. I fear
that a reported 10 out of 19 banks failed when the tests were not at all
stringent enough. I fear that the government will soft-pedal the results to
make them bad enough to have a tad of credibility but not so bad that people
run for the exits. Don't buy my word for it, others are saying the same,
including Nouriel Roubini. Nouriel has been complaining for weeks on how the worst case
scenario in the stress tests is already rosier than reality.’ Some
perspective from Sajal… Excerpts – ie., …Mark
Hulbert: That bullish bandwagon. Commentary: Some
sentiment measures showing too much optimism Art Cashin: "This rally is still somewhat
suspect. Albert Edwards : "Despite one of the biggest
economics and profit collapses in history, US stocks have failed to get cheap
in the same way that they have in Europe or Japan. My concern is that
the US equity bear market has not yet fully played out. "The current pop in the market is not dissimilar
to the many bear market rallies between 1929-1933, where signs of economic
stabilisation were met with 25% plus rallies... This optimism was subsequently
crushed." Charles Allmon … He still thinks the stock market
could decline to 3,200-4,200 on the Dow by 2011-2012 -- and that it could cross
the price of gold. Jim
Bianco: "I don't think we are getting out of this for
a long while. This has been a lousy stock rally. … …traders living in a
fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks
based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only
because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that
companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian
cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly,
although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting,
they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via
layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed
spend less money… U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in
Worst Slump in 50 Years "You
have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity
officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this
is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then
the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn
fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall
street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds
of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion
puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been
addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is
but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to
solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed,
etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight
Quarter of Steep Decline "You have to balance hope with reality," says
Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler
tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably
have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through A Coming Flood of Equity Issuance, aka
The Dilution Solution Fed cut banks' deficits after negotiations: sounds like a
plan…riiiiight!…report
Buffett's
Berkshire has first loss since 2001
Are stocks a loser's bet?YES!
Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama
budget... America is broke. How broke? White House forecasts higher budget
deficit
US red ink rising even higher, to $1.8T Deficits soar even with rosy assumptions in new Obama
budget... STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest;
Auditors can't track transportation funds... Gas price jumps to 6-month high... Six GM executives sell more than 200,000 shares
John Hussman: Post Crash Bubbles
…Unfortunately, “fear” lows are only evident in hindsight, because as we saw in
2008, a deeply oversold market can become spectacularly more oversold before
recovering, and the “fast, furious” spikes off of those lows are often followed
by steep failures.... Fed
Inspector General Claims She Does Not Know Where Trillions Went Rep. Alan Grayson | Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman
responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Recovery? What Recovery? Newsweek | Don’t tell me that the economy is
getting better, or has even hit rock bottom. Prospects
of a quick economic recovery are but fool’s gold Boosting The Dying Dollar With A False Rally Suckers rally sets up the unwinding of the market,
Rally just like in 1933, wealth producers becoming impoverished, Fed officer
busted for fraud, troubles in the Economy are far beyond fixing,
interdependence of banks around the world expected to worsen economic problems.
New York Fed chairman Friedman
abruptly resigns BEWARE
OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and
Government FLASH:
Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect
Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich:
Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-8-09, the flaming full moon and effect on
lunatic wall street frauds and bull s**t alone (false data, not as bad as
expected…riiiiight!…, etc.) irrationally exuberantly rally stocks so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Unemployment
up to 8.9%, US unemployment hits 25-year
high China fears bond crisis as it
slams quantitative easing The Economy Will Not Recover
Until The Perpetrators Of Our Crises Are Held Accountable , etc.. BEWARE OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? ‘…Most recently, the
S&P 500 soared 24 per cent over seven weeks ending in early January, only
to plunge to a new low. It was a fairly typical sucker’s rally and bear markets
often need more than one to create sufficient disillusionment for a definitive
bottom. The 2000–2002 bear market had three, with average gains of 21 per
cent in the Dow Jones Industrials over 45 days. The granddaddy of all bear
markets, 1929 –1932, had six false alarms with an average gain of 47 per cent.
And Japan’s ongoing bear saw the Nikkei rise by at least a third four times in
its first four years with 10 more false dawns since then. Bear markets
typically end with a whimper rather than a bang, casting doubt on the latest
recovery according to Hussman Econometrics, which analysed numerous US market
bottoms and bear market rallies. With the exception of the 1987 crash, the
month before the lowest point of a downturn saw a gradual descent. By contrast,
bear market rallies were preceded by steeper declines and had sharper rebounds.
Another characteristic of bear market rallies has been modest volume on the
rebound compared to the decline. The current recovery fits the pattern of bear
market rallies in terms of volume and the “V” shape of the trough. Analysts at
Bespoke Investment Group noted that there have been only seven other periods in
the past 110 years with rallies of similar magnitude for the Dow. Three
preceded the Great Depression, three came during the Depression and one in
1982…’
New record for
continuing unemployment claims and as with all government data, adp data, etc.,
is fudged to whatever way necessary to help froth the market. Short-covering
explaining part of what remains of this continuing suckers’ bear market rally
and as admonished by analyst at Farr Miller is a bull trap. How about plain old
bull crap! One
analyst (Craig Brown) points out that we’re not at the bottom yet: excerpt-‘ I hate repeating myself, but I do not
see the economy at bottom just yet, so in some respects I will keep repeating
myself until either other people wake up to this reality or something changes
to wake me up. The markets were
down a bit yesterday and, according to Bloomberg, they were down due to fears
of the stress test results. I don't fear them; I fear what they hide. I fear
that a reported 10 out of 19 banks failed when the tests were not at all
stringent enough. I fear that the government will soft-pedal the results to
make them bad enough to have a tad of credibility but not so bad that people
run for the exits. Don't buy my word for it, others are saying the same,
including Nouriel Roubini. Nouriel has been complaining for weeks on how the worst case
scenario in the stress tests is already rosier than reality.’ Some
perspective from Sajal… Excerpts – ie., …Mark
Hulbert: That bullish bandwagon. Commentary: Some
sentiment measures showing too much optimism Art Cashin: "This rally is still somewhat
suspect. Albert Edwards : "Despite one of the biggest
economics and profit collapses in history, US stocks have failed to get cheap
in the same way that they have in Europe or Japan. My concern is that
the US equity bear market has not yet fully played out. "The current pop in the market is not dissimilar
to the many bear market rallies between 1929-1933, where signs of economic
stabilisation were met with 25% plus rallies... This optimism was subsequently
crushed." Charles Allmon … He still thinks the stock market
could decline to 3,200-4,200 on the Dow by 2011-2012 -- and that it could cross
the price of gold. Jim
Bianco: "I don't think we are getting out of this for
a long while. This has been a lousy stock rally. … …traders living in a
fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks
based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only
because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that
companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian
cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly,
although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting,
they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via
layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed spend
less money… U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in
Worst Slump in 50 Years "You
have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity
officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this
is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then
the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn
fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall
street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds
of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion
puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been
addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is
but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to
solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed,
etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight
Quarter of Steep Decline "You have to balance hope with reality," says
Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler
tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably
have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through [$$] Banks Won Concessions on Tests (at
The Wall Street Journal Online) [$$] Hit by Mortgage Defaults, Fannie
Needs $19 Billion (at The Wall Street Journal Online)
[$$] Bank Shares Range-Bound Near Term (at Barron's
Online) AP Sources: Obama wants Fed to be
finance supercop which is one of the dumber things I’ve ever heard (very bushy)
since the fed is the super criminal, capo, godfather, etc., in the criminal
enterprise called american finance/scam the taxpayer/etc., in this fraud of
monumental proportion … the bubble will again pop
Fannie Mae seeks $19B in US aid after 1Q
loss Buffett's Berkshire has first loss since 2001
Fed Sees Up to $599 Billion in
Bank Losses
Is Rupert Murdoch losing it? Already past tense; he’s
lost it…so…..? EU Calls for “Internet G12″ for Global Internet Governance
US unemployment hits 25-year
high China fears bond crisis as it
slams quantitative easing The Economy Will Not Recover
Until The Perpetrators Of Our Crises Are Held Accountable New York Fed chairman Friedman
abruptly resigns BEWARE
OF THE SUCKER'S RALLY? Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and
Government FLASH:
Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect
Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich:
Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-7-09, yes, there is a flaming full moon which explains in large part only modest losses relative to reality by the lunatic frauds on wall street so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! New record for continuing unemployment claims and as with all government data, adp data, etc., is fudged to whatever way necessary to help froth the market. Short-covering explaining part of what remains of this continuing suckers’ bear market rally and as admonished by analyst at Farr Miller is a bull trap. How about plain old bull crap! One analyst (Craig Brown) points out that we’re not at the bottom yet: excerpt-‘ I hate repeating myself, but I do not see the economy at bottom just yet, so in some respects I will keep repeating myself until either other people wake up to this reality or something changes to wake me up. The markets were down a bit yesterday and, according to Bloomberg, they were down due to fears of the stress test results. I don't fear them; I fear what they hide. I fear that a reported 10 out of 19 banks failed when the tests were not at all stringent enough. I fear that the government will soft-pedal the results to make them bad enough to have a tad of credibility but not so bad that people run for the exits. Don't buy my word for it, others are saying the same, including Nouriel Roubini. Nouriel has been complaining for weeks on how the worst case scenario in the stress tests is already rosier than reality.’ Some perspective from Sajal… Excerpts – ie., …Mark Hulbert: That bullish bandwagon. Commentary: Some sentiment measures showing too much optimism Art Cashin: "This rally is still somewhat suspect. Albert Edwards : "Despite one of the biggest economics and profit collapses in history, US stocks have failed to get cheap in the same way that they have in Europe or Japan. My concern is that the US equity bear market has not yet fully played out. "The current pop in the market is not dissimilar to the many bear market rallies between 1929-1933, where signs of economic stabilisation were met with 25% plus rallies... This optimism was subsequently crushed." Charles Allmon … He still thinks the stock market could decline to 3,200-4,200 on the Dow by 2011-2012 -- and that it could cross the price of gold. Jim Bianco: "I don't think we are getting out of this for a long while. This has been a lousy stock rally. … …traders living in a fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly, although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting, they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed spend less money… U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in Worst Slump in 50 Years "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through U.S. banks race to fill $74.6 billion stress test hole NY Fed chair resigns amid stock purchase questions and while they’re at it ask him and tiny tim geithner about the missing $4 trillion at the N.Y. fed bank among other things BofA needs $33.9 billion, eyes stock and asset sales Cyberbullying Bill Not About Protecting Kids, It is About Shutting Down the Opposition Rupert Murdoch: “Internet Will Soon Be Over – in his wet dreams along with presidents hillary, rudy, and mccain – must be ancestral flashbacks to the penal colony days in australia” Taking on the banking cabal Looking Back on the Greatest Depression 401(k)s Hit by Withdrawal Freezes Taleb: Global Crisis “Vastly Worse” Than 1930s, Buy Gold and Copper Dollar Hovering at Cliff’s Edge Group names 25 lenders responsible for economic meltdown $58: Oil prices jump to new six-month high... GM posts $6 billion loss for first quarter... Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-6-09, Yes, there is a full moon which explains inlarge part this ridiculous up move on bad news and bull s**t alone so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Some short-covering explaining part of this continuing suckers’ bear market rally, the other as admonished by analyst at Farr Miller is a bull trap. How about plain old bull crap! One analyst (Craig Brown) points out that we’re not at the bottom yet: excerpt-‘ I hate repeating myself, but I do not see the economy at bottom just yet, so in some respects I will keep repeating myself until either other people wake up to this reality or something changes to wake me up. The markets were down a bit yesterday and, according to Bloomberg, they were down due to fears of the stress test results. I don't fear them; I fear what they hide. I fear that a reported 10 out of 19 banks failed when the tests were not at all stringent enough. I fear that the government will soft-pedal the results to make them bad enough to have a tad of credibility but not so bad that people run for the exits. Don't buy my word for it, others are saying the same, including Nouriel Roubini. Nouriel has been complaining for weeks on how the worst case scenario in the stress tests is already rosier than reality.’ Some perspective from Sajal… Excerpts – ie., …Mark Hulbert: That bullish bandwagon. Commentary: Some sentiment measures showing too much optimism Art Cashin: "This rally is still somewhat suspect. Albert Edwards : "Despite one of the biggest economics and profit collapses in history, US stocks have failed to get cheap in the same way that they have in Europe or Japan. My concern is that the US equity bear market has not yet fully played out. "The current pop in the market is not dissimilar to the many bear market rallies between 1929-1933, where signs of economic stabilisation were met with 25% plus rallies... This optimism was subsequently crushed." Charles Allmon … He still thinks the stock market could decline to 3,200-4,200 on the Dow by 2011-2012 -- and that it could cross the price of gold. Jim Bianco: "I don't think we are getting out of this for a long while. This has been a lousy stock rally. … …traders living in a fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly, although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting, they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed spend less money… U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in Worst Slump in 50 Years "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through BofA, Citi, Wells need capital under stress tests NEED BILLIONS AND BILLIONS MORE Bank stress tests show some banks need more funds Almost a Quarter of U.S. Homeowners Are Underwater Banks Need Billions More Globalizing the Internet Hedge Fund Leader Blasts Obama for “Bullying” and “Abuse of Power” About that “loan”: Obama team writes off $7 billion taxpayers loaned Chrysler $56: Oil prices jump to new high for year... US wants Israel, India, Iran to sign NPT Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-5-09, So small were the losses relative to reality that to try and make sense of same (americans among other investors must love getting burned by the frauds on wall street who are commissioning the new bubble like mad and don’t worry since in america today they socialize their losses and privatize their gains) is but a fool’s errand so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! One analyst (Craig Brown) points out that we’re not at the bottom yet: excerpt-‘ I hate repeating myself, but I do not see the economy at bottom just yet, so in some respects I will keep repeating myself until either other people wake up to this reality or something changes to wake me up. The markets were down a bit yesterday and, according to Bloomberg, they were down due to fears of the stress test results. I don't fear them; I fear what they hide. I fear that a reported 10 out of 19 banks failed when the tests were not at all stringent enough. I fear that the government will soft-pedal the results to make them bad enough to have a tad of credibility but not so bad that people run for the exits. Don't buy my word for it, others are saying the same, including Nouriel Roubini. Nouriel has been complaining for weeks on how the worst case scenario in the stress tests is already rosier than reality.’ Some perspective from Sajal… Excerpts – ie., …Mark Hulbert: That bullish bandwagon. Commentary: Some sentiment measures showing too much optimism Art Cashin: "This rally is still somewhat suspect. Albert Edwards : "Despite one of the biggest economics and profit collapses in history, US stocks have failed to get cheap in the same way that they have in Europe or Japan. My concern is that the US equity bear market has not yet fully played out. "The current pop in the market is not dissimilar to the many bear market rallies between 1929-1933, where signs of economic stabilisation were met with 25% plus rallies... This optimism was subsequently crushed." Charles Allmon … He still thinks the stock market could decline to 3,200-4,200 on the Dow by 2011-2012 -- and that it could cross the price of gold. Jim Bianco: "I don't think we are getting out of this for a long while. This has been a lousy stock rally. … …traders living in a fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly, although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting, they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed spend less money… U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in Worst Slump in 50 Years "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through Bank of America to need $34 billion in capital: source Yen rises, stocks slip on Bank of America needs Moody's downgrades NYSE Euronext debt (AP) Auditors see SEC deficiencies Stress Test Results Seem to Be Changing Daily (at Seeking Alpha) We Haven't Reached the Bottom Yet About that “loan”: Obama team writes off $7 billion taxpayers loaned Chrysler US Fed rejects request to help credit card holders Fed Stress Tests to Show About 10 Banks Need Capital Gold Climbs to One-Week High as Dollar Declines; Platinum Gains Editorial: Bleak forecast for EU economies Michigan residents mine bodies for cash; Sellers offer hair, blood... GM plans 1-for-100 reverse stock split... The Economic Pain Ain't Over Yet Economic downturn ‘twice as bad as feared’ NEEDS MORE: House Dems seek $94.2 billion in 'emergency funds'... Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-4-09, so preposterous was the day’s suckers’ rally that I cannot dignify same with my own commentary other than to say SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Some perspective from Sajal… Excerpts – ie., …Mark Hulbert: That bullish bandwagon. Commentary: Some sentiment measures showing too much optimism Art Cashin: "This rally is still somewhat suspect. Albert Edwards : "Despite one of the biggest economics and profit collapses in history, US stocks have failed to get cheap in the same way that they have in Europe or Japan. My concern is that the US equity bear market has not yet fully played out. "The current pop in the market is not dissimilar to the many bear market rallies between 1929-1933, where signs of economic stabilisation were met with 25% plus rallies... This optimism was subsequently crushed." Charles Allmon … He still thinks the stock market could decline to 3,200-4,200 on the Dow by 2011-2012 -- and that it could cross the price of gold. Jim Bianco: "I don't think we are getting out of this for a long while. This has been a lousy stock rally. … …traders living in a fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly, although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting, they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed spend less money… U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in Worst Slump in 50 Years "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming Georgia, N.J. and Utah banks fail The Economic Pain Ain't Over Yet Obama says financial sector to shrink (Reuters) Buffett dispenses gloom at Berkshire fest…daaaah! Warren Buffett warns inflation is on the horizon …daaah!(at Fortune) SHOCK CLAIM: WHITE HOUSE BULLY THREAT OVER AUTO BANKRUPTCY... China 'cutting down purchases of US Treasury bonds'... Obama: Wall Street will play less dominant role... ...financial sector to shrink European economy 'will shrink 4%' About 10 U.S. stress test banks to need more capital UBS remains cautious after confirming first-quarter loss AIG to post first-quarter loss, no new bailout: source Prepare for Another Round of U.S. 'Stimulus' Propaganda Swine Flu A Hoax, But Martial Law All Too Real U.S. families rely on handouts in world’s richest country Attack on the Chrysler Capitalists Obama Pushes ‘Crackdown’ on Legal Tax ‘Havens’ Economic downturn ‘twice as bad as feared’ NEEDS MORE: House Dems seek $94.2 billion in 'emergency funds'... Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 5-1-09, suckers’ rally into the close to keep suckers sucked in based on very bad news [U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in Worst Slump in 50 Years , Georgia, N.J. banks fail, bringing '09 total to 31 , Auto sales plunge to near 30-year lows , Chrysler to close 5 more plants; court case begins , ‘China cancels America’s credit card’ , Mark Hulbert who tracks investment consensus says bear market rally and new lows before new highs , continuing claims for unemployment at new record 6.3 million, new claims at 631,000 for prior week, worse than expected are consumer spending -.2% and personal income -.3%, Chrysler receives additional $8 billion in taxpayer funds and files for bankruptcy, U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline , leading economic indicators ( a forward looking guage of economic activity/growth) declined a much worse than expected –6.1% which one analyst commented was negative and getting worse, pandemic level raised to 5, banks need another trillion, new home sales down, durable goods sales down, 4 more bank failures to 27 for 2009 thus far, GM borrows $2 billion more/close dealers/many more layoffs, Ford loses almost $2 billion, Microsoft reports first decline in revenue ever, U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 640,000 Last Week as Continuing Claims Exceed 6.1 million for new record …k, etc. , home sales down 3%, prices down 12%, etc. ] and bull s**t ( fed says pace of decline slowing…riiiiight!, dilutive stock issues, not as bad as expected, Consumer confidence soars past forecasts (on fake conference board report) in April – riiiiight! Come on! Even americans are not that shortsighted /blind /dumb!… l , etc. ) alone to keep fraudulent wall street’s churn and earn commissionable bubble ( Interview with Peter Schiff: Reflating the Bubble ) fraud rolling (on the way up and on the way down) so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! ‘…economic conditions remain dour. Factory orders for March declined 0.9%, which is worse than the 0.6% decline that was widely expected, and February orders were revised lower to reflect an increase of 0.7%. Meanwhile, the ISM Manufacturing Index for April showed continued contraction. It came in at 40.1. However, that was better than the 38.4 that was expected, and was also up from 36.3 in March. With economic conditions continuing to challenge businesses and consumers, Ford (F 5.69, -0.29) announced April auto sales fell 31.6%, while General Motors (GM 1.81, -0.11) said its US sales fell 34% in April…’ …traders living in a fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly, although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting, they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed spend less money… U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in Worst Slump in 50 Years "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline Dollar falls on euro, up on yen on GDP hopes…riiiiight! "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming throughSocial Security: Bankrupt System Will Impact Markets Sooner Than Expected Georgia, N.J. banks fail, bringing '09 total to 31 U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in Worst Slump in 50 Years Auto sales plunge to near 30-year lows [$$] The Overvalued Market Needs a Healthy Pullback Major wholesale bank shuttered …Silverton, Ga…and then Ridgewood, n.j. for 31st bank failure this year (at CNNMoney.com) Manufacturing declines at slower rate in April … riiiiight!…(AP) Chrysler to close 5 more plants; court case begins Results delayed again on banks stress tests …the fudge factor!…(at bizjournals.com) Regulators close two more banks U.S. families rely on handouts in world’s formerly richest country Elliot Wave Theorists Claim Pandemics Always Happen In a Bear Market CITI Said to Need Up to $10 Billion; Bank Disputes 'Stress Test' Result... ‘China cancels America’s credit card’ China, wary of the troubled US economy, has ‘canceled America’s credit card’ by cutting down purchases of debt, a US congressman says. Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress Stress-Test Results Are Delayed by Fed as Examiners, Banks Debate Findings... Economy shrinks at worse-than-expected pace... Metro Unemployment Skyrockets; Some Cities See Rates Comparable To Great Depression... STRESS: Fed Finds at Least 6 of 19 Biggest Banks Need to Raise More Capital... CITI scrambles... MSNBC's Washington HQ Can't Make Rent: Looking to Share Space with Local U... Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 4-30-09, very modest losses relative to reality to keep suckers sucked in based on very bad news [Continuing claims for unemployment at new record 6.3 million, new claims at 631,000 for prior week, worse than expected are consumer spending -.2% and personal income -.3%, Chrysler receives additional $8 billion in taxpayer funds and files for bankruptcy, U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline , leading economic indicators ( a forward looking guage of economic activity/growth) declined a much worse than expected –6.1% which one analyst commented was negative and getting worse, pandemic level raised to 5, banks need another trillion, new home sales down, durable goods sales down, 4 more bank failures to 27 for 2009 thus far, GM borrows $2 billion more/close dealers/many more layoffs, Ford loses almost $2 billion, Microsoft reports first decline in revenue ever, U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 640,000 Last Week as Continuing Claims Exceed 6.1 million for new record …k, etc. , home sales down 3%, prices down 12%, etc. ] and bull s**t ( fed says pace of decline slowing…riiiiight!, dilutive stock issues, not as bad as expected, Consumer confidence soars past forecasts (on fake conference board report) in April – riiiiight! Come on! Even americans are not that shortsighted /blind /dumb!… l , etc. ) alone to keep fraudulent wall street’s churn and earn commissionable bubble ( Interview with Peter Schiff: Reflating the Bubble ) fraud rolling (on the way up and on the way down) so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! …traders living in a fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly, although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting, they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed spend less money… U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in Worst Slump in 50 Years "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline Dollar falls on euro, up on yen on GDP hopes…riiiiight! "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through…” Chrysler files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Motorola loss widens; analysts see worrisome signs Dow Chemical 1Q profit tumbles 97 percent With earnings bar low, April fraudulently strong for stocks Will the Swine Flu Get the Same Response as the Financial Crisis - Protect the Status Quo without Really Changing Anything? U.S. Economy: GDP Shrinks in Worst Slump in 50 Years Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress Stress-Test Results Are Delayed by Fed as Examiners, Banks Debate Findings... Economy shrinks at worse-than-expected pace... Metro Unemployment Skyrockets; Some Cities See Rates Comparable To Great Depression... STRESS: Fed Finds at Least 6 of 19 Biggest Banks Need to Raise More Capital... CITI scrambles... MSNBC's Washington HQ Can't Make Rent: Looking to Share Space with Local U... Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 4-29-09, flagrant suckers’ rally to keep suckers sucked in based on very bad news [ U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline leading economic indicators ( a forward looking guage of economic activity/growth) declined a much worse than expected –6.1% which one analyst commented was negative and getting worse, pandemic level raised to 5, banks need another trillion, new home sales down, durable goods sales down, 4 more bank failures to 27 for 2009 thus far, GM borrows $2 billion more/close dealers/many more layoffs, Ford loses almost $2 billion, Microsoft reports first decline in revenue ever, U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 640,000 Last Week as Continuing Claims Exceed 6.1 million for new record …k, etc. , home sales down 3%, prices down 12%, etc. ] and bull s**t ( fed says pace of decline slowing…riiiiight!, dilutive stock issues, not as bad as expected, Consumer confidence soars past forecasts (on fake conference board report) in April – riiiiight! Come on! Even americans are not that shortsighted /blind /dumb!… l , etc. ) alone to keep fraudulent wall street’s churn and earn commissionable bubble ( Interview with Peter Schiff: Reflating the Bubble ) fraud rolling (on the way up and on the way down) so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! …traders living in a fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly, although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting, they are missing expectations for revenue, she says. Further, cost-cutting via layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed spend less money… "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through…” …[The upshot is that the fraud continues in churn-and-earn fashion with investors, taxpayer, etc., getting burned for the sake of wall street greed/fraud. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc. - Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.]. U.S. Economy in 2nd Straight Quarter of Steep Decline Dollar falls on euro, up on yen on GDP hopes…riiiiight! "You have to balance hope with reality," says Doug Sandler, chief equity officer at Riverfront Investment Group. Sandler tells Andrew O'Day "this is a good example of a year where you probably have a lot of hope early, then the reality coming through…” Economy shrinks at worse-than-expected pace... Metro Unemployment Skyrockets; Some Cities See Rates Comparable To Great Depression... STRESS: Fed Finds at Least 6 of 19 Biggest Banks Need to Raise More Capital... CITI scrambles... MSNBC's Washington HQ Can't Make Rent: Looking to Share Space with Local U... Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 4-28-09, very modest losses relative to reality to keep suckers sucked in based on bad news (banks need another trillion, new home sales down, durable goods sales down, 4 more bank failures, GM borrows $2 billion more, Ford loses almost $2 billion, Microsoft reports first decline in revenue ever, U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 640,000 Last Week as Continuing Claims Exceed 6.1 million for new record …k, etc. , home sales down 3%, prices down 12%, etc. ) and bull s**t ( dilutive stock issues, not as bad as expected, Consumer confidence soars past forecasts (on fake conference board report) in April – riiiiight! Come on! Even americans are not that shortsighted /blind /dumb!… l etc. ) alone to keep fraudulent wall street’s churn and earn commissionable bubble ( Interview with Peter Schiff: Reflating the Bubble ) fraud rolling (on the way up and on the way down) so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Sun's loss widens on restructuring, slumping sales Citi, BofA may need more capital after stress tests (Reuters) GM to force more than 1,000 dealers to close Douglas, Stone head back to `Wall Street' (AP) E-Trade Financial 1st-qtr loss widens, shares fall (AP) Textron's 1st-quarter profit falls 63 pct (AP) …traders living in a fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly, although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting, they are missing expectations for revenue, she says.Further, cost-cutting via layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed spend less money… Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 4-27-09, only modest losses relative to reality to keep suckers sucked in based on bad news (banks need another trillion, new home sales down, durable goods sales down, 4 more bank failures, GM borrows $2 billion more, Ford loses almost $2 billion, Microsoft reports first decline in revenue ever, U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 640,000 Last Week as Continuing Claims Exceed 6.1 million for new record …k, etc. , home sales down 3%, prices down 12%, etc. ) and bull s**t ( dilutive stock issues, not as bad as expected, etc. ) alone to keep fraudulent wall street’s churn and earn commissionable bubble ( Interview with Peter Schiff: Reflating the Bubble ) fraud rolling (on the way up and on the way down) so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! …traders living in a fool's paradise if they continue to drive the markets higher by buying stocks based on earnings that are down, say, 50 percent from this time last year, only because they're not down 75 percent… Diane Garnick, investment strategist at Invesco...In an interview on Tech Ticker, Garnick says that companies are beating earnings expectations in the first quarter by Draconian cost-cutting, an unsustainable strategy for long-term growth. More importantly, although companies are beating profit estimates, thanks to the cost-cutting, they are missing expectations for revenue, she says.Further, cost-cutting via layoffs hurts the economy as a whole, Garnick argues, because the unemployed spend less money… Betrayal of the People By Wall Street, Banks, and Government GM OFFERS ITSELF UP FOR NATIONALIZATION... FLASH: Treasury Borrows Record $361 Billion for 2nd Quarter... GM goes for broke Corporate CFR Members Get Most of the Bailout Money Flu fears dampen talk of tentative world recovery Raised pandemic risk, bank capital report fuels fresh fears US newspaper circulation sees biggest decline yet (AP) WSJ: Regulators urge BofA, Citi to boost capital
GM goes for broke CNNMoney | General Motors announced plans Monday to cut 23,000 U.S. jobs by 2011, drop its storied Pontiac brand and slash 40% of its dealer network in its latest bid to stay out of bankruptcy.
U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 640,000 Last Week
Gore Denies that Ken Lay, Goldman Sachs CEOs Helped Develop C02 Trading ‘Scheme’: VIDEO
PREVIOUS 4-24-09, suckers’ bear
market rally to keep suckers sucked in based on bad news ( new home sales down,
durable goods sales down, 4 more bank failures, GM borrows $2 billion more,
Ford loses almost $2 billion, Microsoft reports first decline in revenue
ever, U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose
to 640,000 Last Week as Continuing Claims Exceed 6.1 million for new record …k,
etc. , home sales down 3%, prices down 12%,
etc. ) and bull s**t ( dilutive stock issues, not as bad as
expected, etc. ) alone to keep fraudulent wall street’s churn and earn
commissionable bubble ( Interview with Peter Schiff: Reflating the Bubble ) fraud
rolling (on the way up and on the way down) so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Watch out for the fake government
stress tests (they lie about everything!). Note the delay in the rollout. Bank
analyst Cassidy says bank plan a failure. Business week business analyst
/reporter says (tongue in cheek) the optimism (irrational exuberance) must be
the advent of spring and the birds chirping (in the heads of the wall street
lunatic/frauds…cukoos). Analysts/Economists comments include: slow release of
stress test results, details and accuracy of data crucial for stress tests
(good luck!), things have not bottomed out but pace of decline has slowed
somewhat, bleak outlook for GM, Chrysler and bankruptcy probably necessary
because of legacy costs, and public pension funds with ridiculously rich
benefits the next shoe to drop. Oxdown Gazette sums up the crucial story | ‘The 12 trillion that is being floated
to insolvent US banks is essentially being looted in the paper economy’ (ie.,
churn and earn by wall street fraudsters who must be prosecuted and forced
disgorgement/forfeiture in the massive securities fraud that still goes
unmentioned though the source of this economic debacle, etc.).
Four more banks shuttered as credit
crunch shakes out Why Housing Is Not Coming Back Obama Talks Credit Cards,
Summers Nods Off This Volatility Is Off the Charts! Banks
May Struggle After 'Stress Tests'; Bad Assets Triple...
R.I.P.: GM to pull the plug on Pontiac...
Four
more banks closed by regulators, this years closures exceeding all of 2008 as
depression continues John Letzing, MarketWatch April 24, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO
(MarketWatch) -- Four banks in Georgia, Michigan, California and Idaho were
closed by regulators Friday, costing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s
deposit insurance fund nearly $700 million as the effects of the credit crisis
continued rippling throughout the U.S. economy. Kennesaw,
Ga.-based American Southern Bank marked the 26th bank failure of the year and
the fifth in the state of Georgia, the FDIC said. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based
Michigan Heritage Bank then became the 27th failure of 2009, followed by the
closure of Calabasas, Ca.-based First Bank of Beverly Hills. Alpharetta,
Ga.-based Bank of North Georgia has agreed to assume American Southern Bank's
deposits, the FDIC said in a statement…
Germany’s slump risks
‘explosive’ mood as second banking crisis looms China Increases Gold Reserves 76%
to Fifth-Largest
PREVIOUS 4-23-09, suckers’ rally in last 30 minutes to keep suckers sucked in based on bad news ( U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 640,000 Last Week as Continuing Claims Exceed 6.1 million for new record …k, etc. , home sales down 3%, prices down 12%, etc. ) and bull s**t ( dilutive stock issues, not as bad as expected, etc. ) alone to keep fraudulent wall street’s churn and earn commissionable bubble ( Interview with Peter Schiff: Reflating the Bubble ) fraud rolling (on the way up and on the way down) so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Watch out for the fake government stress tests (they lie about everything!). Oxdown Gazette sums up the crucial story | ‘The 12 trillion that is being floated to insolvent US banks is essentially being looted in the paper economy’ (ie., churn and earn by wall street fraudsters who must be prosecuted and forced disgorgement/forfeiture in the massive securities fraud that still goes unmentioned though the source of this economic debacle, etc.). U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 640,000 Last Week as Continuing Claims Exceed 6.1 million for new record …k Russia’s economy shrank a staggering 9.5% in first quarter Truth About TARP Reports: GM to Shut Down Plants for the Summer President's financial adviser falls asleep while Obama talks! ON THE BRINK: Feds preparing bankruptcy filing for CHRYSLER... AMEX Profit Drops 58% as Defaults Rise, Consumers Cut Spending... Microsoft's sales show fallout of recession Normura posts record $7.3 billion annual loss Interview with Peter Schiff: Reflating the Bubble
Soaring U.S. Budget Deficit Will Mean Billions in Bond Sales Housing bubble smackdown: Huge “shadow inventory” portends a bigger crash ahead AP Sources:GM to shut many US plants up to 9 weeks - General Motors Corp. is planning to temporarily close most of its U.S. factories for up to nine weeks this summer because of slumping sales and growing inventories of unsold vehicles, three people bri… [$$] Morgan Stanley Still at Loss (at The Wall Street Journal Online) [$$] Gauging Stress: More Losses Likely (at The Wall Street Journal Online) No quick cybersecurity fix seen Banks still in distress, Geithner tells overseers…DAAAAAH! How ‘bout insolvent!…(AP) David Tice: S&P 500 To Plunge to 325 Housing Starts Fall Sharply... Wall Street loses 3,100 jobs in March … Should lose another 90% OF THEIR CHURN AND EARN JOBS (Reuters) Treasury Stress Test Won't Add Clarity or Transparency - Just Inconsistency … and lack of meaningful FASB standard (ie., mark to market abolition, etc.) means more fraud (at Seeking Alpha) Questions linger over Tarp funding... MAJOR MALL OPERATOR FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY... JPMorgan and Goldman trading profits unlikely to last Reuters The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 4-22-09, modest losses relative to reality in mixed market close so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Oxdown Gazette sums up the crucial story | ‘The 12 trillion that is being floated to insolvent US banks is essentially being looted in the paper economy’(ie., churn and earn by wall street fraudsters who must be prosecuted and forced disgorgement/forfeiture in the massive securities fraud that still goes unmentioned though the source of this economic debacle, etc.). ‘For the second session in a row, stocks opened lower but buyers moved in to bid the major indices higher (based on nothing at all). However, upward momentum stalled as the S&P 500 approached the 850 level in the final hour of trading, which prompted sellers to re-enter the fold and hand stocks a sizeable loss. The late selling effort focused on financial stocks, which closed with a loss of 3.8%, worse than any other sector in the S&P 500. Shares of Morgan Stanley (MS 22.44, -2.21) weighed heavily on the financial sector after the company reported a larger-than-expected first quarter loss and a dividend cut.’
Gold Heading Above $2,000 by End of 2010: Strategist Soaring U.S. Budget Deficit Will Mean Billions in Bond Sales Housing bubble smackdown: Huge “shadow inventory” portends a bigger crash ahead AP Sources:GM to shut many US plants up to 9 weeks - General Motors Corp. is planning to temporarily close most of its U.S. factories for up to nine weeks this summer because of slumping sales and growing inventories of unsold vehicles, three people bri... Falling bank stocks unravel rally; Dow loses 83 - Nagging worries about banks upended a stock market rally Wednesday. [$$] Morgan Stanley Still at Loss (at The Wall Street Journal Online) Talks on mortgage relief plan hit a snag (AP) - Negotiations between the banking industry and Senate Democrats on a mortgage relief plan hit a snag Wednesday after a trade association representing credit unions said it could not endorse the proposa... [$$] Gauging Stress: More Losses Likely (at The Wall Street Journal Online) No quick cybersecurity fix seen Banks still in distress, Geithner tells overseers…DAAAAAH! How ‘bout insolvent!…(AP) David Tice: S&P 500 To Plunge to 325 Housing Starts Fall Sharply... Wall Street loses 3,100 jobs in March … Should lose another 90% OF THEIR CHURN AND EARN JOBS (Reuters) Treasury Stress Test Won't Add Clarity or Transparency - Just Inconsistency … and lack of meaningful FASB standard (ie., mark to market abolition, etc.) means more fraud (at Seeking Alpha) Questions linger over Tarp funding... MAJOR MALL OPERATOR FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY... JPMorgan and Goldman trading profits unlikely to last Reuters The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
PREVIOUS 4-21-09, Tiny Tim talks the talk in testimony tit for tat talking the talk, or stated another way, how much talk could tiny tim talk if a tiny tim could talk talk, said three times fast and you have the inspiration for a rally on fraudulent wall street based on bull s**t alone as bad news and bull s**t alone has kept the churn and earn commissionable bubble fraud rolling (on the way up and on the way down) so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Even main stream business radio reporter Laura Gregory references the ‘rally based on nothing at all’, which of course is true. One analyst said all bank problems remain and reality would not limit the remaining problems to banks. IMF says $2.7 trillion in losses ahead for (u.s.) banks. judd greg says u.s. couldn’t meet the economic criteria for admission to EU. WOW! Given the economic state of the EU, that’s worse than bad! Seeking Alpha Analyst sums it up ‘…The six-week-long rally is over. It was huge. The Dow Jones is up almost 1500 points. But the party is over. The Dow Jones fell under its 13 day moving average, the same thing happened to the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite. I had some hope that the Naz could stay above its 13 day MA, but no such luck. Now what? According to the 1932 scenario, we might have a 2-3 months long slump, followed by another bull market. Or the market can go down big time, cross down its 50 day MA and test the March lows…’ - The latter is the scenario consonant with reality. - He assumes best case scenario as he concludes that ‘…means that either the March low holds or a new low will not be much lower. – Reality disagrees with that overly rosy scenario based upon his stated overly rosy assumption! Crimes suspected in 20 bailout cases — for starters AIG eats another $30 billion-ish Housing Bubble Smackdown: Bigger Crash Ahead U.S. Stocks To Fall at Least 6%: Doug Kass Key Points About the Coming Hyperinflation Wall St gains as banks lifted by tiny tim’s b.s NYT losses worsen as ad sales plunge 27%... Yahoo to cut 5 percent of jobs Wall St gains as banks lifted by tiny tim’s b.s. AMD posts deeper loss, shares fall (AP) [$$] Connecticut Treasurer Joins Critics of BofA CEO (at The Wall Street Journal Online) [$$] Citi Investors Vent About Losses (at The Wall Street Journal Online) Banks still in distress, Geithner tells overseers…DAAAAAH! How ‘bout insolvent!…(AP) David Tice: S&P 500 To Plunge to 325 Housing Starts Fall Sharply... Wall Street loses 3,100 jobs in March … Should lose another 90% OF THEIR CHURN AND EARN JOBS (Reuters) Treasury Stress Test Won't Add Clarity or Transparency - Just Inconsistency … and lack of meaningful FASB standard (ie., mark to market abolition, etc.) means more fraud (at Seeking Alpha) Questions linger over Tarp funding... MAJOR MALL OPERATOR FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY... JPMorgan and Goldman trading profits unlikely to last Reuters The Great Geithner Coverup Obama Maintains His Perfect Batting Average for Appointing Failed Insiders to Key Economic Posts Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression
Citigroup: The Beginning and End of the Current Rally (at Seeking Alpha) Why BAC Will Beat: Understanding a New Bull Market Is Not Underway (at Seeking Alpha) Government's Handling of Economic Crisis - Einstein Would Call It Insane (at Seeking Alpha) Bank of America net up, shares sink on bad loans GM cutting 1,600 U.S. salaried positions IBM sales fall more than expected, but b.s. up Wall Street sinks on banks' woes Wall Street tumbles as investors dump financials (AP) IBM shares slip as 1Q sales fall short (AP) New embrace of reality about bank health grip Wall Street Backdoor Path To Bank Nationalization (at CNBC) Zions Bancorp Swings To 1Q Loss; Moody's Cuts Ratings Economic Downturn Negatively Affecting Credit Markets in Varied Industries Celente: “America lives in a fascist state” Backdoor Nationalization? U.S. May Convert Banks’ Bailouts to Equity Share Why a 50% Drop in Housing Is Not the Bottom
PREVIOUS 4-17-09 (4-14,15,16,-09), Suckers’ rally into the close to keep the suckers’ suckered on bad news and bull s**t alone so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
April 17 (Bloomberg) --
David Tice, the chief portfolio strategist for bear markets at Federated
Investors Inc., said the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will probably
plunge about 62 percent. He spoke during a Bloomberg Television
interview today. The Federated Prudent Bear Fund that he founded returned 6.7
percent last year as the S&P 500 plunged 38 percent, the most since 1937.
Tice said the benchmark index for U.S. stocks may slump to about 325. It closed
today at 865.30. The measure has surged 28 percent since March 9, the most in
five weeks since the 1930s. SUCKER'S RALLY APPROACHING AN END by
Peter Cooper: Whatever the technical reason for the 25 percent rise in
the S&P over the past five weeks, or a more modest eight percent bounce in
GCC regional stock prices, the absurdness of this sucker’s rally ought to be
obvious to all. Unemployment is still rising, house prices are still falling,
and the fundamentals of bank balance sheets are still deteriorating with total
bad debts unknown except that we know they must be getting worse. Global trade
fell off a cliff in the first quarter of the year. Even Mercedes car sales to
the oil rich of the GCC fell 23 per cent. The collapse of the world’s second
largest economy, Japan, has been unprecedented.
Bad news coming … The stock market pattern in 2008-9
has so far been a mirror image of the crash of 1929-30 with a halving of prices
from the autumn followed by a 25 per cent rally from March lows. In April 1930
stocks moved sideways and then they crashed another 50 per cent into the
summer… New record
continuing unemployment claims in excess of 6 million, -11% for new home sales
(unexpected but stocks and even homebuilders rallied), Bloomberg reports $13
trillion (much unaccounted for) taxpayer/bailout funds spent/lent/stolen by who
knows what/where/how (ie.,replace stolen funds?, etc.), second largest mall co.
to bankruptcy with more to come along with more commercial real estate
foreclosures. ‘…initial
claims for the week ending April 11 totaled 610,000, which is down more than
expected from the prior week, but continuing claims climbed more than expected
to a new record of 6.02 million. Separately, housing starts disappointed
investors hoping to find signs of a recovery in home building. Housing starts
for March totaled 510,000, which was below the 540,000 starts that were
expected and down from the prior month. Meanwhile, building permits in March
totaled 513,000, which is below the 549,000 permits that were expected, down
from February…’
SUCKER'S
RALLY APPROACHING AN END by Peter Cooper: Whatever the technical reason for the 25 percent rise in the
S&P over the past five weeks, or a more modest eight percent bounce in GCC
regional stock prices, the absurdness of this sucker’s rally ought to be
obvious to all. Unemployment is still rising, house prices are still falling,
and the fundamentals of bank balance sheets are still deteriorating with total
bad debts unknown except that we know they must be getting worse. Global trade
fell off a cliff in the first quarter of the year. Even Mercedes car sales to
the oil rich of the GCC fell 23 per cent. The collapse of the world’s second
largest economy, Japan, has been unprecedented.
Bad news coming
… The stock market pattern in 2008-9 has so far been a mirror image of the
crash of 1929-30 with a halving of prices from the autumn followed by a 25 per
cent rally from March lows. In April 1930 stocks moved sideways and then they
crashed another 50 per cent into the summer. What possible reason is there for
optimism to believe that history will not repeat itself? Government stimulus
packages have more than likely been too small and too late to prevent another
down leg in stocks, and will take time to revive the real economy, if indeed
they can do so. They might just stop the worst possible scenario but are they
going to prevent the plunge downwards? Governments have not managed it so far.
Consumers and
unemployment
…It will take more than weasel words from US bankers and ‘green shoots’ in the
waffle of President Obama to put things right. Eventually global stock markets
will reach a bottom but they are not close to having visited it just yet. Wall
Street and its friends are playing investors as suckers but they are in danger
of overdoing it. For once these guys are impoverished where will the next bunch
of fools come from? Goldman Sachs' (GS) results this week might well
mark the top of the rally, beyond that the only way is down.
Citigroup: The Beginning and End of the Current Rally (at Seeking Alpha) Why BAC Will Beat: Understanding a New Bull Market Is Not Underway (at Seeking Alpha) Government's Handling of Economic Crisis - Einstein Would Call It Insane (at Seeking Alpha) Bank of America net up, shares sink on bad loans GM cutting 1,600 U.S. salaried positions IBM sales fall more than expected, but b.s. up Wall Street sinks on banks' woes Wall Street tumbles as investors dump financials (AP) IBM shares slip as 1Q sales fall short (AP) New embrace of reality about bank health grip Wall Street Backdoor Path To Bank Nationalization (at CNBC) Zions Bancorp Swings To 1Q Loss; Moody's Cuts Ratings Economic Downturn Negatively Affecting Credit Markets in Varied Industries Celente: “America lives in a fascist state” Backdoor Nationalization? U.S. May Convert Banks’ Bailouts to Equity Share Why a 50% Drop in Housing Is Not the Bottom
PREVIOUS (4-14-09), Suckers’ rally into the close to keep the suckers’ suckered on bad news and bull s**t alone so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Retail sales down –1.1%. ‘…The downward push came as financial stocks fell out of favor and disappointing retail sales data led some to second guess the prospects of retailers. Financial stocks weighed on the broader market for the entire session and finished with a 7.7% loss. The sector's weakness was widespread, but investment banks and brokerages (-10.7%) suffered some of the steepest declines after Goldman Sachs (GS 115.92, -14.23) announced a $5 billion common equity offering that was discounted from the prior session's closing price. The offering will also prove dilutive to existing shareholders…’ Jim Rogers Says Investors Should Expect More Bottoms BULL S**T STORIES FOISTED AS B.S. TALKING POINT FOR CONTINUING FRAUD/SPIKE IN STOCK PRICES FOR CHURN AND EARN COMMISSIONING: WELLS FARGO RECEIVES $25 BILLION TAXPAYER MONEY/BAILOUT FUNDS AND SHOWS (RECORD FOR THEM?) $3 BILLION QUARTERLY PROFIT- GOLDMAN RECEIVED $10 BILLION PLUS UNDISCLOSED FED/ ULTIMATELY TAXPAYER MONEY AND REPORTS QUARTERLY $1.8 BILLION PROFIT - DO THE MATH (FIRST GRADE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIDS COULD DO AS WELL, AND FOR FAR LESS PAY) - AT THAT RATE, TAXPAYERS WILL SOON HAVE NOTHING LEFT FOR THEM TO TAX! WHAT FRAUDS! The Great Geithner Coverup WHAT TOTAL BULL S**T! U.S. Treasury asking banks keep quiet on stress tests New unemployment claims at high 654,000 praised as positive number…riiiiight!…as continuing unemployment claims at record 5.84 million (real numbers even worse). Economy so bad that consumers can’t buy goods so trade deficit shrank but this is a structural defect in u.s. economy so not good news and consistent with bad news of still plunging retail sector. Najarian points out that wall street always a circus, consolidation, robbing peter to pay paul, take profits; while economist cite Reich that we’re in depression and government as in land of fruits and nuts out of control. Earnings revised downward for first quarter –36.5%, more weakness, more unemployment, inflation to come on fast says Hogan, and insurance companies now que up at corporate welfare/taxpayer bailout lines. In positing (suckers’) bear market rally and advocating hold cash/sell stocks Hillary Kramer points to the preposterous on wall street where bad news greated as good vis-ŕ-vis stocks (they call what wall street does ‘fraud’…in a rational world where they would already be in jail). Madman Cramer – the ultimate contrarian indicator - CRAMER'S CALL: ANOTHER RALLY TOP INDICATOR Greg Feirman Wow, the bulls are really feeling good. “Wells Fargo Carries The Day” and the S&P and Dow closed at 2 months high and the Nasdaq is near its highs for the year. On Mad Money this evening, Cramer went so far as to call “a turn in the economy”, saying “the facts have changed”, “the situation has clearly improved” and “things are getting better”. This isn’t the first time Cramer has called a bottom and he’s been wrong before (For example, see “Cramer Declares The End Of The Bear Market” , Top Gun FP, July 31, 2008). The market topped out a couple weeks later. On Monday October 6, Cramer went on the today show and told people to sell any stock money they might need in the next five years. The market bottomed that Friday. It could run another couple weeks but this rally is running thin. Methinks me smells a top….. Rational View Courtesy of ETF.COM: ‘…Due to our expectations of continued weakness in the financial sector, the looming deterioration of commercial real estate, the credit markets tepid backing of the equity rally, and the still very shaky and highly volatile global economy, it's our view at ETFdesk.com the recent run-up in stocks is unwarranted and presents an overly optimistic view of the months ahead. We believe investors should consider taking short term profits or use the recent run to reduce equity exposure they are weary of. We also believe investment grade debt (NYSEArca: LQD - News) represents an opportunity for investors seeking beaten down prices without the downside volatility of equities…’ The Great Geithner Coverup Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression Fed sees economy sliding further A Bear in Bull's Clothing: Why This Rally Will Fall Short Goldman Sachs Q1: Pay Up, People Down Dealbreaker Afterdark: Fannie Mae CEO To Head Bailout Nation UBS cuts 8,700 more jobs Let's Keep Big Banks from Ruining America Forever (at Seeking Alpha) China's ICBC now world's largest bank by deposits (at MarketWatch) UBS faces $1.8 billion loss, will cut almost 9,000 more jobs World Economy Falling Faster Than in 1929-1930 The Geithner-Summers Plan is Even Worse Than Thought Author who predicted crisis sees hyperinflation ahead
PREVIOUS (4-13-09), ’ Jim Rogers Says Investors Should Expect More Bottoms BULL S**T STORIES FOISTED AS B.S. TALKING POINT FOR CONTINUING FRAUD/SPIKE IN STOCK PRICES FOR CHURN AND EARN COMMISSIONING: WELLS FARGO RECEIVES $25 BILLION TAXPAYER MONEY/BAILOUT FUNDS AND SHOWS (RECORD FOR THEM?) $3 BILLION QUARTERLY PROFIT- GOLDMAN RECEIVED $10 BILLION PLUS UNDISCLOSED FED/ ULTIMATELY TAXPAYER MONEY AND REPORTS QUARTERLY $1.8 BILLION PROFIT - DO THE MATH (FIRST GRADE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIDS COULD DO AS WELL, AND FOR FAR LESS PAY) - AT THAT RATE, TAXPAYERS WILL SOON HAVE NOTHING LEFT FOR THEM TO TAX! WHAT FRAUDS! The Great Geithner Coverup WHAT TOTAL BULL S**T! U.S. Treasury asking banks keep quiet on stress tests New unemployment claims at high 654,000 praised as positive number…riiiiight!…as continuing unemployment claims at record 5.84 million (real numbers even worse). Economy so bad that consumers can’t buy goods so trade deficit shrank but this is a structural defect in u.s. economy so not good news and consistent with bad news of still plunging retail sector. Najarian points out that wall street always a circus, consolidation, robbing peter to pay paul, take profits; while economist cite Reich that we’re in depression and government as in land of fruits and nuts out of control. Earnings revised downward for first quarter –36.5%, more weakness, more unemployment, inflation to come on fast says Hogan, and insurance companies now que up at corporate welfare/taxpayer bailout lines. In positing (suckers’) bear market rally and advocating hold cash/sell stocks Hillary Kramer points to the preposterous on wall street where bad news greated as good vis-ŕ-vis stocks (they call what wall street does ‘fraud’…in a rational world where they would already be in jail). Madman Cramer – the ultimate contrarian indicator - CRAMER'S CALL: ANOTHER RALLY TOP INDICATOR Greg Feirman Wow, the bulls are really feeling good. “Wells Fargo Carries The Day” and the S&P and Dow closed at 2 months high and the Nasdaq is near its highs for the year. On Mad Money this evening, Cramer went so far as to call “a turn in the economy”, saying “the facts have changed”, “the situation has clearly improved” and “things are getting better”. This isn’t the first time Cramer has called a bottom and he’s been wrong before (For example, see “Cramer Declares The End Of The Bear Market” , Top Gun FP, July 31, 2008). The market topped out a couple weeks later. On Monday October 6, Cramer went on the today show and told people to sell any stock money they might need in the next five years. The market bottomed that Friday. It could run another couple weeks but this rally is running thin. Methinks me smells a top….. Rational View Courtesy of ETF.COM: ‘…Due to our expectations of continued weakness in the financial sector, the looming deterioration of commercial real estate, the credit markets tepid backing of the equity rally, and the still very shaky and highly volatile global economy, it's our view at ETFdesk.com the recent run-up in stocks is unwarranted and presents an overly optimistic view of the months ahead. We believe investors should consider taking short term profits or use the recent run to reduce equity exposure they are weary of. We also believe investment grade debt (NYSEArca: LQD - News) represents an opportunity for investors seeking beaten down prices without the downside volatility of equities…’ The Great Geithner Coverup China Slows Purchases of U.S. and Other Bonds Goldman Sachs hires law firm to shut blogger’s site for pointing to truth about the fraud firm e Singapore economy shrinks sharply more than expected WELLS FARGO 'May Need $50 Billion to Pay Feds, Cover Loan Losses'... Reporters threatened with arrest for filming private Federal Reserve building SURGE IN DELINQUENT TAXPAYERS; WASHINGTON VOWS SYMPATHY Warren Buffett's electric car venture; CEO drinks 'battery fluid'... Goldman Sachs mulls dilutive worthless stock sale to repay TARP money with other TARP money: now you know where the fed trillions in part are going: report GOLDMAN SACHS announces $5B public stock offering, reports $1.8B quarterly profit... Bailed-Out Banks Face Probe over Fees: Report You Know Things Are Bad When Even Newsweek Is Slamming the Obama Administration for Caving in to the Financial Status Quo Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression Fed sees economy sliding further A Bear in Bull's Clothing: Why This Rally Will Fall Short World Economy Falling Faster Than in 1929-1930 The Geithner-Summers Plan is Even Worse Than Thought Author who predicted crisis sees hyperinflation ahead
PREVIOUS (4-9-09), suckers’ bear market rally into the close on bad news and bull s**t alone so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! LATE-BREAKING BULL S**T STORY FOISTED AS B.S. TALKING POINT FOR CONTINUING FRAUD/SPIKE IN STOCK PRICES FOR COMMISSIONING: WELLS FARGO RECEIVES $25 BILLION TAXPAYER MONEY/BAILOUT FUNDS AND SHOWS (RECORD FOR THEM?) $3 BILLION QUARTERLY PROFIT - DO THE MATH (FIRST GRADE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIDS COULD DO AS WELL, AND FOR FAR LESS PAY) - AT THAT RATE, TAXPAYERS WILL SOON HAVE NOTHING LEFT FOR THEM TO TAX! WHAT FRAUDS! WHAT TOTAL BULL S**T! U.S. Treasury asking banks keep quiet on stress tests New unemployment claims at high 654,000 praised as positive number…riiiiight!…as continuing unemployment claims at record 5.84 million (real numbers even worse). Economy so bad that consumers can’t buy goods so trade deficit shrank but this is a structural defect in u.s. economy so not good news and consistent with bad news of still plunging retail sector. Najarian points out that wall street always a circus, consolidation, robbing peter to pay paul, take profits; while economist cite Reich that we’re in depression and government as in land of fruits and nuts out of control. Earnings revised downward for first quarter –36.5%, more weakness, more unemployment, inflation to come on fast says Hogan, and insurance companies now que up at corporate welfare/taxpayer bailout lines. In positing (suckers’) bear market rally and advocating hold cash/sell stocks Hillary Kramer points to the preposterous on wall street where bad news greated as good vis-ŕ-vis stocks (they call what wall street does ‘fraud’…in a rational world where they would already be in jail). Rational View Courtesy of ETF.COM: ‘…Due to our expectations of continued weakness in the financial sector, the looming deterioration of commercial real estate, the credit markets tepid backing of the equity rally, and the still very shaky and highly volatile global economy, it's our view at ETFdesk.com the recent run-up in stocks is unwarranted and presents an overly optimistic view of the months ahead. We believe investors should consider taking short term profits or use the recent run to reduce equity exposure they are weary of. We also believe investment grade debt (NYSEArca: LQD - News) represents an opportunity for investors seeking beaten down prices without the downside volatility of equities…’ Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression Fed sees economy sliding further A Bear in Bull's Clothing: Why This Rally Will Fall Short World Economy Falling Faster Than in 1929-1930 The Geithner-Summers Plan is Even Worse Than Thought Market bear Roubini sticks to dour forecasts U.S. Treasury asking banks keep quiet on stress tests Boeing warns on Q1 profit, to cut plane output Wall Street sets 5th weekly gain on banks, Boeing off late U.S. Squeezes Auto Creditors (at The Wall Street Journal Online) Nikkei comes off 9,000, as banks hit by SMFG news Obama seeks $83.4 billion more in 2009 war funds Bank of Japan likely to cut economic outlook in next report Author who predicted crisis sees hyperinflation ahead
PREVIOUS (4-8-09), suckers’ bear market rally into the close on worse than expected bad news and bull s**t alone so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! LATE-BREAKING BULL S**T STORY FOR B.S. TALKING POINT FOR CONTINUING FRAUD/SPIKE IN STOCK PRICES FOR COMMISSIONING: WELLS FARGO RECEIVES $25 BILLION TAXPAYER MONEY/BAILOUT FUNDS AND SHOWS (RECORD FOR THEM?) $3 BILLION QUARTERLY PROFIT - DO THE MATH (FIRST GRADE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIDS COULD DO AS WELL, AND FOR FAR LESS PAY) - AT THAT RATE, TAXPAYERS WILL SOON HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO TAX! WHAT FRAUDS! WHAT TOTAL BULL S**T! Earnings revised downward for first quarter –36.5%, more weakness, more unemployment, inflation to come on fast says Hogan, and insurance companies now que up at corporate welfare/taxpayer bailout lines. In positing (suckers’) bear market rally and advocating hold cash/sell stocks Hillary Kramer points to the preposterous on wall street where bad news greated as good vis-ŕ-vis stocks (they call what wall street does ‘fraud’…in a rational world where they would already be in jail). Rational View Courtesy of ETF.COM: ‘…Due to our expectations of continued weakness in the financial sector, the looming deterioration of commercial real estate, the credit markets tepid backing of the equity rally, and the still very shaky and highly volatile global economy, it's our view at ETFdesk.com the recent run-up in stocks is unwarranted and presents an overly optimistic view of the months ahead. We believe investors should consider taking short term profits or use the recent run to reduce equity exposure they are weary of. We also believe investment grade debt (NYSEArca: LQD - News) represents an opportunity for investors seeking beaten down prices without the downside volatility of equities…’ Secretary of Labor Reich: Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression Fed sees economy sliding further A Bear in Bull's Clothing: Why This Rally Will Fall Short World Economy Falling Faster Than in 1929-1930 [$$] Little Optimism From FOMC Fed sees no economic recovery until next year and then next year and year after that and next year Moody's strips Berkshire Hathaway of top rating Danger lurks behind banks' results Reality of worsening depression drove Fed action [$$] Morgan Stanley to Post a Loss From Volatile, Complex Bonds (at The Wall Street Journal Online) Bank Earnings Will Be Hit by Consumer Woes (at TheStreet.com) Financial Crisis ‘Far From Over,’ Panel Says A Bear in Bull's Clothing: Why This Rally Will Fall Short The Geithner-Summers Plan is Even Worse Than Thought SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS (4-6-09), suckers’ bear market rally into the close to finish off lows on bad news and bull s**t alone (ie., real bad numbers though favorably fudged greeted with reiteration ‘better than expected’, etc…riiiiight!), so still great opportunity to SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Respected banking analyst Mayo brought the lunatic frauds on wall street back to earth predicting bank loan losses will exceed those of the Great Depression. Mayo Says Loan Losses Will Exceed Depression Levels... ‘Despite the absence of positive catalysts in afternoon trading, stocks were able to pare their losses. The stock market had been down as much as 2.3%, but was able to more than cut that loss in half. Financial Stocks Have Run Up Too Hard, Too Fast (at Seeking Alpha) Slow down: We're Not at the Bottom Yet U.S. deficit nearly $1 trillion in first half of FY2009 Americans Feel 15.6% Unemployment as Unemployment Surges SOROS SEES END OF DOLLAR AS WORLD CURRENCY... GM Speeds Up Bankruptcy Preparations... Bernanke ‘Green Shoots’ Signals False Spring Amid Job Losses Bush and Obama Administrations Both Broke Law By Refusing to Close Insolvent Banks Murdoch: Long-Term Economic Situation ‘Dangerous’; Recovery 2-3 Years Away Massive Checkpoint Operation in Tennessee Violated Posse Comitatus, Fourth Amendment Hundreds of Thousands of Unemployed Run Out of Benefits Larry Summers, Tiny Tim Geithner and Wall Street’s ownership of government ‘ Mayo Says Loan Losses Will Exceed Depression Levels... Obama Economic Advisors Linked to Bankers
PREVIOUS (4-3-09), suckers’ bear market rally continues on bad news and bull s**t alone (ie., real bad numbers though favorably fudged greeted with reiteration ‘better than expected’, etc…riiiiight!), so still great opportunity to SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! 5.1 million jobs lost, -663,000 in past month, unemployment rate jumps to 8.5% and 15% for underemployed/part time (I’m sure these data understate the far worse reality according to some who say 15% and 20+% respectively), credit card problems/defaults to worsen according to analyst, even service sector down, and providing insult to injury/damage Goldman, et als using taxpayer funds for toxic assets (the real boondoggle is the complicit multi-trillion dollar fraud concerning taxpayer funds to bailout/coverup massive securities law violations/crimes for which prosecution/disgorgement of gains should have already begun). Outrageous and preposterous! U.S. jobless rate hits 25-year high Lawmaker sees Fannie, Freddie bonus "insult" NYC protesters ask US to 'bail out the people' (AP) Soros: Global Depression Ahead Buchanan: We Should Kill the Fed One in 10 Americans gets help to buy food Ex-AIG chief: Bailout will not succeed Unemployment in U.S. Climbed in March to 25-Year High G-20 Shapes New World Order With Wisely Lesser Role for u.s., u.s. Markets -663,000: Unemployment Rate Reaches 25-Year High of 8.5%... 1 in every 10 Americans receive food stamps...
Buchanan: We Should Kill the Fed Patrick J. Buchanan | Hoover did what Obama is doing.
PREVIOUS (4-2-09), suckers’ bear market rally based upon decisively bad news (26 Year High as New US jobless claims hit 669,000 in week , except for fake government reports by corrupt scandal-scarred commerce department on manufacturing/index up 1.8% though almost all private forecasts saw decline, etc.), in addition to funny money the frauds on wall street applauded the funny assets courtesy of f.a.s.b. (there are no accounting standards in the u.s.), which makes for wall street style securities fraud as now and in the past (fed also pumped in another $23 billion in last 3 days to fuel same, despite earnings going down and stock prices soaring with stratospherically high p/e ratios). Analyst/fund manager Najarian ‘taking a lot off the table’ (selling), while Analyst/fund manager Farr/Miller who called this bear market rally see’s test of the lows, so if you don’t celebrate All Fools’ Day (you’re not a fool) you’ll continue to SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! New US jobless claims hit 669,000 in week WASHPOST: Before Crisis, Geithner Fell Short; He regulated banks... Outstanding Credit Default Swaps Down to “Only” About Twice America’s GDP Layoffs rise despite hope recession is easing (AP) G-20 to give $1 trillion to IMF, World Bank UN chief says crisis could result in failed states Tax dodgers multiply as underground economy cushions job cuts The Wall Street Journal Criticizes Capitol Hill Bonuses (and don’t forget the raises) (at Seeking Alpha) Inflationary Depression Dr. Marc Faber runs his own business, Marc Faber Limited, which acts as an investment advisor and fund manager. He publishes a widely read monthly investment newsletters The Gloom Boom & Doom report which highlights unusual investment opportunities, and is the author of several books including Tomorrow’s Gold – Asia’s Age of Discovery which was first published in 2002 and highlights future investment opportunities around the world.
PREVIOUS (4-1-09), suckers’ bear market rally into the close with 250 point swing to the upside based on decisively bad news and bull s**t alone, viz., better than dismal expectations…I don’t think so! …That dog don’t hunt no more…remember the last market burn and that similar refrain among others, and the ever indecipherable to most, that infamous tech sector will save us (bust)…riiiiight! Oh wait, I get it. April Fools Day, as in ‘fool you once, shame on them, fool you twice, thrice, etc., …shame on you’. How ‘bout all fools day. U.S. private sector axes 742,000 jobs in March March auto sales plunge... U.S. seen facing danger of 2nd recession next year or stated another more realistic way, the depression though flush with ever more worthless weimar dollars providing ephemeral b.s. talking points of happy days are here again will be exacerbated thereby and continue with a vengeance r So, SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
AIG crisis could be the tip of an insurance iceberg U.S. Spending 100% of GDP on Bailouts and Related Programs Watchdogs: Treasury won't disclose bank bailout details.(I think it’s obvious they’re covering up the substantial securities fraud, using taxpayer money to do so, as yet there’s not even one prosecution which makes the government complicit, after the fact, in consummating the fraud) ... U.S. private sector axes 742,000 jobs in March March auto sales plunge... U.S. seen facing danger of 2nd recession next year or stated another more realistic way, the depression though flush with ever more worthless weimar dollars providing ephemeral b.s. talking points of happy days are here again will be exacerbated thereby and continue with a vengeance r Financial Rescue Nears GDP as Pledges Top $12.8 Trillion U.S. auto sales plunge, but bottom not yet near "Hurt, Frightened and Very Angry:" Risk of Social Unrest Rising, Says FT's Martin Wolf [$$] Accounting Rules Should Avoid Impairment (at The Wall Street Journal Online) Nightmare on Wall Street Destination Collapse Foreclosure Crisis Hits Warp Speed: 6 Million Families Face Losing Their Homes in the Next Three Years
PREVIOUS (3-31-09), suckers’ bear market rally continues to keep suckers suckered and commission dollars flowing by window-dressing this past month (and quarter) with gains based on bad news and hence bull s**t alone so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Global Meltdown, Part III $$] It's Only Window-Dressing Why This Is Just Another Bear Market Rally All news decisively negative with prospectively negative implications as the jawboners/frauds talk up that ever elusive bottom for stocks/real estate despite reality indicating otherwise [have you noticed the wide divergence of private reports (though somewhat skewed to the upside because of flawed/fake data they must rely upon from the government) as opposed to false government reports]. Confidence near historically record lows and Case/Shiller index showing declining real estate values (-19.4%) Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Fell by a Record 19% with declines at highest rate on record Global Meltdown, Part III $$] It's Only Window-Dressing Why This Is Just Another Bear Market Rally An Autopsy of the Glass-Steagall Act U.S. Spending 100% of GDP on Bailouts and Related Programs TARP Watchdog: “We Do Not Seem To Be A Priority For The Treasury Department” NEWS BROKE: SUN-TIMES Files For Bankruptcy, Both Major Chicago Dailies Now In Chapter 11... Ontario, CA, Tent City Residents Required to Wear Wristbands Government website now offers ’suicide warning signs’ for victims of recession .
PREVIOUS (3-30-09), Art Hogan recently summed up choosing stocks in this environment thusly: ‘pick the best-looking horse at the glue factory’…..I think he was as a courtesy to his industry overly generous. The administration pitches hardballs to the auto industry while continuing to pitch powder puffs to the wall street frauds who have perpetrated the largest (securities) fraud in recorded history, turning a cyclical downturn into what is now unavoidably depression, putting beleagered taxpayers in the unfathomable position of funders/guarantors of the scam/fraud in bailing out the perpetrators of the crimes (bush’s infamous base) who have financially benefited enormously (fees, commissions, spreads, points, salaries, expenses, bonuses, etc.) from their fraud/crimes. Still not even one prosecution from this administration even though disgorgement, the legal remedy among other criminal penalties, would aid the defacto bankrupt u.s. treasury! Obama's tough auto stance may include bankruptcy Wall Street hits the brakes on autos, bank woes Workers say Obama treated autos worse than Wall St (AP) UBS shares fall as writedowns, job cuts expected (AP) Obama puts GM, Chrysler on short leash Stocks fall as automaker plans are rejected Russia backs return to Gold Standard to solve financial crisis Looting by U.S. Government at All-Time Highs White House to let Chrysler fail US Banks Operate Without Reserve Requirements GM, Peugeot CEOs forced out as auto woes deepen Geithner won't say if more bailout money needed AIG delays funds to some real-estate ventures: report Asian stocks tumble on auto, bank concerns (AP) UBS shares fall as more writedowns, job cuts seen (Reuters) GM, Chrysler have no 'viable' plans: US task force Pension insurer shifted to stocks to froth the fraudulent market Boston Globe | Just months before the start of last year’s stock market collapse, the federal agency that insures the retirement funds of 44 million Americans departed from its conservative investment strategy and decided to put much of its $64 billion insurance fund into stocks to froth the frudulent market at behest of frauds on wall street.
PREVIOUS (3-27-09), very modest losses relative to reality so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Sugar coated though still bad numbers, usual suspects/concerns cited, ie., bankruptcies on rise, omni 22nd bank to fail this year, printing hyperinflationary funny money like mad, etc. (don’t forget, as now, in 2008 they predicted improvement in second half and no recession though we now know we were already in recession and now depression). Nobel Laureate Dr. Joseph Stiglitz Says “The Geithner Plan Amounts To Robbery Of The American People” Ninth Georgia bank collapses (at Atlanta Journal Constitution - 22nd this year) Economy shrinks most in 25 years; Unemployment continues climb Roubini Says Stocks Will Drop, Government Will Nationalize More Banks... Ron Paul Predicts 15-year Depression The Credit Bust Is Not Almost Over (at Seeking Alpha) Top bank regulator placed on leave pending review (AP) PAPER: Rahm Emanuel's Short FREDDIE MAC stay made him $320,000+... On PPIP and Geithner's Latest Power Grab (Linkfest) (at Seeking Alpha) Will SDRs Become World’s Reserve Currency? UN PANEL TOUTS NEW GLOBAL CURRENCY... Rep. to Geithner: Your Plan Is 'Radical'... The Bubble That Must Burst
PREVIOUS (3-26-09), all news decisively bad, viz., continuing unemployment claims at new record high 5.56 million, new unemployment claims at very bad 653,000, economic contraction a worse than previously reported –6.3%, corporate profits down and at worst levels in decades, J.D. Power and Associates reports auto sales decline of a whopping –40%, Economy shrinks most in 25 years; Unemployment continues climb Roubini Says Stocks Will Drop, Government Will Nationalize More Banks... Ron Paul Predicts 15-year Depression , yet suckers’ bear market rally to keep those suckers suckered so take this folly as a great opportunity to SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! The Credit Bust Is Not Almost Over (at Seeking Alpha) Top bank regulator placed on leave pending review (AP) PAPER: Rahm Emanuel's Short FREDDIE MAC stay made him $320,000+... On PPIP and Geithner's Latest Power Grab (Linkfest) (at Seeking Alpha) Will SDRs Become World’s Reserve Currency? UN PANEL TOUTS NEW GLOBAL CURRENCY... Rep. to Geithner: Your Plan Is 'Radical'... The Bubble That Must Burst
PREVIOUS (3-25-09), The corrupt,
scandal-scarred commerce department notorious for institutionalized lying comes
out with numbers three times/300% better than private forecasts for now
into the third week in a row for such very forecastable data as used home
sales, new home sales, and durable goods (mostly government/military with funny
at that) in an attempt to froth that font of fraud called the american stock
market/wall street which is how this financial/economic crisis came to be, with
the parasitic churn-and-earn commisioning on the way up (and then down) based
on bull s**t alone. Still not one prosecution of that huge collateralized
securities fraud for which disgorgement would constitute substantial
contribution to treasury as opposed to the just announced diversion to small
potatoes (like madoff, which should be pursued but not a priority to the multi-trillion
dollar collateralized securities fraud, etc.), viz., the sub-prime mortgage
origination fraud (encouraged by actions of fed and government), etc.. With 80%
debt-to-GDP ratio, the u.s. is now the leader of banana republic
nations. Nobel Laureate Dr. Joseph
Stiglitz Says “The Geithner Plan Amounts To Robbery Of The American People” IBM to cut 5,000 jobs in U.S. Wall St. rallies late as data offsets
bond sale gloom [$$] Government-Debt Auctions Disappoint as Demand
Subsides (at The Wall Street Journal Online)
Asian Shares Mostly Lower, Mkts
Overcooked; Nikkei Down 0.7% CDS ‘Godfather’ Says Blow ‘Em
All Up’ Obama Denounces Global Currency
While Creating The Very Means For Its Introduction Code Pink and Barney’s Bailout
Circus One Small Problem With
Geithner’s Plan: It Will Bankrupt The Banks White House to Hunt for New Tax
Revenues Bank Of England warns Gordon
Brown to stop the spending U.K. Bond Auction Fails for First
Time Since 2002 Obama’s Economic Plan a “Road
to Hell”
Associated Press | The president of the European Union
on Wednesday slammed U.S. plans to spend its way out of recession as “a road to
hell.”
PREVIOUS (3-24-09): Modest losses relative to an increasingly grim
reality so SELL/SELL
INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
ETF Death Watch: Why Are Funds Closing? The financial
crisis isn’t just shrinking
portfolios and profits. It’s also putting exchange-traded funds and notes out of business. According
to State Street, 58 exchange-traded products closed last year and another 30 or
so from companies like SPA, Credit Suisse and Northern Trust have stopped trading the last three months. With
more on the way, the liquidation process is shaping up to be a prominent trend
for investors to watch in 2009.
Geithner Plan Will Rob US
Taxpayers: Stiglitz The U.S. government plan to rid banks
of toxic assets will rob American taxpayers by exposing them to too much risk
and is unlikely to work as long as the economy remains weak, Nobel
Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said on Tuesday.
Geithner Grilled on Goldman
Sachs Connections David Edwards | Geithner told Waters that Goldman
Sachs could help manage the new program to help banks remove toxic assets from
their books. Haven’t goldman and
goldman people done enough damage? Their abilities and competence are
vastly overrated and overstated. Be Gentle with the Bankers? No,
Indict Them for Fraud/High Treason
U.S. woos investors to buy toxic assets Falling Japan land prices stir deflation worries China Telecom's annual profit plunges 96% on write-down Japan automakers' sales tumble in February China Urges New Money Reserve to Replace Dollar The Fed Did Indeed Cause the Housing Bubble China Voices Support For New Global Currency To Replace Dollar
US unveils public-private plan for toxic assets
Donating for dollars? Many bailed-out banks still contributing to campaign funds The federal bank bailouts may be giving new meaning to the term “kickback.” JPMorgan Chase To Spend Millions on New Jets and Luxury Airport Hangar YouTube Caught Censoring Obama Deception Video The Fed Did Indeed Cause the Housing Bubble
What the Pros Say: US Is Now ‘Bankrupt’ US Federal Reserve announces massive increase in government debt U.S. Budget Office offers darker economic and deficit outlook [$$] Market Overbought and Overbelieved Auditors project deeper deficits for Obama budget Rothschild: Economic crisis will leave governments with “enormous public debt” The Fed Did It, and Greenspan Should Admit It
Launching Lifeboats Before the Ship Sinks Paul Craig Roberts | If the US government is forced to print money to cover the high costs of its wars and bailouts, things could fall apart very quickly.
US Federal Reserve announces massive increase in government debt Barry Grey | The essence of all of the measures taken in response to the crisis is an effort to rescue the system and protect the wealth and power of the financial elite at the expense of the broad masses of the population.
Tax Time Covert Ops Catherine Austin Fitts | Hate. Divide and conquer. It’s a business. The media is pushing it. The people directing it are the same people who brought you the AIG bonuses.
PREVIOUS (3-23-09): So preposterous was today’s Pavlov dogs rally [conditioning to associate what’s good for fraudulent wall street, viz., privatizing profits – still not one prosecution for what now is the largest fraud/scam/swindle in the history of this planet – and socializing the losses, is somehow positive for america/the economy by the magnitude of this suckers’ bear market rally and prior market manipulations] when the same created the instant crisis in the first instance (don’t worry about the frauds on wall street, they’ll get their commissions again on the way down as they did in creating this financial debacle/fraud as they clamor for more taxpayer/treasury money). They’re still printing/creating those worthless Weimar dollars like mad, China Urges New Money Reserve to Replace Dollar ,don’t know what they’re doing, are clueless, and disingenuously seek to divert attention from the missing/stolen/bilked $14 trillion of taxpayer money with the subterfuge of outrage over the relatively miniscule though not unimportant million dollar bonuses (AIG, etc.), so-called fixes/plans, etc., so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! What the Pros Say: US Is Now ‘Bankrupt’ US is Already Bankrupt: Analyst U.S. Budget Office offers darker economic and deficit outlook The Geithner-Summers-Bernanke Plan to Prop Up Asset Prices Has Failed U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar
Fierman:
How quickly things change…..
Some stats from today’s rally:
S&P: +54 (7.1%) to 823
Dow: +497 (+6.8%) to 7776
NYSE Up Volume: 1,866,836,012
NYSE Down Volume: 44,683,760
NYSE Total Volume: 1,914,836,622
It was just 2 weeks ago (March 9th) that the S&P closed at 12-year lows and
the stock market felt like it was forecasting the end of the world. We’ve now
rallied 22% in 2 weeks! But if we look at the catalysts for this rally, they
really don’t seem to justify such an explosive move. Citi said they were profitable in
the first two months of the year and JP Morgan (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC) said they were too. The Fed initiated some serious quantitative easing.
And now Geithner’s toxic asset plan this morning. I agree with the Capital
Spectator when he wrote this morning:
We’re skeptical largely because the rally this month has drawn power primarily from a new round of hope that Washington’s various experiments to right the economy will finally hit pay dirt. Perhaps, but it’s not the stuff that powers sustainable rallies, much less secular bull markets.
I’M
A SELLER OF THIS RALLY AT THIS POINT…..
PREVIOUS (3-20-09), Modest losses relative to reality and their
printing those worthless Weimar dollars like mad, don’t know what they’re
doing, are clueless, and disingenuously seek to divert attention from the
missing/stolen/bilked $14 trillion of taxpayer money with the subterfuge of
outrage over the relatively miniscule though not unimportant million dollar
bonuses (AIG, etc.) so SELL/SELL
INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME! What the Pros Say: US Is Now
‘Bankrupt’ US is Already Bankrupt: Analyst U.S. Budget Office offers darker economic and deficit
outlook The Geithner-Summers-Bernanke
Plan to Prop Up Asset Prices Has Failed U.N. panel says world should
ditch dollar
PREVIOUS (3-19-09), ‘…Economic news remains uninspiring. Weekly initial claims dipped 12,000 to 646,000, which was better than the consensus estimate of 655,000. Continuing claims hit another record high, though, jumping to 5.47 million from 5.29 million. Leading indicators for February showed a 0.4% decline, which wasn't as bad as the 0.6% decline that was expected… Energy stocks (+1.4%) and materials stocks (+1.4%) were helped by stronger commodity prices. The CRB Commodity Index climbed more than 5% in this year's largest single-session advance by percent. Crude oil futures prices gained 6.5% to close pit trading at $51.25 per barrel, while gold prices advanced 7.8% to close at $958.50 per ounce. Underpinning the strength in commodity prices was a considerably weaker U.S. dollar. According to the Dollar Index, the greenback sank 1.7% this session, and more than 4% during the last two sessions. The dollar's weakness follows the Fed's latest policy directive…’
US is Already Bankrupt: Analyst The Geithner-Summers-Bernanke Plan to Prop Up Asset Prices Has Failed U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar Corporate Media Disses Gold Citigroup May Spend $10 Million for Executive Suite It’s Not Just AIG: Fannie Plans Exec Bonuses Gold Re-Couples with Euro, “Dollar Getting Destroyed” House passes tax to recoup most of AIG bonuses ($200 million); what about the $14 trillion in fraudulent bailouts and the missing $4 trillion at the New York fed… s Bank of America involved in Merrill Q4 writedowns: report Put/Call Ratio Indicates Overbought Market Condition SUPER PUMP: $1 TRILLION CREATED OUT OF THIN AIR... Oil Nears $52; Hits high for 2009...
PREVIOUS
(3-18-09), absolute desperation by the fed as fed in panic mode
buys bonds with even more fake money (ultimately you pay). Shot in the dark,
they unequivocally do not know what they’re doing; don’t have even the
slightest clue. Some well deserved guilt as greenspan, bernanke, paulson,
geithner, etc., are authors of this debacle with compliant politics as usual
facilitating same (wall street/hedge fund gamblers shouldn’t be bailed out,
etc.), but the divergence of so-called opinion from stagflation to applauding
same in light of fraudulent stock market up-tick (isn’t that how we got here,
to this financial/economic disaster).
Depression Unrest Turmoil Instability Riots all coming and SOON As depression deepens, more americans go fishing (Reuters) It’s Not Just AIG: Fannie Plans Exec Bonuses Stimulus plan: Spend now, details later (promise) Dollar Plunges After Fed Announcement Senate quietly stripped measure restricting bonuses from bailout legislation Hedge funds could reap billions from AIG which should not reward soured bets/gambles with taxpayer funds as now slated. Citi, Morgan Stanley Looking to Issue More Diluting Shares for Bonus Payments (at Seeking Alpha) Editorials: Rewards instead of punishments
PREVIOUS (3-17-09), all private forecasts of the very forecastable housing starts defied the false report of the corrupt, scandal-scarred commerce department (remember the fake reports that spurred recent ralleys which ultimately burned the buyers) spurred suckers’ bear market ralley so great opportunity to SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
Dent,
Napier, and Prechter - Wise to Heed Their Predictions Is Mistrust in Wall Street Pointing to New Lows? RECORD: NATIONAL DEBT HITS $11 TRILLION... The Size of Derivatives Bubble =
$190K Per Person on Planet Washington knew AIG was preparing to pay
bonuses (AP) U.S. to claw back AIG bonuses,
lawmakers eye tax House committee scrutinizes Merrill
bonuses Bad year or good, fraud or just preparing
for fraud with wall street, AIG employees got big bonuses (AP)
Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money World Bank cuts China GDP estimate
again, to 6.5% Obama Confronts “Populist
Anger” Over Bankster Giveaways IMF poised to print billions of
dollars
Jim Rogers Expects Civil Unrest
in the US and all around the World
PREVIOUS 3-16-09, Very modest losses relative to reality so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS
WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! ‘…February industrial production declined 1.4%, which is
essentially in-line with the consensus 1.3% decline. Capacity utilization
dipped to 70.9% from 71.9%, as generally expected. The February report
continues to reflect a weak demand environment that will ultimately drag on
GDP...’’… The
nation's industrial output fell for the fourth straight month in February, with
factories operating at their lowest level in six decades of record keeping.
Analysts forecast more production cuts to come as companies are battered by
recessions at home and abroad. The Federal Reserve reported Monday that
industrial output dropped by 1.4 percent last month, slightly larger than the
1.2 percent decline economists had expected. The weakness included a 0.7
percent fall in manufacturing output, which pushed the operating rate at the
nation's factories down to 67.4 percent of capacity last month, the lowest
level on records that go back to 1948…’
Treasury to rework AIG aid to recoup bonuses AIG massive payments to banks stoke bailout rage Hearst prints final Seattle PI Hearst hopes Web-only Seattle P-I will turn profit AIG Bonuses Add to Reality of Public Revolt against Wall Street, Federal Reserve Bracing for a Bailout Backlash Dollar Crisis In The Making Think recession’s bad? Try a cataclysm! Insurance giant AIG to pay $165 million in bonuses (AP) AP - American International Group is giving its executives tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses even though it received a taxpayer bailout of more than $170 billion dollars. AIG plans to disclose CDS counterparties: source Chrysler faces July cash crunch even with more aid Accounting Rule Changes Creating False Rally in Financials (at Seeking Alpha) Cash-hungry U.S. states turn to Web to auction goods Bernanke: recession could end in '09 and if his grandmother had wheels she could be a trolley car and as he previously said we could avoid recession though we were already in one which is now a depression with worse yet to come and most assuredly will not end in 2009 except in the b.s. talking points in their dreams (AP) Millions in AIG bonuses draw chorus of outrage (AP) AIG payments to banks stoke bailout rage White House says economy is sound despite 'mess’ or stated another way, a sound mess…..riiiiight!'
AIG Bonuses Add to Reality of Public Revolt against Wall Street, Federal Reserve Mike Adams | People will be marching in the streets, demanding the arrest of all the rich executives and corrupt bureaucrats who took part in this massive financial theft.
PREVIOUS 3-13-09, Suckers’ bear market rally ( Citigroup Inspired Bear Market Suckers’ Rally ) to keep the suckers suckered and commission dollars flowing to the frauds on wall street Regulator: Before Banks Collapsed, They Pleaded With Feds To Let Them Fudge Their Books Ryan Grim | Before financial institutions collapsed, they went to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, pleading for a change in mark-to-market accounting rules so that they can continue to appear to be solvent on their balance sheets and hence, continue to defraud the public as they are now once again trying to do. Unemployment in 7 States Has Exceeded 20% in February China Debates If It Should Continue to Foolish Buy Evermore Worthless U.S. Treasuries America faces new Depression misery as financial crisis worsens Tent Cities, Unemployment, Homelessness Growing Dmitry Orlov: “America will collapse” Warren Buffett's BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY stripped of its 'AAA' credit rating... THE INFLUENCE/BRIBE/PROTECTION RACKET: New record for number of PACs
PREVIOUS
(3-12-09), the waning full moon still compounding the frivolity of
the criminally insane; particularly the lunatic frauds on wall street, and
truth be told, the lunatics who follow in lock-step behind them. Suckers’ bear
market rally ( Citigroup Inspired Bear Market
Suckers’ Rally ) to keep the suckers suckered and commission
dollars flowing to the frauds on wall street so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! There are no bulls or bears on
fraudulent wall street, just ostriches. One senile land of fruits and nuts
analyst/ broker / master planner of the lost angeles failed paradigm quips with
glee: it’s impressive to see the market ignore so much bad news and
rally…riiiiight! Ron Paul, A Rare Voice of Reason
on Capital Hill: Culprits Of Financial Collapse Should Be Arrested, Prosecuted,
and Disgorgement Of Fraudulent Gains Would Inure to the Benefit of the
Technically/Defacto Insolvent/Bankrupt u.s. Treasury in the Multi-Trillions as
Recovered (Their
greed and fraud has further bankrupted this country and damaged other nations
and recoupment of their fraudulent gains must be required as the law already
provides since taxpayers are bearing the brunt of government inaction. What
they did is not ok. They must pay. This is not difficult to grasp and must be
done or there is no hope prospectively for america since all will know of this
government fostered/complicit fraud). ‘…Better-than-expected (but typically fake as per scandal
scarred commerce department) retail sales data suggested consumers haven't
completely rolled over. February retail sales declined just 0.1%, which is
better than the 0.5% decline that was expected. Excluding autos, retail sales
increased 0.7%. A decline of 0.1% was expected. Meanwhile, January total sales
and sales less autos were revised to show an even larger increase. The upbeat
retail sales data comes in the face of ongoing consumer headwinds, such as
mounting job losses. Weekly initial claims climbed 9,000 to 654,000, which was worse
than expected. Continuing claims jumped nearly 200,000 to 5.32 million, which
was also worse than expected (new record). In other economic news, February
business inventories declined 1.1%, which is essentially in-line with the
consensus estimate...’
’…This week's rally
got an extra dose of adrenaline after an accounting board told Congress
Thursday it may recommend (more fraud as we’re currently experiencing by way of
) a let-up in financial reporting rules for troubled banks in three weeks… Fed
reports record fall in household net worth WASHINGTON (AP) -- The net worth of
American households fell by the largest amount in more than a half-century of
record keeping during the fourth quarter of last year…The Federal Reserve said
Thursday that household net worth dropped by a record 9 percent from the level
in the third quarter. The decline was the sixth straight quarterly drop in net
worth and underscored the battering that U.S. families are undergoing in the
midst of a steep recession with unemployment surging and the value of their
homes and investments plunging. Net worth represents total assets such as homes
and checking accounts minus liabilities like mortgages and credit card debt.
Jobless claims rise as retail sales slip WASHINGTON (AP) -- With layoffs
spreading, the number of initial claims for jobless benefits rose last week,
while the total number of people continuing to receive benefits set a record
high, the government said Thursday. The Labor Department reported that
first-time requests for unemployment insurance rose to 654,000 from the
previous week's upwardly revised figure of 645,000, above analysts'
expectations. The number of people receiving benefits for more than a week
increased by 193,000 to 5.3 million, the most on records dating back to 1967.
That's the sixth time in the past seven weeks that the jobless claims rolls
have set a record high…’
Ron Paul, A Rare Voice of Reason on Capital Hill: Culprits Of Financial Collapse Should Be Arrested, Prosecuted, and Forced Disgorgement Of Fraudulent Gains Would Inure to the Benefit of the Technically/Defacto Insolvent/Bankrupt u.s. Treasury in the Multi-Trillions as Recovered - Compared to them, madoff was a mere piker Citigroup Inspired Bear Market Suckers’ Rally Unemployment in 7 States May Have Exceeded 20% in February 45 percent of world’s wealth destroyed: Blackstone CEO Madoff jailed after pleading guilty to $50-65 billion fraud and telling court: ‘I am deeply sorry and ashamed of my crimes’ Newmont CEO sees gold in range of $1,200 House prices to drop another 55% and leave Britain bankrupt Madoff sent to jail as furious victims applaud (AP) Madoff pleads guilty, is jailed for $65 billion fraud Don't Sweat Hypernflation Just Yet: Deflation/Depression "In the Cards" for 2009 and Beyond, Shilling Says More on Roubini and Shiller's Dour Outlook Pelosi dodges chance to end automatic pay raises Ron Paul: Culprits Of Financial Collapse Should Be Arrested SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS (3-11-09), Analyst chatter: Not through the worst of it, the worst (of depression) still ahead, investing in this market is like trying to catch a falling knife. Foreclosures up and spreading as unemployment also rises and will continue to rise. Freddy lost another $50 billion and wants another $31 billion, while Fanny lost another $60 billion and wants another $15 billion. Hillary Kramer says trading only, in-and-out, so if you can’t, don’t jump into market to try and catch the falling knife. Dividend cuts for 2009 have already surpassed that for all of 2008 at $46.8 billion.
53% of Americans (and Senator Specter) Think the U.S. Depression is Like the 1930’s This is a Depression! For Markets, What they call it does Not Matter Billionaire Stanford to take the 5th in fraud case (AP) Madoff mysteries remain as he nears guilty plea Merrill misled Congress on bonuses o Freddie Mac seeks $30.8B in US aid after 4Q loss Earnings Growth Estimates: The Bad, the Bad and the Ugly Japan's economy shrinks an annualized 12.1% in the fourth quarter Dell Cuts Staff Worldwide Last year REITs lost 38% - that's a bit worse than the S&P 500 Credit card delinquencies hit index record Thousands Line Up at Indiana Mall for Food Handouts The Fed Has Destroyed Your Retirement SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
PREVIOUS (3-10-09), yes, indeed, a rally with power of a speeding locomotive based on….. b.s. talk point with early release of CITI showing a profit [not counting more writedowns, bad/worthless assets(loans)/securities, expenses, etc.] of $8 billion with receipt of $45 billion (plus loans/guarantees/investments in excess of $100 billion) taxpayer bailout … WOW!…at this rate the treasury will deplete even faster than originally projected. But the math is so simple that elementary school kids with a handle on third grade arithmetic can accomplish the same and hence, can and should replace top management at a much lower price and without delay. ‘…bernanke says regulatory overhaul needed…WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's financial rule book must be rewritten to prevent a repeat of the global economic crisis now gripping the United States and other countries, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday…Bernanke offered new details on how to bolster mutual funds and a program that insures bank deposits. He also stressed the need for regulators to make sure financial companies have a sufficient capital cushion against potential losses…The Fed chief's remarks come as the Obama administration and Congress are crafting their overhaul strategies. For the administration, critical work will be carried out among global finance officials this weekend in London ahead of next month's meeting of leaders from the world's 20 major economic powers…Madoff's lawyer says client will plead guilty …NEW YORK (AP) -- In a courtroom surprise, it was revealed Tuesday that Bernard Madoff will plead guilty Thursday to securities fraud, perjury and other crimes, knowing that he could face up to 150 years in prison for one of the largest frauds in history…’ ‘…All three major indices registered fresh multiyear closing lows in the prior session, but came rallying back this session to log their best single-session performance by percent in months. The rebound came after Citigroup issued an encouraging update and reports indicated the uptick rule may be reinstated… Rep. Frank stated mark-to-market accounting rules must be improved, but Senator Shelby says any mark-to-market accounting changes should be made by the SEC. The SEC stated it will not seek to suspend such rules (since such would make valuations a fraud)... The stock market's advance was further helped by short-covering. Still, trading volume on the NYSE climbed above 2 billion shares…’
Cost to buy protection against U.S. government
default surges
Good News! Economist Sees GDP Down 7% in
Q1 and 9.25% Unemployment in 2010 Madoff faces life in prison on 11
criminal charges Citi's fake profit view, uptick talk
drive big rally Roubini: Depression Could Last beyond 36 Months; Dow at
5000...
United Tech to cut 11,600 jobs
Why Commodities Prices May
Rise, Even In Deflation IMF warns of Great Depression,
All Nations at risk Oil at $50 Looms as OPEC Plans
Cut, Keeps to Quota 53% Say It’s Likely the U.S.
Will Enter a Depression Similar to 1930’s even though we’re already in one
worse than the 1930’s Washington plans for big bank
failure
SELL/SELL
INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
PREVIOUS (3-9-09), …‘Despite a rebound by
financial stocks and a batch of merger news, the stock market was unable to put
together a sustainable advance. Stocks finished with a broad-based loss, a bit
above session lows. Uncertainty in foreign indices fueled early losses in the
headline indices. Financials were the focal point of the weakness, falling to a
loss of 2.2%. The drop was short-lived, though. Financials rallied to a gain of
5.3%, but finished with a gain of 2.5%’… …’ Wall Street fell more
than 1 percent Monday as uneasiness about the economy eclipsed a bounce in
troubled financial stocks and news of a big drug company merger. Stocks rose in
the early going but turned lower in a now familiar pattern where short-lived
bursts of optimism give way to concerns about the country's economic woes’ (in
the real world they call that mental illness, lunacy –note the full moon, manic
depression/bipolar disorder, etc., or just plain fraudulent wall street )’
World Bank offers dire forecast
for world economy Depression Dynamic Ensues as
Markets Revisit 1930s Global Financial Assets Lost $50
Trillion Last Year SEC says money manager invented big
accounts
Who got AIG's bailout billions?
‘The collapse of America is
unavoidable’ Regulators
seize seventh bank in Georgia... Kerry:
'Animal House' Party Days Are Over for u.s. government...
Bank stocks rally despite their
insolvency (AP) Too big to fail? 5 biggest banks
are 'dead men walking' (McClatchy Newspapers) [video] Next Dead Dividend (at
TheStreet.com)
Oil at $50 Looms as OPEC Plans
Cut, Keeps to Quota Too Big Has Failed: KC Fed Prez Says We
Need Temporary Nationalization (at Seeking Alpha)
World Bank says global economy will
shrink in 2009 (AP) Recession on track to be longest in postwar
period (AP) Cash In A Mattress? No, Gold In
The Closet Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money
PREVIOUS (3-6-09), fudged
in a manner most favorable to the frauds (we past these unemployment
percentages quite some time ago and they were much worse then and still worse
now, etc.), the news remains bleak and reality says even bleaker. Any economist who in discussing this depression mindlessly
compares this Greatest Depression to any other contraction without pointing out
crucial negative distinguishing characteristics; viz., insurmountable debt,
increasingly worthless (Weimar) currency, irrevocable and unrelenting
trade/budget deficits, global antipathy (stemming from illegal wars, war
crimes, massive securities fraud, etc.), lack of significant manufacturing
base, pervasive corruption/theft /plundering/incompetence, etc., cannot be
considered a serious economist (just a joker who probably missed the call on
recession/depression, etc.). …’Huge
layoffs push joblessness toward double digits WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tolling grimly
higher, the recession snatched more than 650,000 Americans' jobs for a record
third straight month in February as unemployment climbed to a quarter-century
peak of 8.1 percent and surged toward even more wrenching double digits.The
human carnage from the recession, well into its second year, now stands at 4.4
million lost jobs. Some 12.5 million people are searching for work -- more than
the population of the entire state of Pennsylvania. No one seems immune: The
jobless rate for college graduates has hit its highest point on record, just like
the rate for people lacking high school diplomas… GM shares reach 75-year low
amid bankruptcy talk…’ The broader market turned in a modest
gain, thanks to a late rally effort that overcame steep losses. Initial gains
were broad-based as participants began buying in the wake of the February jobs
report, which indicated nonfarm payrolls fell 651,000, in-line with
expectations, and unemployment climbed more than expected to a 25-year high of
8.1%. Stocks were up as much as 2.4% in what resembled past trends that saw
stocks sell off leading up to the monthly jobs report, but then rally in its
wake as traders "bought the bad news."
Madoff expected to plead guilty to fraud charges How to Spot a Ponzi Con Artist? Follow the Yachts (Time.com) U.S. jobless rate hits 25-year high Goldman, others get AIG payouts: report US Bancorp CEO got pay package valued at $6.8M (AP) Huge layoffs push joblessness toward double digits AP source: Madoff guilty plea expected next week Stocks facing uphill battle; budget, retail sales loom $11 Trillion Wipeout: Wall Street's Year-and-a-Half of Dangerous Living Economy in 'Free-Fall': Unemployment Rate Surges to 8.1%, Highest in 25 Years GM shares reach 75-year low amid bankruptcy talk (AP) Fox Admits To Planting Political Brainwashing In Popular TV Shows Pelosi Backs Senate Facist Amendment to Censor Talk Radio Senate to Give FDIC up to $500 Billion Senator Bernie Sanders Slams Fed Boss Ben Bernanke Bailout Money - Instead of Being Used to Stabilize the Economy or Even the Bailed-Out Companies - is Just Going to Line the Pockets of the Wealthy Taxpayers Furious With Budget Cuts Take Frustration To Streets Of NYC AIG “Was Going to Bring Down Europe”: Lawmaker
PREVIOUS (3-5-09), Analyst/Economist Chatter: funny money (they’re printing worthless Weimar dollars like mad) and now they’re thinking funny assets (suspending reality based mark-to-market in favor of the failed fraudulent whatever they want so they can foist/spin/defraud which got us to this debacle); more bank takeovers; GM burning cash, bankruptcy probable; Merrill bonuses for jobs poorly done (my direct experience with Merril Lynch brokers was their total incompetence); higher taxes, higher inflation, $3 trillion new u.s. debt, dollar devaluation; more bank takeovers and far worse unemployment. “Few economists expect a turnaround in the battered labor market anytime soon with companies laying off thousands of workers weekly…Still, initial requests for unemployment benefits fell to 639,000 from the previous week's figure of 670,000, the Labor Department (fake number) said Thursday. Analysts expected a smaller drop to 650,000…Retailers report sales declines in February…GM concedes in the report filed Thursday that it's on the edge of bankruptcy and won't be able to avoid it unless it gets more government money and successfully executes a huge restructuring plan…Mortgage woes break records again in 4Q. NEW YORK (AP) -- A stunning 48 percent of the nation's homeowners who have a subprime, adjustable-rate mortgage are behind on their payments or in foreclosure, and the rate for homeowners with all mortgage types hit a new record, new data Thursday showed…” “The stock market logged new multiyear lows during the session, and closed at its worst level since the fourth quarter of 1996. Roughly 95% of the companies in the S&P 500 finished with a loss...Though losses were broad-based, financials were dealt the worst blow. The sector fell 9.9% with particular weakness among diversified banks (-16.5%) and other diversified financial services companies (-13.2%). Moody's announced it is reviewing the credit ratings of Bank of America (BAC 3.17, -0.42) and Wells Fargo (WFC 8.12, -1.54) for possible downgrade. Moody's lowered its outlook for JPMorgan Chase (JPM 16.60, -2.70) to negative from stable. Sellers pushed both WFC and JPM shares to new multiyear lows…Fourth quarter nonfarm productivity declined 0.4%, though it was expected to increase 1.2% after the prior reading showed a 3.2% increase. The lower reading was a result of lower economic output in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, fourth quarter unit labor costs increased 5.7%. Economists expected a 3.8% increase. Factory orders for January fell 1.9% (fake number), which is a less severe drop than the 3.5% decline that was widely expected. The drop in factory orders reflects the retrenchment by businesses in the wake of softer spending…” Now As The Much Greater Depression Progresses Dow and S&P hit 12-year lows Bernanke Arrogantly Refuses To Disclose Which Banks Took Money Treasury secretary's choice for deputy withdraws (only little people pay taxes so take this job and shove it says tiny tim deputy designate) (AP) 22 Georgia legislators fail to pay income taxes... GM auditors raise doubt on viability One in 8 U.S. homeowners late paying or in foreclosure Citigroup stock falls below $1 a share (AP) $$] SVG Swings to a Loss on Markdowns Hits (at The Wall Street Journal Online) Why the Fed's TALF Is Bad for America Mortgage woes break records again in 4Q (AP) Stocks Fall Below 7,000 Again Fed Refuses to Release Bank Data, Insists on Secrecy
PREVIOUS
(3-4-09), all news decisively worse than expected, fed beige book
outlook grim, economist outlook for recovery bleak. Celente: U.S. Has Entered “The
Greatest Depression” The spin: china bailout (the
frauds on wall street spinning/foolishly banking on china buying more worthless
u.s. paper – their domestic needs are substantial and they’re increasing
military spending by 15% as well) and high oil price suckers’ bear
market/short-covering rally to again keep suckers sucked in for their
commissions sake. The great red hope! How preposterous! Who would have thunk
it! ‘…strong gains overseas provided an excuse
for buyers to enter the fold and short-sellers to cover their positions.
Foreign indices upended their own losing streak after China announced it will
add approximately $586 billion to the fiscal spending plan it announced late
last year… According to the Fed's Beige Book, the Fed does not expect a
significant economic recovery until late 2009 or early 2010 at best (remember,
they also said no recession and now we’re in a depression). Meanwhile, the ISM
Services Index for February dipped to 41.6% from 42.9%, indicating continued
contraction for the services sector. The consensus estimate was pegged at
41.0%. Investors and economists got a glimpse of what may be lurking in the
government's February nonfarm payroll report, which is due at the end of the
week. According to the latest ADP Employment Report, 697,000 jobs were lost in
February. The consensus estimate called for 630,000 job losses…’ ‘…fed survey: economy deteriorated in Jan., Feb. . After a
dismal start to 2009, business people see more pain ahead, expecting no
improvement in economic conditions till late this year at the earliest. Their
pessimism was evident in the Federal Reserve's latest snapshot of business
activity nationwide. It showed sharp cutbacks affecting both blue-collar jobs
that once churned out construction equipment and white-collar professionals
like business consultants and accountants. From factories in Cleveland to
high-tech firms in Texas and California, the Fed's beige book reported
widespread production declines. Services sector shrank in Feb., 5th straight
month…’ U.S. private sector cuts 697,000
jobs in February FDIC’s Bair Says Insurance Fund
Could Be Insolvent This Year The Never-Ending Bailout They Done Us Wrong: Spending
Our Way Into Greater Depression Credit concerns pound GE shares in
volatile trade China hopes, oil's jump, both
negatives, end Wall St 5-day rout Warren Buffett's 'Fundamental Weakness' ETFs Suffer Outflows In February Celente: U.S. Has Entered “The
Greatest Depression” The D-word: The depression has become something worse
(AP) Obama Must Fire Geithner and
Summers
Gold Industry Officials Warn Of
Depression Jim Rogers: Bailouts are
destroying the US Economy Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money
PREVIOUS
(3-3-09), modest losses relative to reality as bad and worse than
expected news just keeps on coming along with suckers bear
market/short-covering rallies as here into the close to keep the suckers
suckered. Defaults/delinquencies up, home/car sales down… Celente: U.S. Has Entered “The
Greatest Depression” … Helicopter
ben ‘bernanke indicated the near-term outlook for the economy remains weak.
Economists at Goldman Sachs concur; they expect the U.S. economy will fall 7.0%
in the first quarter, according to Dow Jones. Despite housing stimulus
provisions, pending home sales in January declined 7.7%. The consensus estimate
called for a 3.5% decline. The data reflect the effects of ongoing job losses,
lost wealth, and weak consumer confidence. Similar forces continue
weighing heavily on auto sales. Ford Motor (F 1.81, -0.07) reported February sales in
North America fell roughly 48%, which is steeper than the 42% drop that was
expected. General Motors (GM 1.99, -0.02) reported February sales sank nearly 53%,
exceeding the 45% fall that was widely forecast. Separate reports indicated
GM's chief operating officer said that without government funds the company's
European unit would run out of cash in the second quarter. Chrysler down 44%’…
ART HOGAN SAY’S ”IT’S A TOUGH ONE”…
THAT’S A TRUE STATEMENT!
Celente: U.S. Has Entered “The Greatest Depression” The D-word: The depression has become something worse (AP) Obama Must Fire Geithner and Summers Gold Industry Officials Warn Of Depression Jim Rogers: Bailouts are destroying the US Economy Gold has longest losing streak since October U.S. auto sales fall as depression deepens Blockbuster seeks debt overhaul, shares halted MGM Mirage casino co. says it may default on debt (AP) A Banana Republic By 2012? Change for the Worse Obama Calls Bush On Troop Withdrawal Plan Geithner Says U.S. Financial Rescue ‘Might Cost More’ (maybe he can locate the $4 trillion missing at the fed and use that) Pension (substantial funding shortfalls) bombs going off Pennsylvania Rep. Rohrer Introduces Tenth Amendment Resolution Previous (3-2-09), analyst chatter: one analyst said investors just can’t take (the wall street fraud/bull sh_) it anymore and sees 5,000 on the DOW (too optimistic); another says worst levels not yet seen, but markets functioning…riiiiight…, more bad economic news, dividend cuts; another says the so-called plan changinging everyday, not stimulus but at best stabilization (doomed to fail), unrealistic expectations (that’s realistic), talks funny assets/accounting (that’s what helped get us here-the fraud), a world of hurt, hope for short-covering rallies…sounds like a plan…riiiiight; another who called the crash says worst bear market in history, if priced in gold market has fallen 80% and more decline to come, says stimulus/stabilization good money after bad and recipients with worst management (fraud, etc.) should rather be allowed to fail, treasury bond/dollar bubble, u.s. stocks still overvalued so sell, precious (money) metals and overseas markets better; and finally, mainstream analyst says gold/bonds but no stocks. Dow industrials fall below 7,000; lowest since ‘97 Buffett says economy in shambles losses on derivatives contracts tied to the stock market. Banks and economy to keep bears' grip on stocks Berkshire reports a 96 percent drop in 4Q profit Chart of the Week: GDP Worse than Expected (at Seeking Alpha) Time to Bury the Markets NYSE Suspends $1 Stock Price Minimum Economics of this Depression [$$] BofA Executive Got Housing Perks (at The Wall Street Journal Online) Madoff seeks to keep NYC penthouse, $62M in assets – Typical kike/jews Dow finishes below 7,000 for first time since '97 (AP) The D-word: The depression has become something worse (AP) [$$] At Merrill, Thinning Herd of Carrion (at The Wall Street Journal Online) AIG Will Receive More Aid, Bigger Loss... NYSE Euronext chief gets 2008 pay valued at $9.2M (AP) Asian stock markets tumble on worsening US slump Sources: AIG to get up to $30B more in Fed aid Moody's lowers ratings on Citi's Japan operations (at MarketWatch) Oil falls below $44 on bleak US GDP, AIG news States' budget woes will outlast the depression israeli media denounced for insulting the Prophet Israeli minister calls for assassination of top arab leader justifying action to eliminate/exterminate nazionist israel/israelis for the sake of world peace and justice as… 8 more civilians die in US drone raid Buffett Says Economy Will Be 'Shambles' in 2009, Likely 'Well Beyond'... BERKSHIRE has worst year... Iran says USA planning 'long-term stay' in Iraq... Kudlow: Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More... Bankers: Stop trashing us... Wall Street slides after CITI-government deal... Sets Single-Day Trading Volume... STRUGGLING STATES LOOK TO UNORTHODOX TAXES... Iran says USA planning 'long-term stay' in Iraq... Warren Buffett Speaks: His Worst Year Ever – If you listened to him recently (I warned you not to) you’re down another 20-30% since his government shill/propaganda talk (did he really give away his fortune – maybe he just decided to lose it and bring everyone with him – senile, I say yes) r A Banana Republic By 2012? Change for the Worse Previous (2-27-09), modest losses relative to reality including news much worse than expected: ‘The economy contracted at a staggering 6.2 percent pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, as consumers and businesses ratcheted back spending, plunging the country deeper into depression. The report released Friday showed the economy sinking much faster than the 3.8 percent annualized drop for the October-December quarter first estimated last month which rallied stocks significantly to keep suckers suckered and commission dollars flowing. It also was considerably weaker than the 5.4 percent annualized decline economists expected’. ‘Economic data remains gloomy. Fourth quarter GDP was revised lower to reflect an annual rate of -6.2% versus a previously estimated -3.8%. The decrease in fourth quarter activity primarily reflected negative contributions from exports, personal consumption expenditures, equipment and software, and residential fixed investment’. US economy suffers sharp nosedive Economy moving in reverse faster than predicted Moody’s predicts default rate will exceed peaks hit in Great Depression Shares tumble across globe as figures reveal U.S. economy shrank 6% in last quarter - the fastest rate in 25 years Regulators close banks in Illinois, Nevada FDIC Approves ‘Emergency’ Fee on Banks to Bolster Reserves Banks and economy to keep bears' grip on stocks FDIC raising fees on banks, adds emergency fee (AP) AIG talks weigh securitizing life policies…..riiiiight!…: source BofA carries loans $44 billion above market value Citi, U.S. Reach Accord on a Third Bailout (at The Wall Street Journal Online) Tax hikes are coming -- but you already knew that Investors await Buffett letter as Berkshire hits 5-1/2 year lows Five reasons buying a home in 2009 is a bad idea Three Top Economists Agree 2009 Worst Financial Crisis/Depression Since Great Depression; Risks Increase if Right Steps are Not Taken (Business Wire) WORST MONTH SINCE 1933 Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage CIA Adds Economy To Threat Updates Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money We Watch Now As Funds Get Vaporized Bob Chapman | Business will go on as usual in Washington and on Wall Street — as corrupt as ever. Moody’s predicts default rate will exceed peaks hit in Great Depression A bigger proportion of non-investment grade companies will go bust in the US and overseas in the coming years than during the Great Depression, according to Moody’s, one of the world’s foremost experts on credit. US economy suffers sharp nosedive BBC | The US economy shrank by 6.2% in the last three months of 2008, official figures have shown, a far sharper fall than had previously been reported. FDIC Approves ‘Emergency’ Fee on Banks to Bolster Reserves Bloomberg | The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will charge U.S. banks a one-time assessment and increase other fees to replenish its insurance fund, adding $27 billion in costs to an industry already hobbled by the financial crisis. Citigroup Shares Down 36% | The Treasury, which has provided a total of $45 billion to Citigroup, left the door open for the bank to seek additional government funding. Previous (2-26-09), Banks lost $26.2 billion last quarter, GM lost $10 billion past month, FDIC problem bank list grows to 252, u.s. broke but $3.5 trillion spending plan and $1.75 trillion budget deficit, etc., ‘FDIC reported that at the end of the fourth quarter its list of troubled institutions grew to 252 from 171 at the end of the third quarter. The latest data indicated January durable goods orders fell a more-than-expected 5.2%. Excluding transportation, durable goods fell 2.5%, which was also steeper than expected. January new home sales fell more than expected to an annualized rate of 309,000 units, which is a record low. Jobless claims continue to rise beyond expectations. Initial claims climbed 36,000 to 667,000 from the prior week. Continuing claims came in just below 5.03 million, up from nearly 5.00 million in the prior reading’. Americans receiving unemployment top 5 million Fannie Mae seeks $15.2B in US aid after 4Q loss $1.75T Deficit, Higher Taxes, "Bogus" Stimulus Obama’s Stimulus Bill is a Banker Contrived Debt Scam Obama’s War Machine Needs $800 Billion For 2009 A $1.75 TRILLION DEFICIT... Small Businesses To Suffer From Obama’s Tax Hike Obama’s Budget: Almost $1 Trillion in New Taxes Over Next 10 yrs, Starting 2011 ETF Advisers: Sell Into Market's Rally Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage CIA Adds Economy To Threat Updates Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money US banks post first quarterly loss since 1990... Record Government Note Auction; Unprecedented amount of debt... More Fraud on Wall Street New York Times | WG Trading Company and Westridge Capital misappropriated funds from state and city pension funds, including Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Previous (2-25-09), suckers’ bear market/short-covering rally based on bull s**t/jawboning alone and bad news much worse than expected into the close to finish well off more realistic lows, to keep the suckers suckered so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Economic/trends/demographics forecaster/analyst Harry S. Dent says this Great Depression will bottom out (with no cognizable uptick till) early 2020’s, unemployment 14%-17%, 50%-60% decline in real estate values, dollar (and market) crash, etc. (close but no cigar), is realistic and starkly dismal in light of the convergance of major bubbles which are deflating. New b.s. talking point the convertible preferreds (all real analysts know to treat as converted said securities to account for dilution - and quite possibly nationalization), and then the so-called ‘stress-tests’ for banks…riiiiight!…read those flat lines. Money managers accused of $550 million fraud (Reuters) TARP Said to Be Ripe for Fraud Existing U.S. home sales, prices drop in January Gannett slashes dividend 90 pct, saving $325M ETF Advisers: Sell Into Market's Rally Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money U.S. Consumer Confidence Collapsed to Record Low The Market Is Not Your Friend Bernanke says depression to linger Housing Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Fall a Record 18.5% U.S. Economy: Consumer Confidence In Record Slump Ron Paul Grills Bernanke: “You Can’t Reinflate The Bubble” Stocks drop as Obama speech and housing data weigh Gold investors make 120pc return in four months Bailout Bank Blows Millions Partying in L.A. How Credit Default Swaps Brought Down the World Economy ‘Black Swan’ Author Sees Trouble Exceeding 1930s Majority Of U.S. States Join Sovereignty Movement, Assert 10th Amendment Rights New World Liberty | With the economy collapsing, it is a very real and immediate danger that the federal government can turn into a completely criminal and fascist government. Rahm Emanuel Doesn’t Pay Taxes, So Why Should You? Kurt Nimmo | Don’t expect Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, Tim Geithner, Evan Bayh, and other minions of the elite to pay their “fair share.” After all, taxes are for the little people. Previous (2-24-09), suckers’ bear market/short-covering rally based on bull s**t/jawboning alone and bad news much worse than expected, to keep the suckers suckered so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Helicopter ben, the guy who said no recession even as now we know we were already in one (actually depression) told by handlers to be upbeat (how ‘bout just beat, burnt out, etc.) delivers still dire but sugar-coated for spin/consumption testimony/b.s.. Severe contraction…as in depression; recession/depression could end by end of year/beginning of 2010 if…and if his grandmother had wheels, she’d be a trolley car. Ridiculous bull s**t that got everyone here in the first place. Analyst chatter: talk about franchise value of banks ruined if nationalized, confidence at all-time low, end of 2010 before any recovery (if at all), orderly process of deleveraging, on defense till trends more believable; another-not there yet as contrarian indicators say otherwise and bearish industry view (newsletters); another- news bad as expected but confidence reading far worse than expected, downward momentum accelerated with occasional relief rallies at best; Housing Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Fall a Record 18.5% U.S. Economy: Consumer Confidence In Record Slump U.S. consumer confidence collapsed this month and home values plunged in December, the latest evidence of a deepening economic slump that will last well into 2010 and beyond. Analysts: New Era Of Chaos Has Taken Hold A wave of economists, investors and other financial experts issued a series of dire warnings concerning the global financial crisis over the weekend, stating that a new era of chaos has taken hold all over the globe. Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money U.S. Consumer Confidence Collapsed to Record Low The Market Is Not Your Friend Bernanke says depression to linger Get Ready for Mass Retail Closings Microsoft says no new cost cuts, shares hit 11-year low Stanford a cog in the U.S. intelligence dirty money laundering machine How the Economy was Lost Unemployment (already past 9% in reality) Will Pass 9% This Year: NABE SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Previous (2-23-09), even the frauds on wall street who should be prosecuted are not buying the rhetoric/b.s. which is very, very, etc., short on detail, ie., spending money the broke u.s. doesn’t have for bailouts, while cutting the deficit in half in 4 years, etc.,…..riiiiiight! What economists / analysts are saying: Zandi - rapidly eroding economy; analyst – ugly…lots of bull s**t, no specifics/details, not pretty picture, equity holders of financials wiped out prospectively; Financial Times Editor – markets at new lows, nationalize or not (defacto they’re already nationalized), AIG trading at 50 cents has received $80 billion in bailout funds and just records loss of $60 billion, dire; bank analyst – downward pressure on financials particularly as dilution taken into account, write-offs, more capital needed, securitization market down, down, down and more capital necessary for writedowns; analyst – vicious bear, no faith in government plan, dismal! . One analyst previously pointed out there has been not one prosecution thus far and the frauds on wall street should be prosecuted and forced disgorgement. Analyst Frank Cochrane looks ahead to 4,000 to 6,000 on the DOW, 700 to 900 on the NASDAQ, and 425 to 625 on the S&P, and says spending/stimulus programs will not work, a point on which he is correct and the low end of his ranges closer to reality. Not Just a Few Bad Apples - Corruption is Systemic in America In case you believe that there are only “a couple of bad apples” in the United States, here is an off-the-top-of-his-head (I could give many, many more including my RICO case) list of corruption by leading pillars of american society. Wall Street slides to 12-year low New U.S. stake in Citigroup will not calm realities/doubts AIG in talks with U.S. government, sees $60 billion loss: source Pinnacle West shares fall on earnings, outlook (AP) LaSalle Hotel shares fall on analyst outlook (AP) Harley-Davidson shares fall on sales worries / realities (AP) Major stock market indexes fall to 1997 levels and much further down to go given realities Micron Tech to cut up to 2,000 more jobs in Idaho Asian shares slump after Dow hits 1997 low (at MarketWatch) The S&P 500's Incredibly Shrinking Market Cap The more they do, the worse it gets Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money The Great “Global Crisis of Maturity” and the New World Order World Financial System In A State Of Insolvency Urban Warfare Drills Linked To Coming Economic Rage Britain faces summer of rage Get Ready for Mass Retail Closings Yahoo Finance | About 220,000 stores will close this year in America. Editorials: Rewriting rules of global finance GLOBAL MARKETS-US stocks slide as bear grips harder, oil falls BACK TO 1997... State sends $1 food stamp checks to 250,000... Obama pledges to slash deficit - after increase... Rosy assumptions... Philadelphia newspapers' owner files for bankruptcy... AIG Seeks More US Funds As Record Loss Looms... Advisers readying bankruptcy financing for automakers... BANK MESS: HSBC CONSIDERS $20B CASH CALL FROM INVESTORS... Sentiment Overview: Pessimists Increase by 18% Stocks: Horrible Start to 2008, Worse in 2009 Ex-Senate aide charged in Abramoff scandal THE FAILED INFLUENCE GAME: Stimulus still aiding K Street Swiss party wants to punish USA for UBS bank probe... Developing... Japan stocks fall after lender seeks bankruptcy (AP) Gov't reportedly mulls dilution, more obfuscation, and more money down the rabbit hole by taking larger stake in Citi (AP) RBS prepares to unveil global downsizing plan Richard Russell: Bear Market Remains in Force Summary of Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2009 The New Depression - The Lessons of the 1930s Markets May be Said to be Oversold (Again), But Decisive Rally Won’t Be Forthcoming as Much Worse and Much More Selling to Come Philly newspaper owner files for Chapter 11 (AP)
Previous (2-20-09), stocks tumbled around the world, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its biggest weekly drop since November, on concern the deepening recession will force banks to seek more government aid. Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index slid to a six-year low, and Japan’s Topix Index declined to the worst level since 1984. Analysts saying impossible to predict bottom in this dismal scenario, nationalization concerns, not bottomed yet, new bear market lows. Art Hogan says greater than 50% is defacto nationalization anyway and nothing left for shareholders, pricing mechanism for toxic assets problematic along with negative capitalization ratios, new lows in offing, gold for capital preservation along with treasuries and money markets. Nader says depression. There’s no end/bottom in sight. One says 2011-2014 earliest for bottoming at best and that nationalization means politization. One analyst previously pointed out there has been not one prosecution thus far and the frauds on wall street should be prosecuted and forced disgorgement. Analyst Frank Cochrane looks ahead to 4,000 to 6,000 on the DOW, 700 to 900 on the NASDAQ, and 425 to 625 on the S&P, and says spending/stimulus programs will not work, a point on which he is correct and the low end of his ranges closer to reality. Not Just a Few Bad Apples - Corruption is Systemic in America In case you believe that there are only “a couple of bad apples” in the United States, here is an off-the-top-of-his-head (I could give many, many more including my RICO case) list of corruption by leading pillars of american society. SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Major indexes fall more than 6 percent for week The Great Depression has Arrived- Collapsing American Dreams Defacto if not dejure nationalization realities hit Citi, BofA Soros sees no bottom for world financial "collapse" Trustee: Some Madoff stock trades were fiction Morgan Stanley offers $3 billion broker bonuses, Wells none (Reuters) Gold Hits $1,000 Ron Paul: Stimulus “Waste of Money” The Inconveninent Debt Gold Tops $1,000, First Time Since March as Depression Deepens Stocks Drop Around the World; Stoxx 600 Falls to 6-Year Low Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money “…The United States was in much better shape, economically, going into the Great Depression than it is now. Prosperity is not coming back to the U.S. as we know it. We are in a lot of trouble…”More Economists Say Crisis Is Worse Than Great Depression Previous (2-18-09), all news much worse than expected as new home starts plunge 17% (-56% year over year), fed/bernanke downgrades economic forecast (rallied stocks when he made same which was bull s**t then as pointed out here) predicting reality of contraction which he says will be protracted, prolonged and increased unemployment (9%) though reality is much worse than they’re once again (falsely) predicting (we’re already significantly past 9% unemployment) and as one economist points out, in an economic freefall. bernanke’s outlook realistically dismal which sentiment is shared by analysts/economists who envision no bottoming until well into 2010 at best because…..this is a DEPRESSION! Previous (2-19-09), ‘Initial jobless claims totaled 627,000, topping the 620,000 claims that were expected. Initial claims were unchanged week-over-week, while the four-week moving average moved up to 619,000 from 608,500. Continuing claims reached record highs of 4.99 million. Economists forecast 4.81 million continuing claims. The four-week moving average for continuing claims stands at 4.84 million, up from 4.75 million. Jobless claims were a drag on the January index of leading economic indicators, which increased 0.4%, exceeding the consensus forecast of a 0.1% increase. An increase in the money supply proved to be the main driver lifting the index, but the increased money supply contributes to inflationary concerns. Producer prices, which measure inflation, increased more than expected in January. The January PPI and core PPI were up 0.8% and 0.4%, respectively.’ Philly fed manufacturing index at 18 year low. The easiest to forecast leading economic indicator was fudged to the upside, though still marginal, with said fake number substantially exceeding all private forecasts (stock prices, auto, housing, employment, etc., all down sharply in subject month…..hence, I don’t think so and fake report). Analysts saying stimulus plan not stimulative, specter of bank nationalization (banks insolvent), loss of pricing power across most all industries, and then the plethora of very bad economic/financial data with breakthrough technical bottoms, looking for violent sell-off/capitulation to provide minimal/short-lived bear market rallies, with some ephemeral opportunities among defensive stock plays, ie., whole foods (pricing power), auto parts (refurbishing old cars). One analyst previously pointed out there has been not one prosecution thus far and the frauds on wall street should be prosecuted and forced disgorgement. Analyst Frank Cochrane looks ahead to 4,000 to 6,000 on the DOW, 700 to 900 on the NASDAQ, and 425 to 625 on the S&P, and says spending/stimulus programs will not work, a point on which he is correct and the low end of his ranges closer to reality. Not Just a Few Bad Apples - Corruption is Systemic in America In case you believe that there are only “a couple of bad apples” in the United States, here is an off-the-top-of-his-head (I could give many, many more including my RICO case) list of corruption by leading pillars of american society. SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Jobless Claims Hit Record High; Inflation Jumps Dow falls to 6-year low as banks slide Wholesale inflation takes biggest jump in 6 months Dow Closes at New Bear-Market Low Dow Theorists spot a bear Rising debt will overwhelm Obama’s effort to rescue the economy Bank debt trades at distressed levels (at FT.com) 5 million Americans drawing jobless benefits AP IMPACT: Jobless hit with bank fees on benefits (AP) FBI tracks down Texas financier in fraud case (AP) FBI finds Allen Stanford in Virginia Stanford curried influence in DC: watchdog group PC makers' shares fall on worsening demand BofA and Citi shares fall on defacto or dejure nationalization near GE shares dip to lowest since 1995 Feb. could be worst month yet for jobless claims Fitch downgrades Marriott on lodging softness (AP) Fed downgrades economic forecast for this year “…The United States was in much better shape, economically, going into the Great Depression than it is now. Prosperity is not coming back to the U.S. as we know it. We are in a lot of trouble…”More Economists Say Crisis Is Worse Than Great Depression Previous (2-18-09), all news much worse than expected as new home starts plunge 17% (-56% year over year), fed/bernanke downgrades economic forecast (rallied stocks when he made same which was bull s**t then as pointed out here) predicting reality of contraction which he says will be protracted, prolonged and increased unemployment (9%) though reality is much worse than they’re once again (falsely) predicting (we’re already significantly past 9% unemployment) and as one economist points out, in an economic freefall. bernanke’s outlook realistically dismal which sentiment is shared by analysts/economists who envision no bottoming until well into 2010 at best because…..this is a DEPRESSION!
Not Just a Few Bad Apples - Corruption is Systemic in America Fed downgrades economic forecast for this year Fed says US economy will get worse in 2009 Bernanke cuts growth view, considers inflation target Hundreds seek their money as Stanford fallout spreads HP cuts full year outlook (Reuters) UBS to pay $780M, open secret Swiss bank records Billionaire's bank customers denied their deposits HP profit slumps 13 pct on weak PC and ink sales [$$] Dow ends little-changed amid slew of grim news (at The Wall Street Journal Online) The Bull's Case for Buying Gold ...starts, permits plunge to new record lows SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME!
Previous
(2-17-09), modest losses relative to reality so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Analysts say not very encouraging, market saying
stimulus will not work, lots of toxic assets still out their, nothing safe in
bear market, oil to $80, gold appropriate hedge against deflation and inflation
and deserves spot in portfolios, no turnaround anytime soon, and tough-sledding
ahead. “…The United
States was in much better shape, economically, going into the Great Depression
than it is now. Prosperity is not coming back to the U.S. as we know
it. We are in a lot of trouble…”More Economists
Say Crisis Is Worse Than Great Depression Joint Chiefs
chairman calls fiscal calamity a bigger threat than any war GM seeks up to $30B in aid, to cut 47,000
jobs (AP)
GM and Chrysler seek nearly $22 billion more in aid
Stocks sink to November lows on
depression fears U.S. charges Allen Stanford with
"massive" fraud Reality about expensive, flawed, failed
stimulus drag stocks down sharply (AP) It’s
Getting Ugly: Economist Says Hoard Gold &
Scotch Paul Joseph Watson | Williams predicts hyperinflationary
depression will mean a $100 dollar bill is worth less than toilet paper. 65 Trillion - U.S.
Financial Obligations Exceed The Entire World’s GDP A “Monetary
Stalingrad” is on its way to Europe Kansas suspends
income tax refunds, may miss payroll Europe’s
economic slump deeper than expected Total desperation by frauds on wall
street. One analyst previously pointed out there has been not
one prosecution thus far and the frauds on wall street should be prosecuted.
Analyst Frank
Cochrane looks ahead to 4,000 to 6,000 on the DOW, 700 to 900 on the NASDAQ,
and 425 to 625 on the S&P, and says spending/stimulus programs will not
work, a point on which he is correct and the low end of his ranges closer to
reality. Indeed, the lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.- Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at
$600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an
infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve
them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so SELL /SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! GM seeks up to $30B in aid, to cut 47,000
jobs (AP)
America's Insolvent Banks (at Seeking Alpha)
Gold Jumps to 7-Month High as
Investors Seek to Preserve Wealth Stocks sink to 3-month lows GM and Chrysler seek nearly $22 billion more in aid
Stocks sink to November lows on
depression fears U.S. charges Allen Stanford with
"massive" fraud Reality about expensive, flawed, failed
stimulus drag stocks down sharply (AP) It’s Getting
Ugly: Economist Says Hoard Gold & Scotch Paul Joseph Watson | Williams predicts hyperinflationary
depression will mean a $100 dollar bill is worth less than toilet paper. 65 Trillion - U.S.
Financial Obligations Exceed The Entire World’s GDP A “Monetary
Stalingrad” is on its way to Europe Kansas suspends
income tax refunds, may miss payroll Europe’s
economic slump deeper than expected WORLD
TO STAY IN SLUMP
Previous(2-13-09), modest losses relative to reality
inasmuch as outlook remains bleak with data (though sugar-coated, inflated,
false to provide more favorable b.s. talk points) dismal as consumer confidence
down sharply ((56.2 vs. 61.2 previous, job losses continue as do earnings
declines/losses, bankruptcies, defaults, etc., so SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Analysts negative regarding level of
uncertainty, skepticism regarding more stimulus/bailout money down the rabbit
hole, longer-term considerations of deflation/hyperinflation, and particularly
the valuation of assets in any of the bailouts, etc.. Oil inventories high
but production cuts will weigh heavily later. [$$] Long-Term Dow Chart Suggests More Downside Large U.S. banks on edge of
insolvency, experts say Regulators close banks in Neb., Fla., Ill., Ore.
GOLD Separating from the US
DOLLAR-Banks insolvent Another $3T of U.S. Debt: Don't Count on
Foreigners to Pay for Our Bailouts U.S. auto suppliers
seek $18.5 billion in government aid How Banks Are Worsening the
Foreclosure Crisis Stocks fall as investors can't shake
economic woes
Huge stimulus bill only the beginning of the end,
substantial investment in Weimar dollar printing presses/operators envisioned:
Obama Will the stimulus actually
stimulate? Economists say no This is 1930 all over again and far worse Federal
obligations exceed world GDP... Euro Zone Sees Biggest
Contraction on Record Previous
(2-12-09), suckers’ bear market rally with 200+ point upswing into the close
based on b**l s**t alone on continuing bad news including increasingly high job
loss/unemployment numbers (though vastly understated), unexpected (euphemistic
for false) +1% January retail, and leak of yet the new latest, greatest,
economic “stimulus”/subsidy, etc., so especially great opportunity to SELL/SELL
INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME! 23% decrease
in wealth in u.s. and much further to go. Fed printing worthless Weimar dollars
like mad (ultimately, inevitably hyperinflationary) while treasury
securities bubble gets bigger (stay away from treasuries – TIPS/treasury inflation
protected securities only). Total desperation by frauds on wall street. One
analyst previously pointed out there has been not one prosecution thus far and
the frauds on wall street should be prosecuted. Analyst Frank Cochrane looks ahead to 4,000 to
6,000 on the DOW, 700 to 900 on the NASDAQ, and 425 to 625 on the S&P, and
says spending/stimulus programs will not work, a point on which he is correct
and the low end of his ranges closer to reality. Indeed, the lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.- Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount at
$600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an
infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve
them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.. Obama’s Stimulus Not Enough to
Avert Biggest GDP Drop Since 1946 Bloomberg | Obama’s
stimulus plan will be insufficient to avert the biggest U.S. economic decline
since 1946 as consumer spending posts its longest slide on record. Marc Faber: U S will default
on debt or enter hyperinflation YouTube | Mr. Faber predicts the Zimbabwe model
for the United States.
Home Prices
Slide 12%, Most on Record, as Foreclosures Drain Value...
Deluge of
Financial Calamities Looming by Mid-March Retail sales rebound, jobless claims
stay high ABCNEWS:
CATERPILLAR CEO contradicts Obama: 'We're going to have more layoffs before we
start hiring again'... Retail sales rise unexpectedly (false report) in
January Wells Fargo charge boosts fourth
quarter loss (Reuters) Oh yet another new mortgage plan news
is bs purported reason for spurring late suckers bear market stock rally
The Market and geithner's Empty Suit No Plan SELL/SELL
INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME! Previous
(2-11-09), suckers bear market rally into the close based upon the
bailout/stimulus fairy tale. Reality speaks for itself so the following latest
news links (job loss/cut anouncements too numerous for inclusion and real
numbers/data worse than false/gov’t/shill reports) plus previous 2-10-09
assessment which follows. ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’ In 2009 were going to see the worst
economic collapse ever, the Greatest Depression, says Gerald Celente, U.S.
trend forecaster. He believes its going to be very violent in the U.S., including
there being a tax revolt. This DEPRESSION will last 23-26
YEARS! Government is POWERLESS! We are facing a Depression that
will last 23-26 years. The response of government is going to seal our fate
because they cannot learn from the past and will make the same mistakes that
every politician has made before them. Economic Rescue Plan: More Debt,
More Dollar Devaluation And More Government Larry Summers: Fox Guarding The
Henhouse
COMEX Crash To Send Gold To
$3,000 Gold jumps 3 pct to 6-1/2 mth
high on risk aversion Highest
Unemployment in Three Decades Economic Rescue
Plan: More Debt, More Dollar Devaluation And More Government PAPER:
European banks sitting on $24 trillion of toxic assets... The Day After:
Stocks Struggle to Overcome Geithner's Stumble, RIM's Warning Why Americans Should Care More About the $2-$5T
Bailout vs. the $789B Stimulus Ireland
to take control of banks... Popular Rage Grows as Global
Crisis Worsens Previously (2-10-09) only modest drop
relative to reality as pointed out by analyst Frank Cochrane who looks ahead to 4,000 to 6,000 on
the DOW, 700 to 900 on the NASDAQ, and 425 to 625 on the S&P, and says
spending/stimulus programs will not work, a point on which he is correct and
the low end of his ranges closer to reality. There seems near unanimity by astute
people in the know that timothy (only the little people
pay taxes) geithner is just not up to the job. Indeed, his apparent Freudian
slip “arrest it” must have been a manifestation of his guilt for purposely
evading taxes [he still after audit and before confirmation has not paid the
taxes he asserted as time-barred for collection (should have been arrested)],
and then there’s the $4 trillion missing at the New York fed (and hence his
prospective arrest), and now even more obfuscation with regard to taxpayer
funds (possible future arrest?). A career bureaucrat, one economist/analyst
points out that tiny tim geithner is not an economist and his so-called plan is
without a plan yet we’re now talking in trillions. Helicopter ben bernanke
paints realistically bleak outlook [though rosier than reality The Economist, a Widely Respected
and Authoritative Financial/Economic Publication: U.S. In Depression, Not
Recession Video:
Crash Will be Worse than Great Depression Great Recession/Depression of 2008, et seq., Worse Than
All Others IMF
warns of Great Depression Stocks Could Drop 20%, No Safe
Haven: Dr. Reality Celente Correctly Predicts
Revolution, Food Riots, Tax Rebellions By 2012 Former chief
economist: U.S. in a depression Merrill Lynch’s Chief
Economist: We’re Already In a Depression Ray Dalio: A Long and Painful Depression - Barron's
Interview Trendsresearch.com forecast for 2009 , job
losses like mad, and don’t believe the understated unemployment rates] seems
flustered, impotent but really should allow alan greenspan his due for the
current debacle. How about charging, arresting, and
prosecuting the perpetrators of the massive fraud instead of using taxpayer
funds to bail them out (especially since they’re now buying the fraudulent,
worthless securities as well as talking funny books – they already have the
funny money being printed like mad). Especially great opportunity to SELL INTO
RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS/SELL WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME! . UBS cuts jobs after fourth-quarter loss (Reuters)
UBS to slash more jobs after reporting
$7 billion loss Blue Chip poll cuts forecast for second
half 2009 (Reuters) GM
cuts 10000 salaried jobs, trims employees' pay Sirius
preparing possible bankruptcy filing: report Stocks sink over 4 percent on bank plan
apprehension U.S. offers $2 trillion bank plan but stocks slump
GE transport unit to cut or furlough
1,550 workers Asia stocks fall amid skepticism over
US bank plan (AP) $3 trillion! — Senate, Fed, Treasury
attack crisis [$$] Foreclosure 'Tsunami' Hits Mortgage-Servicing
Firms (at The Wall Street Journal Online) Senate Passes $819
Billion Economic Stimulus Bill Bernanke Begins
‘Thorough Review’ of Fed Disclosure Stocks Tumble as
Bailout Plan Is Unveiled Previous (2-9-09), suckers’ bear
market/short-covering rally into the close to end mixed based on continuing bad news including
new job cuts/losses including 20,000 from Nissan, etc., so still great
opportunity to SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL
CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Barron’s: Economist/analyst says depression has long way to
go and lot’s of prospective pain Ray Dalio: A Long and Painful Depression - Barron's
Interview . Analysts talk up adage, ‘buy on rumor, sell on news’
regarding ie., bailouts, bailouts, bailouts, with money they don’t have as
total now approaches $9.7 trillion (printing those worthless Weimar dollars
like mad, ultimately/inevitably hyperinflationary), buy gold on dips;
short-covering rally via irrational exuberance induced bailout news, downside
volatility, dilution (stock issued will dilute EPS), stimulus won’t work,
lottery stocks (financials) based on short-term blips based on b.s./bailout
news alone. Ray Dalio: A Long and Painful Depression - Barron's
Interview Financial plan won't include "bad bank": TV
One in eight lenders may fail, RBC says
One Scary Unemployment Chart Bring back the
guillotine… for bankers Geithner says G7
should act ‘promptly’ on economy We’re moving
close to ‘a bailout-based economy’ Protectionism,
unemployment and riots as the global slump deepens Obama’s Change: Expanding the
Power of the NSC and Shadow Government Fitch cuts BofA ratings (at bizjournals.com)
House
Appropriations Chairman on Stimulus Waste: 'So What'... CBO:
Stimulus harmful over long haul... LG Elec to cut $2.2 billion costs as
recession bites (Reuters) Previous
(2-6-09), suckers’ bear market rally based on especially bad news, viz., ‘depression-battered employers eliminated
598,000 jobs in January, the most since the end of 1974, bringing unemployment
rate to 7.6 percent, the grim figures being further proof that the nation's job
climate is deteriorating at an alarming clip with no end in sight.’ Economy so weak oil demand and price
down but oil stocks rallied in the alice-in-wonderland fraudulent world of wall
street. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.- Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount
at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an
infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve
them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so especially great opportunity to SELL/TAKE PROFITS SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! Real Unemployment Figures
Double Those Reported By Labor Department Paul Joseph Watson | 7.6% is actually over 15% - just 9%
shy of figure at height of great depression. Financial Coup d’Etat Rep. Kanjorski: $550 Billion
Disappeared in “Electronic Run On the Banks” U.S. job losses accelerate
Fed's Yellen sees dynamics similar to
Depression Regulators close 3 more U.S. banks
Consumer credit falls more than expected
in Dec. Peter Schiff: Stimulus Bill
Will Lead to “Unmitigated Disaster” Nearly 600K jobs lost in Jan.; more pain
ahead Peter Schiff: Why I'm Right About the Substantial
Further Decline and My Critics Are All Wrong There is a high chance a majority of the States within
the United States of America could file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. There are
currently 46 states with high budget deficits, Arizona being one of them. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.- Analyst
Andre Egleshion puts the amount at $600+trillion) have been addressed
much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain
and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources
necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of
knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so
great opportunity to SELL INTO
RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS/SELL WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME! Previous day’s (2-5-09) news as bad,
ie., record level monthly unemployment numbers much worse than expected
626,000, factory orders down, IMF says no breakthrough in stabilizing financial
sector, etc., but irrational exuberance on bailout talk and prospect of not
only funny money but now funny assets with proposed new accounting rules to
hide financial reality (dismal) so great opportunity to SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/ TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU
STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! U.S. jobless claims surge in
latest week to 626,000 Parallels With the
Great Depression Obama Warns of
‘Catastrophe:’ What Happened to ‘Hope’ and ‘Change?’
NEWS CORP loses $6.4 billion... ...writedowns GE
chief warns on USA depression threat... Watchdog:
Treasury overpaid for bank stocks... USA
Must Spend Trillions they don’t have to prevent a long-lasting
Depression'... GERMAN
BANK FIRST LOSS SINCE WWII OWING TO AMERICAN SECURITIES FRAUD DEBACLE; REJECTS
STATE AID... MCCLATCHY
reports loss on newspapers' decline, plans deep cost cuts...
Treasury
in plans for record debt sale...
Accounting rule change
for more cook the books fraud and bailout hopes spur Wall St. rally New jobless claims surge to 26-year
high Auto suppliers seek rescue as
crisis deepens Art Hogan refers to the prevalence of
bailout rhetoric, financials (among others) under pressure because there have
been twice as many downside surprises on the earnings front with either no
guidance or bad outlook, and cites new trading range for oil at $40 -
$50. Kraft, bank worries knock Wall St; Cisco hit late
Cisco outlook misses expectations
The Bad Bank
Assets Proposal: Even Worse Than You Imagined TIMEWARNER the
troubled, horribly managed media company swings to 4Q loss on hefty
writedown... UBS Boosts ‘09 Gold Forecast to
$1,000 One analyst previously pointed out there
has been not one prosecution thus far and the frauds on wall street should be
prosecuted. Indeed, the lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.- Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount
at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an
infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve
them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.. Another Prominent Economist
Forecasts Depression, Says Gold To Hit $2000 Auto sales hit 27-year low
US auto sales plunge 37 percent to
26-year low Motorola's woes pile up in $3.6B quarterly loss
Disney 1Q profits drop 32 percent;
shares slide Wells Fargo defends, then cancels Vegas junket
Electronic Arts posts wider loss, huge
layoffs announced, hurt by charges Fed Secretly
Lends $2 Trillion to Banksters without Oversight JAPAN: “There has never been
data this bad for any major economy - even in the great Depression”; “We are
literally looking at the unimaginable” Obama predicts more bank
failures California goes broke, halts $3.5
billion in payments Previous,
consumer spending down (-1%), manufacturing activity down, construction spending
down 5.1% and much worse than expected. Problems ahead for bonds (currency
risk, low yield, etc.) including treasuries (bubble), interest rates
prospectively higher, bad real estate market into 2010 as banks play catch up
on foreclosed properties, with top end getting hit and weaker rental market to
boot. “…The
United States was in much better shape, economically, going into the Great
Depression than it is now. Prosperity is not coming back to the U.S. as we know
it. We are in a lot of trouble…”. Personal
bankruptcies soar 33% More Economists
Say Crisis Is Worse Than Great Depression Steve Watson | Ominous headlines have prominent
analysts spelling out disaster. Macy's cuts 7,000 jobs, slashes
dividend Factory decline, consumer spending drops
Morgan Stanley plans up to 4 percent in
job cuts Joint Chiefs
chairman calls fiscal calamity a bigger threat than any war WALL
ST ALREADY DOWN 10% FOR YEAR... Folding dealers shock car buyers with
unpaid liens (AP) GlaxoSmithkline to cut 6,000 jobs: report
The New Economic Reality …do not think we should be incurring trillions
in debt for an ill-conceived or even a properly conceived plan. We cannot spend
that much. OUR PROBLEM WAS SPENDING MORE THAN WE MADE SO THE ANSWER CANNOT BE
THE GOVERNMENT ALLOWING US TO SPEND MORE THAN WE MAKE. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel
laureate, can tell you better than me, and he thinks we are asking for major problems. Florida, Maryland, Utah Banks
Seized Amid Deepening Financial Crisis... Worse than the Great Depression
Charts Predict: Oil May Whip
Back up to $100 Previous session, 31st u.s. bank
to fail, 6th this year, Economy's new plunge is
worst in quarter-century (AP) as GDP falls 3.8% defying
much worse/higher private/real forecasts/estimates; bad economy, bad economic
data, bad real estate market; defensive non-equity investing recommended, ie.,
short-term bonds, single short ETF hedge funds, etc.. One
analyst points out there has been not one prosecution thus far and they should
be prosecuted. Indeed, the lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.- Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount
at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an
infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve
them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.. GDP sees biggest drop in 27 years The Ugly Truth: The American
Economy is Not Coming Back Economy, bank woes drag market to worst
January ever Economy's new plunge is worst in
quarter-century Stocks' January drop isn't welcome sign
for 2009 [$$] January Was Dow's Worst In 113 Years (at The
Wall Street Journal Online) Economy's new plunge is
worst in quarter-century (AP) Worst
January ever for Dow, S&P 500 US Stocks Drop, Capping Market’s Worst January, on Economy
Bloomberg US Stocks Off; Financials, Industrials Lead DJIA Under
8000 MarketWatch US
Economy Will Keep Sliding After Shrinking Most Since 1982 U.S. Eyes Two-Part Bailout for
Banks 46 Of 50 States Could File
Bankruptcy In 2009-2010 Economic crisis has put the
world “on the road to serious social instability” Gold rallies 2 pct on haven
buying, hits euro high Worst
January on Record for Stocks... Previous session, at
least Obama referred to the outrageousness of the wall street perps/frauds who
created the crisis, got wealthier in so doing at other peoples expense/damage,
received taxpayer bailout funds because of what crimes they did, and now
reportedly took huge bonuses ($18 billion) for failed and fraudulent
performance; but if he thinks shaming them into better behavior is effective,
then he is a fool. One analyst points out there has been not
one prosecution thus far and they should be prosecuted. Indeed, the lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.- Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount
at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an
infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve
them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.. All bad news: all-time record continuing
unemployment claims, durable goods orders down more than expected, new home
sales down record levels (-37%), banking system insolvent, long-term treasuy
bubble about to burst, DEPRESSION, etc.; December durable goods orders declined
2.6%, marking the fifth straight monthly decline. Excluding transportation,
orders were down 3.6%. The drop in both readings was also steeper than
expected. In other economic news, December new home sales declined more than
expected, falling almost 15% from the prior month. The supply of new homes is
at an all-time high of nearly 13 months, based on the pace of current sales.
Demand for new homes remains weak as weak labor markets limit buyers. Initial
jobless claims for the week ended Jan. 24 increased modestly to 588,000, which
exceeded the 575,000 claims expected. Continuing claims climbed to 4.78
million, which is the highest level for continuing claims in 40 years. More Economists
Say Crisis Is Worse Than Great Depression Steve Watson | Ominous headlines have prominent
analysts spelling out disaster. Jobless Sheep Fed Reserve Fails to Reflate
the US Banking System Signs of deepening economic woes slam
Wall St.
Americans receiving
jobless benefits hits record... [$$] Ex-Merrill Executives Got Burned
by Madoff (at The Wall Street Journal Online)
Disney plans 5 pct job cuts at ABC group
US new jobless claims
up,continued claims a record Workers receiving unemployment at 25-year
high
Obama calls $18B in Wall Street bonuses 'shameful’ –
Is that it? Is that all there is? What about illegal as the perpetrators of the
massive fraud receive taxpayer bailout funds …for their bonuses.'
Japanese output falls at record pace
Ford posts $14.6B 2008 loss, near $6
billion loss for quarter, still won't seek aid
Merrill Lynch’s Chief Economist: We’re Already In a
Depression Stocks Could Drop 20%, No Safe Haven: Dr. Reality MURDOCH: Crisis Worsening,
'Drastic Action' Needed... Stiffed: Why are bailed-out
banks helping Pfizer buy Wyeth? Previous, suckers’ bear market
ralley based on b**l s**t alone, viz., the now fabled big bad wolf bank to eat
all the so-called toxic debt at taxpayer expense (for
the economy- what a fairy tale), etc., so especially great opportunity to SELL/SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME! All bad news continues: Boeing to cut 10,000 jobs, AOL 700,
Starbucks 6,700 , and on and on, the list is long, continues, and is growing, Warning over
collapse in capital flows Telegraph | The world
economy will shrink this year for the first time since the Second World War,
warns the gloomiest forecast yet delivered by a major international
institutional. MERRILL
LYNCH’S CHIEF ECONOMIST: WE’RE ALREADY IN A DEPRESSION Stocks Could Drop 20%, No Safe
Haven: Dr. Reality World growth ‘worst for 60
years’ Mass layoffs surge in 2008, continue at
rapid pace (AP)
'American consumer can
no longer act as motor of global economy'... Analyst
Ciovacco sums it up thusly: …We have seen many of these bailout inspired "feel
good" days during the bear market. The market cheered the bailout out of
Bear Sterns, only to retrace all the gains while moving to lower lows. When
Fannie and Freddie were bailed out by you and me (taxpayers), the market
"felt good" only to move on to lower lows and more losses. When AIG
was bailout out by - you guessed it, you and me, it was seen as a positive.
Stocks went on to make new lows. TARP was hailed by the markets as the answer
to all our problems - stocks moved higher in anticipation, then made new lows.
When the formerly "big" three were given government loans, the market
breathed a sigh of relief - then, you guessed it, moved lower.Here we go again.
The “bad bank” is this morning’s feel good story. The futures are higher on
“speculation” the government will set up a bad bank. The problem is a familiar
one for money managers - we do not know what the rules are and how the
"bad bank" will be set up. Will it be good for shareholders in banks?
Will it be bad for shareholders in banks? We are not sure because we have no
details on the latest bailout, only speculation and a few sound bites. The
basic goal of the bad bank according to this morning’s news reports is to
"get lending going again". In an overleveraged world, is more credit
really the answer? I thought too much credit was the problem…Previous,
what are they drinking, smoking, snorting on wall street with suckers’ bear
market rally on decisively bad news; viz., consumer confidence
at lowest level ever recorded (37.7) Consumer Confidence Slides to
Record Low in January , 18% plunge in
home prices as per highly regarded Case/Shiller Index, Retail Federation gives
bad retail outlook, layoffs du jour galore, etc., and even as oil plunged on
the bad economic data, oil stocks rallied…riiiiight! What, they worry…hell
no…they work for wallstreet/government. They’ll still get their commissions on
the way down and maybe stick you with their over-priced dogs as well. Same
modus operandi as in January et seq, 2008 when they sucked in the suckers who
this time (fool you twice, shame on you) will deserve to be burned for wall
street commissions/ compensation/ bonuses’ sake as in the year just
passed. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.- Analyst Andre Egleshion puts the amount
at $600+trillion) have been addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but an
infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve
them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so great opportunity to SELL
INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS/SELL WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH
WORSE TO COME! Bank bailout could
cost $4 trillion CEO confidence plunges around the globe
Consumer mood at record lows, house prices
sag Corning slashes up to 4,900 jobs to cut
costs Moody's says could cut GE's triple-A
credit rating Target eliminates positions amid weak
sales Nation's economic mood darkens as more jobs vanish
S&P index shows plunge in November
home prices Yahoo posts higher profit but outlook
weak Yahoo suffers 4Q loss, but tops analyst views
IBM quietly cuts thousands of jobs
Economy in free fall in fourth
quarter Companies in U.S. to Slash More
Jobs, Business Economists Say military spending is crippling
america
Previously,
wall street
frauds’ nirvana (commissioning a large incline then decline then suckers’ bear
market rally into the close incline) at just a program loop, button push, mouse
click away based on bull s**t alone and ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ viz.,
wall street vegetables clamoring ‘feed me, feed me’ with hopes for taxpayer
bailout funds and short-covering bear market rally.. Motek’s experts: One land of fruits and nuts politician
too many for a business hour; there will be no further comments relative to
Frank Motek’s knx1070am caleefornia business hour inasmuch as the show has
become a bit too parochial and limited in scope. 68,000 new job cuts this day alone.
Existing home sales on foreclosures up 6.5% so new home sellers
rally…riiiight!...Preposterous!...Leading indicators allegedly up .3% on
increase in money supply (hyperinflationary)…Riiiiight! NY
financier arrested in purported $400 million scam Reuters
Job-killing depression racks up more
layoff victims Economy in free
fall in fourth quarter FANNIE to Seek
Up to $16 Billion in Emergency Treasury Aid to Stay Afloat... Gloom deepens as 75,000
global jobs go... Gold pushes
above $900 in buying spree; Yellow metal posts all-time highs in euro and
sterling... Economy in free
fall in fourth quarter Previous, mixed finish on relatively
light volume defies reality with another near 200 point swing to the upside on
suckers’ bear market rally into the close to keep suckers suckered on
decisively bad news so
sell into rallies/strength/take profits/sell while you still can since much,
much worse to come. Motek
experts: Art Hogan points to volatility, lots of headwinds for market,
magnitude of the worse than expected results, doubling underestimated earnings
to downside and no guidance indicative of lack of belief in efficacy of
stimulus, and lag effect concerning stimulus which will help but not soon
enough. Investment analyst says P/E ratios for stocks much too pricey, cite
S&P single digits in milder recessions past hence way over-valued at 15 P/E
now. GE profit
down 44 percent Earnings and depression batter world
stocks Britain officially slips into recession Schlumberger 4Q tumbles; sees rough year ahead
Harley to cut 1,100 jobs as 4Q profit falls
Xerox 4Q profit plunges, misses Wall Street view (AP)
2009 Heralds “A New Age Of Rebellion”
Geithner's failure to pay taxes completely intentional
Misguided Spending Will Only Take Us Deeper Into Depression
Poor earnings, opaque forecasts weigh
on stocks (AP) Freddie Mac to ask for billions more in
funds Freddie Mac to ask government for another
$30-$35 billion Brower Piven Encourages Investors Who Have Losses in Excess of $500,000
From Investment in Bank of America Corporation to Inquire About the Lead
Plaintiff Position in Securities Fraud Class Action Lawsuit Before the March
23, 2009 (Marketwire) Capital One results suggest gloomy 2009
for credit card industry Wall Street's culture of entitlement hard
to shake “The stock market has been bluffing investors for decades. The market's
indiscernible jolts have been particularly pronounced and painful in recent
months.” Simon Maierhofer“Unprecedented” Job Cuts in
Works at World’s Largest Automaker [video] Gold Surges VIDEO: THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS
- Montreal Lecture: The Great Depression of the 21st Century Motek experts: Discuss new unemployment
claims at 589,000 match 26 year high, 4.6 million continuing u.e. claims,
wall street strategist (actually just another wall street fraud) thain at last
minutes before BofA bailout/takeover does compensation/bonuses/expenditures and
gets axed, all-time low for housing starts with downsides well into 2010, job
losses trend to accelerate well into second half 2009. Analyst says near term
increased uncertainty, gamble, financials undercapitalized, recommends risk
adjusted/barely below investment grade junk bund funds (high ror) and gold
mining etf’s while warning long-term treasuries to take a hit. Reporter discusses
negative I.T./pc market, spending and job cuts and absence of forward-looking
guidance. Worsening signs for Apple with slowdown in pc sales and reliance on
retail/pricing. Currency expert says problems serious, gov’t needs to raise $2 trillion,
crowd out private sector, increase cost of money, fanny/freddy, government
replacing private mortgage lending with negative implications. Frank
congratulates Paul Kangus on Nightly Business Report 30 year anniversary where
he began his business reporting career. Just The Early
Stages of Economic and Financial Collapse Jobless claims
surge, housing starts tumble Back In Reds After
Economic Data... Bank results
plummet...
Angry customer
rammed bank with pickup... GOOGLE PROFIT SLIPS FOR FIRST
TIME...
MICROSOFT stuns
with profit miss, job cuts... Roubini:
Banking System is “Bankrupt”, “Effectively Insolvent” Previous, wall street
frauds’ nirvana (commissioning a huge decline then a huge incline) at just a
program loop, button push, mouse click away based on bull s**t alone and
‘Little (wall street) Shop of Horrors’ viz., wall street vegetables
clamoring ‘feed me, feed me’ with high (what are they smoking, drinking, snorting)
hopes for taxpayer bailout funds and short-covering bear market rally. The
lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much less solved;
hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but
an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to
solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed,
etc., so great opportunity to SELL
INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME. Motek’s experts: Analyst/options/speculator talks roller
coaster ride on wall street regardless of results, banks still in trouble with
dilution via government takeovers, talks lessons…please, give us a break…, then
risky strategies, ie., risky bonds into riskier equities as if that isn’t that
how we got into the continuing mess. Only-the-little-people-pay-taxes geithner,
a co-architect of the current mess said food lines long and getting longer even
as he dodges taxes (purposefully…after audit and as currently pending
appointment, paid back taxes but scofflawed time-barred taxes owed), while
economist says geithner a scofflaw and stimulus just more pork. Geithner was
“involved in just about every flawed bailout” of the Bush era (On capital hill
they were afraid to ask the question as to where is that missing $4
trillion at he ny federal reserve bank which is defacto complicity) Financial Times editor says dramatic prospective action
will be very unpleasant for shareholders. S&P 500 Q408 Earnings Now Expected to Fall 28.2% Royal Bank of Scotland to Record $41 Billion loss, State Street profits down 71%, Bad news across the
board as Worst Inauguration Day Drop in Dow Industrial History...
Roubini Predicts
U.S. Losses May Reach $3.6 Trillion Prominent
Economist: Crisis Caused By Government Interventions Motek’s
experts: Land
of fruits and nuts actor/entertainer/speculator/sometimes
economist Ben Stein [who previously took a page out of GM’s
playbook by lambasting Fortune Magazine (you might recall some two decades ago
that Fortune warned of GM managerial ineptitude to which GM responded with
outrage and withdrew all advertising and revenue to Fortune thereby in
retaliation - if only they had listened) for saying caleefornia is number 1,
numero uno ….. as prospectively worse real estate market in the nation, the
same Ben Stein who poo-pooed Peter Shiff’s correct prediction of market crash, but did correctly state fed policies
hyperinflationary, and also just criticized Shiff’s recent prognostication ( he
previously had to apologize to Shiff having done wrongly so before- his criticism of Peter Shiff for warning of this debacle
years ago). He throws out a couple of economic terms (demand
pull/cost push inflationary terms) to buttress his criticism of Shiff but he’s
just out to lunch in citing the absence of demand as militating against Shiff’s
inflationary argument since history (and even currently, i.e., zimbabwee) is
replete with examples of low demand and or impoverished nations that have
over-printed their currencies with hyperinflationary results as will occur in
u.s.). Stein should be on the Strip doing stand-up (comedy). He is a joke!] while
commenting on the inaugural address (who cares…what do you expect them to
say…all talk is cheap in fraudulent america particularly) says in need of
specifics, says because he can’t do taxes geithner doesn’t have to, talks gov’t
guarantees on loans except for fraud, bad banks/financials, no bottom. Analyst says things getting worse not better,
bad equity ratios, banks not sufficiently capitalized, unemployment/job losses
yet to hit so worst to come. Economist says recession/depression with 500,000 job losses per month,
housing/stock declines, bad bank bailouts with taxpayer money bad idea/bad
deal, hopes on stimulus. Peter
Shiff says they buy on rumor and sell on
fact/reality, TARP/government spending the problem, new lows for financials,
eventual dollar collapse, bailing out/subsidizing incompetent high paid
executives, get out of any assets connected to u.s., buy gold. Roubini Predicts
U.S. Losses May Reach $3.6 Trillion Bloomberg | U.S. financial losses from the credit crisis may
reach $3.6 trillion, suggesting the banking system is effectively insolvent. Prominent
Economist: Crisis Caused By Government Interventions Steve Watson | People who created the problem are now in charge. Previously,
a big suckers’ depression era rally of near 200 points into the close to keep
suckers sucked in while churning and earning those commission dollars on
decisively bad news (ie., circuit city liquidates/sheds 30,000 jobs, more job
cut announcements, manufacturing down 2%, cpi down .7% on lower gas/oil prices
but watch for inevitable hyperinflationary effect of worthless Weimar dollars
they’re printing like mad, Citigroup
-- after suffering a loss of $8.29 billion, its fifth straight quarterly
deficit -- is reorganizing into Citicorp and Citi Holdings—what a joke; first
will focus on traditional banking around the world, while the second will hold
the company's riskier assets and tougher-to-manage ventures; Bank of America
slides to 4Q loss; gets more ‘down the rabbit hole’ taxpayer money; how
pathetic, unemployment claims at 54,000 for week, 524,000 for prior
month, 4.5 million collecting unemployment/64% increase, foreclosures for December
up 17%/2nd worst on record and high for ordinarily slow December, etc.), U.S. foreclosure filings in 2008 rose 81% from 2007 ,
the lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much less solved;
hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but
an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to
solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed,
etc., so SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS/SELL WHILE YOU STILL CAN
SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME. Retail sales much worse than expected -2.7% and double (100%
worse) expected decline with financial sector usual suspects providing other
dose of bad news, along with beige book which cites weakness in all districts.
Job cuts, job cuts, job cuts, and Jobs cut work schedule with medical leave
till June, 2009. Oil inventories up however since economy is so bad demand has
substantially weakened. What usually either way would have derailed prospective nominees in
past, viz., illegal nannies, failure to pay taxes, etc., has rallied defense of
geithner TAX MESS: Panel delays
hearing on Obama's Treasury choice... , the new york fed man ( Fed
Mob Boss Geithner’s Confirmation Sidelined - too n.y. jewish to fail or be held
accountable, in fairness there’s also trump and alito, and bush and clinton,
etc., all of whom seem impervious to the laws and rules of civilized governance;
owe, oh! how the mighty have fallen, including meaningfully lawless america).
Given the state of the nation, who can rationally defend those experienced with
having caused the crisis in the first instance (there is the matter of course
of campaign finance bribery). HOW
ABOUT ASKING GEITHNER ABOUT THE MISSING $4 TRILLION AT N.Y. FED BANK, WHO STOLE
IT, ETC., AS A PRE-CONDITION TO HIM EVEN BEING CONSIDERED! THROW THEM, THE FED,
WALL STREET FRAUDS, ETC., IN GITMO; THEY’RE CERTAINLY ECONOMIC TERRORISTS, FRAUDS,
THIEVES WHO’VE DONE FAR GREATER DAMAGE TO AMERICA THAN ALL AMERICA’S ENEMIES
COMBINED. Typical wall street jew
madoff will just have to suffer his bail days in his $7.5 million n.y.
penthouse apartment. $700-Billion
Bailout Lacks Transparency, Accountability, Congressional Panel Says Motek’s
(Frank still out but returns on Monday, but will his program still be there
after decimating week) experts: Senile Wedbush from the land of fruits and nuts
to his credit refers to the extent financial scenario by the “D” for Depression
word (he very well may have been around to have experienced the first Great
Depression) and borrows refrain from old Springfield song of ‘ Wishin’ and
Hopin’ ’…riiiight…Start your own company, ie., apple stands (candy, caramel, or
plain); land of fruits and nuts better stick with a taco or tamale stand; hot
dog stands…riiiiight! (Previous) Hugh Johnson says earnings recession and lots
of going out of business signs. Retail analyst says lots of bankruptcy filings
and store closures particularly in select regional/female apparel/jewelry. Hugh
Johnson, analyst, says Alcoa much worse than expected a wake up call, earnings
below expectations, widespread downturn but much more difficult to forecast
than ever (welcomed obfuscation so they can talk the talk and sucker you), oil
speculators still in play, bailouts old news but enormous deficits/problems
therefrom. Investors Business Daily editor, spend and cut taxes, TARP money not
enough, $485.2 record deficit, deficits will continue to grow, will catch up to
u.s., long term better…riiiiight…how ‘bout in long term as per keynes we’ll
all be dead…if you’d have listened to equities oriented IBD you’d probably be
broke by now even if you were as they seem to presume a trader. Analyst
Gabriel Isdumb says eventually things will be better…yeah…riiiiight!…right
after the depression has run it’s course. Autonation
expert says the worst conditions he’s ever seen
which he further describes as appalling. All news bad and worse than expected
(ie., Alcoa, Citi which received $45 billion in bailout funds and lost $20
billion, etc.). Former chief economist: U.S. in a depression The U.S. Economy is being
Marched to the Gallows Andrew Hughes | Predictions of hyperinflation, dollar decline and
civil unrest. No Brainer: Bankster Bailout is
Unconstitutional Kurt Nimmo | A world system of financial control in private
hands will begin the process of delivering feudalism to the American people. The Economy Is in a Depression The
economy contracted at about a 5% annual rate in the fourth quarter. Bank of America to receive
additional $20 billion International Herald Tribune | The second lifeline brings the government’s total
stake in Bank of America to $45 billion and makes it the bank’s largest
shareholder, with a stake of about 6 percent. Counterfeiting? Bank of England
able to print money without having legally to declare it Bank of America to Get Billions
More From Treasury Washington Post | The Treasury Department plans to invest billions
of dollars in Bank of America to help the company absorb troubled investment
bank Merrill Lynch. Citigroup -- after suffering a
loss of $8.29 billion, its fifth straight quarterly deficit -- is reorganizing
into Citicorp and Citi Holdings. The first will focus on traditional banking
around the world, while the second will hold the company's riskier assets and
tougher-to-manage ventures. Bank of America slides to 4Q loss; gets more ‘down
the rabbit hole’ taxpayer money. Bernanke: U.S. Financial Crisis
Worse than Japan’s Lost Decade, but We’ll Still Copy the Japanese Playbook,
Even Though It Didn’t Work Nortel files for bankruptcy, shares
plunge , (Reuters) $700-Billion Bailout Lacks
Transparency, Accountability, Congressional Panel Says U.S. Retail Sales Decline for
a Sixth Month Dismal holidays over, but retail outlook
still dim , CITIGROUP Stock Falls Below Critical $5 Level... 'Long-term transformation'...
'Swift decline in
America's influence'... Stocks tumble as worries grow
about banks... JPMorgan CEO predicts bleak year:
report (Reuters) JPMorgan's
chief executive predicts that the financial crisis will worsen this year, in an
interview with the Financial Times newspaper published on Thursday. Sen Dorgan: Federal Reserve Refuses To Identify Recipients
Of 2 Trillion In Emergency Loans Throw them, the fed, in
gitmo; they’re certainly economic terrorists, frauds, thieves who’ve done far
greater damage to america than all america’s enemies combined. Our
Collapsing Economy According to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, nonfarm payroll employment declined by 3,445,000 from December 2007
through December 2008. Marc
Faber: “I Think it Might Be Far Worse [Than the Great Depression] Precisely
Because of the Interventions” by the Government The latest edition
of Marc Faber’s latest newsletter fell off two separate trucks in my ‘hood, and
I thought the most useful bits were Faber’s observations (honed from many years
of seeing the world from Asia) that just because a market has gone down a ton
doesn’t mean it can’t go down a great deal further. U.S. Economy May Shrink 1.5% in 2009 as Depression Stymies
Fed Economists slashed forecasts for U.S. growth in 2009 and
projected Federal Reserve policy makers won’t be able to start raising interest
rates until 2010, according to a monthly Bloomberg News survey Treasury: Deficit
hits new record in just 3 months... TREASURY PICK
FAILED TO PAY TAXES Bond Bubble Looms ‘The key here is to
stay the course and not to be sucked into the hype; don’t let your eyes deceive
you. Printing money non-stop for a year (or longer, I don’t see him stopping
any time soon) will have consequences (meaning
hyperinflation/worthless dollar, etc.).’ Those commerce
department job numbers in prior months revised upwards (I warned of the falsity
of same even as wall street frauds rallied on the false data). 2.6 million
jobs lost in 2008, worst since 1945. Motek’s experts:
Financial analyst says treasuries at 0%, money markets near 0%, so seek
companies with pristine balance sheets and dividends, negative doldrums as
market (irrationally) shrugs off bad news, no magic wand from new president,
cross your fingers and hope…..riiiiight! Economist discusses jobs report, says
lagging indicator and rough time, savings up but spending down, weakness
through at least first quarter of 2010, lots of pain ahead, real estate prices
continue decline through coming year, -20% to –25% with land of fruits
and nuts in worst case scenario. Another economist also discusses continued
declines for real estate with land of fruits and nuts in worst case camp,
foreclosures a lot higher with peak at 20%, and cites (probable) decade long
stagnation as Japan in ‘90’s. US Debt is really 53 Trillion. Can you say Dollar Collapse
then Massive Hyperinflation Coming? Roubini
Joins Faber and Rogers in Saying Bubble in Treasuries Will Likely Burst Now the U.S. porn industry seeks $5billion bailout
Citi, Morgan Stanley in brokerage talks;
Rubin quits $$] Rubin Departs Citi on a Low Note
(at The Wall Street Journal Online) Agency warns on automakers' pension
funds: report Jobless rate at 16-year high as payrolls plunge
Job losses hit 2.6 million as layoff pain
deepens Wall Street falls on job woes, Citi
Stocks slide after rise in unemployment rate (AP)
Manufacturing slumps at fastest
pace since 1981 More people collecting
unemployment benefits Depression more severe than
thought: Fed’s Rosengren Horrible
data and again worse than expected but suckers’ bear market rally into the
close based on bull s**t and bailouts (with money they don’t have) provides
excuse for irrational exuberance and mixed close. Weak retail and
unemployment at 26 year high.Motek’s experts: Analyst points to
dire warnings across the board while real estate/housing/building analyst says
2009 will be bad year with 20% declines in real estate values as unemployment
goes higher while another real estate analyst says not a good time to buy a
home. U.S. companies
face $409 billion pension deficit: study U.S. debt is losing its appeal
in China LET'S PRINT MORE WORTHLESS
MONEY! Obama Bets Big on
Big Government... Dems Raise
Doubts on Plan... A
worse-than-expected ADP employment report indicated 693,000 jobs were lost in
December far above the expected 493,000 and a warning from Intel (INTC 14.44, -0.93) underpinned early
weakness with typical suckers’ rally into the close to finish off lows. Motek’s experts: Analyst says first 5
days of trading in January, 2009 historically a bad sign, gloomy employment
scenario with 693,000 jobs lost in December, economic contraction in major way
coupled with poor earnings, 1.2 trillion budget deficit at 6.8% of GDP or worse
so tough to make bull case, defensive position, low allocation to equities with
high capitalization/consumer staples. Oil analyst points to weak economy/jobs
data, absence of leveraged money chasing oil and says $60 oil soon. Economist,
part of the corrupt fed team discusses job losses. Final expert discusses
demographic trends behind and causative of cycles as 1929, 1968, and now, baby
boomers, bleak outlook, economically shot their wad in terms of ability to
avoid depression. Analyst
Predicts 40% Unemployment, No Recovery until 2015 Bear rally over, the great dying begins in corporate
America Wall Street
falls sharply on employment realities, realistically bleak corporate outlooks Budget deficit to hit $1.2 trillion in
fiscal 2009 Intel warns second time on quarter
U.S. says Madoff sent diamonds in
violation of bail Profit warnings, poor job outlook weigh on stocks
(AP) Yes, fed now using the ‘D’ for
depression word which means we’re in a depression (after all, they were saying
no recession when we were already in one). What are they still
drinking, smoking, snorting on wall street with suckers’ bear market rally into
the close. They’ll still get their commissions on the way down and maybe stick
you with their over-priced dogs as well. Same modus operandi as in January et
seq, 2008 when they sucked in the suckers who this time (fool you twice, shame
on you) will deserve to be burned for wall street commissions/compensation/
bonuses’ sake as in the year just passed. Service sector (90% of american
economy, viz., bull s**t),
factory orders, pending home sales down (worst on record) and much worse than
expected. Some
reality: After a short modest rally in the stock markets, lasting at best
if at all, 1 to 4 months after Obama is inaugurated as President, people will
realize that Obama’s stimulus plan isn’t going to work. Specifically, it will
become obvious that we’re in a Great Depression, and that nothing that Bushco
or Obamaco did can get us out of it (it may take a while longer for people to
realize that what both administrations did actually made the financial crisis
much worse). At that point, the stock market
will crash like a waterfall. Mish thinks the crash will leave the S&P at 600.
Robert McHugh thinks the crash will drive the S&P to 500 or
lower (in McHugh’s worst-case scenario, the S&P could end up at 50). At
around the time of the crash, the bubble in long-term treasuries will burst.
Retirees and other people who have socked away their money in treasuries will
get hit hard. The government itself will start massively buying its own
long-term treasuries. Motek’s experts: Art
Hogan in straight-shootin’ mode (as opposed to wall street shill mode) focuses
(but only briefly) on fed’s depression/deflation words, says quite correctly
that the focus has been on the cure (ie., bailouts) rather than the illness,
lots of badnews, dismal earnings, etc., only slightly better at best in second
half (I don’t think so), stay away from consumer discretionary cos., metals
higher, market may be higher at year end (not likely), but rocky road till then
(and beyond). Financial times editor says shocked by fed’s 0% move, very scary
scenario, the specter of depression/deflation looms large, much too much
optimism over Obama prospective stimulus plan. Economy in grip of recession/depression, reports show
Stocks
end higher on hopes for economic rebound Alcoa to cut 13 pct of global work force
The Secular Bear Market Continues Willem
Buiter warns of massive dollar collapse Bank Of England Policymaker Predicts Unprecedented Dollar
Collapse Car
sales plunge heralding bleak 2009 but car stocks rally; construction
numbers down but building stocks rally. Will We Have a Good 2009? Not If History Is Any Guide Stocks slip on telecom and financials; Apple jumps on
‘jobs alive’ news…riiiiight! Obama
plunges into econ talks, borrows a page from bush economic strategy of spending
money you don’t have and cutting taxes, and predicts approval Consumer bankruptcies jumped 33% in
2008 and much worse expected in 2009 including commercial bankruptcies far
greater and larger than in 2008
[$$] Don't Get Too Happy About the New Year Check This Graph-Proof we are going into a Great
Depression. Notice MASSIVE job losses. Is there really any doubt any longer?
The Economist, a Widely
Respected and Authoritative Financial/Economic Publication: U.S. In Depression,
Not Recession Don’t
forget their 2008 talk as now for 2009. The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
especially since none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of
fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much less solved;
hence, virtually all problems remain and there is but
an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to
solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed,
etc., so great opportunity to SELL
INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME. More dismal news for lunatics on
wall street to fraud on: ISM factory utilization index fell to the lowest level
in over 28 years. Factories
mired in worst slump in 28 years
They’re printing worthless Weimar dollars like mad for the celebrated bailouts,
bailouts, bailouts, and stimulus so stimulating. Motek’s experts: First expert
talks up superstition, the so called ‘january effect’ saying if positive this
month then the worst case scenario is –5% for DOW/S&P for the year, so the
frauds on wall street are really shootin’ for the moon (lunatics) for the
effect, still in recession but bear market rallies not bad but not for buy and
hold crowd, dump non-performers, favors medical devices/health care related,
disfavors autos/financials. Another expert who scans/digests newsletters says
market/newsletter euphoria contra-indicated, new lows are coming, the best
funds in 2008 were short or cash. News
typically bad: Difficulty tracking and monitoring bailout money…Daaaaah!
Understated unemployment numbers still at recession/depression levels (4.65
million); retail correction-bankruptcies, closings, fewer stores. Motek’s experts: Peter Shiff says it’s not the disease but
the government cure that will kill us, dire forecast for 2009 and beyond-inflation,
companies going out of business, commodity prices higher, world’s largest
debtor america is bankrupt, more borrowing/spending their failed prescription,
bleak picture for dollar the value of which will be halved and high probability
that the decline will be 70-90%, gold higher and $2000 gold in not so distant
future, oil much higher and $200 oil in next couple of years, stocks will
continue to decline, on the long side he favors quality EU, Asia securities and
precious metals particularly monetary metals gold, silver. Oil analyst says oil too cheap, geopolitical factors,
(israel war mongering, war crimes, etc.; Russia/Ukraine dispute-cut gas
supplies affecting Europe), oil to $60-70 rather quickly, gasoline demand
anemic but oil price the factor. It’s time
for ben stein to resign himself to just a land of fruits and nuts
actor/entertainer/speculator as he lambasts Shiff’s prognostication ( he
previously had to apologize to Shiff having done wrongly so before- his
criticism of Peter Shiff for warning of this debacle years ago). He throws
out a couple of economic terms (demand pull/cost push inflationary terms) to
buttress his criticism of Shiff but he’s just out to lunch in citing the
absence of demand as militating against Shiff’s inflationary argument since
history (and even currently, i.e., zimbabwee) is replete with examples of low
demand and or impoverished nations that have over-printed their currencies with
hyperinflationary results as will occur in u.s.). Stein should be on the Strip
doing stand-up (comedy). He is a joke! Suckers' bear
market rally into the close to keep the suckers suckered on NEWS MUCH WORSE
THAN ALREADY DISMAL EXPECTATIONS ACROSS THE BOARD: S&P/Case-Shiller Composite Index,
October home prices were down 18% year-over-year, the largest drop on record.
According to the U.S. Conference Board, consumer confidence dropped more than
expected to an all-time low in December AT 38%. Record number of bankruptcies
and particulary hard hit commercial sector in coming year, ie., malls, retail,
etc.. Worse stock market declines for the year since 1931 (Great Depression)
and worse to come in 2009 despite suckers’ bear market rallies to keep you
sucked in. Put these wall street frauds in jail and force disgorgement of their
fraudulent gains. There are loads of able new grads and job seekers who can
take the place of the wall street frauds who caused the crisis owing to their
own avarice and continue the coverup to get taxpayer bailout funds. The markets
should be efficient and predicated on rational valuation which is totally
absent in america’s fraudulent, manipulated markets. Absent prosecution and
disgorgement in these ongoing multi-trillion dollar fraud schemes (new ponzi
scheme uncovered in addition to madoff, which are just tips of the iceberg of
multi-trillion dollar frauds), america will not be worth the paper the
worthless Weimar dollars and worthless securities denominated in same are
printed on. Non-Motek expert: markets to fall into 2010 or worse case,
later. Motek
experts: They discuss dismal news, for year DOW-35%, NASDAQ-42%, S&P-40%,
$7-10 trillion in wealth destroyed, second-half inflation from printing
worthless Weimar dollars/stagflation; another expert, consumer has
collapsed, 2009 will be very tough year for autos; a real estate analyst says
2009 will be a very tough year and hopefully we’ll get through
this…..riiiiight!…I don’t think so…Almost
one in 10 Floridians are on food stamps Online
holiday sales fall 3 percent
Madoff liquidation trustee receives $28M for costs (AP) Charlotte, NC, home values post record decline (AP)
Wrong Great Depression Lessons Will Haunt Equities in 2009 73,000
retailers to close in first half of 2009, Stocks Rally Bloomberg | U.S. retailers face a wave of store closings, bankruptcies and
takeovers starting next month as holiday sales are shaping up to be the worst
in 40 years There’s No
Pain-Free Cure for Recession/Depression Schiff: Government Interference Only Makes The Problem
Worse Paul Joseph Watson | Establishment talking heads still pushing useless
and destructive bailout. A
Ponzi Scheme Within A Ponzi Scheme Bob Chapman | Dwarfing the Madoff Ponzi scheme is the Social
Security Ponzi scheme that has been looted (the iou’s) and is hopelessly
insolvent. This on top of previous suckers' bear market rally into
the close with 100+ point swing to the upside to keep the suckers suckered.
Time for prosecutions of and disgorgement of ill-gotten multi-trillion dollar
gains from the frauds on wall street; madoff is just the tip of the iceberg; all news
decisively bad and worse than even dismal expectations except that the frauds
on wall street continue their familiar suckers cheer for bailouts, bailouts,
bailouts so SELL INTO STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS/SELL! Motek
experts: At best, bear market rally, his accounts 20-25% cash, can make bearish
argument since still looking at writeoffs, government still must sell bonds to
help finance bailouts, municipal bonds troublesome as iou’s might extend
maturities, don’t try to catch falling knife in this market but some high
quality bonds may offer value, dollar to take hit (they’re printing worthless
weimar dollars like mad-hyper-inflationary); Oil expert says overshot to
downside and will see turn-around in oil; U.N. Security Council condemns
massacre by zionist israel. Pros Say:
Employment Collapse is Coming Holiday Sales Slump to Force U.S. Store Closings,
Bankruptcies Manufacturing,
Home Prices Sank: U.S. Economy Preview Holiday Sales Tumble as US Consumers Reduce Luxury
Purchases Bleak
economic picture emerges from new data Retail Sales Plummet Holiday Sales Tumble as US Consumers Reduce Luxury
Purchases Bleak economic picture emerges from new data The frauds on wall street say they are
entitled to the obligatory santa claus rally and attempt to keep you suckered
in for their commissions sake with small gains on bull s**t/fraud alone in
holiday shortened light trading, but reality says every day the market’s above
2,000-5,000 on the DOW, 1,000-1,300 on the NASDAQ, and 500-600 on the S&P
is a ‘santa clause rally, so SELL INTO STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS/SELL as all
news decisively bad and worse than even dismal expectations except that the
frauds on wall street continue their familiar suckers cheer for bailouts,
bailouts, bailouts, with ephemeral short-covering to lock in year-end gains for
window dressing and much, much worse to come. Unemployment up more
than expected at 26 year high and consumer spending down for fifth month in
a row. In their typically corrupt way, scandal-scarred commerce department
provides fake data for b.s. talking points far better than private economist
estimates but still decline of 1% in durable goods new orders. Oil's slide came in the face of a surprise
inventory draw, which suggests stronger-than-expected demand for the commodity
as Department of Energy reported that oil inventories for the week ending Dec.
19 decreased by 3.10 million barrels. Analyst:
One Third Of Banks To Collapse In 2009 U.S. Economy: Home Prices Fall At Depression Pace Recession/depression
deepens, countries boost spending Previously,
just modest losses relative to reality so SELL INTO
STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS/SELL as all news decisively bad and worse than
even dismal expectations except that the frauds on wall street continue their
familiar suckers cheer for bailouts, bailouts, bailouts, with much, much worse
to come. Existing
home sales plunged to a rate of 4.49 million last month, down 8.6 percent from
October, and worse than economists predicted. Total sales, not calculated as an
annual rate, fell 17 percent in November from a year earlier to 322,000, sales
of newly built homes fell 2.9 percent from October to a pace of 407,000 units,
the slowest rate in nearly 18 years. Madoff investor found dead of suicide.
Standard & Poor's lowered the unsecured debt rating of General Motors (GM 3.01, -0.51) to C from CC, even
though the government plans to provide GM with financing and Moody's lowered Ford's (F 2.19, -0.40) credit rating to Caa3.
Final third quarter GDP data showed economy contracted at an annualized rate of
0.5%, unchanged from the prior reading though personal consumption component
was down 3.8%. Motek’s experts: actor/speculator/entertainer/sometimes
economist Ben Stein takes a page out of GM’s playbook by lambasting Fortune
Magazine (you might recall some two decades ago that Fortune warned of GM
managerial ineptitude to which GM responded with outrage and withdrew all
advertising and revenue to Fortune thereby in retaliation - if only they had
listened) for saying caleefornia is number 1, numero uno ….. as prospectively
worse real estate market in the nation, the same Ben Stein who poo-pooed Peter
Shiff’s correct prediction of market crash, but does correctly state fed policies
hyperinflationary; LA economist jumps on the Ben Stein out-to-lunch bandwagon
and says only 10%, not 25% (as consensus predicts), decline for
caleefornia…..riiiiight…..take that to the bank; broad donates to MOCA; show
biz expert- strike fear; and Shreve of IBD flips yet again-if only we were all
traders…but if you had followed his every whim, only the frauds on wall street
would have made out with substantial commissions in the ups/downs. IMF warns of Great
Depression 100% chance of depression in US Depression
Hits Detroit: Average home price $18,513 - Unemployment rate 21% U.S. Home Resales Fall; Prices Drop by Record 13.2%
Congressman: “If We’re Not Very Lucky Or If We Don’t Do
Everything Right, We Could Easily Have A Ten- Or Fifteen-Year Depression”
World
faces “total” financial meltdown: Bank of Spain chief Previous suckers bear market rally
into the close with 150 point swing to the upside based on bull s**t and fraud
in the inducement alone to keep the suckers sucked in and commission dollars
flowing for modest losses relative to reality so SELL INTO
STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS/SELL as all news decisively bad and worse than
even dismal expectations except that the frauds on wall street do their
familiar suckers cheer for bailouts, bailouts, bailouts, with much, much worse
to come. Motek’s experts:Economist says
economy in full-out recession, aggregate demand down across the board, abusers
are not lubrication for economy so should not get bailout, another 25% down for
real estate prices as foreclosures also will continue but lower prices will
eventually stimulate demand, fed focused now on long-rates, cites
housing/finance/consumer debacles and no recovery till at least into 2010 at
best (I don’t think so); oil expert says contract now February delivery on
expiration of January contract and flood of selling on expiring contract
temporarily depressed prices, oil more expensive in future, discusses boom/bust
cycle (we’re in the bust part); another cites high redefault rate on modified
mortgages and more foreclosures; auto analyst points to Toyota showing first
loss since 1941 inception, global downturn with no nation spared, reckoning for
15-20 years of bad decision-making, 2009 very grim, 2010 at best for even
minimal improvement (I don’t think so); Online e-commerce expert cites first
flat to down year of online retail sales growth; downgrades GM, american
Express, Ford, etc.. World
faces “total” financial meltdown: Bank of Spain chief Housing
crisis worsens as economy weakens Japan recession deepens, China cuts rates
Great Recession/Depression of 2008, et seq., Worse Than All
Others AP Impact: Wall Street still flying
corporate jets; indeed, with all the bashing of auto rank and file employee
pay, the reality is that american executives, among the least able, least
talented in the world, along with fraudulent wall street are grossly overpaid
and far exceeding that of their far more able foreign counterparts (AP) Where'd the bailout money go? Shhhh, it's a secret (AP) Housing
crisis worsens as economy weakens
Ratings Agencies Play Reality With Multiple Downgrades in
Banking Sector (at Seeking Alpha) Previous
mixed to modest losses relative to reality so sell into strength/take
profits/sell as all news decisively bad and worse than even dismal expectations
except that the frauds on wall street do their familiar suckers cheer for
bailouts, bailouts, bailouts. Motek’s analyst/options expert predicts
controlled bankruptcy for at least GM (maybe more), cites Fitch downgrade of
GM’s credit/default rating and says GM within weeks of default. Oil analyst
cites recession, week demand, over-supply also stating storage facilities full
and resorting to offshore tankers to store excess oil. Media analyst says
economic model for newspaper/media business broken. Rogers: The Incompetent Senile
and Vegetables Have Turned A Recession Into A Depression He Saw the Crash Coming: What Gary Shilling Sees for
2009 Yes, Shilling’s using
the d for depression word so If video unavailable, here for avi rendering SCROOGE
BIDEN: ECONOMY IS 'ABSOLUTELY TANKING' Previously,
recession/depression level 554,000 new unemployment claims (I’m sure in
reality, far worse but still bad) pre-Christmas so wait till the post-Christmas
numbers are out – nowhere to hide those but they’ll try. Motek
scraping bottom of barrel for second day in a row and comes up with another
land-of-fruits-and-nuts man, the senile wedbush who discusses his comrade
madeoff with other peoples money, poo-poos the purported amount, says market
not doing badly considering the dismal news (at least he is lucid enough to
realize dismal - market should be between 2,000 to 5,000 on the DOW, 500-600 on
S&P, 1,100 to 1,300 on NASDAQ based upon the dismal but real and probably
far worse than reported data) and points to auto scenario, oil plunge, and madoff
fraud for doldrums. Oil analyst says pressure on commodities generally,
liquidation on expiration of January (2009) oil contracts and liquidation of
positions, but February (2009) contracts back to $40+ rather quickly, and
points to decreased current and prospective refinery capacity on thin to low
margins. A
Most Desperate Move by the Fed Dollar’s Slump Erases Months Of Solid Gains “The Biggest Bubble Of All . . . U.S. Government Debt” Video:
Crash Will be Worse than Great Depression Editorial: What ails global financial system ‘The $50 billion investment fraud to which
the respected New York financier and former NASDAQ Chairman Bernard L. Madoff
has allegedly confessed, may prove to be the paradigm for all that has gone
wrong with the international financial system. It points up the greed,
incompetence and woeful wishful thinking that have all combined to produce
economic meltdown and plunge the world into recession. Most staggering is the
stupidity of both regulators (and government corruption/venality vis-ŕ-vis wall
street) and professional investors in failing to spot that for at least a
decade, at the heart of his hedge fund operations, Madoff was running a pyramid
scheme. This relied on new investment funds to pay out market-beating returns
to existing investors…..’ THIS IS
WALL STREET EVERY DAY WITH THEIR EATING AWAY AT OTHER PEOPLES MONEY TO THE TUNE
OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS A DAY (BILLIONS A YEAR AND NOW BILLIONS IN
TAXPAYER BAILOUT FUNDS FOR THEIR FRAUD) BASED ON NOTHING BUT BULL S**T AND
FRAUD! U.S.
Records Huge Current Account Deficit Fed unleashes
greatest bubble of all Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper believes a
depression is COMING Peter
Schiff new VIDEO on the Coming Collapse Dec 16 Swiss gold bullion in huge demand as trust in banks dives
Goldmine
Sachs: Bank’s bonuses cut to a ‘mere’ Ł142,000 EACH Investment bank /taxpayer
bailout funds recipient Goldman Sachs is to pay Ł4.3billion in bonuses to its
City workers. Dollar Falls Most Against Euro Since 1999 Debut on Fed’s
Rate Dollar Declines to 13-Year Low Against Yen After Fed Rate
Cut Federal
spending soars 25% -- even before bailout... Previous, building permits declining 15.6% to a
seasonally adjusted annual rate of 616,000 (below the consensus of 700,000), housing starts data for
November declined 18.9% from the prior month to an annualized rate of 625,000
units, which was below the consensus of 736,000 and are 47% below the year-ago
level, fed desperation (they don’t know what they’re doing – remember their
pronouncement -no recession- when we were already in one), Weimar dollar down
sharply, Federal Reserve sets stage for Weimar-style
Hyperinflation , etc., so sell
into these suckers bear market rallies/strength/take profits while you can
since much, much worse to come. Economist Brusca “the economy is sinking fast”, FOMC states that “data indicate deteriorating labor conditions and
declining consumer spending, business investment, and industrial production,
and the outlook for economic activity has weakened further”, F. William Engdahl “The US economy is in a depression free-fall of a
scale not seen since the 1930’s”, Kellner cites
‘helicopter ben’ (bernanke), BILLIONS
VANISH IN EPIC HEDGE FUND FRAUD Downturn Spurs “Survival Panic” for Some in the U.S. Motek
Experts: Art Hogan more realistically candid than
usual cites all bad news, very difficult times, near term lows but no recovery
for economy, hope is that second half of 2009 is better than first half (NOT!),
cites lost decade in Japan with 0% interest rates, negative growth through
fourth quarter 2009, longest recession (depression) in modern times, market
hopefully better in second half of 2009 anticipating better 2010 (NOT!),
bottoming of energy/commodities, worth looking at consumer goods/staples
focused on what you need versus what you want; economist points to bankruptcies
up, housing starts down; Zandi of Moody’s
says not getting better but worse, most credit card holders will not benefit
from rate cut; currency expert says interest
rate cuts increasingly irrelevant, fed buying bonds driving asset prices higher
and displacing private sector with prospectively negative results; and
finally, Peter Shiff cites fed action as irresponsible, destroying value of
money, bear market, money not worth anything, negates any rise in paper
dollar-denominated securities (SELL), says buy gold because of u.s.
hyperinflation. Previous, news worse than bad and to get much worse but full
moon manifest on lunatic asylum for the criminally insane wall street. More banks reveal Madoff exposure The
‘while you can’ part of sell/take profits manifests and will worsen Citadel suspends redemptions from two
hedge funds Stupidity not limited to u.s. where fraud is
rampant Geneva banks lost more than $4 billon
to Madoff: report This modest retreat and previous suckers
bearmarket rally on bull s**t alone with familiar mantra still ringing today;
viz., everything but the facts: forget the layoffs Coming soon to U.S., 1 million jobs lost every month: Report , forget the foreclosures Foreclosure
Storm Will Hit US in 2009 as Loan Changes Fail Bloomberg
, forget declining retail sales Retail
sales post big drop in November , forget the $1 trillion
record budget deficit , trade deficits, worthless fraudulent securities, lower
earnings/guidance/outlook, the topic (b.s. talking point) de jour for the
lunatic (yes, full moon) frauds on wall street is bailouts, bailouts, bailouts
(not to mention there’s no real money to pay for same – print/create more
worthless Weimar dollars – hyperinflationary Federal Reserve sets stage for Weimar-style Hyperinflation
– even now despite fake reports and worse to come), and
from well respected wall street fraud madoff, "it's all just one big
lie" and that it was "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme," which is
fraudulent wall street in a nutshell. Madoff fraud case raises questions
about SEC (AP) and even bigger questions about fraudulent
wall street and their washingtonian/federal/state facilitators. Builders sentiment reading at 9 (anything less than 50 is
negative/pessimistic). Motek’s legal expert
correctly points to funds problems with meeting redemptions and paraphrases
J.P. Morgan’s immortal words concerning investing by saying as is particularly
relevant now, It’s not return on investment, but return of investment (that
really counts). Banks hit worldwide by US 'fraud'
. How are these frauds not being
prosecuted and forced disgorgement and preposterously getting taxpayer dollars?
Prosecute and throw them in jail and make them cough up their stolen
multi-billion spoils. Not just super rich caught up in $50B Madoff case
. The previous suckers bear market rally
was/is based on bull s**t alone; namely, now it’s the prospective
bailouts/spending programs with money that does not really exist (print/create
more, borrow more, etc.). 1) Keynesian economics (government stimulus)
does not work when a defacto bankrupt nation becomes more bankrupt to bailout
frauds/perpetrators/creators of the problem and to create make-shift purported
infrastructure jobs to enhance consumption 2) Inherent structural problems,
i.e., trade/budget deficits will continue unabated and in the case of the
latter, substantially increase – deeper hole 3) While spending on
infrastructure is warranted, there is no productive enhancement in economic terms
as in less modern times when, i.e., national highway system, etc., enhanced GDP
growth and productivity. US Depression Likely -The Truth Is Here , Coming soon to U.S., 1 million jobs lost every month: Report , America Has No Means to Recover from a Depression FARRELL’S 15 GHOSTS OF WALLSTREET/ECONOMIC
PAST/PRESENT/FUTURE Home values to lose well over $2 trillion during 2008: Zillow
Homes in the United States have lost trillions of dollars in
value during 2008, with nearly 11.7 million American households now owing more
on their mortgage than their homes are worth, real estate website Zillow.com
said on Monday. (Remember: more contrived wasteful
commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and percentage of which MUST
be examined in light of computerization and decreased costs attendant to same
especially since only AN EXTREMELY Small Fraction Of What wall street Does Is A
Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital via, ie., ipo’S), The Rest Is
Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The Economy) via
'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades). Moreover, the ballooning taxpayer bailout funds for the
perpetrators of the massive securities fraud are actually going toward
multibillion dollar bonus/compensation packages.
. How are these frauds not being prosecuted and forced disgorgement
and preposterously getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems
(hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been
addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all
problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the
capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence,
lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so
SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH
WORSE TO COME. Renowned economist Mikhail Khazin : U.S. will soon face
second “Great Depression” , IT’S A DEPRESSION , Grantham (who called the bubble) posits…
585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy 879) There is more
hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of riding
this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the future.
From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A similar
correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. , Billion-Dollar
Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink To 5,000 BILLIONS
VANISH IN EPIC HEDGE FUND FRAUD All news worse than bad and to get much
worse but full moon manifest on lunatic asylum for the criminally insane wall
street. More banks reveal Madoff exposure The
‘while you can’ part of sell/take profits manifests and will worsen Citadel suspends redemptions from two
hedge funds Stupidity not limited to u.s. where fraud is
rampant Geneva banks lost more than $4 billon
to Madoff: report This modest retreat and previous suckers
bearmarket rally on bull s**t alone with familiar mantra still ringing today;
viz., everything but the facts: forget the layoffs Coming soon to U.S., 1 million
jobs lost every month: Report , forget the foreclosures Foreclosure
Storm Will Hit US in 2009 as Loan Changes Fail Bloomberg
, forget declining retail sales Retail
sales post big drop in November , forget the $1 trillion
record budget deficit , trade deficits, worthless fraudulent securities, lower
earnings/guidance/outlook, the topic (b.s. talking point) de jour for the
lunatic (yes, full moon) frauds on wall street is bailouts, bailouts, bailouts
(not to mention there’s no real money to pay for same – print/create more
worthless Weimar dollars – hyperinflationary – even now despite fake reports
and worse to come), and from well respected wall street fraud madoff,
"it's all just one big lie" and that it was "basically, a giant
Ponzi scheme," which is fraudulent wall street in a nutshell. Madoff fraud case raises questions
about SEC (AP) and even bigger questions about fraudulent
wall street and their washingtonian/federal/state facilitators. Builders sentiment reading at 9 (anything less than 50 is
negative/pessimistic). Motek’s legal expert
correctly points to funds problems with meeting redemptions and paraphrases
J.P. Morgan’s immortal words concerning investing by saying as is particularly
relevant now, It’s not return on investment, but return of investment (that
really counts). Banks hit worldwide by US 'fraud'
. How are these frauds not being
prosecuted and forced disgorgement and preposterously getting taxpayer dollars?
Prosecute and throw them in jail and make them cough up their stolen
multi-billion spoils. Not just super rich caught up in $50B Madoff case
. The previous suckers
bear market rally was/is based on bull s**t alone; namely, now it’s the
prospective bailouts/spending programs with money that does not really exist
(print/create more, borrow more, etc.). 1) Keynesian
economics (government stimulus) does not work when a defacto bankrupt nation
becomes more bankrupt to bailout frauds/perpetrators/creators of the problem
and to create make-shift purported infrastructure jobs to enhance consumption
2) Inherent structural problems, i.e., trade/budget deficits will continue
unabated and in the case of the latter, substantially increase – deeper hole 3)
While spending on infrastructure is warranted, there is no productive
enhancement in economic terms as in less modern times when, i.e., national
highway system, etc., enhanced GDP growth and productivity. US Depression Likely -The Truth
Is Here , Coming soon to U.S., 1 million
jobs lost every month: Report , America Has No Means to Recover
from a Depression FARRELL’S 15 GHOSTS OF WALLSTREET/ECONOMIC
PAST/PRESENT/FUTURE Home values to lose well over
$2 trillion during 2008: Zillow Homes in the United
States have lost trillions of dollars in value during 2008, with nearly 11.7
million American households now owing more on their mortgage than their homes
are worth, real estate website Zillow.com said on Monday. (Remember:
more contrived wasteful commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and
percentage of which MUST be examined in light of computerization and decreased
costs attendant to same especially since only AN EXTREMELY Small Fraction Of
What wall street Does Is A Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital
via, ie., ipo’S),
The Rest Is Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The
Economy) via 'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades). Moreover, the ballooning taxpayer bailout funds for the
perpetrators of the massive securities fraud are actually going toward
multibillion dollar bonus/compensation packages.
. How are these frauds not being prosecuted and forced disgorgement
and preposterously getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems
(hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been
addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all
problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the
capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence,
lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so
SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH
WORSE TO COME. Renowned economist Mikhail Khazin : U.S. will soon face
second “Great Depression” , IT’S A DEPRESSION , Grantham (who called the bubble) posits…
585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy 879) There is more
hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of riding
this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the future.
From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A similar
correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. , Billion-Dollar
Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink To 5,000 Previous
session, modest decline relative to reality so still great opportunity to
sell/take profits since much,
much worse to come! All news decisively bad and much worse than expected with trade deficit up 1.1%, dollar
down, unemployment claims up 573,000 a 26 year high, 28% increase in
foreclosures, bailout recipient BofA to cut 35,000 jobs, many other prospective
job cuts announced, economic group changes previous forecast to worse/long
recession, Bernard Madoff arrested over alleged $50
billion fraud Madoff told senior employees of his firm on
Wednesday that "it's all just one big lie" and that it was basically,
a giant Ponzi scheme (the fraudulent wall street story in
a nutshell) , BANK OF AMERICA to cut 35,000
jobs... , ...final could be
higher , Shocking but
true claim: Most big banks 'bankrupt'... , New unemployment claims surge unexpectedly ,
Ron
Paul: Printing Money Only Prolongs The Pain Amidst the hand-wringing of the
automaker bailout debate, Ron Paul took the opportunity on the House floor
yesterday to remind Congress that the real culprit behind the financial crisis
is the Federal Reserve, and that allowing the Fed to continue to print money
without audit will only prolong the pain. ,
US budget
deficit to reach USD 1 trillion , Jim
Rogers calls most big U.S. banks “bankrupt” Jim Rogers, one of
the world’s most prominent international investors, on Thursday called most of
the largest U.S. banks “totally bankrupt,” and said government efforts to fix
the sector are wrongheaded. CORRECTED -
CORRECTED-(OFFICIAL)-UPDATE - Wells Fargo to take $40 bln Q4 charge , German
FM criticises Britain’s ‘crass Keynesian’ policies: report and read again previous session, forget the layoffs Coming soon to U.S., 1 million
jobs lost every month: Report , forget the foreclosures Foreclosure
Storm Will Hit US in 2009 as Loan Changes Fail Bloomberg
, forget declining retail sales Retail
sales post big drop in November , forget the $1 trillion
record budget deficit , trade deficits, worthless fraudulent securities, lower
earnings/guidance/outlook, the topic (b.s. talking point) de jour for the
lunatic (yes, full moon) frauds on wall street is bailouts, bailouts, bailouts
(not to mention there’s no real money to pay for same – print/create more
worthless Weimar dollars – hyperinflationary – even now despite fake reports
and worse to come) , suckers
bear market ralley to keep the suckers sucked in so great
opportunity to sell/take profits
since much, much worse to come! This suckers
bear market rally is based on bull s**t alone; namely, now the prospective
bailouts/spending programs with money that does not really exist (print/create
more, borrow more, etc.). 1) Keynesian economics (government stimulus)
does not work when a defacto bankrupt nation becomes more bankrupt to bailout
frauds/perpetrators/creators of the problem and to create make-shift purported
infrastructure jobs to enhance consumption 2) Inherent structural problems,
i.e., trade/budget deficits will continue unabated and in the case of the
latter, substantially increase – deeper hole 3) While spending on
infrastructure is warranted, there is no productive enhancement in economic
terms as in less modern times when, i.e., national highway system, etc.,
enhanced GDP growth and productivity. US Depression Likely -The Truth
Is Here , Coming soon to U.S., 1 million
jobs lost every month: Report , America Has No Means to Recover
from a Depression (Remember: more contrived wasteful
commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and percentage of which MUST
be examined in light of computerization and decreased costs attendant to same
especially since only AN EXTREMELY Small Fraction Of What wall street Does Is A
Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital via, ie., ipo’S),
The Rest Is Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The
Economy) via 'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades). Moreover, the ballooning taxpayer
bailout funds for the perpetrators of the massive securities fraud are actually
going toward multibillion dollar bonus/compensation packages. . How are these frauds not being prosecuted and forced disgorgement and
preposterously getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems
(hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been
addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all
problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the
capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence,
lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so
SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU STILL CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH
WORSE TO COME. Renowned economist Mikhail Khazin : U.S. will soon face
second “Great Depression” , IT’S A DEPRESSION , Grantham (who called the bubble) posits…
585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy 848) There is more
hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of riding
this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the future.
From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A similar
correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. , Billion-Dollar
Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink To 5,000 Previous,
modest decline relative to reality so still great time to sell/take profits
since much, much worse to come. Wall Street stung by risk-aversion and realistically
bleak outlooks , Point of no return: Interest on T-bills hits zero
, Tightening Budgets Mean a Rough Ride for IT
, FIRST TIME:
Treasury Bills Trade at Negative Rates... . Previous, suckers
bear market rally based on bull s**t alone; namely, now the prospective
bailouts/spending programs with money that does not really exist (print/create
more, borrow more, etc.). 1) Keynesian economics (government stimulus)
does not work when a defacto bankrupt nation becomes more bankrupt to bailout
frauds/perpetrators/creators of the problem and to create make-shift purported
infrastructure jobs to enhance consumption 2) Inherent structural problems,
i.e., trade/budget deficits will continue unabated and in the case of the
latter, substantially increase – deeper hole 3) While spending on
infrastructure is warranted, there is no productive enhancement in economic
terms as in less modern times when, i.e., national highway system, etc.,
enhanced GDP growth and productivity. US Depression Likely -The Truth
Is Here , Coming soon to U.S., 1 million
jobs lost every month: Report , America Has No Means to Recover
from a Depression (Remember: more contrived wasteful
commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and percentage of which MUST
be examined in light of computerization and decreased costs attendant to same
especially since only AN EXTREMELY Small Fraction Of What wall street Does Is A
Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital via, ie., ipo’S),
The Rest Is Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The
Economy) via 'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades). Moreover, the ballooning taxpayer
bailout funds for the perpetrators of the massive securities fraud are actually
going toward multibillion dollar bonus/compensation packages. . How are these frauds not being prosecuted and forced disgorgement and
preposterously getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems
(hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been
addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all
problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the
capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence,
lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so
SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO
COME. Renowned economist Mikhail Khazin : U.S. will soon face
second “Great Depression” , IT’S A DEPRESSION , Grantham (who called the bubble) posits…
585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy 848) There is more
hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of riding
this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the future.
From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A similar
correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. , Billion-Dollar
Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink To 5,000 Previous
suckers’ bear market rally on far worse than expected and particularly
significant bad news provides great opportunity to sell/take profits,
especially considering fraudulent wall street’s previous modus operandi to keep
suckers sucked into this market and their commission dollars flowing, suckers’
rallies into the close, reassuring rallies prior to weekends as this despite
unexpectedly bad news as today, etc., which frauds perpetrated the yet
unprosecuted crimes that have created this current financial debacle. Record 1.33 homes in
foreclosure,15 year high for unemployment at 6.7% even as many no longer
looking with things so depressed and worse to come in ’09, record level
deficits both trade and particularly budget with money not there being spent
with abandon (worthless Weimar dollars being printed created like mad which is
and will continue to be hyperinflationary regardless of the current fake
reports). Motek has actor/speculator/entertainer/sometimes economist Ben Stein
points to loans in foreclosure hitting new records, paulson misconduct, lack of
oversight/accontability in bailout funds, and the seriousness of the crisis,
but his pointed barbs seem fleeting and is most memorable by his somewhat blind
adherence to policy as indicated by
his criticism of Peter Shiff for warning of this debacle years ago. Motek’s
oil analyst says economy so bad that oil demand down, significant recession in
2009, and hedge funds liquidating positions putting pressure on oil prices.
Finally, Motek elicits from Peter Shiff that jobs created are being destroyed
as fast, phony jobs, bear market and government making worse by digging deeper
hole, phony (worthless Weimar) dollar rally provides opportunity to get out
with hyperinflation to come. GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO SELL INTO THIS SUCKERS’ BEAR MARKET
RALLY/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME. 3 Tell Tale Signs Of This Sucker Rally ,
Half-million jobs vanish as economy deteriorates (AP)
, Job losses worst since 1974 Employers cut 533K jobs in
Nov., most in 34 years , Late mortgage payments and foreclosures hit record
, 1 in 10 homeowners
behind on mortgage payments, or in foreclosure...
, Wall St financiers party like
there's no tomorrow -- literally WHERE ARE THE CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS AND
DISGORGEMENT? It’s been wall
street frauds’ nirvana (commissioning a huge decline then a huge incline) at
just a program loop, button push, mouse click away. Previous session,
modest declines relative to reality SO STILL GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO SELL INTO SUCKERS’ BEAR MARKET
RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME.
CELENTE OF trendsresearch.com, having predicted the Panic of 2008 now preparing
current prognostications for 2009 which will bear the consequential follow-up
title to the Panic of 2008; namely, The Collapse of 2009, further stating
there’s nothing they’ve done or prospectively can do to avoid the complete
economic/financial collapse in the u.s., the seeds for which have already been
sown, good money after bad notwithstanding, the die having been cast. All business/financial/economic news
decisively bad; 26 year high for jobless rolls, orders to factories down
sharply, job cuts current and prospective up sharply. Motek expert comments on
auto bailout saying
no new concesions with UAW cuts merely cosmetic, just down payment on failed
business model/scenario, bankruptcy necessary as costs too high, and on economy
says nation to go deeper into recession owing to intactable structural
problems; i.e., deficits, etc.. Another Motek expert says very negative
economic environment, sees deepening of more prolonged recession, discusses
risk tolerance in such an environment recommending highest quality debt
instruments but does note risk premium in lesser quality instruments. Food stamp use up 17% to 1 in 10 citizens, bankruptcies soaring, and
re-default rates on mortgages rising. Employers
shedding jobs as recession deepens , AP
IMPACT: Some bailout holdings down $9 billion , Governments
brace for long crisis ahead , High
inventory is killing home builders; industry asks for help , It's
Not a Great Time to Get Into Stocks , Long
Term Investors Should Avoid Leveraged ETFs , Fixing
the Enron Economy , US
FEDERAL RESERVE to buy US DEBT? WITH WHAT? , Prepare For
Depression Level Unemployment , Record
number of Americans using food stamps: report , Whether
We End Up Paying For It Through Taxes Or Hyperinflation, It Will Still Come Out
Of Our Pockets , Corporate
Debt Protection Costs Climb Amid Depression Concern , Shoppers ready to
call it quits MarketWatch | More
than one-third of consumers chose not to shop at all last month, except on
Black Friday, according to Britt Beemer of America’s Research Group. Lawsuit
claims Citigroup was running a “quasi-Ponzi scheme” Bloomberg | Citigroup Inc., the second-biggest U.S. bank by
assets, was accused in a lawsuit of repackaging unmarketable collateralized
debt obligations it held and re-selling them to itself in order to hide its
exposure to the securities. WHERE ARE THE CRIMINAL
PROSECUTIONS AND DISGORGEMENT? Previously, suckers’
bear market rally into the close on bad news with wall street frauds’ nirvana (commissioning a huge
decline then a huge incline) at just a program loop, button push, mouse click
away. Indeed, all news still realistically and
decisively (and some deceptively otherwise spun to keep suckers suckered)
bad: A
Bleak Outlook: Nov. Job Loss at 250,000, Economic Weakness ,
US, China
currency clash over worthless american currency... , 61%
oppose auto bailout ,
Meredith Whitney Sees Plenty of Pain Ahead for Consumers
(at BusinessWeek) , Desperate
Times, Desperate Policies ) . One non-Motek expert says these suckers’ bear
market rallies on bad news are at best wishful thinking and not sustainable
along with realistically dire outlook. Motek expert
says market for speculators/traders and points to volatility index while
failing to point out that there are very, very few successful traders. [Close inspection of the data in past times far better than
now (now we see insurmountable trade/budget deficits, lack of manufacturing
base, global antipathy, etc.) disavows such heavily promoted failed strategies
as dollar-cost averaging where stocks prices remain artificially (now
fraudulently) high for far longer periods of time than lower prices (MBA
Thesis, Albert L. Peia, NYU GBA, 1977), limited exceptions being ie.,
dollar-cost averaging in declining markets, but only when analysis indicates
under-valuation in prospective terms which is certainly isn’t the case now of
rampant over-valuation/fraud]. (Remember: more contrived wasteful
commissions to the wall street frauds, the level and percentage of which MUST
be examined in light of computerization and decreased costs attendant to same
especially since only AN EXTREMELY Small Fraction Of What wall street Does Is A
Net Positive For The Economy (New Investment Capital via, ie., ipo’S), The Rest Is
Tantamount To A (Economically) "Wasteful Tax" (On The Economy) via
'churn and earn' computerized programmed trades). Moreover, the ballooning taxpayer bailout funds for the
perpetrators of the massive securities fraud are actually going toward
multibillion dollar bonus/compensation packages.
. How are these frauds not being prosecuted and forced disgorgement
and preposterously getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems
(hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been
addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all problems
remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and
resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of
knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so
SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO
COME. Renowned economist Mikhail Khazin : U.S. will soon face
second “Great Depression” , IT’S A DEPRESSION , Grantham (who called the bubble) posits…
585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy 848) There is more
hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of riding
this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the future.
From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A similar
correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. , Billion-Dollar
Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink To 5,000 , Auditors Fault Oversight of
Bailout Funds... Previous suckers’ bear market rally in the last
minutes of the close on bad news with wall street frauds’ nirvana (commissioning a huge decline then a huge
incline) at just a program loop, button push, mouse click away. Indeed, all news still realistically and decisively (and
some deceptively otherwise spun to keep suckers suckered) bad: GE lowers
guidance but maintains dividend , November US auto sales drop to 26-year low
, Data signal deep
global downturn Financial Times , US manufacturing
hits 26-year low: ISM . How are these frauds not being prosecuted
and forced disgorgement and preposterously getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems
(hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been
addressed much less solved; hence, virtually all
problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the
capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence,
lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so
SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO
COME. Renowned economist Mikhail Khazin : U.S. will soon face
second “Great Depression” , IT’S A DEPRESSION , Grantham (who called the bubble) posits…
585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy 848) There is more
hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of riding
this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the future.
From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A similar
correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. , Billion-Dollar
Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink To 5,000 , Auditors Fault Oversight of
Bailout Funds... , Governors to Seek Up to $100B
in Social Aid... ,
Feds to expand rescue;
reviewing applications from 'hundreds of banks'...
FDIC head: Gov't plan needs
'exit strategy'... , Metal prices fall further
than during Great Depression... , they’re printing and
spending worthless Weimar dollars and taxpayer funds like mad because they are
mad as in crazy, incompetent, etc.. Previous session sees modest drop relative to reality [SO SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN
SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME],
particularly when you factor in the reality that the prior 5 day rally of 1,300
points into the last trading week of the month (much like the end of the prior
month) based on bull s**t alone was a typical fraudulent wall street programmed
trade fraud to window dress the monthly numbers and keep suckers sucked in (and
besides, they’ll get their commissions again on the way down). Upon the formal
announcement that we’ve been in recession since DECEMBER, 2007 I was waiting
for Amy Poehler of SNL Weekend Update to say, “REALLY!” [this site has
reported/predicted this (these) debacle (s) for far longer and in advance of
same, including this recession/depression]. The protracted reluctance (election
year expedience) for some to use the R(ecession) word, spun in the most
positive way is to say it is because this scenario is far worse than even would
befit the D(epression) word in light of the fact that the u.s. like never
before in its relatively short history is broke in every way. If you’ve been
suckered, it’s not all your fault inasmuch as the enablers (politicians,
economists, financial experts, news/media, etc., in receipt of substantial
largesse from and) of these vegetable garden (poison ivy league schools, these
“elite” clubs/frats, etc.) products (vegetables who
not only have never done anything requiring skills or measurable results, but
merely are master bull s**t artists and as in the case of wall street, criminal
frauds) are similarly incompetent, corrupt/venal. After all, how are
these frauds not being prosecuted and forced disgorgement and preposterously
getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, especially since none of the real problems
(hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been
addressed much less solved; and hence, virtually all
problems remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the
capital and resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence,
lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc.. Motek’s expert cites retail liquidation
prices (none to minimal profits, at best), inevitable GM bankruptcy, fed
programs done with money out the door to little or no effect and now talking
new programs…riiiiight…or, with rate at 1%, more rate cuts…riiiiight, big
shake-out to come, credit-card co’s to pull back $2 trillion to survive what’s
coming, retailers with big real estate exposure bust, and market will test lows
then break through said lows to the downside. There was in addition to the
‘recession’ announcement more dismal news with construction down 1.2% and the
supply/management manufacturing index at 26 year lows. I derive no pleasure in
being a harbinger of bad but true news but reiterate SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN AS
THESE ARE STILL GREAT OPPORTUNITIES TO SELL/TAKE PROFITS SINCE MUCH, MUCH
WORSE TO COME. Renowned economist Mikhail Khazin : U.S. will soon face
second “Great Depression” , IT’S A DEPRESSION , Grantham (who called the bubble) posits…
585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy 816) There is more
hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of riding
this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the future.
From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A similar
correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. , Billion-Dollar
Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink To 5,000 Dow plunges on news recession began in Dec. 2007 (AP) , Down we go again: Fourth-worst drop ever for Dow , Recession
declared; Wall Street tanks , Fourth-worst
drop ever for Dow AP… as wall street snapped out of its daydream of a rally
and once again faced the harsh reality… Report
Concludes Recession Began A Year Ago | But the White House and the corporate
media consistently continued to state otherwise. Previous
session, this suckers’ bear market ralley remains an especially great
opportunity to sell/take profits while you still can since much, much worse
to come (sell into purported strength which is just more bull s**t for
prospective churn and earn fraud – they’ll get those commissions again on the
way down) IMF
economist says worst of crisis to come: paper 'Crisis
Only Just Beginning': Crisis/Video Right About the Crash, Peter Schiff
Sees Much More Pain Ahead and
this suckers’ bear market rally was based upon nothing related factually to
finance/economics/business. How are these frauds not being prosecuted and
forced disgorgement and preposterously getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, none of the real problems (hundreds of
trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much
less solved and hence, virtually all problems remain
and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources
necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of
knowledge/ability, greed, etc., SO SELL INTO
RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN AS THIS IS AS GREAT AN OPPORTUNITY TO SELL/TAKE PROFITS AS YOU WILL SEE SINCE
MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME. Indeed, all news still realistically and decisively (and some
deceptively otherwise spun to keep suckers suckered) bad: SO SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE
PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN AS THIS IS AS GREAT AN OPPORTUNITY TO SELL/TAKE PROFITS AS YOU WILL SEE SINCE
MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME. IMF
economist says worst of crisis to come: paper . Indeed, all news still realistically and
decisively (and some deceptively otherwise spun to keep suckers suckered)
bad: Biggest runnup in stock prices since 1932 and most know what
happened to stock prices for over a decade thereafter (and america was not
broke in every way as now), Ghost malls cropping up with retail
closures/bankruptcies, as predicted by trendsresearch.com [CELENTE
CORRECTLY PREDICTS REVOLUTION, FOOD RIOTS, TAX REBELLIONS BY 2012 Paul Joseph Watson | Trend forecaster, renowned for being accurate
in the past, says that America will cease to be a developed nation within 4
years, crisis will be “worse than the great depression.”] , Motek expert from the land of fruits
and nuts, the senile wedbush (if you had listened to his prior
prognostications/recommendations several months ago said suckers might be wiped
out by this day) lauds the bailouts (money u.s. doesn’t really have and
taxpayer money the frauds shouldn’t get) and the b.s. talking points thereby
but says workout much longer, while retail expert points to liquidation prices
(but fails to even mention lack of profits thereby), and poverty now spreading
to suburbs. Financial Disaster Will Lead to
Civil Disorder in 2009 or 2010, Says Secret Citibank Memo An
internal memo from a top Citibank analyst reveals what the banks really think
about the global financial situation, and the outlook is grim. Citigroup Should Be Held
Accountable Bloomberg Food Prices Will Rise, Causing
Export Bans, Riots Bloomberg Rubin Clones and Other Fakers:
The Obama “Dream Team” Citigroup says gold could rise
above $2,000 next year as world unravels US debt triggered global crisis ‘Encouraged by a wicked wizard,
Greenspan, Bernanke toils at his Weimar dollar printing press’ . Consumer spending down
(-1%), consumer sentiment down, durable goods orders down (-6%), home
sales/prices down to new lows and high supplies, yet suckers’ bear market
market rally of 400+ points into the close nostalgically based (which got
investors burned in the past) on bull s**t alone (i.e., more bureaucrats on
more painels as per President-elect, etc.) and the so-called thanksgiving
holiday rally. $600 billion plan to support housing lending ultimately
hyperinflationary. New unemployment claims at recession level 529,000 for the
week ended Nov. 22 yet unbelievably lower than private economist estimates.
October durable goods orders plunged by a larger-than-expected amount, Chicago
manufacturing in November contracted the most since 1982 according to a
regional survey, and consumer confidence dropped to a 28 year low in November,
according to the University of Michigan. One Motek expert in a nearly senile
market moment cites pleasant market surprise (reality dictates otherwise) but
in a lucid moment concedes lengthy period to work out (substantial) problems,
while another expert (currencies) cautions the unintended consequences of
creating/printing/flooding the markets with worthless (Weimar) dollars (a
policy choice of inflation over fear of deflation) and the dollar devaluation
and ultimately hyperinflationary effects thereof. FDIC Troubled Bank List Grows to 46% - Is Your Bank
Safe? (at Seeking Alpha) , Consumers cut spending , Stocks on win streak amid more bad
economic news , Cisco plans 4-day shutdown to cut costs
, October home sales fall sharply
(Reuters) . The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless
securities, etc.) have been addressed much less solved and hence, virtually all problems remain, will continue to remain, and
there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources
necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of
knowledge/ability, greed, etc., SO GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO SELL/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH
WORSE TO COME. Federal deficit could hit $1 trillion this year
, FDIC's list of 'problem' banks swells to 171 (AP)
, Dollar falls on realistically discouraging u.s.
economic data (AP) , Third
quarter real GDP was revised to a 0.5% annual rate of decline from a previously
reported 0.3% rate which had rallied stocks and, only in the fraudulent world
of wall street, rallied stocks again though worse than expected Economy shrinks at fastest pace in seven years, Third quarter
personal consumption expenditures were revised to a worse than expected -3.7%
from -3.1%, which rallied stocks ….. riiiiight! , Consumer confidence remains at an extremely depressed state
despite fake numbers ,The
S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 US cities fell 17.4% year over year
— most on record. 'Crisis
Only Just Beginning': Crisis/Video Right About the Crash, Peter Schiff
Sees More Pain Ahead Crisis
Only Just Beginning': Right About the Crash, Peter Schiff Sees Much More Pain
Ahead VIDEO Previously,
from the outset the wall street frauds were again determined to keep the
suckers suckered with a near 500 point rally into the close. Existing home
sales down 3.1% and much worse than expected. Motek’s expert Peter
Shiff correctly points out that the so-called policy-makers, economists,
etc., don’t know what they’re doing, that they can’t borrow (or print worthless
Weimar dollars) and spend (money they don’t have) their way out of this
debacle, that the bailout funds are merely providing undue bonuses/compensation
for failed (and fraudulent) performance, that crisis will be exascerbated with
(unavoidable) hyperinflation (inevitable thereby owing to crashing/worthless
Weimar dollar) and ultimately even deeper/worse/more protracted economic
decline, that auto industry is over-paid (especially relative to competition,
legacy/pension costs, etc.), and importantly, the government has no money so
they either have to borrow or print same which will make the economy much
worse. Cost
of Bankster Bait and Switch Now $7.4 Trillion Another expert says quick bankruptcies would have been the preferred
course for optimal results, while another emphasizes quite correctly that the so-called experts/team now cheered (wall street
frauds’ b.s. talking/rallying point) are those whose experience is having
created the very problems they are now called upon to solve (hence, cover-ups,
etc., but ineffectual). [Good management dictates that a clean sweep was warranted].
Realize that the products of the vegetable gardens (the poison ivy league
schools producing these vegetables) are vegetables who not only have never done
anything requiring skills or measurable results, but merely are master bull
s**t artists and in the case of wall street, criminal frauds enabled thereby. Downey Savings
taken over by regulators [ Colossal
Financial Collapse: The Truth behind the Citigroup Bank “Nationalization” ]
over the weekend. Obama’s
Economic Foxes To Guard Financial Henhouse Today President elect Obama
officially introduces his economic team to the world. What many may fail to
recognize however is the fact that those tasked with rescuing the economy are
the very people who helped create the financial crisis in the first instance. CELENTE
CORRECTLY PREDICTS REVOLUTION, FOOD RIOTS, TAX REBELLIONS BY 2012 Paul Joseph
Watson | Trend forecaster, renowned for being accurate in the past, says that
America will cease to be a developed nation within 4 years, crisis will be
“worse than the great depression.” Budget
deficit hits record; jobless claims surge Foreclosure
rates up 25 percent year-over-year Banking crisis
claims more u.s. victims How are these
frauds not being prosecuted and forced disgorgement and preposterously getting
taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, none of the real problems (hundreds of
trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much
less solved and hence, virtually all problems
remain and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and
resources necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of
knowledge/ability, greed, etc., SO SELL INTO RALLIES/STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN
AS THIS IS AS GREAT AN OPPORTUNITY TO SELL/TAKE PROFITS AS YOU WILL SEE SINCE
MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO COME. IMF
economist says worst of crisis to come: paper . Previous, suckers’ bear market rally was
based upon nothing whatsoever relevant to finance/economics/business , yet
again the wall street frauds were determined to keep the suckers suckered
through the weekend with a near 600 point rally into the close. All news was
decisively bad Federal regulators shut 2 California thrifts
and though looking
for a reason to rally, they found none because there are none HU: World economic situation
'grim'... , based on valuation and prospective substantial deterioration in
economic conditions exascerbated by their massive fraud; but the invented
reason for the suckers’ rally was the appointment of Geithner, a quintessential
bureaucrat ultimately dependant upon other bureaucrats who are dependant upon
the very corrupt monied interests/frauds (and their lobbyists) who created
(through their crimes) the current financial crisis. Moreover, as head of the
N.Y. Fed he is no stranger to cover-ups/bailouts in light of the
missing/unaccounted for $4+ TRILLION at the N.Y. Fed $4
trillion plus is missing through U.S. federal agency accounts managed by the NY
Fed. Renowned economist Mikhail Khazin :
U.S. will soon face second “Great Depression” , Grantham
(who called the bubble) posits… 585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy
852) There
is more hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of
riding this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the
future. From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A
similar correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. , Billion-Dollar Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink
To 5,000 The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, none of the real problems (hundreds of
trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much
less solved and hence, virtually all problems remain
and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources
necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of
knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so great opportunity to sell/take profits while you can since much, much
worse to come. Leading economic indicators fall again a more than
expected .8%, new claims for unemployment a high more than
expected 542,000 while continuing claims at 4,000,000 a 16 year high and more
than expected, Philly Fed Index down to a worse than
expected –39. Jobless Claims Hit 16-Year
High, Above Forecast Congress extends jobless benefits; stocks fall 400
World stocks down amid reality of deep recession (AP)
CELENTE CORRECTLY PREDICTS
REVOLUTION, FOOD RIOTS, TAX REBELLIONS BY 2012 Paul Joseph Watson | Trend forecaster, renowned for being
accurate in the past, says that America will cease to be a developed nation
within 4 years, crisis will be “worse than the great depression.” Budget deficit hits record; jobless claims surge Foreclosure rates up 25 percent year-over-year
Banking crisis
claims more u.s. victims How are these frauds not being prosecuted
and forced disgorgement and preposterously getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, none of the real problems (hundreds of
trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much
less solved so sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can since
much, much worse to come. Previous
session, modest losses relative to reality to keep the suckers’ suckered
especially in light of grim economic/business/financial news so still great
opportunity to sell/take
profits while you can since much, much worse to come. Housing
starts down a record 38%, building permits down 14.5%, and outlook grim. Motek’s
expert discusses 30 reasons for Great Depression 2 by 2011 citing completion of
first wave of the meltdown-dot.com bust, second wave-sub-prime debacle, and the
on-going climactic financial/economic meltdown pointing to the 42,000
lobbyists, autos, etc., saying they just don’t get it, while another expert
analyst says new lows across the board having broken through support levels. Motek’s p.r.
expert says auto execs flying to d.c. in private jets to beg for taxpayer money
bespeaks their stupidity, and his travel expert discusses the newly
value-conscious consumer. Fed
sharply lowers forecasts, hints of rate cut which ploy previously sparked b.s.
suckers’ bear market rallies based upon nothing at all but reality says with
only a point to zero and much worse to come is just plain b**l s**t . Deflation: Here, Now I’ve been
warning of deflation for some time. Specifically, I predicted 1 1/2 to 2 years
of deflation, followed by hyperinflation. Well, deflation is here.“Slush fund” … “Banana
Republic” … “Keystone Kops.” Technical Economic Indicators
Worsening Again Deflation: Here, Now I’ve been warning
of deflation for some time. Specifically, I predicted 1 1/2 to 2 years of
deflation, followed by hyperinflation Previous suckers’ bear market rally into the close
with 300+ point swing to the upside [wall street frauds’ nirvana commissioning
a huge decline then a huge incline just a program loop, button push, mouse
click away] into the close to keep the suckers suckered as the lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, none of the real problems (hundreds of
trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much
less solved and hence, virtually all problems remain
and there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources
necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of
knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so great opportunity to sell/take profits while you can since much, much
worse to come. Homebuilder reality-based sentiment index plunges to
record low Economy so bad commodity prices plunge along
with PPI. Grantham (who called the bubble)
posits… 585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy 859) There is more
hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of riding
this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the future.
From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A similar
correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. , Forecasters: U.S. in at least, unrealistically
optimistically, minimum 14 month recession The Great Depression of the 21st Century: Collapse of the
Real Economy “The Dollar Standard Is Coming To
An End” Financial Crisis Tab Already In The Trillions... Busted
in Washington Housing starts expected to hit half-century
low Washington
is Powerless to Stop the Coming Economic Depression Whitehead
sees slump worse than Depression Dollar’s Days Numbered, Buy Commodities: Jim Rogers
America’s economic crisis is beyond the reach of
traditional solutions U.S.
Retail Sales Drop in October by Most on Record . (Banker Bailout Costs $5 Trillion So Far ), (Analysts Predict Hyper-Inflation To Push Gold To $2000, Oil
to $300 Within Months ), (Soros says deep recession inevitable, depression likely ),
CELENTE CORRECTLY PREDICTS
REVOLUTION, FOOD RIOTS, TAX REBELLIONS BY 2012 Paul Joseph Watson | Trend forecaster, renowned for being
accurate in the past, says that America will cease to be a developed nation
within 4 years, crisis will be “worse than the great depression.” Budget deficit hits record; jobless claims surge Foreclosure rates up 25 percent year-over-year
Banking crisis
claims more u.s. victims How are these frauds not being prosecuted
and forced disgorgement and preposterously getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street
frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty which must be
disgorged through prosecution, none of the real problems (hundreds of
trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much
less solved so sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can since
much, much worse to come. 53,000 layoffs from
Citigroup, and many more announced and may more to come from a multitude of
companies to yield predicted 8-10% unemployment (conservative-some higher).
Motek in a somewhat philosophical mood cites blue chips as cow chips (cow pies,
manure, etc.), while his expert joins the metaphysical fray quoting ‘to save
man from his folly is to people the world with fools’ and goes on to say
everything looking bad, things are not good, how long the deep recession-don’t
know, not there yet; while another expert says things have gone from bad to
worse. Indeed, one
expert says US To Lose Its ‘AAA’
Rating/face default/bankruptcy, while Motek’s
expert says market poised to test new lows, points to uncertainty regarding
bailout equivocation/changes and talks up, in a somewhat borderline senile
fashion, some beaten down stocks on theory government will bail them
out…riiiiight! Another Motek expert, actor/speculator/economist Ben Stein says
hanky panky Paulsen perjured himself before congress and should be prosecuted,
points to incompetence regarding bailout saying couldn’t have been handled
worse and not mentally up to it. One
Aspect of the Massive (Securities) Fraud/Fraudulent Wealth Transfer is Aptly
Described/Illustrated in this Comment, [how are these frauds
not being prosecuted and forced disgorgement and preposterously getting
taxpayer dollars? The lunatic wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their
substantial crimes and booty which must be disgorged through prosecution,
none of the real problems (hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless
securities, etc.) have been addressed much less solved], Renowned economist Mikhail Khazin :
U.S. will soon face second “Great Depression” , Grantham (who called the
bubble) posits… 585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy 852) There
is more hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of
riding this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the
future. From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A
similar correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. , Billion-Dollar Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink
To 5,000 The immortal words of J.P.Morgan remain apposite as ’ it is
not so much the return on the money as it is the return of the money’ , so sell/take profits while you can and
preserve capital. Previously modest losses relative to
reality with rally/programmed trades to the upside into the close to finish off
substantially lower lows to keep the suckers’ suckered despite grim
economic/business/financial news so still great opportunity to sell/take profits while you can since much, much
worse to come. America is now a nation of bank holding companies (to
take advantage of involuntary taxpayer bailouts), paper hanging wall street
frauds (it’s the worthless multiplicity of securitized and heavily commissioned
worthless paper that is the problem), and brazened ponzi’s (sic) (more, more,
and more funds to keep their commission ball rolling) on wall street; and of
course, their marks. Banking crisis
claims more u.s. victims How are these
frauds not being prosecuted and forced disgorgement and preposterously getting
taxpayer dollars? The lunatic
wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty
which must be disgorged through prosecution, none of the real problems
(hundreds of trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been
addressed much less solved so sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you
can since much, much worse to come. Previous
suckers’ bear market rally/programmed trades to the upside into the close to
keep the suckers’ suckered so still great opportunity to sell/take profits while you can since much, much
worse to come, as stocks finish only modestly lower relative to
reality on grim economic/business news across the board, viz., b.s.
talking point gives way to reality that China stimulus plan lessens
availability of funds for the purchase of worthless u.s./dollar denominated securities/assets
and may even require sale/redemption of same, GM shares hit 62 year low at
$3.36 as analyst says said shares will go to - 0- (nil, with Ford’s shares at
$1.93), Motek expert points to employment contraction for 15 months in a row
and Conference Board Report regarding said job losses; while another emphasizes
the futility of the bailouts which are get worse/larger in reference to what he
terms slush funds, the bank tax windfall initiated in the dark of night, things
will get progressively worse in the upcoming administration, u.s. spending far
beyond means, and rapidly depreciating u.s. dollars and assets; DHL ending u.s.
ground ops and 9,500 jobs, Security Pacific the 19th u.s. bank failure, etc., Fed's bailout for AIG swells to more than $150B , Fannie posts $29B 3Q loss, $100B may not be enough , Renowned economist Mikhail Khazin : U.S.
will soon face second “Great Depression” , bankruptcies, defaults,
foreclosures, hyperinflation around corner on worthless Weimar dollars, etc.. Previous session, sell into these suckers’
bear market
rallies/strength/take profits while you can as much, much worse to come. Much worse than expected
jobs (240,000 lost, unemployment to 6.5%) and auto news (operating earnings
losses of $4 billion for GM and $3 billion for Ford for 3rd quarter) rallies
stocks (riiiiight!), in a largely forgettable Motek business hour even his
oftimes wall street shill expert admitted to his credit that their was
absolutely nothing to account for the rise in stock prices this day especially
in light of the substantially bad and worse than expected news, says GM has
enough cash to last to spring while Ford till summer, and says volatility for
rest of the year. Economist says worse to come as very severe recession at
least through 2009 and into 2010, and also there’s allusion to yet another
taxpayer bailout of auto pension funds and auto co. bankruptcies. The wall street frauds must be prosecuted and disgorgement
required. Jobless rate at 14-year high as above expectation
losses continue GM, Ford losses worse than expected, burning cash Jobless ranks hit 10 million, most in 25 years
Ford announces $129M 3Q loss, burns $7.7B in cash
Jobless rate bolts to 14-year high of 6.5 percent Previous, another modest drop relative to reality [Grantham (who called the
bubble) posits… 585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's frothy 904) There
is more hurt in store for the U.S. equity markets. If you are still thinking of
riding this one out, consider Japan. Japan's Nikkei 225 is our window into the
future. From its 1990 high of 40,000 it fell as low as 7,800, an 80% drop. A
similar correction in the U.S. would translate into Dow 2,500. ], downbeat
economic data, first-time claims for unemployment at 25 year high and worse to
come, abysmal retail sales worst in 3 decades, unit labor costs rose at a
higher than expected 3.6% annual rate as the ultimately hyperinflationary
effects of printing/creating like mad those worthless Weimar dollars, and weak
business prospects, virtually all problems remain and
there is but an infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources
necessary to solve them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of
knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so still great opportunity to sell/take profits while you can since much, much
worse to come. Previous session sees modest drop relative
to reality though record post-election plunge so still great opportunity to sell/take profits while you can since much,
much worse to come. All news so bad (reality even worse) that even
shill co. ADP can’t hide at least 157,000 lost private sector jobs where deep
cuts are necessary, Challenger et als say layoffs will abound with cuts broad
and deep, Motek expert says dismal market for at least next several weeks but
cautious citing some oil, engineering, utilities, healthcare opportunities with
caveat along with some emerging markets, service sector much weaker than
expected and planned layoffs highest in three decades. Treasury wants to borrow
record $550B... US-led strike kills 36 Afghan
civilians U.S. as slowing
economy/runaway spending balloons the budget deficit to a record level to Sell $55 Billion in
Long-Term Debt Next Week Previous
session, all news decisively bad with dollar down, oil up, factory orders declining 2.5%
month-over-month after dropping 4.3% in August, much worse than the 0.8%
decline that was expected, virtually all problems remain and there is but an
infinitesimally small fraction of the capital and resources necessary to solve
them thanks to fraud, incompetence, lack of knowledge/ability, greed, etc., so sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can since
much, much worse to come. Previous, ( Worst is yet to come for
economy ) as economic/financial news so bad [ ISM index
shows biggest downturn in economic activity since 1982, corrupt,
scandal-scarred commerce department comes in with 40% better than expected
false construction numbers though still down a hefty .3%, 90% of private
economists say we’re in a recession and we’ll see much more lagging effect to
the downside, realization that bad economic conditions going forward not frozen
credit affecting lending despite their lies/fraud to buttress their fleecing of
the treasury, Motek expert says another washout coming and we’ve not heard the
last of those, ie., banks, companies, brokerages, etc., under the waves] , that
lunatic frauds on wall street develop new b.s. talking point to keep suckers
sucked in to this market so the wall street frauds can keep eating away at
suckers’ money by commissioning same, the new talking point being ‘the
election’. What total b**l s**t! They’re just a bunch of criminally insane
vegetables who can’t do anything that they’re supposed to do well, ie,
economics, finance, accounting, etc., and are hoping to escape accountability
for their crimes.
They must be prosecuted and disgorgement required because 1) It’s the law and to create a deterrent prospectively
2) Restore credibility and confidence in prosecutorial, regulatory,
government/governmental bodies as opposed to their being accomplices, and the
markets (which are just that; marketplaces, like fish markets, commodity
markets, flea markets, etc., no big deal, particularly as the frauds operate
them) 3) It’s the right thing to do because of the magnitude of the fraud
(in the hundreds of trillions by some educated assessments) in the many
trillions and the fraud on taxpayers (who have been damaged by their fraud and)
by bailouts that are finding their way into compensation/bonus packages for the
perpetrators . Previous session, suckers’ bear
market rally for window dressing for dismal month and quarter to keep the
suckers suckered in this secular bear market. Are you a sucker? One in five
homeowners owe more than homes are worth, more unemployment to come, many more
defaults personal/commercial, many trillions of previously commissioned
worthless paper still carried/not written down, etc.. One of Motek’s experts,
to his credit, points to reality in saying retreat to cash (take profits) in
rallies as these (rallies on bad news), record declines in spending, economy
has lots of negatives, insurance companies have lots of negatives, hedge funds
liquidating, and importantly, 60% of trades computerized so great for
generating commissions but bad for real value (as this week) and very volatile;
while another expert echoes bear case as spending down across the board; while
another empahasizes bad month on top of bad month for autos; while
another says 2008 behind only 1929 and 1987 for bad; and another says no more
room for rate cuts, more regulation, mortgage rates up; and finally, political
and economic uncertainty cited. In sum, u.s. stocks over-priced and dollar will drop like a stone
(excessive printing/creating/debt), Stocks:
A Bear Case so
sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can as much, much worse to
come. Don’t forget, THEY NEED YOUR MONEY TO COMMISSION and the lunatic
wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty
which must be disgorged through prosecution . Despite another big advance on Friday,
paper losses in the U.S. stock market came to $2.5 trillion for the month,
according to the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Composite Index, which represents
nearly all stocks traded in the United States. The 17.7 percent decline was the
worst since the 23 percent drop in October 1987 and 1929. Previous day,
suckers’ bear market rally on bad news. U.S.
Economy: GDP Shrinks (even with fake better than expected GDP numbers from
corrupt commerce department) at Fastest Pace Since 2001 The government falsely reported Thursday that the economy
shrank only 0.3 percent in the July-September period, still a significant
slowdown after growth of 2.8 percent in the prior quarter in the summer,
sending the strongest signal yet that a deep recession has already begun.
Consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the economy, dropped by the
largest amount in 28 years in the third quarter. One expert says multiple
levels of things going wrong in u.s. recession, ie., consumer spending down and
declining, housing recession, fraudulently worthless investments, worthless
Weimar dollars that are being printed/created like mad, etc.. Another expert
says fake GDP number in 3rd quarter does not capture slowdown which will be
reflected in 4th quarter with minimum 2-4% decline. How are these frauds not
being prosecuted and forced disgorgement and preposterously getting taxpayer dollars? The lunatic
wall street frauds’ desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty
which must be disgorged through prosecution, none of the real problems
(trillions of fraudulent/worthless securities, etc.) have been addressed much
less solved so sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can since
much, much worse to come. Previous session, government (fake)
numbers on durables (130% better than private estimates…I don’t think so!) and
prospectively dollar-crushing 50 basis point rate cut (discounted b.s.
talking point many times over by market in prior sucker session), 2.7% drop in the dollar, fed heads said the pace of economic activity has
"markedly" slowed as consumer expenditures declined, while inflation
pressures are expected (despite worthlessness of the Weimar dollar) to
(temporarily) moderate due to the (temporary election year) drop in commodity
prices and weaker economic prospects, so still
great opportunity to sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you still
can (like now) since much, much worse to come as all problems remain. Previous
session, all news decisively bad with consumer sentiment far below expected 52%
but realistically at 38%, personal bankruptcies/business bankruptcies up
sharply (Euler
Hermes ACI: Substantial Increase In Business Bankruptcies and worse in 2009 ...
, Personal
Bankruptcies Increase and 2009 expected to be worse ), Office
Vacancy Rates Nationwide Keep Climbing; 2009 will be worse ... , US consumer
debt reaches record levels , U.S. budget
deficit swells to record $455 billion | Reuters , White
House projects record deficit for 2009 - CNN.com , dollar
down and dying, record trade
deficits, (Lost growth is cumulative. Thanks to the record trade deficits
accumulated over the last 10 years, the U.S. economy is about $1.5 trillion
smaller. This comes to about $10000 per worker. The damage grows larger
each month, as the Bush Administration and Democratic Congress dally and ignore
the corrosive consequences of the trade deficit), war crimes/profiteering and
global disdain for america and all things american and preposterously based on
b.s. alone ie., dollar negative talking point of interest rate decrease
(hyperinflationary as will be seen post-election), etc., suckers’ bear market rally on decidedly bad news, none of the
real problems including many trillions of worthless paper, deficits
budget/trade, hyperinflationary/worthless Weimar dollars being printed like
mad, have even been addressed much less solved (election-year expedience), lunatic
wall street frauds desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty
which must be disgorged through prosecution, so sell into
rallies/strength/take profits while you can since much, much worse to come.
THE DOW JUMPS 900 POINTS. SO WHAT? BY MORGAN HOUSE
October 28, 2008 Only in today's market can the Dow have one of its biggest gains ever, on a day when consumer confidence logged its worst readings since it's been followed. After the Dow's nearly 900-point rally today, on what seemed like nothing but loads of bad news, you're right to stand back and wonder what in the world to make of this absurd volatility -- and more importantly, how to invest around it.The short, easy, and honest answer is that this volatility is spectacularly unreasonable, and you're foolhardy to try such an approach. Think about it: Only a few weeks ago, the Dow soared an equally impressive amount -- 936 points -- sending a wave of euphoria over markets, as if our troubles were behind us. Within days ... poof! The gains were gone. There's little reason to jump for joy over today's gain, either. Call me a party pooper, but the bad news in the economy hasn't disappeared, my friends…
Reality from Farrell: Bottom line: You've been scammed: This is total incompetence, … unethical and criminal. If you put your hard-earned $12,000 under the mattress for the last decade, it would have been worth more than the $11,671 accumulated in a mutual fund. But actually it's far, far worse! Now if you also deduct the fund's 5.75% load (and/or commissions) and inflation of more than 30% the past decade, you see the stock market's a real loser. In short, after 10 years of blindly trusting the Wall Street's advice about stocks, it turns out that investing in the stock market is not a money-making machine, but a big fat greedy black hole that gobbles up your money. ECONOMICS GURU: WORST IS YET TO COME; MARKETS WILL CLOSE FOR UP TO WEEK FROM PANIC... More from Grantham: S&P to 585. He called the bubble, how could anyone doubt his valuation (although even lower is more realistic)? Jeremy Grantham … (some) benefits to the crisis, including increasing personal savings, an end to the hedge fund era, a reminder that government officials are not to be trusted, …among others…Grantham posits… 585 on the S&P 500 (versus today's 877). Frank Motek (back from vacation to save his business hour … none too soon since his program suffered mightily in his absence) experts say: lack of liquidity, new homes and home prices downward trend to continue, expect revisions; another says other nations loaned to u.s. and getting burned, spending in Europe more difficult to ramp up, $2 TRILLION more debt, fed buying u.s. debt which is hyperinflationary, consumer maxed out, grim outlook; another, a wall street shill points to better than expected new home sales [from scandal scarred/corrupt commerce department…riiiiight …(Home sales rise according to discredited commerce department relative to revised downward prior months sales (riiiiiight…that’s the way to work the statistics…at least the prior months fake stats can still be good for something) but prices sharply fall)] but to his credit does say there are a pile of concerns including liquidation of positions, ‘n carry trades’ (sic), yen/dollar disparity; r.e. analyst says median price for homes still heading down and another says new home sales this month not sustainable, foreclosures high even with freeze; oil analyst says oil demand in China down, impacting price; finally, another analyst says temporary dollar spike because of unwinding of leveraged trades (in dollars), commodities/assets/metals decline as investors/traders/holders sell off assets (cover margin calls, redemptions, etc.), u.s. stocks still over-priced and dollar will drop like a stone (excessive printing/creating/debt), Stocks: A Bear Case so sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can as much, much worse to come. Previous session: you know the worst is yet to come when the so-called wizards of fraudulent wall street laud the day’s 5-9% decline as a pyrrhic victory (coulda been worse…..riiiiight!) that is neither victory nor the end of the downward adjustment to reality and the scope of their fraud, indeed one expert now points to the realization that america has become the exporter of economic weakness/fraud as hedge funds, etc., continue to liquidate positions/assets (margin calls, redemptions, etc.) , sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can as much worse to come. Markets Nosedive on Grim Economic News , World markets sink as recession realities spread , 79th anniversary of 1929 Wall Street Crash... , previous day suckers’ bear market rally/400 point swing/programmed trades to the upside into the close on decidedly bad news …I don’t think so!… sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can since much, much worse to come Economist Roubini Predicts Hedge Fund Failures, Panic, Closed Markets , Job losses accelerating, and the worst is ahead , Banks borrow record amount from Fed... , on top of previous day’s near 200 point swing to the upside into the close to keep the suckers suckered as ‘experts’ say: earnings 11% below expectations, business bad and getting worse, recession, substantial job cuts, big problems in Europe including writedowns of u.s. originated worthless fraudulent paper / another says realization source of the now global problems is u.s., fed throwing money at problems (wall street frauds) but not making it to the economy, not enough money to cover the negative (fraud) and need for flush out and adjustment of inflatede/bubble/illusory values, and another says reality implies 25% decline which is worst since 1937, sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can since much, much worse to come Recession Will Last At Least Two Years: Roubini , Recession Now: It's Deep and It's Going to Last a Long Time, Sonders Says ; previous day modest losses relative to reality as only 15% of americans believe the nation is going in the right direction (what dummies!) which is slightly more than congress’ approval rate and just slightly less than bushes’ approval rate, More banks may fail, IMF warns , Weak profit picture and weak/declining economy worries and fear of being held criminally accountable for their fraud hurt Wall Street , sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can since much, much worse to come , previous day’s suckers’ bear market rally on bad or false news as ie., leading economic indicators up though all economists expected down since major components thereof (stock prices, manufacturing/industrial indices, employment, etc.) all down, economy so bad they’re going to print more worthless hyperinflationary Weimar dollars (that they don’t really have), gave another $12 billion to AIG on top of the other billions of taxpayer funds, yet none of the real problems including many trillions of worthless paper, deficits budget/trade, hyperinflationary/worthless Weimar dollars being printed like mad, have even been addressed much less solved (election-year expedience) so sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can as much worse to come , The Crumbling U.S. Economy, Worse is Yet to Come , Worst slump since Great Depression , Rapid Downward Revisions in Expected Economic Growth , and all this b.s. despite reality on top of previous session suckers’ 500 point swing/programmed trades to the upside into the close to close modestly lower on much worse than expected news on top of previous suckers’ bear market rally/800 point swing/programmed trades to the upside into the close on decidedly bad news …I don’t think so!
Searching for Mr. Goodlow [ While you certainly want to buy low (and sell high), in light of the crushing debt, deficits both budgetary/trade, global antipathy because of war crimes/profiteering, transfer of manufacturing base, and greedy frauds on wall street, corruption at all levels, etc., this time is like no other for america in the most negative sense, particularly since the average multiples for S&P for the past 5 years were based upon a huge fraud bubble and hardly a benchmark/guideline. The saying/axiom of J.P.Morgan remains apposite as ’ it is not so much the return on the money as it is the return of the money’. ]
Building starts/permits and new home sales down 8.3% and 6.3% to
worst levels in 17 years, drop in consumer sentiment highest ever recorded so
great opportunity to sell/take profits while you still can since smart money
(and reality) say trend is much lower Billion-Dollar Fund Manager, Dow To Sink To 5,000 ,
Roubini: Dow 7,000 Likely 'Sometime Next Year' , Dow Jones Bloodbath Mirroring 1929 Rout Bottom should be around 27 per cent below “bailout bounce”
according to analyst ,
since none of the real problems including many trillions of worthless paper,
deficits budget/trade, hyperinflationary/worthless Weimar dollars being printed
like mad, have even been addressed much less solved (election-year expedience)
so sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can as much worse to come,
(they’re so desperate for b.s./fraudulent talking points/sizzle to sell that
the rumor (Microsoft to buy/destroy Yahoo) sparks rally though denied by both
companies, spin lower prices as positive when reality is that economic
conditions/prospects so bad that demand has precipitously fallen, Philly fed
Index down sharply indicating contraction, Real Estate/Builders’ Index
lowest/Worst reading since inception, lunatic
wall street frauds desperation linked to their substantial crimes and booty
which must be disgorged through prosecution, volatility index at new
record, previous session reality trumps the new fraud as markets can’t hide
from the plethora of bad economic news albeit sugar-coated for election year
purposes as retail sales down 1.2% for month and as well, year-over-year and in
all regions, beige book says economic activity down in all regions Billion-Dollar Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink
To 5,000 sell into rallies/strength/take profits while you can as much
worse to come and remember, fool you once, shame on the wall street frauds who should be in
prison, fool you twice, shame on you and you’re screwed, one expert described the bailout as money
down a black hole Total Bailout Cost Heads Towards $5 TRILLION , shreve of investors’
(shouldn’t that be traders’) business daily said became negative on market in
August and all cash in September [but previously, 6-3-08, SHREVE OF INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY NOW
NEGATIVE ON MARKET (YA THINK), WAS BULLISH JUST RECENTLY ENOUGH FOR BULL TRAP
(OR JUST PLAIN BULL CRAP) AND CITES HEDGE FUND SPECULATORS, SUPPLY/DAMAND
FACTORS (OIL RISE, ETC), LEADERSHIP TURNED NEGATIVE WHICH FED MINUTES
CONFIRMED, implying that somewhere in between he was positive ] but to his credit states we’re in a
recession…some quarters of negative growth/contraction ahead…takes considerable
time for fed steps/missteps to take effect…and 7-8% unemployment, while fed
governor janet yellen says we’re in a recession…daaah!, while another cites
consensus that the financial crisis won’t be over anytime soon US confronts reality of long, deep
recession/depression ,
The
global economy is going through a "profound shift" as it deals with
the unwinding of debt leverage, which Todd Harrison, CEO of Minyanville.com calls "the mother of all bubbles."
As with the tech bubble before them, bubbles in housing, commodities and hedge
funds were all made bigger because of the unfettered use of leverage. The
unwinding process is going to result in a "prolonged period of
socioeconomic malaise," he says, predicting unemployment will rise will
into double-digits before the cycle turns.
The most recent batch of economic data
certain support a grim outlook:
previous
session saw modest losses relative to reality with near 300 point upswing into
the close on bad news (to keep the suckers in … were you a sucker?…the frauds
on wall street are counting on it as today’s session proves) including record
budget deficit at $454 billion and much worse next year, they’re treating
symptoms not the problems so good money after bad, substantial unwinding of
derivatives and market manipulation by programmed stock purchases, u.s. gov’t
selling treasuries to finance debacle pushing interest rates higher so
sell/take profits, The Wall Street Coup and the Bailout Scam Bailout $700
billion yet national debt increased by over $1 trillion,They socialize their
losses and privatize their gains ….. How is this happening? Paulson Doles Out $125 Billion to Wall Street Elite What a total
fraud/scam! A
Trillion Dollar Bait and Switch: The Bailout and the Smell Test This
is a secular bear market – check out the cycles. Roubini
Sees Worst Recession in 40 Years, Rally’s End ,
previously Motek’s expert Art Hogan says crisis not over, daaaaah!, buuuttt and
for the first time sounds like a typical wall street shill and loses all
credibility thereby, while another non-Motek expert says will retest lows which
is euphemistically correct while pointing to comparable spike/decline in 1929
et seq. Great Depression scenario , Billion-Dollar Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink
To 5,000 , b.s. talking points
and all based upon other nations, Europe and Asia like lemmings again following
america into the abyss (Iraq, etc.) since none of the real problems including
many trillions of worthless paper, deficits budget/trade,
hyperinflationary/worthless Weimar dollars being printed like mad, have even
been addressed much less solved (election-year expedience) so sell into rallies/strength/take
profits while you can as much worse to come and remember, fool you once, shame on the wall street frauds who should be
in prison, fool you twice, shame on you and you’re screwed, as this and previous session’s programmed buy trades to keep
the suckers sucked in and commission dollars flowing (the shameless wall street
frauds made hundreds of millions last week and today on high then moderate
volume as government/banks closed for holiday), thousand point swings to the
upside- I don’t think so, as yet again those needful things on wall street get
even MORE, MORE, MORE, MORE, MORE for the poor (not really, in light of the
mega billions in fraudulently derived commissions, bonuses, compensation, which
should and must be disgorged through prosecution) frauds on wall street, retail
down, unemployment at recession levels, modest losses relative to reality so
sell into strength/take profits, get your money out while you can and don’t
forget that the worthless hyperinflationary Weimar dollars they’re printing
like mad will, like the current fraud unraveling, come home to roost [Rogers:
Global Bankers Have Unleashed Hyperinflationary Holocaust ] making, assuming arguendo there are, any
wild-eyed purported gains to come illusory/non-existent at best and further,
national (and consumer) debt and lack of industrial/manufacturing base/trade
deficits make previous recovery comparisons preposterous, Motek’s expert says
on-going bear market since 2000 (market down 75% as measured in gold) with
continued massive liquidations to pay off debt and that attempts to reflate
with bailouts will fail culminating in hyperinflationary depression, while
another expert says stocks could slug around at bottom for extended period,
while Financial Times Editor says most volatile day ever, not at tradable
bottom, and this was a market crash at –40% from top. GM shares on credit watch with negative implications
by S&P tumble 31 percent to 58-year low , Roubini: Rate Cuts Temporarily and Minimally Reduce
Crash Risk, But Dow 7,000 Likely 'Sometime Next Year' , dollar down, oil up, Motek’s expert Bogel of Vanguard fame
points to speculative measure for wall street in 1929 as 280 which is even
below and not as bad as the current measure of 320 in year 2008 indicative of
the ridiculousness of the wall street debacle, It's Not You, It's the Market - Now Officially the
Worst S&P Decline in History ,on
top of previous sessions needful things on wall street saying MORE, taxpayer
money to bail them out for their consummate fraud, etc., MORE now
EU/Asian/fed/taxpayers’ cooperation/contribution for their past, present and
future frauds, etc., to keep their ponzi-like scheme of worthless paper moving;
how about prosecution, prison, fines, and disgorgement for these mega
billion dollar frauds, as 500 point swing to the upside into the close (get
your money out while you can-sell into strength/rallies/take profits) on yet
another b.s. talking point (I don’t think so and neither does Cramer says Get Out Of The Market ) as Motek’s expert apparently shell-shocked talks in terms
of washout levels while another says bailout will take about 4 weeks to
implement and not sure if same will work [WON’T! There are trillions (some say in the hundreds of trillions) of the
fraudulent worthless paper out there] and points
to negative economic fundamentals and says reduce exposure to equities in favor
of ie., money market treasuries, previous day buy on rumor, sell on news (of
fraud bailout) obtains, fundamentals horrendous as economy loses more than
expected 159,000 jobs, Motek’s economist/expert/trader says serious economic
issues remain and cites ’73 to ’74 when market fell 45% top to bottom while
securities expert says now focus is on fundamentals and not a pretty picture
and cautions about dilution, get your money out while you can-sell into
strength/rallies/take profits-that’s what they did , previously hopes for
fraudulent $4
trillion plus is missing through U.S. federal agency accounts managed by the NY
Fed misguided Not
One Dime! wall street
fraud/criminal bailout “Grand Larceny” on a Monumental Scale: Does the Bailout Bill
Mark the End of America as We Know It? can’t change reality as unemployment numbers highest in 7
years, factory orders decline to lowest level in 2 years, food prices with
largest increase since 1990, previous 200
point swing to the upside on top of 485 point previous day gain with all
seriously negative news including sales drops of 16% at GM and 35% at Ford so
sell into these rallies/strength/take profits whil you can, economist Brusca points to grim economic/financial data and
outlook even with bailout, Billion-Dollar Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To Sink
To 5,000 , U.S. Sept. ISM manufacturing index plunges to 43.5% (worst
since 1955), Bailout Would Only Prolong Crisis: Jim Rogers ,except for scandal-scarred corrupt commerce department
which reported unexpected rise in consumer sentiment (riiiiight…things are so
hunky-dory), all news decidedly negative with home prices falling an unexpected
record 16.3 %, etc. Bailout marks
Karl Marx’s comeback This
is not brain surgery and the fraud, bonuses/compensation (mortgages, subprime
and otherwise, are only a relatively small portion of the fraud/scam providing
“cover/collateral” for the worthless but heavily commissioned paper over and
over again in a multiplicity of different forms of worthless paper) in the
mega-billions should first be disgorged before taxpayers are forced to pony up
and pay the frauds again for their fraud which caused the problem in the first
instance, must be prosecuted. It should also be noted that despite the rhetoric,
the wall street bailout will NOT solve the crisis or eliminate the economic
pain except to make permanent the fraudulent wealth transfer to the most well
healed heals/frauds/criminals in the nation who caused the so-called crisis by
their greed/corruption/fraud.
All news decisively negative as WaMu becomes biggest bank to fail in US history (AP),
GDP revised downward to 2.8% in second quarter (the market previously rallied
on the false news and rallies again on the true bad news), only 30% at most support the taxpayer bailout of the wall
street frauds so count on tax revolts as predicted by experts if the same
passes , Sell
into any rallies/take profits as all problems remain and will be exacerbated by
the fact that the vast majority of taxpayers rationally and correctly opposed
the bailout of the wall street criminals who benefited from the fraud. Reaction
has been fast and furious 9-28-08[2:38 am]; take a look at some initial
comments. Sell into any strength/take profits because with bank
failures and raids on taxpayer funds and reckless printing like mad of
worthless Weimar dollars and fake data/reports and lies this is worse than
recession/bear market, New Home Sales Plunged 11.5% to 17-Year Low and home inventories up, jobless claims up and durable goods
orders down far more than expected, home prices drop by record 9.5%, existing
home sales down 2.2% as they continue to foist the wall street criminal/fraud
bailout on taxpayers which Bloomberg
now pegs at a cost of $5 trillion while other economists/experts say
hundreds of trillions [which means $700 billion down the tubes into the pockets
of the wall street criminals (make them pay) who created the mess through their
greed/fraud/scams and who’ve already reaped huge financial sums in the many
billions through compensation/bonuses (mortgages, subprime and otherwise, are
only a relatively small portion of the fraud/scam providing “cover/collateral”
for the worthless but heavily commissioned paper over and over again in a
multiplicity of different forms of worthless paper]; Motek’s financial expert,
Financial Times Business Editor cites thoroughly gloomy economic picture
globally and u.s. particularly, record levels of borrowing from fed, even with
passage of bailout dire economic/financial scenario will remain, and axiomatic
‘buy on the rumor, sell on the news’ picture for stocks while his
expert/economist/investor/entertainer (Ben Stein) says outrageous to bail out
wall street criminals who should be in prison [and who should pay back/disgorge
the hundreds of billions they’ve been scamming by repackaging/recollateralizing
commissioning and reselling of which fraud/bubble I’ve been warning for over 5
years on this site-indeed they even have been exempted by congress for RICO
liability and meaningfully lawless application of other laws as I reiterate in
my RICO Summary under
penalty of perjury to the FBI at their request including RICO violations by
Sam Alito, former u.s. attorney (District of new jersey) who parlayed
obstruction of justice (I’ve sworn to this regarding drug-money laundering)
into judicial appointments to the 3rd circuit court of appeals with maryanne
trump (Barry) and now the so-called supreme court (he should have gone to jail)
justice; how could anyone even listen to bush (WMD’s in Iraq-I also warned
against that debacle/fraud/war crimes/profiteering) ] and he further says let
the ceo’s go and some of the failed institutions fail condemning the
outrageousness of the lack of oversight in this huge fraud/wealth transfer; and
hanky panky paulson the wall street shill whose $50 million in blind trust and
$20 million in vanguard benefits from this bailout by the taxpayers, The Fed is Making a Killing on Banking Crisis , so great opportunity to sell/take profits while you
still can. One democrat said that with
3 months remaining in war criminal (remember the lies) bush’s lamentable failed
presidency the grab based on fear that bailout of the criminals who caused the
problem and made huge sums from their heavily commissioned fraud will avoid
what already is can only be deemed another fraudulent wealth transfer akin to
the war crimes in Iraq, which budget-busting conflict is also part of america’s
problem, is preposterous on it’s face.A republican said that the
so-called over-sight provision utilizes a standard of judicial review that
would render impossible any purported review/abrogation (and after the fact at
that) of paulson’s largesse to his bro’s on wall street and bush buddies.
Mike
Stathis The Market Oracle September 22, 2008… As far as I’m concerned, anyone
who doesn’t conduct a full investigation of this charade leading to several
CEOs and other executives in prison with all of their assets being shuttled
into America’s bailout fund doesn’t have what it takes to lead America anywhere
except on its current course – downward. But it doesn’t really matter at this
point anyway. Washington and the greedy bankers have ensured the end of what
was once a great and proud nation filled with hope and opportunity. … ,
Dollar
Weakens Most Against Euro Since 2001 on U.S. Deficit , Financial terrorism: US taxpayers bail out Wall Street
criminals , A Bailout to Nowhere ,…Cramer
had said the astonishing 779-point rally over the past two days can only mean one
thing: sell. , in this election year
obfuscation/desperation to cover-up since all real news remains decisively
negative as leading indicators fall, unemployment claims rise, but suckers’ bear market rally b**l s**t talking
points without realistic, legitimate, sound foundation previously rallied
stocks in nearly 600 point swing to the upside as wall street
shill/fraud/pointman/incompetent paulson floats new fraudulent wealth transfer
paid for by taxpayers (yet another bailout – tax revolts as predicted by
trendsresearch.com are a coming – McCain is quite right that land of fruits and
nuts man cox should be fired from the SEC; A New Resolution Trust Corp. for the Bankers? Kurt
Nimmo | Congress critters, former Fed mob
bosses want a public boondoggle along the line of the Resolution Trust Corp. to
bailout the banksters) and insurmountably
increasing the defacto bankrupt government’s debt in favor of the very
well-healed perpetrators of the fraud who should be prosecuted and forced to
disgorge their ill-gotten gains (bonuses, etc., in the multi-billions) before
even broaching the ill-advised united soviet
socialist states of america plan to have
taxpayers pay for the wall street fraud, and then there was the ridiculous
spike from fed’s announced printing/creating more worthless Weimar dollars
($180 billion - All Roads Lead To Hyperinflation ) which even coupled with foreign contributions does not even
register a blip of difference in light of the magnitude of the amount of debt,
$14 trillion private/$15 trillion public, much of which must be written
down/off/non-performing . Don’t be wall street’s (churn and earn) fool; time
for them to pay up; time for you to sell/take profits/cut losses! Housing construction plunges 6.2 pct. in August , Worst
is yet to come, investment strategist warns (at MarketWatch) , more gov’t bailout taxpayer money with ever more worthless
Weimar dollars (fed printing/creating them like mad) proves the only lunatics
(yes, the full moon) are not limited to those lunatic fraudulent wall street
needful things who should be prosecuted and forced to disgorge their ill-gotten
gains, as united soviet socialist states of america (who built up communist
china so who could have expected less) takes 80% stake in AIG, spreads
widening as piles of worthless debt/securities/collateral unwind so sell into
these suckers’ bear market rallies as all problems remain US Economy: Rudderless and
Reeling From Direct Hits , Federal bank insurance fund
dwindling , More Socialism for the
Bankers: Fed to “Loan” AIG $85 Billion , economy so bad oil demand own, so cut your losses/take
whatever gains/get your money out while you still can as industrial output down
much greater than expected 1.1% (for the prior month) , Meltdown in US finance system pummels stock market
, Rogers: Dollar To Lose World Reserve Status , AIG downgraded as financial meltdown spreads
, Wall Street mauled by Lehman bankruptcy, AIG fears , highest year over year foreclosures on record,
retail down .3% while inventories up, as bad news spurs over 150 point swing to
the upside into the close which shows irrationally fraudulent markets trying to
keep suckers sucked in for their commissioning pleasure, Bullish Sentiment Drops 30% , CBOE Put-Call Ratio Indicates Negative Outlook ,
Get Ready For the S&P 500 to Break Below 1200 ,
WaMu cut to "junk," sees $4.5
billion loss reserve (Reuters) , U.S. Trade Deficit Surges; Boosts Likelihood of Recession,
Job Losses , August foreclosures hit another
record high , federal/trade deficits
among other bad news worse than expected which previously rallied stocks
(riiiiight!) on over 300 point swing to the upside (I don’t think so) so
sell into these ephemeral rallies/"strength”, Lehman shows wider than
expected $3.9 billiion loss, Another bull joins the bears Peter Eliades now says Dow should drop below 9,000, election-year sugar/fake reports as Pending home sales fall more than expected 3.2%
, Fannie/Freddie fail, federal takeover, taxpayer
bailout (which the frauds on wall street cheer since they believe their
fraudulent gains, many billions worth, might not be touched - they should be
disgorged through prosecution) as defacto bankrupt government to commit
$100 billion each to insolvent fannie/freddie ($200 billion they really don’t
have to start with), very ridiculous so sell into ephemeral
rallies/"strength" since the same and all is very bad news Top
Investor: Fannie/Freddie Bailout Serves "Bunch Of Crooks And
Incompetents" (more to follow
this update on 9-7-08) suckers’ bear market/short-covering rally into the close
on 200 point swing to the upside (riiiiight) on very bad news, nonfarm payrolls fell
by 84,000 during August, bringing the unemployment rate to 6.1%, THE LATEST FRIDAY FAILURE FOR THE U.S. BANKING INDUSTRY: US to take control of mortgage giants: reports
, Home foreclosures reach record high , and keep
in mind frauds/scams like wall street today invariably
unravel as reality bites with all news bad (except for fake news) and worse
than expected with new unemployment claims up more than 15,000 on top of
terrible back-to-school shopping/retail numbers, though still sugar-coated for
election year as sales at GM down 20% Ford down 26%, bankruptcies up, credit
union taken over by feds, August ISM Index down
below 50 indicating contraction, construction spending fell a
larger-than-expected 0.6%, and spending down to lowest
level in 3 years with income declining .7% in contrast to previous day’s
suckers’ bear market rally on light volume so great time to sell/take profits
while you can since all problems remain] Election-year feel good typically
false/embellished at best temporary report on GDP 58% better than private
forecasts along with that bastion of american credibility, the scandal scarred
prevaricating commerce department comes through with fraudulent talking point
for the wall street frauds with durable goods numbers exceeding private
economist estimates by 400% (I don’t think so!), as one of Motek’s experts says
GDP number from government, at best temporary blip from rebate stimulous (those
election-year monies/printed Weimar dollars debt-ridden u.s. doesn’t really
have) and multi-national exports on weak dollar, seventh staight monthly
decline in payrolls in this real recession, and continued problems in financial
sector/real estate/defaults/writedowns; while another seasoned expert
says doesn’t look good particularly for third and fourth quarters. Motek’s
expert says FDIC might have to borrow from treasury [ FDIC may borrow money from Treasury ], second largest quarterly loss on record from thrifts at
$5.4 billion, Fannie/Freddie fail the performance test, and precipitous fall in
leading economic indicators indicative of deeper/longer recession that we’re
already in so high allocation to cash/low allocation to stocks. The Real Rate of Inflation is 13% No way to credibly spin the record real estate price declines
on high volume of foreclosure sales/high unsold inventories, high
inflation as other than the economic debacle it is, Motek’s expert reiterates
reality of this bear market, that stocks will resume slide, good time to sell
since pricey/frothy at avg. 24 P/E, that Freddie/Fannie bailout/gov’t. takeover
inevitable, more troubled banks [ FDIC's Problem Banks List Balloons (at TheStreet.com)
] as loan defaults extend losses in sub-prime,
to now prime, commercial, student loans, credit cards, even as inflation up,
and outlook very bleak. Previously, another bank failure, but they say existing
home sales up greater than expected 3.1%…but from auction/foreclosure sales
(40%), prices down 7% (-22% in land of fruits and nuts) and inventories of for
sale/unsold homes at new record high since tracking began in 1968 and worse to
come, Chicago index of manufacturing down indicating further economic weakness
and Motek’s expert says ‘put’ activity indicates at least 10-15% more downside
from here/government bailout ot fannie/freddie inevitable and f/f stock
worthless as all news decisively bad beyond expectations though fudged to
upside for election year and yet bernanke who is printing worthless
hyperinflationary Weimar dollars like mad soothed (gives them fraudulent
talking point) the frauds on wall street saying essentially the economy is so
bad inflation less of a problem (and no interest rate hike-old news because of
economic weakness and bad for dollar) sparking suckers bear market rally on
light volume, Buffett: We're still in a
recession, leading indicators down .7%, unemployment near record
levels,Oil jumps $5 on US-Russia tensions, sliding dollar , hence great opportunity to sell/take profits since all
problems remain and dollar mini-spike short-lived though some fluctuations to
upside on speculation other economies will tank. Wholesale prices: Highest annual rate in 27 years . The
Strong Dollar Illusion . Housing starts and building permits posted steep declines. That hub of global manufacturing buzzing (riiiiight!) as
empire state index as measured by private economists expected to fall -4.2% but
is reported up +2.8% (almost 300% better-I don’t think so, and don’t buy the
Brooklyn bridge, watches, swamp land in jersey, etc.), inflation news double
expectations Bracing for Inflation August 15, 2008 (BusinessWeek Growing evidence
suggests American consumers, businesspeople, and political leaders should all
be bracing for double-digit inflation, probably as early as 2009), real estate falling, U.S. Foreclosures Rise 55%, Bank Seizures Reach High , unemployment at recession
levels, etc.,. Note the rotation into the obscure world of so-called tech which
provides, as in prior such ploys (ie., dot-com bust, more recent bust, etc.)
the world street frauds with the ability to sell the sizzle since investors and
americans generally don’t understand it (ie., iphones are a joke where the
so-called “computer” is merely a restrictor of usual computer functions now
tied into apple products and government shill co att, and anyone who pays the
premium for apple products is a fool), and all news bad albeit fudged to the
upside in this election year. Fake trade figures, more writedowns/bad
debt, still great opportunity to sell/take profits. Just another frothy day in
the rabidly fraudulent lunatic world of wall street and great opportunity to
sell/take profits since all problems remain and dollar mini-spike short-lived.
Fog of war ( U.S. Attacks Russia Through Client State Georgia –
don’t believe american lies/propaganda to the contrary) is frauds friend, repeat three times to understand
fraudulent wall street euphoria over diversion (Georgia conflict) from their
massive fraud which brought much greater than expected losses at fannie (U.S. Headed Toward Bankruptcy, Says Top Budget Committee
Republican ) and triple-digit decline
to triple digit upswing so especially great opportunity to sell/take profits as
glass-half-full kind of frauds point to increase in
(foreclosure/auction/forced) home sales (riiiiight!) while they can no
longer hide substantially increased unemployment, etc., economy so bad
oil demand declining which is shill point for next stage of (new) wall street
fraud/commissioned churn and earn scam which the taxpayers just underwrote/paid
for with complicit government, executive/legislative/judicial branches/fed.
Great opportunity to sell/take profits since all problems remain as real
numbers indicate previous decline in GDP though falsely reported as gain,
greater unemployment (watch for fake numbers from government) and much more
downside to come as stocks previously rallied on sharp increase in oil prices
and ADP, A JERSEY BASED COMPANY NOT UNFAMILIAR TO THE FRAUD/CRIME OF PLACING
FAKE/NON-EXISTENT EMPLOYEES ON PAYROLLS TO FACILITATE (ILLEGAL/DRUG) MONEY
LAUNDERING PLAYING BALL (I’M SURE FOR A PRICE/FAVOR) WITH THE FRAUDS ON WALL
STREET/ADMIN. WITH ALLEGED, UNEXPECTED INCREASE IN PRIVATE SECTOR JOBS, and
short-covering. The
Dow Priced in Ounces of Gold: Secular Bear Market Since '99 by Lindstrom from
Seeking Alpha AP
Business Highlights A private research group says that
Americans remain the most pessimistic about the economy since the tail end of
the last prolonged recession 16 years ago. But economists warn that the slight
uptick, which reverses a six-month slide since January, is likely to be only
temporary and doesn't signal the beginning of a rally…Yahoo… the survey only has weak correlation with actual spending,
so Briefing.com
does not put too much stock in the report.]
Quantifying
Inflation by Zigler from Seeking Alpha,
Housing report bruises frauds on
wall street with reality but false report from corrupt, scandal-scarred,
criminal commerce department (contrary to all expectations and contrary to all
regional fed manufacturing indices which declined) provides fake report and
fraudulent lift . Great Opportunity to
Sell/Take Profits as Reality trumps bull s**t! Sell dollar denominated assets
as all problems remain. El-Erian: Buy more foreign stocksEven
in this century's darkest days of recession and war, U.S. households kept on
spending. But one of the smartest investors on the planet says the American
consumer is finally out of steam. Even if, and it is
not, oil were the only problem, the same is just a disruption away from a
spike. Suckers’ bear market/short-covering rally based on bull s**t alone, this
time by wall street shill paulson whose bailout rhetoric brings ‘irrational
exuberance’ since wall street frauds should be prosecuted, required to disgorge
ill-gotten gains, and jailed since they’re the ones who benefited and are
escaping accountability by the bailout. Except for multi-nationals and
corporate welfare recipients (ie., Lockheed, etc.), greater than expected
losses in not millions but billions rallied the stocks. Remember, these are
huge financial institutions unlike the tiny S&Ls of the last banking fraud/wealth
transfer (to frauds at expense of taxpayers). Leading indicators revised down
(after ‘election year keep the incumbents’ fake report). What do you expect the
wall street frauds/criminals who should be held accountable and the failed (and
illegal- constitution would have to be amended to enable Fed to print those
worthless Weimar dollars with now even failed Fannie and Freddie getting some
with taxpayer bailout) Fed to say; admit they royally f**ked up, etc.,
better than expected very bad news, ie., Citibank loses only $2.5 billion,
hyperinflation, over 200% more (suuuuure!) than expected oil inventories,
GM cuts dividend, Intel monopoly eliminates AMD, economy so bad less oil
use/demand, riiiiight! What total bull s**t! SELL INTO STRENGTH, TAKE PROFITS
WHILE YOU CAN!] Similarities
between 1929 and 2008 terrifying [In just the month of June, the Dow dropped
10.19%; the S&P fell 8.60%, and the Nasdaq lost 9.10%. For the quarter, the
Dow fell 7.44%; the S&P lost 3.23%, while the Nasdaq had an anemic 0.61%
gain. For the first half, the Dow is down 14.44%; the S&P lost 12.83%; and
the Nasdaq has fallen 13.55%. Since their high point last October, the Dow gave
up 19.87%; the S&P dropped 18.22%; and the Nasdaq is down 19.80%. A 20%
drop from a market peak is considered the start of a bear market — although
many analysts say Wall Street already has a bear market mentality (because the
bear market already is. Some chart data/numbers on bear markets: first chart second chart).]
FAKE GOV’T/ETC. ELECTION YEAR REPORTS THAT EXCEED ECONOMISTS/ANALYSTS
FORECAST/EXPECTATIONS, EARNINGS NOT AS BAD AS EXPECTATIONS (SUUUUURE-SAME
OLD FRAUD). GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO SELL (TAKE PROFITS) WHILE YOU CAN, ESPECIALLY
WITH SUCKERS’ BEAR MARKET RALLIES ON NEGATIVE NEWS (PARTICULARLY SNEAKING INTO
THE CLOSE). NOTHING HAS CHANGED REGARDING TRADE AND BUDGET DEFICITS, WORTHLESS
WEIMAR DOLLAR AND THE HYPERINFLATION/STAGFLATION THEREBY, AND ELECTION YEAR
(THIS IS AN EPHEMERAL GOOD AS IT GETS SCENARIO) ATTEMPTS TO REINFLATE THE
BUBBLE, ETC., THAT HAS HELPED TO CREATE THIS FINANCIAL/ECONOMIC DEBACLE. THE
FED/WALL STREET FOCUS/DEFLECTION ON CORE INFLATION IS A SHAM/FRAUD AND TANTAMOUNT
TO SAYING IF YOUR MOTHER HAD WHEELS SHE’D BE A TROLLEY CAR. [eND OF FIRST
QUARTER DOW –8%, nASDAQ-14%, AND S&P-10%. WALL STREET IS A JOKE THAT IS NOT
FUNNY]. USA
2008: The Great Depression. High
Likelihood of a Market Crash Similarities
between 1929 and 2008 terrifying I WARNED AGAINST THE DEBACLE IN IRAQ, I
WARNED AGAINST GIVING DUMBYA BUSH WAR POWERS, I WARNED OF THE BUBBLES IN REAL
ESTATE AND STOCKS, AND NOW I WARN AGAINST INVESTING IN DOLLAR DENOMINATED
SECURITIES OR HOLDING SAME (SELL INTO STRENGTH/TAKE PROFITS/SELL). SUCKERS’
BEAR MARKET/SHORT COVERING RALLY/NEW BUBBLE MODE (ALONG WITH MODEST DROPS
RELATIVE TO REALITY) SO SELL (TAKE PROFITS) AS THE WALL STREET SCAM IS
UNEARTHED BY REVELATION THAT OF 9 INVESTMENT VEHICLES S&P (MAJORITY OF 401K
HOLDINGS, ETC.) WAS WORST PERFORMER (1% OR LESS AND IF YOU FACTOR IN DECLINING
DOLLAR, NEGATIVE RELATIVE TO NON-DOLLAR DENOMINATED ALTERNATIVES OVER DECADE).
JAWBONER BERNANKE SAYS THIS DOWNTURN IS DIFFERENT FROM THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND
HE IS RIGHT INASMUCH AS AMERICA UNLIKE AFTER THE GREAT DEPRESSION WILL EMERGE
FROM THIS DOWNTURN AS SOMETHING SIGNIFICANTLY AND SUBSTANTIALLY LESS FROM WHICH
THERE WILL BE NO RETRACEMENT TO THE UPSIDE FINANCIALLY, ECONOMICALLY,
GEOPOLITICALLY. Bank
issues global stock and credit crash alert... Write
Offs to Top $1.3 Trillion.Who didn’t see this coming? The
Next Crisis: 'Credit Default Swaps'-- Subprime is a Just a 'Vorspeise' . 5
REASONS WHY THE FED HAS FAILED. GREENSPAN: NO
REGRETS; U.S. IN SEVERE RECESSION. UK, US, AND
WORLD FACING THE BIGGEST FINANCIAL SHOCK SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION, SAYS IMF. VIX
TO VXV RATIO IS GIVING A STRONG BEARISH SIGNAL YAHOO
FINANCE SUMMARIZES THE ESSENCE OF THE TRADING DAY: [BEFORE THE YAHOO MAINSTREAM FLUFF, IT IS NOTEWORTHY THAT ALL
THE PROBLEMS REMAIN FROM DEFICITS TO WORTHLESS WEIMAR DOLLAR TO FRAUD TO FAKE
GOV’T REPORTS, suckers’ bear market rally
into the close, Analysts say
more U.S. banks will fail Jim Rogers: Dollar Doomed, Oil Will Go Over $200 per Barrel
Soon Fannie Plan a `Disaster' to Rogers; Goldman Says Sell ,
why would anyone hold/invest in dollars
(deficits, trade and budget substantial, economic growth declining) so
sell/take profits, if you’re smart, as higher oil prices (7-10-08) sparks rally
(riiiiight!) and investors were encouraged by the possibility of more
contributions to their fraud, and Paulson says things are not as bad as the
reports in this election year; he’s right; they’re much worse! Remember
greenspan’s perpetual envy of all the world speeches; now Bernanke printing
hyperinflationary Weimar dollars like mad; they’re dreaming. Similarities
between 1929 and 2008 terrifying U.S. stocks post sharp weekly losses; bear market
that already is now said nears , Stocks tumble as more bad economic news piles up,
Wave of bad news sends Dow down nearly 360,
Sales of new homes tumbled for the sixth time in
seven months in May while median prices kept plunging, American Express sees
worsening credit conditions, but fake government report of higher than expected
oil inventories (riiiiight!) rallies stocks, Home prices fall in April at record rate,
Consumer confidence sinks to 16-year-plus low
, BlackRock sees global slowdown
worsening in 2009 , DOWNGRADES OF
BANKING/FINANCIAL SECTOR AND IN AUTO SECTOR ALONG WITH BOND INSURERS AMBAC,
MBIA, AMERICA’S BLIND SUPPORT OF ISRAEL/ISRAELI AGGRESSION DEPRESSION CONTINUES
ON COURSE, PHILADELPHIA FED INDEX REGIONAL ASSESSMENT OF MANUFACTURING ACTIVITY
POSTED A BAD READING OF -17.1 FOR JUNE WITH JOBLESS CLAIMS MORE THAN EXPECTED
AND ANALYST SAYS RAISING CHINA'S GASOLINE AND DIESEL PRICES BY 46 CENTS A
GALLON NOT ENOUGH TO HAVE MUCH IMPACT ON EXISTING DEMAND, INFLATION UP AND
PRODUCTION DOWN EQUALS STAGFLATION (EVEN WORSE WHEN REAL NUMBERS HIT HOME), NEW
YORK MANUFACTURING INDEX DOWN AGAIN, REAL ESTATE PLUNGING, HOME BUILDERS’
CONFIDENCE AT/NEAR RECORD LOWS, BAD NEWS BULLS SCENARIO AS ALL NEWS BAD BUT
STOCKS RALLIED (AT BEST GIVING THEM BENEFIT OF DOUBT, A SHORT-COVERING RALLY)
AS CONSUMER CONFIDENCE AT LOWEST POINT IN 28 YEARS FOR GOOD REASONS,
FORECLOSURES UP 50% TO RECORD HIGH LEVELS, COMMODITIES (IE., CORN, ETC.) UP
SHARPLY OWING TO MIDWEST FLOODS WHICH WILL ALSO IMPACT OIL TO THE UPSIDE
GOING FORWARD AS LESS ETHANOL SUPPLIES/HIGHER PRICES, ONE RADIO REPORTER
INTERVIEWS ECONOMIST WHO INDICATES SCEPTICISM REGARDING (IE., INFLATION, ETC.)
NUMBERS WHICH HE BELIEVES ARE WORSE THAN REPORTED (HE’S RIGHT) BUT STILL MORE
THAN EXPECTED UP .6% AND UP MOST IN 6 MONTHS (INFLATION NUMBERS FUDGED FOR
FED), ALL-TIME HIGH REPOSSESSIONS UP 158%, JOBLESS CLAIMS UP MORE THAN EXPECTED
AT HEFTY 384,000, RETAIL SALES UP MORE THAN EXPECTED 1.4% (EXCLUDING
AUTOS-SMART MOVE FOR NUMBERS SAKE AND WALL STREET FRAUD), BUT INVENTORIES OF
GOODS ROSE (THERE’S A LITTLE COST-ACCOUNTING TRICK WHICH FRAUDS ON WALL STREET WOULD
CELEBRATE/ENCOURAGE SINCE QUALITY OF EARNINGS IS APPARENTLY NO LONGER SOMETHING
THEY VALUE-SELL THE SIZZLE/B**L S**T/AND WHAT IS LEAST UNDERSTOOD IS THERE
MODUS POERANDI/MANTRA, VIZ., OVER-PRODUCE GOODS FOR SALE (THE HIGHER
INVENTORIES JUST REPORTED) AND ATTRIBUTE FIXED COSTS TO GREATER NUMBER OF GOODS
WHICH WOULD INCREASE PAPER PROFITS FOR THOSE GOODS SOLD IN THE QUARTER (BE
ESPECIALLY WARY SINCE COMPUTERIZATION HAS MADE SUCH INVENTORY SURPLUSES AND THE
CYCLICAL DOWNTURNS THEREBY RELATIVELY RARE/MINISCULE) AND THEIR RETAIL SALES
INCLUDES THOSE HIGH OIL PRICES, BERNANKE JAWBONES DOLLAR UP,
RIIIIIGHT, SOME REALITY CATCHES UP AS UNEMPLOYMENT RATE JUMPS TO 5.5% WHILE
INTERNATIONAL LAW SCOFFLAW ISRAEL SAYS ATTACKING IRAN INEVITABLE AS OIL ANALYST
SAYS $300 OIL IF UN RESOLUTION VIOLATOR/WAR CRIMINAL ISRAEL DOES, BELYING THE
FALSE DATA, IE., 6-5-08 UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS DOWN UNEXPECTEDLY 18,000 TO
STILL HIGH 357,000, ETC., REMAINING PROBLEMS INCLUDING HOME EQUITY AT
LOWEST LEVELS SINCE WW2, DOWNGRADES ON FINANCIALS INCLUDING AMBAC AND
MBIA, ADP, A JERSEY BASED COMPANY NOT UNFAMILIAR TO THE FRAUD/CRIME OF PLACING
FAKE/NON-EXISTENT EMPLOYEES ON PAYROLLS TO FACILITATE (ILLEGAL/DRUG) MONEY
LAUNDERING PLAYING BALL (I’M SURE FOR A PRICE/FAVOR) WITH THE FRAUDS ON WALL
STREET/ADMIN. WITH ALLEGED, UNEXPECTED INCREASE IN PRIVATE SECTOR JOBS, NET
WORTH/WEALTH IN U.S. DOWN 11% ACROSS THE BOARD, DOLLAR DOWN AS EUROPE
RATIONALLY CONFRONTS INFLATION AND HINTS AT RATE INCREASES, OIL UP SHARPLY, BIG
DISCOUNTERS’ GAINS HARDLY MAKE FOR A POSITIVE RETAIL CLIMATE WITH SHOPPING
LEVELS DOWN 12-16%, MANUFACTURING INDEX STILL BELOW 50 INDICATING CONTRACTION,
CONSTRUCTION DOWN, INFLATION UP (THAT EQUALS STAGFLATION), AIRLINES EXPECTING
$2.3 BILLION LOSS INSTEAD OF PREVIOUSLY PROJECTED PROFIT, LARGEST PRICE
DECLINES FOR REAL ESTATE OF RECORD –14.4% (-22% IN THE LAND OF FRUITS AND
NUTS) ACCORDING TO CASE-SHILLER INDEX, CONSUMER CONFIDENCE AT LOWEST LEVEL IN
16 YEARS, BUT BAD NEWS BULLS RALLY STOCKS ON THE BETTER THAN EXPECTED FAKE DATA
ALONG WITH PLAIN BAD NEWS AS CONSUMER CONFIDENCE READING AT 28 YEAR LOW,
CONSUMER SPENDING FLAT ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION, INFLATION EXPECTATIONS AT RECORD
HIGHS WHILE 55% BELIEVE GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC POLICY IS POOR (I’M SURPRISED AT
THE LOW PERCENTAGE RELATIVE TO REALITY), DROP IN OIL INVENTORIES (OIL DROPS)
AND FAKE GOV’T REPORT REVISING FIRST QUARTER GROWTH TO .9% (SUUUUURE… YOU
THINK THE ‘WHAT HAPPENED’ REVELATIONS, SUBSTANTIVELY REPORTED ON THIS WEBSITE
LONG AGO (PRE-WAR), HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE FUDGING ), AND THINGS ARE NOT
AS BAD AS THEY REALLY ARE … GREAT … RIIIIIGHT. ANALYST EMPASIZES TREASURY
YIELDS AT HIGHEST POINT THIS YEAR, WEAK CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (WHICH TRANSLATES
INTO WEAK SPENDING), FINANCIAL MELT-DOWN FAR FROM OVER AS REGIONAL BANKS BEGIN
TO TAKE HITS WHILE OIL ANALYST CITES UPWARD PRESSURE ON PRICES AND TOUGH
ENVIRONMENT FOR REFINERS. DON’T FORGET: THIS ELECTION YEAR PRINT AND
SPEND WORTHLESS WEIMAR DOLLARS, SPIKE IN GOVERNMENT PAYROLLS, FAKE/FUDGE
DATA/REPORTS, ETC., CAN’T CONTINUE IN LIGHT OF SUBSTANTIAL DEFICITS AND THE
FANTASY BUBBLE WILL BURST POST ELECTION. Bank
issues global stock and credit crash alert... Write
Offs to Top $1.3 Trillion.Who didn’t see this coming? The Next Crisis:
'Credit Default Swaps'-- Subprime is a Just a 'Vorspeise' U.S. faces global funding crisis, warns Merrill Lynch More doom for global economy Visualizing Dow 6,000
] U.S. Economy: The Worst is Yet to Come , U.S. Bank Failures Loom , New reports give bleak outlook on housing, economy,
Foreclosures hit a
record high — and more coming, Ford readies
white-collar layoffs as sales tumble While GM Shutters 4 North american
Factories/Lays off Workers (Reuters), April insured mortgage defaults rise
(Reuters))
(5-26-11) Dow 12,402 +8 Nasdaq
2,783 +22 S&P 500
1,326 +5
[CLOSE- OIL $100.72 (-54% for year 2008)
(RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,525 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $37.88 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,781 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 81 YEN, .60 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.06% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update… T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-25-11) Dow 12,394 +38 Nasdaq
2,761 +15 S&P 500
1,320 +4
[CLOSE- OIL $101.59 (-54% for year 2008)
(RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,529 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $38.45 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,779 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .71 EURO, 82 YEN, .61 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.13% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update… T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE TO
COME!
(5-24-11) Dow 12,356 -25 Nasdaq
2,746 -12 S&P 500
1,316 -1
[CLOSE- OIL $99.59 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD
TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,525 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $36.58 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,767 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .71 EURO, 82 YEN, .62 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.13% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update… T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-23-11) Dow 12,381 -131 Nasdaq
2,759 -44 S&P 500
1,317 -16
[CLOSE- OIL $98.26 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD
TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,517 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $35.23 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,753 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .71 EURO, 82 YEN, .62 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.13% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-20-11) Dow 12,512 -93 Nasdaq
2,803 -20 S&P 500
1,333 -10
[CLOSE- OIL $99.90 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD
TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,511 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $35.03 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,769 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 82 YEN, .61 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.15% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-19-11) Dow 12,605 +45 Nasdaq
2,823 +7 S&P 500
1,343 +3 [CLOSE- OIL $99.47
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,495 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $35.15 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,763 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 80 YEN, .61 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.17% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-18-11) Dow 12,559 +79 Nasdaq
2,815 +31 S&P 500
1,340 +11 [CLOSE- OIL $100.68
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,498 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $35.61(+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,783 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 82 YEN, .61 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.17% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-17-11) Dow 12,479 -69 Nasdaq
2,783 -0- S&P 500
1,329 -1 [CLOSE- OIL $98.10
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,488 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $34.05 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,769 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 80 YEN, .61 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.11% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-16-11) Dow 12,548 -47 Nasdaq
2,782 -46 S&P 500
1,329 -8 [CLOSE- OIL $97.53
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,492 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $33.86 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,766 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 80 YEN, .61 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.15% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-13-11) Dow 12,595 -100 Nasdaq
2,828 -35 S&P 500
1,338 -11 [CLOSE- OIL $99.40
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,495 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $35.37 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,760 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 80 YEN, .61 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.18% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-12-11) Dow 12,695 +65 Nasdaq
2,863 +17 S&P 500
1,348 +7 [CLOSE- OIL $99.40
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,503 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $34.58 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,765 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 80 YEN, .61 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.23% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-11-11) Dow 12,630 -130 Nasdaq
2,845 -26 S&P 500
1,342 -15 [CLOSE- OIL $99.58
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,505 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $35.45 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,774 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 80 YEN, .61 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.15% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-10-11) Dow 12,760 +75 Nasdaq
2,872 +29 S&P 500
1,357 +10 [CLOSE- OIL $103.61
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,516 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $38.47 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,792 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 80 YEN, .61 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.20% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-9-11) Dow 12,685 +45 Nasdaq
2,843 +15 S&P 500
1,346 +6 [CLOSE- OIL $101.16
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.95 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.26 REG./ $4.36
MID-GRADE/$4.46 PREM./ $4.55 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,516 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $38.58 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,794 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 80 YEN, .61 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.17% …..…
AP Business Highlights
...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-6-11) Dow 12,638 +54 Nasdaq
2,827 +13 S&P 500
1,340 +5 [CLOSE- OIL $98.11
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.96 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.22 REG./ $4.35
MID-GRADE/$4.45 PREM./ $4.61 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,495 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $35.61 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,783 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 80 YEN, .61 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.19% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-5-11) Dow 12,584 -139 Nasdaq
2,814 -14 S&P 500
1,335 -12 [CLOSE- OIL $99.58
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.96 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.22 REG./ $4.35
MID-GRADE/$4.45 PREM./ $4.61 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,486 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $35.17 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,789 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .68 EURO, 80 YEN, .61 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.18% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-4-11) Dow 12,723 -84 Nasdaq
2,829 -12 S&P 500
1,347 -9 [CLOSE- OIL $108.98
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.96 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.22 REG./ $4.35
MID-GRADE/$4.45 PREM./ $4.61 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,517 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $39.22 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,819 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .67 EURO, 80 YEN, .59 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.22% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-3-11) Dow 12,807 -0- Nasdaq
2,842 -22 S&P 500
1,356 -5 [CLOSE- OIL $111.05
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.96 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.22 REG./ $4.35
MID-GRADE/$4.45 PREM./ $4.61 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,533 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $41.28 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,843 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .67 EURO, 80 YEN, .59 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.35% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(5-2-11) Dow 12,807 -3 Nasdaq
2,864 -9 S&P 500
1,361 -2 [CLOSE- OIL $112.80
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.86 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.22 REG./ $4.35
MID-GRADE/$4.45 PREM./ $4.61 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,538 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $44.34 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,857 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .67 EURO, 80 YEN, .59 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.29% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-29-11) Dow 12,810 +47 Nasdaq
2,872 -1 S&P 500
1,363 +3 [CLOSE- OIL $113.93
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.86 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.22 REG./ $4.35
MID-GRADE/$4.45 PREM./ $4.61 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,563 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $47.88 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,869 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .68 EURO, 80 YEN, .60 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.35% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-28-11) Dow 12,763 +73 Nasdaq
2,872 +2 S&P 500
1,360 +4 [CLOSE- OIL $112.55 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.86 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.22 REG./ $4.35
MID-GRADE/$4.45 PREM./ $4.61 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,534 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $48.41 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,836 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .68 EURO, 80 YEN, .60 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.31% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-27-11) Dow 12,690 +95 Nasdaq
2,869 +22 S&P 500
1,355 +8 [CLOSE- OIL $113.44 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.82 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.20 REG./ $4.30
MID-GRADE/$4.40 PREM./ $4.54 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,530 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $48.09 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,821 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .68 EURO, 80 YEN, .60 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.37% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-26-11) Dow 12,595 +115 Nasdaq
2,847 +22 S&P 500
1,347 +11 [CLOSE- OIL $112.29 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.82 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.20 REG./ $4.30
MID-GRADE/$4.40 PREM./ $4.54 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,508 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $45.71 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,811 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .68 EURO, 80 YEN, .60 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.39% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-25-11) Dow 12,479 -26 Nasdaq
2,826 +5 S&P 500
1,335 -2 [CLOSE- OIL $111.41 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.82 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.20 REG./ $4.30
MID-GRADE/$4.40 PREM./ $4.54 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,497 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $45.93 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,798 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .68 EURO, 80 YEN, .60 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.36% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-21-11) Dow 12,506 +53 Nasdaq
2,820 +17 S&P 500
1,337 +7 [CLOSE- OIL $112.29 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.82 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.20 REG./ $4.30
MID-GRADE/$4.40 PREM./ $4.54 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,509 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $46.65 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,813 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .68 EURO, 82 YEN, .60 POUND STERLING,
ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.42% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-20-11) Dow 12,453 +186 Nasdaq
2,803 +57 S&P 500
1,330 +17 [CLOSE- OIL $111.92 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.82 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.20 REG./ $4.30
MID-GRADE/$4.40 PREM./ $4.54 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,505 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $45.68 (+47% for year
2009) PLATINUM $1,802 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 82 YEN, .60 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.43% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-19-11) Dow 12,266 +65 Nasdaq
2,745 +9 S&P 500
1,313 +7 [CLOSE- OIL $108.67 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.82 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.20 REG./ $4.30
MID-GRADE/$4.40 PREM./ $4.54 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,497 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $44.26 (+47% for year
2009) PLATINUM $1,779 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 82 YEN, .60 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.39% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC
COLLAPSE EVER’ Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-18-11) Dow 12,202 -140 Nasdaq
2,735 -29 S&P 500
1,305 -15 [CLOSE- OIL $107.78 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.82 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.20 REG./ $4.30
MID-GRADE/$4.40 PREM./ $4.54 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,493 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $43.20 (+47% for year
2009) PLATINUM $1,768 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 83 YEN, .60 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.38% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-15-11) Dow 12,341 +56 Nasdaq
2,765 +4 S&P 500
1,319 +5 [CLOSE- OIL $110.06 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.82 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.20 REG./ $4.30
MID-GRADE/$4.40 PREM./ $4.54 DIESELL)
/ GOLD $1,486 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $42.96 (+47% for year
2009) PLATINUM $1,783 (+56% for year 2009) Metal News for the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 83 YEN, .60 POUND
STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.43% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This Is a Secular Bear
Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-14-11) Dow 12,285 +14 Nasdaq
2,760 -1 S&P 500
1,314 -0- [CLOSE- OIL $109.19 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.69 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.07 REG./ $4.14 MID-GRADE/
$4.22 PREM./ $4.27 DIESEL) / GOLD $1,476 (+24% for year 2009) /
SILVER $42.22 (+47% for year 2009) PLATINUM $1,790 (+56% for year
2009) Metal News for
the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 83 YEN, .60
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.51% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update... T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International
This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold
‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-13-11) Dow 12,271 +7 Nasdaq
2,761 +16 S&P 500
1,314 -0- [CLOSE- OIL $107.78 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.67 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.07 REG./ $4.14 MID-GRADE/
$4.22 PREM./ $4.27 DIESEL) / GOLD $1,458 (+24% for year 2009) /
SILVER $40.69 (+47% for year 2009) PLATINUM $1,777 (+56% for year
2009) Metal News for
the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 83 YEN, .60
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.47% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update... T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International
This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
THE
COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10 Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-12-11) Dow 12,263 -118 Nasdaq
2,744 -27 S&P 500
1,314 -10 [CLOSE- OIL $105.83 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.67 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.07 REG./ $4.14 MID-GRADE/
$4.22 PREM./ $4.27 DIESEL) / GOLD $1,453 (+24% for year 2009) /
SILVER $40.09 (+47% for year 2009) PLATINUM $1,771 (+56% for year
2009) Metal News for
the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 83 YEN, .60
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.51% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update... T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International
This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
THE
COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10 Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-11-11) Dow 12,381 +1 Nasdaq 2,780
-9 S&P 500
1,324 -4 [CLOSE- OIL $108.96 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.67 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.07 REG./ $4.14 MID-GRADE/
$4.22 PREM./ $4.27 DIESEL) / GOLD $1,462 (+24% for year 2009) /
SILVER $40.11 (+47% for year 2009) PLATINUM $1,780 (+56% for year
2009) Metal News for
the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 85 YEN, .60
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.60% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update... T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International
This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
THE
COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10 Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-8-11) Dow 12,380 -29
Nasdaq 2,780
-15 S&P 500
1,328 -5 [CLOSE- OIL $112.79 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.67 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.07 REG./ $4.14 MID-GRADE/
$4.22 PREM./ $4.27 DIESEL) / GOLD $1,474 (+24% for year 2009) /
SILVER $40.62 (+47% for year 2009) PLATINUM $1,796 (+56% for year
2009) Metal News for
the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 85 YEN, .60
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.59% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update... T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International
This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
THE
COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10 Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-7-11) Dow 12,409 -17
Nasdaq 2,796
-4 S&P 500
1,333 -2 [CLOSE- OIL $110.92 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.67 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.07 REG./ $4.14 MID-GRADE/
$4.22 PREM./ $4.27 DIESEL) / GOLD $1,464 (+24% for year 2009) /
SILVER $39.79 (+47% for year 2009) PLATINUM $1,786 (+56% for year
2009) Metal News for
the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 85 YEN, .60
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.58% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update... T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International
This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
THE
COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10 Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-6-11) Dow 12,427 +33
Nasdaq 2,799
+8 S&P 500
1,335 +2 [CLOSE- OIL $108.60 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.65 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.05 REG./ $4.10 MID-GRADE/
$4.20 PREM./ $4.27 DIESEL) / GOLD $1,456 (+24% for year 2009) /
SILVER $39.38 (+47% for year 2009) PLATINUM $1,792 (+56% for year
2009) Metal News for
the Day / DOLLAR= .69 EURO, 85 YEN, .60
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.55% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update... T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International
This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
THE
COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10 Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-5-11) Dow 12,393 -6 Nasdaq 2,791
+2 S&P 500
1,332 -0- [CLOSE- OIL $108.34 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.65 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.05 REG./ $4.10 MID-GRADE/
$4.20 PREM./ $4.27 DIESEL) / GOLD $1,453 (+24% for year 2009) /
SILVER $39.35 (+47% for year 2009) PLATINUM $1,792 (+56% for year
2009) Metal News for
the Day / DOLLAR= .70 EURO, 85 YEN, .61
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.51% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International
This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
THE
COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10 Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-4-11) Dow 12,400 +23
Nasdaq 2,789
-0- S&P 500
1,332 -0- [CLOSE- OIL $108.47 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.65 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.05 REG./ $4.10 MID-GRADE/
$4.20 PREM./ $4.27 DIESEL) / GOLD $1,437 (+24% for year 2009) /
SILVER $38.71 (+47% for year 2009) PLATINUM $1,787 (+56% for year
2009) Metal News for
the Day / DOLLAR= .70 EURO, 83 YEN, .62
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.45% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International
This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
THE
COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10 Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(4-1-11) Dow 12,376 +56
Nasdaq 2,789
+8 S&P 500
1,332 +6 [CLOSE- OIL $107.94 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING
HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.65 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $4.05 REG./ $4.10 MID-GRADE/
$4.20 PREM./ $4.27 DIESEL) / GOLD $1,428 (+24% for year 2009) /
SILVER $37.76 (+47% for year 2009) PLATINUM $1,758 (+56% for year
2009) Metal News for
the Day / DOLLAR= .70 EURO, 83 YEN, .62
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ Interest Rates: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield 10 YR NOTE YIELD
3.45% …..…
AP Business Highlights ...Yahoo
Market Update...
T. Rowe Price Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International
This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
THE
COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10 Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(1-3-11) Dow 11,671 +93 Nasdaq 2,692 +38
S&P 500
1,272 +14 [CLOSE- OIL $91.55
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.00 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $3.20 REG./ $3.29 MID-GRADE/
$3.39 PREM./ $3.79 DIESEL) /
GOLD $1,422 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $31.13 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,766 (+56% for year 2009) / DOLLAR= .74 EURO, 82 YEN, .64
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/update 10 YR NOTE YIELD 3.34% …..… AP
Business Highlights
...Yahoo Market Update... T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 6
Theories On Why the Stock Market Has Rallied 3-9-10 [archived
website file] Risks Lurk for ETF Investors The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
The Week Ahead:
Risk Is Off the Cliff; Unwind Has Begun Jan 31, 2010
01-13-10 Forecast for
2010 from Seeking Alpha Contributor THE COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10
Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover Current Economic / Fiscal
Charts Trendsresearch.com
forecast for 2009 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net MUST READ: JEREMY
GRANTHAM’S QUARTERLY UPDATE 25 January 2010 (850 on the S&P) by TPC
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
(12-31-10) Dow 11,577 +7 Nasdaq 2,653 -10
S&P 500
1,258 -1 [CLOSE- OIL $91.35
(-54% for year 2008) (RECORD TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.00 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $3.20 REG./ $3.29 MID-GRADE/
$3.39 PREM./ $3.79 DIESEL) /
GOLD $1,422 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $30.95 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,765 (+56% for year 2009) / DOLLAR= .74 EURO, 80 YEN, .64
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/update 10 YR NOTE YIELD 3.31% …..… AP
Business Highlights
...Yahoo Market Update... T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 6
Theories On Why the Stock Market Has Rallied 3-9-10 [archived
website file] Risks Lurk for ETF Investors The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
The Week Ahead:
Risk Is Off the Cliff; Unwind Has Begun Jan 31, 2010
01-13-10 Forecast for
2010 from Seeking Alpha Contributor THE COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10
Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover Current Economic / Fiscal
Charts Trendsresearch.com
forecast for 2009 1-7-10
Crash is coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net MUST READ: JEREMY
GRANTHAM’S QUARTERLY UPDATE 25 January 2010 (850 on the S&P) by TPC
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
12-30-10) Dow 11,569 -16 Nasdaq 2,662 -4 S&P 500 1,258 -2
[CLOSE- OIL $89.73 (-54% for year 2008) (RECORD
TRADING HIGH $147.27) GAS
$3.00 (reg. gas in LAND OF FRUITS AND NUTS $3.20 REG./ $3.29 MID-GRADE/
$3.39 PREM./ $3.79 DIESEL) /
GOLD $1,405 (+24% for year 2009) / SILVER $30.53 (+47% for year 2009)
PLATINUM $1,744 (+56% for year 2009) / DOLLAR= .75 EURO, 81 YEN, .64
POUND STERLING, ETC. (How low can you go - LOWER)/ http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/update 10 YR NOTE YIELD 3.36% …..… AP
Business Highlights
...Yahoo Market Update... T. Rowe Price
Weekly Recap – Stocks / Bonds / Currencies - Domestic /
International This
Is a Secular Bear Market and The End of Buy and Hold … and Hope MARKET
MANIPULATION AND HOW THE LATEST BUBBLE-FRAUD PRE-COMING CRASH IS BEING
ACCOMPLISHED 3-11-10 6
Theories On Why the Stock Market Has Rallied 3-9-10 [archived
website file] Risks Lurk for ETF Investors The bull market that never was/were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold Property Values Projected to Fall 12% in 2010 Jan 31, 2010
The Week Ahead:
Risk Is Off the Cliff; Unwind Has Begun Jan 31, 2010
01-13-10 Forecast for
2010 from Seeking Alpha Contributor THE COMING MARKET CRASH / CORRECTION 1-28-10
Maierhofer (01-15-10) 11 Clear Signs Economy Sinking
Economic
Black Hole 1-22-10: 20 Reasons Why The U.S. Economy Is Dying And Is Simply Not
Going To Recover Current Economic / Fiscal
Charts Trendsresearch.com forecast for 2009 1-7-10 Crash is
coming! ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Must Read
Economic / Financial
Data
This Depression is
just beginning The coming
depression… thecomingdepression.net MUST READ: JEREMY
GRANTHAM’S QUARTERLY UPDATE 25 January 2010 (850 on the S&P) by TPC
The
Next Wave of Collapse is Coming Sooner than you think Sliding
Back Into the Great Depression ABSOLUTELY,
ABSURDLY, RIDICULOUS! SELL / TAKE PROFITS WHILE YOU CAN SINCE MUCH, MUCH WORSE
TO COME!
AUGUST 31, 2009 THROUGH SEPTEMBER 28, 2009 -
BUSINESS UPDATES
NOBEL PRIZE WINNING
ECONOMIST: CRISIS AS BAD AS GREAT DEPRESSION OR WORSE Financial terrorism: US taxpayers bail out Wall Street
criminals $4 trillion plus is missing through U.S. federal agency
accounts managed by the NY Fed RICO Summary under penalty of perjury to the FBI at their request Reality overthrows ‘history’s actors’ Report
confirms Israel’s nuclear arsenal Roubini: Rate Cuts Temporarily and Minimally Reduce Crash
Risk, But Dow 7,000 Likely 'Sometime Next Year' Billion-Dollar Fund Manager; Gold To Hit $2,000, Dow To
Sink To 5,000 The
Crumbling U.S. Economy, Worse is Yet to Come Worst slump since Great Depression Rapid Downward Revisions in
Expected Economic Growth Recession
Will Last At Least Two Years: Roubini Recession Now: It's Deep and It's Going to Last a Long Time,
Sonders Says Economist Roubini Predicts Hedge Fund Failures, Panic,
Closed Markets Markets Nosedive on Grim
Economic News Evil Wall Street Exports Boomed With `Fools’ Born to Buy
Debt More from Grantham: S&P to 585. He called the
bubble, how could anyone doubt his valuation (although even lower is more
realistic)? U.S.
Economy: GDP Shrinks (even with fake better than expected GDP numbers from
corrupt commerce department) at Fastest Pace Since 2001 Credit-Default Swaps on US Treasuries Have Risen Nearly 40
Percent Since Bailout Law Signed; Now About the Same as on Mexican and Thai
Government Debt america’s credit rating will be downgraded Where'd the bailout money go? Shhhh, it's a secret fraud (AP) ECONOMICS GURU:
WORST IS YET TO COME; MARKETS WILL CLOSE FOR UP TO WEEK FROM PANIC... Washington
is Powerless to Stop the Coming Economic Depression Whitehead sees slump worse than Depression Dollar’s Days Numbered, Buy Commodities: Jim Rogers
America’s economic crisis is beyond the reach of
traditional solutions Cost Of Bailout Hits $8.5
Trillion Worst is yet to come for economy 'Crisis Only Just
Beginning': Crisis/Video Right About the Crash, Peter Schiff Sees
More Pain Ahead The Great Depression of the
21st Century: Collapse of the Real Economy “The Dollar Standard Is Coming
To An End” Busted
in Washington CIA Adds Economy To Threat
Updates Financial Disaster Will Lead to Civil Disorder in 2009 or
2010, Says Secret Citibank Memo Renowned
economist Mikhail Khazin : U.S. will soon face second “Great Depression” America Has No Means to Recover from a Depression US budget
deficit to reach USD 1 trillion Jim Rogers calls most big U.S. banks “bankrupt” BILLIONS
VANISH IN EPIC HEDGE FUND FRAUD Citadel suspends redemptions from two hedge funds World faces “total” financial meltdown: Bank of Spain chief
Check This Graph-Proof we are going into a Great
Depression. Notice MASSIVE job losses. Is there really any doubt any longer?
Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat Fed Hides Destination Of $2 Trillion In Bailout Money Another Prominent
Economist Forecasts Depression, Says Gold To Hit $2000 Fed Secretly
Lends $2 Trillion to Banksters without Oversight Depression Unrest Turmoil
Instability Riots all coming and SOON JAPAN: “There has never been
data this bad for any major economy - even in the great Depression”; “We are
literally looking at the unimaginable” Obama predicts more bank
failures California goes broke, halts $3.5
billion in payments It’s Getting Ugly: Economist Says Hoard Gold & Scotch Paul Joseph Watson | Williams predicts hyperinflationary
depression will mean a $100 dollar bill is worth less than toilet paper WORLD TO STAY IN SLUMP US is Already Bankrupt:
Analyst The
Geithner-Summers-Bernanke Plan to Prop Up Asset Prices Has Failed U.N. panel says world should
ditch dollar Not Just a Few Bad Apples - Corruption is Systemic in
America 65 Trillion -
U.S. Financial Obligations Exceed The Entire World’s GDP RECORD:
NATIONAL DEBT HITS $11 TRILLION... US Depression -The Truth Is Here
The Economist, a Widely
Respected and Authoritative Financial/Economic Publication: U.S. In Depression,
Not Recession Video:
Crash Will be Worse than Great Depression Great
Recession/Depression of 2008, et seq., Worse Than All Others IMF warns of Great
Depression Stocks Could Drop 20%, No Safe Haven: Dr. Reality Celente Correctly Predicts
Revolution, Food Riots, Tax Rebellions By 2012 Former chief economist: U.S. in a depression Merrill Lynch’s Chief Economist: We’re Already In a
Depression Ray Dalio: A Long and Painful Depression - Barron's
Interview Gerald Celente Predicts
Economic Armageddon by 2012 This DEPRESSION will last
23-26 YEARS! Government is POWERLESS! Trendsresearch.com forecast for 2009 What the Pros Say: US Is Now
‘Bankrupt’ ‘WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE EVER’
Secretary of Labor Reich:
Unemployment Numbers Show We’re Already In a Depression Celente: U.S. Has Entered “The
Greatest Depression” Entering the Greatest Depression
in History Andrew Gavin Marshall | The economic
crisis is anything but over, the “solutions” have been akin to putting a
band-aid on an amputated arm.
May 31, 2011
7
Market Hazard Signs Traders Have Been Ignoringat Minyanville / Erik Swarts May
27, 2011 ‘It's been said that the
market is hanging in there, but the market has a way of distracting your
attention from where it should be focused most. As a trader who
relies on the qualitative art form that is appraising market psychology, I have
been collecting some interesting anecdotes and observations from the field. Specifically,
traders seem to be ignoring some of the more readily apparent hazard signals
the market has been throwing off in the past month.
1. I have repeatedly heard and read to the same effect, "the market is
hanging in there, considering...(x y z)." While that is certainly the case
broadly speaking, the market has a way of distracting your attention from where
it should be focused most. The rampant attention and bipolar swings in investor
sentiment surveys appear to be the illusion of choice in declaring the waters
safe for the return of risk.
I believe there is some utility in knowing where the sentiment vane is pointing
over the very short term, however, the market's technical structure typically
trumps sentiment (unless it is at a statistical extreme such as in March 2009)
over time. If anything, the fact that the market is "hanging in
there" on a relative basis could actually portend a more serious
underlying condition indicative of distribution. Distribution by institutional
participants can create broadening top formations in the indices and erratic
sentiment surveys by the swinging price action.
2. A major momentum darling has crashed and burned with silver. Silver's
historic decline, coupled with a very shallow bounce, is bearish toward risk
returning to the same degree of indiscrimination it represented before it broke
down. You could even speculate that the tepid action in stocks
like Apple (AAPL)
over the past six months was a precursor to the diminishing influence on the
risk/momentum continuum.
3. The indices all broke their respective 50-day moving averages this week.
Today's action should be interesting, considering they are all siting directly
beneath them after retracing the break.
4. Ignoring the symmetry and historical context in the two charts below would
be Pollyannish at best, irresponsible to risk at worst. Furthermore, knowing
what we now know about the developments in Europe and the risks they have going
forward -- specifically over the next few weeks in Spain and Greece -- their
respective influences to the commodity and equity
markets could be strongly reinforcing.
http://image.minyanville.com/assets/FCK_Jan2011/Image/LisaCatchMAY2011/ignition1.jpg
5. The government bond market continues to confuse even the King's wishes. The chart below shows the relative
disconnect over the past year. This chart should be qualified, in that yields
have been in a downtrend relative to the SPX for almost three decades. With
that said, the degree of yield erosion relative to the SPX over the past two
months should not be ignored or passed off as insignificant.
http://image.minyanville.com/assets/FCK_Jan2011/Image/LisaCatchMAY2011/ignition2.jpg
6. Weekly economic data surveys have taken a turn negative. Whether revealed in
the most recent weekly unemployment trends or decelerating GDP,
the market is facing an ever more hostile headline risk environment. I
typically shy away from incorporating economic data surveys into my short-term
calculus because their correlations are erratic at best. But considering the
backdrop, it can pay off with timing. Next week will provide the important ISM
manufacturing index. Below is a chart of the Empire, Philly & Richmond
surveys overlaid on the ISM survey. As the correlations have shown, the already
received EPR surveys indicate the ISM will likely be quite weak. The degree of
which could be a catalyst (both positive or negative) in the market.
http://image.minyanville.com/assets/FCK_Jan2011/Image/LisaCatchMAY2011/ignition3.jpg
7. The market has respected my monthly meridian chart to the tick. If May continues
to follow course away from the meridian at 1363, the summer months could see an
acceleration
to the downside.
http://image.minyanville.com/assets/FCK_Jan2011/Image/LisaCatchMAY2011/ignition4.jpg
Overall, I'm skeptical to hanging onto long positions for anything more than a
bounce here and feel more comfortable on the short side of the market. That
could all change in an instant, and I try to never limit myself from trading
the flip side as revealed by my agnostic trading approach.
Remember, these are just my notes -- I trade what I see in the tape.
Editor's Note: This article was originally posted on Market Anthropology.’
Global
Stock Seasonality: Tout Le Monde Vendez en Mai Forbes / Sy Harding ‘When investors think of the stock market’s
annual seasonality, as expressed by the adage ‘Sell in May and Go Away,’ they
usually relate it to the U.S. market.In fact, the historical pattern of
stock markets making most of their gains in the winter months, and experiencing
most of their bear market declines and corrections in the unfavorable summer
months, is also common in global markets.Since investors have become much more
comfortable with investing in global markets in recent years, in fact have
poured money into emerging markets at a record pace, recognition that the
seasonal pattern is global is potentially of considerable importance,
especially this year.A 27-page academic study conducted at the Rotterdam School
of Management in the Netherlands and published in the American
Economic Review in 2002,
concluded, “Surprisingly we found this inherited wisdom of Sell in May
to be true in 36 of 37 developed and emerging markets. Evidence shows that in
the United Kingdom the seasonal effect has been noticeable since 1694. . . . A
trading strategy based on this anomaly would be highly profitable in many countries.
The average annual risk-adjusted outperformance ranges between 1.5% and 8.9%,
depending on the country being considered. The effect is robust over time,
economically significant, unlikely to be caused by data-mining, and not related
to taking excess risk.”Stock
markets outside of the U.S. seem to be significantly in the lead on the
downside in this unfavorable season. For instance, the S&P 500 is only 2%
below its recent top on April 29, the last trading day of April (potentially in
keeping with the ‘Sell in May and Go Away’ rule to sell on May 1).However, in
the rest of the world quite serious stock market corrections are underway. The
important markets of China (the world’s 2nd largest economy), Japan
(the world’s 3rd largest economy), Hong Kong, India, Brazil, and
Russia are already down an average of 12% from their recent peaks, and have
broken down through key support levels, including their long-term 200-day
moving averages. Other important markets, including Mexico, Canada, Britain,
France, and South Korea have already broken down through key intermediate-term
support levels, including their 20-week moving averages.That global markets are
so far ahead of the U.S. market on the downside leads me to believe they will
become oversold first and perhaps be the first to bottom and turn back up when
the time to buy arrives again.Meanwhile, the studies of seasonality point out
that a seasonal investor outperforms the market over the long-term (occasional
years when it does not work notwithstanding), while being at risk in the market
only six months each year, and moving to cash for the other six months.They do
not take into consideration the additional gains the seasonal investor can make
in the unfavorable season in areas other than cash.To name a few; bonds, gold,
and currencies often move independent of the direction of the stock market, and
can rally when the stock market is in a decline. And all are easy enough for
investors to take advantage of via mutual funds, and even more efficiently via
ETFs (exchange-traded-funds).If seasonal investors are fluent in market
analysis, particularly technical analysis, which can help define when an
unfavorable season will not just be a ‘dead zone’ but will probably see a
substantial correction, significant gains can be made from the downside even
faster than from the previous rally period. That’s because when the market goes
down it tends to go down much faster than it went up, often losing a year of
previous gains in a matter of a few months.And holdings are available to
harness the power of such market declines, including ‘inverse’ mutual funds and
‘inverse’ ETFs, which are designed to move opposite to a particular market or
market sector.In my opinion then, the U.S. market has some catching up to do on
the downside, while selected global markets, considerably ahead of the U.S.
market on the downside, are liable to bottom first and provide the earliest
buying opportunities.In the interest of full disclosure, I and my subscribers
have some recent new positions in a bond ETF, a currency ETF, and selected
inverse ETFs against the U.S. market.’
End-of-Month
Window Dressing: Dave's Daily at TheStreet.com ‘The U of
Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index was cherry-picked by bulls as the indicator
upon which to rally stocks Friday. But, frankly is it really a valid measure of
current consumer attitudes? I don't think so given it's weighted heavily by
stock prices and curiously by gasoline prices. With the latter, a one week ten
cent drop in prices hardly makes a trend. Some had the nerve to say consumers
were now getting accustomed to higher gas prices. How about you? Consumer Metrics Institute's
opinion and conclusion is as follows:
http://www.thestreet.com/tsc/daves/052711/image002.jpg
"The
levitation effect provided by the Federal fiscal stimulus packages will begin
to wilt soon, as will Mr. Bernanke's monetary magic when QE-2 lapses in June.
At some point in time the GDP will revert to tracking the 70% of the economy
provided by consumer spending. When that happens, the glaring gap in the above
graph will close, and most likely with the upper line converging towards the
lower, rather than the other way around. We have said before that our consumers
seem to know that the headline recovery in the S&P 500 has not yet been
fully shared with the them, their neighbors or their local merchants. Until
unemployment materially decreases and the residential housing market returns to
at least pre-2005 levels of activity, the "Great Recession" isn't
over, despite what the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) would have
us believe." Other data this week was just awful. And, Pending Home Sales
on Friday dropped by 11% which was much worse than expected. If higher stock
prices buoy consumer sentiment, what about poor housing data? The disconnect is
extraordinary. Most major equity index related ETF were able to claw out of
most negative readings to close the week either unchanged or plus/minus a small
amount. Most of this was accomplished on very weak volume but with a heavy
assist of QE2 ($30 billion over the last 5-7 trading days). This is
the magic dust for bulls. The tape's action is reality but the action behind
the curtain is hollow and comprised of free money from on high. Nevertheless,
most indexes may close the month down with only one day left to trade. Our
DeMark monthly sequential 9 counts may have already made their impact as QE2
has another month to run and will compete with it …’
S&P Stuck in a Rut - Why and Where Will it Break? , On Thursday May 26, 2011 ‘This entire week
the S&P has been stuck in a rut. Aside from a few brief spikes outside its
trading range, the S&P has been sluggish and moved with the velocity of
molasses.
The
Memorial Day Lull
Part of the
reason is the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. Trading before the Memorial Day
weekend tends to be lackluster and uninspired, but come Tuesday (markets are
closed on Monday) volatility (Chicago Options: ^VIX) is likely to increase.The
holiday weekend is just part of the story though. There are other compelling
reasons why trade is so frustratingly sluggish.
Compelling
Reason to be Dull
The ETF Profit
Strategy Newsletter's technical forecast for the week ahead stated that: 'The
initial downside from the May 2 high may not be finished yet, but it appears to
be limited. If the lower trend line at 1,325 is broken, we are looking for
lower prices but are mindful that various support levels should keep downside
action contained.'The S&P dropped below the 9-month trend line support
first thing Monday morning, but didn't really go anywhere thereafter. Such a
trend line breach is usually significant, but it wasn't, at least not thus
far.The chart below shows why downside momentum didn't increase. The ETF Profit
Strategy Newsletter pointed out this month's and week's pivot support (s1 to be
precise) at 1,319 and 1,317. As you can see, the S&P has stuck to s1 like
gum to shoe.What are pivots, you may ask? Pivot points are determined as the
average of the previous sessions trading range combined with the closing price.
The numbers for support and resistance that are calculated indicate the
potential ranges for the next time frame based on the past weight of the
market's strength or weakness.Pivots are fractal and can be calculated for
various time frames. I usually pay attention to weekly and monthly pivots.
http://www.etfguide.com//contributor/UserFiles/8/Image/article%20new%205%2026%2011.gif
The blue lines
in the chart illustrate the 20 and 50-hour simple moving averages (SMAs). Since
Wednesday, the S&P has been sandwiched between the two. As you can see,
there is plenty of technical reason for the current trading range.
Where
Will it Break?
Every trading range
ends eventually. Often such range bound churning and indecision precedes
significant moves and serves as a springboard. There is certainly a distinct
seasonal post-Memorial Day bias that supports this notion.Once this trading
range is broken, the focus moves on to the next support or resistance. Next
resistance to the up side is 1,325, a Fibonacci projection level. Look at the
chart and you will see how attempts to move beyond 1,325 were thwarted on
Wednesday and earlier today. A break above 1,325 would open the door to higher
prices.Fibonacci levels are powerful trading tools and should not be dismissed.
One important Fibonacci level the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter isolated as
target and resistance in April was 1,369.The importance of this level was
confirmed on May 1, when the newsletter recommended shorting the S&P
against 1,369. The S&P topped the very next day at 1,370 and declined as
much as 50 points thereafter.The ETF Profit
Strategy Newsletter provides the most important short and long-term
support/resistance levels and seasonal tendencies every Sunday and Wednesday,
along with directional advice and the corresponding trading strategies.ETFs
that track the S&P 500 include: S&P 500 SPDR (NYSEArca: SPY - News), iShares S&P 500 (NYSEArca: IVV - News), Vanguard S&P 500 (NYSEArca: VOO - News).Value and Growth S&P ETFs include: iShares
S&P 500 Value (NYSEArca: IVE - News), iShares S&P 500 Growth (NYSEArca: IVW - News), Vanguard S&P 500 Value ETF (NYSEArca:
VOOV - News), Vanguard S&P 500 Growth ETF
(NYSEArca: VOOG - News).Leveraged S&P ETFs include: Ultrashort
S&P ProShares (NYSEArca: SDS - News), Ultra ProShares (NYSEArca: SSO - News), UltraPro S&P ProShares (NYSEArca: UPRO - News), UltraPro Short S&P ProShares
(NYSEArca: SPXU - News).’
The Week Ahead: Can Stocks Climb the Wall of Worry? Forbes / Tom
Aspray ‘Last week’s financial headlines may have caused many stock investors to
run for the exits, as there was very little to make one think that stocks could
move higher. Here is a sampling:
Despite the concerns over debt contagion, a double
dip in the economy, and slower growth in China, the US stock market was
surprisingly strong. The early-morning declines on Wednesday and Thursday were
met with good demand.
Therefore, even though the major averages made new
correction lows, the market had plenty of reasons to drop more sharply. For
most of the week, Tuesday’s headline from the Financial Times, “Investors
swept up in wave of bearishness,” said it all.
So even though the stock market was not as strong as
I had forecast last week, I am sure most were surprised that it closed higher.
Sentiment measures continue to get more negative, with only 25% bullish in a
recent AAII survey. This is the lowest reading since last summer.
Last week’s pending home sales dropped 11%—but new
home sales were stronger than expected, giving some home builders a boost. On
Tuesday, we get more housing data, as the S&P Case-Shiller price index will
be released along with consumer-confidence numbers.
Of course, this is another jobs week, with a
preliminary reading Wednesday from the ADP Employment Report, followed by
jobless claims Thursday and the monthly employment report on Friday. Also out
Wednesday is the ISM Manufacturing Index, with the ISM Non-Manufacturing
following on Friday.
As the headlines show, there are still plenty of
problems facing the Eurozone, and the Strauss-Kahn scandal has not helped—the
BRIC countries, among others, are not in favor of a new IMF head from the
Eurozone. Also, as my colleague Jim Jubak suggests, “Another
Quick Fix For Greece” is likely.
Euro investors have also been moving away from risk,
as the yields on German debt have dropped 3%, matching similar yield declines
in both the UK and the US. Nevertheless, the DJ STOXX Europe 600 was able to
close the week well above the lows, as it tested strong support in the 272 to
274 area early in the week.
Commodity prices have bounced nicely from the
mid-month lows, and the strength in copper may be a sign that the economy is
really stronger than most expect. Crude oil has bounced from the recent lows,
but is now hitting first strong resistance. Technically, this rally looks as
though it will be followed by a further decline.
Page 2 of 3)
WHAT TO
WATCH
As I noted in more detail before Friday’s opening, the technical and sentiment
picture for the stock market had improved. The positive action Friday supports
this view, even though the major averages closed below their best levels.
http://graphics.moneyshow.com/investing/Guru/Gurus052711_1_med.gif
Click to Enlarge
S&P
500
The Spyder Trust (SPY) tested its downtrend (line a) on Friday, and still has
strong resistance at $135.36. A daily close above this level should confirm
that the correction is over. A test of the May 2 highs at $137.18, if not a
move to the $138.50 area, is still a distinct possibility.
The low for SPY at $131.38 is now the critical level,
with the daily uptrend (line c) now at $130.50. If this level is violated, the
April lows are at $129.51 (line b).
The S&P 500 A/D line has turned up, and is very
close to breaking its downtrend. It did make new highs in May, and is still
well above long term support (line d).
Dow
Industrials
The Diamonds Trust (DIA) also appears to have completed a short-term bottom,
but is slightly lagging the SPY. DIA has just filled the gap from last Monday’s
opening. There is still a strong band of resistance in the $126.50 to $127.50
area.
The support level to watch now for DIA is $122.80, while
the April low and major support follows at $120.65.
Dow
Transportations
The Dow Transportation Index held above the prior week’s low at 5,311, and did
close last week higher.
A close above 5,500 is needed to complete the
correction and signal a rally to new highs in the 5,650 to 5,700 area.
If one of the other major averages is able to exceed
the May highs, and the Transports fail to make a new high, it would be a
warning sign.
Nasdaq-100
I have been looking for the PowerShares QQQ Trust (QQQ) to lead the market on the next rally, but it has
continued to lag. It will now take a much stronger rally for QQQ to take over
leadership.
The first hurdle is the resistance in the $58.50 area
with major at $59.34 area.
The down gap last Monday violated the support in the
$57 area as QQQ hit a low of $56.47 which weakened the short term outlook.
There is now important support below $56.
Russell
2000
The iShares Russell 2000 Trust (IWM) has concerned me for several months, and last week it
dropped below the April lows. This is a further sign of weakness, and as I
noted several weeks ago the A/D line on the Russell 2000 failed to make a new
high with prices in April.
The rebound in IWM is likely to fail in the $85 to
$85.50 area, even if the SPY makes new highs. Therefore, the current rally
should be used as an opportunity to move out of both small and mid-cap stocks.
Once below the recent lows at $80.76, the next major
support is in the $77.50 to $78 area.
Here’s
Why Pending Home Sales Plummeted in April Wall St. Cheat Sheet May 27, 2011 ‘According to the National Association of Realtors , The Pending Home Sales
Index (PHSI) , a forward-looking indicator, dropped 11.6 percent to 81.9 in
April, down from 92.6 in March. The number is down 26.5 percent from a peak
111.5 in April 2010 when buyers were rushing to meet the deadline for the home
buyer tax credit.This data reflects contracts, but not closings, which usually
don’t occur until a month or two after contracts are signed.The news hasn’t
done much for real estate stocks (NYSE:IYR), down 0.06% today, but might be responsible for
the 0.86% hike in home builders stocks (NYSE:XHB).While the PHSI in the Northeast actually rose
1.7% to 64.5 in April, it is still 33.4% below its figure for this time last
year. PHSI in the Midwest is down 10.4% to 74.1, down 30.2% from April 2010.
Pending home sales in the South dropped the most at a decline of 17.2% in
April, 27% below a year ago. Still, the PHSI for the South is 91.3,
significantly higher than that of other regions. In the West the index declined
8.9% to 89.1 and is 16.9% below April 2010 figures…’
Investing
in Precious Metals: Is Gold Worth Dying For? Wall St. Cheat Sheet May 27, 2011 ‘Thursday,
gold (NYSE:GLD) and silver (NYSE:SLV) took a breather as the Dow (NYSE:DIA) and S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) closed slightly higher. The markets seem
somewhat confused as the Greek debt crisis lingers on. In times of
uncertainty, investors often turn to gold as a place of refuge. However,
just how expensive is it to really obtain gold? Some gold miners (GLDX)
may find out the hard way.The medical condition known as silicosis could be a
potential problem for some gold miners. Silicosis is the scarring of the
lungs caused by extended exposure to the dust found in South African mines. These
mines are now run by companies such as Harmony Gold Mining (NYSE:HMY), Gold Fields Ltd. (NYSE:GFI), and AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (NYSE:AU). These miners are now facing coming
lawsuits. HMY fell the hardest on the day, closing 3.57% lower.While the
total number of claims and size of judgements are nearly impossible to estimate
at this time, RBC Capital Markets claims the liability of mining companies
could reach as high as $100 billion. RBC reached this estimate by
assuming there are 300k claimants, each suing for at least 2 million rand.
The Constitutional Court said workers who qualified for state benefits
for occupational related disease, could also receive additional compensation
from their former mining employers.Gold Fields Ltd (NYSE:GFI) CEO Nicholas Holland said, “It’s
speculative at this stage to assume that there’s going to be a huge number of
suits or whether in fact those suits will even be successful.” Another
miner, Anglo American , is already involved in a silicosis suit that dates back
to 2004, and involves 18 miners (4 of the 18 have already died). The mines
today employ about 160k people, according to the Chamber of Mines.Investors
willing to overlook the lawsuits may want to consider the following ETFs and
stocks: iShares Silver Trust (NYSE:SLV), PowerShares DB Silver Fund (NYSE:DBS), ProShares Ultra Silver (NYSE:AGQ), First Majestic Silver Corp. (NYSE:AG), SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE:GLD), Market Vectors Etf Trust (NYSE:GDX), or Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:ABX).Investors who are bearish in precious metals, or
simply looking for a hedge, may find the following stocks, ETFs, and ETNs
interesting: ProShares UltraShort Silver (NYSE:ZSL), PowerShares DB Gold Short ETN (NYSE:DGZ), or PowerShares DB Gold Double Short ETN (NYSE:DZZ).For more analysis and guidance in the white hot
precious metals sector, consider
a free 14-day trial to our acclaimed Gold & Silver Investment Newsletter.’
Entitlements:
4 Things You Must Know Now – with Gerri Willis Wall St. Cheat
Sheet May 27, 2011 ‘Entitlements have
become a big issue now that the
US has a major debt problem and a record number of boomers are expected to
retire in the coming years. I caught up with Fox Business anchor Gerri Willis
to get a Cheat Sheet for the hot button entitlement issue:
Damien
Hoffman: Gerri, what are entitlements?
Gerri Willis:
Simply put, entitlements are government payouts. Normally we think of Social
Security, Medicare and Medicaid when we say entitlement. Most Americans feel
that getting benefits from these programs is a right because they’ve paid into
them. Corporate America is on the federal dole, too, at times, most recently
when banks (NYSE:XLF) and auto companies such as General Motors (NYSE:GM) were bailed out during the financial crisis.
Currently,
Congress is debating how to fix the overspending in Social Security, Medicare
and Medicaid. The problem with these programs is that they’ve morphed from
temporary or short-term safety nets into permanent floors that people rely on.
As a result, the costs of these programs is swamping the
federal budget.
Damien: How
much are we spending on entitlements?
Gerri:
Entitlement spending is the vast majority of our federal
budget and growing every year. This year alone spending on Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid will account for 57 percent of all federal outlays, and
the spending level is 5.4 percent higher than last year.
Damien: Can we
continue to support those three programs at this level?
Social
Security, Medicare and Medicaid are in big trouble. Social Security will run
out of money in 2036; Medicare in 2024. Already both programs are running a
deficit right now. Social Security has a deficit of $46 billion and Medicare
has $80 billion in red ink.
Damien: Gerri,
in your opinion, what do you think future legislation dealing with this issue
will look like?
Gerri: I
believe we’re going to have to wait awhile for reform. Congress has always been
wary of the third rail of politics and with elections approaching in 2012, they
are wary of tackling anything as controversial as entitlement reform right now.
However, there does seem to be some consensus building for change. Many folks
seem to agree that the age that Social Security recipients receive benefits
should be moved higher, others say that Medicare shouldn’t be available to the
very wealthy or that their benefits should be scaled back in some way. Even
implementing both of those ideas won’t fix the problems we are facing; however,
a more dramatic change is needed to avoid pushing our country into a more
desperate financial crisis.
FOX Business Network wraps up “Entitlement Nation: Makers
vs. Takers” on Friday, May 27th, 2010.
Don’t Miss: CHART
OF THE DAY: Watch the US Debt Set a 60 Year Record. ‘
EVERYTHING
RISES AND THE DIP IS BEING BOUGHT: Here's What You Need To Know Business
Insider May
27, 2011 ‘The week has clearly ended on a positive note, although we've
now seen four straight weeks of declines.
But first, the
scoreboard:
Dow: +37.20
NASDAQ: +5.26
S&P 500: +5.26
And now, the
top stories:
Global
Economic Rebound Weakens on Quake, Oil Price, European Debt Crisis Bloomberg
| World economy has entered a softer patch with the incoming growth data mostly
disappointing.
Marc Faber:
Prepare for Another War Jonathan Chen | From 2002-2008,
Greenspan and Bernanke have created massive bubbles.
20
Questions To Ask Anyone Foolish Enough To Believe The Economic Crisis Is Over
The Economic Collapse | We are still in the middle of a
full-blown economic crisis and things are about to get even worse.
Competing
plans on job growth Obama and Congressional Republicans hope to cut the
cost of doing business for U.S. firms.
White
House wants to simplify rules (Washington Post) [ Plans? Is that it? Costs?
For the foreseeable future that counts, the logical conclusion will invariably
be, based on costs and prior misguided decisions (you still remember Perot),
ship them overseas, outsource, outsource, outsource … even Apple does that in a
big way while still getting premium prices (as if made is usa). No … you can’t
unring the bell on their ill-fated, but collectively culpable missteps. But,
this plan of theirs, my recollection is that’s what they’ve been purportedly
doing for the last several election cycles spanning well over a decade. Oh,
riiiiight! It’s that time of the season again … election time. Despite the
rhetoric and spin, the scenario remains dismal … the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm Jobless
Claims Rise 10,000 First
Quarter GDP Stalls Nothing
New In GDP Update, U.S. Grew At 1.8% In Q1
[ Economic data bad and worse than expected … stocks rally on the worse
than expected news 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline..’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP)
Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at the end
of fiscal 2009 Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (WP) Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. … an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog/ Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows This
is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can
since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May and go away! ‘ … Stock
Market: 4 Current Warning Signs
Navin ‘…1) The 5-year high in the level of insider corporate stock sales
is telling. At 565 sells for every 1 buy,
it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be selling some of
their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is pre-planned. But
that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily high, one might
even say off-the-chart. ]
Rep.
Ron Paul takes second in New Hampshire CNN poll The State Column
| Ron Paul is performing well in the latest CNN poll of potential Republican
primary voters.
Utah
To Follow Texas Lead In TSA Grope-down Revolt Steve Watson
| Utah looks likely to be the next state to follow the example set by Texas in
attempting to make TSA grope downs a felony.
Global
Economic Rebound Weakens on Quake, Oil Price, European Debt Crisis Bloomberg
| World economy has entered a softer patch with the incoming growth data mostly
disappointing.
Marc Faber:
Prepare for Another War Jonathan Chen | From 2002-2008,
Greenspan and Bernanke have created massive bubbles.
20
Questions To Ask Anyone Foolish Enough To Believe The Economic Crisis Is Over The Economic CollapseMay 26, 2011 | We are
still in the middle of a full-blown economic crisis and things are about to get
even worse.
If you listen
to Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama and the mainstream media long enough, and if you
didn’t know any better, you might be tempted to think that the economic crisis
is long gone and that we are in the midst of a burgeoning economic
recovery. Unfortunately, the truth is that the economic crisis is far
from over. In 2010, more homes were repossessed than ever before, more
Americans were on food stamps than ever before and a smaller percentage of
American men had jobs than ever before. The reality is that the United
States is an economic basket case and all of these natural disasters certainly
are not helping things. The Federal Reserve has been printing gigantic
piles of money and the U.S. government has been borrowing and spending cash at
a dizzying pace in an all-out effort to stabilize things. They have
succeeded for the moment, but our long-term economic problems are worse then
ever. We are still in the middle of a full-blown economic crisis and
things are about to get even worse.
If you know
someone that is foolish enough to believe that the economic crisis is over and
that our economic problems are behind us, just ask that person the following
questions….
#1 During the 23 months of the “Obama recovery”, an
average of about 23,000
jobs a month have been created. It takes somewhere in the neighborhood
of 150,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. So
shouldn’t we hold off a bit before we declare the economic crisis to be over?
#2 During the “recession”, somewhere between 6.3
million and 7.5 million jobs were lost. During the “Obama recovery”,
approximately 535,000 jobs have been added. When will the rest of the
jobs finally come back?
#3 Of the 535,000 jobs that have been created during
the “Obama recovery”, only
about 35,000 of them are permanent full-time jobs. Today, “low income jobs”
account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United
States. If our economy is recovering, then why can’t it produce large numbers
of good jobs that will enable people to provide for their families?
#4 Agricultural commodities have been absolutely
soaring this decade. The combined price of cotton, wheat, gasoline and
hogs is
now more than 3 times higher than it was back in 2002. So how in the
world can the Federal Reserve claim that inflation has been at minimal levels
all this time?
#5 Back in 2008, banks had a total of 27 billion
dollars in excess reserves at the Fed. Today, banks have a total of approximately
1.5 trillion dollars in excess reserves at the Fed. So what is going to
happen when all of this money eventually hits the economy?….
#6 If the U.S. economy is recovering, then why are
shipments by U.S. factories still substantially
below 2008 levels?
#7 Why are imports of goods from overseas growing much
more rapidly than shipments of goods from U.S. factories?
#8 According to Zillow, the average price of a home in
the U.S. is about 8 percent lower than it was a year ago and that it continues
to fall about 1 percent a month. During the first quarter of 2011, home values
declined at the fastest rate since
late 2008. So can we really talk about a “recovery” when the real
estate crisis continues to get worse?
#9 According to a shocking new survey, 54
percent of Americans believe that a housing recovery is “unlikely” until at
least 2014. So how is the housing industry supposed to improve if so many
people are convinced that it will not?
#10 The latest GDP numbers out of Japan are a complete
and total disaster. During the first quarter GDP declined by
a stunning 3.7 percent. Of course I have been saying for months that the
Japanese economy is collapsing, but most mainstream economists were
absolutely stunned by the latest figures. So will the rest of the world
be able to avoid slipping into a recession as well?
#11
Next week, Republicans in the House of Representatives are going to allow a
vote on raising the debt ceiling. Everyone knows that this is an
opportunity for Republican lawmakers to “look tough” to their constituents (the
vast majority of which do not want the debt ceiling raised). Everyone
also knows that eventually the Republicans are almost certainly going to cave
on the debt ceiling after minimal concessions by the Democrats. The truth
is that neither “establishment Republicans” nor “establishment Democrats” are
actually serious about significantly cutting government debt. So why do
we need all of this political theater?
#12
Why are so many of our once great manufacturing cities being transformed into hellholes? In the city of Detroit
today, there are over 33,000 abandoned houses, 70 schools are being permanently
closed down, the mayor wants to bulldoze one-fourth of the city and you can
literally buy a house for one dollar in the worst areas.
#13
According to one new survey, about
half of all Baby Boomers fear that when they retire they are going to end
up living in poverty. So who is going to take care of them all when the
money runs out?
#14
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, an average of about 5 million
Americans were being hired every single month during 2006. Today, an
average of
about 3.5 million Americans are being hired every single month. So
why are our politicians talking about “economic recovery” instead of “the
collapse of the economy” when hiring remains about 50 percent below normal?
#15
Since August, 2
million more Americans have left the labor force. But the entire
period from August to today was supposed to have been a time of economic growth
and recovery. So why are so many Americans giving up on looking for a
job?
#16
According to Gallup, 41 percent
of Americans believed that the economy was “getting better” at this time last
year. Today, that number is at just 27 percent. Are Americans losing faith in the U.S. economy?
#17
According to the U.S. Census, the number of children living in poverty has gone
up by about 2 million in just the
past 2 years, and one out of every
four American children is currently on food stamps. During this same
time period, Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke have told us over and over that the
U.S. economy has been getting better. So what is the truth?
#18
America has become absolutely addicted to government money. 59 percent of all Americans now receive
money from the federal government in one form or another. U.S. households are
now receiving more income from the U.S. government than
they are paying to the government in taxes. Americans hate having their
taxes raised and they hate having their government benefits cut. So is
there any hope that this will ever be turned around before disaster strikes?
#19
The combined debt of the major GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae)
has increased from 3.2 trillion in 2008 to 6.4 trillion in 2011. How in the
world is the U.S. government going to be able to afford to guarantee all of
that debt on top of everything else?
#20
If the U.S. national debt (more than 14 trillion dollars) was reduced to a
stack of 5 dollar bills, it
would reach three quarters of the way to the moon. The U.S.
government borrows about 168 million dollars every single hour. If Bill
Gates gave every penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only
cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days. So how in the world can our
politicians tell us that everything is going to be okay?
CIA
team to scrub bin Laden compound
EXCLUSIVE | Pakistan has agreed to let a forensics team in to use
sophisticated equipment to look for clues related to al-Qaeda in walls or
underground, a sign of cooperation between the two spy services. (Washington
Post) [ ‘To look for clues?’ Don’t make me laugh! How ‘bout to ‘plant clues’
consistent with their alternate ‘reality’(catapulting the propaganda, again and
now again, and really soaking the story) ; which of course is propagandized
fiction: | U.S. intelligence is that bin
Laden needs dialysis every 3 days / http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/osama_dead.php 5-1-11, JUST
MOMENTS BEFORE PRESIDENT OBAMA ANNOUNCED THAT THE US HAD KILLED OSAMA BIN
LADEN, THE WHATREALLYHAPPENED WEBSITE CAME UNDER MASSIVE DISTRIBUTED DENIAL OF
SERVICE ATTACK. THIS PAGE, WHICH DOCUMENTS THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN ACTUALLY DIED
IN DECEMBER OF 2001, APPEARS TO BE WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DIDN'T WANT AVAILABLE
WHILE THE NEW PROPAGANDA WAS "CATAPULTED FORWARD". IT IS POSSIBLE
THAT THIS IS THE OPENING GAMBIT IN A PLAN TO STAGE A "REVENGE" ATTACK
FROM "AL QAEDA" ON THE UNITED STATES, WITH WHICH TO JUSTIFY TOTAL WAR
ON THE MIDDLE EAST… Davis ‘This is how we pay off our
current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a
country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer
to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest
thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on
TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to
"fix" this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn
on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a
Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.‘ Senate
Dems find themselves in a tough spot (WP) [ Tough spot? Like Iraq and a
hard place called Afghanistan [Pakistani
troops, NATO helicopters engage in firefight 6th
soldier charged in plot to kill Afghan civilians (WP) [ Gen. Hamid Gul: U.S. Generals Provoking War with Pakistan
Jones
FLASHBACK: Editorial: US in
quagmire War
in Afghanistan and Iraq costs America $1trillion Roche
'The worst part of it ...Obama, who
vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues
most of the policies that helped get us here in the first place’ UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘ex-Justice official .. accused his
former employer of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore
cases that involve black defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
THE OBAMA DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
]
Krauthammer:
What Obama did to Israel (Washington Post) [ The fundamental problem with
Mr. Krauthammer’s non-sequitor illogic is the manner in which war crimes nation
israel came by those lands (war) and the numerous violations of u.n.
resolutions (ie., 242, 338, etc., and oslo accords, etc.), international law,
illegal nukes, war crimes (flotilla raid, etc.) since then. He thus becomes the
journalistic equivalent of what Pat Buchanan refers to as the ‘israeli amen
corner’ in congress. If only one could realistically ignore the detriment the
world and america have suffered as a direct consequence of this foreign policy
bent … Top
Democrats criticize Obama’s Israel policy
Now the president — whom critics often accuse of employing a
play-it-safe governing style in which he waits for others to take the lead — is
largely isolated politically in raising the issue of 1967 boundaries.
(Washington Post) [ What policy … to him, just words … more b***s*** . I’ve
thus far refrained from commenting on what I’ve anticipated to be ‘just more of
the same’; empty rhetoric. Pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america makes
the wrong choice at every turn, ensuring in every way, decline and fall;
self-destructive, self-defeating. Make no mistake, and let me reiterate, that
substantially underrated President General Eisenhower would have put American
interests first and the current debacle would never have occurred in the first
instance … see, ie., http://albertpeia.com
, historical documentation, from website: http://www.ameu.org ‘Lest We Forget The Israeli lobby in Washington
has successfully influenced the U.S. Congress to give billions of non-repayable
dollars each year to Israel on the premise that Israel's loyalty and strategic
importance to the United States make it an ally worthy of such unprecedented
consideration. Is it ? In his Farewell Address, George Washington warned
Americans to avoid a passionate attachment to any one nation because it
promotes "the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no
real common interest exists." In 1948, U.S. Secretary of Defense James
Forrestal, an opponent of the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, warned
that, even though failure to go along with the Zionists might cost President
Truman the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and California, it was about time that
somebody should pay some consideration to whether we might not lose the United
States. Israeli actions over the past 53 years involving U.S. interests in the
Middle East seriously challenge the "strategic asset" premise of the
Israeli lobby. Some of these actions are compiled in the list that follows: …’
] Netanyahu
lays out vision for Mideast peace (Washington Post) [
Vision? Don’t make me laugh! The guy’s blind; and a ward and provocateur at
america’s substantial cost and detriment. ]
Are
Broker-Dealers Warning of a Collapse? Gayed ‘It used to be an old adage
that as broker-dealers go, so goes the market. The logic behind this relates to
the idea that if stock investors in broker-dealers are causing the industry to
underperform, it's because of a perceived slowdown in trading and a lack of
growth in deals or overall investment assets under management. If that’s the case, then one might be able to view
the group as an industry with some forecasting power in terms of overall
direction of the market. With that said, let’s take a look at the price ratio
of the Dow Jones U.S. Broker-Dealers Index Fund (IAI) relative to the Dow
Jones Industrial Average (DIA). As a reminder, a rising
price ratio means the numerator/IAI is outperforming (up more/down less) the
denominator/DIA.
[Click
to enlarge]
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/25/39580-130638067580061-Michael-A--Gayed--CFA.png
There
are a couple of things worth pointing out. Broker-Dealers as an industry
relative to the Dow bottomed out in late November, and the ratio began rising
substantially in advance of the March low in 2009. Again, this ratio rose
because of outperformance, which in the context of that time period meant being
down less than the Dow. The leadership was an early signal of some kind of a
market low.
What
is stunning now is the complete lack of leadership in the industry, especially
this year. The entire group has failed to keep up with the broader Dow,
underperforming significantly in an unrelenting trend downward. If the industry
does have some kind of predictive power because of the logic I outlined
earlier, then the recent plunge and underperformance may be warning us that
broader market declines lie ahead.If that is not the message and investors are
overreacting to the fundamental prospects of the group, then the ratio would
presumably turn back up sharply, and soon. The trend does appear to be fairly
definitive for now, so the burden of proof seem to be with the bulls.’
UPDATE 1-Equity fund outflows for third straight week-Lipper
Mirage of gold standard May
25th, 2011 15:28 by News
by S. Murlidharan May 26, 2011 (BusinessLine) — The issue of
international reserve currency has been agitating the minds of economists and
governments alike for several decades now, especially after the 2008 financial
crisis that rocked the world and called into question more than ever before the
wisdom of setting store by and large by a single currency, the US dollar which
ironically held its own even as the US economy went into a tailspin. How the US
hooked the world to its currency in 1944 on the back of the formation of the
Breton Wood twins, the World Bank and the IMF, after the Second World War is
sufficiently well-known and does not bear a repetition. It dangled the bait of
an ounce of gold for every $35 in what was arguably the best but deceptive
manifestation of gold exchange standard. The offer was too good to last and the
US predictably reneged on it in 1971 when the first oil shock shook the world
and made gold the safest haven even as the IMF members grudgingly marvelled
starry-eyed at its gumption. The international financial community hooked to
the US dollar has been willy-nilly persisting with it, thanks to its first
mover advantage and the TINA (there is no other alternative) factor . The TINA
factor which is a sad admission of helplessness is in evidence in many walks of
life, including politics where failed parties continue to win for want of
emergence of a credible alternative. Much the same is happening in the more
rarefied and less decipherable world of currencies… There are quite a few
economists and policy wonks that are pining for the return of the gold standard
this time round on a fuller and all-encompassing scale to address the problem
of a true international reserve currency.… Accounts, it is said, must speak in
a single language and should not be held hostage to and clouded by the
practices and laws of different countries. Accounting standards facilitate
comparison of accounts. But it is one thing to standardise accounts, but quite
another to standardise currencies.…
Standardisation should not introduce newer and greater rigidities,
uncertainties and inequities. … The point is each country has it own unique
advantage and it would be wrong to straightjacket the currency issue into a
gold case. But then this is not to rubbish the case for providing a solid
backing for a currency. Let each country be made accountable for its currency
through the backing of whatever it can offer by way of exchange – let it be
gold, copper, oil or coal.[source]
RS View: Regarding the author’s final note, looking into that
future with good sense would have one soon see that the various chips of
copper, of oil, and of coal would inevitably be pulled from the scorekeeping
role and recast into employment to function at their highest
industrial/economic capacity either domestically or abroad through
international trade, ultimately leaving gold, alone, to reign supreme atop this
hit parade of tangible would-be reserve assets as the superior alternative to
any given national treasury bonds.’
Questions
and Doubts About Investment Banking Wall Street Style McTeer [ Why is he afraid to use the ‘f’
word as in fraud … yes, staring, hitting everyone in the face … FRAUD, plain
and simple … that’s what they are, that’s what they do! ] ‘Joe Nocera wrote an
opinion piece for the New York Times on May 20, 2011, asking “Was
LinkedIn Scammed?” by the Wall Street Investment banks that managed its
I.P.O. He argued persuasively that it was—that the managers priced the shares
low to benefit clients other than LinkedIn (LNKD). They
priced the shares at $45. They opened at $83, rose over $120, and closed the
day at $94.25, an increase over 100 percent. That’s a pretty big miss. Misses are to be expected, but a miss of over 100
percent? It does seem that some clients are more equal than others. With
friends like that, LinkedIn doesn’t need enemies. I don’t know whether LinkedIn
was “stiffed” or not, to use Mr. Nocera’s term, but the alternative of gross
incompetence isn’t all that reassuring either. A miss over 100 percent at least
calls their competence into question. Mr. Nocera’s article stirred some
longstanding but unspoken doubts I’ve long harbored regarding investment
banking Wall Street style. What do they do to earn such high fees and why don’t
others do it cheaper, especially if they aren’t doing it well …’
UPDATE 1-Equity fund outflows for third straight week-Lipper
* Lipper: Equity fund outflows of $5.6 billion
* Taxable bond funds pull in cash for 23rd straight week
* Net redemptions in agricultural, energy, metals funds
* Muni bond fund outflows at 28 weeks
(Updates with more data, comment, background, adds byline)
By Daniel Bases
NEW YORK, May 26 (Reuters) - Investors pulled cash from
U.S. domiciled equity mutual funds for a third straight week
on lingering global economic growth concerns, while bond funds
maintained a steady inflow streak, Lipper data showed on
Thursday.
Overall, equity funds had $5.6 billion in net redemptions
with both domestic and non-domestic equity funds losing
ground. Investors pulled money from both actively managed
funds as well as exchange traded funds during the week ended
May 25.
"We saw outflows, nothing huge, but $1.75 billion out of
mutual funds, which could be people taking profits at this
time of year. There is still concern in the market about
global growth prospects and the end of QE2," said Matthew
Lemieux, a research analyst at Lipper.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is scheduled to end its economic
stimulus plan of bond purchases at the end of June. Questions
linger over whether the U.S. economy has stabilized enough to
sustain itself and grow without the Fed's influence.
A second factor that could be influencing the outflow of
cash from U.S. equity funds is the recent strengthening of the
U.S. dollar. Against a basket of currencies made up of its
major trading partners, the U.S. dollar rose 0.61 percent in
the week ended May 25.
Standard & Poor's says 47 percent of all profits made by
companies in the benchmark S&P 500 stock index are generated
outside of the United States. A stronger U.S. dollar means
companies repatriate fewer greenbacks from their overseas
operations, resulting in less revenue recorded on their
balance sheets.
Indeed the biggest outflows from the ETF's sector, which
is viewed anecdotally as institutional short-term money flow,
came from the SPDR S&P 500 fund (SPY). It had $2.8 billion in
outflows in the latest week, the worst since late March.
Emerging market equity funds had outflows of $32 million
as a result of net redemptions from ETFs. Actively managed
mutual funds saw net inflows of $180 million for emerging
market equities.
Financial and banking sector funds had net redemptions
across both ETFs and actively managed funds for a combined
$659 million for the week.
FIXED INCOME
Investors looking for some consistency and safety continue
to push fresh capital into fixed-income funds, particularly
the investment-grade and high-quality corporate bond sector.
Overall, taxable bond funds pulled in a net $3.8 billion
for the week, extending an inflow streak to 23 weeks for a
cumulative $83.7 billion.
In the corporate high-quality space, which invests in
A-rated and above bonds, inflows rose to $87 million, marking
five straight weeks of gains and the longest inflow streak
since September.
Investment-grade bonds took in a net $1 billion for the
week and haven't seen net redemptions since mid-December.
Even as QE2 comes to a close, investors did put some cash
to work in the U.S. Treasury bond sector, pulling in a net
$148 million in fresh capital.
On the opposite end of the fixed-income spectrum,
municipal bond funds had an outflow of $296 million, extending
the outflow streak to 28 weeks for a cumulative $34.7 billion
in net redemptions since mid-November.
However, for a third straight week, the picture on munis
has been mixed. Muni bond ETFs pulled in $19.2 million in
fresh cash.
COMMODITY OUTFLOWS
Investors continued their pullback on funds investing in
commodity derivatives or physical metals. Energy funds, too,
had outflows.
Funds investing in precious metals had outflows of $260
million even though both spot gold and silver prices rose
modestly during the week.
The biggest drag on the sector was the iShares:Silver
Trust ETF (SLV), which had $313 million in net outflows for
the week.
The United States Oil Fund ETF (USO) led the energy sector
funds group lower, with $120 million in outflows. The sector
had $159 million in net outflows during a week when U.S. crude
oil prices were flat CLc1 after dropping roughly 12 percent
in the last month.
Economic growth concerns are providing an excuse for
investors to take profits on the surge higher in commodity
prices, both industrial as well as agricultural.
Lipper's agriculture-focused commodity funds lost $33
million to net redemptions in the latest week.
The weekly Lipper fund flow data is compiled from reports
issued by U.S.-domiciled mutual funds and exchange-traded
funds.
The following is a broad breakdown of the flows for the
week, including exchange-traded funds (in $ billions):
Sector Flow Change Total Share
Change in Assets Assets Class
(pct) Count
=============================================================
All Equity Funds -5.582 -0.20 2,765.529 10,043
- Domestic Equities -4.074 -0.20 2,048.972 7,649
- Non-Domestic Equities -1.508 -0.21 716.557 2,394
All Taxable Bond Funds 3.801 0.28 1,344.872 4,176
All Money Market Funds 10.657 0.43 2,513.569 1,526
All Municipal Bond Funds -0.296 -0.09 315.915 1,578
STOCKS
ROCKET HIGHER AFTER AWFUL GDP: Here's What You Need To Know Business
Insider [ ‘Very odd’?No, very fraudulent to keep suckers sucked in. ] …the
top stories:
Choose Your Hathaway: Berkshire or Anne Sizemore May 26, 2011 ‘When the actress' name
is in the headlines, Berkshire Hathaway share prices rise, proof that
"robotrading" puts many investors at risk.’ ‘Given that algorithmic
trading now accounts for 70% of all trading, it’s not implausible. Sadly, this
is what the investment management profession has degenerated into.’ [ As to his
‘blood in the streets refeerence’ … sadly … coming to a theater ner you. ] [ I
just had to include this article, emphasizing the folly / fraud of wall street.
Well done! But butt buffet? Wall street shill, he ultimately goes out a buffoon
and fraud friend of wall street; a further sign of pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt american decline. But, ‘puppy-dog-eyes’? How ‘bout ‘cat’s eyes’, as in
Catwoman. Don’t forget Chuck, ‘mnemonics’, loosely speaking, are kind of
like in a clichéd sort of way, that ‘double edged sword that cuts both
ways’ … you know, ‘Tom Sizemore’ … are you related? ] We’ve always admired
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) Chairman Warren Buffett. He is, after all, the
most successful investor in history and a legend in his own time. Mr. Buffett’s
annual reports are fountains of investment wisdom that should be required
reading in business
schools and for everyone in the money management profession.We’ve also had an
admiration for the Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway for many years, though we
know nothing of her investment acumen. Some readers of the Sizemore Investment
Letter might be interested to know that the 28-year-old Ms. Hathaway will be
starring in next year’s Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, as the
Catwoman. Berkshire Hathaway shareholders had better hope that her performance
generates its share of press. Their investment returns might depend on it.Yes,
dear readers, you read that correctly. As ridiculous as it might sound, the
price of Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK-B) shares move in tandem with Ms. Hathway’s
film career. Consider what the Financial Times had to say on the matter:
Anne Hathaway is young, beautiful and excels in soppy romantic
comedies. But while her puppy-dog-eyes bring tears to multiplexes worldwide,
her performances are now being watched in a less familiar quarter: Wall Street.
Traders barely noticed that the star of The Devil Wears Prada had hosted last
month’s Oscars, until blogger Dan Mirvish spotted an odd pattern: if Ms.
Hathaway is in the news, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway stock jumps too.
US
Stocks Fall As Investors Tread Cautiously After Weak Data Dow Jones
| U.S. stocks fell in relatively light trading after a round of disappointing
data renewed investor caution over the pace and health of the economic
recovery.
Pace of
foreclosure sales picks up Miami Herald | There were 2,222
sales of bank-owned homes in the first quarter of 2011 in Miami-Dade County, up
10.7 percent from the previous quarter.
20
Questions To Ask Anyone Foolish Enough To Believe The Economic Crisis Is Over
The Economic Collapse | We are still in the middle of a
full-blown economic crisis and things are about to get even worse.
Jobless
Claims Still Keep On Climbing Higher Reuters | Labor
Department on Thursday revised the prior week’s claims number up from an
originally reported 409,000.
Oil Slips After
US Data Disappoints WSJ | Oil futures edged lower
Thursday, a day after their run above $101 a barrel.
Washington
area’s Asian population booms (Washington Post) [ This seems to foreshadow
that almost mythical, legendary, prospective ‘long march’ so heralded in
Chinese lore (at least the military’s) regarding the final conquest of
pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt, and rapidly declining america. I’d say
they’re watching ever more closely the ever more worthless american paper
they’re holding. Davis ‘This is how we pay off our
current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a
country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer
to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest
thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on
TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to
"fix" this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn
on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a
Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ Senate
Dems find themselves in a tough spot (WP) [ Tough spot? Like Iraq and a
hard place called Afghanistan; indeed they are. [Pakistani
troops, NATO helicopters engage in firefight 6th
soldier charged in plot to kill Afghan civilians (Washington Post) [ Gen. Hamid Gul: U.S. Generals Provoking War with Pakistan
Jones |
U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis
every 3 days/ http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/osama_dead.php 5-1-11, JUST
MOMENTS BEFORE PRESIDENT OBAMA ANNOUNCED THAT THE US HAD KILLED OSAMA BIN
LADEN, THE WHATREALLYHAPPENED WEBSITE CAME UNDER MASSIVE DISTRIBUTED DENIAL OF
SERVICE ATTACK. THIS PAGE, WHICH DOCUMENTS THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN ACTUALLY DIED
IN DECEMBER OF 2001, APPEARS TO BE WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DIDN'T WANT AVAILABLE
WHILE THE NEW PROPAGANDA WAS "CATAPULTED FORWARD". IT IS POSSIBLE
THAT THIS IS THE OPENING GAMBIT IN A PLAN TO STAGE A "REVENGE" ATTACK
FROM "AL QAEDA" ON THE UNITED STATES, WITH WHICH TO JUSTIFY TOTAL WAR
ON THE MIDDLE EAST… FLASHBACK: Editorial: US in
quagmire War
in Afghanistan and Iraq costs America $1trillion Roche
'The worst part of it ...Obama, who
vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues
most of the policies that helped get us here in the first place’ UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
THE OBAMA DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
]
Why
we read Palin’s tell-all The
underlying interest says something more primal than simply our fascination with
Mama Grizzly. (Washington Post) [ I’d say it’s more of a curious fascination
with the ‘new american dumb’. After all, who can deny the boost she got from
SNL’s Tina Fey’s impresarios highlighting same. Yet, in comparison with and
juxtaposed to the rest of the Washington field (mccain, bush, wobama, et als),
she’s got plenty of cover / camouflage.
Send to a friendSarah Palin: Don't pick on Donald Trump
Politico - Even
though Donald Trump has wholeheartedly embraced the wall-to-wall media coverage
that's come with his promotion of the widely discredited “birther” issue, Sarah
Palin argued Tuesday that the press is treating him ... Trump's business success claims questioned CBS News ‘…Trump hotels and casinos in Atlantic City have
filed for bankruptcy protection three times. While Trump blamed market forces,
he has long been chairman of the board for the casino businesses.In his defense,
Trump said he "didn't run the company." Isikoff then asked why he was
paid $2 million per year to chair the board of that business. Trump replied:
"Excuse me. Because I'm a genius, okay."Trump said many different
businesses license the use of his name, but he's not directly involved in their
operations.Casinos have not been the only weakness in the Trump empire. There
have been many high profile bankruptcy filings, bad real estate deals, and a
trail of ongoing lawsuits accusing him of bad business practices.Another
questionable move was "Trump University," an online, for-profit
business education firm. The attorney general in Texas ordered him to stop
using the word "university" in its title. Trump said his company was
unaware of restrictions on the use of that word.Isikoff also said he asked
Trump if he thought the state of Hawaii was lying in regards to Obama being
born there, and he did not answer the question. In summation of his experiences
that qualify him to be President of the United States, Trump told Isikoff:
"My successes...have been vast. I don't even view myself as having
failures, and I certainly learned from things that don't work out as
well." ‘ As Trump rants, TV ratings slide Tampabay.com Parker:
The GOP plays a crazy Trump card (Washington Post) [ I don't know what polls
Ms. Parker's referring to; but unless she's referring to mobster trump
apprentice news (trump was fired from his own casino company), that certainly
doesn't comport with polls I've read. Moreover, like palin, trump's the joke
that keeps on giving (for SNL, late-night talk hosts, etc.) ...’ ]
Global
Economy Dying on the Vine Nyaradi
‘The global economy seems to be dying on the vine as more news of
economic slowdown pours in every day. The U.S. stock market and ETFs continue
to react negatively to deteriorating economic news even as the Federal Reserve
bought $6 Billion in their POMO operations yesterday.The DJIA, S&P 500 and
NASDAQ are all below their 50 Day Moving Averages while the NASDAQ has also
dropped below its 100 Day Moving Average.The NASDAQ and DJIA are now on Point
and Figure “Sell” signals, having experienced a Bearish Catapult Breakdown at
Tuesday’s close and now has a price target of 12,050.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/25/saupload_djiapf052411.png stockcharts.com,
click to enlarge
… Richmond Federal
Reserve reported a severe drop in activity in the region as the report actually
contracted to -6 from a +10 in April. China’s Purchasing Manager’s Index
declined, Japan is back in recession and Belgium, one of the core countries in
the eurozone was issued a credit downgrade warning by the Fitch ratings agency.
Spain’s bond premium to the benchmark German Bund is back to January’s levels
and Greek 10 Year Bonds are a whopping 17% which is clearly unsustainable.
Closer to home, Vice President Biden continues to work with Congress towards what
they’re labeling a $1 Trillion down payment to avert a government shutdown in
August and the Illinois State Treasurer says his state is on the “verge of
financial disaster.” …’ ]
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
Drudgereport:
USA HITS DEBT CEILING...
TREASURY RAIDS PENSIONS...
PUTIN DECIDES TO RETAKE
PRESIDENCY
GALLUP: Romney, Palin Lead
GOP Field for 2012...
In Obama's Hometown, Romney
Criticizes Econ Policies...
Sends Left-Over Pizza to
Obama HQ...
Will formally announce run on
June 2...
'PATRIOT ACT' CLEARS CONGRESS
-- WILL BE SIGNED INTO LAW BY A MACHINE...
60 DAYS: GOP senators press
Obama on war powers...
Pile of American debt -- would
stretch beyond stratosphere!
House members' stock market
success suspect...
Congressional bonuses handed
out during budget crisis...
Loughner removed from
courtroom after outburst...
Found too
american to stand trial...
Gold, silver coins to be
legal currency in Utah...
DAY 3: MORE TWISTERS...
At least 14 more killed...
VIDEO...
Fresh Twisters
Touch Down...
At least 7 more killed...
Death toll reaches 124 in
Joplin; Deadliest in half century..
1,500 Reported
Missing...
TORNADO SWARMS DEADLIEST IN
MORE THAN HALF CENTURY
HEARTLAND
DEVASTATION...
116 dead, nearly 500 twister
deaths this year...
VIDEO... PHOTOS...
AUDIO TERROR: 'I LOVE YOU
ALL'...
'I'm alive!' text message
saves man's life...
1,500 rescuers work through
pouring rain...
Threats of more to
come...
Looting in Minneapolis...
State Treasurer Warns Bond
Houses Against Further Loans to Illinois...
NYT: 'Is Anti-White Bias a
Problem?' [ … In what some have called the new post-racial era,
what constitutes discrimination is shifting. The landmark Supreme Court case, Ricci
v. DeStefano, for example, ruled that white firefighters suffered
discrimination when their employer threw out a promotional exam because none of
the African-American firefighters who took the test qualified for promotion
…’ UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
| Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
THE OBAMA DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
UPDATE: $24B in bailout paid
to contractors who owe millions in taxes...
Palestinians: netanayahu
Speech is 'declaration of war'...
SUPREME COURT ORDERS CA TO
RELEASE UP TO 46,000 PRISONERS...
'Terrible things
are sure to happen'...
JERRY BROWN: 'Let's raise
taxes!!!'
FEDS SPEND MILLIONS STUDYING
SHRIMP ON TREADMILLS?? 'GELATIN WRESTLING' IN ANTARCTICA??
Zuckerberg Shock: 'Only meat
I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself'... ‘"The only meat I'm eating is from animals I've
killed myself," says the Facebook founder and CEO. It's an odd dietary direction for the 27-year-old
Internet billionaire, but since he has taken to killing goats, pigs and
chickens, "I'm eating a lot healthier foods. And I've learned a lot about
sustainable farming and raising of animals," he says. "It's easy to
take the food we eat for granted when we can eat good things every
day." Zuckerberg's new goal came to light, not surprisingly, on Facebook.
On May 4, Zuckerberg posted a note to the 847 friends on his private page: "I
just killed a pig and a goat."’
Global
Economy Dying on the Vine Nyaradi ‘The global economy seems to be dying on the vine as more news of
economic slowdown pours in every day. The U.S. stock market and ETFs continue
to react negatively to deteriorating economic news even as the Federal Reserve
bought $6 Billion in their POMO operations yesterday.The DJIA, S&P 500 and
NASDAQ are all below their 50 Day Moving Averages while the NASDAQ has also
dropped below its 100 Day Moving Average.The NASDAQ and DJIA are now on Point
and Figure “Sell” signals, having experienced a Bearish Catapult Breakdown at
Tuesday’s close and now has a price target of 12,050.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/25/saupload_djiapf052411.png stockcharts.com,
click to enlarge
Yesterday’s
economic reports gave the stock market a quick boost at the open when new home
sales came in at +7.3% and an annualized rate of 323,000/year which still is at
severely depressed levels. But then, the Richmond Federal Reserve reported a
severe drop in activity in the region as the report actually contracted to -6
from a +10 in April. China’s Purchasing Manager’s Index declined, Japan is back
in recession and Belgium, one of the core countries in the eurozone was issued
a credit downgrade warning by the Fitch ratings agency. Spain’s bond premium to
the benchmark German Bund is back to January’s levels and Greek 10 Year Bonds
are a whopping 17% which is clearly unsustainable. Closer to home, Vice President
Biden continues to work with Congress towards what they’re labeling a $1
Trillion down payment to avert a government shutdown in August and the Illinois
State Treasurer says his state is on the “verge of financial disaster.” …’
Is the U.S. Worse
Off Than Europe? Maierhofer ‘… Deception and naive reporting are as
intertwined with the evolution of European dept woes as Feta cheese is to Greek
culinary culture. Rarely has this become more obvious than now. Luxembourg's Prime Minister didn't beat around the
bush: 'When it becomes serious, you have to lie.' You be the judge whether it
is more 'honorable' to omit, deceive, obstruct, misconstrue, or lie (purposely
or unintentionally). There are plenty of examples so we can make an educated
decision.You shouldn't throw stones if you are sitting in a glass house. This
is the case with the United States. The administration has engaged in all kinds
of maneuvers and financial alchemy to obstruct the truth and prevent free
market forces from expressing themselves. QE2 is the most famous example. Mr.
Bernanke is caught in his very own web of financial engineering side effects.
Preaching on one hand that QE2 was supposed to inflate assets and create a
wealth effect but denying that QE2 has caused wide spread food and energy
inflation. Another example is the 'adjustment' of accounting rule 157, demanded
and sanctioned by Congress. The 'new and improved' rule 157 allows banks
(NYSEArca: KBE) and financial institutions (NYSEArca: XLF) to omit hundreds of billions of toxic assets in an off
balance sheet bucket that doesn't affect earnings results …’
The
S&P 500's Lost Decade Short
‘Here is a new update of a chart that illustrates the total return performance
of the S&P 500 since the Tech Bubble closing high on March 24, 2000. The
chart shows the value of $1000 invested in the index, including dividends, but
excluding any taxes or fees, as of May 20th. I've also included the real value
using the Consumer Price Index for the inflation adjustment. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/25/saupload_sp500_total_20return_on_1000_invested_in_2000_thumb1.png
Click
for a larger image I calculated on the returns based on the daily price and
daily dividends interpolated from the quarterly dividends as reported by
Standard & Poor's. Thus the $1,070 nominal and $809 real values are the
hypothetical returns excluding any taxes or fees. For the sake of comparison
and to validate the calculation method, we can compare the nominal return in
the chart above to Vanguard's 500 Index Investor Fund (VFINX), which has had a return
of $1,057. Over the same timeframe The SPY ETF has returned $1,044.We're now over
eleven years beyond the S&P 500 2000 high. This little charting exercise
gives credence to the frequent reference to a "lost decade" for
investors. It also offers support for the wisdom of diversification across
asset classes.’
Top
Democrats criticize Obama’s Israel policy
Now the president — whom critics often accuse of employing a
play-it-safe governing style in which he waits for others to take the lead — is
largely isolated politically in raising the issue of 1967 boundaries. (Washington
Post) [ What policy … to him, just words … more b***s*** . I’ve thus far
refrained from commenting on what I’ve anticipated to be ‘just more of the
same’; empty rhetoric. Pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america makes the
wrong choice at every turn, ensuring in every way, decline and fall;
self-destructive, self-defeating. Make no mistake, and let me reiterate, that
substantially underrated President General Eisenhower would have put American
interests first and the current debacle would never have occurred in the first
instance … see, ie., http://albertpeia.com
, historical documentation, from website: http://www.ameu.org ‘Lest We Forget The Israeli lobby in
Washington has successfully influenced the U.S. Congress to give billions of
non-repayable dollars each year to Israel on the premise that Israel's loyalty
and strategic importance to the United States make it an ally worthy of such
unprecedented consideration. Is it ? In his Farewell Address, George Washington
warned Americans to avoid a passionate attachment to any one nation because it
promotes "the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no
real common interest exists." In 1948, U.S. Secretary of Defense James
Forrestal, an opponent of the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, warned
that, even though failure to go along with the Zionists might cost President
Truman the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and California, it was about time
that somebody should pay some consideration to whether we might not lose the
United States. Israeli actions over the past 53 years involving U.S. interests
in the Middle East seriously challenge the "strategic asset" premise
of the Israeli lobby. Some of these actions are compiled in the list that
follows: …’ ] Netanyahu
lays out vision for Mideast peace (Washington Post) [
Vision? Don’t make me laugh! The guy’s blind; and a ward and provocateur at
america’s substantial cost and detriment. ]
Poll:
More fear U.S. debt than default
Whether or not Congress raises the debt limit, majority of Americans are
worried about the consequences. (Washington Post) [ How ‘bout all of the above! “Both
Parties And The White House Are Advocating A US Default” Zero Hedge
| David Stockman, one of the few voices of fiscal prudence, debated US
insolvency.
David
Stockman: “Both Parties And The White House Are Advocating A US Default” Last
week David Stockman was on Tom Keene, making the usual media rounds (sometimes
we marvel at his patience and endurance), as one of the few voices of fiscal
prudence available to TV producers who seek to hold a balanced debate on the
topic of US insolvency.
Stop Raising the Debt
Ceiling Ron Paul | When our creditors finally wise up and
cut us off, we will be forced to face economic realities whether we want to or
not. Harry
Dent: “Major Crash” Coming for Stocks, Commodities Already Topping Out Market Downturn Approaching; Go Long the Ultra Shorts? White ‘.. consistently bad economic ..
Following is a brief list (mostly from Yahoo Finance‘s Economic Calendar) of
troubling news: …1-20…’ This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take
profits while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell
in May and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
Market Downturn Approaching; Go Long the Ultra Shorts? White ‘It is time to worry about a market downturn. There
has been almost consistently bad economic news reported in the U.S. in the last
week. Following is a brief list (mostly from Yahoo Finance‘s Economic Calendar)
of troubling news:
Libya:
Increased Airstrikes, Ground Troops, Contractors, Civilians Killed, Deadly DU
Munitions – Can We Call This A War Yet? The globalist
coalition refers to it as ‘kinetic military action’, yet as more civilians are
killed in NATO bombings, and with experts adamant that deadly Depleted Uranium
weapons are being used by Western forces, the conflict in Libya looks a hell of
a lot like the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq all over again.
63
percent of people killed in Iraq war were civilians: report Xinhua | U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been causing huge
civilian casualties. ]
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png
1Q
bank profits up, revenue down
Profits in the first quarter were the best in four years, but the
industry isn’t back on its feet yet. (Washington Post) [ ‘Simple trick’ that you’re paying for
whether you like it or not … ie., Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money—‘ … America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
Rank |
|
||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
| Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
THE OBAMA DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
Agents
irked by plan to keep Mueller
(Washington Post) [ ‘abide by ..
tenure limits’ ? I’m more concerned with, and it’s fundamentally more important
from the perspective of the FBI’s ‘mission and purpose’, that meaningful law be
abided by regarding the following:
October 15, 2010 (*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez,
Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the Qui Tam provisions of
the Federal False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent
resolution seek to refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of
the law with which I am not familiar).
The
document in 5 pages under penalty of perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI
office in New Haven is probably the best and most concise summary of the
case RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm .
With regard to the calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices:
There was one call to the LA office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA
office where I personally met with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave
probative evidentiary documents of the money laundering which he confirmed as indicative
of same (he was transferred from said office within approximately a month of
said meeting and his location was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter
was assigned to FBI Agent Ron Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess
of a decade until he abruptly retired (our last conversation prior to his
retirement related to the case and parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father
I stated had been an enforcer for the mob to which he registered disbelief and
requested I prove it, which I did – he served 12 years in prison, aggravated
assault/manslaughter? – and no, there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew
Maloney’s the one that prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction to
the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
·
A judgment had been
entered in my favor in the case, United States District Court Case
#3:93cv02065(AWT)(USDCJ Alvin Thompson), worth approximately now in excess of
$300,000 remains unaccounted for and which could be used for payment to
creditors, Los Angeles, etc..
·
Counsel Robert
Sullivan on my behalf documented by way of certification upon investigation
that Alan Shiff, USBCJ, had falsely stated a dismissal upon which false
statement he predicated a retaliatory and spurious contempt proceeding against
me causing substantial damage, and for which he sought Judicial Notice of those
and related proceedings as did I in some of my filings.
·
The Order of
Dismissal With Prejudice by Alan Shiff, USBCJ, owing to Defendant Coan’s
failure to file anything whatsoever by the court’s deadline causing creditors
and me substantial damages: [ Shiff Order of Dismissal With Prejudice on
Coan’s Failure to File Page 1 Page 2 ]
·
Defendant Coan had
filed an action against me to prevent me from suing him which necessitated me
to fly to Connecticut for a hearing before The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny,
Chief Judge, USDC, District of Connecticut, who denied Coan’s requested relief
as to Coan but precluded my action against Shiff (although there is no
immunity, judicial or otherwise, for criminal acts, ie., fraud connected with a
case under Title 11, USC, etc.) . [ http://albertpeia.com/crossexamofcoanbypeia.pdf ]
·
Newly appointed
judge, Maryanne Trump Barry, Donald Trump’s sister, was assigned the RICO case
despite the conflict of interest in light of hundreds of thousands of dollars
of illegal (drug) money being laundered through the Trump casinos by the RICO
defendants, and despite my motion to recuse her which motion she heard herself
and denied, and U.S. Trustee Hugh Leonard with whom I met personally refused to
join or file a separate motion to recuse and not long thereafter left said
office for private practice at Cole, Shotz, et als on retainer with the RICO
defendants as his primary client.
·
Probative and
evidentiary documents, affidavits, exhibits, including those turned over to FBI
Agent Jeff Hayes in Long Beach, CA, had been given to Assistant U.S. Attorney
Jonathan Lacey with whom I met personally at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in
Newark, N.J., at which time Samuel Alito was U.S. Attorney, and went over said
documents and their probative value with him. Within approximately a month
thereafter upon inquiry I was told that Jonathon Lacey was no longer with the
office, that the file/documents could not be located, and that there was no
further information available concerning contacting him or his location. I
thereupon delivered by hand, copies of said documents to the office of then
U.S. Attorney Alito, addressed to him, with assurance they would go directly to
him. In addition to being inept [ I looked in on the
one mob case he had brought, bungled, lost (accidently on purpose?) since I was
suing some mob-connected under RICO and the court (I had known / previously met
outside of court the judge Ackerman through a client) was absolute bedlam and a
total joke since incompetent corrupt Alito brought in all 20 mob defendants
(rather than prosecute one or a few to flip them first) who feigning illness
had beds/cots in the courtroom along with their moans during testimony and had
the jury in stitches. As much as I hate the mob, it truly was funny, if not so
tragic.], Alito is also corrupt
(and maybe corrupt because he is inept). After a reasonable (but still rather
short) time I called to determine the status and was told that Alito was no
longer with the Office of the U.S. Attorney, that he was (appointed) a federal
judge, and that neither the documents nor any file or record of same could be
located. Alito did parley the same / cover-up into quid pro quo direct lifetime
appointment to the Court of Appeals, 3rd circuit, despite the
absence of judicial experience or successful tenure as U.S. Attorney (Maryanne
Trump Barry as well). This is the same Sam Alito that now sits on the purported
highest court in the land. The real application of the illegal rule ‘don’t ask,
don’t tell’.
There
is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor creditors, nor I
should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt and illegal
scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the meaningful rules of
law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert
L. Peia
611
E. 5th Street, #404
Los
Angeles, CA 90013
(213)
219-**** (cell phone)
(213)
622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with the line,
computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance greater
non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for contact).
Fight
over feral alley cats divides feline lovers (Washington Post) [ My love of cats, big and small, is no
mystery; but indeed is beyond the scope of this comment. I’ve had and loved
neutered (not by my decision / action) as well as my most recent ‘macho’ (non-neutered)
cat ( I just couldn’t bring myself to ‘cutting his b***s off’ as advised by a
girl I was seeing at the time … kind of a ‘golden rule’ thing … and knowing
‘he’d never forgive me’ … his loss to me, part of the RICO scenario, though not
part of my damages, is among the forever unforgivable parts of what occurred
therein). As for ‘taking a position’, as a noumenon, I question the premise of
any life at all in a meaningful sense in Washington d.c.; and hence, not the
best comparison for setting policy. Unlike dogs, you will not see cats
attacking and killing babies, etc.. So, I conclude that in such dire
circumstances (d.c.) where a trade-up is beneficial, such seems, though
rightfully exceptional, a sometimes favorable course, if the only choice; which
assumes procreation and continued growth of the species is not impinged upon.
Therefore, this argues for un-neutered moves to better environs. ]
Top 3 Reasons Markets were Down on Goldman’s Oil Scare May 24, 2011 Wall St.
Cheat Sheet ‘Markets closed down on Wall Street: DJI -0.2% SP500 -0.08%
Nasdaq -0.46% Gold 0.61% Oil 1.86% . Markets started in the green, sold off
into the red, made a honorable attempt to rally end of day, but sold off again
into the bell. On the commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) was volatile in the afternoon, but managed to
rally to $99.52 on the day. Gold (NYSE:GLD) held $1,500 again as debt scares haunted
investors, and Silver (NYSE:SLV) got back to it’s old ways adding over 4%.
Today’s
markets were down because:
1) Market
police continue to blow whistles . Yesterday Italy (NYSE:EWI) took a
credit outlook rating cut from Standard & Poor’s (NYSE:MHP), and today Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) the streak alive by threatening to
take the downgrade sword to the UK banks. As if that wasn’t enough for
bankers to skip dessert, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman got his
investigation on by expanding his mortgage fraud probe to the bond insurers:
Ambac Financial Group (PINK:ABKFQ), MBIA Inc. (NYSE:MBI), Syncora Holdings Ltd. (PINK:SYCRF), and Assured
Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO).
2) Oil rallied
on Goldman’s flip-flop . In April, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) screamed “Sell
Oil Now!” Today they went Chinatown on us and shouted “Buy
Oil Now!” Regardless, on days when Oil (NYSE:USO) rises strongly, the econ bears take the stage
warning of higher gas prices and weaker consumer sales — a good reason to sell
stocks. But don’t tell them about airline
woes because canceled flights from the volcano are sure to weigh on fuel
demand in the near future.
3) IPOs were
hot, the NASDAQ was not . Shorts got their faces melted off in LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) at 2PM, while white hot Russian search engine
Yandex (NASDAQ:YNDX) popped
55% at its initial public offering and Glencore
gave underwriters a reason to cheer.
Bonus: Results
are in. Here’s Your
Cheat Sheet to this Quarter’s Dow 30 Earnings …’
Shades
of 2008: A Greek Default Won't Be 'Contained': Mauldin Task
‘Financial markets shuddered Monday as fears over Europe's sovereign
debt crisis resurfaced yet again. Still, the Dow closed off its worst levels of
the session amid the conventional view that Greece's debt crisis can be
managed.
But Endgame
author John Mauldin says Greece won't be any more "contained" than
subprime mortgages were in 2008.
"It's not
something that stops at the European waters," Mauldin says. "Just
like the subprime crisis didn't stop in California…I'm worried this one has a
lot of contagion and it'll affect the world."
As for the
mechanism for that contagion, Mauldin lays out the following scenario in the
event of a Greek default:
Such a scenario would not go unnoticed in Portugal
or, especially, Ireland, where voters have already shown their displeasure with
having to pay for bank bailouts, Mauldin notes.
Meanwhile, U.S. banks have written credit-default swaps
to European banks. Most of these positions are hedged but "you're only
balanced as long as both of those counterparties are good," Mauldin says.
"If you have a bad counterparty, now you're out of balance."
If you'll recall, it wasn't the failing subprime
mortgages per se that caused the real crisis in 2008, but banks
refusal to trade with other banks. It was this "counterparty risk"
which caused the financial system to seize up, which is why policymakers here
and in Europe are doing everything and anything to prevent a repeat.’
Market
Outlook: Proceed With Caution Brown ‘ The market began the week down, with the S&P 500
closing at 1317. After three consecutive down-weeks, the S&P 500
has lost -4.5% from its May 2nd high and now hovers below its 30-day and 50-day
moving averages in a generally negative technical position.
It seems
investors finally took stock of the problems lurking outside of Wall Street, specifically Europe’s sovereign debt problems and
China’s slowing growth.(Daniel Sckolnik’s posting today on the Sabrient blog (”ETF Periscope: Spain Protests Just
May Cause the Running Away of the Bulls“) presents a cogent overview of
Europe’s debt problem and paints the dire picture in Spain very well.)
Of course, Europe’s
and China’s problems strengthened the dollar, which has battered
commodity stocks and the market in general over the past year. While the dollar
was pretty much flat last week, it is up 6% from its recent low. Oil prices
strengthened a bit but remain down 10% from their recent high.
Other culprits
added to the negative mood. Disappointing earnings releases from major
companies like Cisco (CSCO), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ),
Disney (DIS), Staples (SPLS), and
the Gap (GAP) reflected the
continued weakness in corporate earnings. Last week’s economic news
cast a shadow over our struggling recovery. The Philly Fed report and
Empire State index revealed a slowing in the growth of the manufacturing
sector; housing starts and existing home sales came in lower than expected; and
last week’s initial jobless claims remained stubbornly over 400,000.
Market
stats. Last week, Mid-cap
Value was the only positive cap/style, up +0.3%. Small-cap Growth, investors’
darling of the past year, was the worst performer again last week, down -0.9%,
as traders continued to take profits in this space. (Here are
the market stats.)
Energy led the
sectors, up +1.3%. Also positive were Utilities (+0.9%), Transportation
(+0.8%), Basic Industries (+0.7%), and Consumer Non-Durables (+0.3%). The worst
performer was Consumer Durables, down -2.2%, with Capital Goods and Technology
joining in the down-more-than-1% group. Technology’s poor performance was no
doubt heightened by the disappointing earnings from Hewlett-Packard.
Our forward
looking sector model continues to favor Basic Industries, followed closely by
Energy, Health Care, and Capital Goods.
Coming up. This week, we will get more hard data about our
economy. On Tuesday, new home sales will tell us whether the housing market is
continuing to flail; Wednesday, durable goods will be closely watched;
Thursday, initial jobless claims will try to break back under the 400K mark,
and we’ll get our second look at first quarter GDP. On Friday, personal
spending and Michigan sentiment chime in with their numbers.
It won’t take
much more negativity to push the S&P 500 below its current support level of
1306, and if that is breached, 1257 is our next hope for a refuge.
What the
market wants, frankly, is
for the EU to bring its sovereign debt situation under control and for
corporate America to resume strong earnings, which we won’t know until early July.
All in all, I would suggest that we proceed with caution.
4 Stock
Ideas for this Market
This week, I
started with the GARP (Growth At a Reasonable Price) preset search in MyStockFinder. I then included Buys (in addition
to Strong Buys) and increased the weighting in Long-Term Technicals. Here are
four stock ideas from some of the higher-ranked sectors that look intriguing:
Ball Corp. (BLL)
– Basic Industries
GT Solar (SOLR) – Energy
II-VI, Inc. (IIVI) – Capital Goods
LKQ Corp. (LKQX) – Consumer Durables’
Market Downturn Approaching; Go Long the Ultra Shorts? White ‘It is time to worry about a market downturn. There
has been almost consistently bad economic news reported in the U.S. in the last
week. Following is a brief list (mostly from Yahoo Finance‘s Economic Calendar)
of troubling news:
If the U.S. news wasn’t bad enough, the EU credit
crisis is alive and well. The scuttlebutt on Greece is that it is no longer a matter of “if”
Greece will default (give
a haircut), but “when“. Ireland
may have some of its banks give haircuts to debt holders. Portugal’s
bailout has been okayed in principal, although Portugal still needs to elect a
government to accept it. That government also needs to approve the necessary
austerity measures to qualify for it. The previous government dissolved because
it wouldn’t approve such measures just a couple of months ago. Portugal
is predicted to go back into recession for 2011 and 2012 based on the
harshness of the necessary austerity package.
In Japan, the economy shrank quarter over quarter in
Jan-Mar by -0.90% vs. an expected -0.50%. Year over year Japan's
GDP declined more than expected by -3.7%. This is the second consecutive
quarter of decline. Japan is technically back in a recession. Its GDP Price
Index (YoY) was down -1.90% (deflation). Its Industrial Production (MoM) was
down a horrendous -15.50% vs. an expected -15.10%. Its Household Confidence
missed at 33.40 vs. an expected 37.30. Public debt has reached 200% of GDP.
Things are so bad there that ECRI
has forecast a global summer slowdown.
In sum, there are sufficient reasons to expect a
downturn in the U.S. equities markets. The manna of the “hypers”-- QE2-- has
been reduced to a few sparse crumbs. The signs point downward. Of course, the
market has proven better men than me wrong ...’
The 'Real' Mega-Bears Short ‘It's
time again for the weekend update of our "Real"
Mega-Bears, an inflation-adjusted overlay of three secular bear markets. It
aligns the current S&P 500f rom the top of the Tech Bubble in March 2000,
the Dow in of 1929, and the Nikkei 225 from its 1989 bubble high.
Click
[chart] for a
larger image
This chart is
consistent with my preference for real (inflation-adjusted) analysis of
long-term market behavior. The nominal all-time high in the index occurred in
October 2007, but when we adjust for inflation, the "real" all-time
high for the S&P 500 occurred in March 2000.
Here is a nominal
version to help clarify the impact of inflation and deflation, which varied
significantly across these three markets.
See also my alternate
version, which charts the comparison from the 2007 nominal all-time high in
the S&P 500. This series also includes the Nasdaq from the 2000 Tech Bubble
peak.
Click
[chart] for a
larger image ‘
“Both
Parties And The White House Are Advocating A US Default” Zero Hedge
| David Stockman, one of the few voices of fiscal prudence, debated US
insolvency.
Stop Raising the Debt
Ceiling Ron Paul | When our creditors finally wise up and
cut us off, we will be forced to face economic realities whether we want to or
not.
Gold,
silver coins to be legal currency in Utah From the Trenches
| It had to happen soon or later.
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
Treasury
to tap pensions to fund government (WP) 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come!
Corsi
To File Criminal Charges Against White House Over Obama Birth Certificate Paul
Joseph Watson | Clear Channel radio station scrubs interview from
audio archives
Reconciliation (Washington Post) Recap: Budget
graphs and budget tables; our fiscal future basically depends on
whether this works; and why did Republicans support a budget they
knew was politically toxic? [ Budget graphs and budget tables? Don’t ‘bet
the ranch’ on them … oh, wait … everybody already did … the ranch is indeed
upside down (worth less than what’s owed)
… the ‘new american dream / nightmare / fantasy’ … Market Downturn Approaching; Go Long the Ultra Shorts? White ‘It is time to worry about a
market downturn. There has been almost consistently bad economic news ..:
1.
The Trade
Balance for March was worse than expected ..will result in a lowering of the Q1
GDP estimate, which is due out May 26.
2.
The Mississippi
Flood is the worst in a century-- this alone will depress the Q2 GDP..
3.
The PPI missed
at 0.80% vs. an expected 0.60%. The Core PPI missed at 0.30% vs. an expected
0.20%. .. This should hurt margins going forward.
4.
Retail Sales
(MoM) missed at +0.50% vs. an expected +0.60%.
5.
.. Michigan
Consumer Sentiment Index beat at 72.40 vs. an expected 70.00.
6.
The NY Empire
State Manufacturing Index missed at 11.90 vs. an expected 19.60.
7.
The TIC Net
Long-Term Transactions missed at $24.00B vs. an expected $57.70B.
8.
The NAHB Housing
Market Index missed at 16 vs. an expected 17.
9.
Housing Starts missed
at 0.52M vs. an expected 0.57M.
10. Building Permits missed at 0.55M vs. an expected
0.59M.
11. The Capacity Utilization Rate missed at 76.90% vs. an
expected 77.70%.
12. Industrial Production (MoM) missed at 0.00% vs. an
expected +0.50%.
13. Several blue chip companies such as Cisco (CSCO)
and Hewlett Packard (HPQ) gave very weak guidance going forward, as
though they are expecting a soft spot in the economy.
14. The Fed Minutes indicated that they had considered
ending QE2 before its stated end, but decided to proceed since it was so close
to the end..
15. Congress has allowed the debt ceiling to be exceeded.
Geithner is now borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, ..
16. The USD has been rallying. The above mentioned
tightening should help the USD rally. If the USD continues to strengthen, that
could cause an unwind of the USD carry trade. This would translate into selling
of equities and commodities. A stronger USD would mean commodity prices would
likely fall.
17. The Initial Jobless Claims were 409K vs. an expected
420K, but the previous week‘s number was revised upward to 438K..
18. Existing Home Sales dipped in April to 5.05M vs. an
expected 5.22M and a previous 5.10M.
19. The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index missed
terribly at 3.90 vs. an expected 20.00 ..
20. The Leading Indicators for April missed at -0.3% vs.
an expected 0.0%…’ ]
Rank |
|
||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
| Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
THE OBAMA DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
Agents
irked by plan to keep Mueller
(Washington Post) [ ‘abide by ..
tenure limits’ ? I’m more concerned with, and it’s fundamentally more important
from the perspective of the FBI’s ‘mission and purpose’, that meaningful law be
abided by regarding the following:
October 15, 2010 (*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez,
Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the Qui Tam provisions of
the Federal False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent
resolution seek to refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of
the law with which I am not familiar).
The
document in 5 pages under penalty of perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI
office in New Haven is probably the best and most concise summary of the
case RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm .
With regard to the calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices:
There was one call to the LA office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA
office where I personally met with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative
evidentiary documents of the money laundering which he confirmed as indicative
of same (he was transferred from said office within approximately a month of
said meeting and his location was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter
was assigned to FBI Agent Ron Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess
of a decade until he abruptly retired (our last conversation prior to his
retirement related to the case and parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father
I stated had been an enforcer for the mob to which he registered disbelief and
requested I prove it, which I did – he served 12 years in prison, aggravated
assault/manslaughter? – and no, there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew
Maloney’s the one that prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction to
the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set forth
in the case, inter alia,
·
A judgment had been
entered in my favor in the case, United States District Court Case
#3:93cv02065(AWT)(USDCJ Alvin Thompson), worth approximately now in excess of
$300,000 remains unaccounted for and which could be used for payment to
creditors, Los Angeles, etc..
·
Counsel Robert
Sullivan on my behalf documented by way of certification upon investigation
that Alan Shiff, USBCJ, had falsely stated a dismissal upon which false
statement he predicated a retaliatory and spurious contempt proceeding against
me causing substantial damage, and for which he sought Judicial Notice of those
and related proceedings as did I in some of my filings.
·
The Order of
Dismissal With Prejudice by Alan Shiff, USBCJ, owing to Defendant Coan’s failure
to file anything whatsoever by the court’s deadline causing creditors and me
substantial damages: [ Shiff Order of Dismissal With Prejudice on
Coan’s Failure to File Page 1 Page 2 ]
·
Defendant Coan had
filed an action against me to prevent me from suing him which necessitated me
to fly to Connecticut for a hearing before The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny,
Chief Judge, USDC, District of Connecticut, who denied Coan’s requested relief
as to Coan but precluded my action against Shiff (although there is no
immunity, judicial or otherwise, for criminal acts, ie., fraud connected with a
case under Title 11, USC, etc.) . [ http://albertpeia.com/crossexamofcoanbypeia.pdf ]
·
Newly appointed
judge, Maryanne Trump Barry, Donald Trump’s sister, was assigned the RICO case
despite the conflict of interest in light of hundreds of thousands of dollars
of illegal (drug) money being laundered through the Trump casinos by the RICO
defendants, and despite my motion to recuse her which motion she heard herself
and denied, and U.S. Trustee Hugh Leonard with whom I met personally refused to
join or file a separate motion to recuse and not long thereafter left said
office for private practice at Cole, Shotz, et als on retainer with the RICO
defendants as his primary client.
·
Probative and
evidentiary documents, affidavits, exhibits, including those turned over to FBI
Agent Jeff Hayes in Long Beach, CA, had been given to Assistant U.S. Attorney
Jonathan Lacey with whom I met personally at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in
Newark, N.J., at which time Samuel Alito was U.S. Attorney, and went over said
documents and their probative value with him. Within approximately a month
thereafter upon inquiry I was told that Jonathon Lacey was no longer with the
office, that the file/documents could not be located, and that there was no
further information available concerning contacting him or his location. I
thereupon delivered by hand, copies of said documents to the office of then
U.S. Attorney Alito, addressed to him, with assurance they would go directly to
him. In addition to being inept [ I looked in on the
one mob case he had brought, bungled, lost (accidently on purpose?) since I was
suing some mob-connected under RICO and the court (I had known / previously met
outside of court the judge Ackerman through a client) was absolute bedlam and a
total joke since incompetent corrupt Alito brought in all 20 mob defendants
(rather than prosecute one or a few to flip them first) who feigning illness
had beds/cots in the courtroom along with their moans during testimony and had
the jury in stitches. As much as I hate the mob, it truly was funny, if not so
tragic.], Alito is also corrupt
(and maybe corrupt because he is inept). After a reasonable (but still rather
short) time I called to determine the status and was told that Alito was no
longer with the Office of the U.S. Attorney, that he was (appointed) a federal
judge, and that neither the documents nor any file or record of same could be
located. Alito did parley the same / cover-up into quid pro quo direct lifetime
appointment to the Court of Appeals, 3rd circuit, despite the
absence of judicial experience or successful tenure as U.S. Attorney (Maryanne
Trump Barry as well). This is the same Sam Alito that now sits on the purported
highest court in the land. The real application of the illegal rule ‘don’t ask,
don’t tell’.
There
is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor creditors, nor I
should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt and illegal
scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the meaningful rules of
law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert
L. Peia
611
E. 5th Street, #404
Los
Angeles, CA 90013
(213)
219-**** (cell phone)
(213)
622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with the line,
computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance greater
non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for contact).
NATO
launches massive Libya strike (Washington Post)Tripoli is rocked by at
least 15 huge explosions, many concentrated near Moammar Gaddafi’s compound. Senators
introduce measure supporting force [ ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (saw that film – the empire’s the
bad guys) at … ] A
storm season on a deadly path As the death toll hits 116, the latest
tornado in Missouri has experts asking why 2011 has spawned so many deadly
storms, with many blasting heavily populated areas. (Washington Post) [ … God’s
Wrath … as good an explanation as any, especially when taking into account the
innocent blood on former empire, pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america’s hands … Market Downturn Approaching; Go Long the Ultra Shorts? White ‘It is time to worry about a
market downturn. There has been almost consistently bad economic news ..:
1.
The Trade
Balance for March was worse than expected ..will result in a lowering of the Q1
GDP estimate, which is due out May 26.
2.
The Mississippi
Flood is the worst in a century-- this alone will depress the Q2 GDP..
3.
The PPI missed
at 0.80% vs. an expected 0.60%. The Core PPI missed at 0.30% vs. an expected
0.20%. .. This should hurt margins going forward.
4.
Retail Sales
(MoM) missed at +0.50% vs. an expected +0.60%.
5.
.. Michigan
Consumer Sentiment Index beat at 72.40 vs. an expected 70.00.
6.
The NY Empire
State Manufacturing Index missed at 11.90 vs. an expected 19.60.
7.
The TIC Net
Long-Term Transactions missed at $24.00B vs. an expected $57.70B.
8.
The NAHB Housing
Market Index missed at 16 vs. an expected 17.
9.
Housing Starts
missed at 0.52M vs. an expected 0.57M.
10. Building Permits missed at 0.55M vs. an expected
0.59M.
11. The Capacity Utilization Rate missed at 76.90% vs. an
expected 77.70%.
12. Industrial Production (MoM) missed at 0.00% vs. an
expected +0.50%.
13. Several blue chip companies such as Cisco (CSCO)
and Hewlett Packard (HPQ) gave very weak guidance going forward, as
though they are expecting a soft spot in the economy.
14. The Fed Minutes indicated that they had considered
ending QE2 before its stated end, but decided to proceed since it was so close
to the end..
15. Congress has allowed the debt ceiling to be exceeded.
Geithner is now borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, ..
16. The USD has been rallying. The above mentioned
tightening should help the USD rally. If the USD continues to strengthen, that
could cause an unwind of the USD carry trade. This would translate into selling
of equities and commodities. A stronger USD would mean commodity prices would
likely fall.
17. The Initial Jobless Claims were 409K vs. an expected
420K, but the previous week‘s number was revised upward to 438K..
18. Existing Home Sales dipped in April to 5.05M vs. an
expected 5.22M and a previous 5.10M.
19. The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index missed
terribly at 3.90 vs. an expected 20.00 ..
20. The Leading Indicators for April missed at -0.3% vs.
an expected 0.0%…’
Why Does the Terrorist Kingpin Look Better Than He Did in
2001? Washington’s Blog | In the newly-release
videos, Bin Laden looks better than he did years ago.
Hoax: White House Claims 4-Year-Old Bin Laden Video Is New
Footage Paul Joseph Watson | Dubious Bin Laden
“Home Movies” Identical To Tapes Released 4 Years Ago By Pentagon Front Group
Market Downturn Approaching; Go Long the Ultra Shorts? White ‘It is time to worry about a market downturn. There
has been almost consistently bad economic news reported in the U.S. in the last
week. Following is a brief list (mostly from Yahoo Finance‘s Economic Calendar)
of troubling news:
If the U.S. news wasn’t bad enough, the EU credit
crisis is alive and well. The scuttlebutt on Greece is that it is no longer a matter of “if”
Greece will default (give
a haircut), but “when“. Ireland
may have some of its banks give haircuts to debt holders. Portugal’s
bailout has been okayed in principal, although Portugal still needs to elect a
government to accept it. That government also needs to approve the necessary
austerity measures to qualify for it. The previous government dissolved because
it wouldn’t approve such measures just a couple of months ago. Portugal
is predicted to go back into recession for 2011 and 2012 based on the
harshness of the necessary austerity package.
In Japan, the economy shrank quarter over quarter in
Jan-Mar by -0.90% vs. an expected -0.50%. Year over year Japan's
GDP declined more than expected by -3.7%. This is the second consecutive
quarter of decline. Japan is technically back in a recession. Its GDP Price
Index (YoY) was down -1.90% (deflation). Its Industrial Production (MoM) was
down a horrendous -15.50% vs. an expected -15.10%. Its Household Confidence
missed at 33.40 vs. an expected 37.30. Public debt has reached 200% of GDP.
Things are so bad there that ECRI
has forecast a global summer slowdown.
In sum, there are sufficient reasons to expect a
downturn in the U.S. equities markets. The manna of the “hypers”-- QE2-- has
been reduced to a few sparse crumbs. The signs point downward. Of course, the
market has proven better men than me wrong...
After reading all of the above, what can you do? The simplest idea is simply to
move a substantial amount of your equities investments into cash for the
summer. Logic says the fall will be a better time for investments, presuming
the EU credit crisis does not cause another global recession / slowdown.
An alternative for those who wish to stay invested might be to sell call
options on most of the stocks owned. The premium for the options would give you
some profit if stocks go up. The premium would give you some protection if your
stocks go down.
For those of you who don't want to bother with the complications of shorting
(but do want the effect), you can by the triple short ETFs: SQQQ, SDOW, SPXU (S&P500), and SRTY (Russell 2000).
For those who prefer simple shorting, you might consider shorting (for most of
the summer) one or more of the major indices via vehicles such as the SPY
(SPDR S&P500), the QQQ (Power Shares QQQ), the DIA (SPDR
DJIA), and the IWM (iShares Russell 2000). Before
you short any of the above, you should note the recent ex-Dividend dates are:
SPY (3-18-2011), IWM (3-24-24), DIA (4-15-2011), and QQQ (3-18-2011). The next
ex-Dividend dates will be approximately 3 months from each of the respective
dates above. If you are short at the time of the ex-Dividend, you will be responsible
for paying the dividend. You may wish to cover your short position for the day
or week of the ex-Dividend.
If you want to manage the risk of the above described short positions, you can
sell covered put options on your short position((s)). You can use the premiums
from those puts to give you protection against a move upward. For some ETFs
such as the SPY, there are weekly put options available. If you sell these each
week, you will collect a lot of time premium.
For those still more aggressive investors, you might consider buying put
spreads on one or more of the above mentioned vehicles. To be safe, you might
consider expiration dates in Aug., Sept., and Oct. You almost have to use
spreads to manage the risk. They cut down on the costs, making such a trade
profitable with less actual movement down.’
The 'Real' Mega-Bears Short ‘It's
time again for the weekend update of our "Real"
Mega-Bears, an inflation-adjusted overlay of three secular bear markets. It
aligns the current S&P 500f rom the top of the Tech Bubble in March 2000,
the Dow in of 1929, and the Nikkei 225 from its 1989 bubble high.
Click
[chart] for a
larger image
This chart is
consistent with my preference for real (inflation-adjusted) analysis of
long-term market behavior. The nominal all-time high in the index occurred in
October 2007, but when we adjust for inflation, the "real" all-time
high for the S&P 500 occurred in March 2000.
Here is a nominal
version to help clarify the impact of inflation and deflation, which varied
significantly across these three markets.
See also my alternate
version, which charts the comparison from the 2007 nominal all-time high in
the S&P 500. This series also includes the Nasdaq from the 2000 Tech Bubble
peak.
Click
[chart] for a
larger image ‘
IMF
Board Approves $36.8 Billion Loan to Portugal Bloomberg |
IMF loan part of a joint bailout with the EU to stem the region’s sovereign
debt crisis.
Hedge
Farm! Hedge Funds Buying Up Farms for Doomsday Food Price Scenario NY
Observer | “The Hedge Fund Manager Who Bought a Farm…”
The
Euro Doom Scenario Starts With What’s Happening In Spain Right Now Automatic
Earth | First: Spain falls in summer; bonds are dumped. Seemingly
endless EU/IMF negotiations follow.
Strauss-Kahn:
new claims of sexual misconduct add to pressure on former IMF chief London
Telegraph | Fresh allegations of sexual misconduct have emerged
against the former IMF head.
Here Is
What Happens After Greece Defaults When it comes to the topic of Greece, by
now everyone is sick of prevaricating European politicians who even they admit
are lying openly to the media, and tired of conflicted investment banks trying
to make the situation appear more palatable if only they dress it in some
verbally appropriate if totally ridiculous phrase (which just so happens
contracts to SLiME)
IMF
Board Approves $36.8 Billion Loan to Portugal The International Monetary
Fund approved a 26 billion-euro ($36.8 billion) loan to Portugal as part of a
joint bailout with the European Union in the latest effort to stem the region’s
sovereign debt crisis.
MADRID
— Thousands of protesters in Madrid furious over soaring unemployment staged a
silent protest and then erupted in cheers of joy as a 48-hour ban on their
demonstration took effect on Saturday.
States
are Draining Unemployment Insurance Funds Like Crazy
On
the Fence, Watching for an Apocalypse Alexandre ‘Uncommon as it has been,
the Federal Reserve’s dual quantitative easing exercises have elicited numerous
forecasts, and most of them have centered around upcoming inflationary
pressures. In part, the Treasury markets have supported that perception for
periods of time. And while the Fed’s attempt to inject liquidity into the
economic landscape was designed to counter deflationary forces, the end result
has been disappointing thus far.
Regardless of
everyone’s take on the subject, the best story teller is the flow of capital.
Thus, I include the chart below, which depicts the trajectory of ten year
Treasury yields and the timeline of quantitative easing. Because a picture is
worth a thousand opinions.
Click to
enlarge:
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/19/765325-13058128599075-Carlos-X--Alexandre.png
Whether one
views CPI and PPI data as reliable or not is completely irrelevant. We can
debate the issue until we turn blue in the face. But the multi-billion dollar
Treasury market is stating that inflation doesn't exist. This after responding
to the initial perception that inflation was a matter of time. And we’re
talking private capital and independent thinkers, not the so called "manipulation"
by government statisticians.
As QE1 got under way, the bond market sold off, pricing an expectation of
higher inflation ahead. About midway through the process, the lack of
inflation, among other factors, became apparent to market participants, and ten
year yields stayed roughly between 3.5% and 4.0% until QE1 ended in March of
2010. Investors looked around and couldn’t pinpoint what the quantitative
easing program had actually done.
Yields dropped
in a jiffy, from 4.0% to 2.5% until the Federal Reserve announced another round
of easy money. Sure enough – and the market thought the damage this time around
would be real – rates popped to around 3.75% and then took a deep breath. Once
again, the market could not smell the familiar inflationary stink and yields
dropped to today’s 3.15%.
Well, the
quantitative easing sequel is about to end its run, and the talk of QE3 is
making its rounds. The end result thus far, as the broad market sees it? No
damage -- and no solution either. In addition, the flow of recent economic data
highlights a return to dismal growth, with a few encouraging signs along the
way.
In some
circles relying on CPI data is sacrilegious, at best. However, in its absence
we can only point to anecdotal evidence for lack of a better measurement. And
some of us only see what we’re looking for.
Reuters
touched on the subject with the article “Inflation hits 2-1/2 year high, seen
peaking”. Then it added:
The 12-month increase at 1.3% was at its highest
level since February 2010. The Fed, however, would like to see that closer to
2% over time.
MarketWatch
added a different perspective to the subject. Even if we feel that government
data is massaged, the market always sings to its own tune, fully discounting
official numbers.
The gap between inflation-linked Treasury debt yields
and regular Treasury yields narrowed after the government's consumer price
index report on Friday, indicating investors see a smaller risk of inflation in
coming years.
The Financial
Times published an article that highlighted the shortcomings of
conventional wisdom, while providing a comparison between the U.S. and Japan’s
monetary maneuvering.
There are fears that the balance sheet of the Fed may
be too large already, but this doesn’t square with the experience of Japan. At
$2,600bn, the current Fed balance sheet represents approximately 18% of U.S.
gross domestic product. By comparison, the balance sheet of the Bank of Japan
equals approximately 30% of Japanese GDP. If the Fed were to hold as many
assets on a relative basis, it could conduct another $1,800bn worth of
quantitative easing. That would amount to QE3, QE4, and QE5 (at the same size
as QE2) just to get to where Japan is today.
And what exactly is conventional about the times that
we live in? Not a thing. Thus, thinking outside the box, as the cliché goes, is
what is needed. Because the old and new tricks are not fixing the problem.
However, an understanding of why QE has not delivered the goods and why
deflationary pressures persist is required. As I have stated before, the reason
behind the money printing exercise’s failure to accomplish its goals is quite
simple: The consumer is not responding.
And where are we, as far as stocks are concerned? From an equity market
perspective, the generally accepted belief that financials outperform when
rates are low is not materializing, and that goes to the unusual nature of the
investment environment and the lack of reference points. Banks -- not brokers
or investment houses -- are the "canary in the coal mine."
Thus far my stance has been bearish on the U.S. economy -- and continues to be
so -- and bullish on the equity markets. That is, strictly based on capital
flows. However, it appears that we are coming to a crossroads where market
perceptions of the future are meeting a screaming economic reality, and
vigilance on market sentiment, or capital flows as I prefer, will determine the
turning point.
Almost two months ago, in my April 4 post
"Will S&P 500 Shoot for 1,500", I had given 6-18 months for the
bull to live. We're about even from that date, with the S&P 500 0.40 points
higher as of last Friday's close. Now I'm sensing that the realization that the
recovery will not develop as perceived is registering into the psyche of the
general investment community faster than anticipated.
Is it because it's May and one should go away? If only life was that simple.’
Deja Vu - Will the End of QE Lead to 20% Correction? ‘The stock market updates investors on a
need-to-know basis. Obviously, Mr. Market feels that all we need to know is
available on a real time bases ... no matter how much we want to peek into the
future.
One heavily
debated question is how the withdrawal of QE2 cash will affect stocks.
Here we will
examine two schools of thought. One is plain vanilla, straight to the point,
and requires no fantasy or analytical ability. It's so deceptively simple it
might just be right.
The second
viewpoint is more like a rocky road mocha almond fudge kind of approach that
includes whipped cream and considers various variables.
Plain
Vanilla Approach
The plain
vanilla approach simply asks:
1) What was
QE2 supposed to do?
2) What did
QE2 accomplish?
3) What
happened when the last round of QE stopped?
1) What was
QE2 supposed to do? Ben Bernanke's goal was to create a wealth ripple effect by
artificially inflating stock prices.
2) What did
QE2 do? The stock market rallied. In addition to playing the yield curve, big
banks (NYSEArca: KBE - News) and financial conglomerates (NYSEArca: XLF - News) were given the license to 'invest' free
money uninhibited and indiscriminately.
Look at large
cap (NYSEArca: IWB - News), mid cap (NYSEArca: MDY - News) and small cap (NYSEArca: IJR - News) stocks. They are all up.
Look at the
nine main S&P industry sectors: Consumer discretionary (NYSEArca: XLY - News), consumer staples (NYSEArca: XLP - News), technology (NYSEArca: XLK - News), industrials , materials, utilities,
health care and energy. All sectors, whether cyclically sensitive or not, are
up.
Ironically,
the only sector missing in the line up of this year's success story is ...
financials. Yes, the sector that's been gorging on free money is in the red.
What does the market know that we don't? We shall soon find out.
3) What
happened when the last round of QE stopped? QE1 came to its conclusion in April
2010. From April to June 2010 the main U.S. indexes a la Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI),
S&P (SNP: ^GSPC), and Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) lost around 20% until Mr.
Bernanke carefully planted the seed of QE2 hope.
Rocky
Road Mocha Almond Fudge Approach
As the name
implies, compared to plain vanilla, this approach considers more variables to
come up with an educated, but not overanalyzed, conclusion.
Like water in
a bathtub floats all the rubber ducks, QE2 has floated all the stocks.
The key
question is where will cash come from when the QE2 spigot is turned off?
The most recent
data from the Investment Company Institute shows that mutual fund cash levels
are at 3.4%. This is an all-time low. What does this mean? If you plot mutual
fund cash levels against the S&P you will see that cash levels were at
multi-decade lows at the 2000 and 2007 peaks and at a multi-year high during
the March 2009 low.
Mutual fund
managers as a group, follow the crowd like most everyone else. It's therefore
best to take their actions as a contrarian indicator. From a supply/demand
perspective this makes sense too. If mutual fund managers are already invested
near the max, they don't have much money left to drive stocks up further
(detailed analysis featured in the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter).
Another way to
calculate 'investable cash' is to look at margin debt and available cash. The
NYSE publishes data of margin debt and free cash of member brokerage firms.
Based on this data, 'investable cash' is at the lowest level since the 2000 and
2007 peak (detailed analysis of mutual fund assets and 'investable cash' is
featured in the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter).
The conclusion
to the cash flow question seems simple and logical. There is very limited new
cash left to lift the 'rubber ducks' once QE2 has run its course …’
Drowning
in Debt Nyaradi ‘Debt, debt and more debt flared into global financial
crises last week as central banks from Greece, to Spain and the United States
grappled with the imperiled finances of sinking nation states. Sovereign debt,
along with bearish technical and fundamental indicators, makes this a
treacherous moment for stock market investors both at home and abroad.
On My
Investing Radar
The NYSE
Bullish Percent Index is one of the major charts I watch for long term trends
in ETFs and the U.S. stock market and the NYSEBP turned bearish this week which
is yet another warning flag going forward into the “sell in May” and go away
period. Click to enlarge:
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/23/saupload_bpny052211_300x261.png
Chart courtesy of stockcharts.com
The NYSE
Bullish Percent Index measures the percent of all NYSE stocks on a point and
figure buy signal, and this index switched to “bear confirmed” as of May 20,
2011 which indicates a significant change of tone for the broad U.S. stock
market.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/23/saupload_spx052211_300x300.png
Chart courtesy of stockcharts.com
This
traditional chart of the S&P 500 (SPY)
shows the index below its 20 Day Moving Average, which now becomes resistance,
and above its 50 Day Moving Average which represents major support. A break
below the 1325 level on the S&P 500 would represent a serious breakdown and
make steeper declines a more likely possibility ahead for ETFs across all asset
classes.
Sovereign debt was the issue of the week as countries
around the world struggle with what increasingly look like unsustainable debt
loads.
Greece: The problem child of Europe continued causing problems this week with
Fitch cutting their ratings and putting the country on negative outlook while
their Prime Minister says there’s no way they will need to restructure their
debt. But more and more it’s becoming obvious that at least a “soft
reprofiling” might be on the way and the market anticipates problems ahead with
the 10 Year Bond yield hitting new highs last week.
The big problem here is that a number of big European
banks are on the hook for Greek debt and some fear that default could trigger a
significant banking crisis/collapse in Europe.
Portugal: The IMF approved a $36 Billion bailout for Portugal to give it some “breathing
room” to deal with its economic problems.
Italy: S&P lowered Italy’s outlook to negative.
Spain: This “too big to fail” country was wracked with demonstrations this
week in defiance of a nationwide ban as mostly young people protested a
national unemployment rate of approximately 20% that reaches as high as nearly
50% among youth in their teens and early twenties. The Socialists are forecast
to take heavy losses in this weekend’s elections and several articles in the
general media pointed to the possibility of piles of “hidden debt” being
uncovered in the provinces after the elections, as some reports indicate that
debt has been kept off the official books to make things seem better than they
are.
United States: The Treasury Department continues to take
“extraordinary” measures to keep the U.S. afloat as it has maxed out its credit
card of $14.3 Trillion. D-Day for a debt limit increase is August 2nd when the
country would need to borrow again or default. Vice President Biden is leading
talks about cuts and tax increases but Republicans and Democrats appear to be
trillions of dollars apart as the clock ticks on.
As I reported in one of my mid-week updates the news
was mostly bad:
The only glimmer of positive data was in Initial
Unemployment Claims which declined to 409,000 versus 438,000 last week, but
still above the psychologically and statistically significant 400,000 level.
What this means to us is that risk in the U.S. stock
market is running high and the chance of a significant correction is relatively
high.
At Wall Street Sector Selector, we continue to expect
lower prices ahead in global stock markets and maintain our inverse ETF and put
option positions.
The Investing Week Ahead
Major Economic and Financial Issues/Themes
Lots of important economic reports will come our way
this week and be potential market movers. We’ll get news from the beleaguered
housing market and on Thursday we’ll see the second estimate of the all
important Q1 GDP.
Tuesday: April New Home Sales
Wednesday: April Durable Goods
Thursday: Initial Unemployment Claims, Continuing
Claims, Q1 GDP second estimate
Friday: April Personal Income, April Personal
Spending, March Pending Home Sales …’
-
Weekly Market Outlook: Actual Employment Numbers Are Weak Headley ‘For the third week in a row, stocks lost ground. It wasn’t a big
loss (only about a third of a percent), but after three straight weeks of them,
questions have to be asked. We’ll ask them all below, right after we take a
bigger-picture look at recent and upcoming economic data.
Economic
Calendar
Last week was
a big one on the real estate front, but not a good one. Starts fell from 585K
to 523K, and permits fell from 5574K to 551K; both were well short of
expectations. Existing home sales also fell, from 5.09 million to 5.05
million…. well beneath the forecasted rate of 5.23 million.
Factories,
however, appeared to remain busy. Capacity utilization stands at 76.9% as of
the end of last month, which is just a tad under the prior month’s 77.0%.
Industrial production growth was flat last month, but the productivity index
(not cited on the calendar below, but plotted on our chart) is still hovering
at multi-year highs. Though no ‘growth’ is evident, just maintaining output
levels can still led to the stability needed to foster broad economic growth.
Take a look (click charts to expand):
Capacity
Utilization and Industrial Productivity Index
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/23/saupload_052211_capacity_productivity.png
On the
joblessness front, we’re seeing what appears to be tepid improvement, via a
diminishing number of new and continuing unemployment claims. The former fell
from 438K to 409K last week, while the latter fell from 3.792 million to 3.711
million.
That said,
there’s an employment number you rarely (if ever) hear… the actual number of
working Americans. That number isn’t getting better. As of the end of April,
139.6 million U.S. workers are actually employed. That’s about the same number
of employed workers we saw in the middle of 2009, and the improvement since the
middle of last year has almost been immeasurable. How can this happen while
claims figures are dropping? Simple – those claims figures don’t include the
unemployed who have (1) seen their benefits expire, (2) have stopped filing
claims, and (3) are employed, but underemployed.
Take a look at
the chart of the actual number of working Americans:
Employed
U.S. Workers
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/23/saupload_052211_employed.png
And as always,
the economic details for the prior and coming week:
Economic
Calendar
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/23/saupload_052211_econ_data.png
The coming
week will be relatively busy, but not everything is hard-hitting. Here are the
biggies to watch out for.
S&P 500 Index
All told, the S&P 500 (SPX) (SPY)
gave up 4.5 point (-0.33%) last week to end Friday’s session at 1333.27. Had it
not been for Friday’s 10.3% loss though, the market would have ended the week
with a gain….. not that Friday’s something we can just delete from the
scoreboard.
As for what’s next though, that’s a little less
clear, but there are only a couple of likely paths.
Just for the record, if Friday’s dip really is the
current direction of things and we’re pointed lower – as it appears we are –
then the SPX has just made its second lower highs after making a second lower
low (framed by pink lines). Ergo, a downtrend is in place…that’s undeniable.
The question is where it might stop falling, and reverse.
While it’s not happened yet, a floor that could do
the trick is immediately below - the 50-day moving average line (purple) at
1326. Just a tad under that level is the 100-day line (gray), at 1313. If
either or both of those lines fail to stop the bleeding, odds are good the
S&P 500 will be paying a visit to the lower 50-day Bollinger band at 1278.
What happens after that is anyone’s guess.
The other possibility here is a bullish one,
beginning with a break back above that upper purple/resistance line, which by
default would coincide with a move back above the 20-day moving average line
(blue). If that happens, then the upper Bollinger band at 1372 becomes the new
target.
In the meantime we’re in limbo, although we have to
acknowledge the bears are currently in control. As such, we have to give the
greater odds to the bears right now (though we wouldn’t be digging in too deep
on either side of the fence).
Notice how the heavier volume days were all
pullbacks, while the two rallies – Wednesday and Thursday – were on light
volume.
SPX & VIX Daily HC
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/23/saupload_052211_sp500_daily.png
What about the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) (VXX) (VXZ) in all this?
Remember, last week was expiration week, which can skew the VIX and make it
somewhat misleading. Or in this case, the VIX was oddly unscrewed (it closed on
Friday about where it closed the prior week). That containment, however, is
still a form of skew. We want to see how it starts to move in Monday and
Tuesday before coming to any conclusions.
In the bigger picture though, the VIX is still
uncomfortably low, meaning confidence/complacency is dangerously high; these
bulls will need some sort of attitude adjustment sooner than later. A couple of
closes above the VIX’s 50-day average line at 18.0 will start that process.
Since we usually add it, we’ll once again insert a
weekly chart of the S&P 500 to out the daily one in perspective. What’s
becoming clearer here is that the broad bullishness is losing momentum, and the
bears keep testing that 100-day line.
SPX & VIX Weekly Chart
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/23/saupload_052211_sp500_weekly.png
Sector Performance
Things were shaken and stirred last week on the
sector front. Healthcare (XLV) is still out in front, but
Telecom (XTL) is quietly sneaking up, a complete
turnaround from telecom’s dismal performance through most of last year.
At the bearish end of the spectrum, Financials (XLF) have officially gone from bad
to worse. Notice, however, that there were few places to hide last week.
Sector Performance, since March 16th
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/23/saupload_052211_sector_performance.png ‘
Gold,
silver coins to be legal currency in Utah From the Trenches
| It had to happen soon or later.
The
Euro Doom Scenario Starts With What’s Happening In Spain Right Now Automatic
Earth | First: Spain falls in summer; bonds are dumped. Seemingly
endless EU/IMF negotiations follow.
Strauss-Kahn:
new claims of sexual misconduct add to pressure on former IMF chief London
Telegraph | Fresh allegations of sexual misconduct have emerged
against the former IMF head.
Eurozone
Debt Crisis Deepens Sending Euro Lower And Gold To New Record At EUR 1,080/oz The
euro, global equities and bonds in peripheral Eurozone countries are all lower
this morning on heightened concerns about the debt crisis in the Eurozone.
Signs
of division between IMF and Europe over bailouts The International Monetary
Fund pressed Europe on Friday for stronger steps to tackle the region’s debt
crisis, saying countries needed access to more funding to stay afloat.
Harold
Camping: the heart of the doomsday frenzy
(Los Angeles Times)
LinkedIn:
Getting it while the getting is good (Los Angeles Times) Column: The firm's hot IPO should make the
Fed happy as it tries to get money moving in the economy. But what happens when
the latest stimulus program ends? [ Hot
IPO? More like ‘Twilight Zone’ time and Dave thinks so as well … In reminder of '90s, LinkedIn has big first day (AP) -
There was an unmistakable echo of the dot-com boom Thursday on Wall Street. Rod Serling Now Linked-In : Dave's Daily ‘It definitely remains a really strange market. Fed
Governor Fisher summed things up nicely Thursday stating: "We've gone from
too little liquidity to too much." He's definitely off the main Fed
talking points but a little honesty explains the "more money than
brains" market. The LinkedIn(LNKD_) IPO
typifies this Thursday. You may not be aware of it but word on the street is
only ten institutions were privileged to obtain freshly issued shares. I wonder
who was favored with this gift; care to guess? You couldn't get a collection of
bad economic news much worse than what appeared today. While Jobless Claims
were marginally lower given previous adjustments, the moving average of
claims reached six-month highs; Home Sales were down...again; the Philly Fed
reading came in at 3.9 vs 18 expected; and Leading Indicators were lower 0.3 vs
flat expectations. These were dreadful but bulls brushed them off hoping for
more POMO
and extended ZIRP. Perhaps the stupid people are the ones
not playing ball, given rising markets on this lousy economic news. LinkedIn
should remind everyone of dotcom experiences but it's really about too much
liquidity. Commodity prices were generally lower with economic data while the
dollar was weaker and so too were base and precious metals. Bonds were flat
overall…’ ]
Harold
Camping: the heart of the doomsday frenzy
(Los Angeles Times)
Signs
of the apocalypse Quinn:
It’s not the end of the world Petri:
Harold Camping’s actual calculations (Washington Post) [ Drudgereport: Preacher made same prediction
in 1994... Doomsday church thriving,
worth $72 million... [Previous: ‘End
of Days’ message rolls into D.C.
(Washington Post) The
potentially rotten news that the world will end on May 21 arrived plastered on
a caravan of RVs. [ Gee … little premature … you know, that 2012, end of Mayan
calendar, Nostradamus thing … I previously weighed in / wrote: Why
do Americans still dislike atheists? (Washington Post) [ And
not just americans … Why? First and foremost because there is a God. Second, it
is intellectually dishonest to be an atheist. Specifically, there is absolutely
no evidence to dispute the existence of God. While one might similarly argue
that there is no evidence to suggest there is a God (which I would dispute),
which for most is a fair statement, the same would yield at best, if
intellectually honest, the position of ‘agnostic’. I can totally understand and
even empathize with the view of the agnostic. After all, at this point, there
seems to be ‘no rhyme nor reason’ at all. But, think binary, positives /
negatives. Just too many negatives. Think ‘capital punishment’. No, the world’s
not going to end in 2012 as some fear. Rather, think slow burn; decades at best;
then ‘poof’. In the scheme of things, this world’s just not that important (apes, notochordates, and
initially single celled organisms). Kind of akin to what I
previously wrote: (God doesn’t care that you wrestle a girl
who wants to wrestle!) Boy wrestler forfeits match
to female opponent... [ What a homo! Wow! I feel sorry for those
guys she actually beat (20 of them – her record was 20 and 13) … they’ll
probably never get over it … nor should they … I have to rethink my regard for
Iowa, Iowa state wrestling now presuming such stalwart championship teams to be
the products of out-of-state imports … as for the guy who forfeited, he could
have easily and gently taken her down (you can easily do that with a lesser
opponent), got her in a double grapevine and grind her in a certain way into
the mat, and when she was in the throws of convulsive orgasm, she’d unwittingly
arch her back, thereby pressing her own shoulder blades to the mat, thereby
pinning herself, thus enabling the homo to say in a manner of speaking that he
was making heterosexual love not war with her ……… how pathetic and preposterous
this was … and, let me remind the homo that God doesn’t care that you wrestle a
girl who wants to wrestle! ]
How
the U.S could lose its credit rating
(Washington Post) [ Kinda’ like how the west was won, then lost … but,
Davis knows: Davis ‘This is how we pay off our
current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a
country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer
to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest
thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on
TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to
"fix" this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn
on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a
Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ …
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market.
4) Key market
leaders are rolling over in price... ‘
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
Pakistan Gun Battle Rages as Militants Storm Naval Air
Base Bloomberg | Stormed premises with rockets and
grenades targeting surveillance aircraft provided by the U.S.
The
War on Ron Paul Susan Westfall | The federal
government we live with today no longer serves the interests of the American
people.
New Documentary Exclusively For Prison Planet.tv
Subscribers: College Conspiracy Prison Planet.tv |
Just one of numerous bombshell new videos to land at Prison Planet.tv this
week.
TSA Backs Down from Prom Night Grope Kurt
Nimmo | Government searching students is now a well-established
practice at public schools.
Corsi: Trump Conspired With Obama To Neutralize Birther
Controversy Author says he is about to blow the whistle on who
helped forged the long form birth certificate.
Herald Sun: Alex Jones Was Right About Schwarzenegger’s
Megalomania Herald Sun | It wasn’t that long ago
that the deluded voters of California so loved their Governor that 65% support
him.
Is
the US Driving the World Towards World War III: Osama’s Alleged Compound. How
Many SEALs Died? In a sensational and explosive TV report, the Pakistani
News Agency has provided a live interview with an eye witness to the US attack
on the alleged compound of Osama bin Laden.
Obama Gushes
Over British Royal Family The president went on to say that the Queen is a
symbol of “the best of England” to the entire world.
Iran
Just Arrested 30 People In An Alleged U.S. Spy Network Iran has arrested 30
people it says were engaged in “complex espionage and sabotage network” run by
the United States, state media reported. Another 42 CIA operatives officers
were supposedly identified.
20
terabecquerels of radioactive materials flowed out to Pacific Tokyo
Electric Power Co. said Saturday that 250 tons of water tainted with about 20 terabecquerels
of radioactive substances leaked into the Pacific Ocean from a pit near the
seawater intake for the No. 3 reactor at the troubled Fukushima No. 1 plant
earlier this month.
The Siege of Syria: US-funded unrest used to justify
regime change Tony Cartalucci | After admittedly
organizing the very mobs littering Syria’s streets, the U.S. is pressuring the
Syrian government to step down.
Attack
on Iran Imminent With Accusation of 9/11 Role? Two defectors from Iran’s
intelligence service have testified that Iranian officials knew in advance
about the attacks of September 11, 2001, says a US court filing that seeks
damages for Iran’s ”direct support for, and sponsorship of, the most deadly act
of terrorism in American history”.
Australian
Federal Police could become carbon cops THE Australian Federal Police could
be required to investigate new climate change offences under Julia Gillard’s
carbon tax, sparking concerns over the agency’s resourcing.
America’s “Arab Deception”
As Adolf Hitler noted, “all propaganda has to be popular and has to
accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom
it seeks to reach.” Certainly the writers handing US President Barack Obama his
“Middle East speech” had a particularly ignorant audience in mind.
Disney
Star Wars Ride Gets Its Own TSA Checkpoint A Star Wars ride at Disneyworld
in Orlando has been equipped with a TSA style checkpoint complete with naked
body scanners and authoritarian security agents.
New
Documentary Exclusively For Prison Planet.tv Subscribers: College Conspiracy College Conspiracy is the most comprehensive
documentary ever produced about higher education in the U.S. The film exposes
the facts and truth about America’s college education system. College
Conspiracy is just one of numerous videos that Prison Planet.tv members will
receive access to this week as we announce a bumper rollout of exclusive new
multimedia titles. ‘… The real
unemployment rate in America is now 22% and 60% of college graduates who are
lucky enough to find a job, are receiving low skilled jobs where a college
degree isn’t even required. In fact, 70% of high school graduates who didn’t go
to college, were able to get these very same jobs as the average college
graduate. The main difference is, by the time Americans who went to college get
their degree, those who went straight into the work force after high school
will already have 4 to 6 years of valuable workplace experience. Instead of
having $24,000 in debt, these experienced Americans will be working their way
up to a higher paid position or a better job at a different company. All across
America, colleges are deceiving prospective students with misleading and often
fraudulent tactics and statistics. The fact is, law schools are handing out
43,000 law degrees each year, when there are 15,000 less attorney and legal
staff jobs in the U.S. than three years ago. Many law schools are advertising a
90% job placement rate within one year of graduating. However, weeks before job
placement surveys are conducted, some law schools will hire unemployed
graduates to work in their admissions department. They are let go as soon as
these surveys are completed, but count as being part of the 90% employed …’
Donald
Rumsfeld confronted on Aspartame and Iraq War WAC Chicago
| Rumsfeld hold responsibility for the destruction of Iraq and the poisoning of
the American food supply.
Economic
Data Dismal This Week as Corporate Earnings (on currency manipulation, dollar
debasement) Carry Markets WallStCheatSheet / Nyardi Like
Putting Lipstick on a Pig ‘As the old saying goes, “You can put lipstick on
a pig but it’s still a pig,” and this week’s economic and financial data for
the U.S. economy have been truly swine-like. Here are the “boarish” details
regarding global stock markets and ETFs:
·
Japan (NYSE:EWJ) has reentered recession, its economy plunging for
the First Quarter at a -3.7% annualized rate, twice as deeply as expected.
·
May Empire
Manufacturing Index: 11.9 versus 21.7 previously
·
April Housing
Starts: 523,000 versus 585,000 previously
·
April Building
Permits: 551,000 versus 574,000 previously
·
April Industrial
Production: 0.0% versus 0.7% previously
·
April Existing Home
Sales: 5.05 million versus 5.09 previously, a -13% year over year decline
·
May Philadelphia
Fed: 3.9 versus 18.5 previously, down from 43 just two months ago which was the
highest reading since 1984.
·
April Leading
Indicators: -0.3 versus -0.7, the first decline since last June
The only
glimmer of positive data was in Initial Unemployment Claims which declined to
409,000 versus 438,000 last week, but still above the psychologically and
statistically significant 400,000 level.
Bad…bad….bad…..it has definitely been a “Miss Piggy” kind of week as,
overall, the economic numbers have been a debacle, particularly the Philly Fed
which came in at 3.9 compared to a consensus 20.5 and last month’s 18.5.
Small wonder
they call economics the “dismal science.”
At Wall
Street Sector Selector, we continue to expect lower prices ahead in global
stock markets and maintain our inverse ETF and put option positions…’
7
Reasons a Major Stock Market Correction Is Imminent Furman ‘The recent 2.5% pullback in the
S&P 500 (SPY) may just be a blip during a year
bullish analysts predict the index will finish above 1500. Brief and minor
sell-offs have indeed been the market's only hurdles since QE1 began in March
2009 -- the lone exception being early summer 2010, between QE1 and QE2. On the
other hand, here are seven reasons U.S. indicies could lose 20% or more in the
next two months.
·
CONCLUSION OF QE2.
Marc Faber, Austrian economist and leading market forecaster, aptly likens
fiscal policy to narcotics abuse: Always destructive in the end, though it may
have social benefits early on. Over time, however, that benefit requires more
and more of the "good" stuff. Americans are no longer net savers and
depend, along with every corporation that uses credit or relies on consumer
spending, on government jobs and welfare more so than ever before. QE1
supported investment until it was finished. A sell off post-QE2 will be
preempted by investors large and small, which may explain recent trading
sessions closing in the red.
·
COMMODITIES LEADING
DOWN. Commodities markets are smaller and less subject to speculation than
stock markets, which is why experienced investors refer to them as leading
markets. Oil, silver, sugar, copper and other staples for both consumers and
producers have fallen severely in price of late. The selling may still be
escalating.
·
UNCLE BUCK IS BACK.
Currency markets are also referred to as leaders to stocks. Trading volume is
huge, but more driven by governments and billionaires than pension plans and
gamblers. The first few weeks of May have witnessed a long-unseen affinity for
the U.S. dollar, which has gained 2-5% versus most currencies. This may signal
the beginning of a flight to safety.
·
LEADING STOCKS
LOOKING UGLY. From economic bellwethers such as Bank of America (BAC)
and KB Homes (KBH)
to highly profitable market-changers like Apple (AAPL) and
OpenTable (OPEN),
downward moves have been drastic. Companies like these are growth-drivers of
the economy.
·
DEFENSIVE STOCKS
OUTPERFORMING. The best performers lately include utility companies American
Water Works (AWK) and Consolidated Edison (ED),
consumer staples companies Procter & Gamble (PG)
and General Electric (GE), and pharmaceutical conglomerate
Pfizer (PFE).
Outperformance by stocks that operate low-risk, low-growth businesses indicates
defensiveness by investors or an apparent lack of value elsewhere in the
market.
·
GLOBAL GROWTH
STIFLED. In 2009 and 2010, bullish arguments were largely focused on a
"good enough" United States and an emerging market boom. With Middle
Eastern sociopolitical turmoil taking center stage in that region, Japan in
shambles, Europe using Scotch tape to fix budgets, and inflation crippling
economies worldwide, from where is growth to come?
·
NO BOTTOM IN SIGHT
FOR U.S. HOUSING. It is one of the largest asset markets, and one that affects
everyone, in the world's largest economy. Still, even buyer incentives and
suppressed interest rates haven't stopped prices from sliding. A growing population
and falling housing prices are basic and clear signs of economic recession.
Investors looking to hedge portfolios or even flip
net-short have endless choices thanks to inverse and leveraged ETFs, as well as
the opportunity to short individual stocks directly or via options. Betting on
increased volatility via VXX will also yield
profits if markets sell off. Leveraged ETFs inherently lose value over time and
are best for day-traders looking for highly-liquid, diversified ways to capture
quick moves.
Directly selling a stock or ETF short allows for less
potential upside than a leveraged play, but in doing so you avoid paying a time
premium. My preferred method is to short indexes via put options. During
significant sell offs, stocks generally fall in unison, while diversified ETFs
garner lower options premiums than more volatile individual stocks. Technology
(QQQ),
homebuilders (XHB), retail (XRT)
and financial (XLF) sector ETFs as well as
broader ones (SPY) offer appealing prices on the massive leverage that comes
with options.’
Top 3 Reasons Markets were Down Ahead of the Rapture Craze May 20, 2011 ‘Markets
closed down on Wall Street: DJI 0.74% SP500 0.77% Nasdaq 0.71% Gold 1.29% Oil
1.19% .
Markets
started down, attempted to recover at lunch, and got slapped back down in the
late afternoon. On the commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) found a bid as traders start placing their first
bets around the new tension between the US and Israel. Gold (NYSE:GLD) retook $1,500 and closed at $1,511.50,
while Silver (NYSE:SLV) didn’t have the same luck.
Today’s
markets were down because:
·
Retailer earnings
are flowing in and input costs are crushing margins. Last night Gap (NYSE:GPS) reported
earnings and the stock got folded 17%. Although there are store-specific
problems, higher cotton costs are going to keep retailers (NYSE:XRT) from enjoying the summer and possibly beyond.
This theme was reiterated by Aeropostale
(NYSE:ARO) and The
Wet Seal (NASDAQ:WTSLA).
·
Two milestones were
overtaken in the background . If you are still bitter Bill Gates stole IP from
IBM to create Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), revenge is yours. Today IBM’s (NYSE:IBM) market cap finally eclipsed Microsoft. IBM is now
worth over $208 billion while Microsoft remains in the lowly high $207 billion
range. On another note, streaming video company Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) now has more subscribers than Comcast (CMSCA)
— making Netflix the king with more subscribers than any U.S. cable or
satellite provider.
·
Let’s face it:
LinkedIn! LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) may be trading at twice the price it was less
than 48 hours ago, but it still got off to a positive start this morning.
Unfortunately for shareholders, the irrational exuberance on Day 2 wasn’t the
same and the stock was in a downtrend until it closed down 1.23% at 93.09. This
could just be some healthy profit taking, or it could be the beginning of a
pattern established by other Web 2.0 darlings Demand Media (NYSE:DMD) and RenRen (NYSE:RENN). Don’t Miss: “LinkedIn
Now has a Price-Earnings Ratio Making Pets.com Blush” …’
Ready for Apple, Microsoft and S&P to Drop_ The
LFB ‘S&P 500 futures (ESM1) (1339)
are at a pivotal price point at 1340, with the path of least resistance seeming
to be a technical and fundamental drop to support. Recent participation levels
have been very weak, with some trading sessions close to 50% off daily averages
on the main indices.
Adding to the
bearish potential over the next two months of trade will be the lack of upside
momentum generated from earnings-related news headlines. Recently published
data from Q1 hedge funds that show a change in outlook toward Apple (AAPL) and
Microsoft (MSFT) may also weigh on sentiment.
A trading
signal will be generated to sell S&P 500 with a session close below 1333,
which will target 1328, 1323 and in the mid-term 1315. The SPY
(134.35) exchange traded fund that tracks S&P 500 futures momentum
historically lags behind the main index, and a sell signal will start to not
form until 133.50 is broken.
Investors who
do not want to wait for their regional cash market to open, or do not have
24-hour access to the market they have open positions in, are able to access
the 24-hour currency market. There is potential to analyze and trade currencies
in a high-volume market that is supported by the global inter-bank system,
which tracks the 24-hour S&P 500 futures market moves.
Investors can
trade currencies in-line with a rising global market, or trade ahead of a
falling cash market open. Being able to use currencies offers the opportunity
to be in a trade before the regional market opens.
If S&P 500
valuations drop ahead of the next Wall Street session, investors will receive
an alternate signal on a currency pair that mirrors the move, so that the trade
potential can be accessed at any time. AUD/USD and EUR/USD are strongly aligned
with S&P 500 direction, GBP/USD is also well aligned on days that do not
have U.K. economic releases, as highlighted
previously.
Adding to the
potential negativity on equity indices is the outlook on high profile stocks,
and the changes in Q1 hedge fund holdings. It would seem that Apple has lost
the title of most widely held hedge fund holding, after 22 funds (over 10% of
the total 195 that held Apple previously) closed their entire holdings of
Apple, which will certainly impact the intra-day dynamics of the market going
forward.
At the end of
Q1, the most widely held hedge fund stock, according to David Kostin’s Hedge
Fund Trend Monitor, was Microsoft, which increased the number of funds holding
it from 161 to 181. Those hedge funds have racked up over 10% of losses on this
holding alone. The pressure coming to bear from a negative turn in S&P
sentiment, as highlighted above, may also impact MSFT as selling pressure will
increase in an overall negative equity arena.
A daily chart
sell signal on Microsoft formed Feb 22 11, with a drop below 26.90 targeting
25.00. Another sell signal on May 12 11, to sell from 25.20 targeting 24.20
also followed through. A four-hour chart sell signals formed Feb 01 11 from
27.50, which traveled as low as 24.70.
The one-hour
charts have been a technical mess, but the 30-minute chart outlook reveals a
descending trading pattern that is about to signal a sell signal with a break
below 24.40 that targets 24.00 and 23.70.’
Minyanville's T3 Weekly Recap: Stocks Sell Off Into Options
Expiration, Judgement Day* [
Riiiiight! ‘Judgement Day’ – Certainly been so for the ‘Terminator’ or former
‘Governator’ … Wow! Or should we say, Bow Wow! I mean, what a dog … You just
can’t take former male model schwarzenegger any place … what a failed, gutless
wonder and fraud (that commutation) he turned out to be! … Speaking of judgement
days, raptures, previously I wrote: ‘End
of Days’ message rolls into D.C.
(Washington Post) The
potentially rotten news that the world will end on May 21 arrived plastered on
a caravan of RVs. [ Gee … little premature … you know, that 2012, end of Mayan
calendar, Nostradamus thing … I previously weighed in / wrote: Why
do Americans still dislike atheists? (Washington Post) [ And
not just americans … Why? First and foremost because there is a God. Second, it
is intellectually dishonest to be an atheist. Specifically, there is absolutely
no evidence to dispute the existence of God. While one might similarly argue
that there is no evidence to suggest there is a God (which I would dispute),
which for most is a fair statement, the same would yield at best, if
intellectually honest, the position of ‘agnostic’. I can totally understand and
even empathize with the view of the agnostic. After all, at this point, there
seems to be ‘no rhyme nor reason’ at all. But, think binary, positives /
negatives. Just too many negatives. Think ‘capital punishment’. No, the world’s
not going to end in 2012 as some fear. Rather, think slow burn; decades at
best; then ‘poof’. In the scheme of things, this world’s just not that
important (apes,
notochordates, and initially single celled organisms). Kind of
akin to what I previously wrote: (God doesn’t care that you wrestle a girl who wants to
wrestle!) Boy wrestler forfeits match
to female opponent... [ What a homo! Wow! I feel sorry for those
guys she actually beat (20 of them – her record was 20 and 13) … they’ll
probably never get over it … nor should they … I have to rethink my regard for
Iowa, Iowa state wrestling now presuming such stalwart championship teams to be
the products of out-of-state imports … as for the guy who forfeited, he could
have easily and gently taken her down (you can easily do that with a lesser
opponent), got her in a double grapevine and grind her in a certain way into
the mat, and when she was in the throws of convulsive orgasm, she’d unwittingly
arch her back, thereby pressing her own shoulder blades to the mat, thereby
pinning herself, thus enabling the homo to say in a manner of speaking that he
was making heterosexual love not war with her ……… how pathetic and preposterous
this was … and, let me remind the homo that God doesn’t care that you wrestle a
girl who wants to wrestle! ]
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market.
4) Key market
leaders are rolling over in price... ‘
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
Treasury
to tap pensions to fund government (WP) 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come!
Hedge Funds: Paulson, other big hedge funds, down in May
McCain
Calls for “Free Trade” in Middle East AFP | McCain said
United States should “move urgently” to establish free trade agreements with
Egypt and Tunisia.
The
End Of The Eurozone? — Stiglitz At European Zeitgeist 2011 The
Daily Bail | “We are out of money, but we can pay you in fish.”
Paulson
Cast as Stoic Savior in HBO’s ‘Big’ Wall Street Saga Bloomberg
| “Too Big to Fail” a TV movie that transforms complex tale of Wall Street
greed into a knight-in-shining-armor saga.
FDIC Closes Three Banks By AP Regulators on Friday shut two banks in
Georgia and one in Washington State, lifting to 43 the number of bank failures
this year.
Japan slips back into
recession Japan's economy shrank
last quarter by almost double the margin economists had expected, as the March
disaster pushed the country back into recession. (LA Times) [I’ve always
thought, and from the beginning (see infra and website) that this disaster was
of greater consequence than reported; after all, as to america, who else
besides china was foolish enough and had cash reserves sufficient to buy
pervasively corrupt, defact bankrupt america’s ever more worthless paper
Chernobyl, 25 years later (Washington Post) Following the nuclear disaster in
Japan, the Chernobyl accident
has a particular importance. Japan declares evacuation zone near nuclear plant
(Washington Post)[ Wow! Sounds like a plan!… From the beginning, as I’ve
written on my website, I’ve thought the catastrophic nature and impact of this
disaster to have been underreported at the least … the Japanese
uncharacteristically have adopted somewhat of a ‘if wishing could make it so’
tact in this sad crisis. Chernobyl,
25 years later (Washington Post)
Following the nuclear disaster in Japan, the Chernobyl accident has a
particular importance. Japan
declares evacuation zone near nuclear plant (Washington Post) [ Wow! Sounds like a plan! … From the
beginning, as I’ve written on my website, I’ve thought the catastrophic nature
and impact of this disaster to have been underreported at the least … the
Japanese uncharacteristically have adopted somewhat of a ‘if wishing could make
it so’ tact in this sad crisis.
Existing-home
sales drop in April Sales fall short of many analysts’ expectations for
this key month of the spring selling season. (WP) [ Come on! Stocks rally on worse than expected bad news to keep the
suckers suckered! This is an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May and go away! LinkedIn
IPO shatters expectations (WP) [ Kind of like the pre-bust dot.com
days/preposterous (all bad news today) that Dave preceded his commentary with a
twighlight zone picture In reminder of '90s, LinkedIn has big first day (AP) an unmistakable
echo of the dot-com boom Thursday on Wall Street. Rod Serling Now Linked-In : Dave's Daily ‘It definitely remains a really strange market. Fed
Governor Fisher summed things up nicely Thursday stating: "We've gone from
too little liquidity to too much." He's definitely off the main Fed
talking points but a little honesty explains the "more money than
brains" market. The LinkedIn(LNKD_) IPO
typifies this Thursday. You may not be aware of it but word on the street is
only ten institutions were privileged to obtain freshly issued shares. I wonder
who was favored with this gift; care to guess? You couldn't get a collection of
bad economic news much worse than what appeared today… While Jobless Claims
were marginally lower given previous adjustments, the moving average of
claims reached six-month highs; Home Sales were down...again; the Philly Fed
reading came in at 3.9 vs 18 expected; and Leading Indicators were lower 0.3 vs
flat expectations. These were dreadful but bulls brushed them off hoping for
more POMO
and extended ZIRP. Perhaps the stupid people are the ones
not playing ball, given rising markets on this lousy economic news. LinkedIn
should remind everyone of dotcom experiences but it's really about too much
liquidity. Commodity prices were generally lower with economic data while the
dollar was weaker and so too were base and precious metals. Bonds were flat
overall…’
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
Why
Are Investors Fearful? Here are 19 Answers Khaner
5-17-11’
QE II:
U.S. ECONOMY: (bad)
UNEMPLOYMENT: ..(problematic)
U.S. DEBT CEILING:
Rank |
|
||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
| Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
THE OBAMA DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
Agents
irked by plan to keep Mueller
(Washington Post) [ ‘abide by ..
tenure limits’ ? I’m more concerned with, and it’s fundamentally more important
from the perspective of the FBI’s ‘mission and purpose’, that meaningful law be
abided by regarding the following:
October 15, 2010 (*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez,
Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder named
‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act is a
criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages and
attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims probably
owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in need of such
assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations of law which
have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption is pervasive).
A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently with the subject
action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action which was
illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention of the
Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the Qui Tam provisions of
the Federal False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent
resolution seek to refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of
the law with which I am not familiar).
The
document in 5 pages under penalty of perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI
office in New Haven is probably the best and most concise summary of the
case RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm .
With regard to the calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices: There
was one call to the LA office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA office
where I personally met with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative
evidentiary documents of the money laundering which he confirmed as indicative
of same (he was transferred from said office within approximately a month of
said meeting and his location was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter
was assigned to FBI Agent Ron Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess
of a decade until he abruptly retired (our last conversation prior to his
retirement related to the case and parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father
I stated had been an enforcer for the mob to which he registered disbelief and
requested I prove it, which I did – he served 12 years in prison, aggravated
assault/manslaughter? – and no, there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew
Maloney’s the one that prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction to
the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
·
A judgment had been
entered in my favor in the case, United States District Court Case
#3:93cv02065(AWT)(USDCJ Alvin Thompson), worth approximately now in excess of
$300,000 remains unaccounted for and which could be used for payment to
creditors, Los Angeles, etc..
·
Counsel Robert
Sullivan on my behalf documented by way of certification upon investigation
that Alan Shiff, USBCJ, had falsely stated a dismissal upon which false
statement he predicated a retaliatory and spurious contempt proceeding against
me causing substantial damage, and for which he sought Judicial Notice of those
and related proceedings as did I in some of my filings.
·
The Order of
Dismissal With Prejudice by Alan Shiff, USBCJ, owing to Defendant Coan’s
failure to file anything whatsoever by the court’s deadline causing creditors
and me substantial damages: [ Shiff Order of Dismissal With Prejudice on
Coan’s Failure to File Page 1 Page 2 ]
·
Defendant Coan had
filed an action against me to prevent me from suing him which necessitated me
to fly to Connecticut for a hearing before The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny,
Chief Judge, USDC, District of Connecticut, who denied Coan’s requested relief
as to Coan but precluded my action against Shiff (although there is no
immunity, judicial or otherwise, for criminal acts, ie., fraud connected with a
case under Title 11, USC, etc.) . [ transcript
in pertinent part -
crossexamofcoanbypeia.pdf ]
·
Newly appointed
judge, Maryanne Trump Barry, Donald Trump’s sister, was assigned the RICO case
despite the conflict of interest in light of hundreds of thousands of dollars
of illegal (drug) money being laundered through the Trump casinos by the RICO
defendants, and despite my motion to recuse her which motion she heard herself
and denied, and U.S. Trustee Hugh Leonard with whom I met personally refused to
join or file a separate motion to recuse and not long thereafter left said
office for private practice at Cole, Shotz, et als on retainer with the RICO
defendants as his primary client.
·
Probative and
evidentiary documents, affidavits, exhibits, including those turned over to FBI
Agent Jeff Hayes in Long Beach, CA, had been given to Assistant U.S. Attorney
Jonathan Lacey with whom I met personally at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in
Newark, N.J., at which time Samuel Alito was U.S. Attorney, and went over said
documents and their probative value with him. Within approximately a month
thereafter upon inquiry I was told that Jonathon Lacey was no longer with the
office, that the file/documents could not be located, and that there was no
further information available concerning contacting him or his location. I
thereupon delivered by hand, copies of said documents to the office of then
U.S. Attorney Alito, addressed to him, with assurance they would go directly to
him. In addition to being inept [ I looked in on the
one mob case he had brought, bungled, lost (accidently on purpose?) since I was
suing some mob-connected under RICO and the court (I had known / previously met
outside of court the judge Ackerman through a client) was absolute bedlam and a
total joke since incompetent corrupt Alito brought in all 20 mob defendants
(rather than prosecute one or a few to flip them first) who feigning illness
had beds/cots in the courtroom along with their moans during testimony and had
the jury in stitches. As much as I hate the mob, it truly was funny, if not so
tragic.], Alito is also corrupt
(and maybe corrupt because he is inept). After a reasonable (but still rather
short) time I called to determine the status and was told that Alito was no
longer with the Office of the U.S. Attorney, that he was (appointed) a federal
judge, and that neither the documents nor any file or record of same could be
located. Alito did parley the same / cover-up into quid pro quo direct lifetime
appointment to the Court of Appeals, 3rd circuit, despite the
absence of judicial experience or successful tenure as U.S. Attorney (Maryanne
Trump Barry as well). This is the same Sam Alito that now sits on the purported
highest court in the land. The real application of the illegal rule ‘don’t ask,
don’t tell’.
There
is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor creditors, nor I
should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt and illegal
scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the meaningful rules of
law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert
L. Peia
611
E. 5th Street, #404
Los
Angeles, CA 90013
(213)
219-**** (cell phone)
(213)
622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with the line,
computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance greater
non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for contact).
China
to US: respect Pakistan’s sovereignty, independence The Economic
Times | China has asked the US not to violate Islamabad’s territorial
integrity, following the reported killing of Osama bin Laden.
America’s “Arab Deception”
Tony Cartalucci | President Obama remarked that ‘America
didn’t put people in the streets,’ yet in reality the “Arab Spring” was
entirely engineered. As Adolf Hitler noted, “all propaganda has to be popular
and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of
those whom it seeks to reach.” Certainly the writers handing US President
Barack Obama his “Middle East speech” had a particularly ignorant audience in
mind.
Drudgereport: USA HITS DEBT CEILING...
TREASURY RAIDS PENSIONS...
OBAMA SIDES WITH THE
PALESTINIANS...
Netanyahu fumes at call to
return to '67 borders...
Abbas calls emergency
Palestinian Authority meeting...
Israeli Knesset member: Obama
is the new Arafat...
OBAMA: 'Limited' US Role in
Libyan War Means No Need For Congressional Authorization...
I DON'T NEED YOUR PERMISSION
(FOR WAR, says nobel peace laureate)
CHICAGOLAND: GODFATHER WANTS
CASINO...
Cornel West: Obama 'a black
mascot' and 'black puppet'...
Peter Fonda calls Obama
'traitor' at Cannes...
Obama, Sarkozy dissed in
films...
Doomsday Food Price Scenario
Turning Hedge Fund Managers into Survivalists...
In China, some new cities are
ghost towns...
RON PAUL: SELL THE
GOLD IN FORT KNOX... [ I personally believe that some has
already been ‘sold’, as in stole, with gold plate the replacement; after all,
with the wall street frauds, 360 tons of $100 bills flown into Iraq and
‘disappeared’, etc., why would same seem unlikely. ]
NEXT UP FOR BAILOUT: POST OFFICE...
4 MONTHS UNTIL DEFAULT... US Postal Service reports
$2.2B loss for quarter... [ And, let me add that they deserved that
loss. The USPS is totally unreliable and basically a jobs program for the
otherwise unemployable; and, they are also corrupt. I’ve previously set forth
the scenario where the postal service waylaid dvd disks sent
priority/confirmation and a second time, certified mail, to the FBI (violations
of federal law, tampering, obstruction, etc.), and ultimately additional copies
of said disks were delivered by the reliable, efficient, competitive,
performance-driven UPS (their parcel rates are roughly the same and yet half
the delivery time – Fedex is as unreliable as the USPS-and for some time had a
deal with the USPS)…infra ]
Medvedev warns West of new
Cold War...
Russia Expels Israel's
Military Attache...
U.S.-Israeli group tells
members not to boo president...
WHITE HOUSE SHUTS OUT
NEWSPAPER OVER 'BIAS'...
Veteran reporters mock WH
press for kowtowing to 'monarch'...
GOV'T MOTORS CHEERS CHINESE
COMMUNIST MOVIE...
US helicopter exchanges fire
with Pakistan troops on Afghan border...
...increasing tensions
Pakistan, China Grow
Closer...
New, federally-mandated light
bulbs will cost $50 -- each...
GE lobbied for them...
REPORT: Secret Service
interrogates 7th grader without parents' knowledge...
China cuts holdings of
Treasurys for 5th month...
U.S.
borrows $58,000 a second...
BUCHANAN: 'Bad day for New
World Order'...
NO BAIL FOR WORLD'S BANKER
DOWN AND OUT IN MANHATTAN...
...sex charges
likely to isolate IMF in debt crisis talks
'BLOOD ON THE BED'...
Authorities investigating 'at
least one other' case...
CHANGE: Obama Assets Total as
Much as $12 Million...
GALLUP: OBAMA DROPS ANOTHER 2 POINTS, DOWN TO 46%...
...Post-Bin Laden Bump Has
Vanished
Hamas PM: Pray for an end to
Israel...
Protesters try to breach
Israeli border on 3 fronts...
Israel opens fire across
border with Lebanon...
Egypt police fire tear gas at
Nakba rally...
Demonstrators pour into
Israel from Syria...
'Iran fingerprints'...
'Terror truck' attack...
GALLUP: Obama slips back to 48/45...
Administration approves 200
more new Obamacare waivers...
IMF HEAD IN RAPE RAP...
New Details...
May Step Aside?
French presidential race
hopes in jeopardy...
'THUNDERBOLT'...
Ron Paul: 'These are the kind
of people running the IMF'...
9 civilians killed in U.S.
drone strike in Pakistan...
ALARM OVER APPROACHING
INSOLVENCY OF SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE...
Social Security to run
'permanent' deficits...
Texas official accuses ATF of
starting wildfire...
'That bunch
has a real corner on stupid'...
British woman decapitated in grocery
store; killer flees with head...
Cannes: Diana doc slams UK
royals as 'gangsters'...
Senate Bill Gives Feds Power
to Order Blacklisting of Websites...
Treasury Auctions
to Push US Over Debt Ceiling...
McCARTHY: 'Not one Republican
vote' to borrow more without cuts...
REPORT: 48 Women Raped Every
Hour in Congo...
'DOLLAR IN GRAVER DANGER THAN
EURO'...
FORBES: RETURN TO GOLD
STANDARD WITHIN 5 YEARS...
In S.C., legislature takes
first step...
POLL: 1 in 5 say
bin Laden alive...
MICHELLE: KEEPS ON DANCING!
First Lady to host rapper who
talks of killing cops...
USA FREAK OUT: TERROR FEARS;
FALSE ALARMS...
Sen. Schumer Calls For Amtrak
'Do Not Ride' List...
Two tunnel 'breaches' cause
scare in NYC...
Threats Divert Planes in
Three Separate Incidents...
Passengers, flight crew
subdue man banging on cockpit door...
Dallas Train Station
Evacuated: Man Asked For Help Carrying Packages...
4 Arrested For Videotaping
TSA Line At Denver...
SHOCK
PHOTO: TSA LOOKING FOR 'POOP BOMBS?'
U.S.-Pak. Rift Widens...
Pak. warns of 'full force'
response to future US raids...
S&P cuts Greece's
rating...
BOEHNER TO DEMAND NOT
BILLIONS, BUT TRILLIONS IN CUTS...
OIL REBOUNDS; 2ND LARGEST
GAIN ON RECORD...
REPORT: Housing crash getting
worse...
...values fall fastest rate since '08
Michelle Obama to host rapper
at WH who talks of killing cops...
'COMMAND CENTER'...
Pakistan skeptical of U.S.
claim bin Laden directed network...
Two loud explosions
heard in town where bin Laden killed...
Videos show 9-11 mastermind
watching himself on TV...
U.S. government censors
tapes, cuts audio...
Inside bin Laden's squalid
home...
NYT: Final days of domesticity...
Drone Strike Kills 15 in
Pakistan...
First since bin Laden raid...
BIN LADEN SUPPORTERS RAGE ON THE STREETS OF LONDON, VOW
REVENGE...
Stage mock funeral in front
of US embassy...
Gas nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats 9% of household
budgets...
Average price sets record in
Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03 in Hawaii...
JAPAN URGES HALT AT THREE
REACTORS...
UNEMPLOYMENT BACK UP TO
9.0%...
Fannie Mae Reports $8.7B Loss
for First Quarter...
Seeks $8.5B more from
taxpayers...
APRIL JOBS: +244,000...
FUZZY MATH: How can US add jobs but the unemployment
rate go up?
Gas nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats 9% of household
budgets...
Average price sets record in
Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03 in Hawaii...
PAPER: GREECE EU EXIT?
Silver Plunge Spreads...
OIL GUTTED...
Price Slide Temporary, New Highs Likely: Goldman...
Fears linger of a new 'flash
crash'...
Euro Tumbles... CNN SHOCK POLL: RON PAUL HAS
BEST CHANCE VS OBAMA
National Home Prices Double Dip...
JOBLESS CLAIMS RISE TO 8
MONTH HIGH...
Fears linger of a new 'flash
crash'...
9-11 FAMILY: 'SHOW US PROOF
BIN LADEN KILLED'...
Victim's father: Obama
'putting too much spotlight on himself'...
Channels Bush at Ground Zero: 'We will never forget'...
Tells teen survivor he knows Justin Bieber...
Turns Back on 9/11 Family
Member...
AUDIO...
Muslim Brotherhood urges
review of Israel ties...
Pakistanis burn U.S. flags;
backlash over death grows...
Pakistan officials: No
resistance in 'cold-blooded' U.S. raid...
Warns America not to stage
any more...
Threatens 'disastrous
consequences'...
Muslims already name dump
location 'Martyr's Sea'...
OBAMA, NO PHOTOS OF OSAMA:
'We don't need to spike the football'...
'Conspiracy
theorists will just claim doctored'...
Sen. Scott Brown: 'I've seen
picture, he's definitely dead'...
UPDATE: Photo proving bin Laden's
death to Sen. Brown was
faked...
three senators fell for fakes...
UPDATE: 'The photo I saw and
that a lot of other people saw is not authentic'...
Top Dem: No photo needed,
'there's absolute proof'...
REUTERS RELEASES 'DEATH SCENE' PHOTOS
**WARNING GRAPHIC**
UPDATE: Photo
proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
Possibly three senators fell for fakes...
Pakistan: 'Not a single
bullet fired from compound'...
WIRE: Photos from 1 hour
after raid show 3 dead, no weapons...
The Slippery Story of the bin
Laden Kill...
Official says
'killed apparently by the U.S. raid team'...
DOLLAR HITS 3 YEAR LOW...
1 IN 7 ON FOOD STAMPS!
Job numbers disappoint...
Treasury suggests $2 trillion
debt cap raise...
REUTERS, AP
journalists describe staging of Obama photo taken after TV announcement of bin
Laden's death...
Wrap up those loose ends:
'Rapture' movement predicts end of world on Saturday...
Preacher made same prediction
in 1994...
Doomsday church thriving,
worth $72 million... : ‘End
of Days’ message rolls into D.C.
(Washington Post) The
potentially rotten news that the world will end on May 21 arrived plastered on
a caravan of RVs. [ Gee … little premature … you know, that 2012, end of Mayan
calendar, Nostradamus thing … I previously weighed in / wrote: Why
do Americans still dislike atheists? (Washington Post) [ And
not just americans … Why? First and foremost because there is a God. Second, it
is intellectually dishonest to be an atheist. Specifically, there is absolutely
no evidence to dispute the existence of God. While one might similarly argue
that there is no evidence to suggest there is a God (which I would dispute),
which for most is a fair statement, the same would yield at best, if
intellectually honest, the position of ‘agnostic’. I can totally understand and
even empathize with the view of the agnostic. After all, at this point, there
seems to be ‘no rhyme nor reason’ at all. But, think binary, positives /
negatives. Just too many negatives. Think ‘capital punishment’. No, the world’s
not going to end in 2012 as some fear. Rather, think slow burn; decades at
best; then ‘poof’. In the scheme of things, this world’s just not that
important (apes, notochordates, and
initially single celled organisms). Kind of akin to what I
previously wrote: (God doesn’t care that you wrestle a girl
who wants to wrestle!) Boy wrestler forfeits match
to female opponent... [ What a homo! Wow! I feel sorry for those
guys she actually beat (20 of them – her record was 20 and 13) … they’ll
probably never get over it … nor should they … I have to rethink my regard for
Iowa, Iowa state wrestling now presuming such stalwart championship teams to be
the products of out-of-state imports … as for the guy who forfeited, he could
have easily and gently taken her down (you can easily do that with a lesser opponent),
got her in a double grapevine and grind her in a certain way into the mat, and
when she was in the throws of convulsive orgasm, she’d unwittingly arch her
back, thereby pressing her own shoulder blades to the mat, thereby pinning
herself, thus enabling the homo to say in a manner of speaking that he was
making heterosexual love not war with her ……… how pathetic and preposterous
this was … and, let me remind the homo that God doesn’t care that you wrestle a
girl who wants to wrestle! ]
Gentlemen:
I just wanted to extend to you and your company my sincere thanks
for a job well done. The Dell computer I recently purchased from you has lived
up to all your representations and as well, my own expectations. I bought my
first computer from you (Ben) in or around 1999. It was a Sony Vaio laptop
which owing to Windows Millenium and a very proprietary approach to computing
on the part of Sony, truth be told, was not the greatest system in terms of
stability (typical Millenium problems), but no fault of yours. Ultimately,
though functional, I traded the Vaio for a Mac, an accommodation by your
company seldom seen with other companies if at all (3+ years later). You’ve
always stood by your products / service, are available / accessible to field /
handle all questions / problems which is rare indeed. In Armand you have a
top-notch A+ Certified Tech who is patient, knowledgeable, and talented. Ruben,
in truth has been particularly instrumental in seeing to a smooth transition in
my recent dealings with your company as a knowledgeable IT Specialist and
especially as a savvy, capable manager. Since 1999 I’ve purchased five
computers from you and based upon performance, the sixth is assured.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia ) ]
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market.
4) Key market
leaders are rolling over in price... ‘
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its development
(click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
Treasury
to tap pensions to fund government (WP) 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come!
In reminder of '90s, LinkedIn has big first day (AP) - There was an unmistakable echo of the dot-com boom
Thursday on Wall Street.
Rod Serling Now Linked-In : Dave's Daily ‘It definitely remains a really
strange market. Fed Governor Fisher summed things up nicely Thursday stating:
"We've gone from too little liquidity to too much." He's definitely
off the main Fed talking points but a little honesty explains the "more
money than brains" market. The LinkedIn(LNKD_) IPO
typifies this Thursday. You may not be aware of it but word on the street is
only ten institutions were privileged to obtain freshly issued shares. I wonder
who was favored with this gift; care to guess? You couldn't get a collection of
bad economic news much worse than what appeared today. While Jobless Claims
were marginally lower given previous adjustments, the moving average of
claims reached six-month highs; Home Sales were down...again; the Philly Fed
reading came in at 3.9 vs 18 expected; and Leading Indicators were lower 0.3 vs
flat expectations. These were dreadful but bulls brushed them off hoping for
more POMO
and extended ZIRP. Perhaps the stupid people are the ones
not playing ball, given rising markets on this lousy economic news. LinkedIn
should remind everyone of dotcom experiences but it's really about too much
liquidity. Commodity prices were generally lower with economic data while the
dollar was weaker and so too were base and precious metals. Bonds were flat
overall…’
Here’s
Why Existing Home Sales Unexpectedly Slipped in April May 19, 2011 ‘According to the National Association of Realtors , Existing Home Sales came
in at 5.05 million annualized sales– lower than Wall Street’s expectations for
5.23 million sales (Briefing). Here’s your Cheat Sheet:
Sales: Came in
at an annual rate of 5.05 million in March.
Month-over-Month
Change: This is 0.8% below the downwardly revised 5.09 million in March 2011.
Year-over-Year
Change: This is 12.9% below the 5.8 million pace in April 2010.
Prices:
The national median existing-home price of $163,700 in April was 5
percent below April 2010.
Inventory: Up
9.9 percent to 3.87 million existing homes available for sale. This represents
a supply of 9.2 months at the current sales rate, up from 8.3 months in March.
Noteworthy
Stats: First-time buyers purchased 36 percent of homes in April, up from 33
percent in March; they were 49 percent in April 2010 when the tax credit was in
place. Investors slipped to 20 percent in April from 22 percent of purchase
activity in March; they were 15 percent in April 2010. The balance of sales was
to repeat buyers, which were 44 percent in April.
All-cash
transactions stood at 31 percent in April, down from a record level of 35
percent in March; they were 26 percent in March 2010; investors account for the
bulk of cash purchases.
Commentary:
Lawrence Yun NAR chief economist, said the market is underperforming. “Given
the great affordability conditions, job creation and pent-up demand, home sales
should be stronger,” he said. “Although existing-home sales are expected to
trend up unevenly through next year, unnecessarily tight credit is continuing
to restrain the market, along with a steady level of low appraisals that result
in contract cancellations.”
More Details:
Single-family
home sales slipped 0.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.42
million in April from 4.44 million in March, and are 12.6 percent below the
5.06 million pace in April 2010. The median existing single-family home price
was $163,200 in April, which is 5.4 percent below a year ago.
Existing condominium
and co-op sales fell 3.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of
630,000 in April from 650,000 in March, and are 15.0 percent below the
741,000-unit level one year ago. The median existing condo price 5 was $167,300
in April, down 2.3 percent from April 2010.
Regionally ,
existing-home sales in the Northeast fell 7.5 percent to an annual pace of
740,000 in April and are 32.1 percent below a year-ago surge. The median price
in the Northeast was $225,400, which is 7.3 percent below April 2010.
Existing-home
sales in the Midwest rose 5.7 percent in April to a level of 1.12 million but
are 16.4 percent below a cyclical peak in April 2010. The median price in the
Midwest was $133,200, down 5.1 percent from a year ago.
In the South,
existing-home sales declined 4.1 percent to an annual pace of 1.95 million in
April and are 9.3 percent below a year ago. The median price in the South was
$142,800, which is 4.1 percent lower than April 2010.
Existing-home
sales in the West slipped 1.6 percent to an annual level of 1.24 million in
April and are 0.8 percent below April 2010. The median price in the West was
$203,400, down 6.1 percent from a year ago.’
Weekly
Unemployment Claims Can’t Fall Below This Critical Level May 19, 2011, Short ‘The Department of
Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released
this morning for last week. Claims fell 29,000 from a 4,000 upward revision of
the previous week. Here is the official statement from the Department of Labor:
In the week
ending May 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was
409,000, a decrease of 29,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of
438,000. The 4-week moving average was 439,000, an increase of 1,250 from the
previous week’s revised average of 437,750.
The advance
seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0 percent for the week
ending May 7, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.0 percent.
The advance
number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May
7 was 3,711,000, a decrease of 81,000 from the preceding week’s revised level
of 3,792,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,728,250, an increase of 750 from
the preceding week’s revised average of 3,727,500.
Today’s number
was 11,000 below the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 420,000 claims.
As we can see,
there’s a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the 4-week
moving average (shown in the callouts) is a more useful number than the weekly
data.
http://dshort.com/charts/indicators/weekly-unemployment-claims.gif
Occasionally I
see articles critical of seasonal adjustment, especially when the non-adjusted
number better suits the author’s bias. But a comparison of these two charts
clearly shows extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data, and the 4-week MA
gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change in the second
chart (note, for example, those regular January spikes).
http://dshort.com/charts/indicators/weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA.gif
Because of the
extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, a 52-week moving average
gives a better sense of the long-term trends.
http://dshort.com/charts/indicators/weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA-52-ma.gif
The Bureau of
Labor Statistics provides an overview on seasonal adjustment here (scroll down about
half way down).’
Geithner:
There Will Be Another Storm Roche
‘(Tiny) Tim Geithner was recently interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin for the
upcoming film “Too Big To Fail”. His comments on the future were pretty
encouraging (via the Daily
Beast):
“It will come again. There will be another storm,”
warned Geithner, who in early 2009 succeeded Paulson as treasury secretary.
“But it’s not going to come for a while.”
Under mostly gentle questioning from Pulitzer
Prize-winning financial writer Liaquat Ahamed and New York Times business
columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of the book on which the film is based,
Geithner said “I’m certain we will” experience another catastrophe—he just
couldn’t say when or what kind.
“You will not know,” he answered when Sorkin tried to
pin him down. “It’s not going to be possible for people to capture risk with
perfect foresight and knowledge.”
And of course he’s right. Mr. Geithner, the fox in
the hen house at the NY Fed while the too big to fail banks were becoming the
behemoths that they are, was instrumental in ensuring that too big to fail
became too bigger to fail. He has been one of the primary players in
the build-up of the Wall Street financialization scheme. And worst of all, he
knows that it has the ability to cause another crippling storm.
The infuriating thing is that there are rules and
regulations that we could implement that would thwart or lessen the damage from
any future storms. But no, we choose instead to allow these companies to seek
profit maximization without requiring proper risk management. And in doing so,
it increases the instability of the entire system. The fact that our leaders
understand this is beyond maddening. And it would be funny if it wasn’t the
cause of so much hardship.’
Jailed
IMF chief resigns but maintains his innocence Strauss-Kahn, who is facing sexual assault charges in N.Y., says
he is stepping down with "infinite sadness" and that he wants to
devote "all my energy to proving my innocence." (Los Angeles
Times) I.M.F. Chief
Quits After His Arrest In Sexual Attack
(New York Times) [ Strauss-Kahn
resigns as head of the IMF
(Washington Post) [ So what! Who cares! There is not one head of even
one institution in the world today that deserves to keep their job; from
bernanke at the fed, to the nobel committee that awarded wobama the peace
prize, to geithner at treasury, to looney moony at the u.n., etc.. For jobs
poorly done, they should step down and make way for the generation that’s been
so negatively impacted by their venality, incompetence, corruption, etc… Why
Are Investors Fearful? Here are 19 Answers Khaner
5-17-11’
QE II: .. Place yer bets, place yer bets! Tick, tick, tick…
U.S. ECONOMY: Inventory built, inventory sold, inventory built, inventory sold.
..
UNEMPLOYMENT: ..(problematic)
U.S. DEBT CEILING: “Going up, she said, uh, huh…”
ON MAY 1,
2011, JUST MOMENTS BEFORE PRESIDENT OBAMA ANNOUNCED THAT THE US HAD KILLED
OSAMA BIN LADEN, THE WHATREALLYHAPPENED WEBSITE CAME UNDER MASSIVE DISTRIBUTED
DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK. THIS PAGE, WHICH DOCUMENTS THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN
ACTUALLY DIED IN DECEMBER OF 2001, APPEARS TO BE WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DIDN'T
WANT AVAILABLE WHILE THE NEW PROPAGANDA WAS "CATAPULTED FORWARD". IT
IS POSSIBLE THAT THIS IS THE OPENING GAMBIT IN A PLAN TO STAGE A
"REVENGE" ATTACK FROM "AL QAEDA" ON THE UNITED STATES, WITH
WHICH TO JUSTIFY TOTAL WAR ON THE MIDDLE EAST.
Bin Laden's voice was detected regularly until [12-14-01] by
intelligence operatives monitoring radio transmissions in Tora Bora, according
to the Pentagon [details]. Since then,
nothing has been heard from the al-Qa'eda leader ..[Telegraph, 12/28/2001]
Osama bin Laden: A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in
Afghanistan and Pakistan almost 6 mos ago: the fugitive died in December [2001]
and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president,
Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. ..
..Osama bin Laden would not have.. remained silent for so long
if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had
nothing to do with …[NYT 7-11-02]
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market.
4) Key market
leaders are rolling over in price... ‘
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar
24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come!
Many
With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling Employment rates for
new graduates have fallen sharply, as have starting salaries for those who can
find work. (New York Times) [ Yet, we
all know things are humming on wall street, and military recruitment is
up. This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted.
]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! El-Erian:
“Financial Repression” In the Form of a Negative Real Rate of Return for Savers
Is Coming to America Pimco co-chair
El-Erian is saying that the major flaws in the financial system will not be
addressed, the government will keep on printing money, and that the
inflation-adjusted return on investments for most Americans will be
negative. Stock
Market: 4 Current Warning Signs
Navin ‘… 1) The 5-year high in the level of insider corporate stock
sales is telling. At 565 sells for every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes,
it’s normal for insiders to be selling some of their stocks so they can buy new
yachts and some of this is pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked
recently — is extraordinarily high, one might even say off-the-chart. 2)
Professor Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16. 3) The failure of
the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market. 4) Key market leaders are rolling over in price... ‘ Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
Financialization
and Our Increasingly Unstable Economy Roche
'The worst part of it ...Obama, who
vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues
most of the policies that helped get us here in the first place’ ‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for
Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by
the frauds on wall street ( and declares with oscar in hand that not one high
level wall street exec has been prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billions from
the fraud ). UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
| Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
THE OBAMA DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May and go away! …
Rank |
|
||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
Gentlemen:
I just wanted to extend to you and your company my sincere thanks
for a job well done. The Dell computer I recently purchased from you has lived
up to all your representations and as well, my own expectations. I bought my
first computer from you (Ben) in or around 1999. It was a Sony Vaio laptop
which owing to Windows Millenium and a very proprietary approach to computing
on the part of Sony, truth be told, was not the greatest system in terms of
stability (typical Millenium problems), but no fault of yours. Ultimately,
though functional, I traded the Vaio for a Mac, an accommodation by your
company seldom seen with other companies if at all (3+ years later). You’ve
always stood by your products / service, are available / accessible to field /
handle all questions / problems which is rare indeed. In Armand you have a
top-notch A+ Certified Tech who is patient, knowledgeable, and talented. Ruben,
in truth has been particularly instrumental in seeing to a smooth transition in
my recent dealings with your company as a knowledgeable IT Specialist and
especially as a savvy, capable manager. Since 1999 I’ve purchased five
computers from you and based upon performance, the sixth is assured.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia ) ]
Wall Street - Will it Lie and Cheat Stocks to New Highs?
May 18,
2011 ‘Dear Wall Street and
government officials (domestically and abroad), please take the following
definition and post it where you see it daily (no, the latrine doesn't count):
Ethic:
A set of moral principles, a system of moral values, a consciousness of moral
importance.
Unless
you live in a dream world, you've come to grips with the idea that Wall Street
and ethics are as far removed as the sunset from the sunrise. But even if you
are a realist, you may be surprised to hear about the most recent escapades and
how stocks might react.
Lying - A Matter of Self-Preservation
'When
it becomes serious, you have to lie.' Which Prime Minister said that and why?
Luxembourg's
Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who, as the chairman of the regular
meetings of euro zone finance ministers, is one of Europe's key spokesman, just
'legalized' lying when required by circumstances.
What
were the circumstances? The Spiegel Online (a German news outlet) reported last
Friday of a secret EU meeting regarding a Greek exodus from the European Union.
Mr.
Schuller, a spokesperson for Luxembourg's Prime Minister explained: 'There was
a very good reason to deny that the meeting was taking place. Evening in Europe
is midday in the United States. We had Wall Street open at that point in time.'
Schuller deemed this to be an issue of 'self-preservation.' Therefore, lying
was allowed.
Lies Everywhere
Europeans
are not the only ones fluent in lying. Goldman Sachs was ousted for betting
against the housing market while selling mortgage-backed securities (MBS).
According to Matt Taibbi's latest piece, Goldman's CEO and CFO Blankfein and
Viniar lied to Congress about the issue.
Perhaps
for good reason Goldman Sachs stock (NYSEArca: GS - News) has lost 20% since
mid-January and the Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLF - News) and SPDR KB Bank ETF
(NYSEArca: KBE
- News) are trading at the low of
the year. Perhaps the market knows something the public doesn't.
No Bailout ... But Give Me the Money
On
January 17, 2011 Portugal insisted it will get by without an aid package. On
March 29, Jose Socrates, Portugal's Prime Minister, went on record saying: 'I'm
sick of saying we won't' be needing a bailout. On April 7, the Wall Street
Journal reported, 'Portugal pleads for rescue.'
Greece
went down the same path just a few months earlier. In fact, on April 27, 2010
Reuters reported that 'Greece contagion fears are unfounded.' The imminent
'Flash Crash' argued otherwise.
As
the rosy-eyed media spread Greece's lies, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter
warned of a sharp decline caused by historically low put buying. The April 16,
2010 issue stated that: 'The message conveyed by the composite bullishness is
unmistakably bearish. Once prices do fall and investors do get afraid of
incurring losses, the only option is to sell. Selling results in more selling.
This usually results in rapidly falling prices.'
How to Ruin a Career in One Hour
We
can't leave Europe (NYSEArca: VGK
- News) without addressing Dominique
Strauss-Kahn's New York escapade. Kahn was sent to jail after attempting to
forcibly rape a Manhattan hotel worker last Saturday.
Perhaps
Kahn thought that his $3000/night Sofitel Hotel suite (paid by the IMF)
automatically entitled him to become intimate with the hotel's staff. Oh no,
that can't be. As former French finance minister, current International Money
Fund (IMF) chief and top contender for the French presidency, Kahn surely new
better.
Obviously
personal urges were more important than the financial well-being of an entire
continent. This appropriately reflects today's me-first philosophy. Do as I
say, but not as I do. Unfortunately, Kahn wasn't as skillful about concealing
his actions as many others have been.
The U.S. Debt Ceiling - Quietly Raised?
According
to a May 9 document by the U.S. Treasury, the total public debt was $14.27
trillion, $20 billion shy of the $14.29 trillion debt ceiling. Since May 9, the
Federal Reserve has bought more than $30 billion worth of Treasuries (NYSEArca:
TLT - News). The debt ceiling should
have been passed, yet nobody is talking about it.
Tune Out the Soap Opera
Bad
and ugly news has accompanied the stock market rally for over a year now. Aside
from the 'Flash Crash' debacle, the market (aka QE2) has shrugged off anything
thrown in its way.
In
other words, don't focus on the news; focus on what the market is doing. Unlike
Wall Street and politicians, you can trust the market's actions. The Dow Jones
(DJI: ^DJI), S&P (SNP: ^GSPC) and Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) don't lie.
The
post Japan disaster decline turned out to be another buying opportunity just as
the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter predicted on February 18: 'If stocks don't
fall below 1,255 we expect new recovery highs.'
On
April 3, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter outlined the target range for the
new recovery highs and stated: 'In terms of resistance levels, the 1,369 -
1,xxx (reserved for subscribers) range is a strong candidate for a reversal of
potentially historic proportions.'
On
May 2, the S&P reversed right on queue (the day's high was 1,370.59) and
tumbled thereafter. Since the S&P has found support, we need to ask whether
May 2 marked a major market top or if the upper end of the target range will be
challenged…’
Risk On/Risk Off Markets: Dave's Daily ‘Most investors were waiting for the 2PM Fed Minutes
which offered few surprises. In it some governors were worried about inflation
while others economic weakness. The unspoken conclusion is stagflation.
Nevertheless, some Canadian wild fires near oil sands production areas halted
production which, when combined with slightly lower oil inventories, pushed
energy prices higher. This took the entire commodity complex higher once again
squeezing shorts. With commodity prices higher, stocks also took-off
with the most volatile and oversold sectors (EMs and Small Caps) leading the
charge higher. Bond prices reversed course and the dollar was mostly
flat. One of the last companies to report earnings was Dell (DELL) which
beat expectations. This led tech sectors higher despite quickly forgotten
misses by Cisco (CSCO) and Hewlett Packard (HPQ). There have also been plenty
of ignored casualties along the way as companies like Staples (SPLS) and AFLAC (AFL) reports
disappointed. That said, markets are just plain "jumpy" and there's
plenty of big money stock bets by hedge funds and others that need defending so
any excuse will do. For all the bullishness volume was once again ultra-light
which has been the signature of comeback rallies over the past nine months …’
Fed
Minutes Reveal Strategy For Exit From Markets Struck ‘The minutes released Wednesday for the Federal Reserve’s
Federal Open Market Committee meeting on April 27 contained the now familiar
rhetoric about the economy, saying, “Economic activity expanded at a moderate
pace in recent months, and labor market conditions continued to improve
gradually.” However more detail, perhaps unexpectedly, appeared about the steps
the Fed will take to normalize “the stance and conduct of monetary policy.”In
working toward putting the global economy back on its own footing, the Fed said
it will make moves to either increase short-term interest rates, decrease its
holdings of long-term securities, or both. The Fed has been buying long-term
assets in the form of government Treasuries during its two rounds of
quantitative easing that began in 2009. One way that it will seek to
reintroduce normal conditions to markets will be to reduce the size of its own
balance sheet, which now contains hundreds of billions in government bonds. The
question that many ask following this unsurprising game plan is – When will it
happen?Each move may be used by the Fed in varying degrees to achieve tighter
lending conditions, while allowing the economy to recover, as it is, at a
“moderate pace.” The minutes say:“The Committee could accomplish essentially the
same degree of monetary tightening by selling assets sooner and faster
but raising the target for the federal funds rate later and more slowly, or by
selling assets later and more slowly but increasing the federal funds rate
target sooner and faster over time as the economy strengthens.”A close focus on
the two directives for Chairman Ben Bernanke, unemployment and inflation,
continued to be present in the minutes. The steps taken to remove the stimulus
from markets will “be driven by the Committee’s monetary policy objectives for
maximum employment and price stability.” This means that the steps toward
normalization may not “necessarily begin soon.”The release of the minutes
provided a momentary pop to markets. The Dow added to its gains slightly after the
minutes were released, before falling back to near its mark before 2:00 at
12,535.The Fed reported that underlying inflation expectations excluding energy
and food were still subdued, and longer-run inflation expectations remained
stable. It also highlighted continued depressed demand for housing, saying
“Sales of new and existing homes moved lower, on net, in February and March,
while measures of home prices slid further in February.” ‘
[$$]
Watch for Flipping Tomorrow Collins
‘ This
is beginning to feel like many other bounces once again. No volume. No belief.
No problem. We're still within a range, so it is difficult to declare this the
start of a new leg higher already. The bounce over the last two days may
indulge a little flipping if we are higher tomorrow. Resistance and support
levels haven't changed from this morning. Over $135 on the SPDR S&P 500,
and the bears may feel a little pinch. We'll get a look at weekly claims
numbers tomorrow morning, as well as leading indicators and Philly Fed report
shortly after the market opens. Friday is another day without economic data,
but with options expiration in its stead, there should still be plenty of
market action. Volatility came out of the market in a big way today. The
Volatility Index (VIX) quickly slipped back into a deep state of...’
THE
GOOD OLD DAYS ARE BACK, EVERYTHING GOES UP: Here's What You Need To Know , 5-18-11 ‘The wheel
of fortune spins again!
But first, the
scoreboard
Dow: +79.29
NASDAQ: +31.76
S&P 500: +11.46
And now, the
top stories:
Floyd Norris
Blog Housing
Starts: Still Dead NORRIS Home
construction is at a new low, and for good reasons. But wouldn't it be nice to
put all those unemployed people to work building something we need? (New York
Times) [ ‘Wouldn’t it be nice’ … Sounds like a Beach Boys song … then there are
tooth fairies, etc.. The very bad news hardly affects the
fraudulent stock market as we saw in the last hour’s trading with suckers’
rally to keep the suckers sucked in. Then of course, there’s reality, which of
course, is not lost on insiders. A storm gathers over equities markets (Reuters) Stock
Market: 4 Current Warning Signs
Navin ‘…
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market.
4) Key market
leaders are rolling over in price... ‘
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar
Rank |
|
||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
Financialization
and Our Increasingly Unstable Economy Roche
'The worst part of it ...Obama, who
vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues
most of the policies that helped get us here in the first place’ ‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for
Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by
the frauds on wall street ( and declares with oscar in hand that not one high
level wall street exec has been prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billions from
the fraud ). UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
| Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
In
Rust Belt, new jobs but smaller wages The nation’s factories have added
250,000 jobs since the beginning of last year — about 13 percent of what
was lost during the recent recession — marking the first sustained increase in
manufacturing employment since 1997. But the new hiring also reflects another
emerging reality of U.S. manufacturing.
In
the Rust Belt, glimmers of a new shine Stocks
erase declines as shares advance (Washington Post) [ Come
on! Wake up! Just another round of pre-election, make-shift,
taxpayer-subsidized talking points. .
24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued …only
time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Bernanke
prepares to make history (WP) [ He already has! $6 gas acomin’..
hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing of fiat paper
currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
ON MAY 1,
2011, JUST MOMENTS BEFORE PRESIDENT OBAMA ANNOUNCED THAT THE US HAD KILLED
OSAMA BIN LADEN, THE WHATREALLYHAPPENED WEBSITE CAME UNDER MASSIVE DISTRIBUTED
DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK. THIS PAGE, WHICH DOCUMENTS THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN
ACTUALLY DIED IN DECEMBER OF 2001, APPEARS TO BE WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DIDN'T
WANT AVAILABLE WHILE THE NEW PROPAGANDA WAS "CATAPULTED FORWARD". IT
IS POSSIBLE THAT THIS IS THE OPENING GAMBIT IN A PLAN TO STAGE A
"REVENGE" ATTACK FROM "AL QAEDA" ON THE UNITED STATES, WITH
WHICH TO JUSTIFY TOTAL WAR ON THE MIDDLE EAST.
Bin Laden's voice was detected regularly until [12-14-01] by
intelligence operatives monitoring radio transmissions in Tora Bora, according
to the Pentagon [details]. Since then,
nothing has been heard from the al-Qa'eda leader ..[Telegraph, 12/28/2001]
Osama bin Laden: A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in
Afghanistan and Pakistan almost 6 mos ago: the fugitive died in December [2001]
and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president,
Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. ..
..Osama bin Laden would not have.. remained silent for so long
if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had
nothing to do with …[NYT 7-11-02]
Fed
sees ‘transitory’ higher inflation: minutes AFP | The Fed
views inflation as only temporary as the economy muddles through a weak
recovery.
Private
Global Bankers = The Priesthood of Modern Western Civilization The
Excavator | “The issue which will have to be fought sooner or later is
the People vs. the Banks.”
Ron
Paul: Sell Fort Knox Gold to Battle Debt NY Sun |
Presidential contender Ron Paul says the next big question on the federal debt
limit could be whether to start selling the government’s gold.
Medvedev
warns West of new Cold War over missile deal AFP | Russia
could enter a new Cold War with the West if agreement is not reached on new
missile defence shield.
450
British troops to withdraw from Afghanistan The Sun | Move
bitterly opposed by military chiefs, who claim it risks throwing away gains
made by British forces.
Rebels:
Gadhafi fighters shell western mountains
Houston Chronicle |
Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi shelled villages and towns.
Drones
Becoming Pervasive INSIDE America Washington’s Post | It’s
not far-fetched to think drones will be used against the American people.
Gentlemen:
I just wanted to extend to you and your company my sincere thanks
for a job well done. The Dell computer I recently purchased from you has lived
up to all your representations and as well, my own expectations. I bought my
first computer from you (Ben) in or around 1999. It was a Sony Vaio laptop
which owing to Windows Millenium and a very proprietary approach to computing
on the part of Sony, truth be told, was not the greatest system in terms of
stability (typical Millenium problems), but no fault of yours. Ultimately,
though functional, I traded the Vaio for a Mac, an accommodation by your
company seldom seen with other companies if at all (3+ years later). You’ve
always stood by your products / service, are available / accessible to field /
handle all questions / problems which is rare indeed. In Armand you have a
top-notch A+ Certified Tech who is patient, knowledgeable, and talented. Ruben,
in truth has been particularly instrumental in seeing to a smooth transition in
my recent dealings with your company as a knowledgeable IT Specialist and
especially as a savvy, capable manager. Since 1999 I’ve purchased five
computers from you and based upon performance, the sixth is assured.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia ) ]
The
Magic Inflation Rate: 5.3%
Elfenbein ‘I downloaded Professor Robert Shiller’s historical stock
market data to see how inflation has impacted stock returns. I had done this
before with data from Ibbotson. Those numbers go back to 1925, but Professor
Shiller’s numbers go back to 1871.
I wanted to
see how the stock market performed at different rates of inflation. I took the
after-inflation total return of each month from 1871 through 2010.
I found that
the magic number is 5.3%. If the annualized inflation rate for the month is
under 5.3%, the stock market has performed very well. But when inflation is
above 5.3%, the market does poorly. It’s pretty amazing how well this
relationship has held up over 140 years. Historically, monthly inflation has
been above 5.3% about one-third of the time.
My
calculations show that when inflation is below 5.3%, the stock market has had
an annualized after-inflation gain of 9.59%. When inflation is above 5.3%, then
stock market has had an annualized loss of 8.15%. Stretched out over 140 years,
that’s a loss of nearly 98%.
(Click chart
to expand) http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/17/saupload_image1112.png ‘
Why
Are Investors Fearful? Here are 19 Answers Khaner
May 17, 2011 ‘It's hold-your-breath time as investors worry about inflation,
housing, the end of QE2, the Mississipi flood and more.
Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
Stocks
slip after three-day rally (Washington Post) [
Top 3 Reasons Markets Tanked with Oil WSCS…
1) Commodities
and Oil got slaughtered. .. widening trade gap.
2) Insiders
finally getting busted.. but what about what large banks, investment banks, and
mortgage companies did to the US economy…these insider trading cases are basically
sideshows…
Fed
official calls for vigilance (WP)
[ Who’s still buying their
b***s***! Much higher prices / inflation’s already here. 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Bernanke
prepares to make history (WP) [ He already has! $6 gas acomin’..
hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing of fiat paper
currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic performance
of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble in U.S.
history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
Pension
plan draws ire of workers Proposal
to raise payroll deductions of federal workers could make public sector work
less attractive.
Diary:
Federal workers are raising the roof Treasury
to tap pensions to fund government (Washington Post) [ Most
people thought this to be beyond the realm of possibility; yet, it’s happening
and far worse is yet to come, their desperation being seen in so many ways. As
far as public sector ‘work’ being less attractive, let’s not forget the fact
that these non-productive, over-paid, over-valued public employees, like those
of the u.s. postal service, are otherwise unemployable, and as such, tend to
favor party-campaign benefactors as, ie., fraudulent wall street, etc.. Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development :
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
…
..Butler|Philbrick & Associates
conducted a study
that combined the Shiller CAPE ratio, the Q-Ratio, long-term price deviations
and total return trends. The following graph from DShort.com
displays 15-year actual stock market returns and projected returns since 1900
..
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-13054033822883-Erik-McCurdy.png
With a couple
of notable exceptions, actual returns have tracked projected returns almost
exactly during the past 110 years. .. this model projects that stocks will
return -0.5% during the next 10 years and 0.6% during the next 15 years..
stocks are likely to produce no gains for the next 15 years. .. However, the
fact remains that stocks are priced to deliver historically poor returns as
investment vehicles for the foreseeable future.
While
valuation-based forecasting models project a poor long-term outlook, chart
analysis and internal data also suggest that the stock market has entered a
period of heightened risk from an intermediate-term perspective. ..
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540340946043-Erik-McCurdy.png
The rally is
now 26 months old and cyclical
bulls that occur during secular bears..
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540342919514-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540344803643-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-13054034630148-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-13054034630148-Erik-McCurdy.png
Finally, our
sentiment score recently declined to the lowest level since late 2007,
reflecting an excessive amount of bullish sentiment that leaves the stock
market vulnerable to an abrupt, violent decline.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540347838945-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
A storm gathers over equities markets (Reuters) Stock
Market: 4 Current Warning Signs
Navin ‘…
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market.
4) Key market
leaders are rolling over in price... ‘
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar
ON MAY 1,
2011, JUST MOMENTS BEFORE PRESIDENT OBAMA ANNOUNCED THAT THE US HAD KILLED
OSAMA BIN LADEN, THE WHATREALLYHAPPENED WEBSITE CAME UNDER MASSIVE DISTRIBUTED
DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK. THIS PAGE, WHICH DOCUMENTS THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN
ACTUALLY DIED IN DECEMBER OF 2001, APPEARS TO BE WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DIDN'T
WANT AVAILABLE WHILE THE NEW PROPAGANDA WAS "CATAPULTED FORWARD". IT
IS POSSIBLE THAT THIS IS THE OPENING GAMBIT IN A PLAN TO STAGE A
"REVENGE" ATTACK FROM "AL QAEDA" ON THE UNITED STATES, WITH
WHICH TO JUSTIFY TOTAL WAR ON THE MIDDLE EAST.
Bin Laden's voice was detected regularly until [12-14-01] by
intelligence operatives monitoring radio transmissions in Tora Bora, according
to the Pentagon [details]. Since then,
nothing has been heard from the al-Qa'eda leader ..[Telegraph, 12/28/2001]
Osama bin Laden: A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in
Afghanistan and Pakistan almost 6 mos ago: the fugitive died in December [2001]
and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president,
Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. ..
..Osama bin Laden would not have.. remained silent for so long
if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had
nothing to do with …[NYT 7-11-02]
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on military
spending than all the nations of the world combined... federal employees /
contractors, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality ( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ).
That perverse field of dreams I’ve previously alluded to, the american
nightmare, if you build / contrive war, they will come. And, they do; seals of
them (among others); and when their ‘tours’ are done, it’s murder inc./contract
killing for hire that they’ve won (cia, mob, etc.). The 20th century, the
‘bloodiest century’, not coincidentally referred to as the american century,
brings longings of nostalgia to american criminals who, like Pavlov’s dogs salivate at the prospect of killing, raping, pillaging, and plundering
which primitive mindset they have mistakenly been conditioned to connect to
their now irretrievably lost success as a nation state; and to the contrary,
has become globally and domestically self-destructive / self-defeating. The
entire 911 / Bin Laden scenario just doesn’t pass the smell test and reeks of
political desperation and Orwellian opportunism.
Strauss-Kahn
sex scandal obscures real IMF story RT | Attention turned
towards the IMF this week, but it didn’t concern the looming economic crisis.
Treasury
to Raid Pensions to Pay for Government Operations Washington Post
| Geithner has warned for months that the government would soon hit the $14.3
trillion debt ceiling.
‘Gaddafi
Least of Our Problems, Try Blair & Bush For War Crimes’ RT
| RT talks to British investigative journalist Tony Gosling about the
intensification of the bombardment of Libya.
Oils
of War: Pentagon Cementing Iraq Footprint? RT | Publicly,
the US says nations must be self-determinate; Behind the scenes there’s more
interference.
Congress
To Vote On Declaration of Worldwide Perpetual War; No Borders, No Clear Enemies
Intel Hub | The legislation authorizes the President to take
unilateral military action against all hostile nations, organizations, and
persons.
For a people
to be free, they must first be honest with themselves, their government, and
the world at large. History is filled with stories of free nations that fell
under the spell cast by their governments who exploited the threat of terror…
1. Rule
by force, not by law: This is where it all begins; when the legal
framework that serves to define a country and its behavior is dismantled and intimidation
tactics take over. In the most extreme case, drone bombings
and assassinations have begun of non-citizens, as well as U.S.
citizens, leading only to a debate over whether U.S. citizens
should be stripped
of citizenship before assassination. Governmental
assassinations are in complete opposition to the laws
of America and all international laws and agreements. In the
last week we have also seen the official
elimination of the 4th Amendment in Indiana, which is a clear
precedent-setting ruling to say that the State now believes that it owns the
property and person of its citizens. As a result, the militarized
police have been granted unlimited access, which will only cause
an escalation in cases of police brutality and misconduct. This is yet
another addition to the precedent set by TSA
groping and sexual harassment in airports, Child Protective
Services kidnapping
children of activists in pro-liberty causes, public school surveillance,
and the lawless detention of activists who videotape
the police. All areas of society are now ruled top-down
through state legislation adopted to justify federal grants that have installed
a police state apparatus in America. And these federal agencies such as
the TSA actually believe they
rule supreme over the states. We now live in a country where
CIA abductions, overseas detention, torture and assassinations can be carried
out against Americans without
due process and without recourse if later cleared.
Consequently, an atmosphere has been created where the government is
permitted to break countless laws, like warrantless GPS tracking of
activists by the FBI, while average citizens are guilty of
pre-crimes. The increase in executive power under the aegis of National
Security is our greatest threat and has led to all that follows.
2. Crushing
peaceful protest: Despite the current
mission to defend protesters living in dictatorships overseas,
when George Bush brought “free speech zones” to America it effectively spelled
the end of peaceful, lawful street protest. Now the full force of
brutality and surveillance has been unleashed upon the very people intent in
stopping it through peaceful means. It is as sure a sign as any about
totalitarian intentions, when anti-war
activists have become one of the targets. The activist is
beginning to equal terrorist in the all-seeing eye of the State, and any street
gathering is a sure sign to let loose all of the riot weapons that were
formerly used against insurgents on foreign battlefields. One look at the
G20
protest in Pittsburgh, a recent Illinois
University event, and the ongoing travesty of the torture
and incarceration of Bradley Manning, and we can begin to see
through the propaganda of White House officials when they talk about terrible
dictators in other nations crushing dissent.
3. Checkpoints:
The slow acclimation of the populace to military-style checkpoints began first
as border
control operations up to 100 miles inland in what the ACLU calls
the Constitution
Free Zone. However, this has rather quickly morphed into
local traffic stops across the country for “unsavory” characters such as those
targeted by the Amber Alert system and DUI checkpoints. Though
apparently well meaning, we are now far beyond even loosely suspected criminal
activity, as VIPR
teams have been introduced to take
over public transportation and events. The TSA tyranny has
hit the streets of America, now forming a de facto internal passport system straight out of the
totalitarian playbook. The expanding checkpoint system dovetails with new
initiatives such as the No
Ride List proposal of Chuck Shumer, building upon the No Fly List
already in place. These no-travel lists are extrajudicial, secret, and
form a guilty-until-proven innocent framework that subverts freedom instead of
protecting it. Incidentally, this element of constant suspicion is
exactly what leads to a citizen spy network.
4. Citizen
spy network: Dictatorships know how difficult it is to rule over large
populations with only the relatively small numbers of military and police.
Despite the lessons of terror created by citizen surveillance that the
East German Stasi files left us to examine, just such a network
has been openly introduced to present-day America — and now it’s even more
high-tech and populated.
Secret black budget projects organized through the NSA like Perfect
Citizen is just one among many. Our head of Homeland
Security, Janet Napolitano — in partnership with retailer Wal-Mart
– kicked off the See
Something, Say Something program, which goes beyond the already
high-tech surveillance apparatus of the NSA and turns each of us into an unpaid
employee of the police state. Similarly, the web of cameras and data
mining is far too massive for even the well-funded NSA, but with gadgets at our
disposal we can now download
apps to enable spying on our neighbors. Most dangerous of
all, though, is new legislation introduced by Peter King that enshrines Janet
Napolitano’s program and would provide
immunity for accusers “acting in good faith” while reporting
suspicious activities. This is guaranteed to lead to false arrests and
disappearances, just as it has on every occasion throughout history when a
society’s fear becomes self-directed.
5.
Executive Orders: This is means by which a dictator can come to power
in the United States, despite a framework of checks and balances. Any
time a country has centralized its power to the executive branch by erasing the
checks and balances of separate legislative and judicial bodies, the result has
been dictatorship. And this normally happens when national security is
“threatened.” The Constitution is clear, however: only the legislature
(Congress) can make laws. Yet, the use of Executive Orders has increased,
beginning with President Clinton who came under fire for his abuse of this
power, becoming one of only two presidents (the other was Truman’s E.O. 12954)
to have an Executive Order struck down by the courts. His
successors seem only to have been
encouraged. Clinton issued 14, George W. issued over 60, and Obama
is at 26 with many more to be expected if he wins a second term. Among the most
egregious of Obama’s orders is the ability to
hold detainees indefinitely even after a court has found them not
guilty. Executive Orders also form the basis for control over regulatory
agencies, which then impose the directives. While it seems multi-layered
with potential checks and balances, all directives can now be issued top-down
in dictatorial fashion.
6. Control
of regulatory agencies: This is the more insidious and, ultimately,
dangerous tactic used by dictatorships. Dictatorship through regulation
invades every
facet of society without relying only upon overt violence.
As mentioned above, only the legislature can make laws. However, the
legislature has created “regulatory bodies” which make de facto laws through “violations” that rob us of
freedom. There is no clearer example at the moment than the FDA, which
has brought in near-total food
control. The FDA is working in concert with a global agenda
being foisted upon us through the Codex
Alimentarius commission in Europe which essentially renders
anything healthy as toxic, and all that is toxic as healthy.
Regulatory agencies in the United States have engendered a system where the corporate-government
revolving door leads to corruption and consolidation — not free markets.
The current regulations are opposed to the principles of freedom and
independence, and favor only those in positions to make money from more
control; so more control and less freedom is what we can expect under these
federal directives controlling the states.
7.
President declares war unilaterally: Despite the parade of
lies that led to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it pales in
comparison with the new war in Libya and other interventions and sanctions
throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Through Executive Orders,
outlined above, the President can declare war so long as there is a resolution
passed by Congress. This has been dispensed with through Obama’s
illegal wars, and it appears that Congress could go even further
by ceding its power completely to the president. The disregard for
Congressional approval is already dictatorial, but if this last step is taken
we will effectively be living in a permanent
state of war tantamount to WWIII that will be controlled at the
sole discretion of the current and future presidents. This unilateral
power to drag nations into war without checks and balances is a hallmark of
dictatorships where entire countries are swept along purely by the ideology of
their leader. As Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell have
stated, “We have a dictatorship when it comes to foreign
policy.” With the latest development, it is actually a dictatorship when
it comes to domestic
policy as well, since America’s espionage network has turned
inward, and this new presidential power would not be limited to overseas
actions.
8. Torture:
Torture has long been a tactic used by America. In fact it runs the
leading school on its methods. The School
of the Americas has been responsible for training Latin American
dictators and their thugs on how to intimidate the local population and rule
with an iron fist. However, the torture debate has hit mainstream media in
a serious discussion about its effectiveness, especially following the
assassination of Osama bin Laden. Aside from the despicable morals
involved, torture
doesn’t work for intelligence gathering, according to
experts. Furthermore, the legalization of torture was what really brought
the dreaded Russian
secret police out into the open. When such a declaration is
made, it is literally a recruiting strategy to find the criminals and sadists
who would love to be part of such a system. Torture is not normal work
for normal people; it is the work of psychopaths such as Dick
Cheney who loves the tactic of waterboarding so much that he has
stated it should be brought back and used more widely. No nation that
uses torture to obtain confessions can be called legitimate. It is only used as
a tool of intimidation and oppression by totalitarian regimes.
9. Forced
labor camps (gulags): This is when we know that a totalitarian society
has arrived in full and our society is run completely by coercion. As Naomi
Wolf has illustrated, “With its jails in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and, of course, Guantánamo in Cuba, where detainees are abused, and kept
indefinitely without trial and without access to the due process of the law,
America certainly has its gulag now.” Additionally, a silent gulag has
already been created inside America, starting with the nation’s prisoners who
are increasingly locked up within a for-profit
prison-industrial system that makes money both on the construction
of prisons as well as the cheap
labor force. The Defense Department itself pays
prisoners 23 cents per hour to build its weapons systems, which is clearly
a type of slave labor. One might immediately argue that there is a huge
difference between real prisoners and innocent people swept off the streets as
they were in Stalinist Russia, for example, or in modern day North Korea and
China. That is to presume, however, that everyone in prison is guilty;
and, if they are, that the crimes which have sent them there really constitute
offenses worthy of prison sentences. America has the world’s
largest prison population and the highest
incarceration rate precisely because nearly everything is a
jail-time crime, and there is money to be made by the growing corporate prison
system. The War on Drugs alone has led to a disproportionate number of
inmates for non-violent offenses among the already 2.4 million in jail and the
5 million on probation. With the economy imploding, even debtors
prisons have made a comeback. Although FEMA camps
are still relegated to fringe conspiracy
theory, we should be wary of the potential endgame for such a
proven system of oppression. Through Continuity
of Government, national emergency directives would openly suspend
the Constitution and could possibly lead once
again to internment camps in America.
10. Control
over all communications (propaganda): Once the physical
framework of dictatorial control has been set up, then the justification for
its continued presence can commence. The type of high-tech control grid
now put into place in The United States to this point has only been explored in
works of fiction such as 1984,
which has led Paul
Craig Roberts to draw a correct parallel. A public emergency
announcement system has in fact been in place since the ’50s, whereby the
president can interrupt television and radio to deliver critical
messages. However, this has been recently expanded as the FCC
voted to mandate (PDF) “the first-ever Presidential alert to be
aired across the United States on the Nation’s Emergency Alert System (EAS),”
Now, with the arrival of the trackable smartphone that can
be hijacked to bring government messages (emergency or not) we
find ourselves “willing” participants in a scenario reaching far beyond 1984. Using the bin Laden assassination and the
threat of guaranteed reprisal, the government has announced that the president
will break into these private networks to carry PLAN
government messages and warnings; and there is no opt-out. At the
same time, we have seen the buildup in rhetoric leading toward Internet
control. As always, an unsavory element of society
(pirating) has been used as one of the pretexts to introduce government control
over private industry, while cybersecurity lays claim to total control over the
infrastructure for national emergencies. Ideologically, Obama advisor,
Cass Sunstein, has proposed a fairness
doctrine for the Internet that would enable a government overlay
on private websites that would offer counter opinions to anti-establishment
content. We are approaching a situation worse
than China, where both mental intrusion via propaganda and
physical intrusion via systems control are merging. It is not comforting
to know, also, that the president made a shocking claim recently that he
can censor unclassified documents. There is clearly a
concerted effort to take over all forms of information, permitting the
government to alter it or censor it before consumption by its citizens.
In any other country we would call this a dictatorship.
It would
appear that the United States should be a called a dictatorship based on the
above criteria. Once the atmosphere is established, average participants need
not be part of a conspiracy, as they tend to unquestioningly go with the flow.
However, we must acknowledge that the U.S. is in a vastly different
position than totalitarian regimes of the past, as well as her contemporaries.
America has a history that is built upon the foundation of resistance to
dictators. This memory needs to be invoked by following the protections outlined
in our founding documents, particularly the power of the states to resist
Federal tyranny. The protections therein can be restored once we have the
courage to admit how much freedom we have lost, then refuse to succumb to a
fear-based perception of reality. Only then will Liberty, Love and Peace
prevail!’
Rank |
|
||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
Stock
Market: 4 Current Warning Signs
Navin ‘No one indicator by itself can be trusted. Many indicators
taken as whole, however, can offer valuable guidance when a clear pattern
develops. Right now, that guidance appears to warn about current conditions.
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16. Although p/e’s can
remain elevated for longer than you would imagine, reversion to the mean
eventually takes place. Such a reversion would knock off almost 40% of
current price. From today’s level, that would put the S&P 500 at
about 800. Some shake their heads when I mention this, but it wasn’t too
many months ago that we just broke above that.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market. Tom
Aspray’s charts demonstrate the unfortunate price patterns of some big
banks. I’ve
mentioned this as well, previously. It’s hard to imagine how much further a
rally can go without support from financials.
4) Key market leaders are rolling over in price.
Take a look at Google (GOOG),
one of the hottest stocks going in the recent rally. It appears to have
peaked in January and is unable to set new highs even as the S&P continued
upward. GOOG’s 50-day
moving average has turned downward and has crossed below the 200-day moving
average. This is a significant change of trend. ‘
AIG
to sell Treasury shares The government soon will begin unloading its 92.1
percent ownership stake in the bailout company. (Washington
Post) [ Who’s the unlucky sucker? Ultimately, a pension fund or two or three,
etc., or maybe you or an equally unlucky member of your family. Stock
market on a roll despite slowing economic growth, lingering
unemployment[Also known as reality! Roll … yes, indeed … everyone’s to get
rolled! ] (WP) Dow is up more than 10 percent for 2011, to its highest
point in nearly three years. [ Same bubble scenario preceeding last crash
(including currency manipulation); yet, far worse this time owing to
insurmountable debt and defacto bankruptcy of the nation. Fed
Chairman Bernanke does reality TV
(WP) [ Except the ‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S. BERNANKE’ show is
scripted unreality … even with his reduction in estimate for ‘economic growth’,
the frauds on wall street still rallied.
Bernanke
prepares to make history (WP) [ He
already has! $6 gas acomin’, $1,508+ gold, $46+ silver, other commodities at
record levels, hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing
of fiat paper currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and then
further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher demand
for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has artificially
subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...
Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a
devastating long-term economic decline’ ]
States
face shortfall for retirees ]
Getting Defensive in Equities, Aggressive in Fixed Income The Simple Accountant ‘In last week’s outlook we
recommended staying with defensive sectors and fixed income, avoiding commodity
related stocks, and waiting for a bounce before selling commodities short.
Let’s have a look at how those tactics worked, and then try to anticipate what
the next week’s trading might look like.
Week in
Review
Stocks: The major US indexes were little changed on
contracting volume. On Friday the SPX (SPY)
closed below the key short term level of 1340, with which it had been flirting
for over a week. S&P sector action showed a third consecutive week of
defensive rotation as investors moved out of commodity linked stocks and into
perceived safety. Healthcare, consumer staples and utilities led the way again,
while the shares of companies leveraged to economic expansion fell. Financials
were the real laggard, dropping more than 2% on weakness in bank stocks.
Although non-bank blue chip stocks like American Express (AXP)
and Travelers (TRV) have been solid, the financial
sector SPDR (XLF) is now down year to date, and
with a meager yield, its total return is none too impressive.
In foreign stock markets, the MSCI EAFE index dropped more than 2% for a second
consecutive week on broad weakness in the UK, Europe and Japan, but emerging
markets fared a little better thanks to support in Shanghai and strength in
smaller Asian markets such as Singapore and Thailand.
Bonds: The run of falling Treasury yields across the curve was finally
broken, as bond trading was a mixed bag last week. Rates at the short and long
end rose, but fell slightly in the middle. TIPs were marked down a little and
corporate issues did nothing much, in either investment grade or junk ratings.
All in all, nothing to make us excited except munis, which have been on a nice
little run since early April. Some of the European bond markets were a bit more
active on the downside, for the obvious reasons, but emerging market bonds
posted modest gains.
Commodities: After heavy losses in the previous week, commodities
found some bids as bargain hunters came in to buy, but trading was volatile.
Gold, silver and oil saw the most action and buying interest, but copper and
the grains continued to extended previous losses, with the former breaking the
200 day MA and the latter sitting just above. If you subscribe to the theory
that copper prices are a leading indicator for the economy, this is worth
noting.
Currencies: The US Dollar index recorded another week of gains,
breaking the 50 day MA to finish at 75.78 at Friday’s close. The euro index
sold off again but remains above the 140 level for now. The Aussie and Canadian
dollars both fell but remain above parity to the greenback at 105.76 and 103.26
respectively. Yen was off slightly.
The Week Ahead
Stocks: With earnings season largely behind us, the market is looking
at the macro picture and getting defensive. Even the normally bullish Ken
Fisher is quoted by Reuters as saying “expectations for the stock market are a
bit on the high side” (contrary to popular belief, Fisher is not a perma-bull
and actually makes some good calls on the market). Certainly there are signals
that have to give us cause for concern:
This is potentially a stagflationary brew, but it has
been with us for some time, and stocks have overcome it to this point. Why
should it be different now? Ken Fisher hit on the concern: we’ve come a long
way since the March 2009 bottom,and many stocks are priced, not for perfection,
but for much less forgiving forward growth expectations. Perhaps it should not
surprise us that defensive sectors are leading the market, as the broader
indexes struggle to make headway.
Last week we said investors need to start adapting to a new market environment
which is likely to be more volatile, and would place a premium on stock
selection, sector rotation and timing. We detailed some of that movement above
in our review of last week: while XLF is down 1% year to date, TRV is up over
12% and AXP more than 16%. To give another example, if you are in stocks
through an index vehicle like SPY, you’re up only 6.5%, but XLV is up 14.5% and
XLP 9.5%.
It may seem like we are cherry picking results like these in hindsight, but the
simple point is this: Whatever method you use, have a plan and hold leading
stocks and sectors that are acting well, and sell those that aren't. This is
particularly important in tax advantaged accounts. Even if you pick up only 2-3
extra points a year net of expenses this will help to build your portfolio in
the long run.
click on all charts to enlarge:
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/220228-130541053554117-The-Simple-Accountant.png
Bonds: So far so good for bond holders. Our analysis for some time has been
that we like what we have bought at attractive yield-on-cost, but it’s getting
quite difficult to find reasonable yield for new money at current prices. Among
popular bond ETFs, a buyer at last week’s closing price would only get around
2.5% in AGG, 3.2% in TLT and 3.5% in LQD. Not very
impressive and difficult to produce an attractive income stream at those rates
so, as with equities, we have been forced to adapt to the market environment.
My strategy going forward in the fixed income portfolio is going to shift to
more active management. We will be adding high yield and preferred securities
but with a very strict sell discipline to preserve capital. Sometimes the
market just makes you work harder for your money.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/220228-130541104590747-The-Simple-Accountant_origin.png
Commodities: We’ve seen a big selloff followed by some developing
support in the hottest commodity sectors. My take on this action is that it’s
still a short term trader’s market, and since that’s not my style, they can go
at it while I stay on the sidelines. For me the real signals are in the
industrial metals: aluminum, copper and steel, and in the grains. Those are
signaling weakness. On a fundamental level commodities are still expensive, and
with signs that near term growth may be slowing, there is room for prices to
fall farther. On a longer term macro level, I have little doubt the price trend
will be up, which is why my strategy as stated last week is not to short
commodities but to look for more attractive prices to go long. We’re not there
yet, not even close.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/220228-130541126175833-The-Simple-Accountant_origin.png
Currencies: We have a developing rally in the US Dollar index with the
close above the 50 day and the recent down trend broken. There is plenty of
skepticism but on both a fundamental and a technical basis it seems to me this
move could have legs. Fundamentally, I have long been a euro skeptic and see
nothing to change my view there - the news only gets worse over time. With
China actively draining excess liquidity and the impending end of QE in the US,
the commodity currencies are early in an overdue correction. Japan is under
pressure to cap the rise in the Yen. With this landscape, we have a reasonable
possibility of a 78 - 82 range for the Dollar index this summer.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/220228-130541158885356-The-Simple-Accountant_origin.png
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and
no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
The STS has
yet to even approach positive territory since the last secular sell signal was
issued in late 1999, suggesting that the start of the next secular bull market
is still several years away. Highly reliable valuation-based models that
forecast future market returns using data such as the Shiller cyclically-adjusted
price-to-earnings (CAPE) ratio confirm the long-term outlook provided by our
STS.
For example,
Adam Butler and Mike Philbrick of Butler|Philbrick
& Associates conducted a study
that combined the Shiller CAPE ratio, the Q-Ratio, long-term price deviations
and total return trends. The following graph from DShort.com
displays 15-year actual stock market returns and projected returns since 1900
using the Butler/Philbrick model.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-13054033822883-Erik-McCurdy.png
With a couple
of notable exceptions, actual returns have tracked projected returns almost
exactly during the past 110 years. Currently, this model projects that stocks
will return -0.5% during the next 10 years and 0.6% during the next 15 years.
In other words, stocks are likely to produce no gains for the next 15 years. Of
course, the stock market is likely to go nowhere in an interesting way,
experiencing violent advances and declines as the secular bear market moves into
the final phase of its development. However, the fact remains that stocks are
priced to deliver historically poor returns as investment vehicles for the
foreseeable future.
While
valuation-based forecasting models project a poor long-term outlook, chart analysis
and internal data also suggest that the stock market has entered a period of
heightened risk from an intermediate-term perspective. The current cyclical
bull market from March 2009 has been an extreme move, resulting in a doubling
of the S&P 500 index during the course of 24 months.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540340946043-Erik-McCurdy.png
The rally is
now 26 months old and cyclical
bulls that occur during secular bears have an average duration of 33
months. The last cyclical uptrend that followed a market crash occurred in 1974
and had a duration of 23 months, so it would not be unusual for the current
advance to terminate during the next few months.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540342919514-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
Additionally,
market internals continue to negatively diverge from price behavior, indicating
that the rally is gradually losing buying support. For example, volume summation
continues to hold near recent lows following the sharp decline in February and
breadth summation has been moving sideways for the past year.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540344803643-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-13054034630148-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-13054034630148-Erik-McCurdy.png
Finally, our
sentiment score recently declined to the lowest level since late 2007,
reflecting an excessive amount of bullish sentiment that leaves the stock
market vulnerable to an abrupt, violent decline.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540347838945-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
Valuation-based
forecasting models leave little doubt that stocks are priced to deliver very
poor long-term returns and the cyclical bull market from 2009 is an extreme
move that will almost certainly be followed by a violent correction. At a
current duration of 26 months, the cyclical uptrend has reached the age range
within which rallies typically end when they occur during secular bear markets
and market internals and sentiment are not supportive of additional gains, so
stocks currently offer a poor risk/reward ratio as both investing and trading
vehicles.’
Market
Outlook: Are We Dealing With Ursa Major or Ursa Minor?
Red
Flags Everywhere Nyaradi ‘Red flags are flying everywhere as we travel farther
into the “sell in May and go away” period of the year.” We remain in a
defensive posture and continue to enjoy unrealized gains in our inverse ETF
positions and put options.
On My
Radar
Volatility was
the name of the game last week and we can expect more ahead as we enter the
seasonally difficult “worst six months of the year” according to the “sell in
May and go away” slogan.
The View
From 35,000 Feet
Lots of
exciting things are going on around us as we head into late spring.
Here’s just a
quick executive summary with my thoughts in parenthesis:
1. United
States will reach its debt ceiling limit on Monday. (This one is
making markets really nervous as witnessed by Friday’s action.) Everyone
expects Congress to raise the ceiling but the Republican and Tea Party
insistence on meaningful budget cuts first puts an unusual level of stress on
this round of talks and turns it into a very high stakes game of chicken.
2. On
Friday it was announced that Medicare and Social Security are in worse shape
than previously thought and will be unable to cover their current obligations
earlier than expected. Medicare is expected to be out of money by
2024, five years earlier than expected, Social Security will exhaust its trust
by 2036 and the disability insurance program will be underwater by 2018. (No
surprises here and this ties back to item #1 as it’s going to get ugly no
matter what Congress does or doesn’t do.)
3. The
commodity selloff continues as the dollar gains. (Much of the recent
rally in commodities and equities was fueled by the Fed easy money policy and
weaker dollar. With QE2 coming to an end and a possibly stronger dollar ahead,
this could be a game changer for “buy the dip” strategies in both asset
classes.)
4. There
has been a significant rotation into “defensive” sectors like utilities and
consumer stocks. (This typically indicates money leaving “risk” assets
and often portends market declines)
As I mentioned
at the outset, “sell in May” is a proven, valid slogan because statistically
the months from the end of October through the end of April, are in fact the
best months of the year for investing while the six months from May through
October are the “worst.”
One of the
best sources of information on this subject comes from my friend, Jeffrey
Hirsch, at “Stock Trader’s
Almanac” where he has developed a trading indicator based on this
seasonality and the historical returns it has generated.
Let’s take a
look at some of “Stock Traders Almanac’s” findings:
Finally for the week, one of the most sobering reports
that received wide coverage in the blogosphere and mainstream media was the
announcement by well known and widely respected analyst Jeremy Grantham who
said that the market is currently 40% overvalued which would relate to 920 on
the S&P 500 and that the current environment was too high risk for a
prudent investor.
Weekly Developments:
Positive: Initial unemployment claims declined, continuing claims were mostly
flat, and Michigan Consumer Sentiment rose to 72.4 from 69.8
Negative: Consumer prices and producer prices both rose substantially, indicating
that inflation might be coming back more into the picture (we have been
expecting this for sometime) and retail sales, although posting a gain, came in
lower than the previous month’s report and below expectations, indicating
ongoing weakness in the all important consumer sector.
What This All Means To You
What this means to us is that risk is running high in
the markets and the chance of a significant correction is relatively high for
the period between here and Halloween. Fundamentals continue to weaken and
technical indicators are flashing red. The reduction of support by Dr. Bernanke
and his colleagues at the Fed is a major factor going forward from here and
could yield significant volatility and downward pressure in equities and
commodities.
The Week Ahead
Major Issues/Themes: Lots of important economic reports will come our way
this week and be potential market movers, but the big thing to pay attention to
is what happens in Congress with the budget negotiations and how markets
respond to those talks and Treasury Secretary Geithner’s “extraordinary”
measures to keep the U.S. from default between now and the early August drop
dead date.
Monday: May Housing Market Index,
Tuesday: April Housing Starts, April Building
Permits, April Industrial Production
Thursday: Initial Unemployment Claims, Continuing
Claims, April Existing Home Sales, May Philadelphia Fed, April Leading
Indicators
Sector Spotlight
Leaders: (NYSEArca: EPU) Peru, (NYSEArca: IBB) Biotech
Laggards: (NYSEArca: TUR) Turkey,
(NYSEArca: EWP) Spain’
IMF
warns EU debt crisis may still spread to core Reuters |
spite bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, Europe’s debt crisis may yet
spread to core euro zone countries.
Medicare,
Social Security Funds Expiring Sooner, U.S. Says Bloomberg
| Medicare and Social Security are running out of money sooner than expected.
Geithner
Predicts Double-Dip if Congress Fails to Lift Debt Ceiling [ How ‘bout the reality of double dip even if
they don’t. Keep in mind, they’ve spent money they don’t have, the
manipulations of themselves for appearances / talking points, etc., have been
detrimental to the economy of themselves. Why should anyone believe them now,
certainly not wobama; after all, we’ve heard this all before, and certainly in
his false campaign promises, breach of which has indeed made the continuing
financial crisis worse. Obama
warns of worse crisis if no debt ceiling rise Reuters |
President Barack Obama warned Congress that failing to raise the U.S. debt
limit could lead to a worse financial crisis.
IMF
warns EU debt crisis may still spread to core Reuters |
spite bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, Europe’s debt crisis may yet
spread to core euro zone countries.]
MF
chief jailed without bail in NY hotel-sex case (AP) AP - Haggard and unshaven after a weekend in
jail, the chief of the International Monetary Fund was denied release on bail
Monday on charges of trying to rape a hotel maid as allegations of other,
similar attacks by Dominique Strauss-Kahn began to spill out. US
hits credit limit, setting up 11-week fight (AP)
[$$] Troubling Action Collins ‘It may only be one day during a week or during a
month, but today didn't have a good feel to it. Dollar weakness brought no
money into the usual names. Equities, oil, silver -- they all sold off hard,
even as the dollar failed to gain any traction today. This wasn't a rotation.
It was an evacuation. If today wasn't bad enough, after the bell, internal
notes from Hewlett Packard seem to indicate that another tough quarter is on
the way. The closing number on the SPDR S&P 500 held the very level of
support keeping me from being much more bearish. The HPQ drop after the bell
has dragged the SPY below the $133 level. Still, I believe we have to watch the
action tomorrow along with the closing value. It is quite possible the U.S.
reaching its debt limit today prompted some selling...’
Gold
demand strong; predicted prices around $2000 Dubai Chronicle
| Physical demand for gold has raised in the Far East and Asia.
IMF
warns EU debt crisis may still spread to core Reuters |
spite bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, Europe’s debt crisis may yet
spread to core euro zone countries.
Top 3 Reasons Markets were Down as US Debt Ceiling Reached Wall St.Cheat
Sheet ‘Markets closed down on Wall Street: DJI -0.38% SP500 -0.62% Nasdaq
-1.63% Gold -0.25% Oil -2.62% .
Markets
started the day down, climbed back, and as soon as the Nasdaq (NASDAQ:QQQ) got to par traders sold the remainder of the
day. On the commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) had the same pattern as it kissed $99 a barrel
then sold off to $97. Gold (NYSE:GLD) ended the day below $1,500 an ounce, and
Silver (NYSE:SLV) got slammed over 4% after rising over 3% last
Friday. Is
Silver a Bubble Bursting Now?
Fresh Off
the Press: Wall St. Cheat Sheet’s newest Feature Trades of the Month>>
Today’s
markets were down because:
1) IMF Chief
Abuses Position. Dominique Strauss-Kahn is facing 7 counts of sexual assault
related crimes. Since the man is completely replaceable, we’re not sure why
this should matter to markets. Regardless, the juicy tabloid-style news sparked
lots of hot air about what will happen to the EU’s handling of the debt crisis.
We’re sure they’ll get on fine without ole’ Strauss-Kahn.
2) Tech picked
up where it left off on Friday. Clearly, the bubblicious activity in Silicon
Valley is cooling a bit. Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) got taken to the shed again — down 4.4% — and
fell below the technical $16 mark. Investors are still shocked about the lack
of control and awareness regarding major Yahoo assets such as Alibaba. This
means people are scared there’s more roaches in the hotel. But Indian internet
company Rediff.com (NASDAQ:REDF) has it worse. The company was down over 20%
today. Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), AOL (NYSE:AOL), Sohu (NASDAQ:SOHU), and IACI (NASDAQ:IACI) all got slammed as well as it seems traders
are working a “short internet” strategy. At least Wall St. Cheat Sheet expert
contributor (and Board member) Larry
Kramer has some great ideas how Yahoo can preserve their audience and increase
cash flow.
3) The US has
hit the debt limit. US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner rang the death knell
this morning as the
US officially crashed into the legal debt ceiling. Maybe that’s China (NYSE:FXI) has been dumping
US Treasuries 5 straight months. Should we be scared? Forbes editor John
Tamny gave Wall St. Cheat Sheet an exclusive first look at why
irony is dripping from Geithner’s “Economic Catastrophe” rationale for raising
the debt ceiling.
Larry
Kramer has some great ideas how Yahoo can preserve their audience and increase
cash flow. ‘Larry Kramer is the Founder and Former CEO of CBS
Marketwatch.com. He was the first president of CBS Digital (NYSE:CBS)
and sits on the Boards of Discovery Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:DISCA),
American Media Inc., Freedom Communications, Inc., Answers Corp., Black Arrow
Inc., and Harvard Business School Publishing. He is the author of the book C-Scape: Conquer the Forces Changing Business Today
and runs a blog
by the same name.
Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO)
is 17 years old, and like any teenage it’s having an identity crisis. It used
to be a tech company, dominated by engineers who won the Portal Wars,
ultimately defeating AOL (NYSE:AOL),
Excite and wounding MSN (NASDAQ:MSFT).
Because it was a cool company and one that gave new-to-the-internet users (that
was all of us, at the time) the best overall experience, it triumphed.
Its success
happened because it was the best experience on the web, and for many years kept
surprising its users with new and interesting things to do online.
But along the
way, like many kids its age, it got diverted from its mission of pleasing its
users. This happened for a number of reasons. Competition grew and while Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO)
got comfortable in its business model as an aggregator of content, deriving
revenue streams from partners, it left behind that commitment to give users
exactly what they want. Instead, it gave them what the highest paying partners
were willing to give them. So when consumers got more sophisticated about what
content they wanted, and how they used digital platforms, competitors popped up
and started picking them off.
In search and
email, along came Google (NASDAQ:GOOG).
In social media, along came Facebook. In music, first came My Space then came
ITunes (NASDAQ:AAPL).
In news and information categories, hundreds of existing and new businesses got
better on the web.
There is an
interesting post about Google by Matt Rossoff on Business Insider this morning that is a perfect backdrop
for this post. It’s thesis is that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)
needs to hire some Liberal Arts Majors before it hires any more engineers.
“Engineers are
great at solving problems,” the post reads. “But they’re not always so great at
figuring out which problems to solve.”
Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO)
has figured out that Content has become king on the Internet and across digital
platforms, but it still hasn’t figured out what it has to do to become a great
content company. It is still a company run by engineers. In fact, after an
ultimately less-than-successful CEO reign by Hollywood Mogul Terry Semple,
Yahoo saw the engineers come back and take an even stronger hold on the
company. Actually, the engineers never really let go. Even when content people
were hired with large promise, control of the key pages on Yahoo was kept in
the hands of engineers.
To be sure,
even though the next CEO, Carol Bartz, came from the technology industry, she fairly
quickly decided the company had fallen too far behind in technology in several
areas to compete and wisely announced that Yahoo was now a “content company.”
It then did begin to spend some serious money to build its own content. It has
built some strong franchises in Yahoo Finance and Sports, for example.
But the
company hasn’t really taken the plunge. For it to be a content business,
content people have to run the company. The business has to be obsessed with
what it’s consumers want and be able to give them that and much more. In fact
then need to give them things that they didn’t know they wanted. Content
consumers ultimately need to be surprised and fully expect their sources of
information to be smarter than they are about the topics they are reading or
viewing.
Content
businesses need an editorial intelligence, and personality, built and
maintained by a strong team of creative people, whether they are called editors
or producers, they need to be obsessed by giving their readers everything they
want and much, much more. They need to live for delighting their customers. And
they need to include the CEO or someone reporting directly to the CEO.
No one reads a
magazine, or goes to a play or movie, expecting to see exactly what they want
to see. They expect to be surprised, entertained or even educated. The
brilliance of a great content company, whether it’s The New
York Times (NYSE:NYT)
or Warner Bros. or Harper Collins or The Harvard Business Review or Conde Nast,
is that it cultivates and rewards people who can figure out what is about to
become interesting before its audience knows. It does that by giving creative
people the time and rope, and even the ability to fail, en route to creating
great content, whether it’s explanatory journalism or a moving and entertaining
movie, TV show or Magazine article.
Those creative
types, as difficult to understand and to manage as they are, are the secret
sauce. They need to permeate to process. Great engineers will be needed to
create great tools, sites, apps and many other aspects of what makes a media
company great in the future. But they must work arm in arm with the creative
content people who are defining the brand and who understand the needs of their
consumers.
A great
example is the recent launch of News Corp’s (NASDAQ:NWSA)
IPad news product, “The Daily.” Despite the fact that the company has done
exactly the right thing by creating a content company to specifically exploit a
new medium (the tablet), the initial product was designed largely by engineers
before the first journalists were brought on board — because people didn’t want
to hire reporters and editors before they had any place to put their content.
Then, when the journalists got there, the technological underpinning of the
product was about done and guess what, it was over-engineered and wasn’t the
least bit user friendly. The engineers built a product from specs so it would
take advantage the new platform, but no one spent enough time thinking about
how the audience would actually want or use the information.
As the product
matures and as the technology of tablets improves, The Daily could grow an
awesome audience. But it has to go through some difficult transitions. It might
even find that there is a large audience for its content on other digital
platforms and broaden its distribution. But that’s OK, it’s one of the first
native digital news products in existence and it has a real chance to learn to
be great before it’s caught.
Back to Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO),
it’s hard to say from the outside if it’s too late to save. But they still
something that is very hard to build from scratch: a huge audience and some
real cash flow. They could finance a real run at becoming the next generation
media company. It’s still an easier path for them to go that way than for an
existing media player to go heavily digital, because those companies don’t want
to risk the huge revenue streams they already have from existing distribution,
whether that’s print, video or audio. But the future is in the combination of
the three on to the digital platform and there appears to still be room for
some new winners. Are We Entering the Golden Era of Media?>>
Larry Kramer is the Founder and Former CEO of CBS
Marketwatch.com. He was the first president of CBS Digital (NYSE:CBS)
and sits on the Boards of Discovery Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:DISCA),
American Media Inc., Freedom Communications, Inc., Answers Corp., Black Arrow
Inc., and Harvard Business School Publishing. He is the author of the book C-Scape: Conquer the Forces Changing Business Today
and runs a blog
by the same name’
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. . According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and
2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...'
Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current
debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country
that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn
(entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing
about this (and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and
talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to
"fix" this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn
on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a
Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ .
Wall Street's second weekly fall raises fear of retreat (Reuters)
Stocks ended a second week of losses on a down note Friday, reflecting
growing worries that stocks are on the precipice of a pullback. [ Fear?
Worries? How ‘bout realities … the ones the insiders already know … Stock
Market: 4 Current Warning Signs
Navin ‘No one indicator by itself can be trusted. Many indicators
taken as whole, however, can offer valuable guidance when a clear pattern
develops. Right now, that guidance appears to warn about current conditions.
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16. Although p/e’s can
remain elevated for longer than you would imagine, reversion to the mean
eventually takes place. Such a reversion would knock off almost 40% of
current price. From today’s level, that would put the S&P 500 at
about 800. Some shake their heads when I mention this, but it wasn’t too
many months ago that we just broke above that.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market. Tom
Aspray’s charts demonstrate the unfortunate price patterns of some big
banks. I’ve
mentioned this as well, previously. It’s hard to imagine how much further a
rally can go without support from financials.
4) Key market
leaders are rolling over in price. This is a significant change of
trend. ‘ Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
Stocks
slip after three-day rally (Washington Post) [
Top 3 Reasons Markets Tanked with Oil WSCS‘DJI -1.02% SP500 -1.11% Nasdaq -0.93%
Gold -0.82% Oil -4.63% at $98.88.
Gold sold off ..Silver lost over 8%.
1) Commodities
and Oil got slaughtered. .. widening trade gap.
2) Insiders finally
getting busted... 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. ]
Pay
credit cards or mortgage? (Washington Post) [ How ‘bout none of the above! That’s certainly a coming reality
if not already there. Things are far worse than reported and the worst yet to
come.] As Americans unload more than
$100 billion in debt leftover from the heady days of the economic boom, many
households face a daunting question. Wall Street's second weekly fall raises fear of retreat (Reuters) Stocks
ended a second week of losses on a down note Friday, reflecting growing worries
that stocks are on the precipice of a pullback. [ Fear? Worries? How ‘bout
realities … the ones the insiders already know … Navin (see infra) ‘…1) The
5-year high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565
sells for every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to
be selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart…’
28
Statistics About The Gutting Of The U.S. Economy That Will Blow Your Mind ‘Red alert! Over 40 billion dollars of
America’s national wealth is being shipped out of the country every single
month. Our economy is being gutted and we are bleeding wealth and we are
bleeding jobs. The
American Dream 5-11-11
Red alert! Over 40 billion
dollars of America’s national wealth is being shipped out of the country every
single month. Our economy is being gutted and we are bleeding wealth and
we are bleeding jobs. This is a distress call. Is anyone
listening? Thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs are being
shipped overseas. Over the past decade over 6 trillion dollars have been
transferred into the hands of foreigners. Our national government is so
broke that they constantly have to go and beg those foreigners to lend us back
some of that money in order to finance our exploding debt. The number of good
jobs continues to decline and there are millions upon millions of my countrymen
that are unemployed. Can anybody help us? Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!Sadly,
the vast majority of Americans really are dead asleep on this issue... ‘ Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
Stocks
slip after three-day rally (Washington Post) [
Top 3 Reasons Markets Tanked with Oil
1) Commodities
and Oil got slaughtered. .. widening trade gap.
2) Insiders
finally getting busted.. but what about what large banks, investment banks, and
mortgage companies did to the US economy…these insider trading cases are
basically sideshows…
24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. ]
Rank |
|
||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
Financialization
and Our Increasingly Unstable Economy Roche
'The worst part of it ...Obama, who
vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues
most of the policies that helped get us here in the first place’ ‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for
Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by
the frauds on wall street ( and declares with oscar in hand that not one high
level wall street exec has been prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from
the fraud ). UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
| Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
In
Greece, austerity and discontent
Anarchist movement is resurgent as the nation’s financial woes kindle
deep frustration and threaten a breakdown in the rule of law. (Washington
Post) [ Coming to a state near you
… Greece
launches massive fire sale to service growing debt as riot police clash with
violent protesters A general strike held today has seen most public
services grind to a halt across the country, while thousands marched through
Athens to protest against harsh austerity measures. Stock
Market: 4 Current Warning Signs
Navin ‘No one indicator by itself can be trusted. Many indicators
taken as whole, however, can offer valuable guidance when a clear pattern
develops. Right now, that guidance appears to warn about current conditions.
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16. Although p/e’s can
remain elevated for longer than you would imagine, reversion to the mean
eventually takes place. Such a reversion would knock off almost 40% of
current price. From today’s level, that would put the S&P 500 at
about 800. Some shake their heads when I mention this, but it wasn’t too
many months ago that we just broke above that.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market. Tom
Aspray’s charts demonstrate the unfortunate price patterns of some big
banks. I’ve
mentioned this as well, previously. It’s hard to imagine how much further a
rally can go without support from financials.
4)
Key market leaders are rolling over in price. Take a look at Google (GOOG),
one of the hottest stocks going in the recent rally. It appears to have
peaked in January and is unable to set new highs even as the S&P continued
upward. GOOG’s 50-day
moving average has turned downward and has crossed below the 200-day moving
average. This is a significant change of trend. ‘ ]
ON MAY 1,
2011, JUST MOMENTS BEFORE PRESIDENT OBAMA ANNOUNCED THAT THE US HAD KILLED
OSAMA BIN LADEN, THE WHATREALLYHAPPENED WEBSITE CAME UNDER MASSIVE DISTRIBUTED
DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK. THIS PAGE, WHICH DOCUMENTS THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN
ACTUALLY DIED IN DECEMBER OF 2001, APPEARS TO BE WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DIDN'T
WANT AVAILABLE WHILE THE NEW PROPAGANDA WAS "CATAPULTED FORWARD". IT
IS POSSIBLE THAT THIS IS THE OPENING GAMBIT IN A PLAN TO STAGE A
"REVENGE" ATTACK FROM "AL QAEDA" ON THE UNITED STATES, WITH
WHICH TO JUSTIFY TOTAL WAR ON THE MIDDLE EAST.
Bin Laden's voice was detected regularly until [14 December
2001] by intelligence operatives monitoring radio transmissions in Tora Bora,
according to the Pentagon [details]. Since then,
nothing has been heard from the al-Qa'eda leader and President Bush has hinted
in private that bin Laden's silence could mean he has been killed. [Telegraph, 12/28/2001]
Osama bin Laden: A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in
Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December
[2001] and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's
president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama's
gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama's ghost alive or
because they have no means of communication.
With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not
have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He
always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he
remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival? [New York Times. July 11, 2002]
Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful
death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who
allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader.
Bin Laden has often been reported to be in poor health. Some
accounts claim that he is suffering from Hepatitis C, and can expect to live
for only two more years. According to Le Figaro, last year [2000] he ordered a
mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to his base at Kandahar in Afghanistan.
[Guardian]
Peter Bergen: Bin Laden has aged 'enormously'
This is a man who was clearly not well. I mean, as you see from
these pictures here, he's really, by December [2001] he's looking pretty
terrible…’ ]
Oils
of War: Pentagon Cementing Iraq Footprint? RT | Publicly,
the US says nations must be self-determinate; Behind the scenes there’s more
interference.
Congress
To Vote On Declaration of Worldwide Perpetual War; No Borders, No Clear Enemies
Intel Hub | The legislation authorizes the President to take
unilateral military action against all hostile nations, organizations, and
persons.
Disney
Trademarks “Seal Team 6″ Fishbowl Ny | It is a
perfect example of a big media company capitalizing on curent events.
Fukushima Daiichi
plant worker dies NHK | A worker at the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant fell unconscious at work on Saturday.
Stock
Market: 4 Current Warning Signs
Navin ‘No one indicator by itself can be trusted. Many indicators
taken as whole, however, can offer valuable guidance when a clear pattern
develops. Right now, that guidance appears to warn about current conditions.
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16. Although p/e’s can
remain elevated for longer than you would imagine, reversion to the mean
eventually takes place. Such a reversion would knock off almost 40% of
current price. From today’s level, that would put the S&P 500 at
about 800. Some shake their heads when I mention this, but it wasn’t too
many months ago that we just broke above that.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market. Tom
Aspray’s charts demonstrate the unfortunate price patterns of some big
banks. I’ve
mentioned this as well, previously. It’s hard to imagine how much further a
rally can go without support from financials.
4) Key market leaders are rolling over in price.
Take a look at Google (GOOG),
one of the hottest stocks going in the recent rally. It appears to have
peaked in January and is unable to set new highs even as the S&P continued
upward. GOOG’s 50-day
moving average has turned downward and has crossed below the 200-day moving
average. This is a significant change of trend. ‘
AIG
to sell Treasury shares The government soon will begin unloading its 92.1
percent ownership stake in the bailout company. (Washington
Post) [ Who’s the unlucky sucker? Ultimately, a pension fund or two or three,
etc., or maybe you or an equally unlucky member of your family. Stock
market on a roll despite slowing economic growth, lingering
unemployment[Also known as reality! Roll … yes, indeed … everyone’s to get
rolled! ] (WP) Dow is up more than 10 percent for 2011, to its highest
point in nearly three years. [ Same bubble scenario preceeding last crash
(including currency manipulation); yet, far worse this time owing to
insurmountable debt and defacto bankruptcy of the nation. Fed
Chairman Bernanke does reality TV
(WP) [ Except the ‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S. BERNANKE’ show is
scripted unreality … even with his reduction in estimate for ‘economic growth’,
the frauds on wall street still rallied.
Bernanke
prepares to make history (WP) [ He
already has! $6 gas acomin’, $1,508+ gold, $46+ silver, other commodities at
record levels, hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing
of fiat paper currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...
Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a
devastating long-term economic decline’ ]
States
face shortfall for retirees ]
Hedge
Funds Chasing Bubbles vs. Fundamentals
Goldman ‘Start with basics: the central banks can huff and puff all they
want, but if credit doesn’t get out to private borrowers, the result is more
deflationary than inflationary. Devaluing the dollar, to be sure, reprices
tradeables on a one-shot basis, but that can only go on so long. When it looks
like the dollar is getting about as cheap as it’s likely to, you get a pullback
in the price of dollar hedges.
We are seeing
a decline in government borrowing (due to the collapse of the muni market) and
a decline in government spending in the US, and probably will get more as the
Republicans force the issue on Obama. Housing prices remain in free fall.
One difference
between this recovery and the last few recoveries is that the banks, rather
than using their deep pockets to lead the way back into risk, have retreated
from risk, under the regulatory whip. Bank prop trading desks used to be the
bellwether of risk-taking. They don’t exist any more. Banks don’t care if their
ROE is miserable as long as it’s stable. All of bank asset-liability management
these days is directed to reducing volatility of earnings. In effect, the banks
have been socialized and are acting like (still overpaid) public monopolies.
The orphaned
prop traders have all gone to hedge funds, or to the beach. What are the hedge
funds supposed to buy? There’s little issuance of private securities for them
to play with. Gone are the days when mortgage-backed securities made fortunes
for traders. That leaves the hedge funds to chase whatever trend appears
underway–which is why commodity prices are nuttily volatile. You’re supposed to
own commodity stocks that feed into Asian demand, which will continue to grow.
China is doing just fine, as I argued on Larry Kudlow’s CNBC show
Tuesday night. Don’t try to out-trade the hedge funds. They can’t out-trade
each other.
Stocks will be
choppy as the dollar effect wears off. If the dollar goes up a bit, stocks may
give some ground. Below is a chart (click to enlarge) of the S&P
vs. the trade-weighted dollar index during the past two years, which I’ve run
before. Here it is again as a reminder.
S&P
500 vs Trade-Weighted Dollar, Past 2 Years of Daily Data
The Week Ahead: Volatility Is Not Your Friend Aspray ‘The odds are
against stocks making a sustained comeback in the short term. Unless you’re an
intra-day trader, the best advice is to hold on for the ride and make sure
protective stops are in place.
The rollercoaster
ride continued last week in both the stock and commodity markets—if you’re
keeping track, the S&P 500 was up three days and down two.
The commodity
markets were also very choppy, and there are some worrisome signs in the energy
patch. The Energy Select Spyder (XLE) and many of the biggest oil companies, including ExxonMobil
(XOM), Chevron (CVZ) and Schlumberger (SLB) have completed top formations. (For full technical
appraisal, please see Big Oil’s Big Top.)
It looks as
though my view is at odds with the big hedge funds, as The Wall Street
Journal reported on Friday that several of the largest hedge-fund managers
were bullish on the energy sector.
With Friday’s
sharply lower close, the stock market is in a precarious position for the short
term, and the odds now favor further selling this week. This high volatility is
not an investor or a swing trader’s friend, but those who trade intra-day may
be having a good time.
The number of
bulls according to the AAII sentiment numbers continues to decline, and is now
at 30%, not far above last summer’s lows. For specific price levels to watch,
see below.
The economic
numbers met analysts’ expectations, but next week the economic calendar is much
more crowded. On Tuesday, we’ll have the latest reading on housing starts,
along with industrial production numbers for April. FOMC minutes will be
released on Wednesday, while Thursday brings existing home sales and jobless
claims.
The storm clouds
seem to be again darkening in Europe, a year after the $158-billion bailout
plan for Greece was announced. Now France and Germany are apparently lobbying
for a debt extension, though the ECB is not convinced this is a good idea. The
downgrade of Greece’s debt did not help the situation.
China’s consumer
prices were a bit lower in April, after setting a record in March, while the
trade surplus was much greater than expected. There were signs that the
tightening was having some impact, as monthly iron ore imports dropped 11%.
Even more dramatic was copper, as it dropped 14% from March, and is now down
40% from last year.
As I warned last
week, many of the emerging markets had fallen back to support, and the
violation of the recent lows makes a further decline likely. The stronger
dollar is a negative for these markets.
WHAT TO
WATCH
The sharp decline last Wednesday set the stage for heavier selling on Thursday
and I suggested to “Fasten Your Seatbelts.” Thursday’s rebound was encouraging,
but the bears again took over Friday, as early gains were met with heavy
selling and the major averages closed lower.
The new highs by
both the NYSE Composite and the S&P 500 A/D line in early May are positive
for the intermediate-term trend. A break of the May 5 lows in the major
averages, which now looks likely, will signal a decline to stronger support.
S&P
500
The Spyder Trust (SPY) hit Thursday’s high at $135.36 early Friday before
turning lower. On a short-term basis, the key support is at $133.02. A break of
this level will indicate a decline to the $131.70 to $132.40 range, if not the
support from the April lows at $130.40 to $129.50 (line a).
The SPY has
initial resistance at $135.36, but needs a daily close above $136.11 to signal
a move to the $138.50 to $140 area.
The S&P 500’s
A/D line made a new high on May 10 (line b), consistent with a positive
intermediate trend. The weak A/D numbers Friday have taken the A/D line back to
its uptrend (line c). Even slightly negative A/D numbers Monday will cause a
break of this uptrend, with longer-term support at line d.
http://www.moneyshow.com/image.asp?imgSrc=Investing/Guru/guru051311_1_large.gif&aid=GURU-23095&scode=021551
Click to Enlarge
Dow
Industrials
The chart of the Diamonds Trust (DIA) is very similar to that of the S&P 500. Key
short-term support for DIA now sits at $125, not far above Friday’s close. A
break of this level will signal a decline to between $122.60 and $123. The
major supports are at $120.65 and the April low.
Initial resistance
stands at $127.16, with further levels at last week’s high of $127.67.
Dow
Transportations
The Dow Transportation Index led the charge into early May, but after a strong
close last Tuesday reversed course to close near the lows. The previous lows at
5,368, from May 5, were exceeded by a few points Friday.
The 38.2%
retracement support is at 5,313, with the 50% support at 5,235.
Nasdaq-100
The PowerShares QQQ Trust (QQQ)
has stayed in a tight range since the early May highs at $59.34 (line e). QQQ
was actually up last week, barely, so the tech sector could lead the market
once the current correction is over.
There is initial
support at $58.24 to $58.09. There is additional support at $57.70, with
stronger at $56.50 to $57 and the uptrend (line f).
The Nasdaq-100
A/D line made convincing new highs in early May (line g), and is still well
above its uptrend (line h). The March and April highs in the A/D line need to
hold if the uptrend is broken.
Russell
2000
The iShares Russell 2000 Trust (IWM) continues to act weak as its A/D line failed to make
new highs in early May. This divergence is a short-term negative.
There is first
support at the commodity-crash lows of $82.40, with more important levels at
$81.40 and the longer-term uptrend. A close above the recent highs at $85.54
would improve the short-term outlook.
Sector
Focus
Oil
The July crude-oil contract is trying to hold above the low of $95.18, which if
broken could set the stage for a drop to the $90 to $92 area. The wide trading
range I expected last week is still the most likely scenario, as last week’s
rally failed just above $105.
http://www.moneyshow.com/investing/article/1/guru-23095/The-Week-Ahead:-Volatility-Is-Not-Your-Friend/?aid=guru-23095&iid=GURU&page=2&scode=021551#
Click to Enlarge
US Dollar
The US dollar was the big story last week as the dollar index and the PowerShares
DB US Dollar UP ETF (UUP) rallied sharply on heavy volume.
The daily downtrend for UUP (line a) is at $22.38,
with additional resistance in the $22.80 to $23.20 area. This level could limit
the upside over the next few weeks.
There is initial support now at $21.40 to $21.20 and
the rising 20-period EMA. The OBV has not yet broken its downtrend (line b),
but the volume has been strong over the past two weeks.
Interest Rates
There were quite a few developments in the bond market, as the rush into bonds
has been overwhelming. Here are a few highlights:
In terms of the ten-year Treasury yield, those who
were expecting higher rates and sold the ten-year short have been hurt over the
past month, as yields have dropped from 3.62% to 3.13% this week.
This decline broke the uptrend (line c) and has taken
yields close to its flat 200-day MA. The 50-day MA is still above the 200-day,
which is positive, and the intermediate trend for yields still appears to be
up.
Gold
The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) hit a low Friday of $144.29, which was well above the
prior week’s low of $142.55. GLD could be forming a short-term bottom.
There is initial resistance at $147.35 and a close
above $148.50 should signal a test of the $150.50 level.
Silver
The iShares Silver Trust (SLV) broke convincingly through the previous lows at
$33.58, and hit $31.97 before bouncing. It held above the 50% support level of
$31.30.
Continued volatility is to be expected in silver,
with the first resistance now at $36.50, and those who are short are likely
using stops above $38.50.
The Week Ahead
Last week’s rally failure in the stock market likely means a deeper correction
is underway. The S&P 500 needs two consecutively strong closes to turn the
market’s momentum positive.
The breakdowns in the financial sector and toppy
action in many of the big oil companies are likely to weigh down the major
averages. The decline should set that stage for higher prices down the road.
As I have been recommending for several weeks, this
is a good time to raise some cash—and be sure to have stops in place on your
long positions.
Those not in the stock market could consider a
dollar-cost averaging strategy, so that by later in the summer your desired
allocation to the stock market is established. Any new buying of individual
stocks or ETFs should wait until the market stabilizes and there is lower
volatility.’
Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
Stocks
slip after three-day rally (Washington Post) [
Top 3 Reasons Markets Tanked with Oil WSCS‘DJI -1.02% SP500 -1.11% Nasdaq -0.93%
Gold -0.82% Oil -4.63% at $98.88.
Gold sold off ..Silver lost over 8%.
1) Commodities
and Oil got slaughtered. .. widening trade gap.
2) Insiders
finally getting busted.. but what about what large banks, investment banks, and
mortgage companies did to the US economy…these insider trading cases are
basically sideshows…
Fed
official calls for vigilance (WP)
[ Who’s still buying their
b***s***! Much higher prices / inflation’s already here. 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Bernanke
prepares to make history (WP) [ He already has! $6 gas acomin’..
hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing of fiat paper
currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
New
Yorkers under 30 flee city because of high taxes and few jobs NY
Daily News | Escape from New York is not just a movie — it’s also a
state of mind.
IMF
warns EU debt crisis may still spread to core Reuters |
Europe’s debt crisis may yet spread to core euro zone countries and emerging
Eastern Europe.
Treasury
Auctions To Take US Over Debt Ceiling On Monday Dow Jones News
| The Treasury Department auctioned $56 billion in new debt this week.
ON MAY 1,
2011, JUST MOMENTS BEFORE PRESIDENT OBAMA ANNOUNCED THAT THE US HAD KILLED
OSAMA BIN LADEN, THE WHATREALLYHAPPENED WEBSITE CAME UNDER MASSIVE DISTRIBUTED
DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK. THIS PAGE, WHICH DOCUMENTS THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN
ACTUALLY DIED IN DECEMBER OF 2001, APPEARS TO BE WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DIDN'T WANT
AVAILABLE WHILE THE NEW PROPAGANDA WAS "CATAPULTED FORWARD". IT IS
POSSIBLE THAT THIS IS THE OPENING GAMBIT IN A PLAN TO STAGE A
"REVENGE" ATTACK FROM "AL QAEDA" ON THE UNITED STATES, WITH
WHICH TO JUSTIFY TOTAL WAR ON THE MIDDLE EAST.
Bin Laden's voice was detected regularly until [14 December
2001] by intelligence operatives monitoring radio transmissions in Tora Bora,
according to the Pentagon [details]. Since then,
nothing has been heard from the al-Qa'eda leader and President Bush has hinted
in private that bin Laden's silence could mean he has been killed. [Telegraph, 12/28/2001]
Osama bin Laden: A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in
Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December
[2001] and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's
president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama's
gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama's ghost alive or
because they have no means of communication.
With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not
have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He
always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he
remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival? [New York Times. July 11, 2002]
Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful
death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who
allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader.
Bin Laden has often been reported to be in poor health. Some
accounts claim that he is suffering from Hepatitis C, and can expect to live
for only two more years. According to Le Figaro, last year [2000] he ordered a
mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to his base at Kandahar in Afghanistan.
[Guardian]
Peter Bergen: Bin Laden has aged 'enormously'
This is a man who was clearly not well. I mean, as you see from
these pictures here, he's really, by December [2001] he's looking pretty
terrible.
But
by December, of course, that tape that was aired then, he's barely moving the
left side of his body. So he's clearly got diabetes. He has low blood pressure.
He's got a wound in his foot. He's apparently got dialysis ... for kidney problems.
[CNN]
The [December 27, 2001 video] was dismissed by the Bush
administration ... as sick propaganda possibly designed to mask the fact the
al-Qa'eda leader was already dead. "He could have made the video and then
ordered that it be released in the event of his death," said one White
House aide. [Telegraph]
Pakistan's Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead
Pakistan's
president says he thinks Osama bin Laden is most likely dead because the
suspected terrorist has been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease.
[A
Bush administration official] said U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs
dialysis every three days and "it is fairly obvious that that could be an
issue when you are running from place to place, and facing the idea of needing
to generate electricity in a mountain hideout." [CNN]
Renal dialysis -- talking about hemodialysis -- is something
that really is reserved for patients in end-stage renal failure. That means
their kidneys have just completely shut down. The most common cause of
something like that would be something like diabetes and hypertension. Once
that's happened, if you're separated from your dialysis machine -- and
incidentally, dialysis machines require electricity, they're going to require
clean water, they're going to require a sterile setting -- infection is a huge
risk with that. If you don't have all those things and a functioning dialysis
machine, it's unlikely that you'd survive beyond several days or a week at the
most. [CNN]
Karzai: bin Laden 'probably' dead
Osama
bin Laden is "probably" dead, but former Taliban leader Mullah Omar
is alive, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said. [CNN]
FBI: Bin Laden 'probably' dead
The
US Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, says
he thinks Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead. [BBC]
Magazine runs what it calls bin Laden's will
The
editor-in-chief of a London-based Arab news magazine said a purported will it
published Saturday was written late last year [2001] by Osama bin Laden, and
shows "he's dying or he's going to die soon." [CNN]
Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful
death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported,
citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda
leader. "The Coalition troops are engaged in a mad search operation but
they would never be able to fulfill their cherished goal of getting Usama alive
or dead," the source said. [FOX News]
Translation of Funeral Article in
Egyptian Paper:
al-Wafd, Wednesday, December 26, 2001 Vol 15 No 4633
News of Bin Laden's Death and Funeral
10 days ago
A
prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement announced yesterday the death
of Osama bin Laden, the chief of al-Qa'da organization, stating that binLaden
suffered serious complications in the lungs and died a natural and quiet death.
[Welfare State]
Osama bin who?
Israel
does not view bin Laden as a threat. [Janes]
Israeli intelligence: Bin Laden is dead, heir
has been chosen
Israeli
sources said Israel and the United States assess that Bin Laden probably died
in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in December. They said the
emergence of new messages by Bin Laden are probably fabrications, Middle East
Newsline reported. [World Tribune]
[See
also The Fake bin Laden Audio Tape]
[See
also Benazir Bhutto says Osama is dead.]’
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan
and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December [2001] and
was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president,
Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama's gang,
however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama's ghost alive or
because they have no means of communication. Bin Laden's voice was detected
regularly until [14 December 2001] by intelligence operatives monitoring radio
transmissions in Tora Bora, according to the Pentagon [details]. Since then, nothing has been heard from the
al-Qa'eda leader and President Bush has hinted in private that bin Laden's
silence could mean he has been killed. [Telegraph, 12/28/2001]
Pakistan's
Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead
Pakistan's president says he thinks Osama
bin Laden is most likely dead because the suspected terrorist has been unable
to get treatment for his kidney disease. [A Bush administration official] said
U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis every three days and
"it is fairly obvious that that could be an issue when you are running
from place to place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in
a mountain hideout." [CNN]
Karzai: bin
Laden 'probably' dead
Osama bin Laden is "probably"
dead, but former Taliban leader Mullah Omar is alive, Afghan President Hamid
Karzai has said. [CNN]
FBI: Bin Laden
'probably' dead
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's
counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, says he thinks Osama bin Laden is
"probably" dead. [BBC]
Magazine runs
what it calls bin Laden's will
The editor-in-chief of a London-based
Arab news magazine said a purported will it published Saturday was written late
last year [2001] by Osama bin Laden, and shows "he's dying or he's going
to die soon." [CNN]
Why Does the Terrorist Kingpin Look Better Than He Did in
2001? Washington’s Blog
Hoax: White House Claims 4-Year-Old Bin Laden Video Is New
Footage
Then,
of course, there’s also: that ‘pearl harbor event’ so sought by the neo-cons /
war mongers still defies explanation (ie., the ‘stand-down order’, symmetrical
implosions, foreknowledge by some {who conveniently ‘missed the party’ that
day}, etc.. Some links, echoing the unbelief akin to the ‘Jessica Lynch’,
Tillman, etc., affairs follow. People
must realize that though having but 5% of the
world’s population, america can boast 76% of the world’s serial killers, and
the highest crime rates in the world by far.
]
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on military
spending than all the nations of the world combined... federal employees /
contractors, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality ( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ).
That perverse field of dreams I’ve previously alluded to, the american
nightmare, if you build / contrive war, they will come. And, they do; seals of
them (among others); and when their ‘tours’ are done, it’s murder inc./contract
killing for hire that they’ve won (cia, mob, etc.). The 20th century, the
‘bloodiest century’, not coincidentally referred to as the american century,
brings longings of nostalgia to american criminals who, like Pavlov’s dogs salivate at the prospect of killing, raping, pillaging, and plundering
which primitive mindset they have mistakenly been conditioned to connect to
their now irretrievably lost success as a nation state; and to the contrary,
has become globally and domestically self-destructive / self-defeating. The
entire 911 / Bin Laden scenario just doesn’t pass the smell test and reeks of
political desperation and Orwellian opportunism.
Drudgereport:
ALARM
OVER APPROACHING INSOLVENCY OF SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE...
Social
Security to run 'permanent' deficits...
Texas
official accuses ATF of starting wildfire...
'That bunch has a real corner on stupid'...
British
woman decapitated in grocery store; killer flees with head...
Cannes:
Diana doc slams UK royals as 'gangsters'...
Senate
Bill Gives Feds Power to Order Blacklisting of Websites...
Treasury Auctions to Push US Over Debt Ceiling...
McCARTHY:
'Not one Republican vote' to borrow more without cuts...
REPORT:
48 Women Raped Every Hour in Congo...
'DOLLAR
IN GRAVER DANGER THAN EURO'...
FORBES:
RETURN TO GOLD STANDARD WITHIN 5 YEARS...
In
S.C., legislature takes first step...
POLL: 1 in 5 say bin Laden alive...
MICHELLE:
KEEPS ON DANCING!
First
Lady to host rapper who talks of killing cops...
USA
FREAK OUT: TERROR FEARS; FALSE ALARMS...
Sen.
Schumer Calls For Amtrak 'Do Not Ride' List...
Two
tunnel 'breaches' cause scare in NYC...
Threats
Divert Planes in Three Separate Incidents...
Passengers,
flight crew subdue man banging on cockpit door...
Dallas
Train Station Evacuated: Man Asked For Help Carrying Packages...
4
Arrested For Videotaping TSA Line At Denver...
SHOCK PHOTO: TSA LOOKING FOR
'POOP BOMBS?'
U.S.-Pak.
Rift Widens...
Pak.
warns of 'full force' response to future US raids...
S&P
cuts Greece's rating...
BOEHNER
TO DEMAND NOT BILLIONS, BUT TRILLIONS
IN CUTS...
OIL
REBOUNDS; 2ND LARGEST GAIN ON RECORD...
REPORT:
Housing crash getting worse...
...values
fall fastest rate since '08
Michelle
Obama to host rapper at WH who talks of killing cops...
'COMMAND
CENTER'...
Pakistan
skeptical of U.S. claim bin Laden directed network...
Two loud explosions heard in town where bin Laden killed...
Videos
show 9-11 mastermind watching himself on TV...
U.S.
government censors tapes, cuts audio...
Inside
bin Laden's squalid home...
NYT:
Final days of domesticity...
Drone
Strike Kills 15 in Pakistan...
First
since bin Laden raid...
BIN
LADEN SUPPORTERS RAGE ON THE STREETS OF LONDON, VOW REVENGE...
Stage
mock funeral in front of US embassy...
Gas
nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats
9% of household budgets...
Average
price sets record in Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03
in Hawaii...
JAPAN
URGES HALT AT THREE REACTORS...
UNEMPLOYMENT
BACK UP TO 9.0%...
Fannie
Mae Reports $8.7B Loss for First Quarter...
Seeks
$8.5B more from taxpayers...
APRIL
JOBS: +244,000...
FUZZY
MATH: How can US add
jobs but the unemployment rate go up?
Gas
nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats
9% of household budgets...
Average
price sets record in Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03
in Hawaii...
PAPER:
GREECE EU EXIT?
Silver
Plunge Spreads...
OIL
GUTTED...
Price
Slide Temporary, New Highs Likely: Goldman...
Fears
linger of a new 'flash crash'...
Euro
Tumbles... CNN
SHOCK POLL: RON PAUL HAS BEST CHANCE VS OBAMA
National
Home Prices Double Dip...
JOBLESS
CLAIMS RISE TO 8 MONTH HIGH...
Fears
linger of a new 'flash crash'...
9-11
FAMILY: 'SHOW US PROOF BIN LADEN KILLED'...
Victim's
father: Obama 'putting too much spotlight on himself'...
Channels
Bush at Ground Zero: 'We will never forget'...
Tells
teen survivor he knows
Justin Bieber...
Turns
Back on 9/11 Family Member...
AUDIO...
Muslim
Brotherhood urges review of Israel ties...
Pakistanis
burn U.S. flags; backlash over death grows...
Pakistan
officials: No resistance in 'cold-blooded' U.S. raid...
Warns
America not to stage any more...
Threatens
'disastrous consequences'...
Muslims
already name dump location 'Martyr's Sea'...
OBAMA,
NO PHOTOS OF OSAMA: 'We don't need to spike the football'...
'Conspiracy theorists will just claim doctored'...
Sen.
Scott Brown: 'I've seen picture, he's definitely dead'...
UPDATE:
Photo proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was
faked...
three
senators fell for fakes...
UPDATE:
'The photo I saw and that a lot of other people saw is not authentic'...
Top
Dem: No photo needed, 'there's absolute proof'...
REUTERS RELEASES 'DEATH SCENE' PHOTOS
**WARNING GRAPHIC**
UPDATE: Photo proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
Possibly
three senators fell for fakes...
Pakistan:
'Not a single bullet fired from compound'...
WIRE:
Photos from 1 hour after raid show 3 dead, no weapons...
The
Slippery Story of the bin Laden Kill...
Official says 'killed apparently
by the U.S. raid team'...
DOLLAR
HITS 3 YEAR LOW...
1
IN 7 ON FOOD STAMPS!
Job
numbers disappoint...
Treasury
suggests $2 trillion debt cap raise...
REUTERS, AP journalists describe staging of Obama photo taken after
TV announcement of bin Laden's death...
US
Postal Service reports $2.2B loss for quarter... [ And, let me add
that they deserved that loss. The USPS is totally unreliable and basically a
jobs program for the otherwise unemployable; and, they are also corrupt. I’ve
previously set forth the scenario where the postal service waylaid dvd disks
sent priority/confirmation and a second time, certified mail, to the FBI
(violations of federal law, tampering, obstruction, etc.), and ultimately
additional copies of said disks were delivered by the reliable, efficient,
competitive, performance-driven UPS (their parcel rates are roughly the same
and yet half the delivery time – Fedex is as unreliable as the USPS-and for
some time had a deal with the USPS). Amazon, Ebay, though a boon to the USPS,
have consistently failed to deliver in the realm of computers / peripherals.
The following includes a prior testimonial to the service, reliability of PRO
Computer Center ( http://www.procomputercenter.com Pro Computer Center, 10837 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles,
CA 90025 ) .
Pro Computer Center is among the few remaining stores of their kind. They are
performance / service / customer oriented like no other surviving computer
retailer / repairer / service providers I’ve experienced. They’ve also moved
into the realm of computer forensics / data recovery in the context of court
proceedings where they’ve successfully performed where others failed and at
substantially more reasonable rates than ‘the competition’. My most recent computer problems accounting
for some website / posting delays has been once again been resolved by them and
another Dell computer (the circumstances of the most recent debacle was a
barrage of Trojans caught by my antivirus, one after another, then shutting
down my antivirus, ultimately freezing (no boot) my computer (I previously
alluded to my reasonable suspicions as to who perpetrated same). My experiences
with such as Amazon, Ebay have been atrocious and borderline if not outright
fraudulent (the shoddy sellers), time consuming, and aggravating in the ‘claims
process’. Moreover, the other brick and mortar stores, even if reputable, have
a fine print which lays most of the warrantee/ guarantee on the manufacturer.
In sum, Pro Computer Center does not have any ‘real’ competition. They are
currently building me a backup computer that comports with my budget and their
survival as a company, though somewhat rare among computer retailers of their
type, is totally understandable and a testament to high quality performance and
service. (Prior testimonial:
Pro Computer
Center
10837 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Gentlemen:
I just wanted to extend to you and your company my sincere thanks
for a job well done. The Dell computer I recently purchased from you has lived
up to all your representations and as well, my own expectations. I bought my
first computer from you (Ben) in or around 1999. It was a Sony Vaio laptop which
owing to Windows Millenium and a very proprietary approach to computing on the
part of Sony, truth be told, was not the greatest system in terms of stability
(typical Millenium problems), but no fault of yours. Ultimately, though
functional, I traded the Vaio for a Mac, an accommodation by your company
seldom seen with other companies if at all (3+ years later). You’ve always
stood by your products / service, are available / accessible to field / handle
all questions / problems which is rare indeed. In Armand you have a top-notch
A+ Certified Tech who is patient, knowledgeable, and talented. Ruben, in truth
has been particularly instrumental in seeing to a smooth transition in my
recent dealings with your company as a knowledgeable IT Specialist and especially
as a savvy, capable manager. Since 1999 I’ve purchased five computers from you
and based upon performance, the sixth is assured.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia ) ]
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
People
must realize that though having but 5% of the
world’s population, america can boast 76% of the world’s serial killers and the
highest crime rates in the world by far.
http://www.albertpeia.com/realifeamericaserialkillers.mpg . Defacto
bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on military spending than all the
nations of the world combined... federal employees / contractors, cia, all 3
branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in this evolved american
trait of inherent criminality ( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ).
U.S.
to raise fuel efficiency standards Over the next few months, regulators are
scheduled to set the next round of fuel standards for automakers. Among the
proposals under consideration is one that would lift average fuel economy under
the law to as much as 62 mpg by 2025. (Washington Post) [ Well, there you go … problem solved … and
the auto cos can really afford the retooling costs … I can’t remember how many
times I heard reference to such legislative mandates … have they been in effect
… have they changed … have they worked? Look
at How Producer Prices Continue Getting More Expensive Wall St. Cheat
Sheet [This spells big trouble affecting corporate earnings (some costs can’t
be passed on without decreasing sales) and disposable income / consumer
spending. ] Weekly
Unemployment Claims Still Above This Scary Level WSCS Short ‘The
Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released
this morning for last week. Claims fell 44,000 from a 4,000 upward revision of
the previous week, which takes the number back to approximately the level prior
to last week’s blip. Here is the official statement from the Department of
Labor:In the week ending May 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted
initial claims was 434,000, a decrease of 44,000 from the previous week’s
revised figure of 478,000. The 4-week moving average was 436,750, an increase
of 4,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 432,250. The advance
seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0 percent for the week
ending April 30, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.0 percent.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week
ending April 30 was 3,756,000, an increase of 5,000 from the preceding week’s
revised level of 3,751,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,718,500, an
increase of 13,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,705,250.Today’s
number was 11,000 above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 423,000 claims.As we can
see, there’s a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the
4-week moving average (shown in the callouts) is a more useful number than the
weekly data.
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims
Occasionally I
see articles critical of seasonal adjustment, especially when the non-adjusted
number better suits the author’s bias. But a comparison of these two charts
clearly shows extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data, and the 4-week MA
gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change in the second
chart (note, for example, those regular January spikes).
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA
a 52-week
moving average gives a better sense of the long-term trends.
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA-52-ma
Krauthammer:
Obama's demagoguery in El Paso (Washington Post) [ What else can you expect
from a demagogue … suddenly he’s talkin’ immigration with the election ‘round
the corner, as he courts the Hispanic vote. Aren’t people on to this unctuous
jive-talker yet, failed president that he is.
Davis ‘… This is how we
pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get
anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is
no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all
of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING
FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘
… Suckers’ rally to keep suckers
suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘..the
Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the
lowest since November 2010… This is an especially
great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much
worse to come! U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘
Milbank:
The medical mystery of Mitt Romney (Washington Post) [ Does anyone else think Mr. Milbank’s reference
to the Chinese twin girls born with a
single body and two heads was at the least in poor taste. Moreover, I would
further say his reference is probably better suited as applicable to ‘wobama
the b’ (for b***s***) whose actions in office have belied most every campaign
pledge and rhetoric. This is not to say that Romney gets a pass; though I did
previously say and still on my website is (what I write thereon is ‘forever’ as
if engraved on stone) that I recommended that war criminal, coward, incompetent
cheney be replaced by Romney, and then the same, whether by impeachment or
‘encouragement’ (kind of like that Nixon / Ford dynamic), for war criminal,
coward, incompetent moron dumbya bush. I doubt there’s anyone other than mental
cases (ie., limbaugh, hannity, o’reilly, etc.) who could seriously argue that
the country wouldn’t have been better off to this day. That said, 2012 is a
whole new year, and a whole new ‘ballgame’, and wide open, so to speak.
Ultimately, for me, the next president will have met criterion that for me is measurable
in terms of justice, in accordance with long lost (for pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america) constitutional principles. For me, it’s what I can
see, touch, and measure as being right. As such, for me, the clear resolution
of long standing, justice delayed, justice denied RICO litigation is that
measure and criterion. . Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america
also spends more on military spending than all the nations of the world
combined... federal employees / contractors, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s.
government, etc., are included in this evolved american trait of inherent
criminality ( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ).
That perverse field of dreams I’ve previously alluded to, the american
nightmare, if you build / contrive war, they will come. And, they do; seals of
them (among others); and when their ‘tours’ are done, it’s murder inc./contract
killing for hire that they’ve won (cia, mob, etc.). The 20th century, the
‘bloodiest century’, not coincidentally referred to as the american century,
brings longings of nostalgia to american criminals who, like Pavlov’s dogs salivate at the prospect of killing, raping, pillaging, and plundering
which primitive mindset they have mistakenly been conditioned to connect to
their now irretrievably lost success as a nation state; and to the contrary,
has become globally and domestically self-destructive / self-defeating. The
entire 911 / Bin Laden scenario just doesn’t pass the smell test and reeks of
political desperation and Orwellian opportunism.
Osama bin Laden is dead..: died in December [2001] ..buried in the
mountains of southeast Afghanistan [Telegraph, 12/28/2001]
Musharraf: Bin
Laden probably dead
[A Bush administration official] said U.S. intelligence is that
bin Laden needs dialysis every three days ..." [CNN]
Karzai: bin
Laden 'probably' dead .. but former Taliban leader Mullah Omar is alive [CNN]
FBI: Bin Laden
'probably' dead
The FBI’s counter-terrorism chief, Dale
Watson, says he thinks Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead. [BBC]
The editor-in-chief of a London-based
Arab news magazine said a purported will it published Saturday was written late
last year [2001] by Osama bin Laden, and shows "he's dying or he's going
to die soon." [CNN]
Usama bin Laden has died
a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication .. [FOX
News] Renal dialysis is reserved for patients in end-stage renal failure. ..
it's unlikely that you'd survive beyond several days or a week at the most. [CNN]
]
Weekly
Unemployment Claims Still Above This Scary Level WSCS Short ‘The
Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released
this morning for last week. Claims fell 44,000 from a 4,000 upward revision of
the previous week, which takes the number back to approximately the level prior
to last week’s blip. Here is the official statement from the Department of
Labor:In the week ending May 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial
claims was 434,000, a decrease of 44,000 from the previous week’s revised
figure of 478,000. The 4-week moving average was 436,750, an increase of 4,500
from the previous week’s revised average of 432,250. The advance seasonally
adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0 percent for the week ending April
30, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.0 percent. The advance
number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending
April 30 was 3,756,000, an increase of 5,000 from the preceding week’s revised
level of 3,751,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,718,500, an increase of
13,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,705,250.Today’s number
was 11,000 above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 423,000 claims.As we can
see, there’s a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the
4-week moving average (shown in the callouts) is a more useful number than the
weekly data.
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims
Occasionally I
see articles critical of seasonal adjustment, especially when the non-adjusted
number better suits the author’s bias. But a comparison of these two charts
clearly shows extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data, and the 4-week MA
gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change in the second
chart (note, for example, those regular January spikes).
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA
Because of the
extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, a 52-week moving average
gives a better sense of the long-term trends.
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA-52-ma
The Bureau of
Labor Statistics provides an overview on seasonal adjustment here (scroll down about
half way down).
Doug Short
Ph.d is the author of dshort.com.’
Look
at How Producer Prices Continue Getting More Expensive Wall St. Cheat
Sheet [This spells big trouble affecting corporate earnings (some costs can’t
be passed on without decreasing sales) and disposable income / consumer
spending. ] ‘The Producer Price Index for finished goods rose 0.8
percent in April, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This
advance followed increases of 0.7 percent in March and 1.6 percent in February.
At the earlier
stages of processing, prices received by manufacturers of intermediate
goods climbed 1.3 percent in April, and the crude goods index rose 4.0
percent. On an unadjusted basis, prices for finished goods moved up 6.8 percent
for the 12 months ended April 2011, the largest year-over-year gain since
an 8.8-percent increase in September 2008.
Stage-of-Processing
Analysis
About three
quarters of the April advance in the finished goods index can be traced to a
2.5 percent jump in prices for finished energy goods. Also contributing to
the rise in the finished goods index, prices for both finished goods other
than foods (NYSE:RJA) and energy (NYSE:XLE) and for finished consumer foods moved up 0.3
percent in April.
Finished
energy: Prices for finished energy goods increased 2.5 percent in April, the
seventh consecutive monthly advance. Over half of the April rise can be
attributed to the gasoline index, which climbed 3.6 percent (NYSE:USO). Higher prices for liquefied petroleum gas and
residential natural gas (NYSE:UNG) also were factors in the increase in the finished
energy goods index. (See table 2.)
Finished core:
The index for finished goods less foods and energy moved up 0.3 percent
in April, the fifth straight monthly rise. Nearly one-fourth of the April
monthly advance can be traced to a 1.2-percent jump in civilian aircraft
prices. An increase in the index for light motor trucks also contributed
significantly to the rise in finished core prices.
Finished
foods: Prices for finished consumer foods rose 0.3 percent in April after
falling 0.2 percent in the prior month. Leading this advance, the index
for eggs for fresh use surged 56.7 percent.
Intermediate
goods
The Producer
Price Index for intermediate materials (NYSE:XLB), supplies, and components rose 1.3
percent in April, the ninth consecutive monthly advance. The broad-based
April increase was led by prices for intermediate goods less foods and
energy, which moved up 1.1 percent. The indexes for intermediate energy
goods and for intermediate foods and feeds also contributed to
the intermediate goods advance, rising 1.9 percent and 1.8 percent,
respectively. For the 12 months ended April 2011, prices for intermediate
goods climbed 9.4 percent, the largest increase since a 9.8-percent jump
in October 2008. (See table B.)
Intermediate
core: Prices for intermediate goods less foods and energy moved up 1.1 percent
in April, the ninth consecutive monthly rise. About fifteen percent of the
April gain can be attributed to the index for primary basic organic
chemicals, which increased 3.2 percent. Higher prices for ethanol and
steel mill products (NYSE:DBB) also contributed to the advance in intermediate
core prices. (See table 2.)
Intermediate
energy: The index for intermediate energy goods climbed 1.9 percent in April,
the smallest advance since a 1.5-percent increase in November 2010. Prices
for diesel fuel, which moved up 3.5 percent, were a significant
contributor to the April rise. Higher prices for gasoline also were a
factor in the increase in the intermediate energy goods index.
Intermediate
foods: The intermediate foods and feeds index advanced 1.8 percent in April,
the
ninth straight monthly increase. A 5.6-percent jump in prices for beef and veal
accounted for a quarter of the April advance in the intermediate foods and
feeds index.
Crude goods
The Producer
Price Index for crude materials for further processing increased 4.0 percent
in April. For the 3 months ending in April, prices for crude materials
moved up 7.0 percent following an 11.4-percent jump for the 3 months
ending in January. Leading the broad-based monthly advance in April, the
index for crude energy materials rose 4.8 percent. Prices for
crude foodstuffs and feedstuffs and for crude nonfood materials less
energy increased 4.0 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively.
Crude energy:
The index for crude energy (NYSE:XLE) materials moved up 4.8 percent in April.
From January to April, crude energy prices advanced 5.3 percent compared
with a 17.9-percent jump in the previous 3-month period. For the month of
April, the index for natural gas rose 9.4 percent, accounting for over
half of the increase in prices for crude energy materials. Advances in
the indexes for crude petroleum and coal also contributed to higher crude
energy prices.
Crude foods:
Prices for crude foodstuffs and feedstuffs (NYSE:RJA) advanced 4.0 percent in April. For the
3 months ending in April, the index for crude foods jumped 11.4 percent
subsequent to moving up 5.5 percent from October to January. Accounting
for about half of the monthly rise in April, the grains index increased
15.5 percent. Higher prices for slaughter steers and heifers also were
a factor in the advance in the crude foods index.
Crude core:
The index for crude nonfood materials less energy rose 2.6 percent in April.
From January to April, crude core prices moved up 2.5 percent after a
10.1-percent advance in the previous 3-month period. For the month of
April, a 4.5-percent increase in the index for copper base scrap was a
factor in higher crude core prices.
Services
Analysis Trade Industries
TTrade
industries: The Producer Price Index for the net output of total trade
industries moved up 0.1 percent in April, the third consecutive increase.
Trade indexes measure changes in margins received by wholesalers and
retailers (NYSE:RTH). Leading the April advance was a
5.3-percent increase in margins received by department stores (NYSE:IYR). Higher margins received by women’s
clothing stores and by electronic shopping and mail order houses also
contributed significantly to the rise in the total trade industries index.
Transportation
and warehousing industries: The Producer Price Index for the net output
of transportation and warehousing industries rose 0.3 percent in April,
the seventh consecutive increase. Accounting for forty-five percent of the
April advance, prices received by couriers climbed 1.4 percent. Increases
in the indexes for long distance general freight trucking (truckload) and
line-haul railroads also were factors in the April rise in the transportation
and warehousing industries index.
Traditional
service industries: The Producer Price Index for the net output of total
traditional service industries moved up 0.7 percent in April after no
change in the previous month. Leading this advance, prices received by the
depository credit intermediation industry group rose 7.3 percent. Higher
prices received by insurance carriers and by general medical and
surgical hospitals (NYSE:XLV) also contributed to the increase in the total
traditional service industries index.’
Mohamed A.
El-Erian http://www.pimco.com [ In an interview with
Motek, El-Erian states that the nations are facing not debt issues per se, but
solvency issues (ie., america’s defacto bankrupt, etc.) and (PIMCO dumped their
u.s. treasury holdings) that it will take higher interest rates to sell those
debt securities. Moreover, he stated that the subject nations have only
exacerbated their fiscal problems by piling more debt on debt … the following
is an excerpt from El-Erian in part, from the PIMCO website: ] ‘ … BALANCE OF RISKS Most baselines are subject to two-sided
risks. Our Secular Outlook is no different in this regard and, in this case,
the risks are well balanced.
On the one
hand, the baseline could prove to be too pessimistic on three major counts:
First, emerging economies (and China in particular) could show greater
willingness and ability to unleash domestic consumption; second, the balance
sheets of central banks in industrial countries could indeed be used very
aggressively without undermining inflationary expectations and fueling a
political reaction; and third, some of the remarkable scientific advances could
translate quickly into massive productivity gains.
These three
factors would facilitate economic growth in industrial countries. And growth is
critical for enhancing the capacity of the world economy to deal with its
balance sheet problems, reverse the involvement of governments in markets and,
thereby, reduce the likelihood of government failures following the recent
string of market failures.
On the other
hand, the baseline could be too optimistic on (also) three major counts: First,
households and companies could embark upon a renewed cycle of self-insurance in
reaction to the medium-term uncertainties facing the global economy. This
paradox of thrift would further weaken the growth and debt dynamics; it would
also increase the risk of trade protectionism. Second, some of the
super-secular issues (such as climate change, demographics and the atomization
of societies) could play out in secular time, significantly increasing the
structural headwinds facing the global economy. Third, the world could face a
geopolitical shock, either because of frictions and tensions between certain
nation-states or due to vulnerability to acts of terrorism perpetrated by small
groups or individuals.
In Conclusion
We are living through a
remarkable time of change for the global economy, where several anchoring
parameters have become variables. It is a time of friction, collisions and
renewal as we journey to a de-levered and re-regulated world with weaker growth
dynamics in industrial countries and less political enthusiasm for unfettered globalization
and markets.
This brings us
back to the image of a car that, having used its spare tire(s), is still
embarked on a bumpy road through unfamiliar territory and to a less-than-stable
destination. Parts of the car are up for this journey; others will likely hold
up but in a tentative and fragile manner; and yet others will fail.
For investors,
this translates into a secular period of changing risks and opportunities:
Look
How the Federal Budget Deficit Will Exceed $1 Trillion Again Wall St.
Cheat Sheet ‘Yesterday the Federal Budget Deficit reminded us that even during the
season when Uncle Sam collects your taxes — 45% more than last year — we still
can’t create a surplus! Superficially, we can blame the recent economic
crisis for the issue. However, if we dig deeper into the historical data, below
we can see politicians have been out of control for decades. More specifically,
the fall of 2001 kicked off a drunken binge on Federal deficit spending (Click for Larger Image) We haven’t seen a single
budget surplus since the economic crisis, and future budget projections from
the Congressional Budget Office indicate we shouldn’t sit on the shore waiting
for one to dock anytime soon. Check Out “CHART
OF THE DAY: Watch the US Debt Set a 60 Year Record“. In fact, the CBO
increased their annual deficit projection for 2011 from $1.1 trillion to
$1.5 trillion — the third straight year of $1 trillion-plus deficits. The
record monthly deficit of $222.5 billion in February beat last February’s
record by almost $2 billion. At least we didn’t set a new record so soon.’ Debt
ceiling battles have negotiation experts shaking their heads Professional
negotiators weigh in on lawmakers’ inept attempts to negotiate the national
debt ceiling. (Washington Post) [ Boehner
seeks more than $2 trillion in cuts (Washington Post) [ I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking
‘Riiiiight! … that’ll happen … and all
without cuts to endless war spending … while the situation’s more than that
dire, the advice is … don’t hold your breath!
Milbank:
The GOP’s juvenile debate (Washington Post) [ Mr. Milbank has lamentably become the rush
limbaugh / sean hannity of the newspaper world, though he barks and apologizes
for dems (and wobama the b for b*** s***) only (as they for the gop / bushies
only). A
political minefield in Treasury plan
(Washington Post) [ What plan!
. Let
the budget battle begin Congress returns to fight over the nation’s
solvency. (WP) [ Stated another way, the nation’s solvency is
over. .. america’s defacto bankrupt with no end in sight.. interest alone is
eating progressively into GDP beyond the subterfuge.. Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (WP) [ Not much! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘..the
Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the
lowest since November 2010… This is an especially
great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much
worse to come! U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
People
must realize that though having but 5% of the
world’s population, america can boast 76% of the world’s serial killers and the
highest crime rates in the world by far.
http://www.albertpeia.com/realifeamericaserialkillers.mpg . Defacto
bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on military spending than all the
nations of the world combined... federal employees / contractors, cia, all 3
branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in this evolved american
trait of inherent criminality ( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ).
That perverse field of dreams I’ve previously alluded to, the american
nightmare, if you build / contrive war, they will come. And, they do; seals of
them (among others); and when their ‘tours’ are done, it’s murder inc./contract
killing for hire that they’ve won (cia, mob, etc.). The 20th century, the
‘bloodiest century’, not coincidentally referred to as the american century,
brings longings of nostalgia to american criminals who, like Pavlov’s dogs salivate at the prospect of killing, raping, pillaging, and plundering
which primitive mindset they have mistakenly been conditioned to connect to
their now irretrievably lost success as a nation state; and to the contrary,
has become globally and domestically self-destructive / self-defeating. The
entire 911 / Bin Laden scenario just doesn’t pass the smell test and reeks of
political desperation and Orwellian opportunism.
AIG
to sell Treasury shares The government soon will begin unloading its 92.1 percent
ownership stake in the bailout company. (Washington
Post) [ Who’s the unlucky sucker? Ultimately, a pension fund or two or three,
etc., or maybe you or an equally unlucky member of your family. Stock
market on a roll despite slowing economic growth, lingering
unemployment[Also known as reality! Roll … yes, indeed … everyone’s to get
rolled! ] (WP) Dow is up more than 10 percent for 2011, to its highest
point in nearly three years. [ Same bubble scenario preceeding last crash
(including currency manipulation); yet, far worse this time owing to
insurmountable debt and defacto bankruptcy of the nation.
Fed
Chairman Bernanke does reality TV
(WP) [ Except the ‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S. BERNANKE’ show is
scripted unreality … even with his reduction in estimate for ‘economic growth’,
the frauds on wall street still rallied.
Bernanke
prepares to make history (WP) [ He
already has! $6 gas acomin’, $1,508+ gold, $46+ silver, other commodities at
record levels, hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing
of fiat paper currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...
Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come!
Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
Stocks
slip after three-day rally (Washington Post) [
Top 3 Reasons Markets Tanked with Oil WSCS‘DJI -1.02% SP500 -1.11% Nasdaq -0.93%
Gold -0.82% Oil -4.63% at $98.88.
Gold sold off ..Silver lost over 8%.
1) Commodities
and Oil got slaughtered. .. widening trade gap.
2) Insiders
finally getting busted.. but what about what large banks, investment banks, and
mortgage companies did to the US economy…these insider trading cases are
basically sideshows…
Fed
official calls for vigilance (WP)
[ Who’s still buying their
b***s***! Much higher prices / inflation’s already here. 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Bernanke
prepares to make history (WP) [ He already has! $6 gas acomin’..
hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing of fiat paper
currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
Treasury
Auctions To Take US Over Debt Ceiling On Monday Dow Jones News
| The Treasury Department auctioned $56 billion in new debt this week.
Fed
warns politicians to raise US debt ceiling AFP | Bernanke
warned politicians to raise the debt limit soon or risk destabilizing the
financial system.
Republicans
unveil cuts as Democrats eye tax hike Reuters |
Republicans planned sharp cuts to foreign aid and education on Wednesday, while
Democrats weighed a tax hike on millionaires.
28
Statistics About The Gutting Of The U.S. Economy That Will Blow Your Mind ‘Red alert! Over 40 billion dollars of
America’s national wealth is being shipped out of the country every single
month. Our economy is being gutted and we are bleeding wealth and we are
bleeding jobs. The
American Dream May 12, 2011
Red alert! Over 40 billion
dollars of America’s national wealth is being shipped out of the country every
single month. Our economy is being gutted and we are bleeding wealth and
we are bleeding jobs. This is a distress call. Is anyone
listening? Thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs are being
shipped overseas. Over the past decade over 6 trillion dollars have been
transferred into the hands of foreigners. Our national government is so
broke that they constantly have to go and beg those foreigners to lend us back
some of that money in order to finance our exploding debt. The number of good
jobs continues to decline and there are millions upon millions of my countrymen
that are unemployed. Can anybody help us? Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!Sadly,
the vast majority of Americans really are dead asleep on this issue. They
just continue to run out to the big retail stores and fill their carts with
products made in China and yet they seem completely bewildered by the fact that
the number of good jobs continues to decline.Over the past decade, the number
of middle class jobs has fallen by about ten percent. There is a reason
for this. America is becoming poorer. The economic pie is shrinking.
When we ship 40 to 50 billion dollars into the hands of foreigners every single
month, that means that there is a lot less wealth for all of us to divide
up.Every single month, the U.S. ships in massive amounts of foreign oil and
massive amounts of cheap plastic trinkets from places such as China which we
greedily consume. In return, we send them a giant pile of money.This
happens month after month after month. You see, we always need more of
their oil and more of their plastic trinkets. They are more than happy to
keep getting richer and richer.Meanwhile, thousands of our factories and
millions of our jobs continue to be sent overseas where labor is far
cheaper. Thanks to globalization, American workers much now directly
compete for jobs with workers that are willing to work for less than a dollar
an hour on the other side of the globe.
The
dismantling of our economy is happening right in front of our eyes and most of
our politicians are not doing a thing to stop it.
The following
are 28 statistics about the gutting of the U.S. economy that will blow your
mind….
#1 According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the
U.S. trade deficit for the month of March was $48.2 billion. That was up from
$45.4 billion in February.
#2 The United States has had a negative trade
balance every single yearsince 1976.
#3 Between December 2000 and December 2010, the U.S.
ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars.
#4 The U.S. trade deficit with China in March was $18.1
billion. This is money that is not going to support U.S. businesses
and U.S. workers. If that money was actually going to our businesses and
to our workers it would increase tax revenues.
#5 Since China entered the WTO in 2001, the U.S. trade
deficit with China has grown by an average of 18% per year.
#6 During 2010, we spent $365 billion on goods and services
from China while they only spent $92 billion on goods and services from us.
#7 Since 2005, Americans have gobbled up Chinese
products and services totaling $1.1 trillion, but the Chinese have
only spent $272 billion on American goods and services.
#8 The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.
#9 According to a recent report from the Economic
Policy Institute, between 2001 and 2008 the United States lost 2.4 million jobs due to the growing
trade deficit with China. Every single state in America experienced a net
job loss due to our trade deficit with China during that time period.
#10 The United States has lost an average of
50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in
2001.
#11 The United States has lost a staggering 32
percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#12 Between
December 2000 and December 2010, 38 percent of the manufacturing jobs in
Ohio were lost, 42 percent of the manufacturing jobs in North Carolina were
lost and 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in Michigan were lost.
#13 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United
States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the
United States are manufacturing jobs.
#14 China produced 19.8 percent of all the goods
consumed in the world last year. The United States only produced 19.4 percent.
#15 According to the IMF, China is going to have the
largest economy in the world by 2016.
#16 Nobel economist Robert W. Fogel of the University of
Chicago is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger
than the U.S. economy by the year 2040 if current trends continue.
#17 Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of
the world’s high tech export market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years
later, the United States had less than 15 percent and China’s share had soared to 20 percent.
#18 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer
industry was actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.
#19 In 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in
“advanced technology products” of $16 billion with the rest of the world.
In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.
#20 Last year, China produced 11 times as much steel as the United
States did.
#21 Do you remember when the United States was the
dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe? Well, in
2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.
#22 In 2010, South Korea exported 12 times as many automobiles, trucks and
parts to us as we exported to them.
#23 According to one recent study, China could
become the global leader in patent filings by next year.
#24 China is now the number
one supplier of components that are critical to the operation
of U.S. defense systems.
#25 In 2010, the number one U.S. export to China
was “scrap and trash”.
#26 Thanks to our exploding trade deficit with China,
the Chinese have accumulated nearly 3 trillion dollars
in foreign currency reserves. That is the largest stockpile of foreign
currency reserves on the entire globe.
#27 The amount of the trade deficit that can be
attributed to foreign oil is at the highest level that we have seen since 2008.
#28 It is being projected that for the first time ever,
the OPEC nations are going to bring in over a trillion dollars
from exporting oil this year. Their biggest customer is the United
States.
Our dependence
on foreign oil is literally bleeding us dry. Once we have burned up all
of that foreign oil in our cars we are left with nothing. But the people
we bought all that oil from are still sitting on all that cash.As we ship our
wealth, our factories and our jobs out of the country, America is getting
poorer.That means that individual Americans are getting poorer.According to one
estimate, between 1999 and 2009 real median household income in the United
States declined by 5.0%.Today, over 44
million Americans are on food stamps and over 47 million Americans are living
in poverty. This is not an accident and it didn’t happen overnight.
Our economic policies are absolutely killing us.This economic downturn has hit
men particularly hard. As thousands of manufacturing facilities have shut
down, millions of blue collar workers have been dumped out on the street.
Most blue collar workers are men.Since January 2008, male employment has
declined by 4,932,000 jobs.Ouch.During
2010, only 66.8% of American men had jobs, which was a
new all-time record low.There are a lot of blue collar workers that are sitting
at home on their couches today that are still trying to figure out what in the
world happened to their good jobs.There are now more than 6 million Americans
that the government says have given up
looking for work completely. Most of them are men.Sadly, in our
society today most of the people that pursue higher education are women.
Today, 61% of all college degrees
are earned by women.Not that a college education is a ticket to success in
today’s world. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment
rate for college graduates younger than 25 years old was 9.3 percent in 2010.In fact, the majority of
all of our college graduates end up running home to Mom and Dad after they
graduate.According
to a poll conducted by Twentysomething Inc., 85 percent of U.S. college
graduates will move back home with their parents (at least initially) after
graduation. That is up from 67 percent back in 2006.The truth is that
there are not nearly enough jobs for everyone and that is a huge problem.We
have become a nation that consumes far more wealth than it produces. That
is a recipe for disaster any way that you cut it.Until we have some fundamental
changes to our trade policy, these long-term trends are just going to
continue. We are going to continue to bleed wealth, bleed factories and
bleed jobs.Tax revenues go down when factories shut down and when American
workers are sitting at home on their couches. This is a huge factor in
why our federal, state and local governments are drowning in debt. We
have got to have more wealth creation inside this country or else we are going
to continue to see our government debt problems get even worse.If you walk into
just about any major retail store today, what do you find?You find loads and
loads of products that have been made somewhere else.I hope that you are
enjoying “the low, low prices” because they come at a very high cost.We once
had the greatest economic machine in the history of the world but now it is
being gutted like a fish.If we continue on the road that we are on, the entire
country is eventually going to become just like Detroit.Is that what you want?’
2012
defense bill authorizes ‘permanent war’ against terror The Hill
| Democrats argue that affirming continued war against terrorist forces goes
too far.
Syrian
tanks shell towns, at least 19 killed Reuters | Syrian
tanks shelled residential areas in two towns.
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan
and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December [2001] and
was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president,
Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama's gang,
however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama's ghost alive or because
they have no means of communication. Bin Laden's voice was detected regularly
until [14 December 2001] by intelligence operatives monitoring radio
transmissions in Tora Bora, according to the Pentagon [details]. Since then, nothing has been heard from the
al-Qa'eda leader and President Bush has hinted in private that bin Laden's
silence could mean he has been killed. [Telegraph, 12/28/2001]
Pakistan's
Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead
Pakistan's president says he thinks Osama
bin Laden is most likely dead because the suspected terrorist has been unable
to get treatment for his kidney disease. [A Bush administration official] said
U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis every three days and
"it is fairly obvious that that could be an issue when you are running
from place to place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in
a mountain hideout." [CNN]
Karzai: bin
Laden 'probably' dead
Osama bin Laden is "probably"
dead, but former Taliban leader Mullah Omar is alive, Afghan President Hamid
Karzai has said. [CNN]
FBI: Bin Laden
'probably' dead
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's
counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, says he thinks Osama bin Laden is
"probably" dead. [BBC]
Magazine runs
what it calls bin Laden's will
The editor-in-chief of a London-based
Arab news magazine said a purported will it published Saturday was written late
last year [2001] by Osama bin Laden, and shows "he's dying or he's going
to die soon." [CNN]
Why Does the Terrorist Kingpin Look Better Than He Did in
2001? Washington’s Blog
Hoax: White House Claims 4-Year-Old Bin Laden Video Is New
Footage
Then,
of course, there’s also: that ‘pearl harbor event’ so sought by the neo-cons /
war mongers still defies explanation (ie., the ‘stand-down order’, symmetrical
implosions, foreknowledge by some {who conveniently ‘missed the party’ that
day}, etc.. Some links, echoing the unbelief akin to the ‘Jessica Lynch’,
Tillman, etc., affairs follow. People
must realize that though having but 5% of the
world’s population, america can boast 76% of the world’s serial killers, and
the highest crime rates in the world by far.
]
Drudgereport: Treasury Auctions
to Push US Over Debt Ceiling...
McCARTHY: 'Not one Republican
vote' to borrow more without cuts...
'Greater than expected'
damage seen at Japan reactor...
Obama Tells Companies to
'Step Up' and Hire Workers...
'Nothing More Important' Than
A Government Job… [ and if you believe the jive-talker, he has some swampland
in jersey he wants to sell you! ] ...
REPORT: 48 Women Raped Every
Hour in Congo...
'DOLLAR IN GRAVER DANGER THAN
EURO'...
FORBES: RETURN TO GOLD
STANDARD WITHIN 5 YEARS...
In S.C., legislature takes
first step...
POLL: 1 in 5 say
bin Laden alive...
MICHELLE: KEEPS ON DANCING!
First Lady to host rapper who
talks of killing cops...
USA FREAK OUT: TERROR FEARS;
FALSE ALARMS...
Sen. Schumer Calls For Amtrak
'Do Not Ride' List...
Two tunnel 'breaches' cause
scare in NYC...
Threats Divert Planes in
Three Separate Incidents...
Passengers, flight crew
subdue man banging on cockpit door...
Dallas Train Station
Evacuated: Man Asked For Help Carrying Packages...
4 Arrested For Videotaping
TSA Line At Denver...
SHOCK
PHOTO: TSA LOOKING FOR 'POOP BOMBS?'
U.S.-Pak. Rift Widens...
Pak. warns of 'full force'
response to future US raids...
S&P cuts Greece's
rating...
BOEHNER TO DEMAND NOT
BILLIONS, BUT TRILLIONS IN CUTS...
OIL REBOUNDS; 2ND LARGEST
GAIN ON RECORD...
REPORT: Housing crash getting
worse...
...values fall fastest rate since '08
Michelle Obama to host rapper
at WH who talks of killing cops...
'COMMAND CENTER'...
Pakistan skeptical of U.S.
claim bin Laden directed network...
Two loud explosions
heard in town where bin Laden killed...
Videos show 9-11 mastermind
watching himself on TV...
U.S. government censors
tapes, cuts audio...
Inside bin Laden's squalid
home...
NYT: Final days of
domesticity...
Drone Strike Kills 15 in
Pakistan...
First since bin Laden raid...
BIN LADEN SUPPORTERS RAGE ON
THE STREETS OF LONDON, VOW REVENGE...
Stage mock funeral in front
of US embassy...
Gas nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats 9% of household budgets...
Average price sets record in
Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03 in Hawaii...
JAPAN URGES HALT AT THREE
REACTORS...
UNEMPLOYMENT BACK UP TO
9.0%...
Fannie Mae Reports $8.7B Loss
for First Quarter...
Seeks $8.5B more from
taxpayers...
APRIL JOBS: +244,000...
FUZZY MATH: How can US add jobs but the unemployment
rate go up?
Gas nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats 9% of household
budgets...
Average price sets record in
Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03 in Hawaii...
Silver Plunge Spreads...
OIL GUTTED...
Price Slide Temporary, New Highs Likely: Goldman...
Fears linger of a new 'flash
crash'...
Euro Tumbles...
CNN SHOCK POLL: RON PAUL HAS
BEST CHANCE VS OBAMA
National Home Prices Double Dip...
JOBLESS CLAIMS RISE TO 8
MONTH HIGH...
Fears linger of a new 'flash
crash'...
9-11 FAMILY: 'SHOW US PROOF
BIN LADEN KILLED'...
Victim's father: Obama
'putting too much spotlight on himself'...
Channels Bush at Ground Zero: 'We will never forget'...
Tells teen survivor he knows Justin Bieber...
Turns Back on 9/11 Family
Member...
AUDIO...
Muslim Brotherhood urges
review of Israel ties...
Pakistanis burn U.S. flags;
backlash over death grows...
Pakistan officials: No
resistance in 'cold-blooded' U.S. raid...
Warns America not to stage
any more...
Threatens 'disastrous
consequences'...
Muslims already name dump
location 'Martyr's Sea'...
OBAMA, NO PHOTOS OF OSAMA:
'We don't need to spike the football'...
'Conspiracy
theorists will just claim doctored'...
Sen. Scott Brown: 'I've seen
picture, he's definitely dead'...
UPDATE: Photo proving bin
Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
three senators fell for fakes...
UPDATE: 'The photo I saw and
that a lot of other people saw is not authentic'...
Top Dem: No photo needed,
'there's absolute proof'...
REUTERS RELEASES 'DEATH SCENE' PHOTOS
**WARNING GRAPHIC**
UPDATE: Photo
proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
Possibly three senators fell for fakes...
Pakistan: 'Not a single
bullet fired from compound'...
WIRE: Photos from 1 hour
after raid show 3 dead, no weapons...
The Slippery Story of the bin
Laden Kill...
Official says
'killed apparently by the U.S. raid team'...
DOLLAR HITS 3 YEAR LOW...
1 IN 7 ON FOOD STAMPS!
Job numbers disappoint...
Treasury suggests $2 trillion
debt cap raise...
Postal
Service loses $2.2B in second quarter (Washington Post) [ And, let me add that
they deserved that loss. The USPS is totally unreliable and basically a jobs
program for the otherwise unemployable; and, they are also corrupt. I’ve
previously set forth the scenario where the postal service waylaid dvd disks
sent priority/confirmation and a second time, certified mail, to the FBI
(violations of federal law, tampering, obstruction, etc.), and ultimately
additional copies of said disks were delivered by the reliable, efficient,
competitive, performance-driven UPS (their parcel rates are roughly the same
and yet half the delivery time – Fedex is as unreliable as the USPS-and for
some time had a deal with the USPS). Amazon, Ebay, though a boon to the USPS,
have consistently failed to deliver in the realm of computers. http://www.procomputercenter.com . Pro Computer Center is among the few
remaining stores of their kind. They are performance / service / customer
oriented like no other surviving computer retailer / repairer / service
providers I’ve experienced. They’ve also moved into the realm of computer
forensics / data recovery in the context of court proceedings where they’ve
successfully performed where others failed and at substantially more reasonable
rates than ‘the competition’. My most
recent computer problems accounting for some website / posting delays has been
once again been resolved by them and another Dell computer (the circumstances
of the most recent debacle was a barrage of Trojans caught by my antivirus, one
after another, then shutting down my antivirus, ultimately freezing (no boot)
my computer (I previously alluded to my reasonable suspicions as to who
perpetrated same). My experiences with such as Amazon, Ebay have been atrocious
and borderline if not outright fraudulent (the shoddy sellers), time consuming,
and aggravating in the ‘claims process’. Moreover, other retailers lay most of
the warrantee on the manufacturer. (Prior testimonial:
I just wanted to extend to you and your company my sincere thanks
for a job well done.. I bought my first computer from you (Ben) in or around
1999. It was a Sony Vaio laptop which owing to Windows Millenium and a very
proprietary approach to computing on the part of Sony, truth be told, was not
the greatest system in terms of stability, but no fault of yours. Ultimately,
though functional, I traded to you the Vaio for a Mac. You’ve always stood by
your products / service, are available / accessible to field / handle all
questions / problems which is rare indeed. In Armand you have a top-notch A+
Certified Tech who is patient, knowledgeable, and talented. Ruben, in truth has
been particularly instrumental in seeing to a smooth transition in my recent
dealings with your company as a knowledgeable IT Specialist and especially as a
savvy, capable manager. Since 1999 I’ve purchased five computers from you and
based upon performance, the sixth is assured.
Top 3 Reasons Markets Tanked with Oil Wall St
Cheat Sheet ‘Markets closed down on Wall Street: DJI -1.02% SP500 -1.11% Nasdaq
-0.93% Gold -0.82% Oil -4.63% .
Markets got
crushed. On the commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) got rocked $5, landing at $98.88. Gold (NYSE:GLD) sold off too, but nothing like the crazy volatile
face-melting spree in Silver (NYSE:SLV) which lost over 8%.
Today’s
markets were down because:
1) Commodities
and Oil got slaughtered. Apparently, the “risk off” trade was in full force
after today’s US
Trade Deficit report showed a widening gap. The good news is exports hit a
record high. However, reducing the trade deficit seems like a rabbit being
chased at the Kentucky Derby. The news was enough to get black boxes and
traders dumping just about everything across the board.
2) Insiders
are finally getting busted. Although the media loves the
Raj Rajaratnam trial and his guilty on all 14 counts, who really gives a
s*** compared with what large banks, investment banks, and mortgage companies
did to the US economy. So long as the Dick Fulds of the world are sipping
champagne in Capri, Italy, these insider trading cases are basically sideshows.
3) Change of
fortune? In breaking news, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) beat earnings after the bell. Shares were up
at first, but now they are down. This will play heavily into how Tech (NASDAQ:QQQ) gets started in the morning. You can see
our full Cheat Sheet of Cisco earnings here.
Now that
you’re in the know, get ready to enjoy Raj’s face all over your media outlets!’
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
People
must realize that though having but 5% of the
world’s population, america can boast 76% of the world’s serial killers and the
highest crime rates in the world by far.
http://www.albertpeia.com/realifeamericaserialkillers.mpg . Defacto
bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on military spending than all the
nations of the world combined... federal employees / contractors, cia, all 3
branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in this evolved american
trait of inherent criminality ( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ).
That perverse field of dreams I’ve previously alluded to, the american nightmare,
if you build / contrive war, they will come. And, they do; seals of them (among
others); and when their ‘tours’ are done, it’s murder inc./contract killing for
hire that they’ve won (cia, mob, etc.). The 20th century, the ‘bloodiest
century’, not coincidentally referred to as the american century, brings
longings of nostalgia to american criminals who, like Pavlov’s dogs salivate at the prospect of killing, raping, pillaging, and plundering
which primitive mindset they have mistakenly been conditioned to connect to
their now irretrievably lost success as a nation state; and to the contrary,
has become globally and domestically self-destructive / self-defeating. The
entire 911 / Bin Laden scenario just doesn’t pass the smell test and reeks of political
desperation and Orwellian opportunism.
Stocks Fall, In Step With Commodities Midnight Trader ‘4:24 PM, May 11, 2011 --
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
UPSIDE MOVERS
(+) M beats with earnings, hikes dividend, raises guidance.
(+) TISA reports improved earnings.
(+) JNJ upgraded.
(+) LVS initiated with Buy rating.
(+) ALTI inks contract.
(+) TYPE added to S&P 600 SmallCap.
(+) ASTC inks contract.
(+) HALO inks licensing pact.
(+) CHOP guides for beat.
(+) AIG sets share offering through Treasury Dept.
DOWNSIDE MOVERS
(-) NTAP upgraded.
(-) CS upgraded.
(-) IRM initiated with Overweight rating.
(-) GIVN reports positive results from European study.
(-) NTAP upgraded.
(-) DIS misses with results.
(-) YGE cuts margin, shipment guidance.
(-) HBC details cost-cutting.
(-) STWD selling shares.
(-) MYRX reports narrower loss vs year earlier.
MARKET DIRECTION
Stock averages end sharply lower, in the bottom end of the session's range, and
snapping a three-day rally. Weaker commodities sapped early strength in the
stock market as did concerns for Chinese inflation and Greek debt. Blue chip Disney
(DIS)
fell after disappointing results.
Commodities ended trading lower as crude oil futures faltered on concerns over
rising inventories and a Chinese interest rate hike, and gold slumped on a
stronger greenback.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery finished down 5.5% to $98.21 a barrel. In
other energy futures, heating oil was down 2.8% to $2.91 a gallon while natural
gas was down 0.64% to at $4.21 per million British thermal units.
Meanwhile, gold futures ended lower as the dollar strengthened against foreign
currencies.
Gold for June delivery finished down 1% to $1,501.40 an ounce. In other metal
futures, silver settled down 7.7% to $35.52 a troy ounce while copper traded up
0.62% to $4.04.
The U.S. dollar index (DXY) is up 1.01% to $75.37.
Walt Disney Co. fell after reporting Q2 EPS of $0.49, up from $0.48 per share
in the prior year quarter. Revenue was $9.07 billion, up from $8.58 billion.
The Street view was $0.57 per share in earnings on revenue of $9.11 billion.
The U.S. trade deficit widened by 6% in March to $48.2 billion, the Commerce
Department said Wednesday. The trade deficit was above the consensus forecast
of Wall Street economists for $47.0 billion. Exports rose to the highest level
on record while imports were the strongest since August 2008.
Also, crude oil futures moved lower following talk about interest rate hikes in
China and a larger-than-expected rise in U.S. oil supplies last week. The
Energy Information Administration said crude oil inventories for the week ended
May 6 increased by 3.8 million barrels, above the 1.1 million barrels expected
by analysts.
The major refiners - including Chevron (CVX),
BP (BP),
Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) and
Exxon (XOM) - were all trending lower.
In company news:
Intel (INTC)
is higher after it raises its quarterly cash dividend 16% to $0.21 per share,
beginning with the dividend that will be declared in Q3. The move is the second
time in six months the world's largest chipmaker has boosted its dividend as
corporate technology spending increases.
Shares of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) are higher following an AP report that
the drug and healthcare products company is recalling a prescription drug due
to a musty odor - most likely from a chemical on shipping pallets. J&J said
it is recalling five lots of HIV medicine Prezista. The recall comes at the
wholesale and pharmacy level in five countries.
U.S.-traded shares of HSBC (HBC) are down after the bank released cost cutting
measures as part of a strategy day. HSBC plans to slash as much as $3.5 billion
from mounting costs and announced a review of its U.S. credit-card business and
branch network, MarketWatch and other news outlets reported. The bank said it
aims to achieve sustainable annual cost savings of between $2.5 billion and
$3.5 billion by 2013, bringing its cost efficiency ratio, the ratio of expenses
to revenue, down to between 48% and 52%.
Level 3 (LVLT) firms after it says HBO selected
the company to provide content delivery network (CDN) services supporting the
new HBO GO mobile app delivery initiative.
American International Group (AIG) shares gained after the
insurer said it and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as the selling
shareholder, have commenced a registered public offering of AIG common stock,
par value $2.50 per share. One hundred million shares will be issued and sold
by AIG and 200 million shares will be sold by the selling shareholder. The Wall
Street Journal was out with a report earlier Wednesday saying the $9 billion
offering was smaller than analysts expected.
In earnings news:
- Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) reports Q1 non-GAAP
EPS rose 11.8% to $1.04 a share, beating the Thomson Reuters mean analyst estimate
for $1.03 by a penny. Net sales rose 11.7% to $4.08 billion.
- Arcelor Mittal (MT) says Q1 sales were $22.2 billion, up 7.2% from a
year ago. Net income was $0.69 per share, up from $0.42 a year earlier.
- Macy's (M)
says Q1 sales were $5.889 billion, more than the Thomson Reuters mean for
$5.85849 billion. It earned $0.30 per share, better than forecasts for $0.18.
In energy ETFs, the United States Oil Fund (USO)
is down 2.56% to $40.03 and the United States Natural Gas fund (UNG) is down 2.18%, to
$10.77.
In precious metal ETFs, the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD)
is down 0.94% at $146.51. Market Vectors Gold Miners (GDX)
is down 1.9% to $55.68. iShares Silver Trust (SLV)
is down 6.18% to $35.18.’
Dollar
mixed on deeper trade deficit, Greece woes Associated Press
| Dollar mixed against major currencies Wednesday after a report showed a
growing U.S. trade deficit.
US
Trade Gap Widens More Than Expected in March CNBC | The
U.S. trade deficit widened more than expected in March.
U.S.
‘Underwater’ Homeowners Increase to 28 Percent Bloomberg |
Homeowners with negative equity increased from 22 percent a year earlier.
Fed
official calls for vigilance Action may be taken against even the
possibility of a surge of higher prices, Jeffrey M. Lacker says. (Washington
Post) [ Who’s still buying their
b***s***! Much higher prices / inflation’s already here. They conveniently have
said they’re using an ‘inflating strategy’ for asset prices, also known as
inflation. Why? Because high inflation is here! 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees Study:
Affordable rentals scarce (WP) Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war
Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Bernanke
prepares to make history (WP) [ He already has! $6 gas acomin’, $1,508+
gold, $46+ silver, other commodities at record levels, hyperinflation as
predicted well on the way from over-printing of fiat paper currency by fed as
predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued according
to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more overvalued
was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009, corporate subsidies, etc.
Why Does the Terrorist Kingpin Look Better Than He Did in
2001? Washington’s Blog
Hoax: White House Claims 4-Year-Old Bin Laden Video Is New
Footage
Then,
of course, there’s also: that ‘pearl harbor event’ so sought by the neo-cons /
war mongers still defies explanation (ie., the ‘stand-down order’, symmetrical
implosions, foreknowledge by some {who conveniently ‘missed the party’ that
day}, etc.. Some links, echoing the unbelief akin to the ‘Jessica Lynch’,
Tillman, etc., affairs follow. People
must realize that though having but 5% of the
world’s population, america can boast 76% of the world’s serial killers, and
the highest crime rates in the world by far.
]
Drudgereport: Treasury Auctions to Push US Over Debt Ceiling...
McCARTHY:
'Not one Republican vote' to borrow more without cuts...
REPORT:
48 Women Raped Every Hour in Congo...
'DOLLAR
IN GRAVER DANGER THAN EURO'...
FORBES:
RETURN TO GOLD STANDARD WITHIN 5 YEARS...
In
S.C., legislature takes first step...
POLL: 1 in 5 say bin Laden alive...
MICHELLE:
KEEPS ON DANCING!
First
Lady to host rapper who talks of killing cops...
USA
FREAK OUT: TERROR FEARS; FALSE ALARMS...
Sen.
Schumer Calls For Amtrak 'Do Not Ride' List...
Two
tunnel 'breaches' cause scare in NYC...
Threats
Divert Planes in Three Separate Incidents...
Passengers,
flight crew subdue man banging on cockpit door...
Dallas
Train Station Evacuated: Man Asked For Help Carrying Packages...
4
Arrested For Videotaping TSA Line At Denver...
SHOCK PHOTO: TSA LOOKING FOR
'POOP BOMBS?'
U.S.-Pak.
Rift Widens...
Pak.
warns of 'full force' response to future US raids...
S&P
cuts Greece's rating...
BOEHNER
TO DEMAND NOT BILLIONS, BUT TRILLIONS
IN CUTS...
OIL
REBOUNDS; 2ND LARGEST GAIN ON RECORD...
REPORT:
Housing crash getting worse...
...values
fall fastest rate since '08
Michelle
Obama to host rapper at WH who talks of killing cops...
'COMMAND
CENTER'...
Pakistan
skeptical of U.S. claim bin Laden directed network...
Two loud explosions heard in town where bin Laden killed...
Videos
show 9-11 mastermind watching himself on TV...
U.S.
government censors tapes, cuts audio...
Inside
bin Laden's squalid home...
NYT:
Final days of domesticity...
Drone
Strike Kills 15 in Pakistan...
First
since bin Laden raid...
BIN
LADEN SUPPORTERS RAGE ON THE STREETS OF LONDON, VOW REVENGE...
Stage
mock funeral in front of US embassy...
Gas
nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats
9% of household budgets...
Average
price sets record in Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03
in Hawaii...
JAPAN
URGES HALT AT THREE REACTORS...
UNEMPLOYMENT
BACK UP TO 9.0%...
Fannie
Mae Reports $8.7B Loss for First Quarter...
Seeks
$8.5B more from taxpayers...
APRIL
JOBS: +244,000...
FUZZY
MATH: How can US add
jobs but the unemployment rate go up?
Gas
nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats
9% of household budgets...
Average
price sets record in Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03
in Hawaii...
Silver
Plunge Spreads...
OIL
GUTTED...
Price
Slide Temporary, New Highs Likely: Goldman...
Fears
linger of a new 'flash crash'...
Euro
Tumbles...
CNN
SHOCK POLL: RON PAUL HAS BEST CHANCE VS OBAMA
National
Home Prices Double Dip...
JOBLESS
CLAIMS RISE TO 8 MONTH HIGH...
Fears
linger of a new 'flash crash'...
9-11
FAMILY: 'SHOW US PROOF BIN LADEN KILLED'...
Victim's
father: Obama 'putting too much spotlight on himself'...
Channels
Bush at Ground Zero: 'We will never forget'...
Tells
teen survivor he knows
Justin Bieber...
Turns
Back on 9/11 Family Member...
AUDIO...
Muslim
Brotherhood urges review of Israel ties...
Pakistanis
burn U.S. flags; backlash over death grows...
Pakistan
officials: No resistance in 'cold-blooded' U.S. raid...
Warns
America not to stage any more...
Threatens
'disastrous consequences'...
Muslims
already name dump location 'Martyr's Sea'...
OBAMA,
NO PHOTOS OF OSAMA: 'We don't need to spike the football'...
'Conspiracy theorists will just claim doctored'...
Sen.
Scott Brown: 'I've seen picture, he's definitely dead'...
UPDATE:
Photo proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was
faked...
three
senators fell for fakes...
UPDATE:
'The photo I saw and that a lot of other people saw is not authentic'...
Top
Dem: No photo needed, 'there's absolute proof'...
REUTERS RELEASES 'DEATH SCENE' PHOTOS
**WARNING GRAPHIC**
UPDATE: Photo proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
Possibly
three senators fell for fakes...
Pakistan:
'Not a single bullet fired from compound'...
WIRE:
Photos from 1 hour after raid show 3 dead, no weapons...
The
Slippery Story of the bin Laden Kill...
Official says 'killed apparently
by the U.S. raid team'...
DOLLAR
HITS 3 YEAR LOW...
1
IN 7 ON FOOD STAMPS!
Job
numbers disappoint...
Treasury
suggests $2 trillion debt cap raise...
Postal
Service loses $2.2B in second quarter (Washington Post) [ And, let me add that they
deserved that loss. The USPS is totally unreliable and basically a jobs program
for the otherwise unemployable; and, they are also corrupt. I’ve previously set
forth the scenario where the postal service waylaid dvd disks sent
priority/confirmation and a second time, certified mail, to the FBI (violations
of federal law, tampering, obstruction, etc.), and ultimately additional copies
of said disks were delivered by the reliable, efficient, competitive,
performance-driven UPS (their parcel rates are roughly the same and yet half
the delivery time – Fedex is as unreliable as the USPS-and for some time had a
deal with the USPS). Amazon, Ebay, though a boon to the USPS, have consistently
failed to deliver in the realm of computers.
http://www.procomputercenter.com . Pro Computer Center is among the few
remaining stores of their kind. They are performance / service / customer
oriented like no other surviving computer retailer / repairer / service
providers I’ve experienced. They’ve also moved into the realm of computer
forensics / data recovery in the context of court proceedings where they’ve
successfully performed where others failed and at substantially more reasonable
rates than ‘the competition’. My most
recent computer problems accounting for some website / posting delays has been
once again been resolved by them and another Dell computer (the circumstances
of the most recent debacle was a barrage of Trojans caught by my antivirus, one
after another, then shutting down my antivirus, ultimately freezing (no boot)
my computer (I previously alluded to my reasonable suspicions as to who
perpetrated same). My experiences with such as Amazon, Ebay have been atrocious
and borderline if not outright fraudulent (the shoddy sellers), time consuming,
and aggravating in the ‘claims process’. Moreover, other retailers lay most of
the warrantee on the manufacturer. (Prior:
I just wanted to extend to you and your company my sincere thanks
for a job well done.. I bought my first computer from you (Ben) in or around
1999. It was a Sony Vaio laptop which owing to Windows Millenium and a very
proprietary approach to computing on the part of Sony, truth be told, was not
the greatest system in terms of stability, but no fault of yours. Ultimately,
though functional, I traded the Vaio for a Mac. You’ve always stood by your
products / service, are available / accessible to field / handle all questions
/ problems which is rare indeed. In Armand you have a top-notch A+ Certified
Tech who is patient, knowledgeable, and talented. Ruben, in truth has been
particularly instrumental in seeing to a smooth transition in my recent
dealings with your company as a knowledgeable IT Specialist and especially as a
savvy, capable manager. Since 1999 I’ve purchased five computers from you and
based upon performance, the sixth is assured.
Sell
in May? The Signals to De-Risk Cam Hui ‘In the wake of the commodity rout
last week, the Inflation-Deflation
Timer Model has moved into "neutral" from an
"inflation" reading*. This told my inner trader that he should take
some risk off the table. Given the high level of macro risk, I would be
inclined to take more more defensive position than usual.
This signal to de-risk isn't a surprise. In early April, I wrote about negative
divergences (see Getting
ready to sell in May). How the market reacts to news is also a good
short-term indicator of direction. The fizzled Osama bin Laden rally should
have been as clear as ringing the bell in the town square to traders that this
market was looking tired.
What happens now?
Now that the Timer Model has gone neutral, what happens now? Mr. Market could
take one of two paths.
First, this could be the start of a run-of-the-mill 5-10% correction in the
equity market, with an extreme downside limit of about 15%. VIX
and More has tabulated the market pullbacks in the 2009-11 period and the
average depth of these correction was 6.5%.
Macro risks everywhere
I am concerned that the market is acting vulnerably during a period of
heightened macro risk. There are three major sources of macro risk:
The current market environment is likely to resolve
itself with a plain vanilla 5-10% correction. However, if any of these macro
risks were to manifest themselves during that pullback, the downside has the
potential to extend itself to 40-50%.
My inner investor has already heeded these warnings
and de-risked his portfolio. My inner trader is inclined to be more defensive
than normally called for.’
Should
Long-Term Investors Buy or Sell This Market? Jones ‘…Stocks: Overbought & Overvalued The data show that stocks right now are overbought
and overvalued. That's not dogma or my opinion or the narrative I'm trying to
promulgate; it's just what the data show.With the exception of the bubble 90’s,
the stock market has never had a positive 10-year return that began
from valuation levels like the present …’
‘ It's a good question.
The kind of question than long-term investors like you and I really want to
know the answer to. Is the
market a long term buy? To help us answer it we're going to look at some
charts, including one that might be the most important chart of all. The King
of the Charts! It's the one that every long-term investor should be interested
in.
Overbought
& Overvalued? Underowned & Fundamentally Cheap?
We're already
on record as believing that stocks are a tricky value proposition over the
short run. The market has gone up for eight straight months since the QE2
program was announced and anything that moves that far in a straight line faces
an increasingly large risk of reverting back to mean. Moving to a slightly
longer time horizon -- the medium term -- one of our Predictions
for 2011 was that the market would end basically flat for the year. So far,
I've been dead wrong on that one though the rest have panned out nicely,
nailing it on gold, oil, Paul Ryan, and real estate. I expect to finish the
year about 50/50 on my predictions. That's the best that any of us who lack
crystal balls can really hope for.But what about over the long-term? Is it OK
to ignore the short and medium term risks and buy?Long-term investors nowadays
sort themselves into two basic camps. I'll bet dollars or donuts that you
already have a view on the matter and what we discuss today won't change your
mind one way or the other. But that's how it goes with investment research --
we look for stuff that confirms our preconceived notions and discard
information that refutes it. Trying to change minds in this business is just
asking for trouble.Most likely you're already either in the camp that thinks
that stocks are cheap and a fantastic buy or you think that they're expensive
and you're waiting for them to fall back to lower valuations. But maybe you're
in the middle. Who knows. Maybe you just own gold or GLD and are hiding out in
your bunker cranking out angry manifestos about how stocks are a fraud and
Treasuries are a fraud and so, incidentally, is the Dollar and it's nebbish
champion, Timothy Franz Geithner.That's cool too. Hopefully you like charts:
click to enlarge [ chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/6/524360-130470267773646-Jeffrey-Dow-Jones_origin.png ]
I love this
chart. It's my time machine chart.What this chart does is start at the very
beginning of the year 1900. It takes a look at the Price/Earnings ratio for the
market at that exact moment. Then it fast forwards through time to exactly ten
years later and it measures how much the market went up in down over that ten
year span. The chart plots those two bits of information against each other as
one data point. Then it goes back to February of 1900 and repeats the process
for every single month and every single 10-year window in the 20th century.The
chart measures present valuation
against future
return. Pretty snazzy, huh?For this kind of study, it's important to use some
kind of normalized earnings to smooth out the volatility of corporate earnings.
Personally, I like Bob Shiller's simple "average 10 year earnings".
But there are bunch of different ways you can normalize earnings. It all tells
basically the same story.If you look back at that chart again, you'll probably
say, "whoah, that's cool." You can see that there is a
definite relationship between present valuation and future return.
High valuations correlate with low future returns and low valuations correlate
with higher future returns. Always be skeptical if you hear people denying this
relationship or that you should always buy (or sell) the market regardless of
its valuation. The data doesn't lie. As a long-term investor, it really pays to
get a sense of whether the market is cheap or expensive before investing
because it can make a HUGE different over the long run.In other words: if you
buy when stocks are fundamentally cheap and hold them for a while, there is a very good
chance you'll make decent money. If you buy stocks when they are expensive and hold them for a while, there is a very good
chance you'll get a whole lot of heartburn and your wife will wonder why you're
always using so much profanity.Looking back at that chart, you'll also notice
that there are two different curves. That probably makes you say, "whoah,
that's weird." What's going on here?The entire upper curve is pretty much
the 1990's through now. Valuations were really high in the early 90's and the
market did great for the next decade. In the late 90's valuations were really,
REALLY high and the market pretty much broke even for the next decade. That
brings us to right around today.What was the reason for that? How was it that
the stock market did so well, doubling or better from a 20+ P/E ratio when every
other instance like that in history stocks had gone down?Some of it had to do
with the tech bubble. Investors bought the market at a time when it was kind of
pricy but the 10-year window happened to close during the peak of the bubble
days. Then there is also the collection of points that started in the mid-90's
when the market was starting to get really expensive and ran through the peak
of the credit bubble in 2007.Do you want to blame Alan Greenspan for those
points, distorted by the bubble windows? You can if you want. I won't get in
your way.We all kind of freaked out when we had 9/11 and the little 2001
recession and when the stock market went down for a few years in a row we got
desperate and cut interest rates to basically zero percent. When you do that, real interest rates usually go negative and that gives
people a serious incentive to invest in anything that's not cash, regardless
of the price. I wrote a much
more in-depth piece about the effect of negative real interest rates right here. It boils
down to "Risk or
Die."Because interest rates have been so low for so long, and real
interest rates have been negative or close enough to it, the market is behaving in a
manner totally discordant with the bulk of recorded history.
It's a
policy-driven world
You can make a
pretty good case that a lot of those points have been driven entirely by modern
policy -- both Fed policy and political policy. We can argue about whether or
not this goal to inflate asset prices is the prudent or appropriate policy. But it's kind of silly to debate whether or
not it actually works. It does.Will this super-aggressive, asset-stimulative
policy continue? That's the big discussion right now and it's why so many
people pay so much attention to those two little words -- "extended
period" -- in the Fed minutes. If the policy doesn't continue then the
market might start behaving like it did for the century prior to the credit
bubble.
UH OH.
What might
that look like? Let's revise our chart. Let's take out all of these modern data
points, the ones from this era of unprecedented and aggressive monetary &
fiscal policy. It'll be what an investor should expect if they think they next
few decades will resemble the first 90% of the 20th century and not this recent
era since Greenspan and Bernanke took over.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/6/524360-130470615079765-Jeffrey-Dow-Jones_origin.png ]
In this chart,
our time machine basically stops before we get too far into the
buy-at-any-price psychology of tech boom and subsequent credit bubble.I also
marked the today's Price/Earnings ratio. As of last week, the Shiller PE stands
at around 24. Again, you can use other flavors of normalized earnings, but they
all tell pretty much the same story. The numbers are different but the relationship
is the same.
Stocks:
Overbought & Overvalued
The data show
that stocks right now are overbought and overvalued. That's not dogma or my
opinion or the narrative I'm trying to promulgate; it's just what the data
show.With the exception of the bubble 90’s, the stock market has never
had a positive 10-year return that began from valuation levels like the
present. Now, I want to emphasize that that’s not to say that stocks will go down over the next decade. They could go up. These
are crazy times!There are plenty of convincing arguments to buy stocks for the
long run, but relative to historical valuation data, stocks are expensive. In a
sense, buying them is a bet that policy will continue to be asset-stimulative
and that we won't have any technical or economic hiccups along the way.This
condition won’t last forever. I'm one of those guys that doesn't like to buy
things that are expensive and if they are things that fluctuate in value (like
stocks) I am happy just being patient until they get cheap again. Don’t worry,
they will get
cheap again. The history of the stock market is one where it moves in big
cycles from “expensive” to “cheap” and back again. When stocks do get cheap
I’ll go shopping. Until then, I’m avoiding the risk and saving myself the heartburn.
How to
play it
If you think
that the arguments against using historical valuation as a compass are
outweighed by other arguments then go ahead and load up on something like the
SPDRs (SPY) or Diamonds (DIA) and just hold them for
as long as you'd like. Or buy an actively managed growth fund. Over the
long-run, most of them are pretty much the same and they'll all do well if the
market does well.Go on ahead and bet on systemtically-important U.S. stocks
like Apple (AAPL),
Microsoft (MSFT), Exxon (XOM),
Wal-Mart (WMT), or Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).
Odds are, over the long run those stocks will grow by at least GDP. I probably wouldn't use a bank stock like
Citgroup (C)
or Bank of America (BAC) to make a bet like this on the
broader market. There are a lot of factors idiosyncratic to that industry that
may produce extra volatility and more-difficult-to-predict returns.If you don't
like to buy the market when it's expensive... then don't buy it! I probably
wouldn't recommend shorting it just because that's a tough thing to
successfully manage over the long run. Try and be patient and hold your cash as
you wait for that opportunity. Hang out in bonds or something. Heck, go play
golf and check back in a year or so.You can also narrow your focus. Just
because the market
is expensive doesn't mean that every stock is expensive. There are plenty of cheap stocks out
there and this is the kind of stuff that people talk about on Seeking Alpha
every day.In fact, if you're going to draw one conclusion from this article, I
hope it's not that you should buy the market or sell the market. It's that this
is an environment where you'll probably be better off with active strategies
and picking specific stocks than with passive strategies and positioning
yourself like an index.
When to
go all in
If that red
line ever gets below 10, I am going to load the freakin’ boat with domestic
equities. It will be a long-term trade, and the bad news is that it’s the kind
trade that most investors get only one shot to make in their entire careers. It’s like
buying stocks in 1908 or 1933 or 1947 or 1982. I wasn’t in the business in
1982, so I’m still waiting for my chance. It will come. But I can tell you
right now that it won’t be an easy trade to make. The world will feel like it’s
ending and people will hate stocks with a violent passion. (Sort of like real
estate today.) Stocks will sell for 8 or 9 times the previous decade’s
earnings and everybody in the world will think they should be selling at 4 or
5x. That sounds like it will be an easy thing to do. But trust me, it will take
some serious cojones.
Everyone in the world will have a reason for why investors shouldn't buy the market despite the historically cheap
valuation.Psychology is a funny thing.’
Boehner
seeks more than $2 trillion in cuts (Washington Post) [ I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking
‘Riiiiight! … that’ll happen … and all
without cuts to endless war spending … while the situation’s more than that
dire, the advice is … don’t hold your breath!
Milbank:
The GOP’s juvenile debate (Washington Post) [ Mr. Milbank has lamentably become the rush
limbaugh / sean hannity of the newspaper world, though he barks and apologizes
for dems (and wobama the b for b*** s***) only (as they for the gop / bushies
only). A
political minefield in Treasury plan
(Washington Post) [ What plan!
. Let
the budget battle begin Congress returns to a lengthy fight over the
nation’s solvency. (WP) [ Stated another way, the nation’s solvency is
over. .. america’s defacto bankrupt with no end in sight.. interest alone is
eating progressively into GDP beyond the subterfuge.. Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (WP) [ Not much! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘..And here
comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is about to be mass revised by everyone,
courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation pressures: the Philadelphia Fed
collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the lowest since
November 2010… This is an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘
(Washington
Post) [ And don’t forget the
troubled states. Ask Meredith Whitney! She was right last time, and this time,
like last last time, she’s takin’ it on the chin from the permabull wall street
frauds: Meredith
Whitney Sticks to Her Guns Today Roche ‘Talk about holding onto a losing
trade. At the Milken Conference yesterday, Meredith Whitney said there was
nothing controversial about her muni call, maintaining that she has more
conviction about the muni crisis call than anything in her entire career. Via
Bloomberg:
Whitney said on the panel, “It’s not that big of a
call..There’s nothing controversial about that call, if you look at the
numbers.”
“You can criticize me for everything you want, I’m
just numb to it because I have more conviction on this than I’d had on any
single thing in my career.”
On the same panel, David Solomon, Goldman Sachs’
co-head of investment banking said, “I don’t think we’re doomed. I think the
resources available to us, and the changes that will evolve as we come out of a
very, very difficult economic period that we’ve been stuck in over the past
couple of years, will provide more flexibility than I think Meredith believes.”
Whitney is certainly right that the states are
suffering fiscal woes; however, as we’ve seen in Europe, there are mechanisms
that can be utilized to combat these issues. While I still maintain that there
is a chance of local defaults, I think the United States will be proactive in
fending off a euro-style crisis.
And that means the US federal government will do what
it has always done. It will credit the bank accounts of the states in order to
ensure that any single municipality cannot cause widespread economic hardship
throughout the United States. This would be nothing new. The US has always
credited the bank accounts of the states that are part of this union.
If Europe was truly united, we would see the same thing
occurring in Europe; however, because it's not united, it instead chooses
austerity due to fears of inflation. The reality is that the ECB is not
creating inflation; it's merely stopping the potentially deflationary debacle
that would ensue with sovereign defaults.
I would hope that a truly
United States of America would be a bit more caring of its own member
states.’
Strange Week: Wall Street Takes a Dive Hansen
‘Strange week on Wall Street.
Weekly
unadjusted initial unemployment claims popped above the 2010 year-ago number.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/8/saupload_z_unemployment2.png
US Postal Service reports
$2.2B loss for quarter... [ And, let me add that they deserved that
loss. The USPS is totally unreliable and basically a jobs program for the
otherwise unemployable; and, they are also corrupt. I’ve previously set forth
the scenario where the postal service waylaid dvd disks sent
priority/confirmation and a second time, certified mail, to the FBI (violations
of federal law, tampering, obstruction, etc.), and ultimately additional copies
of said disks were delivered by the reliable, efficient, competitive,
performance-driven UPS (their parcel rates are roughly the same and yet half
the delivery time – Fedex is as unreliable as the USPS-and for some time had a
deal with the USPS). Amazon, Ebay, though a boon to the USPS, have consistently
failed to deliver in the realm of computers / peripherals. The following
includes a prior testimonial to the service, reliability of PRO Computer Center
( http://www.procomputercenter.com Pro Computer Center, 10837 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles,
CA 90025 ) . Pro Computer Center is among the few remaining stores of their
kind. They are performance / service / customer oriented like no other
surviving computer retailer / repairer / service providers I’ve experienced.
They’ve also moved into the realm of computer forensics / data recovery in the
context of court proceedings where they’ve successfully performed where others
failed and at substantially more reasonable rates than ‘the competition’. My most recent computer problems accounting
for some website / posting delays has been once again been resolved by them and
another Dell computer (the circumstances of the most recent debacle was a
barrage of Trojans caught by my antivirus, one after another, then shutting
down my antivirus, ultimately freezing (no boot) my computer (I previously
alluded to my reasonable suspicions as to who perpetrated same). My experiences
with such as Amazon, Ebay have been atrocious and borderline if not outright
fraudulent (the shoddy sellers), time consuming, and aggravating in the ‘claims
process’. Moreover, the other brick and mortar stores, even if reputable, have
a fine print which lays most of the warrantee/ guarantee on the manufacturer.
In sum, Pro Computer Center does not have any ‘real’ competition. They are currently
building me a backup computer that comports with my budget and their survival
as a company, though somewhat rare among computer retailers of their type, is
totally understandable and a testament to high quality performance and service. (Prior testimonial:
Pro Computer
Center
10837 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Gentlemen:
I just wanted to extend to you and your company my sincere thanks
for a job well done. The Dell computer I recently purchased from you has lived
up to all your representations and as well, my own expectations. I bought my
first computer from you (Ben) in or around 1999. It was a Sony Vaio laptop
which owing to Windows Millenium and a very proprietary approach to computing
on the part of Sony, truth be told, was not the greatest system in terms of
stability (typical Millenium problems), but no fault of yours. Ultimately,
though functional, I traded the Vaio for a Mac, an accommodation by your
company seldom seen with other companies if at all (3+ years later). You’ve always
stood by your products / service, are available / accessible to field / handle
all questions / problems which is rare indeed. In Armand you have a top-notch
A+ Certified Tech who is patient, knowledgeable, and talented. Ruben, in truth
has been particularly instrumental in seeing to a smooth transition in my
recent dealings with your company as a knowledgeable IT Specialist and
especially as a savvy, capable manager. Since 1999 I’ve purchased five
computers from you and based upon performance, the sixth is assured.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia ) ]
Tea
party vs. the RINOs Activists and lawmakers are split on what’s next. (Washington Post) [ Ah, yes! Those activists … those musket-bearing
tea partyers … riiiiight, gotcha. What Mr. Milbank conveniently omits (too
obvious, maybe?) is that the Tea Party is particularly adversarial to the DINs
(democrat in name). Truth be told, I really don’t follow the Tea Party; but,
it’s also true I don’t follow the democrats or republicans either. After all, I
don’t consider myself a lemming, propelled to the precipice so to speak; and,
moreover, posit an inevitable futility in light of past (and future) events. If
only they had listened … made love, not war! Well, like the scorpion, it’s in
their nature (I’m sure you remember that fable). Speaking of fables, they’re
getting downright primetime:
The Osama Deception Corbett
Report | James Corbett breaks down the Osama raid hoax and the “home
video” footage.
Why Does the Terrorist Kingpin Look Better Than He Did in
2001? Washington’s Blog | In the newly-release
videos, Bin Laden looks better than he did years ago.
Hoax: White House Claims 4-Year-Old Bin Laden Video Is New
Footage Paul Joseph Watson | Dubious Bin Laden
“Home Movies” Identical To Tapes Released 4 Years Ago By Pentagon Front Group
Trump’s 2012 polling plummets (The Ticket)
Marcus Baram
over at Huffington Post has a thoroughly
reported piece on Trump University on Friday. I have spent part of the past
week digging into some of the same issues that Baram did.
The case
against Trump University alleges that “The primary lesson Trump University
teaches its students is how to spend more money by buying more Trump Seminars.”
Students say they were encouraged to raise the credit limit on their credit
cards so they could spend up to $35,000 to take a Trump University multi-day
seminar.
The case is
not new –it was filed last year in U.S. District Court in San Diego –but the
judge may rule on it as soon as this month. The complaint in the suit says
attorneys general in six states have received “numerous complaints against
Trump University” and the Texas Attorney General began investigating in January
2010.
George Sorial,
assistant general counsel at the Trump Organization, denies the suit’s claims.
Sorial told me that 11,000 students have taken Trump University courses and
most have been happy. He sent me copies of customer satisfaction surveys that
rank the courses highly. He also sent a video interview with Tarla Makaeff, one
of the plaintiffs in the class action suit, taken in August 2008 in Los Angeles
after a Trump U seminar, in which she praises the program.
Makaeff, a
former fashion and handbag designer in San Diego, says via email that the
video interview of her was manipulative, and that before it was taken she had
already complained toTrump University about not making any money off her
$35,000 investment in a seminar. “They … knew I had to give a positive
response [in the video] and cooperate with them and a camera being shoved in my
face in order to get further support and services from them for my $35,000
investment which I had yet to make any money off in 1 year despite verbal
promises otherwise since day one,” Makaeff continues in an email.
The Trump
Organization has also countersued Makaeff for $1 million, alleging defamation.
A judge has denied Makaeff’s motion to dismiss the counterclaim. Call it the
case of the billionaire vs. the handbag designer.
The question
is what affect, if any, the lawsuits might have on billionaire Donald Trump, should he
decide to run for president. Oh, and there’s a lesson, too. Before you decide
to spend $35,000 on a Trump University seminar, remember what its lawyers say:
“Trump University cannot guarantee riches any more than Harvard University can
guarantee a Rhodes Scholarship or MIT can guarantee a Nobel Prize.”
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
TRUMP TO GIBBS: YOU'RE 'A
LOSER' [‘Another trumped-up case of the pot calling the kettle black’]... TRUMP: Obama
Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues... [ Talk about the pot calling the kettle
black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn) ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster
trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa
mobster trump would pound the undistinguished academically / athletically,
Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a king’ in film noir
melodramatic fashion which proved too much for the more balanced and ‘chosen /
favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide. The old man also required
trump to go to prep / military / boarding school where according to a
classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same manner as
dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the problem
(total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes,
jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental
case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled
with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively read those hitler
speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to Ivana Trump) to
severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory disregard for and
violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions
to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese (actually
including american goods made in China), drug money laundering in his casinos,
bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible
student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie.,
bribery, money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss …
trump is total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade,
quite insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable
structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have
survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms
condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his
opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt
america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed
the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The Touchables’.
The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt, unable to even win
election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He was incorruptible;
and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if not also all but
unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies in america as
I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even false
perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even fake
it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
Drudgereport:
US Postal Service reports
$2.2B loss for quarter...
MICHELLE: KEEPS ON DANCING!
First Lady to host rapper who
talks of killing cops...
USA FREAK OUT: TERROR FEARS;
FALSE ALARMS...
Sen. Schumer Calls For Amtrak
'Do Not Ride' List...
Two tunnel 'breaches' cause
scare in NYC...
Threats Divert Planes in
Three Separate Incidents...
Passengers, flight crew
subdue man banging on cockpit door...
Dallas Train Station
Evacuated: Man Asked For Help Carrying Packages...
4 Arrested For Videotaping
TSA Line At Denver...
SHOCK
PHOTO: TSA LOOKING FOR 'POOP BOMBS?'
U.S.-Pak. Rift Widens...
Pak. warns of 'full force' response
to future US raids...
S&P cuts Greece's
rating...
BOEHNER TO DEMAND NOT
BILLIONS, BUT TRILLIONS IN CUTS...
OIL REBOUNDS; 2ND LARGEST
GAIN ON RECORD...
REPORT: Housing crash getting
worse...
...values fall fastest rate since '08
Michelle Obama to host rapper
at WH who talks of killing cops...
'COMMAND CENTER'...
Pakistan skeptical of U.S.
claim bin Laden directed network...
Two loud explosions
heard in town where bin Laden killed...
Videos show 9-11 mastermind
watching himself on TV...
U.S. government censors
tapes, cuts audio...
Inside bin Laden's squalid
home...
NYT: Final days of
domesticity...
Drone Strike Kills 15 in
Pakistan...
First since bin Laden raid...
BIN LADEN SUPPORTERS RAGE ON
THE STREETS OF LONDON, VOW REVENGE...
Stage mock funeral in front
of US embassy...
Gas nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats 9% of household
budgets...
Average price sets record in
Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03 in Hawaii...
JAPAN URGES HALT AT THREE
REACTORS...
UNEMPLOYMENT BACK UP TO
9.0%...
Fannie Mae Reports $8.7B Loss
for First Quarter...
Seeks $8.5B more from
taxpayers...
APRIL JOBS: +244,000...
FUZZY MATH: How can US add jobs but the unemployment
rate go up?
Gas nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats 9% of household
budgets...
Average price sets record in
Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03 in Hawaii...
Silver Plunge Spreads...
OIL GUTTED...
Price Slide Temporary, New Highs Likely: Goldman...
Fears linger of a new 'flash
crash'...
Euro Tumbles...
CNN SHOCK POLL: RON PAUL HAS
BEST CHANCE VS OBAMA
National Home Prices Double Dip...
JOBLESS CLAIMS RISE TO 8
MONTH HIGH...
Fears linger of a new 'flash
crash'...
9-11 FAMILY: 'SHOW US PROOF
BIN LADEN KILLED'...
Victim's father: Obama
'putting too much spotlight on himself'...
Channels Bush at Ground Zero: 'We will never forget'...
Tells teen survivor he knows Justin Bieber...
Turns Back on 9/11 Family
Member...
AUDIO...
Muslim Brotherhood urges
review of Israel ties...
Pakistanis burn U.S. flags;
backlash over death grows...
Pakistan officials: No
resistance in 'cold-blooded' U.S. raid...
Warns America not to stage
any more...
Threatens 'disastrous
consequences'...
Muslims already name dump
location 'Martyr's Sea'...
OBAMA, NO PHOTOS OF OSAMA:
'We don't need to spike the football'...
'Conspiracy
theorists will just claim doctored'...
Sen. Scott Brown: 'I've seen
picture, he's definitely dead'...
UPDATE: Photo proving bin
Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
three senators fell for fakes...
UPDATE: 'The photo I saw and
that a lot of other people saw is not authentic'...
Top Dem: No photo needed,
'there's absolute proof'...
REUTERS RELEASES 'DEATH SCENE' PHOTOS
**WARNING GRAPHIC**
UPDATE: Photo
proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
Possibly three senators fell for fakes...
Pakistan: 'Not a single
bullet fired from compound'...
WIRE: Photos from 1 hour
after raid show 3 dead, no weapons...
The Slippery Story of the bin
Laden Kill...
Official says
'killed apparently by the U.S. raid team'...
DOLLAR HITS 3 YEAR LOW...
1 IN 7 ON FOOD STAMPS!
Job numbers disappoint...
Treasury suggests $2 trillion
debt cap raise...
Strange Week: Wall Street Takes a Dive Hansen
‘Strange week on Wall Street.
Weekly
unadjusted initial unemployment claims popped above the 2010 year-ago number.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/8/saupload_z_unemployment2.png
Yet the BLS
jobs report this week (analysis here)
was outstanding.
Was it caused
by an unusual event in unemployment? Maybe, but the same uptick happened in
2008 – and the convergence began in the prior week. But hey – this is an
economic recovery expansion right? As the BLS jobs data for April actually uses
a mid month cutoff – whatever caused the spike in initial unemployment claims
will not be in the current jobs data release. And the great BLS numbers
released this week are subject to revision for several months.
But these were
not the only bizarre data points this week.
This week Econintersect released its economic
forecast for May 2011 anticipating a continuing flat growth rate. The question
- Is the economy on the doorstep of another dip?
The fundamental economic real time building blocks
are positive, and in some ways are gaining strength. The economy is not
correcting when the transport of goods and materials to your local shopping
center remains up YoY. Some transport data points are only a week old. Yes,
some data points are not showing the same growth rate as they were earlier this
year, but others are stronger. Overall a push.
The unsettling aspect of this week is the investing
markets. There is a correlation between wealth and spending, and many are
poorer as this week draws to a close. The economy has been “moderately” growing
(Fed Chairman Bernanke’s words) – nothing has changed. It is the markets
themselves which were growing at rates above the economic dynamics.
Sooner or later, the markets (stocks and commodities)
correct to reflect a more considered forward view. The high end consumer is
caught in this game of investing musical chairs, and as they are a major
element in consumer “growth” – there might be another headwind to growth in the
months to come.
But with any luck, the energy headwind might be
abating. Econintersect remains positive for near term economic growth.
Economic News This Week:
Econintersect issued this week its economic forecast
for May 2011
indicating a peaking of this current economic sub-cycle. In simple words, the
same moderate recovery seen in March and April will continue in May.
This week the Weekly Leading Index (WLI) from ECRI declined from 7.5% to
6.7%. This level implies the business conditions six months from now will be
approximately the same or slightly improved compared to today.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/8/saupload_z_weekly_indexes.png
As discussed above, initial unemployment claims rose
rather strongly in this week’s release. I suspect there might be an issue with
the seasonal adjustment factors but only time will tell.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/8/saupload_z_unemployment3.png
Most of the data this week had elements of
uncertainty – but overall did not rise to a level which signaled a correction
to moderate economic growth forecast.
Weekly Economic Release Scorecard:
Item |
Headline |
Analysis |
Up |
Jobs up a solid 244,000. Economic markers in the data are not excellent.
|
|
Up |
With smoke and mirrors consumer credit is up 0.06% YoY |
|
|
Doug Short and John Lounsbury review three market valuation indicators |
|
|
Dirk Ehnts suggests Goldman Sachs may have been involved in the
commodity price bubbles |
|
Up |
The seasonally and non-seasonally adjusted data tell the same bad
story |
|
Up |
Unusually small productivity growth |
|
Less Good |
This survey is not as bad as the pundits are making out |
|
Up |
Lower growth, and barely above labor force growth rates |
|
|
Elliott Morss overviews effects of eliminating some of the Bush Tax
Cuts on deficit reduction |
|
Up |
Manufacturing new orders are in record territory |
|
|
Malcolm Harris overviews the growing debt problem against the benefits
of college education |
|
Less Good |
The underlying survey results show manufacturing is growing |
|
Up |
Not Up – still falling YoY but at a slower rate |
|
|
Elliott Morss looks at the role of education in maintaining empires |
|
|
Same economy as April |
|
|
Sunil Chandra argues that the Reserve Bank should not be raising the
prime rate |
|
|
Frank McKenna discusses short sale flipping fraud |
|
|
Michael Pettis looks at how the reserve currency has created global
imbalances |
|
|
Sanjeev Kulkarni opines on the BRIC conference outcome |
|
|
Michael Collins lists essential elements in the government settlements
with the banking industry |
|
|
Erik McCurdy graphs the warning signals |
Bankruptcy This Week: Raser Technologies, Majestic Capital (fdba CRM
Holdings) and Majestic USA Capital, Caribe Media and CII Acquisition Holdings
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/8/saupload_z_failed_banks.png ‘
Key
Market Movers This Week: Buying Opportunity or Epic Turning Point? Wachtel ‘…Fundamentals
Data from the
US, UK and EU outside of the core funding nations has been steadily downbeat.
In addition, US earnings season failed to provide the lift it has typically
delivered in the past years. As earnings season wraps up, just 60% of companies
have “beat” expectations so far – the lowest rate of any quarter in the current
bull market. Finally, QE 2 is set to end, even though income from current
holdings will be reinvested in US bonds to keep the Fed’s balance sheet from
actually shrinking. Although the great liquidity contraction has yet to begin,
the expansion is ending.
Technical Evidence: S&P 500, EURUSD Approach Multi-Year Highs, QE 2
End In Sight, Begs Profit Taking
The bellwether
S&P 500 Index began the week at 1380, under 200 points from its pre Great
Financial Crisis highs of 2007, though the global and US economy is in much
worse condition. The EURUSD was challenging pre-Greek-Crisis highs of a year
ago of 1.5000 though the EU debt crisis too has only gotten worse, with Greece
at the brink of default and 2 other nations on bailout life support, and
too-big-to-bailout Spain’s situation has also deteriorated.
Admittedly,
these assets have been challenging and breaking though significant resistance
for some time now, though the above catalysts, combined with the above
technical and fundamental conditions, may have been enough.
Certainly
they had help from bearish fundamentals this past week.
EUR
Bearish News
Euro zone
events allowed for additional follow through to the extent that they changed
current market perceptions not only for this week but for at least a part of
the coming week as well.
These
included:
Oil
Prices Will Top Highs After Correction: Goldman CNBC | Oil
to surpass recent highs by 2012 due to supply tightness.
U.S.
Adds 244,000 Jobs in April, but Unemployment Rises National Journal
| Pace of employment growth accelerates; unemployment up to 9 percent.
Jobs
Report Has More Bad News Than Good News CNBC | There was
more bad news than met the eye to Friday’s jobs report.
U.S.
economy adds 244,000 jobs But the
unemployment rate edged up last month, showing that the outlook for workers
remains grim (Washington Post) [244,000
jobs added in April Associated Press In biggest hiring spree in five years,
employers posted a third straight month of hiring; unemployment rose to 9
percent as people resumed looking for work. Interactive:
Why it doesn’t feel like a recovery (Washington Post) [ Short answer: Because it’s really not a
recovery! What jobs? $1 dollar a day, 3 days a year … and on government pork
projects for the porkers’ reelection campaigns? I don’t think so! Obama’s
victory lap (Washington Post) The
killing of bin Laden offered hope of instant renewal. [ Only wobama aficionado
Mr. Milbank could latch onto this propagandist Orwellian dream and call it
victory. Sounds like he’s shootin’ for a job in this failed
presidency/administration as others, including from the Post.. 10
Reasons 2011 Is Feeling More and More Like 2008 Jensen ‘..it eerily feels
like the months before the financial crisis and meltdown of 2008. .. impending
and significant pullback over the summer.
10 reasons
2011 ..like 2008.
Milbank:
The GOP’s juvenile debate (Washington Post) [ Mr. Milbank has lamentably become the rush
limbaugh / sean hannity of the newspaper world, though he barks and apologizes
for dems (and wobama the b for b*** s***) only (as limbaugh / hannity for the
gop / bushies only). A
political minefield in Treasury plan
(Washington Post) Questions
about deficit and growth complicate Treasury’s plan to overhaul corporate
taxes. [ What plan! . Let
the budget battle begin After two weeks of tumultuous meetings with
constituents, Congress returns to a lengthy fight over the nation’s solvency.
(WP) [
Or more aptly put, stated another way, the nation’s solvency is over. ..
america’s defacto bankrupt with no end in sight.. interest alone is eating
progressively into GDP beyond the subterfuge.. Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (WP) [ Not much! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global
GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and
you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how
we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this
(while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the
top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t
fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘..And here
comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is about to be mass revised by everyone,
courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation pressures: the Philadelphia Fed
collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the lowest since
November 2010… This is an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
Pledge
not squaring with reality Obama’s
vow to boost middle-class economic security at odds with corporate profits,
unemployment. (Washington Post) [CEOs’
pay: It’s as if the Great Recession never happened (Washington Post) The typical big-business CEO made $9 million
last year, exceeding pre-recession level. [ And ‘worth every penny’? Not likely
in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america, leaders no more except in
fraud, crime, manipulation, subterfuge. Imagine the comparisons to their
foreign counterparts where value still has meaning. As if ‘never happened? How
‘bout not over, and worse to come! UBS
bank admits rigging bids (WP) Swiss
bank reaped millions of dollars of illegal profits by rigging municipal bond
transactions in 36 states, government said. [ The key here is ‘Swiss’ and
‘millions of dollars of illegal profits’ when the american banks / wall street
frauds’ generated hundreds of billions in illegal profits, which frauds
continue to this day by way of slightly subdued high-frequency trading /
commission-generated scams along with cover-up and cash-out from the last,
still unprosecuted fraud in the trillions for which disgorgement, fines is long
overdue. 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline..’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP)
Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at the end
of fiscal 2009 Study:
Affordable rentals scarce (WP) Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (WP)
More Americans disapprove of President Obama’s management of the war in
Afghanistan than support it Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ...
According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows ]
Meredith
Whitney Sticks to Her Guns Today Roche ‘Talk about holding onto a losing
trade. At the Milken Conference yesterday, Meredith Whitney said there was
nothing controversial about her muni call, maintaining that she has more
conviction about the muni crisis call than anything in her entire career. Via
Bloomberg:
Whitney said on the panel, “It’s not that big of a
call..There’s nothing controversial about that call, if you look at the
numbers.”
“You can criticize me for everything you want, I’m
just numb to it because I have more conviction on this than I’d had on any
single thing in my career.”
On the same panel, David Solomon, Goldman Sachs’
co-head of investment banking said, “I don’t think we’re doomed. I think the
resources available to us, and the changes that will evolve as we come out of a
very, very difficult economic period that we’ve been stuck in over the past
couple of years, will provide more flexibility than I think Meredith believes.”
Whitney is certainly right that the states are
suffering fiscal woes; however, as we’ve seen in Europe, there are mechanisms
that can be utilized to combat these issues. While I still maintain that there
is a chance of local defaults, I think the United States will be proactive in fending
off a euro-style crisis.
And that means the US federal government will do what
it has always done. It will credit the bank accounts of the states in order to
ensure that any single municipality cannot cause widespread economic hardship
throughout the United States. This would be nothing new. The US has always
credited the bank accounts of the states that are part of this union.
If Europe was truly united, we would see the same
thing occurring in Europe; however, because it's not united, it instead chooses
austerity due to fears of inflation. The reality is that the ECB is not
creating inflation; it's merely stopping the potentially deflationary debacle
that would ensue with sovereign defaults.
I would hope that a truly United States of
America would be a bit more caring of its own member states.’
Don't
Be Fooled By The Jobs Report
Harding ‘This was a week that confirmed that the economic recovery has
stalled.
We knew from
the previous week that economic growth (GDP) slowed to just 1.8% in the March
quarter from 3.1% in the December quarter. This week it was reported that
the ISM Non-Mfg Index, which tracks the service sector of the economy, plunged
to 52.8 in April from 57.3 in March (versus the consensus estimate of
economists that it would improve to 57.8).
It was a
shocking report since the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index covers just about every
business sector– everything from education, healthcare, finance, insurance and
retail, to technology services, transportation, and mining, accounting for more
than 80% of U.S. employment. At the same time it was reported that the ISM New
Orders Index also plunged substantially, from 64.1 in March to 52.7 in April,
not encouraging for service sector business activity for the next few months.
Commodity
markets, already worried about what slowing global economies would do to demand
for materials and supplies, reacted with further substantial declines. By the
close on Thursday, the price of crude oil had collapsed from its high of
$114.80 a barrel a week ago, to $99.75. The S&P GSCI Index of 24 raw
materials fell 11.5% in just five days.
Fortunately,
the stock market’s reaction to the further evidence that the economic recovery
is in trouble was more muted. By the close on Thursday, the S&P 500 was
down only 1.8% for the week.
And
thankfully, on Friday morning the Labor Department released its monthly jobs
report, which showed that 244,000 new jobs were created in April, 60,000 more
than had been forecast, and the stock market surged up in reaction, with the
Dow up 150 points within minutes of the market’s open.
Indeed the
jobs report was good news, even though it was also reported that the
unemployment rate rose to 9.0% from its previous level of 8.8%. But did the
better than expected jobs report cancel out the even more surprising plunge in
the ISM service sector index in April, reported the previous day?
I don’t think
so. Even within the employment report the numbers show that 13.7 million people
remained unemployed in April, still almost double the number just before the
last recession began in December, 2007. Including part-time workers who
have not been able to find full-time jobs, and those who have given up looking
for a job, the “underemployed” rate rose to 15.9% in April. That seems to more
closely resemble what the ISM Index said about the economy slowing further in
April.
And here’s the
thing about the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report. As my subscribers know,
I have always called it ‘The Big One’ as far as economic reports go.
That’s because it’s so difficult for economists to forecast that it comes in
with a big surprise in one direction or the other more often than any other
series of reports. And that surprise results in a one or two day triple-digit
move by the Dow in one direction or the other more often than any other report.
But the rest
of that pattern is that the move is then most often reversed over the following
two or three days, and the market returns to whatever its focus was before the
report.
In this
instance, with the 1st quarter earnings reporting season pretty much
over, that is liable to be a refocus on the slowing economic recovery that had
it troubled prior to the jobs report.
Meanwhile, the
collapse in commodity prices was another example of what happens when markets
become overbought, and investor sentiment reaches extremes of bullishness, as
was the case with commodities. The consensus opinion a week ago was that they
could only move higher. $2,000 gold, $75 silver, $150 a barrel oil seemed
assured. But when a surprise hits and investors head in a rush for the exit
they discover they can’t all get through the door at once. Since most everyone
interested in commodities was already invested there was no one willing to buy
what they wanted to sell except at much lower prices.
Perhaps a
cautionary tale for the stock market as it enters its unfavorable season with
investors so bullish and anxious to jump in on any dip?’
Three-Theme Monty: Economic Conditions, Commodity Rally / Rout,
Euro Crisis
A Rough Week for World Markets Short ‘This past week was a downer across major
world markets. The Nikkei 225 is the one index showing a fractional gain, but
it was closed three of the last six market days. The DAX was down fractionally,
but the other markets finished deeper in the red. The table below shows the
three-week trend of the seven markets I've been tracking in this series.
[
chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/9/saupload_world_indexes_weekly_comp_110506_table.png ]
The chart
below illustrates the comparative performance of World Markets since March 9,
2009. The start date is arbitrary: The S&P 500 and BSE SENSEX hit their
lows on March 9th, the Nikkei 225 on March 10th, the DAX on March 6th, the FTSE
on March 3rd, the Shanghai Composite on November 4, 2008, and the Hang Seng
even earlier on October 27, 2008. However, by aligning on the same day and
measuring the percent change, we get a better sense of the relative performance
than if we align the lows.
[
chart Click
for a larger image ]
A Longer Look
Back
Here is the
same chart starting from the turn of 21st century. The relative
over-performance of the emerging markets (Shanghai, Mumbai, Hang Seng) is
readily apparent.
[
chart Click
for a larger image ]‘
Alan
Greenspan “Betrayed” Ayn Rand [ Ayn Rand … Is that all? … If it was only Ayn
Rand ] and Ruined the Economy [ With
‘no-recession-helicopter-ben’s coup de grace’, so to speak, in finishing ‘the
job’. ] - Aaron Task "Ayn Rand would have never
advocated for the kind of policies Alan Greenspan instituted," says Yaron
Brook, President of the Ayn Rand Institute.
Yaron
Brook: GOP Should Repeal Dodd-Frank, Abolish the Fed- Peter
Gorenstein
America’s
Middle Class Crisis: The Sobering Facts- Peter Gorenstein
Housing
Crash Is Getting Worse- MarketWatch
Greece
hit by new downgrade, EU ponders more help
Greeks
ring alarm bells just a year after bailout
SMH | Greece will not be able to meet the terms of last
year’s rescue.
U.S.
‘Underwater’ Homeowners Increase to 28 Percent, Zillow Says
Bloomberg | More than 28 percent of U.S. homeowners owed more
than their properties were worth.
Gold,
Silver Prices Recover After Carnage The Street | Gold and
silver prices were recovering Monday.
National
/ World
The Osama Deception Corbett
Report | James Corbett breaks down the Osama raid hoax and the “home
video” footage.
Media
Ignores Fukushima Fire Kurt Nimmo | The situation
at Fukushima is not newsworthy for the corporate media.
Why Does the Terrorist Kingpin Look Better Than He Did in
2001? Washington’s Blog | In the newly-release
videos, Bin Laden looks better than he did years ago.
Hoax: White House Claims 4-Year-Old Bin Laden Video Is New
Footage Paul Joseph Watson | Dubious Bin Laden
“Home Movies” Identical To Tapes Released 4 Years Ago By Pentagon Front Group
Red Alert: Help Stop False Flag Terror Infowars.com
| Alex warns about the potential for another false flag attack, urging
listeners to call the White House.
Alternative Media Rankings Surge After bin Laden
Assassination Spectacle Activist Post | As a
result, traffic to alternative news sites has surged dramatically.
More Fake Photos Emerge In Bin Laden Farce Infowars
| Check out the bad photoshopping on this supposed image of Bin Laden’s wife’s
passport.
Hoax:
White House Claims 4-Year-Old Bin Laden Video Is New Footage In a desperate
effort to bolster its crumbling official narrative, the White House today
released a set of dubious Bin Laden “home movies” purportedly seized from his
compound during the raid on Sunday night that it claims show Bin Laden on
camera in 2010, but the tapes are almost identical to footage released almost
four years ago by a notorious Pentagon front group that acts as a conduit for US
intelligence by regularly releasing fake Al-Qaeda videos.
Obama
Administration Official Took Photographs Of Press During Bin Laden Briefing The
audio from the videos were not played, Ms. Starr reports, and reporters were
not allowed to record the briefing. They were permitted to take notes, she
said, while an Obama administration official took photographs of the reporters.
More Fake
Photos Emerge In Bin Laden Farce Check out the bad photoshopping on this
supposed image of Bin Laden’s wife’s passport.
Media Ignores Fukushima
Fire Image captures of video footage from the Fukushima nuclear plant
appear to show a fire. According to Alexander Higgins and other bloggers, the
Japanese shut down the webcam after the images below appeared on the internet.
Lucas White Field Hixson posted the images last night, according to Higgins.
There is also an animation of the images posted on YouTube.
Bin
Laden had Pakistan ‘support network’: Obama Osama bin Laden had a “support
network” in Pakistan but it is not clear if the Pakistani government was
involved, US President Barack Obama said in his first public comments on the
issue.
Scepticism
in Pakistan over bin Laden’s alleged role Pakistani security officials
reacted with scepticism on Sunday to a U.S. assertion that Osama bin Laden was
actively engaged in directing his far-flung network from his compound in
Abbottabad where he was killed on May 2.
A Final Word on
the Bin Laden Hoax The “Bin Laden” hoax is consuming our time and energy
even as the global corporate-financier oligarchs flee forward cashing in on the
political capital they presume they have gained by making this announcement.
Bin Laden: The Ears Have
It Ears are as unique as fingerprints, and they do not change with time.
The ears do not match (and the noses are also different). The man in the video
watching TV is most definitely not Osama Bin Laden.
Syria
Standing in Defiance: US-funded sedition and the responsibility to restore
order The global corporate-financier funded think-tanks rolled out their
slick acronym, “R2P,” or the “responsibility to protect,” as a means to
encapsulate the latest excuse in a long history of untenable excuses for wars
of imperial expansion, in recent regards to Libya.
Alternative
Media Rankings Surge After bin Laden Assassination Spectacle A story like
the assassination of “public enemy #1″ is naturally going to drive people
toward all news sources. However, we in the alternative news media have been
particularly busy since the announcement late Sunday night, as indicated by
Alexa website rankings.
More
Propaganda: Was Bin Laden betrayed by his right-hand man? Osama Bin Laden’s
deputy led U.S. troops to the Al Qaeda leader’s hideout so he could take over
the terrorist group, it was claimed today.
The
Cost of Bin Laden: $3 Trillion Over 15 Years What do we have to show for
that tab? Two wars that continue to occupy 150,000 troops and tie up a quarter
of our defense budget; a bloated homeland-security apparatus that has at times
pushed the bounds of civil liberty.
My
mother is still gone The daughter
of a 9/11 victim reflects on bin Laden’s death. (Washington Post) Parker:
Bin Laden death was anti-climactic [ Paul
Craig Roberts: What Is The Agenda Behind The Bin Laden Fable? The US
government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48
hours before being fundamentally altered. What agenda or agendas is the “death
of bin Laden” designed to further? US Government Contractor Claims “Al-Qaeda” Has Confirmed
Bin Laden Fairytale Paul Joseph Watson | SITE
organization was behind release of fake “Al-Qaeda” tapes released at
politically opportune times stretching back years Red Alert: Help Stop False Flag Terror Infowars.com
| Alex warns about the potential for another false flag attack, urging
listeners to call the White House. Terrorist Hunter: General Under Wolfowitz Told Me 9/11
Was False Flag Infowars.com | Government insider
Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist.” Pieczenik: The Psychological Resurrection of Osama Bin
Laden Infowars.com | Critically acclaimed author of
psycho-political thrillers, Steve Pieczenik continues his analysis of the
so-called death of Osama bin Laden. The
Cost of Bin Laden: $3 Trillion Over 15 Years What do we have to show for
that tab? Two wars that continue to occupy 150,000 troops and tie up a quarter
of our defense budget; a bloated homeland-security apparatus that has at times
pushed the bounds of civil liberty.
The
Week Ahead: Is the Worst Over? [ Over?
Much worse is yet to come! This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much, much worse to come! ]
Marcus Baram
over at Huffington Post has a thoroughly
reported piece on Trump University on Friday. I have spent part of the past
week digging into some of the same issues that Baram did.
The case
against Trump University alleges that “The primary lesson Trump University
teaches its students is how to spend more money by buying more Trump Seminars.”
Students say they were encouraged to raise the credit limit on their credit
cards so they could spend up to $35,000 to take a Trump University multi-day
seminar.
The case is
not new –it was filed last year in U.S. District Court in San Diego –but the
judge may rule on it as soon as this month. The complaint in the suit says
attorneys general in six states have received “numerous complaints against
Trump University” and the Texas Attorney General began investigating in January
2010.
George Sorial,
assistant general counsel at the Trump Organization, denies the suit’s claims.
Sorial told me that 11,000 students have taken Trump University courses and
most have been happy. He sent me copies of customer satisfaction surveys that
rank the courses highly. He also sent a video interview with Tarla Makaeff, one
of the plaintiffs in the class action suit, taken in August 2008 in Los Angeles
after a Trump U seminar, in which she praises the program.
Makaeff, a
former fashion and handbag designer in San Diego, says via email that the
video interview of her was manipulative, and that before it was taken she had
already complained toTrump University about not making any money off her
$35,000 investment in a seminar. “They … knew I had to give a positive
response [in the video] and cooperate with them and a camera being shoved in my
face in order to get further support and services from them for my $35,000
investment which I had yet to make any money off in 1 year despite verbal
promises otherwise since day one,” Makaeff continues in an email.
The Trump
Organization has also countersued Makaeff for $1 million, alleging defamation.
A judge has denied Makaeff’s motion to dismiss the counterclaim. Call it the
case of the billionaire vs. the handbag designer.
The question
is what affect, if any, the lawsuits might have on billionaire Donald Trump, should he
decide to run for president. Oh, and there’s a lesson, too. Before you decide
to spend $35,000 on a Trump University seminar, remember what its lawyers say:
“Trump University cannot guarantee riches any more than Harvard University can
guarantee a Rhodes Scholarship or MIT can guarantee a Nobel Prize.”
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
TRUMP
TO GIBBS: YOU'RE 'A LOSER' [‘Another trumped-up case of the pot calling the
kettle black’]... TRUMP: Obama
Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues... [ Talk about the pot calling the kettle
black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn) ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster
trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa
mobster trump would pound the undistinguished academically / athletically,
Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a king’ in film noir
melodramatic fashion which proved too much for the more balanced and ‘chosen /
favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide. The old man also required
trump to go to prep / military / boarding school where according to a classmate,
Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same manner as dumbya bush … mobster
trump and people like trump are part of the problem (total b*** s***, fraud,
etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes, jersey / new york), not the
solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental case in that he evolved from
narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled with feelings of inferiority
– he loved to obsessively read those hitler speeches for inspiration and to pump
himself up according to Ivana Trump) to severe case of antisocial personality
disorder [ predatory disregard for and violation of the rights of others –
hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions to complex problems as, ie., taking
oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese (actually including american goods
made in China), drug money laundering in his casinos, bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible
student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie., bribery,
money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss … trump is
total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade, quite
insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal
/ judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt american
illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their lifetime plush
appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are unheard of in
productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these drags on
society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly bureaucracies. Rules
of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans. Most, including sam
alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug money laundering and
obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit ( also maryanne trump
barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her brother’s casinos in a
civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it for the
money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is great
for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
Drudgereport:
USA
FREAK OUT: TERROR FEARS; FALSE ALARMS...
Sen.
Schumer Calls For Amtrak 'Do Not Ride' List...
Two
tunnel 'breaches' cause scare in NYC...
Threats
Divert Planes in Three Separate Incidents...
Passengers,
flight crew subdue man banging on cockpit door...
Dallas
Train Station Evacuated: Man Asked For Help Carrying Packages...
4
Arrested For Videotaping TSA Line At Denver...
SHOCK PHOTO: TSA LOOKING FOR
'POOP BOMBS?'
U.S.-Pak.
Rift Widens...
Pak.
warns of 'full force' response to future US raids...
S&P
cuts Greece's rating...
BOEHNER
TO DEMAND NOT BILLIONS, BUT TRILLIONS
IN CUTS...
OIL
REBOUNDS; 2ND LARGEST GAIN ON RECORD...
REPORT:
Housing crash getting worse...
...values
fall fastest rate since '08
Michelle
Obama to host rapper at WH who talks of killing cops...
'COMMAND
CENTER'...
Pakistan
skeptical of U.S. claim bin Laden directed network...
Two loud explosions heard in town where bin Laden killed...
Videos
show 9-11 mastermind watching himself on TV...
U.S.
government censors tapes, cuts audio...
Inside
bin Laden's squalid home...
NYT:
Final days of domesticity...
Drone
Strike Kills 15 in Pakistan...
First
since bin Laden raid...
BIN
LADEN SUPPORTERS RAGE ON THE STREETS OF LONDON, VOW REVENGE...
Stage
mock funeral in front of US embassy...
Gas
nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats
9% of household budgets...
Average
price sets record in Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03
in Hawaii...
JAPAN
URGES HALT AT THREE REACTORS...
UNEMPLOYMENT
BACK UP TO 9.0%...
Fannie
Mae Reports $8.7B Loss for First Quarter...
Seeks
$8.5B more from taxpayers...
APRIL
JOBS: +244,000...
FUZZY
MATH: How can US add
jobs but the unemployment rate go up?
Gas
nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats
9% of household budgets...
Average
price sets record in Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03
in Hawaii...
Silver
Plunge Spreads...
OIL
GUTTED...
Price
Slide Temporary, New Highs Likely: Goldman...
Fears
linger of a new 'flash crash'...
Euro
Tumbles...
CNN
SHOCK POLL: RON PAUL HAS BEST CHANCE VS OBAMA
National
Home Prices Double Dip...
JOBLESS
CLAIMS RISE TO 8 MONTH HIGH...
Fears
linger of a new 'flash crash'...
9-11
FAMILY: 'SHOW US PROOF BIN LADEN KILLED'...
Victim's
father: Obama 'putting too much spotlight on himself'...
Channels
Bush at Ground Zero: 'We will never forget'...
Tells
teen survivor he knows
Justin Bieber...
Turns
Back on 9/11 Family Member...
AUDIO...
Muslim
Brotherhood urges review of Israel ties...
Pakistanis
burn U.S. flags; backlash over death grows...
Pakistan
officials: No resistance in 'cold-blooded' U.S. raid...
Warns
America not to stage any more...
Threatens
'disastrous consequences'...
Muslims
already name dump location 'Martyr's Sea'...
OBAMA,
NO PHOTOS OF OSAMA: 'We don't need to spike the football'...
'Conspiracy theorists will just claim doctored'...
Sen.
Scott Brown: 'I've seen picture, he's definitely dead'...
UPDATE:
Photo proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was
faked...
three
senators fell for fakes...
UPDATE:
'The photo I saw and that a lot of other people saw is not authentic'...
Top
Dem: No photo needed, 'there's absolute proof'...
REUTERS RELEASES 'DEATH SCENE' PHOTOS
**WARNING GRAPHIC**
UPDATE: Photo proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
Possibly
three senators fell for fakes...
Pakistan:
'Not a single bullet fired from compound'...
WIRE:
Photos from 1 hour after raid show 3 dead, no weapons...
The
Slippery Story of the bin Laden Kill...
Official says 'killed apparently
by the U.S. raid team'...
DOLLAR
HITS 3 YEAR LOW...
1
IN 7 ON FOOD STAMPS!
Job
numbers disappoint...
Treasury
suggests $2 trillion debt cap raise...
U.S.
economy adds 244,000 jobs But the
unemployment rate edged up last month, showing that the outlook for workers
remains grim (Washington Post) [244,000
jobs added in April Associated Press In biggest hiring spree in five years,
employers posted a third straight month of hiring; unemployment rose to 9
percent as people resumed looking for work. Interactive:
Why it doesn’t feel like a recovery (Washington Post) [ Short answer: Because it’s really not a
recovery! What jobs? $1 dollar a day, 3 days a year … and on government pork
projects for the porkers’ reelection campaigns? I don’t think so! Obama’s
victory lap (Washington Post) The
killing of bin Laden offered hope of instant renewal. [ Only wobama aficionado
Mr. Milbank could latch onto this propagandist Orwellian dream and call it
victory. Sounds like he’s shootin’ for a job in this failed presidency/administration
as others, including from the Post.. 10
Reasons 2011 Is Feeling More and More Like 2008 Jensen ‘..it eerily feels
like the months before the financial crisis and meltdown of 2008. .. impending
and significant pullback over the summer.
10 reasons
2011 ..like 2008.
Milbank:
The GOP’s juvenile debate (Washington Post) [ Mr. Milbank has lamentably become the rush
limbaugh / sean hannity of the newspaper world, though he barks and apologizes
for dems (and wobama the b for b*** s***) only (as they for the gop / bushies
only). A
political minefield in Treasury plan
(Washington Post) Questions
about deficit and growth complicate Treasury’s plan to overhaul corporate
taxes. [ What plan! . Let
the budget battle begin After two weeks of tumultuous meetings with
constituents, Congress returns to a lengthy fight over the nation’s solvency.
(WP) [
Or more aptly put, stated another way, the nation’s solvency is over. ..
america’s defacto bankrupt with no end in sight.. interest alone is eating
progressively into GDP beyond the subterfuge.. Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (WP) [ Not much! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘..And here
comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is about to be mass revised by everyone,
courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation pressures: the Philadelphia Fed
collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the lowest since
November 2010… This is an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
]
Pledge
not squaring with reality Obama’s
vow to boost middle-class economic security at odds with corporate profits,
unemployment. (Washington Post) [CEOs’
pay: It’s as if the Great Recession never happened (Washington Post) The typical big-business CEO made $9
million last year, exceeding pre-recession level. [ And ‘worth every penny’?
Not likely in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america, leaders no more
except in fraud, crime, manipulation, subterfuge. Imagine the comparisons to their
foreign counterparts where value still has meaning. As if ‘never happened? How
‘bout not over, and worse to come! UBS
bank admits rigging bids (WP) Swiss
bank reaped millions of dollars of illegal profits by rigging municipal bond
transactions in 36 states, government said. [ The key here is ‘Swiss’ and
‘millions of dollars of illegal profits’ when the american banks / wall street
frauds’ generated hundreds of billions in illegal profits, which frauds
continue to this day by way of slightly subdued high-frequency trading /
commission-generated scams along with cover-up and cash-out from the last, still
unprosecuted fraud in the trillions for which disgorgement, fines is long
overdue. 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline..’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP)
Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at the end
of fiscal 2009
Study:
Affordable rentals scarce (WP)
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (WP)
More Americans disapprove of President Obama’s management of the war in
Afghanistan than support it
Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows ]
]
Al-Qaeda
vows retaliation on U.S. Online
posting attributed to group also confirms the death of Osama bin Laden. (Washington Post) [ Paul
Craig Roberts: What Is The Agenda Behind The Bin Laden Fable?
My
mother is still gone The daughter
of a 9/11 victim reflects on bin Laden’s death. (Washington Post) Parker:
Bin Laden death was anti-climactic [ Paul
Craig Roberts: What Is The Agenda Behind The Bin Laden Fable? The US
government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48
hours before being fundamentally altered. What agenda or agendas is the “death
of bin Laden” designed to further? US Government Contractor Claims “Al-Qaeda” Has Confirmed
Bin Laden Fairytale Paul Joseph Watson | SITE organization was behind release of fake
“Al-Qaeda” tapes released at politically opportune times stretching back
years Red Alert: Help Stop False Flag Terror Infowars.com | Alex warns about the potential for another false
flag attack, urging listeners to call the White House. Terrorist Hunter: General Under Wolfowitz Told Me 9/11
Was False Flag Infowars.com | Government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a
“conspiracy theorist.” Pieczenik: The Psychological Resurrection of Osama Bin
Laden Infowars.com |
Critically acclaimed author of psycho-political thrillers, Steve Pieczenik
continues his analysis of the so-called death of Osama bin Laden. The
Cost of Bin Laden: $3 Trillion Over 15 Years What do we have to show for
that tab? Two wars that continue to occupy 150,000 troops and tie up a quarter
of our defense budget; a bloated homeland-security apparatus that has at times
pushed the bounds of civil liberty.
Markets Take No Prisoners: Dave's Daily ‘Oil prices moved from $94 to $102 in 7 hours only to settle at $97.80 --
how's that for volatility? The euro spent the first half of Friday at 145
(already down 300 bps from Thursday) to close at around 143 after rumors (later
denied) spread regarding Greece dropping euro. Silver and gold were all over
the map again with rumors persisting of more margin calls. U.S. stocks climbed
nearly 175 points early based on the employment report showing 224K new jobs
added while the unemployment rate inched up to 9%. Lost in this report were
details regarding the Birth/Death Model (estimates of new businesses created or
closed) or the number of part time jobs being created by the McDonald's of the
world and lastly, a five vs. four week report. [244,000
jobs added in April Associated Press In biggest hiring spree in five years,
employers posted a third straight month of hiring; unemployment rose to 9
percent as people resumed looking for work. Interactive:
Why it doesn’t feel like a recovery (Washington Post) [ Short answer: Because it’s really not a
recovery! What jobs? $1 dollar a day, 3 days a year … and on government pork
projects for the porkers’ reelection campaigns? I don’t think so! Obama’s
victory lap (Washington Post) The
killing of bin Laden offered hope of instant renewal. [ Only wobama aficionado
Mr. Milbank could latch onto this propagandist Orwellian dream and call it
victory. Sounds like he’s shootin’ for a job in this failed
presidency/administration as others, including from the Post.. 10
Reasons 2011 Is Feeling More and More Like 2008 Jensen ‘..it eerily feels
like the months before the financial crisis and meltdown of 2008. .. impending
and significant pullback over the summer. ]
HFT algos are programmed to react to headline numbers that beat
expectations. The employment data was a beat and algos jumped on the news. But,
remember, based on Wednesday's poor ADP jobs report and Thursday's Jobless
Claims data employment report estimates were sharply lowered making Friday's
news a large beat. More thoughtful types started selling the news around noon
and doing so the rest of the day. Leading U.S. stocks higher were materials
(XLB) and the higher price-weighted components of the DJIA (BA, CAT, CVX, IBM,
MMM and so forth). All this volatility and conflicting news, while putting on a
great show, causes Main Street to trust markets less in my opinion. This chaos
in commodity markets is a major turn-off and will have negative consequences
longer-term. We've beaten the commodity story to death but we still await the
juicy details from the exchanges as to the real story behind their draconian
actions. Some of this may be contained in the silver Commitment of Traders
report and Open Interest. Until we can analyze this properly let's wait.
Further, there will be some serious trading casualties announced in the coming
days so stay tuned for that. The Fed continues to aid bulls with more QE
Friday and ongoing poor economic data means there's no rush for them to
stop POMO. Trading volume was also higher today than the average over the past
few months. Breadth, per the WSJ, was quite positive; but, a glance at the 5
minute SPY chart shows most volume was in selling.’
Sell
in May: Still Valid? Roche ‘Here is
an interesting expansion on the idea of Sell in May. Fidelity Investments elaborates by
combining several time cycle indicators into one. The result – still Sell in
May:
On the negative side, it is coming to that point in
the cycle where, seasonally, the market tends to take a pause, also known as
Sell in May and Go Away.
Since, historically markets have tended to follow
cyclical patterns such as this, I compiled the seasonal pattern, the four-year
presidential cycle, and the 10-year decennial cycle into a composite
performance index and projected the pattern. So far, the stock market has
followed this roadmap very closely, so over the next two years. As you can see
in the chart below, the market has closely tracked these historical cyclical
patterns Since December 2009. Because of this, I think it bears watching. (Past
performance is no guarantee of future results.)
click to enlarge
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/6/saupload_time_cycles1105_thumb1.jpg
Clear
Capital: The Housing Double Dip Is Now Official Today
Meredith
Whitney Sticks to Her Guns Today Roche ‘Talk about holding onto a losing
trade. At the Milken Conference yesterday, Meredith Whitney said there was
nothing controversial about her muni call, maintaining that she has more
conviction about the muni crisis call than anything in her entire career. Via
Bloomberg:
Whitney said on the panel, “It’s not that big of a
call..There’s nothing controversial about that call, if you look at the
numbers.”
“You can criticize me for everything you want, I’m
just numb to it because I have more conviction on this than I’d had on any
single thing in my career.”
On the same panel, David Solomon, Goldman Sachs’ co-head
of investment banking said, “I don’t think we’re doomed. I think the resources
available to us, and the changes that will evolve as we come out of a very,
very difficult economic period that we’ve been stuck in over the past couple of
years, will provide more flexibility than I think Meredith believes.”
Whitney is certainly right that the states are
suffering fiscal woes; however, as we’ve seen in Europe, there are mechanisms
that can be utilized to combat these issues. While I still maintain that there
is a chance of local defaults, I think the United States will be proactive in
fending off a euro-style crisis.
And that means the US federal government will do what
it has always done. It will credit the bank accounts of the states in order to
ensure that any single municipality cannot cause widespread economic hardship
throughout the United States. This would be nothing new. The US has always
credited the bank accounts of the states that are part of this union.
If Europe was truly united, we would see the same
thing occurring in Europe; however, because it's not united, it instead chooses
austerity due to fears of inflation. The reality is that the ECB is not
creating inflation; it's merely stopping the potentially deflationary debacle
that would ensue with sovereign defaults.
I would hope that a truly United States of
America would be a bit more caring of its own member states.’
Don't
Be Fooled By The Jobs Report
Harding ‘This was a week that confirmed that the economic recovery has
stalled.
We knew from
the previous week that economic growth (GDP) slowed to just 1.8% in the March
quarter from 3.1% in the December quarter. This week it was reported that
the ISM Non-Mfg Index, which tracks the service sector of the economy, plunged
to 52.8 in April from 57.3 in March (versus the consensus estimate of economists
that it would improve to 57.8).
It was a
shocking report since the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index covers just about every
business sector– everything from education, healthcare, finance, insurance and
retail, to technology services, transportation, and mining, accounting for more
than 80% of U.S. employment. At the same time it was reported that the ISM New
Orders Index also plunged substantially, from 64.1 in March to 52.7 in April,
not encouraging for service sector business activity for the next few months.
Commodity
markets, already worried about what slowing global economies would do to demand
for materials and supplies, reacted with further substantial declines. By the
close on Thursday, the price of crude oil had collapsed from its high of
$114.80 a barrel a week ago, to $99.75. The S&P GSCI Index of 24 raw
materials fell 11.5% in just five days.
Fortunately,
the stock market’s reaction to the further evidence that the economic recovery
is in trouble was more muted. By the close on Thursday, the S&P 500 was down
only 1.8% for the week.
And
thankfully, on Friday morning the Labor Department released its monthly jobs
report, which showed that 244,000 new jobs were created in April, 60,000 more
than had been forecast, and the stock market surged up in reaction, with the
Dow up 150 points within minutes of the market’s open.
Indeed the
jobs report was good news, even though it was also reported that the
unemployment rate rose to 9.0% from its previous level of 8.8%. But did the
better than expected jobs report cancel out the even more surprising plunge in
the ISM service sector index in April, reported the previous day?
I don’t think
so. Even within the employment report the numbers show that 13.7 million people
remained unemployed in April, still almost double the number just before the
last recession began in December, 2007. Including part-time workers who
have not been able to find full-time jobs, and those who have given up looking
for a job, the “underemployed” rate rose to 15.9% in April. That seems to more
closely resemble what the ISM Index said about the economy slowing further in
April.
And here’s the
thing about the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report. As my subscribers know,
I have always called it ‘The Big One’ as far as economic reports go.
That’s because it’s so difficult for economists to forecast that it comes in
with a big surprise in one direction or the other more often than any other
series of reports. And that surprise results in a one or two day triple-digit
move by the Dow in one direction or the other more often than any other report.
But the rest
of that pattern is that the move is then most often reversed over the following
two or three days, and the market returns to whatever its focus was before the
report.
In this
instance, with the 1st quarter earnings reporting season pretty much
over, that is liable to be a refocus on the slowing economic recovery that had
it troubled prior to the jobs report.
Meanwhile, the
collapse in commodity prices was another example of what happens when markets become
overbought, and investor sentiment reaches extremes of bullishness, as was the
case with commodities. The consensus opinion a week ago was that they could
only move higher. $2,000 gold, $75 silver, $150 a barrel oil seemed assured.
But when a surprise hits and investors head in a rush for the exit they
discover they can’t all get through the door at once. Since most everyone
interested in commodities was already invested there was no one willing to buy
what they wanted to sell except at much lower prices.
Perhaps a
cautionary tale for the stock market as it enters its unfavorable season with
investors so bullish and anxious to jump in on any dip?’
CEOs’
pay: It’s as if the Great Recession never happened (Washington Post) The typical big-business CEO made $9
million last year, exceeding pre-recession level. [ And ‘worth every penny’?
Not likely in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america, leaders no more
except in fraud, crime, manipulation, subterfuge. Imagine the comparisons to
their foreign counterparts where value still has meaning. As if ‘never
happened? How ‘bout not over, and worse to come! UBS
bank admits rigging bids (WP) Swiss
bank reaped millions of dollars of illegal profits by rigging municipal bond
transactions in 36 states, government said. [ The key here is ‘Swiss’ and
‘millions of dollars of illegal profits’ when the american banks / wall street
frauds’ generated hundreds of billions in illegal profits, which frauds
continue to this day by way of slightly subdued high-frequency trading /
commission-generated scams along with cover-up and cash-out from the last,
still unprosecuted fraud in the trillions for which disgorgement, fines is long
overdue. 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline..’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP)
Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at the end
of fiscal 2009
Study:
Affordable rentals scarce (WP)
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (WP)
More Americans disapprove of President Obama’s management of the war in
Afghanistan than support it
Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows ]
A
political minefield in Treasury plan
(Washington Post) Questions
about deficit and growth complicate Treasury’s plan to overhaul corporate
taxes. [ What plan! . Let
the budget battle begin After two weeks of tumultuous meetings with
constituents, Congress returns to a lengthy fight over the nation’s solvency.
(WP) [
Or more aptly put, stated another way, the nation’s solvency is over. ..
america’s defacto bankrupt with no end in sight.. interest alone is eating
progressively into GDP beyond the subterfuge.. Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (WP) [ Not much! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘..And here
comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is about to be mass revised by everyone,
courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation pressures: the Philadelphia Fed
collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the lowest since
November 2010… This is an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
‘End
of Days’ message rolls into D.C.
(Washington Post) The
potentially rotten news that the world will end on May 21 arrived plastered on
a caravan of RVs. [ Gee … little premature … you know, that 2012, end of Mayan
calendar, Nostradamus thing … I previously weighed in / wrote: Why
do Americans still dislike atheists? (Washington Post) [ And
not just americans … Why? First and foremost because there is a God. Second, it
is intellectually dishonest to be an atheist. Specifically, there is absolutely
no evidence to dispute the existence of God. While one might similarly argue
that there is no evidence to suggest there is a God (which I would dispute),
which for most is a fair statement, the same would yield at best, if
intellectually honest, the position of ‘agnostic’. I can totally understand and
even empathize with the view of the agnostic. After all, at this point, there
seems to be ‘no rhyme nor reason’ at all. But, think binary, positives /
negatives. Just too many negatives. Think ‘capital punishment’. No, the world’s
not going to end in 2012 as some fear. Rather, think slow burn; decades at
best; then ‘poof’. In the scheme of things, this world’s just not that
important (apes,
notochordates, and initially single celled organisms). Kind of
akin to what I previously wrote: (God doesn’t care that you wrestle a girl who wants to
wrestle!) Boy wrestler forfeits match
to female opponent... [ What a homo! Wow! I feel sorry for those
guys she actually beat (20 of them – her record was 20 and 13) … they’ll
probably never get over it … nor should they … I have to rethink my regard for
Iowa, Iowa state wrestling now presuming such stalwart championship teams to be
the products of out-of-state imports … as for the guy who forfeited, he could
have easily and gently taken her down (you can easily do that with a lesser
opponent), got her in a double grapevine and grind her in a certain way into
the mat, and when she was in the throws of convulsive orgasm, she’d unwittingly
arch her back, thereby pressing her own shoulder blades to the mat, thereby
pinning herself, thus enabling the homo to say in a manner of speaking that he
was making heterosexual love not war with her ……… how pathetic and preposterous
this was … and, let me remind the homo that God doesn’t care that you wrestle a
girl who wants to wrestle! ]
244,000
jobs added in April Associated Press In biggest hiring spree in five years,
employers posted a third straight month of hiring; unemployment rose to 9
percent as people resumed looking for work. Interactive:
Why it doesn’t feel like a recovery (Washington Post) [ Short answer: Because it’s really not a
recovery! What jobs? $1 dollar a day, 3 days a year … and on government pork
projects for the porkers’ reelection campaigns? I don’t think so! Obama’s
victory lap (Washington Post) The
killing of bin Laden offered hope of instant renewal. [ Only wobama aficionado
Mr. Milbank could latch onto this propagandist Orwellian dream and call it
victory. Sounds like he’s shootin’ for a job in this failed presidency/administration
as others, including from the Post.. 10
Reasons 2011 Is Feeling More and More Like 2008 Jensen ‘..it eerily feels
like the months before the financial crisis and meltdown of 2008. .. impending
and significant pullback over the summer.
10 reasons
2011 ..like 2008.
‘THE OBAMA DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
Jobs
Report Has More Bad News Than Good News CNBC | There was
more bad news than met the eye to Friday’s jobs report.
National Debt Breaks
Debt Clock Infowars.com | Sign of the times.
Jobless Claims
in U.S. Unexpectedly Jump Bloomberg | The number of claims
for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, pushed up by
auto-plant shutdowns and other unusual events.
National
/ World
Drudgereport:
UNEMPLOYMENT BACK UP TO
9.0%...
Fannie Mae Reports $8.7B Loss
for First Quarter...
Seeks $8.5B more from
taxpayers...
APRIL JOBS: +244,000...
FUZZY MATH: How can US add jobs but the unemployment
rate go up?
Gas nat'l average: $3.99...
Eats 9% of household
budgets...
Average price sets record in
Indiana -- $4.25 a gallon...
$6.03 in Hawaii...
Silver Plunge Spreads...
OIL GUTTED...
Price Slide Temporary, New Highs Likely: Goldman...
Fears linger of a new 'flash
crash'...
Euro Tumbles...
CNN SHOCK POLL: RON PAUL HAS
BEST CHANCE VS OBAMA
National Home Prices Double Dip...
JOBLESS CLAIMS RISE TO 8
MONTH HIGH...
Fears linger of a new 'flash
crash'...
9-11 FAMILY: 'SHOW US PROOF
BIN LADEN KILLED'...
Victim's father: Obama
'putting too much spotlight on himself'...
Channels Bush at Ground Zero: 'We will never forget'...
Tells teen survivor he knows Justin Bieber...
Turns Back on 9/11 Family
Member...
AUDIO...
Muslim Brotherhood urges
review of Israel ties...
Pakistanis burn U.S. flags;
backlash over death grows...
Pakistan officials: No
resistance in 'cold-blooded' U.S. raid...
Warns America not to stage
any more...
Threatens 'disastrous
consequences'...
Muslims already name dump
location 'Martyr's Sea'...
OBAMA, NO PHOTOS OF OSAMA:
'We don't need to spike the football'...
'Conspiracy
theorists will just claim doctored'...
Sen. Scott Brown: 'I've seen
picture, he's definitely dead'...
UPDATE: Photo proving bin
Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
three senators fell for fakes...
UPDATE: 'The photo I saw and
that a lot of other people saw is not authentic'...
Top Dem: No photo needed,
'there's absolute proof'...
REUTERS RELEASES 'DEATH SCENE' PHOTOS
**WARNING GRAPHIC**
UPDATE: Photo
proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
Possibly three senators fell for fakes...
Pakistan: 'Not a single
bullet fired from compound'...
WIRE: Photos from 1 hour
after raid show 3 dead, no weapons...
The Slippery Story of the bin
Laden Kill...
Official says
'killed apparently by the U.S. raid team'...
DOLLAR HITS 3 YEAR LOW...
1 IN 7 ON FOOD STAMPS!
Job numbers disappoint...
Treasury suggests $2 trillion
debt cap raise...
CEOs’
pay: It’s as if the Great Recession never happened (Washington Post) The typical big-business CEO made $9
million last year, exceeding pre-recession level. [ And ‘worth every penny’?
Not likely in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america, leaders no more
except in fraud, crime, manipulation, subterfuge. Imagine the comparisons to
their foreign counterparts where value still has meaning. As if ‘never
happened? How ‘bout not over, and worse to come! UBS
bank admits rigging bids (WP) Swiss
bank reaped millions of dollars of illegal profits by rigging municipal bond
transactions in 36 states, government said. [ The key here is ‘Swiss’ and
‘millions of dollars of illegal profits’ when the american banks / wall street
frauds’ generated hundreds of billions in illegal profits, which frauds
continue to this day by way of slightly subdued high-frequency trading /
commission-generated scams along with cover-up and cash-out from the last,
still unprosecuted fraud in the trillions for which disgorgement, fines is long
overdue. 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating long-term
economic decline..’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP)
Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at the end
of fiscal 2009
Study:
Affordable rentals scarce (WP)
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (WP)
More Americans disapprove of President Obama’s management of the war in
Afghanistan than support it
Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows ]
A
political minefield in Treasury plan
(Washington Post) Questions
about deficit and growth complicate Treasury’s plan to overhaul corporate
taxes. [ What plan! . Let
the budget battle begin After two weeks of tumultuous meetings with
constituents, Congress returns to a lengthy fight over the nation’s solvency.
(WP) [
Or more aptly put, stated another way, the nation’s solvency is over. ..
america’s defacto bankrupt with no end in sight.. interest alone is eating
progressively into GDP beyond the subterfuge.. Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (WP) [ Not much! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘..And here
comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is about to be mass revised by everyone,
courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation pressures: the Philadelphia Fed
collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the lowest since
November 2010… This is an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
‘End
of Days’ message rolls into D.C.
(Washington Post) The
potentially rotten news that the world will end on May 21 arrived plastered on
a caravan of RVs. [ Gee … little premature … you know, that 2012, end of Mayan
calendar, Nostradamus thing … I previously weighed in / wrote: Why
do Americans still dislike atheists? (Washington Post) [ And
not just americans … Why? First and foremost because there is a God. Second, it
is intellectually dishonest to be an atheist. Specifically, there is absolutely
no evidence to dispute the existence of God. While one might similarly argue
that there is no evidence to suggest there is a God (which I would dispute),
which for most is a fair statement, the same would yield at best, if intellectually
honest, the position of ‘agnostic’. I can totally understand and even empathize
with the view of the agnostic. After all, at this point, there seems to be ‘no
rhyme nor reason’ at all. But, think binary, positives / negatives. Just too
many negatives. Think ‘capital punishment’. No, the world’s not going to end in
2012 as some fear. Rather, think slow burn; decades at best; then ‘poof’. In
the scheme of things, this world’s just not that important (apes,
notochordates, and initially single celled organisms). Kind of
akin to what I previously wrote: (God doesn’t care that you wrestle a girl who wants to
wrestle!) Boy
wrestler forfeits match to female opponent... [ What a homo! Wow! I
feel sorry for those guys she actually beat (20 of them – her record was 20 and
13) … they’ll probably never get over it … nor should they … I have to rethink
my regard for Iowa, Iowa state wrestling now presuming such stalwart
championship teams to be the products of out-of-state imports … as for the guy
who forfeited, he could have easily and gently taken her down (you can easily
do that with a lesser opponent), got her in a double grapevine and grind her in
a certain way into the mat, and when she was in the throws of convulsive
orgasm, she’d unwittingly arch her back, thereby pressing her own shoulder
blades to the mat, thereby pinning herself, thus enabling the homo to say in a
manner of speaking that he was making heterosexual love not war with her ………
how pathetic and preposterous this was … and, let me remind the homo that God
doesn’t care that you wrestle a girl who wants to wrestle! ]
244,000
jobs added in April Associated Press In biggest hiring spree in five years,
employers posted a third straight month of hiring; unemployment rose to 9
percent as people resumed looking for work. Interactive:
Why it doesn’t feel like a recovery (Washington Post) [ Short answer: Because it’s really not a
recovery! What jobs? $1 dollar a day, 3 days a year … and on government pork
projects for the porkers’ reelection campaigns? I don’t think so! Obama’s
victory lap (Washington Post) The
killing of bin Laden offered hope of instant renewal. [ Only wobama aficionado
Mr. Milbank could latch onto this propagandist Orwellian dream and call it
victory. Sounds like he’s shootin’ for a job in this failed
presidency/administration as others, including from the Post.. 10
Reasons 2011 Is Feeling More and More Like 2008 Jensen ‘..it eerily feels
like the months before the financial crisis and meltdown of 2008. .. impending
and significant pullback over the summer.
10 reasons
2011 ..like 2008.
Nimmo / Jones | Videos [ I personally believe Osama’s been dead
for quite some time. Indeed, for one on dialysis, he otherwise would have been
nothing less than a modern day miracle in terms of longevity / mortality rates
for those so afflicted, particularly under the ‘stressful’ circumstances
involving evading capture, betrayal for money, etc.. His ‘surfacing’ for a
‘talk’ wouldn’t even pass muster in the most rudimentary requirements for
‘proof of life’. The release at this time of the ‘announcement’ is, rather than
a victory lap so to speak, but rather a sign of weakness and desperation on the
part of america whose global and domestic economic, financial, and geopolitical
position is substantially diminished and declining rapidly and whose military
industrial complex welfare plan along with the Orwellian diversion of the
masses could at most yield a pyrrhic victory which also would require for
consummation a wrap-up of this nation-bankrupting contrived war scenario, which
is not likely. Moreover, the same comes at a
time of systemic failure for pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america
While the ‘announcement’ plays well for the nonce, to the dumb, uninformed back
home, the same will galvanize
resistance in the name of their now martyr, Osama Bin Laden. In sum, other than
somewhat questionable propaganda value, the announcement will have no
measurable effect on america’s continuing mideast / global debacle. In other
words, defacto bankrupt america has used up a ‘bullet’, albeit a blank at
that! ]
Weekly
Unemployment Claims Going in the Wrong Direction Short May 5, 2011 ‘The Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released
this morning for last week. Claims rose 43,000 from an upward revision of the
previous week to 431,000. That is a 10% increase for the week and a 4-week
moving average increase of 5.4%. Here is the official statement from the
Department of Labor:
In the week
ending April 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was
474,000, an increase of 43,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of
431,000. The 4-week moving average was 431,250, an increase of 22,250 from the
previous week’s revised average of 409,000.
The advance
seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0 percent for the week
ending April 23, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s
unrevised rate of 2.9 percent.
The advance
number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending
April 23 was 3,733,000, an increase of 74,000 from the preceding week’s revised
level of 3,659,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,700,750, a decrease of
1,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,702,000.
Today’s number
was 18.5% higher than the Briefing.com consensus expectation of 400,000 claims.
As we can see,
there’s a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the 4-week
moving average (shown in the callouts) is a more useful number than the weekly
data.
[ chart
http://dshort.com/charts/indicators/weekly-unemployment-claims.gif ]
Occasionally I
see articles critical of seasonal adjustment, especially when the non-adjusted
number better suits the author’s bias. But a comparison of these two charts
clearly shows extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data, and the 4-week MA
gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change in the second
chart (note, for example, those regular January spikes).
Because of the
extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, a 52-week moving average
gives a better sense of the long-term trends.
The Bureau of
Labor Statistics provides an overview on seasonal adjustment here (scroll down about
half way down).
Doug Short Ph.d is the author
of dshort.com.’
Closer
Than We'd Like to Think to a Second Banking Crisis? The Inflation Trader
‘Trading continues to be lethargic. This isn’t just true of this week –
Employment weeks can be notoriously quiet – but of markets generally over some
period of time. NYSE Composite total volumes haven’t exceeded 1bln shares this
quarter, the longest streak of failing to do so in many years. One reason that
the VIX (equities), the MOVE (Treasuries), and other volatility indices are so
low is not complacency – although there is some of that as well – but the fact
that the realized moves have been so small for so long that it is just too hard
for an options trader to keep a long position subject to the drip, drip, drip
of time decay. When I first got into the markets and was trained as a technical
analyst, we considered this ‘coiling’ and a sign that a big move was near. That
may no longer be true. It may simply be that the market has lost enough
liquidity, due to Dodd-Frank, rules about naked shorting, and capital
constraints, that volumes and volatility are moving to a lower equilibrium.
This is, of
course, bad news for the banks. We have noted this week how banks are being
forcibly under-levered because of the excess reserves in the banking system.
That’s one element of the DuPont model. Lower volumes are a second component.
Unless banks can charge much fatter margins (and the chance of that is the only
thing that’s fat), earnings are doomed to decline. This has been apparent for a
long time, but for a while these companies can keep hitting targets by drawing
down reserve accounts (evidence the trend over the last year to sharply reduce
credit reserves, supposedly because of improved default experience). The
mathematics in the long run are powerful, however, and this is a big reason
that while the S&P has recovered 75% of its 2007-2009 decline, the NASDAQ
Bank Index has recovered only 28% of its dive (see Chart, click to enlarge).
[
chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/5/saupload_badbanks.png
]
For all
the tender mercies of the central banks, the non-central banks are still weak.
No one cries
for the banks. But healthy banks matter. I present the chart above not to bury
the banks but to point out how poorly they’ve done even with the Fed, ECB, and
other monetary authorities working very hard to engineer a very steep yield
curve – historically, the way that banks have gotten healthy again after bad periods.
It isn’t
American banks only that remain weak (and by weak, I don’t mean so much the
balance sheet. The balance sheets have definitely improved, but the long-term
growth rate of the company is what allows them to bear up in a crisis and
recover after it. It’s the economic strength, not the accounting strength, I’m
talking about here). European banks have similar issues, and that matters
because they’re also all stuffed with dicey sovereign debt that is allowed to
be carried at par. We are, indeed, much closer to a second banking crisis than
we would like to think, and this is the significance of comments like those last week from ECB
Executive Board member José Manuel González Paramo. In discussing the
possibility of simply restructuring Greece’s sovereign debt – never mind
default – he said:
Any debt restructuring would imply the breach of
legal obligations, which most likely would have a more negative systemic effect
than the Lehman catastrophe.
One reason for this is that the banks and the ECB
both own lots of Greek paper considered legally to be worth par. And there’s no
way it’s really worth par. To a strong banking system, a Greek default or
restructuring would be damaging but survivable. In the banking system’s current
state? Paramo may not be far wrong.
It would help banks to strengthen, of course, if the
economy were to continue to strengthen (it would also help them if inflation
rose, because that would increase the value of loan collateral, such as
housing, that currently provides insufficient coverage for loan exposures).
Yesterday’s economic data in isolation are not encouraging on that score. The
ADP number was soft, although close enough to expectations at 179k (198k was
expected). More surprising was the Non-Manufacturing ISM report, which printed
52.8 versus expectations for 57.5. The Non-Man ISM is not usually a
market-mover, but this big of a miss had some market repercussions. I was right
that the markets had more downside than upside: stocks lost 0.7% while 10y
notes only rallied 3bp to 3.22%.
A time-series chart of the Non-Man ISM is below (click
to enlarge). The number returned essentially to last February’s level,
mainly because of a sharp decline in the New Orders subcomponent to 52.7 from
64.1
[
chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/5/saupload_nmi_1_thumb1.png ]
Bad drop, but it's probably not the start of a second
leg down. We hope.
Now, keep in mind that this is a relative-change
measure, not an absolute measure. That is, the fact that it is at the level of
Feb 2010 doesn’t imply activity is at the level of a year ago, but that the
economy is improving as fast as it was in February last year – which is to say,
it’s not improving very much at all at the moment. That beats getting worse,
but with the Fed about to stop its bond-buying program and with “issues” still
to solve in Europe it would help to have the economy starting to kick into high
gear right about now. And it ain’t. (Hey, but thanks for that $1.5 trillion. It
really did a lot, didn’t it?)
These are only two minor reports, although in general
the disappointments have been on the downside for a while now (as
I showed on Monday). A cheerful Initial Claims report today (Consensus:
410k from 429k) and a strong Payrolls number on Friday would go a long way to
dispelling concerns raised from these minor reports. But Claims has actually
been part of the problem. Economists were initially encouraged last November
when Claims finally moved consistently below 440k. With some chop, they
continued to decline until February and March, when for the most part Claims
were below 400k. Recently, though, they’ve risen again – to 416k, 404k, and
429k the last three weeks – and after revisions Claims have exceeded the
consensus expectations for eight consecutive weeks (actually, on April 1st
they matched expectations exactly).
Also due out today is Non-Farm Productivity and Unit
Labor Costs for Q1. It isn’t an important number although if ULC exceeds the
+0.8% forecast by very much it will get some of the wage-push inflation guys
excited.
Bonds continue to do very well despite the poor
seasonal pattern for this time of year, but gains below 3.20% yields on the 10y
note will get increasingly difficult without a really bad Employment report on
Friday. I would expect some duration risk to be taken off the table on
Thursday. Commodities have gotten smacked around for a couple of days.
Initially it was a Silver thing, then a precious metals thing; yesterday
Grains, Livestock, Softs, Precious and Industrial Metals all fell. But with the
dollar weak and real interest rates so low, I don’t think commodities are going
to take a serious hit.’
Is
Market Weakness About to Emerge?
[Short answer: Yes! ] Degner ‘I've
thought at length about the bizarre correlation between crude oil and the
S&P 500. With equities, oil, precious metals, and other commodities all
falling over the last few days, I decided to extend my analysis to the broader
commodity market as measured by the S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index
(GSCI). The GSCI is made up of a basket of commodities covering all major asset
groups. Since it's weighted by trading activity and volatility, a large portion
of the index is made up of energy commodities. However, precious and base
metals as well as agricultural, meat, and "soft" commodities are also
represented. The GSCI is designed to give a portfolio view of commodity price movements.
Logic would suggest that the value of commodities should be uncorrelated, or
perhaps even NEGATIVELY correlated, to equity prices. But logic would be wrong.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/5/saupload_spx_gsci_110504.png
The chart
above shows the very strong correlation between commodity and equity prices
over the last 18 months. The correlation actually extends back to the
precipitous decline in all issue during the 2008 financial melt-down. Over the
last 18 months the linkage has been particularly strong, with the r-squared an
incredible 88%. Such a relationship is hard to ignore, and reinforces the
belief that all markets are being influenced by the same broad macro-economic
(or speculative?) trends.
This analysis
makes clear that analyzing one particular segment of the financial landscape
without considering the fundamentals of other parts of the global financial
system is short-sighted and maybe even dangerous. Note for example how the GSCI
is now at the lowest level since late March even while (until today) the
S&P was very near the highs for the entire move. Could this be a sign of
weakness about to emerge in the stock market? [Short answer: Yes! ] …’
UBS
bank admits rigging bids (Washington Post)
Swiss bank reaped millions of dollars of illegal profits by rigging
municipal bond transactions in 36 states, government said. [ The key here is
‘Swiss’ and ‘millions of dollars of illegal profits’ when the american banks /
wall street frauds’ generated hundreds of billions in illegal profits, which
frauds continue to this day by way of slightly subdued high-frequency trading /
commission-generated scams along with cover-up and cash-out from the last,
still unprosecuted fraud in the trillions for which disgorgement, fines is long
overdue. 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a
devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny
it. ..’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP)
Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at the end
of fiscal 2009, a report says.
Study:
Affordable rentals scarce (WP)
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (WP)
More Americans disapprove of President Obama’s management of the war in
Afghanistan than support it, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll,
a finding that reflects the public’s broader concern over the course of the
nearly decade-old conflict.
Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Return of Inflation: 5 Worrying Signs From Friday's NY Times ]
Is
this a Republican distress call? (Washington Post) The first presidential
primary debate will be distinguished more by who isn’t there than who is. [
What do debates matter in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america? Take
‘wobama the b’ for b***s***. What did what he said in debates actually matter
in reality. Wobama, the failed president as was his predecessor, is a complete
and total fraud. Let
the budget battle begin After two weeks of tumultuous meetings with
constituents, Congress returns to a lengthy fight over the nation’s solvency.
(WP) [
Or more aptly put, stated another way, the nation’s solvency is over. ..
america’s defacto bankrupt with no end in sight.. interest alone is eating
progressively into GDP beyond the subterfuge.. Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (WP) [ Not much! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘..And here
comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is about to be mass revised by everyone,
courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation pressures: the Philadelphia Fed
collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the lowest since
November 2010… This is an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ]
Kurt Nimmo and Alex Jones | Obama makes a suspiciously timed speech, claims
Osama killed in Pakistan. Videos [ As set forth infra, I personally believe
Osama’s been dead for quite some time. Indeed, for one on dialysis, he
otherwise would have been nothing less than a modern day miracle in terms of
longevity / mortality rates for those so afflicted, particularly under the
‘stressful’ circumstances involving evading capture, betrayal for money, etc..
His ‘surfacing’ for a ‘talk’ wouldn’t even pass muster in the most rudimentary
requirements for ‘proof of life’. The release at this time of the
‘announcement’ is, rather than a victory lap so to speak, but rather a sign of
weakness and desperation on the part of america whose global and domestic
economic, financial, and geopolitical position is substantially diminished and
declining rapidly and whose military industrial complex welfare plan along with
the Orwellian diversion of the masses could at most yield a pyrrhic victory
which also would require for consummation a wrap-up of this nation-bankrupting
contrived war scenario, which is not likely. Moreover, the same comes at a time of systemic failure for pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt america While the ‘announcement’ plays well for the
nonce, to the dumb, uninformed back home, the same will galvanize resistance in the name of their
now martyr, Osama Bin Laden. In sum, other than somewhat questionable
propaganda value, the announcement will have no measurable effect on america’s
continuing mideast / global debacle. In other words, defacto bankrupt america
has used up a ‘bullet’, albeit a blank at that! ]
In February,
2004, Iranian state radio claimed Osama bin Laden had been
captured in Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan “a long time ago.”
Pentagon and Pakistani officials denied the report. “Osama bin Laden has been
arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda
maneuvering in the presidential election,” the radio report said…’ Obama’s
victory lap (Washington Post) The
killing of bin Laden offered hope of instant renewal. [ Only wobama aficionado
Mr. Milbank could latch onto this propagandist Orwellian dream and call it
victory. Sounds like he’s shootin’ for a job in this failed
presidency/administration as others, including from the Post, have done and
made. 10
Reasons 2011 Is Feeling More and More Like 2008 Jensen ]
White
House goes quiet on bin Laden raid
(WashPost) As further questions about the original story surfaced,
officials said they will neither release photos of a bloodied terrorist leader
nor provide new details about the raid on his compound in Pakistan. [ OBL
miraculously cured himself of kidney
failure/ no shots fired/Was Bin Laden Assault A Jessica Lynch-Style Fable? Watson
| Myriad of inconsistencies in alleged raid begin to resemble war propaganda
fairytales told about Private Lynch and Pat Tillman Police State Expands On Bin Laden Death Hype Nimmo
‘World
is safer,’ president says Osama exposed his cowardice. (WP) [ This former cia-supported ally may be
legitimately described as many things; but coward is not one of them.
Principled in giving up riches, comfort, he said americans are thieves; that is absolutely true, and I would
add frauds, criminals, war criminals. Bullies / cowards;ie., wobama, bush,
clinton, cheney, bush, et als Psychology forum Re: Bystander
Effect ‘ I believe the foregoing psycho-babble to be
Rubbish/Hogwash/b.s.
While walking through Military Park (“park”/pedestrian
thoroughfare/cement walks) in newark, n.j., I heard the clearly audible
screams/cries of what turned out to be an old lady on the ground with blood
streaming from her mouth. I ran toward the sound of the cries, the source of
which I could not see because there were so many people... When I came to the
woman, on the ground, blood streaming from her mouth, I asked what happened, to
which she responded she had been hit in the mouth and knocked to the ground,
her purse stolen/put inside her shopping bag, and she pointed out the criminal
casually now walking across the main street. Nobody stopped to help her, many
having passed her by. I slammed the thug to the ground so hard that, in light
of all the blood and confusion, I thought I had been stabbed (the blood was
from his elbows hitting the pavement so hard - no one helped/a crowd
gathered/an undercover cop happened along). I testified at the Grand Jury
Proceeding (he went to prison – pled out). (The other case I wrote about here - Having had occasion to have run down a mugger in newark, n.j. who
apparent had followed a girl from the bank on her way to the bursar to pay
tuition, though in pretty good shape, I was astounded by how totally exhausting
such a pursuit was, ..The girl was not that seriously injured, did get her
pocketbook and tuition back, and the criminal went to jail. The other
thing about such a pursuit that amazed me was that no one else assisted the
girl or me despite being in a position to do so).
CONCLUSION
The reality is that quite
simply, the vast and overwhelming majority of americans are without any courage
whatsoever. They are cowards, plain and simple. All the excuses, psycho-babble,
in the world will not change that fact! ]
Jobless
Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Jump Bloomberg | The number of
claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, pushed up by
auto-plant shutdowns and other unusual events.
Dollar Falls to Three
Year Low Reuters | The yen also hit a six-week high
against the dollar.
Is a
Liquidity Crisis Brewing in Europe? CNBC | Do we bailout
the banks or do we throw more money at highly-indebted nations?
National
/ World
Ron Paul will
win tonight’s GOP debate The Hill | Ron Paul will win
tonight’s Republican debate because he will be the only candidate discussing
serious ideas.
Obama
teleprompter coach has $100K contract Washington Times |
The White House is using tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a public
relations firm.
American
Decline: Nearly Half Of Detroiters Can’t Read Business Insider
| The data about Detroit grow more depressing by the month.
Drudgereport: CNN SHOCK POLL: RON PAUL HAS
BEST CHANCE VS OBAMA
National Home Prices Double Dip...
JOBLESS CLAIMS RISE TO 8
MONTH HIGH...
Fears linger of a new 'flash
crash'...
9-11 FAMILY: 'SHOW US PROOF
BIN LADEN KILLED'...
Victim's father: Obama
'putting too much spotlight on himself'...
Channels Bush at Ground Zero: 'We will never forget'...
Tells teen survivor he knows Justin Bieber...
Turns Back on 9/11 Family
Member...
AUDIO...
Muslim Brotherhood urges
review of Israel ties...
Pakistanis burn U.S. flags;
backlash over death grows...
Pakistan officials: No
resistance in 'cold-blooded' U.S. raid...
Warns America not to stage
any more...
Threatens 'disastrous
consequences'...
Muslims already name dump
location 'Martyr's Sea'...
OBAMA, NO PHOTOS OF OSAMA:
'We don't need to spike the football'...
'Conspiracy
theorists will just claim doctored'...
Sen. Scott Brown: 'I've seen
picture, he's definitely dead'...
UPDATE: Photo proving bin
Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
three senators fell for fakes...
UPDATE: 'The photo I saw and
that a lot of other people saw is not authentic'...
Top Dem: No photo needed,
'there's absolute proof'...
REUTERS RELEASES 'DEATH SCENE' PHOTOS
**WARNING GRAPHIC**
UPDATE: Photo
proving bin Laden's death to Sen. Brown was faked...
Possibly three senators fell for fakes...
Pakistan: 'Not a single
bullet fired from compound'...
WIRE: Photos from 1 hour
after raid show 3 dead, no weapons...
The Slippery Story of the bin
Laden Kill...
Official says
'killed apparently by the U.S. raid team'...
DOLLAR HITS 3 YEAR LOW...
1 IN 7 ON FOOD STAMPS!
Job numbers disappoint...
Treasury suggests $2 trillion
debt cap raise...
Top 3 Reasons Markets were Down Like a Geodetic Effect Wall St.
Cheat Sheet May 4, 2011 ‘Markets closed down on
Wall Street: DJI -0.66% SP500 -0.69% Nasdaq -0.47% Gold -1.64% Oil -1.95% .
Last week was
a streak of winning markets. This week is over the hump — all losers. On the
commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) sold off most of the day to at $108.89. Gold (NYSE:GLD) and Silver (NYSE:SLV) also sold off hard, with Silver getting
slaughtered over 5% — two days in a row!
Today’s
markets were down because:
1) Economic
data was lackluster. This morning started with lower
than expected Private Payrolls and continued with a steep month-over-month
drop in the ISM Non-manufacturing Index (Don’t Miss: “Chart
of the Day: US Services Sector Trying to Hold On“). Last week’s lackluster
data is catching up to us as earnings hasn’t been the savior this week.
2) Gas prices
in Hawaii broke $6 a gallon. Oil (NYSE:USO) may have dipped, but someone forgot to tell a
lone gas station (NYSE:XOP) attendant in Hana, Hawaii where
you can love yourself some gas for the bargain price of only $6.03 a gallon.
The silly high number is so silly, every media outlet focused on rising gas
prices despite traders slaughtering Oil (NYSE:USO) two days in a row. Well, no one said the
mainstream media ever focused on the right meme.
3) Remember
the PIIGS? Portugal finally screamed “mercy” and accepted a 78 billion Euro
rescue package. As investors wake up to reality, some are finally changing to a
“risk off” stance as more debt addicts are in line for harsh sessions of rehab.
At least Americans don’t have to worry (yet) because this
Pew chart shows we’re in the middle of a textbook relapse…’
Coming to a Head - Long-term Analysis of the U.S. Economy , May 4, 2011 ‘Based purely on the stock market, the
economy should be rockin' and rollin', but while the market's performance has
been stellar, the economy is flat. QE2 has disrupted the internal balance
between stocks and the economy. With QE2 about to end, we ask, will stocks
catch up with the economy or the economy with stocks?
Just how
strong is the market? The SPDR S&P MidCap 400 ETF (NYSEArca: MDY - News) is trading at an all-time
high, the Nasdaq-100 (Nasdaq: QQQQ
- News) has surpassed its
2007 watermark, the Russell 2000 (NYSEArca: IWM - News) is closing in on its
all-time high, the S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC) has doubled since March 2009, and
the Dow (DJI: ^DJI) is viewed as the ultra safe haven in a world of turmoil.
How strong is
the economy? Real estate (NYSEArca: IYR - News), the biggest wealth
builder/destroyer in the country, is still weak. The Standard & Poor's
Case-Shiller Home Price Index has dropped to the lowest level in nearly a
decade. As the Home Price Index has fallen below March 2009 levels, residential
REIT stocks have nearly tripled since then.
Another huge
contributor to a healthy economy - unemployment - shows signs of improvements
at a peripheral glance but continues to lag significantly if examined beyond the
rosy headline numbers. To wit, if it wasn't for the labor force sliding to a
near 30-year low, the headline unemployment number would be around 12% while
the real unemployment would be around 20%.
Based on an
11-line surface analysis, stocks and the economy are out of sync. To see
whether stocks will catch up with the economy, or vice versa, we'll need to
slice beneath the service and examine the very foundation of our economy.
Multi-decade
Economic Trend
Unnoticed by
Wall Street, the economy has been shifting gears, and has gone from
acceleration mode to coasting mode. How so?
A few decades
ago, sweat-trenched U.S. manufacturing facilities were the most fertile,
growth-producing environment on the planet. This growth was fueled by 'Made in
America' products. The growth was organic and it was real.
When taking a
closer look at the economy over the past 70 years, we see two distinct growth
periods. Phase 1 lasted from 1947 - 1966 and phase 2 stretched from 1975 -
2000.
Throughout
phase 1, GDP averaged 4.18% while unemployment was low. GDP during phase 2
averaged 3.40% with unemployment inching up.
http://www.etfguide.com//contributor/UserFiles/8/Image/Growth%20Periods%20Yahoo.gif
GE, a company
that endured through both phases, provides important clues about the difference
between both phases. Up until the end of phase 1, GE was known for
manufacturing quality products like light bulbs, refrigerators, jet engines,
and aircraft super chargers. GE's slogan was 'We bring good things to life.'
In the second
phase, GE ventured into television and high finance. GE Capital, GE Commercial
Finance, GE Money, GE Consumer Finance and NBC Universal contributed an
ever-growing slice of GE's profit pie.
GE's focus
shifted from manufacturing to financial engineering. If GE didn't build a
product, it would finance the consumer's purchase of a competitor's product. It
was just appropriate that GE's slogan was changed to 'Imagination at work.'
The 'New
Normal' - New but not Normal
The concept of
making money by using money, encouraged by the Fed's interest rate policy,
lacked substance and sustainability. The 2000 tech (NYSEArca: XLK - News) crash was more pronounced
than what we've seen from the decades before. The real estate boom was as
gigantic as its subsequent bust.
The post-2007
financial crisis further highlighted the dangers of an economy low on
manufacturing but rich on leverage, accounting tricks, and financial
engineering. No wonder the average GDP for the 2001 - 2010 period - dubbed the
lost decade - dropped to 1.71%.
But amnesia,
or selective memory loss, usually triggered by rising prices, is not new to
investors. The more stocks rally, the more excited investors become, the more
dangerous the stock market gets.
Building
an Air Castle?
The post
meltdown economy has become a launching pad for the new economy and new key
players. Facebook and Twitter are Wall Street's new darlings. Six of the
founders and investors behind Facebook just made it on Forbes annual list of
world's top billionaires and investors can't wait to get their hands on the
upcoming IPOs.
According to
Wall Street valuations, Facebook is worth as much as Home Depot or Boeing. Home
Depot employs 306,000 workers, Boeing 154,000. Facebook sends paychecks to
about 1,000 lucky individuals.
A happy go
lucky investor looks at the new economy and says 'Wow, that's just marvelous.'
A skeptical mind looks at it and wonders 'How long before that blows up in my
face?'
Simple
Math
As the economy
is weakening, the government and the Fed's role in providing sufficient
liquidity (QE2) to keep a faux system running is ever increasing. Government
spending (unemployment benefits, social security, welfare, etc.) accounts now
for 35% of all private U.S. income and 26% of GDP.
But, the
government is nearly broke and will have to face massive spending cuts. The
Federal Reserve can't currently risk any more QE as inflation concerns have
become prohibitive.
From a
fundamental point of view, the outlook is less than rosy. From the valuation
standpoint (dividend yields near all-time low, mean reverting projected
earnings near all-time high), stocks are looking over priced.
The only thing
keeping stocks afloat is the remaining weeks of QE2 and a higher technical
target.
The March ETF
Profit Strategy Newsletter outlined the ideal up side target for a major
market. While the up side target hasn't been reached, the market has reached
frothy levels...’
Are
We Headed for a Major Correction?
The Housing Time Bomb ‘I wanted to take a few minutes and share a chart
with you. As you all know I am not much of a T/A guy. However, over the longer
term, I do watch them from time to time.
I often watch
the Russell 2000 when I am looking for a trend change because it's usually the
first sector that rolls over during bear markets.
After taking a peak at the monthly of the Russell, I couldn't help but take
notice of an almost perfect double top:
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/4/saupload_2011_05_03_tos_charts.png
My Take:
The Russell is
much more sensitive than the rest of the market because it is comprised of
smaller companies with matching smaller balance sheets. Therefore, they are
much more susceptible to a weakening economy versus a huge company like Apple (AAPL) that sits
on tens of billion in cash.
As a result,
when things start to head south as a result of things like $4 gas, the market
tends to sell these names first. The fact that it couldn't hold the trendline
after breaking through the 2007 highs is something to take note of.
The
Bottom Line:
So are we due
for a major correction? Hard to tell. The Fed seems obsessed with taking the
market higher, and it has decided to destroy our currency in order to due so in
the process.
The reality
here is no one wins this game if the dollar loses because stocks are priced in
dollars, and if the currency cracks it's not going to matter where the market
is.
The market, in
my opinion, seems to be struggling with a colossal battle between the powerful
forces of debt deflation and deleveraging, versus the equally powerful forces
of inflation via currency debasing courtesy of the easy money Fed.
This battle
has become a personal struggle for myself, which is why I haven't had much to
say recently. Part of me believes that debt deflation is inevitable as the
world realizes the trillions of digital dollars that people moronically
borrowed over the past decade will never be paid back.
However, at
the same time, you also have extremely powerful inflationary forces that are
being created by the Fed as they continue money printing and keeping rates low
at the same time the rest of the world takes rates higher. India just raised
rates by .50 basis points yesterday.
Who will win
this battle? Hard to say. I am positioning myself for both.
What I can
tell you is what I have done with my positions recently:
I sold out of
50% of my silver at around $45. Things got a little too bubbly for me here. I
will look for cheaper prices.
I shorted the
Russell last week via TWM. I also continue holding some small short positions
in SDS and QID.
On the long side I bought the nuclear stock EXC
when it got oversold following the Japanese nuclear disaster and I also added
the titanium stock TIE.
I still hold
the majority of my money in cash which at any moment could become worthless.
This is a scary proposition to me but the way I see it the dollar should rise
before it tanks because I think Europe is going to go down before we do.
Greece will
default by the end of the year. The market has already priced it in. The
rippling effects of this in terms of the rest of the PIIGS are flat out
frightening to me but there is nothing I can do to control it.
All I can do
here is stick to the fundamentals and the most important one to remember is
risk is relative! As a result, I don't believe the dollar is toast just yet
because the bond market continues to tell us that we are the best looking horse
in the glue factory of bankrupt countries.
I write this post
as a warning that something big could be coming. Please play defense and be
safe.’
High-Probability,
Mean-Reversion Strategy - Options Strategy Continues to Succeed Crowder
‘The High-Probability, Mean-Reversion Strategy continued its success Tuesday as
the strategy triggered another good trade. This time it was the SPDR S&P
500 ETF (SPY). SPY moved into a short-term
extreme state on Friday so I purchased a few puts per the strategy guidelines.
Tuesday, I was able to sell them for a decent 7.6% return. So far, after only
one trade the strategy is up 5.6% for the month of May. Another trade like
Tuesday and the strategy will certainly exceed April’s 10.5% gain.
Year-to-date
the HPMR options strategy is up 37.7% . Check out the results.
The decline in
the S&P falls right in line with the “sell in May” phenomenon that occurs
during this time of year. Will it be this easy?
The market has
looked frothy for weeks now, but I think the move in SLV
over the last two days was the catalyst the bears needed. Or could it be that
the market finally realizes that the strongest monetary and fiscal policy in
U.S. history is not enough to keep this economy above water. Did you see the
GDP last week – 1.8%. When GDP hit -6.8% and QE1 was enacted the economy came
roaring and has done so for slightly over two years. But I think the fun is
over. I think now, more than ever is the appropriate time to use sound
options-based strategies.
Just look at
the High-Probability, Mean-Reversion strategy’s performance over the past
several days while the market was moving lower. A 7.6% return while the S&P
has taken a turn for the worse.
Anyone, and I
mean anyone, can make money when the market is in bull mode. I see the machismo
every day. Analysts who think they have the hidden gem to riches. Touting how
great they are during a strong bull rally, but neglecting to remember how they
performed (if they even had money in the market) when the market was moving the
other way. I see, read and hear it everyday.
And these same
analysts who tout gains during bull markets know very little when it comes
options and how powerful they can become during any type of market environment.
Nor do they want to know.
Anyway, I
could go on and on, but I will save it for tomorrow's post.
Short-Term
High-Probability, Mean-Reversion Indicator – as of close 5/03/11
click to enlarge
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/4/saupload_5_3_11_hpmr.png
‘
Dollar Falls to Three
Year Low
Reuters | The yen also hit a six-week high against the
dollar.
Is a
Liquidity Crisis Brewing in Europe?
CNBC | Do we bailout the banks or do we throw more money
at highly-indebted nations?
Report
urges U.S. open door to China investment flood Reuters |
Tens of billions of dollars of Chinese investment could flood into the United
States in the next decade.
Let
the budget battle begin After two weeks of tumultuous meetings with
constituents, Congress returns to a lengthy fight over the nation’s solvency.
(Washington Post) [ Or more aptly put, stated another way, the
nation’s solvency is over. Now that would be cutting to the chase. After all,
it’s a little late for ‘budget bustin’ heroics’. Quite simply, america’s
defacto bankrupt with no end in sight, such being the insurmountable nature of
same where interest alone is eating progressively into GDP beyond the
subterfuge, smoke and mirrors, diversions. Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (Washington Post) [ Not much! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is
about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation
pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high)
to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010… This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come!
U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘This has
been a whirlwind week for intangible monetary policy news which was lead by:
My foggy long range economic view is of a moderately
improving economy which is fighting growing fiscal headwinds. My takeaway from
from the press conference and FOMC meeting was a fairly strong opinion by
Chairman Bernanke that the economy was gaining enough traction to stand on its
own without further accommodation.
A deeper look at advance 1Q2011 GDP real growth of
1.8% should quickly dispel this.
The economy is still in recession if the economic
effects of the automatic
stabilizers are taken into consideration. Automatic stabilizers are
automatic changes in the government’s revenues and outlays that are
attributable to cyclical movements in real output.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_weekly13.png
…
]
U.S.
debt Running in the red: How the U.S., on the road to surplus, detoured to
massive debt (Washington Post) [
Detour, towar’, war … thieving, raping, pillaging and plundering … Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t
fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘And here comes the first indicator that Q2
GDP is about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing
inflation pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27
year high) to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010…
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still
can since there's much worse to come!
WallStCheatSheet:
Obama’s
victory lap (Washington Post) The
killing of bin Laden offered hope of instant renewal. [ Only wobama aficionado
Mr. Milbank could latch onto this propagandist Orwellian dream and call it
victory. Sounds like he’s shootin’ for a job in this failed
presidency/administration as others, including from the Post, have done and
made. 10
Reasons 2011 Is Feeling More and More Like 2008 Jensen ‘The market ended
April as it began, grinding up on low volume, ignoring increasingly worsening
energy prices, continued turmoil in the Middle East and slowing worldwide
economic growth. To me it feels like we are in the calm before the storm. More
specifically, it eerily feels like the months before the financial crisis and
meltdown of 2008. The similarities are striking to me and think the market is
ignoring the signs of an impending and significant pullback over the summer.
Here are ten
reasons 2011 is starting to feel so much like 2008.
SPX
Pullback History: 2009-2011
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/3/saupload_spxpullbacks09_11050311.png ]
CHART
OF THE DAY: Watch the US Debt Set a 60 Year Record
National
/ World
‘World
is safer,’ president says Osama bin Laden is portrayed as a reclusive
figure whose final moments exposed his cowardice. (Washington Post) [ This former cia-supported ally may be
legitimately described as many things; but coward is not one of them.
Principled in giving up riches, comfort, he said americans are thieves; that is absolutely true, and I would
add frauds, criminals, war criminals. Bullies / cowards;ie., wobama, bush,
clinton, cheney, bush, et als … - I wrote: Psychology
forum Re: Bystander Effect ‘… I believe the foregoing
psycho-babble to be absolute, unequivocal
Rubbish/Hogwash/b.s.
The foregoing web site is, from direct experience,
lacking credibility. Indeed, while walking through Military Park (a sliver of a
“park” - more a pedestrian thoroughfare/cement walks) in newark, new jersey on
the way to the bank during lunch hour, I heard the clearly audible
screams/cries of what turned out to be an old lady on the ground with blood
streaming from her mouth. I ran toward the sound of the cries, the source of
which I could not see because there were so many people in and about this
thoroughfare so as to block any vision of the source of the cries. When I came
to the woman, on the ground, blood streaming from her mouth, I asked what
happened, to which she responded she had been hit in the mouth and knocked to
the ground, her purse stolen/put inside her shopping bag, and she pointed out
the criminal casually now walking across the main street. Nobody stopped to
help her, many having passed her by. I slammed the thug to the ground so hard
that, in light of all the blood and confusion (limbic system / adrenalin flow)
I thought I had been stabbed (the blood was from his elbows hitting the
pavement so hard - no one helped/a crowd gathered/an undercover cop happened
along). When I testified at the Grand Jury Proceeding I made sure his threat on
my life was set forth in prima facie fashion so as to maximize the DA’s
position with both felonies (he went to prison – pled out). (The other case I
wrote about here - Having had occasion to have
run down a mugger in newark, n.j. who apparent had followed a girl from the
bank on her way to the bursar to pay tuition, though in pretty good shape, I
was astounded by how totally exhausting such a pursuit was, how much like
rubber my arms were when I traded punches with the perpetrator, and truth be
told, if I had a flashlight on my belt, I have little doubt that I would have
probably used it to subdue the perp. The girl was not that seriously injured,
did get her pocketbook and tuition back, and the criminal went to jail.
The other thing about such a pursuit that amazed me was that no one else
assisted the girl or me despite being in a position to do so).
CONCLUSION
The reality, though difficult for many, including
psychologists to accept is that quite simply, the vast and overwhelming
majority of americans are without any courage whatsoever. They are cowards,
plain and simple. All the excuses, rationalizations, etc., psycho-babble if you
will, in the world will not change that fact. I could cite numerous instances
involving white collar/RICO crimes involving such cowardice as well. I
understand statistics, the term ad hoc, sampling, etc.. The conclusion stands!.
Kurt Nimmo and Alex Jones | Obama makes a suspiciously timed speech, claims
Osama killed in Pakistan. Videos [ As set forth infra, I personally believe
Osama’s been dead for quite some time. Indeed, for one on dialysis, he
otherwise would have been nothing less than a modern day miracle in terms of
longevity / mortality rates for those so afflicted, particularly under the
‘stressful’ circumstances involving evading capture, betrayal for money, etc..
His ‘surfacing’ for a ‘talk’ wouldn’t even pass muster in the most rudimentary
requirements for ‘proof of life’. The release at this time of the
‘announcement’ is, rather than a victory lap so to speak, but rather a sign of
weakness and desperation on the part of america whose global and domestic
economic, financial, and geopolitical position is substantially diminished and
declining rapidly and whose military industrial complex welfare plan along with
the Orwellian diversion of the masses could at most yield a pyrrhic victory
which also would require for consummation a wrap-up of this nation-bankrupting
contrived war scenario, which is not likely. Moreover, the same comes at a time of systemic failure for pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt america While the ‘announcement’ plays well for the
nonce, to the dumb, uninformed back home, the same will galvanize resistance in the name of their
now martyr, Osama Bin Laden. In sum, other than somewhat questionable
propaganda value, the announcement will have no measurable effect on america’s
continuing mideast / global debacle. In other words, defacto bankrupt america
has used up a ‘bullet’, albeit a blank at that! ]
In February,
2004, Iranian state radio claimed Osama bin Laden had been
captured in Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan “a long time ago.”
Pentagon and Pakistani officials denied the report. “Osama bin Laden has been
arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda
maneuvering in the presidential election,” the radio report said…’ ]
Drudgereport:
The official, who
wished to remain anonymous, sold the pictures to REUTERS...
SPX
Pullback History: 2009-2011
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/3/saupload_spxpullbacks09_11050311.png ]
CHART
OF THE DAY: Watch the US Debt Set a 60 Year Record
Wall Street falls as earnings fears threaten rally (Reuters) - Reuters - stocks fell on Tuesday as investors
questioned the sustainability of the rally in light of fresh worries about
earnings growth in the coming quarters.
[video]
Trader: I See Stagflation
Prominent
Attorney Jonathon Bristol Pleads Guilty in Kenneth Starr Money Laundering Crime
Economist
says bin Laden’s death won’t boost economy KTAR | Any
future attacks by al Qaeda on oil pipelines would certainly have a negative
impact.
US
Debt Rating Should Be ‘C’: Independent Agency CNBC.com |
There have been increasing concerns about the fate of United States’ prized
triple-A sovereign debt rating.
U.S.
Treasury: China Has Decreased Its Holdings of U.S. Debt CNS
| Mainland China has decreased its holdings of U.S. Treasury securities since
last October.
‘World
is safer,’ president says Osama bin Laden is portrayed as a reclusive
figure whose final moments exposed his cowardice. (Washington Post) [ This former cia-supported ally may be
legitimately described as many things; but coward is not one of them.
Principled in giving up riches, comfort, he said americans are thieves; that is absolutely true, and I would
add frauds, criminals, war criminals. Bullies / cowards;ie., wobama, bush,
clinton, cheney, bush, et als … - I wrote: Psychology
forum Re: Bystander Effect ‘… I believe the
foregoing psycho-babble to be absolute, unequivocal
Rubbish/Hogwash/b.s.
The foregoing web site is, from direct experience,
lacking credibility. Indeed, while walking through Military Park (a sliver of a
“park” - more a pedestrian thoroughfare/cement walks) in newark, new jersey on
the way to the bank during lunch hour, I heard the clearly audible
screams/cries of what turned out to be an old lady on the ground with blood
streaming from her mouth. I ran toward the sound of the cries, the source of
which I could not see because there were so many people in and about this
thoroughfare so as to block any vision of the source of the cries. When I came
to the woman, on the ground, blood streaming from her mouth, I asked what
happened, to which she responded she had been hit in the mouth and knocked to
the ground, her purse stolen/put inside her shopping bag, and she pointed out
the criminal casually now walking across the main street. Nobody stopped to
help her, many having passed her by. I slammed the thug to the ground so hard
that, in light of all the blood and confusion (limbic system / adrenalin flow)
I thought I had been stabbed (the blood was from his elbows hitting the
pavement so hard - no one helped/a crowd gathered/an undercover cop happened
along). When I testified at the Grand Jury Proceeding I made sure his threat on
my life was set forth in prima facie fashion so as to maximize the DA’s
position with both felonies (he went to prison – pled out). (The other case I
wrote about here - Having had occasion to have
run down a mugger in newark, n.j. who apparent had followed a girl from the
bank on her way to the bursar to pay tuition, though in pretty good shape, I
was astounded by how totally exhausting such a pursuit was, how much like
rubber my arms were when I traded punches with the perpetrator, and truth be
told, if I had a flashlight on my belt, I have little doubt that I would have
probably used it to subdue the perp. The girl was not that seriously injured,
did get her pocketbook and tuition back, and the criminal went to jail.
The other thing about such a pursuit that amazed me was that no one else
assisted the girl or me despite being in a position to do so).
CONCLUSION
The reality, though difficult for many, including
psychologists to accept is that quite simply, the vast and overwhelming
majority of americans are without any courage whatsoever. They are cowards,
plain and simple. All the excuses, rationalizations, etc., psycho-babble if you
will, in the world will not change that fact. I could cite numerous instances
involving white collar/RICO crimes involving such cowardice as well. I understand
statistics, the term ad hoc, sampling, etc.. The conclusion stands!.
Let
the budget battle begin After two weeks of tumultuous meetings with
constituents, Congress returns to a lengthy fight over the nation’s solvency.
(Washington Post) [ Or more aptly put, stated another way, the
nation’s solvency is over. Now that would be cutting to the chase. After
all, it’s a little late for ‘budget
bustin’ heroics’. Quite simply, america’s defacto bankrupt with no end in
sight, such being the insurmountable nature of same where interest alone is
eating progressively into GDP beyond the subterfuge, smoke and mirrors,
diversions. Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (Washington Post) [ Not much! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the
top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t
fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is
about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation
pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high)
to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010… This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘This has been a whirlwind week for intangible
monetary policy news which was lead by:
My foggy long range economic view is of a moderately
improving economy which is fighting growing fiscal headwinds. My takeaway from
from the press conference and FOMC meeting was a fairly strong opinion by
Chairman Bernanke that the economy was gaining enough traction to stand on its
own without further accommodation.
A deeper look at advance 1Q2011 GDP real growth of
1.8% should quickly dispel this.
The economy is still in recession if the economic
effects of the automatic
stabilizers are taken into consideration. Automatic stabilizers are
automatic changes in the government’s revenues and outlays that are
attributable to cyclical movements in real output.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_weekly13.png
…
]
U.S.
debt Running in the red: How the U.S., on the road to surplus, detoured to
massive debt (Washington Post) [
Detour, towar’, war … thieving, raping, pillaging and plundering … Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply
happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global
GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of
unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is
to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn
worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to
spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year).
There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the
people all of the time. THIS HOUSE
OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘
… Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘And here comes the first indicator that Q2
GDP is about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing
inflation pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27
year high) to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010…
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still
can since there's much worse to come!
WallStCheatSheet:
Obama’s
victory lap (Washington
Post) The killing of bin Laden offered
hope of instant renewal. [ Only wobama aficionado Mr. Milbank could latch onto
this propagandist Orwellian dream and call it victory. Sounds like he’s
shootin’ for a job in this failed presidency/administration as others,
including from the Post, have done and made.
10
Reasons 2011 Is Feeling More and More Like 2008 Jensen ‘The market
ended April as it began, grinding up on low volume, ignoring increasingly worsening
energy prices, continued turmoil in the Middle East and slowing worldwide
economic growth. To me it feels like we are in the calm before the storm. More
specifically, it eerily feels like the months before the financial crisis and
meltdown of 2008. The similarities are striking to me and think the market is
ignoring the signs of an impending and significant pullback over the summer.
Here are ten
reasons 2011 is starting to feel so much like 2008.
]
Osama
bin Laden was discovered ‘hiding in plain sight’ in Pakistan (Washington Post) U.S. officials begin to
provide details on the chronology of events. [
Kurt Nimmo and Alex Jones | Obama makes a suspiciously timed speech, claims
Osama killed in Pakistan. Videos [ As set forth infra, I personally believe
Osama’s been dead for quite some time. Indeed, for one on dialysis, he
otherwise would have been nothing less than a modern day miracle in terms of
longevity / mortality rates for those so afflicted, particularly under the
‘stressful’ circumstances involving evading capture, betrayal for money, etc..
His ‘surfacing’ for a ‘talk’ wouldn’t even pass muster in the most rudimentary
requirements for ‘proof of life’. The release at this time of the ‘announcement’
is, rather than a victory lap so to speak, but rather a sign of weakness and
desperation on the part of america whose global and domestic economic,
financial, and geopolitical position is substantially diminished and declining
rapidly and whose military industrial complex welfare plan along with the
Orwellian diversion of the masses could at most yield a pyrrhic victory which
also would require for consummation a wrap-up of this nation-bankrupting
contrived war scenario, which is not likely. Moreover, the same comes at a time of systemic failure for pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt america While the ‘announcement’ plays well for the
nonce, to the dumb, uninformed back home, the same will galvanize resistance in the name of their
now martyr, Osama Bin Laden. In sum, other than somewhat questionable
propaganda value, the announcement will have no measurable effect on america’s
continuing mideast / global debacle. In other words, defacto bankrupt america
has used up a ‘bullet’, albeit a blank at that! ]
In February,
2004, Iranian state radio claimed Osama bin Laden had been
captured in Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan “a long time ago.”
Pentagon and Pakistani officials denied the report. “Osama bin Laden has been
arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda
maneuvering in the presidential election,” the radio report said…’ ]
National
/ World
Bin
Laden was unarmed when SEALs stormed room (AP) AP - Osama bin Laden was
unarmed when Navy SEALs burst into his room and shot him to death, the White
House said Tuesday, a change in the official account that raised questions… White House struggles to get story right on raid (AP)
Outside
White House Luke Rudkowski | WeAreChange attempts to
educate hysterical public about the truth behind Bin Laden.
Fears
David Petraeus will ‘militarize’ CIA Australian |
Petraeus’s appointment as CIA director is part of the biggest shake-up of
Obama’s national security team since he took office two years ago.
We’re United Again! Butler
Shaffer | Is Boobus going to buy into this story, just as he did the
government’s assertion that bin Laden masterminded the 9/11 attacks?
Drudgereport: IMAM: 'Dogs should not
rejoice too much for killing lions'...
IMAM VOWS REVENGE
UN rights boss asks US for
facts on bin Laden killing...
Pakistan condemns
'unauthorized unilateral action'...
PANETTA: Photo
coming...
One image shows a bullet wound to his head above his left
eye...
Likely to become
most viewed photographs in modern history...
Will death image silence
doubters or fan flames?
CARNEY: Release 'could be
inflammatory'...
Concerned with
Muslim 'sensitivities'...
Should news organizations
publish?
What bin Laden photos show...
STORY CHANGES: OSAMA DIDN'T
HAVE GUN, DIDN'T USE WIFE AS SHIELD...
WH SPOKESMAN: 'Resistance
does not require a firearm'...
Official: Appeared to be
'reaching for a weapon'...
Wife not killed, shot in
leg...
FLUSTERED CARNEY: 'EVEN I'M
GETTING CONFUSED'...
RASMUSSEN: No 'Immediate
Bounce' for Obama...
AVERAGE GAS PRICE
NATIONWIDE LIKELY TO TOP $4 BY WEEK'S END...
$4.44 a gallon in Chicago...
Petition Demands Equal
FACEBOOK Town Hall Meeting for the GOP Presidential Nominee...
Looters hit tornado victims'
homes...
WIKILEAKS' Assange says
FACEBOOK a spy tool for US government... [ Facebook is not alone in
that regard … you must assume that all is being viewed … that’s my view.
Moreover, I further believe that much of the ‘hacking’ / intrusion / viral
infections are done by the u.s. government or their assigns. ]
U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘This has been a whirlwind week for intangible
monetary policy news which was lead by:
My foggy long range economic view is of a moderately
improving economy which is fighting growing fiscal headwinds. My takeaway from
from the press conference and FOMC meeting was a fairly strong opinion by
Chairman Bernanke that the economy was gaining enough traction to stand on its
own without further accommodation.
A deeper look at advance 1Q2011 GDP real growth of 1.8%
should quickly dispel this.
The economy is still in recession if the economic
effects of the automatic
stabilizers are taken into consideration. Automatic stabilizers are
automatic changes in the government’s revenues and outlays that are
attributable to cyclical movements in real output.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_weekly13.png
A caveat when
interpreting the above chart is that no study has determined what portion of
automatic stabilizers actually get into GDP – GDP measures only 1/3 of the
economic money flows. But understanding the size of automatic stabilizers in
comparison to GDP are indicative of current economic duress.
A better measure of economic health is comparing the fiscal boost
being given to the economy due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
(aka “the stimulus”).
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_weekly21.png
The orange
range in the above graph is the estimated range of effects on GDP of the
stimulus. My take from this graph is that it is likely the economy was negative
in 1Q2011 without stimulus.
Some of the automatic stabilizers were funded within
the stimulus – and looking at GDP is a rear view mirror of the economy. What is
important is where the economy is headed.
And this leads me to the final nail in the coffin –
government spending. In Chairman Bernanke’s press conference, he stated that
there were no government deficit reduction bills or programs which would derail
his positive
(but downwardly revised) economic projections.
Before any of these deficit reductions begin
effecting the economy, the USA has the government putting a 1% headwind on GDP
in 1Q2011 – the largest government spending headwind since the end of World War
II.
The economy is much weaker than picture Chairman
Bernanke painted, and it is likely he crossed his fingers when saying further
extraordinary monetary policy accommodation would not be necessary.
Economic
News This Week:
Econintersect issued its economic forecast for April 2011 indicating a peaking of
this current economic sub-cycle. In simple words, the same moderate recovery
seen in March will continue in April.
This week the Weekly Leading Index (WLI) from ECRI declined slightly from
7.7% to 7.5%. This level implies the business conditions six months from now
will be approximately the same or slightly improved compared to today.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_weekly_indexes4.png
Initial unemployment claims increased moderately in this week’s
release. The data for the last two months as been quite noisy, and it
remains important to follow the four week moving average for analysis of
unemployment to smooth out the reporting idiosyncrasies. Although the trend
over the last six months has been down, we are in a short term uptrend – please
refer to Initial
Unemployment Claims Rise – A Harbinger of Poor April Jobs Outlook.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_unemployment3.png
The data released this week were consistent with a
moderately improving economy. Housing data was as expected – not good – but
this economic cycle is operating with poor housing dynamics which continues to
degrade slightly. There are some indications of light at the end of the housing
tunnel.
Weekly Economic Release Scorecard:
Item |
Headline |
Analysis |
|
Rick Davis suggests the weak numbers are a perfect excuse for more
monetary intervention |
|
Up |
Consumption increase is 66% price increases. Disposable income 80%
nullified by inflation |
|
Up 1.8% |
Government spending contraction the news in this low number |
|
Up |
This super economic coincident index is now showing economy growing at
trend |
|
Up |
Not up – Pending home sales index has been down YoY for the last 8 of
9 months |
|
Up |
Sharp improvement |
|
|
Likely strategic mortgage defaults will be a growing problem |
|
Up |
Comparing consumer confidence “recovery” and trends over the last 5
recessions |
|
Down |
Compares all leading home price indexes. |
|
Growing |
Showing growing income disparity in the USA |
|
Up |
Not up – but there is light in the tunnel |
|
|
Menzie Chinn questions whether Chinese inflation is endangering the
USA economy |
|
|
Elliott Morss looks at taxing options to lower the deficit |
|
|
Yves Smith pokes holes in FDIC belief they could have prevented the
destruction caused by Lehman’s collapse |
|
|
Jeff Miller points out most investors are not using good forward
earning information |
|
|
Paul Hanly overviews the Oz market from a historical perspective |
|
|
Erik McCurdy argues a correction is coming |
|
|
John Lounsbury shares a video on the progression of the information
age |
|
|
Martin Andelman questions whether the banking lobby was involved in the
disappearance |
|
|
Rick Davis examines the “art” of economic solutions – and who profits |
Bankruptcy
This Week: Peregrine
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_failed_banks3.png
Disclosure:
I have no positions in any
stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72
hours.
More
articles by Steven
Hansen »
GDP: These Awesome Charts Put the GDP Revision in Perspective
7 Significant Variables That Can Move Stock Prices Lower WallStCheatSheet [ It’s truly a bad investing scenario when stocks / stock market
is likened to gambling / sports betting – and I’d say the latter is less prone
to fraud / manipulation as is ubiquitously extant on fraudulent wall street. ]
‘ There are many similarities between investing in stocks and handicapping in sports betting. For
example, investors (bettors) have opposing views on whether a particular stock
will go up or down (win or lose), and determine if the valuation (point spread)
is reflective of the proper equilibrium (supply & demand). And just like
the stock market, virtually anybody off the street can place a sports bet –
assuming one is of legal age and in a legal betting jurisdiction.
Right now investors are poring over data as part of the
critical, quarterly earnings ritual. Thus far, roughly 20% of the companies
in S&P 500 index (NYSE:SPY) have reported their results and 78% of those companies have beaten Wall Street expectations.
Unfortunately for the bulls, this trend has not been strong enough to push
market prices higher in 2010. Companies that have reported include: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alcoa (NYSE:AA), American Express (NYSE:AXP), Boeing (NYSE:BA), Bank of American (NYSE:BAC), Citigroup (NYSE:C), Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), duPont (NYSE:DD), General Electric (NYSE:GE), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), IBM (NYSE:IBM), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM), Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), Ford (NYSE:F), McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD), 3M (NYSE:MMM), Merck (NYSE:MRK), Proctor & Gamble (NYSE:PG), Sprint (NYSE:S), Traveler’s (NYSE:TRV), United Technologies (NYSE:UTX), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM).
So how and why
can market prices go down on good news? There are many reasons that
short-term price trends can diverge from short-run fundamentals. One major
reason for the price-fundamental gap is the following factor: expectations.
Just last week, the market had climbed over +70% in a ten month period, before
issues surrounding the Massachusetts Senatorial election, President Obama’s
banking reform proposals, and Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke’s
re-appointment surfaced. With such a large run-up in the equity markets come
loftier expectations for both the economy and individual companies.
So when
corporate earnings unveiled from companies like Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), J.P. Morgan (NYSE:JPM), and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) outperform relative to forecasts, one
explanation for an interim price correction is due to a significant group of
investors not being surprised by the robust profit reports. In sports betting
lingo, the sports team may have won the game this week, but they did not win by
enough points (“cover the spread”).
Some other
reasons stock prices move lower on good news:
Certainly these previously mentioned issues do not
cover the full gamut of explanations for temporary price-fundamental gaps.
Moreover, many of these factors could be used in reverse to explain market
price increases in the face of weaker than anticipated results.
For those individuals traveling to Las Vegas to place
a wager on the NFL Super Bowl, betting on the hot team may not be enough. If
expectations are not met and the hot team wins by less than the point spread, don’t be surprised to see a decline in the value of the bet.
Wade W. Slome is a CFA and CFP® at Sidoxia Capital
Management.
Disclosure: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some
of its clients own GOOG and certain exchange traded funds, but do not own JPM
or INTC or any other security referenced in this article…’
10
Reasons 2011 Is Feeling More and More Like 2008 Jensen ‘The market ended April as it began, grinding
up on low volume, ignoring increasingly worsening energy prices, continued
turmoil in the Middle East and slowing worldwide economic growth. To me it
feels like we are in the calm before the storm. More specifically, it eerily
feels like the months before the financial crisis and meltdown of 2008. The
similarities are striking to me and think the market is ignoring the signs of
an impending and significant pullback over the summer.
Here are ten
reasons 2011 is starting to feel so much like 2008.
History does not always repeat itself, but it does
rhyme, as the saying goes. For the reasons listed above, I am very cautious here.
I believe we are due we are in for a significant correction over the summer of
15%-25%. I am keeping a good portion of my portfolio in cash, awaiting the
pullback that I feel is close. I hope to use these funds to pick up good
companies with solid growth prospects - like Apple (AAPL) and
Google (GOOG)
- at some point over the summer at lower prices. The funds I do have in the
market are concentrated in large cap blue chip stocks with reasonable
valuations, growing revenues and solid dividend yields. Companies like
Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC),
Novartis (NVS),
Abbott Labs (ABT), and Telefonica (TEF) are
some of these types of stocks that I think fit the bill. Be careful out there.’
U.S.
Treasury: China Has Decreased Its Holdings of U.S. Debt CNSNews.com | Mainland China has decreased its holdings of U.S.
Treasury securities since last October.
The
American Dream
May 2, 2011
The U.S. middle
class is being shredded, ripped apart and systematically wiped out. If
you doubt this, just check out the statistics below. The American Dream
is being transformed into an absolute nightmare. Once upon a time, the
rest of the world knew that most Americans were able to live a middle class
lifestyle. Most American families had nice homes, most American families
had a car or two, most American families had nice clothes, most American
families had an overabundance of food and most American families could even
look forward to sending their children to college if that is what the kids
wanted to do. There was an implicit promise that this was the way that it
was always going to be. Most of us grew up believing that if we worked
really hard in school and that if we stayed out of trouble and that if we did
everything that “the system” told us to do that there would be a place for us
in the middle class too. Well, it turns out that “the system” is breaking
down. There aren’t enough good jobs for all of us anymore. In fact,
there aren’t very many crappy jobs either. Millions are out of work,
millions have lost their homes and nearly all of the long-term economic trends
just keep getting worse and worse. So is there any hope for the U.S.
middle class?
No, there is not.
Unless
fundamental changes are made economically, financially and politically, the
long-term trends that are destroying the U.S. middle class will continue to do
so.
The number of
good jobs has been declining for a long time. The good jobs that have
been lost are being replaced by a smaller number of low paying “service jobs”.
Meanwhile, the cost
of everything is going up. It is getting really hard for American
families to be able to afford to put food on the table and to put gas in the
tank. Health care costs are absolutely outrageous and college tuition is
now out of reach for millions of American families.
Every single
month more American families fall out of the middle class. Today there
are 18 million more Americans on food stamps than there were just four years
ago. More than one out of every five U.S. children is living in
poverty. Things are getting really, really bad out there.
The following are
36 statistics which prove that the American Dream is turning into an absolute
nightmare for the middle class….
#1 The competition for decent jobs in America has
gotten absolutely insane. There have been reports of people actually
getting down on their knees and begging for jobs. Many Americans are
starting to wonder if they will ever get a decent job again. According to
the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average duration of unemployment in
the United States is now an all-time record 39
weeks…
#2 According to the Wall Street Journal, there
are 5.5
million Americans that are unemployed and yet are not
receiving unemployment benefits.
#3 The number of “low income jobs” in the U.S. has
risen steadily over the past 30 years and they now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United
States.
#4 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last
year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of
U.S. history.
#5 Once upon a time, anyone could get hired at
McDonald’s. But today McDonald’s turns away a higher percentage of
applicants than Harvard does. Approximately 7 percent of all those that apply to get
into Harvard are accepted. At a recent “National Hiring Day” held by
McDonald’s only about 6.2 percent of the one
million Americans that applied for a job were hired.
#6 There are now about 7.25 million fewer jobs in
America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#7 The United States has lost an average of about
50,000 manufacturing jobsper month since China joined the World Trade Organization in
2001.
#8 A New York post analysis has found that the rate of
inflation in New York City has been about 14 percent over the past
year.
#9 The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the
United States is now up to$3.91 a gallon.
#10 Over the past 12 months the average price of
gasoline in the United States has gone up by about 30%.
#11 Spending on energy now accounts for more than 6
percent of all consumer spending. Every time this has happened since
1970 we have also had a recession
that followed.
#12 The average American driver will spend somewhere
around $750 more for gasoline in 2011. Unfortunately, it
seems likely that the price of oil is going to go up even higher. Already
the price of oil is closing in on the all-time record….
#13 In the United States, over 20 percent of all children are
living in poverty. In the UK and in France that figure is well under 10
percent.
#14 According to the U.S. Census, the number of children
living in poverty has gone up by about 2 million in just the
past 2 years.
#15 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own more than a third of all the
wealth in the United States.
#16 The poorest 50% collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United
States.
#17 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans own over 50% of all the stocks and bonds.
#18 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the
average CEO made 343 times more money than the
average American did last year.
#19 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for
just 11.7% of all income. Today, government
transfer payments account for 18.4% of all income.
#20 U.S. households are now receiving more income from
the U.S. governmentthan they
are paying to the government in taxes.
#21 59 percent of all Americans now receive
money from the federal government in one form or another.
#22 The average cost of tuition, room and board at
America’s public universities is now $16,000 a year. For America’s
private universities, that figure is $37,000 a year.
#23 The cost of college tuition in the United States has
gone up by over 900 percent since 1978.
#24 Approximately two-thirds of all college students
graduate with student loan debt.
#25 17 million college
graduates are doing jobs that do not even require a college degree.
#26 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health
care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in
1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#27 One study found that approximately 41 percent of working age
Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical
debt.
#28 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was
on Medicaid. Today,one out of every 6 Americans is
on Medicaid.
#29 Total credit card debt in the United States is
now more than 8 times larger
than it was just 30 years ago.
#30 During the first three months of this year, less new
homes were sold in the U.S. than in any three month period ever recorded.
#31 Now home sales in the United States are now down 80% from the peak in July 2005.
#32 U.S. home prices have now declined 32% from
the peak of the housing bubble.
#33 For most middle class families, the family home is
the number one financial asset. Unfortunately, U.S. home values have
declined an astounding 6.3
trillion dollars since the housing crisis first began.
#34 According to a recent census report, 13% of all
homes in the United Statesare currently sitting empty.
#35 The housing crisis just seems to keep on getting
worse. 31 percent of the homeowners that
responded to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey indicated that they are
“underwater” on their mortgages.
#36 Unfortunately, it looks like millions more middle
class Americans could soon be in danger of losing their homes. According
to the Mortgage Bankers Association, at least 8 million
Americans are at least one month behind on their mortgage payments at this
point
National
/ World
Kurt Nimmo and Alex Jones | Obama makes a suspiciously timed speech, claims
Osama killed in Pakistan. Videos [ As set for the infra, I personally believe
Osama’s been dead for quite some time. Indeed, for one on dialysis, he
otherwise would have been nothing less than a modern day miracle in terms of
longevity / mortality rates for those so afflicted, particularly under the
‘stressful’ circumstances involving evading capture, betrayal for money, etc..
His ‘surfacing’ for a ‘talk’ wouldn’t even pass muster in the most rudimentary
requirements for ‘proof of life’. The release at this time of the
‘announcement’ is, rather than a victory lap so to speak, but rather a sign of
weakness and desperation on the part of america whose global and domestic
economic, financial, and geopolitical position is substantially diminished and
declining rapidly and whose military industrial complex welfare plan along with
the Orwellian diversion of the masses could at most yield a pyrrhic victory
which also would require for consummation a wrap-up of this nation-bankrupting
contrived war scenario, which is not likely. Moreover, the same comes at a time of systemic failure for pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt america While the ‘announcement’ plays well for the
nonce, to the dumb, uninformed back home, the same will galvanize resistance in the name of their
now martyr, Osama Bin Laden. In sum, other than somewhat questionable
propaganda value, the announcement will have no measurable effect on america’s
continuing mideast / global debacle. In other words, defacto bankrupt america
has used up a ‘bullet’, albeit a blank at that! ]
In February,
2004, Iranian state radio claimed Osama bin Laden had been
captured in Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan “a long time ago.”
Pentagon and Pakistani officials denied the report. “Osama bin Laden has been
arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda
maneuvering in the presidential election,” the radio report said.
Osama bin
Laden died of kidney failure soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks. In
2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said bin Laden had kidney disease,
and that he had required a
dialysis machine when he lived in Afghanistan. That same year, the FBI’s
top counterterrorism official, Dale Watson, said, “I personally think he is
probably not with us anymore.”
A Taliban
leader told the Pakistan Observer on December 21, 2002, that Bin Laden was
suffering from a serious lung complication and died in mid-December, in the
vicinity of the Tora Bora mountains. The source claimed that bin Laden was laid
to rest honorably in his last abode and his grave was made as per his Wahabi
belief, according to Fox News.
Alex Jones was
told live on the radio in 2002 by high-level Council on Foreign Relations
members that Osama Bin Laden had died of kidney failure in early 2002.
“I have it
from high level [sources] from inside the Bush administration…that bin Laden
died of natural causes and that his family has given the body to the CIA, that
they’re gonna roll him out right before the election, that he’s on ice right
now. They will claim they killed him right before the election,” Alex
said at the time.
“Jones gave a
caution that the intelligence could be disinformation but claimed that his base
in Austin was extremely close to the Bush administration and similar
information received in the past had been credible,” Paul
Joseph Watson wrote in August of 2002.
During the
2004 election, CNN reported that Democratic insiders had been told that George
W. Bush was going to use the Bin Laden body as an ace-in-the-hole if he thought
he was in danger of losing the 2004 election. This confirmed the evidence that
Jones had been given by the CFR and others.
In 2003,
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told Fox News Channel analyst Morton
Kondracke she suspected Bush knew the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and was
waiting for the most politically expedient moment to announce his capture.
Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in a suicide attack at the
end of 2007, stated that Osama bin Laden had been killed by Ahmed Omar Saeed
Sheikh, a man convicted of kidnapping and killing journalist Daniel Pearl.
Obama’s
announcement follows the release of a highly suspicious birth certificate last week. Both events
represent psychological operations that possibly portend more significant
events in the days ahead as the U.S. dollar continues to lose its reserve
status, the economy fails to recover as promised, and wars expand in Libya,
Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
Obama’s
propaganda stunt arrives as the Democrats kick off their leader’s presidential
reelection bid against a number of Republicans contenders who have been highly
critical of not only his perceived handling of the economy, but also his
management of the manufactured war on terror.’
Stock
market on a roll despite slowing economic growth, lingering
unemployment[Also known as reality! Roll … yes, indeed … everyone’s to get rolled!
] (Washington Post) Dow is up more than
10 percent for 2011, to its highest point in nearly three years. [ Same
bubble scenario preceeding last crash (including currency manipulation); yet,
far worse this time owing to insurmountable debt and defacto bankruptcy of the
nation.
Fed
Chairman Bernanke does reality TV
(WP) [ Except the ‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S. BERNANKE’ show is
scripted unreality … even with his reduction in estimate for ‘economic growth’,
the frauds on wall street still rallied.
Bernanke
prepares to make history
(Washington Post) [ He already
has! $6 gas acomin’, $1,508+ gold, $46+ silver, other commodities at record
levels, hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing of fiat
paper currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet maintained
their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...
Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come!
ATTENTION: REPORTERS –
HIP BOOTS MANDATORY, WADERS RECOMMENDED SINCE YOU’LL BE AT LEAST KNEE-DEEP IN
‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S. BERNAKE’ B*** S***! ] On Wednesday, he will be the first Fed
chairman to take on-the-record questioning from the media.
Why
do Americans still dislike atheists? (Washington Post) [ And
not just americans … Why? First and foremost because there is a God. Second, it
is intellectually dishonest to be an atheist. Specifically, there is absolutely
no evidence to dispute the existence of God. While one might similarly argue
that there is no evidence to suggest there is a God (which I would dispute),
which for most is a fair statement, the same would yield at best, if
intellectually honest, the position of ‘agnostic’. I can totally understand and
even empathize with the view of the agnostic. After all, at this point, there
seems to be ‘no rhyme nor reason’ at all. But, think binary, positives /
negatives. Just too many negatives. Think ‘capital punishment’. No, the world’s
not going to end in 2012 as some fear. Rather, think slow burn; decades at
best; then ‘poof’. In the scheme of things, this world’s just not that
important (apes,
notochordates, and initially single celled organisms). Kind of
akin to what I previously wrote: (God doesn’t care that you wrestle a girl who wants to
wrestle!) Boy
wrestler forfeits match to female opponent... [ What a homo! Wow! I
feel sorry for those guys she actually beat (20 of them – her record was 20 and
13) … they’ll probably never get over it … nor should they … I have to rethink
my regard for Iowa, Iowa state wrestling now presuming such stalwart
championship teams to be the products of out-of-state imports … as for the guy
who forfeited, he could have easily and gently taken her down (you can easily
do that with a lesser opponent), got her in a double grapevine and grind her in
a certain way into the mat, and when she was in the throws of convulsive
orgasm, she’d unwittingly arch her back, thereby pressing her own shoulder
blades to the mat, thereby pinning herself, thus enabling the homo to say in a
manner of speaking that he was making heterosexual love not war with her ………
how pathetic and preposterous this was … and, let me remind the homo that God
doesn’t care that you wrestle a girl who wants to wrestle! ]]
]
U.S.
troops’ deadliest month in Iraq (Washington Post) With 11 deaths, April was the worst for U.S. forces since combat
missions officially ended last year, according to military and independent
record keepers. [Riiiiight! … That ‘progress thing’ they keep reminding us of …
which of course is progress in progressive increasing pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america’s insurmountable debt. Key
Afghan aid programs delayed (Washington
Post) [ Strategy? Critical time? Seems we’ve heard that song before. And, yet
another nation and innocent lives destroyed for no good reason … and,
pervasively corrupt and defacto bankrupt america … winning hearts and minds
…NOT! … Petraeus
to helm more-militarized CIA
(Washington Post) [ I personally unequivocally believe there has already
been a defacto coup d’etat in america. Drudgereport: Pentagon
Warns Obama Against Deeper Defense Cuts ... (And where is it going to come from
... we've already had in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt, war crimes
nation america a defacto coup d'etat) ... Ron
Paul: After ‘CIA coup,’ agency ‘runs military’ US House Rep. Ron Paul
says the CIA has has in effect carried out a “coup” against the US government,
and the intelligence agency needs to be “taken out.” I also personally
believe there has been a defacto coup d’etat which has manifested in
various substantial, blatant, brazened frauds, ie., wall street, missing 360
tons of $100 bills in Iraq, war profiteering, etc., without any fear of
prosecution, and of course concomitant decline for u.s. as the treasury is
looted. But I also believe its scope is beyond just the CIA with many complicit
within the corrupted 3 branches of u.s. government (fed judges, us attorneys,
illegal system, etc.) plus the military and private big money, ie., Goldman
Sachs / wall street men, etc… http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
The
outdated ‘Trump Rule’ (Washington
Post) COLUMN | The would-be GOP
presidential contender has long shown a penchant for sexism. Trump
calls leaders ‘stupid’ at Vegas casino [ Again, the pot calls the kettle black … if it was only just
sexism that defined deeply flawed, mental case, mobster / fraudster trump, … yet there’s just enough truth and an open
bar to keep their attention … Memo to Donald Trump: You're fired Los Angeles Times - What The Donald 'accomplished' is to make a fool of
himself and diminish President Obama's dignity. It's time for the loud-mouthed
man with the big bankroll and bad haircut to take his sideshow to the trash
heap.’… What Mr. Banks fails to realize is that wobama has no dignity and
appropriate criticism, as I’ve said before, is to him like ‘water off a duck’s
back’ and you can not shame the stereotypical wobama. TRUMP
TO GIBBS: YOU'RE 'A LOSER' [‘Another trumped-up case of the pot calling the
kettle black’]... TRUMP: Obama
Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues... [ Talk about the pot calling the kettle
black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn) ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster
trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa
mobster trump would pound the undistinguished academically / athletically,
Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a king’ in film noir
melodramatic fashion which proved too much for the more balanced and ‘chosen /
favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide. The old man also required
trump to go to prep / military / boarding school where according to a
classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same manner as
dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the problem
(total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes,
jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental
case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled
with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively read those hitler
speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to Ivana Trump) to
severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory disregard for and
violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions
to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese
(american goods made in China), drug money laundering in his casinos, bribery,
etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In
a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
The
president, lost in thought
(WP) [ How ‘bout just lost!
Wobama … a common liar. Drudgereport: TELEPROMPTER
INVENTOR DIES... (Wobama ‘mourns … day of silence declared’)
U.S. Murders Children in Bid to Assassinate Qaddafi Tony
Cartalucci | Ghoulish hunt for Qaddafi defines NATO.
Fed
Sting Against Amish Raw Milk Producer Results in Federal Case A year long
sting operation against an Amish “contraband” raw milk producer in Pennsylvania
has resulted in a court case against Rainbow Acres Farms. The government filed
a ten page complaint against the Amish business in federal court last week.
US
Murders Children in Bid to Assassinate Qaddafi (Again) The very policy of
targeted assassinations sidesteps any semblance of law, national or
international.
Drudgereport: REPORT: Bin Laden already buried at sea...
[ As set for the supra, I
personally believe Osama’s been dead for quite some time. Indeed, for one on
dialysis, he otherwise would have been nothing less than a modern day miracle
in terms of longevity / mortality rates for those so afflicted, particularly
under the ‘stressful’ circumstances involving evading capture, betrayal for
money, etc.. His ‘surfacing’ for a ‘talk’ wouldn’t even pass muster in the most
rudimentary requirements for ‘proof of life’. The release at this time of the
‘announcement’ is, rather than a victory lap so to speak, but rather a sign of
weakness and desperation on the part of america whose global and domestic
economic, financial, and geopolitical position is substantially diminished and
declining rapidly and whose military industrial complex welfare plan along with
the Orwellian diversion of the masses could at most yield a pyrrhic victory which
also would require for consummation a wrap-up of this nation-bankrupting contrived war scenario, which is not
likely. Moreover, the same comes at a
time of systemic failure for pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america While the ‘announcement’ plays well for the nonce, to the dumb,
uninformed back home, the same will
galvanize resistance in the name of their now martyr, Osama Bin Laden.
In sum, other than somewhat questionable propaganda value, the announcement
will have no measurable effect on america’s continuing mideast / global
debacle. In other words, defacto bankrupt america has used up a ‘bullet’,
albeit a blank at that! ]
SHOT IN HEAD; BIN
LADEN IS DEAD.....
SEALS HELD TWO
REHEARSALS; OBAMA WATCHED RAID IN SITUATION ROOM...
Mission was to
kill, not capture; no prisoners taken...
OFFICIAL: BIN LADEN
GIVEN RELIGIOUS FUNERAL BEFORE SEA BURIAL...
Obama: U.S. Carried
Out Operation 'At My Direction'...
Hundreds gather
outside Bush's Dallas home...
SIGN: 'Obama Forgot
To Say Thank You President Bush!'
Killing brings
anger, relief in Arab world...
Pakistanis rally to
pay homage to bin Laden...
Musharraf: Mission
violated sovereignty...
Hamas condemns
killing of 'holy warrior'...
BURIED AT SEA:
WH DEBATES RELEASING PHOTO OF CORPSE
U.S. issues worldwide travel
alert...
Islamists: Death will not
mute Jihad call...
OFFICIAL: U.S. didn't want to
create shrine...
DNA tests won't be complete
for days...
WHITE HOUSE: BODY HANDLED IN
'ACCORDANCE WITH ISLAMIC PRACTICE'...
WIKILEAKS: Al Qaeda
to unleash 'nuclear hellstorm' if Osama killed...
FEAR: Security Tightened at
NY Airports, Times Square, World Trade Center Site...
Napolitano: 'Heightened state
of vigilance'...
U.S. issues worldwide travel
alert...
Chemical Biological Response
Team Recalled from Japan...
Taliban commander vows to
avenge death...
USA 'Faces Broad Terror
Threat'...
SHOT IN HEAD; BIN
LADEN IS DEAD.....
Killed in mansion
close to Pakistani capital...
Crowds gather at White House, Ground Zero to celebrate...
REPORT: DNA testing
confirms bin Laden death... [ Come on! Much like the purported
‘in-house’ DNA test ‘confirming’ the paternity of ‘Prince Harry’ (actually the
bastard son of Hewitt), easy enough to buy / contrive with sworn secrecy /
money. ]
WH: '99.9% sure...
PENTAGON: WIFE
IDENTIFIED HIM BY NAME DURING RAID...
Senator questions sea
burial... [ Yeah … pretty quick at that, particularly for the u.s.
government! Riiiiight! ‘Dead men buried at sea quickly tell no tales!’ Sounds
contrived, set to music for propaganda value at u.s. low point. ]
Islamic scholars condemn...
SKYNEWS: Can US Offer Final
Proof Of Osama's Death?
Will there be a photo?
Raid captured on TWITTER...
PHOTOS: 719 newspaper front
pages announce death...
GADHAFI SURVIVES ATTACK THAT
KILLS SON...
Disabled children school hit
in NATO strike...
April deadliest month for US
in Iraq since '09...
Obama's father forced out at
Harvard... BOSTON
— President Barack Obama’s father was forced to leave Harvard University before
completing his Ph.D. in economics because the school was concerned about his
personal life and finances, according to newly public immigration records. Harvard had asked the Immigration and Naturalization
Service to delay a request by Barack Hussein Obama Sr. to extend his stay in
the U.S., “until they decided what action they could take in order to get rid
of him,” immigration official M.F. McKeon wrote in a June 1964 memo. Harvard
administrators, the memo stated, “were having difficulty with his financial
arrangements and couldn’t seem to figure out how many wives he had.”…’
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53968.html#ixzz1L7vqFAhV
‘Microsoft
confirmed Thursday its Windows cash machine is under threat. So what else is
new? Uncertainty about the PC market's growth prospects, and what that means
for Windows in particular, arguably has been baked into Microsoft's ...’
Microsoft wrestles slack PC sales and wilting stock Reuters [ Microsoft is a dinosaur that should be out of business!
My latest / current but typical problems with Microsoft / windows-based pc’s
(dell) confirms this! ]
Investors
Seek Shelter: Dave's Daily ‘Another day and another light volume rally in
stocks. Investors continued to hedge this action by buying precious metals.
Ludicrous statements by government officials regarding inflation and the dollar
are starting to wear thin even among Permabulls. The WSJ headlined this
topic Friday stating government officials are "unfazed
by dollar slide". But, they reached fuzzy conclusions about what to do
about it. As long as the government doesn't seem to care, commodities will
rise, especially precious metals. It's the elephant in the room no one really
wants to confront. One way to end Bucky's slide is to stop printing so much
money. The Bernank hasn't figured this out since his previous academic studies
didn't yield results like we're experiencing now. In the Great Depression, from
which he gained his theories and policies, it was illegal to own gold and
currency trading hardly existed. But the Fed Chairman hasn't figured this out
yet so he continues to keep the presses running at full speed as we saw today
with more POMO
($6.6 billion) actions to lube the Primary Dealers. Earnings continue to
roll-in mostly mixed. The DJIA continues to lead the way as high priced
heavyweights (BA, CAT, CVX and etc) continue to lead the price-weighted index
higher. Losers included Microsoft(MSFT_) and
Research in Motion(RIMM_). The
bottom line is that it's the end of the month and window-dressing remains at
the forefront…’
Why
History Says You Should 'Sell in May'
Sterman ‘The most
active traders, which usually man Wall Street's trading desks, can alter market
sentiment by either their presence or absence. As the weather warms, these
traders take ever longer lunch breaks, which morphs into "Friday-free
weekends," culminating in their absence for decent chunk of the month of
August. When these traders leave their desks, it's a sign for the rest of us to
cool off as well, in case thin trading volume causes one of our holdings to
suddenly spike or plunge. Hence, the old-adage: "Sell in May and then go
away." (Until the fall...)
Is it a wise move? Let's look. Well, we know April surely gives the impressions
of a solid market rally. The S&P 500 (SPY)
rose, 4%, 4% and 10% respectively in each of the past three years and is up
another 2.2% this month. That rally has recently extended into May, as the
S&P 500 has rallied an average of 3% in the past three years. But by the end
of May, the party seems to end.
(Click charts
to expand)
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/29/saupload_04_29_11_sterman.png
The market has fallen in six of the past 10 Junes of the past decade, three
times the rate at which the various positive months have risen. Was there a
July bounce-back? Well, the five Julys of the last decade were split, but the
average loss was greater than the average gain.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/29/saupload_04_29_11_sterman2.png
The rest of the summer doesn't hold much promise, either. An analysis by Standard
& Poor's shows that in the past 60 years, the market has fallen by 0.04% on
average in August. It's even worse in September, with that figure dropping to
0.78%. In fact, September is the only month to produce negative average results
through the past 80 years, according to Ibbotson & Associates. Lastly,
here's a sobering stat: according to S&P, since 1950, the Dow Jones
Industrial Average has produced an average gain of 7.4% from November through
April and 0.4% from May through October. (Yet as I noted above, May has looked
a bit stronger during the past three years.)
If you believe in the notion of "sell in May and go away," then there
are certain sectors you should be concerned about that are especially
vulnerable to the summer doldrums. For example, tech stocks tend to lag in
summer months, due to the capital spending cycle. Major orders are placed at
the beginning of the year and then purchasing managers are told to slow it down
as the year progresses, in part because it's hard to round up key materials
during the summer to complete major installations when so many are planning
their summer vacations. By year's end, tech spending rebounds as purchasing
managers tend to spend allocated-but-unused funds, in what's know as a budget
flush.
Natural gas stocks tend to weaken in the summer, unless it is an especially
active season for hurricanes or a large heat wave causes a spike in demand. In
their absence, heavy gas production, coupled with seasonal ebb in demand, has
tended to max-out gas storage facilities. And when that happens, gas prices hit
new lows and producers are forced to curtail production.
Lastly, commodities such as precious and industrial metals tend to slump as
major purchasers compete their full-year purchasing needs in the spring. Indeed,
China is said to be sitting on more-than-ample supplies of copper, silver and
other surging commodities, right at a time when the Chinese government is
trying to cool its economy. A drop in demand would pull the rug out from some
of the highest-flying commodities. Watch the commodity sector, especially as it
is priced to perfection and highly vulnerable to any slowdown in demand…’
S&P's
US Downgrade and the Death of American Exceptionalism Harding ‘america, formerly the world’s
greatest country, whose financial strength and currency were supreme for the
past 100 years, has been put on notice by Standard & Poor’s
that it is … second rate status. It was disconcerting to read the ho-hum reactions of economists to S&P’s shift to a
negative outlook for US sovereign debt. As one who sees darker implications of
a downgrade in Treasuries, it gave me pause to wonder if I am overreacting to
the event. Perhaps they are correct in that it will probably not happen, and
that if it does, it’s no big deal because the dollar is still the world’s
reserve currency. Japan (real fine…disaster) and Great Britain (real
fine…disaster) did it and they are fine. And where else would investors go?
My conclusion is that the other 99 guys are out of step. My fellow analysts are
mired so deep in the trees that they overlook the forest of reasons why we got
into this mess in the first place. The problem with economic analysis and
analysts is that there is a tendency of disassembly. By breaking down the
problem into its parts one can miss how they all connect. Perhaps if they
stepped back and considered where this country is heading they would be less
sanguine.
After all, we are not looking at a single event but a series of political
decisions made over the past 15 years or so that have created today’s budget
crisis. And stepping back even farther, we are experiencing fundamental changes
in American culture. The well-worn cliché of the large ocean tanker taking
miles to change course is an accurate depiction of our situation. There is so
much built-in momentum based on entitlements and defense spending it is
unlikely that a crisis can be avoided.
Our economic and policy experts need to focus on this long-term problem rather
than just its short-term effects. Unless we deal with the fundamental problems,
today’s jury-rigged fixes will not stop our continued downward spiral.
The long-term problem is that American culture has changed and we are losing
what has been known as American “exceptionalism” as described by
de Toqueville in Democracy in America:
Tocqueville tried to understand why America was so
different from Europe in the last throes of aristocracy. America, in contrast
to the aristocratic ethic, was a society where hard work and money-making was
the dominant ethic, where the common man enjoyed a level of dignity which was
unprecedented, where commoners never deferred to elites, and where what he
described as crass individualism and market capitalism had taken root to an
extraordinary degree.
These values, behaviors, and ideas made America great.
But, things have changed. Today it is acceptable to rely on government to solve
our problems instead of taking responsibility for solving them ourselves. We
borrow more, spend more, save less, and rely on government to bail us out in
old age. We want government to “take care of us” when it comes to medical care.
We have become a culture of entitlement. And our rhetoric is more about
victimhood and entitlement than initiative and self-reliance. Unlike our
grandparents, we have no shame from accepting handouts.
We now accept Social Security and Medicare as normal. Many want Obamacare and
are willing to give up some sovereignty and self-reliance to get it. Our
younger generations believe they have a right to higher education and that they
(or their parents) should not have to pay for it. Government always has a
solution for you.
This is a massive cultural shift and it represents a struggle between two
opposing forces: our exceptionalism versus the entitlement culture. Both
operate in our society side-by-side, but the trend clearly favors the culture of
entitlement.
Our exceptionalism has declined inversely to the rise of the welfare state. It
started with the Progressive movement in the early 20th Century and the rise of
a powerful federal government. The greatest change came during the Franklin Roosevelt
years when government was seen to be a solution rather than the problem that
our Founders witnessed. The New Deal changed the social landscape because its many
programs pervaded almost every aspect of society. Many of these programs
survive today.
The significance of the Progressive movement is that the now common belief that
government “works” has become fixed in the popular psyche. That is far from de
Toqueville’s image of self-reliant individualistic Americans. The belief that
we can rely on government to solve problems means that we don’t have to solve
them ourselves. It means subordinating our individualism to the technocrat
class.
What are the consequences of this cultural shift? Higher taxes and a less
dynamic economy. Ultimately it means the disintegration of our economy. Let me
explain why.
We are becoming “European” in the sense that most of our fellow Americans
accept the idea that the welfare state has primacy over the individual in
pursuing social goals. As a result we are becoming less dynamic as a society.
We are becoming more complacent, culturally acceding to the mediocrity of
security at the expense of personal freedom. It means that taxpayers are
willing to accept higher taxes to pay for the Nanny State.
The question is: which taxpayers?
It is an axiom of politics that the recipient class will vote to preserve their
benefits. If they become the majority you will never get rid of their benefits.
The recipient class is already in the majority. The 77 million long-lived Baby
Boomers will be the dominant economic force for the next 40 years. And they
vote.
[chart]
Boomers will retire and apply for their Social Security and Medicare benefits. That
is, they will cease being producers and become recipients. They will draw on
those benefits for many, many years. It’s pretty obvious they won’t pay for it.
It doesn’t take a statistician to see that our declining birthrate means there
will be fewer producers to support a growing class of recipient. The Social Security
Administration estimates that by 2035 only 2.1 workers will support one
recipient (down from about 5.1 workers in 1960 to about 3.0 today). Therein
lies the problem: our system of benefits is unworkable. When the working
taxpayers realize how much they must pay in taxes to support an unworkable
system, change will come, just not soon enough to satisfy S&P.
Add to that the following statistic:
A record 18.3% of the nation’s total personal income
was a payment from the government for Social Security, Medicare, food stamps,
unemployment benefits, and other programs in 2010. Wages accounted for the
lowest share of income -- 51.0% -- since the government began keeping
track in 1929.
You may believe that the cultural values de Tocqueville identified haven’t
diminished in the US, but they have. Almost every index measuring startups and
job creation has declined. Here is some longitudinal data from the Census Department showing this
trend:
[chart]
It would be foolish of me to ignore the unparalleled entrepreneurial
infrastructure we Americans have. It is still strong and serves us well. This
infrastructure includes a vast economic system that provides capital and
support for entrepreneurs and rewards success well. It is a strong social force
that is the exact opposite of the cultural attitudes toward entitlement that I
discussed above. We still believe in the ability to make it big.
But that is changing. The decline in new business formation is still a telling
statistic. Since most (55%) new business formations have 1 to 4 employees
(if 1 to 10, then 76% in 2009), it demonstrates a shift in popular attitudes
about starting your own business.
Good things don’t last forever when their cultural and moral foundations are
being destroyed.
I don’t believe we will have budget reform that will be sufficient to turn
supertanker America around. We will have budget reform but it won’t put a
significant dent in our social welfare programs, at least in time to avoid
S&P’s threatened downgrade of US Treasuries. I would hope that Republicans
and Democrats can come together to deal with the
underlying substantive issues.
Maybe the Republicans will be able to force through some major changes in
Social Security, Medicare, and (eliminate) Obamacare. If they win the
Presidency in 2012 and are able to take Congress as well, it could be a
political sea change.
Don’t misunderstand what I am saying: I strongly support any attempts at
reform, but I don’t believe in political miracles. When polls of Tea Partiers
show they don’t want their retirement benefits touched, their new brand of
conservatism illustrates the breadth of our cultural change and the new
political reality.
Ask yourself this question: if the welfare system is not quickly reformed, what
solutions will our politicians turn to?
The answer is symbolic of the two clashing societal forces in America: the
producers versus the recipients. We know that the recipients have more votes.
I believe increased taxes are inevitable and, with Republicans’ opposition to
increased income taxes, raising them is questionable. That leaves politicians
with a very European solution: a national sales tax. With exemptions for
politically favored classes (“poor” people, however defined) it will be hailed
as a fair tax that will fall primarily on the “rich.”
“Everybody who understands our long-term budget problems understands
we’re going to need a new source of revenue, and a VAT [value-added tax]
is an obvious candidate,” said Leonard Burman, co-director of the Tax Policy
Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution,
who testified on Capitol Hill [May, 2009] about his own VAT plan. “It’s common
to the rest of the world, and we don’t have it.”
And my point is that Americans will accept high taxes to get their benefits and
that makes us similar to Europeans who are used to them:
[chart]
If we cannot achieve fundamental reform of our welfare system, then high taxes
will become a fixture of our society and that has negative economic
consequences.
There is an economic concept known as the Rahn Curve, devised by Professor
Richard Rahn, now a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. It states that as
government spending exceeds a certain percentage of GDP, the economy will
decline as a result. That number is subject to fierce debate among economists,
but it ranges from 15% to 25% of GDP.
[chart]
There are sound reasons for this idea, mainly that since government produces
nothing, the more it spends the less the private economy has to invest and
spend. This means less productivity. European countries are saddled with low
productivity, high taxes, and permanently high unemployment. Further, they are
facing the same demographic issues that we find in the US: a graying (and
declining) population. Their welfare systems are in trouble now, and as
Margaret Thatcher famously warned about socialism, they are finding that
eventually you really do run out of other people’s money.
What does this mean for America and S&P? It means we are likely to
experience a downgrade in our sovereign debt at some point in the future. Don’t
ask me to predict when this will happen. There are too many “what ifs.” A
downgrade means that there will be less money available to the government for
its programs. It means that debt service costs will rise. It means the Treasury
will find it more difficult to place US debt. It means that many holder of our
debt will try to unload their positions (it won’t be easy for them). It means
the Fed will likely acquire more Treasurys, effectively monetizing the debt and
this monetary inflation will lead to price inflation. It means that the dollar
will decline further. It means there will be pressure on the government to
raise taxes further. It also means that inflation will be employed as an
additional tool of fiscal policy as rising prices (actually devalued dollars)
will allow the government to repay debt with cheaper dollars.
It will also mean that we will be closer to the European ideal and farther away
from american exceptionalism. The very long-term consequences of this cannot be
known, but it won’t be good for america…’
Fed
Chairman Bernanke does reality TV
(Washington Post) [ Except the ‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S.
BERNANKE’ show is scripted unreality … even with his reduction in estimate for
‘economic growth’, the frauds on wall street still rallied. Bernanke
prepares to make history
(Washington Post) [ He already
has! $6 gas acomin’, $1,508+ gold, $46+ silver, other commodities at record
levels, hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing of fiat
paper currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...
Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come!
ATTENTION: REPORTERS –
HIP BOOTS MANDATORY, WADERS RECOMMENDED SINCE YOU’LL BE AT LEAST KNEE-DEEP IN
‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S. BERNAKE’ B*** S***! ] On Wednesday, he will be the first Fed
chairman to take on-the-record questioning from the media.
24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a
devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny
it. ..’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (Washington Post) Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at
the end of fiscal 2009, a report says.
Study:
Affordable rentals scarce
(Washington Post) Share of
renters who spend more than half their income on housing is at its highest
level in half a century.
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (Washington Post) More Americans disapprove of President
Obama’s management of the war in Afghanistan than support it, according to a
new Washington Post-ABC News poll, a finding that reflects the public’s broader
concern over the course of the nearly decade-old conflict.
Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(Washington Post) As gas prices
bite into household incomes, Obama’s support takes a hit, according to new
poll. The high fuel price dynamic is
the slow / now faster motion, long predicted hyperinflationary consequence of
failed fed, administration, congressional economic / financial / fiscal policy
that essentially has been interposed for the (short-term particularly) benefit
of the frauds on wall street (The frauds on
wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined, and
disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast turmoil to obfuscate their
failure… an especially great opportunity to sell
/ take profits while you still can since there's much worse to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Return of Inflation: 5 Worrying Signs From Friday's NY Times
Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (Washington Post) [ Not too! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’ rally to keep suckers
suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is
about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation
pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high)
to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010… This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come!
Corporate
Poll Reveals Boobeoisie Fooled Again on Budget Kurt Nimmo
| Little people think for some reason establishment Republicans will do a
better job dealing with the “budget.”
WSJ | The dollar dropped after economic indicators
pointed to a dismal employment picture and slowing economic growth.
Economic
Growth Slow as Inflation Measure Spikes Up Reuters | U.S.
economic growth slowed more than expected in the first quarter as higher food
and gasoline prices dampened consumer spending.
National
security shake-up expected
(Washington Post) [ Shake-up? I
don’t think so. There may have been a time when a such changes, be it
personnel, policy, etc., might as per the following reference be slight
exaggeration; but no more, as all such now is literally a rearrangement of the
deck chairs on the uss Titanic. Nothing succeeds quite like failure in america
these days! Poll:
Egyptians skeptical about U.S.
Egyptians have an unfavorable view of the U.S., but they are also
divided over Islamic fundamentalists. (Washington Post) [ Hey! … Guess what? … americans and the
rest of the world (except zionist israel, zionists, and old biddy britain) are
skeptical and have an unfavorable view of america. The Economic Collapse: 24 more signs of economic decline in America…
#1 On Monday, S&P altered its outlook on U.S.
government debt from “stable” to “negative” ..at the rest of the world is
losing faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries.
#2 China has
announced reducing their holdings of U.S. dollar
#3 .. “panic
dollar selling is setting in” and U.S. dollar in for a huge decline.
#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now shorting U.S. government bonds.
#5 Bad economy is causing “ghost towns” to appear all
across the U.S..
#6 There are now about 7.25
million less jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#7 The average American family is having a really tough time
- Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. .
#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year-
lowest level ever ..
#9 Avg CEO made 343 times more money than the
average American
#10 Gas prices five dollars per gallon at gas stations.. $6 gas soon
#11 .. 12 months the average price of gasoline in the US
has gone up by
about 30%.
#12 Due to rising fuel prices, American Airlines lost a staggering $436 million during first qtr 2011.
#13 U.S. households now receiving more from the US gov’t
than
they are paying to the government in taxes.
#14 1 of 4
dollars that the U.S. govt borrows goes to pay the interest on the national debt.
#15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is
now about
5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#16 Total credit card debt in u.s. more than 8 times larger
than 30 yrs ago.
#17 Avg household debt in the United States has
now reached a level of 136% of avg household income. In China, avg
household debt is only 17% of avg household income.
#18 Avg American spends approximately 23 percent
.. on food and gas.
#19 .. 74 percent of u.s. said that they
planned to slow down their spending
#20 59 percent u.s. receive money from the
govt ..
#21 avg length of unemployment in the U.S. is now an
all-time record 39 weeks.
#22 u.s. random acts
of violence”…
#23 Americans are popping
the gold teeth right out of their mouths / selling them to pawn shops.
#24
..u.s. people gobbling up larger and larger amounts of antidepressants / other
drugs. ..’ ]
National
/ World
Approval of Congress at 9%
Rasmussen Reports | Nine percent (9%) now say Congress is
doing a good.
More
Democrats defiant on debt ceiling (Washington Post) Lawmakers are pushing back against the White
House, joining the GOP in calling for deficit reductions as a condition for
lifting the $14.3 trillion ceiling. [ Ah yes, ‘The Defiant Ones’… principled to
the end … Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (Washington Post) [ Not too! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is
about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation
pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high)
to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010… This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come!
The Economic
Collapse: 24 more signs of economic
decline in America…
#1 On Monday, S&P altered its outlook on U.S.
government debt from “stable” to “negative” ..at the rest of the world is
losing faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries.
#2 China has
announced reducing their holdings of U.S. dollar
#3 .. “panic
dollar selling is setting in” and U.S. dollar in for a huge decline.
#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now shorting U.S. government bonds.
#5 Bad economy is causing “ghost towns” to appear all
across the U.S..
#6 There are now about 7.25
million less jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#7 The average American family is having a really tough time
- Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. .
#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year-
lowest level ever ..
#9 Avg CEO made 343 times more money than the
average American
#10 Gas prices five dollars per gallon at gas stations.. $6 gas soon
…11-24…]
Key
Afghan aid programs delayed
(Washington Post) [ Strategy? Critical time? Seems we’ve heard that song
before. And, yet another nation and innocent lives destroyed for no good reason
… and, pervasively corrupt and defacto bankrupt america … winning hearts and
minds …NOT! … Petraeus
to helm more-militarized CIA
(Washington Post) [ I personally unequivocally believe there has already
been a defacto coup d’etat in america. Drudgereport: Pentagon
Warns Obama Against Deeper Defense Cuts ... (And where is it going to come from
... we've already had in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt, war crimes
nation america a defacto coup d'etat) ... Ron
Paul: After ‘CIA coup,’ agency ‘runs military’ US House Rep. Ron Paul
says the CIA has has in effect carried out a “coup” against the US government,
and the intelligence agency needs to be “taken out.” I also personally
believe there has been a defacto coup d’etat which has manifested in
various substantial, blatant, brazened frauds, ie., wall street, missing 360
tons of $100 bills in Iraq, war profiteering, etc., without any fear of
prosecution, and of course concomitant decline for u.s. as the treasury is
looted. But I also believe its scope is beyond just the CIA with many complicit
within the corrupted 3 branches of u.s. government (fed judges, us attorneys,
illegal system, etc.) plus the military and private big money, ie., Goldman
Sachs / wall street men, etc… http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
… “torture taxis” – used by the CIA to move captives seized in its
kidnapping or “extraordinary rendition” operations through Gatwick and other
airports in the EU being simultaneously used for drug distribution .. A
Gulfstream II jet aircraft N9875A identified by the British Government and the
European Parliament as being involved in this traffic crashed in Mexico…” In
2004, another torture taxi crashed in a field in Nicaragua with a ton of
cocaine aboard… Mexican soldiers found ..132 bags containing 3.3 metric tons of
cocaine. .. was one of the very same planes chartered to the CIA for the
rendition of suspected terrorists prisoners…’]
Royal Family Enforces Media Embargo Against Australia To
Prevent Nazi Jokes
Poll:
60% Reject Government ID for Online Security Cape Fear Business
News | Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows just 13% of
American Adults favor issuing of secure government credential.
Drudgereport:
SF CHRONICLE: WHITE HOUSE
LYING Update:
In a pants-on-fire moment,
the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove
Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool
covering the President in the Bay Area.Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the
press office on its fib: Sadly, we expected the White House
to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a
truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people
in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our
reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we
reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed
after all.The Chronicle's
report is accurate…’Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?entry_id=87978#ixzz1Kzv7asG6
PUMP PRICES JUMP ON
TIGHTENING SUPPLIES...
Romney blames Obama...
MORE RECORD PROFITS...
Gold Surges to All-time
Record...
Dollar reaches three-year
low...
Losing to the Loonie...
China divesting...
NO JOKE: Superman to renounce
U.S. citizenship...
Storm death over 300 in South...
Deadliest Swarm of Twisters
Since 1974...
Among Largest, Strongest Ever
Recorded...
ECONOMY SLOWS, INFLATION
GROWS...
Doubt cast on recovery...
Dollar drops to lowest since
2008...
Investors flee greenback;
silver hits all-time high, gold sets new record...
GALLUP: U.S. confidence
plunges, only 27% say economy is growing...
WAL-MART: Our shoppers are
'running out of money'...
JOBLESS CLAIMS 429,000...
CBS ANCHOR SCHIEFFER: Trump
is racist...
TRUMP TO GIBBS: YOU'RE 'A
LOSER' [‘Another trumped-up case of the pot calling the kettle black’]... TRUMP: Obama
Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues... [ Talk about the pot calling the kettle
black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn) ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster
trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa
mobster trump would pound the undistinguished academically / athletically,
Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a king’ in film noir
melodramatic fashion which proved too much for the more balanced and ‘chosen /
favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide. The old man also required
trump to go to prep / military / boarding school where according to a
classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same manner as
dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the problem
(total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes,
jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental
case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled
with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively read those hitler
speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to Ivana Trump) to
severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory disregard for and
violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions
to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese
(actually including american goods made in China), drug money laundering in his
casinos, bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible
student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington Post)
[ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged bankrupcies’
crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ] He also with
his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve Wynn's doing
extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people and
companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve in
the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie., bribery,
money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss … trump is
total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade, quite
insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
Disappointing
First Quarter GDP Growth (Stocks rally on the bad news!) (The advance
estimate for Q1 GDP came in at 1.8 percent — a sharp decline from last
quarter’s 3.1 – and worse than expected)
Weekly
Unemployment Claims Back Above This Scary Line (Stocks rally on the bad
news!) Short ‘On Thursday April 28, 2011, The
Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released
this morning for last week. Claims rose 25,000 from an upward revision of the
previous week to 429,000. The 4-week moving average increased by 2.3%. Here is
the official statement from the Department of Labor:
In the week
ending April 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was
429,000, an increase of 25,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of
404,000. The 4-week moving average was 408,500, an increase of 9,250 from the
previous week’s revised average of 399,250.
The advance
seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9 percent for the week
ending April 16, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s
revised rate of 3.0 percent.
The advance
number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending
April 16 was 3,641,000, a decrease of 68,000 from the preceding week’s revised
level of 3,709,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,697,750, a decrease of 22,750
from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,720,500.
Today’s number
was 10% higher than the Briefing.com consensus expectation of 390,000 claims.
As we can see,
there’s a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the 4-week
moving average (shown in the callouts) is a more useful number than the weekly
data.
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims
Occasionally I
see articles critical of seasonal adjustment, especially when the non-adjusted
number better suits the author’s bias. But a comparison of these two charts
clearly shows extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data, and the 4-week MA
gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change in the second
chart (note, for example, those regular January spikes).
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA
Because of the
extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, a 52-week moving average
gives a better sense of the long-term trends.
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA-52-ma
The Bureau of
Labor Statistics provides an overview on seasonal adjustment here (scroll down about
half way down).
Doug Short Ph.d is the author
of dshort.com.’
Trump faces scrutiny over donations, merch made in China (The
Ticket)
Dollar Loses More Ground
WSJ | The dollar dropped after economic indicators pointed to
a dismal employment picture and slowing economic growth.
Economic
Growth Slow as Inflation Measure Spikes Up Reuters | U.S.
economic growth slowed more than expected in the first quarter as higher food
and gasoline prices dampened consumer spending.
More
people applied for unemployment benefits AP | More people
requested unemployment benefits last week, the second increase in 3 weeks
Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (Washington Post) [ Not too! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is
about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation
pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high)
to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010… This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come!
The Economic
Collapse: 24 more signs of economic
decline in America…
#1 On Monday, S&P altered its outlook on U.S.
government debt from “stable” to “negative” ..at the rest of the world is
losing faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries.
#2 China has
announced reducing their holdings of U.S. dollar
#3 .. “panic
dollar selling is setting in” and U.S. dollar in for a huge decline.
#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now shorting U.S. government bonds.
#5 Bad economy is causing “ghost towns” to appear all
across the U.S..
#6 There are now about 7.25
million less jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#7 The average American family is having a really tough time
- Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. .
#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year-
lowest level ever ..
#9 Avg CEO made 343 times more money than the
average American
#10 Gas prices five dollars per gallon at gas stations.. $6 gas soon …
Fed
Chairman Bernanke does reality TV
(Washington Post) [ Except the ‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S.
BERNANKE’ show is scripted unreality … even with his reduction in estimate for
‘economic growth’, the frauds on wall street still rallied. Bernanke
prepares to make history
(Washington Post) [ He already
has! $6 gas acomin’, $1,508+ gold, $46+ silver, other commodities at record
levels, hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing of fiat
paper currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...
Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come!
ATTENTION: REPORTERS –
HIP BOOTS MANDATORY, WADERS RECOMMENDED SINCE YOU’LL BE AT LEAST KNEE-DEEP IN
‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S. BERNAKE’ B*** S***! ] On Wednesday, he will be the first Fed
chairman to take on-the-record questioning from the media.
24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a
devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny
it. ..’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (Washington Post) Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at
the end of fiscal 2009, a report says.
Study:
Affordable rentals scarce
(Washington Post) Share of
renters who spend more than half their income on housing is at its highest
level in half a century.
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (Washington Post) More Americans disapprove of President
Obama’s management of the war in Afghanistan than support it, according to a
new Washington Post-ABC News poll, a finding that reflects the public’s broader
concern over the course of the nearly decade-old conflict.
Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(Washington Post) As gas prices
bite into household incomes, Obama’s support takes a hit, according to new
poll. The high fuel price dynamic is
the slow / now faster motion, long predicted hyperinflationary consequence of
failed fed, administration, congressional economic / financial / fiscal policy
that essentially has been interposed for the (short-term particularly) benefit
of the frauds on wall street (The frauds on
wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined, and
disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast turmoil to obfuscate their
failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Return of Inflation: 5 Worrying Signs From Friday's NY Times
National
/ World
Top
Mexican Drug Lord: I Trafficked Cocaine For The U.S. Government The
“logistical coordinator” for a top Mexican drug-trafficking gang that was
responsible for purchasing the CIA torture jet that crashed with four tons on
cocaine on board back in 2007 has told the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Illinois in Chicago that he has been working as a U.S. government
asset for years.
National
security shake-up expected
(Washington Post) [ Shake-up? I
don’t think so. There may have been a time when a such changes, be it
personnel, policy, etc., might as per the following reference be slight
exaggeration; but no more, as all such now is literally a rearrangement of the
deck chairs on the uss Titanic. Nothing succeeds quite like failure in america
these days! Poll:
Egyptians skeptical about U.S.
Egyptians have an unfavorable view of the U.S., but they are also
divided over Islamic fundamentalists. (Washington Post) [ Hey! … Guess what? … americans and the
rest of the world (except zionist israel, zionists, and old biddy britain) are
skeptical and have an unfavorable view of america. The Economic Collapse: 24 more signs of economic decline in
America…
#1 On Monday, S&P altered its outlook on U.S.
government debt from “stable” to “negative” ..at the rest of the world is
losing faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries.
#2 China has
announced reducing their holdings of U.S. dollar
#3 .. “panic
dollar selling is setting in” and U.S. dollar in for a huge decline.
#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now shorting U.S. government bonds.
#5 Bad economy is causing “ghost towns” to appear all
across the U.S..
#6 There are now about 7.25
million less jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#7 The average American family is having a really tough time
- Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. .
#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year-
lowest level ever ..
#9 Avg CEO made 343 times more money than the
average American
#10 Gas prices five dollars per gallon at gas stations.. $6 gas soon
#11 .. 12 months the average price of gasoline in the US
has gone up by
about 30%.
#12 Due to rising fuel prices, American Airlines lost a staggering $436 million during first qtr 2011.
#13 U.S. households now receiving more from the US gov’t
than
they are paying to the government in taxes.
#14 1 of 4
dollars that the U.S. govt borrows goes to pay the interest on the national debt.
#15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is
now about
5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#16 Total credit card debt in u.s. more than 8 times larger
than 30 yrs ago.
#17 Avg household debt in the United States has
now reached a level of 136% of avg household income. In China, avg
household debt is only 17% of avg household income.
#18 Avg American spends approximately 23 percent
.. on food and gas.
#19 .. 74 percent of u.s. said that they
planned to slow down their spending
#20 59 percent u.s. receive money from the
govt ..
#21 avg length of unemployment in the U.S. is now an
all-time record 39 weeks.
#22 u.s. random acts
of violence”…
#23 Americans are popping
the gold teeth right out of their mouths / selling them to pawn shops.
#24
..u.s. people gobbling up larger and larger amounts of antidepressants / other
drugs. ..’ ]
…“Evidence points to aircraft – familiarly known as “torture taxis” –
used by the CIA to move captives seized in its kidnapping or “extraordinary
rendition” operations through Gatwick and other airports in the EU being
simultaneously used for drug distribution .. A Gulfstream II jet aircraft
N9875A identified by the British Government and the European Parliament as
being involved in this traffic crashed in Mexico…” In 2004, another torture
taxi crashed in a field in Nicaragua with a ton of cocaine aboard… Mexican
soldiers found ..132 bags containing 3.3 metric tons of cocaine. .. was one of
the very same planes chartered to the CIA for the rendition of suspected terrorists
prisoners…’]
Drudgereport: NO JOKE: Superman to renounce
U.S. citizenship...
Storm death near 300 in South...
Deadliest Swarm of Twisters
Since 1974...
Among Largest, Strongest Ever
Recorded...
ECONOMY SLOWS, INFLATION
GROWS...
Doubt cast on recovery...
Dollar drops to lowest since
2008...
Investors flee greenback;
silver hits all-time high, gold sets new record...
GALLUP: U.S. confidence
plunges, only 27% say economy is growing...
WAL-MART: Our shoppers are
'running out of money'...
JOBLESS CLAIMS 429,000...
CBS ANCHOR SCHIEFFER: Trump
is racist...
TRUMP TO GIBBS: YOU'RE 'A
LOSER' [‘Another trumped-up case of the pot calling the kettle black’]... TRUMP: Obama
Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues... [ Talk about the pot calling the kettle
black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn) ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster
trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa
mobster trump would pound the undistinguished academically / athletically,
Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a king’ in film noir melodramatic
fashion which proved too much for the more balanced and ‘chosen / favored’
elder brother trump who committed suicide. The old man also required trump to
go to prep / military / boarding school where according to a classmate, Ted
Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed.
) vegetable garden in the same manner as dumbya bush … mobster trump and
people like trump are part of the problem (total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in
his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes, jersey / new york), not the solution.
Indeed, trump is an interesting mental case in that he evolved from narcissist
(those inflated grandiose moods coupled with feelings of inferiority – he loved
to obsessively read those hitler speeches for inspiration and to pump himself
up according to Ivana Trump) to severe case of antisocial personality disorder
[ predatory disregard for and violation of the rights of others – hence, those
sophomoric soundbite solutions to complex problems as, ie., taking oil
fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese (actually including american goods made in
China), drug money laundering in his casinos, bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible
student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve Wynn's
doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people and
companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve in
the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie., bribery,
money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss … trump is
total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade, quite
insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable
structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have
survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms
condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his
opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt
america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed
the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
Fed Spin Lifts Stocks: Dave's Daily ‘It's a con plain and simple. I've bought into it because I must.
Overall we're long and will be until the jig's up. Until then, I've advised
subscribers for many months that our Lazy Portfolios are the path to success as
Fed policies steamroll most technical systems beyond HFTs [high-frequency
traders]. When it ends, and it will, it's back to business as usual. Earnings
have been good, especially for companies (MMM, KO, MCD and etc.) where a weak
dollar has led to grand overseas profits. Most of those gains remain stashed
abroad and will remain there until U.S. corporate tax policy changes--a cold
day in hell IMHO. Further, Fed policies have been positive for financial
engineering, M&A, corporate debt financings and stock buybacks. This is the
result of a sea of liquidity finding its way to Wall Street which trickles down
to S&P 500 companies. It leads to minimal gains in U.S. employment as
companies are stimulated to outsource work overseas. It does not lift real
estate prices off the deck either. The great con remains current inflation,
which Bernanke alluded to briefly in his comments today. They cling to
"core" inflation as their measure of choice while we commoners who
shop everyday for essentials know better. Turbo Tim even had the nerve to say
the other day high gas prices are something we'll just "adjust to"
and "won't hurt" the recovery. He has a government car and driver. He
also had the nerve to reiterate the necessity to maintain a strong dollar. Yikes!
The Fed expects GDP to grow between 3.1 and 3.3% this year. Thursday's GDP data
may serve as a guide although expectations are for a weaker report. It's been a
strange week as the dollar continued to slide, commodities rallied and stocks
moved higher on ultra light volume. As to the latter, where is everybody?
Most retail investors are content to hang on to their IRAs and 401Ks but
they're still distrustful of markets. From the data it seems they'd rather have
a new car or TV which is something they can trust. Current trading patterns
remain dominated by HFTs whether from institutional trading desks or hedge
funds. This is the way we've rolled since QE2 began...’
Is
the Market Crazy? [ Short answer: Yes! Fraudulently, criminally insane type
crazy! ]
Can
Dollar Weakness Mean Equity Weakness?
Kaspar ‘Are there any dollar bulls left? Inflationists across the web
are crying ‘victory’ as the dollar sinks and certain asset prices (especially oil prices, food prices, and the gold price) mushroom higher. To the
level-headed, you should exercise extreme caution against assumed fixed
correlations like “weak dollar” means “asset price increases.” Correlations can
quickly change.
A mentor of
mine consistently preaches that the market will always do whatever it can to
make most investors look foolish. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is a
case that investors should at least consider: that an accelerating
decline in the dollar could turn asset prices negative, at least in the short
term.
The 1987 crash
is an appropriate case study. The cause of that October market crash, when the
S&P 500 lost 20.5% in a single day, has never been thoroughly explained. No
major event could be credited as the catalyst for such a monstrous and rapid
decline.
Portfolio
insurance, rapidly rising long term US interest rates, a series of preceding
market declines during the week leading up to the crash, and a weakening US
dollar are all mentioned as possible triggers. In truth, it was likely a
confluence of these and other factors that ultimately pushed the market to a
tipping point.
One macro
factor stands out among the rest: the rapidly
weakening US dollar leading up to Black Monday.
Beginning in
late July of 1987, the dollar, after already falling to a seven year low just a
few months prior, began a steep decline. A much wider trade deficit than
expected was thought to have accelerated the dollar’s descent.
US Dollar: 1987
http://seekingalpha.com/article/265995-can-dollar-weakness-mean-equity-weakness?source=yahoo
Over the long
term, all things being equal, it is logically sound to conclude that a
weakening dollar must cause assets priced in dollars to rise. However, in the
short term, markets are not always logical and can anticipate the next move by
world bankers. In 1987, the U.S. dollar lost 10% in roughly three months.
During the same time span, the equity markets lost close to 30%. Such a move
contradicts today’s accepted wisdom.
Though the
Federal Reserve has approached its dollar policy with the same restraint as
Charlie Sheen at Happy Hour, we should avoid approaching every scenario with
broad generalizations, regardless of one’s long term view on the dollar. In the
financial markets, nothing goes in a straight line, and correlations tend to
break down if certain asset classes move too violently.
US
Dollar: Last Twelve Months
http://seekingalpha.com/article/265995-can-dollar-weakness-mean-equity-weakness?source=yahoo
While the last
twelve months have been unfavorable for the dollar, and while assets have
benefited from the Federal Reserve’s currency abuse, correlations do seem to be
diverging. Over the past year, the dollar is down roughly 8% and the S&P is
up about 9%. But the market has begun reacting more coolly towards a weakening
dollar as oil prices have accelerated higher. In fact, in the past two months, the
dollar is down 4.25%, and the S&P 500 is down 1%. In the last two weeks,
the dollar is down 1.45% and the S&P 500 is down about 1.1%. These moves
are in stark contrast to the performance of the past year, so the trend is
clearly weakening.
I might worry that if the dollar begins a sharp move downward, the Fed may be
forced to approach dollar policy with greater restraint, which could instigate
a strong market reaction.
I am fairly
agnostic on the dollar’s next move, and I am unsure how that next move will correlate
with asset prices. Furthermore, I do not intend to predict an imminent market
crash. I simply revisit this history lesson to emphasize a few broader points:
Extreme dollar bears (and asset bulls) should be
cautious. The markets do not move in straight lines, and the only certainty in
volatile markets is uncertainty. A handy life jacket is worthwhile if the boat
flips.’
Chinese
Stocks Send Warning Signals
Federal
Reserve Press Release April 27, 2011 Federal Reserve The
economic recovery is proceeding at a moderate pace and overall conditions in
the labor market are improving gradually.
Fed
Says Recovery is ‘Moderate’; Bond Buying to End in June Bloomberg
| Federal Reserve policy makers said the economy is recovering at a “moderate
pace” and a pickup in inflation is likely to be temporary.
20 Questions for Ben
Bernanke Zero Hedge | The Fed is expected to continue the
QE2 Lite mandate.
National / World
Drudgereport: SPOOK SHUFFLE: PETRAEUS TO CIA, PANETTA TO PENTAGON
(americans-just a bunch of spooks!)...
Afghan officer fires on U.S.
troops, kills 9 [american war criminals winning hearts and minds]...
BERNANKE: Here comes the inflation...
GOLD RECORD -- AGAIN...
Banks Warn Obama on Soaring Debt Problems...
Gasoline futures jump 6 cents
in one day...
TRUMP TO GIBBS: YOU'RE 'A
LOSER' [‘Another trumped-up case of the pot calling the kettle black’]... TRUMP: Obama Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues...
[ Talk about the pot calling the kettle black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn) ivy
league (courtesy of papa mobster trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so people
would take him ‘seriously’ – papa mobster trump would pound the undistinguished
academically / athletically, Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a
king’ in film noir melodramatic fashion which proved too much for the more
balanced and ‘chosen / favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide. The
old man also required trump to go to prep / military / boarding school where
according to a classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same manner as
dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the problem
(total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes,
jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental
case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled
with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively read those hitler
speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to Ivana Trump) to
severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory disregard for and
violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions
to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese (actually
including american goods made in China), drug money laundering in his casinos,
bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve Wynn's
doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people and
companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve in
the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie., bribery,
money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss … trump is
total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade, quite
insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable
structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have
survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms
condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his
opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt
america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed
the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The Touchables’.
The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt, unable to even win
election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He was incorruptible;
and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if not also all but
unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies in america as
I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even false
perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even fake
it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
Disappointing
First Quarter GDP Growth (Stocks rally on the bad news!) (The advance
estimate for Q1 GDP came in at 1.8 percent — a sharp decline from last
quarter’s 3.1 – and worse than expected)
Weekly
Unemployment Claims Back Above This Scary Line (Stocks rally on the bad
news!) Short ‘On Thursday April 28, 2011, The
Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released
this morning for last week. Claims rose 25,000 from an upward revision of the
previous week to 429,000. The 4-week moving average increased by 2.3%. Here is
the official statement from the Department of Labor:
In the week
ending April 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was
429,000, an increase of 25,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of
404,000. The 4-week moving average was 408,500, an increase of 9,250 from the
previous week’s revised average of 399,250.
The advance
seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9 percent for the week
ending April 16, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s
revised rate of 3.0 percent.
The advance
number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending
April 16 was 3,641,000, a decrease of 68,000 from the preceding week’s revised
level of 3,709,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,697,750, a decrease of
22,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,720,500.
Today’s number
was 10% higher than the Briefing.com consensus expectation of 390,000 claims.
As we can see,
there’s a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the 4-week
moving average (shown in the callouts) is a more useful number than the weekly
data.
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims
Occasionally I
see articles critical of seasonal adjustment, especially when the non-adjusted
number better suits the author’s bias. But a comparison of these two charts
clearly shows extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data, and the 4-week MA
gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change in the second
chart (note, for example, those regular January spikes).
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA
Because of the
extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, a 52-week moving average
gives a better sense of the long-term trends.
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA-52-ma
The Bureau of
Labor Statistics provides an overview on seasonal adjustment here (scroll down about
half way down).
Doug Short Ph.d is the author
of dshort.com.’
Trump faces scrutiny over donations, merch made in China (The
Ticket)
Dollar Loses More Ground
WSJ | The dollar dropped after economic indicators pointed to
a dismal employment picture and slowing economic growth.
Economic
Growth Slow as Inflation Measure Spikes Up Reuters | U.S.
economic growth slowed more than expected in the first quarter as higher food
and gasoline prices dampened consumer spending.
More
people applied for unemployment benefits AP | More people
requested unemployment benefits last week, the second increase in 3 weeks
Gerson:
How serious are we about the deficit? (Washington Post) [ Not too! I mean come on! Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ … Suckers’
rally to keep suckers suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is
about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation
pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high)
to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010… This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come!
The Economic
Collapse: 24 more signs of economic
decline in America…
#1 On Monday, S&P altered its outlook on U.S.
government debt from “stable” to “negative” ..at the rest of the world is
losing faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries.
#2 China has
announced reducing their holdings of U.S. dollar
#3 .. “panic
dollar selling is setting in” and U.S. dollar in for a huge decline.
#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now shorting U.S. government bonds.
#5 Bad economy is causing “ghost towns” to appear all
across the U.S..
#6 There are now about 7.25
million less jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#7 The average American family is having a really tough time
- Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. .
#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year-
lowest level ever ..
#9 Avg CEO made 343 times more money than the
average American
#10 Gas prices five dollars per gallon at gas stations.. $6 gas soon …
Fed
Chairman Bernanke does reality TV
(Washington Post) [ Except the ‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S.
BERNANKE’ show is scripted unreality … even with his reduction in estimate for
‘economic growth’, the frauds on wall street still rallied. Bernanke
prepares to make history
(Washington Post) [ He already
has! $6 gas acomin’, $1,508+ gold, $46+ silver, other commodities at record
levels, hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing of fiat
paper currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...
Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great opportunity
to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse to
come!
ATTENTION: REPORTERS –
HIP BOOTS MANDATORY, WADERS RECOMMENDED SINCE YOU’LL BE AT LEAST KNEE-DEEP IN
‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S. BERNAKE’ B*** S***! ] On Wednesday, he will be the first Fed
chairman to take on-the-record questioning from the media.
24 Signs Of Economic
Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny it. ..’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (Washington Post) Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at
the end of fiscal 2009, a report says.
Study:
Affordable rentals scarce
(Washington Post) Share of
renters who spend more than half their income on housing is at its highest
level in half a century.
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (Washington Post) More Americans disapprove of President
Obama’s management of the war in Afghanistan than support it, according to a
new Washington Post-ABC News poll, a finding that reflects the public’s broader
concern over the course of the nearly decade-old conflict.
Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(Washington Post) As gas prices
bite into household incomes, Obama’s support takes a hit, according to new
poll. The high fuel price dynamic is
the slow / now faster motion, long predicted hyperinflationary consequence of
failed fed, administration, congressional economic / financial / fiscal policy that
essentially has been interposed for the (short-term particularly) benefit of
the frauds on wall street (The frauds on wall
street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement
imposed), and have used the mideast turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Return of Inflation: 5 Worrying Signs From Friday's NY Times
National
/ World
Top
Mexican Drug Lord: I Trafficked Cocaine For The U.S. Government The
“logistical coordinator” for a top Mexican drug-trafficking gang that was
responsible for purchasing the CIA torture jet that crashed with four tons on
cocaine on board back in 2007 has told the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Illinois in Chicago that he has been working as a U.S. government
asset for years.
National
security shake-up expected
(Washington Post) [ Shake-up? I
don’t think so. There may have been a time when a such changes, be it
personnel, policy, etc., might as per the following reference be slight
exaggeration; but no more, as all such now is literally a rearrangement of the
deck chairs on the uss Titanic. Nothing succeeds quite like failure in america
these days! Poll:
Egyptians skeptical about U.S.
Egyptians have an unfavorable view of the U.S., but they are also
divided over Islamic fundamentalists. (Washington Post) [ Hey! … Guess what? … americans and the
rest of the world (except zionist israel, zionists, and old biddy britain) are
skeptical and have an unfavorable view of america. The Economic Collapse: 24 more signs of economic decline in
America…
#1 On Monday, S&P altered its outlook on U.S.
government debt from “stable” to “negative” ..at the rest of the world is
losing faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries.
#2 China has
announced reducing their holdings of U.S. dollar
#3 .. “panic
dollar selling is setting in” and U.S. dollar in for a huge decline.
#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now shorting U.S. government bonds.
#5 Bad economy is causing “ghost towns” to appear all
across the U.S..
#6 There are now about 7.25
million less jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#7 The average American family is having a really tough time
- Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. .
#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year- lowest
level ever ..
#9 Avg CEO made 343 times more money than the
average American
#10 Gas prices five dollars per gallon at gas stations.. $6 gas soon
#11 .. 12 months the average price of gasoline in the US
has gone up by
about 30%.
#12 Due to rising fuel prices, American Airlines lost a staggering $436 million during first qtr 2011.
#13 U.S. households now receiving more from the US gov’t
than
they are paying to the government in taxes.
#14 1 of 4
dollars that the U.S. govt borrows goes to pay the interest on the national debt.
#15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is
now about
5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#16 Total credit card debt in u.s. more than 8 times larger
than 30 yrs ago.
#17 Avg household debt in the United States has
now reached a level of 136% of avg household income. In China, avg
household debt is only 17% of avg household income.
#18 Avg American spends approximately 23 percent
.. on food and gas.
#19 .. 74 percent of u.s. said that they
planned to slow down their spending
#20 59 percent u.s. receive money from the
govt ..
#21 avg length of unemployment in the U.S. is now an
all-time record 39 weeks.
#22 u.s. random acts
of violence”…
#23 Americans are popping
the gold teeth right out of their mouths / selling them to pawn shops.
#24
..u.s. people gobbling up larger and larger amounts of antidepressants / other
drugs. ..’ ]
…“Evidence points to aircraft – familiarly known as “torture taxis” –
used by the CIA to move captives seized in its kidnapping or “extraordinary
rendition” operations through Gatwick and other airports in the EU being
simultaneously used for drug distribution .. A Gulfstream II jet aircraft
N9875A identified by the British Government and the European Parliament as
being involved in this traffic crashed in Mexico…” In 2004, another torture
taxi crashed in a field in Nicaragua with a ton of cocaine aboard… Mexican
soldiers found ..132 bags containing 3.3 metric tons of cocaine. .. was one of
the very same planes chartered to the CIA for the rendition of suspected
terrorists prisoners…’]
Drudgereport: NO JOKE: Superman to renounce
U.S. citizenship...
Storm death near 300 in South...
Deadliest Swarm of Twisters
Since 1974...
Among Largest, Strongest Ever
Recorded...
ECONOMY SLOWS, INFLATION
GROWS...
Doubt cast on recovery...
Dollar drops to lowest since
2008...
Investors flee greenback;
silver hits all-time high, gold sets new record...
GALLUP: U.S. confidence
plunges, only 27% say economy is growing...
WAL-MART: Our shoppers are
'running out of money'...
JOBLESS CLAIMS 429,000...
CBS ANCHOR SCHIEFFER: Trump
is racist...
TRUMP TO GIBBS: YOU'RE 'A
LOSER' [‘Another trumped-up case of the pot calling the kettle black’]... TRUMP: Obama
Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues... [ Talk about the pot calling the kettle
black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn) ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster
trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa
mobster trump would pound the undistinguished academically / athletically,
Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a king’ in film noir
melodramatic fashion which proved too much for the more balanced and ‘chosen /
favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide. The old man also required
trump to go to prep / military / boarding school where according to a
classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same manner as
dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the problem (total
b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes, jersey /
new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental case in
that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled with
feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively read those hitler speeches
for inspiration and to pump himself up according to Ivana Trump) to severe case
of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory disregard for and violation of
the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions to complex
problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese (actually
including american goods made in China), drug money laundering in his casinos,
bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible
student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie.,
bribery, money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss …
trump is total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade,
quite insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
Fed Spin Lifts Stocks: Dave's Daily ‘It's a con plain and simple. I've bought into it because I must.
Overall we're long and will be until the jig's up. Until then, I've advised
subscribers for many months that our Lazy Portfolios are the path to success as
Fed policies steamroll most technical systems beyond HFTs [high-frequency
traders]. When it ends, and it will, it's back to business as usual. Earnings
have been good, especially for companies (MMM, KO, MCD and etc.) where a weak
dollar has led to grand overseas profits. Most of those gains remain stashed
abroad and will remain there until U.S. corporate tax policy changes--a cold day
in hell IMHO. Further, Fed policies have been positive for financial
engineering, M&A, corporate debt financings and stock buybacks. This is the
result of a sea of liquidity finding its way to Wall Street which trickles down
to S&P 500 companies. It leads to minimal gains in U.S. employment as
companies are stimulated to outsource work overseas. It does not lift real
estate prices off the deck either. The great con remains current inflation,
which Bernanke alluded to briefly in his comments today. They cling to
"core" inflation as their measure of choice while we commoners who
shop everyday for essentials know better. Turbo Tim even had the nerve to say
the other day high gas prices are something we'll just "adjust to"
and "won't hurt" the recovery. He has a government car and driver. He
also had the nerve to reiterate the necessity to maintain a strong dollar.
Yikes! The Fed expects GDP to grow between 3.1 and 3.3% this year. Thursday's
GDP data may serve as a guide although expectations are for a weaker report.
It's been a strange week as the dollar continued to slide, commodities rallied
and stocks moved higher on ultra light volume. As to the latter, where is
everybody? Most retail investors are content to hang on to their IRAs and 401Ks
but they're still distrustful of markets. From the data it seems they'd rather
have a new car or TV which is something they can trust. Current trading
patterns remain dominated by HFTs whether from institutional trading desks or
hedge funds. This is the way we've rolled since QE2 began...’
Is
the Market Crazy? [ Short answer: Yes! Fraudulently, criminally insane type
crazy! ]
Can
Dollar Weakness Mean Equity Weakness?
Kaspar ‘Are there any dollar bulls left? Inflationists across the web
are crying ‘victory’ as the dollar sinks and certain asset prices (especially oil prices, food prices, and the gold price) mushroom higher. To the
level-headed, you should exercise extreme caution against assumed fixed
correlations like “weak dollar” means “asset price increases.” Correlations can
quickly change.
A mentor of
mine consistently preaches that the market will always do whatever it can to
make most investors look foolish. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is a
case that investors should at least consider: that an accelerating
decline in the dollar could turn asset prices negative, at least in the short
term.
The 1987 crash
is an appropriate case study. The cause of that October market crash, when the
S&P 500 lost 20.5% in a single day, has never been thoroughly explained. No
major event could be credited as the catalyst for such a monstrous and rapid
decline.
Portfolio
insurance, rapidly rising long term US interest rates, a series of preceding
market declines during the week leading up to the crash, and a weakening US
dollar are all mentioned as possible triggers. In truth, it was likely a
confluence of these and other factors that ultimately pushed the market to a
tipping point.
One macro
factor stands out among the rest: the rapidly
weakening US dollar leading up to Black Monday.
Beginning in
late July of 1987, the dollar, after already falling to a seven year low just a
few months prior, began a steep decline. A much wider trade deficit than
expected was thought to have accelerated the dollar’s descent.
US Dollar: 1987
http://seekingalpha.com/article/265995-can-dollar-weakness-mean-equity-weakness?source=yahoo
Over the long
term, all things being equal, it is logically sound to conclude that a
weakening dollar must cause assets priced in dollars to rise. However, in the
short term, markets are not always logical and can anticipate the next move by
world bankers. In 1987, the U.S. dollar lost 10% in roughly three months. During
the same time span, the equity markets lost close to 30%. Such a move
contradicts today’s accepted wisdom.
Though the
Federal Reserve has approached its dollar policy with the same restraint as
Charlie Sheen at Happy Hour, we should avoid approaching every scenario with
broad generalizations, regardless of one’s long term view on the dollar. In the
financial markets, nothing goes in a straight line, and correlations tend to
break down if certain asset classes move too violently.
US
Dollar: Last Twelve Months
http://seekingalpha.com/article/265995-can-dollar-weakness-mean-equity-weakness?source=yahoo
While the last
twelve months have been unfavorable for the dollar, and while assets have
benefited from the Federal Reserve’s currency abuse, correlations do seem to be
diverging. Over the past year, the dollar is down roughly 8% and the S&P is
up about 9%. But the market has begun reacting more coolly towards a weakening
dollar as oil prices have accelerated higher. In fact, in the past two months,
the dollar is down 4.25%, and the S&P 500 is down 1%. In the last two
weeks, the dollar is down 1.45% and the S&P 500 is down about 1.1%. These
moves are in stark contrast to the performance of the past year, so the trend
is clearly weakening.
I might worry that if the dollar begins a sharp move downward, the Fed may be
forced to approach dollar policy with greater restraint, which could instigate
a strong market reaction.
I am fairly
agnostic on the dollar’s next move, and I am unsure how that next move will
correlate with asset prices. Furthermore, I do not intend to predict an
imminent market crash. I simply revisit this history lesson to emphasize a few
broader points:
Extreme dollar bears (and asset bulls) should be
cautious. The markets do not move in straight lines, and the only certainty in
volatile markets is uncertainty. A handy life jacket is worthwhile if the boat
flips.’
Chinese
Stocks Send Warning Signals
Federal
Reserve Press Release April 27, 2011 Federal Reserve The
economic recovery is proceeding at a moderate pace and overall conditions in
the labor market are improving gradually.
Fed
Says Recovery is ‘Moderate’; Bond Buying to End in June Bloomberg
| Federal Reserve policy makers said the economy is recovering at a “moderate
pace” and a pickup in inflation is likely to be temporary.
20 Questions for Ben
Bernanke Zero Hedge | The Fed is expected to continue the
QE2 Lite mandate.
National / World
Drudgereport: SPOOK SHUFFLE: PETRAEUS TO CIA, PANETTA TO PENTAGON
(americans-just a bunch of spooks!)...
Afghan officer fires on U.S.
troops, kills 9 [american war criminals winning hearts and minds]...
BERNANKE: Here comes the inflation...
GOLD RECORD -- AGAIN...
Banks Warn Obama on Soaring Debt Problems...
Gasoline futures jump 6 cents
in one day...
TRUMP TO GIBBS: YOU'RE 'A
LOSER' [‘Another trumped-up case of the pot calling the kettle black’]... TRUMP: Obama Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues...
[ Talk about the pot calling the kettle black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn)
ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so
people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa mobster trump would pound the undistinguished
academically / athletically, Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a
king’ in film noir melodramatic fashion which proved too much for the more
balanced and ‘chosen / favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide. The
old man also required trump to go to prep / military / boarding school where
according to a classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same manner as
dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the problem
(total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes,
jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental
case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled
with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively read those hitler
speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to Ivana Trump) to
severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory disregard for and
violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions
to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese
(actually including american goods made in China), drug money laundering in his
casinos, bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve in
the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie., bribery,
money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss … trump is
total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade, quite
insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He was
incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if not
also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies in
america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the nations
of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a pattern
emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
Fed Spin Lifts Stocks: Dave's Daily ‘It's a con plain and simple. I've bought into it because I must.
Overall we're long and will be until the jig's up. Until then, I've advised
subscribers for many months that our Lazy Portfolios are the path to success as
Fed policies steamroll most technical systems beyond HFTs [high-frequency
traders]. When it ends, and it will, it's back to business as usual. Earnings
have been good, especially for companies (MMM, KO, MCD and etc.) where a weak
dollar has led to grand overseas profits. Most of those gains remain stashed
abroad and will remain there until U.S. corporate tax policy changes--a cold
day in hell IMHO. Further, Fed policies have been positive for financial
engineering, M&A, corporate debt financings and stock buybacks. This is the
result of a sea of liquidity finding its way to Wall Street which trickles down
to S&P 500 companies. It leads to minimal gains in U.S. employment as
companies are stimulated to outsource work overseas. It does not lift real
estate prices off the deck either. The great con remains current inflation,
which Bernanke alluded to briefly in his comments today. They cling to
"core" inflation as their measure of choice while we commoners who
shop everyday for essentials know better. Turbo Tim even had the nerve to say
the other day high gas prices are something we'll just "adjust to"
and "won't hurt" the recovery. He has a government car and driver. He
also had the nerve to reiterate the necessity to maintain a strong dollar.
Yikes! The Fed expects GDP to grow between 3.1 and 3.3% this year. Thursday's
GDP data may serve as a guide although expectations are for a weaker report.
It's been a strange week as the dollar continued to slide, commodities rallied
and stocks moved higher on ultra light volume. As to the latter, where is
everybody? Most retail investors are content to hang on to their IRAs and 401Ks
but they're still distrustful of markets. From the data it seems they'd rather
have a new car or TV which is something they can trust. Current trading
patterns remain dominated by HFTs whether from institutional trading desks or
hedge funds. This is the way we've rolled since QE2 began...’
Is
the Market Crazy? [ Short answer: Yes! Fraudulently, criminally insane type
crazy! ]
Can
Dollar Weakness Mean Equity Weakness?
Kaspar ‘Are there any dollar bulls left? Inflationists across the web
are crying ‘victory’ as the dollar sinks and certain asset prices (especially oil prices, food prices, and the gold price) mushroom higher. To the
level-headed, you should exercise extreme caution against assumed fixed
correlations like “weak dollar” means “asset price increases.” Correlations can
quickly change.
A mentor of
mine consistently preaches that the market will always do whatever it can to
make most investors look foolish. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is a
case that investors should at least consider: that an accelerating
decline in the dollar could turn asset prices negative, at least in the short
term.
The 1987 crash
is an appropriate case study. The cause of that October market crash, when the
S&P 500 lost 20.5% in a single day, has never been thoroughly explained. No
major event could be credited as the catalyst for such a monstrous and rapid
decline.
Portfolio
insurance, rapidly rising long term US interest rates, a series of preceding
market declines during the week leading up to the crash, and a weakening US
dollar are all mentioned as possible triggers. In truth, it was likely a
confluence of these and other factors that ultimately pushed the market to a
tipping point.
One macro
factor stands out among the rest: the rapidly
weakening US dollar leading up to Black Monday.
Beginning in
late July of 1987, the dollar, after already falling to a seven year low just a
few months prior, began a steep decline. A much wider trade deficit than
expected was thought to have accelerated the dollar’s descent.
US Dollar: 1987
http://seekingalpha.com/article/265995-can-dollar-weakness-mean-equity-weakness?source=yahoo
Over the long
term, all things being equal, it is logically sound to conclude that a
weakening dollar must cause assets priced in dollars to rise. However, in the
short term, markets are not always logical and can anticipate the next move by
world bankers. In 1987, the U.S. dollar lost 10% in roughly three months. During
the same time span, the equity markets lost close to 30%. Such a move
contradicts today’s accepted wisdom.
Though the
Federal Reserve has approached its dollar policy with the same restraint as
Charlie Sheen at Happy Hour, we should avoid approaching every scenario with
broad generalizations, regardless of one’s long term view on the dollar. In the
financial markets, nothing goes in a straight line, and correlations tend to
break down if certain asset classes move too violently.
US
Dollar: Last Twelve Months
http://seekingalpha.com/article/265995-can-dollar-weakness-mean-equity-weakness?source=yahoo
While the last
twelve months have been unfavorable for the dollar, and while assets have
benefited from the Federal Reserve’s currency abuse, correlations do seem to be
diverging. Over the past year, the dollar is down roughly 8% and the S&P is
up about 9%. But the market has begun reacting more coolly towards a weakening
dollar as oil prices have accelerated higher. In fact, in the past two months,
the dollar is down 4.25%, and the S&P 500 is down 1%. In the last two
weeks, the dollar is down 1.45% and the S&P 500 is down about 1.1%. These
moves are in stark contrast to the performance of the past year, so the trend
is clearly weakening.
I might worry that if the dollar begins a sharp move downward, the Fed may be
forced to approach dollar policy with greater restraint, which could instigate
a strong market reaction.
I am fairly
agnostic on the dollar’s next move, and I am unsure how that next move will
correlate with asset prices. Furthermore, I do not intend to predict an
imminent market crash. I simply revisit this history lesson to emphasize a few
broader points:
Extreme dollar bears (and asset bulls) should be
cautious. The markets do not move in straight lines, and the only certainty in
volatile markets is uncertainty. A handy life jacket is worthwhile if the boat
flips.’
Bernanke
prepares to make history
(Washington Post) [ He already
has! $6 gas acomin’, $1,508+ gold, $46+ silver, other commodities at record
levels, hyperinflation as predicted well on the way from over-printing of fiat
paper currency by fed as predicted, etc., Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...
Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come!
ATTENTION: REPORTERS –
HIP BOOTS MANDATORY, WADERS RECOMMENDED SINCE YOU’LL BE AT LEAST KNEE-DEEP IN
‘NO-RECESSION HELICOPTER BEN B.S. BERNAKE’ B*** S***! ] On Wednesday, he will be the first Fed
chairman to take on-the-record questioning from the media.
24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a
devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny
it. Over the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing
statistics in my articles about the U.S. economy. The
Economic Collapse April 23, 2011 The United States is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny it. Over
the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing statistics in
my articles about the U.S. economy… the U.S. economy is in deep decline and is
dying a little bit more every single day…
Treasury
quietly plans for debt showdown (Washington Post) As White House warns of catastrophe if Congress fails to raise
the debt ceiling, Geithner is working behind the scenes to juggle the books and
conserve cash. [ Quietly? Hardly. It’s probably the most trumpeted quiet plan
in the history of this now defacto bankrupt nation. Davis ‘… This is how we
pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get
anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is
no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all
of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING
FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘
… Suckers’ rally to keep suckers
suckered: Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is
about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation
pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high)
to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010… This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come!]
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog.. the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has artificially
subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...
Chinese
Stocks Send Warning Signals
Federal
Reserve Press Release April 27, 2011 Federal Reserve The
economic recovery is proceeding at a moderate pace and overall conditions in
the labor market are improving gradually.
Fed
Says Recovery is ‘Moderate’; Bond Buying to End in June Bloomberg
| Federal Reserve policy makers said the economy is recovering at a “moderate
pace” and a pickup in inflation is likely to be temporary.
20 Questions for Ben
Bernanke Zero Hedge | The Fed is expected to continue the
QE2 Lite mandate.
National / World
Drudgereport: SPOOK SHUFFLE: PETRAEUS TO CIA, PANETTA TO PENTAGON
(americans-just a bunch of spooks!)...
Afghan officer fires on U.S.
troops, kills 9 [american war criminals winning hearts and minds]...
BERNANKE: Here comes the inflation...
GOLD RECORD -- AGAIN...
Banks Warn Obama on Soaring Debt Problems...
Gasoline futures jump 6 cents
in one day...
TRUMP TO GIBBS: YOU'RE 'A
LOSER' [‘Another trumped-up case of the pot calling the kettle black’]... TRUMP: Obama Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues...
[ Talk about the pot calling the kettle black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn)
ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so people
would take him ‘seriously’ – papa mobster trump would pound the undistinguished
academically / athletically, Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a
king’ in film noir melodramatic fashion which proved too much for the more
balanced and ‘chosen / favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide. The
old man also required trump to go to prep / military / boarding school where
according to a classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same manner as
dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the problem
(total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes,
jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental
case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled
with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively read those hitler
speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to Ivana Trump) to
severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory disregard for and
violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions
to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese
(actually including american goods made in China), drug money laundering in his
casinos, bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie.,
bribery, money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss …
trump is total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade,
quite insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt, unable
to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He was
incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if not
also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies in
america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
Case-Shiller
Chairman: Here’s Why There is Very Little, If Any, Good News About Housing
‘Have you ever tried to keep your head above water while doggy-paddling?
The
S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index shows prices for the 10- and
20-city composites are lower than a year ago but still slightly above their
April 2009 bottom. The 10-City Composite fell 2.6% and the 20-City
Composite was down 3.3% from February 2010 levels. With an index level of
139.27, the 20-City Composite is virtually back to its April 2009 trough
value (139.26); the 10-City Composite is 1.5% above its low.
Washington
D.C. was the only market to post a year-over-year gain with an annual growth
rate of +2.7%. Ten of the 11 cities that made new lows in January 2011 saw
new lows again in February 2011. Detroit avoided another new low, managing
a +1.0% increase in February over January, the only city with a positive
monthly change.
David M.
Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s
commented:
“There is very
little, if any, good news about housing. Prices continue to weaken, trends in
sales and construction are disappointing. Ten of the 11 MSAs that
recorded index lows in January fell further in February. The one
exception, Detroit, is 30% below its 2000 price level. The 20-City
Composite is within a hair’s breadth of a double dip. Fourteen MSAs and
both Composites have continued to decline month over-month for more than
six consecutive months as of February.
Atlanta,
Cleveland and Las Vegas join Detroit as cities with home prices below their
2000 levels; and Phoenix is barely above its January 2000 level after a
new index low. The one positive is Washington D.C. with a positive annual
growth rate, +2.7%, and home prices more than 80% over its January 2000
level. Other cities holding on to large gains from 11 years ago include
Los Angeles (68.25%), New York (65.19%) and San Diego (55.05%).’
The
Financial Sector Mess Nussbaum ‘Yesterday on CNBC I heard a tease for a
segment (I missed the actual segment) about the fact the domestic financial stocks
are not doing well relative to technology. While I am not sure that tech is the
best comparison there is a point here about financial stocks that I have been
making for a long time that I believe will remain relevant for several more
years.
First, some
numbers with results of a few different sectors over several time periods:
YTD
Financials XLF +0.88%
Technology XLK +4.75%
Energy XLE +14.97%
Staples XLP +5.12%
Discretionary XLY +6.51% (XLY is a
client holding)
S&P 500 (SPY) 6.16%
One Year
XLF -4.11
XLK +9.58%
XLE +26.37
XLP +9.92%
XLY +11.72%
S&P 500 +9.68%
Four Years
XLF -56.64%
XLK +8.91%
XLE +24.35%
XLP +11.63
XLY +0.71%
S&P 500 -10.05%
The numbers say a lot about the mess that has been made in the domestic
financial sector. The events in the market from 2007-2009 were obviously about
the financial sector. There were many types of excesses that resulted in a
monumental meltdown in the sector--monumental for the number of large companies
that failed and the large number of stocks that dropped 90% and are nowhere
close to where they traded before the implosion.
The nature of this sort of event is such that it will be years before domestic
financials, collectively, are attractive on a fundamental basis and so I think
it is likely that they will continue to struggle as stocks. This has been the
case with technology from that market event. For ten years the S&P 500 (SPY)
is up 7.41% while XLK is down 12.02% [Microsoft (MSFT)
is down 25% for ten years and INTC is down 32% for ten years]. It looks to me
like outperformance of tech over the SPX may have started at the 2009 bottom,
which is a long time for the ground zero sector to lag. While an exact
duplicate in financials is unlikely, if you then consider the fundamental
outlook, I think we are a long way from health.
The above brings in two different things to consider; one being how markets
tend to work, which is more of a top down factor. The other is what I believe
to be a lack of fundamental health, which is of course a bottom up factor. It
seems to me that no matter, the financial sector has been a favorite of many professional
market participants. Given my perceptions of the sector I think it makes sense
to underweight the risk in whatever financial sector exposure you have (I
believe in having exposure to all sectors as zero weight is a big bet). For us
this means mostly owning foreign banks as I have discussed many times before.
Think of it this way, in speculating on parts of the financial sector where the
fundamentals are not yet healthy, how much do you hope to make? Let's say you
think you can double your money. I would say it makes more sense to go to a
sector that is healthy on all fronts to pick a stock where you think you could
double your money. I realize other people view it differently and clearly there
were some great trades off the bottom in the financial sector - but speculating
on something with weak fundamentals is not a risk I am willing to take.’
States
face shortfall for retirees (Washington Post) Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at
the end of fiscal 2009, a report says.
Study:
Affordable rentals scarce
(Washington Post) Share of
renters who spend more than half their income on housing is at its highest
level in half a century.
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (Washington Post) More Americans disapprove of President
Obama’s management of the war in Afghanistan than support it, according to a
new Washington Post-ABC News poll, a finding that reflects the public’s broader
concern over the course of the nearly decade-old conflict.
Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(Washington Post) As gas prices
bite into household incomes, Obama’s support takes a hit, according to new
poll. The high fuel price dynamic is
the slow / now faster motion, long predicted hyperinflationary consequence of
failed fed, administration, congressional economic / financial / fiscal policy
that essentially has been interposed for the (short-term particularly) benefit
of the frauds on wall street (The frauds on
wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined, and
disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast turmoil to obfuscate their
failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Return of Inflation: 5 Worrying Signs From Friday's NY Times
American
Stock Ownership Declines
24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a
devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny
it. Over the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing
statistics in my articles about the U.S. economy. The
Economic Collapse April 23, 2011 The United States is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny it. Over
the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing statistics in
my articles about the U.S. economy… the U.S. economy is in deep decline and is
dying a little bit more every single day…
Poll:
Egyptians skeptical about U.S.
Egyptians have an unfavorable view of the U.S., but they are also
divided over Islamic fundamentalists. (Washington Post) [ Hey! … Guess what? … americans and the
rest of the world (except zionist israel, zionists, and old biddy britain) are
skeptical and have an unfavorable view of america. The Economic Collapse: 24 more signs of economic decline in
America…
#1 On Monday, S&P altered its outlook on U.S.
government debt from “stable” to “negative” ..at the rest of the world is
losing faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries.
#2 China has
announced reducing their holdings of U.S. dollar
#3 .. “panic
dollar selling is setting in” and U.S. dollar in for a huge decline.
#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now shorting U.S. government bonds.
#5 This cruel economy is causing “ghost towns” to
appear all across the United States..
#6 There are now about 7.25
million less jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#7 The average American family is having a really tough time right
now. Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. .
#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last
year. That was the lowest level ever ..
#9 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the
average CEO made 343 times more money than the
average American
#10 Gas prices reached five dollars per gallon at a gas station in Washington, DC
on April 19th, 2011. .. $6 gas soon
#11 .. 12 months the average price of gasoline in the
United States has gone up by
about 30%.
#12 Due to rising fuel prices, American Airlines lost a staggering $436 million during the first quarter of
2011.
#13 U.S. households are now receiving more income from
the U.S. governmentthan
they are paying to the government in taxes.
#14 1 of 4
dollars that the U.S. government borrows goes to pay the interest on the national debt.
#15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is
now about
5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#16 Total credit card debt in u.s. more than 8 times larger
than 30 yrs ago.
#17 Average household debt in the United States has
now reached a level of 136% of average household income. In China,
average household debt is only 17% of average household income.
#18 The average American now spends approximately 23 percent
.. on food and gas.
#19 .. 74 percent of Americans said that they
planned to slow down their spending in coming months
#20 59 percent u.s. receive money from the
federal government ..
#21 average length of unemployment in the U.S. is
now an
all-time record 39 weeks.
#22 As the economy continues
to collapse, frustration ..“random acts of violence”…
#23
Some Americans have become so desperate for cash that they are literallypopping
the gold teeth right out of their mouths and selling them to pawn shops.
#24
..u.s. people have been gobbling up larger and larger amounts of
antidepressants and other prescription drugs. ..’ ]
20 Questions for Ben
Bernanke Zero Hedge | The Fed is expected to continue the
QE2 Lite mandate.
Gold and silver
continue to surge Neil Dennis | Gold hit a record high,
while silver surged more than 5 per cent to within a whisker of its all-time
peak.
Don’t
Like a Weak Dollar? Might as Well Get Used to It CNBC.com
| Weakness in the US dollar, which is causing everything to go up.
Dollar
Hits Record Low Against Swiss Franc The dollar tumbled to an all-time low
point of 0.8745 Swiss francs.
Chernobyl,
25 years later (Washington Post)
Following the nuclear disaster in Japan, the Chernobyl accident has a
particular importance. Japan
declares evacuation zone near nuclear plant (Washington Post) [ Wow! Sounds like a plan! … From the
beginning, as I’ve written on my website, I’ve thought the catastrophic nature
and impact of this disaster to have been underreported at the least … the
Japanese uncharacteristically have adopted somewhat of a ‘if wishing could make
it so’ tact in this sad crisis. Cesium
137 Threat Grows While Corporate Media Remains Mute The hereditary
communist dictatorship in North Korea reports on the spread of radiation from
the Fukushima nuclear plant, but it has all but fallen off the corporate media
radar screen here. Monitoring stations across North Korea from April 11 to 17
detected iodine-131 and cesium-137 in the air above Wonsan in the southeast and
Chongjin in the southeast, according to the country’s state-run media. According
to the Los Angeles Times, seawater near the Fukushima nuclear complex was
recently found to contain “iodine-131 at 7.5 million times the legal
limit”. Something
Odd Is Happening at Reactor Number 4 The operator of the troubled Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant is carefully monitoring the situation at the Number
4 spent fuel pool, where the water temperature is rising despite increased
injections of cooling water. Helen
Caldicott Talks About the Horror of Fukushima Australian physician, author,
and anti-nuclear advocate Helen Caldicott talks about the Fukushima nuclear
catastrophe and what we can expect. It ain’t pretty. Busby:
‘Can’t seal Fukushima like Chernobyl – it all goes into sea’ As world marks
the Chernobyl anniversary, many say that the world has failed to learn the
lessons on nuclear safety that the tragedy provided. RT talks to Professor
Christopher Busby, Scientific secretary of the European Committee on radiation
risks, for a little more insight on 21st century’s most serious nuclear crisis
at Fukushima. Assassinate
Qaddafi? Tyrants Beware – What Goes Around Might Come Around Lindsey Graham
and John McCain, both of the meddling International Republican Institute
implicated in funding and fueling the “Arab Spring” to begin with, have called
for the assassination of Libya’s Qaddafi and members of his inner circle. The
London Telegraph also reported that Foreign Secretary William Hague refused to
rule out using US drones to assassinate Qaddafi. TEPCO
finds radioactive concrete emitting 900,000 microsieverts per hour of nuclear
radiation The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
says that concrete debris emitting a high level of radiation has been found
near the Number 3 reactor.
With
Barbour now out, new questions for GOP
(Washington Post) THE TAKE | Decision sets off scramble for parts of his
financial and political network and raises questions about challenges party
faces in unseating Obama.
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (Washington Post) [ If only ‘wobama the b’ (for b*** s***) had
been a man of his word and stopped these nation-bankrupting, murderous wars. ]
With
Barbour now out, new questions for GOP
(Washington Post) THE TAKE | Decision sets off scramble for parts of his
financial and political network and raises questions about challenges party
faces in unseating Obama.
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (Washington Post) [ If only ‘wobama the b’ (for b*** s***) had
been a man of his word and stopped these nation-bankrupting, murderous wars. ]
Drudgereport: TRUMP: Obama Not
Worthy of Ivy Leagues... [ Talk about the pot calling the kettle
black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn) ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster
trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa
mobster trump would pound the undistinguished academically / athletically
donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a king’ in film noir
melodramatic fashion which proved too much for the more balanced and ‘chosen /
favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide. The old man also required
trump to go to prep / military / boarding school where according to a
classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same manner as
dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the problem
(total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes,
jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental
case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled
with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively read those hitler
speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to Ivana Trump) to
severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory disregard for and
violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions
to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese
(actually including american goods made in China) goods, drug money laundering
in his casinos, bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
Islamic Group with British Intelligence Links Threatens
Royal Wedding Kurt Nimmo | Muslims Against Crusades
has reportedly told Princes William and Harry to “watch your backs.”
Media Distorts Truth To Propagandize For NATO-Backed War
On Syria Paul Joseph Watson | Another contrived
“humanitarian” war is in the making.
Modern British Royalty: Eugenicists, Nazis and Neo-Feudalists
Steve Watson & Alex Jones | The upcoming royal
Wedding of William Mountbatten-Windsor, heir in waiting to the British throne
has the UK media in a frenzy.
Waking Up to Economic Realities Ron
Paul | Even the most conservative budget that has been proposed by
Republican leadership requires raising the debt ceiling.
MI5
Intelligence Front Threatens Royal Wedding To Justify Banning Protest Once
again, the corporate media rolls out a scary story about Islamists threatening
the state, this time represented by the British royal family.
Media
Distorts Truth To Propagandize For NATO-Backed War On Syria Despite the
fact that western media is completely cut off from entering Syria and therefore
unable to verify reports of hundreds of murders carried out by security forces
loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, grainy and often misconstrued
YouTube videos have been cited as proof positive that Assad is overseeing a
brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, but a whistleblower living in
Syria has contacted us to express his disbelief at such claims, dismissing them
as little more than fabricated fairy-tales designed to law the groundwork for
yet another NATO-backed military intervention based on contrived “humanitarian”
grounds.
Modern
British Royalty: Eugenicists, Nazis and Neo-Feudalists The upcoming royal
Wedding of William Mountbatten-Windsor, heir in waiting to the British throne
has the UK media in a frenzy of vomit inducing worship and stomach churning
sycophantic fawning. Even the US media is pouring over the royals to such an
extent that commentators have pointed out that had the modern day corporate
media covered the Revolutionary War, it would have firmly supported the
British.
CNN
investigation: Obama born in U.S. Was Barack Obama really born in America?
Alex Jones – The
Man, The History “Alex Jones is a model for people to create their own
media,” Michael Harrison, editor of the industry trade magazine Talkers, told
Rolling Stone writer Alexander Zaitchik. “When the history is written of talk
broadcasting’s transition from the corporate model of the 20th century to the
digital, independent model of the 21st century, he will be considered an early
trailblazer.”
Investigator:
Fukushima Blast Was Nuclear Explosion British scientist Christopher Busby,
a researcher on the negative health effects of ionizing radiation, told Russia
Today that one of the explosions at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in
Japan was a nuclear explosion, not a hydrogen explosion as widely reported in
the media.
Drudgereport: Gas prices rise for 35th
straight day...
Climb 6 cents overnight in
Michigan...
President's answer: More
taxes...
Gasoline Futures Highest
Since 2008...
TELEPROMPTER INVENTOR DIES...
(Wobama ‘goes in mourning … day of silence declared’)
Buchanan to Matthews: 'You're
supposed to be a journalist'...
RON PAUL: HE'S IN!
Killer Combo of High Gas, Food Prices at 'Key Tipping
Point'...
AAA Sees 18% Increase In
Roadside Calls For Drivers Out Of Gas...
$5.69 GALLON IN ORLANDO --
FOR REGULAR...
IMF: AGE OF AMERICA NEARS
END...
Dollar's Decline Speeds Up...
China planning to cut U.S.
reserves by two-thirds?
Gold and silver continue to
surge...
Reid's China junket sked kept
secret over 'security concerns'...
WASHPOST: If the
trip's so dangerous, why are senators spouses tagging along?
TRUMP: Obama Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues...
[ Talk about the pot calling the kettle black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn)
ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so
people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa mobster trump would pound the
undistinguished academically / athletically, Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a
killer, you’re a king’ in film noir melodramatic fashion which proved too much
for the more balanced and ‘chosen / favored’ elder brother trump who committed
suicide. The old man also required trump to go to prep / military / boarding
school where according to a classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in
his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same
manner as dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the
problem (total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes,
jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental
case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled
with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively read those hitler
speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to Ivana Trump) to
severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory disregard for and
violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions
to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese (actually
including american goods made in China), drug money laundering in his casinos,
bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve Wynn's
doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people and
companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve in
the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie., bribery,
money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss … trump is
total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade, quite
insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable
structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have
survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms
condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his
opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt
america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed
the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
American
Stock Ownership Declines
24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a
devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny
it. Over the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing
statistics in my articles about the U.S. economy. The
Economic Collapse April 23, 2011
The United
States is in the middle of a devastating long-term economic decline and it is
getting really hard to deny it. Over the past year I have included
literally thousands of depressing statistics in my articles about the U.S.
economy… the U.S. economy is in deep decline and is dying a little bit more
every single day…
With
Barbour now out, new questions for GOP
(Washington Post) THE TAKE | Decision sets off scramble for parts of his
financial and political network and raises questions about challenges party
faces in unseating Obama.
Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (Washington Post) [ If only ‘wobama the b’ (for b*** s***) had
been a man of his word and stopped these nation-bankrupting, murderous wars. ]
Drudgereport:
TRUMP: Obama
Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues... [ Talk about the pot calling the kettle
black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn) ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster
trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa
mobster trump would pound the undistinguished academically / athletically,
Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a killer, you’re a king’ in film noir
melodramatic fashion which proved too much for the more balanced and ‘chosen /
favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide. The old man also required
trump to go to prep / military / boarding school where according to a
classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same manner as
dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the problem
(total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested sinkholes,
jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an interesting mental
case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated grandiose moods coupled
with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively read those hitler
speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to Ivana Trump) to
severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory disregard for and
violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric soundbite solutions
to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25% tariff on Chinese
(actually including american goods made in China), drug money laundering in his
casinos, bribery, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]
In
a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible
student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such)…
Financial Folklore: Tales from Wall Street to Main Street DeLegge April
22, 2011 SAN DIEGO (ETFguide.com) – ‘Throughout the ages, financial folklore
has been handed down from one generation to the next as so-called wisdom. And
our generation has been brainwashed with its fair share of folklore.
Let's consider
some examples.
'Buying a
home is the best investment anyone can make.'
The pummeled
housing market should have put this particular fairy tale to rest, but there
are a few holdouts that haven't gotten the message.
People, for
example, that bought their home decades ago are often cited as proof that
buying a home is still the 'best investment anywhere.' But before we count
their profits, don't forget to deduct their insurance premiums, the cost of
home maintenance, improvements and property taxes. Including these real life
expenses into the equations portrays a far more realistic picture about the
true investment value of home ownership. It's not as good of a deal as you've
been sold.
But the real
test of truthfulness behind this is to ask anyone that's purchased a home or
condominium within the past 10 years. Ask them how profitable their foray into
housing market has been and they'll tell you.
'Max out
your 401(k) plan.'
Overstuffing
your 401(k) plan with lots of money - is a good savings habits - but won't
necessarily help you you're your investments more profitable. Why? It's because
most 401(k) plans offer a diverse menu of rigged investment choices with
unnecessarily high fees. It's the mutual fund industry's best kept
secret.
What about the
wonderful benefits of tax free growth and employer matches? Unfortunately,
these 401(k) features are undermined by consistent underperformance by mutual
fund managers, poor asset allocation decisions by plan members and compounding
fees.
Unless low
cost index funds and ETFs are investment choices inside your 401(k) plan,
overstuffing your 401(k) retirement plan with bloated contributions is probably
not a good idea.
'Only
invest in funds with managers that have a good track record.'
There are
countless examples of how this piece of advice has been proven false more times
than true. But since we don't have countless time or space, let's consider just
one recent example - Philip Jabre.
Jabre is one
of Europe's best known hedge fund managers and after posting a tranquil 3% gain
during 2008's financial crisis, he followed it up with a handsome 46% gain in
2009. Surely investing money with Jabre - a seasoned professional with an
impressive track record - was the smart thing to do, right?
In March,
Jabre bought Japanese stocks (NYSEArca: EWJ - News) on news of the earthquake
but got clobbered when the Nikkei Stock Average tumbled. Instead of staying
calm, Jabre panicked and sold his shares before Japanese stocks bounced back,
which netted his firm $300 million in losses. Hardly anyone could've foreseen this
sort of meltdown from a guy with an amazing track record!
For anyone
confiding in the false comfort of past performance, beware!
'Buy
whatever Warren Buffett is buying.'
In the 1960s
and 70s, youthful groupies would follow their favorite musical bands from city
to city. Today, these same folks have graduated to following the financial
moves made by investing legends like Warren Buffett. Are there guaranteed
profits for those who ape the 'big money?'
Reuters looked
at five recent acquisitions made by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A - News) to test out this theory.
Someone who
bought 100,000 shares in stock in each of Berkshire's acquisition targets 70
days before Buffett announced a deal, would have made money in just three out
of five tries. Not bad, but hardly a sure thing.
In this
simplified case study conducted by Reuters, the reward for aping Warren
Buffett's past five deals - or should we say, beating him to each deal by 70
days - was a complete wash. The profitable trades amounted to a gain of $3.256
million whereas the losses were $3.268 million.
So much for
the false theory that copying financial titans delivers market beating
results.’
Return of Inflation: 5 Worrying Signs From Friday's NY Times
As financial advisers increasingly embrace a
fee-based model based on the amount of assets overseen — instead of charging a
flat fee — the portion invested in index funds is costing investors mightily writes Dow
Jones columnist Ian Salisbury.
Salisbury notes that since 2006 “many advisers began
charging smaller, but more regular, fees to manage a portfolio, often in the
neighborhood of 1% a year.”
While 1% is a big improvement over the 5% fee that
advisers often charged in years past, the savings that index funds offer in
this context are effectively nullified.
The average expense ratio for U.S. stock index funds
is 0.19%, versus 0.92% for actively managed funds, which have to charge for
stock research and trading, according to investment researcher Morningstar Inc.
Individual investors can do better cost-wise by
buying index funds directly from issuers.
However, it would be overly simplistic to focus
exclusively on cost when considering the relative merits of using an adviser.
Advisers can add value by managing a portfolio’s
asset allocation, both to take advantage of market trends and to grow more
conservative as an investor ages. They often also provide extra services such
as tax and estate planning.’
American
Stock Ownership Declines
24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a
devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny
it. Over the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing
statistics in my articles about the U.S. economy. The
Economic Collapse April 23, 2011
The United
States is in the middle of a devastating long-term economic decline and it is
getting really hard to deny it. Over the past year I have included
literally thousands of depressing statistics in my articles about the U.S.
economy. I have done this in order to make an overwhelming case that the
U.S. economy is in deep decline and is dying a little bit more every single day.
Until we understand exactly how bad our problems are we will never be willing
to accept the solutions. The truth is that our leaders have absolutely
wrecked the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen. Most
Americans just assume that we will always experience overwhelming prosperity,
but that is not anywhere close to the truth. We are not guaranteed
anything. Our manufacturing base has been gutted, the number of jobs is
declining, more Americans are dependent on government handouts than ever
before, our dollar is dying and as a nation we are absolutely drowning in
debt. The economists that are trumpeting an “economic recovery” and that
are declaring that the U.S. economy will soon be “better than ever” are
delusional. We really are steamrolling toward a complete and total
economic collapse and our leaders are doing nothing to stop it.
The following
are 24 more signs of economic decline in America. Hopefully you will not
get too depressed as you read them….
#1 On Monday, Standard & Poor’s altered its outlook
on U.S. government debt from “stable” to “negative” and warned the U.S. that
it could
soon lose its AAA rating. This is yet another sign that the rest of
the world is losing faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries.
#2 China has
announced that they are going to be reducing their holdings of U.S.
dollars. In fact, there are persistent rumors that this has already been
happening.
#3 Hedge fund manager Dennis Gartman says that “panic dollar selling is setting in”
and that the U.S. dollar could be in for a huge decline.
#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now shorting U.S. government bonds.
#5 This cruel economy is causing “ghost towns” to
appear all across the United States. There are quite a few counties
across the nation that now have home vacancy rates of
over 50%.
#6 There are now about 7.25
million less jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007.
#7 The average American family is having a really tough time right
now. Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. The last time
the employment level was that low was back in 1983.
#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last
year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of
U.S. history.
#9 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the
average CEO made 343 times more money than the
average American did last year.
#10 Gas prices reached five dollars per gallon at a gas station in Washington, DC
on April 19th, 2011. Could we see $6 gas soon?
#11 Over the past 12 months the average price of
gasoline in the United States has gone up by
about 30%.
#12 Due to rising fuel prices, American Airlines lost a staggering $436 million during the first quarter of
2011.
#13 U.S. households are now receiving more income from
the U.S. governmentthan
they are paying to the government in taxes.
#14 Approximately one out of every four dollars that the
U.S. government borrows goes to pay the interest on the national debt.
#15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is
now about
5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#16 Total credit card debt in the United States is
now more than 8 times larger
than it was just 30 years ago.
#17 Average household debt in the United States has
now reached a level of 136% of average household income. In China,
average household debt is only 17% of average household income.
#18 The average American now spends approximately 23 percent
of his or her income on food and gas.
#19 In a recent survey conducted by Deloitte
Consulting, 74 percent of Americans said that they planned to slow
down their spending in coming months due to rising prices.
#20 59 percent of all Americans now receive
money from the federal government in one form or another.
#21 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
the average length of unemployment in the U.S. is now an
all-time record 39 weeks.
#22 As the economy continues to collapse, frustration
among young people will continue to grow and we will see more seemingly “random
acts of violence”. One shocking example of this happened in the Atlanta
area recently. The following is how
a local Atlanta newspaper described the attack….
Roughly
two dozen teens, chanting the name of a well-known Atlanta gang, brought mob
rule to MARTA early Sunday morning, overwhelming nervous passengers and
assaulting two Delta flight attendants.
#23
Some Americans have become so desperate for cash that they are literallypopping
the gold teeth right out of their mouths and selling them to pawn shops.
#24
As the economy has declined, the American people have been gobbling up larger
and larger amounts of antidepressants and other prescription drugs. In
fact, the American people spent 60
billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.’
Ecomonic
Strength Is An Illusion Dohmen ‘There is a perception that
economic growth in many countries is very strong. Is it? These
countries have an accelerating inflation problem that is presenting an illusion
of economic strength. Russia is running at 9.5%, India at 9%, Brazil 6.3%.
China’s official inflation rate (CPI) just came in at 5.4%, higher “than
expected by analysts.” Well, that number is a fairy tale. Actual inflation is
mid-teens. “Official” food inflation year-over-year is 11%. Actual food
inflation is probably twice that.
What always
happens in such an environment is that the central bank hikes interest rates,
but always too little, too late. The added cost of money raises the cost of
business and is passed on as price increases, causing even higher inflation.
The governments restrict credit only grudgingly because they don’t want the
economy to weaken. That would make people unhappy and cause them to riot. Not
pleasant for autocratic regimes. And that’s how these countries will eventually
see double-digit inflation.
When that
happens, they will become more forceful in tightening money, availability of
credit, etc. And that eventually produces a recession, pain, and a financial
crisis.
There is
another aspect to this under-reporting of inflation: the GDP growth numbers of
these countries are fictitious. Yet, money managers apparently believe them and
are sending billions of dollars overseas into stocks in those countries. For
example, let’s assume a country’s nominal GDP growth is 15%. Official
inflation is 5%, which is deducted from the 15% to give headline GDP growth of
10%. But what if actual inflation is 10% instead of the “official” version of
5%? Then actual GDP growth is 5%. That certainly reduces the great growth
stories of these emerging markets.
In the U.S.,
inflation is also far underreported. John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics calculates
the CPI before the “fudge factors” were introduced by Bush Senior and Clinton.
According to him, the CPI now is at 10%.
If we use that
number to convert nominal GDP to actual GDP, then we get negative, “real”
economic growth. In other words, most or all of the reported GDP growth here
and abroad reflects price increases, not genuine economic growth. Currently,
nominal GDP growth is 4%. The CPI is 2.7%. That gives us “real” GDP growth of
1.3%, certainly not the 4% Wall Street had been predicting. If we use the GDP
deflator of 3.6%, then we get “real” GDP growth of 0.3%, barely above zero.
I ask, how can
this anemic growth, if any, give you the 20% corporate profit growth that Wall
Street has been predicting? It would mean that companies can raise prices
faster than their cost of supplies. That seems unlikely in the current
high-unemployment environment except for consumer essentials, like food and
energy. Beware of governmental statistics! As an investor, you can protect
yourself against this hidden inflation via gold and silver.’
VIX at 34-Month
Low - Time to Sell and Go Away Before May? , On
Monday April 25, 2011,
‘This should
be interesting. The VIX is at a 34-month low and stocks have been rising on
anemically low volume, but the S&P is within points of breaking above the
technically important neckline of an inverse head and shoulders bottom
formation.
Of more
immediate importance is the S&P's resistance at 1,339, which has rebuffed
the S&P 500 on seven different trading days. And as if there wasn't enough
intrigue to the current constellation, the S&P has an open chart gap right
below 1,343.
Open
Chart Gaps - Unfinished Business
The gap was
caused by a February 22 gap down open that left a vacuum between 1,339 and
1,443. Concerning this chart gap, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter stated on
the night of February 21:
'As of 11pm
EST the S&P futures are down 15 points. Since there's a good chance of a
gap down open, it would be timely to mention that the S&P has a strong
tendency of closing open chart gaps sooner or later. If an early morning gap
isn't closed right away, it might be closed sometime later this week, month or
year.'
This open
chart gap was one reason the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter speculated on March
20 that: '1,249.05 was the low of a 7% correction that will result in new highs
around 1,3XX (target level reserved for subscribers) as discussed in the March
ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter, page 3.'
What's it
Worth? The VIX Sell Signal
As the S&P
has come within points of closing this vexing chart gap, the VIX (Chicago
Options: ^VIX) has dropped to a 34-month low. Not only that, the VIX has also
dropped below the lower Bollinger Band. A close back above the lower Bollinger
Band will trigger a sell signal for stocks.
There have
been five such VIX sell signals since the March 2009 bottom. June 30, 2009 -
January 12, 2010 - April 13, 2010 - September 4, 2010 - October 13, 2010.
Discerning eyes will see that the market corrected sharply following the first
three sell signals.
The S&P
(SNP: ^GSPC), Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI), Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC), small caps
(NYSEArca: IWM - News) and mid caps (NYSEArca: MDY - News) tumbled 15 - 20% from April - June 2010.
The April 2010
VIX sell signal was compounded by a 10-year low in the CBOE equity put/call
ratio. A low put/call ratio means that only a minority of equity positions are
equipped with a put safety net.
On April 16,
2010 the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter warned that: 'Once prices do fall and
investors do get afraid of incurring losses, the only option is to sell.
Selling, results in more selling. This negative feedback loop usually results
in rapidly falling prices.' The market peaked six trading days later. The
'Flash Crash,' which temporarily reduced the Dow by 1,000 points, happened 14
trading days later.
As accurate as
the June, January, and April VIX signals were, the two sell signals that
occurred since QE2 was announced (September and October 2010) failed miserably.
Sector
Discrepancies
Looking at a
long-term chart, the S&P is short of reaching important Fibonacci and multi-decade
trend lines and a potential head and shoulders target. Market technicians like
myself, would like to see the S&P go higher before reversing meaningfully.
With the VIX at a 34-month low, this may or may not happen.
It seems even
the broad market is torn between bullish potential and bearish overtones. The
technology sector (NYSEArca: XLK - News) is in the process of reasserting itself
while the financial sector (NYSEArca: XLF - News) is trading near this year's low.
The new
recovery high in the Dow Jones Industrial Average is thus far unconfirmed by
the Dow Jones Transportation Average (NYSEArca: IYT - News), which is a negative according to Dow
Theory (this could be resolved soon though). The S&P 500 futures rallied to
a new 2-month high while the S&P 500 cash index did not.
Risk
Assessment in a Nutshell
At least two
technical chart formations suggest higher prices if we see a close above 1,340.
The VIX suggests not only elevated complacency but the potential for a
significant decline. Every decline below 15.5 for the VIX over the past 2 years
was followed by a quick 7 - 17% decline for stocks. On Thursday the VIX closed
at 14.69.
The positive
seasonality of April is dwindling away and the summer doldrums often start out
with the 'sell in May and go away' adage (that was certainly the case last
year).
In a nutshell,
the market appears to be at cross roads. To deal with it, stocks may continue
churning for a bit longer but will eventually break out one way or another.
Detecting the direction of the next big move early is key to capital protection
and trading/investment profits…’
Beijing detains Christian church members on Easter (AP)
Roadside bombs kill 3 NATO troops in Afghanistan (AP) - Roadside bombs killed three NATO service
members and a gunman shot dead a prominent local official in southern
Afghanistan, where thousands of Afghan and international troops are bracing for
an e...
Gold and silver
continue to surge Neil Dennis | Gold hit a record high,
while silver surged more than 5 per cent to within a whisker of its all-time
peak.
Don’t
Like a Weak Dollar? Might as Well Get Used to It CNBC.com
| Weakness in the US dollar, which is causing everything to go up.
British pound
devalues by 94% in 50yrs A new survey shows that the value of money in the
UK has dropped by 94 percent over the past 50 years, which means an 18-time
increase in retail prices.
All
those who were hoping global stock markets would surge tomorrow based on a
ridiculous rumor that China would revalue the CNY by 10% will have to wait.
National / World
Small
plane full of cocaine crashes in New Mexico lake A small planed loaded with
bundles of cocaine crashed into a lake in northern New Mexico on Sunday
morning, apparently killing all on board, according to the New Mexico State
Police.
Investigation: Government Ordered Cellphone Companies to Spy
on Users Paul Joseph Watson | Under federal law,
surveillance grid in place for 10 years.
American Hellholes The
Economic Collapse | The U.S. economy is slowly dying. The U.S. economy is dying and we are heading
for the next Great Depression. The talking heads in the mainstream media love
to spin the economic numbers around and around and they love to make it sound
like the economy is improving, but the truth is that it doesn’t take a genius
to see what is happening to the U.S. economic system.
ElBaradei urges ICC
trial of Bush Press TV | The so-called hunt for WMD in
Iraq yielded no results.
Drudgereport: RON PAUL: HE'S IN!
Killer Combo of High Gas, Food Prices at 'Key Tipping
Point'...
AAA Sees 18% Increase In
Roadside Calls For Drivers Out Of Gas...
$5.69 GALLON IN ORLANDO --
FOR REGULAR...
IMF: AGE OF AMERICA NEARS
END...
Dollar's Decline Speeds Up...
China planning to cut U.S.
reserves by two-thirds?
Gold and silver continue to
surge...
Reid's China junket sked kept
secret over 'security concerns'...
WASHPOST: If the
trip's so dangerous, why are senators spouses tagging along?
TRUMP: Obama Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues...
[ Talk about the pot calling the kettle black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn)
ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so
people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa mobster trump would pound the
undistinguished academically / athletically, Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a
killer, you’re a king’ in film noir melodramatic fashion which proved too much
for the more balanced and ‘chosen / favored’ elder brother trump who committed
suicide. The old man also required trump to go to prep / military / boarding
school where according to a classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in
his bed. ) vegetable garden in the same
manner as dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the
problem (total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested
sinkholes, jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an
interesting mental case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated
grandiose moods coupled with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively
read those hitler speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to
Ivana Trump) to severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory
disregard for and violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric
soundbite solutions to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25%
tariff on Chinese (actually including american goods made in China), drug money
laundering in his casinos, bribery, etc.
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison.
'Terrible student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie.,
bribery, money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss …
trump is total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade,
quite insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
SHOCK VIDEO: ANOTHER MCDONALDS BEATDOWN
Dad who broke up fight in
MCDONALD'S shot dead... A DAD-of-four who split up a fight in a McDonald’s
was shot dead moments after being told he wouldn’t see the morning.
Raymond Mitchell, 34, had only popped
into the restaurant to buy a hot chocolate.
But he apparently caused offence after
splitting up two men fighting in the queue.
One of them, who had several gold teeth,
shouted at Raymond: “You are gonna die tonight, you are not gonna see the
morning.”
The thug is then said to have phoned an
accomplice to fetch a gun, yelling into his mobile: “Bring me that thing.”
Raymond left the 24-hour McDonald’s but
was chased into a cul-de-sac. The gun was then delivered and Mr Mitchell was
beaten and pistol-whipped before being shot three times in an alley in Brixton,
South London, at 6.50am on Sunday. Raymond, nicknamed Brown, was taken to
hospital but died hours later.
One neighbour, who saw the shooting but
was too terrified to be named, said: “He was begging, literally begging for his
life. I didn’t dare look out my window in case they saw me. I heard them
laughing and swearing at him, calling him a ‘b***h’. I heard them laughing
afterwards as well.”
Raymond’s partner, who asked not to be
named, said: “I’m terrified. They’re still out there and they’ve not been
caught. I’ve been told how they were laughing, actually laughing after they
beat him and shot him. How could anybody do something like that?”
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
]
U.S.
role in Libyan conflict widens
(Washington Post) Buoyed by Obama’s deployment of armed drones and a
visit by Sen. John McCain, rebels expressed hope that increased support will
help turn the tide in the conflict. [ As if we didn’t see that coming! With
Iraq saying thanks, but no thanks to continued american ‘help’, despite defacto
bankruptcy of the nation, america’s looking for new war horizons. Now that ‘sounds
like a plan’! ‘Mission
creep’ feared in Libya campaign The National | US
maintains it will not send any ground troops into Libya. Libyan
War Gets Weird: Defending the Indefensible Even those who have studied for
years the criminal consolidation of this planet under the global
corporate-financier oligarchy may be noticing that the war in Libya is turning
into something new and unprecedented. Roberts:
Pentagon budget is the result of corruption Half a century ago, president
Dwight Eisenhower issued a warning to the American nation about growing
military industrial complexes being a threat to democracy, and now it seems as
though Eisenhower’s warning has become reality. US is the modern world’s
biggest military spender. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, a former Reagan
administration official and a columnist, shares his opinion on RT. Libya:
Increased Airstrikes, Ground Troops, Contractors, Civilians Killed, Deadly DU
Munitions – Can We Call This A War Yet? The globalist coalition refers to
it as ‘kinetic military action’, yet as more civilians are killed in NATO
bombings, and with experts adamant that deadly Depleted Uranium weapons are
being used by Western forces, the conflict in Libya looks a hell of a lot like
the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq all over again.]
The
U.S. dollar, no longer almighty [
Talk about understatements … and not just the dollar that’s not almighty in
pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america.
] (Washington Post) Amid talk of
deficits, investing gurus, such as Warren Buffett, are betting against the
dollar. [ Duh! Winning! (As per Charlie Sheen). But are they? I don’t think so
… Indeed, senile buffet had in the manner of a ‘lovefest’ expressed his
unbridled enthusiasm for favorable prospects for the u.s. economy. Yet, at this
rate, buffet et als won’t be declaring ‘mission accomplished’(as per dumbya
bush) and complete victory until loaves of bread are going for $100 a pop and
near everyone has stopped looking for those non-existent, fleeting, fleeing
jobs enabling them to declare near 100% employment. Indeed, such mundane
considerations worry buffet not … ‘cause the frauds on wall street got his back
… Why? … ‘cause he’s got their backs and shills for them in that homespun,
country bumpkin kind of way. And, with manipulated frauds as are ubiquitous on
wall street, reality impacts them … almost not at all. Suckers’
rally into the close to keep suckers suckered on really bad news : Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘4-21-11 And
here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is about to be mass revised by
everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation pressures: the Philadelphia
Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the lowest since
November 2010. ‘…natural resource plays provided an afternoon lift…’ … This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take
profits while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell
in May and go away! … ]
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog.. the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...]
Suckers’ rally into the close to keep suckers suckered on really bad
news : Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is
about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation
pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high)
to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010.
… sounds like a real pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt american
plan! ‘…natural resource plays provided an afternoon lift…’ …Riiiiight! You
can’t make this stuff up, you really can’t. How totally pathetic! … This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May and go away! … ]
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. . According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and
2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...'
Davis ‘… This is how we
pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get
anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is
no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all
of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING
FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘
.
Lawyer
charged with insider trading (Washington Post) [ Come on! Just enough for a
few headlines so people think they're actually doing something. They could (but
don't) bring a case as this or other wall street crime against a different wall
street liar (sic lawyer) / fraud in that corrupt sinkhole new york (metro, ie.,
jersey, conn., etc.) every single day and bearly touch the tip of the iceberg.
Is anybody foolish enough to think what goes on there is legitimate? Remember,
still no pros for the huge debacle / fraud precipitatin the last and continuing
economic / financial crisis. Chemist
charged with insider trading (WP) [ This
remains incredulous to me. Everyone but the big boys / frauds! The
frauds on wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined,
and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm . Looking
Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Davis ‘… This
is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to
get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). SEC:
Wachovia cheated investors (WP)
[ I truly can see decreasing the
apple weighting, and increasing the oracle (open office, etc.), google
(ubiquitous) weighting, but increasing dyingosaur microsoft weighting … I don't
think so … something's gone awry here that smacks of desperation and an attempt
to circumvent the visual effects on the nasdaq of a post-jobs apple, viz.,
over-priced apple sauce. Isn't that just like the frauds on wall street … to
pad the nasdaq bubble based on a 1-stock story, and manipulate when that
1-stock story falls to earth! April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … at the least a 'sell in May and go
away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' Adler ]
Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT
And here comes
the first indicator that Q2 GDP is about to be mass revised by everyone,
courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation pressures: the Philadelphia Fed
collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the lowest since
November 2010.
And here is
why even the Philly Fed admits “indicators suggest slower growth” – “The
survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of
current activity, decreased from 43.4 in March to 18.5 this month (see Chart).
The demand for manufactured goods, as measured by the current new orders index,
showed a similar slowing: The index fell 22 points, following seven
consecutive months of increase.
The shipments
index declined 6 points and remained at a relatively high level….A
majority of firms continue to cite price pressures, and a significant share of
firms reported higher prices for their own manufactured goods again this
month.” Translation: Wall Street Q2 GDP revisions coming en masse: the podium
is yours Jan Hatzius.
http://wallstcheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Philly-Fed-April1.jpg
Alas, as
companies are only starting to recall, inflation is sticky and takes far more
than 15 minutes to fix:
Firms
Report Higher Output Prices
Firms
continue to report price increases for inputs as well as their own manufactured
goods. The prices paid index declined 7 points this month but remains about 45
points higher than readings just seven months ago. Fifty?nine percent of the
firms reported higher prices for inputs this month, compared to 64 percent last
month. On balance, firms also reported an increase in prices for their own
manufactured goods: The prices received index increased 5 points and has
steadily increased over the last eight months. Thirty percent of firms reported
higher prices for their own goods this month; just 3 percent reported price
reductions.
http://wallstcheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Philly-Fed-April-Index2.jpg
Tyler
Durden is the founder of Zero Hedge.’
Clock
Still Ticking on Greece and Portugal Default Inflation Trader ‘The clock is
clearly ticking on Greece and Portugal’s default or severe restructuring, and
the clock seems to be speeding up. Yesterday Greek 10-year yields rose to
14.75% and 2-year yields soared past 22%. If you think Greece is not
going to default and force significant haircuts on its bondholders (including
the ECB), you have a great opportunity to buy a 22% note that will pay off at
par! Portuguese 10-years are at 9.28%; 2-years at 10.5% (see Chart below for
the 2yr, click to enlarge). The Irish 2y and 10y are both over 10% as
well.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/21/saupload_portublech.png
Portuguese,
Greek, 2y or 10y. It doesn't matter, they all look this bad. This happens to be
the Portuguese 2-year note yield.
This is starting
to be an all-the-king’s horses situation. With all the powers that can be
brought to bear on the problems, all of the ECB secondary market support, all
of the rescue packages and promised rescue packages – and even after Spain and
Portugal both successfully sold bonds overnight – these markets are in
free-fall.
One reason for
it is that investors are newly skeptical that the European Financial Stability
Facility, and its successor European Stability Mechanism, are going to work
because of one little design flaw: the fact that member countries must cough up
the dough. Well, make that two design flaws: member countries are by and large
democratic, and the ‘little people’ seem to object to coughing up the dough. We
saw the recent German election results, and the Finns this week gave a lot of
votes to a “euro-skeptic” protest party (although a Finnish friend of mine
thinks it is unlikely that party will end up as part of the ruling coalition).
Today, the
ruling party in Slovakia declared that it won’t support the creation of the
ESM, which means that two minority parties will need to form a coalition if
Slovakia is going to participate. The words of the ruling party’s chairman
resound:
We are here to defend interests of Slovak citizens,
not the interests of foreign banks, which have for a long time made profits on
high interest on loans to irresponsible countries.
Investors are gradually coming to realize that the
cacophony in Europe right now isn’t merely distracting, but destructive to the
notion of a unified eurozone. And that is causing them to separate the (German)
wheat from the (periphery) chaff when it comes to periphery markets. This may
ironically be good for the euro if only the periphery are jettisoned, but the
behavior of the euro bond markets look much like a film of the mid-1990s
“convergence trade” being run in reverse.
Having a bailout mechanism that requires consensus of
the members appears to be simply not workable. By contrast, the U.S. bailouts
do not require state approval, nor Federal approval. The Fed just prints the
money and voila! And so far, it has worked.
It has worked, that is, except for the fact that the
dollar’s downtrend periodically threatens to become disorderly. Yesterday the
greenback reversed the rest of Monday’s rally and went to new lows on the year.
It is challenging 2009’s low now. Partly as a consequence, commodities rallied
again yesterday, with NYMEX Crude Oil setting its second-highest close of the
year (above $111). Softs, Precious Metals, and Industrial Metals all rallied.
The dollar’s problems and the imminent shuttering of
the debt markets to Portugal and Greece didn’t impact the equity markets.
Stocks soared overnight and then traded sideways on light-to-medium volume
throughout the day. Supposedly this was due to Intel’s (INTC)
generous outlook in their earnings release Tuesday. I’ve never understood why
Intel’s earnings, or those of almost any other single company with the possible
exception of a megaconglomerate like GE, matter to the other 5000 stocks, but
this was the excuse. Stocks are back up near the 2011 highs again! I suspect
that we’ll need some actual good news, rather than scattered positive quarterly
earnings reports, to propel stocks much higher but to be honest I’m not sure why
they’re levitating now.
Bonds sold off slightly, with 10y nominal Treasuries
at 3.40% and the 10y TIPS at 0.78%. Today the Treasury auctions $14bln new 5y
TIPS at 11:30ET ahead of the early close and Good Friday holiday.[1] The new
TIPs will have a coupon of 0-1/8%, the lowest ever auctioned, and if they still
issued paper bonds I’d buy some just to frame for that reason. They’ll be
auctioned at a premium at that coupon, because the real yield will be
negative. It doesn’t light my fire unless and probably only unless your
alternative is the nominal Treasury note. The market needs inflation-linked
paper because of all of the money flowing into inflation-linked bond
strategies, but I think there’s a chance this one is sloppy and needs to be
cleaned up next week.
The economic data yesterday didn’t do much to push
the inflation outlook higher. Existing Home Sales were somewhat above
expectations (although, as with Housing Starts, the current level isn’t
impressive), but the inventory of existing homes rose slightly to 3.549mm
units. That implies CPI Shelter over the next 12 months should be expected to
be roughly +1.1%, all else being equal (see Chart, click to enlarge).
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/21/saupload_hafsshelt.png
Housing Inventory like this augurs something like
1.1% Shelter inflation in the year ahead.
All else, of course, is not equal
and this is a very simple regression. CPI Shelter could well be higher and
could possibly be lower. But if CPI for Shelter is only +1.1% over the next 12
months, it will be difficult for overall inflation to really blast off. Still,
if core CPI ex-Shelter continues to rise, it will still feel bad.
Today, we have another Initial Claims figure
(Consensus: 390k from 412k), with the consensus hoping…praying…that the jump
last week was an aberration. If we get another number around 400k-410k, bonds
might get a bid into the long weekend. Also today is the Philly Fed index
(Consensus: 36.4 vs 43.4), which should remain fairly strong, and some home
price data. As noted, it is also a short trading session (in the bond market).
I will write a comment after today’s session (or on Friday), but then I am out
of the country for a week and will not be writing commentary from the beach.
The next installment of this serial, after tomorrow, will be on or around May 2nd.
Happy Easter.
[1] SIFMA, the self-regulatory body that ‘recommends’
early closes and holidays for the bond market, made a decision in 2009 to
de-emphasize early closes and holidays. Oddly, although Good Friday isn’t
always a holiday (unlike Christmas) in the market, they’ve decided this year
that it should be even though they’re trying to make bond traders work harder.
I don’t understand why, but I’m grateful.’
The
Myth of 'Inflation Proof' Stocks
AAII
Sentiment Survey: Bullish Sentiment PLUNGES
Profit
Margin Squeeze and Inflation Risk
Oil Up, Dollar Down Reuters
| Factory activity in the Mid-Atlantic region fell in April.
US jobless
claims stick above 400,000 FT.com | The number of people
claiming unemployment benefit stayed above 400,000 for the second week in a
row.
Standard &
Poor’s Outlook for U.S. Karen De Coster | Three largest
rating companies failed to downgrade the obvious: failing insurance companies.
University
Of Texas Fund CEO Shares His Views On Gold, Explains Why He Took Delivery Of $1
Billion In The Precious Metal Over the weekend, University of Texas made
headlines after disclosing it was the first major institution to take delivery
of $1 billion in gold, although still keeping it in the Comex system.
$6
Gas? Could Happen if Dollar Keeps Getting Weaker A dollar plumbing
three-year lows is hitting Americans squarely in the gas tank, and one
economist thinks it could drive prices as high as $6 a gallon or more by
summertime under the right conditions.
National / World
Are You Scared Yet? Big Sis To Beam Terror Warnings To
Your iPhone Steve Watson | The government will tell
you when to stay indoors.
Easily Duped Islamists Demand Blind CIA Operative Be
Released from Prison Kurt Nimmo | The fact
Abdul-Rahman worked with U.S. and British intelligence should send up a red
flag for any self-respecting Islamist.
Lukashenko: Globalists Are Preparing To Strangle Belarus Paul
Joseph Watson | “They want to force us to be just like everybody
else….we will resist.”
Gingrich: Ben Bernanke Has “Done a Terrible Job” Real
Clear Politics | Newt Gingrich was very critical of Fed Chairman Ben
Bernanke.
‘Mission
creep’ feared in Libya campaign The National | US
maintains it will not send any ground troops into Libya.
Lukashenko:
Globalists Are Preparing To Strangle Belarus Belarusian President Alexander
Lukashenko warned today that the globalists were preparing to strangle his
country because of its refusal to join the new world order, with Belarus set to
become the latest target of the contrived “Arab Spring” riots as the NATO
powers further encircle Russia and China.
Are
You Scared Yet? Big Sis To Beam Terror Warnings To Your Iphone The
Department of Homeland Security is beefing up it’s terror alert warning system
in a move that will see terror alerts, whether real or phony, issued via the
mainstream media and directly to your phone or computer over social networking
sites, and possibly even via Emergency Alert broadcasts.
Silver
surge prompts conspiracy theorists In 1980 it was the Hunt brothers. In 1998
it was Warren Buffett. And in 2011? For anyone unversed in the history of the
silver market, those dates refer to market squeezes that caused surges in the
silver price. The talk among some conspiracy-minded traders and analysts is
that something similar could be happening today.
Silver
Surges Over $46.25/oz As Rumours Of A Short Squeeze And Cornering Market Gain
Credence Traders and technically minded investors are firmly focused on
silver’s record nominal high of $50.35/oz. Some with a longer term fundamental
focus continue to see silver in triple digits if it is to match the real record
highs of $130/oz seen in 1980.
Soros
Event Sets in Motion New Attacks on Dollar It’s been two weeks since George
Soros bought himself a major economic conference designed to remake the entire
global economy. Just because the event received little major news attention, it
still had an impact Americans might be reeling from for years.
Nanny State Gone Wild A
shocking acceleration of the nanny state in recent months confirms that the
government has launched a total takeover of society under the pretext of
keeping everyone safe, when in reality the move is a calculated coup d’état
against individuality and is designed to oppress and enslave the American
people.
Libyan
War Gets Weird: Defending the Indefensible Even those who have studied for
years the criminal consolidation of this planet under the global
corporate-financier oligarchy may be noticing that the war in Libya is turning
into something new and unprecedented.
10
Examples That Should Convince Anyone That We No Longer Live In The Land Of The
Free And The Home Of The Brave Do you know people that still believe that
America is a free country? Do you have friends or family that are proud to live
in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”? If you do, just show them
this article.
Oil
Crisis Just Got Real: Sinopec (Read China) Cuts Off Oil Exports As if a
dollar in freefall was not enough, surging oil is about to hit the turbo boost,
decimating what is left of the US (and global) consumer. Xinhua, via Energy
Daily, brings this stunner: ” Chinese oil giant Sinopec has stopped exporting
oil products to maintain domestic supplies amid disruption concerns caused by
Middle East unrest and Japan’s earthquake, a report said Wednesday.
Lies about the war on
Libya It has been said that truth is the first casualty of war. The Libyan
military operations and Resolution 1973, which functions as their legal basis,
are not an exception to the rule.
Drudgereport: Debt
Hits New High: $14.3 Trillion...
FOLLOWING
YOU: APPLE RECEIVES IPHONE LOCATIONS
Dollar
plunges to 2˝-year low...
NYTCBSNEWS
POLL: Nation's Mood Lowest in Years...
OIL
DRAMA CONTINUES...
Killing
Spring Breaks...
Obama
to investigate...Gold
Rallies to New Record for Fifth Straight Trading Session...
REPORT:
Man Kills Parents Over $5 in Gas Money...
CA's
Criminal Alien Population Leaps...
SUPPORTERS
HECKLE OBAMA: 'WHERE'S OUR CHANGE?'
Darling
Obama Becomes 'Snarling' Obama...
Dollar Continues Slide...
$6 GAS BY SUMMER?
Federal Borrowing on Pace to Hit
Debt Limit in Less Than Week...
CANTOR: No more borrowing without
major cuts, reforms...
OBAMA'S DEFICIT REDUCTION PLAN
'FALLS SHORT'
GOLD:
$1,500 FOR 1ST TIME...
China
warns US to protect creditors...
US
hurries to sell GM stake...
Agency/NASA loses (stolen) large
amounts of high-tech equipment; Vanished...
Calls GOP proposal 'radical'...
BOOK TO REVEAL OBAMA'S TRUE IDENTITY?
HITS #2 AMAZON... ' BOOK TO REVEAL OBAMA'S 'TRUE' IDENTITY?
Wed Apr 20 2011 10:35:52 ET
**Exclusive**
This year's high stakes publishing project quietly went to press this week, the
DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
After years of research and digging by the nation's top private investigators,
here it comes:
"WHERE'S THE BIRTH
CERTIFICATE? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President."
MORE
The street date is a LONG month away, and author Jerome Corsi, the man who
torpedoed John Kerry's presidential dreams with SWIFT BOAT, has gone
underground and is holding his new findings thisclose.
"It's utterly devastating," reveals a source close to the publisher.
"Obama may learn things he didn't even know about himself!"
MORE
Does Corsi definitively declare the location of Obama's birth?
Will the president's attorneys attempt to interfere with the book's
distribution? [The publisher vows to vigorously fight any legal action that may
be taken.]
Will the book finally -- once and for all -- put an end to the growing
controversy?
Or will it just ignite new ones!?
"When Donald Trump said he sent PIs to Hawaii to get to the bottom of all
this, he meant this book," declares an insider.
[THE CASE ranked #1,341 on AMAZON's
hitparade late Wednesday morning.]
Developing... '
U.S.
Credit Downgrade: A Game-Changer in Progress Alexandre 'We heard about the threat of a credit downgrade for an
extremely long time, but it never occurred, and we became somewhat complacent
about the issue. Now it’s here, although in its mildest form, and markets
reacted in unexpected ways.
With the exception for the Japanese yen, every major currency dropped on
the news that the S&P had downgraded the U.S.'s credit outlook from
positive to negative while maintaining the AAA rating. Certainly a downgrade
from the much-coveted high rating wouldn’t take place without a generous
warning, and the U.S. government deserved the “shot across the bow.” If nothing
else, the negative outlook is a wake-up call to get our fiscal house in order.
But one thing is certain: Market dynamics have changed.
[Click to enlarge]
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/19/765325-130325009045926-Carlos-X--Alexandre.png
U.S. Treasuries and the dollar rallied as if a celebration was taking
place, and at least two factors were in play. First, as a “carry trade”
currency, the dollar benefited from a knee-jerk reaction from short positions
in view of potential higher rates. But the second reason was less apparent:
Whether one likes it or not, the broad thinking goes that if the U.S. triple A
rating is in jeopardy, there’s no safety anywhere.
U.S. Credit Default Swaps jumped to 49.42 (priced in euros), a level
that is still lower than it was in late January, around the time when the
S&P downgraded Japan to AA- from AA. However, government debt continues to
escalate despite some well-touted yet meaningless spending reductions, which
are the equivalent of reducing an individual’s annual bread consumption by one
slice a year.
On the historical day when the U.S. received its first negative outlook
ever, what other countries in this global village joined the Credit Default
Swap sinking party? Just about everyone, as the table below demonstrates,
showing the eight highest increases on April 18, courtesy of CMA. Even China’s CDS cost went up 2.25% to
73.16. To varying degrees, this is a global disease.
Entity Name |
5 Yr Mid |
Change (%) |
Change (bps) |
CPD (%) |
United States of America |
49.42 |
+19.21 |
+7.96 |
4.30 |
Italy |
159.20 |
+10.97 |
+15.74 |
13.16 |
France |
78.60 |
+10.14 |
+7.23 |
6.80 |
Sweden |
27.19 |
+9.88 |
+2.44 |
2.40 |
Greece |
1332.06 |
+9.04 |
+110.43 |
65.76 |
Spain |
253.31 |
+8.70 |
+20.28 |
20.18 |
Austria |
67.13 |
+8.29 |
+5.14 |
5.82 |
Poland |
154.01 |
+8.20 |
+11.67 |
10.45 |
|
|
|
|
|
But before we jump up and down and start saying “I told you so” about
the upcoming American meltdown, please be mindful that if such an event was to
occur, the reverberations would be felt around the globe. The so called
“American Empire” would be the first climber on the side of a steep cliff to
fall, dragging every other climber attached to the same rope. And that is what
the markets told us.
The quantity of debt by itself does not establish risk. It’s the ability
to service the debt that raises eyebrows, and the U.S. has a trump card that is
mostly absent in other countries, especially at this juncture. As economically
hurtful and as unwelcome as it will be, the U.S. has the ability and the room
to raise taxes. Although we wish that our government was an efficient
enterprise, it is still less of a burden on society than in the majority of
other countries.
The influence of the dollar goes well beyond the reserve status, and in
addition to the perceived and largely accepted safety status, global economies
have developed with the dollar as its foundation.
Could it change? Certainly, but the currency cannot be abandoned without
repercussions, and simplistic views that America is doomed and everyone else
will rise are just that: Simplistic.
A Reuters
article gathered a few opinions:
"One of the reasons why the U.S. dollar is still the reserve
currency is the lack of other options, and in two years there may still be no
other options," said Tom Simons, a money market economist at Jefferies
& Co. in New York. If the dollar did weaken, it could boosts export sales
of U.S. manufacturers, but also put upward pressure on inflation by making
imports more expensive.
"While still a remote risk, the possibility of the U.S. losing its
AAA rating could result in a wholesale abandonment of dollar assets and would
potentially destabilize the entire global economy," said Omer Esiner,
chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington.
Raising taxes and reducing spending to resolve our government’s debt
issues does not happen in a vacuum. Real people with real lives are directly
affected by both tactics, and that is the reason why the solution to our
financial ills will trigger unpopular side effects – no “ifs” or “buts” about
it.
It’s a no-brainer: Lower government spending and higher taxes cut
directly into consumption that will affect private companies and real people.
And the global community is not immune, either. Politicians are now under the
gun to implement both approaches, and "headline-pleasing" moves are
no longer an option. All the S&P did was to get the race going by starting
the stopwatch.
Mark Hulbert wrote an article for MarketWatch
which started by saying, “Here’s another entry for 'Ripley’s Believe It Or
Not',” referring to the fall in treasury yields after the S&P downgrade.
This comes as such a surprise because, other things being equal, a
ratings downgrade should lead investors into demanding higher yields to
compensate them for the greater risk of default.
But “other things” are not equal, and simplistic linear analysis hardly
holds the answer. The markets are still digesting the current situation, and
players are formulating strategies without the benefit of a historical point of
reference -- although some will yank some parallels that will prove of little
help in this framework. The dollar resumed its fall the day after and
treasuries still rose, providing lower yields while US CDS dropped a bit to
47.43. Lastly, there is no other security as big and as liquid as U.S.
Treasuries.
Time to rethink investment strategies, especially for long-term
investors.'
[$$]
Watch for the Next Moment of Weakness
Greenback
Reverses Gains Boosting Commodities and TIPs
Drudgereport:
Dollar Continues Slide...
$6 GAS BY SUMMER?
Federal Borrowing on Pace to Hit
Debt Limit in Less Than Week...
Renewed
Recession, Housing Bottom, and the Faux Chinese Luxury Bubble Adler,
Winter, Krowne ' The Wall Street
Examiner’s Lee Adler, Russ Winter of Winter Watch, and
Aaron Krowne of the Mortgage Lender
Implode-o-meter focus their discussion this week on whether the data
pointing to continued recovery are real or illusory, whether a housing bottom
is in, signs of collapse in the luxury bubble, and the Fed being caught between
a rock and a hard place.
Here’s what we covered
in Part 1:
· Corporate
income taxes are weak but better than our last look
·
Consumer Metrics
show renewed recession, weak retail
·
Uptick in house
listing prices points to interest rate and housing price bubble … technical outlook says final top approaching
...'
Here’s
Why Existing Home Sales Were Up in March wallstcheatsheet '... Noteworthy
Stats: Distressed homes – typically sold at discounts in the vicinity of 20 percent
– accounted for a 40 percent market share in March, up from 39 percent in
February and 35 percent in March 2010
...'
Short-Term,
High-Probability Mean-Reversion Indicator: TBT Moves Into an Extreme State
Crowder 'It has been a strange few weeks in the market.
We had several trading days of strong resistance in the S&P 500 (SPY) and have basically sold off
since the beginning of earnings season. Is it me, or does the market almost
seems too predictable at the moment.
Will the market truly be this simple to predict over the coming months?
I am certainly not claiming to have the magic crystal ball, but at the
moment, the market just feels heavy and tired.
With the old Wall Street adage about to grace us with its seasonal
presence, I feel like we have seen the highs for a while. I expect to see a
decent decline during the summer doldrums, which I think will offer a very good
buying opportunity over the long-term. We could see a few gaps close that were
created months ago. I to plan to discuss the gaps in an upcoming weekly
newsletter edition stay tuned. There just isn’t enough room here.
However, I am not overly concerned with the long-term, at least in my
strategy. I only want to take advantage of short-term high-probability set-ups
created by a variety of extremes in the market.
This is one of the reasons that led me to options. Options, when used in
the proper way, allow you to profit from bullish, bearish or sideways price
action. It truly doesn’t matter.
Over the coming months, in my free weekly newsletter, I plan to speak
more about various options strategies and how to apply them to current market
conditions.
Believe me, I have a few favorites, including credit spreads, iron
condors and other premium selling strategies that I often use with my favorite
strategy – the HP-MR strategy.
Short-Term High-Probability, Mean-Reversion Indicator – as of close
4/19/11
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/20/saupload_4_19_20_hpmr.png '
Standard &
Poor’s Outlook for U.S. Karen De Coster | Three largest
rating companies failed to downgrade the obvious: failing insurance companies.
Total
US Debt Now Officially Above The Ceiling Zero Hedge
Max
Keiser Documentary On Irish Eco Hell Max Keiser, in his typical engaging
and florid style, has released the first part of a documentary focusing on
economic collapse hotspots offshore.
The
Fed Is Not There To Solve Your Problem Many banks are insolvent, yet are
allowed to stay in business. Being allowed to keep two sets of books is
obscuring their real estate loan problems.
Jim
Rogers Comments On Triple Digit Silver And Issues Warning: “Parabolic Moves
Always Collapse” Jim Rogers commented on the recent move by the University
of Texas to take delivery of $1 billion in gold, saying the decision is long
overdue, and has only occurred because everyone else is now buying thereby
taking metal out of circulation.
National / World
Missing
Records in Hawaii, Missing Records in Kenya, Missing Records in Indonesia Drudge
Report | Book to reveal Obama’s true identity?
Study
Reveals Eco Bulbs Cause Cancer Paul Joseph Watson |
Americans will be forced to use CFLs that contain poisonous carcinogens after
government ban on traditional light bulb begins to take effect in January.
Government
Orders Expedited Printing of Detainee Handbook Kurt Nimmo
| Considering the history of FEMA and the government, it does not take a lot of
imagination to speculate on the contents of the handbook.
Censored
Video: Alex Jones Joins the New World Order The Alex Jones Channel
| The pressure has finally got to Alex.
Damning
New Study: Eco Bulbs Cause Cancer A damning new study conducted by German
scientists has found that so-called energy saving light bulbs contain poisonous
carcinogens that could cause cancer and should be “kept as far away as possible
from the human environment,” but Americans will be forced to replace their
traditional light bulbs with toxic CFLs ahead of a government ban set to take
effect at the start of next year.
Cesium
137 Threat Grows While Corporate Media Remains Mute The hereditary
communist dictatorship in North Korea reports on the spread of radiation from
the Fukushima nuclear plant, but it has all but fallen off the corporate media
radar screen here. Monitoring stations across North Korea from April 11 to 17
detected iodine-131 and cesium-137 in the air above Wonsan in the southeast and
Chongjin in the southeast, according to the country’s state-run media.
Book
To Reveal Obama’s True Identity? The street date is a LONG month away, and
author Jerome Corsi, the man who torpedoed John Kerry’s presidential dreams
with SWIFT BOAT, has gone underground and is holding his new findings
thisclose. “It’s utterly devastating,” reveals a source close to the publisher.
“Obama may learn things he didn’t even know about himself!”
iPhone
Keeps Record of Everywhere You Go Security researchers have discovered that
Apple’s iPhone keeps track of where you go – and saves every detail of it to a
secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner’s computer when the
two are synchronised.
Libya
Proxy Cold War Between China & West? Many share the opinion that
Washington is pursuing a larger goal than just regime change across the Arab
world. RT crosses live to Brazil to speak to Asia Times correspondent – Pepe
Escobar – about the role some countries are playing in the uprisings.
Libyan
Rebels Fighting the Globalists’ War As the global corporate-financier
oligarchs prepare the way rhetorically and logistically to send in the ground
troops we were told would never set foot on Libyan soil, in a war that was only
to last days, then weeks, but now over a month, the discernment, ambition, and
true intentions of the Libyan rebels must be called into question.
Censored
Video: Alex Jones Joins the New World Order The pressure has finally got to
Alex. He has decided to implement a new “Employee Meal Plan”. Watch as he and
crew use absurdity to point out the absurd with the current federal nanny
state.
Drudgereport:
Dollar Continues Slide...
$6 GAS BY SUMMER?
Federal Borrowing on Pace to Hit
Debt Limit in Less Than Week...
CANTOR: No more borrowing without
major cuts, reforms...
OBAMA'S DEFICIT REDUCTION PLAN
'FALLS SHORT'
Agency/NASA loses (stolen) large
amounts of high-tech equipment; Vanished...
Calls GOP proposal 'radical'...
BOOK TO REVEAL OBAMA'S TRUE IDENTITY?
HITS #2 AMAZON... ' BOOK TO REVEAL OBAMA'S 'TRUE' IDENTITY?
Wed Apr 20 2011 10:35:52 ET
**Exclusive**
This year's high stakes publishing project quietly went to press this week, the
DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
After years of research and digging by the nation's top private investigators,
here it comes:
"WHERE'S THE BIRTH
CERTIFICATE? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President."
MORE
The street date is a LONG month away, and author Jerome Corsi, the man who
torpedoed John Kerry's presidential dreams with SWIFT BOAT, has gone
underground and is holding his new findings thisclose.
"It's utterly devastating," reveals a source close to the publisher.
"Obama may learn things he didn't even know about himself!"
MORE
Does Corsi definitively declare the location of Obama's birth?
Will the president's attorneys attempt to interfere with the book's
distribution? [The publisher vows to vigorously fight any legal action that may
be taken.]
Will the book finally -- once and for all -- put an end to the growing
controversy?
Or will it just ignite new ones!?
"When Donald Trump said he sent PIs to Hawaii to get to the bottom of all
this, he meant this book," declares an insider.
[THE CASE ranked #1,341 on AMAZON's
hitparade late Wednesday morning.]
Developing... '
Obama
faces fundraising test in California
(Washington Post) [ Test? You mean intelligence test for those
Californians? A cliché, aphorism is apposite: ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool
me twice, shame on me’. Now frauds on wall street got value for their bribes;
viz., no prosecution of their continuing nation-destroying frauds, yet cleaning
up the frauds with prosecutions was the presumption upon which their support was predicated , at least in part.
Certainly Hollywood spoke with their academy award for ‘Inside Job’ . Roche 'The
worst part of it ...Obama, who vowed
change, has done almost nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues most of
the policies that helped get us here in the first place’ ‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for
Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by
the frauds on wall street ( and declares with oscar in hand that not one high
level wall street exec has been prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from
the fraud ), the commentator / experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt
eric holder ( what do holder and wobama have in common … wall street money? … a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ?...all/some of the above … or is it something else
... . UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
| Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. I mean, what can he do for the siliconeheads? … act like some communist country and buy
their sh**ty, unreliable, dysfunctional technology? ] The president will woo big-money donors this
week in California in the first test of whether he can renew support from the
entertainment and high-tech industries that helped him win in 2008. There have
been some signs that fervor for Obama in Hollywood and Silicon Valley has
ebbed.
S&P
unmoved by U.S. entreaties
(Washington Post) [ You really have to shake your head and wonder … The
audacity, given the blatantly precarious (I'm being euphemistically kind) state
of u.s. finances; viz., defacto bankruptcy. You have to give Standard &
Poor’s credit here for not succumbing to the schmooze among fairly presumed
other pressures; particularly from the ultimate, stereotypically fitting
jive-talker, 'wobama the b' (for b*** s***). If anything, they should be
faulted for being remiss in not so doing much earlier. Indeed, most financially
attuned individuals, including yours truly have as Atlas, shrugged and with a
yawn say, tell us something we don't know. Well, I will tell people now what
they don't want to know; namely, they're just not going to get it done! It's
all too little, too late. Moreover, absent prosecution, fines, jail and
disgorgement first from the (continuing, complicit) frauds on wall street, it
should not be done. It should be noted that very smart money, PIMCO, already
sold off there once very large stake in u.s. treasuries. ] Obama
looks to reassure on debt [ Come on! Who'd be foolish enough to believe
anything 'wobama the b' (for b*** s***) says? ] So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on
which the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation
situation as a few years ago … nothing fixed ...'
High oil / IBM worthless dollar (currency translation) rally … sounds
like a real pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt american plan! [ YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM
] :‘…natural resource plays
provided an afternoon lift…’ …Riiiiight!
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial criminals
have been prosecuted. http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. . According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
The only time the markets have been more overvalued was a few brief months in
1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble
...
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
Afghan
veteran is called elsewhere
(Washington Post) [ Is Mr. Jaffe
dreaming here? Indeed, in looking away from the headline momentarily the image
persisted and the latter part of the sentence became ‘he leaves with depth of
experience few can DREAM OF’. Yes, dream, as in nightmare; as in death,
destruction, pillaging and plundering for no good reason at all. I’ve
previously said that beginning with clinton and on, all honorable, capable
military brass either resigned or retired. Make no mistake, if large scale
heroin production / distribution is the experience alluded to, then that
otherwise preposterous statement would ring true. The Afghanistan campaign is
unequivocally a disastrous self-destructive, nation bankrupting conflict for
Afghanistan and the respective defacto bankrupt nato members. ! This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm . Looking
Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Davis ‘…
This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply
happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global
GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of
unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is
to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn
worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to
spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). In sum, who’d want to match or
emulate that ‘depth of experience’. After all, how low can you go? Over the past decade, the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayerswell
over a trillion dollars.
So what have we gotten in return for a trillion dollars?
In Afghanistan, we haven’t even found the one man we supposedly went
there to look for – Osama Bin Laden… set up a good form of government, right?
Oh yeah, we set up a really wonderful
government. For example, they recently arrested a one-legged Afghan Red
Cross worker and sentenced him to death for
converting to Christianity…
The same thing is true in Iraq. Yeah, we may have gotten rid of
Saddam, but the nation is now in far worse shape than before we went in…’ The
End Of An Empire And The Beginning Of A Depression
Since the end ofWorld War 2, the United States
has been the leading military power and the leading economic power on the
entire globe. Those days are done! By The
American Dream These are a far cry
from the brightest bulbs on the planet. ]
As Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez departs theater, he leaves with depth of
experience few can match.
Loan
Sharks Rejoice - Greece 2-Year Notes at 20% !
[video]Trader:
S&P Downgrade A Game Changer NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Ben Willis of
Sunrise Securities is rethinking his portfolio after the downgrade from
S&P.
Infographic:
Easiest Way to Fix a Windows, Mac, or Linux Computer [ Yeah! ‘american
technology’ (not really american anymore and that’s the positive, value-part of
the equation) is really all that bad / overrated / overvalued. I believe most
are afraid to admit that owing to an insecure fear that they’ll be pegged as
among the ranks of the ubiquitous ‘computer illiterate’ (beyond the bells and
whistles interface). But such is foolishness because ‘american technology’ is
all that … BAD. …Really … bad news … kind of in the realm of that brilliant GM
strategy of ‘planned obsolescence’ so they’d sell more cars as you’d need new
cars to replace the shoddy old cars … sounds like … a defacto bankrupt american plan! Yet, fraud’s become
pervasively corrupt america’s strongest suit. Day in, day out on wall street,
that’s really what it is in the final analysis; viz., a huge,
government-protected (through bribes, one way or another, and that ‘insecurity
thing’ concerning their finance / economics illiteracy) foisted scam / fraud. I
surprised these ‘american companies’ are still in business … including
intel (they’re all wintel machines now,
and they should know better). ]
Interest
on National Debt is Biggest Projected Problem, Not Healthcare
Standard &
Poor’s Outlook for U.S. Karen De Coster | Three largest rating companies failed to downgrade
the obvious: failing insurance companies.
Total
US Debt Now Officially Above The Ceiling Zero Hedge
Rand
Paul: Spending cuts must include Pentagon Washington
Times | Military spending
will have to be cut if the country is going to get its debt problems under
control.
National / World
Drudgereport: Debt
Hits New High: $14.3 Trillion...
GOLD:
$1,500 FOR 1ST TIME...
China
warns US to protect creditors...
US
hurries to sell GM stake...
More
than $11B loss for taxpayers...
Brits
join ground fight in Libya...
Military
advisers to aid rebels...
Iran
Considering Crackdown on Dog Ownership...[ I once had the
unfortunate occasion to have witnessed an adult, pedigree german shepard take a
dump on the floor and lap it up like it was the greatest, most delicious treat
in all the world … how totally disgusting … a cat would never, never do that! ]
The
American Dream 4-16-11 'Since the end of
World War 2, the United States has been the leading military power and the
leading economic power on the entire globe. The U.S. has had the largest
economy in the history of the world, the U.S. dollar has been used by nearly
all of the nations on earth as a reserve currency and the U.S. military has had
a physical presence in most of the countries on the planet. Today, the
U.S. military is in approximately 130 different nations and it has a total of
about 700 military bases around the world. But just like the Roman
Empire, the U.S. empire has become overextended and it is starting to
decline. Most of our politicians believe that we can continue to “police
the world” and project our power to every corner of the globe, but the more we
meddle the more the rest of the world hates us and the worse our financial
problems get. America is now swamped with debts and our influence is
fading. The truth is that what we are witnessing is the end of an empire
and the beginning of a depression.
Over the past decade,
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayerswell over a trillion dollars.
So what have we gotten
in return for a trillion dollars?
In Afghanistan, we
haven’t even found the one man we supposedly went there to look for – Osama Bin
Laden. ..
But at least we got rid
of the Taliban and set up a good form of government, right?
Oh yeah, we set up
a really wonderful government. For example, they
recently arrested a one-legged Afghan Red Cross worker and sentenced him to
death for
converting to Christianity.
Fortunately there was
enough of an international outcry that Said Musa was not hung, but the fact
that the Afghan government wanted to string him up is enough to show that we
have completely failed over there.
The same thing is true
in Iraq. Yeah, we may have gotten rid of Saddam, but the nation is now in
far worse shape than before we went in.
Before the war
Christians felt safe in Iraq. Now large numbers of them are fleeing Iraq
as fast as they can. More than 80 Iraqi Christians were recently
beheaded on
a single day. All the Christians were trying to do was attend a
church service...
Robinson:
Take Donald Trump seriously (Washington Post) [
Riiiiight! For Mr. Robinson an oft times wobama apologist whom I have
invariably found to be but a disingenuous shill for what could be described in
the absence of a better term, the black lobby, a trump candidacy would be a
dream come true. Drudgereport: RASMUSSEN:
Obama 49% Trump 34%... Yet, where is the objective analysis of
wobama's betrayal of that very block among others, yet, you know, based on skin
color alone, they will vote for wobama.
Indeed, it is an inconvenient truth that I have found blacks to be as
racially prejudiced based on skin color alone as any other race. UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
| Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. Cohen:
Donald Trump, the comeback huckster (WP) [On the other hand is the zionist shill
Mr. Cohen who in his startling revelation states 'back in 1990, Ivana Trump
told her divorce lawyer Michael Kennedy that “from time to time, her husband
[Donald Trump] reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, ‘My New Order,’
which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed.” This information, which comes from a
startling 1990 Vanity Fair profile of Trump …' . I must say that beyond his
corrupt, mob related / type activities detailed on my web site, trump was
'naziish' in his dog-pack, bully mentality (sinkholes jersey/new
yorkster). Certainly Steve Wynn who now
successfully does business in Macau / Vegas can attest to same. To be sure,
trump is a mental case … but, so is wobama … but, then again, mental illness is
rife in pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless, defacto bankrupt
america.
Roche
'The worst part of it ...Obama, who
vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues
most of the policies that helped get us here in the first place’ ‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for
Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by
the frauds on wall street ( and declares with oscar in hand that not one high
level wall street exec has been prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from
the fraud ), the commentator / experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt
eric holder ( what do holder and wobama have in common … wall street money? … a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ?...all/some of the above … or is it something else
... ]
[Suckers'
rally into the close off lows for no reason at all but to keep the suckers
suckered. But this tact, and the not good news is not news which though true
for quite some time, has been conveniently ignored by the frauds on wall
street: YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM] '...sell-off came as a culmination of concerns stemming
from speculation about debt restructuring for less fiscally responsible
eurozone nations like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal and news that analysts at
S&P lowered their outlook on U.S. debt to Negative...']
Lawmakers
seize on S&P outlook (Washington Post) [ Ah! So reassuring! I
mean, come on! There's no mystery here. I'd even say at this point the u.s.
debt has become an insurmountable problem having come in the form of too
little, too late. Budget
passes, but conservatives let down (Washington Post) The compromise touted as
cutting $38.5 billion would actually only cut $352 million this fiscal year, an
analysis says. While that didn’t prevent the budget from passing, it could sour
some Republicans. [ Come on! This 'budget deal' was a
showboating scam ab initio … Davis gets this right: Davis ‘… This is how
we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get
anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is
no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all
of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE
CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘ .
Obama
seeks spending cuts, taxes on wealthy (WP) [
Too little, too late for 'wobama the b'
(for b*** s***) ! After all, though contraindicated, he previously extended the
war criminal, moron bush tax cuts to what is now realistically perceived as
'their base' (that top 1 percent). Wobama has no credibility whatsoever, wars
and all. He's just plain done! Liberals
worry Obama has given up ground (WP) [ Worried? Given up ground? Are they kidding?
Is this some parallel universe they're operating in? Come on! Wake up! Wobama's
done! Finito! He's been and is an abject failure as president; both by what
he's done as not promised and not done as promised, viz., perpetual wars and
overspending, etc., and no prosecutions of the frauds on wall street, etc.,
respectively. He is a total failure and an embarrassment to the presidency as
was his predecessor. He's totally incompetent with an innate predilection to
'zig when he should zag' … 'wobama the b' (for b*** s***) is pathetic! Quite
simply, for wobama, it's too late! …
Drudgereport: RASMUSSEN:
President hits new low Taxpayers
foot $850M bill for Wall St.’s pension fees NY
Post | New
York City taxpayers are helping to pay $850 million in Wall Street investment
fees. ]
Suckers'
rally into the close off lows for no reason at all but to keep the suckers
suckered. But this tact, and the not good news is not news which though true
for quite some time, has been conveniently ignored by the frauds on wall
street: YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]
'...sell-off came as a culmination of concerns
stemming from speculation about debt restructuring for less fiscally
responsible eurozone nations like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal and news that
analysts at S&P lowered their outlook on U.S. debt to Negative...'
Reality
Bites: Dave's Daily 'First, why
do we depend on these fee-conflicted rating agencies who have dropped the ball
repeatedly? Answer: because there are no other non-fee conflicted rating
(ratting?) agencies that have also made serious mistakes. Is there something
from S&P today regarding U.S. debt we didn't already know? Hardly, so no
Black Swan here. We've just been on an "extend and pretend" path to
see how much money we can make before "the you know what" hits the
fan. And, for all we know denial will continue and we could close this week
higher as we shrug this off as something "down the road". As we enter
a short week, and with markets already weak from the get-go, the S&P
outlook for U.S. debt as "negative" blind-sided investors. Markets
sold-off sharply but then recovered much of the damage late which should
surprise given the pervasive dip buying mentality. Bonds initially sold-off
then rallied (the down the road mentality) while commodities were mixed with
energy falling despite a cut in crude oil output by the Saudis while precious
metals and grains higher. The dollar rallied off its critical support as
investor's repatriated money, not necessarily to safe parking, but maybe to
cover some margin calls. Some believe, and I have no credible information on
this other than chatter, the Fed is selling puts on U.S. debt to pin interest
rates lower. That's an interesting strategy and could consume an entire posting
and then some. Earnings were posted for Citigroup(C_)
and given all the adjustments, accounting games and what not, reported lower
than expected revenues but beat earnings expectations by penny. The stock was
flat and the reverse split will be coming shortly along with the symbolic penny
dividend. The market remains extraordinarily manipulated. Note the headline
DJIA ("the window dressing for the tourists") reclaimed the 50-day
moving average. Volume was much higher on the sell-off as stops routinely get
hit on these event-type days. As you would expect, breadth per the WSJ, was clearly
as negative as you would expect. '
Gannett's
newspaper ad woes drag down 1Q earnings (AP) [ My experience with them
is such that they should be out of business! ]
S&P
threatens to cut U.S. credit rating on deficit (Reuters)
Super
rich see federal taxes drop dramatically (AP)
Wall
Street falls on sovereign fears (Reuters)
- S&P
threatens to cut U.S. credit rating on deficit (Reuters) - Citi
profit sags as revenue shrinks, expenses grow (Reuters) - Texas
Instruments misses forecasts, blames Japan (Reuters) - Eliot Spitzer
Wants Attorney General Eric Holder To Prosecute Goldman Sachs Right This Second - America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted.
The
End Of An Empire And The Beginning Of A Depression
Since the end ofWorld War 2, the United States
has been the leading military power and the leading economic power on the
entire globe. Those days are done!
The
American Dream April 16, 2011 'Since the
end of World War 2, the United States has been the leading military power and
the leading economic power on the entire globe. The U.S. has had the
largest economy in the history of the world, the U.S. dollar has been used by
nearly all of the nations on earth as a reserve currency and the U.S. military
has had a physical presence in most of the countries on the planet.
Today, the U.S. military is in approximately 130 different nations and it has a
total of about 700 military bases around the world. But just like the
Roman Empire, the U.S. empire has become overextended and it is starting to
decline. Most of our politicians believe that we can continue to “police
the world” and project our power to every corner of the globe, but the more we
meddle the more the rest of the world hates us and the worse our financial
problems get. America is now swamped with debts and our influence is
fading. The truth is that what we are witnessing is the end of an empire
and the beginning of a depression.
Over the past decade, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S.
taxpayerswell over a trillion dollars.
So what have we gotten in return for a trillion dollars?
In Afghanistan, we haven’t even found the one man we supposedly went
there to look for – Osama Bin Laden. It defies comprehension how a man
with a really bad kidney disease can hide in caves and evade the most powerful
military on earth for nearly a decade.
But at least we got rid of the Taliban and set up a good form of
government, right?
Oh yeah, we set up a really wonderful
government. For example, they recently arrested a one-legged Afghan Red
Cross worker and sentenced him to death for
converting to Christianity.
Fortunately there was enough of an international outcry that Said Musa
was not hung, but the fact that the Afghan government wanted to string him up
is enough to show that we have completely failed over there.
The same thing is true in Iraq. Yeah, we may have gotten rid of
Saddam, but the nation is now in far worse shape than before we went in.
Before the war Christians felt safe in Iraq. Now large numbers of
them are fleeing Iraq as fast as they can. More than 80 Iraqi Christians
were recently beheaded on
a single day. All the Christians were trying to do was attend a
church service.
Now we are involved in a third war in the Middle East. Even though
Libya was no threat to the United States, Obama felt compelled to stick our
nose into a chaotic civil war.
Now it looks like our involvement in Libya could last for a very, very
long time.
In a joint op-ed piece in
the New York Times, Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy
declared that NATO military operations in Libya will not end until there is a
regime change….
However, so long as Qaddafi is in power, NATO must maintain its
operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime
builds. Then a genuine transition from dictatorship to an inclusive
constitutional process can really begin, led by a new generation of leaders. In
order for that transition to succeed, Qaddafi must go and go for good.
So exactly who are we “helping” in Libya?
It turns out that we are providing “air cover” for many of the same
people who were shooting at our troops in Iraq.
Yes, you read the correctly.
According to The
Telegraph, the leader of the Libyan rebels is even admitting that his
“troops” include jihadists that were firing bullets at U.S. troops in Iraq….
Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who
fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle
against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
What type of government do you think they are going to set up once this
is over?
And all of this meddling is turning the rest of the world against us in
a big way.
Most Americans don’t realize just how much hatred there is for America
in the rest of the world. There are millions upon millions of people out
there that now hate us with every fiber of their beings, and every time we bomb
someone else world opinion turns against us even more.
Sadly, our meddling goes well beyond the three wars we are currently
fighting. The truth is that the U.S. military is actively “conducting
operations” in dozens of different countries.
For example, most Americans don’t even realize what the U.S. is doing in
Pakistan.
How would you like it if a foreign power was conducting missile attacks
inside the United States over the objections of our national leaders?
Well, that is what we are doing in Pakistan and we are going to continue
even though Pakistani officials are adamantly objecting.
According
to AFP, the CIA intends to continue conducting operations in Pakistan no
matter what the Pakistani government says….
The Central Intelligence Agency has no plans to suspend “operations” in
Pakistan against terror suspects despite objections from leaders in Islamabad,
a US official said Thursday.
This approach to foreign policy is absolutely foolish. Attempting
to have an “iron grip” on the rest of the world is only going to cause the rest
of the world to deeply hate us and deeply resent us. We like to think of
ourselves as “do gooders” but most of the rest of the world considers us to be
tyrannical. Eventually the rest of the world will lash out at us.
In addition, maintaining our vast empire is bankrupting us.
As I have written about previously, U.S.
military spending is wildly out of control. The truth is that U.S.
military spending is
greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the
rest of NATO combined.
The United States already accounts for 46.5%
of all military spending in the world. China is next with only 6.6%.
Just one day of the war in Afghanistan costs
more money than it took to build the entire Pentagon.
So will reducing military spending solve all of our financial problems?
Of course not.
In fact, if you eliminated every penny of military spending we would
still have a gigantic budget deficit.
And that is another reason why our empire is dying.
The United States has the biggest debt
problem in the history of the world.
Right now the U.S. government is over 14 trillion dollars in debt.
Our debt is increasing by over 2 million dollars every single minute.
Our politicians are running up the national credit card as if there will
never be any consequences.
But a very serious day of reckoning is coming, and when it arrives the
rest of the world is not going to be in the mood to help us.
It is being projected that by 2021, the U.S. will be paying $1.1
trillion a year just in interest on the national debt.
So how big is a trillion dollars?
Well, if you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million
dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent a trillion
dollars by now.
Our national debt is now at a tipping point. A recently revised
IMF policy paper entitled “An Analysis of
U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?” projects
that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year
2050.
So what are our politicians doing about it?
Nothing.
During the last election, the Republicans made a “pledge” to the
American people to cut $100 billion from the 2011 budget if they were elected.
Then once they got in they told us that $61 billion would be enough.
Then John Boehner gave in and agreed to cut the 2011 budget by only
$38.5 billion.
Well, now it turns out that even the $38.5 billion figure was not even
real.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the “budget deal” will
only slash $352 million (with an “m”) from the 2011 budget.
That is less than one percent of the $38.5 billion figure that was
announced.
No wonder so many Tea Party activists are now declaring that John
Boehner must go.
In the end, our politicians do not intend to do anything about our
runaway debt.
The Democrats will shut down the government rather than allow serious
cuts to social programs or entitlements.
The Republicans will never allow serious cuts to the military and they
are pushing for even more tax cuts.
So how in the world is U.S. government debt ever going to be brought
under control?
The sad news is that it is not going to be. It is just a matter of
time before a great U.S. debt crisis strikes.
But the U.S. is not the only one with a debt crisis.
The European
debt crisis just seems to get worse with each passing month. The
bonds of several European nations have been significantly downgraded in recent
weeks.
According to the
Wall Street Journal, Moody’s actually downgraded Irish debt by two levels on
Friday….
Moody’s Investors Service Inc. downgraded Ireland’s government debt by
two notches Friday, taking the country to the brink of junk status, and kept
its outlook negative.
Things are getting scary.
Bond yields all over Europe are going through the roof.
A year ago, the yield on 10-year Portuguese bonds was hovering around
5%. On Friday it reached 9.0%.
A year ago, the yield on 10-year Irish bonds was also generally in the
neighborhood of 5%. On Friday it closed at 9.7%.
But that is nothing compared to what is happening to Greek debt.
On Friday, the yield on 10-year Greek bonds skyrocketed to an astounding 13.83%.
Yes, a depression is getting a little bit closer every single day.
Things don’t look good in Asia either. Prior to the recent
tsunami, the Japanese
economy was the third largest economy on the entire globe.
But there are now very serious questions about whether or not Japan will
ever fully recover from what has just happened.
The mainstream media has been really downplaying the economic damage
that has been done to Japan, but eventually the truth will become clear.
In a previous article, I contended that this was essentially a “death blow” for the
Japanese economy….
The tsunami that struck Japan on March 11th swept up to 6 miles inland,
destroying virtually everything in the way. Thousands upon thousands of
Japanese were killed and entire cities were wiped off the map. Yes, Japan is a
resilient nation, but exactly how does a nation that is already drowning in
debt replace dozens of cities and towns that are suddenly gone? The truth is
that thousands of square miles have been more completely destroyed than if they
had been bombed by a foreign military force. The loss of homes, cars,
businesses and personal wealth is almost unimaginable. It is going to take many
years to rebuild the roads, bridges, rail systems, ports, power lines and water
systems that were lost. Nobody is quite sure when the rolling blackouts are
going to end, and nobody is quite sure when all of the damaged manufacturing
facilities are going to be fully brought back online.
If all that wasn’t bad enough, the nuclear crisis at Fukushima just
seems to get worse by the day.
According
to the Los Angeles Times, seawater near the Fukushima nuclear complex was
recently found to contain “iodine-131 at 7.5 million times the legal limit”.
Authorities in Japan recently upgraded the crisis at Fukushima to a
“level 7″ nuclear disaster, and almost everyone is finally acknowledging
that this crisis is as bad or worse than Chernobyl.
Many now fear that vast portions of northern Japan may end up beinguninhabitable
after all this is over. The health effects and the economic effects from
this nightmare are going to be felt for the rest of our lives.
But even if all of the things above were not happening, the rapidly
rising price of oil could potentially be enough to push the world into a
depression. The entire global economy is predicated on the ability to
consume gigantic amounts of very cheap oil. Nobody has ever been able to
prove that the global economy can continue to function normally if the price of
oil stays above $100 a barrel for an extended period of time.
When oil goes up, people start staying home. Certain types of economic
activity become unprofitable. The cost of transporting all goods
increases. The amount of money being transferred out of the U.S. economy
and into the hands of oil barons soars.
The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States is
now $3.81. It is about a dollar higher than it was at this time last
year.
If the price of oil stays where it is right now, the global economy can
probably handle it, at least for a while. However, if it explodes up to
$150 or $200 a barrel it is going to unleash hell on world financial markets.
The world is becoming a very unstable place. The U.S. empire is
crumbling and the global financial system is on the verge of a nightmare.
Hopefully the rest of 2011 will not be as eventful as the first part
has. We could use some global peace and stability for a while.
Unfortunately, that is probably not going to be the case.'
[video]
Trader: S&P Downgrade A Game Changer
Easy
Money (2): U.S. Inflation Now at 4% - How Fed Dismisses the Signs Tobey 'In "Easy
Money (1): Fed Touts Flawed/Risky Rationale," we discussed the Federal
Reserve Open Market Committee's (FOMC's) weak rationale for easy money.
Today, we'll cover how the FOMC dismisses clear signs of 4% inflation.
As FOMC members speak out, trying to deflate growing inflation worries,
they are revealing weaknesses in their analysis. Judging by their comments,
they are using selected data to support their arguments and dismissing other,
better signs of inflation.
There are two important problem areas:
First, the FOMC's preferred price index adjustment (i.e., excluding food
and energy) is misleading. It is resulting in significantly reduced price
inflation readings in this economy.
Second, the official money supply numbers are too low. The FOMC's
policies are creating the problem.
Today's write-up addresses the Fed's
choice of an inflation measure. Money supply will be discussed in the following
write-up.
CPI vs. PCEPI
To measure inflation, the FOMC prefers the Personal Consumption
Expenditures Price Index (PCEPI) to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
The PCEPI has a unique construction that makes it less effective than
the CPI in measuring price inflation caused by money supply expansion. The
problem is that it expands the parties involved beyond consumers and it allows
the spending basket to continually change. These moving parts can disguise what
we're looking for: fiat money inflation
Even at that, the two indexes are highly correlated, with the PCEPI
being a bit less volatile. (And the FOMC likes less volatility, as will be
discussed next.)
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306461217606-John-Tobey.jpg
(Click to enlarge)
In addition, here is the comparison of CPI and PCEPI excluding food and
energy (to be discussed next).
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306467435166-John-Tobey.jpg
(Click to enlarge)
Note: For the rest of this write-up, I
will be using CPI data because of the high correlation between CPI and PCEPI,
CPI's better measurement of inflation and the availability of CPI component
data.
Excluding food and energy is improper
The Fed and others defend taking food and energy out of a price index
because they are so "volatile." Supporting this proposition is
usually a graph like the following, showing 12-month price changes comparing
with and without.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306471039341-John-Tobey.jpg
(Click to enlarge)
That graph may look like the only effect is volatility, but it's not.
Food and energy have their own price trends beyond those movements.
Importantly, food and energy, as key commodities, are at the heart of
all long-term inflation studies. When inflation shows up, food and energy
prices are among the first to react. They are even better measures today
because these worldwide commodities can be both traded and transported among
countries with relative ease. (Contrast food and energy price moves to other
CPI categories such as housing, medical and education. These other items react
slowly to inflation caused by money supply changes.)
Looking at the cumulative price movements, not a simple 12-month moving
one, we can see a significant rise in inflation by including food and energy.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-13030647528933-John-Tobey.jpg
(Click to enlarge)
Clearly, there has been more inflation in the U.S. than the Fed's
measure is showing. The 11+ year 2.5% inflation rate is well above the Fed's
"limit" of 2%.
Housing, the FOMC's inflation friend, should be excluded
Housing costs are slow moving and significantly affected by factors
beyond money supply inflation. These characteristics are visible in the
CPI-housing index.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306479786696-John-Tobey.jpg
(Click to enlarge)
Note especially how the housing price index changed its shape in the
past three years, during which housing costs were down or flat. As we know,
this pattern reflects housing's supply/demand conditions – not the effect of
the FOMC's easy money policy. Therefore, including housing in the price index
hides what's actually happening.
All countries face the same problem. Therefore, a common CPI adjustment
made outside the U.S. is to report CPI excluding housing. Such an adjusted
index is thought to be a better measure of price inflation.
The preferred inflation measure: CPI excluding housing
So, let's adopt the international convention and examine CPI without
housing. Although it is not a publicly released CPI number, we can approximate
it.
Housing represents about 40% of the CPI basket (much higher if food and
energy are excluded). By presuming a 40% weighting throughout the period (this
isn't precise, but it is an acceptable approximation), we can use the CPI
measures available to calculate:
CPI excluding housing = [(CPI * 100%) –
(CPI for housing * 40%)] / 60%
Here is the result:
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-13030648510201-John-Tobey.jpg
(Click to enlarge)
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306555644225-John-Tobey.jpg
(Click to enlarge)
Comparing the price index numbers
Now let's compare all those different measures. Here are the different
price index results for the entire period and sub periods.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306512628397-John-Tobey.jpg
(Click to enlarge)
Note how many readings show inflation above the Fed's "limit"
of 2%. The latest ones are the what's bothering investors - especially as the
FOMC takes comfort in its single, low measure.
Final thought: Why only one index?
Looking at these different index results raises the question of why the
FOMC publicly uses only one number to defend its easy money policy. Is it
playing the old marketing game of cherry picking the statistic that best
supports its position? Or is it myopic, focusing on its one choice, believing
all other measures to be flawed and, therefore, not requiring presentation or
explanation? Or is it simply trying to keep our confidence up and not adversely
affect "inflation expectations?"
Good analysis is fulsome (looking at an issue from all sides), objective
(not being influenced by other considerations) and unique (incorporating
underlying conditions, not simply relying on a number). The FOMC's comments
have not shown good analysis – and that is worrisome.
So … price index measures are showing
inflation running well above the FOMC's 2% "limit." These measures
lend support to the rising inflation concerns we read about, along with rising
long-term interest rates (in spite of the FOMC's bond buying program). Only the
FOMC seems relaxed - and that's causing even more concern.
Next … reported money supply numbers
are too low.'
Top
3 Reasons Markets were as Negative as US Credit Outlook Wall St. Cheat Sheet Markets closed down on Wall
Street: DJI -1.14% SP500 -1.1% Nasdaq -1.06% Gold +0.47% Oil -2.05 .
Markets got slammed today when the S&P (NYSE:MHP)
came out of the blue and
downgraded the US Credit Rating outlook to “Negative”. On the commodities
front, Oil (NYSE:USO)
got hit hard and slid $2 although OPEC
said they won’t be increasing supply any time soon. Gold (NYSE:GLD)
and Silver (NYSE:SLV)
resumed their climb to the moon as investors are now fretting whether the US
will receive a full downgrade.
Don’t Miss: Wall
St. Cheat Sheet’s newest Feature Trades of the Month>>
Today’s markets were down because:
1) Yes, the US really just took a bullet in the armor. Many investors
and analysts have been warning of a downgrade to the US credit rating, but it’s
another phenomenon to actually see one in the wild. (Check Out: The
Shocking S&P Note) Plain and simple: a lot of investors are reducing
risk in case the next credit rating headline pierces the armor. But isn’t the
US “Too Big to Fail”?
2) Earnings continue to come in mixed. Strangely, solid earnings from Citibank
(NYSE:C)
and Halliburton
(NYSE:HAL)
couldn’t drag indexes higher. The biggest
miss of the day goes to drug company Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY)
which fought all day to make up ground on the earnings blunder. Get ready for
the rest of the week as earnings just keep pouring in like Passover and Easter
guests.
3) Everybody hates tax day. Too bad the Federal government didn’t
shutdown. Taxes were due today and 55% of the nation should’ve been sending a
check to Uncle Sam. On such a special day, Wall St. Cheat Sheet’s expert
contributor Ed
Dolan takes a look at whether Tax Reform is Real, or just more political B.S.'
Russian
Finance Minister Kudrin Says US Won't Meet Budget Goals '...Russia, thanks
to windfalls from oil revenues from its three state owned oil giants — Gazprom,
Lukoil and Rosneft — coupled with a declining population will help the
government meet its goal of eradicating its deficit by 2015. The government
agreed to cut federal spending three fold by then. Kudrin also noted in his
keynote speech at the Peterson Institute that his government is not treating
the budget issue politically. “We have an economics department that handles
this, and not a political party,” he said, in short.Russia’s federal
budget deficit is expected to end the year around 1.5% of GDP. The US
federal deficit as percentage of GDP is around 7% to 8%.'
Rand
Paul: Spending cuts must include Pentagon Washington Times
| Military spending will have to be cut if the country is going to get its debt
problems under control.
IRS,
CPA bureaucracy cost tax payers $431 billion a year WSJ |
There is a lot more to taxes than simply paying the bill.
S&P
Moves US Outlook To Negative, Gold Hits New Record CNBC |
Standard & Poor’s on Monday downgraded the outlook for the United States to
negative.
National / World
The
West is to blame for regional unrest, Ahmadinejad says CNN
| Ahmadinejad blamed the West for unrest throughout the Middle East and North
Africa in a speech.
Afghan
soldier kills 5 NATO troops and 4 Afghan comrades Washington Post
| The bombing took place at the headquarters of the Afghan army’s 201st Corps.
Parker:
The GOP plays a crazy Trump card (Washington Post) [ I don't know what polls
Ms. Parker's referring to; but unless she's referring to mobster trump
apprentice news (trump was fired from his own casino company), that certainly
doesn't comport with polls I've read. Moreover, like palin, trump's the joke
that keeps on giving (for SNL, late-night talk hosts, etc.). Indeed, such a move by the GOP would almost
guarantee a 3rd Party shoe-in. After all, trump has as little
credibility as wobama. My other t_rump posts won't fit here, but the latest
from Drudge is noteworthy (note the date, inside parentheses my words)
(4-15-11) Drudgereport: Flashback: Updated 11/11/2008 09:19 PM NY1 Exclusive: Donald Trump Slams "Evil"
Bush, Praises Obama By: Dominic Carter 'If there's one thing certain about
real estate mogul Donald Trump, it's that he (like Charlie Sheen) likes to win
(duh … winning) ... even though he endorsed John McCain for president.
"McCain, really, that was almost an impossible situation," said
Trump. Bush has been so bad, maybe the worst president in the history of this
country. He has been so incompetent, so bad, so evil that I don't think any
Republican could have won
During an exclusive interview with NY1 in his Midtown office on Fifth
Avenue, Trump slammed President George Bush's foreign policies.
"You know, you can be enemies with people, whether it's Iran, Iraq,
or anyplace else and you can still have dialogue. These people wouldn't even
talk with him. It's terrible," said Trump.
While he had harsh words for the outgoing president, he had a much
different opinion of President-elect Barack Obama.
"I think he has a chance to go down as a great president. Now, if
he's not a great president, this country is in serious trouble," said
Trump.
"I think [Obama's] going to lead through consensus," continued
Trump. "It's not going to be just a bull run like Bush did. He just did
whatever the hell he wanted. He'd go into a country, attack Iraq, which had
nothing to do with the World Trade Center and just do it because he wanted to
do it."
Trump was then asked if he ever thought he would see an African-American
president in his lifetime.
"They always said 100 years before a black man or woman could be
elected president. And the 100 years turned out to be, like, one year. He's done
an amazing job," said Trump.
An Associated Press GFK poll released Tuesday shows that a
majority of people share Trump's approval of Obama...' trump:
'CARTER
WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY'...
'BUSH
WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY'...
'OBAMA
WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY...
[ Clearly, like wobama, mobster trump is full
of his own s***! ] ]
'… Anything can look great in a demo. For many years, my
signature bore the saying — a tweak on a quote from sci-fi author Arthur
C. Clarke seen online — that “Any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.” While it’s
not possible to make every botched product look good in a demonstration, a huge
number of flops have looked fantastic and compelling in a precisely rehearsed
demo. (I admit it: The Power Mac Cube looked magical and revolutionary at
first.) And enough people will buy after that introduction to make the gadget
look like a hit. As tech analyst Michael Gartenberg observes,
“You can sell 50,000 of anything.” …'
I have sampled the apple products and have invariably
concluded that they are overpriced, overvalued, and are but means of getting
consumers to part with their cash (ie., exclusive, proprietary itunes
prerequisites, etc.) owing to what I
infer to be particularly influenced by Jobs' LSD induced empathetic feel for
the 'pizzaz' that has invariably worked most applephiles into a frenzy with
each 'new introduction' (the touch screen / ipad was an exception which though
easily produced for far less gets an 'a' for pioneering). I further believe
that apple's success is a testament to how dumb americans particularly have
become. This is no shill for the pc which both as I write here and for other
mundane tasks I've been constrained to use linux ubuntu (dual boot) for
stability otherwise absent with xp (microsoft is a dinosaur). Given the state
of the world, it is not so surprising that such obsessions with devices as
those alluded to, the next new thing, etc., have a psychological component that
does not bespeak mental well being / balance. This is not to say that I deplore
technology in which to the contrary I have found great utility. What it is,
since you mentioned Arthur C. Clarke, is what I perceive to be a new innate
longing for HAL (and not IBM particularly), in one form or another. Ah! The
wisdom of cats! Good Luck!
Grants
for housing counseling slashed /
Job
training feels budget ax (Washington Post)
[ For what jobs? The 'new green
jobs'? How is such an investent going
to pass muster in rigorous financial analysis for profit? Where's the capital
coming from? People must come to grips with the reality that the nation's
defacto bankrupt and all that that entails.The news is bad, the reality
daunting, yet stocks rallied … A mystery? … Yes, until you look up and see that
blazing full moon. I was somewhat nonplussed by the suckers’ market bounce;
and then, ‘Eureka!’ … there it was, staring down for all to see … a blazing
full moon. Yes, they have such effects on lunatics as in pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america et als; but particularly on wall street, and it
certainly doesn’t take much to push the frauds on wall street over the edge and
into their predisposed fraudulent madness. In fact, you could say, ‘it’s in
their genes’ America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. . According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and
2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...'
What
was left out of this article is the point that the movie studio led an Oscar
campaign for Natalie Portman based in large part emphasizing her development
into a professional ballerina for the role and the majority of scenes in the
movie they stated she danced herself. Sarah Lane has contested that she danced
the majority and even the editor of the movie is on the record stating more of
Sarah's dance scenes were included in the movie than the studio stated were.
Sounds like the studio boondoggled the Oscar voters to get a win for Natalie. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1377550/Caroline-Davis-paid-250-act-Natalie-Portmans-body-double-Your-Highness.html#ixzz1Jli7GtVQ
Drudgereport:
S&P
SOUNDS ALARM ON USA
Worst
since Pearl Harbor: Debt blow for economy...
Trump's
Political 'Pit Bull'; Dem Op Has The Donald's Back...
Rove:
'Joke Candidate'...
TRUMP:
SEIZE OIL FIELDS IN LIBYA...
RASMUSSEN:
Obama 49% Trump 34%...
Anti-spending
group blasts The Donald as 'tax-hiking liberal'...
Gas at $4
in nation's capital, 5 states...
The news is bad, the reality daunting, yet stocks rallied … A mystery? …
Yes, until you look up and see that blazing full moon. I was somewhat
nonplussed by the suckers’ market bounce; and then, ‘Eureka!’ … there it was,
staring down for all to see … a blazing full moon. Yes, they have such affects
on lunatics as in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america et als; but
particularly on wall street, and it certainly doesn’t take much to push the
frauds on wall street over the edge and into their predisposed fraudulent
madness. In fact, you could say, ‘it’s in their genes’ America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s short-covering / suckers’ rally provides an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. Exhibit one: The cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings
ratio, or CAPE. This is not a “fad” valuation metric. CAPE dates back
to 1871, offering 140 years worth of data, during which time, the mean
price-to-earnings ratio is 16. According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and
2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...'
10
Scary Charts: A 'Post-Recession' Economy Wake Up Call Kavadas 'I find the
following 10 charts to be disturbing. These charts would be disturbing at any
point in the economic cycle; that they depict such a tenuous situation now – 21
months after the official (as per the 9-20-10 NBER announcement) June 2009 end
of the recession – is especially notable.
These charts raise a lot of questions. As well, they highlight the
"atypical" nature of our economic situation from a long-term
historical perspective. I regularly discuss many troubling characteristics of
our economy in this EconomicGreenfield.com blog.
All of these charts (except one, as noted) are from the Federal Reserve,
and represent the most recently updated data.
These following charts are from the St. Louis Federal Reserve:
Housing starts (last updated 3-16-11):
(Click to enlarge)
The Federal Deficit (last updated 2-17-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Federal Net Outlays (last updated 2-17-11):
(Click to enlarge)
State & Local Personal Income Tax Receipts (% Change from Year
Ago)(last updated 3-25-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Total Loans and Leases of Commercial Banks (% Change from Year Ago)(last
updated 4-11-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Bank Credit – All Commercial Banks (% Change from Year Ago)(last updated
4-11-11):
(Click to enlarge)
M1 Money Multiplier (last updated 4-7-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Median Duration of Unemployment (last updated 4-1-11):
(Click to enlarge)
This next chart is from the CalculatedRisk.com
blog post of 4-1-11, and it shows (in red) the relative length and depth of
this downturn and subsequent recovery from an employment perspective:
(Click to enlarge)
This last chart is of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index and it
depicts broad-based economic activity (last updated 3-21-11):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/14/saupload_cfnai_monthly_ma3_3_21_11.png
(Click to enlarge)
I will update these charts on an intermittent basis as they deserve
close monitoring ...'
Don't
Be A Lemming, Keep Cash In Your Portfolio Dohmen 'My work shows that the
rally going into early April brought bullish sentiment in the stock market to
levels seen at extreme tops in 2000 and 2007. That doesn’t necessarily mean
that we will have a crash, because the Fed would fight any strong market
decline with everything they have. But it does say that a great amount of cash
in your portfolio right now would be a good idea.
The low volume on the bounce since the mid-March low has been
pathetic. Until the last two years, that was always a very important
warning signal. Yet, most money managers don’t even analyze charts. The late
March rally, which created so much enthusiasm, didn’t even bring the major
indices such as the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ Composite above their February
highs.
Mutual fund cash is now lower than at the top in 2007. Low fund cash
positions correlate very well with market tops. Our astute colleague Alan
Newman (www.cross-currents.net)
points out that even with the rise in fund assets in January, the total
outflow since February 2007 has been $213 billion. It appears that the
average investor is gone, although in January there was an inflow of over $25
billion. Are they getting back in at just the wrong time?
Corporate insiders are selling at the heaviest pace since other major
market tops. Obviously, they don’t agree with Wall Street about the euphoric
outlook. Have you noticed that so many top company officials being interviewed
make cautious remarks about “things are improving,” or “we see some positive
signs, etc.” When there is genuine improvement, these people will shout
it from the rooftops on national TV.
But in spite of this, investment professionals are super-bullish. Rydex
is closing down 12 of its leveraged, inverse ETF’s, the ones that sell short,
because of the low amount of assets. Could that mean that traders are not
interested in being short? That’s often a very good contrarian signal.
Investors Intelligence, which surveys the sentiment of investment
advisors, in their latest survey had the percent of bulls increase to
57.3% from 51%. That’s a huge jump and now is at levels seen at
important market tops. The bears have plunged to 15.7%
compared to 23.1%. The difference between bulls and bears is now at 41.6, which
is in the “danger” zone (over 40).
Because so far the stock market has almost ignored some of the greatest
global turmoil in many decades, including one of the worst natural disasters in
Japan, money managers believe that the market cannot go down. So, they buy,
which triggers buying by other managers, which then creates more buying. That
continues, until they look and suddenly see that they are looking at themselves
in the mirror and that there is no one to sell to.
The Fed’s QE2 is ending in June. That’s no secret. There is a big 86%
correlation between the size of the Fed’s balance sheet–read security
purchases–and the S&P 500. Therefore, if the balance sheet stops
growing in June, so should the stock market rise. The bulls say that’s already
in the market. That’s totally unrealistic. When suddenly $50 billion per month
of liquidity injection is missing, there are consequences.
The large trading operations have to attract sufficient buyers from the
sidelines to enable the “distribution” of their stock holdings. This is done by
having produced that last gasp rally when the reluctant bulls can no longer
stand being out of the market. At a top, these lemmings finally plunge in,
allowing the smart money to make the turn.
Don’t be a lemming!'
Earnings
stumbles to awaken bears (Reuters)
Sustaining
Disbelief in the Face of Obvious Impossibilities / The
Problem With Inflation Targets '... there are plenty of other elements
of core inflation that are rising, and the uptrend is well-established...'
Stocks are Cheap,
Buy Now! - Really? Maierhofer,
April 15, 2011
'This is no time to sell stocks.'
'Evidence is building that we have a self-sustaining recovery.'
'We see accelerating growth around the globe.'
'This market looks cheap to us.'
'Dividends may increase to a record $31.07 a share in 2013.'
All the above quotes were taken from a recent Bloomberg article
regarding the most explosive profit growth in the past century. This profit
explosion is happening right here, right now.
'The gap between projected 12-month profits and average earnings over
the last 10 years is set to widen the most since 1951,' continues the article.
Projected earnings are expected to clock in at a record $91 for S&P 500
companies.
The Best 'Buying' Opportunity since 1951?
Before you trigger the 'buy everything now' button, think about the
above statement for a second. If the gap between projected profits and average
earnings is the biggest since 1951, it means that it's bigger than in 2000 and
2007. Could that be a contrarian indicator?
I purposely picked the years 2000 and 2007 because they marked major
market tops and were followed by sizeable declines. The gap between projected
and average profits today is, in fact, larger than it was in 2000 and 2007,
although not by much.
If you graph this out, you would see three spikes; one pop in 2000, one
in 2007 and one now. Every time the spread spiked to new highs, stocks fell
hard.
In 2000, it was the post-tech boom (NYSEArca: XLK - News) crash. In 2007, it was the
overleveraged financial sector (NYSEArca: XLF - News) that caused a nasty
recession. Both times, the spread was the highest since 1951.
Keep in mind that the spread is based on projected earnings. Projected
earnings are about as certain as a politician's promise.
Accuracy of Earnings Projections
Nevertheless, let's examine the accuracy of analysts and earnings
projections.
'As earnings estimates are ratcheted down and hope for a quick economic
fix fades, the once-inconceivable notion of returning to Dow 5000 or S&P
5000 looks a little less far-fetched.'
This quote was taken from a Wall Street Journal front-page article
featured on March 9, 2009. If history isn't your forte, March 9 was the date
the Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI) bottomed at 6,470, the S&P (SNP: ^GSPC) at 666,
and the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) at 1,265.
Days before the March 2009 low, Goldman lowered its earnings outlook for
the S&P from $113 incrementally to $40. Bank of America Merrill Lynch lowered
their estimate to $46 and Citigroup lowered to $51.
At the same time - on March 2, 2009 - the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter
sent out a special buy alert and recommended loading up on broad market
indexes, economically sensitive sectors, dividend ETFs like the iShares Dow
Jones Dividend ETF (NYSEArca: DVY
- News), SPDR S&P Dividend
(NYSEArca: SDY - News) and leveraged ETFs like the
Ultra S&P ProShares (NYSEArca: SSO - News), and Ultra Financial ProShares
(NYSEArca: UYG - News).
The moral of the story is that analysts tend to be overly bullish at
market tops just as they are overly bearish at market bottoms. Based on
Standard & Poor's data, earnings actually peaked at $87 in 2006 and never
reached Goldman's projected upside target of $113. Earnings also bottomed
before they reached Goldman's projected down side target of $40.
Of course, even analysts have an accuracy sweet spot. This sweet spot is
during extended trends. Analysts are correct as long as the trend persists, but
as a group they never see a trend change coming.
Ready for a Curveball?
It seems like analysts have selective memories. Here is what Merrill
Lynch's 2007 Global Market Forecast predicted: 'First, the global economy will
continue to grow in 2007 - with no sign of a cyclical slowdown.'
Keep in mind that in 2007, there was no European debt crisis,
unemployment in the U.S. was around 5% not 9%, housing prices were stable,
there was no financial crisis, there was no Middle East unrest, there was no BP
oil spill, there was no Japanese earthquake, Tsunami, and nuclear disaster,
etc.
Rather than counting un-hatched chickens (projected earnings), let's
take a look at P/E ratios with substance. The chart below shows a 110-year
history of the Robert J. Shiller's cyclically-adjusted P/E ratio.
Chart http://www.etfguide.com//contributor/UserFiles/8/Image/CAPE%20PE%204%2011.gif
The red line marks the average since 1900. Professor Shiller considers
the S&P to be 41% over valued.
Valuations are always mean reverting. As such, owning stocks at current
prices is risky even though - or rather because - analysts expect earnings to
rise.
Safety Locks
Whenever rich valuations rendezvous with optimism and complacency,
investors should become extra cautious. The ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter
identified three such occasions over the past 15 months - January 2010, April
2010, and February 2011.
Each time, stocks (NYSEArca: VTI - News) declined between 7 - 20%. However,
all three declines turned out to be head fakes and optimistic analysts'
projections haven't been as reliable as contrarian indicators as they were
in March 2009 and late 2007. I suppose this is due to the Federal
Reserve's QE2 liquidity.
Just as QE2 is a plus for equities (and commodities) right now, it is
likely to eventually turn into a double or triple minus as individual and
institutional investors start unloading some of their positions. Eventually,
the 'too good to be true' syndrome will multiply like a malignant cell and
overwhelm the exchanges with sell orders.
This doesn't mean stocks can't go higher in the short-term. In fact, it
would be great to see the S&P rally to its ideal target range. The ideal
target range is comprised of a multi-decade trend line and important Fibonacci
resistance. If the S&P is able to rally into that range, it would have
exhausted its up side potential and has no obvious reason to come back anytime
soon...'
Why
Options Traders See a 10% Market Correction Rama 'The Teflon market
began chipping on April 7 after another earthquake hit Japan, threatening to
bring a second tsunami.
The tsunami alert was a false alarm, but the S&P held a 4-day losing
streak till Wednesday. Try as investors may, however, they haven't been able
stay away from stocks. With all that easy money flying around and few other
options for high returns, equities have held their year-to-date gains despite
mounting geopolitical troubles that threaten to derail the recovery.
But a big trade Thursday in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF [SPY Loading...
() ] shows stock investors' nerves of steel
are faltering. The trade, called a put fly, positioned for a gain if the
S&P 500 breaks through the key 1304 technical level and plunges 10% from
there to 1180 (a 118 level on the SPY).
"To me it seems interesting that people are
concerned with downside more than they were," said Jim Iuorio, Director at TJM
Institutional Services. "There are a lot of dark clouds gathering,
oil, labor numbers, there are more nerves," he added.
The put fly turned out to to be a bad trade for
Thursday because the S&P broke through the 1304 level and rejected it,
ending higher. That was a moderately positive signal for the index, Iuorio
noted, but the trade belies the persistently low volatility index, which is
holding below 17 despite investors' growing skittishness.
Iuorio expects volatility to shoot higher once Fed
liquidity dries up, so he says it's prudent to buy it now that it's cheap.
"If you keep preventing a correction through
government liquidity, when that correction finally comes it, it could be more
dramatic than normal," the Options Action contributor said. '
Gold
Celebrates Complete Lack Of Inflation By Surging To New Record Zero
Hedge | Gold takes a new all time high of $1,481.46.
Rand
Paul: ‘Pentagon thinks it’s too big to audit’; no serious budget cuts proposed
in Washington Infowars | Senator Rand Paul said the
Washington shutdown was threatened over nothing, because no serious cuts were
proposed.“We threatened to shut down Washington over nothing, because we’re not
cutting spending in any serious way…” that was just one part of Senator Rand
Paul’s fiery floor speech blasting both sides of the isle for failing to make a
sober effort to operate from a balanced budget.
Oil
Hits 32-Month High As Unrest Persists in the Middle East Marin
Katusa | For at least the rest of the year, uncertainty is the most
reliable aspect of oil.
35
Statistics That Show The Average American Family Has Been Broke Down, Tore
Down, Beat Down, Busted And Disgusted By This Economy The economic
statistics that you are about to read are incredibly shocking, but they are
also very, very real. Tonight there are going to be millions of men and women
all across America that cannot sleep because they are consumed with anxiety
about their financial problems.
National / World
“Outraged and Disgusted” Congressman Introduces
Legislation To Bar TSA From Groping Children Steve Watson
| “I am so furious with them I can’t even see straight,” Chaffetz said.
It’s
Official: “Arab Spring” Subversion U.S. Funded Tony Cartalucci
| We must see the global corporate-financier empire as the source of the
problem and its removal and replacement as the solution.
Obama
Budget Plan: Higher Taxes on Small Businesses American Small
Business League | Fortune 500 firms and other corporate giants are the
actual recipients of most federal small business contracts.
Why
an Income Tax is Not Necessary to Fund the U.S. Government Devvy
Kidd | Where do your “income” tax dollars go?
Our
Income taxes go to the private group called the Federal Reserve Steve
Balich | Do you want to know where your tax dollars really go?
20
Signs That A Horrific Global Food Crisis Is Coming The Economic Collapse
| The world is on the verge of a horrific global food crisis.
Obama
says ‘birther’ talk will be a liability for GOP (The Ticket) [ Listen to 'wobama the b' (for b*** s***) …
having b*** s***ed everybody else, he’s
now resorted to b*** s***ing himself … the story of his life! ]
CIA
will not halt operations in Pakistan: official AFP
| CIA has no plans to suspend “operations” in Pakistan despite objections from
Islamabad leaders.
Russia:
NATO gone too far in Libya Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says
NATO’s military intervention in oil-rich Libya has gone far beyond the mandate
authorized by the United Nations.
Libya:
The Hard-Sell is Coming When presidents are writing editorials in
newspapers a hard-sell is just around the corner. Judging by the recent
tripartite op-ed in the New York Times by Obama, Sarkozy, and Cameron regarding
Libya, the hard-sell is most likely a protracted air campaign above Libya with
an ever increasing ground presence below possibly leading to an all out
invasion. Clearly the operation in Libya will exceed the “days or weeks, but
not months” we were told it would take.
Now
it IS regime change: Cameron, Obama and Sarkozy promise to keep bombing Libya
until Gaddafi is gone David Cameron, Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy upped
the stakes in the Libya conflict last night as they vowed to fight on until
Colonel Gaddafi is ousted.
Japan
Forces Top Official To Retract Prime Minister’s Comments That Fukushima Permanently
Uninhabitable Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano has apologized to the
public over media reports about the long-term inhabitability of areas around
the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Drudgereport: OBAMA
BACK TO GALLUP LOW...
'YOU THINK
WE'RE STUPID?'
Disappointed
With Lack of 'Cool' Phone in Oval Office...
HOT MIC: GOP
tried to 'sneak' agenda into budget...
CARNEY:
'Miscommunication'...
HOUSE
PASSES $6 TRILLION SPENDING CUT PLAN...
U.S.
gas prices pass $4 in some states...'...The national average has increased for 24
straight days, hitting $3.82 per gallon on Friday. Motorists in Connecticut,
Illinois, California, Hawaii and Alaska now pay more than $4 per gallon. A
gallon of regular cost an average of $3.979 in New York and $3.999 in
Washington...'
PUSH
CONSUMER PRICES HIGHER...
Feds
Shut 6 Banks...
It's
2016: Dow's at 4000, gas prices sky-high: 'ATLAS SHRUGGED' hits the screen...
Will
Conservatives Make Film A Hit?
STUDY:
Nearly half of US meat tainted with drug-resistant bacteria...
Flashback: Updated 11/11/2008 09:19 PM NY1 Exclusive: Donald Trump Slams "Evil" Bush, Praises
Obama By: Dominic Carter 'If there's one thing certain about real estate
mogul Donald Trump, it's that he (like Charlie Sheen) likes to win (duh …
winning) ... even though he endorsed John McCain for president. "McCain,
really, that was almost an impossible situation," said Trump. Bush has
been so bad, maybe the worst president in the history of this country. He has
been so incompetent, so bad, so evil that I don't think any Republican could
have won.
During an exclusive interview with NY1 in his Midtown office on Fifth
Avenue, Trump slammed President George Bush's foreign policies.
"You know, you can be enemies with people, whether it's Iran, Iraq,
or anyplace else and you can still have dialogue. These people wouldn't even
talk with him. It's terrible," said Trump.
While he had harsh words for the outgoing president, he had a much
different opinion of President-elect Barack Obama.
"I think he has a chance to go down as a great president. Now, if
he's not a great president, this country is in serious trouble," said Trump.
"I think [Obama's] going to lead through consensus," continued
Trump. "It's not going to be just a bull run like Bush did. He just did
whatever the hell he wanted. He'd go into a country, attack Iraq, which had
nothing to do with the World Trade Center and just do it because he wanted to
do it."
Trump was then asked if he ever thought he would see an African-American
president in his lifetime.
"They always said 100 years before a black man or woman could be
elected president. And the 100 years turned out to be, like, one year. He's
done an amazing job," said Trump.
An Associated Press GFK poll released Tuesday shows that a majority of
people share Trump's approval of Obama...'
trump:
'CARTER
WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY'...
'BUSH
WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY'...
'OBAMA
WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY...
[ Clearly, like wobama, mobster trump is full
of his own s***! ]
'Black
Swan Dance Double: Filmmakers Are "Completely Lying" - In a new 20/20 interview
airing tonight (4/15/11), Natalie Portman's dance double from Black Swan...
Lane’s claim follows a March 23 L.A.
Times article in which Portman’s fiancé and Black
Swan choreographer Benjamin Millepied said Lane’s work in the film was far
less significant. “There are articles now talking about her dance double [American
Ballet Theatre dancer Sarah Lane] that are making it sound like [Lane] did a
lot of the work, but really, she just did the footwork, and the fouettés, and
one diagonal [phrase] in the studio,” he said. “Honestly, 85 percent of that
movie is Natalie.”
Lane disagrees. “The shots that are just her face with
arms, those shots are definitely Natalie,” she says. “But that doesn’t show the
actual dancing.” Lane admits that she was never promised a particular title for
her six weeks of work on the film, though she was disappointed to see that she
is credited only as as “Hand Model,” “Stunt Double,” and “Lady in the Lane” (a
brief walk-on role).
[ Give Lane a break! This in no way disparages nor diminishes Portman's
acting performance or the film which I found to be superb (which I attribute to
my own personal fascination with viewing female ballet dancing) though my pick
for Oscar was 'Inception' by Nolan. ]
[ Drudgereport: FADE:
OSCAR RATINGS DOWN 10% ...
Injury
Added to Insult... [ In terms of production value (rich in content in every
way), I believe this to be as good and in my view better than ever as award
ceremonies can be without the inimitable Bob Hope. I believe any falloff can be
directly attributable to last year the academy’s egregious misstep in
overlooking ‘Avatar’ / Cameron presaging a similar fate concerning my clear
choice of ‘Inception’ / Nolan ( Truth be told, I’ve yet to see ‘The King’s
Speech’ failing to muster any enthusiasm for seeing a film centered around a
‘so-called royal’ trying to over-come a speech impediment, albeit a minor one,
regardless of circumstances; viz., stuttering, though I would concede that it
was probably well done. We all know of the problems attendant to english royal
inbreeding…ho hum…) I did find ‘The Black Swan’ superb but attribute same to my
own bias and fascination with viewing female ballet dancing). Bob Hope: Academy Awards, ‘passover’ … very funny!
]
2011 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships
Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA USA
March 17-19, 2011
Outstanding Wrestler - Anthony Robles, Arizona State, 125 lbs.
Team Standings - 3/20/2011
1 - 107.5 - Penn State
2 - 93.5 - Cornell
3 - 86.5 - Iowa
4 - 70.5 - Oklahoma State
5 - 65.0 - American
6 - 62.5 - Arizona State
7 - 61.0 - Minnesota
8 - 58.5 - Lehigh
9 - 57.5 - Boise State
10 - 54.5 - Wisconsin
11 - 44.0 - Stanford
12 - 43.5 - Nebraska
13 - 39.0 - Central Michigan
13 - 39.0 - Northwestern
15 - 38.5 - Michigan
16 - 38.0 - Oklahoma
17 - 37.0 - Kent State
18 - 35.5 - Maryland
19 - 35.0 - Missouri
20 - 31.5 - Iowa State
21 - 26.0 - Oregon
22 - 25.0 - Illinois
23 - 24.0 - Edinboro
23 - 24.0 - Virginia
25 - 23.5 - Indiana
26 - 22.0 - Hofstra
27 - 21.5 - Rutgers
28 - 21.0 - Wyoming
29 - 20.5 - Ohio State
30 - 18.5 - Utah Valley University
31 - 17.5 - Pennsylvania
32 - 17.0 - Cal Poly
33 - 16.0 - Virginia Tech
34 - 15.5 - Pittsburgh
35 - 12.5 - Harvard
36 - 11.5 - Bucknell
37 - 11.0 - Navy
37 - 11.0 - Old Dominion
39 - 9.0 - Buffalo
39 - 9.0 - Columbia
39 - 9.0 - Purdue
42 - 8.0 - Boston U
43 - 7.0 - Michigan State
43 - 7.0 - North Carolina
45 - 6.0 - Lock Haven
46 - 5.5 - Air Force
46 - 5.5 - Northern Iowa
48 - 5.0 - Clarion
48 - 5.0 - Duke
48 - 5.0 - Rider
51 - 4.5 - West Virginia
52 - 4.0 - North Carolina-Greensboro
52 - 4.0 - North Dakota State University
54 - 3.5 - Bloomsburg
54 - 3.5 - Northern Illinois
56 - 3.0 - Appalachian State
56 - 3.0 - Binghamton
56 - 3.0 - North Carolina State
56 - 3.0 - Ohio
60 - 2.0 - Drexel
60 - 2.0 - Northern Colorado
62 - 1.0 - Army
62 - 1.0 - Cal State Bakersfield
62 - 1.0 - Gardner-Webb
65 - 0.0 - Campbell
65 - 0.0 - Chattanooga
65 - 0.0 - Eastern Michigan
65 - 0.0 - Franklin & Marshall
65 - 0.0 - Liberty
65 - 0.0 - Millersville
65 - 0.0 - Princeton
65 - 0.0 - The Citadel
65 - 0.0 - VMI
MEDALISTS
Wt. 125
125 1st: Anthony Robles (Arizona State)
125 2nd: Matt McDonough (Iowa)
125 3rd: Brandon Precin (Northwestern)
125 4th: Ben Kjar (Utah Valley University)
125 5th: Zachary Sanders (Minnesota)
125 6th: Ryan Mango (Stanford)
125 7th: Jarrod Patterson (Oklahoma)
125 8th: James Nicholson (Old Dominion)
Wt. 133
133 1st: Jordan Oliver (Oklahoma State)
133 2nd: Andrew Hochstrasser (Boise State)
133 3rd: Andrew Long (Penn State)
133 4th: Scotti Sentes (Central Michigan)
133 5th: Tyler Graff (Wisconsin)
133 6th: Mike Grey (Cornell)
133 7th: Lou Ruggirello (Hofstra)
133 8th: Bernard Futrell (Illinois)
Wt. 141
141 1st: Kellen Russell (Michigan)
141 2nd: Borislav Novachkov (Cal Poly)
141 3rd: Michael Thorn (Minnesota)
141 4th: Montell Marion (Iowa)
141 5th: James Kennedy (Illinois)
141 6th: Todd Schavrien (Missouri)
141 7th: Zack Bailey (Oklahoma)
141 8th: Zack Kemmerer (Pennsylvania)
Wt. 149
149 1st: Kyle Dake (Cornell)
149 2nd: Frank Molinaro (Penn State)
149 3rd: Jason Chamberlain (Boise State)
149 4th: Ganbayar Sanjaa (American)
149 5th: Jamal Parks (Oklahoma State)
149 6th: Andrew Nadhir (Northwestern)
149 7th: Kevin LeValley (Bucknell)
149 8th: Derek Valenti (Virginia)
Wt. 157
157 1st: Bubba Jenkins (Arizona State)
157 2nd: David Taylor (Penn State)
157 3rd: Steve Fittery (American)
157 4th: Derek St. John (Iowa)
157 5th: Adam Hall (Boise State)
157 6th: Jason Welch (Northwestern)
157 7th: Bryce Saddoris (Navy)
157 8th: Walter Peppelman (Harvard)
Wt. 165
165 1st: Jordan Burroughs (Nebraska)
165 2nd: Tyler Caldwell (Oklahoma)
165 3rd: Andrew Howe (Wisconsin)
165 4th: Colt Sponseller (Ohio State)
165 5th: Shane Onufer (Wyoming)
165 6th: Josh Asper (Maryland)
165 7th: Brandon Hatchett (Lehigh)
165 8th: Paul Gillespie (Hofstra)
Wt. 174
174 1st: Jonathan Reader (Iowa State)
174 2nd: Nick Amuchastegui (Stanford)
174 3rd: Edward Ruth (Penn State)
174 4th: Mack Lewnes (Cornell)
174 5th: Colby Covington (Oregon State)
174 6th: Christopher Henrich (Virginia)
174 7th: Mike Letts (Maryland)
174 8th: Ben Bennett (Central Michigan)
Wt. 184
184 1st: Quentin Wright (Penn State)
184 2nd: Robert Hamlin (Lehigh)
184 3rd: Grant Gambrall (Iowa)
184 4th: Steve Bosak (Cornell)
184 5th: Christopher Honeycutt (Edinboro)
184 6th: Joe LeBlanc (Wyoming)
184 7th: Travis Rutt (Wisconsin)
184 8th: Kevin Steinhaus (Minnesota)
Wt. 197
197 1st: Dustin Kilgore (Kent State)
197 2nd: Clayton Foster (Oklahoma State)
197 3rd: Cam Simaz (Cornell)
197 4th: Trevor Brandvold (Wisconsin)
197 5th: Luke Lofthouse (Iowa)
197 6th: Zack Giesen (Stanford)
197 7th: Sonny Yohn (Minnesota)
197 8th: Matt Powless (Indiana)
Wt. 285
285 1st: Zachery Rey (Lehigh)
285 2nd: Ryan Flores (American)
285 3rd: Dominque Bradley (Missouri)
285 4th: Jarod Trice (Central Michigan)
285 5th: Ricardo Alcala (Indiana)
285 6th: Spencer Myers (Maryland)
285 7th: Anthony Nelson (Minnesota)
285 8th: Levi Cooper (Arizona State)
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – The Penn State University math majors
were working during Saturday’s first session.
With the program’s first championship since 1953 within
reach, it wasn’t a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when.’
When Wisconsin’s Tyler Graff beat Cornell’s Mike Grey for
fifth place at 133 and PSU’s Andrew Long rallied to beat Central Michigan’s
Scotti Sentes for third at the same weight, the Nittany Lion lead was 102.5 to
88.5, a 14-point advantage ahead of Cornell.
Fittingly, when Penn State’s Ed Ruth and Cornell’s Mack
Lewnes didn’t end with a pin – in Lewnes’ favor – the team title was
mathematically clinched.
“This is a real tough tournament. Things go your way
sometimes and sometimes they don’t,” said second-year Nittany Lion coach Cael
Sanderson after Ruth’s victory against Lewnes. “You just have to want it and
you can see it the kids’ eyes before they wrestle. I really liked the way guys
wrestled this week.
“Our guys today did a great job. They made it really easy
for our guys in the finals. Now they can just focus on going out there and
chasing their dream.”
Ruth had to injury default his quarterfinal match to
Stanford’s Nick Amuchastegui on Friday morning. There was questions as to
whether he could come back.
Ruth, the No. 2 seed at 174, came back with a 7-6 win and
a 42-second pin on Friday night. After beating Virginia’s Chris Henrich, he
finished off Lewnes and Cornell.
“It’s a big honor [to clinch the team title],” Ruth said.
“I was thinking of my knee and all the things that could go wrong and all the
things that could go right.”
Added Sanderson, “To do that as freshman, to have that
kind of frustration and then come back to beat some tough kids, it really shows
a lot of who Ed Ruth is. Just really proud of him.”
The battle of attrition was all-but-decided on Friday
night when the Nittany Lions pushed three into the finals and the Big Red saw
Lewnes, third-seed Steve Bozak and No. 1 seed Cam Simaz lose back-to-back
semifinal matches.
PSU, Cornell, Iowa and Minnesota all finish with five All-Americans
with Oklahoma State and American leading a pack of 10 with three apiece.
“This tournament is going to take five or six
All-Americans [to win],” said Oklahoma State coach John Smith before the
tournament. “And you have to have high All-Americans, a couple of guys in the
finals and two or three high finishers. If you have less than five you aren’t
going to have a chance.”
The Cowboys put two in the finals but only managed one
other All-American – 149-pounder Jamal Parks.
Penn State’s Frank Molinaro, David Taylor and Quentin
Wright still have a match to wrestle in the finals Saturday night. Sophomore
133-pounder Andrew Long bounced back from a semifinal loss to win two matches,
including a pin of Cornell’s Mike Grey Saturday morning. Long, a transfer from
Iowa State, lost in the 125-pound final in 2010 and finished third in 2011.
“(Long) has been a big part of this team,” Sanderson said.
“He brings intensity everyday, a good attitude to practice. He was a big
addition to our program.”
Iowa, winners of three consecutive team titles from 2008
to 2010, pushed just one to a final and saw Montell Marion, Derek St. John and
Grant Gambrall take fourth place.
The first
Utah Valley’s Ben Kjar finished fourth at 125 pounds. The senior dropped a 4-2
decision to top-seeded Anthony Robles of Arizona State in Friday’s semifinals.
After winning a bout Saturday morning, Kjar lost to Northwestern’s Brandon
Precin in the third-place match.
Kjar (30-8) is the first Division I All-American in
program history.
“I’m happy for the program,” said Penn State assistant
coach Cody Sanderson, who was the school’s first coach in 2003 when wrestling
was added. “It’s important for a young program like (Utah Valley) to have
All-Americans. It’s not easy at a place like that, it takes a lot of work.
“I’m very happy for (Kjar).”
Four-timer
American’s Steve Fittery finished his career as a four-time All-American, twice
in Division II for Shippensburg (Pa.) State and twice in DI for the Eagles. The
Pennsylvania native, who finished this season 33-1, took third at 157 after
beating Boise State’s Adam Hall and Iowa’s Dan St. John on Saturday.
Three-timers
Minnesota’s Zach Sanders, Northwestern’s Brandon Precin, Illinois’ James
Kennedy, Wisconsin’s Andrew Howe, Virginia’s Chris Henrich each picked up their
third All-America medal this week. Sanders, fifth at 125 pounds, and Howe,
third at 165 after winning the title in 2010, will be back for one more season.
The next one?
University of Oklahoma head coach Jack Spates announced his retirement earlier
this season. The Division II champion for Slippery Rock as a student-athlete in
1973 and Division I finalist in 1974 saw Jarrod Patterson, seventh at 125, and
Zack Bailey, seventh at 141, finish as All-Americans in his final season.
Spates will coach one last time on the big stage Saturday
night when Tyler Caldwell faces Nebraska’s Jordan Burroughs in the 165-pound
final.
Word around Philadelphia is that former world champion and
current assistant coach Sam Henson will take over the program which has won
seven NCAA championships, the last in 1974 under Stan Abel.
Iron Man Award(s)
Maryland heavyweight Spencer Myers lost a 9-7 overtime match to Indiana’s Ricky
Alcala in the first round on Thursday morning. The freshman from Selinsgrove,
Pa., came back to win five matches before falling to Missouri’s Dom Bradley in
the wrestleback semifinals.
Myers (30-11) wrestled seven matches in three days and
took home a sixth-place medal after falling to Alcala again in the fifth-place
match.
Northwestern 149-pounder Andrew Nadhir, the 11th seed, was
pinned by Lehigh’s Joey Napoli in the first round. Nadhir, a senior from
Michigan, had to go overtime to beat Pitt’s Dane Johnson in his first
wrestleback, and again against Wyoming’s Cole Dallaserra two rounds later, on his
march to a sixth-place showing.
Like Myers, Nadhir (34-7) wrestled seven matches in the
tournament, losing to Oklahoma State’s Jamal Parks in the fifth-place
contest. '
Inflation,
fueled by gas and food prices, adds to worry
Drudgereport: Obama
to Call for Higher Taxes...
DEFICIT
ROCKETS 16% IN FIRST HALF OF YEAR...
Inflation Actually 'Near 10%'...
IMF:
US 'lacks credibility' on debt...
Paper:
Obama’s Speech Most ‘Dishonest in Decades’ WSJ | Obama’s
toxic speech and even worse plan for deficits and debt.
Libya:
All About Oil, or All About Banking? I have never before heard of a central
bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This
suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and
that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.
Dow,
S&P inch up as growth questioned, Google off late (Reuters) Stocks that
outperform in a weak economy helped the Dow and S&P 500 eke out gains on
Thursday as concerns about faltering growth and inflation prompted investors to
seek out less volatile na...
Earnings
Help DJIA Turn a Bad Day Good [ Earnings? Are people dreaming …
blocking … repressing reality? Kaspar '… ... growth in earnings
have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
accounting profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...' ]
...
These following charts are from the St. Louis Federal Reserve:
Housing starts (last updated 3-16-11):
(Click to enlarge)
The Federal Deficit (last updated 2-17-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Federal Net Outlays (last updated 2-17-11):
(Click to enlarge)
State & Local Personal Income Tax Receipts (% Change from Year
Ago)(last updated 3-25-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Total Loans and Leases of Commercial Banks (% Change from Year Ago)(last
updated 4-11-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Bank Credit – All Commercial Banks (% Change from Year Ago)(last updated
4-11-11):
(Click to enlarge)
M1 Money Multiplier (last updated 4-7-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Median Duration of Unemployment (last updated 4-1-11):
(Click to enlarge)
This next chart is from the CalculatedRisk.com
blog post of 4-1-11, and it shows (in red) the relative length and depth of
this downturn and subsequent recovery from an employment perspective:
(Click to enlarge)
This last chart is of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index and it
depicts broad-based economic activity (last updated 3-21-11):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/14/saupload_cfnai_monthly_ma3_3_21_11.png
(Click to enlarge)
…' ]
Weekly
Unemployment Claims Suddenly Jump Higher Wall St.
Cheat Sheet 'The Department of Labor’s Unemployment
Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released this
morning for last week. The 27,000 increase in claims is on top of a 3,000
upward revision to the previous week’s claims. Here is the official statement
from the Department of Labor: …' [ Spare yourself their mindless b***
s***/statement. Do you know how many points on the dow, etc., that b.s. story
was good for... then there's the 'stopped looking fudge factor'. ] [ Worthless dollar, high
metals, high oil price rally on wall street … riiiiight! ] Trade
Data is Bleak: Exports Down, Imports Down, Growth Estimates Down
Dow,
S&P inch up as growth questioned, Google off late (Reuters) Stocks that
outperform in a weak economy helped the Dow and S&P 500 eke out gains on
Thursday as concerns about faltering growth and inflation prompted investors to
seek out less volatile na...
Earnings
Help DJIA Turn a Bad Day Good [ Earnings? Are people dreaming …
blocking … repressing reality? Kaspar '… ... growth in earnings have
been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
accounting profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...' ]
Congress
OKs big budget cuts, bigger fights await (AP) [ Record? Come on! Wake up! In todays
evermore worthless dollars, and compared to the record, insurmountable debt?
They're dreamin'! Barely covers annual interest! ]AP - Congress sent President Barack Obama hard-fought
legislation cutting a record $38 billion from domestic spending on Thursday,
bestowing bipartisan support on the first major compromise between th...
'Perfect
Storm' Has Markets in Its Path
LIARS!
Goldman Sachs is the Next Barry BondsWall Street Cheat Sheet 'If you hate
Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS),
you’ll love today’s news. A Senate subcommittee released a new report
showing how Goldman recommended four Collateralized Debt Obligations — Hudson,
Anderson, Timberwolf, and Abacus — to its clients without “fully disclosing key
information about those products,” or Goldman’s opinions of the securities.
To make matters worse for the firm some people describe as a “Vampire
Squid“, Sen. Carl Levin said the Senators also found new evidence
proving Goldman Sachs’ (NYSE:GS)
executives including CEO Lloyd Blankfein may have perjured themselves
during Congressional testimony given last year. Move over Barry Bonds. Steroid
use didn’t abet the collapse of the US economy.
Goldman isn’t the only high profile bank (NYSE:XLF)
on the coals. Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB)
committed the same scams and Washington
Mutual (NYSE:JPM)
“knowingly underwrote mortgages of questionable value despite warnings from
their chief credit officer.”
Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS)
already agreed to pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges over similar
accusations. So, they can’t be squeaky clean. And we all know
Congress is looking for more blood, so I think Blankfein and friends
better be taking notes on how everything plays out with Barry Bonds.
Goldman may also consider spending
less time issuing bearish analyst notes on Oil and more on the operation in
their own building.'
Barry
Bonds Faces Jail Time While Wall Street Execs Sit Pretty Touryalai ' …
Yesterday, the Senate’s
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released the findings of a 2-year
investigation around Wall Street’s bad behavior leading up the financial
crisis. The report concluded that Wall Street firms contaminated the U.S.
financial system with toxic mortgages and engaged in conflicts of
interest.Goldman Sachs’ behavior was especially egregious according to the
report, and Senator Carl Levin wants everyone to know it.In fact, he hopes to
see the “great vampire squid” face criminal charges for allegedly lying in its
2010 testimony before Congress.“In my judgment, Goldman clearly misled
their clients and they misled the Congress,” he said.So now, Levin plans to
refer that testimony to the Department of Justice (which has the power to bring
criminal charges) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (which has
authority to bring civil charges and fines and already did against Goldman when it settled
for $550 million.)But will Levin’s threats amount to any criminal action
against Goldman? Probably not.First, it seems like Levin isn’t even going after
Goldman for any of its actual business activity rather he’s accusing the firm’s
executives like CEO Lloyd
Blankfein of lying before Congress. Here’s the problem with that: the
question and answer session between Senators and executives during the
testimony was so incredibly rife with unclarity and so confusing that it would
be hard to accuse the executives of willingly giving false answers.Bill Singer, a veteran Wall Street
securities lawyer and Forbes contributor says the senators’ questions were so
tactless and fuzzy that they allowed for extremely indirect answers by
executives. Singers says the testimony made him “wince” when he heard the
“incompetent” Congress members deliver speeches and follow them up with inept
questions...' Former
fund manager charged (Washington Post) [ Joseph F. Skowron III accused of insider trading. Drudgereport: Senate
panel slams Goldman in scathing crisis report... (Goldman clearly misled
their clients and they misled Congress … referring this matter to the Justice
Department and to the SEC)
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding.
Exhibit one: The cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, or CAPE.
This is not a “fad” valuation metric. CAPE dates back to 1871, offering
140 years worth of data, during which time, the mean price-to-earnings ratio is
16.
According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and
2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially suppressed
interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...'
U.S.
Consumer Credit Puts Markets and Economy on Notice Alexandre 'I often see
money supply as the headline when pointing to inflationary pressures building
up in the system, but the supply of anything is not very meaningful unless it
is being consumed. If I attend a party and the host drops 12 bottles of the
finest wine on my lap, I will not get drunk unless I consume the mind-altering
juice.
Apparently the effects of the Fed’s Quantitative Easing – or "money
printing," if one wishes – are muted at best, and the so-called runaway
inflation is not taking shape, although the recent oil spike is only now
impacting retail food prices – mostly vegetables, fruit, and dairy -- and has
added a few percentage points to daily staples. I am aware of this because I do
most of the household food shopping and can recite the current prices of a
number of items, and what they were last December, although aggressive sales on
a variety of items continue to take place to attract a shrinking consumer’s
wallet. However, more pronounced deflationary pressures continue to erode the
savings tied to real estate – the largest asset for most Americans – and will
not end anytime soon.
U.S. trade balance figures were best summarized by Reuters,
and came on the heels of the first Chinese trade balance negative quarter since
2004:
U.S. imports and exports fell in February, prompting analysts to cut
again their forecasts for U.S. economic growth in early 2011 and showing signs
of a slowing in the global recovery. The trade gap totaled $45.8 billion and
was down 2.6 percent from January as imports fell faster than exports, even as
oil prices hit their highest level since October 2008, the Commerce Department
said on Tuesday.
U.S. retail sales delivered a mixed and weak picture, due to the high
price of gasoline with 0.4% growth and 0.8% core, while previous numbers were
revised up — February from 0.3% to 0.7%, and March’s sales increased to 1.1%
from 1.0%. However, auto sales shrunk 1.7%, which brings us to consumer credit
and how the data series is building an uneasy picture of divergence between
reality and expectations. Even if one is to assume that the Fed’s quantitative
easing had a hand in credit expansion, the impact was negligible and is already
fading before the program ends.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/14/765325-130278941172719-Carlos-X--Alexandre.png
Revolving credit includes credit cards, or the daily financial bread and
butter for most consumers. Non-revolving is defined by the Federal Reserve
Board in its release
as including “automobile loans and all other loans not included in revolving
credit, such as loans for mobile homes, education, boats, trailers, or
vacations. These loans may be secured or unsecured.”
For the record, consumer credit expanded virtually non-stop between 1943
and 2008, then dropped precipitously into last year. Now we are observing an
expansion of non-revolving, a resumption of a contraction in the revolving
category, and total consumer credit displaying a little bounce and starting to
descend again. Residential mortgages and home equity lines of credit are not
tracked by the Fed in this report, but we know that tale from other sources.
But let’s stop a second and take a look at the non-revolving story. Of
the seven types — and you can see them in the release — only “Federal
Government” increased, while the other six decreased. Why? Student loans. That
type of credit, although helpful to those seeking an education, is not
contributing to the traditional economic engine, and without student loans,
consumer credit would have been short by $9 billion – and an overall
contraction.
One very interesting piece of data in the report is the “Loan-to-Value
Ratio” for new car loans at auto finance companies; I see it as a little window
into consumers’ demeanor. Where in 2006 the consumer was financing 94% of value,
the latest reading shows a huge decline to 80% – larger cash down payments –
and that is a screaming reflection of consumers’ attitudes toward debt. The
table below shows that, with the exception of the “Loan-to-Value Ratio,” not
much has changed between 2006 and today.
New Car Loans by Auto Finance Companies |
2006 |
2011 |
Interest Rate |
4.99% |
4.73% |
Loan Maturity |
63 months |
62.3 months |
Loan-to-Value Ratio |
94% |
80% |
Amount Financed |
$26,620 |
$26,673 |
Joe and Mary Consumer are extremely conservative about their money, and
no longer splurge without a second thought. Going forward, consumer attitudes
have changed considerably, are here to stay, and are not priced in the markets.
The fallout will be felt for a very long time, and for those who state that the
American consumer is not that important in a global sense, time will tell – and
the cracks are already showing...'
10
Scary Charts: A 'Post-Recession' Economy Wake Up Call Kavadas 'I find the
following 10 charts to be disturbing. These charts would be disturbing at any
point in the economic cycle; that they depict such a tenuous situation now – 21
months after the official (as per the 9-20-10 NBER announcement) June 2009 end
of the recession – is especially notable.
These charts raise a lot of questions. As well, they highlight the
"atypical" nature of our economic situation from a long-term
historical perspective. I regularly discuss many troubling characteristics of
our economy in this EconomicGreenfield.com blog.
All of these charts (except one, as noted) are from the Federal Reserve,
and represent the most recently updated data.
These following charts are from the St. Louis Federal Reserve:
Housing starts (last updated 3-16-11):
(Click to enlarge)
The Federal Deficit (last updated 2-17-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Federal Net Outlays (last updated 2-17-11):
(Click to enlarge)
State & Local Personal Income Tax Receipts (% Change from Year
Ago)(last updated 3-25-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Total Loans and Leases of Commercial Banks (% Change from Year Ago)(last
updated 4-11-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Bank Credit – All Commercial Banks (% Change from Year Ago)(last updated
4-11-11):
(Click to enlarge)
M1 Money Multiplier (last updated 4-7-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Median Duration of Unemployment (last updated 4-1-11):
(Click to enlarge)
This next chart is from the CalculatedRisk.com
blog post of 4-1-11, and it shows (in red) the relative length and depth of
this downturn and subsequent recovery from an employment perspective:
(Click to enlarge)
This last chart is of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index and it
depicts broad-based economic activity (last updated 3-21-11):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/14/saupload_cfnai_monthly_ma3_3_21_11.png
(Click to enlarge)
I will update these charts on an intermittent basis as they deserve
close monitoring ...'
Bretton
Woods II-attendee Joseph Stiglitz advocates global reserve currency RT
| Fmr. World Bank Chief Economist says the US dollar as the reserve currency is
hurting the entire world.
More Americans
leaving workforce USA Today | Only 45.4% of Americans had
jobs in 2010, the lowest rate since 1983.
Jobless
Claims Unexpectedly Rise; Inflation Pressure Grows CNBC |
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 27,000 to a seasonally
adjusted 412,000, the Labor Department said.
Goldman
Sachs misled Congress after duping clients, Senate panel chairman says
Bloomberg | Goldman Sachs misled clients and Congress about
the firm’s bets on securities tied to the housing market.
Change:
Percent Of Americans Working Lowest Since Reagan The share of the
population that is working fell to its lowest level last year since women
started entering the workforce in large numbers three decades ago, a USA TODAY
analysis finds.
National / World
Alex Jones:
We’re Not Your Slaves! Infowars | Alex takes a call from a
chicago women who says the school system there has been corrupt for many years.
SWAT
Attacks Home School Mom for Refusing to Force Med Child Kurt Nimmo
| CPS works with SWAT team to grab home schooled child for refusing to take
dangerous drug Risperdal.
TSA
Gropes 8-Year Old Boy, In Front Of Outraged Mother Steve Watson
| Ms Shehan quickly grabbed her camera and took photos to document the
incident.
Red
Pill Review: Police State 4 – The Rise of FEMA William Walbut
| This review from our Red Pill Documentaries page covers Police State 4-The
Rise of FEMA.
Banks
Face $3.6 Trillion ‘Wall’ of Debt: IMF Reuters | The
world’s banks face a $3.6 trillion “wall of maturing debt” in the next two
years.
Globalists
Positioned to Exploit Japan’s Tragedy Tony Cartalucci |
America couldn’t offer Japan much help even if they wanted to.
New
World Powers Push for End of Dollar Dominance Reuters |
The BRICS group of emerging-market powers kept up the pressure on Thursday for
a revamped global monetary system that relies less on the dollar
Paper:
Obama’s Speech Most ‘Dishonest in Decades’ WSJ | Obama’s
toxic speech and even worse plan for deficits and debt.
Libya:
All About Oil, or All About Banking? I have never before heard of a central
bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This
suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and
that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.
Busby:
400,000 to develop cancer in 200 km radius of Fukushima Engineers at
Japan’s Fukushima plant continue work on emptying highly radioactive water from
one of the nuclear reactors. The latest tests show that radiation levels in the
sea near the damaged facility have spiked.
Drudgereport: BUCHANAN:
Obama blows up the bridge...
Tiny Tim (geithner): YOU
WILL GIVE ME MORE MONEY
OBAMA
CALLS NEW TAXES 'SPENDING REDUCTIONS IN TAX CODE'...
RYAN:
'Dramatically inaccurate,' 'hopelessly inadequate'...
CANTOR: Raising
taxes 'is not the answer'...
Obama's
Support Among Poor Drops to All-time Low...
Left's
angst grows over president's 'shift to center'...
Pentagon
Warns Obama Against Deeper Defense Cuts ... (And where is it going to come from
... I've said before, and it's still true today, that we've already had in
pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt, war crimes nation america a defacto coup
d'etat) ...
GOOGLE: IT'S A MISS
BANKS FACE $3,600,000,000,000 IN DEBT
(and then there's the trillions in worthless, paper, toxic assets / securities
that are being carried 'new FASB rule change defacto bankrupt american
style)...
RISE
OF NEW WORLD POWER[WITHOUT USA]...
SHOCK:
CBO Says Budget Deal Will Cut Spending by Only $352 Million...
Libya
Rebels in 'hopeless disarray'...
Seek
$2 Billion Loan...
NATO short of planes...
Senate
panel slams Goldman in scathing crisis report... (...Goldman clearly
misled their clients and they misled Congress … referring this matter to the
Justice Department and to the SEC … )
NBC:
Rev. Jesse Jackson Subject of Gay Harassment Complaint...
Duke lacrosse rape accuser
faces more charges...
Man
Mangum accused of stabbing dies...
JOBLESS CLAIMS RISE; INFLATION PRESSURE
GROWS...
Suicide
Rates Rise...
Consumers Hardest Hit by Oil Shock...
NEW
WORLD POWERS PUSH FOR END OF DOLLAR DOMINANCE...
New
York, San Diego no longer have white majorities...
BUCHANAN:
Obama blows up the bridge... "Rather than building bridges, he's poisoning
wells," said Rep. Paul Ryan, after listening to Barack Obama's scathing
attack on his deficit-reduction plan as a shredding of America's social
contract with the elderly and poor.
Ryan is right. Yet, with Obama's partisan savagery, virtually calling
the GOP plan immoral, we have clarity.
There will be no grand bipartisan bargain on taxes and spending.
The two parties on Capitol Hill and the president will not be coming
together to solve the gravest financial and fiscal crisis America has faced
since the Great Depression. Between them today is a high wall and a deep ditch.
The heart of the Ryan plan is to turn Medicaid into block grants to the states, so each can decide for itself how best
to use the funds, and to convert Medicare into a program
where the U.S. government would provide citizens with the funds and freedom to
chose whatever health insurance they wished to buy.
Obama denounced both.
But if the Republican Medicare and Medicaid proposals are dead on
arrival in Harry Reid's Senate and Obama's White House, Obama's plan to raise
taxes is equally lifeless.
On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," this writer asked Grover Norquist of
Americans for Tax Reform exactly how many GOP members of the House had taken
his pledge not to raise taxes.
His response: "The commitment that 235 Republican members of the
House and 40 Republicans in the Senate have signed is the Taxpayer Protection
Pledge – it says no raising taxes. So, taxes are off the table."
Seems clear. But if virtually every GOP member of the House and 40 GOP
senators have signed a pledge not to raise taxes, how can they dishonor that
pledge?
How could they agree to raise the top U.S. income tax rate back up to
the 40 percent of the Bill Clinton era, as Obama demands, then go home and tell
voters they had no choice, that to get a deal with Reid and Obama they had to
let the government take a larger share of the income of American citizens?
They cannot.
Put bluntly, a vote by a Republican House to raise taxes as part of a
big budget deal would be an act of collective suicide by the party of Speaker
John Boehner.
And the Democrats?
With the exception of the civil rights acts of the 1960s, no programs
are more hallowed in party mythology than Medicare, Medicaid and Social
Security.
Are Democrats, after the "shellacking" of 2010, going to go
home and tell their constituents they voted to cut Medicaid benefits?
Are they going to tell the old folks of the Greatest Generation and the
Silent Generation and the retiring baby boomers that Medicare in the future
will not be as generous as it has been in the past, that we are going to have
to start rationing their health care?
The new Republican governors – Scott Walker in Wisconsin,
John Kasich in Ohio, Chris Christie in New Jersey, Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania
– all have resisted raising taxes, as has Andrew Cuomo, Democrat of New York,
who enjoys remarkably high poll numbers for the times we live in.
The praise these governors are receiving, even when embattled, has also
steeled the spine of congressional Republicans against any tax increase.
But if Democrats are not going to do even minor surgery on Medicare and
Medicaid and Republicans are not going to raise taxes, there is no hope of big
budget deal to cut a deficit now running at 11 percent of gross domestic
product.
And that raises another question.
How long can the Federal Reserve continue financing
these deficits?
China, choking on U.S. debt, is reportedly beginning to divest itself of
U.S. bonds. Japan will need to sell U.S. bonds to get hard currency to repair
the damage from the earthquake and tsunami. And the Fed is about to end its QE2
monthly purchases of $100 billion in U.S. bonds.
Where is the Fed going to borrow the $125 billion a month to finance this year's deficit of $1.65 trillion, and another of
comparable size in 2012?
Bill Gross' Pimco, the world's largest bond fund, has sold all his U.S.
bonds and begun to short U.S. debt. Pimco is betting that the value of U.S.
Treasury bonds will begin to fall.
We may be about to enter a maelstrom.
No big budget deal is brokered. The deficit endures, and another looms
in 2012. To finance them, the Fed borrows at the rate of $30 billion a week
wherever it can.
But as countries begin to choke on U.S. debt, the
market starts to dry up. To attract investors, the Fed must raise interest
rates, which sends bond prices sinking and forces interest rates up across the
economy.
With interest rates rising, gas prices rising and inflation rising, the
squeeze is on, and there is talk of a double-dip recession.
And if that happens, Obama is toast. But, then, so are we.'
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding.
Exhibit one: The cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, or CAPE.
This is not a “fad” valuation metric. CAPE dates back to 1871, offering
140 years worth of data, during which time, the mean price-to-earnings ratio is
16.
According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of investors
in the 1990s ...
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and
2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...'
Inflation,
fueled by gas and food prices, adds to worry
GE
Not Repaying Tax Refund; AP Duped by Phony Press Release
AT&T,
T-Mobile file merger application (Washington Post) [ I believe the simplest
test to be best here; viz., 'if att wants it, it's got to be anti-competitive'.
Why? Because even the simplest tasks, ie., land / long lines, etc., are beyond the capability and competence of
this 'can't do' , mob-infested jersey / bushland texas regressive company;
hence, their need, their hankering for monopoly power. Of course, monopoly is
ingrained in the history of att and telecommunications thrived and advanced on
their breakup. Quite simply, att can't compete on a level playing field … it's
their story! Merger
a disconnect for consumers (Washington Post) [ Yeah!
True enough! I had to drop my land line (att/sbc – jersey/bushland) which I
kept for the public listing and which became disfunctional / unusable to the
point where it was impacting my DSL line; both of which I dropped in favor of
MagicJack (I recommend it) and Time Warner Cable / Internet (also better). Deal
to combine AT&T, T-Mobile raises questions (AP)
[Questions? Is that all? att / sbc is a horribly managed company that can't
even do the simplest things well; ie., land lines and dsl thereby, my direct
experience. We've seen this all before. When they can't do, they go monopoly
bigger with disasterous results. This is an old story with a familiar ending. AP
- AT&T's surprise announcement that it plans to acquire T-Mobile USA will
force federal regulators to confront a difficult antitrust question: Can
American consumers get good wireless service at a ... ] OPINION | Your
choice for wireless service would get smaller should AT&T carry out its
plan to buy T-Mobile USA. ] Firm confident it will win over regulators to its bid
to buy T-Mobile USA, even as critics continue to bash the deal. Here's that other story of what's
'unsaid' being very costly to the nation :
On
NBC, the missing story about GE
(Washington Post) [ Ya think! … Seriously though, this is as important a
story as can be since these scenarios have been a significant problem for the
pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt u.s. for quite some time... (0 taxes
paid)'
] A call by lawmakers for a careful review
of AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile is really more code language for
something else, analysts say. ]
Libya:
Increased Airstrikes, Ground Troops, Contractors, Civilians Killed, Deadly DU
Munitions – Can We Call This A War Yet? The globalist
coalition refers to it as ‘kinetic military action’, yet as more civilians are
killed in NATO bombings, and with experts adamant that deadly Depleted Uranium
weapons are being used by Western forces, the conflict in Libya looks a hell of
a lot like the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq all over again.
63
percent of people killed in Iraq war were civilians: report Xinhua | U.S.-led wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan have been causing huge civilian casualties.
Retail
Sales Miss ExpectationsWall St. Cheat Sheet On
Wednesday April 13, 2011, 9:40 am EDT 'The U.S.
Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and
food services sales for March, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday
and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $389.3 billion, an
increase of 0.4 percent from the previous month, and 7.1 percent above March
2010. Analysts were expecting a rise of 0.5 percent.
Total sales for the January through March 2011 period were up 8.1
percent from the same period a year ago. The January to February 2011
percent change was revised from +1.0 percent to +1.1 percent.
Retail trade sales were up 0.3 percent from February 2011, and 7.3
percent above last year. Gasoline stations sales were up 16.7 percent from
March 2010 and nonstore retailers sales were up 12.4 percent from last year.
Obviously, inflating Oil (NYSE:USO)
prices are adding to gross revenues for gasoline sales. So, although retail sales
are up for the ninth month in a row, drilling down to the details shows a
weakening trend. If we strip out gas station sales, retail sales were up a
very small 0.1%.
Motor vehicles sales dropped 1.7%. Nevertheless, Toyota Motor
Corporation (NYSE:TM)
is up 1.3%, Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F)
is up 0.4%, General Motors (NYSE:GM)
is up 0.3%, and Honda Motor Company (NYSE:HMC)
is up over 3%.'
chart http://wallstcheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/March-Retail-Sales.png
Inflation,
fueled by gas and food prices, adds to worry
GE
Not Repaying Tax Refund; AP Duped by Phony Press Release
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar [ Give
this man a cigar ... he gets it right! ] Originally Posted on GoldShark.com 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years (both in terms of the markets and the general
economy), equity valuations are now approaching the second largest bubble in
United States history, surpassed only by the technology bubble.
Both the cause and the potential ramifications of this development are
astounding.
Exhibit one: The cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, or CAPE.
This is not a “fad” valuation metric. CAPE dates back to 1871, offering
140 years worth of data, during which time, the mean price-to-earnings ratio is
16.
According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%. In
United States History, only the tech bubble was bigger than what we are
experiencing today.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
Historically, bubbles turn a believable story and a trend into an
overvaluation. In the 1700s during the South Sea Bubble, the mania driving the
bubble was the seemingly endless wealth and prosperity of the New World.
Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the late 1800s as America became
connected from the east coast to the west coast. In the 1920s, a bubble formed
on belief in the newly formed League of Nations (world peace), and more
importantly, the society-changing impact of the automobile.
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention
of investors in the 1990s as the prospect of a virtual marketplace would
forever globalize commerce. Every bubble has a story, whether it be tulips or
inventions or some other craze.
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average. (Two
notes: a. the chart from Bloomberg fails to insert the word ‘projected’; Robert
Shiller references this chart in this Bloomberg
article. b. the 10-year average is the cyclically adjusted price to
earnings ratio).
Considering the power of mean reversion, the market is stretching this
reversion greater than 2000 and 2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
Another question. Could the growth in earnings have been artificially
manufactured?
To quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Let me count the ways.”
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining, and non-market driven. Brilliant.
Again, I am left wondering how it is possible to find ourselves in the same
overvaluation situation as a few years ago especially considering
nothing has been resolved to actually fix the world’s economic system.
A parting thought: according to research
conducted by the Duke University Medical Center, it would seem that even
monkeys are capable of learning from their mistakes. Why can’t we?'
Normalcy Bias and Crisis: A quirk of the human condition is for the mind to desire normalcy so
intensely as to consciously or subconsciously disregard knowledge that is
disruptive to a pre-conditioned reality. This phenomenon is an important part
of crisis management and market psychology. The consequence of a normalcy bias
is that warning signs of a potential crisis go unnoticed or are interpreted
optimistically...'
When a crisis occurs people are so overwhelmed by events inconsistent
with a desired reality they lose their ability to make decisions. Researchers
believe when the mind encounters an entirely new experience or event it
attempts to match that reality to relevant experiences from the past. If there
are no matching experiences the mind enters into a kind of feedback loop
resulting in passivity. This lack of action as a response to risk is called
negative panic1 and it culminates in a dangerous inability to act assertively
in crisis. In essence, the psyche struggles to come to terms with what is
really happening. Paralysis follows. ( Interestingly, I believe this to be a
more apt description of the Japanese reaction in this earthquake / tsunami
induced nuclear crisis. )
He then goes on to discuss how the normalcy bias can lead investors to
ignore looming threats, which in turn can lead to "a cancellation of
short-term volatility risk premium that should otherwise exist." This new Negative
Volatility Regime is defined by:
1. Large declines in spot volatility: The past nine
months have shown an unusually high number of large declines in spot volatility
(realized and implied) that are of a much higher magnitude and length than what
has been observed historically. As a result of these large declines, the VIX
index and short-term realized volatility are below historic averages;
2. Abnormally steep volatility curve: The manifestation
of an abnormally steep volatility curve (as a % of spot volatility) with a
linear shape that more closely resembles a glacial cliff as opposed to the more
traditional desert plateau (see chart);
3. Underperformance of Variance Hedges: Low
volatility-of-volatility on the back of the variance term-structure results in
the underperformance of out-of-the-money options and variance as a hedge
against market declines;
4. High Volatility Skew: High levels of volatility skew
for far out-of-the-money options showing increased likelihood of large declines
in equity prices.
The article has a detailed discussion and great graphs representing the
shape of the volatility structure. The full report can be accessed at: Artemis
Q1 2011_Is Volatility Broken. (It is posted with permission.)'
[ If only gas prices
were the only reasons for concern
regarding the so-called recovery:
Weisenthal On Tuesday April 12, 2011, 1:02 pm EDT
‘Dear investors.You’ve had an amazing run since March 2009.
Maybe it’s time to get a little nervous. In addition to all kinds of
dicey headlines — Japan (NYSE:EWJ),
the Mideast, etc. –the economic data is starting to add up, and look like a
slowdown.
You can see it in business confidence, headline GDP, and certain aspects
of employment. Some previously hot industries are clearly starting to fade.
Case Shiller Is Showing The Housing Double Dip Getting Worse
Small Business Confidence Is Suddenly Turning Lower
Image: NFIB
Q1 GDP estimates have been getting slashed
Image: Wikimedia Commons
After starting off at 4%, estimates
for GDP are now in some cases below 4%.
Durable goods have been weak Las
Vegas gaming revenue has suddenly turned south again.
Image: WilWheaton on flickr
Oil prices have pushed the economy to the breaking point
http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4da466804bd7c84422020000-547/markets-are-stalling-out.jpg
Markets are stalling out The age of cheap money is going away
With inflation on the rise, basically everything things QE2 is toast.
Austerity warnings from the UK
Image: Twitpic
In London, where fiscal tightening is further along than here, it’s
having a clear effect on consumer spending. That’s coming to the US, too.’
Yield
Curve Appears to Be Flattening. Is Recession on the Way? The Hard
Trade 'Slowly and quietly, spreads
of the 2-10 year Treasuries decided not to blow out and instead have started
coming back. What does it mean that in a world of increasing rates, we’re
getting a flattening yield curve?
Here’s the 10 year yield (click to enlarge):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/30/saupload_10yryld.png
Edging up slightly recently, and certainly not contracting. On the flip
side, look at the 2-10 spread (click to enlarge):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/30/saupload_2_10_yr.png
A few short months ago, hyper-inflationists were warning that this
spread, which hit high after high, would blow out as inflation took hold,
became rampant, and we’d be back to the middle ages. I was never in that camp,
and while we see some inflationary pressures building, I think the main risk
remains deflation as real estate, unemployment, etc. will drag down the
consumer.
Regardless, the 2-10 spread has come back from the brink and the curve
is now flattening. I don’t know which way we go from here, but my analysis is
still that rates are headed higher on an absolute level and the flattening
yield curve supports my view that a recession or worse could be on the way.
It’s a bad combination to have higher rates, deflation of stores of wealth, and
a government with no ability to provide future fiscal and monetary stimulus.'
Taxpayers
foot $850M bill for Wall St.’s pension fees NY
Post
Sideways
Action Boots S&P 500 Below 50 Day Moving Average
Survey:
Big Money Managers Preparing For Inflation, Rise In Oil
March
Retail Sales Show a Slight Decline in Real Terms
Why
is the Federal Reserve giving $220 million in bailout money to two wives of
Morgan Stanley bigwigs? Matt Taibbi | America has two
national budgets, one official, one unofficial.
Big
banks are government-backed: Fed’s Hoenig Reuters | Big
banks like BoA and Citigroup should be reclassified as government-sponsored
entities and have their activities restricted.
Ken
Salazar: GOP has ‘amnesia’ about oil spill Politico |
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday that Republicans have a “sense of
amnesia” about last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill.
National / World
63
percent of people killed in Iraq war were civilians: report Xinhua | U.S.-led wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan have been causing huge civilian casualties.
Busted:
TSA lied about promise to not pat-down children Aaron Dykes
| TSA has defended the groping of 6 year-old girl, saying it followed policy.
Yet in Nov. 2010, TSA vowed no ‘enhanced’ pat-downs for children.
Congress
once again trying to push unconstitutional internet sales taxes Republican
Sen. Michael Enzi of Wyoming first tried it and failed in 2007, and now he and
Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin from Illinois are together trying it again.
Drudgereport: Tiny Tim (geithner): YOU
WILL GIVE ME MORE MONEY
OBAMA
CALLS NEW TAXES 'SPENDING REDUCTIONS IN TAX CODE'...
RYAN:
'Dramatically inaccurate,' 'hopelessly inadequate'...
CANTOR: Raising
taxes 'is not the answer'...
Obama's
Support Among Poor Drops to All-time Low...
Left's
angst grows over president's 'shift to center'...
Pentagon
Warns Obama Against Deeper Defense Cuts ... (And where is it going to come from
... I've said before, and it's still true today, that we've already had in
pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt, war crimes nation america a defacto coup
d'etat) ...
RISE
OF NEW WORLD POWER[WITHOUT USA]...
SHOCK:
CBO Says Budget Deal Will Cut Spending by Only $352 Million...
Senate
panel slams Goldman in scathing crisis report... (...Goldman clearly misled their clients and they
misled Congress … referring this matter to the Justice
Department and to the SEC … )
CHICAGOLAND:
Blago Calls Out Rahm... ..."If the government has their way, my
lawyers cannot ask questions about the last conversation I had less than
10 hours before I was arrested, with my deputy governor, when I told him my
chief of staff told me, that Rahm Emanuel said that pending Barack Obama's
approval, he agreed to be the go-between between me and [Illinois House
Speaker] Mike Madigan [and] I would appoint Madigan's daughter the senator in
exchange for passing a public works bill that would put thousands of people to
work, healthcare expansion for working families so they can afford the high
cost of seeing a doctor, and a written promise -- a guarantee in writing -- not
to raise income taxes on the people of Illinois."He held a similar press event about a year ago, just prior
to the start of his first trial."I'm here today to
issue a challenge," a
visibly upset Blagojevich said last April 20. "I challenge Mr.
Fitzgerald. Why don't you show up in court tomorrow and explain to everybody.
Explain to the whole world. Why you don't want those tapes that you made played
in court. I'll be in court tomorrow. I hope you're man enough to be in court
too."Blagojevich has kept a low profile in recent
months, making the timing of his statement curious. Recall
that a little more than a year ago, he went on Bill O'Reilly's Fox program and danced
around a question as to whether Obama or Rahm Emanuel had any involvement in
the case to sell a U.S. Senate seat. Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/blagojevich-press-conference-119785689.html?12#ixzz1JSctCUNQ'
Stiglitz,
Soros, Summers try to remake global economy RT | George
Soros brought together the economic elite to take apart and remake world
finance.
Iceland
rejects hostile takeover attempt in national referendum John
Stratton | Iceland is the only country where the people have been
allowed to have a say in the matter.
Inflation,
fueled by gas and food prices, adds to worry
War
crime? U.S. Troops Fire on Iraqi Detainees (Video)
Aaron
Dykes | Shocking video has
surfaced from 2005 of U.S. troops firing on captive Iraqi detainees after a
riot.
IRS to
increase “pre-crime” enforcement Sovereign Man | Did you ever see Minority Report?
Libya:
Increased Airstrikes, Ground Troops, Contractors, Civilians Killed, Deadly DU
Munitions – Can We Call This A War Yet? The globalist coalition refers to
it as ‘kinetic military action’, yet as more civilians are killed in NATO
bombings, and with experts adamant that deadly Depleted Uranium weapons are
being used by Western forces, the conflict in Libya looks a hell of a lot like
the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq all over again. ]
Private firms have hired scores of top officers, partly to gain access
to intelligence contracting.
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar [ Give
this man a cigar ... he gets it right! ] Originally Posted on GoldShark.com 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years (both in terms of the markets and the general
economy), equity valuations are now approaching the second largest bubble in
United States history, surpassed only by the technology bubble.
Both the cause and the potential ramifications of this development are
astounding.
Exhibit one: The cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, or CAPE.
This is not a “fad” valuation metric. CAPE dates back to 1871, offering
140 years worth of data, during which time, the mean price-to-earnings ratio is
16.
According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%. In
United States History, only the tech bubble was bigger than what we are
experiencing today.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
Historically, bubbles turn a believable story and a trend into an overvaluation.
In the 1700s during the South Sea Bubble, the mania driving the bubble was the
seemingly endless wealth and prosperity of the New World. Railroading prospects
induced a bubble in the late 1800s as America became connected from the east
coast to the west coast. In the 1920s, a bubble formed on belief in the newly
formed League of Nations (world peace), and more importantly, the
society-changing impact of the automobile.
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention
of investors in the 1990s as the prospect of a virtual marketplace would
forever globalize commerce. Every bubble has a story, whether it be tulips or
inventions or some other craze.
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average. (Two
notes: a. the chart from Bloomberg fails to insert the word ‘projected’; Robert
Shiller references this chart in this Bloomberg
article. b. the 10-year average is the cyclically adjusted price to
earnings ratio).
Considering the power of mean reversion, the market is stretching this
reversion greater than 2000 and 2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
Another question. Could the growth in earnings have been artificially
manufactured?
To quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Let me count the ways.”
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining, and non-market driven. Brilliant.
Again, I am left wondering how it is possible to find ourselves in the same
overvaluation situation as a few years ago especially considering
nothing has been resolved to actually fix the world’s economic system.
A parting thought: according to research
conducted by the Duke University Medical Center, it would seem that even
monkeys are capable of learning from their mistakes. Why can’t we?'
Normalcy Bias and Crisis: A quirk of the human condition is for the mind to
desire normalcy so intensely as to consciously or subconsciously disregard
knowledge that is disruptive to a pre-conditioned reality. This phenomenon is
an important part of crisis management and market psychology. The consequence
of a normalcy bias is that warning signs of a potential crisis go unnoticed or
are interpreted optimistically...'
When a crisis occurs people are so overwhelmed by
events inconsistent with a desired reality they lose their ability to make
decisions. Researchers believe when the mind encounters an entirely new
experience or event it attempts to match that reality to relevant experiences
from the past. If there are no matching experiences the mind enters into a kind
of feedback loop resulting in passivity. This lack of action as a response to
risk is called negative panic1 and it culminates in a dangerous inability to
act assertively in crisis. In essence, the psyche struggles to come to terms
with what is really happening. Paralysis follows. ( Interestingly, I believe
this to be a more apt description of the Japanese reaction in this earthquake /
tsunami induced nuclear crisis. )
He then goes on to discuss how the normalcy bias can
lead investors to ignore looming threats, which in turn can lead to "a
cancellation of short-term volatility risk premium that should otherwise
exist." This new Negative Volatility Regime is defined
by:
1. Large declines in spot volatility:
The past nine months have shown an unusually high number of large declines in
spot volatility (realized and implied) that are of a much higher magnitude and
length than what has been observed historically. As a result of these large
declines, the VIX index and short-term realized volatility are below historic
averages;
2. Abnormally steep volatility curve:
The manifestation of an abnormally steep volatility curve (as a % of spot
volatility) with a linear shape that more closely resembles a glacial cliff as
opposed to the more traditional desert plateau (see chart);
3. Underperformance of Variance Hedges:
Low volatility-of-volatility on the back of the variance term-structure results
in the underperformance of out-of-the-money options and variance as a hedge
against market declines;
4. High Volatility Skew: High levels
of volatility skew for far out-of-the-money options showing increased
likelihood of large declines in equity prices.
The article has a detailed discussion and great
graphs representing the shape of the volatility structure. The full report can
be accessed at: Artemis
Q1 2011_Is Volatility Broken. (It is posted with permission.)'
[ If only gas prices were the only reasons for concern regarding the so-called recovery:
Weisenthal On Tuesday April 12, 2011, 1:02 pm EDT
‘Dear investors.You’ve had an amazing run since March
2009.
Maybe it’s time to get a little nervous. In addition
to all kinds of dicey headlines — Japan (NYSE:EWJ),
the Mideast, etc. –the economic data is starting to add up, and look like a
slowdown.
You can see it in business confidence, headline GDP,
and certain aspects of employment. Some previously hot industries are clearly
starting to fade.
Case Shiller Is Showing The Housing Double Dip
Getting Worse
Small Business Confidence Is Suddenly Turning Lower
Image: NFIB
Q1 GDP estimates have been getting slashed
Image: Wikimedia Commons
After starting off at 4%, estimates
for GDP are now in some cases below 4%.
Durable goods have been weak Las Vegas gaming revenue has suddenly turned
south again.
Image: WilWheaton on flickr
Oil prices have pushed the economy to the breaking
point
http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4da466804bd7c84422020000-547/markets-are-stalling-out.jpg
Markets are stalling out The age of cheap money is going away
With inflation on the rise, basically everything
things QE2 is toast.
Austerity warnings from the UK
Image: Twitpic
In London, where fiscal tightening is further along
than here, it’s having a clear effect on consumer spending. That’s coming to the
US, too.’
Yield
Curve Appears to Be Flattening. Is Recession on the Way? The Hard
Trade 'Slowly and quietly, spreads
of the 2-10 year Treasuries decided not to blow out and instead have started
coming back. What does it mean that in a world of increasing rates, we’re
getting a flattening yield curve?
Here’s the 10 year yield (click to enlarge):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/30/saupload_10yryld.png
Edging up slightly recently, and certainly not
contracting. On the flip side, look at the 2-10 spread (click to enlarge):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/30/saupload_2_10_yr.png
A few short months ago, hyper-inflationists were
warning that this spread, which hit high after high, would blow out as
inflation took hold, became rampant, and we’d be back to the middle ages. I was
never in that camp, and while we see some inflationary pressures building, I
think the main risk remains deflation as real estate, unemployment, etc. will
drag down the consumer.
Regardless, the 2-10 spread has come back from the
brink and the curve is now flattening. I don’t know which way we go from here,
but my analysis is still that rates are headed higher on an absolute level and
the flattening yield curve supports my view that a recession or worse could be
on the way. It’s a bad combination to have higher rates, deflation of stores of
wealth, and a government with no ability to provide future fiscal and monetary
stimulus.'
Taxpayers
foot $850M bill for Wall St.’s pension fees NY
Post | New York City taxpayers are helping to pay $850 million in Wall
Street investment fees.
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar [ Give
this man a cigar ... he gets it right! ] Originally Posted on GoldShark.com 'Despite the terrible economic performance
of the past ten years (both in terms of the markets and the general economy),
equity valuations are now approaching the second largest bubble in United
States history, surpassed only by the technology bubble.
Both the cause and the potential ramifications of this development are
astounding.
Exhibit one: The cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, or CAPE.
This is not a “fad” valuation metric. CAPE dates back to 1871, offering
140 years worth of data, during which time, the mean price-to-earnings ratio is
16.
According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%. In
United States History, only the tech bubble was bigger than what we are
experiencing today.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
Historically, bubbles turn a believable story and a trend into an
overvaluation. In the 1700s during the South Sea Bubble, the mania driving the
bubble was the seemingly endless wealth and prosperity of the New World.
Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the late 1800s as America became
connected from the east coast to the west coast. In the 1920s, a bubble formed
on belief in the newly formed League of Nations (world peace), and more
importantly, the society-changing impact of the automobile.
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention
of investors in the 1990s as the prospect of a virtual marketplace would
forever globalize commerce. Every bubble has a story, whether it be tulips or
inventions or some other craze.
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average. (Two
notes: a. the chart from Bloomberg fails to insert the word ‘projected’; Robert
Shiller references this chart in this Bloomberg
article. b. the 10-year average is the cyclically adjusted price to
earnings ratio).
Considering the power of mean reversion, the market is stretching this
reversion greater than 2000 and 2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
Another question. Could the growth in earnings have been artificially
manufactured?
To quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Let me count the ways.”
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining, and non-market driven. Brilliant.
Again, I am left wondering how it is possible to find ourselves in the same
overvaluation situation as a few years ago especially considering
nothing has been resolved to actually fix the world’s economic system.
A parting thought: according to research
conducted by the Duke University Medical Center, it would seem that even
monkeys are capable of learning from their mistakes. Why can’t we?'
The
Negative Volatility Regime: The Market's Disconnect From Global Turmoil The Hard
Trade [ A very interesting and important read / perspective; but I
believe he is far too kind, gentle, empathetic, and overly eager to
euphemistically explain the criminal fraud that continues even as I write.
Indeed, his explanation may fit for the more 'passive' market participants as
they watch these frauds unfold in the face of dire, contraindicated facts and circumstances. Yet he ignores the
reality in that we are talking about literally the criminally insane on wall
street. Forget not that huge amounts of money, in the trillions, have been
scammed through fraudulent means,
ignoring reality, and with wink and nod embracing the convenient,
glaringly inaposite non-truth. His explanation is analogous to trying posit
some rationale to the serial killer as such confronts a new victim. Moreover, I
also believe he ignores the role of modern-day technology, viz., complex
computer programming in facilitating these frauds, high-frequency
churn-and-earn trading (of no economic benefit in net real terms), the ease
of which accomplished is too tempting
for these predisposed criminals to resist.
I truly believe that with the 'profit' / fraudulent gains taken out of
the 'equation' through, ie., prosecution, fines, jail, disgorgement, etc.,
you'd be less likely (though not completely, given the nature of criminal
insanity) to see such disconnect from those 'inconvenient truths' others of us
know as reality. That said, as elsewhere set forth on this website, the
psychological factor is among the factors considered when analyzing securities,
others of which include the economy, growth of earnings, quality of earnings,
etc.. But, make no mistake, they are greedy, criminally insane, and do it for
the money ( in contravention of the rights of others as in, ie., anti-social
personality disorder, among other psychological afflictions ). ] ' For months I have been frustrated and
surprised by the action of the markets in the face of continued turmoil. In
different contexts, I’ve used terms such as "disconnected" or
"bifurcated" where there seems to be a total discontinuity between
the facts and the market actions. I now have a new term: The Negative
Volatility Regime. In
a new report from Artemis Capital, Christopher Cole outlines the current
environment by focusing on volatility. After my own heart, he starts with
behavioral finance and defines the normalcy bias:
Normalcy Bias and Crisis: A quirk of the human condition is for the mind to desire normalcy so
intensely as to consciously or subconsciously disregard knowledge that is
disruptive to a pre-conditioned reality. This phenomenon is an important part
of crisis management and market psychology. The consequence of a normalcy bias
is that warning signs of a potential crisis go unnoticed or are interpreted
optimistically. When a crisis occurs people are so overwhelmed by events
inconsistent with a desired reality they lose their ability to make decisions.
Researchers believe when the mind encounters an entirely new experience or
event it attempts to match that reality to relevant experiences from the past.
If there are no matching experiences the mind enters into a kind of feedback loop
resulting in passivity. This lack of action as a response to risk is called
negative panic1 and it culminates in a dangerous inability to act assertively
in crisis. In essence, the psyche struggles to come to terms with what is
really happening. Paralysis follows. ( Interestingly, I believe this to be a
more apt description of the Japanese reaction in this earthquake / tsunami
induced nuclear crisis. )
He then goes on to discuss how the normalcy bias can lead investors to
ignore looming threats, which in turn can lead to "a cancellation of
short-term volatility risk premium that should otherwise exist." This new Negative
Volatility Regime is defined by:
1. Large declines in spot volatility: The past nine
months have shown an unusually high number of large declines in spot volatility
(realized and implied) that are of a much higher magnitude and length than what
has been observed historically. As a result of these large declines, the VIX
index and short-term realized volatility are below historic averages;
2. Abnormally steep volatility curve: The manifestation
of an abnormally steep volatility curve (as a % of spot volatility) with a
linear shape that more closely resembles a glacial cliff as opposed to the more
traditional desert plateau (see chart);
3. Underperformance of Variance Hedges: Low
volatility-of-volatility on the back of the variance term-structure results in
the underperformance of out-of-the-money options and variance as a hedge
against market declines;
4. High Volatility Skew: High levels of volatility skew
for far out-of-the-money options showing increased likelihood of large declines
in equity prices.
The article has a detailed discussion and great graphs representing the
shape of the volatility structure. The full report can be accessed at: Artemis
Q1 2011_Is Volatility Broken. (It is posted with permission.)'
Weisenthal On Tuesday April 12, 2011, 1:02 pm EDT
‘Dear investors.You’ve had an amazing run since March 2009.
Maybe it’s time to get a little nervous. In addition to all kinds of
dicey headlines — Japan (NYSE:EWJ),
the Mideast, etc. –the economic data is starting to add up, and look like a
slowdown.
You can see it in business confidence, headline GDP, and certain aspects
of employment. Some previously hot industries are clearly starting to fade.
Case Shiller Is Showing The Housing Double Dip Getting Worse
Small Business Confidence Is Suddenly Turning Lower
Image: NFIB
Q1 GDP estimates have been getting slashed
Image: Wikimedia Commons
After starting off at 4%, estimates
for GDP are now in some cases below 4%.
Durable goods have been weak Las
Vegas gaming revenue has suddenly turned south again.
Image: WilWheaton on flickr
Oil prices have pushed the economy to the breaking point
http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4da466804bd7c84422020000-547/markets-are-stalling-out.jpg
Markets are stalling out The age of cheap money is going away
With inflation on the rise, basically everything things QE2 is toast.
Austerity warnings from the UK
Image: Twitpic
In London, where fiscal tightening is further along than here, it’s
having a clear effect on consumer spending. That’s coming to the US, too.’
Yield
Curve Appears to Be Flattening. Is Recession on the Way? The Hard
Trade 'Slowly
and quietly, spreads of the 2-10 year Treasuries decided not to blow out and
instead have started coming back. What does it mean that in a world of
increasing rates, we’re getting a flattening yield curve?
Here’s the 10 year yield (click to enlarge):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/30/saupload_10yryld.png
Edging up slightly recently, and certainly not contracting. On the flip
side, look at the 2-10 spread (click to enlarge):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/30/saupload_2_10_yr.png
A few short months ago, hyper-inflationists were warning that this
spread, which hit high after high, would blow out as inflation took hold,
became rampant, and we’d be back to the middle ages. I was never in that camp,
and while we see some inflationary pressures building, I think the main risk
remains deflation as real estate, unemployment, etc. will drag down the
consumer.
Regardless, the 2-10 spread has come back from the brink and the curve
is now flattening. I don’t know which way we go from here, but my analysis is
still that rates are headed higher on an absolute level and the flattening
yield curve supports my view that a recession or worse could be on the way.
It’s a bad combination to have higher rates, deflation of stores of wealth, and
a government with no ability to provide future fiscal and monetary stimulus.'
Taxpayers
foot $850M bill for Wall St.’s pension fees NY
Post | New York City taxpayers are helping to pay $850 million in Wall
Street investment fees.
Stiglitz,
Soros, Summers try to remake global economy RT | George
Soros brought together the economic elite to take apart and remake world
finance.
Iceland
rejects hostile takeover attempt in national referendum John
Stratton | Iceland is the only country where the people have been
allowed to have a say in the matter.
Inflation,
fueled by gas and food prices, adds to worry
National / World
Top
Scientist: Fukushima Meltdown Could Trigger Atomic Explosion Kurt
Nimmo | Missing isotope readings will reveal if explosions were
hydrogen or nuclear.
War
crime? U.S. Troops Fire on Iraqi Detainees (Video)
Aaron Dykes | Shocking video has surfaced from 2005
of U.S. troops firing on captive Iraqi detainees after a riot.
IRS to
increase “pre-crime” enforcement Sovereign Man | Did you
ever see Minority Report?
Libya:
Increased Airstrikes, Ground Troops, Contractors, Civilians Killed, Deadly DU
Munitions – Can We Call This A War Yet? The globalist coalition refers to
it as ‘kinetic military action’, yet as more civilians are killed in NATO
bombings, and with experts adamant that deadly Depleted Uranium weapons are
being used by Western forces, the conflict in Libya looks a hell of a lot like
the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq all over again.
Top
Scientist: Fukushima Meltdown Could Trigger Atomic Explosion A British
professor and expert on the health effects of ionizing radiation told Alex
Jones today evidence points toward a nuclear explosion occurring at the
Fukushima Daiichi complex. Two explosions at the plant in March were described
as hydrogen gas explosions by Japanese officials and the corporate media.
Stiglitz,
Soros, Summers try to remake global economy The original Bretton Woods
conference of world leaders created the global economic framework still in
place today.The one that took place over the weekend put on by the Institute
for New Economic Thinking — a think tank bankrolled by billionaire investor
George Soros – brought together some of the economic elite to take it apart and
talk about how to make a new one. So where is the global economy, and
specifically the United States headed now?
Drudgereport:
JAPAN NOW
ADMITS: IT'S CHERNOBYL...
Tries to
Explain Delays in Reporting Radiation...
Obama
to Call for Higher Taxes...
DEFICIT
ROCKETS 16% IN FIRST HALF OF YEAR...
Inflation Actually 'Near 10%'...
IMF:
US 'lacks credibility' on debt...
'Stringent
Austerity Measures' Needed...
BUDGET
TRICKS, SLEIGHTS OF HAND IN BUDGET DEAL...
Conservatives'
criticism growing...
Budget deal axes
'czars' -- who are already gone...
Proposal
$773B Higher Than 2008 Budget...
$5
GAS BY MEMORIAL DAY
Thermal
Cameras On Boston Streets Can Show Activity Inside Homes...
Pump
prices less than 10% below record high...
San
Fran highest at $4.13...
OBAMA
MAN: TRUMP HAS 'ZERO CHANCE' [ Hard to believe, or maybe because this particular
factual reality is so easy to believe because it's so obviously true, but
wobama finally got something right, not that it changes anything for him! ]
Despite
Vote, We're Keeping FCC Internet Rules! [
Pelosi finally gets something right! ]
[ wobama, pelosi finally uncharacteristically correct, albeit once each
in their lifetime ... must be the japanese radiation ... ]
9th
Body Found In NY Serial Killer Probe, Possibly A 10th...
Obama
regrets HIS vote against raising debt limit...
RASMUSSEN:
President hits new low 'strongly approve' – 19%...
UPDATE:
Egyptians turn anger on army in Cairo protest...
New
Clashes in Tahrir Square...
Gaza-Israel
violence rages...
'West wants
war'...
'Mideast
Without Israel and America Now Possible'...
Despite
Vote, We're Keeping FCC Internet Rules! [
Pelosi finally gets something right! ]
US
Debt Jumped $54 Billion in Week Preceding Deal to Cut $38 Billion...
11TH HOUR: LET'S MAKE A
DEAL
Obama:
'Americans of different beliefs came together'...
Takes credit for
'biggest annual spending cut in history'...
'LIVE
WITHIN OUR MEANS'...
FLASHBACK:
Deficit Forecast Nears $1.5 Trillion...
SURPRISE:
Government shutdown averted...
Spending
cuts total nearly $40 billion...
$78
billion below Obama request...
Deal
bans DC from spending funds for abortion, continues school voucher program...
BOEHNER:
'As good a deal as we could get'...
REPORT:
Oprah won't endorse Obama for re-election...
Poll:
Obama Struggling With Whites...
Even
black voters slip...
OIL
JUMPS 2% -- IN A DAY...
Fever
for Gold, Silver Grips Investors...
Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie.,
bribery, money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss …
trump is total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade,
quite insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?' ]
The
Economic Collapse April 12, 2011
'Everything that you own is slowly being taken away from you. It is being
done purposely and it is being done by design. Many Americans like to
think of themselves as “well off”, but as will be demonstrated below, we don’t
“own” nearly as much as we think that we do. The truth is that most of us
have to frantically run around accumulating wealth as rapidly as we can so that
we can somehow stay ahead of the rate that wealth is being taken away from
us. The entire system is designed to take what you have away from
you. There are many ways that this is accomplished – taxation, inflation,
debt, interest, fines, fees, tickets, government seizures and good
old-fashioned corporate greed. If you tried to just sit back and do
nothing but hold on to the wealth that you already have you would find out that
it would disappear rather quickly. When you take the time to really
analyze our system the conclusion is undeniable – everything that you think
that you own is being systematically taken away from you.
There is a reason why the wealthiest one percent of all Americans control
40 percent of all the wealth in the United States. The system is
designed to funnel all of the wealth to them and to the government.
Average Americans are experiencing a declining standard of living and it is not
by accident.
Just check out some of the ways that our wealth is being taken from us….
#1 Do you think that
you own your house? You might want to think again. Most Americans
that “own a home” are paying a mortgage. If you stop paying that mortgage
you will lose that home. Over a million American families were kicked out
of their homes last year. This year a million more American families will
get the boot.
But when those families get booted out onto the street they don’t get their
down payments back. They don’t get all the mortgage payments that they
have made back. The banks get to keep all of the money and all of the
houses.
Perhaps you don’t have a mortgage. Does that mean that you “own
your home”?
No, not really. Just refuse to pay your property taxes and watch
what happens. At best you can say that you have the right to rent your
home from the government.
In any event, the reality is that the banks now own more of “our homes”
than we do. During
the most recent recession, the total amount of U.S. home equity owned by
the banks surpassed the total amount of U.S. home equity owned by the rest of
us for the first time ever.
Things used to be far different in this country. Once upon a time
American families owned most of the houses and most of the land in this nation.
But now the banks own most of it. Sadly, most American families
that believe that they “own homes” are actually enslaved to 20 or 30 year debt
contracts.
#2 Do you think that
you own your car? You don’t own it if you are still making payments on
it. If you stop making payments you will rapidly lose that car.
But even if your car is paid off, you can only operate that car if you
do the following….
*You must pay the license fee
*You must pay the car registration fee
*You must pay the emissions inspection fee
*You must pay the property taxes on that car (if that applies in your
area)
*You must pay the tire taxes
*You must pay the gas taxes
If you have paid all of those taxes, then you are permitted to drive
only where the government allows you to drive and only under the rules that the
government sets for you.
But at least you “own” your car, right?
#3 What about your
possessions? Do you own them?
Well, yes, you probably own some possessions.
But that doesn’t mean that they are not enslaving you.
After all, did you use a credit card to pay for any of them?
If so, you could end up paying much more for your possessions than you
originally thought that they cost.
For example, if you only make the minimum payment on your credit card
each month, a $6,000 credit card bill could end up costing you over $30,000
(depending on the interest rate).
#4 Do you own your
education? Well, it is undeniable that nobody can ever take it away from
you. But if you took out student loans that debt may end up enslaving you
for decades.
The borrower is the servant of the lender and student loan debt is more
of a financial drain on Americans than ever before. Americans now owe
more on student loans than they do on credit cards. As hard as that is to
believe, that is actually true. Americans now owe more than $903
billion on student loans, which is a new all-time record.
#5 Will you protect
your wealth if you put your money in the bank?
No, in fact your wealth will be systematically destroyed in the bank.
Inflation is a hidden tax on every single dollar that you own. It
destroys the value of all dollars in existence. There are some Americans
that have been saving money for decades, but those savings are being taxed into
oblivion by inflation. Many experts are now projecting that the average
price of a gallon of gasoline will
hit $5 by the end of the year. So the next time you go to the gas
pump just take a moment to think about how your wealth is being drained away by
inflation.
#6 Insurance costs
continue to soar. After insuring everything in our lives many of us
barely have any money left over to actually live our lives with. In
particular, health insurance premiums have become completely and totally
ridiculous. According
to the Los Angeles Times, Blue Shield of California plans to raise rates an
average of 30% to 35%, and some individual policy holders could see their
health insurance premiums rise by a whopping 59 percent this year alone.
So how are American families supposed to survive if they keep on handing over
bigger and bigger chunks of their income to thehealth
care industry?
#7 State and local
governments all over the nation have turned to ticket writing as a primary
revenue source. In fact, in some areas of the country traffic citations
are soaring at a crazy rate. For example, 110,000 more traffic
citations were written in Los Angeles County last fiscal year than were
written in the fiscal year immediately prior to the last recession.
The truth is that the police even realize what is going on. Just
consider the following quote from from
Police Chief Michael Reaves of Utica, Michigan….
“When I first started in this job 30 years ago, police work was never
about revenue enhancement, but if you’re a chief now, you have to look at
whether your department produces revenues.”
#8 Some states have
decided to simply confiscate wealth even if nothing has been done wrong.
For example, the state of California is aggressively seizing
“unclaimed” safe deposit boxes. If you have a safe deposit box that you
have not checked on in a while you might want to make sure that it is still
there.
#9 You might end up
losing your valuables when you cross the border. It is being reported
that U.S. border agents are
now regularly seizing laptops and other electronic devices as people cross
the border. In many cases those items are never returned.
#10 If you don’t pay
your property taxes, you will lose your house and it will likely be a big Wall
Street bank that will be taking it from you. As
I have written about previously, the big Wall Street banks are buying up
thousands upon thousands of tax liens and are making a killing by socking
distressed homeowners with predatory interest, outrageous penalties and
almost unbelievable legal fees.
#11 Of course the
biggest way that our wealth is being drained is through federal income
taxes. The reason that the
Federal Reserve and the IRS were established back in 1913 was to
redistribute wealth. Wealth is transferred from the American people to
the U.S. government and then ultimately to the elite and to the causes that the
elite favor.
But federal taxes are only one of the taxes that we pay. The truth
is that the average American pays dozens of different taxes each year.
Just check out a few
examples of the different taxes that drain our wealth….
#12 Accounts
Receivable Taxes
#13 Building Permit
Taxes
#14 Capital Gains
Taxes
#15 CDL License Taxes
#16 Cigarette Taxes
#17 Corporate Income
Taxes
#18 Court Fines
(indirect taxes)
#19 Dog License Taxes
#20 Federal
Unemployment Taxes (FUTA)
#21 Fishing License
Taxes
#22 Food License
Taxes
#23 Gasoline Taxes
#24 Gift Taxes
#25 Hunting License
Taxes
#26 Inheritance Taxes
#27 Inventory Taxes
#28 IRS Interest
Charges (tax on top of tax)
#29 IRS Penalties
(tax on top of tax)
#30 Liquor Taxes
#31 Local Income
Taxes
#32 Luxury Taxes
#33 Marriage License
Taxes
#34 Medicare Taxes
#35 Payroll Taxes
#36 Property Taxes
#37 Real Estate Taxes
#38 Recreational
Vehicle Taxes
#39 Road Toll Booth
Taxes
#40 Road Usage Taxes
(Truckers)
#41 Sales Taxes
#42 Self-Employment
Taxes
#43 School Taxes
#44 Septic Permit
Taxes
#45 Service Charge
Taxes
#46 Social Security
Taxes
#47 State Income
Taxes
#48 State
Unemployment Taxes (SUTA)
#49 Telephone federal
excise taxes
#50 Telephone federal
universal service fee taxes
#51 Telephone
federal, state and local surcharge taxes
#52 Telephone minimum
usage surcharge taxes
#53 Telephone
recurring and non-recurring taxes
#54 Telephone state
and local taxes
#55 Telephone usage
charge taxes
#56 Toll Bridge Taxes
#57 Toll Tunnel Taxes
#58 Traffic Fines
(indirect taxation)
#59 Trailer
Registration Taxes
#60 Utility Taxes
#61 Vehicle License
Registration Taxes
#62 Vehicle Sales
Taxes
#63 Watercraft
Registration Taxes
#64 Well Permit Taxes
#65 Workers
Compensation Taxes
Even the future is being taken away from us. The future is
literally being stolen from our children and our grandchildren. They will
be inheriting the 14 trillion dollar (and still rising) national debt that we
have accumulated. What we have done to future generations is unthinkable,
and yet we continue to
endlessly borrow more money. The Congressional Research Service
estimates that the U.S. government will need to borrow $738
billion between April 1st and September 30th. Faith in U.S.
Treasuries is falling so rapidly that now the biggest bond fund in the world,
PIMCO, is
actually shorting U.S. Treasuries.
When you base an entire economy on debt, eventually you end up withmoney
problems that never seem to end. As a nation we are now enslaved to a
vicious spiral of debt that is going to destroy everything that our forefathers
worked so hard to build.
As the debt loads of our federal, state and local governments become
even more burdensome, they are going to want even more money from us. For
decades we gave in to new tax after new tax thinking that it would finally
satisfy them. But it never seems to be enough. They always want
more.
It is the same thing with the banksters. They are never satisfied
either. They always want more assets and they always want more Americans
to be enslaved to debt.
Unfortunately, most Americans are so caught up in the “rat race” that
they never take much time to think about who designed the race or why they are
running it.
Hopefully more Americans will wake up and will realize that our entire
economy and our entire financial system need to be reformed. Our current
system is inherently flawed and it will eventually impoverish the vast majority
of us if we allow it to.'
Cuts
will affect vast spectrum of priorities (Washington Post) [ Drudge was
reporting that the new focus will be trillions, not as just passed, the
billions in cuts, which I did not include / highlight because that's not
news! Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply
happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global
GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of
unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is
to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn
worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to
spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year).
There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the
people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS
TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘ . ] More than half of the $38 billion in
spending cuts that lawmakers agreed to last week in the 2011 budget
compromise that averted a government shutdown would hit education, labor
and health programs. [The
Return of the Carry Trade? [
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org 'What Does Currency
Carry Trade Mean? A strategy in which an investor sells a
certain currency with a relatively low interest rate and uses the funds to
purchase a different currency yielding a higher interest rate. A trader using
this strategy attempts to capture the difference between the rates, which can
often be substantial, depending on the amount of leverage used. - The carry of an asset is the return obtained
from holding it (if positive), or the cost of holding it (if negative)
(see also Cost of carry).For
instance, commodities
are usually negative carry assets, as they incur storage costs or may suffer
from depreciation, but in some circumstances, appropriately hedged commodities
can be positive carry assets if the forward/futures market is willing to pay
sufficient premium for future delivery. This can also refer to a trade with
more than one leg, where you earn the spread between borrowing a low
carry asset and lending a high carry one; such as gold during financial crisis,
due to its safe haven
quality. Carry trades are not arbitrages:
pure arbitrages make money no matter what; carry trades make money only if nothing changes against the
carry's favor. ]
ETF
News Update: Theater of the Absurd
Nyaradi 'This week’s soap
opera in Washington, D.C. was truly the “theater of the absurd” as Congress and
the President wrangled over an “historic” $39 billion budget cut that pales
sadly in comparison to the $189 billion deficit that the Federal Government ran
up in March alone.We’ll discuss this in greater detail in a moment, but for
today, we are content with our positions in gold, oil and inverse exchange
traded funds and we remain in the defensive mode, anticipating stronger
headwinds ahead. On My Radar
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/11/saupload_spxpf040911.png …’ ]
Gerson:
Obama’s tap dance on a tightrope (Washington Post) [ What an understatement
… wobama the b (for b*** s***)Yeah! An appropriate word picture straight out
one of the old Roach ' Our Gang' comedies … and I'm not going say which
characters are which, according to wobama we must share the sacrifice, which
means you because we all know how the wobamas sacrifice, ie., $500 sneakers,
lavishly expensive vacations, etc., which means we have a buck, we eat! Obama
turns to deficit panel (WP) The president plans this week to call for
“balance” and shared sacrifice in tackling the rocketing national debt. { Obama
vs. Trump: A Circus Sideshow on the Road to Feudalism [ Even if you don't
buy the 'feudalism' characterization
of pervasively corrupt, meaningfully
lawless, defacto bankrupt america, there is no question but that america is in
an intractable and regressive state of decline. Nimmo |
Roche 'The worst part of it ...Obama, who vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix any of
it and in fact continues most of the policies that helped get us here in the
first place’ ‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson
wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant fraud in the
(many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and declares with oscar in hand
that not one high level wall street exec has been prosecuted … despite
‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator / experts recommend
getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( what do holder and wobama have in
common … wall street money? … a
proclivity for jive-talking / b*** s*** ?...all/some of the above … or is it
something else ... a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and
personal testimony, an ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a
voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party accused his former
employer of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases
that involve black defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP | Obama has promised to
hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
Obama’s Dismal
Approval Numbers
Drudgereport:
OBAMA
MAN: TRUMP HAS 'ZERO CHANCE' [ Hard to believe, or maybe because this particular
factual reality is so easy to believe because it's so obviously true, but
wobama finally got something right, not that it changes anything for him! http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]
Despite
Vote, We're Keeping FCC Internet Rules! [
Pelosi finally gets something right! ]
[ wobama, pelosi finally uncharacteristically correct, albeit once each
in their lifetime ... ]
RASMUSSEN:
President hits new low 'strongly approve' – 19%... } ]
IMF
Will Work on Portugal Bailout Plan With European Union Bloomberg
| Portugal has requested IMF assistance, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
A
Militarized Economy Cannot Balance the Budget John Perkins
| We can’t afford our bloated military budget and still have democracy.
US to delay
China currency report AFP
Peter
Schiff: Government Counterfeiting and Economic Terrorism
A
Crack in the Great Wall-mart: Watch Out for Rising Prices from China
Oil
prices hit highest level since 2008
Economists
Shocked, Shocked: We Really Are Losing Jobs to China! Fletcher
Soros
and friends reorder global finance at new Bretton Woods
Markets fall
on earnings caution, energy selloff (Reuters) - Reuters
- Stocks mostly fell on Monday as energy shares sold off on lower oil prices
and the onset of earnings season was clouded by concern company outlooks may
fall short of expectations.
China
Goes American, Registers First Trade Deficit Since '04 Rapoza 'The Chinese economy registered a trade deficit in the
first quarter of 2011, it’s first negative trade balance since 2004. A growing
middle class and a stronger local currency has more Chinese businesses buying
abroad. Higher priced commodities — especially soy from the Americas and
iron ore from Brazil — didn’t help the trade figures either.
The General Administration of Accounting (GAC) said in their
report this weekend that, a “strong and rapidly growing domestic economy, plus
international markets and the sharp rise in commodity prices and the Spring
Festival holiday this year all led to a cumulative deficit of $1.02 billion in
the first quarter.” According to the GAC,
China imports in the first three months of the year reached $400.66 billion, up
32.6%, while exports totaled $399.64 billion, an increase of 29.5%.
China’s economy is in fifth gear, with the Asian
Development Bank in Manila forecasting growth of at least 8.2% in 2011,
higher than the official growth estimate of 7%.
Last year, China trade registered the kind of surplus the US only dreams
about, a modest $13.9 billion, according to the GAC. By comparison, the U.S.
trade deficit in January was around $46 billion.
For March, China’s total trade value rose 31.4% to $304.3
billion compared with March 2010. Export values for the month totaled
$152.2 billion, while import values were $152.06 billion. March’s monthly
import data was yet another record, beating January 2011’s historical import
record of $144.3 billion, the GAC said.
In bilateral trade, China and the European Union trade rose 22% to
$123.7 billion. China-US trade totaled around $97 billion, up 25%. In
third place, Chinese-Japanese trade hit $80.78 billion in the first, up 27.1%.
Multinationals accounted for nearly half of China’s import and export
value in the first quarter with a total of $415.4 out of around $800.3 billion
in trade. The multinationals saw an increase of 24.9% in trade out of China so
far this year. Of the total, the MNCs exported $217.5 from China, 24.6%
more than the first quarter of 2010, and imported $197.8 billion worth of goods
and services, an increase of 25.2%, according to the GAC.
China’s state owned enterprises, or SEOs, exported $172.95 billion in
the first quarter, an increase of 27.8%. Of the total, exports were around
$57.58 billion, up 16.4%, and imports were $115.38 billion, up 34.5%.
What Was Exported
China’s leading exports were electromechanical products,
accounting for $232.03 billion, up 22.8% from the same period in 2010 and
accounting forr 58.1% of first quarter exports. Exports of electrical
and electronic products was $6.9 billion, an increase of 27.8%. Machinery
and equipment exports rose 15.5% to $74.6 billion. Traditional Chinese
exports like apparel exports rose 18.4% to $28.5 billion; textiles
jumped 32.7% to $20.2 billion; footwear up 22% to $8.8 billion
and furniture sales rose 19.3% to $8.4 billion.
What Was Imported
China imported 180 million tons of iron ore in the first
quarter, an increase of 14.4%. Average iron ore prices were $156.5 per ton, up
59.5%; soybean imports declined marginally by 0.7% to 10.96
million tons, but the cost of importing soy from the US and South America rose
by an average of 25.7% to $573.90 per ton. In addition, imports of machinery
and electronic products rose 25.6% to $172.92 billion.
Guangdong continues to lead China as the nation’s trade hub, accounting
for $201.2 billion in foreign trade (export + import value). Jiangsu, Shanghai
and Beijing came in third with $121 billion, $98 billion and $91 billion in
trade values, respectively.
Martin Schulz, Managing Director of International Equity at PNC Capital
Advisors was in China last month and said one of the things that surprised him
most was that Chinese clothing manufacturing was starting to move to countries
like Vietnam. “Chinese clothes are starting to be made in southeast Asia
because the wage rates are growing so fast that a lot of manufacturers are
simply moving into the rural areas in the interior of China, or across
borders,” he says.
China’s growing domestic demand could make the country an inflationary
force in the global economy, Shulz said. “The growth there has been a
deflationary force in the world for some time, but now it is going to be an
inflationary one.”
Want to make money trading with China? Honestly, become a soy farmer or
work in agribusiness, at Boeing, or in the organic chemicals space. Because pretty
much everything we sell to China, they sell to us. And apparently at cheaper
prices. Whether its electrical machinery, power generation equipment, medical
devices, or iron and steel, the US registered a trade deficit on them all with
the big C.
US-China Trade Statistics
2009 Top US Exports to China
1. Electrical machinery & equipment: $9.5 billion
2. Oil seeds & other oleaginous fruits: $9.3 billion
3. Power generation equipment: $8.4 billion
4. Air and spacecraft: $5.3 billion
5. Plastics: $4.4 billion
6. Optics and medical devices: $4 billion
7. Iron and steel: $3.5 billion
8. Pulp and cardboard: $2.5 billion
9. Organic chemicals: $2.4 billion
10. Vehicles, excl. railway: $1.9 billion
2009 Top US Imports From China
1. Electrical machinery and equipment: $72.9 billion
2. Power generation equipment: $62.4 billion
3. Apparel: $24.3 billion
4. Toys: $23.2 billion
5. Furniture: $16 billion
6. Iron and steel: $8 billion
7. Footwear: $13.3 billion
8. Plastics: $8 billion
9. Leather and travel bags: $6 billion
10: Optics and medical devices: $5.6 billion
Source: US International Trade Commission. '
The
Return of the Carry Trade? [
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org 'What Does Currency
Carry Trade Mean? A strategy in which an investor sells a
certain currency with a relatively low interest rate and uses the funds to
purchase a different currency yielding a higher interest rate. A trader using
this strategy attempts to capture the difference between the rates, which can
often be substantial, depending on the amount of leverage used. - The carry of an asset is the return obtained
from holding it (if positive), or the cost of holding it (if negative)
(see also Cost of carry).For
instance, commodities
are usually negative carry assets, as they incur storage costs or may suffer
from depreciation, but in some circumstances, appropriately hedged commodities
can be positive carry assets if the forward/futures market is willing to pay
sufficient premium for future delivery. This can also refer to a trade with
more than one leg, where you earn the spread between borrowing a low
carry asset and lending a high carry one; such as gold during financial crisis,
due to its safe haven
quality. Carry trades are not arbitrages:
pure arbitrages make money no matter what; carry trades make money only if nothing changes against the
carry's favor. ]
ETF
News Update: Theater of the Absurd
Nyaradi 'This week’s soap
opera in Washington, D.C. was truly the “theater of the absurd” as Congress and
the President wrangled over an “historic” $39 billion budget cut that pales
sadly in comparison to the $189 billion deficit that the Federal Government ran
up in March alone.We’ll discuss this in greater detail in a moment, but for
today, we are content with our positions in gold, oil and inverse exchange
traded funds and we remain in the defensive mode, anticipating stronger
headwinds ahead.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/11/saupload_spxpf040911.png
Chart courtesy of StockCharts.com,
click to enlarge.
In the chart above we can see that the S&P500 remains in a bearish
signal mode with a price objective of 1160. Strong overhead resistance is at
1330 which held this week and support lies at the 1250 level.We have been in
this range for the last 25 trading days but, as always, this sideways action
will be broken one way or the other. Based on current fundamental and
technical elements, we expect this break to be on the downwards side of the
range.
The big news this week was the 11th hour “resolution” of the bill to
keep the government open which resulted in an “historic” cut of $39 Billion. As
mentioned at the outset, this is truly the theater of the absurd because the deficit
in March alone was $189 Billion, and so far for this fiscal year, we have
racked up a budget deficit of $830 Billion according to the Congressional
Budget Office, up $113 Billion compared to the same period last year. Of course
what went largely unsaid is that this fiscal year is already half way over and
the discussion of the 2012 budget is about to get underway along with the horse
trading that is about to ensue over raising the Federal debt ceiling of $14.3
Trillion that is set to be exceeded in mid May. So it should be good
entertainment as the second and third installments of the “theater of the
absurd” get underway...
In geopolitical news, Palestinians and Israelis continued their
hostilities in the Gaza Strip, protesters in Syria and Egypt persisted with
their demonstrations, and the war in Libya has reached what everyone is now
recognizing to be a stalemate with a fire doing unknown damage to that
country’s Sarir oil field.
All of this unrest resulted in West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil hitting
a 2 1/2 year high of $113/bbl and Brent Crude hitting $126/bbl, its highest
level since July, 2008.
In Europe, the ECB raised interest rates, an action that is sure to put
more pressure on the already struggling peripheral nations and Portugal is
being squeezed for more cuts as they are now a ward of the European Central
Bank. Greece is in recession and everyone wonders if Spain, often thought of as
too big to save and too big to fail, is next on the chopping block.
U.S. Treasuries and the U.S. Dollar continued their slide while gold set
a new nominal record of $1476/oz and silver hit a 30 year high of $40/0z.
Finally another earthquake hit Japan on Thursday and the Japanese
government said that Japan’s economy was in “severe condition.”
We continue to live in historic times fraught with challenges, danger
and uncertainty. Rising oil prices are never good for Western economies and the
looming fight over raising the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget proposal put
forth by U.S. Representative Paul Ryan will set the economic tone for the rest
of this year and next. Dr. Bernanke and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve
say that inflation is “transitory,” however, the precious metals and oil
markets seem to be literally screaming otherwise.
1.
Major
Issues/Themes: This week
brings significant economic reports and the kickoff on Monday of earnings
season with Alcoa (AA)
reporting after the bell.
Important reports to watch are Alcoa on Monday, JP Morgan (JPM) and March Retail Sales on
Wednesday, Google (GOOG)
earnings on Thursday and manufacturing and industrial production reports on Friday.
·
Monday: Alcoa Earnings Report
·
Wednesday: JP Morgan earnings, MBA Mortgage Index, March
Retail Sales, February Business Inventories, April Fed Beige Book
·
Thursday: Initial Unemployment Claims, Continuing Claims, March
Consumer Price Index, Fairchild Semiconductor and Google earnings reports
·
Friday: March Consumer Price Index, April Empire
Manufacturing, March Industrial Production, April Michigan Consumer Sentiment
1.
Leaders: (NYSEArca: SLV) iShares Silver (NYSEArca: EPOL) iShares Poland
2.
Laggards: (NYSEArca: EWJ) iShares Japan Index
(NYSEArca: IYT) iShares
Transportation
This week I was in Germany where it was unseasonably warm in Frankfurt
with lovely spring days and warm evenings by the Main River. The restaurants
and bars were full as soccer played on the televisions and I couldn’t help but
wonder how much longer the Germans will be willing to carry their weaker
neighbors in the European Community...'
IMF
Will Work on Portugal Bailout Plan With European Union Bloomberg
| Portugal has requested IMF assistance, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
A
Militarized Economy Cannot Balance the Budget John Perkins
| We can’t afford our bloated military budget and still have democracy.
US to delay
China currency report AFP
| The US Treasury said it would delay a report labeling China a currency
manipulator until at least May.
Economists
Shocked, Shocked: We Really Are Losing Jobs to China! Ian Fletcher
| There’s a nice new academic paper with hard data to back up everyone’s
suspicion that the U.S. is losing jobs to China.
Soros
and friends reorder global finance at new Bretton Woods Washington
Examiner | It’s no accident they’re meeting on the very same site as
Bretton Woods– formally UN Monetary and Financial Conference.
IMF
Will Work on Portugal Bailout Plan With European Union Bloomberg
| Portugal has requested IMF assistance, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
[chart http://www.prisonplanet.com/goldman-sachs-the-margins-are-not-what-they-seem.html ]
…'
Iceland
rejects hostile takeover attempt in national referendum John
Stratton | Iceland is the only country where the people have been
allowed to have a say in the matter.
Five
Things You Didn't Know About Ben Bernanke
Breslin 'You know Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, but
how much do you really know about the guy? The
"most powerful nerd on the planet” became a household name during the
Great Recession, and yet the real man behind that bearded, calm exterior remains
something of a mystery.
Born in Augusta, Georgia, and raised in Dillon, South Carolina, Bernanke was
the son of a pharmacy owner and a schoolteacher. He went on to become an
economics professor and chaired the Department of Economics at Princeton. In
2002, he landed at the Federal Reserve as a governor, and in 2006, President
Bush appointed him chairman. He’s been criticized for failing to foresee the
nation’s financial crisis and for bailing out Wall Street. What you might not
know: The 57-year-old used to be a theme-park waiter.
May I Take Your Order, Please?
If you’ve ever crossed the border between North Carolina and South Carolina
along Interstate 95 and seen a giant Sombrero Tower, you’ve spotted where Young
Bernanke worked as a waiter. During the summers between semesters at Harvard,
the Fed-in-Chief returned to his hometown and slaved at “tourist mecca” South
of the Border to pay his way through college. At the Mexican-themed
roadside attraction, which features an amusement park and a mascot named Pedro,
Bernanke served diners at the Sombrero Restaurant and wore a poncho. In a 60
Minutes interview, Bernanke revealed that his summer jobs taught him that “work
is hard.”
A Man of Many Nicknames
“Helicopter Ben” is Bernanke’s most popular nickname. He earned the title after
a 2002 speech, “Deflation:
Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn’t Happen Here,” in which he referenced Nobel Prize-winning
economist Milton Friedman’s “helicopter drop” theory that says deflation is
best combated by a direct infusion of cash to the people. For this, Bernanke
was rewarded with artistic
renderings of himself dropping money over the country from a helicopter.
Subsequently, he was crowned “Bearnanke” by the Wall
Street Journal : “By harping on his worries about inflation and tight labor
markets, Bernanke has implied there will be no cut in interest rates any time
soon, and bond
investors […] risk losing money as they come to grips with that.” Most
recently, he has been rechristened “Bernie
Mac," “Banana
Ben,” "the
Ben Bernank," and “He
Who Sees No Bubbles.”
Foreclosure Crisis Hits Home
In 2009, Bernanke’s ranch-style childhood home in economically hard-hit Dillon
was sold at a
foreclosure sale to Travis Jackson, a 27-year-old loan officer. Bernanke
declined to comment on the record specifically about his foreclosed-upon
boyhood residence (the Bernanke family had sold the property over a decade
prior), but he stated, “We believe that getting the credit markets going,
getting banks
lending again, increasing the demand for all products—including those made in
Dillon—are part of economic recovery. […] That's what the Fed's trying to
do."
Richard Schafer, who owns South of the Border, says post-recession revenue at
the park is down 10% and he wishes he’d kept a photo of Bernanke as a
serape-wearing server: “I'd probably get some economic-bailout money if I did.”
A Private Faith
Bernanke, almost didn’t go to Harvard because his family was concerned that he
would “lose his Jewish identity.” At the time, Harvard grad student and former
fellow Dillon resident Kenneth Manning, who is African-American and now an
M.I.T. professor, reassured the Bernanke family “there were Jews in
Boston.” When it comes to religion, says a friend, Bernanke “keeps
his feelings and beliefs private … but it’s really embedded in who he is.”
Bernanke learned Hebrew from his maternal grandfather, Harold Friedman, a
professional hazzan and Hebrew teacher.
Upon his arrival in Washington, Bernanke’s leadership experience as chair of
the economics department at Princeton was so limited that “he
liked to joke that his major decisions involved what type of bagels to order
for faculty meetings.”
Nice Beard
“Has Ben Bernanke's beard gotten significantly whiter since he started as Fed
Chairman or is it just me?” tweeted @The Analyst
of Bailout Ben. In terms of facial hair, Bernanke’s now-snowy iconic beard is
the yang to Giants’ pitcher Brian Wilson’s yin. In fact, Mr. Chairman’s beard
even has its own Facebook
page. “I hate everything Ben Bernanke stands for,” the Info page reads,
“but his beard is an epic win.”...'
National / World
Leahy:
Obama Needs Congressional Approval to Put Troops in Libya
CNS News | Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said
President Obama needs congressional approval to send U.S. troops into Libya.
$5 Gas by
Memorial Day CBS | At one time, $5 per gallon gas seemed
like a farfetched idea.
Obama
vs. Trump: A Circus Sideshow on the Road to Feudalism [ Even if you don't
buy the 'feudalism' characterization
of pervasively corrupt, meaningfully
lawless, defacto bankrupt america, there is no question but that america is in
an intractable and regressive state of decline. ] Kurt Nimmo | Obama’s wranglers know the
American spectator does not elect presidents.
Obama’s Dismal
Approval Numbers Rasmussen Reports | There has been a
sharp decline in enthusiasm among liberal voters.
Drudgereport:
$5
GAS BY MEMORIAL DAY
Thermal
Cameras On Boston Streets Can Show Activity Inside Homes...
Pump
prices less than 10% below record high...
San
Fran highest at $4.13...
OBAMA
MAN: TRUMP HAS 'ZERO CHANCE' [ Hard to believe, or maybe because this particular
factual reality is so easy to believe because it's so obviously true, but
wobama finally got something right, not that it changes anything for him! ]
Despite
Vote, We're Keeping FCC Internet Rules! [
Pelosi finally gets something right! ]
[ wobama, pelosi finally uncharacteristically correct, albeit once each
in their lifetime ... must be the japanese radiation ... ]
9th
Body Found In NY Serial Killer Probe, Possibly A 10th...
Obama
regrets HIS vote against raising debt limit...
RASMUSSEN:
President hits new low 'strongly approve' – 19%...
UPDATE:
Egyptians turn anger on army in Cairo protest...
New
Clashes in Tahrir Square...
Gaza-Israel
violence rages...
'West wants
war'...
'Mideast
Without Israel and America Now Possible'...
Despite
Vote, We're Keeping FCC Internet Rules! [
Pelosi finally gets something right! ]
US
Debt Jumped $54 Billion in Week Preceding Deal to Cut $38 Billion...
11TH HOUR: LET'S MAKE A
DEAL
Obama:
'Americans of different beliefs came together'...
Takes credit for
'biggest annual spending cut in history'...
'LIVE
WITHIN OUR MEANS'...
FLASHBACK:
Deficit Forecast Nears $1.5 Trillion...
SURPRISE:
Government shutdown averted...
Spending
cuts total nearly $40 billion...
$78
billion below Obama request...
Deal
bans DC from spending funds for abortion, continues school voucher program...
BOEHNER:
'As good a deal as we could get'...
REPORT:
Oprah won't endorse Obama for re-election...
Poll:
Obama Struggling With Whites...
Even
black voters slip...
OIL
JUMPS 2% -- IN A DAY...
Fever
for Gold, Silver Grips Investors...
Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie.,
bribery, money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss …
trump is total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade,
quite insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump
luxury resort folds, leaving buyers defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for
sister maryanne, the corrupt federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in
n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud
and handles her own motions to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in
jail ... (see RICO Case)] earned many billions of
dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard and
acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the time. ]
." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans. Most,
including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug money
laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit ( also
maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her brother’s
casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?' ]
I get a kick out of
people who dismiss it as an interesting theory that doesn’t always work. It’s
not theory. It’s proven fact. In spite of the few years when it has not worked,
investing over the long-term based on the market’s seasonality significantly
outperforms the market, and with much less risk.
Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year
Harding [ { April
Is a Good Time to Sell ( I quite agree … overvalued to the hilt in this new
manipulated bubble … at the least a
'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' ) Adler , see infra, immediately after
Harding } 'It’s that time of year again
when I always remind you of the market’s seasonality, its proven tendency to
make most of its gains between November and May, and experience most of its
losses in the opposite period.
I get a kick out of people who dismiss it as an interesting theory that
doesn’t always work. It’s not theory. It’s proven fact. In spite of the few
years when it has not worked, investing over the long-term based on the
market’s seasonality significantly outperforms the market, and with much less
risk.
Don’t take my word for it. Academic studies provide clear evidence.
For instance, a 27-page study published in the prestigious American
Economic Review in 2002 concludes, “We found that this inherited wisdom of
Sell in May to be true in 36 of 37 developed and emerging markets” It went
on to say that, “A trading strategy based on this anomaly would be highly
profitable in many countries. The annual risk-adjusted outperformance ranges
between 1.5% and 8.9% annually depending on the country being considered. The
effect is robust over time, economically significant, unlikely to be caused by
data-mining, and not related to taking excess risk.”
Another study in 2008 at the New Zealand Institute of Advanced Study,
which focused solely on the U.S. stock market, concluded that “All U.S.
stock market sectors, and 48 out of 49 U.S. industry sectors performed better
during the winter months than summer months in our sampling from 1926-2006.”
Let’s put the fact that it doesn’t work every year in context.
To begin with, no strategy, particularly buy and hold, works every year.
And that is also true of seasonality. For instance, it underperformed in 2003
and 2009. In those years the market made gains in the winter months, and then,
fueled by massive government stimulus programs, continued still higher during
the summer months when a seasonal investor would have been invested in
something other than stocks.
But the seasonal investor did not lose money by being out of
the market in the unfavorable season in those years. He or she merely missed
further gains. But when an investor is in the market in unfavorable seasons in
which the market experiences the serious declines that most often take place in
unfavorable seasons, that investor actually loses money. Those losses
can be substantial, with investors giving back much, if not all of the gains made
in the previous favorable season. For instance, from May 1st to its
low during the summer months, the S&P 500 lost 22% of its value in 2001,
24% in 2002, 38% in 2008, and even 16% in the early summer correction in the
positive year last year. Those are the experiences that created the ‘lost
decade’ that buy and hold investors experienced but which seasonal investors
avoided.
Why might seasonality be even more important this year than in other
years?
Negatives are piled up against the economy and market to a degree not
seen in a number of years. They include rising inflation; global central banks
raising interest rates to ward off inflation, which is also likely to slow
their economic growth; signs of the U.S. economy slowing again (sharp declines
in home sales, durable goods orders, and consumer confidence); the coming end
of the Federal Reserve’s QE2 stimulus efforts in June; and the austerity
measures Congress will be forcing on the country in efforts to bring the record
budget deficit under control.
Then there is the high level of investor bullishness usually seen near
market tops. For instance, the Investors Intelligence Sentiment survey shows
bullishness has jumped up to 57%, while bearishness has fallen to just 15.7%.
That spread of 41.6% is considered to be in a danger zone. The last time it
reached 40% was in October, 2007, as the market topped out into the 2007-2009
bear market.
So, fair warning. Seasonality is liable to be even more important this
year than in most years.
The traditional seasonality maxim, ‘Sell in May and Go Away’, calls for
buying November 1 and selling on May 1 of the following year. Those dates were
the basis for the academic studies mentioned earlier.
But obviously a positive market move does not begin and end on the same
day each year. So in my 1999 book Riding the Bear – How to Prosper in the
Coming Bear Market, I introduced my Seasonal Timing Strategy. It
uses a technical indicator that tracks market momentum reversals to better
identify the entries and exits. Over the last 40 years, its exit signals have
been as early as April 20, and as late as June 20.
The modification significantly improved the already impressive
performance of the basic ‘Sell in May and Go Away’ seasonal strategy. In a
recent article on MarketWatch, Mark Hulbert wrote that the Hulbert Financial
Digest has only been tracking the performance since mid-2002, and since then
“Harding’s modification of the Sell In May and Go Away indicator produced an
8.2% annualized return . . . with 37% less risk.” That significantly beat the
performance of the S&P 500.' April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … overvalued to the hilt in this new
manipulated bubble … at the least a
'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' ] Adler 'Both banks and foreign central
banks [FCB] have normal buying cycles, and last
week’s evidence suggests that both are just past the peak of those cycles.
In addition, because of Japan’s predicament, FCB buying is for the foreseeable
future, likely to be well below the necessary levels to keep levitating stocks.
Add to that, the loss of the 2 month long, $25 billion weekly stipend from the
Treasury on March 24, and we have the conditions for a rough patch.
With less help from the Treasury, the banks, and FCBs, the Fed would have its
hands full keeping all its balls in the air. Some would be likely to hit the
ground, but not this month. That’s because of the light Treasury supply that I
covered in
the Treasury update. That makes the job much easier this month, even
without the banks and the FCBs.This week is one of those easy weeks, with lots
of Fed pumping and no new Treasury supply ...
The evidence shows that banks are again out of the Treasury buying game. It
also shows that they lost money in the first quarter, which is insane
considering that their cost of funds is zero. It’s an indication of just how
dire the circumstances are. Banks continue to accumulate cash at a frantic rate
in their accounts at the Fed. The last time reserves rose this fast was in the
midst of the crisis in 2008.
...These elements essentially neutralize the Fed’s pumping. ..
In the meantime I would not wait to "sell in May and go away." April
looks like a good time to scale out of all equity longs, including in
particular broad based ETFs, like SPY (SPY), DIA (DIA), QQQ (QQQ), and IWM (IWM). Aggressive traders and
hedgers can use strength to establish short positions probably around mid-month
and after ...' ]
Apr 8, 2011 ... NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- 'With the price of oil
breaching the $110 a ... time oil surged this high, and
they're likely to hit the brakes yet again. ... NEW YORK (TheStreet)
-- With the price of oil breaching the $110 a barrel level, Jim Cramer told the
viewers of his "Mad
Money" TV show Friday that we've officially "entered the danger
zone" where the price of oil will matter more than corporate earnings.
Cramer said he simply cannot be as bullish on the markets as he once was, and
advised investors to begin using strength to raise cash. "Take a lesson
from 2008," Cramer told viewers as he outlined his game plan for next
week's trading. He said the markets faltered the last time oil surged this
high, and they're likely to hit the brakes yet again. "I'm going to become
more bearish as oil continues to climb," Cramer told viewers frankly. ...'
Keep
it Simple - Here's What's Really Driving Stock Prices
Toshiba
proposes to scrap 4 nuke reactors at Fukushima plant [ Am I missing
something here … some failed attempt at (Japanese) humor … Wow! … remind me not to buy a Toshiba
computer (I’ve also just eliminated dell and apple’s just not worth it). The
only explanation is that the radiation must be eating at their brains. Was this
proposal ever in doubt … even necessary? I’m at a loss for words! I really am!
] TOKYO, April 8 (Xinhua) -- Toshiba
Corp. submitted a proposal to Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and the Ministry
of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to decommission four troubled reactors at
the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, ...
Stocks
End Lower Friday, Mixed for Week
Midnight Trader 4:24 PM, Apr 8, 2011 --
2.
NYSE down 5.39
(-0.1%) to 8,483.94
3.
DJIA down 29.44
(-0.2%) to 12,380
4.
S&P 500 down
5.34 (-0.4%) to 1,328
5.
Nasdaq down
15.73 (-0.6%) to 2,780
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
·
Hang Seng up 0.47%
·
Nikkei up 1.85%
·
FTSE down 0.81%
These policies like wars of aggression, illegal surveillance of
Americans, torture of detainees indefinitely held without formal charges,
unfair “free trade” agreements, and bank bailouts ... these policies accelerated
under Obama, even more of the draconian playbook is unfolding.
After 8 years of Bush’s reign that ended with a record low presidential
approval rating in the low 20s, Obama’s promise of hope and change ...Although policies being implemented under
Obama’s leadership exhibit the continuation of Bush’s tyrannical agenda,
his stunning betrayal of populist and Constitutional principles in support of
these actions makes him the ultimate hypocrite...
There have been many articles written about Obama’s unkept promises and
outright lies, but here are 10 actions that prove Obama is just as bad if not
worse than Bush:
1) Bank/Corporate Bailouts...
2) Betrayal of the Poor...
3) Expansion of Free Trade: Obama excoriated NAFTA, GATT and other so-called “Free Trade” agreements
that were put in place under Clinton and Bush (with CAFTA)...These free
trade agreements are designed to only help the multinational corporations
who wrote them, and who Obama now works for. … the government moves forward
with many new similar
agreements.
4) Escalating Wars of Aggression...
5)Internet Rights Eroding...
6) Finally, the DHS
has been arbitrarily seizing domain names, which is clearly
unconstitutional … Obama is completely in bed with Google and others in the
corporate information cartel...
7) Free Speech Restrictions...
8) Illegal Domestic Surveillance...
9) Rule of Law is Dead...
10) Obamacare Fascism... ]
From Egypt to Libya and now the budget, the questions on leadership
style have followed a consistent pattern.
A
Crack in the Great Wall-mart: Watch Out for Rising Prices from China Jason
Kaspar | If inflation is to hit home in the heartland of America, it
will certainly begin at Wal-Mart.
Portugal
defaults, America on the waiting list? RT | Prime Minister
of Portugal asked the European Union for a bailout.
Two
George Soros Events Aim to Remake Financial Order and Media Dan
Gainor | His flunkies want to “Change the world. Change the media.”
National / World
Drudgereport: 11TH HOUR: LET'S MAKE A
DEAL
Obama:
'Americans of different beliefs came together'...
Takes credit for
'biggest annual spending cut in history'...
'LIVE
WITHIN OUR MEANS'...
FLASHBACK:
Deficit Forecast Nears $1.5 Trillion...
SURPRISE:
Government shutdown averted...
Spending
cuts total nearly $40 billion...
$78
billion below Obama request...
Deal
bans DC from spending funds for abortion, continues school voucher program...
BOEHNER:
'As good a deal as we could get'...
REPORT:
Oprah won't endorse Obama for re-election...
Poll:
Obama Struggling With Whites...
Even
black voters slip...
OIL
JUMPS 2% -- IN A DAY...
Fever
for Gold, Silver Grips Investors...
Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie.,
bribery, money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss …
trump is total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade,
quite insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles Learning
Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now caleefornia
mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years: buy real
estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire
Erupts Inside trump Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year
At N.J. Mainstay Ends With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect
from a mobster’s casino in mob-infested jersey!
Trump
luxury resort folds, leaving buyers defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for
sister maryanne, the corrupt federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in
n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud
and handles her own motions to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in
jail ... (see RICO Case)
] earned many billions of
dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard and acknowledgment
of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE...
PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?' ]
These policies like wars of aggression, illegal surveillance of
Americans, torture of detainees indefinitely held without formal charges,
unfair “free trade” agreements, and bank bailouts ... these policies
accelerated under Obama, even more of the draconian playbook is unfolding.
After 8 years of Bush’s reign that ended with a
record low presidential approval rating in the low 20s, Obama’s promise of
hope and change ...Although policies being implemented under
Obama’s leadership exhibit the continuation of Bush’s tyrannical agenda,
his stunning betrayal of populist and Constitutional principles in support of
these actions makes him the ultimate hypocrite...
There have been many articles written about Obama’s unkept promises and
outright lies, but here are 10 actions that prove Obama is just as bad if not
worse than Bush:
1) Bank/Corporate Bailouts...
2) Betrayal of the Poor...
3) Expansion of Free Trade: Obama excoriated NAFTA, GATT and other so-called “Free Trade”
agreements that were put in place under Clinton and Bush (with CAFTA)...These free
trade agreements are designed to only help the multinational corporations
who wrote them, and who Obama now works for. … the government moves forward
with many new similar
agreements.
4) Escalating Wars of Aggression...
5)Internet Rights Eroding...
6) Finally, the DHS
has been arbitrarily seizing domain names, which is clearly
unconstitutional … Obama is completely in bed with Google and others in the
corporate information cartel...
7) Free Speech Restrictions...
8) Illegal Domestic Surveillance...
9) Rule of Law is
Dead...
10) Obamacare Fascism... ]
From Egypt to Libya and
now the budget, the questions on leadership style have followed a consistent
pattern.
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year
Whistling
Past the Expanding Graveyard as Spain Goes 'On the Clock 'Inflation Trader 'For some time now, the
markets have been ‘whistling past the graveyard,’ impressively ignoring and/or
shrugging off a fair pile of news that ought definitely to be negative for
equities and probably somewhat negative for bonds as well. I’ve detailed these
things previously and they don’t really need much repeating.
But it’s one thing to go whistling past the local church graveyard,
something else entirely to keep whistling when the graveyard stretches on for
miles. Yesterday, Portugal
formally asked the EU for a bailout. “I tried everything but we came to a
moment that not taking this decision would bring risks we can’t afford,” said
Prime Minister Jose Socrates. A day or two ago, there had been talk that
Portugal wanted a short-term loan to float it past a big slug of bond
redemptions that is approaching; the EU said ‘it doesn’t work that way,’ so
Portugal was forced to throw itself on the mercy of the Union.
Well, this is something less than a total surprise, and indeed
Portuguese bond yields rallied 17bps, along with Ireland’s 32bp rally
and Spain’s 6bp rally. I don’t know how Portugal seeking aid improves the lot
of Ireland, but there it is. Now, I don’t really care about a one-day rally but
the significance of Portugal succumbing is that the market’s crosshairs will
now be trained on Spain, Italy, or Belgium. Judging from market yields, it
would appear Spain is likely to be the next one ‘on the clock.’ And that’s
really the main event, because Spain’s economy is much larger than Portugal’s,
Greece’s, or Ireland’s.
The graveyard stretches onward. How long can markets keep whistling?
A
Trading System That Challenges the Efficient Market Hypothesis [ I haven't included the body of this
article because it's not worth your time. What parallel universe is McCurdy
operating in? Even in the heyday of that so-called hypothesis, close
examination of the data indicated that if you weren't timing the market you
were, in a somewhat 'Charlie Sheenish' manner of speaking, duh! … losing!
(my MBA Thesis, 1977, NYU GBA, Finance – which required study / mastery
of such math intensive theory which wasn't for the faint of heart.) Said 'hypothesis'
wasn't true then and certainly isn't true today where complex
computer-programming can and does artificially produce the various criteria /
buy / sell / signals alluded to in the article (they're widely known /
followed) creating the rigged / fraudulent trading game geared to maximized the
'churn-and-earn' commission profits (net negative in economic terms) and
enabling the passing of 'those hot potatoes'/paper shares in a manner that
resembles a game of musical chairs with those not in the loop winding up
holding the bag (including pension funds, etc.); all the while funding those
lavish lifesyles / over-compensation of the frauds on wall street along with
the direct / indirect bribes inuring them from stigma and as well, insulating
them from proper scrutiny and prosecution.
Fundamentals, fundamental rational analysis has become virtually
irrelevant to these now fraud-prone markets like never before in history
facilitating frauds of magnitudes that have made the rationalization 'too big
to fail' a byword of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt american failed
finance; which frauds continue unabated, unprosecuted even as you read these
words. In retrospect, one might say of such theory, in reality, that famed
snoopy(ish - the dog) aphorism,
'baffling them with b*** s*** '. (Which
as it stands today particularly, remains an american financial / economic
strategy, albeit a now widely known failed strategy.) - Lawyer
charged with insider trading (Washington Post) [ Come on! Just enough for a
few headlines so people think they're actually doing something. They could (but
don't) bring a case as this or other wall street crime against a different wall
street liar (sic lawyer) / fraud in that corrupt sinkhole new york (metro, ie.,
jersey, conn., etc.) every single day and bearly touch the tip of the iceberg.
Is anybody foolish enough to think what goes on there is legitimate? Remember,
still no pros for the huge debacle / fraud precipitating the last and
continuing economic / financial crisis. Chemist
charged with insider trading (WP) [ This
remains incredulous to me. Everyone but the big boys / frauds! The
frauds on wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined,
and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm . Looking
Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Davis ‘… This
is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to
get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). SEC:
Wachovia cheated investors
(WP) I truly can see decreasing
the apple weighting (formerly 20%), and increasing the oracle (open office,
etc.), google (ubiquitous) weighting, but increasing dyingosaur microsoft
weighting … I don't think so … something's gone awry here that smacks of
desperation and an attempt to circumvent the visual effects on the nasdaq of a
post-jobs apple, viz., over-priced apple sauce. Isn't that just like the frauds
on wall street … to pad the nasdaq bubble based on a 1-stock story (apple), and
manipulate when that 1-stock story falls to earth! April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … at the least a 'sell in May and go
away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' Adler ]
Whistling
Past the Expanding Graveyard as Spain Goes 'On the Clock 'Inflation Trader 'For some time now, the
markets have been ‘whistling past the graveyard,’ impressively ignoring and/or
shrugging off a fair pile of news that ought definitely to be negative for
equities and probably somewhat negative for bonds as well. I’ve detailed these
things previously and they don’t really need much repeating.
But it’s one thing to go whistling past the local church graveyard,
something else entirely to keep whistling when the graveyard stretches on for
miles. Yesterday, Portugal
formally asked the EU for a bailout. “I tried everything but we came to a
moment that not taking this decision would bring risks we can’t afford,” said
Prime Minister Jose Socrates. A day or two ago, there had been talk that
Portugal wanted a short-term loan to float it past a big slug of bond
redemptions that is approaching; the EU said ‘it doesn’t work that way,’ so
Portugal was forced to throw itself on the mercy of the Union.
Well, this is something less than a total surprise, and indeed
Portuguese bond yields rallied 17bps, along with Ireland’s 32bp rally
and Spain’s 6bp rally. I don’t know how Portugal seeking aid improves the lot
of Ireland, but there it is. Now, I don’t really care about a one-day rally but
the significance of Portugal succumbing is that the market’s crosshairs will now
be trained on Spain, Italy, or Belgium. Judging from market yields, it would
appear Spain is likely to be the next one ‘on the clock.’ And that’s really the
main event, because Spain’s economy is much larger than Portugal’s, Greece’s,
or Ireland’s.
The graveyard stretches onward. How long can markets keep whistling?
U.S. 10y note yields reached 1-month highs at 3.55%, and I will not be
at all surprised to see them keep going higher. I believe the economic data is
going to be flattening out a bit here, but not quickly enough to get investors
champing at the bit to take up the slack once the Fed stops buying in a couple
of months. Real yields are back to 0.96% on the 10y – still too expensive for
my tastes but it is easy to say that; harder it is to find good alternatives.
Even OSM, which
I wrote about a year ago when it was trading at 16, only sports a yield of
CPI+4.8% or so. After accounting for the credit risk of the issuer, that’s not
particularly cheap (although probably better than many alternatives – I am not
selling mine yet).
Energy markets continue to ooze slowly higher. The impacts of the
Japanese disaster are continuing to spread and be felt. The financial impacts
won’t be measured by Geiger counter readings, but by guidance from companies
whose supply chains have been disrupted by the crisis. That guidance and those
calls will start to happen when earnings announcement season gets kicked off on
Monday (although the companies affected probably aren’t those that report next
week but in the week or two thereafter).
And the money spigot the Fed has turned on will be turning off in only a
few months.
Some people would say that this is all part of the “market climbing a
wall of worry.” But that’s not right. A “wall of worry” is when investors are
timid because of the possibility that things might go wrong, and they’re
worrying about what might go wrong. That’s not the situation here. These things
are not possibilities; they are things that are actually going wrong, right
now. It’s whistling past the graveyard (frankly I picture it more like Michael Jackson’s Thriller,
with lots of ghouls and ghastly things reaching out to clutch at the
passersby).
Today, there are two main events on schedule. The first is the
announcement by the ECB of the results of the monetary policy meeting. There is
total unanimity among economists (at least, the 57 polled by Bloomberg) that the
ECB will hike rates by 25bps even as Portugal, Greece, and Ireland are
foundering on high rates. I think that will be a colossal error, although if
they stop after one tightening or indicate that there will be a pause of some
length to let the policymakers evaluate the effect of the move then it may not
be as big of an error. But tightening policy now, given what is happening in
MENA, given what is happening in Japan, and given what is happening with oil
(which price rise is already contractionary), is a mind-boggling decision. And,
as I have said before, it clearly points out that the EU doesn’t care much
about the periphery countries and that policy is being run for the core. That’s
fine, unless you’re a periphery country! We will see, I suppose, how willing
the consumers of Europe are to take slower growth or a return to recession in
order to restrain inflation.
This was always going to be the battle. Inflation, given the scale of
central bank response to crisis, was always doomed to turn higher long before
the “economic slack” (which is to say, jobs for the people) had evaporated. In
the U.S., I have long assumed that the Fed would be very slow
to hike rates for this reason and because the institution – despite its
apparent independence – isn’t insulated from public rancor or from the
brickbats of Congressional blowhards.
The other report is the weekly Initial Claims data (Consensus: 385k from
388k), which is unlikely to have a major impact unless it spikes well above
400k. A 410k print would get people wondering whether Claims are turning higher
again, but a better-than-expected number has a high hurdle because the
presumption is that Claims are in a downtrend.
For my money, I’m watching the ECB, listening to the press conference
afterwards, and wearing a garlic necklace.'
These policies like wars of aggression, illegal surveillance of
Americans, torture of detainees indefinitely held without formal charges,
unfair “free trade” agreements, and bank bailouts ... these policies
accelerated under Obama, even more of the draconian playbook is unfolding.
After 8 years of Bush’s reign that ended with a record low presidential
approval rating in the low 20s, Obama’s promise of hope and change ...Although policies being implemented under
Obama’s leadership exhibit the continuation of Bush’s tyrannical agenda,
his stunning betrayal of populist and Constitutional principles in support of
these actions makes him the ultimate hypocrite...
There have been many articles written about Obama’s unkept promises and
outright lies, but here are 10 actions that prove Obama is just as bad if not
worse than Bush:
1) Bank/Corporate Bailouts...
2) Betrayal of the Poor...
3) Expansion of Free Trade: Obama excoriated NAFTA, GATT and other so-called “Free Trade”
agreements that were put in place under Clinton and Bush (with CAFTA)...These free
trade agreements are designed to only help the multinational corporations
who wrote them, and who Obama now works for. In contrast to being
“opposed” to such agreements, the government moves forward with many new similar
agreements.
4) Escalating Wars of Aggression...
5)Internet Rights Eroding...
6) Finally, the DHS
has been arbitrarily seizing domain names, which is clearly
unconstitutional. Given that Obama is completely in bed with Google and
others in the corporate information cartel, you can
bet he will show his support for these endeavors even if only by remaining
silent as they are debated then implemented.
7) Free Speech Restrictions...
8) Illegal Domestic Surveillance...
9) Rule of Law is Dead...
10) Obamacare Fascism... ]
After an evening meeting with congressional leaders at the White House, the
president said the two sides are divided over “relatively narrow numbers.”
A
Crack in the Great Wall-mart: Watch Out for Rising Prices from China Jason
Kaspar | If inflation is to hit home in the heartland of America, it
will certainly begin at Wal-Mart.
Portugal
defaults, America on the waiting list? RT | Prime Minister
of Portugal asked the European Union for a bailout.
Two
George Soros Events Aim to Remake Financial Order and Media Dan
Gainor | His flunkies want to “Change the world. Change the media.”
Markets
Fall On Second Major Earthquake Near Fukushima Following a 7.4 magnitude
earthquake off the coast of northeastern Japan today, the major stock market
indexes fell after rising all morning.
“We
Don’t Need A Bailout… We Don’t Need A Bailout…Uh, We Need A Bailout”: Portugal
Admits To Needing EU Rescue In the biggest shocker to come out just hours
before the ECB’s announcement tomorrow, which many see is a guaranteed rate
hike, Journal de Negocios has just announced that according to the Portuguese
Finance Minister, the country needs a bailout, after weeks and weeks of
Greece-style denials. And yes, nobody could have foreseen this, and all that
jazz.
National / World
Obama
Remembers Pumping Gas During an appearance before Al Sharpton’s shake down
organization, the National Action Network, the comedian Obama said he was a gas
station attendant before he decided to serve his country as a teleprompter
reader. Barry Obama was a regular Joe with student loans to pay off and other
hardships suffered daily by the boobeoisie.
Drudgereport: Obama:
'I Remember What It Was Like To Pump Gas'...
Get
used to high prices...
GOP
lawyer circulating wobama impeachment article on Hill...
FAA
sets 'no-fly zone' over Williamsburg...
'Long-planned
family trip'...
'Rest
and relaxation'...
Malls
hit highest vacancy in 11 years...
General:
U.S. may consider ground troops in Libya...
DEM:
WH 'dramatically underestimating' cost of war...
NATO
Fears War without End...
NATO Airstrike Kills
Libyan Rebels -- again...
OIL SPIKES PAST $110...
Traders
prepare for oil at $175...
Ryan:
Debt On Track To Hit 800% Of GDP...
Oklahoma
sees driest 4 months since Dust Bowl...
'CBO Can't Conceive of Any Way' Economy Can Continue Past 2037...[that's
awfully optimistically close to if not beyond the 'decades at best
scenario']...
REPORT:
Saudis 'So Unhappy' With White House They Sent Emissaries to China, Russia
Seeking Enhanced Ties...
Cash-Strapped
NYC To Close 20 Fire Companies...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC where
t_rump has his Jerry Springer derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole
new york's fraud street journal … poll? … Don't make me laugh … Lawrence
O'Donnell insists parent company NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and propped up
by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt regions
(ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has such); of
that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in many
battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie.,
bribery, money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss …
trump is total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade,
quite insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH:
Direct from Lost Angeles Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new
yoke, new joyzey, and now caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for
the past several years: buy real estate (and watch the values go
down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire
Erupts Inside trump Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year
At N.J. Mainstay Ends With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect
from a mobster’s casino in mob-infested jersey!
Trump
luxury resort folds, leaving buyers defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for
sister maryanne, the corrupt federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in
n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud
and handles her own motions to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in
jail ... (see RICO Case)
]
earned many billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense
was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the
people, all of the time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE...
PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the possibility of a run when he
should be in jail is a testament to just how big a laughingstock pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become!
[ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and scoundrel trump wraps himself
in populist american flag and offers up an (too little too late – typical
lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’ flowing though he’d
already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with meaningful laws.
All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their ever more and
declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies) u.s. paper / bonds
and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down to it, this has been
america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable structural shift,
hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have survived with
them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest
thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms condemned and
warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his opponents, could not be
bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt america, he could never
have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed the good (but not great,
other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery including judges, police,
politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The Untouchables’ getting a
wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant part of american
folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in america, and
certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The Touchables’. The
reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt, unable to even win
election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He was incorruptible;
and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if not also all but
unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies in america as
I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even false
perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even fake
it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal / judicial processes,
etc., Defacto
bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on offensive (defensive a
misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the nations of the world
combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a pattern emerging here [ I
unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed employees, cia, all 3
branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in this evolved american
trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense … The pervasively corrupt american
illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their lifetime plush
appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are unheard of in
productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these drags on
society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly bureaucracies. Rules
of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans. Most, including sam
alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug money laundering and
obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit ( also maryanne trump
barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her brother’s casinos in a
civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it for the
money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is great
for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a
fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation.
] “I would announce, without equivocation, a 25% tax increase on
anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?'
]
These policies like wars of aggression, illegal surveillance of
Americans, torture of detainees indefinitely held without formal charges,
unfair “free trade” agreements, and bank bailouts ... these policies
accelerated under Obama, even more of the draconian playbook is unfolding.
After 8 years of Bush’s reign that ended with a
record low presidential approval rating in the low 20s, Obama’s promise of
hope and change ...Although policies
being implemented under Obama’s leadership exhibit the continuation of
Bush’s tyrannical agenda, his stunning betrayal of populist and Constitutional
principles in support of these actions makes him the ultimate hypocrite...
There have been many articles written about Obama’s unkept promises and
outright lies, but here are 10 actions that prove Obama is just as bad if not
worse than Bush:
1) Bank/Corporate Bailouts...
2) Betrayal of the Poor...
3) Expansion of Free Trade: Obama excoriated NAFTA, GATT and other so-called “Free Trade”
agreements that were put in place under Clinton and Bush (with CAFTA)...These free
trade agreements are designed to only help the multinational corporations
who wrote them, and who Obama now works for. In contrast to being
“opposed” to such agreements, the government moves forward with many new similar
agreements.
4) Escalating Wars of Aggression...
5)Internet Rights Eroding...
6) Finally, the DHS
has been arbitrarily seizing domain names, which is clearly unconstitutional.
Given that Obama is completely in bed with Google and others in the
corporate information cartel, you can bet he will
show his support for these endeavors even if only by remaining silent as they
are debated then implemented.
7) Free Speech Restrictions...
8) Illegal Domestic Surveillance...
9) Rule of Law is Dead...
10) Obamacare Fascism...
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed
Trump
luxury resort folds, leaving buyers defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for
sister maryanne, the corrupt federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in
n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud
and handles her own motions to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in
jail ... (see RICO Case)
Bad
News for Cisco is Good: Dave's Daily 'This is the Alice in Wonderland world we live in. Cisco CEO John
Chambers admits that all is not well ("we suck!") and investors bid
the stock up 5%. Maybe the thinking is his confession will force his ouster. Maybe
investors will think a government shutdown is a good thing since that's one way
to cut spending. Across the pond, Portugal is bust (another bad news item) but
the euro and stocks rally. Elsewhere Fed Governor Lockhart stated he didn't see
any reason to abandon "QE2" early or raise interest
rates before the end of the year. Was that bad or good news? The best news
item of the day came from part one of a David Stockman op-ed calling out "Crony
Capitalism" as our major problem. It's a great read and the
conclusions within will ring true for many people...'
Slowing
Global Economy With Downside Risk
Roche 'Danske Bank, which has
been very bullish in recent years, is joining the chorus of banks becoming
increasingly concerned about a global slowdown. In a recent note they discussed
their macro outlook and where they see the risks to the downside:
Summary and outlook
Global leading indicators are showing signs of weakening, but they are
still at comfortable levels. US ISM declined modestly from a very high level in
March. Likewise, European PMIs still look good, but survey expectations point
towards a slowdown in growth. In China the slowdown seems to have taken hold.
We expect the majority of the leading indicators to decline to less
expansive levels in the coming months, but to remain at decent levels. However,
several factors could temporarily speed up the decline. Rising oil prices,
caused by the Middle East turmoil, lead to rising production costs and reduced
purchasing power. The disaster in Japan hampers Japanese production and could
also disrupt global supply chains. Finally, the recent slowdown in China
reduces demand growth from Asia.
Details
Global PMI new orders have dropped to 55 from the peak last month at 60.
This is the first drop since September 2010, confirming the expected slowdown
in growth.
In the US, ISM declined moderately from 61.4 to 61.2, but the new orders
index took a dive indicating further corrections in the coming months. Hence we
expect ISM to continue to decline.
In Euroland PMIs generally sent a positive signal, with Germany being
the driving force. However, here as well, we expect to see adjustments in the
coming months. Scandi leading indicators are somewhat less positive, but
generally point to decent growth rates, yet Denmark is still trailing the rest
of the region.
Asia has been sending less upbeat signals lately. Chinese manufacturing
PMI dropped also in March, indicating slowing growth. Other Asian PMIs are
starting to point in the same direction. CEE PMIs have started to show some
signs of moderation as well, but we continue to believe in healthy growth rates
over the coming months. Similarly in Brazil PMI has lost its recent momentum.
click to enlarge
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/6/saupload_danske.png '
U.S.
Equities Stall: Short Exposure Is Best Karnik [ I have a few difficulties
with 'Karnak' here since he correctly sets forth reasons for lower equities;
yet he's long SPY (though in his article he seems to distinguish already ultra
short S & P plays which might bounce to cover). ]
Short-Term,
High-Probability Mean-Reversion Strategy: ETFs Hit a Short-Term Extreme
Crowder 'After marching higher for most of the day, the major market indices
came back near the closing bell to close Tuesday basically flat.
We have seen several days of range bound trading, and I expect to see a
violent move outside of the range when it inevitably occurs.
Given the extreme short-term overbought state in most of the ETFs I
follow for my ETF/Options strategy, I expect to see a short-term reprieve over
the coming days.
Because of the extreme overbought nature of the ETFs, I still have both
of my positions on. I will take them both off once we get back to neutral
territory.
Until then, I will sit back and patiently wait for the trade. This type
of price action has happened before and it will happen again. However, if we
look at the history of the strategy each time this has occurred we have seen
profitable days ahead. I expect that history will repeat itself once again. Of
course, as we all know, there are no guarantees in trading so always consider
risk management mostly through position-sizing with each and every trade. This
is a must for every trader and one that will make you a successful trader over
the long-term. Remember, this is a marathon and not a sprint.
Short-Term High-Probability, Mean-Reversion Indicator – as of close
4/04/11
click to enlarge http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/6/saupload_4_5_11_hpmr.png
Disclosure: I am
short IWM, SPY.'
Ryan:
Debt on Track to Hit 800 Percent of GDP CNSNews.com | Ryan
said House Republicans’ FY2012 budget would save Medicare and help the United
States avoid a debt crisis.
National / World
Flood
of phishing may follow breach (Washington Post) [ Well, I don't know about
the breach, but going fishing in May sounds like a good idea … even April ...
April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … overvalued to the hilt in this new
manipulated bubble … at the least a
'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' ] Adler 'Both banks and foreign central
banks [FCB] have normal buying cycles, and last
week’s evidence suggests that both are just past the peak of those cycles.
In addition, because of Japan’s predicament, FCB buying is for the foreseeable
future, likely to be well below the necessary levels to keep levitating stocks.
Add to that, the loss of the 2 month long, $25 billion weekly stipend from the Treasury
on March 24, and we have the conditions for a rough patch.
With less help from the Treasury, the banks, and FCBs, the Fed would have its
hands full keeping all its balls in the air. Some would be likely to hit the
ground, but not this month. That’s because of the light Treasury supply that I
covered in
the Treasury update. That makes the job much easier this month, even
without the banks and the FCBs.
This week is one of those easy weeks, with lots of Fed pumping and no new
Treasury supply. That should be relentlessly bullish, but you sure wouldn’t
know that from Monday’s action. There’s tremendous drag behind the scenes that
is preventing the Fed’s pumping from having as much effect is it would
otherwise.
The evidence shows that banks are again out of the Treasury buying game. It
also shows that they lost money in the first quarter, which is insane
considering that their cost of funds is zero. It’s an indication of just how
dire the circumstances are. Banks continue to accumulate cash at a frantic rate
in their accounts at the Fed. The last time reserves rose this fast was in the
midst of the crisis in 2008.
Although the banks did buy some Treasuries in mid-March, they have again
stopped buying, and have reduced their holdings, opting to hold cash at the Fed
instead. The banks are pulling cash out of the system and depositing it in
their reserve accounts even faster than the Fed is printing it, lately 60%
faster. We have to wonder what has them so spooked.
At the same time, FCB purchases of Treasuries are also backsliding, and are
well below the threshold where they need to be to keep the markets stable.
These elements essentially neutralize the Fed’s pumping ...
In the meantime I would not wait to "sell in May and go away." April
looks like a good time to scale out of all equity longs, including in
particular broad based ETFs, like SPY (SPY), DIA (DIA), QQQ (QQQ), and IWM (IWM). Aggressive traders and
hedgers can use strength to establish short positions probably around mid-month
and after ...'
Top
3 Reasons were Flat While Gold Set Another Record [ I truly can see decreasing the apple
weighting, and increasing the oracle (open office, etc.), google (ubiquitous)
weighting, but increasing dyingosaur microsoft weighting … I don't think so …
something's gone awry here that smacks of desperation and an attempt to
circumvent the visual effects on the nasdaq of a post-jobs apple, viz.,
over-priced apple sauce. Isn't that just like the frauds on wall street … to
pad the nasdaq bubble based on a 1-stock story, and manipulate when that
1-stock story falls to earth! ] Wall Street Cheat Sheet 'On Tuesday April 5,
2011, Markets closed flat on Wall Street: DJI -0.05% SP500 -0.02% Nasdaq +0.07%
Gold +1.37% Oil -0.45% . Markets went nowhere today … again. Today’s story was
Gold (NYSE:GLD)
setting new record highs. (See “Gold
Bugs, Unite!“)
Today’s markets were flat because:
1) The US Services sector continues to expand. Although the ISM
Non-Manufacturing Index came in below Wall Street expectation, 16 out of 17
sectors expanded. Check Out: Chart
of the Day: US Services Sector Breathes, But Still Expanding.
2) The Nasdaq 100 (NASDAQ:QQQ)
is rebalancing. It was bad news for Nasdaq OMX Group’s (NASDAQ:NDAQ)
former love Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).
Apple
currently comprises 20.49% of the index, but will drop to 12.33%.
However, other tech heavy-weights are cheering the move. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)
is increases its weighting to 8.3% from 3.41%, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)
increases to 4.2% from 1.75%, Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL)
increases to 6.68% from 3.38%, and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)
increases to 5.8%. That’s some nice wind on the back of new
CEO Larry Page.
3) Bonus: Chipotle (NYSE:CMG)
sets a new 52-week high. We recommended Chipotle to our Wall
St. Cheat Sheet Investment Newsletter subscribers when it was trading at
$140. Today it hit $280....'
April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … overvalued to the hilt in this new
manipulated bubble … at the least a
'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' ] Adler 'Both banks and foreign central
banks [FCB] have normal buying cycles, and last
week’s evidence suggests that both are just past the peak of those cycles.
In addition, because of Japan’s predicament, FCB buying is for the foreseeable
future, likely to be well below the necessary levels to keep levitating stocks.
Add to that, the loss of the 2 month long, $25 billion weekly stipend from the
Treasury on March 24, and we have the conditions for a rough patch.
With less help from the Treasury, the banks, and FCBs, the Fed would have its
hands full keeping all its balls in the air. Some would be likely to hit the
ground, but not this month. That’s because of the light Treasury supply that I
covered in
the Treasury update. That makes the job much easier this month, even
without the banks and the FCBs.
This week is one of those easy weeks, with lots of Fed pumping and no new
Treasury supply. That should be relentlessly bullish, but you sure wouldn’t
know that from Monday’s action. There’s tremendous drag behind the scenes that
is preventing the Fed’s pumping from having as much effect is it would
otherwise.
The evidence shows that banks are again out of the Treasury buying game. It
also shows that they lost money in the first quarter, which is insane
considering that their cost of funds is zero. It’s an indication of just how
dire the circumstances are. Banks continue to accumulate cash at a frantic rate
in their accounts at the Fed. The last time reserves rose this fast was in the
midst of the crisis in 2008.
Although the banks did buy some Treasuries in mid-March, they have again
stopped buying, and have reduced their holdings, opting to hold cash at the Fed
instead. The banks are pulling cash out of the system and depositing it in
their reserve accounts even faster than the Fed is printing it, lately 60%
faster. We have to wonder what has them so spooked.
At the same time, FCB purchases of Treasuries are also backsliding, and are
well below the threshold where they need to be to keep the markets stable.
These elements essentially neutralize the Fed’s pumping. It may not be enough
to send the markets lower, and in the absence of new Treasury supply, Fed
buying should be enough to keep the field tilted in favor of higher prices.
April’s bias should be to the upside, but the background drag will be there.
Things will get tougher in May when Treasury supply increases, and really tough
this summer when the Fed presumably will stop pumping. The question at that
point is to what extent the banks and FCBs will be on the upside of their
buying cycle, and will that alone be enough to prevent a selloff.
In the meantime I would not wait to "sell in May and go away." April
looks like a good time to scale out of all equity longs, including in
particular broad based ETFs, like SPY (SPY), DIA (DIA), QQQ (QQQ), and IWM (IWM). Aggressive traders and
hedgers can use strength to establish short positions probably around mid-month
and after ...'
Top
3 Reasons were Flat While Gold Set Another Record [ I truly can see decreasing the apple
weighting, and increasing the oracle (open office, etc.), google (ubiquitous)
weighting, but increasing dyingosaur microsoft weighting … I don't think so …
something's gone awry here that smacks of desperation and an attempt to
circumvent the visual effects on the nasdaq of a post-jobs apple, viz.,
over-priced apple sauce. Isn't that just like the frauds on wall street … to
pad the nasdaq bubble based on a 1-stock story, and manipulate when that
1-stock story falls to earth! ] Wall Street Cheat Sheet 'On Tuesday April 5,
2011, Markets closed flat on Wall Street: DJI -0.05% SP500 -0.02% Nasdaq +0.07%
Gold +1.37% Oil -0.45% . Markets went nowhere today … again. Today’s story was
Gold (NYSE:GLD)
setting new record highs. (See “Gold
Bugs, Unite!“)
Today’s markets were flat because:
1) The US Services sector continues to expand. Although the ISM
Non-Manufacturing Index came in below Wall Street expectation, 16 out of 17
sectors expanded. Check Out: Chart
of the Day: US Services Sector Breathes, But Still Expanding.
2) The Nasdaq 100 (NASDAQ:QQQ)
is rebalancing. It was bad news for Nasdaq OMX Group’s (NASDAQ:NDAQ)
former love Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).
Apple
currently comprises 20.49% of the index, but will drop to 12.33%.
However, other tech heavy-weights are cheering the move. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)
is increases its weighting to 8.3% from 3.41%, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)
increases to 4.2% from 1.75%, Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL)
increases to 6.68% from 3.38%, and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)
increases to 5.8%. That’s some nice wind on the back of new
CEO Larry Page.
3) Bonus: Chipotle (NYSE:CMG)
sets a new 52-week high. We recommended Chipotle to our Wall
St. Cheat Sheet Investment Newsletter subscribers when it was trading at
$140. Today it hit $280....'
[video]
Weisberg: Market Priced for Earnings Perfection [ I'd say far more than
perfection as in contrived, fraudulent overbought bubble! ]
Monetary
and Fiscal Policy Uncertainty: Dave's Daily ' Fed minutes revealed what
most thought despite recent signs of improvement in the US economy; it didn't
need to change its plan to boost the economy by buying $600 billion worth of
bonds. In fact some thought QE2 should continue past the scheduled June
expiration. Therefore POMO
continues and Wednesday the Fed bought another $7.5 billion from their pals on
Wall Street.
Separately, a government shutdown looms, which troubles some but not me
particularly. There's more politics and posturing than leadership in
Washington, that's for sure.
There was more fun when Michael Steinhardt of trading
fame and now chairman of Wisdom Tree went off the reservation blasting Buffett
and phony inflation data. The CNBC panel was flummoxed.
Stocks
did little overall despite the long delayed reweighting of the NASDAQ affecting
Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Cisco (CSCO). Given the Fed's unwillingness
to deal with obvious inflation in commodity markets, precious metals once again
were higher being the featured sector Wednesday.
Volume remains anemic while breadth per the WSJ was flat...'
Retail,
ISM, Fed Reports Lead Tuesday's Economic Calendar [ Watch for the fake data
/ reports as their desperation grows! ]
A
Weak SOX Can Trump a Dow Theory Buy Signal
Suttmeier 'We are now operating under a Dow
Theory Buy Signal as the Dow
Industrial Average closed at 12,400.03 on Monday above its February 18 high at
12,391.29. Be aware that the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) is a drag
in the opposite direction being down 9.5% from its February high. The Dow
Industrials is up 0.1%, Dow Transports is up 1.4%, as is the Russell 2000
versus February highs. The SOX thus questions the sustainability of the Dow
Theory Buy.
Stocks Remain Overvalued Fundamentally – We are operating under a ValuEngine
Valuation Watch with more than 60% of all stocks
overvalued. At Friday’s close 61.1% of all stocks were overvalued. In addition
all 16 sectors are overvalued with eight by double-digit percentages. A
ValuEngine Valuation Warning occurs when more than 65% of all stocks
are overvalued. This last occurred at the mid-February highs.
10-Year Note – (3.431) The 10-Year yield is back below its 50-day simple moving
average at 3.466, which favors the
flight to quality scenario. Daily, annual and quarterly value levels are 3.537,
3.796 and 4.016 with weekly and monthly risky levels at 3.275 and 3.181...'
Wages
not keeping pace with prices (Washington Post) [ Yes , there is a substantial cost to
'no-recession, helicopter ben' b. s. bernanke's attempt at new age alchemy in trying to spin worthless currency /
paper securities / toxic assets into gold for the sake of fraudulent wall
street only; which of course, not only does not work, but invariably ends quite
badly. The more recent your trip to the grocery store, gas station, etc., the
more pronounced the evidence. There is
no modern day alchemy that 'spins more paper into gold'. That value has to come
from some place; viz., you! Chemist
charged with insider trading (Washington Post) [
This remains incredulous to me. Everyone but the big boys / frauds! Not just
corruption, but bad time /resource management. The
frauds on wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined,
and disgorgement imposed (this would also help significantly the hapless,
hopeless budget scenario). Drop
in home prices raises fear of double dip (Washington Post) [ Fear of double dip?
We're in a continuing dip that never
really ended with obfuscations of
reality including more insurmountable debt and fed-based manipulations (Dave
explains infra) Case-Shiller
Chairman: Here’s Why the Housing Market Recession is Not Over Wall St Cheat Sheet 'Welcome to 2003! The
S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index 10-City
Composite was down 2% and the 20-City Composite fell 3.1% in January on a
year-over-year basis. On a monthly basis, the 10-City Composite was down 0.9%
and the 20-City Composite fell 1.0% in January versus December 2010.San
Diego and Washington D.C. were the only two markets to record
positive year-over-year changes. However, San Diego was up a scant 0.1%,
while Washington DC posted a healthier +3.6% annual growth rate. The same
11 cities that had posted recent index level lows in December 2010, posted
new lows in January.
David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard &
Poor’s commented:
“Keeping with the
trends set in late 2010, January brings us weakening home prices with no real
hope in sight for the near future. With this month’s data, we find
the same 11 MSAs posting new recent index lows. The 10-City and 20-City
Composites continue to decline month-over-month and have posted monthly
declines for six consecutive months now.These data confirm what we have
seen with recent housing starts and sales reports. The housing
market recession is not yet over, and none of the statistics are
indicating any form of sustained recovery . At most, we have seen all
statistics bounce along their troughs; at worst, the feared double-dip
recession may be materializing. ..., but both series have moved closer to
a confirmed double-dip for six consecutive months. At this point we are
not too far off, and that is what many analysts are seeing with sales, starts
and inventory data too...' M&A,
Ben Resuscitate Bulls: Dave's Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this
low this long, its inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start
cobbling each other up. Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell
bonds at 1% and buy back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money--nifty trick eh? With all the geopolitical and nuclear events
going on little noticed was Fed "stress tests" of financial
institutions to see if they were healthy enough to buy back shares and pay
dividends. Making the matter sinister and less transparent is their gag order
on the entire process. The Fed also has some toxic waste they'd like to sell you… (see infra)’
] False / fake data /
reports galore … High oil price rally! Come on!
What total b*** s***! Previous rally sparked by upward revision of GDP by the
scandal-scarred commerce department? You can’t believe anything these desperate
self-servers say! This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s suckers’ rally on more bad/worse than expected news
(consumer confidence down) provides an especially great opportunity to sell /
take profits while you still can since there's much worse to come! Fed
to hold regular news conferences (Washington
Post) [ Wow! Just what everyone needed … more spoon-fed b*** s*** / jawboning
by the flawed, flatulent, faultful fed … for the sake of fraudulent wall street
… you do remember those 'no-recession' jawbone sessions that sent the prior
bubble expanding faster than 'the big bang' itself … until every got and
continues to get banged from the last bubble-fraud crash. Chairman Bernanke’s move is part of
efforts by the central bank to make the institution appear less secretive. States
target jobless benefits (Washington
Post) Durable goods (leading indicator)
200% worse than expected, stocks rally. ‘ February
Durable Goods Orders Disappoint
NEW YORK (TheStreet)
Bharatwaj …’ This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Looking
Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows
]
Gold
Settles at Record High Above $1,452 Reuters | Gold prices
rose to settle at a record high above $1,452 ounce Tuesday.
The
foreclosure mess isn’t going away Zachary Roth |
Compelling video of a grandmother being evicted from her home by a SWAT team.
Oil
prices hit all-time high in Britain Mail Online |
Increases the mounting pressure on Bank of England interest rate-setters.
National / World
Typical jersey – I
recall back when, essex county sheriff d'allessio got indicted for innumerable
bribes mob-infested jersey style … Christie
says Essex County executive is wrong to collect pension, full salary
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie said today that Essex County Executive Joseph N.
DiVincenzo Jr. is wrong to collect a pension and a salary for the same position
simultaneously. Christie, in his strongest words yet on the issue, said he
called DiVincenzo to express his displeasure. "I made this really …
California's got their Bell's rizzo, etc., et als
Libyan
rebels gain backing (Washington Post) [ Well there you go … it's all over
but the shoutin'! … Riiiiight!Libya
is a Continuation of Neocon War to Remake Middle East [ Come on! They're muddling along, debt
ridden, incompetent, declining, failing, almost to a nation, individually and
collectively. Trying to still appear relevant, more important are the nations
absent from their war crimes folly (excepting israel for which these treasury
depleting fiascos in the name of zionism continue down this path of self-defeat
/ self-destruction) ] Secret
Illegal War Of Aggression Has Been Raging In Libya For Weeks Watson
| US and British spies have been coordinating war for oil for some time. Rebels
in ‘tactical’ retreat as leaders meet
(WP) [ Tactical … riiiiight!
Well, that sounds like a plan … right out of the manuals on trench
warfare from WWI … works every time … you know, those manual tactics …
meanwhile, back at the other american induced wartime disasters ... ] Italy became the third country to recognize
the opposition as the legitimate government...
Wages
not keeping pace with prices
(Washington Post) [ Yes , there
is a substantial cost to 'no-recession, helicopter ben' b. s. bernanke's attempt at new age alchemy in trying to spin
worthless currency / paper securities / toxic assets into gold for the sake of
fraudulent wall street only; which of course, not only does not work, but
invariably ends quite badly. The more recent your trip to the grocery store,
gas station, etc., the more pronounced the evidence. There is no modern day alchemy that 'spins more paper into gold'.
That value has to come from some place; viz., you! M&A,
Ben Resuscitate Bulls: Dave's Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this
low this long, its inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start
cobbling each other up. Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell
bonds at 1% and buy back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money--nifty trick eh? With all the geopolitical and nuclear events
going on little noticed was Fed "stress tests" of financial
institutions to see if they were healthy enough to buy back shares and pay
dividends. Making the matter sinister and less transparent is their gag order
on the entire process. The Fed also has some toxic waste they'd like to sell you / ' ...The Fed has injected $500 billion
(another $7B in POMO Wednesday) to the financial system
since January 2011 and that wave of liquidity is overwhelming most thoughtful
analysis... Sure it's the end of the quarter and a jam-job to close things out
puts a smile on investors' faces and bonuses in portfolio managers' pockets.
Painting the tape and window dressing is against the law … ’
19
Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is At The Heart Of Our Economic Problems Most Americans don't understand what the Fed
Reserve is or why it is at the heart of our economic problems...most of them
still blame either the Democrats or Republicans for inflation, for the housing
crash, for our rampant unemployment and for the national debt. ] ]
Inflation is back, with higher prices for food and fuel, and what hurts
is paychecks are falling behind.
Paul
B. Farrell: Super-Rich CEOs are killing your retirement SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch)
— 'Headlines race across the web: “Jamie Dimon Worries That Financial
Regulation Will Doom Banks, Forever.” Doom? Forever? Settle down Dimon, this
sounds like an over-the-top B-movie promo for “Vampire Chronicles.” ...
Yes, the end will be swift. Why? Few can take the warnings of geniuses
like evolutionary anthropologist Jared Diamond. In “Collapse: How Societies
Choose to Fail or Succeed,” Diamond warns that societies fail because they’re
unprepared, in denial till it’s too late: “Civilizations share a sharp curve of
decline. Indeed, a society’s demise may begin only a decade or two after it
reaches its peak population, wealth and power.” Just two decades. America hit
its peak in 2000, with Bush’s election. Our two-decade reprieve will soon be
up.
...
And again, the warnings are everywhere. Again ignored. Tragic figures
like Dimon, Bernanke, Geithner as well as Bachus, Bachman, Palin, Trump, Koch
Brothers and even Obama have that blind spot. They simply cannot hear any
warnings … won’t till it’s too late. '
Milbank:
Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant! (Washington Post) [ Wow!
Mr. Milbank was apparently in quite an artsy mood when writing this article, so
replete with latent meaning. Yet, when
I think of replicants, I tend to think of the greater brilliance and beauty,
viz., ie., Rutger Hauer and Sean Young / Darryl Hannah respectively in the
spectacular classic, 'Blade Runner' by Ridley Scott; and hence, Mr. Milbank
slights their memory unfairly. Moreover, when I think of henry waxman, I can't help but picture some
hapless creature of the woodlands, ie., hedgehog, groundhog, etc., who gets
plenty of face-time (big mistake ... doesn't he look like such a creature,
personified?) but few results ($360 tons of hundreds flown into Iraq, etc.). He
could have said biden's short-circuited (that previous lobotomy), harry's
(milk-)toast, boxer (the california disaster), schumer a mob-friendly zionist
(that FBI Agent Taus Affidavit), and pelosi correctly described as obsolete, disfunctional,
incompetent, but beloved? … I don't think so, and I'm constrained to take issue
with that. McConnel? I really seldom watch/listen to them but I guess he's good
for Barney Fife or one of the original Hatfields / McCoys. Yes, they are all
that … bad, and worse. It's good to see Mr. Milbank giving them a well-deserved
shot across their bow … but he should keep in mind that robots with human flesh
would be considered cyborgs … please don't insult the robots, they would say.
The robots indeed take umbrage! ]
Drudgereport: PAPER:
NEW THREATS AT NUKE PLANT
Libyan
Rebels: 'NATO Is Now Our Problem'...
...asset
freeze on Gaddafi regime 'hurting opposition'
Europe
feels strain as US alters Libya policy...
Air
Force spending $4 million a day on war...
NATO
running short on of jets...
NUCLEAR
SUSHI...
India
bans Japan food imports...
Radiation monitor says
levels 'immeasurable'...
FACEBOOK
FRIENDS OBAMA RE-ELECTION!
ZUCKERBERG LIKES...
FLASHBACK:
Gibbs seeks million-dollar job at company...
LIBYA:
GADDAFI MUST STAY BUT COUNTRY READY TO DISCUSS 'REFORM'...
READY
TO HOLD ELECTIONS... MORE...
DEFIANT:
Gaddafi salutes supporters at compound...
US
pulls out warplanes...
GOP
BUDGET: CUT $5.8 TRILLION
FEDS
SPEND 8X REVENUE...
White
House moving forward with govt shutdown plans...
858
SOLDIERS KILLED IN AFGHAN WAR UNDER OBAMA...
NATO FORCES
ACCIDENTALLY KILL 13 REBELS
CRACK FOUND IN
NUKE REACTOR PIT...
Leaking
directly into Pacific Ocean...
Struggle
is on to seal it...
Japanese nuke
crew faces '100-year battle'...
Petraeus
Warns Quran Burning Endangers War Effort...
Protests
Rage In Afghanistan...
JAPAN
TRIES 'SHREDDED NEWSPAPER' TO STOP NUKE LEAK (Well, there you go … a nostalgic throwback to yesteryear … paper maché
… who woulda' thunk it … or remembered it … riiiiight … sounds like a plan!)
HORROR:
Remains From 3 More Victims In NY Serial Killer Case...
Duke
lacrosse accuser arrested in boyfriend's stabbing...
Ahmadinejad
Predicts Embarrassing End for Obama...
These
policies like wars of aggression, illegal surveillance of Americans, torture of
detainees indefinitely held without formal charges, unfair “free trade”
agreements, and bank bailouts rightfully enraged many progressives during the
Bush years. Yet, not only have these policies accelerated under Obama,
even more of the draconian playbook is unfolding.
After 8 years of Bush’s reign that ended with a
record low presidential approval rating in the low 20s, Obama’s promise of
hope and change inspired many beyond mainline progressives. His campaign
speeches were so powerful that they landed him the Nobel Peace Prize without
having done anything for world peace except to offer the idea in order to get
elected. As a Constitutional law professor and attorney, Obama appeared
to have a greater understanding of rights and the balance of power than did
flunky Bush.
Although
policies being implemented under Obama’s leadership exhibit the
continuation of Bush’s tyrannical agenda, his stunning betrayal of populist and
Constitutional principles in support of these actions makes him the ultimate
hypocrite. Additionally, because Obama is a much more influential orator
than Bush, his service to the puppet masters is far more dangerous to the
American people he’s supposed to serve.
There
have been many articles written about Obama’s unkept promises and outright
lies, but here are 10 actions that prove Obama is just as bad if not worse than
Bush:
1) Bank/Corporate Bailouts: Although the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), otherwise known as
the bankster bailout, occurred on Bush’s watch, Obama fully supported it as
necessary. Obama then followed up this massive wealth grab with a
gargantuan stimulus bill which has basically been absorbed by the financial
crisis as well. All said, Bloomberg
and others reported the taxpayer guarantees for Wall Street are
upwards of $23 trillion. Additionally, the best part of Obama’s cabinet and
appointed czars are directly connected
to big banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Furthermore, Obama and
Democratic leaders gave the Federal Reserve even more
regulatory power over the economy. The Administration hails the Financial
Reform bill as a big political accomplishment, but the bill never addressed the
three major problems: doesn’t break
up or reduce the size of too-big-to-fail banks, doesn’t remove
the massive government guarantees to the giant banks, and it won’t
even increase
liquidity requirements to prevent future meltdowns. The inmates are
too clearly running Obama’s asylum.
2) Betrayal of the Poor:
Bush never pretended to give a damn about the poor and the systematic
mechanisms that keep them poor; openly calling the “haves and have mores” his
“base.” But Obama has been portrayed as different, mainly because the
Democratic party is viewed as more empathetic to the poor. Obama promised
affordable healthcare, to create new jobs, and to increase access to a college
education. However, the mandated healthcare bill has proven to actually hurt
the poor, the “jobs”
bill HIRE was nothing but a smokescreen to pass capital controls, and
college loans are increasingly worse than useless since record numbers of
students can’t find work to pay them off. So far he only seems to be
helping the poor by extending food stamps to a record
number of needy Americans — which is currently on the spending cut chopping
block by the way. Obama also extended Bush’s tax
cuts to the wealthiest Americans while the poor suffer the dramatic effects
of inflation and the approaching austerity cuts demanded to prevent a
government shutdown.
3) Expansion of Free Trade: Obama excoriated NAFTA, GATT and other so-called “Free Trade”
agreements that were put in place under Clinton and Bush (with CAFTA). One of
Obama’s campaign
mailers to Ohioans read “one million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA,
including nearly 50,000 jobs here in Ohio.” And Obama told unions that
“he has always opposed NAFTA, and said the trade deal should be amended and
renegotiated.” It is abundantly clear that free trade agreements have not
done well for American manufacturing and its workers (just like Obama told us
during his campaign). These free
trade agreements are designed to only help the multinational corporations
who wrote them, and who Obama now works for. In contrast to being
“opposed” to such agreements, the government moves forward with many new similar
agreements.
4) Escalating Wars of Aggression: Whoever thought it couldn’t get worse than Bush in regards to wars of
aggression — especially by a Nobel Peace Prize recipient — have been proven
dead wrong. Obama has now unilaterally attacked
more countries than Bush, notably bombing inside Pakistan, Yemen and now
Libya without Congressional approval. Obama is worse than war-mongering Neocons
because he moved the war bar from requiring a real or manufactured threat to
justify American military intervention, to vague humanitarian justifications.
In other words, if a secular dictator is stamping out a handful of jihadists
that threaten his regime, we will now bomb the dictator and support
the jihadists when it serves corporate interests. By all counts Obama
is serving the same military/oil masters no matter what labels or excuses
are given. It is truly a hideous display to watch progressives support
Obama’s wars as if they’re more righteous than Bush’s.
5)Internet Rights Eroding: The open and free Internet
is under full assault under Obama’s leadership. It has become
obvious that there has never been much in the way of Internet privacy,
especially since the Patriot Act went into full effect. But now, free access to
information via the Internet is the target of legislation such as The Protecting
Cybersecurity as a National Asset Act, aka the “Internet Kill
Switch” bill, and the Combating Online
Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), aka the domain
“Blacklist” bill. The free Internet is also being threatened by
market-based “net neutrality” agreements, civil lawsuits, technical censorship
via search engines, and yes, blogging taxes too.
6) Finally, the DHS
has been arbitrarily seizing domain names, which is clearly
unconstitutional. Given that Obama is completely in bed with Google and
others in the corporate information cartel, you can
bet he will show his support for these endeavors even if only by remaining
silent as they are debated then implemented.
7) Free Speech Restrictions: Bush mainly used fear, intimidation, access
and fake
reporters to control the establishment message. He and the
media cartel acted in concert to sell gigantic lies to the public. Now,
as more people replace their television service with the Internet, “news” has
been more difficult for the establishment to control. As the global
awakening takes place, the crackdown on free speech intensifies under Obama.
The crackdown has been most obvious on the Internet (see next section)
and on peaceful
protesters. In a comically hypocritical moment that
exemplifies how tyrannical this administration has become, Hillary Clinton was
giving a speech about supporting the right of peaceful protesters while her security
thugs violently removed a “veteran for peace” from the audience for
standing in silent protest. Additionally, there was an absolute police
state put in place during the 2009 G20 meeting in Pittsburgh to shut down
peaceful protests. Finally, we know what direction the
current Administration is headed in terms of free speech, given the recent
White Papers revealing their desire to “outlaw” or
“tax” conspiracy theories, and to make it a felony offense to
share copyrighted information even when no money is involved.
Torture and Sport Killing: Bush
accepted some blame for the Abu Ghraib torture debacle. Rightly so, as it
was his Administration that set forth more enhanced interrogation
permissions down the chain of command that ultimately resulted in such
disgusting behavior. Obama used the notion of closing Guantanamo prison
to score political points and to appear as “anti-torture.” Not only does
Guantanamo remain open two years into his presidency, the detainees have less
rights than they did under Bush. Additionally, Obama has allowed the
torture of American
soldier Bradley Manning simply for being a suspected whistleblower.
If he allows this type of treatment to an American citizen, we can only
imagine the tactics that are still being used against enemy detainees. If
it’s fair to blame Bush for Abu Ghraib, then it seems fair to blame Obama for
allowing an environment where the U.S. military
is engaged in sport killing of innocent civilians — which also seems to
negate his calls for humanitarian purity in other nations.
8) Illegal Domestic Surveillance: It seems the monster
surveillance-industrial complex that was kicked off under Bush remains in full
swing under Obama. Obama voted for the Bush/Cheney FISA-telecom immunity
after vowing to support a filibuster of it while he was a Senator. Glenn
Greenwald reported:
“So candidate Obama unambiguously vowed to his supporters that he would work to
ensure ‘full accountability’ for ‘past offenses’ in surveillance lawbreaking.
President Obama, however, has now become the prime impediment to
precisely that accountability, repeatedly engaging in extraordinary legal
maneuvers to ensure that ‘past offenses’ — both in the surveillance and
torture/rendition realm — remain secret and forever immunized from judicial
review.” And Carol
Rose added, “The link between secrecy and surveillance is critical: in
effect, our government is increasing its power to watch its citizens, while
diminishing the power of citizens to watch their government – the very
antithesis of democracy.” It’s telling how out of control illegal
surveillance has become when private
foreign companies are hired to spy on American environmental activists.
This is in addition to the TSA’s roll-out of naked body scanners and
intrusive pat-downs selectively enforced at airports and fiercely defended by
Obama’s DHS.
9) Rule of Law is Dead: The
Rule of Law is an
ancient concept that means a society is governed by rational, objective written
laws, as opposed to the personal whim or arbitrariness of some king. Under this
pretext, no one is above the law, not even kings. Yet, we have seen this
concept steadily erode from reality over many decades, but not so blatant as
under George W. Bush whose team permanently subverted the rules in favor of the
elite. Under Bush and now Obama, the corporate elite clearly get away with massive
crimes against humanity and overwhelming fraud, while the little people are
still routinely punished for all minor offenses. With not even a hint of
punishment, banks can openly
loot and defraud the public, the government can spy on Americans, the TSA
can grope our private parts, while large corporations continue to poison us and
the environment with impunity. The Feds, under Obama, have even raided legal
medical marijuana dispensaries and private
organic cooperatives. In addition, Obama signed an Executive
Order to indefinitely detain “terror” suspects even after acquittal —
while other lawmakers
seek to remove Miranda Rights. Who is prosecuting these crimes and
injustices? When the criminal corporations with their government partners
continue to run the system, there will be no rule of law, or justice.
10) Obamacare Fascism: Even many progressives
view Obamacare as a purely fascist policy. When a progressive tries to
defend Obamacare these days, the best argument they can give is “at least Obama
tried to fix the problem.” It’s their way of subtly deflecting blame to Bush
for ignoring it because he was too busy “smokin’ turrurists outta their holes”.
Healthcare reform was meant to increase competition and affordable
coverage for all Americans. Yet, the private insurance monopolies remain and
citizens are mandated to buy from them under penalty of jail, while 1000
of the most connected corporations are exempt from the law.
Furthermore, the FDA
remains under the full control of Big Pharma/Chemical giants and the giveaways
to the drug companies have only increased. Finally, when there are
huge profits involved in deciding if people live or die, and budgetary
rationing of services, you will always have “death panels.” So, yes, the
corporate government healthcare merger is complete with for-profit “death
panels.” Folks, if you want to know what the modern-day definition of fascism
is, you just read it.
We
can sense the hate mail is coming from die-hard “team blue” fans here, but
America doesn’t stand a chance without an honest assessment of what she
represents and where she is heading under the policies outlined above. The
Bush-Obama evolution is as blatant as it gets that the current two-party system
has morphed into one that would more properly be labeled The Corporatist
Party. We might do better to look beyond the two teams that so many root
for, and realize that there is one central clubhouse from which they both
operate.'
Paul
B. Farrell: Super-Rich CEOs are killing your retirement Farrell, MarketWatch SAN LUIS
OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — 'Headlines race across the web: “Jamie Dimon
Worries That Financial Regulation Will Doom Banks, Forever.” Doom? Forever?
Settle down Dimon, this sounds like an over-the-top B-movie promo for “Vampire
Chronicles.”
Suddenly the boss of $2 trillion J. P. Morgan Chase is our newest “Dr.
Doom.” Last week he was preaching his mantra to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
choir, warning that financial reforms would be a “nail in the coffin for big
American banks.” Small investors hurt by low rates
Mark Whitehouse explains how while low interest rates have meant big
profits for banks, they are hurting small investors, including seniors who are
seeing their cash earn minimal interest.
Nail in the coffin? Yes, and that’s exactly what the American public
wants. Stuff Wall Street’s Vampire Squids back in their coffins, nail the lids
shut, bury them forever.
Seriously, nationalize our incompetent Super-Rich Banks. We made a
historic mistake not doing it in 2008. Should have let the vampires go
bankrupt, reinstated Glass-Steagall. Instead we sat passively letting our
double-dealing Treasury Secretary, former Goldman boss Hank Paulson, protect
his Wall Street cronies as he conned Congress and taxpayers into making the
worst economic blunder in American history, bailing out Wall Street’s “too-greedy-to-fail”
banks.
Warning: Soon our Super-Rich Vampires will sink the economy deeper than
2008. Worse, they even believe we’ll bail them out again. We blinked in 2008,
so they’ll try sucking out more bail-out blood next time.
The scene’s pathetic: Here’s one of America’s Super-Rich CEOs, a guy
worth $260 million, coming across like a crybaby, whining because a
tough-as-nails gal like Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren and her Consumer
Financial Agency just might take away his toys for being a bad boy … might try
to limit his ability to rip off cardholders … might limit his high-risk
gambling with depositors’ cash, limit him playing in the $700 trillion global
derivatives casino … might force his bank to put up more reserves to prevent
the next meltdown … might even awaken his lost moral consciousness and get him
to think about the public welfare instead of the tens of millions he makes
squeezing the public.
But will Wall Street have an epiphany? Change? Never. No, won’t happen.
Why? America’s Super-Rich Vampire CEOs are already doomed, forever. Our
too-greedy-to-fail banks are back to their old pre-2008 tricks, bankrolling a
billion dollar “kill reform” drive. J. P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup,
Bank of America and Morgan Stanley have invested megabucks in lobbyists and
politicians to water down, defund and effectively kill Warren’s CFA, the SEC,
Dodd-Frank and every other attempt to protect the public.
These guys love running the Fed and Treasury as their own little piggy
banks. As Spencer Bachus, the GOP chairman of the House Financial Services
committee put it, government regulators “exist to serve banks.”
So, unfortunately, for a while you will have to listen to Dimon’s
incessant whining as he keeps replaying his overly dramatic Dr. Doom story.
Until Wall Street pounds all their nails in the coffin of financial reform,
while resurrecting their self-destructive Reaganomics vampire that sank its
fangs and triggered the 2008 meltdown.
But watch out Wall Street: Next time, American taxpayers won’t support
bailouts and trillions more debt. We will sink into the Great Depression 2 and
a new American Revolution next time. No bailout, we’ll just nationalize all
banks.
Then, poor little Jamie and his Super-Rich buddies will lose their jobs,
having destroyed American capitalism. Unfortunately, the great irony is that
these insatiable greedy, incompetent CEOs will personally survive well after
the collapse, living off the millions they’ve stashed away while sabotaging
America with their bankrupt Reaganomics ideas.
Dimon really loves his new role as a Dr. Doom. Plays a tragic drama
queen very well. That “nail in the coffin” speech fits perfectly with the
Chamber’s kill-reform strategies.
Some may say Wall Street’s short-term thinking CEOs are too myopic to be
on the same stage as our long-term thinking Dr. Dooms. But you decide: Here’s a
criteria from Barron’s, offered by legendary money manager Jeremy Grantham, referring
to the 2008 crash: “Why is it that several dozen people saw this crisis coming
for years.” Several dozen Over four years. But “the bosses of Merrill Lynch and
Citi and even Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke, none of
them seemed to see it coming.”
Why? Grantham’s answer is simple: Wall Street and Washington’s leaders
are “management types who focus on what they are doing this quarter or this
annual budget.” Their myopia “guarantees that every time we get an outlying,
obscure event that has never happened before in history, they are always going
to miss it.”
Yes, and they’ll miss the next crash. Guaranteed. Here’s what other
long-term thinking Dr. Dooms predict:
In “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly”
economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff warn that as economies “improve
there will always be a temptation to stretch the limits. … A financial system
can collapse under the pressure of greed, politics and profits ... Technology
has changed ... but the ability of governments and investors to delude
themselves … seems to have remained a constant.”
In the 400-year history of the stock market “there has been a long
succession of financial bubbles,” says financial historian Niall Ferguson. The
culprit? The Fed: “Without easy credit creation a true bubble cannot occur.
That is why so many bubbles have their origins in the sins of omission and
commission of central banks.” And with the rate near zero, Bernanke is becoming
the biggest bubble-blower in American history.
Savvy Hong Kong economist Marc Faber says “the average life span of the
world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years … Once a society becomes
successful it becomes arrogant, righteous, overconfident, corrupt, and decadent
... overspends ... costly wars ... wealth inequity and social tensions
increase; and society enters a secular decline.”
Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz warned that unless Wall Street’s
incentive system is drastically reformed, “the financial sector will only try
to circumvent whatever new regulations we put in place. We will simply have a
short respite before the next crisis.”
Remember a decade ago in “Irrational Exuberance” Yale’s Robert Shiller
predicted the dot-com crash. More recently he warned: “Bubbles are primarily a
social phenomena. Until we understand and address the psychology that fuels
them, they’re going to keep forming. We recently lived through two epidemics of
excessive financial optimism, we are close to a third episode.” And everything
since 2008 guaranteed the “third episode.”
Former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson waned: “We’re running out of
time … to prevent a true depression … the financial industry has effectively
captured our government” and is “blocking essential reform,” and unless we
break Wall Street’s “stranglehold” we will be unable prevent another Great
Depression. Failure to reform Wall Street guarantees a depression.
Unfortunately, Dimon just doesn’t get it.
When Obama reappointed Bernanke, “Black Swan’s” Nicholas Taleb warned
that Bernanke was an economist who “doesn’t even know he doesn’t understand how
things work.” Now the Fed’s Greenspan clone is feeding the GOP’s
self-destructive Reaganomics ideology, blindly focused on saving a dying
banking system by flooding the world with inflated dollars guaranteed to
trigger another meltdown.
Hedge funds make fortunes betting on the utter stupidity of Washington
politicians and Wall Street CEOs gambling with the Fed’s self-destructive
cheap-money policies. In fact, AR Magazine just reported that the top hedge
fund manager made $4.9 billion shorting our clueless leaders, after making $3.4
billion in 2008, the year of the crash.
In George Soros’s “New Paradigm:” America’s 25-year “superboom … led to
massive deregulation ... blindly chasing free markets ... unleashed excessive
greed ... created the dot-com and credit meltdowns” and a “shadow banking
system” of derivatives. “The system is broken … the end of an era of credit expansion
based on the dollar as the international reserve currency.” Warns Soros: “We’re
now in a period of wealth destruction.”
Barton Biggs 2008 bestseller, “Wealth, War and Wisdom” warns us to
prepare for a “breakdown of civilization … Your safe haven must be
self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food ... well-stocked with
seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. … a few rounds
over the approaching brigands’ heads would probably be a compelling persuader
that there are easier farms to pillage.” Biggs is no anarchist militiaman; he’s
a former Morgan Stanley research guru, now a top hedge fund manager.
Yes, the end will be swift. Why? Few can take the warnings of geniuses
like evolutionary anthropologist Jared Diamond. In “Collapse: How Societies
Choose to Fail or Succeed,” Diamond warns that societies fail because they’re
unprepared, in denial till it’s too late: “Civilizations share a sharp curve of
decline. Indeed, a society’s demise may begin only a decade or two after it
reaches its peak population, wealth and power.” Just two decades. America hit
its peak in 2000, with Bush’s election. Our two-decade reprieve will soon be
up.
Obvious warnings were everywhere long before the 2008 meltdown. But a
tragic Reaganomics dogma created a blind spot in Greenspan, Bernanke and
Paulson. Today that blind spot is even stronger with a new crop of Reaganomics
ideologues.
And again, the warnings are everywhere. Again ignored. Tragic figures
like Dimon, Bernanke, Geithner as well as Bachus, Bachman, Palin, Trump, Koch
Brothers and even Obama have that blind spot. They simply cannot hear any
warnings … won’t till it’s too late. '
A
Stark Peak Profits Warning from Capital & Crisis's Chris Mayer Cooper
'Rising star of the US financial newsletter world, Chris Mayer, has a stark
warning for readers in his latest issue of Capital & Crisis (click here). Profit
margins in the US have reached unprecedented levels and can now only fall as
commodity price inflation hits home.
One of the vulnerabilities in today’s market is that profit margins are
near peaks’, he says. ‘Investors tend to like companies with fat profit
margins, but high profit margins are like honey pots that attract competitors.
They are rarely sustainable for long.
Top ten crisis
If you take a list of the top 10 technology stocks in the US Nasdaq
market, the average net profit margin is around 25 per cent, and similar high
profit margins are also seen across the S&P 500 stocks. The boost to profit
margins has come from cost cutting in the downturn, mainly in the form of job
cuts that do nothing to boost domestic consumer demand.
Today, though, I doubt many of these firms have much more to cut,’
suggests Mayer. ‘Instead, the focus is now growing sales and taking business
from competitors or defending an existing business. The focus, too, is how to
deal with rising raw material costs. All of these put enormous pressure on
margins. We should expect to see them fall.
That of course is the contrarian view. It is not what the bulls of Wall
Street are saying. They see a recovery in the US economy that is raising all
boats.
If the Wall Street consensus is again wrong, then the reverse will be
true and all boats will sink. Mr Meyer is stock picking to locate the boats
that will stay afloat, so at least he is thinking in the right direction. But
the tendency always is for the good to get cast down with the bad, particularly
if the numbers are overwhelming.
Naturally, this situation is most dangerous when company profits have
recovered sharply and the domestic economy is still in the dumps. And what do
US auto and house sales figures quite clearly show us? (click
here). The domestic US economy is still in a depression with activity well
down on the boom years.
Domestic depression
Now if domestic demand is not rising, and indeed consumer personal
disposable income is falling (click
here), then what prospects are there for pushing up company revenues to
keep profits surging ahead? You have to look to exports and repatriation of
multinational income.
Yes but does the world not have a few worries of its own right now? To
briefly summize: Japan just had its worst earthquake in history and nuclear
reactors are leaking plutonium; the UK is facing three years of austerity; the
eurozone has a massive debt crisis and the Middle East and North Africa are in
a state of revolution, civil war and protest that have pushed oil prices to a
two-year high.
Will Asian sales hold up under these circumstances? Or will stocks sell
off and the dollar rally, making US exports uncompetitive again? This peak
profits warning is very well timed.'
Irwin
Kellner: Don’t believe everything you hear Kellner, MarketWatch
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) — 'Don’t believe everything you hear —
especially when politics is involved.
These days, it amazes me how many canards pass for the truth. I can only
assume that the purveyors of these misleading bits of information must figure
that if something is repeated often enough, people will take it as correct. ..
While there no doubt are many examples, I give you five that are
particularly egregious. I will list them below in no particular order, and then
tell you why each of these is incorrect:
— the longer the government pays jobless benefits, the higher
unemployment will be;
— rising prices are no problem because “core” inflation is low;
— cutting government spending creates jobs;
— entitlements are fair game for budget cutters;
— Social Security is a key reason for Washington’s budget deficit.
A close look will reveal just how absurd these statements really are.
And by the way, neither political party has a lock on this craziness; this kind
of convoluted thinking can be found among Democrats as well as Republicans.
The first item assumes that people are lazy; they would rather be on the
dole than work. This is ridiculous for two reasons. First, these days there are
more than five applicants for every job. Second, the median weekly jobless
benefit is $300 — barely above the poverty level for one person and far below
the median weekly pay of $740, which, itself, won’t buy much in most parts of
the country.
Next is the belief that excluding food and energy is the best way to
measure inflation. This is misleading since (a) we all consume food and energy
every day; (b) because of this, these items have a major influence on our
attitudes towards inflation and (c) in the case of energy, many firms are
tacking on surcharges to the goods they make and/or deliver, so higher energy
prices are showing up elsewhere as well.
Meet the Most Tax Efficient Man in America
Doug Stives earns less than 75 percent of his former salary but takes
home almost 90 percent as much. How? He claims every tax deduction he can.
Kelsey Hubbard talks with the CPA turned professor about using the tax code to
get more with less.
The third item could literally be ripped from today’s headlines. It is
Herbert Hoover economics reincarnated — the notion that fiscal probity is the
key to economic happiness. By tightening its belt and reducing its deficit, the
story goes, the government will help the economy grow and create jobs by
boosting business confidence. No mention is made of the decline in buying power
and rise in joblessness that will occur first, which makes me wonder why this
would prompt a rise in hiring by the private sector.
Those who subscribe to the fourth item forget the definition of the word
“entitlement.” Webster’s Dictionary says that an entitlement is “a right
granted by law or contract, especially to financial benefits from the
government.” To some people, however, an entitlement is a derisive term, a
promise to be broken. But breaking this particular promise would also break the
law. The FICA Act of 1935 states specifically that revenues raised under that
act can be used only to pay Social Security benefits. Over the years the
provisions of this act have been reinforced a number of times.
Why all the interest in Social Security? Because it is a cash cow, with
assets totaling well over $2 trillion — more than three times the amount needed
to cover this year’s payments to beneficiaries. In plain English, the System
has a surfeit of funds and is in no way responsible for today’s budget
deficits. To put it another way, Social Security has been around for over 75
years, whereas today’s slug of red ink is only a few years old. Washington’s
humongous deficits are clearly the result of too much spending (two wars,
massive bailouts and the huge stimulus package) combined with insufficient
revenues (tax cuts and the Great Recession).
So the next time you hear a politician tell you something that does not
sound quite right — chances are it isn’t.
Irwin Kellner is MarketWatch's chief economist. '
Putting
a Damper on the Big March Job Report Celebration Baker
'Okay, this celebration around the jobs report is really getting out of
hand. Both the Post
and Times
had front page pieces touting the good news. The Post gets the award for being
the more breathless of the two:
The jobs numbers come amid other promising signs that the recovery is
building momentum. The stock market wrapped up the first quarter this week with
a 6.4 percent gain in the Dow Jones industrial average and continued to tack
upward Friday, adding another 0.5 percent. Investors were pleased that the job
growth was continuing — but not so fast that the Federal Reserve might want to
apply the brakes by raising interest rates anytime soon.
Also contributing to the buoyant markets were reports from automakers
Friday showing that auto sales rose in March. Sales of new vehicles were up 11
percent over a year before at General
Motors, 16 percent at Ford
and 23 percent at Honda.
A separate report Friday also showed continued strong growth in the
manufacturing sector, with the Institute for Supply Management’s index of
activity at the nation’s factories edging down to 61.2 from 61.4. Numbers above
50 indicate expansion.
First off, no one should include the stock market as indicator of the
economy's well-being. Rich people are happy -- that's nice -- it has little to
do with the economy. The car buying is positive, but with so many of the cars
now imported or largely comprised of imported parts the impact of this surge in
sales is much less than would have been the case 30 years ago. The drop in the
Institute for Supply Management's index suggests that manufacturing is likely
to make a marginally smaller contribution to growth in the months ahead, not
good news. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics employment diffusion index
for manufacturing, a measure of the percent of sectors that expect to add
workers, fell from 66.0 in February to 63.0 in January, it had been 73.5 in
January.)
As noted above, 216,000 jobs is not especially impressive, especially
given the depth of the hole that our economic policymakers put us in. In only
15 of the 52 months from February 1996 to May of 2000 did the economy create
fewer than 216,000 jobs. In most cases the weakness was caused by bad weather.
And this was at a time when the working age population was more than 10 percent
less than today.
It is also striking that neither paper seems to have mentioned the
Commerce Department's report
on construction in February, which showed a 1.4 percent decline in
February, following even larger declines in December and January. (The big news
in this report was the 2.6 percent downward revision to the data originally
reported for January.) Much of the story here is in non-residential
construction as the building boom that resulted from the bubble in that sector
is leading to a bust. The largest declines are in manufacturing construction
where bio-fuel subsidies had led to a boom in ethanol plants in 2009-2010.
Anyhow, construction is certain to be a big drag on growth in the first
quarter. It should knock at least a percentage point off GDP growth for the
quarter. I am forecasting many surprised economists and reporters.
I have one more point skunk to toss over at the celebrators. Here is the
path of the employment to population ratio (EPOP) over the downturn. Note that
we have only risen slightly from the low hit in December of 2009 and the EPOP is
actually a hair lower today than it was a year ago. The drop in the
unemployment rate over this period was entirely due to people leaving the labor
force. Now is that good news or what?(chart)...'
Markets
Treading Water: Dave's Daily 'Bulls
had a barely perceptible pulse Monday. Volume was incredibly light as traders
were unmoved to do much of anything other than keep things stable. Tech
underperformed weighed down by Apple(AAPL_) and Semis most of the
day. But, as this is written, breaking news indicates Texas Instruments(TXN_) will buy National
Semiconductor(NSM_)
for $6.5 billion so corporations armed with liquidity can keep markets alive
with M&A activity. Away from the late headline regarding TXN/NSM, little
changed in markets overall. Again, volume was light and breadth overall per the
WSJ was moderately positive adding to short-term overbought conditions...'
Weekly
Indicators: Economy Slowing Due to Choke Collar of High Oil Prices Stewart 'Last week's headline numbers were
the 216,000 jobs added in March and the continued decline in the unemployment
rate to 8.8%. As usual, I'll have more to say in the coming week, including at
least one finding that contradicts the conventional wisdom. For now, we can
just note that it was a good number - just not good enough for all the ground
we have to make up.
Other monthly numbers continued to show an economy that is slowing due
to the choke collar of high Oil prices. The manufacturing workweek declined
(-.1), as did new factory orders. There are two more of the 10 leading
indicators that have turned down. Residential and non-residential spending also
declined. New cars sold in March also declined slightly from February, although
at 13.1 million vehicles, this is still the second best showing in over two
years. On the plus side, manufacturing as measured by the Chicago PMI and the
ISM continued on a tear. BUT the leading components of that index - new orders
and vendor deliveries - declined. Vendor deliveries declined sharply - the
third of the 10 leading indicators to show a decline this week.
Did I mention that Oil was like a choke collar constricting economic growth?
Turning now to the high-frequency weekly indicators:
The BLS reported that Initial jobless claims last week were 388,000. The 4 week
average is 394,250. This is the sixth week in a row that this number has been
initially reported below 400,000. On the other hand, this series has not made a
new low in the last month. Will the downward momentum continue or has it
stalled?
On the other hand, Oil was
trading at about $107.94 a barrel Friday, the fourth full week it has been
above $100. It remains at a level above 4% of GDP. I believe we have started to
see the economic damage from that shock. Gas at the pump increased to $3.60 a
gallon. Gasoline usage at 8866 M gallons was 2% lower than last year. As I
expected, this YoY comparison is deteriorating and has now turned negative.
Railfax was up 3.5% YoY. Baseline
traffic for the second week is no higher than last year's levels, and both
cyclical and intermodal traffic are only slightly higher. Waste materials
continued below last year's levels (this may be fallout from municipal funding
cuts for recycling). Shipments of motor vehicles remained the bright spot,
continuing to improve YoY. With the exception of motor vehicles, rail freight
is now also signalling a significant slowdown (but not an outright reversal).
The Mortgage
Bankers' Association reported a decrease of 1.7% in seasonally adjusted
mortgage applications last week. This series has meandered generally in a flat
range since last June. Refinancing decreased 10.1%, and remains near its lows
since last July. The silver lining is that neither series has hit a new low in
almost 9 months.
The American
Staffing Association Index remained at 91 for yet another week. This series
has stalled at the 90-91 level for 7 weeks. It is signalling stagnation, not
growth, and is stalled relative to its pre-recession peak.
The ICSC
reported that same store sales for the week of March 26 rose 2.6% YoY, and
increased 0.2% week over week. Shoppertrak
reported a 4.3% YoY gain for the week ending March 19, and a WoW gain of 0.5%.
Unlike almost every other series, these two series' YoY comparisons have been
remaining steady or improving over the last month.
Weekly BAA commercial bond rates increased.02% to 6.00%. This
compares with a 09% increase in the yields of 10 year Treasuries to 3.38%. Both
series are down from recent highs.
Adjusting +1.07% due to the recent tax compromise, the Daily Treasury Statement
showed that for all of March 2011, $163.8 B was collected vs. $164.9 B a year
ago, for a loss of -1.1 B YoY. This is the first month with an outright YoY
decline compared with last year. For the last 20 days, $136.6 B was collected
vs. $128,4 B a year ago, for a gain of $8.2B, or +6.4%. I suggest using this
series with extra caution, because the adjustment for the withholding tax
compromise is only a best guess, and may be significantly incorrect.
M1 was up 1.3% w/w, down -0.4% M/M, and up a strong 9.9% YoY, so Real
M1 is up 7.7%. M2 was unchanged w/w, up 0.2% M/M and up 4.3% YoY, so Real
M2 is up 2.1%. Although Real M1 is still strongly in the "green
zone" where it has been since before the end of the "great
recession," Real M2 has been fading back into the "yellow zone"
below 2.5%. Additionally, the weak +0.2% M/M reading means that, depending on
inflation, it could become yet another of the 10 components of the LEI to go
negative in March.
Last week I noted that the LEI may have a negative month in March. Consumer
confidence, durable goods, and (Feb.) housing permits were all down strongly.
This week ISM vendor supplies, the manufacturing workweek, and new factory
orders also turned down. As noted just above, M2 could also be a negative. Only
the bond spread yield, the stock market, and initial unemployment claims look
like positives. In sum, that's 6 components down, 1 neutral (possibly
negative), and only 3 positive. (OTOH, ECRI's growth indicator continues to be
positive).
Did I mention that OIl was like a choke collar constricting economic growth?'
Barack
Obama: Losing $84 billion big success Washington Times |
Barack Obama has some ‘splaining to do about taxpayers’ profitable “investment”
in General Motors.
National / World
Radiation
Found In San Francisco, CA Tap Water – 18,100% Above Drinking Water Limit Alexander
Higgins | The federal drinking water limit for Iodine-131 is 3
Picocuries per liter.
Drudgereport: LIBYA:
GADDAFI MUST STAY BUT COUNTRY READY TO DISCUSS 'REFORM'...
READY
TO HOLD ELECTIONS... MORE...
DEFIANT:
Gaddafi salutes supporters at compound...
US
pulls out warplanes...
GOP
BUDGET: CUT $5.8 TRILLION
FEDS
SPEND 8X REVENUE...
White
House moving forward with govt shutdown plans...
858
SOLDIERS KILLED IN AFGHAN WAR UNDER OBAMA...
NATO FORCES
ACCIDENTALLY KILL 13 REBELS
CRACK FOUND IN
NUKE REACTOR PIT...
Leaking
directly into Pacific Ocean...
Struggle
is on to seal it...
Japanese nuke
crew faces '100-year battle'...
Petraeus
Warns Quran Burning Endangers War Effort...
Protests
Rage In Afghanistan...
JAPAN
TRIES 'SHREDDED NEWSPAPER' TO STOP NUKE LEAK (Well, there you go … a
nostalgic throwback to yesteryear … paper maché … who woulda' thunk it … or
remembered it … riiiiight … sounds like a plan!)
HORROR:
Remains From 3 More Victims In NY Serial Killer Case...
Duke
lacrosse accuser arrested in boyfriend's stabbing...
Ahmadinejad
Predicts Embarrassing End for Obama...
Radioactive
water in Japan plant leaks into sea (Washington Post) [ I gotta say, and
I’m not happy to say it; but the way they’re puttin’ out the info is starting
to sound like a page out of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s
propaganda playbook. I’m not much of a fisheater, but even if I was, I would be
taking no chances with this. Too much money changin’ hands both ways to trust
what they say, based upon the kind / quality of reporting / updating thus far. Fukushima
Plant Operators Again Ordered To “Review” Radiation Readings Steve
Watson | Findings have raised fears that underground waterways and
drinking water supplies could become contaminated.
‘US
orders media silence over Bahrain’ Press TV | President of
Bahrain’s Center for Human Rights Nabeel Rajab says the US media have been
ordered not to cover news on the government’s brutal crackdown on Bahraini
people.
Cover
Up: Fukushima Plant Operators Again Ordered To “Review” “Suspiciously High”
Radiation Readings The operators of the crippled nuclear power plant at
Fukushima have once again been ordered to “review” and retract their radiation
findings where appropriate because Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency
says they are too high.] Authorities discover radioactive water from the
damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant flowing into the sea from a crack
in the No. 2 reactor, adding to mounting problems facing emergency repair
workers.
What’s
your take on U.S.’s employment situation? (Washington Post) [ I don't believe a word they say; nor does
Denninger ... More
Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing,
forestry, mining and utilities combined
Employment
Report: Clear Trend Change Absence
Denninger 'From the Bureau Of Lies
And Scams (BLS): '...
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1415
(Chart)
How about the workweek and salaries?
In March, average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls
was unchanged at 34.3 hours in March. The manufacturing
workweek for all employees edged down by 0.1 hour to 40.5
hours, while factory overtime was unchanged at 3.3 hours. .. average hourly
earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls were unchanged at
$22.87. ..
No help here. No increase in hours worked and no hourly earnings
improvement either. For production and non-supervisory workers (those where
price increases really hurt) they saw a bit of a decline. This
is quite-bad news; note that the average annual wage for these
workers is $38,600 pre-tax. That's materially under the average worker's income
used in the BLS CPI tables, and it is those who have incomes under the median
that experience the worst of income allocation shifts into non-discretionary
purchases such as food, energy and medical..(bad).. given the price
inflation that is clearly-evident in the PPI since August. These price
increases are now going to start showing up on the store shelf
over the next couple of months. We should also see the impact of these PPI
changes being emitted from the rear end of the economy (that is, the business
end that hurts you, the consumer) in the 1st quarter earnings reports beginning
in earnest on the 11th.
Let's go look at our numbers and see if there's a "there"
there.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1417
(Chart)
That's small improvement. I guess you can say it's not another
turn-down.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1416
(Chart)
The number of employed ticked up a bit. That's positive. But it did last
year too, only to flag off as we got into the summer.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1419
(Chart)
"Not in labor force", annualized, isn't any good. Yes, the
monthly number looks good, but there are seasonal effects. .. - we're losing
participation. Permanently.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1418
(Chart)
..
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1420
(Chart)
..Positive change? Where? This is the root of the problem -
participation, as a percentage of the workforce, continues to decline. This
in turn means that the budgetary pressures will not come off. ..
What this all boils down to is that job growth is insufficient to
support the economy on its own. Yet the ability to keep writing hot checks to
the tune of $1.7 trillion a year or more to support a fake "recovery"
is not infinite...
Jobs report better than
expected … April fools … you got to be to believe anything they say, desperate
as they are [ Drudgereport: GALLUP:
Unemployment at 10.0%; underemployment 19.3%... Who do you believe? ] … particularly that huge fudge factor; viz.,
that ubiquitous 'stopped looking' category … granted there are some
'window-dressing' jobs created at huge uneconomic cost with the reality going
something like this: government give contract to company that will cover the
costs of the domestic jobs created using funds they don't really have
(borrowed, one way or another, and piled on to the already insurmountable debt
of a nation that is already defacto bankrupt), to produce goods which could be
produced better and cheaper elsewhere (there isn't anything that can't be
produced outside this country better, more efficiently, and cheaper). This is
doubly inflationary since, first, the goods are uneconomically more costly, and
second, whether borrowed or printed, the increased paper and lesser real value
thereof is also inflationary. That said, I don't even believe their headline
number and the unemployment rate they give is irrelevant and wholly inaccurate
(that 'stopped looking fudge factor', etc.). Then there is the b*** s***
concerning treasury turning a profit on the (ongoing fed / pomo / wall street)
bailouts that taxpayers have and will continue to pay for in higher prices from
oil to grains to other commodities to fewer jobs, now and in the future. There
is no modern day alchemy that 'spins more paper into gold'. That value has to
come from some place; viz., you! Light
Volume Rally Continues: Dave's Daily ' ...The Fed has injected $500 billion
(another $7B in POMO Wednesday) to the financial system since January
2011 and that wave of liquidity is overwhelming most thoughtful analysis... Sure it's the end of the quarter and a jam-job to
close things out puts a smile on investors' faces and bonuses in portfolio
managers' pockets. Painting the tape and window dressing is against the law …
ADP data has misled before but Wall Street is awash with cash from on high and
finds little other place to invest beyond stocks...' M&A,
Ben Resuscitate Bulls: Dave's Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this
low this long, its inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start
cobbling each other up. Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell
bonds at 1% and buy back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money--nifty trick eh? With all the geopolitical and nuclear events
going on little noticed was Fed "stress tests" of financial
institutions to see if they were healthy enough to buy back shares and pay
dividends. Making the matter sinister and less transparent is their gag order
on the entire process. The Fed also has some toxic waste they'd like to sell you’ … 19
Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is At The Heart Of Our Economic Problems Most Americans don't understand what the Fed
Reserve is or why it is at the heart of our economic problems. When Americans
get into discussions about the economy, most of them still blame either the
Democrats or Republicans for inflation, for the housing crash, for our rampant
unemployment and for the national debt. The
Economic Collapse]
Employment
Report: Clear Trend Change Absence
Denninger 'From the Bureau Of Lies
And Scams (BLS):
Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 216,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was little
changed at 8.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job
gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, leisure and
hospitality, and mining. Employment in manufacturing continued to trend up.
Yeah, ok.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1415
(Click to enlarge)
How about the workweek and salaries?
In March, average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls
was unchanged at 34.3 hours in March. The manufacturing
workweek for all employees edged down by 0.1 hour to 40.5
hours, while factory overtime was unchanged at 3.3 hours. The average workweek
for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls
increased by 0.1 hour to 33.6 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.) The average
hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls were unchanged at
$22.87. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.7
percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and
nonsupervisory employees edged down by 2 cents over the month to $19.30.
(See tables B-3 and B-8.)
No help here. No increase in hours worked and no hourly earnings
improvement either. For production and non-supervisory workers (those where
price increases really hurt) they saw a bit of a decline. This
is quite-bad news; note that the average annual wage for these
workers is $38,600 pre-tax. That's materially under the average worker's income
used in the BLS CPI tables, and it is those who have incomes under the median
that experience the worst of income allocation shifts into non-discretionary
purchases such as food, energy and medical.
This just plain sucks given the price inflation that is
clearly-evident in the PPI since August. These price increases are now
going to start showing up on the store shelf over the next couple of
months. We should also see the impact of these PPI changes being emitted from
the rear end of the economy (that is, the business end that hurts you, the
consumer) in the 1st quarter earnings reports beginning in earnest on the 11th.
Let's go look at our numbers and see if there's a "there"
there.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1417
(Click to enlarge)
That's small improvement. I guess you can say it's not another
turn-down.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1416
(Click to enlarge)
The number of employed ticked up a bit. That's positive. But it did last
year too, only to flag off as we got into the summer.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1419
(Click to enlarge)
"Not in labor force", annualized, isn't any good. Yes, the
monthly number looks good, but there are seasonal effects. On an annualized
basis we're still above the zero line - then again, we have been like ... well
... forever. This is a problem and to a material degree reflects the underlying
problem we have with labor in this country - we're losing participation.
Permanently.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1418
(Click to enlarge)
Here's the grand-daddy number. It's following the seasonal pattern;
let's see if it peaks in May. More-importantly, let's see if it puts in a lower
high to go with the lower low.
That would be bad, and until the pattern changes, it's what you have to
expect.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=1420
(Click to enlarge)
Nowhere is this more-evident than in this chart. Positive change? Where?
This is the root of the problem - participation, as a percentage of the
workforce, continues to decline. This in turn means that the budgetary
pressures will not come off. And that, in turn, is very bad from an
intermediate and longer-term stability perspective.
What this all boils down to is that job growth is insufficient to
support the economy on its own. Yet the ability to keep writing hot checks to
the tune of $1.7 trillion a year or more to support a fake "recovery"
is not infinite.
The wall is clearly visible through the fog at this point. Why
do we still have our monetary and fiscal foot mashed on the accelerator?'
Higher
Oil Slows Stock Rally: Dave's Daily 'No matter the market data,
how can I let April Fool's Day pass without some humorous image? But, more
somberly, today marks the second anniversary of ETF Digest pal Greg Newton's
(Naked Shorts Blog) sudden death. So, I'm not going to complain about the
10" of snow. Markets were sharply higher after a mildly better than
expected employment report. Many feel the economy has definitely turned the
corner and that bodes well for stocks.
The dollar rallied sharply early but then fell hard later in the day perhaps
coinciding with Fed Governor's Dudley's remarks that QE will remain on track.
(The Fed just can't find the "off" switch and behave like they're
addicted to crack.) But, as Friday wore on, it became clear that oil prices
would not be contained. Two reasons dominated: first, DUD-ley's comments and
second, events in Libya aren't moving the coalition's way. As to the latter,
what does this mean? Failure? Or, an enhanced presence? It sure presented
an inconvenient speed bump for bulls Friday despite gains. How will consumers
react to higher gas and energy prices? Not well one would think, but that's
just too logical. Short-term equity markets have become rapidly overbought.
DUD-ley's comments allow bulls to believe more, not less, liquidity is coming
their way. As markets hit previous highs, along with oil, sellers entered
markets to take profits. Volume is still ultra-light but breadth per the WSJ
remains positive. '
Short-Term,
High-Probability Mean-Reversion: Several ETFs Hit Short-Term Extremes Crowder 'Several of the ETFs I follow in the
High-Probability, Mean Reversion strategy have hit a short-term “very overbought”
extreme. Typically, when this type of event occurs a short-term reprieve (1-3
days) is right around the corner.Unemployment numbers are out before the bell
today so I expect to see a pop at the open. If the market opens higher today I
expect to make a trade in the strategy, so subscribers stay tuned.I currently
have a trade on, so of course, a move lower at the open would not upset me
either. I expect today will be a very interesting day. Short-Term
High-Probability, Mean-Reversion Indicator – as of close 3/31/11
[overbought chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/1/saupload_3_31_11_hpmr.png ]
Disclosure: I am
short SPY.'
For Soda Aficionados Minyanville http://www.albertpeia.com/regionalsodas.htm
The Treasury
Auction Shell Game Peter Schiff | Very few people have the
patience to sift through Treasury Department bond auctions data.
GE
to Try to Avoid Liability in Japan Nuke Crisis Reuters |
The Japan’s nuke crisis has created a PR headache for General Electric, but the
company so far has escaped any legal fallout.
Foreign
Banks Tapped Fed’s Lifeline Most as Bernanke Kept Borrowers Secret Bloomberg
| The biggest borrowers from the 97-year-old discount window as the program
reached its crisis-era peak were foreign banks.
National / World
‘US
orders media silence over Bahrain’ Press TV | President of
Bahrain’s Center for Human Rights Nabeel Rajab says the US media have been
ordered not to cover news on the government’s brutal crackdown on Bahraini
people.
Drudgereport: GALLUP:
Unemployment at 10.0%; underemployment 19.3%...
WSJ:
More Americans work for gov't than manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry,
mining, utilities -- combined...
OIL SOARS...
Highest
March price on record...
OBAMA'S
LIMO EXEMPT FROM NEW 'GREEN' POLICY
Government
losses in GM far higher than claimed...
Bosses at
bailed-out FANNIE, FREDDIE were paid millions...
Probes
Find 'Unprecedented' Political Review of FOIA Requests by Big Sis...
Issa: 'Nixonian'...
Federal
Agents Told to Reduce Border Arrests, AZ Sheriff Says...
1st
Grade Teacher Suspended for Facebook Rant About Students...
...Felt Like 'Warden' Supervising Future Criminals [ That's because that's what
they are … and inherently so … just because they look like wobama, holder,
michelle/wobama's belle, etc., doesn't change reality she has a right to
discuss in First Amendment Terms, particularly. Paterson
Teacher Suspended After Allegedly Calling Students 'Future Criminals ... Some comments:
I went to public school. Fortunately we had no blacks
at all. They're just disgusting animals. People are tired of making up excuses
for them. Look at sub-saharan africa, or any inner city. Always the same story
with them. In evolutionary terms, 'they're the ones that got left behind'.
(see, ie., http://albertpeia.com/anthroindex1.htm ).
Al Peia
Babba Booey
It’s a pretty funny story until you realize that the teacher is not only
being honest but sadly correct as well.
The New generation of savages to come
April 1, 2011 at 10:48 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
cochino
After all, three generations of imbeciles are enough!
April 1, 2011 at 10:04 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
ANSWER
Teachers in that environment have classrooms consisting of 25 to 30
children. These children come to school with little to no sleep, poor
nutrition, poor hygiene and zero guidance at home. In addition they don’t act
like 6 and 7 year olds. They demonstrate very poor focus and attention to take
direction. It is almost impossible to teach with these issues. Day after day
teachers in most of these inner city school districts try. But in most cases
the teacher can’t break this viscous cycle of ignorance. Mandatory birth
control is the only answer. Parents need to be held accountable. Teachers in
these environments all deserve to be paid at the highest scale! They deserve
it.
April 1, 2011 at 9:47 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Word of Wisdom
There is no such thing as a bad student….only bad teachers.
April 1, 2011 at 9:41 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
princeton1991
You’re an idiot and a likley dropout. Go back to school! — and I hate
teachers more than you know so don’t blame me on you’re idiocy.
April 1, 2011 at 10:00 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Mike
Leave the children of slackers in the public school system. Listen to
this. My niece was doing her student teaching in Beachwood Ohio Public schools
with 9th graders. After lunch the princes and princesses came back to class
yelling and “fing” everyone and everything in sight. So she made them go back
to the hall and come back quietly and ready to learn.
Her reward for this was 1 hour of counseling, not for the class but for her!
This junior high has 4 full time shrinks on site to help manage the teachers
and kids. All that public school administrators want to to be sure no one makes
any waves. What a joke.
Not wanting any part of the public school system, she got her Phd and has been
teaching at a private college in Savana
April 1, 2011 at 9:36 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Dewey
My niece teaches HS in Queens NY and says mainly the students
show up to meet each other ,not to study ,
Many of these kids will never be in the standard work ethics we
older folks grew up with ,they won’t work as they expect to start
at the top. Sad but this teacher’s comments are not far from what
my niece feels.
April 1, 2011 at 9:34 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
1608
She did her job.
Now the students know to judge a book by it’s cover.
April 1, 2011 at 9:28 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Sick of whining
It’s her business what she posts on Facebook – maybe she should have
marked it private and kept the comments amongst a select few. I can understand
what she is saying – go to the mall and watch how kids act around their parents
– heck, watch how the parents act. Instead of the parents crying about it they
need to step up and parent instead of having the state/county raise their
children. And yeah, some of those kids will grow up and be criminals. We have
no EXPECTATIONS of proper behavior – we ACCEPT antisocial behavior everyday
from children. Then when we can’t control the kids we dope ‘em up on ritalin
and other drugs then sit ‘em in front of MTV, and Jerry Springer for their role
models. Then we sit wondering what went wrong.
April 1, 2011 at 8:43 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Sick of whining
Did anyone bother to ask why she felt that way?
April 1, 2011 at 8:48 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
loombergisafascist
people in this country despise the truth. i will bet dollars to donuts
that everything she has said about her so called students are true. if she is
seeeing this behaviour now in 1st grade can you imagine what these kids will be
like in 10 years. its like the kid in staten island who was harrassing the
muslim kid. he was a terror and nobody does anything. he was already running
around with scissors and cut some other poor girls hair. these teachers spend 6
hours a day with these kids and i believe everything she says. to bad the
parents dont take heed instead of just critizing her and acting all insulted.
April 1, 2011 at 8:09 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
mell
She and all academic teachers in America should walk out and set up
their own small private schools. Capitalism and Freedom !!!!!!!! No more social
promotion and grade fixing for lazy Americans!
April 1, 2011 at 8:03 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Richard Allen
What is wrong with everyone….she knows what the truth is…she was warning
everyone before it got bad
We need to praise this teacher and give her a PAY RAISE…..
April 1, 2011 at 8:00 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
joey gallows
boohoo someones feelings were hurt
next thing is a lawsuit
the kids say worse things to each other every day
April 1, 2011 at 6:14 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
UJU
A school teacher can only do so much! Parents should rise up to their
duties
April 1, 2011 at 5:45 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Robert
Seek the truth, but don’t speak the truth ! The teacher can tell by the
character of her students how they will be in later life! Paterson is a ghetto
city and thats all one needs to know.
April 1, 2011 at 5:40 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
kds
When I was growing up I had nothing but respect for any and all adults
specially teachers. Nowadays, my 9 year old neighbor is so disrespectful I
wonder what she’ll become as a young adult. The worse part is her parents
excuse her behavior with “she’s only nine”. I bet she behaves the same way in
school by what I hear from other adults in the complex where we live.
April 1, 2011 at 5:18 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
2luv
why is it that people NEED to POST EVERYTHING IN FACEBOOK!!!
April 1, 2011 at 5:33 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Michael Allen Powers
Mr. Johnson wonders why people are offended by the “truth”. (Fox’s
definition of the word, obviously). I think he’s cranky because the kids won’t
stay off his lawn.
I have teaching credentials, but I don’t teach. Why? Because I suck at
it. (I have nothing but respect for those who can.) I learned this early on,
and, to keep from doing a disservice to any prospective students, chose another
path, just as this teacher should have done.
April 1, 2011 at 5:01 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
mike felter
i was thinking at first she can speak her mind she’s free but after some
more thinking i agree rise the bar ,, i grow up in newark. was going the wrong
way and some good people helped me,, and my great wife,,she stayed by me.. send
the teacher back to school
April 1, 2011 at 5:00 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
story
There are expectations of educators to educate and not only academics
but also morals and ethics. Her statement takes away from these children the
chance they deserve to excel they are only 6 and 7 years old and will gravitate
towards attitudes taught to them. This teacher is not prepared and should not
be allowed to enter the class room again it is not the place for her she does
not have the love or tolerance to deal with children of that age. Children of
that age are curious and yes some of them are coming from homes where seeing is
believing the thing that happen there and if that is the case let school be the
heaven where they learn to be better people, gain knowledge and in the process
get a little love.
April 1, 2011 at 4:57 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Paterson
Teachers in that environment have classrooms consisting of 25 to 30
children. These children come to school with little to no sleep, poor
nutrition, poor hygiene and zero guidance at home. In addition they don’t act
like 6 and 7 year olds. They demonstrate very poor focus and attention to take
direction. It is almost impossible to teach with these issues. Day after day
teachers in most of these inner city school districts try. But in most cases
the teacher can’t break this viscous cycle of ignorance. Mandatory birth
control is the only answer.
April 1, 2011 at 9:29 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Kar
Everyone is entitled to thier opinions, truth be told or not. As an
educator, you should know better then to ever post work related stuff. And
never ever be facebook friends with parents & students! Lesson be learned!
April 1, 2011 at 4:53 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Daniel Barbier
Please! And then if the kid does become a criminal then the educational system
gets “blamed” for not intervening while again the parents receieve no
responsibility in the outcome of their child’s behavior
April 1, 2011 at 4:39 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Shelli Lipton
Teachers who think they are there as police need to be in a different
profession. It’s good that this teacher was fired.
April 1, 2011 at 4:33 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
James W Johnson
So why are people so offended by the truth and facts?
April 1, 2011 at 4:33 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
James W Johnson
Why does the truth offend so many people?
April 1, 2011 at 4:32 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Mari
i would say the teacher should be suspended more for her stupidity in
posting to facebook than anything else. And she obviously was ill-prepared for
the reality of the challenging job of teaching. I have no doubt she found her
students unruly and undisciplined – they do live in an area where parenting
skills seem to me at a minimium, but is also a challenge for those who DO try
to be attentive to their children. She is to blame for thoughtlessness less
than for her thoughts, but the education system, including hers at teacher’s
college, are also partly responsible.
April 1, 2011 at 4:23 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
Paterson
Teachers in that environment have classrooms consisting of 25 to 30
children. These children come to school with little to no sleep, poor
nutrition, poor hygiene and zero guidance at home. In addition they don’t act
like 6 and 7 year olds. They demonstrate very poor focus and attention to take
direction. It is almost impossible to teach with these issues. Day after day
teachers in most of these inner city school districts try. But in most cases
the teacher can’t break this viscous cycle of ignorance. Mandatory birth
control is the only answer. Have some compassion for the teacher.
April 1, 2011 at 9:33 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
J
Bulls_it! Obviously there’s a reason why she said it. Paterson NJ, is a
gang infested slum with low function parents who are too busy smoking weed to
help their children with their homework. Some, are future criminals. Look at
their parents. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
April 1, 2011 at 4:01 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
J
You ignorant bigot, I grew up in Paterson NJ…. I graduated with honors
from Penn State, I am getting my M.A at an international program…. after
working as a political adviser.. and well be surely making a lot more money
then you will ever be…..
April 1, 2011 at 4:31 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
James W Johnson
Democratis advisor no doubt.He made your point and you can’t even see
that!
April 1, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Cisco
“.. and well be surely making a lot more money then you will ever be…”
Return to Penn State and ask for a refund. English composition isn’t
your best game.
April 1, 2011 at 4:43 pm
Penn State Genius read this...
Teachers in that environment have classrooms consisting of 25 to 30
children. These children come to school with little to no sleep, poor
nutrition, poor hygiene and zero guidance at home. In addition they don’t act
like 6 and 7 year olds. They demonstrate very poor focus and attention to take
direction. It is almost impossible to teach with these issues. Day after day
teachers in most of these inner city school districts try. But in most cases
the teacher can’t break this viscous cycle of ignorance. Mandatory birth
control is the only answer. I hope this educates the Penn State ignoramus
ignoramus..
April 1, 2011 at 9:38 pm
teacher
i know as an educator the children will rise to your expectations. I set
the bar very high and they do very well and i see other teachers with this
teachers mentality of how they are no good and thats what they get. When will
society realize that we need to raise the bar and make them responsible and
they will rise to the occasion. Try it! It works!
April 1, 2011 at 3:54 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
joe k
And I thought the truth would make you free.
April 1, 2011 at 3:43 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
anna
i thought its Arbeit macht frei (work would make you free)
April 1, 2011 at 4:39 pm | Reply
| Report
comment
US set to give
arms to Libyans SMH |
Are
US Soldiers Using Rape, Murder, And Bombing Of Children As War Strategy? Mary Lynn Cramer Countercurrents.org 3-30-11 ...
With the reports of
rape of women by US troops in Iraq (not to mention the alarmingly high rate of
rape of women soldiers within the US military); the bombing of civilian wedding
parties, children at play, and innocent villagers in their homes in Pakistan
and Afghanistan, why is it that Amy has not headlined that “Murder And Rape Are
Being Used By Obama And US Soldiers As Weapons of War”? (And who arrested those
accused Libyan soldiers in Tripoli so quickly? It takes forever to get charges
brought against American troops and contractors accused of rape, torture and
murder in US occupied countries; and even then they most often go free.) ..
This is a video of
several testimonies repeating the same lie about Iraqi soldiers killing babies
in incubators as they fled Kuwait in 1990.
” A key event in
generating momentum for the first U.S. War on Iraq, “Operation Desert Storm”
was a fraudulent report of the murder of Kuwaiti babies by Iraqi soldiers...The
girl relayed a shocking story while sobbing:
'… I saw the Iraqi
soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . .
babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the
incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.
The massacre never
occurred. The girl was actually the daughter of a Kuwaiti emir, and had been
coached by the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton to give persuasive false
testimony.” ( How PR Sold the War in the Persian Gulf , by Stauber and
Rampton) http://911review.com/precedent/decade/incubators.html
...'
At least 40 civilians dead in Tripoli strikes: Vatican official Reuters
J. P. Morgan
Wants $5 ATM Charge CNBC.com |
Poll: Obama’s
approval hits new low Politico | Half of the registered
voters surveyed for the poll think that the president does not deserve a second
term in office.
Why
your local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad)
European
Central Bank Set to Raise Interest Rates Before Fed Reuters
|
OPEC Could
Reap $1 Trillion This Year National Journal |
Fragile
Budget Talks Resume as Parties Trade ‘Extreme’ Label Fox |
·
A judgment had been
entered in my favor in the case, United States District Court Case
#3:93cv02065(AWT)(USDCJ Alvin Thompson), worth approximately now in excess of
$300,000 remains unaccounted for and which could be used for payment to
creditors, Los Angeles, etc..
·
Counsel Robert
Sullivan on my behalf documented by way of certification upon investigation
that Alan Shiff, USBCJ, had falsely stated a dismissal upon which false
statement he predicated a retaliatory and spurious contempt proceeding against
me causing substantial damage, and for which he sought Judicial Notice of those
and related proceedings as did I in some of my filings.
·
The Order of
Dismissal With Prejudice by Alan Shiff, USBCJ, owing to Defendant Coan’s
failure to file anything whatsoever by the court’s deadline causing creditors
and me substantial damages: [ Shiff Order of Dismissal With Prejudice on
Coan’s Failure to File Page 1 Page 2 ]
Harry
Dent Warns Major Crash Is Coming!
Harry Dent, Jr. Economy will be in a
Depression by 2011
The worst of this next depression is likely to hit between mid-2010 and
mid-2013, especially around early 2011, but if the banking system continues to
implode a deep downturn or depression could begin sometime in 2009 instead of
2010.
Dow will Fall to 3,800 – 4,500 by 2012
Nasdaq will Fall Below 1,100, its 2002 low, by late 2010 or mid-2012 at the
latest.
Inflation will Increase until mid- 2010 and then turn to Deflation
Interest Rates will Increase
U.S. Dollar will Decline
Housing will Decline by 40 – 60% from Today’s Levels
Greatest Economic and Banking Crisis since the 1930s will Occur Between 2010
and 2012). ]
Are
US Soldiers Using Rape, Murder, And Bombing Of Children As War Strategy? Mary
Lynn Cramer | She was also seen pulling a battered and empty incubator
behind her, yelling that Gaddafi forces had broken into the hospital maternity
ward. Mary Lynn Cramer Countercurrents.org March 30, 2011 Amy Goodman’s Take on One Reported Rape Case in Tripoli, Libya:
“Pro-Gaddafi Forces Accused of Using Rape as War Strategy”
“Some doctors in Libya have accused pro-Gaddafi fighters of using rape
as a weapon of war. On Sunday, five men were arrested for raping and torturing
a Libyan woman. The international press learned of the incident when the woman,
Eman al-Obeidi, burst into a hotel full of foreign journalists in Tripoli. She
was quickly detained by Libyan security officers. (http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/28/headlines
)
She was also seen pulling a battered and empty incubator behind her,
yelling that Gaddafi forces had broken into the hospital maternity ward, pulled
babies out of the incubators and thrown them on the ground, and stamped them to
death…oh, sorry, that was another dramatized lie told to the US Congress to
justify another grossly destructive invasion and slaughter of thousands by US
air power in the Middle East.*
The doctors commenting on this single incident in Tripoli were no doubt the
same romantic, pure and idealistic, pro-democracy “rebels” adored by
DemocracyNow in their overtly sympathetic interviews with these courageous, US
armed, financed, and supported fighters with radical Islamist, Al Qaeda, and
CIA operative backgrounds….but why should we care who they are or where they
come from or how they are armed? And Democracy Now will the the very last to do
any serious questioning of this issue.)
With the reports of rape of women by US troops in Iraq (not to mention
the alarmingly high rate of rape of women soldiers within the US military); the
bombing of civilian wedding parties, children at play, and innocent villagers
in their homes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, why is it that Amy has not
headlined that “Murder And Rape Are Being Used By Obama And US Soldiers As
Weapons of War”? (And who arrested those accused Libyan soldiers in Tripoli so
quickly? It takes forever to get charges brought against American troops and
contractors accused of rape, torture and murder in US occupied countries; and
even then they most often go free.)
If you find my commentary more offensive than Democracy Now’s lack of
responsible, investigative journalism and Amy’s blatantly biased propaganda
regarding Libya, that may be indicative of just of how little integrity is left
in the so-called American Left.
This is a video of several testimonies repeating the same lie about
Iraqi soldiers killing babies in incubators as they fled Kuwait in 1990.
” A key event in generating momentum for the first U.S. War on Iraq,
“Operation Desert Storm” was a fraudulent report of the murder of Kuwaiti
babies by Iraqi soldiers. On October 10, 1990, the U.S. Congressional Human
Rights Caucus held a hearing on the subject of Iraqi human rights violations.
The centerpiece of the event was the emotional testimony of a 15-year-old
Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name, Nayirah. Her full name was
supposedly being kept secret to protect her from Iraqi reprisals. The girl
relayed a shocking story while sobbing:
I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital. While I was there, I saw the
Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . .
. babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took
the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.
The massacre never occurred. The girl was actually the daughter of a
Kuwaiti emir, and had been coached by the public relations firm Hill and
Knowlton to give persuasive false testimony.” ( How PR Sold the War in the
Persian Gulf , by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton) http://911review.com/precedent/decade/incubators.html
...'
] A call by lawmakers for a careful review
of AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile is really more code language for
something else, analysts say.
Rank |
|
||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
Financialization
and Our Increasingly Unstable Economy Roche ‘.. I highly recommend it to
anyone... It will certainly infuriate you...excellent job of showing how Wall
Street and government have become overrun by deregulation and sheer greed. A
combination of flawed economic theory and greed have combined to create the
beast that we now call a “functioning” economy. The worst part of it all is
that President Obama, who vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix any of
it and in fact continues most of the policies that helped get us here in the
first place’ ‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson
wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant fraud in the
(many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and declares with oscar in hand
that not one high level wall street exec has been prosecuted … despite
‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator / experts recommend
getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( what do holder and wobama have in
common … wall street money? … a
proclivity for jive-talking / b*** s*** ?...all/some of the above … or is it
something else ... a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and
personal testimony, an ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a
voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party accused his former
employer of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases
that involve black defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown.
’Inside Job’ New Documentary
Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To Steal Our Money
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv
'There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one:
the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good
economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects
that must be foreseen… the bad economist pursues a small present good that
will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a
great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.
Light
Volume Rally Continues: Dave's Daily ' It may be it's the stupid person that fights this trend
reversal. The Fed has injected $500 billion (another $7B in POMO
Wednesday) to the financial system since January 2011 and that wave of
liquidity is overwhelming most thoughtful analysis. So, give it up to the
beard! Sure it's the end of the quarter and a jam-job to close things out
puts a smile on investors' faces and bonuses in portfolio managers' pockets.
Painting the tape and window dressing is against the law but show me someone
who's been caught. ADP data indicated job growth for Thursday's Jobless Claims
data and Friday's all important Unemployment report. ADP data has misled before
but Wall Street is awash with cash from on high and finds little other place to
invest
beyond stocks. Bull's are betting on a good report to close out the week, and
if not, they're just April Fools. Only a hardy few are pumping this market
higher as volume remains ultra-light. Of course, volume data isn't on your
monthly brokerage
statement since that would only confuse you, right? No, TPTB just wants you to
see higher prices to boost your confidence...' Chemist
charged with insider trading (Washington Post) [ This remains incredulous
to me. Everyone but the big boys / frauds! Not just corruption, but bad time
/resource management. The frauds on wall
street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement
imposed (this would also help significantly the hapless, hopeless budget
scenario). Drop
in home prices raises fear of double dip (Washington Post) [ Fear of double dip?
We're in a continuing dip that never really
ended with obfuscations of reality
including more insurmountable debt and fed-based manipulations (Dave explains
infra) Case-Shiller
Chairman: Here’s Why the Housing Market Recession is Not Over Wall St Cheat Sheet 'Welcome to 2003! The
S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index 10-City
Composite was down 2% and the 20-City Composite fell 3.1% in January on a
year-over-year basis. On a monthly basis, the 10-City Composite was down 0.9%
and the 20-City Composite fell 1.0% in January versus December 2010.San
Diego and Washington D.C. were the only two markets to record
positive year-over-year changes. However, San Diego was up a scant 0.1%,
while Washington DC posted a healthier +3.6% annual growth rate. The same
11 cities that had posted recent index level lows in December 2010, posted
new lows in January.
David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard &
Poor’s commented:
“Keeping with the
trends set in late 2010, January brings us weakening home prices with no real
hope in sight for the near future. With this month’s data, we find
the same 11 MSAs posting new recent index lows. The 10-City and 20-City
Composites continue to decline month-over-month and have posted monthly
declines for six consecutive months now.These data confirm what we have
seen with recent housing starts and sales reports. The housing
market recession is not yet over, and none of the statistics are indicating
any form of sustained recovery . At most, we have seen all statistics
bounce along their troughs; at worst, the feared double-dip recession may
be materializing. ..., but both series have moved closer to a confirmed
double-dip for six consecutive months. At this point we are not too far
off, and that is what many analysts are seeing with sales, starts and
inventory data too...' M&A,
Ben Resuscitate Bulls: Dave's Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this
low this long, its inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start
cobbling each other up. Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell
bonds at 1% and buy back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money--nifty trick eh? With all the geopolitical and nuclear events
going on little noticed was Fed "stress tests" of financial
institutions to see if they were healthy enough to buy back shares and pay
dividends. Making the matter sinister and less transparent is their gag order
on the entire process. The Fed also has some toxic waste they'd like to sell you… (see infra)’
] False / fake data /
reports galore … High oil price rally! Come on!
What total b*** s***! Previous rally sparked by upward revision of GDP by the
scandal-scarred commerce department? You can’t believe anything these desperate
self-servers say! This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s suckers’ rally on more bad/worse than expected news
(consumer confidence down) provides an especially great opportunity to sell /
take profits while you still can since there's much worse to come! Fed
to hold regular news conferences (Washington
Post) [ Wow! Just what everyone needed … more spoon-fed b*** s*** / jawboning
by the flawed, flatulent, faultful fed … for the sake of fraudulent wall street
… you do remember those 'no-recession' jawbone sessions that sent the prior
bubble expanding faster than 'the big bang' itself … until every got and
continues to get banged from the last bubble-fraud crash. Chairman Bernanke’s move is part of
efforts by the central bank to make the institution appear less secretive. States
target jobless benefits (Washington
Post) Durable goods (leading indicator)
200% worse than expected, stocks rally. ‘ February
Durable Goods Orders Disappoint
NEW YORK (TheStreet)
Bharatwaj …’ This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Looking
Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows
] The government charged a
chemist at the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday with insider trading.
This
Fed Governor ADMITS the Federal Reserve is Anti-Capitalistic [ No surprise here … the fed has literally
destroyed the american free enterpise, capitalist system in favor of the frauds
on wall street to the detriment of this and many other nations. ] Wall St Cheat Sheet On Wednesday March 30, 2011, 12:23 pm EDT
'There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one:
the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good
economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects
that must be foreseen… the bad economist pursues a small present good that
will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great
good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.
–Frederic
Bastiat (1801-1850)
Nothing defined Alan
Greenspan’s tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank more than his
wholehearted embrace of capitalism . With early roots in his 30-year
association with the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand , that faith grew into
an unconstrained confidence in the free market and deregulation to steer the
economy and ward off crises.
According to a current Fed governor, however, both Greenspan’s Fed and
the Fed today have not been the stalwarts of capitalism that the Maestro
believed them to be.
On March 7th, I had the great pleasure of listening to Thomas Hoenig speak
at the Colorado CFA Society forecast dinner. Hoenig, the only member of
the Federal Reserve Board of Governors who I respect, is the board’s lone
rational dissenting voice.
After his speech, a lengthy Q&A, and a short conversation with him,
I left the event even more impressed with him.
Hoeing was equally critical of both the Fed’s zero-interest rate policy
and of QE2 . He said these policies encourage speculation and don’t allow
for price discovery, and consequently they lead to imbalances, unintended
consequences, and misallocation of resources.
He said it is important to judge QE2’s success over the right time
frame, one long enough to encompass not just its stimulative benefits but also
its consequences. (In other words, there is a good reason why we don’t
judge steroids solely based on what they do for an athlete’s
performance during the race, ignoring the strokes and other health
problems they often cause after the race).
Throughout his speech, Hoenig warned that there are no shortcuts to
greatness in monetary policy. The Fed’s intervention in the economy will have
unintended consequences, and it is impossible to know where they’ll show
up. For example, Hoenig recalled that the Fed lowered the interest rate
to 1% in 2003 and, though the economy was improving, kept rates low levels for
over a year in order to bring unemployment below 6.5%. The asset bubble
that deflated in the financial crisis (NYSE:XLF)
resulted, and today
unemployment is 10%.
Hoenig’s comments are extremely important. I too believe that the Fed’s actions
in 2003 played a very large role in the subsequent real estate bubble (NYSE:IYR),
financial crisis, and today’s high unemployment, but this was the first time
I’ve heard such an admission come directly from a Fed governor. To the
contrary, Greenspan has been outspoken in denying the role he and the Fed
played in the crisis.
Hoeing said he questions whether quantitative easing , which failed in Japan
(NYSE:EWJ),
will work in the US (NYSE:SPY).
He bluntly stated that too-big-to-fail financial institutions like Citigroup (NYSE:C),
Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC),
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM),
and others should be broken up. (I argued that point in this article.)
Commercial banks are in charge of our domestic and international payments
system, but their access to FDIC insurance and the Fed’s discount window (use
of which swelled from $900 million to $3 trillion over the last two years),
constitutes “an enormous protection” to the financial sector, encouraging
risk-taking through an implicit guarantee in the event of a crisis or failure.
Smaller institutions that don’t have access to the Fed’s fund window
have to compete in that space, and they start behaving and taking risks as if
they have access to the window. The walls between commercial and
investment banks have been demolished, Hoenig argued, and the two functions
within banks (NYSE:XLF)
are now joined at the hip. In the wake of this crisis, Hoeing said we did
the same things we did after previous crises: added supervision and regulation
and raised capital requirements. But history suggests that as time goes by
we’ll forget about the crisis and history will repeat itself, he said – unless
we break up too-big-to-fail institutions.
It is a fundamental tenant of American capitalism that central planning
of economies doesn’t work in the long term, whether in Soviet Union
historically or in China (NYSE:FXI)
today. But I often wonder: How is the Fed’s Board of Governors – the proverbial
12 guys in a room – any different than the 24 guys in a room who make up the
Chinese politburo? The non-democratic Chinese may have a few more levers to
push – an ability to force banks to lend, for example – but short of that, how
is the Fed’s micromanagement of interest rates any different from China’s?
After Hoenig came off the stage, I posed the question to Hoenig, and I asked
him point-blank whether the Federal Reserve is an anti-capitalistic entity.
To my shock, Hoenig agreed with me: The Fed is
anti-capitalistic.
I went further. In the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, to prevent
the freezing up of the US financial system and possible bank runs, the Fed put
in place QE1 – it purchased over a trillion dollars of mortgage and agency
debt. Like J.P. Morgan (NYSE:JPM)
in the pre-Fed era, the Fed was the lender of last resort. But QE2 is
drastically different from QE1, because the banking system is far from choking,
and now the Fed’s goal is to lower unemployment and grow the economy at a
higher rate (here is my article
on QE2).
I asked Hoenig if he thinks the Fed should stick to its mission as
lender of last resort, as it was during QE1, letting the free market set
interest rates. He looked at me with an expression that implied he
couldn’t have said it better himself and agreed.
I am very familiar with confirmation bias, our desire to seek out people
with whom we agree. But Hoenig is not your usual person; he is member of
the Federal Reserve Board of Governors , and he disagrees with almost
everything that institution does.
Hoeing’s courage and principled vision elevate him to the status of a
“good economist,” as defined by Frederic Bastiat over 150 years ago.
Let’s hope that his voice, in a room full of bad economists, does not fall
entirely on deaf ears.
Vitaliy N. Katsenelson, CFA, is a portfolio manager/director of research
at Investment
Management Associates in Denver, Colo. He is the author of The
Little Book of Sideways Markets. You can read more at his blog Contrarian
Edge.
Don’t Miss: Exclusive
Interview: How to Succeed in Sideways Markets – with Vitaliy Katsenelson.'
Caught
On Tape: Fed Admits It is Private Knox Harrington
| The Federal Reserve banking cartel is in fact a PRIVATE entity, and NOT
Federal at all. 19
Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is At The Heart Of Our Economic Problems Most Americans do not understand what the
Federal Reserve is or why it is at the heart of our economic problems. When
Americans get into discussions about the economy, most of them still blame
either the Democrats or the Republicans for inflation, for the housing crash,
for our rampant unemployment and for the national debt. The
Economic Collapse
March 30, 2011
Most Americans do not understand what the Federal Reserve is or why it
is at the heart of our economic problems. When Americans get into
discussions about the economy, most of them still blame either the Democrats or
the Republicans for inflation, for the housing crash, for our rampant
unemployment and for the national debt. But the truth is that the
institution with the most power over our economic system is the Federal Reserve.
So exactly what is the Federal Reserve? Most people would say that it is
an agency of the federal government. But that is absolutely not
true. In fact, the Federal Reserve itself has argued in court that it is
not an agency of the federal government. Rather, the Federal Reserve is a
privately-owned banking cartel that has been given a perpetual monopoly over
our monetary system by the U.S. Congress. This privately-owned central
bank has been destroying the value of the U.S. dollar for decades, it has run
our economy into the ground and it has driven the U.S. government to the brink
of bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve operates in great secrecy, it has
never been subjected to a comprehensive audit and it is not accountable to the
American people. Yet the decisions that the Federal Reserve makes have a
dramatic impact on the lives of every single American citizen.
If you really want to understand what is causing our economic problems,
it is absolutely crucial that you understand exactly what the Federal Reserve
system is and how it is systematically destroying our economy. Once you
understand the truth about the Federal Reserve, you will view economic issues a
whole lot differently.
The following are 19 reasons why the Federal Reserve is at the very heart
of our economic problems….
#1 The Federal Reserve system is a debt-based financial system.
The way our system is designed, normally no money comes into existence
without more debt being created.
But this creates a huge problem, because when a new dollar is created,
the interest owed to the banking system on that dollar is not also created at
the same time.
Therefore, the amount money that is created is not equal to the larger
amount of debt that is also created.
This is a Ponzi scheme that is designed to drain wealth from the
American people and transfer it to the banking system.
Today, the amount of debt in our economic system is far, far, far
greater than the total amount of money.
The only way to keep the game going is to create even more money which
creates even more debt.
#2 The Federal Reserve and the bankers have a monopoly on the creation
of this debt-based money.
In the United States today, the only people that can create money are
the bankers.
You cannot create money.
You would go to jail if you tried.
Even the U.S. government cannot create money.
Although the U.S. Constitution specifically gives Congress the power to
create money, the U.S. Congress has given that power to the Federal Reserve and
to the banking system.
This gives them an enormous amount of power.
So how does money creation actually work?
Most Americans don’t understand this.
As I
have written about previously, the way our system is designed is that all
money is supposed to originally come into existence as government debt….
When the government wants more money, the U.S. government swaps U.S.
Treasury bonds for “Federal Reserve notes”, thus creating more government
debt. Usually the money isn’t even printed up – most of the time it is
just electronically credited to the government. The Federal Reserve
creates these “Federal Reserve notes” out of thin air. These Federal
Reserve notes are backed by nothing and have no intrinsic value of their own.
The Federal Reserve then sells these U.S. Treasury bonds to investors,
other nations (such as China) or sometimes they “sell” them back to
themselves. In fact, the Federal Reserve has been gobbling up a whole lot
of U.S. Treasuries lately. Some refer to this as “monetizing the debt”,
but that is not quite an accurate statement.
When the Federal Reserve creates money this way, it does not also create
the money to pay the interest on the debt that has been created.
Eventually this puts pressure on the U.S. government to borrow even more money
to keep the game going. So what this creates is a spiral where the U.S.
government must keep borrowing increasingly larger amounts of money, where the
money supply is endlessly expanding and where the value of the U.S. dollar is
destined to continue going down forever.
Once “Federal Reserve Notes” are in circulation, there is another way
that money is created.
It is called “fractional reserve lending”.
Once you or I deposit money into a bank, the bank is only required to keep
a very small amount of it actually in the bank. The rest of it the bank
can loan out to others (at interest of course). This process can be
repeated over and over and over, creating more money and an even larger amount
of debt.
But the important part to take away from all this is that normally money
is only created when debt is created, and the amount of debt to be paid back is
always larger than the amount of money created.
This entire system is designed to drain our wealth and to put it into
the hands of the bankers.
#3 The power of money creation and debt creation is in the hands of
private individuals – not the government.
The Federal Reserve claims that it is an “entity within
the government, having both public purposes and private aspects.”
That sounds so reasonable, but the truth is that the Federal Reserve is
a legalized banking cartel that is privately-owned.
In fact, the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express
is.
In defending itself against a Bloomberg request for information
under the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Reserve objected by declaring
that it was “not
an agency” of the U.S. government and therefore it was not subject to the
Freedom of Information Act. It is kind of funny how Fed officials are
always talking about how important their “independence” is, but whenever anyone
starts criticizing them for being private they start stressing their ties with
the government.
So who owns the Federal Reserve?
As
the Federal Reserve’s own website describes, it is the member banks that
own it….
The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by
Congress as the operating arms of the nation’s central banking system, are
organized much like private corporations–possibly leading to some confusion
about “ownership.” For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to
member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning
stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and
ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in
the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a
loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year.
In particular, as we will see below, the banks of the New York Federal
Reserve have the most influence over the system.
So who owns the member banks?
Well, when you trace the ownership of the member banks to the very top
you find that the international banking elite are very strongly represented.
#4 The Federal Reserve itself is not much of a profit-making
institution. Rather, it is a tool that enables others to make obscene
amounts of money.
There are many that think of the Federal Reserve as an evil
profit-making machine. But the truth is that the Fed doesn’t make that
much money. Rather, the system was set up so that others could make an
obscene amount of money from U.S. government debt.
Many of those opposed to the Federal Reserve point to the record $80.9
billion in profits that the Federal Reserve made last year as evidence that
they are robbing the American people blind. But then those defending the
Federal Reserve will point out that the Fed returned $78.4 billion to the U.S.
Treasury.
In the end, those numbers are not nearly as important as the hundreds of
billions of dollars in interest that are made off of U.S. government debt each
year.
If the U.S. government had been issuing debt-free money all this time,
the U.S. government would likely not be spending one penny on interest
payments. Instead, the U.S. government spent over 413
billion dollars on interest on the national debt during fiscal 2010.
This is money that belonged to U.S. taxpayers that was transferred to the U.S.
government which in turn was transferred to wealthy international bankers and
other foreign governments.
This is where the magic of the Federal Reserve system is. It is in
getting the U.S. government enslaved to debt and using that debt to transfer
hundreds of billions of dollars of our wealth into the hands of others.
As interest rates go up, this phenomenon is going to become even more
brutal. Right now it is being projected that the U.S. government will be
paying900
billion dollars just in interest on the national debt by the year 2019.
As you fill out your tax return this year, just keep in mind that vast
quantities of our money is going to pay interest on debt that the U.S.
government never needed to become enslaved to.
There are some very happy people out there that are becoming fabulously
wealthy at our expense.
What a system, eh?
#5 The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine.
As mentioned above, the U.S. government is enslaved to debt.
So how did it get enslaved?
Well, instead of printing up and spending the money that it needs, the
U.S. government borrows it through the Federal Reserve system at interest.
In fact, as noted above, the U.S. government cannot create a single new
dollar without borrowing it.
But each new dollar that the U.S. government borrows creates more than a
dollar of new debt.
As a result, the government eventually has to collect more in taxes than
what it has borrowed.
This phenomenon creates an endless debt spiral.
And is that not what we have in the United States today? In fact,
you see this in almost every nation on earth where a similar central banking
system has been established.
Did you know that the U.S. national debt is more than 5,000 times larger
than it was 100 years ago?
That’s right – back in 1910, prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve
Act, the national debt was only about $2.6
billion.
The only way that the U.S. government can inject more money into the
economy is by going into more debt. But when new government debt is
created, the amount of money to pay the interest on that debt is not also
created. In this way, it was intended by the international bankers that
U.S. government debt would expand indefinitely and the U.S. money supply would
also expand indefinitely. In the process, the international bankers would
become insanely wealthy by lending money to the U.S. government.
However, things did not have to turn out this way.
If
the Federal Reserve had never been created, and the U.S. government had
been issuing debt-free currency all this time, it is entirely conceivable that
we would have absolutely no federal government debt at this point.
Unfortunately, we are now trapped in a debt-based system.
The U.S. national debt simply cannot ever be paid off. U.S.
government debt has been mathematically designed to expand forever. It is
a trap from which there is no escape.
Sadly, we have now gotten to a terminal phase of the debt spiral.
The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that U.S. government debt
held by the public will reach a staggering 716 percent of GDP
by the year 2080. Remember when I used the term “debt spiral”
earlier? This is what a debt spiral looks like….
[chart]
#6 The Federal Reserve system is designed to cause inflation.
As U.S. government debt expands at an exponential pace, it inevitably
causes inflation.
Most Americans believe that inflation is a fact of life, but the truth
is that the United States has only had a major, ongoing problem with
inflation since
the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.
Sadly, the U.S. dollar has lost well over 95 percent of its value since
the Federal Reserve was created.
If the Federal Reserve did not exist, it is theoretically conceivable
that we could have an economy with little to no inflation. Of course that
would greatly depend on the discipline of our government officials (which is
not very great at this point), but the sad truth is that our current system is
always going to produce inflation. In fact, the Federal Reserve system
was originally designed to be inflationary. Just check out the inflation
chart posted below. The U.S. never had massive problems with inflation
before the Fed was created, but now it is just wildly out of control….
#7 The Federal Reserve has decided to play bizarre games with our money
supply.
In a desperate attempt to revive the dying U.S. economy, the Federal
Reserve has resorted to chucking gigantic quantities of cash into the financial
system.
[chart]
Remember how earlier I explained that normally whenever new money is
created that more debt is created?
Well, lately the Fed has been resorting to a trick called “quantitative
easing”. What “quantitative easing” means is that the Federal Reserve
zaps massive amounts of money into existence out of thin air and starts
spending it on anything that it wants to buy. Lately, this has primarily
been done to buy up U.S. government debt.
But isn’t that “monetizing the debt”?
Of course it is, and it is a blatant Ponzi scheme.
However, what is even more alarming is what this is doing to our money
supply.
Just look at what has happened to our monetary base since about
mid-2008….
[chart]
Does anyone in their right mind believe that this is not going to cause
horrible inflation?
Right now most of the new cash is tied up in the financial system, but
once it gets out into the regular economy watch out!
#8 The Federal Reserve is undemocratic.
In
a previous article, I asked the following question:
“So what makes the central economic planning that the Federal Reserve
does different from the central economic planning that communist China does?”
In both cases, a bunch of unelected elitists run the economy and make
important economic decisions for the rest of us.
So what really is the difference?
#9 The Federal Reserve runs the U.S. economy.
Most Americans want to blame Obama or Bush or the U.S. Congress for the
state of the economy.
But the truth is that it is the Federal Reserve that sets interest
rates, it is the Federal Reserve that determines the money supply, it is the
Federal Reserve that sets the “target rate” of inflation, it is the Federal
Reserve that determines if unemployment is too high or too low and it is the
Federal Reserve that watches over all of our banks.
Yes, Obama, Bush and the U.S. Congress all have things to answer for as
well.
But none of them have the direct power over the economy that the Federal
Reserve does.
#10 The Federal Reserve favors the big banks.
Not all financial institutions are treated equally by the Fed.
The truth is that the big banks (particularly those on Wall Street) are
treated with great favor by the Federal Reserve.
If the Federal Reserve did not exist, the big Wall Street banks would
not have such an overwhelming advantage. Most Americans simply have no
idea that over the last several years the Federal Reserve has been giving
gigantic piles of nearly interest-free money to the big Wall Street banks which
they turned right around and started lending to the federal government at
a much higher rate of return. I don’t know about you, but if I was
allowed to do that I could make a whole bunch of money very quickly. In
fact, it has come out that the Federal Reserve made over $9
trillion in overnight loans to major banks, large financial institutions
and other “friends” during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009.
Wouldn’t you like to be able to zap trillions of dollars into existence
and loan it out to your friends at very favorable terms?
Sadly, most of the “help” from the Federal Reserve always seems to go to
the big boys.
When “small enough to fail” banks need assistance, they are usually told
to go sell themselves to one of the big banks.
#11 The worse the debt problems caused by the Federal Reserve become,
the more money the IRS needs to collect from the rest of us.
If the U.S. government could issue debt-free money, it is conceivable
that we would not even need the IRS. You doubt this? Well, the
truth is that the United States did just fine for well over a hundred years
without a national income tax. But about the same time the Federal
Reserve was created a national income tax was instituted as well. The
whole idea was that the wealth of the American people would be transferred to
the U.S. government by force and then transferred into the hands of the
ultra-wealthy in the form of interest payments.
If the Federal Reserve was shut down, it is entirely possible that we
would be able to shut down the IRS as well.
But the only way that the current system works is if massive amounts of
wealth continue to be drained from the American people.
#12 The Federal Reserve creates artificial financial bubbles.
When you look back over the last several decades, you will find
financial bubble after financial bubble.
So who created all of those bubbles?
It was the Federal Reserve.
The ridiculous policies of Greenspan and Bernanke have wrought disaster
after disaster and yet most of our politicians still will not even consider
major changes to the Federal Reserve.
#13 The Federal Reserve is anti-free market.
In a true free market system, the marketplace would determine what
interest rates are.
In a true free market system, the marketplace would determine which
financial institutions survive.
In a true free market system, artificial financial bubbles would be far
less likely.
But we don’t have a true free market system.
#14 The Federal Reserve tells the rest of the our banks what to do.
Most Americans don’t understand just how much power the Federal Reserve
actually has over our local banks.
For example, just last year Federal Reserve officials walked into one
bank in Oklahoma and demanded that they take down all
the Bible verses and all the Christmas buttons that the bank had been
displaying.
#15 The people currently running the Federal Reserve pretty much have no
idea what they are doing.
In case anyone has not noticed, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke
hasa
very long track record of incompetence. Nearly every major judgment
that he has made since taking over that position has been dead wrong.
If one of us could go down the street and appoint the manager of the
local Dairy Queen as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, it is very doubtful
that person would do a worse job than Bernanke has done.
#16 Even though the Federal Reserve has such extraordinary power over
the financial system, the American people are not permitted to examine their
books.
The Federal Reserve claims that they are regularly audited, but when
some members of Congress attempted to push through a true comprehensive audit
of the Fed last year Federal Reserve officials threw a hissy fit.
The truth is that the Federal Reserve has never undergone a true
comprehensive audit since it was created back in 1913.
Whenever the subject of an audit comes up, Bernanke and others at the
Fed keep repeating the mantra of how important “the independence of the Federal
Reserve” is.
Sadly, Ron Paul’s proposal to audit the Federal Reserve last year,
which had previously been co-sponsored by 320 members of the U.S.
House of Representatives, ultimately
failed by a vote of 229-198.
Instead, a very, very limited examination of Fed transactions that
occurred during the recent financial crisis was approved.
So what did that limited examination reveal?
Well, the Federal Reserve was forced to reveal the details of 21,000
transactions stretching from December 2007 to July 2010 that combined were
worth trillions of dollars. It turns out that the Federal Reserve was
just handing out gigantic
piles of nearly interest-free cash to their friends at the largest banks,
financial institutions and corporations all over the globe.
Many members of Congress were absolutely stunned by these revelations.
So what would a more comprehensive audit reveal?
#17 The Federal Reserve has way too much power.
If the Federal Reserve did not exist, we would not have an unelected,
unaccountable “fourth branch of government” running around that has gotten
completely and totally out of control. Even some members of Congress are
now openly complaining about how much power the Fed has. For example, Ron
Paul told MSNBC last year that he believes that the Federal Reserve is
now more
powerful than Congress…..
“The regulations should be on the Federal Reserve. We should have
transparency of the Federal Reserve. They can create trillions of dollars to
bail out their friends, and we don’t even have any transparency of this.
They’re more powerful than the Congress.”
#18 The Federal Reserve is dominated by Wall Street and the New York
banks.
The New York representative is the only permanent member of the Federal
Open Market Committee, while other regional banks rotate in 2 and 3
year intervals. The former head of the New York Fed, Timothy
Geithner, is now U.S. Treasury Secretary. The truth is that the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York has always been the most important of the
regional Fed banks by far, and in turn the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York has always been dominated by Wall Street and the major New York banks.
The cold, hard reality of the matter is that the Federal Reserve is just
another one of the tools that the Wall Street banking elite use to dominate all
the rest of us.
#19 The Federal Reserve has brought us to the brink of economic
collapse.
If the Federal Reserve had never been created, the American people would
not be so enslaved to debt. At the very core of our economic problems is
debt. American consumers are swamped with debt, state and local
governments are facing horrific debt problems from coast to coast and the
federal government has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of
the world.
We are living in an absolutely massive debt bubble, and when it bursts
the world is going to experience financial chaos like it has never seen before.
Things did not have to turn out this way. We did not have to adopt
a debt-based financial system. We did not have to allow the bankers to
enslave us with debt.
But that is what happened.
Sadly, most Americans and the vast majority of our politicians are still
clueless about these issues.
In 1922, Henry
Ford wrote the following….
“The people must be helped to think naturally about money. They must be
told what it is, and what makes it money, and what are the possible tricks of
the present system which put nations and peoples under control of the few.”
Hopefully this article will help people understand our debt-based
financial system a little bit better.
Until we fundamentally change our system, many of the economic and
financial problems we are currently experiencing will never go away.
Thankfully, it does appear that some Americans are waking up.
According to a
recent Bloomberg National Poll, the number of Americans that would like to
see the Federal Reserve held more accountable or even completely abolished is
increasing….
Asked if the central bank should be more accountable to Congress, left
independent or abolished entirely, 39 percent said it should be held more
accountable and 16 percent that it should be abolished. Only 37 percent favor
the status quo.
Those are very exciting numbers.
Hopefully we can awaken many more Americans to the dangers of a
debt-based economy.
In the book of Proverbs, it tells us the following….
The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the
lender.
Well, by allowing ourselves to become enslaved to debt, we have become
the servants of the international banking system.
Not only that, we have also sold our children and our grandchildren into
perpetual debt
slavery.
Thomas Jefferson tried to warn us about this.
He believed that when the government borrows money in one generation
which must be paid back by future generations it is equivalent to
stealing….
And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more
dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be
paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a
large scale.
In fact, Thomas Jefferson said that if he could add one more amendment
to the U.S. Constitution it would be a ban on all
government borrowing….
I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our
Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of
the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its
Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government
the power of borrowing.
Where would we be today if we had listened to Thomas Jefferson?
The amount of government debt that we have racked up is a great
evil. We have stolen the future away from our children and our
grandchildren. We have put them in a position where they will spend the
rest of their lives paying off our debts to the bankers.
We owe it to future generations to fix the problems that we have
created.
That is why so many of us believe that it is time for the U.S. Congress
to shut down the Federal Reserve. Our current financial system is a
complete and utter failure and we need to start over.'
The
American Dream March 30, 2011 'Most American families are really struggling
in this economy and they see most of the families around them really
struggling, but they don’t have any hard numbers to back up the feelings of
economic despair that they are experiencing. Well, below you will find 22
statistics that prove that American families are broke and getting
broker. Today, the financial condition of most middle class families is
rapidly deteriorating. The number of good jobs is declining, incomes are
down, debt loads are up and bankruptcies and foreclosures just continue to
increase. If you step back and really examine the statistics, it becomes
really hard to deny that American families are getting poorer. Well, the
wealthiest 5 percent are still thriving, but everyone else is really having a
tough time. The truth is that a large percentage of the U.S. middle class
is slowly but surely going broke. Unfortunately, this is being caused by
long-term economic trends that simply are not going to be fixed overnight.
Most Americans had just assumed that the United States would always have
a dominant, prosperous economy. But in the world we live in today there
are no guarantees.
The era when almost anyone could find a good job is over. Millions
of good jobs have already left the United States, and vast numbers of legal and
illegal workers have been shipped in to the country to compete for the jobs
that are still here.
There are millions of Americans that would give just about anything for
a good job right about now. But the good jobs are very few and far between
at this point.
Every day there is more depressing news. For example, a recent job
fair in Massachusetts was shut down because
of a lack of jobs.
In fact, with jobs so scarce these days, more Americans than ever are
willing to work for free.
This is not just a “recession” or an “economic downturn”. The U.S.
economy is fundamentally changing for the worse. Millions of American
families are already experiencing economic despair and millions more will be
experiencing it very soon.
The following are 22 jaw dropping statistics about the financial
condition of American families….
#1 In 2010, one
out of every eight American families had at least one family member that
was unemployed. In fact, the figure for 2010 was the highest it has been
since the U.S. Labor Department began keeping track of this statistic back in
1994.
#2 According to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, more
than 8 million Americansare working part-time jobs because they can’t get
full-time jobs.
#3 There are now more
than 6 million Americans that the government sayshave
given up looking for work completely.
#4 After accounting
for inflation, the average income for an American family has
fallen 5 percent since the year 2000.
#5 According to the
New York Times, as of 2009 the wealthiest 5 percent of all Americans had 63.5
percent of all the wealth in America. Meanwhile, the bottom 80
percent had just 12.8 percent of all the wealth.
#6 During this most
recent economic downturn, employee compensation in the United States has been
the lowest that it has been relative to gross domestic product in over
50 years.
#7 According to the
Federal Reserve, between 2007 and 2009 median household net worth in the United
States fell by
23 percent.
#8 The Federal
Reserve also says that median household debt in the United States has
risen to
$75,600.
#9 Total U.S. credit
card debt is more
than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.
#10 Today, 46%
of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month.
#11 Of U.S.
households that have credit card debt, the average amount owed on credit
cards is
$15,788.
#12 Americans now
owe more
than $887 billion on student loans, which is even more than they owe on
credit cards.
#13 A
staggering 25 percent of all American adults now
have a credit score below 599.
#14 When you adjust
wages for inflation, middle class workers in the United States make less money
today than they did
back in 1971.
#15 American workers
that are unemployed are
nearly twice as likely to have been told by a doctor or a nurse that they
suffer from depression.
#16 In 2010, for the
first time ever more
than a million U.S. families lost their homes to foreclosure, and that
number is expected to go even higher in 2011.
#17 According to
RealtyTrac, one
out of every 45 U.S. households was hit with a foreclosure filing in 2010.
#18 U.S. home values
have fallen an
astounding 6.3 trillion dollars since the peak of the real estate
market. Most of that pain has been felt by ordinary American families.
#19 Approximately
half of all American workers make
$25,000 a year or less.
#20 According to a
survey released very close to the end of 2010, 55
percentof all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.
#21 1.5 million
Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2010. That represented the fourth
yearly increase in bankruptcy filings in a row.
#22 As 2007 began,
only about 26 million Americans were on food stamps, but today over 44 million Americans are
on food stamps which is an all-time record high.'
Drudgereport:
Obama
2002: Toppling a Brutal Dictator Is 'A Dumb War'...
OBAMA POLL HITS NEW
LOW...
EPA
Says Radiation Found in U.S. Milk...
Inflation
worries push consumer confidence lower...
Home
prices STILL falling in cities...
13%
of all U.S. homes are vacant...
REBELS ON THE RUN
OBAMA
DEFENDS...
'World
Conscience'...
New
Committee to Set Libya's 'Political Direction'...
U.S.
says rebels may sell oil?
Brits
fear becoming another Iraq...
Gadhafi
tells West to halt 'barbaric genocide'...
Camp
Lejeune Marines sent to Libya...
Clinton,
Hague meet senior 'rebel' figure...
Intelligence
shows 'flickers' of al Qaeda...
MAG:
NEW 'KILL TEAM' PHOTOS RELEASED...
REPORT:
U.S. soldiers hacked off part of dead man's skull?
HORROR: Cut off 15-year-old boy's finger and kept as trophy...[We all knew the
u.s. Military was recruiting / is now composed of felons, war criminals, etc.;
but clearly, these are the blatant signs of serial killers – then that 360 tons
of $100 bills still missing in Iraq, etc., serial thieves, particularly at the
top down.)...
VIDEO:
Two on motorcycle gunned down...***WARNING: GRAPHIC***
PHOTOS...
500,000
MARCH IN LONDON TO PROTEST BUDGET CUTS...
Turns
violent; Anarchists blitz the Ritz...
ANARCHY
IN THE UK
NOT
DAYS, NOT WEEKS -- LIBYA OP TO LAST MONTHS...
NATO
likely to expand mission...
Energized
Muslim Brotherhood eyes a prize...
Unrest in Syria, Jordan Poses New
Test...
Clinton:
U.S. won't intervene...
REPORTER CONFINED IN
CLOSET DURING BIDEN'S FLA FUNDRAISER...
'Extremely
inappropriate'...
OBAMA
DEFENDS...
'America
has played a unique role as an anchor of global security'...
NOT
IN OVAL OFFICE...
NETS
BALKED AT PRIMETIME ADDRESS...
HILLARY
OFF TO LONDON TOWN...
WAR
COST: $600 MILLION, IN 6 DAYS...
Radiation
levels at nuclear plant reach new highs...
100,000X
NORMAL...
Radioactive
Water Extends One Mile Into Ocean...
Trace
Amounts Found in Florida...
At
the gates of stricken Fukushima nuke plant...
Radiation
levels highest since crisis began...
'Bad Readings' Plague Effort...
Concern grows over
sea contamination...
Tokyo blackouts to
resume Monday...
Radioactivity
detected in China...
And
Nevada... And SC, Fla...
And
Mass...
Gaps
in US radiation monitoring system revealed...
Four of EPA's 11
Sensors in CA Were Down...
Obama
says he didn't know of fed op smuggling guns into Mexico...
SOROS
GROUP PLOTS 'GUERILLA WAR', 'SABOTAGE' ON FOXNEWS...
AL
QAEDA FIGHTERS JOIN LIBYAN REBELS...
'Al
Qaeda snatched missiles'...
Boehner:
Obama needs to 'provide clarity' on military objective...
U.S.
officials assisted visit by Gadhafi son just before uprising...
Despite
airstrikes, Tripoli residents live in terror...
British
Minister Warns of Another Lockerbie...
'Black
Swan' double claims Portman did only 5% of dance shots...'The ballerina who served as a dancing
double for Natalie Portman’s Oscar-winnning role in Black Swan tells EW she has been the victim of a “cover-up” to
mislead the public about how much dancing Portman actually did in the film. “Of
the full body shots, I would say 5 percent are Natalie,” says Sarah Lane, 27,
an American Ballet Theatre soloist who performed many of the film’s complicated
dance sequences, allowing Portman’s face to be digitally grafted onto her body.
“All the other shots are me.”
Lane’s claim follows a March 23 L.A.
Times article in which Portman’s fiancé and Black
Swan choreographer Benjamin Millepied said Lane’s work in the film was far
less significant. “There are articles now talking about her dance double
[American Ballet Theatre dancer Sarah Lane] that are making it sound like
[Lane] did a lot of the work, but really, she just did the footwork, and the
fouettés, and one diagonal [phrase] in the studio,” he said. “Honestly, 85
percent of that movie is Natalie.”
Lane disagrees. “The shots that are just her face with arms,
those shots are definitely Natalie,” she says. “But that doesn’t show the
actual dancing.” Lane admits that she was never promised a particular title for
her six weeks of work on the film, though she was disappointed to see that she
is credited only as as “Hand Model,” “Stunt Double,” and “Lady in the Lane” (a
brief walk-on role).
Lane also
says that Black Swan producer Ari Handel specifically told her not to
talk about her work to the press, even though she claims there was no such
stipulation in her contract. “They wanted to create this idea in people’s minds
that Natalie was some kind of prodigy or so gifted in dance and really worked
so hard to make herself a ballerina in a year and a half for the movie,
basically because of the Oscar,” says Lane. “It is demeaning to the profession
and not just to me. I’ve been doing this for 22 years…. Can you become a
concert pianist in a year and a half, even if you’re a movie star?”...'
San Diego and Washington D.C. were the only two markets to record
positive year-over-year changes. However, San Diego was up a scant 0.1%,
while Washington DC posted a healthier +3.6% annual growth rate. The same
11 cities that had posted recent index level lows in December 2010, posted
new lows in January.
David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard &
Poor’s commented:
“Keeping with the trends set in late 2010, January brings us weakening
home prices with no real hope in sight for the near future. With this
month’s data, we find the same 11 MSAs posting new recent index lows. The
10-City and 20-City Composites continue to decline month-over-month and have
posted monthly declines for six consecutive months now.
...
Lane disagrees. “The shots that are just her face with arms,
those shots are definitely Natalie,”..But that doesn’t show the actual
dancing.” ..
Drudgereport:
MOODY'S
THREATENS TO DOWNGRADE BRITAIN'S DEBT...
STUDY: US Finances Rank Near Worst in
World...
Libya
Mission 'clouded by confusion'...
White
House: Days, not weeks...
France:
Weeks, not days...
Dem
Rep: Obama told me US would be 'in and out'...
Beware
the Fed Driven Market Parnell ' A review of the headlines heading into trading
on March 23, 2011 was notable:
* Portugal braces for government collapse over austerity vote
* Ireland’s 10-year bond yield hits record at over 10%
* Bombing in Israel bus station
* Yemen’s pro-U.S. leader in talks on exit
* U.S. new home sales lowest on record, prices fall to December 2003
levels
* Federal Reserve rejects Bank of America dividend raise
Investment markets do not like uncertainty. And on
any normal trading day, simply one of these headlines alone might provide
justification for stock investors to take pause and reevaluate risk
exposures...'
U.S.
Consumer Sentiment Fell More Than Forecast in March Bloomberg
Don't
Fight the Fed: Dave's Daily 'Some good earnings from software
leader Oracle and upwardly revised GDP (mostly on expanding inventories) helped
markets rally modestly Friday. Most important, $20 billion in POMO this week
tells the tale for markets and bulls. It seems the world can blow up and bulls
would still be chucking it in there as long the man with the big stack has
their backs. Consumer Sentiment was lower since oil prices over $100 are
off-putting to say the least and home prices continue to suffer. With commodity
prices still rising it's uncertain whether corporations will be able to pass these
higher costs to end users or consumers. If they can, we have inflation that
only rigged government data
can deny. The dollar rallied modestly but commodities still rallied overall
while bonds fell slightly. Volume continues to dry-up but I suppose most
investors pay little heed to this bearish condition. Who's buying? Those lucky
Primary Dealers (dba,
Da Boyz) with free stake money from Uncle Sugar. Breadth per the WSJ was
positive. As quickly as we were short-term oversold last week, we're now at
neutral to a little overbought.'
Beware
the Fed Driven Market Parnell ' A review of the headlines
heading into trading on March 23, 2011 was notable:
* Portugal braces for government collapse over austerity vote
* Ireland’s 10-year bond yield hits record at over 10%
* Bombing in Israel bus station
* Yemen’s pro-U.S. leader in talks on exit
* U.S. new home sales lowest on record, prices fall to December 2003
levels
* Federal Reserve rejects Bank of America dividend raise
Investment markets do not like uncertainty. And on any normal trading
day, simply one of these headlines alone might provide justification for stock
investors to take pause and reevaluate risk exposures. So with six such major
headlines in a single day, it would have been more than reasonable to expect
that stocks might head lower for the trading session, as investors would be
inclined to take some money of the table as they analyze the implications of
some if not all of these events. And such risk aversion would be particularly
prudent in a stock market that has nearly doubled since the March 2009 lows and
has risen by over +30% in a virtual straight line since last summer.
When trade opened Wednesday morning at 9:30AM, a pullback was exactly
what we saw, as the market quickly dropped by roughly -1%. But once we entered
the second hour of trading, the downward trend suddenly reversed. By 10:30AM,
the market showed signs of bottoming. And through the remainder of the morning
and the rest of the trading day, the market elevated steadily higher to end the
day up +0.5%. The fact that the market ended up on a day when a variety of new
and meaningful risks bubbled to the surface certainly raises an eyebrow. After
all, whether it's to the upside or the downside, you want to make sure your in
a market that is acting at least somewhat rationally.
Trading days just like yesterday have become all too familiar over the
last few years – down at open on negative news, bottom mid morning, rally
through the remainder of the day to end higher. This raises the obvious
question – what is happening around 10:30AM that sparks this market resilience
to shake off any and all signs of worry and start ascending higher? The answer
– the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Nearly every trading day, the Fed conducts Permanent Open Market
Operations (POMO) starting at 10:30AM as part of their latest $600 billion
asset purchase plan widely known as “QE2”. Between 10:30AM and 11:00AM, the Fed
buys anywhere between $5.5 billion to $8.5 billion in U.S. Treasury securities
from financial institutions such as the major banks. So by late morning on any
given trading day, we have financial institutions that suddenly have a load of
cash that they just received from the Fed and now need to do something with it.
A good chunk of this money has been finding its way into investment
markets including stocks, which helps ignite the reversal and propel stocks
higher. In other words, the Fed has essentially become the marginal buyer of
stocks through their Open Market Operations.
click to enlarge [chart]
This process has two key implications going forward. First, the Fed’s
QE2 is set to run through June 30, 2011. As long as QE2 is running – we are
currently around $360 billion, or 60%, through QE2 through today with 98
calendar days left before June 30, 2011 – it is reasonable to expect these
mid-morning reversal up days will continue to occur with regularity regardless
of what risks the world throws at it. Second, the daily marginal buyer for
stocks is set to go away once QE2 ends.
Thus, a day like Wednesday that opens down but reverses and heads higher
is likely to become a day that opens lower and accelerates to the downside as
the day progresses. It is also worth noting that the infamous stock market
flash crash occurred on May 6, 2010 ...'
G.E.’s
Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether NY Times |
Worldwide profits: $14.2 billion; U.S. profits: $5.1 billion; tax liability:
zero.
How
Can America Create Wealth If Our Industrial Base Is Destroyed? Economic
Collapse | Any economy that constantly consumes far more wealth than
it produces is in for a very hard fall.
U.S.
Consumer Sentiment Fell More Than Forecast in March Bloomberg
| Gasoline prices hovering near the highest levels since October 2008 are
straining the finances of American households.
National
/ World
2011 is shaping up to be a really bad year for the U.S. economy. There
are all kinds of indications that big trouble is ahead. So far financial
markets are weathering all of the chaos around the world fairly well, but just
as there were huge flashing warning signs before the 2008 financial crisis
there are also huge flashing warning signs now. The price of oil is
soaring, the U.S. housing market is experiencing huge problems, the cost of
living in America recently hit a new record high and each week the globe seems
to become even more unstable. How much pounding can our fragile economic
system take before it completely collapses? As the price of oil goes even
higher, it is going to cause economic growth to slow down and it is going to
cause the prices of the things that we all buy at the stores to go up at the
same time. It is very likely that we are entering a period of
“stagflation” similar to what we experienced in the 1970s. This is going
to cause a huge amount of money trouble for millions of American
families. Already there are vast numbers of American families that are
barely making it every month. Tens of millions of Americans are already receiving
government assistance. So what is going to happen when the next financial
crash happens and we experience yet another major economic downturn?
The truth is that the financial system was never “fixed” after the crash
of 2008. If anything, it is more vulnerable today than it was back
then. Even as you read this, major imbalances are building up in the
global financial system, and at some point a “tipping point” will be reached.
Once that tipping point is reached, it will not be too long before the
U.S. economy experiences the next wave of economic problems. Perhaps we
will be fortunate and it will not be as bad as the 2008 crash. Perhaps
this next wave will be even worse than 2008 was. Only time will tell.
But all of the warning signs are there. The following are 15
indications that bad times are about to hit the U.S. economy….
#1 The price of
gasoline is about to cross the psychologically-important $4 a gallon threshold
in some areas of the United States. For example, the average price of
gasoline is now $3.977
in San Diego County and it is $3.955
in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
#2 The price of oil
moved up close to the $105 mark by the end of the day today, and that means
that more gasoline price increases are likely on the horizon for American
consumers.
#3 In February, food
prices in the United States rose at the fastest rate in
36 years.
#4 According to the
U.S. Labor Department, the cost of living in the United States hit a
brand new all-time record high in the month of February.
#5 According to the
National Association of Realtors, sales of previously existing homes in the
United States dropped a
stunning 9.6 percent in February. The National Association of
Realtors also has announced that the median home price is the lowest it has
been in 9
years.
#6 The U.S. is
already in the midst of a real
estate crash that never seems to end, but many are warning that it is about
to get even worse. For example, prominent housing analyst Gary Shilling
is warning that U.S. housing prices are likely to drop another
20 percent.
#7 According to the
Mortgage Bankers Association, at
least 8 million Americans are at least one month behind on their mortgage
payments at this point.
#8 According to the
U.S. Census Bureau, the number of new building permits declined 20.5 percent in
February on a year over year basis. According to John Carney of CNBC, a
huge decline in building permits is usually an indication that a recession is
coming….
All nine recessions since 1959 have seen a year over year decline in
building permits. In eight of the last nine the annual rate of change hit
negative 20 percent or lower, and the economy went into a recession.
#9 31
percent of the homeowners that responded to a recent Rasmussen Reports
survey indicated that they are “underwater” on their mortgages.
#10 Millions of
American families are drowning in debt and debt collectors are becoming
increasingly aggressive. According to a new Federal Trade Commission
report, consumer complaints about debt collectors rose by
17 percent last year.
#11 Meredith Whitney
is warning that even though it may take longer than she originally projected,
we are still going to see a wave of municipal bond defaultsworth
hundreds of billions of dollars.
#12 The war in Libya
is putting upward pressure on the price of oil, it is yet another drain on U.S.
government finances, and it is raising tensions across the globe.
Vladimir Putin has called the NATO operation in Libya a “crusade” and
China is
calling for an immediate cease-fire. Financial markets do not like
instability of this nature.
#13 The rest of the
Middle East is melting down as well. More
than 40 demonstrators have been killed in Yemen and the president of that
country has declared a state of emergency. Government buildings are still
being set on fire in Egypt. Ivory Coast is in the midst of a full-blown
revolution, and there are ongoing protests in about a dozen other nations
across North Africa and the Middle East. This is really bad for global
economic stability.
#14 The damage from
the tsunami in Japan continues to affect more American Workers. GM has
just announced that they are going to temporarily
lay off workers at a Buffalo engine plant due to a shortage of parts from Japan.
When supply chains are going to get fully back to normal is anyone’s
guess. GM has also temporarily shut down a facility in Shreveport,
Louisiana due to supply problems.
#15 There continue to
be indications that the amount of radiation being released by the damaged
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants is much higher than we have been led to
believe. The following is an excerpt from a recent report by
NHK World….
“Japan’s science ministry says radiation exceeding 400 times the normal
level was detected in soil about 40 kilometers from the troubled Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant. The ministry surveyed radioactive substances in
soil about 5 centimeters below the surface at roadsides on Monday. The ministry
found 43,000 becquerels of radioactive iodine-131 per kilogram of soil, and
4,700 becquerels of radioactive cesium-137 per kilogram about 40 kilometers
west-northwest of the plant. Gunma University Professor Keigo Endo says
radiation released by the iodine is 430 times the level normally detected in
soil in Japan and that released by the cesium is 47 times the norm.”
400 times the normal level amount of radiation 40 kilometers from the
plant?
That is something that should be taken very seriously.
Sadly, radiation levels continue to rise throughout northern and central
Japan. If a significant amount of people have to be evacuated from Tokyo
at some point that is going to be absolutely devastating for the global
economy.
So what should Americans be doing? How can middle class families
weather the storm that is coming?
Well, one thing that can be done is to start saving
money and not spending it on frivolous things like new cars and
international vacations. Many Americans did not learn the lessons of 2008
and they are running around blowing money as if the good times will never come
to an end.
Also, now is a good time to get out of debt. Millions of American
families are literally drowning in
debt, and when the next financial crash comes it is the families that are
overextended that will be the most financially vulnerable.
When you see a storm coming, the prudent thing to do is to make
preparations. Most people believe what they want to believe, but anyone
that cannot see the economic storm clouds on the horizon at this point has got
to be pretty clueless.
Our entire economic system is slowly failing. Hopefully the folks running
things will be able to hold the economy together for a while longer, but when
you stop and think about who we have in charge, there are not many reasons to
be optimistic.
Drudgereport:
Fears rise that Japan could sell off U.S. Debt ... [
Not only selling ... they won't be buying! ]...
Dangerous breach suspected at Japan nuke plant...
WATER RADIATION 10,000X NORMAL...
Japan Quietly Evacuates Wider Radius From Reactors...
Toll rises to 27,000 dead, missing...
Muslims beat, stomp effigy of Obama in protest...
GE pulls in $14B, makes $5B profit, pays $0 US
taxes...
WH defends embrace of GE's CEO...
Immelt, Rangel in 'Harlem Horse Trade'...
UPDATE: Budget Impasse Increasing Risk of
'Shutdown'...
MOODY'S THREATENS TO DOWNGRADE BRITAIN'S DEBT...
STUDY: US Finances Rank Near Worst in World...
Libya Mission 'clouded by confusion'...
White House: Days, not weeks...
France: Weeks, not days...
Dem Rep: Obama told me US would be 'in and out'...
Pentagon: Likely to continue combat...
2,200 ground troops headed to region...
Quake toll rises to 27,000 dead, missing...
More U.S. states find 'traces' of radiation from
Japan...
EPA: Some Air Monitors May Not Be Working Properly...
Global food scare widens...
FED:
US Approaching Insolvency...
Oil closes above $105, highest level since Aug
2008...
New Home Sales Plunge; Hit Lowest Level Since Data
Tracking Began in 1960s...
US gasoline inventories fall...
Neutron beam observed 13 times at crippled Fukushima
nuke plant...
Fallout reaches Europe...
Concern in Tokyo over tap water...
Leading OBAMACARE Backer Considering Waiver for his
City...
TOP GUN: As bombs drop, Spring Training (at baseball
camp) for 'Lobotomy Joe' Biden...
Army Soldier Pleads Guilty in Deaths of 3 Afghan
Civilians...
PORTUGAL
TEETERS AFTER FAILURE TO CUT DEBT...
International Bailout Only Option...
PM resigns...
WOBAMA: I'm keeping my Peace Prize ... (which as is so
of 'wobama the b' {for b*** s***} means absolutely nothing) ...
BOMBED BUT NOT BROKEN
Obama
seeks to break impasse...
Allies
in disarray...
No
one wants to run operation...
French
PM: 'We are not at war'...
DEM LAWMAKER:
IMPEACH OBAMA...
US
rescue chopper shoots 6 villagers welcoming pilots of downed jet...
UPDATE:
Soldier to Plead Guilty in Afghan Murder Case...
Will
testify against fellow 'kill team' troops...
Mainstream
media ignores 'trophy' photos; White House mum...
Oil
tops $105 per barrel...
Ex-President
of Israel Sentenced to Prison for Rape...
Violence
warning in UK as unions plan mass march Sunday...
Unemployment numbers
from the labored labor department? The ‘expiration / stopped looking,
everyone’, at best. How can anyone believe anything the pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt u.s. government says. Durable goods (leading indicator) 200%
worse than expected, stocks rally. ‘ February
Durable Goods Orders Disappoint NEW
YORK (TheStreet) Bharatwaj …’ This is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s suckers’ rally provides an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! The frauds on wall street et
als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed
(this would also help significantly the hapless, hopeless budget scenario). M&A,
Ben Resuscitate Bulls: Dave's Daily 'If
you can keep interest rates this low this long, its inevitable cheap financing
can allow companies to start cobbling each other up. Further Ben's policies
allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy back shares with the
proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary Dealers can buy
back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is taxpayer
money--nifty trick eh? With all the geopolitical and nuclear events going on
little noticed was Fed "stress tests" of financial institutions to
see if they were healthy enough to buy back shares and pay dividends. Making
the matter sinister and less transparent is their gag order on the entire
process. The Fed also has some toxic waste they'd like to sell you… (see infra)’ Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many important global stock markets, including
China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong, have been in fairly significant corrections
since November, down between 12% and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising
inflation and the resulting monetary tightening by their central banks to
combat the inflationary pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of
a more serious correction? The events and reports this week did provide more
evidence that the stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for
the economy, and therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at
least limit the market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more
downside risk? It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may
develop over the next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’ BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows New
homes are bad deals in some areas (Washington
Post) [ If it only was just the new
homes being bad deals in some areas … and if it only was just real estate and
not, ie., grossly over-valued u.s. stocks, which rallied on the much worse than
expected news, etc.. Post 'The rise (in stocks) came in spite of record
low new-home sales data and continued worry about the European debt
crisis.' Select
Stocks Boost Markets: Dave's Daily [ Dave: '...Economic data focused on New Home
Sales which were down nearly 17%
causing the Homebuilder ETF (XHB) to rally. I kid you not! ...' ]
February
Durable Goods Orders Disappoint NEW
YORK (TheStreet) Bharatwaj-- New orders
for durable goods dropped in February, led by a drop in demand for machinery
and defense capital goods. The Census Bureau said on Thursday that new orders
dropped 0.9% to $200 billion in February, disappointing expectations for a 1.1%
increase. Excluding the volatile transportation sector, new orders dropped
0.6%, following a 3.6% decrease in January. Economists were expecting new
orders excluding transportation to increase by 1.8%, according to consensus
estimates from Briefing.com.
New orders for defense capital goods dropped 25%, while demand for
defense aircraft and parts fell 18%. Excluding defense, new orders for durable
goods increased 0.4%.
New orders for machinery declined for the second consecutive month by
4.2%, the largest decrease outside of defense. Orders for primary metals
dropped 2.1% and communications equipment fell 2.3%.
Nondefense new orders for capital goods- a proxy for growth in business
investment- jumped 2.5% to $69.1 billion; shipments increased 1.1% to $66.2
billion.
Futures were paring gains in premarket trading.
The SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF(DIA_) was up 0.5%, the SPDR
S&P 500 ETF(SPY_)
and the PowerShares QQQ(QQQ_)
were rising about 0.5% and 0.5% respectively. The SPDR Industrials ETF(XLI_) was, however, up 0.8%.--
New
Home Sales at Record Low, TIPs on the Move
Inflation Trader 'The good news about housing is that it has fallen so
far that a contraction in that sector doesn’t have the same impact it once did.
Yesterday New Home Sales for February were reported at 250k (annualized,
seasonally adjusted), yet another record low (see Chart below, click to
enlarge). [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/24/saupload_nhsl.png ]
A new record low for New Home Sales. Construction won't be adding to GDP
yet.
Keep in mind that this is with mortgage rates that are as low as they
have been in a couple of generations at least. Now, some of this is caused by
the fact that there are still plenty of distressed sales in the market for
Existing Homes. Some of it may also be due to the fact that the actual
inventory of new homes that are for sale has also fallen to near-record lows,
and are easily at new lows when population-adjusted (see Chart below, http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/24/saupload_bfm5ff4.png
)...!
Say what you will about the crazy overbuilding in the mid-2000s; the
homebuilders have cut back on new building drastically, which is a precondition
for the sector’s eventual recovery. It would almost be worth taking a look at
home building stocks, if TOL
wasn’t trading at a P/E of 3,382:1 (only 294:1 on estimated earnings!). (It’s
trading at 2.3x sales; at its peak in 2005 it was only 1.9x. Now, you may say
“sure, but keep in mind right now you’re at trough sales.” Fair enough, but
revenues are down 75% from their 2006 level, and there won’t be another boom
like that one for a long time. Suppose sales double from here. You’re still
paying 1.65x sales, which is more expensive than the company has been since
1994, with the exception of the bubble top. And it’s by no means assured that
home construction is going to boom in the short run, especially when interest
rates start to rise again. (There are surely better shorting candidates, don’t
get me wrong: I just mention this because I was looking at it thinking it might
be a buy candidate. It’s not).
Besides the Home Sales data, there was little news out. There was
nothing new from Portugal. Crude oil rallied 1.7% (now $105.75/bbl) and
industrial metals jumped 2.3%. 10y note yields rose 2bps to 3.35% and are
seemingly stabilizing now that the last frightening week or two is behind us.
TIPS yields rose for the fourth day in a row; the 10y now stands at a
still-slender 0.95%. Don’t read too much into the selling of TIPS here and the
selloff in 10y inflation swap rates from 2.87 to 2.66 over the last couple of
weeks. There is an $11bln reopening of 10-year TIPS today, and some of what we
were seeing yesterday was dealers trying to set up for that auction. There is
concern in some quarters that the low yields will make it hard for the
government to sell $11bln TIPS. Remember, though, that the level of rates also
indicates the supply/demand balance. TIPS yields are low because there is no
net supply from the Treasury (thanks to the Fed, and there has been ample
demand to push yields down this far. It may be that this auction pukes, but it
has been difficult for a while to bet that inflation-linked bonds were going to
sell off for any appreciable period. There is positive net demand as money
continues to flow into inflation-linked bond funds, and no net supply. I
wouldn’t be short TIPS here except to set up for the auction (indeed, one
dealer pointed out that the current 10y TIPS are actually “on special” in the
repo market, which almost never happens in TIPS and suggests there is actually
a short base).
Also today, the Feb Durable Goods report (Consensus: +1.2%, +2.0%
ex-Transportation) is due out. Remember the last one was disappointing and led
to some downward revisions to Q1 GDP estimates as a result. Initial Claims
(Consensus: 383k) will also be announced.'
UPDATE 1-Outflows rise for U.S. domestic equity
funds-Lipper Bases' Mar
24, 2011
* U.S. domestic equity fund net outflows of
$3.9 bln
* Non-domestic equity fund net inflows of
$1.4 bln
* Japanese equity fund inflows of $785 million
(Updates with Fidelity's explanation of high yield fund shift;
clarifies that high yield bond fund
outflows were not a
record)
NEW YORK, March 24 (Reuters) - U.S. equity focused mutual
funds saw an increase in net cash
outflows for the week ended
March 23, $3.9 billion versus $2.4
billion in the prior period,
data from Thomson
Reuters Lipper service showed on Thursday.
Overall, U.S. domiciled equity funds had net outflows of
$2.4 billion, a sharp increase over the
$268 million in net
redemptions the prior
week.
Exchange traded funds, such as the SPDR S&P 500 fund (SPY),
which had the biggest outflows of $2.9
billion this week, are
generally thought to be used as short-term
trading tools for
institutional investors, thereby
creating big swings in fund
flows.
Excluding the activity of ETFs, domestic equity funds would
have had net outflows of $124 million,
indicating that both
institutional and
retail investors were net sellers.
Among the major equity sectors, the biggest net outflow
came from the large-cap growth/value
arena, with nearly $6
billion in cash pulled out. Investors,
on net, pulled cash from
financial, healthcare,
technology and utility funds.
In contrast, non-domestic equity funds had inflows of $1.4
billion, marking a
third straight week of fresh cash.
Taxable bond funds took in $965 million, a steep drop off
from the prior week's
$2.7 billion of new cash.
"On the positive side, taxable bond funds took in cash.
People are still feeling like they
cannot completely trust what
is going on in places like Japan. This
looks like a duck and
cover move," said
Tom Roseen, senior analyst at Lipper.
After a record week of inflows for Japan-focused funds,
investors kept pumping cash into that
sector of the market and
placed an additional $785 million in,
bringing the streak of
fresh money to 15 out
of the last 16 weeks.
Once again the majority of inflows for Japan-focused
investors in the U.S. market went into the
iShares MSCI Japan
Fund (EWJ), which had inflows of $603 million. Total
assets
under management in the fund, $7.3
billion, are the highest
since last August
2008.
(For a graphic showing net inflows/outflows and total
assets under management in the ETF,
click on
"Some people say the big drop in Japanese share prices
provided buying opportunities. On the
flip side, the only way
to short a fund is via ETFs and there's
an argument out there
that that is what's occurring, that
institutional investors are
creating inventory for the investors to
allow shorting. So
we'll see," said
Roseen.
In the tax-free municipal bond sector the negative flows
continued for a 19th consecutive week
with $640 million in net
redemptions. The cumulative total
outflow of cash from the muni
bond sector is $29.14
billion.
In what may be a harbinger of some repair in the battered
mortgage industry, funds that hold
mortgage backed securities
took in fresh cash for the first time
in 15 weeks. Net inflows
totaled $38.8 million and marked only
the second time in the
last 24 weeks the
sector had net new money committed.
Emerging market equity funds made it three weeks in a row
and improved over the prior period,
respectively taking in $221
million versus $78
million.
HIGH YIELD
Corporate high-yield bond funds experienced their second
consecutive week of outflows, coming
after 14 straight weeks of
net new cash moving into the sector.
However the figure of $2.8
billion in net
redemptions comes with a major health warning.
Nearly $2 billion of that reported outflow was ascribed to
the class-F shares of both the Fidelity
High Income fund and
the Fidelity Capital
& Income fund.
A Fidelity spokeswoman explained that the assets of the two
fund's class-F shares were shifted into
Fidelity's new Series
High Income fund, and
did not leave the high yield sector.
The class-F shares of these two high-yield bond funds were
liquidated and closed. The transition
was completed on March
14.
Given Fidelity's explanation, Lipper is now estimating net
redemptions for the week ended March 23
were around $800
million, and were not
a record.
The weekly Lipper fund flow data is compiled from reports
issued by U.S.-domiciled mutual funds
and exchange-traded
funds. The weekly data
goes back to 1992.
The following is a broad breakdown of the flows for the
week, including exchange-traded funds:
Sector Flow Pct Total Share
Change
Change Assets Class
(in $ billions) In Assets Count
==============================================================
All Equity Funds -2.428 -0.09 2,721.773 10,006
-Domestic Equities -3.863 -0.20 2,018.548 7,608
-Non-Domestic Equities 1.435
0.21 703.225 2,398
All Taxable Bond Funds 0.966
0.08 1,273.651 4,002
All Money Market Funds -8.689
-0.35 2,496.695 1,535
All Municipal Bond Funds -0.640
-0.20 312.873 1,568
(Reporting by Daniel Bases; Editing by Andrew Hay and Diane
Craft and Carol Bishopric)'
Portugal's
Sovereigns Downgraded, Spanish Banks Guillotined
Household
wealth down 23% in 2 years – Fed
Meredith
Whitney Slashes Morgan Stanley Earnings Estimate, Doesn’t Feel The Need To
Explain Herself
Tanks
Outside Cairo Stock Exchange as Market Plunges Bloomberg
| Stock exchange cordoned by military police and tanks.
‘US
is broke, dollar down, yet policy is to divide & conquer’ RT
| America is getting involved in another long-term war, which will ruin its
economy.
US
Approaching Insolvency, Fix To Be ‘Painful’: Fisher CNBC |
The United States is on a fiscal path towards insolvency and policymakers are
at a “tipping point,”.
National
/ World
White
House: Libya fight is not war, it’s ‘kinetic military action’ Byron
York | “Military steps — and they can be kinetic and non-kinetic.”
Camp
Lejeune Marines To Libya To Strike At Qadhafi Forces WCTI |
We’ve seen Camp Lejuene Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan and now they are
joining the fight against Libya.
‘Libya war could
last 30 years’ Mail Online | Ministers admitted they have
no idea how long military operation against Gaddafi could take.
Fears
grow of humanitarian crisis in Libya
(Washington Post) [ Ya
think? Based on … that familiar template we now know as Iraq, Afghanistan,
etc., and let's not leave out the beneficiary of all such 'preoccupation';
viz., pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america … Money
Trouble Ahead: 15 Indications That Bad Times Are About To Hit The U.S. Economy 2011
is shaping up to be a really bad year for the U.S. economy. There are all kinds
of indications that big trouble is ahead. So far financial markets are
weathering all of the chaos around the world fairly well, but just as there
were huge flashing warning signs before the 2008 financial crisis there are
also huge flashing warning signs now. The
American Dream
March 23, 2011 2011 is shaping up
to be a really bad year for the U.S. economy. There are all kinds of
indications that big trouble is ahead. So far financial markets are weathering
all of the chaos around the world fairly well, but just as there were huge
flashing warning signs before the 2008 financial crisis there are also huge
flashing warning signs now. The price of oil is soaring, the U.S. housing
market is experiencing huge problems, the cost of living in America recently
hit a new record high and each week the globe seems to become even more
unstable. How much pounding can our fragile economic system take before
it completely collapses? As the price of oil goes even higher, it is
going to cause economic growth to slow down and it is going to cause the prices
of the things that we all buy at the stores to go up at the same time. It
is very likely that we are entering a period of “stagflation” similar to what
we experienced in the 1970s. This is going to cause a huge amount of
money trouble for millions of American families. Already there are vast
numbers of American families that are barely making it every month. Tens
of millions of Americans are already receiving government assistance. So
what is going to happen when the next financial crash happens and we experience
yet another major economic downturn?
New
homes are bad deals in some areas (Washington
Post) [ If it only was just the new
homes being bad deals in some areas … and if it only was just real estate and
not, ie., grossly over-valued u.s. stocks, which rallied on the much worse than
expected news, etc.. Post 'The rise (in stocks) came in spite of record
low new-home sales data and continued worry about the European debt
crisis.' Select
Stocks Boost Markets: Dave's Daily [ Dave: '...Economic data focused on New Home
Sales which were down nearly 17%
causing the Homebuilder ETF (XHB) to rally. I kid you not! ...' ] 'As you must
know, many major indices are price weighted and the DJIA takes the lead in this
regard. Six of the highest priced stocks Wednesday (IBM, BA, CAT, DVX, MMM
& UTX) provided most of the gains. Stocks were lower most of the morning,
but volume seemed light, offering an opportunity for buyers to push prices
higher. The theme for bulls was reconstruction in Japan even though EWJ
(iShares Japan ETF) finished the day slightly lower. ETFs like XLB (SPDR
Materials Sector ETF), SLX (Van Eck Steel ETF) and XME (SPDR Metals &
Miners) have the "stuff" needed for reconstruction. Goldman Sachs CEO
Lloyd ("I want me some more me!") Blankfein was on the witness stand
today. He confirmed director Rajat Gupta violated "confidentiality"
by tipping off hedge
fund trader Raj Rajaratnam regarding
Buffett's investment in his company. Also in the financial sector, the Fed
announced it would not permit BAC to payout a dividend post the recent
("covered-up") bank stress tests. This rightly drove shares of many
financial companies lower. Further, it should drive taxpayer's nuts that a Fed
"gag order" restricting disclosure of stress test results exists.
This is taxpayer money after all. Meanwhile, speaking of the Fed we had two
days of POMO resulting in $15 billion in fire power for trading
desks of Primary Dealers including GS. The poor ADBE outlook lingered over tech
but traders always seem to find a way to discard bad news and
shift focus elsewhere. Of course, this can only be done so long. Economic data
focused on New Home
Sales which were down nearly 17%
causing the Homebuilder ETF (XHB) to rally. I kid you not! Energy markets were
higher despite higher inventories. OPEC spokesmen stated Tuesday they're comfortable
at $120. How about you? Gold and silver hit fresh highs, while the euro dropped
on Portugal, base metals rallied and bonds were slightly lower. Volume was once
again light while breadth per the WSJ was unremarkable...' ]
Sec.
Gates reassures Egypt over war in Libya (Washington Post) [ Well, there
you go. If Gates says it; well, it must be true … riiiiight! Gates’s
message (Washington
Post) [ Which one? And I don't mean
which gates. I mean which message? It's hard to keep up, especially if you have
a good memory and remember what the meaning of the word 'is', is. Candor? CIA
man gates? Are you just funnin' with us? Come on! Wake up! Oh wait … here's an
incisive statement you can take to the bank … Uncertain
outlook for Middle East: Gates [Sounds like a plan!] (Reuters) Overseas
official trips amidst crises
(Washington Post) [ It’s
really quite incredible indeed. It was the espn basketball brackets that got me
… so stereotypical … I mean what are they thinking, or not. Riiiight! Not! Well,
gates is gone and as a cia man, what he says means absolutely nothing … they
kind of pride themselves on that … On the receiving end you gotta think they’re
already checking air force one’s return trip schedule hoping to ‘hold out’ and
escape potential invasion themselves … After all, what nation in the world can
or does trust desperate, meaningfully lawless, pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america … oh yeah, maybe fellow war crimes nation israel and
orwellian, me-too old-biddy britain.… Gates's
warning: Avoid land war in Asia, Middle East, and Africa Christian
Science Monitor - In a
speech to cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Gates's
message was clear: The US military services, as well as the elected and
appointed civilians who send them to war, need better ways of foreseeing and
preparing for ... Gates
Tells US Army to Take New Approach Voice
of America Warning Against
Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan New
York Times [ Better said, than unsaid;
but, methinks a bit late for that in light of pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america’s consummate decline and fall! If only they had listened and
not shot at the messenger … things could have been different! ] ]As war clouds
gathered over Libya on Friday, the U.S. commander in chief and his defense
secretary were each preparing to leave Washington to visit places far removed
from any military operations.
] The defense secretary is a voice of candor on the
Mideast.
Germans
pull forces out of NATO as Libyan coalition falls apart Mail
Online
‘Libya war could
last 30 years’ Mail Online | Ministers admitted
they have no idea how long military operation against Gaddafi could take.
New
homes are bad deals in some areas (Washington Post) [ If it only was just the new homes being bad
deals in some areas … and if it only was just real estate and not, ie., grossly
over-valued u.s. stocks, which rallied on the much worse than expected news,
etc.. Post 'The rise (in stocks) came in spite of
record low new-home sales data and continued worry about the European debt
crisis.' Select
Stocks Boost Markets: Dave's Daily [ Dave: '...Economic data focused on New Home
Sales which were down nearly 17%
causing the Homebuilder ETF (XHB) to rally. I kid you not! ...' ]
Portugal’s parliament rejects an austerity plan, pushing
the country closer to an international bailout and triggering another test of
Europe’s ability to deal with an ongoing debt crisis.
Related: Graphic:
Europe's financial contagion
3
Reasons to Exit the Market Now
Martchev 'NEW YORK (TheStreet) - A S&P 500 futures
trader once told me: "After a sharp sell-off, the bounce leading to a
first kiss of a 20-day moving average from below is a short sale." But, I
had to ask, "Why?" "That's how it is," he said with a
typical New York City assertiveness and did not elaborate...'
’Inside Job’ New Documentary
Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
] Former general counsel inherited part of a Bernard Madoff
account.
Ethics
code urged for Supreme Court
(Washington Post) [
Sounds like a plan! Come on! Wake up! After all, what can you expect
from two guidos from ‘jersey (alito and scalia, colloquial – note that I have
refrained from using what some might consider disparaging terms as w*p*,
gui***s, or da***s … and let me state for the record that I truly loved and
respected my grandmother who was 100% Italian/Bari,Italy and as well my
grandfather/Lake Como,northern Italy with greek ancestral roots and I thereby
claim standing/right to posit the criticism in light of my direct experience.
). How ‘bout starting with enforcing laws as to judges, liars, etc., within the
very corrupted american illegal system; and, particularly bribes which in one
form or another are rampant . I don’t know about Thomas ( 3-4-11 Throw
Clarence Thomas Off the Bench (The Daily Beast) ) , but I do know about alito and ‘jersey … :
October 15, 2010 (*see
infra)
Steven M. Martinez,
Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the Qui Tam provisions of
the Federal False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent
resolution seek to refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of
the law with which I am not familiar).
The
document in 5 pages under penalty of perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI
office in New Haven is probably the best and most concise summary of the
case RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [ ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm .
With regard to the calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices:
There was one call to the LA office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA
office where I personally met with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave
probative evidentiary documents of the money laundering which he confirmed as
indicative of same (he was transferred from said office within approximately a
month of said meeting and his location was not disclosed to me upon inquiry).
The matter was assigned to FBI Agent Ron Barndollar and we remained in touch
for in excess of a decade until he abruptly retired (our last conversation
prior to his retirement related to the case and parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani
whose father I stated had been an enforcer for the mob to which he registered
disbelief and requested I prove it, which I did – he served 12 years in prison,
aggravated assault/manslaughter? – and no, there is no Chinese wall of
separation – Andrew Maloney’s the one that prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction to
the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
·
A judgment had been
entered in my favor in the case, United States District Court Case
#3:93cv02065(AWT)(USDCJ Alvin Thompson), worth approximately now in excess of
$300,000 remains unaccounted for and which could be used for payment to
creditors, Los Angeles, etc..
·
Counsel Robert
Sullivan on my behalf documented by way of certification upon investigation
that Alan Shiff, USBCJ, had falsely stated a dismissal upon which false
statement he predicated a retaliatory and spurious contempt proceeding against
me causing substantial damage, and for which he sought Judicial Notice of those
and related proceedings as did I in some of my filings.
·
The Order of
Dismissal With Prejudice by Alan Shiff, USBCJ, owing to Defendant Coan’s
failure to file anything whatsoever by the court’s deadline causing creditors
and me substantial damages: [ Shiff Order of Dismissal With Prejudice on
Coan’s Failure to File Page 1 Page 2 ]
·
Defendant Coan had
filed an action against me to prevent me from suing him which necessitated me
to fly to Connecticut for a hearing before The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny,
Chief Judge, USDC, District of Connecticut, who denied Coan’s requested relief
as to Coan but precluded my action against Shiff (although there is no
immunity, judicial or otherwise, for criminal acts, ie., fraud connected with a
case under Title 11, USC, etc.) . [ transcript
in pertinent part -
crossexamofcoanbypeia.pdf ]
·
Newly appointed
judge, Maryanne Trump Barry, Donald Trump’s sister, was assigned the RICO case
despite the conflict of interest in light of hundreds of thousands of dollars
of illegal (drug) money being laundered through the Trump casinos by the RICO
defendants, and despite my motion to recuse her which motion she heard herself
and denied, and U.S. Trustee Hugh Leonard with whom I met personally refused to
join or file a separate motion to recuse and not long thereafter left said
office for private practice at Cole, Shotz, et als on retainer with the RICO
defendants as his primary client.
·
Probative and
evidentiary documents, affidavits, exhibits, including those turned over to FBI
Agent Jeff Hayes in Long Beach, CA, had been given to Assistant U.S. Attorney
Jonathan Lacey with whom I met personally at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in
Newark, N.J., at which time Samuel Alito was U.S. Attorney, and went over said
documents and their probative value with him. Within approximately a month
thereafter upon inquiry I was told that Jonathon Lacey was no longer with the
office, that the file/documents could not be located, and that there was no
further information available concerning contacting him or his location. I
thereupon delivered by hand, copies of said documents to the office of then
U.S. Attorney Alito, addressed to him, with assurance they would go directly to
him. In addition to being inept [ I looked in on the
one mob case he had brought, bungled, lost (accidently on purpose?) since I was
suing some mob-connected under RICO and the court (I had known / previously met
outside of court the judge Ackerman through a client) was absolute bedlam and a
total joke since incompetent corrupt Alito brought in all 20 mob defendants
(rather than prosecute one or a few to flip them first) who feigning illness
had beds/cots in the courtroom along with their moans during testimony and had
the jury in stitches. As much as I hate the mob, it truly was funny, if not so
tragic.], Alito is also corrupt
(and maybe corrupt because he is inept). After a reasonable (but still rather
short) time I called to determine the status and was told that Alito was no
longer with the Office of the U.S. Attorney, that he was (appointed) a federal
judge, and that neither the documents nor any file or record of same could be
located. Alito did parley the same / cover-up into quid pro quo direct lifetime
appointment to the Court of Appeals, 3rd circuit, despite the
absence of judicial experience or successful tenure as U.S. Attorney (Maryanne
Trump Barry as well). This is the same Sam Alito that now sits on the purported
highest court in the land. The real application of the illegal rule ‘don’t ask,
don’t tell’.
There
is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor creditors, nor I
should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt and illegal
scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the meaningful rules of
law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert
L. Peia
611
E. 5th Street, #404
Los
Angeles, CA 90013
(213)
219-**** (cell phone)
(213)
622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with the line,
computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance greater
non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for contact).
] Group of law
professors' appeal comes after controversies involving travel and appearances
at political events by several justices.
Why your
local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad) http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/LPSILC43/PR [ The instant video on the economic / financial collapse from Stansberry and
Associates is so well researched and
succinctly presented that I’ve archived
same on my website;
also, because the facts and views presented comport with the facts and views
I’ve presented on my site which I believe to be correct. This is a must-view,
must-see that I strongly recommend!
The complete url: http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.flv ( 146mb – approx. 1 hr. 17 min. ) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.mp4 (
374mb ) Written text of presentation (without pictures / charts)
http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrypresentation.htm
]
(Washington Post) [Wobama says daffy gaddafi’s time is up, got to go.
The same can be said of wobama et als and his fraudulently failed
presidency. Sheen
On Obama: “A Coward In a Cheap Suit” [ I think Sheen to be too gentle in his criticism of wobama (Some
might reflexively, defensively allege drugs (prescription or otherwise) or any
number of the varied personality disorders so prevalent in america … ‘fuzzy,
California laid back thinking’, ‘whatever’… Who knows? ) But, that said, wobama’s
far worse than just a ‘coward in a cheap suit’. Indeed, Wobama’s a total fraud
having been elected under false pretenses; viz., his total, unequivocal, and
unfulfilled b*** s*** (those campaign promises) ! Moreover, there has been some
persuasive documentation questioning wobama’s citizenship / birthplace placing
his eligibility to even hold the office of president in question. Drudgereport: UPDATE:
Huckabee claims Obama grew up in Kenya... The
Obama Nation, by Jerome Corsi Rezko
was corrupt, and supported Obama in many campaigns as well as in Obama buying
his home -- and therefore, according to Corsi, Obama is
corrupt by ...www.ontheissues.org/Obama_Nation.htm ] Amidst the controversy of his wild
interview on the Alex Jones Show yesterday, actor Charlie Sheen wasted little
time in confronting President Barack Obama on his failure to answer Sheen’s
twenty questions concerning 9/11, calling Obama, “a coward in a cheap
suit.” A
Government Shut-down Imperils the Power of Congress Paul Craig
Roberts | Congress could try to protect its loss of the power of the
purse by impeaching Obama.
Drudgereport: WOBAMA
'IMPEACHMENT' WARNING... ...to
announce exploratory committee 'in 10 days' Globalist
Shill Barack Obama Asks Business Leaders For Job Creation Ideas Even As He
Ships More Of Our Jobs Overseas As Part Of The New One World Economy The
other day, Barack Obama summoned a group of business and labor leaders to the
White House and “challenged” them to come up with some great ideas for creating
more jobs inside the United States. Public
confidence in Obama reaches new low
(Washington Post). Six in 10 Americans lack faith in Obama and hold
lower esteem for members of Congress, according to the latest Washington
Post-ABC News poll. Such stats as this tend to typify scenarios as this where
you break every significant campaign promise
that got you elected, from endless war (ie., Afghanistan, etc.) to not
prosecuting the frauds on wall street, and the growing realization of
‘typical’: Public
confidence in Obama reaches new low
(Washington Post) Six in 10 Americans lack faith in Obama and hold lower
esteem for members of Congress, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC
News poll. Such stats as this tend to typify scenarios as this where you break
every significant campaign promise that
got you elected, from endless war (ie., Afghanistan, etc.) to not prosecuting
the frauds on wall street, and the growing realization of ‘typical’:
‘The Obama
Deception’ Censored A viral You
Tube upload of one of Alex Jones’ most popular feature films ‘The Obama Deception’
has been censored following a spur of the moment campaign to elevate the
movie’s title to the top of the major internet search engines. In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Ellen Bente Oliver
‘Salary
of House/Senate...$174,000. Salary of Speaker of House...$223,500. Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders...$193,400. Average US Salary...$33,000 to $77,000.
Maybe our elected officials should make an average salary too...It's a time of
sacrifice after all...Pass along, post on your own page if you agree…’
Weigh in on the redesign, and share or recommend the new
washingtonpost.com.
You got to know I like the Post; and, it is your paper; and, it hasn't
been particularly good for my posting; and, you know I still like The
Washington Post; and, it is your paper; but, let me euphemistically say, you
did not help yourself with the changes (except as I surmise as a possible means
by which you conserve server / disk space).
Select
Stocks Boost Markets: Dave's Daily [ Dave: '...Economic data focused on New Home
Sales which were down nearly 17% causing the Homebuilder ETF (XHB) to
rally. I kid you not! ...' ] 'As you must know, many major indices are price
weighted and the DJIA takes the lead in this regard. Six of the highest priced
stocks Wednesday (IBM, BA, CAT, DVX, MMM & UTX) provided most of the gains.
Stocks were lower most of the morning, but volume seemed light, offering an
opportunity for buyers to push prices higher. The theme for bulls was reconstruction
in Japan even though EWJ (iShares Japan ETF) finished the day slightly lower.
ETFs like XLB (SPDR Materials Sector ETF), SLX (Van Eck Steel ETF) and XME
(SPDR Metals & Miners) have the "stuff" needed for
reconstruction. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd ("I want me some more me!")
Blankfein was on the witness stand today. He confirmed director Rajat Gupta
violated "confidentiality" by tipping off hedge
fund trader Raj Rajaratnam regarding Buffett's investment in his
company. Also in the financial sector, the Fed announced it would not permit
BAC to payout a dividend post the recent ("covered-up") bank stress
tests. This rightly drove shares of many financial companies lower. Further, it
should drive taxpayer's nuts that a Fed "gag order" restricting
disclosure of stress test results exists. This is taxpayer money after all.
Meanwhile, speaking of the Fed we had two days of POMO
resulting in $15 billion in fire power for trading desks of Primary Dealers
including GS. The poor ADBE outlook lingered over tech but traders
always seem to find a way to discard bad news and shift focus elsewhere. Of
course, this can only be done so long. Economic data focused on New Home
Sales which were down nearly 17% causing the Homebuilder ETF (XHB) to
rally. I kid you not! Energy markets were higher despite higher inventories.
OPEC spokesmen stated Tuesday they're comfortable at $120. How about you? Gold
and silver hit fresh highs, while the euro dropped on Portugal, base metals rallied
and bonds were slightly lower. Volume was once again light while breadth per
the WSJ was unremarkable...'
3
Reasons to Exit the Market Now
Martchev 'NEW YORK (TheStreet) - A S&P 500 futures trader
once told me: "After a sharp sell-off, the bounce leading to a first kiss
of a 20-day moving average from below is a short sale." But, I had to ask,
"Why?" "That's how it is," he said with a typical New York
City assertiveness and did not elaborate. That very well may be "how it
is" for the unwritten trading rule to look to sell the S&P
500 Index near the 20-day moving average after a sharp sell-off, but I
still personally need to know the "why." Technical trading
has value, but simply looking at charts is not enough for me. So, I decided to
come up with some reasons behind why you should sell this particular rally.
Oil is above $100 per barrel as the bombardment of Libya has started. A
missile already hit the Gaddafi residential compound -- "even though he is
not a specific target" -- which, if successful, would have likely
shortened the operation and brought a quicker resolution to the situation.
(Click here
for a related InvestorPlace.com article on investing
in 3 dangerous places.) While Gaddafi has halted his attack on Benghazi after
jet fighters attacked his troops directly, there is still plenty of fighting
elsewhere. It looks to me that the rebels will use the situation to regroup and
mount an offensive. In this situation, no foreign oil workers will return to
the country anytime soon, causing Libya to further cut oil production. In
addition, the situation in Yemen and Bahrain, both of which border Saudi
Arabia, is rapidly deteriorating. In this scenario, I recommend taking a look
at the U.S. Oil Fund(USO_)
(NYSE: USO). This ETF has pulled back along with the front-month futures it
tracks. Oil is likely headed higher in the short term, as all the factors that
caused it to go to $107 have deteriorated notably while the price is below that
level as of the time of this writing. There are liquid April, May and June
options on the USO that offer numerous strategies to play the upside. Naked
calls are the most risky, while any relevant option spreads will limit your
risk and your rewards. (Smart traders try to minimize risk; greedy ones try to
maximize the reward.)'
Lack
Of Federal Fiscal Discipline Puts U.S. In Greece's League Ganos
'The federal government stands on the brink of financial collapse.
For three years now, the federal budget deficit has been running around 10
percent of gross domestic product (GDP). At the current rate of federal
spending, our total national debt will be about 108 percent of GDP by the end
of the current fiscal year in September 2011. The Bowles-Simpson
Commission warned that in three years, we will be where Greece is now. The
Maastricht Treaty – which governs the euro currency system – requires member
nations to exercise a certain level of fiscal discipline. Specifically, a
member nation should not have a budget deficit that exceeds three percent of
GDP. And, a member nation should not have total national debt that
exceeds 60 percent of GDP. Of course, the only member nation that seems to have
been telling the truth about its finances was Germany. Look where Europe is
now. Greece’s national debt is approximately 150 percent of its
GDP. At our current rate, we will be there in about three years as Bowles
and Simpson have warned. Separately, economic historians will tell us
that countries whose total national debt exceeds 90 percent have tough times
going forward. While Greece kicks and screams about austerity, there is a
perfect example of a turn-around: Brazil. Thirty years ago, Brazil was a
financial basket case. It defaulted on much of its debt. After
taking some tough medicine, its national debt is now about 30 to 40 percent of
GDP. Today, Brazil is growing quite well. It has the seventh
largest economy in the world and will likely overtake France and Germany in the
next five years to take the number five position. The bottom line is that the
federal government needs to exercise fiscal discipline. The solution
needs to work for everyone. The folks on the left will want this or
that. The folks on the right will want a different this or that.
Everyone must share in the pain or we’ll all be in for worse pain. And, I
don’t particularly care what the “this or that” is. That’s for the
politicians. I do particularly care about the number, that we balance our
budget. If that means one combination or another of tax increases and
spending cuts, fine. My family must balance its budget. Your family
must balance its budget. Now, I was about to say that we couldn’t pin this one
on Goldman Sachs. But, from which firm have many of our recent
Secretaries of the Treasury come?'
Year
to Date Market Statistics Favor the Bear Suttmeier 'All you hear on financial
television are the cheerleaders who tout that the bull market is alive and
well. I have disagreed with this notion saying that the February 18 highs are
the highs for the year. The Dow declined 6.7% from its February 18 high at
12,391.29 to its March 16 low of 11,555.48, and the rebound over the past four
sessions has been 4.0% leaving the Industrials 3.0% below the February high.
The NASDAQ declined 8.3% from its February high at 2840.51 to its March 16 low
of 2603.50, and the rebound over the past four sessions has been 3.1% leaving
the NASDAQ 5.5% below its February high. The NASDAQ ended last week with a
negative weekly chart, which stays negative on a close this week below
2725.[chart]
The worst performance has been the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) which
peaked at 474.33 in mid-February. From that high to the mid-March low the SOX
lost 13.8%. The rebound since Thursday through Monday was 3.5%, which leaves
the SOX 10.8% below its high for the year.
Stocks Remain Overvalued Fundamentally -- We are not operating under a
ValuEngine Valuation Warning, but 56.6% of all stocks are overvalued. In
addition 15 of 16 sectors are overvalued with five by double-digit percentages.
Tracking the Bearish Moving Average Crossovers -- This occurs when the 21-day
simple moving average trends below the 50-day simple moving average.
·
Dow -- The 21-day
and 50-day are converging as resistance at 12,047 and 12,029.
·
SPX -- The 21-day
and 50-day are crossing negatively today at 1303.57 and 1303.77.
·
NASDAQ -- The 21-day
and 50-day crossed over on Friday at 2722 and 2743.
·
NASDAQ 100 -- The
21-day and 50-day crossed over on Friday at 2300 and 2317.
·
Dow Transports --
The 21-day and 50-day crossed on March 14 at 5060 and 5111.
·
The Russell 2000 --
The 21-day and 50-day are still converging at 808.02 and 804.36.
·
The SOX -- The
21-day and 50-day crossed over on Friday at 439.60 and 445.97.
Closes on Weekly Charts Relative to the Five-Week Modified Moving Averages
6.
Dow -- The
five-week MMA is 11,994 with declining MOJO.
7.
SPX -- Stays
negative on a weekly close below the five-week MMA at 1299.2.
8.
NASDAQ -- Stays
negative on a weekly close below the five-week MMA at 2725.
9.
NASDAQ 100 --
Stays negative on a weekly close below the five-week MMA at 2300.
10.
Dow Transports
-- Stays negative on a weekly close below the five-week MMA at 5101.
11.
The Russell 2000
-- Stays negative on a weekly close below the five-week MMA at 803.96.
12.
The SOX -- Stays
negative on a weekly close below the five-week MMA at 440.81.
The weekly chart for the Dow Industrial Average shifts to negative this week on
a weekly close below the five-week modified moving average at 11,994, as
momentum (12x3x3 weekly slow stochastic) will be declining under 8.0. This
measure scales between zero and 10.0, where a reading above 8.0 defines an
overbought condition. Momentum peaked at 9.5 on February 18 when the high for
the cycle was reached at 12,391.29. My first downside target is my annual value
level at 11,491. A close in March below 11,491 targets semiannual value levels
at 10,959 then 9,449 in the second quarter. This week’s risky level is
12,271.[chart]
10-Year Note -- (3.332) Weekly, annual, and semiannual value levels are 3.496
and 3.796 with daily, and monthly risky levels at, 3.231 and 3.002. [chart]
Comex Gold -- ($1425.9) Daily and annual value levels are $1417.9 and $1356.5
with weekly, monthly and quarterly pivots at $1440.7, $1437.7 and $1441.7, and
semiannual risky level at $1452.6.[chart]
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($104.94) Daily, monthly, and semiannual value levels are
$100.62, $96.43, and $87.52 with annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92, and
semiannual and quarterly risky levels at $107.14 and $110.87. [chart]
The Euro -- (1.4202) Weekly and quarterly value levels are 1.4028 and 1.3227
with daily, semiannual and monthly risky levels at 1.4347, 1.4624 and
1.4637.[chart]
Daily Dow -- (12,019) Daily, annual, quarterly, semiannual, and semiannual
value levels are 11,841, 11,491, 11,395, 10,959, and 9,449 with weekly, monthly
and annual risky levels at 12,271, 12,741 and 13,890. Watch the 21-day and
50-day simple moving averages as a zone of chart resistance, and a potential
bearish crossover.[chart]
Key Levels for the Major Equity Averages
·
The Dow Industrial
Average (12,019) Daily and annual value levels are 11,841 and 11,491 with
weekly and monthly risky levels at 12,271 and 12,741. Given a close in March
below 11,491 the downside is to semiannual value levels at 10,959 and 9,449.
·
The S&P 500
(1298.4) Daily and annual value levels are 1277.8 and 1210.7 with my quarterly
pivot at 1262.5, and weekly and monthly risky levels at 1330.7 and 1381.3.
·
The NASDAQ (2692) My
daily value level is 2641 with weekly, quarterly and monthly risky levels at
2792, 2853 and 2926. Semiannual and annual value levels are 2363, 2335 and
2172.
·
The NASDAQ 100 (NDX)
(2263) My daily value level is 2222 with weekly, quarterly, and monthly risky
levels at 2360, 2438 and 2499. Semiannual value levels are 2006.8 and 1927.6.
·
Dow Transports
(5167) Daily and quarterly value levels are 5044 and 4671 with weekly and
annual pivots at 5164 and 5179.
·
The Russell 2000
(808.66) Daily, annual and quarterly value levels are 797.08, 784.16 and 765.50
with weekly and monthly risky levels at 842.72 and 850.79. Semiannual value
levels are 631.62 and 567.74.
·
The Philadelphia
Semiconductor Index (SOX) (422.91) My daily value level is 420.512 with
monthly, weekly, and quarterly risky levels at 453.89, 462.98 and 465.93.
Semiannual and annual value levels are 296.89, 270.98 and 259.30.
The FHFA reports another decline in home prices. According to the Federal
Housing Finance
Agency Monthly House Price Index home prices declined 0.3% in January with a
year over year decline of 3.9%. This index tracks the purchase prices of houses
backed by mortgages sold or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I have
been predicting lower home prices.
[chart] [chart]’
Bracing
for More Economic Punches The Inflation Trader 'Many things have
happened since I last wrote, on the day of CPI.
·
Libya declared a
cease-fire. Libya immediately violated its own cease-fire. A number of nations,
including but not led by the U.S., imposed a no-fly zone in Libya at probably
the last possible moment before the rebels faced defeat, and now may seek to
secure the country by attacking Gaddafi’s troops by land. A member of the
U.S. President’s own party declared that he should be impeached. Oil,
seemingly oblivious of this drama, traded up another $4 over that time period
and is near the year’s highs. I paid $72 to fill my Jeep yesterday.
·
Existing Home Sales
were dismal, and inventories actually rose slightly for the first time in six
months. This is a small surprise given the low rates and slowing improving
economic situation, but it may also be an insignificant wiggle. Still,
economists have been revising lower their projected growth rates for Q1. Growing,
but not booming.
·
The
Treasury announced that it is going to sell “up to” $10bln of its $142bln
portfolio of agency MBS per month. This is prudent since they are aware of a
$1.25 trillion portfolio that supposedly wants to unwind over the next few
years (I seriously doubt it will happen). The timing is good since there is no
net Treasury issuance at presence, thanks to the fact that the Fed is buying
all of the net paper. It is not a monetary drain the way it will be when the
Fed sells securities, because in the Treasury’s case it is replacing other
issuance that it would do. The money will be spent either way! When the Fed
sells securities for cash, the cash just sits there. When the Treasury sells
securities for cash, it is recycled into the economy in the form of spending.
·
Portugal’s
government looks poised to lose a vote in parliament, and the event would
effectively topple the government and push early elections. J.P.
Morgan declared that “the likelihood that the Portuguese government will fall
this week looks high.” This would, some people believe, force Portugal to
seek support from the Stability Facility. If that surprises you, then you
haven’t been paying much attention. Portuguese 10y yields are at 7.38%, below
Ireland’s 9.66% partly because Irish yields keep rising. And yet, we keep
hearing that the ECB is preparing to tighten monetary policy. If I was in
Ireland, Greece, or Portugal, such talk would really irritate me. Slowing the
economy right now is not exactly what these guys need, especially since the
European economy is currently growing at a lusty 2% y/y. If there is a risk
to the inflationary outcome being stoked by the Fed and perhaps finally the
BOJ, it is that the ECB makes a horrendous policy error and tightens policy
into a weak economy. I didn’t think this was very likely, because only
fools would be thinking about tightening in Europe right now. It’s like taking
someone on life support and deciding to remove their appendix. Without sterile
equipment.
·
In an unrelated
note, probably, Venezuelan strongman Hugo
Chavez declared that capitalism may have ended life on Mars. He may have
been joking.
·
Japan has gotten the
nuclear situation seemingly under control, and the world is breathing a sigh of
relief. The scale and scope of the catastrophe is still staggering. Some 9,000
people are confirmed dead, and with the number still missing and the number
still without heat or food that number could still double. Into this great tragedy,
the Bank of Japan and other central banks jointly intervened to weaken the yen
several days ago. This is even less explicable than the saber-rattling of the
ECB, because at least that could be stopped at saber-rattling. Why in the world
would you want to weaken the yen? The fact it is strong is incredible
in the first place – ordinarily currencies of countries with weakening
economies, huge deficits, and loosening monetary policy will weaken on their
own. A lower currency, induced by central banks, means that the people of Japan
will have higher prices to deal with in addition to everything else, and since
Japan imports most of its food and energy it means higher prices for those
things. It helps the export sector, but right now they’re not making much of
anything so it’s all downside.
Okay, now I think we are caught up as we head into today, Wednesday’s
New Home Sales (Consensus: 290k from 284k) data. The bottom line is this: the
immediate, nuclear crisis of Japan has passed. The Libya/MENA/energy price
crisis is upon us. The Portuguese crisis is yet to occur...'
Goldman
CEO says ex-director spilled secrets (Reuters) [ Oh
riiiiight! He was the exception … Come
on! … The markets are no longer markets per se, but rather incestuous pools of
manipulations totally dependent upon ultimately taxpayer funds and defacto
immunity for their ever more blatant and continuing crimes geared to maximize
their own wealth to satisfy their own greed to the detriment of everyone else
as seen in the last, continuing crisis. ]
Tanks
Outside Cairo Stock Exchange as Market Plunges Bloomberg
| Stock exchange cordoned by military police and tanks.
‘US
is broke, dollar down, yet policy is to divide & conquer’ RT
| America is getting involved in another long-term war, which will ruin its
economy.
US
Approaching Insolvency, Fix To Be ‘Painful’: Fisher CNBC |
The United States is on a fiscal path towards insolvency and policymakers are
at a “tipping point,”.
Fukushima
Smoking Gun Emerges: Founding Engineer Says Reactor 4 Has Always Been A “Time
Bomb”, Exposes Criminal Cover Up It was only a matter of time before
someone grew a conscience, and disclosed to the world that in addition to the
massive cover up currently going on with respect to the true extent of the
Fukushima catastrophe, the actual plant itself, in borrowing from the BP
playbook, was built in a hurried way, using cost and labor-cutting shortcuts,
and the end result was a true “time bomb.”
National / World
Germans
pull forces out of NATO as Libyan coalition falls apart Mail
Online | A German military spokesman said it was recalling two
frigates and AWACS surveillance plane crews from the Mediterranean.
Chileans
Receive Obama with Anti-NWO Info Blitz NWNoticias | The
Chilean Resistance warn of the real globalist agenda behind the puppet
president Obama.
‘Libya war could
last 30 years’ Mail Online | Ministers admitted
they have no idea how long military operation against Gaddafi could take.
Leftist
“Economic Terrorists” Are Patsies For The Real Economic Terrorists The
controversy generated around the remarks of former SEIU official Stephen Lerner
and his plan to rally unions, lawmakers, student groups and community
organizers around a plan to crash the stock market, destroy big banks and
redistribute wealth in America by destabilizing the country will be exploited
by the real financial terrorists when they decide to launch the next false flag
attack on the U.S. economy.
Drudgereport: FED: US
Approaching Insolvency...
Oil
closes above $105, highest level since Aug 2008...
New
Home Sales Plunge; Hit Lowest Level Since Data Tracking Began in 1960s...
US
gasoline inventories fall...
Neutron beam
observed 13 times at crippled Fukushima nuke plant...
Fallout
reaches Europe...
Concern in
Tokyo over tap water...
Leading
OBAMACARE Backer Considering Waiver for his City...
TOP
GUN: As bombs drop, Spring Training (at baseball camp) for 'Lobotomy Joe'
Biden...
Army
Soldier Pleads Guilty in Deaths of 3 Afghan Civilians...
PORTUGAL TEETERS AFTER FAILURE TO
CUT DEBT...
International
Bailout Only Option...
PM resigns...
WOBAMA:
I'm keeping my Peace Prize ... (which as is so of 'wobama the b' {for b***
s***} means absolutely nothing) ...
BOMBED
BUT NOT BROKEN
Obama
seeks to break impasse...
Allies
in disarray...
No
one wants to run operation...
French
PM: 'We are not at war'...
DEM LAWMAKER:
IMPEACH OBAMA...
US
rescue chopper shoots 6 villagers welcoming pilots of downed jet...
UPDATE:
Soldier to Plead Guilty in Afghan Murder Case...
Will
testify against fellow 'kill team' troops...
Mainstream
media ignores 'trophy' photos; White House mum...
Oil
tops $105 per barrel...
Ex-President
of Israel Sentenced to Prison for Rape...
Violence
warning in UK as unions plan mass march Sunday...
Gadhafi
'may become target of air strikes'...
Libya
claims missiles struck Gadhafi's complex...
Arab
League criticizes...
Waning
support from China, Russia...
Boehner to Obama:
Define mission...
Lib Dems in
uproar...
Gadhafi:
'To my Dear Obama, our son'...
Saudis
take to streets to demand release of prisoners held without trial...
NEWSWEEK:
38% fail basic citizenship test...
WAR
NO. 3: US FIRES MISSILES INTO LIBYA
U.S., allies launch broadest
international military effort since Iraq war...
Fire
112 Tomahawk missiles into Tripoli, Misrata...
LIVE:
'Operation Odyssey Dawn'...
Gadhafi to speak on 'the Crusaders' aggression'...
MARCH 19, 2011
OBAMA: 'Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a
threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and
the world'...
MARCH 19, 2003
BUSH: 'American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military
operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from
grave danger...
Anti-war
protesters arrested near White House...
OBAMA
DOES RIO...
Met
with violent protests...
Cancels
Public Speech in Rio Square...
Cancels
Press Conference...
...picks
UConn to win 3rd straight women's basketball championship...
Farrakhan
to Obama: 'Be Careful, Brother. Who The Hell Do You Think Your Are?'
RADIOACTIVE
IODINE DETECTED IN TOKYO DRINKING WATER...
Nearby
Milk, spinach radiated, too...
FOOD
SALES HALT CONSIDERED...
RADIOACTIVE
IODINE DETECTED IN TOKYO DRINKING WATER...
Nearby
Milk, spinach radiated, too...
FOOD
SALES HALT CONSIDERED...
Japan
Nuclear Disaster Caps Decades of Faked Reports...
U.S.
appears closer to turning over command(Washington
Post) [ I can't precisely pinpoint
exactly when, but at some point, if not for the real tragedy and horrific
consequences, national / world events and particularly pervasively corrupt /
defacto bankrupt america's lead role in them became a comedy of errors, at
best. Working
to maintain Arab support
(Washington Post) [ Sounds like
a plan! … Riiiiight! … I just had to say this here … Doesn't gaddaffy (who
forgot to duck) bear a striking resemblance (now, not when he was younger) to
David Patterson, former governor of new york (no slight to David Patterson …
you've got to be at least a little blind to take an oath upholding law in
corrupt, fraudulent, sinkholes new york / mob infested jersey, and america,
generally. Mob's man cuomo? What's up with that (as per SNL's Thompson's bit)?
Or is it just SNL's Fred Armisen's impression of both that leads me to such a
conclusion. But this should help: US
Army ‘kill team’ in Afghanistan posed for photos of murdered civilians infowars.com Commanders in
Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered
by the publication of “trophy” photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead
bodies of defenseless Afghan civilians they killed … Russia
“Regrets Armed Action” Killing 48 in Libya Kurt Nimmo | In a statement issued today, Russian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Alexander
Lukashevich said 64 civilians were reported to have been killed and 150
wounded in air strikes on Libya. Lukashevich called on Britain, France and the
United States Sunday to stop air strikes on non-military targets.
[I have been under constant barrage / hack / intrusions
which has my antivirus working overtime and flashing savesfrom a multitude of
threats. I think this particular thrust by what I reasonably suspect to be
paranoid american / israeli criminals / lunatics was probably affected
particularly by that blazing full ‘supermoon’, but continues when for now just
limited moments I’m logged into windows xp, literally a virus magnet/so-called
op system. I thereupon downloaded and installed linux / unbuntu 10.10 (most
recent) which also makes available an ‘installer’ (separate download, both free
from their official website-I will provide the link I used next session) that
facilitates essentially a dual boot (you may choose your operating system for
the session – windows or linux/ubuntu). Works like a charm and I strongly
recommend it. Microsoft’s a dyingosaur american monopoly company which is an
american tale and story of america as a pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt,
dying / declining nation.]
I was somewhat nonplussed by the suckers’ market bounce those few days
but there was also that ‘shock and awe’ Libyan thing; and then, ‘Eureka!’ …
there it was, staring down for all to see … a blazing full moon. Yes, they have
such affects on lunatics as in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america et
als; but particularly on wall street, and it certainly doesn’t take much to
push the frauds on wall street over the edge and into their predisposed
fraudulent madness. In fact, you could say, ‘it’s in their genes’. This is the
grim economic reality
[ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s short-covering / suckers’ rally provides an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many
important global stock markets, including China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong,
have been in fairly significant corrections since November, down between 12%
and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising inflation and the resulting
monetary tightening by their central banks to combat the inflationary
pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious
correction? The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the
stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more downside risk? It
might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the next
few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’ BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows
Global
Meltdown? [ Looks like … feels like … seems like … Yes, it is! A global
meltdown! ] Nyaradi ‘Global
meltdown. Scary words, indeed. However, as we look around our world, it
certainly does appear that a global meltdown is in progress…’
4
Phases of a Bear Market Meshkati NEW YORK (TheStreet)
-- 'Almost exactly one month ago, I described the 4 phases of a bull market
cycle. My reason for writing the article
was to warn market participants of the impending disaster that tends to strike
right around the time a certain class of investor (termed "phase 4"
investors) becomes involved in the financial markets...'
Deal
to combine AT&T, T-Mobile raises questions (AP) [Questions? Is that all? att / sbc is a horribly managed
company that can't even do the simplest things well; ie., land lines and dsl
thereby, my direct experience. We've seen this all before. When they can't do, they
go monopoly bigger with disasterous results. This is an old story with a
familiar ending. AP - AT&T's surprise announcement that it
plans to acquire T-Mobile USA will force federal regulators to confront a
difficult antitrust question: Can American consumers get good wireless service
at a ...
M&A,
Ben Resuscitate Bulls: Dave's Daily 'If
you can keep interest rates this low this long, its inevitable cheap financing
can allow companies to start cobbling each other up. Further Ben's policies
allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy back shares with the
proceeds. POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary Dealers can buy
back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is taxpayer
money--nifty trick eh? With all the geopolitical and nuclear events going on
little noticed was Fed "stress tests" of financial institutions to
see if they were healthy enough to buy back shares and pay dividends. Making
the matter sinister and less transparent is their gag order on the entire
process. The Fed also has some toxic waste they'd like to sell you...'
Japanese
Meltdown Will Inhibit U.S. Recovery Hansen
Another
H&S Pattern at Hand: Dave's Daily 'We've seen some major H&S top
formations over the past year but none of them were effective. Why was that?
POMO and zero interest rates made for a dip buyers' market. How long will this
continue? Until POMO ends perhaps which is supposed to occur in June but some
may front-run that in May. Markets were
subdued Tuesday as investors paused to assess what's really going on. The Fed
stated they thought the recovery was gaining traction. This might be some
self-congratulations, jawboning and rationalization of money printing.
("See it worked!!") There was little in the way of economic news.
Earnings new late showed Adobe earnings beat but forecast was cut due to
disruptions in Japan. Crude oil keeps rising (bullish for it, not markets),
precious metals and the dollar were mixed and bonds rose. Volume returned to
ultra-light status while breadth was mildly negative overall...'
Stocks
End Barely in Red, Snap Latest Win Streak Midnight Trader '4:17 PM, Mar 22, 2011 --
·
NYSE
down 27.95 (-0.3%) to 8,228.41
·
DJIA
down 17.90 (-0.2%) to 12,019
·
S&P
500 down 4.61 (-0.4%) to 1,294
·
Nasdaq
down 8.22 (-0.3%) to 2,684
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
·
Hang
Seng up 0.76%
·
Nikkei
up 4.36%
·
FTSE
down 0.43%
Days Of Technical Reckoning Ahead Salamone 'A brewing
nuclear crisis in Japan was the catalyst for “watch out below!” expiration-week
volatility this past week, with the S&P 500 Index closing down 25 points,
or 1.9%.
In reviewing the price action driven by the Japan catalyst,
one has to wonder: How much of the selling was related to expiration-week delta
hedging? Delta hedging is a process in which sellers of index and
exchange-traded fund (ETF) puts short S&P futures in order to maintain a
neutral position, and heavy put strikes below act as magnets due to their
increasing sensitivity to the decline in the underlying index or ETF.
We found it interesting, for example, that the SPDR S&P
500 ETF (SPY) was driven down to the 125 strike at Wednesday’s lows, as this
was the site of the last significant put open interest in the expiring March
series. Even as headline news remained bleak, the ETF managed to bounce
strongly — perhaps due to the major delta-hedge selling being exhausted. As you
can see in the chart below, the put open interest at the 123 and 124 strikes
was minimal compared to the put open interest at the 125 through 128 strikes.
To the extent that some of last week’s selling was driven by
hedging activity related to the huge put open interest on expiring index and
ETF options, it would favor the bulls, as investor anxiety climbed amid the
selling. For example, the latest survey from the American Association of
Individual Investors (AAII) revealed only 28% of those surveyed were bullish —
the lowest percentage of bulls since late August 2010, which was a buying
opportunity.
Despite the rising fears, the SPX managed to close the week
above its 80-day moving average, which we identified as a potential support
area in the event of a decisive break below 1,300. The rising 80-day moving
average began this week’s at 1,277.60. Coincidentally, this area marks a 50%
retracement of the prior week’s close and last week’s low.
Moreover, we found it interesting that the SPX, Dow Jones
Industrial Average and Russell 2000 Index pulled back to their respective
breakevens for the year, and closed the week in positive territory after
rallying from these year-to-date breakeven numbers — which are 1,257.64,
11,577.51 and 783.65, respectively. The Nasdaq Composite, however, closed the
week barely in negative year-to-date territory, below its Dec. 31, 2010 close
at 2,652.87.
These “year-to-date” breakeven numbers can be viewed as
potential support for the upcoming week. Meanwhile, potential resistance levels
would be the familiar round-number areas, such as 12,000 on the Dow, 1,300 on
the SPX and 800 on the RUT.
The two major risk factors working against the bulls in the
short term are:
13.
Volatility,
as measured by the CBOE Market Volatility Index (VIX), is rising. We noted in
prior weeks that bulls should be encouraged by the fact that the VIX was
getting capped at long-term trendlines, such as its 200-day and 80-week moving
averages, which are situated at 21.69 and 22.26, respectively. While the VIX
peaked in the 30 area around mid-week, we won’t have confirmation that a top has
been reached until we see a decline below these long-term trendlines and the 20
level. Finally, it is interesting that the VIX’s peak at 31.28 last week is
approximately double the lows that have been in place since mid-December.
14.
Another
concern is that our analysis of activity in the options market indicates that
hedge funds are still not showing interest in accumulating equities. And if
retail investors continue to bail, as they have done during the past couple of
weeks, this absence of institutional and retail interest could create a
challenge for equities in the near term.
One alternative you could consider amid the global
uncertainty is a stock-replacement strategy, where you sell stocks that you
like and buy in-the-money or longer-dated call options on those same equities.
We noticed equity implied volatilities did not experience the pop that index
implied volatilities experienced last week. Therefore, many equity options
remain reasonably priced.
Options allow you to put less dollars at risk, but offer you
returns that are a multiple of the comparable return on the underlying equity.
This strategy allows you to participate in a rally if volatility has peaked,
while simultaneously exposing fewer dollars to the market. If you are looking
for equity put plays, we recommend hunting in the large-cap technology space,
as hedge funds appear to be bailing on these equities.'
[$$]
Believe Only What You See Little 'Are you a believer? If you are buying this market after the spike off
the lows, you had better believe the worst is behind us. Either that, or your
trading horizon is very short. Although I would like to believe this, I simply
can't at this juncture. I believe what I see, and that is a financial sector
that can't move higher. I see the strongest NYSE sector, energy, setting up for
a likely failed attempt to break higher. I am witness to pathetic attempts to
lift in the semiconductors. Everywhere I peer, I see issues, and not answers.
Many sectors want to trade sideways at best from here. What I see is a much
higher probability of lower prices on the near-term horizon, and I began
gearing up in earnest for that trade yesterday...'
Top
3 Reasons Markets Were Down Like Chris Brown Wall St. Cheat Sheet 'Markets closed down on
Wall Street: DJI -0.15% SP500 -0.36% Nasdaq -0.31% Gold +0.09 % Oil +1.63% .
Today was all about Energy ( NYSE:XLE ). Oil ( NYSE:USO ) is back on
fire as prices rose to $105 — a scary proposition for the economy as we head
into the summer months for travel, air conditioning, and new clothes. In big
news, Japan ( NYSE:EWJ ) has restored power to the six nuclear reactors and
Libya continues to be the focus for the Middle East. Markets opened flat to
down and basically chopped in a narrow trading range all day.
Today’s markets were down because:
1) Defensive stocks were in play. As we mentioned above, Energy (
NYSE:XLE ) was the story of the day. However, investors also sought out shares
of other safe-havens like Healthcare ( NYSE:XLV ) and Utilities ( NYSE:XLU ).
Outperformers include St. Jude Medical ( NYSE:STJ ), Entergy Corporation (
NYSE:ETR ), and Royal Dutch Shell Don’t Miss: 3 Defensive ETFs to Hedge a
Market Pullback .
2) Walgreen Co. ( NYSE:WAG ) disappointed on earnings. The drugstore
pissed off Wall Street and sold off to the tune of 6.58%. Rite Aid ( NYSE:RAD )
got slammed 3.74% on the news, and CVS Caremark ( NYSE:CVS ) escaped with a
more narrow 0.95% loss. Now check out our Retailer Roundup: Your Cheat Sheet to
the Winning and Losing Stocks .
3) Research in Motion ( NASDAQ:RIMM ) and stole the tech spotlight.
Research in Motion ( NASDAQ:RIMM ) announced the Blackberry Playbook will go on
sale April 19th for $499. PlayBook will be available through Best Buy (
NYSE:BBY ), AT&T ( NYSE:T ), Verizon ( NYSE:VZ ), Radioshack ( NYSE:RSH ),
Sears Canada and Wal-Mart ( NYSE:WMT ). However, shares of Apple ( NASDAQ:AAPL
) shrugged off the new as iPad2 is now on backorder for 4-5 weeks.
Now that you’re in the know, try to stay away from R&B disaster
Chris Brown!'
‘US
is broke, dollar down, yet policy is to divide & conquer’ RT | America is getting involved
in another long-term war, which will ruin its economy.
US
Approaching Insolvency, Fix To Be ‘Painful’: Fisher CNBC |
The United States is on a fiscal path towards insolvency and policymakers are
at a “tipping point,”.
Gold key
to financing Gaddafi struggle FT | Gaddafi mercs
reportedly paid in gold.
Fed and Inflation Blame
for the most recent round of price increases has been laid at the feet of the
Federal Reserve’s program of credit expansion for the past three years. The
current program, known as QE2, sought to purchase a total of $900 billion in US
Treasury debt over a period of 8 months. Roughly $110 billion of newly created
money is flooding into commodity markets each month.
Ron
Paul: Obama Moving Us Toward One World Government
Steve Watson | Congressman goes on media blitz to
denounce illegal war of aggression against Libya .
The Reality
Detached American Infowars.com | The signs are everywhere
for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
Radioactive
particle traces from Japan reach Iceland, Canada
Reuters | Miniscule numbers of radioactive particles
have been detected as far away as Iceland.
International
Support For The Libyan War Is Collapsing Business Insider
| Support for Operation Odyssey Dawn is withering.
Egypt
Interior Ministry Building Burning (Again) Zero Hedge | It
seems Egyptians are so enamored with revolting they have decided to do the
whole thing all over again.
More Republicans
doubt Obama's Libya action and Costly Operations (Reuters)
Israel
kills 9 Civilians in Gaza in deadliest day in months (Reuters) Israeli
strike misses target, kills 4 Palestinians including 3 children (AP)
[I have
been under constant barrage / hack / intrusions which has my antivirus working
overtime and flashing saves from a multitude of threats. I think this
particular thrust by what I reasonably suspect to be paranoid american /
israeli criminals / lunatics is probably affected particularly by this blazing
full ‘supermoon’. I thereupon downloaded and installed linux / ubuntu 10.10
(most recent) which also makes available an ‘installer’ (separate download)
that facilitates essentially a dual boot (you may choose your operating system
for the session – windows or linux/ubuntu – linux/ubuntu comes loaded with very
functional software; ie., open office suite, firefox web browser, etc.). Works
like a charm and I strongly recommend it. Microsoft’s a dyingosaur american
monopoly company which is an american tale and story of america as a
pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt, dying / declining nation.]
I was somewhat
nonplussed by the suckers’ market bounce these past two (now three) days, and
then, ‘Eureka!’ … there it was, staring down for all to see … a blazing full
moon. Yes, they have such affects on lunatics as on wall street and it
certainly doesn’t take much to push the frauds on wall street over the edge and
into their predisposed fraudulent madness. In fact, you could say, ‘it’s in
their genes’. This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s short-covering / suckers’ rally provides an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! M&A,
Ben Resuscitate Bulls: Dave's Daily 'If
you can keep interest rates this low this long, its inevitable cheap financing
can allow companies to start cobbling each other up. Further Ben's policies
allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy back shares with the
proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary Dealers can buy
back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is taxpayer
money--nifty trick eh? With all the geopolitical and nuclear events going on
little noticed was Fed "stress tests" of financial institutions to
see if they were healthy enough to buy back shares and pay dividends. Making
the matter sinister and less transparent is their gag order on the entire
process. The Fed also has some toxic waste they'd like to sell you… (see infra)’ Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many
important global stock markets, including China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong,
have been in fairly significant corrections since November, down between 12%
and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising inflation and the resulting
monetary tightening by their central banks to combat the inflationary
pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious
correction? The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the
stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more downside risk?
It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the
next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’ BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows
Global
Meltdown? [ Looks like … feels like … seems like … Yes, it is! A global
meltdown! ] Nyaradi ‘Global
meltdown. Scary words, indeed. However, as we look around our world, it
certainly does appear that a global meltdown is in progress.At Wall Street Sector
Selector, we are nearly fully positioned on the “short” side of global markets
and so were fortunate to have had a pleasant day, unlike so many investors and
citizens of our small world. I sincerely hope and pray that many pleasant days
lie ahead for the people of Japan, Bahrain and Libya.Of course, the big news is
in Japan, where the struggle to contain the potential of nuclear meltdown goes
on after the tsunami and earthquake. I can’t add much to this discussion other
than to say that from a human standpoint, we need to do what we can to help our
allies in their time of need.I travel often to Japan and this is a modern
Western country now without power and water and basic essentials for many days,
and to fully understand this unthinkable tragedy, just try to imagine a 30 foot
wall of water coming through your neighborhood, entire neighborhoods and towns
disappearing, followed by the threat of nuclear catastrophe and no water and
power for days on end during these cold early spring nights.Aside from the
human catastrophe, the economic toll of this event will be felt for years. Some
analysts estimate that Japan will have to import an additional 200,000 barrels
of oil per day to make up for the lost output of the damaged nuclear plants,
while insurance and GDP losses are only guestimates at this early hour but will
be surely significant. Across the globe, unrest continues in the Middle East as
Bahrain is under martial law, the Libyan government continues to quell the
revolution (while the United Nations dithers) and Portugal’s credit rating is
downgraded and totters again on the edge of financial collapse. At home,
Congress continues putting band aids on our national budget deficit while home
sales plunge to new lows…’
4
Phases of a Bear Market Meshkati NEW YORK (TheStreet)
-- 'Almost exactly one month ago, I described the 4 phases of a bull market
cycle. My reason for writing the article
was to warn market participants of the impending disaster that tends to strike
right around the time a certain class of investor (termed "phase 4"
investors) becomes involved in the financial markets...'
Deal
to combine AT&T, T-Mobile raises questions (AP) [Questions? Is that all? att / sbc is a horribly managed
company that can't even do the simplest things well; ie., land lines and dsl
thereby, my direct experience. We've seen this all before. When they can't do,
they go monopoly bigger with disasterous results. This is an old story with a
familiar ending. AP - AT&T's surprise announcement that it
plans to acquire T-Mobile USA will force federal regulators to confront a
difficult antitrust question: Can American consumers get good wireless service
at a ...
M&A,
Ben Resuscitate Bulls: Dave's Daily 'If
you can keep interest rates this low this long, its inevitable cheap financing
can allow companies to start cobbling each other up. Further Ben's policies
allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy back shares with the
proceeds. POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary Dealers can buy
back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is taxpayer
money--nifty trick eh? With all the geopolitical and nuclear events going on
little noticed was Fed "stress tests" of financial institutions to
see if they were healthy enough to buy back shares and pay dividends. Making
the matter sinister and less transparent is their gag order on the entire
process. The Fed also has some toxic waste they'd like to sell you. Monday, AT&T
announced it will buy rival T-Mobile (including Katherine Zeta-Jones?) for $39
billion in cash (financed no doubt) and stock. This energized bulls overall.
Meanwhile a few Tomahawk missiles here and there got the Libya situation
tamped-down from hot to probably a long drawn-out quagmire. Gadhafi isn't happy
meaning he might turn loose some sleeper cell revenge; but, that's for another
day. In Japan things still remain "white hot" despite a cool-down in
two reactors but troubles with others. But, both news from Japan (Buffett said
"buy, buy, buy") and MENA receded to the background as markets
rallied. Existing Home
Sales fell sharply which can only be termed as bullish since bulls believe
the Fed will keep rates friendly to stocks. One thing set aside by pundits and
the media are building margin
pressures being felt by companies. This will need to be passed to consumers and
end users. You saw this with Nike's recent report. Should this continue, it
will cause consumer inflation worries no matter how the data is rigged or spun.
Stocks rallied sharply primarily on the M&A news while commodity markets,
including oil, precious metals, soared. Bonds fell as did the sacrificial
lamb--Uncle Buck...'
Japanese
Meltdown Will Inhibit U.S. Recovery Hansen 'Modern economic theory implies
spending for any reason is good. The rebuilding following a disaster would
logically be a plus economically. Destruction triggers rebuilding - an
economically positive event.
Immediately following an economic disaster, there is dislocation. Modern
supply chains are disrupted. Transport is problematic. Like a tsunami, the
inter-linkage of modern supply chains ripple through all products. Japan is an
exporting nation. There are products made only in Japan, or disruption of
production of a product where Japan is a significant producer, or the need for
Japan to import a product normally not traded internationally. In other words,
a ripple will go through availability and prices - both positive and negative.
The global supply chains will adapt and improvise. What will go on
inside Japan will be different.
Japan will have lost forever six nuclear power plants units. A loss of
six nukes leaves a huge hole in a nation's ability to produce energy. It will
take many years to replace permanently - and the short term solution is
building conventional fossil power plants. Manufacturing needs energy. But I
fear energy may be a small component of the fallout for this event.
In the short term, this is a true black swan event for investors.
Modern nuke design currently on the drawing boards is presumably fail
safe. On the other hand, almost all existing worldwide plants require active
measures (core cooling) to shut down the plant. Having been a start-up engineer
on a GE Mark1 nuke - I have not heard the type of information I would need to
make an assessment on how this crisis will unfold. But what images I see
indicate man is no longer able to control the events at some of the units.
Throwing water on an overheated plant provides steam as a carrier to
spread radioactive contamination. Plant operators are already selecting the
best of the terrible options available. Observation tells that we are far
beyond the design solutions available to cool the core. Hail Mary plays are in
progress.
The plant systems themselves are fairly robust - but conditions in the
plant with heat, water and radiation have been unmonitored - and we have heard
that operators have no clue if the monitoring systems are reading correctly.
Status is unknown. Let me assure you, if your monitoring systems are suspect -
the control systems are suspect. The plant likely requires electrical jumpers
to actuate cooling systems which must be installed by humans in a radiated
environment.
Even if pumps can start, what about the operated valves? Are the correct
ones open? Are pressure levels too high for actuation? If the remote operated
valves cannot cycle, can human's get close enough to the valves to manually
cycle? What are the conditions in the piping in the suppression pools post
venting - which is the Achilles Heel of Mark 1's? The suppression pools for the
runaway reactors maybe dry due to a rupture.
So many options are available if the operators have electric power and
radiation is low and access to the plant was not restrained. Radiation levels
alone have removed most options from the table as crews cannot spend enough
time in the plant to execute modifications. All the core cooling systems are
closed loop. There is likely debris in these loops if reports of meltdown is
true - and this debris will likely take out the pumps if they start. At this
point, the systems need modification to open these cooling loops directly to
the sea - it is one of the better terrible options.
The systems now require some modifications to bring the plants under
control - and that means humans must be able to work in the reactor building -
and possibly some time inside of the primary containment structure. This does
not seem likely based on the commentary and pictures.
Likely, the current thinking may be towards building a Chernobyl type
sarcophagus - a concrete coffin. How do you build one without killing those who
build it?
Further, it is sad the spent fuel rods are kept in the plant (due to
resistance to reprocessing by the greens) and will increase the potential for
radiation release during the disaster - and make subsequent cleanup more
difficult. This thought continues to rattle around in my brain - clean up of a
radiation contaminated environment is slow. At this point, I am beginning to
lean towards a very slow cleanup and reconstruction.
Investors are too optimistic on Japan's future in the next 6 months to a
year. The situation, based on current wisdom, will never be as bad as
Chernobyl, but it is already worse than Three Mile Island because of 6 units in
close proximation.
Certainly, over the next few years, Japanese GDP will rise caused by the
reconstruction. GDP theory is that building things - regardless of reason or
usefulness - is good. This reconstruction flies in the face of the basic
rationale of GDP which is intended to count productive use of the economy. The
only productive use is the slice of the rebuilding which is an improvement over
the old.
Money spent is money spent. The economy, in a broader sense - is simply
money flows. Money moving is good for business - productive or not.
Japan, however, is not suffering from structural unemployment - but
suffering from massive sovereign debt and deflation. For now, this disaster
will not help the ills facing the pre-disaster Japanese economy.
But money flows are money flows - and money flowing is the real economy,
productive or not.
The question: Is what is good for business good for the economy?
Whatever the answer, in the medium term - disasters are good for business after
absorbing the initial losses.
With the loss of life and hardships the Japanese citizens now face - it
is hard to see any economic good coming out of this disaster.
Economic News this Week:
Econintersect’s economic forecast for March 2011 points to a moderately
improving economy with all segments of its non-monetary index positive. This
week the Weekly Leading Index (WLI) from ECRI improved from an
upwardly revised 6.8% to 7.1%. This level implies the business conditions six
months from now will be approximately the same or slightly improved compared to
today.
click to enlarge http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/20/saupload_ecri_11_march_2011.jpg
Initial unemployment claims in this week’s release dropped slightly. The data
for the last two months as been quite noisy, and it remains important to follow
the four week moving average for analysis of unemployment to smooth out the
reporting idiosyncrasies. Overall, the loss of jobs is improving – and is now
roughly the same as mid-2008.
The data released this week was positive and consistent with Econintersect’s
January, February and March
forecasts of slightly improving economic conditions overall. The economy,
similar to this period last year at this time, is gaining strength. [chart]http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/20/saupload_z_unemployment1_3_18_11.png
Weekly Economic Release Scorecard: |
||
Item |
Headline |
Analysis |
Up |
Not Indicating real economy dynamics |
|
Up |
New Orders at record levels |
|
Down |
In this case down is up – manufacturing improved |
|
Up 2.1% |
Energy & food driving forces |
|
Up 5.6% |
Again driven by food and energy |
|
Down |
The data is bad and the trend remains down |
|
Up |
Although up, data is much less good in February |
|
Up |
USA is exporting inflation |
|
Down |
CoreLogic says prices fell 5.7% |
|
Up |
Everyone's eyes are on Japan |
|
|
Currency appreciations can cure global imbalances |
|
|
What we think are important relate to energy |
|
|
Shows why January Jobs Report was so bad |
|
|
How Libyan unrest will play out in energy prices |
|
|
How dividends stabilize portfolio returns |
|
|
Jeff Miller questions if it Is time to head to the
door? |
|
|
Eric McCurdy says market broke support levels |
|
|
Ajay Shay suggests how to break bad governance |
|
|
William Black points out unintended consequences of
mortgage industry actions |
|
|
Michael Pettis discusses the future of the world
reserve currency |
|
|
L Randall Wray discusses reasons economics has gone
astray |
...'
10
U.S. Companies With A Heavy Reliance On Japanese Sales
Dangerous
and Fluid Times, Hostile Market Environment Nyaradi The news flow this week
certainly reminded me of the old colloquialism, “raining cats and dogs,” as
startling headlines bombarded us from all quadrants of the world.
At Wall Street Sector Selector, we remain in a defensive posture,
expecting lower prices ahead.
On My Radar
The Point and Figure Chart displays the technical damage done this week
as a “sell” signal was generated and now the bearish price objective is 1160.
Support is found at 1250 and again at 1220 while the long term uptrend remains
intact. Overhead resistance is now at the 1300-1320 level. Click to enlarge:
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/3/20/saupload
CHART_spxpf031911.png
chart courtesy of stockcharts
So it appears that we are clearly in a short term “correction” within a
still ongoing uptrend.
Depending upon your outlook, this could be a good opportunity to “buy
the dip” or there is further downside potential to at least 1220 or beyond to
the 1160-1180 level.
My view is that there is currently more risk than reward in the market.
The View From 35,000 Feet
It was another week of almost unbelievable news as events unfolded in
Japan, Libya and Yemen which all created intense volatility in global equity
and currency markets.
Japan was at the top of the news, of course, and while the situation
surrounding the nuclear accident seems to be stabilizing over the weekend,
there appears to be a long way to go before victory can be claimed in what is
being called the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
The death toll exceeds 7,000 with more than 10,000 still missing, and
the economic toll is likely to be huge, as well, as we are bound to see supply
chain disruptions and delays and the very likely possibility of a return to
recession in the world’s 3rd largest economy.
The extent of the nuclear accident remains unknown and it’s likely that
the winds will be carrying radiation to Tokyo by the end of the weekend which
could generate a whole new series of economic and human misery and danger.
In Libya, Gaddafi declared a cease fire after the U.N. threatened
imminent military action, but then apparently continued his invasion of the
rebel stronghold in Benghazi. Clearly this is a fluid and rapidly changing
situation, but what is certain is that Libyan oil production is dropping as
foreign companies have pulled out their employees and major oil facilities have
sustained major damage.
Bloomberg reported that production has declined to 400,000 bbl/day and “could
reach a halt.” Bloomberg
A protest in Yemen on Friday resulted in more than 40 deaths and
reportedly thousands of injuries and a state of emergency is now in effect in
the country where 20% of the population lives on $2/day.
China raised their bank reserve requirements for the 3rd time this year
while at home, the Federal Reserve said that growth is on “firmer footing,” and
that employment is “improving gradually.”
Economic reports were largely mixed this week with positive news coming
from March Empire Manufacturing Index, the NAHB Housing Index, initial and
continuing unemployment claims, and the Philly Fed. On the negative side of the
ledger, Housing Starts, Building Permits and Industrial Production all
disappointed in February.
What It All Means
The times, of course, remain dangerous and fluid and we can expect more
volatility ahead depending upon how future weeks’ news flow unfolds and if the
“cats and dogs” deluge continues.
Technically, major damage was inflicted on markets this week and so a
resumption of the recent rally will be a challenge for the bulls in what can
only be described as a hostile environment. Finally, the rapidly approaching
conclusion of “QE2” in June also casts more uncertainty on an already uncertain
environment.
The Week Ahead
It’s a relatively quiet week of economic reports which probably a good
thing given the drama unfolding around the world.
Monday: February
Existing Home Sales
Wednesday: February
New Home Sales
Thursday: Initial
Unemployment Claims, Continuing Unemployment Claims, February Durable Goods
Friday: Q4 GDP 3rd
Estimate, March Michigan Sentiment
Sector Spotlight
Winners: (NYSEArca: ICLN) Global Clean Energy,
(NYSEArca: TLT) 20 Year Bond
Losers: (NYSEArca: FEFN) Far East Index, (NYSEArca:
NUCL) Nuclear Eenrgy Index
Wishing you a great weekend wherever you may be...'
NY Fed
intervenes in Yen currency trade Nikkei
| The NY Fed bank is confirming its first currency intervention for a decade.
Our Enemy, the
Fed by Ron Paul Ron Paul | There is perhaps no topic as
important to the average American today as rising prices.
Chossudovsky:
Libya no-fly zone means war RT | Michel Chossudovsky says
western nations are interested in Libyan oil and other resources.
The
Great Anglo-American Gaddafi Deception Ron Holland | The
fiat US dollar only survives as the world’s reserve currency because the
majority of the oil producers demand payment in dollars.
I was somewhat
nonplussed by the suckers’ market bounce these past two days, and then,
‘Eureka!’ … there it was, staring down for all to see … a blazing full moon.
Yes, they have such affects on lunatics as on wall street and it certainly
doesn’t take much to push the frauds on wall street over the edge and into
their predisposed fraudulent madness. In fact, you could say, ‘it’s in their
genes’. This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s short-covering / suckers’ rally provides an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many
important global stock markets, including China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong,
have been in fairly significant corrections since November, down between 12%
and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising inflation and the resulting
monetary tightening by their central banks to combat the inflationary
pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious
correction? The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the
stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more downside risk?
It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the
next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’ BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows
Global
Meltdown? [ Looks like … feels like … seems like … Yes, it is! A global
meltdown! ] Nyaradi ‘Global
meltdown.Scary words, indeed. However, as we look around our world, it
certainly does appear that a global meltdown is in progress.At Wall Street
Sector Selector, we are nearly fully positioned on the “short” side of global
markets and so were fortunate to have had a pleasant day, unlike so many
investors and citizens of our small world. I sincerely hope and pray that many
pleasant days lie ahead for the people of Japan, Bahrain and Libya.Of course,
the big news is in Japan, where the struggle to contain the potential of
nuclear meltdown goes on after the tsunami and earthquake. I can’t add much to
this discussion other than to say that from a human standpoint, we need to do
what we can to help our allies in their time of need.I travel often to Japan
and this is a modern Western country now without power and water and basic
essentials for many days, and to fully understand this unthinkable tragedy,
just try to imagine a 30 foot wall of water coming through your neighborhood,
entire neighborhoods and towns disappearing, followed by the threat of nuclear
catastrophe and no water and power for days on end during these cold early
spring nights.Aside from the human catastrophe, the economic toll of this event
will be felt for years. Some analysts estimate that Japan will have to import
an additional 200,000 barrels of oil per day to make up for the lost output of
the damaged nuclear plants, while insurance and GDP losses are only guestimates
at this early hour but will be surely significant.Across the globe, unrest
continues in the Middle East as Bahrain is under martial law, the Libyan
government continues to quell the revolution (while the United Nations dithers)
and Portugal’s credit rating is downgraded and totters again on the edge of
financial collapse. At home, Congress continues putting band aids on our
national budget deficit while home sales plunge to new lows…’
Gadhafi Does a Head Fake: Dave's Daily ‘He declared an immediate cease
fire to perhaps buy some time; however, he didn't stop his troops advance. The
rebels also didn't stop fighting back correctly believing he was lying. It's
unclear if his forces can retake important Benghazi before multinational forces
enforce the "no fly zone." The UN vote was interesting with all BRIC
countries plus Germany abstaining. Russia and China don't want to be on the
world team and have their own agendas of global domination. The rest are a
harder read. Markets were higher early on the belief Libya fighting would
subside, Japan's reactor issues would be resolved and hopeful signs from GE
(later a bust), CSCO and bank dividend schemes.
However, as the news developed, Libya proved it wasn't about to stop its aggression
and the Japan reactor issues remained heightened causing markets to decline
into the close. There wasn't any economic data to speak of
although the government noted (admitted?) the unemployment
was higher in most of 372 markets in January throwing doubt on previous
claims of lower data. The Fed is also continuing its POMO
actions although Friday's buying was low. Bonds were somewhat weaker, Uncle
Buck is homing in on all-time lows, commodities overall were higher as were
precious metals. In the end nothing much mattered given quad-witching antics
which have little to do with the news or much else--it's just a spectator sport.
Volume remains elevated especially with quad-witching on Friday. Breadth per
the WSJ was positive relieving much short-term oversold conditions…’
Why To Distrust The Snap-Back Rally Harding ‘Thankfully the news out of Japan regarding the
potential for nuclear meltdowns has subsided, and global stock markets have
rallied for two days in relief. Many on Wall Street are claiming the correction
in global stock markets is therefore over, and it’s a buying opportunity.
Let’s think
this through and not react too quickly. The human toll and economic damage in
Japan was from the earthquake, not the subsequent potential problems with
nuclear plants.
Let’s consider
first what was going on prior to the catastrophe.
Global markets
were in quite significant corrections. For instance Brazil, China, India, and
Hong Kong, topped out in November and were down 12% to 17% prior to the earthquake.
Markets in Europe and the U.S. peaked in mid-February and were down 3% to 4%.
So an
important question is whether the factors that had global markets already
topped out prior to the earthquake have gone away. Unfortunately, the answer is
that they remain in place, and if anything have worsened, and the aftermath of
the disaster in Japan will likely add to them.
Those
continuing problems are:
Now added to those problems is the massive natural
disaster in the world’s third largest economy, Japan, a very important part of
the global manufacturing and high-tech supply chain. It has come at the worst
time for the struggling Japanese economy. The damage has already forced the
closing of factories by Nissan, Toyota, and Sony, as well as several oil
refineries, while large agricultural areas were wiped out, which can only add
to concerns about rising food prices. Japan’s problems will affect other global
economies.
Optimists are pointing to reconstruction as being a
positive for Japan’s economy, noting that six months after the Kobe earthquake
in Japan in 1995 almost all of Kobe’s factories and infrastructure had been
rebuilt. They are leaving out that Japan’s stock market declined for six months
after the smaller Kobe earthquake and during the re-building stage, losing 32%
of its value. At the present time, the Japanese market is down only 15%.
Meanwhile, European central banks have now
acknowledged inflation concerns, and the UK says it could begin raising
interest rates as soon as its April meeting.
The uprisings in oil-producing countries have not
gone away, and indeed have become more violent. In Libya, Dictator Muammar
Gaddafi launched military operations this week to crush demonstrators, and the
U.N. authorized military attacks against Gaddafi forces to assist the
demonstrators. The previously peaceful uprising in Bahrain became violent after
Bahrain’s royal family called in military forces from Saudi Arabia to help it
put down the revolt.
The uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain, and
Yemen, and unrest in Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, reportedly even have
leaders in Russia, Cuba, and China nervous.
In the European debt crisis, Portugal’s credit rating
was downgraded further this week, and its Prime Minister said he will quit if
Portugal’s parliament does not consent to his proposed austerity measures.
And on it goes. The previous problems that had global
stock markets topped out on fears of rising inflation and concerns about the
sustainability of the fragile global economic recovery, have not gone away, and
if anything worsened while attention was diverted by the disaster in Japan.
On the technical analysis side, the additional
five-day market plunge following the disaster in Japan had markets short-term
oversold, and likely to see a short-term rally off the oversold condition, but
it’s questionable whether a bottom is in yet, particularly in the U.S.
At their peaks, global stock markets, including that
of the U.S., were extremely overbought above their long-term 200-day moving
averages, to a degree that almost always results in a decline at least down to
retest the support at that moving average. In their corrections, some of which
began in November, others in mid-February, markets in Asia and Europe did
decline to that moving average. In several cases the support did not hold and
they broke below it.
But the U.S. market so far has pulled back only 6%,
leaving it still 7% above its 200-day m.a.
Additionally, investor sentiment in the U.S. does not
indicate a bottom. This week’s poll of its members by the American Association
of Individual Investors (AAII) shows bearishness has increased to 40.1%,
but that is still well below the 55% to 65% bearishness usually seen prior to
market lows.
So for now anyway, I still like the safe haven of
treasury bonds, which I wrote up in my column last weekend. The iShares 20-yr
bond etf, symbol TLT, has gained more than 5% in the five weeks since its early
February low. And I still like gold bullion and the SPDR Gold etf, symbol GLD.
Gold is the long-time hedge against rising inflation. I even like the idea of
some downside positions against the U.S. market, and I’m looking at some toppy
looking stocks that might be short-sale candidates.’
Stocks Achieve Back-to-Back Gains, But Nasdaq's 2.7% Drop Leads
Weekly Declines Midnight Trader
‘4:13 PM, Mar 18, 2011 --
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
Housing
Starts and the New Bear Market [ Actually, this has been a manipulated bull
(s***) cycle in a (continuing) secular bear market. ] Suttmeier ‘Housing Starts
and Building Permits disappoint. Part of my bear market theme is that Federal
Reserve policy has failed to help cure the original catalyst that began the
bear market of October 2007 to March 2009. Homebuilder stocks peaked in
mid-2005, community banks peaked at the end of 2006, and regional banks
including those considered "too big to fail" topped out in March
2007. Housing remains depressed, and community banks continue to fail on
"Bank Failure Friday!" You would think that the zero to 0.25% federal
funds rate in effect since December 16, 2008 would have helped, but it has not.
You would think that QE2, which comes to an end on June 30 would have helped,
but it has not. Meanwhile the FOMC ignores the rising cost of living on Main
Street USA. Ben Bernanke needs to be replaced as Fed Chairman!
Wednesday morning we learned that housing starts and building permits for new
home construction posted unexpected declines. Housing Starts plunged 22.5% from
January to a seasonally adjusted 479,000 units, the second slowest pace on
record. Building Permits fell 8.2% to a record low pace of 517,000. How come
the zero percent money from the Fed and QE2 cannot get to the cause of
"The Great Credit Crunch," which continues since March 2007?
The New Bear Market – Most of my readers know that I was bearish beginning in
March 2007 led by housing and financials. The broader market continued to rally
into October 2007. With the Dow above 14,000 I predicted that the next 2000 Dow
points would be down, not up. I became a bull on March 5, 2009 for a 40% to 50%
bear market rally. Sure I missed some of the rally in 2010, but in September
called for Dow 11,235 by election day on the prospect of a Republican victory,
and re-iterated that call in early-October in anticipation of QE2. My call for
2011 is that strength would fail below 12,600, and I predicted the top on
February 18 at 12,391.29 for both fundamental and technical reasons. We had a
ValuEngine Valuation Warning with 68.6% of all stocks overvalued. Today only
49.6% of stocks are overvalued. Today 11 of 16 sectors are overvalued, but just
one by double digits. The Dow Industrial Average was extremely overbought on
its weekly chart. A close on Friday below 11,856 will pull momentum (12x3x3
weekly slow stochastic) below 8.0, which to me is the confirmation of a cycle
high. On February 18 this reading was 9.5. My first downside objective is my
annual risky level at 11,491. Given a close in March below 11,491 the downside
is to semiannual value levels at 10,959 and 9,449.
10-Year Note –
(3.210) This yield declined to 3.139 on a continued flight to quality on
Wednesday closing in on the 200-day simple moving average which lines up with
my monthly risky level at 3.015 and 3.002. Today’s pivot is 3.264 with weekly
value level at 3.634.
Comex Gold –
($1396.7) The 50-day simple moving average is $1379.6 with my annual value
level at $1356.5, and my weekly pivot at $1404.1, which was tested on
Wednesday. Monthly and quarterly pivots are $1437.7 and $1441.7 with my
semiannual risky level is at $1452.6.
Nymex Crude
Oil – ($98.28) Held my monthly value level at $96.43 on Wednesday and stayed
below my annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92. My daily pivot is $98.23 with
semiannual and quarterly risky levels at $107.14 and $110.87.
The Euro –
(1.3890) It appears that my weekly risky level at 1.4089 is a barrier. My
quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a daily pivot at 1.3846, and weekly,
semiannual and monthly risky levels at 1.4089, 1.4624 and 1.4637.
All daily
charts for the major equity averages are negative – The Dow is below 50-day
simple moving average at 12,011 with declining daily momentum (12x3x3 daily
slow stochastic). There are no oversold measures as yet. Wednesday’s low was
11,555.48…’ Housing
Starts Point to Weakening Housing Market Suttmeier ‘Housing Starts,
Building Permits Disappoint -- Part of my bear market theme is that Federal
Reserve policy has failed to help cure the original catalyst that began the
bear market of October 2007 to March 2009. Home builder stocks peaked in
mid-2005, community banks peaked at the end of 2006, and regional banks
including those considered “too big to fail” topped out in March 2007. Housing
remains depressed, and community banks continue to fail on Bank Failure Friday!
You would think that the zero to 0.25% federal funds rate in effect
since December 16, 2008 would have helped, but it has not. You would think that
QE2, which comes to an end on June 30, would have helped, but it has not.
Meanwhile the FOMC ignores the rising cost of living on Main Street, USA. Ben
Bernanke needs to be replaced as Fed Chairman!
Wednesday morning we learned that housing starts and building permits for new
home construction posted unexpected declines. Housing starts plunged 22.5% from
January to a seasonally adjusted 479,000 units, the second slowest pace on
record. Building permits fell 8.2% to a record low pace of 517,000. How come
the zero percent money from the Fed and QE2 cannot get to the cause of “The
Great Credit Crunch," which continues since March 2007?
The New Bear Market -- Most of my readers know that I was bearish beginning in
March 2007 led by housing and financials. The
broader market continued to rally into October 2007. With the Dow above 14,000
I predicted that the next 2000 Dow points would be down, not up. I became a
bull on March 5, 2009 for a 40% to 50% bear market rally. Sure I missed some of
the rally in 2010, but in September called for Dow 11,235 by Election Day on
the prospect of a Republican victory, and reiterated that call in early October
in anticipation of QE2. My call for 2011 is that strength would fail below 12,600,
and I predicted the top on February 18 at 12,391.29 for both fundamental and
technical reasons. We had a ValuEngine Valuation Warning
with 68.6% of all stocks overvalued. Today only 49.6% of stocks are overvalued.
Today 11 of 16 sectors are overvalued, but just one by double digits. The Dow
Industrial Average was extremely overbought on its weekly chart. A close on
Friday below 11,856 will pull momentum (12x3x3 weekly slow stochastic) below
8.0, which to me is the confirmation of a cycle high. On February 18 this reading was 9.5. My
first downside objective is my annual risky level at 11,491. Given a close in
March below 11,491 the downside is to semiannual value levels at 10,959 and
9,449.
10-Year Note -- (3.210) This yield declined to 3.139 on a continued flight to
quality on Wednesday closing in on the 200-day simple moving average which
lines up with my monthly risky level at 3.015 and 3.002. Today’s pivot is 3.264
with weekly value level at 3.634.[chart]
Comex Gold -- ($1396.7) The 50-day simple moving average is $1379.6 with my
annual value level at $1356.5, and my weekly pivot at $1404.1, which was tested
on Wednesday. Monthly and quarterly pivots are $1437.7 and $1441.7 with my
semiannual risky level is at $1452.6. [chart]
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($98.28) Held my monthly value level at $96.43 on Wednesday
and stayed below my annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92. My daily pivot is
$98.23 with semiannual and quarterly risky levels at $107.14 and
$110.87.[chart]
The Euro -- (1.3890) It appears that my weekly risky level at 1.4089 is a
barrier. My quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a daily pivot at 1.3846, and
weekly, semiannual and monthly risky levels at 1.4089, 1.4624 and
1.4637.[chart]
All daily charts for the major equity averages are negative -- The Dow is below
50-day simple moving average at 12,011 with declining daily momentum (12x3x3
daily slow stochastic). There are no oversold measures as yet. Wednesday’s low
was 11,555.48.[chart]
Key Levels for the Major Equity Averages
NY Fed
intervenes in Yen currency trade Nikkei | The NY Fed bank
is confirming its first currency intervention for a decade.
Our Enemy, the Fed by
Ron Paul Ron Paul | There is perhaps no topic as important
to the average American today as rising prices.
Michigan
passes ‘financial martial law’ bill Politico | Michigan
legislators have approved a bill authorizing state-appointed emergency
financial managers to break union contracts.
National / World
Drudgereport: US SHIPS DEPLOY; LIBYA ACTION
FRENCH, BRIT JETS SET FLY
OVER
Japan govt finally admits
radiation leak serious enough to kill...
Drives back crews attempting
to rein in reactor...
'Very Grave'; Winds Shift...
AP: 'Minuscule fallout'
reaches USA...
REUTERS: 'Very low radiation'
detected on west coast...
Rads Whitewash?
Storage pools big worry...
HEAD FAKE: Libya Renews
Attacks After Cease-Fire Offer...
BOMBS POWER STATION IN REBEL
STRONGHOLD...
Claims 'No Bombardments'
Since Cease-Fire...
US: Gaddafi still on the
march...
DOJ to white males who are
bullying victims: Tough luck...
Cost of Living Hits Record...
Unemployment rises in nearly
all metro areas...
Obama understates deficits by
$2.3 trillion...
Top big-wave surfer killed in
wipeout off California...
REPORT: Pentagon Overpaid
Billionaire Oilman By Up to $200 Million...
Fmr. Dean of White House
Press Corps Still Talking About 'the Jews'…[Come on! It’s true of course …
quite amazingly since it’s been self-destructive and self-defeating for
presidencies and the nation generally … look at the mideast policies, no-pros on
the wall street frauds with those
‘goldman’ boys ‘sniffin’ around, etc.
]...
Helen Thomas is not sorry, nor were the comments that
ended her career accidental.
“I knew exactly what I was doing – I was going for
broke,” she told Playboy in the magazine’s April interview. “I had reached the
point of no return. You finally get fed up … I finally wanted to speak the
truth.”
Thomas, of course, left
her perch as the dean of the White House press corps last year after
telling a rabbi and blogger that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine”
and “go home” to “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.” Her family
is Lebanese and she grew up in the Detroit area, home to one of the country’s
densest populations of Arab Americans.
She spoke to Playboy
at length about the situation in Palestine, her feelings on American support of
Israel, and her take on Jews.
But her most controversial comments echoed ones she’s
made before about the influence of Jews in American life, which have
contributed to her name being stripped
from journalism awards.
"[The Jews are] using their power, and they have
power in every direction,” she told Playboy. “Power over the White House, power
over Congress … Everybody is in the pocket of the Israeli lobbies, which are
funded by wealthy supporters, including those from Hollywood. Same thing with
the financial markets. There's total control … It isn't the 2 percent. It's
real power when you own the White House, when you own these other places in
terms of your political persuasion. Of course they have power. [To the
interviewer] You don't deny that. You're Jewish, aren't you?"
She also had some controversial views about
memorializing the Holocaust.
"There's nothing wrong with remembering it, but
why do we have to constantly remember?" she said. "We're not at
fault. I mean, if they're going to put a Holocaust museum in every city in
Germany, that's fine with me. But we didn't do this to the Jews. Why do we have
to keep paying the price and why do they keep oppressing the Palestinians? Do
the Jews ever look at themselves? Why are they always right? Because they have
been oppressed throughout history, I know. And they have this persecution.
That's true, but they shouldn't use that to dominate."
This is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s short-covering / suckers’ rally provides an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many
important global stock markets, including China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong,
have been in fairly significant corrections since November, down between 12%
and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising inflation and the resulting
monetary tightening by their central banks to combat the inflationary
pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious
correction? The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the
stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more downside risk?
It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the
next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’ BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows
This is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s short-covering / suckers’ rally provides an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many
important global stock markets, including China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong,
have been in fairly significant corrections since November, down between 12%
and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising inflation and the resulting
monetary tightening by their central banks to combat the inflationary
pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious
correction? The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the
stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more downside risk?
It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the
next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’ BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows
Global
Meltdown? [ Looks like … feels like … seems like … Yes, it is! A global
meltdown! ] Nyaradi
Oversold Market Rally: Dave's Daily ‘It was time for a good oversold
short squeeze and we got it today. Wednesday's large selloff took the McClellan
Oscillator to sub -60 readings; the VIX nearly broached the fear level of 30;
and, daily RSIs in some sectors also pushed below 30 meaning more oversold
conditions. The initial stimulus for today's rally came from FedEx which
actually reported results that missed, but gave a cautiously positive forecast.
The stock rallied 5% on
the news initially. Jobless Claims also fell just matching expectations;
headline CPI was up .5% (I refuse to report the bogus "core" rate); Industrial
Production was a large miss lower (-.1% vs. +.5%); Leading Indicators missed
expectations (.8% vs 1% expected) but the Philly Fed knocked the cover off the
ball with a reading of 43.4 vs 28 expected. Little noticed by bulls was the
huge rise in prices that will surely be noted in the next PPI report. The Fed
tossed-in another $7B in POMO
to grease the trading desks and
"wink-wink" they know what they're supposed to do with that cash. As
to problems with Japan and MENA, bulls just put those aside for today. Also
options expiration is at hand and can add significantly to volatility. And,
what the hell, it is St. Patrick's Day after all! So let's put our worries
aside and rally. Volume was still high but about 45% lower than Wednesday.
Breadth was positive but moderately so…’
Housing
Starts and the New Bear Market [ Actually, this has been a manipulated bull
(s***) cycle in a (continuing) secular bear market. ] Suttmeier ‘Housing Starts
and Building Permits disappoint. Part of my bear market theme is that Federal
Reserve policy has failed to help cure the original catalyst that began the
bear market of October 2007 to March 2009. Homebuilder stocks peaked in
mid-2005, community banks peaked at the end of 2006, and regional banks
including those considered "too big to fail" topped out in March
2007. Housing remains depressed, and community banks continue to fail on
"Bank Failure Friday!" You would think that the zero to 0.25% federal
funds rate in effect since December 16, 2008 would have helped, but it has not.
You would think that QE2, which comes to an end on June 30 would have helped,
but it has not. Meanwhile the FOMC ignores the rising cost of living on Main
Street USA. Ben Bernanke needs to be replaced as Fed Chairman!
Wednesday morning we learned that housing starts and building permits for new
home construction posted unexpected declines. Housing Starts plunged 22.5% from
January to a seasonally adjusted 479,000 units, the second slowest pace on
record. Building Permits fell 8.2% to a record low pace of 517,000. How come the
zero percent money from the Fed and QE2 cannot get to the cause of "The
Great Credit Crunch," which continues since March 2007?
The New Bear Market – Most of my readers know that I was bearish beginning in
March 2007 led by housing and financials. The broader market continued to rally
into October 2007. With the Dow above 14,000 I predicted that the next 2000 Dow
points would be down, not up. I became a bull on March 5, 2009 for a 40% to 50%
bear market rally. Sure I missed some of the rally in 2010, but in September
called for Dow 11,235 by election day on the prospect of a Republican victory,
and re-iterated that call in early-October in anticipation of QE2. My call for
2011 is that strength would fail below 12,600, and I predicted the top on
February 18 at 12,391.29 for both fundamental and technical reasons. We had a
ValuEngine Valuation Warning with 68.6% of all stocks overvalued. Today only
49.6% of stocks are overvalued. Today 11 of 16 sectors are overvalued, but just
one by double digits. The Dow Industrial Average was extremely overbought on
its weekly chart. A close on Friday below 11,856 will pull momentum (12x3x3
weekly slow stochastic) below 8.0, which to me is the confirmation of a cycle
high. On February 18 this reading was 9.5. My first downside objective is my
annual risky level at 11,491. Given a close in March below 11,491 the downside
is to semiannual value levels at 10,959 and 9,449.
10-Year Note –
(3.210) This yield declined to 3.139 on a continued flight to quality on
Wednesday closing in on the 200-day simple moving average which lines up with
my monthly risky level at 3.015 and 3.002. Today’s pivot is 3.264 with weekly
value level at 3.634.
Comex Gold –
($1396.7) The 50-day simple moving average is $1379.6 with my annual value level
at $1356.5, and my weekly pivot at $1404.1, which was tested on Wednesday.
Monthly and quarterly pivots are $1437.7 and $1441.7 with my semiannual risky
level is at $1452.6.
Nymex Crude
Oil – ($98.28) Held my monthly value level at $96.43 on Wednesday and stayed
below my annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92. My daily pivot is $98.23 with
semiannual and quarterly risky levels at $107.14 and $110.87.
The Euro –
(1.3890) It appears that my weekly risky level at 1.4089 is a barrier. My
quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a daily pivot at 1.3846, and weekly,
semiannual and monthly risky levels at 1.4089, 1.4624 and 1.4637.
All daily
charts for the major equity averages are negative – The Dow is below 50-day
simple moving average at 12,011 with declining daily momentum (12x3x3 daily
slow stochastic). There are no oversold measures as yet. Wednesday’s low was
11,555.48…’ Housing
Starts Point to Weakening Housing Market Suttmeier ‘Housing Starts,
Building Permits Disappoint -- Part of my bear market theme is that Federal
Reserve policy has failed to help cure the original catalyst that began the
bear market of October 2007 to March 2009. Home builder stocks peaked in
mid-2005, community banks peaked at the end of 2006, and regional banks
including those considered “too big to fail” topped out in March 2007. Housing
remains depressed, and community banks continue to fail on Bank Failure Friday!
You would think that the zero to 0.25% federal funds rate in effect
since December 16, 2008 would have helped, but it has not. You would think that
QE2, which comes to an end on June 30, would have helped, but it has not.
Meanwhile the FOMC ignores the rising cost of living on Main Street, USA. Ben
Bernanke needs to be replaced as Fed Chairman!
Wednesday morning we learned that housing starts and building permits for new
home construction posted unexpected declines. Housing starts plunged 22.5% from
January to a seasonally adjusted 479,000 units, the second slowest pace on
record. Building permits fell 8.2% to a record low pace of 517,000. How come
the zero percent money from the Fed and QE2 cannot get to the cause of “The
Great Credit Crunch," which continues since March 2007?
The New Bear Market -- Most of my readers know that I was bearish beginning in
March 2007 led by housing and financials. The
broader market continued to rally into October 2007. With the Dow above 14,000
I predicted that the next 2000 Dow points would be down, not up. I became a
bull on March 5, 2009 for a 40% to 50% bear market rally. Sure I missed some of
the rally in 2010, but in September called for Dow 11,235 by Election Day on
the prospect of a Republican victory, and reiterated that call in early October
in anticipation of QE2. My call for 2011 is that strength would fail below
12,600, and I predicted the top on February 18 at 12,391.29 for both
fundamental and technical reasons. We had a ValuEngine Valuation Warning
with 68.6% of all stocks overvalued. Today only 49.6% of stocks are overvalued.
Today 11 of 16 sectors are overvalued, but just one by double digits. The Dow Industrial
Average was extremely overbought on its weekly chart. A close on Friday below
11,856 will pull momentum (12x3x3 weekly slow stochastic) below 8.0, which to
me is the confirmation of a cycle high. On February 18 this reading was 9.5. My
first downside objective is my annual risky level at 11,491. Given a close in
March below 11,491 the downside is to semiannual value levels at 10,959 and
9,449.
10-Year Note -- (3.210) This yield declined to 3.139 on a continued flight to
quality on Wednesday closing in on the 200-day simple moving average which
lines up with my monthly risky level at 3.015 and 3.002. Today’s pivot is 3.264
with weekly value level at 3.634.[chart]
Comex Gold -- ($1396.7) The 50-day simple moving average is $1379.6 with my
annual value level at $1356.5, and my weekly pivot at $1404.1, which was tested
on Wednesday. Monthly and quarterly pivots are $1437.7 and $1441.7 with my
semiannual risky level is at $1452.6. [chart]
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($98.28) Held my monthly value level at $96.43 on Wednesday
and stayed below my annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92. My daily pivot is
$98.23 with semiannual and quarterly risky levels at $107.14 and
$110.87.[chart]
The Euro -- (1.3890) It appears that my weekly risky level at 1.4089 is a
barrier. My quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a daily pivot at 1.3846, and
weekly, semiannual and monthly risky levels at 1.4089, 1.4624 and
1.4637.[chart]
All daily charts for the major equity averages are negative -- The Dow is below
50-day simple moving average at 12,011 with declining daily momentum (12x3x3
daily slow stochastic). There are no oversold measures as yet. Wednesday’s low
was 11,555.48.[chart]
Key Levels for the Major Equity Averages
US
says plant's spent fuel rods dry; Japan says no (AP) AP - Nuclear plant
operators trying to avoid complete reactor meltdowns said Thursday that they
were close to completing a new power line that might end Japan's crisis, but
several ominous signs have also emerged: a surge in radiation levels,
unexplained white smoke and spent fuel rods that U.S. officials said could be
on the verge of spewing radioactive material. Lessons
from the long tail of improbable disaster (Washington Post) [ No! I
disagree with the implication of the article! Modern life advantages? What, new
fangled frauds? That was the bottomline to the real estate debacle; that is,
the ‘pretend’ was creating an ongoing plethora of profits derived from
literally worthless paper. If not for financial incentive (from fraud), and
certainty of prosecution for the fraud (to date such has not occurred), this
still extant debacle in the trillions would not have occurred. Moreover, and
this is not 20/20 hindsight, I had no idea of the prevalence of earthquakes in
Japan (but was aware of their nuclear energy commitment) and clearly, conscious
decisions for the sake of extra profits were made regardless of risk. Some
(ie., earthquake-prone) nations just have to suck it up and make do without
nuclear (and pay more for fossil fuels, etc., which would affect margins). The
BP disaster was the consequence of a known flaw, even warned against by
personnel close to the debacle (the solution possibly affecting executive
bonuses, yacht, plane, exotic vacation home, etc.). New Orleans? … well, who’d
want to live there anyway outside of the Mardi Gras celebration…just kidding.
All the attention in the world does not change the ‘facts of life’. No, not
those facts of life, but reality. ] The lesson of disasters such as the one in
Japan is that more attention must be paid to extra risks that come with all the
advantages of modern life
Market
in a Slow-Burn Mode and Starting to Wilt the Inflation Trader ‘…and now,
I’m supposed to be a nuclear engineer? Financial engineering is in some ways
similar to nuclear engineering, which is one reason we use terms in finance
like “nuclear waste” to mean a particularly toxic tranche of a deal that no one
wants to have, or refer to a particular credit as being “radioactive.” The
credit crisis has also been called a “financial meltdown.” But most of the
products that Wall Street creates don’t actually kill people (on the other
hand, they also don’t get better when you pour water on them, so perhaps the
jury is still out on which is worse).
Markets
reacted poorly for most of the day yesterday on the news coming out of Japan.
The Federal Reserve was forced to cancel its scheduled bond buy-back in
mid-stream when the Dow Jones newswire ran headlines saying “EU ENERGY CHIEF:
SITUATION AT JAPAN NUCLEAR PLANT OUT OF CONTOL” and “EU ENERGY CHIEF: POSSIBLE
CATASTROPHIC EVENTS IN NEXT HOURS.” Bonds predictably shot straight up and
stocks tumbled until the EU energy chief admitted that his “analysis” had been
gleaned from details in news reports. The Fed re-initiated and complete the
bond buyback, and everybody learned a lesson not to listen to the EU Energy
Chief. Ever. Again.
The U.S. stock
market, however, is also in slow-burn mode and starting to wilt. Yesterday’s 2%
decline in the S&P on the highest volume of the year (1.4bln shares or so)
took the index to flat on the year. Easy come, easy go. Meanwhile, the Nikkei
rallied overnight (5.7%) and the Yen strengthened to match its all-time
strongest level, 79.80 yen to the dollar, last seen in 1995. Yes, you read that
correctly. The U.S. market is all aflutter now while the Nikkei is rallying and
the Japanese currency is actually rallying. Maybe nuclear engineering would be easier.
Speaking of
the 2008 meltdown, a reminder of it was called up yesterday when the Wall
Street Journal ran an article entitled “Banks
Probed in Libor Manipulation Case.” In 2008, there was another Journal
story – and it probably prompted this investigation, as that is the way these
things go – that pointed out that LIBOR was exceptionally low given the
apparent difficulty many banks were having funding themselves in the LIBOR
market. It was clear that it was predominantly hedge funds that were upset by
the settings and stirring up trouble; after all, the banks are lending money
tied to LIBOR and most of us are borrowing that money…so why would we get all
bent out of shape because LIBOR was being mismarked too low?
This whole
issue wouldn’t even exist if the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) hadn’t
changed the way the LIBOR survey was conducted some years ago. Until 1998,
LIBOR was set by a survey in which a large number of money market dealers were
asked the following question: “At what rate do you think interbank term
deposits will be offered by one prime bank to another prime bank for a
reasonable market size today at 11am?” On the basis of that question, the crisis
of 2008 wouldn’t affect the setting since it became merely hypothetical. There
were no prime banks in late 2008, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to
speculate where such banks might have lent to each other. This was a smart way
to word the question because it meant that (a) no bank was forced to reveal its
own cost of funds to its competitors and (b) it abstracted from the occasional
funding difficulties that a bank or two might have in special circumstances.
That bank, during its problem, wasn’t a prime name bank so it could be ignored
for the purpose of the survey.
However, as
the swaps market grew and with it, the importance of the LIBOR rate, I suppose
the BBA thought it oughtn’t be so hypothetical. So the survey
procedure was changed, and now banks are asked “At what rate could you
borrow funds, were you to do so by asking for and then accepting inter-bank
offers in a reasonable market size just prior to 11 am?” (Thanks to MM for
helping me find that.)
This is
obviously a very different question. Now banks are expected to trumpet to the world when they
are having funding difficulties. Moreover, the question leads to absurdities in
the circumstances of late 2008. Complainers think that LIBOR should have been marking higher than it was, but how are
you supposed to answer this when the real answer is “infinity. No funds are
being offered to me or to any other bank at any price”? And that was in fact
the situation. Banks were being ordered not to put out 12-month, 6-month,
3-month, and for a time even 1-month and shorter money.
If you had
offered 100% and been lifted, you would have lost your job (especially if that
bank then collapsed the next day and your unsecured LIBOR deposit went
down the hole with it). So there was literally no correct answer. Obviously,
some banks unilaterally altered the question they were answering (since they
are required to answer it, and amended to the question “…and the market was
functioning normally.” Or perhaps they merely decided to answer the question in
the original, pre-1998 spirit. Can we blame people for giving a bad answer to a
stupid question? I suppose it makes sense to look to see if there was collusion
among the twenty banks that make up the LIBOR survey, although it is a little
hard to imagine how a secret agreement could have been kept with so many
conspirators.
This just in:
the housing market is still radioactive as well. Yesterday’s Housing Starts
figure printed at 479k, only 2k above the absolute low of April 2009. This is
good, in a way, since less construction means less inventory, which means
existing inventory gets worked off more quickly and more homebuyers get shunted
to the existing home market where the inventories are really ugly. But it also
means that construction is not going to be adding much to the growth figures
for a while…
The housing
data was lost in the global geopolitical news, as is appropriate. But it was
harmonious with what the market wanted to do anyway. Stocks wanted to fall, and
they did. Bonds wanted to rally, and the 10y yield declined 10bps to 3.20%, the
lowest yield since December and starting to make Bill Gross look kinda bad (but
seriously, Mr. Gross has many powers but the ability to predict earthquakes, I
suspect, is not among them).
Commodities
were flat, with the Ags and Industrial Metals down and energy up. Crude oil
regained the $98 level. Opinions on oil vary widely, but I’m a bull. Monetary
policy, respectable global growth, damage to MENA production environments, and
a decrease in the BTU that can be output from nuclear – that seems like a
bullish mix to me.
Today’s data
includes Initial Claims (Consensus: 388k from 397k), Industrial
Production/Capacity Utilization (Consensus: +0.6%/76.5%), Leading Indicators
(Consensus: +0.9%), and the Philly Fed Index (Consensus: 28.8 vs 35.9).
But by far the
most important data is the CPI report. The consensus calls for +0.4% on
headline and +0.1% on core, raising the year/year headline number to +2.0% and
maintaining +1.0% on core.
I think there
is risk to the upside on core inflation. Last month, the print surprised on the
upside at +0.17% m/m, which brought the y/y number to +0.95% (rounded to +1.0%
in news reports). What are the chances of another similar number, more than
0.1% but not quite 0.2%?
I think the
odds are reasonable. Recall that last month, major subindices of the CPI
constituting 83.5% of total inflation showed acceleration in the year-on-year
numbers (to review what I wrote last month, follow
this link). And, as
I pointed out just 10 days ago, the recent rise in inflation swaps,
especially combined with the decline in forward energy quotes, implies that the
market also expects core to rise (updated chart below, click to enlarge).
[chart]
Purple line is
expected core inflation over the next 1 year implied by current inflation swaps
and forward energy futures.
As I said in
that recent comment, however, the aggressive expectations that are embedded
does create the potential for disappointment. The inflation market is far more
likely to respond negatively to an as-expected print than it is likely to
respond positively to a higher-than-expected core print. We’d need a strong
0.2%, not just a weak 0.2%, to really goose the market I think, and that seems
a stretch.’
BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows Blodget ‘Investors have gotten wildly bullish of late, as the bull
market that started in early 2009 keeps driving stocks to new highs. But the
pigs are about to get slaughtered, says Bob Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International and
editor of the Elliott Wave Theorist. Prechter still thinks the new bull market
is just a cyclical "retracement" of some of the bear market losses
that we've had since the market crashed in 2008. Prechter expected this
retracement to drive stocks 50% above the market lows, but stocks have since
soared 30% higher than than he expected. So when the day of reckoning
comes, Prechter thinks, it will be even more startling. And Prechter still
thinks that stocks will eventually crash to new bear-market lows (read: below
6,800 on the DOW). What makes Prechter think this day of reckoning may come
sooner rather than later? Sentiment indicators and
other technical analysis. Investor bullishness has
now gotten so extreme, Prechter says, that it has exceeded the levels in 2008
before the market crashed. Investors could still get even more bullish,
of course, but eventually they'll pay for this optimism. And Prechter's not just bearish on stocks: He thinks oil,
silver, and other commodities are absurdly overvalued, too. The only
thing he's bullish on is the dollar. And lest he be dismissed as a perma-bear,
Bob Prechter is quick to add that he hopes there will come a day when he can
come on the show and tell everyone that stocks are finally so crushed and hated
that it's a historic opportunity to buy them. When will that be? Stay
tuned...’ The
Case for a Bear Market for Stocks Suttmeier ‘In making a bearish call on
the U.S. stock market, I base it on both fundamental and technical factors. The
fundamentals show that stocks are overvalued and we have had three ValuEngine
Valuation Warnings so far this year. The January warning was ignored by the
market but so far stocks peaked with the warning issued on February 18 and
re-iterated on March 3. During this period we have seen many days where all 16 sectors
have been overvalued, with eight to 11 by double-digit percentages. Today
63.8% of all stocks are overvalued, and all 16 sectors are overvalued, 11 by
double-digit percentages…’
Ellen Bente Oliver ‘Salary of
House/Senate...$174,000. Salary of Speaker of House...$223,500. Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders...$193,400. Average US Salary...$33,000 to $77,000.
Maybe our elected officials should make an average salary too...It's a time of
sacrifice after all...Pass along, post on your own page if you agree…’
World's
richest are almost $1 trillion richer [ And the other 95% trillions poorer.
]
Utilities Are Warning the Correction Is Here Gayed ‘The utilities sector (IDU) may not be the most
fascinating sector of the market to watch, but in many ways can be one of the
most important. Legendary technical analyst Edson Gould, known for being one of
the best market timers of all time, believed that the performance of utilities
was an early indicator for broad market movements. He noted often times that
when utilities performed exceptionally well, within a short period of time,
markets would experience a period of volatility and declining prices…’
Is
the Bear Market Back? [ The bear market never left … This has been a manipulated bubble-bull cycle
in this secular bear market based on b*** s*** alone and hence, is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you can since there's
much worse to come! ]
Michaud ‘Financial Markets at Critical Junctures
Michigan
passes ‘financial martial law’ bill Politico | Michigan
legislators have approved a bill authorizing state-appointed emergency
financial managers to break union contracts.
Another
Ron Paul Critic at the Fed: ‘I Know Some Powerful People’ Robert
Wenzel | Paper money as issued by the Fed can be, I guess, considered
a liability.
Currency Meltdown Coming
USA Watchdog | A ball of debt is growing. It is on course to
swamp the system.
(Washington Post) [ Comments COMMENTS ARE CLOSED WHILE WE UPGRADE OUR SYSTEMS ]
Dana Milbank In state
legislatures, Tea Partyers take democracy to absurd lengths. (Washington Post)
[ I love to pick on Mr. Milbank … we’re so … ‘opposite’.
‘Louis Brandeis’? As they say on Saturday Night Live, ‘What’s up with that,
what’s up with that’. I concede he was a brilliant jurist (my personal favorite
was Holmes, especially Holmes’ discussion of the law as providing
foreseeability of consequences to actions, ie., threatening to do what one
legally can do which enables the other party to avoid such consequences, etc..
– Boy, did he get that wrong with pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt ‘modern
america’ where meaningfully lawlessness reigns supreme (see, ie., RICO case [ http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
] ). Yet Brandeis’ powers of foresight were sorely lacking [ Upon completion of
his first semester exams he was packing his bags to leave (I think harvard)
certain he had failed out. In fact, he ‘aced’ them all. (I can empathize with
that feeling which unlike anytime after a test I felt after the 3 day bar exam.
I felt drained and ‘certain’ I had failed. In fact, I scored so high on the
multi-state that my ‘jersey part’ of the exam became irrelevant (how prescient
a circumstance). ] Laboratory?... I don’t think so … unless you’re talking of
that of Dr. Frankenstein himself.
2chambers:
McConnell, McCain draw the line (Washington Post) [ mccain
recently said that if he had been elected president, defacto bankrupt america
would be fighting 3 wars. Talk about a race to the ‘bottom’. Earth to mccain …
that’s why you weren’t elected (mccain’s a loser, from wrestler, to downed
pilot, to songbird pow, to keating 5 man who should have gone to jail, etc.;
although wobama the b (for b*** s***), despite promises to the contrary, has
been no better; viz., maybe 2 and a half wars despite the nation’s defacto bankruptcy.
Never trust a *********** Go
ahead, fill it in … whatever comes to mind … don’t feel guilty, his
presidency’s done! Obama Laments He’s Not President Of Communist China [
Time to relieve wobama the b’ (for b*** s***) of his burden by impeaching /
removing him from office without delay! He may not have been the first black
president (Clinton is generally considered the first black president by blacks
and whites alike, a moniker Clinton accepted and wore proudly – that 18% vote),
but he is certainly the last!
Drudgereport: City
Lowers Police Testing Standards Because Not Enough Blacks Passed... Under
pressure from Obama administration... Illinois
mayor says Obama still owes city $55,457... Obama
to party with Washington reporters... Golf
in the afternoon... ] Weekly Standard | “Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the
president of China.” Dave’s Daily: ‘…Where is the president? This has been a universal
question raised by both right and left. Obama appeared on ESPN to go over his
NCAA basketball bracket, is hosting a $30K a plate fund raiser in Harlem and
heads this weekend to Rio. The president's disconnect is beyond belief and his
ears have turned to tin…’ Obama Plays While Japan Begs for Help [ ‘Wobama the b’ (for b*** s***) is a
typical ‘***************’ … Go ahead, fill it in … whatever comes to mind …
don’t feel guilty, he’s already a failed president who should be impeached /
removed from office without delay and a total incompetent and fraud. ] Watson/Jones | With the world on fire, the President goes AWOL
again … ’ Financialization
and Our Increasingly Unstable Economy Roche ‘I finally got around to seeing
the movie Inside Job, the story behind the credit crisis and winner of the
Academy Award for best documentary. It’s very good and I highly recommend it to
anyone who hasn’t seen it. It will certainly infuriate you. The movie doesn’t
place nearly enough blame on homeowners, but all in all it does an excellent
job of showing how Wall Street and government have become overrun by
deregulation and sheer greed. A combination of flawed economic theory and greed
have combined to create the beast that we now call a “functioning” economy. The
worst part of it all is that President Obama, who vowed change, has done almost
nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues most of the policies that helped
get us here in the first place. ]
US
says plant's spent fuel rods dry; Japan says no (AP) AP - Nuclear plant
operators trying to avoid complete reactor meltdowns said Thursday that they
were close to completing a new power line that might end Japan's crisis, but
several ominous signs have also emerged: a surge in radiation levels,
unexplained white smoke and spent fuel rods that U.S. officials said could be
on the verge of spewing radioactive material. Lessons
from the long tail of improbable disaster (Washington Post) [ No! I
disagree with the implication of the article! Modern life advantages? What, new
fangled frauds? That was the bottomline to the real estate debacle; that is,
the ‘pretend’ was creating an ongoing plethora of profits derived from
literally worthless paper. If not for financial incentive (from fraud), and
certainty of prosecution for the fraud (to date such has not occurred), this
still extant debacle in the trillions would not have occurred. Moreover, and
this is not 20/20 hindsight, I had no idea of the prevalence of earthquakes in
Japan (but was aware of their nuclear energy commitment) and clearly, conscious
decisions for the sake of extra profits were made regardless of risk. Some
(ie., earthquake-prone) nations just have to suck it up and make do without
nuclear (and pay more for fossil fuels, etc., which would affect margins). The
BP disaster was the consequence of a known flaw, even warned against by
personnel close to the debacle (the solution possibly affecting executive
bonuses, yacht, plane, exotic vacation home, etc.). New Orleans? … well, who’d
want to live there anyway outside of the Mardi Gras celebration…just kidding.
All the attention in the world does not change the ‘facts of life’. No, not those
facts of life, but reality. ] The lesson of disasters such as the one in Japan
is that more attention must be paid to extra risks that come with all the
advantages of modern life
A Tragedy of Epic Proportions: Dave's Daily ‘No Mr. Wise Guy today. The world
is facing two crises in Japan and MENA. The nuclear issue in Japan appears out
of control. At the same time, this tragedy is masking what's going in MENA as
Gadhafi takes control and in Bahrain where the weird Sunni/Shiite battles rage.
With the latter, it's like a primitive religious war the west experienced
centuries ago (save Ireland) with Catholics fighting Protestants. Where is the
president? This has been a universal question raised by both right and left.
Obama appeared on ESPN to go over his NCAA basketball bracket, is hosting a
$30K a plate fund raiser in Harlem and heads this weekend to Rio. The
president's disconnect is beyond belief and his ears have turned to tin.
Hillary Clinton meanwhile has announced she won't serve a second term as
Secretary of State should Obama be reelected. Perhaps she'll serve as
Vice-President to beef-up Obama's reelection chances; but, she hasn't
distinguished herself in foreign affairs
lately. Last night the BOJ injected many trillions of yen helping markets
rebound. With rapidly changing "current" news this may not occur
tonight. Bulls hope for reconstruction that will help U.S. industries within
materials and manufacturing sectors providing the stuff they need to rebuild.
But, that's a longer term positive for U.S. markets. For now, we need to know how
this situation will play out from a humanitarian and safety view. The yen has
hit fresh all-time high with repatriation paramount. Bonds are still climbing
while crude oil rose and precious metals were up a touch. Other commodities
were mixed…’
(Washington Post) [ Comments COMMENTS ARE CLOSED WHILE WE UPGRADE OUR SYSTEMS ]
Top
3 Reasons Markets Continued to Get Hammered Wall Street Cheat Sheet ‘On Wednesday March 16, 2011, Markets closed down on Wall Street: DJI -2.04% SP500
-1.95% Nasdaq -1.89% Gold +0.24 % Oil +1.46% .Japan ( NYSE:EWJ ) continues to
spook the world and Saudi Arabia has an escalating issue with Bahrain. Moody’s
( NYSE:MCO ) also downgraded Portugal’s credit rating again and PIIGS like
Spain ( NYSE:EWP ) got slammed as austerity is becoming the new normal in
Europe.
Today’s
markets dropped because:
1) Japan (
NYSE:EWJ ) is about as scary a situation as possible. Fukushima is the center
of the world at this point, and reports on Japan’s wire indicate problems are
not contained at the nuclear power plant. General Electric ( NYSE:GE ) has been
dumped on fears of legal liability for the design and construction of the
facility at issue, and you better believe the Japanese government will look for
a scapegoat (and deep pockets) once the situation stabilizes and the blame game
begins. The next BP ( NYSE:BP )? Possibly. But there is still hope for a
successful rebuild .
2) US producer
prices are heating up and housing starts are drastically slowing down.
Ironically, the best thing that could happen to the housing market is a
slowdown in adding new supply. But don’t tell that to Homebuilders ( NYSE:XHB )
who got slammed today . And the last thing producers need is higher input costs
as the economy remains as fragile as a Hollywood ego at the Oscars . Hey, let’s
all focus on the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and everything will seem fine
… for a few days.
3) Apple (
NASDAQ:AAPL ) had its tiara dented. Ready for a complete shocker? The iPad2 is
sold out, yet some Excel jockey over at JMP Securities (who??)
downgraded Apple . On a more important note, tablet computing rival Motorola (
NYSE:MMI ) announced the new Xoom WiFi will compete at Apple’s price point and
run on Google’s ( NASDAQ:GOOG ) Honeycomb OS. All this added up to a staggering
4.4% one day drop for Wall Street’s darling.
Now that
you’re in the know, good luck using logic or reason to predict tomorrow’s
market activity.’
A
Snapshot of Global PE Ratios and Dividend Yields Horowitz ‘Below, presented
without comment, an interesting view of some of the major world markets and
their P/E or "cheapness" ratios. Spain's IBEX checks in with the
lowest P/E ratio and highest dividend ratio on a relative basis, while the two
countries with the lowest dividend yield are Japan's Nikkei 225 and Mexico's
IPC Index. [chart] ‘
Stock Market Decline Develops Exactly as Expected McCurdy‘The
S&P 500 index has declined nearly 5% during the last five sessions, erasing
all of the previous gains for the year.
[chart]
Click to
enlarge graphic
Of course,
mainstream financial media have attributed much of the recent weakness to the
earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan. But market behavior was telling us
to expect a sharp decline long before this natural disaster occurred.
As we often
note, the stock market is a discounting mechanism that sees several months into
the future. It represents the cumulative judgment of all market participants,
reflecting the best fundamental information available along with investor and
trader sentiment. Those who do not understand how the market functions attempt
to explain its behavior via the daily news flow, attributing up days to
positive data or developments and down days to negative information. However,
doing so misses the big picture and ignores basic market dynamics. Market
behavior on any given day only has meaning when viewed in its proper context.
Prices are
influenced by trends and cycles across multiple time frames that range from
decades to days. Secular trends drive market movements for 10 to 20 years at a
time, while cyclical component trends dominate price swings for 2 to 5 years.
You also have intermediate-term weekly moves and short-term daily trends and
cycles. Most importantly, each time frame exhibits relatively independent
behavior. Sometimes all trends are aligned across all time frames, but most of
the time they are not, so they must each be analyzed and properly characterized
in order to develop a comprehensive, accurate understanding of market behavior.
Tragedies such
as the Japanese natural disaster do influence market behavior, but their
primary functions are as catalysts, setting in motion processes that were
already likely. In the case of the current market environment, the process in
question was the violent correction of an extremely over-extended rally from
September. From early September until late February, the S&P 500 index
advanced 28% without experiencing a meaningful retracement. Such extreme moves
are always followed by volatile counter-trends, and by early February market
behavior was warning us that the inevitable violent correction was becoming
more likely. Broad market internals began to exhibit weakness as treasury
yields continued to rise and market sentiment held at irrationally bullish
extremes. When the overextended rally finally broke below uptrend support
during the final week in February, market internals such as volume summation
followed suit, strongly suggesting that the correction was about to begin.
Click to enlarge
[chart]
The Japanese disaster then acted as a catalyst that set the process in motion.
The sharp rally from September to February is representative of the current
environment and reflects heightened market volatility that has persisted since
the crash in 2008.
Click to enlarge
[chart]
Again, extreme moves such as these are always followed by violent
countermoves, and careful study of market behavior will indicate when the next
reversal is becoming likely. For example, in February 2009, chart analysis
suggested that historically oversold conditions would soon lead to the best
trading opportunity in a generation, and the catalyst that set the massive
rally in motion was a surprise
positive earnings announcement from Citigroup on March 10.
Click to enlarge
[chart]
As expected, the subsequent oversold reaction was equally violent in character,
resulting in the development of an extremely overbought condition in April
2010. Once again, market
behavior warned us when the inevitable correction was imminent, and the
European debt crisis in May 2010 acted as the catalyst that set the decline in
motion.
Click to enlarge
[chart]
Returning to the present, now that the violent correction we have been awaiting
is in progress, market behavior during the next several weeks should provide a
reliable assessment of cyclical bull market health and produce clarity with
respect to long-term direction. The decline from early March has caused the
current short-term cycle to transition to a bearish bias.
Click to enlarge
[chart]
The next Short-Term Cycle Low (STCL) should occur sometime during the next two
weeks, and the character of the subsequent reaction will likely tell us if the
cyclical bull market is simply taking a breather or preparing to terminate.’
Don't
Ignore Weak Housing Market and Bank Stress Issues
Suttmeier ‘Japan’s nuclear nightmare will stall global growth, which
begins with housing and banking in the United States. With the world’s
third-largest economy slowed to a crawl, the impact will be felt around the
globe. Here in the United States, I worry about the housing market and the
banking system where problems have been kicked down the road since 2008. The
Fed says that the housing market remains depressed! The scars of “The Great
Credit Crunch” could be opened as the economic impact from
Japan slows business activities here in the United States.
The NAHB Housing Market Index Rose by a Point to 17 -- The National
Association of Home Builders Housing Market Index has been 20 or lower since
September 2007 after being as high as 72 in June 2005, when I predicted that
housing stocks were extremely overvalued and overbought and long overdue for a
bear market. [chart]
In March the HMI inched up to 17 from 16 where 50 is the neutral zone so home
builders have been in a depressed mood since May 2006 when this index first
dropped below 50. Today home builders face the same obstacles talked about in
the last several reports: competition from short sales and foreclosures,
potential new home buyers’ inability to sell existing homes, home appraisals
falling below the costs of new construction, and tough lending standards for
both home builders and home buyers.
Economies on Main Street, USA depend upon the construction industry, and the
housing market is a major component of this. Community banks are reluctant to
lend to home builders, as they still have $321.6 billion in Construction &
Development (C&D) loans on the books, where collections are problematic.
The NAHB Tells Congress that the Housing Market Needs Access to Credit
The National Association of Home Builders tried to give a positive spin on the
housing market, anticipating an improving job market, but hedge that with the
fact that builders cannot get construction credit from community banks. C&D
loans declined 9.2% or $32.5 billion sequentially in the fourth quarter
and down 28.7% year-over-year. This is a slight acceleration of this
component of Commercial Real Estate loans, which is a natural occurrence as the
total is down to $321.6 billion. C&D are down $307.4 billion since the end
of 2007, or 48.9%. Back between the end of 1988 and the end of 1992 this
category of Commercial Real Estate Loans declined 54.7%, and “The Great Credit
Crunch” we are in today will likely exceed that percentage.
The NAHB is worried that this contraction in construction lending will force
more small builders out of business resulting in more job losses industry-wide
and across the country. I have been saying that construction jobs are the most
significant catalyst for job growth on Main Street, USA. Keep in mind that
housing represents about 15% of our nation’s GDP. The NAHB told Congress that
residential construction jobs declined by 1.4 million since April 2006.
The NAHB urged Congress to have a solution to the Fannie and Freddie dilemma as
an affordable source of credit for housing, and to preserve the mortgage interest tax
deduction, and the capital gain exclusion. Without these protections home
prices are likely to continue to decline. The NAHB s worried about raising the
down payment to 20%, but I
agree with that restriction.
The NAHB is way too optimistic forecasting a modest gain in new home sales of
8% to 347,000 units in 2011 with 516,000 units in 2012.
Bank Failure Friday -- Two private banks were closed by the FDIC last
Friday, and one had an extreme overexposure to Commercial Real Estate loans.
The Number of Underwater Mortgages Rose at the End of 2010 -- According
to CoreLogic approximately 11.1 million households or 23.1% of all mortgages
were underwater in the fourth quarter of 2010. Another 2.4 million have only 5%
of less equity. Underwater mortgages had declined in the prior three quarters
because more homes came off the market because of foreclosures. The total
negative equity in the mortgage market rose to $751 billion at the end of 2010
up from $744 in the third quarter. The number-one cause of underwater mortgages
is lower home values. Home prices hit there lowest point of the crisis in 11 of
20 cities tracked by Case-Shiller in December.
Foreclosure Related Notices Decline, but That's Misleading --
Foreclosure filings fell to a 36-month low in February because lenders delayed
activities against homeowners due to heightened scrutiny over the way banks are
handling home repossessions. Information from RealtyTrac shows foreclosures
down 14% in February to 255,101 homes, down 27% year over year.
Lenders repossessed 16% fewer homes in February, down 41% year over year to
64,643 units. Once the procedures are streamlined the pace will pickup as
homeowners in default stay longer living in their homes. Meanwhile the backlog
of potential foreclosure action and repossessions will grow.
The delay of foreclosure actions will likely delay a housing recovery until
2014 into 2015. Meanwhile home prices should continue to slump as around 5
million homeowners are at least two months behind on their mortgage payments.
Quite often an unexpected event from abroad will divert attention away from key
market factors, which can expose old wounds!
Fed Policy Statement Implies That the US Economy Isn't Out of the Woods
The Federal Reserve says that the economic recovery is on firmer ground with an
overall gradual improvement in the labor market. The key to the fact that Main
Street economy is not out of the woods? Investment in nonresidential structures
remains weak and the housing market continues to be depressed.
The Fed recognizes that commodity prices are putting upward pressure on
inflation, but they say that it's temporary. They recognize the sharp run-up in
energy costs caused by supply concerns, but have blinders on saying that
longer-term inflation expectations is stable with underlying inflation still
subdued. This theory will be put to a test with PPI released Wednesday and CPI
on Thursday. The FOMC still believes that Americans do not need to eat and buy
gasoline.
The Fed will continue to expand their balance sheet via the
$600 billion QE2 (quantitative easing), which continues through June and they
will continue to buy additional US Treasuries to replace maturing
mortgage-backed securities. In addition they are continuing to keep the federal
funds rate at zero to 0.25% for an extended period which began December 16,
2008.
10-Year Note -- (3.323) This yield declined to 3.203 on a continued
flight to quality. The 200-day simple moving average lines up with my monthly
risky level at 3.016 and 3.002. With the rebound in Japanese stocks overnight
this yield is up to 3.351 this morning. [chart]
Comex Gold -- ($1396.9) The 50-day simple moving average was tested at
Tuesday’s low at $1380.2. My annual value level is $1356.5 with my weekly pivot
at $1404.1, and daily, monthly and quarterly pivots at $1420.1, $1437.7 and
$1441.7, and semiannual risky level at $1452.6. [chart]
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($97.50) Tested $96.71 on Tuesday versus my monthly
value level at $96.43. My annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92 have been strong
magnets. My monthly value level is $96.43 with daily, semiannual and quarterly
risky levels at $102.18, $107.14 and $110.87. [chart]
The Euro -- (1.3991) My quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a daily pivot
at 1.3913, and weekly, semiannual and monthly risky levels at 1.4089, 1.4624
and 1.4637. [chart]
All daily charts for the major equity averages are negative -- trading below
50-day simple moving averages with declining daily momentum (12x3x3 daily slow
stochastic). There are no oversold measures as yet. Tuesday’s low was 11,696
and Monday’s low was 11,897.[chart]
The weekly chart for the Dow Industrial Average remains overbought, but
will join the other major averages with momentum (12x3x3 weekly slow
stochastic) declining below 8.0 given a close on Friday below 11,856. This will
confirm the Friday, February 18 high at 12,391.29 as a cycle high. My
prediction has been a March high below 10,600. [chart]
While we are no longer under a ValuEngine Valuation Warning, stocks remain
overvalued with 53.4% of all stocks overvalued. This measure needs to fall
below 35% to call stocks cheap. Fifteen of 16 sectors remain overvalued, but
now only one by double-digit percentage.
Key Levels for the Major Equity Averages
Look
at How Producer Prices are Getting More Expensive Wall
St Cheat Sheet ‘On Wednesday March 16, 2011, The Producer Price Index
for finished goods increased 1.6 percent in February, seasonally adjusted, the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today . This rise followed advances of
0.8 percent in January and 0.9 percent in December, and marks the largest
increase in finished goods prices since a 1.9-percent advance in June 2009.
At the earlier
stages of processing, prices received by manufacturers of intermediate goods
moved up 2.0 percent, and the crude goods index climbed 3.4 percent. On an
unadjusted basis, prices for finished goods advanced 5.6 percent for the 12
months ended February 2011, the largest 12-month increase since a 5.9-percent
rise in March 2010. (See table A.)
Monthly
Changes Breakdown[chart]
Finished
Goods (seasonally adjusted)[chart]
Finished
Goods (not seasonally adjusted)[chart]
Intermediate
Goods (seasonally adjusted)[chart]
Intermediate
Goods (not seasonally adjusted)[chart]
Crude
Materials (seasonally adjusted)[chart]
Crude Materials (not seasonally adjusted)[chart]’
Uptick
in Wholesale Prices, Lower U.S. Home Construction Data Weighing On Markets
Barron’s ‘As Japan’s nuclear
crisis widens and several Arab states contemplate taking a more
active role in Libya, stock ETFs are pointing down this morning.The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY)
is slipping slightly in pre-markets following disappointing reports on housing
construction and wholesale prices. The PowerShares QQQ (QQQQ)
is down 0.4%.Overseas, the iShares MSCI EAFE ETF (EFA)
is sliding by 0.5% and the iShares MSCI Japan ETF (EWJ)
is down 1.4%.Weighing on investors this morning is a report on U.S. housing
starts that showed that construction
activity took the steepest monthly plunge in nearly 27 years in February.
Also, U.S. wholesale
prices surged 1.6% last month on higher energy and food prices.’
Marc
Faber On The Japanese Disaster, On A 20% Market Correction And On QE18 Marc
Faber appeared earlier on CNBC in response to a plunging market, and gave his
latest updated outlook on QE3… and 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 (not to mention 18). Tyler Durden Zero
Hedge March 15, 2011 ‘Marc Faber appeared earlier on CNBC in response to a
plunging market, and gave his latest updated outlook on QE3… and 4, 5, 6, 7 and
8 (not to mention 18). “We may drop 10 to 15 percent. Then QE 2 will
come, (then) QE 4, QE 5, QE 6, QE 7—whatever you want. The money printer will
continue to print, that I’m sure. .. I meant to say QE 18.”… No fear of that here: Zero
Hedge has been rather vocal in our opinion of the world’s most destructive
central planning buro from day one. We will continue being so, regardless how
low the S&P plummets… Perhaps even to its fair value south of 500.’
Is
the Bear Market Back? [ The bear market never left … This has been a manipulated bubble-bull
cycle in this secular bear market based on b*** s*** alone and hence, is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you can since there's
much worse to come! ] Michaud ‘Financial Markets at Critical
Junctures’ (see infra)
U.S.
Stocks in Red, Though Markets Cut Early Losses Amid Fed Optimism [ Fed optimism? You mean ‘fed b*** s*** ‘!
Yes, we’re spoon fed ‘fed b*** s*** ‘.
The same ‘no-recession’ b*** s*** that wall street frauds are made of
and thrive on. What do you expect them to say? After all, it’s the fed’s
incompetence, complicity and wall street’s greed, fraud! ]
Midnight Trader (see infra)
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
] Former general counsel inherited part of a Bernard Madoff
account.
Ethics
code urged for Supreme Court
(Washington Post) [
Sounds like a plan! Come on! Wake up! After all, what can you expect
from two guidos from ‘jersey (alito and scalia, colloquial – note that I have
refrained from using what some might consider disparaging terms as w*p*,
gui***s, or da***s … and let me state for the record that I truly loved and
respected my grandmother who was 100% Italian/Bari,Italy and as well my
grandfather/Lake Como,northern Italy with greek ancestral roots and I thereby
claim standing/right to posit the criticism in light of my direct experience.
). How ‘bout starting with enforcing laws as to judges, liars, etc., within the
very corrupted american illegal system; and, particularly bribes which in one
form or another are rampant . I don’t know about Thomas ( 3-4-11 Throw Clarence Thomas Off the Bench (The Daily Beast) ) , but I do know about alito and ‘jersey … :
October 15, 2010
(*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez, Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the
Qui Tam provisions of the Federal
False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent resolution seek to
refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of the law with which I
am not familiar).
The document in 5 pages under penalty of
perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI office in New Haven is probably the
best and most concise summary of the case
RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm . With regard to the
calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices: There was one call to the LA
office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA office where I personally met
with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative evidentiary documents of the
money laundering which he confirmed as indicative of same (he was transferred
from said office within approximately a month of said meeting and his location
was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter was assigned to FBI Agent Ron
Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess of a decade until he abruptly
retired (our last conversation prior to his retirement related to the case and
parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father I stated had been an enforcer for
the mob to which he registered disbelief and requested I prove it, which I did
– he served 12 years in prison, aggravated assault/manslaughter? – and no,
there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew Maloney’s the one that
prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction
to the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
There is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor
creditors, nor I should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt
and illegal scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the
meaningful rules of law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia
611 E. 5th Street, #404
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 219-**** (cell phone)
(213) 622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with
the line, computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance
greater non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for
contact).
] Group of law
professors' appeal comes after controversies involving travel and appearances
at political events by several justices.
Why your local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad) http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/LPSILC43/PR [ The instant video on the economic / financial collapse from Stansberry and
Associates is so well researched and
succinctly presented that I’ve archived
same on my website;
also, because the facts and views presented comport with the facts and views
I’ve presented on my site which I believe to be correct. This is a must-view,
must-see that I strongly recommend!
The complete url: http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.flv ( 146mb – approx. 1 hr. 17 min. ) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.mp4 (
374mb ) Written text of presentation (without
pictures / charts) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrypresentation.htm
]
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored A viral You Tube upload of
one of Alex Jones’ most popular feature films ‘The Obama Deception’ has been
censored following a spur of the moment campaign to elevate the movie’s title
to the top of the major internet search engines. In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Ellen Bente Oliver ‘Salary of
House/Senate...$174,000. Salary of Speaker of House...$223,500. Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders...$193,400. Average US Salary...$33,000 to $77,000.
Maybe our elected officials should make an average salary too...It's a time of
sacrifice after all...Pass along, post on your own page if you agree…’
Hidden workforce
hinders recovery (Washington
Post) [ Come on! Get real! They’ll never give up that ‘fudge factor’ that gives
them cover for their prevarication and continued wall street churn and earn
bubble fraud. ] The biggest challenge to the nation’s economic recovery is
Americans who have stopped looking for new jobs.
AP Business
Highlights: On Wednesday March 16, 2011, 6:54 pm EDT ‘Higher prices for food are about to get worse
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans are noticing higher prices at the grocery store,
and it's about to get worse. Food prices at the wholesale level rose last month
by the most in 36 years…’
Currency Meltdown Coming
USA Watchdog | A ball of debt is growing. It is on course to
swamp the system.
US food
price rise is steepest in decades London Telegraph | Food
prices in America soared at their fastest rate since the 1970s last month.
The
Unbearable Lightness Of TARP Reporting The Daily Bail |
Credit markets were NOT “frozen” during the crisis.
Radiation
Contaminated Wind to Blow Toward U.S. Reuters | The wind
speed will get stronger in the afternoon, blowing as fast as at 12 meters (39.4
ft) per second.
Exodus from a nuclear
nightmare Daily Mail | Those inside the cars and trucks
were fleeing for their lives, terrified about what might happen next.
Workers
abandon Japan nuclear plant as crisis worsens Reuters |
Japan’s nuclear crisis appeared to be spinning out of control on Wednesday.
Fukushima
nuke plant situation ‘worsened considerably’ Kyodo News |
”This accident can no longer be viewed as a level 4 on the International
Nuclear and Radiological Events scale that ranks events from 1 to 7.”
Is
the Bear Market Back? [ The bear market never left … This has been a manipulated bubble-bull
cycle in this secular bear market based on b*** s*** alone and hence, is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you can since there's
much worse to come! ] Michaud ‘Financial Markets at Critical
Junctures’ (see infra)
U.S.
Stocks in Red, Though Markets Cut Early Losses Amid Fed Optimism [ Fed optimism? You mean ‘fed b*** s*** ‘!
Yes, we’re spoon fed ‘fed b*** s*** ‘.
The same ‘no-recession’ b*** s*** that wall street frauds are made of
and thrive on. What do you expect them to say? After all, it’s the fed’s incompetence,
complicity and wall street’s greed, fraud!
] Midnight Trader (see infra)
Marc
Faber On The Japanese Disaster, On A 20% Market Correction And On QE18 Marc
Faber appeared earlier on CNBC in response to a plunging market, and gave his
latest updated outlook on QE3… and 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 (not to mention 18). Tyler Durden Zero
Hedge March 15, 2011 ‘Marc Faber appeared earlier on CNBC in response to a
plunging market, and gave his latest updated outlook on QE3… and 4, 5, 6, 7 and
8 (not to mention 18). “We may drop 10 to 15 percent. Then QE 2 will
come, (then) QE 4, QE 5, QE 6, QE 7—whatever you want. The money printer will
continue to print, that I’m sure. Actually I made a mistake. I meant to say QE
18.”
Faber was modestly constructive on the Japanese selloff, which at one point hit
18% down in overnight futures trading: “This huge selloff is an investment
opportunity in Japanese equities, but if a meltdown occurs then all bets are
off.” As usual, there is no love loss between Faber and the Chairsatan (recall
that today’s Empire Manufacturing survey confirmed margins continue to be
crushed due to surging input costs): “I think Mr. Bernanke doesn’t know much
about the global economy but he probably watches the S&P every day.” And on
Fed criticism: “”Until very recently the Feds have had very few critiques, very
few people criticized the Fed’s policies under Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Bernanke.
Over the last few months, a lot of critical comments have come up about the Fed
and its money-printing habit. The S&P drops 20 percent (and) all
the critics will be silent and they will all applaud new money-printing.” No fear of that here: Zero Hedge
has been rather vocal in our opinion of the world’s most destructive central
planning buro from day one. We will continue being so, regardless how low the
S&P plummets… Perhaps even to its fair value south of 500.’
Poll:
Support for Afghan war waning (Washington Post) [ Waning? When have these
nation-bankrupting, perpetual war policies been other than ‘waning’, except
among the zionists, neocons, war criminals, military industrial complex, war
profiteers, etc.. It was opposition to these perpetual war policies that got
‘wobama the b’ (for b*** s***) elected, only to be revealed for the blatant
liar / fraud that he truly is. ]
Ellen Bente Oliver ‘Salary of
House/Senate...$174,000. Salary of Speaker of House...$223,500. Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders...$193,400. Average US Salary...$33,000 to $77,000.
Maybe our elected officials should make an average salary too...It's a time of
sacrifice after all...Pass along, post on your own page if you agree…’
Store
shelves empty even outside disaster zone as panic buying grips Japan (Washington Post) [ I think the term
‘panic-buying’ with its connotation of
‘overreaction’ is a misnomer and misapplied to this unprecedented
catastrophe. I further believe that the magnitude of the fallout, literally and
figuratively, economically and otherwise, cannot be overstated in being far
more dire in negatively impacting already dour global economic prospects. ]
TOKYO - Canned goods, batteries, bread and bottled water have vanished from
store shelves and long lines of cars circle gas stations, as Japan grapples
with a new risk set off by last week's earthquake, tsunami and ensuing nuclear
crisis: panic-buying.
Controversey Over Bonuses
(Washington Post) : I think
an appropriate bonus for anyone on capital hill is an all-expenses-paid trip to
………… JAIL! Fed
meets as risks widen; policymakers aim to guard against inflation while
fostering growth (Washington Post) [ Come on! Let’s not kid each other! The
fed’s failed on both counts, continuing the policies of failure ushered in by
the senile greenspun… This is the grim economic
reality http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm . This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while
you can since there's much worse to come! … Who,
Besides Ben Bernanke, Wants to Buy (u.s.) Bonds? Well, PIMCO just voted
with their feet (they’re out of them) … Japansunami will preclude same (note:
despite the dire implications for defacto bankrupt america owing to their
costly reconstruction preoccupation … market suckers’ rally into the close and
off the lows to keep investors suckered … you can do such things, especially
into the close, with those computerized high frequency trade programs which are
great for generating commissions from the old ‘in-out, in-out’, and then some …
these days like last crash / crisis are made for such frauds.) … don’t go
looking to china to take more baths, especially with that recent trade deficit
of theirs. The answer is no-one! And, one can begin to see the fed’s reluctance
to alow proper scrutiny of their books ( technically ‘insolvent’ but printing
ever more worthless paper); beyond their complicity in the massive wall street
frauds cashed out with their help, there’s the worthless ‘paper on paper’
debacle just around the corner. ]
WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve meets Tuesday at a time of widening economic
risks: higher oil and food prices; unemployment near 9 percent; crises in the
Middle East and Japan.
Monday's
Correction: Now That's a Black Swan Tradermark
‘The seemingly widespread issues with nuclear plants in Japan are
certainly not something one typically has to deal with in the market. Generally
you expect media to overplay things, so after the quake Friday, it has been a
surprise to see the nuclear situation getting seemingly progressively worse as
each day passes, so we definitely have this affecting sentiment. Japan fell
over 6% overnight, and U.S. markets are at fresh lows as this mini 'black swan'
overwhelms the normal Monday morning garbage. [chart] I said
Friday it would actually be in the bears' interest for a rally to work off some
of the oversold condition, and then we'd (in a normal market) see another leg
back down. Certainly due to the news, we did not get more than a 1 day bounce -
but this is how sell-offs usually occur. While still prone to news which can
herk and jerk us around, this market definitely now seems to be in correction
mode with the S&P 500 quickly fading back the 50 day. One could make bets
against the index with the 50 day as your ceiling. Usually a real correction
begins with everyone thankful there is a "buying opportunity" but
ends when people feel actual consternation. Right now, almost everyone is just
thankful they have a chance to get in, hence I'd think there is more downside
ahead from a sentiment standpoint.’
Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many
important global stock markets, including China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong,
have been in fairly significant corrections since November, down between 12%
and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising inflation and the resulting
monetary tightening by their central banks to combat the inflationary
pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious
correction? The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the
stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more downside risk?
It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the
next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’
BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows Blodget ‘Investors have gotten wildly bullish of late, as the bull
market that started in early 2009 keeps driving stocks to new highs. But the
pigs are about to get slaughtered, says Bob Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International and
editor of the Elliott Wave Theorist. Prechter still thinks the new bull market
is just a cyclical "retracement" of some of the bear market losses
that we've had since the market crashed in 2008. Prechter expected this
retracement to drive stocks 50% above the market lows, but stocks have since
soared 30% higher than than he expected. So when the day of reckoning comes,
Prechter thinks, it will be even more startling. And Prechter still
thinks that stocks will eventually crash to new bear-market lows (read: below
6,800 on the DOW). What makes Prechter think this day of reckoning may come
sooner rather than later? Sentiment indicators and
other technical analysis. Investor bullishness has
now gotten so extreme, Prechter says, that it has exceeded the levels in 2008
before the market crashed. Investors could still get even more bullish,
of course, but eventually they'll pay for this optimism. And Prechter's not just bearish on stocks: He thinks oil,
silver, and other commodities are absurdly overvalued, too. The only
thing he's bullish on is the dollar. And lest he be dismissed as a perma-bear,
Bob Prechter is quick to add that he hopes there will come a day when he can
come on the show and tell everyone that stocks are finally so crushed and hated
that it's a historic opportunity to buy them. When will that be? Stay
tuned...’ The
Case for a Bear Market for Stocks Suttmeier ‘In making a bearish call on
the U.S. stock market, I base it on both fundamental and technical factors. The
fundamentals show that stocks are overvalued and we have had three ValuEngine
Valuation Warnings so far this year. The January warning was ignored by the
market but so far stocks peaked with the warning issued on February 18 and
re-iterated on March 3. During this period we have seen many days where all 16
sectors have been overvalued, with eight to 11 by double-digit percentages. Today
63.8% of all stocks are overvalued, and all 16 sectors are overvalued, 11 by
double-digit percentages…’
Ellen Bente Oliver ‘Salary of
House/Senate...$174,000. Salary of Speaker of House...$223,500. Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders...$193,400. Average US Salary...$33,000 to $77,000. Maybe
our elected officials should make an average salary too...It's a time of
sacrifice after all...Pass along, post on your own page if you agree…’
World's
richest are almost $1 trillion richer [ And the other 95% trillions poorer.
]
Utilities Are Warning the Correction Is Here Gayed ‘The utilities sector (IDU) may not be the most
fascinating sector of the market to watch, but in many ways can be one of the
most important. Legendary technical analyst Edson Gould, known for being one of
the best market timers of all time, believed that the performance of utilities
was an early indicator for broad market movements. He noted often times that
when utilities performed exceptionally well, within a short period of time,
markets would experience a period of volatility and declining prices…’
Is
the Bear Market Back? [ The bear market never left … This has been a manipulated bubble-bull
cycle in this secular bear market based on b*** s*** alone and hence, is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you can since there's
much worse to come! ]
Michaud ‘Financial Markets at Critical Junctures
The markets
technically are at critical junctures right now. Stock prices are at the point
of very possibly getting squeezed to an upside breakout as some have
forecasted, and to a downside breakdown as some others, including me, have
forecasted (not to mention what the market is showing currently). I don’t see
fundamental, technical or sentiment information supporting higher stock prices
right now; rather, technical fundamental analysis -- and even more importantly,
sentiment indicators -- are showing that the market is heading lower before
heading higher again.
I would also
suggest that the major index support levels I’ve listed below may not hold
either, with more downside from these levels longer-term. Below are more
reasons to be at least cautious and/or short-selling right now.
March 14,
2011 Major Index Price Support Forecasts
DJIA – 11,839.93
to 11,485.37
S&P 500 –
1,227.95 to 1,156.06
Nasdaq – 2,557.06
to 2,382.12
Is the
Bear Market Back? Reasons to be Cautious
Oil and
Stock Prices
Oil prices fell
on Thursday and Friday, as did stocks. Lower oil prices help global growth, and
higher oil prices slow it down. Seems to me the oil market is saying if global
growth slows down due to high oil prices (or any other number of economic
problems), it won’t support oil prices at these levels for very long. In my
opinion, I don’t think global growth can handle oil at prices above $100 plus
for very long; if so, oil demand destruction will set in eventually, causing
lower global growth, and eventually lower oil prices to match up with that
growth. Deflation first, inflation later -- as I’ve always said.
Global
Broad Market Sell-Off
The sell-off last
week was a global broad market sell-off. The global markets have been on an uptrend
for the last two years. From my perspective, it’s been a bear market rally from
the October 8, 2007 market top to the March 2, 2009 low, especially in the U.S.
and Europe. Asia and the other emerging markets are now almost in lockstep with
the developed markets, showing that what affects the major countries of the
world affects the rest of the emerging growing world too.
Even the higher
growth rates of the emerging markets don’t necessarily mean higher stock prices
in those markets. I’ve yet to see different markets decouple for a sustained
period of time. They always seem to follow the broad global markets in the long
term, no matter what their good and bad news is.
European
Union Sovereign Debt Problems Still There
Europe financial
skeletons in the closet are making noise again, with Moody’s (MCO) Spain
debt downgrade and the entire ECB sovereign debt problems re-awakening with the
recent news. It seems the financial markets forgot about this very serious debt
issue unfolding, and it's not over with yet in Europe. I suggest the same is
coming for the U.S. eventually as well. It’s going to take years to clean up
the sovereign debt mess, with some of those countries possibly ending up in
default.
China’s
Surprise Jump in Trade Deficit
China’s
increasing trade deficit is another worry for the global economy. China had an
unexpected $7.3 billion trade deficit report last week. China continues trying
to slow down its economic growth. A friend of mine in China who’s not a
financial analyst says it’s only a matter of time before the China real estate
market in the metro areas declines much more. China real estate prices and rent
in China's cities are “crazy” in relation to earnings, he says, and if there is
a China and/or global slowdown, he sees China real estate prices and rent
heading much lower.
If this happens,
it could put a big squeeze on the Chinese government, the Chinese banks that
hold the debt, and the economy as a whole. Famous short-seller Jim Chanos might
just get his wish of a bigger China selloff. I don’t like the idea of
short-selling China myself, but I wouldn’t be buying just yet either.
2009-10
Stock Price Rebound: Too Far Too Fast
The rebound in
stock prices over the last two years has been too far, too fast compared to the
actual economic growth in the same time period -- which is still the same as it
was three years ago. With the severe sell-off that the market saw during
2007-08, it’s normal to have a rebound back to test the sell-off breaks which
are now major resistance levels. The market is at those major resistance levels
now. Because of this, I see at least near-term downside pressure on stock
prices, and longer-term price downside if the bigger picture long-term fundamental
issues don’t get worked out fast enough to support sustainable long-term
economic growth.
Priced
for Perfection?
The markets are
showing more high-risk low-reward conditions now from my technical analysis.
The market is showing no margin of safety in case the bulls are fundamentally
wrong, which I think they are. The U.S. market seems to be priced for
perfection, with the bears in hiding after this two-year bull run in the
markets. I remind all the bulls that buying into a breakout after an already
extended bull run can easily end up in a fake-out break-out, trapping new long
positions. I think professional money managers know this well, suggesting more
selling is to come. Retail investors take note and use caution taking on any
new "buy long" positions here.
Over-Valued
Market Valuation Now?
Market
over-valuation is here with the S&P500 dividend yield below 2%, and
cyclically-adjusted earnings at 24 times compared to the 16 times historical
average. I suggest looking at earnings estimate revisions from Zacks Investment
research for the best individual stock opportunities in the markets right now.
Most stocks follow the broad market, but a select few buck the broad market.
Zacks Ranks Earnings Revisions can help you to select stock by stock picks.
Analysts'
earnings estimate revisions can go up and down with the psychology of the time,
so your due diligence is crucial at this time. With the market prices up these
last two years, some analysts have been increasing their company earnings
estimates. The reality is that earnings estimates and their revisions can skew
the analysis of any company with a false sense of future price performance
confidence. Buying in on positive earnings estimate revisions and or real
earning report increases is not necessarily a guarantee of increasing stock
prices, so be careful.
Amateurs
Want To Be Right and Professionals Want To Make Money
The retail public
has been buying more stock this last year, which is another possible sell
indicator. History has shown in the past that the public gets in and out of
stocks at the wrong times, buying near the tops and selling near the bottoms.
Here’s the
difference between an amateur armchair retail investor trader and a
professional one: Amateurs want to be proven right most of the time. They will
take huge drawdowns in an attempt to prove themselves right on a stock buy.
Once they’ve taken more drawdown than they can handle financially and mentally,
usually 50% or more, they throw in the towel and admit defeat.
Professionals, on
the other hand, understand losses are a part of the game, and have a system to
deal with increasing losses. It’s called stop-loss. Depending on the stock, and
its volatility, the stop-loss amount to admit defeat and save your investment
trading account is 8% loss per stock from the purchase price, even if it’s a
blue-chip. Stop-loss is a tool to effectively manage money in the markets.
Professionals use stop-loss, and retail investors need to use it more if they
want to save their accounts.
Record
Insider Selling Lately
Insider selling
during the fourth quarter 2010 hit multi-year highs. Since then, insider
selling has stayed strong. Insider selling or buying is not a standalone
surefire way of knowing where the price of a stock is going, but there’s no one
who better knows about a company’s future earnings prospects than its board of
directors. If they are selling, and especially selling in big blocks, you
should be paying attention, and very possibly selling too. You can always buy
back the stock at any time.
Fundamental
and Technical Analysis? Review the Current Market Sentiment Even More
Notice that what
I’m citing is not just all about fundamental or technical analysis, but also
involves a very important aspect of the markets: Sentiment or market
psychology.
Money managers
are saying it’s all "bull bull bull" again. Well, of course. If they
don’t, they might be out of a job if the redemptions empty the mutual fund
they're managing. With everyone a bull again, that’s one indicator to possibly
be ready to move to the other side -- and fast -- in case the market tips too
heavily to one side for too long. When everyone is leaning to one side for a
sustained period of time, it might be prudent and very profitable for you to
start reviewing the option of moving to the other side before everyone else
does.
If you are
fortunate to see a reversal opportunity, and take a reversal position, and then
the reversal moves in your direction, it can be exponentially profitable with
the reward-risk ratio very large in your favor, meaning the stop-loss to the
"take profit" areas of the trade are extremely favorable. Reward-risk
ratios of 3:1-plus are great.
In a market like
this right now, some of the reward-risk ratios to the short-sell side may be
approaching 5:1 to 15:1. Remember, successful investing and trading is about
knowing what price you’re entering at, your stop-loss price you will exit at
(with a small loss in case the position goes against you), and your take profit
target areas to book a profit. This is total trade entry and trade management
to be successful long-term in investing and trading the markets.
Investing and trading without a system is a plan for failure. If you want to succeed in the markets long-term, learn and manage your investing trading systems on a regular consistent basis.’
Buying Power Wasted?: Dave's Daily ‘It's probably not a good time for humor. I just wonder
what was behind the immediate bounce higher off the opening gap lower Tuesday.
Certainly it wasn't from any shred of good news. Oh wait, oil prices dropped
and many believe the Fed will print money forever while keeping interest rates
low. Further, markets were sharply short-term oversold right from the opening
bell. Okay, I get it now. Still, you must wonder if buying power was wasted.
Rumors dominate markets. One asserts the Japanese will shutter markets for the
week because of margin calls. EWJ (iShares Japan ETF) actually closed green
today. Why? Perhaps if the markets closed some can work some arbitrage just as
done when Egypt markets were closed. The outcome of the nuclear mess in Japan
remains influx with more earthquakes and radiation spreading. We are also
witnessing the collapse of western and U.S. diplomacy. Gaddafi is going to win.
He was a terrorist but then became a friend of sorts. When the violence was at
its peak, western powers told him to leave. He didn't and now he looks to win and
we look stupid since, what do we do now? Send Hillary over to have a nice chat
with him? Next, Saudi Arabia invades Bahrain and the U.S. was uninformed.
What's up with that? There was some economic news from the Empire
Manufacturing report which was positive only if you didn't look at the
inflationary prices paid component. The Fed also weighed-in with their interest
rate report which came in as expected. The dollar was slightly lower, while
commodities overall were sharply lower as investors fled risk and moved to the
sidelines or bonds. Suffice it to say, this is a tough market to navigate.
Volume was the heaviest we've seen in a long time and opening trades may have
been a wash-out but it's too early to say. Breadth per the WSJ was decidedly
negative. ‘
Damage Assessment - How Low can Stocks Go? Maierhofer ‘, On Tuesday March 15, 2011,
6:08 pm EDT
Before we talk
about how bad things could get and the key support level that may make the
difference between correction and meltdown, I'd like to say a word about the
Japan and the media.
Some people
are news junkies, I am a headline junkie. Scouring headlines provides a quick
read on the nations sentiment. Whether headlines are a reflection of national
mood, or shape the national mood, that is a subject for another day.
Thinking about
what happened in Japan puts things in perspective for many of us. There is more
to life than analyzing the market's every move. The media vividly portrays the
damage and heartbreak of a ravaged country.
Let's remember
that even when the media moves on to the next hot topic, there remain many
victims that need our support. At one point the media will forget about Japan
as it did about Haiti, Chile, and Indonesia, but that doesn't mean that the
suffering has miraculously been wiped away. Our support is needed even more so
once the media loses interest.
Damage
Assessment
No doubt the
events transpiring in Japan (NYSEArca: EWJ - News) have put stock markets
around the world on a fast track to lower prices. Japan's Nikkei 225 futures
have fallen from 10,900 a few weeks ago to as low as 8,400, a 23% drop.
The iShares
MSCI EAFA Index ETF (NYSEArca: EFA
- News), a barometer of
developed markets around the world, had dropped from 62 to 55. The loss in the
iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: EEM - News) has been contained to 10%
or less.
Even U.S.
investors spoiled by the Fed's loose monetary policy have come to find out that
the major U.S. indexes a la Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI), S&P (SNP: ^GSPC), and
Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) can (and will) actually move in both directions.
Speeding
up the Inevitable
Let's not
forget that the U.S. stock market was in correction mode even before the
earthquake hit Japan. On Thursday, March 10, the S&P closed at 1,295. On
Friday, March 11, the first post-earthquake trading day, the S&P actually
was up and closed at 1,304. The events in Japan may have accelerated the stock
sell off, but they weren't the only cause. There were a number of subtle (by
Wall Street standards) but obvious (by contrarian standards) red flags in the
middle of February.
On February 8
with the S&P at 1,325, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter examined the
environment of exuberant bullishness. The medias conclusion (see headlines
below) was so obvious: Higher prices ahead:
Reuters: Fed
more Confident in Recovery
AP: Investors
Return to US Stock Funds in January
CNBC: S&P
will Rise 60% by 2013
Kiplinger: 10
Signs the Economy is on the Upswing
The ETF Profit
Strategy Newsletter offered this advice and recommended short ETFs: 'How often
in the past have we seen the old adage if it's too obvious, it's obviously
wrong' have the last laugh? Now is not the time to be complacent, it's the time
to evaluate shorting strategies and other defensive measures.'
How Bad
Can it Get?
There've been
a number of major earthquakes in the past decade. Following the December 26,
2004 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, the U.S. stock market declined about
4%.
The January
12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti did not immediately affect the stock market.
However, starting on January 19, U.S. stocks declined about 10%.
Even though
the death toll of both earthquakes was larger than in Japan, the economic
impact of the Japan quake outweighs anything previously recorded.
In terms of
economic impact, hurricane Katrina might be the closest comparison there is.
Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana on August 29 and cased an estimated $81
billion in property damage.
Stocks rallied
the ten trading days following August 29, declined about 5% thereafter and
continued their run to the 2007 all-time highs.
Admittedly,
based on a small sample, natural catastrophes are not necessarily bearish for
U.S. stocks.
Technical
Damage Assessment
The risk in
U.S. stocks comes from bullish sentiment extremes, valuations, and a decoupling
between facts and reality. In addition, there is a giant bearish head and
shoulders pattern (ideal upside target not quite met yet) and a trend line that
has contained the Dow Jones for most of the past 80 years.
On February
18, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter identified this trend line (at the time
running through Dow 12,400) as major resistance. The Dow came within 9 points
before reversing sharply.
In terms of
technical analysis, S&P 1,275 is important support/resistance. As of
Tuesday mornings stocks have recovered some of their overnight losses and are
once again above 1,275. The 50-day moving average is at 1,302. It remains to be
seen whether stocks have enough strength to rally that far.
Thus far key structural support below 1,275 has been maintained and the potential for higher prices has not yet been eliminated. However, the reaction to Japan's woes (remember how the market shrugged of European financial defaults and Middle East unrest) might indicate a larger change of trend…’
U.S.
Stocks in Red, Though Markets Cut Early Losses Amid Fed Optimism Midnight Trader ‘4:18 PM, Mar 15, 2011
--
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
DOWNSIDE MOVERS
(-) XOM followed broader market lower; upgraded at Goldman Sachs amid several
energy sector analyst moves.
(-) GE defending nuclear design.
(-) NOK down as Samsung reportedly trying to poach Symbian engineers, while
Nokia Siemens looks to restructure deal.
(-) URRE among several uranium stocks tumbling.
(-) INTC downgraded.
(-) NVDA downgraded.
(-) CRZO misses with preliminary results.
UPSIDE MOVERS
(+) WSM reports profit rise and hikes dividend.
(+) YGE, STP, FSLR, APWR, JASO all gain as alternative energy shares among rare
gainers as future of nuclear power cloudy.
(+) CLBI continues sharp Monday upside on prospects for radiation treatment.
MARKET DIRECTION
U.S. stock averages finish lower, part of a global equity sell off that comes
amid much uncertainty for the post-quake nuclear situation in Japan. Still,
U.S. stocks wrapped trading well off the day's lows, lifted in part by positive
investor reaction to the latest Federal Reserve meeting statement. Crude
futures closed down 4% at $97.18 a barrel.
Weakness was widespread around the sectors, with insurers leading financials
lower. Tech and industrials are mostly lower. Alternative energy stocks are
gainers.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan warned of a "substantial" radiation
leak as the effects of last Friday's earthquake and tsunami grew grimmer. A new
blast and fire rocked a nuclear plant where workers were already trying to
avert meltdowns in three reactors.
Japan's Nikkei fell over 11%, its worst drop since 2008's financial crisis. The
rest of Asia slumped. European and Canadian shares fell.
But the Fed took some of the attention off Japan in afternoon trading. The U.S.
central bank's Federal Open Market Committee said any rise in
commodities-linked inflation would be "transitory." The Fed said it
would "pay close attention to the evolution of inflation and inflation
expectations."
The Fed was more upbeat about the economic outlook, saying the economy was on
firmer footing and conditions in the labor market "appear to be improving
gradually."
The FOMC kept the key lending rate in a range between zero and 0.25%, where it
has stood since December 2008. The central bank also made no changes to its
$600 billion program of Treasury purchases. The Fed statement made no mention
of the crisis in Japan.
In the economic data earlier in the day, the Empire State index rose to 17.5 in
March from 15.4 in February. This is the fourth straight increase and the
highest level of the index since last June. The gain was a bit less than
expected. Also reported, U.S. February import prices jumped 1.4%, driven
largely by a 3.7% rise in fuel.
In company news:
Texas Instruments (TXN) disclosed yesterday that after a
preliminary assessment, its manufacturing site in Miho, Japan, about 40 miles
northwest of Tokyo, suffered substantial damage during last Friday's 9.0
magnitude earthquake.
ADRs of Swiss pharma giant Novartis (NVS) are down
even as the company said an experimental drug for the treatment of
myelofibrosis, a rare form of blood cancer, met the goals of a late-stage
study, which should pave the way to file the drug for regulatory approval in
the second quarter.
Former Walt Disney Co. (DIS) CEO Michael Eisner joined the board of IAC/InteractiveCrop
(IACI),
the Internet company that is controlled by Barry Diller, The Wall Street
Journal reports. Diller had originally hired Eisner at Disney, the report
noted. Eisner served as the CEO of Disney for about 20 years.
General Electric Co. (GE) is defending the design of the
now-stricken reactor it supplied to Japan 40 years ago, saying its containment
system is safe and reliable, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets
report.
Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) said charge-offs fell across the
board in February as delinquencies were mostly reduced. U.S. charge-offs -
loans banks don't think they will be able to collect - declined for the third
straight month. The metric had fluctuated in the latter part of 2010 after
mostly dropping early last year.
Net charge-offs in February fell to 5.91% from 6.79% a month earlier at Capital
One's U.S. card business and declined to 5.42% from 5.72% internationally,
according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Auto-finance
charge-offs dropped to 1.97% from 2.62%.
Bank of America (BAC) cut 100 jobs from its consumer and
small-business banking units, The Wall Street Journal reports. The bank also
intends to shutter 10% of its branches over the next few years. Bank of America
shares are down 2.6%, or $0.37, to $13.86.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) Chief Executive Leo Apotheker is planning
to push deeper into software and the growing market for cloud computing,
Bloomberg reports. At an event in San Francisco, Apotheker said that the
company is starting a cloud computing service that allows developers to create
applications, the report said.
SunPower (SPWRA) says Japanese suppliers have indicated
that, while certain operations are currently disrupted due to infrastructure
issues, they have not sustained major damage to facilities.
In earnings news:
-DSW (DSW)
reports Q4 EPS of $0.41, up from $0.30 a year ago but below the Street view of
$0.44 per share. Sales were $468.5 mln, up from $402.6 mln last year, and ahead
of the Street view of $445 mln. For 2011, the company is forecasting EPS in the
range of $2.60 to $2.75 per share. The Street is at $2.70 per share.
-China Sky One Medical (CSKI) says Q4 sales fell 10.2% to $26.8
million from a year ago. Non-GAAP EPS fell to $0.21 from $0.47 a year ago. The
company said results were in line with its expectations.
-Williams-Sonoma (WSM) reports Q4 revenue of $1.195 bln, ahead
of the analyst consensus of $1.186 bln on Thomson Reuters. EPS was $1.08, vs.
expectations of $0.98 per share. For Q1, the company is guiding for revenue in
the range of $745 to $765 mln, vs. Street estimates of $749 mln.’
The
Unbearable Lightness Of TARP Reporting The Daily Bail | Credit
markets were NOT “frozen” during the crisis.
Stocks
nosedive on panic selling over nuke crisis JapanToday |
Tokyo stocks tumbled further Tuesday, with the Nikkei index shedding more than
14 percent at one point on panic selling.
The
Rule of Gold After The Financial Collapse Activist Post |
In a secular world, the operative “Golden Rule” is “He Who Has the Gold Makes
the Rules”.
National / World
Japan
braces for potential radiation catastrophe Reuters | Spent
nuclear fuel was exposed to the atmosphere.
Violent
Protests Across Yemen, 3 Soldiers Dead Reuters | Scattered
clashes broke out across Yemen on Monday.
Fuel
rod fire at Fukushima reactor “would be like Chernobyl on steroids” Kirk
James Murphy | Chernobyl’s contamination settled upon people and
nations thousands of miles from that reactor’s location.
Drudgereport: BAIL:
NUKE WORKERS ABANDON PLANT
Radiation
spews into sky -- again...
KYODO:
CRISIS HAS 'WORSENED CONSIDERABLY'...
Wind
to blow toward Pacific Ocean, America...
U.S.
Surgeon General: Get iodide...
AP...
BBC...
KYODO...
REUTERS...
Sudden
run on pills...
GOVERNMENTS
CALL FEARS UNWARRANTED...
Reactor
Design Caused GE Scientist To Quit In Protest...
Design
in dispute for decades...
FUEL
RODS DAMAGED 70 PERCENT...
Roof
Cracked After Last Explosion...
Two
workers still missing...
SPENT
NUKE FUEL POOL MAY BE BOILING...
Helicopters
no longer option to cool reactors...
Nuclear
blizzard...
Food
panic...
Thousands
missing, millions short of water – and fear everywhere...
MILLIONS
SUFFER FREEZING TEMPS WITHOUT POWER...
Confusion,
chaos spreading...
WHITE
POWDER DISCOVERED AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER TESTS POSITIVE FOR COCAINE...
2
Years After the Bottom, the 'Smart Money' Is Selling: "It's a Bit Late to
Go Long," Nenner Says Nenner ‘Wednesday's two-year anniversary of the
start of the bull market proved anticlimactic as major averages fell slightly.
The selling picked up steam early
Thursday as renewed concerns about Europe's debt crisis offset any positive
impact of falling oil prices.
In recent
trading, the Dow and S&P were down about 1.3% each while the Nasdaq was off
1.5%.
Such
lackluster action is likely to continue in the near term, followed by something
much worse for the bulls, according to cycle watcher Charles Nenner of the Charles Nenner Research Center.
"I think
it's a bit late to go long," Nenner says, suggesting investors should not
expect much more upside from stocks. For the near-term, Nenner expects the
market to remain within a trading range between 1307 and 1356 on the S&P
500. (The S&P fell below 1307 early Thursday; a close below that level
would mean "big trouble," Nenner says in the accompanying video,
taped Wednesday afternoon.)
"We don't
intend to go short right now," he says...with "right now" being
the operative term.
Looking
further out, Nenner is sticking with a
forecast of "Dow 5000" over the next three years, a call based
partially on his view that deflation remains the primary threat, not inflation.
(See: Deflationary
Hurricane Will Slam Into U.S. Economy, Charles Nenner Says)
"I would
challenge people: ‘how do you get to inflation?'," he says, suggesting
wage pressures are the key determinant, not food or energy prices or even Fed
policy. "What's clear is that wage demands lead to inflation; people want
higher wages and then you get an upside spiral," Nenner says. "People
are still happy they have a job, so I don't see any wage inflation, so it means
there's no inflation" -- at least not in Europe and the U.S.
The Price of
Prognostication
A former
market-timing consultant at Goldman Sachs, Nenner has been lauded here and
other venues for some of his prescient calls in recent years, most notably:
But Nenner has had his share of clunkers too,
including a forecast
here that 2010 would be a grim year for both the economy and the markets.
In April
2008 on CNBC, he was bullish about the second half of the year and
predicted a return to old highs.
Hopefully Nenner's "Dow 5000" call will be
similarly misplaced.
I point out these gaffes not to embarrass or make
fun, but to remind viewers that to err is human and everything you see/hear
should be taken with a grain of salt...assuming you're not already.
Aaron Task is the host of Tech Ticker. You can follow him on Twitter at @atask or email him at [email protected]’
US Stocks - Is Japan Speeding up the
Inevitable? , ‘Japan's Nikkei 225 is down 16%
since its February 16 secondary high. Reuters reports that 'Wall Street Dives
on Impact of Japan Disaster.' However, Japan's stock market (NYSEArca: EWJ
- News)
topped before the earthquake, as did the major U.S. Indexes.Is the Japan shock
merely speeding up the inevitable or could the bad news actually be part of a
bullish 'wall of worry?'Featured below is an article from February 11. At the
time the S&P was trading at 1,330. Even though a few weeks old it provides
information investors can use to gauge the current down side risk. Updated
support levels are provided at the end:
February 11, 2011:If it's too obvious, it's obviously wrong. More often than
not, this proverbial Wall Street adage has the last laugh. What's the
prevailing consent on Wall Street? What's suspiciously obvious today?
- The
Fed is here to help. As long as there's QE2 (or QE3, 4, etc,) prices will go
up.
- January
was positive. As January goes, so goes the year.
- This
is the third year of the Presidential Election Year Cycle. There hasn't been a
negative third year since 1939.
- There's
no catalyst to send stocks higher.
While
Wall Street analysts are trying to one up each other's positive forecasts, the
Fear Index, VIX has fallen to a 3 year low. The last time the VIX was at a
similar level was in April 2010, just before a literally fear-inspiring 17%
correction and the May 'Flash Crash' (see chart below).The ETF Profit Strategy
Newsletter didn't subscribe to the prevailing optimism in April 2010 and warned
that: 'The message conveyed by the composite bullishness is unmistakably
bearish. The pieces are in place for a major decline.'Does that mean that the
bottom will fall out again within a matter of days? Not necessarily, but now is
certainly not the time to be married to your holdings. Tight sell stops are
warranted because any minor correction could turn into a large one. Why?
New Bull Market, or Mother of all Bear Market Rallies?
The
devil's in the long-term trend. If we are in a new bull market, any dip would
present a buying opportunity. If we are in the mother of all bear market
rallies, every rally is a trap and represents a selling opportunity.How can one
determine whether we are in a new bull market, or a bear market rally?
[chart]It's said that bull markets climb a wall of worry. No doubt there
was extreme pessimism surrounding the March 2009 lows. That's one of the
reasons the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter sent out a strong buy signal on March
2, 2009.But pessimism at the bottom doesn't equal a wall of worry. In fact,
following the initial bout of disbelief, investors embraced the rally rather
quickly. In late 2009, sentiment readings became frothy, in January 2010 they
rivaled 2007 extremes (stocks fell 9%), and in April 2010 they exceeded 2007
extremes (stocks fell 17%).About two thirds of the rally from the 2009 lows was
accompanied by optimism. This is no wall of worry.
Glass Half Full Outlook
Think
about it, even the truly big problems - unemployment and falling real estate
prices - were sugar coated from the very beginning. The unemployment problem
was charmingly called 'jobless recovery' and falling real estate prices were
simply ignored.The Case-Shiller home price index is down four months in a row,
but nobody is bothered. A few days ago, MarketWatch ran an article: '10 reasons
to be bullish on housing.'Courtesy of the continuing real estate conundrum, the
FDIC closed 157 banks in 2010, and 14 thus far in 2011. According to a Wall Street
Journal article, the top 10 U.S. owned banks had $13.8 billion in unrealized
losses.Those are not reflected in earnings numbers as long as financial
institutions (NYSEArca: XLF - News)
believe the investment will later rebound. Guess what? Banks are pretty darn
sure prices will reclaim their 2006 all-time highs.In addition to the $13.8
billion in unrealized losses, the top 10 U.S. banks owned $360.7 billion in
illiquid, hard to value assets (called level 3 assets). While paper earnings
appear solid, it appears as if banks are hiding skeletons in their closets. But
who cares, stocks (NYSEArca: VTI - News)
are up.
Anomaly Explained
Ben Bernanke has openly admitted that asset inflation, or the wealth effect from rising stock prices, is the objective of QE2. Obviously, the money flow from the Federal Reserve over banks into the stock market has been the driving force behind this monster rally.Much of the Fed money has been funneled into commodities. Since QE2, net speculative positions in wheat and copper have doubled, oil soared 115%, soybeans 40% and corn 15%. Rising commodity prices (NYSEArca: DBC - News) are putting the squeeze on lower income Americans and will eventually lower profit margins for the materials sector (NYSEArca: XLB - News).It's quite likely that this ripple effect will spill over into the retail (NYSEArca: XRT - News), technology (NYSEArca: XLK - News), and consumer discretionary sector (NYSEArca: XLY - News). From there it's just a matter of time until it hits the broader Dow (DJI: ^DJI), S&P (SNP: ^GSPC) and Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC).Contrary to its objective, QE2 has also sent interest rates soaring. Higher interest rates tend to encourage the money to flow from equities into bonds. Higher interest rates put pressure on bond and stock prices alike...’
Stocks Rattled by One-Two Punch: Dave's Daily ‘Everything was going along just
fine for markets even absorbing Tunisia and Egypt well. But then the contagion
continued to Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait and so forth. This pushed energy
prices higher. Further, even though these MENA [Middle East and North Africa]
events may ease, you can rest assured they'll resurface and overhang markets
for awhile. The next punch was delivered by Japan's earthquake, tsunami and
nuclear reactor issues. Japan, being the world's third largest economy, may be
in trouble for some unknown period. There will be massive infrastructure
spending down the road (emphasis added) which should provide strong
demand for building materials (lumber, base metals and so forth). For now, the
economy will get a heavy dose of cash from Japan's central bank and this will
require enormous debt sales driving yields higher theoretically. Since Japan is
a large exporter of stuff to the world, prices for finished products may rise
causing more inflation. Commodity prices remained mixed with softs and base
metals weak while energy, gold and rice were higher overall. Bonds rallied
while the dollar fell. The Fed is busy is POMO activities oblivious to external
conditions. Here's
their schedule for March and April. Stocks were sold with some late day buying
lifting major averages off their lows. Volume continues to rise on selling but
with an afternoon "stick save" much of this was positive. Breadth per
the WSJ was once again negative.’
Investment
Implications of a Nuclear Meltdown in Japan Ciovacco ‘The concerns
continue to mount after Japan’s devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami,
which may further heighten recent
anxiety in the financial markets (DIA). An explosion near the
No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station has industry
experts talking about the possibility of a meltdown.
According to Bloomberg:
If the fuel rods are melting and this continues, a
reactor meltdown is possible,” Kakizaki said. A meltdown refers to a heat
buildup in the core of such intensity it melts the floor of the reactor
containment housing. “If they cannot get the nuclear reactor back under control
during the day, this may end up being the biggest problem of all,” said Ken
Courtis, former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in Asia. “A meltdown,
which would cause massive immediate damage, would also set the nuclear industry
back decades. This would have vast implications for the global energy equation
and perforce the world economy.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at
a press conference that the blast didn’t damage the reactor container, only the
structure outside it, and that there was no major radiation leakage with the
explosion. The nuclear reactors are about 150 miles north of Tokyo. New reports
in Japan have indicated the radioactivity at the site was rising to 20 times
normal levels. [chart]
We would expect the nuclear energy ETF (NLR) to struggle next
week. From an investment perspective, we would avoid NLR in the short-term due
to the uncertainties in Japan. If we owned NLR (we do not), we would consider
selling some of the position with a close below 24.74, and cutting back even
further with a close below 23.18.
“If the water level remains at this level, the
reactor core might be damaged, but we are now pouring water into the reactor to
prevent it from happening,” Dow Jones Newswires quoted a Tepco spokesman as
saying.
According to Wikipedia, a nuclear
meltdown:
EU leaders reach
deal on debt crisis London Telegraph | European leaders
reached agreement early this morning.
‘Anonymous’
to Release Docs Proving Bank of America Fraud Zero Hedge |
Hacker collective to leak proof that Assange previously threatened to release.
Are the prophets of
doom right? The American Dream | Major Middle East war?
Oil at $200/barrel? Gold at $2000?
Foreclosure
activity declines as lenders review legal procedures North Jersey
| Did foreclosures drop 27% because banks being blamed for robo-signing
scandal?
Insured
losses from Japan quake could hit $35 billion Reuters |
Last week’s earthquake in Japan could lead to insured losses of nearly $35
billion.
EU leaders reach
deal on debt crisis London Telegraph | European leaders
reached agreement early this morning.
Japan and Otherwise: World Markets Decline
Hacker
Collective Anonymous To Release Documents Proving Bank Of America Committed
Fraud This Monday After Julian Assange crashed and burned in his threat to
release documents that expose fraud at Bank of America, many thought he had
been only bluffing, and that BofA is actually clean. Not so fast. The
Rule of Gold After The Financial Collapse Activist Post |
In a secular world, the operative “Golden Rule” is “He Who Has the Gold Makes
the Rules”.
Nikkei
Plunges As Quake Sparks Sell-Off Nikkei | Tokyo stocks
plunged Monday, with investors selling to avert financial risks over the
devastating earthquake.
The
Rule of Gold After The Financial Collapse Activist Post |
In a secular world, the operative “Golden Rule” is “He Who Has the Gold Makes
the Rules”.
Nikkei
Plunges As Quake Sparks Sell-Off Nikkei | Tokyo stocks
plunged Monday, with investors selling to avert financial risks over the
devastating earthquake.
Japan
Worries Keep Stocks in the Red Midnight Trader ‘ 4:15 PM, Mar 14, 2011
--
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
National / World
10K
dead in Japan amid fears of nuclear meltdowns (AP) AP - The estimated death
toll from Japan's disasters climbed past 10,000 Sunday as authorities raced to
combat the threat of multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns and hundreds of
thousands of people struggled to find food and water. The prime minister said
it was the nation's worst crisis since World War II.
Fuel
rod fire at Fukushima reactor “would be like Chernobyl on steroids” Kirk
James Murphy | Chernobyl’s contamination settled upon people and
nations thousands of miles from that reactor’s location.
Tokyo nuke cloud crisis The
Sun | Japan teeters on brink of nuclear catastrophe amid fears a
radioactive cloud could envelop Tokyo’s 13 million residents.
Evacuation
zone widening; 300,000 homeless crowd shelters Daily Mail
| Fears of second explosion at quake-hit N-plant as exclusion zone stretches to
13 miles.
Drudgereport: SIXTH
NUKE REACTOR FAILS
MELTDOWN
ALERT...
Firefighters
battle blaze at reactor...
Rods
fully exposed for 2.5 hours...
Higher
radiation recorded north of Tokyo...
RACE
TO SAVE THE REACTORS...
Japan
Asks USA To Help...
WRAP...
BBC
LIVE... REUTERS
LIVE... KYODO
WIRE...
QUAKE
MAPS, DETAILS...
FLASH:
Nikkei Stock Market Falls Another 6%...
PM Kan asks public to act
calmly...
Confusion
from deadly quake spreading...
Emergency
Cooling Effort at Reactor Failing...
'UNSTABLE'...
Crisis
'Uncharted Territory'...
Up
to 160 exposed to radiation...
Japan
battles nuclear meltdown...
Biggest
Crisis Since WWII...
Races
to avert multiple reactor failures...
Injecting
seawater at Fukushima...
Another
hydrogen explosion possible...
Evacuation
zones widened -- again...
NUKE
DESIGNER: Gov't suppressing info...
BBC
LIVE... REUTERS
LIVE... KYODO
WIRE...
QUAKE
MAPS, DETAILS...
USA
West Coast in Path of 'Fallout'?
190
EXPOSED TO RADIATION IN MELTDOWN OF REACTOR NO. 1...
Thousands
scanned...
200,000
Evacuated...
US
EXPERTS: Pumping seawater into reactors 'act of desperation'...
'May foreshadow Chernobyl-like disaster'...
GE-designed
reactors in Fukushima have 23 sisters in USA...
IS
THE WORST STILL TO COME?
THOUSANDS
SCANNED...
140,000
Evacuated...
ADMIT: Officials say radiation levels rise above limit...
Third
explosion raises spectre of nuclear nightmare...
USA
West Coast in Path of 'Fallout'?
Winds
Should Send Radiation Out to Sea...
Run
on iodine tablets -- in Finland...
German
airline scans Japan flights for radioactivity...
17
U.S. Navy crew members contaminated...
HOPE:
Pumping seawater into hot, leaking reactor...
'We're
told not to breathe the air -- it's scary'...
GOV'T:
Releasing radioactive steam from another reactor...
SAFETY
BOARD: Meltdown occurred...
Core
of Fuku 1 partially melted; race on to cool...
Japanese
officials: 'Nuclear catastrophe averted'...
Say
steel container housing reactor undamaged...
Japan
to IAEA: Report radiation levels dropping...
REPORT:
Nearly 10,000 people missing from town of 17,000...
KYODO:
Death tops 2,000...
Military
finds 300-400 bodies in one coastal city...
UPDATE:
Four trains missing...
Northeast
Japan 'a wasteland'...
'Devastation
and despair'...
MAPS,
DETAILS...
BBC
LIVE...
REUTERS
LIVE
KYODO WIRE...
City
Lowers Police Testing Standards Because Not Enough Blacks Passed...
Under
pressure from Obama administration...
Illinois
mayor says Obama still owes city $55,457...
Obama
to party with Washington reporters...
Golf
in the afternoon...
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
] Former general counsel inherited part of a Bernard Madoff
account.
Ethics
code urged for Supreme Court
(Washington Post) [
Sounds like a plan! Come on! Wake up! After all, what can you expect
from two guidos from ‘jersey (alito and scalia, colloquial – note that I have
refrained from using what some might consider disparaging terms as w*p*,
gui***s, or da***s … and let me state for the record that I truly loved and
respected my grandmother who was 100% Italian/Bari,Italy and as well my
grandfather/Lake Como,northern Italy with greek ancestral roots and I thereby
claim standing/right to posit the criticism in light of my direct experience.
). How ‘bout starting with enforcing laws as to judges, liars, etc., within the
very corrupted american illegal system; and, particularly bribes which in one
form or another are rampant . I don’t know about Thomas ( 3-4-11 Throw Clarence Thomas Off the Bench (The Daily Beast) ) , but I do know about alito and ‘jersey … :
October 15, 2010
(*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez, Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the
Qui Tam provisions of the Federal
False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent resolution seek to
refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of the law with which I
am not familiar).
The document in 5 pages under penalty of
perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI office in New Haven is probably the
best and most concise summary of the case
RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm . With regard to the
calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices: There was one call to the LA
office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA office where I personally met
with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative evidentiary documents of the
money laundering which he confirmed as indicative of same (he was transferred
from said office within approximately a month of said meeting and his location
was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter was assigned to FBI Agent Ron
Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess of a decade until he abruptly
retired (our last conversation prior to his retirement related to the case and
parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father I stated had been an enforcer for the
mob to which he registered disbelief and requested I prove it, which I did – he
served 12 years in prison, aggravated assault/manslaughter? – and no, there is
no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew Maloney’s the one that prosecuted
gotti).
In contradistinction
to the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
There is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor
creditors, nor I should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt
and illegal scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the
meaningful rules of law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia
611 E. 5th Street, #404
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 219-**** (cell phone)
(213) 622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with
the line, computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance
greater non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for
contact).
] Group of law
professors' appeal comes after controversies involving travel and appearances
at political events by several justices.
Why your local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad) http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/LPSILC43/PR [ The instant video from Stansberry and Associates is so well researched and succinctly presented that I’ve archived same on my website;
also, because the facts and views presented comport with the facts and views
I’ve presented on my site which I believe to be correct. This is a must-view,
must-see that I strongly recommend!
The complete url: http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.flv ( 146mb – approx. 1 hr. 17 min. ) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.mp4 (
374mb ) Written text of presentation (without
pictures / charts) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrypresentation.htm
]
Disaster
in Japan threatens recession recovery (Washington Post) [ Recovery? …
Dreamin’ … and, we’re way past the ‘straw broke the camel’s back’ … we’re
really talkin’ about final nails in the coffin … This is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while
you can since there's much worse to come!
What
Can the Great Depression Teach Us About Our Great Recession? Chartprophet
‘Is the massive market rally of the past two years just a temporary recovery
that has tricked many investors to jump back into stocks right before the next
plunge? And how can the Great Depression reveal what may happen to the markets
this year, almost 80 years later?As we enter the third year of what has been a
very impressive "bull" market, many are left wondering whether this
incredible run of as much as 100 percent on the S&P 500 can continue - and
for how long. Yet while the economy seems to have rebounded very strongly off
of its early 2009 lows, accompanied by improving fundamentals, increased
company earnings, and a more optimistic consumer, many investors fail to at
least consider the thought that this entire "recovery" could, in
fact, be just an extreme overreaction to the 2008 market crash. In other words,
the huge rally we have seen in the global stock markets since early 2009 could
be just a temporary recovery and pause before the next - and possibly worse -
market decline.
It was less
than a year ago that the fear of an economic "double dip" - a plunge
back down to recession - intensely gripped the markets. The "flash
crash", BP
oil spill, European troubles, high unemployment, and potential derailment of
the economy all posed a severe threat to the viability of our recovery. Yet
while many parts of the economy seem to have been improving, there are still so
many issues surfacing daily that most of the world is basically ignoring. I am
not saying that all these issues are guaranteed to pull us back into recession,
but with such a huge rebound in stocks accompanied by so many potential
derailers, it may not be so far-fetched to at least consider the possibilities
of the tremendous upcoming turmoil.
The issues
now: huge government debt, credit crisis, European troubles, high insider
selling, Middle East turmoil, surging oil prices that threaten to hurt the economy,
soaring commodity prices, surfacing inflation, uncertainty about the Fed's QE2
and QE3, billions of dollars of toxic assets on the balance sheets of many
banks, emerging market weakness since the end of 2010, real estate bubbles from
China to Singapore, rationalization of fundamentals and a strong complacency
that things will continue to be just as positive as they have been, a very
slowly-improving unemployment picture, and perhaps one of the most telling
points - the average investor is finally getting back in, and maybe right at
the end of the rally.
So why should
investors at least consider the possibility of a "double dip"? What
are the potential scenarios if this tremendous market rally was, in fact, a
"fool's rally"? And what can the Great Depression teach us about our
current situation?
First, we
must understand what a "fool's rally" is:
Otherwise
known as a "Dead Dog Bounce," the fool's rally is a corrective bounce
or temporary rebound that follows a severe decline in an individual stock or broader
market. Following a severe decline, stocks and markets can sometimes see sharp
bounces off of the lows as a rapid overreaction to the downside is followed by
an overreactive bounce to the upside. In other words, a market crashes quickly
and sharply but rebounds temporarily as much of the bad news takes some time to
fully sink in.
This
phenomenon is has been termed the "Dead Dog Bounce," based on the
statement that "even a dead dog will bounce" if dropped from high
enough. Here's an image of what this looks like:
[picture]
The Dead Dog Bounce is just a temporary recovery, however. The scenario is as
follows: 1) the market drops sharply; 2) after an extreme downturn, the market
recovers as some investors buy up what they consider to be "value";
3) the market cannot make it all the way back up to where it started its down
move, however, because the economy is nowhere near as healthy as it was; 4) the
investors who have pulled their money out of the stock market or who have
missed the recovery now jump back in, thinking the market is going back up; 5)
since this has been a dead dog bounce, and therefore just a corrective rebound
before the dead dog falls back down, many investors were tricked into thinking
the recovery was underway - but the market enters the next phase of decline or
recession. A double dip takes place.
Think of a
tennis ball dropped from the top of a building: as it drops, it gains momentum,
hits the ground, and bounces up - but the bounce can not be as high as its
original point. And following that bounce, it will ultimately be pulled back
down by gravity. So too the Dead Dog Bounce - the market drops from above,
falls sharply, hits the "ground," bounces back up (but not as high),
and ultimately falls back down.
I bring the
Great Depression up because it is one of the best examples of a Dead Dog
Bounce. We often think of the Crash of 1929 as the biggest event of the Great
Depression, and perhaps also consider it to be the biggest drop in the market.
But that actually wasn't the case.
Here's
how the Dead Dog Bounce played out in the Great Depression:
click to
enlarge
[chart]
Following 17 years of sideways movement beginning, the market finally embarked
on an uptrend from 1921 to the ultimate peak of 1929.
Compare the
above chart to what we have recently seen in our market:
[chart]
Like the Dow from 1904 to 1921, the Dow of 1960 to 1983 was also stuck in a
long sideways trend. It eventually broke out above the 1,000 level in 1983 and
began one of the greatest bull markets we have ever seen. Like the 1929 top
before the Great Depression, the 2007 peak marked the top before the Great
Recession we find ourselves in. The two charts above look eerily similar, and
make dismissing the relationship between the Great Depression and Great
Recession almost a fool's move.
Now take a
look at the 1929 stock market crash:
[chart]
After reaching a peak of 380+, the Dow tumbled to under 200 as the Crash of
1929 sent markets into a free-fall. Following the Crash, a Dead Dog Bounce took
place - raising the market approximately 50 percent.
Compare the
1929-1930 Crash-Dead Dog Bounce scenario with what we have just seen:
[chart]
After a bull market from 2003 to the end of 2007, the Dow reached a peak of
over 14,000. As the housing market collapsed, so did the stock market - sending
the Dow below 6,500. As in the Dow of 1929-1930, a potential Dead Dog Bounce
has followed since 2009 and continues until today.
The question
remains - what followed the Dead Dog Bounce of 1929-1930, and will our market
follow the same course?
Here's how it
played out in 1930:
[chart]
The Crash of 1929 was almost negligible in comparison to the Great Depression
that followed. The Crash sent the Dow tumbling from 380 to 200, and was
followed by a Dead Dog Bounce which recovered over 50 percent of the Crash; but
the real damage was done beginning in April 1930 and lasting until late 1932 -
where the Dow toppled from nearly 300 to less than 50 - a loss of over 83
percent.
The Dead Dog
Bounce in 1929 and 1930 was just a corrective overreaction to the steep plunge
that the Crash of 1929 brought to the market. But as we can see, the Crash and
the ensuing bounce were nothing compared to the huge drop that followed and
carried through until the end of the Great Depression.
We now find
ourselves in perhaps a similar situation - a market that saw a very impressive
bull run for years, and reached a lofty top followed by a severe downturn in
2008 and early 2009. It has since shown signs of improving, and many investors
and economists are optimistic for the future - thinking the worst is behind us.
But with so many negative and potentially devastating issues constantly
surfacing, are we just in the middle of a Dead Dog Bounce before reality sets
in and the market plunges back down into recession? I do not yet know the
answer to that question. But with the very strong similarities between our market
and that of the Great Depression, it would be very wise to at least pay
attention.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.’
Stocks for Brave Adults Only: Dave's Daily ‘Stock rallied in the afternoon led
by oversold conditions and that's about it. You could argue those that could
lifted some indexes over the breached 50-day moving average. But, with the NYMO
at a -70 reading yesterday markets became quickly short-term oversold.
Now many wondered with the catastrophe in Japan, U.S. stocks should not have
risen. This is understandable and I got a lot of mail about this, but
perversely, it may have been more important the Saudi Day of Rage was a
nonevent--just ask Prince Alwaleed.
Moreover, imagine the amount of reconstruction spending that follows these
disasters. Bulls also felt the poor data Friday might lead to more QE from the
Uncle Sugar. Markets can often be hard to understand and be hard-hearted at the
same time. Retail Sales were okay but you have to wonder about it as "old
news" while Michigan Consumer Sentiment dropped substantially. My favorite
Fed official, William
"have some Kool Aid" Dudley, got trashed as he tried to explain
the "no inflation meme" to a crowd in Queens. It's pretty hilarious
how he was called out…’
Modest Stock Gains During Friday Trading, But Losses for Week Midnight Trader ‘4:08 PM, Mar 11, 2011 -
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
What
Can the Great Depression Teach Us About Our Great Recession? Chartprophet
‘Is the massive market rally of the past two years just a temporary recovery
that has tricked many investors to jump back into stocks right before the next
plunge? And how can the Great Depression reveal what may happen to the markets
this year, almost 80 years later?
As we enter
the third year of what has been a very impressive "bull" market, many
are left wondering whether this incredible run of as much as 100 percent on the
S&P 500 can continue - and for how long. Yet while the economy seems to
have rebounded very strongly off of its early 2009 lows, accompanied by
improving fundamentals, increased company earnings, and a more optimistic
consumer, many investors fail to at least consider the thought that this entire
"recovery" could, in fact, be just an extreme overreaction to the
2008 market crash. In other words, the huge rally we have seen in the global
stock markets since early 2009 could be just a temporary recovery and pause
before the next - and possibly worse - market decline.
It was less
than a year ago that the fear of an economic "double dip" - a plunge
back down to recession - intensely gripped the markets. The "flash
crash", BP
oil spill, European troubles, high unemployment, and potential derailment of
the economy all posed a severe threat to the viability of our recovery. Yet
while many parts of the economy seem to have been improving, there are still so
many issues surfacing daily that most of the world is basically ignoring. I am
not saying that all these issues are guaranteed to pull us back into recession,
but with such a huge rebound in stocks accompanied by so many potential
derailers, it may not be so far-fetched to at least consider the possibilities
of the tremendous upcoming turmoil.
The issues
now: huge government debt, credit crisis, European troubles, high insider
selling, Middle East turmoil, surging oil prices that threaten to hurt the
economy, soaring commodity prices, surfacing inflation, uncertainty about the
Fed's QE2 and QE3, billions of dollars of toxic assets on the balance sheets of
many banks, emerging market weakness since the end of 2010, real estate bubbles
from China to Singapore, rationalization of fundamentals and a strong
complacency that things will continue to be just as positive as they have been,
a very slowly-improving unemployment picture, and perhaps one of the most
telling points - the average investor is finally getting back in, and maybe
right at the end of the rally.
So why should
investors at least consider the possibility of a "double dip"? What
are the potential scenarios if this tremendous market rally was, in fact, a
"fool's rally"? And what can the Great Depression teach us about our
current situation?
First, we
must understand what a "fool's rally" is:
Otherwise
known as a "Dead Dog Bounce," the fool's rally is a corrective bounce
or temporary rebound that follows a severe decline in an individual stock or
broader market. Following a severe decline, stocks and markets can sometimes
see sharp bounces off of the lows as a rapid overreaction to the downside is
followed by an overreactive bounce to the upside. In other words, a market
crashes quickly and sharply but rebounds temporarily as much of the bad news
takes some time to fully sink in.
This
phenomenon is has been termed the "Dead Dog Bounce," based on the
statement that "even a dead dog will bounce" if dropped from high
enough. Here's an image of what this looks like:
[picture]
The Dead Dog Bounce is just a temporary recovery, however. The scenario is as
follows: 1) the market drops sharply; 2) after an extreme downturn, the market
recovers as some investors buy up what they consider to be "value";
3) the market cannot make it all the way back up to where it started its down
move, however, because the economy is nowhere near as healthy as it was; 4) the
investors who have pulled their money out of the stock market or who have
missed the recovery now jump back in, thinking the market is going back up; 5)
since this has been a dead dog bounce, and therefore just a corrective rebound
before the dead dog falls back down, many investors were tricked into thinking
the recovery was underway - but the market enters the next phase of decline or
recession. A double dip takes place.
Think of a
tennis ball dropped from the top of a building: as it drops, it gains momentum,
hits the ground, and bounces up - but the bounce can not be as high as its
original point. And following that bounce, it will ultimately be pulled back
down by gravity. So too the Dead Dog Bounce - the market drops from above,
falls sharply, hits the "ground," bounces back up (but not as high),
and ultimately falls back down.
I bring the
Great Depression up because it is one of the best examples of a Dead Dog
Bounce. We often think of the Crash of 1929 as the biggest event of the Great
Depression, and perhaps also consider it to be the biggest drop in the market.
But that actually wasn't the case.
Here's
how the Dead Dog Bounce played out in the Great Depression:
click to
enlarge
[chart]
Following 17 years of sideways movement beginning, the market finally embarked
on an uptrend from 1921 to the ultimate peak of 1929.
Compare the
above chart to what we have recently seen in our market:
[chart]
Like the Dow from 1904 to 1921, the Dow of 1960 to 1983 was also stuck in a
long sideways trend. It eventually broke out above the 1,000 level in 1983 and
began one of the greatest bull markets we have ever seen. Like the 1929 top
before the Great Depression, the 2007 peak marked the top before the Great
Recession we find ourselves in. The two charts above look eerily similar, and
make dismissing the relationship between the Great Depression and Great
Recession almost a fool's move.
Now take a
look at the 1929 stock market crash:
[chart]
After reaching a peak of 380+, the Dow tumbled to under 200 as the Crash of
1929 sent markets into a free-fall. Following the Crash, a Dead Dog Bounce took
place - raising the market approximately 50 percent.
Compare the
1929-1930 Crash-Dead Dog Bounce scenario with what we have just seen:
[chart]
After a bull market from 2003 to the end of 2007, the Dow reached a peak of
over 14,000. As the housing market collapsed, so did the stock market - sending
the Dow below 6,500. As in the Dow of 1929-1930, a potential Dead Dog Bounce
has followed since 2009 and continues until today.
The question
remains - what followed the Dead Dog Bounce of 1929-1930, and will our market
follow the same course?
Here's how it
played out in 1930:
[chart]
The Crash of 1929 was almost negligible in comparison to the Great Depression
that followed. The Crash sent the Dow tumbling from 380 to 200, and was
followed by a Dead Dog Bounce which recovered over 50 percent of the Crash; but
the real damage was done beginning in April 1930 and lasting until late 1932 -
where the Dow toppled from nearly 300 to less than 50 - a loss of over 83
percent.
The Dead Dog
Bounce in 1929 and 1930 was just a corrective overreaction to the steep plunge
that the Crash of 1929 brought to the market. But as we can see, the Crash and
the ensuing bounce were nothing compared to the huge drop that followed and
carried through until the end of the Great Depression.
We now find
ourselves in perhaps a similar situation - a market that saw a very impressive
bull run for years, and reached a lofty top followed by a severe downturn in
2008 and early 2009. It has since shown signs of improving, and many investors
and economists are optimistic for the future - thinking the worst is behind us.
But with so many negative and potentially devastating issues constantly
surfacing, are we just in the middle of a Dead Dog Bounce before reality sets
in and the market plunges back down into recession? I do not yet know the
answer to that question. But with the very strong similarities between our
market and that of the Great Depression, it would be very wise to at least pay
attention.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.’
Sneaky
Banks to Lay Foundation for Their Own Collapse
Welfare
State: Handouts Make Up One-Third of U.S. Wages CNBC |
Government payouts make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the
U.S. population.
Will
The Japanese Earthquake Be The Straw That Breaks Europe’s Back? Zero
Hedge | Japan will have no choice but to launch a mini round of
Quantitative Easing. If an earthquake flips its wings in Japan, does the
Eurozone go bankrupt, especially in the month when its most insolvent countries
face billions in debt rollover requirements, tens of billions in maturity
funding needs, even more in deficit funding requirements… and no cash?
National / World
Japan
scrambles to avert radiation crisis at nuclear plant Reuters
| Thousands of residents were evacuated from an area around a nuclear plant.
Huge
tsunami kills hundreds in Japan, sweeps across Pacific Reuters
| The biggest earthquake on record to hit Japan rocked its northeast coast on
Friday.
Saudi
Security Forces Flood Streets to Stop ‘Day of Rage’ Mail Online
| Moderate Sunni Islamists and Shi’ite Muslims have joined forces to demand
political change.
A
Perfect Storm of GMOs, Chemicals and Cancer Rady Ananda |
Several books lay out the framework for and evidence of a concerted effort to
sicken and then treat humanity, while earning obscene profits.
Guatemalans
to sue US government for secretly infecting them with syphilis Natural
News | The US government deliberately infected roughly 700 Guatemalans
with syphilis.
Drudgereport:
THE
GREAT QUAKE OF JAPAN... 9.1
MAG CAUSES CHAOS... BBC
LIVE... REUTERS
LIVE MAPS,
DETAILS... KYODO
WIRE... NHK...
Hundreds
of bodies found... Thousands
Missing, Feared Dead... Dam
breaks, washes away homes... Agency:
N American plate snapped upward... HUGE
WHIRLPOOL CREATED... Thousands
roam Tokyo streets... Cruise
ship, entire train missing... Japan
Rushes to Contain Damage...
'HOURS'
TO PREVENT NUKE MELTDOWN
'MAY
BE EXPERIENCING NUCLEAR MELTDOWN'
Quake's
Magnitude Hiked to 9.1...
Japan
scrambles to ease pressure building inside two nuke plants...
...TOKYO
POWER says temperatures falling back to normal at Reactor #3
...Meltdown
threat remains for Reactor #1
Radiation
at 1000X Normal...
LEAK...
Fuel
Rods May Have Been Damaged...
Fears
of THREE MILE ISLAND repeat...
'No
immediate health hazard,' officials say -- while evacuating 45,000...
US Amb. to
Japan Warns Americans to Evacuate...
US
military DID NOT provide any coolant... Earlier, Hillary Clinton said Air Force
'assets' had been used to do so...
BRUSSELS
WEEKEND: Broke euro countries plead for help...
18
GOP senators in Wisc report death threats after union vote...
UNIONS
THREATEN BUSINESSES...
Iowa
follows suit; House passes collective bargaining bill...
Obama
says 'tightening noose' on Gadhafi...
Tripoli
protest stamped out...
Berlusconi:
West may have miscalculated...
Police
flood Saudi capital, preventing 'Day of Rage'...
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
] Former general counsel inherited part of a Bernard Madoff
account.
Ethics
code urged for Supreme Court
(Washington Post) [
Sounds like a plan! Come on! Wake up! After all, what can you expect
from two guidos from ‘jersey (alito and scalia, colloquial – note that I have
refrained from using what some might consider disparaging terms as w*p*,
gui***s, or da***s … and let me state for the record that I truly loved and
respected my grandmother who was 100% Italian/Bari,Italy and as well my
grandfather/Lake Como,northern Italy with greek ancestral roots and I thereby
claim standing/right to posit the criticism in light of my direct experience.
). How ‘bout starting with enforcing laws as to judges, liars, etc., within the
very corrupted american illegal system; and, particularly bribes which in one
form or another are rampant . I don’t know about Thomas ( 3-4-11 Throw Clarence Thomas Off the Bench (The Daily Beast) ) , but I do know about alito and ‘jersey … :
October 15, 2010
(*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez, Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the
Qui Tam provisions of the Federal
False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent resolution seek to
refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of the law with which I
am not familiar).
The document in 5 pages under penalty of
perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI office in New Haven is probably the
best and most concise summary of the case
RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm . With regard to the
calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices: There was one call to the LA
office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA office where I personally met
with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative evidentiary documents of the
money laundering which he confirmed as indicative of same (he was transferred
from said office within approximately a month of said meeting and his location
was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter was assigned to FBI Agent Ron
Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess of a decade until he abruptly
retired (our last conversation prior to his retirement related to the case and
parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father I stated had been an enforcer for
the mob to which he registered disbelief and requested I prove it, which I did
– he served 12 years in prison, aggravated assault/manslaughter? – and no,
there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew Maloney’s the one that
prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction
to the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
There is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor
creditors, nor I should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt
and illegal scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the
meaningful rules of law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia
611 E. 5th Street, #404
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 219-**** (cell phone)
(213) 622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with
the line, computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance
greater non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for
contact).
] Group of law
professors' appeal comes after controversies involving travel and appearances
at political events by several justices.
Why your local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad) http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/LPSILC43/PR [ The instant video from Stansberry and Associates is so well researched and succinctly presented that I’ve archived same on my website;
also, because the facts and views presented comport with the facts and views
I’ve presented on my site which I believe to be correct. This is a must-view,
must-see that I strongly recommend!
The complete url: http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.flv ( 146mb – approx. 1 hr. 17 min. ) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.mp4 (
374mb ) Written text of presentation (without
pictures / charts) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrypresentation.htm
]
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
Stocks
sink amid new economic concerns (Washington Post) [New economic concerns? I don’t think so! The
economic concerns certainly aren’t new: This is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while
you can since there's much worse to come!But that
money/prosperity’s truly down the crapper and into the hands of the ‘perps and
friends’ … World's
richest are almost $1 trillion richer ( And the other 95% trillions
poorer.) … There’s never been a mystery here … just a massive fraud that
despite the rhetoric has been purposefully overlooked and unprosecuted … : “The
Financial Industry Has Become So Politically Powerful That It Is Able To
Inhibit the Normal Process of Justice And Law Enforcement” The economy
cannot stabilize unless fraud is prosecuted. But the folks in D.C. seem
determined to turn a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans, and is now moving to
defund the enforcement agencies like the SEC and CFTC. Market Crash 2011: It Will Hit by Christmas Farrell,
MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.
(MarketWatch) — ‘Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re
not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn
scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff,
get rich…’ Financialization
and Our Increasingly Unstable Economy Roche ‘I finally got around to seeing
the movie Inside Job, the story behind the credit crisis and winner of the
Academy Award for best documentary. It’s very good and I highly recommend it to
anyone who hasn’t seen it. It will certainly infuriate you. The movie doesn’t
place nearly enough blame on homeowners, but all in all it does an excellent
job of showing how Wall Street and government have become overrun by deregulation
and sheer greed. A combination of flawed economic theory and greed have
combined to create the beast that we now call a “functioning” economy. The
worst part of it all is that President Obama, who vowed change, has done almost
nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues most of the policies that helped
get us here in the first place. …’ ‘INSIDE
JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant
fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and declares with
oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been prosecuted …
despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator / experts
recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder and
wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. ) (see this film, I strongly recommend the
complete documentary – the following is a preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
]
Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many
important global stock markets, including China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong,
have been in fairly significant corrections since November, down between 12%
and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising inflation and the resulting
monetary tightening by their central banks to combat the inflationary
pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious
correction? The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the
stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more downside risk?
It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the
next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’
BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows Blodget ‘Investors have gotten wildly bullish of late, as the bull
market that started in early 2009 keeps driving stocks to new highs. But the
pigs are about to get slaughtered, says Bob Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International and
editor of the Elliott Wave Theorist. Prechter still thinks the new bull market
is just a cyclical "retracement" of some of the bear market losses
that we've had since the market crashed in 2008. Prechter expected this
retracement to drive stocks 50% above the market lows, but stocks have since
soared 30% higher than than he expected. So when the day of reckoning
comes, Prechter thinks, it will be even more startling. And Prechter
still thinks that stocks will eventually crash to new bear-market lows (read:
below 6,800 on the DOW). What makes Prechter think this day of reckoning may come
sooner rather than later? Sentiment indicators and
other technical analysis. Investor bullishness has
now gotten so extreme, Prechter says, that it has exceeded the levels in 2008
before the market crashed. Investors could still get even more bullish,
of course, but eventually they'll pay for this optimism. And Prechter's not just bearish on stocks: He thinks oil,
silver, and other commodities are absurdly overvalued, too. The only
thing he's bullish on is the dollar. And lest he be dismissed as a perma-bear,
Bob Prechter is quick to add that he hopes there will come a day when he can
come on the show and tell everyone that stocks are finally so crushed and hated
that it's a historic opportunity to buy them. When will that be? Stay
tuned...’ The
Case for a Bear Market for Stocks Suttmeier ‘In making a bearish call on
the U.S. stock market, I base it on both fundamental and technical factors. The
fundamentals show that stocks are overvalued and we have had three ValuEngine
Valuation Warnings so far this year. The January warning was ignored by the
market but so far stocks peaked with the warning issued on February 18 and
re-iterated on March 3. During this period we have seen many days where all 16
sectors have been overvalued, with eight to 11 by double-digit percentages. Today
63.8% of all stocks are overvalued, and all 16 sectors are overvalued, 11 by
double-digit percentages…’
Ellen Bente Oliver ‘Salary of
House/Senate...$174,000. Salary of Speaker of House...$223,500. Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders...$193,400. Average US Salary...$33,000 to $77,000.
Maybe our elected officials should make an average salary too...It's a time of
sacrifice after all...Pass along, post on your own page if you agree…’
World's
richest are almost $1 trillion richer [ And the other 95% trillions poorer.
]
Utilities Are Warning the Correction Is Here Gayed ‘The utilities sector (IDU) may not be the most
fascinating sector of the market to watch, but in many ways can be one of the
most important. Legendary technical analyst Edson Gould, known for being one of
the best market timers of all time, believed that the performance of utilities
was an early indicator for broad market movements. He noted often times that
when utilities performed exceptionally well, within a short period of time,
markets would experience a period of volatility and declining prices…’
2
Years After the Bottom, the 'Smart Money' Is Selling: "It's a Bit Late to
Go Long," Nenner Says Nenner ‘Wednesday's two-year anniversary of the
start of the bull market proved anticlimactic as major averages fell slightly.
The selling picked up steam early
Thursday as renewed concerns about Europe's debt crisis offset any positive
impact of falling oil prices.
In recent
trading, the Dow and S&P were down about 1.3% each while the Nasdaq was off
1.5%.
Such
lackluster action is likely to continue in the near term, followed by something
much worse for the bulls, according to cycle watcher Charles Nenner of the Charles Nenner Research Center.
"I think
it's a bit late to go long," Nenner says, suggesting investors should not
expect much more upside from stocks. For the near-term, Nenner expects the
market to remain within a trading range between 1307 and 1356 on the S&P
500. (The S&P fell below 1307 early Thursday; a close below that level
would mean "big trouble," Nenner says in the accompanying video,
taped Wednesday afternoon.)
"We don't
intend to go short right now," he says...with "right now" being
the operative term.
Looking
further out, Nenner is sticking with a
forecast of "Dow 5000" over the next three years, a call based
partially on his view that deflation remains the primary threat, not inflation.
(See: Deflationary
Hurricane Will Slam Into U.S. Economy, Charles Nenner Says)
"I would
challenge people: ‘how do you get to inflation?'," he says, suggesting
wage pressures are the key determinant, not food or energy prices or even Fed
policy. "What's clear is that wage demands lead to inflation; people want
higher wages and then you get an upside spiral," Nenner says. "People
are still happy they have a job, so I don't see any wage inflation, so it means
there's no inflation" -- at least not in Europe and the U.S.
The Price of
Prognostication
A former
market-timing consultant at Goldman Sachs, Nenner has been lauded here and other
venues for some of his prescient calls in recent years, most notably:
But Nenner has had his share of clunkers too,
including a forecast
here that 2010 would be a grim year for both the economy and the markets.
In April
2008 on CNBC, he was bullish about the second half of the year and
predicted a return to old highs.
Hopefully Nenner's "Dow 5000" call will be
similarly misplaced.
I point out these gaffes not to embarrass or make
fun, but to remind viewers that to err is human and everything you see/hear
should be taken with a grain of salt...assuming you're not already.
Aaron Task is the host of Tech Ticker. You can follow him on Twitter at @atask or email him at [email protected]’
Market Thrill Ride Ends Badly: Dave's Daily ‘‘Well, this wasn't very nice. When a roller coaster is
on pause as Wednesday you know something thrilling is coming next. What spooked
the herd anyway? China reported a surprising trade deficit versus an expected
surplus due to oil imports; Spain's credit rating was downgraded a notch,
Japan's GDP growth estimates were cut; Jobless Claims were higher than
expected; shots were fired at Saudi demonstrators; the Libya situation remains
a stalemate while major powers dither; and, there was no POMO Thursday. Is that
what it takes for a stampede? Markets have been unstable to put it mildly and
one of our trusty tech indicators DeMark sequential counts (not to mention
DeMark himself) has indicated "trend exhaustion" for some time. This
is why we've been light save for our Lazy Portfolios. [chart] Everything
was down today save bonds which rallied on a flight to safety. One might think
this ephemeral since "bond daddy" Bill Gross and PIMCO sold all their
holdings and yields can't go "much" lower from here. Despite having
data from WSJ late enough I can't determine if this was a 10/90 day or not;
but, it sure could be. Breadth may was particularly negative and someone no
doubt will chime in with a confirmation or not. As is usually the case for big
sell days like this, stops get hit and volume builds significantly.’
SPY's 25-Minute Tumble Sends ETF Back To January Levels Coleman ‘This
started
out as a rocky day as China’s trade woes, European sovereign debt concerns
and sour job numbers in the U.S. sent stocks falling. As reports emerged of bullets
pelting protesters in Saudi Arabia, popular ETFs tracking key benchmarks tumbled.In
a 25-minute span, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY)
fell almost 0.9%, erasing its intra-day high. It rallied for about an hour
before losing steam in the last 1.5 hours of the regular session. SPY closed
down 1.9% at $129.94 a share, back to levels not seen since January.Perhaps
just as alarming, the blue chip tracking ETF fell below its 50-day moving
average, a key short-term technical indicator. So did the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average
ETF (DIA).Now,
all eyes are likely to be focused on on the Fed’s policy setting committee
meeting next Tuesday. If it decides to keep rates low for an extended period,
“the risk of an even deeper pullback increases,” writes Tomi Kilgore in his column today for Dow Jones Newswires.The
S&P 500 index closed today at 1295.11. Bears should target the 1225-1230
range, where there was significant resistance from early November through
early December, notes Kilgore. “In addition, the 38.2% retracement–the first
significant retracement level for followers of Fibonacci numbers–of the rally
off the August low of 1040 to the February high of 1344 is at 1228,” he
adds.About the same time as SPY was falling, the U.S. Oil Fund (USO)
made a push higher after moving lower in the morning. The ETF’s shares bounced
up on heavy volume in the early afternoon to reach an intra-day high around
$42.10 a share. But it meandered down the rest of the afternoon. USO closed
down 1.6% at $41.40 a share, back to last week’s levels.The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD)
did much the same as USO, jumping in the afternoon only to slide lower later in
the day. But the precious metals ETF did manage a small rally early in the
session to reach $138.72 a share. It finished down 1.2% at $137.77 a share,
taking the fund back to late February levels.’
Stocks Sharply Lower, Dow's 200-Plus Point Drop Deepest Since
August Midnight Trader ‘4:22 PM,
Mar 10, 2011 --
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
UPSIDE MOVERS
(+) GMCR, SBUX in pack tie-up.
(+) HGSI, GSK gain on FDA approval of lupus drug.
(+) FCEL beats with results.
(+) CBEH beats with results, guidance.
(-) SFD beats with EPS.
DOWNSIDE MOVERS
(-) SCON reports sales drop.
(-) JTX cancels Q3 earnings due to ongoing discussions with creditors.
(-) ARYX to close after FDA delays guidance for study.
(-) PEET downgraded.
(-) UL downgraded.
(-) GM says CFO leaving.
(-) ARMH subject of negative analyst note on tablets.
(-) NTAP downgraded.
MARKET DIRECTION
Stock averages close deeply in the red, as the DJIA has fallen below the 12,000
line and logs its worst drop since early August. Already lower stock trading
weakened anew after a report hit saying Saudi Arabian police had opened fire on
protesters in the country.
The Associated Press reported news of the police action in the eastern city of
Qatif. Witnesses reported gunfire and stun grenades being fired at several
hundred protesters, according to the AP.
Earlier, disappointing news on unemployment claims and anxieties about the
trade deficit in China and European sovereign debt after a downgrade for
Spain's credit rating combined to send global and U.S. stocks lower.
All three major indexes broke through their 50-day moving averages for the
first time since the summer and the averages are now lower for the week and
month-to-date.
Commodities finished trading lower as crude oil futures ended lower, but pared
some early losses amid reports of violence against Saudi Arabian protesters,
while gold also finished lower on dollar pressure.
Light, sweet crude oil for April delivery finished down $1.68, or 1.6%, to
$102.70 a barrel. In other energy futures, heating oil was down 0.38% to $3.05
a gallon while natural gas was down 2.8% to $3.92 per million British thermal
units.
Meanwhile, gold futures ended in the red, paring modest prior-session gains, as
the dollar gained strength. Gold for April delivery finished down 1.2% to $1,412.50
an ounce. In other metal futures, silver was down 2.7% to $35.07 a troy ounce
while copper traded down $0.01 to $4.20.
The U.S. dollar index (DXY) is up 0.71% to $77.27.
On the U.S. economic front, weekly jobless claims rose by a higher-than-expected
26,000 new claims to 397,000, but the four-week rolling average, which smooths
out volatility, is still near a three-year low, the Labor Department reported.
According to economists polled by MarketWatch, first-time claims were expected
to rise to a seasonally adjusted 378,000 from last week's upwardly revised
level of 371,000.
The U.S. trade deficit grew by 15.1% to $46.3 billion, which was wider than
economists had predicted. Also, China posted a $7.3 billion trade deficit in
February, a surprise to financial markets that had predicted a surplus. Export
and import growth slowed sharply, partly due to the impact from the Chinese New
Year holiday during the month. China said that its monthly exports in February
grew only 2.4% from the year-earlier period, while imports rose 19.4%. The
growth represented a sharp slowdown from January.
In company news:
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) jumped some 38%, after
Starbucks (SBUX),
up 8%, says it will produce and sell its coffee and its Tazo brand tea via
GMCR's K-Cup portion packs for use in the Keurig single-cup brewing system. The
move is in line with the Seattle coffee chain's strategy to expand the reach of
its single-cup coffee selections. Last year, SBUX introduced Via Ready Brew
single-cup coffee.
Shares of Human Genome Sciences (HGSI) were higher after it and
GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) said the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) approved
BENLYSTA to treat adult patients with active, autoantibody-positive systemic
lupus erythematosus (SLE) who are receiving standard therapy.
Rio Tinto fell after it raised its cash offer for Riversdale Mining to $16.50
per share, up from the $16 offered in December. The higher price is contingent
on Rio gaining acceptances from holders of more than half of Riversdale shares
by March 23. Rio Tinto, which extended the offer period to April 1, said it
would not raise its offer in the absence of a competing offer.
Shares of Jackson Hewitt Tax (JTX) plunged after it cancelled its
earnings conference call and webcast in light of ongoing discussions between
JTX and lenders under its senior secured credit agreement.
AOL (AOL)
fell as Reuters reports that the company will cut about 20% of its global
workforce to restructure in a bid to catch up with faster moving rivals, a
source close to the company said. More than 900 of the company's 5,000 workers
will lose their jobs, Reuters reports. AOL will cut about 400 employees in
India, outsource another 300 positions and eliminate 200 jobs in the United
States, the story said.
Ingram Micro (IM) gained after saying it has been selected by
privately held Acronis to sell, market and support its product suite of data
backup and recovery solutions to resellers and managed service providers
throughout the Americas. Under the distribution agreement, IM channel partners
will have access to a wider range of data protection and business continuity
programs for Acronis, which provides backup, recovery and security solutions
for physical, virtual and cloud environments.
Superconductor Technologies (SCON)
fell after saying it expects to mention concerns about its ability to continue
as a going concern due to past losses and negative cash flow, in its upcoming
annual filing. It also said Q4 sales fell to $789,000 from $2.2 million a year
ago. Net loss per share was $0.11, narrower than the $0.16 loss a year ago.
Smithfield Foods (SFD) gained after it reported 2011 Q3
adjusted EPS of $0.84, up sharply from the year-ago period and handily beating
the Thomson Reuters mean analyst estimate for $0.66. Sales rose 10% to $3.2
billion, in line with the Street view. The company said that even though
raising costs will increase going forward, low global red meat inventories are
supporting a significantly higher live hog futures curve throughout fiscal
2012.’
Reviewing
My Reasons to Book Profits
Suttmeier ‘In the new millennium I’ve made some good market timing calls
and some not so good calls. In March 2000, I recommended that investors reduce
holdings in NASDAQ stocks by 50%. Then, between July 2002 and October 2002, I
was a major bull, and re-iterated that bullish call in March 2003 as our troops
marched towards Baghdad. Unfortunately, margin calls forced many of my readers
who stayed long to bail-out at the lows.
In June 2005,
I called the summer top for the homebuilders. At the end of 2006, I called the
top for community banks. In March 2007, I called the top for the regional
banks, but was pre-mature on the bearish overall market call, though I stuck to
my guns with a re-iteration all the way into October 2007 when I said that the
Dow would not sustain gains above 14,000. I was a bear until March 2009, when I
called for a 40% to 50% bear market rally.
In 2010, I
under-estimated the potential upside to the market, but my stock selection
process of “Buy and Trade” limited the extent of this bad call. Starting in
September 2010, I shifted to a more balanced market outlook looking for Dow
11,235 by election day, on the Republican victory and QE2. My ValuTrader model
portfolio was up 35.2% in 2010, solidly beating the S&P 500. At year end,
my call for 2011 has been a Dow top below 12,600.
Reviewing Reasons
to Book Profits:
1. The
fundamentals showed that stocks were overvalued and we have had three
ValuEngine valuation warnings when more than 65% of all stocks are overvalued.
The January warning was ignored by the market, but so far stocks peaked with the
warning issued on February 18th and re-iterated on March 3rd. During this
period, we have seen many days where all sixteen sectors have been overvalued,
with eight to eleven by double-digit percentages. The Dow high was 12,391.29 on
February 18th.
2. I believe
that the Federal Reserve will allow QE2 to end at the end of June and that
there will be no QE3. At that meeting the FOMC will remove “extended period”
from their statement. The federal funds rate has been zero to 0.25% since
December 16, 2008.
3. The weekly
chart for the Dow Industrial Average has been overbought since the week of
October 9, 2010. Momentum needs to fall below 8.0 and the Dow must have a
weekly close below the five-week modified moving average, which ended last week
at 12,017. A negative weekly chart confirms the market top.
4. It will be
hard to maintain a bull market with European debt issues, African and
Middle-East political unrest, problems at US state capitals, and inflationary
pressures in China.
5. The housing
market remains depressed and community banks remain stressed.
Key Levels for
the Major Equity Averages
·
The Dow Industrial
Average (12,213) Libya Trading Range: 11,983 to 12,391. My annual value level
is 11,491 with a daily pivot at 12,205, and weekly and monthly risky levels at
12,483 and 12,741.
·
The S&P 500
(1320.0) Libya Trading Range: 1294 to 1344. My quarterly value level is 1262.5
with a daily pivot at 1317.0, and weekly and monthly risky levels at 1350.3 and
1381.3.
·
The NASDAQ (2752)
Libya Trading Range: 2706 to 2840. My monthly value level is 2629 with a daily
pivot at 2745, and weekly, quarterly and monthly risky levels at 2829, 2853 and
2926.
·
The NASDAQ 100 (NDX)
(2323) Libya Trading Range: 2285 to 2403. My monthly value level is 2250 with a
daily pivot at 2328, and weekly, quarterly, and monthly risky levels at 2398,
2438 and 2499.
·
Dow Transports
(5147) Libya Trading Range: 4918 to 5306. My quarterly value level is 4671 with
weekly, daily and annual pivots at 5052, 5086 and 5179. The Transports closed
below its five-week modified moving average in each of the two weeks with
declining momentum, which is a negative weekly chart profile. A close above
this week’s five-week at 5111 shifts the weekly chart to neutral.
·
The Russell 2000
(824.66) Libya Trading Range: 795 to 838. My quarterly value level is 765.50
with a daily pivot at 816.86, and weekly, daily and monthly risky levels at
831.09 and 850.79.
·
The Philadelphia
Semiconductor Index (SOX) (447.94) Libya Trading Range: 439 to 474. My monthly
value level is 402.46 with a daily pivot at 436.99, and monthly and quarterly
pivots at 453.89, 458.32 and 465.93, and weekly risky level at 485.92.
10-Year Note – (3.475) Daily, weekly, annual, and
semiannual value levels are 3.544, 3.642, 3.796 and 4.268 with monthly, annual,
and semiannual risky levels at, 3.002, 2.690, 2.441, and 2.322.
Comex Gold – ($1429.6) Weekly, annual, quarterly,
semiannual and annual value levels are $1385.4, $1356.5, $1331.3, $1300.6 and
$1187.2 with monthly and quarterly pivots at $1437.7 and $1441.7, and daily and
semiannual risky levels at $1446.3 and $1452.6.
Nymex Crude Oil – ($104.16) Weekly, monthly and
semiannual value levels are $97.78, $96.43, and $87.52 with my annual pivots at
$99.91 and $101.92, and semiannual, daily and quarterly risky levels are
$107.14, $107.24 and $110.87.
The Euro – (1.3904) My quarterly value level is
1.3227 with a daily pivot at 1.4040, and weekly, semiannual and monthly risky
levels at 1.4446, 1.4624 and 1.4637.
Daily Dow: (12,213) Annual, quarterly, semiannual,
and semiannual value levels are 11,491, 11,395, 10,959, and 9,449 with a daily
pivot at 12,205, and weekly, monthly and annual risky levels at 12,484, 12,741
and 13,890.’
ETFs
React to Jobless Claims and Deficit , On Thursday March 10, 2011, 11:40 am
EST ‘Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) dropped Thursday, with the bears in
control after data showed rising jobless claims and growing U.S. and Chinese
trade deficits.
Gregory A. Clay contributed to this article.’
Deja
Vu - Nasdaq Breaks 50 Day Moving Average
Trader Mark ‘Let's try this again - we just had this conversation
Monday. The NASDAQ (QQQQ) - yet again - has broken the 50 day
moving average, although today's move is more impressive than the last
occurrences as it was a gap down situation. Hence, no part of today's range in
the index has been above the 50 day moving average. When this break of support
happened early afternoon Monday, the NASDAQ turned on a dime and rallied 1% in
just over 2 hours.
(Click charts
to expand)
As I state
constantly, what matters is the CLOSING price, not the intraday price, BUT
today's action is not looking prone to a 'stick save' situation (late day
rally) as we saw the other times this happened the past few weeks. Hence I
would be quite surprised if 'dip buyers' were bailed out today. As for 'da
bears' - they want to see a close below 2730 on NASDAQ.
The S&P
500 (SPY)
has come down to sniff the 50 day moving average as well, but the NASDAQ has
been the indicator of where the bulls charge in the past few weeks so I'll keep
a closer eye there. Obviously a close below 1294 on this index would be a
double whammy. That would be both a close below the 50 day moving average AND a
close below the intraday low of 2 weeks ago.
No place for heroes here - I continue to stress caution and de-risking.
Remember, we have major air pockets below these key supports since the rally
has been so vicious and shorts eviscerated for half a year; therefore they are
not going to provide the natural support as in a normal market when they cover.
It is fun to see a 2 way market once again - first time since November.’
QE 3 and the Coming Rout
Chris Martenson | There’s a scenario that could play out
between May and September.
Oil
prices drop before US data, Saudi protests AFP | Traders
kept a wary eye ahead of US data and planned protests in oil kingpin Saudi
Arabia.
Faber:
Oil will go up ‘ballistically’ if unrest shifts to Saudi Arabia Business
Intelligence Middle East | Marc Faber sees oil prices extending their
bull run despite the 15% run-up this year alone.
Jobless
Claims in the U.S. Rose 26,000 Last Week to 397,000 Bloomberg
| First-time claims for jobless benefits rose last week from an almost
three-year low.
National
/ World
Saudi police
open fire on demonstrators MSNBC.com | Word of the protest
helped drive oil prices back up on international markets.
Drudgereport : SARKOZY,
CAMERON TAKE CHARGE ON LIBYA...
HILLARY:
U.S. should wait for world to act...
Top
U.S. Spy: GADHAFI WILL PREVAIL...
LIBYA
BURNS AS NATO SQUABBLES
Ill.
Gov. Slaps Tax on Internet Sales...
Targets
AMAZON...
Major
ad firm threatens to leave state...
Part
of growing battle in cash-starved states...
OBAMA:
I was bullied…[Maybe that accounts for his precarious mental state and
compulsive need to b*** s***… he’s so pathetic!]...
Michelle
Obama Sports $1,000 Handbag… (the wobamas are such jive-tallkers) ...
Gang
Rape of 11-Year-Old Girl Sparks Racial Tensions in Texas Town…[ People are
tired of soft-peddling and making up excuses for blacks panthers as with the
holder department of injustice…This is very commonplace in Sub-Saharan Africa.
]...
Gas
Prices Up 67% Since Obama President...
Elite
journalist club bans CSPAN from covering Obama at posh dinner...
Jesse
Jackson: We're 'Going To Escalate The Protests'...
Wisc.
lawmakers curb public worker bargaining power...
Pandemonium
in Wisc as protesters storm Capitol over union vote...
[ Wis.
Senate strips workers' bargaining rights Vote
by Republicans bypasses chamber's missing Democrats (Washington
Post) [ Drudgereport: Drudge is reporting, and I think Charlie Sheen would
agree, that in Wisconsin, the GOP is … duh … winning … and conversely, the dems
/ unions are … duh … losers, trolls, etc… just kidding …]
World's
biggest bond fund dumps all U.S. debt...
WI
GOP pushes through union bill...
'ENOUGH
IS ENOUGH'...
Gov.
Walker applauds...
DEMS
SCRAMBLE BACK...
SHOCK:
82% of US schools 'failing'...
Gasoline
cost to jump $700 for avg household...
Libya
Tanks Move In To Crush Rebel Stronghold...
Carnage
in Rebel City...
FOOTAGE:
Libyan war plane shot down...
Obama,
Cameron discuss plan of action...
Hoyer:
No Balanced Budget for 15-20 Years 'We've Dug Such a Deep Hole'...
FLASHBACK:
Larger Than Entire 2007 Deficit...
Treasury
Draws Down Cash Balance...
FEBRUARY DEFICIT: $223 BILLION
FRESHMAN
DEM. SENATOR: OBAMA HAS 'FAILED TO LEAD'...
Mayors to
Unions: 'Dire fiscal straits' without 'dramatic' changes...
Anger
Brews Over Government Workers' Benefits...
UNREST
IN THE MIDWEST: Now Michigan...
WELFARE
NATION: ONE-THIRD OF ALL WAGES ARE HANDOUTS...
ROMNEY:
Obama Misery Index hits record high...
OPEC
VOWS NEW PUMPING...
OIL HOLDS
NEAR $105...
Roubini:
Will Hit $150...
Sheen:
'I'm really starting to lose my mind'... ‘In what appears to be a 180
degree turn around from his daily proclamations of having “tiger’s blood” and
“Adonis DNA,” Charlie Sheen admitted “I’m really starting to lose my mind” in
the new issue of “Life & Style.”
Taxpayers
caught in middle of Fannie lawsuit (Washington
Post) What could be worse than taxpayers paying more than $100 million to
defend a shareholder-owned company and its former executives in a private
lawsuit? [ What could be worse? Not prosecuting the massive wall street
frauds in the trillions with jail, fines, and disgorgement the goal.…. Top
Economists: Trust is Necessary for a Stable Economy … But Trust Won’t Be
Restored Until We Prosecute Wall Street Fraud Most policy makers still
don’t understand the urgent need to restore trust in our financial system, or
the need to prosecute Wall Street executives for fraud and other criminal
wrongdoing ….. 'Gang
of 6' takes deficit fight to public (Washington Post) [ Riiiight! I like that term, gang, as applied
to capital hill. Indeed, without exaggeration or sarcasm I posit the realistic
existence of government mob, relative to other mob designations as ie., mafia,
irish mob, jewish mob, etc., based not on what they say they do but on what
they actually do. That now corrupted supreme court of old’s test for obscenity;
viz., ‘you know it when you see it’. And, haven’t we been seeing it for quite
some time now; the corruption, the corruptibility, the lobbyists, the military
industrial complex, the look the other way for the massive frauds on wall street,
the bribes in one form or another before or after the fact? The ‘gangs’ should
be shouldering the burden first, then come asking those who foolishly trusted
them. Why
Social Security is welfare (Washington
Post) [ What does it matter what you call it? Part of america’s defacto
bankruptcy? Most assuredly (I haven’t even looked at the Bloomberg propaganda
piece which by its very title is an insult to intelligence; after all, we all
know they can continue to print evermore worthless fiat currency which in
reality does not change the ultimate reality of america’s defacto bankruptcy
but merely exacerbates while forestalling a realistic assessment of the
magnitude of the crisis. The fact is that there are others, culpable in
creating this crisis who should be shouldering the burden first; ie., frauds on
wall street via prosecution, fines, disgorgement; Ellen Bente Oliver
‘Salary
of House/Senate...$174,000. Salary of Speaker of House...$223,500. Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders...$193,400. Average US Salary...$33,000 to $77,000.
Maybe our elected officials should make an average salary too...It's a time of
sacrifice after all...Pass along, post on your own page if you agree…’ ; SEC
on the hot seat (Washington Post) [ Oooooh! The capital hill hot seat …
shilling for no more than a grilling. House
Republicans press SEC on official's ties to Madoff (Washington Post) [ The
ultimate subterfuge. Mr. small potatoes madoff the focus of so much influence …
yet he’s in jail … and the only one … Boy, did mary shapiro become total b***
s*** fast … the current shibboleth of
capital hill / all 3 branches of pervasively corrupt u.s. government …
joining the others: “The
Financial Industry Has Become So Politically Powerful That It Is Able To
Inhibit the Normal Process of Justice And Law Enforcement” The economy
cannot stabilize unless fraud is prosecuted. But the folks in D.C. seem
determined to turn a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans, and is now moving to
defund the enforcement agencies like the SEC and CFTC. Market Crash 2011: It Will Hit by Christmas Farrell,
MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.
(MarketWatch) — ‘Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re
not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn
scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff,
get rich…’ Financialization
and Our Increasingly Unstable Economy Roche ‘I finally got around to seeing
the movie Inside Job, the story behind the credit crisis and winner of the
Academy Award for best documentary. It’s very good and I highly recommend it to
anyone who hasn’t seen it. It will certainly infuriate you. The movie doesn’t
place nearly enough blame on homeowners, but all in all it does an excellent
job of showing how Wall Street and government have become overrun by
deregulation and sheer greed. A combination of flawed economic theory and greed
have combined to create the beast that we now call a “functioning” economy. The
worst part of it all is that President Obama, who vowed change, has done almost
nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues most of the policies that helped
get us here in the first place. …’ ‘INSIDE
JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant
fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and declares with
oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been prosecuted …
despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator / experts
recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder and
wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. ) (see this film, I strongly recommend the
complete documentary – the following is a preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
Wis.
Senate strips workers' bargaining rights Vote
by Republicans bypasses chamber's missing Democrats (Washington
Post) [ Drudgereport: Drudge is reporting, and I think Charlie Sheen would
agree, that in Wisconsin, the GOP is … duh … winning … and conversely, the dems
/ unions are … duh … losers, trolls, etc… just kidding …
Drudgereport: World's
biggest bond fund dumps all U.S. debt...
WI
GOP pushes through union bill...
'ENOUGH
IS ENOUGH'...
Gov.
Walker applauds...
DEMS
SCRAMBLE BACK...
SHOCK:
82% of US schools 'failing'...
Gasoline
cost to jump $700 for avg household...
Libya
Tanks Move In To Crush Rebel Stronghold...
Carnage
in Rebel City...
FOOTAGE:
Libyan war plane shot down...
Obama,
Cameron discuss plan of action...
Hoyer:
No Balanced Budget for 15-20 Years 'We've Dug Such a Deep Hole'...
FLASHBACK:
Larger Than Entire 2007 Deficit...
Treasury
Draws Down Cash Balance...
FEBRUARY DEFICIT: $223 BILLION
FRESHMAN
DEM. SENATOR: OBAMA HAS 'FAILED TO LEAD'...
Mayors to
Unions: 'Dire fiscal straits' without 'dramatic' changes...
Anger
Brews Over Government Workers' Benefits...
UNREST
IN THE MIDWEST: Now Michigan...
WELFARE
NATION: ONE-THIRD OF ALL WAGES ARE HANDOUTS...
ROMNEY:
Obama Misery Index hits record high...
OPEC
VOWS NEW PUMPING...
OIL HOLDS
NEAR $105...
Roubini:
Will Hit $150...
Sheen:
'I'm really starting to lose my mind'... ‘In what appears to be a 180
degree turn around from his daily proclamations of having “tiger’s blood” and
“Adonis DNA,” Charlie Sheen admitted “I’m really starting to lose my mind” in
the new issue of “Life & Style.” The recently fired “Two and a Half Men”
star also reveals his desperation to regain custody of his two young twin sons,
Bob and Max.
ARTICLE: Charlie Sheen Attacks Jon Cryer.
“She can’t keep them from me,” Sheen says of his estranged
wife, Brooke Mueller. “I won’t let her—I’ll do anything to get them
back.”Sheen, 45, who has made four disturbing live web broadcasts from his
compound in Sherman Oaks, CA, admits that even his lawyer, Marty Singer, has
expressed concern about him.
PHOTOS: Charlie Sheen's Long List of Lady Friends.
“My lawyer wants to come over to my house and take the
bullets out of my gun," he told the magazine.A party pal of Charlie’s
tells the magazine, "It's crazy over here at the house—Charlie's losing
it. He's really mad about the show, and dealing with the kids and Brooke is
getting to be too much. Charlie is a ticking time bomb, and we all fear he
could do something drastic like committing suicide or falling back on hard
drugs."
ARTICLE: 'Tiger Blood' Drink Goes On Sale.
Sheen, who appeared on a Beverly Hills rooftop Monday,
brandishing a machete, realizes that his bizarre behavior has many
concerned."I'm really trying to contain myself right now," he said.
ARTICLE: 'Men' Co-Star Is Sheen's Lone Defender.
If that's true, he's not doing a good a job of it, because
Sheen widened his list of targets to include his former "Two and a Half
Men" co-star, Jon Cryer, on Tuesday.Cryer had managed to stay out of the
fray during Sheen's fall from grace at CBS, but his luck ran out.
ARTICLE: Can 'Two and a Half Men' Survive? Just Ask 'Three's
Company.'
"Jon has not called me. He's a turncoat, a traitor, a
troll. Clearly he's a troll," Sheen told E! News. "He issued a
statement. Is it gonna take me calling him a 'traitor, juvenile and scared' for
him to get it?"Cryer has actually not issued an official statement since
Sheen was fired from the hit CBS sitcom “Two-And-A-Half Men” on Monday. But he
may want to issue one now, because Sheen has not stopped ranting about his
enemies since his dismissal, and once you are on his crosshairs, it seems you
never escape.
ARTICLE: Sheen's Kids Could Be Next on Reality Show.
Tuesday night was the latest case in point, as Sheen blasted
his list of hated CBS executives one by one with yet another nonsensical,
barely decipherable scripted screed on Ustream. "A high treason has
occurred. The scales of justice are in a state of radical disarray. Together we
must right this infantile wrong… What happened yesterday was completely and
entirely illegal, unconscionable and to quote my lawyer 'really shi**y shi**y
suck suck'," Sheen, the self-proclaimed “Malibu Messiah,” said before
launching into a strange diatribe in his fourth "Sheen's Korner"
webcast, in which he saved his most savage attacks for producer Chuck Lorre –
calling him everything from a “silly clown,” to “little worm” and “loser.”
Gaddafi forces engage in fierce battle Regime
loyalists in Libya mount assaults to reclaim ground (Washington
Post) [ 41 years in power … Hey, when interviewed by Charlie Sheen on SNL he
seemed rather spry …
Sheen's-Korner, Ustream.TV
You're either in Sheen's-Korner or you're with the trolls... [and the big question is which trolls … the
pat_trolls, the con_trolls, the troll_eys, the troll_ups, etc.? ] http://www.ustream.tv/charliesheen Archived Web Site File: http://www.albertpeia.com/Sheen's-Korner,Ustream.TVYou'reeitherinSheen's-Korneroryou'rewiththetrolls.flv (448mb)
(for whatever reason, this file did not open properly in my somewhat
older player and I didn’t have time to download another to determine if the
problem is with the viewer or the file, but will, and will indicate the result
here. )
Here’s SNL’s take on the Sheen webcast
[ This was the first time I’d seen Miley Cyrus in anything and I must
say she is truly a star, albeit a very precocious one; this SNL was absolutely
hilarious across the board! ]
http://www.saturday-night-live.com
Part of the webcast: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIx4_t26AAs
With neither side able to muster overwhelming
force, the result appeared to be a bloody stalemate, with the death tolls
rising in both east and west.Intense international deliberations come as troops
loyal to Gaddafi continue to besiege the rebel-held city of Zawiyah, 27 miles
west of Tripoli.] The vote comes after a maneuver by GOP members that split the
proposal to curtail union rights from legislation requiring a quorum.
Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many
important global stock markets, including China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong,
have been in fairly significant corrections since November, down between 12%
and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising inflation and the resulting
monetary tightening by their central banks to combat the inflationary
pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious
correction? The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the
stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more downside risk?
It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the
next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’
BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows Blodget ‘Investors have gotten wildly bullish of late, as the bull
market that started in early 2009 keeps driving stocks to new highs. But the
pigs are about to get slaughtered, says Bob Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International and
editor of the Elliott Wave Theorist. Prechter still thinks the new bull market
is just a cyclical "retracement" of some of the bear market losses
that we've had since the market crashed in 2008. Prechter expected this
retracement to drive stocks 50% above the market lows, but stocks have since
soared 30% higher than than he expected. So when the day of reckoning
comes, Prechter thinks, it will be even more startling. And Prechter
still thinks that stocks will eventually crash to new bear-market lows (read:
below 6,800 on the DOW). What makes Prechter think this day of reckoning may
come sooner rather than later? Sentiment indicators and
other technical analysis. Investor bullishness has
now gotten so extreme, Prechter says, that it has exceeded the levels in 2008
before the market crashed. Investors could still get even more bullish,
of course, but eventually they'll pay for this optimism. And Prechter's not just bearish on stocks: He thinks oil,
silver, and other commodities are absurdly overvalued, too. The only
thing he's bullish on is the dollar. And lest he be dismissed as a perma-bear,
Bob Prechter is quick to add that he hopes there will come a day when he can
come on the show and tell everyone that stocks are finally so crushed and hated
that it's a historic opportunity to buy them. When will that be? Stay
tuned...’ The
Case for a Bear Market for Stocks Suttmeier ‘In making a bearish call on
the U.S. stock market, I base it on both fundamental and technical factors. The
fundamentals show that stocks are overvalued and we have had three ValuEngine
Valuation Warnings so far this year. The January warning was ignored by the
market but so far stocks peaked with the warning issued on February 18 and
re-iterated on March 3. During this period we have seen many days where all 16
sectors have been overvalued, with eight to 11 by double-digit percentages. Today
63.8% of all stocks are overvalued, and all 16 sectors are overvalued, 11 by
double-digit percentages…’
Ellen Bente Oliver ‘Salary of
House/Senate...$174,000. Salary of Speaker of House...$223,500. Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders...$193,400. Average US Salary...$33,000 to $77,000.
Maybe our elected officials should make an average salary too...It's a time of
sacrifice after all...Pass along, post on your own page if you agree…’
World's
richest are almost $1 trillion richer [ And the other 95% trillions poorer.
]
Utilities Are Warning the Correction Is Here Gayed ‘The utilities sector (IDU) may not be the most
fascinating sector of the market to watch, but in many ways can be one of the
most important. Legendary technical analyst Edson Gould, known for being one of
the best market timers of all time, believed that the performance of utilities
was an early indicator for broad market movements. He noted often times that
when utilities performed exceptionally well, within a short period of time,
markets would experience a period of volatility and declining prices.
The theory
behind utilities' performance as it relates to the S&P 500 (IVV)
does have a logic behind it. Because utility companies in general are local
monopolies which have high infrastructure costs, most tend to have high levels
of debt and are thus especially sensitive to intermediate/long-term interest
rates. Growth in revenue is not the primary source of profits, but rather costs
are.
What this
means is that fundamental investors in utilities would really put money to work
in the sector if they expected interest rates to fall, because that lowered
cost of capital would benefit profits in a substantial way. Thus, the
outperformance of utilities against the broader market is because of
expectation that interest rates fall (the yield curve flattens).
So while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA), the S&P 500 (IVV),
and particularly the Russell 2000 (IWM) have all gone effectively
nowhere in price with high volatility, the utilities sector has consistenly
been up more/down less on those big up and big down days we've been
experiencing. Take a look below at the price ratio of utilities (IDU) to the Dow (DIA). As a reminder, a rising
price ratio means the numerator/IDU is outperforming (up more/down less) the
denominator.
Click to
enlarge:
The message from utilties investors is clear: Expect lower long interest rates in the near future. And since interest rates and the yield curve are a leading indicator of the economy and the broad stock market, we may very well be in the early stages of a correction.’
Market Thrill Ride Continues: Dave's Daily ‘Within most thrill rides there can be a pause before the next
level of excitement whether it's a climb or hitting the next big drop. Markets
Wednesday ran out of steam despite ongoing MENA [Middle East and North Africa]
violence and oil disruptions. Crude oil was fractionally lower due to an
inventory build but that's really old news. Iraqi production was rumored as
halted and Libyan oil is not flowing. Tech remains weak especially after
disasters for fiber optic leaders
like FNSR, CIEN and JDSU. Also semi's remained down and SMH broke its 50 day
MA. The Fed wasn't idle as more POMO
was released to Da Boyz who didn't do much with it...yet. As an aside our
contractor stopped by today and was bemoaning gas prices. His wife
works for a local Ford dealer and they had a huge January but now sales have
stopped. Such is the impact of higher fuel prices. Volume came in about average
on the day while breadth per the WSJ was mixed to negative.’
STOCKS
SLIDE, TECH HAMMERED, COPPER CRUSHED: Here's What You Need To Know
‘Yesterday was up, so today was down. That's the way this market is behaving
right now.
But first, the
scoreboard:
Dow:
-0.38
NASDAQ: -14.73
S&P 500: -1.63
And now, the
top stories:
The
Case for a Bear Market for Stocks Suttmeier ‘In making a bearish call on
the U.S. stock market, I base it on both fundamental and technical factors. The
fundamentals show that stocks are overvalued and we have had three ValuEngine
Valuation Warnings so far this year. The January warning was ignored by the market
but so far stocks peaked with the warning issued on February 18 and re-iterated
on March 3. During this period we have seen many days where all 16 sectors have
been overvalued, with eight to 11 by double-digit percentages. Today 63.8%
of all stocks are overvalued, and all 16 sectors are overvalued, 11 by
double-digit percentages.
ValuEngine
provides valuation, forecast, and ratings data for a universe of more than
5,500 stocks. When more than 65% of all stocks are calculated to be overvalued,
we issue a ValuEngine Valuation Warning. We do this because in the past this
level of overvaluation has often been correlated with market corrections and
downturns. Conversely when more than 65% of all stocks are undervalued
additional weakness provides buying opportunities. On March 5, 2009 the
percentage of undervalued stocks reached 91%.
The
technical factors ignore the daily charts as timing a cycle high requires
confirmation from the weekly charts and having risky levels from my proprietary
analytics to judge how high markets can go before they top out. Right now the
major averages are stuck in want I call the "Libya Trading Ranges,"
which are the February 18 highs down to the February 24 lows. The weekly chart
profiles are positive, but overbought for all major averages except Dow
Transports. To confirm a cycle high, all major averages must have weekly closes
below their five-week modified moving averages with weekly 12x3x3 weekly slow
stochastic readings declining below 8.0 on a scale of zero to 10.0.
This
dynamic is being delayed as the major equity averages straddle their 50-day
simple moving averages. The Dow Industrial Average and S&P 500 have been
above their 50-day since December 1. They're now at 11,967 Dow and 1298.81
S&P 500. The NASDAQ and NASDAQ 100 have tested their 50-day several times
since February 23, six days for the NASDAQ with the 50-day now at 2742.35 and
four days for the NASDAQ 100 with the 50-day now at 2314.18. The Russell 2000
tested and held its 50-day on February 22 and February 23 and today the 50-day
is 802.42. The Philadelphia Semiconductor index tested and held its 50-day the
past two days at 444.47 and has been above the 50-day since September 24. Dow
Transports has been below its 50-day since February 22 and has been tested as
resistance twice, and closed above 5111 yesterday. A weekly close above the
five-week shifts Transports to neutral delaying the market top.
Key
Levels for the Major Equity Averages
The
trading strategy in this environment is what I have been calling "Buy and
Trade," where you buy weakness to a value level and sell strength to a
risky level. Here are the guidelines.
Buy
and Trade Strategies for Long Positions
Buy
and Trade Strategies for Short Positions
10-Year
Note – (3.542) Weekly, annual, and
semiannual value levels are 3.642, 3.796 and 4.268 with a daily pivot at 3.523,
and monthly, annual, and semiannual risky levels at, 3.002, 2.690 and 2.441.
Comex
Gold – ($1429.0) Weekly, annual,
quarterly, semiannual and annual value levels are $1385.4, $1356.5, $1331.3,
$1300.6 and $1187.2 with monthly and quarterly pivots at $1437.7 and $1441.7,
and daily and semiannual risky levels at $1450.1 and $1452.6.
Nymex
Crude Oil – ($104.78) Weekly,
monthly and semiannual value levels are $97.78, $96.43, and $87.52 with my
annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92, and semiannual, daily and quarterly risky
levels are $107.14, $107.71 and $110.87.
The Euro – (1.3900) My quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a daily pivot
at 1.3953, and weekly, semiannual and monthly risky levels at 1.4446, 1.4624
and 1.4637.
Daily
Dow: (12,214)Annual, quarterly,
semiannual, and semiannual value levels are 11,491, 11,395, 10,959, and 9,449
with daily, weekly, monthly and annual risky levels at 12,249, 12,484, 12,741
and 13,890.’
Stocks End Lower After Mixed Session Midnight Trader ‘4:26 PM, Mar 9, 2011 --
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
UPSIDE MOVERS
(-) RIG gets favorable analyst coverage.
(+) COOL continues evening gain that followed results.
(+) AVAV continues evening gain that followed results.
(+) CRDN boosts guidance.
(+) BLT beats with Q4 results.
(-) VELT gets favorable analyst coverage.
(+) AEZS inks Japan deal.
(+) HERO beats with results.
(+) STP continues gain Tuesday that followed improved quarter.
(+) AEO results top year-ago period; CEO to retire.
(+) PLCE issues mixed results, guides below Street, sets buyback.
DOWNSIDE MOVERS
(-) FNSR warns for Q4.
(-) JDSU follows FNSR after warning.
(-) ALU follows FNSR after warning.
(-) OCLR follows FNSR after warning.
(-) CIEN follows FNSR after warning, own results Tuesday.
(-) EPB selling shares.
(-) DYN warns of possible bankruptcy.
(-) POT downgraded.
MARKET DIRECTION
Stocks closed just in the negative following a mixed session. Investors gauged
continuing conflict in the Middle East and North Africa along with worrisome
outlooks from the tech sector and data that showed a rise in wholesale
inventories that topped expectations.
Crude oil futures closed lower after a government report showed a
larger-than-expected 2.5 million-barrel increase in weekly U.S. oil
inventories. April crude fell 64 cents to end at $104.38 a barrel on the New
York Mercantile Exchange.
Still, gasoline futures finished higher as the data also revealed a 5.5
million-barrel decline in supplies of the fuel. April gasoline tacked on 8
cents, or 2.7%, to close at $3.027 a gallon.
Libyan forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi surrounded rebels in the western city of
Zawiyah with tanks and snipers in the main square, witnesses said, according to
news reports.
Adding to concerns about the global economy, the Portuguese government's
two-year cost of borrowing hit the highest level since it joined the euro in a
bond auction on Wednesday, and an official said yields were unsustainable in
the long run without Europe-wide action, the AP reported.
A report showed U.S. wholesale inventories increased more-than-expected, rising
1.1% to a seasonally-adjusted $436.88 billion in January. That is the highest
level since November 2008. Economists had expected a 0.9% increase.
Shares of Finisar (FNSR) tumbled as did ADRs of Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), shares
of Ciena (CIEN),
Oclaro (OCLR)
and JDS Uniphase (JDSU), all in the wake of a worrisome outlook from
Finisar.
Shares of Texas Instruments (TXN) fell after it said it expects Q1
revenue in the range of $3.34 to $3.48 bln, within its previous guidance range
of $3.27 to $3.55 bln and in line to just below the Street view. EPS are seen
in the range of $0.56 to $0.60 per share, vs. previous expectations of $0.54 to
$0.62 per share and the Street view of $0.59 per share.
In company news:
ING Groep (ING)
is preparing to sell its U.S. online-banking division in a move to meet
European Union conditions for the bank's bailout, Bloomberg reports. A
spokesman for the Amsterdam-based bank said "we agreed with the European
Commission to sell ING Direct USA before 2013, as well as our insurance and
investment management operations."
Walgreen (WAG)
says it will sell its pharmacy benefit management business, Walgreens Health
Initiatives, Inc, to Catalyst Health Solutions, Inc. (CHSI) for $525 million in cash. The
transaction is expected to close by the end of June. Walgreen will provide
certain services to CHSI after closing to facilitate a smooth transition for
existing customers and patients.
Dynegy (DYN)
is down after the company said in an SEC filing it may be forced to file for
bankruptcy protection, according to a Marketwatch report. The company said it
may not be able to comply with debt payments by Q3 or Q4 of this year, the
report said.
Shares of Merck (MRK) are higher after the drug maker said that
the new drug application for SAFLUTAN (tafluprost), its investigational
preservative-free prostaglandin analogue ophthalmic solution, has been accepted
for standard review by the FDA. According to the company, it submitted an NDA
to support the proposed use of SAFLUTAN for the reduction of elevated
intraocular pressure (IOP) in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma or
ocular hypertension.
BP (BP) is down
even as oil trades above $105 a barrel, after Chief Executive Bob Dudley
apologized for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill during a major oil industry
conference. Dudley assured the audience BP is working to prevent a recurrence
of last year's Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill that killed 11 workers
and led to a ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf. He said BP already has
stopped production at two platforms and closed a pipeline to address
maintenance issues, according to the AP.
In earnings news:
-The Children's Place (PLCE) reports Q4 sales of
$453.2 mln, below the analyst consensus of $467 mln on Thomson Reuters.
Adjusted EPS was $1.22 per share, vs. estimates of $1.01 per share. The company
also announced its board authorized a new share repurchase program in the
amount of $100 million.
-Shares of Boston Beer Co. (SAM) are sharply lower after the beer maker
reported yesterday that Q4 EPS of $0.87 compared to $0.52 a year earlier but
below the Street view for $0.90. Revenue improved to $126.3 million, up from $117.5
million. The Street was at $118.5 million. The company guides for FY EPS at
$3.45 to $3.95, straddling the Street view for $3.51.
-TICC Capital (TICC) falls after it says it had net
investment income of $0.24 per share in Q4, below the Thomson Reuters mean for
a quarter.
-The Bon-Ton Stores (BONT) rises after it says Q4 sales were $1.01 billion,
just below the Thomson Reuters mean for $1.02 billion. Net income was $4.41 per
share. The Thomson Reuters mean, usually less items, was $4.30. 2011 EPS are
seen between $1.00 to $1.50.’
The
American Dream
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
If you are not aware of how rapidly the
global economic situation is unraveling you need to snap out of it and start
paying attention. The world economy was relatively stable in 2010, but
here in 2011 things are deteriorating very quickly. Right now there is
major civil unrest in at least a dozen different nations in Africa and the
Middle East. The civil war going on in Libya has sent the price of oil
skyrocketing and the protests that are scheduled to begin in Saudi Arabia later
this month could send oil prices even higher. Meanwhile, the sovereign
debt crisis in Europe just seems to get worse by the day. Several nations
in Europe are suddenly finding that it has become extremely expensive to
finance more debt. It appears that it will only be a matter of time
before more bailouts are needed. Meanwhile, the United States is also
covered in a sea of red ink and the economic situation in the largest economy
on earth continues to deteriorate rapidly. It is as if the entire world
financial system has caught a virus that it just can’t shake, and now it looks
like another massive wave of financial disaster could be about to strike.
Does the global economy have enough strength to weather a major oil crisis in
2011? How much debt can the largest nations in North America and Europe
take on before the entire system collapses under the weight? Will 2011 be
a repeat of 2008 or are we going to be able to get through the rest of the year
okay? Only time will tell.
But it is quickly becoming clear that we are
reaching a tipping point. If the price of oil keeps going up, all hopes
for any kind of an “economic recovery” will be completely wiped out. But
if the globe does experience another economic slowdown, it could potentially
turn the simmering sovereign debt crisis into an absolute nightmare. The
U.S. and most nations in Europe are having a very difficult time servicing
their debts and they desperately need tax revenues to increase. If
another major economic downturn causes tax revenues to go down again it could
unleash absolute chaos on world financial markets.
The global economy is more interconnected
than ever, and so a major crisis in one area of the world can have a cascading
effect on the rest of the globe. Just as we saw back in 2008, if
financial disaster strikes nobody is going to escape completely unscathed.
So what should we expect for the rest of
2011? Well, the truth is that it doesn’t look good. The following
are 21 signs of impending doom for the 2011 economy….
#1 The civil war in Libya now looks like it could drag on
for an extended period of time, and that is likely to drive the global price of
oil even higher.
#2 Barack Obama is publicly saying that NATO is now
considering “potential military options”
for solving the crisis in Libya.
#3 Kuwait exports more oil than Libya does, and it
looks like the civil unrest that has been sweeping the rest of the Middle East is now
starting to spread to that country.
#4 In Saudi Arabia, protest groups are planning a “Day of Rage” on March 11th. If a
revolution breaks out in that nation the entire global economy is going to be
thrown into turmoil.
#5 The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the
United States increased by 33 cents during the two-week
period that ended last Friday.
#6 According to the Oil Price Information Service, U.S.
drivers spent an average of $347 on gasoline
during the month of February, which was 30 percent more than a year earlier.
#7 It is being reported that the average price of a
gallon of gasoline in Europe has hit an all-time record of $8.63 a gallon.
#8 Ivory Coast produces nearly 40 percent of all the
cocoa in the world and protests against the government there are becoming
increasingly violent. If this violence continues to escalate you will
soon be paying a lot more for chocolate.
#9 The yield on 10-year Portuguese bonds has increased to 7.6%.
#10 The yield on 10-year Irish bonds has soared to 8.1%.
#11 The yield on 10-year Greek bonds has skyrocketed to a whopping 12.8%.
#12 Moody’s Investors Service has reduced the rating of
Greek government debt three levels all the way down to B1.
#13 According to the United Nations, the global price of
food set another brand new
record high during the month of February. That was the 8th month in a
row that global food prices have gone up.
#14 According to the World Bank, global food prices have soared 29% over the last 12
months.
#15 The United Nations is projecting that the global
price of food will increase by
another 30 percent by the end of 2011.
#16 23 percent of all residential properties with a
mortgage in the U.S. were in negative equity as
of the end of 2010.
#17 In the state of Nevada, approximately 65 percent
of all homeowners with a mortgage owe more on their mortgages than their homes
are worth.
#18 Two years ago, the average U.S. homeowner that was
being foreclosed upon had not made a mortgage payment in 11 months.
Today, the average U.S. homeowner that is being foreclosed upon has not made a
mortgage payment in 17 months.
#19 Since 2005, the United States has shelled out 1.1 trillion dollars for
products from China but China has only spent 272 billion dollars on products
from the United States. This trade imbalance is causing the global
financial system to become increasingly unstable.
#20 Collectively, the 50 U.S. state governments are
facing a budget shortfall of
125 billion dollars for fiscal 2012.
#21 The U.S. government had a budget deficit of 233 billion dollars
during the month of February, which was the largest federal budget deficit ever
recorded for a single month.
We are living in the middle of the biggest
debt bubble in the history of the world…’
Faber:
Oil will go up ‘ballistically’ if unrest shifts to Saudi Arabia Business
Intelligence Middle East | Marc Faber sees oil prices extending their
bull run despite the 15% run-up this year alone.
Oil hovers around $105 CNNMoney.com
| The benchmark U.S. oil contract was up 35 cents to $105.37 a barrel for April
delivery.
Bank
Economist Warns of ‘Food Price Riots in the UK’ SkyNews |
A senior economist at the worldwide bank HSBC has warned of civil unrest in
Britain if food prices continue to soar.
National / World
Kansas House
Panel Endorses Pension Cuts KMBC.com | The bill is likely to draw opposition from public employees’ and
retirees’ groups.
FEATURED
INFOWARS STORIES ARCHIVE
Drudgereport: World's
biggest bond fund dumps all U.S. debt...
WI
GOP pushes through union bill...
'ENOUGH
IS ENOUGH'...
Gov.
Walker applauds...
DEMS
SCRAMBLE BACK...
SHOCK:
82% of US schools 'failing'...
Gasoline
cost to jump $700 for avg household...
Libya
Tanks Move In To Crush Rebel Stronghold...
Carnage
in Rebel City...
FOOTAGE:
Libyan war plane shot down...
Obama,
Cameron discuss plan of action...
Hoyer:
No Balanced Budget for 15-20 Years 'We've Dug Such a Deep Hole'...
FLASHBACK:
Larger Than Entire 2007 Deficit...
Treasury
Draws Down Cash Balance...
FEBRUARY DEFICIT: $223 BILLION
FRESHMAN
DEM. SENATOR: OBAMA HAS 'FAILED TO LEAD'...
Mayors to
Unions: 'Dire fiscal straits' without 'dramatic' changes...
Anger
Brews Over Government Workers' Benefits...
UNREST
IN THE MIDWEST: Now Michigan...
WELFARE
NATION: ONE-THIRD OF ALL WAGES ARE HANDOUTS...
ROMNEY:
Obama Misery Index hits record high...
OPEC
VOWS NEW PUMPING...
OIL HOLDS
NEAR $105...
Roubini:
Will Hit $150...
Sheen:
'I'm really starting to lose my mind'... ‘In what appears to be a 180
degree turn around from his daily proclamations of having “tiger’s blood” and
“Adonis DNA,” Charlie Sheen admitted “I’m really starting to lose my mind” in
the new issue of “Life & Style.” The recently fired “Two and a Half Men”
star also reveals his desperation to regain custody of his two young twin sons,
Bob and Max.
ARTICLE: Charlie Sheen Attacks Jon Cryer.
“She can’t keep them from me,” Sheen says of his estranged
wife, Brooke Mueller. “I won’t let her—I’ll do anything to get them
back.”Sheen, 45, who has made four disturbing live web broadcasts from his
compound in Sherman Oaks, CA, admits that even his lawyer, Marty Singer, has
expressed concern about him.
PHOTOS: Charlie Sheen's Long List of Lady Friends.
“My lawyer wants to come over to my house and take the
bullets out of my gun," he told the magazine.A party pal of Charlie’s
tells the magazine, "It's crazy over here at the house—Charlie's losing
it. He's really mad about the show, and dealing with the kids and Brooke is
getting to be too much. Charlie is a ticking time bomb, and we all fear he
could do something drastic like committing suicide or falling back on hard
drugs."
ARTICLE: 'Tiger Blood' Drink Goes On Sale.
Sheen, who appeared on a Beverly Hills rooftop Monday,
brandishing a machete, realizes that his bizarre behavior has many
concerned."I'm really trying to contain myself right now," he said.
ARTICLE: 'Men' Co-Star Is Sheen's Lone Defender.
If that's true, he's not doing a good a job of it, because
Sheen widened his list of targets to include his former "Two and a Half
Men" co-star, Jon Cryer, on Tuesday.Cryer had managed to stay out of the
fray during Sheen's fall from grace at CBS, but his luck ran out.
ARTICLE: Can 'Two and a Half Men' Survive? Just Ask 'Three's
Company.'
"Jon has not called me. He's a turncoat, a traitor, a
troll. Clearly he's a troll," Sheen told E! News. "He issued a
statement. Is it gonna take me calling him a 'traitor, juvenile and scared' for
him to get it?"Cryer has actually not issued an official statement since
Sheen was fired from the hit CBS sitcom “Two-And-A-Half Men” on Monday. But he
may want to issue one now, because Sheen has not stopped ranting about his
enemies since his dismissal, and once you are on his crosshairs, it seems you
never escape.
ARTICLE: Sheen's Kids Could Be Next on Reality Show.
Tuesday night was the latest case in point, as Sheen blasted
his list of hated CBS executives one by one with yet another nonsensical,
barely decipherable scripted screed on Ustream. "A high treason has
occurred. The scales of justice are in a state of radical disarray. Together we
must right this infantile wrong… What happened yesterday was completely and
entirely illegal, unconscionable and to quote my lawyer 'really shi**y shi**y
suck suck'," Sheen, the self-proclaimed “Malibu Messiah,” said before
launching into a strange diatribe in his fourth "Sheen's Korner"
webcast, in which he saved his most savage attacks for producer Chuck Lorre –
calling him everything from a “silly clown,” to “little worm” and “loser.”
Taxpayers
caught in middle of Fannie lawsuit (Washington
Post) What could be worse than taxpayers paying more than $100 million to
defend a shareholder-owned company and its former executives in a private
lawsuit? [ What could be worse? Not prosecuting the massive wall street
frauds in the trillions with jail, fines, and disgorgement the goal.…. Top
Economists: Trust is Necessary for a Stable Economy … But Trust Won’t Be
Restored Until We Prosecute Wall Street Fraud Most policy makers still
don’t understand the urgent need to restore trust in our financial system, or
the need to prosecute Wall Street executives for fraud and other criminal
wrongdoing ….. 'Gang
of 6' takes deficit fight to public (Washington Post) [ Riiiight! I like that term, gang, as applied
to capital hill. Indeed, without exaggeration or sarcasm I posit the realistic
existence of government mob, relative to other mob designations as ie., mafia,
irish mob, jewish mob, etc., based not on what they say they do but on what
they actually do. That now corrupted supreme court of old’s test for obscenity;
viz., ‘you know it when you see it’. And, haven’t we been seeing it for quite
some time now; the corruption, the corruptibility, the lobbyists, the military
industrial complex, the look the other way for the massive frauds on wall
street, the bribes in one form or another before or after the fact? The ‘gangs’
should be shouldering the burden first, then come asking those who foolishly
trusted them. Why
Social Security is welfare (Washington
Post) [ What does it matter what you call it? Part of america’s defacto
bankruptcy? Most assuredly (I haven’t even looked at the Bloomberg propaganda
piece which by its very title is an insult to intelligence; after all, we all
know they can continue to print evermore worthless fiat currency which in
reality does not change the ultimate reality of america’s defacto bankruptcy
but merely exacerbates while forestalling a realistic assessment of the
magnitude of the crisis. The fact is that there are others, culpable in
creating this crisis who should be shouldering the burden first; ie., frauds on
wall street via prosecution, fines, disgorgement; Ellen Bente Oliver
‘Salary
of House/Senate...$174,000. Salary of Speaker of House...$223,500. Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders...$193,400. Average US Salary...$33,000 to $77,000.
Maybe our elected officials should make an average salary too...It's a time of
sacrifice after all...Pass along, post on your own page if you agree…’ ; SEC
on the hot seat (Washington Post) [ Oooooh! The capital hill hot seat …
shilling for no more than a grilling. House
Republicans press SEC on official's ties to Madoff (Washington Post) [ The
ultimate subterfuge. Mr. small potatoes madoff the focus of so much influence …
yet he’s in jail … and the only one … Boy, did mary shapiro become total b***
s*** fast … the current shibboleth of
capital hill / all 3 branches of pervasively corrupt u.s. government …
joining the others: “The
Financial Industry Has Become So Politically Powerful That It Is Able To
Inhibit the Normal Process of Justice And Law Enforcement” The economy cannot
stabilize unless fraud is prosecuted. But the folks in D.C. seem determined to
turn a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans, and is now moving to defund the
enforcement agencies like the SEC and CFTC. Market Crash 2011: It Will Hit by Christmas Farrell,
MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.
(MarketWatch) — ‘Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re
not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn
scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff,
get rich…’ Financialization
and Our Increasingly Unstable Economy Roche ‘I finally got around to seeing
the movie Inside Job, the story behind the credit crisis and winner of the
Academy Award for best documentary. It’s very good and I highly recommend it to
anyone who hasn’t seen it. It will certainly infuriate you. The movie doesn’t
place nearly enough blame on homeowners, but all in all it does an excellent
job of showing how Wall Street and government have become overrun by
deregulation and sheer greed. A combination of flawed economic theory and greed
have combined to create the beast that we now call a “functioning” economy. The
worst part of it all is that President Obama, who vowed change, has done almost
nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues most of the policies that helped
get us here in the first place. …’ ‘INSIDE
JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant
fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and declares with
oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been prosecuted …
despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator / experts recommend
getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder and wobama have in
common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for jive-talking /
b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it something else
…… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. ) (see this film, I strongly recommend the
complete documentary – the following is a preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
Senate
still wrangling over spending bill (Washington
Post) [ Few
signs of compromise on budget details
(Washington
Post) [ Come on … wake up! The cuts they’re quibbling over don’t even cover
interest on the national debt! Timid
Tuesday: Is it Safe? Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are
simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of
global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form
of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh)
is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut
$100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing
to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year).
There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the
people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT
THERE! ‘ ] Senate leaders delayed
until Wednesday consideration of a bill to fund the government through Sept.
U.S., allies weigh operations near Libya Humanitarian
aid delivery, no-fly zone are under consideration (Washington Post) [ Weigh? As on a scale …
of 1 to 10 … we all know how well pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america
and allies are at weigh-ins … weighing … so much so, they’re set to star that
tv program, ‘The Biggest Loser(s)’ … Update:
Drudgereport:
Libya
Tanks Move In To Crush Rebel Stronghold...
Carnage
in Rebel City...
FOOTAGE:
Libyan war plane shot down...
Obama,
Cameron discuss plan of action...
Hoyer:
No Balanced Budget for 15-20 Years 'We've Dug Such a Deep Hole'...
FLASHBACK:
Larger Than Entire 2007 Deficit...
Treasury
Draws Down Cash Balance...
FEBRUARY DEFICIT: $223 BILLION
FRESHMAN
DEM. SENATOR: OBAMA HAS 'FAILED TO LEAD'...
Mayors to
Unions: 'Dire fiscal straits' without 'dramatic' changes...
Anger
Brews Over Government Workers' Benefits...
UNREST
IN THE MIDWEST: Now Michigan...
WELFARE
NATION: ONE-THIRD OF ALL WAGES ARE HANDOUTS...
ROMNEY:
Obama Misery Index hits record high...
OPEC
VOWS NEW PUMPING...
OIL HOLDS NEAR
$105...
Roubini:
Will Hit $150...
SHEEN
SETS 'FINAL' WEBCAST
Gadhafi
Deploys Tanks, Hundreds of Troops in New Assaults...
...Denies
talk he's looking for exit
WITNESSES:
Women and Children Killed...
Libyan
tanks, planes bombard Zawiyah; rebels still hold 'Martyrs' Square'...
Libyan
central bank chief goes missing...
...Loyalty unknown
East-West
military gap 'rapidly shrinking'...
China could match US military power in 10-15 years...
U.K.
Warned of Food Riots...
Ahmadinejad
calls for new world order...
Gaddafi forces engage in fierce battle Regime
loyalists in Libya mount assaults to reclaim ground (Washington
Post) [ 41 years in power … Hey, when interviewed by Charlie Sheen on SNL he
seemed rather spry …
Sheen's-Korner, Ustream.TV
You're either in Sheen's-Korner or you're with the trolls... [and the big question is which trolls … the
pat_trolls, the con_trolls, the troll_eys, the troll_ups, etc.? ] http://www.ustream.tv/charliesheen Archived Web Site File: http://www.albertpeia.com/Sheen's-Korner,Ustream.TVYou'reeitherinSheen's-Korneroryou'rewiththetrolls.flv (448mb)
(for whatever reason, this file did not open properly in my somewhat
older player and I didn’t have time to download another to determine if the
problem is with the viewer or the file, but will, and will indicate the result
here. )
Here’s SNL’s take on the Sheen webcast
[ This was the first time I’d seen Miley Cyrus in anything and I must
say she is truly a star, albeit a very precocious one; this SNL was absolutely
hilarious across the board! ]
http://www.saturday-night-live.com
Part of the webcast: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIx4_t26AAs
] With neither side able to muster overwhelming force, the result appeared to be a bloody stalemate, with the death tolls rising in both east and west.
] Intense international deliberations come
as troops loyal to Gaddafi continue to besiege the rebel-held city of Zawiyah,
27 miles west of Tripoli.
Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many
important global stock markets, including China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong,
have been in fairly significant corrections since November, down between 12%
and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising inflation and the resulting
monetary tightening by their central banks to combat the inflationary
pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious
correction? The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the
stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more downside risk?
It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the
next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’
BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows
Blodget ‘Investors
have gotten wildly bullish of late, as the bull market that started in early
2009 keeps driving stocks to new highs. But the pigs are about to get
slaughtered, says Bob Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International and
editor of the Elliott Wave Theorist. Prechter still thinks the new bull market
is just a cyclical "retracement" of some of the bear market losses
that we've had since the market crashed in 2008. Prechter expected this
retracement to drive stocks 50% above the market lows, but stocks have since
soared 30% higher than than he expected. So when the day of reckoning
comes, Prechter thinks, it will be even more startling. And Prechter
still thinks that stocks will eventually crash to new bear-market lows (read:
below 6,800 on the DOW). What makes Prechter think this day of reckoning may
come sooner rather than later? Sentiment indicators and
other technical analysis. Investor bullishness has
now gotten so extreme, Prechter says, that it has exceeded the levels in 2008
before the market crashed. Investors could still get even more bullish,
of course, but eventually they'll pay for this optimism. And Prechter's not just bearish on stocks: He thinks oil,
silver, and other commodities are absurdly overvalued, too. The only
thing he's bullish on is the dollar. And lest he be dismissed as a perma-bear,
Bob Prechter is quick to add that he hopes there will come a day when he can
come on the show and tell everyone that stocks are finally so crushed and hated
that it's a historic opportunity to buy them. When will that be? Stay
tuned...’
Why
Social Security is welfare (Washington
Post) [ What does it matter what you call it? Part of america’s defacto
bankruptcy? Most assuredly (I haven’t even looked at the Bloomberg propaganda
piece which by its very title is an insult to intelligence; after all, we all
know they can continue to print evermore worthless fiat currency which in
reality does not change the ultimate reality of america’s defacto bankruptcy
but merely exacerbates while forestalling a realistic assessment of the
magnitude of the crisis. The fact is that there are others, culpable in
creating this crisis who should shouldering the burden first; ie., frauds on
wall street via prosecution, fines, disgorgement; Ellen Bente Oliver
‘Salary
of House/Senate...$174,000. Salary of Speaker of House...$223,500. Salary of
Majority/Minority Leaders...$193,400. Average US Salary...$33,000 to $77,000.
Maybe our elected officials should make an average salary too...It's a time of
sacrifice after all...Pass along, post on your own page if you agree…’ ; SEC
on the hot seat (Washington Post) [ Oooooh! The capital hill hot seat …
shilling for no more than a grilling. House
Republicans press SEC on official's ties to Madoff (Washington Post) [ The
ultimate subterfuge. Mr. small potatoes madoff the focus of so much influence …
yet he’s in jail … and the only one … Boy, did mary shapiro become total b***
s*** fast … the current shibboleth of
capital hill / all 3 branches of pervasively corrupt u.s. government …
joining the others: “The
Financial Industry Has Become So Politically Powerful That It Is Able To
Inhibit the Normal Process of Justice And Law Enforcement” The economy
cannot stabilize unless fraud is prosecuted. But the folks in D.C. seem
determined to turn a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans, and is now moving to
defund the enforcement agencies like the SEC and CFTC. Market Crash 2011: It Will Hit by Christmas Farrell,
MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.
(MarketWatch) — ‘Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re
not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn
scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff,
get rich…’ Financialization
and Our Increasingly Unstable Economy Roche ‘I finally got around to seeing
the movie Inside Job, the story behind the credit crisis and winner of the Academy
Award for best documentary. It’s very good and I highly recommend it to anyone
who hasn’t seen it. It will certainly infuriate you. The movie doesn’t place
nearly enough blame on homeowners, but all in all it does an excellent job of
showing how Wall Street and government have become overrun by deregulation and
sheer greed. A combination of flawed economic theory and greed have combined to
create the beast that we now call a “functioning” economy. The worst part of it
all is that President Obama, who vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix
any of it and in fact continues most of the policies that helped get us here in
the first place. …’ ‘INSIDE JOB’
Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant fraud in
the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and declares with oscar in
hand that not one high level wall street exec has been prosecuted … despite
‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator / experts recommend
getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder and wobama have in
common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for jive-talking /
b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it something else
…… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. ) (see this film, I strongly recommend the
complete documentary – the following is a preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To Steal
Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
The Terrible Twos? Let's All Hope Not [ Hoping
doesn’t change reality. Take your gains, sell while you can in this manipulated
bull cycle on debased dollar in this secular bear market. ] Bespoke Investment
Group ‘After falling 22% over the last month and a whopping 57% from its highs
less than a year and a half earlier, the S&P 500 (SPY)
closed the day on March 9th, 2009, at 676.53. Had you asked 100 people that day
where the index would be trading in two years, you likely could have counted on
one hand the number that said higher than 1,300.Tomorrow marks the two-year
anniversary of the current bull market, and the S&P 500 is now trading at
1,324, or 96% above its closing level on 3/9/09. Below is a chart of the
S&P 500 since October 9th, 2007, which is the day that the index made its
all-time high of 1,565.15. The bear market from 10/9/07 to 3/9/09 is
highlighted in red, and the bull market that started on 3/9/09 is highlighted
in green.
(Click charts
to expand)
Below is a
table highlighting the performance of key ETFs across asset classes since the
bull market began on 3/9/09 as well as since 10/9/07 when the S&P 500 made
its all-time high and the prior bear market started. For each asset class, the
best and worst performing ETF is shaded in light red and light green over each
time period.While many ETFs are up more than 100% since the bull market began,
only a handful are up from their 10/9/07 levels. The Nasdaq-100 tracking QQQQ
is one of them with a gain of 8% since 10/9/07. The S&P Midcap 400 ETF (IJH) is also up, along with
the Midcap 400 Growth ETF (IJK) and the Smallcap
600 Growth ETF (IJT). Three sector ETFs are
now above the level they were at when the market made its all-time high on
10/9/07 -- Consumer Discretionary (XLY), Consumer
Staples (XLP), and Energy (XLE).
The Silver trust (SLV) is up the most of all securities
shown since 10/9/07 with a gain of 160.47%, while Gold (GLD)
is up the second most at 90.33%. And all but one (TLT) of the fixed
income ETFs are in the black versus where they were trading when equities hit
their all-time highs.Since 3/9/09, the Russia ETF (RSX)
has been the best performer in the entire table with a gain of 247.54%. The
Smallcap 600 Growth ETF (IJT) has been the best
performing US market index ETF with a gain of 144.78%, while the Financials ETF
(XLF) has been the best performing
sector ETF during the bull market. Unsurprisingly, UNG -- which is supposed to
track natural gas -- has been the worst performer since 3/9/09 with a decline
of 66.69%!
Beware
of the Ides of March Suttmeier ‘The first quarter of 2011 could turn out to
be a multi-year selling opportunity, just as March 2009 was a multi-year buying
opportunity. On March 5, 2009, 91% of all stocks were undervalued and all 11
sectors were undervalued by more than 30%. Wall Street and hence Main Street
missed this golden opportunity to buy stocks. In early March 2009, I made the
call that stocks would rally 40% to 50%. I proved to be too pessimistic. Since
then the Dow Industrial Average (DIA) is up 86.9% with the
S&P 500 (SPY) up 96.4% and the NASDAQ (QQQQ)
up 117.0%. With stocks overvalued and weekly charts overbought with the
exception of Transports now is not the time to increase allocation to stocks,
it’s the time to decrease stock allocations.
The Housing Market was
the first to provide warnings as The Housing Index topped out in July 2005 and
today is 62.0% below that high, with housing currently at risk of renewed
weakness.
The
America’s Community Bankers Index (ABAQ) peaked in December 2006 and today is
49.0% below that high. The FDIC List of Problem Banks rose by 24 in the fourth
quarter to 884 from 860, which is 11.5% of the 7,657 FDIC-insured financial
institutions. When I drill down into the FDIC data I find 2623, or 34.3% of all
community banks overexposed to commercial real estate loans, and 58.5% of all
banks have a real estate loan pipeline that’s 80% or more funded, which is
continued stress.
The
Regional Bankers Index (BKX) peaked in March 2007 and today is 57.2% below that
high. The “too big to fail” banks are bigger and the BKX is down fractionally
so far in 2011. Under Dodd-Frank some of these banks will need to raise
capital, and face heavier FDIC deposit insurance fund assessments beginning in
April.
Total
Assets in the banking system declined $51.8 billion in the 4th quarter 2010
with C&D loans down $32.5 billion. Even so C&D loans still total $321.6
billion with nonfarm, non-residential real estate loans at $1.07 trillion and
problem loans continue to clog bank balance sheets.
ValuEngine
Valuation Warnings on February 18th and March 3rd marked tradable highs for
stocks. To confirm a market top all weekly charts must shift to negative. The
major equity averages remain below their February 18th highs when the Dow
Industrial Average reached 12,391. My proprietary analytics still show weekly
and monthly resistances, to limit the upside even if some of the averages
continue to new highs. Market weakness on Friday and Monday resulted in a
reduction of overvalued stocks to 60.5%, below 65%. We show 15 of 16 sectors
overvalued, six by double-digit percentages.
Key
Levels for the Major Equity Averages
10-Year
Note – (3.514) Weekly, annual, and semiannual value levels are 3.642, 3.796 and
4.268 with daily, monthly, annual and semiannual risky levels are 3.449, 3.002,
2.690, 2.441, and 2.322.
Comex
Gold – ($1433.3) Weekly, annual, quarterly, semiannual and annual value levels
are $1385.4, $1356.5, $1331.3, $1300.6 and $1187.2 with monthly and quarterly
pivots at $1437.7 and $1441.7, and my semiannual risky level at $1452.6.
Nymex
Crude Oil – ($104.92) Weekly, monthly and semiannual value levels are $97.78,
$96.43, and $87.52 with my annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92, and semiannual
and quarterly risky levels are $107.14 and $110.87.
The
Euro – (1.3971) My quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a daily pivot at
1.4001, and weekly, semiannual and monthly risky levels at 1.4446, 1.4624 and
1.4637.
Daily
Dow: (12,090) Annual, quarterly, semiannual, and semiannual value levels are
11,491, 11,395, 10,959, and 9,449 with daily, weekly, monthly and annual risky
levels at 12,152, 12,484, 12,741 and 13,890.’
Now's
the Time to Decrease Stock Allocations
[video]Summer
Bears Will Threaten Two-Year Bull Run
Stock
Averages Log Gains Near 1% as Oil Eases, Banks Lead Charge Midnight Trader ‘4:13 PM, Mar 8, 2011 --
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
UPSIDE MOVERS
(+) MIPS upgraded.
(+) VRML gains on positive data for ovarian biomarker.
(+) SONC upgraded.
(+) EXPE upgraded.
(+/-) BMY, AZN say FDA accepts NDA for diabetes treatment.
(+) BSFT continues sharp evening gain that followed upbeat earnings.
(+) DKS beats with Q4, guides to top Street for FY.
(+) BA inks sales to two Chinese airlines.
(+) VOD upgraded.
(+) NVDA upgraded.
DOWNSIDE MOVERS
(-) CIEN upgraded.
(-) CNIT beats with revenue.
(-) URBN disappoints with latest results; downgraded.
(-) MCD down after sales data.
(-) QCOM downgraded; raises dividend.
(-) TIVO selling convertible notes.
(-) ICE downgraded.
(-) LDK downgraded.
MARKET DIRECTION
Stock averages closed up as oil prices moderated. Bank gains, in part on
dividend hopes, paved the way for broad market gains after a choppy start
Tuesday.
Stocks gained as crude oil futures backtracked from yesterday's gains on OPEC
assurances of increased supplies, although investors continue to nervously
watch developments in the Middle East, where protests and fighting have fueled
concerns about potential constraints on oil supplies.
For the moment, the pressure appears to be off further price increases as other
Middle East oil producers promised to step up their output to fill the gap left
by Libya. President Obama said he may also dip into the nation's strategic oil
reserve to fill gaps in supply. Kuwait's oil minister said Tuesday that OPEC
members are holding informal talks about raising output.
Bank of America Corp. (BAC) rose over 4%, the most of the 30 stocks
that make up the DJIA, after chief executive Brian Moynihan told an investor
meeting that the bank could earn more money over the next two years as its
business stabilizes. That led some analysts to suggest that large consumer
banks may raise the dividends most slashed during the 2008 financial crisis in
order to cut costs.
Financial stocks in the S&P 500 index rose 2%, the most of any of the
index's 10 company groups. American Express Co. (AXP)
gained 4% and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)
rose 3%.
Commodities ended trading lower as gold and crude oil futures finished in the
red amid reports that Libya's Col. Gaddafi could be negotiating for his
resignation as the leader of Libya and his departure from that country.
Light, sweet crude oil for April delivery finished down $0.42, or 0.38%, to
$105.02 a barrel. Crude is already up some 9% this month.
Meanwhile, gold futures ended lower, pressured - in part - by a stronger
dollar.
Gold for April delivery finished down $7.30 to $1,427.20 an ounce. In other
metal futures, silver was down 0.26% to $35.77 a troy ounce while copper traded
up 0.35% to $4.34.
The economic calendar was relatively quiet today. However, the National
Federation of Independent Business' small-business index moved higher by 0.4
points in February to a reading of 94.5. The index was helped by gains made
through hiring and plans to hire.
In company news:
Boeing (BA)
agreed to a preliminary deal to sell 38 wide-body jets to Hong Kong Airlines
Ltd. and also signed a deal to supply five 747-8 aircraft to Chinese flag
carrier Air China Ltd., according to news reports.
McDonald's (MCD) announced global comparable sales growth of
3.9% in February. Performance by segment was as follows: U.S. same-store sales
are up 2.7%; Europe same-store sales are up 5.1%; Asia/Pacific, Middle East and
Africa same-store sales are up 4.0%.
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) and AstraZeneca (AZN)
announced that the FDA has accepted for review a new drug applicationfor
dapagliflozin, an investigational compound for the treatment of adults with
type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Shares of Sprint Nextel (S) were higher after Bloomberg reports that
Deutsche Telekom has held talks with the company to sell its T-Mobile unit. The
deal would give Deutsche Telecom a major stake in the combined entity, the
report said.
National Semiconductor Corp. (NSM) fell, extending yesterday's
decline. Citigroup reportedly downgraded the stock to "sell" from
"hold." The semiconductor company is focused on analog and
mixed-signal integrated circuits and sub-systems, particularly in the area of
power management.
In earnings news:
-Hot Topic (HOTT)
fell then gained after it reported a Q4 loss of $0.01 per share, vs. year ago
income of $0.18 per share. The fourth quarter results include $9.8 million of
expenses, or $0.13 per diluted share, for the implementation of the previously
announced cost reduction plan. Ex items earnings were $0.12 per share, a penny
shy of the Street view. Sales for the quarter were down 0.8% to $212.4 mln vs.
year ago levels. Analysts were expecting revenue of $209 mln, according to
Thomson Reuters.
-Urban Outfitters (URBN) fell after it reported Q4 $0.45 per
share, flat with year ago levels and below expectations of $0.52 per share, if
comparable. Sales were up 14% to $668 mln, below expectations of $676 mln on
Thomson Reuters.
-Dick's Sporting Goods (DKS) gained after it reported Q4 EPS of
$0.76 per share, better than the analyst mean of $0.72 per share on Thomson
Reuters. Sales were $1.51 bln, ahead of the Street view of $1.45 bln.
-BroadSoft (BSFT)
gained after beating Q4 estimates and setting its guidance in line to above the
Street view.’
Hoyer
Says Federal Budget May Not Be Balanced for 20 Years Matt Cover
| Hoyer said Republicans and Democrats must compromise if they are ever going
to solve the nation’s budget issues.
Trust is
Necessary for a Stable Economy Washington’s Blog |
Prosecuting the criminals Is necessary to restore trust.
Saudi
Arabia’s ‘Day of Rage’ Lures Record Bets on $200 Oil: Chart of Day Bloomberg
| Options traders are betting more than ever that crude oil is heading to $200
a barrel.
National / World
Drudgereport:
Libya
Tanks Move In To Crush Rebel Stronghold...
Carnage
in Rebel City...
FOOTAGE:
Libyan war plane shot down...
Obama,
Cameron discuss plan of action...
Hoyer:
No Balanced Budget for 15-20 Years 'We've Dug Such a Deep Hole'...
FLASHBACK:
Larger Than Entire 2007 Deficit...
Treasury
Draws Down Cash Balance...
FEBRUARY DEFICIT: $223 BILLION
FRESHMAN
DEM. SENATOR: OBAMA HAS 'FAILED TO LEAD'...
Mayors to
Unions: 'Dire fiscal straits' without 'dramatic' changes...
Anger
Brews Over Government Workers' Benefits...
UNREST
IN THE MIDWEST: Now Michigan...
WELFARE
NATION: ONE-THIRD OF ALL WAGES ARE HANDOUTS...
ROMNEY:
Obama Misery Index hits record high...
OPEC
VOWS NEW PUMPING...
OIL HOLDS
NEAR $105...
Roubini:
Will Hit $150...
SHEEN
SETS 'FINAL' WEBCAST
Gadhafi
Deploys Tanks, Hundreds of Troops in New Assaults...
...Denies
talk he's looking for exit
WITNESSES:
Women and Children Killed...
Libyan
tanks, planes bombard Zawiyah; rebels still hold 'Martyrs' Square'...
Libyan
central bank chief goes missing...
...Loyalty unknown
East-West
military gap 'rapidly shrinking'...
China could match US military power in 10-15 years...
U.K.
Warned of Food Riots...
Ahmadinejad
calls for new world order...
Gaddafi forces engage in fierce battle Regime
loyalists in Libya mount assaults to reclaim ground (Washington
Post) [ 41 years in power … Hey, when interviewed by Charlie Sheen on SNL he
seemed rather spry …
Sheen's-Korner, Ustream.TV
You're either in Sheen's-Korner or you're with the trolls... [and the big question is which trolls … the
pat_trolls, the con_trolls, the troll_eys, the troll_ups, etc.? ] http://www.ustream.tv/charliesheen Archived Web Site File: http://www.albertpeia.com/Sheen's-Korner,Ustream.TVYou'reeitherinSheen's-Korneroryou'rewiththetrolls.flv (448mb)
(for whatever reason, this file did not open properly in my somewhat
older player and I didn’t have time to download another to determine if the
problem is with the viewer or the file, but will, and will indicate the result
here. )
Here’s SNL’s take on the Sheen webcast
[ This was the first time I’d seen Miley Cyrus in anything and I must
say she is truly a star, albeit a very precocious one; this SNL was absolutely
hilarious across the board! ]
http://www.saturday-night-live.com
Part of the webcast: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIx4_t26AAs
] With neither side able to muster overwhelming force, the result appeared to be a bloody stalemate, with the death tolls rising in both east and west.
Obama creates indefinite detention system for
prisoners at Guantanamo Bay (Washington
Post) [ Sounds more like fellow failed president/war criminal dumbya bush every
day. Meanwhile, back at the
pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt american credit farm (totalitarian
communist china): New
restrictions on foreign journalists Under rules announced after foreign
journalists were physically harassed by security officers, foreign journalists
must have government permission to interview anyone in a public area.]
Few
signs of compromise on budget details (Washington
Post) [ Come on … wake up! The amounts they’re qubbling over bearly cover
interest on the national debt!
Timid
Tuesday: Is it Safe? Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are
simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of
global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form
of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh)
is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut
$100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while
continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1%
each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool
all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT
THERE! ‘
Gates
successor a quandary for Obama(Washington
Post) [ Quandary? For ‘wobama the b’
(for b*** s***)? I don’t think so! Like wobama, he or she must speak out of
both sides of his/her mouth, be particularly adept at lying (cia-speak), and
believe in absolutely nothing (no core values/beliefs). Gates says killing of Afghan boys a "setback" (Reuters)
[Ah, yes, riiiiight! … that’s what it is, alright…just a setback…I see. ] Gates: US
military to stay in Afghanistan US
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is on a surprise visit to Afghanistan, says
the American military should stay in the conflict-riddled country despite the
rising human costs. Violent
spring looming in Afghanistan (Washington Post) [ See … something to look
forward to … must be that good news that keeps getting pushed back … and spring
no less … everything bombing blooming or in war criminal american-speak …
‘booming’ … but not the defacto bankrupt american economy for which a crash is
‘looming’. Could somebody help me out with a translation of gates’ speech a
west point … I must be missing something … Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war,
says U.S. largely unaware of sacrifice (Washington Post) [ I
disagree! They are very much aware; as they stand in unemployment lines, use
food stamps to get by, etc.. I hate to sound cavalier and I’m sorry that Kelly
lost a son to war, but along with the multitude of civilians in the nations
unlucky enough to provide a source of corporate welfare to the military
industrial complex and war profiteering for the few (as warned against by
President General Eisenhower), they died for nothing, for no good reason beyond
the false propaganda. Six NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
(Washington Post) [ Is there something wrong with the following picture? … am I
missing something? … Gates's warning: Avoid land war in Asia, Middle East, and
Africa Christian Science
Monitor - In a speech to cadets at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, Gates's message was clear: The US military services, as
well as the elected and appointed civilians who send them to war, need better
ways of foreseeing and preparing for ...
Gates Tells US Army to Take New Approach Voice of America Warning
Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan New York
Times [ Better said, than unsaid; but,
methinks a bit late for that in light of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america’s consummate decline and fall! If only they had listened and not shot
at the messenger … things could have been different! ]
] American military officials
expect that the Taliban will mount a campaign to regain ground lost to U.S.
troops last year and use suicide bombing teams to strike at those associated
with the Afghan government or coalition forces. ]
Investors
Whiplashed: Dave's Daily ‘As stated I'm away at a family reunion in Las
Vegas. It's an appropriate place from which to view markets. Since the action
is so crazy, no mere mortal, even with nearly 40 years experience, can make
sense of it. So, in the interest of clarity (not to mention the family), I'll
make only a couple of comments and just post a few charts. Yes, the
unemployment data came in about as expected but wage growth was limited (who
knew?!) and banks were downgraded by another bank, BAC. Not a nice thing to do
to your pals. With MENA unrest near all time highs and oil prices exploding
higher who would want to be casually long the markets heading into the weekend?
But, someone (let's just guess shall we?) with the power to close this week
higher launched a serious "stick save" late to do just that. This was
gross manipulation. Volume was higher on selling once again as no doubt stops
were hit once again. Meanwhile, per the WSJ, breadth was negative. ‘
Financialization
and Our Increasingly Unstable Economy Roche ‘I finally got around to seeing
the movie Inside Job, the story behind the credit crisis and winner of the
Academy Award for best documentary. It’s very good and I highly recommend it to
anyone who hasn’t seen it. It will certainly infuriate you. The movie doesn’t
place nearly enough blame on homeowners, but all in all it does an excellent job
of showing how Wall Street and government have become overrun by deregulation
and sheer greed.
A combination
of flawed economic theory and greed have combined to create the beast that we
now call a “functioning” economy. The worst part of it all is that President
Obama, who vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix any of it and in fact
continues most of the policies that helped get us here in the first place.
In his latest letter Howard
Marks touches on the regulatory debate. He says:
A great source on the subject is Wall Street
Under Oath, a 1939 book on the causes of the Great Crash of 1929 written
by Ferdinand Pecora, who was counsel to the Senate committee investigating the
crash and later a New York State judge. I first read it about twenty years ago,
and I brought it out of storage in 2007. It is a typical polemic, assigning
blame and touting regulation pursuant to what I assume were the author’s
philosophical/political biases (see page 4).
Pecora describes a Wall Street that, up to and
including the 1920s, was like the Wild West. Bankers and brokers were out to
make money for themselves; their behavior was largely unregulated; and
conflicts between their interests and those of their clients were widespread
and disregarded. In particular, according to Pecora, disclosure standards were
non-existent.
These facts combined with other causes to produce a
market crash of epic proportions; widespread losses; a drying up of capital;
deflation; and a massive depression with a resulting increase in unemployment
to 25%. Unsurprisingly, fingers were pointed at the prior administration and
political power shifted to believers in an activist role for government. The
most lasting result was the enactment of laws that governed the financial
system for decades and in many cases still do: the Securities Act, the
Securities and Exchange Act, and the Glass-Steagall Act. Thus the 1930s saw a
massive swing of the pendulum in favor of regulation.
The next several decades on Wall Street were –
perhaps thanks to the impact of those laws – a relatively placid period. This
led to a view that, with rare exceptions, market participants are well-behaved
by nature. Further, steady growth with only moderate dips caused a perception
of an inherently benign and productive economy that could achieve even more if
only the regulatory shackles were loosened. After President Carter deregulated
the transportation industry in the late 1970s, the door was open for much of
the regulatory apparatus built in the early part of the century to be relaxed.
Ronald Reagan, whose famously free-market views coincided with a period of
peace and prosperity, led the deregulatory charge. We saw a similar turn in
Britain under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher; the collapse of the USSR and
a resounding victory for capitalism; and the ascendance of free market
adherents Alan Greenspan and George W. Bush.
With the economy and financial system generating
prosperity, people wanted more of the same. And with manufacturing in decline,
we relied heavily on the financial sector for an increased contribution to GDP,
job creation and standards of living. The prevailing view was that the less
regulation we had, the more productive business and finance could be. And what
was there to be feared from an unregulated economy, anyway? The result in the
past decade, according to a great newspaper quote that sadly I can’t locate,
was “the kind of regulation you get from an administration that doesn’t believe
in regulation.”
Thus, coming full circle from the 1930s, starting in
1999 we saw revocation of Glass-Steagall; elimination of the up-tick rule
limiting short sales to instances when stock prices were rising; a pivotal
decision to exempt derivatives from regulation; increased permitted leverage at
investment banks; and starvation of regulatory agency budgets. These
developments were followed by the global financial crisis of 2007-08.
Coincidence or causality?
No, it’s most certainly not a coincidence. Marks goes
on to argue that the markets and regulations will never be perfect so our
economy will continue to be imperfect. It’s a rather defeatist and general
attitude if you ask me. I think there are fairly basic rules that can and
should be implemented that limit the potential outlier events from occurring.
For instance, collateral on OTC derivatives would have substantially reduced
the risks at the investment banks. Leverage limits. Higher capital standards.
How about requiring down payments on homes? These are simple rules that
eliminate the potential for some of the incredible risks we’ve seen over the
last 25 years.
I am not an advocate of highly strict rules, just
common sense rules. The fact that the NINJA loan ever even came into existence
is a clear sign that allowing the markets to regulate themselves is bordering
on insanity. Such lack of rules in capitalism is guaranteed to result in
putting greed before rationality. I don’t want to contain capitalism. But I do
want to keep it from destroying itself. That is the path we are on and the
increasing instability upon which we build each recovery is a clear example….
In the movie, a prominent paper is mentioned written
by Raghuram Rajan, a professor of Economics at the Chicago School. He shows how
the financialization of the US economy is creating an increasingly unstable
economy. Make no mistake, markets are not self regulating. This nonsense that
government should never oversee the free market is disastrous policy that is
driven by a misguided and dogmatic political perspective and a purely greed
driven banking system. It’s a great weekend read. Enjoy. ‘
Fed Has Convinced Consumers to Re-Leverage [ Sounds
like a plan! … albeit a failed plan ala greenspan … this encore courtesy of ‘’no-recession helicopter ben shalom
bernanke’ … anything for that irrationally exuberant feeling on wall street ….
Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere, but not a bloke to blink. ] Roche ‘Despite
lopsided balance sheets and near record levels of household debt the Fed
appears to have succeeded in convincing American households that it is wise to
begin re-leveraging. The Fed’s latest consumer credit report showed broad
improvement in consumer credit trends (via Econoday):
"Consumer credit outstanding in December rose
$6.1 billion showing, for the first time in the recovery, gains for both
revolving and non-revolving credit. Revolving credit, up $2.3 billion, rose for
the first time in 27 months. Non-revolving credit, reflecting strength in
vehicle sales, extended its run of strength with a gain of $3.8 billion.
Looking ahead to January’s number, there may be some modest help from motor
vehicle sales which edged up 0.6 percent for the month but the amount boosting
consumer credit will depend in part on the share split of sales to consumers
and to businesses."
(Click to enlarge)
As I’ve previously mentioned, this is great news for
the near-term economic outlook. A re-leveraging consumer means more spending,
higher corporate revenues, etc. My hope was that a 10% deficit would result in
consumers continuing to de-leverage, however, that looks like wishful thinking.
Instead, the combination of easy money and no loser capitalism appears to be
setting the foundation for another debt binge. At a level of 115% of
debt:income, this trend is clearly unsustainable, however, the American public
appears intent on sustaining its fiscal imprudence. In short, enjoy the growth,
however, once the deficit shrinks or another asset bubble pops the air is going
to come out of the debt bubble once again and the upside down U.S. consumer
will again be exposed as the imprudent consumer that he/she is...’
Flashback:
Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports Exposed Infowars |
There is no reason for continued taxation, the government has a secret slush
fund and in the meantime is telling you that they’re broke.
Iran
oil wealth ‘must be shared’ with citizens says Soros BBC |
Citizens of oil producing nations must see more benefit from their country’s
national resources, says billionaire.
Former
Goldman director charged with insider trading Globe & Mail
| Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of hedge fund Galleon Group, is on trial on
criminal insider-trading charges.
Gas
up 33 cents — second biggest two-week jump ever Reuters |
The national average for a gallon of self-serve, regular gas was $3.50 on March
4.
Saudi
Stock Market Tumbles as Fear of Revolt Grows The Telegraph
| Triggered by the arrest of Shi’ite cleric after he called for democratic
reforms.
Flashback:
Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports Exposed Infowars |
There is no reason for continued taxation, the government has a secret slush
fund and in the meantime is telling you that they’re broke.
More
Jobs Mirage In February—BLS Continues To Overestimate Job Growth Paul
Craig Roberts | The announcement that 192,000 new jobs were created in
February was greeted with a sigh of relief.
Government’s
biggest monthly deficit ever Washington Times | $223
billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Gas
up 33 cents — second biggest two-week jump ever Reuters |
The national average for a gallon of self-serve, regular gas was $3.50 on March
4.
National / World
Homicide
case involving Daley nephew closed without charges Chicago
Sun-Times | Chicago Police said Friday they know who hit David
Koschman and knocked him to the ground in a drunken confrontation in the Rush
Street area, leading to his death.
Major Libyan oil plant
ablaze Mail Online | A major Libyan oil plant was ablaze
last night as fresh fighting raged across the country leaving at least 50 dead.
Qaddafi’s
Militia Storms Key Town Controlled by Rebels NY Times |
Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s militia stormed the rebels controlling the town of
Zawiyah on Saturday.
‘If
the Americans Come, They Would Steal our Revolution’ Spiegel Online
| Opposition fighters claim they have driven back their attackers, but the
battle is far from finished.
Sheen's-Korner, Ustream.TV
You're either in Sheen's-Korner or you're with the trolls... [and the big question is which trolls … the
pat_trolls, the con_trolls, the troll_eys, the troll_ups, etc.? ] http://www.ustream.tv/charliesheen Archived Web Site File: http://www.albertpeia.com/Sheen's-Korner,Ustream.TVYou'reeitherinSheen's-Korneroryou'rewiththetrolls.flv (448mb)
(for whatever reason, this file did not open properly in my somewhat
older player and I didn’t have time to download another to determine if the
problem is with the viewer or the file, but will, and will indicate the result
here. )
Here’s SNL’s take on the Sheen webcast
[ This was the first time I’d seen Miley Cyrus in anything and I must
say she is truly a star, albeit a very precocious one; this SNL was absolutely
hilarious across the board! ]
http://www.saturday-night-live.com
Part of the webcast: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIx4_t26AAs
Drudgereport:
FLASHBACK:
Larger Than Entire 2007 Deficit...
Treasury
Draws Down Cash Balance...
FEBRUARY DEFICIT: $223 BILLION
GATES
SAYS ANY MILITARY ACTION ON LIBYA SHOULD HAVE INTERNATIONAL BACKING...
Caught
on Video: General Petraeus And Secretary Gates Share Private Joke About
Attacking Libya...
NATO
starts 24/7 surveillance of Libya...
Greece
slams rating agencies after MOODY'S cut...
Spain's
savings banks race to find funds by Thursday...
Portugal
edges closer to crisis...
PAPER: Obama asks Saudi Arabia to supply Libyan rebels with
weapons...
GADHAFI
OFFENSIVE MAKES LITTLE GROUND
Saudi
Arabia detains Shi'ites as clerics ban protests...
OIL
CONTINUES CLIMB...
Gas
prices up 33 cents -- in two weeks!
Number of ObamaCare waivers climbs above 1,000...
Unrest
returns to Cairo streets...
UK
'to send team of spies' to help oust Gadhafi...
British
Army readies for mission at 24 hours' notice...
Obama
goes golfing...
ROMNEY TO NH: WE
NEED A NEW PRESIDENT
CHICAGOLAND:
Homicide case involving Daley nephew closed without charges...
OBAMA
TAKES 'BUTTER KNIFE' TO BUDGET...
Biden
opens budget talks -- leaves country...
Senate
Democrats dropping like flies...
Harry
Reid offers spending proposal -- predicts failure...
Saudi
Arabia bans all protest and marches...
Mobilizes
thousands of troops to quell growing unrest...
'MASSACRE'
IN ZAWIYAH...
Shi'ite
protesters in Bahrain form human chain around capital...
SHOCK
VIDEO: Women gunned down by soldiers in Ivory Coast...
SEC
on the hot seat (Washington Post) [ Oooooh! The capital hill hot seat …
shilling for no more than a grilling. House
Republicans press SEC on official's ties to Madoff (Washington Post) [ The
ultimate subterfuge. Mr. small potatoes madoff the focus of so much influence …
yet he’s in jail … and the only one … Boy, did mary shapiro become total b***
s*** fast … the current shibboleth of
capital hill / all 3 branches of pervasively corrupt u.s. government …
joining the others: “The
Financial Industry Has Become So Politically Powerful That It Is Able To
Inhibit the Normal Process of Justice And Law Enforcement” The economy
cannot stabilize unless fraud is prosecuted. But the folks in D.C. seem
determined to turn a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans, and is now moving to
defund the enforcement agencies like the SEC and CFTC. Market Crash 2011: It Will Hit by Christmas Farrell,
MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.
(MarketWatch) — ‘Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re
not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn
scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff,
get rich…’
‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted
massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and
declares with oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been
prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator /
experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder
and wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. ) (see this film, I strongly recommend the
complete documentary – the following is a preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
Milbank:
The
subpar lender crisis (Washington
Post) [ It truly is difficult for me to imagine Mr. Milbank as a business
reporter; although, … wall street journal … could fit. I had occasion to know a
successful wall street executive, chairman, institutional brokerage /
investment banking firm, who referred to the wall street journal as ‘total b***
s***’. I don’t think Mr. Milbank needs to refer to an ad hoc experience which
we know and can reasonably infer to be ubiquitous in kind and that they’re all
a bunch of typical american crooks (he wasn’t … but he was an old school risk
seeker long since out of the game). Academy Award winner Ferguson is way ahead:
‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted
massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and
declares with oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been
prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator /
experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder
and wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. ) (see this film, I strongly recommend the
complete documentary – the following is a preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
Private
hiring spurs drop in jobless rate (Washington Post) [ This is a tab yet to be paid
(taxpayer / treasury / public) and the costs in money the nation doen’t have
for the political obfuscation will far outway the benefits. (Gallup
Reports Underemployment Surges To 19.9%, February “Jobs Situation
Deteriorates”: As Bad As 2010 On one hand we have the Department of Truth
about to tell tomorrow that NFP based on various seasonal and birth death
adjustments increased by 250,000… Santelli:
'Good' Jobs Report Has Dark Side... … Denninger ‘
…
Summary: The report did not
show any material amount of acceleration; it is, for all intents and purposes,
flat. The Household Survey showed some people going back to work, but in terms
of percentage of the working-age population the needle did not move to any
material degree. The problem continues to be people we don't count as
unemployed but in fact are, and as such the statistical gerrymandering of the
results will give both the left and right something to spin, but in point of
fact there's no evidence of an economy that is recovering it's ability to
generate both private income and tax revenues.’ … ‘ Mason’…Over the past four
weeks, the Treasury’s General Account has dropped by almost $70 billion. Thus,
between this account and the Treasury’s Supplementary Financing Account the Fed
has injected almost $170 billion reserves into the banking system in February
…’ Gerald
Celente: “There is no recovery — it’s a coverup!” Sic Semper Tyrannis | Celente argues the oil prices have been going up
before the recent chaos in the Middle East. ‘…One other point brought out by
Gerald Celente is the fact that the current puppet regime in the White House is
“cooking the books” on the unemployment numbers and current inflation rates.
They are making their own rules on how to determine inflation rates by leaving
out essential information such as food and fuel prices. The same is being done
with White House unemployment numbers by simply leaving out those who have
given up looking for jobs, as well as other deceptive “carnie” tricks (in
reference to White House spokesperson Carnie) in which he compares the
administration to a traveling carnival act.
In closing,
Celente states:
“… There is no recovery, it’s a coverup. It’s only
being boosted by these low interest rates, which again, when inflation
skyrockets- they’re gonna have to raise them …‘
]
Delusional
for 2012Will: Huckabee and Gingrich are diminishing the GOP.
(Washington Post) [ That’s only if you take them seriously; and, you can’t take
neocons seriously. You know the type … the pro-zionist bush me-toos … and don’t
forget … what could be more diminishing than having failed president ‘wobama
the b’ (for b*** s***) as their putative head. Perma war types all, the
pervasively corrupt america is defacto bankrupt. Drudgereport: Delaware
voters say no to Lobotomy Joe ….. Biden (the self-proclaimed zionist) -- for
name of school...
'Wobama’s
Where's Waldo?' Presidency...
All
Former U.S. Presidents To Get Together For TV Special Honoring George H.W.
Bush…(How totally pathetic they are! How embarrassing for NBC!) ...
[ Wake up! http://albertpeia.com/bushcrimes.htm ]
Gingrich
to announce exploratory committee 'in 10 days' [ Neo-con Dreamin’! I mean, come
on … are memories so short they don’t recall him being a total hypocrite,
zionist shill, and part of the problem
though to his credit, he’s not a mobster and complete joke as is trump! ]
CHICAGOLAND:
Lawmaker Suggests BOEING'S Contract Win A Result Of Dirty Politics... [ The contract’s with money the nation doen’t really
have anyway; and, the value of the money paid will be worth substantially less
by completion; and, no surprise … Chicago hasn’t changed much from the days of
capone and is rivaled in terms of corruption by such states as jersey, new
york, etc.. ] ‘…“I’m disappointed but not surprised,”
Republican Sen. Richard Shelby said. “Only Chicago politics could tip the
scales in favor of Boeing’s inferior plane. EADS clearly offers the more
capable aircraft.”…’
Rep.
Rangel Causes Stir In Courtroom; Reprimanded By Judge...NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Congressman
Charles Rangel caused a stir in court Friday
while trying to lend his support for bail of Afrika Owes.Owes, 17, had been a
student at the prestigious Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. Prosecutors say
she was also a member of a drug gang that terrorized 137th Street in
Harlem.Owes was one of fourteen
suspected “137th Street Crew” gang members arrested last month.
Prosecutors said the gang used shootings, beatings and robberies to protect
their turf and gain street status on a stretch of West 137th Street. The gang
allegedly openly dealt crack in apartment lobbies, near Harlem Hospital and
near the Abyssinian Baptist
Church. Congressman
Charles Rangel argues for Owes getting bail to Juliet Papa of 1010 WINS
YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]:
[Suckers’ rally into the close] ‘A late flurry of buying lifted the Dow almost
90 points in less than 30 minutes, but stocks still finished the day with
marked losses as participants looked past an encouraging jobs report to focus
on oil's climb to a new two-year high…’
Employment
Report: No Joy Here Denninger ‘The reaction on CNBS, in particular: "This
is a very good report."
Really?
Incidentally, I said 100k +/-
50, and we hit ... (misprint - the original link is here
- nobody's perfect!)
Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 192,000 in
February, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 8.9 percent, the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in manufacturing,
construction, professional and business services, health care, and transportation
and warehousing.
Ok, high side. The uncertainty was very high on this
report, but the results are not out of line. Those people looking for a
"2" or even "3" handle (and there were lots of people who
were) have a problem though - they didn't get that.
Hourly payrolls didn't move, nor did working hours.
Meh.
The spin machine will be out in force I'm sure on
both sides of the political spectrum. The market's initial reaction was to
spike and then dive a bit; just enough to nail you with a stop run if you
happened to be in the futures with a stop on at the time.
Here's the household data, which is where I focus my
attention (incidentally, the "Birth-Death" was +100kish this month -
if you believe that.)
(Click to enlarge)
There was a small uptick in actual employment in
February. This has to be maintained, of course, in order for it to continue to
count. The key here is that on this metric annualized (which removes
seasonality) we were basically flat over last month, although on the positive
side of the ledger.
(Click to enlarge)
That's a problem. We're basically flat on the labor
participation rate among the population. This must show a strong recovery or
the government funding model will collapse. You can report all the numbers you
want but this is the one that matters, and while it did not further deteriorate
it also didn't turn around.
(Click to enlarge)
"Not in labor force" - that is, those who
have walked off in disgust - showed little change this last month. Annualized
it was up slightly. Again, this reflects as a lower unemployment rate, but only
because we're not counting people.
(Click to enlarge)
No joy here.
Summary: The report did not show any material amount of acceleration; it is, for
all intents and purposes, flat. The Household Survey showed some people going
back to work, but in terms of percentage of the working-age population the
needle did not move to any material degree. The problem continues to be people
we don't count as unemployed but in fact are, and as such the statistical
gerrymandering of the results will give both the left and right something to
spin, but in point of fact there's no evidence of an economy that is recovering
it's ability to generate both private income and tax revenues.’
Stocks
Hit by Middle East Worries, Financial Sector Downgrades Midnight Trader ‘4:10
PM, Mar 4, 2011 --
Stock Market Rally
- Where's the Money Coming From? How much is Left? ,
On Friday March 4, 2011, 12:31 pm EST
Most retail
investors exited the stock market early 2009 and didn't get back in until
recently. According to Strategic Insight, investors piled a net $21 billion
into U.S. stock mutual funds in January, the biggest monthly inflow in seven
years.
Is this
rekindled infatuation with stocks bullish or bearish? If it is bullish, how
much more cash is waiting on the sidelines, and how much longer can the rally
last?
Once
Bitten, Twice Bold
According to
Michal Strahilevitz (quoted in the Wall Street Journal), a business professor
at Golden Gate University, delayed bulls are driven by what psychologists call
'counterfactual regret' - the haunting sense of what might have been.
Strahilevitz
explains: 'These investors have been double traumatized. First in 2008 and 2009
they suffered until they said I can't take it anymore' and sold all their
stocks. And now they've had to deal with the trauma of watching the market go
up and realizing they'd be better off if only they hadn't gotten out.'
Like an
annoying splinter, the regrets over being out of stocks are refreshed every day
the market goes up. Apparently, watching stocks rise from the sideline is more
painful than the perceived risk of buying at lofty prices.
Right but
Wrong
The timing of
retail investors reminds me of the Wall Street Journal. On March 9, 2009, the
Journal ran a front-page article with the headline 'Dow 5,000 - There's a case
for it.'
This headline
stuck with me because Dow 5000 is what I predicted before the financial crisis
hit in 2008. By the time the Journal pointed towards Dow 5,000, the Dow had
already lost over 50%, and I moved into the bullish camp. Via a March 2, 2009
special ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter alert, I advised to buy, buy, and buy.
True, after
the initial 40 - 50% gain I got suspicious and haven't trusted the market
since. In hindsight that was foolish. Looking at fund flows, a large number of
investors are just now starting to re-enter the market, which also seems
foolish.
Based on that
new data, catching the initial 40-50% of the rally was much more profitable,
less nerve racking, and in risk-adjusted terms much more desirable than
entering around current prices or being invested over the last year.
Even investors
that entered as early as August 2009, when the S&P 500 traded around 1,000,
have seen a gain of only 32%, if they stuck with it. At one point, the
post-April 2010 decline and May 'Flash Crash' erased eight months worth of
gains. The last 21 months of the rally were much more treacherous than the
first three months, but delivered a lower return with more stress.
Why
Wrong?
The two charts
below illustrate how sentiment and money flow affect stocks (NYSEArca: VTI - News). The green bar represents
buying pressure, and the red bar selling pressure.
At the March
2009 lows, the major indexes a la Dow (DJI: ^DJI), S&P (SNP: ^GSPC), and
Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) lost over half of their value, the financial sector
(NYSEArca: XLF - News) lost nearly 80%, investors
were fed up with stocks and threw in the towel.
At that time,
there were no more sellers left. Without sellers pulling down prices, stocks
had nowhere to go but up. That's what they did.
Since the
S&P blew through my initial price target, I expected a reaction at the
61.8% Fibonacci retracement level. The first chart below shows that normal
market forces returned to Wall Street when the S&P reversed within points
of reaching the 61.8% Fibonacci resistance [chart]
At S&P
1,220 there were simply more sellers than buyers. As in every market, the stock
market needs fresh dollars to create new bids and higher prices. When sellers
outnumber buyers, prices tend to fall. That's what happened.
A Formula
for Disaster
The second
chart below extends beyond the April 2010 highs and visually explains what
happened when the Fed's QE2 appeared on the scene. In essence, the money flow
was altered.
A picture says
more than a thousand words, and even though simplified, this chart visualizes
the effect of QE2. It has kept a constant bid beneath prices. Due to QE2 the
red selling pressure bar is allowed to continue growing. At one point,
the confined selling pressure will burst like a bubble and play havoc with
prices. [chart]
All of this
can be summarized in one formula:
Buying
Pressure > Selling Pressure = Rising Stock Prices
How much
Cash is on the Sidelines
Mutual fund
cash levels are at an all time low of 3.4%. Even the 2007 all-time high saw
mutual fund levels at 3.6%.
Currently,
there are 2.4 times more assets invested in equity mutual funds than in money
market funds. This is the highest ratio since after the 2007 peak but is lower
than the peak ratio of 3.0.
According to
Jason Goepfert with SentimenTrader, margin debt on the NYSE stood at $290
billion in January, one of the highest amounts in history. At the same time
free credit dipped. Due to higher debt and lower credit, the available cash
dropped to negative $46 billion, the worst figure since July 2007 (it was at
negative $44 billion in April 2010).
Air
Pocket Protection
QE2 has and possibly
will extend the new mania and makes the possible future gains look so enticing.
How do you milk this market without getting burned?
If you want
the thrill of more gains you have to walk the tightrope. And if you're going to
walk the tightrope you'll want a safety net.
A safety net
doesn't assure a perfect performance but it keeps you safe and protects you
from harm. In the investment world, a safety net - or early warning system -
will get you out of stocks before it's too late.
In fact, the
stock market builds its own safety nets; it's called support. As long as stocks
teeter above support, the performance is solid while a break below usually
means the show is either over or temporarily suspended. Either way, it's time
to get out…’
Santelli:
'Good' Jobs Report Has Dark Side...
QE2
Watch Version 4.0: Fed Is 'Tone Deaf' and 'Spaghetti Tossing' Mason ‘The
Federal Reserve continues to pump funds into the banking system. Reserve
balances at Federal Reserve banks reached $1.3 trillion on March 2, 2011. This
is up from $1.1 trillion on
February 2 and
up from $1.0 trillion on December 29, 2010.
These balances
serve as a relatively good proxy for the excess reserves in the banking system
which averaged $1.2 trillion over the two-week period ending February 23, 2011.
As we have
reported before, there are two drivers of this increase in bank reserves. The
first, connected with the Fed’s program of quantitative easy, is the
acquisition of United State Treasury securities.
Over the past
four weeks the Federal Reserve has added almost $100 billion to its portfolio
of Treasury securities. Only about $18 billion of these purchases were offset
by maturing Federal Agency issues and mortgage-backed securities.
Since the end
of last year, the Fed has added $220 billion to its Treasury security
portfolio. In this case the Fed was replacing a $48 billion decline in the
other securities that were maturing.
And, in the
past 13-week period, Almost $320 billion were added to the Treasury portfolio,
replacing about $80 billion in maturing Agency issues and mortgage-backed
securities.
The second
driver has been the action surrounding Treasury deposits with Federal Reserve
banks. Since these deposits are a liability of the Fed, a reduction in these
deposits increases reserves in the banking system. There are two important
accounts here, the Treasury’s General Account and the Treasury’s Supplementary
Financing Account.
The
Supplementary Financing Account has been used for monetary purposes and in the
current case, the Treasury has reduced the funds in this account by $100
billion. All of this reduction came in February.
The Treasury’s
General Account is used in conjunction with Treasury Tax and Loan accounts at
commercial banks and is the account that the Treasury writes checks on.
Generally tax monies are collected in the Tax and Loan accounts and then are
drawn into the Federal Reserve account as the Treasury wants to write checks.
When the Treasury writes a check, it is deposited in commercial banks, so that
bank reserves increase.
Over the past
four weeks, the Treasury’s General Account has dropped by almost $70 billion.
Thus, between this account and the Treasury’s Supplementary Financing Account
the Fed has injected almost $170 billion reserves into the banking system in
February.
I need to call
attention to the fact that funds moving into and out of the General Account can
vary substantially. For example, since the end of the year (which includes the
February change) this account has only fallen by $39 billion. Over the last
13-week period, the account has actually increased by $4 billion. Tax
collections build up toward the end of the year and then are spent during the
first quarter of the year preparing for another buildup around April 15, tax
collection time.
The bottom
line, the Federal Reserve is seeing that plenty of reserves are being put into
the banking system. But, the commercial banks seem to be holding onto the
reserves rather than lending them out.
Still, the
growth rates of both measures of the money stock seem to be accelerating. The year-over-year
growth rate of the M1 measure of the money stock was growing by about 5.5% in
the third quarter of 2010. The growth rate increased to 7.7% in the fourth
quarter and is growing at a 10.2% rate in January 2011.
The M2 measure
of the money stock has also accelerated, going from a year-over-year rate of
increase of 2.5% in the third quarter to 3.3% in the fourth quarter to 4.3% in
January.
On the surface
these increases in money stock look encouraging in terms of possible future
economic growth. However, we are still seeing the same behavior of individuals
and businesses in the most recent period that we have observed over the past
two years.
The growth
rates of both measures of the money stock still seem to be coming from people
that are getting out of short term "investment" vehicles and are
placing these funds in demand deposits or other transaction accounts, or in
currency.
The first
piece of evidence of this relates to the reserves in the banking system. The
total reserves in the banking system have remained roughly constant over the
past year. Yet, the required reserves of the banking system have increased by
10% year-over-year. This situation could only happen if demand deposit-type of
accounts, which require more reserves behind them, were increasing relative to
time and savings accounts, which have smaller reserve requirements.
Looking at the
individual account items we see that demand deposits at commercial banks rose
at a 20% year-over-year rate of growth in January. The non-M1 part of the M2
measure of the money stock rose by only an anemic 3% rate. Thus, the
substantial shift in funds from time and savings accounts to transaction
accounts continues. There is no indication of a speeding up of money stock
growth connected with the reserves that the Fed is injecting into the banking
system.
An even more
dramatic shift can be seen if we include institutional money funds in the
equation and look at what has happened in the banking system over the past nine
weeks. The non-M1 portion of M2 increased by $22 billion over this time period.
However, funds kept in institutional money funds declined by roughly $40
billion. This means that accounts that Milton Freidman would have labeled
"a temporary abode of purchasing power" actually declined by $18 billion
since the start of the year.
Demand
deposits and other checkable deposits rose by about $21 billion. One could note
that currency in the hands of the public also rose by $16 billion.
The public
continues to move money from relatively liquid short-term savings vehicles to
assets that can be spent by check or cash. This is not the kind of behavior one
gets in an economy that is confident and expanding. This behavior can roughly
be called "defensive".
So, another
month has gone by. The Fed is aggressively executing its program of
quantitative easing. Yet, it still seems to be "pushing on a string."
Why is it I retain the feeling that the Federal Reserve’s effort is just
spaghetti tossing, seeing what might stick to the wall?
The longer
this policy continues, the less confidence people seem to have in both Ben
Bernanke and the Federal Reserve. I shutter to think what Bernanke and the Fed
will do to us when the banking system actually does start lending again.
Note that some
members of the Fed’s Open Market Committee are suggesting that QE2 end abruptly
at the end of June when the current program is slated to expire. (See "Policy
Makers Signal Abrupt End to Bond Purchases in June")
Does everyone
in the Fed seem "tone deaf" to you? They just seem to act on
pre-conceived ideas and have no sense or feel of the banking system and
financial markets. Another confidence raiser.’
Warning:
Stocks, Bond Yields Overvalued SuttmeierWe begin Friday with a new
ValuEngine Valuation Warning
which occurs when more than 65% of all stocks become overvalued. Today 66.4% of
all stocks are overvalued as the market attempts to rebound back to the
February 18 highs, when 68.6% of all stocks were overvalued. A higher bond
yield is an important factor that makes stocks more overvalued. In addition to
a new valuation warning all 16 sectors are overvalued, 14 by double-digit
percentages.
Beware of Improved Jobless Claims -- If Initial Jobless Claims start to trend
below 350,000 per week, the FOMC will likely allow QE2 to end at the end of
June, and the market is anticipating QE3. Higher materials and energy costs are
starting to be passed on to consumers. With regular gasoline approaching $3.50
per gallon, folks on Main Street, USA, will be driving less, which will become
a drag on the economy. In his testimonies earlier this week Fed Chief Bernanke
recognized this inflation trend as he called it temporary. The extended period
for the “zero to .25%” federal funds rate began December 16, 2008, and this environment
of high commodities prices and lower jobless claims should bring this extended
period to an end at the end of June even if unemployment is above 9%.
The major equity averages
remain below their February 18 highs when the Dow Industrial Average reached
12,391. My proprietary analytics still show weekly and monthly resistances to
limit the upside even if some of the averages continue to new highs.
Key Levels for the Major Equity Averages
10-Year Note -- (3.570) Weekly, annual, and semiannual value levels are 3.630,
3.796, and 4.268 with daily, monthly, annual, and semiannual risky levels at
3.355, 3.002, 2.690, 2.441, and 2.322. [chart]
Comex Gold -- ($1417.1) Annual, quarterly, weekly, semiannual, and annual value
levels are $1356.5, $1331.3, $1.316.1, $1300.6, and $1187.2 with monthly,
quarterly, daily, and semiannual risky levels at $1437.7, $1441.7, 1442.2, and
$1452.6.[chart]
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($101.82) Monthly, weekly, and semiannual value levels are
$96.43, $89.76, and $87.52 with my annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92, and
daily, semiannual, and quarterly risky levels are $112.14, $107.14 and
$110.87.[chart]
The Euro -- (1.3958) My weekly and quarterly value levels are 1.3690 and 1.3227
with a daily pivot at 1.3929. Semiannual, monthly, and annual risky levels are
1.4624, 1.4637, 1.4989, 1.6367, and 1.7312.[chart]
Daily Dow -- (12,258) Daily, annual, quarterly, semiannual, and semiannual value
levels are 11,917, 11,491, 11,395, 10,959, and 9,449 with weekly, monthly, and
annual risky levels at 12,461, 12,741,and 13,890.[chart]
Today's
Markets: Betting on Blue Skies? Moenning ‘Good morning. I am often asked
why I get up so early every morning to write about something as mundane as the
stock market. The answer is simple. My primary objective relating to the market
is to stay in tune with the drivers of the action. And since those drivers are
constantly changing (and at times more than a little difficult to find),
getting an early start is the only way to keep up. Many times, the way the
market reacts to the early morning news tells you more than the news itself.
Thus, I'm of the mind that you've got to be there to witness the action and the
accompanying reaction firsthand if you want to truly understand what is going
on in the game.
Thursday was a
prime example of the market doing something that may have been unexpected. I'm
not talking about the joyride to the upside at the open, as that was to be
anticipated given the early inputs. No, I'm talking about the action in the
afternoon. In short, stocks continued to move higher despite the fact that we
had heard nothing further regarding the much ballyhooed Venezuelan peace plan
and that oil prices were once again movin' on up.
Here's the
deal. During the current consolidation phase, stocks have been inversely linked
to the movement in oil prices the vast majority of the time. The thinking has
been that higher oil prices would eventually have a negative impact on the
global economy. And with the U.S. economic rebound just now starting to look
sustainable, another shock to the system could bring the R word back into the
mix. However, Thursday afternoon's action in the stock market suggests that
traders are instead betting on blue skies ahead.
With oil
prices reversing early declines on growing skepticism over the ability of one
Hugo Chavez to help out his good buddy over in Libya, one might have expected
to see stock prices give up those big gains and take a swan dive into the
close. Don't forget, oil only finished down $0.32 on the day and closed at
$101.91. Thus, the story about the drop in oil prices that the press yammered
on about all day seemed more than a little silly by the time the closing bell
rang at the corner of Broad and Wall.
If you recall,
a similar situation occurred on Wednesday. With the major indices teetering on
the edge of important support, oil prices broke to new highs as the fighting in
Libya intensified in the afternoon. And yet, while the bears appeared to have
an opening, the bulls somehow managed to hold the line.
So, given that
traders have been treated to a big batch of better-than-expected economic data
this week, the action over the past two sessions seems to suggest that the
economy may trump the worry about what might (or might not) happen with oil
prices. Some traders may have been positioning themselves in front of this
morning's Jobs report after Wednesday's ADP data and Thursday's big drop in
weekly jobless claims (jobless claims came in at the lowest level since May
2008). Some may have been covering shorts after the technical support levels
held up. And while one afternoon does not a trend make, some traders may have
been readying themselves for the next leg up. After all, up until the trouble
in MENA started, just about everyone agreed that U.S. stocks had some room to
run to the upside this year.
Heck, even
Jean Claude Trichet may be getting into the act of betting on blue skies ahead.
Yesterday, Mr. Trichet suggested, as only a central banker can, that the ECB
may need to start pulling back on their quantitative easing program and start
raising rates - as early as next month. Thus, the folks at the center of the
European debt crisis may also be seeing some clearing in the clouds.
Turning to
this morning... Hopes for a peace deal in Libya appear to be fading as oil
climbs above $103 this morning. However, foreign markets are up nicley and the
day is all about the jobs report, so let's get to it...
On the
Economic front... The Labor Department reported that Nonfarm Payrolls rose in
the month of February by 192,000. This was just slightly below the consensus
estimates for an increase of 198,000. The January totals were revised higher to
58K from 36K and the combination of revisions for January and December produced
an increase of 58K jobs.The private sector (aka the household survey) showed
gains of 222K jobs, which again was above the estimates.
The nation’s
Unemployment Rate was once again a big surprise as it fell to 8.9%, which was
below the expectations for a reading of 9.1% and January’s level of 9.0%.
Although stock
futures initially rallied on the jobs report, crude's continued rude rise has
pushed prices lower in the last few minutes...
Thought for
the day: Best of luck on this Friday and be sure to enjoy the weekend!
Pre-Game Indicators
Here are the
Pre-Market indicators we review each morning before the opening bell...
Upgrades:
Downgrades:
Former
Goldman director charged with insider trading Globe & Mail
| Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of hedge fund Galleon Group, is on trial on
criminal insider-trading charges.
Why the
Dollar’s Reign Is Near an End Wall Street Journal | Fully
85% of foreign-exchange transactions world-wide are trades of other currencies
for dollars.
Liberated
Libya Rejects US Intervention TRNN | On the streets of
liberated Benghazi people say no to McCain, Lieberman and any US intervention.
World
cheers as the CIA plunges Libya into chaos David Rothscum
| Gaddafi is the main threat to US hegemony in Africa.
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored A viral You Tube upload of
one of Alex Jones’ most popular feature films ‘The Obama Deception’ has been
censored following a spur of the moment campaign to elevate the movie’s title
to the top of the major internet search engines. In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war,
says U.S. largely unaware of sacrifice (Washington Post) [ I
disagree! They are very much aware; as they stand in unemployment lines, use
food stamps to get by, etc.. I hate to sound cavalier and I’m sorry that Kelly
lost a son to war, but along with the multitude of civilians in the nations
unlucky enough to provide a source of corporate welfare to the military
industrial complex and war profiteering for the few (as warned against by
President General Eisenhower), they died for nothing, for no good reason beyond
the false propaganda. Six NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
(Washington Post) [ Is there something wrong with the following picture? … am I
missing something? … Gates's warning: Avoid land war in Asia, Middle East, and
Africa Christian Science
Monitor - In a speech to cadets at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, Gates's message was clear: The US military services, as
well as the elected and appointed civilians who send them to war, need better
ways of foreseeing and preparing for ...
Gates Tells US Army to Take New Approach Voice of America Warning
Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan New York
Times [ Better said, than unsaid; but,
methinks a bit late for that in light of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america’s consummate decline and fall! If only they had listened and not shot
at the messenger … things could have been different! ]
Bernanke:
Fed will respond if oil prices trigger inflation (Washington Post) [ If?
Come on … don’t make me laugh! … Inflation
Is Here – Just Open Up Your Eyes And Look At These 5 Financial Charts! (see infra) Despite what Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke says, rampant inflation is officially here. The federal
government is constantly monkeying with the numbers to keep the “official” rate
of inflation below 2 percent, but it is becoming very difficult to deny that
the cost of almost everything is really going up these days. … Merk ‘…While we believe food inflation
will be with us for quite some time and may contribute to an unstable world
possibly for years to come, the Federal Reserve appears to be firmly in the
camp of heavily discounting food inflation. The European Central Bank (ECB), in
contrast, has historically taken commodity inflation more seriously than the
Fed – ECB President Trichet talks about his concern over "second round
effects," i.e., commodity inflation stirring inflation throughout the
value chain.
The relevance of all this is that in the U.S. it’s
business as usual as far as monetary policy is concerned. According to Fed
Chair Bernanke, the U.S. economy must grow at a rate of at least 2.5% per annum
just to keep unemployment stable, however, he has made it clear that he will
pursue policies to boost growth above that level. With oil prices soaring, he
is facing yet another headwind. Rather than mopping up the liquidity that, in
our assessment, has contributed to global commodity inflation, he may be
tempted to keep the printing press in high gear to promote economic growth.
It doesn’t really matter whether we think there is a
crisis. What matters is that the Fed doesn’t think its policies are
contributing to global instability and continues on its expansionary path…’
Gerald
Celente: “There is no recovery — it’s a coverup!” Sic Semper
Tyrannis | Celente argues the oil prices have been going up before the
recent chaos in the Middle East. ‘…One other point brought out by Gerald
Celente is the fact that the current puppet regime in the White House is
“cooking the books” on the unemployment numbers and current inflation rates.
They are making their own rules on how to determine inflation rates by leaving
out essential information such as food and fuel prices. The same is being done
with White House unemployment numbers by simply leaving out those who have given
up looking for jobs, as well as other deceptive “carnie” tricks (in reference
to White House spokesperson Carnie) in which he compares the administration to
a traveling carnival act.
In closing,
Celente states:
“… There is no recovery, it’s a coverup. It’s only
being boosted by these low interest rates, which again, when inflation
skyrockets- they’re gonna have to raise them …‘
House
Republicans press SEC on official's ties to Madoff (Washington Post) [ The
ultimate subterfuge. Mr. small potatoes madoff the focus of so much influence …
yet he’s in jail … and the only one … Boy, did mary shapiro become total b***
s*** fast … the current shibboleth of
capital hill / all 3 branches of pervasively corrupt u.s. government …
joining the others: “The
Financial Industry Has Become So Politically Powerful That It Is Able To
Inhibit the Normal Process of Justice And Law Enforcement” The economy
cannot stabilize unless fraud is prosecuted. But the folks in D.C. seem
determined to turn a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans, and is now moving to
defund the enforcement agencies like the SEC and CFTC. Market Crash 2011: It Will Hit by Christmas Farrell,
MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.
(MarketWatch) — ‘Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re
not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn
scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff,
get rich…’
‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted
massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and
declares with oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been
prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator /
experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder
and wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. ) (see this film, I strongly recommend the
complete documentary – the following is a preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
Ethics
code urged for Supreme Court
(Washington Post) [
Sounds like a plan! Come on! Wake up! After all, what can you expect
from two guidos from ‘jersey (alito and scalia, colloquial – note that I have
refrained from using what some might consider disparaging terms as w*p*,
gui***s, or da***s … and let me state for the record that I truly loved and
respected my grandmother who was 100% Italian/Bari,Italy and as well my
grandfather/Lake Como,northern Italy with greek ancestral roots and I thereby
claim standing/right to posit the criticism in light of my direct experience.
). How ‘bout starting with enforcing laws as to judges, liars, etc., within the
very corrupted american illegal system; and, particularly bribes which in one
form or another are rampant . I don’t know about Thomas ( 3-4-11 Throw Clarence Thomas Off the Bench (The Daily Beast) ) , but I do know about alito and ‘jersey … :
October 15, 2010
(*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez, Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the
Qui Tam provisions of the Federal
False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent resolution seek to
refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of the law with which I
am not familiar).
The document in 5 pages under penalty of
perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI office in New Haven is probably the
best and most concise summary of the case
RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm . With regard to the
calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices: There was one call to the LA
office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA office where I personally met
with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative evidentiary documents of the
money laundering which he confirmed as indicative of same (he was transferred
from said office within approximately a month of said meeting and his location
was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter was assigned to FBI Agent Ron
Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess of a decade until he abruptly
retired (our last conversation prior to his retirement related to the case and
parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father I stated had been an enforcer for
the mob to which he registered disbelief and requested I prove it, which I did
– he served 12 years in prison, aggravated assault/manslaughter? – and no,
there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew Maloney’s the one that
prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction
to the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
There is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor
creditors, nor I should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt
and illegal scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the
meaningful rules of law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia
611 E. 5th Street, #404
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 219-**** (cell phone)
(213) 622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with
the line, computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance
greater non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for
contact).
] Group of law
professors' appeal comes after controversies involving travel and appearances
at political events by several justices.
Why your local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad) http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/LPSILC43/PR [ The instant video from Stansberry and Associates is so well researched and succinctly presented that I’ve archived same on my website;
also, because the facts and views presented comport with the facts and views
I’ve presented on my site which I believe to be correct. This is a must-view,
must-see that I strongly recommend!
The complete url: http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.flv ( 146mb – approx. 1 hr. 17 min. ) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.mp4 (
374mb ) Written text of presentation (without
pictures / charts) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrypresentation.htm
]
Drudgereport: Gadhafi
Keeps Tight Grip on Capital...
Major
oil plant ablaze...
Oil
millions still flow for Gadhafi...
Internet
service cut again...
Battle
for control...
Prayers
Lead to Protests...
Rise
of Islamist regimes...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED... REUTERS
WIRE...
Tables
turned on one of Gaddafi's boy soldiers...
Rebels
reject Chávez mediation offer...
Video:
Bloody Battle...
Obama:
Pentagon Examines 'Full Range' of Options...
Pump
prices jump another 4 cents -- overnight...
Santelli:
'Good' Jobs Report Has Dark Side...
Layoffs
At Pre-Recession Level; Job Openings Down 30%...
GALLUP:
Unemployment Hits 10.3% in February...
UPDATE:
More inconsistencies found in stimulus job creation claims...
UN:
Food prices hit record high...
Gadhafi
vows fight to last man...
'It's
a conspiracy to take our oil'...
Rebels
rout Gadhafi force attack on oil port...
Seek
Airstrikes by Foreign Forces...
FARRAKHAN: JEWS PUSHING U.S. INTO WAR
Announced
Job Cuts 'Rose 20% From Year Ago'...
Idaho
county files for bankruptcy...
Delaware
voters say no to Lobotomy Joe ….. Biden (the self-proclaimed zionist) -- for
name of school...
'Wobama’s
Where's Waldo?' Presidency...
All
Former U.S. Presidents To Get Together For TV Special Honoring George H.W. Bush…(How
totally pathetic they are! How embarrassing for NBC!) ... [ Wake up!
http://albertpeia.com/bushcrimes.htm ]
U.S.
assault ships clear Suez, enter Med Sea on way to Libya...
Panic
on borders...
...180,000
refugees pour into Tunisia, Egypt
Could
become "a giant Somalia"...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED... REUTERS
WIRE...
Gunman
kills 2 US airmen at German airport...
Shouts
'Allah Akbar' before shooting...
GOLD
HITS NEW HIGH -- AGAIN...
Angry
mob confronts Wisconsin GOP Senator... Video...
Wisc
GOP passes bill to fine AWOL Dems...
White
House seeks $15 billion from federal property sales...
OIL
SHOCK AS MIDEAST SPIRALS
More
Than 140,000 People Flee Libya...
Gadhafi
forces retake towns near capital...
Cameron
backtracks on no-fly zone plan...
Astonishing
wealth of Gaddafi and his family revealed...
WIKILEAKS'
ASSANGE CITED JEWISH CONSPIRACY...
YEMEN
RAGES...
President
says US, Israel behind unrest...
Fashion
Week Führer: DIOR Fires Galliano After Racism Complaints...
'I
love Hitler'...
'Your
parents should have been gassed'...
FADE:
OSCAR RATINGS DOWN 10% ...
Injury
Added to Insult... [ In terms of production value (rich in
content in every way), I believe this to be as good and in my view better than
ever as award ceremonies can be without the inimitable Bob Hope. I believe any
falloff can be directly attributable to last year the academy’s egregious
misstep in over-looking ‘Avatar’ / Cameron presaging a similar fate concerning
my clear choice of ‘Inception’ / Nolan ( Truth be told, I’ve yet to see ‘The
King’s Speech’ failing to muster any enthusiasm for seeing a film centered
around a ‘so-called royal’ trying to over-come a speech impediment, albeit a
minor one, regardless of circumstances; viz., stuttering, though I would
concede that it was probably well done. We all know of the problems attendant
to english royal inbreeding…ho hum… I did find ‘The Black Swan’ superb but
attribute same to my own bias and fascination with viewing female ballet
dancing). Bob Hope: Academy Awards,
‘passover’ … very funny! ]
CIVIL
WAR WEEKEND
Armed
pro-Gaddafi gangs roll in Tripoli...
...Shooting
from ambulances...
GRAFFITI
AND BARRICADES...
Gaddafi
vows to crush protesters...
Egypt
protesters dispersed by force...
Al
Qaeda calls for revolt against Arab rulers...
Obama
to Gaddafi: Leave now...
UN
Security Council passes votes to sanction...
Gas
prices surge 17 cents in a week...
Motorist
Calls Police Over Rising Prices...
OBAMA:
CAN WE DRILL NOW?
LONDON
DRIVERS PAYING $9 A GALLON...
Spain
reduces motorway speed limit to save oil...
WOBAMA
'IMPEACHMENT' WARNING... ...to
announce exploratory committee 'in 10 days'
WEST MOVES MILITARY ASSETS AROUND LIBYA
CharlieSheen
Publicist Runs For Hills...
Actor
set to sue CBS for $320M, 'mental anguish'...
The
Legal Letter...
THE
'TODAY' INTERVIEW...
NY
MAG: Madoff on Madoff: The Jailhouse Tapes...
Government
a Ponzi scheme...
CIVIL
WAR WEEKEND...
Anti-Gaddafi
forces widen control...
Take
town 30 miles from Tripoli...
Security
forces defect...
Armed
pro-gangs roll in capital...
...shooting
from ambulances
STUDY:
World's sixth 'mass extinction' may be underway…[Much, much too optimistic
relative to reality] ...
ISRAELI'S
YOUTUBE SPOOF OF GADHAFI CATCHES ON IN ARAB WORLD...
Police
station, state office burning in Oman town...
Tunisia
prime minister resigns...
Gingrich
to announce exploratory committee 'in 10 days' [ Neo-con Dreamin’! I mean, come
on … are memories so short they don’t recall him being a total hypocrite,
zionist shill, and part of the problem
though to his credit, he’s not a mobster and complete joke as is trump! ]
CHICAGOLAND:
Lawmaker Suggests BOEING'S Contract Win A Result Of Dirty Politics... [ The contract’s with money the nation doen’t really
have anyway; and, the value of the money paid will be worth substantially less
by completion; and, no surprise … Chicago hasn’t changed much from the days of
capone and is rivaled in terms of corruption by such states as jersey, new
york, etc.. ] ‘…“I’m disappointed but not surprised,”
Republican Sen. Richard Shelby said. “Only Chicago politics could tip the
scales in favor of Boeing’s inferior plane. EADS clearly offers the more
capable aircraft.”…’
Rep.
Rangel Causes Stir In Courtroom; Reprimanded By Judge...NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Congressman
Charles Rangel caused a stir in court Friday
while trying to lend his support for bail of Afrika Owes.Owes, 17, had been a
student at the prestigious Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. Prosecutors say
she was also a member of a drug gang that terrorized 137th Street in
Harlem.Owes was one of fourteen
suspected “137th Street Crew” gang members arrested last month.
Prosecutors said the gang used shootings, beatings and robberies to protect
their turf and gain street status on a stretch of West 137th Street. The gang
allegedly openly dealt crack in apartment lobbies, near Harlem Hospital and
near the Abyssinian Baptist
Church. Congressman Charles Rangel argues for Owes getting bail to
Juliet Papa of 1010 WINS
Violent
spring looming in Afghanistan (Washington Post) [ See … something to look
forward to … must be that good news that keeps getting pushed back … and spring
no less … everything blooming, or in war criminal american-speak … ‘booming’ …
but not the defacto bankrupt american economy for which a crash is ‘looming’.
Could somebody help me out with a translation of gates’ speech a west point … I
must be missing something … Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war,
says U.S. largely unaware of sacrifice (Washington Post) [ I disagree!
They are very much aware; as they stand in unemployment lines, use food stamps
to get by, etc.. I hate to sound cavalier and I’m sorry that Kelly lost a son
to war, but along with the multitude of civilians in the nations unlucky enough
to provide a source of corporate welfare to the military industrial complex and
war profiteering for the few (as warned against by President General
Eisenhower), they died for nothing, for no good reason beyond the false
propaganda. Six NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
(Washington Post) [ Is there something wrong with the following picture? … am I
missing something? … Gates's warning: Avoid land war in Asia, Middle East, and
Africa Christian Science
Monitor - In a speech to cadets at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, Gates's message was clear: The US military services, as
well as the elected and appointed civilians who send them to war, need better
ways of foreseeing and preparing for ...
Gates Tells US Army to Take New Approach Voice of America Warning
Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan New York
Times [ Better said, than unsaid; but,
methinks a bit late for that in light of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america’s consummate decline and fall! If only they had listened and not shot
at the messenger … things could have been different! ]
] American military officials
expect that the Taliban will mount a campaign to regain ground lost to U.S.
troops last year and use suicide bombing teams to strike at those associated
with the Afghan government or coalition forces.
U.S. prepares for possible rise of new
Islamist regimes Revolutions
may bring a more religious cast to Mideast politics (Washington
Post) [ Oh riiiiight! Pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america, the
‘johnny on the spot’ when it comes to being ahead of the events / curve … and
they’re so interested in democratization … as in Saudi Arabia, etc… Egypt,
Serbia, Georgia… The History of US Sponsored “Democratization” There is a
Russian proverb: only a fool learns from his own mistakes. As Georgia’s foreign
minister visits his Egyptian counterpart, there are lessons for Egypt in
similar revolutions in eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union. ] Recent
developments have alarmed some who fear that the governments taking shape will
inevitably undercut democratic reforms.
Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many
important global stock markets, including China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong,
have been in fairly significant corrections since November, down between 12%
and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising inflation and the resulting
monetary tightening by their central banks to combat the inflationary
pressures...So was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious
correction? The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the
stock market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential. Limited upside potential equals more downside risk?
It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the
next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’
Commerce Data Shows Personal Incomes Rising but Few Americans
Believe It [ Yeah, they don’t believe
it because it’s not true. Scandal scarred commerce department of pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt, and very desperate america? Come on, give us all a
break. ] Zielinski ‘American workers should be celebrating the
latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Commerce that show personal income
at all time highs. Since taking a rather sharp dip during the recession of
2008-2009, personal income has soared to almost $13 trillion, up from $12
trillion in early 2009.
[chart] (Click
to enlarge)
Getting
Americans to believe that their incomes have actually increased is another
story. While the Department of Commerce is reporting all time highs in income,
another survey released by Fannie Mae shows the opposite.
Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB)
conducts a National Housing Survey every quarter that polls homeowners and
renters in depth about their confidence in homeownership, overall confidence in
the economy and the current state of their household finances.
The latest
National Housing Survey for the fourth quarter of 2010 polled 3,407 Americans
and the results do not reflect the rosy income numbers reported by the
Department of Commerce.
The survey
revealed that 62% of all respondents believe the U.S. economy is on the wrong
track, 60% reported that monthly household income was the same as a year ago
and 34% said that their monthly expenses were "significantly higher"
than a year ago. Only 19% of those polled said their incomes were significantly
higher.
Keep in mind
that Americans do not normally "inflation adjust" their perception of
personal income – when respondents say that their income has not changed, it means
they are receiving the same absolute amount of dollars, unadjusted for
inflation.
[chart] (Click
to enlarge)
Total personal
income may have increased but income gains seem to have been limited to a small
minority of Americans.
In any event,
if most Americans have not seen an increase in their monthly incomes, there is
little reason for comfort going forward. As higher oil and commodity prices
work their way through the system, the basic cost of living will increase for
everyone. If that’s not enough, once Fed Chairman Bernanke’s obsession with
creating higher inflation succeeds, we are all apt to feel poorer.’
3
Market Valuation Indicators Continue to Signal Caution Short ‘Yesterday I
posted monthly updates of the three valuation indicators I routinely follow:
This post is essentially an overview and summary by
way of chart overlays of the three. To facilitate comparisons, I've adjusted
the Q Ratio and P/E10 to their arithmetic mean, which I represent as zero. Thus
the percentages on the vertical axis show the over/undervaluation as a percent
above mean value, which I'm using as a surrogate for fair value. Based on the
latest S&P 500 monthly data, the index is overvalued by 72%, 48% or 43%,
depending on which of the three metrics you choose.
I've plotted the S&P regression data as an area
chart type rather than a line to make the comparisons a bit easier to read. It
also reinforces the difference between the two line charts — both being simple
ratios — and the regression series, which measures the distance from an
exponential regression on a log chart.
click to enlarge images
The chart below differs from the one above in that
the two valuation ratios (P/E and Q) are adjusted to their geometric mean rather
than their arithmetic mean (which is what most people think of as the
"average"). The geometric mean weights the central tendency of a
series of numbers, thus calling attention to outliers. In my view, the first
chart does a satisfactory job of illustrating these three approaches to market
valuation, but I've included the geometric variant as an interesting
alternative view for P/E and Q.
As I've frequently pointed out, these indicators
aren't useful as short-term signals of market direction. Periods of over- and
under-valuation can last for years. But they can play a role in framing
longer-term expectations of investment returns. At present they suggest a
cautious outlook and guarded expections.’
Sustained rises in the prices of oil or other
commodities would represent a threat both to economic growth and to overall
price stability, particularly if they were to cause inflation expectations to
become less well anchored. -Ben Bernanke
If it's all about expectations then I think the
Federal Reserve Chairmen added gasoline to the fire on Tuesday. Many people
already see inflation and don't expect it to go away anytime soon. This puts
the Fed in a tough position because so far it has been able to get what it
wants in the perception department. The wealth effect is creeping back. People
aren't afraid to open their 401K statements. Yet, on that note, people aren't
flocking to the stock market as most still seek comfort in precious metals or
prefer cooling their heels on the sidelines.
Despite soaring consumer confidence surveys, to which Bernanke referred,
visions of March 2009 burns bright in the minds of many. This actually makes
the market more vulnerable to a series of lower moves based solely on a domino
effect of fear. But this all falls into the emotion category, and while moves
from these emotions can be sharp and abrupt, they don't reflect true value or
future potential. What it does is create one heck of a dilemma. It also could
be a heck of a challenge for investors, active and those on the sidelines,
still smarting about that nuclear meltdown of 2009.
In the meantime, Bernanke might have sold the wisdom of QE 1 and 2 so well that
the foregone conclusion is that there is no way the economy (stock market…wink)
should need additional help. That means the stock market has to find new
sources to make up for the Fed's $75.0 billion monthly injections. It's highly
unlikely individual investors will make up that number, and professionals may
not have the powder. Plus, those professionals are held to greater
accountability. Yes, there are still trillions of dollars on the sidelines and
people are becoming more eager to make money, but that still has to translate
into taking chances. It's easier to take chances when one feels confident.
I continue to believe such confidence begins with our government. The House
passed a stopgap budget bill giving lawmakers two weeks to figure out where to
cut and by how much. Republicans in the House have already passed a bill with
$61.0 billion in cuts but Democrats are balking. They point to a report from
Goldman Sachs (GS) that says such cuts would decrease GDP
by 1.5% to 2.0% in the second and third quarters. Mark Zandi says the cuts
would cost 700,000 job losses through 2012. I beg to differ. Fiscal
responsibility would embolden people to put money to work knowing their own
government is becoming responsible.
But the White House holds the wildcard, and that's to lower corporate taxes. We
saw consumer income climb from the payroll tax cut, I think we could see
massive money pour into society the right way, through job hires and research
and development. Let U.S. businesses bring money parked abroad back home and we
could find a source to take the place of that $75.0 billion gravy train that
will probably come to a halt in June. The market can handle higher prices as a
consequence of lower unemployment and rising wages. But, the Fed has fueled the
rise in crude as much as it has played the role in gold and silver spiking
higher. There is a demand dynamic to crude, particularly in emerging markets.
Going into the close on Tuesday we also learned there is surprising domestic
demand for petroleum.
American Petroleum Institute reported on changes in inventories.
Crude drawdown: 1.08 million barrels (consensus was build of 1.6 million)
Gasoline drawdown: 4.9 million barrels (consensus build of 900,000)
Distillates drawdown: 1.44 million (consensus drawdown of 1.8 million)
I still believe most of Tuesday's spike was Bernanke talking up oil and the
notion of commodities climbing on expectations of higher prices.
Consumers are talking a good game about confidence,
but it's going to take serious job gains for them to put their money where
their survey responses are. I think the January jobs number could come in above
200,000, but I wonder if weather could have played a role or could we have yet
another disappointment.
Confidence would get a boost with a quick resolution in the Middle East. Right
now, it looks like Saudi Arabia gets through along with Oman and Yemen. Libya
would seem like a done deal, although waking up to learn Qaddafi launched an
unsuccessful counterattack yesterday was unnerving. Now, dissidents might ask
America to provide air attacks as cover for their own counterattack. As it
stands, we have two U.S. Naval battleships heading to Libya for humanitarian
assistance.’
Housing
Market, Community Banks Will Drag the Economy Suttmeier ‘The Fed’s Beige
Books are the gossip columns from the 12 Fed districts, and the anecdotal
evidence shows that despite some economic
improvements, the housing market continues to be a drag, and that community
banks are still reluctant to lend. The FDIC
Quarterly Banking Profile is the balance sheet of the US economy, and nearly
60% of all community banks still
face balance sheet stress that makes it difficult to increase lending, as
noncurrent loans continue to be
a burden.
The
latest Beige Book, released on Wednesday, showed that economic growth continued
to expand at a modest to moderate pace in January and early February. The major
headwind has been residential real estate activity and some Fed districts
reported a slight increase in activity, but the overall level of home sales and
construction remained low. Nonresidential construction was described as weak.
In a separate report from the FDIC, their Quarterly Banking Profile for the
fourth quarter showed continued stress among the community banks that provide
funding to real estate lending. Overexposures to Construction & Development
Loans and Commercial Real Estate Loans continued. This correlates to the Beige
Book reporting that credit standards were unchanged to tighter.
The housing market thus remains a drag on the US economy, and the network of
community banks are not fit financially to increase lending to homebuilders and
to potential home buyers. This environment caused the 2008/2009 recession and
because the environment is not improving, housing and the banking system can
again drag the economy into a double dip. I have been calling it “The Great
Credit Crunch” since March 2007, and the crunch continues in 2011.
10-Year Note -- (3.477) Weekly and annual value levels are 3.630 and 3.796 with
the 50-day simple moving average at 3.446 and daily and monthly risky levels at
3.356 and 3.002.
[chart]
Source: Thomson / Reuters
Comex Gold -- ($1434.1) Strength tested my monthly and quarterly risky
levels at $1437.7 and $1441.7. The 50-day simple moving average is $1375.8
with semiannual risky level at $1452.6.
[chart]
Source: Thomson / Reuters
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($102.44) My annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92 have
become strong magnets. My monthly value level is $96.43 with semiannual,
daily, and quarterly risky levels at $107.14, $108.37, and $110.87.
[chart]
Source: Thomson / Reuters
The Euro -- (1.3863) It tested Wednesday’s risky level at 1.3898. My
weekly and quarterly value levels are 1.3690 and 1.3227 with a daily risky
level at 1.3942. The euro remains below its 200-week simple moving average
at 1.3953.
[chart]
Source: Thomson / Reuters
Daily Dow: (12,067) It's trading between its 50-day simple moving average at
11,916 and its 21-day simple moving average at 12,148. Daily and annual
value levels are 11,977 and 11,491 with weekly, monthly, and annual risky
levels at 12,461, 12,741, and 13,890.
[chart]
Source: Thomson / Reuters
ValuEngine Valuation Warning -- A ValuEngine Valuation Warning occurs when more
than 65% of all stocks in the ValuEngine universe are calculated to be
overvalued. On February 18, 68.6% of all stocks were overvalued, which was the
highest of the year. Today 62.1% of all stocks are overvalued. All 15 of
16 sectors are overvalued, eight by double-digit percentages.
Key Levels for the Major Equity Averages
Former
Goldman director charged with insider trading Globe & Mail
| Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of hedge fund Galleon Group, is on trial on
criminal insider-trading charges.
Why the
Dollar’s Reign Is Near an End Wall Street Journal | Fully
85% of foreign-exchange transactions world-wide are trades of other currencies
for dollars.
Ron
Paul To Ben Bernanke “I Want A Definition Of Money!” MOX News
| Congressman overseeing monetary policy questions Fed chair.
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored A viral You Tube upload of
one of Alex Jones’ most popular feature films ‘The Obama Deception’ has been
censored following a spur of the moment campaign to elevate the movie’s title
to the top of the major internet search engines. In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be complete
(but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war,
says U.S. largely unaware of sacrifice (Washington Post) [ I
disagree! They are very much aware; as they stand in unemployment lines, use
food stamps to get by, etc.. I hate to sound cavalier and I’m sorry that Kelly
lost a son to war, but along with the multitude of civilians in the nations
unlucky enough to provide a source of corporate welfare to the military
industrial complex and war profiteering for the few (as warned against by President
General Eisenhower), they died for nothing, for no good reason beyond the false
propaganda. Six NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
(Washington Post) [ Is there something wrong with the following picture? … am I
missing something? … Gates's warning: Avoid land war in Asia, Middle East, and
Africa Christian Science
Monitor - In a speech to cadets at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, Gates's message was clear: The US military services, as
well as the elected and appointed civilians who send them to war, need better
ways of foreseeing and preparing for ...
Gates Tells US Army to Take New Approach Voice of America Warning
Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan New York Times [ Better said, than unsaid; but, methinks a
bit late for that in light of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s
consummate decline and fall! If only they had listened and not shot at the
messenger … things could have been different! ]
Bernanke:
Fed will respond if oil prices trigger inflation (Washington Post) [ If?
Come on … don’t make me laugh! … Inflation
Is Here – Just Open Up Your Eyes And Look At These 5 Financial Charts! (see infra) Despite what Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke says, rampant inflation is officially here. The federal
government is constantly monkeying with the numbers to keep the “official” rate
of inflation below 2 percent, but it is becoming very difficult to deny that
the cost of almost everything is really going up these days. … Merk ‘…While we believe food inflation
will be with us for quite some time and may contribute to an unstable world
possibly for years to come, the Federal Reserve appears to be firmly in the
camp of heavily discounting food inflation. The European Central Bank (ECB), in
contrast, has historically taken commodity inflation more seriously than the
Fed – ECB President Trichet talks about his concern over "second round
effects," i.e., commodity inflation stirring inflation throughout the
value chain.
The relevance of all this is that in the U.S. it’s
business as usual as far as monetary policy is concerned. According to Fed
Chair Bernanke, the U.S. economy must grow at a rate of at least 2.5% per annum
just to keep unemployment stable, however, he has made it clear that he will
pursue policies to boost growth above that level. With oil prices soaring, he
is facing yet another headwind. Rather than mopping up the liquidity that, in
our assessment, has contributed to global commodity inflation, he may be
tempted to keep the printing press in high gear to promote economic growth.
It doesn’t really matter whether we think there is a
crisis. What matters is that the Fed doesn’t think its policies are
contributing to global instability and continues on its expansionary path…’
Gerald
Celente: “There is no recovery — it’s a coverup!” Sic Semper
Tyrannis | Celente argues the oil prices have been going up before the
recent chaos in the Middle East. ‘…One other point brought out by Gerald Celente
is the fact that the current puppet regime in the White House is “cooking the
books” on the unemployment numbers and current inflation rates. They are making
their own rules on how to determine inflation rates by leaving out essential
information such as food and fuel prices. The same is being done with White
House unemployment numbers by simply leaving out those who have given up
looking for jobs, as well as other deceptive “carnie” tricks (in reference to
White House spokesperson Carnie) in which he compares the administration to a
traveling carnival act.
In closing,
Celente states:
“… There is no recovery, it’s a coverup. It’s only
being boosted by these low interest rates, which again, when inflation
skyrockets- they’re gonna have to raise them …‘
House
Republicans press SEC on official's ties to Madoff (Washington Post) [ The
ultimate subterfuge. Mr. small potatoes madoff the focus of so much influence …
yet he’s in jail … and the only one … Boy, did mary shapiro become total b***
s*** fast … the current shibboleth of
capital hill / all 3 branches of pervasively corrupt u.s. government …
joining the others: “The
Financial Industry Has Become So Politically Powerful That It Is Able To
Inhibit the Normal Process of Justice And Law Enforcement” The economy
cannot stabilize unless fraud is prosecuted. But the folks in D.C. seem
determined to turn a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans, and is now moving to
defund the enforcement agencies like the SEC and CFTC. Market Crash 2011: It Will Hit by Christmas Farrell,
MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.
(MarketWatch) — ‘Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re
not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn
scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff,
get rich…’
‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted
massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and
declares with oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been
prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator /
experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder
and wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. ) (see this film, I strongly recommend the
complete documentary – the following is a preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
[ (2-26-11
et seq) Let me state for the record here that my computer has been under
constant viral, hack attack, paralleling prior such foolish, paranoid actions
and let me reiterate: They will be sorry and I won’t forget it! ]
Christian minorities minister assassinated
(Washington Post) [ Christians, Christianity lumped together with war
criminals, zionists, invaders, plunderers, murderers, etc.. No surprise here.
Winning hearts and minds? I don’t think so … Blowback? Most assuredly: 2 U.S. airmen killed, 2 hurt in
shooting near Frankfurt airport (Post, March
2, 2011); Most U.S. aid to Pakistan
hasn't gotten there yet (Post, March 2, 2011); Clinton: U.S. losing global
public-relations battle - to 'Baywatch' and wrestling (Post, March
2, 2011 Well, I don’t know about baywatch and wrestling, but reality beyond
false propaganda will do it every time) ] Shahbaz
Bhatti is gunned down in the second killing this year of a liberal, senior
government official who had spoken out against the nation's stringent blasphemy
laws.Karzai
condemns deadly NATO airstrike (Washington Post) [ Well, for pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt america, it’s just another of many war crimes. They
just role out the propaganda machine that no one is buying anymore. Yet, can
you believe your eyes and ears here: Six NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
(Washington Post) [ Is there something wrong with the following picture? … am I
missing something? … Gates's warning: Avoid land war in Asia, Middle East, and
Africa Christian Science
Monitor - In a speech to cadets at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, Gates's message was clear: The US military services, as
well as the elected and appointed civilians who send them to war, need better
ways of foreseeing and preparing for ...
Gates Tells US Army to Take New Approach Voice of America Warning
Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan New York
Times [ Better said, than unsaid; but,
methinks a bit late for that in light of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america’s consummate decline and fall! If only they had listened and not shot
at the messenger … things could have been different! ] A NATO airstrike that Afghan officials
said killed nine children collecting firewood in eastern Afghanistan beccomes
the latest irritant in the tense relationship between President Hamid Karzai
and the international force in the country.
Government
cracks down on employment scams
(Washington Post) [ Yet leave the
biggest, most deleterious scam / fraud unprosecuted. What total b*** s***! House
Republicans press SEC on official's ties to Madoff (Washington Post) [ The
ultimate subterfuge. Mr. small potatoes madoff the focus of so much influence …
yet he’s in jail … and the only one … Boy, did mary shapiro become total b***
s*** fast … the current shibboleth of
capital hill / all 3 branches of pervasively corrupt u.s. government …
joining the others: “The
Financial Industry Has Become So Politically Powerful That It Is Able To
Inhibit the Normal Process of Justice And Law Enforcement” The economy
cannot stabilize unless fraud is prosecuted. But the folks in D.C. seem
determined to turn a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans, and is now moving to
defund the enforcement agencies like the SEC and CFTC. Market Crash 2011: It Will Hit by Christmas Farrell,
MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.
(MarketWatch) — ‘Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re
not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn
scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff,
get rich…’
‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted
massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and
declares with oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been
prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator /
experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder
and wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. ) (see this film, I strongly recommend the
complete documentary – the following is a preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
Oil
soars to more than $100 a barrel on Libyan unrest (Washington Post) [ When
you factor in reality, the worst is yet to come … Gerald
Celente: “There is no recovery — it’s a coverup!” Sic Semper
Tyrannis | Celente argues the oil prices have been going up before the
recent chaos in the Middle East. ‘…One other point brought out by Gerald
Celente is the fact that the current puppet regime in the White House is
“cooking the books” on the unemployment numbers and current inflation rates.
They are making their own rules on how to determine inflation rates by leaving
out essential information such as food and fuel prices. The same is being done
with White House unemployment numbers by simply leaving out those who have
given up looking for jobs, as well as other deceptive “carnie” tricks (in
reference to White House spokesperson Carnie) in which he compares the
administration to a traveling carnival act.
In closing,
Celente states:
“… There is no recovery, it’s a coverup. It’s only
being boosted by these low interest rates, which again, when inflation
skyrockets- they’re gonna have to raise them …‘
A
Crash in Saudi Arabia, Arrogant Eurocrats and a Look at the Markets Part 2 Tenebrarum ‘Saudi Arabia's Stock Market Plunges
Stock market
traders in Saudi Arabia got a bit of a wake-up call yesterday. Their stock market
evidently sees something it doesn't like. Why the market is all of a sudden
more worried than it was previously about the challenge to the established
political order in the Arab world is a bit of a mystery, but presumably traders
have thus far deluded themselves into thinking that Saudi Arabia would be
immune to unrest. Something has evidently changed their mind. It seems to us
that this event deserves the moniker warning sign. The selling has been
extremely heavy for three days now. Since this market is largely driven by
local investors, we should probably attach some significance to this recent
plunge. Someone has begun to sell three days ago and has spooked the herd. It's
a good bet that the someone who started the selling is better informed than the
rest of us.
Note in this
context the following information about the current oil policy of Saudi Arabia from
Marketwatch. While the article references anonymous sources, which stands
in the way of fact-checking, there is one paragraph that caught our eye:
"The main threat is ... Saudi instability when
the current king dies. We know he is very ill but obviously there is no
indication of how critical that condition is. But it is acknowledged that the
next transition will present a much bigger threat to internal stability ...
Vested interest groups have been waiting for this transition to push their
agenda. Saudi experienced considerable regional instability up to 10 years ago
but bought it off with higher oil-based spending. Today the problem is as bad,
if not worse. There have been only a few of the promised reforms ... Resentment
towards the wealth gap with the royals is very high ... Even if/when the
instability in other countries, such as Libya, settles, the Saudi succession
threat is now firmly on the table. What happens in Bahrain could be very key.
That alone will keep the oil market nervous for this year."
The very ill king could in fact be the key to the
sudden crash in Saudi Arabia's stock market. With political instability across
the entire region, a fight for succession in Saudi Arabia wouldn't be very
conducive to stability at this particular point in time. The fact that
spreading some of the oil wealth around has not been effective in lowering the
level of resentment vis-a-vis the royals sounds very credible to us. So does
the assertion that what happens in Bahrain will be very important. Bahrain is
ruled by a monarchy as well and should it lose power, the Saudi masses could be
galvanized.
Saudi Arabia is the world's second biggest oil
producer after Russia and as a result the monarchy has enormous financial
resources at its disposal. This certainly helps with buying off numerous
special interest groups. Also, as we mentioned in passing previously, the
royals have a deal with the powerful and highly conservative religious
establishment that helps keep them in power. Essentially the country is a
mixture between a monarchy and theocracy. The strict religiously inspired laws
may on the one hand sit well with the deeply religious population, but on the
other hand they also make for a very repressive environment that may sit less
well with the youth – large numbers of which are unemployed. Also, the
extravagance of the many Saudi princes (over 10,000 royals are about, all
well-endowed with stipends) may not go down all that well with the rest of the
Saudis , regardless of what deals the royals have made with the mullahs. All in
all, it remains a potentially explosive situation.
(Click to enlarge)
Saudi Arabia's Al-Tadawul All-share Index goes somewhat
belatedly into free-fall.
In the meantime, Muammar Qaddafy continues to give
utterly bizarre
interviews (if anything, they have become even more so ... "I don't
lead Libya, I have no power" ... "The people of Libya love
me!"), while more and more of Libya falls to opposition forces. Evidently
the man has lost whatever connection to reality he may once have possessed. The
Pentagon has meanwhile assembled
naval forces off Libyan waters – possibly to enforce a no-fly zone.
While all eyes are on Libya, Egypt has once again
decided not to reopen its stock
market – the reopening of the stock exchange has been been postponed
repeatedly, so this is almost business as usual by now.
"The Egyptian Exchange, shuttered for over a
month, was to resume trading on Tuesday. But in an overnight statement,
exchange officials said the market would reopen instead on March 6 to 'allow
investors to profit from the government's support to guarantee stability in the
bourse.'
"The decision reflected the strong undercurrent
of unease in the Arab world's most populous nation where the market's benchmark
stock index had shed almost 17 percent in two consecutive trading sessions
before it closed at the end of the business day on Jan. 27."
Keep the market closed to 'allow investors to profit
from the government's support to guarantee stability in the bourse'? Good luck
with that one.
As a final note on the Middle East, we continue to
recommend keeping an eye on Iran. The regime
is evidently worried, and given Iran's importance as an oil exporter, any
unrest in that country would arguably have an even bigger effect on the oil
market than Libya's recent disintegration.
Ireland and the Arrogant Eurocracy
Via Dr. Jim Walker of the excellent research firm Asianomics, we have been made aware of some of
the things various eurocrats have had to say about the Irish election. Some of
these quotes are remarkable for their
unbridled and quite unwarranted arrogance.
"As Irish voters headed for the polling booths
on Friday, the European Commission bluntly declared that the terms of the
EU-IMF bailout "must be applied" whatever the will of Ireland's
people or regardless of any change of government.
"It's an agreement between the EU and the
Republic of Ireland, it's not an agreement between an institution and a particular
government," said a Brussels spokesman.
A European diplomat, from a large eurozone country,
told The Sunday Telegraph that "the more the Irish make a big deal about
renegotiation in public, the more attitudes will harden."
"It is not even take it or leave it. It's done.
Ireland's only role in this now is to implement the programme agreed with the
EU, IMF and European Central Bank. Irish voters are not a party in this
process, whatever they have been told," said the diplomat.”
(Our emphasis)
Hello? Irish voters are "not a party in this
process"? Irish voters – i.e. the tax cows that have been condemned to
bail out their failed banks so that the highly leveraged German banking system
can avoid a debt restructuring broadside – may well go from "revolution
lite" as the WSJ
calls the election outcome (since essentially, one conservative party was
exchanged for another), to a "real revolution." As an aside, while
the WSJ asserts that 'Ireland needs Merkel," we believe it is exactly the
other way around (see further below as to why). Our understanding of
'democracy' is that voters are the ultimate arbiters of such things. There is
no agreement that can not be amended or broken if voters feel they have been
sold out by the government that signed it. As the Telegraph notes further:
"Dessie Shiels, an independent candidate in
Donegal, said: "People have not been given the basic right of
deciding whether or not they should have their taxes increased in order to
repay bondholders who have lent to the banks."
David McWilliams, an economist and former official at
the Ireland's Central Bank, has led calls for a popular vote under Article 27
of the Irish constitution, which requires on a matter of "such
national importance that the will of the people ought to be ascertained."
"We have to re-negotiate everything," he
said. "Obviously, the first way to do this is to make them aware that if
they force us to pay everything, we will default and they will get nothing. So
they had better get a little bit of something, than all of nothing. To make
this financial pill easier to swallow, we must take the initiative politically.
We can do this via a referendum.
"If the Irish people hold a referendum on the
bank debts now, we can go to the EU with a mandate from the people which says
No. This will allow our politicians to play hard-ball, because to do otherwise
would be an anti-democratic endgame."
Declan Ganley, the Irish businessman who led the 2008
No vote to the Lisbon Treaty, said Ireland must "have the balls" to
threaten debt default and withdrawal from the single currency.
"We have a hostage, it is called the euro,"
he said. "The euro is insolvent. The only question is whether Ireland
should be sacrificed to keep the Ponzi scheme going. We have to have a Plan B
to the misnamed bailout, which is to go back to the Irish Punt."
(our emphasis)
Got it in one, Mr, Ganley. Ireland is the party that
has the leverage in this situation, not the EU. The decisive point is this: The
euro is a kind of roach motel – it's easy (too easy) to get in, but it is very
hard to get out.
Why is it so hard to get out? It isn't, as the
outgoing Irish government asserted, the fact that government would find it hard
to borrow money in the markets after a bank debt restructuring, or even after a
restructuring of the government's own debt. Greece, which has been bankrupt for
half of the past 180 years, is proof positive that it is fairly easy to find
new suckers for government debt after a while.
No, at the root of the roach motel problem are the
banks themselves. If the population suspects that an abandonment of the euro is
imminent, worries that the national currency likely to succeed the euro will be
devalued would provoke a flight from the banks – depositors would shift their
deposits to other banks somewhere else in the euro area. Both Greece and
Ireland have in fact been plagued by such a flight of depositors already, to
varying extent. In fact, the biggest and quite obviously bankrupt Irish banks
have bled deposits at an enormous rate lately. With the banks completely
zombified, worries about a flight of depositors should be much reduced – since
they have already largely fled.
The banking system is however also a big worry for
the rest of the EU. Why was the Irish government forced to accept a bailout?
What was so urgent? Why was it so important to especially avoid a restructuring
of the senior debt of Ireland's banks? The answer is that an Irish debt
restructuring imposing a big haircut on bondholders would hit banks elsewhere
in the euro area (including the ECB, as it were). The way we see this, Irish
voters will eventually prove the arrogant unnamed European diplomat from a big
country wrong. They will eventually be a party to the proceedings. Negotiating
a lower interest rate on borrowings from the EFSF, the currently enunciated
goal of the new Irish government won't be enough. It won't do the trick because
the burden will still be too large.
We would note here, as we have repeatedly done
before, that it does no-one any good to pretend that losses don't exist or that
the giant fiat money Ponzi scheme made up of unpayable government debt and de
facto insolvent fractionally reserved banks can be forever kept going by
heaping new debts atop the old ones. If we want genuine, sustainable economic
growth to resume, the only way to achieve that is to bite the bullet.
Acknowledge the losses and let them fall upon those who have invested unwisely.
This is not merely a question of morality, as prominent Keynesians like Paul
Krugman keep saying. It is a question that concerns the system of free market
capitalism itself. Capitalism is not supposed to privatize profits and
socialize losses. This is a perversion of the free market system that will
ultimately serve to destroy it.
In addition, as the EU lurches toward the 'big
accord' planned for late March – a.k.a. the Grand
Bargain (Portugal may well fall into crisis before that date, as its bond
yields remain stuck above the crucial 7% level and large debt
rollovers are awaiting it in March) , there are evidently plans afoot to
make other European nations more like Germany. Unfortunately this is not merely
about fiscal rectitude as such. It is also about the desire of the German
political class to impose Germany's high taxes on everyone. Ireland would do
well to think twice about agreeing to such stipulations.
(Click to enlarge)
Portugal's 10 year bond yield sits at 7.45%. Greece
and Ireland both became EFSF wards when their yields crossed the 7% mark. And
yes, this is a bullish (bearish for Portuguese debt) chart.
The
Markets
The Stock
Market
In the wake of
the big decline in Saudi Arabia's stock market, other stock markets also
suffered a bad hair day. It would be easy to pin the blame for the stock
market's recent decline on the problems in the Middle East, but bulls should
perhaps be more concerned about a number of other facts. For one thing, there
is the subtle internal technical deterioration as evidenced by many 'momo'
stocks coming under pressure of late, i.e., the so-called "Teflon
stocks" all of a sudden look somewhat less teflonesque. A similar
point is made in a recent
article by Michael Kahn at Barron's about the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
As Kahn remarks:
"Despite its limited representation in a market
of thousands of stocks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average nonetheless is an
important barometer. Given the sheer dollar value of its 30 component issues,
any cracks in its armor should not be ignored.
So when fully one fifth of Dow stocks sport technical
failure we should take notice. Failure, in the lexicon of charting, is often
used to describe a stock falling as it hits a key level such as resistance or
the top of a pattern.
When a stock breaks out to the upside from resistance
or a chart pattern it is usually a bullish sign. Demand overcomes supply and
prices move higher – most of the time. However, failure to hold on to that
breakout is the unusual case and that makes it a true newsworthy event for
investors."
Kahn notes that the bulk of the DJIA stocks remains
in solid uptrends, but of course when the market gets into trouble, the first
signs of such are always subtle.
(Click to enlarge)
What is notable to us about the recent decline is
that the preceding rally as well as the recent rebound all happened on very
weak volume, whereas volume tends to spike when the market moves lower. This is
a negative sign too.
What else should stock market bulls worry about aside
from the loss of leadership and subtle signs of technical deterioration? How
about "Hedge
funds borrow the most since 2007 to purchase U.S. stocks?"
"Hedge funds
increased their net leverage in January to the highest level since October 2007,
as they took advantage of record-low borrowing costs to bet that the U.S.
equity rally will continue.
Debt at margin accounts at the New York Stock
Exchange minus cash and unused credit from margin accounts climbed to $46
billion, according to data released by NYSE yesterday. Hedge funds had $290
billion of debt from margin accounts in December, the largest sum since Lehman
Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed in September 2008."
(Our emphasis)
Needless to say, October of 2007 was not exactly a
propitious time to buy lots of stocks on margin. Perhaps this time will be
different, but we kind of doubt it (although in some respects the 2007 high was
even more beset by extremes – but then, it was a much higher high).
What else is there to worry about? How about those
capitulating bears: "Capitulating
Bears Push Short Sales to Lowest in Three Years."
"The biggest Standard & Poor’s 500 Index
rally in more than five decades is forcing stock market bears to abandon short
sales, cutting them to the lowest level since 2007 last month.
Shares borrowed and sold to profit from declines
dropped four straight months and represented 3.3 percent of all stock in
January, according to data compiled by NYSE Euronext. Pessimists are giving up
after missing the 95 percent rally in the S&P 500 spurred by the
fastest earnings growth since 1994. The monthly decrease comes as
individuals added $17.6 billion to U.S. mutual funds this year after
withdrawing money since April."
(Our emphasis)
There it is mentioned again, that fateful year 2007.
Capitulating bears weren't a good sign then, and they are unlikely to be a good
sign now. The lower the short interest ratio, the less support from short
covering there will be once the market heads down, but to us it is more
important what this datum says about sentiment.
(Click to enlarge)
The chart of the high beta DJ Transportation average
is intriguing – its rebound failed at the 50 day moving average. This average
generally tends to lag in moves up (i.e. it tends to be one of the last indexes
to top out) and lead in declines.
(Click to enlarge)
A recent chart of mutual fund cash levels from Jason
Goepfert's sentimentrader.com shows that mutual fund managers are also all in –
the current reading is the second lowest in all of history , a mere 10 basis
points above the all time low (the absolute low was seen in 2010). This
indicator tends to have medium to long term significance. We see it largely as
an expression of fund manager sentiment.
Solely from a chart perspective it is too early to
say whether the recent pullback will just be a short term hiccup or the
beginning of a more substantial correction. Many of the aforementioned momentum
stocks have weakened, but they have not yet broken any important supports.
However, the fact that the market has for a change not rallied on the first of
the month (the bulk of the advance from the 2009 low was accomplished by large
first-of-the-month rallies) clearly constitutes a change in character.
Apart from that, the fact remains that risk is
extremely high. Should the market rebound and streak to new highs for the move,
said risk won't diminish, but will become even greater.
Gold and Oil
Not too surprisingly, both oil and gold have
continued their rallies. Gold is on the verge of a decisive breakout, while the
oil market appears close to negating a recent reversal candle (as we noted at
the time, such reversals require follow-through selling to be confirmed as
such).
(Click to enlarge)
It appears that oil wants to go even higher. Since
the reversal candle that was put in place four trading days ago has not led to
follow-through selling and the market is already bouncing higher again, no
reversal has been confirmed as of yet. Of course this is now a market harboring
a large political risk premium, which makes it extra-risky (for both bulls and
bears). Nothing's wrong with this chart though.
We are not certain how much of a political risk
premium there is now in gold, but gold seemed to us already set to make new
highs before the news about the unrest in Arab countries took center stage (we
have frequently remarked on the subdued bullish sentiment after the small
correction in January).
One must not forget, when central bankers stubbornly
defend ultra-easy monetary policies as Mervyn
King and Ben
Bernanke both keep doing, then there is little reason not to want to own
gold (we will soon have more to say about the recent statements by these two
gentlemen – neither of them managed to disappoint our expectations, which are
even lower than their interest rates). Also, with the bulk of gold's fundamental price drivers
in a bullish configuration, the backdrop remains conducive to higher gold
prices regardless of the geopolitical noise (it is to our mind different in the
case of crude oil).
(Click to enlarge)
Both gold and silver (solid line) streak higher.
Gold's close actually constitutes a breakout, but it is not a decisive breakout
yet. As previously noted, gold doesn't do triple tops, so a decisive breakout
seems highly likely.
The U.S. Dollar
The dollar rates a mention for its failure to profit
from safe haven buying in view of the news from the Arab world. It may be that
talk of the allegedly undiminished
likelihood of QE3 isn't helping, especially as ECB officials have lately
adopted a fairly hawkish tone. Of course, money supply growth in the euro area
has in recent months been far lower than money supply growth in the U.S., so
there is a good reason for the euro to show some relative strength based on
that, but the problem of the unresolved debt crisis remains – which argues
strongly against the euro going forward. Be that as it may, the dollar hasn't
been going anywhere lately. We would however not be inclined to get too bearish
on the U.S. dollar here, in spite of its failure to attract safe haven buying.
The recent decline has been grudging, which is often the precursor to a short
term trend change.
(Click to enlarge)
The U.S. dollar hasn't been helped by turmoil in the
Middle East – which is a bit surprising.
Finally, before it is out of date, we want to point
readers to a recent interview by the
father of securitization, Lew Ranieri, on the state of the U.S. housing
market. He echoes the concerns that Ramsey Su
has enunciated in these pages. The U.S. housing market remains quite sick, in
spite of the wagon-loads of money Ben Bernanke's Fed has printed. An old adage
is confirmed by this fact: the central bank can print money, and/or encourage
the commercial banks to increase the credit and money supply, but it has no
control over where this money ultimately goes.’
Inflation
Is Here – Just Open Up Your Eyes And Look At These 5 Financial Charts! ‘The
Economic Collapse March 2, 2011 Despite what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben
Bernanke says, rampant inflation is officially here. The federal
government is constantly monkeying with the numbers to keep the “official” rate
of inflation below 2 percent, but it is becoming very difficult to deny that
the cost of almost everything is really going up these days. The American
people are not stupid. They notice the difference when they go to the
grocery store or stop at the gas station. The dollar is losing value
rapidly now. The price of gold set another new all-time record today and
is currently hovering just above $1430 an ounce. The price of West Texas
crude has moved above 100 dollars several times recently and the price of Brent
crude is currently above 116 dollars. These higher oil prices are really
starting to be felt in the United States. The average price for a gallon
of gasoline in the United States has now reached $3.38.
There are some gas stations in the U.S. where the price of a gallon of gas is
already over 4 dollars. But it is not just the American people that are
feeling the pain. The global price of food recently hit a new record high
and almost every major agricultural commodity has absolutely skyrocketed in
price over the past 12 months. Meanwhile, Ben Bernanke just told the Senate
Banking Committee that he really isn’t concerned about inflation at all.
When it comes
to inflation, the key is not to look at the official U.S. government numbers
(they are highly manipulated) or how the U.S. dollar is performing against
other major currencies (because they are all being devalued as well).
Instead, you can get a truer sense of what is really happening to inflation by
looking at what the U.S. dollar is doing against precious metals, commodities
and other hard assets.
So are we
experiencing rampant inflation right now? Well, just open up your eyes
and look at these 5 charts….
1 – The
price of oil is racing back up to record levels. The chart below from the
Federal Reserve is a couple weeks out of date. As noted above, the
current price of West Texas crude is about $100 a barrel….[chart]
2 – The
price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States seems destined to hit a
brand new all-time record at some point this year. Was it really just a
few short years ago when the average price of gas in this country was about a
dollar a gallon?…. [chart]
3 – The
value of most precious metals is very consistent over time. So when you
see precious metals go up dramatically in price, it means that the dollar is
being devalued. The price of gold just set another new all-time high and
it seems destined to keep going even higher….[chart]
4 – The
chart below from the Federal Reserve is a measure of the price of all
commodities. These price increases are inevitably going to be passed
along to consumers in the United States….[chart]
5 – After
a couple of years of stable food price, the price of food is starting to take
off yet again….[chart]
In fact, many
analysts are warning that we could experience a major food crisis over the next
couple of years. The global demand for food continues to grow at a very
brisk pace, but all of the crazy weather we have been having around the world
has caused some very bad harvests.’
Oil
surges after Libya airstrike near oil terminal Reuters |
Fresh airstrikes hit Brega, about 1.2 miles from a Libyan oil terminal.
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored A viral You Tube upload of
one of Alex Jones’ most popular feature films ‘The Obama Deception’ has been
censored following a spur of the moment campaign to elevate the movie’s title
to the top of the major internet search engines. In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war,
says U.S. largely unaware of sacrifice (Washington Post) [ I
disagree! They are very much aware; as they stand in unemployment lines, use
food stamps to get by, etc.. I hate to sound cavalier and I’m sorry that Kelly
lost a son to war, but along with the multitude of civilians in the nations
unlucky enough to provide a source of corporate welfare to the military
industrial complex and war profiteering for the few (as warned against by
President General Eisenhower), they died for nothing, for no good reason beyond
the false propaganda. Six NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
(Washington Post) [ Is there something wrong with the following picture? … am I
missing something? … Gates's warning: Avoid land war in Asia, Middle East, and
Africa Christian Science
Monitor - In a speech to cadets at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, Gates's message was clear: The US military services, as
well as the elected and appointed civilians who send them to war, need better
ways of foreseeing and preparing for ...
Gates Tells US Army to Take New Approach Voice of America Warning
Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan New York
Times [ Better said, than unsaid; but,
methinks a bit late for that in light of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america’s consummate decline and fall! If only they had listened and not shot
at the messenger … things could have been different! ]
Bernanke:
Fed will respond if oil prices trigger inflation (Washington Post) [ If?
Come on … don’t make me laugh! … Inflation
Is Here – Just Open Up Your Eyes And Look At These 5 Financial Charts! (see infra) Despite what Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke says, rampant inflation is officially here. The federal
government is constantly monkeying with the numbers to keep the “official” rate
of inflation below 2 percent, but it is becoming very difficult to deny that
the cost of almost everything is really going up these days. … Merk ‘…While we believe food inflation
will be with us for quite some time and may contribute to an unstable world
possibly for years to come, the Federal Reserve appears to be firmly in the
camp of heavily discounting food inflation. The European Central Bank (ECB), in
contrast, has historically taken commodity inflation more seriously than the
Fed – ECB President Trichet talks about his concern over "second round
effects," i.e., commodity inflation stirring inflation throughout the
value chain.
The relevance of all this is that in the U.S. it’s
business as usual as far as monetary policy is concerned. According to Fed
Chair Bernanke, the U.S. economy must grow at a rate of at least 2.5% per annum
just to keep unemployment stable, however, he has made it clear that he will
pursue policies to boost growth above that level. With oil prices soaring, he
is facing yet another headwind. Rather than mopping up the liquidity that, in
our assessment, has contributed to global commodity inflation, he may be
tempted to keep the printing press in high gear to promote economic growth.
It doesn’t really matter whether we think there is a
crisis. What matters is that the Fed doesn’t think its policies are
contributing to global instability and continues on its expansionary path.
After all, the banks continue to sit on their money and as such, the economy is
certainly not in overdrive. With the exception of social instability spreading
globally, the Fed may be very much on course:
In contrast, the rest of the world is taking steps to
stem inflationary pressures. Russia is the latest country to raise interest
rates, following countries ranging from Sweden to Norway, Canada to Australia
and Korea to China. In the Eurozone, the pairing down of some emergency
facilities (leading to a draining of liquidity; a form of monetary tightening)
and recent hawkish talk suggest interest rates may be raised later this year.
This discussion should clarify that it is perfectly
possible for the world to be in turmoil without the U.S. dollar being a
beneficiary. The focus of this analysis was the perceived status of the U.S.
dollar as a safe haven, as well as implications of food inflation; a small, but
important sliver affecting the U.S. dollar.’
Locked
in standoff, Gaddafi foes debate foreign airstrikes Opposition leaders consider
requesting foreign intervention (Washington Post) [
Six NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
(Washington Post) [ Is there something wrong with the following picture? … am I
missing something? … Gates's warning: Avoid land war in Asia, Middle East, and
Africa Christian Science
Monitor - In a speech to cadets at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, Gates's message was clear: The US military services, as
well as the elected and appointed civilians who send them to war, need better
ways of foreseeing and preparing for ...
Gates Tells US Army to Take New Approach Voice of America Warning
Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan New York
Times ( Better said, than unsaid; but,
methinks a bit late for that in light of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america’s consummate decline and fall! If only they had listened and not shot
at the messenger … things could have been different! )
DÉJŔ
VU ALL OVER AGAIN? WHERE’S YOGI WHEN YOU NEED HIM TO EXPLAIN THIS INSANITY:
Chavez:
U.S. distorting situation in Libya ‘to justify an invasion’ CNN | Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claims U.S.
criticism of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has a clear aim: military invasion.
US tightens
military grip on Gaddafi The Guardian | The west is edging towards a possible military confrontation with
Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
Obama
Encircles US War Machine Around Libya Paul Joseph Watson | Administration readies to exploit humanitarian
crisis to control Africa’s largest oil producer.
Most
Americans Strongly Oppose U.S. Military Action in Libya According to
Rasmussen, a large majority of Americans agree with the common sense of George
Washington. During his farewell address, the first president of the United
States said the nation should beware of foreign entanglements. ] Issue takes on increasing urgency amid
realization that rebels cannot continue to match the weaponry and firepower of
forces loyal to Gaddafi.
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored A viral You Tube upload of
one of Alex Jones’ most popular feature films ‘The Obama Deception’ has been
censored following a spur of the moment campaign to elevate the movie’s title
to the top of the major internet search engines. In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Bernanke:
Fed will respond if oil prices trigger inflation (Washington Post) [ If?
Come on … don’t make me laugh! … Inflation
Is Here – Just Open Up Your Eyes And Look At These 5 Financial Charts! (see infra) Despite what Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke says, rampant inflation is officially here. The federal
government is constantly monkeying with the numbers to keep the “official” rate
of inflation below 2 percent, but it is becoming very difficult to deny that
the cost of almost everything is really going up these days. … Merk ‘…While we believe food inflation
will be with us for quite some time and may contribute to an unstable world
possibly for years to come, the Federal Reserve appears to be firmly in the
camp of heavily discounting food inflation. The European Central Bank (ECB), in
contrast, has historically taken commodity inflation more seriously than the
Fed – ECB President Trichet talks about his concern over "second round
effects," i.e., commodity inflation stirring inflation throughout the
value chain.
The relevance of all this is that in the U.S. it’s
business as usual as far as monetary policy is concerned. According to Fed
Chair Bernanke, the U.S. economy must grow at a rate of at least 2.5% per annum
just to keep unemployment stable, however, he has made it clear that he will
pursue policies to boost growth above that level. With oil prices soaring, he
is facing yet another headwind. Rather than mopping up the liquidity that, in
our assessment, has contributed to global commodity inflation, he may be
tempted to keep the printing press in high gear to promote economic growth.
It doesn’t really matter whether we think there is a
crisis. What matters is that the Fed doesn’t think its policies are
contributing to global instability and continues on its expansionary path.
After all, the banks continue to sit on their money and as such, the economy is
certainly not in overdrive. With the exception of social instability spreading
globally, the Fed may be very much on course:
In contrast, the rest of the world is taking steps to
stem inflationary pressures. Russia is the latest country to raise interest
rates, following countries ranging from Sweden to Norway, Canada to Australia
and Korea to China. In the Eurozone, the pairing down of some emergency
facilities (leading to a draining of liquidity; a form of monetary tightening)
and recent hawkish talk suggest interest rates may be raised later this year.
This discussion should clarify that it is perfectly
possible for the world to be in turmoil without the U.S. dollar being a
beneficiary. The focus of this analysis was the perceived status of the U.S.
dollar as a safe haven, as well as implications of food inflation; a small, but
important sliver affecting the U.S. dollar.’
House
Republicans press SEC on official's ties to Madoff (Washington Post) [ The
ultimate subterfuge. Mr. small potatoes madoff the focus of so much influence …
yet he’s in jail … and the only one … Boy, did mary shapiro become total b***
s*** fast … the current shibboleth of
capital hill / all 3 branches of pervasively corrupt u.s. government …
joining the others: “The
Financial Industry Has Become So Politically Powerful That It Is Able To
Inhibit the Normal Process of Justice And Law Enforcement” The economy
cannot stabilize unless fraud is prosecuted. But the folks in D.C. seem
determined to turn a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans, and is now moving to
defund the enforcement agencies like the SEC and CFTC. Market Crash 2011: It Will Hit by Christmas Farrell,
MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.
(MarketWatch) — ‘Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re
not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn
scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff,
get rich…’
‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted
massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and
declares with oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been
prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator /
experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder
and wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has
promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. ) (see this film, I strongly recommend the
complete documentary – the following is a preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
Locked
in standoff, Gaddafi foes debate foreign airstrikes Opposition leaders consider
requesting foreign intervention (Washington Post) [
Six NATO troops killed in Afghanistan
(Washington Post) [ Is there something wrong with the following picture? … am I
missing something? … Gates's warning: Avoid land war in Asia, Middle East, and
Africa Christian Science
Monitor - In a speech to cadets at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, Gates's message was clear: The US military services, as
well as the elected and appointed civilians who send them to war, need better
ways of foreseeing and preparing for ...
Gates Tells US Army to Take New Approach Voice of America Warning
Against Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan New York
Times ( Better said, than unsaid; but,
methinks a bit late for that in light of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america’s consummate decline and fall! If only they had listened and not shot
at the messenger … things could have been different! )
DÉJŔ
VU ALL OVER AGAIN? WHERE’S YOGI WHEN YOU NEED HIM TO EXPLAIN THIS INSANITY:
Chavez:
U.S. distorting situation in Libya ‘to justify an invasion’ CNN | Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claims U.S.
criticism of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has a clear aim: military invasion.
US tightens
military grip on Gaddafi The Guardian | The west is edging towards a possible military confrontation with
Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
Obama
Encircles US War Machine Around Libya Paul Joseph Watson | Administration readies to exploit humanitarian
crisis to control Africa’s largest oil producer.
Most
Americans Strongly Oppose U.S. Military Action in Libya According to
Rasmussen, a large majority of Americans agree with the common sense of George
Washington. During his farewell address, the first president of the United
States said the nation should beware of foreign entanglements. ] Issue takes on increasing urgency amid
realization that rebels cannot continue to match the weaponry and firepower of
forces loyal to Gaddafi.
[ (2-26-11
et seq.) Let me state for the record here that my computer has been under
constant viral, hack attack, paralleling prior such foolish, paranoid actions
and let me reiterate: They will be sorry and I won’t forget it! ]
Money Illusion: The Nominal and Real Dow Short ‘An
email I received earlier today commented on the difference between nominal and
real (inflation-adjusted) charts of market data. The overlay below of the
Nominal and Real (inflation-adjusted) Dow illustrates the concept of
"money illusion," the tendency of people to think of currency in
nominal, rather than real, terms.
Below the two Dow series is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from 1913 and with
estimates for the earlier years. The CPI is the inflation (deflation)
multiplier that accounts for the difference between the two views of the Dow.
[Click all to enlarge]
[chart]
One of the most conspicuous differences between the nominal and real series is
apparent during secular bear markets, such as the period from the mid-1960s to
1982. In the nominal chart, this period looks like a choppy sideways pattern.
But when we adjust for the high inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s, the
sideways chop becomes the cascading downward direction of the real value of the
market price. The 1982 dollar had shrunk in purchasing power to about 33 cents in
comparison to its 1965 counterpart. Inflation had devoured two thirds of its
value.
In the chart above, I adjusted the real Dow price to the dollar value of May
1896 to highlight the money illusion over the entire time frame. More commonly,
my inflation-adjusted charts are priced at the present value of the currency,
as illustrated in the real series below. This has the effect of raising the
numbers for the earlier periods to adjust for the effect of the dominant
pattern of inflation with brief but vicious periods of deflation, especially in
the earlier decades.
[chart]
A
Crash in Saudi Arabia, Arrogant Eurocrats and a Look at the Markets Part 2 Tenebrarum ‘Saudi Arabia's Stock Market Plunges
Stock market
traders in Saudi Arabia got a bit of a wake-up call yesterday. Their stock
market evidently sees something it doesn't like. Why the market is all of a
sudden more worried than it was previously about the challenge to the
established political order in the Arab world is a bit of a mystery, but presumably
traders have thus far deluded themselves into thinking that Saudi Arabia would
be immune to unrest. Something has evidently changed their mind. It seems to us
that this event deserves the moniker warning sign. The selling has been
extremely heavy for three days now. Since this market is largely driven by
local investors, we should probably attach some significance to this recent
plunge. Someone has begun to sell three days ago and has spooked the herd. It's
a good bet that the someone who started the selling is better informed than the
rest of us.
Note in this
context the following information about the current oil policy of Saudi Arabia from
Marketwatch. While the article references anonymous sources, which stands
in the way of fact-checking, there is one paragraph that caught our eye:
"The main threat is ... Saudi instability when the
current king dies. We know he is very ill but obviously there is no indication
of how critical that condition is. But it is acknowledged that the next
transition will present a much bigger threat to internal stability ... Vested
interest groups have been waiting for this transition to push their agenda.
Saudi experienced considerable regional instability up to 10 years ago but
bought it off with higher oil-based spending. Today the problem is as bad, if
not worse. There have been only a few of the promised reforms ... Resentment
towards the wealth gap with the royals is very high ... Even if/when the
instability in other countries, such as Libya, settles, the Saudi succession
threat is now firmly on the table. What happens in Bahrain could be very key. That
alone will keep the oil market nervous for this year."
The very ill king could in fact be the key to the
sudden crash in Saudi Arabia's stock market. With political instability across
the entire region, a fight for succession in Saudi Arabia wouldn't be very
conducive to stability at this particular point in time. The fact that
spreading some of the oil wealth around has not been effective in lowering the
level of resentment vis-a-vis the royals sounds very credible to us. So does
the assertion that what happens in Bahrain will be very important. Bahrain is
ruled by a monarchy as well and should it lose power, the Saudi masses could be
galvanized.
Saudi Arabia is the world's second biggest oil
producer after Russia and as a result the monarchy has enormous financial
resources at its disposal. This certainly helps with buying off numerous
special interest groups. Also, as we mentioned in passing previously, the
royals have a deal with the powerful and highly conservative religious
establishment that helps keep them in power. Essentially the country is a
mixture between a monarchy and theocracy. The strict religiously inspired laws
may on the one hand sit well with the deeply religious population, but on the
other hand they also make for a very repressive environment that may sit less
well with the youth – large numbers of which are unemployed. Also, the
extravagance of the many Saudi princes (over 10,000 royals are about, all
well-endowed with stipends) may not go down all that well with the rest of the
Saudis , regardless of what deals the royals have made with the mullahs. All in
all, it remains a potentially explosive situation.
(Click to enlarge)
Saudi Arabia's Al-Tadawul All-share Index goes
somewhat belatedly into free-fall.
In the meantime, Muammar Qaddafy continues to give
utterly bizarre
interviews (if anything, they have become even more so ... "I don't
lead Libya, I have no power" ... "The people of Libya love
me!"), while more and more of Libya falls to opposition forces. Evidently
the man has lost whatever connection to reality he may once have possessed. The
Pentagon has meanwhile assembled
naval forces off Libyan waters – possibly to enforce a no-fly zone.
While all eyes are on Libya, Egypt has once again
decided not to reopen its stock
market – the reopening of the stock exchange has been been postponed
repeatedly, so this is almost business as usual by now.
"The Egyptian Exchange, shuttered for over a
month, was to resume trading on Tuesday. But in an overnight statement,
exchange officials said the market would reopen instead on March 6 to 'allow
investors to profit from the government's support to guarantee stability in the
bourse.'
"The decision reflected the strong undercurrent
of unease in the Arab world's most populous nation where the market's benchmark
stock index had shed almost 17 percent in two consecutive trading sessions
before it closed at the end of the business day on Jan. 27."
Keep the market closed to 'allow investors to profit
from the government's support to guarantee stability in the bourse'? Good luck
with that one.
As a final note on the Middle East, we continue to
recommend keeping an eye on Iran. The regime
is evidently worried, and given Iran's importance as an oil exporter, any
unrest in that country would arguably have an even bigger effect on the oil
market than Libya's recent disintegration.
Ireland and the Arrogant Eurocracy
Via Dr. Jim Walker of the excellent research firm Asianomics, we have been made aware of some of
the things various eurocrats have had to say about the Irish election. Some of
these quotes are remarkable for their
unbridled and quite unwarranted arrogance.
"As Irish voters headed for the polling booths
on Friday, the European Commission bluntly declared that the terms of the
EU-IMF bailout "must be applied" whatever the will of Ireland's
people or regardless of any change of government.
"It's an agreement between the EU and the
Republic of Ireland, it's not an agreement between an institution and a
particular government," said a Brussels spokesman.
A European diplomat, from a large eurozone country,
told The Sunday Telegraph that "the more the Irish make a big deal about
renegotiation in public, the more attitudes will harden."
"It is not even take it or leave it. It's done.
Ireland's only role in this now is to implement the programme agreed with the
EU, IMF and European Central Bank. Irish voters are not a party in this
process, whatever they have been told," said the diplomat.”
(Our emphasis)
Hello? Irish voters are "not a party in this
process"? Irish voters – i.e. the tax cows that have been condemned to
bail out their failed banks so that the highly leveraged German banking system
can avoid a debt restructuring broadside – may well go from "revolution
lite" as the WSJ
calls the election outcome (since essentially, one conservative party was
exchanged for another), to a "real revolution." As an aside, while
the WSJ asserts that 'Ireland needs Merkel," we believe it is exactly the
other way around (see further below as to why). Our understanding of
'democracy' is that voters are the ultimate arbiters of such things. There is
no agreement that can not be amended or broken if voters feel they have been
sold out by the government that signed it. As the Telegraph notes further:
"Dessie Shiels, an independent candidate in
Donegal, said: "People have not been given the basic right of
deciding whether or not they should have their taxes increased in order to
repay bondholders who have lent to the banks."
David McWilliams, an economist and former official at
the Ireland's Central Bank, has led calls for a popular vote under Article 27
of the Irish constitution, which requires on a matter of "such
national importance that the will of the people ought to be ascertained."
"We have to re-negotiate everything," he
said. "Obviously, the first way to do this is to make them aware that if
they force us to pay everything, we will default and they will get nothing. So
they had better get a little bit of something, than all of nothing. To make
this financial pill easier to swallow, we must take the initiative politically.
We can do this via a referendum.
"If the Irish people hold a referendum on the
bank debts now, we can go to the EU with a mandate from the people which says
No. This will allow our politicians to play hard-ball, because to do otherwise
would be an anti-democratic endgame."
Declan Ganley, the Irish businessman who led the 2008
No vote to the Lisbon Treaty, said Ireland must "have the balls" to
threaten debt default and withdrawal from the single currency.
"We have a hostage, it is called the euro,"
he said. "The euro is insolvent. The only question is whether Ireland
should be sacrificed to keep the Ponzi scheme going. We have to have a Plan B
to the misnamed bailout, which is to go back to the Irish Punt."
(our emphasis)
Got it in one, Mr, Ganley. Ireland is the party that
has the leverage in this situation, not the EU. The decisive point is this: The
euro is a kind of roach motel – it's easy (too easy) to get in, but it is very
hard to get out.
Why is it so hard to get out? It isn't, as the
outgoing Irish government asserted, the fact that government would find it hard
to borrow money in the markets after a bank debt restructuring, or even after a
restructuring of the government's own debt. Greece, which has been bankrupt for
half of the past 180 years, is proof positive that it is fairly easy to find
new suckers for government debt after a while.
No, at the root of the roach motel problem are the
banks themselves. If the population suspects that an abandonment of the euro is
imminent, worries that the national currency likely to succeed the euro will be
devalued would provoke a flight from the banks – depositors would shift their
deposits to other banks somewhere else in the euro area. Both Greece and
Ireland have in fact been plagued by such a flight of depositors already, to
varying extent. In fact, the biggest and quite obviously bankrupt Irish banks
have bled deposits at an enormous rate lately. With the banks completely
zombified, worries about a flight of depositors should be much reduced – since they
have already largely fled.
The banking system is however also a big worry for
the rest of the EU. Why was the Irish government forced to accept a bailout?
What was so urgent? Why was it so important to especially avoid a restructuring
of the senior debt of Ireland's banks? The answer is that an Irish debt
restructuring imposing a big haircut on bondholders would hit banks elsewhere
in the euro area (including the ECB, as it were). The way we see this, Irish
voters will eventually prove the arrogant unnamed European diplomat from a big
country wrong. They will eventually be a party to the proceedings. Negotiating
a lower interest rate on borrowings from the EFSF, the currently enunciated
goal of the new Irish government won't be enough. It won't do the trick because
the burden will still be too large.
We would note here, as we have repeatedly done
before, that it does no-one any good to pretend that losses don't exist or that
the giant fiat money Ponzi scheme made up of unpayable government debt and de
facto insolvent fractionally reserved banks can be forever kept going by
heaping new debts atop the old ones. If we want genuine, sustainable economic
growth to resume, the only way to achieve that is to bite the bullet.
Acknowledge the losses and let them fall upon those who have invested unwisely.
This is not merely a question of morality, as prominent Keynesians like Paul
Krugman keep saying. It is a question that concerns the system of free market
capitalism itself. Capitalism is not supposed to privatize profits and
socialize losses. This is a perversion of the free market system that will
ultimately serve to destroy it.
In addition, as the EU lurches toward the 'big
accord' planned for late March – a.k.a. the Grand
Bargain (Portugal may well fall into crisis before that date, as its bond
yields remain stuck above the crucial 7% level and large debt
rollovers are awaiting it in March) , there are evidently plans afoot to
make other European nations more like Germany. Unfortunately this is not merely
about fiscal rectitude as such. It is also about the desire of the German
political class to impose Germany's high taxes on everyone. Ireland would do
well to think twice about agreeing to such stipulations.
(Click to enlarge)
Portugal's 10 year bond yield sits at 7.45%. Greece
and Ireland both became EFSF wards when their yields crossed the 7% mark. And
yes, this is a bullish (bearish for Portuguese debt) chart.
The
Markets
The Stock
Market
In the wake of
the big decline in Saudi Arabia's stock market, other stock markets also
suffered a bad hair day. It would be easy to pin the blame for the stock
market's recent decline on the problems in the Middle East, but bulls should
perhaps be more concerned about a number of other facts. For one thing, there
is the subtle internal technical deterioration as evidenced by many 'momo'
stocks coming under pressure of late, i.e., the so-called "Teflon
stocks" all of a sudden look somewhat less teflonesque. A similar
point is made in a recent
article by Michael Kahn at Barron's about the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
As Kahn remarks:
"Despite its limited representation in a market
of thousands of stocks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average nonetheless is an
important barometer. Given the sheer dollar value of its 30 component issues,
any cracks in its armor should not be ignored.
So when fully one fifth of Dow stocks sport technical
failure we should take notice. Failure, in the lexicon of charting, is often
used to describe a stock falling as it hits a key level such as resistance or
the top of a pattern.
When a stock breaks out to the upside from resistance
or a chart pattern it is usually a bullish sign. Demand overcomes supply and
prices move higher – most of the time. However, failure to hold on to that
breakout is the unusual case and that makes it a true newsworthy event for
investors."
Kahn notes that the bulk of the DJIA stocks remains
in solid uptrends, but of course when the market gets into trouble, the first
signs of such are always subtle.
(Click to enlarge)
What is notable to us about the recent decline is
that the preceding rally as well as the recent rebound all happened on very
weak volume, whereas volume tends to spike when the market moves lower. This is
a negative sign too.
What else should stock market bulls worry about aside
from the loss of leadership and subtle signs of technical deterioration? How
about "Hedge
funds borrow the most since 2007 to purchase U.S. stocks?"
"Hedge funds
increased their net leverage in January to the highest level since October
2007, as they took advantage of record-low borrowing costs to bet that the U.S.
equity rally will continue.
Debt at margin accounts at the New York Stock
Exchange minus cash and unused credit from margin accounts climbed to $46
billion, according to data released by NYSE yesterday. Hedge funds had $290
billion of debt from margin accounts in December, the largest sum since Lehman
Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed in September 2008."
(Our emphasis)
Needless to say, October of 2007 was not exactly a
propitious time to buy lots of stocks on margin. Perhaps this time will be
different, but we kind of doubt it (although in some respects the 2007 high was
even more beset by extremes – but then, it was a much higher high).
What else is there to worry about? How about those
capitulating bears: "Capitulating
Bears Push Short Sales to Lowest in Three Years."
"The biggest Standard & Poor’s 500 Index
rally in more than five decades is forcing stock market bears to abandon short
sales, cutting them to the lowest level since 2007 last month.
Shares borrowed and sold to profit from declines
dropped four straight months and represented 3.3 percent of all stock in
January, according to data compiled by NYSE Euronext. Pessimists are giving up
after missing the 95 percent rally in the S&P 500 spurred by the fastest
earnings growth since 1994. The monthly decrease comes as individuals
added $17.6 billion to U.S. mutual funds this year after withdrawing money
since April."
(Our emphasis)
There it is mentioned again, that fateful year 2007.
Capitulating bears weren't a good sign then, and they are unlikely to be a good
sign now. The lower the short interest ratio, the less support from short
covering there will be once the market heads down, but to us it is more
important what this datum says about sentiment.
(Click to enlarge)
The chart of the high beta DJ Transportation average
is intriguing – its rebound failed at the 50 day moving average. This average
generally tends to lag in moves up (i.e. it tends to be one of the last indexes
to top out) and lead in declines.
(Click to enlarge)
A recent chart of mutual fund cash levels from Jason
Goepfert's sentimentrader.com shows that mutual fund managers are also all in –
the current reading is the second lowest in all of history , a mere 10 basis
points above the all time low (the absolute low was seen in 2010). This
indicator tends to have medium to long term significance. We see it largely as
an expression of fund manager sentiment.
Solely from a chart perspective it is too early to
say whether the recent pullback will just be a short term hiccup or the
beginning of a more substantial correction. Many of the aforementioned momentum
stocks have weakened, but they have not yet broken any important supports.
However, the fact that the market has for a change not rallied on the first of
the month (the bulk of the advance from the 2009 low was accomplished by large
first-of-the-month rallies) clearly constitutes a change in character.
Apart from that, the fact remains that risk is
extremely high. Should the market rebound and streak to new highs for the move,
said risk won't diminish, but will become even greater.
Gold and Oil
Not too surprisingly, both oil and gold have
continued their rallies. Gold is on the verge of a decisive breakout, while the
oil market appears close to negating a recent reversal candle (as we noted at
the time, such reversals require follow-through selling to be confirmed as
such).
(Click to enlarge)
It appears that oil wants to go even higher. Since
the reversal candle that was put in place four trading days ago has not led to
follow-through selling and the market is already bouncing higher again, no
reversal has been confirmed as of yet. Of course this is now a market harboring
a large political risk premium, which makes it extra-risky (for both bulls and
bears). Nothing's wrong with this chart though.
We are not certain how much of a political risk
premium there is now in gold, but gold seemed to us already set to make new
highs before the news about the unrest in Arab countries took center stage (we
have frequently remarked on the subdued bullish sentiment after the small
correction in January).
One must not forget, when central bankers stubbornly
defend ultra-easy monetary policies as Mervyn
King and Ben
Bernanke both keep doing, then there is little reason not to want to own
gold (we will soon have more to say about the recent statements by these two
gentlemen – neither of them managed to disappoint our expectations, which are
even lower than their interest rates). Also, with the bulk of gold's fundamental price drivers
in a bullish configuration, the backdrop remains conducive to higher gold
prices regardless of the geopolitical noise (it is to our mind different in the
case of crude oil).
(Click to enlarge)
Both gold and silver (solid line) streak higher.
Gold's close actually constitutes a breakout, but it is not a decisive breakout
yet. As previously noted, gold doesn't do triple tops, so a decisive breakout
seems highly likely.
The U.S. Dollar
The dollar rates a mention for its failure to profit
from safe haven buying in view of the news from the Arab world. It may be that
talk of the allegedly undiminished
likelihood of QE3 isn't helping, especially as ECB officials have lately
adopted a fairly hawkish tone. Of course, money supply growth in the euro area
has in recent months been far lower than money supply growth in the U.S., so
there is a good reason for the euro to show some relative strength based on
that, but the problem of the unresolved debt crisis remains – which argues
strongly against the euro going forward. Be that as it may, the dollar hasn't
been going anywhere lately. We would however not be inclined to get too bearish
on the U.S. dollar here, in spite of its failure to attract safe haven buying.
The recent decline has been grudging, which is often the precursor to a short
term trend change.
(Click to enlarge)
The U.S. dollar hasn't been helped by turmoil in the
Middle East – which is a bit surprising.
Finally, before it is out of date, we want to point
readers to a recent interview by the
father of securitization, Lew Ranieri, on the state of the U.S. housing
market. He echoes the concerns that Ramsey Su
has enunciated in these pages. The U.S. housing market remains quite sick, in
spite of the wagon-loads of money Ben Bernanke's Fed has printed. An old adage
is confirmed by this fact: the central bank can print money, and/or encourage
the commercial banks to increase the credit and money supply, but it has no
control over where this money ultimately goes.’
Oil
surges after Libya airstrike near oil terminal Reuters |
Fresh airstrikes hit Brega, about 1.2 miles from a Libyan oil terminal.
Bernanke
Cautious on Economic Growth as Oil Prices Rise [ In pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america it’s come to be known all too familiarly as ‘defending
the indefensible’. ] New York
Times | Fed chief again defended the Fed’s large and unprecedented
stimulus program.
National / World
World
cheers as the CIA plunges Libya into chaos David Rothscum
| Gaddafi is the main threat to US hegemony in Africa.
Blair
cronies supported Gaddafi for his millions Mail Online |
‘Useful idiots’ was how mass murderer Stalin dubbed left-wing academics who
enthusiastically endorsed Communism.
Russia Warns on
Libyan Intervention Mail Online | Russia’s top diplomat
has today dismissed plans to create a no-fly zone over Libya.
March 2011 Economic Forecast: GDP Is Disconnected From the Real
Economy - Hansen ‘Last
week, the second estimate of 4Q2010 Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
was issued. It showed a rather paltry 2.8% economic growth.
The way GDP is
designed – it is not a true measure of an advanced economy. It is designed to
measure economic growth of an emerging economy. An advanced economy’s growth
cannot be measured necessarily by measurements of brick and mortar or
investment.
This kind of
approach also leaves open too many questions relative to population growth and
methodology in determining change in dollar value (analysis here).
The question
really is a definition of an economy. My colleague Derryl put it succinctly in "Profits
for a Few Can Not Replace Real Jobs:"
"The people" need to work to earn a living.
That’s called "having an economy."
An economy is the sum of trading work and goods
between all the people. Modern economies use money for this trade. GDP measures
the "productive" use of money. GDP measures less than half of all
money flows. Econintersect believes GDP does not properly measure
"productive" use of money.
Economists are saying the economy has fully recovered
from the Great Recession – yet Main Street remains in a depression. The reason
comes from GDP itself. Simply isolating the goods and services Joe Sixpack from
GDP, the economy is no where near recovered.
(Click to enlarge)
You see, GDP takes credit for exports and debits
imports. Yet Joe Sixpack is trading what he earns for products and services. To
see the economy of Joe Sixpack, you have to look at the sum of what he is
trading.
(Click to enlarge)
Go back and review the economic forecasts
Econintersect made for October,
November and December. We predicted
the real economy – the economy of Joe Sixpack was stalling.
Econintersect uses a forward looking economic
indicator which uses non-monetary pulse points that have a general – not
specific correlation with Gross Domestic Product. These pulse points are geared
to anticipate consumer and industrial income / spending for 30 to 60 days after
the indicator is issued.
Econintersect counts units of things other then money
– and is specifically designed to measure Main Street and Joe Sixpack’s world.
March 2011 Economic Forecast
The "real" economy – the economy of Joe
Sixpack continues to expand. The strength of this growth is considered moderate
with positive underlying trend lines. Putting this into perspective – the
economy is likely improving on a per capita basis.
(Click to enlarge)
There are "buts" to this forecast.
The EEI has improved from +0.25 to +0.55.
(Click to enlarge)
One major component of the EEI is transport related.
Econintersect considers transport (truck, rail and sea container) counts a
primary economic pulse point – and its trend represents underlying economic
pressure.
This month, the transport portion of the EEI index
continued its upward trend. This portion of the index is quite noisy as it
quantifies the month-over-month (MoM) change (positive numbers indicate
seasonally adjusted MoM growth, negative numbers represent seasonally adjusted
MoM contraction).
To Econintersect, transports represent the pulse of
the real economy – the economy of Joe Sixpack. All of our man made
surroundings, the clothes we wear and the food we eat are moved several times
by transport during their processing/delivery cycles. A growing economy
consumes more (and therefore transports more), a contracting economy consumes
less.
Last month, we mentioned in passing – that there was
anecdotal evidence that the transport sector of the index was weakening. Hard
data over the last 30 days has been entirely contradictory to this.
For a complete explanation of the EEI, please see the
October 2010 forecast.
Disasters Rocking the U.S. Dollar? Merk ‘From earthquakes in New
Zealand to revolutions in the Middle East, natural and man-made disasters are
rocking the world. We are all too often made to believe that in times of crisis
there’s a flight to the U.S. dollar. However, the U.S. dollar has instead had a
rocky ride of its own thus allowing the crisis-ridden Eurozone to shine. What’s
going on? Is there no crisis, or has the U.S. dollar lost its appeal as a safe
haven?
Over longer
periods there is little correlation between the U.S. dollar and other assets.
In the past two years, however, a mentality has arisen that whenever there is a
crisis the U.S. dollar benefits; as the crisis abates money flows out of the
U.S. dollar and once again into currencies and markets overseas that may be
deemed riskier. That may well be a skewed pendulum, however, as the U.S. dollar
may have a more difficult time attracting money at each subsequent crisis.
Firstly, the U.S. is simply better at spending and printing money than the rest
of the world; causing the balance sheet of the U.S. to deteriorate at a faster
pace than that of the rest of the world. And secondly, policy makers around the
world are addressing whatever the cause of the crisis may have been i.e., the
"trillion-dollar" backstop provided in the Eurozone to support weaker
countries. One can argue how effective such measures are, but generally
speaking, the region may be safer than before measures were taken; not safe,
but "safer," meaning less money may flee back to the U.S. dollar the
next time a crisis flares up.
But maybe
there is no crisis? Saudi Arabia may make up for any shortfall of lost Libyan
oil production and Egypt and Tunisia don’t affect U.S. markets anyway. The
argument we heard in early phases of the sub-prime crisis was "it’s
all contained". Intelligent people in both Libya and abroad did not
think the Egyptian turmoil would swamp over to Libya. After all, the standard
of living – and with it, presumably social stability - in Libya is higher due
to wealth created by oil. For now, the extreme volatility in the oil markets
suggests that market participants beg to differ as to how all of this unfolds.
If anything, that is a healthy process; it’s when everyone agrees that bubbles
are created.[picture]
To understand the dynamics unfolding we have to dig a little deeper into the
"it’s all contained" argument. People don’t like autocratic
rule but we have argued that people may put up with oppression as long as they
can feed themselves. Escalating food prices may be a key reason revolts and
revolutions are happening now. (See also our analysis of Politics
of Inflation.) However, U.S. policy makers generally disregard food
inflation for a couple of reasons:
While we believe food inflation will be with us for
quite some time and may contribute to an unstable world possibly for years to
come, the Federal Reserve appears to be firmly in the camp of heavily
discounting food inflation. The European Central Bank (ECB), in contrast, has
historically taken commodity inflation more seriously than the Fed – ECB
President Trichet talks about his concern over "second round
effects," i.e., commodity inflation stirring inflation throughout the
value chain.
The relevance of all this is that in the U.S. it’s
business as usual as far as monetary policy is concerned. According to Fed
Chair Bernanke, the U.S. economy must grow at a rate of at least 2.5% per annum
just to keep unemployment stable, however, he has made it clear that he will
pursue policies to boost growth above that level. With oil prices soaring, he
is facing yet another headwind. Rather than mopping up the liquidity that, in
our assessment, has contributed to global commodity inflation, he may be
tempted to keep the printing press in high gear to promote economic growth.
It doesn’t really matter whether we think there is a
crisis. What matters is that the Fed doesn’t think its policies are
contributing to global instability and continues on its expansionary path.
After all, the banks continue to sit on their money and as such, the economy is
certainly not in overdrive. With the exception of social instability spreading
globally, the Fed may be very much on course:
In contrast, the rest of the world is taking steps to
stem inflationary pressures. Russia is the latest country to raise interest
rates, following countries ranging from Sweden to Norway, Canada to Australia
and Korea to China. In the Eurozone, the pairing down of some emergency
facilities (leading to a draining of liquidity; a form of monetary tightening)
and recent hawkish talk suggest interest rates may be raised later this year.
This discussion should clarify that it is perfectly possible for the world to be in turmoil without the U.S. dollar being a beneficiary. The focus of this analysis was the perceived status of the U.S. dollar as a safe haven, as well as implications of food inflation; a small, but important sliver affecting the U.S. dollar.’
Post Meltdown Economy Looks More Like a Pre Meltdown
Economy Maierhofer ‘Based purely on the stock market, the economy
should be rockin' and rollin' but while the market's performance has been
stellar, the economy is flat.
Will
stocks catch up with the economy or the economy with stocks?
Just
how strong is the market? The SPDR S&P MidCap 400 ETF (NYSEArca: MDY
- News)
is trading at an all-time high, the Nasdaq-100 (Nasdaq: QQQQ
- News)
has surpassed its 2007 watermark, the Russell 2000 (NYSEArca: IWM
- News)
is closing in on its all-time high, the S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC) has doubled
since March 2009, and the Dow (DJI: ^DJI) is viewed as the ultra safe haven in
a world of turmoil.
How
strong is the economy? Real estate (NYSEArca: IYR
- News),
the biggest wealth builder/destroyer in the country is still weak. The Standard
& Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index has dropped to the lowest level in
nearly a decade. As the Home Price Index has fallen below March 2009 levels,
residential REIT stocks (NYSEArca: REZ
- News)
have nearly tripled since then.
Another
huge contributor to a healthy economy - unemployment - shows signs of
improvements at a peripheral glance but continues to lag significantly if
examined beyond the rosy headline numbers. To wit, if it wasn't for the labor
force sliding to a near 30-year low, the headline unemployment number would be
around 12% while the real unemployment would be around 20%.
Based
on a 11-line surface analysis, stocks and the economy are out of sync. To see
whether stocks will catch up with the economy or vice versa, we'll need to
slice beneath the service and examine the very foundation of our economy.
Multi-decade Economic Trend
Unnoticed
by Wall Street, the economy has been shifting gears, and has gone from
acceleration mode to coasting mode. How so?
A
few decades ago, sweat-trenched U.S. manufacturing facilities were the most
fertile, growth-producing environment on the planet. This growth was fueled by
'Made in America' products. The growth was organic and it was real.
When
taking a closer look at the economy over the past 70 years, we see two distinct
growth periods. Phase 1 lasted from 1947 - 1966 and phase 2 stretched from 1975
- 2000.
Throughout
phase 1, GDP averaged 4.18% while unemployment was low. GDP during phase 2
averaged 3.40% with unemployment inching up. [chart]
GE,
a company that endured though both phases, provides important clues about the
difference between both phases. Up until the end of phase 1, GE was known for
manufacturing quality products like light bulbs, refrigerators, jet engines,
and aircraft super chargers. GE's slogan was 'We bring good things to life.'
In
the second phase, GE ventured into television and high finance. GE Capital, GE
Commercial Finance, GE Money, GE Consumer Finance and NBC Universal contributed
an ever-growing slice of GE's profit pie.
GE's
focus shifted from manufacturing to financial engineering. If GE didn't build a
product it would finance the consumer's purchase of a competitor's product. It
was just appropriate that GE's slogan was changed to 'Imagination at work.'
The 'New Normal' - New but not Normal
The
concept of making money by using money, encouraged by the Fed's interest rate
policy, lacked substance and sustainability. The 2000 tech (NYSEArca: XLK
- News)
crash was more pronounced than what we've seen from the decades before. The
real estate boom was as gigantic as its subsequent bust.
The
post-2007 financial crisis further highlighted the dangers of an economy low on
manufacturing but rich on leverage, accounting tricks, and financial
engineering. No wonder the average GDP for the 2001 - 2010 period - dubbed the
lost decade - dropped to 1.71%.
But
amnesia or selective memory loss, usually triggered by rising prices, is not
new to investors. The more stocks rally, the more excited investors become, the
more dangerous the stock market gets.
Building an Air Castle?
The
post meltdown economy has become a launching pad for the new economy and new
key players. Facebook and Twitter are Wall Street's new darlings. Investors
can't wait to get their hands on the upcoming IPOs.
According
to Wall Street valuations, Facebook is worth as much as Home Depot or Boeing.
Home Depot employs 306,000 workers, Boeing 154,000. Facebook sends paychecks to
about 1,000 lucky individuals.
A
happy go lucky investor looks at the new economy and says 'Wow, that's just
marvelous.' A skeptical mind looks at it and wonders 'How long before that
blows up in my face?'
Simple Math
As
the economy is weakening, the Fed's role in providing sufficient liquidity to keep
a faux system running is ever increasing. Stock market tops and bottoms have
become more extreme, and the boom-bust cycle is shorter than ever before.
An
80-year trend line that has contained the Dow Jones for much of the 20th
century provides an interesting technical reference to this discussion. On
February 18, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter highlighted this trend line,
which runs through Dow 12,400.
Interestingly
that very day, the Dow rallied to 12,391 before reversing 300 points lower.
Perhaps the tug of war between the economy and stock market has entered a
pivotal juncture.
Bullish
investors will quote the third presidential election year, a willing Federal
Reserve, positive momentum, and cash on the sidelines as reasons for higher
stock prices.
Bearish
investors can point to extreme sentiment readings, bearish divergences,
valuations, and bad fundamentals as culprits for lower prices ahead.
Slice & Dice but Watch your Finger
However
you slice and dice it, the market is treacherous and can make you rich or strip
you of your wealth faster than at any other time in history.
One
way to limit risk and maximize opportunity is to pay attention to trend lines
such as the one mentioned above. The market draws trend lines and creates
important support and resistance levels. If the market speaks, it behooves us
to listen.
A
break below support is as bearish as a thrust above resistance is bullish.
Being unaware of crucial support/resistance level is like driving down a busy
road without paying attention to red or green traffic lights.’
Stocks Close at Day's Lows - Midnight Trader ‘4:36 PM, Mar 1, 2011 --
Bernanke
Cautious on Economic Growth as Oil Prices Rise New York Times | Fed chief again defended the Fed’s large and
unprecedented stimulus program.
Gerald
Celente: “There is no recovery — it’s a coverup!” Sic Semper Tyrannis | Celente argues the oil prices have been going up
before the recent chaos in the Middle East. ‘…One other point brought out by
Gerald Celente is the fact that the current puppet regime in the White House is
“cooking the books” on the unemployment numbers and current inflation rates.
They are making their own rules on how to determine inflation rates by leaving
out essential information such as food and fuel prices. The same is being done
with White House unemployment numbers by simply leaving out those who have
given up looking for jobs, as well as other deceptive “carnie” tricks (in
reference to White House spokesperson Carnie) in which he compares the
administration to a traveling carnival act.
In closing,
Celente states:
“… There is no recovery, it’s a coverup. It’s only
being boosted by these low interest rates, which again, when inflation skyrockets-
they’re gonna have to raise them …‘
Prepare for an
Economic Meltdown Matt Towery | For a truly troublesome economic cocktail, throw in the instability
in the Arab world.
Will banksters get
away with it? Aljazeera | Why have the unions and leftist
groups been mostly silent on these issues?
The REAL
Unemployment Rate Is 22% The Daily Bail | It remains above
22% with the February update.
National / World
Will
‘Chindia’ Rule the World in 2050, or America After All? [ I include this
only because it’s by Evans-Pritchard in light of his prior forthrightness in
reporting what he saw (clinton years, financial crisis pre-blowout, etc.). But
Citigroup and HSBC? Hardly the pictures of Nostradamus gone corporate given
their track records. Evan Evans-Pritchard is out of his league here since 2050
is so optimistically close to the end (remember, decades at best), that such
really matters very little. Diisclosure: I haven’t and don’t need to read the
article. ] Ambrose
Evans-Pritchard | Citigroup
and HSBC have come up with radically different pictures of what the world will
look like in 2050.
DÉJŔ
VU ALL OVER AGAIN? WHERE’S YOGI WHEN YOU NEED HIM TO EXPLAIN THIS INSANITY:
Chavez:
U.S. distorting situation in Libya ‘to justify an invasion’ CNN | Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claims U.S.
criticism of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has a clear aim: military invasion.
US tightens
military grip on Gaddafi The Guardian | The west is edging towards a possible military confrontation with
Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
Obama
Encircles US War Machine Around Libya Paul Joseph Watson | Administration readies to exploit humanitarian
crisis to control Africa’s largest oil producer.
‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted
massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and
declares with oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been
prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator /
experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder
and wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable
for the meltdown. ) (see this
film, I strongly recommend the complete documentary – the following is a
preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored A viral You Tube upload of
one of Alex Jones’ most popular feature films ‘The Obama Deception’ has been
censored following a spur of the moment campaign to elevate the movie’s title
to the top of the major internet search engines. In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Ethics
code urged for Supreme Court
(Washington Post) [
Sounds like a plan! Come on! Wake up! After all, what can you expect
from two guidos from ‘jersey (alito and scalia, colloquial – note that I have
refrained from using what some might consider disparaging terms as w*p*,
gui***s, or da***s … and let me state for the record that I truly loved and
respected my grandmother who was 100% Italian/Bari,Italy and as well my
grandfather/Lake Como,northern Italy with greek ancestral roots and I thereby
claim standing/right to posit the criticism in light of my direct experience.
). How ‘bout starting with enforcing laws as to judges, liars, etc., within the
very corrupted american illegal system; and, particularly bribes which in one
form or another are rampant . I don’t know about Thomas, but I do know about alito
and ‘jersey … :
October 15, 2010
(*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez, Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the
Qui Tam provisions of the Federal
False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent resolution seek to
refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of the law with which I
am not familiar).
The document in 5 pages under penalty of
perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI office in New Haven is probably the
best and most concise summary of the case
RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm . With regard to the
calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices: There was one call to the LA
office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA office where I personally met
with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative evidentiary documents of the
money laundering which he confirmed as indicative of same (he was transferred
from said office within approximately a month of said meeting and his location
was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter was assigned to FBI Agent Ron
Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess of a decade until he abruptly
retired (our last conversation prior to his retirement related to the case and
parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father I stated had been an enforcer for
the mob to which he registered disbelief and requested I prove it, which I did
– he served 12 years in prison, aggravated assault/manslaughter? – and no,
there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew Maloney’s the one that
prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction
to the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
There is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor
creditors, nor I should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt
and illegal scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the
meaningful rules of law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia
611 E. 5th Street, #404
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 219-**** (cell phone)
(213) 622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with
the line, computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance
greater non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for
contact).
] Group of law
professors' appeal comes after controversies involving travel and appearances
at political events by several justices.
Why your local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad) http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/LPSILC43/PR [ The instant video from Stansberry and Associates is so well researched and succinctly presented that I’ve archived same on my website;
also, because the facts and views presented comport with the facts and views
I’ve presented on my site which I believe to be correct. This is a must-view,
must-see that I strongly recommend!
The complete url: http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.flv ( 146mb – approx. 1 hr. 17 min. ) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.mp4 ( 374mb )
Written text of presentation (without pictures / charts) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrypresentation.htm
]
Drudgereport: OIL
SHOCK AS MIDEAST SPIRALS
More
Than 140,000 People Flee Libya...
Gadhafi
forces retake towns near capital...
Cameron
backtracks on no-fly zone plan...
Astonishing
wealth of Gaddafi and his family revealed...
WIKILEAKS'
ASSANGE CITED JEWISH CONSPIRACY...
YEMEN
RAGES...
President
says US, Israel behind unrest...
Fashion
Week Führer: DIOR Fires Galliano After Racism Complaints...
'I
love Hitler'...
'Your
parents should have been gassed'...
FADE:
OSCAR RATINGS DOWN 10% ...
Injury
Added to Insult... [ In terms of production value (rich in
content in every way), I believe this to be as good and in my view better than
ever as award ceremonies can be without the inimitable Bob Hope. I believe any
falloff can be directly attributable to last year the academy’s egregious
misstep in over-looking ‘Avatar’ / Cameron presaging a similar fate concerning
my clear choice of ‘Inception’ / Nolan ( Truth be told, I’ve yet to see ‘The
King’s Speech’ failing to muster any enthusiasm for seeing a film centered
around a ‘so-called royal’ trying to over-come a speech impediment, albeit a
minor one, regardless of circumstances; viz., stuttering, though I would
concede that it was probably well done. We all know of the problems attendant
to english royal inbreeding…ho hum… I did find ‘The Black Swan’ superb but
attribute same to my own bias and fascination with viewing female ballet
dancing). Bob Hope: Academy Awards,
‘passover’ … very funny! ]
CIVIL
WAR WEEKEND
Armed
pro-Gaddafi gangs roll in Tripoli...
...Shooting
from ambulances...
GRAFFITI
AND BARRICADES...
Gaddafi
vows to crush protesters...
Egypt
protesters dispersed by force...
Al
Qaeda calls for revolt against Arab rulers...
Obama
to Gaddafi: Leave now...
UN
Security Council passes votes to sanction...
Gas
prices surge 17 cents in a week...
Motorist
Calls Police Over Rising Prices...
OBAMA:
CAN WE DRILL NOW?
LONDON
DRIVERS PAYING $9 A GALLON...
Spain
reduces motorway speed limit to save oil...
WOBAMA
'IMPEACHMENT' WARNING... ...to
announce exploratory committee 'in 10 days'
WEST MOVES MILITARY ASSETS AROUND LIBYA
CharlieSheen
Publicist Runs For Hills...
Actor
set to sue CBS for $320M, 'mental anguish'...
The
Legal Letter...
THE
'TODAY' INTERVIEW...
NY
MAG: Madoff on Madoff: The Jailhouse Tapes...
Government
a Ponzi scheme...
CIVIL
WAR WEEKEND...
Anti-Gaddafi
forces widen control...
Take
town 30 miles from Tripoli...
Security
forces defect...
Armed
pro-gangs roll in capital...
...shooting
from ambulances
ISRAELI'S
YOUTUBE SPOOF OF GADHAFI CATCHES ON IN ARAB WORLD...
Police
station, state office burning in Oman town...
Tunisia
prime minister resigns...
Gingrich
to announce exploratory committee 'in 10 days' [ Neo-con Dreamin’! I mean, come
on … are memories so short they don’t recall him being a total hypocrite,
zionist shill, and part of the problem
though to his credit, he’s not a mobster and complete joke as is trump! ]
CHICAGOLAND:
Lawmaker Suggests BOEING'S Contract Win A Result Of Dirty Politics... [ The contract’s with money the nation doen’t really
have anyway; and, the value of the money paid will be worth substantially less
by completion; and, no surprise … Chicago hasn’t changed much from the days of
capone and is rivaled in terms of corruption by such states as jersey, new
york, etc.. ] ‘…“I’m disappointed but not surprised,”
Republican Sen. Richard Shelby said. “Only Chicago politics could tip the
scales in favor of Boeing’s inferior plane. EADS clearly offers the more
capable aircraft.”…’
U.S.
freezes $30 billion in Libya government assets (Washington
Post) [ The lesson for the Libyan people based upon pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt war crimes nation america’s desperation is … you better watch
that Libyan money closely; after all, look what’s happened to american money in
american hands … totally plundered by the opportunist few! ] Action taken by executive order is largest
blocking under any U.S. sanctions program ever; Clinton announces efforts to
stem humanitarian crisis.
[ (2-26-11)
Let me state for the record here that my computer has been under constant
viral, hack attack, paralleling prior such foolish, paranoid actions and let me
reiterate: They will be sorry and I won’t forget it! ]
‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted
massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and
declares with oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been
prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator /
experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder
and wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable
for the meltdown. ) (see this
film, I strongly recommend the complete documentary – the following is a
preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
Wobama says daffy
gaddafi’s time is up, got to go. The same can be said of wobama et als and his
fraudulently failed presidency. Sheen On
Obama: “A Coward In a Cheap Suit” [ I think Sheen to be too gentle in his criticism of wobama (Some
might reflexively, defensively allege drugs (prescription or otherwise) or any
number of the varied personality disorders so prevalent in america … ‘fuzzy,
California laid back thinking’, ‘whatever’… Who knows? ) But, that said,
wobama’s far worse than just a ‘coward in a cheap suit’. Indeed, Wobama’s a
total fraud having been elected under false pretenses; viz., his total,
unequivocal, and unfulfilled b*** s*** (those campaign promises) ! Moreover,
there has been some persuasive documentation questioning wobama’s citizenship /
birthplace placing his eligibility to even hold the office of president in
question. ] Amidst the controversy of his wild interview on the Alex Jones Show
yesterday, actor Charlie Sheen wasted little time in confronting President
Barack Obama on his failure to answer Sheen’s twenty questions concerning 9/11,
calling Obama, “a coward in a cheap suit.” A Government Shut-down Imperils the Power of Congress Paul Craig Roberts | Congress could try to protect its loss of the
power of the purse by impeaching Obama.
Drudgereport: WOBAMA
'IMPEACHMENT' WARNING... ...to
announce exploratory committee 'in 10 days' Globalist Shill
Barack Obama Asks Business Leaders For Job Creation Ideas Even As He Ships More
Of Our Jobs Overseas As Part Of The New One World Economy The other day,
Barack Obama summoned a group of business and labor leaders to the White House
and “challenged” them to come up with some great ideas for creating more jobs
inside the United States.
Why your local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad) http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/LPSILC43/PR [ The instant video from Stansberry and Associates is so well researched and succinctly presented that I’ve archived same on my website;
also, because the facts and views presented comport with the facts and views
I’ve presented on my site which I believe to be correct. This is a must-view,
must-see that I strongly recommend!
The complete url: http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.flv ( 146mb – approx. 1 hr. 17 min. ) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.mp4 (
374mb ) Written text of presentation (without
pictures / charts) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrypresentation.htm
]
‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for Documentary on the unprosecuted
massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by the frauds on wall street ( and
declares with oscar in hand that not one high level wall street exec has been
prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from the fraud ), the commentator /
experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt eric holder ( now what do holder
and wobama have in common … is it wall street money ………… is it a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ………all of the above, some of the above ……….. or is it
something else …… here’s a hint - UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice
official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case against the
New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in
the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and
white victims ...’ US v. AZ... Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Washington Post | Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable
for the meltdown. ) (see this
film, I strongly recommend the complete documentary – the following is a
preview/summary) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffHFjlqIzKE&feature=related
[Here’s an archived version
’Inside
Job’ New Documentary Exposes Wall Street Fraud And How Banksters Continue To
Steal Our Money
Web site Link / Path to archived file:
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.flv [45mb ]
http://www.albertpeia.com/insidejob.mp4 [ 65mb ] ]
Wobama says daffy
gaddafi’s time is up, got to go. The same can be said of wobama et als and his
fraudulently failed presidency. Sheen On
Obama: “A Coward In a Cheap Suit” [ I think Sheen to be too gentle in his criticism of wobama (Some
might reflexively, defensively allege drugs (prescription or otherwise) or any
number of the varied personality disorders so prevalent in america … ‘fuzzy,
California laid back thinking’, ‘whatever’… Who knows? ) But, that said,
wobama’s far worse than just a ‘coward in a cheap suit’. Indeed, Wobama’s a
total fraud having been elected under false pretenses; viz., his total,
unequivocal, and unfulfilled b*** s*** (those campaign promises) ! Moreover,
there has been some persuasive documentation questioning wobama’s citizenship /
birthplace placing his eligibility to even hold the office of president in
question. ] Amidst the controversy of his wild interview on the Alex Jones Show
yesterday, actor Charlie Sheen wasted little time in confronting President
Barack Obama on his failure to answer Sheen’s twenty questions concerning 9/11,
calling Obama, “a coward in a cheap suit.” A Government Shut-down Imperils the Power of Congress Paul Craig Roberts | Congress could try to protect its loss of the
power of the purse by impeaching Obama.
Drudgereport: WOBAMA
'IMPEACHMENT' WARNING... ...to
announce exploratory committee 'in 10 days' Globalist Shill
Barack Obama Asks Business Leaders For Job Creation Ideas Even As He Ships More
Of Our Jobs Overseas As Part Of The New One World Economy The other day,
Barack Obama summoned a group of business and labor leaders to the White House
and “challenged” them to come up with some great ideas for creating more jobs
inside the United States.
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored A viral You Tube upload of
one of Alex Jones’ most popular feature films ‘The Obama Deception’ has been
censored following a spur of the moment campaign to elevate the movie’s title
to the top of the major internet search engines. In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Ethics
code urged for Supreme Court
(Washington Post) [
Sounds like a plan! Come on! Wake up! After all, what can you expect
from two guidos from ‘jersey (alito and scalia, colloquial – note that I have
refrained from using what some might consider disparaging terms as w*p*,
gui***s, or da***s … and let me state for the record that I truly loved and
respected my grandmother who was 100% Italian/Bari,Italy and as well my
grandfather/Lake Como,northern Italy with greek ancestral roots and I thereby
claim standing/right to posit the criticism in light of my direct experience.
). How ‘bout starting with enforcing laws as to judges, liars, etc., within the
very corrupted american illegal system; and, particularly bribes which in one
form or another are rampant . I don’t know about Thomas, but I do know about
alito and ‘jersey … :
October 15, 2010
(*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez, Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the
Qui Tam provisions of the Federal
False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent resolution seek to
refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of the law with which I
am not familiar).
The document in 5 pages under penalty of
perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI office in New Haven is probably the
best and most concise summary of the case
RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm . With regard to the
calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices: There was one call to the LA
office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA office where I personally met
with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative evidentiary documents of the
money laundering which he confirmed as indicative of same (he was transferred
from said office within approximately a month of said meeting and his location
was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter was assigned to FBI Agent Ron
Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess of a decade until he abruptly
retired (our last conversation prior to his retirement related to the case and
parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father I stated had been an enforcer for
the mob to which he registered disbelief and requested I prove it, which I did
– he served 12 years in prison, aggravated assault/manslaughter? – and no,
there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew Maloney’s the one that
prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction
to the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
There is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor
creditors, nor I should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt
and illegal scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the
meaningful rules of law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia
611 E. 5th Street, #404
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 219-**** (cell phone)
(213) 622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with
the line, computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance
greater non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for
contact).
] Group of law
professors' appeal comes after controversies involving travel and appearances
at political events by several justices.
Why your local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad) http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/LPSILC43/PR [ The instant video from Stansberry and Associates is so well researched and succinctly presented that I’ve archived same on my website;
also, because the facts and views presented comport with the facts and views
I’ve presented on my site which I believe to be correct. This is a must-view,
must-see that I strongly recommend!
The complete url: http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.flv ( 146mb – approx. 1 hr. 17 min. ) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.mp4 (
374mb ) Written text of presentation (without
pictures / charts) http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrypresentation.htm
]
‘The Chicago PMI
for February climbed to a 20-year high of 71.2. It had only ben expected to
come in at 67.5 after a 68.8 reading in January’. [ Come on! Does anyone
take anything coming out chicago capone-land seriously…maybe is the answer if
you’re a fool. ]
Market Crash 2011: It Will Hit by Christmas Farrell,
MarketWatch SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.
(MarketWatch) — Politicians lie. Bankers lie. Yes, they’re liars. But they’re
not bad, it’s in their genes, inherited. Their brains are wired that way, warn
scientists. Like addicts, they can’t help themselves. They want to sell stuff,
get rich.
We want to
believe they’re telling us the truth. Silly, huh? Both trapped in this eternal
“dance of death” controlled by programs hidden deep in our brains, telling us
what to do, telling us to ignore facts to the contrary — till it’s too late,
till a new crisis crushes all of us.
Joe Bel Bruno explains why stocks climbed to
21/2-year highs and extended their winning streak to a third consecutive week.
Psychology offers us a powerful lesson: Our
collective brain is destined to trigger a crash before Christmas 2011. Why?
We’re gullible, keep searching for a truth-teller in a world of liars. And
they’re so clever, we let them manipulate us into acting against our best interests.
In fact, behavioral science tells us that bankers and
politicians are lying to us 93% of the time. It’s 13 times more likely Wall
Street is telling you a lie than the truth. That’s why they win. Why we lose.
Because our brains are preprogrammed to cooperate in their con game. Yes, we
believe most of their lies.
One of America’s leading behavioral finance gurus,
University of Chicago Prof. Richard Thaler, explains: “Think of the human brain
as a personal computer with a very slow processor and a memory system that is
small and unreliable.” Thaler even admits: “The PC I carry between my ears has
more disk failures than I care to think about.” Easy to manipulate.
Thaler’s a quant, speaks mostly in cryptic
algorithmics. So if you really want to know how Wall Street’s con game works on
you, Barry Ritholtz, the financial genius behind “Bailout Nation,” recently
summarized it in the Washington Post: “Humans make all the same mistakes, over and
over again. It’s how we are wired, the net result of evolution. That
flight-or-fight response might have helped your ancestors deal with hungry
saber-toothed tigers and territorial Cro Magnons, but it drives investors to
make costly emotional decisions.”
Humans have something “akin to brain damage,” says
Ritholtz. “To neurophysiologists, who research cognitive functions, the
emotionally driven appear to suffer from cognitive deficits that mimic certain
types of brain injuries. … Anyone with an intense emotional interest in a
subject loses the ability to observe it objectively: You selectively perceive
events. You ignore data and facts that disagree with your main philosophy. Even
your memory works to fool you, as you selectively retain what you believe in,
and subtly mask any memories that might conflict.”
Worse,
there’s no cure.
Examples: USA Today headline: “Average Bull is 3.8
years: We’re not at 2 yet.” More upside. Wall Street loves it. The Wall Street
Journal: “Stock recovery in high gear … S&P500 now speeding toward its next
landmark,” double its March 2009 bottom.
Other lies: Inflation and rate rises won’t push China
and America over the edge into a new bear recession. That one’s real popular in
Wall Street’s echo chamber. Wall Street also cheers every time cable pundits
and journalists repeat their favorite statistic: That stocks rally in the third
year of a presidency, often more than 20%. Yes, Wall Street loves those 93%
lies.
Biggest lie? Wharton’s perennial bull, Jeremy Siegel,
of “Stocks for the Long Run” fame, recently told a TD Ameritrade Institutional
Conference, “There’s nothing but upside to come …the next several years are
going to be good for stocks.”
Yes, one of Wall Street’s favorite co-conspirators is
hypnotizing thousands of our best money managers and advisers into believing
the lie that this bull market will roar indefinitely. Worse, they’ll use that
message to sell naive investors on buying whatever junk Wall Street is selling.
Get the picture? A little conspiracy begins in your
head, a conspiracy between your gullible brain and Wall Street’s con men
selling hype, hoopla and happy-talk. Listen and you’ll lose. Warning: This
little conspiracy is a retirement killer. Remember: It’s odds-on you’re being
lied to. So for a few moments, listen to some highly respected contrarians.
They’re short-selling this conspiracy, betting that 2011 will hit headwinds
before Christmas, turn a cyclical bull rally into a cyclical bear market.
Remember, we can’t help it. Our brains are defective,
biased, manipulated by unseen forces 93% of the time. So blame all the lies,
lying and liars on our brain wiring. A perfect excuse. Sure, political dogma
and insatiable greed factor into our bizarre mental equations. But your brain
is as susceptible to the “great con” as Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, Bernie
Madoff.
Go back a few years: The subprime credit meltdown was
widely predicted years in advance. For example, back in 2007, the IMF’s Chief
Economist, Raghuram Rajan, “delivered a stark warning to the world’s top
bankers: Financial markets were headed for doom. They laughed it off,” said the
Toronto Star. Both Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers were there.
In April 2007, Jeremy Grantham, whose firm manages
$107 billion, also warned investors: “The First Truly Global Bubble: From
Indian antiquities to modern Chinese art; from land in Panama to Mayfair; from
forestry, infrastructure, and the junkiest bonds to mundane blue chips; it’s
bubble time. … Everyone, everywhere is reinforcing one another. … Bursting of
the bubble will be across all countries and all assets … no similar global
event has occurred before.”
We knew a crash was coming, Wall Street laughed.
Call it denial, or lying, or just a brain defect,
late that summer as the meltdown spread like wildfire, shutting down the
economy, our manipulative Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, a former Goldman
Sachs CEO, told Fortune “this is far and away the strongest global economy I’ve
seen in my business lifetime.” And Fed boss Bernanke was telling us the
subprime crisis was “contained.” Alan Greenspan agreed. He was on tour, making
millions hustling his new book of excuses, delusions and lies, “The Age of
Turbulence.”
Today, just three years later, the market’s just a
shade above its 2000 peak. Adjusted for inflation, Wall Street stocks have lost
roughly 20% of your retirement money the past decade. Get it? Wall Street’s a
big loser the past decade. And they’ll lose another 20% by 2020. Why? Because
93% of what comes from Wall Street is suspect, can’t be trusted.
At the beginning of 2011 USA Today reported a contrarian
forecast. Ned Davis Research says the S&P 500 will make a run at the 2007
high of 1,565, but hit a “midyear peak.” Then it will crash as interest rates
rise. Davis concludes: “The midyear peak could mark the end of the cyclical
bull market that began in March 2009 and the start of a new cyclical bear
market.”
Warning, even though your brain doesn’t want to hear
it, there is a high probability a new cyclical bear market will begin this
summer … and overshadow the 2012 elections.
The Journal’s also warning: “Inflation jitters spread
through emerging markets, prompting China’s central bank to raise interest rate
for the third time in four months amid worries that a drought threatening the
country’s wheat crop will put further pressure on global food prices.”
Wake up America: With commodity prices rising
rapidly, all the bizarre rationalizations Wall Street uses to keep Bernanke’s
interest rates low are rapidly vaporizing. Yes, Ned Davis’ prediction of a bear
will soon be a painful reality.
Grantham also sees inflation and rising interest
rates killing the lies, popping the bubble and ending the rally: “As a simple
rule, the market will tend to rise as long as short rates are kept low. This seems
likely to be the case for eight more months and, therefore, we have to be
prepared for the market to rise and to have a risky bias.”
With $107 billion at stake Grantham better be
concerned. He predicted the 2008 meltdown, now sees a repeat dead ahead: “Be
prepared for a strong market and continued outperformance of everything risky,
but be aware that you are living on borrowed time as a bull.”
Yes, the bubble will pop this year says Grantham: “If
the S&P rises to 1,500, it would officially be the latest in the series of
true bubbles. All of the famous bubbles broke, but only after short rates had
started to rise.”
So keep a close watch on those two tipping points in
your planning, interest rates breaking to the upside and the S&P closing
near 1,500. When inflation pushes interest rates up they’ll choke off this bull
market. If you’re active, better stop chasing higher returns, especially
emerging markets.
Bottom line: In what sounds like a direct shot at
super-bull Jeremy Siegel, Grantham says that GMO’s research warns that “the
market is worth about 910 on the S&P 500, substantially less than current
levels” just above 1,300.
Then Grantham throws his fast ball right down the
middle: “The speed with which you should pull back from the market as it advances
into dangerously overpriced territory this year is more of an art than a
science, but by October 1 you should probably be thinking much more
conservatively.”
Translation: Get the heck out of Wall Street’s stock market casino soon, maybe as early as July 4th, and definitely get out by Christmas, because soon all the lies, lying and liars will stop working. ‘
Stock
Concentration: A Different Aspect of ETF Risk Kownatzki ‘ETFs have been all
the rage. Ongoing investor interest has prompted an amazing growth of this type
of investment vehicle. For most individual investors the traditional ETFs do
provide an easy, certainly more cost effective way of diversification and
therefore spreading risk among possibly several hundred companies. Many of
these ETFs track the major stock market indices such as the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY),
SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) and PowerShares NASDAQ
100 (QQQQ).
I have been
repeatedly critical of some of the more complex ETFs in the past. Leveraged
ETFs (double and triple) as well as inverse ETFs should only be considered by
more experienced investors as they generally incur much higher risks. Worse
yet, they tend to do a rather poor job at tracking the underlying index or
basket of assets, often lagging far behind the expected performance. We
discussed this in detail in numerous articles, more recently in Naďve
expectations versus actual performance.
By contrast,
as long as one invests in the traditional ETFs tracking just the major market
indices, one should take comfort from the fact that diversification through the
many different companies provides some insurance against individual company
risk. Or does it?
Let’s look at
an area of risk that’s not all that obvious on first glance: concentration risk.
Whenever I
examine a new ETF or Mutual Fund, my first question is always: What are they
actually buying and what are their current holdings?
One should do
the same before buying any index fund too. Be aware of what the index is
actually made of and what the fund allocations are. For instance, looking at
the top ten holdings of the Dow Jones ETF (DIA), it is clear that a
significant portion of that index, about 10%, is allocated to one company – IBM. Nothing against IBM, but
just be aware that this is quite a large allocation in just one stock.
DIA Top Ten Holdings |
as of 2-25-11 |
Components |
Weight |
10.08% |
|
Chevron (CVX) |
6.39% |
Caterpillar
Inc (CAT) |
6.30% |
3M Co (MMM) |
5.64% |
Exxon Mobil
(XOM) |
5.39% |
United
Technologies (UTX) |
5.18% |
McDonald's (MCD) |
4.71% |
Boeing Co (BA) |
4.43% |
Coca Cola Co
(KO) |
4.00% |
Procter
& Gamble Co (PG) |
3.95% |
Granted that
the Dow is only made up of 30 companies, that concentration risk is still
relatively benign. Much more of a concentration risk has been gathering steam
in the NASDAQ 100. The extremely successful company Apple now comprises more
than one fifth of the Index, clearly a huge allocation in just one company.
QQQQ Top Ten Holdings |
as of 2-25-11 |
Components |
Weight |
Apple Inc. (AAPL) |
20.47% |
QUALCOMM
Inc. (QCOM) |
5.29% |
Google Inc.
(GOOG) |
4.24% |
Microsoft
Corp. (MSFT) |
3.59% |
Oracle Corp.
(ORCL) |
3.17% |
Amazon.com
Inc. (AMZN) |
2.43% |
Intel Corp.
(INTC) |
1.96% |
Cisco
Systems Inc. (CSCO) |
1.70% |
Comcast
Corp. (CMCSA) |
1.68% |
Teva
Pharmaceutical (TEVA) |
1.68% |
Apple (AAPL) has
been a huge success and the NASDAQ 100 Index has also been profiting from
Apple’s stellar performance in recent years. Without going into detail as to
how the component allocation of these indices are calculated, the average
investor should at least be aware of the top 10 holdings of these ETFs as they
provide some insight into how much or how little the index is actually
diversified. Given the larger allocation of Apple in this case has been a huge
plus for holders of QQQQ. But the same holders should appreciate that there is
a significant concentration risk through this massive holding in just one
company. Don’t get me wrong, I love Apple and its products and I am not here to
argue as to whether Apple’s astronomical market cap of $320 billion is
justified. But the fact that Apple is now more than 20% of the NASDAQ 100 leaves
me a bit uncomfortable.
You could
consider buying Apple stock directly (if Apple were the “chosen one”) while
achieving your desired level of diversification through a broader index like
the S&P 500. In that index, comprised of 500 companies, Apple is still the
second largest component stock. However, with a weight of just 2.65% it looks
more like diversification is actually happening.
SPY Top Ten Holdings |
as of 2-25-11 |
Components |
Weight |
Exxon Mobil |
3.65% |
Apple Inc. |
2.65% |
General
Electric Co (GE) |
1.85% |
Chevron Corp
New |
1.73% |
Microsoft
Corp |
1.70% |
IBM |
1.68% |
JP Morgan
Chase & Co (JPM) |
1.51% |
Procter
& Gamble Co |
1.49% |
Johnson
& Johnson JNJ) |
1.39% |
Wells Fargo
& Co (WFC) |
1.39% |
Again, I’m not
debating the commercial viability of Apple Inc. (although there are those who
fear that the absence of Steve Jobs will eventually hurt the long-term
prospects of the company). This is rather a heads up for those who might not
realize how much of their money is invested in just one stock when they
purchase shares in the ETF QQQQ. Always good to know what’s inside the shopping
bag…’
Will banksters get
away with it? Aljazeera | Why have the unions and leftist
groups been mostly silent on these issues?
The REAL
Unemployment Rate Is 22% The Daily Bail | It remains above
22% with the February update.
Libya’s
Turmoil Leads to Highest February Gas Prices in 21 Years ABC News
| Crude oil touched nearly $102 a barrel in Asia this morning amid fears that
Libya could halt exports.
Price of
food is at the heart of revolutions The Independent | No
one saw the uprisings coming, but their deeper cause isn’t hard to fathom.
Oil
Rises for Second Day as Middle East Turmoil Spreads to Oman Bloomberg
| Oil advanced for a second day in New York after turmoil that has cut Libya’s
output spread to Oman.
National / World
North Korea threatens US, South with 'all-out war' (AFP) AFP - North
Korea threatened "all-out war" in response to exercises by South Korean
and US troops due to start Monday and told Seoul to stop cross-border
propaganda, upping the rhetoric against its ar...
Afghan gov't: NATO op killed 65 civilians (AP) [ War criminals
winning hearts and minds? … Never gonna’ happen! ]
Congress
on course to avert shutdown (Washington Post) [ And just when we thought there was hope … for the
nation … the world … How ‘bout a
massive furlough program for congress, the judiciary, and the executive
branch (except law enforcement). After all, if all of the foregoing along with
the likes of pseudo gov’t / connected fraudulent wall street, etc., are not to
blame for the debacle we now call america, then who is? They are, period,
exclamation point. Massive firings would also do quite satisfactorily! ]
Chinese
authorities block Web site, terms (Washington Post) [ It is bad enough that
China is essentially a totalitarian communist nation, disingenuously relying
upon capitalism for its stellar growth. In light of such and China’s
preoccupation with censorship, it is also clear that it’s not so much China’s
rise as it is pervasively corrupt / defacto bankrupt america’s demise. In other
words, they’re ‘limited’ (by such). But make no mistake, pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america goes to great lengths in suppressing information,
truth in favor of what’s spewed out by their propaganda machine which is
nonpareil; and then there’s the perpetual illegal wars. ] Chinese authorities continued to tighten
controls on Internet use Friday in the face of murky calls for "jasmine
rallies" to emulate the anti-government protests convulsing the Middle
East and North Africa.
Feb.
23 (Bloomberg) -- Our country is bankrupt. It’s not bankrupt in 30 years or
five years. It’s bankrupt today.
Want proof? Look at President Barack Obama’s 2010
budget. It showed a massive fiscal gap over the next 75 years, the closure of
which requires immediate tax increases, spending cuts, or some combination
totaling 8 percent of gross domestic product. To put 8 percent of GDP in
perspective, this year’s employee and employer payroll taxes for Social
Security and Medicare will amount to just 5 percent of GDP.
Actually, the picture is much worse. Nothing in
economics says we should look out just 75 years when considering the
present-value difference between future spending and future taxes. Over the
full long-term, we need an extra 12 percent, not 8 percent, of GDP annually.
Seventy-five years seems like a long enough time to
plan. It’s not. Had the Greenspan Commission, which “fixed” Social Security
back in 1983, focused on the true long term we wouldn’t be sitting here now
with Social Security 26 percent underfunded. The Social Security trustees, at
least, have learned a lesson. The 26 percent figure is based on their infinite
horizon fiscal- gap calculation.
But the real reason we can’t look out just 75 years
is that the government’s cash flows (the difference between its annual taxes
and non-interest spending) over any period of time, including the next 75
years, aren’t well defined. This reflects economics’ labeling problem. If you
use different words to describe the receipts taken in and paid out each year by
the government, you produce entirely different cash flows and an entirely
different fiscal gap measured over any finite horizon.
Matter of Language
It’s only the value of the infinite horizon fiscal
gap that is unaffected by the choice of labels of language. Take this year’s
payroll tax contributions. Let’s call these transfers from workers to Uncle Sam
“borrowing” by the government, rather than “payroll taxes,” since the money
will be paid back as future benefits. If the future payback isn’t in full
(equal to principal plus interest), we can call the difference a “retirement
tax.” Presto! With this change of words, our 2011 deficit of about 10 percent
of GDP is boosted another five points to 15 percent.
With one set of words, taxes are higher now and lower
latter. With the other set of words, the opposite is true. But neither set of
labels makes more economic sense than the other or changes what the government
takes, on balance, from any person or business in any given year.
This is no surprise. The math of economics rules out
an absolute measure of the deficit, just like the math of physics rules out an
absolute measure of time.
Bottom Line
The bottom line, then, is that we need to look at the
infinite-horizon fiscal gap not just for Social Security, but for the entire
federal government. That analysis, based on the Congressional Budget Office’s
long-term alternative fiscal scenario, shows an unfathomable fiscal gap of $202
trillion. And covering this gap requires coming up with the aforementioned 12
percent of GDP, forever.
If this gives you the willies, there’s a ready
narcotic -- the president’s 2012 budget, which shows that most of our long-
term fiscal problem has miraculously disappeared; the fiscal gap isn’t 12
percent of annual GDP. Nor is it 8 percent. It’s now 1.8 percent.
This fantastic improvement in our finances is due,
we’re told, primarily to the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This board, to
be established in 2014 (after the next election, of course) is charged with
recommending cuts to Medicare and Medicaid providers when their costs grow too
fast.
Repealing Cuts
We’ve had laws mandating such cuts for years, and
they are routinely repealed. Indeed, President Obama signed the latest such
repeal last June. But rather than laugh out loud at this cost-control
mechanism, the Medicare trustees, three-quarters of whom were appointed by the
president, assume in their 2010 report that these cuts will be made -- to the
dollar. And the 2012 budget cites the report’s fictional forecast as its
authoritative source.
No one takes the 2010 Medicare trustee report’s
long-run projections seriously, least of all Richard Foster, Medicare’s chief
actuary. Foster added this statement to the end of the report: “The financial
projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable
expectation…in either the short range…or the long range.”
This isn’t the first administration to conceal our
long- term fiscal problem. Back in 1993, Alice Rivlin, then deputy director of
the Office of Management and Budget, asked me and economists Alan Auerbach and
Jagadeesh Gokhale to prepare a long-term fiscal gap/generational accounting for
inclusion in President Bill Clinton’s 1994 budget.
Politics Triumphs
We worked for months on the analysis, but two days
before the budget’s release, the study was excised from the budget. We were
shocked, but, in retrospect, the politics are clear. The Clinton administration
wanted to claim it was fiscally prudent and the study, which showed unofficial
debt growing at enormous rates, showed the opposite.
The fiscal gap’s next near appearance in a
president’s budget was in 2003. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill commissioned
Gokhale and Kent Smetters to do the study. It showed a massive $45 trillion
fiscal gap -- not a great basis for pushing tax cuts or introducing the
prescription-drug benefit for seniors, known as Medicare Part D. O’Neill was
ousted on Dec. 6, 2002, and a couple of days later the fiscal-gap study was
discarded.
I’m not sure whether censoring the fiscal gap is more
dishonorable than fudging it. What I do know is that we can’t assume our
problems away and that I expected far better of this president when I voted for
him.
--Editors:
James Greiff, Steven Gittelson’
Libyan
ruler clings to power as violence escalates (Washington Post) [ Clings? … As in a tight sweater …
or maybe a straight jacket. Wow! Talk about delusional. ] Regime
opens fire on protesters; Gaddafi calls supporters to arms (Washington Post) [ Pressure
mounts on Gaddafi (Washington Post) [ That he was always a caricature of
sorts, there is no question. That he’s totally burned out, there’s also no
doubt; though they might argue in his defense that so was failed president
dumbya bush … a point well taken … but look at the consequential pathetic state
of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america … with the unlit torch passed
to failed president wobama the b (for b*** s***) who pretends, or maybe in his
alternate and fake reality just believes it’s lit. That he’s done, also fait
accomplis, after 41 years … who cares. That he’s insane … now that’s quite
another thing with greater worldwide implications, so, daffy… gadaffy… duck! Gaddafi vows to maintain hold on power Libyan
strongman says he'll fight 'until the last drop of my blood' (Washington Post) [ His latter wish is the
world’s command. ‘Something there is that doesn’t love a dictator, that wants
them down’ … (Excuse me … I was thinking of walls and ‘Mending Wall’, Robert Frost http://albertpeia.com/RobertFrost.htm ). Libya
Internet Shut Down Amid Protests, Per Multiple Reports [ Once again, as in Egypt, this, the
internet, inherently global in nature is the lynchpin, tampering with or
stifling same marking the end of any regime. Let this be a warning; viz., you
cannot put the genie back in the bottle! 41 years? Gadaffy duck should duck
‘cause he’s done. I mean, look at him, he’s the singular equivalent of the
multiple bushes. He’s totally burnt out (as much or more so than dumbya bush or
mubarack) and quite done! ] Reports have emerged late Friday that Libya appears
to have shut down its Internet due to widespread protests, less than a month
after Egypt did the same. ] With rebels
apparently controlling much of the eastern half of the country, the violence
engulfing Libya is already the worst in more than a month of unrest that has
toppled other regimes. ]
He remains defiant even as high-level defections continue to weaken his
government and rebels reportedly seize control of key swaths of nation. American
evacuees describe 'long ordeal' on ferry (Washington Post) [ I’ve included
this headline here, not for the article’s content but rather for the statement
of one of said evacuees on network television news that he was told by the u.s.
embassy that they’d have to fend for themselves and that they’re on their own.
That is an important aspect of the fact-filled video presentation by Stansberry
and Associates, infra, except that that will be the almost unimaginable
position of the u.s. government when the almost unimaginable but inevitable
happens here in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america. Don’t forget,
they and their’s have plundered this nation, its treasury, people and have use
each branch of this government to do so. I’ve experienced this first-hand in
having to ‘fend for myself’ in what should have been a simple RICO case owing
to the venality of those self-interested in the process (bribes, cover-up of
crimes, etc. http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
) …..
Why your local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad) http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/LPSILC43/PR The instant video from Stansberry and
Associates is so well researched and succinctly presented that I’ve archived
same on my website;
also, because the facts and views presented comport with the facts and views
I’ve presented on my site which not only do I believe to be correct, but are
supported by the unequivocal documented facts. This is a must-view, must-see
that I strongly recommend! The
complete url ( 146 mb – approx. 1 hr. 17 min. ) : http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.flv ]
Why your local Hospital could soon shut down (Ad) http://www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/LPSILC43/PR [ The instant video from Stansberry and
Associates is so well researched and succinctly presented that I’ve archived
same on my website;
also, because the facts and views presented comport with the facts and views I’ve
presented on my site which not only do I believe to be correct, but are
supported by the unequivocal documented facts. This is a must-view, must-see
that I strongly recommend! The
complete url ( 146 mb – approx. 1 hr. 17 min. ) : http://www.albertpeia.com/stansberrysinvestmentadvisory.flv ]
BOB
PRECHTER: We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New
Lows Blodget ‘Investors have gotten wildly bullish of late, as the bull
market that started in early 2009 keeps driving stocks to new highs. But the
pigs are about to get slaughtered, says Bob Prechter, president of Elliott Wave International and
editor of the Elliott Wave Theorist. Prechter still thinks the new bull market
is just a cyclical "retracement" of some of the bear market losses
that we've had since the market crashed in 2008. Prechter expected this
retracement to drive stocks 50% above the market lows, but stocks have since
soared 30% higher than than he expected. So when the day of reckoning
comes, Prechter thinks, it will be even more startling. And Prechter
still thinks that stocks will eventually crash to new bear-market lows (read:
below 6,800 on the DOW). What makes Prechter think this day of reckoning may
come sooner rather than later? Sentiment indicators and
other technical analysis. Investor bullishness has
now gotten so extreme, Prechter says, that it has exceeded the levels in 2008
before the market crashed. Investors could still get even more bullish,
of course, but eventually they'll pay for this optimism. And Prechter's not just bearish on stocks: He thinks oil,
silver, and other commodities are absurdly overvalued, too. The only
thing he's bullish on is the dollar. And lest he be dismissed as a perma-bear,
Bob Prechter is quick to add that he hopes there will come a day when he can
come on the show and tell everyone that stocks are finally so crushed and hated
that it's a historic opportunity to buy them. When will that be? Stay
tuned...’
Looking Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding ‘Many important global stock markets, including China,
Brazil, India and Hong Kong, have been in fairly significant corrections since
November, down between 12% and 17%. Their major concerns have been rising
inflation and the resulting monetary tightening by their central banks to
combat the inflationary pressures.
The
U.S. market has had no such worries, and has continued its non-stop bull market
to new highs.
It
did stumble a bit this week, spooked by the spike-up in oil prices created by
the spreading unrest in oil-producing countries, notably Libya. Yet in the
week’s decline the Dow and S&P 500 fell less than 3%, hardly a blip on the
long-term charts.
Short-term,
the next ‘monthly strength period’ has arrived, when the market tends to be
positive for the five-day period from the last trading day of the month through
the first four days of the following month.
As
I have written before, it is a quite consistent pattern. For instance, in 2010
the S&P 500 gained 143 points, or 12.8% for the year, but its gains on just
the first three days of each month amounted to 229 points, or 20.5%. The
pattern has pretty much continued so far this year, with nice gains in the
first weeks of both January and February.
That
raises the odds for a return to a positive market next week.
Yet,
the events of the past week may have been a warning shot. There had already
been enough potential catalysts for a market correction. This week added
several more.
As
most investors are aware, investor sentiment has been at levels of bullishness
and confidence usually seen near market tops, and the major market indexes are
as over-extended above their long-term 200-day moving averages as they usually
get without at least a 10% to 12% correction down to retest the support at
those moving averages. As noted, many important global stock markets, including
China, Brazil, India and Hong Kong, have been in fairly significant corrections
since November, and global markets, including the U.S., tend to move in tandem
with each other in both rallies and corrections.
Now
we have spiking oil prices. The 2003-2007 bull market ended in October, 2007
when the price of oil reached $96 a barrel. The 2007-2009 recession began three
months later. After trading briefly above $100 a barrel on Thursday oil pulled
back, but was still trading around $97 at the week’s end.
On
Thursday it was reported that new home sales plunged an unexpected and huge
12.6% in January. It was not a good start for this year, after 2010 was the
worst year for new home sales in almost half a century. Not providing much
encouragement for coming months, it was also reported that applications for
mortgages are at a 15-year low.
Then,
on Friday it was reported that the economy was even weaker than previously
thought in the December quarter. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for the
quarter was unexpectedly revised down to only 2.8% from the previously reported
3.2%.
These
events and reports – turmoil in the oil-producing countries that is more likely
to spread than go away; spiking oil prices that tend to cut into U.S. economic
growth (and add to global inflation pressures); news that the economy grew
significantly slower in the 4th quarter than previously thought –
were more than enough reasons for the market to nosedive this week. But it only
stumbled for a few days.
Yet
it was enough to cause some concern and nervousness. That could be seen in the
sharp drop in bullish investor sentiment, and the upturn in the number of
pundits declaring the end of the bull market. The poll of its members by the
American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) this week shows the percentage
of those who are bullish plunged to just 36.6% from readings above 50% just
three weeks ago, and the near record high of 63% in late December.
Sentiment
does reverse from high levels of bullishness near tops to increasingly
pessimistic expectations as corrections develop.
So
was this week’s stumble the beginning of a more serious correction?
The events and reports this week did provide more evidence that the stock
market may be ahead of reality regarding prospects for the economy, and
therefore corporate earnings, going forward, which should at least limit the
market’s upside potential.
Limited upside potential equals more downside risk?
It might be wise to lighten up some into strength that may develop over the
next few days during the ‘monthly strength period.’
Ready to Rally or Ready to Blow? The One Indicator That's in the
Know , On Friday
February 25, 2011, 7:35 pm EST
After
publishing this article on Tuesday, a lot of people asked me: 'So, what did
percentR tell you about the rally. Is it over?'
Unfortunately
the message of this accurate but little-known indicator wasn't as clear as I
hoped, but it was nevertheless valuable. Combining percentR with my other
tenchnical analysis, I came to the following conclusion (published for ETF
Profit Strategy subscribers in the Wednesday update):
'It
looks like stocks want to rally and retrace some of the points lost since last
Friday.' Based on percentR the up trend may be over, but it's too early to
tell. If stocks break out above the safety level outlined in the same update,
the rally will be back on track.
Please
find below the original article for your reading pleasure:
Low-Risk.
The term 'low-risk' has the same appeal in the investment world as the enticing
little word 'free' in the advertising world.
Some
advertising executives claim that 'free' is the most powerful word in the ad
world. 'Low-risk' might be the most powerful concept in the investing universe.
If
you read the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter you are very familiar with the term
low-risk entry. If you don't, here's a quick summary and crash course of an
indicator that's been 100% accurate over the past 6 months.
Low
risk entries for various indexes are identified or triggered by a relative
strength indicator called percentR. PercentR is expressed on a scale from 1 -
100. Readings above 80 are considered overbought, readings below 20 oversold.
If you read the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter you are very familiar with the
term low-risk entry. If you don't, here's a quick summary and crash course of
an indicator that's been 100% accurate over the past 6 months.
Uncannily Accurate
A
picture says more than a thousand words and the chart sheds more light on the
value of percentR. As you can tell by the red line, following the W bottom in
November (not shown in the chart), percentR spiked above 80 (first yellow
circle) around S&P 1,210. This was the initial buy signal. [chart]
With
two exceptions, percentR remained above 80 ever since. The two dips below 80
(yellow circles) on January 19 and 28 triggered a low-risk entry. Even though
investors were worried about riots in Egypt, according to percentR it was time
to buy.
This
bullish low-risk entry is valid as long as the underlying index (in this case
the S&P 500) does not close below that day's low (white line). In
both instances, the S&P (SNP: ^GSPC) stayed above that low and went on to
rally over 5%.
Other Low-Risk Entries
PercentR
works with stocks and indexes alike. Similar low-risk entries were identified
by the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter for the Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI), Nasdaq-100
(Nasdaq: QQQQ - News),
Nasdaq Composite (Nasdaq: ^IXIC), and the Financial Select Sector SPDR
(NYSEArca: XLF - News)
on January 28. The Russell 2000 (Chicago Options: ^RUT) was the weakest index
and registered its low-risk entry sooner.
Corrections are Healthy, if ...
'Corrections
are healthy' is one of many ambiguous Wall Street sayings. If you judge the
current 'bull market' purely on this statement, this market is one sick puppy -
there hasn't been more than a 2.5% correction in nearly a quarter - and needs a
serious correction to be jolted back into healthy territory.
Put
yourself in a time capsule and zoom back to April 2010 when the major U.S.
indexes declined nearly 20% before the promise of QE2 resurrected stocks. There
was little conviction then that corrections are healthy. The correction had
rattled the investing masses and shaken out many stockholders before the market
went on to rally again.
PercentR
is the canary in the coalmine that identifies a deeper correction. No
significant sell off happens without a failed low-risk entry.
A
failed low-risk entry occurs when the indexes close below the low of the day
that triggers the low-risk entry (white lines on the chart). The last failed
low-risk entry happened in November 2010 when stocks chopped around for a few
weeks and ultimately lost about 5%. Another failed low-risk entry flashed
a sell signal on August 11 and ushered in a 21 day, 8% sell off.
The Right Tool for the Job
Any
craftsman will tell you that there are limitations to any tool, but there's a tool
for each job. percentR is the right tool for the current job.
After a parabolic rally, the job at hand is to distinguish whether pull backs are a buying opportunity or a warning signal. Should you buy the dips or step on the sidelines (or even short the market)?…’
The REAL
Unemployment Rate Is 22% The Daily Bail | It remains above 22% with the February update.
Libya’s
Turmoil Leads to Highest February Gas Prices in 21 Years ABC News | Crude oil touched nearly $102 a barrel in Asia
this morning amid fears that Libya could halt exports.
IMF
Austerity Measures Lead to Violent Riots in Greece AFP | The confrontation occurred near the finance
ministry.
21
Signs That The Once Great U.S. Economy Is Being Gutted, Neutered, Defanged,
Declawed And Deindustrialized Once upon a time… The Economic Collapse Feb 12, 2011 ‘Once upon a time, the United
States was the greatest industrial powerhouse that the world has ever
seen. Our immense economic machinery was the envy of the rest of the
globe and it provided the foundation for the largest and most vibrant middle
class in the history of the world. But now the once great U.S. economic
machine is being dismantled piece by piece. The U.S. economy is being gutted,
neutered, defanged, declawed and deindustrialized and very few of our leaders
even seem to care. It was the United States that once showed the rest of
the world how to mass produce televisions and automobiles and airplanes and
computers, but now our industrial base is being ripped to shreds. Tens of
thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs have been shipped
overseas. Many of our proudest manufacturing cities have been transformed
into “post-industrial” hellholes that nobody wants to live in anymore.
Meanwhile,
wave after wave of shiny new factories is going up in nations such as China,
India and Brazil. This is great for those countries, but for the millions
of American workers that desperately needed the jobs that have been sent
overseas it is not so great.
This is the
legacy of globalism. Multinational corporations now have the choice
whether to hire U.S. workers or to hire workers in countries where it is legal
to pay slave labor wages. The “great sucking sound” that Ross Perot
warned us about so long ago is actually happening, and it has left tens of
millions of Americans without good jobs.
So what is to
become of a nation that consumes more than it ever has and yet continues to
produce less and less?
Well, the
greatest debt binge in the history of the world has enabled us to maintain (and
even increase) our standard of living for several decades, but all of that debt
is starting to really catch up with us.
The American
people seem to be very confused about what is happening to us because most of
them thought that the party was going to last forever. In fact, most of
them still seem convinced that our brightest economic days are still ahead.
After all,
every time we have had a “recession” in the past things have always turned
around and we have gone on to even greater things, right?
Well, what
most Americans simply fail to understand is that we are like a car that is
having its insides ripped right out. Our industrial base is being gutted
right in front of our eyes.
Most Americans
don’t think much about our “trade deficit”, but it is absolutely central to
what is happening to our economy. Every year, we buy far, far more from
the rest of the world than they buy from us.
In 2010, the
U.S. trade deficit was just a whisker under $500 billion. This is money
that we could have all spent inside the United States that would have supported
thousands of American factories and millions of American jobs.
Instead, we
sent all of those hundreds of billions of dollars overseas in exchange for a
big pile of stuff that we greedily consumed. Most of that stuff we
probably didn’t need anyway.
Since we spent
almost $500 billion more with the rest of the world than they spent with us, at
the end of the year the rest of the world was $500 billion wealthier and the American
people were collectively $500 billion poorer.
That means
that the collective “economic pie” that we are all dividing up is now $500
billion smaller.
Are you
starting to understand why times suddenly seem so “hard” in the United States?
Meanwhile, jobs
and businesses continue to fly out of the United States at a blinding pace.
This is a
national crisis.
We simply
cannot expect to continue to have a “great economy” if we allow our economy to
be deindustrialized.
A nation that
consumes far more than it produces is not going to be wealthy for long.
The following
are 21 signs that the once great U.S. economy is being gutted, neutered,
defanged, declawed and deindustrialized….
#1 The U.S. trade deficit with the rest of the world
rose to 497.8
billion dollars in 2010. That represented a 32.8% increase from 2009.
#2 The U.S. trade deficit with China rose to an
all-time record of 273.1
billion dollars in 2010. This is the largest trade deficit that one
nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.
#3 The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times
larger than it was back in 1990.
#4 In the years since 1975, the United States had run a
total trade deficit of
7.5 trillion dollars with the rest of the world.
#5 The United States spends more
than 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that
China spends on goods and services from the United States.
#6 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of all U.S. economic
output. In 2008, it represented only 11.5 percent and it continues to
fall.
#7 The number of net jobs gained by the U.S. economy
during this past decade was smaller than during any other
decade since World War 2.
#8 The Bureau of Labor Statistics originally predicted
that the U.S. economy would create approximately 22 million jobs during the
decade of the 2000s, but it turns out that the U.S. economy only produced about 7 million jobsduring
that time period.
#9 Japan now manufactures about 5 million more
automobiles than the United States does.
#10 China has now become the world’s largest
exporter of high technology products.
#11 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer
industry is actually lower in 2010 than
it was in 1975.
#12 The United States now has 10 percent fewer “middle class jobs” than it did
just ten years ago.
#13 According to Tax Notes,
between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S.
parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million.
During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational
corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.
#14 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United
States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the
United States are manufacturing jobs.
#15 Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of
the world’s high-tech export market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years
later, the United States had less than 15 percent and China’s share had soared to 20 percent.
#16 The number of Americans that have become so
discouraged that they have given up searching for work completely now
stands at an all-time high.
#17 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
#18 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent
of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#19 Since 2001, over 42,000 U.S. factories have closed
down for good.
#20 In 2008, 1.2 billion cellphones were sold
worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United
States? Zero.
#21 Ten years ago, the “employment rate” in the United
States was about 64%. Since then it
has been constantly declining and now the “employment rate” in the United
States is only about 58%. So where
did all of those jobs go?
The world is
changing.
We are
bleeding national wealth at a pace that is almost unimaginable.
We are
literally being drained dry.
Did you
know that
China now has the world’s fastest train and the world’s largest high-speed
rail network?
They were able
to afford those things with all of the money that we have been sending them.
How do you
think all of those oil barons in the Middle East became so wealthy and could
build such opulent palaces?
They got rich
off of all the money that we have been sending them.
Meanwhile,
once great U.S. cities such as Detroit, Michigan now look like war zones.
Back in 1985,
the U.S. trade deficit with China was about 6 million dollars for the entire
year.
As mentioned
above, the U.S. trade deficit with China for 2010 was over 273billion
dollars.
What a
difference 25 years can make, eh?
What do you
find when you go into a Wal-Mart, a Target or a dollar store today?
You find row
after row after row of stuff made in China and in other far away countries.
It can be more
than a bit difficult to find things that are actually made inside the United
States anymore. In fact, there are quite a few industries that have
completely and totally left the United States. For certain product
categories it is now literally impossible to buy something made in America.
So what are we
going to do with our tens of millions of blue collar workers?
Should we just
tell them that their jobs are not ever coming back so they better learn phrases
such as “Welcome to Wal-Mart” and “Would you like fries with that”?
For quite a
few years, the gigantic debt bubble that we were living in kind of insulated us
from feeling the effects of the deindustrialization of America.
But now the
pain is starting to kick in.
It has now
become soul-crushingly
difficult to find a job in America today.
According
to Gallup, the U.S. unemployment rate is currently 10.1% and when you throw
in “underemployed” workers that figure rises to 19.6%.
Competition
for jobs has become incredibly fierce and it is going to stay that way.
The great U.S.
economic machine is being ripped apart and dismantled right in full view of us
all.
This is not a
“conservative” issue or a “liberal” issue. This is an American issue.
The United
States is rapidly being turned into a “post-industrial” wasteland.
It is time to
wake up America.’
This is
that unmentionable reality as I alluded to earlier on close scrutiny of the
data, ‘that stock prices have been manipulated to the upside beyond any and all
rational basis‘ and as I previously wrote: Perception vs. Reality: Four Reasons to Remain Cautious on U.S.
Equities [ Hey, Abbott … That’s Lou
Costello calling him from the other side … Wake up! … Just kidding … but I’m
not kidding when I say that contrary to Abbott’s view, infra, if you’re not a
successful market timer you should rethink your position as an equity investor.
Moreover, in contradistinction to Mr. Abbott’s implication, if you’re not a
successful speculator (there are very few), you should rethink your position as
a short seller: reason…, you could be wiped out, lose more than your principal,
forced to cover (that’s why
the same is considered a contrary market indicator, particularly in these
manipulated, contrived markets). When I did my MBA thesis (1977, NYU, GBA,
Eve.Prog., Finance), a review of the data revealed even then (and much more so
now with computer programmed market manipulation) that the market remained
biased / propped up (artificially, especially now with computerized
manipulation) to the upside for far longer periods of time than for the
downside which meant that dollar-cost averaging (through regular, periodic
investment, for example), meant you were accumulating shares at higher prices
generally for longer periods of time skewing the average cost to the upside
(dollar-cost-averaging in declining markets was ok if analysis / forecast saw
resurgence based on fundamentals - now absent – which is timing, as even senile
wall street / gov’t shill Buffet would attest, that ‘greedy when others are
fearful thing’). Abbott discusses perception which is the psychological factor
involved in security evaluation / analysis; but investors need not and should
become nuts themselves, particularly when as now, the inmates are running the
asylum. ] Abbott ‘Perception
determines short-term market movements. The difference between perception and
reality determines the direction of major market trends. Though I generally try
to avoid making macro prognostications, I believe bottom-up analysis can be
informative about the current level of stock prices. I want to share what my
recent work tells me about where stocks are (and where they might be headed). I
will outline some various nuggets of collective wisdom that are taken for
granted right now by stock bulls, and I will attempt to demonstrate how reality
is likely to differ from these perceptions.
First, a
disclaimer. This is not a market timing call. At all times, I stay away from
market timing predictions. I think that's a loser's game in the long run. Even
if I'm correct about the discrepancies between the following perceptions and
realities, there's no saying when people will change their minds or shift their
focuses. That said, let's dive in.
Perception
vs. Reality #1
Perception: Low Interest Rates, Questionable Bond Outlook Means Stocks are
Attractive
Reality: Interest Rates Are Being Artificially and Deliberately Manipulated
It's no secret that
the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy and quantitative easing efforts
have held interest rates very low for very long. However, when people talk
about stock market implications of bond yields, they rarely mention the fact
that bond yields are artificially low. In an unmanipulated market,
bond prices and stock valuations should be related, but I regard that
connection as highly dubious right now. Investors who say that stocks deserve
higher multiples (lower earnings yields) because bond yields are so low may
well be setting themselves up for disappointing returns/frustrating losses when
bond prices normalize. Again, this isn't a market timing call, and yields may
remain low for quite some time. But, eventually this discrepancy will correct
itself, and stock performance is likely to suffer at that time.
Perception
vs. Reality #2
Perception: Earnings Growth Has Been Strong and Will Remain That Way
Reality: Top-Line Growth Will Have to Pick Up; Cost-Cutting has Run Its
Course
Earnings growth
has certainly been robust, but much of the strength has come from companies
running lean cost structures and wringing as much efficiency as possible out of
their employees and their assets. Though the recession has ended, the economy
is not yet healthy enough to fuel strong sales growth. Companies can only boost
profits by cutting costs and increasing productivity for so long. Therefore,
top-line growth will have to play a larger role going forward than it has over
the past 4-6 quarters. Whether or not economic growth is strong enough to drive
revenue increases is unsure, but the current level of stock prices undoubtedly
assumes it is. Any stagnation of the recovery and concomitant sluggish sales
will likely hit stock prices.
Perception
vs. Reality #3
Perception: European Debt Crisis Drives Short-Term Volatility, but It's Not
a Long-Term Concern
Reality: Crisis May Be a Harbinger of What's to Come in the U.S. if States,
the Feds Don't Improve Balance Sheets
So far, turmoil
in Greece and Ireland has served only as a temporary headwind to U.S. stocks.
In keeping with the investment world's increasingly short-term focus, people
seem more concerned with what fiscal crises in Europe mean for U.S. stocks over
the coming days and months than with what they might mean down the road. I
believe that this interpretation misses the mark. Since the U.S. fiscal
situtation is generally considered to be stronger than that in many European
countries, U.S. federal and municipal debt issuance has been relatively smooth,
and interest rates have only risen modestly. If the U.S. doesn't get serious
about its fiscal woes, eventually the crisis will arrive on American shores.
There's no way of telling when this might happen, but the current level of
stock prices seems to imply that it never will.
Here's the
problem with that. To fix the federal balance sheet and/or to improve state and
municipal balance sheets, legislators will have to raise taxes and/or cut
spending. Tax hikes and spending cuts both reduce consumer spending. This hurts
growth. There's no way around this. Stocks can certainly continue to rise for
some time, but austerity will be bearish if/when it comes. If it doesn't come,
we're in for a much bigger crisis some time down the road.
Perception
vs. Reality #4
Perception: Everywhere You Look, You See Good Companies at Cheap Prices
Reality: It's Hard to Find Genuine Bargains, but There are Intriguing Short
Prospects Everywhere
There is no
shortage of stock market commentators who claim that they see bargains
everywhere they look. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right places, but I've
been having a difficult and increasingly impossible time finding good companies
at reasonable prices. I use similar criteria to assess long and short
investments, and I find intriguing shorts in lots of sectors right now. This
tells me that valuations are stretched. Certainly they can become more so
before we get a selloff, but every day that stocks rally, they get more
expensive.
I've written on Seeking
Alpha about a number of stocks which I regard as expensive (CRM, OPEN, GMCR), and take my word for it:
there are plenty more than these whose shares I do not want to own at present
levels. A few weeks ago, I also mused about the Facebook-Goldman deal and argued
that this valuation is indicative of excessive investor enthusiasm. Bargains
are hard to find, and as valuations go up, so does positive sentiment. While
this is not a prediction of an impending correction or bear market, it is a
message of caution for people who think stocks are cheap right now.
All that said, I always try to consider both sides of any investment issue, and there are some reasons for optimism. Job growth has shown signs of improvement, and some economic data have been increasingly (though not uniformly) positive. The Federal Reserve remains accommodative, and I'm skeptical about whether or not there is political will for austerity. For these reasons, stocks could continue onward and upward. That said, I see too many reasons for caution, and investors are turning a blind eye to these concerns as their complacency rises.’
12
Economic Collapse Scenarios That We Could Potentially See In 2011 What
could cause an economic collapse in 2011? Well, unfortunately there are quite a
few “nightmare scenarios” that could plunge the entire globe into another
massive financial crisis.
The Economic Collapse Jan
20, 2011 ‘What could cause an economic collapse in 2011? Well, unfortunately
there are quite a few “nightmare scenarios” that could plunge the entire globe
into another massive financial crisis. The United States, Japan and most
of the nations in Europe are absolutely drowning in debt. The Federal
Reserve continues to play reckless games with the U.S. dollar. The price
of oil is skyrocketing and the global price of food just hit a new record
high. Food riots are already breaking out all over the world.
Meanwhile, the rampant fraud and corruption going on in world financial markets
is starting to be exposed and the whole house of cards could come crashing down
at any time. Most Americans have no idea that a horrific economic
collapse could happen at literally any time. There is no way that all of
this debt and all of this financial corruption is sustainable. At some point
we are going to reach a moment of “total system failure”.
So will it be
soon? Let’s hope not. Let’s certainly hope that it does not happen
in 2011. Many of us need more time to prepare. Most of our families
and friends need more time to prepare. Once this thing implodes there
isn’t going to be an opportunity to have a “do over”. We simply will not
be able to put the toothpaste back into the tube again.
So we had all
better be getting prepared for hard times. The following are 12 economic
collapse scenarios that we could potentially see in 2011….
#1 U.S. debt could become a massive crisis at any
moment. China is saying all of the right things at the moment, but many
analysts are openly worried about what could happen if China suddenly
decides to start dumping all of the U.S. debt that they have
accumulated. Right now about the only thing keeping U.S. government
finances going is the ability to borrow gigantic amounts of money at extremely
low interest rates. If anything upsets that paradigm, it could
potentially have enormous consequences for the entire world financial system.
#2 Speaking of threats to the global financial system,
it turns out that “quantitative easing 2″ has had the exact opposite
effect that Ben Bernanke planned for it to have. Bernanke insisted that
the main goal of QE2 was to lower interest rates, but instead all it has done
is cause interest rates to go up substantially.
If Bernanke this incompetent or is he trying to mess everything up on purpose?
#3 The debt bubble that the entire global economy is
based on could burst at any time and throw the whole planet into chaos. According
to a new report from the World Economic Forum, the total amount of credit
in the world increased from $57 trillion in 2000 to $109 trillion in
2009. The WEF says that now the world is going to need another $100
trillion in credit to support projected “economic growth” over the next
decade. So is this how the new “global economy” works? We just keep
doubling the total amount of debt every decade?
#4 As the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve
continue to pump massive amounts of new dollars into the system, the floor
could fall out from underneath the U.S. dollar at any time. The truth is
that we are already starting to see inflation really accelerate and everyone
pretty much acknowledges that official U.S. governments figures for inflation
are an absolute joke. According
to one new study, the cost of college tuition has risen 286% over the last
20 years, and the cost of “hospital, nursing-home and adult-day-care services”
rose 269% during those same two decades. All of this happened during a
period of supposedly “low” inflation. So what are price increases going
to look like when we actually have “high” inflation?
#5 One of the primary drivers of global inflation
during 2011 could be the price of oil. A large number of economists are
now projecting that the price of oil could surge well
past $100 dollars a barrel in 2011. If that happens, it is going to
put significant pressure on the price of almost everything else in the entire
global economy. In fact, as
I have explained previously, the higher the price of oil goes, the faster
the U.S. economy will decline.
#6 Food inflation is already so bad in some areas of
the globe that it is setting off massive food riots
in nations such as Tunisia and Algeria. In fact, there have been reports
of people setting themselves on fire all
over the Middle East as a way to draw attention to how desperate they
are. So what is going to happen if global food prices go up another 10 or
20 percent and food riots spread literally all over the globe during 2011?
#7 There are persistent
rumors that simply will
not go away of massive physical gold and silver shortages. Demand for
precious metals has never been higher. So what is going to happen when
many investors begin to absolutely insist on physical delivery of their
precious metals? What is going to happen when the fact that far, far, far
more “paper gold” and “paper silver” has been sold than has ever actually
physically existed in the history of the planet starts to come out? What
would that do to the price of gold and silver?
#8 The U.S. housing industry could plunge the U.S.
economy into another recession at any time. The real estate market is
absolutely flooded with homes and virtually nobody is buying. This
massive oversupply of homes means that the construction of new homes has fallen
off a cliff. In 2010, only
703,000 single family, multi-family and manufactured homes were
completed. This was a new record low, and it was down 17% from the
previous all-time record which had just been set in 2009.
#9 A combination of extreme weather and disease could
make this an absolutely brutal year for U.S. farmers. This winter we have
already seen thousands of new cold weather and snowfall records set across the
United States. Now there is some very disturbing news emerging out of
Florida of an “incurable
bacteria” that is ravaging citrus crops all over Florida. Is there a
reason why so many bad things are happening all of a sudden?
#10 The municipal bond crisis could go “supernova” at
any time. Already, investors are bailing out of bonds at a frightening
pace. State and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high
of 22
percent of U.S. GDP. According to Meredith Whitney, the municipal
bond crisis that we are facing is a gigantic threat to our financial system….
“It has
tentacles as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the
single most important issue in the United States and certainly the largest
threat to the U.S. economy.”
Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan is convinced
that things are so bad that literally 90% of our states and cities could go
bankrupt over the next five years….
#11 Of course on top of everything else, the quadrillion
dollar derivatives bubble could burst at any time. Right now we are
watching the greatest financial
casino in the history of the globe spin around and around and around and
everyone is hoping that at some point it doesn’t stop. Today, most money
on Wall Street is not made by investing in good business ideas. Rather,
most money on Wall Street is now made by making the best bets.
Unfortunately, at some point the casino is going to come crashing down and the
game will be over.
#12 The biggest wildcard of all is war. The Korean
peninsula came closer to war in 2010 than it had in decades. The Middle
East could literally explode at any time. We live in a world where a
single weapon can take out an entire city in an instant. All it would
take is a mid-size war or a couple of weapons of mass destruction to throw the
entire global economy into absolute turmoil.
Once again,
let us hope that none of these economic collapse scenarios happens in 2011.
However, we
have got to realize that we can’t keep dodging these bullets forever.
As bad as 2010
was, the truth is that it went about as good as any of us could have
hoped. Things are still pretty stable and times are still pretty good
right now.
But instead of
using these times to “party”, we should be using them to prepare.
A really, really vicious economic storm is coming and it is going to be a complete and total nightmare. Get ready, hold on tight, and say your prayers.’
In a column
last week, Myerson points out that the devastation of The Great Recession has
fallen disproportionately on the blue collar population, those without a
college degree. And he traces the rolling over of median family income in this
century, not just in the downturn, but since the turn of the century. Even at
the peak, in 2007, median family income was less than in 2000.
What Meyerson
doesn't point out is that average incomes have faired better in the 21st
century and in all of the past 50 years. In fact, average family income has
risen more than 2.5 times as much and median income over the last 30 years. Why
is this important? Because the more there is a fat tail of ever higher incomes
for a few, the greater the difference between average and median income
becomes.
Myerson says:
The great sociologist William
Julius Wilson has long argued that the key to the
unraveling of the lives of the African American poor was the decline in the
number of "marriageable males" as work disappeared from the inner
city. Much the same could now be said of working-class whites in neighborhoods
that may not look like the ghettos of Cleveland or Detroit but in which
productive economic activity is increasingly hard to find.
This grim new reality has yet to inform our debate over
how to come back from this mega-recession. Those who believe our downturn is
cyclical argue that job-creating public spending can restore us to prosperity,
while those who believe it's structural - that we have too many carpenters,
say, and not enough nurses - believe that we should leave things be while
American workers acquire new skills and enter different lines of work. But
there's a third way to look at the recession: that it's institutional, that
it's the consequence of the decisions by leading banks and corporations to stop
investing in the job-creating enterprises that were the key to broadly shared
prosperity.
Since Meyerson has chosen income disparity as a
cornerstone of his argument, let's look at how incomes have grown over the last
50 years. These are shown in the following graph, not adjusted for inflation.
click to enlarge images [chart]
Real median income and average income seem to grow
similarly in the 1950s and 1960s, the growth of average income starts to pull
away in the mid-1960s and appears to continue to gain gound for the the next
40+ years. The more average income deviates from median income the more money
is found in the high income tail on the distribution curve. This is often
called a "fat tail", which is very appropriate in this discussion
because that is where the fat cats are. The fat tail has not gotten so because
ten times as many people equaled the incomes of the former fat cats, but more
because a few fat cats have received 10 times the income. This is exemplified
by the often quoted statistic that average CEO salaries were 40x average worker
pay 50 years ago and today are more like 400x.
The change income distribution that seems to be
appearing in the above graph becomes more apparent in the following graph where
real income gains are shown for the last six decades starting with the ten
years from 1949 - 1959 (the 1950s) and ending with 1999 - 2009 (the 2000s). [chart]
The 1950s and 60s were real boom years. Starting with
the 1970s a lower level of income growth was established, but even that lower level
could not be maintained in the 2000s.
After the 1950s every decade has seen average real
income grow more than the median. The fat tail has gotten fatter over the past
half century in every decade, without exception. Yes the average did decline in
the 2000s, but the median declined 76% more!
The most dramatic pattern of change is evident when
the data is divided into two halves: 1949 to 1979 and 1979 - 2009. This is done
in the following graph: [chart]
For thirty years after World War II the wealth of the
country increased in a balanced manner. The average income containing the
greater contribution from the top earners of the day, grew at a rate very
similar to the income growth of the broader population, represented by the
median.
Yes there were "fat cats" and they had
significantly larger incomes than the bulk of the population. And these top
incomes grew over those three decades, but at almost the same rate as the
majority of the populace.
Then something happened. From 1979-2009 it appears
that the American pie suddenly got smaller. In the later three decades the real
median income growth was less than 10% of the rate seen from 1949 to 1979. And
as the pie got smaller, the fat cats took a much larger share. The average
income grew at a rate 254% that of the median income. You might say that, as
the cow gave less milk, the top of the economic ladder skimmed more and more
cream off the top.
Meyerson identifies the force majuere to be
corporate America:
Our multinational companies still invest, of course -
just not at home. A study by the Business
Roundtable and the U.S. Council Foundation found that the
share of the profits of U.S.-based multinationals that came from their foreign
affiliates had increased from 17 percent in 1977 and 27 percent in 1994 to 48.6
percent in 2006. As the companies' revenue from abroad has increased, their
dependence on American consumers has diminished. The equilibrium among
production, wages and purchasing power - the equilibrium that Henry Ford
famously recognized when he upped his workers' pay to an unheard-of $5 a day in
1913 so they could afford to buy the cars they made, the equilibrium that
became the model for 20th-century American capitalism - has been shattered.
Making and selling their goods abroad, U.S. multinationals can slash their
workforces and reduce their wages at home while retaining their revenue and
increasing their profits. And that's exactly what they've done.
Meyerson doesn't get into some of the other areas
that might be brought to bear on the current condition of the American economy:
Part of the problem is that Americans have fallen
into the way of the easiest path, where, either by credit card or by making
quick trades, the desires of the moment are satisfied with no seemingly current
cost.
It seems that few want to think about the needs of
tomorrow. This is true starting with the masses who kiss off the idea of
working hard in school to prepare for what they will need 20 years down the
road. This is also true of the "capitalist" who finds that skimming a
few percent off each of many deals a year to get quick, large quarterly returns
is much easier than investing and building something that will will make much
larger returns extending over decades and producing things of real economic
utility.
There are a number of things that Meyerson does not
address, but if you want to hit one nail at a time, I think he has picked the
baddest nail in the plank. He finishes his column thusly:
Our economic woes, then, are not simply cyclical or
structural. They are also - chiefly - institutional, the consequence of U.S.
corporate behavior that has plunged us into a downward cycle of
underinvestment, underemployment and under-consumption. Our solutions must be
similarly institutional, requiring, for starters, the seating of public and
worker representatives on corporate boards. Short of that, there will be no
real prospects for reversing America's downward mobility.
If we were to address all the other issues I
mentioned previously and did not address the institutional problem Meterson has
identified, we would not ultimately solve our economic puzzle.’
20
Shocking New Economic Records That Were Set In 2010 2010 was quite a year,
wasn’t it? 2010 will be remembered for a lot of things, but for those living in
the United States, one of the main things that last year will be remembered for
is economic decline…The Economic
Collapse Jan 14, 2011 ‘2010 was
quite a year, wasn’t it? 2010 will be remembered for a lot of things, but
for those living in the United States, one of the main things that last year
will be remembered for is economic decline. The number of foreclosure
filings set a new record, the number of home repossessions set a new record,
the number of bankruptcies went up again, the number of Americans that became
so discouraged that they simply quit looking for work reached a new all-time
high and the number of Americans on food stamps kept setting a brand new record
every single month. Meanwhile, U.S. government debt reached record highs,
state government debt reached record highs and local government debt reached
record highs. What a mess! In fact, even many of the “good”
economic records that were set during 2010 were indications of underlying
economic weakness. For example, the price of gold set an all-time record
during 2010, but one of the primary reasons for the increase in the price of
gold was that the U.S. dollar was rapidly losing value. Most Americans
had been hoping that 2010 would be the beginning of better times, but
unfortunately economic conditions just kept getting worse.
So will things
improve in 2011? That would be nice, but at this point there are not a
whole lot of reasons to be optimistic about the economy. The truth is
that we are trapped in a period of long-term economic decline and we are now
paying the price for decades of horrible decisions.
Amazingly, many
of our politicians and many in the mainstream media have declared that “the
recession is over” and that the U.S. economy is steadily improving now.
Well, if
anyone tries to tell you that the economy got better in 2010, just show them
the statistics below. That should shut them up for a while.
The following
are 20 new economic records that were set during 2010….
#1 An all-time record of 2.87
million U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in 2010.
#2 The number of homes that were actually repossessed reached
the 1 million mark for the first time ever during 2010.
#3 The price of gold moved above $1400 an ounce for the
first time ever during 2010.
#4 According to the American Bankruptcy Institute,
approximately 1.53
million consumer bankruptcy petitions were filed in 2010, which was up 9
percent from 1.41 million in 2009. This was the highest number of
personal bankruptcies we have seen since the U.S. Congress substantially
tightened U.S. bankruptcy law several years ago.
#5 At one point during 2010, the average time needed to
find a job in the United States had risen to an all-time record of 35.2 weeks.
#6 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United
States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the
United States are manufacturing jobs, which is believed to be a new record low.
#7 The number of Americans working part-time jobs “for
economic reasons” was the highest it has been in at least five decades
during 2010.
#8 The number of American workers that are so
discouraged that they have given up searching for work reached an all-time high near the end of 2010.
#9 Government spending continues to set new all-time
records. In fact, at the moment the U.S. government is spending
approximately 6.85 million
dollars every single minute.
#10 The number of Americans on food stamps surpassed
43 million by the end of 2010. This was a new all-time record, and
government officials fully expect the number of Americans enrolled in the
program to continue to increase throughout 2011.
#11 The number of Americans on Medicaid surpassed 50
million for the first time ever in 2010.
#12 The U.S. Census Bureau originally announced that
43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that was
the highest number of Americans living in poverty that they had ever
recorded in 51 years of
record-keeping. But now the Census Bureau says that they
miscalculated and that the real number of poor Americans is actually 47.8 million.
#13 According to the FDIC, 157
banks failed during 2010. That was the highest number of bank
failures that the United States has experienced in any single year during the
past decade.
#14 The Federal Reserve brought in a record $80.9 billion in profits during
2010. They returned $78.4 billion of that to the U.S. Treasury, but the
real story is that thanks to the Federal Reserve’s continual debasement of our
currency, the U.S. dollar was
worth less in 2010 than it ever had been before.
#15 It is projected that the major financial firms on
Wall Street will pay out an all-time record of $144 billion in compensation for
2010.
#16 Americans now owe more than $881 billion on student loans,
which is a new all-time record.
#17 In July, sales of new homes in the United
States declined to the lowest level
ever recorded.
#18 According to Zillow, U.S. housing prices have now
declined a
whopping 26 percent since their peak in June 2006. Amazingly, this is
even farther than house prices fell during the Great Depression. From
1928 to 1933, U.S. housing prices only fell 25.9 percent.
#19 State and local government debt reached at an
all-time record of 22 percent of U.S. GDP during 2010.
#20 The U.S. national debt has surpassed the 14 trillion
dollar mark for the first time ever and it is being projected that it will
soar well past 15 trillion during 2011.
There are some
people that have a hard time really grasping what statistics actually
mean. For people like that, often pictures and charts are much more
effective. Well, that is one reason I like to include pictures and graphs
in many of my articles, and below I have posted my favorite chart from this
past year. It shows the growth of the U.S. national debt from 1940 until
today. I honestly don’t know how anyone can look at this chart and still
be convinced that our nation is not headed for a complete financial meltdown….[chart]
14 Eye Opening Statistics Which Reveal Just How
Dramatically The U.S. Economy Has Collapsed Since 2007 Most
Americans have become so accustomed to the “new normal” of continual economic
decline that they don’t even remember how good things were just a few short
years ago. ‘The Economic Collapse Jan 10, 2011
’Most Americans have become so accustomed to the “new normal” of continual
economic decline that they don’t even remember how good things were just a few
short years ago. Back in 2007, unemployment was very low, good jobs were
much easier to get, far fewer Americans were living in poverty or enrolled in
welfare programs and government finances were in much better shape. Of
course most of this prosperity was fueled by massive amounts of debt, but at
least times were better. Unfortunately, things have really deteriorated
over the last several years. Since 2007, unemployment has skyrocketed,
foreclosures have set new all-time records, personal bankruptcies have soared
and U.S. government debt has gotten completely and totally out of
control. Poll after poll has shown that Americans are now far less
optimistic about the future than they were in 2007. It is almost as if
the past few years have literally sucked the hope out of millions upon millions
of Americans.
Sadly,
our economic situation is continually getting worse. Every month the
United States loses more factories. Every month the United States loses
more jobs. Every month the collective wealth of U.S. citizens continues
to decline. Every month the federal government goes into even more
debt. Every month state and local governments go into even more debt.
Unfortunately,
things are going to get even worse in the years ahead. Right now we look
back on 2005, 2006 and 2007 as “good times”, but in a few years we will look
back on 2010 and 2011 as “good times”.
We
are in the midst of a long-term economic decline, and the very bad economic
choices that we have been making as a nation for decades are now starting to
really catch up with us.
So
as horrible as you may think that things are now, just keep in mind that things
are going to continue to deteriorate in the years ahead.
But
for the moment, let us remember how far we have fallen over the past few
years. The following are 14 eye opening statistics which reveal just how
dramatically the U.S. economy has collapsed since 2007….
#1
In November 2007, the official U.S. unemployment rate was just 4.7
percent. Today, the official U.S. unemployment rate is 9.4 percent.
#2
In November 2007, 18.8% of unemployed Americans had been out of work for 27
weeks or longer. Today that percentage is up to 41.9%.
#3
As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been
unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over
6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or
longer.
#4
Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, whichis
almost four times as many as were receiving it back
in 2007.
#5
More than half of the U.S. labor force (55 percent) has “suffered a spell of
unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary
part-time workers” since the “recession” began in December 2007.
#6
According to one analysis, the United States has lost a total of approximately
10.5 million jobs since 2007.
#7
As 2007 began, only 26 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, an
all-time record of 43.2 million Americans are enrolled in the
food stamp program.
#8
In 2007, the U.S. government held a total of $725 billion in mortgage
debt. As of the middle of 2010, the U.S. government held a total of $5.148 trillion in mortgage debt.
#9
In the year prior to the “official” beginning of the most recent recession in
2007, the IRS filed just 684,000 tax liens against U.S. taxpayers. During
2010, the IRS filed over a million tax liens against U.S.
taxpayers.
#10
From the year 2000 through the year 2007, there were 27 bank failures in the
United States. From 2008 through 2010, there were 314 bank failures in the United States.
#11
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number
of U.S. families with children living in homeless sheltersincreased from 131,000 to 170,000 between 2007
and 2009.
#12
In 2007, one poll found that 43 percent of Americans were living “paycheck to
paycheck”. Sadly, according to a survey released very close to the end of
2010, approximately 55 percent
of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.
#13
In 2007, the “official” federal budget deficit was just 161 billion
dollars. In 2010, the “official” federal budget deficit was approximately 1.3 trillion dollars.
#14
As 2007 began, the U.S. national debt was just under 8.7 trillion
dollars. Today, the U.S. national debt has just surpassed 14 trillion dollars and it
continues to soar into the stratosphere.
So
is there any hope that we can turn all of this around?
Unfortunately,
the massive amount of debt that we have piled up as a society over the last
several decades has made that impossible.
If
you add up all forms of debt (government debt, business debt, individual debt),
it comes to approximately 360 percent of GDP. It is the biggest debt
bubble in the history of the world.
If
the federal government and our state governments stop borrowing and spending so
much money, our economy would collapse. But if they keep borrowing and
spending so much money they will continually make the eventual economic
collapse even worse.
We
are in the terminal stages of the most horrific debt spiral the world has ever
seen, and when the debt spiral gets stopped the house of cards is going to
finally come down for good.
So
enjoy these times while you still have them. Yes, today is not nearly as
prosperous as 2007 was, but today is most definitely a whole lot better than
2015 or 2020 is going to be.
Sadly,
we could have avoided this financial disaster completely if only we had
listened more carefully to those that founded this nation. Once upon a
time, Thomas Jefferson said
the following….
I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.’
The Economic Collapse
Dec 17, 2010
The financial
collapse that so many of us have been anticipating is seemingly closer then
ever. Over the past several weeks, there have been a host of ominous
signs for the U.S. economy. Yields on U.S. Treasuries have moved up
rapidly and Moody’s is publicly warning that it may have to cut the rating on
U.S. government debt soon. Mortgage rates are also moving up
aggressively. The euro and the U.S. dollar both look incredibly
shaky. Jobs continue to be shipped out of the United States at a
blistering pace as our politicians stand by and do nothing. Confidence in
U.S. government debt around the globe continues to decline. State and
local governments that are drowning in debt across the United States are
savagely cutting back on even essential social services and are coming up with
increasingly “creative” ways of getting more money out of all of us.
Meanwhile, tremor after tremor continues to strike the world financial
system. So does this mean that we have almost reached a tipping
point? Is the world on the verge of a major financial collapse?
Let’s hope
not, but with each passing week the financial news just seems to get eve
worse. Not only is U.S. government debt spinning wildly toward a breaking
point, but many U.S. states (such as California) are in such horrific financial
condition that they are beginning to resemble banana republics.
But it is not
just the United States that is in trouble. Nightmarish debt problems in
Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and several other European
nations threaten to crash the euro at any time. In fact, many economists
are now openly debating which will collapse first – the euro or the U.S.
dollar.
Sadly, this is
the inevitable result of constructing a global financial system on debt.
All debt bubbles eventually collapse. Currently we are living in the
biggest debt bubble in the history of the world, and when this one bursts it is
going to be a disaster of truly historic proportions.
So will we
reach a tipping point soon? Well, the following are 25 signs that the
financial collapse is rapidly getting closer….
#1 The official U.S. unemployment rate has not been
beneath 9 percent since
April 2009.
#2 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are
currently 6.3
million vacant homes in the United States that are either for sale or for
rent.
#3 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit
with China could hit 270 billion dollars
for the entire year of 2010.
#4 Back in 2000, 7.2 percent of blue collar workers
were either unemployed or underemployed. Today that figure is up
to 19.5 percent.
#5 The Chinese government has accumulated approximately
$2.65 trillion in
total foreign exchange reserves. They have drained this wealth from the
economies of other nations (such as the United States) and instead of
reinvesting all of it they are just sitting on much of it. This is
creating tremendous imbalances in the global economy.
#6 Since the year 2000, we have lost 10% of our middle class jobs. In the
year 2000 there were approximately 72 million middle class jobs in the United
States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.
#7 The United States now employs about the same number
of people in manufacturing as
it did back in 1940. Considering the fact that we had 132 million
people living in this country in 1940 and that we have well over 300 million
people living in this country today, that is a very sobering statistic.
#8 According to CoreLogic, U.S. housing prices have now
declined for
three months in a row.
#9 The average rate on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage soared
11 basis points just this past week. As mortgage rates continue to
push higher it is going to make it even more difficult for American families to
afford homes.
#10 22.5 percent of all residential mortgages in the
United States were in negative equity as of the end of the third quarter
of 2010.
#11 The U.S. monetary base has
more than doubled since the beginning of the most recent recession.
#12 U.S. Treasury yields have been rising steadily
during the 4th quarter of 2010 and
recently hit a six-month high.
#13 Incoming governor Jerry Brown is scrambling to find
$29 billion more to cut from the California state budget. The
following quote from Brown about the desperate condition of California
state finances is not going to do much to inspire confidence in California’s
financial situation around the globe….
“We’ve been living in fantasy land. It is much worse
than I thought. I’m shocked.”
#14
24.3
percent of the residents of El Centro, California are currently unemployed.
#15
The average home in Merced, California has declined in value by
63 percent over the past four years.
#16
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has come up with a new way to save money. He
wants to cut 20
percent of Detroit off from essential social services such as road repairs,
police patrols, functioning street lights and garbage collection.
#17
The second most dangerous city in the United States – Camden, New Jersey – is
about to lay off about
half its police in a desperate attempt to save money.
#18
In 2010, 55
percent of Americans between the ages of 60 and 64 were in the labor
market. Ten years ago, that number was just 47 percent. More older
Americans than ever find that they have to keep working just to survive.
#19
Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of the world’s high-tech export
market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years later, the United States had
less than 15 percent and China’s share had soared to 20 percent.
#20
The U.S. government budget deficit increased to a whopping $150.4 billion last
month, which represented the biggest November budget deficit on record.
#21
The U.S. government is somehow going to have to roll over existing debt and
finance new debt that
is equivalent to 27.8 percent of GDP in 2011.
#22
The United States had been the leading consumer of energy on the globe for
about 100 years, but this past summer China took over the number one spot.
#23
According to an absolutely stunning new poll, 40 percent of all U.S. doctors plan to bail out of the
profession over the next three years.
#24
As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been
unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over
6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.
#25
All over the United States, local governments have begun instituting “police
response fees”. For example, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come up
with a plan under which a
fee of $365 would be charged if police are called to respond to an
automobile accident where no injuries are involved. If there are injuries
as a result of the crash that is going to cost extra.
As you examine
the long-term trends, you quickly come to realize that the U.S. is trapped in
an endless spiral of debt, the middle class is being wiped out, the U.S. dollar
is being destroyed and America is rapidly becoming a post-industrial wasteland.
Posted below
are 16 nightmarish economic trends to watch carefully in 2011. It is
becoming exceedingly apparent that unless something is done rapidly we are
heading for an economic collapse of unprecedented magnitude….
#1 Do you want to see something scary? Just check
out the chart below. Since the beginning of the economic downturn, the
U.S. monetary base has more than doubled. But don’t worry – Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has promised us that this could never cause
inflation. In fact, Bernanke says that we need to inject even more
dollars into the economy. So if you are alarmed by the chart below, you
are just being irrational according to Bernanke….
#2 Thousands of our factories, millions of our jobs and
hundreds of billions of dollars of our national wealth continue to be shipped
overseas. In 1985, the U.S. trade deficit with China was 6 million dollars
for the entire year. In the month of August
alone, the U.S. trade deficit with China was over 28 billion
dollars. Nobel economist Robert W. Fogel of the University of Chicago
is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the
year 2040 if current trends continue.
#3 The United States is rapidly becoming a
post-industrial wasteland. Back in 1959, manufacturing represented 28
percent of all U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented only
11.5 percent and it continues to fall. Sadly, the truth is that America
is being deindustrialized. As of the end of 2009, less
than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time that
less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#4 The number of Americans that have been out of work
for an extended period of time has absolutely exploded over the last few
years. As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had
been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over
6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.
#5 The middle class continues to be squeezed out of
existence. According to a poll
taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans ”always or usually” live
paycheck to paycheck. That was up substantially from 49 percent
in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
#6 The number of Americans living in poverty is
absolutely skyrocketing. 42.9 million Americans are now on food
stamps, and one out of every six Americans is now enrolled
in at least one anti-poverty program run by the federal government.
Unfortunately, many of those that have been hardest hit by this economic
downturn have been children. According to one new study,
approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are
living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
#7 Many American families have been pushed beyond the
breaking point during this economic downturn. Over 1.4 million Americans
filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a
32 percent increase over 2008. The final number for 2010 is expected
to be even higher.
#8 The U.S. real estate market continues to
stagnate. During
the third quarter of 2010, 67 percent of mortgages in Nevada were “underwater”,
49 percent of mortgages in Arizona were “underwater” and 46 percent of
mortgages in Florida were “underwater”. So what happens if home prices go
down even more?
#9 More elderly Americans than ever are being forced to
put off retirement and continue working. In 2010, 55
percent of Americans between the ages of 60 and 64 were in the labor
market. Ten years ago, that number was just 47 percent. Unfortunately,
it looks like this problem will only get worse in the years ahead. In
America today, approximately half of all workers have
less than $2000 saved up for retirement.
#10 In the United States today, there are simply far too
many retirees and not nearly enough workers to support them. Back in 1950
each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by 16
workers. Today, each retiree’s Social Security benefit is paid for
by approximately 3.3 workers. By 2025 it is projected that
there will be approximately two workers for each retiree.
#11 Financial assets continue to become concentrated in
fewer and fewer hands. For example, the “big four” U.S.
banks (Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells
Fargo) had approximately 22 percent of all deposits in FDIC-insured
institutions back in 2000. As of the middle of 2009 that figure was up to 39 percent.
#12 The Federal Reserve has been destroying the value of
the U.S. dollar for decades. Since the Federal Reserve was created in
1913, the U.S. dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power.
An item that cost $20.00 in 1970 would cost you $112.35 today. An item
that cost $20.00 in 1913 would cost you $440.33 today.
#13 Commodity prices continue to soar into the
stratosphere. Ten years ago, the price of a barrel of oil hovered around 20 to 30
dollars most of the time. Today, the price of oil is rapidly closing
in on 100 dollars a barrel and there are now fears that it could soon go much
higher than that.
#14 Federal government spending is completely and
totally out of control. The U.S. government budget deficit increased to a
whopping $150.4 billion last month, which represented the biggest November deficit on record. But our
politicians can’t seem to break their addiction to debt. In fact,
Democrats are trying to ram through a
1,924 page, 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill in the final days of the
lame-duck session of Congress before the Republicans take control of the House of
Representatives next year.
#15 The U.S. national debt is rapidly closing in on 14 trillion dollars. It is more
than 13 times larger than it was just 30 short years ago. According to an
official U.S. Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national
debt is projected to climb
to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.
#16 Unfortunately, the official government numbers
grossly understate the horrific nature of the crisis we are facing. John
Williams of Shadow Government Statistics has calculated that if the federal
government would have used GAAP accounting standards to measure the federal
budget deficit for 2009, it would have been approximately 8.8
trillion dollars. Not only that, but John Williams now says that U.S.
government debt is
so wildly out of control that it is mathematically impossible for us to
“grow” our way out of it….
The government’s finances not only are out of
control, but the actual deficit is not containable. Put into perspective,
if the government were to raise taxes so as to seize 100% of all wages,
salaries and corporate profits, it still would be showing an annual deficit
using GAAP accounting on a consistent basis. In like manner, given
current revenues, if it stopped spending every penny (including defense and homeland
security) other than for Social Security and Medicare obligations, the
government still would be showing an annual deficit. Further, the U.S. has
no potential way to grow out of this shortfall.
The more one examines the U.S. economic situation, the
more depressing it becomes. The U.S. financial system is trapped inside a
horrific debt spiral and we are headed straight for economic oblivion.
If our leaders attempt to interrupt the debt spiral
it will plunge our economy into a depression. If our leaders attempt to
keep the debt spiral going for several more years it will just make the
eventual crash even worse. Either way, we are headed for a financial
implosion that will be truly historic.
The debt-fueled good times that we have been enjoying
for the last several decades are rapidly coming to an end. Unfortunately
for the tens of millions of Americans that are already suffering, our economic
problems are only going to get worse in the years ahead.’
The following
are 25 unemployment statistics that are almost too depressing to read….
#1 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the
U.S. unemployment rate for November was 9.8
percent. This was up from 9.6 percent in October, and it continues a
trend of depressingly high unemployment rates. The official unemployment
number has been at 9.5 percent or higher for well over a year at this point.
#2 In November 2006, the “official” U.S. unemployment
rate was just 4.5
percent.
#3 Most economists had been expecting the U.S. economy
to add about 150,000 jobs in November. Instead, it
only added 39,000.
#4 In the United States today, there are over 15
million people who are “officially” considered to be unemployed for
statistical purposes. But everyone knows that the “real” number is even
much larger than that.
#5 As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million
Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today,
there are over
6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.
#6 The number of “persons not in the labor force” in
the United States recently
set another new all-time record.
#7 It now takes the average unemployed American over
33 weeks to find a job.
#8 When you throw in “discouraged workers” and
“underemployed workers”, the “real” unemployment rate in the state of
California is
actually about 22 percent.
#9 In America today there are not nearly enough jobs
for everyone. In fact, there are now approximately
5 unemployed Americans for every single job opening.
#10 According
to The New York Times, Americans that have been unemployed for five weeks
or less are three times more likely to find a new job in the coming month than
Americans that have been unemployed for over a year.
#11 The U.S. economy would need to create 235,120
new jobs a month to get the unemployment rate down to pre-recession levels
by 2016. Does anyone think that there is even a prayer that is going to
happen?
#12 There are 9
million Americans that are working part-time for “economic reasons”.
In other words, those Americans would gladly take full-time jobs if they could
get them, but all they have been able to find is part-time work.
#13 In 2009, total wages, median wages, and average
wages all
declined in the United States.
#14 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million
Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time that less
than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#15 The United States has lost at least 7.5
million jobs since the recession began.
#16 Today, only
about 40 percent of Ford Motor Company’s 178,000 workers are employed
in North America, and a big percentage of those jobs are in Canada and
Mexico.
#17 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28
percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5
percent.
#18 Earlier this year, one poll found that 28% of all American households had at least one member that
was looking for a full-time job.
#19 In the United States today, over
18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees.
#20 The United States has lost a staggering
32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#21 As the employment situation continues to stagnate,
millions of American families have decided to cut back on things such as
insurance coverage. For example, the percentage of American households
that have life insurance coverage is at its lowest level in
50 years.
#22 Unless Congress acts, and there is no indication
that is going to happen, approximately 2 million Americans will stop receiving unemployment checks over the next
couple of months.
#23 A poll that was released by the Pew Research Center
back in June discovered that an
astounding 55 percent of the U.S. labor force has
experienced either unemployment, a pay decrease, a reduction in hours
or an involuntary move to part-time work since the economic downturn
began.
#24 According to Richard McCormack, the United States
has lost over
42,000 factories (and counting) since 2001.
#25 In the United States today, 317,000
waiters and waitresses have college degrees.
But this is
what we get for creating the biggest debt
bubble in the history of the world. For decades we have been digging
a deeper hole for ourselves by going into increasingly larger amounts of
debt. In America today, our entire economy is based on debt. Even
our money
is debt. We were fools if we ever thought this could go on forever.
Just think about it. Have you ever gone out and run up a bunch of
debt? It can be a lot of fun sitting behind the wheel of a new car,
running your credit cards up to the limit and buying a beautiful big house that
you cannot afford. But in the end what happens? It always catches up with you.
Well, our collective debt is starting to catch up with us. There is a sea
of red ink on every level of American society. It is only a matter of
time before it destroys our economy. IF YOU THINK THAT
THINGS ARE BAD NOW, JUST WAIT. THINGS ARE GOING TO GET A WHOLE LOT
WORSE. A HORRIFIC ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IS COMING, AND IT IS GOING TO BE
VERY, VERY PAINFUL.’
Timid
Tuesday: Is it Safe? Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are
simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of
global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form
of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh)
is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut
$100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while
continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1%
each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool
all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT
THERE! ‘
17 Things Worrying
Investors Lloyd's Wall of Worry
Worry Count: 17
CHINA: 1,330,044,605 people can’t be wrong.
The PIIGS: Fasten your seatbelts. It’s gonna be a long, bumpy, expensive,
weird, (insert your own adjective here) freak show of a ride.
CALIFORNIA AND THE OTHER 49 STATES: Not yet as dire as “The PIIGS”. Might I
suggest the classier moniker of “The Prosciuttos” for the American basket-case
states?
QE II: Gobble?
U.S. ECONOMY: The “Punky Brewster” of the global economic landscape.
UNEMPLOYMENT: Only thing worse than losing your job, losing your unemployment
check. At least there’s the holiday season to cheer everyone up (read: heavy
sarcasm).
TAXES: Praying to the Financial Market Gods that we don’t have another
TARP-like vote fiasco.
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PART II: Still two years before the Pres. election and the
peanut gallery is already pleading for a Hail Mary Pass to get them back in the
game.
HFT: Instead of beating up these liquidity supplying traders, let’s honor them
with their very own stock exchange. But wait -- with no retail
saps to pick-off they will never get that Day 1 opening bell tick. Perfect.
XMAS 2010: As my professor friend Nick says, “Nowadays Americans are dining off
of two menus – The Million Dollar and the $0.99 Cent.” And both
are pissed about it.
CURRENCIES: Poor Mr. Greenback. Does someone need a hug?
HOUSING CRISIS: Price Stabilization – Are we there yet? Just a little bit more.
Are we there yet? Just a little bit more. Are we there yet? Just a little bit
more….
INFLATION/DEFLATION: Fed Chief Ben B. comes out swinging from his heels in
defense of inflation promotion. Don’t punch yourself out as this one is likely
to go the distance.
COMMODITIES: Corrected but still sky high; fortunately these prices are only
affecting core, basic, life-sustaining necessities and sparing our electronic
gadgets and plus-sized SUVs. Whew!
INSIDER TRADING: Another black eye for Hedge Funds. I estimate that makes black
eye number 6,597.
INTEREST RATES: South Korea and China slowly turning up the dial to “11”. On
the other hand the U.S. has removed the dial altogether. This never ends well….
NORTH KOREA: Here we go again. (and now Egypt, etc.)
Consumer confidence down, LiveLeak.com - Loonie closes above U.S. dollar … dollar for first time closes below parity on Canadian
loonie … hey, hey, hey … 'Huge' stock decline — but not yet MarketWatch
- Commentary: Adens … ‘mega trend’ looks grim … The
Adens expect a hyperinflationary collapse … ‘ Oh come
on! Manipulated dollar decline with inflated earnings, stock prices thereby,
etc., … we’ve seen this all before … the last few crashes … Jobless
rate jumps to 9.8% as hiring slows (Washington Post) [ The reality is not a mystery! The nation’s
been thrown under the bus for the greater good (wealth) of the very few (frauds
on wall street, etc.); wall street giving out record bonuses from their accomplished
fraud (with no-recession b.s. bernanke help) of $144 BILLION: Come on! This is
gettin’ even more downright ridiculous (if that’s even possible)! Pending home
foreclosure / distress sales up, oil prices (and oil stocks) up, debased dollar
down, plus a little familiar ‘better than expected’ thrown in along with
prospects of a ‘no-recession bernanke’ market-frothing bull session on 60
minutes and, voila, suckers’ rally into the close to keep the suckers suckered!
What’s good for the frauds on wall street is bad for just about everyone else
which includes the vast majority of people and businesses, domestically and
globally, as current dollar manipulation / debasement ultimately results in
higher costs and loss of purchasing power (ie., oil, etc.). Clearly, this is
one of those fraudulent wealth transfers to the frauds on wall street et als
which will ultimately be paid for by those who least are in a position to
afford it, courtesy of the ever more worthless Weimar dollar, etc., inflating
earnings, eps, lowering p/e multiples, etc., see infra. This is an especially
great time to sell / take profits while you can since there's much worse to
come! Previous: Rosy numbers on consumer sentiment, unemployment (far better
than private forecasts) from the government prior to the holiday so-called
‘shop till you drop’? How can anyone believe anything they say? Najerian
interviewed by Motek chimes in with the reason for good retail cheer; viz.,
people have stopped paying their mortgages and are using the funds to purchase
retail goods; while Davidowitz adds that with record numbers of americans on
food stamps, real unemployment at 17+, and wall street giving out record
bonuses from their accomplished fraud (with no-recession b.s. bernanke help) of
$144 BILLION … the high end stores /
jewelers will do well … daaaaah! And, with insiders
and wall street frauds selling into the bubble as preceded last crash, this is
an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits! Suckers’ rally on light volume, full moon, and government
complicity (false data / reports) to keep suckers suckered (easy for the wall
street frauds to do with just a mouse click / push of the button – and, they
know all those technical trade lines that are easy to program in this current
phase of the scam/fraud with the debased dollar). Keep in mind, the totally
mindless blather from the ‘cottage industries’ of and fraudulent wall street
itself in talking up lower P/E multiples when the same is a direct result of
the debasement of the dollar and the consequent manipulation / translation (not
real, see Davis, infra) which preceded the financial crisis / last crash.
Unemployment, trade, deficit, etc., numbers continue decidedly worse than
expected along with other negative data (and in the ‘wrong direction’, that
spin accorded ‘down but not as bad as before’ b*** s*** ) yet the market has
rallied like no tomorrow with used home foreclosure / distressed sales, though
abated owing to ‘foreclosuregate’, the other ‘heralded’ good news. Moreover, the dumbo lemmings of Europe have
jumped on the fraudulent defacto bankrupt american crazy train propelled to the
precipice also as if no tomorrow. This is about keeping the suckers sucked in
with the help of a market-frothing pre-election debased dollar for favorable
currency translation and paper (but not real when measured in, ie., gold, etc.)
profits which preceded the last crisis, inflating a bubble as in the last
crisis to facilitate the churn-and-earn, particularly with computerized (and
high frequency) trades and which commissions they’ll get again on the way down.
There is nothing to support these overbought stock prices, fundamentally or
otherwise. These are desperate criminals ‘at work’. Even wall street shill, the
senile Buffett is saying we’re still in a recession (depression) [
Davis: ‘… all profits are inflated
by 10% (from falling, debased dollar) and that 10% is the E that gets divided
from the P and gives us a much better price/multiple to hang our hats on and
that gets investors to BUYBUYBUY …’ The bull market that never was / were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold ] This is a great
opportunity to sell / take profits (these lower dollar, hyperinflationary
currency manipulations / translations to froth paper stocks will end quite
badly as in last crash)! This
is a global depression. This is a secular bear market in a global depression.
The past up moves were manipulated bull (s***) cycles (at best) in a secular
bear market. This has been a typically manipulated bubble as has preceded the
prior crashes with great regularity that the wall street frauds and insiders
commission and sell into. This is a typical wall street ‘programmed
computerized high-frequency churn and earn pass the hot potato scam / fraud as
in prior crashes ( widely reported, high-frequency trading routinely
accounts for more than 50% of daily U.S. equity trading volume and regularly
approaches 70%. )’. This national decline, economic and otherwise, will not end
until justice is served and the wall street frauds et als are criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed.The Stock Market's
Long Decline Has Begun Smith ]
National / World
Rumsfeld
doesn’t have the answers (video) Infowars | Rumsfeld
couldn’t answer Mancow’s question about WTC 7 but he also couldn’t give an
answer on the Opie and Anthony show.
US
military ‘fully involved’ in talks on Libya options Agence
France-Presse | “The military is fully involved in these discussions.”
Democrat
Urges Union Protesters to Get “Bloody” Politico |
Political observers have been the lookout for potentially incendiary rhetoric
in the wake of the shooting in Tucson.
Drudgereport: Gaddafi
militia open fire on protesters...
UK
paying 'bribes' to free trapped citizens...
Gaddafi
offers $400 per family as rebels close in...
'Dance,
sing and get ready'...
WILL
NATO INTERVENE?
American
Ferry From Libya Finally Arrives in Malta...
USA WILL
DROP TO WORLD'S '3RD LARGEST ECONOMY'...
OBAMA
GIVEN 'IMPEACHMENT' WARNING...
Obama
signs temporary extension of Patriot Act... [ ‘Wobama the b’ (for
b*** s***) ] ...RAILED
AGAINST DURING CAMPAIGN
OH
NO, HUFFPO: GOOGLE ALGORITHM CHANGE HITS 12% OF SEARCH RESULTS...
Bush
Nixes Denver Visit, Citing Invite To Assange...
GADDAFI
SHOT?
Libyan
uprising closes round Tripoli...
Crude
breaches $119 in frantic trading...
CA
Gas Station: $4.51 Gallon...
Feds:
Food prices set to jump 3.5%...
'Extreme'...
Swiss
franc touches record peak against dollar...
California's
$800K city manager leaves court on gurney… [California’s extreme in this regard
as I noted to a college instructor on coming out here, but aren’t they all
overpaid, state and federal; indeed, these career gov’t ees have made
over-priced gov’t jobs career goals of themselves which even three decades ago
was unheard of other than as a sacrifice of earning power- definitely part of
the problem – the overpaid, overpriced, overvalued bureaucrats. ] ...
$100.00
HIGHEST SINCE 2008
Saudi's
$36 billion bid to beat unrest...
King offers financial package as opposition calls 'day of
rage'...
Nervous
China puts security apparatus into overdrive...
Gaddafi
loses more Libyan cities...
FORCES
DEFY ORDERS...
WH:
Obama's 9-Day Silence Due To 'Scheduling Issue'...
Gaddafi
relatives fleeing Libya?
State
Dept tries to evacuate Americans by boat...
Turkey
launches biggest ever evacuation...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED... REUTERS
WIRE...
OIL PRICE JUMPS 8.5% IN A DAY
Big Stock
Sell Off...
Home
Prices Hit Post-Bust Lows in Major Cities...
$4
Gasoline? Yes in California...
Highest
Gas Prices in February Since 1990...
Iranian
warships sail through Suez Canal for first time since 1979...
REPORT: Gaddafi orders sabotage of oil facilities...
Defies
revolt with tanks, planes...
In
rambling speech, blames 'tyranny of US,' free drugs for youth...
VIDEO:
'I Will Be A Martyr At The End' …(sounds more like an american hero every day;
a martyr for himself!) ...
WH:
Nothing to say on Libya...
MUSLIM
BROS: KILL GADDAFI...
Intelligence
agency 'jamming' TV signals...
Witnesses
report bodies in streets...
Oil
industry worries unrest could spread...
Russia
blames GOOGLE for stirring unrest...
Medvedev
sees 'fires for decades' in Arab world...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED... REUTERS
WIRE...
GADDAFI
FLEES TRIPOLI
UK Foreign Sec: Gaddafi headed to Venezuela...
Chavez
gov't denies...
Muslim
leaders order followers to rebel...
Tribe
threatens to cut oil exports...
REPORT:
Military jets attack protesters in Tripoli...
Two
pilots refuse, fly to Malta, defect...
Oil
companies move staff...
U.S.
military chief visits Gulf to urge restraint...
Khamenei:
America must be removed from Islamic world...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED... REUTERS
WIRE...
ON
THE BRINK!
Qaddafi's
son warns of civil war...
Tribe
threatens to cut oil exports...
Unrest
in Iran, Algeria, Yemen, Morocco, China [and Wisconsin]...
U.S.
military chief visits Gulf, to urge restraint...
Michelle
Obama, Daughters Hit the Slopes on Ski Vacation ...
Vail...
Bidens
vacation on Fla Keys...
FLASHBACK:
Obama on tough economy: 'You might put off a vacation'...
'Everyone
must sacrifice'...
RASMUSSEN:
OBAMA APPROVAL SLIPS BACK TO 44%...
Gov't
shutdown threat looms over budget fight...
Geithner
Criticizes Spending Cuts...
SANTELLI:
BUDGET CRISIS IS NEXT 9/11...
Gas
prices skyrocket; up 55 cents from year ago...
Oil
prices surge; Brent crude hits 2 1/2-year high...
GALLUP: Number of Solidly Democratic States Cut in Half From '08 to
'10...
American
Held in Pakistan Worked for CIA...
Egypt's
activists skeptical about army intentions...
...ask
West to guarantee reform
Wounded
Iraq veteran jeered for speaking in Columbia University...
Sen.
John Kerry attacked by anti-war protesters...
Reporter,
camerawoman attacked by black mob... in California
WISC
UNIONS OFFER CONCESSIONS
Gov.
Walker Says No...
Dem
Sen: We'll Stay Away For Weeks...
Court
Rejects Madison School Effort to Get 'Sick' Teachers Back to Work...
Fake
Doctor's Notes Being Handed Out at Union Rally...
VIDEO:
'Everybody is sick -- of Scott Walker'...
Thousands
Pack Capitol Grounds...
Libya:
Snipers shoot mourners, killing 15...
REPORT:
120 dead...
U.S.
Warship Tracking Yacht Hijacked by Somali Pirates... [ I realize
there are ‘laws of the sea’ / codified bodies of law within that broad yet very
specific category called ‘maritime law’, none of which I know nor care to know
(I’ll content myself to knowing and seeing to the enforcement of american law
as pertains to me; viz., RICO http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
. I do know that these somali
pirates need killin’ and I further believe that open season on them including
using their boats in the water for target practice makes sense and certainly is
morally justified. I’m tired of hearing about those little weasels … you know,
‘the skinnies’. ]
Some now question U.S. deal that brought
Gaddafi back into diplomatic fold (Washington Post) [ Oh, come on!
At this point in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s intractable
decline, naivity becomes no one! …Money, oil, arms change hands and no one’s
the wiser … and those few are again substantially richer … it’s the fatally
tragic ‘american tale’… Arms
deals still made amid Middle East crackdowns (Washington Post) You bet your
bippy … a raison d’etre, so to speak. ]ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - As
Libya's Moammar Gaddafi ordered attacks on his own people this week, thousands
of arms sellers from the United States and other countries hawked their
aircraft, riot gear and rifles to Middle Eastern buyers at the Persian Gulf's
preeminent arms show.
Julian
Assange must be extradited to Sweden (Washington Post) [ Julian
Assange to be extradited to Sweden Infowars.com [ No surprise here. As I’ve previously written, I’m
against the censorship since one always, in the final analysis, must discern
truth from falsehood, information from disinformation, reality from propaganda.
In truth, I found it somewhat shocking and more than surprising that of all
places ‘to escape to’, Assange chose Orwellian england, puppet to the u.s. and
guarantor of servility to u.s./zionist interests, such is their own desperate
circumstances. What was he thinking? ]
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be extradited to Sweden to face
allegations of rape and sexual assault. Assange will appeal, his legal team
confirmed. If this is unsuccessful, he will be extradited to Sweden in 10
days. ] LONDON - Britain will honor
Sweden's request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face sex-crime
allegations, a British judge ruled Thursday.
Oil
prices on the rise (Washington Post) [ And except when and for fraudulent /
false / manipulated data, everything else down, dirty, and dismal: AP Business
Highlights: February 24, 2011, ‘New-home
sales in January drop 12.6 pct WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of new homes fell
significantly in January, a dismal sign after the worst year for that sector in
nearly a half-century.New-home sales dropped to a seasonally adjusted rate of
284,000 homes last month, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That's down
from 325,000 in December and less than half the 600,000-a-year pace that economists
view as healthy…’ (Washington Post) New-home
sales fell more than forecast / FHFA:
Home prices fell in fourth quarter
Pro-government
forces, rebels engage in battles for territory (Washington Post) [
The big story here, lost on mainstream media, was the manipulated stock / oil
price fraud based upon false rumor of
daffy gaddafi not ducking and having been shot. Remember: there’s no
place for reality in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america and on
fraudulent wall street particularly. STOCKS
MAKE HUGE TURNAROUND ON STUNNING COLLAPSE IN OIL: BASED SOLELY ON NOW KNOWN TO
BE FALSE TWITTER RUMOR! [ Don’t be
surprised if the frauds on wall street initiated the rumors; their fraudulent
manipulations have included far worse … put them in jail where they belong,
with fines, disgorgement! ( ‘…an apparently Twitter-borne rumor started making the rounds
that Qaddafi had been shot! There was no basis for it, but oil simply
collapsed…’ ) ] , On Thursday February 24,
2011 Thank Twitter-borne rumors of Qaddafi's death for the fact that
markets totally didn't get crushed today…’ ] Militiamen, mercenaries hit cities
near capital while protesters seized air force base; U.S., other Western powers
consider responses to situation. Gaddafi
loyalists launch counterattacks ]
Crude prices broke through the $100-a-barrel threshold as violence in
Libya continued to shake markets.
Feb.
23 (Bloomberg) -- Our country is bankrupt. It’s not bankrupt in 30 years or
five years. It’s bankrupt today.
Want proof? Look at President Barack Obama’s 2010
budget. It showed a massive fiscal gap over the next 75 years, the closure of
which requires immediate tax increases, spending cuts, or some combination
totaling 8 percent of gross domestic product. To put 8 percent of GDP in
perspective, this year’s employee and employer payroll taxes for Social
Security and Medicare will amount to just 5 percent of GDP.
Actually, the picture is much worse. Nothing in
economics says we should look out just 75 years when considering the present-value
difference between future spending and future taxes. Over the full long-term,
we need an extra 12 percent, not 8 percent, of GDP annually.
Seventy-five years seems like a long enough time to
plan. It’s not. Had the Greenspan Commission, which “fixed” Social Security
back in 1983, focused on the true long term we wouldn’t be sitting here now
with Social Security 26 percent underfunded. The Social Security trustees, at
least, have learned a lesson. The 26 percent figure is based on their infinite
horizon fiscal- gap calculation.
But the real reason we can’t look out just 75 years
is that the government’s cash flows (the difference between its annual taxes
and non-interest spending) over any period of time, including the next 75
years, aren’t well defined. This reflects economics’ labeling problem. If you
use different words to describe the receipts taken in and paid out each year by
the government, you produce entirely different cash flows and an entirely
different fiscal gap measured over any finite horizon.
Matter of Language
It’s only the value of the infinite horizon fiscal
gap that is unaffected by the choice of labels of language. Take this year’s
payroll tax contributions. Let’s call these transfers from workers to Uncle Sam
“borrowing” by the government, rather than “payroll taxes,” since the money
will be paid back as future benefits. If the future payback isn’t in full
(equal to principal plus interest), we can call the difference a “retirement
tax.” Presto! With this change of words, our 2011 deficit of about 10 percent
of GDP is boosted another five points to 15 percent.
With one set of words, taxes are higher now and lower
latter. With the other set of words, the opposite is true. But neither set of
labels makes more economic sense than the other or changes what the government
takes, on balance, from any person or business in any given year.
This is no surprise. The math of economics rules out
an absolute measure of the deficit, just like the math of physics rules out an
absolute measure of time.
Bottom Line
The bottom line, then, is that we need to look at the
infinite-horizon fiscal gap not just for Social Security, but for the entire
federal government. That analysis, based on the Congressional Budget Office’s
long-term alternative fiscal scenario, shows an unfathomable fiscal gap of $202
trillion. And covering this gap requires coming up with the aforementioned 12
percent of GDP, forever.
If this gives you the willies, there’s a ready
narcotic -- the president’s 2012 budget, which shows that most of our long-
term fiscal problem has miraculously disappeared; the fiscal gap isn’t 12
percent of annual GDP. Nor is it 8 percent. It’s now 1.8 percent.
This fantastic improvement in our finances is due,
we’re told, primarily to the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This board, to
be established in 2014 (after the next election, of course) is charged with
recommending cuts to Medicare and Medicaid providers when their costs grow too
fast.
Repealing Cuts
We’ve had laws mandating such cuts for years, and
they are routinely repealed. Indeed, President Obama signed the latest such
repeal last June. But rather than laugh out loud at this cost-control
mechanism, the Medicare trustees, three-quarters of whom were appointed by the
president, assume in their 2010 report that these cuts will be made -- to the
dollar. And the 2012 budget cites the report’s fictional forecast as its
authoritative source.
No one takes the 2010 Medicare trustee report’s
long-run projections seriously, least of all Richard Foster, Medicare’s chief
actuary. Foster added this statement to the end of the report: “The financial
projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable
expectation…in either the short range…or the long range.”
This isn’t the first administration to conceal our
long- term fiscal problem. Back in 1993, Alice Rivlin, then deputy director of
the Office of Management and Budget, asked me and economists Alan Auerbach and
Jagadeesh Gokhale to prepare a long-term fiscal gap/generational accounting for
inclusion in President Bill Clinton’s 1994 budget.
Politics Triumphs
We worked for months on the analysis, but two days
before the budget’s release, the study was excised from the budget. We were
shocked, but, in retrospect, the politics are clear. The Clinton administration
wanted to claim it was fiscally prudent and the study, which showed unofficial
debt growing at enormous rates, showed the opposite.
The fiscal gap’s next near appearance in a
president’s budget was in 2003. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill commissioned
Gokhale and Kent Smetters to do the study. It showed a massive $45 trillion
fiscal gap -- not a great basis for pushing tax cuts or introducing the
prescription-drug benefit for seniors, known as Medicare Part D. O’Neill was
ousted on Dec. 6, 2002, and a couple of days later the fiscal-gap study was
discarded.
I’m not sure whether censoring the fiscal gap is more
dishonorable than fudging it. What I do know is that we can’t assume our
problems away and that I expected far better of this president when I voted for
him.
--Editors:
James Greiff, Steven Gittelson
Pro-government
forces, rebels engage in battles for territory (Washington Post) [ The big story here, lost on
mainstream media, was the manipulated stock / oil price fraud based upon false
rumor of daffy gaddafi not ducking and
having been shot. Remember: there’s no place for reality in pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt america and on fraudulent wall street particularly. STOCKS
MAKE HUGE TURNAROUND ON STUNNING COLLAPSE IN OIL: BASED SOLELY ON NOW KNOWN TO
BE FALSE TWITTER RUMOR! [ Don’t be
surprised if the frauds on wall street initiated the rumors; their fraudulent
manipulations have included far worse … put them in jail where they belong,
with fines, disgorgement! ( ‘…an apparently Twitter-borne rumor started making the rounds
that Qaddafi had been shot! There was no basis for it, but oil simply
collapsed…’ ) ] , On Thursday February 24,
2011 Thank Twitter-borne rumors of Qaddafi's death for the fact that
markets totally didn't get crushed today…’ ] Militiamen, mercenaries hit cities
near capital while protesters seized air force base; U.S., other Western powers
consider responses to situation. Gaddafi
loyalists launch counterattacks ]
Crude prices broke through the $100-a-barrel threshold as violence in
Libya continued to shake markets.
STOCKS
MAKE HUGE TURNAROUND ON STUNNING COLLAPSE IN OIL: BASED SOLELY ON NOW KNOWN TO
BE FALSE TWITTER RUMOR! [ Don’t be
surprised if the frauds on wall street initiated the rumors; their fraudulent
manipulations have included far worse … put them in jail where they belong,
with fines, disgorgement! ( ‘…an
apparently Twitter-borne rumor started making the rounds
that Qaddafi had been shot! There was no basis for it, but oil simply
collapsed…’ ) ] , On Thursday February 24,
2011
Thank
Twitter-borne rumors of Qaddafi's death for the fact that markets totally
didn't get crushed today.
But first, the
scoreboard:
Dow: -39.13
NASDAQ: +16.16
S&P 500: -1.03
And now, the
top stories:
February
22, 2011: Mohamed A. El-Erian, CEO PIMCO predicts a period of, at best,
stagflation; which of course is bad for stocks (and worse).
That
House You Bought 10 Years Ago Is Worth Exactly The Same Now As It Was Then
Depew ‘The chart below shows the median price for existing homes, which is down
3.7 percent year-over-year to $158,000. Some interesting things to note about
this:
1) While existing home sales increased 2.7 percent, the percent of home sales
which were distressed rose to 37 percent, an incredible amount if you stop to
think about it.
2) Also, 32 percent of the existing home sales transactions were for cash.
3) Oh, and if you were thinking that the housing bubble collapse has
exterminated all speculative activity in the housing market, consider that 23
percent of all sales went to buyers classified as "investors."
4) Finally, while the inventory of existing homes available declined to a
little less than 8 months' worth at the current pace of sales, if you factor in
the high percentage of distressed sales along with the fact that the National
Realtors' Survey doesn't account for inventory listed by banks and private
agents... well, you can see where this is headed. [chart]’
The
U.S. Dollar Is No Longer a Safe Haven
Daily Trader ‘The winds of change appear to be blowing! Some 6 months ago when
world financial markets took fright, the average punter would rush headlong
into the safety of the USD and US Treasuries.However, something different is
now playing out. The USD has been broadly weaker against the
"average" paper currency in the world. Yes that is correct, the USD
has done rather badly against other currencies since the Egyptian crisis took
hold. Over the last few days whilst the Libyan drama has progressed into a full
blown crisis and perhaps a prelude to civil war, the USD has again depreciated
against a broad basket of currencies. Note the behavior of our Proprietary
Currency Index below (16 currencies against the USD). It is only a few
"pips" away from breaking to a multi-month high. [chart]Now what if
we do see the index above break to a new high and the USD Index to a
multi-month low? What would be the implications for other markets like
equities, commodities and Treasuries?As far as commodities go it does not take
a rocket scientist to work that one out. I don't think a break in the USD would
be very supportive for higher US Treasury prices.........after all when have
rapidly rising commodity prices been positive for Treasuries?As for equities,
well I think it is going to be highly dependent on which sectors you are in. I
find it difficult to believe that commodity sensitive sectors like basic
materials and energy would weaken. With correlations across stocks breaking
down I think the coming months will be very favorable to diligent
inflation-oriented stock pickers.’
Stocks
Slide as Key Moving Averages Fail to Hold Suttmeier ‘…The ValuEngine Valuation Warning was at an extreme last
Friday, and technicals were overbought on daily charts.
The 10-Year Yield -- (3.489) This yield tested its 50-day simple moving average at
3.446 on Wednesday after holding my weekly pivot at 3.529. The 200-day simple
moving average is 3.007.
Comex Gold -- ($1410.8) Tested $1417.5 this morning above my monthly
risky level at $1412.4. Gold is now overbought on its daily chart with the
50-day at $1373.5 and quarterly and semiannual risky levels at $1441.7 and
$1452.6.
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($98.48) Tested the $103.41 this morning above my
annual pivots at $99.91 and $101.92. My monthly pivot is $91.83 with semiannual
and quarterly risky levels $107.14 and $110.87.
The Euro -- (1.3747) The 50-day is 1.3416 with my weekly risky level at
1.3868.
ValuEngine Valuation Warning -- A ValuEngine Valuation Warning occurs
when more than 65% of all stocks in the
ValuEngine universe are calculated to be overvalued. On Friday 68.6% of all
stocks were overvalued, which was the highest of the year. Today 61.2% of all
stocks are overvalued.
The Technical Warning -- All major equity averages ended last week with
extremely overbought conditions noted on their weekly charts. This week’s
weakness will keep all weekly charts overbought with the exception of Dow
Transports, which has declining weekly MOJO.
Key Levels for the Major Equity Averages
More Bad News on Housing -- Existing Home Sales rose in January, but the
increase was led by rising foreclosures and all-cash buyers. According to the
National Association of Realtors prices home prices slumped to a nine-year low.
Foreclosure sales accounted for 37% of the seasonally adjusted annual rate of
5.36 million homes. Another 32% were sold in all-cash transactions. The decline
in home prices was 3.7% year over year.Housing problems include tighter lending
standards including a larger down payment, and higher mortgage rates. The
potential inventory of existing homes remains quite high and banks have been
slow to foreclose. High unemployment is still cited as an issue.
Some Key Points From the FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile for the Fourth
Quarter of 2010
Libya’s
Turmoil Leads to Highest February Gas Prices in 21 Years ABC News
| Crude oil touched nearly $102 a barrel in Asia this morning amid fears that
Libya could halt exports.
IMF
Austerity Measures Lead to Violent Riots in Greece AFP |
The confrontation occurred near the finance ministry.
Jobless youths
trigger concerns in UK Press TV | A drought of entry-level
jobs means door to work is closed to many young people.
National / World
Drudgereport: GADDAFI
SHOT?
Libyan
uprising closes round Tripoli...
Crude
breaches $119 in frantic trading...
CA
Gas Station: $4.51 Gallon...
Feds:
Food prices set to jump 3.5%...
'Extreme'...
Swiss
franc touches record peak against dollar...
California's
$800K city manager leaves court on gurney… [California’s extreme in this regard
as I noted to a college instructor on coming out here, but aren’t they all
overpaid, state and federal; indeed, these career gov’t ees have made
over-priced gov’t jobs career goals of themselves which even three decades ago
was unheard of other than as a sacrifice of earning power- definitely part of
the problem – the overpaid, overpriced, overvalued bureaucrats. ] ...
$100.00
HIGHEST SINCE 2008
Saudi's
$36 billion bid to beat unrest...
King offers financial package as opposition calls 'day of
rage'...
Nervous
China puts security apparatus into overdrive...
Gaddafi
loses more Libyan cities...
FORCES
DEFY ORDERS...
WH:
Obama's 9-Day Silence Due To 'Scheduling Issue'...
Gaddafi
relatives fleeing Libya?
State
Dept tries to evacuate Americans by boat...
Turkey
launches biggest ever evacuation...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED... REUTERS
WIRE...
OIL PRICE JUMPS 8.5% IN A DAY
Big Stock
Sell Off...
Home
Prices Hit Post-Bust Lows in Major Cities...
$4
Gasoline? Yes in California...
Highest
Gas Prices in February Since 1990...
Iranian
warships sail through Suez Canal for first time since 1979...
REPORT: Gaddafi orders sabotage of oil facilities...
Defies
revolt with tanks, planes...
In
rambling speech, blames 'tyranny of US,' free drugs for youth...
VIDEO:
'I Will Be A Martyr At The End' …(sounds more like an american hero every day;
a martyr for himself!) ...
WH:
Nothing to say on Libya...
MUSLIM
BROS: KILL GADDAFI...
Intelligence
agency 'jamming' TV signals...
Witnesses
report bodies in streets...
Oil
industry worries unrest could spread...
Russia
blames GOOGLE for stirring unrest...
Medvedev
sees 'fires for decades' in Arab world...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED... REUTERS
WIRE...
GADDAFI
FLEES TRIPOLI
UK Foreign Sec: Gaddafi headed to Venezuela...
Chavez
gov't denies...
Muslim
leaders order followers to rebel...
Tribe
threatens to cut oil exports...
REPORT:
Military jets attack protesters in Tripoli...
Two
pilots refuse, fly to Malta, defect...
Oil
companies move staff...
U.S.
military chief visits Gulf to urge restraint...
Khamenei:
America must be removed from Islamic world...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED... REUTERS
WIRE...
ON
THE BRINK!
Qaddafi's
son warns of civil war...
Tribe
threatens to cut oil exports...
Unrest
in Iran, Algeria, Yemen, Morocco, China [and Wisconsin]...
U.S.
military chief visits Gulf, to urge restraint...
Michelle
Obama, Daughters Hit the Slopes on Ski Vacation ...
Vail...
Bidens
vacation on Fla Keys...
FLASHBACK:
Obama on tough economy: 'You might put off a vacation'...
'Everyone
must sacrifice'...
RASMUSSEN:
OBAMA APPROVAL SLIPS BACK TO 44%...
Gov't
shutdown threat looms over budget fight...
Geithner
Criticizes Spending Cuts...
SANTELLI:
BUDGET CRISIS IS NEXT 9/11...
Gas
prices skyrocket; up 55 cents from year ago...
Oil
prices surge; Brent crude hits 2 1/2-year high...
GALLUP: Number of Solidly Democratic States Cut in Half From '08 to
'10...
American
Held in Pakistan Worked for CIA...
Egypt's
activists skeptical about army intentions...
...ask
West to guarantee reform
Wounded
Iraq veteran jeered for speaking in Columbia University...
Sen.
John Kerry attacked by anti-war protesters...
Reporter,
camerawoman attacked by black mob... in California
WISC
UNIONS OFFER CONCESSIONS
Gov.
Walker Says No...
Dem
Sen: We'll Stay Away For Weeks...
Court
Rejects Madison School Effort to Get 'Sick' Teachers Back to Work...
Fake
Doctor's Notes Being Handed Out at Union Rally...
VIDEO:
'Everybody is sick -- of Scott Walker'...
Thousands
Pack Capitol Grounds...
Libya:
Snipers shoot mourners, killing 15...
REPORT:
120 dead...
U.S.
Warship Tracking Yacht Hijacked by Somali Pirates... [ I realize
there are ‘laws of the sea’ / codified bodies of law within that broad yet very
specific category called ‘maritime law’, none of which I know nor care to know
(I’ll content myself to knowing and seeing to the enforcement of american law
as pertains to me; viz., RICO http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
. I do know that these somali
pirates need killin’ and I further believe that open season on them including
using their boats in the water for target practice makes sense and certainly is
morally justified. I’m tired of hearing about those little weasels … you know,
‘the skinnies’. ]
Ethics
code urged for Supreme Court
(Washington
Post) [ Sounds like a plan! Come on!
Wake up! After all, what can you expect from two guidos from ‘jersey (alito and
scalia, colloquial – note that I have refrained from using what some might
consider disparaging terms as w*p*, gui***s, or da***s … and let me state for
the record that I truly loved and respected my grandmother who was 100%
Italian/Bari,Italy and as well my grandfather/Lake Como,northern Italy with
greek ancestral roots and thereby claim standing/right to posit the criticism
in light of my direct experience. ). How ‘bout starting with enforcing laws as
to judges, liars, etc., within the very corrupted american illegal system; and,
particularly bribes which in one form or another are rampant . I don’t know
about Thomas, but I do know about alito and ‘jersey … : October 15, 2010 (*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez, Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the
Qui Tam provisions of the Federal
False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent resolution seek to
refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of the law with which I
am not familiar).
The document in 5 pages under penalty of
perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI office in New Haven is probably the
best and most concise summary of the case
RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm . With regard to the
calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices: There was one call to the LA
office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA office where I personally met
with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative evidentiary documents of the
money laundering which he confirmed as indicative of same (he was transferred
from said office within approximately a month of said meeting and his location
was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter was assigned to FBI Agent Ron
Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess of a decade until he abruptly
retired (our last conversation prior to his retirement related to the case and
parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father I stated had been an enforcer for
the mob to which he registered disbelief and requested I prove it, which I did
– he served 12 years in prison, aggravated assault/manslaughter? – and no,
there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew Maloney’s the one that
prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction
to the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
There is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor
creditors, nor I should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt
and illegal scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the
meaningful rules of law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia
611 E. 5th Street, #404
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 219-**** (cell phone)
(213) 622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with
the line, computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance
greater non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for
contact).
16
miles away, Saudi Arabia's watchful eye looms over Bahrain unrest (Washington Post) [ I’m sure they …
with a microscope at that. Saudis Worried
Protests Will Hit Home - saudi arabia;
talk about do nothing hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all
the oil reserves of a sovereign nation; I suspect only when foreign
corporations say so For the sake of the saudi Arabian people, more
than just protests should come to fruition!
] AFP | Saudi royal warns Arab world uprisings could cause
harm unless they reform. Bahrain authorities launch surprise attack on protesters [There’s the america and saudi Arabia
effect; far less than democratic and far more deadly in the mideast among other
places; talk about hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the
oil reserves of a sovereign nation as the saudis; time for the saudis to go the
way of dictator Mubarak and take the war criminal americans with them. ] Los Angeles Times Tear gas
canisters bombard sleeping protesters in Manama's Pearl Square. At least two
men are reported killed Video: Bahrain
protesters look to emulate Egypt revolt euronews Riot Police Attack Bahrain Protesters Voice
of America ‘Saudi
Arabia sending troops to Bahrain’ Saudi Arabia is sending troops to Bahrain in a move to crack down
on pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets in the capital Manama, a
political analyst says. [SAUDIS
TOLD OBAMA 'NOT TO HUMILIATE MUBARAK' [ Sounds like they’re hearing
footsteps…Previous: Egyptian
capital teeters on anarchy Mubarak
asks cabinet to resign as anti-regime protests intensify
(Washington Post) [ Mubarak should have been looking in the mirror as he asked
his cabinet to resign … 30 years is a long time, and coincidentally, time for
him to go. In
Egypt: Access denied (Washington Post) [The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark [I disagree!
Part of the internet didn’t die, but rather the order to so darken the nation
heralded the demise, at 30 years and counting, of the so-called leadership in
the persona of Mubarak. Time for him to go! After all, he’s been in a position,
with Egypt among the only Mideast nations to have signed a peace treaty with
israel, to have stepped up with substantial credibility in taking a strong
position against israeli transgressions, violations of international law / u.n.
resolutions, war crimes, etc., which beyond soft-touch, he failed to do. And,
of all places, he sends his family to Orwellian england; he still loves those
colonial masters … how pathetic. I mean, 30 years … how free-flowing does
anyone think the election process is at this point … and one could ask the same
regarding the entrenched powers that be in pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, to be fair. Then there’s saudi arabia; talk about do nothing
hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the oil reserves of a
sovereign nation; I suspect only when foreign corporations say so. The only Mideast
nations showing backbone are Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, and, of course the
perennially propaganda painted bad-boy Iran among possibly some of the smaller
emirates, ie., Qatar, etc., (I lack sufficient information regarding these
other nations). ] (AP)
Internet cutoff fails to silence Egypt protests (AP)
- ]
Bad News - Bullish Wall of Worry or
Sell Signal? , On February 23,
2011, ‘When I published this
article 10 days ago I received much criticism. After the biggest two-day sell
off since August 2010, the commentary might be helpful in determining whether
this is another flash in the pan mini correction or the onset of something more
serious.If it's too obvious, it's obviously wrong. More often than not, this
proverbial Wall Street adage has the last laugh. What's the prevailing consent
on Wall Street? What's suspiciously obvious today?
- The
Fed is here to help. As long as there's QE2 (or QE3, 4, etc,) prices will go
up.
- January
was positive. As January goes, so goes the year.
- This
is the third year of the Presidential Election Year Cycle. There hasn't been a
negative third year since 1939.
- There's
no catalyst to send stocks higher.
While
Wall Street analysts are trying to one up each other's positive forecasts, the
Fear Index, VIX (NYSEArca: VXX - News)
has fallen to a 3 year low. The last time the VIX was at a similar level was in
April 2010, just before a literally fear-inspiring 17% correction and the May
'Flash Crash' (see chart below).The ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter didn't
subscribe to the prevailing optimism in April 2010 and warned that: 'The
message conveyed by the composite bullishness is unmistakably bearish. The
pieces are in place for a major decline.'Does that mean that the bottom will
fall out again within a matter of days? Not necessarily, but now is certainly
not the time to be married to your holdings. Tight sell stops are warranted
because any minor correction could turn into a large one. Why?
New Bull Market, or Mother of all Bear Market Rallies?
The
devil's in the long-term trend. If we are in a new bull market, any dip would
present a buying opportunity. If we are in the mother of all bear market
rallies, every rally is a trap and represents a selling opportunity.How can one
determine whether we are in a new bull market, or a bear market rally?
[chart] It's said that bull markets climb a wall of worry. No doubt there
was extreme pessimism surrounding the March 2009 lows. That's one of the
reasons the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter sent out a strong buy signal on
March 2, 2009.But pessimism at the bottom doesn't equal a wall of worry. In
fact, following the initial bout of disbelief, investors embraced the rally
rather quickly. In late 2009, sentiment readings became frothy, in January 2010
they rivaled 2007 extremes (stocks fell 9%), and in April 2010 they exceeded
2007 extremes (stocks fell 17%).About two thirds of the rally from the 2009
lows was accompanied by optimism. This is no wall of worry.
Glass Half Full Outlook
Think
about it, even the truly big problems - unemployment and falling real estate
(NYSEArca: IYR - News)
prices - were sugar coated from the very beginning. The unemployment problem
was charmingly called 'jobless recovery' and falling real estate prices were
simply ignored.The Case-Shiller home price index is down four months in a row,
but nobody is bothered. A few days ago, MarketWatch ran an article: '10 reasons
to be bullish on housing.'Courtesy of the continuing real estate conundrum, the
FDIC closed 157 banks in 2010, and 14 thus far in 2011. According to a Wall
Street Journal article, the top 10 U.S. owned banks had $13.8 billion in
unrealized losses.Those are not reflected in earnings numbers as long as
financial institutions (NYSEArca: XLF - News)
believe the investment will later rebound. Guess what? Banks are pretty darn
sure prices will reclaim their 2006 all-time highs.In addition to the $13.8
billion in unrealized losses, the top 10 U.S. banks owned $360.7 billion in
illiquid, hard to value assets (called level 3 assets). While paper earnings
appear solid, it appears as if banks are hiding skeletons in their closets. But
who cares, stocks (NYSEArca: VTI - News)
are up.
Anomaly Explained
Ben
Bernanke has openly admitted that asset inflation, or the wealth effect from
rising stock prices, is the objective of QE2. Obviously, the money flow from
the Federal Reserve over banks into the stock market has been the driving force
behind this monster rally.Much of the Fed money has been funneled into
commodities. Since QE2, net speculative positions in wheat and copper have
doubled, oil soared 115%, soybeans 40% and corn 15%. Rising commodity prices are
putting the squeeze on lower income Americans and will eventually lower profit
margins for the materials sector.It's quite likely that this ripple effect will
spill over into the retail (NYSEArca: XRT
- News),
technology (NYSEArca: XLK - News),
and consumer discretionary sector. From there it's just a matter of time until
it hits the broader Dow (DJI: ^DJI), S&P (SNP: ^GSPC) and Nasdaq (Nasdaq:
^IXIC).Contrary to its objective, QE2 has also sent interest rates soaring.
Higher interest rates tend to encourage the money to flow from equities into
bonds. Higher interest rates put pressure on bond and stock prices alike.
Early Detection
The
trend is your friend, but the trend is a fair-weather friend and can turn at
any given time. The trend doesn't announce its intention to change direction.
It switches back and worth as it pleases without your permission.Courtesy of
your friend the trend, everybody is a genius in a bull market ... and a nave
misguided trend follower when prices drop without prior notice.There is no
foolproof way to find out when the market is about to change directions. There
are, however, ways to put the odds in your favor.Watching support levels has
proven a very effective way. A few months ago 1,170 was a crucial support level
highlighted by the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter. The S&P tested this
level no less than five times, but never broker below it and rallied over 10%
since.Just recently, 1,270 was such a support level. The S&P tested it
twice before moving into the 1,320 range. The market is dynamic and can change
swiftly; therefore, it's the market that dictates support levels, not us. We
just identify and use them…’
How
Confident Are Consumers in the Future of the Economy? Harding ‘This is the
time of the month when the consumer surveys come out measuring confidence in
the economy’s future. There are three large surveys: Conference Board, Gallup,
and the University of Michigan. They all try to measure our belief with regards
to the future, and specifically whether or not we feel like spending our money.
Today Gallup and the Conference Board came
out with mixed results. On Friday the University of Michigan/Reuters survey
comes out. (It has been showing a rising trend for the last four months.)Gallup does their own survey of 3,434 respondents. The
result was that consumer confidence hasn’t improved for a year:[chart]Asked
whether the economy was getting better or if it was poor, respondents answers
were unenthusiastic at best:[chart][chart]The Conference Board had a different
take on the future:[chart]That sure looks good but, looking closely: Optimism
is no better now than it was a year ago, also suggesting that little progress
has been made economically over the past 12 months. Up to this point in 2011,
there seems to have been a relatively great amount of optimism about the US
economy going forward. Whether last week’s deterioration in consumer confidence
is the beginning of a new trend or just a
short-term aberration remains to be seen. Also, from the Conference Board’s press release: Those stating business conditions are “good”
increased to 12.4 percent from 11.3 percent, while those claiming business conditions
are “bad” was unchanged at 39.6 percent. Consumers’ assessment of the labor market was also
more positive than in January. Those saying jobs are “plentiful” rose to 4.9
percent from 4.6 percent, while those stating jobs are “hard to get” decreased
to 45.7 percent from 47.0 percent. Consumers’ short-term outlook was more
optimistic than in January. Those expecting business conditions to improve over
the next six months increased to 24.4 percent from 24.0 percent, while those
anticipating business conditions will worsen declined to 10.4 percent from 12.2
percent. This is their best reading in three years.I don’t know if this makes a
difference, but the Conference Board just fired its former pollster and hired
Nielsen instead. They surveyed 3,000 respondents. Their survey is billed as a
leading indicator.Who do you want to believe? With 43.6
million Americans, or 14.1% of the population on food stamps, relatively
flat wage growth, and a dour unemployment picture, I don’t think that only
17.3% of Americans feeling better about their future income potential versus
the prior reading of 15.3% really means that much. Ditto with the percentage of
those seeing business conditions improving going from 11.3% to 12.4%. 39.6% of
respondents said they are worse, and the rest, or 48% see no change or have no
opinion. Another way of saying this is that 87.6% of the respondents didn’t
have a positive view of business conditions.The Conference Board’s statement
that “Consumers’ appraisal of present-day conditions improved moderately in
February” is true but I would question its relevance. At such low levels of
enthusiasm among its respondents, a point or two doesn’t mean much. If you step
back and look at what these results reveal, it doesn’t look to me as if
consumers are more optimistic about the future. To say otherwise is just spin.
I think Gallup has the better view right now.’
Double
Top in Cyclicals? Elfenbein ‘The stock market is getting knocked again
today, but the pain isn’t evenly spread out. Who’s up for another look at the
relative strength of cyclicals? Great, me too! As long-term readers know, one
of my favorite metrics to follow is the Morgan Stanley Cylical Index (^CYC)
divided by the S&P 500 (^SPX). This is far from a comprehensive analysis,
but it is a quick-and-dirty look at the “mind of the market.”Since late August,
the market’s rally has been disproportionally powered by cyclical stocks. In
fact, the ratio of the CYC to the S&P 500 reached an all-time high on
February 11 (my data goes back to 1978).The ratio hit a previous peak on
January 10 and, soon after, cyclicals dropped off sharply. I quickly jumped
on this and thought it was the end of the cycle. Wrong! The ratio soon rallied
and peaked on February 11, just a hair above the level for January 10 (0.8442
to 0.8441).The CYC is down again today (although many energy names are up). If
today’s numbers hold up, the ratio will close below the low made on January
21.The reason these cycles are so important is that once they get going, they
often last for a few years. Put it this way, if the Dow had kept pace with the
CYC since the low from two years ago, the Dow would be over 24,000 today.[Click
to enlarge] [chart] ‘
Will
Oil Spike Renew Interest in Clean Energy Commodities? Handwerger ‘Many of the great declines in
the stock market over the
past 30 years have been related to oil (United States Oil (USO)). This
week we have seen the major indices plummet on geopolitical chaos throughout
North Africa, especially the large oil-producing Libya, as investors returned to
gold (SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)), silver
(iShares Silver Trust (SLV)), and
oil. As the market reached record overbought territory, any excuse could begin
a significant pullback in equities (SPDR
S&P 500 (SPY)).
Investors are monitoring key assets in Egypt (Market Vectors Egypt Index (EGPT)). If
either the Suez Canal or Sumed Pipeline come under attack, then we will see a
major oil spike, possibly worse than in the late 1970s. Already Iran has taken
advantage of the chaos and passed into the Mediterranean, further escalating
potential conflicts between Israel (iShares MSCI Israel Cap Invest Mkt Index (EIS)) and the Iranian
Allies of Hezbollah and Syria who want to take back control of the Golan
Heights. This Middle Eastern instability may have deeper consequences and I
don’t believe it will end anytime soon. In fact, it may even eventually spread
to Saudi Arabia where the royal family maintains weak control and extremists
are gaining popularity. In late January in an article entitled, Will Gold, Oil Prices Soar on Revolts in Tunisia, Egypt? I
wrote about the domino effect hypothesis, stating that chaos would not be
contained in Tunisia and Egypt. This spread of chaos, causing volatile power
vacuums, could have a significant impact on gold and oil, especially now that
the domino hypothesis is being confirmed. [chart]
At the end of January investors returned to precious metals. Gold has been on
sale every six months. A January phenomenon occurs when mutual funds and
institutional investors reposition their holdings, sometimes allowing investors
to buy a sector on sale. At the end of January, gold and silver found support
as geopolitical conditions worsened. The recent Libyan crisis has caused oil to
jump which in turn has caused a decline in equities.
As much as the financial crisis and record government spending has helped gold
soar to record highs, terrorism and war have been major drivers of the price
since September 11, 2001. The Middle East possesses approximately 65% of the
world’s oil reserves, and Egypt in particular has two key assets which effect
the global oil trade: the Suez Canal and the Sumed Pipeline. Many analysts did
not expect Libya to fall into civil war. Reports are showing that oil exports
are being curtailed, sending oil into new 52-week highs.
The “Sputnik” moment which President Obama spoke about in his State of the
Union address may come faster than expected out of necessity. Washington is
actively pursuing supply of North American heavy rare earth assets to
fast-track into production as top-secret defense technologies depend on it.
Sanctions on China from the WTO will not be enough to meet the growing demand.
Even China, which produces over 97% of the rare earths, has expressed interest
in heavy rare earth assets globally. Hyundai, the latest company on the
electric-car scene, recently commented that it was pursuing a rare earth supply
as well.
Economies are growing and demand has increased since the last major Iranian
Revolution in 1979 when oil spiked higher. An oil spike now could be much more
detrimental 32 years later. The world is more dependent on fossil fuels and
many nations are struggling with slow growth and huge debt burdens. An oil
spike could cause a major setback for the global economic recovery unless
governments initiate major alternative energy and clean energy programs. I
believe these current events will create a more significant push into clean
energy, non carbon energy. A few commodity sectors may benefit including
uranium (Global X Uranium ETF (URA)), lithium
(Global X Lithium ETF (LIT)) and rare
earths (Market Vectors Rare Earth/Str Metals ETF (REMX)).
President Obama has released this year’s budget and it was shocking. Many
analysts were surprised by the huge amount of capital allocated to clean,
alternative energy in order to spur innovation and job growth. In the recent
budget, a $7500 tax credit will be given to car buyers who purchase an electric
car. Obama has a goal of putting 1 million electric vehicles on the road by
2015. Many analysts are predicting about a 10% increase in cars sold due to
this legislation. However, tensions are escalating as Iran sticks out its
tongue at Israel by passing through the Suez Canal. Oil prices could spike as
turmoil spreads through North Africa and the Middle East. Legislators are
sending a message that they want to wean themselves off of Middle Eastern oil
and look into clean and independent energy.
Investors should expose themselves to the potential supply-demand constraints
and rise in oil prices by purchasing developers with major assets in these
clean energy mineral sectors or by diversifying into these newly created ETFS,
such as REMX or LIT, which track these sectors. As oil spikes, these clean
energy commodities should receive a renewed interest by legislators and
investors who believe in clean energy power generation.’
North
African Turmoil Could Rocket Crude to $220 Fox Business |
May cause crude to spike from about $97 a barrel today to $220 a barrel.
Oil
touches $100 a barrel as Libya standoff worsens Reuters |
Oil surged to a 28-month high of $100 a barrel on Wednesday.
Wall
Street Shares Fall Sharply Amid Libyan Unrest New York Times
| Political turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa continued to haunt
financial markets
National / World
Libya air raids
death toll hits 1,000 Press TV | Hospitals have no
electricity and no medicines.
On
Obama's jobs tour, unemployed have little voice (Washington Post) [ This of
course is so true. That wobama’s done there’s no question. Indeed, despite the
rhetoric, separate terms, hasn’t he proven to be, and isn’t wobama just a
continuation of the NWO / NAFTAite regimes that landed the nation here in this
foul, pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt position. How different are
america’s entrenched corrupt bureaucracies / ‘leaders’ from the dictators and
their corrupt bureaucracies being deposed today. If only wobama wasn’t the
typical, jive-talikin’ wobama the b (for b*** s***) he is and did what he ran
and was elected on, the outcome for fallen america would have been
substantially better, though still dire, than that which lies ahead.
State
budget woes draw more protests (Washington Post) [ Obama
joins Wisconsin budget battle Democratic
lawmakers flee state in attempt to block anti-union bill (Washington Post) [ Looks like capital hill
can pick up a few pointers from ‘dem dems … fleeing the state, that is … except
in their case it’ll be fleeing the nation-state, or what’s left of same. Drudgereport: Michelle
Obama, Daughters Hit the Slopes on Ski Vacation ...
Vail...
Bidens
vacation on Fla Keys...
FLASHBACK:
Obama on tough economy: 'You might put off a vacation'...
'Everyone
must sacrifice'...
RASMUSSEN:
OBAMA APPROVAL SLIPS BACK TO 44%...
Gov't
shutdown threat looms over budget fight... DEBT
NOW EQUALS ENTIRE ECONOMY
OBAMA
AGENDA IS OVER Obama
refers to himself as 'The Gipper'… [ Riiiight! …anything you say wobmama the b
for b*** s***… or maybe the bipper, the chipper, or the yankee clipper (the new
joltin’ joe) …sounds like he’s losing it! ] ...Debunking
the 'Debunking Myths of U.S. Collapse' Post Ridder [ Stated another way, the collapse of the (dis)united
states is at hand. Now, let me state, that doesn’t mean america will disappear
from the face of the earth, but the reality truly is ‘death from a thousand
cuts’. It’s not just China’s rise, but america’s decline and fall with the
concomitant relative rise of other nations, regions. Quite simply, and
historically factual reality has proven, nation-states cannot and have not
survived the multitude of negative, destructive, and self-destructive things
america has done and prosper as a leading nation. From perpetual war, to
pervasive corruption, fraud, criminality across all stratum including
institutions, government of american society, to what I believe as well to be
an evolved genetic bias of inherent criminality/mental illness which is ill-adapted
to the strictures of a more enlightened 21st Century by way of near
instantaneously available information, with truth and factual reality being
america’s greatest enemy. In support of the foregoing I will reiterate reasons,
infra.] Debt
relief for states proposed (Washington Post) [ I’ve heard of the ‘blind leading the blind’, but the ‘bankrupt
borrowing from the bankrupt’ seems to be a nouveau american phenomenon destined
for ‘clichedom’. Previous: Governors
plan painful cuts amid budget crises (Washington Post) [ This truly is a disaster in the making, with
consequences even more dire than the grim outlook set forth by Meridith
Whitney, if that could even be fathomed. It’s really going to be all that
bad…see infra, The Economic Collapse, ‘#10 The municipal bond crisis could go “supernova” at any
time. Already, investors are bailing out of bonds at a frightening
pace. State and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high
of 22
percent of U.S. GDP. According to Meredith Whitney, the municipal
bond crisis that we are facing is a gigantic threat to our financial system….“It has
tentacles as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the
single most important issue in the United States and certainly the largest
threat to the U.S. economy.” Economist:
United States Worse Off than Greece Dr. Laurence Kotlikoff is an economics
professor at Boston University. He says the Treasury and the government are
fudging the national debt numbers. Kotlikoff says the United States is bankrupt
and we don’t even know it.
Obama:
US needs better math, science education (AP) [Well, one thing we absolutely
know as true is that there’s at least one person in america in need of better
math skills and his name is’ wobama the b’ (for b*** s*** - despite campaign
promises to the contrary he actually ramped up war spending also despite
defacto bankruptcy of the nation – bush, if only it was just his math skills,
ramped of war spending while cutting taxes … to his base, a wobama’s on the
same page – how totally pathetic both of them are / were) … but let’s not kid
ourselves, from capital hill to wall street, etc., math skills are indeed lacking.
]
Internet tool shows French web surfers 'Jewish-curious' (AFP) - AFP - An Internet tool that flags up popular
search words has spontaneously revealed a deeper trend: French web surfers'
exceeding curiosity about whether their politicians are Jewish. [ To their
credit, at least in France it might matter … to america’s discredit and
self-destruction, it doesn’t even matter … as Buchanan aptly put it ‘capital
hill is occupied israeli territory and just proved it again with the
foolhardy veto of the un resolution
condemning illegal israeli settlements. ]
Gaddafi vows to maintain hold on power Libyan
strongman says he'll fight 'until the last drop of my blood' (Washington Post) [ His latter wish is the
world’s command. ‘Something there is that doesn’t love a dictator, that wants
them down’ … (Excuse me … I was thinking of walls and ‘Mending Wall’, Robert
Frost). Libya
Internet Shut Down Amid Protests, Per Multiple Reports [ Once again, as in Egypt, this, the
internet, inherently global in nature is the lynchpin, tampering with or
stifling same marking the end of any regime. Let this be a warning; viz., you
cannot put the genie back in the bottle! 41 years? Gadaffy duck should duck
‘cause he’s done. I mean, look at him, he’s the singular equivalent of the
multiple bushes. He’s totally burnt out (as much or more so than dumbya bush or
mubarack) and quite done! ] Reports have emerged late Friday that Libya appears
to have shut down its Internet due to widespread protests, less than a month
after Egypt did the same. ] With rebels
apparently controlling much of the eastern half of the country, the violence
engulfing Libya is already the worst in more than a month of unrest that has
toppled other regimes.
I knew
there was something especially (but typically) not right in Friday’s (and
Thursday’s) trade; and, sure enough, it was a full moon Friday as per lunar
calendar (a must in today’s markets owing to the prevalence of lunatics /
criminally insane on wall street).
Have Stocks Really Moved Sideways Since 2000? McCurdy ‘Last
week, we reviewed the inverse secular relationship between stocks and the
price of gold. Stocks have been in a secular downtrend since the bull market
from the 1980s terminated early last decade, while gold has been in a secular
uptrend. Many analysts do not like to label the current secular environment in
stocks as a bear, instead referring to it as a "sideways" market.
Indeed, a quick review of the S&P 500 index monthly chart shows that it has
essentially bounced sideways for the past 11 years.
[Click all to
enlarge]
[chart}
Since the secular peak in 2000, the S&P 500 has produced a compound annual
return of 0.6%, so any long-term investors who bought at the top would appear
to have broken even. Have they really? It is important to note that we are
talking about nominal values and returns. When you compare stock market
performance to hard assets like commodities and gold, you see a very different
picture.
[chart]
[chart]
Since 2000, the S&P 500 index has experienced a persistent decline in terms
of the Continuous Commodity Index (CCI) and the price of gold. The CCI ratio
chart has decreased by 72% and the gold ratio chart has decreased by 82%.
Suddenly that "sideways" market doesn't look so sideways. If you
extend both charts back to the beginning of the previous secular bull market in
equities, you see what you would expect: A persistent rise in stock market
valuations until the secular peak early last decade (note that we have replaced
the CCI with the CRB index in the following chart for display purposes, since
the available CCI data do not cover the entire secular bull).
[chart]
[chart]
Both ratio chart downtrends are currently healthy, with the CCI ratio recently
experiencing another long-term breakdown and the gold ratio forming a
consolidation pattern since early 2009. Until these secular declines form
confirmed bottoms, the secular bear market in stocks will remain in control.
[chart]
[chart]
Despite mainstream assertions to the contrary, the issues that led to the
market crash in 2008 have not been materially addressed. Our historically excessive
public and private debt remains, festering beneath the surface of this
"strong" economic recovery. As usual, we have chosen the quick fix
route and kicked the proverbial debt can down the road, hoping that the
underlying problems will somehow cure themselves without requiring us to make
the hard choices that have always been required in the past. The continuing
strength in the gold market indicates that no such magic resolution process is
currently underway.
[chart]
When was the last time a strong, healthy secular uptrend in gold provided an
all-clear signal for the economy and suggested that the structural problems
that have been plaguing it during recent years have been resolved? The answer
to that question is never. Perhaps this time is different. We will see.’
Weighing the Week Ahead: The Beat Goes On Miller ‘…The explanation is much simpler. The Beat Goes On.
The
grocery store's the supermart, uh huh.
Little girls still break their hearts, uh huh.
And men still keep on marching off to war
Electrically they keep a baseball score
{Refrain}
Grandmas sit in chairs and reminisce
Boys keep chasing girls to get a kiss
The cars keep going faster all the time
Bums still cry, "Hey buddy, have you got a dime"
Sonny &
Cher may not have been market gurus, but the song captures the
current market action. The "drums keep beating."
… The Bad There was some important bad news for the economy. The story is rarely
one-sided. There is a continuing problem on several fronts, a widely known
"wall of worry" that is already reflected in current market prices.
Correlating
U.S. Demographics, Trade Deficits and Employment Lounsbury’ Recent analysis found
that the U.S. trade balance deficit for manufactured goods was the equivalent
of almost 29 million jobs over the past 19 years. The analysis referred to
these as exported jobs.
What if some of
the manufacturing jobs had been retained? How would U.S. employment have been
affected? Would we have anything like the high unemployment rates experienced
over the past two years?
The following
analysis shows that the U.S. simply didn't have the population needed to
produce what we have been consuming. The trade deficit is actually a
demographic problem as well as a global competition problem for the U.S.
First let’s look at the labor participation rate over
the past 60 years.
click to enlarge images
Over the last 25-30 years the institution of two
wage-earner households became entrenched and the labor participation rate rose
above 65% as of 1985. In 2010 the participation rate fell back below 65% as a
result of severe employment dislocations produced by The Great Recession.
The following graph focuses on the years starting
with 1992. Two arbitrary areas are identified by the author, a “peak”
participation rate and a “healthy” rate. These arbitrary definitions may be
subject to debate.
These two definitions are used to examine
counterfactual participation rates in the following discussion.
In the previous article a graph
was presented which showed the number of manufacturing jobs “exported” each
year starting with 1992. What was not discussed in the previous article is that
jobs have multiplier factors. If one person receives a wage much of that money
is spent and that creates additional jobs. For each person working in a
particular job, other people are employed in support industries. The total of
all these additional jobs is what comprises the jobs multiplier. The
mathematics can be reviewed here.
The multiplier varies for different types of jobs and
is determined by collecting experimental data in the actual economy.
Manufacturing jobs have high jobs multipliers. A table of jobs multipliers is
shown in the following table:
A number of data sources have been reviewed for the
value of the manufacturing job multiplier in the U.S. These are shown in the
following table.
Active links from the table:
A jobs multiplier of 3.0 means that each job
represents a total of three jobs: the original job plus two others that exist
only because that original job is there. One estimate for all
employment is an average multiplier of 1.9. For manufacturing the
multiplier is close to 3. For every manufacturing job gained or lost directly,
two other jobs, on average, are gained or lost.
For the rest of this article we will use the
multiplier of 2.9. Using that value, the number of jobs lost each year since
1992 because of the trade deficit for manufactured goods has been calculated
and is shown in the following graph. The lowest line represents the number of
direct manufacturing jobs exported. The second line is the number of dependent
jobs lost and the top line is the total number of jobs, direct and indirect,
that were exported.
If all the direct and indirect jobs that have been ‘exported”
had been retained, what would the unemployment picture have been forth past 18
years? This is displayed in the following graph.
There are two shaded areas in the graph. The blue
area encompasses all the commonly accepted values for NAIRU. The salmon area
defines where labor shortages would occur, the lower the percentage the greater
the shortage.
The red line shows the counterfactual case calculated
for the “exported jobs” being retained and the labor participation rate staying
at the peak (67%). The green line shows the counterfactual unemployment rate
provided the participation rate actually experienced is used.
A reasonable conclusion from this graph is that, to
retain the number of jobs estimated, labor would have to be imported or the
labor participation rate would have to rise above the all-time peak. Without
some combination of those two factors there would have been labor shortages 14
of the last 16 years (1994-2007)
Note: NAIRU refers to a Milton Freeman defined term: Non-Accelerating
Inflation Rate of Unemployment
The next counterfactual situation examined is the
case where half of the “exported jobs” were retained each year. The following
graph shows the official unemployment rate average each year (blue), with two
counterfactual unemployment rates.
[chart]The red line shows the counterfactual case calculated
for ˝ of the “exported jobs” being retained and the labor participation rate
staying at the peak (67%). The green line shows the counterfactual unemployment
rate provided the participation rate actually experienced is used.
The following graph shows official and counterfactual
unemployment rates if 25% of the “exported jobs” had been retained.
Even if 75% of the “exported jobs” had occurred, the
U.S. would still have had labor shortages almost in seven of the past 19 years.
The unemployment rate would have been below 4% for1997-2000 and 2005-2007. If
the labor particpation rate had remained at peak (67%) throughout this time
period, there would have been labor shortages only in the last four years of the
2oth century.
There are many assumptions to be questioned in this
analysis. A few are listed here:
I expect there are many more open issues here and I
expect that readers will eagerly point them out to me.
The U.S. has been on a consumption binge. The
examination discussed here indicates that the country has been living beyond
its means to produce what it consumes. That doesn't even consider that we have
to import more than half of the energy used. If the production of even part of
the production of goods that have been imported over the lat 14 years had been
retained domestically, there would not have been enough labor available to fill
the jobs that would have been required.
So the U.S. has been living beyond its means in three
ways:
Further work is in progress to examine:
There is one additional area being studied: How does
the undocumented worker influx that has occurred over the past two decades
interact with these labor requirement scenarios.
More articles on this topic will be forthcoming in
the next few weeks…’
Buy the Dips or Sell the Rally - The One Indicator that Knows , February 22, 2011, 5:51 pm ‘Low-Risk. The term 'low-risk' has
the same appeal in the investment world as the enticing little word 'free' in
the advertising world.Some advertising executives claim that 'free' is the most
powerful word in the ad world. 'Low-risk' might be the most powerful concept in
the investing universe.If you read the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter you are
very familiar with the term low-risk entry. If you don't, here's a quick
summary and crash course of an indicator that's been 100% accurate over the
past 6 months.Low risk entries for various indexes are identified or triggered
by a relative strength indicator called percentR. PercentR is expressed on a
scale from 1 - 100. Readings above 80 are considered overbought, readings below
20 oversold.If you read the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter you are very
familiar with the term low-risk entry. If you don't, here's a quick summary and
crash course of an indicator that's been 100% accurate over the past 6
months.Low risk entries for various indexes are identified or triggered by a
relative strength indicator called percentR. PercentR is expressed on a scale
from 1 - 100. Readings above 80 are considered overbought, readings below 20
oversold.
Uncannily Accurate
A
picture says more than a thousand words and the chart sheds more light on the
value of percentR. As you can tell by the red line, following the W bottom in
November (not shown in the chart), percentR spiked above 80 (first yellow
circle) around S&P 1,210. This was the initial buy signal. [chart]With two
exceptions, percentR remained above 80 ever since. The two dips below 80
(yellow circles) on January 19 and 28 triggered a low-risk entry. Even though
investors were worried about riots in Egypt, according to percentR it was time
to buy.This bullish low-risk entry is valid as long as the underlying index (in
this case the S&P 500) does not close below that day's low (white
line). In both instances, the S&P (SNP: ^GSPC) stayed above that low
and went on to rally over 5%.
Other Low-Risk Entries
PercentR
works with stocks and indexes alike. Similar low-risk entries were identified
by the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter for the Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI), Nasdaq-100
(Nasdaq: QQQQ - News),
Nasdaq Composite (Nasdaq: ^IXIC), and the Financial Select Sector SPDR
(NYSEArca: XLF - News)
on January 28. The Russell 2000 (Chicago Options: ^RUT) was the weakest index
and registered its low-risk entry sooner.
Corrections are Healthy, if ...
'Corrections
are healthy' is one of many ambiguous Wall Street sayings. If you judge the
current 'bull market' purely on this statement, this market is one sick puppy -
there hasn't been more than a 2.5% correction in nearly a quarter - and needs a
serious correction to be jolted back into healthy territory.Put yourself in a
time capsule and zoom back to April 2010 when the major U.S. indexes declined
nearly 20% before the promise of QE2 resurrected stocks. There was little
conviction then that corrections are healthy. The correction had rattled the
investing masses and shaken out many stockholders before the market went on to
rally again.PercentR is the canary in the coalmine that identifies a deeper
correction. No significant sell off happens without a failed low-risk entry.A
failed low-risk entry occurs when the indexes close below the low of the day
that triggers the low-risk entry (white lines on the chart). The last failed
low-risk entry happened in November 2010 when stocks chopped around for a few
weeks and ultimately lost about 5%. Another failed low-risk entry flashed
a sell signal on August 11 and ushered in a 21 day, 8% sell off.
The Right Tool for the Job
Any craftsman will tell you that there are limitations to any tool, but there's a tool for each job. percentR is the right tool for the current job.After a parabolic rally, the job at hand is to distinguish whether pull backs are a buying opportunity or a warning signal. Should you buy the dips or step on the sidelines (or even short the market)?The ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter consistently monitors percentR as part of measuring the health of the market and sends out special alerts when a low-risk entry (or failed low-risk entry) has been triggered. Considering today's sell off, it sure will be valuable to see what percentR has to say. Buying opportunity or time to sell?’
"Are
Your truly dead?" The IMF, Watson and Schrodinger's Cat. [ On forbes,
of new york / new jersey the hotbed of mob / wall street fraud and corruption
and leading sinkhole of the nation, and of failed capitalist tool fame, do they
waste an article and time on fraud / spam as a matter of course. I get a few or
more of these routed to my spam box each day. Moreover, invariably upon
visiting the forbes site / article my anti-virus picks up and blocks numerous
malicious adware, url, etc., queries (it’s become pathetic the number and
amount of s**t, ads, scripts that are crammed into some web pages these days);
and, almost invariably, coming from the forbes ny / nj faux capitalist tool
sight, all for nought! What a waste of time forbes et als are! ]
Obama:
US needs better math, science education (AP) [Well, one thing we absolutely
know as true is that there’s at least one person in america in need of better
math skills and his name is’ wobama the b’ (for b*** s*** - despite campaign
promises to the contrary he actually ramped up war spending also despite
defacto bankruptcy of the nation – bush, if only it was just his math skills,
ramped of war spending while cutting taxes … to his base, a wobama’s pn the
same page – how totally pathetic both of them are / were) … but let’s not kid
ourselves, from capital hill to wall street, etc., math skills are indeed
lacking. ]
Internet tool shows French web surfers 'Jewish-curious' (AFP) - AFP - An Internet tool that flags up popular
search words has spontaneously revealed a deeper trend: French web surfers'
exceeding curiosity about whether their politicians are Jewish. [ To their
credit, at least in France it might matter … to america’s discredit and
self-destruction, it doesn’t even matter … as Buchanan aptly put it ‘capital
hill is occupied israeli territory and just proved it again with the
foolhardy veto of the un resolution
condemning illegal israeli settlements. ]
US
Taxpayers Give $150 Million to Post-Revolutionary Egypt Zero Hedge
| Taxpayer funds go to buy the love and admiration of a society in transition.
Obama’s 2012
Budget: Tool Of Class War Paul Craig Roberts | Continues
Wall Street’s war against poor & middle classes.
Geithner Helping the
Chinese? Reuters | Diplomatic cables lay bare China’s
growing influence as largest U.S. creditor.
Valuations
for Five Major Banks with Bearish Warnings Bauer ‘…The general market is currently over-valued,
over-bought and is showing signs of deterioration, especially in the area of
breadth. Interest rates are on the rise and inflation is already a serious
problem. This means that you must consider holding cash or perhaps taking
bearish positions…’
World Oil
Prices Soar After Libyan Unrest
VOA News | World oil prices rose sharply on Monday as
violence in Libya sparked worries that energy supplies could be disrupted.
Dozens
of people have been reported killed in the Libyan capital Tripoli overnight as
violence continues to spread across the country. Key administrative buildings
have been set on fire, with thousands of anti-government activists still on the
streets calling for an end to the 41-year rule of Colonel Gaddafi. To find out
more about how the Middle East upheaval is impacting global economic patterns,
we’re joined live now by RT’s financial guru Max Keiser…
Oil
rose to a two-year high and gold rallied for a sixth day surpassing $1,400 an
ounce, as tension in the Middle East escalated. Stocks fell for the most in a
month as Eni SpA led companies with operations in Libya lower.
As
if geopolitical instability in the Mideast weren’t inherently reason enough for
investors to worry, here’s another angle to consider.
Silver
takes out $33.10, hitting a fresh 31 year high, as the relentless short squeeze
leads to more body bags, and the only flight to safety currency is now the
non-dilutable one (with gold on the verge of $1,400).
Wall
Street Shares Fall Sharply Amid Libyan Unrest New York Times
| Political turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa continued to haunt
financial markets
Europe
Stocks End Lower As Libya Worries Escalate Dow Jones | The
Stoxx Europe 600 index shed 0.6% to close at 285.38.
Gold,
Silver, Crude Oil Sharply Higher As Violence in Libya Climbs Forbes
| Stand-off in Libya has triggered renewed speculation in precious metals and
crude oil prices.
National / World
Libya
Internet Shut Down Amid Protests, Per Multiple Reports [ Once again, as in Egypt, this, the
internet, inherently global in nature is the lynchpin, tampering with or
stifling same marking the end of any regime. Let this be a warning; viz., you
cannot put the genie back in the bottle! 41 years? Gadhafi duck should duck
‘cause he’s done. I mean, look at him, he’s the singlular equivalent of the
multiple bushes. He’s totally burnt out (as much or more so than dumbya bush or
mubarack) and quite done! ] Reports have emerged late Friday that Libya appears
to have shut down its Internet due to widespread protests, less than a month
after Egypt did the same.
Libya
air force bombs protesters heading for army base Haaretz |
Libyan military aircraft fired live ammunition at crowds of anti-government
protesters in Tripoli.
Gaddafi
flees Tripoli as protesters set the Libyan parliament building alight Mail
Online | Anti-government demonstrators breached the state television
building and set government property alight.
Protests
spread to Libyan capital, troops defect ABC News |
Demonstrations have begun in Tripoli and witnesses say security forces are
using live ammunition and tear gas on protesters.
Why
can’t the US legalize drugs? There’s ‘too much money in it,’ Clinton says Raw
Story | Asked by Denise Maerker of Televisa what she thought of drug
legalization, Clinton said it was unlikely to work.
Widow:
Pentagon aide Wheeler ‘killed by hitman’ UK Daily Mail |
Prominent Washington aide John Wheeler was assassinated by a hitman in a
targeted killing, his widow has claimed.
Gadhafi's
hold on Libya weakens in protest wave (AP) Deep cracks open up in Moammar
Gadhafi's regime after more than 40 years in power, with diplomats abroad and
the justice minister at home resigning, air force pilots defecting and a fire
raging at the main government hall after clashes in the capital Tripoli.
Protesters called for another night of defiance in Tripoli's main square
despite the government's heavy crackdown.
Rumsfeld
says $2.3 Trillion never lost, just untracked (yeah … riiiiight! Untracked into
their pockets … untracked WeAreChange | Activists confront
Rumsfeld on missing Pentagon funds.
Muslim
Brotherhood Cleric Calls for Fatwa on Gadhafi UPI | “It is
not heroism to fight your people and to hit them with missiles,” Qaradawi said
on al-Jazeera.
Muslim
Brotherhood: Gaddafi’s son wounded, dictator has fled International
Business Times | The report says Gaddafi, his wife and daughter have
fled the country.
UNREST IN THE MIDDLE EAST Bahrain
military retreats after shootings (Washington Post)
[Saudis Worried Protests Will Hit Home [ For the sake of the saudi Arabian people, more than just protests should come to fruition! ] AFP | Saudi royal warns Arab world uprisings could cause harm unless they reform. Bahrain authorities launch surprise attack on protesters [There’s the america and saudi Arabia effect; far less than democratic and far more deadly in the mideast among other places; talk about hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the oil reserves of a sovereign nation as the saudis; time for the saudis to go the way of dictator Mubarak and take the war criminal americans with them. ] Los Angeles Times Tear gas canisters bombard sleeping protesters in Manama's Pearl Square. At least two men are reported killed Video: Bahrain protesters look to emulate Egypt revolt euronews Riot Police Attack Bahrain Protesters Voice of America ‘Saudi Arabia sending troops to Bahrain’ Saudi Arabia is sending troops to Bahrain in a move to crack down on pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets in the capital Manama, a political analyst says. [SAUDIS TOLD OBAMA 'NOT TO HUMILIATE MUBARAK' [ Sounds like they’re hearing footsteps…Previous: Egyptian capital teeters on anarchy Mubarak asks cabinet to resign as anti-regime protests intensify (Washington Post) [ Mubarak should have been looking in the mirror as he asked his cabinet to resign … 30 years is a long time, and coincidentally, time for him to go. In Egypt: Access denied (Washington Post) [The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark [I disagree! Part of the internet didn’t die, but rather the order to so darken the nation heralded the demise, at 30 years and counting, of the so-called leadership in the persona of Mubarak. Time for him to go! After all, he’s been in a position, with Egypt among the only Mideast nations to have signed a peace treaty with israel, to have stepped up with substantial credibility in taking a strong position against israeli transgressions, violations of international law / u.n. resolutions, war crimes, etc., which beyond soft-touch, he failed to do. And, of all places, he sends his family to Orwellian england; he still loves those colonial masters … how pathetic. I mean, 30 years … how free-flowing does anyone think the election process is at this point … and one could ask the same regarding the entrenched powers that be in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america, to be fair. Then there’s saudi arabia; talk about do nothing hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the oil reserves of a sovereign nation; I suspect only when foreign corporations say so. The only Mideast nations showing backbone are Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, and, of course the perennially propaganda painted bad-boy Iran among possibly some of the smaller emirates, ie., Qatar, etc., (I lack sufficient information regarding these other nations). ] (AP) Internet cutoff fails to silence Egypt protests (AP) - ]
A
frayed alliance: Obama and unions Wis.
budget impasse deepens (Washington
Post) [ Frayed? How ‘bout flayed, fillet, and souffled … Or, screwed, nude, and
double chewed … Drudgereport: OBAMA
BACKS UNION UPROAR
PELOSI
BACKS PROTESTERS: 'I STAND IN SOLIDARITY'...
DEBT
NOW EQUALS ENTIRE ECONOMY
OBAMA
AGENDA IS OVER
Obama
refers to himself as 'The Gipper'… [ Riiiight! …anything you say wobmama the b
for b*** s***… or maybe the bipper, the chipper, or the yankee clipper (the new
joltin’ joe) …sounds like he’s losing it! ] ...
BUDGET
WOES FORCE STATES TO CONSIDER ABOLISHING '12 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES...
STATE
BUDGETS ON THE BRINK: CA, TX, IL, NY, NJ...
WISC
GOV: 'NOT GOING TO BE BULLIED, INTIMIDATED'...
Orders
state troopers to bring Dems to Capitol...
'There
Is Fear For Scott Walker's Safety'...
Dem
Sen: We'll stay away for weeks...
WALKOUT:
Milwaukee Schools closed; teachers call in 'sick'...
REPORT:
Average city teacher compensation tops $100,000...
PAPER:
GET BACK TO WORK!
DNC
playing role in protests...
Jesse
to the Rescue: Jackson rallies protesters...
'A
real Martin Luther King moment'...
Union
Fight Heats Up...
Republicans
vow to cut spending in state capitols...
Protests
Spread to Ohio...
Michigan...
'Coming
To Minnesota'...
Idaho
offical target of threats over education reform plan...
Egypt
in America?
'Day
of Rage' Hits Wisconsin over state unions...
Madison
schools closed; 1,100 teachers call in 'sick'...
Obama:
'Assault on Unions'...
Obama-founded
OFA spearheading effort to defeat bill...
Boehner:
'Suspend these tactics'...
DEMS
FLEE STATE HOUSE
SENATE
DEMOCRATS FOUND -- AT A RESORT IN ILLINOIS!
Gov.
Walker calls on Dems to return, vote...
Protesters,
supporters clash in Ohio over union bill...
Activists
swarm Boehner's Capitol Hill home; Chant 'don't tread on DC'..
Carney:
Stimulus 'Goals Have Been Met'...
GALLUP:
Unemployment hits 10%...
Feds
Borrow Additional $29,660/Household Since Obama Signed Stimulus...
Ratings
Downgrades Loom for Cash-Strapped States...
Hillary Clinton: Israeli Settlements 'Illegitimate'… [We know that
hill … We’ve known that for quite some time along with their illegal nukes, war
crimes, etc…The whole world knows that hill… so don’t just talk about it … DO
SOMETHING! ] ...
Offended
Mubarak refuses calls from Obama...
Ahmadinejad:
Obama can't spell his own name (True … it’s ‘w o b a m a’ with ‘the b for b*** s***’ his surname …
he’s so pathetic and a total caricature / joke!) ...
Egypt's
protests flare despite military warning...
Libya
set for 'day of anger'...
Thousands
of police confront protesters in Yemen...
Riot
police storm Bahrain camp; 2 reported dead...
ABCNEWS
Correspondent Beaten...
100
Egyptians reach Italy amid Arab exodus...
CARTER:
Muslim 'hood nothing 'to be afraid of'...
PAPER:
Senate hearing turns into farce as American ignorance on Egypt revealed...
USA TO REBUKE ISRAEL AT UN
Poll:
Majority of Republicans Doubt Obama's Birthplace...
Agents
Shot in Mexico...
WORRIES
OBAMA OFFICIALS...
ICE
IN VICE...
GAO:
Feds have 'operational control' of 44% of border; just 15% 'air tight'...
DAY
3: 'Watson' the computer creams human 'JEOPARDY!' champs...
REPORT:
Steve Jobs receiving treatment at cancer center... PAPER:
'Reportedly sicker than previously admitted'...
ISSA
MAKES A MOVE: New subpoena seeks records on sweetheart loans...
U.S.
Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’
'Kill
Switch' Internet bill alarms privacy experts...
GOP
BLASTS FCC NET RULES...
TSA
agents busted at JFK for stealing $160,000 from bags...
Hillary
Clinton donors indicted...
Man
mugs 96-year-old -- for $5...
France
Wants New Global Finance System; End of Dollar Dominance...
Fannie,
Freddie bailout: $153 billion and counting...
GALLUP:
Unemployment at 10.3%...
Muslim
Bros plan political party...
Present
Two Faces...
Pakistan
Islamists warn of protests if US prisoner freed...
SECSTATE
JR: Sen Kerry arrives in Pakistan, expresses 'regret', 'sorrow'...
GADDAFI
TELLS PALESTINIANS: REVOLT AGAINST ISRAEL
World
Bank: Food prices at 'dangerous levels'...
Gov't
Motors to pay out $189 million in bonuses; some workers to get 50% payoffs..
Deficit
Expected to Jump to $1.65 Trillion...
...'slow
train wreck coming'
BUDGET
BLOWOUT: How big is $3.73 trillion? $12,000 from each American...
ANALYSIS:
$1.5 trillion
tax hike over 10 years...
AIRLINES:
New fees would be $2 billion tax increase on flyers...
Sessions:
Obama failed on budget...
Long
Spending Fight...
Produce
prices to skyrocket with freeze in Mexico, Southwest...
Clothing
Prices to Rise 10% Starting in Spring...
China
Replaced Japan in 2010 as Number 2 Economy...
China
plans Colombian rail link to challenge Panama canal...
The
March On Berlusconi...
Berlusconi
indicted in prostitution probe...
Malware
'Aimed at Iran Hit Five Sites'...
Mubarak
'falls into coma after final speech'...
Egyptian
military orders last protesters out of 'Liberation Square'...
Consolidates
power...
Delivers
ultimatum...
Boy
wrestler forfeits match to female opponent... [ What a homo! Wow! I
feel sorry for those guys she actually beat (20 of them – her record was 20 and
13) … they’ll probably never get over it … nor should they … I have to rethink
my regard for Iowa, Iowa state wrestling now presuming such stalwart
championship teams to be the products of out-of-state imports … as for the guy
who forfeited, he could have easily and gently taken her down (you can easily
do that with a lesser opponent), got her in a double grapevine and grind her in
a certain way into the mat, and when she was in the throws of convulsive
orgasm, she’d unwittingly arch her back, thereby pressing her own shoulder
blades to the mat, thereby pinning herself, thus enabling the homo to say in a
manner of speaking that he was making heterosexual love not war with her ………
how pathetic and preposterous this was … and, let me remind the homo that God
doesn’t care that you wrestle a girl who wants to wrestle! ]
]
House
approves dramatic cuts in federal spending
Vote
sets up showdown with Dems; threat of shutdown looms (Washington
Post) [ As they say on SNL, ‘What’s up with that?’. Come on! Wake up! That
doesn’t even cover the interest on a $14 trillion debt. And, how disingenuous
of the author to write, ‘largest cut of its kind since WWII’… Not in percentage
terms by a long shot! … Timid
Tuesday: Is it Safe? Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are
simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of
global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form
of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh)
is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut
$100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while
continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1%
each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool
all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT
THERE! ‘ ] After all-night debate, House votes
235-189 to approve plan to cut $60 billion in federal funding in what'd be the
largest cut of its kind since WWII.
The Four Horsemen of the Dow: Dave's Daily ‘No, I wasn't alive to watch the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame play
football but I did watch the DJIA today. As you know this is a "price
weighted" index. Four companies that rose today were among the priciest:
BA, CAT, CVX and TRV. The rest were mixed to flat. Imagine if TPTB added AAPL
or GOOG to the index. But, for most Americans, the DJIA is what they see most
every day if they care. Cynically, as some say, it's just "window dressing
for the tourists" to wit the current headline at the WSJ: "Stocks
Close at 2 ˝ Year High". Does it really matter that four stocks accounted
for the positive headline? If, you're looking deeper into what's really going
on in markets, sure it should. But many investors aren't that
curious especially when interest rates remain near zero and POMO
is ubiquitous encouraging investors to take more risks. No matter unemployment
shows no sign of improving, housing is still in the dumps and key strategic
countries (Bahrain, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria and Tunisia) are all aflame.
There wasn't any economic data today other than Bernanke defending his
policies. And, there was little earnings news. The dollar was weak and most commodities were
strong while bonds sold-off. In case you're interested I'll be doing a webinar
for SFO Magazine "Around the World with ETFs". You may register here to
listen and comment for free. Volume for an options expiration day was light but
perhaps ahead of a three day weekend is understandable. Breadth was pretty flat
per the WSJ.’
Stock Melt-Up Continues to Ignore Warnings [ While I generally warn
against short-selling as an investment strategy for all but the most successful
speculators (there are very, very few), if there ever was a time to try your
luck at same, that time is now! We’re now beyond the absurd in these
overbought, overvalued, contrived, manipulated markets. See also, Dave infra,
‘…Further,
the Philly Fed (riiiiight … that global hub of manufacturing activity) came in
much higher than expected although inside the numbers the prices paid vs prices
received disparity was the greatest since 1979. That wasn't a great time for
corporate profits. Even though there's some "discussion" within the
Fed over the effectiveness of QE operations another heavy dose of POMO
was released to trading desks again
Thursday. …’ Why Isn’t Wall Street
in Jail? Matt Taibbi | Financial crooks brought down the
world’s economy — but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute
them. This is a not too big to fail, but a too willing to pay bribes to jail -
reality. (This really is beyond the pale, particularly when they trumpet
prosecution of $225 million in medicare frauds while wall street’s continuing
fraud in the trillions remains unprosecuted – there is no excuse whatsoever –
pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america is done!). ] Minyanville ‘Suttmeier, chief market strategist at ValuEngine.com: The
stock melt-up has the major equity averages above this week’s pivots putting
the focus on the Nasdaq and its quarterly risky level at 2853. The Dow
Transports broke above the potential double-top. Stocks are ignoring the
ValuEngine Valuation Warning and extreme overbought technical market
indicators. The 10-Year yield failed at my weekly risky level at 3.568 after
holding my annual value level at 3.791 last week. Comex gold is above my annual
pivot at $1356.5 and closed above its 50-day simple moving average at
$1372.2. Nymex crude oil remains below my semiannual pivot at $87.52, but is now
oversold. The euro is above its 50-day simple moving average at 1.3377 with
this week’s risky level at 1.3636.
New Highs for the Move for the Major Equity Averages
We continue to trade under a ValuEngine Valuation Warning -- Sixteen of 16
sectors overvalued with only 32.4% of all stocks undervalued on Wednesday,
below the 35% threshold by this measure. This also means that 67.6% of all
stocks are overvalued.
10-Year Note -- (3.619) Is between my annual value level at 3.791 and my
weekly risky level at 3.568.
Comex Gold -- ($1375.3) My annual pivot is $1356.5 with the 50-day
simple moving average at $1372.2 with my monthly risky level at $1412.4.
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($85.00) Continues to trade below my semiannual pivot
at $87.52 and is now oversold on its daily chart with today’s value level at
$82.85.
The Euro -- (1.3567) Still above its 50-day simple moving average at
1.3377 with my weekly risky level at 1.3636.
Housing Starts and Permits Remain Soft -- Housing Starts increased 14.6%
in January, but the gain was entirely due to a 77.7% increase in the
multifamily sector. Single family starts declined 1.0% to a 413,000 annual rate
with single family permits down 4.8%. Overall building permits declined 10.4%.
More Information From the NAHB Housing Market Index -- If you look at
the National Association of Home Builders Housing Market Index going back to
1985 it never went below 20 until October 2007. During the 1988 to 1992
mini-crisis the lowest reading was 20 in January 1991. For the current popping
of the housing bubble this index peaked at 72 in June 2005, when the CEOs of
the publicly traded home builders described the housing market as the best they
have ever seen.
Back in June 2005 ValuEngine had the home builders extremely overvalued and I
noted their weekly price charts were extremely overbought. I wrote a piece
calling for a summer 2005 peak for the home builder stocks, which proved to be
a prudent market call. The NAHB HMI has been 20 or below since September 2007
and has been between 13 and 16 the past nine months. The exception was a 22
reading in the height of the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit in May 2010.
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their weekly Mortgage
Applications Survey decreased 9.5% with the Refinance Index down
11.4%, to the lowest reading since July 3, 2009. The Purchase Index decreased
5.9%, and is 18.2% lower than a year ago. A major drag is attributed to the
above 5% mortgage rate, up
nearly a full percentage point from the October 2010 low, in the midst of when
Fed Chief Bernanke was touting that the pending QE2 program would push
longer-term yields lower to help consumers. The only thing that QE2 has done
is inflate an equity market to an overvalued and overbought inflating financial
bubble!
The minutes from the latest Fed Meeting indicates that unemployment
and tight credit conditions continues to be a drag on the housing market. History
repeats: Housing peaked in mid-2005 and the recovery has been nil.
Community banks peaked at the end of 2006, and Bank Failure Friday continues.
Regional Banks peaked in March 2007, and toxic assets remain in the banking
system. Fed policy with that ridiculously low funds rate and QE2 is masking
problems that will still plague the US economy for the next several years.’
January Weather's Economic Impact: Catalyst for Overdue
Market Correction? [ As pointed out infra, the Index of Leading
Indicators was up only a miniscule .1% . All components are particularly
vulnerable to manipulation, false reporting, and outright fraud, particularly
in light of the absolute desperation of those involved in the reporting along
with to whom and of course the fraudulently manipulated to the upside stock
prices which are a significant component and the ultimate bootstrap, so to
speak. The election also figured prominently in the manipulation and even if
believed (I don’t), still not so hot and a far more grim scenario is but around
the corner. That scenario is : Reality!
Investopedia: What
Does Composite Index of Leading Indicators
Mean? An index published monthly by the Conference
Board used to predict the direction of the economy's movements in the
months to come. The index is made up of 10 economic components, whose
changes tend to precede changes in the overall economy. These 10
components include:
1. the average weekly hours worked by manufacturing workers
2. the average number of initial applications for unemployment insurance
3. the amount of manufacturers' new orders for consumer goods and
materials
4. the speed of delivery of new merchandise to vendors from suppliers
5. the amount of new orders for capital goods unrelated to defense
6. the amount of new building permits for residential buildings
7. the S&P 500 stock index8. the inflation-adjusted monetary supply (M2)
9. the spread between long and short interest rates
10. consumer sentiment ] Kaminis‘As
we suspected, January weather is proving to have hampered economic activity.
Blizzards and super storms rampaged across much of the nation last month, and
economic reports are now showing the effects born to the economy. The latest
such report, and broad reaching measure to make this case, is Leading Economic
Indicators, but we've also seen data from companies like FedEx (FDX) offering good reason to adjust
expectations and portfolios. As a publisher, I can give you firsthand
testimony to the economic effects of January's weather. Almost all of my
advertisers have reported dead business through the month, which has weighed on
our own cash flow as well. January offered a rude awakening as to just how
perilous are the operations of small businessmen, who have weathered the worst
part of the recession, but are still just scraping by, and with little leeway
for error.Economic reports should continue to prove out that the harsh weather
that battered all of the country in January, especially the population
concentrated Northeast, provided a speed bump to economic growth. The few
January reports that have reached the wire to-date offer enough support to our
case, but the stock market has not shown ill-effect as yet.The Leading
Indicators Index, just reported for January, showed only a 0.1% increase. The
meek result compared against December's revised 0.8% increase and November's
1.1% rise. The Conference Board, which puts the LEI together, reported that
while the economic trend is expansionary, current economic conditions remain
weak. The cumulative change in the LEI over the last six months is a solid
3.0%. However, the Board reported that the Coincident Economic Index, which
measures current conditions, rose just 0.1%, following a 0.3% increase in
December and 0.2% rise in November. Furthermore, the Conference Board's Lagging
Economic Index dropped 0.1%.The factors behind the softness in January were
listed as weaker housing permits and poor labor market indicators. We've
posited here before that the weather likely played a role in weird results from
the Labor Department last month, if not keeping depressed job searchers buried
at home. We've likewise warned that the weather might throw off January's
housing data, some of which has already been released, with more to come next
week.Other reports have more clearly depicted the sad season we describe here.
Industrial Production, reported Wednesday for January, produced a 0.1% decrease
where economists were looking for a 0.5% increase. Capacity Utilization also
confounded economists, falling to 76.1% from a revised 76.2% rate in December.
Economists were looking for an improvement to 76.3%. Now, Industrial Production
actually softened partly due to lower utility production on warmer average
temperatures in January, which is a counter to our argument. Though, Factory
Production in isolation and excluding motor vehicle production, rose modestly
0.1%, agreeing with our theory somewhat.
The softer data piles on. The month's Housing
Starts data showed a slippage in permitting activity, as the pace slowed to
562K, from 627K in December. Furthermore, single-family home authorizations
fell 4.8% to 421K. The pace of single-family housing starts also fell 1% to
413K. January's Retail Sales (and sales excluding autos) rose 0.3%, but both
figures missed the economists' consensus expectations for 0.5% increases.As
economists seem to have overlooked the weather in January, they have likely
conveyed a certain optimism to strategists, who have likewise guided portfolio
managers and analysts. As more data points are reported for January, and if
they are reported significantly off, then stocks could sell off briefly over
the short-short-term on a shift in understanding.Indeed, some companies have
been directly impacted by the weather already, and others will likely report
earnings impact in their Q1 releases. FedEx cut its projected fiscal third
quarter EPS forecast to a range of $0.70 to $0.90, from $0.95 to $1.15, due to
in part to "winter storms." Analysts had been looking for EPS of
$1.02 on average, based on Bloomberg's data. Whether directly or indirectly,
and based on my anecdotal witness, I think we can expect companies to report
weather impacted results for this quarter. With economists, strategists and
analysts potentially all off the mark, there's risk to stocks.Given the January
weather is not an ongoing issue, you can look for analysts to blow off any
negative surprises, and to guide investors to stick with their recommendations
as they also save face. The weather is still considered a temporary and
insignificant factor in valuation (though that's increasingly debatable given
climate change), and so any damage to stocks should be only a trading hit that
might open opportunities for long-term buying interests in good names. However,
most technical charts, including those by our technical analyst, show a market
overdue for a correction. Thus, perhaps we have here a catalyst.’
February 18, 2011: Market Summary [Caveat: This
market is worse than overbought. This market is fraudulently manipulated,
overvalued as preceded all other crashes and this time will be no different and
in some ways worse owing to the structural shift away from pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america. ] Investopedia ‘The past several weeks have been very difficult
for traders who believe that the markets are headed for a
pullback. It seems like any signs of weakness have been quickly overcome
by the bulls and the markets continue to chug along as they race to
new highs. While it is prudent to preach caution when the markets are in such a
strong uptrend, the simple fact is that there is no evidence yet of a market
top. It is wise for traders to respect this strength and simply
recognize that the environment is overbought. In his famous quote, John Keynes
stated that “the markets can remain irrational longer than you can stay
solvent.” …’
21
Signs That The Once Great U.S. Economy Is Being Gutted, Neutered, Defanged,
Declawed And Deindustrialized Once upon a time… The Economic Collapse Feb 12, 2011 ‘Once upon a time, the United
States was the greatest industrial powerhouse that the world has ever
seen. Our immense economic machinery was the envy of the rest of the
globe and it provided the foundation for the largest and most vibrant middle
class in the history of the world. But now the once great U.S. economic
machine is being dismantled piece by piece. The U.S. economy is being
gutted, neutered, defanged, declawed and deindustrialized and very few of our
leaders even seem to care. It was the United States that once showed the
rest of the world how to mass produce televisions and automobiles and airplanes
and computers, but now our industrial base is being ripped to shreds. Tens
of thousands of our factories and millions of our jobs have been shipped
overseas. Many of our proudest manufacturing cities have been transformed
into “post-industrial” hellholes that nobody wants to live in anymore.
Meanwhile,
wave after wave of shiny new factories is going up in nations such as China,
India and Brazil. This is great for those countries, but for the millions
of American workers that desperately needed the jobs that have been sent
overseas it is not so great.
This is the
legacy of globalism. Multinational corporations now have the choice
whether to hire U.S. workers or to hire workers in countries where it is legal
to pay slave labor wages. The “great sucking sound” that Ross Perot
warned us about so long ago is actually happening, and it has left tens of
millions of Americans without good jobs.
So what is to
become of a nation that consumes more than it ever has and yet continues to
produce less and less?
Well, the
greatest debt binge in the history of the world has enabled us to maintain (and
even increase) our standard of living for several decades, but all of that debt
is starting to really catch up with us.
The American
people seem to be very confused about what is happening to us because most of
them thought that the party was going to last forever. In fact, most of
them still seem convinced that our brightest economic days are still ahead.
After all,
every time we have had a “recession” in the past things have always turned
around and we have gone on to even greater things, right?
Well, what
most Americans simply fail to understand is that we are like a car that is
having its insides ripped right out. Our industrial base is being gutted
right in front of our eyes.
Most Americans
don’t think much about our “trade deficit”, but it is absolutely central to
what is happening to our economy. Every year, we buy far, far more from
the rest of the world than they buy from us.
In 2010, the
U.S. trade deficit was just a whisker under $500 billion. This is money
that we could have all spent inside the United States that would have supported
thousands of American factories and millions of American jobs.
Instead, we
sent all of those hundreds of billions of dollars overseas in exchange for a
big pile of stuff that we greedily consumed. Most of that stuff we
probably didn’t need anyway.
Since we spent
almost $500 billion more with the rest of the world than they spent with us, at
the end of the year the rest of the world was $500 billion wealthier and the
American people were collectively $500 billion poorer.
That means
that the collective “economic pie” that we are all dividing up is now $500
billion smaller.
Are you
starting to understand why times suddenly seem so “hard” in the United States?
Meanwhile,
jobs and businesses continue to fly out of the United States at a blinding
pace.
This is a
national crisis.
We simply
cannot expect to continue to have a “great economy” if we allow our economy to
be deindustrialized.
A nation that
consumes far more than it produces is not going to be wealthy for long.
The following
are 21 signs that the once great U.S. economy is being gutted, neutered,
defanged, declawed and deindustrialized….
#1 The U.S. trade deficit with the rest of the world
rose to 497.8
billion dollars in 2010. That represented a 32.8% increase from 2009.
#2 The U.S. trade deficit with China rose to an
all-time record of 273.1
billion dollars in 2010. This is the largest trade deficit that one
nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.
#3 The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times
larger than it was back in 1990.
#4 In the years since 1975, the United States had run a
total trade deficit of
7.5 trillion dollars with the rest of the world.
#5 The United States spends more
than 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that
China spends on goods and services from the United States.
#6 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of all U.S. economic
output. In 2008, it represented only 11.5 percent and it continues to
fall.
#7 The number of net jobs gained by the U.S. economy
during this past decade was smaller than during any other decade
since World War 2.
#8 The Bureau of Labor Statistics originally predicted
that the U.S. economy would create approximately 22 million jobs during the
decade of the 2000s, but it turns out that the U.S. economy only produced about 7 million jobsduring
that time period.
#9 Japan now manufactures about 5 million more
automobiles than the United States does.
#10 China has now become the world’s largest
exporter of high technology products.
#11 Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer
industry is actually lower in 2010 than
it was in 1975.
#12 The United States now has 10 percent fewer “middle class jobs” than it did
just ten years ago.
#13 According to Tax Notes,
between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S.
parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million.
During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational
corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.
#14 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United
States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the
United States are manufacturing jobs.
#15 Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of
the world’s high-tech export market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years
later, the United States had less than 15 percent and China’s share had soared to 20 percent.
#16 The number of Americans that have become so
discouraged that they have given up searching for work completely now
stands at an all-time high.
#17 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.
#18 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent
of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#19 Since 2001, over 42,000 U.S. factories have closed
down for good.
#20 In 2008, 1.2 billion cellphones were sold
worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United
States? Zero.
#21 Ten years ago, the “employment rate” in the United
States was about 64%. Since then it
has been constantly declining and now the “employment rate” in the United
States is only about 58%. So where
did all of those jobs go?
The world is
changing.
We are
bleeding national wealth at a pace that is almost unimaginable.
We are
literally being drained dry.
Did you
know that
China now has the world’s fastest train and the world’s largest high-speed
rail network?
They were able
to afford those things with all of the money that we have been sending them.
How do you
think all of those oil barons in the Middle East became so wealthy and could
build such opulent palaces?
They got rich
off of all the money that we have been sending them.
Meanwhile,
once great U.S. cities such as Detroit, Michigan now look like war zones.
Back in 1985,
the U.S. trade deficit with China was about 6 million dollars for the entire
year.
As mentioned
above, the U.S. trade deficit with China for 2010 was over 273billion
dollars.
What a
difference 25 years can make, eh?
What do you
find when you go into a Wal-Mart, a Target or a dollar store today?
You find row
after row after row of stuff made in China and in other far away countries.
It can be more
than a bit difficult to find things that are actually made inside the United
States anymore. In fact, there are quite a few industries that have
completely and totally left the United States. For certain product
categories it is now literally impossible to buy something made in America.
So what are we
going to do with our tens of millions of blue collar workers?
Should we just
tell them that their jobs are not ever coming back so they better learn phrases
such as “Welcome to Wal-Mart” and “Would you like fries with that”?
For quite a
few years, the gigantic debt bubble that we were living in kind of insulated us
from feeling the effects of the deindustrialization of America.
But now the
pain is starting to kick in.
It has now
become soul-crushingly
difficult to find a job in America today.
According to
Gallup, the U.S. unemployment rate is currently 10.1% and when you throw in
“underemployed” workers that figure rises to 19.6%.
Competition
for jobs has become incredibly fierce and it is going to stay that way.
The great U.S.
economic machine is being ripped apart and dismantled right in full view of us
all.
This is not a
“conservative” issue or a “liberal” issue. This is an American issue.
The United
States is rapidly being turned into a “post-industrial” wasteland.
It is time to
wake up America.’
This is
that unmentionable reality as I alluded to earlier on close scrutiny of the
data, ‘that stock prices have been manipulated to the upside beyond any and all
rational basis‘ and as I previously wrote: Perception vs. Reality: Four Reasons to Remain Cautious on U.S.
Equities [ Hey, Abbott … That’s Lou
Costello calling him from the other side … Wake up! … Just kidding … but I’m
not kidding when I say that contrary to Abbott’s view, infra, if you’re not a
successful market timer you should rethink your position as an equity investor.
Moreover, in contradistinction to Mr. Abbott’s implication, if you’re not a
successful speculator (there are very few), you should rethink your position as
a short seller: reason…, you could be wiped out, lose more than your principal,
forced to cover (that’s why
the same is considered a contrary market indicator, particularly in these
manipulated, contrived markets). When I did my MBA thesis (1977, NYU, GBA,
Eve.Prog., Finance), a review of the data revealed even then (and much more so
now with computer programmed market manipulation) that the market remained
biased / propped up (artificially, especially now with computerized
manipulation) to the upside for far longer periods of time than for the
downside which meant that dollar-cost averaging (through regular, periodic
investment, for example), meant you were accumulating shares at higher prices
generally for longer periods of time skewing the average cost to the upside
(dollar-cost-averaging in declining markets was ok if analysis / forecast saw
resurgence based on fundamentals - now absent – which is timing, as even senile
wall street / gov’t shill Buffet would attest, that ‘greedy when others are
fearful thing’). Abbott discusses perception which is the psychological factor
involved in security evaluation / analysis; but investors need not and should
become nuts themselves, particularly when as now, the inmates are running the
asylum. ] Abbott ‘Perception
determines short-term market movements. The difference between perception and
reality determines the direction of major market trends. Though I generally try
to avoid making macro prognostications, I believe bottom-up analysis can be
informative about the current level of stock prices. I want to share what my
recent work tells me about where stocks are (and where they might be headed). I
will outline some various nuggets of collective wisdom that are taken for
granted right now by stock bulls, and I will attempt to demonstrate how reality
is likely to differ from these perceptions.
First, a
disclaimer. This is not a market timing call. At all times, I stay away from
market timing predictions. I think that's a loser's game in the long run. Even
if I'm correct about the discrepancies between the following perceptions and
realities, there's no saying when people will change their minds or shift their
focuses. That said, let's dive in.
Perception
vs. Reality #1
Perception: Low Interest Rates, Questionable Bond Outlook Means Stocks are
Attractive
Reality: Interest Rates Are Being Artificially and Deliberately Manipulated
It's no secret
that the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy and quantitative easing
efforts have held interest rates very low for very long. However, when people
talk about stock market implications of bond yields, they rarely mention the
fact that bond yields are artificially low. In an unmanipulated
market, bond prices and stock valuations should be related, but I regard that
connection as highly dubious right now. Investors who say that stocks deserve
higher multiples (lower earnings yields) because bond yields are so low may
well be setting themselves up for disappointing returns/frustrating losses when
bond prices normalize. Again, this isn't a market timing call, and yields may
remain low for quite some time. But, eventually this discrepancy will correct
itself, and stock performance is likely to suffer at that time.
Perception
vs. Reality #2
Perception: Earnings Growth Has Been Strong and Will Remain That Way
Reality: Top-Line Growth Will Have to Pick Up; Cost-Cutting has Run Its
Course
Earnings growth
has certainly been robust, but much of the strength has come from companies
running lean cost structures and wringing as much efficiency as possible out of
their employees and their assets. Though the recession has ended, the economy
is not yet healthy enough to fuel strong sales growth. Companies can only boost
profits by cutting costs and increasing productivity for so long. Therefore,
top-line growth will have to play a larger role going forward than it has over
the past 4-6 quarters. Whether or not economic growth is strong enough to drive
revenue increases is unsure, but the current level of stock prices undoubtedly
assumes it is. Any stagnation of the recovery and concomitant sluggish sales
will likely hit stock prices.
Perception
vs. Reality #3
Perception: European Debt Crisis Drives Short-Term Volatility, but It's Not
a Long-Term Concern
Reality: Crisis May Be a Harbinger of What's to Come in the U.S. if States,
the Feds Don't Improve Balance Sheets
So far, turmoil
in Greece and Ireland has served only as a temporary headwind to U.S. stocks.
In keeping with the investment world's increasingly short-term focus, people
seem more concerned with what fiscal crises in Europe mean for U.S. stocks over
the coming days and months than with what they might mean down the road. I
believe that this interpretation misses the mark. Since the U.S. fiscal
situtation is generally considered to be stronger than that in many European
countries, U.S. federal and municipal debt issuance has been relatively smooth,
and interest rates have only risen modestly. If the U.S. doesn't get serious
about its fiscal woes, eventually the crisis will arrive on American shores.
There's no way of telling when this might happen, but the current level of
stock prices seems to imply that it never will.
Here's the
problem with that. To fix the federal balance sheet and/or to improve state and
municipal balance sheets, legislators will have to raise taxes and/or cut
spending. Tax hikes and spending cuts both reduce consumer spending. This hurts
growth. There's no way around this. Stocks can certainly continue to rise for
some time, but austerity will be bearish if/when it comes. If it doesn't come,
we're in for a much bigger crisis some time down the road.
Perception
vs. Reality #4
Perception: Everywhere You Look, You See Good Companies at Cheap Prices
Reality: It's Hard to Find Genuine Bargains, but There are Intriguing Short
Prospects Everywhere
There is no
shortage of stock market commentators who claim that they see bargains
everywhere they look. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right places, but I've
been having a difficult and increasingly impossible time finding good companies
at reasonable prices. I use similar criteria to assess long and short
investments, and I find intriguing shorts in lots of sectors right now. This
tells me that valuations are stretched. Certainly they can become more so
before we get a selloff, but every day that stocks rally, they get more
expensive.
I've written on Seeking
Alpha about a number of stocks which I regard as expensive (CRM, OPEN, GMCR), and take my word for it:
there are plenty more than these whose shares I do not want to own at present
levels. A few weeks ago, I also mused about the Facebook-Goldman deal and
argued that this valuation is indicative of excessive investor enthusiasm.
Bargains are hard to find, and as valuations go up, so does positive sentiment.
While this is not a prediction of an impending correction or bear market, it is
a message of caution for people who think stocks are cheap right now.
All that said, I always try to consider both sides of any investment issue, and there are some reasons for optimism. Job growth has shown signs of improvement, and some economic data have been increasingly (though not uniformly) positive. The Federal Reserve remains accommodative, and I'm skeptical about whether or not there is political will for austerity. For these reasons, stocks could continue onward and upward. That said, I see too many reasons for caution, and investors are turning a blind eye to these concerns as their complacency rises.’
12
Economic Collapse Scenarios That We Could Potentially See In 2011 What
could cause an economic collapse in 2011? Well, unfortunately there are quite a
few “nightmare scenarios” that could plunge the entire globe into another
massive financial crisis.
The Economic Collapse Jan
20, 2011 ‘What could cause an economic collapse in 2011? Well, unfortunately
there are quite a few “nightmare scenarios” that could plunge the entire globe
into another massive financial crisis. The United States, Japan and most
of the nations in Europe are absolutely drowning in debt. The Federal
Reserve continues to play reckless games with the U.S. dollar. The price
of oil is skyrocketing and the global price of food just hit a new record
high. Food riots are already breaking out all over the world.
Meanwhile, the rampant fraud and corruption going on in world financial markets
is starting to be exposed and the whole house of cards could come crashing down
at any time. Most Americans have no idea that a horrific economic
collapse could happen at literally any time. There is no way that all of
this debt and all of this financial corruption is sustainable. At some
point we are going to reach a moment of “total system failure”.
So will it be
soon? Let’s hope not. Let’s certainly hope that it does not happen
in 2011. Many of us need more time to prepare. Most of our families
and friends need more time to prepare. Once this thing implodes there
isn’t going to be an opportunity to have a “do over”. We simply will not
be able to put the toothpaste back into the tube again.
So we had all
better be getting prepared for hard times. The following are 12 economic
collapse scenarios that we could potentially see in 2011….
#1 U.S. debt could become a massive crisis at any
moment. China is saying all of the right things at the moment, but many
analysts are openly worried about what could happen if China suddenly
decides to start dumping all of the U.S. debt that they have
accumulated. Right now about the only thing keeping U.S. government
finances going is the ability to borrow gigantic amounts of money at extremely
low interest rates. If anything upsets that paradigm, it could
potentially have enormous consequences for the entire world financial system.
#2 Speaking of threats to the global financial system,
it turns out that “quantitative easing 2″ has had the exact opposite
effect that Ben Bernanke planned for it to have. Bernanke insisted that
the main goal of QE2 was to lower interest rates, but instead all it has done
is cause interest rates to go up substantially.
If Bernanke this incompetent or is he trying to mess everything up on purpose?
#3 The debt bubble that the entire global economy is
based on could burst at any time and throw the whole planet into chaos. According
to a new report from the World Economic Forum, the total amount of credit
in the world increased from $57 trillion in 2000 to $109 trillion in
2009. The WEF says that now the world is going to need another $100
trillion in credit to support projected “economic growth” over the next
decade. So is this how the new “global economy” works? We just keep
doubling the total amount of debt every decade?
#4 As the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve
continue to pump massive amounts of new dollars into the system, the floor
could fall out from underneath the U.S. dollar at any time. The truth is
that we are already starting to see inflation really accelerate and everyone
pretty much acknowledges that official U.S. governments figures for inflation
are an absolute joke. According
to one new study, the cost of college tuition has risen 286% over the last
20 years, and the cost of “hospital, nursing-home and adult-day-care services”
rose 269% during those same two decades. All of this happened during a
period of supposedly “low” inflation. So what are price increases going
to look like when we actually have “high” inflation?
#5 One of the primary drivers of global inflation
during 2011 could be the price of oil. A large number of economists are
now projecting that the price of oil could surge well
past $100 dollars a barrel in 2011. If that happens, it is going to
put significant pressure on the price of almost everything else in the entire
global economy. In fact, as
I have explained previously, the higher the price of oil goes, the faster
the U.S. economy will decline.
#6 Food inflation is already so bad in some areas of
the globe that it is setting off massive food riots
in nations such as Tunisia and Algeria. In fact, there have been reports
of people setting themselves on fire all
over the Middle East as a way to draw attention to how desperate they
are. So what is going to happen if global food prices go up another 10 or
20 percent and food riots spread literally all over the globe during 2011?
#7 There are persistent
rumors that simply will
not go away of massive physical gold and silver shortages. Demand for
precious metals has never been higher. So what is going to happen when
many investors begin to absolutely insist on physical delivery of their
precious metals? What is going to happen when the fact that far, far, far
more “paper gold” and “paper silver” has been sold than has ever actually
physically existed in the history of the planet starts to come out? What
would that do to the price of gold and silver?
#8 The U.S. housing industry could plunge the U.S.
economy into another recession at any time. The real estate market is
absolutely flooded with homes and virtually nobody is buying. This
massive oversupply of homes means that the construction of new homes has fallen
off a cliff. In 2010, only
703,000 single family, multi-family and manufactured homes were
completed. This was a new record low, and it was down 17% from the
previous all-time record which had just been set in 2009.
#9 A combination of extreme weather and disease could
make this an absolutely brutal year for U.S. farmers. This winter we have
already seen thousands of new cold weather and snowfall records set across the
United States. Now there is some very disturbing news emerging out of
Florida of an “incurable
bacteria” that is ravaging citrus crops all over Florida. Is there a
reason why so many bad things are happening all of a sudden?
#10 The municipal bond crisis could go “supernova” at
any time. Already, investors are bailing out of bonds at a frightening
pace. State and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high
of 22
percent of U.S. GDP. According to Meredith Whitney, the municipal
bond crisis that we are facing is a gigantic threat to our financial system….
“It has
tentacles as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the
single most important issue in the United States and certainly the largest
threat to the U.S. economy.”
Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan is convinced
that things are so bad that literally 90% of our states and cities could go
bankrupt over the next five years….
#11 Of course on top of everything else, the quadrillion
dollar derivatives bubble could burst at any time. Right now we are
watching the greatest financial
casino in the history of the globe spin around and around and around and
everyone is hoping that at some point it doesn’t stop. Today, most money
on Wall Street is not made by investing in good business ideas. Rather,
most money on Wall Street is now made by making the best bets.
Unfortunately, at some point the casino is going to come crashing down and the
game will be over.
#12 The biggest wildcard of all is war. The Korean
peninsula came closer to war in 2010 than it had in decades. The Middle
East could literally explode at any time. We live in a world where a
single weapon can take out an entire city in an instant. All it would
take is a mid-size war or a couple of weapons of mass destruction to throw the
entire global economy into absolute turmoil.
Once again,
let us hope that none of these economic collapse scenarios happens in 2011.
However, we
have got to realize that we can’t keep dodging these bullets forever.
As bad as 2010
was, the truth is that it went about as good as any of us could have
hoped. Things are still pretty stable and times are still pretty good
right now.
But instead of
using these times to “party”, we should be using them to prepare.
A really, really vicious economic storm is coming and it is going to be a complete and total nightmare. Get ready, hold on tight, and say your prayers.’
In a column
last week, Myerson points out that the devastation of The Great Recession has
fallen disproportionately on the blue collar population, those without a
college degree. And he traces the rolling over of median family income in this
century, not just in the downturn, but since the turn of the century. Even at
the peak, in 2007, median family income was less than in 2000.
What Meyerson
doesn't point out is that average incomes have faired better in the 21st
century and in all of the past 50 years. In fact, average family income has
risen more than 2.5 times as much and median income over the last 30 years. Why
is this important? Because the more there is a fat tail of ever higher incomes
for a few, the greater the difference between average and median income
becomes.
Myerson says:
The great sociologist William
Julius Wilson has long argued that the key to the
unraveling of the lives of the African American poor was the decline in the
number of "marriageable males" as work disappeared from the inner
city. Much the same could now be said of working-class whites in neighborhoods
that may not look like the ghettos of Cleveland or Detroit but in which
productive economic activity is increasingly hard to find.
This grim new reality has yet to inform our debate
over how to come back from this mega-recession. Those who believe our downturn
is cyclical argue that job-creating public spending can restore us to
prosperity, while those who believe it's structural - that we have too many
carpenters, say, and not enough nurses - believe that we should leave things be
while American workers acquire new skills and enter different lines of work.
But there's a third way to look at the recession: that it's institutional, that
it's the consequence of the decisions by leading banks and corporations to stop
investing in the job-creating enterprises that were the key to broadly shared
prosperity.
Since Meyerson has chosen income disparity as a
cornerstone of his argument, let's look at how incomes have grown over the last
50 years. These are shown in the following graph, not adjusted for inflation.
click to enlarge images [chart]
Real median income and average income seem to grow
similarly in the 1950s and 1960s, the growth of average income starts to pull
away in the mid-1960s and appears to continue to gain gound for the the next
40+ years. The more average income deviates from median income the more money
is found in the high income tail on the distribution curve. This is often
called a "fat tail", which is very appropriate in this discussion
because that is where the fat cats are. The fat tail has not gotten so because
ten times as many people equaled the incomes of the former fat cats, but more
because a few fat cats have received 10 times the income. This is exemplified
by the often quoted statistic that average CEO salaries were 40x average worker
pay 50 years ago and today are more like 400x.
The change income distribution that seems to be
appearing in the above graph becomes more apparent in the following graph where
real income gains are shown for the last six decades starting with the ten
years from 1949 - 1959 (the 1950s) and ending with 1999 - 2009 (the 2000s). [chart]
The 1950s and 60s were real boom years. Starting with
the 1970s a lower level of income growth was established, but even that lower
level could not be maintained in the 2000s.
After the 1950s every decade has seen average real
income grow more than the median. The fat tail has gotten fatter over the past
half century in every decade, without exception. Yes the average did decline in
the 2000s, but the median declined 76% more!
The most dramatic pattern of change is evident when
the data is divided into two halves: 1949 to 1979 and 1979 - 2009. This is done
in the following graph: [chart]
For thirty years after World War II the wealth of the
country increased in a balanced manner. The average income containing the
greater contribution from the top earners of the day, grew at a rate very
similar to the income growth of the broader population, represented by the
median.
Yes there were "fat cats" and they had
significantly larger incomes than the bulk of the population. And these top
incomes grew over those three decades, but at almost the same rate as the
majority of the populace.
Then something happened. From 1979-2009 it appears
that the American pie suddenly got smaller. In the later three decades the real
median income growth was less than 10% of the rate seen from 1949 to 1979. And
as the pie got smaller, the fat cats took a much larger share. The average
income grew at a rate 254% that of the median income. You might say that, as
the cow gave less milk, the top of the economic ladder skimmed more and more
cream off the top.
Meyerson identifies the force majuere to be
corporate America:
Our multinational companies still invest, of course -
just not at home. A study by the Business
Roundtable and the U.S. Council Foundation found that the
share of the profits of U.S.-based multinationals that came from their foreign
affiliates had increased from 17 percent in 1977 and 27 percent in 1994 to 48.6
percent in 2006. As the companies' revenue from abroad has increased, their
dependence on American consumers has diminished. The equilibrium among
production, wages and purchasing power - the equilibrium that Henry Ford
famously recognized when he upped his workers' pay to an unheard-of $5 a day in
1913 so they could afford to buy the cars they made, the equilibrium that
became the model for 20th-century American capitalism - has been shattered.
Making and selling their goods abroad, U.S. multinationals can slash their
workforces and reduce their wages at home while retaining their revenue and
increasing their profits. And that's exactly what they've done.
Meyerson doesn't get into some of the other areas
that might be brought to bear on the current condition of the American economy:
Part of the problem is that Americans have fallen
into the way of the easiest path, where, either by credit card or by making
quick trades, the desires of the moment are satisfied with no seemingly current
cost.
It seems that few want to think about the needs of
tomorrow. This is true starting with the masses who kiss off the idea of
working hard in school to prepare for what they will need 20 years down the
road. This is also true of the "capitalist" who finds that skimming a
few percent off each of many deals a year to get quick, large quarterly returns
is much easier than investing and building something that will will make much
larger returns extending over decades and producing things of real economic
utility.
There are a number of things that Meyerson does not
address, but if you want to hit one nail at a time, I think he has picked the
baddest nail in the plank. He finishes his column thusly:
Our economic woes, then, are not simply cyclical or
structural. They are also - chiefly - institutional, the consequence of U.S.
corporate behavior that has plunged us into a downward cycle of
underinvestment, underemployment and under-consumption. Our solutions must be
similarly institutional, requiring, for starters, the seating of public and
worker representatives on corporate boards. Short of that, there will be no
real prospects for reversing America's downward mobility.
If we were to address all the other issues I
mentioned previously and did not address the institutional problem Meterson has
identified, we would not ultimately solve our economic puzzle.’
20
Shocking New Economic Records That Were Set In 2010 2010 was quite a year,
wasn’t it? 2010 will be remembered for a lot of things, but for those living in
the United States, one of the main things that last year will be remembered for
is economic decline…The Economic
Collapse Jan 14, 2011 ‘2010 was
quite a year, wasn’t it? 2010 will be remembered for a lot of things, but
for those living in the United States, one of the main things that last year
will be remembered for is economic decline. The number of foreclosure
filings set a new record, the number of home repossessions set a new record,
the number of bankruptcies went up again, the number of Americans that became
so discouraged that they simply quit looking for work reached a new all-time
high and the number of Americans on food stamps kept setting a brand new record
every single month. Meanwhile, U.S. government debt reached record highs,
state government debt reached record highs and local government debt reached
record highs. What a mess! In fact, even many of the “good” economic
records that were set during 2010 were indications of underlying economic
weakness. For example, the price of gold set an all-time record during
2010, but one of the primary reasons for the increase in the price of gold was
that the U.S. dollar was rapidly losing value. Most Americans had been
hoping that 2010 would be the beginning of better times, but unfortunately
economic conditions just kept getting worse.
So will things
improve in 2011? That would be nice, but at this point there are not a
whole lot of reasons to be optimistic about the economy. The truth is
that we are trapped in a period of long-term economic decline and we are now
paying the price for decades of horrible decisions.
Amazingly,
many of our politicians and many in the mainstream media have declared that
“the recession is over” and that the U.S. economy is steadily improving now.
Well, if
anyone tries to tell you that the economy got better in 2010, just show them
the statistics below. That should shut them up for a while.
The following
are 20 new economic records that were set during 2010….
#1 An all-time record of 2.87
million U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in 2010.
#2 The number of homes that were actually repossessed reached
the 1 million mark for the first time ever during 2010.
#3 The price of gold moved above $1400 an ounce for the
first time ever during 2010.
#4 According to the American Bankruptcy Institute,
approximately 1.53
million consumer bankruptcy petitions were filed in 2010, which was up 9
percent from 1.41 million in 2009. This was the highest number of
personal bankruptcies we have seen since the U.S. Congress substantially
tightened U.S. bankruptcy law several years ago.
#5 At one point during 2010, the average time needed to
find a job in the United States had risen to an all-time record of 35.2 weeks.
#6 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United
States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of the jobs in the
United States are manufacturing jobs, which is believed to be a new record low.
#7 The number of Americans working part-time jobs “for
economic reasons” was the highest it has been in at least five decades
during 2010.
#8 The number of American workers that are so
discouraged that they have given up searching for work reached an all-time high near the end of 2010.
#9 Government spending continues to set new all-time
records. In fact, at the moment the U.S. government is spending
approximately 6.85 million
dollars every single minute.
#10 The number of Americans on food stamps surpassed
43 million by the end of 2010. This was a new all-time record, and
government officials fully expect the number of Americans enrolled in the
program to continue to increase throughout 2011.
#11 The number of Americans on Medicaid surpassed 50
million for the first time ever in 2010.
#12 The U.S. Census Bureau originally announced that
43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that was
the highest number of Americans living in poverty that they had ever
recorded in 51 years of
record-keeping. But now the Census Bureau says that they
miscalculated and that the real number of poor Americans is actually 47.8 million.
#13 According to the FDIC, 157
banks failed during 2010. That was the highest number of bank
failures that the United States has experienced in any single year during the
past decade.
#14 The Federal Reserve brought in a record $80.9 billion in profits during
2010. They returned $78.4 billion of that to the U.S. Treasury, but the
real story is that thanks to the Federal Reserve’s continual debasement of our
currency, the U.S. dollar was
worth less in 2010 than it ever had been before.
#15 It is projected that the major financial firms on
Wall Street will pay out an all-time record of $144 billion in compensation for
2010.
#16 Americans now owe more than $881 billion on student loans,
which is a new all-time record.
#17 In July, sales of new homes in the United
States declined to the lowest level
ever recorded.
#18 According to Zillow, U.S. housing prices have now
declined a
whopping 26 percent since their peak in June 2006. Amazingly, this is
even farther than house prices fell during the Great Depression. From
1928 to 1933, U.S. housing prices only fell 25.9 percent.
#19 State and local government debt reached at an
all-time record of 22 percent of U.S. GDP during 2010.
#20 The U.S. national debt has surpassed the 14 trillion
dollar mark for the first time ever and it is being projected that it will
soar well past 15 trillion during 2011.
There are some
people that have a hard time really grasping what statistics actually
mean. For people like that, often pictures and charts are much more
effective. Well, that is one reason I like to include pictures and graphs
in many of my articles, and below I have posted my favorite chart from this
past year. It shows the growth of the U.S. national debt from 1940 until
today. I honestly don’t know how anyone can look at this chart and still
be convinced that our nation is not headed for a complete financial meltdown….[chart]
14 Eye Opening Statistics Which Reveal Just How
Dramatically The U.S. Economy Has Collapsed Since 2007 Most
Americans have become so accustomed to the “new normal” of continual economic
decline that they don’t even remember how good things were just a few short
years ago. ‘The Economic Collapse Jan 10, 2011
’Most Americans have become so accustomed to the “new normal” of continual
economic decline that they don’t even remember how good things were just a few
short years ago. Back in 2007, unemployment was very low, good jobs were
much easier to get, far fewer Americans were living in poverty or enrolled in
welfare programs and government finances were in much better shape. Of
course most of this prosperity was fueled by massive amounts of debt, but at
least times were better. Unfortunately, things have really deteriorated
over the last several years. Since 2007, unemployment has skyrocketed,
foreclosures have set new all-time records, personal bankruptcies have soared
and U.S. government debt has gotten completely and totally out of
control. Poll after poll has shown that Americans are now far less
optimistic about the future than they were in 2007. It is almost as if
the past few years have literally sucked the hope out of millions upon millions
of Americans.
Sadly,
our economic situation is continually getting worse. Every month the
United States loses more factories. Every month the United States loses
more jobs. Every month the collective wealth of U.S. citizens continues
to decline. Every month the federal government goes into even more
debt. Every month state and local governments go into even more debt.
Unfortunately,
things are going to get even worse in the years ahead. Right now we look
back on 2005, 2006 and 2007 as “good times”, but in a few years we will look
back on 2010 and 2011 as “good times”.
We
are in the midst of a long-term economic decline, and the very bad economic
choices that we have been making as a nation for decades are now starting to
really catch up with us.
So
as horrible as you may think that things are now, just keep in mind that things
are going to continue to deteriorate in the years ahead.
But
for the moment, let us remember how far we have fallen over the past few
years. The following are 14 eye opening statistics which reveal just how
dramatically the U.S. economy has collapsed since 2007….
#1
In November 2007, the official U.S. unemployment rate was just 4.7
percent. Today, the official U.S. unemployment rate is 9.4 percent.
#2
In November 2007, 18.8% of unemployed Americans had been out of work for 27
weeks or longer. Today that percentage is up to 41.9%.
#3
As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been
unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over
6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or
longer.
#4
Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, whichis
almost four times as many as were receiving it back
in 2007.
#5
More than half of the U.S. labor force (55 percent) has “suffered a spell of
unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary
part-time workers” since the “recession” began in December 2007.
#6
According to one analysis, the United States has lost a total of approximately
10.5 million jobs since 2007.
#7
As 2007 began, only 26 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, an
all-time record of 43.2 million Americans are enrolled in the
food stamp program.
#8
In 2007, the U.S. government held a total of $725 billion in mortgage
debt. As of the middle of 2010, the U.S. government held a total of $5.148 trillion in mortgage debt.
#9
In the year prior to the “official” beginning of the most recent recession in
2007, the IRS filed just 684,000 tax liens against U.S. taxpayers. During
2010, the IRS filed over a million tax liens against U.S.
taxpayers.
#10
From the year 2000 through the year 2007, there were 27 bank failures in the
United States. From 2008 through 2010, there were 314 bank failures in the United States.
#11
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number
of U.S. families with children living in homeless sheltersincreased from 131,000 to 170,000 between 2007
and 2009.
#12
In 2007, one poll found that 43 percent of Americans were living “paycheck to
paycheck”. Sadly, according to a survey released very close to the end of
2010, approximately 55 percent
of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.
#13
In 2007, the “official” federal budget deficit was just 161 billion
dollars. In 2010, the “official” federal budget deficit was approximately 1.3 trillion dollars.
#14
As 2007 began, the U.S. national debt was just under 8.7 trillion
dollars. Today, the U.S. national debt has just surpassed 14 trillion dollars and it
continues to soar into the stratosphere.
So
is there any hope that we can turn all of this around?
Unfortunately,
the massive amount of debt that we have piled up as a society over the last
several decades has made that impossible.
If
you add up all forms of debt (government debt, business debt, individual debt),
it comes to approximately 360 percent of GDP. It is the biggest debt
bubble in the history of the world.
If
the federal government and our state governments stop borrowing and spending so
much money, our economy would collapse. But if they keep borrowing and
spending so much money they will continually make the eventual economic
collapse even worse.
We
are in the terminal stages of the most horrific debt spiral the world has ever seen,
and when the debt spiral gets stopped the house of cards is going to finally
come down for good.
So
enjoy these times while you still have them. Yes, today is not nearly as
prosperous as 2007 was, but today is most definitely a whole lot better than
2015 or 2020 is going to be.
Sadly,
we could have avoided this financial disaster completely if only we had
listened more carefully to those that founded this nation. Once upon a
time, Thomas Jefferson said
the following….
I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.’
The Economic Collapse
Dec 17, 2010
The financial
collapse that so many of us have been anticipating is seemingly closer then
ever. Over the past several weeks, there have been a host of ominous
signs for the U.S. economy. Yields on U.S. Treasuries have moved up
rapidly and Moody’s is publicly warning that it may have to cut the rating on
U.S. government debt soon. Mortgage rates are also moving up
aggressively. The euro and the U.S. dollar both look incredibly
shaky. Jobs continue to be shipped out of the United States at a
blistering pace as our politicians stand by and do nothing. Confidence in
U.S. government debt around the globe continues to decline. State and
local governments that are drowning in debt across the United States are
savagely cutting back on even essential social services and are coming up with
increasingly “creative” ways of getting more money out of all of us.
Meanwhile, tremor after tremor continues to strike the world financial
system. So does this mean that we have almost reached a tipping
point? Is the world on the verge of a major financial collapse?
Let’s hope
not, but with each passing week the financial news just seems to get eve
worse. Not only is U.S. government debt spinning wildly toward a breaking
point, but many U.S. states (such as California) are in such horrific financial
condition that they are beginning to resemble banana republics.
But it is not
just the United States that is in trouble. Nightmarish debt problems in
Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and several other European
nations threaten to crash the euro at any time. In fact, many economists
are now openly debating which will collapse first – the euro or the U.S.
dollar.
Sadly, this is
the inevitable result of constructing a global financial system on debt.
All debt bubbles eventually collapse. Currently we are living in the
biggest debt bubble in the history of the world, and when this one bursts it is
going to be a disaster of truly historic proportions.
So will we
reach a tipping point soon? Well, the following are 25 signs that the
financial collapse is rapidly getting closer….
#1 The official U.S. unemployment rate has not been
beneath 9 percent since
April 2009.
#2 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are
currently 6.3
million vacant homes in the United States that are either for sale or for
rent.
#3 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit
with China could hit 270 billion dollars
for the entire year of 2010.
#4 Back in 2000, 7.2 percent of blue collar workers
were either unemployed or underemployed. Today that figure is up
to 19.5 percent.
#5 The Chinese government has accumulated approximately
$2.65 trillion in
total foreign exchange reserves. They have drained this wealth from the
economies of other nations (such as the United States) and instead of
reinvesting all of it they are just sitting on much of it. This is
creating tremendous imbalances in the global economy.
#6 Since the year 2000, we have lost 10% of our middle class jobs. In the
year 2000 there were approximately 72 million middle class jobs in the United
States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.
#7 The United States now employs about the same number
of people in manufacturing as
it did back in 1940. Considering the fact that we had 132 million
people living in this country in 1940 and that we have well over 300 million
people living in this country today, that is a very sobering statistic.
#8 According to CoreLogic, U.S. housing prices have now
declined for
three months in a row.
#9 The average rate on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage soared
11 basis points just this past week. As mortgage rates continue to
push higher it is going to make it even more difficult for American families to
afford homes.
#10 22.5 percent of all residential mortgages in the
United States were in negative equity as of the end of the third quarter
of 2010.
#11 The U.S. monetary base has
more than doubled since the beginning of the most recent recession.
#12 U.S. Treasury yields have been rising steadily
during the 4th quarter of 2010 and
recently hit a six-month high.
#13 Incoming governor Jerry Brown is scrambling to find
$29 billion more to cut from the California state budget. The
following quote from Brown about the desperate condition of California
state finances is not going to do much to inspire confidence in California’s
financial situation around the globe….
“We’ve been living in fantasy land. It is much worse
than I thought. I’m shocked.”
#14
24.3
percent of the residents of El Centro, California are currently unemployed.
#15
The average home in Merced, California has declined in value by
63 percent over the past four years.
#16
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has come up with a new way to save money. He
wants to cut 20
percent of Detroit off from essential social services such as road repairs,
police patrols, functioning street lights and garbage collection.
#17
The second most dangerous city in the United States – Camden, New Jersey – is
about to lay off about
half its police in a desperate attempt to save money.
#18
In 2010, 55
percent of Americans between the ages of 60 and 64 were in the labor
market. Ten years ago, that number was just 47 percent. More older
Americans than ever find that they have to keep working just to survive.
#19
Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of the world’s high-tech export
market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years later, the United States had
less than 15 percent and China’s share had soared to 20 percent.
#20
The U.S. government budget deficit increased to a whopping $150.4 billion last
month, which represented the biggest November budget deficit on record.
#21
The U.S. government is somehow going to have to roll over existing debt and
finance new debt that
is equivalent to 27.8 percent of GDP in 2011.
#22
The United States had been the leading consumer of energy on the globe for
about 100 years, but this past summer China took over the number one spot.
#23
According to an absolutely stunning new poll, 40 percent of all U.S. doctors plan to bail out of the
profession over the next three years.
#24
As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been
unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over
6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.
#25
All over the United States, local governments have begun instituting “police
response fees”. For example, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come up
with a plan under which a
fee of $365 would be charged if police are called to respond to an
automobile accident where no injuries are involved. If there are injuries
as a result of the crash that is going to cost extra.
As you examine
the long-term trends, you quickly come to realize that the U.S. is trapped in
an endless spiral of debt, the middle class is being wiped out, the U.S. dollar
is being destroyed and America is rapidly becoming a post-industrial wasteland.
Posted below
are 16 nightmarish economic trends to watch carefully in 2011. It is
becoming exceedingly apparent that unless something is done rapidly we are
heading for an economic collapse of unprecedented magnitude….
#1 Do you want to see something scary? Just check
out the chart below. Since the beginning of the economic downturn, the
U.S. monetary base has more than doubled. But don’t worry – Federal
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has promised us that this could never cause
inflation. In fact, Bernanke says that we need to inject even more
dollars into the economy. So if you are alarmed by the chart below, you
are just being irrational according to Bernanke….
#2 Thousands of our factories, millions of our jobs and
hundreds of billions of dollars of our national wealth continue to be shipped
overseas. In 1985, the U.S. trade deficit with China was 6 million dollars
for the entire year. In the month of August
alone, the U.S. trade deficit with China was over 28 billion
dollars. Nobel economist Robert W. Fogel of the University of Chicago
is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the
year 2040 if current trends continue.
#3 The United States is rapidly becoming a
post-industrial wasteland. Back in 1959, manufacturing represented 28
percent of all U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented only
11.5 percent and it continues to fall. Sadly, the truth is that America
is being deindustrialized. As of the end of 2009, less
than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time that
less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#4 The number of Americans that have been out of work
for an extended period of time has absolutely exploded over the last few
years. As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had
been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over
6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.
#5 The middle class continues to be squeezed out of
existence. According to a poll
taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans ”always or usually” live
paycheck to paycheck. That was up substantially from 49 percent
in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
#6 The number of Americans living in poverty is
absolutely skyrocketing. 42.9 million Americans are now on food
stamps, and one out of every six Americans is now enrolled
in at least one anti-poverty program run by the federal government.
Unfortunately, many of those that have been hardest hit by this economic
downturn have been children. According to one new study,
approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are
living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
#7 Many American families have been pushed beyond the
breaking point during this economic downturn. Over 1.4 million Americans
filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a
32 percent increase over 2008. The final number for 2010 is expected
to be even higher.
#8 The U.S. real estate market continues to
stagnate. During
the third quarter of 2010, 67 percent of mortgages in Nevada were
“underwater”, 49 percent of mortgages in Arizona were “underwater” and 46
percent of mortgages in Florida were “underwater”. So what happens if
home prices go down even more?
#9 More elderly Americans than ever are being forced to
put off retirement and continue working. In 2010, 55
percent of Americans between the ages of 60 and 64 were in the labor
market. Ten years ago, that number was just 47 percent.
Unfortunately, it looks like this problem will only get worse in the years
ahead. In America today, approximately half of all workers have
less than $2000 saved up for retirement.
#10 In the United States today, there are simply far too
many retirees and not nearly enough workers to support them. Back in 1950
each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by 16
workers. Today, each retiree’s Social Security benefit is paid for
by approximately 3.3 workers. By 2025 it is projected that
there will be approximately two workers for each retiree.
#11 Financial assets continue to become concentrated in
fewer and fewer hands. For example, the “big four” U.S.
banks (Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells
Fargo) had approximately 22 percent of all deposits in FDIC-insured
institutions back in 2000. As of the middle of 2009 that figure was up to 39 percent.
#12 The Federal Reserve has been destroying the value of
the U.S. dollar for decades. Since the Federal Reserve was created in
1913, the U.S. dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power.
An item that cost $20.00 in 1970 would cost you $112.35 today. An item
that cost $20.00 in 1913 would cost you $440.33 today.
#13 Commodity prices continue to soar into the
stratosphere. Ten years ago, the price of a barrel of oil hovered around 20 to 30
dollars most of the time. Today, the price of oil is rapidly closing
in on 100 dollars a barrel and there are now fears that it could soon go much
higher than that.
#14 Federal government spending is completely and
totally out of control. The U.S. government budget deficit increased to a
whopping $150.4 billion last month, which represented the biggest November deficit on record. But our
politicians can’t seem to break their addiction to debt. In fact,
Democrats are trying to ram through a
1,924 page, 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill in the final days of the
lame-duck session of Congress before the Republicans take control of the House
of Representatives next year.
#15 The U.S. national debt is rapidly closing in on 14 trillion dollars. It is more
than 13 times larger than it was just 30 short years ago. According to an
official U.S. Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national debt
is projected to climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.
#16 Unfortunately, the official government numbers
grossly understate the horrific nature of the crisis we are facing. John
Williams of Shadow Government Statistics has calculated that if the federal
government would have used GAAP accounting standards to measure the federal
budget deficit for 2009, it would have been approximately 8.8
trillion dollars. Not only that, but John Williams now says that U.S.
government debt is
so wildly out of control that it is mathematically impossible for us to
“grow” our way out of it….
The government’s finances not only are out of
control, but the actual deficit is not containable. Put into perspective,
if the government were to raise taxes so as to seize 100% of all wages,
salaries and corporate profits, it still would be showing an annual deficit
using GAAP accounting on a consistent basis. In like manner, given
current revenues, if it stopped spending every penny (including defense and
homeland security) other than for Social Security and Medicare obligations, the
government still would be showing an annual deficit. Further, the U.S. has
no potential way to grow out of this shortfall.
The more one examines the U.S. economic situation,
the more depressing it becomes. The U.S. financial system is trapped
inside a horrific debt spiral and we are headed straight for economic
oblivion.
If our leaders attempt to interrupt the debt spiral
it will plunge our economy into a depression. If our leaders attempt to
keep the debt spiral going for several more years it will just make the
eventual crash even worse. Either way, we are headed for a financial
implosion that will be truly historic.
The debt-fueled good times that we have been enjoying
for the last several decades are rapidly coming to an end. Unfortunately
for the tens of millions of Americans that are already suffering, our economic
problems are only going to get worse in the years ahead.’
The following
are 25 unemployment statistics that are almost too depressing to read….
#1 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the
U.S. unemployment rate for November was 9.8
percent. This was up from 9.6 percent in October, and it continues a
trend of depressingly high unemployment rates. The official unemployment
number has been at 9.5 percent or higher for well over a year at this point.
#2 In November 2006, the “official” U.S. unemployment
rate was just 4.5
percent.
#3 Most economists had been expecting the U.S. economy
to add about 150,000 jobs in November. Instead, it
only added 39,000.
#4 In the United States today, there are over 15
million people who are “officially” considered to be unemployed for
statistical purposes. But everyone knows that the “real” number is even
much larger than that.
#5 As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million
Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today,
there are over
6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.
#6 The number of “persons not in the labor force” in
the United States recently
set another new all-time record.
#7 It now takes the average unemployed American over
33 weeks to find a job.
#8 When you throw in “discouraged workers” and
“underemployed workers”, the “real” unemployment rate in the state of
California is
actually about 22 percent.
#9 In America today there are not nearly enough jobs
for everyone. In fact, there are now approximately
5 unemployed Americans for every single job opening.
#10 According
to The New York Times, Americans that have been unemployed for five weeks
or less are three times more likely to find a new job in the coming month than
Americans that have been unemployed for over a year.
#11 The U.S. economy would need to create 235,120
new jobs a month to get the unemployment rate down to pre-recession levels
by 2016. Does anyone think that there is even a prayer that is going to
happen?
#12 There are 9
million Americans that are working part-time for “economic reasons”.
In other words, those Americans would gladly take full-time jobs if they could
get them, but all they have been able to find is part-time work.
#13 In 2009, total wages, median wages, and average
wages all
declined in the United States.
#14 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million
Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time that less
than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#15 The United States has lost at least 7.5
million jobs since the recession began.
#16 Today, only
about 40 percent of Ford Motor Company’s 178,000 workers are employed
in North America, and a big percentage of those jobs are in Canada and
Mexico.
#17 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28
percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5
percent.
#18 Earlier this year, one poll found that 28% of all American households had at least one member that
was looking for a full-time job.
#19 In the United States today, over
18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees.
#20 The United States has lost a staggering
32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#21 As the employment situation continues to stagnate,
millions of American families have decided to cut back on things such as
insurance coverage. For example, the percentage of American households
that have life insurance coverage is at its lowest level in
50 years.
#22 Unless Congress acts, and there is no indication
that is going to happen, approximately 2 million Americans will stop receiving unemployment checks over the next
couple of months.
#23 A poll that was released by the Pew Research Center
back in June discovered that an
astounding 55 percent of the U.S. labor force has
experienced either unemployment, a pay decrease, a reduction in hours
or an involuntary move to part-time work since the economic downturn began.
#24 According to Richard McCormack, the United States
has lost over
42,000 factories (and counting) since 2001.
#25 In the United States today, 317,000
waiters and waitresses have college degrees.
But this is
what we get for creating the biggest debt
bubble in the history of the world. For decades we have been digging
a deeper hole for ourselves by going into increasingly larger amounts of debt.
In America today, our entire economy is based on debt. Even our money
is debt. We were fools if we ever thought this could go on forever.
Just think about it. Have you ever gone out and run up a bunch of
debt? It can be a lot of fun sitting behind the wheel of a new car,
running your credit cards up to the limit and buying a beautiful big house that
you cannot afford. But in the end what happens? It always catches up with you.
Well, our collective debt is starting to catch up with us. There is a sea
of red ink on every level of American society. It is only a matter of
time before it destroys our economy. IF YOU THINK THAT
THINGS ARE BAD NOW, JUST WAIT. THINGS ARE GOING TO GET A WHOLE LOT
WORSE. A HORRIFIC ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IS COMING, AND IT IS GOING TO BE
VERY, VERY PAINFUL.’
Timid
Tuesday: Is it Safe? Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are
simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of
global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form
of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh)
is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut
$100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while
continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1%
each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool
all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT
THERE! ‘
17 Things Worrying
Investors Lloyd's Wall of Worry
Worry Count: 17
CHINA: 1,330,044,605 people can’t be wrong.
The PIIGS: Fasten your seatbelts. It’s gonna be a long, bumpy, expensive,
weird, (insert your own adjective here) freak show of a ride.
CALIFORNIA AND THE OTHER 49 STATES: Not yet as dire as “The PIIGS”. Might I
suggest the classier moniker of “The Prosciuttos” for the American basket-case
states?
QE II: Gobble?
U.S. ECONOMY: The “Punky Brewster” of the global economic landscape.
UNEMPLOYMENT: Only thing worse than losing your job, losing your unemployment
check. At least there’s the holiday season to cheer everyone up (read: heavy
sarcasm).
TAXES: Praying to the Financial Market Gods that we don’t have another
TARP-like vote fiasco.
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PART II: Still two years before the Pres. election and the
peanut gallery is already pleading for a Hail Mary Pass to get them back in the
game.
HFT: Instead of beating up these liquidity supplying traders, let’s honor them
with their very own stock exchange. But wait -- with no retail
saps to pick-off they will never get that Day 1 opening bell tick. Perfect.
XMAS 2010: As my professor friend Nick says, “Nowadays Americans are dining off
of two menus – The Million Dollar and the $0.99 Cent.” And both
are pissed about it.
CURRENCIES: Poor Mr. Greenback. Does someone need a hug?
HOUSING CRISIS: Price Stabilization – Are we there yet? Just a little bit more.
Are we there yet? Just a little bit more. Are we there yet? Just a little bit
more….
INFLATION/DEFLATION: Fed Chief Ben B. comes out swinging from his heels in
defense of inflation promotion. Don’t punch yourself out as this one is likely
to go the distance.
COMMODITIES: Corrected but still sky high; fortunately these prices are only
affecting core, basic, life-sustaining necessities and sparing our electronic
gadgets and plus-sized SUVs. Whew!
INSIDER TRADING: Another black eye for Hedge Funds. I estimate that makes black
eye number 6,597.
INTEREST RATES: South Korea and China slowly turning up the dial to “11”. On
the other hand the U.S. has removed the dial altogether. This never ends well….
NORTH KOREA: Here we go again. (and now Egypt, etc.)
Consumer confidence down, LiveLeak.com - Loonie closes above U.S. dollar … dollar for first time closes below parity on Canadian
loonie … hey, hey, hey … 'Huge' stock decline — but not yet MarketWatch
- Commentary: Adens … ‘mega trend’ looks grim … The
Adens expect a hyperinflationary collapse … ‘ Oh come
on! Manipulated dollar decline with inflated earnings, stock prices thereby,
etc., … we’ve seen this all before … the last few crashes … Jobless
rate jumps to 9.8% as hiring slows (Washington Post) [ The reality is not a mystery! The nation’s
been thrown under the bus for the greater good (wealth) of the very few (frauds
on wall street, etc.); wall street giving out record bonuses from their accomplished
fraud (with no-recession b.s. bernanke help) of $144 BILLION: Come on! This is
gettin’ even more downright ridiculous (if that’s even possible)! Pending home
foreclosure / distress sales up, oil prices (and oil stocks) up, debased dollar
down, plus a little familiar ‘better than expected’ thrown in along with
prospects of a ‘no-recession bernanke’ market-frothing bull session on 60
minutes and, voila, suckers’ rally into the close to keep the suckers suckered!
What’s good for the frauds on wall street is bad for just about everyone else
which includes the vast majority of people and businesses, domestically and
globally, as current dollar manipulation / debasement ultimately results in
higher costs and loss of purchasing power (ie., oil, etc.). Clearly, this is
one of those fraudulent wealth transfers to the frauds on wall street et als
which will ultimately be paid for by those who least are in a position to
afford it, courtesy of the ever more worthless Weimar dollar, etc., inflating
earnings, eps, lowering p/e multiples, etc., see infra. This is an especially
great time to sell / take profits while you can since there's much worse to
come! Previous: Rosy numbers on consumer sentiment, unemployment (far better
than private forecasts) from the government prior to the holiday so-called
‘shop till you drop’? How can anyone believe anything they say? Najerian
interviewed by Motek chimes in with the reason for good retail cheer; viz.,
people have stopped paying their mortgages and are using the funds to purchase
retail goods; while Davidowitz adds that with record numbers of americans on
food stamps, real unemployment at 17+, and wall street giving out record
bonuses from their accomplished fraud (with no-recession b.s. bernanke help) of
$144 BILLION … the high end stores /
jewelers will do well … daaaaah! And, with insiders
and wall street frauds selling into the bubble as preceded last crash, this is
an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits! Suckers’ rally on light volume, full moon, and government
complicity (false data / reports) to keep suckers suckered (easy for the wall
street frauds to do with just a mouse click / push of the button – and, they
know all those technical trade lines that are easy to program in this current
phase of the scam/fraud with the debased dollar). Keep in mind, the totally
mindless blather from the ‘cottage industries’ of and fraudulent wall street
itself in talking up lower P/E multiples when the same is a direct result of
the debasement of the dollar and the consequent manipulation / translation (not
real, see Davis, infra) which preceded the financial crisis / last crash.
Unemployment, trade, deficit, etc., numbers continue decidedly worse than
expected along with other negative data (and in the ‘wrong direction’, that
spin accorded ‘down but not as bad as before’ b*** s*** ) yet the market has
rallied like no tomorrow with used home foreclosure / distressed sales, though
abated owing to ‘foreclosuregate’, the other ‘heralded’ good news. Moreover, the dumbo lemmings of Europe have
jumped on the fraudulent defacto bankrupt american crazy train propelled to the
precipice also as if no tomorrow. This is about keeping the suckers sucked in
with the help of a market-frothing pre-election debased dollar for favorable
currency translation and paper (but not real when measured in, ie., gold, etc.)
profits which preceded the last crisis, inflating a bubble as in the last
crisis to facilitate the churn-and-earn, particularly with computerized (and
high frequency) trades and which commissions they’ll get again on the way down.
There is nothing to support these overbought stock prices, fundamentally or
otherwise. These are desperate criminals ‘at work’. Even wall street shill, the
senile Buffett is saying we’re still in a recession (depression) [
Davis: ‘… all profits are inflated
by 10% (from falling, debased dollar) and that 10% is the E that gets divided
from the P and gives us a much better price/multiple to hang our hats on and
that gets investors to BUYBUYBUY …’ The bull market that never was / were beyond wall
street b.s. when measured in gold ] This is a great
opportunity to sell / take profits (these lower dollar, hyperinflationary
currency manipulations / translations to froth paper stocks will end quite
badly as in last crash)! This
is a global depression. This is a secular bear market in a global depression.
The past up moves were manipulated bull (s***) cycles (at best) in a secular
bear market. This has been a typically manipulated bubble as has preceded the
prior crashes with great regularity that the wall street frauds and insiders
commission and sell into. This is a typical wall street ‘programmed
computerized high-frequency churn and earn pass the hot potato scam / fraud as
in prior crashes ( widely reported, high-frequency trading routinely
accounts for more than 50% of daily U.S. equity trading volume and regularly
approaches 70%. )’. This national decline, economic and otherwise, will not end
until justice is served and the wall street frauds et als are criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed.The Stock Market's
Long Decline Has Begun Smith ]
Sadly, very
little has changed since the world financial system experienced almost a
complete meltdown back in 2008. Global financial markets are still a
whirlpool of debt and speculation. One really bad week could put us right
back where we were prior to the infamous Wall Street bailouts. Very
little in our world is truly stable anymore. As we have seen recently in
Egypt, the globe can literally change almost overnight. All it would take
is for one really bad event to happen and world financial markets would
instantly start imploding.
So when will
the coming economic collapse happen? Nobody knows for sure, but the fact
that the global economy is increasingly becoming less stable as we approach the
year 2012 is making a lot of people very nervous.
The following
are 47 statistics that indicate that economic stress points in 2011 could be
setting the stage for a global economic meltdown in 2012….
#1 According to the United Nations, global food
prices set a new all-time record
during the month of January.
#2 In early February the worst freeze in 60
years wiped out entire crops all across the southwestern U.S. and northern
Mexico. Already, it has been reported that some U.S. supermarkets have
doubled or even tripled prices for certain produce items.
#3 It is being reported that due to the recent horrible
freeze in Mexico cases of tomatoes that would usually cost shop owners between
12 and 15 dollars are now going for up to $40.
#4 One of China’s key agricultural provinces is facing
its worst drought in 200 years.
#5 The Food and Agriculture Organization says that up to
two-thirds of China’s wheat crop could be at risk of failing due to weather
conditions.
#6 Officials in Mexico are estimating that four million
tons of corn have been lost because of the recent freeze. That represents
a full 16 percent of Mexico’s annual corn
harvest.
#7 The price of corn has doubled over the last six months
and it recently hit a new all-time high.
#8 The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced
that corn supplies are the tightest that they have been in 15 years.
#9 It appears that Chinese imports of corn will
be about 9 times larger than the
U.S. Department of Agriculture originally projected them to be for 2011.
#10 The price of wheat has more than doubled over
the past year and it hit a 30-month high on Monday.
#11 In the event of a global catastrophe, current global
stockpiles of wheat would only be able to feed the world for 82 days.
#12 According to Forbes, the price
of soybeans is up about 50% since last June.
#13 The price of cotton has more than doubled over
the past year.
#14 The commodity price of orange juice has doubled since 2009.
#15 The price of sugar is the highest it has been in 30 years.
#16 The United Nations is projecting that the global
price of food will increase by
another 30 percent by the end of 2011.
#17 In the U.K., the official rate of inflation is now twice as high as the
target rate of inflation.
#18 Inflation in China is starting to get out of
control. For example, food prices in China rose 10.3 percent during the
month of January.
#19 Almost 14 percent of all credit
card accounts in the United States are currently 90 days or more delinquent.
#20 New home sales in the state of California were
at the lowest level ever
recorded in the month of January.
#21 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
the number of job openings in the United States declined for a second straight month
during December.
#22 Average household debt in the United States has now
reached a level of 136% of average household income.
#23 It is estimated that there are about 5 million
homeowners in the United States that are at least two months
behind on their mortgages, and it is being projected that over a million
American families will be booted out of their homes this year alone.
#24 Today, 46% of all Americans carry a
credit card balance from month to month.
#25 700,000 Americans have signed up for a credit card
that has interest rates that go as high as 59.9%.
#26 Americans now owe more than $889 billion on student loans,
which is even more than they owe on credit cards.
#27 The FDIC is “insuring” U.S. bank deposits that total
5.4 trillion dollars with a deposit insurance fund that is currently sitting at
approximately negative 8 billion dollars.
#28 The Social Security trust fund will run a deficit
of 56 billion dollars this
year. Just a couple of years ago government planners were promising that
we would not have any Social Security deficits until at least 2016 or 2017.
#29 When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class
workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971.
#30 4.2 million Americans have
been unemployed for one year or longer at this point.
#31 The number of Americans that have become so
discouraged that they have given up searching for work completely now
stands at an all-time high.
#32 According to a recent Gallup poll, 35 percent of Americans
believe that unemployment is currently the most important problem in the United
States. Another 29 percent believe that the economy is currently our
biggest problem.
#33 Gallup also says that 19.6 percent of the workforce in
America is currently either unemployed or underemployed.
#34 The U.S. government says that 504,000 Americans “dropped out of
the labor force” in January.
#35 The Obama administration is projecting that the
federal budget deficit will be 1.65 trillion dollars for
fiscal 2011.
#36 It is estimated that the total U.S. national
debt will be greater
than 100 percent of GDP by the end of this fiscal year.
#37 The U.S. government relies on foreign nations such
as China and Japan to finance 40 percent of all new government debt.
#38 State and local government debt is now sitting at an
all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP.
#39 The Chinese are now hoarding gold like there is no
tomorrow. In fact, Chinese demand for gold has now risen to
approximately 25% of total global production.
#40 According to
a recent report from the World Economic Forum, the world is going to need
another $100 trillion in credit to support projected “economic growth” over the
next decade.
#41 According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, visits
to soup kitchens are up 24 percent over the past
year.
#42 One out of every seven
Americans is now on food stamps.
#43 One out of every six elderly
Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.
#44 During the last school year, almost half of all school children in
the state of Illinois came from families that were considered to be
“low-income”.
#45 According to a survey released very close to the end
of 2010, 55 percentof all Americans are now
living paycheck to paycheck. A major economic downturn could quickly wipe
out millions of families.
#46 Gasoline prices in the United States are now the
highest that they have ever been
in the middle of February.
#47 Faith in our economic system continues to
decline. According to one new report, only 26 percent of
Americans now trust the U.S. financial system.’
Obama’s 2012
Budget: Tool Of Class War Paul Craig Roberts | Continues
Wall Street’s war against poor & middle classes.
Geithner Helping the
Chinese? Reuters | Diplomatic cables lay bare China’s
growing influence as largest U.S. creditor.
Video: Why Isn’t
Wall St. in Jail? [ This truly will prove to be the story of the century
(albeit an abbreviated one and a turning point toward america’s intractable
decline) owing to what will ultimately be the lynch-pin of global economic /
financial collapse ushering in an era of great scarcity in more ways than can
be imagined. The pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt american nation /
government has literally underwritten this massive fraud at the expense of the
vast majorities directly and indirectly, precluded prosecution while
obfuscating the substantial crimes, literally becoming accomplices thereby.
There is absolutely no excuse for what is essentially a defalcation and
abrogation of duty. I was watching a somewhat obscure film recently which
(though elsewhere on this page and site I’ve set forth alarming crime
statistics clearing showing america as number 1 in all categories by wide
margins) which set forth the statistic that america has 85% of the world’s
serial killers (and I’d go further in saying it is likely that america has a
similar lead in war crimes, etc.) ] MSNBC | Cenk Uygur talks
to Matt Taibbi about his latest Rolling Stone article.
National / World
US troops set for
longer Afghan stay [ Defacto bankrupt america can afford it … riiiiight! ] FT.com
| Surge is likely to stay in place long beyond Obama’s plan to pull troops this
year.
Saudis Worried
Protests Will Hit Home [ For the
sake of the saudi Arabian people, more than just protests should come to
fruition! ] AFP |
Saudi royal warns Arab world uprisings could cause harm unless they reform.
Bahrain authorities launch surprise attack on protesters [There’s the america and saudi Arabia
effect; far less than democratic and far more deadly in the mideast among other
places; talk about hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the
oil reserves of a sovereign nation as the saudis; time for the saudis to go the
way of dictator Mubarak and take the war criminal americans with them. ] Los Angeles Times Tear gas
canisters bombard sleeping protesters in Manama's Pearl Square. At least two
men are reported killed Video: Bahrain
protesters look to emulate Egypt revolt euronews Riot Police Attack Bahrain Protesters Voice
of America
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump Taj Mahal
Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends With
Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino in
mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit
ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions
to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO Case)
]
earned many billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense
was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the
people, all of the time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE...
PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [
trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true
enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal /
judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug money
laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit ( also
maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her brother’s
casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation. ] “I would announce, without equivocation, a
25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?' ]
WeAreChange Confronts Dick Cheney on 9/11 Standdown Order
Aaron Dykes | Activist group confronts former vice
president Dick Cheney about inconsistencies in 9/11 testimony and actions in
PEOC bunker. ‘Infowars.comFebruary 15,
2010The testimony of Norman
Mineta before the 9/11 Commission leaves compelling questions about former
Vice President Dick Cheney’s actions on the day of 9/11. Then Transportation
Secretary Mineta witnessed Cheney refuse to contradict an apparent standdown
order as an aide warned of something incoming at the Pentagon. Cheney has given
conflicting
reports about what time he entered the PEOC bunker. Mineta later
confirmed his suppressed 9/11 Commission testimony and refuted Cheney’s
account of arriving later.During the CPAC conference, WeAreChange.org confronted Cheney about
these questions, which he refused to address.“Hey Mr. Cheney, what did you
do in the underground bunker on 9/11? Dick Cheney we know what you did on 9/11
with the standdown order. Norman Mineta testified against you on the 9/11
Commission report. What happened on 9/11?”When he was being forced out,
WeAreChange.org founder Luke Rudkowski calmly asked security not to push him;
security backed off after asking him, ‘Are you being polite?’
Luke Rudkowski and James Lane of We Are Change confront Dick Cheney in
Washington D.C. at CPAC 2/10/2011.
WeAreChangeOklahoma – Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney (CPAC 2011)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3610.01A issued June 1, 2001
on “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects
(Click each document for a larger image)
Cheney dodged the continuing questions by exiting with his entourage
into an elevator. As a woman started repeating “Thank you Mr. Cheney for all
you’ve done,” Rudkowski interjected that he was a ‘terrorist.’ Certainly, the
use of admittedly
elevated terror alerts throughout the Bush administration to stoke the fear
card and score political dominion alone is reason to justify this label. The
implications of what really happened on 9/11, and in relation to Cheney’s
apparent standdown order, is even more compelling. Notably, a change in the
standard operating procedure for the chain of command during the event of a
hijacked aircraft was changed in June 2001, including subjecting NORAD’s
response to DoD approval (SEE BELOW).
The former Vice President’s re-entry into the public limelight, after years of
dealing with heart issues, is what appears to be an attempt to re-brand the
Bush Administration in time to retain neo-con power in the coming GOP
presidential primary field, where tea party politics and candidates like Ron
Paul have obviously taken root with conservative voters in the years of the
Obama administration. This confrontation occurred during the same CPAC
convention where Ron
Paul won the presidential straw poll and Dick Cheney was heckled
and called a “war-monger” during a pep rally where Donald Rumsfeld was
given the “Defender of the Constitution Award.”
From Norman
Mineta’s testimony:
“During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there
was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50
miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10
miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still
stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of
course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?’
Drudgereport:
DEBT
NOW EQUALS ENTIRE ECONOMY
OBAMA
AGENDA IS OVER
Obama
refers to himself as 'The Gipper'… [ Riiiight! …anything you say wobmama the b
for b*** s***… or maybe the bipper, the chipper, or the yankee clipper (the new
joltin’ joe) …sounds like he’s losing it! ] ...
BUDGET
WOES FORCE STATES TO CONSIDER ABOLISHING '12 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES...
STATE
BUDGETS ON THE BRINK: CA, TX, IL, NY, NJ...
OBAMA
BACKS UNION UPROAR
PELOSI
BACKS PROTESTERS: 'I STAND IN SOLIDARITY'...
WISC
GOV: 'NOT GOING TO BE BULLIED, INTIMIDATED'...
Orders
state troopers to bring Dems to Capitol...
'There
Is Fear For Scott Walker's Safety'...
Dem
Sen: We'll stay away for weeks...
WALKOUT:
Milwaukee Schools closed; teachers call in 'sick'...
REPORT:
Average city teacher compensation tops $100,000...
PAPER:
GET BACK TO WORK!
DNC
playing role in protests...
Jesse
to the Rescue: Jackson rallies protesters...
'A
real Martin Luther King moment'...
Union
Fight Heats Up...
Republicans
vow to cut spending in state capitols...
Protests
Spread to Ohio...
Michigan...
'Coming
To Minnesota'...
Idaho
offical target of threats over education reform plan...
Egypt
in America?
'Day
of Rage' Hits Wisconsin over state unions...
Madison
schools closed; 1,100 teachers call in 'sick'...
Obama:
'Assault on Unions'...
Obama-founded
OFA spearheading effort to defeat bill...
Boehner:
'Suspend these tactics'...
DEMS
FLEE STATE HOUSE
SENATE
DEMOCRATS FOUND -- AT A RESORT IN ILLINOIS!
Gov.
Walker calls on Dems to return, vote...
Protesters,
supporters clash in Ohio over union bill...
Activists
swarm Boehner's Capitol Hill home; Chant 'don't tread on DC'..
Carney:
Stimulus 'Goals Have Been Met'...
GALLUP:
Unemployment hits 10%...
Feds
Borrow Additional $29,660/Household Since Obama Signed Stimulus...
Ratings
Downgrades Loom for Cash-Strapped States...
Hillary Clinton: Israeli Settlements 'Illegitimate'… [We know that
hill … We’ve known that for quite some time along with their illegal nukes, war
crimes, etc…The whole world knows that hill… so don’t just talk about it … DO
SOMETHING! ] ...
Offended
Mubarak refuses calls from Obama...
Ahmadinejad:
Obama can't spell his own name (True … it’s ‘w o b a m a’ with ‘the b for b*** s***’ his surname …
he’s so pathetic and a total caricature / joke!) ...
Egypt's
protests flare despite military warning...
Libya
set for 'day of anger'...
Thousands
of police confront protesters in Yemen...
Riot
police storm Bahrain camp; 2 reported dead...
ABCNEWS
Correspondent Beaten...
100
Egyptians reach Italy amid Arab exodus...
CARTER:
Muslim 'hood nothing 'to be afraid of'...
PAPER:
Senate hearing turns into farce as American ignorance on Egypt revealed...
USA TO REBUKE ISRAEL AT UN
Poll:
Majority of Republicans Doubt Obama's Birthplace...
Agents
Shot in Mexico...
WORRIES
OBAMA OFFICIALS...
ICE
IN VICE...
GAO:
Feds have 'operational control' of 44% of border; just 15% 'air tight'...
DAY
3: 'Watson' the computer creams human 'JEOPARDY!' champs...
REPORT: Steve Jobs receiving
treatment at cancer center... PAPER: 'Reportedly sicker
than previously admitted'...
ISSA MAKES A MOVE: New
subpoena seeks records on sweetheart loans...
U.S.
Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’
'Kill Switch' Internet bill
alarms privacy experts...
GOP BLASTS FCC NET RULES...
TSA agents busted at JFK for
stealing $160,000 from bags...
Hillary
Clinton donors indicted...
Man
mugs 96-year-old -- for $5...
France
Wants New Global Finance System; End of Dollar Dominance...
Fannie,
Freddie bailout: $153 billion and counting...
GALLUP:
Unemployment at 10.3%...
Muslim
Bros plan political party...
Present
Two Faces...
Pakistan
Islamists warn of protests if US prisoner freed...
SECSTATE
JR: Sen Kerry arrives in Pakistan, expresses 'regret', 'sorrow'...
GADDAFI
TELLS PALESTINIANS: REVOLT AGAINST ISRAEL
World
Bank: Food prices at 'dangerous levels'...
Gov't
Motors to pay out $189 million in bonuses; some workers to get 50% payoffs..
Deficit
Expected to Jump to $1.65 Trillion...
...'slow
train wreck coming'
BUDGET
BLOWOUT: How big is $3.73 trillion? $12,000 from each American...
ANALYSIS:
$1.5 trillion
tax hike over 10 years...
AIRLINES:
New fees would be $2 billion tax increase on flyers...
Sessions:
Obama failed on budget...
Long
Spending Fight...
Produce
prices to skyrocket with freeze in Mexico, Southwest...
Clothing
Prices to Rise 10% Starting in Spring...
China
Replaced Japan in 2010 as Number 2 Economy...
China
plans Colombian rail link to challenge Panama canal...
The
March On Berlusconi...
Berlusconi
indicted in prostitution probe...
Malware
'Aimed at Iran Hit Five Sites'...
Mubarak
'falls into coma after final speech'...
Egyptian
military orders last protesters out of 'Liberation Square'...
Consolidates
power...
Delivers
ultimatum...
Boy
wrestler forfeits match to female opponent... [ What a homo! Wow! I
feel sorry for those guys she actually beat (20 of them – her record was 20 and
13) … they’ll probably never get over it … nor should they … I have to rethink
my regard for Iowa, Iowa state wrestling now presuming such stalwart
championship teams to be the products of out-of-state imports … as for the guy
who forfeited, he could have easily and gently taken her down (you can easily do
that with a lesser opponent), got her in a double grapevine and grind her in a
certain way into the mat, and when she was in the throws of convulsive orgasm,
she’d unwittingly arch her back, thereby pressing her own shoulder blades to
the mat, thereby pinning herself, thus enabling the homo to say in a manner of
speaking that he was making heterosexual love not war with her ……… how pathetic
and preposterous this was … and, let me remind the homo that God doesn’t care
that you wrestle a girl who wants to wrestle! ]
We continue to trade under a ValuEngine Valuation Warning -- Sixteen of 16
sectors overvalued with only 32.4% of all stocks undervalued on Wednesday,
below the 35% threshold by this measure. This also means that 67.6% of all
stocks are overvalued.
10-Year Note -- (3.619) Is between my annual value level at 3.791 and my
weekly risky level at 3.568.
Comex Gold -- ($1375.3) My annual pivot is $1356.5 with the 50-day
simple moving average at $1372.2 with my monthly risky level at $1412.4.
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($85.00) Continues to trade below my semiannual pivot
at $87.52 and is now oversold on its daily chart with today’s value level at
$82.85.
The Euro -- (1.3567) Still above its 50-day simple moving average at
1.3377 with my weekly risky level at 1.3636.
Housing Starts and Permits Remain Soft -- Housing Starts increased 14.6%
in January, but the gain was entirely due to a 77.7% increase in the
multifamily sector. Single family starts declined 1.0% to a 413,000 annual rate
with single family permits down 4.8%. Overall building permits declined 10.4%.
More Information From the NAHB Housing Market Index -- If you look at
the National Association of Home Builders Housing Market Index going back to
1985 it never went below 20 until October 2007. During the 1988 to 1992
mini-crisis the lowest reading was 20 in January 1991. For the current popping
of the housing bubble this index peaked at 72 in June 2005, when the CEOs of
the publicly traded home builders described the housing market as the best they
have ever seen.
Back in June 2005 ValuEngine had the home builders extremely overvalued and I
noted their weekly price charts were extremely overbought. I wrote a piece
calling for a summer 2005 peak for the home builder stocks, which proved to be
a prudent market call. The NAHB HMI has been 20 or below since September 2007
and has been between 13 and 16 the past nine months. The exception was a 22
reading in the height of the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit in May 2010.
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that their weekly Mortgage
Applications Survey decreased 9.5% with the Refinance Index down
11.4%, to the lowest reading since July 3, 2009. The Purchase Index decreased
5.9%, and is 18.2% lower than a year ago. A major drag is attributed to the
above 5% mortgage rate, up
nearly a full percentage point from the October 2010 low, in the midst of when
Fed Chief Bernanke was touting that the pending QE2 program would push
longer-term yields lower to help consumers. The only thing that QE2 has done
is inflate an equity market to an overvalued and overbought inflating financial
bubble!
The minutes from the latest Fed Meeting indicates that unemployment
and tight credit conditions continues to be a drag on the housing market. History
repeats: Housing peaked in mid-2005 and the recovery has been nil. Community
banks peaked at the end of 2006, and Bank Failure Friday continues. Regional
Banks peaked in March 2007, and toxic assets remain in the banking system. Fed
policy with that ridiculously low funds rate and QE2 is masking problems that
will still plague the US economy for the next several years.’
]
Imams
wage political battle against U.S. (Washington Post) [ Yeah!
Are not these native Afghans freedom fighters in the highest, truest, and most
noble sense of the term. I mean, pervasively corrupt / defacto bankrupt
america’s destructive and corrupting influence is unequivocal (including the
resurgent heroin trade that had all been eradicated by the Taliban). This
unlawful incursion is a lose, lose scenario for all parties; and, america’s /
israel’s / nato’s zionist aspirations in the region are among the most
self-destructive, self-defeating policies in world history. ] For the U.S. government, and for the
100,000 American troops fighting in Afghanistan, the messages delivered last
Friday could hardly have been worse.
Clock
is ticking (Washington Post) [ Oh come on! Don’t be a
spoil-sport realist; after all, these are, unlike mubarak, young
pro-saudi-american dictators and still have a bright future of repression /
oppression / suppression ahead of them for the greater good of … status quo? …
nobody really thinks so. Tick-Tock! ] Editorial: In Bahrain, America should press the government to
cease its repression [ Don’t hold your breath. ]. Bahrain authorities launch surprise attack on protesters [There’s the america and saudi Arabia
effect; far less than democratic and far more deadly in the mideast among other
places; talk about hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the
oil reserves of a sovereign nation as the saudis; time for the saudis to go the
way of dictator Mubarak and take the war criminal americans with them. ] Los Angeles Times Tear gas
canisters bombard sleeping protesters in Manama's Pearl Square. At least two
men are reported killed Video: Bahrain
protesters look to emulate Egypt revolt euronews Riot Police Attack Bahrain Protesters Voice
of America
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump Taj Mahal
Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends With
Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino in
mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit
ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions
to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO Case)
]
earned many billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense
was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the
people, all of the time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE...
PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [
trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true
enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal /
judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation. ] “I would announce, without equivocation, a
25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?' ]
WeAreChange Confronts Dick Cheney on 9/11 Standdown Order
Aaron Dykes | Activist group confronts former vice
president Dick Cheney about inconsistencies in 9/11 testimony and actions in
PEOC bunker. ‘Infowars.comFebruary 15,
2010The testimony of Norman
Mineta before the 9/11 Commission leaves compelling questions about former
Vice President Dick Cheney’s actions on the day of 9/11. Then Transportation
Secretary Mineta witnessed Cheney refuse to contradict an apparent standdown
order as an aide warned of something incoming at the Pentagon. Cheney has given
conflicting
reports about what time he entered the PEOC bunker. Mineta later
confirmed his suppressed 9/11 Commission testimony and refuted Cheney’s
account of arriving later.During the CPAC conference, WeAreChange.org confronted Cheney about
these questions, which he refused to address.“Hey Mr. Cheney, what did you
do in the underground bunker on 9/11? Dick Cheney we know what you did on 9/11
with the standdown order. Norman Mineta testified against you on the 9/11
Commission report. What happened on 9/11?”When he was being forced out,
WeAreChange.org founder Luke Rudkowski calmly asked security not to push him;
security backed off after asking him, ‘Are you being polite?’
Luke Rudkowski and James Lane of We Are Change confront Dick Cheney in
Washington D.C. at CPAC 2/10/2011.
WeAreChangeOklahoma – Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney (CPAC 2011)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3610.01A issued June 1, 2001
on “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects
(Click each document for a larger image)
Cheney dodged the continuing questions by exiting with his entourage
into an elevator. As a woman started repeating “Thank you Mr. Cheney for all
you’ve done,” Rudkowski interjected that he was a ‘terrorist.’ Certainly, the
use of admittedly
elevated terror alerts throughout the Bush administration to stoke the fear
card and score political dominion alone is reason to justify this label. The
implications of what really happened on 9/11, and in relation to Cheney’s
apparent standdown order, is even more compelling. Notably, a change in the
standard operating procedure for the chain of command during the event of a
hijacked aircraft was changed in June 2001, including subjecting NORAD’s
response to DoD approval (SEE BELOW).
The former Vice President’s re-entry into the public limelight, after years of
dealing with heart issues, is what appears to be an attempt to re-brand the
Bush Administration in time to retain neo-con power in the coming GOP
presidential primary field, where tea party politics and candidates like Ron Paul
have obviously taken root with conservative voters in the years of the Obama
administration. This confrontation occurred during the same CPAC convention
where Ron
Paul won the presidential straw poll and Dick Cheney was heckled
and called a “war-monger” during a pep rally where Donald Rumsfeld was
given the “Defender of the Constitution Award.”
From Norman
Mineta’s testimony:
“During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there
was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50
miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10
miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still
stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of
course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?’
Obama
joins Wisconsin budget battle Democratic
lawmakers flee state in attempt to block anti-union bill (Washington Post) [ Looks like capital hill
can pick up a few pointers from ‘dem dems … fleeing the state, that is … except
in their case it’ll be fleeing the nation-state, or what’s left of same. Drudgereport: DEBT
NOW EQUALS ENTIRE ECONOMY
OBAMA
AGENDA IS OVER
Obama
refers to himself as 'The Gipper'… [ Riiiight! …anything you say wobmama the b
for b*** s***… or maybe the bipper, the chipper, or the yankee clipper (the new
joltin’ joe) …sounds like he’s losing it! ] ...
'Day
of Rage' Hits Wisconsin over state unions...
Madison
schools closed; 1,100 teachers call in 'sick'...
Obama:
'Assault on Unions'...
Obama-founded
OFA spearheading effort to defeat bill...
Boehner:
'Suspend these tactics'...
DEMS
FLEE STATE HOUSE
SENATE
DEMOCRATS FOUND -- AT A RESORT IN ILLINOIS!
Gov.
Walker calls on Dems to return, vote...
Protesters,
supporters clash in Ohio over union bill...
Activists
swarm Boehner's Capitol Hill home; Chant 'don't tread on DC'..
Carney:
Stimulus 'Goals Have Been Met'...
GALLUP:
Unemployment hits 10%...
Feds
Borrow Additional $29,660/Household Since Obama Signed Stimulus...
Ratings
Downgrades Loom for Cash-Strapped States...
Bubble Talk: Grantham Warns Of The Paradox Of Profit
Margins Reese ‘In the second half of his year-end
letter, GMO’s Jeremy Grantham takes a look at
numerous asset bubbles throughout history,
warning investors to ignore bubbles at their own peril. Grantham’s GMO
manages more than $100 billion in assets.“Responding to the ebbs and flows of
major cycles and saving your big bets for the outlying extremes is, in my
opinion, easily the best way for a large pool of money to add value and reduce
risk,” Grantham writes. “In comparison, waiting on the railroad
tracks as the ‘Bubble Express’ comes barreling toward you is a very painful way
to show your disdain for macro concepts and a blind devotion to your central
skill of stock picking. The really major bubbles will wash away big slices
of even the best Graham and Dodd portfolios.” Grantham says that bubbles
form because of a cycle in which investment managers, feeling the career risk
in making bold moves, fall prey to “herding”. It also involves what he calls
“double counting”. Profit margins, he says, are mean-reverting, meaning that at
times when margins are high, investors should be willing to pay less per
dollar of earnings. In reality, what often happens, he says, is that when
margins are high, inflating earnings, investors pay more for each
dollar of earnings.“It is a classic fallacy of composition,” he says. “For an
individual company, having an exceptional profit margin deserves a premium P/E
against its competitors. But for the market as a whole, for which profit
margins are beautifully mean reverting, it is exactly the reverse. This
apparent paradox seems to fool the market persistently.”Also necessary for a
bubble to form: a generous money supply, Grantham adds.Grantham also shows
how bubbles — from the South Sea Stock Bubble of the early 1700s to the
recent U.S. housing bubble — always go back to their original trend that was in
place before the bubble formed.’
Alan Ruskin of Deutsche Bank writes:
Core intermediates and core crude were worryingly
strong. In theory this pipeline pressure is not good for risk appetite and
equities one way or the other. Either it dampens profit margins, or it is
passed along to consumers, hurting real disposable income and encouraging
policy tightening. Given a choice the market much prefers the former to the
latter, not least because profit margins are less transparent, and determined
even more by labor costs than raw materials. As such, pipeline price pressures
will probably only seriously dampen enthusiasm for equities and risky assets
when they start to show up more obviously in CPI or less clearly in industrial
earnings.CPI will be on the economic docket on Thursday, with expectations for
an increase of 0.3% in the headline number and 0.1% in the core figure. That
number will be a lot more important to the markets. Yields on Treasurys are up
a bit after the PPI report, but nothing major.’
Jobless claims
tick back above 400,000 CNNMoney | Number of Americans
filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits edged up last week.
Why Isn’t Wall Street
in Jail? Matt Taibbi | Financial crooks brought down the
world’s economy — but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute
them.
National / World
Correspondent
sexually assaulted, beaten in Cairo CNN | CBS News
correspondent Lara Logan was reporting on the protests in Egypt.
Bahrain authorities launch surprise attack on protesters [There’s the america and saudi Arabia
effect; far less than democratic and far more deadly in the mideast among other
places; talk about hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the oil
reserves of a sovereign nation as the saudis; time for the saudis to go the way
of dictator Mubarak and take the war criminal americans with them. ] Los Angeles Times Tear gas
canisters bombard sleeping protesters in Manama's Pearl Square. At least two
men are reported killed Video: Bahrain
protesters look to emulate Egypt revolt euronews Riot Police Attack Bahrain Protesters Voice
of America
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump Taj Mahal
Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends With
Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino in
mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit
ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions
to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO Case)
]
earned many billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense
was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the
people, all of the time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE...
PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [
trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true
enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the possibility
of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable
structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have
survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms
condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his
opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt
america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed
the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even fake
it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg ,
and of course, corrupt legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto
bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on offensive (defensive a
misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the nations of the world
combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a pattern emerging here [ I
unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed employees, cia, all 3
branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in this evolved american
trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense … The pervasively corrupt american
illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their lifetime plush
appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are unheard of in
productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these drags on
society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly bureaucracies. Rules
of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans. Most, including sam
alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug money laundering and
obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit ( also maryanne trump
barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her brother’s casinos in a
civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it for the
money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is great
for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation. ] “I would announce, without equivocation, a
25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?' ]
WeAreChange Confronts Dick Cheney on 9/11 Standdown Order
Aaron Dykes | Activist group confronts former vice
president Dick Cheney about inconsistencies in 9/11 testimony and actions in
PEOC bunker. ‘Infowars.comFebruary 15,
2010The testimony of Norman
Mineta before the 9/11 Commission leaves compelling questions about former
Vice President Dick Cheney’s actions on the day of 9/11. Then Transportation
Secretary Mineta witnessed Cheney refuse to contradict an apparent standdown
order as an aide warned of something incoming at the Pentagon. Cheney has given
conflicting
reports about what time he entered the PEOC bunker. Mineta later
confirmed his suppressed 9/11 Commission testimony and refuted Cheney’s
account of arriving later.During the CPAC conference, WeAreChange.org confronted Cheney about
these questions, which he refused to address.“Hey Mr. Cheney, what did you
do in the underground bunker on 9/11? Dick Cheney we know what you did on 9/11
with the standdown order. Norman Mineta testified against you on the 9/11
Commission report. What happened on 9/11?”When he was being forced out,
WeAreChange.org founder Luke Rudkowski calmly asked security not to push him;
security backed off after asking him, ‘Are you being polite?’
Luke Rudkowski and James Lane of We Are Change confront Dick Cheney in
Washington D.C. at CPAC 2/10/2011.
WeAreChangeOklahoma – Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney (CPAC 2011)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3610.01A issued June 1, 2001
on “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects
(Click each document for a larger image)
Cheney dodged the continuing questions by exiting with his entourage
into an elevator. As a woman started repeating “Thank you Mr. Cheney for all
you’ve done,” Rudkowski interjected that he was a ‘terrorist.’ Certainly, the
use of admittedly
elevated terror alerts throughout the Bush administration to stoke the fear
card and score political dominion alone is reason to justify this label. The
implications of what really happened on 9/11, and in relation to Cheney’s
apparent standdown order, is even more compelling. Notably, a change in the
standard operating procedure for the chain of command during the event of a
hijacked aircraft was changed in June 2001, including subjecting NORAD’s
response to DoD approval (SEE BELOW).
The former Vice President’s re-entry into the public limelight, after years of
dealing with heart issues, is what appears to be an attempt to re-brand the
Bush Administration in time to retain neo-con power in the coming GOP
presidential primary field, where tea party politics and candidates like Ron
Paul have obviously taken root with conservative voters in the years of the
Obama administration. This confrontation occurred during the same CPAC
convention where Ron
Paul won the presidential straw poll and Dick Cheney was heckled
and called a “war-monger” during a pep rally where Donald Rumsfeld was
given the “Defender of the Constitution Award.”
From Norman
Mineta’s testimony:
“During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there
was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President…the plane is 50
miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10
miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still
stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of
course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?’
Drudgereport:
DEBT
NOW EQUALS ENTIRE ECONOMY
OBAMA
AGENDA IS OVER
Obama
refers to himself as 'The Gipper'… [ Riiiight! …anything you say wobmama the b
for b*** s***… or maybe the bipper, the chipper, or the yankee clipper (the new
joltin’ joe) …sounds like he’s losing it! ] ...
'Day
of Rage' Hits Wisconsin over state unions...
Madison
schools closed; 1,100 teachers call in 'sick'...
Obama:
'Assault on Unions'...
Obama-founded
OFA spearheading effort to defeat bill...
Boehner:
'Suspend these tactics'...
DEMS
FLEE STATE HOUSE
SENATE
DEMOCRATS FOUND -- AT A RESORT IN ILLINOIS!
Gov.
Walker calls on Dems to return, vote...
Protesters,
supporters clash in Ohio over union bill...
Activists
swarm Boehner's Capitol Hill home; Chant 'don't tread on DC'..
Carney:
Stimulus 'Goals Have Been Met'...
GALLUP:
Unemployment hits 10%...
Sadly, very
little has changed since the world financial system experienced almost a
complete meltdown back in 2008. Global financial markets are still a
whirlpool of debt and speculation. One really bad week could put us right
back where we were prior to the infamous Wall Street bailouts. Very
little in our world is truly stable anymore. As we have seen recently in
Egypt, the globe can literally change almost overnight. All it would take
is for one really bad event to happen and world financial markets would
instantly start imploding.
So when will
the coming economic collapse happen? Nobody knows for sure, but the fact
that the global economy is increasingly becoming less stable as we approach the
year 2012 is making a lot of people very nervous.
The following
are 47 statistics that indicate that economic stress points in 2011 could be
setting the stage for a global economic meltdown in 2012….
#1 According to the United Nations, global food
prices set a new all-time record
during the month of January.
#2 In early February the worst freeze in 60
years wiped out entire crops all across the southwestern U.S. and northern
Mexico. Already, it has been reported that some U.S. supermarkets have
doubled or even tripled prices for certain produce items.
#3 It is being reported that due to the recent horrible
freeze in Mexico cases of tomatoes that would usually cost shop owners between
12 and 15 dollars are now going for up to $40.
#4 One of China’s key agricultural provinces is facing
its worst drought in 200 years.
#5 The Food and Agriculture Organization says that up to
two-thirds of China’s wheat crop could be at risk of failing due to weather
conditions.
#6 Officials in Mexico are estimating that four million
tons of corn have been lost because of the recent freeze. That represents
a full 16 percent of Mexico’s annual corn
harvest.
#7 The price of corn has doubled over the last six months and
it recently hit a new all-time high.
#8 The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced
that corn supplies are the tightest that they have been in 15 years.
#9 It appears that Chinese imports of corn will
be about 9 times larger than the
U.S. Department of Agriculture originally projected them to be for 2011.
#10 The price of wheat has more than doubled over
the past year and it hit a 30-month high on Monday.
#11 In the event of a global catastrophe, current global
stockpiles of wheat would only be able to feed the world for 82 days.
#12 According to Forbes, the price
of soybeans is up about 50% since last June.
#13 The price of cotton has more than doubled over
the past year.
#14 The commodity price of orange juice has doubled since 2009.
#15 The price of sugar is the highest it has been in 30 years.
#16 The United Nations is projecting that the global
price of food will increase by another
30 percent by the end of 2011.
#17 In the U.K., the official rate of inflation is now twice as high as the
target rate of inflation.
#18 Inflation in China is starting to get out of
control. For example, food prices in China rose 10.3 percent during the
month of January.
#19 Almost 14 percent of all credit
card accounts in the United States are currently 90 days or more delinquent.
#20 New home sales in the state of California were
at the lowest level ever
recorded in the month of January.
#21 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
the number of job openings in the United States declined for a second straight month
during December.
#22 Average household debt in the United States has now
reached a level of 136% of average household income.
#23 It is estimated that there are about 5 million
homeowners in the United States that are at least two months
behind on their mortgages, and it is being projected that over a million
American families will be booted out of their homes this year alone.
#24 Today, 46% of all Americans carry a
credit card balance from month to month.
#25 700,000 Americans have signed up for a credit card
that has interest rates that go as high as 59.9%.
#26 Americans now owe more than $889 billion on student loans,
which is even more than they owe on credit cards.
#27 The FDIC is “insuring” U.S. bank deposits that total
5.4 trillion dollars with a deposit insurance fund that is currently sitting at
approximately negative 8 billion dollars.
#28 The Social Security trust fund will run a deficit
of 56 billion dollars this
year. Just a couple of years ago government planners were promising that
we would not have any Social Security deficits until at least 2016 or 2017.
#29 When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class
workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971.
#30 4.2 million Americans have
been unemployed for one year or longer at this point.
#31 The number of Americans that have become so
discouraged that they have given up searching for work completely now
stands at an all-time high.
#32 According to a recent Gallup poll, 35 percent of Americans
believe that unemployment is currently the most important problem in the United
States. Another 29 percent believe that the economy is currently our
biggest problem.
#33 Gallup also says that 19.6 percent of the workforce in
America is currently either unemployed or underemployed.
#34 The U.S. government says that 504,000 Americans “dropped out of
the labor force” in January.
#35 The Obama administration is projecting that the
federal budget deficit will be 1.65 trillion dollars for
fiscal 2011.
#36 It is estimated that the total U.S. national
debt will be greater
than 100 percent of GDP by the end of this fiscal year.
#37 The U.S. government relies on foreign nations such
as China and Japan to finance 40 percent of all new government debt.
#38 State and local government debt is now sitting at an
all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP.
#39 The Chinese are now hoarding gold like there is no
tomorrow. In fact, Chinese demand for gold has now risen to
approximately 25% of total global production.
#40 According to
a recent report from the World Economic Forum, the world is going to need
another $100 trillion in credit to support projected “economic growth” over the
next decade.
#41 According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, visits
to soup kitchens are up 24 percent over the past
year.
#42 One out of every seven
Americans is now on food stamps.
#43 One out of every six elderly
Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.
#44 During the last school year, almost half of all school children in
the state of Illinois came from families that were considered to be
“low-income”.
#45 According to a survey released very close to the end
of 2010, 55 percentof all Americans are now
living paycheck to paycheck. A major economic downturn could quickly wipe
out millions of families.
#46 Gasoline prices in the United States are now the
highest that they have ever been
in the middle of February.
#47 Faith in our economic system continues to
decline. According to one new report, only 26 percent of
Americans now trust the U.S. financial system.’
Panetta
outlines plan for bin Laden (Washington Post) [ Yeah, and if panetta’s
grandmother had wheels she’d be a trolley car. I mean, how much more irrelevant
can the cia become, beyond their drug deals, arms deals, among other
self-interested / self-perpetuating ops / commotions / promotions. In case they
haven’t looked recently, pervasively corrupt america is defacto bankrupt; and
in large part owing to their flawed, self-perpetuating strategies (oh, how they
loved and miss the cold war). Who cares (about Osama bin Laden or his deputy
Ayman al-Zawahiri). Indeed, one way or another, it makes no difference.
Moreover, take a look at the ‘stand-down’ order as discussed infra regarding
‘that pearl harbor event / neo-con wet dream’. They are so pathetic! A parallel
universe? They only wish! ] CIA
Director Leon Panetta told Congress on Wednesday that if Osama bin Laden or his
deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri is captured they will be held by the military and
probably will be sent to Guantanamo Bay. (Reuters)
In
Bahrain, authorities move against protesters Police
use tear gas, clubs and rubber bullets to disperse crowd (Washington Post) [ Bahrain authorities launch surprise attack on protesters [There’s the america and saudi Arabia
effect; far less than democratic and far more deadly in the mideast among other
places; talk about hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the
oil reserves of a sovereign nation as the saudis; time for the saudis to go the
way of dictator Mubarak and take the war criminal americans with them. ] Los Angeles Times Tear gas
canisters bombard sleeping protesters in Manama's Pearl Square. At least two
men are reported killed Video: Bahrain
protesters look to emulate Egypt revolt euronews Riot Police Attack Bahrain Protesters Voice
of America
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump Taj Mahal
Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends With
Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino in
mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit
ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions
to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO Case)
]
earned many billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense
was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the
people, all of the time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE...
PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [
trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true
enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal /
judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation. ] “I would announce, without equivocation, a
25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY HECKLED...
'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?'
]
] At least two are killed, while those
involved in the protests say others are critically injured. There is no
official word on deaths or injuries.
Apple
and Google's Weaknesses Summarized in 250 Words Shuster ‘Buzz was a flop.
Safari can't grow. And neither Google or Apple seem to understand why.How can
Google and Apple -- two companies who have set standards, cornered markets, and
mastered their trades -- be so adept in certain areas and completely outmatched
by a three-person startup in another? Google design manager Nadav Savio
answered that question by eloquently summarizing the
biggest weaknesses of the two companies in a mere 250 words.
It's
been said that Google doesn't get 'social' and, though I think that is vastly
overstated, there is truth there. Similarly, I'd say that Apple doesn't
understand the internet. Well I have a simple theory about it. There's a cliché
that everyone's greatest strength is also their greatest weakness, and I
believe that applies as well to organizations as to people.
Take Apple. They make amazing, holistic products and services and one of their
primary tools is control. Fanatical, centralized control. Control over the
design, over the hardware, over the experience. And that's exactly the opposite
of the internet, which is about decentralization and messy, unfiltered chaos.
Google, on the other hand, gets the internet, but has trouble with humans. And
I'd say it's not so much because it's an engineering-heavy organization or that
Google doesn't know how to have fun (both reasons I've seen stated publicly). I
think it's that one of Google's biggest strengths is in search, which is
largely about things like precision and recall, about stitching the chaos of
the internet into some semblance of order. But social interactions happen in
the variance, in the messy spaces that seem meaningless. Much social meaning is
carried by phatic communication and that is exactly opposite to what Google
does, which is to optimize signal vs. noise, looking for the meaning and
discarding the meaningless.
Presumably, we can find the undoing of other organizations in their strengths.
What, for example, is Microsoft really, really good at? Or Facebook?’
National / World
Hillary
Announces Expanded US Cyber-Coup Campaign Tarpley.net |
Wikileaks is Cass Sunstein’s “cognitive infiltration” project.
Poll:
Majority of Republicans Doubt Obama’s Birthplace Roll Call
| A slim majority of Republicans still disbelieve Obama was born in the U.S.
Obama
careful in crackdown (Washington Post) [ Sounds like a page out of the
former american-installed shah of Iran’s play-book … The important difference
here is the life and death continued struggle of Iran against the Zionist
israeli / american regimes (look at what the latter regimes do, not what they
say) … Indeed, the great american/israeli hope for Iran, the ‘son of shah’ …
pshaw! I have a special affinity for Egypt, a land of great wisdom with the
richest of histories and culture and wisdom of the ages in wisely, at one time,
holding Cats in their highest regard and esteem! ] President Obama cautiously criticized the Iranian government
Tuesday for carrying out a deadly crackdown on street demonstrations, as
hard-line legislators in Tehran called for the execution of several prominent
opposition leaders. (Afp/getty Images)
Americans
climb out of debt, save more (Washington Post) [ There is what is known in
basic economics as the so-called ‘paradox of thrift’ and the negative portends
for the economy the natural concomitant. There is no getting away from that
age-old economic equation Gross Domestic Product is the sum of all spending on
goods and services in a nation's economy in a year. The formula for GDP is: GDP
= C + I + G + (Ex - Im), where “C” equals spending by consumers, “I” equals
investment by businesses, “G” equals government spending and “(Ex - Im)” equals
net exports, that is, the value of exports minus imports. Net exports may be
negative. Of late, the C component has risen to near 71%, fueled by
unsustainable credit. Private investment owing to a structural shift has lagged
for want of real (profitable domestic)
investment opportunities (the wall street computer-programmed high
frequency churn-and-earn is NOT a component here but rather a net negative
coming ultimately ‘out of main street’ and the people’s pockets, and owing to
the lesser propensity to consume of the frauds on wall street, etc.), and we
all know the direction of government spending. Read more: GDP and the Players Three: All Together Now: C + I + G —
Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/cig/economics/consumption-investment-government.html#ixzz1E79N4H4B . That said, this (saving) is still good
for americans generally since the government has long since all but stopped
concerning themselves with the dire predicament of the vast majority of the
nation and citizens. ] The
recession that just rocked the U.S. economy happened in part because Americans
were borrowing and spending more than they could afford. Now, three years after
the downturn began, families are moving faster than many analysts had expected
to put their finances in order by paying down debt and boosting their savings.
John
Hussman: Rich Valuations and Poor Market Returns
Hussman ‘Last week, the S&P 500 Index ascended to a Shiller P/E in excess
of 24 (this "cyclically-adjusted P/E" or CAPE represents the ratio of
the S&P 500 to 10-year average earnings, adjusted for inflation). Prior to
the mid-1990's market bubble, a multiple in excess of 24 for the CAPE was
briefly seen only once, between August and early-October 1929. Of course, we
observed richer multiples at the heights of the late-1990's bubble, when
investors got ahead of themselves in response to the introduction of transformative
technologies such as the internet. After a market slide of more than 50%,
investors again pushed the Shiller multiple beyond 24 during the housing bubble
and cash-out financing free-for-all that ended in the recent mortgage collapse.
And here we are again. This is not to say that we can rule out yet higher
valuations, but with no transformative technologies driving the economy, little
expansion in capital investment, and ongoing retrenchment in consumer balance
sheets, I can't help but think that the "virtuous cycle" rhetoric of
Ben Bernanke is an awfully thin gruel by comparison. We should not deserve to
be called "investors" if we fail to recognize that valuations are
richer today than at any point in history, save for the few months before the
1929 crash, and a bubble period that has been rewarded by zero total return for
the S&P 500 since 2000. Indeed, the stock market has lagged the return on
low-yielding Treasury bills since August 1998. I am not sure that even members
of my own profession have learned anything from this.
Based on our standard methodology (elaborated in numerous prior weekly comments), we presently estimate that the S&P 500 is priced to achieve an average total return over the coming decade of just 3.15% annually. Again, we've seen weaker projected returns over the past decade. But then again, the S&P 500 lost about 5% annually in the decade following the 2000 peak, and even including the recent advance, has achieved an annual total return since 2000 of almost exactly zero. So despite periodic speculative runs, rich valuations have an annoying way of ruining the fun. Equally important, even during extended speculative periods as we observed in the late-1990's, those advances have tended to suffer deep and abrupt intermediate-term corrections once elevated valuations are joined by overbought conditions, overbullish sentiment, and rising interest rates, as we observe today.’
The Undeniable Signs of Inflation
Kaminis ‘January's Import and Export Price
Report showed significant price increases in both imports and exports, and
unfortunately, across both overall measures and those excluding food and fuel.
We posit that the chatter that has overwhelmed the financial airwaves of late,
making an argument we made years ago mind you, is worth listening to once
again. Inflation portends to blindside the market and its caretakers, the group
of merry men who shrug off all evil until it is upon them.
Inflation chatter is all the rage again on the financial airwaves. You will
recall our important work on this subject from several years ago. If not for a
near depression that depressed prices as demand was desolated, the inflation
topic would probably have been the highest concern globally over the last few
years. However, now that the global economy is recovering, and with China
firing up all engines, inflation signs and concerns are resurfacing. Once
again, the scent is first found in raw material resources, including rare earth
metals, but also in the high use commodities of energy and agriculture. Those
factors were at play again in driving January 2011 Import and Export Prices
higher. For now, talking-head speak-easies are blowing off the possibility of
feed through to finished goods, but it won't be the first train that runs them
over either. Stick with The Greek, and I'll do my best to keep you out
of the way of the loco.
More signs of economic recovery, and also inflation, were found in the latest
import/export prices data, reported today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for
January. Import prices gained 1.5% in January, marking the fourth consecutive
month of plus one percent increases. That is something that last occurred in
July 2008, which to help you recall the period, was a time in which the now
extinct Washington Mutual beast still roamed the earth, though in small
numbers.
The drivers of import price growth are the same now as they were then,
commodities, including energy. Fuel import prices increased 3.9% in January, a
snail's pace compared to the 14.1% jump that characterized the previous three
months. But January's pace is not to be ignored, and neither is the 12.4%
increase of the past year, a period characterized by economic recovery.
Behind the gains in energy prices were a 3.4% increase in petroleum prices,
which have since been dwarfed on Middle East upheaval. And look deeper, as
Natural Gas prices advanced 13% through the month. It was a period in which
much of the US got buried in snow. In fact, cold and snowy weather so affected
fuel usage, that natural gas recently fell below its five-year average for this
time of year. As reported by the EIA in its weekly update, for the period
ending February 4, Natural Gas Inventory stood 45 Bcf below the five-year
average. If things were to continue to trend, we might test the bottom of the
historical price range, though the weather is warming significantly across the
country this week. Still, the hijacking of several oil tankers in a short span
of time, along with raised Middle East worries, have oil supply uncertainty
adding to push natural gas prices higher with oil; it being a regionally
sourced commodity that is increasingly a replacement resource for oil.
Drunken train track wandering market guides should take note of the horn in the
distance, as non-fuel import prices increased by 0.8% in January. The
noteworthy rise was driven by industrial supplies and materials (unfinished
metals and chemicals drove this), finished goods, and foods, feeds, and
beverages. Consumer goods prices moved 0.3% ahead, with the largest
contributors to the increase coming from a 0.9% hike in apparel, footwear, and
household goods prices, and a 4.0% rise in jewelry prices. Prices for
automotive vehicles rose 0.5%, led by a 1.2% increase in parts prices. Here
we see examples of price increase that affect every consumer.
Price increase is still mostly found in raw materials or unfinished goods, but
in the case of rising cotton prices, it is finding its way through to textiles
and clothing (apparel up 0.9%). Meanwhile, the government just approved
increased ethanol usage in gasoline, which in the past led to mayhem within the
whole of agriculture. While December's increase in non-fuel import prices was
just 0.3%, November's also marked 0.8%, another measure that draws comparisons
to 2008.
Export Prices
Export prices also increased significantly in January, rising 1.2%. The advance
for the full year was 6.8%, the largest 12-month increase since that same late
2007 (Sept.) through 2008 (Sept.) period; just before the walls came completely
tumbling in on the economy. As the economy improves, it also affects demand for
agricultural goods. It is not that people eat more, though that is certainly
the case as well (especially for the malnourished), but also that they eat more
proteins and more processed foods. As families rise in class, which is
occurring in China and India, they also consume more, and more proteins. This
in turn pushes prices higher for proteins and for the feeds used to raise
livestock, which are likewise derived from agriculture.
Meanwhile, what seems to be climate change driven drought in Russia and this
year in China, restricting important supply sources, will only increase
pressure on the whole of agricultural goods, and inevitably processed foods.
Agricultural export prices rose 3.2% in January, adding to a dramatic 12-month
advance of 22.6%. Price increase was driven by advances in soybeans, corn and
wheat. While cotton declined fractionally in January, it has more than doubled
over the past year. And a recent freeze in Mexico has completely wiped out some
vegetable crops and will certainly drive prices higher for Americans.
That is not the end of the story though, as prices for non-agricultural exports
also advanced considerably, rising 0.9% in January. Higher prices for
industrial supplies and materials, capital goods, and automotive vehicles more
than offset a 0.4 percent drop in prices for consumer goods. Higher airfares
also contributed to the overall increase, and those of course are impacted and
related to increased fuel costs. Consumer goods prices might also benefit from
dollar play (longer term), and also economies of scale gained as sales grow.
Nonagricultural goods prices are up 5.3% over the last 12 months; that's pretty
inflationary for dollar pegged trading partners.
China
Prices of goods imported from China increased 0.3% for the fourth month in a
row. Chinese goods are up 1.4% over the past year. That's healthy price rise,
and you will see more of this if the US government gets its way with regard to
the Yuan. You might see more US jobs return too, but that is debatable, since
they might simply find a new foreign home, say maybe Indonesia. Prices of goods
from Japan and all our major trading partners were up, with significant
increases from the EU, Mexico and Canada, due to fuel.
Conclusion
The pace of price increases should intensify as competition for scarce
resources squeezes them. With factors at play like civil unrest, wild weather
and even pirating and regulation (like with off-shore oil drilling), it seems
clear to me that the inflation train is roaring our way. We think dollar
dilution, and the Fed's inflated view of its ability to reverse the curse,
should also burden the economy in the future, especially if US Treasuries lose
their luster globally. Meanwhile, outside of recent stock market gains, wealth
is down due to home value declines. Income should be down also, given high
unemployment. Banks may be opening up a bit, but it should take some time, to
maybe never, before free capital flow comes to be again (and good riddance).
Thus, there's a tight rein around economic horsepower.
We must look towards the expansion of the developing world as the cure for what
ails us. In this regard, the birth of new democracies is a good thing, but
global instability and weak human nature are ugly flies in that ointment, and could
ruin everything.’
Silver Markets and Real Money: Dave's Daily ‘I'm old enough to have had a silver certificate and being a kid
never gave it much thought. In 1960, with silver prices at $1.29 meant holders
could redeem their certificates for silver. This just wouldn't do. So in 1964,
the government halted redemption of Silver Certificates for Silver Dollar
coins. By June 1968 all redemption in silver ceased. Obviously with holders
demanding silver prices would continue to rise given less supply. Then being
old enough to be in the business in 1979 I watched my Quotron terminal as the
Hunt Bros. drove prices up to a high of $48.70 before their attempt to corner
the market came apart. The unwinding of these positions as margin calls hit
holders was quite a chaotic spectacle for someone just five years in the
business. Well, enough history. Today, with silver in backwardation (current
front month prices greater than back month contracts) there's a supply problem
which is bullish. Some are suggesting that Asians
are buying silver and gold ETFs to demand delivery. That would be
something! Adding fuel to precious metals rallies are signs of higher inflation
in Asia and today with London reporting 4% annual rate. Again rumors are
swirling there is some major "watershed"
event for the "yen". What it is, I don't know and the purveyor of
this news didn't provide details either. Sometimes rumors are "early truths"
or just shenanigans. Meanwhile, back at Wall & Broad, stocks saw selling
even as the Fed tossed in more POMO
for Da Boyz. The sour selling mood was triggered by a worse than expected
Retail Sales report that bulls were quick to blame on weather. Is Chucky the
Consumer running out of credit? Exxon
is finding less oil at least in places where it's permitted to look. This and
Retail Sales drove prices lower. Volume was again quite light while breadth per
the WSJ was negative.’
"We
Are Apple" and Five Other Horrifying Corporate Anthems That Will Stun You
Into Submission Minyanville ‘For all the talk these days about being a
"team player," it wouldn't be a wholly terrible idea to take a look
at some corporate anthems that would make even the most cynical employee's
chest swell with pride. Or is that embarrassment?
Up first, a corporate anthem commissioned by Apple in 1984 to get employees
amped up for the year's new offerings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbJy0O4UFSM&feature=player_embedded
Next up, The Gazprom Song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGbI87tyr_4&feature=player_embedded
But wait, it only gets better from here. Ladies and gents, I present to
you...the corporate song of Coal India Limited!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZG1MKFyh9E&feature=player_embedded
When you're done wiping the tears from your emotional eyes, take a look at what
keeps Fujitsu employees motivated to get up every morning and...do whatever the
hell it is Fujitsu actually does:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRTf3UXCpiE&feature=player_embedded
Not to be outdone, IBM created this anthemic gem for its, uh...champions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ85Abu_TBs&feature=player_embedded
Not to be outdone, Ernst & Young entered the fray with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaIq9o1H1yo&feature=player_embedded
Below is where the AT&T, Unisys, and Hewlett-Packard corporate anthems were
supposed to go, but a sense of general unease and off-the-charts depression set
in and, for the sake of us all, let's just leave well enough alone.’
Grant ‘February
15, a.m. (from USAGOLD.com) --
Rising rates and reserve
requirements in China may have tamped inflation somewhat in January. CPI came
in at 4.9% y/y, but the market is always a little suspicious of Chinese data
that misses expectations, especially when the news may have been leaked in
advance. CPI was pretty much spot-on yesterday's whisper. PPI surged to a 6.6%
y/y pace in January, up from 5.9% in Dec.Inflation in the UK is now officially
running twice as hot as the Bank of England's target of 2.0%. Jan CPI
accelerated to 4.0% y/y and BoE Governor Mervyn King sees potential for
inflation to rise even further in the short-term. Here in America, import
prices rose a higher than expected 1.5% in Jan, while export prices were up
1.2%. Inflation, which had largely been a problem in the emerging world, seems
to be coming home to roost in the industrial world. Now the question becomes,
will there be a policy response? Of course, this is exactly what Ben Bernanke's
Fed wants. He recently suggested inflation around 2% would be appropriate, but
perhaps Mr. King can now offer some insights on how hard it is to maintain
target once that inflation train starts rolling.[chart]John Williams of Shadow
Government Statistics tracks US CPI in the same way that the BLS did it
historically. The chart above compares CPI calculated using 1990 methodology,
versus the current methodology. It suggests that inflation is already more than
double Bernanke's soft 2% target. If you use 1980 methodology, as the chart
below does, the inflation picture is substantially worse. The implication is,
when the BLS doesn't like the picture that's being painted, they change the
methodology. As Mr. Williams says, if your real life experience suggests
inflation is not benign, there's probably a reason for that. Visit www.shadowstats.com for a dose of
perspective.[chart]News late yesterday that the EU finance ministers had
reached an agreement on a permanent bailout fund initially lifted the euro.
However, subsequent speculation that it wasn't really a done-deal after all,
combined with Q4 GDP misses in core-Europe, took the little breeze out of the
single currency's sail. German, French and Italian GDP expanded just 0.4%, 0.3%
and 0.1% respectively in Q4, all below market expectations. Greece
slipped deeper into recession in Q4, with GDP falling an additional 1.4%.
The Greek economy may have contracted as much as 4.5% last year, which would be
the biggest drop in 50-years. Greece was the first EU country to get a bailout.
At this rate, if there is indeed a new permanent bailout facility, Greece may
be waiting when the door opens.This morning's US January retail sales was a
miss at just +0.3%, on expectations ranging from +0.6 to +0.9. As is the case
with every bad data point these days, weather was to blame. The market also
continues to digest President Obama's $3.7 trillion FY2012 budget proposal.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the President's plan to cut $1.1 trillion in spending
over the next decade has drawn the ire from both sides of the political
spectrum. Mr. Obama said this morning that he prefers to use a "a
scalpel...not a machete," presumably to avoid too much pain (or political
backlash). An op-ed in today's Washington Post calls it like it is: President
Obama's budget kicks the hard choices further down the road.When we reach
the end of the road and can kick the can no further, a machete may prove to be
a tool too small for the job. Faced with the prospect of monumental pain that
would be a direct result of decades of can kicking, the government may still
opt for an alternative to fiscal responsibility. A devaluation of the dollar
would be an increasingly attractive option, as the pain would be more fully
shared than cuts to government services that would largely effect the poor and
middle class, and tax hikes that would target the wealthy. Currency devaluation
can also be accomplished without an act of Congress, so our politicians would
have the political cover they need. Peter Grant is USAGOLD's resident economist
and a well-known analyst globally in the forex and precious metals markets.’
Deception at the Fed Dr.
Ron Paul | The Federal Reserve has been given a dual mandate: keeping
prices stable and maximizing employment. This policy relies in part on
numerical chicanery.
Barack
Obama’s Budget For 2012: A Complete And Total Joke The Economic
Collapse | Don’t question the wacky economic growth assumptions.
Greece
reassures IMF on privatization UPI | IMF and the EU
recently criticized Greece for its slow efforts to turn services over to
private concerns.
National / World
Concerns
over European defense cuts (Washington Post) [ At some point, rationality
must overcome irrationality; if only necessity being the mother of this
new-found invention (rationality). Interestingly, there was a blip on
television news from a NATO rep talking up the technological / military
superiority of NATO relative to Russia (without whose technological prowess
that space station and crew would literally be lost in space). So take that,
literally … and make the cuts (rational). ] European policymakers say the cuts
are necessary given their financial straits, and that training, not sheer
numbers, is what matters in a post-Cold War world.
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump Taj Mahal
Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends With
Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino in
mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt federal
judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit
ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions
to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO Case)
]
earned many billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense
was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the
people, all of the time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE...
PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [
trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true
enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the possibility
of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapses. [ When you come right
down to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable
structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have
survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms
condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his
opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt
america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed
the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg ,
and of course, corrupt legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto
bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on offensive (defensive a
misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the nations of the world
combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a pattern emerging here [ I
unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed employees, cia, all 3
branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in this evolved american
trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense … The pervasively corrupt american
illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their lifetime plush
appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are unheard of in
productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these drags on
society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly bureaucracies. Rules
of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans. Most, including sam
alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug money laundering and
obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit ( also maryanne trump
barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her brother’s casinos in a
civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it for the
money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is great
for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation. ] “I would announce, without equivocation, a
25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?' ]
Symbolic reductions (Washington Post) Gerson: Why would
the GOP cut funding for bed nets in Africa? [ Well, given the perilous state of
a nation-state in peril; viz., defacto bankrupt america and the imperiled
citizenry therein, one might ask how such was funded in the first instance… Drudgereport: DEBT
NOW EQUALS ENTIRE ECONOMY
OBAMA
AGENDA IS OVER
Obama
refers to himself as 'The Gipper'… [ Riiiight! …anything you say wobmama the b
for b*** s***… or maybe the bipper, the chipper, or the yankee clipper (the new
joltin’ joe) …sounds like he’s losing it! ] ...
France
Wants New Global Finance System; End of Dollar Dominance...
Fannie,
Freddie bailout: $153 billion and counting...
GALLUP:
Unemployment at 10.3%...
GADDAFI
TELLS PALESTINIANS: REVOLT AGAINST ISRAEL
Gov't
Motors to pay out $189 million in bonuses; some workers to get 50% payoffs..
Deficit
Expected to Jump to $1.65 Trillion...
...'slow
train wreck coming'
BUDGET
BLOWOUT: How big is $3.73 trillion? $12,000 from each American...
ANALYSIS:
$1.5 trillion
tax hike over 10 years...
AIRLINES:
New fees would be $2 billion tax increase on flyers...
Sessions:
Obama failed on budget...
Long
Spending Fight...
Produce
prices to skyrocket with freeze in Mexico, Southwest...
Clothing
Prices to Rise 10% Starting in Spring...
China
Replaced Japan in 2010 as Number 2 Economy... ]
Could
the Dow Hit 4,500? [ Short answer: YES! Prechter et als say even far lower
(which I would agree with in real terms, but not in debased dollar terms.) ] Norfolk ‘October 20, 1999: I am at a breakfast briefing run by
a British investment house. Scarfing my bacon bap and croissant, washed down
with the treacly and malodorous coffee that only hotels can provide, I feel
quite the patronised lower-order businessman as I listen to the market
overview.
Suddenly, I become uneasy. It's not the stomach registering the high fat food -
nothing like it for dealing with last night's alcohol, I find - it's the
strange disconnection between what the fund reps are telling me and what they
want me to do. They are feeding me dead pig so I will recommend equity investment
to my clients - but they're telling me (with relaxed smiles) "the American
stock market could be as much as 50% too high, and a correction is
overdue", as I reported in a letter to a client the next day.
We sure get bought cheaply, don't we?
It was around the same time that I attended a monthly broker network meeting in
Worcester, where another fund house recruiting sergeant told us IFA doughboys
how (in 1999) the tech boom was only in its first phase, and a sort of
super-boom was coming next.
That's when I decided (1) to start reminding my people that most of their
pensions and investments had an option to switch to cash within the wrapper -
with the caveat that I had no crystal ball, and (2) to change my own business
and earnings model to survival mode.
The next year, when one of our colleagues at the monthly get-together revealed
that the best asset class for the last 12 months had been cash and asked hands
up who'd seen that coming, I kept my hand down. I didn't want to disappear in a
hail of slightly stale bread rolls.
Today I read in "The Spectator" magazine an
article by Merryn Somerset Webb, editor-in-chief of "Moneyweek".
She points out the inflationary boom in the East and suggests a contrarian play
- invest West (counting Japan as part of the West) - but warns of overvaluation
here, too:
"I refer you to two valuation measures that seek
to tell us where markets will go over ten to 20 years, the cyclically adjusted
price-earnings ratio and the Q ratio of market value to underlying asset value.
According to their biggest fan, the strategist Andrew Smithers, they now tell
us that the US market is around 70 per cent overvalued."
I fear that Smithers is an optimist; or rather, when
he says a market is overvalued, I assume he's using a theoretical fair value as
his point of reference, and ignoring the overshoot effect. 70% overvaluation
implies a 40% (ish) drop; but for a long time I've been watching for a 70%
drop.
Back in October 2008, J. Kyle Bass of Hayman Advisors (.pdf
here) was saying "We think we will see 10-12% unemployment, a 4-5%
decline in GDP, and the equity markets could drop at least 70% from peak to
trough." (I love that reassuringly conservative "at least",
don't you? As Wavy Gravy said at Woodstock, "There is always a little bit
of heaven in a disaster area." Maybe we will all be feeding each other
again, man.)
So I had a go at drawing a picture... in December
2008, I took the Dow at close at the start of each calendar month from late
October 1928 to 80 years later, and divided it by inflation (CPI-U) as
announced for the end of the preceding month (I figured that even official
figures for consumer prices aren't as manipulated as the gold market). Here's
what I got: [chart]
Re-done today to the end of January, here's the same story updated:
[chart]
Read this way, the real peak was at the end of 1999, then the market halved
until monetary inflation from 2003 blew up real estate, then it halved again
until the wonders of QE, and sometime soon the Fed's lungs are going to give
out once more.
Allowing for inflation, a drop of 70% from December 1999 would mean the Dow's
low should be just under 4,500 today. That red dot really doesn't look so
freakishly out of whack in context - not half so much as the Twin Peaks before
it.
Of course, inflation is the joker in the pack. I'm talking about a deflation of
the Dow in real terms; one way that could happen is a phoney boom discounted by
high inflation - like 1973 - 1982, for instance:
[chart]
It took until April 1992 for the real Dow to get back
to what it had been worth in December 1972; but at least it got back. The
dollar lost 70% of its consumer purchasing power over the same period.
Like I said in my last SA article (This
Liquidity Will Soak Us All ), it may be that we're going to wet, no matter
what tree we stand under.
Meantime, I'm buying my own sandwiches.’
Beware The Lagging Dow Trick Adler
‘When the Dow lags the broader market like it did today, it’s usually a sign
the market managers want to run it up without the public on board, so beware of
that if it continues for a few days. The bad news out of Fedex (FDX) is
causing some after hours unpleasantness, but you know how that game goes.
Shakeout at night, market makers' delight. Uncle Ben is scheduled to deposit
$5-7 billion into Primary Dealer trading accounts tomorrow, but a big Treasury
settlement will suck a massive amount of cash out of their wallets. The
Treasury settles a whopping $62 billion in notes and bonds on Wedneday. That's
a lot more than the Fed cash they got in the last week which will be only $12.5
billion to $23.5 billion including what they got last week. You might here a
giant sucking sound for a day. I saw little change in the technicals today.
This narrowly based uptrend has the potential to go on and on with minor shakes
along the way. The 10-12 month cycle projection looks to be honing in on 1390
in my cycle work. That will probably shift some with the idealized top window
open from now through April. The Wells Fargo-NAHB homebuilders index will be
out at 10 AM Tuesday. Builder traffic has been non-existent and purchase
mortgage applications have been hovering just above 20 year lows, so I don't
see any improvement likely in sales activity. The numbers could easily get
worse if they weren't already so close to the zero bound. The market shouldn't
be surprised by that, but given the big Treasury settlement sucking cash out of
dealer and other accounts, that could be a catalyst for a selloff. All of this
bad news will be a setup for dealers to take down some inventory for another
run as the Fed stuffs their trading accounts with cash in the days ahead. Bears
should not be fooled by this. Don't get sucked in. Dippers, hold your fire
until the selling is washed out.’
Stock
Market Resiliency Being Put to the Test Editor's Note: This article was
written by Richard Suttmeier, chief market strategist
at ValuEngine.com
‘The test of resiliency for stocks comes from the dynamics for the US capital
markets, both fundamentally and technically. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note has
held my annual value level at 3.791, and these high yields are a drag on equity
valuations. Comex gold has been volatile but seems to find a home at my annual
pivot at $1356.5. Nymex crude oil trades on both
sides of my semiannual pivot at $87.52. In this environment US stocks have
become overvalued fundamentally and overbought technically. Stocks have been
trading under a ValuEngine Valuation Warning for
the past three days as the major averages push the envelope of new multi-year
highs.I still see the warning flags flying from Egypt, Europe, and the emerging
markets which are laggards as we approach mid-February. While the Dow
Industrial Average is up 5.6% year to date the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets
Index Fund (EEM) is down 5.4%, and the
iShares FTSE China 25 Index Fund (FXI)
is down 4.0% and is below both its 50-day simple moving average at $43.28 and
its 200-day simple moving average at $42.13. These types of negative
divergences suggest to me that US stocks are vulnerable once their Fed-induced
bubbles pop.Thursday’s equity closes were above all of this week’s pivots at
12,142 Dow Industrial Average, 1316.2 S&P 500, 2770 Nasdaq, 5077 Dow
Transports, and 800.13 Russell 2000. The S&P 500 tested and held its weekly
pivot at 1316.2. The Dow Transport Average outperformed on Thursday and tested
its annual pivot at 5179.
We are trading under a ValuEngine Valuation Warning -- 16 of 16 sectors
overvalued with only 33.15% of all stocks undervalued on Wednesday, below the
35% threshold by this measure. This also means that 66.86% of all stocks are
overvalued. Why does Wall Street think stocks are cheap?
The US Treasury 10-Year Yield -- (3.702) My annual value level is 3.791 with a
weekly risky level at 3.525.
Comex Gold -- ($1361.7) My quarterly and annual pivots are $1331.3 and $1356.5
with daily, monthly, quarterly, and semiannual risky levels are $1375.2,
$1412.4, $1441.7, and $1452.6.
Nymex Crude Oil – ($87.14) My semiannual pivot at $87.52 has become a magnet
with a monthly pivot at $91.83.
The Euro -- (1.3593) My quarterly value level is 1.3227 with my monthly risky
level at 1.4225.
Foreclosure Lull as Repossessions Rise Again
Foreclosure paperwork issues have slowed the home foreclosure process over the
past two months, but as this dilemma works its way to a solution, foreclosures
will rise again, as will bank auctions of OREO (Other Real Estate Owned). As a
result, more homeowners who are missing mortgage payments are staying in their
homes longer, adding to the backlog of bad loans. Meanwhile, banks are picking
up the pace in repossessions taking back 78,133 properties in January according
to RealtyTrac. This is up 12% from December. Banks took back more than a
million homes in 2010, and about five million borrowers are at least two months
behind on mortgage payments.The housing problems remain the same: high
unemployment, a weak housing market, falling home prices, and tighter lending
standards.’
Bernanke Helps Fuel an Increasingly Expensive Market Roche ‘As the market continues
to grind higher each and every day, it’s useful to gain some perspective on
just how much Bernanke is impacting valuations and generating disequilibrium in
the market. In order to do so we’ll review a number of long-term valuation
indicators.
The first is
Warren Buffett’s self proclaimed favorite valuation tool (see
here for more). He uses the total market cap of the US stock market
compared to GNP. He has generally maintained that levels below 80% are bullish.
The latest reading of 106% is well below the levels seen at the last two market
peaks, but well above the historical average levels. You will notice that the
permanently high valuations coincide with the Greenspan Put which has now
morphed into the Bernanke Put.
click to
enlarge images [chart]
John Hussman’s
latest piece succinctly
describes the current market environment in which Ben Bernanke continues to
encourage speculation and malinvestment. As we all know by now it is Bernanke’s
goal to keep asset prices “higher than they otherwise would be” in an attempt
to generate a self sustaining economic recovery through asset prices. This is
the insane notion that nominal wealth will lead to real wealth.
In fact, Ben
Bernanke has this quite backwards. Fundamentals drive real wealth – not nominal
price increases. But two bubbles in one decade doesn’t teach this man a lesson.
Hussman elaborates:
Last week, the S&P 500 Index ascended to a
Shiller P/E in excess of 24 (this “cyclically-adjusted P/E” or CAPE represents
the ratio of the S&P 500 to 10-year average earnings, adjusted for
inflation). Prior to the mid-1990′s market bubble, a multiple in excess
of 24 for the CAPE was briefly seen only once, between August and early-October
1929. Of course, we observe richer multiples at the heights of the late-1990′s
bubble, when investors got ahead of themselves in response to the introduction
of transformative technologies such as the internet. After a market slide of
more than 50%, investors again pushed the Shiller multiple beyond 24 during the
housing bubble and cash-out financing free-for-all that ended in the recent
mortgage collapse.
And here we are again. This is not to say that we can
rule out yet higher valuations, but with no transformative technologies driving
the economy, little expansion in capital investment, and ongoing retrenchment
in consumer balance sheets, I can’t help but think that the “virtuous cycle”
rhetoric of Ben Bernanke is an awfully thin gruel by comparison. We should not
deserve to be called “investors” if we fail to recognize that valuations are richer
today than at any point in history, save for the few months before the 1929
crash, and a bubble period that has been rewarded by zero total return for the
S&P 500 since 2000. Indeed, the stock market has lagged the return on
low-yielding Treasury bills since August 1998. I am not sure that even members
of my own profession have learned anything from this.
Using his expected returns methodology Mr. Hussman is
looking for annual returns of just 3.15% in the coming decade:
Dshort brings
us the Q Ratio which has now hit “nosebleed” territory again. This is
consistent with the other metrics which all showed relatively stable ranges
until the Fed began its unusual policy of propping up markets following the 87
crash. The latest reading of 1.17 is well below the Nasdaq bubble peak, but is
higher than any other historical peak. “Nosebleed” could be an understatement.
As
I mentioned in December, we have to ask ourselves if any of this matters as
long as the Fed is directly involved in promoting speculation. It’s now clear
that the Bernanke Put is well ingrained in every investor’s head. Never has the
Federal Reserve been so explicit about propping up asset prices and it has
created a speculative frenzy that has every investor trying to front-run the
Fed.
The problem for the Fed will be letting their foot
off the gas. They have created a beast that they likely no longer control. When
and if the Fed ever ends QE it is likely that markets will begin to revert to
the mean. This will likely force the Fed’s hand to stabilize markets. So what
we’ve created with this explicit backstop is a positive feedback loop. Can the
Fed ever get out of the market now? And if they don’t it’s likely that markets
will spiral higher until they cannot control the inevitable collapse.
The foolishness of current Fed policy cannot be
downplayed. Let’s hope for the sake of US citizens that they are as quick to
take credit for the inevitable market decline as they have been about taking
credit for the rally. For once they admit to having contributed to
malinvestment and misallocation of resources we can likely begin mounting a
case that closes this horrible chapter in American history where the Central
Bank attempted to turn our economy into a financialized ponzi scheme.’
The
American Dream: It’s the Bank versus the Republic You Tube
| THE AMERICAN DREAM takesa look at why leaders throughout our history have
warned us and fought against the current type of financial system we have in
America today.
Debt now equals
total U.S. economy Washington Times | Obama projects that
the gross federal debt will top $15 trillion this year, officially equalling
the size of the entire U.S. economy.
Obama Releases
$3.73 Trillion Budget WSJ | President Barack Obama
released a $3.73 trillion budget for fiscal-year 2012 Monday.
Obama's budget would add $13 trillion to national debt
President Barack Obama visited Susan Yoder's science class Monday at Parkville
Middle School and Center of Technology in Parkville, Md. Video: Obama Advisor:
President Made Tough Budget Cuts The
Associated Press Rejected Tax Increases Make a Return in Obama Administration
Budget Plan Bloomberg
National / World
Quiet
military coup was behind Mubarak’s resignation Haaretz |
After Mubarak’s Thursday-night address Egyptian military leaders, anticipating
the anger of the protesters, told Mubarak that if he did not step down
voluntarily the army would force him out.
Egyptian
military dissolves parliament, suspends Constitution BBC |
Egypt’s new military authorities say they are dissolving parliament and
suspending the constitution.
David
Icke: There’s Been NO REVOLUTION So Far David Icke | I
have been watching the understandable euphoria in Egypt live on Al Jazeera
television, but please, there must be a sense of perspective here – and
urgently.
Wisconsin
Gov. Walker Threatens To Deploy National Guard As ‘Intimidation Force’ Against
Workers’ Unions Think Progress | When asked by a reporter what
will happen if workers resist, Gov. Walker replied that he would call out the
National Guard.
Rep. Jones
pushes for end to Afghanistan War ENC Today | They are
faces, not numbers, for Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-NC.
Anonymous
hack reveals HBGary plan to destroy WikiLeaks V3 | Data
released as part of a hacking attack by the Anonymous group has shown what
appears to be a corporate plan to destroy WikiLeaks.
Tea Party
declares war on military spending Guardian | Dispute
between the Republican party establishment and the Tea Party movement boiled
over into the public arena during this week’s CPAC conference.
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump Taj Mahal
Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends With
Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino in
mob-infested jersey!
Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit
ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions
to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO Case)
]
earned many billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense
was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the
people, all of the time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE...
PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [
trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true
enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal /
judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation. ] “I would announce, without equivocation, a
25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?' ]
Drudgereport:
DEBT
NOW EQUALS ENTIRE ECONOMY
OBAMA
AGENDA IS OVER
Obama
refers to himself as 'The Gipper'… [ Riiiight! …anything you say wobmama the b
for b*** s***… or maybe the bipper, the chipper, or the yankee clipper (the new
joltin’ joe) …sounds like he’s losing it! ] ...
France
Wants New Global Finance System; End of Dollar Dominance...
Fannie,
Freddie bailout: $153 billion and counting...
GALLUP:
Unemployment at 10.3%...
GADDAFI
TELLS PALESTINIANS: REVOLT AGAINST ISRAEL
Gov't
Motors to pay out $189 million in bonuses; some workers to get 50% payoffs..
Deficit
Expected to Jump to $1.65 Trillion...
...'slow
train wreck coming'
BUDGET
BLOWOUT: How big is $3.73 trillion? $12,000 from each American...
ANALYSIS:
$1.5 trillion
tax hike over 10 years...
AIRLINES:
New fees would be $2 billion tax increase on flyers...
Sessions:
Obama failed on budget...
Long
Spending Fight...
Produce
prices to skyrocket with freeze in Mexico, Southwest...
Clothing
Prices to Rise 10% Starting in Spring...
China
Replaced Japan in 2010 as Number 2 Economy...
China
plans Colombian rail link to challenge Panama canal...
The
March On Berlusconi...
Malware
'Aimed at Iran Hit Five Sites'...
Mubarak
'falls into coma after final speech'...
Egyptian
military orders last protesters out of 'Liberation Square'...
Consolidates
power...
Delivers
ultimatum...
GOP's
plan for spending cuts sets Capitol Hill showdown (Washington Post) [
Showdown? How ‘bout hoedown! I mean, give me a break … who’s kidding whom … but
the ‘show’ part fits! Timid
Tuesday: Is it Safe? Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are
simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of
global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form
of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh)
is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut
$100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while
continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1%
each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool
all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT
THERE! ‘ Howard Davidowitz on the Economy:
"Here Are the Numbers ... WE'RE BROKE!" 11-25-10
‘The U.S. economy "is
a complete disaster," Howard Davidowitz declared here in July,
the most recent in a string of dire predictions …
"Here are the numbers...we're broke," Davidowitz declares, noting the
U.S. government goes $5 billion deeper into debt every day and is facing $1
trillion-plus annual deficits for the next decade. "In other words, we're
bankrupt."As with the economy, Davidowitz is unwaveringly consistent
in his views on President Obama, calling him "deranged, dysfunctional and
discredited."Results of the midterm election show "the people of this
country think we are in a catastrophe," he says. "I'm with
them."] Some Republicans express concerns about the steep cuts, but
some cheer the trims as an important political objective -- meeting a campaign
pledge they made last fall to grass-roots activists.
Egypt's
popular uprising triumphs In
18 days, a revolution topples 30-year regime Hosni Mubarak becomes
the second Arab leader in a month to succumb to his people's potent thirst for
freedom. (Washington Post) [ That 82
year old, 30 year Egyptian potentate, Pharhosni Mubarak was done was never in
question. What comes next is another matter entirely:
Drudgereport:
IMF
CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE TO $$ AS WORLD'S RESERVE
MILITARY
TAKES COMMAND
'Egypt
is Free,' crowds chant...
WIRE:
Military coup was behind Mubarak's exit...
Military
calls for normal business activity to resume...
DAY
18: Mubarak and family flee Cairo for Sharm el-Sheikh...
Swiss
freeze assets...
Obama
learns of resignation watching TV...
Crisis
Puts White House in Disarray...
Director
of National Intelligence: Muslim Brotherhood 'Largely Secular,' 'Has Eschewed
Violence'...
'Weakness'
in USA...
Ahmadinejad:
Egyptian protests herald new Mideast...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED...
FRANCE 24 LIVE FEED...
Mubarak Hangs Tough...
VP
Urges Protestors to Ignore Media, and Go Home...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED...
CIA
Panetta Confused: Said Strong likelihood Mubarak would 'step down tonight'...
March
to palace being organized...
REUTERS
LIVE...
ElBaradei
warns Egypt will 'explode'....
Egypt's
govt on the brink..
FLASH
CRASH: APPLE stock loses $10 billion in four minutes...
Jobs'
Health Rumor?
Global
Stock Exchanges Headed for Major Consolidation...
Kyl
becomes fifth senator to step aside...
Fed
Governor Resigns; Bernanke Adviser Questioned Stimulus...
NBC:
Intelligence officials 'scrambling to try to determine exactly what this all
means'...
Mubarak
Steps Down as President, Army Takes Over ABC News | Egypt’s embattled President Hosni Mubarak abruptly
stepped down as president, ending his 30-year America’s
Strategic Repression of the ‘Arab Awakening’ A popular backlash against
American-supported dictatorships and repressive regimes has been anticipated
for a number of years, with arch-hawk geopolitical strategist Zbigniew
Brzezinski articulating a broad conception of a ‘Global Political Awakening’
taking place, in which the masses of the world (predominantly the educated,
exploited and impoverished youth of the ‘Third World’) have become acutely
aware of their subjugation, inequality, exploitation and oppression.
One-Way Market Action: Dave's Daily ‘"To the moon"(Alice) might be a better description of
this nonstop bullish action. All week markets were worrying about Egypt. When
things were bad there, markets rallied. When things seemed better, markets
rallied. When Cisco and Credit Suisse posted lousy reports, markets rallied.
When China raised interest rates, markets rallied. Every dip has been bought
and every dip has been buying. All this was taking place while many emerging
markets were breaking down creating some divergence from previously high
inter-market correlations. Things are going so well most reliable technical
indicators are getting steamrolled by what those few trading must believe is a
rosy future. Market rallies have been steady but not spectacularly higher with
daily .50% type moves. But, those add up. Does all this frustrate us?
Partially, since active portfolios exited a
couple of weeks ago but Lazy Portfolios are doing better. Making sense of Mr.
Market has never been an easy proposition. I'm back from attending the annual
Inside ETFs conference in
Florida where I moderated a panel on technical analysis. Most panelists were
bullish but couldn't pin-point why other than "price" analysis.
Friday Mubarak gave up probably needing the extra time to round-up the loot
before he left town for a Club Med in Dubai or some such place. Markets opened lower
on Mubarak's initial determination but then rallied some on his change of heart
Friday…’
Bad News and Higher Prices - Bullish Wall of Worry or Reason to
Worry? [Definitely
reason to worry; this up, up and away, valuation be damned preceded the last
crash and the crash before that! ], On Friday February 11, 2011 ‘If
it's too obvious, it's obviously wrong. More often than not, this proverbial
Wall Street adage has the last laugh. What's the prevailing consent on Wall
Street? What's suspiciously obvious today?
- The Fed is
here to help. As long as there's QE2 (or QE3, 4, etc,) prices will go up.
- January
was positive. As January goes, so goes the year.
- This is
the third year of the Presidential Election Year Cycle. There hasn't been a
negative third year since 1939.
- There's no
catalyst to send stocks higher.
While Wall Street
analysts are trying to one up each other's positive forecasts, the Fear Index,
VIX (Chicago Options: ^VIX) has fallen to a 3 year low. The last time the VIX
was at a similar level was in April 2010, just before a literally
fear-inspiring 17% correction and the May 'Flash Crash' (see chart below).The
ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter didn't subscribe to the prevailing optimism in
April 2010 and warned that: 'The message conveyed by the composite bullishness
is unmistakably bearish. The pieces are in place for a major decline.'Does that
mean that the bottom will fall out again within a matter of days? Not
necessarily, but now is certainly not the time to be married to your holdings.
Tight sell stops are warranted because any minor correction could turn into a
large one. Why?
New Bull
Market, or Mother of all Bear Market Rallies?
The devil's in
the long-term trend. If we are in a new bull market, any dip would present a
buying opportunity. If we are in the mother of all bear market rallies, every
rally is a trap and represents a selling opportunity.How can one determine
whether we are in a new bull market, or a bear market rally?
[chart] It's said that bull
markets climb a wall of worry. No doubt there was extreme pessimism surrounding
the March 2009 lows. That's one of the reasons the ETF Profit Strategy
Newsletter sent out a strong buy signal on March 2, 2009.But pessimism at the
bottom doesn't equal a wall of worry. In fact, following the initial bout of
disbelief, investors embraced the rally rather quickly. In late 2009, sentiment
readings became frothy, in January 2010 they rivaled 2007 extremes (stocks fell
9%), and in April 2010 they exceeded 2007 extremes (stocks fell 17%).About two
thirds of the rally from the 2009 lows was accompanied by optimism. This is no
wall of worry.
Glass
Half Full Outlook
Think about it,
even the truly big problems - unemployment and falling real estate (NYSEArca: IYR - News) prices - were sugar coated
from the very beginning. The unemployment problem was charmingly called
'jobless recovery' and falling real estate prices were simply ignored.The Case-Shiller
home price index is down four months in a row, but nobody is bothered. A few
days ago, MarketWatch ran an article: '10 reasons to be bullish on
housing.'Courtesy of the continuing real estate conundrum, the FDIC closed 157
banks in 2010, and 14 thus far in 2011. According to a Wall Street Journal
article, the top 10 U.S. owned banks (NYSEArca: KBE - News) had $13.8 billion in
unrealized losses.Those are not reflected in earnings numbers as long as
financial institutions (NYSEArca: XLF
- News) believe the investment
will later rebound. Guess what? Banks are pretty darn sure prices will reclaim
their 2006 all-time highs.In addition to the $13.8 billion in unrealized
losses, the top 10 U.S. banks owned $360.7 billion in illiquid, hard to value
assets (called level 3 assets). While paper earnings appear solid, it appears
as if banks are hiding skeletons in their closets. But who cares, stocks
(NYSEArca: VTI - News) are up.
Anomaly
Explained
Ben Bernanke has
openly admitted that asset inflation, or the wealth effect from rising stock
prices, is the objective of QE2. Obviously, the money flow from the Federal
Reserve over banks into the stock market has been the driving force behind this
monster rally.Much of the Fed money has been funneled into commodities. Since
QE2, net speculative positions in wheat and copper have doubled, oil soared
115%, soybeans 40% and corn 15%. Rising commodity prices (NYSEArca: DBC - News) are putting the squeeze on
lower income Americans and will eventually lower profit margins for the
materials sector (NYSEArca: XLB
- News).It's quite likely
that this ripple effect will spill over into the retail (NYSEArca: XRT - News), technology (NYSEArca: XLK - News), and consumer discretionary
sector (NYSEArca: XLY - News). From there it's just a
matter of time until it hits the broader Dow (DJI: ^DJI), S&P (SNP: ^GSPC)
and Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC).Contrary to its objective, QE2 has also sent
interest rates soaring. Higher interest rates tend to encourage the money to
flow from equities into bonds. Higher interest rates put pressure on bond
(NYSEArca: AGG - News) and stock prices alike.
Early
Detection
The trend is your
friend, but the trend is a fair-weather friend and can turn at any given time.
The trend doesn't announce its intention to change direction. It switches back
and worth as it pleases without your permission.Courtesy of your friend the
trend, everybody is a genius in a bull market ... and a nave misguided trend
follower when prices drop without prior notice.There is no foolproof way to
find out when the market is about to change directions. There are, however,
ways to put the odds in your favor.Watching support levels has proven a very
effective way. A few months ago 1,170
was a crucial support level highlighted by the ETF Profit Strategy
Newsletter. The S&P tested this level no less than five times, but never
broker below it and rallied over 10% since.Just recently, 1,270 was such a
support level. The S&P tested it twice before moving into the 1,320 range.
The market is dynamic and can change swiftly; therefore, it's the market that
dictates support levels, not us. We just identify and use them.At the current
juncture, support levels are vital because they define the trend. As long as
support remains intact, so does the rally. Once support is broken, watch out…’
Stock
Market Resiliency Being Put to the Test Minyanville Suttmeier, chief market strategist at ValuEngine.com.’The
test of resiliency for stocks comes from the dynamics for the US capital markets, both
fundamentally and technically. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note has
held my annual value level at 3.791, and these high yields are a drag on equity
valuations. Comex gold has been volatile but seems to find a home at my annual
pivot at $1356.5. Nymex crude oil trades on both sides of my semiannual pivot
at $87.52. In this environment US stocks have become overvalued fundamentally
and overbought technically. Stocks have been trading under a ValuEngine
Valuation Warning for the past three days as the major averages push the
envelope of new multi-year highs.I still see the warning flags flying from
Egypt, Europe, and the emerging markets which are laggards as we approach
mid-February. While the Dow Industrial Average is up 5.6% year to date
the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund (EEM) is down 5.4%, and the iShares
FTSE China 25 Index Fund (FXI)
is down 4.0% and is below both its 50-day simple moving average at $43.28 and
its 200-day simple moving average at $42.13. These types of negative
divergences suggest to me that US stocks are vulnerable once their Fed-induced
bubbles pop.Thursday’s equity closes were above all of this week’s pivots at
12,142 Dow Industrial Average, 1316.2 S&P 500, 2770 Nasdaq,
5077 Dow Transports, and 800.13 Russell 2000. The S&P 500 tested
and held its weekly pivot at 1316.2. The Dow Transport Average outperformed on
Thursday and tested its annual pivot at 5179.
We are trading under a ValuEngine Valuation Warning -- 16 of 16 sectors
overvalued with only 33.15% of all stocks undervalued on Wednesday, below the
35% threshold by this measure. This also means that 66.86% of all stocks are
overvalued. Why does Wall Street think stocks are cheap?
The US Treasury 10-Year Yield -- (3.702) My annual value level is 3.791
with a weekly risky level at 3.525.
Comex Gold -- ($1361.7) My quarterly and annual pivots are $1331.3 and
$1356.5 with daily, monthly, quarterly, and semiannual risky levels are
$1375.2, $1412.4, $1441.7, and $1452.6.
Nymex Crude Oil – ($87.14) My semiannual pivot at $87.52 has become a
magnet with a monthly pivot at $91.83.
The Euro -- (1.3593) My quarterly value level is 1.3227 with my monthly
risky level at 1.4225.
Foreclosure Lull as Repossessions Rise Again
Foreclosure paperwork issues have slowed the home foreclosure process over the
past two months, but as this dilemma works its way to a solution, foreclosures
will rise again, as will bank auctions of OREO (Other Real Estate Owned). As a
result, more homeowners who are missing mortgage payments are
staying in their homes longer, adding to the backlog of bad loans. Meanwhile,
banks are picking up the pace in repossessions taking back 78,133 properties in
January according to RealtyTrac. This is up 12% from December. Banks took back
more than a million homes in 2010, and about five million borrowers are at
least two months behind on mortgage payments.
The housing problems remain the same: high unemployment, a weak housing market,
falling home prices, and tighter lending standards.’
Debunking
the 'Debunking Myths of U.S. Collapse' Post Ridder [
Stated another way, the collapse of the (dis)united states is at hand. Now,
let me state, that doesn’t mean america will disappear from the face of the
earth, but the reality truly is ‘death from a thousand cuts’. It’s not just
China’s rise, but america’s decline and fall with the concomitant relative rise
of other nations, regions. Quite simply, and historically factual reality has
proven, nation-states cannot and have not survived the multitude of negative,
destructive, and self-destructive things america has done and prosper as a
leading nation. From perpetual war, to pervasive corruption, fraud, criminality
across all stratum including institutions, government of american society, to
what I believe as well to be an evolved genetic bias of inherent
criminality/mental illness which is ill-adapted to the strictures of a more
enlightened 21st Century by way of near instantaneously available information,
with truth and factual reality being america’s greatest enemy. In
support of the foregoing I will reiterate reasons, infra.] ‘This is a short response to another post
I recently read, "Debunking Myths of U.S. Collapse," which was a
follow up to the article
"The End of America? Not Quite." This post had various and numerous
flaws, in my opinion, which I thought had to be addressed. I have unfortunately
recently undergone shoulder surgery, so I will not be able to provide as
comprehensive response as I might hope; but I will provide some basic arguments
and thoughts that rebut or refute the statements given in the
"Debunking" post. First, under the heading "Printing
Money Does Not Create Wealth," in which the
author attempts to refute this statement, there is this line of reasoning:
"How will the 'wasted' money get into the hands
of the wealth creators? If the new ear pickers go into their communities and
spend it at local businesses, the printed money goes from useless employees,
into the accounts of productive businesses (of course the producers get less
after layers of tax bites). So the act of spending printed dollars itself will
get those dollars into the hands of businesses who are able to create
wealth."
Quickly, I will point to Japan, which has tried this
over 20 years and seems not to have created much wealth as measured by the
Japanese stock market. On the face of it this is a Keynesian solution and one
source to explain the Keynesian fallacies, and provide logic for its arguments,
is the book, "The Failure of the New Economics: An Analysis of the
Keynesian Fallacies."
Secondly, we come across this statement:
You will realize Dick Cheney got it right when he
said 'Deficits don't matter,' and will rest well knowing the US will not
default through non-payment, nor hyper-inflation."
The author Murray Rothbard in the book, "Making
Economic Sense," rebuts this thinking where he writes:
"Myth 1: Deficits are the cause of
inflation; deficits have nothing to do with inflation."
"In recent decades we always have had federal
deficits. The invariable response of the party out of power, whichever
it may be, is to denounce those deficits as being the cause of perpetual
inflation. And the invariable response of whatever party is in power
has been to claim that deficits have nothing to do with inflation. Both
opposing statements are myths.
"Deficits mean that the federal government is
spending more than it is taking in in taxes. Those deficits can be financed in
two ways. If they are financed by selling Treasury bonds to the public, then
the deficits are not inflationary. No new money is created; people and
institutions simply draw down their bank deposits to pay for the bonds, and the
Treasury spends that money. Money has simply been transferred from the public
to the Treasury, and then the money is spent on other members of the public.
"On the other hand, the deficit may be financed
by selling bonds to the banking system. If that occurs, the banks create new
money by creating new bank deposits and using them to buy the bonds. The new
money, in the form of bank deposits, is then spent by the Treasury, and thereby
enters permanently into the spending stream of the economy, raising prices and
causing inflation. By a complex process, the Federal Reserve enables the banks
to create the new money by generating bank reserves of one-tenth that amount.
Thus, if banks are to buy $100 billion of new bonds to finance the deficit, the
Fed buys approximately $10 billion of old Treasury bonds. This
purchase increases bank reserves by $10 billion, allowing the banks to pyramid
the creation of new bank deposits or money by ten times that amount. In short,
the government and the banking system it controls in effect "print"
new money to pay for the federal deficit.
"Thus, deficits are inflationary to the extent
that they are financed by the banking system; they are not
inflationary to the extent they are underwritten by the public."
Third, the author is just plain wrong mathematical
analysis under the heading, "Printing Money Will
Cause the U.S. Dollar to Lose Reserve-Currency Status," the
author writes:
"Granted, China is growing at roughly 10% a
year, and we are only growing at 3%. I get that. Let's do the math though and
see if we should worry. If China is a $6 trillion economy, growing at 10%, they
grow by $600 billion a year. If we are a $14 trillion economy growing at 3%, we
grow by $420 billion a year. In this close to reality example, China is closing
the gap at $180 billion a year. At this rate - it will take China 44 years to
even match the US in GDP. Can they continue to grow at 10% a year, while their
largest customer grows at 3% for 44 straight year? We are a far cry from no
longer being the largest economy. The biggest economy in the world should be
blessed with the reserve currency."
I took $14 trillion and grew it at a 3% rate in a
spreadsheet and then took $6 trillion in a spreadsheet and grew it at 10% a
year. One will find that if the 3% and 10% growth rates hold then in only 13
years (from a base year of zero) the Chinese economy would surpass the U.S.
economy. This is much lower than 44 years, actually less than 30% of the time!
It appears the author forgot to compound the growth rates but just used the
difference in the first year to compute a timeline. Finally, the OECD showed that the EU-27
had a larger economy than the U.S. in 2009.
Fourth, there is this paragraph headline, "If
Money Printing is Good, Then Just Print Enough To Give Everyone $1 Million,"
and then tries to protect the money printing position, which starts as
follows:
"If printing is not a big deal, then why not
just print away? The doom and gloomers jump to the conclusion that if I think
printing won't cause the collapse of America, it must be a good thing. So why
not seek more of that good thing?"
The author then rambles on about how he is not
calling for everyone to get a huge lump sum and therefore his money printing
position is okay. Left unanswered is what is the "right" amount of money
to print and how exactly does it get distributed. Rothbard provides a more
thoughtful analysis of this type of situation, again, in his book, "The
Mystery of Banking," where he introduces the Angel Gabriel analogy:
"To show why an increase in the money supply
confers no social benefits, let us picture to ourselves what I call the
"Angel Gabriel" model. The Angel Gabriel is a benevolent spirit who
wishes only the best for mankind, but unfortunately knows nothing about
economics. He hears mankind constantly complaining about a lack of money, so he
decides to intervene and do something about it. And so overnight, while all of
us are sleeping, the Angel Gabriel descends and magically doubles everyone's
stock of money. In the morning, when we all wake up, we find that the amount of
money we had in our wallets, purses, safes, and bank accounts has doubled.
"What will be the reaction? Everyone knows it
will be instant hoopla and joyous bewilderment. Every person will consider that
he is now twice as well off, since his money stock has doubled. In terms of our
Figure 3.4, everyone's cash balance, and therefore total M, has doubled to $200
billion. Everyone rushes out to spend their new surplus cash balances. But, as
they rush to spend the money, all that happens is that demand curves for all
goods and services rise. Society is no better off than before, since real
resources, labor, capital, goods, natural resources, productivity, have not
changed at all. And so prices will, overall, approximately double, and people
will find that they are not really any better off than they were before. Their
cash balances have doubled, but so have prices, and so their purchasing power
remains the same. Because he knew no economics, the Angel Gabriel's gift to
mankind has turned to ashes.
"But let us note something important for our
later analysis of the real world processes of inflation and monetary expansion.
It is not true that no one is better off from the Angel Gabriel's
doubling of the supply of money. Those lucky folks who rushed out the next
morning, just as the stores were opening, managed to spend their increased cash
before prices had a chance to rise; they certainly benefited. Those
people, on the other hand, who decided to wait a few days or weeks before they
spent their money, lost by the deal, for they found that their buying
prices rose before they had the chance to spend the increased amounts of money.
In short, society did not gain overall, but the early spenders benefited at
the expense of the late spenders. The profligate gained at the expense of
the cautious and thrifty: another joke at the expense of the good Angel."
(Pages 45-46)
Fifth, it appears that the author has reintroduced
the fallacy of the labor theory of value when he states:
"The U.S. Dollar Has Lost 96% of its
Purchasing Power - Thus Printing Makes Us Poorer. This argument
only covers one side of the story. While each individual dollar buys less
goods, the argument is incomplete. To bust this myth, we just need to look at
how much time it requires to pay for those goods. Instead of looking at how
many dollars it takes to buy a candy bar today compared to 30 years ago, I
would challenge you to instead value the candy bar in hours of labor to obtain
it."
I am almost at a loss as how to respond to the labor
theory of value appearing to pop up again. I think one can go to any of today’s
basic economic textbooks and have that fallacy addressed. I only hope the
author was intending to discuss real wages and unfortunately used poor wording
that accidently came out as in favor for the labor theory of value.
Finally, the author writes:
"I want the reader to know though, you can rest
confident knowing that tonight the U.S. will not collapse by the time you wake
up in the morning. Sleep well because the U.S. Dollar will not be worthless
when you wake up ... Fear for the collapse of America is unwarranted and rooted
in misunderstanding of the monetary system in which we live under today. We are
not Greece. Or Weimar. Or Zimbabwe."
I would caution the reader that author’s writing has numerous fallacies and mathematical inaccuracies. A need for clearer and more thoughtful thinking is needed to analyze the monetary and fiscal policies of Greece, Weimar, and Zimbabwe and compare them to the U.S. I do recall a while ago that the central bank head of Zimbabwe said his bank was just doing the same thing the FED was. This is not the type of neighborhood I would like to take even a short visit to.’
National / World
T_rump: Ron Paul Has “Zero Chance” Of Beating Obama Paul
Joseph Watson | { Drudgereport: TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock
of the world … true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump
even posits the possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament
to just how big a laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s
become! [ If he was mobster in chief,
mobster and scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers
up an (too little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep
‘the juice’ flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining
nation with meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively
buy) their ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement
policies) u.s. paper / bonds and overnight the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapses. [ When you come right
down to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal /
judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.).
[ http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation. ] “I would announce, without equivocation, a
25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?' }
Dick
Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld booed at GOP convention in D.C. New York
Daily News | Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were booed on Thursday at
the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Cheney
Heckled at CPAC: Paul Supporters Hijack Cheney-Rumsfeld Reunion TPM
| Dick Cheney just popped up here at CPAC to introduce his old pal and Bush
administration colleague Donald Rumsfeld when fans of Ron Paul loudly accused
the former VP of being a ‘war criminal.’
Mubarak
Steps Down as President, Army Takes Over ABC News |
Egypt’s embattled President Hosni Mubarak abruptly stepped down as president,
ending his 30-year
Drudgereport:
IMF
CALLS FOR ALTERNATIVE TO $$ AS WORLD'S RESERVE
MILITARY
TAKES COMMAND
'Egypt
is Free,' crowds chant...
WIRE:
Military coup was behind Mubarak's exit...
Military
calls for normal business activity to resume...
DAY
18: Mubarak and family flee Cairo for Sharm el-Sheikh...
Swiss
freeze assets...
Obama
learns of resignation watching TV...
Crisis
Puts White House in Disarray...
Director
of National Intelligence: Muslim Brotherhood 'Largely Secular,' 'Has Eschewed
Violence'...
'Weakness'
in USA...
Ahmadinejad:
Egyptian protests herald new Mideast...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED...
FRANCE 24 LIVE FEED...
Mubarak Hangs Tough...
VP
Urges Protestors to Ignore Media, and Go Home...
AL-JAZEERA
LIVE FEED...
CIA
Panetta Confused: Said Strong likelihood Mubarak would 'step down tonight'...
March
to palace being organized...
REUTERS
LIVE...
ElBaradei
warns Egypt will 'explode'....
Egypt's
govt on the brink..
FLASH
CRASH: APPLE stock loses $10 billion in four minutes...
Jobs'
Health Rumor?
Global
Stock Exchanges Headed for Major Consolidation...
Kyl
becomes fifth senator to step aside...
Fed
Governor Resigns; Bernanke Adviser Questioned Stimulus...
NBC:
Intelligence officials 'scrambling to try to determine exactly what this all
means'...
TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE...
PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President trump also said america’s become the
laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed,
that trump even posits the possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a
testament to just how big a laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america’s become! [ If he was mobster
in chief, mobster and scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag
and offers up an (too little too late – typical lightweight) implausible
solution to keep ‘the juice’ flowing though he’d already be in jail in a
rational, non-declining nation with meaningful laws. All China has to do is
dump (and not prospectively buy) their ever more and declining in value
day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies) u.s. paper / bonds and overnight
and the u.s. economy consequently
thereby collapse. [ When you come right down to it, this has been
america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable structural shift,
hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have survived with
them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest
thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms condemned and
warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his opponents, could not be
bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt america, he could never
have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed the good (but not great,
other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery including judges, police,
politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The Untouchables’ getting a
wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant part of american
folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in america, and
certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The Touchables’. The
reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt, unable to even win
election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He was incorruptible;
and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if not also all but
unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies in america as
I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even false
perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even fake
it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal /
judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.).
[ http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation. ] “I would announce, without equivocation, a
25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?'
] Fragile steps to end crisis seen as plans
take shape for a transition process that would allow Mubarak to remain as a
figure head until new elections. ] After decades of repression, democracy
advocates say it could take many months -- if not years -- to lay groundwork
for open and credible elections. ]
Mubarak
cedes some authority but refuses to quit In
latest bid to quell protests, president transfers powers to VP (Washington Post) [Wow! ‘Earlier Thursday,
CIA Director Leon
Panetta told Congress that "there is a strong likelihood that Mubarak
may step down this evening."…’ Talk about being out of the loop and stuck
with ‘foot-in-mouth’ … not that you’d expect more from the CIA … CIA's
dilemma in Egypt (Washington Post)
[ Come on! How does anyone take these ‘muck-ups’ seriously … As a
purported journalist, Mr. Ignatius should know better. What distracts the
agency is self-interest and greed … yes, greed for themselves, theirs, and a
raison d’etre that assures their continued funding (oh how they miss the cold
war, hot ones will have to do) on top of their private so-called ‘black ops’.
They’re wrong or absent without leave (awol) on major events purportedly within
their bailiwick; ie., mideast, israel, ‘wmd’s in Iraq’, 9-11, Egypt, etc.; and,
as well, are fallacious in their policy direction, directives, etc.. I mean,
beyond their nefarious undertakings, they look more and more like Maxwell
Smarts (‘Get Smart’) minus ‘99’ every day. Expanded
Free Trade: Exporting Jobs [ When you come right down to it, this has been
america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable structural shift,
hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have survived without
them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest
thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms condemned and
warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his opponents, could not be
bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt america, he could never
have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed the good (but not great,
other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery including judges, police,
politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The Untouchables’ getting a
wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant part of american
folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in america, and
certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The Touchables’. The
reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt, unable to even win
election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He was incorruptible;
and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if not also all but
unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies in america as
I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even false perception!
Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even fake it anymore. At CIA, mistakes by officers are often
overlooked (Washington Post) [ Duuuh! I want to know of even one
thing that’s not overlooked concerning those incompetent mental cases at the
cia; from assassinations, to illegal drug dealing, to illegal arms sales, to
corruption, to disinformation, etc., to america’s and the world’s (ie., those
WMD’s in Iraq, etc.) substantial detriment. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal /
judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
) ]:
Rank |
|||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored ‘The Obama Deception’ has
been censored In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
] Egyptian leader's
defiance stuns and angers hundreds of thousands in Cairo who respond with
chants of "revolution, revolution."
Cisco Slump, Mubarak Saga Keep Lid On Stocks [ But guess what? The fraudulent wall street rally point … ‘news
that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would step down’ … never happened! ] ‘Disappointing earnings projections from Cisco and PepsiCo pressured Wall Street Friday
morning, but news that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would step down
buoyed markets by midday and the major indexes essentially flat by the closing
bell.The Nasdaq actually ticked positive to gain 1 point to 2,790, despite
Wednesday’s troubling report from Cisco that included a decline in gross
margins along with its better than expected earnings and revenue. (See “Cisco:
Prelude To Profits, Or Layoffs.”)Cisco’s shares slumped 14.2%, but the rest
of the tech sector as fairly resilient. Apple was also in the news, after a sudden plunge in the 1
p.m. hour on little news before recovering to finish with a 1% decline. (See “Did
Someone Have A Fat Finger On Apple Today?”)Egypt jumped back into the
headlines shortly after the open, with speculation that President Hosni Mubarak
would resign. In a speech that began just before the U.S. markets closed,
Mubarak stopped short of confirming his departure, but did say he would
transfer some of his presidential powers to Vice President Omar Suleiman until
a September election.It was a tough day for companies who rang the closing
bells at NYSE and Nasdaq, since all eyes were on Mubarak’s speech that ran past
the end of trading. The S&P 500 added 1 point to 1,322, while the Dow Jones
industrial average broke its eight-day winning streak with an 11-point decline
to 12,229.Aside from Cisco, a weaker-than-anticipated forecast from PepsiCo
also pressured stocks, overshadowing any enthusiasm for the latest snapshot of
the job market. New jobless claims fell to their lowest level since July 2008
last week, according to the Labor Department, dropping to 383,000. The
four-week moving average was down to 415,500.’
Initial
Jobless Claims Drop to 383,000 [ Come on! Who believes anything they say /
report! ]
Minimum
5% Correction Begins Cooper ‘Minyanville Editor's Note: The following is
a free edition of Jeff
Cooper's Daily Market Report…..Is it getting better?Or do you feel the
same?One (U2)
“Synchronicity is no more baffling or mysterious than the discontinuities of
physics. It is only the ingrained belief in the sovereign power of causality
that creates intellectual difficulties and makes it appear unthinkable that
causeless events exist or could ever exist. But if they do, then we must regard
them as creative acts, as the continuous creation of a pattern that exists from
all eternity, repeats itself sporadically, and is not derivable from any known
antecedents. Continuous creation is to be thought of not only as a series of
successive acts of creation, but also as the eternal presence of the ONE
creative act.” -- Carl Jung
[ Wow! … Note to myself: Never bother reading the verbose, circumlocution-prone
jung. And, truth be told, while I believe it to be true there’s a substantial
correction in the offing, and it’s also true that the business cycles shouldn’t
be ignored (though computerization has lessened the impact of ‘inventory
recessions’), and that the market is significantly overvalued; the following is
a bit much and included as a matter of curiosity (those modern day alchemists
thing … ie., helicopter ben spinning more fake money from paper, fraudulent
wall street’s worthless assets from paper and spin, etc..) and correct for the
wrong or questionable reasons but is somewhat of a ‘hoot’; and so, you may
borrow and don Mickey’s sorcerer’s (apprentice) hat and hang on for the ride.
Whew! … that Jungian verbosity thing must be catching! Happy halloweeny! ]
Cisco Slump, Mubarak Saga Keep Lid On Stocks [ But guess what? The fraudulent wall street rally point … ‘news
that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would step down’ … never happened! ] ‘Disappointing earnings projections from Cisco and PepsiCo pressured Wall Street Friday
morning, but news that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would step down
buoyed markets by midday and the major indexes essentially flat by the closing
bell.The Nasdaq actually ticked positive to gain 1 point to 2,790, despite
Wednesday’s troubling report from Cisco that included a decline in gross
margins along with its better than expected earnings and revenue. (See “Cisco:
Prelude To Profits, Or Layoffs.”)Cisco’s shares slumped 14.2%, but the rest
of the tech sector as fairly resilient. Apple was also in the news, after a sudden plunge in the 1
p.m. hour on little news before recovering to finish with a 1% decline. (See “Did
Someone Have A Fat Finger On Apple Today?”)Egypt jumped back into the
headlines shortly after the open, with speculation that President Hosni Mubarak
would resign. In a speech that began just before the U.S. markets closed,
Mubarak stopped short of confirming his departure, but did say he would
transfer some of his presidential powers to Vice President Omar Suleiman until
a September election.It was a tough day for companies who rang the closing
bells at NYSE and Nasdaq, since all eyes were on Mubarak’s speech that ran past
the end of trading. The S&P 500 added 1 point to 1,322, while the Dow Jones
industrial average broke its eight-day winning streak with an 11-point decline
to 12,229.Aside from Cisco, a weaker-than-anticipated forecast from PepsiCo
also pressured stocks, overshadowing any enthusiasm for the latest snapshot of
the job market. New jobless claims fell to their lowest level since July 2008
last week, according to the Labor Department, dropping to 383,000. The
four-week moving average was down to 415,500.’
Initial
Jobless Claims Drop to 383,000 [ Come on! Who believes anything they say /
report! ]
Minimum
5% Correction Begins Cooper ‘Minyanville Editor's Note: The following is
a free edition of Jeff
Cooper's Daily Market Report…..Is it getting better?Or do you feel the
same?One (U2)
“Synchronicity is no more baffling or mysterious than the discontinuities of
physics. It is only the ingrained belief in the sovereign power of causality
that creates intellectual difficulties and makes it appear unthinkable that
causeless events exist or could ever exist. But if they do, then we must regard
them as creative acts, as the continuous creation of a pattern that exists from
all eternity, repeats itself sporadically, and is not derivable from any known
antecedents. Continuous creation is to be thought of not only as a series of
successive acts of creation, but also as the eternal presence of the ONE
creative act.” -- Carl Jung
[ Wow! … Note to myself: Never bother reading the verbose, circumlocution-prone
jung. And, truth be told, while I believe it to be true there’s a substantial
correction in the offing, and it’s also true that the business cycles shouldn’t
be ignored (though computerization has lessened the impact of ‘inventory
recessions’), and that the market is significantly overvalued; the following is
a bit much and included as a matter of curiosity (those modern day alchemists
thing … ie., helicopter ben spinning more fake money from paper, fraudulent
wall street’s worthless assets from paper and spin, etc..) and correct for the
wrong or questionable reasons but is somewhat of a ‘hoot’; and so, you may
borrow and don Mickey’s sorcerer’s (apprentice) hat and hang on for the ride.
Whew! … that Jungian verbosity thing must be catching! Happy halloweeny! ]
The relevance of trading with time and cycle may alone be less accurate than
forecast with price; however its relevance increases as forecasted times
approach, price patterns and momentum wanes showing signs of reversal.
When taken together, time/price harmonics have accurately predicted significant
market turning points.
Numbers don’t mean anything until they turn the market, but numbers, not
fundamentals, turn the market. It was not the fundamentals that turned the
market in March 2009.
One of W.D. Gann’s major methods for market timing was to use fractions of a
circle, specifically into quarters, eighths, and thirds, to count the number of
days, weeks, and months between highs and lows.
For example, the circle has 360 degrees, 90 is one-quarter, 45 is one-eighth.
Rounding, one-eighth of 90 is 11, two-eighths is 22, three-eighths is 33, and
four-eights is 45.
W.D.
Gann was the greatest student and researcher of the market ever but he was very
secretive about what he revealed and how he revealed it. He never chose his
words without a distinct reason.
For example, one of Gann’s books was called 45 Years in Wall Street.
Note that the title was not 45 Years on Wall Street, but in Wall
Street.
The book was not about his career on Wall Street but about a cycle on Wall
Street.
As well as regular cycles, there are random fluctuations in things too. The
random occurrences can camouflage the periodicity of cycles and also generate
what appear to be new, smaller cycles… which they may not be. This is one of
the problems with market-timing signals.
In addition, many things act as if they are influenced simultaneously by
several different rhythmic influences, the composite effect of which is not
regular at all.
Cycles may have been present in the figures you have been studying merely by
chance. The ups and downs you have noticed, which come at more or less regular
intervals, may have just happened to come that way. The regularity, the cycle,
is there but in such circumstances it may carry no significance
Cycles can invert, appear and disappear, and elipticalize.
When forecasting stock market cycles, they can be influenced by random events.
The predictive value of cycles provide only specific probabilities when the
suggested time period is approached.
Fixed time cycles are apparent in stock market tops and bottoms. But,
eventually a cycle may cease to continue. For example, the four-year cycle in
the US stock market held true from 1954 to 1982, producing accurate forecasts
of eight market bottoms. Had an investor recognized the cycle in 1962 he could
have amassed a fortune over the next 20 years. But in 1986, the cycle’s
prediction of a low failed to provide a bear market and in 1987 its rising
phase failed to prevent the largest crash since 1929.
When the market doesn’t do what is expected it is talking, but ultimately the
regression to the mean is vicious.
Long-term cycles, such as the Kondratieff Cycle as well as Elliott Waves,
suggested that the big-picture bull market was coming to an end in 2000.
The Kondratieff Cycle is a common, often-quoted cycle of financial and economic
behavior that lasts about 54 years. This 54-year cycle is close to the
Fibonacci 55 number.
One year is a little less than 55 weeks.
Fifty-five was an important count for W.D. Gann. He called a period of 49 to 55
days the Death Zone. February 8 was the 49th trading day from November
30, the day prior to the December 1 kickoff of this last leg up.
A Synodic Period is the length of time two planets meet in Conjunction, which
means revolving 360 degrees to each other. The 360-degree period is divided
into fractions known as the Sextile (60 degrees), Square (90 degrees), Trine
(120 degrees), Opposition (180 degrees), and back to Conjunction again.
Many of the Synodic planetary cycles conform to the Fibonacci Summation series.
Their relationship to natural harmonic vibration is not by chance.
For example Venus revolves around the sun in 61% of one year, or 225 days.
Two-hundred-twenty-five was an important number for Gann because 180 + 45 =
225. These two planets possess the unique Fibonacci relationship of the 0.618
Golden Mean.
Every other conjunction of Mars/Jupiter is four-and-one-third years, or 233
weeks, another Fibonacci number. This ties to the four-year cycle mentioned
above. While the four-year cycle went out of whack in 1986, there was a
significant low in the fall of 1990 and late 1994, which began the parabolic
move into 2000. There was a shakeout into 1998 and of course there was the 2002
low. There was a two-month shakeout into June/July of 2006 from 1326 S&P to
1219, which marked the low prior to the advance into the all-time high. Then
there was the summer low in 2010. It's interesting that these same numbers from
the last cycle 1326 and 1219 are so prominent four years later.
The recent S&P high this week was 1325 and the big April top in 2010 was
1219.
The Synodic period for the Saturn/Uranus combination is 45 years. One-eighth of
the 360 degree circle and one-half of 90 is 45.
I bring this up because 45 years ago marked the top of the secular bull market
in 1966. That bull market began in June 1949.
The
powerful two-year advance from March 2009 may have been a result of the 60-year
cycle exerting its influence.
One cycle of 45 years back from 1966 gives 1921, which was the big low prior to
the run up into 1929.
If the four-year cycle holds up the next trough should be in 2012. Somewhere
prior to then we should see an important peak. Will a two-year advance be
followed by a two-year decline?
It is interesting that it was eight years from the 1921 low to the vertical peak
in 1929 and that it was eight years from 2000 to the vertical drop into 2008. I
can’t help but think that a mirror image foldback of sorts may be playing out
with the market, making an important peak three years following the 2009 low,
just as it made an important low in 1932, three years following the 1929 peak.
Conclusion:
1320 ties to March 6 and squares the 666 price low for a potential square out.
The market has respected
this level for two days and is gapping below 1320 this morning.
The pattern looks reminiscent of the November top, which was a grind up
followed by a climatic spike. [chart]
Monday we saw a spike on the heels of a grinding move up.
The November high was at 1225. We tagged 1325 this week.
The November correction was between 4% and 5% and 152 points. I think another
4% to 5% correction is going to play out quickly into the anniversary of the
March 6/9th 2009 low.
Fifty
percent of the range from the November 1173 low to this week's 1325 high is 76
points. A decline to 50% of the last swing projects to 1249. There is some good
DNA and symmetry there as this was the projection for the big inverse
head-and-shoulders pattern from 2010. Moreover, 1248/1249 represents a
180-degree decline on the Square of 9 Chart.
Click
here for square of nine chart.
A study of market history shows that corrections against the main trend are
much more uniform while impulse legs in favor of the main trend can have a
large degree of variability. Said in another way, it is easier to define and
anticipate corrections not in favor of and against the primary trend that it is
to judge the extent of the primary trend itself. In my experience, this is one
of the most important lessons revealed in the study of stock market history.
Looking at the form of the advance from the September 1 kickoff, there are two
legs separated by the November correction. Because of the persistence of the
advance, which has seen no more than one 2% move in the last five months
(compared to 14 moves of 2% or more in the preceding five-month period), the
normal expectation would be to see a similar, uniform near-5% correction be
bought with both hands by market participants. At the maximum I would expect
the correction to extend to a backtest of the April/November 2010 highs of
1219/1227 respectively.
If the correction overbalances the November decline in time and price then the
high was more significant.
If a uniform correction plays out it would give rise to a possible third drive
up. Whether such a third drive into the anniversary of the April high if it
plays out is a marginal new high or a significantly higher high remains to be
seen. [chart]
Strategy: It looked like Elvis had left the building following the decline of
January 28. However, after a genuine sell signal that players pounce on, there
is often times a final squeeze. That may have been the run to 1320.
Fifty percent of the range from the 1275 low on January 28 to this week's 1325
high gives a midpoint of 1300. Any break of 1300, especially on the weekly
closing basis (Friday) confirms a correction is underway from where I sit. This
1300 level ties to 1296, which is 6 X 6 X 6 X 6, resonating of the 666 price
low. 1296 is in the upper right-hand corner of the Square of 9 Chart and aligns
with May 6, the flash crash, so I would not underestimate how quickly a
reversion to the mean in the persistency of the advance and a revulsion to
sentiment could take place if everyone tried to get out of the door at the same
time. [chart]
A Dow Theory
non-confirmation has been ongoing for three and a half weeks now, which
is long in the tooth while the market has been
overbought for months -- a situation where the chickens could come home to
roost violently and quickly, despite the fact that the market has proven to be
a Shrine of Boys Crying Wolf.
It may be time to yell wolf.
Trading Lessons: [chart] The following chart is mislabeled as FDX when it's
actually FCX [chart]’
Counties Turning Asphalt Back to Gravel as Rising Materials
Costs Hamper Road Maintenance [Well, this sounds like a b*** s***ish story for the frauds on
wall sreet; viz., load up on grovel companies, etc.. ] ‘We are going back to the Stone Age. Literally. From NACO (National Association of Counties): Several
counties across the country are going back to the Stone Age — turning asphalt
roads back to gravel, or considering doing so — as rising costs outstrip their
ability to maintain their pavements.Counties in Iowa, Michigan, California and
South Dakota are among those that have decided either to stop maintaining a
percentage of their asphalt roads or to pulverize some paved roads and
downgrade them to gravel.Naturally, California is home to some of the hardest-hit
counties. Sonoma County, for example, based on annual projected revenues can
only afford to budget $5 million to maintain all the county's roads. But
estimates project the cost of maintenance at 11 times that, or $55 million.‘
Housing
and Banking Issues Remain Problematic Editor's Note: This article was
written by Richard Suttmeier, chief market strategist at ValuEngine.com‘With
the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage up to
5.13% from 4.81% last week, mortgage applications continue to slide. The
overall Mortgage Application Index declined 5.5% this week led by a 7.7%
decline in the Refinance Index with
the Purchase Index down 1.4%. A major negative factor has been significantly
higher US Treasury yields. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury was at 2.334 in
October in anticipation of QE2 9 (quantitative easing), and on Wednesday this
yield touched 3.770 up 143.6 basis points. The main purpose of QE2 is to push
longer term US Treasury yields lower so this policy has been a failure.
As a result of this failed monetary policy the percentage of homes that are
underwater versus that have their mortgages outstanding
has risen to 27%, which feeds on projecting even lower home prices as the
supply of existing homes for sale continues to rise. This in turn puts more
pressure on banks to make costly mortgage modifications, and write down more commercial real estate loans.
These are the problems that originally emerged in mid-2005 for the
homebuilders, at the end of 2006 for community banks and in March 2007 for
regional banks including those considered “too big to fail.” Remember, toxic
assets are still around and the larger banks are being asked by the FDIC to
increase contributions to the FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund beginning April 1.
According to Zillow, home
values posted their largest quarterly decline of 2.6% in the fourth quarter,
down 5.9% year over year.
On the labor front, the Labor Department reported that employers posted fewer
jobs openings in December, a drop of 140,000 to 3.1 million jobs, the lowest
since September. Nearly 14.5 million Americans were out of work in December
with 4.7 people competing for each job available. A healthy reading is 2 to 1.
Key to the housing market and Main Street, USA, are construction jobs, and job
openings fell sharply to 28,000 in December from 91,000 in November.
Wednesday’s closes were above all of this week’s pivots at 12,142 Dow
Industrial Average, 1316.2 S&P 500, 2770 Nasdaq, 5077 Dow Transports, and
800.13 Russell 2000. The S&P 500 tested and held its weekly pivot at
1316.2. The Dow Transport Average remains below its 50-day simple moving
average at 5098 and my annual pivot at 5179.
We are still trading under a ValuEngine Valuation Warning -- 16 of 16 sectors
overvalued with only 34.28% of all stocks undervalued on Wednesday, below the
35% threshold by this measure. This also means that 65.72% of all stocks are
overvalued. Why does Wall Street think stocks are cheap?
The US Treasury 10-Year Yield -- (3.646) Tested 3.770 on Wednesday versus my
annual value level at 3.791. My annual value level is 3.791 with a weekly risky
level at 3.525. The 10-Year auction helped stabilize the US Treasury market with
an auction level at 3.665, a strong 3.23 bid to cover, and an aggressive 71%
indirect bid.
Comex Gold -- ($1363.7) My quarterly, weekly, and annual pivots are $1331.3,
$1342.8, and $1356.5 with monthly, quarterly, and semiannual risky levels are
$1412.4, $1441.7, and $1452.6. Gold remains below its 50-day simple moving
average at $1375.0.
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($86.85) My semiannual pivot at $87.52 remains a magnet
between a trading range between the January 28 low at $85.11 and its January 31
high at $92.84. My semiannual pivot is $87.52 has become a magnet with weekly
and monthly pivots at $91.62 and $91.83. The 200-day simple moving average is
$80.75.
The Euro -- (1.3728) My quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a weekly pivot at
1.3511 and monthly risky level at 1.4225.
Fed’s
Warsh Resigns; Bernanke Adviser Questioned Stimulus Bloomberg
| The only governor to question the expansion of record monetary stimulus in
November.
Ron
Paul’s First Subcommittee Hearing: Complete Video Infowars.com
| This is the first hearing held by Dr. Ron Paul as Chairman of the Domestic
Monetary Policy and Technology subcommittee which oversees the Federal Reserve.
The
Super Bowl flyover may have cost $450,000 A Dallas TV reporter estimated
that the flyover cost the Navy a total of $450,000.
Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down to it, this has been
america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable structural shift,
hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have survived with
them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest
thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms condemned and
warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his opponents, could not be
bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt america, he could never
have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed the good (but not great,
other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery including judges, police,
politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The Untouchables’ getting a
wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant part of american
folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in america, and
certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The Touchables’. The
reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt, unable to even win
election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He was incorruptible;
and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if not also all but
unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies in america as
I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even false
perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even fake
it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal /
judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.).
[
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation. ]:
Rank |
|||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored ‘The Obama Deception’ has
been censored In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
National / World
Hosni
Mubarak and American Foreign Policy Sartre | Our own
citizens should hear the lesson and support any meaningful self-determination
impulses.
Egyptian
protesters plan new push Government
detains foreigners, says it's willing to open talks (Washington Post) [ Open talks? ‘bout what?
Building a pyramid in mubarak’s honor before stepping down? He’s done … finito
… burnt as an over-micro-waved burrito! The following from the Post is indeed
the straw that broke the riders with whips he sent on camels’ and horses’
backs! ‘Wants to die in Egypt? How
touching, or the reality, he’s just plain touched as in totally ‘out of
it’. ‘…In what the U.S. State
Department called a "concerted campaign to intimidate," several dozen
journalists were rounded up by security forces and detained for hours, along
with foreigners working as teachers, engineers and human rights researchers.
Across the city, angry bands of supporters of President Hosni Mubarak also beat
journalists; several reporters said that they were threatened with death…’ ]
Cairo seeks to shift blame for clashes by rounding up journalists; U.S.
worries renewed protests could spark more violence from Mubarak supporters. Demonstrations
in Egypt take bloody turn In
Cairo square, Mubarak backers confront anti-government crowds (Washington Post) [ Not too difficult for desperate and done
mubarak to contrive: Mubarak
Says Egyptians Have to Choose Between “Chaos” and Him … Then Sends In His Thugs
to Stir Up Chaos (Infowars.com) In
order to justify staying in power until elections are held in September, President
Mubarak said on tv that the people had to choose between him and “chaos”. ]
The coordinated nature of day's events suggested that Mubarak's
supporters were determined to show, as he had warned, that the country faced a
"choice between chaos and stability." [ Previous: Mubarak's
pledge seen as not enough Egyptian
president plans to stay in office to transfer power (Washington Post) [ Let me put it another
way: Mubarak is as done as an over-cooked tamale … He seems to be stalling for
time and even in his age impaired mind certainly knows his position is
untenable, unsustainable, and even more irrational as each second passes. There
is a possibility that he’s using same to move money / treasure for himself and
others, literally as well, buying time. See infra … Previous: Mubarak
seeks dialogue, shows no sign of relenting Demonstrators
call for massive protest but lack leadership (Washington Post) [ He relented when he
resorted to media / internet blackout. Indeed, this lack of sign thing is a
testament to how far from reality 30 years has taken him, not to mention the
other 52 years that have taken their toll on his cognitive processes. Whether
it is plaques ‘on the brain’ or outright senility, that he is so disengaged
from the events unfolding around him, one may only wonder how he lasted this
long. Nor did his choice of cia standin / shill, new VP Suleiman enhance his
now untenable position which leaves him as ‘done as a burnt enchilada’. Kissinger
on Egypt unrest – “This is only the first scene of the first act of a drama
that is to be played out” [ The
import of this so-called interview, and it is here that I part company with
alex jones, et als (who by the way, censored me for this very thesis, which
puts him and his at the top of my hypocrite list), is that the so-called elite
have orchestrated these events and ‘are in control’. First, there are no elites
in this world; you can’t derive elites from apes, notochordates, and initially
single celled organisms. Second, almost by definition and certainly by history,
there are no elites in america even if you were to accept the first proposition
(though true) as untrue. What you do have, in this world and america
particularly (with few exceptions as I’ve discussed elsewhere / comments / my
website), are inherent criminals and mentally ill people of varying degrees of
unscrupulousness and insanity who do commit crimes, both small and large, to
further their interests or fortunes (sociopaths / psychopaths). The ’so-called
alpha-dogs’ of the human species at most, but still incompetent vegetables who,
if you look at anything they touch (to use a term term of such incompetent
vegetables as historically pertains to their role in the mideast – and
generally the state of the world) it invariably goes ‘pear shaped’ (english
term). What hasn’t zionist kissinger not messed up as appointee or ‘consultant’
– what does he get paid for? No! The fact is, they have absolutely no idea how
this unfolds and as with most of their lives, they will predictably choose the
most sordid, despicable, and diabolical course at every turn because … that is
their inherently criminal, mentally ill / unstable nature to do so. ]
] Fragile steps to end crisis seen as plans
take shape for a transition process that would allow Mubarak to remain as a
figure head until new elections.
}
]
]
After decades of repression, democracy advocates say it could take many
months -- if not years -- to lay groundwork for open and credible elections.
]
Rep.
Lee (R-N.Y.) resigns after Craigslist incident (Washington
Post) [ I am truly astounded; and, I say that without even a tinge of
sarcasm. Where is the corpus dilicti here. That he is a fool and somewhat a
dummy, if such is the standard for resignation, then all of capital hill should
be tendering their resignations en masse. After all, aside from the inherent
conflict, and particularly in light of a financial / fiscal / economic disaster
in large part of their own making and compounding by failing to prosecute the
perps and instead accommodate their crimes, ie., FASB rule change, etc., does
not the consistent though undeserved raises they give themselves constitute of
sorts a defalcation of duty, responsibility, and trust. Unlike congress, indeed
all the pervasively corrupt and incompetent branches of u.s. government in
their day-to-day activities / course of business, though tasteless, sleazy,
etc., this so-called incident is without a corpus dilicti. It kind of reminds
me of that scene in ‘Road to Perdition’ when mob kingpin Newman responds (in a
somewhat incredulous, come on, who you kidding way) to former footsoldier Hanks
by reminding him that they’re all murderers (in the room-including Hanks).] Move came after a Web site reported that the
married congressman had e-mailed a shirtless image of himself to a woman he met
online.
CIA's
dilemma in Egypt (Washington Post)
[ Come on! How does anyone take these ‘muck-ups’ seriously … As a
purported journalist, Mr. Ignatius should know better. What distracts the
agency is self-interest and greed … yes, greed for themselves, theirs, and a
raison d’etre that assures their continued funding (oh how they miss the cold
war, hot ones will have to do) on top of their private so-called ‘black ops’.
They’re wrong or absent without leave (awol) on major events purportedly within
their bailiwick; ie., mideast, israel, ‘wmd’s in Iraq’, 9-11, Egypt, etc.; and,
as well, are fallacious in their policy direction, directives, etc.. I mean,
beyond their nefarious undertakings, they look more and more like Maxwell
Smarts (‘Get Smart’) minus ‘99’ every day. Expanded
Free Trade: Exporting Jobs [ When you come right down to it, this has been
america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable structural shift,
hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have survived without
them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest
thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms condemned and
warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his opponents, could not be
bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt america, he could never
have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed the good (but not great,
other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery including judges, police,
politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The Untouchables’ getting a
wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant part of american
folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in america, and
certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The Touchables’. The
reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt, unable to even win
election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He was incorruptible; and
hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if not also all but
unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies in america as
I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even false
perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even fake
it anymore. At CIA, mistakes by officers are often
overlooked (Washington Post) [ Duuuh! I want to know of even one
thing that’s not overlooked concerning those incompetent mental cases at the
cia; from assassinations, to illegal drug dealing, to illegal arms sales, to
corruption, to disinformation, etc., to america’s and the world’s (ie., those
WMD’s in Iraq, etc.) substantial detriment. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal /
judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
) ]:
Rank |
|||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored ‘The Obama Deception’ has
been censored In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Rumors Cause Some Selling: Dave's Daily [But more than a rumor, it is a market top] ‘A rumor making the
rounds, later denied, was hedge fund kingpin Paul Tudor Jones was calling a
market top. That caused a bout of selling which naturally increased volume from
those weak handed investors. Nevertheless, PTJ's PR people stated:
"Phooey" and that was that. There may also be some nervousness over
current and impending arrests for insider trading. The bigger news is the
divergence of emerging markets from previous "got to own" status to
just the opposite as some $10 billion has come out of linked ETFs and markets
are selling-off. With rumor denials confirmed meant a sharp late day recovery
rally seemed logical as dip buyers are still ever present. The obligatory
"buy program express" hit the tape late to keep losses to a minimum
while the clear market leader DJIA (window dressing
for the tourists) eked-out a slight gain. The Fed had tossed in another round
of POMO
and late in the day trading desks have
to do "something" with it. Earnings continued to roll-in with
impressive results. Coke came in with solid earnings that met expectations for
example. Economic data was slim with more impressive stuff for Thursday. Then
there was the much discussed ("what does it mean" news) that the
German Bourse and NYSE will merge. The
world gets smaller and perhaps more efficient while New York and perhaps
Chicago lose some prestige and business…’
Cisco
And Akamai Are Getting Crushed After Hours, So NASDAQ Futures Are Diving , On
Wednesday February 9, 2011, 4:59 pm EST
‘It's going to be a pretty ugly day tomorrow for big tech. At least if
the action right now is indicative.Two big names are diving.The first is Cisco, which is down 7% after hours on pretty meh earnings.
The number was fine, but on the call the company has revealed margin pressure,
and this is basically looking like a repeat of last quarter when the stock
tanked after earnings.The other is Akamai, which is also down hard, on a
revenue outlook that's less than impressive. The revenue outlook was well below
expectations.With these two players diving, it's no surprise that NASDAQ-100
futures are getting whacked after hours, indicating a slide of more than
0.5%.Tech, of course, has been particularly hot of late.’
Is
the Market Headed for a Sell-Off? Zaky [ Yes … I agree, except that fundamentally the longer term
prospects are even worse than his bearish outlook suggests (don’t forget the
debasement of the dollar, manipulation, and spending / printing money the
nation doesn’t have in real terms behind this manipulated uptick) and
summarized as follows: ‘I suspect that this rally is on its very last legs. We
should see a very healthy 10% or so correction within the next 1-2 week period
... This market is headed for a sell-off. ]
2011
Update: Another Lost Decade for Stocks - Are You Prepared? [ I agree that
this is but a (manipulated) bull cycle in a secular bear market with
substantially worse to come! ]Kopas ‘In February 2010, we published an article
on Seeking Alpha entitled “Another Lost Decade for Stocks - Are You Prepared?,”
wherein we argued that the year 2000 marked a secular (long-term) peak for U.S.
stocks. A secular bear market is formed when a series of business cycles are
linked together, establishing an extended period of stock market
under-performance. Our objective here is to bring you up-to-date on the
progress of this secular bear market and help you prepare for the next ten
years…’
How to Squeeze the Most Out of a Late-Stage Rally ‘Something curious happened the last two months. In December,
the investment community turned extremely bullish on stocks. By some measures
optimism shot through the roof and eclipsed some of the readings seen at the
2007 all-time highs.Such extremes usually lead to some sort of a correction. In
October 2007 they were followed by a 50%+ decline, in April 2010 by a near 20%
decline. But not in December, prices kept climbing and curiously, sentiment
starting fading away from the December extremes.In general, that is good news
for anyone owning stocks, but sentiment is still elevated to a degree where
being long stocks is quite risky. Testament is the fear barometer - the VIX
(Chicago Options: ^VIX) fell to a 3 year low yesterday.
Technical Cracks
In
addition to a constant flow of bad news domestically and abroad, some technical
indicators are flashing red flags.Since the last mini sell-off on January 28
(when Egypt made front-page news), volume has dropped precipitously. Over 1.3
billion shares were traded on the NYSE when the S&P (SNP: ^GSPC), Dow Jones
(DJI: ^DJI), and Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) dropped about 2% on January 28.The last
five trading days saw volume of less than 1 billion shares (see chart below).
According to technical analysis 101, low volume up days and high volume down
days isn't exactly bullish. [chart] A look at the percentage of stocks trading above
their 50-day moving average also conveys weakness. Five weeks ago 80% of stocks
trading on the NYSE were above their respective 50-day MA. Since then the
S&P (NYSEArca: IVV - News)
has tagged on 5%, but the percentage of stocks above their 50-day MA has fallen
to 75%.
2011 Performance - 52%?
Year-to-date
the S&P 500 is up 5% - that's 5% in five weeks or 1% a week. At this pace
the S&P is on course to gain 52% in 2011. Is that realistic?At some point
in the not too distant future, traders are likely to look at the year-to-date
performance and say, that's too good to be true!We've seen such 'too good to be
true moments' in January and April 2010. Below is a small sampling of headlines
that appeared within a day or two of the April 2010 peak, and days before the
May 'Flash Crash.'
Bloomberg:
'U.S. stocks cheapest since 1990'
Wall
Street Journal: Consumer mojo lifts profits'
Reuters:
'Greece contagion fears unfounded'
Yahoo
Tech Ticker: 'S&P could hit 3000 by 2020'
Newsweek:
'America is back - The remarkable tale of an economic turnaround'
In
contrast to that warm and fuzzy feeling, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter
warned on April 16: 'The message conveyed by the composite bullishness is
unmistakably bearish. The pieces are in place for a major decline.'The
Fed-funded money flow has kept a constant bid beneath prices, but the common
expectation that this pre-Presidential election year is going to be gang busters,
particularly after a strong January, is reason for suspicion.
Safety Nets
The
easiest way to guard against an unwanted decline is simply to sell. This locks
in profits but often comes with the annoying side effect of having to watch
stocks go up, while you are sitting on the sideline.Before buying or selling
anything, investors should ask themselves whether they prefer to be on the
sideline while stocks go up, or be fully invested when stocks go down. One of
the two scenarios is bound to happen, at least temporarily.If you are not ready
to cut loose from your stocks, you may consider buying put protection. $420
buys you the right to sell SPY at 132 anytime before May 20, 2011. If you want
to spend less money for an earlier expiration date, the April put sells for
$320, and the March put for $230. Like an insurance policy, this gives you
piece of mind for a small premium.
Eagle Eye
As per the VIX, complacency is ever present right now, but that's exactly the time you want to be on guard. Like a thief, the market strikes when least expected.An effective way to limit risk and maximize profits is to set sell stops at major support levels. The market often tests support before resuming its uptrend. If support fails, watch out.Back in November, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter highlighted the pivotal role of the 1,170 level. The S&P tested - but never broke below - that level five times before continuing its diabolical up trend.Where is today's key support level? As per the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter a failed low-risk entry would be the sign for a trend reversal. What is a failed low-risk entry? This signal is based on the percentR indicator, a measure of relative strength.In a strong market, particularly after a long up trend, percentR will hover above 80. A powerful enough decline can result in a drop below 80. Once percentR closes below 80 it will trigger a bullish low risk entry.It triggered such low-risk entries on January 19 and 28. It would have taken another down day and a close below that day's low, to get a failed low-risk entry. In January, it would have taken a close below 1,279 and 1,275 to confirm a low-risk entry. It never happened.Since stocks have gained about 4% since the last low-risk entry, it's likely that the next low-risk entry will occur at higher prices. To pinpoint this major support now would be speculation. It's for sure, though, that no bear market will start without a failed low-risk entry…’
Expanded
Free Trade: Exporting Jobs [ When you come right down to it, this has been
america’s most significant export. Indeed, this irrevocable structural shift,
hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton couldn’t have survived with
them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest
thing since sliced bread was indeed in no uncertain terms condemned and
warned against by Perot, a man of honor who, unlike his opponents, could not be
bought, which is the reason, in pervasively corrupt america, he could never
have been elected. Interestingly, you may have noticed the good (but not great,
other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery including judges, police,
politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The Untouchables’ getting a
wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant part of american
folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in america, and
certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The Touchables’. The
reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt, unable to even win
election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He was incorruptible;
and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if not also all but
unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies in america as
I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even false
perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even fake
it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal / judicial
processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
) ]:
Rank |
|||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored ‘The Obama Deception’ has
been censored In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
] Lounsbury
‘In January Steven Hansen observed
that, through November, the trade deficit for manufactured goods was the
equivalent of 1.3 million workers earning the median manufacturing wage in the
U.S. Well, the trade deficit has been with us in a major way for nearly two
decades. I am reminded of the 1992 presidential campaign where one of the three
candidates, Ross Perot, argued against the adoption of NAFTA, The North
American Free Trade Agreement. The other two candidates supported NAFTA.Perot
is famous for his statement that a free trade agreement that was not a two way
street would create a “giant
sucking sound” of jobs going south to the cheap labor markets of Mexico.
Both of Perot’s opponents (George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton) argued that NAFTA
would create jobs in the U.S. because of business expansion.However, the goods
balance of trade for the U.S. with Mexico has been negative and steadily
growing over the years. In 2010 it amounted to $61.6
billion, which was 9.5% of the total goods trade deficit last year.
So Perot has
been vindicated in his opinion; expanded free trade has not been accompanied by
an increase in jobs in the U.S. relative to the vast numbers of jobs created in
the rest of the world as NAFTA became just a stepping stone on the pathway to
global commerce.
Veronique de
Rugy has produced
a graph which shows how manufacturing output and manufacturing employment
have varied over the years 1975 – 2010.
click to
enlarge images
The giant
sucking sound actually started in 1980 as manufacturing employment peaked in
1979. The decline in employment in 1980-83 can be associated with the double
recessions of that time period, which was also evidenced in the drop in
manufacturing output. But when the recovery took hold, manufacturing resumed
strong growth but employment gradually declined from 1984 to 2000, after which
the decline accelerated.
Now, to be
fair, not all the employment decline was due to increased employment overseas.
Trade deficits remained fairly benign by 21st century standards.
Employment declined significantly because of productivity improvements as more
and more automation replaced manual labor. However, some of the decline was
undoubtedly due to increased importation of goods to the U.S.
The rapid
growth in the trade deficit for goods began in the early 1990s and we will
start our detailed examination of the data with 1992, in deference to Mr.
Perot.
Growth of
the Trade Deficit for Goods
The first two
tables show pertinent annual data. The table on the left shows the trade
balance for goods. The table on the right shows the value of U.S. manufactured
goods and manufacturing payroll employment.
The sources
for the data used in these tables are:
Productivity Improvement
In 19 years the value of U.S. manufacturing output
has risen by 58% while manufacturing employment has declined by 31%. It only
took 2.5 manufacturing employees in 2010 to produce what 5.8 employees produced
in 1992. The dramatic improvement in labor productivity (and loss of jobs) is
emphasized by the following graph.
Jobs Equivalent to Manufactured Goods Trade Deficit
One cannot say that there is a U.S. jobs loss exactly
equal to the trade deficit for manufactured goods. Here are some reasons:
However, it is not unreasonable to make the
assumption that a significant portion of the manufacturing jobs equivalent to
the trade deficit would have been created in the U.S.
The U.S. manufacturing jobs equivalence of the goods
trade deficit is shown for each of the years starting with 1992 in the
following table, along with the cumulative total. Hereafter we refer to the
jobs equivalence as “jobs exported”.
[chart]
The jobs exported each year are shown in the
following graph.
The following graph shows that there have been a
cumulative total of almost 29 million jobs exported over the past 19 years.
Unemployment Today and the Counterfactual Labor
Shortage
The total number of people employed today according
to the latest BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) data is 139.3 million. If just
half of the exported jobs were retained in the U.S., there would be about 153
million employed. The current civilian labor force is only 153 million so there
would be no slack in the labor force at all. However, the labor participation
rate has fallen from 67% in 2000-01 to 64.2% today. If the participation rate
returned to 67% the civilian labor force would be 160 million. With 153 million
employed the unemployment rate would be 4.4% and we would be complaining of labor
shortages.
The Sweet Spot
If only some, even less than half, of the
manufacturing that has been outsourced had been retained in the U.S., it is
likely that there would still be an emerging market boom, but there would not
be the severe structural unemployment problem that exists today in the U.S. It
seems, looking at these numbers, that where we are is not the result of doing a
fundamentally bad thing. It could be argued that it is actually the result of
taking a good thing too far. It seems we missed the sweet spot and simply
botched a beautiful shot.
Free Trade is a very good thing, but free trade taken
too far is destructive. Hard data shows why.
Related Article
USA Trade Deficit Exports 1.3 million Jobs by Steven Hansen’
Ron
Paul holds first hearing to scrutinize Fed Raw Story |
Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul on Wednesday held his first official hearing to
examine the policies of the Federal Reserve on unemployment and economic
growth.
Derivatives:
The Real Reason Bernanke Funnels Trillions Into Wall Street Banks Seeking
Alpha | Bernanke is printing money and funneling it into the Wall
Street banks for one reason and one reason only.
Why
Small Business Isn’t Hiring And Won’t Be Hiring Charles Hugh Smith
| Small business can’t afford to believe in myths and fantasies. They are
dealing with the harsh reality of adapt or die.
Bernanke's Worst Nightmare Is This Man's Boxes: Caroline Baum
BusinessWeek Feb. 10 (Bloomberg)
-- Ben Bernanke arrived at his office a week ago and came face to face with his
worst nightmare. Staring out at the Federal Reserve chairman from page C1 of
the Feb. 3 edition of the Wall Street Journal was a photo ... The
Associated Press Video: Republicans
Grill Bernanke Over Inflation, Debt Paul calls Fed's Bernanke "cocky" in House hearing
Reuters [ Yeah …
Come on! … The incompetent ‘no-recession helicopter ben’ has nothing whatsoever
to be cocky about; he’s clueless as to what to do; satisfied to be helping the
frauds on wall street; but in the end, this will end … quite badly! ]
National / World
Blago
lawyers claim tape of phone call with Rahm Emanuel has disappeared from
evidence NBC Chicago | Attorneys for former governor Rod
Blagojevich have asked a federal judge to order prosecutors to produce two
phone calls his lawyers say are mysteriously missing from evidence.
Man
says ex-CIA agent Posada gave him explosives for hotel bombing Raw
Story | Otto Rene Rodriguez said that he was given C-4 explosives and
$2,000 by Luis Posada Carriles to enable the bombing at Havana’s Melia Cohiba
hotel on Aug. 3, 1997.
Drudgereport: Oil
hits $101 again...
Paul
Ryan confronts over Fed's purchases of debt...
Soaring
debt pushes Portugal towards bailout...
House GOP Targets Dozens of Gov't Programs...
CUT,
CUT, CUT...
White
House to Slash Heating Program for Poor…but still no pros of massive frauds on wall
street which fines and disgorgement of would yield huge amounts to cover
spending... [ Howard Davidowitz on the Economy:
"Here Are the Numbers ... WE'RE BROKE!" 11-25-10
‘The U.S. economy "is
a complete disaster," Howard Davidowitz declared here in July,
the most recent in a string of dire predictions from
Tech Ticker's most entertaining guest.On the eve of Thanksgiving, I asked
Davidowitz if he had any regrets, or was ready to throw in the towel given recent signs of
economic revival. Are you kidding me? "Here are the numbers...we're
broke," Davidowitz declares, noting the U.S. government goes $5 billion
deeper into debt every day and is facing $1 trillion-plus annual deficits for
the next decade. "In other words, we're bankrupt."As with the
economy, Davidowitz is unwaveringly consistent
in his views on President Obama, calling him "deranged, dysfunctional and
discredited."Results of the midterm election show "the people of this
country think we are in a catastrophe," he says. "I'm with
them."Check the accompanying video for more of Howard's unfettered
opinions and stay tuned for additional clips from
this interview. And...Happy Thanksgiving! Aaron Task is the host of Tech
Ticker. You can follow him on Twitter at @atask or email him at
[email protected]’
Timid
Tuesday: Is it Safe? Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current
debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country
that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn
(entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing
about this (and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and
talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to
"fix" this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn
on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a
Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL
OUT THERE! ‘ ]
UNDERDOG:
CNN POLL: 51% SEE NO SECOND TERM FOR OBAMA...
71%
OF ALL VEGAS HOMEOWNERS UNDER WATER...
'New
normal' in housing bust...
STRESS...
Job
openings fall for second straight month...
HOUSE
VOTES NEXT WEEK TO BLOCK OBAMACARE FUNDS
WE'RE
ON 'ROAD TO RUIN'
UPDATE:
Egypt sees largest demos since start of revolt...
NEW
WORLD TRADES...
Global
Stock Exchanges Headed for Major Consolidation...
D
Börse, NYSE in advanced talks...
London
takes Canada...
Exchange
chiefs seek new global powerhouses...
SAUDIS
TOLD OBAMA 'NOT TO HUMILIATE MUBARAK' [ Sounds like they’re hearing
footsteps…Previous: Egyptian
capital teeters on anarchy Mubarak
asks cabinet to resign as anti-regime protests intensify
(Washington Post) [ Mubarak should have been looking in the mirror as he asked
his cabinet to resign … 30 years is a long time, and coincidentally, time for
him to go. In
Egypt: Access denied (Washington Post) [The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark [I disagree!
Part of the internet didn’t die, but rather the order to so darken the nation
heralded the demise, at 30 years and counting, of the so-called leadership in
the persona of Mubarak. Time for him to go! After all, he’s been in a position,
with Egypt among the only Mideast nations to have signed a peace treaty with israel,
to have stepped up with substantial credibility in taking a strong position
against israeli transgressions, violations of international law / u.n.
resolutions, war crimes, etc., which beyond soft-touch, he failed to do. And,
of all places, he sends his family to Orwellian england; he still loves those
colonial masters … how pathetic. I mean, 30 years … how free-flowing does
anyone think the election process is at this point … and one could ask the same
regarding the entrenched powers that be in pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, to be fair. Then there’s saudi arabia; talk about do nothing
hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the oil reserves of a
sovereign nation; I suspect only when foreign corporations say so. The only Mideast
nations showing backbone are Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, and, of course the
perennially propaganda painted bad-boy Iran among possibly some of the smaller
emirates, ie., Qatar, etc., (I lack sufficient information regarding these
other nations). ] (AP)
Internet cutoff fails to silence Egypt protests (AP)
- AP - In its effort to silence protesters, Egypt took a step that's rare
even among authoritarian governments: It cut off the Internet across the entire
country. Mubarak fires Cabinet, defends army’s efforts Sat, 29 Jan 2011 00:20:58 GMT Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak dismisses his Cabinet, calls on the army to help put
down rising potests... Egypt's Mubarak sends in army,
resists demands to quit (Reuters)
- 1 hour agoReuters - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused
on Saturday to bow to demands that he resign after ordering troops and tanks
into cities in an attempt to quell an explosion of street protests
again... ]
Embattled leader's move falls far short of demands that he give up his 30-year
authoritarian rule, leave the country and permit fresh elections. ]
Debt
relief for states proposed (Washington Post) [ I’ve heard of the ‘blind leading the blind’, but the ‘bankrupt
borrowing from the bankrupt’ seems to be a nouveau american phenomenon destined
for ‘clichedom’. Previous: Governors
plan painful cuts amid budget crises (Washington Post) [ This truly is a disaster in the making, with
consequences even more dire than the grim outlook set forth by Meridith
Whitney, if that could even be fathomed. It’s really going to be all that
bad…see infra, The Economic Collapse, ‘#10 The municipal bond crisis could go “supernova” at
any time. Already, investors are bailing out of bonds at a frightening
pace. State and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high
of 22
percent of U.S. GDP. According to Meredith Whitney, the municipal
bond crisis that we are facing is a gigantic threat to our financial system….
“It has
tentacles as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the
single most important issue in the United States and certainly the largest
threat to the U.S. economy.”
At CIA, mistakes by officers are often
overlooked (Washington Post) [ Duuuh! I want to know of even one
thing that’s not overlooked concerning those incompetent mental cases at the
cia; from assassinations, to illegal drug dealing, to illegal arms sales, to
corruption, to disinformation, etc., to america’s and the world’s (ie., those
WMD’s in Iraq, etc.) substantial detriment. See also, ie., http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt legal /
judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
) ]:
Rank |
|||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored ‘The Obama Deception’ has
been censored In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
Free
elections still distant prospect for Egypt Activists
express doubts about feasibility of September ballot (Washington Post) ["I'm shocked by what
the Americans say - that Mubarak must stay as president so we can prepare for
new elections,'' said Negad El Borai, a human rights advocate and lawyer in
Cairo. "Mubarak must leave, and then we can talk." … Truth be told,
I’m not shocked. Indeed, though this is only marginally what america / israel
wanted, this will stick to america / israel like glue; that proverbial
albatross; that lose, lose scenario for america in the region. Previous: Egypt protests continue as Mubarak's
government offers concessions (Washington Post) [ Come on! Let not
all of us join america’s / israel’s, et als, and mubarak’s delusions. After all, here’s an 82 year old tyrant, in
power for 30 years, yet in some parallel universe appears to think he’s calling
the shots. Other than literal and quite foolish shots against protesters, even
journalists, see infra, there are few indeed that would trust his mindset, such
as it is, much less his judgment, so flawed as he has now shown it to be. What
is obvious is that this long overdue ‘people’s election’ cannot be thwarted by
platitudes and small talk, but resisting the inevitable will turn an american
quasi-ally into an anti-american breeding ground because there’s just no
reconciling a pro-mubarak, however slight, position with american / israeli, et
als war crimes in the region. Restless
Cairo protesters hoping for U.S. support (Washington Post) [ The sad
reality here is, much like wobama’s Afghanistan fiasco, that america has
‘bought it’. This is truly yet another ‘loss, loss’ scenario as is true of
america’s mideast policy generally. Defacto bankrupt america’s initiatives in
the region particularly, though generally true of all american policy, is the
‘square pegs in round holes’ approach to almost everything they do, which
certainly is not lost on the rest of the world. Coddling and caving in to
israeli / neocon / zionist paranoia despite the war mongering intransigence of
the former is devastating to a nation as pervasively corrupt america which is
facing insurmountable domestic problems of its own, economically, financially,
politically, and geo-politically. This should bring to mind the missteps of a
former fading empire in this same region desperately trying to remain relevant.
Indeed, from Balfour’s Despoliation to arbitrary boundaries, etc., Orwellian
britain’s demise (decline) as a real player globally was, as america’s
currently, significantly and irrevocably hastened. Quite simply, pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt america will increasingly be viewed as a bunch
of ‘muck-ups’ who can’t handle their
own substantial problems much less those of other nations; and in fact,
invariably exacerbate existing conditions / problems, particularly when
pandering to israel’s self-interested concerns. ] While the ouster of President
Hosni Mubarak remains the most pressing concern for protesters, the role of
U.S. is far from absent in the dialogue. { Previous: Amid Arab protests, U.S. influence has waned
(Washington Post) [ And that’s just the way israel likes it … and to america’s
detriment, of course … which is not lost on even George Soros … Drudgereport: Soros:
'The main stumbling block is Israel'...
Egyptian
protesters plan new push Government
detains foreigners, says it's willing to open talks (Washington Post) [ Open talks? ‘bout what?
Building a pyramid in mubarak’s honor before stepping down? He’s done … finito
… burnt as an over-micro-waved burrito! The following from the Post is indeed
the straw that broke the riders with whips he sent on camels’ and horses’
backs! ‘Wants to die in Egypt? How
touching, or the reality, he’s just plain touched as in totally ‘out of
it’. ‘…In what the U.S. State
Department called a "concerted campaign to intimidate," several dozen
journalists were rounded up by security forces and detained for hours, along
with foreigners working as teachers, engineers and human rights researchers.
Across the city, angry bands of supporters of President Hosni Mubarak also beat
journalists; several reporters said that they were threatened with death…’ ]
Cairo seeks to shift blame for clashes by rounding up journalists; U.S.
worries renewed protests could spark more violence from Mubarak supporters. Demonstrations
in Egypt take bloody turn In
Cairo square, Mubarak backers confront anti-government crowds (Washington Post) [ Not too difficult for desperate and done mubarak
to contrive: Mubarak
Says Egyptians Have to Choose Between “Chaos” and Him … Then Sends In His Thugs
to Stir Up Chaos (Infowars.com) In
order to justify staying in power until elections are held in September,
President Mubarak said on tv that the people had to choose between him and
“chaos”. ] The coordinated nature of day's events suggested that Mubarak's
supporters were determined to show, as he had warned, that the country faced a
"choice between chaos and stability." [ Previous: Mubarak's
pledge seen as not enough Egyptian
president plans to stay in office to transfer power (Washington Post) [ Let me put it another
way: Mubarak is as done as an over-cooked tamale … He seems to be stalling for
time and even in his age impaired mind certainly knows his position is
untenable, unsustainable, and even more irrational as each second passes. There
is a possibility that he’s using same to move money / treasure for himself and
others, literally as well, buying time. See infra … Previous: Mubarak
seeks dialogue, shows no sign of relenting Demonstrators
call for massive protest but lack leadership (Washington Post) [ He relented when he
resorted to media / internet blackout. Indeed, this lack of sign thing is a
testament to how far from reality 30 years has taken him, not to mention the
other 52 years that have taken their toll on his cognitive processes. Whether
it is plaques ‘on the brain’ or outright senility, that he is so disengaged
from the events unfolding around him, one may only wonder how he lasted this
long. Nor did his choice of cia standin / shill, new VP Suleiman enhance his
now untenable position which leaves him as ‘done as a burnt enchilada’. Kissinger
on Egypt unrest – “This is only the first scene of the first act of a drama
that is to be played out” [ The
import of this so-called interview, and it is here that I part company with
alex jones, et als (who by the way, censored me for this very thesis, which
puts him and his at the top of my hypocrite list), is that the so-called elite
have orchestrated these events and ‘are in control’. First, there are no elites
in this world; you can’t derive elites from apes, notochordates, and initially
single celled organisms. Second, almost by definition and certainly by history,
there are no elites in america even if you were to accept the first proposition
(though true) as untrue. What you do have, in this world and america
particularly (with few exceptions as I’ve discussed elsewhere / comments / my
website), are inherent criminals and mentally ill people of varying degrees of unscrupulousness
and insanity who do commit crimes, both small and large, to further their
interests or fortunes (sociopaths / psychopaths). The ’so-called alpha-dogs’ of
the human species at most, but still incompetent vegetables who, if you look at
anything they touch (to use a term term of such incompetent vegetables as
historically pertains to their role in the mideast – and generally the state of
the world) it invariably goes ‘pear shaped’ (english term). What hasn’t zionist
kissinger not messed up as appointee or ‘consultant’ – what does he get paid
for? No! The fact is, they have absolutely no idea how this unfolds and as with
most of their lives, they will predictably choose the most sordid, despicable,
and diabolical course at every turn because … that is their inherently
criminal, mentally ill / unstable nature to do so. ]
] Fragile steps to end crisis seen as plans
take shape for a transition process that would allow Mubarak to remain as a
figure head until new elections.
}
]
]
After decades of repression, democracy advocates say it could take many
months -- if not years -- to lay groundwork for open and credible elections.
This is that
unmentionable reality as I alluded to earlier on close scrutiny of the data,
‘that stock prices have been manipulated to the upside beyond any and all
rational basis‘ and as I previously wrote: Perception vs. Reality: Four Reasons to Remain Cautious on U.S.
Equities [ Hey, Abbott … That’s Lou
Costello calling him from the other side … Wake up! … Just kidding … but I’m
not kidding when I say that contrary to Abbott’s view, infra, if you’re not a
successful market timer you should rethink your position as an equity investor.
Moreover, in contradistinction to Mr. Abbott’s implication, if you’re not a
successful speculator (there are very few), you should rethink your position as
a short seller: reason…, you could be wiped out, lose more than your principal,
forced to cover (that’s why
the same is considered a contrary market indicator, particularly in these
manipulated, contrived markets). When I did my MBA thesis (1977, NYU, GBA,
Eve.Prog., Finance), a review of the data revealed even then (and much more so
now with computer programmed market manipulation) that the market remained
biased / propped up (artificially, especially now with computerized
manipulation) to the upside for far longer periods of time than for the
downside which meant that dollar-cost averaging (through regular, periodic
investment, for example), meant you were accumulating shares at higher prices
generally for longer periods of time skewing the average cost to the upside
(dollar-cost-averaging in declining markets was ok if analysis / forecast saw
resurgence based on fundamentals - now absent – which is timing, as even senile
wall street / gov’t shill Buffet would attest, that ‘greedy when others are
fearful thing’). Abbott discusses perception which is the psychological factor
involved in security evaluation / analysis; but investors need not and should
become nuts themselves, particularly when as now, the inmates are running the
asylum. ]
Stock
Momentum Trumps Valuation Warning Minyanville /
Suttmeier ‘ Stocks began the week continuing the melt-up that began December 1.
Within the first hour of trading, all weekly risky levels were violated,
becoming pivots for the remainder of the week; 12,142 Dow Industrial Average,
1316.2 S&P 500, 2770 Nasdaq, 5077 Dow Transports, and 800.13 Russell 2000.
These levels have an 85% chance of being tested again before the end of the
week. The only major risky level is my quarterly risky level at 2853 for the
Nasdaq. Keep in mind that the October 2007 high for the Nasdaq is 2861.51.
Stocks are ignoring higher 10-year note and 30-year bond yields and the
stronger dollar as the euro has declined from 1.3860 on February 2 to 1.3511
into Monday.
We are trading under a ValuEngine Valuation Warning -- 16 of 16 sectors
overvalued and only 33.8% of all stocks undervalued, below the 35% threshold by
this measure.
The US Treasury 10-Year Yield -- (3.648) My annual value level
is 3.791 with a weekly risky level at 3.525.
Comex Gold -- ($1350.0) My quarterly, weekly and annual pivots
are $1331.3, $1342.8 and $1356.5 with monthly, quarterly and semiannual risky
levels are $1412.4, $1441.7, and $1452.6. The $1356.5 level is being tested
this morning.
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($87.25) Closed below my semiannual pivot
is $87.52 with weekly and monthly pivots at $91.62 and $91.83. The $87.52 level
should be a magnet today.
The Euro -- (1.3583) My quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a
weekly pivot at 1.3511 and monthly risky level at 1.4225.’
Hold Off on the Dow - Consider Malaysia and Taiwan ETFs Gordon ‘Turmoil in Egypt set the markets back for a single day on
1/28/11. In fact, since the Egypt crisis mummified equities, the Dow Jones
Industrials Diamonds Trust (DIA) has embarked on a seven-day
winning streak.So ... what’s the frequency of seven consecutive days of gains?
It’s only happened eight other times in the past decade.In spite of the odds
that something ... anything ... might shake the faith, the bearish voices have
been utterly silenced. Heck, the only bearish discussion in the media has been
Meredith Whitney’s claim that U.S. municipalities will default on billions of
dollars in debt obligations. No discussion of stock calamity or black swans ...
only muni bond woes.Where have all the perma-bears gone? Weiss, Roubini,
Hussman ... if the bull has any chance of survival, we’re gonna need you to
convince your followers to “go short” on this seemingly unstoppable uptrend. As
of now, the short sellers haven’t completely thrown in the towel as evidenced
by a put-call ratio that’s yet to fall below 0.35.Think about the headlines
that could have caused a meaningful sell-off. Last week’s jobs report was
utterly pathetic ... no matter how you define “unemployment.” The ongoing rise
in bond yields is a legitimate threat to real estate. And the additional rate
hike from China is, if nothing else, a constant reminder of inflationary
pressures worldwide.Correction or no correction, however, the real story is the
exodus from emerging markets. The largest outflow in three years occurred last
week, and the money has been heading for the seemingly sunnier shores of the
U.S. of A.In my estimation, that’s a mistake. It’s not necessarily a mistake to
sell your emerger for a big gain when it has hit a stop-limit loss order off a
November 2010 high. It’s a mistake to chase U.S. equities that, while not
overvalued by fundamental Forward P/E standards, are overbought in
”standard-deviation-above-the-50-day-and-200-day” standards.Essentially, as
difficult as it is to be patient with your cash, you may have to practice
delayed gratification. If you have confidence in U.S. companies, wait for a
meaningful dip in the Dow Jones Industrials Diamonds Trust (DIA). And if you don’t have
confidence in the ability of emerging markets to bounce back ... you’re too
fearful. So consider buying funds that fuel China’s middle class
consumption.Two of my favorites? Malaysia has manageable inflation, solid GDP
growth and a trade surplus with China. The iShares MSCI Malaysia Fund (EWM) avoids interest-rate sensitive
sectors like energy and materials, while capitalizing on China’s needs for
simpler things like vegetable oil and rubber.In addition, China is likely to
see its own version of an Internet boom in 2011-2012. Where do they get the
products, services and expertise from? Taiwan. iShares MSCI Taiwan (EWT)
has a 60% weighting in Information Tech.’
QE2
Failure: Investors Flock to Overvalued Stocks Suttmeier ‘The yield on the 30-Year bond rose
to 4.74 on Friday increasing the drag on equity valuations. Both the 10-Year
and 30-Year yields are above their December trading ranges, raising consumer
interest rates such as mortgage rates. Because of this, I say QE2 is a
failure. This is forcing investors to increase allocations to stocks just
when they become less attractive, more overvalued fundamentally and move
overbought technically. Last week, the Dow Industrial Average reached a new
high for the move at 12,092.42. Dow Transports and the Russell 2000 remain
below the highs of mid-January.
·
The
Dow Industrial Average (12,092) begins the week between my monthly value level
at 11,759 and this week’s risky level at 12,142. The weekly chart remains
extremely overbought.
·
The
S&P 500 (1310.9) begins the week my quarterly value level at 1262.5 with
this week’s risky level at 1316.2. The weekly chart remains extremely
overbought.
·
The
NASDAQ (2769) begins the week between my monthly value level at 2611 with a
weekly pivot at 2770 and quarterly risky level at 2853. The weekly chart
remains extremely overbought.
·
Dow
Transports (5056) begins the week between monthly and weekly pivots at 4962 and
5077 and below my annual pivot at 5179, and below the January 18th high at
5256.80. Dow Transports is below its 50-day simple moving average at 5086
and will fall out of overbought territory on its weekly chart this week.
·
The
Russell 2000 (800.11) begins the week above my annual and quarterly value
levels at 784.16 and 765.50 with a weekly pivot at 800.13 with the January 14th
high at 807.89. The weekly chart remains extremely overbought.
·
I
cannot be overly bullish or bearish in the current market environment.
We are trading under another ValuEngine
Valuation Warning - 16 of 16 sectors overvalued and only 34.73% of all stocks
undervalued, below the 35% threshold by this measure.
The US Treasury 10-Year Yield – (3.650)
The trading range set in December has been broken to the upside with my annual
value level at 3.791 and weekly risky level at 3.525.
Comex gold – ($1349.5) Tested my annual
pivot at $1356.5 last week, but could not get a weekly close above that level.
My semiannual value level is $1300.6 with quarterly, weekly and annual pivots
at $1300.6, $1331.3, 1342.8 and monthly, quarterly and semiannual risky levels
are $1412.4, $1441.7 and $1452.6.
Nymex crude oil – ($88.90) Has not been
able to sustain gains above $92 per barrel. I show weekly and monthly pivots at
$91.62 and $91.83 as barriers for this week with my semiannual pivot at $87.52.
The euro – (1.3578) Could not sustain
gains above 1.38 last week. My quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a weekly
pivot at 1.3511 and monthly risky level at 1.4225. The weak euro versus the
dollar on Thursday was offset by perceived positive comments from Fed Chief Ben
Bernanke.
Bernanke Blunders - Fed Chief Bernanke
expects the economy to improve this year with low inflation, despite the jump
in commodity prices. The rise in commodities prices has been a factor for
ten years, and consumers are feeling it at the gas pump, grocery stores and
utilities bills.
The Federal Reserve is more worried
about unemployment, but monetary policy has not helped create jobs on Main
Street USA. Main Street depends upon construction jobs and these jobs are
declining month after month.
Another blunder is the $600 billion
QE2, which is aimed at jump-starting lending and making stock ownership more
attractive. You can not increase lending when consumer rates such as
mortgages are rising, and making stocks a less attractive alternative to US
Treasuries. The main purpose of QE2 is to lower long term US Treasury yields,
but the 10-Year yield is now 133 basis points higher since in October. Sure,
stocks are higher, but buying now puts consumer capital at risk as stocks are
overvalued and overbought. Consumers are buying stocks just as they bought new
homes in 2005 and 2006.
Bank Failure Friday – The FDIC closed
thee more banks last Friday and none were publicly traded.
· 25 banks failed in 2008
· 140 banks failed in 2009 with a peak
of 50 in the third quarter
· 157 banks failed in 2010
· 14 banks have failed year to date in
2011
· 336 banks have failed since the end
of 2007
· I still predict 500 to 800 bank
failures in total by the end of 2012 into 2013.’
Monthly
Market Valuation: Investors Are Too Bullish, Valuations Are Too High [ The
conclusion of the following detailed, documented analysis: ‘Wolinsky :In
conclusion, the market is over-valued based on the above data. Tobin's Q,
Shiller P/E and AAII data are all indicating that investors are too bullish and
valuations are too high.’ ]
Why
Small Business Isn’t Hiring And Won’t Be Hiring Charles Hugh Smith
| Small business can’t afford to believe in myths and fantasies. They are
dealing with the harsh reality of adapt or die.
59.9%?
Americans Are Racking Up Huge Credit Card Balances at Outrageous Interest Rates
Economic Collapse | It appears that the American people have
fallen off the wagon and have gotten a taste for credit card debt once again.
Obama
Budget Proposes Broader Unemployment Taxes Wall Street Journal
| Proposal would aim to restock state unemployment-insurance trust funds by
raising the amount of wages on which companies must pay unemployment taxes.
Stocks
Remain Poised for Steep Decline McCurdy ‘When the second round of quantitative easing was
announced late last year, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke indicated that one
of the primary objectives of the program was to inflate risk assets such as
stocks. In that respect, the program has been an unqualified success, as the
S&P 500 index has now gained more than 26% during the course of 5 months.
However,
as a result, the index P/E ratio has increased to more than 18, and the most
reliable forecasting models based upon current earnings and dividends indicate that expected 10-year annual returns
are now slightly more than 3%, regardless of whether or not the economy is in
fact experiencing a sustained recovery.
Thus,
from a purely investment perspective, stocks are priced to deliver very poor
results during the coming decade. Additionally, the short-term outlook now
favors the development of a potentially violent correction.
On
Friday, the S&P 500 index moved up to another marginal new high for the
rally from September, pushing an overextended advance to yet another extreme.
click
to enlarge images
The
current short-term cycle from the end of November is now 46 trading days old,
and it has yet to enter the final decline of the beta phase, suggesting that it
will likely terminate in the 55 to 60 day range. The previous cycle had a
duration of 63 trading days. These are moves of extremely long duration, well
above their historical average of about 39 trading days.
Of
course, to truly put the overextended nature of the move in perspective, it
must be viewed in the proper context afforded by the big picture. Below is a
monthly chart of the S&P 500 since the current secular bear market began in
2000.
Notice
how the character of market behavior changed materially with the crash in late
2008. Since then, stocks have been moving effectively straight up or straight
down. This type of volatile price action is typical for this stage of the bear
market and indicates that we are still several years away from the terminal
phase of the secular decline.
Returning
to the short-term view, our Cyclical Trend Score (CTS) has been negatively
diverging from price action since October, and the CTS is currently holding
slightly above its December low.
Although
the CTS is not a near-term timing indicator, this negative divergence reflects
a gradual deterioration in underlying strength. The developing weakness is also
manifested by broad market internals such as breadth and volume, as both
continue to negatively diverge from price behavior.
Finally,
our Sentiment Score continues to hold near the lowest level since late 2007,
reflecting irrationally excessive bullishness that leaves the market vulnerable
to an abrupt decline.
Of
course, overextended rallies of this type have a tendency to continue making
marginal new highs until, at some point, an unexpected catalyst sets in motion
the inevitable correction, which will likely be fast and furious, wiping out
several weeks of gains in a matter of sessions.
From
a big picture perspective, the character of the next correction should provide
a great deal of clarity with respect to long-term direction. A relatively weak
retracement followed by a return to recent long-term highs would predict a
subsequent breakout and continuation of the cyclical bull market, while a powerful,
sustained downtrend would suggest the development of a long-term top.’
Is
the Market Headed for a Sell-Off? Zaky [ Yes … I agree, except that fundamentally the longer term
prospects are even worse than his bearish outlook suggests (don’t forget the
debasement of the dollar, manipulation, and spending / printing money the
nation doesn’t have in real terms behind this manipulated uptick) and
summarized as follows: ‘I suspect that this rally is on its very last legs. We
should see a very healthy 10% or so correction within the next 1-2 week period
... This market is headed for a sell-off. ]
2011
Update: Another Lost Decade for Stocks - Are You Prepared? [ I agree that
this is but a (manipulated) bull cycle in a secular bear market with
substantially worse to come! ]Kopas ‘In February 2010, we published an article
on Seeking Alpha entitled “Another Lost Decade for Stocks - Are You Prepared?,”
wherein we argued that the year 2000 marked a secular (long-term) peak for U.S.
stocks. A secular bear market is formed when a series of business cycles are
linked together, establishing an extended period of stock market
under-performance. Our objective here is to bring you up-to-date on the
progress of this secular bear market and help you prepare for the next ten
years.
The
first benchmark we monitor is U.S. stock prices adjusted for inflation. In this
chart below, we compare the U.S. stock market to the Shiller 10-year
Price/Earnings ratio. This P/E ratio is an indication of investor confidence; a
lack of that signals extreme valuation levels. Our conclusion is
that investor psychology is still too optimistic and has a long way to go
before reaching an undervalued stock market level.
[chart] click to enlarge
Updating
our duration and valuation benchmarks, again we find progress,
but not yet achieving the truly undervalued levels we expect to see toward the
end of a secular bear market. Based upon previous cycles, it appears we are
only slightly past the half way mark in terms of years, number of recessions,
and valuations. A look at our chart and table comparing this to earlier secular
bear markets illustrates our conclusion. We expect that a major bottom for
inflation adjusted stock prices is still years away before stocks finally
gravitate toward the target area outlined below.
[chart]
New
Benchmark: Tobin Q Ratio
In
this update we introduce another relative valuation benchmark created by Yale
economics professor and Nobel laureate James Tobin, hence the name Tobin’s Q
Ratio. The Q ratio is calculated as the total value of the stock market divided
by the replacement cost of all its companies. Values greater than 1 indicate
stock prices sell above their replacement cost and are therefore “expensive.” A
reading below 1 indicates stocks can be bought below replacement cost and
therefore indicates that it is cheaper to buy a company than to build one.
A
long-term view of the Q ratio gives investors a good understanding of value,
information about current risk levels and a method to assess probable returns
for the long term. Secular bear markets historically bottom when the Q ratio
declines to a bargain level less than .4, meaning stock prices sell for just
40% of replacement value. Today’s reading of 1.03 is above the average reading
of .75 and considerably higher than the average secular low reading of .33. Investors
beware; stocks have considerable more downside potential before the Q ratio
truly reflects a great valuation. Buy and Hold tactics will continue to
frustrate investors, just as they have in the past decade.
In
conclusion, none of the benchmarks we evaluate indicate we are anywhere close
to a secular stock market bottom yet. In the meantime, a prudent and profitable investment
strategy should be flexible enough to actively adjust portfolio asset
allocation, depending on where we are in the business cycle and the direction
of the secular trend.’
Shiller Ratio Points to U.S. Equities Being Significantly
Overvalued [ Yes they are indeed;
so take this especially great opportunity to sell, take profits since there’s
much, much worse to come! That computer-programmed spike into the close to keep
suckers suckered does not change the aforesaid. This is particularly evident in
their attempt to cash in on that superstitious scam known as the ‘January
effect’ by way of these manipulated bubble-making buy programs; you know,
loosen / soften the suckers up for the coming year’s new fraud / scam. ] The
'January
Effect' Is More Market Myth Than Sound Analysis ... Kumar ‘…January of 1929, for example, was
off to a brisk start as the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to 317 from
307. But investors would be slammed later in the year by a historic stock
market crash that heralded the start of the Great Depression. January of 1987,
too, began nicely. The Dow climbed to 2160 at the end of the month after
starting out at 1927. But Black Monday
would hit investors in October of that year, leading to the sharpest historical
stock market decline in percentage terms. More recently, January 2001 had a
strong showing when the Dow Jones finished the month at 10,887 after starting
at 10,646. Those reading it as an auspicious beginning would be hit first by
the further fallout from collapse of the dot-com bubble and then the massive
decline following the September 11 terrorist attacks. See
full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/cyaPDT
‘… Then, more recently there’s ‘The stock market scored a strong gain
and locked in its first positive finish for January since 2007 (we all know
what happened after that! Crash!) with help from the energy sector, which
climbed sharply in response to a spike in oil prices.(Yahoo/Briefing.com) …
Higher oil prices … riiiiight! … that sounds bull(s***)ish … on fraudulent wall
street. ]
National / World
Freed young leader energizes Egyptian protests (AP) In this
still image taken from video, Google Inc executive Wael Ghonim cries during an
interview in Cairo February 7, 2011. One man's tears provided a new impetus on
Tuesday to protesters in Egypt seeking to keep up momentum in their campaign,
now in its third week, to topple President Hosni Mubarak. Ghonim, who was
detained and blindfolded by state security for 12 days, broke down in a
television interview on Monday after his release saying a system that arrested
people for speaking out must be torn down. Image taken from footage dated
February 7, 2011. REUTERS/Dream TV via Reuters TV (EGYPT)
Drudgereport: UNDERDOG:
CNN POLL: 51% SEE NO SECOND TERM FOR OBAMA...
71%
OF ALL VEGAS HOMEOWNERS UNDER WATER...
'New
normal' in housing bust...
STRESS...
Job
openings fall for second straight month...
HOUSE
VOTES NEXT WEEK TO BLOCK OBAMACARE FUNDS
WE'RE
ON 'ROAD TO RUIN'
UPDATE:
Egypt sees largest demos since start of revolt...
New
video shows brutal mob justice...
Israel
Army Chief: Prepare for all-out war...
Released
GOOGLE exec reveals he was behind FACEBOOK page...
Freed
young leader energizes protests...
Saboteurs
attack gas pipeline; cuts off flow to Israel, Jordan...
CAIRO
DAY 12: Locked in standoff...
Mubarak
clings to power as son quits ruling party...
Gov't
seeks to ease Mubarak out...
Hopes
to ride out protest wave...
Anderson
Cooper in 'Undisclosed Location' After Another Attack; Couric, Williams Flee Egypt...
GOOGLE
Exec Who Went Missing In Egypt Now Spokesman For Opposition Group...
MOTOROLA
AD MOCKS 'APPLE ZOMBIE SOCIETY'...
Mafia
'holds Silvio Berlusconi photos'...
SUPER
BOWL MOST-VIEWED TV IN HISTORY...
THE
PACK PULLS IT OUT [ Congratulations to the Green Bay Packers! ]
Governors
plan painful cuts amid budget crises (Washington Post) [ This truly is a disaster in the making, with
consequences even more dire than the grim outlook set forth by Meridith
Whitney, if that could even be fathomed. It’s really going to be all that
bad…see infra, The Economic Collapse, ‘#10 The municipal bond
crisis could go “supernova” at any time. Already, investors are bailing
out of bonds at a frightening pace. State and local government debt is
now sitting at an all-time high of 22
percent of U.S. GDP. According to Meredith Whitney, the municipal
bond crisis that we are facing is a gigantic threat to our financial system….
“It has
tentacles as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the
single most important issue in the United States and certainly the largest
threat to the U.S. economy.”
Egypt protests continue as Mubarak's
government offers concessions (Washington Post) [ Come on!
Let not all of us join america’s / israel’s, et als, and mubarak’s delusions. After all, here’s an 82
year old tyrant, in power for 30 years, yet in some parallel universe appears
to think he’s calling the shots. Other than literal and quite foolish shots
against protesters, even journalists, see infra, there are few indeed that
would trust his mindset, such as it is, much less his judgment, so flawed as he
has now shown it to be. What is obvious is that this long overdue ‘people’s
election’ cannot be thwarted by platitudes and small talk, but resisting the
inevitable will turn an american quasi-ally into an anti-american breeding
ground because there’s just no reconciling a pro-mubarak, however slight,
position with american / israeli, et als war crimes in the region. Restless
Cairo protesters hoping for U.S. support (Washington Post) [ The sad
reality here is, much like wobama’s Afghanistan fiasco, that america has
‘bought it’. This is truly yet another ‘loss, loss’ scenario as is true of
america’s mideast policy generally. Defacto bankrupt america’s initiatives in
the region particularly, though generally true of all american policy, is the
‘square pegs in round holes’ approach to almost everything they do, which
certainly is not lost on the rest of the world. Coddling and caving in to
israeli / neocon / zionist paranoia despite the war mongering intransigence of
the former is devastating to a nation as pervasively corrupt america which is
facing insurmountable domestic problems of its own, economically, financially,
politically, and geo-politically. This should bring to mind the missteps of a
former fading empire in this same region desperately trying to remain relevant.
Indeed, from Balfour’s Despoliation to arbitrary boundaries, etc., Orwellian britain’s
demise (decline) as a real player globally was, as america’s currently,
significantly and irrevocably hastened. Quite simply, pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america will increasingly be viewed as a bunch of ‘muck-ups’ who can’t handle their own
substantial problems much less those of other nations; and in fact, invariably
exacerbate existing conditions / problems, particularly when pandering to
israel’s self-interested concerns. ] While the ouster of President Hosni
Mubarak remains the most pressing concern for protesters, the role of U.S. is
far from absent in the dialogue. { Previous:
Amid Arab protests, U.S. influence has waned
(Washington Post) [ And that’s just the way israel likes it … and to america’s
detriment, of course … which is not lost on even George Soros … Drudgereport: Soros:
'The main stumbling block is Israel'...
Egyptian
protesters plan new push Government
detains foreigners, says it's willing to open talks (Washington Post) [ Open talks? ‘bout what?
Building a pyramid in mubarak’s honor before stepping down? He’s done … finito
… burnt as an over-micro-waved burrito! The following from the Post is indeed
the straw that broke the riders with whips he sent on camels’ and horses’
backs! ‘Wants to die in Egypt? How
touching, or the reality, he’s just plain touched as in totally ‘out of
it’. ‘…In what the U.S. State
Department called a "concerted campaign to intimidate," several dozen
journalists were rounded up by security forces and detained for hours, along
with foreigners working as teachers, engineers and human rights researchers. Across
the city, angry bands of supporters of President Hosni Mubarak also beat
journalists; several reporters said that they were threatened with death…’ ]
Cairo seeks to shift blame for clashes by rounding up journalists; U.S.
worries renewed protests could spark more violence from Mubarak supporters. Demonstrations
in Egypt take bloody turn In
Cairo square, Mubarak backers confront anti-government crowds (Washington Post) [ Not too difficult for desperate and done
mubarak to contrive: Mubarak
Says Egyptians Have to Choose Between “Chaos” and Him … Then Sends In His Thugs
to Stir Up Chaos (Infowars.com) In
order to justify staying in power until elections are held in September,
President Mubarak said on tv that the people had to choose between him and
“chaos”. ] The coordinated nature of day's events suggested that Mubarak's
supporters were determined to show, as he had warned, that the country faced a
"choice between chaos and stability." [ Previous: Mubarak's
pledge seen as not enough Egyptian
president plans to stay in office to transfer power (Washington Post) [ Let me put it another
way: Mubarak is as done as an over-cooked tamale … He seems to be stalling for
time and even in his age impaired mind certainly knows his position is
untenable, unsustainable, and even more irrational as each second passes. There
is a possibility that he’s using same to move money / treasure for himself and
others, literally as well, buying time. See infra … Previous: Mubarak
seeks dialogue, shows no sign of relenting Demonstrators
call for massive protest but lack leadership (Washington Post) [ He relented when he
resorted to media / internet blackout. Indeed, this lack of sign thing is a
testament to how far from reality 30 years has taken him, not to mention the
other 52 years that have taken their toll on his cognitive processes. Whether
it is plaques ‘on the brain’ or outright senility, that he is so disengaged
from the events unfolding around him, one may only wonder how he lasted this
long. Nor did his choice of cia standin / shill, new VP Suleiman enhance his
now untenable position which leaves him as ‘done as a burnt enchilada’. Kissinger
on Egypt unrest – “This is only the first scene of the first act of a drama
that is to be played out” [ The
import of this so-called interview, and it is here that I part company with
alex jones, et als (who by the way, censored me for this very thesis, which
puts him and his at the top of my hypocrite list), is that the so-called elite
have orchestrated these events and ‘are in control’. First, there are no elites
in this world; you can’t derive elites from apes, notochordates, and initially
single celled organisms. Second, almost by definition and certainly by history,
there are no elites in america even if you were to accept the first proposition
(though true) as untrue. What you do have, in this world and america
particularly (with few exceptions as I’ve discussed elsewhere / comments / my
website), are inherent criminals and mentally ill people of varying degrees of
unscrupulousness and insanity who do commit crimes, both small and large, to
further their interests or fortunes (sociopaths / psychopaths). The ’so-called
alpha-dogs’ of the human species at most, but still incompetent vegetables who,
if you look at anything they touch (to use a term term of such incompetent
vegetables as historically pertains to their role in the mideast – and
generally the state of the world) it invariably goes ‘pear shaped’ (english
term). What hasn’t zionist kissinger not messed up as appointee or ‘consultant’
– what does he get paid for? No! The fact is, they have absolutely no idea how
this unfolds and as with most of their lives, they will predictably choose the
most sordid, despicable, and diabolical course at every turn because … that is
their inherently criminal, mentally ill / unstable nature to do so. ]
] Fragile steps to end crisis seen as plans
take shape for a transition process that would allow Mubarak to remain as a
figure head until new elections.
} ]
Stocks
Remain Poised for Steep Decline McCurdy ‘When the second round of quantitative easing was
announced late last year, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke indicated that one
of the primary objectives of the program was to inflate risk assets such as
stocks. In that respect, the program has been an unqualified success, as the
S&P 500 index has now gained more than 26% during the course of 5 months.
However,
as a result, the index P/E ratio has increased to more than 18, and the most
reliable forecasting models based upon current earnings and dividends indicate that expected 10-year annual
returns are now slightly more than 3%, regardless of whether or not the economy
is in fact experiencing a sustained recovery.
Thus,
from a purely investment perspective, stocks are priced to deliver very poor
results during the coming decade. Additionally, the short-term outlook now
favors the development of a potentially violent correction.
On
Friday, the S&P 500 index moved up to another marginal new high for the
rally from September, pushing an overextended advance to yet another extreme.
click
to enlarge images
The
current short-term cycle from the end of November is now 46 trading days old,
and it has yet to enter the final decline of the beta phase, suggesting that it
will likely terminate in the 55 to 60 day range. The previous cycle had a
duration of 63 trading days. These are moves of extremely long duration, well
above their historical average of about 39 trading days.
Of
course, to truly put the overextended nature of the move in perspective, it
must be viewed in the proper context afforded by the big picture. Below is a
monthly chart of the S&P 500 since the current secular bear market began in
2000.
Notice
how the character of market behavior changed materially with the crash in late
2008. Since then, stocks have been moving effectively straight up or straight
down. This type of volatile price action is typical for this stage of the bear
market and indicates that we are still several years away from the terminal
phase of the secular decline.
Returning
to the short-term view, our Cyclical Trend Score (CTS) has been negatively
diverging from price action since October, and the CTS is currently holding
slightly above its December low.
Although
the CTS is not a near-term timing indicator, this negative divergence reflects
a gradual deterioration in underlying strength. The developing weakness is also
manifested by broad market internals such as breadth and volume, as both
continue to negatively diverge from price behavior.
Finally,
our Sentiment Score continues to hold near the lowest level since late 2007,
reflecting irrationally excessive bullishness that leaves the market vulnerable
to an abrupt decline.
Of
course, overextended rallies of this type have a tendency to continue making
marginal new highs until, at some point, an unexpected catalyst sets in motion
the inevitable correction, which will likely be fast and furious, wiping out
several weeks of gains in a matter of sessions.
From
a big picture perspective, the character of the next correction should provide
a great deal of clarity with respect to long-term direction. A relatively weak
retracement followed by a return to recent long-term highs would predict a
subsequent breakout and continuation of the cyclical bull market, while a
powerful, sustained downtrend would suggest the development of a long-term
top.’
Valuation
Warning Continues for Stocks Minyanville
‘Editor's Note: This article was written by Richard Suttmeier, chief market
strategist at ValuEngine.com,
which is a fundamentally based quant research firm.
The yield on the 30-year bond rose to 4.74 on Friday, increasing the drag on
equity valuations. Both the 10-year and 30-year yields are above their December
trading ranges, raising consumer interest rates such as mortgage rates. Because
of this I say QE2 is a failure. This is forcing investors to increase
allocations to stocks just when they become less attractive, more overvalued
fundamentally and more overbought technically. Last week the Dow Industrial
Average reached a new high for the move at 12,092.42. Dow Transports
and the Russell 2000 remain below the highs of mid-January.
We're trading under another ValuEngine Valuation Warning -- 16 of 16
sectors are overvalued and only 34.73% of all stocks are undervalued, below the
35% threshold by this measure.
The US Treasury 10-Year Yield -- (3.650) The trading range set in
December has been broken to the upside with my annual value level at 3.791 and
weekly risky level at 3.525.
Comex gold -- ($1349.5) Tested my annual pivot at $1356.5 last week, but
could not get a weekly close above that level. My semiannual value level is
$1300.6 with quarterly, weekly and annual pivots at $1300.6, $1331.3, 1342.8
and monthly, quarterly and semiannual risky levels are $1412.4, $1441.7 and
$1452.6.
Nymex crude oil -- ($88.90) Has not been able to sustain gains above $92
per barrel. I show weekly and monthly pivots at $91.62 and $91.83 as barriers
for this week with my semiannual pivot at $87.52.
The euro -- (1.3578) Could not sustain gains above 1.38 last week. My
quarterly value level is 1.3227 with a weekly pivot at 1.3511 and monthly risky
level at 1.4225. The weak euro versus the dollar on Thursday was offset by
perceived positive comments from Fed Chief Ben Bernanke.
Bernanke Blunders -- Fed Chief Bernanke expects the economy to improve
this year with low inflation, despite the jump in commodity prices. The rise in
commodities prices has been a factor for 10 years, and consumers are feeling it
at the gas pump, grocery stores and utilities bills.
The Federal Reserve is more worried about unemployment, but monetary policy has
not helped create jobs on Main Street USA. Main Street depends upon
construction jobs and these jobs are declining month after month.
Another blunder is the $600 billion QE2, which is aimed at jump-starting
lending and making stock ownership more attractive. You can not increase
lending when consumer rates such as mortgages are rising, and making stocks a
less attractive alternative to US Treasuries. The main purpose of QE2 is to
lower long-term US Treasury yields, but the 10-Year yield is now 133 basis
points higher since October. Sure stocks are higher, but buying now puts
consumer capital at risk as stocks are overvalued and overbought. Consumers are
buying stocks just as they bought new homes in 2005 and 2006!
Bank Failure Friday -- The FDIC closed three more banks last Friday and
none were publicly traded.
Beware:
True Unemployment Is Closer to 10%
The Burden of Lower Growth and More Frequent Recessions Mauldin ‘The following is a
preview of my new book, Endgame, out and in the bookstores next month. This is
the beginning of chapter four, and it stands alone quite nicely. It will print
out a little longer than normal, as there are a lot of graphs. My co-author
Jonathan Tepper and I deal with why there will be slower growth, more volatility,
and more frequent recessions in our future.
We’re optimists
by nature. The natural order of the world is growth. Trees tend to grow, and
economies do, too. Real economic growth solves most problems and is the best
antidote to high deficits, but the problems that we have now won’t be solved by
growth. They’re simply too big. Unless we have another Industrial Revolution or
another profound technological revolution like electrification in the 1920s or
the IT revolution in the 1990s, we will not be able to grow enough to pull
ourselves out of the debt hole we’re in.
After the dot-com
bust in 2000, the phrase “the muddle through economy” (a term coined by John)
best described the U.S. economic situation. The economy would indeed be
growing, but the growth would be below the long-term trend (which in the United
States is about 3.3 percent) for the rest of the decade. (Indeed, growth for
the decade was an anemic 1.9 percent annualized, the weakest decade since the
Great Depression. Muddle through, indeed.)
The muddle
through economy would be more susceptible to recession. It would be an economy
that would move forward burdened with the heavy baggage of old problems while
facing the strong headwinds of new challenges. The description of the world was
accurate then, and it is even more accurate now. In March 2009, when almost
everyone was predicting the apocalypse, it was hard to see how things could
improve. The GDP turned around, industrial production has shot up, retail sales
have bounced back, and the stock market rebounded strongly. Everything has
turned up. However, GDP growth is slowing in the United States as we write in
November 2010. Compared with previous recoveries, growth does not look that
great, and people don’t feel the recovery. This is unlikely to change.
The muddle
through economy is the product of a few major structural breaks in the world’s
economies that have important implications for growth, jobs, and when we might
see a recession again. The U.S. and most developed economies are currently
facing many major headwinds that will mean that going forward, we’ll have
slower economic growth, more recessions, and higher unemployment. All of these
are hugely important for endgame since they vastly complicate policy making.
Lower growth will
make our fiscal choices that much scarier. Importantly, these big changes also
mean that governments, pension funds, and even private savers are probably
making unreasonably rosy assumptions about how quickly the economy and asset
prices will be able to increase in the future. As endgame unfolds, the reality
of these big changes will set in.
Investors are good at absorbing short-term
information, but they are much less successful at absorbing bigger structural
trends and understanding when secular breaks have occurred. Perhaps investors
are like the proverbial frogs in the frying pan and do not notice long, slow
changes around them. There are three large structural changes that have
happened slowly over time that we expect to continue going forward. The U.S.
economy will have:
1. Higher volatility
2. Lower trend growth
3. Higher structural levels of unemployment (The
United States here is a proxy for many developed countries with similar
problems, so much of this chapter applies elsewhere.)
1. Higher Volatility
Before the crash of October 2008, the world was
living in “the great moderation,” a phrase coined by Harvard economist James
Stock to describe the change in economic variables in the mid-1980s, such as
GDP, industrial production, monthly payroll employment, and the unemployment
rate, which all began to show a decline in volatility. As Figures 4.1 and 4.2
from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas show, the early 1980s in fact
constituted a structural break in macroeconomic volatility. The GDP became a
lot less volatile. As did employment.
The great moderation was seductive, and government
officials, hedge fund managers, bankers, and even journalists believed “this
time is different.” Journalists like Gerard Baker of the Times of London
wrote in January 2007: Welcome to “the Great Moderation”: Historians will
marvel at the stability of our era. Economists are debating the causes of the
Great Moderation enthusiastically and, unusually, they are in broad agreement.
[chart]
[chart]
Good policy has played a part: central banks have got
much better at timing interest rate moves to smooth out the curves of economic
progress. But the really important reason tells us much more about the best way
to manage economies. It is the liberation of markets and the opening-up of
choice that lie at the root of the transformation. The deregulation of
financial markets over the Anglo-Saxon world in the 1980s had a damping effect
on the fluctuations of the business cycle ... The economies that took the most
aggressive measures to free their markets reaped the biggest rewards.
In retrospect, this line of thinking looks hopelessly
optimistic, even deluded. We do not write this to pick on Gerard Baker, but
rather to point out that low volatility breeds complacency and increased risk
taking. The greater predictability in economic and financial performance led
hedge funds to hold less capital and to be less concerned with the liquidity of
their positions.
Those heady days are now over, and we have now
entered “the great immoderation.” One can confidently say that 2008 represents
a structural break, moving back toward a period of greater volatility. Robert
F. Engle, a finance professor at New York University who was the Nobel laureate
in economics in 2003, has shown that periods of greatest volatility are
predictable. Market sessions with particularly good or bad returns don’t occur
randomly but tend to be clustered together. The market’s behavior illustrates
this clustering. Volatility follows the credit cycle like night follows day,
and periods following credit booms are marked by high volatility, for example,
2000–2003 and 2007–2008.
The period of low volatility of GDP, industrial
production, and initial unemployment claims is now over. For a period of more
than 20 years, excluding the brief 2001–2002 recession, volatility of real
economic data was extremely low, as Figure 4.3 shows. Going forward, higher
economic volatility, combined with a secular downtrend in economic growth, will
create more frequent recessions. This is likely to lead to more market
volatility as well.
[chart]
You can measure economic volatility in a variety of
ways. Our preferred way is on a forward-looking basis. We have seen the highest
volatility in the last 40 years across leading indicators, as Figure 4.4 shows.
These typically lead the economic cycle. This only means one thing, higher
volatility going forward.
For far too long, volatility was low and bred
investor complacency. Going forward, we can expect a lot more economic and
market volatility. We have had a strong cyclical upturn, but we will continue
to face major structural headwinds. This means more frequent recessions and
resultant higher volatility.
If we look at Japan following the Nikkei bust in
1989, we can see that volatility increased. Note that before the peak in the
Nikkei, volatility had been largely subdued, with periodic movements
corresponding to increases in the level of the market. As Figure 4.5 shows,
following the crash, stock market volatility increased markedly, and volatility
to the downside became far more prevalent.
[chart]
Equity volatility follows the credit cycle. If you
push commercial and industrial (C&I) loans forward two years, it predicts
increases in the Market Volatility Index (VIX) almost down to the month. We should
expect heightened episodes of volatility for the next two years at a minimum.
(See Figure 4.6.)
Fixed-income volatility also follows the credit cycle
with a two-year lag. Figure 4.7 shows how the Fed Funds rate lags Merrill
Lynch’s MOVE Index, which is a measure of fixed-income volatility, by three
years.
[chart]
Another very good reason to believe we’ll continue to
have high volatility even after we recover from the hangover of the credit
binge is that the world is now much more integrated. This is a paradox and may
seem hard to believe, but increased globalization actually makes the world more
volatile through extended supply chains! (See Figure 4.8.)
Production in Japan, Germany, Korea, and Taiwan fell
far more during the 2007–2009 recession than U.S. production fell even during
the Great Depression. Not only was the downturn steeper than during the Great
Depression but also the bounce back was even bigger.
This is truly staggering. If you believed in
globalization, supply chain management, and deregulation, you would have
thought they would lead to greater moderation, but the opposite happened. This
was due to the credit freeze that particularly hit export-oriented economies
because trade credit temporarily dried up. It was not about globalization per
se.
Why has the world economy been so volatile? One of
the main reasons is exports. If you look at exports as a percentage of GDP
since the end of the Cold War, you’ll see that in almost all countries around
the world, exports have rapidly risen in the last 20 years. In Asia, they have
doubled, in India they have tripled, and in the United States they have
increased by 50 percent. This makes us all more interconnected, and it means
that supply chains become longer and longer.
Longer supply chains have enormous macroeconomic
implications. As the Economic Cycle Research Institute points out, we’re now
experiencing the bullwhip effect, “where relatively mild fluctuations in end
demand are dramatically amplified up the supply chain, just as a flick of the
wrist sends the tip of a bullwhip flying in a great arc.” The bullwhip effect
makes greater export dependence very dangerous to supplier countries, which
only contributes to cyclical volatility. This is easily seen in Figure 4.9.
That is why Asian countries had some of the largest downturns and steepest
upturns in the Great Recession and the following recovery.
[chart]
2. Lower Trend Growth
We are also seeing a secular decline over the last
four cycles in trend growth across GDP, personal income, industrial production,
and employment. You can see that in Figure 4.10.
Another view of declining trend growth is the decline
in nominal GDP. Figure 4.11 shows that the 12-quarter rolling average has been
on a steady decline for the last two decades.
[chart]
A combination of lower trend growth and higher
volatility means more frequent recessions. Put another way, the closer trend
growth is to zero and the higher volatility is, the more likely U.S. growth is
to frequently dip below zero. Figure 4.12 shows a stylized view of recessions,
but as trend growth dips, the economy will fall below zero percent growth more
often.
Higher volatility has very important implications for equity and bond investors across asset classes. Indeed, the last three economic expansions were almost 10 years, but in previous decades, they averaged four or five years. From now on, we are apt to see recessions every three to five years.’
Find
A Job? Good Luck In This Economy – 10 Reasons Why The Latest Unemployment
Numbers Are No Reason To Cheer ‘The U.S. government is telling us that the
unemployment rate fell all the way down to 9.0% in January. Should we all
cheer? The Economic Collapse Feb 6,
2011 The U.S. government is telling us that the unemployment rate fell all the
way down to 9.0% in January. Should we all cheer? Is it now going
to be a lot easier to find a job? Has the economy finally turned
around? Are happy days here again? Well, it is a good thing to have
a positive attitude, but the truth is that there is just not much to cheer
about when you take a closer look at the recent unemployment numbers.
First of all, the U.S. economy only added 36,000 jobs in January.
Economists had been expecting an increase of about 145,000 jobs, and an
increase of 150,000 jobs per month is necessary just to keep up with population
growth. So why did the unemployment rate go down? Well, the
government says that over half a million Americans suddenly dropped out of the
labor force in January. That doesn’t make a lot of sense, but this is how
the government calculates their numbers. So what happened to those
500,000 Americans? Did they all win the lottery? Have they all
become independently wealthy? Did they all die? No, the vast
majority of them are still around and the vast majority of them still
desperately need jobs. It is just that the government does not count them
as “looking for work” anymore.It would be great if the employment situation in
America actually was getting better. All the time people send me
absolutely heartbreaking stories about what they have had to endure in this
economy. Soon I hope to share some of those stories with you all.
It is hard to try to describe the absolute horror that many Americans are going
through right now.People would like to believe that things are going to get
better, but unfortunately that is just
not going to be the case. The government can try to massage the
numbers to make them look better, but the truth is that the tens of millions of
American families that are deeply suffering right now are not fooled.
The following
are 10 statistics that reveal that the latest unemployment numbers from the
government are no reason to cheer….
#1 According
to CNBC, economists were expecting the U.S. economy to add 145,000 jobs
during January. Obviously the 36,000 figure was a huge disappointment.
#2 Approximately 150,000
jobs need to be added to the economy each month just to keep up with
population growth.
#3 The government jobs report also indicated that
504,000 Americans “dropped out of the labor force” in January. That may
make the unemployment numbers look better, but the truth is that the vast
majority of those 500,000 Americans still need incomes and still need jobs.
#4 According to the latest numbers from Gallup, the
unemployment rate actually increased
to 9.8% at the end of January.
#5 Gallup’s measure of “underemployment” (those that
are unemployed plus those that are working part-time but want full-time
employment) was sittingat
18.9% at the end of January.
#6 As I reported yesterday, there are
approximately 28
million Americansthat would like full-time jobs but that don’t have
full-time jobs.
#7 According to Zero Hedge, the number of Americans
that are “not in the labor force” but that would like a job right now has
hit an all-time record high. If you add all of those people into the
official unemployment figure it
would jump to 12.8%.
#8 According
to Calculated Risk, this is the deepest and most brutal employment downturn
that the United States has experienced since World War II. The current
employment downturn started 37
months ago and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that we will return
to pre-recession levels any time soon.
#9 The U.S. Labor Department has also announced that
job growth during 2010 was much weaker than they had previously reported. The
numbers for 8 months were revised down, and the numbers for 4 months were
revised up. After all of the revisions are accounted for, it turns out that a
total of
215,000 fewer jobs were created during 2010 than originally calculated.
#10 According to one brand new survey, 4
out of every 10 Americans are struggling “a lot” to pay the bills right
now.
The situation
is not pretty out there. The U.S. needs tens of millions more jobs than
we have right now.
So where are
all of our jobs going? The video posted below contains some very strong
hints. The truth is that globalism is
ripping our economic infrastructure apart, and all of the crazy rules and
regulations we keep heaping on business are not helping either….U.S. workers
have been merged into a “global labor pool” where we are expected to directly
compete for jobs with people making slave labor wages on the other side of the
globe.The more time you spend thinking about that, the more you start realizing
that the standard of living of average American families is going to continue
to decline.Unfortunately, as I wrote about in a recent article entitled “Nothing
Is Stable Anymore“, the world is changing faster today than at any other
time during our lifetimes. Everything that we used to assume about
employment, money, our economy and our finances is being turned upside
down. We now live in a world where very little can be taken for
granted.2011 has already been a very tumultuous year. The world is being
transformed. Nobody knows for sure what is going to happen next.One thing
to really keep an eye on is the price of oil. Right now, large
numbers of investors are betting that the price of oil will rise to $125 a
barrel by May. Shockingly, some investors are even betting that the price
of oil will
rise to $250 a barrel by next December.If oil starts to spike dramatically,
it will have tremendous implications for the U.S. economy. Our entire
economic system runs on oil. The price of oil affects the price of
everything else.If the price of oil keeps going up it is inevitably going to
cause a slowdown in the U.S. economy and it will cause the unemployment
situation to get even worse.So be glad that the employment situation is at
least somewhat stable for now, because if things take a bad turn for the worse
in 2011 who knows what kind of unemployment numbers we’ll be talking about a
year from now.’
Underground
world hints at China’s coming crisis Telegraph |
windowless rooms that rent for Ł30 to Ł50 a month, which is as much as many of
the city’s army of migrant labourers can afford.
World food prices
hit record high AFP | World food prices reached their
highest level ever recorded in January and are set to keep rising for months.
National / World
Al
Jazeera’s Cairo office burned down by pro-Mubarak ‘thugs’ Raw Story
| Al Jazeera’s office in Cairo was stormed by a “gang of thugs” and set on fire
along with all the equipment inside it, the Arab news network said Friday.
Renewed
pressure on Mubarak to quit as talks fail Alarab Online | Mubarak came under fresh pressure on Monday to
step down as opponents said concessions made in landmark talks were not enough
to halt a revolt against his 30-year rule.
Drudgereport: WE'RE
ON 'ROAD TO RUIN'
BIG
SIS TELLS SUPER BOWL ATTENDEES: 'SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING'...
Everyone
entering stadium to get a patdown...
Saboteurs
attack gas pipeline; cuts off flow to Israel, Jordan...
CAIRO
DAY 12: Locked in standoff...
Mubarak
clings to power as son quits ruling party...
Gov't
seeks to ease Mubarak out...
Hopes
to ride out protest wave...
Anderson
Cooper in 'Undisclosed Location' After Another Attack; Couric, Williams Flee
Egypt...
GOOGLE
Exec Who Went Missing In Egypt Now Spokesman For Opposition Group...
MOTOROLA
AD MOCKS 'APPLE ZOMBIE SOCIETY'...
Mafia
'holds Silvio Berlusconi photos'...
SUPER
BOWL MOST-VIEWED TV IN HISTORY...
THE
PACK PULLS IT OUT [ Congratulations to the Green Bay Packers! ]
Budget
freeze hampers oversight, SEC chair says (Washington Post) [ Well, now we
know the real reason behind the spending freeze. It always was a bit of a
stretch to say that was because of their seriousness regarding
deficit-reduction which is a catch-phrase but myth at best. That said, in light
of wobama’s et als’ failure to live up to campaign promises regarding
prosecution of the blatant frauds on wall street, it seems that the absence of
the $200 million will be interposed as an excuse for planned failure. After
all, at every turn, the frauds on wall street were given every opportunity to
cover their tracks and keep their booty. The attorney general’s office, u.s.
attorneys and wobama the b are the worst offenders concerning the
foregoing. ] Mary L. Schapiro says the freeze
is compromising the agency's ability to police the financial markets. Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
) ]:
Rank |
|||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored ‘The Obama Deception’ has
been censored In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
]
Milbank: Rumsfeld
offers no apology on Iraq (Washington Post) [ Well, journalistically
speaking, you know Mr. Milbank’s hit the bottom of the barrel when he leads his
article with a quote seemingly as a purported standard from war criminal dumbya
bush who probably didn’t even understand the words he was regurgitating (see ,
ie., bushisms from bush the brain-damaged moron http://albertpeia.com/bushisms.htm
- sadly, wobama probably understands the words but forgets his prior words
contradicting same, campaign promises particularly, and hence, failed
presidents both). Who cares about what would be meaningless apologies from
these incompetent psychopaths.
(2-3-11) Rumsfeld
Finally Confesses He Was Wrong About WMD In New Autobiography [ Nice to know … a nation’s bankruptcy
(america) and another nation’s destruction (Iraq) later. ] Former Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has finally confessed he was wrong to claim America
knew where Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction in the
first days after the Iraq invasion.
Previous: Words are cheap, in america particularly … I don’t believe
anything they say and then, as I said, words are cheap. ANALYSIS
| Palin's 'blood libel' comment backfires Washington Post) [ God knows I’m no fan of sarah palin’s
although I am constrained to admit that as a fan of Saturday Night Live, I do
appreciate her contribution to comedic content in the show. That said, this new ‘tempest in a teapot’ of
her own making is a bit overdone. After all, it should be common knowledge by
now, to put it mildly, that she is quite dumb; and, like that burnt out, dumb,
war criminal and moron, dumbya bush (see , ie., bushisms from bush the
brain-damaged moron http://albertpeia.com/bushisms.htm),
she also has trouble with words; more specifically, the meanings of words. But
it is also true that wobama and his ilk have trouble with words and their
meaning, particularly when those spoken words are measured against what he
does, his ilk never seeming to discern the glaring difference … wobama the ‘b’
for b*** s***. Lamentably (by her) and unexpectedly for palin was her failure
to fully understand ‘that jewish thing’ attached to the phrase and the tender
sensibilities of those who previously have been among the ranks of what seems more
and more to be a somewhat offbeat fanclub of sorts. Yeah, that ‘never here the
end of it’ jewish stereotype of paranoid sensibilities to religious / ethnic
prejudice / slur behind some word, phrase, or even a sneeze (spielberg’s
childhood memories) can wind up turning around and biting you’re a** !
Previously: Krauthammer: Beyond
Ariz., a reckless charge
(Washington Post) [ If it were only that simple; viz., a palin ( I’ve
previously said I’m more concerned with her level of stupidity, dumb enough in
an infantile way to prove she had gonads by pressing the button – never goin’
to happen, her being in that position), a beck, a bush, a wobama (Drudgereport:
OBAMA
FLASHBACK: 'If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun'... ), etc., there’d be hope for pervasively corrupt defacto
bankrupt america. The fact is, the problem is inherent to america / americans
themselves as I previously wrote here and reiterate: Will: Half-baked
explanations for tragedy (Washington Post) [ Half-baked? Charlatans? The
foregoing are in no short supply in defacto bankrupt, meaningfully lawless,
pervasively corrupt, fraud prevalent america. See, for example, RICO case http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm . Moreover, Mr. Will as an oftimes
apologist for war criminal, pervasively fraud-prone, defacto bankrupt, etc.,
america, with crime rates exceeding by far those of any other so-called civilized
nations, might indeed find himself among those he’s so categorized. Among the
last separate page sections to my website will be a somewhat detailed
psychoanalytic evolutionary profile of the u.s. (one might ask who am I to do
so which is fair comment to which I would reply, read it, or not, your choice).
However, for the nonce, let me say that the it is no small coincidence that the
20th century has been dubbed ‘the american century’. That the 20th
century has been considered the bloodiest is at once the natural concomitant of
the foregoing reality. Keeping in mind the so-called ‘selective’ processes in
both insurance (adverse) and evolutionary (Darwinian) terms, and as well, the
psychology of it all from a behavioral perspective, america has indeed evolved.
From the genocide of indigenous populations, to outlandish propaganda in
support of same (ie., that ‘manifest destiny’ balderdash with overtones of
religiosity spoonfed since elementary school, etc.), to contrived conflict /
war, such, euphemistically bad behavior has been reinforced, some of which
conditioning not always purposeful, ie., the ever greater frauds perpetrated on
wall street for which there have been in large part no real punitive
consequences to the perpetrators; but, to the contrary, great financial rewards
though substantially detrimental to the majority. Despite the surface appeal,
that oft asserted ‘blue-blood’ distinction doesn’t pass muster. Aside from the
few seeking seeking religious freedom (ie., Puritans among some others), most
then new americans were such disaffected rejects of their former homelands that
desperation at best was motivation for travel to the wilds of the ‘so-called
new world’ as opposed to intelligent, rational choice; criminals, mentally ill,
the not-so-bright but ruthless populating the new nation in disparate numbers
toward the ends consistent with greed and common criminality, corruption, and
venality. As of the age of the dinosaurs, the american century has passed into
the annals of a history replete with self-generating terrorism within and
without (that blowback thing). DRUDGEREPORT:
NATION
SHOCKED: CONGRESSWOMAN SHOT IN TUCSON ]
White House mulls Egypt options as protests persist Pro-democracy demonstrators stage 'Day of Departure' rallies (Washington Post) [ It truly is difficult to even imagine such a scenario as ‘a transition process that would allow Mubarak to remain as a figure head until new elections’, though the same probably comports with america’s own pervasively corrupt style of politics as usual (wobama a glaring current example of actions belying words, war criminal dumbya bush, et als) which has spelled intractable decline for america domestically and internationally (probably also comports with israel’s aims at the expense and to the detriment of Egypt and Egypt’s citizens – also gives the cia time to do their deals which could be whatever nefarious money-making / power brokering scheme comes to mind). In corrupt, defacto bankrupt america, facades count more than reality. Egyptian protesters plan new push Government detains foreigners, says it's willing to open talks (Washington Post) [ Open talks? ‘bout what? Building a pyramid in mubarak’s honor before stepping down? He’s done … finito … burnt as an over-micro-waved burrito! The following from the Post is indeed the straw that broke the riders with whips he sent on camels’ and horses’ backs! ‘Wants to die in Egypt? How touching, or the reality, he’s just plain touched as in totally ‘out of it’. ‘…In what the U.S. State Department called a "concerted campaign to intimidate," several dozen journalists were rounded up by security forces and detained for hours, along with foreigners working as teachers, engineers and human rights researchers. Across the city, angry bands of supporters of President Hosni Mubarak also beat journalists; several reporters said that they were threatened with death…’ ] Cairo seeks to shift blame for clashes by rounding up journalists; U.S. worries renewed protests could spark more violence from Mubarak supporters.
Amid Arab protests, U.S. influence has waned
(Washington Post) [ And that’s just the way israel likes it … and to america’s
detriment, of course … which is not lost on even George Soros … Drudgereport: Soros:
'The main stumbling block is Israel'...
Egyptian
protesters plan new push Government
detains foreigners, says it's willing to open talks (Washington Post) [ Open talks? ‘bout what?
Building a pyramid in mubarak’s honor before stepping down? He’s done … finito
… burnt as an over-micro-waved burrito! The following from the Post is indeed
the straw that broke the riders with whips he sent on camels’ and horses’
backs! ‘Wants to die in Egypt? How
touching, or the reality, he’s just plain touched as in totally ‘out of it’. ‘…In what the U.S. State Department called
a "concerted campaign to intimidate," several dozen journalists were
rounded up by security forces and detained for hours, along with foreigners
working as teachers, engineers and human rights researchers. Across the city,
angry bands of supporters of President Hosni Mubarak also beat journalists;
several reporters said that they were threatened with death…’ ]
Cairo seeks to shift blame for clashes by rounding up journalists; U.S.
worries renewed protests could spark more violence from Mubarak supporters. Demonstrations
in Egypt take bloody turn In
Cairo square, Mubarak backers confront anti-government crowds (Washington Post) [ Not too difficult for desperate and done
mubarak to contrive: Mubarak
Says Egyptians Have to Choose Between “Chaos” and Him … Then Sends In His Thugs
to Stir Up Chaos (Infowars.com) In
order to justify staying in power until elections are held in September,
President Mubarak said on tv that the people had to choose between him and
“chaos”. ] The coordinated nature of day's events suggested that Mubarak's supporters
were determined to show, as he had warned, that the country faced a
"choice between chaos and stability." [ Previous: Mubarak's
pledge seen as not enough Egyptian
president plans to stay in office to transfer power (Washington Post) [ Let me put it another
way: Mubarak is as done as an over-cooked tamale … He seems to be stalling for
time and even in his age impaired mind certainly knows his position is
untenable, unsustainable, and even more irrational as each second passes. There
is a possibility that he’s using same to move money / treasure for himself and
others, literally as well, buying time. See infra … Previous: Mubarak
seeks dialogue, shows no sign of relenting Demonstrators
call for massive protest but lack leadership (Washington Post) [ He relented when he
resorted to media / internet blackout. Indeed, this lack of sign thing is a
testament to how far from reality 30 years has taken him, not to mention the
other 52 years that have taken their toll on his cognitive processes. Whether
it is plaques ‘on the brain’ or outright senility, that he is so disengaged
from the events unfolding around him, one may only wonder how he lasted this
long. Nor did his choice of cia standin / shill, new VP Suleiman enhance his
now untenable position which leaves him as ‘done as a burnt enchilada’. Kissinger
on Egypt unrest – “This is only the first scene of the first act of a drama
that is to be played out” [ The
import of this so-called interview, and it is here that I part company with
alex jones, et als (who by the way, censored me for this very thesis, which
puts him and his at the top of my hypocrite list), is that the so-called elite
have orchestrated these events and ‘are in control’. First, there are no elites
in this world; you can’t derive elites from apes, notochordates, and initially
single celled organisms. Second, almost by definition and certainly by history,
there are no elites in america even if you were to accept the first proposition
(though true) as untrue. What you do have, in this world and america
particularly (with few exceptions as I’ve discussed elsewhere / comments / my
website), are inherent criminals and mentally ill people of varying degrees of
unscrupulousness and insanity who do commit crimes, both small and large, to
further their interests or fortunes (sociopaths / psychopaths). The ’so-called
alpha-dogs’ of the human species at most, but still incompetent vegetables who,
if you look at anything they touch (to use a term term of such incompetent
vegetables as historically pertains to their role in the mideast – and
generally the state of the world) it invariably goes ‘pear shaped’ (english
term). What hasn’t zionist kissinger not messed up as appointee or ‘consultant’
– what does he get paid for? No! The fact is, they have absolutely no idea how
this unfolds and as with most of their lives, they will predictably choose the
most sordid, despicable, and diabolical course at every turn because … that is
their inherently criminal, mentally ill / unstable nature to do so. ]
] Fragile steps to end crisis seen as plans take
shape for a transition process that would allow Mubarak to remain as a figure
head until new elections.
Ignored but
Important - What Omitted Jobs Data means for Stocks [ What it means is that when there are no
jobs, and everyone has stopped looking, there will be full employment which of
course, is rally time for stocks … riiiiight! ] Maierhofer, see entire article
infra: ‘…The headline unemployment rate (U-3) reported by the BLS fell to 9%,
the lowest level since April 2009. How can the unemployment rate drop 0.4% if
only 36,000 jobs were added? (Much worse than the 140,000 expected – stocks
still rallied) 36,000 aren't even enough to provide jobs for a quarter of
graduates…’ Riiiiight! … that fudge factor/fraud; viz., discouraged / stopped
looking … What total b*** s***! How desperate they are! Previous: Initial
Claims Drop More Than Expected [ Come on! Who believes anything they say
and at what cost with money not really there in pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, with manipulated programmed suckers’ rally into the close.
…‘In the U.S. market, Slothower concludes: “This is a hard one to gauge, given
the QE2 manipulations verses skyrocketing food and energy prices, which have
now reached prices levels that have choked off growth in the past and caused
recessions, as we saw in 2008 when oil prices hit $100 a barrel (in March of
that year).” “It is like walking in a mine field. You move very carefully now
with your eyes wide open and on every move, knowing that any day something out
of the blue could blow thing up, given these extreme risks.” But he’s now only
70% in cash. The balance is split equally between: iPath Dow Jones-AIG Grains
Total Return Sub-Index …’ Minyanville's
T3 Weekly Recap: Growing Disconnect Between Market and Economy/World ‘Bernanke said in his comments yesterday
that he is responsible for higher stock prices, but not necessarily for
sky-rocketing global food prices. Well, you can't have it both ways, Ben. By
propping up asset prices when economic data doesn't match the ferocity of the
stock market rally, the Fed is potentially creating another bubble of
sorts.Just look at today's non-farm payrolls number: There was a gain of only
36,000 jobs when 140,000 were expected. Also, unemployment fell to 9.0% -- a
positive sign for the layman, but an ominous sign for the more keen eye.
Nine-hundred thousand discouraged job-hunters left the labor force this month,
after 500,000 left in the previous month. It's hard to see optimism in the
stock market continue unabated while so many Americans remain jobless…’ ‘Kung Hei Fat Choy!: Dave's Daily …Speaking of the man with printers ink stains
up to his neck, Bernanke spoke Thursday to the Press Club stating, among other
things, "inflation remains quite low". He continued saying,
"Since August, when we announced our policy of reinvesting maturing
securities and signaled we were considering more purchases, equity prices have
risen significantly...") I believe that sums things up from an investing view. Silly
people like me are standing by watching those that can like GS and JPM take
this easy money and route it directly to the S&P futures pits, among other
similar places, taking on risk the Fed expects. Oh, and speaking of JPM, the
Madoff Trustees have sued the bank for complicity in helping steer client funds
to Madoff despite complaints from within that his results were "too good
to be true"…’ Monthly
Market Valuation: Investors Are Too Bullish, Valuations Are Too High The conclusion of the following detailed,
documented analysis: ‘Wolinsky :In conclusion, the market is over-valued based
on the above data. Tobin's Q, Shiller P/E and AAII data are all indicating that
investors are too bullish and valuations are too high.’ ]
, On
Friday February 4, 2011, ‘The monthly employment report has become one
of the most anticipated and talked about, but least analyzed ritual on Wall
Street.As far as the media is concerned, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
might as well just publish the headline number, because that's about the only
thing anyone talks about.Not only does the core message of the 40+ page report
go largely un-deciphered, the correlation between the employment reports is
also somewhat deceptive.This article will extract some uncommonly reported
information and point towards what is likely to move the marketThe only other
Wall Street ritual that tops monthly unemployment reports is earnings season.
Like any other ritual, it comes with many myths and fables attached. The most
common one is that unemployment directly affects stock prices.
THE
HEADLINE NUMBER ... WAIT, THERE IS MORE
The headline
unemployment rate (U-3) reported by the BLS fell to 9%, the lowest level since
April 2009. How can the unemployment rate drop 0.4% if only 36,000 jobs were
added? 36,000 aren't even enough to provide jobs for a quarter of
graduates.According to BLS data, the number of unemployed workers (not seasonally
adjusted) rose from 14.83 million to 14.94 million. The work force shrunk from
153.89 million to 152.54 million. The workforce didn't actually decline, but
statistically more workers are considered discouraged and are no longer
considered unemployed.One of the most remarkable BLS data points on the BLS
site is the average number of weeks workers are now unemployed. The jobless are
unemployed for an average of 36.9 weeks, an all-time high (see chart
below).[chart]
A
SHRINKING POND WITH BIGGER FISH
It is
estimated that about 150,000 'youngsters' enter the work force every year.
That's why the work force has steadily increased since 1948. Courtesy of the
2008 bear market, the workforce has actually been shrinking, as discouraged
workers drop out of the statistics.Discouraged workers are those who have
stopped searching in the last four weeks. Excluding them from the workforce and
the unemployment equation artificially lowers the U-3 unemployment rate. The
real unemployment rate (U-6), which includes workers who stopped looking for
jobs or had to settle for part-time jobs - is at 16.1%.
PLAYING
DETECTIVE
Based on U-6
numbers, since December 2006 as many as 13 million Americans have either lost
their jobs, or have been downgraded.The lucky few who've found a job have to
accept pay cuts. According to Annette Bernhardt, policy co-direction for the
National Employment Law Project, high wage sectors - such as financial services
(NYSEArca: KBE - News) and construction (NYSEArca:
XHB - News) - accounted for nearly half
the jobs lost during the recession.Those workers made between $17.43 - $31 an
hour. Only 5% of those jobs have been resurrected. 76% of new jobs are in
low-to mid-wage industries with earnings between $8.92 - $15 an
hour.Nevertheless, stocks have shrugged off an avalanche of bad news and continue
plowing ahead towards new highs. Does that make sense?
BIG
BROTHER IS HERE
It does when
you include the Federal Reserve and its quantitative easing program in this
lopsided equation. The Fed has a history of creating and ignoring bubbles.The
real estate (NYSEArca: IYR
- News) bubble was allowed to
get bigger to mop up the damage of the tech (NYSEArca: XLK - News) bubble. The financial
sector (NYSEArca VHF) financing bubble was encouraged to mask the damage of the
real estate bubble. The new QE bubble is absolutely needed to prevent an
economic collapse (based on Bernanke's assessment).How long with the Fed's
quantitative easing - labeled QE2 - keep stocks afloat? We don't know for sure,
but we can tell when the stock market might enter trouble spots that could lead
to (severe) corrections.
A FORK IN
THE FINANCIAL ROAD
Imagine a car
cruising on the highway. The driver doesn't know it yet, but he's heading in
the wrong direction. When will he turn around? We don't know, but the most
likely place for a change of direction is the next exit.Based on various measures
of historic valuation models, the stock market (NYSEArca: VTI - News) is overpriced (heading in
the wrong direction). When will stocks stop rising and start falling? We don't
know, but the most likely place for a reversal is the next big resistance
level.The Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI), S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC), Nasdaq (Nasdaq:
^IXIC) and Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSEArca: XLF - News) are simultaneously pushing
against major resistance. It is rare to see four major indexes at cross roads
at the same time.
A HIGH
PROBABILITY TRADING OPPORTUNITY
The beauty of
well-documented resistance levels is that they provide a high probability, and
a low risk trading opportunity for bulls and bears. A solid break above
resistance means hurdle cleared. Resistance becomes support and investors can
go or stay long using the prior support level as resistance.If the index (es)
stays below resistance, resistance is confirmed and a trend change is likely.
Investors/traders can go short using the resistance as a stop-loss level.All
four indexes are within 1 - 2 % of their resistance levels, which means that
either trade has a potential loss of 1 - 2%, compared to a much higher gain.
Investing is about putting the odds in your favor. There is no fail-proof
system, but this setup is about as good as it gets…’
House
Republicans propose $32B in budget cuts (Washington Post) [ Well, there you
go … all over but the shoutin’ … $14+ trillion debt problem solved … riiiiight!
… Timid
Tuesday: Is it Safe? Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are
simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of
global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form
of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh)
is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut
$100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while
continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1%
each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool
all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT
THERE! ‘] The figure represents
an unprecedented rollback that would force some agencies to cut spending by as
much as 20 percent, analysts say.
Egyptian protesters plan new push Government detains foreigners, says it's willing to open talks (Washington Post) [ Open talks? ‘bout what? Building a pyramid in mubarak’s honor before stepping down? He’s done … finito … burnt as an over-micro-waved burrito! The following from the Post is indeed the straw that broke the riders with whips he sent on camels’ and horses’ backs! ‘Wants to die in Egypt? How touching, or the reality, he’s just plain touched as in totally ‘out of it’. ‘…In what the U.S. State Department called a "concerted campaign to intimidate," several dozen journalists were rounded up by security forces and detained for hours, along with foreigners working as teachers, engineers and human rights researchers. Across the city, angry bands of supporters of President Hosni Mubarak also beat journalists; several reporters said that they were threatened with death…’ ] Cairo seeks to shift blame for clashes by rounding up journalists; U.S. worries renewed protests could spark more violence from Mubarak supporters.
Amid Arab protests, U.S. influence has waned
(Washington Post) [ And that’s just the way israel likes it … and to america’s
detriment, of course … which is not lost on even George Soros … Drudgereport: Soros:
'The main stumbling block is Israel'...
Egyptian
protesters plan new push Government
detains foreigners, says it's willing to open talks (Washington Post) [ Open talks? ‘bout what?
Building a pyramid in mubarak’s honor before stepping down? He’s done … finito
… burnt as an over-micro-waved burrito! The following from the Post is indeed
the straw that broke the riders with whips he sent on camels’ and horses’
backs! ‘Wants to die in Egypt? How
touching, or the reality, he’s just plain touched as in totally ‘out of
it’. ‘…In what the U.S. State
Department called a "concerted campaign to intimidate," several dozen
journalists were rounded up by security forces and detained for hours, along
with foreigners working as teachers, engineers and human rights researchers.
Across the city, angry bands of supporters of President Hosni Mubarak also beat
journalists; several reporters said that they were threatened with death…’ ]
Cairo seeks to shift blame for clashes by rounding up journalists; U.S.
worries renewed protests could spark more violence from Mubarak supporters. Demonstrations
in Egypt take bloody turn In
Cairo square, Mubarak backers confront anti-government crowds (Washington Post) [ Not too difficult for desperate and done
mubarak to contrive: Mubarak
Says Egyptians Have to Choose Between “Chaos” and Him … Then Sends In His Thugs
to Stir Up Chaos (Infowars.com) In
order to justify staying in power until elections are held in September,
President Mubarak said on tv that the people had to choose between him and
“chaos”. ] The coordinated nature of day's events suggested that Mubarak's
supporters were determined to show, as he had warned, that the country faced a
"choice between chaos and stability." [ Previous: Mubarak's
pledge seen as not enough Egyptian
president plans to stay in office to transfer power (Washington Post) [ Let me put it another
way: Mubarak is as done as an over-cooked tamale … He seems to be stalling for
time and even in his age impaired mind certainly knows his position is
untenable, unsustainable, and even more irrational as each second passes. There
is a possibility that he’s using same to move money / treasure for himself and
others, literally as well, buying time. See infra … Previous: Mubarak
seeks dialogue, shows no sign of relenting Demonstrators
call for massive protest but lack leadership (Washington Post) [ He relented when he
resorted to media / internet blackout. Indeed, this lack of sign thing is a
testament to how far from reality 30 years has taken him, not to mention the
other 52 years that have taken their toll on his cognitive processes. Whether
it is plaques ‘on the brain’ or outright senility, that he is so disengaged
from the events unfolding around him, one may only wonder how he lasted this
long. Nor did his choice of cia standin / shill, new VP Suleiman enhance his
now untenable position which leaves him as ‘done as a burnt enchilada’. Kissinger
on Egypt unrest – “This is only the first scene of the first act of a drama
that is to be played out” [ The
import of this so-called interview, and it is here that I part company with
alex jones, et als (who by the way, censored me for this very thesis, which
puts him and his at the top of my hypocrite list), is that the so-called elite
have orchestrated these events and ‘are in control’. First, there are no elites
in this world; you can’t derive elites from apes, notochordates, and initially
single celled organisms. Second, almost by definition and certainly by history,
there are no elites in america even if you were to accept the first proposition
(though true) as untrue. What you do have, in this world and america
particularly (with few exceptions as I’ve discussed elsewhere / comments / my
website), are inherent criminals and mentally ill people of varying degrees of
unscrupulousness and insanity who do commit crimes, both small and large, to
further their interests or fortunes (sociopaths / psychopaths). The ’so-called
alpha-dogs’ of the human species at most, but still incompetent vegetables who,
if you look at anything they touch (to use a term term of such incompetent
vegetables as historically pertains to their role in the mideast – and
generally the state of the world) it invariably goes ‘pear shaped’ (english
term). What hasn’t zionist kissinger not messed up as appointee or ‘consultant’
– what does he get paid for? No! The fact is, they have absolutely no idea how
this unfolds and as with most of their lives, they will predictably choose the
most sordid, despicable, and diabolical course at every turn because … that is
their inherently criminal, mentally ill / unstable nature to do so. ]
]
Fed
dismisses inflation concerns (Washington Post) [ If you’re not used to Dave of Dave’s Daily, see infra, ‘he talks
with tongue in cheek’; meaning, inflation’s here, including the inflated stock
bubble that the frauds on wall street commission and sell into, just as
bernanke planned and admitted, with hyperinflation around the corner, and the
typical ‘bust’. Initial
Claims Drop More Than Expected [ Come on! Who believes anything they say
and at what cost with money not really there in pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, with manipulated programmed suckers’ rally into the close.
…‘In the U.S. market, Slothower concludes: “This is a hard one to gauge, given
the QE2 manipulations verses skyrocketing food and energy prices, which have
now reached prices levels that have choked off growth in the past and caused
recessions, as we saw in 2008 when oil prices hit $100 a barrel (in March of
that year).” “It is like walking in a mine field. You move very carefully now
with your eyes wide open and on every move, knowing that any day something out
of the blue could blow thing up, given these extreme risks.” But he’s now only
70% in cash. The balance is split equally between: iPath Dow Jones-AIG Grains
Total Return Sub-Index …’ ‘Kung Hei Fat Choy!: Dave's Daily …Speaking of the man with printers ink stains
up to his neck, Bernanke spoke Thursday to the Press Club stating, among other
things, "inflation remains quite low". He continued saying,
"Since August, when we announced our policy of reinvesting maturing
securities and signaled we were considering more purchases, equity prices have
risen significantly...") I believe that sums things up from an investing view. Silly
people like me are standing by watching those that can like GS and JPM take
this easy money and route it directly to the S&P futures pits, among other
similar places, taking on risk the Fed expects. Oh, and speaking of JPM, the
Madoff Trustees have sued the bank for complicity in helping steer client funds
to Madoff despite complaints from within that his results were "too good
to be true"…’ Monthly
Market Valuation: Investors Are Too Bullish, Valuations Are Too High The conclusion of the following detailed,
documented analysis: ‘Wolinsky :In conclusion, the market is over-valued based
on the above data. Tobin's Q, Shiller P/E and AAII data are all indicating that
investors are too bullish and valuations are too high.’ ]
]
Bernanke gives a mixed assessment of the nation's economic
prospects.
Market
Crash on 2/28/11? Technical
indicators suggest market collapse may begin by February 28th
Regulators
shut 3 small banks; 14 failures in 2011
World food prices
hit record high AFP | World food prices reached their
highest level ever recorded in January and are set to keep rising for months.
Concerns
Over Possible Suez Canal Disruptions New York Times |
Concern has turned to the risk of the blocking of the Suez Canal or nearby
pipelines, which could pose a threat to world energy supplies.
National / World
Rand
Paul worries GOP isn’t ‘brave enough’ to balance budget Sahil Kapur
| Paul said the GOP’s proposed budget cuts were inadequate and fretted that his
party may not have the courage to make a dent in the deficit.
Rumsfeld
Finally Confesses He Was Wrong About WMD In New Autobiography [ Nice to know … a nation’s bankruptcy
(america) and another nation’s destruction (Iraq) later. ]Former Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has finally confessed he was wrong to claim America
knew where Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction in the
first days after the Iraq invasion.
Drudgereport: UNEMPLOYMENT
AT 9.0% +36,000 JOBS...
CANADA
+69,200...
GALLUP:
Unemployment actually at 9.9%...
'Under-employment' at 19.2%...
Labor
Force Participation Plunges To Fresh 26 Year Low...
Santelli
Slams CNBC Panelists for Spinning Jobs Report...
VIDEO...
BIG
SIS TELLS SUPER BOWL ATTENDEES: 'SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING'…(If only she
really meant that concerning the rest of the nation, and washington
particularly – they obsessively cover up almost everything – and saying
something is dealt with quite harshly, punitively)...
SECRET
DEAL: US AGREES TO TELL RUSSIA UK'S
NUKE SECRETS
Gov't
Debt Jumped $105.8 Billion in January...
Dems
warn of shutdown...
Republicans
Propose Spending Cuts...
Initial
Claims Drop More Than Expected [ Come on! Who believes anything they say
and at what cost with money not really there in pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, with manipulated programmed suckers’ rally into the close.
…‘In the U.S. market, Slothower concludes: “This is a hard one to gauge, given
the QE2 manipulations verses skyrocketing food and energy prices, which have
now reached prices levels that have choked off growth in the past and caused
recessions, as we saw in 2008 when oil prices hit $100 a barrel (in March of
that year).” “It is like walking in a mine field. You move very carefully now
with your eyes wide open and on every move, knowing that any day something out
of the blue could blow thing up, given these extreme risks.” But he’s now only
70% in cash. The balance is split equally between: iPath Dow Jones-AIG Grains
Total Return Sub-Index …’ ‘Kung Hei Fat Choy!: Dave's Daily …Speaking of the man with printers ink stains
up to his neck, Bernanke spoke Thursday to the Press Club stating, among other
things, "inflation remains quite low". He continued saying,
"Since August, when we announced our policy of reinvesting maturing
securities and signaled we were considering more purchases, equity prices have
risen significantly...") I believe that sums things up from an investing view. Silly
people like me are standing by watching those that can like GS and JPM take
this easy money and route it directly to the S&P futures pits, among other
similar places, taking on risk the Fed expects. Oh, and speaking of JPM, the
Madoff Trustees have sued the bank for complicity in helping steer client funds
to Madoff despite complaints from within that his results were "too good
to be true"…’ Monthly
Market Valuation: Investors Are Too Bullish, Valuations Are Too High The conclusion of the following detailed,
documented analysis: ‘Wolinsky :In conclusion, the market is over-valued based
on the above data. Tobin's Q, Shiller P/E and AAII data are all indicating that
investors are too bullish and valuations are too high.’ ]
Market
Crash on 2/28/11? Technical
indicators suggest market collapse may begin by February 28th
Investment Themes for the Next Decade , February 3, 2011, ‘Calm seas
don't make sailors. Bull markets don't make investors. Will the coming years be
calm seas or the calm before the storm?Judging by various developments brewing
in the pipeline, investors will get a chance to prove their worth in the decade
following the 'lost decade.'Investing is not a sprint it's a marathon. So it
behooves us to look beyond just the next earnings season, unemployment report,
or FOMC meeting and address what could be the biggest opportunities or
stumbling blocks of this decade.
Generational Shift
Starting this year, more than 10,000 baby boomers a day will turn 65,
a pattern that will continue for the next 19 years. As baby boomers age, the
traditional population pyramid is becoming top-heavy with retirees, while the
workforce is shrinking.Social Security will be strained by the growing number
of baby boomers retiring and applying for benefits. New congressional
projections show Social Security running deficits every year until its trust
funds are eventually drained around 2037.A debt commission appointed by
President Obama recommended a series of changes such as increasing the
retirement age and lowering benefits. With the disappearance of pension
guarantees, flat 10-year investment returns and upside down mortgages, retirees
depend on Social Security more than ever.As a sum total, this generational
shift will result in higher taxes for younger generations (generations X and Y)
and less income for baby boomers. This in turn will shrink spendable income.A
consumer that doesn't consume and/or a shrinking consumer base is bad for
business and should provide a steady headwind for the economy and broad indexes
a la the Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI), S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC) and Nasdaq (Nasdaq:
^IXIC).Sectors that might be adversely affected include consumer discretionary
(NYSEArca: XLY - News)
and retail (NYSEArca: XRT - News).
The Full Faith and Credit of the United States - Worth how Much?
If the debt ceiling was a real ceiling and deficit was water, we'd
have drowned by now. But since the deficit ceiling is imaginary it's easier to
kick the can down the road and raise the ceiling.Investors of U.S. debt have
taken note and are demanding more interest to loan their money to the United
States government. Interest rates for Treasury bonds have gone up, even though
the Federal Reserve's QE2 bond buying program was supposed to do the
opposite.The ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter saw the onset of rising interest rates
(in the bond world, rising interest means falling prices) and warned
subscribers on August 26, 2010:'Our technical analysis, along with fundamentals
suggests that T-Bonds are getting ready to roll over. A look at the overall
picture suggests that this is more than just a minor correction. The rally in
municipal, corporate, and high yield bonds is showing signs of weakness too.
Investors should start exiting from those markets.'30-year T-Bonds, along with
municipal bonds (NYSEArca: MUB - News),
recorded their top tick on that very day and have since erased more than three
years worth of gains.A weak economy in need of more government stimulus is
likely to keep the pressure on interest rates. It would be prudent to avoid
interest sensitive, long-term maturities such as the iShares Barclays 20+ Year
Treasury Bond (NYSEArca: TLT - News)
and stick with short-term debt such as iShares Barclays 1-3 Year Treasury Bond
(NYSEArca: SHY - News).
Valuations
To many, using valuations to determine the stock market's (NYSEArca: VTI
- News)
real worth is about as antiquated as using smoke signals. Those ancient smoke
signals may cloud the perception of most, but they are nevertheless signals for
those willing to listen and learn.Valuations have been ignored before. Ideas
and promises eclipsed profits at the height of the technology (NYSEArca: XLK
- News)
boom, but just temporarily. A few years later, real estate tried to defy the
notion of fair value.It seems that periods where valuations are out of favor
are particularly susceptible to price corrections. So, where are valuations at
today?There are three main ways to measure valuations. The first one - P/E
ratios - is somewhat flawed because it is subject to financial engineering.
Accounting rule changes have made it possible for banks to inflate their
earnings by hiding real estate related losses (see June 2010 ETF Profit
Strategy Newsletter for details).But even with artificially engineered profits,
the current P/E ratio is historically rich.The second valuation measure - the
Dow Jones measured in gold - takes the Federal Reserve's money spigot out of
the equation and values stocks in real money - gold (NYSEArca: GLD
- News).
Ever since its 1999 high, the Gold Dow has been declining. Based on historical
patterns, the Dollar Dow always catches up with the Gold Dow - eventually.The
third valuation measure - dividend yields - is near an all-time low. Unlike P/E
ratios, you can't fudge dividend yields. Either a company has cash to spread
among investors or it doesn't. Despite dividend increases by some companies,
cumulative dividends paid by the 500 S&P constituents are about the same
today as in March 2009. In general, low dividend yields coincide with major
market tops.
What Valuations Do for You TODAY
Valuations are a long-term indicator, so what can they do for you
TODAY?Valuations set the trend. In an overvalued market the larger trend is
down. That doesn't mean you have to be out of the market all the time. On March
2, 2009 the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter foresaw the biggest counter trend
rally since the 2007 all-time high.This counter trend rally is still going on.
In fact, it has gone much further than initially expected, but the higher
prices rally the more dangerous it becomes to hold positions.Knowing that
stocks are at least 30% overvalued, it would be prudent to monitor any decline
carefully and pull the trigger before a minor correction turns into something
financially painful…’
12
Economic Collapse Scenarios That We Could Potentially See In 2011 What
could cause an economic collapse in 2011? Well, unfortunately there are quite a
few “nightmare scenarios” that could plunge the entire globe into another
massive financial crisis.
The Economic Collapse Jan
20, 2011 ‘What could cause an economic collapse in 2011? Well, unfortunately
there are quite a few “nightmare scenarios” that could plunge the entire globe
into another massive financial crisis. The United States, Japan and most
of the nations in Europe are absolutely drowning in debt. The Federal
Reserve continues to play reckless games with the U.S. dollar. The price
of oil is skyrocketing and the global price of food just hit a new record high.
Food riots are already breaking out all over the world. Meanwhile, the
rampant fraud and corruption going on in world financial markets is starting to
be exposed and the whole house of cards could come crashing down at any
time. Most Americans have no idea that a horrific economic collapse could
happen at literally any time. There is no way that all of this debt and
all of this financial corruption is sustainable. At some point we are
going to reach a moment of “total system failure”.
So will it be
soon? Let’s hope not. Let’s certainly hope that it does not happen
in 2011. Many of us need more time to prepare. Most of our families
and friends need more time to prepare. Once this thing implodes there
isn’t going to be an opportunity to have a “do over”. We simply will not
be able to put the toothpaste back into the tube again.
So we had all
better be getting prepared for hard times. The following are 12 economic
collapse scenarios that we could potentially see in 2011….
#1 U.S. debt could become a massive crisis at any
moment. China is saying all of the right things at the moment, but many
analysts are openly worried about what could happen if China suddenly
decides to start dumping all of the U.S. debt that they have
accumulated. Right now about the only thing keeping U.S. government
finances going is the ability to borrow gigantic amounts of money at extremely
low interest rates. If anything upsets that paradigm, it could
potentially have enormous consequences for the entire world financial system.
#2 Speaking of threats to the global financial system,
it turns out that “quantitative easing 2″ has had the exact opposite
effect that Ben Bernanke planned for it to have. Bernanke insisted that
the main goal of QE2 was to lower interest rates, but instead all it has done
is cause interest rates to go up substantially.
If Bernanke this incompetent or is he trying to mess everything up on purpose?
#3 The debt bubble that the entire global economy is
based on could burst at any time and throw the whole planet into chaos. According
to a new report from the World Economic Forum, the total amount of credit
in the world increased from $57 trillion in 2000 to $109 trillion in
2009. The WEF says that now the world is going to need another $100
trillion in credit to support projected “economic growth” over the next
decade. So is this how the new “global economy” works? We just keep
doubling the total amount of debt every decade?
#4 As the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve
continue to pump massive amounts of new dollars into the system, the floor
could fall out from underneath the U.S. dollar at any time. The truth is
that we are already starting to see inflation really accelerate and everyone
pretty much acknowledges that official U.S. governments figures for inflation
are an absolute joke. According
to one new study, the cost of college tuition has risen 286% over the last
20 years, and the cost of “hospital, nursing-home and adult-day-care services”
rose 269% during those same two decades. All of this happened during a period
of supposedly “low” inflation. So what are price increases going to look
like when we actually have “high” inflation?
#5 One of the primary drivers of global inflation
during 2011 could be the price of oil. A large number of economists are
now projecting that the price of oil could surge well
past $100 dollars a barrel in 2011. If that happens, it is going to
put significant pressure on the price of almost everything else in the entire
global economy. In fact, as
I have explained previously, the higher the price of oil goes, the faster
the U.S. economy will decline.
#6 Food inflation is already so bad in some areas of
the globe that it is setting off massive food riots
in nations such as Tunisia and Algeria. In fact, there have been reports
of people setting themselves on fire all
over the Middle East as a way to draw attention to how desperate they
are. So what is going to happen if global food prices go up another 10 or
20 percent and food riots spread literally all over the globe during 2011?
#7 There are persistent
rumors that simply will
not go away of massive physical gold and silver shortages. Demand for
precious metals has never been higher. So what is going to happen when
many investors begin to absolutely insist on physical delivery of their
precious metals? What is going to happen when the fact that far, far, far
more “paper gold” and “paper silver” has been sold than has ever actually
physically existed in the history of the planet starts to come out? What
would that do to the price of gold and silver?
#8 The U.S. housing industry could plunge the U.S.
economy into another recession at any time. The real estate market is
absolutely flooded with homes and virtually nobody is buying. This
massive oversupply of homes means that the construction of new homes has fallen
off a cliff. In 2010, only
703,000 single family, multi-family and manufactured homes were
completed. This was a new record low, and it was down 17% from the
previous all-time record which had just been set in 2009.
#9 A combination of extreme weather and disease could
make this an absolutely brutal year for U.S. farmers. This winter we have
already seen thousands of new cold weather and snowfall records set across the
United States. Now there is some very disturbing news emerging out of Florida
of an “incurable
bacteria” that is ravaging citrus crops all over Florida. Is there a
reason why so many bad things are happening all of a sudden?
#10 The municipal bond crisis could go “supernova” at
any time. Already, investors are bailing out of bonds at a frightening
pace. State and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high
of 22
percent of U.S. GDP. According to Meredith Whitney, the municipal
bond crisis that we are facing is a gigantic threat to our financial system….
“It has tentacles
as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the single most
important issue in the United States and certainly the largest threat to the
U.S. economy.”
Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan is convinced
that things are so bad that literally 90% of our states and cities could go
bankrupt over the next five years….
#11 Of course on top of everything else, the quadrillion
dollar derivatives bubble could burst at any time. Right now we are
watching the greatest financial
casino in the history of the globe spin around and around and around and
everyone is hoping that at some point it doesn’t stop. Today, most money
on Wall Street is not made by investing in good business ideas. Rather,
most money on Wall Street is now made by making the best bets.
Unfortunately, at some point the casino is going to come crashing down and the
game will be over.
#12 The biggest wildcard of all is war. The Korean
peninsula came closer to war in 2010 than it had in decades. The Middle
East could literally explode at any time. We live in a world where a
single weapon can take out an entire city in an instant. All it would
take is a mid-size war or a couple of weapons of mass destruction to throw the
entire global economy into absolute turmoil.
Once again,
let us hope that none of these economic collapse scenarios happens in 2011.
However, we have
got to realize that we can’t keep dodging these bullets forever.
As bad as 2010
was, the truth is that it went about as good as any of us could have
hoped. Things are still pretty stable and times are still pretty good
right now.
But instead of
using these times to “party”, we should be using them to prepare.
A really, really vicious economic storm is coming and it is going to be a complete and total nightmare. Get ready, hold on tight, and say your prayers.’
World food prices
hit record high AFP | World food prices reached their
highest level ever recorded in January and are set to keep rising for months.
Concerns
Over Possible Suez Canal Disruptions New York Times |
Concern has turned to the risk of the blocking of the Suez Canal or nearby
pipelines, which could pose a threat to world energy supplies.
IMF Board To
Discuss Expanded SDR Dow Jones | The board of the
International Monetary Fund will discuss a possible expansion of the basket of
currencies that compose the Special Drawing Right, IMF deputy managing director
John Lipsky said Friday.
National / World
Rolling
Blackouts Fraud: ERCOT Admits Overcapacity Joe Wäges | The
Electric Reliability Council of Texas reported an overcapacity of about a 22%,
Shots fired
inside Alabama courthouse New York Post | Shots were fired
inside a municipal courthouse in Goodwater, Ala., on Thursday with reports at
least one person being taken away on a stretcher.
Mexico
supplies electricity to wintry Texas AFP | Mexico’s
Federal Electricity Commission “was determined to support Texas with electrical
energy faced with the problems the state is suffering due to climatological
conditions,” a statement said.
Egypt army takes on
journalists Washington Bangla Radio USA | Authorities on
Thursday cracked down on international reporters in Egypt.
NYC
Council Bans Smoking In Parks, Beaches [ Sinkhole new york has become a
national joke! ] Jessica Naziri | The council voted 36 to 12
in favor of the ban, much to the chagrin of those who think the government is
overstepping its role into its residents’ lives.
Rebranding Big Brother Kurt
Nimmo | Say hello to a boot stamping on a human face — forever.
Busted:
Pro-Mubarak Thugs Are Police Officers Busted: Pro-Mubarak Thugs Are Police
Officers It should surprise no one that some if not all of the violent
pro-Mubarak forces are plain clothes police officers.
Drudgereport:'DAY
OF DEPARTURE'
White
House, Egypt Discuss Plan for Mubarak's Exit...
'If
I Resign Today There Will Be Chaos'...
Blames
Muslim Brotherhood for violence...
Crackdown
Widens to Foreign Observers...
Obama
response draws criticism in Israel...
UN
to evacuate staff...
LIVE...
WIRE...
BBC...
Muslim
Brotherhood wants end to Egypt-Israeli peace deal...
Kenneth
Cole tweets: Egypt is rioting over our spring collection...
Jon
Stewart Jokes: 'Hands off Anderson Cooper!'
Speeding
Police Truck Runs Over Protesters...
ABCNEWS
REPORTER THREATENED WITH BEHEADING...
CBSNEWS
Lara Logan, Crew Detained...
FOXNEWS
reporter, cameraman beaten, hospitalized...
The
Arab revolution and Western decline...
Soros:
'The main stumbling block is Israel'...
GALLUP:
Unemployment Up in January to 9.8%...
GOOGLE
Gets Record 75,000 Job Applications in One Week...
Bernanke
warns on 'wide' deficit; Gold goes up...
...policy
'not to blame for record food prices' [ Can anyone believe the gall
of this incompetent, lying vegetable ‘no-recession bernanke’ … this very
scenario was predicted as a natural concomitant to his inflation strategy along
with his fraudulent wall bubble / wealth effect strategy (remember those same
words from senile greenspan. ]
Oil
price shoots above $103...
Dems
warn of shutdown over debt...
Republicans
Propose Spending Cuts...
Health-care
fight shifts to courts
(Washington Post) [ Wow! Heck of a way to run a nation … now in the hands of corrupt, corruptible plushly
accoutered lifetime-appointees for whom legal principles, meaningful rules of law
are never a problem or impediment nor even a predictable guide … Wall
Street firm targets District-based energy practice (Washington Post) [ From
one corrupt sinkhole (d.c. / no. virginia) to another, perhaps the largest (
wall street/new york/jersey/ct. metro); ho, hum. The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.).
[ http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt nation. ] It's part
of a push by law firms to expand their D.C. footprint in an era of increased
regulatory scrutiny. ]
The
unlikely face of Egypt's protesters (Washington Post) [ Unlikely? … I don’t think so in light of the
strength and prevalence of the ‘anyone but mubarak (and his)’ sentiment. ]
Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize-winning former United Nations
bureaucrat, has emerged this week as an improbable revolutionary, clamoring for
the overthrow of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak.
Demonstrations
in Egypt take bloody turn In
Cairo square, Mubarak backers confront anti-government crowds (Washington Post) [ Not too difficult for desperate and done
mubarak to contrive: Mubarak
Says Egyptians Have to Choose Between “Chaos” and Him … Then Sends In His Thugs
to Stir Up Chaos (Infowars.com) In
order to justify staying in power until elections are held in September,
President Mubarak said on tv that the people had to choose between him and
“chaos”. ] The coordinated nature of day's events suggested that Mubarak's
supporters were determined to show, as he had warned, that the country faced a
"choice between chaos and stability." [ Previous: Mubarak's
pledge seen as not enough Egyptian
president plans to stay in office to transfer power (Washington Post) [ Let me put it another
way: Mubarak is as done as an over-cooked tamale … He seems to be stalling for
time and even in his age impaired mind certainly knows his position is
untenable, unsustainable, and even more irrational as each second passes. There
is a possibility that he’s using same to move money / treasure for himself and
others, literally as well, buying time. See infra … Previous: Mubarak
seeks dialogue, shows no sign of relenting Demonstrators
call for massive protest but lack leadership (Washington Post) [ He relented when he
resorted to media / internet blackout. Indeed, this lack of sign thing is a
testament to how far from reality 30 years has taken him, not to mention the
other 52 years that have taken their toll on his cognitive processes. Whether
it is plaques ‘on the brain’ or outright senility, that he is so disengaged
from the events unfolding around him, one may only wonder how he lasted this
long. Nor did his choice of cia standin / shill, new VP Suleiman enhance his
now untenable position which leaves him as ‘done as a burnt enchilada’. Kissinger
on Egypt unrest – “This is only the first scene of the first act of a drama
that is to be played out” [ The
import of this so-called interview, and it is here that I part company with
alex jones, et als (who by the way, censored me for this very thesis, which
puts him and his at the top of my hypocrite list), is that the so-called elite
have orchestrated these events and ‘are in control’. First, there are no elites
in this world; you can’t derive elites from apes, notochordates, and initially
single celled organisms. Second, almost by definition and certainly by history,
there are no elites in america even if you were to accept the first proposition
(though true) as untrue. What you do have, in this world and america
particularly (with few exceptions as I’ve discussed elsewhere / comments / my
website), are inherent criminals and mentally ill people of varying degrees of
unscrupulousness and insanity who do commit crimes, both small and large, to
further their interests or fortunes (sociopaths / psychopaths). The ’so-called
alpha-dogs’ of the human species at most, but still incompetent vegetables who,
if you look at anything they touch (to use a term term of such incompetent
vegetables as historically pertains to their role in the mideast – and
generally the state of the world) it invariably goes ‘pear shaped’ (english
term). What hasn’t zionist kissinger not messed up as appointee or ‘consultant’
– what does he get paid for? No! The fact is, they have absolutely no idea how
this unfolds and as with most of their lives, they will predictably choose the
most sordid, despicable, and diabolical course at every turn because … that is
their inherently criminal, mentally ill / unstable nature to do so. ]
Monthly
Market Valuation: Investors Are Too Bullish, Valuations Are Too High [ The
conclusion of the following detailed, documented analysis: ‘In conclusion, the
market is over-valued based on the above data. Tobin's Q, Shiller P/E and AAII
data are all indicating that investors are too bullish and valuations are too
high.’ ] Wolinsky ‘I update market
valuations on a monthly basis. The point of this article is to measure the
stock market based on seven different metrics. This article does not look at
the macro picture and try to predict where the economy is headed. It only uses
these several metrics which have been very good past indicators of whether the
market is fairly valued.This month I added in GMO’s chart at the bottom. The
GMO chart shows what the firm expects different asset classes to return over
the next seven years.I collaborate with two colleagues of mine for some of the
data in this article, Doug Short of dshort.com and my friend who runs seekingdelta.
Both are great sites, and I encourage readers to check them out.As always, I
must mention that just because the market is over or undervalued does not mean
that future returns will be high or low. From the mid to late 1990s the market
was extremely overvalued and equities kept increasing year after year. However,
as I note at the end of the article, I expect low returns over the next ten
years based on current valuations. In addition, individual stocks can be found
that will outperform or underperform the market regardless of current
valuations.To see my previous market valuation article from last month, click here.Below are six different market
valuation metrics as of February 2nd, 2011:The current P/E TTM is 16.8, which
is slightly higher than the TTM P/E of 16.6 from last month (This specific data
is from the market close February 1st).click to
enlarge[chart]This
data comes from my colleague Doug Short of dshort.com.Based on this data the market is
fairly valued. However, I do not think this is a fair way of valuing the market
since it does not account for cyclical peaks or downturns. To get an accurate
picture of whether the market is fair valued based on P/E ratio, it is more
accurate to take several years of earnings.
Numbers from Previous Market lows:
Mar 2009 110.37
Mar 2003 27.92
Oct 1990 14.21
Nov 1987 14.45
Aug 1982 7.97
Oct 1974 7.68
Oct 1966 13.96
Oct 1957 12.67
Jun 1949 5.82
Apr 1942 7.69
Mar 1938 10.63
Feb 1933 14.92
July 1932 10.16
Aug 1921 14.02
Dec 1917 5.31
Oct 1914 14.27
Nov 1907 9.35
Nov 1903 11.67
Historic data courtesy of [multpl.com]
Current P/E 10 (Shiller) Year Average 23.94
[chart] http://seekingalpha.com/article/250273-monthly-market-valuation-investors-are-too-bullish-valuations-are-too-high?source=yahoo
The current ten year P/E is 23.94; this
is much higher than the P/E of 22.94 from the previous month. This number is
based on Robert Shiller’s data evaluating the average inflation-adjusted
earnings from the previous 10 years. Robert Shiller stated in an interview last
week that he believes the S&P500 will be at 1430 in 2020. Shiller believes
that based on his metric the market is overvalued, and will offer subpar
returns over the next 10 years.
Based on my colleague, Rob Bennett’s market return calculator, the returns of the
market should be as follows:
[chart]
My colleague Doug Short thinks this numbers are a bit inaccurate, because
the number I used does not include the past several months of earnings, nor
revisions. Doug calculates P/E 10 at 23.3.
[chart]
Mean: 16.39
Median: 15.77
Min: 4.78 (Dec 1920)
Max: 44.20 (Dec 1999)
Numbers from Previous Market lows:
Mar 2009 13.32
Mar 2003 21.32
Oct 1990 14.82
Nov1987 13.59
Aug 1982 6.64
Oct 1974 8.29
Oct 1966 18.83
Oct 1957 14.15
June 1949 9.07
April 1942 8.54
Mar 1938 12.38
Feb 1933 7.83
July 1932 5.84
Aug 1921 5.16
Dec 1917 6.41
Oct 1914 10.61
Nov 1907 10.59
Nov 1903 16.04
Data and chart courtesy of [multpl.com]
This is moderately over valued from the average P/E as shown above.
Current P/BV 2.30
[chart]
The number is obtained using data from the SPY ETF, and updated using the latest change in
the price of SPY. This number will therefore not be 100% accurate since the
book value has likely changed (slightly) since the numbers were last updated on
November 30th, 2010. The current P/BV is 2.30; this is lower than the P/B of
2.20 I measured in my previous article. The average price over book value of
the S&P over the past 30 years has been 2.41. This indicates the market is
slighlty undervalued. Book value is considered a better measure of valuation
than earnings by many investors, including legendary investor Martin Whitman. He states that book value is
harder to fudge than earnings. In addition, book value is less affected by
economic cycles than one year earnings are. P/BV therefore provides a longer
term accurate picture of a company’s value than a TTM P/E.
Current Dividend Yield 1.74 [chart]
The current dividend yield of the S&P is 1.74. This number is lower than
the 1.78% yield from last month.It is hard to determine on this basis whether
the market is overpriced. The dividend yield for stocks was much higher in the
beginning of this century than the later half. The dividend yield on the
S&P fell below the yield on Ten-Year treasuries for the first time in 1958.
Many analysts at the time argued that the market was overpriced and the
dividend yield should be higher than bond yields to compensate for stock market
risk.For the next 50 years, the dividend yield remained below the treasury
yield and the market rallied significantly. In addition, the dividend yield has
been below 3% since the early 1990s. While I personally favor individual stocks
with high dividend yields, I must admit that the current tax code makes it far
favorable for companies to retain earnings than to pay out dividends. Finally,
as I noted above, the current economic environment has zero percent interest rates and low bond yields. During
periods where yields are low, it is logical for income oriented investors
hungry for yield to bid on the market, and dividend yields to decrease. I think
it is hard to claim the market is overbought based on the low dividend yield.
Mean:
4.35%
Median: 4.29%
Min: 1.11% (Aug 2000)
Max: 13.84% (Jun 1932)
Numbers from Previous Market lows:
Mar 2009 3.60
Mar 2003 1.92
Oct 1990 3.88
Nov1987 3.58
Aug 1982 6.24
Oct 1974 5.17
Oct 1966 3.73
Oct 1957 4.29
Jun 1949 7.30
Apr 1942 8.67
Mar 1938 7.57
Feb 1933 7.84
July 1932 12.57
Aug 1921 7.44
Dec 1917 10.15
Oct 1914 5.60
Nov 1907 7.04
Nov 1903 5.57
Data and chart courtesy of [multpl.com]
Market
Cap to GDP is currently 92.8%, which is higher than the 91.1% from last month.
Ratio = Total Market Cap / GDP |
Valuation |
Ratio < 50% |
Significantly Undervalued |
50% < Ratio < 75% |
Modestly Undervalued |
75% < Ratio < 90% |
Fair Valued |
90% < Ratio < 115% |
Modestly Overvalued |
Ratio > 115% |
Significantly Overvalued |
Where are we today (02/01/2011)? |
Ratio = 92.8%, Modestly Overvalued |
Stock
Market Capitalization as a percentage of GDP is another metric, albeit less
commonly used than other metrics, to value the market. Between 90-115% market
capitalization as percentage of GDP is considered modestly overvalued (we are
at the low end of the range). Based on Guru Focus data, the market should
return about 4.6% per year based on the current value.
GuruFocus calculates the 4.6% returns as
follows:
The
returns of investing in an individual stock or in the entire stock market are
determined by these three factors:
1. Business growth
If
we look at a particular business, the value of the business is determined by
how much money this business can make. The growth in the value of the business
comes from the growth of the earnings of the business growth. This growth in
the business value is reflected as the price appreciation of the company stock
if the market recognizes the value, which it does, eventually.If we look at the
overall economy, the growth in the value of the entire stock market comes from
the growth of corporate earnings. As we discussed above, over the long term,
corporate earnings grow as fast as the economy itself.
2. Dividends
Dividends
are an important portion of the investment return. Dividends come from the cash
earning of a business. Everything equal, a higher dividend payout ratio, in
principle, should result in a lower growth rate. Therefore, if a company pays
out dividends while still growing earnings, the dividend is an additional
return for the shareholders besides the appreciation of the business value.
3. Change in the market valuation
Although the
value of a business does not change overnight, its stock price often does. The
market valuation is usually measured by the well-known ratios such as P/E, P/S,
P/B etc. These ratios can be applied to individual businesses, as well as the
overall market. The ratio Warren Buffett uses for market valuation,
TMC/GNP, is equivalent to the P/S ratio of the economy. What Returns Is the Market Likely to Deliver From This
Level? Putting all the three
factors together, the return of an investment can be estimated by the following
formula:
Investment
Return (%) = Dividend Yield (%)+ Business Growth (%)+ Change of Valuation (%)
The
first two items of the equation are straightforward. The third item can be
calculated if we know the beginning and the ending market ratios of the time
period (T) considered. If we assumed the beginning ratio is Rb, and the ending
ratio is Re, then the contribution in the change of the valuation can be
calculated from this:
(Re/Rb)(1/T)-1
The
investment return is thus equal to:
Investment
Return (%) = Dividend Yield (%) + Business Growth(%) + (Re/Rb)(1/T)-1
This
equation is actually very close to what Dr. John Hussman uses to calculate
market valuations. From this equation we can calculate the likely
returns an investment in the stock market will generate over a given time
period. In the calculation, the time period we used was 8 years, which is about
the length of a full economic cycle. The calculated results are shown in the
final chart. The green line indicates the expected return if the market trends
towards being undervalued (TMC/GNP=40%) over the next 8 years from current
levels, the red line indicates the return if the market trends towards being
overvalued (TMC/GNP=120%) over the next 8 years. The brown line indicates the
return if the market trends towards being fair-valued (TMC/GNP=80%) over the
next 8 years.The thick light blue line in the bottom chart is the actual
annualized return of the stock market over 8 years. We can see the calculations
largely predicted the trend in the returns of the stock market. The swing of
the market’s returns is related to the change in interest rates.It has been
unfortunate for investors who entered the market after the late 1990s. Since
that time, the market has nearly always been overvalued, only dropping to
fairly valued since the declines that began in 2008. Since Oct. 2008, for the
first time in 15 years, the market has been positioned for meaningful positive
returns.As of 02/01/2011, the stock market is likely to return 4.6% a year in
the next 8 years.Warren Buffett has stated that market
capitalization as a percentage of GNP is “probably the best single measure of
where valuations stand at any given moment.”According to Barron’s, the ratio
got as low as 40% in the late 1940s, when investors feared another depression,
and in the inflationary 1970s.
Historic Data:
Min 35% in 1982
Max 148% in 2000.
Data and charts courtesy of Gurufocus.com
Current Tobin’s Q 1.17
Tobin's Q is 1.17 compared to 1.15 from last month.
As
can be seen from the above charts, the market is significantly over-valued
based on Tobin's Q.The data comes from Doug Short. This is the most accurate
data that is available. It is impossible for the data to be 100% precise
because the Federal Reserve releases data related to Tobin’s Q on a quarterly
basis. The best that can be done is to extrapolate the data and try to provide
the most accurate data possible based on the change in the Willshire 5000. This
is what Doug and I did to get the current number. This method has proven
extremely accurate for calculating Tobin's Q on any given day.The current level
of 1.17 compares with the Tobin's Q average over several decades of data of
approximately .72. This would indicate that the market is extremely
overvalued.In the past, Tobin’s Q has been a good indicator of future market
movements. In 1920, the number was at a low of .30, the next nine years
included phenomenal gains for the market. In 2000, Tobin’s Q almost reached a
record high of nearly 2, and the market declined subsequently about 50% by
2003.
Historic Tobin's Q:
Market
Low 1932 0.30
Market
High 1929 1.06(this is not the highest number ever reached, just the number
reached before the 1929 crash).
Average
historic Tobin's Q .72 (source: Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Siegel
In
my next monthly article, I will have more Tobin’s Q historical data.
AAII
Survey-42.00% Bullish, 23.70% Neutral, and 34.30% Bearish: (Data from January
26th 2011)
With
the collaboration of my colleague at seekingdelta,
I have now added a seventh metric for valuing the market. This data comes from
the survey conducted by the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII)
conducted on a weekly basis. According to the AAII:
The AAII Investor Sentiment Survey
measures the percentage of individual investors who are bullish, bearish, and
neutral on the stock market for the next six months; individuals are polled
from the ranks of the AAII membership on a weekly basis. Only one vote per
member is accepted in each weekly voting period.
As
mentioned above, the survey results indicate investors are quite bullish. The
fact that so many investors are bullish is a contrarian warning signal.
Investors tend to get the most bullish at market tops, and bearish at market
lows.Below is AAII data from previous market bottoms (the AAII began the survey
in 1987).The charts essentially show that on average, returns have been more
favorable when bullish sentiment is below 28% vs above 50%. The 1yr avg return when
sentiment is above 50% is 1.9% vs 13.6% when sentiment is below 28%.
[chart]
[chart]
Chart
and data courtesy of seekingdelta
See GMO chart here (.pdf).
To Recap:
1.
P/E (TTM) - Fairly Valued
2.
P/E 10 year - Very Overvalued
3.
P/BV - Undervalued
4.
Dividend Yield - Indeterminate/ overvalued
5.
Market value relative to GDP - Moderately Overvalued
6.
Tobins Q - Extremely overvalued
7.
AAII Sentiment - Too bullish (overvalued)
8.
GMO - Overvalued
In
conclusion, the market is over-valued based on the above data. Tobin's Q,
Shiller P/E and AAII data are all indicating that investors are too bullish and
valuations are too high.However, the historical data fails to take into account
current record low interest rates. I know not many investors take issue with my
inclusion of interest rates in the equation. However, I think that investors
should look at the stock/bond alternative. Right now, you can get some blue
chip stocks with dividend yields close to the ten year treasury yield.However,
eventually the market will likely returns to normal valuation ratios as
interest rates reach more normal levels. I believe returns over the next 10 years
will be sub-par (far below the 9.5% average market return). I think we will
likely see returns equal to inflation over the coming decade.Note: I have
received numerous suggestions on how to improve my monthly series. I tried to
incorporate these ideas in my current article. Please email me or leave a
comment if you would like to provide further suggestions. Stay tuned till the
beginning of next month for the next monthly valuation article.’
The
Dow at 12,000 is 'Buyer Beware' Territory Meyer ‘Well, we finally hit the 12,000 mark and
beyond on the Dow Jones Industrials Average and the end-of-the-year rally is
still upon us, as many of us on Seeking Alpha forecast.
However, this is now officially a buyer's beware market. Long term investors
probably don't need to start selling unless they need the money for short-term
purchases and debt reduction. But new investors considering buying into the
market now are fulfilling the odd-lot theory, at best, and will have a long
wait before those newly purchased shares are increasing in value enough to pay
back your broker's fees.Does anyone think we are going to eek out another 5% in
the averages this quarter? That would bring the DJIA up by more than 600 points
to 12,636.The Dow is now at pre-crash levels of 2008. Yet, we still have high
unemployment, near zero job growth, an ongoing foreclosure crisis with home
ownership at its lowest level since 1998. This wouldn't be so much of a problem
if the vast majority of Americans garnered their wealth from their real estate.
They surely do not owe their wealth to their 401k or savings accounts. Remember
when home prices were rising and rates were low? What were Americans doing?
They were going on a ludicrous shopping spree. We are still the world's largest
consumer driven economy, so as long as Main Street isn't spending, company
profits will eventually suffer. Even though that doesn't seem to be the case
now. One can imagine that companies cannot continue posting solid top line
growth if their basic customers are struggling to make ends meet. That problem
still exists in this economy, as Robert Reich pointed out his
blog Wednesday.We also have a municipal debt bomb the Feds and banks are trying
to defuse. The fundamentals are not that sound, and that tells me that this is
not the time to buy the market. Stock picking strategies of U.S. equities might
work, and certain commodity and some emerging market plays are still favorable.
But index and ETF investors looking to buy entire markets like the SPDR S&P
500 ETF (SPY) should definitely wait for a
correction before buying at these levels. I don't see any indication now that
this market can go much higher, given those aforementioned fundamental
restraints.Here are a couple more:
The BDI: Ever Hear of It?
Take a look at the Baltic
Dry Index chart. It measures the worldwide price of shipping various bulk
items across the ocean. It's trading way below its 50 and 200 day moving
averages. The BDI is not a leading indicator, or a lagging indicator, of the
U.S. economy. But it warrants
some attention when the BDI chart looks like a really bad roller coaster
like it has since last summer. BDI topped out in June, bounced in July, and
began a serious decline in November. The only thing that tends to track the BDI
is the Shanghai Composite Equity Index. China is one of the world's biggest
exporters, but with costs of capital rising there, importers of Chinese goods
are being asked to pay more for their orders, causing many buyers to slow
imports. If this slower growth out of China pans out, then economists will be
revising their global GDP numbers downward. This indicator could pose to be
quite bad for equities simply because it is telling you the growth story of the
economy, which has driven the fundamentals behind the current rally, is not
sustainable at these levels. The rally continues to be a liquidity driven
momentum rally thanks to QE2. The lynchpin of the whole advance was the theme
the global economy was in recovery, but I am concerned that this important
trade index is showing us something different for the time being.
DJIA vs. Gold Bull Market Peaks
Is the Dow overbought? I think so, and technically speaking we are now
seeing less stocks advancing than we have when we were approaching Dow 12k. Corporations
are also busy selling
their own stock over the last
month and a half. There is an important correlation between the Dow and the
price of gold in previous bull market peaks. The Dow, as priced in gold, is
losing value as the precious metal bull continues to drive to higher prices.
For example, in 1980, one ounce of gold bought the Dow. So the ratio of one
ounce of gold to the Dow was simple: 1. Said in another way, we had an 850 Dow
Jones Industrials Average and $850.00 per ounce gold. The Dow as priced in gold
is not making new recovery highs as most people would want to believe.The first
peak in the Dow occurred on January 14, 2000 at 11,723. In late 1999 it took 45
ounces of gold to buy the Dow. Gold bottomed at $255.00 per ounce. Everyone
wanted equities and the gold-Dow ratio proved it.The second peak in the Dow
occurred on October 9, 2007 at 14,164 points. It took just 19 ounces of gold at
$750.00 per ounce to buy the market.The Dow is now trading at the 12,000 level
again on Wednesday and gold is currently $1325.00 per ounce. It now takes just
9 ounces of Gold to buy the Dow. I don't think we go to a one to one ratio, but
I would say we cut the 9 ounces ratio in half and that would likely single a
top in at least one of these markets.If we go on the premise that gold is the
ultimate money and both a storage of wealth and a hedge against inflation, then
the Dow priced in gold has been eroding in value since late 1999 when you
needed at least 45 ounces of gold to have the equivalent of the gains in the
Dow. The buying power of the dollar propelling the Dow 12k continues to lose
value as reflected in the current price of gold at $1,340.00 per ounce, and
expectations are for the euro to
rebound a bit. The Dow 12k is also occuring in an economy where job growth
remains impressively sluggish. This is a
buyer beware market when buying broad based indexes like the Dow and S&P
500. Overall, when this market does correct 5% or more, I
believe it will drag a lot of the more liquid assets down with it. I'd
recommend a hold for long term investors and a sell at these levels for
investors with short-term cash needs. We're not seeing an expansion of
volume on the advance. This market is resisting any kind of sell-off. I think
the pros are fully invested and this market is up two years in a row from the
lows so this market looks to me that it's now setting up for a reversal. Don't
add at these prices. Get your shopping list together for your sector favorites
and wait for a pull back.’
If You're Going to Do Economics, Don't Do Macro [ Truth be told, I find Mr. Falkenstein’s
article a bit too subtle and somewhat shy about getting to the point, but have
included same here solely for the reprint of William Buckley’s famous quote
which comports with my own view of the ivy league vegetable gardens which turn
out as you would expect, vegetables; viz., ‘he would prefer the first 100 names in the Boston
phonebook to the Harvard faculty‘. The reality is that ‘harvard professor’,
‘no-recession bernanke’ has given an obfuscating, ephemeral feel good but
lucrative to the few gift to the frauds on wall street with ultimately
devastatingly great cost / pain to come. ] Falkenstein ‘MIT had a celebration of their 150th birthday, a
Symposia on Economics and Finance: From Theory to Practice to Policy. Here's
Bob Hall's solution to our problems (see
around 50:00):
What we really like is for people to perceive that
now is a great time to buy stuff instead of later, well there's nothing like
inflation to get that mentality going. Normally we don't like to see that, we
want to keep inflation under control because it's a sign of an overheated
economy, well, we'd like a bit of that overheated economy now ...
When the government buys more stuff, every model agrees that stimulates the
economy...any economist who suggests that it doesn't stimulate the economy
hasn't looked at a wide range of models, all of which agree ...
Hey, the models all agree! In other words, if you
look at the aggregate data, all we have here is a lack of demand. Just replace
the missing private sector investment with government purchases, or by
confusing investors and hoping they mistake nominal price increases for real
demand, and all will be well. Most of the macroeconomists suggested that all we
need to do is double down on the stimulus -- only the political will is lacking
for this obvious solution.What we had was a misallocation -- too much housing
-- and so now must move labor and capital to other areas, which creates
temporary unemployment. To try to cover this up via having the government spend
more on backfilling teacher's pensions, or have everyone buy an unsustainable
amount of everything, would not solve this problem faster. Notice they don't
spend any time discussing what government would spend this stimulus on because
it doesn't matter to them. It's fun to think a solution to a hangover is more
of a different type of alcohol, but I've tried it, and it doesn't
work.Unfortunately Keynesians don't have any intuition for this, because
everything's all just "aggregate demand," not housing, technology,
energy, etc. Aggregation leads to simplifcation, but clearly it has a cost, and
I think any macro theory that ignores the fact that an economy is a network of
firms and individuals is pointless.Hayek's early
work on business cycles focused on misalignments in the structure of
production. Alas, this was basically impossible to formalize. Keynes' model,
meanwhile, was adopted into the Hansen-Hicks synthesis that looked a lot like
the simple Supply/Demand equations economists were used to, so everything
seemed copacetic. A bad idea, in a tractable model, has a long life, because
everyone forgets about all the hand waiving assumptions that underlie such
models.Joshua Bell is a famous violinist, but when he did an experiment, and played his
$3.5MM violin at a train station, he made only $32. Reputation matters. In
Bell's case, passersby did not realize he was truly a gifted violinist. In this
case, while this was supposedly our best and brightest giving insight on the
big issue of the day, the audience was treated to standard diagnoses and
recommendations you hear everywhere on the left: we had a collapse in demand,
so the government needs to spend more, or trick people into spending more via
money illusion. If one wanted a better anecdote for William F. Buckley's famous
remark that he would prefer the first 100 names in the Boston phonebook to the
Harvard faculty, I can't think of one. As Cicero said, the purpose of wisdom is
to know the good, in which case these people would have done better with the
proverbial dollar fifty in late charges at the public library, rather than
attend the esteemed establishment they were celebrating.On the other hand,
Google's (GOOG)
chief economist, Hal
Varian noted that Yahoo! (YHO),
Microsoft (MSFT)
and the rest are all hiring economists to design services based on game theory
and other microeconomic specialties. This is in contrast to banks, that
basically all went from having a large economic staffs in the 1970s, but a flak
PR guy today for CNBC interviews. Bottom line: if you are going to do
economics, don't do macro.’
National / World
300 reported dead
in Egypt protests Haareetz
| U.N. human rights chief said on Tuesday she had unconfirmed reports that up
to 300 people may have been killed and over 3,000 injured.
Drudgereport: Amanpour:
Angry mob surrounded us, shouting they hate America...
WH
shuts out media; reporters file complaint...
CNN
Anderson Cooper 'punched 10 times in head' by mob in Egypt....
'Camp
David made us a slave,' Egyptian protester says...
WIKILEAKS: US threats to China in military standoff over 'Star
Wars'...
Student,
14, suspended for 'weapon' -- a plastic pen casing...
WIKILEAKS: FBI hunts the 9/11 gang that got away...
43
Million Use Food Stamps...
Dems
object to GOP gov't transparency probe...
JUDGE
RULES HEALTH CARE LAW UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Judge
cites Obama's own position from 2008 campaign...
Brent crude oil above $100 for 1st time since 2008...
FLASHPOINT
Fighter jets swoop over Cairo in show of force...
Mubarak
meets with military commanders...
Generals
tell him to quit...
Troops
move into Tahrir square as curfew passes...
ElBaradei
joins protesters in square...
Says
US 'losing credibility by the day'...
Clinton
calls for 'orderly transition'...
'We're
not advocating any specific outcome'...
Convicts
pour out of prisons...
UPDATE:
100+ dead; 2,000 injured...
Flights
out halted, tourists trapped...
But
19 private jets get out...
Egypt
shuts down Al Jazeera bureau...
LIVE
STREAM...
OBAMA
CONFUSES IRAQ WITH AFGHANISTAN...
Will
be out 'by the end of this year'...
Scientists
Discover: Chimpanzees mourn their dead just like humans!
11% of All
US Homes Are Now Empty...
Jobless
Recovery?: 25 Unemployment Statistics That Are Almost Too Depressing To Read ‘…
Unemployment is up again! That’s right – even though Wall Street is swimming in
cash and the Obama administration is declaring that “the recession is over”,
the U.S. unemployment rate has gone even higher ... Times are really, really
tough and unfortunately the long-term outlook is very bleak.
#1 U.S. unemployment rate for November was 9.8
percent. This was up from 9.6 percent in October, and it continues a
trend of depressingly high unemployment rates. The official unemployment
number has been at 9.5 percent or higher for well over a year at this point.
#2 In November 2006, the “official” U.S. unemployment
rate was just 4.5
percent.
#3 economists had been expecting to add about 150,000
jobs in November. Instead, it
only added 39,000.
#4 In the US there are over 15
million people who are “officially” considered to be unemployed for
statistical purposes. But everyone knows that the “real” number is even
much larger than that…
.. biggest debt
bubble in the history of the world…our entire economy is based on
debt. Even our money
is debt. … There is a sea of red ink on every level of American
society. It is only a matter of time before it destroys our economy. IF YOU THINK THAT THINGS ARE BAD NOW, JUST WAIT. THINGS
ARE GOING TO GET A WHOLE LOT WORSE. A HORRIFIC ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IS
COMING, AND IT IS GOING TO BE VERY, VERY PAINFUL.’
#5 As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million
Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer. Today,
there are over
6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.
#6 The number of “persons not in the labor force” in
the United States recently
set another new all-time record.
#7 It now takes the average unemployed American over
33 weeks to find a job.
#8 When you throw in “discouraged workers” and
“underemployed workers”, the “real” unemployment rate in the state of
California is
actually about 22 percent.
#9 In America today there are not nearly enough jobs
for everyone. In fact, there are now approximately
5 unemployed Americans for every single job opening.
#10 According
to The New York Times, Americans that have been unemployed for five weeks
or less are three times more likely to find a new job in the coming month than
Americans that have been unemployed for over a year.
#11 The U.S. economy would need to create 235,120
new jobs a month to get the unemployment rate down to pre-recession levels
by 2016. Does anyone think that there is even a prayer that is going to
happen?
#12 There are 9
million Americans that are working part-time for “economic reasons”.
In other words, those Americans would gladly take full-time jobs if they could
get them, but all they have been able to find is part-time work.
#13 In 2009, total wages, median wages, and average
wages all
declined in the United States.
#14 As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million
Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time that less
than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.
#15 The United States has lost at least 7.5
million jobs since the recession began.
#16 Today, only
about 40 percent of Ford Motor Company’s 178,000 workers are employed
in North America, and a big percentage of those jobs are in Canada and
Mexico.
#17 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28
percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5
percent.
#18 Earlier this year, one poll found that 28% of all American households had at least one member that
was looking for a full-time job.
#19 In the United States today, over
18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees.
#20 The United States has lost a staggering
32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.
#21 As the employment situation continues to stagnate,
millions of American families have decided to cut back on things such as
insurance coverage. For example, the percentage of American households
that have life insurance coverage is at its lowest level in
50 years.
#22 Unless Congress acts, and there is no indication
that is going to happen, approximately 2 million Americans will stop receiving unemployment checks over the next
couple of months.
#23 A poll that was released by the Pew Research Center
back in June discovered that an
astounding 55 percent of the U.S. labor force has
experienced either unemployment, a pay decrease, a reduction in hours
or an involuntary move to part-time work since the economic downturn
began.
#24 According to Richard McCormack, the United States
has lost over
42,000 factories (and counting) since 2001.
#25 In the United States today, 317,000
waiters and waitresses have college degrees.
But this is
what we get for creating the biggest debt
bubble in the history of the world. For decades we have been digging
a deeper hole for ourselves by going into increasingly larger amounts of
debt. In America today, our entire economy is based on debt. Even
our money
is debt. … There is a sea of red ink on every level of American
society. It is only a matter of time before it destroys our economy. IF YOU THINK THAT THINGS ARE BAD NOW, JUST WAIT. THINGS
ARE GOING TO GET A WHOLE LOT WORSE. A HORRIFIC ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IS
COMING, AND IT IS GOING TO BE VERY, VERY PAINFUL.’
Dow
closes above 12,000 (Washington
Post) [ Which is a manipulated bubble and which amount is worth far less than
even 3 years ago owing to dollar debasement…
Avoid
China, short the U.S. market instead Kee ‘…The subject of international
investing begs the buy and hold theme as a result, but because that is dead,
and because risk controls are more cumbersome in foreign markets, my focus is
on proactive strategies in U.S. markets, on risk controls, and my longer term
Periodic Oscillator tells me that the economy, thanks to stimulus, is in
bubble-like territory not seen since 2000 and 2007…’ Suttmeier … Stocks remain overvalued
fundamentally according to ValuEngine with 15 of 16 sectors overvalued
Mubarak's
pledge seen as not enough Egyptian
president plans to stay in office to transfer power (Washington Post) [ Let me put it another
way: Mubarak is as done as an over-cooked tamale … He seems to be stalling for
time and even in his age impaired mind certainly knows his position is
untenable, unsustainable, and even more irrational as each second passes. There
is a possibility that he’s using same to move money / treasure for himself and
others, literally as well, buying time. See infra … Previous: Mubarak
seeks dialogue, shows no sign of relenting Demonstrators
call for massive protest but lack leadership (Washington Post) [ He relented when he
resorted to media / internet blackout. Indeed, this lack of sign thing is a
testament to how far from reality 30 years has taken him, not to mention the
other 52 years that have taken their toll on his cognitive processes. Whether
it is plaques ‘on the brain’ or outright senility, that he is so disengaged
from the events unfolding around him, one may only wonder how he lasted this
long. Nor did his choice of cia standin / shill, new VP Suleiman enhance his
now untenable position which leaves him as ‘done as a burnt enchilada’.
Avoid
China, short the U.S. market instead Kee ‘…The subject of international
investing begs the buy and hold theme as a result, but because that is dead,
and because risk controls are more cumbersome in foreign markets, my focus is
on proactive strategies in U.S. markets, on risk controls, and my longer term
Periodic Oscillator tells me that the economy, thanks to stimulus, is in
bubble-like territory not seen since 2000 and 2007…’
New
Monthly Value Levels, Pivots, and Risky Levels Editor's Note: This article was written by Richard Suttmeier,
chief market strategist at ValuEngine.com …
The US Capital Markets are
under the influence of new monthly value levels, pivots and risky levels from
my proprietary analytics. Today I add them to my risk / reward statements for
the markets that I follow; The US Treasury 10-Year yield, Comex gold, Nymex crude oil, the euro,
and the major equity averages focusing on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The US Treasury 10-Year Yield -- (3.380) The monthly chart favors higher yields with
the 120-month simple moving average at 4.121. The daily chart still shows the
trading range set in December between 3.568 and 3.247. Today’s value level is
3.444.
Comex Gold -- ($1331.0) The monthly chart continues to dhow an overbought
parabolic bubble. The daily chart shows gold trying to rise out of an oversold
condition. This week’s value level is $1319.7 with quarterly and annual pivots
at $1331.3 and $1356.5 and new monthly risky level at $1412.4.
Nymex Crude Oil – ($91.91) The monthly chart favors higher oil prices
ahead. Oil traded above $92 per barrel again but closed below that chart
resistance. My semiannual value level is $87.52 with weekly and monthly pivots
at $89.91 and $91.83 and annual risky levels at $99.91 and $101.92.
The Euro -- (1.3685) The monthly chart favors a higher European currency. The
daily chart continues to show an overbought condition. Weekly and quarterly
value levels are 1.3265 and 1.3227 with a daily risky level at 1.3859 and
monthly risky level at 1.4225.
Stocks remain overvalued fundamentally according to ValuEngine with 15 of 16
sectors overvalued and only 38.8% of all stocks undervalued. On December 19th
we had a ValuEngine Valuation Warning with 33.3% of all stocks undervalued,
below the important 35% threshold, and all 16 sectors were overvalued.
All major averages remain overbought on their weekly charts and my Proprietary
Analytics show new monthly value levels and weekly risky levels, which should
keep stocks balanced in February.
Bank Failure Friday -- The FDIC closed four more banks last Friday and one was
publicly traded and on the ValuEngine List of Problem Banks.
The publicly traded bank was First Community Bank, Taos, New Mexico (FSNM).
This bank is on the ValuEngine List of Problem Banks with overexposures to both
C&D and CRE loans: The C&D ratio to risk-based capital at 651.8% versus
the 100% maximum guideline, and 1946.4% for CRE loans versus the 300% maximum
guideline. The bank’s real estate loan pipeline is stuffed at 96.9% where 60%
is a healthy pipeline. It’s amazing to me how slow the FDIC has been in closing
banks that no longer deserve to service Main Street, USA.’
Is
the Market Headed for a Sell-Off? Zaky [ Yes … I agree, except that fundamentally the longer term
prospects are even worse than his bearish outlook suggests (don’t forget the
debasement of the dollar, manipulation, and spending / printing money the
nation doesn’t have in real terms behind this manipulated uptick) and
summarized as follows: ‘I suspect that this rally is on its very last legs. We
should see a very healthy 10% or so correction within the next 1-2 week period
... This market is headed for a sell-off. ]
2011
Update: Another Lost Decade for Stocks - Are You Prepared? [ I agree that
this is but a (manipulated) bull cycle in a secular bear market with
substantially worse to come! ]Kopas ‘In February 2010, we published an article
on Seeking Alpha entitled “Another Lost Decade for Stocks - Are You Prepared?,”
wherein we argued that the year 2000 marked a secular (long-term) peak for U.S.
stocks. A secular bear market is formed when a series of business cycles are
linked together, establishing an extended period of stock market
under-performance. Our objective here is to bring you up-to-date on the
progress of this secular bear market and help you prepare for the next ten
years.
The
first benchmark we monitor is U.S. stock prices adjusted for inflation. In this
chart below, we compare the U.S. stock market to the Shiller 10-year
Price/Earnings ratio. This P/E ratio is an indication of investor confidence; a
lack of that signals extreme valuation levels. Our conclusion is
that investor psychology is still too optimistic and has a long way to go
before reaching an undervalued stock market level.
[chart] click to enlarge
Updating
our duration and valuation benchmarks, again we find progress,
but not yet achieving the truly undervalued levels we expect to see toward the
end of a secular bear market. Based upon previous cycles, it appears we are
only slightly past the half way mark in terms of years, number of recessions,
and valuations. A look at our chart and table comparing this to earlier secular
bear markets illustrates our conclusion. We expect that a major bottom for
inflation adjusted stock prices is still years away before stocks finally
gravitate toward the target area outlined below.
[chart]
New
Benchmark: Tobin Q Ratio
In
this update we introduce another relative valuation benchmark created by Yale
economics professor and Nobel laureate James Tobin, hence the name Tobin’s Q
Ratio. The Q ratio is calculated as the total value of the stock market divided
by the replacement cost of all its companies. Values greater than 1 indicate
stock prices sell above their replacement cost and are therefore “expensive.” A
reading below 1 indicates stocks can be bought below replacement cost and
therefore indicates that it is cheaper to buy a company than to build one.
A
long-term view of the Q ratio gives investors a good understanding of value,
information about current risk levels and a method to assess probable returns
for the long term. Secular bear markets historically bottom when the Q ratio
declines to a bargain level less than .4, meaning stock prices sell for just
40% of replacement value. Today’s reading of 1.03 is above the average reading
of .75 and considerably higher than the average secular low reading of .33. Investors
beware; stocks have considerable more downside potential before the Q ratio
truly reflects a great valuation. Buy and Hold tactics will continue to
frustrate investors, just as they have in the past decade.
In
conclusion, none of the benchmarks we evaluate indicate we are anywhere close
to a secular stock market bottom yet. In the meantime, a prudent and profitable investment
strategy should be flexible enough to actively adjust portfolio asset
allocation, depending on where we are in the business cycle and the direction
of the secular trend.’
Shiller Ratio Points to U.S. Equities Being Significantly
Overvalued [ Yes they are indeed;
so take this especially great opportunity to sell, take profits since there’s
much, much worse to come! That computer-programmed spike into the close to keep
suckers suckered does not change the aforesaid. This is particularly evident in
their attempt to cash in on that superstitious scam known as the ‘January
effect’ by way of these manipulated bubble-making buy programs; you know,
loosen / soften the suckers up for the coming year’s new fraud / scam. ] The
'January
Effect' Is More Market Myth Than Sound Analysis ... Kumar ‘…January of 1929, for example, was
off to a brisk start as the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to 317 from
307. But investors would be slammed later in the year by a historic stock
market crash that heralded the start of the Great Depression. January of 1987,
too, began nicely. The Dow climbed to 2160 at the end of the month after
starting out at 1927. But Black Monday
would hit investors in October of that year, leading to the sharpest historical
stock market decline in percentage terms. More recently, January 2001 had a
strong showing when the Dow Jones finished the month at 10,887 after starting
at 10,646. Those reading it as an auspicious beginning would be hit first by
the further fallout from collapse of the dot-com bubble and then the massive
decline following the September 11 terrorist attacks. See
full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/cyaPDT
‘… Then, more recently there’s ‘The stock market scored a strong gain
and locked in its first positive finish for January since 2007 (we all know
what happened after that! Crash!) with help from the energy sector, which
climbed sharply in response to a spike in oil prices.(Yahoo/Briefing.com) …
Higher oil prices … riiiiight! … that sounds bull(s***)ish … on fraudulent wall
street. ]
IMF Board To
Discuss Expanded SDR Dow Jones | The board of the
International Monetary Fund will discuss a possible expansion of the basket of
currencies that compose the Special Drawing Right, IMF deputy managing director
John Lipsky said Friday.
The Road
to Madness Is Paved With $100 Bills Zero Hedge | Indeed,
all of Bernanke’s monetary policies and actions can be traced to his one core
belief: that the US Federal Reserve didn’t do enough to stave off the Great
Depression.
IMF,
warning of war, says ready to help Egypt AFP | Dominique
Strauss-Kahn said rising food prices could have “potentially devastating
consequences” for poorer nations.
The
Coming Collapse of Commercial Real Estate is Already Here, Says Davidowitz
‘…From Wal-Mart to Sears to Target to Best Buy, if you look at what is
happening in the retail space, "it looks pretty scary," says retail
expert Howard Davidowitz. Wal-Mart -- the world’s largest retailer – has seen six
consecutive quarters of negative same-store sales and is now looking to put
the majority of its investment capital towards emerging markets.In the case of
Target and Best Buy, they both recently missed major key earnings expectations.
Making matters worse, Best Buy “tanked” even without the competition from the
now defunct Circuit City, Davidowitz points out.Tale of Two StoresThere is a
sea change happening in retail, Davidowitz tells Aaron in the accompanying
clip. Consumers are spending more now than during anytime in the last three
years, but they are choosing to spend more and more online than in
brick-and-mortar stores.Companies like Apple, Amazon, Netflix are doing
gangbuster business while the aforementioned struggle to keep pace. Why go to
the store – be it record store, book store or movie rental store – when you can
buy all you need right from the comfort of your own home and have it delivered
to your front door or digital media device?The Walls Are CollapsingA coming
collapse in commercial real estate has been looming for the last couple years,
but Davidowitz thinks it has already begun. “I think there has [already] been a
partial collapse in the commercial real estate business,” he says pointing to
the rising number of community bank failures. “I think retail real estate
developers better start rethinking the use of their space.”There are always
exceptions to the rule, but his resounding advice is to stick to commodities
and stay away from the retail space, at least for now …’
National / World
Mubarak gives
army shoot-to-kill order Press TV | Embattled Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak has reportedly given his armed forces the authority to
shoot-to-kill as anti-government protests gain momentum.
Drudgereport: WIKILEAKS: FBI hunts the 9/11 gang that got away...
Student,
14, suspended for 'weapon' -- a plastic pen casing...
JUDGE
RULES HEALTH CARE LAW UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Judge
cites Obama's own position from 2008 campaign...
Brent crude oil above $100 for 1st time since 2008...
FLASHPOINT
Fighter jets swoop over Cairo in show of force...
Mubarak
meets with military commanders...
Generals
tell him to quit...
Troops
move into Tahrir square as curfew passes...
ElBaradei
joins protesters in square...
Says
US 'losing credibility by the day'...
Clinton
calls for 'orderly transition'...
'We're
not advocating any specific outcome'...
Convicts
pour out of prisons...
UPDATE:
100+ dead; 2,000 injured...
Flights
out halted, tourists trapped...
But
19 private jets get out...
Egypt
shuts down Al Jazeera bureau...
LIVE
STREAM...
OBAMA
CONFUSES IRAQ WITH AFGHANISTAN...
Will
be out 'by the end of this year'...
Scientists
Discover: Chimpanzees mourn their dead just like humans!
11% of All
US Homes Are Now Empty...
Mubarak
seeks dialogue, shows no sign of relenting Demonstrators
call for massive protest but lack leadership (Washington Post) [ He relented when he
resorted to media / internet blackout. Indeed, this lack of sign thing is a
testament to how far from reality 30 years has taken him, not to mention the
other 52 years that have taken their toll on his cognitive processes. Whether
it is plaques ‘on the brain’ or outright senility, that he is so disengaged
from the events unfolding around him, one may only wonder how he lasted this
long. Nor did his choice of cia standin / shill, new VP Suleiman enhance his
now untenable position which leaves him as ‘done as a burnt enchilada’. ]
Unlike other successful democratic uprisings, this one lacks charismatic
personalities and any clear agenda beyond ousting Mubarak, elections.
Shiller Ratio Points to U.S. Equities Being Significantly
Overvalued [ Yes they are indeed;
so take this especially great opportunity to sell, take profits since there’s
much, much worse to come! That computer-programmed spike into the close to keep
suckers suckered does not change the aforesaid. This is particularly evident in
their attempt to cash in on that superstitious scam known as the ‘January
effect’ by way of these manipulated bubble-making buy programs; you know,
loosen / soften the suckers up for the coming year’s new fraud / scam. ] The
'January
Effect' Is More Market Myth Than Sound Analysis ... Kumar ‘…January of 1929, for example, was
off to a brisk start as the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to 317 from
307. But investors would be slammed later in the year by a historic stock
market crash that heralded the start of the Great Depression. January of 1987,
too, began nicely. The Dow climbed to 2160 at the end of the month after
starting out at 1927. But Black Monday
would hit investors in October of that year, leading to the sharpest historical
stock market decline in percentage terms. More recently, January 2001 had a
strong showing when the Dow Jones finished the month at 10,887 after starting
at 10,646. Those reading it as an auspicious beginning would be hit first by
the further fallout from collapse of the dot-com bubble and then the massive
decline following the September 11 terrorist attacks. See
full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/cyaPDT
‘… Then, more recently there’s ‘The stock market scored a strong gain
and locked in its first positive finish for January since 2007 (we all know
what happened after that! Crash!) with help from the energy sector, which
climbed sharply in response to a spike in oil prices.(Yahoo/Briefing.com) …
Higher oil prices … riiiiight! … that sounds bull(s***)ish … on fraudulent wall
street. ]
Morgan Stanley: ETFs Post $2.8 Billion Net Outflows Last Week Coleman ‘With
unrest in Egypt and fading technical
signals in many key emerging markets, it’s not surprising that Morgan
Stanley’s (MS)
Smith Barney analysts has found that ETFs attracted net
outflows of $2.8 billion last week, the first pullback of a young 2011.
In a new report this afternoon, MSSB listed net
outflows in the week were led by emerging markets stocks and commodities ETFs.
Investors pulled more than a combined $5 billion from those two categories.
ETFs showing net inflows were: U.S. broad markets
stocks ($89 million); U.S. mid-cap stocks ($278 million); U.S. dividend income
($574 million); leveraged/inverse ($125 million); international developed
markets ($354 million).
Perhaps just as noteworthy, though, were stock
categories that had big outflows:
Bond funds also had a good week, attracting $705
million, according to MSSB.
The biggest net outflows by a single ETF came from
the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Fund (EEM).
It had nearly $2.7 billion outflows last week. The ETF now has posted the
largest net outflows in one- , four - and 13- week periods.
The biggest gainer in terms of net inflows was the
SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA).
It had $776 million net inflows, says MSSB. The second most popular was the Vanguard
Dividend Appreciation ETF (VIG).’
Don't
Blame Egypt for Friday's Sell-Off
Janjigian ‘…many problems remain. The federal budget deficit is too
large and the government is carrying too much debt. States and municipalities
are drowning in public pension obligations. The unemployment rate is improving,
but much too slowly. Mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures remain too high,
there are too many homes available for sale, and housing prices remain
depressed. Worldwide inflation is on the rise. There are even problems at the
corporate level. Yes, corporate profits are strong, but the same cannot be said
for sales. Many companies are reporting anemic growth on the top line at best.
Others continue to see revenues decline. Corporations are squeezing more
profits from fewer sales only by aggressively cutting costs. This kind of cost
cutting cannot go on forever. All businesses eventually reach a point where
more profits can be produced only from more sales. Most are probably at that
point already... A 10 percent correction should not surprise anyone...’
Is
the Market Headed for a Sell-Off? [ Yes … I agree, except that fundamentally the longer
term prospects are even worse than his bearish outlook suggests (don’t forget
the debasement of the dollar, manipulation, and spending / printing money the
nation doesn’t have in real terms behind this manipulated uptick) and
summarized as follows: ‘I suspect that this rally is on its very last legs. We
should see a very healthy 10% or so correction within the next 1-2 week period
... This market is headed for a sell-off. ] Zaky ‘As the market scrutinizes
President Obama's State of the Union Address, and looks to Bernanke & Co.
for any signs as to when the Federal Reserve's inflationary stance toward
monetary policy might be coming to an end, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
(DJIA) will be attempting its 9th consecutive weekly gain for the first time
since 1995.For the past 20 years, the Dow has managed countless 8-week rallies
which have tended to almost always end very poorly on the 9th week. The only
other time we've seen the Dow rally for 9 straight weeks was in the period
between January and March 1995. Before that, we would have to go to the 1980's
to find a 9 week period of consecutive gains.So the big question this week will
be whether the Dow can buck the 8-week trend or whether we'll see a sell-off to
end the week and the Dow streak at 8. What one should notice is how incredibly
weak the overall market tends to become after 8 weeks of straight gains.
Below
is a list of all the times the Dow gained 8 straight weeks since the
mid-1990's, starting with the most recent:
1. March 2001 to April 2001
The
Dow gained 8 straight weeks before experiencing a 100% retracement of the gains
in a 20% correction which lasted all summer.
2. November 2003 to January 2004
The
Dow gained exactly 8 weeks before topping out, trading sideways for 6 weeks and
then traded down for nearly 10 months before rallying into year end. That
8-weeks period topped a nearly 9 month which was met with very heavy selling
throughout the year.
3. October 2002 to December 2002
The
Dow gained 8 straight weeks before putting in a decisive top and losing the
entire move over the next 14 week period. The Dow experienced a near 30% slide
after putting in a top at 8 consecutive up weeks.
4. January - March 1998
The
Dow gained for 8 weeks straight, paused and then rallied a few more weeks
before putting in a decisive top which led to a correction that retraced the
entire move over the following 15 weeks. The Dow experienced a 25% correction
after rallying relentlessly for 5 months.
5. January - March 1995
The
Dow rallied 9 straight weeks, had a slight pull-back and then rallied all the
way until year end. The market didn't see even a minor correction in all of
1995. The Dow rallied nearly 60% in 1995 alone.This history should outline just
how over-extended this rally is becoming. There are only a few occasions in
modern history where the Dow closed up for 8 consecutive weeks, and only 1
occasion in the last 16 years where the Dow closed in the green for 9 consecutive
weeks.There is almost no profit taking in this market, which suggests that a
lot of people and institutions have significant built-in gains. One piece of
bad news and we're likely to see everyone heading to the exits at once. Rallies
that have pull-backs tend to last significantly longer than those where we have
months of consecutive weekly gains such as this one.Without consolidation and
profit taking, these rallies tend to end very poorly. It is much healthier to
see rallies where the DJIA pulls back every 2-3 weeks than these rallies where
the Dow just shoots to the sky for 8 straight weeks. The above cases
demonstrate this clearly.I suspect that this rally is on its very last legs. We
should see a very healthy 10% or so correction within the next 1-2 week period.
In fact, I believe it's quite possible that the highs of this rally can be put
in during the next 1-2 trading sessions. Whatever the case may be, good buying
opportunities present themselves in February and March. This market is headed
for a sell-off.’
Home
Prices Declining as Expected Minyanville/ Suttmeier ‘Reviewing My No.1
Theme for 2011: Home prices will resume a decline that began in mid-2006. We
had the homebuyer tax credits expire in mid-2010, and government-sponsored
mortgage modifications provided limited help. In 2011 we face continued
foreclosure issues including questionable documentation, and banks have a
record high Other Real Estate Owned (OREO). OREO is up to $53.2 billion at the
end of the third quarter, up 338.2% since the end of 2007. Depressed home sales
are being sold at a 30% to 35% discount, which reduces property appraisals at
the county level. Homebuilders will have to compete with these lower prices and
we need a mortgage modification program for all Americans, not just those at risk
of losing their homes. QE2 (quantitative easing) is not working and US Treasury
yields are higher, causing mortgage rates to rise. “The Great Credit Crunch”
began with housing, and that foundation needs repair before Main Street can
recover with sustainable job creation.
The S&P / Case-Shiller Home Price Index -- Points to lower home prices
through November. [chart]
The Federal Housing
Finance Agency (FHFA) also shows a year-over-year house price decline of 4.3%
in November. [chart] [chart]
House prices will continue to decline as long as the Conference Board’s reading
on Consumer Confidence remains weak. The Conference Board's reading on Consumer
Confidence jumped to 60.6 in January from 53.3 in December, but keep in mind
that the neutral zone for this measure is 90 to 120, so consumer confidence
remains extremely weak. Show me readings between 90 and 120 and home prices
will stabilize.
Stocks will peak this week, or will confirm recent highs as a peak over the
next few weeks
Stocks remain overvalued fundamentally according to ValuEngine with 15 of 16
sectors overvalued and only 38.9% of all stocks undervalued. This follows last
week’s ValuEngine Valuation Warning where just 33.3% of all stocks were
undervalued. Below 35% is the warning. All major averages are extremely
overbought on there weekly charts and my Proprietary Analytics show weekly
risky levels at 12,162 Dow, 1333.9 S&P 500, 2805 Nasdaq, 5321 Dow Transports,
and 828.86 Russell 2000. There is an 85% chance that the Dow will decline to my
annual pivot at 11,491 and the Dow Transports and Russell 2000 ended last week
below their annual pivots at 5179 and 784.16 respectively.
10-Year Note -- (3.317) The yield continues to trade in a range set in December
-- between 3.568 on December 16 and 3.247 set on December 20.
Comex Gold -- ($1333.3) Gold is now oversold on its daily chart with daily and
semiannual value levels at $1316.1 and $1300.6 with quarterly and annual pivots
at $1331.3 and $1356.5. Gold is trending below its 50-day simple moving average
now at $1378.5.
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($87.82) Crude oil is now trending below its 50-day simple
moving average at $87.96 with the 200-day at $80.48. My semiannual pivot
remains at $87.52.
The Euro -- (1.3643) This week’s value level is 1.3398 with chart resistance at
1.3786 as the euro becomes overbought on its daily chart.
Daily Dow -- (11,977) The daily chart is overbought after setting a new high
for the move at 11,985.97 Tuesday morning. This week’s risky level is 12,162.
My annual value level remains at 11,491. There are negative divergences for the
S&P 500, Nasdaq, Transports, and Russell 2000. Dow Transports are flirting
with a close below its 50-day simple moving average at 5047.’
Mortgage
Finance Overhaul to Raise Costs, Reduce Home-Ownership Bloomberg
| In spite of differences between Democrats and Republicans on reforming
housing finance, both sides back proposals that would make mortgages more
expensive and difficult to obtain.
Goldman
Sachs Director: Egyptians, Greeks, Tunisians and British Protesting Against
Pillaging of Economies Washington’s Blog | When a country
relinquishes its financial system and its population’s well-being to the
pursuit of ‘good deals’, there is going to be substantial fallout.
Afghan
Officials Shielded Bank From Scrutiny WSJ | Investigators
probing massive fraud that nearly brought down Afghanistan’s largest bank have
found the lender avoided scrutiny for years by giving clandestine loans—and
sometimes outright bribes—to senior Afghan officials, said Afghan and U.S.
officials and former bank insiders.
National / World
Israel
urges world to curb criticism of Egypt’s Mubarak [ War crimes, illegal
nukes nation israel’s kiss of death for mubarak. ] Haaretz |
Israel called on the United States and a number of European countries over the
weekend to curb their criticism of President Hosni Mubarak to preserve
stability in the region.
Egyptian
capital teeters on anarchy Mubarak
asks cabinet to resign as anti-regime protests intensify
(Washington Post) [ Mubarak should have been looking in the mirror as he asked
his cabinet to resign … 30 years is a long time, and coincidentally, time for
him to go. In
Egypt: Access denied (Washington Post) [The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark [I disagree!
Part of the internet didn’t die, but rather the order to so darken the nation
heralded the demise, at 30 years and counting, of the so-called leadership in
the persona of Mubarak. Time for him to go! After all, he’s been in a position,
with Egypt among the only Mideast nations to have signed a peace treaty with
israel, to have stepped up with substantial credibility in taking a strong
position against israeli transgressions, violations of international law / u.n.
resolutions, war crimes, etc., which beyond soft-touch, he failed to do. And,
of all places, he sends his family to Orwellian england; he still loves those
colonial masters … how pathetic. I mean, 30 years … how free-flowing does
anyone think the election process is at this point … and one could ask the same
regarding the entrenched powers that be in pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, to be fair. Then there’s saudi arabia; talk about do nothing
hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the oil reserves of a
sovereign nation; I suspect only when foreign corporations say so. The only
Mideast nations showing backbone are Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, and, of course
the perennially propaganda painted bad-boy Iran among possibly some of the
smaller emirates, ie., Qatar, etc., (I lack sufficient information regarding
these other nations). ] (AP)
Internet cutoff fails to silence Egypt protests (AP) - AP - In its effort to silence protesters,
Egypt took a step that's rare even among authoritarian governments: It cut off
the Internet across the entire country. Mubarak fires Cabinet, defends army’s efforts Sat, 29 Jan 2011 00:20:58 GMT Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak dismisses his Cabinet, calls on the army to help put
down rising potests... Egypt's Mubarak sends in army,
resists demands to quit (Reuters)
- 1 hour agoReuters - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused
on Saturday to bow to demands that he resign after ordering troops and tanks
into cities in an attempt to quell an explosion of street protests again...
] Embattled leader's move falls far
short of demands that he give up his 30-year authoritarian rule, leave the
country and permit fresh elections.
Israel
watches Arab turmoil closely, but comments cautiously Washington
Post) [ Illegal nuke-totin’ war crimes nation israel, watch this closely since
the same was a long time coming … GOP senator favors cutting US aid to Israel (AP) ( Now this is a great and long overdue idea
that might also lead to enhanced peace efforts for the region; b e c a u s e ,
israel will have less money to waste on provocative and costly (particularly to
america financially and geopolitically) war games. ) AP - Tea party-backed
Republican Sen. Rand Paul favors cutting U.S. aid to Israel as part of a
deficit-driven effort to slash government spending by $500 billion this year,
drawing criticism from Dems (and capital hill generally as Buchanan once
described as israeli occupied territory, to america’s detriment) ... Rand Paul: End Aid to
Israel Pressed on CNN’s Situation Room about details on his budget cut
plans, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says end all foreign aid–and when pressed further
says that includes to Israel. ]
Economic growth strengthened (Washington Post) [ Wow! Mr. Irwin’s back to his glass very much half full ways. The question is, is Mr. Irwin trying to convince himself, or disingenuously trying to convince his readers. After all, in reality, they’re really hasn’t been sufficient ‘bang for the buck’ (Fed Continues Failed Monetary Policy Suttmeier, chief market strategist at ValuEngine.com
‘Fed Is Continuing a Failed Monetary Policy (And,
amazingly, their rationale is the same failed rationale that preceded the last
bubble, as now, crash, as will, that was spun by senile greenspan that wall
street frauds / insiders sold into; you know, that so called wealth effect
which in reality is theirs not yours; viz., their gain, your pain.)
In
Egypt: Access denied (Washington Post) [The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark [I disagree! Part
of the internet didn’t die, but rather the order to so darken the nation
heralded the demise, at 30 years and counting, of the so-called leadership in
the persona of Mubarak. Time for him to go! After all, he’s been in a position,
with Egypt among the only Mideast nations to have signed a peace treaty with
israel, to have stepped up with substantial credibility in taking a strong
position against israeli transgressions, violations of international law / u.n.
resolutions, war crimes, etc., which beyond soft-touch, he failed to do. And,
of all places, he sends his family to Orwellian england; he still loves those
colonial masters … how pathetic. I mean, 30 years … how free-flowing does
anyone think the election process is at this point … and one could ask the same
regarding the entrenched powers that be in pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, to be fair. Then there’s saudi arabia; talk about do nothing
hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the oil reserves of a
sovereign nation; I suspect only when foreign corporations say so. The only
Mideast nations showing backbone are Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, and, of course
the perennially propaganda painted bad-boy Iran among possibly some of the
smaller emirates, ie., Qatar, etc., (I lack sufficient information regarding
these other nations). ] (AP)
Internet cutoff fails to silence Egypt protests (AP) - AP - In its effort to silence protesters,
Egypt took a step that's rare even among authoritarian governments: It cut off
the Internet across the entire country. Mubarak fires Cabinet, defends army’s efforts Sat, 29 Jan 2011 00:20:58 GMT Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak dismisses his Cabinet, calls on the army to help put
down rising potests... Egypt's Mubarak sends in army, resists
demands to quit (Reuters) - 1 hour agoReuters -
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused on Saturday to bow to demands that he
resign after ordering troops and tanks into cities in an attempt to quell an
explosion of street protests again... ]
Unrest in Egypt has been ongoing all week, but the Internet only seemed to take notice when it affected the Internet. The chilling aspect of an Internet clampdown is the assumption that lies behind it: If you will not let your people tweet, what else will you not let them do?
Dow
Will Find Top With a 12,000 Handle Minyanville ‘Editor's Note: This
article was written by Richard Suttmeier, chief market strategist at
ValuEngine.com, which is a fundamentally based quant research firm in
Princeton, New Jersey, that covers more than 5,000 stocks every day.
The yield on the US Treasury 10-Year note has formed a trading range
between 3.568 and 3.247 balanced by supply, fears of inflation, and QE2 buying
by the Federal Reserve. Comex gold declined as expected and now faces my
semiannual value level at $1300.6. Nymex crude oil failed below its semiannual
pivot at $87.52 as the $92.00 a barrel barrier proved to be resistance. The
euro has become stronger than expected after holding 1.3225, but faces a daily
risky level at 1.3828 today. Stocks are overvalued fundamentally and overbought
technically. The Dow Industrial should find a top above 12,000 just as 14,000
was a barrier in October 2007.
10-Year Note -- (3.385) Daily, weekly, annual, and semiannual value
levels are 3.438, 3.758, 3.791, and 4.268 with annual, semiannual, and monthly
risky levels at 2.690, 2.441, 2.322, and 2.150.
10 Year Note
Source: Thomson / Reuters
Comex Gold -- ($1311.3) Semiannual and annual value levels are $1300.6
and $1187.2 with a daily pivot at $1319.2, quarterly and annual pivots at
$1331.3 and $1356.5, and weekly, monthly, quarterly, and semiannual risky
levels at $1390.9, $1439.0, $1441.7, and $1452.6.
Comex Gold
Source: Thomson / Reuters
Nymex Crude Oil -- ($85.42) My monthly value level is $75.74 with daily
and semiannual pivots at $84.80 and $87.52, and weekly, annual, semiannual, and
quarterly risky levels at $95.34, $99.91, $101.92, $107.14, and $110.87.
Nymex Crude Oil
Source: Thomson / Reuters
The Euro -- (1.3725) Weekly, quarterly, and monthly value levels are
1.3398, 1.3227, and 1.2805 with a daily risky level at 1.3828. Semiannual and
annual risky levels are 1.4624, 1.4989, 1.6367 and 1.7312.
Euro Chart
Source: Thomson / Reuters
Daily Dow: (11,990) Annual, quarterly, semiannual, monthly, and
semiannual value levels are 11,491, 11,395, 10,959, 10,427, and 9,449 with
daily, weekly, and annual risky levels at 12,053, 12,162, and 13,890.
Dow Chart
Source: Thomson / Reuters
Stocks remain overvalued fundamentally according to ValuEngine with all
16 sectors overvalued and only 35.6% of all stocks undervalued. This follows
last week’s ValuEngine Valuation Warning, which will renew if less than 35% of
stocks are undervalued.
All major averages are extremely overbought on their weekly charts...'
Regulators
shut banks (11 so far in 2011) in Colo,
NM, Okla, Wis
The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark [I disagree!
Part of the internet didn’t die, but rather the order to so darken the nation
heralded the demise, at 30 years and counting, of the so-called leadership in
the persona of Mubarak. Time for him to go! After all, he’s been in a position,
with Egypt among the only Mideast nations to have signed a peace treaty with
israel, to have stepped up with substantial credibility in taking a strong
position against israeli transgressions, violations of international law / u.n.
resolutions, war crimes, etc., which beyond soft-touch, he failed to do. And,
of all places, he sends his family to Orwellian england; he still loves those
colonial masters … how pathetic. I mean, 30 years … how free-flowing does
anyone think the election process is at this point … and one could ask the same
regarding the entrenched powers that be in pervasively corrupt, defacto
bankrupt america, to be fair. Then there’s saudi arabia; talk about do nothing
hypocrites. How does one family claim ownership of all the oil reserves of a
sovereign nation; I suspect only when foreign corporations say so. The only
Mideast nations showing backbone are Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria, and, of course
the perennially propaganda painted bad-boy Iran among possibly some of the
smaller emirates, ie., Qatar, etc., (I lack sufficient information regarding
these other nations). ] (AP) Internet cutoff fails to silence Egypt protests (AP) - AP - In its effort to silence protesters,
Egypt took a step that's rare even among authoritarian governments: It cut off
the Internet across the entire country.
Mubarak fires Cabinet, defends army’s efforts Sat, 29 Jan 2011
00:20:58 GMT Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak dismisses his Cabinet,
calls on the army to help put down rising potests... Egypt's Mubarak sends in army, resists demands to quit (Reuters) - 1 hour agoReuters - Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak refused on Saturday to bow to demands that he resign after
ordering troops and tanks into cities in an attempt to quell an explosion of
street protests again...
Egypt
riots knock Wall St to biggest drop in 6 months (Reuters) – [ No! That’s not correct! They probably would
like you to think that … some unforeseeable problem from out of nowhere
deflating their contrived fraudulent bubble that they always manage to sell
into. But the fact is the market’s overvalued to a point again beyond the pale
… another inflated point that the wall street frauds always seem to find some
reason other than the reality of a fraudulently manipulated overvalued bubble
to sell into. ] Reuters - Stocks suffered their biggest one-day loss in nearly
six months on Friday as anti-government rioting in Egypt prompted investors to
flee to less risky assets to ride out the turmoil.
GOP senator favors cutting US aid to Israel (AP) [ Now this
is a great and long overdue idea that might also lead to enhanced peace efforts
for the region; b e c a u s e , israel will have less money to waste on
provocative and costly (particularly to america financially and geopolitically)
war games. ] AP - Tea party-backed
Republican Sen. Rand Paul favors cutting U.S. aid to Israel as part of a
deficit-driven effort to slash government spending by $500 billion this year,
drawing criticism from Dems (and capital hill generally as Buchanan once
described as israeli occupied territory, to america’s detriment) ... Rand Paul: End Aid to
Israel Pressed on CNN’s Situation Room about details on his budget cut
plans, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says end all foreign aid–and when pressed further
says that includes to Israel.
FCIC
Done; Lets Banksters Skate: Dave's Daily ‘The Financial Crisis Inquiry
Commission (FCIC), after months of investigation, concluded this entire
mortgage crisis was avoidable. Whew! Who knew?!? Bank stocks were up today
despite some suggestion from the commission report of some criminal referrals.
It must not have been any of Da Boyz at Goldman unless they're going after
maintenance staff. Some of the elite are getting steamed as Jamie
Dimon lost his cool while sipping Perrier at a panel in Davos. He didn't
say he was doing "God's
work," just not Satan's. Meanwhile back at Wall & Broad markets
did little overall with most excitement centered on NFLX which beat the pants
off earnings estimates and rose a modest 15%. Also higher were semi's and GE.
More POMO
on Thursday which is something we'll just have to get used to until June unless
there's QE3. Economic data was disappointing as Jobless Claims soared and
Durable Goods orders fell. Pending Home Sales were high but on must wonder how
much of these were foreclosure resales as this activity reached new highs last
month. Gold was knocked down sharply through what we've estimated as technical
support as investors are scrambling out of its safe-haven appeal and into
stocks...so
it's said. Most commodities were dragged lower by this action. Just at the
close MSFT reported disappointing results and after the close AMZN did the same
with the stock now down over 10% as this is written. We did an interview with Tony Davidow,
Managing Director, Portfolio Strategist, Rydex SGI Investments where we
discuss equal weight sectors including their new emerging market equal weights
which should prove interesting. Volume was once again quite light but breadth
was positive per the WSJ.’
Paulson's
$5 billion payout shocks, raises questions (Reuters) [ Shock? Come on …
everyone knows that crime in america pays … and pays well! ]
Fed
Continues Failed Monetary Policy Suttmeier, chief market strategist at
ValuEngine.com
‘Fed Is Continuing
a Failed Monetary Policy (And, amazingly, their rationale is the same failed
rationale that preceded the last bubble, as now, crash, as will, that was spun
by senile greenspan that wall street frauds / insiders sold into; you know,
that so called wealth effect which in reality is theirs not yours; viz., their
gain, your pain.)
Fed policy includes the continuation of QE2, which is the purchase of $600
billion of longer-dated US Treasuries to be completed by the end of the second
quarter. We are in the midst of this program that is
failing to bring down US Treasury yields as intended. The yield on the
10-Year US Treasury was at 2.334 on October 8 in anticipation of QE2 then
traded as high as 3.568 on December 16. This keeps the housing market
depressed, which is a Fed concern.
Fed Policy has kept the funds rate at 0% to 0.25% since December 16, 2008, and
expects to maintain that rate for a continued extended period. I have argued
for years that the FOMC should never have pushed the funds rate below 3%. Lower
rates hurt citizens living on a fixed income, and invites Wall Street
speculation. Monetary policy focuses on creating and popping asset bubbles,
which has destroyed consumer confidence and leaves businesses reluctant to
create jobs.
New Home Sales rose 17.5% in December to an annual rate of 329,000, but this is
skewed by an unexplained 71.9% gain out West. For 2010 as a whole,
single-family home sales fell 14.4% to a record low 321,000 units. The Commerce
Department began tracking this statistic in 1963. The inventory of new homes is
now at the lowest level in more than 40 years as home builders cannot obtain
the credit needed to meet
potential higher demand in 2011. The National Association of Home Builders
indicated that the 71.9% rise in sales in the West may have been caused by
contracts signed ahead of costly new building codes going into affect in some
states this month.
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that mortgage loan applications
decreased 12.9% on a seasonal basis last week. The Refinance Index decreased
15.3% and reached the lowest level since last January. The Purchase Index fell
8.7%, to its lowest level since October, and 20.8% lower year over year…’
Jobless
Claims Rise to Highest Level Since October [ Jobless claims much worse than
expected … stocks rally. ] NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The number of Americans filing unemployment
claims rose to its highest level since October last week, the Labor Department
said early Thursday. The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims
increased by 51,000 to 454,000 in the week ended Jan.22 after dropping to
403,000 in the previous week. Economists were expecting initial claims to rise
to 410,000, according to consensus estimates from Briefing.com. The
number of Americans filing continuing claims -- those who have been receiving
unemployment insurance for at least a week -- came in higher than expected as
well at 3.99 million for the week ended Jan.15, an increase of 94,000 from the
previous week's revised figure of 3.89 million. Consensus estimates projected
continuing claims to drop slightly to 3.83 million from 3.86 million reported
the previous week…’
Earnings Drag Dow Down to Another 12000 Closing Miss…Orders for goods expected to last at least three
years fell and a reading of manufacturing activity in the Federal Reserve Bank
of Kansas City's district slowed sharply in January…Japan's long-term credit
rating to double-A-minus from double-A, citing concerns over the country's high
debt levels…better-than-expected reading of pending sales of existing homes
(foreclosures / distressed sales – Drudgereport: Foreclosure
activity up across metro areas... ), coupled with
a surprisingly large jump in jobless claims didn't add clarity to the economic
outlook (dismal) …
Microsoft's
Windows disappoints as PC sales wane (Reuters)
National / World
Drudgereport: USA 'SECRETLY BACKS UPRISING'
Egyptian
President Mubarak asks Cabinet to resign...
Tanks
Sent Into Cairo...
Explosions,
Gunfire Heard as Protesters Defy Curfew...
Cities
become battlegrounds...
Police
members remove uniforms -- join protests...
Dramatic
video as thousands clash...
LIVE
STREAM...
Axelrod:
Obama Has 'Directly Confronted' Mubarak for Past 2 Years 'To Get Ahead of
This'...
Iran
Sees Rise of Islamic Hard-Liners in Arab Lands...
Spain
jobless rate surges to 20.33%...
GDP 4TH
QTR: 3.2%...
Less
than expected; stocks slide...
NASDAQ
outage leaves traders scrambling...
Egyptian
Strife Sends Oil Close To $100 On Suez Canal Closure Fears...
WH:
Obama has not tried to talk to Egyptian ruler...
Lobotomy
joe biden weighs in with his somewhat stretched political philosophy: Mubarak's
no dictator, shouldn't step down...
Egyptian
Police Using U.S.-Made Tear Gas AgainstDemonstrators...
Egypt
Shows How Easily Internet Can Be Silenced...
PAPER:
Events 'moving too fast for Obama administration'...
Iranian
Media Hail Egypt 'Revolution'...
Thousands
protest in Jordan, demand PM step down...
Huge
anti-government protest in Albania...
NY
mob task force spends 6 MONTHS probing 50-cent sausage heist... As with cuomo, you won’t see new york / mob infested
new jersey trying too hard if at all to hurt themselves by prosecuting mob
which is so integrally a part of both states… ‘On the mobbed-up docks of Bayonne, the
six-month probe was known as Operation Missing Link.Its target: A suspect who
swiped a $2 bottle of iced tea and used it to wash down a stolen 50-cent piece
of sausage - the lost link that left a bad taste in everybody's mouth, sources
told the Daily News.An investigation of the penny-ante heist was ordered by the
Waterfront Commission, the agency charged with policing the docks for mob
corruption, drug smuggling and other major crimes, the sources said.The investigation
included scores of interviews over countless hours dating to last August,
sources said - even though the victim was reluctant to press charges."It's
like Capt. Queeg and the strawberries," said New
Jersey state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, a harsh critic of the bistate
commission."It's a $2.50 ongoing investigation."One of the sources
was more blunt: "The whole investigation is bull----. It's a waste of
manpower, money and resources."Waterfront Commission General Counsel
Phoebe Soriel, while declining to address specifics, said the case was more
complex than it appeared."While the commission does not comment on pending
investigations, it takes any theft in the port seriously - especially theft
involving extortion," she said without going into detail.The reported
value of the stolen goods - a handful of change - is a microfraction of the
$200 billion that moves annually through the ports of New York
and New Jersey.The overkill began when the commission received an anonymous tip
that someone filched the drink and the sausage from a food truck catering to
dock workers.According to two sources, the case was quickly wrapped up: The
thief confessed to the crime, and the victim said an arrest was unnecessary.The
victim "didn't want to see him behind bars...just wanted him to stop,"
one source said.But top commission officials, convinced its investigators
mishandled the case, ordered a second probe with every possible witness
reinterviewed, the sources said.Investigators from the 58-year-old agency
returned to the docks and conducted about 80 second interviews, all the while
cranking out piles of paperwork, the sources said.The commission was blasted in
August 2009 - one year before the sausage investigation was launched - as home
to corrupt execs barely better than the waterfront's notorious mobsters.Officials
were accused in a damning 60-page report of misusing Homeland Security money,
keeping a convicted crook in business and surfing the Internet for porn.The
iced-tea-and-sausage probe - which has yet to wrap up - is considered an
embarrassment among investigators and dock workers."They snicker about
it," one of the sources said.’
The FBI’s the only
serious anti-mob game in town: FBI
'largest' Mafia takedown...
Flowchart...
'Vinny
Carwash', 'The Fang', 'Tony Bagels', 'Johnny Pizza', 'Baby Shacks', 'Jack the
Wack', 'Junior Lollipops', 'Bobby Glasses'...
The Mafia
family tree: FBI flowchart reveals
127 'mobsters' arrested in biggest ever blitz on New York's crime empires [ This is a very big deal! http://albertpeia.com/mafiafamilytreeflowchartFBIarrests.htm ]
Car bomb kills dozens (Washington Post) [ Ah, yes! Signs of american style democratization in the middle east popping out all over. The other turmoil is testament to the fact that other mideast nations have complacently sat back as zionist israel / american ‘adventurism / war / war crimes / war profiteering have taken their toll on the region, their people, and their aspirations which like all such action outside a vacuum, have reactions. ] At least 48 were killed and 121 wounded when a booby-trapped car exploded outside a funeral tent in a Shiite neighborhood of northern Baghdad, escalating an upsurge of violence across the country.
New
research points to earlier human migration out of Africa (Washington
Post) [ This is hardly breakthrough
news inasmuch as the same has been reported with authority in as far back as
2005 4th edition Michael Alan Park text; viz., ‘…fossils (of) the
first fully modern Homo Sapiens are found in Africa and Southwest Asia
beginning around 160,000 years ago.’ Truth be told, I find such fine lines in
this truly sad tale of the history of man to be relatively unimportant.
Interestingly, coincidentally, the Drudgereport this day includes this
headline: DNA:
Humans 97% same as orangutans … 98% same as chimps ... ] For decades, the consensus scientific opinion has
held that anatomically modern humans first migrated out of Africa some 60,000
years ago, heading north into the eastern Mediterranean region and then on to
Europe and Asia.
[To the
Professor at the beginning of the course]
10-5-09
Postscript: Professor *****,
I felt compelled to thank you again for the add; not to curry your favor but
indeed to express profound thanks inasmuch as this is probably the last formal
course at a formal educational institution I'll ever take; and among the most
important. While I had bought at discount a library-discarded 1993 Anthropology
by Embers text, though meaning to read same never quite got to it. I am
astounded by the substantial amount of time involved in the evolutionary
process, not that I ever stopped to think about it, and one must come away with
the sense of 'and all that...for this?'. This course should be required
curriculum along with psychology, sociology, etc., but probably won't be owing
to what is, as it should be, a very humbling educational experience for any
member of the human race.
Regards,
Al Peia
U.S.
must cut deficit, IMF warns (Washington Post) [ Duuuuuh! Ya’ think? CBO:
This year's budget deficit to hit $1.5T
Washington Post (Why
the CBO may not believe all its own deficit projections Christian
Science Monitor CBO:
Social Security to run permanent deficits (AP) No
stemming red ink: Federal deficit to hit $1.5T (AP) Deficit Outlook Darkens Wall Street Journal -
WASHINGTON—The federal budget deficit will reach a record of nearly $1.5 trillion
in 2011 due to the weak economy, higher spending and fresh tax cuts,
congressional budget analysts said, ... Social Security now seen to run permanent deficits The Associated Press ) The nonpartisan budget agency
predicts the deficit will drop to $1.1 trillion next year. ]
The IMF warning comes as federal officials grapple with a congressional
projection this week that the annual deficit will reach a historic $1.5
trillion this year. This is the latest report to raise concerns about how
massive government debts in developed countries could undermine the global
economic recovery.
Jobless
Claims Rise to Highest Level Since October [ Jobless claims much worse than
expected … stocks rally. ] NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The number of Americans filing unemployment
claims rose to its highest level since October last week, the Labor Department
said early Thursday. The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims
increased by 51,000 to 454,000 in the week ended Jan.22 after dropping to
403,000 in the previous week. Economists were expecting initial claims to rise
to 410,000, according to consensus estimates from Briefing.com. The
number of Americans filing continuing claims -- those who have been receiving
unemployment insurance for at least a week -- came in higher than expected as
well at 3.99 million for the week ended Jan.15, an increase of 94,000 from the
previous week's revised figure of 3.89 million. Consensus estimates projected
continuing claims to drop slightly to 3.83 million from 3.86 million reported
the previous week…’
Earnings Drag Dow Down to Another 12000 Closing Miss…Orders for goods expected to last at least three
years fell and a reading of manufacturing activity in the Federal Reserve Bank
of Kansas City's district slowed sharply in January…Japan's long-term credit
rating to double-A-minus from double-A, citing concerns over the country's high
debt levels…better-than-expected reading of pending sales of existing homes
(foreclosures / distressed sales – Drudgereport: Foreclosure
activity up across metro areas... ), coupled with
a surprisingly large jump in jobless claims didn't add clarity to the economic
outlook (dismal) …
Microsoft's
Windows disappoints as PC sales wane (Reuters)
Fed's Broken Record: Recovery Too Weak For Job Growth Schaefer ‘The Federal Reserve left its benchmark federal funds rate
unchanged Wednesday and made no change to its plan to purchase $600 billion in
longer-term Treasury securities by the end of June.According to the afternoon
statement issued by the Federal Open Market Committee, “the economic recovery
is continuing, though at a rate insufficient to bring about a significant
improvement in labor market conditions.”A confluence of factors continue to
constrain household spending, including high unemployment (9.4% at last check),
modest income growth, lower housing wealth and tight credit. The central bank
addressed the rising prices in commodity markets, chiefly oil and food, noting
that “although commodity prices have risen, longer-term inflation expectations
have remained stable and measures of underlying inflation have been trending
downward.”January’s vote passed without dissent, but that was due more to a
change in the makeup of the committee than any shift in the support for the
path of Chairman Ben
Bernanke. Inflation hawk Thomas Hoenig, who has dissented against the Fed’s
easy monetary policy and asset purchase programs, is no longer a voting member
after his FOMC term ended at year’s end.Given the lack of anything new in the
Fed statement, it came as little surprise that major U.S. equity indexes held
their ground after the release. The Dow was up 26 points at 12,003, the S&P
500 7 points to 1,298 and the Nasdaq set the pace rallying 22 points to 2,742.
The euro was on hold in the high $1.36 range, while oil prices maintained their
earlier advance above $87 a barrel and gold was narrowly positive on the day at
$1338 an ounce.’
National / World
CBO:
Social Security to run permanent deficits (AP)
Why
the CBO may not believe all its own deficit projections Christian
Science Monitor
Drudgereport: EGYPT ON FIRE
Egypt
rounds up Muslim Brotherhood leaders...
Internet
shut down; no TWITTER, FACEBOOK...
RAW
VIDEO: Unarmed protester shot dead in streets...
Jobless
Claims... Rise
Foreclosure
activity up across metro areas...
DNA:
Humans 97% same as orangutans … 98% same as chimps ...
HE'S BACK: Rahm ruled eligible for mayoral run... [ No
surprise here … lots of juice / cash to go around … Hollywood,
Jobs, Trump help Rahm haul in $10.6M … [ No
surprise here, mobster trump (how was trump missed in the recent big mafia bust
since he too is a corrupt bribe paying/receiving, drug money laundering among
other crimes, mobster), hollywood
flakes like magic mushroom eater sorkin, LSD aficionado jobs (I now realize
what that premium priced disfunctional though fanciful pizzazz of apple products that I would
refuse to pay extra for stems from-jobs says he owes it all to his LSD
use-don’t forget, apple’s protected source code, kernel, and consequent
stability existed pre-jobs and I believe, particularly after actually using an
iphone, that the same is a way to extract money from an ever increasingly
dumbed down / dumb (and I think at the least, eccentric if not obsessively
pathological if you witnessed the near compulsive use of these extraneous-rich,
in a trivially frivolous way, devices) american public by pandering to their
desire for superfluous functionality which requires additional purchases
through apple-I do give them credit for the more elaborate interface /
touchscreen and the ipad, all of which is currently being duplicated ex-apple
and presenting greater values/utility/functionality for the money-so also
credit for pioneering), zionists including spielberg, etc.; no small wonder
that chicago and the nation are down the tubes. ]
... ]
CBO:
This year's budget deficit to hit $1.5T
(Washington Post) [Why
the CBO may not believe all its own deficit projections Christian
Science Monitor CBO:
Social Security to run permanent deficits (AP)
] The nonpartisan budget agency predicts the deficit will drop to $1.1 trillion next year.
U.S.
seeks balanced approach to Mideast turmoil (Washington Post) [ Wow! Talkin’ about balance. The
response might be, ‘better late than never’, yet it won’t take long for all to
figure out that balance means heavily weighted to zionist israel / american
interests which of course, ultimately at this rate they will have none of.
Indeed, america’s pro-israel stance in the region is now as good as it gets;
which ain’t too good and fading fast based on … reality. It’s what they do, not
what they say. Then there’s turmoil, and unforgotten turmoil brought to the
region courtesy of israel / american / nato ‘adventurism’ / manipulation /
conflict / war which animus will linger long after this more parochial turmoil
has subsided. For america to believe the old ways will pull through is a dream
that will become a nightmare for american aspirations in the region. ]
TrimTabs: “No Amount Of QE Will Be Able To Keep The Current Stock Market Bubble From Bursting” Zero Hedge | If the money to boost stock prices by almost $9 trillion from the March 2009 lows did not come from the traditional players, it had to have come from somewhere else. We believe that place is the Fed. ] Economic expansion is continuing, a Fed committee said in a statement, but not quickly enough.
Samuelson:
Deficit
dodgeball (Washington Post) [ In past posts I’ve disagreed with the tenor
if not substance of Mr. Samuelson’s articles, even so far, if my memory on this
unimportant point serves me, alluding to his need to bone up on basic economics
by way of that once ubiquitous Samuelson economics text (is there a familial
relation?), gently implying him to be a soft-touch / lightweight with regard to
all things economic / business; but, this really takes the cake and I find his
article, euphemistically speaking, sorely lacking. Even his dodgeball
reference, though I might be accused of nit-picking, is misplaced. This is no
game. The literal life or death of the nation is at stake. The insurmountable
debt is unsustainable. Yet, nowhere in his article is there even a mention of
the perpetual, needless wars abroad which I would argue have worsened the
nation’s security position (blowback, ill will, geopolitical antipathy, etc.).
Indeed, this huge expenditure on these needless wars is literally frittered
away and even stolen (360 tons of $100 bills
flown into Iraq disappear, etc.), abroad denying the economic benefits of such
if spent domestically. His lip service
in two words, ‘(b) downsizing other programs, including defense’ ( and no
mention of the fraudulent wall street computerized high-frequency programmed
churn-and-earn / a negative in real economic terms) , falls short and his
article is sophomoric at best.
CBO:
Social Security to run permanent deficits (AP)
Why
the CBO may not believe all its own deficit projections Christian
Science Monitor
Stop
Saying 'Mancession'! Unemployment Now Harder On Women
National / World
Altered
States of the Union Harrison ‘By
now, coverage of last night's State of the Union is saturating every orifice of
the next-generation media landscape. From Twitter feeds to real-time blogs to
traditional outlets and back, everyone has an opinion and it's high time they
share it!
We, at Minyanville, sympathize with the information deflation -- trying to
consume what's out there is akin to sipping water from a fire hose -- and it's
our job to provide a slightly different take on events that in one way or
another shape financial markets and
those involved in them (not
necessarily in that order).
Through that lens, I'll share some top-line vibes as we hike up our weekly
Hump:
State
Of The Union Won't Help State Of The Market Lenzner ‘I was ready to predict
that the promise of a budget freeze, lower corporate taxes and upbeat
talk would pay off in higher stock prices, stronger dollar, lower interest
rates, rally in the bond market and lower gold, commodity prices. But, when I
woke this morning I realized the freeze was only on 10% of the budget, a $40
billion reduction of a $1.5 trillion deficit. I understood that the possibility
of a lower corporate tax rate was going to be paid for by getting rid of tax
loopholes used by big business. Not very many details either. And then I tried
to imagine the cost of high speed rails, clean energy technology and faster
internet access– and just exactly who was going to pay for all this
infrastructure over the next 2 or 3 decades.And I realized once again I had
gotten hopeful about rhetoric and Democratic Senators sitting next to
Republican Senators. Reality’s always less lustrous than rhetoric. Being a
musical comedy fanatic all I could think of was “Promises, Promises.”
David Stockman’s stark reality check;; an admonition by Reagan’s former budget
chief to Obama for not telling it like it really is last night, startled me out
of a momentary reverie. I don’t think the American public could take it. Then,
I looked to see what Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had been saying. Seems he was
waxing eloquent about the S&P 500 index being up 20% plus and the
broader Russell 2000 running up 30% plus–QE2– monetary policy– not fiscal
policy– had come through for the investor class. “It’s like a campfire reliant
on gasoline to maintain; when you stop pouring it on, it’s over; an absurd way
to run an economy,” emailed one of my market gurus.’
Drudgereport:
ANALYSIS:
Obama's Plan Would Cost Another $20 Billion, Raise Taxes...
Rand
Paul proposes $500 billion in federal budget cuts...
OBAMA
WARNS AMERICANS: World economic rules have changed...
Address viewership falls from last year...
PAPER:
Spaced out speech...
ROUBINI:
Spending Freeze Just 'Spare Change'...
SHOCK
CLAIM: Hawaii Gov. Admits There Are No Obama Birth Records In Hawaii...
RETRACTION:
'I misspoke and I apologize,' reporter says...
IED
casualties in Afghanistan spike (Washington Post) [ Yeah! That progress thing’s a b**ch! What do you expect them ( Petraeus
optimistic on war ) to say? That the money
spent / diverted to these lucrative for the few war profiteers (360 tons
of $100 bills flown into Iraq disappear, etc.) euphemistically misadventures has been worth the defacto
bankruptcy of the nation. The new military brass as with gates’ cia are without
honor, from illegal drugs, to illegal arms, to war crimes, etc.. ]
Grading
the SOTU / Roboinson (Washington Post) [ I say this sincerely and without
even a tinge of sarcasm that anyone who even watched / listened to wobama’s
‘speech’ should be embarrassed / ashamed of themselves (not that I listened to
dumbya bush’s either). The grade is ‘f’ as in failure as is his failed
presidency, as in ‘f’ himself. Wobama is but a pathetic b*** s*** artist and a
total embarrassment! Previous: Gerson: Obama,
more deficit hawk than GOP? (Washington Post) [ Come on! Where do they get
this stuff? Wobama not only continued war criminal dumbya bush’s perpetual war,
fraudulent wall street protectorate, etc., free-spending ways, but added to the
deficit in his own profligate ways; and, as I’ve said before, democrats /
republicans are but distinctions without significant differences. Moreover,
there’s the literal rearrangement of the congressional deck-chair seating in
the u.s.s. titanic halls for the non-event state of the union (wobama the ‘b’
for b*** s***, more empty words belied by actions / non-action) … Previous:
Topic A: What
should be in State of the Union? (Washington Post) [ Well, at the very
least, it should be noted that the states of the union are crumbling (see
bankruptcy headlines infra), ergo, the state of the union is crumbling and
precarious indeed. The problem with and for wobama is that he’s been there,
done that, and his words don’t match his actions, as is so regarding his not
easily forgotten campaign promises (from perpetual wars, to no pros the frauds
on wall street, to new ‘bubble building’ as in last precursor to crash
supplanting sound economics. Blame it on the teleprompter … sounds like a plan!
All we really know for certain is what definitely will not be in the state of
the union; viz., a solution to pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s
intractable decline. ]
Drudgereport: BANKRUPTCY
FOR STATES STUDIED
CA
DECLARES EMERGENCY
Facing
$1.6B shortfall, San Fran pays employees $170 million in bonuses...
What
Happened to 15 Million Jobs?
Wall
Street's 'Bernanke' rally runs into headwinds...
Home
sales hit 13-year low...
UPDATE:
Hawaii governor says Obama's birth record 'exists' but can't produce it...
Obama
daughter practices Chinese with Hu...
Chinese
Tiger ate US Dove for lunch...
FBI
'largest' Mafia takedown...
Flowchart...
'Vinny
Carwash', 'The Fang', 'Tony Bagels', 'Johnny Pizza', 'Baby Shacks', 'Jack the
Wack', 'Junior Lollipops', 'Bobby Glasses'...
MTV
PORN: Parents Television Council Calls for Fed Investigation Into 'SKINS'...
VIACOM PRESENTS: SEX AT 15!
Young Star Defends
Show's Racy Content: 'It's What Teens Are Doing'...
TACO BELL Pulls Ads...
Teacher Suspended After 2nd
Graders 'Sex Acts In Class'...
Joan Rivers calls Michelle
Obama 'Blackie O'... [ ‘Blackie O’ … Very funny! … I like that … but
don’t look for joan on ‘The View’ anytime soon, or invites from the whitehouse
either … but of course, and ‘Blackie O’ might retort that joan will be too busy
anyway, reprising the role of ‘The Joker’ in the next Batman film by the gifted
director, Christopher Nolan, with AH new Catwoman … meow! ]
] Robinson: It's hard to argue with that speech.
Shiller Ratio Points to U.S. Equities Being Significantly
Overvalued [ Yes they are indeed;
so take this especially great opportunity to sell, take profits since there’s
much, much worse to come! That computer-programmed spike into the close to keep
suckers suckered does not change the aforesaid. ]
The
Great Debt Shift: No Wonder Currencies Are Under Pressure Browne ‘If one
were asked to describe the major global economic changes that have unfolded
since the financial crisis began, a good starting place would be the massive
shift of debt from the private to the public sector. Attempting to arrest a
deepening crisis, governments all around the world have bailed out businesses and
companies by transferring bad debts to the public books. Although these moves
have provided some current stability (after all, governments are much less
likely to default), the long-term consequences may be dire.
Two of the
world's largest economies, the EU ($16 trillion) and the US ($14 trillion),
have become the leading practitioners of private-to-public debt shifting. The
US has assumed the debts of banks, insurers, mortgage holders, and even entire
industrial sectors. The European Union has done the same for entire states. The
resulting public debt levels are, predictably, placing strains on both the
dollar and the euro.
Worse still,
the bailouts have created a spirit of apathy toward debt accumulation. Western
governments have embarked on a debt binge for the ages. Already, the credit
ratings of the United States and some of the EU's core countries, such as
France and the UK, are being questioned.
While this
socialization of private debt has created deep citizen resentment, it remains
to be seen whether political pressure is enough to hold back the tide. In the
US, the forces of fiscal restraint appear to have the upper hand at present;
but, this late in the game, it is far from certain that the newly elected
fiscal hawks will be able to avert civil unrest and debt default.
It is worth
noting that the debt shift has offered some near-term benefits. Relieved of
repayment anxiety, many companies have posted very promising earnings reports
in recent months (one needs to only glance at Detroit). Despite continued
demand weakness, these companies have worked hard to improve their balance
sheets and raise operating margins. The resulting rally in share prices has
given rise to a belief that recovery is at hand.
However,
despite buoyant share prices, unemployment continues at dangerously high
levels, depressing tax revenues and leading to much greater entitlement
spending. This has made public debt levels rise even faster.
Total world
direct sovereign debt, excluding guarantees and unfunded medical and pension
obligations, is some $41.6 trillion dollars. When the $2.9 trillion owed by
global municipalities is included, total direct public sector debt is over $50
trillion. Against this total, even the wealth of cash-rich nations such as
China ($2.85 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves) and Japan ($1.1 trillion in
reserves) pale into insignificance.
With so little
credit to soak up the future financing needs of the US and the EU, it is no
wonder that both their currencies are coming under pressure. It should be no surprise
that Chinese President Hu began his state visit to the US by warning that the
debased dollar was causing much of the world's monetary problems - and was thus
no longer credible as the world's reserve. Once unshielded by that great
privilege, I forecast that the US dollar will plummet.
In many ways,
the euro may fare little better. The EU has organized a $1 trillion rescue
package for its smaller members, but, in practice, there is not enough money
for all the troubled peripherals, let alone a core state like France or Spain.
Last week, the EU suggested that Greece should be allowed to default and
restructure much of its debt. The Irish Times reported that the EU has
allowed Ireland to print its own euros to settle the debts of its
banks. Will it allow Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Italy and France to do the same?
If so, what credibility will remain for the euro?
Possible
because a major currency collapse is unprecedented in living memory, investors
have been slow to react. While the markets are calm at present, we mustn't
forget that the nature of panic is that it is sudden. It can erupt quickly and
overwhelm the unprepared. When it does, even supposedly rock-solid assets like
Treasury bonds may be discounted severely.
In such a climate, gold and silver are as faithful as Old Yeller.’
Bad
Omens: Stocks Get Bad Breadth, Small Caps Lose Steam Dobosz ‘ “Jump on the
bus or get left behind,” shouted Mr. Market last September as stocks began a
persistent ascent without much of a pause that has continued into 2011. In
recent weeks, however, we’re starting to see slippage under the surface that
suggests the overall market has trouble ahead…’
Stick Save Bulls: Dave's Daily - ‘The headline writers couldn't
keep up with the late day "stick save" as most had stocks down on the
day. But, editors got things changed quickly. Bulls want Dow 12,000 and with
another round of POMO
the easy money is there. It's not just us stating the obvious, Jeremy
Grantham's Pavlov's
Dog on QE2 [ ‘But be aware that you are living
on borrowed time as a bull; on our data, the market is worth about 910 on the
S&P 500, substantially less than current levels, and most risky components
are even more overpriced. ‘ ] essay and even MarketWatch
discussed this with "Market
Addicted to QE." As far as most are concerned, even Bernanke, B still
follows A and one goal of QE is to raise stock prices. Commodity prices were
lower Tuesday as oil continues to slide while precious metals fell. Remember,
it's options expiration at the COMEX Wednesday so caution is advised. Economic
data was mixed with home prices falling sharply while Consumer Confidence beat
expectations. Earnings rolled in, and with few exceptions, continued to beat
analysts' estimates by wide margins (What do they pay these guys?) Volume
improved dramatically from Monday while per the WSJ, breadth mixed to
negative.’
Can
You Hear the Waterfall? Nyaradi
‘One of the most intriguing aspects of financial writing is the various
colorful aphorisms that abound in this business. We enjoy comments like “the
trend is your friend,” and we hope to “let our winners run” while we watch
“bulls and bears” struggle for control of the hearts and minds of the
markets.One of my favorites and I think the one most applicable for today is the
concept of the “waterfall” or the “waterfall decline.” It’s certainly a visual
image and one that can clearly be seen on charts like the recent Shanghai
Composite that we’ll take a look at in a moment. With each passing day, the probability of a waterfall decline
in U.S. markets becomes more likely…’
Greece Default to Trigger Break of European Union by 2016, Bloomberg
Poll Shows A Bloomberg survey shows 48 percent believe
one or more nations will drop out of the European Union within the next 2-5
years. Only 23 percent believe a nation will never drop out of the EU.
Meanwhile, 74 percent believe it is likely Greece will default on their
sovereign debt and 53 percent believe Ireland will default.
U.S. Trade Deficit Exports 1.3M Jobs Hansen ‘In Dr. Michael Pettis Econintersect article - Currency Wars and Trade Woes
but China Marches On - he concluded:
So that leaves the U.S. Either it can accept rising
trade deficits as it absorbs the employment problems of the rest of the world,
or it can move to intervene in trade. I don’t know what it will do, but I am
pretty confident that the domestic debate will intensify. One way or the other
the crisis in international trade is far from over. In fact the day after I
finished this entry the Financial Times, again, had a new headline: “Trade war
looming, warns Brazil.”
The burr under my saddle is jobs. I may leave that
theme for a time but always return. Trade deficits export jobs. Some think it
is only money on balance sheet - but it is jobs that are exported when when a
country imports manufactured goods.
Some quick facts using unadjusted data:
National / World
Why in the world would anyone still want
to live in the state of California at this point? Residents of California
have been forced to endure a brutally oppressive level of taxation for many
years, and yet the state of California has still managed to find itself on the
verge of bankruptcy. California Governor Jerry Brown declared a “fiscal
emergency” in his state on Thursday, but nobody is even pretending that
such a declaration is actually going to help matters. Brown wants to cut
even deeper into the state budget (even after tens of billions have already
been slashed out of it in recent years) and he wants to explore ways to raise
even more revenue.
Meanwhile, the standard of living in
California is going right into the toilet. Housing values are
plummeting. Unemployment has risen above 20 percent in many areas of the
state. Crime and gang activity is on the rise even as police budgets are
being hacked to the bone. The health care system is an absolute
disaster. At this point California has the fewest emergency rooms per
million people out of all 50 states.
While all of this has been going on, the
state legislature in Sacramento has been very busy passing hundreds of new laws
that are mostly about promoting one radical agenda or another. The state
government has become so radically anti-business that it is a wonder that any
businesses have remained in the state. It seems like the moving vans
never stop as an endless parade of businesses and families leave California as
quickly as they can.
One of the only things keeping the
population of California relatively stable at this point are the massive hordes
of illegal immigrants that are constantly pouring into California cities.
There are certain areas of major California cities that you simply do not ever
want to go into anymore. In fact, there are rumors that the police will
not even venture into certain areas anymore.
Traffic in California is a bigger
nightmare than it ever has been before and the state cannot even keep up with
repairing the roads and infrastructure that it already has. There are a
few areas of California where you can still see the promise of greatness and the
amazing natural beauty that once attracted tens of millions of Americans to the
state, but they are few and far between now. At this point, most of the
state is turning into one gigantic hellhole.
Perhaps the state could have some hope of
turning things around if they had some solid leadership, but at this point the
vast majority of the politicians in the state are pushing agendas that are so
“radical” (not in a good way) and so “anti-American” that it is absolutely
frightening.
Of course on top of everything else there
is the constant threat of wildfires, mudslides and earthquakes. One day a
really “big earthquake” is going to hit, and once that happens many people
believe that the geography of the state of California could be permanently
altered forever.
But what most people are focused on right
now is the horrific financial condition that the state of California currently
is in. Governor Brown recently summarized his analysis of California’s
financial condition with the following statement: “We’ve been living in fantasy
land. It is much worse than I thought. I’m shocked.”
Yes, things really are that bad in
California.
The following are 22 facts about
California that make you wonder why anyone would still want to live in that
hellhole of a state….
#1 The California state government is facing a
potential state budget deficit of 19 billion dollars this year, and California
debt is rapidly
approaching junk status. One way or another the taxpayers of
California are going to have to pay for this mess somehow.
#2 California Governor Jerry Brown recently unveiled a
“draconian” budget plan for 2011 that includes 12 billion dollars more in
spending cuts and that maintains 12 billion dollars in recent tax increases.
#3 The state of California currently has the third highest state income tax
in the nation: a 9.55% tax bracket at $47,055 and a 10.55% bracket at
$1,000,000.
#4 California has the highest state sales tax rate in the nation by far
at 8.25%. Indiana has the next highest at 7%.
#5 Residents of California pay the highest
gasoline taxes (over 67 cents per gallon)
in the United States.
#6 California had more foreclosure filings that any
other U.S. state in 2010. The 546,669 total foreclosure filings during
the year means that over 4 percent of all the housing units in the state of
California received a foreclosure filing at some point during 2010.
#7 Home prices in some areas of California have
completely fallen off a cliff. For example, the average home in Merced,
California has declined in value by 63 percent over the past four
years.
#8 725 new laws (most of them either
completely pointless or completely stupid) went into effect in the state of
California on January 1st.
#9 20 percent of the residents of Los
Angeles County are now receiving public aid of one kind or another.
#10 The number of people unemployed in the state of
California is approximately equal to
the populations of Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermont combined.
#11 In some areas of California, the level of
unemployment is absolutely nightmarish. For example, 24.3 percent of the residents of El
Centro, California are now unemployed.
#12 Residents of California pay some of the highest electricity
prices in the entire nation.
#13 The state of California ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the
number of emergency rooms per million people.
#14 According to one survey, approximately 1 out of
every 4 Californians under the age of 65 has absolutely no
health insurance.
#15 At one point last year it was reported that in the
area around Sacramento, California there was one closed
business for every six that were still open.
#16 In the late 70s, California was number one in
per-pupil spending on education, but now the state has fallen to 48th place.
#17 In one school district in California, children as
young as five years old are being forced to watch
propaganda films that tout the benefits of “alternative lifestyles”, and
parents are being told that no “opting out” will be permitted.
#18 The crime rate in the San Diego school system is
escalating out of control. The following is what San Diego School Police Chief
Don Braun recently told the press
about the current situation….
“Violent crime in schools has risen 31 percent. Property crime has risen
12 percent. Weapons violations (have gone up) almost 8 percent.”
#19 Oakland,
California Police Chief Anthony Batts announced last year that due to severe
budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will
simply not be able to respond to any longer. The crimes that the
Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary,
car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism.
#20 Things have
gotten so bad in Stockton, California
that the police union put up a billboard with the following message: “Welcome
to the 2nd most dangerous city in California. Stop laying off cops.”
#21 During one recent
23 year period, the state of California built 23 prisons but just one
university.
#22 The farther you
look into the future, the worse California’s financial problems become. According
to an article in the Wall Street Journal, California’s unfunded pension
liability is estimated to be somewhere between $120 billion and $500
billion at this point.
So
could the state of California actually go bankrupt?
In
Washington D.C., some lawmakers are now working very hard
behind the scenes to come up with a way to allow individual U.S. states to
declare bankruptcy.
If
something like that is worked out in Washington, then certainly the state of
California would potentially be one of the first states to take advantage of
it.
Unfortunately,
the truth is that the state of California is a complete and total mess at this
point, and not even bankruptcy is going to fix much.
The
state has become a rotting, festering hellhole that is getting worse by the
day. Yes, some really good people still live there, but there are some
really, really good reasons why so many people are leaving the state in droves.
But
perhaps you disagree. Does anyone want to state the case in favor of the
state of California? Please feel free to express your opinion below….’
Economy
News Nightmare: 20 Things That You Should Not Read If You Do Not Want To Become
Very Angry The
Economic Collapse
| Today America is very, very frustrated.
#1 Today, millions of American families are digging deep into
their savings and investments in a desperate attempt to stay afloat. Over the
past two years, U.S. consumers have withdrawn $311 billion more from savings and investment
accounts than they have put into them.
#2 15 billion dollars: the total amount of
compensation that Goldman Sachs paid out to its employees for 2010.
#3 The number of American families that were booted out of
their homes and into the streets set a new all-time record in 2010.
#4 Dozens of packages that we buy in the supermarket have been
reduced in size by up to 20%. For example, there are now
2 less slices of cheese in a typical package of Kraft American cheese, and
there is now 9 percent less toilet paper in a typical package of Scott toilet
paper. So now, you may think that you are paying the same amount for
these items that you always have, but the truth is that you have been hit with
a large price increase.
#5 One Canadian company is making a ton of money shipping “millions and millions of dollars” worth of
manufacturing equipment from factories that are being shut down in the United
States over to new factories that are being set up in China.
#6 In America today, the wealthiest 20% own a whopping 93% of all the “financial assets”
in the United States.
#7 Only 35 percent of Americans now have enough “emergency savings” to be able to cover three
months of living expenses.
#8 47 percent of all Americans now believe that
China is the number one economic power in the world.
#9 If the U.S. banking system is healthy, then why does the
number of “problem banks” continue to keep increasing? This past week the
number of U.S. banks on the unofficial list of problem banks reached 937.
#10 According to former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, the
wealthiest 0.1% of all Americans make as much money as the poorest 120 million.
#11 U.S. housing prices have now fallen further during this economic
downturn than they did during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
#12 According to some very disturbing new
research, 45 percent of U.S. college students exhibit “no significant gains in learning” after two
years in college.
#13 Americans now owe more than $884
billion on student loans, which is a new all-time record.
#14 The United Nations says that the
global price of food hit an all-time record high in December, and
the price of oil is surging towards $100 a barrel, but the U.S. government
continues to insist that we barely have any inflation at all.
#15 The more Americans that are on food
stamps the more profits that JP Morgan makes.
Today, an all-time record of 43.2 million Americans are on food stamps, and JP
Morgan is making a lot of money processing millions of those benefit payments.
#16 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs
in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9
percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.
#17 Dozens of U.S. states
are either implementing tax increases in 2011 or are considering proposals to
raise taxes.
#18 The United States has had a negative
trade deficit every single year since 1976.
#19 The U.S. national debt has crossed the $14 trillion mark for the first time, and
at some point during 2011 it will cross the $15 trillion mark.
#20 What the U.S. economy really needs is for the government
to get off all of our backs, but instead they continue to tighten their grip on
us. In fact, the Obama administration is proposing a “universal Internet ID”
that would watch, track, monitor and potentially control everything that you do
on the Internet’
Drudgereport: CUT!
WHAT?!
GOOGLE
Comes Under Fire for 'Secret' Relationship with NSA...
IMF:
Instability Threatens Recovery...
OH NO:
Price Drop Points to Likely Double Dip in Housing Market...
Jobless
Rise in 20 States as Workers Still Laid Off...
UK Economy
May Be Heading for Double Dip...
Obama
will 'have to produce birth certificate' to run again...
NYT:
Former Spy With Agenda Operates Own Private CIA... [ Quite serious a problem … Remember … these people really are quite
stupid but self-interested if not greedy; and, if the money’s right, they wrap
themselves in the flag and find a reason … remember ollie north who’s an
absolute dope … and there are many, many more worse than him. Then there’s
their war mongering which of course is the precursor to their war profiteering,
etc.. ]
UPDATE:
Hawaii governor says Obama's birth record 'exists' but can't produce it...
BACKTRACK: Now Hawaii won't release birth info...
Hollywood,
Jobs, Trump help Rahm haul in $10.6M … [ No
surprise here, mobster trump (how was trump missed in the recent big mafia bust
since he too is a corrupt bribe paying/receiving, drug money laundering among
other crimes, mobster), hollywood flakes
like magic mushroom eater sorkin, LSD aficionado jobs (I now realize what that
premium priced disfunctional though fanciful
pizzazz of apple products that I would refuse to pay extra for stems
from-jobs says he owes it all to his LSD use-don’t forget, apple’s protected
source code, kernel, and consequent stability existed pre-jobs and I believe,
particularly after actually using an iphone, that the same is a way to extract
money from an ever increasingly dumbed down / dumb (and I think at the least, eccentric
if not obsessively pathological if you witnessed the near compulsive use of
these extraneous-rich, in a trivially frivolous way, devices) american public
by pandering to their desire for superfluous functionality which requires
additional purchases through apple-I do give them credit for the more elaborate
interface / touchscreen and the ipad, all of which is currently being
duplicated ex-apple and presenting greater values/utility/functionality for the
money-so also credit for pioneering), zionists including spielberg, etc.; no
small wonder that chicago and the nation are down the tubes.
] ...
COURT:
Candidate 'must have actually resided' in city for 1 year before election...
Plans
appeal to Illinois Supreme Court...
CHICAGOLAND
SHOCK: RAHM BOOTED OFF BALLOT
China
'on Collision Course' with USA...
Bank
Moves to Buy U.S. Branches...
Stealth
fighter 'based on crashed American plane'...
Chinese
Pianist Played Anti-American Propaganda Tune at White House?
Emanuel
vows to fight ballot ruling (Washington Post) [ Ill.
court rules on Emanuel … OPINION:
Rahm got robbed (of his and of those of his prospective booty) Drudgereport: Hollywood,
Jobs, Trump help Rahm haul in $10.6M … [ No
surprise here, mobster trump (how was trump missed in the recent big mafia bust
since he too is a corrupt bribe paying/receiving, drug money laundering among
other crimes, mobster), hollywood
flakes like magic mushroom eater sorkin, LSD aficionado jobs (I now realize
what that premium priced disfunctional though fanciful pizzazz of apple products that I would
refuse to pay extra for stems from-jobs says he owes it all to his LSD
use-don’t forget, apple’s protected source code, kernel, and consequent stability
existed pre-jobs and I believe, particularly after actually using an iphone,
that the same is a way to extract money from an ever increasingly dumbed down /
dumb (and I think at the least, eccentric if not obsessively pathological if
you witnessed the near compulsive use of these extraneous-rich, in a trivially
frivolous way, devices) american public by pandering to their desire for
superfluous functionality which requires additional purchases through apple-I
do give them credit for the more elaborate interface / touchscreen and the
ipad, all of which is currently being duplicated ex-apple and presenting
greater value/utility/functionality for the money-so also credit for
pioneering), zionists including spielberg, etc.; no small wonder that chicago and
the nation are down the tubes. ] ...
COURT:
Candidate 'must have actually resided' in city for 1 year before election...
Plans
appeal to Illinois Supreme Court...
CHICAGOLAND
SHOCK: RAHM BOOTED OFF BALLOT
China
'on Collision Course' with USA...
Bank
Moves to Buy U.S. Branches...
Stealth
fighter 'based on crashed American plane'...
Chinese
Pianist Played Anti-American Propaganda Tune at White House?
NYT:
Former Spy With Agenda Operates Own Private CIA... [ Quite serious a problem … Remember … these people really are quite
stupid but self-interested if not greedy; and, if the money’s right, they wrap
themselves in the flag and find a reason … remember ollie north who’s an
absolute dope … and there are many, many more worse than him. Then there’s
their war mongering which of course is the precursor to their war profiteering,
etc.. ]
UPDATE:
Hawaii governor says Obama's birth record 'exists' but can't produce it...
BACKTRACK: Now Hawaii won't release birth info...
Hezbollah-backed candidate has votes to become prime minister (Washington Post) [ Now who could possibly deny the rationality of the Lebanese wisdom of a leader that puts not war crimes nations israel / u.s. and nato allies interests, but rather the interests of Lebanon and the Lebanese people first beyond words and propaganda based on what they do; ie., most recent of many in the region: US-led airstrikes kill Afghan civilians 1-24-11Two separate airstrikes by US-led foreign forces have killed at least five civilians and wounded several others in various parts of Afghanistan. ] BEIRUT - The Shiite armed movement Hezbollah on Monday had the support needed for its candidate to become Lebanon's prime minister, effectively ending the Western-backed rule of U.S. allies who came to power more than five years ago.
Obama
won't endorse Social Security cuts (Washington Post) [
Is that written in stone? Does that mean veto? Is this failed presidency
pre-election year desperation? Where will the cuts come from for ‘deficit
reduction’? What does the teleprompter say? For some, social security is all
they have, many corporate pensions underfunded, defunct from bankruptcies,
non-existent, etc.. Now there is a very rich pension fund that the citizens
have paid for and does have a lot of fat for cutting; viz., Wikipedia:
‘Congressional pension is a pension made
available to members of the United States Congress. Members who
participated in the congressional pension system are vested after five (5)
years of service. A full pension is available to Members 62 years of age with 5
years of service; 50 years or older with 20 years of service; or 25 years of
service at any age. A reduced pension is available depending upon which of
several different age/service options is chosen. If Members leave Congress
before reaching retirement age, they may leave their contributions behind and
receive a deferred pension later.[1]’
… (note the following example from their site is from 2000 and hence, with
their regular raises for jobs poorly done, the figures are much higher now –
also note the very favorable vesting provision of 5 years) official site: ‘Members
of Congress are eligible for a pension at age 62 if they have completed at
least five years of service. They are eligible for a pension at age 50 if they
have completed 20 years of service, or at any age after completing 25 years of
service. The amount of the pension depends on years of service and the average
of the highest three years of salary. By law, the starting amount of a member’s
retirement annuity may not exceed 80 percent of his or her final salary. As of
October 1, 2000, the average annual pension for members of Congress who have
retired under CSRS is $52,464, and $46,932 for retirees under FERS-only or both
FERS/CSRS. ‘ ]
Gerson: Obama,
more deficit hawk than GOP? (Washington Post) [ Come on! Where do they get
this stuff? Wobama not only continued war criminal dumbya bush’s perpetual war,
fraudulent wall street protectorate, etc., free-spending ways, but added to the
deficit in his own profligate ways; and, as I’ve said before, democrats /
republicans are but distinctions without significant differences. Moreover,
there’s the literal rearrangement of the congressional deck-chair seating in
the u.s.s. titanic halls for the non-event state of the union (wobama the ‘b’
for b*** s***, more empty words belied by actions / non-action) … Previous:
Topic A: What
should be in State of the Union? (Washington Post) [ Well, at the very
least, it should be noted that the states of the union are crumbling (see
bankruptcy headlines infra), ergo, the state of the union is crumbling and
precarious indeed. The problem with and for wobama is that he’s been there,
done that, and his words don’t match his actions, as is so regarding his not
easily forgotten campaign promises (from perpetual wars, to no pros the frauds
on wall street, to new ‘bubble building’ as in last precursor to crash
supplanting sound economics. Blame it on the teleprompter … sounds like a plan!
All we really know for certain is what definitely will not be in the state of
the union; viz., a solution to pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s
intractable decline. ]
Drudgereport: BANKRUPTCY
FOR STATES STUDIED
CA
DECLARES EMERGENCY
Facing
$1.6B shortfall, San Fran pays employees $170 million in bonuses...
What
Happened to 15 Million Jobs?
Wall
Street's 'Bernanke' rally runs into headwinds...
Home
sales hit 13-year low...
UPDATE:
Hawaii governor says Obama's birth record 'exists' but can't produce it...
Obama
daughter practices Chinese with Hu...
Chinese
Tiger ate US Dove for lunch...
FBI 'largest'
Mafia takedown...
Flowchart...
'Vinny
Carwash', 'The Fang', 'Tony Bagels', 'Johnny Pizza', 'Baby Shacks', 'Jack the
Wack', 'Junior Lollipops', 'Bobby Glasses'...
MTV
PORN: Parents Television Council Calls for Fed Investigation Into 'SKINS'...
VIACOM
PRESENTS: SEX AT 15!
Young Star Defends Show's Racy Content: 'It's What Teens Are
Doing'...
TACO
BELL Pulls Ads...
Teacher
Suspended After 2nd Graders 'Sex Acts In Class'...
Joan
Rivers calls Michelle Obama 'Blackie O'... [ ‘Blackie O’ … Very funny!
… I like that … but don’t look for joan on ‘The View’ anytime soon, or invites
from the whitehouse either … but of course, and ‘Blackie O’ might retort that
joan will be too busy anyway, reprising the role of ‘The Joker’ in the next
Batman film by the gifted director, Christopher Nolan, with AH new Catwoman …
meow! ]
]
Shiller Ratio Points to U.S. Equities Being Significantly
Overvalued [ Yes they are indeed;
so take this especially great opportunity to sell, take profits since there’s
much, much worse to come! ]
Bad
Omens: Stocks Get Bad Breadth, Small Caps Lose Steam Dobosz “Jump on the
bus or get left behind,” shouted Mr. Market last September as stocks began a
persistent ascent without much of a pause that has continued into 2011. In
recent weeks, however, we’re starting to see slippage under the surface that
suggests the overall market has trouble ahead.
Specifically,
the breadth of the market is starting to stink, and the there is an ominous
divergence in the performance of small and large capitalization stocks that has
preceded weakness each time it’s occurred in the past 31 years.
In 2010,
shares of smaller companies in the Russell 2000 Index produced a total return
of 26.9%. That was nearly double the 14.1% total return for the biggest of the
big in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the 15.1% return for the S&P
500 Index. When smaller, more speculative stocks outperform the blue chips it’s
usually a good sign because it indicates that people are willing to take risks
and supports higher stock prices.
Now that trend
might be turning as smaller stocks lose ground while a comparatively few large
caps roll higher.
“Both the DJIA
and Russell 2000 closed at a 52-week high two weeks ago, and then the DJIA
closed at another high last week while the Russell 2000 lost more than 1%,”
says Jason Goepfert in his Monday SentimenTrader
Morning Report.
“Going back to 1979, this has occurred only three other times.”
Goepfert’s
scan of market history shows that on the three prior occasions when the Dow and
Russell diverged like this, the road ahead was a rocky one for stocks: “April 1, 1998, after which the DJIA lost more than 15% during the
next six months, while never gaining more than 2.5%; January 7, 2000, after which the DJIA lost more than 14% during the
next two months, while never gaining more than 1.8%, and January 19, 2007, after which the DJIA lost more than 4% during the
next two months, while never gaining more than 1.8%.”
A rising VIX
and CS Fear Barometer (reflecting price of SPX puts), along with a sharp rise
in buying climaxes last week (stocks hitting 52-week highs but then closing
lower for the week) add to Goepfert’s bearish outlook for the next several
weeks.
“The
equity-only put-call ratios and the breadth oscillators are all on sell signals
at this time, ” says options guru Larry McMillan in his Monday morning Daily
Volume Alert, noting
the deteriorating advance-decline ratio within the S&P 500. On the rising
VIX, McMillan says a “clear breakout close above 18-1/2 would be a big negative
for the stock market.” Watch to see how support holds on the S&P 500 at
1262, he advises.
Some stocks
are already showing signs of fresh technical damage or bullish trends under
serious pressure. After gapping higher on Friday morning, Google (GOOG) slipped
all day with a nearly 30-point intraday reversal to close near the low at
$611.83. Also, Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) hit a five-month low on Friday with
put option volume more than 3.5 times call volume.’
Can
You Hear the Waterfall?
Nyaradi ‘One of the most intriguing aspects of financial writing is the
various colorful aphorisms that abound in this business. We enjoy comments like
“the trend is your friend,” and we hope to “let our winners run” while we watch
“bulls and bears” struggle for control of the hearts and minds of the
markets.One of my favorites and I think the one most applicable for today is
the concept of the “waterfall” or the “waterfall decline.” It’s certainly a
visual image and one that can clearly be seen on charts like the recent
Shanghai Composite that we’ll take a look at in a moment.
With
each passing day, the probability of a waterfall decline in U.S. markets
becomes more likely.
On My
Radar
On a
technical basis, the markets remain overstretched and ripe for a correction,
while fundamentally, we saw selling on
good news and earnings that are “good” now suddenly don’t appear to be “good
enough.” By many analysts’ measurement, the market is overvalued by as much as
50-60% with one of my favorites, Tobin’s Q, developed by Nobel Prize Winner,
James Tobin, currently indicating an overvaluation of 63% (Doug Short)
[chart] In this chart of the S&P
500, we can see that we’re still in a definite uptrend with prices above the 20,
50 and 200 day moving averages, however, RSI is in the oversold, “red zone,”
and MACD has recently switched to a “sell” signal [chart] Looking at the chart of the Shanghai
Composite, we see it in the red and black candlesticks with the overlay of the
S&P 500 in black bars. It’s easy to see how the two have been closely
correlated until just early December and the “waterfall declines" last
April and more recently since November in the Shanghai are clearly visible. This
recent negative divergence between the two indexes is an alarming development
and one which most likely will need to be resolved with either a rally in China
or a correction in the U.S. market. Finally taking a look at the “health”
of the overall market, we see a definite case of “Bad Breadth” which could
definitely be worse than bad breath and not easily cured with a breath mint.
[chart] Here we see a chart of the NYSE Summation index, and here, too, we see
a negative divergence between the S&P in black and the Summation in red.
The Summation is a measurement of market breadth, comparing the number of
advancing stocks to declining stocks, and here we see that while the S&P
has continued its recent climb, the Summation Index has been in decline,
indicating that a smaller and smaller number of stocks in the universe of the
New York Stock Exchange is participating in the current rally.
The View
From 35,000 Feet
Last week’s news
was mostly good with existing home sales up 12%, job claims down and building
permits advancing 17%, but still from historically moribund levels.Overall,
earnings have been positive, particularly in the tech sector, and this week
will be the test of earnings seasons with over 100 reports coming from S&P
500 companies.On the bad news side of things, the 10 Year Treasury yield hit a
six week high while the 30 year hit an eight month high as the rout in the bond
market continued. The spread between the 5 and 10 year notes is extremely steep
at current levels and indicates the bond market’s concern about the prospects
of future inflation. Of course, rising yields are bad news for stocks in
general, for credit, lending and economic growth and for the Fed’s current
drive to lower interest rates through their ongoing quantitative easing
programs.Further bad news came in the bond market with last week’s TIPS
(Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) sale bringing a record dollar amount
to market that was met by the lowest demand in almost two years.Four banks
failed on Friday, bringing the year’s total to 7 and we could see an ongoing
stream of failures as 860 banks currently reside on the FDIC problem bank
list.Overseas, Ireland’s government was thrown into turmoil this weekend as the
Greens left the government, destroying Brian Cowen’s majority and likely
triggering an early election and more uncertainty over the Irish bailout
package and attempts to return to fiscal solvency.Whispers abound over the
possibility of Greece restructuring its debt while the European Union presses
ahead with various ideas to beef up their economic rescue efforts on the
Continent.At home, the debate over raising the debt ceiling is sure to heat up
as the March target date for reaching the ceiling rapidly approaches and
President Obama delivers his State of the Union message on Tuesday. This will
come against the backdrop of the debt ceiling, renewed calls for “austerity” in
Congress and the not so quiet whispering of Newt Gingrich that Congress will
soon be considering a bill to allow states to declare bankruptcy as a way to
alleviate their gargantuan credit woes. With California and Illinois in
junk status and many other states facing gaping budget deficits, such talk, not
to mention action, could be a major earthquake in the supposedly rock solid
municipal bond market which has largely been considered to be the ultimate safe
haven.
What It
All Means
Interesting
times indeed as the roar of the waterfall grows louder.
The Week
Ahead
This week will
see a rash of earnings reports as we previously mentioned, including reports
from closely watched corporations like ATT (T), American
Express (AXP), Yahoo (YHOO),
Boeing (BA),
Caterpillar (CAT), D.R. Horton (DHI),
Procter & Gamble (PG), Amazon (AMZN)
and Microsoft (MSFT). With reports coming from nearly every sector
of the economy, we should have a much clearer picture by week’s end about how
these companies are faring in the current environment.And on Wednesday we hear
from Chairman Bernanke and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve whose every
word will be sliced and diced for hints of their outlook on the economy and
planned future actions by their august body.
Economic
Reports
Tuesday: Case/Shiller Home Price Index, January Consumer Confidence
Wednesday: December New Home Sales, FOMC meeting
Thursday: Initial Unemployment Claims, Continuing Unemployment
Claims, December Durable Goods, November Pending Home Sales
Sector
Spotlight
Winners: (NYSEArca: EWI)
Italy, (NYSEArca: EWP) Spain, (NYSEArca: VXX) CBOE Volatility
Index
Losers: (NYSEArca: USO) Oil, (NYSEArca: MOO) Agriculture, (NYSEArca: XLB) Materials’
U.S. Trade Deficit Exports 1.3M Jobs Hansen ‘In Dr. Michael Pettis Econintersect article - Currency Wars and Trade Woes
but China Marches On - he concluded:
So that leaves the U.S. Either it can accept rising
trade deficits as it absorbs the employment problems of the rest of the world,
or it can move to intervene in trade. I don’t know what it will do, but I am
pretty confident that the domestic debate will intensify. One way or the other
the crisis in international trade is far from over. In fact the day after I
finished this entry the Financial Times, again, had a new headline: “Trade war
looming, warns Brazil.”
The burr under my saddle is jobs. I may leave that
theme for a time but always return. Trade deficits export jobs. Some think it
is only money on balance sheet - but it is jobs that are exported when when a
country imports manufactured goods.
Some quick facts using unadjusted data:
I will skip raising the 1.3 million job estimate by
using the somewhat controversial jobs multipliers (that in theory means a
manufacturing job lost likely causes two addition jobs being lost in the
service industry). I will even ignore that it is likely the type of jobs being
exported are of higher labor content then the current mix of existing manufacturing
jobs. The 1.3 million estimate is likely significantly understated - and the
real number is probably in excess of 5 million. That is close to half of the
full-time jobs lost in The Great Recession.
Trade is not about money - it is about jobs.
Market Recommendations Made This Week
An
Alternate View on Housing: 2011 May Be Homebuilders' Time to Shine -
Recommended a second look at the homebuilder's sector as the backlog should
turn positive in 2011. Regardless of viewpoint on growth potential for this
sector, the money bleed caused by downsizing will end this year allowing higher
profits.
Economic News this Week
Econintersect economic forecast for January 2010 pointing to
a slightly improving economy. This week the Weekly Leading Index (WLI) from ECRI continued to improve
from 3.6 to 4.1 implying the business conditions six months from now might be
improving. Six months ago, the WLI was negative that December should have been
slightly worse then July 2010. This December data has been coming in fairly
strong.
click to enlarge images
The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI)
for the U.S. increased 1.0 percent in December to 112.4 (2004 = 100). This
indicator is also trying to look ahead six months - and has been forecasting
six months ahead being better since the end of the Great Recession. Their
economists' opinions:
While the LEI points to an economic expansion that is
gaining further traction, its components still suggest the expansion path may
be uneven. December’s gain was led by housing permits, the interest rate
spread, initial claims for unemployment insurance and consumer expectations.
The large increases in December and November show that, after a brief pause in
the second quarter of 2010, the LEI is resuming the upward trend that began in
March 2009.” .......“The four-month rise suggests the economy now has some wind
in its sails; however, it still faces some strong headwinds in the medium-term.
Overall economic activity is likely to continue to gain momentum in 2011.
Initial unemployment claims in this week’s release
decreased slightly. Last week's very large not seasonally adjusted number
appears to be just a blip as unadjusted claims fell over 200,000 in the current
week's data. The DOL seasonal adjustment methodology appears to have made a
good call last week.
Most of the data released this week was inconsistent
with Econintersect’s December forecast of slow to flat growth - and it more
resembles Econintersect's January forecast. Overall most of the December data
released this week was strong. However, the transport indicators began their
improvement in December which historically foretells economic improvement.
Caveat: one month does not make a trend.
The table below itemizes the major events and
analysis this week.
Weekly Economic Release Scorecard
Item |
Headline |
Analysis |
Down Slightly |
Big jump in new orders and backlog |
|
Up MoM |
Down YoY, Inventories up YoY, home prices remain relatively flat |
|
Up 16.7% MoM |
The data is an improvement on terrible |
|
|
Correlates oil prices to USA recessions |
|
Up slightly |
Still showing manufacturing expanding |
|
Up 16% YoY |
Record exports but import's improvements were larger |
|
|
Comparing Shadowstat's data to the CPI |
|
|
Is trade war looming? |
|
|
Dragons, Haircuts and the Doomsday Machine |
|
|
Consumer and small business sentiment remains at or near levels
associated with the bottoms of other recent recessions |
|
|
Societies on
the edge of socio-economic break-up |
|
|
Trying to guess China's direction and policy responses |
|
|
Will the seat of the EU leave the Union? |
|
|
Cautiously optimistic on the U.S. and global economy |
|
|
What would it have been like if the Federal Reserve was not created. |
Bankruptcy This Week: None
[chart] ‘
“The
Vast Majority Of This Contraction Of Credit Availability To American Industry
Has Been By The Larger Banks” This once again confirms what I have been
saying for years: the giant banks are causing most of the credit contraction.
National / World
China's new stealth fighter may use US technology (AP)
Topic A: What
should be in State of the Union? (Washington Post) [ Well, at the very
least, it should be noted that the states of the union are crumbling (see
bankruptcy headlines infra), ergo, the state of the union is crumbling and
precarious indeed. The problem with and for wobama is that he’s been there,
done that, and his words don’t match his actions, as is so regarding his not
easily forgotten campaign promises (from perpetual wars, to no pros the frauds
on wall street, to new ‘bubble building’ as in last precursor to crash
supplanting sound economics. Blame it on the teleprompter … sounds like a plan!
All we really know for certain is what definitely will not be in the state of
the union; viz., a solution to pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s
intractable decline. ]
Drudgereport: BANKRUPTCY
FOR STATES STUDIED
CA
DECLARES EMERGENCY
Facing
$1.6B shortfall, San Fran pays employees $170 million in bonuses...
What
Happened to 15 Million Jobs?
Wall
Street's 'Bernanke' rally runs into headwinds...
Home
sales hit 13-year low...
UPDATE:
Hawaii governor says Obama's birth record 'exists' but can't produce it...
Obama
daughter practices Chinese with Hu...
Chinese
Tiger ate US Dove for lunch...
FBI
'largest' Mafia takedown...
Flowchart...
'Vinny
Carwash', 'The Fang', 'Tony Bagels', 'Johnny Pizza', 'Baby Shacks', 'Jack the
Wack', 'Junior Lollipops', 'Bobby Glasses'...
MTV
PORN: Parents Television Council Calls for Fed Investigation Into 'SKINS'...
VIACOM
PRESENTS: SEX AT 15!
Young Star Defends Show's Racy Content: 'It's What Teens Are
Doing'...
TACO
BELL Pulls Ads...
Teacher
Suspended After 2nd Graders 'Sex Acts In Class'...
Joan
Rivers calls Michelle Obama 'Blackie O'... [ ‘Blackie O’ … Very
funny! … I like that … but don’t look for joan on ‘The View’ anytime soon, or
invites from the whitehouse either … but of course, and ‘Blackie O’ might
retort that joan will be too busy anyway, reprising the role of ‘The Joker’ in
the next Batman film by the gifted director, Christopher Nolan, with AH new
Catwoman … meow! ]
Hezbollah
gets support of Druze leader (Washington Post) [ Is this a direct outcome
and consequence of israeli belligerence, war crimes, and america’s alliance
with and hence, apparent endorsement of such by america which also has
bloodstained hands from numerous civilian deaths in the region. Yes! After all,
no one would reasonably deny Hezbollah’s a**-kicking of israel in their fairly
recent ‘encounter’. ] The armed Shiite movement received a major boost in its
efforts to form a new government in Lebanon when a potential kingmaker swung
his support behind the group and its allies.
Four U.S. bank failures bring year's total to 7
Do You Believe in the Bernanke Put? [ Yes! I agree with the dire
assessment infra except that it will be more than tears as in that, ‘There Will
Be Blood (film name)’ … and not just in the streets. ] Hui ‘Earlier this week Gluskin Sheff Chief Economist David
Rosenberg wrote an article in the Globe and Mail entitled Why
this rally will end in tears.
Last week, Rosenberg called the current state of the financial market a Wile E.
Coyote market, or a market that seemingly ignores the major macro-economic
risks that could blow up the global economy.
We have an incredible bear market rally on our hands.
History shows that these spasms can go further than anyone thinks. But after
the U.S. market staged a monstrous 80-per-cent-plus rally from its March, 2009,
lows (the most pronounced bounce in such a short time since 1955), it has
become seriously overextended. Meanwhile, practically every pundit is
extrapolating the recent trend into the future because that is the easy thing
to do.
Most investors see only the recent returns; they do not see the nearly
invisible risks. But the risks are there. I recall all too well the 2003-07
bear market rally – yes, that is what it was. It was no long-term bull run such
as 1949-1966 or 1982-2000. It was a classic bear market rally, and it ended in
tears because what drove the market upward was phony wealth generated by a
non-productive asset called housing alongside widespread financial engineering,
which triggered a wave of artificial paper profits. [picture]
He
went on to detail his concerns about the future (which I paraphrase):
When will it be time for QE3?
While I would tend to agree with many of Rosenberg’s concerns about the macro-economic
risks to this upturn, most of the risks in his outline are economic in nature
and could be addressed by central bank action. In such a case, the question for
investors has to be: Were any of these negative outcomes were to occur, would
the Bernanke Fed respond with another round of quantitative easing? In other
words, is there a Bernanke Put in the market?
I believe that the future trajectory of the global economy and asset prices are
highly policy dependent. While I have my opinion, I am not confident enough in
them to be a basis for investment decisions. That’s why I depend on the
discipline of the Inflation-Deflation
Timer Model, as the underlying philosophy is to allow market prices to tell
us the likely direction of policy and price trends, which in turn, allows us to
be more tactical and able to capitalize on the intermediate swings in the
markets’
Market
Outlook: 10 Reasons to Expect a Correction Seeking Delta ‘The
S&P 500 is down a little more than 1% in the last two days despite largely
positive economic data. As Cullen Roche so eloquently stated earlier this month:
But the market isn’t the economy. Main Street isn’t
Wall Street. And the market is a heartless beast that desires one thing and one
thing only- PROFITS!
What follows are the ten reasons (in no particular
order) why I am cautious here, as I see the 1% dip over the last two days to be
the beginning of a larger correction.
1. Another Earnings Season Sell-Off?
During some point in the past four earnings seasons
the S&P 500 has sold off significantly. The trend has been to rally into
earning, then to sell the news. Chart, via WSJ.
click to enlarge
2. Investor Sentiment
Both individual and professional sentiment remains
high, as measured by AAII and
NAAIM, respectively.
Both readings are currently higher than one standard deviation above historical
average bullish readings. Contrary indicator: historically returns are less
favorable when sentiment readings are high.
3. Too Far Too Fast?
The current 22 month rally from the March 2009 lows
has been 90.1% (click on chart to enlarge). The average 24 month rally
to start bull markets is 56.1% with the next closest rally being 65.7% starting
in October 1974. Have we come too far too fast? Chart and data via The
Big Picture. [chart]
4. Low and Declining Put/Call Ratio
Since late 2003, when the 20 day rolling average
put/call ratio has fallen below .55 (roughly 1 standard deviation from average)
the average 30 day returns are -2.2% (-0.7% median) versus a series average of
0.2% (0.8% median). The current 20 day average put/call ratio is .52. The last
time the ratio dropped below .55 (April ’10) the market sold-off roughly 14%
over the next month-and-a-half. Chart
here.
5. Equities Running Out of Breadth?
The ratio of the number of stocks gaining versus the
number declining is struggling to regain 2010 levels. Data
Diary suggests:
that the market has been gaining ground on the backs
of fewer and fewer stocks. We could interpret this as more and more stocks are
bumping up against valuation constraints – or put another way, valuation
multiples can only move so far ahead of earnings growth.
6. Short Selling of Securities in the S&P
500 at 1 Year Low
Per Data
Explorers. Potentially a contrary indicator – have the shorts thrown in the
towel?
7. Tom DeMark Says U.S. Stocks Near Significant Decline.
Mr. DeMark, the creator of a set of Market-timing
indicator, is calling for a decline of “at least 11%.” The last time his
indicators gave a sell signal was mid-2007. Needless to say, the last quarter
of '07 and '08 were not a good time to be in equities.
8. Consensus of 11 Strategists Surveyed
by Bloomberg Says S&P 500 to Rise by 11% in 2011.
Contrary indicator?
9. QE Ending in June, Maybe earlier?
There is some pressure, as the economy recovers, that
QE is no longer needed. I would be surprised if QE2 ends in June, as scheduled,
let alone early. But if it does, watch out.
10. Low Volume Rally
Volume has consistently trended down since the
beginning of the March 2009 rally (click to enlarge).
[chart] ‘
Freaky Friday - Alpha 2 Says 'Cliff Ahead' Davis ‘This is fun, right? We had a nice opportunity to buy the
effing dip yesterday as well as an interesting opportunity to test the
prudishness of the hundreds of web sites that syndicate my articles as I saw
every possible variation of "F’ing" popping up in titles that were
pinged back to me. Social mores aside, the move was so well telegraphed that we
were able to take a non-greedy exit on our QID position – leaving us,
thankfully, with just the DIA
shorts in our $10,000 Portfolio. That means we are going to be able to start
our brand new $25,000-$100,000 Virtual Portfolio right on schedule next week.We
began "Turning $10,000 into $50,000 by January 21st"
on June 11th and we’re not done yet but we’re well over $30,000 – even looking
at our wrong-way (so far) short bet on the Dow. We could have killed that one
yesterday as well but, as today’s title says – we just have to give the old
Alpha 2 a chance to fully play out as we would just hate ourselves if we get
that 500-point drop in the Dow right after we bail on the shorts as that would
be our $50K right there!So up only 200% or so in 7 months is a failure but, to
be fair, we did take a couple of months off as I didn’t like the market enough
in October and November and we already had $26,000 so it didn’t seem worth
risking 260% to make another 100%. In the final month, we decided to "go
for it" but it was a messy way to make another 20% as our overall
premise – that a drop was "right around the corner" – simply
did not pan out. Frankly, looking back at the original 5 picks makes me want to
cry as we could have just left those on the table and gone on vacation! They
were:
So there’s $56,470 in profits for a $66,470 total IF WE HAD JUST LEFT THE DAMNED THING ALONE! [Actually (8:30 update) I realize that the reverse split on YRCW means that it didn't go up that far on an adjusted basis - so maybe we didn't do all that badly compared to leaving it alone.] Oh well, we didn’t leave it alone because when we make a lot of money early (as we did with YRCW) we take it off the table and then we hedge to protect our profits and some of our later plays were not as clever as our first set but $30,000 is nothing to be ashamed of, is it? Still, it’s a very good lesson that we can take with us into the new portfolio and I urge Members to go through the Portfolio tab and review all the moves we made over the past 6 months, as the $25K Portfolio won’t be much different at first since it’s also a small portfolio where we have to manage our small bets very carefully.Aside from today being our target date to close these trades out, I mention the portfolio this morning to remind our Members that we are NOT missing anything by waiting to be sure of the breakout. We waited for a nice dip and what we felt was a solid move up before initiating that $10KP and we had a rocky start as the market did take another 10% dip in late June but that was GOOD news as we hadn’t over-committed and we doubled up on YRCW and pressed some other bets and by October we had $26,000 and decided we’d rather lock in those gains (the purpose of the portfolio was to have a nicer Christmas than planned) than risk our gains right into holiday shopping season. Was our $10KP responsible for America’s strong holiday shopping numbers???We intend to do better in 2011 than we did in 2010, and step one in hitting our $100,000 goal is BEING CAREFUL WITH OUR ENTRIES! As noted in last week’s Stock World Weekly, we have been rolling along this month right in line with the TradeBot’s Alpha 2 pattern that they ran last year, and Elliot sent me an advanced copy of this week’s newsletter where he cleaned up the chart to match out the expiration dates. I believe you will see why I still have a slight concern:[chart] Spooky, isn’t it? Don’t forget, we identified this pattern on the 3rd and we targeted 11,850 on the Dow and 1,285 on the S&P as the adjusted tops of our ranges and, so far, Lloyd and da Boyz have been firing on all cylinders to paint a picture that is just as pretty as the one they painted last January, right into expiration day, when the VIX ran all the way down to 17.50 (from 30 in November) as complacency reached extreme levels. The tip-off at the time, that we were about to drop, was a sudden pop in the VIX on that Friday, back to 17.99, and by the next Tuesday we were back to 18.68 and, by Tuesday the 21st, panic was back in fashion and the VIX finished the day at 22.27 – on the way to 27 the next day. Now THAT’s a sell-off!Is it "different" this time? How much are you willing to bet on that? We’re not betting much, we’re cashing out the $10KP and we’ll see what happens next week, confident that we KNOW that if the market goes down we can make money and if the market goes up we can make money, but we can make so much more if we wait for the right opportunity before placing our bets.As David Fry notes on his DIA chart, POMO does make this time different and it does seem like we are being hard-wired to buy those effing dips. That’s OK, we can accept that if that’s how we have to play it, but please, Lloyd, show us that you are willing to break the pattern first – then we’ll be willing to step a little closer to the edge of the cliff. Forgive us, of course, if the idea of standing next to you at a cliff when we know that you might make a Dollar for pushing us over gives us the creeps – it’s just that, well, we know you!Speaking of people who are willing to sell their country out for a Dollar – GE had excellent earnings and I got my daily "WHUCK?!?" moment this morning when Obama named Jeff Immelt the head of his Economic Advisor Panel, replacing Paul Volcker who quit when he realized this country is totally being controlled by Souless Corporate Interests who are embodied by none other than – Jeff Immelt. Yes, it’s the same Jeff Immelt who just signed a deal to transfer America’s Avionics Technology to China’s State-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China who (and I mean who, not Hu, althogh it’s easy to see how this is confusing) intends to go into direct competition with Boeing (BA), who is not only a top US military supplier but our nation’s largest manufacturing exporter BY A MILE – so much so that Durable Goods have to be measured ex-Aircraft to smooth out their shipping cycle. Boeing sells $68Bn worth of airplanes per year and has over $300Bn worth of orders for the 787 backlogged. The company directly employs 157,000 employees, mainly in the USA and, as they build their planes here and tend to use American parts, they in turn employ roughly 1M more people, accounting for close to 10% of our nation’s total manufacturing employees. As I mentioned when the deal first broke – the technology GE is turning over to China represents 100 years worth of advances in American avionics and, just because GE legally got their hands on the patent rights over the years, that does not give them the right to put a bow around them and hand them to Hu (not "who," this time I literally mean Hu). There’s a word for what GE is doing. It’s right at the tip of my tongue... Oh yes, TREASON!!! Oran’s Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as "…[a]…citizen’s actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]." Well, the Supreme Court just decided that our Corporations are citizens and have the right to give politicians unlimited bribes contributions as they exercise their right to free speech. Why then do we not hold them to a citizen’s standards when they clearly take actions that are against the best interests of the United States of America? I wonder if a Paulson-like immunity from prosecution comes with Immelt’s job as head of the President’s Economic Council and I also wonder if Hu benefits from having their main man firmly inserted at a desk in the White House? Surely the timing of the appointment to coincide with China’s visit is not a coincidence. As an M&A consultant, I have seen this happen a million times – a company (or country, in this case) is having trouble paying its bills and its balance sheet winds up in breach of loan covenants which prompts a visit from the president of the bank (in this case the PBOC) who wrangles some additional concessions and guarantees and, in extreme cases, the Bank asks that one of their boys be given a seat on the board so they can "keep tabs" on your progress.[picture]That scenario is bad enough when your bank is just a bank but when you borrow money from a competitor and put yourself in that position, you may as well pack it in because you essentially just spilled blood in the shark tank. It’s only a matter of time before all your thrashing around, trying to stay afloat, turns into a selachimorpha version of a pińata game.Is this the beginning of a long and glorious partnership with our Chinese Masters or simply step 2 in the dismantling of America as Immelt presides over the transfer of the rest of America’s Intellectual Property to China so we can cut out the middle (class) man as our Global Corporations expedite their operational shifts more and more overseas? With only two years until the next election – there is the danger that the American people will wake up and demand action so, as happened during the final days of the Soviet empire – we can expect big moves like GE’s partnership with China to come fast and furious over the next 24 months.What are we doing about it? Well, as I told you yesterday, we’re BUYING GE, as well as JPM and, if you can find any more loathsome Corporate bastards who have top-level access to the White House and a pocketful of Congressmen and Judges – we’ll invest in them too because the first step towards working your way up the ladder in a Corporate Kleptocracy is to realize you are living in a Corporate Kleptocracy. Once you accept that – the rest is obvious…So have a great weekend – the news doesn’t matter – we’ll just keep an eye on the Bots and continue to go with the flow, even if we have to hold our noses while we’re riding it out. Be careful out there,- Phil’
Signs
the Market Hypnosis Is Wearing Off
Punching Out: One Year in a Closing Auto Plant
Acrid
Smell of Inflation Starting to Spread Through Global Equity Markets Nyaradi
‘The unmistakable smell of inflationary smoke wafted across world markets yesterday
as inflationary numbers sprang up in economic reports and global bond markets,
spooking investors across the globe.
Starting in
China, the red hot economy grew 9.8% in the 4th Quarter, faster than expected,
and registered a 4.6% inflation rate, prompting fears of further tightening
measures to slow growth and rising prices in that country.
The
Shanghai Composite (SSEC) (FXI) continued to respond, dropping
-2.9% yesterday and bringing its total decline since early November to
approximately -15%.
Food prices (DBA)
have been skyrocketing around the world as inflationary pressures grow,
particularly in the emerging world where a higher percentage of discretionary
spending goes to food and energy than for us in the developed world.
Food riots
and inflationary protests have broken out across North Africa.
Yesterday’s
Philly Fed report was lackluster on the growth front, coming in at 19.3 versus
expected of 20 and prior of 20.8 but it, too, signaled higher prices ahead.
Price increases for inputs as well as firms’ own
manufactured goods are more widespread this month. Fifty-four percent of the
firms reported higher prices for inputs, compared with 52 percent in the
previous month. The prices paid index, which increased 6 points in January, has
increased 42 points over the past four months. (Philadelphia Federal Reserve)
The bond market declined sharply yesterday,
particularly on the long end, (TLT) with the 30 year
rate rising to 4.6%.
Yesterday’s TIPS (Treasury Inflation Protected Securities)
auction was lackluster, at best, with the lowest bid to cover ration (demand)
in nearly two years.
However, not all was doom and gloom as the tech
sector continued showing strength as Google (GOOG) and
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) beat earnings expectations.
New unemployment claims declined, leading economic
indicators advanced 1% and existing home sales improved, although they’re still
living in a deep, dark basement of deflationary pricing.
Just take a look around your neighborhood for
confirmation.
So as of yesterday we find ourselves entering a
treacherous zone where the Federal Reserve continues its bond buying program in
an effort to lower interest rates but instead we see interest rates rising both
at home and around the world.
The acrid smell of inflation is starting to spread
around the world and likely is behind these rate increases as the “bond
vigilantes” flex their muscles.
Combined with a still extremely fragile recovery, at
least in the developed world, one can smell the whiff of smoke in the
overcrowded theatre of global equities markets. We all know that inflation is
bad news for equities and for economic growth, and one can only hope that
nobody yells “fire” in this overcrowded and nervous room.’
Bank
of America posts Q4 loss on mortgage problems (Reuters)
Stock Market Becomes Short Attention Span Theater Of Trading
National / World
Jerome Corsi:
"Hawaii Governor Can't Find Obama's Long Form Birth Certificate.". See the rest on the Alex
Jones YouTube channel.
Drudgereport: BANKRUPTCY
FOR STATES STUDIED
CA
DECLARES EMERGENCY
Facing
$1.6B shortfall, San Fran pays employees $170 million in bonuses...
What
Happened to 15 Million Jobs?
Wall
Street's 'Bernanke' rally runs into headwinds...
Home
sales hit 13-year low...
UPDATE:
Hawaii governor says Obama's birth record 'exists' but can't produce it...
Obama
daughter practices Chinese with Hu...
Chinese
Tiger ate US Dove for lunch...
FBI
'largest' Mafia takedown...
Flowchart...
'Vinny
Carwash', 'The Fang', 'Tony Bagels', 'Johnny Pizza', 'Baby Shacks', 'Jack the
Wack', 'Junior Lollipops', 'Bobby Glasses'...
MTV
PORN: Parents Television Council Calls for Fed Investigation Into 'SKINS'...
VIACOM
PRESENTS: SEX AT 15!
Young Star Defends Show's Racy Content: 'It's What Teens Are
Doing'...
TACO
BELL Pulls Ads...
Teacher
Suspended After 2nd Graders 'Sex Acts In Class'...
Joan Rivers calls Michelle Obama
'Blackie O'... [ ‘Blackie O’ … Very funny! … I like that … but don’t
look for joan on ‘The View’ anytime soon, or invites from the whitehouse either
… but of course, and ‘Blackie O’ might retort that joan will be too busy
anyway, reprising the role of ‘The Joker’ in the next Batman film by the gifted
director, Christopher Nolan, with AH new Catwoman … meow! ]
Equities
Have Come Very Far Very Fast - Some Conservatism Is Warranted ‘With nothing
but bullish news and earnings releases prompting the biggest fall rally since
2006, it is timely and conservative to be cautious in equities going forward,
according to many market participants with good long term track records.
Valuations are showing signs of divergence, where high P/E ratio stocks are
rising without a follow through from statistically cheap stocks in many
industries.This “reach for yield” has engendered a new ethos in the stock
market where taking greater risk is more important in equity selection than
corporate net worth, earnings, discounted cash flow analysis, and net asset
values. Many times in the past this tendency has led to large market declines,
as valuations on the major averages become extended. Shares of technology
firms, and especially small cap technology stocks, have risen on metrics we
have not seen since the heady days of 1999 and 2000 – things like eyeballs,
mouse clicks, and 70 P/E ratios are back in fashion.In the latest public
interview with Ben Bernanke, the Fed Chief played down the notion that rising
food and energy prices outweighed the economic gains that QE has created,
saying with a smile that “the Russell 2000 is up 30% plus" since the
announcement of additional stimulus at Jackson Hole last summer. What bothers
many fundamental investors about this statement is the fact that the valuation
and earnings for the Russell were not mentioned by Mr. Bernanke (does he
actually believe in efficient market theory?), but simply that the nominal
price of the index fund is up. We all remember when price got ahead of
fundamentals in the housing market. While the Fed Chief is excited about the
stock market, no mention of the benefits to private business or the unemployed
was given.
Whether or not
this possibly short lived rise in nominal stock prices actually helps small
business owners over the long haul, I am obviously pulling for a full economic
recovery and believe in US capital markets over the longer term. If the markets
are now 30% more overvalued then they were last summer, many putting capital to
work here after the 90% rally could be badly hurt when Ron Paul begins his
scrutiny over the Fed’s actions. If QE is eventually wound down (or the
expectation of the wind down begins hitting stock prices), stocks could be
badly hurt going forward. Many feel the rise in the Russell 2000 was from an
already expensive base for many issues, and that risks of another flash crash
are now greatly heightened even if the overall benefit to the market means such
action was warranted.The last time oil prices rose from $40 to $91 we had major
stock market problems, and a continued rise in commodity prices could threaten
the global recovery and our stock market returns, at least when measured in
Swiss Francs or Norwegian Kroner. Greater leverage and money issuance could
exacerbate these issues and the short term gains may not be worth the longer
term damage overvalued markets could create when everyone runs for the exits at
the same time.
click to
enlarge [chart]
In addition to
the high valuations of many stock indicies, the latest news about Steve Jobs is
disconcerting when you factor in Apple’s 20% position in the QQQQ
(Nasdaq 100). Experienced Investors know that the QQQQ generally leads
technology shares, and technology shares generally lead the broader markets. A
fall in AAPL
to $300 could easily start a 3-7% correction in the overall equity markets
based on the weighting of Apple in the QQQQ, and the past behavior of Apple
stock when Jobs has been in the headlines for medical reasons.The man is truly
a genius, crediting a large part of his success to experiences with LSD in the
1970s and his belief in making each customer more creatively effective. Of
course, I am pulling for Jobs (wishing him well, as he has a fantastic passion
to make the world a better place) and for the markets overall here, but I am
cautious on these developments from an investment perspective. Whether more
stimulus and forward earnings growth mean “any correction is a buying
opportunity” is for the reader to decide, but taking your cues from Mr. Market
and being fearful when others are greedy seems to make a lot of sense here.Just
last year, the US equity markets declined over 10% in less than three hours on
May 6, 2010 and many believe this decline was more than just a glitch. The same
type of decline hit equities on September 29, 2008 and more of these market
jolting events could be looming in our future. So, in light of the fact that we
have come very far, very fast in equities, I believe some degree of
conservatism is likely well worth the opportunity cost. Corrections never come
when people expect them to, and stocks don’t go straight up forever.’
Parallel Universe DIA vs. QQQQ: Dave's Daily ‘The big names just don't want to
break down. Remembering the DJIA is a price weighted index -- companies like
IBM keep things well-propped. In the meantime, tech struggles over the past few
days especially with the breakdown in "cloud" sectors. Commodity
markets were hit hard on worries China's inflation situation will warrant more
tightening. This, should it happen, is never friendly for commodity markets and
precious metals as
we posted earlier with GLD (SPDR Gold ETF). Economic data was mixed with
better Jobless Claims and Housing data while the Philly Fed report was
disappointing with current report and the previous report adjusted lower.
Earnings continue to flow and most beat expectations handily once again
reminding us of the ineptitude of most analysts. It's a hard job, but somebody
has to do it at least making sure companies "beat" for the M&A
goodwill. Through the first half of the day stocks stayed lower
but crept higher abetted by more POMO and a recovery in some financial stocks.
It may be very difficult for any meaningful sell-off or correction as long as
Ben is printing. Volume improved significantly today which is typical on down
days. Breadth, per the WSJ, was decidedly negative. ‘
Retreat
Unfolding? Inflation Trader ‘Markets recently
have been reversing Mackay’s classic observation that “Men…think in herds; it
will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses
slowly, and one by one.” Instead, the slow march of stocks higher has meant
that people have been going mad one by one, and joining the crowd. Does the
maxim hold true in reverse? Will they recover their senses in herds?This would
be a bad thing, and I am relieved to observe that while the 1% decline in
equities yesterday was the largest single-day selloff since November 23rd, the
volume was not appreciably different from Tuesday’s volume. A bear might growl
that this shows how much lower even a little selling might push
prices, but classic technical analysis would expect to see a swelling of volume
to confirm a trend change.My suspicion, techies or no, is that this is more
than a one-day respite in a relentless march. The negative earnings surprises
and/or downbeat announcements from Goldman (GS), Wells Fargo (WFC), Northern Trust (NTRS), Citigroup (C), and American Express (AXP) (cutting 550 jobs) helped drive the
NASDAQ Bank Index down 2.6%. Barclays (BCS) just laid off a number of people, many of
them very senior, with essentially no warning. Anecdotally, I can report
friends at other dealers who are starting to size up their options/escape hatch
as well. This is all very strange if you read the economic headlines, or even
the earnings reports which, while downbeat, weren’t exactly the big losses of
2008-09. Is there some signal here about the economy, or is the financial
reform bill just damaging prospects for financial institutions? Or am I reading
too much into narrow anecdotal evidence? I will just say the state of the
banking sector just feels less bumptious than it did just a couple of months
ago.Homebuilders were also down, some 3.5% as measured by the S&P 500
Homebuilding Index. Surely this cannot be simply a reaction to the weak New
Home Sales number (529k vs 550k expected). After all, the inventory of new
homes (which isn’t in the Housing Starts report, but is relevant here) is at
the lowest level since 1968 (see Chart, click to enlarge), and
adjusted for population it is probably at the lowest level ever.[chart]
Inventory of New Homes. Yes, they compete with the high inventories of
EXISTING homes, but this picture is reasonably upbeat for the home building
industry in the long-term.Both banking and homebuilding, of course, were
sectors that cratered and were bailed out in the housing crisis. Could they be
canaries in the coal mine now? I doubt it on the homebuilder side, but I have
long held that the mega-bank is going to be an expensive use of capital now
that the social costs of being big have resulted in legislation that will have
the effect of lower volumes, lower margins, and lower leverage. All three legs
of the ROE formula, in other words, will be under pressure; the future should
belong to the boutiques and partnerships…just as the past once belonged to
Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Smith instead of Merrill/BOA.The tiny
tremor in stocks yesterday – which, granted, feels like a massive earthquake
since it has been so long since the last tiny tremor – is only a warning. But
it is a warning echoed in the breakdown of the dollar below its trading range
for the last two months (see Chart, click to enlarge).[chart]
Dollar is looking soggy again.None of these little hints and wiggles
would matter much in the normal course of events. They’re not big news. The
problem is that there are a lot of people waiting for a Sign to Get Out.
Several of these things could be construed to be enough of a warning for a
nervous investor to flee. The question is whether these investors regain their
senses one by one, or in herds.It is far too early to make this suggestion, but
I think a reasonably gentle 2.5% further selloff to 1250 on the S&P would
be welcomed by many. A more-rapid decline, say if yesterday’s 1% turns into
today’s 1.5% and Friday’s 2%, would cause more concern and widen the range of
possible outcomes thereafter. In this circumstance I think it isn’t whether
you wake up the giant, or when you wake up the giant, but how
you wake him up, and jumping on his chest is unlikely to produce the results
you would like.I am not sure that economic data will have anything to do with
the unfolding retreat, but if Initial Claims (Consensus: 420k from 445k) fails
to drop back onto the improving trend or if Existing Home Sales (Consensus:
4.87mm versus 4.68mm last) goes down instead of up, those will be additional
irritants for the investing public. Today also brings the Philly Fed Index
(Consensus: 20.8, unchanged), which is expected to stay near the 2010 highs.
There is plenty of scope for disappointment, in my view.By the way, I am not
terribly sanguine about bonds, either. Yields are very low, and although weak
economic data is typically good for bonds I think that is less clear when the
government plainly needs growth in order to be able to redeem those bonds some
day (at least, in the absence of debt monetization). Given that we are still
struggling with the deficit from the 2008-09 crisis, is it good for bonds if we
enter another recession or even a period of choppy near-zero growth? I think
the answer there is unclear. Commodity indices for me still look like the best
medium-term bet although they have certainly come far themselves in the last
few months.However, the Treasury is going to issue $13bln of a new 10y TIPS
bond today, with a real yield that will be near 1%. That is pretty
uninteresting unless your alternative is the 10y nominal note at 3.33%. I am
not fond of the duration, even in real bonds, but I suspect the auction will go
fine. The TIPS market continues to be in a zero-net-supply situation with the
Fed essentially providing all the new cash that the Treasury raises through the
TIPS auctions. It is hard to be bearish on auction results in that situation.’
Is the Up Trend Broken? On Thursday January 20, 2011, ‘We published this article
a few days ago and decided to re-run it because it answers today's most-asked
question: Is the up trend broken? Since the article first ran, we offered this
conclusion in the January 14th ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter: 'Based on the
confluence of overhead resistance, optimistic sentiment extremes, short-term
bearish seasonality and waning breadth, the end of this rally seems near.
According to resistance levels, the odds for a reversal at S&P 1,300 +/- 10
points are high.' Whether the final top is in place remains to be seen, but
here is what might be expected over the coming weeks. Original article starts here:What the market's rally lacks in
charisma, it has made up in persistence. The stair-step, creeping type of an up
grind is lulling investors to sleep as we speak. Steady and seemingly risk-free
gains have rekindled optimism and created a state of euphoria not seen in years
... since late 2007 to be exact.The irony of this article is that few investors
will feel compelled to read anything that resembles a warning or contains a
bearish message. The few that read this piece will probably scoff at it. That's
how bear market rallies work and that's why they are effective.The soothing
rhythm of the VIX has lulled investors into a state of complacency. If you had
to describe investor's alertness in sleep lingo, a state of REM sleep would
probably be the closest comparison.History tells us that the (bear) market only
strikes when least expected.Based on analyst polls by Bloomberg, Barron's, USA
Today and a variety of sentiment measures, a stock market (NYSEArca: VTI - News) decline is as remote today
as it was in 2000 or 2007.
Hedging Activity Drops
Investors and traders are content to hold on to massive long positions
without hedge. One of the easiest ways to hedge your stock portfolio is via put
options. Last week the CBOE Equity Put/Call Ratio dropped to 0.4, the lowest
reading since April 15, 2010.The lack of hedging is dangerous for prices
because the market is without a safety net. The only option for spooked
investors without hedge is to sell. Selling causes prices to drop.On April 16,
2010, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter warned of the consequences of a low
put/call ratio: 'Selling results in more selling. This negative feedback loop
usually results in rapidly falling prices. The pieces are in place for a major
decline. We are simply waiting for the proverbial first domino to fall over and
set off a chain reaction.'The first domino dropped just a few days later, setting
off the May 6 'Flash Crash' and ultimately resulted in a swift 15% correction
for the Dow (DJI: ^DJI), 17% correction for the S&P (SNP: ^GSPC), 19% for
the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC), and 21% for the Russell 2000 (NYSEArca: IWM - News).A different measure of
complacency is the premium traders willingness to pay for call options
(bullish bets). Based on a three-month average, the price for put options
(bearish bets) is near a 10-year low. The only other time that rivals current
readings was in 2007.
This Time is Different
The
spirit of 'this time is different' is one of the most fascinating phenomenons
known to Wall Street. Investors' sentiment follows the ebb and flow of stock
prices. When prices are up, the future is expected to be bright. When prices
are down, the future is supposedly bleak (just think of the 2007 peak and 2009
bottom).This approach of linear extrapolations feeds the herding mentality, which
contrarians use as effective indicators. This approach is not foolproof but,
nevertheless, is one of the most accurate, if not the most accurate timing tool
known to underground Wall Street aficionados.The chart below (taken from the
January 2011 ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter) illustrates the four most
prominent occurrences of extreme optimism, or the 'this time is different'
effect. The green line connects the price of the S&P with the timeline and
various sentiment gauges.[chart]Investors thought 'this time is different' at
the 2007 peak, in May 2008, in January 2010, and again in April 2010. The only
thing different at all four times was the velocity of the descent, but each
period of euphoria was greeted by despair.
History Rhymes
History
doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes. In 2007, Merrill Lynch's Global
Economics Report foresaw a bright future: 'The Merrill Lynch global economics
team believes that the economy will continue to grow in 2007 - with no sign of
a significant cyclical slowdown.'According to J.P. Morgan, Barclays Capital and
Goldman Sachs (Merrill Lynch failed to foresee its own demise in 2007 and is no
more), the S&P will gain between 15 - 20% in 2011 and the 'economy will
continue to grow in 2011.'Perhaps this time will be different, but based on
history, now is the time to at least be cautious and protect your investments.
An ounce of protection is worth more than a pound of cure. Based on long-term
valuation metrics the stock market is priced to deliver pain, not gain (see
November 2011 ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter for a detailed analysis).Based on
sentiment, the market is overheated and due for a correction at the very least,
and how often have we seen a correction turn into something more? Timing a top
is tricky, but based on support and resistance levels and seasonal patterns it
is possible to narrow down when the market is ready to roll over. End of
original article.We don't make up structurally important support/resistance
levels, the market does, so it behooves us to listen. The ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter monitors the market's vital signs
and highlights important support/resistance levels. If the next important
support fails, we might be looking at an April-like decline.’
U.S.
Supreme Court Issues Landmark Decision: Constitution is Void PRNewswire-USNewswire
| Landmark decision that serves to allow judges to void the Constitution in
their courtrooms. ’ The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that
serves to allow judges to void the Constitution in their courtrooms. The
decision was issued on January 18, 2011, and the Court did not even explain the
decision (Docket No. 10-632, 10-633, and 10-690). One word decisions: DENIED.Presented
with this information and massive proof that was not contested in any manner by
the accused judges, at least six of the justices voted to deny the
petitions:“There is no legal or factual basis whatsoever for the decisions of
the lower courts in this matter. These rulings were issued for corrupt reasons.
Many of the judges in the Northern District of Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit
are corrupt and violate laws and rules, as they have done in this case. The
Supreme Court must recognize this Petition as one of the most serious matters
ever presented to this Court.” ‘The key questions answered negatively by the
U.S. Supreme Court was: “Whether federal courts must be stopped from operating
corruptly and ignoring all laws, rules, and facts.” Windsor says: "I have
discovered that the federal judges in Atlanta, Georgia,
Washington, DC, and the justices of the United
States Supreme Court function like common criminals intentionally making bogus
rulings against honest people while covering up the crimes of their fellow
judges. I have been contacted by people from all over the country and
around the world with their stories of judicial corruption with judges all over
the U.S."My charges have been totally ignored by the
United States Attorney's Office, the FBI, and Congress. I do not believe
there is a shred of decency, honesty, or Constitutional rights in our federal
courts. In my opinion, we now live in a police state. Judges are
free to do absolutely anything they want. Our laws are meaningless.
Your life savings can be stolen by a federal judge, and they have no risk
in violating every law in the books."In my opinion, this is the most
serious issue that our country has ever faced. Our rights have been
stolen. And the mainstream media refuses to cover this story because they
are afraid of the judges. Heaven help us."I believe our only hope in
America is if the masses become aware of what is taking place. I am
writing an expose, and my book will be available at Borders, Barnes &
Noble, and on amazon.com soon. The publisher will decide if the title is Lawless
America or Screwed, Glued, and Tattooed." For more information,
see www.LawlessAmerica.com.’
Drudgereport:
FBI
Rounds Up 127 Mobsters in Biggest Mafia Bust in New York History…( This is
great news and music to my ears! I really hate the mob … I really do! Hats off
to the FBI! ) ...
MOB
Bust So BIG they're being held at ARMY Fort...
House
GOP Lists $2.5 Trillion in Spending Cuts...
China:
USA #1 no more...
GE
CEO: China one day will be world's biggest economy...
A
day after cutting $19B deal with China, Boeing slashes 1,100 US jobs...
US
Stocks slide on fears of Chinese rate hike...
Obama:
'We Welcome China's Rise'...
Currency system 'product of the past'...
HU QUESTIONS FUTURE OF DOLLAR
RISING
DRAGON: China on equal footing with USA as Hu visits Washington...
GE
CEO: China one day will be world's biggest economy… daaaaah! ...
Obama:
'We Welcome China's Rise'...
Careful
to avoid criticism...
HOUSE
VOTES TO REPEAL HEALTHCARE LAW...
Dem
Compares Republicans to Nazis during debate...
26
states join suit against law...
SHOCK
CLAIM: World needs $100 TRILLION more credit, says World Economic Forum...
Japan
hits 'critical point' on state debt...
APPLE
faces pollution storm in China... ‘A group of 36 Chinese environmental groups has accused Apple of
failing to address concerns over pollution and worker health issues in
factories supplying components for its gadgets…’
Home
building stuck near 50 year lows...
CASHOUT:
Daley Files to Sell $8.3 Million JPMORGAN Shares After Joining Obama Team...
Taiwanese
mock meeting w/ video cartoon...
Missiles
off target in major Taiwan drill...
China
'got stealth tech from Russia'...
GE
to sign slew of China deals...
'Experience
China' takes over NYC's Times Square...
PEW:
65% see China as an 'adversary' or 'serious problem'...
STUXNET
WORM USED AGAINST IRAN WAS TESTED IN ISRAEL...
Three
U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq...
GALLUP:
U.S. Satisfaction Remains Near 12-Month Low...
CBS
POLL: 77% say cut spending; only 9% say raise taxes...
States
Warned of $2.5 Trillion
Pensions Shortfall...
Schwarzenegger:
I Was 'Addicted' To Being Governor...
Comprehensive
List of Tax Hikes in Obamacare...
Republican
senator sees bipartisan agreement on debt ceiling … (no surprise here; after
all, they have to get paid…for what?…more and more people are asking the
question - all three branches including
the toy soldiers for perpetual war and illegal drugs / arms ops) ...
Obama
Gives Communist Leader Lavish State Dinner...
China
lending hits new heights; Funding to poor states (that includes defacto
bankrupt america) tops World Bank...
RISE
OF RED DRAGON: CHINA SHAPES WORLD
Jobs Takes
Medical Leave...
House panel wants Homeland Security documents...
GALLUP:
U.S. Satisfaction Remains Near 12-Month Low...
Ahmadinejad,
Medvedev agree to boost ties...
Moscow
reaffirms Soviet recognition of Palestine...
Camden,
NJ braces for deep police, fire cuts...
Israeli
human rights groups sound alarm (Washington Post) [ As indeed they should!
As a war crimes nation along with pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
america, israel has much to lose by exposure of their pervasive crimes though
the entire world is aware of same including illegal nukes! … Ie., Accountability is unclear in israeli probe of flotilla
raid (Washington
Post) Oh, come on! An israeli probe of an
israeli massacre of civilians. Time for israel to pay; for illegal nukes, for
violations of international law, for continued violations of u.n. resolutions,
for provocations as pretexts to sabotage peace talks, and on and on ad nauseum.
Why does america among other nations feel compelled to sacrifice themselves for
the sake of a global criminal nation with an insatiable greed and blood-thirst
as israel? ] An
initiative in the Israeli parliament this month to investigate the funding of
local human rights organizations has intensified debate here about the role of
the groups, which critics have accused of harming Israel.
Obama
presses (as in pressing Mr. Hu’s pants) Chinese leader on rights At
summit, Hu admits his nation needs to make more progress (Washington Post) [ Riiiiight! … Mr. Hu says
with utmost sarcasm to continued perpetual war president, in the mold of dumbya
bush though national u.s. defacto bankruptcy, viz., ‘wobama the b (for b***
s***)’. White
House more hard-nosed about Chinese government / Hu
to face a tougher Obama administration (Washington Post) [ Please … don’t
make me laugh … and, are you sure you didn’t mean more ‘brown-nosed’ about the Chinese
government. This is starting to sound like seed material for the Weekend Update
SNL skit segment, ‘REALLY’. I mean, really. Does anybody believe this? Come on
… I don’t think so! ] Analysts say President Hu Jintao is eager to burnish his
legacy, but he will find a White House that views his government with
misgivings.] [Drudgereport: Currency system 'product of the past'...
HU QUESTIONS FUTURE OF DOLLAR
RISING
DRAGON: China on equal footing with USA as Hu visits Washington...
GE
CEO: China one day will be world's biggest economy… daaaaah! ...
Obama:
'We Welcome China's Rise'...
Careful
to avoid criticism... ] President urges counterpart
to allow more freedom and open a real dialogue with the Dalai Lama, and raises
the case of imprisoned Nobel winner.
Possible Earnings Season Potholes , On Wednesday January 19, 2011, 6:58 pm EST ‘Earnings season is upon us and according to
10 strategists and investment managers polled by Barron's, there's no cloud in
the sky. The future's looking bright.If you've followed Wall Street forecasts
for a few years, you must have discerned a pattern: Forecasts are always rosy.
If Wall Street analysts were meteorologists, their outlook would always be
'sunny' unless it is actually raining.Therein lies the problem; Wall Street
never sees hard rain coming and only offers an umbrella after investors have
gotten trenched. The purpose of this article is to provide an out of the box
forecast with analysis you won't hear on the Street.
Insiders vs. Analysts
Analysts
have their optimistic disposition implanted by the companies they cover.
Corporate managers have every incentive to stay positive for as long as they
can.Ironically, as CEOs project record high earnings, insider selling has
picked up. In December, Investors Intelligence reports that: 'there was a sharp
acceleration in the pace of insider selling over the last week, as if they
suddenly all received word that the index highs would end.'Who would you rather
believe - analysts (and their sources) with an agenda or the action of insiders
with skin in the game? Something doesn't seem right if insiders want you to do
as they say but not as they do.
Unbridled Enthusiasm
Mark
Twain said that: 'When I find myself on the side of the majority, I know it's
time to find a new place to side.' The majority of investors (and analysts) now
believe in rising stock prices.Sentiment gauges have recorded readings not
registered since the 2007 all-time highs, or before the May 'Flash Crash.' This
is usually a sign of a market that's getting ready to roll over.
Trap #1
This
brings us to the first investment trap for Q1 2011 - equities. After rallying
more some 90%, the major indexes a la Dow (DJI: ^DJI), S&P (SNP: ^GSPC) and
Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) are simply overbought, over loved and overvalued. This
doesn't mean that they have to crumble tomorrow, but NOW is the time to think
about protection.In each of the past three years, January trading has delivered
a surprise shot of reality. Don't be surprised if it happens again in
2011.Sectors with the biggest gains include retail (NYSEArca: XRT
- News),
consumer discretionary (NYSEArca: XLY - News),
materials (NYSEArca: XLB - News),
and technology and these are also the most vulnerable to correction.Even though
it defies Wall Street's approach of linear extrapolation, sectors that do well
one year, rarely top the list the following year. It would make sense to either
buy put protection - which is historically cheap due to a low VIX - or set
mental stop-loss safety levels to avoid suffering through a painful
correction.In an effort to keep this article brief, we won't delve into the
Europe crisis. One of the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter's predictions for 2010
was an increase in sovereign debt defaults. The Europe crisis will be with us
for a while and will turn into a big drag for developed markets (NYSEArca: EFA
- News)
eventually.
Trap #2
A
rush for tax-free yield drove investors into municipal bonds. Chasing yields
can be a pricey mistake. If you plot dividend yields against stock prices over
the past 100 years, you'll quickly notice that periods of low yields are
generally a good time to sell, not buy stocks.The muni bond market has been an
obvious, but ignored, house of cards. California is nearly bankrupt and every
other state or municipality has seen their tax revenue dwindle. Loaning money
to municipalities is like giving a car loan to someone who just lost their job.
The default risk is high.On August 26, the very day Treasuries and muni bonds
topped - the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter told its subscribers to get out of
muni bonds, corporate bonds and Treasuries. Prices for bonds have tumbled since
and the danger isn't over. The three trillion muni bond market is in serious
danger. Now is the time to worry about return of your money, not return on your
money.
Trap #3
Not
all is as it seems and if you put your trust in the Fed, you may soon be
disappointed. Quantitative easing in general, and QE2 in particular, was
supposed to stimulate the economy, increase inflation and the money
supply.[chart]As the chart above shows, it didn't do any of the above. QE2 also
was intended to lower interest rates to increase lending and make mortgages
more affordable. The chart below shows what the interest of the 10-Yr Treasury
has done since QE2 was launched.[chart]The Fed is treating the previous
indulgence in debt by taking on even more debt. This is like taking more heroin
to kick a drug addiction. It will keep you functioning for a while, but
eventually your system will shut down. The only chance of success is to detox.
The Minefield Looks Pretty
To
sum up, we are looking at a minefield covered by a beautiful blanket of
flowers. The Fed - although it's failed to jolt the economy - has succeeded in
inflating stocks (NYSEArca: VTI - News)
and commodities (NYSEArca: DBA - News).
It has served as fertilizer for fake growth.But sentiment is indicative of a
market ready to roll over. Similar sentiment readings and warnings by the ETF
Profit Strategy Newsletter in December 2008, January 2010, and April 2010 led
to declines from 9 - 29%. Aside from Fed induced liquidity, there's not been
much reason to believe this time will be different. The market's internal
strength has been waning as various breadth indicators failed to confirmed the
recent price highs.
Enjoy the Sight, Mind the Feel
Creeping
up trends like the current one can go on for weeks. But take a look at the
price action leading to the April highs and it becomes clear that such stair
stepping up trends tend to end very abruptly and without warning.That doesn't
mean that a correction has to turn into a meltdown, but if you maneuver through
trap-infested territory, it pays to be careful and protect yourself.’
Financials Lay an Egg: Dave's Daily ‘If I don't post every day it's
easy to forget how the routine goes, but that's not your problem. Anyway, most
disappointment Wednesday surrounded financials and perhaps materials. Investors
were pretty energized regarding bank prospects but were disappointed with GS
and AXP reports. The DJIA was propped higher by IBM's earnings keeping in mind
it's a "price weighted" index with the company being the big dog
there. Oddly, the rest of the tech sector saw sharp declines led by semis and
networking. Commodity markets were mixed to down on the day while the dollar
sold-off. Bonds rallied some as stocks were lower and home building data was
weak. Volume continues to be incredibly light and it's hard to put your finger
on why. Connected obliquely was news that hedge fund assets reached and
exceeded their prior highs now at $1.9 trillion. With an unknown percentage of
these assets involved in HFT (High Frequency Trading) it only enhances the
impact of this activity. As some may know we utilize DeMark indicators to
assess timing exits from long or short positions. DeMark is usually quiet but
today he
posted a note suggesting an "imminent" decline in markets was at
hand. With POMO ongoing (more
today) it's the wind behind bulls' sails that could defeat many technical
indicators. In any event, volume picked up on selling while breadth was
decidedly negative per the WSJ.’
White
House more hard-nosed about Chinese government / Hu
to face a tougher Obama administration (Washington Post) [ Please … don’t make me laugh … and, are you sure
you didn’t mean more ‘brown-nosed’ about the Chinese government. This is
starting to sound like seed material for the Weekend Update SNL skit segment,
‘REALLY’. I mean, really. Does anybody believe this? Come on … I don’t think
so! ] Analysts say President Hu Jintao is eager to burnish his legacy, but he
will find a White House that views his government with misgivings.
Self
Correcting Market Poses Unique Situation Pierce ‘There is quite a danger
premium built into this market as the market continues to grind higher. Here
are a few thoughts as to what the look of a correction could look like from
user AlbertaRocks on Seeking Alpha referencing the
Hindenburg Omen, Goldman Sacks, and market makers.
Sources are saying that the vast
majority of investors are now in the market “with no hedge”, meaning with no
puts. But you can bet that the institutional managers have some protection of
some sort. If they don’t have puts in place, you can be pretty sure that they have
trailing stops in place. And we can rest assured that they’re tightening those
trailing stops with each passing day. The more wacky and contrived this melt-up
becomes, the tighter they’ll move them. Wouldn’t you just love to know how
tight those stops are, and how many shares are for sale at each price level
just below the market? You can bet the farm that Goldman knows.
That’s most likely why there’s been no sell-off allowed. And that’s why there’s little likelihood of there being any sell-off that they can control. I’ve been speculating on this for damned near a year now. I thought they’d lost control at the August correction, but I was wrong. But the further this Fed induced insanity has gone, the more likely it is that the xxxxxxx (the Fed, GS and their minions) are probably finally trapped. This is why we “need” to see if 1130 holds. If it does, I’d bet that it would be “barely”. If it doesn’t, then 900 might not hold either. Anyway, that’s why I’m expecting violence in the markets. I don’t even know whether to expect a nice, tidy slow melt-down that accelerates (if that’s even possible), or a 40 handle gap lower one of these days. But whatever it is, when those stops begin triggering, there won’t be a damned thing GS can do about it other than buy them all up… or just let ‘em go and throw all their own shares into the pot as well. If the bankers ever want out, the question we’ve all be asking is “who they gonna sell to?”. Now we can add the fact that not only do they have nobody to sell to, but they have billions of shares of competition who’ll want out at the same time as the banks do. Man…. I can’t see how it could be anything other than a violent crash.’
Gauging
Economic Activity: It Takes Money to Make Money Hansen ‘It appears that
most people focus on money flows as the gauge of economic activity.
Non-monetary measures are generally ignored. GDP measures money flows.
Consider that
the majority of people (aka "consumers") in the USA (and the world
for that matter) account for a small portion of the money movements. Looking at
incomes (and not expenditures), the reality comes into focus.
click to
enlarge images
The above
graph shows the breakdown of the economy by income - not selected expenditure
like GDP. The sum of this income pie is several times GDP as money moves around
the economy. The relationship between the incomes of people, business and
government (as shown on the above pie chart) has remained fairly constant since
1948.
What has
changed is the income distribution of people (totaling 43% of total USA income)
in the yellow and green pie slices. The yellow pie slice of Joe Sixpack has
been getting smaller while the green pie slice for the richer Americans has
been getting larger.
Average income
becomes larger than median income as the number of high earners increases.
When we use
money flows as a metric to understand how well an economy is doing, the
majority of the population (the yellow pie slice) becomes insignificant. Joe
Sixpack does not have enough money to be a factor in this economy where money
flows are the squeaky wheel which gets the grease. As the economic controllers
are graded by how much money flows grow, natural gravity (not conspiracy or
lobbyists) would cause laws and regulations to favor groups (business and high
worth people) which will make the "money flow" economy expand.
In the case of
the USA, 80% of the people amount to 40% of personal income, while 20% of the
people make 60% of personal income. This fixation on money movements as a
metric to understand economic growth favors the elements of the economy which
most easily can generate faster monetary expansion.
You remember
the saying "It takes money to make money".
For the
richest people of the economy, this has translated into long term wealth
building (chart
complements of Wikipedia).
If economic
progress was based on counting jobs, or living conditions, or life expectancy -
attention would be directed towards that metric instead of GDP which has little
in common with Joe Sixpack, or the majority of Americans. The GDP metric is now
discriminating against Joe Sixpack.
GDP in chained
dollars keeps rising. Joe is getting further behind.
Economic
News This Week:
Econintersect
economic forecast for January
2010 pointing to a slightly improving economy. This week the Weekly Leading
Index (WLI) from ECRI continued
to improve from 3.4 to 3.7 implying the business conditions six months from now
might be improving. Six monts ago, the WLI was declining indicating that
December should have been slightly worse then July 2010. This December data is
coming in fairly strong.
[chart]
Initial
unemployment claims in this week’s release increased slightly. If you look at
the not seasonally adjusted claims - they rose to an eye popping 770,413.
Here is a
comparison to prior years non-seasonally adjusted initial claims with the
approximate gain over the previous week:
It is likely that the seasonal adjustment factors are
a little off this week, and is one more reason to follow the four week moving
average with smooths out the inconsistencies in the data. The unadjusted
increase for the first week of the year in 2011 is similar to the two
preceeding years (2009 and 2010). All three are obviously much larger than the
preceeding three years (2006,2007 and 2008). One is tempted to ascribe this
difference to the institution of a New Normal. However, 2005 (153,000) is close
to the range observed for 2009-2011 so maybe the distribution of data 2006-2011
is a circumstantial arrangement of random data.
Moral: Exercize caution when casually attributing
observations to a "New" Normal.
Most of the data released this week was inconsistent
with Econintersect’s December forecast of slow growth - and it more resembles
Econintersect's January forecast. Overall the December data released this week
was strong. However, the transport indicators began their improvement in
December which historically foretells economic improvement. Warning: one month
does not make a trend. The table below itemizes the major events and analysis
this week.
Weekly Economic Release Scorecard:
Item |
Headline |
Analysis |
Up 0.5% |
Energy price surge a concern to Econintersect for 2011 economic
expansion |
|
Up 0.8% |
This is a gross understatement. This is record sales up 8% YoY. |
|
Up 0.8% |
Agree that Industrial Production increased |
|
Up 1.2% |
This is November Data - but the increase is confirmed by the
unadjusted data |
|
Up 1.1% MoM |
Energy surged 7.7%. Likely to show up in CPI in the following months |
|
Shrunk $100 million |
Historically high exports but surplus likely grew $3.5 billion |
|
|
Consumer Contraction is now 270 days old |
|
Up 2.4% |
Diesel use at December historical highs |
|
Up 7.3% |
Positive trend lines going into 2011 |
|
Down 0.6% |
Both consumer sentiment and small business are in the same relative
negative positions |
|
Up 1.9% |
November sales are at historical highs for November |
|
|
Avoid owning fixed assets |
|
|
Historically major bond holders dump at first sign of inflation |
|
|
Chupacabra is not coming to eat our goats |
|
|
There is far more risk then realized |
|
|
The underlying economic driver is jobs. |
|
|
This entire economic policy morass is encumbered with lack of
experimental control. |
Bankruptcy this week: Constar International Inc.
Bank Failures This Week:
[chart] ‘
On
Unemployment, Inflation and Flawed Fed Logic
[ Hasner has omitted a very crucial fact:
america’s defacto bankrupt and saddled with insurmountable record level
debt! ] Hasner ‘The sum total of Fed actions over the
past 3 years can probably be summed up as the central bank attempting to create
its own reality. They have committed to the following :
All of these actions are the result of
a single fact: They are compensating for failing to do the job they were tasked
with from 2000 to 2008. They failed and we pay and pay.
I think we have to first explore why
inflation is so important to the Fed to make sense of this mess.
The banks are still in a big hole (of
their own digging) and need housing prices to stay elevated to keep their
losses in check. These same banks need to recapitalize at low interest rates
(via bond issuance) and to profit from the rate spread to keep their salary
game intact. The wealthiest individuals in America stand to lose the most from
deflation, even though housing price devaluation would enable an entire new
generation of hard working Americans to participate in the housing market.
The influence of the wealthy on Fed
policy is not hard to understand. Keep the status quo and you are safe from
congressional inquiry as a Fed governor; do what's in the best long term best
interest of the American citizenry at large and you are not. Congress by and
large will continue to go along with this charade for as long as we let them.
It should be "one man, one vote", but these days it’s how many
dollars you can pony up that determines how many "votes" you can
muster.
Why does inflation serve the largest
banks and corporations disproportionately while hurting the average working
citizen?
Greater Inflation is desired because
the largest banks still hold massive amounts of "bad" loans on their
books that simply cannot be justified under any scenario except elevated
housing prices. Greater inflation is desired by large multinational businesses
so that they may increase current pricing levels and continue to grow profitability
for shareholders. Greater inflation is sought so that the Fed can regain
credibility and maintain the illusion of being in control of the markets.
Inflation in basic necessities such as food, energy, health care and
educational expenses have the potential to drain the resources of anyone below
the upper strata of society. Making life harder for those on the margin to
protect those at the top is not only bad economic policy, it's immoral.
What might the potential long term
effects of a near zero Fed funds rate be?
The longer the Fed keeps rates at zero,
the longer the banks have to develop strategies for operating in a
"risk" free capital environment. Given past history, it's only a
matter of time (when, not if) until the banks blow the economy up yet again. Low
rates directly benefit the banks and large corporate sectors of the economy.
They can borrow at historic low rates whereas the average citizen has no
capability of obtaining such funding. While mortgage rates have moved to levels
we have not seen in a decades, the corresponding tightening in loan
qualification standards means that many cannot take advantage of them. Profits
to the largest businesses and no tangible benefit to the American citizen - can
you see a pattern developing?
The Fed will eventually be faced with a
quandary of enormous proportions. Either raise rates and suffer the wrath of a
capital allocation system that has spent the better part of 5 years devising
the most profitable ways to game that system, or keep rates at or near zero and
continue favoring the largest and wealthiest businesses in America over the
working class. I fear the Fed may be secretly planning to permanently lower
rates because I cannot frankly see any other way out of their dilemma.
Let's talk about employment in America,
or more correctly, the problem with employment in America.
The latest government report shows a
9.4% rate of unemployment. While that statistic is down from 9.8% from the
previous month, it probably reflects people actually dropping out of the labor force
and not gains in employment. They drop out when their discouragement level
becomes so high it is unbearable for them to keep trying. Unbearable for them
to keep trying to seek gainful employment. Is this the America we really want?
The latest report shows that 103,000
jobs were created. This is not even near enough to take up the new workers
entering the work force, let alone put back to work the tens of millions (yes
that's right....tens of millions) of people who have lost their jobs and are
seeking work. I can't believe this is happening in America. It's sickening.
Record profits and cash balances for America's biggest businesses and no
employment opportunities for the working class.
Unemployment compensation was extended
to 99 weeks for those seeking work. But what was missing was any sort of
connection between these benefits and actually re-training these folks for
careers that may be in demand. If a worker is laid off due to economic
circumstances, chances are his line of work or skillset is not in demand
anymore. Why in the world are we not getting these folks into new careers? I
know for some it is a stretch to think that an educated IT worker may now have
to re-train as a health care worker or a nursing home assistant, but at some
point in this vicious cycle you have to let the free market work.
We currently 'import' people from all
over the world to staff our hospitals and nursing homes and I sometimes wonder
why we are not putting able bodied Americans to work instead of just sending
them 99 weeks of unemployment checks while they go through the futile exercise
of trying to re-live their past glories. The reason, of course, is that these
jobs pay much less than their former occupations and then they wouldn't be able
to afford that damn McMansion anymore. You do see it all goes back to the banks
and their bad loans. When does it all end? The Fed believes that more inflation
is the answer to unemployment in America. How about you?
To be constructive in my final
analysis, I recommend we do the following things NOW to get this country back
on the path to economic opportunity for all, and not just those who already
have it:
The
Outlook for Inflation Inflation Trader ‘Retail Sales was
softer-than-expected (+0.6%, +0.5% ex-auto, plus downward revisions, versus
0.8%/0.7% expected), Industrial Production stronger-than-expected (+0.8% versus
+0.5%), and CPI a smidge above expectations (maintaining 0.8% y/y on core, and
rising to 1.5% y/y on headline). More on CPI later.
“Close
enough!” cried the equity traders, who subsequently put up prices 0.7% on the
day, to 28-month highs in the S&P. Bond traders also felt the balance
favored a stronger economy and faster price increases, but moved yields only a
few basis points higher with the 10y note to 3.33%. Inflation swaps curiously
softened 2-5bps despite the reasonably sunny outlook for carry; some traders
and investors feel the inflation market is a bit frothy right now – which it
is, but supply is tight and I am not sure I’d be very aggressive about shorting
inflation-linked bonds even at these valuations.
With Friday’s
trading, the Jan-2011 TIPS have matured. The yield of the bond over its
lifetime is a picture of the economy of the 2000s (see Chart, click to
enlarge, source MorganMarkets). The recession of the early part of the
decade shows up clearly, as does the expansion from 2004-07; the dip in late
2007 as the developing recession became apparent was followed by the spike as
Lehman collapsed and balance sheets became allergic to anything except TBills.
It was clearly the buying opportunity of the last few decades in fixed-income,
as the ongoing crisis was more consistent with sub-zero real yields, and the
issue subsequently rallied nearly 700 basis points in 15 months from December
2008 to March 2010.
Jan 11s, we'll
miss ye.
So now, let’s
talk about CPI.
Core CPI was
+0.092% month-on-month; the annual rate of change rose slightly to +0.804%. I’d
mentioned Friday the potential for a surprise higher in the monthly change
because of the reversal of last month’s seasonal adjustment quirk (which, in
November, held the monthly change down). This didn’t happen,
and my suspicion is that the main part of the effect will actually be seen in this
month: January 2010’s seasonally-adjusted change in core CPI
was a rather surprising -0.14%, which accounts for most of the difference in
the seasonally-adjusted and non-seasonally-adjusted year-on-year series. We
will have to wait a month to see.
But that is
just sharp-pencil trivia for the bow-tied set. The bottom line is that the
year-on-year change in core CPI is now rising. The headline figure did surprise
on the upside, printing +0.505% to put the year-on-year rise at +1.496%. This
was accomplished mostly through the rise in commodities (gasoline contributed
0.37% to the headline number, so with core+gasoline you have almost all of the
month’s change), and more of that is to come over the next few months.
Perhaps more
surprising is that the second-largest contribution came from housing,
which added 0.08% to the overall figure and therefore accounts for just about
all of the rise in core CPI. This is remarkable – it was the largest such
contribution in years. This is probably a reasonable time for a step back and a
re-think about the overall outlook for inflation.
The
Outlook For Inflation
Current
Conditions:
The basic
pricing conditions in the United States at present are:
Surprisingly, housing is now contributing to
inflation.
To my surprise - although anticipated by my models -
core ex-housing has regressed to the core number rather than the other way
around.
Base Forecast:
Aggregated models of core inflation and one which
separately forecasts housing inflation both project rising inflation going
forward. The average of the models is 1.5% for 2011 core inflation.
Interestingly, the model that separates out housing inflation projects 1.8%,
but then converges in 2012.
The main influences on the 2011 inflation outlook are
the late-2008 spike in money supply, the decline in the dollar over 2009, and
the level of core inflation in late 2010. It is important to realize that there
are long lags in the pass-through of monetary policy to
inflation. Most of the broad currents of 2011 inflation have long since been
formed. Policymakers are right now working on policies that will influence 2012
and 2013 inflation, but not much will drastically change the outlook for core
inflation in 2011.
Risks to the Outlook:
However, the model is not “fully specified.” That is,
not every possible influence on inflation is included in the model – mostly
because there are all kinds of influences that I can’t imagine, or because some
influences operate with variable lags. For example, my models do not include
consumer expectations of inflation. Partly, this is because I don’t think they
have a lot to do with inflation, but the Federal Reserve thinks they are very
important and if they’re right, my model will miss inflation zigzags that are
caused by changes in consumer expectations and not captured in other variables.
I also do not model changes in money velocity directly, but this can be as
important or even more important than the level of the money stock itself.
The risks to the outlook have been generally to the
upside over the last year or so, but seem to be somewhat more balanced now that
core ex-housing has decelerated. Of course, when we are near the lows we should
expect that inflation feels saggy and that the risks seem more
balanced. Here are what I see as the main risks to the outlook.
Downward Risks
Upward Risks
Source: Financial Times, Jan 13, 2011
I’ll end there. The bottom line is that the 2011
trajectory will be to roughly a doubling of core inflation with a good chance
of headline figures outpacing the rise in core (and perhaps significantly). The
less-stable pricing environment will also likely produce a larger jump in perceived
inflation. There are both upward and downward risks to this forecast, but the
upward risks in my view predominate – especially in the medium- and long-term
outlooks.
The bond market is closed today, Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, but on Tuesday the Empire Manufacturing (Consensus: 13.00 from 10.57) report is due out. The next regular installment of this comment will be on Wednesday morning.’
John
Hussman: Borrowing Returns Hussman ‘As a reminder of how we approach market
valuation, we strongly believe that securities are a claim to a stream of
future cash flows that can actually be expected to be delivered to investors
over time. As a result, we have little sympathy (and history demonstrates
little sympathy) for the popular but misguided practice of applying arbitrary
valuation multiples to forward analyst estimates of earnings. Generally, these
"forward earnings" estimates fail to normalize for fluctuations in
profit margins, return on equity, and other factors that have historically
driven short-term earnings temporarily above and below levels that that would
have a stable, proportional relationship with the present value of subsequent
cash flows. Forward operating earnings estimates are more volatile and more
influenced by recent short-term behavior than can properly be used as a basis
for valuation, and the resulting earnings "misses" can be
particularly extreme at turning points.In the graph below, you'll notice that
the prior peak for S&P 500 trailing net earnings has often been a
reasonable "rule of thumb" estimate of normalized earnings, but in
recent years, temporary spikes in profit margins have periodically driven peak
earnings briefly above properly normalized levels. For that reason, as I wrote
several years ago, prior peak earnings have become increasingly unreliable.
This is particularly true given the actual destruction of book value and
revenue in recent years. It's certainly possible to debate the precise level of
normalized earnings here, but somewhere in the $70-$75 range, which is where we
are at present, is roughly accurate on a trailing net basis. Our
estimates also assume continued future long-term growth of slightly more than
6% annually, as reflected by the red channels.
[chart]
Importantly, since our normalized figure tends to run with earnings peaks rather
than earnings troughs, the corresponding multiple applicable to these earnings
has historically been less than 14 (and was actually closer to 12 in pre-bubble
data, which was typically associated with long-term total returns near 10%
annually). Since "forward operating" earnings are typically about 20%
higher than trailing net, the resulting historical P/E "norms" should
also be adjusted accordingly (which analysts rarely do). None of this is to say
that the earnings peak during the current economic cycle has to be limited to
the present level of normalized earnings - just that more elevated earnings
would not be an appropriate basis on which to compute the long-term value of
stocks.’
The
Teflon Market Is Here [ Just ask the ‘Teflon Don’ … oh, right … he’s dead …The
pervasively corrupt frauds on wall street, the fed, and the u.s. government are
desperate to evade their unequivocal responsibility and overdue punishment
(prosecution, fines, jail, disgorgement) for the last and ongoing (toxic, worthless paper assets now marked to
anything) fraud diverting attention from their own culpability for the prior
bubble/crash and on-going financial / economic crisis, america’s worst economy
and prospects in america’s relatively short history with this contrived bubble
exceeding that precursor to the last crash; “this has never happened before, in
82 years of history”, and a crash is what’s a-coming. This is nothing short of
pathetic desperation that typifies the last gasp of the dead and dying,
figuratively of course. ] Roche
‘Calling this a “bullish” run might be a bit of an understatement. There has
been an unprecedented bid under the market since August 2010. The Bernanke Put
is well entrenched in everyone’s minds. This week ’s spike in jobless claims
was not enough to cause risk appetite to temper as it likely just reminds
investors that rising claims are what led to QE2 to begin with. Indeed, this is
a Federal Reserve that will not allow equity prices to falter to any
substantial degree. Nominal wealth creation has become the rally cry of a group
of economic thinkers who truly have no idea how to create sustainable economic
growth.
The
stats behind this bull market are even more remarkable than the rally itself appears.
As I noted in December the market literally could not
decline. But the data since then shows an even more untouchable
market (via ZeroHedge):
“As a point of reference the S&P
has been above the 10 day average for 30 days straight, and above the 50 day
average for 92 days straight. What is remarkable are some statistical findings
that pertain to the average’s movement with respect to the SMAs. Sentiment
Trader points out that while as part of the recent surge in the
S&P, the market has gone for “92 days without closing below its 50-day
average, which has been matched only 17 other times since 1928.” Where
it gets scary, is that as pointed out, during this time the market has not
closed below the 10 DMA once during the past 30 days. And as Sentiment Trader
notes, “this has never happened before, in 82 years of history.”
Not much else needs to be said. The
teflon market is here.
Update: Some additional thoughts from Jeff
Saut:
Herb Stein once remarked, “If something
can’t go on forever, it won’t!” And, the current “buying stampede” is now 90
sessions long, making it the longest one ever recorded in my notes of more than
40 years. Combine that with many other “finger to wallet” indicators suggesting
caution and I am currently just sitting. Indeed, sometimes me sits and thinks
and sometimes me just sits. As the astute Lowry’s organization opines, “Our
last short term sell-signal for aggressive traders was triggered on December
30th, when the 14-day Stochastic indicator dropped from overbought levels and
crossed below its moving average. A conventional short term sell-signal, for
culling selective stocks [from portfolios], was registered as of
today’s market close (last Friday), when our Short Term Index dropped a total
of more than 6 points from its recent high of 104.” ‘
Don't Fight the Fed: Dave's Daily ‘To be sure, companies like Apple and Intel are doing well
overall. But some companies are doing well due to ongoing Fed financial support
like banks and some auto companies. QE policies are designed to prop stock markets
higher, and with volume light, the job is made easier. Therefore, when worse
than expected economic data is released (Jobless Claims, Consumer Confidence,
Retail Sales, CPI, Chinese tightening and etc) investors toss that information
aside aided by more POMO.
More maddening to more thoughtful people are the lies being bandied about
particularly with inflation data. Food and energy prices are much higher and
eliminating them from the data due to imagined "volatility" is beyond
mere spin. When I was a young college student, my statistics professor gave to
each student a book: "How
to Lie with Statistics." I think it must remain required reading for
BLS, Treasury and Fed officials among others. Let's remember, the government
has a huge entitlement liability geared to inflation statistics. They're
conflicted…The Fed is just repeating what's worked for them before--another
bubble…’
Bullish
Sentiment Dips, But Optimism Is Still High Rotblut
‘Bullish sentiment declined 3.5 percentage points to 52.3% in the latest AAII
Sentiment Survey. Despite the dip, optimism that stock prices will rise stayed
above its historical average of 39% for the 19th consecutive week, matching the
streak set in the second half of 2004.
Neutral
sentiment, expectations that stock prices will be essentially flat over the
next six months, slipped 1.6 percentage points to 24.2%. This was the 23rd
consecutive week that neutral sentiment has been below its historical average
of 31%.
Bearish
sentiment, expectations that stock prices will fall over the next six months,
rose 5.2 percentage points to 23.4%. Though this is a four-week high for
pessimism, pessimism is below its historical average for the 16th time in the
past 18 weeks.
Though
there was a decline this week, bullish sentiment remains in the range that has
largely held over the past six weeks. This has resulted in the eight-week
moving average reaching 53%, its highest level since January 6, 2005. High
levels of bullish sentiment have been correlated with market reversals, but
other indicators should be considered before making a market forecast.
As
noted above, bullish sentiment has been above its historical average for 19
consecutive weeks, matching the streak set during the period of August 26
through December 30, 2004. A record streak of 42 consecutive weeks occurred
during the period of May 29, 2003, through March 11, 2004, when investors
realized that a recovery from the decade’s first bear market was fully
underway.
This week’s special question asked AAII members about their expectations for fourth-quarter earnings. Most respondents expected profits to be good with companies continuing to experience growth. There was not a consensus on how much profits would be up, however.
After seeing the price of gold continue to climb and
reading all the ...http://blogs.forbes.com/.../gary-shilling-says-housing-will-get-much-worse Gary Shilling
Sees `Significant' Stock Selloff Within 12 Months ...Nov 12, 2010 ... Gary
Shilling , who predicted the U.S. housing collapse, says the stock market
is overvalued and foresees a “significant” selloff within a ... ]
Early in 2008, in his monthly Insight report, Shilling laid out
13 investment themes for the year ahead that proved to be 100% dead-on
accurate--a perfect 13-for-13--and they proved extremely profitable for his Insight
readers.
Here's a scorecard to show how Shilling's forecast
from 2008 has panned out:
1. Sell or
sell short homebuilder stocks and bonds.
2. If you
plan to sell your home, second home or investment home anytime soon, do so
yesterday.
3. Sell
short subprime mortgages.
4. Sell or
sell short housing-related stocks.
5. Sell or
sell short consumer discretionary spending companies.
6. Sell
low-grade fixed-income securities.
7. Sell or
avoid most commercial real estate.
8. Short
commodities.
9. Sell or
sell short emerging market equities.
10. Sell
emerging country bonds.
11. Buy
the dollar before long.
12. Sell
or sell short U.S. stocks in general.
13. Buy
long Treasury bonds.
Gary Shilling released 12 New
Strategies for thriving during the market melt-down. We call
it his "Bear Market Tool Kit."
You can access his recommendations when you subscribe to Gary Shilling's
Insight. And by subscribing now, you’ll ensure that you will receive Gary
Shilling’s investment strategies for 2011 and beyond.
Are the brokers and television analysts who
constantly parrot the "conventional wisdom" paying serious attention
to any of Shilling's predictions? Probably not. Gary looks for hidden investment opportunities, which often
means going against the conventional wisdom. And when you learn more about
Gary's credentials and his track record, you will realize that everyone who
doesn't pay attention to what he says might end up with some serious egg on
their faces.
Gary has twice been
ranked as Wall Street’s top economist by polls in Institutional
Investor; he was also named the country’s number one Commodity Trader
Advisor by Futures magazine. And in 2003, MoneySense ranked him
as the 3rd best stock market forecaster, right behind Warren Buffett. He also
challenges the consensus in appearances on CNBC.
Gary also has a long-standing reputation for
independent thought...and for getting it right. Back in 1969, he correctly
predicted, to the surprise of many, the 1969-1970 recession. In the early
1970s, he stood alone in predicting the severe 1973-1975 global recession. In
the late 1970s, when double-digit inflation was raging, Gary was nearly unique in
forecasting dwindling inflation rates as well as the wonderful stock and bond
markets that lay ahead.
Gary has been running away from the
herd for years, and he’s been nearly alone in making some early, and accurate,
calls:
•In early 1999, in the midst of the Internet stock
boom, Gary Shilling was nearly alone in warning of a collapse in tech stocks.
In January 2000, with stocks still strong, Gary Shilling said a major bear
market was at hand. In November 2000, he foresaw total declines of 30%-40% in the
Dow Industrials, 40%-50% in the S&P 500 and 70%-80% in the Nasdaq—right on
target with the overall decline of 35% in the Dow, 49% in the S&P and 78%
in the Nasdaq.
•While bulls were talking up housing, Gary was nearly
alone for years in warning of a collapse well before the rest of the crowd saw
any signs that something was amiss.
Wouldn’t you have benefited from such insights? Gary
Shilling's Insight readers were not only well-prepared when the bad news
began to unfold, but were also equipped to make money while others suffered.
}
Rotblut
cont’d
Here
is a sampling of the responses:
Historical Averages:
The AAII Sentiment Survey has been
conducted weekly since July 1987 and asks AAII members whether they think stock
prices will rise, remain essentially flat, or fall over the next six months.
The survey period runs from Thursday (12:01 a.m.) to Wednesday (11:59 p.m.).
The survey and its results are available online.’
Just
One Bank
Failure Today There was only one closure today which brings the total number of bank
failures for 2011 to three. Oglethorpe Bank in Brunswick, Georgia was
closed by ...
Bond Panic to Weigh on Stocks Cadora ‘Despite the stock market's seemingly inexorable rise,
clues to a coming crisis continue to build, promising not only to bring down
equity prices sooner rather than later, but also to make the correction much
more severe than most expect. As readers of my Member Letter know, I have been
anticipating a dollar crisis to visit markets sometime in the first half of
2011, spurred by an exodus from bonds as the Federal Reserve continues its
malfeasant policies. In now seems the dollar crisis will be paired with a panic
in the municipal bond market.
[chart](Click
to enlarge)
The Illinois legislature's decision to raise taxes as a means to fill its
budget gap sets an ominous tone for the municipal bond market. The message is
clear: politicians will attempt to drain taxpayer resources rather than control
outrageous spending habits. In other words, the root of the budget problem will
be ignored. This direction is bearish not only for munis, but also for the
economy.
A muni bond meltdown will be detrimental to the dollar in more than one way,
not the least of which comes from the dollar's chief persecutor, Ben Bernanke.
Despite Bernanke's persistent denials that the Fed would step in to bail out a
state government, pressure will grow on him to do so as the crisis worsens. It
will be interesting to see if his political will fails him again.
Higher interest rates from bond markets ... both municipal and Federal ... will
do no favors for the stock market. In fact, a sense of crisis will exacerbate
an equity decline. I have proposed to readers that when this crisis hits,
stocks will fall in tandem with the dollar rather than being supported by its
decline. That period of positive correlation may be just in front of us.
The stock
market itself is looking quite exhausted. According to my cycle analysis,
equities are due for a dive into a yearly low. Several market indicators also
suggest the time is ripe for stocks to roll over.
[chart]
(Click to enlarge)
[chart]
(Click to enlarge)
[chart]
(Click to enlarge)
Consider also
that the respectable work performed over at sentimentrader.com shows several
sentiment extremes ... all bearish for the equity outlook ... including a very
large gap between smart money and dumb money confidence. The stage is set for a
significant stock market correction and this week's breakdown in the muni bond
market may provide the needed catalyst.’
Tech-Heavy
ETF Hits Short-Term Extreme - High Probability of Reverting to Mean? Cowder ‘It was just another day in the park for the
bulls. The continued push since the gap became higher on Jan. 3 has managed to
push the tech-heavy QQQQ into a short-term “very overbought” extreme with an
RSI (2) at 98.4. As I always state, when an ETF typically reaches an extreme of
this manner, the market fades over the short-term (1-3 days). A move that
pushes QQQQ lower would likely close the gap at $54.62, which would mean a 3.5%
loss for the QQQQ.
A
move like this would certainly be advantageous for my current open positions in
both the High-Probability and Mean-Reversion strategy. Yes, I took a position
later in the afternoon in the tech-heavy index and so far I like the
probability on this one. All of the short-term technical indicators that I
follow are reading extremes, so I had no choice but to take a position.
Intel
(INTC) comes out after the bell tomorrow and
should be quite the catalyst for the QQQQ’s next move. I would love to say that
the next move is definitely going to be bearish over the short-term, but as we
all know in trading, even when M-R probability is leaning heavily towards your
side, there are no guarantees.
Short-Term High-Probability, Mean-Reversion Indicator – as of
close 1/11/10
Benchmark ETFs
Sector ETFs
International ETFs
Commodity ETFs
Ultra Extremes
Disclosure: I am short QQQQ.
Initial
Jobless Claims Rise 35,000 ‘NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The number of Americans filing unemployment
claims unexpectedly rose last week, the Labor Department said early Thursday.
The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims increased by 35,000
to 445,000 in the week ended Jan.8, the highest level since October. Economists
were expecting initial claims to drop to 405,000, according to consensus
estimates from Bloomberg. Estimates ranged from 400,000 to 415,000…’
An
Amazing Statistic About Our Abnormal Market [ The only thing amazing is
that no one has come forth to state how preposterous this ‘modern day miracle
of computerized programming technology’ can make unreality so appealingly and
seemingly real that all are swept away with this tsunami of b*** s*** until
it’s too late, which as preceding other crashes, seems furthest from thoughts,
mind, and plausibility until invariably, grim reality comes a-calling and this scenario
as before will end as before especially quite badly. ] ‘Rev Shark
at Realmoney.com posted an amazing statistic which I believe he found at
sentimenttrader.com.
According to Sentimentrader.com, the S&P 500 has
now gone 92 days without closing below its 50-day moving average. That has only
happened 17 times since 1928. But what is really amazing is that over the past 30 days, we haven't
closed below the 10-day moving average even once. That has never happened in
the last 82 years of market history.
As I've stated multiple times, it is not the rally we
are experiencing that is strange, it is the total inability to pullback at any
point that is boggling to anyone who has more than 6 months of market history
under their belt.
Don't forget in September and October we did not
close below the 13 day moving average for 2 months in a row. Indeed other than
a hiccup caused by Ireland, we might be working on the 5th month of no
pullbacks.
This is an abnormal market. Anyone using historical
context to trade is lost at sea. Congratulations to Mr. Brian Sack, the
Bernank, and his POMO crew for
making a mockery of traditional somewhat 'free' markets
Nevertheless, balance sheet policy can still lower
longer-term borrowing costs for many households and businesses, and it adds to
household wealth by keeping asset prices higher than they otherwise would be.
Amen Brian. In the future I'd just eliminate the
middle man (primary dealers) and just buy SPY futures directly on a daily
basis, much more efficient than our current charade. Granted that removes the
Wizard of Oz effect (don't look behind the curtain - it's magic), but at least
it would be intellectually honest. (I know, I know - primary dealers don't
"buy stock directly" blah blah)
[Jan 6, 2010: Charles Biderman of TrimTabs Claims US Government Supporting Stock Market]’
13%
Thursday - When Will You Capitulate? Davis ‘It’s starting! [chart] The last of
the bears are now capitulating. We’re hearing it in Member Chat and we’re
reading it in analyst reports and we’re seeing the fund managers on TV – it is
very out of vogue to be a bear.
Just a few weeks ago, I pointed out to Members how
few bears remained by saying "Look to your left, look to your right,
look in front of you and look behind you – you would be the only bear."
That was way back when "only" 20% of investors were bearish
– as of yesterday, we lost 1/3 of those poor creatures and now only 13% of the
market is bearish. Now you can look diagonally as well and you’ll STILL be the
only bear!
Certainly the
market seems to be proving the primary axiom of "You can’t fight the
Fed." Pretty much no matter what happens, the market goes up. Bryan
Leighton from Traddr! makes a good point saying: "It’s a neutral
to positive market and the only thing that can change that is some sort of
surprise event out of Europe or out of Asia or something major out of the US
that the Fed is not ready for or prepared for. If they are prepared for it – it
will not happen – it will not have a major effect on the markets."
That’s the
reality we’re dealing with out there. As long as the Fed and their pet IBanks
are running the markets and as long as volume is at 3-year lows, allowing the TradeBots
to control each move – then it is wrong to be a bear. But, is it 87% wrong? 87%
bullish sentiment isn’t just "very" bullish – it’s a new,
historic high. It’s like going to a
fight where the entire crowd only cheers for one guy which, like
professional wrestling, would be an automatic indication that the game must be fake, Fake, FAKE!
As you can see
from this longer-term chart, we are as extremely bullish now as we were
extremely bearish in the two worst market events of the past quarter-century.
Much the way that Black Monday of 1987 and the Crashes of 2008/9 were unique
buying opportunities at 15% bullish, this may be a unique shorting opportunity
at 15% bearish that you are not likely to see again for decades.
As an optimist,
it
was easy for me to say 'buy' when I was one of the 15% still bullish in March
of 2009 – don’t expect the same conviction from me about selling in January
of 2011. We are generally bullish. We are long-term bullish. BUT – and it’s a Big But (not to
mention blasphemy) – I don’t think The Bernank is either all powerful or
infallible and I do believe that "some sort of surprise event out of
Europe or out of Asia or something major out of the US" could happen
at any moment so, as
I said yesterday – we remain short-term cautious between now and April,
even as the rest of the market marches towards 99% bullish around us.
This does not
stop us from making some bullish plays – in fact Scott
of Sabrient just reviewed the 4 Dark Horse Trader’s Hedge plays we’ve been
tracking in a virtual portfolio since the fall and the only problem we’ve been
having is they are too successful as the stocks have been outpacing
our expectations and we have to let go of both Veeco Instruments (VECO)
(with a 36% profit in 5 months) and World Acceptance Corp. (WRLD)
(with a 25% profit in 3 months) because the stocks performed so well that
they’re not worth adjusting our hedges anymore. That’s why we like our bullish
to neutral Buy/Write Strategy, we can’t be harmed to the upside, only forced to
take our profits off the table and find anther partner to dance with – which
isn’t a bad forced discipline on stocks that are running ahead of 100% annual
gains.
Could
we make more money by just "going for it" and being 100% bullish?
Sure we could, and once inflation takes hold and begins to snowball the markets
higher, that is exactly what we’re going to do but, as I have pointed out
before – missing the first 100% move up in the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange wasn’t a
big deal since it was followed by moves of 1,000%, 1,000,000%, 1,000,000,000%
and 1,000,000,000,000% before the markets finally calmed down. On the other
hand, people who participated in Brazil’s 100% run in 8 months that began in
October of 2007 found themselves right back where they started just 4 months
later.
We
participated 100% bullishly since our June
26th Buy List, which was followed by July 7th’s "9
Fabulous Dow Plays Plus a Chip Shot," July 26th's "Turning
$10K to $50K by Jan 21st" (halfway there), August 29th’s "Defending
Your Portfolio With Dividends" and September 3rd’s "September’s
Dozen." That’s how we played the rally from S&P 1,030 to
1,160 (10%).
On October
3rd, I put up "October’s
Overbought Eight" and they were AMZN, BIDU, CMG,
FSLR,
MOS,
NFLX, PCLN
and TLT. Needless to say,
we got stopped out of most of those pretty quickly and that led to a Q4 version
of "Defending
Your Portfolio With Dividends" on October 23rd (S&P
1,180) and we rode those out through December 11th, when we got tired of
waiting for a correction and (at S&P 1,240) went with "Breakout
Defense – 5,000% in 5 Trades or Less" and those were
followed with December 25th’s (S&P 1,256) "Secret
Santa’s Inflation Hedges for 2011" also with a few trades
aimed at making around 500% should the rally continue.
So why is it,
with only one bearish Member Portfolio in 7 months, that I feel like I might be
too bearish? Well, for one thing – I’m getting lonely. I work on the Web and my
colleagues in the MSM and the Blogosphere have pretty much all found religion
and developed an almost unshakable faith in The Bernank, in China, in Corporate
America, in Commodities – you name it, they think it can’t go wrong. So much so
that the VIX, which measures the market’s expectation of stock market
volatility over the next 30 day period, has dropped all the way to 16.
Now 16 isn’t
"low" for the VIX, it’s actually about the historic average.
It is, however a far cry from 89 in 2008 and 48 as recently as May and if you
tell me I now have less to worry about today than I did in 2007 when we were
still in the middle of a major rally and 60% of investors were bullish and the VIX
was in the mid-20s, I have to ask you why? 10% more people are unemployed than
in 2007, the World is $18Tn more in debt than it was then, Inflation has
tripled (although you can argue that playing inflation IS the bullish premise),
Global GDP projections are 1/2 of what they were, Banks are unstable, States
are unstable and Nations are unstable yet I am supposed to buy Netflix (NFLX) (we
are short) with a p/e multiple of 71.50 or AMZN with a p/e of 74.50 (we want to
be short) based primarily on my faith that the Great
Bernanke in the sky would not let anything bad happen to my investments?
Well
sorry, call me an atheist, call it blasphemy, but I do not have 100% faith in
the Great Bernanke in the sky. I may have had 60% faith and I may have even had
70% faith but I DO NOT have 87% faith that Bernanke will overcome all those
MASSIVE, SCARY, DANGEROUS Global obstacles that are still littering the
investing landscape and take us to the promised land of S&P 1,500. Does
that make me bearish or sensibly cautious? When 87% of the market is bullish,
then sensibly cautious looks a lot like bearish, doesn’t it?
Perhaps that’s
why people like the right Reverend Jim Cramer and his Cult of the MoMo Stocks
irritate me lately. That man has FAITH! Well, either faith or he’s being paid
off by fund managers to pimp their stocks so they can dump them on Jimmy’s
fanatical followers while they pick up whatever he’s chasing people out of on
the cheap – it’s hard to tell….
I was the lone
bullish preacher in the wilderness in March of 2009 so I have seen the promised
land of recovery and, unlike Dr. King, who said "I may not get
there with you" and was, unfortunately, right, I fully
intend to get there and I want us all to get there with our portfolios intact
so we will continue to hedge the market following the sound policy advocated by
Ronald Reagan when dealing with the Russians, which was: "Trust — but
verify."
I
pointed out on the first trading day of 2011 that we expected January to be
heavily manipulated right up to expiration. Assuming Lloyd and Co. were lazy
and using the same Alpha 2 Bot program they ran last January, we were looking
for a 300 point run that tops out at 11,850 on the Dow and 1,285 on the S&P
and we hit goal on the S&P yesterday, to the penny of where I said we’d be
on Jan 3rd – trusted and verified. Now we will see how the next 7 market
sessions play out into expiration day. If we pop higher – we’re off the pattern
and we’ll have to consider leaving the 13%, shouting hallelujah and joining
the crowd but, if we flatline or fail to hold – then you can expect the first
Member Portfolio of 2011 to be a bearish one!’
E.U.
seeks to expand bailout fund to calm markets (Washington Post) [Nyaradi
The
Sick Man Tries to Save the Terminally Ill (
I can’t recall the specific phrase, but applied
here it goes something like this, ‘Japan with
a debt to GDP ratio of 200% is going to save Europe, but who’s going to save
Japan’. Let’s get real
here as the u.s. house-building with decks, as in Titanics and reshuffled /
rearranged deck chairs, of cards, as in ‘houses of cards’, becomes insanely
ubiquitous worldwide and will systemically (now globally) end quite badly. This
is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits since there is much,
much worse to come. ) Nyaradi ‘It was a quiet
day yesterday for ETFs and stocks in world markets as most exchange traded
funds recovered recent losses amid reduced tensions in Europe.Incredibly,
Japan’s intent to buy European bonds was the catalyst for the more positive
atmosphere in Europe, and as the title of this article suggests, this is truly
the sick man trying to save the terminally ill…see infra… ’ ] Nations
expand the scope of the euro-zone bailout fund, saying more support is
necessary as investors worry about the prospects of Portugal and Spain.
The
Sick Man Tries to Save the Terminally Ill [
I can’t
recall the specific phrase, but applied here it goes something like this,
‘Japan with a debt to GDP ratio of 200% is going to save Europe, but who’s
going to save Japan’. Let’s get real here as the u.s. house-building with
decks, as in Titanics and reshuffled / rearranged deck chairs, of cards, as in
‘houses of cards’, becomes insanely ubiquitous worldwide and will systemically
(now globally) end quite badly. This is an especially great opportunity to sell
/ take profits since there is much, much worse to come. ] Nyaradi
‘It was a quiet day yesterday for ETFs and stocks in world markets as
most exchange traded funds recovered recent losses amid reduced tensions in
Europe.
Incredibly,
Japan’s intent to buy European bonds was the catalyst for the more positive
atmosphere in Europe, and as the title of this article suggests, this is truly
the sick man trying to save the terminally ill.
The
soap opera in Europe, like every soap opera, is getting boring. It starts with
rising interest rates and credit default swap rates which is met by the
concerned government proclaiming that they’re totally solvent and will never
need a bailout which ends up to be exactly what happens.
Portugal
will be selling 10 year notes today, Wednesday, and its ten year debt has stood
largely above 7% in recent days. When rates in Greece and Ireland hit these
levels, bailouts came within days in both cases. Italy and Spain go to the bond
trough this week, as well, and so it will be an active few days in Europe.
Bottom
line; get ready for an ECB bailout of Portugal coming soon, possibly this week.
At
home, we move into earnings season, Illinois is moving towards an income tax
increase to deal with its budget deficit while Governor Brown in California
begins to sell his austerity plans.
Daily Moves for Major ETFs:
Dow
Jones Industrials: (NYSEArca: DIA) +0.30%
Russell
2000: (NYSEArca: IWM) -0.47%
NASDAQ
100: (NasdaqGM: QQQQ) +0.41%
S&P
500 Index: (NYSEArca: SPY) +0.37%
MSCI
Emerging Markets:(NYSEArca: EEM) +1.06%
MSCI
China (NYSEArca: FXI) +1.13%
Gold
(NYSEArca: GLD) +0.59%
7-10
Year Treasuries: (NYSEArca: IEF) -0.39%
20+
Year Treasuries: (NYSEArca: TLT) -0.56%
VIX
-3.71%
U.S.
Dollar (NYSE:Arca: (NYSE:Arca: UUP) -0.08%
The
major indexes remain overvalued and overbought on a technical and fundamental
basis and so Wall Street Sector Selector remains in “Yellow Flag” status,
expecting choppy to lower prices ahead.’
Lunch with Marc Faber: Predictions and Insights Sinn – ‘Tuesday I had the pleasure of meeting Marc
Faber for the first time and I thoroughly enjoyed his detailed, logical, and
smooth-flowing presentation. Faber is good on television, but he is much better
live as he is more open with regard to his disdain for Bernanke, Greenspan,
Krugman et al. He even ended the Q&A portion by saying ‘I hope you have a
better idea of what to do with your wealth, but what you do with your
client’s wealth is another story’. Below I have listed the main concepts that
Faber’s presentation impressed on my thinking:
Key takeaways
from Marc Faber Luncheon- January 11, 2011
The Eurozone
is worse off than even the U.S. at this point because they lack a single fiscal
authority. It is difficult to implement a federal/super-sovereign approach in
the Eurozone due to challenge of implementing a single taxing authority with
supervisory and enforcement powers.
When asked
about the possibility of dividing the Eurozone into a north and south euro, he
dismissed this idea as being very unlikely.
The most
likely path forward for the Eurozone will be for the ECB to continue to
monetize the sovereign debt of the weaker Member States. He also stressed the
point that the ultimate solution will be highly political and unpredictable and
that there will be plenty of ‘noise’ on the way to the final outcome.
Faber is
concerned about a slowdown in China and India over the next 3-6 months. China
currently has negative real interest rates and may need to raise rates over 100
basis points in order to bring the real interest rate back near zero. He also
mentioned that he had recently reduced his investment exposure to China and
India.
Faber seemed
most bullish on the price of oil and pointed out that Chinese consumers consume
only 2 barrels of oil per capita/year while US consumers consume over 20
barrels of oil per capita/year.
Faber pointed
out how under leveraged Asian consumers are compared to Western European/ US
consumers. He cited that only 10% of Vietnamese have a bank account which
demonstrates how much room there is for leveraging in Asia.
·He was VERY
bearish on U.S. government debt long term and even pointed to a chart of US
10-year note yields over the past 60 years. He then waved the laser pointer to
indicate that yields will eventually go past the early 1980s highs.
·He
illustrated the performance of Mexican government bonds and the peso currency
from the late 1970s to 1988. The peso lost 98% of its value vs. the US dollar
and Mexican bonds performed horribly while Mexican equities priced in US dollars
ended the 10-year period slightly positive.
Finally, Faber
pointed out that there is potential for geopolitical tensions between China and
India as they compete for natural resources (oil, water). He pointed out that
China and India share the Brahmaputra River. There has been continued
speculation that China plans to build a dam on the river in order to divert
water to the North of the country (Doug Kass also mentioned the possibility of
a military conflict between China and India over this river in his year end
predictions for 2011). In addition, Faber explained that China isn’t happy
about the US recommendation that India join the UN Security Council.
Oddly enough,
I agree with almost everything Dr. Faber discussed. However, I doubt that gold
will undergo a 20% correction this year (I would say 10-15% is the maximum
unless there were to be a complete paradigm shift in monetary policy from the
ECB/Fed). The crowd was most amused by Dr. Faber’s disdainful comments about
Messieurs Bernanke, Greenspan, and Krugman.
While I agree
with the latter two, I believe Chairman Bernanke is doing the only thing he can
do with the terrible hand he has been dealt. I also believe the possibility of
a military confrontation between China and India is extremely remote due to the
potential magnitude of the consequences. Dr. Faber managed to cause me to be
even more concerned about the state of the US fiscal situation than I already
was. I didn’t think that was possible, but when he explained the US would be
using 30% of total tax revenues just to pay interest on the national debt
within a few years, I realized the situation was more serious than even I had
realized. Disclosure: I
am long GLD.’
Cupcake
Capitalism Offers Hope for New Bubble: Jonathan Weil Weil
‘The first thing every prospective investor should know about Crumbs Holdings
LLC, which operates 34 cupcake shops, is that there was an error in the first
sentence of its Jan. 10 press release announcing the New York retailer’s
planned public listing on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Crumbs called
itself the “creator of the gourmet cupcake.” The claim is false. Crumbs didn’t
create the gourmet cupcake. I did, or at least that’s how I choose to remember
it.
It was a
glorious Sunday morning in October 1976. I was six years old. My mom helped me
follow the instructions on a box of Duncan
Hines cake mix. I added Frosted Flakes to the icing, spread the sugary goo
on top of my creations, and dubbed them Jonny’s Chocolate Crunchcakes. They
were Gr-r-reat!
Crumbs
executives say they plan to expand to 200 locations within four years, a
sixfold increase. They’ll have no need for a traditional initial public
offering, though. Crumbs plans to do a reverse merger with a publicly traded
shell company called 57th
Street General Acquisition Corp.
It’s easy to
dismiss the cupcake craze’s arrival on Wall Street as just another
indicator of a world gone mad, because it is. Yet there’s a serious point here,
too. This may be one of the most hopeful signs in a long time that the economic
boom-to- bust cycle may be returning to boom again.
Think about
it. Would a chain of stores selling outsourced $4.50 cupcakes have stood a
chance at luring stock-market investors three years ago, when the banking
crisis was driving the world into a global recession? No way. Yet now the red
velvet carpet is out for the likes of Crumbs Bake Shop. The opportunities for
other entrepreneurs seem endless.
Master Plan
Before long,
sophisticated investors may once again line up to throw money at sure-fire
concepts like iron-on T-shirts and collectible plush toys. This must be good news,
whether you’re a central banker or a maxed-out office worker buying a caramel
apple on credit. It’s evidence that our global economic leaders’ master plan is
working. That would be to spend our way out of the last bubble’s wreckage with money
we don’t have, until we can create a new bubble to wealth-effect our troubles
away.
To be sure,
the news from Crumbs
doesn’t signal an actual bubble, only the promise of one. But it does tempt us
to consider that there may be real bubbles, even monstrous ones, soon. To
accomplish this, we’ll need the titans of industry and finance to remain united
in pressing for the common good. And there’s positive news on this front.
Remorse-Free
Zone
This week
Barclays Plc’s chief executive, Robert Diamond, told
British parliamentarians it’s time for banks to stop apologizing and start
rebuilding confidence. “There was a period of remorse and apology for banks.
That period needs to be over,” he told a House of Commons committee in London.
When this
period of remorse supposedly occurred, I’m not sure. What matters, though, is
that the world now appears to be coming around to Diamond’s way of thinking,
which is that we must all agree to be confident.
Similarly,
last week President Barack
Obama picked a top JPMorgan Chase & Co. banker and former Fannie Mae
board member, William Daley, to be his new chief of staff. Amazingly, hardly
anyone complained. It seems Americans are too busy trying to
figure out how to buy pre-IPO shares of Facebook and Twitter. Distrust of Wall
Street is so 2009.
You also can
see the seeds of this new era in our corporate leaders’ math. The same day
Crumbs said it would go public, Groupon Inc., which claims to have been called
“the fastest growing company ever” by Forbes magazine, issued a press release under this headline: “Groupon Raises,
Like, A Billion Dollars.” Actually the amount was $950 million. But we can all
agree that a billion grabs more attention.
All of which
shows there’s hope for the world’s economy to return quickly to rapid growth,
as long as we work together to figure out how we can get in all these new
bubbles and sell at just the right time, before everyone else figures out when
that is. Then we can be rich again. That is, until the next bust, by which time
we’ll have moved on to even bigger booms.
All we have to
do is believe. Jonathan
Weil is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.) To
contact the writer of this column: Jonathan Weil in New York at [email protected]
‘
Four Financial Farces That Will End in Disaster Summers ‘At this point the news out of the financial world is more insane than
… well, just about anything.
Farce #1: Japan Can Bail Out Anything.
First
off, Japan, which has a debt to GDP ratio of 200%, is bailing out Europe, which
has a smaller but equally disturbing debt problem. Yes, one broke country
(Japan) is now trying to bail out an entire economic union, despite the fact
that it hasn't succeeded in managing its own finances or economy in over 20
years.Indeed, the idea that Japan could bail out anyone when it’s failed to
create any substantial economic growth despite spending trillions of yen should
give you an idea of just how out of control the entire financial system has
become. We are literally in the end game now. Unless Martians come down and
start bailing out Earth, the Great Sovereign Default will be in full effect
within the next six months.
Farce #2: Inflation Is at 1%.
Meanwhile,
Ben Bernanke claims that inflation in the U.S. is at 1%. President Obama has to
maintain that this is a fact with a straight face next week when he meets with
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is witnessing food riots in Algeria due
to soaring food prices.The Fed has claimed inflation is under control for
months now, proving that its members must not eat food, drive cars, or know how
to read. Indeed, in order to ignore rising prices in the U.S., you would
literally have to not shop for groceries, not pump gas into your car, not read
the newspaper, and not have access to the Internet or any financial news
outlet.I sincerely hope that the Fed is not run by folks who fit this
description, but after reading the next two farces, I’m not so sure.
Farce #3: QE Is Working.
Various
Fed officials have stepped forward to claim that its Quantitative Easing
program has worked. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the whole purpose of
QE was to lower interest rates.How then do you explain the following? [chart]As
you can see, interest rates have soared since the Fed implemented QE 2. It’s
not like QE has helped the U.S. economy either; food stamp usage has hit new
records since it began.And yet the Fed claims that QE is not only working, but
we need more of it. However, even that farce pales compared to the next and
final financial farce of today’s essay.
Farce #4: The Folks Managing the Fed’s QE Efforts Have No Investing
Experience.
Then,
of course, there’s the recent revelation that the Fed’s monetary policies
involving the purchasing of trillions of U.S. Treasuries are in the hands of
folks aged 26, 29, and 34, none of whom have any investing experience whatsoever.And
they’re in charge of buying up trillions in U.S. debt.If, at this point, it’s
not clear that the entire financial system is not a disaster waiting to happen,
then I don’t know what else to say. Indeed, our entire system is built on fraud
and managed by folks who don’t know what they’re doing. And if you think
they’ll steer us to safety, consider that around the globe we’re already
beginning to see signs of systemic collapse.Indeed, I believe we are in fact on
the verge of another round of deflation which will take prices down across the
board as the U.S. dollar rallies. However, this period will be short-lived as
it will be followed by a U.S. dollar collapse soon after.At that point, the
next stage is the paper currency collapse, the stage at which inflation
accelerates as the U.S. dollar collapses, destroying purchasing power while
inflation hedges explode higher.Some, like the most popular picks (gold and
silver bullion), will record strong gains. However, others (the ones that 99.9%
of the investment world are currently clueless about), will go absolutely
parabolic.’
Volume Still Incredibly Weak: Dave's Daily - ‘Words fail me frankly, but I'll
attempt a posting here knowing volume remains incredibly weak as markets are
supported primarily by Ben's POMO
activities. As the Fed was buying 5-year bonds, the Treasury was selling 3-year
notes--um, left hand, right hand. Markets did get a boost early by an upgrade
of HPQ by UBS combined with easing tensions in the habitually troubled euro
zone. To the latter, the Japanese said they'd be buyers of euro zone debt to
show support for the region. Trouble is, will the EU reciprocate? Alcoa's
earnings report, complex as always, was greeted by some selling. Verizon
announced it would feature the iPhone which led to some light selling of VZ and
AAPL--such is the level of conviction currently…’
Janney Technical Analyst Sees 3-5% Correction In S&P 500
'Looming' Coleman ‘Janney Capital Markets’ technical
analyst Dan
Wantrobski sent a note to
clients Tuesday afternoon saying that he’s moved into the bear’s camp.A 3-5%
correction on the S&P 500 index is “looming,” he added, with the first stop
being the benchmark’s 50-day moving average.The S&P 500’s 50-day moving
average, an often-mentioned short-term indicator, is currently sitting at 1228,
says the analyst.
His main points include:
“The VIX has hit levels that in the past two years
accompanied corrections in the market. True, the VIX could actually breakdown
and head even lower from here- but if it holds support at 15 (currently it’s
17.06), it would suggestive of a market turn, in our opinion,” Wantrobski
wrote.
The worst positioned sectors, he finds, are (with a representative ETF): Retail (XRT), Consumer Staples (XLP), Telecom (IYZ) and Gold (GLD).Of course, a close proxy for the blue chip benchmark is the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY).’
Sam
Stovall: Extreme Bullishness a Concern - Stocks Will Probably Correct Levy ‘Sam Stovall is chief investment strategist at
Standard & Poor’s Equity Research as well as the author of The Seven Rules of Wall Street and the column Stovall's
Sector Watch, a page on Spoutlook.com.
Harlan
Levy: How do you rate the jobs
situation, and what are the implications for this year?
Sam Stovall: I was disappointed from a payroll perspective but
was encouraged from an unemployment rate standpoint. What’s more I was
encouraged to see a decline in the number of the underemployed, because it
implies that the drop in the unemployment rate was not due to job seekers
giving up in frustration.
However, the jobs
situation is still the biggest impediment to the stock market’s performance in
2011. S&P Chief Econoist David Wyss continues to believe that unemployment
will likely remain above 9 percent for all of 2011 and that this will remain a
jobless economic and stock market recovery.
If, however, we
find that the payroll picture improves more rapidly than anticipated, we
believe the upward trajectory in economic and market performance will
accelerate.
H.L.: The level of investor optimism about the stock
market seems extreme these days. How bullish are you on stocks?
S.S.: I do think that the extreme level of investor
optimism is something to be concerned about in the near term, but it does not
stop me from being optimistic for the longer term. The recent spate of
better-than-expected economic reports combined with the still strong forecasted
increase in earnings supports the seasonal tendency for the S&P 500 to be
strong in both the January and the first-quarter of a president’s third year in
office.
That said, the
stock market usually gives investors a second opportunity to get back in at
lower prices. By that I mean since World War II 89 percent of the time the
S&P 500 has been lower at some point in the new year as compared with the
closing level of the prior year. Of course, past performance is no guarantee of
future results, and this year’s market action might fail to take a breather,
but I doubt it. So I don’t think it’s wise to be chasing returns right now,
because nearly nine times out of every 10 the market in the new year trades
about 9 percent below the closing level of the prior year.
H.L.: Has the stock market priced in the massive debts of
the states and cities and towns?
S.S.: That’s a very good question. I’m not really sure.
The market seems to go back and forth between fear and complacency as it
relates to debt on a variety of levels, be it sovereign, state, local, or
personal. When it comes to the states’ debts, they’re facing monumental
obligations that they may have a very hard time fulfilling. California is
certainly substantially larger than the economies of Greece and Ireland, and if
you add Illinois to the equation, there would be substantial reason to be
worried should these states default on their obligations.
Based on the
absence of meaningful discussion of a potential default, that leads me to
believe that the market does not expect default to be a likely outcome. I’m
worried that we’re putting it on the back burner, but it’s obviously not
affecting the market. It’s the outlook of the bears versus the outlook of the
bulls. Bears focus on structural problems , things that take years to
materialize, whereas bulls tend to look at nearer term events and basically say
the trend is my friend until it ends. Chances are the bears will eventually be
proved correct, but people ignore the bears because it takes so long. By then a
lot of people have just stopped listening. I don’t know that they should not be
ignoring it. The market tends to evaluate everything and attempts to put it in
perspective. Sometimes they’re wrong -- like when it came to housing and the
financial crisis -- and they might be ignoring it currently at their own peril
later on.
That’s why I
always think it’s wise to use both fundamental and technical analysis, since
fundamentals tell you what and technicals tell you when. Right
now the fundamentals are positive from a mainstream Gross Domestic Product
perspective as well as a corporate earnings standpoint, but there are a lot of
potential pitfalls from housing, unemployment, and debt that may yet
materialize. Technically speaking, however, the trend is still our friend and
implies further upside. Should these worries be moved from the back burner to
the front burner once again, the charts will likely give us advanced warning.
H.L.: What sectors of the economy look healthy and which
don’t?
S.S.: All sectors of the S&P 500 are expected to post
positive year-over year results in the fourth quarter of 2010 as well as the
full year of 2010 and in 2011. The strongest earnings increases in 2011 are
likely to be seen in the cyclical areas of the economy, such as industrials,
technology, energy, and materials.
The defensive
areas, which are also typically slow-growth areas, are likely to be just that,
the laggards in corporate profit growth this year.
H.L.: Will the dollar stay strong, and if so is that bad
for stocks, the way it recently has been?
S.S.: The dollar may decline from a technical perspective
in the near term as it undulates between support and resistance, yet should the
U.S. economy continue to improve and interest rates gradually work their way
higher, that would likely cause the dollar to remain firm rather than force it
into a renewed downward direction. It’s neither good nor bad, because investors
will look at the firmer dollar as a confirmation that our economy is improving.
H.L.: Now that the Republicans are in control of the House
of Representatives, will their promises of massive spending cuts and
elimination of business regulations end up killing the recovery?
S.S.: We believe that because the Democrats still control the Senate that we probably won’t see the steamrolling effect of the Republican-controlled House and its impact on spending cuts that people worry about materializing in 2011. They will still have to get a buy-in from the Democrats. So it may curtail increased spending, but it probably won’t lead to draconian spending cuts.’
The Three Biggest Risks in Today's Market Leeb ‘Last week I sat down with some fellow
market players for an extended conversation about the opportunities and risks
investors face today. The most productive questions we asked ourselves were
“What could go wrong in 2011 and beyond?” and “What can we do about it?” Of the
many possible disasters that emerged, here are my top three candidates.
This is more than just a case of “the bigger they are, the
harder they fall.” We’ve said before that Germany's greatest advantage today is
its participation in the euro. Having its currency tied to many smaller and
weaker European nations effectively gives Germany the most undervalued currency
among developed nations. In terms of the German economy, the euro is more undervalued
than even the Chinese yuan. Such a cheap currency gives Germany an edge in
selling exports to other nations.
Of course, whenever you take advantage of a situation, you
become vulnerable to any change in it. Germany has certainly taken advantage of
the weak euro: Exports now make up 40% of the German economy and virtually all
of its growth is export-driven.
If the euro were to break up, Germany would be forced to adopt a
new currency that would be valued fairly on the world stage. Its exports would
plunge, sending its economy into a deep recession. Such an event could provoke
disharmony if not separatist movements among the 16 states that make up the
German republic. (Let's recall that economic illness in Germany once led to the
rise of Hitler and World War II.) The risk is that a serious German recession
could cause a return of the pre-Bismarck era when competition among states made
war commonplace within Europe.
Equally worrying is Germany's trade balance with China. Before
2009, China was the only significant country with which Germany ran a deficit.
Now that deficit has become a surplus, but the change is not a positive, since
it is the result of Germany's decision to sell high-tech goods to China.
As has happened before, China will likely seize upon the
opportunity to re-engineer Germany's technology, create its own high-tech
product lines, and export them at cheaper prices. Germany could then lose
another big advantage.
Of course, neither of these potential events would be worse for
Germany than the break-up of the EU itself. We doubt this will happen, at least
not for some time, because it would take a policy mistake of gigantic
proportions. The member states have a strong motivation to keep the EU together
and avoid the depression that would surely follow. Nonetheless, mistakes have
been made before.
For instance, today we have a short-term interruption of the
Trans-Alaskan oil pipeline which affects less than 1% of the world's oil
supply. Yet it has resulted in a 1.5% jump in oil prices.
Any unexpected increase in oil demand from China or the other
developing nations, or another unexpected drop in production, could send oil
prices to the moon. It would be a replay of 2008, with an equally disastrous
deflationary end.
We assume you are well enough off to withstand a jump in
gasoline prices without a serious decline in your lifestyle. However, there are
millions of Americans with incomes under $60,000 a year who could not tolerate
$5 a gallon gasoline without cutting back spending in other areas. Falling
consumer spending could spell curtains for the recovery.
The first article discussed how much easier it is for a young
person to get into a top U.S. college if one of their parents went there. In
fact, the legacy advantage gives people a 7X greater likelihood of admission.
We need not remind you that the American Dream was that anyone,
regardless of their background, could achieve success through hard work and/or
natural talent. It was the dream of creating a meritocracy, where the
biggest rewards go to the individuals who most deserve them. By contrast, the
legacy advantage rewards people for simply having the right parents. It is a
step towards creating a hereditary upper class, or a plutocracy –
exactly the opposite of what America is all about.
China, on the other hand, doles out opportunities to young
people according to how well they score on tests. The second NYT
article, written by Nicholas Kristof, discussed Hou Yifan, a 16-year-old
Chinese girl from a poor background who is now the top female chess player in
the world. Hou's talent was supported by training and financing from the
Chinese government. Kristof's point, which we agree with, is that China invests
in talent, regardless of its origins.
China's government may not be democratic, but it is built upon
the principles of a meritocracy. It recruits and nurtures the brightest and the
best. Consequently, Xi Jinping, China's heir apparent to current leader Hu
Jintao, started his career as a farm laborer. His father was a poor tea trader
who spent 16 years in prison for his politics. (Offhand, we don't recall the
last U.S. President who came from such humble beginnings. Certainly, there have
been very few since Andrew Jackson.) Suffice it to say that fewer U.S. leaders
today have come from poor backgrounds than ever before - which suggests that
many highly talented young people are finding the doorway to the American Dream
barred against them.
If the U.S. is to retain its standing in the world, we need to
get our act together. We need to make sure the best talent is nurtured and
rewarded, not wasted. We need to maintain leadership in vital technologies. We
need to rethink political correctness (that is, we need to embrace ideas that
are true regardless whether they serve vested interests).
As Defense Secretary Gates learned on his recent visit to China,
the country has the flexibility to expand its military while the U.S. is now
looking at cutbacks. China is also planning to spend $1.5 trillion on new
high-tech industries that will increase its energy supplies and efficiency. The
only solution the U.S. seems willing to consider is more offshore drilling. We
must stop being so complacent.
Meanwhile, so long as we are looking at convex curves in not
only oil prices but also copper and other commodities, we will continue to
invest for the next exponential advance. Gold remains the safest long-term
investment you can make today as a hedge against deflation and inflation. Buy
either gold stocks or bullion ETFs.’
Drudgereport: SILENCE: RI Gov. bans state
employees from speaking on talkradio...
Dem Congressman: If Violent
Rhetoric Didn't Cause This Shooting -- It Will Cause Next One!
BILL CLINTON: 'WE NEED TO BE
CAREFUL ABOUT THINGS WE SAY' … [ How about, OR DO! ] ...
OBAMA FLASHBACK: 'If They
Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun'...
Dem rep urging 'civility' had
called for FL guv candidate to be shot...
NEW PUSH FOR 'FAIRNESS
DOCTRINE'...
MSNBC Matthews Cites Radio
Stars Mark Levin, Michael Savage As Reason For AZ Shooting...
Dem Senator Fundraises Off
Murders...
PISTOL
SALES SURGE AFTER AZ SHOOTING
Snow in 49 states including
Hawaii…[Sounds like that ‘Global Warming Thing’…Riiiiight!] ...
Bank of China Brings Yuan
Trading to USA...
China Stealth Test Upstages
Gates, Hu...
France our biggest ally,
declares Obama: President's blow to Special Relationship with Britain...
Sarkozy to be subject of
'hugely embarrassing' film...
Watchdog
over Afghan reconstruction resigns (Washington Post) [ Wow! Sounds like he
really meant business … which also meant, congress ‘hearing footsteps’ so to
speak, that he had to go. After all, applying a stringent standard that
promises to do something about fraud and corruption is a standard that would
threaten the entire u.s. government … all three branches. ] Arnold Fields, the head of the office
charged with investigating corruption in the multibillion-dollar effort to
rebuild Afghanistan has resigned, the White House said, following congressional
demands that he be replaced.
China
as Europe's white knight? (Washington Post) [ White
knight? I don’t think so. Yellow night and day, I think yes. Not to impugn
their motives, but the Book of Ecclesiastes said it well: "What
has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there
is nothing new under the sun"
Jun 18, 2007 ... John
Perkins' career as an economic hit man (EHM) has taken him all over
the globe. He details his activities as an EHM in his best-seller ...
heartlanddiaryofbettyb.blogspot.com/.../confessions-of-economic-hit-man.html - Cached - Similar
Mar 23, 2007 ...
Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins is an exclamation
point riddled history of a few financial manipulations of the Cold War ...
cobb.typepad.com/cobb/2007/03/confessions_of_.html -
Cached - Similar
Aug 9, 2006 ...
rustydude's diary :: :: The reason I bring it up within the ..... I am
thrilled to hear all this support for the Economic Hit Man book since
...
www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/10/04532/7753 - Cached - Similar
Jul 13, 2010 ... In 2008,
Greek writer/director Stelios Koul made a documentary about Perkins entitled “Diary
of an Economic Hit Man.” ...
www.thewrap.com/.../cinema-libre-acquires-economic-hit-man-19179 - Cached
Options Data Suggests Topping Action -VXX
- News)
has lulled investors into a state of complacency. If you had to describe
investor's alertness in sleep lingo, a state of REM sleep would probably be the
closest comparison.History tells us that the (bear) market only strikes when
least expected.Based on analyst polls by Bloomberg, Barron's, USA Today and a
variety of sentiment measures, a stock market (NYSEArca: VTI
- News)
decline is as remote today as it was in 2000 or 2007.
Hedging Activity Drops
Investors
and traders are content to hold on to massive long positions without hedge. One
of the easiest ways to hedge your stock portfolio is via put options. Last week
the CBOE Equity Put/Call Ratio dropped to 0.4, the lowest reading since April
15, 2010.The lack of hedging is dangerous for prices because the market is without
a safety net. The only option for spooked investors without hedge is to sell.
Selling causes prices to drop.On April 16, 2010, the ETF Profit Strategy
Newsletter warned of the consequences of a low put/call ratio: 'Selling results
in more selling. This negative feedback loop usually results in rapidly falling
prices. The pieces are in place for a major decline. We are simply waiting for
the proverbial first domino to fall over and set off a chain reaction.'The
first domino dropped just a few days later, setting off the May 6 'Flash Crash'
and ultimately resulted in a swift 15% correction for the Dow (DJI: ^DJI), 17%
correction for the S&P (SNP: ^GSPC), 19% for the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC),
and 21% for the Russell 2000 (NYSEArca: IWM
- News).A
different measure of complacency is the premium traders willingness to pay
for call options (bullish bets). Based on a three-month average, the price for
put options (bearish bets) is near a 10-year low. The only other time that
rivals current readings was in 2007.
This Time is Different
The
spirit of 'this time is different' is one of the most fascinating phenomenons
known to Wall Street. Investors' sentiment follows the ebb and flow of stock
prices. When prices are up, the future is expected to be bright. When prices
are down, the future is supposedly bleak (just think of the 2007 peak and 2009
bottom).This approach of linear extrapolations feeds the herding mentality,
which contrarians use as effective indicators. This approach is not foolproof
but, nevertheless, is one of the most accurate, if not the most accurate timing
tool known to underground Wall Street aficionadosThe chart below (taken from
the January 2011 ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter) illustrates the four most
prominent occurrences of extreme optimism, or the 'this time is different'
effect. The green line connects the price of the S&P with the timeline and
various sentiment gauges. [chart] Investors thought 'this time is different' at
the 2007 peak, in May 2008, in January 2010, and again in April 2010. The only
thing different at all four times was the velocity of the descent, but each
period of euphoria was greeted by despair.
Optimism and Bad News
If you
had a chance to watch CNBC's 60 Minutes over the past two weeks, you are aware
of some possible 'Black Swan' events.Scott Pelley's introduction to Ben
Bernanke's interview couldn't have been more sobering: 'That is the worst
recovery we've ever seen. Ben Bernanke is concerned. Chairmen of the Fed rarely
do interviews, but this week Bernanke feels he has to speak out because he
believes his critics may not understand how much trouble the economy is in.'The
financial media, however, ignored Ben Bernanke's sobering assessment of the
economy and focused on the silver lining: A bad economy may lead to QE3 and its
cousins QE4 and QE5. What's better, an improving economy or more QE? Apparently
QE is just as good as more jobs.Another 60 Minutes focused on the next big
thing; Municipal and state defaults. In the two years since the 'Great
Recession,' states have collectively spent nearly half a trillion dollars more
than they collected. There's a trillion dollar hole in their public pension
fund and according to New Jersey's Governor, the day of reckoning is
near.Meredith Whitney, one of the few analysts who foresaw the bubble building
in banks (NYSEArca: KBE - News)
and financials (NYSEArca: XLF - News)
believes at least part of the three trillion municipal bond market will unravel
within the next year.For much of 2010 municipal bonds were brewing their own
little bubble. As it is common with bubbles, they are rarely foreseen by the
public eye. In the case of muni bonds, yield hungry investors ignored the red
flags.On August 26, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter warned that it is time
to get out of muni bonds, corporate bonds and Treasuries. Muni-bonds topped on
August 26 and have since given up more than two years worth of gains.
History Rhymes
Yes,
history doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes. In 2007, Merrill Lynch's
Global Economics Report foresaw a bright future: 'The Merrill Lynch global
economics team believes that the economy will continue to grow in 2007 - with
no sign of a significant cyclical slowdown.'According to J.P. Morgan, Barclays
Capital and Goldman Sachs (Merrill Lynch failed to foresee its own demise in
2007 and is no more), the S&P will gain between 15 - 20% in 2011 and the
'economy will continue to grow in 2011.'Perhaps this time will be different,
but based on history, now is the time to at least be cautious and protect your
investments. An ounce of protection is worth more than a pound of cure. Based
on long-term valuation metrics the stock market is priced to deliver pain, not
gain (see November 2011 ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter for a detailed
analysis).Based on sentiment, the market is overheated and due for a correction
at the very least, and how often have we seen a correction turn into something
more? Timing a top is tricky, but based on support and resistance levels and
seasonal patterns it is possible to narrow down when the market is ready to
roll over.The ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter
includes the next resistance likely to mark the end of this rally and important
structural support. A close below this important support level will probably
break the bulls' spirit and the market's streak.’
New
Ponzi Scheme: Blame Bernie [ Which one? Which ‘weak end at bernie’s’?
Bernie bernanke or madoff? As usual, where’s the DOJ? ‘The SEC seeks an
injunction, DISGORGEMENT and civil penalties’. Now note that that disgorgement
thing has yet to be applied to the gargantuan frauds on wall street. Indeed,
now flush with cash from legislative (mark to anything change in FASB rules)
and fed (new bubble) help, the frauds on wall street are cashing out bonuses
exceeding $144 billion. For those who think there’s no economic damage
attendant to such frauds as those perpetrated by the frauds on wall street
which the computer-programmed high-frequencey churn-and-earn continuing as we
speak, take further note of this disaster called the defacto bankrupt u.s.
economy that the slicker, though less blatant than the fraud that follows which
pales in comparison to that bailed out by the u.s. taxpayers at great long-term
cost to the nation. ] Singer
‘Frankly, it’s becoming a bit of a broken record. According to a Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) Complaint filed on January 6, 2010, a number of
Defendants perpetrated a Ponzi scheme – yet another such allegation against
another group of alleged fraudsters. Securities and
Exchange Commission, Plaintiff, vs. Raymond P. Morris, E & R Holdings, LLC,
Wise Financial Holdings, LLC, Momentum Leasing, LLC, James L. Haley,
Cornerstone Capital Fund, LLC, Vantage Point Capital, LLC, Jay J. Linford
Freedom Group, LLC, and Luc D. Nguyen, Defendants (11CV00021, Utah
District Court, January 6, 20100) NOTE: The SEC Complaint contains only
allegations. The Defendants are presumed innocent of the charges and it will be
the government’s burden to prove the Defendants’ guilt at trial.
The Complaint alleges that Morris first approached
Haley (who was in a real estate investment group with Morris), about an
exclusive investment that was allegdly started by the owner of the Houston
Astros and had generated 20% returns per month for nearly eight years.
Wow, that’s too good to pass up, if you ask me – I
mean, geez, the Houston Astros owner started it. And, even more compelling, 20%
returns for eight years. Hey, no reason to really check any of that out,
right? I mean the Houston Astros are in baseball, and baseball is as
American as apple pie, and any deal offering 20% returns that’s so all-American
has to be the real thing. Batter up!Morris allegedly told Haley that this hot investment opportunity is
based on a capital leasing concept (the “Fund”). Once money is invested
in the Fund, Morris purportedly represented that the money would be
deposited into an account under Morris’s sole control and would never leave the
account.Odd how the investors’ cash never quite seems to get directly
deposited into these troubled investments but always seems to wind up
offshore, in a conduit, or in some account under someone else’s
control. Sort of like when you open a brokerage account and decide to buy
1,000 shares of stock and your stockbroker insists that you write the check for
the purchase price made payable to him — why? Oh, well, if you really
have to ask, it’s not for you, he says. If you must know, he reluctantly
confides in you, it’s so that the brokerage firm can first verify that you have
the dollars to buy the stock. I’m doing you a favor, he says, by allowing you
to first give me the money. That way you don’t have to worry about
getting cleared to buy the stock. You can trust me, I’m your stockbroker.
It all sounds a bit more fishy when I put it like
that, doesn’t it?
And what supposedly was the point of depositing the
investors’ funds into the Morris-controlled account?
The Complaint alleges that Morris explained to Haley
that once investor capital was verified, private traders would obtain large
lines of credit and then would invest the proceeds in bonds, hard money lending
and small businesses. Morris advised Haley that the return from these
investments would be sufficient to guarantee investors a return of 20% per
month or more.
Did you get that?
Private traders are out there waiting for those
ever-so-urgent phone calls that assure them that cash has been legitimately
invested in some account, and once that assurance is given to the private
traders, well, you know, they obtain humongous lines of credit. What do the
traders do with all that credit? Well, they invest in “bonds, hard money
lending and small businesses.” Again,
you’d think that investors would do some hardcore homework and confirm all of
those representations. However, we would not have these stories and
lawsuits if folks went through the trouble of keeping other folks honest –
would we?Still – for some reason there are a lot of folks out there – I’ll call
them pigeons, if you don’t mind – who seem to have a fire in their wallets and
can’t wait to send dollars into yet another Fund that guarantees 20% once some
supposed group of private traders obtains verification of deposit and then goes
out and leverages the sums on deposit into impressive sounding investments. Apparently,
Haley was hot to trot. You understand why, don’t you? The Houston Astros
connection. The 20%. The verified funds in someone else’s account. Tough to ask
questions or demand proof about something so enticing. (Yes, that’s sarcasm —
dripping and heavy).
Only one problem.Morris told Haley they could
not join the Fund unless an existing investor died.My, isn’t that too
bad? Clearly this deal is for real because folks are literally dying for
other investors to get in. I mean, you know, seriously, no one would possibly
make up such a precondition. Course not. You’d have to kill some investor off
just to make way for another investor. That’s just nuts.
Eureka!Haley was really, really, really lucky
because Morris called Haley with the wonderful news (albeit, quite sad)
that one of the few investors in the Fund just dropped dead less than a week
after Morris told Haley about this amazing investment
opportunity. The Complaint asserts that Morris indicated that if
Haley could raise $500,000 in three to five days, they could invest in the
Fund.
Happy days!
The Complaint alleges that without conducting any due
diligence into Morris or the Fund, Haley began soliciting investments from
friends and neighbors and raised $500,000, which he gave to Morris.What did
Haley tell his acquaintances? Oh, the Complaint says that he simply repeated
Morris’s representations about the whole set-up and further assured the
investors that their funds would only be used for “verification of deposit”
purposes. I like the sound of that, don’t you? Verifcation of
deposit purposes. Me? I’ve only been on Wall Street for about
thirty years and although I’m not sure what the hell “verification of deposit
purposes” means, I must admit that it sounds pretty impressive. Of course,
silly me, I would never write out a check to anyone for something like
“verification of deposit purposes” without reviewing all the source documents
and confirming the bona fides of the supposed traders and the trades but, then
again, I’m just another stupid lawyer.The Complaint alleges that from
about August 2007 through June 2008, Haley, through his entities Cornerstone
Capital andVantage Point, raised at least $20 million for Morris’s Fund.Oh, and
there’s this tidbit: Morris and Haley had entered into an oral agreement
that provided a payment of 20% per month on funds Haley raised.
Another thing, Haley could determine what portion of his fee he gave back to
his investors. Lemme see, 20% of $20 million is like, what?, about $4
million? Not bad for simply getting friends and acquaintances into some
verification of deposit purposes thingamajig. I wonder how much of that
Haley gave back to the investors?
Sometime prior to June 2007, Morris and Haley hired
Nguyen, a Utah attorney, to assist them with legal matters relating to
soliciting investments. Nguyen set up Morris’s and Haley’s investment entities,
drafted offering documents, and filed Forms D with the Commission for Morris
controlled entities, E & R Holdings, Wise Financial and Momentum, and for
Haley controlled entities, Cornerstone Capital and Vantage Point. After
setting up the investment entities, the Complaint alleges that Nguyen stepped
outside his role as counsel and began soliciting investments. Despite having
conducted no due diligence on Morris or the Fund, Nguyen allegedly repeated
Morris’s misrepresentations about the Fund to investors.Nguyen is also charged
with knowingly making additional false representations to investors, including
that he had reviewed the Fund’s documents and had personally spoken with the
banks and private traders involved. Nguyen touted the Fund as “one of the best
he had ever seen” and told investors he “understood the Fund better than Morris
or Haley.” Allegedly, Nguyen told investors that he was an
“SEC attorney,” and that the Fund was “one of the best he had ever seen,” and
that he had done extensive due diligence into Morris’s Fund and knew the
program better than Morris or Haley. Nguyen purportedly told investors he
had personally met with the attorneys representing the supposed trading
companies involved in the Fund and that he had received copies of all operating
agreements between the leasing companies and the trading companies. In fact,
Nguyen performed no due diligence on Morris or the Fund, never met with anyone
affiliatedNguyen also falsely told investors that he personally had significant
assets invested in the Fund. In fact, Nguyen made no capital contributions to
the Fund. Oh, and let’s not forget that Nguyen was allegedly paid at least
$330,000 from Morris for raising investment funds and was paid at least an
additional $58,000 in legal fees.
Sometime during the Spring of 2007, Morris met
Linford at an investment seminar , and thereafter, Linford is charged with
raising about $1 million for the Fund by misrepresenting that the Fund paid
returns as high as 100% in seven days with no risk to investor principal.
In April 2008, Morris stopped making regular interest
payments to investors. Morris gave many explanations to investors,
including that Homeland Security had frozen the accounts, that the Madoff case
had caused banks to hold funds and that typographical errors in wire request
forms had caused delays.Oh, I see, it’s the old Homeland
Security-Madoff-Typo-Dog-Ate-My-Homework explanation. Don’t they have a form
for that?As investors complained and threatened to go to the SEC and other
government agencies, Morris began disseminating phony bank statements falsely
showing that he had over $200 million deposited with Wachovia Bank. In late
October 2008, Morris gave Nguyen a purported “Bank Confirmation Letter” from
Wachovia. This fraudulent letter states that Wachovia “currently holds funds in
the amount of…$201,782,567.89…[and] Mr. Raymond Paul Morris is the signatory on
this account.” The letter also says “the funds are good, clean and of
non-criminal origin, are unencumbered and freely disposable.”In addition to the
letter, Morris gave Nguyen a phony “Verification of Depository,” also
purporting to be from Wachovia Bank, showing that $201,827,067.89 was in
Morris’s account.
Okay, so, let’s at least give these guys credit. It’s
not like they came up with a simple round number, such as
$201,000,000.00. No, this is more convincing with every place filled with
a seemingly plausible number. Can you find the whole numbers from 0 to 9
that are missing? Can you find Waldo?After
Nguyen received the bogus “Bank Confirmation Letter” and “Verification of
Depository,” the Complaint alleges that he agreed to draft a letter to Morris’s
investors, assuring them their funds were safe. Unfortunately, Nguyen allegedly
did not conduct reasonable due diligence prior to sending this October 30,2008
letter. The letter caused investors to delay their attempts to contact
government authorities regarding Morris, Haley, Linford and Nguyen and their
investment activities.
By the time the Ponzi scheme unraveled, Morris, Haley, Linford and Nguyen, and their respective entities, had allegedly defrauded at least 90 investors out of at least $60 million by offering and selling unregistered and non-exempt promissory notes based on material misrepresentations and omissions.Many of the investors who lost money in the Fund were inexperienced, unsophisticated and had minimal net worth and annual income. Many investors lost their entire savings. Some investors went so far as to borrow the money they invested and are now indebted beyond their ability to repay their lenders.In truth, the Complaint alleges that Morris did not work with private traders to obtain lines of credit that were invested. As has become the norm with these Ponzi schemes, Morris is accused of using investor funds to make bogus interest payments to earlier investors from capital raised from later investors. Moreover, rather than investing the funds in debt and equity vehicles, real estate, commodities and leasing it to private traders, Morris used investor money to support a lavish lifestyle, including a luxurious home and several sports cars, and to make illusory interest payments to early investors in his scheme.Out of the approximate $20 million Haley raised, the Complaint alleges that he used at least $700,000 for personal expenses, including payments on a new home and $25,000 per month rental payments while building this new home.The Complaint charges Morris, Haley, Lindford, Nguyen, E&R Holdings, Wise Financial, Momentum, Cornerstone, Vantage Point and Freedom Group with violations of Sections 5(a), 5(c) and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act) and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The complaint also charges Morris, Haley and Nguyen with violates of Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act. The SEC seeks an injunction, disgorgement and civil penalties.’
Sentiment Signaling a Call for Caution - Prieur du Plessis ‘The results of the AAII Investor Sentiment Survey
are shown in the graphs below. The Survey measures the percentage of individual
investors who are bullish, bearish or neutral on stock market for the next six
months. As the masses are usually on the wrong side of market movements,
particularly at tops and bottoms, sentiment indicators fulfil a useful function
as contrarian indicators. The bullish sentiment (55.9%) and bearish sentiment
(18.3%) readings are at fairly extreme levels, as also seen from the bull-bear
spread being quite a bit higher than the market peak of October 2007. Sentiment
indicators are fairly blunt instruments from a timing point of view and can
stay at high / low levels for extended periods. However, when companies are
overvalued and technical indicators overbought, overbullish sentiment
indicators complete a threesome of tools arguing quite strongly for a cautious
approach to stock market investment.
Click to
enlarge:
Source: AAII Investor Sentiment Survey;
Plexus Asset Management.’
Why your local Hospital could soon shut down
Illinois
faces steep tax increases to meet fiscal crisis (Washington Post) [ This is
only the beginning of this continued ultimately hyperinflationary depression
with much worse to come. How
the recession imploded states' finances (Washington Post) [ This is truly no joke! Municipal
Debt Threatens U.S. Economy Lim ‘The debt crisis that has taken down banks,
and even countries, threatens more than 100 American municipalities this year.
According to Meredith Whitney, who works as a US research analyst, local and
state debts are the biggest concerns to the US economy today. It is large
enough to derail economic recovery.
She said that,
There’s not a doubt on my mind that you will see a
spate of municipal bond defaults. You can see fifty to a hundred sizable
defaults – more. This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of
defaults.
American states and cities have a total debt load of
around $2 trillion.
New Jersey government Chris Christie summarized it
clearly,
White
House to extend more support (to overcome widespread suspicion and
anti-americanism) to Pakistan (Washington Post) [ Well, there you have it. Another
victory notched up for defacto bankrupt, war criminal nation america. Sounds
like a plan … you know, that winning hearts and minds thing … destroy the
country, kill their people, have contractors siphon off the cash (with
kickbacks of course). Victory americana … Riiiiight! ] Offer aimed at overcoming widespread
suspicion and anti-Americanism in nation, which is seen as a vexing but crucial
partner in anti-terror efforts
Data
point to economy crawling out of downturn (Washington Post) [ I don’t
believe anything the u.s. government et als says or reports. What Today's Job Numbers Aren't Telling You , On Friday January 7, 2011, 6:10 pm EST
‘Another
month goes by and another unemployment report deciphered. Is there more to this
month's report than the 9.4% headline number? Unless you are content with the
information spoon fed by the financial media, you'll find the data points revealed
in this article rather interesting.The only other Wall Street ritual that tops
monthly unemployment reports is earnings season. Like any other ritual, it
comes with many myths and fables attached. The most common one is that
unemployment directly affects stock prices.
Myth Busted
If
you base your investment decisions on today's release, you may want to revisit
the market's performance following last month's release (published on December
3, 2010).The U-3 unemployment rate spiked from 9.6% to 9.8%. This was a huge
disappointment, yet major stock indexes a la S&P (SNP: ^GSPC), Dow (DJI:
^DJI) and Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) rallied. What caused this unexpected reaction?
The answer can be found in technical analysis.The technical setup going into
last month's unemployment release (published on December 3) was predominantly
bullish. With the S&P (NYSEArca: IVV
- News)
at 1,225 in early November, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter highlighted
important support at 1,165 - 1,170 and on November 7 stated: 'Any correction
that doesn't drop below 1,165 will likely result in new highs' with resistance
at 1,267 (revised to 1,281 on December 12).As the chart below illustrates, the
S&P tested support on five occasions and set the stage for future gains.
That's why despite the dismal jobless numbers, stocks spiked on the day of the
release and continued higher. [chart] Before we talk about the technical
set up going into today's release, let's examine some unknown but important
details about today's unemployment report.
What the Headlines Won't Tell You
The
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS.org) publishes more data than just the heavily
quoted U-3 unemployment headline number (currently 9.4%).In fact, if you do
some surfing on BLS.org you will find that the headline number is deceptive at
best and inaccurate at least. Below are some statistics that put America's job
market in perspective.According to the BLS, the real unemployment rate (U-6),
which includes workers who stopped looking for jobs or had to settle for
part-time jobs - is at 16.7%.
One
of the most remarkable BLS data points on the BLS site is the average number of
weeks workers are now unemployed. The jobless are unemployed for an average of
34.2 weeks. As the chart below shows, this is the second highest reading
in the survey's 63-year history (all-time high was 34.8 in July
2010).
[chart]
Along
the same lines, the number of workers unemployed for more than 27 weeks
(usually unemployment benefits cease after 26 weeks) is near its May 2010
all-time high.
[chart]
A Painful Misconception
The
Bush tax-cut extension led many to believe that unemployment benefits have been
extended beyond the 99 weeks (26 weeks state-funded plus 73 weeks federal
benefits) available to the 25 worst hit states. This is not correct.According
to CNBC, no benefits will be paid once the 99-week period is exhausted. As per
the extension, however, the jobless will continue to receive up to 99 weeks of
unemployment checks.Over the past three years, the unemployed have collected
about $320 billion in jobless benefits. About two million '99ers' received
their last benefit check around Christmas.
A Shrinking Workforce
It
is estimated that about 150,000 'youngsters' enter the work force every year.
That's why the work force has steadily increased since 1948. Courtesy of the
2008 bear market, the workforce has actually been shrinking as discouraged
workers drop out of the statistics .Discouraged workers are those who
stopped searching in the last four weeks. Excluding them from the
workforce and the unemployment equation artificially lowers the U-3
unemployment rate. Discouraged workers surged to a new record high of 1.32
million which depressed the labor force participation rate to 64.3% (a 27-year
low). If the participation rate had stayed the same, the U-3 unemployment rate
would be 9.7%.
Making Sense of What Doesn't Make Sense
Based
on U-6 numbers, since December 2006 as many 13 million Americans have
either lost their jobs, or have been downgraded. Meanwhile food stamp
recipients have mushroomed by ten 10 million.Nevertheless, stocks have shrugged
off an avalanche of bad news and continue plowing ahead towards new highs. Does
that make sense?It does when you include the Federal Reserve and it's
quantitative easing program in this lopsided equation. The Fed has a history of
creating and ignoring bubbles. The 2000 tech (NYSEArca: XLK
- News)
bubble came and went and was followed by the 2005 real estate (NYSEArca: IYR
- News)
bubble.The 2005 real estate bubble was somewhat cushioned by the 2007 financial
(NYSEArca: XLF - News)
bubble. The 2007 bubble bust expressed itself fully until the Fed started
inflating yet another bubble - the QE1 and QE2-based 'great' new bull market.
The Technical Set Up
Looking
at the long-term picture, there is reason to be skeptical about the growth
potential for U.S. stocks (NYSEArca: IWM
- News).
But if you want instant gratification - as most investors do - what's the
technical set up for the coming weeks?Looking at the market's internal
indicators, we note that momentum is strong but breadth is weakening. Sentiment
- one of the most reliable indicators in the investment universe - is extremely
bullish, which is bearish for stocks.Prior instances when the ETF Profit
Strategy Newsletter noted overheated excitement for stocks was in January 2009,
January 2010, and April 2010. Another bearish factor is the new January
effect that's seen stocks decline each January over the past three
years.Additionally, the S&P is about to reach the measured upside target of
a W pattern (December 12 ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter) and a host of other
resistance levels.In summary, momentum and Fed induced liquidity point up, but
sentiment gauges and some technical indicators convey a deeply bearish
message.The best way to navigate such cross currents is to let the market speak
and carefully analyze its reaction to important support and resistance levels.
Failure to break resistance levels combined with an inability to remain above
support have been recipes for disaster in the past, especially with
bullish sentiment at extreme levels.A chain is only as strong as its weakest
link. The ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter
monitors the market's internal strength to identify weak links before they
break.’
Twain
needs no fixin' (Washington Post) [ I quite agree with Ms. Parker,
particularly in this digital age which facilitates such censorship which can be
accomplished with such ease and an environment as in the self-created paranoid
u.s. replete with pervasive corruption, incompetence, and criminality where
perpetrators / criminals therein cry out for more cover-up / censorship all in
the self-destructive name of ‘war on terror’, jingoistic patriotism, etc.. I’m
against almost all censorship (subject
to very limited exceptions, ie., ‘yelling fire in a crowded theater, kiddy
porn, etc., except that the u.s. courts are so corrupt and venal that they can
no longer be trusted to responsibly apply those limited exceptions to narrowly
defined exceptional circumstances. See, for example, RICO case
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm )
. DRUDGEREPORT: NYT
SATURDAY: NUMBER OF COMBAT INJURIES IN AFGHANISTAN APPROACHES IRAQ-WAR
LEVELS... DEVELOPING...
'WE'RE
DIGGING OUT OF A HOLE' [ Example of sentiment: some comments - ‘…Barack Obama is a cooked goose. He is absolutely
the most incompetent president of the U.S. ever, so he continues to spin the
numbers in such a manner that might make him look good. News for him: NOTHING
will make you look good. Pretty is skin deep, incompetence goes clear to the
bone. "Let his days be few; and let another take his office." Psalms
109:8- RightStuff, Texas, USA, 7/1/2011 19:45
You know what happens when you keep digging a hole - you reach China and
that is what is going to finish the americans and Obamarama...- Olrik, Canada,
7/1/2011 19:41
'We're digging ourselves out of a hole' - Barack Hussein Obama To get
out of a hole you've dug so deep, is to STOP DIGGING, fill it up with soil so
you can climb OUT OF THE HOLE. STOP SPENDING OBAMA! STOP PRINTING MONEY! The US
dollar is weakening against YUAN of China. Republicans better start cutting all
spending, defund/repeal Obamacare, America is flat BROKE! If Republicans can't
rein all spending created by Pelosi and her peons, their DEBT would be BIGGER
than their economy.- Observer, over here, over there, 7/1/2011 19:33
Well the ammo index is still down, I guess having 3,000 rounds is
enough- NVBob, Richland WA USA, 7/1/2011 19:31
Fill in the hole, with Obama in it, at the bottom!- Stan, St Louis,
Missouri, USA, 7/1/2011 19:30
Is
a Correction Inevitable? [Short answer: YES! ] Vistesen ‘The signs are
clear: risk is overloved, overbought and overextended but does this necessarily
spell the inevitable correction? [Short answer: YES! ] (click for larger
image) [chart] Since
Augsut 2010 the SPY has barely touched its 50 day moving average. Indeed, it
has stayed well clear of it. Those, like yours truly, who entered 2011 fancying
some bloodletting have so far been disappointed. Plan
B Economics points to the obvious that oftentimes in the world of
investing, a choir chiming for an event to unfold is the best bet that it will
not occur.
I’ve had a pretty good sense in the past knowing when
the “correction” trade is overcrowded. I gotta say that I definitely sense that
now. Bulls are on guard for a correction and bears are calling for one too. In
fact, I’ve never seen such a unanimous call for a correction as I do now in a
long time. Near the low of the day I saw a headline from bigcharts.com that
said some portfolio manager claimed the January correction has started. The
market didn’t even go in the red for the year yet and this guy’s already saying
the correction has started? Talk about being over-eager. I believe this group
think call for a correction means that a correction either won’t happen or will
be quite shallow, well below expectations.
As a good friend of mine noted that this is like
second-guessing the second-guesser. Market timing is best performed when
frontrunning the crowd, not standing in the middle shouting like everyone else.
On the technical side, I would like to see two (or three) straight days of
declines in the SPY before calling it.The more interesting point is how deep
(or shallow) it will be. A move to the 50 day MA marker would be something like
4.15% and come at around 1221 at current levels. Sounds about right to me.’ [
Vistesen’s clearly an unbridled optimist! ]
Drowning
in Debt Nyaradi ‘Everywhere I looked yesterday, the world seemed to be
drowning in debt.
In
Portugal, bond spreads continue to widen as they prepare for a sale on January
12th while next door in Spain, their “D-Day” (debt day) sale comes on January
13th. France steps up on January 10th with more than $10 billion coming to
market with Italy following on January 11.
The
euro fell to the lowest level against the U.S. Dollar in three months in
anticipation of next week’s auctions while the U.S. Dollar Index rose +0.68%.
Closer
to home, Illinois struggles wtih a nearly $15 Billion hole that needs to be
filled and so is pushing for a tax hike to do the job while in California,
recycled Governor Jerry Brown promises to unveil a budget next week that will
be “painful.”
Meanwhile,
December retail sales originally ballyhooed as being the best in years turned
in a lackluster performance and the pesky problem of persistent unemployment
resurfaced yesterday with Initial Claims rising unexpectedly to 409,000 from
391,000 prior while Continuing Claims managed to fall.
Today
comes the big report and whisper numbers are huge improvements over recent
numbers.
Technically
there’s no breadth and no momentum to market action and we remain in very
overbought territory on nearly all indicators.
Daily Moves for Major ETFs:
Dow
Jones Industrials: (NYSEArca: DIA) -0.22%
Russell
2000: (NYSEArca: IWM) -0.47%
NASDAQ
100: (NasdaqGM: QQQQ) +0.32%
S&P
500 Index: (NYSEArca: SPY) -0.20%
MSCI
Emerging Markets:(NYSEArca: EEM) -1.07%%
MSCI
China (NYSEArca: FXI) -0.79%%
Gold
(NYSEArca: GLD) -0.40%
7-10
Year Treasuries: (NYSEArca: IEF) +0.52%
20+
Year Treasuries: (NYSEArca: TLT) +0.44%
VIX
+2.23%
U.S.
Dollar (NYSE:Arca: UUP) +0.77%
The major
indexes remain overvalued and overbought on a technical and fundamental basis
and so Wall Street Sector Selector remains in “Yellow Flag” status, expecting
choppy to lower prices ahead.’
Thursday's
Economic Data Roundup: Mixed News Roche ‘U.S. retailers posted weaker than
expected sales in December, the Monster job index declined from last month’s
highs and unemployment claims continued their steady trend lower. All in all it
was a very mixed day of data.
“Jobless claims haven’t been too bumpy this holiday period, moving convincingly lower. Claims did rise to 409,000 in the January 1 week yet follow the prior week’s 391,000 for the second best reading of the recovery (prior week revised from 388,000). The four-week average is telling the story, down 3,500 in the week for a 410,750 level that is down nearly 20,000from a month ago…’
US says too much fluoride causing splotchy teeth (AP) [ Actually,
flouride’s a poison which is actually used in such things as ‘rat poison’, but
has also historically been used to make ‘populations’ more docile /
controllable. I guess they figure they’ve finally gotten the controlled
american public zombies where they want them…mission accomplished…no need to
waste more flouride. ] In a remarkable turnabout, federal health officials say
many americans are now getting too much fluoride because of its presence not
just in drinking water but in toothpaste, mouthwash and other ...
DRUDGEREPORT: NYT SATURDAY: NUMBER OF
COMBAT INJURIES IN AFGHANISTAN APPROACHES IRAQ-WAR LEVELS... DEVELOPING...
'WE'RE
DIGGING OUT OF A HOLE' [ Example of sentiment: some comments - ‘…Barack Obama is a cooked goose. He is absolutely
the most incompetent president of the U.S. ever, so he continues to spin the
numbers in such a manner that might make him look good. News for him: NOTHING
will make you look good. Pretty is skin deep, incompetence goes clear to the
bone. "Let his days be few; and let another take his office." Psalms
109:8- RightStuff, Texas, USA, 7/1/2011 19:45
You know what happens when you keep digging a hole - you reach China and
that is what is going to finish the americans and Obamarama...- Olrik, Canada,
7/1/2011 19:41
'We're digging ourselves out of a hole' - Barack Hussein Obama To get
out of a hole you've dug so deep, is to STOP DIGGING, fill it up with soil so
you can climb OUT OF THE HOLE. STOP SPENDING OBAMA! STOP PRINTING MONEY! The US
dollar is weakening against YUAN of China. Republicans better start cutting all
spending, defund/repeal Obamacare, America is flat BROKE! If Republicans can't
rein all spending created by Pelosi and her peons, their DEBT would be BIGGER
than their economy.- Observer, over here, over there, 7/1/2011 19:33
Well the ammo index is still down, I guess having 3,000 rounds is
enough- NVBob, Richland WA USA, 7/1/2011 19:31
Fill in the hole, with Obama in it, at the bottom!- Stan, St Louis,
Missouri, USA, 7/1/2011 19:30
Jobs
report an 'utter mess'... ‘…However, some economists were less optimistic. 'It's a bit of a mixed
bag,' said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody's Analytics. Many analysts hoped
to see larger job gains, and the drop in the unemployment rate is unlikely to
be sustained, he said. 'The labour market ended last year with a bit of a
thud,' he said…’
China
plans $1.3 billion 'seven-star hotel'...
China
Backs Europe, Euro for Investing Reserves...
REPORT:
Too much fluoride in US water...
CBO
Says Repeal Would Reduce Spending by $540 Billion...’The Congressional Budget Office, in an email to
Capitol Hill staffers obtained by the Spectator, has said that
repealing the national health care law would reduce net spending by $540
billion in the ten year period from 2012 through 2021. That number represents
the cost of the new provisions, minus Medicare cuts. Repealing the bill would
also eliminate $770 billion in taxes. It's the tax hikes in the health care law
(along with the Medicare cuts) which accounts for the $230 billion in deficit
reduction…’
Republicans
reject cost estimate on health repeal (Washington Post) [
One thing’s certain … they’ll agree to disagree … $14 plus trillion and
counting and wobama the b for b*** s*** and co are worried about a couple
hundred billion … tax cuts to the rich …
(Davis ‘… This is how we
pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get
anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is
no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all
of the time. THIS HOUSE
OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!) ‘Then again, look at the war spending : Drudgereport: Congresswoman
calls Afghanistan 'national embarrassment'... 'Epic
failure'... Rep.
Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) talks about the "disastrous" war that is
Afghanistan. "This war represents an epic failure, a national
embarrassment and a moral blight," Rep. Woolsey said. [ True enough!
Though broke, they’re still voting for more war across the board. But even more
than that, this war is a blowback-creating, self-perpetuating,
self-destructive, self-defeating, colossally expensive debacle benefiting only
the war profiteers / lobbies and attendant frauds while diverting attention
from the more ’mundane’ tasks of governance of a failing, pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt nation, viz., america. ]
PENTAGON
BUDGET SLASH [ Riiiiight! … What’s $80 billion on a trillion dollar tab
especially with those off-budget special items whenever they so choose. ]: OBAMA TO CUT TROOPS ON ACTIVE DUTY
FEDS
BREAK GROUND ON SUPER SPY CENTER (Riiiiight! More spending on those
ultra-efficient super-spies, ie., Iraq on a lie, illegal drug ops, 9-11 NORAD
ordered to stand down, etc., though u.s. defacto bankrupt)...
New
Miami Police peeping drone may be first in country; ACLU approves...
Man
Arrested for Having 'Suspicious' Bagel on Plane...
Ex-CIA
officer charged with leak to NYT reporter...
Packages Cause 'Flash Explosions' At 2 State Gov't Buildings in
MD...
One
addressed to Gov...
US
Treasury asks Congress to lift debt ceiling...
Obama
calls Gibbs $174,000 salary 'relatively modest' ( Come on! In pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt america, government jobs for the otherwise
unemployable at those levels are over-priced and over-valued, as are other so-called
executive jobs, ie., fraudulent wall street, etc.. Look at their results! )... ] Boehner dismisses CBO forecast that rescinding law would raise deficit
by about $230 billion and leave 32 million more Americans uninsured.
Apprehension ahead of Moqtada al-Sadr speech (Washington Post) [ What is he expected to say?:
Thank you america for bombing, invading, and destroying his nation based on a
lie? Thank you america for killing, maiming innocent children, women, and men?
Thank you america for all the depleted uranium you’ve left behind? Thank you
america for removing your america-supported mad-dog tyrant sadam hussein who
foolishly played into his cia handlers’ trap regarding that green light for
Kuwait invasion over the slant-drilling by the latter from April Glasspie. I
don’t think so, and I don’t think the rest of the world nor his fellow Iraqis
think so. ] Lawmakers across Iraq's
political and ethnic spectrums wait for word from anti-American Shiite cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr, saying his first address after returning from nearly four
years of self-imposed exile in Iran would likely say a lot about his approach
to Iraq's government.
1 in 6 Americans Live in Poverty Tradermark ‘One of the biggest mega trends happening
in America is the bifurcation of society between the haves and the have nots.
Many of the jobs the 'underclass' once did are gone forever, while others spent
freely when times were good, and when the tide turned, have little buffer. [Dec 8, 2007: Do the Bottom 80% of Americans Stand a
Chance?] After all, saving for a rainy day is what boring people do.
Others really never got off the ground, as the K-12 education system has
degraded dramatically the past few decades.Frankly the underlying trend - as
bad as it is on the surface - has been hidden by multiple bubbles, and most
recently, there has been a level of government assistance never seen before. [Nov 5, 2010: USA Today - Anti-Poverty Programs Surpass
Cost of Medicare] In terms of government spending. This brings up a
host of issues as any changes to the social safety net are going to send
millions past GO and directly to impoverished status (and yes there are people
gaming the system, but not tens of millions). There are myriad societal effects
of the transformation of America from a relative egalitarian society in the
1960s to a 2 or 3 class system - but those are topics for other posts we have
done.The official U.S. government tally of who is living in poverty is a joke.
We last looked at it about 16 months ago [Sep 19, 2009: US Poverty Rises to 11 Year High - But
Still Vastly Understated] For example, if you make $23,000 for a
family of 4 - you are not in poverty. If you are single and make $14,000 you are
not in poverty. I'm not sure in what counties except for rural Mississippi you
can accomplish that cost of living, but apparently the government believes a
middle class lifestyle is available at $25K for a family of 4 in all of
America. Or at least it would be inconvenient to admit otherwise. And yes once
more let me put the caveat that being "poor" in America is different
than being poor in Malawi, but in theory we should be comparing ourselves to
other first world countries.The AP has an interesting report of a new measure
of poverty in the U.S., based on the census. It has a different band of
parameters and shows an increase over the government's incredibly generous
definition of poverty. What is striking is the large increase in those in the
over 65+ camp who fall into poverty. Due to our consumption culture (encouraged
by the government at every turn, since we've transformed our economy from good
producing to services and consumption) many are entering the golden years with
little to nothing.Where once many had their mortgage paid off by the time they
retired and hence could live on a much lower income as their largest expense
was eliminated, now after a generation of serial refinancing and cash out to
finance buying 'what we deserve', many still have the mortgage to worry about
even at age 70+. There are many other factors we've discussed often - i.e. the
move from pensions to do it yourself savings in a country where saving is a sin
and spending is worshiped, the disaster that is the 401k system, etc. Unlike
the mortgage crisis which is playing out in a relative short period of time
(6-8 years), this grand economic experiment of running an economy on
consumption & services (you do my nails, I'll cut your hair, you serve me a
beer, I'll cut your lawn, you build a house, I'll default on it) is taking
decades to play out. But we're starting to see the first wave of results the
past 5-10 years, and it's not pretty.Bigger picture, there are enormous
stresses being formed at the bottom end of the society, and more and more are
being caught in the net. Anyone who truly believes there will be any serious
spending cuts at the federal level does not realize the (increasing) dependency
that has been created by the a multitude of poor decisions over the past few decades.
Indeed we fast approach the time when 1 in every 5 dollars of
"income" are government transfers. [May 25, 2010: 1 in 5.5 Dollars of American Income Now Via
Government; All time High] At this point, the genie is out of the
bottle and with a dysfunctional government whose only solution is layer on more
debt to kick the can down the road, our modern day plutonomy only grows in
power. [Sep 7, 2009: Citigroup - America; A Modern Day Plutonomy]
However, there appears nothing to be worried about since we've been well
trained to parrot the fact that as long as the S&P 500 only goes up,
everything in America is fine. Nothing to see here, move along (buy stocks as
you are moving of course).
Via AP
[Feb 20, 2009: NYT - Newly Poor Swell Lines @ Food Banks
Nationwide]
[Oct 22, 2010: Reuters - The Haves, the Have Nots, and the
Dreamless Dead]
[Sep 3, 2010: FT.com - The Crisis in Middle America]
[July 26, 2010: [Video] DatelineNBC - America's Increasing
Ranks of Poor]
Unemployment Claims Are Not What They Appear Adler
‘First-time unemployment claims rose by 52,038 to 577,279 in the week that
ended January 1. The Wall Street captive media is, as usual, fudging the
reports by reporting that claims were at 409,000, based on the seasonal hocus
pocus. They report an uptick of 18,000 instead of 52,000. Both Dow Jones and
Bloomberg are emphasizing that the 4 week moving average dropped sharply.
Again, this is based on seasonally adjusted fudge packing.The truth is that
while this year's end of year rise in claims is better than the past two years,
the numbers are still a lot worse than during good economic times. This week’s
jump of 52k compares with a rise of 88,929 in the week that ended 1/2/10. The
chart below shows that the normal seasonal uptrend is at a lower trend level
than the past two years, but well above 2006-2008. The insured unemployment
rate remains well above the 2004-2008 period. However, even that number may be
misleading because it uses a base number comprised of a 6 month average from
the period that ended in June. Because fewer people are now eligible, the actual
rate should be higher.[chart]Because new
claims are limited to those eligible, part of the downtrend in new claims is
due to the millions of persons losing eligibility. To account for that, the
next chart shows new claims as a percentage of those eligible. Here the
improving trend shows evidence of leveling off. The normal seasonal spike at
the beginning of January needs to hold around .053% to keep the downtrend from
the peaks of the past 2 years intact. The green line connects the most recent
week with the same week in prior years. Next week’s data should be the seasonal
peak.[chart]The
Department of Labor calculates the total number of covered employees quarterly,
using a 6 month average. The current figure is based on data from the first
half of 2010, which is not very useful now. However, it does imply that much of
the drop in continuing claims has come from those losing eligibility.[chart]The
following chart shows Continued Claims on an inverse scale, overlaid with stock
prices and Fed securities holdings. The inverse Continued Claims graph is a
directional proxy for total employment. The downtick at this time of year is
normal. The trend remains strong which suggests that the seasonally adjusted
payrolls data tomorrow should be positive. The consensus calls for a gain of
140,000. As I reported in the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition
Treasury update to subscribers this week, wage tax withholding in December ran
15% ahead of November, but that probably reflects withholding from year end
bonuses rather than a significant increase in employment levels. The year to
year gain was more muted.[chart]It’s pretty
clear from this chart that the Fed is the driver of these trends, but that
other forces are at work causing diminishing returns.Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no
plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.’
Expecting Employment Surprise: Dave's Daily ‘There are a lot of wild estimates making the rounds for
employment data Friday. Consensus estimates for new jobs added range from
150-200K, but some whisper numbers are as high as 500K and that would shock
many sectors. Meanwhile stocks were hurt early by poorly received December same
store sales (despite bullish headlines to the contrary) and rebound higher in Jobless
Claims. Nevertheless, the dollar continued to rise as commodity markets were
still selling-off. The buzz remains inflation is heating up particularly in
food and energy so investors fear tightening even as the Fed is engaged in QE.
Now that's interesting!! Bond prices remained rather stable. The Fed tossed in
more POMO
activity Thursday. As that was announced stocks immediately rallied if only
briefly. What a coincidence! In advance of the all-important employment report
volume remained light and breadth negative.’
Are Investors Concerned About Rising Gas Prices? Rotblut
‘Bullish sentiment extended its streak of above-average readings to 18
consecutive weeks in the latest AAII Sentiment Survey. This is the longest such
streak since 2004. The percentage of individual investors expecting stock
prices to rise over the next six months rose 4.3 percentage points to 55.9%.
The historical average is 39%.Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices
will stay essentially flat over the next six months, fell 2.5 percentage points
to 25.9%. Neutral sentiment has been below its historical average of 31% for 22
consecutive weeks.Bearish sentiment, expectations that stocks prices will fall
over the next six months, slipped 1.8 percentage points to 18.3%. Bearish
sentiment has been below its historical average of 30% for 15 out of the last
17 weeks.Bullish sentiment remains at historically high levels. One example of
this is the eight-week moving average of bullish sentiment, which is above 51%
for the third consecutive week. (It is at 51.4%.) This measure has not been
higher since January 2005. Other measures also suggest sentiment is running
hot, including the spread between bullish and bearish sentiment (37.6
percentage points) and the standard deviation (bullish sentiment is more than
one standard deviation above the historical mean). High bullish readings have
been correlated with market pullbacks, but other indicators should be analyzed
before predicting where stocks prices are headed.Individual investors are
continuing to feel optimistic about stock prices due to, in part, the sustained
rally and additional signs that the economy is recovering. News of upbeat 2011
forecasts from several market strategists is also playing a role.This week’s
special question asked AAII members whether they are concerned about the
potential impact rising gasoline prices will have the economic recovery.About
half of respondents described themselves as being somewhat worried about rising
prices at the pump. Many did think the economy will grow, though the pace of
the recovery might be slowed. Several members added the caveat that their
concerns are dependent on how high prices actually rise. A small number thought
higher prices would be good for their energy holdings or would increase demand
for fuel-efficient vehicles and other green initiatives. Here is a sampling of
the responses:
This week’s sentiment survey results:
Historical Averages:
The AAII Sentiment Survey has been conducted weekly since July 1987 and asks AAII members whether they think stock prices will rise, remain essentially flat, or fall over the next six months. The survey period runs from Thursday (12:01 a.m.) to Wednesday (11:59 p.m.). The survey and its results are available online.’
Less
Than 35% of All Stocks Are Undervalued Suttmeier ‘ValuEngine now shows that only
34.6% of more than 5,000 stocks are undervalued with 65.4% overvalued. A
reading below 35% may persist for a while, but typically the stock market tops
out when less than 35% of all stocks are undervalued. Fifteen of 16 sectors are
overvalued by 8.6% for Consumer Discretionary to 33.1% for Basic Industries.
Medical is the undervalued sector, but only by 1.4%. The major equity averages
are extremely overbought on both daily and weekly charts. The missing
ingredient for a top is the lack of nearby risky levels for the major averages.
The major equity averages straddle quarterly value levels, pivots and risky
levels favoring a reversal-oriented first quarter – 11,395 Dow, 1162.5 SPX,
2853 NASDAQ, 4671 Transports and 765.50 Russell 2000. The rise in the 30-year
yield above 4.5% is a major drag on equity valuations. With stock market
complacency as high as it is, Comex gold closed below its 50-day simple moving
average at 1380.6 for the first time since August 11. Nymex crude oil is above
this week’s pivot at $88.50. The euro is between its 200-day at 1.3080 and its
50-day at 1.3422, approaching a test of the 200-day. The Dow is well above my
annual pivot at 11,491 without a nearby risky level as the MOJO run continues.
Valuations are stretched with only 16.1% of all stocks undervalued by at least
20%, whereas 33.0% of all stocks are overvalued by more than 20%.[chart](Click
to enlarge)
It is difficult to find stocks to add to the ValuTrader Model
Portfolio as only 76
stocks are rated STRONG BUY or BUY with a market cap of at least five billion
and average daily trading volume of 500,000 shares or more, and projected to
gain at least 7.5% over the next twelve months. There are twelve stocks in the
model portfolio.
Key Levels From My Proprietary Analytics
10-year Note – (3.483) Weekly, annual and semiannual value levels are 3.714,
3.791 and 4.268 with a daily risky level at 3.371. Annual, semiannual and
monthly risky levels are 2.690, 2.441, 2.322 and 2.150.
Comex Gold – ($1373.7) Annual, semiannual and annual value levels are
$1356.5, $1300.6 and $1187.2 with a weekly pivot at $1380.0. Daily, monthly,
quarterly and semiannual risky levels are $1412.74, $1439.0, $1441.7 and
$1452.6.
Nymex Crude Oil – ($90.30) Semiannual and monthly value levels are $87.52 and
$75.74 with a weekly pivot at $88.50. Annual, semiannual and quarterly risky
levels are $99.91, $101.92, $107.14 and $110.87.
The euro –
(1.3149) Monthly and weekly value levels are 1.2805 and 1.2703 with quarterly
and daily pivots at 1.3227 and 1.3358, and semiannual and annual risky levels
at 1.4624, 1.4989, 1.6367 and 1.7312.
Daily Dow:
(11,723) Annual, quarterly, weekly, semiannual, monthly and semiannual value
levels are 11,491, 11,395, 11,334, 10,959, 10,427 and 9,449 with a daily pivot
at 11,687, and annual risky level at 13,890.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.’
Retailers
hold down stocks ahead of jobs data (Reuters) - Stocks
slipped on Thursday as soft retail sales and a sharp rise in the dollar left
investors edgy a day before December's U.S. employment report.
U.N.
group warns of possible food crisis (Washington Post) [ Possible? How ‘bout
it’s already begun and hence, inevitable particularly since worldwide with few
exceptions in looking to the u.s. as analogous to the self-destructive
compulsion of an addict or drunk they’ve jumped on the american crazy train,
from perpetual wars, to profligate spending, to over-printing of fiat paper currencies,
to mark to anything burial and cover-up and no-pros of fraudulent paper schemes
of the fraudulent wall street ilk / variety, etc. ] The Food and Agricultural Organization said Wednesday that the
world faces a "food price shock" after the agency's benchmark index
of farm commodities prices shot up last month.
How
the recession imploded states' finances (Washington Post) [ This is truly no joke! Municipal
Debt Threatens U.S. Economy Lim ‘The debt crisis that has taken down banks,
and even countries, threatens more than 100 American municipalities this year.
According to Meredith Whitney, who works as a US research analyst, local and
state debts are the biggest concerns to the US economy today. It is large
enough to derail economic recovery.
She said that,
There’s not a doubt on my mind that you will see a
spate of municipal bond defaults. You can see fifty to a hundred sizable
defaults – more. This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of
defaults.
American states and cities have a total debt load of
around $2 trillion.
New Jersey government Chris Christie summarized it
clearly,
We spent too much on everything. We spent money we
didn’t have. We borrowed money just crazily. The credit card’s maxed out, and
it’s over. We now have to get to the business of climbing out of the hole.
We’ve been digging it for a decade or more. We’ve got to climb now, and a climb
is harder.
Cities from Madrid to Detroit are struggling to pay
off even just basic services such as street cleaning. Ms. Whitney’s comments
are likely to put focus on municipal bonds. She is ranked as one of the most
influential women in American business. While working for Oppenheimer, a New
York investment bank, she predicted that Citibank will cut its dividends.
Although she suffered from a lot of criticisms then, her analysis proved to be
correct as the bank was forced to seek government bail-out. Ms. Whitney has
since started her own consulting firm.
Deficit Already Affecting Public Spending
American states have spent almost $500 billion more
than tax revenues. In addition, they face another $1 trillion hole in pension
funds. Already, Detroit is cutting road repairs, cleaning services, police, and
lighting expenditures which affects 20% of the population. The city has
suffered from nearly two decades of decline due to US auto outsourcing. It no
longer generates enough wealth to provide services to its 900,000 inhabitants.
Meanwhile, Illinois is suffering from similar ills after spending twice as much
as it generated in tax. It is already six months behind on creditor payments.
It owes $400 million to the University of Illinois alone and has 21% chances of
defaulting on its debts. According to CMA Datavision which is a derivatives
information company, this percentage is more than any other state. Other states
such as California and Arizona are also taking steps to solve their debt
problems. California has raised university tuition fees by 32% while Arizona
sold its Supreme Court and state capitol buildings before leasing them back.
Florida is another state that may be hit by a default; this state is the center
of a real estate boom that went best recently.
Philip Brown, the managing director of Citigroup in
London said that,
It’s all part of the same parcel: public sector
indebtedness needs to be cut, it needs a lot of austerity and it hit the
central government first, and now is hitting local bodies.
Unlike banks and other financial institutions,
“cities are their own”. According to Andres Rodriguez-Pose, a professor of
economic geography at the London School of Economics, “cities will have to pay
for their debts, and in some cases they will have to carry out dramatic cuts,
such as Detroit’s.” If there is a city that best symbolizes distressed local
finances, it is Vallejo in California. Vallejo is a former US navy town located
near San Francisco. It has entered into Chapter Nine bankruptcy protection in
2008 and the effects are still resonating up to this day. The city is trying to
negotiate with the unions, which has refused to accept a plan to cut salary two
years ago. Vallejo has a population of around 120,000 but it carries $195
million in unfunded pension obligations. The town does not have enough local
industry to sustain its finances; property tax collection dropped dramatically
upon the collapse of the real estate market. Vallejo is given a C rating by
Standard & Poor, the lowest level. US cities are more susceptible to
defaults than their European counterparts because it relies mainly on municipal
bonds while European towns depend on government bailouts and bank loans.
Gold Expectations for 2011
Now, let’s take a look at long-term gold chart
(courtesy of StockCharts.com) to see how
bullion fared this week:
[chart] For some
time, gold has tried to break the upper border of the rising trend channel.
Gold prices have been wavering from $1,340 to $1,423 since October 5 with a
general upward slope. It has often just fallen by a fraction below the rising
trend line. There are signs that a break-out could be seen soon. We take into
account that gold is quite bullish at the onset of a new year. The $1,600
target still seems realistic for the early part of 2011. 2010 ended on a high
note for precious metals. Gold ended the year at $1,421 an ounce while silver
is at $30.91 an ounce. Overall, gold prices rose by 30% in 2010 while silver
leaped 80%. Prognostications abound in 2011. These forecasts consider the
outlook for currencies, inflation, and interest rates in the world’s largest
economies. We’ll examine some of the trends that may influence gold prices:Gold
prices tend to rise in times of projected or actual inflation due to the
bullion’s status as a “safe haven” asset. Investors who are seeking an asset
that reacts favorably to currency devaluation and inflation typically move some
of their wealth into gold. Right now, the Fed is more concerned about deflation
rather than inflation. As such, they show little reluctance to flood the US
economy with dollars. Meanwhile, countries such as India and China want
stronger economic growth. The result of this is higher inflation. China’s
prices are now 5.1% higher compared to a year ago while India projects an
inflation of 5.5% by March 2011. But the correlation between high inflation and
high gold prices isn’t set in stone. Although more inflation will initially
favor high gold prices, the countervailing policy of keeping interest rates to
control inflation sometimes makes interest-bearing instruments more attractive.
As of now, however, rates are not high enough to have an impact on gold prices.
Historically, the first two months of the year are good for gold. Buyers seek back
the gold positions they shed going into the New Year. The continuing
inflationary concerns can further support prices in 2011. The Reserve Bank of
India said that inflation is not slowing down as quickly as desired. In the US,
there are reports that companies are experiencing higher costs for staffing
and/or materials, but these costs are not yet being felt by the customers.
According to Frank Holmes, the CEO of US Global Investors, “The two pillars of
gold are, in any country’s currency, are negative real interest rate and
deficit spending.” Mr. Holmes believes that low interest rates won’t go away
anytime soon as this would be “catastrophic” to the financial system.’
World Food Prices Rise: Get Ready for the Riots? [ Food
Riots Next? FAO Says Food Prices Surpass Record Highs Seen During 2007-2008
Bubble infowars.com / prisonplanet.com
The last time food prices hit ridiculous levels, the immediate outcome was
global food riots in places such as Haiti and Bangladesh. ] Tradermark ‘As the 'financialization' of
every commodity of earth continues at pace, and easy money pours out of almost
every major central bank, we have now reached the point where food prices have
surpassed the record levels of 2008. [Feb
12, 2008: Wheat is Being Ruined by ... what else... Hedge Funds and Speculators]
[Apr
28, 2008: Wall Street Grain Hoarding Brings Farmers, Consumers Near Ruin] [Apr
6, 2008: Agflation Hits Rice - Prices Up 50% in 2 Weeks] What happened back
then? Just some minor issues such as rioting in many '2nd' and '3rd' world
countries. Looks like we need to prepare for another hot summer. And
domestically those food stamps are not going to go quite so far as they used
to. [Nov
10, 2009: Walmart Executive - "There are Families Not Eating at the End of
the Month"]
Oh well, just consider it collateral damage in The Bernank's plan to make us
(and Goldman, JPMorgan, et al) all
rich via asset inflation. (I will stop by some local food banks to let them
know they can make some mad money in the markets to offset the rising prices)
Just remember to blame it all on China - that was a great excuse back in 08,
even though we saw once leverage was taken out of the financial system prices
of commodities suddenly crashed. This repeating epidemic has no relationship at
all with financial speculation at all. Nope.
On a related note - a tip of the hat to Congress for the recent ethanol funding
expansion, snuck in during the lame duck. If there is one thing that makes
sense when we have the potential for global food crisis, it is putting
inefficient corn in our cars. [Mar
27, 2008: WSJ - Farm Lobby Beats Back Assault on Subsidies] The main saving
grace at this time is rice, which is massively important in the East. Too bad
there is not a rice ETF or else speculators with Ben's easy money supply
and demand dynamics could push it up much more quickly.
Via
Bloomberg:
Rising Asset Prices Cannibalize U.S. Growth , On Wednesday January 5, 2011,
7:44 pm EST
‘Rising
asset prices are bad for investors! At first glance this statement makes no
sense at all. Upon closer examination, however, there is much truth to this
statement. Bear with me for a couple of minutes and you'll see what I mean.
Rising Oil Prices - Good or Bad?
Perception
seems to have a bigger influence on news coverage than facts. A recent Wall
Street Journal front-page headline read that: 'Oil back at $90 as growth gains
pace.'According to the WSJ reporter, 'the recovery in oil prices is an
encouraging sign of world growth.' Wait a minute. Since when are rising oil
prices (NYSEArca: USO - News)
good for the economy?In early 2008, when oil prices were rising, economists
were in agreement that the ripple effect of rising crude would sap the American
consumer of precious discretionary funds.Obviously, the concept of cause and
effect is subject to interpretation. The same cause (rising oil prices) had a
different effect in 2008 than it has today. In 2008 it stifled the economy; in
2011 it's viewed as a sign of improvement.Because rising oil prices affect everybody,
they are often compared to a flat tax - like a sales tax. More money spent on
taxes means less money spent on items that help improve the economy. In fact,
some economists argue that rising crude negates much or all of the monetary
benefits of the tax cut extension.
Rising Commodity Prices - Good or Bad?
If
you've had your money in any single commodity like gold (NYSEArca: GLD
- News),
silver (NYSEArca: SLV - News),
agriculture (NYSEArca: DBA - News)
or broad commodity funds (NYSEArca: DBC
- News),
count yourself happy, but don't get greedy.Commodities had a great run, but
similar to high oil prices, high commodity prices cannibalize economic growth.
Why? The more money needed to spend on food staples, the more careful you have
to be with your discretionary spending.In a still battered real estate market,
homebuilders (NYSEArca: XHB - News)
have to pass on the extra cost of rising timber, iron and copper prices. What
this economy needs is an uptick in real estate prices, not a bigger price tag
for building or remodeling homes.
Major Growth Engines in Trouble
Despite
rising commodity prices, inflation has been a non-issue domestically, largely
because retailers don't have much pricing power.According to Dr. Jim Walker,
Founder of Asianomics Limited, higher commodity prices are already
impoverishing large parts of emerging markets (NYSEArca: EEM
- News)
and are sucking the demand from the poor and middle-income class of
society.Demand from the middle-class is the growth engine of a healthy economy.
Stifling the growth of the world's largest consumer base - China (NYSEArca: FXI
- News)
- can't be good for business.
The 'New Economy'
Many
readers remember a time when the U.S. was a production powerhouse, when General
Electric earned profits with items of tangible value not TV stations and financial
products; a time where GDP was built on ingenuity, hard work and sweat.The
ingenuity portion of the equation is still alive, but look at its transition.
The country's biggest and most successful company - Apple - manufactures and
assembles nearly all of its products in China.The country's newest and most
powerful companies - Groupon and Facebook - were created out of thin air. No
disrespect to Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Mason - they came up with the right
concept at the right time - but what role does Facebook and Groupon play in the
'new economy?'Facebook is valued at $50 billion, that's more than triple the
market cap of Alcoa. How and what does Facebook contribute to U.S. gross
domestic products (GDP) and real organic economic growth? Yes, Facebook employs
about a thousand people, but what else?How about Groupon? Groupon is an
ingenious business model and has changed (or is about to change) the way
Americans shop. Wall Street is cheering Groupon and can't wait for the IPO.
However, the new way of buying nurtures frugality and robs restaurants and
retail stores of their pricing power. Consumers just won't buy unless they get
a 50%+ discount.Don't get me wrong, I have an above average appreciation for
coupons - probably because there was no such thing when I grew up in Germany-
but Groupon is the antidote to inflation. My guess is that even Bernanke would
agree.
Air-pocket Protection
I
often hear that technical indicators don't work in an environment where the Fed
controls the market and inflates prices at will.If you believe the Fed is
pumping up major indexes like the Dow (DJI: ^DJI), S&P (SNP: ^GSPC) and
Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) you must be wondering how long that will work. If this
rally isn't value driven - which in my humble opinion it isn't - stocks have
nowhere to go but down, eventually.In essence, the Fed is creating a new bubble
in an attempt to mop up the spill left behind by the previous bust. It doesn't
take an investment wizard to figure out that this bubble will also burst,
eventually. When it does, it will probably get ugly.How do you invest in a
market where another potential meltdown lurks behind every correction? You
monitor the markets vital signs. How? Technical indicators are the best way.
Technical Analysis - More Valueable than Ever
Using
purely technical gauges, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter has identified
various long-risk entries (to the upside) since the S&P broke above its
200-day moving average (at the time at 1,115).Technical analysis includes, but
is not limited to, interpreting the effect candle formations, chart patterns
(such as the ascending triangle or W pattern), acceleration bands, Fibonacci
levels, and trading brackets have on prices.A technical approach to the market
takes the bias out of investing. Personally, I am bearish on the market, but
have learned to trust technicals and wait for high probability set ups, long or
short.Despite the recent sentiment extremes, which rivaled or exceeded readings
recorded at the 2007 highs, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter has been
expecting prices to reach 1,285 for the S&P. [chart]On December
12, the newsletter commented as follows on the W pattern: 'The W pattern
(opposite of the bearish M pattern) is a bullish pattern. The upside target is
calculated by the difference between the left side of the W and the bottom of
the W (1,227 - 1,173 = 54). The difference is then added to the right breakout
of 1,227 (1,227 + 54 = 1,281).'Markets tend to reverse around major resistance
points, one of which surrounds the 1,281 area. What happens when stocks (or
other asset classes) change direction from up to down? Will it be a temporary
correction or a protracted decline?’
Municipal
Debt Threatens U.S. Economy Lim ‘The debt crisis that has taken down banks,
and even countries, threatens more than 100 American municipalities this year.
According to Meredith Whitney, who works as a US research analyst, local and
state debts are the biggest concerns to the US economy today. It is large
enough to derail economic recovery.
She said that,
There’s not a doubt on my mind that you will see a
spate of municipal bond defaults. You can see fifty to a hundred sizable
defaults – more. This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of
defaults.
American states and cities have a total debt load of
around $2 trillion.
New Jersey government Chris Christie summarized it
clearly,
We spent too much on everything. We spent money we
didn’t have. We borrowed money just crazily. The credit card’s maxed out, and
it’s over. We now have to get to the business of climbing out of the hole.
We’ve been digging it for a decade or more. We’ve got to climb now, and a climb
is harder.
Cities from Madrid to Detroit are struggling to pay
off even just basic services such as street cleaning. Ms. Whitney’s comments
are likely to put focus on municipal bonds. She is ranked as one of the most
influential women in American business. While working for Oppenheimer, a New
York investment bank, she predicted that Citibank will cut its dividends.
Although she suffered from a lot of criticisms then, her analysis proved to be
correct as the bank was forced to seek government bail-out. Ms. Whitney has
since started her own consulting firm.
Deficit Already Affecting Public Spending
American states have spent almost $500 billion more
than tax revenues. In addition, they face another $1 trillion hole in pension
funds. Already, Detroit is cutting road repairs, cleaning services, police, and
lighting expenditures which affects 20% of the population. The city has
suffered from nearly two decades of decline due to US auto outsourcing. It no
longer generates enough wealth to provide services to its 900,000 inhabitants.
Meanwhile, Illinois is suffering from similar ills after spending twice as much
as it generated in tax. It is already six months behind on creditor payments.
It owes $400 million to the University of Illinois alone and has 21% chances of
defaulting on its debts. According to CMA Datavision which is a derivatives
information company, this percentage is more than any other state. Other states
such as California and Arizona are also taking steps to solve their debt
problems. California has raised university tuition fees by 32% while Arizona
sold its Supreme Court and state capitol buildings before leasing them back.
Florida is another state that may be hit by a default; this state is the center
of a real estate boom that went best recently.
Philip Brown, the managing director of Citigroup in
London said that,
It’s all part of the same parcel: public sector
indebtedness needs to be cut, it needs a lot of austerity and it hit the
central government first, and now is hitting local bodies.
Unlike banks and other financial institutions,
“cities are their own”. According to Andres Rodriguez-Pose, a professor of
economic geography at the London School of Economics, “cities will have to pay
for their debts, and in some cases they will have to carry out dramatic cuts,
such as Detroit’s.” If there is a city that best symbolizes distressed local
finances, it is Vallejo in California. Vallejo is a former US navy town located
near San Francisco. It has entered into Chapter Nine bankruptcy protection in
2008 and the effects are still resonating up to this day. The city is trying to
negotiate with the unions, which has refused to accept a plan to cut salary two
years ago. Vallejo has a population of around 120,000 but it carries $195
million in unfunded pension obligations. The town does not have enough local
industry to sustain its finances; property tax collection dropped dramatically
upon the collapse of the real estate market. Vallejo is given a C rating by
Standard & Poor, the lowest level. US cities are more susceptible to
defaults than their European counterparts because it relies mainly on municipal
bonds while European towns depend on government bailouts and bank loans.
Gold Expectations for 2011
Now, let’s take a look at long-term gold chart
(courtesy of StockCharts.com) to see how
bullion fared this week:
[chart] For some time,
gold has tried to break the upper border of the rising trend channel. Gold
prices have been wavering from $1,340 to $1,423 since October 5 with a general
upward slope. It has often just fallen by a fraction below the rising trend
line. There are signs that a break-out could be seen soon. We take into account
that gold is quite bullish at the onset of a new year. The $1,600 target still
seems realistic for the early part of 2011. 2010 ended on a high note for
precious metals. Gold ended the year at $1,421 an ounce while silver is at
$30.91 an ounce. Overall, gold prices rose by 30% in 2010 while silver leaped
80%. Prognostications abound in 2011. These forecasts consider the outlook for
currencies, inflation, and interest rates in the world’s largest economies.
We’ll examine some of the trends that may influence gold prices:Gold prices
tend to rise in times of projected or actual inflation due to the bullion’s
status as a “safe haven” asset. Investors who are seeking an asset that reacts
favorably to currency devaluation and inflation typically move some of their
wealth into gold. Right now, the Fed is more concerned about deflation rather
than inflation. As such, they show little reluctance to flood the US economy
with dollars. Meanwhile, countries such as India and China want stronger
economic growth. The result of this is higher inflation. China’s prices are now
5.1% higher compared to a year ago while India projects an inflation of 5.5% by
March 2011. But the correlation between high inflation and high gold prices
isn’t set in stone. Although more inflation will initially favor high gold
prices, the countervailing policy of keeping interest rates to control
inflation sometimes makes interest-bearing instruments more attractive. As of
now, however, rates are not high enough to have an impact on gold prices.
Historically, the first two months of the year are good for gold. Buyers seek
back the gold positions they shed going into the New Year. The continuing
inflationary concerns can further support prices in 2011. The Reserve Bank of
India said that inflation is not slowing down as quickly as desired. In the US,
there are reports that companies are experiencing higher costs for staffing
and/or materials, but these costs are not yet being felt by the customers.
According to Frank Holmes, the CEO of US Global Investors, “The two pillars of
gold are, in any country’s currency, are negative real interest rate and
deficit spending.” Mr. Holmes believes that low interest rates won’t go away
anytime soon as this would be “catastrophic” to the financial system.’
October 15, 2010 (*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez, Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder
named ‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act
is a criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages
and attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims
probably owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in
need of such assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations
of law which have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption
is pervasive). A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently
with the subject action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action
which was illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention
of the Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the
Qui Tam provisions of the Federal
False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent resolution seek to
refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of the law with which I
am not familiar).
The document in 5 pages under penalty of
perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI office in New Haven is probably the
best and most concise summary of the case
RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm . With regard to the
calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices: There was one call to the LA
office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA office where I personally met
with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative evidentiary documents of the
money laundering which he confirmed as indicative of same (he was transferred
from said office within approximately a month of said meeting and his location
was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter was assigned to FBI Agent Ron
Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess of a decade until he abruptly
retired (our last conversation prior to his retirement related to the case and
parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father I stated had been an enforcer for
the mob to which he registered disbelief and requested I prove it, which I did
– he served 12 years in prison, aggravated assault/manslaughter? – and no,
there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew Maloney’s the one that
prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction
to the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
There is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor
creditors, nor I should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt
and illegal scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the
meaningful rules of law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia
611 E. 5th Street, #404
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 219-**** (cell phone)
(213) 622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with
the line, computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance
greater non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for
contact).
----------
*The foregoing and as
indicated therein was previously send 9-14-10 but delivery confirmation was
flawed as set forth below and my inquiries to the u.s. postal service rebuffed
(I believe tampered with inasmuch as your office could not locate same). This
cover letter (9-13-10) is on the 3 disks with navigable hyperlinks to the
subject files for ease of reference, including the files in the RICO action as
indicated. (10-15-10) I spoke with Rose, FBI, ADIC Secretary, who indicates
once again that your office has not received the aforesaid and which can
reasonably be presumed to have been tampered with, and hence, a violation of
the federal statute concerning same. ]
Jobless
Recovery?: 25 Unemployment Statistics That Are Almost Too Depressing To Read ‘…
Unemployment is up again! That’s right – even though Wall Street is swimming in
cash and the Obama administration is declaring that “the recession is over”,
the U.S. unemployment rate has gone even higher. So are you enjoying the
jobless recovery? … There is a sea of red ink on every level of American
society. It is only a matter of time before it destroys our economy. IF YOU THINK THAT THINGS ARE BAD NOW, JUST WAIT. THINGS
ARE GOING TO GET A WHOLE LOT WORSE. A HORRIFIC ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IS
COMING, AND IT IS GOING TO BE VERY, VERY PAINFUL.’
Timid
Tuesday: Is it Safe? Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are
simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of
global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form
of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh)
is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut
$100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while
continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1%
each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool
all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT
THERE! ‘
Short-Term, High-Probability Mean-Reversion Indicator:
Overbought Readings Continue to Increase Crowder ‘It was the best
start to a year in over seven years, but I am not sure how long Monday’s gain
will last, at least over the short-term.According to my High-Probability,
Mean-Reversion overbought/oversold indicator, most of the ETFs I follow have
pushed into a short-term “overbought” to “very overbought” state. As I have
stated ad nauseum, when this many ETFs hit a short-term extreme the market
typically takes a short-term reprieve (1-3 days).The XLB
position that is currently held in the High-Probability, Mean-Reversion
strategy moved in the red Monday although it was only a slight move. The
position, in my opinion, still looks rather well-positioned given the short-term
extreme overbought state of the market and XLB.Since I placed the trade there
have been some incredibly large positions taken in XLB. Someone sure thinks the
Materials sector (XLB) is headed south. Check it out here.The year ended with some nice gains as
the High-Probability, Mean-Reversion strategy made 9.7% gains for the month to
follow up the 3.7% in November. Not bad for the first two months of the
strategy. Hopefully 2011 will bring allow for more gains in the strategy.As I
stated last week, going back over the last seven years, if you purchased QQQQ on the 8th trading day of January and
held until the end of the month, you would have had returns of -2.3%, -3.1%,
-2.3%, -2.7%, -4.1%, -1.6% and -7.7%. The median maximum gain during those
trades was +0.7% compared to a median draw down of -5.3%.
Short-Term High-Probability, Mean-Reversion Indicator – as of
close 1/03/10
Benchmark ETFs
* S&P 500 (SPY)
– 86.5 (very overbought) / RSI (2) – 96.5
* Dow Jones (DIA)
–79.5 (overbought)
* Russell 2000 (IWM)
– 71.4 (overbought)
* NASDAQ 100 (QQQQ)
– 74.5 (overbought)
Sector
ETFs
*
Biotech (IBB)
– 62.5 (neutral)
* Consumer Discretionary (XLY)
– 70.5 (overbought)
* Health Care (XLV)
– 72.5 (overbought)
* Financial (XLF)
– 84.2 (very overbought)
* Energy (XLE)
– 89.5 (very overbought) / RSI (2) – 98.8
* Gold Miners (GDX)
– 48.5 (neutral)
* Industrial (XLI)
– 80.1 (very overbought)
* Materials (XLB)
– 91.4 (very overbought) / RSI (2) – 95.7
* Real Estate (IYR)
– 85.8 (very overbought) / RSI (2) – 96.0
* Retail (RTH) – 76.2
(overbought)
* Semiconductor (SMH) – 61.8
(neutral)
* United States Oil Fund (USO)
– 64.1 (neutral)
* Utilities (XLU)
– 68.3 (neutral)
International
ETFs
*
Brazil (EWZ)
– 82.0 (very overbought) / RSI (2) – 98.7
* China 25 (FXI)
– 72.2 (overbought)
* EAFE (EFA)
– 77.4 (overbought)
* South Korea (EWY)
– 91.9 (very overbought) / RSI (2) – 99.1
Commodity
ETFs
*
Gold (GLD) – 64.9 (neutral)
Ultra
Extremes
* Small Cap Bear 3x (TZA)
– 24.6 (oversold)
* Small-Cap Bull 3x (TNA)
– 74.1 (overbought)
* UltraLong QQQQ (QLD) –
75.4 (overbought)
* Ultra Long S&P 500 (SSO)
– 90.2 (very overbought)
* Ultra Short S&P 500 (SDS)
– 10.7 (very oversold)
* UltraShort 20+ Treasury (TBT)
– 43.5 (neutral)
Disclosure: I am short XLB.’
When
the Going Gets Tough, Governments Seize Private Pensions Depew ‘If you were
of an Austrian economics bent, and could read Polish, you'd find this article
from Mises.pl, about governments
seizing private pension funds to make up for revenue shortfalls, fascinating.
But perhaps you cannot read Polish? Very well. The Christian Science Monitor
has an English version of the article translated via The Adam Smith Institute Blog.
The most striking example is Hungary, where last month
the government made the citizens an offer they could not refuse. They could
either remit their individual retirement savings to the state, or lose the
right to the basic state pension (but still have an obligation to pay
contributions for it). In this extortionate way, the government wants to gain
control over $14bn of individual retirement savings.
The Bulgarian government has come up with a similar idea. $300m of private
early retirement savings was supposed to be transferred to the state pension
scheme. The government gave way after trade unions protested and finally only
about 20% of the original plans were implemented.
A slightly less drastic situation is developing in Poland. The government wants
to transfer of 1/3 of future contributions from individual retirement accounts
to the state-run social security system. Since this system does not back its
liabilities with stocks or even bonds, the money taken away from the savers
will go directly to the state treasury and savers will lose about $2.3bn a
year.
Beware
of the Wall Street Pump Job The Housing Time Bomb [ The old new pump and
dump! ]’ Articles
like the one below really bother me after the rally we have seen in the
past two years:
Is the retail investor returning to stocks?
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks just posted back-to-back years of strong
gains, yet the small U.S. investor largely remained a spectator. Now financial
advisers say investors, many of whom rode out the financial crisis in cash and
bonds, are slowly regaining confidence."What I'm seeing now is there's a
lot more talk about getting into stocks," said David Gottlieb, a Cleveland
adviser for Edward Jones, a nationwide brokerage catering to middle-class
Americans.Gottlieb, who for several months has encouraged clients to increase
their stock allocations, advises reducing bond holdings and buying
dividend-paying stocks.The Standard & Poor's 500 Index kicked off the new
year by rising 1.1 percent on Monday, reaching levels not seen since the weeks
before Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008. Large company shares, as a
group, have nearly doubled since their March 2009 lows, reflecting two years of
double-digit gains.Worries of a banking system collapse and the deepest
recession in more than 70 years drove many retail investors out of the stock
market back in 2008. And the May 2010 "flash crash," when stocks lost
700 points in minutes for no apparent reason, further undermined confidence.
Investors showed their dismay by pulling money from stock mutual funds month
after month, opting for the perceived safety of cash and bonds.
My Take:
What's your point Reuters? Are you telling investors to buy stocks because
confidence is slowly coming back? Is that a solid fundamental reason to buy?Is
now really the time to buy stocks after the equity markets have
basically doubled since the lows?There are just as many money managers advising
caution in our current investment environment as there are money managers who
are advising investors to take on more risk. There are severe structural issues
with our economy that are not going away, and it angers me that just about
every article out of the media slants their articles into suggesting that you
should buy stocks.Shouldn't the media be totally skeptical of Wall St. after
watching equities plummet 50% twice within the same decade? Also,
let's not forget that these are the same criminals that just finished putting
of millions of Americans into homes that they cannot afford which are worth 30%
less than what they paid for them.Shouldn't the press be relentlessly hammering
Wall St after causing Americans so much financial pain in the last decade? I
don't get it:Why does Wall St. always get a free pass when they destroy
America's 401k's? Why isn't the article above titled "Is Now the
time to sell stocks after a 90% rally?" The media needs to
understand that they have a responsibility when they write this kinda fluff. To
be fair Reuters did toss in a paragraph in the middle of the piece warning of
the risks of getting into stocks:
Still, some advisers are being very cautious.William
Jordan of William Jordan Associates in Laguna Hills, California, says he is
telling clients not to increase their stock exposures."As good as the past
two years have been, you can't say the stock market is undervalued. I'm not
bailing out, but I'm advising people to take some profits."Clients also
are encouraged to stick with their investment plans. Scott Smallman, a Seattle
broker for Wedbush Securities, said he has been checking to see if the stock
market rebound has pushed some stock exposures too high."When markets are
good, our job is to talk clients down from the ceiling," said Smallman,
who on Monday encouraged some clients to consider buying municipal bonds."
The Bottom Line
In my opinion, this article is far from "fair and balanced". Reuters
quoted 4 "pump monkey" advisers suggesting that everyone should be
piling into stocks versus only 2 advisers that were "cautious". There
were zero "bears" in the piece which is ridiculous when you look at
Wall Street's performance over the last 10 years. You are down 20% if you
listened to these bubble makers over the last decade. There are numerous
potentially catastrophic risks that remain out there and they are rarely if
ever laid out by the MSM. High unemployment, bankrupt banks, and insolvent
countries are just just a few that come to mind.I am amazed at how short all of
our memories are when it comes to Wall St. The financial system was brought to
it's knees two years ago by these pigs, and it's still sitting there crippled as
the Fed runs up the credit card pretending that the economy is recovering.The
MSM should be ashamed of themselves for ignoring the financial fraud and
printing pieces of garbage like the one above.What ever happened to hardcore
journalism? Walter Cronkite must be rolling over in his grave. Sadly, our media
outlets now have the attention span of an 8 year old with ADD. If the news is a
week old then it's history in their books.’ [
If it was only attention that was lacking there’d be at least a modicum
of hope. The really sadly here is that most understand so little of what’s
going on and those that do (understand) are want to report it; you know, mum’s
the word, code omerta, no party-poopers allowed, etc.. ]
U.S.-built
infrastructure is deteriorating (Washington Post) [ At first glance, I
thought this article was miscategorized as a national story in the World
section. Indeed, there’s no denying the truth of the title as to america
generally, domestically. Yet, the tragedy is that the tainted, destructive,
self-defeating wars for america have been a boon for war profiteers, frauds of
all stripes, when this defacto bankrupt america is sorely in need of repair,
replacement of its own shoddy, aging infrastructure suffering from the domestic
equivalent of similar scams, kickbacks, shoddy workmanship and all. After all,
it got to the point that they didn’t even go through the motions / façade and
actually flew $12 billion in hundred dollar bills into Iraq which to this day
is unaccounted for / unprosecuted … like the wall street frauds, since the
worthless toxic paper cashed out by wall street is still out there in the
trillions now marked to anything. ] Roads, canals and schools built in
Afghanistan as part of a special U.S. military program are crumbling under
Afghan stewardship, despite new steps imposed over the past year to ensure
reconstruction money is not being wasted, according to government reports.
Profit
From the Rally's Inevitable End: My Correction Wish List Invest Chief ‘As we say goodbye to 2010, we look towards
the future and what 2011 will bring. As you may or may not know, bullish
optimism hit historical highs for the outlook of 2011. I mean you could find
the wildest outlooks, such as Dow 20,000, housing crisis solved, unemployment
6%, etc.There was certainly no shortage of ridiculous claims that will not come
true. The point is, the best way for success in the markets is to simply roll
with the punches. Whether the Dow goes to 6,000 or 60,000, you must roll with
the punches and profit from the changes. If you are too focused on a certain
Dow level or other catalyst, you may be waiting for a long time, missing out on
profits along the way.The first “punch” investors are going to get is a
correction. The Dow had a huge run in December and investors will be taking
profits as they had begun to do in the last few trading days in 2010. It is
advised that you take profits and wait for the correction. While the correction
is occurring, select a “wish list” of companies that you would like to snatch
up at cheaper prices. That way all you have to do is place orders. The homework
to value your stocks should be your reasoning to place them on your “wish
list”.I have my “wish list” ready to go. Here are a few of my stocks that I am
planning on buying during the correction:
Shell is one of the best integrated oil
plays right now. It pays over 5% dividend, P/E of 13.3, financially stable,
good cash flow. It should also be noted that Shell recently inked a huge deal
with Qatar, which should help boost earnings no doubt.Hartford was devastated
by the 2008 crisis, dropping from its high of $66 the stock now stands at
26.50. Hartford is the most undervalued company its industry, in cash flow.
Also, it has a P/E of 11. Hartford has a good management team behind it and it
will surely blossom as the economy recovers.
Diana Shipping has been catching big
money’s attention lately. Diana is pretty undervalued with a P/E of 7.8. Diana
outpaces the rest of its industry in ROE, debt/equity, growth, and cash flow. Diana
is a great stock if you want exposure to bulk shipping. A well known competitor
of Diana Shipping is DryShips (DRYS). Based on value, Diana is a
better call.First Niagara is a regional bank with 171 branches in the Northeast
United States. First Niagara is one of the stronger regional banks which makes
it a good takeover play. First Niagara weathered the recession well and they
pay a 4% dividend. The only major problem I have with FNFG is the fact that
they have a sizable amount of debt on their balance sheet but like I said, this
is a pretty good takeover play and they pay a nice dividend while you wait.
Another regional bank I would recommend for 2011 is East West Bancorp (EWBC).The message I am trying to get
across is that you should always have a list of desired stocks that you would
like to pick up when a pullback occurs. Regardless, it is always important to
do your homework on a stock to understand if that stock fits your investing
style.
The best way to profit in the stock
market is always being prepared for the inevitable. A correction is coming;
stocks are just too expensive right now after the huge rally we have had. It is
time to take some profits and wait patiently for a pullback and pick up some
great names at a cheaper price…’
Market
Crash on 1/31/11? Technical
indicators suggest market collapse may begin by January 31st
Is
This a Major Market Top? [ Truth be told, there was a time when I read
Barron’s with great regularity (no more). I never missed Alan Abelson’s
incisively sharp wit and the market laboratory, the latter being supplanted by
readily accessible numerical data on the web. I also don’t recall Alan Abelson
ever being wrong and I don’t think he’s wrong here, particularly when you
consider the costs, fraud, and insanity underlying this manipulated and
inflated stock market which bubble is at best a (contrived) bull cycle in a
secular bear market. ] Roche ‘With economic recovery still in doubt and
sentiment readings at their highest levels since the S&P 500 topped in
2007, some market prognosticators find the latest surge in stocks to have been
irrational. There is now a near universal belief that stocks have but one
direction to go and that has some investors feeling uneasy. This
weekend’s Barron's showed the diametrically opposing views as two of their
leading columnists (Alan Abelson and Mike Santoli) discussed why they believe
this is a major market top (or not).
Abelson refers
to a certain veteran market technician (whom he doesn’t identify):
And he shares our concern about the epidemic of
optimism that has gripped the Street, manifest in any number of wildly bullish
forecasts for the market in 2011. It is the kind of explosive optimism that is
usually witnessed, he says more in wonder than rue, at market tops, either
temporary or something worse.
He doesn’t buy the argument that the huge stash of
cash supposedly sitting on the sidelines is a guarantee of a steady source of
fuel for the equity rally. Rather, he calls that hefty pile of cash, which is
being augmented by a fresh infusion from fixed-income investors now that bonds
are getting clocked, “scared money.” It belongs, he elaborates, to folks who
all this time have been leery of committing their dough to stocks but, thanks
to December’s quantum leap in share prices, have grown increasingly fearful of
missing the next leg up, and are itching to put all that scratch to work.
That such nervous-newbie equity buyers will stay the
course and step up their buying after the initial, inevitable correction is
hardly a given. Our bet is that they would jackrabbit out at the first hint of
trouble.
The peerless technician is also bothered by the
leadership of the end-of-the-year rally. More specifically, the shares of
commodity-related companies are in the vanguard of the advance at a time when
China, the big global buyer of virtually every commodity known to man, is striving
to rein in inflation. It is no accident, he suggests, that Chinese stock
markets have been lagging, and he feels they may prove a pretty good precursor
for our own dear market.
In sum, he sees stocks making at least a temporary
top early in the new year. It’s hard to say, he readily admits, just how bad or
enduring a setback equities will suffer. But obviously, he’s talking something
more substantial than a flickering decline or a tiny crack.
Santoli’s case against a major market top has been
more commonly discussed:
The reasons the bulls are bullish are also pretty
universally agreed upon. The industrial economy has gathered some momentum, the
emerging markets are surging, companies are flush, profits look set to rise
decently again, the Federal Reserve is seeking new ways to penalize risk
aversion, taxes won’t go up and the market tends to do well in the year after a
midterm election.
And we can add to the list the likelihood that
another financial-engineering cycle is just getting into gear, so expect lots
of equity-friendly refinancings by stretched companies, re-leveraging by
cash-rich ones and buyouts hither and yon.
The thing is, it’s all pretty much true. And because
of that, and given that stock valuations are not excessive, it’s tough to think
a likely pullback or worse would signal some major top.
Indeed, the happy feeling and the recent climb in
margin borrowing and drop in short interest, by one way of looking at them,
simply show that what has been a bull market for the better part of two years
is finally being viewed as one. The last time we had such a run of investor
optimism, indeed, was late 2004, before a calm but not terribly exuberant year.
The risk, then, is more about the near term, about
expectations of ease meeting some unforeseen complication early this year, and
that what’s likely to be a firm fundamental and technical case for riskier
financial assets in 2011 has, to a fair degree, been priced in by the market
lift of late 2010.
Interestingly, both appear to agree that the major
risk is in the near-term. Santoli, however, clearly believes any sell-off will
prove to be a buying opportunity. Abelson tends to still be in the bear market
camp. Major market top or a prelude to a continuation of the bull market? Only
time will tell.
Source: Barron's’
January Barometer - As January Goes,
so Goes the Year? , On Monday
January 3, 2011, 6:40 pm EST Did you know that there are two seasonal
patterns with an accuracy ratio of 90% or higher? This is no joke. The numbers
don't lie, but there is one caveat.The January Barometer has a 90% rate of
success. The essence of the January Barometer is simple, as January goes, so
goes the year. If January is up, the entire year will be up and vice versa.
90% Accuracy - Too Good to be True?
From
1950 to 2008 this pattern has played out most of the time. There were only five
times when it outright failed and seven times when it wasn't exactly accurate.
According to the Stock Trader's Almanac, the Barometer has a 90% accuracy
ratio. In terms of odds, that's about as good as it gets.However, the January
Barometer led investors in the wrong direction in 2001 when the S&P was
down a full 13% at the end of the year after being up 3.5% in January. Again,
there was a major misfire in 2003 when the S&P finished with a 26.4% gain
after a 2.7% January loss.There was a minor misfire in 2005, but the Barometer
couldn't have been more wrong in 2009 and 2010. In 2009 the S&P was down
8.6% in January but ended the year with a 23.5% gain. After a 3.9% January
loss last year, the S&P (SNP: ^GSPC) finished with a 12.6% gain.It seems
like the January Barometer has lost its mojo. In fact, five hits and five
misses bring the last decade's success rate down to 50%, in line with random
odds.
A New January Pattern
Every
January is different, but over the past three years a new pattern has emerged.
Christmas euphoria is followed by a New Year hangover. Let's see what the
numbers say.On December 24, 2007 I was invited to share my 2008 outlook with
CNBC's Maria Bartiromo. At the time, the major indexes had just recovered some
of their initial October/November losses and the percentage of bullish advisors
polled by Investors Intelligence was 54.9%, very close to last week's 55.6%.My
advice then was to employ strategies that benefit from a topping market.
On December 24, 2007, the DJIA (DJI: ^DJI) closed at 13,549, the S&P (SNP:
^GSPC) at 1,496, the Nasdaq 100 (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) at 2,128, and the Russell 2000
(NYSEArca: IWM - News)
at 794.Stocks (NYSEArca: VTI - News)
suffered from topping action throughout 2008 before delivering a year-end
rally. In fact, the 2008 Santa Claus Rally delivered the highest return in
decades, 7.4% for the S&P.On December 14, 2008, I cautioned via the ETF
Profit Strategy Newsletter: 'Optimistic sentiment, which should be more visible
above Dow 9,000, will give way to further declines. These should draw the
indexes close to or below their November 21st lows of 7,445 for the Dow and 740
for the S&P.' Early January 2008 the DJIA poked above 9,000 three times
before shedding 29%.2009/2010 was not much different than the previous two
years. On December 17, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter stated: 'The days
leading up to and following Christmas tend to have a bullish bias for stocks.
Nevertheless, bearish forces are becoming more pronounced and stocks are facing
stiff resistance at Dow 10,500 and S&P 1,120.' That stiff resistance led to
a swift 9% correction.The chart below illustrates the pattern of December
rallies followed by January sell offs. Of course this new pattern might
disappear as fast as it appears, but my analysis shows that January 2011 will
follow in the footsteps of the three previous Januaries. [chart]
Looking Beyond January
Let's
say we get the expected January correction, then what?We would be in a pickle
because according to the long-term track record of the January Barometer,
stocks should continue weak throughout the year while according to the
Presidential Election Year Cycle stocks should be up.The third year of the
Presidential Election Year Cycle (such as 2011) is historically the strongest
of the four-year cycle. This may sound like a too good to be true statistic,
but there hasn't been a major loss in a pre-election year since 1931.In an
effort to get re-elected, each administration is working overtime the year
before elections to buoy whatever there is to buoy in order to create a setting
that's conducive to winning as many re-election votes as possible.
A Premature Pop?
Courtesy
of the 2008 financial meltdown, the administration and the Fed were forced to
open the money spigot earlier than during the average Presidential cycle. Does
that mean that the stock market has peaked pre-maturely? We don't know yet, but
based on current sentiment readings it's a possibility that shouldn't be
ignored.
Correction and Pop Protection
Since
the market's internals today are similar to what we saw leading up to the April
2010 high and the previous three January highs, it isn't a far stretch to
expect a similar outcome - a swift and largely surprising decline between 9 -
29%.The S&P hasn't reached our upside target level yet, so it's best to let
the current rally do its thing. Once reversal levels are reached, the
proverbial air pocket that's been supporting this creeping up trend is likely
to bust and result in a downward jolt.Momentum is a fickle force. Just as
momentum has carried stocks higher than expected, it may drive prices lower
than any of the ueber-bullish Wall Street analysts expect.
Eliminating Variables
The
big question is whether the Federal Reserve and Wall Street banks (NYSEArca: XLF
- News)
can manage and control any sell off. It surely seems like they were able to do
so in January and April of 2010. However, they were powerless throughout 2008
and had to watch the market swallow up fellow competitors.It's no secret that
my personal outlook is fundamentally bearish, but with the influx of QE2
liquidity and the bullish bias of the Presidential Election Year Cycle, it's
prudent to listen to the market's vital signs.The ETF Profit Strategy
Newsletter continuously monitors the market's breadth in connection with
important support and resistance levels. Any trend change from up to down is
most likely to occur against resistance. Once a reversal is in place, it's
vital to watch how the market performs at support levels of various degrees.The
ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter
outlines the next major resistance level along with support levels the market
has established over the past weeks, months and years. Nothing expedites
momentum like a break below support. We all know what momentum can do.’
A Look at Base Metals: Dave's Daily ‘A FEW BULLS CHARGE OUT OF THE GATE It was an impressive ramp to
start 2011 wasn't it? Inside the numbers there was again little volume. Markets
are now much overbought and this low volume is worrisome as a cascade of heavy
volume will no doubt appear from the sell-side as long as this continues. There
was another round of POMO
(nearly $8 billion) Monday to start the year which helps trading desks
facilitate what the Fed wants -- higher stock prices. Of course the story
making the biggest splash was Goldman
Sachs wanting a piece of Facebook which would push the value of the company
to $50 billion. Also, BAC settled some outstanding issues with FNM to the tune
of $2 billion. Taken together this pushed the financial sector higher. Most
economic news Monday like ISM Data was generally as expected, but higher prices
in Europe spilled over early to New York. Most bulls believe a growing economy
is in the works which should lead to better earnings and stock prices. That's
the story, and bulls are sticking to it. The Interior
Department will allow some deepwater drilling to resume oddly coincided
with some selling in commodity markets, especially precious metals. But, the
dollar was also somewhat stronger which would usually cause a decline…’
Preparing for the
Financial Crisis The crisis in the US and world financial markets give us
reason to make preparations for the foreseeable problems ahead.
Treasury
Department shifts its stake in Ally Financial (Washington Post) [ Oooooh!
Sounds like a plan (with only those tiny pikers fannie and freddy to follow) …
till the next debacle … which will be coming soon to a theater near you …
Tipping Point: 25 Signs That The Coming Financial Collapse Is Now Closer Then Ever The financial collapse that so many of us have been anticipating is seemingly closer then ever. Over the past several weeks, there have been a host of ominous signs for the U.S. economy… ] Decision could make it easier for the bailed-out lender to launch an IPO and repay its government debt.
Pakistan's
top general vexes U.S. plans (Washington Post) [ Geeh! How dare that PAKISTAN General not jump on the war criminal
american crazy train by putting the interests of his nation ahead of u.s.
contrived interests and preventing Pakistan from being turned into a toxic
wasteland, killing fields, etc., as in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.. ] Despite intense efforts, officials fail
to persuade Gen. Ashfaq Kayani to undertake the administration's strategy of
eliminating Taliban havens inside Pakistan.
Pay
Attention to New Year Market Indicators [ The problem with these anecdotal,
mechanized (and sophomoric) technical guidelines is that the frauds on wall
street are well aware of them and with the current computer technology can
easily program to meet them with the fraudulent hope they’ll become
self-fulfilling. I disagree with the ‘everything coming up roses, green shoots
and all’ scenarios being painted in typical self-interested fashion and hardly
objective. Even near perma-bull John Augustine (speaking with Motek) looks for
at a minimum, if things go well for the economy (not at all likely and no can
do with real numbers / data) a 3-5% pullback / correction near term. Keep in
mind all stock prices have been inflated by amounts exceeding the gains, viz.,
13-17% by the debased dollar which of course is reflected in huge price
increases for commodities across the board which will impact margins or
consumption or both going forward. ] Plessis ‘If Santa has not yet made his way
to your investment portfolio, don’t despair. According to Jeffrey Hirsch (Stock Trader’s Almanac),
the “Santa Claus Rally” normally occurs during the last five trading days of a
year and the ensuing first two trading sessions of the new year. During this
seven-day period stocks historically tend to advance (by 1.5% on average since
1950), but when recording a loss, they frequently trade much lower in the new
year.With four of the seven sessions behind us there has been little in it,
with the S&P 500 Index marginally up by 0.09% and the Dow Jones Industrial
Average losing 0.03%.Another old stock market saw tells us the first five
trading days of January sets the course for January (known as the “First Five
Days Early Warning System”), and if the month of January is higher, there is a
good chance the year will end higher, i.e. the so-called “January Barometer”.
Every down January since 1950 has been followed by a new or continuing bear market
or a flat year. “As January goes, so goes the year,” said Hirsch.Lastly,
according to Hirsch, the “December Low Indicator" says that should
the Dow Jones Industrial Index close below its December low anytime during the
first quarter, it is frequently an excellent warning sign of lower levels
ahead. The numbers to watch are those recorded on December 1: 1,206.07 for the
S&P 500 Index and 11,255.78 for the Dow Industrial Average.The American
benchmark indices will have to crash today in order to make 2010 a down year.
Early indications therefore point to the January Barometer (with January having
been a down month) this year failing investors. Looking ahead to 2011, time
will tell whether the year-end/new-year indicators play out according to the
historical pattern. Meanwhile, we’ll have some fun tracking how it pans out.’
Happy
New Year! Here Are The Final Numbers For 2010 , On Friday December 31, 2010
‘Indices mixed
today, but not for the year. Stocks weren't the real winner, however, with
commodity prices booming.
First, today's
scoreboard:
Now, the final scoreboard for 2010:
Equities:
Check out the best and worst performing global equity indices
in 2010 >
Commodities:
Check out Societe Generale's guide to commodities in
2011 >
Bonds:
Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Global Broad Market
Index rose 4.7% this year.
Drudgereport: Medicare Bound to Bust 'by
2017' as First Boomers Hit 65...
POLL: Only 21% Want FCC to
Regulate Internet...
Fear of
Political Agenda...
Next
Year's Wars: 16 brewing conflicts to watch...
VIDEO:
Oil Could Push to $110...
Berlin sees most snow in
December since 1900s...
White House Plans to Push
'Global Warming' Policy, GOP Vows Fight...
FLASHBACK: Gore Reports Snow
and Ice Across World Vanishing Quickly...
Top China blogger forced to
shut down magazine...
Non-US banks gain from Fed
crisis fund; Half of emergency credit facility cash went to foreign
institutions...
Backlash...
THE MAN WHO TOOK ON BIG
SIS... Pilot angered TSA with video... ‘…News10 established a relationship with the Liu
family last July after their rental home in Sacramento's
Oak Park was destroyed by an arsonist. Four firefighters
were injured when the house exploded…’
Oil rises near $92...
Ex-SHELL president sees $5
gas in year...
MATTHEWS: Why Doesn't Obama
Just Release The Birth Certificate?
NYT: Bundle Up, It's Global
Warming...
Obama Reading List: Book on
Reagan... [ Reagan would absolutely detest, hate (yes, Reagan could
hate ) wobama and did detest, hate
people like failed president like no other in history, wobama]
Duma Disses Obama, delays START vote...
Assange fears death in a US
jail...
OPEC Members 'Target $100'...
China, following pervasively
corrupt, meaningfully lawless, defacto bankrupt american example, bars
political dissident access to lawyers...
Indefinite detention possible
for suspects at Guantanamo Bay...
DARK SIDE OF SIS:
AGENTS RAID HOME OF PILOT CRITICAL OF TSA...
Posted Video
Exposing Airport Security Flaws...
PUNISHED...
DEFICIT HITS RECORD...
MINORITY REPORT: Spielberg
advising on rebranding Dems... [ Come on! You can’t unring the bell
on the damage they’ve done by particularly doing the opposite of what they
said, from perpetual war, to no prosecutions of the wall street frauds now
marked to anything as per criminal courtesy via FASB rule change, etc.. They
b*** s*** like their mascot, ‘wobama the b’ (for b*** s***); not that the
republicans are substantially different … they’re incompetent, corrupt, etc...
They’ve embraced the ‘history of decline and fall of nation-states’. ]
TODAY: Obama pledges
'singular focus' on economy...
ONE YEAR AGO: 'Obama to focus
hard on economy'...
TWO YEARS AGO: Obama to put
'renewed focus' on economy...
US press should fear being
targeted: Assange...
BLOWOUT: Government
liabilities rose $2 trillion for year...
PEOPLE: 308,745,538
DEBT: $13,868,461,000,000
STATE OF THE NATION: Census
shows slowing US growth...
GOP-leaning states pick up
seats in Congress...
NY, OH, IL, MA,
NJ and PA lose seats...
FCC Gives Government Power to
Regulate Web...
Agency splits along party
lines...
DeMint vows to reverse
'Internet takeover'...
AP: TOP 10 STORIES OF 2010...
MOODY'S May Cut US Rating on Tax Package...
New spending bill totals $1.1
TRILLION!
Congress Job Approval Rating
Worst in GALLUP History...
FLASHBACK: Obama Promised
5-Day, Public Review of Bills Before Signing; Signs Tax Bill Within Hours of
House Vote...
13 million get
unexpected tax bill from 'tax credit'?
Pelosi skips vote on tax
bill, then shuns signing ceremony...
House votes to extend gov't
funding -- through Tuesday...
OBAMA FALLS TO 40% APPROVE IN
FOXNEWS POLL...
The FCC's Threat to
Internet Freedom...
Dems play politics with 'net
neutrality' vote...
'Sweeping new rules'...
REGULATE...
SHUT: Music Web Sites Dispute
Legality of Their Closing...
UK ministers threaten: Censor
web, or we will legislate 'to protect children'...
Plan to block all online
porn...
Hugo Chavez defends plan for
web regulations...
Venezuela tightens Internet
regulation...
THEY'RE
COMING FOR THE INTERNET!
JULIUS
SEIZURE
$2 trillion debt crisis
threatens to bring down 100 US cities...
States face $140 billion in
budget shortfalls...
32 states borrow billions
from feds to cover unemployment benefits...
Friedman: America the
Stupid...
French AAA Grade at Risk as
Downgrades Sweep Europe...
Oil Heads Toward $100...
Chavez defends plan for
Internet regulations...
UK ministers threaten: Censor
web, or we will legislate 'to protect children'...
The FCC's Threat to Internet
Freedom...
Dems play politics with 'net
neutrality' vote...
'Sweeping new rules for the
Internet'...
SKorea detains Chinese
fishermen...
Security Council meets on
tensions...
North Threatens More
Attacks...
... says war would go nuclear
China warns of escalating
arms race...
'Don't ask' repeal
moves toward law...
DREAM OVER: Senate
Blocks Bill for Illegal Immigrants...
Budget Brawl Looms in
Congress...
Michelle wears $2,500
purchased dress to Christmas concert...
Senate Plans Weekend Votes on
'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' Amnesty Bill...
Senator: Gay ban tied to
Russia treaty...
UN
PLANS INTERNET REGULATION [ Those
who can’t do … work at the u.n., in the u.s.; after all, for the first time in
human history, the internet has for the most part enabled an unfettered look at
the truth and truthful reasons for the unequivocally sad state of the world. That
a supposed world body should support and potentially facilitate the
encroachment upon such global communication is reason enough to dismantle such
an already discredited body which arbitrarily seeks enforcement of some
‘resolutions’ as to some but not others ( ie., israel, u.n. resolutions 242,
338, etc., israeli and american war crimes, etc..) Raison d’tre … I don’t think
so! Quite the contrary! ]
Regulators close banks in GA,
FL, AR, MN... [ Regulators
shutter 3 small banks in Ga., 1 each in Fla., Ark., Minn.; 157 banks closed in
2010 ]
Payrolls Drop in 28
States, Joblessness Rises in 21...
Nevada rate to
14.3%...
Rhode Island City
Nears Bankruptcy...
Ireland Debt
Downgrade...
IMF chief worried
about Europe domino effect...
Senate clerks preparing to
read 1,924-page spending bill on floor -- for 50 hours!...
Senator: 'There's No Way' To
Read Entire Bill Before Vote...
KERRY: 'Why Would We Have To
Read Something?'
McConnell offers 1-page
resolution in place of 1,924-page spending bill...
SHOWDOWN: Gingrich Urges
Fillibuster...
Biden To GOP Opposition: 'Get
Out Of The Way'...
Reid: Earmarks are 'what
we're supposed to do'...
Ban on Gitmo
transfers vanishes...
Omnibus bill loaded with
goodies for abortion industry...
PRIORITIES: House approves
bill to make hybrids louder...
23% Say USA Heading in Right
Direction, Lowest Since Obama Took Office...
POLL: Just 29% think Obama
will be re-elected...
Is America the sick man of
the globe?
BUCHANAN: Is this our America
anymore?
UK Red Cross Bans Christmas
to Avoid Offending Muslims...
SALVATION ARMY bell ringer
caught stealing from kettle...
Deputies suspended after
getting into brawl at party...
2 women charged with robbing
74-year-old...
Hundreds of gifts for kids
stolen from 'Toys for Tots'...
Thousands of dollars in
donated toys ruined after skunk attack...
Grocery prices grow by 1.5
times inflation rate...
Socialist president plays
host to capitalism...
REPORT: Obama told lawmakers
not passing tax deal could end presidency...
A $48 billion earmark...
PAPER: Year of bullying,
bluff and bailouts leaves euro fighting for its life...
Reeling from riots, Italy
faces uncertainty...
Greek anti-austerity strike
turns violent...
VIDEO...
MORE UNREST: 2011...
$575 million PER PAGE...
6,488 earmarks...
McConnell fumes: 'No one has
seen it'...
Reid threatens to
keep Congress into next year...
Intelligence Reports Offer
Dim Views of Afghan War...
HOLBROOKE LAST WORDS: STOP
THIS WAR!
UPDATE: RUSSIA TO USE CHINA
CURRENCY IN TRADES...
UK GRANTS ASSANGE BAIL;
SWEDEN APPEALS...
Release delayed...
Lawyer: Secret Grand Jury
Meeting Outside Washington on Leak...
CHRISTMAS CRIMES: Drive-By Purse Snatcher
Terrorizing Women In NJ...
2 women charged with robbing
74-year-old...
Hundreds of gifts for kids
stolen from 'Toys for Tots'...
Thousands of dollars in
donated toys ruined after skunk attack...
Copper thieves burn down
city's Christmas tree...
Burglar steals family's gifts
-- and its dog!
Grave robbers steal 400 urns
from cemetery...
'Grinch' Steals Packages Off
Doorsteps, Signs For Deliveries...
Home Invaders Tie Up
12-Year-Old Boy, Take Video Games...
90-Year-Old Man Put In
Choke-Hold, Robbed Of $370...
'Tea Party' anger simmers
over backroom deal; Ramps up efforts...
2 Bank Failures Bring Year's
Tally To 151...
COPS: Madoff's son
hangs himself with dog collar in SoHo apartment...
...gave mechanic
$400 tip day before suicide
Madoff Trustee Launches $19.6
Billion Lawsuit; 60 accused of participating in 'illegal scheme'...
Pump prices close in on
average $3 a gallon...
FLASHBACK: $1.81 when Obama
took office...
BLOW TO O: JUDGE RULES GOV'T
CAN'T MANDATE CITIZENS BUY HEALTH CARE...
Cantor: Direct Appeal to
Supremes...
POLL: Support For Obamacare
Hits New Low...
Pelosi: 'Are You Serious?'
Obama: 'I'm itching
for a fight'...
U N C O N S T I T U T I O N A
L
Barbara Walters: 'This Guy
(wobama) Has an Emotional Problem' [ Yes, it’s true, babawawa … wobama has
substantial mental problems which along with inherent criminality are pervasive
in america which also includes boner, and where were you in discussing such,
babawawa regarding psychopaths bush, clinton, etc., or even former beau, senile
greenspun ]...
DEFICIT HITS RECORD...
Putin Slams West
for Assange Arrest...
US cable: Cuba to be
insolvent within 2-3 years...
Assange Lawyers Prepare for
U.S. Spying Indictment...
Teen Arrested in Hack
Attacks...
Donations to WIKILEAKS are
Tax Deductible -- in Germany...
Anonymous cyberwarriors stun
experts...
Media
outlets may be probed over WikiLeaks stories, joe ‘zelig zionist incompetent
and corrupt‘ lieberman in Campaign To Trample The First Amendment claims Can the US government prosecute media outlets
that reported on the WikiLeaks cables? According to joe ‘zelig zionist
incompetent and corrupt‘ lieberman in
his Campaign To Trample The First Amendment, the answer is maybe.
Home Values May Drop by $1.7
Trillion This Year...
UNEMPLOYMENT WEEK: DOWN TO 421,000; REVISED UP LAST WEEK
438,000...
POLL: Most Americans Say
They’re Worse Off Under Obama...
F O [Related: Olbermann:
Obama Is ‘God Damned Wrong’
]
REVENGE OF THE WIKIS!
Army of hackers targets the
Swedish government...
Take down MASTERCARD site...
...VISA
PAYPAL...
AMAZON braces for hactivist
attack...
Palin under cyber attack...
Assange's 'poison pill' file
impossible to stop...
MOSCOW: Give Assange Nobel
Peace Prize...
SENATE REJECTS
REPEAL OF DON'T ASK DON'T TELL...
House Dems push through massive budget bill...
Final House Race Decided; GOP
Net Gain: 63 Seats...
Ron Paul, Author of 'End the
Fed,' to Lead Fed Oversight Panel...
Student protesters in London
turn violent over tuition hikes...
Thousands try to break
through police barricades at Houses of Parliament...
...attack car
containing Prince Charles, Camilla...
Rolls Royce hit with paint;
rear window smashed...
US Treasuries hit by biggest sell-off
since LEHMAN...
Prices Plunge for 2nd Day on Deficit Fears...
Rattles investors...
Oil tipped to bubble over $100 barrel...
Food Stamp Rolls Continue to Rise...
SHOCK POLL: Americans Believe China Has
Surpassed USA in Economic Strength...
'U.S. fiscal health worse than Europe's'...
Sorkin: Palin TV show is 'snuff movie'... [ Yeah … ‘she’s really all that’ and worse …
I have great difficulty getting past the fact that she’s so incredibly dumb …
not just ‘nonintellectual’ … butt really dumb! ] ‘… Sorkin, writer of the recent Facebook movie The
Social Network, also accused the Fox News contributor of making a "snuff
film" after the latest episode of Sarah's Palin's Alaska featured the
politician going hunting with her father and shooting a caribou. He described
Palin as "deranged", a "witless bully" and a "phony
pioneer girl". He also said The Learning Channel, the US cable network,
"should be ashamed of itself" for broadcasting her "truly awful
reality show"…’
Senate convicts Clinton-appointed judge...
[ Come on! One way or another they’re almost all getting bribed; including the
initial lifetime appointment as alito, trump-barry, etc.. Abolish the
corrupt, costly, economically wasteful lifetime extravagantly appointed federal
courts (see RICO case http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ) End those lifetime licenses to steel. ] In earlier hearings, two attorneys who once worked
with Porteous had testified that they gave him thousands of dollars in cash,
including about $2,000 stuffed in an envelope in 1999, just before Porteous
decided a major civil case in their client's favor.
Assange could face espionage trial in USA...
Palin under cyber attack...
1st Amendment issues...
Assange's 'poison pill' file impossible to
stop...
WIKILEAKS: Stop Us? You'll Have to Shut Down
Web...
Berkeley 'resolution' honoring leaker...
Scientologists outraged over spoof Christmas
play... [ Hubbard was such a
total fraud! Scientologists are delusional! ]St. Petersburg, Florida – ‘A controversial holiday
musical production is set to open at American Stage Theatre in St. Petersburg. Photos:
Pictures of
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant "A
Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant" is a musical play
designed for the holiday season, but this play will not focus on Jesus Christ,
but instead the story is about L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the church Of
Scientology…’
NO BAIL...
Assange 'sabotaged condom'
during one night stand...
Refused to wear
one during another...
Stockholm
police: Both women are victims...
INTERPOL WARRANT
FOR NOT WEARING PROTECTION?
ASSANGE UNDER ARREST:
'HE DIDN'T WEAR A CONDOM'
Under arrest, will Assange
dump the Doomsday Files?
Assange: Don't shoot
messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths...
FLASHBACK: HILLARY COMPLAINS
GOVERNMENTS BLOCK FREE FLOW OF INFO ON INTERNET...
WIKILEAKS: LIVE UPDATES...
FCC push to regulate news
draws fire...
Lieberman: NYT may have
committed crime by printing WIKILEAKS docs...
US to Host World Press
Freedom Day in 2011 … [ What a total travesty! The u.s. as host … What a cruel
joke! ] ...
OBAMA RACES TO CUT TAXES
BEFORE REPUBLICANS: 6.2% Social Security tax would drop to 4.2% for workers for
one year... MORE
THE NEW OBAMA!
SURPRISE TAX CUT MOVE [ As with
defacto bankrupt america generally, more defacto bankrupt social security
system, etc., are distinctions without
significant differences. ]
OIL HITS $89...
Pump prices hit 2-year
high...
Schwarzenegger
Declares Fiscal Emergency, Proposes $9.9 Billion In Cuts...
Top Democrats defect, join
unified GOP...
WIKILEAKS' Assange Will
Release Encrypted Files If Arrested...
Cables Reveal How US
Manipulated Climate Accord...
Cable: China Leaders Ordered
Hacking on GOOGLE...
Meddling by Neighbors Adds to
Iraq's Woes...
Government Workers Ordered
Not to Read Cables...
Gingrich: Leaks Show Admin
'Shallow,' 'Amateurish'...
McConnell: Assange a
'High-Tech Terrorist'...
List of facilities
'vital to US security' leaked...
Mirror Sites Appear by the
Hundreds...
Assange Speaks...
Hillary Jokes...
US forced to shake up
embassies around world...
THE DOOMSDAY FILES
PAPER: Wave goodbye to
Internet freedom...
[ I’m absolutely astounded that the world is not profoundly grateful to Assange
et als for providing insight into the machinations and insanity of pervasively
corrupt, defacto bankrupt america, et als who wreaked havoc on the world as
they pillage, plunder, and destroy (lives, nations, etc.). ]
+39,000
JOBS IN NOVEMBER...
BOEHNER: Dem Leaders Should Stop Wasting Time
on Tax Hike Votes...
HALPERIN: Dems 'In Midst of Nervous Breakdown'...
Obama Makes Surprise Trip to Afghanistan...
Flies 7,000 miles -- talks to Karzai for 15
minutes on phone!
Forgets the Coast Guard...
Leaves Biden behind to handle 'disappointing'
jobs report...
Reid, funded by casinos, pushes online
gambling...
ABCNEWS accused of breaking embargo...
2010
death toll of US troops nears that of 2001-2008 combined...
OBAMA SPEECHWRITER JOKES ABOUT TSA GROPING:
Allows 'defrocked priests to give back to society'...
US
Deficit-Cutting Plan Falls Short of Needed Votes...
UNEMPLOYMENT
UP TO 9.8%
HILLARY: Secretary of State will be 'my last
public position'...
... PITCHE$ $IGNED DVD ON HOME $HOPPING NETWORK..
US TO
BAILOUT EU [ Riiiiight! Sounds like a plan! After all, in defacto bankrupt
america money does grow on trees … derivatively (pun intended) that is … you
know … that ever more worthless fiat paper currency … and ultimately,
existentially, philosophically, doesn’t paper come from trees … sure it does
…so, no problemo since money grows on trees.
]
BOMBSHELL: European banks took big
slice of Fed aid...
Hundreds of billions of dollars...
Fed reveals global extent of its
backing... ]Funds
went to stalwarts of American industry including GE and Caterpillar and
household-name companies such as Verizon, new data show.
GEORGIA: HUNDREDS LINE UP IN COLD FOR HEAT
HELP...
Assistance Funds Quickly Depleted...
'Almost like being in soup line during great
depression'...
VIDEO...
DELAYING TAX VOTE COULD 'CRASH
STOCK MARKET' STARTING 12/15 [ Come on! There’s no way to justify
the tax cut to the top 1% including the frauds on wall street … their threats
don’t hunt no more … the nation’s defacto bankrupt … see Davis, supra! ]
Chase Bank orders branch to remove Christmas
tree...
Cyber attack forces WIKILEAKS to change web
address...
Respected media outlets collaborate with
organization... [ Said
outlets and other disseminators and of course Wikileaks deserve accolades for
the advancement of first amendment liberties in the name of an informed global
body politick for all.]
UPDATE: Latest developments...
Foreign contractors hired Afghan 'dancing
boys'...
Embassy cables portray Karzai as corrupt,
erratic...
CIA drew up UN spying wishlist...
Assange speaks...
UPDATE: Latest WIKILEAKS developments...
Foreign contractors hired Afghan 'dancing
boys'...
Embassy cables portray Karzai as corrupt,
erratic...
CIA drew up UN spying wishlist...
SANTA CLAUSE: FED AID WENT TO COMPANIES,
BANKS, OFFSHORE...
SECRETLY BAILED OUT GE -- GE NEWS OUTLETS
FAILED TO REVEAL IN FED COVERAGE...
SANTA
CLAUSE: FORD, BMW, TOYOTA Took Secret Government Money......
Fed Created Conflicts in Improvising
Financial System Rescue...
Tax Breaks for Bailout Recipients Spark
Debate...
MORE SECRETS: Fed Withholds Data for $885
Billion in Loans...
RUSSIA TO HOST '18 WORLD CUP FINALS...
Qatar selected '22 host over USA, others...
'AMERICAN PSYCHO' musical in
works... [ I recommend the derivative films, American Psycho and American Psycho 2, for insight! ]
National Board of Review: SOCIAL NETWORK
named best film... [ National board of what? ‘Inception’ is by
far and away the ‘Best Film’ across the board, in all categories, and on the
list! ] LIST...
BANK OF AMERICA Becoming 'Bank of
Asia' as Revenue Increases 30% ...
RESET: PUTIN CRITICIZES USA OVER WIKILEAKS …
[ Putin deserves the greatest deference in matters of global concern in light
of his greater rationality; america’s self-serving accusations are merely envy
and projection / displacement (in psychoanalytic terms) of america’s
pervasively corrupt, criminal, broken system which is a far cry in reality from
defacto bankrupt america’s propaganda.]...
REWARD: [ The payoff. Bribe complete! Next
bribe scenario … ] CITI to Hire Obama's Ex-Budget Chief Orszag...
FLASHBACK: Rubin and friends ride NY-DC
shuttle...
ZUCKERMAN: Watching America's Decline and
Fall [the
moral authority of the West has dramatically declined in the face of the
financial crisis. It has revealed deep fault lines within Western economies
that have spread to the global economy. The majority of
Western governments are running fiscal deficits of 10 percent or
more relative to GDP, but it is increasingly clear that there will be no quick
fixes, that big government and fiscal deficits will not bring us back to the
status quo ante. Indeed, the tidal wave of red ink has meant that the
leverage-led or debt-led growth model is dead. Developed countries will be
forced to deal with their debt on every level, from the personal to the
corporate to the sovereign. Being able to borrow may have made people feel
richer, but having to repay the debt is certainly making them feel poorer,
particularly since the unfunded liabilities that many governments face from
aging populations will have to be paid for by a shrinking band of workers. (Ecoutez, mes amis!) Demography is
destiny. As a result, there is a burgeoning consensus that we are witnessing an
inevitable rise of the East and a decline of the West…( Harry Dent, Jr.
Economy
will be in a Depression by 2011
The worst of this next depression is likely to hit between mid-2010 and
mid-2013, especially around early 2011, but if the banking system continues to
implode a deep downturn or depression could begin sometime in 2009 instead of
2010.
Dow will Fall to 3,800 – 4,500 by 2012
Nasdaq will Fall Below 1,100, its 2002 low, by late 2010 or mid-2012 at the
latest.
Inflation will Increase until mid- 2010 and then turn to Deflation
Interest Rates will Increase
U.S. Dollar will Decline
Housing will Decline by 40 – 60% from Today’s Levels
Greatest Economic and Banking Crisis since the 1930s will Occur Between 2010
and 2012). ) ]...
Interpol issues wanted notice for
Julian Assange [ They just can’t take the truth! ] ...
US cuts access to files [ Think about it.
Really think about it. Their policies are in the tank, along with the nation
and the rest of this world as a consequence. Don’t those so detrimentally
affected (everyone) have a right to know? I think in light of the global
frauds, contrived perpetual wars though defacto bankruptcy of this and other
nations, pervasive corruption and crime, failed policies domestically and
geo-politically while serving the very parochial interests of the
self-interested few, the answer is an unequivocal, YES! I believe that world
history will write Mr. Assange as a hero in the truest sense. He should be
given a medal; and, certainly, since mr. b*** s*** wobama undeservingly got a
‘nobel peace prize’ (what he does, not what he says, ie., Afghanistan, etc.),
who more than Julian Assange is deserving of that and more? Cover-up /
propaganda … thy name is fallen america.]...
WIKILECTURE:
'HILLARY SHOULD RESIGN' ‘…Hillary Clinton, Julian Assange said, "should resign."
Speaking over Skype from an undisclosed location on Tuesday, the WikiLeaks founder
was replying to a question by TIME managing editor Richard Stengel over the
diplomatic-cable dump that Assange's organization loosed on the world this past
weekend. Stengel had said the U.S. Secretary of State was looking like
"the fall guy" in the ensuing controversy, and had asked whether her
firing or resignation was an outcome that Assange wanted. "I don't think
it would make much of a difference either way," Assange said. "But
she should resign if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S.
diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation
of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up. Yes, she should
resign over that."…’
CITY ON EDGE: Cash-Strapped Newark, new
jersey Forced To Lay Off 14% Of Police Force... [ From decades old
(1978-1985) direct personal experience with newark, n.j., the police are the
absolute last cuts that can be afforded to be made. Indeed, while walking
through Military Park (a sliver of a “park” - more a pedestrian
thoroughfare/cement walks) in newark, new jersey on the way to the bank during
lunch hour, I heard the clearly audible screams/cries of what turned out to be
an old lady on the ground with blood streaming from her mouth. I ran toward the
sound of the cries, the source of which I could not see because there were so
many people in and about this thoroughfare so as to block any vision of the
source of the cries. When I came to the woman, on the ground, blood streaming
from her mouth, I asked what happened, to which she responded she had been hit
in the mouth and knocked to the ground, her purse stolen/put inside her
shopping bag, and she pointed out the criminal casually now walking across the
main street. Nobody stopped to help her, many having passed her by. I slammed
the thug to the ground so hard that, in light of all the blood and confusion
(limbic system / adrenalin flow) I thought I had been stabbed (the blood was
from his elbows hitting the pavement so hard - no one helped / a crowd gathered
/ an undercover cop happened along). When I testified at the Grand Jury
Proceeding I made sure his threat on my life was set forth in prima facie
fashion so as to maximize the DA’s position with both felonies ( he went to
prison – pled out ). The other case I wrote about here ( This was included on
my website in the Psychology forum discussion of ‘bystander effect’ / diffusion
of responsibility. ) - Having had occasion to have run down a mugger in newark,
n.j. who apparently had followed a girl from the bank on her way to the bursar
to pay tuition, though in pretty good shape, I was astounded by how totally
exhausting such a pursuit was, how much like rubber my arms were when I traded
punches with the perpetrator, and truth be told, if I had a flashlight on my
belt, I have little doubt that I would have probably used it to subdue the
perp. The girl was not that seriously injured, did get her pocketbook and
tuition back, and the criminal went to jail. The other thing about such a
pursuit that amazed me was that no one else assisted the girl or me despite
being in a position to do so). (Other newark / new jersey and new york, n.y.
metro, viz., ie., connecticut, and of course, d.c., d.c. metro, viz., ie.,
virginia experience … corrupt federal judges as maryanne trump barry, sam
alito, shiff, matz (california), hall, underhill, dorsey, etc.. Defacto
bankrupt america’s so-called system is pervasively corrupt and broken (AP) Abolish the corrupt, costly, economically
wasteful lifetime extravagantly appointed federal courts - see RICO case http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ) ]
Nation's '2nd Most Dangerous City' (camden,
new jersey) To Lay Off Nearly Half Of Police Force...
Chicagoland: Vandals torch Christmas charity
van...
Businessman
gets harsh prison term (Washington Post) [ Come on! Quality of justice
concerns by pervasively corrupt / defacto bankrupt america (I’ve seen this
first hand and have sworn under penalty of perjury to the readily discernible
corruption in the ‘so-called judicial process’ / american illegal system; and
Orwellian britain / european illegal systems little better as toadies to the
criminal americans)? Don’t make me laugh? The u.s. illegal system is a cruel
joke! What parallel universe / fantasy land are they living in? ] A Moscow judge's decision to impose the
harshest possible penalty on Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky signaled
that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin intends to keep a firm grip on power and is
unwilling to bend to American and European concerns about the quality of
Russian justice.
October
15, 2010 (*see infra)
Steven M. Martinez, Assistant Director In Charge
Federal Bureau of Investigation, USDOJ
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1700
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Dear Sir:
I enclose herewith 3
copies of the within DVD rom autorun disk (which will open in your computer’s
browser) as per your office’s request as made this day (the disk and contents
have been scanned by Avast, McAfee, and Norton which I’ve installed on my
computer to prevent viral attacks / infection and are without threat). I also
include 1 copy of the DVD as filed with the subject court as referenced therein
(which files are also included on the aforesaid 3 disks in a separate folder named
‘112208opocoan’). The (civil) RICO action (as you’re aware, the RICO Act is a
criminal statute which provides a civil remedy, including treble damages and
attorney fees, as an incentive for private prosecution of said claims probably
owing to the fact that the USDOJ seems somewhat overwhelmed and in need of such
assistance given the seriousness and prevalence of said violations of law which
have a corrupting influence on the process, and which corruption is pervasive).
A grievance complaint against Coan was also filed concurrently with the subject
action and held in abeyance pending resolution of the action which was
illegally dismissed without any supporting law and in contravention of the
Order of The Honorable Robert N. Chatigny, Chief Judge, USDC, District
Connecticut. The files below the horizontal rule are the referenced documents
as filed. (Owing to the damage to the financial interests of both the U.S. and
the District of Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, viz., Los Angeles, the
Qui Tam provisions of the Federal
False Claims Act probably would apply and I would absent resolution seek to
refer the within to a firm with expertise in that area of the law with which I
am not familiar).
The document in 5 pages under penalty of
perjury I was asked to forward to the FBI office in New Haven is probably the
best and most concise summary of the case
RICO Summary to FBI Under Penalty
of Perjury at Their Request (5 pages) [
ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://albertpeia.com/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf ].
The correspondence I
received from the Congresswoman by way of email attachment (apparent but
typical problem with my mail) along with my response thereto is included on the
3 disks as fbicorrespondencereyes.htm . With regard to the
calls to the FBI’s LA and New Haven, CT offices: There was one call to the LA
office and I was referred to the Long Beach, CA office where I personally met
with FBI Agent Jeff Hayes to whom I gave probative evidentiary documents of the
money laundering which he confirmed as indicative of same (he was transferred
from said office within approximately a month of said meeting and his location
was not disclosed to me upon inquiry). The matter was assigned to FBI Agent Ron
Barndollar and we remained in touch for in excess of a decade until he abruptly
retired (our last conversation prior to his retirement related to the case and
parenthetically, Rudy Giuliani whose father I stated had been an enforcer for
the mob to which he registered disbelief and requested I prove it, which I did
– he served 12 years in prison, aggravated assault/manslaughter? – and no,
there is no Chinese wall of separation – Andrew Maloney’s the one that
prosecuted gotti).
In contradistinction
to the statement in said correspondence, there is a plethora of information
including evidence supporting the claims set forth in the RICO VERIFIED COMPLAINT (see infra). Such includes and as set
forth in the case, inter alia,
There is applicable insurance / surety coverage and neither LA, nor
creditors, nor I should continue to have been damaged by this brazened corrupt
and illegal scenario, which should be resolved in accordance with the
meaningful rules of law apposite thereto.
Sincerely,
Albert L. Peia
611 E. 5th Street, #404
Los Angeles, CA 90013
(213) 219-**** (cell phone)
(213) 622-3745 (listed land line but there are unresolved problems with
the line, computer connection may be the reason but I hesitate to chance
greater non-performance / worsening by their ‘fix’ so cell phone best for
contact).
----------
*The foregoing and as
indicated therein was previously send 9-14-10 but delivery confirmation was
flawed as set forth below and my inquiries to the u.s. postal service rebuffed
(I believe tampered with inasmuch as your office could not locate same). This
cover letter (9-13-10) is on the 3 disks with navigable hyperlinks to the
subject files for ease of reference, including the files in the RICO action as
indicated. (10-15-10) I spoke with Rose, FBI, ADIC Secretary, who indicates
once again that your office has not received the aforesaid and which can
reasonably be presumed to have been tampered with, and hence, a violation of
the federal statute concerning same. ]
-----
Former
president convicted of rape (Washington Post) [ Between the orgies, war crimes, assassinations, etc., what a
bunch of sick perverts, criminals the israeli operatives / powers that be and
their friends are; see, ie., Victor Ostrovsky Mossad
ebook download in PDF format September: Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad
trainee, publishes his book By Way of Deception ... Israel's Mossad has regularly
faked Australian passports for its. spies,
… 1 http://khup.com/keyword/victor-ostrovsky-mossad-by-way-of-deception.html 2 http://khup.com/keyword/page-2/victor-ostrovsky-mossad-by-way-of-deception.html 3 http://khup.com/keyword/page-3/victor-ostrovsky-mossad-by-way-of-deception.html ]
An Israeli court finds former president Moshe Katsav guilty of rape,
indecent assault and sexual harassment of female subordinates, the most serious
conviction of a former top official in Israel's history
Economic
forecasters see growth in 2011 (Washington Post) [ Growth indeed … in the deficits that is …
and in insurmountable fashion at that … which masks / obfuscates in the
short-term the weakness and structural shift in the worst economic terms
imaginable while benefiting the self-interested few (ie., frauds on wall
street, war profiteers, the ‘already campaigning for the next election’ pols,
etc.. The trade-off is far from commensurate.
The Economic Collapse
Dec 17, 2010
The financial
collapse that so many of us have been anticipating is seemingly closer then
ever. Over the past several weeks, there have been a host of ominous
signs for the U.S. economy. Yields on U.S. Treasuries have moved up
rapidly and Moody’s is publicly warning that it may have to cut the rating on
U.S. government debt soon. Mortgage rates are also moving up
aggressively. The euro and the U.S. dollar both look incredibly
shaky. Jobs continue to be shipped out of the United States at a
blistering pace as our politicians stand by and do nothing. Confidence in
U.S. government debt around the globe continues to decline. State and
local governments that are drowning in debt across the United States are
savagely cutting back on even essential social services and are coming up with
increasingly “creative” ways of getting more money out of all of us.
Meanwhile, tremor after tremor continues to strike the world financial
system. So does this mean that we have almost reached a tipping
point? Is the world on the verge of a major financial collapse?
Let’s hope
not, but with each passing week the financial news just seems to get eve
worse. Not only is U.S. government debt spinning wildly toward a breaking
point, but many U.S. states (such as California) are in such horrific financial
condition that they are beginning to resemble banana republics.
But it is not
just the United States that is in trouble. Nightmarish debt problems in
Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and several other European
nations threaten to crash the euro at any time. In fact, many economists
are now openly debating which will collapse first – the euro or the U.S.
dollar.
Sadly, this is
the inevitable result of constructing a global financial system on debt.
All debt bubbles eventually collapse. Currently we are living in the
biggest debt bubble in the history of the world, and when this one bursts it is
going to be a disaster of truly historic proportions.
So will we
reach a tipping point soon? Well, the following are 25 signs that the
financial collapse is rapidly getting closer….
#1 The official U.S. unemployment rate has not been
beneath 9 percent since
April 2009.
#2 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are
currently 6.3
million vacant homes in the United States that are either for sale or for
rent.
#3 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit
with China could hit 270 billion dollars
for the entire year of 2010.
#4 Back in 2000, 7.2 percent of blue collar workers
were either unemployed or underemployed. Today that figure is up
to 19.5 percent.
#5 The Chinese government has accumulated approximately
$2.65 trillion in
total foreign exchange reserves. They have drained this wealth from the
economies of other nations (such as the United States) and instead of
reinvesting all of it they are just sitting on much of it. This is
creating tremendous imbalances in the global economy.
#6 Since the year 2000, we have lost 10% of our middle class jobs. In the
year 2000 there were approximately 72 million middle class jobs in the United
States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.
#7 The United States now employs about the same number
of people in manufacturing as
it did back in 1940. Considering the fact that we had 132 million
people living in this country in 1940 and that we have well over 300 million
people living in this country today, that is a very sobering statistic.
#8 According to CoreLogic, U.S. housing prices have now
declined for
three months in a row.
#9 The average rate on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage soared
11 basis points just this past week. As mortgage rates continue to
push higher it is going to make it even more difficult for American families to
afford homes.
#10 22.5 percent of all residential mortgages in the
United States were in negative equity as of the end of the third quarter
of 2010.
#11 The U.S. monetary base has
more than doubled since the beginning of the most recent recession.
#12 U.S. Treasury yields have been rising steadily
during the 4th quarter of 2010 and
recently hit a six-month high.
#13 Incoming governor Jerry Brown is scrambling to find
$29 billion more to cut from the California state budget. The
following quote from Brown about the desperate condition of California
state finances is not going to do much to inspire confidence in California’s
financial situation around the globe….
“We’ve been living in fantasy land. It is much worse
than I thought. I’m shocked.”
#14
24.3
percent of the residents of El Centro, California are currently unemployed.
#15
The average home in Merced, California has declined in value by
63 percent over the past four years.
#16
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has come up with a new way to save money. He
wants to cut 20
percent of Detroit off from essential social services such as road repairs,
police patrols, functioning street lights and garbage collection.
#17
The second most dangerous city in the United States – Camden, New Jersey – is
about to lay off about
half its police in a desperate attempt to save money.
#18
In 2010, 55
percent of Americans between the ages of 60 and 64 were in the labor
market. Ten years ago, that number was just 47 percent. More older
Americans than ever find that they have to keep working just to survive.
#19
Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of the world’s high-tech export
market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years later, the United States had
less than 15 percent and China’s share had soared to 20 percent.
#20
The U.S. government budget deficit increased to a whopping $150.4 billion last
month, which represented the biggest November budget deficit on record.
#21
The U.S. government is somehow going to have to roll over existing debt and
finance new debt that
is equivalent to 27.8 percent of GDP in 2011.
#22
The United States had been the leading consumer of energy on the globe for
about 100 years, but this past summer China took over the number one spot.
#23
According to an absolutely stunning new poll, 40 percent of all U.S. doctors plan to bail out of the
profession over the next three years.
#24
As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been
unemployed for half a year or longer. Today, there are over
6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.
#25
All over the United States, local governments have begun instituting “police
response fees”. For example, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come up
with a plan under which a
fee of $365 would be charged if police are called to respond to an
automobile accident where no injuries are involved. If there are injuries
as a result of the crash that is going to cost extra.
Timid
Tuesday: Is it Safe? Davis
‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are
simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of
global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form
of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh)
is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut
$100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while
continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1%
each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool
all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT
THERE! ‘
5
More Themes for 2011 Suttmeir ‘5 themes for 2011 (6 more are on their way):
Tracking the US Capital Markets – US stocks are overvalued fundamentally and overbought
technically on both daily and weekly charts. The snow storm causes stocks
to drift lower and higher.
Here are my remaining themes for 2011 – Six through
Eleven (a continuation
of 1-5)
6.
QE2, the $600 billion program where the Federal Reserve buys long dated US
Treasury Securities has been a failure so far. The yield on the 10-Year was 2.334 when Fed Chief
Bernanke touted QE2 in October only to see the yield nearly 125 basis points
higher in December. The primary intent of QE2 was to lower longer-dated US
Treasury yields. Yields held this week’s value level at 3.494 again on
Wednesday. There is risk to 3.75 to 4.25 in 2011, but with or without this
weakness, the 10-Year yield will decline to 2.75 to 2.50 during 2011.
7.
Comex Gold has gone parabolic, and therefore you cannot predict how high gold prices
can climb. I do know that
corrections will be fierce and painful for those that buy strength instead of
weakness. The 2011 neutral zone is between $1350 and $1450.
8.
Nymex Crude Oil is headed back above $100 per barrel according to most experts.
I cannot rule that out for 2011, but
the downside is more significant given weekly closes below the $87 per barrel
area. If gasoline stays above $3.00 per gallon demand on Main Street will slow
down and will be a drag on economic growth and job creation.
9.
Problems among the PIIGS nations denominated in euros will trump problems at
the state level in the USA. This
will keep the euro versus the dollar in a trading range. We will begin
2011 with a quarterly pivot around 1.3150.
10.
US stocks show strong technical characteristics. The S&P 500 is above the 61.8% Fibonacci
Retracement of the decline from October 2007 to the low of March 2009 at
1228.74. Dow Theory had a Buy Signal in early November and another confirmation
in December. The Dow Industrial Average – I project downside to 9,375 in
the first half with a rebound to 11,500 in the second half. Strength above
11,500 will return to 11,500, and the 2011 close will be at or below 11,500.
11.ValuEngine.com
indicates that equity fundamental are not cheap. Fifteen of sixteen sectors will begin 2011 overvalued
according to ValuEngine. The normal range for the percent undervalued or
overvalued stocks is 35% to 65%. We will begin 2011 close to the low end of the
range for undervalued stocks and towards the high end for overvalued stocks. Because
of the battle between the technicals and fundamentals, stocks will be
reversal-oriented in 2011 and be little changed year over year.
Tracking
the US Capital Markets – US stocks
are overvalued fundamentally and overbought technically on both daily and
weekly charts.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate
any positions within the next 72 hours.’
Struggling to the Finish Line: Dave's Daily ‘Most economic
news today (Jobless Claims, Chicago PMI and Home Sales) was, ahem, "better
than expected"; still, that didn't spark any determined buying. Maybe
without any POMO Thursday trading desks were running on empty. 2010 was an
interesting year with lots of erratic behavior but a Fed "stick save"
in the end. Flash Crashes, elections, tax issues, spending, unemployment, POMO
and home prices were all center stage. Now you're probably expecting some sort
of forecast from your humble pundit, but alas, all I can offer are three basic
tenets to follow:
"The
best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew."
-- Robert
Burns
Or, if you
prefer: "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry"
-- John
Steinbeck
"If
you must forecast, forecast often."
--Economist
Edgar Fiedler (ETF Digest Sacred Cow IX)
"Things
change"
-- ETF Digest
Sacred Cow X
You were
expecting Dow 20,000?!?
Volume
Thursday did improve a tad and breadth was flat… ‘
8 Contrarian Signs Against a 2011 Rally: My Thoughts Mansell ‘Recently my grandfather sent me an article from DailyFinance.com. The article was
listing 8 contrarian signs to suggest a stall in the current rally in
2011…Check out the article for more information on each of the points and links
to charts and etc. I just list them below and my opinions on each.
1)
Industrial production and capacity utilization have both stalled: This is a
fair argument and one that merits some consideration. My only comment would be
that just because it is slowing down does not necessarily bode poorly for the
economy (though "growth" may slow). It is my understanding that much
of the growth in the industrial production was in companies rebuilding
inventories that they depleted during the height of the recession. It should be
obvious that it would turn down at some point but I am curious to know if the
recent downturn has more than accounted for the loss of restocking inventories
in the equation.
2)
The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) has been in a downtrend since June: The BDI is down
because people the world over are worried about oversupply within the dry bulk
sector. This is also why a lot of the stocks within that sector trade at single
digit P/Es. My argument, though, is that low rates due to oversupply doesn't
suggest anything about the overall global economy and its recovery; it is just
the mismanagement of assets by industry executives.If we are making the
argument that the price being lower to ship goods is bad; here is an argument for
gradually raising rates.The way people are determining the oversupply is by
looking at outstanding orders; however, in 2010 around 50% of orders weren't
delivered due to cancellations by the companies who ordered them. I imagine a
similar number will occur in 2011 (source, slides 6 and 7). Also, I have read an
interview with an industry executive that suggests they have yet to see a
slowdown in demand, even with the increased number of ships AND the attempts of
China's government to slow its growth. The Chinese economy is still 10% larger
than it was last year, has grown substantially this year, and I think that
growth has taken out a large amount of the expected slack within the shipping
industry. India and other emerging markets are also supposed to be doing pretty
well, suggesting further demand there.Also, 21% of the current fleet (of
Panamax vessels) are over the age of 20 years old. I do not know what the
average scrap rate is for a panamax vessel but I know that currently there are
non that appear to be over 35 and few that fall into the 30-35 range. This
suggests that over the next 10 years we'll see the scrapping of 1 out of every
5 of the current fleet. While this clearly won't help short term rates, it does
suggest that oversupply won't last long and will begin improving over the next
five years or so.
3)
Interest rates are rising: Some have actually hailed the Fed's QE2
program as a success based on this; clearly investors are expecting more
inflation which is why rates are rising and this inflation expectation started
largely after the Fed began that program. However, I was never a fan of this
program and I don't know how inflation is supposed to help the 10% of people who
are unemployed who find their savings eaten away by rising prices AND necessary
living expenses.
4)
Oil and gasoline have risen to levels that some analysts see as negative for
growth: This makes sense; however, I do not know much about this. I
know gas prices were much higher while the economy was stalling in 2008, but we
didn't have the unemployment we have now and the economy WAS stalling so it
would be hard to know the effect of high gasoline prices. I think we've all
noticed its quick rise, though, and it will lead to less disposable income.
5) Property taxes and other state/local taxes are rising: I don't know the absolute amount of
dollars for each but I know that Congress cut the social security tax for
working individuals over the next year which should help them make up some of
these rising costs. Also, consumers have been deleveraging and are spending
less disposable income on credit, which means that this shouldn't be too
entirely unbearable but will weigh on consumer spending nonetheless.
6)
Retail investors are shunning the U.S. stocks: This to me suggests
that it is a time to buy. Especially since companies have the most cash on
balance sheets than they have had since the 1950s. As soon as the economy turns
around they'll produce returns on that cash or invest it abroad and earn those
returns now. Either way, you're currently getting more safety in cash, with
greater growth potential, for cheaper prices than available before and this is
bad because....?Also, aren't retail investors notorious for being wrong? There
are investment strategies based entirely around doing the exact opposite of
retail investors; while this doesn't mean we should dismiss their actions or
automatically do the opposite, I do think we should consider how much weight we're
placing on retail investors' behavior.
7)
Margin debt is at the highest levels since September 2008:
Very true, but as #6 says there are fewer dollars from investors in the market,
so this affects few individuals at very large levels and doesn't appear to be
pandemic for all US households.
8)
Investor sentiment remains at extremely high levels: What
investors? Money has been leaving the equity markets since 2008, as suggested
in #6, and we've seen net outflows in equity markets even during the
"recovery". So investors are saying they're excited about stocks
while pulling money out of equity markets and putting it into bond markets,
gold, and other investments? I think I'd rather follow the truth in people's
actions as opposed to following their words. I don't think
investor sentiment is REALLY that high if they are investing in other assets as
opposed to stocks.Lastly, I'm really disappointed that this article didn't
mention the ONE greatest threat that I believe is currently inflicting the
American economy and that is the continuous struggle in housing. Don't get me
wrong, I'm currently investing in REITs, but I think housing is far from the
bottom and that in 2011 and 2012 we'll see further atrophy in home prices.New
single home sales have fallen back to 283,000 in October 2010, which is a
little lower than the 300k -320k that we were seeing at the beginning of 2000
and a far cry from the near 600,000 we saw at the peak; however, even though
these numbers have normalized, other factors have not.In 2000, 300k homes for
sale represented about 4 months of supply which is normal. The 283,000 number
we've seen, while lower than the 300k in 2000, represents 8+ months of
inventory currently. On top of this, we have waves of foreclosures that are
hitting the market further exacerbating the problem. I think it's safe to say
that we probably have over a year's worth of housing inventory that will be
available for sale over the next year AND interest rates are rising, making it
more expensive to own. The only thing that can give a little to rebalance the
equation is home prices.On top of all of this, in 2011 and 2012 we'll start to
see another wave of ARMs resetting. I do not believe that we'll see a pandemic
of foreclosures because people are unable to afford the switch that we saw in
2008 and 2009, but I do think we'll see a lot of foreclosures because people
won't want to pay that much for houses that are worth 25%-30% less than what
they were when the agreed to the ARM. In fact, the scenario of people living
free in their homes for a year or more has become a relatively common
occurrence even now as they realize that foreclosures are so backed up that
they can live rent free for some time. I imagine that raising interest rates
will only make more people decided that it's better to default now on the
higher rates and rent or purchase a less expensive home....In the short term,
this could cause massive damage to the economy. Over the long term, it allows
for greater deleveraging and a normalization of the housing industry as opposed
to dragging this recovery out over a much longer period of time.Another
downturn in the housing industry, which I think is likely even as the rest of
the economy recovers, will likely be what makes 2011 and 2012 bleak.The only
solutions for making this situation better, faster, include: creating jobs,
speeding up the foreclosures process to get houses off the market and to
prevent voluntary default, coming up with effective ways to allow homeowners to
modify/refinance, and letting this monster run its course. Between the years
2000 and 2006, we more than doubled the amount of money in mortgages
outstanding in the US. That is incredible when you consider that mortgages are
15-30 year maturities yet we doubled the amount in 6 YEARS! It's going to take
the better part of a decade for us to recover from this and housing will be in
trouble for awhile…’
Baby
Boomers Start To Turn 65: 16 Statistics About The Coming Retirement Crisis That
Will Drop Your Jaw The American Dream | The moment when
the first Baby Boomers reach retirement age has arrived. ‘ … The following are
16 statistics about the coming retirement crisis that will drop your jaw…..
#1 Beginning January 1st, 2011 every single day more
than 10,000 Baby Boomers will reach the age of 65. That is going to keep
happening every single day for the next 19 years.
#2 According to one recent survey, 36 percent of
Americans say that they don’t
contribute anything at all to retirement savings.
#3 Most Baby Boomers do not have a traditional pension
plan because they have been going out of style over the past 30 years.
Just consider the following quote from Time
Magazine: The traditional pension plan is disappearing. In 1980, some
39 percent of private-sector workers had a pension that guaranteed a steady
payout during retirement. Today that number stands closer to 15 percent,
according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, D.C.
#4 Over 30 percent of U.S. investors currently in their
sixties have more than 80
percent of their 401k invested in equities. So what happens if the
stock market crashes again?
#5 35%
of Americans already over the age of 65 rely almost entirely on
Social Security payments alone.
#6 According to another recent survey, 24%
of U.S. workers admit that they
have postponed their planned retirement age at least
once during the past year.
#7 Approximately
3 out of 4 Americans start claiming Social Security benefits the moment
they are eligible at age 62. Most are doing this out of necessity.
However, by claiming Social Security early they get locked in at a much lower
amount than if they would have waited.
#8 Pension consultant Girard Miller recently told
California’s Little Hoover Commission that state and local government bodies in
the state of California have $325
billion in combined unfunded pension liabilities. When you break that
down, it comes to $22,000 for every single working adult in California.
#9 According to a recent report from Stanford
University, California’s three biggest pension funds are as much as $500
billion short of meeting future retiree benefit obligations.
#10
It has been reported that the $33.7 billion Illinois Teachers
Retirement System is
61% underfunded and is on the verge of complete collapse.
#11 Robert Novy-Marx of the
University of Chicago and Joshua D. Rauh of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of
Management recently calculated the combined pension liability for all 50
U.S. states. What they found was that the 50 states are collectively
facing $5.17 trillion in pension obligations, but they only
have $1.94 trillion set aside in state pension funds. That is a
difference of 3.2
trillion dollars. So where in the world is all of that extra money
going to come from? Most of the states are already completely broke and
on the verge of bankruptcy.
#12
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security system will pay
out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes in 2010. That
was not supposed to happen until at least 2016. Sadly, in the years
ahead these “Social Security deficits” are scheduled to become absolutely
horrific as hordes of Baby Boomers start to retire.
#13
In 1950, each retiree’s Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 U.S. workers.
In 2010, each retiree’s Social Security benefit is paid for by
approximately 3.3 U.S. workers. By 2025, it is projected that
there will be approximately two U.S. workers for each retiree. How in
the world can the system possibly continue to function properly with numbers
like that?
#14
According to a
recent U.S. government report, soaring interest costs on
the U.S. national debt plus rapidly escalating spending on
entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare will absorb
approximately 92 cents of every single dollar of federal revenue by the
year 2019. That is before a single dollar is spent on anything
else.
#15
After analyzing Congressional Budget Office data, Boston University economics
professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff concluded that the U.S. government is facing a “fiscal
gap” of $202 trillion dollars. A big chunk of that is made up of
future obligations to Social Security and Medicare recipients.
#16
According to a recent AARP survey of Baby Boomers, 40
percent of them plan to work “until they drop”.
Companies all over America have been dropping their
pension plans in anticipation of the time when the Baby Boomers would
retire. 401k programs were supposed to be part of the answer, but if the
stock market crashes again, it is absolutely going to devastate the Baby
Boomers.
State and local governments are scrambling to find
ways to pay out all the benefits that they have been promising. Many
state and local governments will be forced into some very hard choices by the
hordes of Baby Boomers that will now be retiring.
Of course whenever a big financial crisis comes along
these days everyone looks to the federal government to fix the problem.
But the truth is that after fixing crisis after crisis the federal government
is flat broke …’
Constitution's
new starring role in House (Washington Post) [ Riiiiight!…Whew! That was a close one…we can all
rest easy now…and to think we were thinkin’ they were goin’ in the wrong
direction and sinkin’…for those skeptics who hail this as yet another desperate
and redundant gimmick … have no fear, the new congress is here. ]
‘…They will read the Constitution aloud…’
Roubini:
‘Housing Prices Can Only Move Down’ According to economist Nouriel Roubini,
the housing market is in a double dip. And negative Case-Shiller Home Price
numbers out today only confirm that unpleasant truth.
Housing
market forecast (Washington Post) Expert says
"house prices probably have another 20% to fall." And that may be a
"conservative estimate.’
Housing
Is My #1 Theme as Home Prices Resume Their Decline Suttmeier ‘On Tuesday I published the first five of
my eleven themes for 2011.
Number
One - Home Prices will resume a decline that began in mid-2006.
On
Tuesday we learned that home prices are on the decline again according to
Case-Shiller, and that the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence fell to 52.5
in December. The National
Association of Home Builders Housing Market Index remains depressed at 16, when
a reading of 50 is neutral. The Consumer Confidence reading at 52.5 is
depressed considering that 90 to 120 is the neutral zone.
Click to enlarge [chart]
Tracking
the US Capital Markets – US stocks
are overvalued fundamentally and overbought technically on both daily and
weekly charts.
Click to enlarge [chart]
The
Yield on the 10-Year Note (3.466) – This
week’s value level is 3.494 has held on weakness with today’s risky level at
3.264.
Comex
Gold ($1405.7) – Today’s value level
is $1387.4 with this week’s pivot at $1401.2 and monthly risky level at
$1443.5.
Nymex
Crude Oil ($91.23) – Today’s pivot
is $91.38 with this week’s risky level at $93.28.
The
Euro (1.3116) – Today’s value level
is 1.3060 with my quarterly pivot at 1.3318, which goes away at the end of the
year.
The
Dow Industrial Average (11,576) – Remains
extremely overbought on both daily and weekly charts. The five-day modified
moving average is 11,523 with daily and weekly risky levels at 11,618 and
11,629.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.’
Housing
Is My #1 Theme as Home Prices Resume Their Decline Suttmeier ‘On Tuesday I published the first five of
my eleven themes for 2011.
Number
One - Home Prices will resume a decline that began in mid-2006.
On
Tuesday we learned that home prices are on the decline again according to
Case-Shiller, and that the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence fell to 52.5
in December. The National
Association of Home Builders Housing Market Index remains depressed at 16, when
a reading of 50 is neutral. The Consumer Confidence reading at 52.5 is
depressed considering that 90 to 120 is the neutral zone.
Click to enlarge [chart]
Tracking
the US Capital Markets – US stocks
are overvalued fundamentally and overbought technically on both daily and
weekly charts.
Click to enlarge [chart]
The
Yield on the 10-Year Note (3.466) – This
week’s value level is 3.494 has held on weakness with today’s risky level at
3.264.
Comex
Gold ($1405.7) – Today’s value level
is $1387.4 with this week’s pivot at $1401.2 and monthly risky level at
$1443.5.
Nymex
Crude Oil ($91.23) – Today’s pivot
is $91.38 with this week’s risky level at $93.28.
The
Euro (1.3116) – Today’s value level
is 1.3060 with my quarterly pivot at 1.3318, which goes away at the end of the
year.
The
Dow Industrial Average (11,576) – Remains
extremely overbought on both daily and weekly charts. The five-day modified
moving average is 11,523 with daily and weekly risky levels at 11,618 and
11,629.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.’
The 10 Most Important Tax Tips Of 2010 Posted by Investopedia
It’s the end of the year, and while holiday baking may be top of mind, that
niggling little task of getting the year-end tax tasks done is still there,
bothering you over the scent of the fruitcake in the oven. The
following tips will give you some specifics so you can take care of taxes,
and then get back to your fun holiday activities.
IN
PICTURES: Top 10
Solutions For A Big Tax Bill
IN PICTURES: 6
Tax Credits That Anyone Can Claim
The Bottom Line
With taxes, you don’t know until you ask. You may be able to save much more
than you think you can just by making a few simple changes, or by paying for
expenses in December instead of January, February or March. It’s a little bit
of forethought that can make the tax bill much more bearable.
For the latest financial news, see Water
Cooler Finance: FBI Insider-Trading Bust.’
Army
edits its history of deadly battle of Wanat (Washington
Post) [ Come on! Does anyone really think they ever get a true story from the
u.s. gov’t et als about anything at all?
] Draft put majority of blame on top commanders, but final version's
focuses on lower-level leaders sparks anger among families of those killed.
A subtler tack to fight Afghan corruption?
(Washington Post) [ How
about a not so subtler tack to fight corruption starting right here in the u.s.
of a. where corruption and crime are pervasive and in fact, at the root of the
Afghanistan problems, from american reinvigorated heroin trade to bribery
attendant thereto to killing civilians, etc..
Defacto
Bankrupt, Meaningfully Lawless, War Criminal Nation america, the leader of
nations … in crime:
Though having but 5% of the world’s population, america can
boast 76% of the world’s serial killers, followed by Europe with England/UK
then Germany leading the way for the eu [excerpt, 6 minute video, Serial
Killers: Real Life Hannibal Lechters http://www.albertpeia.com/realifeamericaserialkillers.mpg (as is consistent with crime generally,
see infra)]. Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on offensive
(defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the nations of
the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a pattern
emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
) ]:
Rank |
|||
# 1 |
11,877,218 |
|
|
# 2 |
6,523,706 |
|
|
# 3 |
6,507,394 |
|
… ]
Wall
Street Is Laundering Drug Money And Getting Away With It Zach
Carter, … etc. … Drudgereport:
CLASSIFIED
NO MORE: USA RACES TO LIMIT WIKILEAKS DAMAGE
[Publishing the Wikileaks is the right thing to do; after all, one
cannot possibly look to even one rationally correct strategy, domestically,
globally, geopolitically that would justify continued hiding/cover-up of the
failed strategies, their genesis, flawed rationale, etc., which has cost this
nation and the world dearly] ...
WIKILEAKS:
We've been hit with 'mass distributed denial of service attack'...
MOST
EMBARRASSING, DAMAGING DISCLOSURE IN DECADES...
SENATORS:
PROSECUTE THE LEAKERS!
NYT
EXPLAINS: THE DECISION TO PUBLISH … [The NYT clearly did the right thing to
publish; after all, one cannot possibly look to even one rationally correct
strategy, domestically, globally, geopolitically that would justify continued
hiding/cover-up of the failed strategies, their genesis, flawed rationale,
etc., which has cost this nation and the world dearly]...
SKorea
says sound of artillery heard on island...
US,
SKorea start major naval drills...
China
issues warning...
DHS
SEIZES DOMAIN NAMES...
EU
Debt Crisis Escalates...
6
American soldiers killed in Afghanistan...
Next Debt
Crisis 'May Start in Washington'...
WIKILEAKS
TURNS ON OBAMA! … [ Like who hasn’t, and for good reason! Publishing
the Wikileaks is the right thing to do; after all, one cannot possibly look to
even one rationally correct strategy, domestically, globally, geopolitically
that would justify continued hiding/cover-up of the failed strategies, their
genesis, flawed rationale, etc., which has cost this nation and the world
dearly] ]
] Authorities are
investigating whether Julian Assange violated criminal laws, including possible
charges under the Espionage Act, sources say. Afghanistan: Gates: Progress has
'exceeded my expectations' (Post, December 8, 2010; 5:53 PM)
U.S. hurting peace chances by giving up on
israeli settlement freeze, analysts say (Post,
December 8, 2010; 11:00 PM)
In South Korea, Joint Chiefs chairman scolds
China for its 'tacit approval' of North's aggression (Post,
December 8, 2010; 11:01 PM)
Iran talks end with little sign of progress
(Post, December 8, 2010; 1:04 AM)
Rice, on 'The View,' defends Obama on WikiLeaks
(Post, December 8, 2010; 1:00 AM) (Washington Post) [ The problems in all these regions
are inextricably tied to the nation with insurmountable problems of its own and
own making. That nation quite obviously
is pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless, defacto bankrupt america (along
with such comparable enablers / allies as zionist israel, nato, etc.. How can
anyone believe anything they say, least of all gates who hails from
C(ottage)I(ndustries of)A(merica) based on lies, chaos, and conflict.]
5
Economic Themes for 2011 Suttmeier
‘5 themes for 2011 (6 more are on their way):
Tracking the US Capital Markets – US stocks are overvalued fundamentally and overbought
technically on both daily and weekly charts. The snow storm causes stocks
to drift lower and higher.
The Yield on the 10-Year Note (3.345) – Tested this week’s value level at 3.494 with today’s
risky level at 3.306.
Comex Gold ($1384.2) – The 50-day at $1372.1 held at the low on Monday with
this week’s risky level at $1401.2.
Nymex Crude Oil ($90.79) – Reached a new high for the year at $91.88, shy of
this week’s risky level at $93.28. Support is the 21-day simple moving average
at $88.24.
The Euro (1.3163) – My weekly value level is 1.2906 with 200-day simple
moving average at 1.3087 and quarterly pivot at 1.3318, which goes away at the
end of the year.
The Dow Industrial Average (11,555) – Remains extremely overbought on both daily and weekly
charts. The 21-day simple moving average is 11,384 with a daily pivot at 11,569
and this week’s risky level at 11,629.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate
any positions within the next 72 hours.
Market
Crash on 12/31/10? Technical indicators suggest market collapse may
begin by December 31st Why
Stocks Could Collapse...Beginning as Soon as December 31, 2010!
The Fed has propped up the equity markets for
months ... but that could soon come to a
disastrous end! Dennis Slothower is one of the world’s leading technical analysts.
He’s one of the few advisors whose readers completely avoided ALL losses during
the disaster that was 2008. And now he’s issuing another dire warning. His
technical indicators suggest that the market manipulation we’ve seen over the
last several months is about to come to an end…and that means thousands of
investors are about to get clobbered. This correction could begin as soon
as December 31st– so it’s important that you
take action now to prepare yourself. Click on the link below for immediate
access to Dennis Slothower’s latest report, which will explain – in plain
English – just how Dennis saw the collapse of 2008 coming…and how he’ll help
you avoid disaster in the weeks ahead.
http://www.stealthstocksonline.com/reports/FreeReport4StealthStocks.pdf
What's
Coming in 2011? More Gloom, But Not Necessarily Doom Krasting ‘Oh boy, is 2011
going to be an exciting year! Some things that I think might happen:
Have a great year!’
Toasting
the bad economy (Washington Post) [
As indeed the Russians should since they have much to celebrate. Russian
tiger team hails success yahoo
Moscow's
unprecedented military deal (Washington Post) ( France should be praised
inasmuch as a strong Russia, and conversely, a weak perpetual war, war
mongering, war crimes, pervasively corrupt nation, america is optimal for world
peace! ) Russia
is last in series of major powers to seal valuable deals with India (Washington Post) ( Bravo for India … a deal with
Russia is a deal with a future! ) ] Their country still endures the sting of
economic crisis, but Russians plan to drink up this holiday season. Applebaum: The
'decline of the West' (Washington Post) [ It really is true … and, no
leftist sympathizer with his book of the same name, none other than Buchanan
says as much. The reason of course is based on reality. From Orwellian Britain,
to failed nation-state the pervasively corrupt and defacto bankrupt
wobama-bushland america, to perpetual war ‘me-toos’ (ie., nato allies, war crimes
nations israel, u.s., etc.), their frauds (wall street, etc.) protected, laws
meaningless(see RICO case http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ) , their ruthless suppression subtle, hidden,
but odious as never before in their respective histories, the west at best has
become that ‘distinction without significant difference’ and heading to worse
than can be imagined. Of course they’ll lay blame to something other than the
huge frauds / wealth transfers that have plundered the nation. Indeed, one
could even cogently argue that said plundering gave rise to the flawed, failed
communism lie in the first instance. Yet, Russia, a great nation with a rich
history is not a communist nation, did not violently suppress the people as
they shirked that communist yoke / albatross, is not as defacto bankrupt,
meaningfully lawless, pervasively corrupt america engaging in perpetual wars of
destruction to persons and property, and with a great leader of historical
dimension in Putin is a far more rational choice than the bankrupt west on all
levels. As for communist china, it has
truly been a self-defeating, self-destructive creation of the west out of greed
which is in no short supply in the west.
PREVIOUS:
Wikileaks
founder freed on bail (Washington
Post) [ ‘… Moore (correctly) asserts
that Assange
is under attack solely because he had the courage to expose American war
crimes. Moore writes:
We
were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just
imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks
to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason
they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed
cloak of secrecy....
So
why is WikiLeaks, after performing such an important public service, under such
vicious attack? Because they have outed and embarrassed those who have covered
up the truth…’
CLINTON BODY COUNT
By: Ether Zone
Staff
‘The Obama Deception’
Censored A viral You Tube upload of
one of Alex Jones’ most popular feature films ‘The Obama Deception’ has been
censored following a spur of the moment campaign to elevate the movie’s title
to the top of the major internet search engines. In light of
this development, I provide an archived site version which appears to be
complete (but will be compared with earlier version and replaced with same if
incomplete) http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
CLINTON BODY COUNT
By: Ether Zone
Staff
Here is the latest body
count that we have. All of these people have been connected with the Clintons
in some form or another. We have not included any deaths that could not be
verified or connected to the Clinton scandals. All deaths are listed chronologically
by date. This list is current and accurate to the best of our knowledge as of January
13, 1999 August 1, 2000. (see
complete list http://albertpeia.com/bodycount.htm )
Susan Coleman: Rumors were circulating in Arkansas of an affair
with Bill Clinton. She was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head at 7 1/2
months pregnant. Death was an apparent suicide.
Kevin Ives & Don Henry: Initial cause of death was reported to be the result
of falling asleep on a railroad track in Arkansas on August 23, 1987. This
ruling was reported by the State medical examiner Fahmy Malak. Later it was
determined that Kevin died from a crushed skull prior to being placed on the
tracks. Don had been stabbed in the back. Rumors indicate that they might have
stumbled upon a Mena drug operation.
Paul Olson: A Federal witness in investigations to drug money
corruption in Chicago politics, Paul had just finished 2 days of FBI interviews
when his plane ride home crashed, killing Paul and 130 others on Sept 8 1994.
The Sept. 15, 1994 Tempe Tribune newspaper reported that the FBI suspected that
a bomb had brought down the airplane.
Calvin Walraven: 24 year on Walraven was a key witness against Jocelyn
Elder's son's drug case. Walraven was found dead in his apartment with a
gunshot wound to the head. Tim Hover, a Little Rock police spokesman says no
foul play is suspected.
Alan G. Whicher: Oversaw Clinton's Secret Service detail. In October 1994
Whicher was transferred to the Secret Service field office in the Murrah
Building in Oklahoma City. Whatever warning was given to the BATF agents in
that building did not reach Alan Whicher, who died in the bomb blast of April
19th 1995.
Ron Brown:. The Commerce Secretary died on April 3, 1996, in an
Air Force jet carrying Brown and 34 others, including 14 business executives on
a trade mission to Croatia, crashed into a mountainside. The Air Force, in a
22-volume report issued in June of 1996, confirmed its initial judgment that
the crash resulted from pilot errors and faulty navigation equipment At the
time of Brown's death, Independent Counsel Daniel Pearson was seeking to
determine whether Brown had engaged in several sham financial transactions with
longtime business partner Nolanda Hill shortly before he became secretary of
commerce.
Charles Meissner: died: UNK - Following Ron Brown's death, John Huang was
placed on a Commerce Department contract that allowed him to retain his
security clearance by Charles Meissner. Shortly thereafter, Meissner died in
the crash of a small plane. He was an Assistant Secretary of Commerce
for International Economic Policy.
Barbara Wise: Wise a 14-year Commerce Department employee found dead and
partially naked in her office following a long weekend. She worked in the same
section as John Huang. Officially, she is said to have died of natural causes.
Mary C. Mahoney: 25, murdered at the Georgetown Starbuck's coffee bar over
the 4th of July '97 weekend. She was a former White House intern who worked
with John Huang. Apparently she knew Monica Lewinsky and her sexual encounters
with Bill Clinton. Although not verified, it has been said that Lewinsky told
Linda Tripp that she did not want to end up like Mahoney.
---------------------------------------------------------
] Gerson: He could have
taken quiet credit for the bipartisan tax deal; he chose otherwise. ]
10 Good Reasons To Be Worried About The Stock Market In
2011 , On Sunday December 26, 2010,
‘This is one of David Rosenberg's best pieces in awhile. In his latest daily
note, the Gluskin-Sheff economist
presents 10 reasons bulls should be worried about the stock market in 2011. And
it's not just that there are all kinds of negative headlines that are being
ignored, or that some economic datapoints aren't so hot, or that there is still
deflation. He makes a great argument that many factors, like the level of
bullishness, the relative valuation of stocks to bonds, and the unanimity in
thinking are worrisome. If anything, the list isn't taking into account
everything we see right now.
7.
BREADTH IS
DETERIORATING "As Bob Farrell is
clearly indicating in his work, momentum and market breadth have been
lacking. The number of stocks in the S&P 500 that are making
52-week highs is declining even though the index continues to make new 52-week
highs. "Source: Gluskin-Sheff
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-reasons-to-be-worried-about-the-stock-market-in-2011-2010-12#breadth-is-deteriorating-7#ixzz19G1KZX2Q
8.
VALUATIONS ARE
GETTING RICH "Stocks are overvalued at the present levels. For
December, the Shiller P/E ratio says stocks are now trading at a whopping 22.7
times earnings! In normal economic periods, the Shiller P/E is between 14
and 16 times earnings. Coming out of the bursting of a credit bubble, the
P/E ratio historically is 12. Coming out of a credit bubble of the
magnitude we just had, the P/E should be at single digits." Source: Gluskin-Sheff Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-reasons-to-be-worried-about-the-stock-market-in-2011-2010-12#valuations-are-getting-rich-8#ixzz19G23tGaQ
9.
HOUSING
IS STILL A HUGE THREAT "The potential for a significant down-leg in home
prices is being underestimated. The unsold existing inventory is still
80% above the historical norm, at 3.7 million. And that does not include
the ‘shadow’ foreclosed inventory. According to some superb research
conducted by the Dallas Fed, completing the mean-reversion process would entail
a further 23% decline in real home prices from here. In a near zero
percent inflation environment, that is one massive decline in nominal
terms. Prices may not hit their ultimate bottom until some point in 2015.
"Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-reasons-to-be-worried-about-the-stock-market-in-2011-2010-12#housing-is-still-a-huge-threat-9#ixzz19G2O6qNU
10. FISCAL STRAINS POSE A MAJOR THREAT "Arguably the most
understated, yet significant, issue facing both U.S. economy and U.S. markets
is the escalating fiscal strains at the state and local government levels,
particularly those jurisdictions with uncomfortably high pension
liabilities. Have a look at Alabama town shows the cost of neglecting a
pension fund on the front page of the NYT as well as Chapter 9 weighed in
pension woes on page C1 on WSJ." In the absence of Chapter 9
declarations or dramatic federal aid, fixing the fiscal problems at lower
levels of government is very likely going to require some radical restraint,
perhaps even breaking up existing contracts for current retirees and tapping
tax payers for additional revenues. The story has some how become lost in
all the excitement over the New Tax Deal cobbled together between the White
House and the lame duck Congress just a few weeks ago." Source: Gluskin-Sheff
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-reasons-to-be-worried-about-the-stock-market-in-2011-2010-12#fiscal-strains-pose-a-major-threat-10#ixzz19G2gqTZP
THE
STOCK MARKET IS A BUBBLE Corson ‘The stock market is not bubbled up, you
say? Well then, let's take a serious macro macro look at the situation and
raise the matter as a question.How is it that from about 1950 (or 1965 at
least) up to about 1985, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stayed mostly in the
range from about 250 to 1200, when America was growing and doing pretty well on
average, and then, from about 1985 to the year 2000 or so -- a mere fifteen
years -- the Dow shot up to over 10,000, when middle class America realized
almost no income gains in real terms and the economy basically cycled from one
boom and bust cycle to the next?I argue we face one of the biggest bubbles of
all time. Let me explain and lets address the problem by focusing on the DJIA.
Here is what the DJIA has done since 1965. click to enlarge images
What
we observe is the DJIA has gone up about ten fold from 1965 to the year 2000 or
so. But what has industrial production in the US done during that time frame?
Industrial
production has increased to be sure, but only by a factor of three or so. It
certainly has not increased anything like the DJIA. But there is slippage, you
say. To be sure, we now generate more services, the time series data have been
smoothed and more importantly changed, etc., etc. But these explanations simply
don't bridge the gap.
Here is another one that doesn't either.
Back in the early-to-mid 1980s macro economists noted
that the risk premium being paid on equities over bonds was far higher than was
warranted by standard measures of individuals’ attitudes towards risk. In
short, the risk premium agents were being paid more than compensated them for
the risk. This was particularly surprising since over the long run, the risk on
equities was no different than that on bonds. As a result, there appeared to be
an arbitrage opportunity by shifting one’s portfolio from bonds to stocks and holding
the equities for a long time.
Do you believe that? We simply had a financial
epiphany and corrected. More importantly, do you want to believe that or
anything except we are bubbled up?As we know, Japan had this problem with its
stock market and here is what happened. But that can't happen here you say. I
ask, why not?
Even GDP and profits have not caught up with this
market. They too have only increased three and a half fold at best.
(The data in these charts are smoothed to conceal
recessions and ease presentation.)Why is it that we don't have a serious bubble
in our stock market now? Were our valuations all wrong for years on end
earlier, or do we have it wrong now? I think we have a problem and our heads
are in the sand… http://www.seekingalpha.com/article/243573-is-the-dow-showing-a-major-stock-market-bubble?source=yahoo
’
WASHPOST
Ombudsman: Why Silence on Black Panther Story? (Washington Post) ‘Thursday's Post reported about a growing controversy
over the Justice
Department's decision to scale down a voter-intimidation case against members
of the New Black Panther Party. The story succinctly summarized the issues
but left many readers with a question: What took you so long? For months,
readers have contacted the ombudsman wondering why The Post hasn't been
covering the case. The calls increased recently after competitors such as the New
York Times and the Associated Press wrote stories. Fox News and right-wing
bloggers have been pumping the story. Liberal bloggers have countered, accusing
them of trying to manufacture a scandal. But The Post has been virtually
silent. The story has its origins on Election Day in 2008, when two members of
the New Black Panther Party stood in front of a Philadelphia polling place. YouTube
video of the men, now viewed nearly 1.5 million times, shows both wearing
paramilitary clothing. One carried a nightstick…’
Latino
KKK: You are too white to be American! ALIPAC | Tan
Klan woman can scream racist comments because the Obama administration and most
of the major news networks in America have her back.
Drudgereport:
NEW
LOW FOR O: USATODAYGALLUP HAS OBAMA APPROVE AT 41%...
America Is
'Bankrupt Mickey Mouse Economy'...
WIRE:
USA 'Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It'...
YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT HITS
RECORD HIGH
JOBLESS
CLAIMS JUMP TO HIGHEST SINCE FEB...
California
can't pay bills -- may use IOUs for August payments...
DEFICIT
ADDS $165,040,000,000.00 -- IN ONE MONTH!
Homes
lost to foreclosure up 6% from last year...
Grim
Voter Mood Turns Grimmer...
Claims
of Afghan civilian deaths spark protest...
Military
sees heavier fighting in fall...
UPDATE:
Suspected serial killer arrested in Atlanta...
Attempting
to flee to israel … to be with kindred spirits ...
DEFICIT
ADDS $165,040,000,000.00 -- IN ONE MONTH!
MOB
RUSH FOR FED AID DRAWS RIOT POLICE
DOW drops
265...
Feds
rethink policies that encourage home ownership...
Obama: $3
Billion More in Aid for Unemployed...
US
posts widest trade gap in 20 months...
Q2 GDP Growth Could Be Revised To Just 1% After Trade Data...
PUMP:
FED TO BUY MORE DEBT...
DOWNGRADES
OUTLOOK...
US-backed
fighters in Iraq defect to al-Qaida... [Winning hearts and minds …
for Al Qaida … just one too many civilian deaths for no good reason at all ]
Republicans
Suggest Names for 'Second Stimulus' Bill...
'Where
do the bailouts end?' [I feel compelled to comment here that
even capital hill math would be hard-pressed to justify $26 billion taxpayer /
treasury dollars they don’t really have, to save 300,000 state / local
government jobs! After all, the nation is defacto bankrupt! ]
CASTRO
WARNS OF IMPENDING NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST
WELCOME
TO THE RECOVERY...
JULY
UNEMPLOYMENT -131,000 JOBS...
Revised: May/June -97,000 jobs than first reported...
Odd
mix of bad news...
CASTRO
WARNS OF IMPENDING NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST
Michelle
Obama 'modern-day Marie Antoinette'...
NYT:
'Leaves the taxpayers with a hefty bill'...
While
Obama preaches sacrifice, his family frolics in Spain...
Gazpacho,
turbot, veal and ratatouille with the king...
Lavish
Obama vacation in time of economic turmoil raises eyebrows...
BAKER:
'Leaves taxpayers with hefty bill'...
Hollywood
star-studded gala at first lady's luxury hotel...
MICHELLE
O'S $375,000 VACATION?!
Strolls Marbella after State Dept. 'racist' Spaniards gaffe...
White
House calling: Please will you make a coat for Michelle...
Boy
Scouts boo Obama...
GALLUP:
Blacks and Whites Continue to Differ Sharply on Obama...
JUDGE
KNOCKS DOWN MARRIAGE PROP IN CA
BLOW
TO O: MO SAYS NO
Voters
overwhelmingly rejected federal mandate to purchase health insurance...
Americans
swap passports; Desire to avoid tax leads some to renounce citizenship...
Ahmadinejad
survives blast near motorcade...
'Stupid
Zionists have hired mercenaries to assassinate me'...
FALTERING RECOVERY TRIPS DOLLAR...
GM,
FORD and CHRYSLER Sales All Lag Estimates...
Stimulus
Slammed: Republican Senators Release Report Alleging Waste...
The
100 worst stimulus projects...
SHOCK
VIDEO: DEM CONGRESSMAN BRAGS: 'FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN DO MOST ANYTHING IN THIS
COUNTRY'...
Deadliest Month Of Afghan War
Paper:
Will Washington's Failures Lead To Second American Revolution
Maxine
Waters faces trial over bank bailout funds...
HOT WATERS
Dems
Say Sorry, Charlie...
Democrats
Say Rangel Should Resign...
Obama:
Time For Rangel To End Career 'With Dignity'...
60,000 babies born to 'noncitizens' get U.S. birthright - in Texas
alone...
Dutch
become 1st NATO member to quit Afghanistan...
Then there is the well researched,
produced, and informative ‘ESOTERIC AGENDA’ which explains how we’ve gotten to
this forlorn point: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7052400717834950257#
Pentagon warns Congress:
Accounts running dry...(Drudgereport) Isn’t this headline eerily
reminiscent of that seminal B film by Roger Corman for Jack Nicholson, ‘Little
Shop of Horrors’ (and remake) wherein a murderous vegetable / plant clamors
incessantly and insatiably, ‘feed me’. Eight U.S. service members killed in series
of attacks in southern Afghanistan (Washington Post, July 15,
2010) . This ridiculous war apparently for the sake of the american sponsored
reinvigorated heroin trade was a bad idea ab initio even if america wasn’t
defacto bankrupt.
‘This is
a global depression. This is a secular bear market in a global depression. The
past up move was a manipulated bull (s***) cycle in a secular bear market. This
has been a typically manipulated bubble as has preceded the prior crashes with
great regularity that the wall street frauds and insiders commission and sell
into.’
Harry Dent, Jr. Economy will be in a
Depression by 2011
The worst of this next depression is likely to hit between mid-2010 and
mid-2013, especially around early 2011, but if the banking system continues to
implode a deep downturn or depression could begin sometime in 2009 instead of
2010.
Dow will Fall to 3,800 – 4,500 by 2012
Nasdaq will Fall Below 1,100, its 2002 low, by late 2010 or mid-2012 at the
latest.
Inflation will Increase until mid- 2010 and then turn to Deflation
Interest Rates will Increase
U.S. Dollar will Decline
Housing will Decline by 40 – 60% from Today’s Levels
Greatest Economic and Banking Crisis since the 1930s will Occur Between 2010
and 2012
Exports
are up, but where are the jobs? (Washington Post) Gone with the wind?
Sorry, I must have been thinking of million dollar movies. Seriously though, I
dare say everyone knows they were gone with that ‘bi-partisan executive /
congressional, think-tank, cia / nsa ill wind’ that others might refer to as
flatulence / passing gas, also called NAFTA, and also proudly hailed by the
foregoing as ‘strategy’. They’re gone, and never to return. Moreover, the
flipside of the exports, viz., imports, doesn’t bode well despite the
fraudulent wall street b*** s*** and their chorus of cheerleaders in
washington. Some might say self-delusion but I would say fraud covers all.
Companies
pile up cash but still won't add jobs (Washington Post) Unlike the public sector (which now exceeds private
sector in job gains and average compensation), the private sector attempts to
mesh hiring with economic supply / demand factors to maximize (shareholder) profits / wealth. Whatever
faults american companies have, with relatively few exceptions, this still
remains a very basic fundamental and building surplus (generating profits) is a
necessary precept to ensure survival and the capacity to be a good ‘citizen’ so
to speak. Then there’s reality:
Retail
sales down for 2nd consecutive month (Washington Post) Another ‘Come on’ day on fraudulent wall street! This
time it’s the unexpected downward revision to previous market-frothing retail
sales report and poor retail sales and plunge in mortgage applications and then
there’s the fed minutes pointing to extended bad economy. See Dave Fry’s
(Daily) summary below referencing in euphemistic fashion, yet another ongoing
manipulation also known as fraud. (Absent prosecutions, they’ll continue to do
what comes natural to frauds on wall street). Great opportunity to sell / take
profits since much worse, also called reality beyond the b*** s***, to come.
Then there’s also the bad but typical news; viz., retail sales, mortgage apps, economic outlook down, and yesterday
deficits, trade and budget, up.
NATION NEWS DIGEST: J.P. Morgan Chase
posts $4.8 billion profit (Washington Post) Yet another ‘Come on’ day on fraudulent wall street! This
time it’s the unexpected jump in continuing claims for unemployment, yesterday
the downward revision to previous market-frothing retail sales report and poor
retail sales and plunge in mortgage applications and then there’s the fed
minutes pointing to extended bad economy. Then there’s also now the ‘goldfinger
factor’ as in goldman’s middle finger. When you defraud for many billions, paying $550 million is
chump change. Goldman shares rocketed 5.5% in after-hours trading. No wonder
Goldman called it "the right outcome for our firm shareholders and
clients." (Absent
prosecutions, they’ll continue to do what comes natural to frauds on wall
street). Great opportunity to sell / take profits since much worse, also called
reality beyond the b*** s***, to come. Then there’s also the bad but typical
news; viz., previous retail sales, mortgage apps, economic outlook down, and
continuing claims for unemployment, deficits, trade / budget, up. (Just in:
7-16-10 Poll – only 43% of Americans approve of the Afganistan War, down from
52% in January, 2010)
Pearlstein: Can
regulation beget innovation? (Washington Post) I believe the more seminal question to be,
whether american companies, consistent with overall american decline and
corruption in so pervasive a fashion, are capable of or inclined toward real
innovation where enhancements to productivity, as well as greater profits, is
the consequence as desired. Certainly there has been ‘innovation’ by the wall
street frauds in the types of (ultimately worthless / fraudulent) paper and
high frequency trade programs enhancing their bottom-lines but little else;
and, those cutting edge ‘weapons of mass destruction’ produced or financed
(israel) by america are hardly productive in the economic sense but innovative
and profitable in the short run, and unwise and nation-bankrupting in the
longer run which we’re in right now!
Ex-Justice
official: CIA may have exceeded limits (Washington
Post) Wee doggies! This sounds like the
stuff that SNL Weekend Update ‘Really’ skits are made of; also fitting into
that list of queries as, ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’, ‘Do bears **** in the
woods?’, etc.. Come on! Wake up! This
is the kind of complicit cover-up / corruption found betwixt and between all
three branches of the u.s. government leading ineluctably to america’s current
decline and to which I’ve attested under penalty of perjury in the context of
the RICO litigation [ http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
].
For
now, spew of oil into Gulf of Mexico is halted (Washington Post) Well, thank God for small favors! I suggest they change that
name, ‘integrity test’; that’s doomed to end in failure. Yes, the brits are
back. They’ve clogged the well, with help from the ‘usual suspects’, the
americans. What precision! What
teamwork! Victory at last … riiiiight!
WHICH WAY IS THE MARKET GOING NEXT? Gomes: ‘Having been a technical analyst for the first 10
years of my investing career and a fundamental analyst for the past 15 years,
I'm a believer that technical patterns form as fundamentals unfold. As such, if
you know something about both, you can confirm both against each other. At this
point in time, I see a market that is technically reaching up toward its 200
day moving average (2,250 for the NASDAQ). I also see a 50 day moving average
that is threatening to drop below that 200 day moving average. Technically,
that is usually a very bad sign for the market. The question is, "will the
50DMA drop below the 200DMA?" I think the answer is inevitably
"yes". The thing about the moving averages, is that you can see which
points of data are about to fall off. Meanwhile, you can make reasonable
assumptions regarding the points of data that will take their place. By doing
so, you can construct a range of probabilistic scenarios. In this case, some
high numbers are about to come out of the 50DMA, making it go lower. Meanwhile,
some low numbers are about to come out of the 200DMA, making it go higher.
Since both are VERY close to each other right now, it's safe to assume that the
50DMA will indeed fall below the 200DMA. So, that's probably bad news for the
market...technically. Fundamentally, it appears that Q2 turned out well for
most companies. However, most of the investing world knows this and stocks have
rallied about 8% on the news. Ever hear the saying "buy the rumor, sell
the news"? Well, the rumor has been bought and the news is just starting
to flow in. This means that we have to look at the NEXT bit of news to figure
out what rumor the market will be buying or selling. To me, it's clear that the
global economic environment will come back to the front burner as the #1 driver
of stock prices...and that's bad news for stocks. A good Q2 does not mean that
the future is bright. Rather, I believe that Q2 will represent the peak of
earnings health. Starting in Q3, good earnings will become a bit harder to come
by. Why?
1) Economic indicators are dropping fast. For all intents and purposes,
the unemployment rate has not budged. Meanwhile, store shelves are stocked
again, PCs have been upgraded, etc. In other words, the pent-up demand that
drove the current rebound has almost run its course. What little remains no
longer has the power to drive the economy as it has over the past 18-months.
2) "Follow the money". This is
one of the most powerfully simple rules on Wall Street. When money is flowing
into the economy (i.e. via lower interest rates or stimulus $$$), it's usually
good for stocks..and vice versa. At present, interest rates can't go much lower
and the numerous stimulus programs are losing effectiveness. This means that
the money is no longer flowing in. Worse yet, the money that was spent is not
generally viewed as having been money well spent. This does not bode well for a
new stimulus package to come anytime soon. In other words, money is not flowing
in AND doesn't appear poised to flow in anytime soon. In fact, state and
municipal budgets are being cut (money flowing OUT), while they raise local
sales and income taxes (more money flowing out). if federal taxes go up in
2011, as planned, even more money will be flowing out. If you follow that, you
should be flowing out of the stock market. In short, barring a new stimulus
package of other major money-flowing event, I believe the economy slips back
toward recession. Whether or not we double-dip, we will almost certainty slip
in that direction.
3) If you follow the money in
Europe, you will run for the hills. Europe has decided to spin
180-degrees and shift from stimulus to austerity (if you don't know the
definition, look it up -- you'll likely hear it again -- and not just from me).
Effectively the opposite of stimulus, austerity will pull money away from the
European economies...which tells us to pull money away from stocks. Worse yet,
the effect of the EU/IMF bailout is already wearing off. Greek yields are
rising again and Portuguese credit ratings have been reduced.
4) Global bubbles are bursting. Most notably,
home sales in China and Canada are starting to fall. Remember what happened
when the U.S. housing market cracked? That's right -- that's what started this
mess in the first place.
5) Politically, this period in
time has a tendency to be bad for stocks. There is uncertainty
around the mid-year elections...and the market hates uncertainty. Historically,
the political picture doesn't become clear until October, at which point we
might expect a rally. Until then, expect the democrats to do everything they
can to retain their jobs in November. That means, "stop pissing off the
public"...and the public seems pretty pissed about how the stimulus $$$
worked out for them (or more accurately, how it DIDN'T work out for them).
Thus, the political pressure will lean against further stimulus until after the
elections.
The Bottom Line: I
believe that the market will start to reflect these concerns very soon. These
are real fundamental concerns, which you can see reflected in the technicals.
As the market reaches the 50DMA and the 200DMA, it will be inclined to retreat
(barring some new, hugely positive news). Meanwhile, the 50DMA is 90%+ likely
to cross below the 200DMA, giving the market more reason to retrench. At some
point, if the economy sinks far enough and if the market drops far enough,
political pressure for more stimulus will mount. At that point, money will flow
back into the economy. But that time is not now. Now, money is flowing away
like the tide...and so should your invested capital. I'm not always right, but
I do my best, based on the information before me. Based on what I see right
now, the most logical conclusion is to expect a long, ugly summer for stocks.
If I see information that changes that view, I'll be sure to post an update to
this post. Disclosure: I have short positions against the market
DRUDGEREPORT: 'White
House waving white flag'...
Panic
button...
WIRE:
Dems show signs of battle fatigue...
Federal
deficit gap tops $1 trillion through June...
Republicans
propose cutting Obama budget...
'CREDIBILITY
CRISIS'
No
help in sight for jobless (Washington Post) Well, from their perspective, they
really don’t feel your pain, and, it gives the frauds on wall street another
b*** s***, market frothing, false talking point in the form of ‘fewer
continuing claims for unemployment’. Then there’s that ‘ depression thing’.
The big crash — America plunges into Depression Alexander Cockburn
‘This is a global depression. This is a secular bear market in a global depression. The past up move was a manipulated bull (s***) cycle in a secular bear market. This has been a typically manipulated bubble as has preceded the prior crashes with great regularity that the wall street frauds and insiders commission and sell into. This is a typical wall street churn and earn, pass the hot potato scam / fraud as in prior crashes.’
Making millions from mowing lawns [Sounds like a plan … riiiiight!] (Washington Post) Value Added | Entrepreneur's reinvestment and diversification … By Thomas Heath For the less entrepreneurial at heart there’s always … flippin’ burgers … Washington, D.C.: the nation's (burger) capital? (Washington Post) | ‘The Washington area has emerged as fertile ground for ground chuck …’ Survey: A satisfied federal workforce (Washington Post) Indeed they should be since they’re totally expendable and a waste of taxpayer money.
Return of the No-Volume Melt-Up
Momentum Book Update: Trend Indicators Still Pointing Negative
Employment Picture Is Getting Bleaker
The Debt Party Is Over ‘… In a Ponzi scheme, the end comes when the marginal investor decides to do something else with his money. Then the house of cards stars falling apart. …’
DRUDGEREPORT: BOMBSHELL: Media Mogul Mort Zuckerman Admits
He Wrote One Of Obama's Speeches...
Were
White House Officials Ready to Expose Collaboration?
Zuckerman Now: Obama Barely Treading
Water...
MICHELLE TELLS BLACKS TO 'INCREASE INTENSITY'
6 troops killed in Afghanistan...
DEM GOVS WARN: OBAMA SUIT VS. AZ IS 'TOXIC'
Debt panel has gloomy outlook...
Crisis Awaits World’s Banks as Trillions Come Due...
G20 looks to Beijing to drive global growth … They’re
dreamin’! ...
They say ‘stocks oversold’. Preposterous! Stocks have been overbought based on bad news or nothing at all, rallying on ‘not as bad as expected’. Even if that were true (I don’t believe anything they say), who cares what the criminally insane frauds on wall street say what they expect. It’s fundamentals, economic and financial, that ultimately count; but, in the meantime, they’re like termites eating away at the nation’s foundation with lightning fast computerized trade programs, all of which excessively huge commission churn / earn revenues are a net negative for the economy in real economic terms which is evidenced by unprecedented economic decline in all productive sectors of the economy. This is a great opportunity to SELL / TAKE PROFITS since this suckers rally to suck suckers in and keep them sucked in is based on fraud and b*** s*** alone and: ‘This is a global depression. This is a secular bear market in a global depression. The past up move was a manipulated bull (s***) cycle in a secular bear market. This has been a typically manipulated bubble as has preceded the prior crashes with great regularity that the wall street frauds and insiders commission and sell into. This is a typical wall street churn and earn pass the hot potato scam / fraud as in prior crashes.’
Technical Indicators Trigger Major
Sell Signal ‘…In summary, the bearish picture is
confirmed by technical indicators, a fundamental outlook, sentiment gauges, and
valuations.Based on what the market considered fair market valuations at prior
historic market bottoms, one can conclude how far stocks have to drop to reach
the previously attained level of fair valuations …’
: ‘On Friday July 9, 2010, 4:32 pm EDT
It rarely ever happens, but when it does, it's serious. It has only happened
nine times in 10 years. We are referring to crossovers between the 200-day and
50-day simple moving averages (SMAs).Very few technical indicators receive as
much attention and media coverage as the 50 and 200-day SMAs. The 200-day MA is
perceived to be the dividing line between a stock that is technically healthy
and one that is not. It's a Big Deal It's a big deal when a
stock or an index drops below the 200-day SMA. It's an even bigger deal when
the 50-day SMA of any given stock or index drops below the 200-day SMA. Such a
crossover reflects internal weakness - at least in theory. We'll discuss in a moment
how the actual numbers match up with theoretic assumptions. On June 22, 2010,
the S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC) and Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI) dropped below the
200-day SMA. One day later the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC) followed. On July 2,
2010, the 50-day SMA for the S&P (NYSEArca: SPY
- News)
dropped below the 200-day SMA. On July 6, the Dow Jones (NYSEArca: DIA
- News)
followed. As of today, the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: QQQQ
- News)
is barely hanging on. This sounds like a doomsday scenario. Does a rigid
analysis show that there is validity to 200-day and 50-day SMA crossover
buy/sell signals? Let's investigate.Crossovers - Lagging but Notable Many argue that the SMA
crossover is a delayed signal that emphasizes past weakness more than it
foreshadows future declines. To an extent, that is true. There are other
warning signals that point to a market turn long before the SMA does. For
example, on April 16, 2010, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter noted an
extremely low put/call ratio along with other bullish sentiment extremes. The
newsletter stated that 'the message conveyed by the composite bullishness is
unmistakably bearish. Once prices start to fall and investors get afraid of
incurring losses, the only option is to sell (due to the low put/call ratio).
Selling, results in more selling. This negative feedback loop usually results
in rapidly falling prices.' Prices did fall rapidly. The 22 trading days
following the April 26 high, erased eight months worth of gains. It took a 17%
drop for the SMA crossover to trigger a sell signal. When the ETF Profit
Strategy Newsletter issued a strong buy signal on March 2, 2009, it emphasized
that the developing rally would be a counter trend rally followed by a steep
decline and maintained this viewpoint even though prices kept rallying
relentlessly into the April highs. The SMA crossover now expresses the
possibility that even lower prices are ahead. 200 and 50-day SMA
Crossovers - How Accurate? How about the SMA crossover track record? Over
the past 10 years, there have been nine S&P SMA crossovers with five sell
and four buy signals. We have yet to see the results of the most recent sell
signal. However, of the eight previous signals, six were correct. Average gains
following each signal were 14.91%. $10,000 invested according to the buy/sell
recommendations given right after the first sell signal was triggered on
October 30, 2000 at S&P 1,399, would be worth $24,769 today. More Than just
Crossovers If it sounds too good to be true, it often is. As is the case with
so many technical indicators, crossovers need to be viewed in context with
other indicators. In other words, take a step back and evaluate how crossovers
fit into the larger picture. The larger picture (going back to 2007) reveals
that trading volume associated with market declines has been generally high,
while trading volume seen during rallies has been generally low; a bearish
sign. Does Wednesday's 3.13% Rally Invalidate the Sell Signal? On Wednesday, the
S&P rallied 32 points or 3.13%. The Dow rallied 2.82%, while the Nasdaq
rallied 3.13%. Does this mean the bull market is back on track?Since the
April market top, we've seen about a handful of 2-3% bounces. All associated
gains were erased within a matter of days. Chances are this time will be the
same. In fact, some sort of bounce was to be expected. On July 5, the ETF
Profit Strategy Newsletter stated 'considering that the S&P is butting
against the 100-week SMA, lower accelerations band, 38.2% Fibonacci retracement
levels, round number resistance at 1,000, and weekly s1 at 994, there is a good
chance we will see some sort of a bounce develop from the 990 - 1,015 area.
Weekly r1 at 1,066 and pivot at 1,063 should serve as resistance.' This bounce
is in its later stages right now. What's Next? Let's revisit the larger
picture. Out of the nine leading industry sectors, seven have seen their 50-day
SMA cross below the 200-day SMA - financials (NYSEArca: XLF
- News),
technology (NYSEArca: XLK - News),
consumer staples (NYSEArca: XLP - News),
materials (NYSEArca: XLB - News),
utilities (NYSEArca: XLU - News),
energy (NYSEArca: XLE - News)
and healthcare (NYSEArca: XLV - News).
The consumer discretionary (NYSEArca: XLY
- News)
and industrial sector (NYSEArca: XLI - News)
are the only holdouts. All nine sectors, however, trade below their 200-day
SMA. Fundamentals, sentiment readings and valuations also point south. Some of
the fundamentals we have discussed in these pages are crafty accounting
practices designed to hide huge losses racked up by big financial institutions
not yet realized along with a continually bad unemployment picture. Sentiment
surrounding the April highs recorded extremes not seen since the 2000, 2007,
and even 1987 market top. There are multiple sentiment measures (such as the
VIX, cash allocation, put/call ratio, percentage of bullish/bearish advisors,
mutual fund cash levels, etc.). Each sentiment measure is one piece of the
puzzle. The more pieces of the puzzle you have, the clearer the picture
becomes. Leading up to the April highs, nearly all sentiment indicators peaked,
painting a complete bearish picture. In summary, the bearish picture is
confirmed by technical indicators, a fundamental outlook, sentiment gauges, and
valuations. Based on what the market considered fair market valuations at prior
historic market bottoms, one can conclude how far stocks have to drop to reach
the previously attained level of fair valuations. The ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter
includes a detailed analysis of four valuation metrics with a track record of
accuracy, along with the implied target range for an ultimate market bottom.
This is provided in addition to its short, mid and long-term forecast. When the
market speaks, it behooves investors to listen. Fighting the tape has often
proven to be foolish, as the market will always have the final word.’
A Market Forecast That Says ‘Take Cover’ New York Times | We have entered a market decline of staggering proportions — perhaps the biggest of the last 300 years.
Commercial Real Estate Loans Extend and Pretend ‘…Courtesy of Thomson / Reuters Commercial Real Estate Loans – Extend and Pretend Community banks have commercial real estate loans where the borrower cannot make scheduled interest and principle payments. More than 50% of all FDIC-insured institutions have loan pipelines that are 80% to 100% funded. This is a measure of how banks are stuck with noncurrent assets, but they are not classified that way. Instead, community banks are giving borrowers more time to make their payments on the theory that it’s better to collect zero on some loans rather than owning the real estate that collateralizes those loans. This concept is dubbed “extend and pretend” hoping that the borrower will eventual pay the loan back. Banks in this practice are known as “Zombie Banks” as they can’t lend, can’t lure in new investors, and wait for the FDIC to knock on their doors on Friday afternoon. This strategy includes stretching out loan maturities and allowing below-market interest rates to slow the number of defaults and preserving the capital of banks that would be expended if property had to become “Other Real Estate Owned.” As a result “Loans 30 to 89 Days in Arrears” and “Noncurrent” loans are not growing as fast as they should be. The net result of these practices masks the true toxicity of the Commercial Real Estate market. It’s not just the small banks that are employing “extend and pretend” tactics. I read that the Bank of America (BAC) has extended a large real estate loan in Buckhead, Georgia the high-class area north of Atlanta. The loan finances the development of a high-end shopping and residential project in 2007 and now three years later the cranes are silent and the project is fenced in. The banking regulators are helping the banks by allowing the lenders several ways to restructure loans. While doing so the banks are allowed to keep these loans as “performing” even with collateral values below the loan amounts. Extend and pretend is also known as kicking the can down the road. It seems to me that we have wasted billions if not trillions in stimulus money and bank bailouts when this money could have been used to actually fund the completion of these projects. Such a plan would have cost tax payers much less and would have kept Americans working on Main Street USA, as finishing incompleted real estate projects are clearly “shovel ready” projects. According to Foresight Analytics banks hold $176 billion of CRE loans that could be declared toxic. This is the tip of the iceberg as the FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile shows $1.09 trillion in nonfarm nonresidential real estate loans and $418 billion in Construction & Development loans on the books of our nation’s banks. About two-thirds of the CRE loans are maturing between now and 2014, and are underwater. Commercial real estate property values are down 42% from the October 2007 peak. At the end of the first quarter 9.1% are delinquent up from 7% a year earlier. Bankers justify “extend and pretend” saying that it’s better than calling the loan and dumping more property on a depressed market. We need a stronger economy to entice new investors to resurrect projects and to find new demand for competed offices, hotels, condos etc which are the finished products of completed CRE projects. Without a strong economic recovery these loans will eventually have to be written off down the road. The problem is that while these loans are on hold banks can’t justify new loans, which would be the engine of economic growth. And the beat goes on. Disclosure: No positions’
Light Volume Temptations: Dave's Daily ‘Volume still matters, doesn't it? It seems not as the financial media ignores our light volume market in favor of writing bullish headlines. With hedge funds mostly sidelined according to reports posted here yesterday, the primary buyers must be trading desks on Wall Street and a handful of algo traders. It's tempting to come off the sidelines and join the fun but perhaps it's just the trap they're laying for you. A headline at Reuters read this afternoon: "Weaker Economic Views Equals Stronger 3-Year Note Sale". So, if equity markets are forward-looking one must wonder what these few buyers are seeing beyond a short-term trade. Headline writers say its strong earnings growth that will prop markets coupled with rosy outlooks. That would have to be the case otherwise this is just a sucker's rally. As stated, volume was holiday-like light (40% below average) making it really easy for the machines to take over trading, and so they did ... ‘
DRUDGEREPORT: PAPER: Optimism on hold; Recovery economy falters...
USA
marks 3rd-largest, single-day debt increase...
Deficit
hits $1 trillion in June for second year...
IMF presses US
to cut debt...
NSA
INTERNET GRAB; SPY AGENCY SHIFTS TO DOMESTIC EAVESDROPPING...
CIVIL
RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE...
RESET: Russia slams
Clinton for 'groundless' comments...
Mortgage
Delinquencies Rising Again as Home Prices Stay Flat...
Roubini: Banks Too Big to Fail, Too Big
to Bail Out...
COOKED APPLE: 103...
UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE...
US v. AZ...
Banks are Still at the Derivatives Casino (at Seeking Alpha) [video] Washington's Bungled Bank Bailout (at TheStreet.com) ECRI Weekly Leading Index Growth Lowest in 13 Months Be on the Right Side of S&P Earnings Estimate Cuts
Inventory Cycle Has Run Its Course Harrison – ‘… This is the scenario I have been predicting for months now.
David Rosenberg says the ISM leads jobs. And, the latest jobs numbers were weak.
I would be nonplused about the recent ISM data if it weren’t for the column highlighted in red. Notice how the momentum for everything is slowing. Not just the overall index, but new orders, production and employment …’
DRUDGEREPORT: TORN
ON FOURTH OF JULY: OBAMA DIVIDES NATION...
Great
Republic in parlous state -- politically, economically...
YEAR
9: Petraeus in Afghanistan warns of tough mission...
'We are in this
to win' … Win what? The fact of america’s defacto bankruptcy and being there IS
failure no matter what they ultimately call this debacle ...
Illinois
Stops Paying Its Bills...
Facing
'outright disaster' amid budget crisis...
Turn On, Tune In...Nah, Just Drop Out … Discouraged workers at a new cycle high And small wonder. The median unemployment duration went to a new all-time high (since the 1940s, anyway, when that series begins) and shows no signs of slowing its ascent … (Chart, source Bloomberg)…
NY
Times’ Krugman: We Are Entering The Third Depression Recessions are
common; depressions are rare. [Correction: we’re already in a depression].
JUNE UNEMPLOYMENT 9.5%... 125,000 JOBS
LOST...
Rate
dips as 652,000 give up search...
Depressing...
[That’s why they’re called depressions (just kidding … but no laughing matter)
… At this rate, with all those lost jobs and jobseekers no longer seeking
those lost jobs that aren’t there, by their calculations (9.5% the bright spot
… riiiiight!) we should be at full employment very soon … you can’t make this
stuff up … really!].
Ron Paul: 114 Flip Flop on Audit The Fed Causing Bill to Fail 229 – 198 Ron Paul’s attempt to audit the Federal Reserve, which was previously co-sponsored by 320 members of the House (HR 1207), failed by a vote of 229-198. All Republicans voted in favor of the measure with 23 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with Republicans. 122 co-sponsors of HR 1207, all Democrats, jumped ship and voted against the measure. The Future of Audit the Fed Congressman Ron Paul discusses the latest in the efforts to get a full and complete audit of the Fed as well as the future of Fed transparency. Like Congressman Paul says, we’ve accomplished a lot of good with our movement, and there’s many reasons to be optimistic for the future. Ditch the Buck! Dollar demise ‘a matter of months’ A report by the United Nations says the American dollar should be ditched as the main global reserve currency. It said that the global financial meltdown has exposed systematic weaknesses, one of which is the reliance on the greenback. G-20 is Relying on China To Drive the World Economy … But China Isn’t Looking So Hot The G-20 is apparently relying on China to drive the world economy.
Middle class families face a triple whammy Edmund Conway | Falling pensions, cuts and the banking crisis will impoverish many families.
The following are 50 random facts that show just how dramatically america has changed….
#50) A new report released
by the United Nations is publicly calling for the establishment of a world
currency and none of the major news networks are even
covering it.
#49) Arnold Schwarzenegger has
ordered California State Controller John Chiang to reduce state worker pay for
July to the federal minimum allowed by law — $7.25 an hour for most
state workers.
#48) A police
officer in Oklahoma recently tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed
and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn’t breathe because they considered her to be a “threat”.
#47) In early
2009, U.S. net national savings as a percentage of GDP went negative for the first time since
1952, and it has continued its downward trend since then.
#46) Corexit 9500 is
so incredibly toxic that the UK’s Marine Management Organization has completely banned
it, so if there was a major oil spill in the North Sea, BP would not be able to use it.
And yet BP has dumped over a million gallons of dispersants such as Corexit
9500 into the Gulf of Mexico.
#45) For the first
time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps,
and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43
million Americans in 2011.
#44) It has come out
that one employee used a Federal Emergency Management Agency credit card to buy $4,318 in “Happy Birthday” gift cards. Two other FEMA officials
charged the cost of 360 golf umbrellas ($9,000) to the taxpayers.
#43) Researchers at
the State University of New York at Buffalo received $389,000 from the
U.S. government to pay 100 residents of Buffalo $45 each to record how much malt liquor they drink and how much
pot they smoke each day.
#42) The average
duration of unemployment in the United States has risen to an all-time high.
#41) The bottom 40
percent of all income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
#40) In the U.S., the
average federal worker now earns about twice as much as the average
worker in the private sector.
#39) Back in 1950 each
retiree’s Social Security
benefit was paid for by 16 workers. Today, each retiree’s Social Security benefit is paid for by
approximately 3.3 workers. By 2025 it is projected that there will be approximately two workers
for each retiree.
#38) According to a
U.S. Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will top
$13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.
#37) The federal government
actually has the gall to ask for online
donations that will supposedly go towards paying off the national
debt.
#36) The Cactus Bug
Project at the University Of Florida was allocated $325,394 in
economic stimulus funds to study the mating decisions of cactus bugs.
#35) A dinner cruise
company in Chicago got nearly $1 million in economic stimulus funds to combat terrorism.
#34) It is being
reported that a 6-year-old girl from Ohio is
on the “no fly” list maintained by U.S. Homeland Security.
#33) During the first
quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past
due in the United States increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.
#32) According to a
new report, Americans spend twice as much as residents of other
developed countries on healthcare, but get lower quality and far less
efficiency.
#31) Some experts are
warning that the cost of bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could reach as high as $1 trillion.
#30)
The FDA has announced that the offspring of cloned animals could be in our food
supply right now and that there is nothing that they can do about
it.
#29) In May, sales of
new homes in the United States dropped to the lowest level ever
recorded.
#28) In 1950, the
ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the
average worker’s paycheck was about
30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has
ranged between 300 to 500 to one.
#27)
Federal border officials recently said that Mexican drug cartels have not
only set up shop on American soil, they are actually maintaining lookout bases in
strategic locations in the hills of southern Arizona.
#26) The U.S.
government has declared some parts of Arizona off limits to U.S. citizens because of
the threat of violence from Mexican drug smugglers.
#25) According to the credit card repayment calculator, if you
owe $6000 on a credit card with a 20 percent interest rate and only pay the
minimum payment each time, it will take you 54 years to pay off that credit
card. During those 54 years you will pay $26,168 in interest
rate charges in addition to the $6000 in principal that you are required to pay
back.
#24) According to
prepared testimony by Goldman Sachs Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn, Goldman
Sachs shorted roughly $615 million of
the collateralized debt obligations and residential mortgage-backed securities
the firm underwrote since late 2006.
#23) The six biggest banks in the United States now
possess assets equivalent to 60 percent of America’s gross national product.
#22) Four of the
biggest U.S. banks (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and
Citigroup) had a “perfect quarter” with zero days of trading losses during the
first quarter of 2010.
#21) 1.41 million
Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 – a 32 percent increase over 2008.
#20) BP has
hired private security contractors
to keep the American people away from oil cleanup sites and nobody
seems to care.
#19) Barack
Obama is calling for a “civilian expeditionary force” to be sent to
Afghanistan and Iraq to help overburdened military troops build infrastructure.
#18) On June 18th, two
Christians decided that they would peacefully pass out copies of the gospel of
John on a public sidewalk outside a public Arab festival in Dearborn,
Michigan and within 3 minutes 8 policemen surrounded them and placed them under arrest.
#17) It is being
reported that sales of foreclosed homes in Florida made up nearly 40 percent of all
home purchases in the first part of this year.
#16) During
a recent interview with Larry King, former first lady Laura Bush
revealed to the world that she is actually in favor of legalized gay marriage
and a woman’s “right” to abortion.
#15) Scientists at
Columbia University are warning that the dose of radiation from the new full
body security scanners going into airports all over the United
States could be up to 20 times higher
than originally estimated.
#14) 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000
saved for retirement.
#13) The FDIC’s deposit insurance fund now has negative 20.7 billion dollars in it,
which represents a slight improvement from the end of 2009.
#12) The judge that
BP is pushing for to hear an estimated 200 lawsuits on the Gulf of
Mexico oil disaster gets tens of thousands of dollars a
year in oil royalties and is paid travel expenses to industry
conferences.
#11) In recent years
the U.S. government has spent $2.6 million tax dollars to study the drinking habits of Chinese prostitutes and
$400,000 tax dollars to pay researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos
Aires, Argentina to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior
when drunk.
#10) U.S. officials
say that more than three billion
dollars in cash (much of it aid money paid for by U.S. taxpayers)
has been stolen by corrupt officials in Afghanistan and flown out of Kabul
International Airport in recent years.
#9) According to a
report by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the baggage check fees
collected by U.S. airlines shot up 33% in the first
quarter of 2010 to $769 million.
#8) Three California
high school students are fighting for their right to show their American
patriotism - even on a Mexican holiday - after they were forced to remove
their American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo.
#7) Right now,
interest on the U.S. national debt and spending on entitlement programs like
Social Security and Medicare are somewhere in the neighborhood of 10
to 15 percent of GDP. By 2080, they are projected to eat up approximately 50 percent of GDP.
#6) The total of all
government, corporate and consumer debt in the United States is now about 360 percent of GDP.
#5) A 6-year-old
girl was recently handcuffed and sent to
a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her
elementary school.
#4) In Florida,
students have been arrested by police for things as
simple as bringing a plastic butter knife to school, throwing an eraser,
and drawing a picture of a gun.
#3) School officials
in one town in Massachusetts are refusing to allow students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
#2) According
to one new study, approximately 21 percent of children in the United
States are living below the poverty line in 2010.
#1) Since 1973, more than 50 million babies have been
murdered in abortion facilities across the United States.
Drudgereport: JUNE UNEMPLOYMENT 9.5%... 125,000 JOBS
LOST...
Rate
dips as 652,000 give up search...
Depressing...
[That’s why they’re called depressions (just kidding … but no laughing matter)
… At this rate, with all those lost jobs and jobseekers no longer seeking
those lost jobs that aren’t there, by their calculations (9.5% the bright spot
… riiiiight!) we should be at full employment very soon … you can’t make this
stuff up … really!].
New
jobless claims rise [again]...
'Surprise'...
Pending
home sales plunge record 30%...
Weak economic
data suggest 'recovery' fizzling...
Fears
mount over slowing global demand...
UN committee calls for dumping US dollar...
Six Months to Go Until the Largest Tax Hikes in History...
From Ryan Ellis on Thursday, July 1, 2010 4:15 PM
Read more: http://www.atr.org/six-months-untilbr-largest-tax-hikes-a5171##ixzz0sVN5aBH3
In
just six months, the largest tax hikes in the history of America
will take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three
great waves on January 1, 2011:
First Wave: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief
In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for investors,
small business owners, and families. These will all expire on January 1,
2011:
Personal income tax rates will rise. The top income tax
rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which
two-thirds of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will
rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also
rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out,
which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The
full list of marginal rate hikes is below:
- The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15%
- The 25% bracket rises to 28%
- The 28% bracket rises to 31%
- The 33% bracket rises to 36%
- The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%
Higher taxes on marriage and family. The “marriage
penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first
dollar of income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to
$500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for
married couples relative to the single level. The dependent care and
adoption tax credits will be cut.
The return of the Death Tax. This year, there is no
death tax. For those dying on or after January 1 2011, there is a 55
percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving
behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax
bill to their loved ones.
Higher tax rates on savers and investors. The capital
gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011. The
dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in
2011. These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.
Second Wave: Obamacare
There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare.
Several will first go into effect on January 1, 2011. They include:
The “Medicine Cabinet Tax” Thanks to Obamacare,
Americans will no longer be able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible
spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to
purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).
The “Special Needs Kids Tax” This provision of Obamacare
imposes a cap on flexible spending accounts (FSAs) of $2500 (Currently, there
is no federal government limit). There is one group of FSA owners for
whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special
needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs
children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special
needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special
needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily
exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay
for this type of special needs education.
The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike. This provision of Obamacare
increases the additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from
10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged
accounts, which remain at 10 percent.
Third Wave: The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes
When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, they’ll be
in for a nasty surprise—the AMT won’t be held harmless, and many tax relief
provisions will have expired. The major items include:
The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last
year. According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress’ failure to index
the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families—rising from 4
million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate
their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was
created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.
Small business expensing will be slashed and 50% expensing will
disappear. Small businesses can normally expense (rather than
slowly-deduct, or “depreciate”) equipment purchases up to $250,000. This
will be cut all the way down to $25,000. Larger businesses can expense
half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, all of it will
have to be “depreciated.”
Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses. There
are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place. The
biggest is the loss of the “research and experimentation tax credit,” but there are many, many others. Combining
high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.
Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced. The
deduction for tuition and fees will not be available. Tax credits for
education will be limited. Teachers will no longer be able to deduct
classroom expenses. Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be
cut. Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed. The
student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of
families.
Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed.
Under current law, a retired person with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000
per year directly to a charity from their IRA. This contribution also
counts toward an annual “required minimum distribution.” This ability
will no longer be there.
Read more: http://www.atr.org/six-months-untilbr-largest-tax-hikes-a5171##ixzz0sVMwYIhK
Investors get more gloomy & bearish We just had a very difficult three month stretch for stocks. The S&P 500 fell 12% for the quarter as did NASDAQ. The Shanghai Composite, China’s largest stock index, fell 22.9 in its local currency, the yuan. The MSCI EAFE Index (foreign stocks) was down 14%. Given the negative news, it is not surprising that investors are becoming more bearish on stocks. This chart from Bespoke is based on the weekly Investors Intelligence survey, which is getting close to levels from a year ago. This is not close the peak we reached in early 2009, but the mood is definitely more negative now: [chart]
Double Dip on the Way There were many events contributing to yesterday’s sell-off, and the most likely culprits around the globe included more protests in Greece, continued to concerns about Europe at large, and a downward revision (due to a calculation error) of a leading economic indicator reading in China for the month of April. But when it comes down to it, our own economy has yet to stand on solid ground. While the recovery has continued to be shaky at best, recent economic readings may be pointing to a double dip recession. Yesterday’s batch of economic data seemed to be confirming that, as it brought a very dismal reading on consumer confidence. June’s number stood at 52.9, far below expectations of 62.5, and pointing to the consumers’ weariness about the job market, and economic recovery in general. To go further, the previous reading for May was revised downward, to 62.7 from 63.3. But the drop from May to June really sends the message home: we’re not out of the woods yet. Earlier in the week, we saw personal savings rates rise again, even while personal income growth was meager. Americans, despite bringing home a little more cash, continued to save more for the expected rainy days, and have yet to return to their spendthrift ways. After yesterday’s precipitous selling, one would expect to see a bit of a bounce in today’s trading session. That wasn’t the case, however, as more weak data continued to dampen economic hopes. Today’s culprit was the ADP private sector job report. The report stated that private payroll gains were muted in June, with only 13,000 jobs added – far less than the 60,000 expected by economists. While May’s reading was revised slightly upwards (to 57,000 hires from previously reported 55,000), today’s release does not bode well for the much anticipated report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics due out on Friday. The non-farms payroll survey includes government workers and has been inflated in recent months due to hiring for the 2010 Census … [chart] …The June report, however, will reflect many of those workers being laid off in the past month. In May, 431,000 jobs were added, but without support from temporary government hires, economists are predicting job losses in June. Last week, consensus estimates were for a loss of 70,000 jobs for the month. By yesterday, those estimates were downgraded further, to 110,000. With the help of today’s ADP report, expectations have continued to fall: economists now expect a reading of negative 125,000 …
Barron's: Why the Market Will Keep Sliding Perry D- Barron's has a nice summary of what the future may hold in its "Up and Down Wall Street." It summarizes as well as anything I've read recently where we're likely headed. Bugging the (stock) market is the increasingly obvious disparity between what the Street's incorrigible cheerleaders see and prophesy and what's actually happening in the real world...The double dip in housing may or may not be a template of what's in store for the economy as a whole. But at the very least, it is a precursor of other serious disappointments destined to feed the unease among the jittery populace, which most emphatically includes investors.
It cites the predictions of SDK Captial's Dee Kessler:
--the massive fiscal and monetary stimulus so liberally applied in 2008-2009 is starting to run out of steam, with financial conditions tightening and leading economic indicators pointing to a stretch of "anemic activity."
--"structural headwinds," such as public and private deleveraging, higher taxes, greater regulation and trade tensions.
--the well-publicized woes of the European bloc, which accounts for 20% of the world's GDP, as further evidence that the global economy, as he puts it, is downshifting.
--The period of easy comparisons in corporate results, he says, is coming to a close,
--"Although the fundamentals in the U.S., Europe and Japan are worse," Dee spots plenty of downside in emerging markets and doesn't fancy the notion of decoupling.
--Come another financial crisis, "the only policy response left will be to print money." Which, of course, is what the gold bugs are counting on and why bullion has glistened so brightly.
That about sums up the outlook. The nice insight here is that anxiety over future economic malaise -- and the additional money printing that'll be done to mask it -- might be a bigger factor than current inflationary pressure behind the surge in gold prices.
In other words, for the deflation-believers: deflation today? Perhaps. But big-time inflation tomorrow.
Disclosure: No positions
NY Times’ Krugman: We Are Entering The Third Depression Recessions are common; depressions are rare. [Correction: we’re already in a depression].
Stocks: Once More Up, Then the Big Down Smith -The ingredients for a classic head and shoulders topping pattern in the stock market are all present. That suggests one more rise and then a massive grinding move down to 2009 lows. Officially, of course, everything's peachy with the economy. Europe is fixed, China is booming, consumer confidence is rising, and we are encouraged to resume our borrow and spend ways as the economy will not "double-dip" into recession. The economy will not slide into another recession, we are reassured constantly, even though roughly 80% of Americans don't think we ever left the recessionary quicksand. Please see "Two Scoop Special": Double-Dip Recession Guaranteed (May 21, 2010) for more … Exactly what drivers are there for future gains in corporate profits? I can't think of any, short of Martians landing and going on a shopping spree with gold they manufacture in their spacecraft. On the negative side, we have:
1. The rising dollar is a huge headwind to sales in the eurozone and
elsewhere.
2. The low-hanging fruit of pushing the workforce to produce more output for the
same salary/wages have all been picked.
3. The inventory build-out is done for everything but the iPhone 4 and iPad.
4. So-called "fiscal austerity" (when did living within one's means
become some sort of brutual "austerity"? Talk abour propaganda!) in the
eurozone and U.S. states will remove tens of billions of dollars from corporate
sales.
5. Global overcapacity is alive and well. There is overcapacity in everything
manufactured except the iPhone 4, and that will be in glut by 2011 as well.
6. Uncle Sam is not distributing trillions of dollars quite as freely. There
seems to be some glimmer of awareness that there could be consequences of
squandering trillions of borrowed dollars on essentially worthless projects
such as occupying Iraq, inflating the housing market by socializing the entire
mortgage market, propping up Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA, etc.
7. Housing is rolling over now that the socialized mortgage market has been
tentatively allowed to go off life-support (it is wheezing and turning blue in
the face, not signs of vibrant health).
8. There is no pricing power anywhere once stimulus-goosed demand declines to
organic demand (flat to down) …
Momentum Book Update: The Market Is a Mess and the Long Bond Is About to Break Out … Not only do us swing traders have to fight the urge to chase price action up, but lay off the keyboard trying to catch falling knives in the relative strength stocks which are holding up. If you tried to buy support in your favorite names this week, you got your hands cut up. I’ll continue to rely on the understanding of my own emotions as they have served me well. When we opened higher on Monday morning I knew I was in the right place, cash, as the market was just way overbought. If you bought most relative strength names last week, by the end of this week you were well underwater. So where do we go from here? I’ve got no clue, the market is a mess, the charts are a mess, and the long bond is about to break out. If that happens all bets are off, we could see an “event”. If the smart money is lining up at the exits and moving into bonds, there’s a good chance they see something coming down the pipe …
SUITING UP FOR A POST-DOLLAR WORLD John Browne ‘The global financial crisis is playing out like a slow-moving, highly predicable stage play. In the current scene, Western governments are caught between the demands of entitled welfare beneficiaries and the anxiety of bondholders who fear they will be stuck with the bill. As the crisis reaches an apex, prime ministers and presidents are forced into a Sophie's choice between social unrest and bankruptcy. But with the "Club Med" economies set to fall like dominoes, the US Treasury market is not yet acting the role we would have anticipated. Our argument has always been that the US benefits from its reserve-currency status, allowing it to accumulate unsustainable debts for an unusually long period without the immediate repercussions of inflation or higher borrowing costs. But this false sense of security may be setting us up for a truly monumental crash. There is fresh evidence that time is running out for the dollar-centric global monetary order. In fact, central banks outside the US are already making swift and discrete preparation for a post-dollar era.To begin, the People's Bank of China has just this week decided to permit a wider trading range between the yuan and the dollar. This is the first step toward ending the infernal yuan-dollar peg. While the impetus behind this abrupt change remains a mystery, I have a sneaking suspicion that, as my colleague Neeraj Chaudhary explained in his commentary last week, the nationwide labor strikes were a prime motivator. In response to the 2008 credit crunch, the Fed printed so many dollars that the People's Bank of China was forced to drive Chinese inflation into double digits to maintain the peg. The pain has fallen on China's workers, who have seen their wages stagnate while prices for everything from milk to apartments have skyrocketed. This week's move indicates that, regardless of its own policy motives, the Communist Party can no longer afford to keep pace with the dollar's devaluation. The result will be a shift in wealth from America to China, which may trigger a long-anticipated run on the dollar, while creating investment opportunities in China. Just days before China's announcement, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev rattled his monetary sabre by telling the press of his intention to lead the world toward a new monetary order based on a broad basket of currencies. Giving strength to his claim, the Central Bank of Russia announced that it would be adding Canadian and Australian dollars to its reserves for the first time. Analysts suggest that the IMF may follow suit. While Russia floats in the limbo between hopeless kleptocracy and emerging economy, it does possess vast natural resources and a toe-hold in both Europe and Asia. In other words, it will be a strategically important partner for China as it tries to cast off dollar hegemony. Speaking of Europe, the major powers there are moving toward a post-dollar world by rejecting President Obama's calls to jump on America's debt grenade. The prescriptions coming from Washington translate loosely to: our airship is on fire, so why don't you light a candle under yours so that we may crash and burn together. Given that dollar strength is largely seen as a function of euro weakness (as Andrew Schiff discussed in our most recent newsletter, debt troubles in the eurozone's fringe economies have created a distorted confidence in the greenback. However, as you might imagine, Europe has higher priorities than being America's fall guy. Led by an ever-bolder Germany, the European states are wisely choosing not to throw themselves on our funeral pyre, but to wisely clean house in anticipation of China's rise. In another ominous sign for the dollar, the Financial Times reported Wednesday that after two decades as net sellers of gold, foreign central banks have now become net buyers. What's more, more than half of central bank officials surveyed by UBS didn't think the dollar would be the world's reserve in 2035. Among the predicted replacements were Asian currencies and the euro, but - by far - the favorite was gold. This is supported by Monday's revelation by the Saudi central bank that it had covertly doubled its gold reserves, just about a year after China made a similar admission. There is no reason to assume these are isolated incidents, or that the covert trade of dollars for gold doesn't continue. To the contrary, this is compelling evidence that foreign governments are outwardly supporting the status quo while quietly preparing for the dollar's almost-inevitable devaluation. What people like Paul Krugman believe to be a return to medieval economics may, in fact, be the wave of the future. In peacetime, hardened troops will likely tolerate a blowhard general for an extended period; but when the artillery opens up with live ordnance, an ineffectual leader risks rapid demotion. The newspapers are now riddled with hints that foreign governments have lost faith in Washington and the dollar reserve system. It seems to me only natural that after a century of war, inflation, and socialism, the next hundred years would belong to those people who hold the timeless values of hard money and fiscal prudence. Unfortunately, our policymakers are not those people.’
China's Hu Jintao Says Group of 20 Must Coordinate to Consolidate Recovery Bloomberg … How about the G195 countries in the world collectively be considered in this task of coordination owing to the abject failure of the so-called G20 which have in lockstep coordination precipitated this global crisis including the war mongering, war criminal acts of the so-called nato allies et als, particularly the u.s., and as well the likes of war criminal nation israel which have never avoided a contra-indicated, anti-recovery war / conflict they could contrive / rationalize. The so-called G7, 8, 9, 20, etc., are a pathetic bunch of incompetent vegetables / jokers / showmen / clowns.
The following is really the quintessential question and issue, particularly in light of america’s defacto bankruptcy and international law; but paramount humanitarian concerns alone would militate against america’s current misguided course. Is Petraeus McChrystal’s Replacement or Obama’s? Paul Craig Roberts | All of this drama is playing out despite the continuing lack of any valid reason for the american invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
3 SIGNS OF A SUCKER RALLY AFTER EXAMINING TECHNICAL EVIDENCE, SENTIMENT INDICATORS AND VARIOUS VALUATION METRICS, IT BECOMES OBVIOUS THAT THE RECENT BOUNCE PROVIDES A SELLING, NOT BUYING OPPORTUNITY ...’
Reports: IAF Landed at Saudi Base, US Troops near Iran Border Arutz Sheva | The Israeli Air Force recently unloaded military equipment at a Saudi Arabia base, a semi-official Iranian news agency claimed Wednesday. It’s time for the world to take a close look at the despotic, totalitarian regime that presently exists for the grandeur and wealth of a few while hiding behind Islam as they betray same and Muslims everywhere. The time has come for regime change in Saudi Arabia to yield a nation of and for the people of Saudi Arabia and the glory of Islam.
Connecticut vegetable lieberman: China Can Shut Down The Internet, Why Can’t We … (great logic from a totalitarian zionist)? Senator joe Zelig the zionist israeli lieberman, co-author of a bill that would give President Obama a ‘kill switch’ to shut down parts of the Internet, attempted to reassure CNN viewers yesterday that concerns about the government regulating free speech on the web were overblown, but he only stoked more alarm by citing China, a country that censors all online dissent against the state, as the model to which American should compare itself.
Soros Says ‘We Have Just Entered Act II’ of Crisis Bloomberg | Soros said the current situation in the world economy is “eerily” reminiscent of the 1930s. Gerald Celente: U.S. Financial Markets to Collapse by End of 2010 Infowars.com | Gerald Celente is a renowned trend forecaster, publisher of the Trends Journal, business consultant and author who makes predictions about the global financial markets and other events of historical importance. Jobless Claims in U.S. Decreased Last Week to 456,000 Bloomberg | More Americans than anticipated filed applications for unemployment benefits last week.
Market Outlook: Bearish Background to Bullish Storyline Sean Hannon: ‘The last two weekly market commentaries have discussed how the underlying trend of the market is now bearish and all rallies should be used to sell stocks and reduce risks. With nearly every news outlet spouting the bullish storyline, these articles served as an outline of a disciplined investment strategy. Those who followed the outline have done well as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow), S&P 500, and NASDAQ each declined over 5% since my initial warning. With the Dow still stuck below the psychologically important 10,000 level and all three major U.S. markets trading beneath their 200-day moving averages (MA), the bearish backdrop is clear. Even if many are still looking for a rally, we should understand that the primary trend is lower. Instead of focusing on how high prices will rally, we should instead consider how much further prices can fall …’
Greek Default Seen by Almost 75% in Poll Doubtful About Trichet Global investors have little confidence in Europe’s efforts to contain its debt crisis or in European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, with 73 percent calling a default by Greece likely. 12 Reasons Why The U.S. Housing Crash Is Far From Over Over the past several months, many in the mainstream media have hailed the slight improvement in the U.S. real estate market as a “housing recovery”. US Needs Austerity Too: Hedge Fund Strategist The United States will have to adopt austerity measures similar to the ones taken in Europe, because the problems faced are largely the same, Timothy Scala, macro-strategist at Sophis Investments, told CNBC.com. Market Analyst: ‘BP’s Not Going to Last as a Company More Than a Matter of Months’ We’ve heard politicians, even conservative Republicans, suggest BP would be held completely responsible for the devastation caused by the oil spill plaguing the Gulf of Mexico, even if it means its very existence.
US Media Terrified Of Mentioning USS Liberty Do you know that an american naval vessel was attacked by israel in international waters, 43 years ago today, resulting in the deaths of dozens of american sailors Arab lawmaker on flotilla sparks outrage in israel (AP) - An Israeli-Arab lawmaker's decision to join hundreds of activists on a pro-Palestinian flotilla has elevated her from relative political obscurity, transforming her into the poster child for the ...
DEBT POISED TO OVERTAKE GDP Key Indicators of a New Depression Neeraj Chaudhary | Great Depression II developing into something far more devastating than its predecessor You’re Being Decieved Infowars.com | We’re heading over an economic cliff and there’s nothing the government can or will do about it except lie. The Folly of Blindly Trusting the Government
‘What Does China Want?’ They want to speak to Rosanne Rosanna Danna, of course! ‘Asian markets tumble on fears over Hungary’ …Riiiiight! Hungary’s the thing! … Rosanne Rosanna Danna, formerly of SNL fame wanted in Asia to chime in with what her mama always used to say, ‘ It’s always something ‘ . Of course, it matters little to the frauds on wall street what the something is said to be since the reality is … ‘This is a global depression. This is a secular bear market in a global depression. This was a manipulated bull (s***) cycle in a secular bear market. This has been a typically manipulated bubble as has preceded the prior crashes with great regularity that the wall street frauds and insiders commission and sell into. This is a typical wall street churn and earn pass the hot potato scam / fraud as in prior crashes.’ ( It should be noted, and there have been a multitude of other instances, that I’m getting substantial ‘attacks’ vis-ŕ-vis my internet connection which has slowed dramatically these posts. I don’t think the interference is either accidental nor just coincidental but consistent with corrupt defacto bankrupt america’s critics of which I am one and not alone in that regard – slowing, militating against the devastating truth about america.) Europe is Heading for a Depression Despite a nearly-$1 trillion rescue operation, financial conditions in the eurozone continue to deteriorate. All the gauges of market stress are edging upwards and credit default swaps (CDS) spreads have widened to levels not seen since the weekend of the emergency euro-summit. Key Indicators of a New Depression With the mainstream media focusing on the country’s leveling unemployment rate, improving retail sales, and nascent housing recovery, one might think that the US government has successfully navigated the economy through recession and growth has returned. Get Ready for a Double Dip … but many warning flags point towards significant deterioration in the U.S. and global economy going forward and so I think that by the end of the year or early 2011, we could very well be facing a new leg down in the world’s economic situation … [I’d say too optimistic since, to reiterate: This is a global depression. This is a secular bear market in a global depression. This was a manipulated bull (s***) cycle in a secular bear market. This has been a typically manipulated bubble as has preceded the prior crashes with great regularity that the wall street frauds and insiders commission and sell into. This is a typical wall street churn and earn pass the hot potato scam / fraud as in prior crashes.]
european
central banks intervened to shore up the ever more worthless euro, buying into
that fraudulent wall street b*** s*** story that that ‘s a good thing, rallying
stocks off their lows. It is amazing how dumb europe has become so quickly. An
exception is what I believe was Germany’s steps against derivatives, which
market according to a derivatives trader on the radio this day is a $40
trillion market (missed his name). To reiterate as applicable to yet another
fraudulent scheme previously stated, said market is paper on paper moving
around and generating commissions at lightning computerized speed but adding no
real value in real economic terms; again, the analogy of termites eating away
at the (nation’s) foundation is apposite. As such, that money has to come from
some real place and hence, the ever more frequent and larger crashes we are
seeing. Don’t forget that the worthless paper from previous such fraudulent
schemes now marked to anything is still out there in a magnitude some have
placed in the hundreds of trillions.
The
Worst Money Supply Plunge Since The Depression Means A Double Dip Is Now A
‘Virtual Certainty’ The stock of U.S. money as measured by ‘M3′ money supply fell to $13.9 trillion from $14.2
trillion during the three months ending in April. [ This
is still an extraordinarily high level but … I don’t buy it. I believe the
printing presses have been working overtime to pump out ever more worthless
fiat currency and with the many trillions of worthless fraudulent paper still
out there and marked to anything. I further believe the same is being
surreptitiously used to supplant the fraudulent paper, the consequences of
which will be devastating, of course, as is invariably so in depressions in any
event. This scenario would also mean huge fraud accomplis. ]
Fiat
Money Supply Contracting at Great Depression Level The bankster
operative who helped destroy Glass-Steagall is back. Larry Summers, Obama’s top
economic adviser, has told Congress to “grit its teeth” and approve a fresh
fiscal boost of $200 billion to keep growth on track, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Fiat
Money Supply Contracting at Great Depression Level Kurt Nimmo
| The Federal Reserve stopped publishing M3 figures back in 2006.
The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined and disgorgement imposed. If that were so, they wouldn’t be worrying about who wins / loses since those who fraudulently play, invariably would (and should) pay. If they’re not prosecuted, everyone loses.
POST MORTEM AND REVIEW Ricky:
A post mortem is in order. The elements of this
worldwide con game are remarkably simple, not complex at all. Apparently you
only need a few things to make a mockery of the entire global economic system,
and big banks garnered these few important things through “regulatory capture”:
1) Unregulated, unenforced rules (particularly for
derivatives)
2) license to “mark to model” (assign your own values to your assets)
3) ability to peg present value to irrational expected future returns (based on
unlimited, exponential growth)
4) infinite leverage (no effective requirements for reserve capital in
unregulated “shadow” markets)
5) massive size, so that the bank is "too big to fail"
6) non-transparency and non-accountability.
SELL IN MAY AND GO AWAY!
THE FORECASTS:
Harry Dent, Jr.
Economy will be in a Depression by 2011
The worst of this next depression is likely to hit between mid-2010 and
mid-2013, especially around early 2011, but if the banking system continues to
implode a deep downturn or depression could begin sometime in 2009 instead of
2010.
Dow will Fall to 3,800 – 4,500 by 2012
Nasdaq will Fall Below 1,100, its 2002 low, by late 2010 or mid-2012 at the
latest.
Inflation will Increase until mid- 2010 and then turn to Deflation
Interest Rates will Increase
U.S. Dollar will Decline
Housing will Decline by 40 – 60% from Today’s Levels
Greatest Economic and Banking Crisis since the 1930s will Occur Between 2010
and 2012
Russell Napier is the author of the book “Anatomy of the Bear”, a professor at the
Edinburgh Business School and a consultant to CLSA Ltd. which is one of the top
research houses in Asia. Napier’s research indicates (and I paraphrase) that:
The S&P 500 will Decline to 400 by 2014 (the Dow 30 to 3800)
The S&P 500 will then undergo a major crash that will see U.S. equity
prices bottom at almost 50% below current levels (i.e. to 400 or less; the Dow
30 to 3800 or less) sometime around 2014 as Tobin’s “q” drops to 0.3 signaling
the end of the bear market, as it has done at the end of the four largest U.S.
market declines in 1921, 1932, 1949 and 1982.
U.S. Treasury Sales Collapse Leading to End of U.S. Dollar as Reserve Currency
Robert R. Prechter Jr. is author of a number of newsletters and books including
“Elliott Wave Principle” (1978) in which he predicted the super bull market of
the 1980s; “At the Crest of the Tidal Wave – A Forecast of the Great Bear
Market” (1995) in which he predicted a slow motion economic earthquake, brought
about by a great asset mania, that would register 11 on the financial Richter
scale causing a collapse of historic proportions; and “Conquer the Crash: You
can Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary Depression” (2002) in which he
described the economic cataclysm that we are just beginning to experience and
advised how to position one’s self financially during that period of time.
Depression is Imminent
The Dow Jones Industrial Average will go down to at least 1000, most likely to
below 777 which was the starting point of its mania back in August 1982, and
quite likely drop below 400 at one or more times during the bear market.
According to the Debt Clock:
• Total national debt: $13 trillion
• Debt per citizen: $42,026
• Debt per taxpayer: $117,982
• Total interest due: $1.9 trillion
• Interest per citizen: $2,211
Click here to see the Debt Clock, which is updated every second.
• Total personal debt: $16.5 trillion
• Total mortgage debt: $14.1 trillion
• Total consumer debt: $2.45 trillion
• Personal debt per citizen: $53,483
• Debt held by foreign countries: $4.07
trillion
(Previously) I’d say this alito vs. wobama is a tempest in a teapot inasmuch as alito is more than just a lightweight, hack, liar, fraud etc., as set forth in the comments. alito is a criminal who should have served / should be serving time in prison for obstruction of justice, bribery, among other RICO violations. To alito, drug money is as green as corporate money and worth his vote as well. In addition to being an inept [I looked in on the one mob case he had brought, bungled, lost (accidently on purpose?) since I was suing some mob-connected under RICO and the court (I had known / previously met outside of court the judge Ackerman through a client) was absolute bedlam and a total joke since incompetent corrupt alito brought in all 20 mob defendants (rather than prosecute one or a few to flip them first) who feigning illness had beds/cots in the courtroom along with their moans during testimony and had the jury in stitches)] and corrupt (see below and particularly the summary provided to the FBI under penalty of perjury [ http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ] ) u.s. attorney.
You’re naďve to think that the so-called supreme court is any different from the rest of the meaningfully lawless and pervasively corrupt american ‘system’. I knew well an accomplished trial lawyer, fellow american college of trial lawyers / and a bar examiner, who pondered from time to time becoming a judge “so he’d never have to work again” – his words.
Some comments on alito…all appropriate:
Probably the worst appointment in one hundred years.
Posted by: mnjam
-----------------------
Really? That's a pretty sweeping statement to make about someone who's only been on the court a short few years.
And I thought that liberals were in universal agreement that Clarence Thomas was the worst appointment in all of history?
Posted by: blert | January 28, 2010 2:11
AM | Report abuse
----------------------------
Yes. Really. Alito is a total lightweight and hack. He makes Thomas look like
John Marshall or Oliver Wendell Holmes. I KNOW ALITO.
Posted by: mnjam | January 28, 2010 2:24 AM |
the loser here is alito.lost his composure not good for a judge especially
afederal or supreme justice .loser big time this will live with guy for a very
time.roberts and the other justices will have a talk with him that is a
given.this relly larger than o one day news cycle.
Posted by: donaldtucker | January 28, 2010 1:12 AM |
Should Alito resign or be impeached?
Posted by: jdmca | January 28, 2010 1:05 AM |
I include the first two comments to the foregoing headline:
Billo Says:
June 11th, 2010 at 6:15 am
Lunacy? Keep in mind that this country is run and controlled by lunatics. Our press government and military seem to take their orders from Israel. Isarel wants to be known as a pack of “mad dogs. Do we want “mad dogs” controlling us?
Here we see a bunch of phony accusations against Iran just like we did in the run up to the bogus wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan. The boy has cried wold ten thousand times. It’s time to identify the “lunatics” and kindly take away the car keys. If you won’t let your friends drive drunk, why do we let a bunch of “lunatic” enemies run this place.
Glen Reply:
June 11th, 2010 at 6:47 am
Lunacy it would be.
But it is also to their great credit that the Iranians have not made their own threats.
Everyone knows there are 3 WMD threats, Nuclear Biological and chemical. The scariest of which is Biological.
Any attack done under the threat of immediate biological retaliation would deter only the insane.
Watch out america home of the insane, home of the leaders who want an 80% population reduction.
The yardarm is the
remedy Dozens of our friends and comrades, of wonderful compassionate
activists are dead and wounded in the pirate attack in the high seas on
humanitarian aid boats. This is a dreadful crime that will forever be
remembered and should be punished. The Israeli pirates attacked the
humanitarian aid Freedom Flotilla in the international waters over 150 km out
of their territorial waters. The boats carried no arms; the participants
strictly adhered to Ghandian mode by asking the Greek and Cyprus authorities to
search the boats to avoid later claims that they were armed.
A Plague Upon The World: The USA is a “Failed State” Dr. Paul Craig Roberts | The American people are lost in la-la land. They have no idea that their civil liberties have been forfeited. US citizen killed on flotilla reportedly shot four times in head Raw Story | A forensic report said Furkan Dogan was shot at close range, with four bullets in his head and one in his chest, according to the Anatolian news agency. The explanation foisted off on the americans by war criminal israelis is probably something on the order of ‘they just wanted to make sure they missed him’. Roberts: ‘AIPAC purchases US elections’ Russia Today | Paul Craig Roberts says that there will be nothing that is going to be done by the United States to change the relationship with Israel.
‘US
funding terrorist group against Iran’ Press TV | A
member of a terrorist organization operating in Iran says that a US State
department radio station originally put him in touch with the group.
Paul Craig Roberts: Government Abandoned Vietnam POWs Kurt Nimmo | John McCain worked overtime to make sure Vietnam POWs never came home. I think the even bigger story vis-ŕ-vis mccain is: http://www.albertpeia.com/heroenot.htm ‘Did you know that that so-called "american heroe" john mccain was referred to by his fellow pows in Vietnam as something akin to the "songbird" inasmuch as he was constantly "singing" to his Viet-Cong captors to curry favor and better treatment? This has been documented with authority by Colonel David Hackworth. The same violates military code/protocol (other soldiers have been court-martialed for far less) click Here, Here. [ http://www.albertpeia.com/hackworth.htm ] But, you see, this covered up scenario, compromizing the false facade of far less than a heroe, is exactly what a criminal (lie of a) nation as america loves and encourages (get everyone's hands dirty so no-one dares to rectify same, ie., bush, sr., clinton, bush, jr.). That is, "toe the (corrupt, propagandized) line", become a criminal, or be exposed, prosecuted, and/or ruined; and, hasn't anyone asked how "wall street" has been "spared the spotlight" (and even was accorded protective legislation from their criminal culpability) and focus of inquiry, attention, and prosecution despite being the primary beneficiaries financial and otherwise of these scams (you know the wall street motto, "churn and earn"; huge conflicts of interest if not outright fraud)…’
Coalition wants UK space lift-off [ Don’t make me laugh! ]
Israel’s Nukes Out of the Shadows Israel faces unprecedented pressure to abandon its official policy of “ambiguity” on its possession of nuclear weapons as the international community meets at the United Nations in New York this week to consider banning such arsenals from the Middle East.
NASA wants mission to bring Martian rocks to Earth (AP) Why? They already have that and more:
Launch of secret US space ship masks even more secret launch of new weapon
http://www.albertpeia.com/UFOetryWeNeverWentToTheMoonPNTV.wmv
[To the Professor at the beginning of the course]
10-5-09
Postscript: Professor *****,
I felt compelled to thank you again for the add; not to curry your favor but
indeed to express profound thanks inasmuch as this is probably the last formal
course at a formal educational institution I'll ever take; and among the most
important. While I had bought at discount a library-discarded 1993 Anthropology
by Embers text, though meaning to read same never quite got to it. I am
astounded by the substantial amount of time involved in the evolutionary
process, not that I ever stopped to think about it, and one must come away with
the sense of 'and all that...for this?'. This course should be required
curriculum along with psychology, sociology, etc., but probably won't be owing
to what is, as it should be, a very humbling educational experience for any
member of the human race.
Regards,
Al Peia
Drudgereport:
KRUGMAN:
'We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression'...
STOCKS HIT LOWEST OF YEAR...
DEBT
SOARS TO HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE WWII...
PRIVATE SECTOR SEES WEAKER JUNE JOBS...
Sputtering...
Dow Loses 10% in Q2...
Fed
Officials Express Caution on Outlook, Avoid Talk of Further Stimulus...
NEW CLASHES IN ATHENS...
Greeks
Walk Off Job...
NEARLY
2,000 PAGES: The legislation would redraw how money flows through economy...
Bank stocks soar … see new old opportunities for new old
frauds ...
buzz
aldrin wants to colonize Mars … Riiiiight buzzed! Better check with Dipalma to
see if he already has the footage in the can since you won’t be able to use the
moon footage for the new boondoggle video ...
WSJNBCNEWS:
Confidence Waning in Obama, U.S. Outlook...
SCARY
OBAMA: 'VERY DIFFICULT CHOICES AHEAD' ON DEFICITS
CHICAGOLAND BOMBSHELL: Obama knew plot to trade Cabinet post
for appointing Jarrett to Senate -- Testimony...
RAHM DELIVERED THE LIST...
BLAGO TAPE: Get Obama to fundraise from Buffett, Gates...
Greece puts its islands up for sale in futile attempt to save
economy...
DEUTSCHE BANK says US financial conditions are worse...
New
home sales plunge 33%...
Record
low...
CIA:
AFGHAN PROGRESS 'SLOWER' THAN ANTICIPATED… Daaaaah! ...
GEN.
PRAYFORUS
JUNE:
DEADLIEST MONTH...
Obama's
choice suggests longer troop presence...
Obama doubles down
on war...
New General,
Old Strategy...
President's real problem: War plan in trouble...
WIRES:
Gen.'s remarks echo troubled strategy...
'Doubt
among soldiers that counterinsurgency will work'...
REPORT: Traded Favors with Blago...
Sticker
Shock Among Dems Jeopardizing Obama's Agenda...
CHINA
TO OVERTAKE USA IN MANUFACTURING...
Canada's
economy suddenly the envy of world...
Germany
Rejects Obama's Call on Growth, Stoking G-20 Conflict...
States Take
Aim at Pension Costs...
...Bank
failure pace more than double last year
REPORT:
Madoff tells cellmates of $9 billion stash... they all have them … Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud
FANNIE
AND FREDDIE tab 146B and rising; Foreclosed on home every 90 seconds...
THOMAS
SOWELL: Is USA Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?
DEBT RISE TO
$19,600,000,000,000.00 BY 2015
GALLUP: NEW LOW FOR O, SLIPS TO 44%...
POLL:
Voter support for Congress at all-time low...
GALLUP:
Obama's Weekly Job Approval Rating Skid...
RASMUSSEN
POLL...
Obama
Approval Falls to New Low: 42%
Obama
Approval Index: -20
Strongly
Approve 24%
Strongly
Disapprove 44%
Total
Approval 42%
UN rebukes of
Israel permitted in US policy shift...
DEBT
POISED TO OVERTAKE GDP
WH
PRESS QUEEN: JEWS GET OUT OF ISRAEL, GO BACK TO POLAND … UPON REFLECTION, A
GOOD IDEA … AFTER ALL, THE ENGLISH BALFOUR DECLARATION WAS A PRO-COMMUNIST
CONCESSION, A BAD IDEA, AND THE CREATION OF ISRAEL U.S. DOD CHIEF JAMES
FORRESTAL OPPOSED IN 1948 AS AN AMERICA KILLER!
'Three
Cheers for Helen Thomas'...
Census
Worker Claims Job Numbers Being Inflated...
Bilderberg
2010: Between the sword and the wall...
Protesters
'being detained, searched, questioned'...
Final
List of Participants...
Stephen Hawking: Aliens exist but don't talk to them --
it's too dangerous … might not like us… Oh pshaw! … Human nature, man’s
inhumanity to man? … Such humble beginnings and evolutionary history …
What’s not to like? … Besides, not to worry. With their advanced
technologies that defy human understanding, the aliens already know you’re here
… to stay. So, not to worry. After all, as we know from that documentary of
that same name, ‘Earth Girls Are Easy’ … and then there’s photosynthesis on
earth in a very big way also going for it! ...
Seeing
Aliens Will Likely Take Centuries. Centuries? Not goin’ to happen; at best,
decades.
Jobless
Claims Rise 10,000 First
Quarter GDP Stalls Nothing
New In GDP Update, U.S. Grew At 1.8% In Q1
[ Economic data bad and worse than expected … stocks rally on the worse
than expected news as suckers’ rally to keep the old suckers and get new
suckers sucked in. 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline..’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP)
Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at the end
of fiscal 2009 Study:
Affordable rentals scarce (WP) Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (WP)
More Americans disapprove of President Obama’s management of the war in
Afghanistan than support it Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast
turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows This
is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can
since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May and go away! ‘ … Stock
Market: 4 Current Warning Signs
Navin ‘…1) The 5-year high in the level of insider corporate stock sales
is telling. At 565 sells for every 1 buy,
it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be selling some of
their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is pre-planned. But
that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily high, one might
even say off-the-chart. ]
Global
Economy Dying on the Vine Nyaradi ‘The global economy seems to be dying on the vine as more news of
economic slowdown pours in every day. The U.S. stock market and ETFs continue
to react negatively to deteriorating economic news even as the Federal Reserve
bought $6 Billion in their POMO operations yesterday.The DJIA, S&P 500 and
NASDAQ are all below their 50 Day Moving Averages while the NASDAQ has also
dropped below its 100 Day Moving Average.The NASDAQ and DJIA are now on Point
and Figure “Sell” signals, having experienced a Bearish Catapult Breakdown at
Tuesday’s close and now has a price target of 12,050.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/25/saupload_djiapf052411.png stockcharts.com,
click to enlarge
Yesterday’s
economic reports gave the stock market a quick boost at the open when new home
sales came in at +7.3% and an annualized rate of 323,000/year which still is at
severely depressed levels. But then, the Richmond Federal Reserve reported a
severe drop in activity in the region as the report actually contracted to -6
from a +10 in April. China’s Purchasing Manager’s Index declined, Japan is back
in recession and Belgium, one of the core countries in the eurozone was issued
a credit downgrade warning by the Fitch ratings agency. Spain’s bond premium to
the benchmark German Bund is back to January’s levels and Greek 10 Year Bonds
are a whopping 17% which is clearly unsustainable. Closer to home, Vice
President Biden continues to work with Congress towards what they’re labeling a
$1 Trillion down payment to avert a government shutdown in August and the
Illinois State Treasurer says his state is on the “verge of financial
disaster.” …’
Top 3 Reasons Markets were Down on Goldman’s Oil Scare May 24, 2011 Wall St.
Cheat Sheet ‘Markets closed down on Wall Street: DJI -0.2% SP500 -0.08%
Nasdaq -0.46% Gold 0.61% Oil 1.86% . Markets started in the green, sold off
into the red, made a honorable attempt to rally end of day, but sold off again
into the bell. On the commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) was volatile in the afternoon, but managed to
rally to $99.52 on the day. Gold (NYSE:GLD) held $1,500 again as debt scares haunted
investors, and Silver (NYSE:SLV) got back to it’s old ways adding over 4%.
Today’s
markets were down because:
1) Market
police continue to blow whistles . Yesterday Italy (NYSE:EWI) took a
credit outlook rating cut from Standard & Poor’s (NYSE:MHP), and today Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) the streak alive by threatening to
take the downgrade sword to the UK banks. As if that wasn’t enough for
bankers to skip dessert, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman got his
investigation on by expanding his mortgage fraud probe to the bond insurers:
Ambac Financial Group (PINK:ABKFQ), MBIA Inc. (NYSE:MBI), Syncora Holdings Ltd. (PINK:SYCRF), and Assured
Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO).
2) Oil rallied
on Goldman’s flip-flop . In April, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) screamed “Sell
Oil Now!” Today they went Chinatown on us and shouted “Buy
Oil Now!” Regardless, on days when Oil (NYSE:USO) rises strongly, the econ bears take the stage
warning of higher gas prices and weaker consumer sales — a good reason to sell
stocks. But don’t tell them about airline
woes because canceled flights from the volcano are sure to weigh on fuel
demand in the near future.
3) IPOs were
hot, the NASDAQ was not . Shorts got their faces melted off in LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) at 2PM, while white hot Russian search engine
Yandex (NASDAQ:YNDX) popped
55% at its initial public offering and Glencore
gave underwriters a reason to cheer.
Bonus: Results
are in. Here’s Your
Cheat Sheet to this Quarter’s Dow 30 Earnings …’
Market Downturn Approaching; Go Long the Ultra Shorts? White ‘It is time to worry about a market downturn. There
has been almost consistently bad economic news reported in the U.S. in the last
week. Following is a brief list (mostly from Yahoo Finance‘s Economic Calendar)
of troubling news:
Economic
Data Dismal This Week as Corporate Earnings (on currency manipulation, dollar
debasement) Carry Markets WallStCheatSheet / Nyardi Like
Putting Lipstick on a Pig ‘As the old saying goes, “You can put lipstick on
a pig but it’s still a pig,” and this week’s economic and financial data for
the U.S. economy have been truly swine-like. Here are the “boarish” details
regarding global stock markets and ETFs:
·
Japan (NYSE:EWJ) has reentered recession, its economy plunging for
the First Quarter at a -3.7% annualized rate, twice as deeply as expected.
·
May Empire Manufacturing
Index: 11.9 versus 21.7 previously
·
April Housing
Starts: 523,000 versus 585,000 previously
·
April Building
Permits: 551,000 versus 574,000 previously
·
April Industrial
Production: 0.0% versus 0.7% previously
·
April Existing Home
Sales: 5.05 million versus 5.09 previously, a -13% year over year decline
·
May Philadelphia
Fed: 3.9 versus 18.5 previously, down from 43 just two months ago which was the
highest reading since 1984.
·
April Leading
Indicators: -0.3 versus -0.7, the first decline since last June
The only
glimmer of positive data was in Initial Unemployment Claims which declined to
409,000 versus 438,000 last week, but still above the psychologically and
statistically significant 400,000 level.
Bad…bad….bad…..it has definitely been a “Miss Piggy” kind of week as,
overall, the economic numbers have been a debacle, particularly the Philly Fed
which came in at 3.9 compared to a consensus 20.5 and last month’s 18.5.
Small wonder
they call economics the “dismal science.”
At Wall
Street Sector Selector, we continue to expect lower prices ahead in global
stock markets and maintain our inverse ETF and put option positions…’
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market.
4) Key market
leaders are rolling over in price... ‘
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009…’
Treasury
to tap pensions to fund government (WP) 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The US is in the middle of a devastating
long-term economic decline’ ] States
face shortfall for retirees (WP) (The frauds on wall street et als should be criminally
prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come!
In reminder of '90s, LinkedIn has big first day (AP) - There was an unmistakable echo of the dot-com boom
Thursday on Wall Street.
Rod Serling Now Linked-In : Dave's Daily ‘It definitely remains a really
strange market. Fed Governor Fisher summed things up nicely Thursday stating:
"We've gone from too little liquidity to too much." He's definitely
off the main Fed talking points but a little honesty explains the "more
money than brains" market. The LinkedIn(LNKD_) IPO
typifies this Thursday. You may not be aware of it but word on the street is
only ten institutions were privileged to obtain freshly issued shares. I wonder
who was favored with this gift; care to guess? You couldn't get a collection of
bad economic news much worse than what appeared today. While Jobless Claims
were marginally lower given previous adjustments, the moving average of
claims reached six-month highs; Home Sales were down...again; the Philly Fed
reading came in at 3.9 vs 18 expected; and Leading Indicators were lower 0.3 vs
flat expectations. These were dreadful but bulls brushed them off hoping for
more POMO
and extended ZIRP. Perhaps the stupid people are the ones
not playing ball, given rising markets on this lousy economic news. LinkedIn
should remind everyone of dotcom experiences but it's really about too much
liquidity. Commodity prices were generally lower with economic data while the
dollar was weaker and so too were base and precious metals. Bonds were flat
overall…’
Stock
Market: 4 Current Warning Signs
Navin ‘…
1) The 5-year
high in the level of insider corporate stock sales is telling. At 565 sells for
every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s normal for insiders to be
selling some of their stocks so they can buy new yachts and some of this is
pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked recently — is extraordinarily
high, one might even say off-the-chart.
2) Professor
Shiller at Yale figures that the
present price-to-earnings ratio for the Standard & Poor’s 500 is in the
area of 26. The historical average is about 16.
3) The failure
of the financial sector to keep up is a significant negative divergence for the
entire market.
4) Key market
leaders are rolling over in price... ‘
Market's
Risk/Reward Ratio Remains Poor McCurdy ‘The S&P 500 index has been in a
secular bear market since 2000 and our Secular
Trend Score (STS) indicates that we remain in the middle stage of its
development (click to enlarge images):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/14/668911-130540693393499-Erik-McCurdy_origin.png
This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take profits
while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May
and go away! …
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar
The
Magic Inflation Rate: 5.3%
Elfenbein ‘I downloaded Professor Robert Shiller’s historical stock
market data to see how inflation has impacted stock returns. I had done this
before with data from Ibbotson. Those numbers go back to 1925, but Professor
Shiller’s numbers go back to 1871.
I wanted to see
how the stock market performed at different rates of inflation. I took the
after-inflation total return of each month from 1871 through 2010.
I found that
the magic number is 5.3%. If the annualized inflation rate for the month is
under 5.3%, the stock market has performed very well. But when inflation is
above 5.3%, the market does poorly. It’s pretty amazing how well this
relationship has held up over 140 years. Historically, monthly inflation has
been above 5.3% about one-third of the time.
My calculations
show that when inflation is below 5.3%, the stock market has had an annualized
after-inflation gain of 9.59%. When inflation is above 5.3%, then stock market
has had an annualized loss of 8.15%. Stretched out over 140 years, that’s a
loss of nearly 98%.
(Click chart
to expand) http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/17/saupload_image1112.png ‘
Why
Are Investors Fearful? Here are 19 Answers Khaner
May 17, 2011 ‘It's hold-your-breath time as investors worry about inflation,
housing, the end of QE2, the Mississipi flood and more.
Wall Street's second weekly fall raises fear of retreat (Reuters)
Reuters - Stocks ended a second week of losses on a down note Friday,
reflecting growing worries that stocks are on the precipice of a pullback. [
Fear? Worries? How ‘bout realities … the ones the insiders already know … Navin
(see infra) ‘…1) The 5-year high in the level of insider corporate stock sales
is telling. At 565 sells for every 1 buy, it’s never been higher. Yes, it’s
normal for insiders to be selling some of their stocks so they can buy new
yachts and some of this is pre-planned. But that ratio — which has spiked
recently — is extraordinarily high, one might even say off-the-chart…’ ]
Weekly
Unemployment Claims Still Above This Scary Level WSCS Short ‘The
Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released
this morning for last week. Claims fell 44,000 from a 4,000 upward revision of
the previous week, which takes the number back to approximately the level prior
to last week’s blip. Here is the official statement from the Department of
Labor:In the week ending May 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted
initial claims was 434,000, a decrease of 44,000 from the previous week’s
revised figure of 478,000. The 4-week moving average was 436,750, an increase
of 4,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 432,250. The advance
seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0 percent for the week
ending April 30, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.0 percent.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week
ending April 30 was 3,756,000, an increase of 5,000 from the preceding week’s
revised level of 3,751,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,718,500, an
increase of 13,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of
3,705,250.Today’s number was 11,000 above the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 423,000 claims.As we can
see, there’s a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the
4-week moving average (shown in the callouts) is a more useful number than the
weekly data.
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims
Occasionally I
see articles critical of seasonal adjustment, especially when the non-adjusted
number better suits the author’s bias. But a comparison of these two charts
clearly shows extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data, and the 4-week MA
gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change in the second
chart (note, for example, those regular January spikes).
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA
Because of the
extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, a 52-week moving average
gives a better sense of the long-term trends.
http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA-52-ma
The Bureau of
Labor Statistics provides an overview on seasonal adjustment here (scroll down about
half way down).
Doug Short
Ph.d is the author of dshort.com.’
Look
at How Producer Prices Continue Getting More Expensive Wall St. Cheat
Sheet [This spells big trouble affecting corporate earnings (some costs can’t
be passed on without decreasing sales) and disposable income / consumer
spending. ] ‘The Producer Price Index for finished goods rose 0.8
percent in April, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This
advance followed increases of 0.7 percent in March and 1.6 percent in February.
At the earlier
stages of processing, prices received by manufacturers of intermediate
goods climbed 1.3 percent in April, and the crude goods index rose 4.0
percent. On an unadjusted basis, prices for finished goods moved up 6.8 percent
for the 12 months ended April 2011, the largest year-over-year gain since
an 8.8-percent increase in September 2008.
Stage-of-Processing
Analysis
About three
quarters of the April advance in the finished goods index can be traced to a
2.5 percent jump in prices for finished energy goods. Also contributing to
the rise in the finished goods index, prices for both finished goods other
than foods (NYSE:RJA) and energy (NYSE:XLE) and for finished consumer foods moved up 0.3
percent in April.
Finished
energy: Prices for finished energy goods increased 2.5 percent in April, the
seventh consecutive monthly advance. Over half of the April rise can be
attributed to the gasoline index, which climbed 3.6 percent (NYSE:USO). Higher prices for liquefied petroleum gas and
residential natural gas (NYSE:UNG) also were factors in the increase in the finished
energy goods index. (See table 2.)
Finished core:
The index for finished goods less foods and energy moved up 0.3 percent
in April, the fifth straight monthly rise. Nearly one-fourth of the April
monthly advance can be traced to a 1.2-percent jump in civilian aircraft
prices. An increase in the index for light motor trucks also contributed
significantly to the rise in finished core prices.
Finished
foods: Prices for finished consumer foods rose 0.3 percent in April after
falling 0.2 percent in the prior month. Leading this advance, the index
for eggs for fresh use surged 56.7 percent.
Intermediate
goods
The Producer
Price Index for intermediate materials (NYSE:XLB), supplies, and components rose 1.3
percent in April, the ninth consecutive monthly advance. The broad-based
April increase was led by prices for intermediate goods less foods and
energy, which moved up 1.1 percent. The indexes for intermediate energy
goods and for intermediate foods and feeds also contributed to
the intermediate goods advance, rising 1.9 percent and 1.8 percent,
respectively. For the 12 months ended April 2011, prices for intermediate
goods climbed 9.4 percent, the largest increase since a 9.8-percent jump in
October 2008. (See table B.)
Intermediate
core: Prices for intermediate goods less foods and energy moved up 1.1 percent
in April, the ninth consecutive monthly rise. About fifteen percent of the
April gain can be attributed to the index for primary basic organic
chemicals, which increased 3.2 percent. Higher prices for ethanol and
steel mill products (NYSE:DBB) also contributed to the advance in intermediate
core prices. (See table 2.)
Intermediate
energy: The index for intermediate energy goods climbed 1.9 percent in April,
the smallest advance since a 1.5-percent increase in November 2010. Prices
for diesel fuel, which moved up 3.5 percent, were a significant
contributor to the April rise. Higher prices for gasoline also were a
factor in the increase in the intermediate energy goods index.
Intermediate
foods: The intermediate foods and feeds index advanced 1.8 percent in April,
the
ninth straight monthly increase. A 5.6-percent jump in prices for beef and veal
accounted for a quarter of the April advance in the intermediate foods and
feeds index.
Crude goods
The Producer
Price Index for crude materials for further processing increased 4.0 percent
in April. For the 3 months ending in April, prices for crude materials
moved up 7.0 percent following an 11.4-percent jump for the 3 months
ending in January. Leading the broad-based monthly advance in April, the
index for crude energy materials rose 4.8 percent. Prices for
crude foodstuffs and feedstuffs and for crude nonfood materials less
energy increased 4.0 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively.
Crude energy:
The index for crude energy (NYSE:XLE) materials moved up 4.8 percent in April.
From January to April, crude energy prices advanced 5.3 percent compared
with a 17.9-percent jump in the previous 3-month period. For the month of
April, the index for natural gas rose 9.4 percent, accounting for over
half of the increase in prices for crude energy materials. Advances in
the indexes for crude petroleum and coal also contributed to higher crude
energy prices.
Crude foods:
Prices for crude foodstuffs and feedstuffs (NYSE:RJA) advanced 4.0 percent in April. For the
3 months ending in April, the index for crude foods jumped 11.4 percent
subsequent to moving up 5.5 percent from October to January. Accounting
for about half of the monthly rise in April, the grains index increased
15.5 percent. Higher prices for slaughter steers and heifers also were
a factor in the advance in the crude foods index.
Crude core:
The index for crude nonfood materials less energy rose 2.6 percent in April.
From January to April, crude core prices moved up 2.5 percent after a
10.1-percent advance in the previous 3-month period. For the month of
April, a 4.5-percent increase in the index for copper base scrap was a
factor in higher crude core prices.
Services
Analysis Trade Industries
TTrade
industries: The Producer Price Index for the net output of total trade
industries moved up 0.1 percent in April, the third consecutive increase.
Trade indexes measure changes in margins received by wholesalers and
retailers (NYSE:RTH). Leading the April advance was a
5.3-percent increase in margins received by department stores (NYSE:IYR). Higher margins received by women’s
clothing stores and by electronic shopping and mail order houses also
contributed significantly to the rise in the total trade industries index.
Transportation
and warehousing industries: The Producer Price Index for the net output
of transportation and warehousing industries rose 0.3 percent in April,
the seventh consecutive increase. Accounting for forty-five percent of the
April advance, prices received by couriers climbed 1.4 percent. Increases
in the indexes for long distance general freight trucking (truckload) and
line-haul railroads also were factors in the April rise in the transportation
and warehousing industries index.
Traditional
service industries: The Producer Price Index for the net output of total
traditional service industries moved up 0.7 percent in April after no
change in the previous month. Leading this advance, prices received by the
depository credit intermediation industry group rose 7.3 percent. Higher prices
received by insurance carriers and by general medical and
surgical hospitals (NYSE:XLV) also contributed to the increase in the total traditional
service industries index.’
Mohamed A.
El-Erian http://www.pimco.com [ In an interview with
Motek, El-Erian states that the nations are facing not debt issues per se, but
solvency issues (ie., america’s defacto bankrupt, etc.) and (PIMCO dumped their
u.s. treasury holdings) that it will take higher interest rates to sell those
debt securities. Moreover, he stated that the subject nations have only
exacerbated their fiscal problems by piling more debt on debt … the following
is an excerpt from El-Erian in part, from the PIMCO website: ] ‘ … BALANCE OF RISKS Most baselines are subject to two-sided
risks. Our Secular Outlook is no different in this regard and, in this case,
the risks are well balanced.
Top 3 Reasons Markets Tanked with Oil Wall St
Cheat Sheet ‘Markets closed down on Wall Street: DJI -1.02% SP500 -1.11% Nasdaq
-0.93% Gold -0.82% Oil -4.63% .
Markets got
crushed. On the commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) got rocked $5, landing at $98.88. Gold (NYSE:GLD) sold off too, but nothing like the crazy volatile
face-melting spree in Silver (NYSE:SLV) which lost over 8%.
Today’s
markets were down because:
1) Commodities
and Oil got slaughtered. Apparently, the “risk off” trade was in full force
after today’s US
Trade Deficit report showed a widening gap. The good news is exports hit a
record high. However, reducing the trade deficit seems like a rabbit being
chased at the Kentucky Derby. The news was enough to get black boxes and traders
dumping just about everything across the board.
2) Insiders
are finally getting busted. Although the media loves the
Raj Rajaratnam trial and his guilty on all 14 counts, who really gives a
s*** compared with what large banks, investment banks, and mortgage companies
did to the US economy. So long as the Dick Fulds of the world are sipping
champagne in Capri, Italy, these insider trading cases are basically sideshows.
3) Change of
fortune? In breaking news, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) beat earnings after the bell. Shares were up
at first, but now they are down. This will play heavily into how Tech (NASDAQ:QQQ) gets started in the morning. You can see
our full Cheat Sheet of Cisco earnings here.
Now that
you’re in the know, get ready to enjoy Raj’s face all over your media outlets!’
‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv
People
must realize that though having but 5% of the
world’s population, america can boast 76% of the world’s serial killers and the
highest crime rates in the world by far.
http://www.albertpeia.com/realifeamericaserialkillers.mpg . Defacto
bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on military spending than all the
nations of the world combined... federal employees / contractors, cia, all 3
branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in this evolved american
trait of inherent criminality ( http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ).
That perverse field of dreams I’ve previously alluded to, the american
nightmare, if you build / contrive war, they will come. And, they do; seals of
them (among others); and when their ‘tours’ are done, it’s murder inc./contract
killing for hire that they’ve won (cia, mob, etc.). The 20th century, the
‘bloodiest century’, not coincidentally referred to as the american century,
brings longings of nostalgia to american criminals who, like Pavlov’s dogs salivate at the prospect of killing, raping, pillaging, and plundering
which primitive mindset they have mistakenly been conditioned to connect to
their now irretrievably lost success as a nation state; and to the contrary,
has become globally and domestically self-destructive / self-defeating. The
entire 911 / Bin Laden scenario just doesn’t pass the smell test and reeks of
political desperation and Orwellian opportunism.
Sell
in May? The Signals to De-Risk Cam Hui ‘In the wake of the commodity rout
last week, the Inflation-Deflation
Timer Model has moved into "neutral" from an
"inflation" reading*. This told my inner trader that he should take
some risk off the table. Given the high level of macro risk, I would be
inclined to take more more defensive position than usual.
This signal to de-risk isn't a surprise. In early April, I wrote about negative
divergences (see Getting
ready to sell in May). How the market reacts to news is also a good
short-term indicator of direction. The fizzled Osama bin Laden rally should
have been as clear as ringing the bell in the town square to traders that this
market was looking tired.
What happens now?
Now that the Timer Model has gone neutral, what happens now? Mr. Market could
take one of two paths.
First, this could be the start of a run-of-the-mill 5-10% correction in the
equity market, with an extreme downside limit of about 15%. VIX
and More has tabulated the market pullbacks in the 2009-11 period and the
average depth of these correction was 6.5%.
Macro risks everywhere
I am concerned that the market is acting vulnerably during a period of
heightened macro risk. There are three major sources of macro risk:
The current market environment is likely to resolve
itself with a plain vanilla 5-10% correction. However, if any of these macro
risks were to manifest themselves during that pullback, the downside has the
potential to extend itself to 40-50%.
My inner investor has already heeded these warnings
and de-risked his portfolio. My inner trader is inclined to be more defensive
than normally called for.’
Should
Long-Term Investors Buy or Sell This Market? Jones ‘…Stocks: Overbought & Overvalued The data show that stocks right now are overbought
and overvalued. That's not dogma or my opinion or the narrative I'm trying to
promulgate; it's just what the data show.With the exception of the bubble 90’s,
the stock market has never had a positive 10-year return that began
from valuation levels like the present …’
‘ It's a good question.
The kind of question than long-term investors like you and I really want to
know the answer to. Is the
market a long term buy? To help us answer it we're going to look at some
charts, including one that might be the most important chart of all. The King
of the Charts! It's the one that every long-term investor should be interested
in.
Strange Week: Wall Street Takes a Dive Hansen
‘Strange week on Wall Street.
Weekly
unadjusted initial unemployment claims popped above the 2010 year-ago number.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/8/saupload_z_unemployment2.png
Yet the BLS
jobs report this week (analysis here)
was outstanding.
Was it caused
by an unusual event in unemployment? Maybe, but the same uptick happened in
2008 – and the convergence began in the prior week. But hey – this is an
economic recovery expansion right? As the BLS jobs data for April actually uses
a mid month cutoff – whatever caused the spike in initial unemployment claims
will not be in the current jobs data release. And the great BLS numbers
released this week are subject to revision for several months.
But these were
not the only bizarre data points this week.
This week Econintersect released its economic
forecast for May 2011 anticipating a continuing flat growth rate. The question
- Is the economy on the doorstep of another dip?
The fundamental economic real time building blocks
are positive, and in some ways are gaining strength. The economy is not
correcting when the transport of goods and materials to your local shopping
center remains up YoY. Some transport data points are only a week old. Yes,
some data points are not showing the same growth rate as they were earlier this
year, but others are stronger. Overall a push.
The unsettling aspect of this week is the investing
markets. There is a correlation between wealth and spending, and many are
poorer as this week draws to a close. The economy has been “moderately” growing
(Fed Chairman Bernanke’s words) – nothing has changed. It is the markets themselves
which were growing at rates above the economic dynamics.
Sooner or later, the markets (stocks and commodities)
correct to reflect a more considered forward view. The high end consumer is
caught in this game of investing musical chairs, and as they are a major
element in consumer “growth” – there might be another headwind to growth in the
months to come.
But with any luck, the energy headwind might be
abating. Econintersect remains positive for near term economic growth.
Economic News This Week:
Econintersect issued this week its economic forecast
for May 2011
indicating a peaking of this current economic sub-cycle. In simple words, the
same moderate recovery seen in March and April will continue in May.
This week the Weekly Leading Index (WLI) from ECRI declined from 7.5% to
6.7%. This level implies the business conditions six months from now will be
approximately the same or slightly improved compared to today.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/8/saupload_z_weekly_indexes.png
As discussed above, initial unemployment claims rose
rather strongly in this week’s release. I suspect there might be an issue with
the seasonal adjustment factors but only time will tell.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/8/saupload_z_unemployment3.png
Most of the data this week had elements of
uncertainty – but overall did not rise to a level which signaled a correction
to moderate economic growth forecast.
Weekly Economic Release Scorecard:
Item |
Headline |
Analysis |
Up |
Jobs up a solid 244,000. Economic markers in the data are not
excellent. |
|
Up |
With smoke and mirrors consumer credit is up 0.06% YoY |
|
|
Doug Short and John Lounsbury review three market valuation indicators |
|
|
Dirk Ehnts suggests Goldman Sachs may have been involved in the
commodity price bubbles |
|
Up |
The seasonally and non-seasonally adjusted data tell the same bad
story |
|
Up |
Unusually small productivity growth |
|
Less Good |
This survey is not as bad as the pundits are making out |
|
Up |
Lower growth, and barely above labor force growth rates |
|
|
Elliott Morss overviews effects of eliminating some of the Bush Tax
Cuts on deficit reduction |
|
Up |
Manufacturing new orders are in record territory |
|
|
Malcolm Harris overviews the growing debt problem against the benefits
of college education |
|
Less Good |
The underlying survey results show manufacturing is growing |
|
Up |
Not Up – still falling YoY but at a slower rate |
|
|
Elliott Morss looks at the role of education in maintaining empires |
|
|
Same economy as April |
|
|
Sunil Chandra argues that the Reserve Bank should not be raising the
prime rate |
|
|
Frank McKenna discusses short sale flipping fraud |
|
|
Michael Pettis looks at how the reserve currency has created global
imbalances |
|
|
Sanjeev Kulkarni opines on the BRIC conference outcome |
|
|
Michael Collins lists essential elements in the government settlements
with the banking industry |
|
|
Erik McCurdy graphs the warning signals |
Bankruptcy This Week: Raser Technologies, Majestic Capital (fdba CRM
Holdings) and Majestic USA Capital, Caribe Media and CII Acquisition Holdings
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/8/saupload_z_failed_banks.png ‘
Key
Market Movers This Week: Buying Opportunity or Epic Turning Point? Wachtel ‘…Fundamentals
Data from the
US, UK and EU outside of the core funding nations has been steadily downbeat.
In addition, US earnings season failed to provide the lift it has typically
delivered in the past years. As earnings season wraps up, just 60% of companies
have “beat” expectations so far – the lowest rate of any quarter in the current
bull market. Finally, QE 2 is set to end, even though income from current
holdings will be reinvested in US bonds to keep the Fed’s balance sheet from
actually shrinking. Although the great liquidity contraction has yet to begin,
the expansion is ending.
Technical Evidence: S&P 500, EURUSD Approach Multi-Year Highs, QE 2
End In Sight, Begs Profit Taking
The bellwether
S&P 500 Index began the week at 1380, under 200 points from its pre Great
Financial Crisis highs of 2007, though the global and US economy is in much worse
condition. The EURUSD was challenging pre-Greek-Crisis highs of a year ago of
1.5000 though the EU debt crisis too has only gotten worse, with Greece at the
brink of default and 2 other nations on bailout life support, and
too-big-to-bailout Spain’s situation has also deteriorated.
Admittedly,
these assets have been challenging and breaking though significant resistance
for some time now, though the above catalysts, combined with the above
technical and fundamental conditions, may have been enough.
Certainly
they had help from bearish fundamentals this past week.
EUR
Bearish News
Euro zone
events allowed for additional follow through to the extent that they changed
current market perceptions not only for this week but for at least a part of
the coming week as well.
These
included:
Markets Take No Prisoners: Dave's Daily ‘Oil prices moved from $94 to $102 in 7 hours only to settle at $97.80 --
how's that for volatility? The euro spent the first half of Friday at 145
(already down 300 bps from Thursday) to close at around 143 after rumors (later
denied) spread regarding Greece dropping euro. Silver and gold were all over
the map again with rumors persisting of more margin calls. U.S. stocks climbed
nearly 175 points early based on the employment report showing 224K new jobs
added while the unemployment rate inched up to 9%. Lost in this report were
details regarding the Birth/Death Model (estimates of new businesses created or
closed) or the number of part time jobs being created by the McDonald's of the
world and lastly, a five vs. four week report. [244,000
jobs added in April Associated Press In biggest hiring spree in five years,
employers posted a third straight month of hiring; unemployment rose to 9
percent as people resumed looking for work. Interactive:
Why it doesn’t feel like a recovery (Washington Post) [ Short answer: Because it’s really not a
recovery! What jobs? $1 dollar a day, 3 days a year … and on government pork
projects for the porkers’ reelection campaigns? I don’t think so! Obama’s
victory lap (Washington Post) The
killing of bin Laden offered hope of instant renewal. [ Only wobama aficionado
Mr. Milbank could latch onto this propagandist Orwellian dream and call it
victory. Sounds like he’s shootin’ for a job in this failed
presidency/administration as others, including from the Post.. 10
Reasons 2011 Is Feeling More and More Like 2008 Jensen ‘..it eerily feels
like the months before the financial crisis and meltdown of 2008. .. impending
and significant pullback over the summer. ]
HFT algos are programmed to react to headline numbers that beat
expectations. The employment data was a beat and algos jumped on the news. But,
remember, based on Wednesday's poor ADP jobs report and Thursday's Jobless
Claims data employment report estimates were sharply lowered making Friday's
news a large beat. More thoughtful types started selling the news around noon
and doing so the rest of the day. Leading U.S. stocks higher were materials
(XLB) and the higher price-weighted components of the DJIA (BA, CAT, CVX, IBM,
MMM and so forth). All this volatility and conflicting news, while putting on a
great show, causes Main Street to trust markets less in my opinion. This chaos
in commodity markets is a major turn-off and will have negative consequences
longer-term. We've beaten the commodity story to death but we still await the
juicy details from the exchanges as to the real story behind their draconian
actions. Some of this may be contained in the silver Commitment of Traders
report and Open Interest. Until we can analyze this properly let's wait.
Further, there will be some serious trading casualties announced in the coming
days so stay tuned for that. The Fed continues to aid bulls with more QE
Friday and ongoing poor economic data means there's no rush for them to
stop POMO. Trading volume was also higher today than the average over the past
few months. Breadth, per the WSJ, was quite positive; but, a glance at the 5
minute SPY chart shows most volume was in selling.’
Weekly
Unemployment Claims Going in the Wrong Direction Short May 5, 2011 ‘The Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released
this morning for last week. Claims rose 43,000 from an upward revision of the
previous week to 431,000. That is a 10% increase for the week and a 4-week
moving average increase of 5.4%. Here is the official statement from the
Department of Labor:
In the week
ending April 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was
474,000, an increase of 43,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of
431,000. The 4-week moving average was 431,250, an increase of 22,250 from the
previous week’s revised average of 409,000.
The advance
seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0 percent for the week
ending April 23, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s
unrevised rate of 2.9 percent.
The advance
number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending
April 23 was 3,733,000, an increase of 74,000 from the preceding week’s revised
level of 3,659,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,700,750, a decrease of
1,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,702,000.
Today’s number
was 18.5% higher than the Briefing.com consensus expectation of 400,000 claims.
As we can see,
there’s a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the 4-week
moving average (shown in the callouts) is a more useful number than the weekly
data.
[ chart
http://dshort.com/charts/indicators/weekly-unemployment-claims.gif ]
Occasionally I
see articles critical of seasonal adjustment, especially when the non-adjusted
number better suits the author’s bias. But a comparison of these two charts
clearly shows extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data, and the 4-week MA
gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change in the second
chart (note, for example, those regular January spikes).
Because of the
extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, a 52-week moving average
gives a better sense of the long-term trends.
The Bureau of
Labor Statistics provides an overview on seasonal adjustment here (scroll down about
half way down).
Doug Short Ph.d is the author
of dshort.com.’
Closer
Than We'd Like to Think to a Second Banking Crisis? The Inflation Trader
‘Trading continues to be lethargic. This isn’t just true of this week –
Employment weeks can be notoriously quiet – but of markets generally over some
period of time. NYSE Composite total volumes haven’t exceeded 1bln shares this
quarter, the longest streak of failing to do so in many years. One reason that
the VIX (equities), the MOVE (Treasuries), and other volatility indices are so
low is not complacency – although there is some of that as well – but the fact
that the realized moves have been so small for so long that it is just too hard
for an options trader to keep a long position subject to the drip, drip, drip
of time decay. When I first got into the markets and was trained as a technical
analyst, we considered this ‘coiling’ and a sign that a big move was near. That
may no longer be true. It may simply be that the market has lost enough
liquidity, due to Dodd-Frank, rules about naked shorting, and capital
constraints, that volumes and volatility are moving to a lower equilibrium.
This is, of
course, bad news for the banks. We have noted this week how banks are being
forcibly under-levered because of the excess reserves in the banking system.
That’s one element of the DuPont model. Lower volumes are a second component.
Unless banks can charge much fatter margins (and the chance of that is the only
thing that’s fat), earnings are doomed to decline. This has been apparent for a
long time, but for a while these companies can keep hitting targets by drawing
down reserve accounts (evidence the trend over the last year to sharply reduce
credit reserves, supposedly because of improved default experience). The
mathematics in the long run are powerful, however, and this is a big reason
that while the S&P has recovered 75% of its 2007-2009 decline, the NASDAQ
Bank Index has recovered only 28% of its dive (see Chart, click to enlarge).
[
chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/5/saupload_badbanks.png
]
For all
the tender mercies of the central banks, the non-central banks are still weak.
No one cries
for the banks. But healthy banks matter. I present the chart above not to bury
the banks but to point out how poorly they’ve done even with the Fed, ECB, and
other monetary authorities working very hard to engineer a very steep yield
curve – historically, the way that banks have gotten healthy again after bad
periods.
It isn’t
American banks only that remain weak (and by weak, I don’t mean so much the
balance sheet. The balance sheets have definitely improved, but the long-term
growth rate of the company is what allows them to bear up in a crisis and
recover after it. It’s the economic strength, not the accounting strength, I’m
talking about here). European banks have similar issues, and that matters
because they’re also all stuffed with dicey sovereign debt that is allowed to
be carried at par. We are, indeed, much closer to a second banking crisis than
we would like to think, and this is the significance of comments like those last week from ECB
Executive Board member José Manuel González Paramo. In discussing the
possibility of simply restructuring Greece’s sovereign debt – never mind
default – he said:
Any debt restructuring would imply the breach of
legal obligations, which most likely would have a more negative systemic effect
than the Lehman catastrophe.
One reason for this is that the banks and the ECB
both own lots of Greek paper considered legally to be worth par. And there’s no
way it’s really worth par. To a strong banking system, a Greek default or
restructuring would be damaging but survivable. In the banking system’s current
state? Paramo may not be far wrong.
It would help banks to strengthen, of course, if the
economy were to continue to strengthen (it would also help them if inflation
rose, because that would increase the value of loan collateral, such as
housing, that currently provides insufficient coverage for loan exposures).
Yesterday’s economic data in isolation are not encouraging on that score. The
ADP number was soft, although close enough to expectations at 179k (198k was
expected). More surprising was the Non-Manufacturing ISM report, which printed
52.8 versus expectations for 57.5. The Non-Man ISM is not usually a
market-mover, but this big of a miss had some market repercussions. I was right
that the markets had more downside than upside: stocks lost 0.7% while 10y
notes only rallied 3bp to 3.22%.
A time-series chart of the Non-Man ISM is below (click
to enlarge). The number returned essentially to last February’s level,
mainly because of a sharp decline in the New Orders subcomponent to 52.7 from
64.1
[
chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/5/saupload_nmi_1_thumb1.png ]
Bad drop, but it's probably not the start of a second
leg down. We hope.
Now, keep in mind that this is a relative-change
measure, not an absolute measure. That is, the fact that it is at the level of
Feb 2010 doesn’t imply activity is at the level of a year ago, but that the
economy is improving as fast as it was in February last year – which is to say,
it’s not improving very much at all at the moment. That beats getting worse,
but with the Fed about to stop its bond-buying program and with “issues” still
to solve in Europe it would help to have the economy starting to kick into high
gear right about now. And it ain’t. (Hey, but thanks for that $1.5 trillion. It
really did a lot, didn’t it?)
These are only two minor reports, although in general
the disappointments have been on the downside for a while now (as
I showed on Monday). A cheerful Initial Claims report today (Consensus:
410k from 429k) and a strong Payrolls number on Friday would go a long way to
dispelling concerns raised from these minor reports. But Claims has actually been
part of the problem. Economists were initially encouraged last November when
Claims finally moved consistently below 440k. With some chop, they continued to
decline until February and March, when for the most part Claims were below
400k. Recently, though, they’ve risen again – to 416k, 404k, and 429k the last
three weeks – and after revisions Claims have exceeded the consensus
expectations for eight consecutive weeks (actually, on April 1st
they matched expectations exactly).
Also due out today is Non-Farm Productivity and Unit
Labor Costs for Q1. It isn’t an important number although if ULC exceeds the
+0.8% forecast by very much it will get some of the wage-push inflation guys
excited.
Bonds continue to do very well despite the poor
seasonal pattern for this time of year, but gains below 3.20% yields on the 10y
note will get increasingly difficult without a really bad Employment report on
Friday. I would expect some duration risk to be taken off the table on
Thursday. Commodities have gotten smacked around for a couple of days.
Initially it was a Silver thing, then a precious metals thing; yesterday
Grains, Livestock, Softs, Precious and Industrial Metals all fell. But with the
dollar weak and real interest rates so low, I don’t think commodities are going
to take a serious hit.’
Top 3 Reasons Markets were Down Like a Geodetic Effect Wall St.
Cheat Sheet May 4, 2011 ‘Markets closed down on
Wall Street: DJI -0.66% SP500 -0.69% Nasdaq -0.47% Gold -1.64% Oil -1.95% .
Last week was
a streak of winning markets. This week is over the hump — all losers. On the
commodities front, Oil (NYSE:USO) sold off most of the day to at $108.89. Gold (NYSE:GLD) and Silver (NYSE:SLV) also sold off hard, with Silver getting
slaughtered over 5% — two days in a row!
Today’s
markets were down because:
1) Economic
data was lackluster. This morning started with lower
than expected Private Payrolls and continued with a steep month-over-month
drop in the ISM Non-manufacturing Index (Don’t Miss: “Chart
of the Day: US Services Sector Trying to Hold On“). Last week’s lackluster
data is catching up to us as earnings hasn’t been the savior this week.
2) Gas prices
in Hawaii broke $6 a gallon. Oil (NYSE:USO) may have dipped, but someone forgot to tell a
lone gas station (NYSE:XOP) attendant in Hana, Hawaii where
you can love yourself some gas for the bargain price of only $6.03 a gallon.
The silly high number is so silly, every media outlet focused on rising gas
prices despite traders slaughtering Oil (NYSE:USO) two days in a row. Well, no one said the
mainstream media ever focused on the right meme.
3) Remember
the PIIGS? Portugal finally screamed “mercy” and accepted a 78 billion Euro
rescue package. As investors wake up to reality, some are finally changing to a
“risk off” stance as more debt addicts are in line for harsh sessions of rehab.
At least Americans don’t have to worry (yet) because this
Pew chart shows we’re in the middle of a textbook relapse…’
SPX
Pullback History: 2009-2011
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/3/saupload_spxpullbacks09_11050311.png ]
CHART
OF THE DAY: Watch the US Debt Set a 60 Year Record
Wall Street falls as earnings fears threaten rally (Reuters) - Reuters - stocks fell on Tuesday as investors
questioned the sustainability of the rally in light of fresh worries about
earnings growth in the coming quarters.
[video]
Trader: I See Stagflation
Prominent
Attorney Jonathon Bristol Pleads Guilty in Kenneth Starr Money Laundering Crime
Economist
says bin Laden’s death won’t boost economy KTAR | Any
future attacks by al Qaeda on oil pipelines would certainly have a negative
impact.
US
Debt Rating Should Be ‘C’: Independent Agency CNBC.com |
There have been increasing concerns about the fate of United States’ prized
triple-A sovereign debt rating.
U.S.
Treasury: China Has Decreased Its Holdings of U.S. Debt CNS
| Mainland China has decreased its holdings of U.S. Treasury securities since
last October.
‘World
is safer,’ president says Osama bin Laden is portrayed as a reclusive
figure whose final moments exposed his cowardice. (Washington Post) [ This former cia-supported ally may be
legitimately described as many things; but coward is not one of them.
Principled in giving up riches, comfort, he said americans are thieves; that is absolutely true, and I would
add frauds, criminals, war criminals. Bullies / cowards;ie., wobama, bush,
clinton, cheney, bush, et als … - I wrote: Psychology
forum Re: Bystander Effect ‘… I believe the
foregoing psycho-babble to be absolute, unequivocal
Rubbish/Hogwash/b.s.
The foregoing web site is, from direct experience,
lacking credibility. Indeed, while walking through Military Park (a sliver of a
“park” - more a pedestrian thoroughfare/cement walks) in newark, new jersey on
the way to the bank during lunch hour, I heard the clearly audible screams/cries
of what turned out to be an old lady on the ground with blood streaming from
her mouth. I ran toward the sound of the cries, the source of which I could not
see because there were so many people in and about this thoroughfare so as to
block any vision of the source of the cries. When I came to the woman, on the
ground, blood streaming from her mouth, I asked what happened, to which she
responded she had been hit in the mouth and knocked to the ground, her purse
stolen/put inside her shopping bag, and she pointed out the criminal casually
now walking across the main street. Nobody stopped to help her, many having
passed her by. I slammed the thug to the ground so hard that, in light of all
the blood and confusion (limbic system / adrenalin flow) I thought I had been
stabbed (the blood was from his elbows hitting the pavement so hard - no one
helped/a crowd gathered/an undercover cop happened along). When I testified at
the Grand Jury Proceeding I made sure his threat on my life was set forth in prima
facie fashion so as to maximize the DA’s position with both felonies (he
went to prison – pled out). (The other case I wrote about here - Having had occasion to have run down a mugger in newark, n.j. who
apparent had followed a girl from the bank on her way to the bursar to pay
tuition, though in pretty good shape, I was astounded by how totally exhausting
such a pursuit was, how much like rubber my arms were when I traded punches
with the perpetrator, and truth be told, if I had a flashlight on my belt, I have
little doubt that I would have probably used it to subdue the perp. The girl
was not that seriously injured, did get her pocketbook and tuition back, and
the criminal went to jail. The other thing about such a pursuit that
amazed me was that no one else assisted the girl or me despite being in a
position to do so).
CONCLUSION
The reality, though difficult for many, including
psychologists to accept is that quite simply, the vast and overwhelming majority
of americans are without any courage whatsoever. They are cowards, plain and
simple. All the excuses, rationalizations, etc., psycho-babble if you will, in
the world will not change that fact. I could cite numerous instances involving
white collar/RICO crimes involving such cowardice as well. I understand
statistics, the term ad hoc, sampling, etc.. The conclusion stands!.
U.S. Economy Remains on Life Support Hansen ‘This has been a whirlwind week for intangible
monetary policy news which was lead by:
My foggy long range economic view is of a moderately
improving economy which is fighting growing fiscal headwinds. My takeaway from
from the press conference and FOMC meeting was a fairly strong opinion by
Chairman Bernanke that the economy was gaining enough traction to stand on its
own without further accommodation.
A deeper look at advance 1Q2011 GDP real growth of
1.8% should quickly dispel this.
The economy is still in recession if the economic
effects of the automatic
stabilizers are taken into consideration. Automatic stabilizers are
automatic changes in the government’s revenues and outlays that are
attributable to cyclical movements in real output.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_weekly13.png
A caveat when
interpreting the above chart is that no study has determined what portion of
automatic stabilizers actually get into GDP – GDP measures only 1/3 of the
economic money flows. But understanding the size of automatic stabilizers in
comparison to GDP are indicative of current economic duress.
A better measure of economic health is comparing the fiscal boost
being given to the economy due to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
(aka “the stimulus”).
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_weekly21.png
The orange
range in the above graph is the estimated range of effects on GDP of the
stimulus. My take from this graph is that it is likely the economy was negative
in 1Q2011 without stimulus.
Some of the automatic stabilizers were funded within
the stimulus – and looking at GDP is a rear view mirror of the economy. What is
important is where the economy is headed.
And this leads me to the final nail in the coffin – government
spending. In Chairman Bernanke’s press conference, he stated that there were no
government deficit reduction bills or programs which would derail his positive
(but downwardly revised) economic projections.
Before any of these deficit reductions begin
effecting the economy, the USA has the government putting a 1% headwind on GDP
in 1Q2011 – the largest government spending headwind since the end of World War
II.
The economy is much weaker than picture Chairman
Bernanke painted, and it is likely he crossed his fingers when saying further
extraordinary monetary policy accommodation would not be necessary.
Economic
News This Week:
Econintersect issued its economic forecast for April 2011 indicating a peaking of
this current economic sub-cycle. In simple words, the same moderate recovery
seen in March will continue in April.
This week the Weekly Leading Index (WLI) from ECRI declined slightly from
7.7% to 7.5%. This level implies the business conditions six months from now
will be approximately the same or slightly improved compared to today.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_weekly_indexes4.png
Initial unemployment claims increased moderately in this week’s
release. The data for the last two months as been quite noisy, and it
remains important to follow the four week moving average for analysis of
unemployment to smooth out the reporting idiosyncrasies. Although the trend
over the last six months has been down, we are in a short term uptrend – please
refer to Initial
Unemployment Claims Rise – A Harbinger of Poor April Jobs Outlook.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_unemployment3.png
The data released this week were consistent with a
moderately improving economy. Housing data was as expected – not good – but
this economic cycle is operating with poor housing dynamics which continues to
degrade slightly. There are some indications of light at the end of the housing
tunnel.
Weekly Economic Release Scorecard:
Item |
Headline |
Analysis |
|
Rick Davis suggests the weak numbers are a perfect excuse for more
monetary intervention |
|
Up |
Consumption increase is 66% price increases. Disposable income 80%
nullified by inflation |
|
Up 1.8% |
Government spending contraction the news in this low number |
|
Up |
This super economic coincident index is now showing economy growing at
trend |
|
Up |
Not up – Pending home sales index has been down YoY for the last 8 of
9 months |
|
Up |
Sharp improvement |
|
|
Likely strategic mortgage defaults will be a growing problem |
|
Up |
Comparing consumer confidence “recovery” and trends over the last 5
recessions |
|
Down |
Compares all leading home price indexes. |
|
Growing |
Showing growing income disparity in the USA |
|
Up |
Not up – but there is light in the tunnel |
|
|
Menzie Chinn questions whether Chinese inflation is endangering the
USA economy |
|
|
Elliott Morss looks at taxing options to lower the deficit |
|
|
Yves Smith pokes holes in FDIC belief they could have prevented the
destruction caused by Lehman’s collapse |
|
|
Jeff Miller points out most investors are not using good forward
earning information |
|
|
Paul Hanly overviews the Oz market from a historical perspective |
|
|
Erik McCurdy argues a correction is coming |
|
|
John Lounsbury shares a video on the progression of the information
age |
|
|
Martin Andelman questions whether the banking lobby was involved in
the disappearance |
|
|
Rick Davis examines the “art” of economic solutions – and who profits |
Bankruptcy
This Week: Peregrine
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/5/1/saupload_z_failed_banks3.png
‘Microsoft
confirmed Thursday its Windows cash machine is under threat. So what else is
new? Uncertainty about the PC market's growth prospects, and what that means
for Windows in particular, arguably has been baked into Microsoft's ...’
Microsoft wrestles slack PC sales and wilting stock Reuters [ Microsoft is a dinosaur that should be out of business!
My latest / current but typical problems with Microsoft / windows-based pc’s
(dell) confirms this! ]
Investors
Seek Shelter: Dave's Daily ‘Another day and another light volume rally in
stocks. Investors continued to hedge this action by buying precious metals.
Ludicrous statements by government officials regarding inflation and the dollar
are starting to wear thin even among Permabulls. The WSJ headlined this
topic Friday stating government officials are "unfazed
by dollar slide". But, they reached fuzzy conclusions about what to do
about it. As long as the government doesn't seem to care, commodities will
rise, especially precious metals. It's the elephant in the room no one really
wants to confront. One way to end Bucky's slide is to stop printing so much
money. The Bernank hasn't figured this out since his previous academic studies
didn't yield results like we're experiencing now. In the Great Depression, from
which he gained his theories and policies, it was illegal to own gold and currency
trading hardly existed. But the Fed Chairman hasn't figured this out yet so he
continues to keep the presses running at full speed as we saw today with more POMO
($6.6 billion) actions to lube the Primary Dealers. Earnings continue to
roll-in mostly mixed. The DJIA continues to lead the way as high priced
heavyweights (BA, CAT, CVX and etc) continue to lead the price-weighted index
higher. Losers included Microsoft(MSFT_) and
Research in Motion(RIMM_). The
bottom line is that it's the end of the month and window-dressing remains at
the forefront…’
Why
History Says You Should 'Sell in May'
Sterman ‘The most
active traders, which usually man Wall Street's trading desks, can alter market
sentiment by either their presence or absence. As the weather warms, these
traders take ever longer lunch breaks, which morphs into "Friday-free
weekends," culminating in their absence for decent chunk of the month of
August. When these traders leave their desks, it's a sign for the rest of us to
cool off as well, in case thin trading volume causes one of our holdings to
suddenly spike or plunge. Hence, the old-adage: "Sell in May and then go
away." (Until the fall...)
Is it a wise move? Let's look. Well, we know April surely gives the impressions
of a solid market rally. The S&P 500 (SPY)
rose, 4%, 4% and 10% respectively in each of the past three years and is up
another 2.2% this month. That rally has recently extended into May, as the
S&P 500 has rallied an average of 3% in the past three years. But by the
end of May, the party seems to end.
(Click charts
to expand)
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/29/saupload_04_29_11_sterman.png
The market has fallen in six of the past 10 Junes of the past decade, three
times the rate at which the various positive months have risen. Was there a
July bounce-back? Well, the five Julys of the last decade were split, but the
average loss was greater than the average gain.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/29/saupload_04_29_11_sterman2.png
Disappointing
First Quarter GDP Growth (Stocks rally on the bad news!) (The advance
estimate for Q1 GDP came in at 1.8 percent — a sharp decline from last
quarter’s 3.1 – and worse than expected) Weekly
Unemployment Claims Back Above This Scary Line (Stocks rally on the bad
news!) Short ‘On Thursday April 28, 2011, The
Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released
this morning for last week. Claims rose 25,000 from an upward revision of the
previous week to 429,000. The 4-week moving average increased by 2.3%. Here is
the official statement from the Department of Labor: In the week
ending April 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was
429,000, an increase of 25,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of
404,000. The 4-week moving average was 408,500, an increase of 9,250 from the
previous week’s revised average of 399,250. The advance
seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9 percent for the week
ending April 16, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s
revised rate of 3.0 percent. The advance
number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending
April 16 was 3,641,000, a decrease of 68,000 from the preceding week’s revised
level of 3,709,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,697,750, a decrease of
22,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,720,500. Today’s number
was 10% higher than the Briefing.com consensus expectation of 390,000 claims. As we can see,
there’s a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the 4-week
moving average (shown in the callouts) is a more useful number than the weekly
data. http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims
Occasionally I
see articles critical of seasonal adjustment, especially when the non-adjusted
number better suits the author’s bias. But a comparison of these two charts
clearly shows extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data, and the 4-week MA
gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change in the second
chart (note, for example, those regular January spikes). http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA
Because of the
extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, a 52-week moving average
gives a better sense of the long-term trends. http://dshort.com/charts/weekly-unemployment-claims-charts.html?weekly-unemployment-claims-NSA-52-ma
The Bureau of
Labor Statistics provides an overview on seasonal adjustment here (scroll down about
half way down). Doug Short Ph.d is the author
of dshort.com.’ Fed Spin Lifts Stocks: Dave's Daily ‘It's a con plain and simple. I've bought into it because I must.
Overall we're long and will be until the jig's up. Until then, I've advised
subscribers for many months that our Lazy Portfolios are the path to success as
Fed policies steamroll most technical systems beyond HFTs [high-frequency
traders]. When it ends, and it will, it's back to business as usual. Earnings
have been good, especially for companies (MMM, KO, MCD and etc.) where a weak
dollar has led to grand overseas profits. Most of those gains remain stashed
abroad and will remain there until U.S. corporate tax policy changes--a cold
day in hell IMHO. Further, Fed policies have been positive for financial
engineering, M&A, corporate debt financings and stock buybacks. This is the
result of a sea of liquidity finding its way to Wall Street which trickles down
to S&P 500 companies. It leads to minimal gains in U.S. employment as
companies are stimulated to outsource work overseas. It does not lift real
estate prices off the deck either. The great con remains current inflation,
which Bernanke alluded to briefly in his comments today. They cling to
"core" inflation as their measure of choice while we commoners who
shop everyday for essentials know better. Turbo Tim even had the nerve to say
the other day high gas prices are something we'll just "adjust to"
and "won't hurt" the recovery. He has a government car and driver. He
also had the nerve to reiterate the necessity to maintain a strong dollar. Yikes!
The Fed expects GDP to grow between 3.1 and 3.3% this year. Thursday's GDP data
may serve as a guide although expectations are for a weaker report. It's been a
strange week as the dollar continued to slide, commodities rallied and stocks
moved higher on ultra light volume. As to the latter, where is everybody?
Most retail investors are content to hang on to their IRAs and 401Ks but
they're still distrustful of markets. From the data it seems they'd rather have
a new car or TV which is something they can trust. Current trading patterns
remain dominated by HFTs whether from institutional trading desks or hedge
funds. This is the way we've rolled since QE2 began...’ Is
the Market Crazy? [ Short answer: Yes! Fraudulently, criminally insane type
crazy! ] Case-Shiller
Chairman: Here’s Why There is Very Little, If Any, Good News About Housing
‘Have you ever tried to keep your head above water while doggy-paddling?
The
S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index shows prices for the 10- and
20-city composites are lower than a year ago but still slightly above their
April 2009 bottom. The 10-City Composite fell 2.6% and the 20-City
Composite was down 3.3% from February 2010 levels. With an index level of
139.27, the 20-City Composite is virtually back to its April 2009 trough
value (139.26); the 10-City Composite is 1.5% above its low. Washington
D.C. was the only market to post a year-over-year gain with an annual growth
rate of +2.7%. Ten of the 11 cities that made new lows in January 2011 saw
new lows again in February 2011. Detroit avoided another new low, managing
a +1.0% increase in February over January, the only city with a positive
monthly change. David M.
Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s
commented: “There is very
little, if any, good news about housing. Prices continue to weaken, trends in
sales and construction are disappointing. Ten of the 11 MSAs that
recorded index lows in January fell further in February. The one
exception, Detroit, is 30% below its 2000 price level. The 20-City
Composite is within a hair’s breadth of a double dip. Fourteen MSAs and
both Composites have continued to decline month over-month for more than
six consecutive months as of February. Atlanta,
Cleveland and Las Vegas join Detroit as cities with home prices below their
2000 levels; and Phoenix is barely above its January 2000 level after a
new index low. The one positive is Washington D.C. with a positive annual
growth rate, +2.7%, and home prices more than 80% over its January 2000
level. Other cities holding on to large gains from 11 years ago include
Los Angeles (68.25%), New York (65.19%) and San Diego (55.05%).’ The
Financial Sector Mess Nussbaum ‘Yesterday on CNBC I heard a tease for a segment
(I missed the actual segment) about the fact the domestic financial stocks are
not doing well relative to technology. While I am not sure that tech is the
best comparison there is a point here about financial stocks that I have been
making for a long time that I believe will remain relevant for several more
years. First, some
numbers with results of a few different sectors over several time periods: States
face shortfall for retirees (Washington Post) Public workers’ retirement funds had a gap of $1.26 trillion at
the end of fiscal 2009, a report says. Study:
Affordable rentals scarce
(Washington Post) Share of
renters who spend more than half their income on housing is at its highest
level in half a century. Poll:
For Obama, low marks on Afghan war (Washington Post) More Americans disapprove of President
Obama’s management of the war in Afghanistan than support it, according to a
new Washington Post-ABC News poll, a finding that reflects the public’s broader
concern over the course of the nearly decade-old conflict. Fuel
prices cut into Obama popularity
(Washington Post) As gas prices
bite into household incomes, Obama’s support takes a hit, according to new
poll. The high fuel price dynamic is
the slow / now faster motion, long predicted hyperinflationary consequence of
failed fed, administration, congressional economic / financial / fiscal policy
that essentially has been interposed for the (short-term particularly) benefit
of the frauds on wall street (The frauds on
wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined, and
disgorgement imposed), and have used the mideast turmoil to obfuscate their failure. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s Blog / the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Return of Inflation: 5 Worrying Signs From Friday's NY Times Financial Folklore: Tales from Wall Street to Main Street DeLegge April
22, 2011 SAN DIEGO (ETFguide.com) – ‘Throughout the ages, financial folklore
has been handed down from one generation to the next as so-called wisdom. And
our generation has been brainwashed with its fair share of folklore. Let's consider
some examples. 'Buying a
home is the best investment anyone can make.' The pummeled
housing market should have put this particular fairy tale to rest, but there
are a few holdouts that haven't gotten the message. People, for
example, that bought their home decades ago are often cited as proof that
buying a home is still the 'best investment anywhere.' But before we count
their profits, don't forget to deduct their insurance premiums, the cost of
home maintenance, improvements and property taxes. Including these real life expenses
into the equations portrays a far more realistic picture about the true
investment value of home ownership. It's not as good of a deal as you've been
sold. But the real
test of truthfulness behind this is to ask anyone that's purchased a home or
condominium within the past 10 years. Ask them how profitable their foray into
housing market has been and they'll tell you. 'Max out
your 401(k) plan.' Overstuffing
your 401(k) plan with lots of money - is a good savings habits - but won't
necessarily help you you're your investments more profitable. Why? It's because
most 401(k) plans offer a diverse menu of rigged investment choices with
unnecessarily high fees. It's the mutual fund industry's best kept
secret. What about the
wonderful benefits of tax free growth and employer matches? Unfortunately,
these 401(k) features are undermined by consistent underperformance by mutual
fund managers, poor asset allocation decisions by plan members and compounding
fees. Unless low
cost index funds and ETFs are investment choices inside your 401(k) plan,
overstuffing your 401(k) retirement plan with bloated contributions is probably
not a good idea. 'Only
invest in funds with managers that have a good track record.' There are
countless examples of how this piece of advice has been proven false more times
than true. But since we don't have countless time or space, let's consider just
one recent example - Philip Jabre. Jabre is one
of Europe's best known hedge fund managers and after posting a tranquil 3% gain
during 2008's financial crisis, he followed it up with a handsome 46% gain in
2009. Surely investing money with Jabre - a seasoned professional with an
impressive track record - was the smart thing to do, right? In March,
Jabre bought Japanese stocks (NYSEArca: EWJ - News) on news of the earthquake
but got clobbered when the Nikkei Stock Average tumbled. Instead of staying
calm, Jabre panicked and sold his shares before Japanese stocks bounced back,
which netted his firm $300 million in losses. Hardly anyone could've foreseen
this sort of meltdown from a guy with an amazing track record! For anyone
confiding in the false comfort of past performance, beware! 'Buy whatever
Warren Buffett is buying.' In the 1960s
and 70s, youthful groupies would follow their favorite musical bands from city
to city. Today, these same folks have graduated to following the financial
moves made by investing legends like Warren Buffett. Are there guaranteed
profits for those who ape the 'big money?' Reuters looked
at five recent acquisitions made by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A - News) to test out this theory. Someone who
bought 100,000 shares in stock in each of Berkshire's acquisition targets 70
days before Buffett announced a deal, would have made money in just three out
of five tries. Not bad, but hardly a sure thing. In this
simplified case study conducted by Reuters, the reward for aping Warren
Buffett's past five deals - or should we say, beating him to each deal by 70
days - was a complete wash. The profitable trades amounted to a gain of $3.256
million whereas the losses were $3.268 million. So much for
the false theory that copying financial titans delivers market beating
results.’ Return of Inflation: 5 Worrying Signs From Friday's NY Times As financial advisers increasingly embrace a
fee-based model based on the amount of assets overseen — instead of charging a
flat fee — the portion invested in index funds is costing investors mightily writes Dow
Jones columnist Ian Salisbury. Salisbury notes that since 2006 “many advisers began
charging smaller, but more regular, fees to manage a portfolio, often in the
neighborhood of 1% a year.” While 1% is a big improvement over the 5% fee that
advisers often charged in years past, the savings that index funds offer in
this context are effectively nullified. The average expense ratio for U.S. stock index funds
is 0.19%, versus 0.92% for actively managed funds, which have to charge for
stock research and trading, according to investment researcher Morningstar Inc. Individual investors can do better cost-wise by
buying index funds directly from issuers. However, it would be overly simplistic to focus
exclusively on cost when considering the relative merits of using an adviser. Advisers can add value by managing a portfolio’s
asset allocation, both to take advantage of market trends and to grow more
conservative as an investor ages. They often also provide extra services such
as tax and estate planning.’ American
Stock Ownership Declines 24 Signs Of
Economic Decline In America ‘The United States is in the middle of a
devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny
it. Over the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing
statistics in my articles about the U.S. economy. The
Economic Collapse April 23, 2011 The United States
is in the middle of a devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting
really hard to deny it. Over the past year I have included literally
thousands of depressing statistics in my articles about the U.S. economy.
I have done this in order to make an overwhelming case that the U.S. economy is
in deep decline and is dying a little bit more every single day. Until we
understand exactly how bad our problems are we will never be willing to accept
the solutions. The truth is that our leaders have absolutely wrecked the
greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen. Most Americans
just assume that we will always experience overwhelming prosperity, but that is
not anywhere close to the truth. We are not guaranteed anything.
Our manufacturing base has been gutted, the number of jobs is declining, more
Americans are dependent on government handouts than ever before, our dollar is
dying and as a nation we are absolutely drowning in debt. The economists
that are trumpeting an “economic recovery” and that are declaring that the U.S.
economy will soon be “better than ever” are delusional. We really are
steamrolling toward a complete and total economic collapse and our leaders are
doing nothing to stop it. The following
are 24 more signs of economic decline in America. Hopefully you will not
get too depressed as you read them…. #1 On Monday, Standard & Poor’s altered its outlook
on U.S. government debt from “stable” to “negative” and warned the U.S. that
it could
soon lose its AAA rating. This is yet another sign that the rest of
the world is losing faith in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. Treasuries. #2 China has
announced that they are going to be reducing their holdings of U.S.
dollars. In fact, there are persistent rumors that this has already been
happening. #3 Hedge fund manager Dennis Gartman says that “panic dollar selling is setting in”
and that the U.S. dollar could be in for a huge decline. #4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now shorting U.S. government bonds. #5 This cruel economy is causing “ghost towns” to
appear all across the United States. There are quite a few counties
across the nation that now have home vacancy rates of
over 50%. #6 There are now about 7.25
million less jobs in America than when the recession began back in 2007. #7 The average American family is having a really tough time right
now. Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. The last time
the employment level was that low was back in 1983. #8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last
year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of
U.S. history. #9 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the
average CEO made 343 times more money than the
average American did last year. #10 Gas prices reached five dollars per gallon at a gas station in Washington, DC
on April 19th, 2011. Could we see $6 gas soon? #11 Over the past 12 months the average price of
gasoline in the United States has gone up by
about 30%. #12 Due to rising fuel prices, American Airlines lost a staggering $436 million during the first quarter of
2011. #13 U.S. households are now receiving more income from
the U.S. governmentthan
they are paying to the government in taxes. #14 Approximately one out of every four dollars that the
U.S. government borrows goes to pay the interest on the national debt. #15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is
now about
5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago. #16 Total credit card debt in the United States is
now more than 8 times larger
than it was just 30 years ago. #17 Average household debt in the United States has
now reached a level of 136% of average household income. In China,
average household debt is only 17% of average household income. #18 The average American now spends approximately 23 percent
of his or her income on food and gas. #19 In a recent survey conducted by Deloitte
Consulting, 74 percent of Americans said that they planned to slow
down their spending in coming months due to rising prices. #20 59 percent of all Americans now receive
money from the federal government in one form or another. #21 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
the average length of unemployment in the U.S. is now an
all-time record 39 weeks. #22 As the economy continues to collapse, frustration
among young people will continue to grow and we will see more seemingly “random
acts of violence”. One shocking example of this happened in the Atlanta
area recently. The following is how
a local Atlanta newspaper described the attack…. Roughly
two dozen teens, chanting the name of a well-known Atlanta gang, brought mob
rule to MARTA early Sunday morning, overwhelming nervous passengers and
assaulting two Delta flight attendants. #23
Some Americans have become so desperate for cash that they are literallypopping
the gold teeth right out of their mouths and selling them to pawn shops. #24
As the economy has declined, the American people have been gobbling up larger
and larger amounts of antidepressants and other prescription drugs. In
fact, the American people spent 60
billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.’ Ecomonic
Strength Is An Illusion Dohmen ‘There is a perception that
economic growth in many countries is very strong. Is it? These
countries have an accelerating inflation problem that is presenting an illusion
of economic strength. Russia is running at 9.5%, India at 9%, Brazil 6.3%.
China’s official inflation rate (CPI) just came in at 5.4%, higher “than expected
by analysts.” Well, that number is a fairy tale. Actual inflation is mid-teens.
“Official” food inflation year-over-year is 11%. Actual food inflation is
probably twice that. What always
happens in such an environment is that the central bank hikes interest rates,
but always too little, too late. The added cost of money raises the cost of
business and is passed on as price increases, causing even higher inflation.
The governments restrict credit only grudgingly because they don’t want the
economy to weaken. That would make people unhappy and cause them to riot. Not
pleasant for autocratic regimes. And that’s how these countries will eventually
see double-digit inflation. When that
happens, they will become more forceful in tightening money, availability of
credit, etc. And that eventually produces a recession, pain, and a financial
crisis. There is
another aspect to this under-reporting of inflation: the GDP growth numbers of
these countries are fictitious. Yet, money managers apparently believe them and
are sending billions of dollars overseas into stocks in those countries. For
example, let’s assume a country’s nominal GDP growth is 15%. Official
inflation is 5%, which is deducted from the 15% to give headline GDP growth of
10%. But what if actual inflation is 10% instead of the “official” version of
5%? Then actual GDP growth is 5%. That certainly reduces the great growth
stories of these emerging markets. In the U.S.,
inflation is also far underreported. John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics calculates
the CPI before the “fudge factors” were introduced by Bush Senior and Clinton.
According to him, the CPI now is at 10%. If we use that
number to convert nominal GDP to actual GDP, then we get negative, “real”
economic growth. In other words, most or all of the reported GDP growth here
and abroad reflects price increases, not genuine economic growth. Currently,
nominal GDP growth is 4%. The CPI is 2.7%. That gives us “real” GDP growth of
1.3%, certainly not the 4% Wall Street had been predicting. If we use the GDP
deflator of 3.6%, then we get “real” GDP growth of 0.3%, barely above zero. I ask, how can
this anemic growth, if any, give you the 20% corporate profit growth that Wall
Street has been predicting? It would mean that companies can raise prices
faster than their cost of supplies. That seems unlikely in the current
high-unemployment environment except for consumer essentials, like food and
energy. Beware of governmental statistics! As an investor, you can protect
yourself against this hidden inflation via gold and silver.’ VIX at 34-Month
Low - Time to Sell and Go Away Before May? , On
Monday April 25, 2011, ‘This should
be interesting. The VIX is at a 34-month low and stocks have been rising on
anemically low volume, but the S&P is within points of breaking above the
technically important neckline of an inverse head and shoulders bottom
formation. Of more
immediate importance is the S&P's resistance at 1,339, which has rebuffed
the S&P 500 on seven different trading days. And as if there wasn't enough
intrigue to the current constellation, the S&P has an open chart gap right
below 1,343. Open
Chart Gaps - Unfinished Business The gap was
caused by a February 22 gap down open that left a vacuum between 1,339 and
1,443. Concerning this chart gap, the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter stated on
the night of February 21: 'As of 11pm
EST the S&P futures are down 15 points. Since there's a good chance of a
gap down open, it would be timely to mention that the S&P has a strong
tendency of closing open chart gaps sooner or later. If an early morning gap
isn't closed right away, it might be closed sometime later this week, month or
year.' This open
chart gap was one reason the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter speculated on March
20 that: '1,249.05 was the low of a 7% correction that will result in new highs
around 1,3XX (target level reserved for subscribers) as discussed in the March
ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter, page 3.' What's it
Worth? The VIX Sell Signal As the S&P
has come within points of closing this vexing chart gap, the VIX (Chicago
Options: ^VIX) has dropped to a 34-month low. Not only that, the VIX has also
dropped below the lower Bollinger Band. A close back above the lower Bollinger
Band will trigger a sell signal for stocks. There have
been five such VIX sell signals since the March 2009 bottom. June 30, 2009 -
January 12, 2010 - April 13, 2010 - September 4, 2010 - October 13, 2010.
Discerning eyes will see that the market corrected sharply following the first
three sell signals. The S&P
(SNP: ^GSPC), Dow Jones (DJI: ^DJI), Nasdaq (Nasdaq: ^IXIC), small caps
(NYSEArca: IWM - News) and mid caps (NYSEArca: MDY - News) tumbled 15 - 20% from April - June 2010. The April 2010
VIX sell signal was compounded by a 10-year low in the CBOE equity put/call
ratio. A low put/call ratio means that only a minority of equity positions are
equipped with a put safety net. On April 16,
2010 the ETF Profit Strategy Newsletter warned that: 'Once prices do fall and
investors do get afraid of incurring losses, the only option is to sell.
Selling, results in more selling. This negative feedback loop usually results
in rapidly falling prices.' The market peaked six trading days later. The 'Flash
Crash,' which temporarily reduced the Dow by 1,000 points, happened 14 trading
days later. As accurate as
the June, January, and April VIX signals were, the two sell signals that
occurred since QE2 was announced (September and October 2010) failed miserably. Sector
Discrepancies Looking at a
long-term chart, the S&P is short of reaching important Fibonacci and
multi-decade trend lines and a potential head and shoulders target. Market
technicians like myself, would like to see the S&P go higher before reversing
meaningfully. With the VIX at a 34-month low, this may or may not happen. It seems even
the broad market is torn between bullish potential and bearish overtones. The
technology sector (NYSEArca: XLK - News) is in the process of reasserting itself
while the financial sector (NYSEArca: XLF - News) is trading near this year's low. The new
recovery high in the Dow Jones Industrial Average is thus far unconfirmed by
the Dow Jones Transportation Average (NYSEArca: IYT - News), which is a negative according to Dow
Theory (this could be resolved soon though). The S&P 500 futures rallied to
a new 2-month high while the S&P 500 cash index did not. Risk
Assessment in a Nutshell At least two
technical chart formations suggest higher prices if we see a close above 1,340.
The VIX suggests not only elevated complacency but the potential for a
significant decline. Every decline below 15.5 for the VIX over the past 2 years
was followed by a quick 7 - 17% decline for stocks. On Thursday the VIX closed
at 14.69. The positive
seasonality of April is dwindling away and the summer doldrums often start out
with the 'sell in May and go away' adage (that was certainly the case last
year). In a nutshell,
the market appears to be at cross roads. To deal with it, stocks may continue
churning for a bit longer but will eventually break out one way or another.
Detecting the direction of the next big move early is key to capital protection
and trading/investment profits…’ Beijing detains Christian church members on Easter (AP) Roadside bombs kill 3 NATO troops in Afghanistan (AP) - Roadside bombs killed three NATO service
members and a gunman shot dead a prominent local official in southern
Afghanistan, where thousands of Afghan and international troops are bracing for
an e... Gold and silver
continue to surge Neil Dennis | Gold hit a record high,
while silver surged more than 5 per cent to within a whisker of its all-time
peak. Don’t
Like a Weak Dollar? Might as Well Get Used to It CNBC.com
| Weakness in the US dollar, which is causing everything to go up. British pound
devalues by 94% in 50yrs A new survey shows that the value of money in the
UK has dropped by 94 percent over the past 50 years, which means an 18-time
increase in retail prices. All
those who were hoping global stock markets would surge tomorrow based on a
ridiculous rumor that China would revalue the CNY by 10% will have to wait. National / World Small
plane full of cocaine crashes in New Mexico lake A small planed loaded with
bundles of cocaine crashed into a lake in northern New Mexico on Sunday morning,
apparently killing all on board, according to the New Mexico State Police. Investigation: Government Ordered Cellphone Companies to Spy
on Users Paul Joseph Watson | Under federal law,
surveillance grid in place for 10 years. American Hellholes The
Economic Collapse | The U.S. economy is slowly dying. The U.S. economy is dying and we are heading
for the next Great Depression. The talking heads in the mainstream media love
to spin the economic numbers around and around and they love to make it sound
like the economy is improving, but the truth is that it doesn’t take a genius
to see what is happening to the U.S. economic system. ElBaradei urges ICC
trial of Bush Press TV | The so-called hunt for WMD in
Iraq yielded no results. Drudgereport: RON PAUL: HE'S IN! IMF: AGE OF AMERICA NEARS
END... In a rational nation that wasn’t in decline as pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america, trump and sister Maryanne would both be in prison. Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey! Trump luxury resort folds, leaving buyers
defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for sister maryanne, the corrupt
federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct
appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud and handles her own motions to
recuse her and like mobster trump should be in jail ... (see RICO
Case)] earned many
billions of dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard
and acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the
time. ] ." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed
employees, cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in
this evolved american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense
… The pervasively corrupt
american illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their
lifetime plush appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are
unheard of in productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these
drags on society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly
bureaucracies. Rules of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans.
Most, including sam alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug
money laundering and obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit (
also maryanne trump barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her
brother’s casinos in a civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it
for the money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is
great for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ] Raymond Mitchell, 34, had only popped
into the restaurant to buy a hot chocolate. But he apparently caused offence after
splitting up two men fighting in the queue. One of them, who had several gold teeth,
shouted at Raymond: “You are gonna die tonight, you are not gonna see the
morning.” The thug is then said to have phoned an
accomplice to fetch a gun, yelling into his mobile: “Bring me that thing.” Raymond left the 24-hour McDonald’s but
was chased into a cul-de-sac. The gun was then delivered and Mr Mitchell was
beaten and pistol-whipped before being shot three times in an alley in Brixton,
South London, at 6.50am on Sunday. Raymond, nicknamed Brown, was taken to
hospital but died hours later. One neighbour, who saw the shooting but
was too terrified to be named, said: “He was begging, literally begging for his
life. I didn’t dare look out my window in case they saw me. I heard them
laughing and swearing at him, calling him a ‘b***h’. I heard them laughing
afterwards as well.” Raymond’s partner, who asked not to be
named, said: “I’m terrified. They’re still out there and they’ve not been
caught. I’ve been told how they were laughing, actually laughing after they
beat him and shot him. How could anybody do something like that?” ‘THE OBAMA
DECEPTION’ http://albertpeia.com/obamadeceptionhighqualityversion.flv ] U.S.
role in Libyan conflict widens
(Washington Post) Buoyed by Obama’s deployment of armed drones and a
visit by Sen. John McCain, rebels expressed hope that increased support will
help turn the tide in the conflict. [ As if we didn’t see that coming! With
Iraq saying thanks, but no thanks to continued american ‘help’, despite defacto
bankruptcy of the nation, america’s looking for new war horizons. Now that
‘sounds like a plan’! ‘Mission
creep’ feared in Libya campaign The National | US
maintains it will not send any ground troops into Libya. Libyan
War Gets Weird: Defending the Indefensible Even those who have studied for
years the criminal consolidation of this planet under the global
corporate-financier oligarchy may be noticing that the war in Libya is turning
into something new and unprecedented. Roberts:
Pentagon budget is the result of corruption Half a century ago, president
Dwight Eisenhower issued a warning to the American nation about growing
military industrial complexes being a threat to democracy, and now it seems as
though Eisenhower’s warning has become reality. US is the modern world’s
biggest military spender. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, a former Reagan
administration official and a columnist, shares his opinion on RT. Libya:
Increased Airstrikes, Ground Troops, Contractors, Civilians Killed, Deadly DU
Munitions – Can We Call This A War Yet? The globalist coalition refers to
it as ‘kinetic military action’, yet as more civilians are killed in NATO
bombings, and with experts adamant that deadly Depleted Uranium weapons are
being used by Western forces, the conflict in Libya looks a hell of a lot like
the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq all over again.] The
U.S. dollar, no longer almighty [
Talk about understatements … and not just the dollar that’s not almighty in
pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america.
] (Washington Post) Amid talk of
deficits, investing gurus, such as Warren Buffett, are betting against the
dollar. [ Duh! Winning! (As per Charlie Sheen). But are they? I don’t think so
… Indeed, senile buffet had in the manner of a ‘lovefest’ expressed his
unbridled enthusiasm for favorable prospects for the u.s. economy. Yet, at this
rate, buffet et als won’t be declaring ‘mission accomplished’(as per dumbya
bush) and complete victory until loaves of bread are going for $100 a pop and
near everyone has stopped looking for those non-existent, fleeting, fleeing
jobs enabling them to declare near 100% employment. Indeed, such mundane
considerations worry buffet not … ‘cause the frauds on wall street got his back
… Why? … ‘cause he’s got their backs and shills for them in that homespun,
country bumpkin kind of way. And, with manipulated frauds as are ubiquitous on
wall street, reality impacts them … almost not at all. Suckers’
rally into the close to keep suckers suckered on really bad news : Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘4-21-11 And
here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is about to be mass revised by
everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation pressures: the Philadelphia
Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the lowest since
November 2010. ‘…natural resource plays provided an afternoon lift…’ … This is an especially great opportunity to sell / take
profits while you still can since there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell
in May and go away! … ] America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog.. the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar ... According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
…only time the markets have been more overvalued .. 1929 & tech bubble. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ] ... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured... ·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009. ·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits. ·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment. ·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates...] Suckers’ rally into the close to keep suckers suckered on really bad
news : Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is
about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation
pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high)
to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010.
… sounds like a real pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt american
plan! ‘…natural resource plays provided an afternoon lift…’ …Riiiiight! You
can’t make this stuff up, you really can’t. How totally pathetic! … This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May and go away! … ] America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. . According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ] Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost. The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ] What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment? Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ] ... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured... ·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009. ·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits. ·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment. ·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates. So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...' Davis ‘… This is how we
pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get
anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is
no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all
of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING
FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘
. Lawyer
charged with insider trading (Washington Post) [ Come on! Just enough for a
few headlines so people think they're actually doing something. They could (but
don't) bring a case as this or other wall street crime against a different wall
street liar (sic lawyer) / fraud in that corrupt sinkhole new york (metro, ie.,
jersey, conn., etc.) every single day and bearly touch the tip of the iceberg.
Is anybody foolish enough to think what goes on there is legitimate? Remember,
still no pros for the huge debacle / fraud precipitatin the last and continuing
economic / financial crisis. Chemist
charged with insider trading (WP) [ This
remains incredulous to me. Everyone but the big boys / frauds! The
frauds on wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined,
and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm . Looking
Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Davis ‘… This
is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to
get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). SEC:
Wachovia cheated investors (WP)
[ I truly can see decreasing the
apple weighting, and increasing the oracle (open office, etc.), google
(ubiquitous) weighting, but increasing dyingosaur microsoft weighting … I don't
think so … something's gone awry here that smacks of desperation and an attempt
to circumvent the visual effects on the nasdaq of a post-jobs apple, viz.,
over-priced apple sauce. Isn't that just like the frauds on wall street … to
pad the nasdaq bubble based on a 1-stock story, and manipulate when that
1-stock story falls to earth! April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … at the least a 'sell in May and go
away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' Adler ] Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes
the first indicator that Q2 GDP is about to be mass revised by everyone,
courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation pressures: the Philadelphia Fed
collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high) to 18.5, the lowest since
November 2010. And here is
why even the Philly Fed admits “indicators suggest slower growth” – “The
survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of
current activity, decreased from 43.4 in March to 18.5 this month (see Chart).
The demand for manufactured goods, as measured by the current new orders index,
showed a similar slowing: The index fell 22 points, following seven
consecutive months of increase. The shipments
index declined 6 points and remained at a relatively high level….A
majority of firms continue to cite price pressures, and a significant share of
firms reported higher prices for their own manufactured goods again this
month.” Translation: Wall Street Q2 GDP revisions coming en masse: the podium
is yours Jan Hatzius. http://wallstcheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Philly-Fed-April1.jpg
Alas, as
companies are only starting to recall, inflation is sticky and takes far more
than 15 minutes to fix: Firms
Report Higher Output Prices Firms
continue to report price increases for inputs as well as their own manufactured
goods. The prices paid index declined 7 points this month but remains about 45
points higher than readings just seven months ago. Fifty?nine percent of the
firms reported higher prices for inputs this month, compared to 64 percent last
month. On balance, firms also reported an increase in prices for their own
manufactured goods: The prices received index increased 5 points and has
steadily increased over the last eight months. Thirty percent of firms reported
higher prices for their own goods this month; just 3 percent reported price
reductions. http://wallstcheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Philly-Fed-April-Index2.jpg
Tyler
Durden is the founder of Zero Hedge.’ Clock
Still Ticking on Greece and Portugal Default Inflation Trader ‘The clock is
clearly ticking on Greece and Portugal’s default or severe restructuring, and
the clock seems to be speeding up. Yesterday Greek 10-year yields rose to
14.75% and 2-year yields soared past 22%. If you think Greece is not
going to default and force significant haircuts on its bondholders (including
the ECB), you have a great opportunity to buy a 22% note that will pay off at
par! Portuguese 10-years are at 9.28%; 2-years at 10.5% (see Chart below for
the 2yr, click to enlarge). The Irish 2y and 10y are both over 10% as
well. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/21/saupload_portublech.png
Portuguese,
Greek, 2y or 10y. It doesn't matter, they all look this bad. This happens to be
the Portuguese 2-year note yield. This is
starting to be an all-the-king’s horses situation. With all the powers that can
be brought to bear on the problems, all of the ECB secondary market support,
all of the rescue packages and promised rescue packages – and even after Spain
and Portugal both successfully sold bonds overnight – these markets are in
free-fall. One reason for
it is that investors are newly skeptical that the European Financial Stability
Facility, and its successor European Stability Mechanism, are going to work
because of one little design flaw: the fact that member countries must cough up
the dough. Well, make that two design flaws: member countries are by and large
democratic, and the ‘little people’ seem to object to coughing up the dough. We
saw the recent German election results, and the Finns this week gave a lot of
votes to a “euro-skeptic” protest party (although a Finnish friend of mine
thinks it is unlikely that party will end up as part of the ruling coalition).
Today, the
ruling party in Slovakia declared that it won’t support the creation of the
ESM, which means that two minority parties will need to form a coalition if
Slovakia is going to participate. The words of the ruling party’s chairman
resound: We are here to defend interests of Slovak citizens,
not the interests of foreign banks, which have for a long time made profits on
high interest on loans to irresponsible countries. Investors are gradually coming to realize that the
cacophony in Europe right now isn’t merely distracting, but destructive to the
notion of a unified eurozone. And that is causing them to separate the (German)
wheat from the (periphery) chaff when it comes to periphery markets. This may
ironically be good for the euro if only the periphery are jettisoned, but the
behavior of the euro bond markets look much like a film of the mid-1990s
“convergence trade” being run in reverse. Having a bailout mechanism that requires consensus of
the members appears to be simply not workable. By contrast, the U.S. bailouts
do not require state approval, nor Federal approval. The Fed just prints the
money and voila! And so far, it has worked. It has worked, that is, except for the fact that the
dollar’s downtrend periodically threatens to become disorderly. Yesterday the
greenback reversed the rest of Monday’s rally and went to new lows on the year.
It is challenging 2009’s low now. Partly as a consequence, commodities rallied
again yesterday, with NYMEX Crude Oil setting its second-highest close of the
year (above $111). Softs, Precious Metals, and Industrial Metals all rallied. The dollar’s problems and the imminent shuttering of
the debt markets to Portugal and Greece didn’t impact the equity markets.
Stocks soared overnight and then traded sideways on light-to-medium volume
throughout the day. Supposedly this was due to Intel’s (INTC)
generous outlook in their earnings release Tuesday. I’ve never understood why
Intel’s earnings, or those of almost any other single company with the possible
exception of a megaconglomerate like GE, matter to the other 5000 stocks, but
this was the excuse. Stocks are back up near the 2011 highs again! I suspect
that we’ll need some actual good news, rather than scattered positive quarterly
earnings reports, to propel stocks much higher but to be honest I’m not sure
why they’re levitating now. Bonds sold off slightly, with 10y nominal Treasuries
at 3.40% and the 10y TIPS at 0.78%. Today the Treasury auctions $14bln new 5y
TIPS at 11:30ET ahead of the early close and Good Friday holiday.[1] The new
TIPs will have a coupon of 0-1/8%, the lowest ever auctioned, and if they still
issued paper bonds I’d buy some just to frame for that reason. They’ll be
auctioned at a premium at that coupon, because the real yield will be
negative. It doesn’t light my fire unless and probably only unless your
alternative is the nominal Treasury note. The market needs inflation-linked
paper because of all of the money flowing into inflation-linked bond
strategies, but I think there’s a chance this one is sloppy and needs to be
cleaned up next week. The economic data yesterday didn’t do much to push
the inflation outlook higher. Existing Home Sales were somewhat above
expectations (although, as with Housing Starts, the current level isn’t
impressive), but the inventory of existing homes rose slightly to 3.549mm
units. That implies CPI Shelter over the next 12 months should be expected to
be roughly +1.1%, all else being equal (see Chart, click to enlarge). http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/21/saupload_hafsshelt.png
Housing Inventory like this augurs something like
1.1% Shelter inflation in the year ahead. All else, of course, is not equal
and this is a very simple regression. CPI Shelter could well be higher and
could possibly be lower. But if CPI for Shelter is only +1.1% over the next 12
months, it will be difficult for overall inflation to really blast off. Still,
if core CPI ex-Shelter continues to rise, it will still feel bad. Today, we have another Initial Claims figure
(Consensus: 390k from 412k), with the consensus hoping…praying…that the jump
last week was an aberration. If we get another number around 400k-410k, bonds
might get a bid into the long weekend. Also today is the Philly Fed index
(Consensus: 36.4 vs 43.4), which should remain fairly strong, and some home
price data. As noted, it is also a short trading session (in the bond market).
I will write a comment after today’s session (or on Friday), but then I am out
of the country for a week and will not be writing commentary from the beach.
The next installment of this serial, after tomorrow, will be on or around May 2nd.
Happy Easter. [1] SIFMA, the self-regulatory body that ‘recommends’
early closes and holidays for the bond market, made a decision in 2009 to
de-emphasize early closes and holidays. Oddly, although Good Friday isn’t
always a holiday (unlike Christmas) in the market, they’ve decided this year
that it should be even though they’re trying to make bond traders work harder.
I don’t understand why, but I’m grateful.’ The
Myth of 'Inflation Proof' Stocks AAII
Sentiment Survey: Bullish Sentiment PLUNGES Profit
Margin Squeeze and Inflation Risk Oil Up, Dollar Down Reuters
| Factory activity in the Mid-Atlantic region fell in April. US jobless
claims stick above 400,000 FT.com | The number of people
claiming unemployment benefit stayed above 400,000 for the second week in a
row. Standard &
Poor’s Outlook for U.S. Karen De Coster | Three largest
rating companies failed to downgrade the obvious: failing insurance companies. University
Of Texas Fund CEO Shares His Views On Gold, Explains Why He Took Delivery Of $1
Billion In The Precious Metal Over the weekend, University of Texas made
headlines after disclosing it was the first major institution to take delivery
of $1 billion in gold, although still keeping it in the Comex system. $6
Gas? Could Happen if Dollar Keeps Getting Weaker A dollar plumbing
three-year lows is hitting Americans squarely in the gas tank, and one
economist thinks it could drive prices as high as $6 a gallon or more by
summertime under the right conditions. National / World Are You Scared Yet? Big Sis To Beam Terror Warnings To
Your iPhone Steve Watson | The government will tell
you when to stay indoors. Easily Duped Islamists Demand Blind CIA Operative Be
Released from Prison Kurt Nimmo | The fact
Abdul-Rahman worked with U.S. and British intelligence should send up a red
flag for any self-respecting Islamist. Lukashenko: Globalists Are Preparing To Strangle Belarus Paul
Joseph Watson | “They want to force us to be just like everybody
else….we will resist.” Gingrich: Ben Bernanke Has “Done a Terrible Job” Real
Clear Politics | Newt Gingrich was very critical of Fed Chairman Ben
Bernanke. ‘Mission
creep’ feared in Libya campaign The National | US
maintains it will not send any ground troops into Libya. Lukashenko:
Globalists Are Preparing To Strangle Belarus Belarusian President Alexander
Lukashenko warned today that the globalists were preparing to strangle his
country because of its refusal to join the new world order, with Belarus set to
become the latest target of the contrived “Arab Spring” riots as the NATO
powers further encircle Russia and China. Are
You Scared Yet? Big Sis To Beam Terror Warnings To Your Iphone The
Department of Homeland Security is beefing up it’s terror alert warning system
in a move that will see terror alerts, whether real or phony, issued via the
mainstream media and directly to your phone or computer over social networking
sites, and possibly even via Emergency Alert broadcasts. Silver
surge prompts conspiracy theorists In 1980 it was the Hunt brothers. In
1998 it was Warren Buffett. And in 2011? For anyone unversed in the history of
the silver market, those dates refer to market squeezes that caused surges in
the silver price. The talk among some conspiracy-minded traders and analysts is
that something similar could be happening today. Silver
Surges Over $46.25/oz As Rumours Of A Short Squeeze And Cornering Market Gain
Credence Traders and technically minded investors are firmly focused on
silver’s record nominal high of $50.35/oz. Some with a longer term fundamental
focus continue to see silver in triple digits if it is to match the real record
highs of $130/oz seen in 1980. Soros
Event Sets in Motion New Attacks on Dollar It’s been two weeks since George
Soros bought himself a major economic conference designed to remake the entire
global economy. Just because the event received little major news attention, it
still had an impact Americans might be reeling from for years. Nanny State Gone Wild A
shocking acceleration of the nanny state in recent months confirms that the
government has launched a total takeover of society under the pretext of
keeping everyone safe, when in reality the move is a calculated coup d’état
against individuality and is designed to oppress and enslave the American
people. Libyan
War Gets Weird: Defending the Indefensible Even those who have studied for
years the criminal consolidation of this planet under the global
corporate-financier oligarchy may be noticing that the war in Libya is turning
into something new and unprecedented. Suckers’ rally into the close to keep suckers suckered on really bad
news : Philadelphia
Fed Depresses Economists Durden ‘On Thursday April 21,
2011, 1:32 pm EDT And here comes the first indicator that Q2 GDP is
about to be mass revised by everyone, courtesy of Japan, and ongoing inflation
pressures: the Philadelphia Fed collapsed from a revised 43.4 (a 27 year high)
to 18.5, the lowest since November 2010.
… sounds like a real pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt american
plan! ‘…natural resource plays provided an afternoon lift…’ …Riiiiight! You
can’t make this stuff up, you really can’t. How totally pathetic! … This is an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Remember: ‘Sell in May and go away! … ] America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic performance
of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble in U.S.
history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. . According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ] Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost. The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ] What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment? Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ] ... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured... ·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009. ·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits. ·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment. ·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates. So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...' Davis ‘… This is how we
pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get
anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is
no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all
of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING
FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘
. High oil / worthless dollar (currency translation) / manipulated
earnings rally … sounds like a real pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt
american plan! ‘…natural resource plays provided an afternoon lift…’
…Riiiiight! You can’t make this stuff up, you really can’t. How totally
pathetic! ] Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost. The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ] What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment? Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ] ... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured... ·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009. ·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits. ·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment. ·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates. So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...' Davis ‘… This is how we
pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get
anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend $1Tn
on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is no
fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all of
the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING
FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘
. Lawyer
charged with insider trading (Washington Post) [ Come on! Just enough for a
few headlines so people think they're actually doing something. They could (but
don't) bring a case as this or other wall street crime against a different wall
street liar (sic lawyer) / fraud in that corrupt sinkhole new york (metro, ie.,
jersey, conn., etc.) every single day and bearly touch the tip of the iceberg.
Is anybody foolish enough to think what goes on there is legitimate? Remember,
still no pros for the huge debacle / fraud precipitatin the last and continuing
economic / financial crisis. Chemist
charged with insider trading (WP) [ This
remains incredulous to me. Everyone but the big boys / frauds! The
frauds on wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined,
and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm . Looking
Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Davis ‘… This
is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to
get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). SEC:
Wachovia cheated investors (WP)
[ I truly can see decreasing the
apple weighting, and increasing the oracle (open office, etc.), google (ubiquitous)
weighting, but increasing dyingosaur microsoft weighting … I don't think so …
something's gone awry here that smacks of desperation and an attempt to
circumvent the visual effects on the nasdaq of a post-jobs apple, viz.,
over-priced apple sauce. Isn't that just like the frauds on wall street … to
pad the nasdaq bubble based on a 1-stock story, and manipulate when that
1-stock story falls to earth! April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … at the least a 'sell in May and go
away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' Adler ] High oil / IBM worthless dollar (currency translation) rally … sounds
like a real pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt american plan! [ YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM
] :‘…natural resource plays
provided an afternoon lift…’ …Riiiiight! You can’t make this stuff up, you
really can’t. How totally pathetic! ] Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost. The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ] What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment? Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ] ... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured... ·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009. ·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits. ·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment. ·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates. So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...' Davis ‘… This is how we
pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get
anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is
no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all
of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING
FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘
. Loan
Sharks Rejoice - Greece 2-Year Notes at 20% ! [video]Trader:
S&P Downgrade A Game Changer NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Ben Willis of
Sunrise Securities is rethinking his portfolio after the downgrade from
S&P. Infographic:
Easiest Way to Fix a Windows, Mac, or Linux Computer [ Yeah! ‘american
technology’ (not really american anymore and that’s the positive, value-part of
the equation) is really all that bad / overrated / overvalued. I believe most
are afraid to admit that owing to an insecure fear that they’ll be pegged as
among the ranks of the ubiquitous ‘computer illiterate’ (beyond the bells and
whistles interface). But such is foolishness because ‘american technology’ is
all that … BAD. …Really … bad news … kind of in the realm of that brilliant GM
strategy of ‘planned obsolescence’ so they’d sell more cars as you’d need new
cars to replace the shoddy old cars … sounds like … a defacto bankrupt american plan! Yet, fraud’s become
pervasively corrupt america’s strongest suit. Day in, day out on wall street,
that’s really what it is in the final analysis; viz., a huge,
government-protected (through bribes, one way or another, and that ‘insecurity
thing’ concerning their finance / economics illiteracy) foisted scam / fraud. I’m
surprised these ‘american companies’ are still in business … including
intel (they’re all wintel machines now,
and they should know better). ] Interest
on National Debt is Biggest Projected Problem, Not Healthcare Standard &
Poor’s Outlook for U.S. Karen De Coster | Three largest rating companies failed to downgrade
the obvious: failing insurance companies. Total
US Debt Now Officially Above The Ceiling Zero Hedge Rand
Paul: Spending cuts must include Pentagon Washington
Times | Military spending
will have to be cut if the country is going to get its debt problems under
control. National / World Drudgereport: Debt Hits New High: $14.3
Trillion... The
American Dream 4-16-11 'Since the end of
World War 2, the United States has been the leading military power and the
leading economic power on the entire globe. The U.S. has had the largest
economy in the history of the world, the U.S. dollar has been used by nearly
all of the nations on earth as a reserve currency and the U.S. military has had
a physical presence in most of the countries on the planet. Today, the
U.S. military is in approximately 130 different nations and it has a total of
about 700 military bases around the world. But just like the Roman
Empire, the U.S. empire has become overextended and it is starting to
decline. Most of our politicians believe that we can continue to “police
the world” and project our power to every corner of the globe, but the more we
meddle the more the rest of the world hates us and the worse our financial
problems get. America is now swamped with debts and our influence is
fading. The truth is that what we are witnessing is the end of an empire
and the beginning of a depression. Over the past decade,
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayerswell over a trillion dollars. So what have we gotten
in return for a trillion dollars? In Afghanistan, we
haven’t even found the one man we supposedly went there to look for – Osama Bin
Laden. .. But at least we got rid
of the Taliban and set up a good form of government, right? Oh yeah, we set up
a really wonderful government. For example, they
recently arrested a one-legged Afghan Red Cross worker and sentenced him to death for
converting to Christianity. Fortunately there was
enough of an international outcry that Said Musa was not hung, but the fact
that the Afghan government wanted to string him up is enough to show that we
have completely failed over there. The same thing is true
in Iraq. Yeah, we may have gotten rid of Saddam, but the nation is now in
far worse shape than before we went in. Before the war
Christians felt safe in Iraq. Now large numbers of them are fleeing Iraq
as fast as they can. More than 80 Iraqi Christians were recently
beheaded on
a single day. All the Christians were trying to do was attend a
church service... Robinson:
Take Donald Trump seriously (Washington Post) [
Riiiiight! For Mr. Robinson an oft times wobama apologist whom I have
invariably found to be but a disingenuous shill for what could be described in
the absence of a better term, the black lobby, a trump candidacy would be a
dream come true. Drudgereport: RASMUSSEN:
Obama 49% Trump 34%... Yet, where is the objective analysis of
wobama's betrayal of that very block among others, yet, you know, based on skin
color alone, they will vote for wobama.
Indeed, it is an inconvenient truth that I have found blacks to be as
racially prejudiced based on skin color alone as any other race. UPDATE:
MORE CLAIMS OF RACE BIAS AT JUSTICE... ‘In emotional and personal testimony, an
ex-Justice official who quit over the handling of a voter intimidation case
against the New Black Panther Party accused his former employer of instructing
attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black
defendants and white victims ' Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud WP
| Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. Cohen:
Donald Trump, the comeback huckster (WP) [On the other hand is the zionist shill
Mr. Cohen who in his startling revelation states 'back in 1990, Ivana Trump
told her divorce lawyer Michael Kennedy that “from time to time, her husband
[Donald Trump] reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, ‘My New Order,’
which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed.” This information, which comes from a
startling 1990 Vanity Fair profile of Trump …' . I must say that beyond his
corrupt, mob related / type activities detailed on my web site, trump was
'naziish' in his dog-pack, bully mentality (sinkholes jersey/new
yorkster). Certainly Steve Wynn who now
successfully does business in Macau / Vegas can attest to same. To be sure,
trump is a mental case … but, so is wobama … but, then again, mental illness is
rife in pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless, defacto bankrupt
america. Roche
'The worst part of it ...Obama, who
vowed change, has done almost nothing to fix any of it and in fact continues
most of the policies that helped get us here in the first place’ ‘INSIDE JOB’ Ferguson wins Oscar for
Documentary on the unprosecuted massive extant fraud in the (many) TRILLIONS by
the frauds on wall street ( and declares with oscar in hand that not one high
level wall street exec has been prosecuted … despite ‘earning’ billiions from
the fraud ), the commentator / experts recommend getting rid of the corrupt
eric holder ( what do holder and wobama have in common … wall street money? … a proclivity for
jive-talking / b*** s*** ?...all/some of the above … or is it something else
... ] [Suckers'
rally into the close off lows for no reason at all but to keep the suckers
suckered. But this tact, and the not good news is not news which though true
for quite some time, has been conveniently ignored by the frauds on wall
street: YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM] '...sell-off came as a culmination of concerns
stemming from speculation about debt restructuring for less fiscally
responsible eurozone nations like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal and news that
analysts at S&P lowered their outlook on U.S. debt to Negative...'] Lawmakers
seize on S&P outlook (Washington Post) [ Ah! So reassuring! I
mean, come on! There's no mystery here. I'd even say at this point the u.s.
debt has become an insurmountable problem having come in the form of too
little, too late. Budget
passes, but conservatives let down (Washington Post) The compromise touted as
cutting $38.5 billion would actually only cut $352 million this fiscal year, an
analysis says. While that didn’t prevent the budget from passing, it could sour
some Republicans. [ Come on! This 'budget deal' was a
showboating scam ab initio … Davis gets this right: Davis ‘… This is how
we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to get
anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). There is
no fixing this and even a Republican said you can’t fool all of the people all
of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING FOLKS – PLEASE BE
CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘ .
Obama
seeks spending cuts, taxes on wealthy (WP) [
Too little, too late for 'wobama the b'
(for b*** s***) ! After all, though contraindicated, he previously extended the
war criminal, moron bush tax cuts to what is now realistically perceived as
'their base' (that top 1 percent). Wobama has no credibility whatsoever, wars
and all. He's just plain done! Liberals
worry Obama has given up ground (WP) [ Worried? Given up ground? Are they kidding?
Is this some parallel universe they're operating in? Come on! Wake up! Wobama's
done! Finito! He's been and is an abject failure as president; both by what
he's done as not promised and not done as promised, viz., perpetual wars and
overspending, etc., and no prosecutions of the frauds on wall street, etc.,
respectively. He is a total failure and an embarrassment to the presidency as
was his predecessor. He's totally incompetent with an innate predilection to
'zig when he should zag' … 'wobama the b' (for b*** s***) is pathetic! Quite
simply, for wobama, it's too late! …
Drudgereport: RASMUSSEN:
President hits new low Taxpayers
foot $850M bill for Wall St.’s pension fees NY
Post | New
York City taxpayers are helping to pay $850 million in Wall Street investment
fees. ] Suckers'
rally into the close off lows for no reason at all but to keep the suckers
suckered. But this tact, and the not good news is not news which though true
for quite some time, has been conveniently ignored by the frauds on wall
street: YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]
'...sell-off came as a culmination of concerns
stemming from speculation about debt restructuring for less fiscally
responsible eurozone nations like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal and news that
analysts at S&P lowered their outlook on U.S. debt to Negative...' Reality
Bites: Dave's Daily 'First, why
do we depend on these fee-conflicted rating agencies who have dropped the ball
repeatedly? Answer: because there are no other non-fee conflicted rating
(ratting?) agencies that have also made serious mistakes. Is there something
from S&P today regarding U.S. debt we didn't already know? Hardly, so no
Black Swan here. We've just been on an "extend and pretend" path to
see how much money we can make before "the you know what" hits the
fan. And, for all we know denial will continue and we could close this week
higher as we shrug this off as something "down the road". As we enter
a short week, and with markets already weak from the get-go, the S&P
outlook for U.S. debt as "negative" blind-sided investors. Markets
sold-off sharply but then recovered much of the damage late which should
surprise given the pervasive dip buying mentality. Bonds initially sold-off
then rallied (the down the road mentality) while commodities were mixed with
energy falling despite a cut in crude oil output by the Saudis while precious
metals and grains higher. The dollar rallied off its critical support as
investor's repatriated money, not necessarily to safe parking, but maybe to
cover some margin calls. Some believe, and I have no credible information on
this other than chatter, the Fed is selling puts on U.S. debt to pin interest
rates lower. That's an interesting strategy and could consume an entire posting
and then some. Earnings were posted for Citigroup(C_)
and given all the adjustments, accounting games and what not, reported lower
than expected revenues but beat earnings expectations by penny. The stock was
flat and the reverse split will be coming shortly along with the symbolic penny
dividend. The market remains extraordinarily manipulated. Note the headline
DJIA ("the window dressing for the tourists") reclaimed the 50-day
moving average. Volume was much higher on the sell-off as stops routinely get
hit on these event-type days. As you would expect, breadth per the WSJ, was
clearly as negative as you would expect. ' S&P
threatens to cut U.S. credit rating on deficit (Reuters) Super
rich see federal taxes drop dramatically (AP) Wall
Street falls on sovereign fears (Reuters)
- S&P
threatens to cut U.S. credit rating on deficit (Reuters) - Citi
profit sags as revenue shrinks, expenses grow (Reuters) - Texas
Instruments misses forecasts, blames Japan (Reuters) - Eliot Spitzer
Wants Attorney General Eric Holder To Prosecute Goldman Sachs Right This Second - America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. The
American Dream April 16, 2011 'Since the
end of World War 2, the United States has been the leading military power and
the leading economic power on the entire globe. The U.S. has had the
largest economy in the history of the world, the U.S. dollar has been used by
nearly all of the nations on earth as a reserve currency and the U.S. military
has had a physical presence in most of the countries on the planet.
Today, the U.S. military is in approximately 130 different nations and it has a
total of about 700 military bases around the world. But just like the
Roman Empire, the U.S. empire has become overextended and it is starting to
decline. Most of our politicians believe that we can continue to “police
the world” and project our power to every corner of the globe, but the more we
meddle the more the rest of the world hates us and the worse our financial
problems get. America is now swamped with debts and our influence is
fading. The truth is that what we are witnessing is the end of an empire
and the beginning of a depression. Over the past decade, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S.
taxpayerswell over a trillion dollars. So what have we gotten in return for a trillion dollars? In Afghanistan, we haven’t even found the one man we supposedly went
there to look for – Osama Bin Laden. It defies comprehension how a man
with a really bad kidney disease can hide in caves and evade the most powerful
military on earth for nearly a decade. But at least we got rid of the Taliban and set up a good form of
government, right? Oh yeah, we set up a really wonderful
government. For example, they recently arrested a one-legged Afghan Red
Cross worker and sentenced him to death for
converting to Christianity. Fortunately there was enough of an international outcry that Said Musa
was not hung, but the fact that the Afghan government wanted to string him up
is enough to show that we have completely failed over there. The same thing is true in Iraq. Yeah, we may have gotten rid of
Saddam, but the nation is now in far worse shape than before we went in. Before the war Christians felt safe in Iraq. Now large numbers of
them are fleeing Iraq as fast as they can. More than 80 Iraqi Christians
were recently beheaded on
a single day. All the Christians were trying to do was attend a
church service. Now we are involved in a third war in the Middle East. Even though
Libya was no threat to the United States, Obama felt compelled to stick our
nose into a chaotic civil war. Now it looks like our involvement in Libya could last for a very, very
long time. In a joint op-ed piece in
the New York Times, Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy
declared that NATO military operations in Libya will not end until there is a
regime change…. However, so long as Qaddafi is in power, NATO must maintain its
operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime
builds. Then a genuine transition from dictatorship to an inclusive
constitutional process can really begin, led by a new generation of leaders. In
order for that transition to succeed, Qaddafi must go and go for good. So exactly who are we “helping” in Libya? It turns out that we are providing “air cover” for many of the same
people who were shooting at our troops in Iraq. Yes, you read the correctly. According to The
Telegraph, the leader of the Libyan rebels is even admitting that his
“troops” include jihadists that were firing bullets at U.S. troops in Iraq…. Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who
fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle
against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. What type of government do you think they are going to set up once this
is over? And all of this meddling is turning the rest of the world against us in
a big way. Most Americans don’t realize just how much hatred there is for America
in the rest of the world. There are millions upon millions of people out
there that now hate us with every fiber of their beings, and every time we bomb
someone else world opinion turns against us even more. Sadly, our meddling goes well beyond the three wars we are currently
fighting. The truth is that the U.S. military is actively “conducting
operations” in dozens of different countries. For example, most Americans don’t even realize what the U.S. is doing in
Pakistan. How would you like it if a foreign power was conducting missile attacks
inside the United States over the objections of our national leaders? Well, that is what we are doing in Pakistan and we are going to continue
even though Pakistani officials are adamantly objecting. According
to AFP, the CIA intends to continue conducting operations in Pakistan no
matter what the Pakistani government says…. The Central Intelligence Agency has no plans to suspend “operations” in
Pakistan against terror suspects despite objections from leaders in Islamabad,
a US official said Thursday. This approach to foreign policy is absolutely foolish. Attempting
to have an “iron grip” on the rest of the world is only going to cause the rest
of the world to deeply hate us and deeply resent us. We like to think of
ourselves as “do gooders” but most of the rest of the world considers us to be
tyrannical. Eventually the rest of the world will lash out at us. In addition, maintaining our vast empire is bankrupting us. As I have written about previously, U.S.
military spending is wildly out of control. The truth is that U.S.
military spending is
greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the
rest of NATO combined. The United States already accounts for 46.5%
of all military spending in the world. China is next with only 6.6%. Just one day of the war in Afghanistan costs
more money than it took to build the entire Pentagon. So will reducing military spending solve all of our financial problems? Of course not. In fact, if you eliminated every penny of military spending we would
still have a gigantic budget deficit. And that is another reason why our empire is dying. The United States has the biggest debt
problem in the history of the world. Right now the U.S. government is over 14 trillion dollars in debt.
Our debt is increasing by over 2 million dollars every single minute. Our politicians are running up the national credit card as if there will
never be any consequences. But a very serious day of reckoning is coming, and when it arrives the
rest of the world is not going to be in the mood to help us. It is being projected that by 2021, the U.S. will be paying $1.1
trillion a year just in interest on the national debt. So how big is a trillion dollars? Well, if you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million
dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent a trillion
dollars by now. Our national debt is now at a tipping point. A recently revised
IMF policy paper entitled “An Analysis of
U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?” projects
that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year
2050. So what are our politicians doing about it? Nothing. During the last election, the Republicans made a “pledge” to the
American people to cut $100 billion from the 2011 budget if they were elected. Then once they got in they told us that $61 billion would be enough. Then John Boehner gave in and agreed to cut the 2011 budget by only
$38.5 billion. Well, now it turns out that even the $38.5 billion figure was not even
real. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the “budget deal” will
only slash $352 million (with an “m”) from the 2011 budget. That is less than one percent of the $38.5 billion figure that was
announced. No wonder so many Tea Party activists are now declaring that John
Boehner must go. In the end, our politicians do not intend to do anything about our
runaway debt. The Democrats will shut down the government rather than allow serious
cuts to social programs or entitlements. The Republicans will never allow serious cuts to the military and they
are pushing for even more tax cuts. So how in the world is U.S. government debt ever going to be brought
under control? The sad news is that it is not going to be. It is just a matter of
time before a great U.S. debt crisis strikes. But the U.S. is not the only one with a debt crisis. The European
debt crisis just seems to get worse with each passing month. The
bonds of several European nations have been significantly downgraded in recent
weeks. According to the
Wall Street Journal, Moody’s actually downgraded Irish debt by two levels
on Friday…. Moody’s Investors Service Inc. downgraded Ireland’s government debt by
two notches Friday, taking the country to the brink of junk status, and kept
its outlook negative. Things are getting scary. Bond yields all over Europe are going through the roof. A year ago, the yield on 10-year Portuguese bonds was hovering around
5%. On Friday it reached 9.0%. A year ago, the yield on 10-year Irish bonds was also generally in the
neighborhood of 5%. On Friday it closed at 9.7%. But that is nothing compared to what is happening to Greek debt.
On Friday, the yield on 10-year Greek bonds skyrocketed to an astounding 13.83%. Yes, a depression is getting a little bit closer every single day. Things don’t look good in Asia either. Prior to the recent
tsunami, the Japanese
economy was the third largest economy on the entire globe. But there are now very serious questions about whether or not Japan will
ever fully recover from what has just happened. The mainstream media has been really downplaying the economic damage
that has been done to Japan, but eventually the truth will become clear.
In a previous article, I contended that this was essentially a “death blow”
for the
Japanese economy…. The tsunami that struck Japan on March 11th swept up to 6 miles inland,
destroying virtually everything in the way. Thousands upon thousands of
Japanese were killed and entire cities were wiped off the map. Yes, Japan is a
resilient nation, but exactly how does a nation that is already drowning in
debt replace dozens of cities and towns that are suddenly gone? The truth is
that thousands of square miles have been more completely destroyed than if they
had been bombed by a foreign military force. The loss of homes, cars,
businesses and personal wealth is almost unimaginable. It is going to take many
years to rebuild the roads, bridges, rail systems, ports, power lines and water
systems that were lost. Nobody is quite sure when the rolling blackouts are
going to end, and nobody is quite sure when all of the damaged manufacturing
facilities are going to be fully brought back online. If all that wasn’t bad enough, the nuclear crisis at Fukushima just
seems to get worse by the day. According
to the Los Angeles Times, seawater near the Fukushima nuclear complex was
recently found to contain “iodine-131 at 7.5 million times the legal limit”. Authorities in Japan recently upgraded the crisis at Fukushima to a
“level 7″ nuclear disaster, and almost everyone is finally acknowledging
that this crisis is as bad or worse than Chernobyl. Many now fear that vast portions of northern Japan may end up beinguninhabitable
after all this is over. The health effects and the economic effects from
this nightmare are going to be felt for the rest of our lives. But even if all of the things above were not happening, the rapidly
rising price of oil could potentially be enough to push the world into a
depression. The entire global economy is predicated on the ability to
consume gigantic amounts of very cheap oil. Nobody has ever been able to
prove that the global economy can continue to function normally if the price of
oil stays above $100 a barrel for an extended period of time. When oil goes up, people start staying home. Certain types of
economic activity become unprofitable. The cost of transporting all goods
increases. The amount of money being transferred out of the U.S. economy
and into the hands of oil barons soars. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States is
now $3.81. It is about a dollar higher than it was at this time last
year. If the price of oil stays where it is right now, the global economy can
probably handle it, at least for a while. However, if it explodes up to
$150 or $200 a barrel it is going to unleash hell on world financial markets. The world is becoming a very unstable place. The U.S. empire is
crumbling and the global financial system is on the verge of a nightmare. Hopefully the rest of 2011 will not be as eventful as the first part
has. We could use some global peace and stability for a while.
Unfortunately, that is probably not going to be the case.' [video]
Trader: S&P Downgrade A Game Changer Easy
Money (2): U.S. Inflation Now at 4% - How Fed Dismisses the Signs Tobey 'In "Easy
Money (1): Fed Touts Flawed/Risky Rationale," we discussed the Federal
Reserve Open Market Committee's (FOMC's) weak rationale for easy money. Today, we'll cover how the FOMC dismisses clear signs of 4% inflation. As FOMC members speak out, trying to deflate growing inflation worries,
they are revealing weaknesses in their analysis. Judging by their comments,
they are using selected data to support their arguments and dismissing other,
better signs of inflation. There are two important problem areas: First, the FOMC's preferred price index adjustment (i.e., excluding food
and energy) is misleading. It is resulting in significantly reduced price
inflation readings in this economy. Second, the official money supply numbers are too low. The FOMC's
policies are creating the problem. Today's write-up addresses the Fed's
choice of an inflation measure. Money supply will be discussed in the following
write-up. CPI vs. PCEPI To measure inflation, the FOMC prefers the Personal Consumption
Expenditures Price Index (PCEPI) to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The PCEPI has a unique construction that makes it less effective than
the CPI in measuring price inflation caused by money supply expansion. The
problem is that it expands the parties involved beyond consumers and it allows
the spending basket to continually change. These moving parts can disguise what
we're looking for: fiat money inflation Even at that, the two indexes are highly correlated, with the PCEPI
being a bit less volatile. (And the FOMC likes less volatility, as will be
discussed next.) http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306461217606-John-Tobey.jpg
In addition, here is the comparison of CPI and PCEPI excluding food and
energy (to be discussed next). http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306467435166-John-Tobey.jpg
Note: For the rest of this write-up, I
will be using CPI data because of the high correlation between CPI and PCEPI,
CPI's better measurement of inflation and the availability of CPI component
data. Excluding food and energy is improper The Fed and others defend taking food and energy out of a price index
because they are so "volatile." Supporting this proposition is
usually a graph like the following, showing 12-month price changes comparing
with and without. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306471039341-John-Tobey.jpg
That graph may look like the only effect is volatility, but it's not.
Food and energy have their own price trends beyond those movements. Importantly, food and energy, as key commodities, are at the heart of
all long-term inflation studies. When inflation shows up, food and energy
prices are among the first to react. They are even better measures today
because these worldwide commodities can be both traded and transported among
countries with relative ease. (Contrast food and energy price moves to other CPI
categories such as housing, medical and education. These other items react
slowly to inflation caused by money supply changes.) Looking at the cumulative price movements, not a simple 12-month moving
one, we can see a significant rise in inflation by including food and energy. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-13030647528933-John-Tobey.jpg
Clearly, there has been more inflation in the U.S. than the Fed's
measure is showing. The 11+ year 2.5% inflation rate is well above the Fed's
"limit" of 2%. Housing, the FOMC's inflation friend, should be excluded Housing costs are slow moving and significantly affected by factors
beyond money supply inflation. These characteristics are visible in the
CPI-housing index. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306479786696-John-Tobey.jpg
Note especially how the housing price index changed its shape in the
past three years, during which housing costs were down or flat. As we know,
this pattern reflects housing's supply/demand conditions – not the effect of
the FOMC's easy money policy. Therefore, including housing in the price index
hides what's actually happening. All countries face the same problem. Therefore, a common CPI adjustment
made outside the U.S. is to report CPI excluding housing. Such an adjusted
index is thought to be a better measure of price inflation. The preferred inflation measure: CPI excluding housing So, let's adopt the international convention and examine CPI without
housing. Although it is not a publicly released CPI number, we can approximate
it. Housing represents about 40% of the CPI basket (much higher if food and
energy are excluded). By presuming a 40% weighting throughout the period (this
isn't precise, but it is an acceptable approximation), we can use the CPI measures
available to calculate: CPI excluding housing = [(CPI * 100%) –
(CPI for housing * 40%)] / 60% Here is the result: http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-13030648510201-John-Tobey.jpg
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306555644225-John-Tobey.jpg
Comparing the price index numbers Now let's compare all those different measures. Here are the different
price index results for the entire period and sub periods. http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/17/524222-130306512628397-John-Tobey.jpg
Note how many readings show inflation above the Fed's "limit"
of 2%. The latest ones are the what's bothering investors - especially as the
FOMC takes comfort in its single, low measure. Final thought: Why only one index? Looking at these different index results raises the question of why the
FOMC publicly uses only one number to defend its easy money policy. Is it
playing the old marketing game of cherry picking the statistic that best
supports its position? Or is it myopic, focusing on its one choice, believing
all other measures to be flawed and, therefore, not requiring presentation or
explanation? Or is it simply trying to keep our confidence up and not adversely
affect "inflation expectations?" Good analysis is fulsome (looking at an issue from all sides), objective
(not being influenced by other considerations) and unique (incorporating
underlying conditions, not simply relying on a number). The FOMC's comments
have not shown good analysis – and that is worrisome. So … price index measures are showing
inflation running well above the FOMC's 2% "limit." These measures
lend support to the rising inflation concerns we read about, along with rising
long-term interest rates (in spite of the FOMC's bond buying program). Only the
FOMC seems relaxed - and that's causing even more concern. Next … reported money supply numbers
are too low.' Top
3 Reasons Markets were as Negative as US Credit Outlook Wall St. Cheat Sheet Markets closed down on Wall
Street: DJI -1.14% SP500 -1.1% Nasdaq -1.06% Gold +0.47% Oil -2.05 . Markets got slammed today when the S&P (NYSE:MHP)
came out of the blue and
downgraded the US Credit Rating outlook to “Negative”. On the commodities
front, Oil (NYSE:USO)
got hit hard and slid $2 although OPEC
said they won’t be increasing supply any time soon. Gold (NYSE:GLD)
and Silver (NYSE:SLV)
resumed their climb to the moon as investors are now fretting whether the US
will receive a full downgrade. Don’t Miss: Wall
St. Cheat Sheet’s newest Feature Trades of the Month>> Today’s markets were down because: 1) Yes, the US really just took a bullet in the armor. Many investors
and analysts have been warning of a downgrade to the US credit rating, but it’s
another phenomenon to actually see one in the wild. (Check Out: The
Shocking S&P Note) Plain and simple: a lot of investors are reducing
risk in case the next credit rating headline pierces the armor. But isn’t the
US “Too Big to Fail”? 2) Earnings continue to come in mixed. Strangely, solid earnings from Citibank
(NYSE:C)
and Halliburton
(NYSE:HAL)
couldn’t drag indexes higher. The biggest
miss of the day goes to drug company Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY)
which fought all day to make up ground on the earnings blunder. Get ready for
the rest of the week as earnings just keep pouring in like Passover and Easter
guests. 3) Everybody hates tax day. Too bad the Federal government didn’t
shutdown. Taxes were due today and 55% of the nation should’ve been sending a
check to Uncle Sam. On such a special day, Wall St. Cheat Sheet’s expert
contributor Ed
Dolan takes a look at whether Tax Reform is Real, or just more political B.S.' Russian
Finance Minister Kudrin Says US Won't Meet Budget Goals '...Russia, thanks
to windfalls from oil revenues from its three state owned oil giants — Gazprom,
Lukoil and Rosneft — coupled with a declining population will help the
government meet its goal of eradicating its deficit by 2015. The government
agreed to cut federal spending three fold by then. Kudrin also noted in his
keynote speech at the Peterson Institute that his government is not treating
the budget issue politically. “We have an economics department that handles
this, and not a political party,” he said, in short.Russia’s federal
budget deficit is expected to end the year around 1.5% of GDP. The US
federal deficit as percentage of GDP is around 7% to 8%.' Rand
Paul: Spending cuts must include Pentagon Washington Times
| Military spending will have to be cut if the country is going to get its debt
problems under control. IRS,
CPA bureaucracy cost tax payers $431 billion a year WSJ |
There is a lot more to taxes than simply paying the bill. S&P
Moves US Outlook To Negative, Gold Hits New Record CNBC |
Standard & Poor’s on Monday downgraded the outlook for the United States to
negative. National / World The
West is to blame for regional unrest, Ahmadinejad says CNN
| Ahmadinejad blamed the West for unrest throughout the Middle East and North
Africa in a speech. Parker:
The GOP plays a crazy Trump card (Washington Post) [ I don't know what polls
Ms. Parker's referring to; but unless she's referring to mobster trump
apprentice news (trump was fired from his own casino company), that certainly
doesn't comport with polls I've read. Moreover, like palin, trump's the joke
that keeps on giving (for SNL, late-night talk hosts, etc.). Indeed, such a move by the GOP would almost
guarantee a 3rd Party shoe-in. After all, trump has as little
credibility as wobama. My other t_rump posts won't fit here, but the latest
from Drudge is noteworthy (note the date, inside parentheses my words)
(4-15-11) Drudgereport: Flashback: Updated 11/11/2008 09:19 PM NY1 Exclusive: Donald Trump Slams "Evil"
Bush, Praises Obama By: Dominic Carter 'If there's one thing certain about
real estate mogul Donald Trump, it's that he (like Charlie Sheen) likes to win
(duh … winning) ... even though he endorsed John McCain for president.
"McCain, really, that was almost an impossible situation," said
Trump. Bush has been so bad, maybe the worst president in the history of this
country. He has been so incompetent, so bad, so evil that I don't think any
Republican could have won
4-28-11
Business / Economic
/ Financial
[ This link to a somewhat more
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http://albertpeia.com/December312010postsarchive.pdf ]Gerald
Celente: ‘Bernanke Devaluing the Dollar’ Should Americans be concerned?
Absolutely, says Gerald Celente, director at the Trends Research Institute.
While Bernanke may have taken to the press, Celente says Ben’s “jive talk”
shouldn’t be trusted as he devalues the dollar and distastes the economy.
4-27-11
Business / Economic
/ Financial
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Business / Economic
/ Financial
[ This link to a somewhat more
cumulative blog posts page will precede current days news since
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YTD
Financials XLF +0.88%
Technology XLK +4.75%
Energy XLE +14.97%
Staples XLP +5.12%
Discretionary XLY +6.51% (XLY is a
client holding)
S&P 500 (SPY) 6.16%
One Year
XLF -4.11
XLK +9.58%
XLE +26.37
XLP +9.92%
XLY +11.72%
S&P 500 +9.68%
Four Years
XLF -56.64%
XLK +8.91%
XLE +24.35%
XLP +11.63
XLY +0.71%
S&P 500 -10.05%
The numbers say a lot about the mess that has been made in the domestic
financial sector. The events in the market from 2007-2009 were obviously about
the financial sector. There were many types of excesses that resulted in a
monumental meltdown in the sector--monumental for the number of large companies
that failed and the large number of stocks that dropped 90% and are nowhere
close to where they traded before the implosion.
The nature of this sort of event is such that it will be years before domestic
financials, collectively, are attractive on a fundamental basis and so I think
it is likely that they will continue to struggle as stocks. This has been the
case with technology from that market event. For ten years the S&P 500 (SPY)
is up 7.41% while XLK is down 12.02% [Microsoft (MSFT)
is down 25% for ten years and INTC is down 32% for ten years]. It looks to me
like outperformance of tech over the SPX may have started at the 2009 bottom,
which is a long time for the ground zero sector to lag. While an exact
duplicate in financials is unlikely, if you then consider the fundamental
outlook, I think we are a long way from health.
The above brings in two different things to consider; one being how markets
tend to work, which is more of a top down factor. The other is what I believe
to be a lack of fundamental health, which is of course a bottom up factor. It
seems to me that no matter, the financial sector has been a favorite of many
professional market participants. Given my perceptions of the sector I think it
makes sense to underweight the risk in whatever financial sector exposure you
have (I believe in having exposure to all sectors as zero weight is a big bet).
For us this means mostly owning foreign banks as I have discussed many times
before.
Think of it this way, in speculating on parts of the financial sector where the
fundamentals are not yet healthy, how much do you hope to make? Let's say you
think you can double your money. I would say it makes more sense to go to a
sector that is healthy on all fronts to pick a stock where you think you could
double your money. I realize other people view it differently and clearly there
were some great trades off the bottom in the financial sector - but speculating
on something with weak fundamentals is not a risk I am willing to take.’
4-25-11
Business / Economic
/ Financial
[ This link to a somewhat more
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http://albertpeia.com/December312010postsarchive.pdf ]Index
Fund Rip-Off? Bartalos ‘Would you pay $5 for something that costs $1? Not
if you could help it. However, that’s precisely what many investors are doing.
Hong Kong
assets have ‘peaked’: analyst
Economic
Recovery Evades Fed and Congress Efforts Economic recovery does not seem to
be taking effect in spite of more massive expenditures by Congress and the Fed.
The IMF says financial stability has improved, but then again their vision is
almost always clouded.
Will
Adverse Regulatory Changes Cause Further Deterioration In Shadow Banking And
Force The Fed’s QE Hand Again? Confused by the recent dramatic moves in
General Collateral repo rates? Carry trade killing FDIC assessments got you
down (and copycatting other blogs)? Still anguished by relentless end of
quarter window dressing even as primary dealers reduce leverage to post crisis
lows?
Four
Scary Words: “Silver Delivery Not Possible” The SHTFPlan’s Mac Slavo brings
us the story of one Bill Cramer who decided to cash in on his silver profits
after a nearly decade holding period (under the assumption he was receiving
warehousing services considering he was paying storage fees), confident that he
could simply receive the metal he held with a broker, until he heard the
following 5 very disturbing words: “Sorry, delivery is not possible.”
Financial
Heist of the Century: Confiscating Libya’s Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) The
objective of the war against Libya is not just its oil reserves (now estimated
at 60 billion barrels), which are the greatest in Africa and whose extraction
costs are among the lowest in the world, nor the natural gas reserves of which
are estimated at about 1,500 billion cubic meters.
China
Proposes To Cut Two Thirds Of Its $3 Trillion In USD Holdings
Something
Odd Is Happening at Reactor Number 4 The operator of the troubled Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant is carefully monitoring the situation at the Number
4 spent fuel pool, where the water temperature is rising despite increased
injections of cooling water.
Helen
Caldicott Talks About the Horror of Fukushima Australian physician, author,
and anti-nuclear advocate Helen Caldicott talks about the Fukushima nuclear
catastrophe and what we can expect. It ain’t pretty.
Busby:
‘Can’t seal Fukushima like Chernobyl – it all goes into sea’ As world marks
the Chernobyl anniversary, many say that the world has failed to learn the
lessons on nuclear safety that the tragedy provided. RT talks to Professor
Christopher Busby, Scientific secretary of the European Committee on radiation
risks, for a little more insight on 21st century’s most serious nuclear crisis
at Fukushima.
Assassinate
Qaddafi? Tyrants Beware – What Goes Around Might Come Around Lindsey Graham
and John McCain, both of the meddling International Republican Institute
implicated in funding and fueling the “Arab Spring” to begin with, have called
for the assassination of Libya’s Qaddafi and members of his inner circle. The
London Telegraph also reported that Foreign Secretary William Hague refused to
rule out using US drones to assassinate Qaddafi.
Wikileaks
Gitmo Files: Corporate Media Reports Information We Brought To You Five Years
Ago With much fanfare the mainstream media is today reporting on the
Wikileaks guantanamo revelations, which highlight the fact that the US
government knew there were no high ranking terrorists being held at Guantanamo
Bay.
Ron
Paul To Announce 2012 Presidential Run Within Days Texas Congressman Ron
Paul could be set to officially announce whether or not he is running for the
Republican 2012 nomination this week with a series of back to back high profile
media appearances.
IMF
bombshell: Age of America nears end For the first time, the international
organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end
and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China. And it’s a lot closer
than you may think.
Your
Cellphone Has Been Tracking You For Nearly a Decade The controversy
generated as a result of computer researchers discovering a hidden file that
allows Apple to track the location of iPhone and iPad users has been treated as
a shocking revelation by the media, and yet since October 2001, the FCC has
mandated that all wireless carriers track the location of their users down to
within 50 feet.
Ron Paul on The View: Whoopi Goldberg Frustrated When
Audience Cheers Ron Paul Infowars.com | Whoopi
appears to be incapable of understanding that big government destroys liberty
and eventually impoverishes everybody.
The
Decline of the Dollar Infowars | Weakness in the US
dollar is unlikely to go away soon as selling frenzy hits.
Ron Paul To Announce 2012 Presidential Run Within Days Steve
Watson | Congressman will meet criteria to participate in May 5th S.C.
debate.
IMF: Age of America nears end MarketWatch
| China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just
five years from now.
Sen. Graham: Murder Gaddafi’s Inner Circle Infowars.com
| Graham said that “it’s going to be hard” for the U.S. to achieve its national
security interests if Gaddafi remains.
TSA: An Army of Pervs and Criminals Kurt
Nimmo | Organs of police state control and intimidation invariably
hire perverts and criminals.
Corporate Media Refuses to Report Truth About NATO
Contras in Libya Infowars.com | Like the attack on
Iraq, the attack on Libya is based on a series of lies and fabrications.
Will governments confiscate gold? Alasdair
Macleod | The situation today is very different from that of 78 years
ago when Roosevelt confiscated gold.
Short Life Expectancy for BP Whistleblowers? Pat
Shannan | Mysterious deaths have befallen at least 9 whistleblowers
reportedly connected to the gulf oil spill.
‘No
sign Gaddafi bombed Tripoli – NATO wages war on false claims’ Sukant
Chandan, who has just returned from a monitoring mission in Libya, believes
there’s no justification for NATO’s actions.
US
carries out first drone strike in Libya: Pentagon The United States carried
out its first drone strike in Libya on Saturday, the Pentagon said, two days
after approving the use of pilotless aircraft to aid rebels fighting Moamer
Kadhafi’s forces.
TEPCO
finds radioactive concrete emitting 900,000 microsieverts per hour of nuclear
radiation The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
says that concrete debris emitting a high level of radiation has been found
near the Number 3 reactor.
Japan:
Fukushima 50 criticise ‘inconsistent’ information The Fukushima 50,
emergency nuclear plant workers in Japan, have accused the government of
inconsistent handling of data in relation to radiation exposure.
TSA
officer charged in distributing child pornography A passenger screener at
Philadelphia International Airport is facing charges that he distributed more
than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook, records show.
Heroes
Villainized: FBI to investigate 9/11 first responders for terrorism A
provision in a new draft of the 9/11 healthcare bill will force the FBI to
investigate tens of thousands of cops, firefighters, construction workers and
others for ties to terrorism by comparing names to those on the Terrorism Watch
List.
Helen
Caldicott Talks About the Horror of Fukushima Australian physician, author,
and anti-nuclear advocate Helen Caldicott talks about the Fukushima nuclear
catastrophe and what we can expect. It ain’t pretty.
Fukushima
Evacuation area officially expanded The Japanese government has announced
the official expansion of the evacuation zone around the troubled Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear power plant to selected areas beyond the existing 20-kilometer
radius. Residents of the new areas are being asked to evacuate by the end of
May.
Short Life Expectancy for BP Whistleblowers? Pat
Shannan | Mysterious deaths have befallen at least 9 whistleblowers
reportedly connected to the gulf oil spill.
Using police to enforce a Big Pharma medication agenda
violates civil rights Mike Adams | I do not
remember any cops swearing an oath to protect and serve the interests of the
pharmaceutical corporations.
Jobs Bill? The Government Passed a Jobs Bill Years Ago …
Just Not for US Washington’s Blog | So stop
whining, we’ve already got a jobs bill … it’s just not for you and me.
Video
Reporting Possible CIA/Saudi Snipers in Syria No sooner was “Color
Revolution’s Mystery Gunmen” posted, when a reader sent in a news clip from
Iran’s Al-Alam News Network reportedly indicating Saudi/CIA snipers are in
Syria taking out protesters. Al-Alam broadcasts throughout the region, in
Arabic.
Normalizing
Evil: The NY Times’ Curious Take on the Gitmo Files
Britain,
the Traitor Nation: Media Disinformation and Crimes against Humanity in Libya
Killer Combo of High Gas, Food Prices at 'Key Tipping
Point'...
AAA Sees 18% Increase In
Roadside Calls For Drivers Out Of Gas...
$5.69 GALLON IN ORLANDO --
FOR REGULAR...
Dollar's Decline Speeds Up...
China planning to cut U.S.
reserves by two-thirds?
Gold and silver continue to
surge...
Reid's China junket sked kept
secret over 'security concerns'...
WASHPOST: If the
trip's so dangerous, why are senators spouses tagging along?
TRUMP: Obama Not Worthy of Ivy Leagues...
[ Talk about the pot calling the kettle black … trump’s b.s., low grade (penn)
ivy league (courtesy of papa mobster trump who ‘twisted his arm to go’ so
people would take him ‘seriously’ – papa mobster trump would pound the
undistinguished academically / athletically, Donald with the mantra, ‘you’re a
killer, you’re a king’ in film noir melodramatic fashion which proved too much
for the more balanced and ‘chosen / favored’ elder brother trump who committed suicide.
The old man also required trump to go to prep / military / boarding school
where according to a classmate, Ted Levine, trump used to wet / pee in his
bed. ) vegetable garden in the same
manner as dumbya bush … mobster trump and people like trump are part of the
problem (total b*** s***, fraud, etc., as in his home turf, mob-infested
sinkholes, jersey / new york), not the solution. Indeed, trump is an
interesting mental case in that he evolved from narcissist (those inflated
grandiose moods coupled with feelings of inferiority – he loved to obsessively
read those hitler speeches for inspiration and to pump himself up according to
Ivana Trump) to severe case of antisocial personality disorder [ predatory
disregard for and violation of the rights of others – hence, those sophomoric
soundbite solutions to complex problems as, ie., taking oil fields(Libya), 25%
tariff on Chinese (actually including american goods made in China), drug money
laundering in his casinos, bribery, etc.
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm
]
'Terrible student,' not good enough for Harvard... Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie.,
bribery, money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss …
trump is total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade,
quite insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
SHOCK VIDEO: ANOTHER MCDONALDS BEATDOWN
Dad who broke up fight in
MCDONALD'S shot dead... A DAD-of-four who split up a fight in a McDonald’s
was shot dead moments after being told he wouldn’t see the morning.
Pakistan:
U.S. missile strike near border kills 25 (Washington Post) ‘ ISLAMABAD — U.S. drones fired a volley of
missiles into a militant-held Pakistani region close to the Afghan border on
Friday, killing 25 people, Pakistani intelligence officials said. The strike
came a day after Pakistan’s army chief denounced such attacks, and could
further sour deteriorating relations between Washington and Islamabad. …Three
children and two women were believed to be among the dead, they said…’ [
Winning hearts and minds … yup … that’s what pervasively corrupt, war
mongering, defacto bankrupt, war crimes nation is doing, alright …
riiiiight! Pakistan
Tells U.S. to Halt Drones Pakistan has privately demanded the Central
Intelligence Agency suspend drone strikes against militants on its territory,
officials said. U.S.
role in Libyan conflict widens
(Washington Post) Buoyed by Obama’s deployment of armed drones and a
visit by Sen. John McCain, rebels expressed hope that increased support will
help turn the tide in the conflict. [ As if we didn’t see that coming! With
Iraq saying thanks, but no thanks to continued american ‘help’, despite defacto
bankruptcy of the nation, america’s looking for new war horizons. Now that
‘sounds like a plan’! ]
Obama
misleads on oil (Washington
Post) [ Oil? If oil was the only thing
‘wobama the b’ (for b*** s***) misleads on, the future would look at least a
wee bit better than horrifically dismal. Obama
likes Facebook (Washington Post) And Facebook likes Obama. [ I believe Mr. Milbank has found a fit … a
group that like him, is totally full of sh**! Now I can see people shunning the
republicans … but for a 3rd party candidate which is more real a possibility
than most can imagine. But ‘wobama the b’ (for b*** s***)? How totally
embarrassing for facebook across the board.. Barack Obama: The
Naked Emperor Shocking but true revelations from David Icke (a must read) | ‘…He has been covertly funded and supported
ever since by the Trilateral Commission and its network of foundations
connecting into the Ford Foundation, for whom Obama's mother worked... Does
anyone really believe that someone, a 'man of the people', would simply appear
from apparently nowhere to run the slickest and best-funded presidential
campaign in American history? He was chosen long ago by those who wish to
enslave the very people that Obama says he wants to 'set free'. The sources of
Obama funding read like a Wall Street Who's Who - Goldman Sachs, UBS,
Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and
so on. No wonder he went back on his pledge to accept the limitations of public
funding .. It was they who kept his many skeletons under wraps, like the gay
sex and crack cocaine allegations of Larry Sinclair (from affidavit: 1. Who is
Ron Allen that claims to be with your Presidential camp, who is alleged to
claim that someone claiming to represent me called asking for $100,000, to keep
me from coming forward about our (Obama and I) November 1999 encounter of sex
and cocaine use?), and they will continue to do so as long as he jumps to their
bidding. Obama is just another Banksters' moll prostituting himself for fame
and power, and that's why he supported the grotesque bail-out of the banking
system and why he will always put their interests before the people. .. The
very people who caused the financial crisis are being appointed by Obama to
decide how to respond to it (more taxpayers' money for them and their friends) CIVIL RIGHTS PANEL TO PURSUE
FED PROBE IN BLACK PANTHER CASE... ‘In
emotional and personal testimony, an ex-Justice official who quit over the
handling of a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party
accused his former employer of instructing attorneys in the civil rights
division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims
...’ Cases
against Wall Street lag despite Holder’s vows to target financial fraud Obama has promised to hold Wall Street
accountable for the meltdown. ):
Milbank:
Andrew Breitbart and rifts on the right (Washington Post) [ Ah, yes! Disarray on on the right … Mr.
Milbank’s wet dream … Come on! … What does that matter? Moreover, what isn’t in
disarray in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america. Then there’s the
pervasive incompetence, left and right.
Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I
think bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits
it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire
global GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this
(and you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about
how we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix"
this (while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for
the top 1% each year). There is no fixing this and even a Republican said you
can’t fool all of the people all of the time. THIS HOUSE OF CARDS IS TEETERING
FOLKS – PLEASE BE CAREFUL OUT THERE! ‘ . ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and
2007!
Even
Ben Stein Is Warning That An Economic Collapse Is Coming He sure has come a
long way since “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. During a recent television segment
for CBS, Ben Stein declared that “the tea leaves are ominous” and he warned
that an economic collapse may be coming.
Americans hold dim view of U.S. economic
outlook: poll Reuters -
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are more pessimistic about the US economic
outlook than they have been since the start of the Obama administration and
most believe the United States is on the wrong track, according to a New York
Times/CBS News poll ... Nation's
Mood at Lowest Level in Two Years, Poll Shows New York
Times Poll: 45% of Republicans don't think Obama was born in the USA
Los Angeles Times
DHS Launches New Alert System Designed to Terrorize
Public Kurt Nimmo & Alex Jones | The
government wants the war against manufactured terror in your face 24-7.
NYC
budget cuts include closing of 20 fire stations, while millions of dollars in
toxic fluoride keep flowing in the water supply Following years of cuts to
its police force, New York City is now choosing to cut the ranks of its fire
department as well.
4-21-11
Business / Economic
/ Financial
[ This link to a somewhat more
cumulative blog posts page will precede current days news since
most all topics remain current in terms of impact and longer-term effect and
can be searched by topical index term more easily. The same is provided since
the blog site http://alpeiablog.blogspot.com has just been censored as to size by google
which is typical for google as nsa / cia / gov’t shill as more are becoming
aware of. The same is true for microsoft, another co. that’s seen their best
days and relies on the government to maintain their monopoly. Up to now the
better page http://www.scribd.com/alpeia is provided for ease of formatting and
clarity thereby while the Washington Post page is the real deal but without
formatting http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/community/mypost/index.html?plckPersonaPage=PersonaComments&plckUserId=alpeia&newspaperUserId=alpeia (Only up to 3-11-11 - you must be logged in
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Post) [ Comments COMMENTS ARE CLOSED WHILE WE UPGRADE OUR
SYSTEMS ] the comments are no longer
archived on their site
) . The following is the cumulative archive of blog posts / topics for 2010 as the new year
starts anew (and prospectively archived by quarter): http://albertpeia.com/December312010postsarchive.htm or PDF formatted version
http://albertpeia.com/December312010postsarchive.pdf ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the late
1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble … A
similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and
2007!4-20-11
Business / Economic
/ Financial
[ This link to a somewhat more
cumulative blog posts page will precede current days news since
most all topics remain current in terms of impact and longer-term effect and
can be searched by topical index term more easily. The same is provided since
the blog site http://alpeiablog.blogspot.com has just been censored as to size by google
which is typical for google as nsa / cia / gov’t shill as more are becoming
aware of. The same is true for microsoft, another co. that’s seen their best
days and relies on the government to maintain their monopoly. Up to now the
better page http://www.scribd.com/alpeia is provided for ease of formatting and
clarity thereby while the Washington Post page is the real deal but without
formatting http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/community/mypost/index.html?plckPersonaPage=PersonaComments&plckUserId=alpeia&newspaperUserId=alpeia (Only up to 3-11-11 - you must be logged in
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Post) [ Comments COMMENTS ARE CLOSED WHILE WE UPGRADE OUR
SYSTEMS ] the comments are no longer
archived on their site
) . The following is the cumulative archive of blog posts / topics for 2010 as the new year
starts anew (and prospectively archived by quarter): http://albertpeia.com/December312010postsarchive.htm or PDF formatted version
http://albertpeia.com/December312010postsarchive.pdf ]
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. . According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and
2007!4-19-11
Business / Economic
/ Financial
[ This link to a somewhat more
cumulative blog posts page will precede current days news since
most all topics remain current in terms of impact and longer-term effect and
can be searched by topical index term more easily. The same is provided since
the blog site http://alpeiablog.blogspot.com has just been censored as to size by google
which is typical for google as nsa / cia / gov’t shill as more are becoming
aware of. The same is true for microsoft, another co. that’s seen their best
days and relies on the government to maintain their monopoly. Up to now the
better page http://www.scribd.com/alpeia is provided for ease of formatting and
clarity thereby while the Washington Post page is the real deal but without
formatting http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/community/mypost/index.html?plckPersonaPage=PersonaComments&plckUserId=alpeia&newspaperUserId=alpeia (Only up to 3-11-11 - you must be logged in
- (Washington
Post) [ Comments COMMENTS ARE CLOSED WHILE WE UPGRADE OUR
SYSTEMS ] the comments are no longer
archived on their site
) . The following is the cumulative archive of blog posts / topics for 2010 as the new year
starts anew (and prospectively archived by quarter): http://albertpeia.com/December312010postsarchive.htm or PDF formatted version
http://albertpeia.com/December312010postsarchive.pdf ]
America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. . According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and 2007!Lawyer
charged with insider trading (Washington Post) [ Come on! Just enough for a few
headlines so people think they're actually doing something. They could (but
don't) bring a case as this or other wall street crime against a different wall
street liar (sic lawyer) / fraud in that corrupt sinkhole new york (metro, ie.,
jersey, conn., etc.) every single day and bearly touch the tip of the iceberg.
Is anybody foolish enough to think what goes on there is legitimate? Remember,
still no pros for the huge debacle / fraud precipitatin the last and continuing
economic / financial crisis. Chemist
charged with insider trading (WP) [ This remains incredulous to me. Everyone
but the big boys / frauds! The frauds on wall
street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined, and disgorgement
imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If
you can keep interest rates this low this long, its inevitable cheap financing
can allow companies to start cobbling each other up. Further Ben's policies
allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy back shares with the
proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is
occurring almost daily and Primary Dealers can buy back their shares and pay
dividends with what essentially is taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! This is the grim economic reality
[ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm
. Looking
Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Davis ‘… This is how we pay off our current debts and I think
bondholders are simply happy to get anything out of a country that admits it
owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global
GDP) in the form of unfunded liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and
you have to laugh) is to see Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how
we need to cut $100Bn worth of discretionary spending to "fix" this
(while continuing to spend $1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the
top 1% each year). SEC:
Wachovia cheated investors (WP) [ I truly can see decreasing the apple
weighting, and increasing the oracle (open office, etc.), google (ubiquitous)
weighting, but increasing dyingosaur microsoft weighting … I don't think so …
something's gone awry here that smacks of desperation and an attempt to circumvent
the visual effects on the nasdaq of a post-jobs apple, viz., over-priced apple
sauce. Isn't that just like the frauds on wall street … to pad the nasdaq
bubble based on a 1-stock story, and manipulate when that 1-stock story falls
to earth! April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't
be mentally ill, sell in April!'
Adler ]
Marc
Faber: The Dollar’s Value In The Future Will Be Zero Dr. Marc Faber spoke
with CNBC this morning about currency markets, notably the recent movements in
the euro, global long-term position in the dollar, and the rise of gold and
silver.
Economic
Woes Created By Elitists Behind The Scenes Europe continues to struggle
from one problem to another. The euro has been strong only because the dollar
has been weak. The governments of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain continue
their balancing acts on the edge of a financial precipice.
Is
There a Financial Scam Behind the Rise in Oil and Food Prices? The global
economy and its recovery, and the living standards of millions of plain folks,
are now at risk from the sudden rise in oil and commodity prices.
UK Sends In Troops As Ground Invasion Of Libya
Accelerates Paul Joseph
Watson | Pretext for deeper intervention required as globalist
Al-Qaeda-backed rebels being soundly trounced by Gaddafi forces.
Alex Jones On EU Ground Invasion Of Libya Infowars.com | Alex Jones addresses the
cynical, pre-planned announcement by the EU to officially launch ground forces
in Libya.
Mother “Considering All Options” After TSA Groped Six
Year-Old-Daughter Steve
Watson | Parents say they have not ruled out legal challenge to
“dangerous” TSA policies.
Obama Takes to the Road as Economy Begins Final Descent Kurt Nimmo | Obama to sell cutting granny’s
Medicare while remaining silent on cutting the financing of the endless wars of
the global elite.
Budget Cuts are Meaningless Without Fed Transparency Ron Paul | Recently the Fed was forced to
reveal some details of loans given out during the financial crisis of 2008 and
they are truly shocking.
Gold
Tops $1,500 on Outlook for Escalating U.S. Debt, Dollar Gold futures rose
to a record $1,500.50 an ounce as U.S. debt concerns weighed on the dollar,
boosting demand for the precious metal as an alternative investment.
UK
Sends In Troops As Ground Invasion Of Libya Accelerates Unleashing yet
another deft salvo of Orwellian doublespeak, the British government announced
today that it would be sending in military forces to “help” Libyan rebels while
still insisting that it is not sending in military forces, as the EU gears up
to dispatch a further 1,000 troops, also under the dubious pretense of
preventing humanitarian suffering.
G.
Edward Griffin: The Collectivist Conspiracy In this exclusive 80 minute
video interview for Prison Planet.tv subscribers, legendary conspiracy author
G. Edward Griffin explains how his research, which spans no less than 5
decades, has revealed a banking elite obsessed with enforcing a world
government under a collectivist model that will crush individualism and
eventually institute martial law as a response to the inevitable backlash that
will be generated as a result of a fundamental re-shaping of society.
Libya
vows to fight any foreign troops on its soil, rebuffs E.U. proposal The
Libyan government on Tuesday firmly rebuffed a proposal from the European
Union, saying it would fight any foreign troops that landed on its soil, even
if they were supposedly there to escort humanitarian aid convoys.
UN-believable:
Who sanctioned Gaddafi out? Russia’s Foreign Minister has joined the
criticism of NATO’s strategy in Libya. The alliance wants Colonel Gaddafi out,
and is supporting the rebels with aid and air strikes. But Sergei Lavrov says
toppling Gaddafi is not sanctioned by the United Nations.
Pretext
For War On Libya Proven Fraudulent By Casualty Figures As the EU prepares
to invade Libya with ground troops under the contrived pretext of “humanitarian
aid,” Texas University Professor Alan J. Kuperman highlights the fact that the
entire justification behind the NATO-backed aggression has been proven fraudulent
by casualty figures that clearly indicate Gaddafi has not deliberately targeted
civilians.
War for Oil? Why,
Yes, It Was Back in the heady, heated days before the invasion of Iraq, one
of the quickest ways to be relegated to the margins of the debate was to claim
that the financial interests of politically connected oil companies played any
role in the considerations of the great statesmen of the West as they
confronted the global menace of Saddam Hussein.
Send to a friendSarah Palin: Don't pick on Donald Trump
Politico - Even though Donald Trump has wholeheartedly embraced
the wall-to-wall media coverage that's come with his promotion of the widely
discredited “birther” issue, Sarah Palin argued Tuesday that the press is
treating him ... Trump's business success claims questioned CBS News ‘…Trump hotels and casinos in Atlantic City have
filed for bankruptcy protection three times. While Trump blamed market forces,
he has long been chairman of the board for the casino businesses.In his
defense, Trump said he "didn't run the company." Isikoff then asked
why he was paid $2 million per year to chair the board of that business. Trump
replied: "Excuse me. Because I'm a genius, okay."Trump said many
different businesses license the use of his name, but he's not directly
involved in their operations.Casinos have not been the only weakness in the
Trump empire. There have been many high profile bankruptcy filings, bad real
estate deals, and a trail of ongoing lawsuits accusing him of bad business
practices.Another questionable move was "Trump University," an
online, for-profit business education firm. The attorney general in Texas
ordered him to stop using the word "university" in its title. Trump
said his company was unaware of restrictions on the use of that word.Isikoff
also said he asked Trump if he thought the state of Hawaii was lying in regards
to Obama being born there, and he did not answer the question. In summation of
his experiences that qualify him to be President of the United States, Trump
told Isikoff: "My successes...have been vast. I don't even view myself as
having failures, and I certainly learned from things that don't work out as
well." ‘ As Trump rants, TV ratings slide Tampabay.com
GOLD: $1,500 FOR 1ST TIME...
China warns US to protect creditors...
US hurries to sell GM
stake...
More than $11B loss for
taxpayers...
Brits join ground fight in
Libya...
Military advisers to aid
rebels...
Iran Considering Crackdown on
Dog Ownership...[ I once had the unfortunate occasion to have witnessed
an adult, pedigree german shepard take a dump on the floor and lap it up like
it was the greatest, most delicious treat in all the world … how totally
disgusting … a cat would never, never do that! ]Forecast
for Fed: No change (Washington Post) [ Well,
what did you expect … after all, insanity has been described by some as doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result … and we
all know that nothing succeeds like failure in america (and frauds, the
fraudulent wall street crimes / bailouts, etc.) … and the 'no-recession' fed's
been great ... for fraudulent wall street … The
End Of An Empire And The Beginning Of A Depression
.. US has been
the leading military.. and ..economic power on the entire globe. Those days are
done!
Now .. a 3rd war in the MidEast...' ]
S&P
lowers its outlook on U.S. debt (Washington Post) [ My sentiments as artfully written by
Dave: Reality
Bites: Dave's Daily 'First, why do we depend on these
fee-conflicted rating agencies who have dropped the ball repeatedly? Answer: because there are no other non-fee conflicted
rating (ratting?) agencies that have also made serious mistakes. Is there
something from S&P today regarding U.S. debt we didn't already know?
Hardly, so no Black Swan here. We've just been on an "extend and
pretend" path to see how much money we can make before "the you know
what" hits the fan. And, for all we know denial will continue and we could
close this week higher as we shrug this off as something "down the
road". As we enter a short week, and with markets already weak from the
get-go, the S&P outlook for U.S. debt as "negative" blind-sided investors.
Markets sold-off sharply but then recovered much of the damage late which
should surprise given the pervasive dip buying mentality. Bonds initially
sold-off then rallied (the down the road mentality) while commodities were
mixed with energy falling despite a cut in crude oil output by the Saudis while
precious metals and grains higher. The dollar rallied off its critical support
as investor's repatriated money, not necessarily to safe parking, but maybe to
cover some margin calls. Some believe, and I have no credible information on
this other than chatter, the Fed is selling puts on U.S. debt to pin interest
rates lower. That's an interesting strategy and could consume an entire posting
and then some. Earnings were posted for Citigroup(C_)
and given all the adjustments, accounting games and what not, reported lower
than expected revenues but beat earnings expectations by penny. The stock was
flat and the reverse split will be coming shortly along with the symbolic penny
dividend. The market remains extraordinarily manipulated. Note the headline
DJIA ("the window dressing for the tourists") reclaimed the 50-day
moving average. Volume was much higher on the sell-off as stops routinely get
hit on these event-type days. As you would expect, breadth per the WSJ, was
clearly as negative as you would expect. '
]Agency warns status as world’s most secure economy could be lost
if lawmakers don’t rein in debt.
Economy
is battering Obama in the polls (Washington
Post) [ As indeed should be the case; yet, I'm constrained to say that I doubt
that polls by Zogby, Rasmussen, Gallup would be as kindly / generous to 'wobama
the b' (b*** s***) as the WP / ABC poll based on what he has done though
promising not to do, and what he has not done though promising to do. Quite
simply, you can't trust a word he says. In light of that reality, including the
dire circumstances, in terms of pervasive corruption, defacto bankruptcy of the
nation, financial, economic, political, geopolitical concerns, missteps,
realities, a 'roll of the dice' with a new president is without risk; and
hence, rational. ]
Pelosi,
far from the helm (Washington Post) [ Oh come on! Mr. Milbank's once again starting
to sound like a political school-child; and, embarrassing himself quite
profusely as he does so. Indeed, making excuses for wobama is intellectually
and journalistically dishonest. After all, wobama came in riding the wave of
discontent with the easiest act in history to follow; viz., the undeniably
failed presidency of war criminal / moron dumbya bush. Make no mistake, he ran
on exactly that. Yet he's done the same (as bush), even as he similarly (as did
bush) have the short-lived (for good reason) benefit of 'control' of both
houses of congress. He had a mandate to do what he promised to do and didn't.
Unbridled war spending continued in that new debacle called Afghanistan, no
pros of the frauds on wall street, and on top of that, some excess spending of
his own. Pelosi was, is a joke as they've all become, with 'wobama the b' (for
b***s***) the biggest joke. He's really
no more than a stereotype without any credibility whatsoever. He is pathetic;
which, derivatively makes Mr. Milbank pathetic in making excuses for this
morass of absolutely nothing, who stands for absolutely nothing, that nothing
being 'wobama the b' (for b***s***) .
No excuses … all wobama! Obama
seeks spending cuts, taxes on wealthy (WP) [ Too little, too late for 'wobama the b' (for b*** s***) ! After all,
though contraindicated, he previously extended the war criminal, moron bush tax
cuts to what is now realistically perceived as 'their base' (that top 1
percent). Wobama has no credibility whatsoever, wars and all. He's just plain
done! Liberals
worry Obama has given up ground (WP) [
Worried? Given up ground? Are they kidding? Is this some parallel
universe they're operating in? Come on! Wake up! Wobama's done! Finito! He's
been and is an abject failure as president; both by what he's done as not
promised and not done as promised, viz., perpetual wars and overspending, etc.,
and no prosecutions of the frauds on wall street, etc., respectively. He is
incompetent, a total failure, and an embarrassment to the presidency as was his
predecessor. Drudgereport: RASMUSSEN:
President hits new low
Gannett's
newspaper ad woes drag down 1Q earnings (AP) [ My experience with them
is such that they should be out of business! ]
The
End Of An Empire And The Beginning Of A Depression
Since the end ofWorld War 2, the United States
has been the leading military power and the leading economic power on the
entire globe. Those days are done!Shock
employment figures: Fewer than 46% of Americans have jobs The percentage of Americans who have jobs has fallen to
the lowest point in three decades and now hovers just above 45 percent of the
total population, according to an analysis of labor data published by USA
Today.
(Click to enlarge)
(Click to enlarge)
(Click to enlarge)
(Click to enlarge)
(Click to enlarge)
(Click to enlarge)
(Click to enlarge)
(Click to enlarge)
World
Bank president: ‘One shock away from crisis’ The president of the World
Bank has warned that the world is “one shock away from a full-blown crisis”.
Bank
Of America Analyst Advocates The “Unthinkable” — An Intentional Default On US
Debt We continue to be astounded by the emergence of the pro-default meme
within financial circles.
Fukushima
Radiation Nightmare May Last Indefinitely Kurt Nimmo | TEPCO says the Fukushima facility should be in
“cold shutdown” within nine months, a claim even the corporate media finds
dubious.
Breaking:
EU Preparing to Launch Ground Invasion in Libya Paul Joseph Watson | UN to rubber stamp occupying
force in bid to goad Gaddafi into attacking western troops. EU
Prepares To Invade Libya With Ground Troops Under “Humanitarian” Hoax The
United Nations is set to rubber stamp an EU invasion force of ground troops
that would be sent into Libya under the cooked up pretense of “humanitarian
aid” and empowered to fight if Gaddafi forces threatened to impede their
mission to “secure sea and land corridors inside the country,” another blatant
attempt to legitimize the aggressive war by goading Gaddafi into attacking
western troops and justifying a wider military intervention.
Congressman
Calls for Bank Financed Drug Cartels to be Designated as Terrorists Kurt Nimmo | Banks will continue to be issued a free ticket to
peddle poison.
Lou
Dobbs Puts Geithner on the Hot Seat for Financial Terrorism Steve Watson | Treasury Secretary suggested armageddon is around
the corner if administration’s policies are not implemented.
Cables
Reveal State Department, CIA NGOs Fomented Syrian Unrest Kurt Nimmo | Syria regime marked for removal following the
September 11 false flag attacks.
Afghan
soldier kills 5 NATO troops and 4 Afghan comrades Washington Post
| The bombing took place at the headquarters of the Afghan army’s 201st Corps.
Pelosi,
far from the helm (Washington Post) [ Oh come on! Mr. Milbank's once again starting
to sound like a political school-child; and, embarrassing himself quite
profusely as he does so. Indeed, making excuses for wobama is intellectually
and journalistically dishonest. After all, wobama came in riding the wave of
discontent with the easiest act in history to follow; viz., the undeniably
failed presidency of war criminal / moron dumbya bush. Make no mistake, he ran
on exactly that. Yet he's done the same (as bush), even as he similarly (as did
bush) have the short-lived (for good reason) benefit of 'control' of both
houses of congress. He had a mandate to do what he promised to do and didn't.
Unbridled war spending continued in that new debacle called Afghanistan, no
pros of the frauds on wall street, and on top of that, some excess spending of
his own. Pelosi was, is a joke as they've all become, with 'wobama the b' (for
b***s***) the biggest joke. He's really no more than a stereotype without any
credibility whatsoever. He is pathetic; which, derivatively makes Mr. Milbank
pathetic in making excuses for this morass of absolutely nothing, who stands
for absolutely nothing, that nothing being 'wobama the b' (for b***s***) . No excuses … all wobama! Obama
seeks spending cuts, taxes on wealthy (WP) [ Too little, too late for 'wobama the b' (for b*** s***) ! After all,
though contraindicated, he previously extended the war criminal, moron bush tax
cuts to what is now realistically perceived as 'their base' (that top 1
percent). Wobama has no credibility whatsoever, wars and all. He's just plain
done! Liberals
worry Obama has given up ground (WP) [
Worried? Given up ground? Are they kidding? Is this some parallel
universe they're operating in? Come on! Wake up! Wobama's done! Finito! He's
been and is an abject failure as president; both by what he's done as not
promised and not done as promised, viz., perpetual wars and overspending, etc.,
and no prosecutions of the frauds on wall street, etc., respectively. He is a
total failure and an embarrassment to the presidency as was his predecessor.
He's totally incompetent with an innate predilection to 'zig when he should
zag' … 'wobama the b' (for b*** s***) is pathetic! Quite simply, for wobama,
it's too late! … Drudgereport: RASMUSSEN:
President hits new low Taxpayers
foot $850M bill for Wall St.’s pension fees NY Post | New York
City taxpayers are helping to pay $850 million in Wall Street investment fees. ] Without a liberal rudder, Obama drifts to
the center.
During an exclusive interview with NY1 in his Midtown office on Fifth
Avenue, Trump slammed President George Bush's foreign policies.
"You know, you can be enemies with people, whether it's Iran, Iraq,
or anyplace else and you can still have dialogue. These people wouldn't even
talk with him. It's terrible," said Trump.
While he had harsh words for the outgoing president, he had a much
different opinion of President-elect Barack Obama.
"I think he has a chance to go down as a great president. Now, if
he's not a great president, this country is in serious trouble," said
Trump.
"I think [Obama's] going to lead through consensus," continued
Trump. "It's not going to be just a bull run like Bush did. He just did
whatever the hell he wanted. He'd go into a country, attack Iraq, which had
nothing to do with the World Trade Center and just do it because he wanted to
do it."
Trump was then asked if he ever thought he would see an African-American
president in his lifetime.
"They always said 100 years before a black man or woman could be
elected president. And the 100 years turned out to be, like, one year. He's
done an amazing job," said Trump.
An Associated Press GFK poll released Tuesday shows that a
majority of people share Trump's approval of Obama...' trump:
'CARTER
WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY'...
'BUSH
WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY'...
'OBAMA
WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY...
[ Clearly, like wobama, mobster trump is full of his own s***! ]
]
'… Anything can look great in a demo. For many years, my
signature bore the saying — a tweak on a quote from sci-fi author Arthur
C. Clarke seen online — that “Any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.” While it’s
not possible to make every botched product look good in a demonstration, a huge
number of flops have looked fantastic and compelling in a precisely rehearsed
demo. (I admit it: The Power Mac Cube looked magical and revolutionary at
first.) And enough people will buy after that introduction to make the gadget
look like a hit. As tech analyst Michael Gartenberg observes,
“You can sell 50,000 of anything.” …'
I have sampled the apple products and have invariably
concluded that they are overpriced, overvalued, and are but means of getting
consumers to part with their cash (ie., exclusive, proprietary itunes
prerequisites, etc.) owing to what I
infer to be particularly influenced by Jobs' LSD induced empathetic feel for
the 'pizzaz' that has invariably worked most applephiles into a frenzy with
each 'new introduction' (the touch screen / ipad was an exception which though
easily produced for far less gets an 'a' for pioneering). I further believe
that apple's success is a testament to how dumb americans particularly have
become. This is no shill for the pc which both as I write here and for other
mundane tasks I've been constrained to use linux ubuntu (dual boot) for
stability otherwise absent with xp (microsoft is a dinosaur). Given the state
of the world, it is not so surprising that such obsessions with devices as
those alluded to, the next new thing, etc., have a psychological component that
does not bespeak mental well being / balance. This is not to say that I deplore
technology in which to the contrary I have found great utility. What it is,
since you mentioned Arthur C. Clarke, is what I perceive to be a new innate
longing for HAL (and not IBM particularly), in one form or another. Ah! The
wisdom of cats! Good Luck!
Grants
for housing counseling slashed /
Job
training feels budget ax (Washington Post)
[ For what jobs? The 'new green
jobs'? How is such an investent going
to pass muster in rigorous financial analysis for profit? Where's the capital
coming from? People must come to grips with the reality that the nation's
defacto bankrupt and all that that entails.The news is bad, the reality
daunting, yet stocks rallied … A mystery? … Yes, until you look up and see that
blazing full moon. I was somewhat nonplussed by the suckers’ market bounce;
and then, ‘Eureka!’ … there it was, staring down for all to see … a blazing
full moon. Yes, they have such effects on lunatics as in pervasively corrupt,
defacto bankrupt america et als; but particularly on wall street, and it
certainly doesn’t take much to push the frauds on wall street over the edge and
into their predisposed fraudulent madness. In fact, you could say, ‘it’s in
their genes’ America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. . According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and 2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved through
“free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...'
What
was left out of this article is the point that the movie studio led an Oscar
campaign for Natalie Portman based in large part emphasizing her development
into a professional ballerina for the role and the majority of scenes in the
movie they stated she danced herself. Sarah Lane has contested that she danced
the majority and even the editor of the movie is on the record stating more of
Sarah's dance scenes were included in the movie than the studio stated were.
Sounds like the studio boondoggled the Oscar voters to get a win for Natalie. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1377550/Caroline-Davis-paid-250-act-Natalie-Portmans-body-double-Your-Highness.html#ixzz1Jli7GtVQ
Drudgereport:
S&P
SOUNDS ALARM ON USA
Worst
since Pearl Harbor: Debt blow for economy...
Trump's
Political 'Pit Bull'; Dem Op Has The Donald's Back...
Rove:
'Joke Candidate'...
TRUMP:
SEIZE OIL FIELDS IN LIBYA...
RASMUSSEN:
Obama 49% Trump 34%...
Anti-spending
group blasts The Donald as 'tax-hiking liberal'...
Gas at $4
in nation's capital, 5 states...
The news is bad, the reality daunting, yet stocks rallied … A mystery? …
Yes, until you look up and see that blazing full moon. I was somewhat
nonplussed by the suckers’ market bounce; and then, ‘Eureka!’ … there it was,
staring down for all to see … a blazing full moon. Yes, they have such affects
on lunatics as in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america et als; but
particularly on wall street, and it certainly doesn’t take much to push the
frauds on wall street over the edge and into their predisposed fraudulent
madness. In fact, you could say, ‘it’s in their genes’ America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s short-covering / suckers’ rally provides an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. Exhibit one: The cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings
ratio, or CAPE. This is not a “fad” valuation metric. CAPE dates back
to 1871, offering 140 years worth of data, during which time, the mean
price-to-earnings ratio is 16. According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the 10-year
average
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and 2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...'
10
Scary Charts: A 'Post-Recession' Economy Wake Up Call Kavadas 'I find the
following 10 charts to be disturbing. These charts would be disturbing at any
point in the economic cycle; that they depict such a tenuous situation now – 21
months after the official (as per the 9-20-10 NBER announcement) June 2009 end
of the recession – is especially notable.
These charts raise a lot of questions. As well, they highlight the
"atypical" nature of our economic situation from a long-term historical
perspective. I regularly discuss many troubling characteristics of our economy
in this EconomicGreenfield.com blog.
All of these charts (except one, as noted) are from the Federal Reserve,
and represent the most recently updated data.
These following charts are from the St. Louis Federal Reserve:
Housing starts (last updated 3-16-11):
(Click to enlarge)
The Federal Deficit (last updated 2-17-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Federal Net Outlays (last updated 2-17-11):
(Click to enlarge)
State & Local Personal Income Tax Receipts (% Change from Year
Ago)(last updated 3-25-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Total Loans and Leases of Commercial Banks (% Change from Year Ago)(last
updated 4-11-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Bank Credit – All Commercial Banks (% Change from Year Ago)(last updated
4-11-11):
(Click to enlarge)
M1 Money Multiplier (last updated 4-7-11):
(Click to enlarge)
Median Duration of Unemployment (last updated 4-1-11):
(Click to enlarge)
This next chart is from the CalculatedRisk.com
blog post of 4-1-11, and it shows (in red) the relative length and depth of
this downturn and subsequent recovery from an employment perspective:
(Click to enlarge)
This last chart is of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index and it
depicts broad-based economic activity (last updated 3-21-11):
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/14/saupload_cfnai_monthly_ma3_3_21_11.png
(Click to enlarge)
Suckers'
rally into the close off lows for no reason at all but to keep the suckers
suckered. But this tact, and the not good news is not news which though true
for quite some time, has been conveniently ignored by the frauds on wall
street: YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]
'...sell-off came as a culmination of concerns
stemming from speculation about debt restructuring for less fiscally
responsible eurozone nations like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal and news that
analysts at S&P lowered their outlook on U.S. debt to Negative...'
Reality
Bites: Dave's Daily 'First, why
do we depend on these fee-conflicted rating agencies who have dropped the ball
repeatedly? Answer: because there are no other non-fee conflicted rating
(ratting?) agencies that have also made serious mistakes. Is there something
from S&P today regarding U.S. debt we didn't already know? Hardly, so no
Black Swan here. We've just been on an "extend and pretend" path to see
how much money we can make before "the you know what" hits the fan.
And, for all we know denial will continue and we could close this week higher
as we shrug this off as something "down the road". As we enter a
short week, and with markets already weak from the get-go, the S&P outlook
for U.S. debt as "negative" blind-sided investors. Markets sold-off
sharply but then recovered much of the damage late which should surprise given
the pervasive dip buying mentality. Bonds initially sold-off then rallied (the
down the road mentality) while commodities were mixed with energy falling
despite a cut in crude oil output by the Saudis while precious metals and
grains higher. The dollar rallied off its critical support as investor's
repatriated money, not necessarily to safe parking, but maybe to cover some
margin calls. Some believe, and I have no credible information on this other
than chatter, the Fed is selling puts on U.S. debt to pin interest rates lower.
That's an interesting strategy and could consume an entire posting and then
some. Earnings were posted for Citigroup(C_)
and given all the adjustments, accounting games and what not, reported lower
than expected revenues but beat earnings expectations by penny. The stock was
flat and the reverse split will be coming shortly along with the symbolic penny
dividend. The market remains extraordinarily manipulated. Note the headline
DJIA ("the window dressing for the tourists") reclaimed the 50-day
moving average. Volume was much higher on the sell-off as stops routinely get
hit on these event-type days. As you would expect, breadth per the WSJ, was
clearly as negative as you would expect. '
Gannett's
newspaper ad woes drag down 1Q earnings (AP) [ My experience with them
is such that they should be out of business! ]
S&P
threatens to cut U.S. credit rating on deficit (Reuters)
Super
rich see federal taxes drop dramatically (AP)
Wall
Street falls on sovereign fears (Reuters)
- S&P
threatens to cut U.S. credit rating on deficit (Reuters) - Citi
profit sags as revenue shrinks, expenses grow (Reuters) - Texas
Instruments misses forecasts, blames Japan (Reuters) - Eliot Spitzer
Wants Attorney General Eric Holder To Prosecute Goldman Sachs Right This Second - America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted.
The
End Of An Empire And The Beginning Of A Depression
Since the end ofWorld War 2, the United States
has been the leading military power and the leading economic power on the
entire globe. Those days are done!
The
American Dream April 16, 2011 'Since the
end of World War 2, the United States has been the leading military power and
the leading economic power on the entire globe. The U.S. has had the
largest economy in the history of the world, the U.S. dollar has been used by
nearly all of the nations on earth as a reserve currency and the U.S. military
has had a physical presence in most of the countries on the planet.
Today, the U.S. military is in approximately 130 different nations and it has a
total of about 700 military bases around the world. But just like the
Roman Empire, the U.S. empire has become overextended and it is starting to
decline. Most of our politicians believe that we can continue to “police
the world” and project our power to every corner of the globe, but the more we
meddle the more the rest of the world hates us and the worse our financial
problems get. America is now swamped with debts and our influence is
fading. The truth is that what we are witnessing is the end of an empire
and the beginning of a depression.
Over the past decade, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S.
taxpayerswell over a trillion dollars.
So what have we gotten in return for a trillion dollars?
In Afghanistan, we haven’t even found the one man we supposedly went
there to look for – Osama Bin Laden. It defies comprehension how a man
with a really bad kidney disease can hide in caves and evade the most powerful
military on earth for nearly a decade.
But at least we got rid of the Taliban and set up a good form of
government, right?
Oh yeah, we set up a really wonderful
government. For example, they recently arrested a one-legged Afghan Red
Cross worker and sentenced him to death for
converting to Christianity.
Fortunately there was enough of an international outcry that Said Musa
was not hung, but the fact that the Afghan government wanted to string him up
is enough to show that we have completely failed over there.
The same thing is true in Iraq. Yeah, we may have gotten rid of
Saddam, but the nation is now in far worse shape than before we went in.
Before the war Christians felt safe in Iraq. Now large numbers of
them are fleeing Iraq as fast as they can. More than 80 Iraqi Christians
were recently beheaded on
a single day. All the Christians were trying to do was attend a
church service.
Now we are involved in a third war in the Middle East. Even though
Libya was no threat to the United States, Obama felt compelled to stick our
nose into a chaotic civil war.
Now it looks like our involvement in Libya could last for a very, very
long time.
In a joint op-ed piece in
the New York Times, Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy
declared that NATO military operations in Libya will not end until there is a
regime change….
However, so long as Qaddafi is in power, NATO must maintain its
operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime
builds. Then a genuine transition from dictatorship to an inclusive
constitutional process can really begin, led by a new generation of leaders. In
order for that transition to succeed, Qaddafi must go and go for good.
So exactly who are we “helping” in Libya?
It turns out that we are providing “air cover” for many of the same
people who were shooting at our troops in Iraq.
Yes, you read the correctly.
According to The
Telegraph, the leader of the Libyan rebels is even admitting that his
“troops” include jihadists that were firing bullets at U.S. troops in Iraq….
Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who
fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle
against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
What type of government do you think they are going to set up once this
is over?
And all of this meddling is turning the rest of the world against us in
a big way.
Most Americans don’t realize just how much hatred there is for America
in the rest of the world. There are millions upon millions of people out
there that now hate us with every fiber of their beings, and every time we bomb
someone else world opinion turns against us even more.
Sadly, our meddling goes well beyond the three wars we are currently
fighting. The truth is that the U.S. military is actively “conducting
operations” in dozens of different countries.
For example, most Americans don’t even realize what the U.S. is doing in
Pakistan.
How would you like it if a foreign power was conducting missile attacks
inside the United States over the objections of our national leaders?
Well, that is what we are doing in Pakistan and we are going to continue
even though Pakistani officials are adamantly objecting.
According
to AFP, the CIA intends to continue conducting operations in Pakistan no
matter what the Pakistani government says….
The Central Intelligence Agency has no plans to suspend “operations” in
Pakistan against terror suspects despite objections from leaders in Islamabad,
a US official said Thursday.
This approach to foreign policy is absolutely foolish. Attempting
to have an “iron grip” on the rest of the world is only going to cause the rest
of the world to deeply hate us and deeply resent us. We like to think of
ourselves as “do gooders” but most of the rest of the world considers us to be
tyrannical. Eventually the rest of the world will lash out at us.
In addition, maintaining our vast empire is bankrupting us.
As I have written about previously, U.S.
military spending is wildly out of control. The truth is that U.S.
military spending is
greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest
of NATO combined.
The United States already accounts for 46.5%
of all military spending in the world. China is next with only 6.6%.
Just one day of the war in Afghanistan costs
more money than it took to build the entire Pentagon.
So will reducing military spending solve all of our financial problems?
Of course not.
In fact, if you eliminated every penny of military spending we would
still have a gigantic budget deficit.
And that is another reason why our empire is dying.
The United States has the biggest debt
problem in the history of the world.
Right now the U.S. government is over 14 trillion dollars in debt.
Our debt is increasing by over 2 million dollars every single minute.
Our politicians are running up the national credit card as if there will
never be any consequences.
But a very serious day of reckoning is coming, and when it arrives the
rest of the world is not going to be in the mood to help us.
It is being projected that by 2021, the U.S. will be paying $1.1
trillion a year just in interest on the national debt.
So how big is a trillion dollars?
Well, if you were alive when Jesus was born and you spent a million
dollars every single day since then, you still would not have spent a trillion
dollars by now.
Our national debt is now at a tipping point. A recently revised
IMF policy paper entitled “An Analysis of
U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?” projects
that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year
2050.
So what are our politicians doing about it?
Nothing.
During the last election, the Republicans made a “pledge” to the
American people to cut $100 billion from the 2011 budget if they were elected.
Then once they got in they told us that $61 billion would be enough.
Then John Boehner gave in and agreed to cut the 2011 budget by only
$38.5 billion.
Well, now it turns out that even the $38.5 billion figure was not even
real.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the “budget deal” will
only slash $352 million (with an “m”) from the 2011 budget.
That is less than one percent of the $38.5 billion figure that was
announced.
No wonder so many Tea Party activists are now declaring that John
Boehner must go.
In the end, our politicians do not intend to do anything about our
runaway debt.
The Democrats will shut down the government rather than allow serious
cuts to social programs or entitlements.
The Republicans will never allow serious cuts to the military and they
are pushing for even more tax cuts.
So how in the world is U.S. government debt ever going to be brought
under control?
The sad news is that it is not going to be. It is just a matter of
time before a great U.S. debt crisis strikes.
But the U.S. is not the only one with a debt crisis.
The European
debt crisis just seems to get worse with each passing month. The
bonds of several European nations have been significantly downgraded in recent
weeks.
According to the
Wall Street Journal, Moody’s actually downgraded Irish debt by two levels
on Friday….
Moody’s Investors Service Inc. downgraded Ireland’s government debt by
two notches Friday, taking the country to the brink of junk status, and kept
its outlook negative.
Things are getting scary.
Bond yields all over Europe are going through the roof.
A year ago, the yield on 10-year Portuguese bonds was hovering around
5%. On Friday it reached 9.0%.
A year ago, the yield on 10-year Irish bonds was also generally in the
neighborhood of 5%. On Friday it closed at 9.7%.
But that is nothing compared to what is happening to Greek debt.
On Friday, the yield on 10-year Greek bonds skyrocketed to an astounding 13.83%.
Yes, a depression is getting a little bit closer every single day.
Things don’t look good in Asia either. Prior to the recent
tsunami, the Japanese
economy was the third largest economy on the entire globe.
But there are now very serious questions about whether or not Japan will
ever fully recover from what has just happened.
The mainstream media has been really downplaying the economic damage
that has been done to Japan, but eventually the truth will become clear.
In a previous article, I contended that this was essentially a “death blow”
for the
Japanese economy….
The tsunami that struck Japan on March 11th swept up to 6 miles inland,
destroying virtually everything in the way. Thousands upon thousands of
Japanese were killed and entire cities were wiped off the map. Yes, Japan is a
resilient nation, but exactly how does a nation that is already drowning in
debt replace dozens of cities and towns that are suddenly gone? The truth is
that thousands of square miles have been more completely destroyed than if they
had been bombed by a foreign military force. The loss of homes, cars,
businesses and personal wealth is almost unimaginable. It is going to take many
years to rebuild the roads, bridges, rail systems, ports, power lines and water
systems that were lost. Nobody is quite sure when the rolling blackouts are
going to end, and nobody is quite sure when all of the damaged manufacturing
facilities are going to be fully brought back online.
If all that wasn’t bad enough, the nuclear crisis at Fukushima just
seems to get worse by the day.
According
to the Los Angeles Times, seawater near the Fukushima nuclear complex was
recently found to contain “iodine-131 at 7.5 million times the legal limit”.
Authorities in Japan recently upgraded the crisis at Fukushima to a
“level 7″ nuclear disaster, and almost everyone is finally acknowledging
that this crisis is as bad or worse than Chernobyl.
Many now fear that vast portions of northern Japan may end up beinguninhabitable
after all this is over. The health effects and the economic effects from
this nightmare are going to be felt for the rest of our lives.
But even if all of the things above were not happening, the rapidly
rising price of oil could potentially be enough to push the world into a
depression. The entire global economy is predicated on the ability to
consume gigantic amounts of very cheap oil. Nobody has ever been able to
prove that the global economy can continue to function normally if the price of
oil stays above $100 a barrel for an extended period of time.
When oil goes up, people start staying home. Certain types of economic
activity become unprofitable. The cost of transporting all goods
increases. The amount of money being transferred out of the U.S. economy
and into the hands of oil barons soars.
The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States is
now $3.81. It is about a dollar higher than it was at this time last
year.
If the price of oil stays where it is right now, the global economy can
probably handle it, at least for a while. However, if it explodes up to
$150 or $200 a barrel it is going to unleash hell on world financial markets.
The world is becoming a very unstable place. The U.S. empire is
crumbling and the global financial system is on the verge of a nightmare.
Hopefully the rest of 2011 will not be as eventful as the first part
has. We could use some global peace and stability for a while.
Unfortunately, that is probably not going to be the case.'
[video]
Trader: S&P Downgrade A Game Changer
Easy
Money (2): U.S. Inflation Now at 4% - How Fed Dismisses the Signs Tobey 'In "Easy
Money (1): Fed Touts Flawed/Risky Rationale," we discussed the Federal
Reserve Open Market Committee's (FOMC's) weak rationale for easy money.
The news is bad, the reality daunting, yet stocks rallied … A mystery? …
Yes, until you look up and see that blazing full moon. I was somewhat
nonplussed by the suckers’ market bounce; and then, ‘Eureka!’ … there it was,
staring down for all to see … a blazing full moon. Yes, they have such affects
on lunatics as in pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america et als; but
particularly on wall street, and it certainly doesn’t take much to push the
frauds on wall street over the edge and into their predisposed fraudulent
madness. In fact, you could say, ‘it’s in their genes’ America
Is a Failed State Because It Won’t Prosecute Financial Crime Washington’s
Blog | It’s now mainstream news that none of the big financial
criminals have been prosecuted. This
is the grim economic
reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm ]. This manipulated bubble in this secular bear market based on
b*** s*** alone and today’s short-covering / suckers’ rally provides an
especially great opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since
there's much worse to come! Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year Harding
/ April
Is a Good Time to Sell Adler ( I quite agree … overvalued to the
hilt in this new manipulated bubble …
at the least a 'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill,
sell in April!' ) Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years, equity valuations are the 2nd largest bubble
in U.S. history... the cause and the potential ramifications of this are astounding. Exhibit one: The cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings
ratio, or CAPE. This is not a “fad” valuation metric. CAPE dates back
to 1871, offering 140 years worth of data, during which time, the mean
price-to-earnings ratio is 16. According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble. [chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
… bubbles turn a believable story/trend into an overvaluation. In the 1700s
during the South Sea Bubble...Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the
late 1800s ... In the 1920s, a bubble …
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention of
investors in the 1990s ...
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average
... the market is stretching this reversion greater than 2000 and 2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
... growth in earnings have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...'
Weekly
Unemployment Claims Suddenly Jump Higher Wall St.
Cheat Sheet 'The Department of Labor’s Unemployment
Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released this
morning for last week. The 27,000 increase in claims is on top of a 3,000 upward
revision to the previous week’s claims. Here is the official statement from the
Department of Labor: …' [ Spare yourself their mindless b*** s***/statement. Do
you know how many points on the dow, etc., that b.s. story was good for... then
there's the 'stopped looking fudge factor'.
] [ Worthless dollar, high metals, high oil
price rally on wall street … riiiiight!
] Trade
Data is Bleak: Exports Down, Imports Down, Growth Estimates Down
Dow,
S&P inch up as growth questioned, Google off late (Reuters) Stocks that
outperform in a weak economy helped the Dow and S&P 500 eke out gains on
Thursday as concerns about faltering growth and inflation prompted investors to
seek out less volatile na...
Earnings
Help DJIA Turn a Bad Day Good [ Earnings? Are people dreaming …
blocking … repressing reality? Kaspar '… ... growth in earnings
have been artificially manufactured...
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
accounting profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining... same overvaluation situation as
a few years ago … nothing fixed ...' ]
Retail
Sales Miss ExpectationsWall St. Cheat Sheet On
Wednesday April 13, 2011, 9:40 am EDT 'The U.S.
Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and
food services sales for March, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday
and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $389.3 billion, an
increase of 0.4 percent from the previous month, and 7.1 percent above March
2010. Analysts were expecting a rise of 0.5 percent.
Total sales for the January through March 2011 period were up 8.1
percent from the same period a year ago. The January to February 2011
percent change was revised from +1.0 percent to +1.1 percent.
Retail trade sales were up 0.3 percent from February 2011, and 7.3
percent above last year. Gasoline stations sales were up 16.7 percent from
March 2010 and nonstore retailers sales were up 12.4 percent from last year.
Obviously, inflating Oil (NYSE:USO)
prices are adding to gross revenues for gasoline sales. So, although retail
sales are up for the ninth month in a row, drilling down to the details shows a
weakening trend. If we strip out gas station sales, retail sales were up a
very small 0.1%.
Motor vehicles sales dropped 1.7%. Nevertheless, Toyota Motor
Corporation (NYSE:TM)
is up 1.3%, Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F)
is up 0.4%, General Motors (NYSE:GM)
is up 0.3%, and Honda Motor Company (NYSE:HMC)
is up over 3%.'
chart http://wallstcheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/March-Retail-Sales.png
Equity
Valuations Are Forming the Second Biggest Bubble in U.S. History Kaspar [ Give
this man a cigar ... he gets it right! ] Originally Posted on GoldShark.com 'Despite the terrible economic
performance of the past ten years (both in terms of the markets and the general
economy), equity valuations are now approaching the second largest bubble in
United States history, surpassed only by the technology bubble.
Both the cause and the potential ramifications of this development are
astounding.
Exhibit one: The cyclically-adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, or CAPE.
This is not a “fad” valuation metric. CAPE dates back to 1871, offering
140 years worth of data, during which time, the mean price-to-earnings ratio is
16.
According
to Yale University’s Dr. Robert Shiller, the market is now 41% overvalued
according to this valuation metric. The only time the markets have been more
overvalued was a few brief months in 1929 and the tech bubble.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_cape_thumb1.png ]
Exhibit 2: The Q ratio, which measures total market value compared to
its replacement cost.
The Q-ratio data in the chart below dates back to 1900. According to the
data, the markets have now surpassed the 1929 peak valuation by over 8%. In
United States History, only the tech bubble was bigger than what we are
experiencing today.
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_q_ratio_thumb1.png ]
Historically, bubbles turn a believable story and a trend into an
overvaluation. In the 1700s during the South Sea Bubble, the mania driving the
bubble was the seemingly endless wealth and prosperity of the New World.
Railroading prospects induced a bubble in the late 1800s as America became
connected from the east coast to the west coast. In the 1920s, a bubble formed
on belief in the newly formed League of Nations (world peace), and more
importantly, the society-changing impact of the automobile.
A similar life-changing invention – the Internet – swept the attention
of investors in the 1990s as the prospect of a virtual marketplace would
forever globalize commerce. Every bubble has a story, whether it be tulips or
inventions or some other craze.
What is the story today? The prospect of inflation? High unemployment?
Exhibit 3: The gap between projected 12-month earnings against the
10-year average. (Two
notes: a. the chart from Bloomberg fails to insert the word ‘projected’; Robert
Shiller references this chart in this Bloomberg
article. b. the 10-year average is the cyclically adjusted price to
earnings ratio).
Considering the power of mean reversion, the market is stretching this
reversion greater than 2000 and 2007!
[chart http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/12/saupload_gap_between_12_month_average_thumb1.png ]
Another question. Could the growth in earnings have been artificially
manufactured?
To quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Let me count the ways.”
·
The change in
accounting rules for the financial sector by FASB has generated massive “false”
account profits beginning in 2009.
·
The extended (and
then further extended) unemployment benefits have kept an artificially higher
demand for consumer consumption. As a result, the US government has
artificially subsidized corporate profits.
·
The billions saved
through “free loading” by homeowners who have defaulted on their mortgages yet
maintained their residence, thus living without a mortgage payment.
·
The artificially
suppressed interest rates.
So, not only do we have a valuation bubble, but the earnings on which
the projections are based are non-sustaining, and non-market driven. Brilliant.
Again, I am left wondering how it is possible to find ourselves in the same
overvaluation situation as a few years ago especially considering
nothing has been resolved to actually fix the world’s economic system.
A parting thought: according to research
conducted by the Duke University Medical Center, it would seem that even
monkeys are capable of learning from their mistakes. Why can’t we?'
Markets fall
on earnings caution, energy selloff (Reuters) - Reuters
- Stocks mostly fell on Monday as energy shares sold off on lower oil prices
and the onset of earnings season was clouded by concern company outlooks may
fall short of expectations.
China
Goes American, Registers First Trade Deficit Since '04 Rapoza 'The Chinese economy registered a trade deficit in the
first quarter of 2011, it’s first negative trade balance since 2004. A growing
middle class and a stronger local currency has more Chinese businesses buying
abroad. Higher priced commodities — especially soy from the Americas and
iron ore from Brazil — didn’t help the trade figures either.
The General Administration of Accounting (GAC) said in their
report this weekend that, a “strong and rapidly growing domestic economy, plus
international markets and the sharp rise in commodity prices and the Spring
Festival holiday this year all led to a cumulative deficit of $1.02 billion in
the first quarter.” According to the GAC,
China imports in the first three months of the year reached $400.66 billion, up
32.6%, while exports totaled $399.64 billion, an increase of 29.5%.
China’s economy is in fifth gear, with the Asian
Development Bank in Manila forecasting growth of at least 8.2% in 2011,
higher than the official growth estimate of 7%.
Last year, China trade registered the kind of surplus the US only dreams
about, a modest $13.9 billion, according to the GAC. By comparison, the U.S.
trade deficit in January was around $46 billion.
For March, China’s total trade value rose 31.4% to $304.3
billion compared with March 2010. Export values for the month totaled
$152.2 billion, while import values were $152.06 billion. March’s monthly
import data was yet another record, beating January 2011’s historical import
record of $144.3 billion, the GAC said.
In bilateral trade, China and the European Union trade rose 22% to
$123.7 billion. China-US trade totaled around $97 billion, up 25%. In
third place, Chinese-Japanese trade hit $80.78 billion in the first, up 27.1%.
Multinationals accounted for nearly half of China’s import and export
value in the first quarter with a total of $415.4 out of around $800.3 billion
in trade. The multinationals saw an increase of 24.9% in trade out of China so
far this year. Of the total, the MNCs exported $217.5 from China, 24.6%
more than the first quarter of 2010, and imported $197.8 billion worth of goods
and services, an increase of 25.2%, according to the GAC.
China’s state owned enterprises, or SEOs, exported $172.95 billion in
the first quarter, an increase of 27.8%. Of the total, exports were around
$57.58 billion, up 16.4%, and imports were $115.38 billion, up 34.5%.
What Was Exported
China’s leading exports were electromechanical products,
accounting for $232.03 billion, up 22.8% from the same period in 2010 and
accounting forr 58.1% of first quarter exports. Exports of electrical
and electronic products was $6.9 billion, an increase of 27.8%. Machinery
and equipment exports rose 15.5% to $74.6 billion. Traditional Chinese
exports like apparel exports rose 18.4% to $28.5 billion; textiles
jumped 32.7% to $20.2 billion; footwear up 22% to $8.8 billion
and furniture sales rose 19.3% to $8.4 billion.
What Was Imported
China imported 180 million tons of iron ore in the first
quarter, an increase of 14.4%. Average iron ore prices were $156.5 per ton, up
59.5%; soybean imports declined marginally by 0.7% to 10.96
million tons, but the cost of importing soy from the US and South America rose
by an average of 25.7% to $573.90 per ton. In addition, imports of machinery
and electronic products rose 25.6% to $172.92 billion.
Guangdong continues to lead China as the nation’s trade hub, accounting
for $201.2 billion in foreign trade (export + import value). Jiangsu, Shanghai
and Beijing came in third with $121 billion, $98 billion and $91 billion in
trade values, respectively.
Martin Schulz, Managing Director of International Equity at PNC Capital
Advisors was in China last month and said one of the things that surprised him
most was that Chinese clothing manufacturing was starting to move to countries
like Vietnam. “Chinese clothes are starting to be made in southeast Asia
because the wage rates are growing so fast that a lot of manufacturers are
simply moving into the rural areas in the interior of China, or across borders,”
he says.
China’s growing domestic demand could make the country an inflationary
force in the global economy, Shulz said. “The growth there has been a
deflationary force in the world for some time, but now it is going to be an
inflationary one.”
Want to make money trading with China? Honestly, become a soy farmer or
work in agribusiness, at Boeing, or in the organic chemicals space. Because
pretty much everything we sell to China, they sell to us. And apparently at
cheaper prices. Whether its electrical machinery, power generation equipment,
medical devices, or iron and steel, the US registered a trade deficit on them
all with the big C.
US-China Trade Statistics
2009 Top US Exports to China
1. Electrical machinery & equipment: $9.5 billion
2. Oil seeds & other oleaginous fruits: $9.3 billion
3. Power generation equipment: $8.4 billion
4. Air and spacecraft: $5.3 billion
5. Plastics: $4.4 billion
6. Optics and medical devices: $4 billion
7. Iron and steel: $3.5 billion
8. Pulp and cardboard: $2.5 billion
9. Organic chemicals: $2.4 billion
10. Vehicles, excl. railway: $1.9 billion
2009 Top US Imports From China
1. Electrical machinery and equipment: $72.9 billion
2. Power generation equipment: $62.4 billion
3. Apparel: $24.3 billion
4. Toys: $23.2 billion
5. Furniture: $16 billion
6. Iron and steel: $8 billion
7. Footwear: $13.3 billion
8. Plastics: $8 billion
9. Leather and travel bags: $6 billion
10: Optics and medical devices: $5.6 billion
Source: US International Trade Commission. '
The
Return of the Carry Trade? [ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org 'What Does Currency
Carry Trade Mean? A strategy in which an investor sells a
certain currency with a relatively low interest rate and uses the funds to
purchase a different currency yielding a higher interest rate. A trader using
this strategy attempts to capture the difference between the rates, which can
often be substantial, depending on the amount of leverage used. - The carry of an asset is the return obtained
from holding it (if positive), or the cost of holding it (if negative)
(see also Cost of carry).For
instance, commodities
are usually negative carry assets, as they incur storage costs or may suffer
from depreciation, but in some circumstances, appropriately hedged commodities
can be positive carry assets if the forward/futures market is willing to pay
sufficient premium for future delivery. This can also refer to a trade with
more than one leg, where you earn the spread between borrowing a low
carry asset and lending a high carry one; such as gold during financial crisis,
due to its safe haven
quality. Carry trades are not arbitrages:
pure arbitrages make money no matter what; carry trades make money only if nothing changes against the
carry's favor. ]
ETF
News Update: Theater of the Absurd
Nyaradi 'This week’s soap
opera in Washington, D.C. was truly the “theater of the absurd” as Congress and
the President wrangled over an “historic” $39 billion budget cut that pales
sadly in comparison to the $189 billion deficit that the Federal Government ran
up in March alone.We’ll discuss this in greater detail in a moment, but for
today, we are content with our positions in gold, oil and inverse exchange
traded funds and we remain in the defensive mode, anticipating stronger
headwinds ahead.
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/4/11/saupload_spxpf040911.png
Chart courtesy of StockCharts.com,
click to enlarge.
In the chart above we can see that the S&P500 remains in a bearish
signal mode with a price objective of 1160. Strong overhead resistance is at
1330 which held this week and support lies at the 1250 level.We have been in
this range for the last 25 trading days but, as always, this sideways action
will be broken one way or the other. Based on current fundamental and
technical elements, we expect this break to be on the downwards side of the
range.
The big news this week was the 11th hour “resolution” of the bill to
keep the government open which resulted in an “historic” cut of $39 Billion. As
mentioned at the outset, this is truly the theater of the absurd because the
deficit in March alone was $189 Billion, and so far for this fiscal year, we
have racked up a budget deficit of $830 Billion according to the Congressional
Budget Office, up $113 Billion compared to the same period last year. Of course
what went largely unsaid is that this fiscal year is already half way over and
the discussion of the 2012 budget is about to get underway along with the horse
trading that is about to ensue over raising the Federal debt ceiling of $14.3
Trillion that is set to be exceeded in mid May. So it should be good
entertainment as the second and third installments of the “theater of the
absurd” get underway...
In geopolitical news, Palestinians and Israelis continued their
hostilities in the Gaza Strip, protesters in Syria and Egypt persisted with
their demonstrations, and the war in Libya has reached what everyone is now
recognizing to be a stalemate with a fire doing unknown damage to that
country’s Sarir oil field.
All of this unrest resulted in West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil hitting
a 2 1/2 year high of $113/bbl and Brent Crude hitting $126/bbl, its highest
level since July, 2008.
In Europe, the ECB raised interest rates, an action that is sure to put
more pressure on the already struggling peripheral nations and Portugal is
being squeezed for more cuts as they are now a ward of the European Central
Bank. Greece is in recession and everyone wonders if Spain, often thought of as
too big to save and too big to fail, is next on the chopping block.
U.S. Treasuries and the U.S. Dollar continued their slide while gold set
a new nominal record of $1476/oz and silver hit a 30 year high of $40/0z.
Finally another earthquake hit Japan on Thursday and the Japanese
government said that Japan’s economy was in “severe condition.”
We continue to live in historic times fraught with challenges, danger
and uncertainty. Rising oil prices are never good for Western economies and the
looming fight over raising the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget proposal put
forth by U.S. Representative Paul Ryan will set the economic tone for the rest
of this year and next. Dr. Bernanke and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve
say that inflation is “transitory,” however, the precious metals and oil
markets seem to be literally screaming otherwise.
1.
Major
Issues/Themes: This week
brings significant economic reports and the kickoff on Monday of earnings
season with Alcoa (AA)
reporting after the bell.
Important reports to watch are Alcoa on Monday, JP Morgan (JPM) and March Retail Sales on
Wednesday, Google (GOOG)
earnings on Thursday and manufacturing and industrial production reports on
Friday.
·
Monday: Alcoa Earnings Report
·
Wednesday: JP Morgan earnings, MBA Mortgage Index, March
Retail Sales, February Business Inventories, April Fed Beige Book
·
Thursday: Initial Unemployment Claims, Continuing Claims, March
Consumer Price Index, Fairchild Semiconductor and Google earnings reports
·
Friday: March Consumer Price Index, April Empire
Manufacturing, March Industrial Production, April Michigan Consumer Sentiment
1.
Leaders: (NYSEArca: SLV) iShares Silver (NYSEArca: EPOL) iShares Poland
2.
Laggards: (NYSEArca: EWJ) iShares Japan Index
(NYSEArca: IYT) iShares
Transportation
This week I was in Germany where it was unseasonably warm in Frankfurt with
lovely spring days and warm evenings by the Main River. The restaurants and
bars were full as soccer played on the televisions and I couldn’t help but
wonder how much longer the Germans will be willing to carry their weaker
neighbors in the European Community...'
IMF
Will Work on Portugal Bailout Plan With European Union Bloomberg
| Portugal has requested IMF assistance, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
A
Militarized Economy Cannot Balance the Budget John Perkins
| We can’t afford our bloated military budget and still have democracy.
US to delay
China currency report AFP
| The US Treasury said it would delay a report labeling China a currency
manipulator until at least May.
Economists
Shocked, Shocked: We Really Are Losing Jobs to China! Ian Fletcher
| There’s a nice new academic paper with hard data to back up everyone’s suspicion
that the U.S. is losing jobs to China.
Soros
and friends reorder global finance at new Bretton Woods Washington
Examiner | It’s no accident they’re meeting on the very same site as
Bretton Woods– formally UN Monetary and Financial Conference.
IMF
Will Work on Portugal Bailout Plan With European Union Bloomberg
| Portugal has requested IMF assistance, according to Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
[chart http://www.prisonplanet.com/goldman-sachs-the-margins-are-not-what-they-seem.html ]
…'
Iceland
rejects hostile takeover attempt in national referendum John
Stratton | Iceland is the only country where the people have been
allowed to have a say in the matter.
Five
Things You Didn't Know About Ben Bernanke
Breslin 'You know Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, but
how much do you really know about the guy? The
"most powerful nerd on the planet” became a household name during the
Great Recession, and yet the real man behind that bearded, calm exterior
remains something of a mystery.
Born in Augusta, Georgia, and raised in Dillon, South Carolina, Bernanke was
the son of a pharmacy owner and a schoolteacher. He went on to become an
economics professor and chaired the Department of Economics at Princeton. In
2002, he landed at the Federal Reserve as a governor, and in 2006, President
Bush appointed him chairman. He’s been criticized for failing to foresee the
nation’s financial crisis and for bailing out Wall Street. What you might not
know: The 57-year-old used to be a theme-park waiter.
May I Take Your Order, Please?
If you’ve ever crossed the border between North Carolina and South Carolina
along Interstate 95 and seen a giant Sombrero Tower, you’ve spotted where Young
Bernanke worked as a waiter. During the summers between semesters at Harvard,
the Fed-in-Chief returned to his hometown and slaved at “tourist mecca” South
of the Border to pay his way through college. At the Mexican-themed
roadside attraction, which features an amusement park and a mascot named Pedro,
Bernanke served diners at the Sombrero Restaurant and wore a poncho. In a 60
Minutes interview, Bernanke revealed that his summer jobs taught him that “work
is hard.”
A Man of Many Nicknames
“Helicopter Ben” is Bernanke’s most popular nickname. He earned the title after
a 2002 speech, “Deflation:
Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn’t Happen Here,” in which he referenced Nobel
Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman’s “helicopter drop” theory that says
deflation is best combated by a direct infusion of cash to the people. For
this, Bernanke was rewarded with artistic
renderings of himself dropping money over the country from a helicopter.
Subsequently, he was crowned “Bearnanke” by the Wall
Street Journal : “By harping on his worries about inflation and tight labor
markets, Bernanke has implied there will be no cut in interest rates any time
soon, and bond
investors […] risk losing money as they come to grips with that.” Most
recently, he has been rechristened “Bernie
Mac," “Banana
Ben,” "the
Ben Bernank," and “He
Who Sees No Bubbles.”
Foreclosure Crisis Hits Home
In 2009, Bernanke’s ranch-style childhood home in economically hard-hit Dillon
was sold at a
foreclosure sale to Travis Jackson, a 27-year-old loan officer. Bernanke
declined to comment on the record specifically about his foreclosed-upon
boyhood residence (the Bernanke family had sold the property over a decade
prior), but he stated, “We believe that getting the credit markets going,
getting banks
lending again, increasing the demand for all products—including those made in
Dillon—are part of economic recovery. […] That's what the Fed's trying to
do."
Richard Schafer, who owns South of the Border, says post-recession revenue at
the park is down 10% and he wishes he’d kept a photo of Bernanke as a
serape-wearing server: “I'd probably get some economic-bailout money if I did.”
A Private Faith
Bernanke, almost didn’t go to Harvard because his family was concerned that he
would “lose his Jewish identity.” At the time, Harvard grad student and former
fellow Dillon resident Kenneth Manning, who is African-American and now an
M.I.T. professor, reassured the Bernanke family “there were Jews in
Boston.” When it comes to religion, says a friend, Bernanke “keeps
his feelings and beliefs private … but it’s really embedded in who he is.”
Bernanke learned Hebrew from his maternal grandfather, Harold Friedman, a
professional hazzan and Hebrew teacher.
Upon his arrival in Washington, Bernanke’s leadership experience as chair of
the economics department at Princeton was so limited that “he
liked to joke that his major decisions involved what type of bagels to order
for faculty meetings.”
Nice Beard
“Has Ben Bernanke's beard gotten significantly whiter since he started as Fed
Chairman or is it just me?” tweeted @The Analyst
of Bailout Ben. In terms of facial hair, Bernanke’s now-snowy iconic beard is
the yang to Giants’ pitcher Brian Wilson’s yin. In fact, Mr. Chairman’s beard
even has its own Facebook
page. “I hate everything Ben Bernanke stands for,” the Info page reads,
“but his beard is an epic win.”...'
National / World
Leahy:
Obama Needs Congressional Approval to Put Troops in Libya
CNS News | Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said
President Obama needs congressional approval to send U.S. troops into Libya.
$5 Gas by
Memorial Day CBS | At one time, $5 per gallon gas seemed
like a farfetched idea.
Obama
vs. Trump: A Circus Sideshow on the Road to Feudalism [ Even if you don't
buy the 'feudalism' characterization
of pervasively corrupt, meaningfully
lawless, defacto bankrupt america, there is no question but that america is in
an intractable and regressive state of decline. ] Kurt Nimmo | Obama’s wranglers know the
American spectator does not elect presidents.
Obama’s Dismal
Approval Numbers Rasmussen Reports | There has been a
sharp decline in enthusiasm among liberal voters.
Drudgereport:
$5
GAS BY MEMORIAL DAY
Thermal
Cameras On Boston Streets Can Show Activity Inside Homes...
Pump
prices less than 10% below record high...
San
Fran highest at $4.13...
OBAMA
MAN: TRUMP HAS 'ZERO CHANCE' [ Hard to believe, or maybe because this particular
factual reality is so easy to believe because it's so obviously true, but
wobama finally got something right, not that it changes anything for him! ]
Despite
Vote, We're Keeping FCC Internet Rules! [
Pelosi finally gets something right! ]
[ wobama, pelosi finally uncharacteristically correct, albeit once each
in their lifetime ... must be the japanese radiation ... ]
9th
Body Found In NY Serial Killer Probe, Possibly A 10th...
Obama
regrets HIS vote against raising debt limit...
RASMUSSEN:
President hits new low 'strongly approve' – 19%...
UPDATE:
Egyptians turn anger on army in Cairo protest...
New
Clashes in Tahrir Square...
Gaza-Israel
violence rages...
'West wants
war'...
'Mideast
Without Israel and America Now Possible'...
Despite
Vote, We're Keeping FCC Internet Rules! [
Pelosi finally gets something right! ]
US
Debt Jumped $54 Billion in Week Preceding Deal to Cut $38 Billion...
11TH HOUR: LET'S MAKE A
DEAL
Obama:
'Americans of different beliefs came together'...
Takes credit for
'biggest annual spending cut in history'...
'LIVE
WITHIN OUR MEANS'...
FLASHBACK:
Deficit Forecast Nears $1.5 Trillion...
SURPRISE:
Government shutdown averted...
Spending
cuts total nearly $40 billion...
$78
billion below Obama request...
Deal
bans DC from spending funds for abortion, continues school voucher program...
BOEHNER:
'As good a deal as we could get'...
REPORT:
Oprah won't endorse Obama for re-election...
Poll:
Obama Struggling With Whites...
Even
black voters slip...
OIL
JUMPS 2% -- IN A DAY...
Fever
for Gold, Silver Grips Investors...
Biden daughter
trashes Trump...
Bill Cosby slams: 'He's
full of it!'...
Trump
Takes On NYT, Gail Collins...
Admires
her for surviving 'so long with so little talent'...
NBCWSJ
POLL SHOCK: TRUMP #2 GOP [ NBC
where t_rump has his Jerry Springer
derivative shock-jock show and sinkhole new york's fraud street journal … poll?
… Don't make me laugh … Lawrence O'Donnell insists parent company
NBC consider firing Donald Trump Daily
Caller ... Milbank: Donald
trumps CPAC | Gibbs
gone (Washington
Post) [ Trump’s a loser, dressed up and
propped up by and to shill for a declining, fallen nation in the most corrupt
regions (ie., new york, jersey, etc.) of the country (every fallen nation has
such); of that there is no question …"Over the years I've participated in
many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single
time," the Donald said. (Except for the bankruptc[ies], that is. [ trump’s
never won a battle that wasn’t fixed in advance (including the ‘pre-packaged
bankrupcies’ crammed down the throats of objecting creditors – jersey general ]
He also with his corrupt mob ilk 'chased' Steve Wynn out of jersey – Steve
Wynn's doing extremely well in Macau and Vegas.) "I've beaten many people
and companies, and I've won many wars," he added. (Though he didn't serve
in the military.) "I have fairly [according to mobster rules; ie.,
bribery, money laundering, etc.] but intelligently [ as any other mob boss …
trump is total b*** s***, a fraud, and lightweight … and, despite the façade,
quite insecure … trump’s a total mental case … He truly is the ‘poster-boy’ of
american decline and part of the problem, not the solution! …trump also said
america’s become the laughingstock of the world … true enough … and trump the
biggest joke … NEWS FLASH: Direct from Lost Angeles
Learning Annex – Presenting mobster t_rump of new yoke, new joyzey, and now
caleefornia mob fame with his continuing message for the past several years:
buy real estate (and watch the values go down…..riiiiight!).
Bank
sues Trump over Chicago tower loan...
Trump
casino to miss interest payment...
trump’s fired (from ‘his own company’)
Gunfire Erupts Inside trump
Taj Mahal Casino, 1 Dead - Second Such Incident In A Year At N.J. Mainstay Ends
With Employee Killed – What else would you you expect from a mobster’s casino
in mob-infested jersey!
Trump
luxury resort folds, leaving buyers defrauded…litigation has commenced…send for
sister maryanne, the corrupt federal judge to preside, coverup, etc., she’s in
n.y./n.j./pa 3rd circuit ct appeals, understands drug money laundering/fraud
and handles her own motions to recuse her and like mobster trump should be in
jail ... (see RICO Case)] earned many billions of
dollars [ at whose expense ], which in a sense was both a scorecard and
acknowledgment of my abilities [ to fool most of the people, all of the time. ]
." TRUMP
DRAWS CHEERS, BOOS AT CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE... PONDERING
PRESIDENTIAL RUN... [Don’t make me laugh! … Donald
T_rump Would Impose 25% Tax on China Imports if President [ trump also said america’s become the laughingstock of the world …
true enough … and trump the biggest joke … Indeed, that trump even posits the
possibility of a run when he should be in jail is a testament to just how big a
laughingstock pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt america’s become! [ If he was mobster in chief, mobster and
scoundrel trump wraps himself in populist american flag and offers up an (too
little too late – typical lightweight) implausible solution to keep ‘the juice’
flowing though he’d already be in jail in a rational, non-declining nation with
meaningful laws. All China has to do is dump (and not prospectively buy) their
ever more and declining in value day-by-day (from dollar debasement policies)
u.s. paper / bonds and overnight and the u.s. economy consequently thereby collapse. [ When you come right down
to it, this has been america’s most significant export. Indeed, this
irrevocable structural shift, hailed by cia men hw bush and clinton (clinton
couldn’t have survived with them) by way of NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread was indeed in no
uncertain terms condemned and warned against by Perot, a man of honor who,
unlike his opponents, could not be bought, which is the reason, in pervasively
corrupt america, he could never have been elected. Interestingly, you may have
noticed the good (but not great, other than the spotlight on pervasive bribery
including judges, police, politicians, etc., being far too light) the film ‘The
Untouchables’ getting a wide re-airing of late, purporting to be a significant
part of american folklore / history / culture. However, the reality is that in
america, and certainly today, the real story with impact is that of ‘The
Touchables’. The reality is that Elliot Ness died a broken man; bankrupt,
unable to even win election to the mayoralty of his then current hometown. He
was incorruptible; and hence, in the real america, unelectable at the least if
not also all but unemployable (he and his are among those few genetic anomalies
in america as I’ve previously alluded to. How far america has fallen from even
false perception! Pervasively corrupt, meaningfully lawless america can’t even
fake it anymore. See, for example, http://albertpeia.com/CIAAgentAffidavit1.jpg http://albertpeia.com/FBIAgentAffidavit11.jpg , and of course, corrupt
legal / judicial processes, etc., Defacto bankrupt, fraudulent america also spends more on
offensive (defensive a misnomer / propaganda) military spending than all the
nations of the world combined, and by a large margin at that. Do you see a
pattern emerging here [ I unfortunately only belatedly did, and the feds, fed employees,
cia, all 3 branches of the u.s. government, etc., are included in this evolved
american trait of inherent criminality in the most nefarious sense … The pervasively corrupt american
illegal system … corrupt u.s. courts / (lawyers) / judges: Their lifetime plush
appointments should be abolished, which corrupt entities are unheard of in
productive societies as China, Japan, etc.. Time to abolish these drags on
society and eliminate their lifetime stipends and costly bureaucracies. Rules
of law mean nothing to these typically corrupt americans. Most, including sam
alito of the u.s. supreme court, concerning drug money laundering and
obstruction of justice in the 3rd circuit ( also maryanne trump
barry who covered-up drug money laundering through her brother’s casinos in a
civil RICO case) should have gone to or belong in jail. Contrary to popular belief, they do it for the
money, personal money, big, cash, untraceable money. The fog of war is great
for such things (360 tons $100 bills flown into Iraq and missing, etc.). [
http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/ricosummarytoFBIunderpenaltyofperjury.pdf http://www.albertpeia.com/112208opocoan/PeiavCoanetals.htm ]. america’s just a fraudulent and failed defacto bankrupt
nation. ] “I would announce, without
equivocation, a 25% tax increase on anything purchased from China.” ]
CHENEY
HECKLED... 'DRAFTDOGER!' 'WHERE'S BIN LADEN?' ]
I get a kick out of
people who dismiss it as an interesting theory that doesn’t always work. It’s
not theory. It’s proven fact. In spite of the few years when it has not worked,
investing over the long-term based on the market’s seasonality significantly
outperforms the market, and with much less risk.
Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year
Harding [ { April
Is a Good Time to Sell ( I quite agree … overvalued to the hilt in this new
manipulated bubble … at the least a
'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' ) Adler , see infra, immediately after
Harding } 'It’s that time of year again
when I always remind you of the market’s seasonality, its proven tendency to
make most of its gains between November and May, and experience most of its
losses in the opposite period.
I get a kick out of people who dismiss it as an interesting theory that
doesn’t always work. It’s not theory. It’s proven fact. In spite of the few
years when it has not worked, investing over the long-term based on the
market’s seasonality significantly outperforms the market, and with much less
risk.
Selling
In May Is Very Good Advice This Year
Harding [ { April
Is a Good Time to Sell ( I quite agree … overvalued to the hilt in this new
manipulated bubble … at the least a
'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' ) Adler , see infra, immediately after
Harding } 'It’s that time of year again
when I always remind you of the market’s seasonality, its proven tendency to
make most of its gains between November and May, and experience most of its
losses in the opposite period.
I get a kick out of people who dismiss it as an interesting theory that
doesn’t always work. It’s not theory. It’s proven fact. In spite of the few
years when it has not worked, investing over the long-term based on the
market’s seasonality significantly outperforms the market, and with much less
risk.
Don’t take my word for it. Academic studies provide clear evidence.
For instance, a 27-page study published in the prestigious American
Economic Review in 2002 concludes, “We found that this inherited wisdom of
Sell in May to be true in 36 of 37 developed and emerging markets” It went
on to say that, “A trading strategy based on this anomaly would be highly
profitable in many countries. The annual risk-adjusted outperformance ranges
between 1.5% and 8.9% annually depending on the country being considered. The
effect is robust over time, economically significant, unlikely to be caused by
data-mining, and not related to taking excess risk.”
Another study in 2008 at the New Zealand Institute of Advanced Study,
which focused solely on the U.S. stock market, concluded that “All U.S.
stock market sectors, and 48 out of 49 U.S. industry sectors performed better
during the winter months than summer months in our sampling from 1926-2006.”
Let’s put the fact that it doesn’t work every year in context.
To begin with, no strategy, particularly buy and hold, works every year.
And that is also true of seasonality. For instance, it underperformed in 2003
and 2009. In those years the market made gains in the winter months, and then,
fueled by massive government stimulus programs, continued still higher during
the summer months when a seasonal investor would have been invested in
something other than stocks.
But the seasonal investor did not lose money by being out of
the market in the unfavorable season in those years. He or she merely missed
further gains. But when an investor is in the market in unfavorable seasons in
which the market experiences the serious declines that most often take place in
unfavorable seasons, that investor actually loses money. Those losses
can be substantial, with investors giving back much, if not all of the gains
made in the previous favorable season. For instance, from May 1st to
its low during the summer months, the S&P 500 lost 22% of its value in
2001, 24% in 2002, 38% in 2008, and even 16% in the early summer correction in
the positive year last year. Those are the experiences that created the ‘lost
decade’ that buy and hold investors experienced but which seasonal investors
avoided.
Why might seasonality be even more important this year than in other
years?
Negatives are piled up against the economy and market to a degree not
seen in a number of years. They include rising inflation; global central banks
raising interest rates to ward off inflation, which is also likely to slow
their economic growth; signs of the U.S. economy slowing again (sharp declines
in home sales, durable goods orders, and consumer confidence); the coming end
of the Federal Reserve’s QE2 stimulus efforts in June; and the austerity
measures Congress will be forcing on the country in efforts to bring the record
budget deficit under control.
Then there is the high level of investor bullishness usually seen near
market tops. For instance, the Investors Intelligence Sentiment survey shows
bullishness has jumped up to 57%, while bearishness has fallen to just 15.7%.
That spread of 41.6% is considered to be in a danger zone. The last time it
reached 40% was in October, 2007, as the market topped out into the 2007-2009
bear market.
So, fair warning. Seasonality is liable to be even more important this
year than in most years.
The traditional seasonality maxim, ‘Sell in May and Go Away’, calls for
buying November 1 and selling on May 1 of the following year. Those dates were
the basis for the academic studies mentioned earlier.
But obviously a positive market move does not begin and end on the same
day each year. So in my 1999 book Riding the Bear – How to Prosper in the
Coming Bear Market, I introduced my Seasonal Timing Strategy. It
uses a technical indicator that tracks market momentum reversals to better
identify the entries and exits. Over the last 40 years, its exit signals have
been as early as April 20, and as late as June 20.
The modification significantly improved the already impressive
performance of the basic ‘Sell in May and Go Away’ seasonal strategy. In a
recent article on MarketWatch, Mark Hulbert wrote that the Hulbert Financial
Digest has only been tracking the performance since mid-2002, and since then
“Harding’s modification of the Sell In May and Go Away indicator produced an
8.2% annualized return . . . with 37% less risk.” That significantly beat the
performance of the S&P 500.' April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … overvalued to the hilt in this new
manipulated bubble … at the least a
'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' ] Adler 'Both banks and foreign central
banks [FCB] have normal buying cycles, and last
week’s evidence suggests that both are just past the peak of those cycles.
In addition, because of Japan’s predicament, FCB buying is for the foreseeable
future, likely to be well below the necessary levels to keep levitating stocks.
Add to that, the loss of the 2 month long, $25 billion weekly stipend from the
Treasury on March 24, and we have the conditions for a rough patch.
With less help from the Treasury, the banks, and FCBs, the Fed would have its
hands full keeping all its balls in the air. Some would be likely to hit the
ground, but not this month. That’s because of the light Treasury supply that I
covered in
the Treasury update. That makes the job much easier this month, even
without the banks and the FCBs.This week is one of those easy weeks, with lots
of Fed pumping and no new Treasury supply ...
The evidence shows that banks are again out of the Treasury buying game. It
also shows that they lost money in the first quarter, which is insane
considering that their cost of funds is zero. It’s an indication of just how
dire the circumstances are. Banks continue to accumulate cash at a frantic rate
in their accounts at the Fed. The last time reserves rose this fast was in the
midst of the crisis in 2008.
...These elements essentially neutralize the Fed’s pumping. ..
In the meantime I would not wait to "sell in May and go away." April
looks like a good time to scale out of all equity longs, including in
particular broad based ETFs, like SPY (SPY), DIA (DIA), QQQ (QQQ), and IWM (IWM). Aggressive traders and
hedgers can use strength to establish short positions probably around mid-month
and after ...' ]
Apr 8, 2011 ... NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- 'With the price of oil
breaching the $110 a ... time oil surged this high, and
they're likely to hit the brakes yet again. ... NEW YORK (TheStreet)
-- With the price of oil breaching the $110 a barrel level, Jim Cramer told the
viewers of his "Mad
Money" TV show Friday that we've officially "entered the danger
zone" where the price of oil will matter more than corporate earnings.
Cramer said he simply cannot be as bullish on the markets as he once was, and
advised investors to begin using strength to raise cash. "Take a lesson
from 2008," Cramer told viewers as he outlined his game plan for next
week's trading. He said the markets faltered the last time oil surged this
high, and they're likely to hit the brakes yet again. "I'm going to become
more bearish as oil continues to climb," Cramer told viewers frankly. ...'
A
Trading System That Challenges the Efficient Market Hypothesis [ I haven't included the body of this
article because it's not worth your time. What parallel universe is McCurdy
operating in? Even in the heyday of that so-called hypothesis, close
examination of the data indicated that if you weren't timing the market you
were, in a somewhat 'Charlie Sheenish' manner of speaking, duh! … losing!
(my MBA Thesis, 1977, NYU GBA, Finance – which required study / mastery
of such math intensive theory which wasn't for the faint of heart.) Said
'hypothesis' wasn't true then and certainly isn't true today where complex
computer-programming can and does artificially produce the various criteria /
buy / sell / signals alluded to in the article (they're widely known / followed)
creating the rigged / fraudulent trading game geared to maximized the
'churn-and-earn' commission profits (net negative in economic terms) and
enabling the passing of 'those hot potatoes'/paper shares in a manner that
resembles a game of musical chairs with those not in the loop winding up
holding the bag (including pension funds, etc.); all the while funding those
lavish lifesyles / over-compensation of the frauds on wall street along with
the direct / indirect bribes inuring them from stigma and as well, insulating
them from proper scrutiny and prosecution.
Fundamentals, fundamental rational analysis has become virtually
irrelevant to these now fraud-prone markets like never before in history
facilitating frauds of magnitudes that have made the rationalization 'too big
to fail' a byword of pervasively corrupt, defacto bankrupt american failed
finance; which frauds continue unabated, unprosecuted even as you read these
words. In retrospect, one might say of such theory, in reality, that famed
snoopy(ish - the dog) aphorism,
'baffling them with b*** s*** '. (Which
as it stands today particularly, remains an american financial / economic
strategy, albeit a now widely known failed strategy.) - Lawyer
charged with insider trading (Washington Post) [ Come on! Just enough for a
few headlines so people think they're actually doing something. They could (but
don't) bring a case as this or other wall street crime against a different wall
street liar (sic lawyer) / fraud in that corrupt sinkhole new york (metro, ie.,
jersey, conn., etc.) every single day and bearly touch the tip of the iceberg.
Is anybody foolish enough to think what goes on there is legitimate? Remember,
still no pros for the huge debacle / fraud precipitating the last and
continuing economic / financial crisis. Chemist
charged with insider trading (WP) [ This
remains incredulous to me. Everyone but the big boys / frauds! The
frauds on wall street et als should be criminally prosecuted, jailed, fined,
and disgorgement imposed. Dave's
Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this low this long, its
inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start cobbling each other up.
Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell bonds at 1% and buy
back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money-- … an especially great
opportunity to sell / take profits while you still can since there's much worse
to come! This is the grim economic reality [ http://albertpeia.com/grimreality.htm . Looking
Like A Good Time To Sell Into Strength - Harding PRECHTER:
We're Still In A Massive Bear Market And Stocks Will Crash To New Lows Davis ‘… This
is how we pay off our current debts and I think bondholders are simply happy to
get anything out of a country that admits it owes $15Tn (1/4 of global GDP) but
probably owes closer to $60Tn (entire global GDP) in the form of unfunded
liabilities. The funniest thing about this (and you have to laugh) is to see
Conservative pundits get on TV and talk about how we need to cut $100Bn worth
of discretionary spending to "fix" this (while continuing to spend
$1Tn on the military and $1Tn on tax cuts for the top 1% each year). SEC:
Wachovia cheated investors
(WP) I truly can see decreasing
the apple weighting (formerly 20%), and increasing the oracle (open office,
etc.), google (ubiquitous) weighting, but increasing dyingosaur microsoft
weighting … I don't think so … something's gone awry here that smacks of
desperation and an attempt to circumvent the visual effects on the nasdaq of a
post-jobs apple, viz., over-priced apple sauce. Isn't that just like the frauds
on wall street … to pad the nasdaq bubble based on a 1-stock story (apple), and
manipulate when that 1-stock story falls to earth! April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … at the least a 'sell in May and go
away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' Adler ]
Whistling
Past the Expanding Graveyard as Spain Goes 'On the Clock 'Inflation Trader 'For some time now, the
markets have been ‘whistling past the graveyard,’ impressively ignoring and/or
shrugging off a fair pile of news that ought definitely to be negative for
equities and probably somewhat negative for bonds as well. I’ve detailed these
things previously and they don’t really need much repeating.
But it’s one thing to go whistling past the local church graveyard,
something else entirely to keep whistling when the graveyard stretches on for
miles. Yesterday, Portugal
formally asked the EU for a bailout. “I tried everything but we came to a
moment that not taking this decision would bring risks we can’t afford,” said
Prime Minister Jose Socrates. A day or two ago, there had been talk that
Portugal wanted a short-term loan to float it past a big slug of bond
redemptions that is approaching; the EU said ‘it doesn’t work that way,’ so
Portugal was forced to throw itself on the mercy of the Union.
Well, this is something less than a total surprise, and indeed
Portuguese bond yields rallied 17bps, along with Ireland’s 32bp rally
and Spain’s 6bp rally. I don’t know how Portugal seeking aid improves the lot
of Ireland, but there it is. Now, I don’t really care about a one-day rally but
the significance of Portugal succumbing is that the market’s crosshairs will
now be trained on Spain, Italy, or Belgium. Judging from market yields, it
would appear Spain is likely to be the next one ‘on the clock.’ And that’s
really the main event, because Spain’s economy is much larger than Portugal’s,
Greece’s, or Ireland’s.
The graveyard stretches onward. How long can markets keep whistling?
U.S. 10y note yields reached 1-month highs at 3.55%, and I will not be
at all surprised to see them keep going higher. I believe the economic data is
going to be flattening out a bit here, but not quickly enough to get investors
champing at the bit to take up the slack once the Fed stops buying in a couple
of months. Real yields are back to 0.96% on the 10y – still too expensive for
my tastes but it is easy to say that; harder it is to find good alternatives.
Even OSM, which
I wrote about a year ago when it was trading at 16, only sports a yield of
CPI+4.8% or so. After accounting for the credit risk of the issuer, that’s not
particularly cheap (although probably better than many alternatives – I am not
selling mine yet).
Energy markets continue to ooze slowly higher. The impacts of the
Japanese disaster are continuing to spread and be felt. The financial impacts
won’t be measured by Geiger counter readings, but by guidance from companies
whose supply chains have been disrupted by the crisis. That guidance and those
calls will start to happen when earnings announcement season gets kicked off on
Monday (although the companies affected probably aren’t those that report next
week but in the week or two thereafter).
And the money spigot the Fed has turned on will be turning off in only a
few months.
Some people would say that this is all part of the “market climbing a
wall of worry.” But that’s not right. A “wall of worry” is when investors are
timid because of the possibility that things might go wrong, and they’re
worrying about what might go wrong. That’s not the situation here. These things
are not possibilities; they are things that are actually going wrong, right
now. It’s whistling past the graveyard (frankly I picture it more like Michael Jackson’s Thriller,
with lots of ghouls and ghastly things reaching out to clutch at the
passersby).
Today, there are two main events on schedule. The first is the
announcement by the ECB of the results of the monetary policy meeting. There is
total unanimity among economists (at least, the 57 polled by Bloomberg) that
the ECB will hike rates by 25bps even as Portugal, Greece, and Ireland are
foundering on high rates. I think that will be a colossal error, although if
they stop after one tightening or indicate that there will be a pause of some
length to let the policymakers evaluate the effect of the move then it may not
be as big of an error. But tightening policy now, given what is happening in
MENA, given what is happening in Japan, and given what is happening with oil (which
price rise is already contractionary), is a mind-boggling decision. And, as I
have said before, it clearly points out that the EU doesn’t care much about the
periphery countries and that policy is being run for the core. That’s fine,
unless you’re a periphery country! We will see, I suppose, how willing the
consumers of Europe are to take slower growth or a return to recession in order
to restrain inflation.
This was always going to be the battle. Inflation, given the scale of
central bank response to crisis, was always doomed to turn higher long before
the “economic slack” (which is to say, jobs for the people) had evaporated. In
the U.S., I have long assumed that the Fed would be very slow
to hike rates for this reason and because the institution – despite its
apparent independence – isn’t insulated from public rancor or from the
brickbats of Congressional blowhards.
The other report is the weekly Initial Claims data (Consensus: 385k from
388k), which is unlikely to have a major impact unless it spikes well above
400k. A 410k print would get people wondering whether Claims are turning higher
again, but a better-than-expected number has a high hurdle because the
presumption is that Claims are in a downtrend.
For my money, I’m watching the ECB, listening to the press conference
afterwards, and wearing a garlic necklace.'
These policies like wars of aggression, illegal surveillance of
Americans, torture of detainees indefinitely held without formal charges,
unfair “free trade” agreements, and bank bailouts ... these policies
accelerated under Obama, even more of the draconian playbook is unfolding.
After 8 years of Bush’s reign that ended with a record low presidential
approval rating in the low 20s, Obama’s promise of hope and change ...Although policies being implemented under
Obama’s leadership exhibit the continuation of Bush’s tyrannical agenda,
his stunning betrayal of populist and Constitutional principles in support of
these actions makes him the ultimate hypocrite...
There have been many articles written about Obama’s unkept promises and
outright lies, but here are 10 actions that prove Obama is just as bad if not
worse than Bush:
1) Bank/Corporate Bailouts...
2) Betrayal of the Poor...
3) Expansion of Free Trade: Obama excoriated NAFTA, GATT and other so-called “Free Trade”
agreements that were put in place under Clinton and Bush (with CAFTA)...These free
trade agreements are designed to only help the multinational corporations
who wrote them, and who Obama now works for. In contrast to being
“opposed” to such agreements, the government moves forward with many new similar
agreements.
4) Escalating Wars of Aggression...
5)Internet Rights Eroding...
6) Finally, the DHS
has been arbitrarily seizing domain names, which is clearly
unconstitutional. Given that Obama is completely in bed with Google and
others in the corporate information cartel, you can
bet he will show his support for these endeavors even if only by remaining
silent as they are debated then implemented.
7) Free Speech Restrictions...
8) Illegal Domestic Surveillance...
9) Rule of Law is Dead...
10) Obamacare Fascism... ]
After an evening meeting with congressional leaders at the White House, the
president said the two sides are divided over “relatively narrow numbers.”
Bad
News for Cisco is Good: Dave's Daily 'This is the Alice in Wonderland world we live in. Cisco CEO John
Chambers admits that all is not well ("we suck!") and investors bid
the stock up 5%. Maybe the thinking is his confession will force his ouster. Maybe
investors will think a government shutdown is a good thing since that's one way
to cut spending. Across the pond, Portugal is bust (another bad news item) but
the euro and stocks rally. Elsewhere Fed Governor Lockhart stated he didn't see
any reason to abandon "QE2" early or raise interest
rates before the end of the year. Was that bad or good news? The best news
item of the day came from part one of a David Stockman op-ed calling out "Crony
Capitalism" as our major problem. It's a great read and the
conclusions within will ring true for many people...'
April
Is a Good Time to Sell [ I quite agree … overvalued to the hilt in this new
manipulated bubble … at the least a
'sell in May and go away', but 'don't be mentally ill, sell in April!' ] Adler 'Both banks and foreign central
banks [FCB] have normal buying cycles, and last
week’s evidence suggests that both are just past the peak of those cycles.
In addition, because of Japan’s predicament, FCB buying is for the foreseeable
future, likely to be well below the necessary levels to keep levitating stocks.
Add to that, the loss of the 2 month long, $25 billion weekly stipend from the
Treasury on March 24, and we have the conditions for a rough patch.
With less help from the Treasury, the banks, and FCBs, the Fed would have its
hands full keeping all its balls in the air. Some would be likely to hit the
ground, but not this month. That’s because of the light Treasury supply that I
covered in
the Treasury update. That makes the job much easier this month, even
without the banks and the FCBs.
This week is one of those easy weeks, with lots of Fed pumping and no new
Treasury supply. That should be relentlessly bullish, but you sure wouldn’t
know that from Monday’s action. There’s tremendous drag behind the scenes that
is preventing the Fed’s pumping from having as much effect is it would
otherwise.
The evidence shows that banks are again out of the Treasury buying game. It
also shows that they lost money in the first quarter, which is insane
considering that their cost of funds is zero. It’s an indication of just how
dire the circumstances are. Banks continue to accumulate cash at a frantic rate
in their accounts at the Fed. The last time reserves rose this fast was in the
midst of the crisis in 2008.
Although the banks did buy some Treasuries in mid-March, they have again
stopped buying, and have reduced their holdings, opting to hold cash at the Fed
instead. The banks are pulling cash out of the system and depositing it in
their reserve accounts even faster than the Fed is printing it, lately 60%
faster. We have to wonder what has them so spooked.
At the same time, FCB purchases of Treasuries are also backsliding, and are
well below the threshold where they need to be to keep the markets stable.
These elements essentially neutralize the Fed’s pumping. It may not be enough
to send the markets lower, and in the absence of new Treasury supply, Fed buying
should be enough to keep the field tilted in favor of higher prices. April’s
bias should be to the upside, but the background drag will be there. Things
will get tougher in May when Treasury supply increases, and really tough this
summer when the Fed presumably will stop pumping. The question at that point is
to what extent the banks and FCBs will be on the upside of their buying cycle,
and will that alone be enough to prevent a selloff.
In the meantime I would not wait to "sell in May and go away." April
looks like a good time to scale out of all equity longs, including in
particular broad based ETFs, like SPY (SPY), DIA (DIA), QQQ (QQQ), and IWM (IWM). Aggressive traders and
hedgers can use strength to establish short positions probably around mid-month
and after ...'
Top
3 Reasons were Flat While Gold Set Another Record [ I truly can see decreasing the apple
weighting, and increasing the oracle (open office, etc.), google (ubiquitous)
weighting, but increasing dyingosaur microsoft weighting … I don't think so …
something's gone awry here that smacks of desperation and an attempt to
circumvent the visual effects on the nasdaq of a post-jobs apple, viz.,
over-priced apple sauce. Isn't that just like the frauds on wall street … to
pad the nasdaq bubble based on a 1-stock story, and manipulate when that
1-stock story falls to earth! ] Wall Street Cheat Sheet 'On Tuesday April 5,
2011, Markets closed flat on Wall Street: DJI -0.05% SP500 -0.02% Nasdaq +0.07%
Gold +1.37% Oil -0.45% . Markets went nowhere today … again. Today’s story was
Gold (NYSE:GLD)
setting new record highs. (See “Gold
Bugs, Unite!“)
Today’s markets were flat because:
Paul
B. Farrell: Super-Rich CEOs are killing your retirement Farrell, MarketWatch SAN LUIS
OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — 'Headlines race across the web: “Jamie Dimon
Worries That Financial Regulation Will Doom Banks, Forever.” Doom? Forever?
Settle down Dimon, this sounds like an over-the-top B-movie promo for “Vampire
Chronicles.”
Suddenly the boss of $2 trillion J. P. Morgan Chase is our newest “Dr.
Doom.” Last week he was preaching his mantra to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce choir,
warning that financial reforms would be a “nail in the coffin for big American
banks.” Small investors hurt by low rates
Mark Whitehouse explains how while low interest rates have meant big
profits for banks, they are hurting small investors, including seniors who are
seeing their cash earn minimal interest.
Nail in the coffin? Yes, and that’s exactly what the American public
wants. Stuff Wall Street’s Vampire Squids back in their coffins, nail the lids
shut, bury them forever.
Seriously, nationalize our incompetent Super-Rich Banks. We made a
historic mistake not doing it in 2008. Should have let the vampires go
bankrupt, reinstated Glass-Steagall. Instead we sat passively letting our
double-dealing Treasury Secretary, former Goldman boss Hank Paulson, protect
his Wall Street cronies as he conned Congress and taxpayers into making the
worst economic blunder in American history, bailing out Wall Street’s
“too-greedy-to-fail” banks.
Warning: Soon our Super-Rich Vampires will sink the economy deeper than
2008. Worse, they even believe we’ll bail them out again. We blinked in 2008,
so they’ll try sucking out more bail-out blood next time.
The scene’s pathetic: Here’s one of America’s Super-Rich CEOs, a guy
worth $260 million, coming across like a crybaby, whining because a
tough-as-nails gal like Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren and her Consumer
Financial Agency just might take away his toys for being a bad boy … might try
to limit his ability to rip off cardholders … might limit his high-risk gambling
with depositors’ cash, limit him playing in the $700 trillion global
derivatives casino … might force his bank to put up more reserves to prevent
the next meltdown … might even awaken his lost moral consciousness and get him
to think about the public welfare instead of the tens of millions he makes
squeezing the public.
But will Wall Street have an epiphany? Change? Never. No, won’t happen.
Why? America’s Super-Rich Vampire CEOs are already doomed, forever. Our
too-greedy-to-fail banks are back to their old pre-2008 tricks, bankrolling a
billion dollar “kill reform” drive. J. P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs,
Citigroup, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley have invested megabucks in
lobbyists and politicians to water down, defund and effectively kill Warren’s
CFA, the SEC, Dodd-Frank and every other attempt to protect the public.
These guys love running the Fed and Treasury as their own little piggy
banks. As Spencer Bachus, the GOP chairman of the House Financial Services
committee put it, government regulators “exist to serve banks.”
So, unfortunately, for a while you will have to listen to Dimon’s
incessant whining as he keeps replaying his overly dramatic Dr. Doom story.
Until Wall Street pounds all their nails in the coffin of financial reform,
while resurrecting their self-destructive Reaganomics vampire that sank its
fangs and triggered the 2008 meltdown.
But watch out Wall Street: Next time, American taxpayers won’t support
bailouts and trillions more debt. We will sink into the Great Depression 2 and
a new American Revolution next time. No bailout, we’ll just nationalize all
banks.
Then, poor little Jamie and his Super-Rich buddies will lose their jobs,
having destroyed American capitalism. Unfortunately, the great irony is that
these insatiable greedy, incompetent CEOs will personally survive well after
the collapse, living off the millions they’ve stashed away while sabotaging
America with their bankrupt Reaganomics ideas.
Dimon really loves his new role as a Dr. Doom. Plays a tragic drama
queen very well. That “nail in the coffin” speech fits perfectly with the
Chamber’s kill-reform strategies.
Some may say Wall Street’s short-term thinking CEOs are too myopic to be
on the same stage as our long-term thinking Dr. Dooms. But you decide: Here’s a
criteria from Barron’s, offered by legendary money manager Jeremy Grantham,
referring to the 2008 crash: “Why is it that several dozen people saw this
crisis coming for years.” Several dozen Over four years. But “the bosses of
Merrill Lynch and Citi and even Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman
Bernanke, none of them seemed to see it coming.”
Why? Grantham’s answer is simple: Wall Street and Washington’s leaders
are “management types who focus on what they are doing this quarter or this
annual budget.” Their myopia “guarantees that every time we get an outlying,
obscure event that has never happened before in history, they are always going
to miss it.”
Yes, and they’ll miss the next crash. Guaranteed. Here’s what other
long-term thinking Dr. Dooms predict:
In “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly”
economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff warn that as economies “improve
there will always be a temptation to stretch the limits. … A financial system
can collapse under the pressure of greed, politics and profits ... Technology
has changed ... but the ability of governments and investors to delude
themselves … seems to have remained a constant.”
In the 400-year history of the stock market “there has been a long
succession of financial bubbles,” says financial historian Niall Ferguson. The
culprit? The Fed: “Without easy credit creation a true bubble cannot occur.
That is why so many bubbles have their origins in the sins of omission and
commission of central banks.” And with the rate near zero, Bernanke is becoming
the biggest bubble-blower in American history.
Savvy Hong Kong economist Marc Faber says “the average life span of the
world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years … Once a society becomes
successful it becomes arrogant, righteous, overconfident, corrupt, and decadent
... overspends ... costly wars ... wealth inequity and social tensions
increase; and society enters a secular decline.”
Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz warned that unless Wall Street’s
incentive system is drastically reformed, “the financial sector will only try
to circumvent whatever new regulations we put in place. We will simply have a
short respite before the next crisis.”
Remember a decade ago in “Irrational Exuberance” Yale’s Robert Shiller
predicted the dot-com crash. More recently he warned: “Bubbles are primarily a
social phenomena. Until we understand and address the psychology that fuels
them, they’re going to keep forming. We recently lived through two epidemics of
excessive financial optimism, we are close to a third episode.” And everything
since 2008 guaranteed the “third episode.”
Former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson waned: “We’re running out of
time … to prevent a true depression … the financial industry has effectively
captured our government” and is “blocking essential reform,” and unless we
break Wall Street’s “stranglehold” we will be unable prevent another Great
Depression. Failure to reform Wall Street guarantees a depression.
Unfortunately, Dimon just doesn’t get it.
When Obama reappointed Bernanke, “Black Swan’s” Nicholas Taleb warned
that Bernanke was an economist who “doesn’t even know he doesn’t understand how
things work.” Now the Fed’s Greenspan clone is feeding the GOP’s
self-destructive Reaganomics ideology, blindly focused on saving a dying
banking system by flooding the world with inflated dollars guaranteed to
trigger another meltdown.
Hedge funds make fortunes betting on the utter stupidity of Washington
politicians and Wall Street CEOs gambling with the Fed’s self-destructive
cheap-money policies. In fact, AR Magazine just reported that the top hedge
fund manager made $4.9 billion shorting our clueless leaders, after making $3.4
billion in 2008, the year of the crash.
In George Soros’s “New Paradigm:” America’s 25-year “superboom … led to
massive deregulation ... blindly chasing free markets ... unleashed excessive
greed ... created the dot-com and credit meltdowns” and a “shadow banking
system” of derivatives. “The system is broken … the end of an era of credit
expansion based on the dollar as the international reserve currency.” Warns
Soros: “We’re now in a period of wealth destruction.”
Barton Biggs 2008 bestseller, “Wealth, War and Wisdom” warns us to
prepare for a “breakdown of civilization … Your safe haven must be self-sufficient
and capable of growing some kind of food ... well-stocked with seed,
fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. … a few rounds over the
approaching brigands’ heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there
are easier farms to pillage.” Biggs is no anarchist militiaman; he’s a former
Morgan Stanley research guru, now a top hedge fund manager.
Yes, the end will be swift. Why? Few can take the warnings of geniuses like
evolutionary anthropologist Jared Diamond. In “Collapse: How Societies Choose
to Fail or Succeed,” Diamond warns that societies fail because they’re
unprepared, in denial till it’s too late: “Civilizations share a sharp curve of
decline. Indeed, a society’s demise may begin only a decade or two after it
reaches its peak population, wealth and power.” Just two decades. America hit
its peak in 2000, with Bush’s election. Our two-decade reprieve will soon be
up.
Obvious warnings were everywhere long before the 2008 meltdown. But a
tragic Reaganomics dogma created a blind spot in Greenspan, Bernanke and
Paulson. Today that blind spot is even stronger with a new crop of Reaganomics
ideologues.
And again, the warnings are everywhere. Again ignored. Tragic figures
like Dimon, Bernanke, Geithner as well as Bachus, Bachman, Palin, Trump, Koch
Brothers and even Obama have that blind spot. They simply cannot hear any
warnings … won’t till it’s too late. '
A
Stark Peak Profits Warning from Capital & Crisis's Chris Mayer Cooper
'Rising star of the US financial newsletter world, Chris Mayer, has a stark
warning for readers in his latest issue of Capital & Crisis (click here). Profit
margins in the US have reached unprecedented levels and can now only fall as
commodity price inflation hits home.
Jobs report better than expected … April fools … you got to be to believe
anything they say, desperate as they are
[ Drudgereport: GALLUP:
Unemployment at 10.0%; underemployment 19.3%... Who do you believe? ] … particularly that huge fudge factor; viz.,
that ubiquitous 'stopped looking' category … granted there are some
'window-dressing' jobs created at huge uneconomic cost with the reality going
something like this: government give contract to company that will cover the
costs of the domestic jobs created using funds they don't really have
(borrowed, one way or another, and piled on to the already insurmountable debt
of a nation that is already defacto bankrupt), to produce goods which could be
produced better and cheaper elsewhere (there isn't anything that can't be
produced outside this country better, more efficiently, and cheaper). This is
doubly inflationary since, first, the goods are uneconomically more costly, and
second, whether borrowed or printed, the increased paper and lesser real value
thereof is also inflationary. That said, I don't even believe their headline
number and the unemployment rate they give is irrelevant and wholly inaccurate
(that 'stopped looking fudge factor', etc.). Then there is the b*** s***
concerning treasury turning a profit on the (ongoing fed / pomo / wall street)
bailouts that taxpayers have and will continue to pay for in higher prices from
oil to grains to other commodities to fewer jobs, now and in the future. There
is no modern day alchemy that 'spins more paper into gold'. That value has to
come from some place; viz., you! Light
Volume Rally Continues: Dave's Daily ' ...The Fed has injected $500 billion
(another $7B in POMO Wednesday) to the financial system since January
2011 and that wave of liquidity is overwhelming most thoughtful analysis... Sure it's the end of the quarter and a jam-job to
close things out puts a smile on investors' faces and bonuses in portfolio
managers' pockets. Painting the tape and window dressing is against the law …
ADP data has misled before but Wall Street is awash with cash from on high and
finds little other place to invest beyond stocks...' M&A,
Ben Resuscitate Bulls: Dave's Daily 'If you can keep interest rates this
low this long, its inevitable cheap financing can allow companies to start
cobbling each other up. Further Ben's policies allow companies like IBM to sell
bonds at 1% and buy back shares with the proceeds (total paper bubble-scam). POMO is occurring almost daily and Primary
Dealers can buy back their shares and pay dividends with what essentially is
taxpayer money--nifty trick eh? With all the geopolitical and nuclear events
going on little noticed was Fed "stress tests" of financial
institutions to see if they were healthy enough to buy back shares and pay
dividends. Making the matter sinister and less transparent is their gag order
on the entire process. The Fed also has some toxic waste they'd like to sell you’ … 19
Reasons Why The Federal Reserve Is At The Heart Of Our Economic Problems Most Americans don't understand what the Fed
Reserve is or why it is at the heart of our economic problems. When Americans
get into discussions about the economy, most of them still blame either the
Democrats or Republicans for inflation, for the housing crash, for our rampant
unemployment and for the national debt. The
Economic Collapse]
In 1948, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, an opponent of
the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, warned that, even though failure
to go along with the Zionists might cost President Truman the states of New
York, Pennsylvania, and California, it was about time that somebody should pay
some consideration to whether we might not lose the United States. Mr.
Forrestal was absolutely correct! Isn’t that exactly what’s happened to defacto
bankrupt america in intractable decline.
FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO SACRIFICE AMERICAN LIVES, RESOURCES, PEACE, AND
PROSPERITY FOR ISRAEL, THE MESSAGE IN VERY STRONG TERMS SHOULD BE ‘MOVE TO
ISRAEL’:
Lest We Forget This is #33 in AMEU's Public Affairs Series Americans for Middle
East Understanding March, 2006 Many of the events catalogued here have been
treated in depth in AMEU's bimonthly publication, The Link. website:
www.ameu.org . Lest We Forget The Israeli lobby in Washington has successfully
influenced the U.S. Congress to give billions of non- -repayable dollars each
year to Israel on the premise that Israel's loyalty and strategic importance to
the United States make it an ally worthy of such unprecedented consideration.
Is it ? In his Farewell Address, George Washington warned Americans to avoid a
passionate attachment to any one nation because it promotes "the illusion
of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest
exists." In 1948, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, an opponent of
the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, warned that, even though failure
to go along with the Zionists might cost President Truman the states of New
York, Pennsylvania, and California, it was about time that somebody should pay
some consideration to whether we might not lose the United States. Israeli
actions over the past 53 years involving U.S. interests in the Middle East
seriously challenge the "strategic asset" premise of the Israeli
lobby. Some of these actions are compiled in the list that follows:
September 1953: Israel illegally begins to divert the waters of the
Jordan River. President Eisenhower, enraged, suspends all economic aid to
Israel and prepares to remove the taxdeductible status of the United Jewish
Appeal and of other Zionist organizations in the United States.
October 1953: Israel raids the
West Bank village of Kibya, killing 53 Palestinian civilians. The Eisenhower
administration calls the raid "shocking," and confirms the suspension
of aid to Israel. July 1954: Israeli agents firebomb American and British
cultural centers in Egypt, making it look like the work of the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood in order to sabotage U.S.- -Egyptian relations.
October 1956: Israel
secretly joins with England and France in a colonial-style attack on Egypt's
Suez Canal. Calling the invasion a dangerous threat to international order, President Eisenhower forces Israel to relinquish most of
the land it had seized. 1965: 206 pounds of weapons grade uranium disappear from
the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation plant in Pennsylvania. Plant
president is Zalmon Shapiro, a former sales agent for the Israel Defense
Ministry. C.I.A. Director Richard Helms later charges that Israel stole the
uranium.
June 1967: Israel bombs, napalms and torpedoes the USS Liberty, killing 34
Americans, wounding 171 others, and nearly sinking the lightly armed
intelligence ship. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Thomas
Moorer, charges that the attack "could not possibly have been a case of
mistaken identity." June 1967: Against U.S. wishes Israel seizes and
occupies Syria's Golan Heights. June 1968: Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir
rejects U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers Peace Plan that would have
required Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories; she calls upon Jews
everywhere to denounce the plan.
March 1978: Israel invades
Lebanon, illegally using U.S. cluster bombs and other U.S. weapons given to
Israel for defensive purposes only. 1979: Israel frustrates U.S.-sponsored Camp David Accords by
building new settlements on the West Bank. President Carter complains to
American Jewish leaders that, by acting in a "completely irresponsible
way," Israel's Prime Minister Begin continues "to disavow the basic
principles of the accords." 1979: Israel sells U.S. airplane tires and other military
supplies to Iran, against U.S. policy, at a time when U.S. diplomats are being
held hostage in Teheran. July
1980: Israel annexes East
Jerusalem in defiance of U.S. wishes and world opinion. July 1981:
Illegally using U.S. cluster bombs and other equipment, Israel bombs P.L.O.
sites in Beirut, with great loss of civilian life. December 1981:
Israel annexes Syria's Golan Heights, in violation of the Geneva Convention and
in defiance of U.S. wishes. June
1982: Israel invades Lebanon a
second time, again using U.S. cluster bombs and other U.S. weapons. President
Reagan calls for a halt of all shipments of cluster bomb shells to Israel. September 1982:
Abetted by Israeli forces under the control of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon,
Lebanese militiamen massacre hundreds of Palestinians in Beirut's Sabra and
Shatila refugee camps. President Reagan is horrified and summons the Israeli
ambassador to demand Israel's immediate withdrawal from Beirut. September 1982:
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin rejects President Reagan's Peace Plan for
the occupied territories. January-March 1983: Israeli army "harasses" U.S. Marines in
Lebanon. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger confirms Marine commandant's
report that "Israeli troops are deliberately threatening the lives of
American military personnel . . . replete with verbal degradation of the
officers, their uniforms and country." March 1985:
Israeli lobby in Washington pressures the U.S. Congress to turn down a $1.6
billion arms sale to Jordan, costing the U.S. thousands of jobs, quite apart
from the financial loss to American industry. Jordan gives the contract to
Russia. A frustrated King Hussein complains: "The U.S. is not free to move
except within the limits of what AIPAC [the Israeli lobby], the Zionists and
the State of Israel determine for it." October 1985:
Israeli lobby blocks $4 billion aircraft sale to Saudi Arabia. The sale,
strongly backed by the Reagan administration, costs the U.S. over 350,000 jobs,
with steep financial losses to American industry. Saudi Arabia awards contract
to England.
November 1985: Jonathan Jay
Pollard, an American recruited by Israel, is arrested for passing highly
classified intelligence to Israel. U.S. officials call the operation but
"one link in an organized and well-financed Israeli espionage ring
operating within the United States." State Department contacts reveal that
top Israeli defense officials "traded stolen U.S. intelligence documents
to Soviet military intelligence agents in return for assurances of greater
emigration of Soviet Jews." December 1985: U.S. Customs in three states
raid factories suspected of illegally selling electroplating technology to
Israel. Richard Smyth, a NATO consultant and former U.S. exporter, is indicted
on charges of illegally exporting to Israel 800 krytron devices for triggering
nuclear explosions. April 1986: U.S. authorities arrest 17 persons, including a
retired Israeli General, Avraham Bar-Am, for plotting to sell more than $2
billion of advanced U.S. weaponry to Iran (much of it already in Israel).
General Bar-Am, claiming to have had Israeli Government approval, threatens to
name names at the highest levels. U.S. Attorney General of New York calls the
plot mind-boggling in scope. July 1986: Assistant Secretary of State Richard
Murphy informs the Israeli ambassador that a U.S. investigation is under way of
eight Israeli representatives in the U.S. accused of plotting the illegal
export of technology used in making cluster bombs. Indictments against the
eight are later dropped in exchange for an Israeli promise to cooperate in the
case. January 1987: Israeli
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin visits South Africa to discuss joint nuclear
weapons testing. Israel admits that, in violation of a U.S. Senate
anti-apartheid bill, it has arms sales contracts with South Africa worth
hundreds of millions of dollars. Rep. John Conyers calls for Congressional
hearings on Israel-South Africa nuclear testing. November 1987:
The Iran-Contra scandal reveals that it was Israel that had first proposed the
trade to Iran of U.S. arms for hostages. The scandal becomes the subject of the
Tower Commission Report, Senate and House investigations, and the Walsh
criminal prosecution inquiries. April
1988: Testifying before U.S.
Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations, Jose
Blandon, a former intelligence aide to Panama's General Noriega, reveals that
Israel used $20 million of U.S. aid to ship arms via Panama to Nicaraguan
Contras. The empty planes then smuggled cocaine via Panama into the United
States. Pilot tells ABC reporter Richard Threlkeld that Israel was his primary
employer. The arms-for-drugs network is said to be led by Mike Harari,
Noriega's close aide and bodyguard, who was also a high officer in the Israeli
secret services and chief coordinator of Israel's military and commercial
business in Panama. June 1988: Mubarak Awad, a Palestinian-American advocate of
nonviolence, is deported by Israel. The White House denounces the action,
saying, "We think it is unjustifiable to deny Mr. Awad the right to stay
and live in Jerusalem, where he was born." June 1988:
Amnesty International accuses Israel of throwing deadly, U.S.-made gas
canisters inside hospitals, mosques, and private homes. The Pennsylvania
manufacturer, a major defense corporation, suspends future shipments of tear
gas to Israel. November 1989: According to the Israeli paper Ma’ariv, U.S. officials
claim Israel Aircraft Industries was involved in attempts to smuggle U.S.
missile navigation equipment to South Africa in violation of U.S. law. December 1989:
While the U.S. was imposing economic sanctions on Iran, Israel purchased $36
million of Iranian oil in order to encourage Iran to help free three Israeli
hostages in Lebanon. March 1990: Israel requests more than $1 billion in loans, gifts, and
donations from American Jews and U.S. government to pay for resettling Soviet
Jews in occupied territories. President Bush responds, My position is that the
foreign policy of the U.S. says we do not believe there should be new
settlements in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. June 1990:
Officials in the Bush administration and in Congress say that Israel has
emerged as leading supplier of advanced military technology to China, despite
U.S.'s expressed opposition to Israeli-Chinese military cooperation. September 1990:
Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy asks the Bush administration to forgive
Israel's $4.5 billion military debt and dramatically increase military aid.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens expresses concern over expected $20
billion in U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and asks for an additional $1
billion in military aid to Israel. Facing rising congressional opposition,
White House backs off from plan to sell Saudi Arabia over $20 billion in
military hardware. Bush administration promises to deliver additional F-15
fighters and Patriot missiles to Israel, but defers action on Israel's request
for more than $1 billion in new military aid. Arens questions U.S.'s commitment
to maintain Israel's military advantage in the Middle East. October 1990:
Aliya cabinet chair Ariel Sharon encourages increase in settlement of Soviet
Jews in East Jerusalem, despite his government's assurances to the U.S. that it
would not do so. Bush sends personal letter to Prime Minister Shamir urging
Israel not to pursue East Jerusalem housing. Shamir rejects appeal. November 1990:
In his new autobiography, former President Reagan says Israel was the
instigator and prime mover in the Iran-Contra affair and that then-Prime
Minister Shimon Peres was behind the proposal. January 1991: White House
criticizes Israeli ambassador Zalman Shoval for complaining that U.S. had not
moved forward on $400 million in loan guarantees and that Israel had not
received one cent in aid from allies to compensate for missile damage (in Gulf
War). U.S. says comments are outrageous and outside the bounds of acceptable
behavior. February 1991: Hours after long-disputed $400 million loan guarantees to
Israel are approved, Israeli officials say the amount is grossly insufficient.
Next day, Israel formally requests $1 billion in emergency military assistance
to cover costs stemming from the Gulf War. March 1991: Israeli government
rejects President Bush's call for solution to Arab-Israeli conflict that
includes trading land for peace. In a report to Congress, U.S. State Department
says Soviet Jewish immigrants are settling in the occupied territories at a
higher rate than the Israeli government claims. During tour of West Bank
settlements, Housing Minister Sharon says construction of 13,000 housing units
in occupied territories has been approved for next two years. Plans contradict
statement by Prime Minister Shamir, who told President Bush that the Israeli
government had not approved such plans. April 1991: Prime Minister Shamir and
several members of his cabinet reject U.S. Secretary of State Baker's
suggestion that Israel curtail expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied
territories as gesture for peace. U.S. calls new Jewish settlement of Revava an
obstacle to peace and questions Israel's timing, with Secretary Baker due to
arrive in Israel in two days. Hours before Baker arrives, eight Israeli
families complete move to new settlement of Talmon Bet. U.S. ambassador to
Israel William Brown files an official protest with the Israeli government
about establishment and/or expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Housing
Minister Sharon says Israel has no intention of meeting U.S. demands to slow or
stop settlements. Secretary Baker, in a news conference before leaving Israel,
says Israel failed to give responses he needed to put together a peace
conference. May 1991: Israeli ambassador to U.S. Zalman Shoval says his country
will soon request $10 billion in loan guarantees from Washington to aid in
settling Soviet Jewish immigrants to Israel. Secretary Baker calls continued
building of Israeli settlements ?largest obstacle? to convening proposed Middle
East peace conference. May 1991: President Bush unveils proposal for arms control in
Middle East. U.S. administration confirms that Israel, which has not signed the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has objected to provision on nuclear weapons.
June 1991: Prime Minister Shamir rejects President Bush's call for
Israeli acceptance of a greater United Nations role in proposed Arab-Israeli
peace talks. July 1991: Israeli Housing Minister Sharon inaugurates the new
Israeli settlement of Mevo Dotan in the West Bank one day after President Bush
describes Israeli settlements as counterproductive. September 1991:
President Bush asks Congress to delay considering Israeli loan guarantee
request for 120 days. Ignoring pleas of U.S. administration, Israel formally
submits its request. Prime Minister Shamir says U.S. has a moral obligation to
provide Israel with loan guarantees, and that Israel would continue to build
settlements in the occupied territories. October 1991: The Washington Post
reports that President Bush waived U.S.-mandated sanctions against Israel after
U.S. intelligence determined that Israel had exported missile components to
South Africa. November 1991: Hours after concluding bilateral talks with Syria,
Israel inaugurates Qela, a new settlement in the Golan Heights. Secretary of
State Baker calls the action provocative. February 1992: Secretary of State
Baker says U.S. will not provide loan guarantees to Israel unless it ceases its
settlement activity. President Bush threatens to veto any loan guarantees to
Israel without a freeze on Israel’s settlement activity. March 1992:
U.S. administration confirms it has begun investigating intelligence reports
that Israel supplied China with technical data from U.S. Patriot missile
system. April 1992: State Department Inspector issues report that the
department has failed to heed intelligence reports that an important U.S. ally
widely understood to be Israel was making unauthorized transfers of U.S.
military technology to China, South Africa, Chile, and Ethiopia. May 1992:
Wall Street Journal cites Israeli press reports that U.S. officials have placed
Israel on list of 20 nations carrying out espionage against U.S. companies.
June 1992: U.S. Defense Department says Israel has rejected a U.S. request to
question former General Rami Dotan, who is at center of arms procurement
scandal involving U.S. contractors. July 1992: General Electric Company pleads
guilty to fraud and corrupt business practices in connection with its sale of
military jet engines to Israel. A GE manager had conspired with Israeli Gen.
Rami Dotan to divert $27 million in U.S. military aid with fraudulent vouchers.
U.S. Justice and Defense Departments do not believe that Dotan was acting in
his own interest, implying that the government of Israel may be implicated in
the fraud, which would constitute a default on Israel's aid agreements with the
U.S. June 1993: U.S. House of Representatives passes bill authorizing $80
million per year to Israel for refugee settlement; bill passes despite $10
billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Israel and against evidence from Israeli
economists that Israel no longer needs U.S. aid. October 1993: CIA informs Senate Government Affairs
Committee that Israel has been providing China for over a decade with several
billion dollars worth of advanced military technology. Israeli Prime Minister
Rabin admits Israel has sold arms to China. November 1993: CIA Director James
Woolsey makes first public U.S. acknowledgement that Israel is generally
regarded as having some kind of nuclear capability. December 1993: Time
magazine reports convicted spy Jonathan Pollard passed a National Security
Agency listing of foreign intelligence frequencies to Israel that later was
received by Soviets, ruining several billion dollars of work and compromising
lives of U.S. informants.
December 1994: Los Angeles Times reports Israel has given China
information on U.S. military technology to help in joint Israeli-Chinese
development of a fighter jet.
January 1995: When Egypt threatens not to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty because Israel will not sign, the U.S. says it will not pressure Israel
to sign. July 1995: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk demands Israel
abolish import barriers that discriminate against U.S. imports. November 1995: Israel grants citizenship to American spy
Jonathan Pollard. April 1996:
Using U.S.-supplied shells, Israel kills 106 unarmed civilians who had taken
refuge in a U.N. peace-keeping compound in Qana, southern Lebanon. U.N.
investigators, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch condemn the
shelling as premeditated. The U.N. Security Council calls on Israel to pay
reparations. Resolution is vetoed by the United States.
June 1996: U.S. State
Department hands Israeli defense officials classified CIA report saying Israel
has given China U.S. military avionics, including advanced radar-detection
system and electronic warfare equipment.
December 1996: Israeli cabinet reinstates large subsidies, including tax breaks
and business grants, for West Bank settlers. U.S. says the move is troubling
and clearly complicates the peace process. Israeli government rejects President
Clinton's criticism of the settlements and vows to strengthen them. February
1997: FBI announces that David Tenenbaum, a mechanical engineer working for the
U.S. army, has admitted that for the past 10 years he has inadvertently passed
on classified military information to Israeli officials. March 1997: U.S.
presses Israel to delay building new settlement of Har Homa near Bethlehem.
Prime Minister Netanyahu says
international opposition ‘will just strengthen my resolve.’ June 1997: U.S. investigators report that two Hasidic Jews
from New York, suspected of laundering huge quantities of drug money for a
Colombian drug cartel, recently purchased millions of dollars worth of land
near the settlements of Mahseya and Zanoah. September 1997: Jewish settlers in
Hebron stone Palestinian laborers working on a U.S.-financed project to
renovate the town’s main street. David Muirhead, the American overseeing the
project, says the Israeli police beat him, threw him into a van, and detained
him until the U.S. Consulate intervened. U.S. State Department calls the
incident simply unacceptable. September 1997: Secretary of State Albright says
Israel?s decision to expand Efrat settlement is not at all helpful to the peace
process. Prime Minister Netanyahu says he will continue to expand settlements.
May 1998: 13 years after denying he was not its spy, Israel officially
recognizes Pollard as its agent in hopes of negotiating his release. June 1998:
Secretary of State Albright phones Prime Minister Netanyahu to condemn his plan
to extend Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries and to move Jews into East
Jerusalem, particularly in the area adjacent to Bethlehem. Ignoring U.S.
protests, Israel?s cabinet unanimously approves plan to extend Jerusalem's
municipal authority. August 1998: Secretary Albright tells Prime Minister
Netanyahu that the freeze in the peace process due to the settlement policy is
harming U.S. interests in the Middle East and affecting the U.S.’s ability to
forge a coalition against Iraq. September
1998: Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports that the Israeli airliner that
crashed in Amsterdam in 1992 was not carrying gifts and perfume, as the
Israelis claimed, but three of the four chemicals used to make sarin nerve gas.
According to the plane's cargo manifest, the chemicals were sent from a U.S.
factory in Pennsylvania to the top secret Israeli Institute for Biological
Research. November 1998: Israeli
Foreign Minister Sharon urges Jewish settlers to grab West Bank land so it does
not fall under Palestinian control in any final peace settlement. May 1999:
U.S. denounces Israel's decision to annex more land to the Ma'ale Adumim
settlement. June 1999: The Israeli
company Orlil is reported to have stolen U.S. night-vision equipment purchased
for the Israeli Defense Forces and to have sold it to Far Eastern countries. April 2001: Prime Minister Sharon announces plans to build
708 new housing units in the Jewish settlements of Ma'ale Adumim and Alfe
Menashe. U.S. State Department criticizes the move as provocative. May 2001:
The Mitchell Committee (headed by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell)
concludes that Jewish settlements are a barrier to peace. Prime Minister Sharon
vows to continue expanding the settlements. May 2001: U.S. is voted off the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights for the first time since the
committee's establishment in 1947. The Financial Times of London suggests that
Washington, by vetoing U.N. resolutions alleging Israeli human rights abuses,
showed its inability to work impartially in the area of human rights. Secretary
of State Colin Powell suggests the vote was because we left a little blood on
the floor in votes involving the Palestinians. September 2001: Six days after
the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, Secretary of State Powell, when asked
why America is hated in the Arab and Muslim world, acknowledges that the deep
resentment and anger toward the United States is due to the Palestinian crisis.
November 2001: Secretary of State Colin Powell calls on Israel to halt all
settlement building which he says cripples chances for real peace and security.
Benny Elon, a right-wing minister in the Sharon government, says the settlers
aren’t worried. America has a special talent for seeing things in the short
term, he says, explaining that what Powell said he said only to get Arab
support for America’s anti-terrorism coalition against Afghanistan. March 2002:
U.N. Sec. Gen. Kofi Annan calls for immediate withdrawal of Israeli tanks from
Palestinian refugee camps, citing large numbers of Palestinians reported dead
or injured. U.S. State Dept. says the United States has contacted Israel to
urge that utmost restraint be exercised in order to avoid harm to the civilian
population. April 2002: President Bush repeatedly demands an immediate halt to
Israel's military invasion of the West Bank. Prime Minister Sharon rebuffs the
President's withdrawal demands, saying the United States and other nations
should not put any pressure upon us. April 4, 2002: President Bush demands that
Israel halt its March 29 incursion into the West Bank, withdraw immediately,
and cease all settlement building. Three days later, Secretary of State Powell
says Bush's demand was a request. June 10, 2002: Prime Minister Sharon visits
White House. When reporters ask about Israel's ongoing incursions into Palestinian
towns, President Bush says Israel has a right to defend herself. September 30,
2003: President Bush signs the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which
identifies Jerusalem as Israel's capital. November 25, 2002. Israel asks the
U.S. for $4-billion in military aid to defray the costs of fighting terrorism,
plus $10-billion in loan guarantees to support its struggling economy. May 29,
2003: Israel announces construction of a new Jewish settlement of 230 housing
units in East Jerusalem. July 29, 2003: Sharon rejects President Bush's appeal
to halt construction of a separation wall that Israel is building on occupied
Palestinian land. October 22, 2003: Former
Navy lawyer Ward Boston, who had helped lead the military investigation into
Israel's 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, files a signed affidavit stating that
President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had ordered those
heading the naval inquiry to conclude that the attack was a case of mistaken
identity, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. March 21, 2005: Prime Minister Sharon approves
construction of 3,500 new housing units in the Israeli settlement of Maale
Adumin to link it to East Jerusalem. The U.S. State Department has no comment.
May 2005: Newsweek reports that in the late 1990s, lobbyist Jack Abramoff
diverted more than $140,000 from charity contributions by Indian tribes to the
Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit for sniper equipment and training of settler
militias. AMEU Board of Directors Jane Adas (Vice President) Hugh D.
Auchincloss, Jr. Atwater, Bradley & Partners, Inc. Edward Dillon John
Goelet Richard Hobson, Jr. Anne R. Joyce Kendall Landis (Treasurer) Robert L.
Norberg (President) Hon. Edward L. Peck Former U.S. Ambassador Lachlan Reed
President, Lachlan International Talcott W. Seelye Former U.S. Ambassador to
Syria Donald L. Snook James M. Wall AMEU National Council Hon. James E. Akins
Isabelle Bacon William R. Chandler David S. Dodge Paul Findley Dr. Cornelius B.
Houk Cynthia Infantino O. Kelly Ingram Moorhead Kennedy Ann Kerr John J. McCloy
II David Nes Mary Norton C. Herbert Oliver Marie Petersen Dr. John C. Trever
Don M. Wagner Miriam Ward, RSM AMEU Executive Director: John F. Mahoney AMEU
grants permission to reproduce ?Lest We Forget? in part or in whole. AMEU must
be credited and one copy forwarded to our offices at 475 Riverside Drive, Room
245, New York, New York 10115-0245. Telephone: 212- 870-2053; E-mail:
[email protected]; website: www.ameu.org.
Paul
Craig Roberts: Government Abandoned Vietnam POWs Kurt Nimmo | John McCain worked overtime to
make sure Vietnam POWs never came home. I think the even bigger story vis-ŕ-vis
mccain is: http://www.albertpeia.com/heroenot.htm ‘Did you know that that so-called
"american heroe" john mccain was referred to by his fellow pows in
Vietnam as something akin to the "songbird" inasmuch as he was
constantly "singing" to his Viet-Cong captors to curry favor and
better treatment? This has been documented with authority by Colonel David
Hackworth. The same violates military code/protocol (other soldiers have been
court-martialed for far less)
click Here, Here. [ http://www.albertpeia.com/hackworth.htm
] But, you see, this covered up
scenario, compromizing the false facade of far less than a heroe, is exactly
what a criminal (lie of a) nation as america loves and encourages (get
everyone's hands dirty so no-one dares to rectify same, ie., bush, sr.,
clinton, bush, jr.). That is, "toe the (corrupt, propagandized)
line", become a criminal, or be exposed, prosecuted, and/or ruined; and,
hasn't anyone asked how "wall street" has been "spared the
spotlight" (and even was accorded protective legislation from their
criminal culpability) and focus of inquiry, attention, and prosecution despite
being the primary beneficiaries financial and otherwise of these scams (you
know the wall street motto, "churn and earn"; huge conflicts of
interest if not outright fraud)…’
Coalition wants UK space lift-off [ Don’t make me laugh! ]
Israel’s
Nukes Out of the Shadows Israel
faces unprecedented pressure to abandon its official policy of “ambiguity” on
its possession of nuclear weapons as the international community meets at the
United Nations in New York this week to consider banning such arsenals from the
Middle East.
NASA wants mission to bring Martian rocks to Earth (AP) Why?
They already have that and more:
Launch
of secret US space ship masks even more secret launch of new weapon
http://www.albertpeia.com/UFOetryWeNeverWentToTheMoonPNTV.wmv
Canada
among world's most peaceful nations The United States and Iran finished in a virtual dead
heat, and way down the list, in a magazine's assessment of the peacefulness of
121 countries. Meaningfully lawless uncivilized criminal nation america has
added their tainted touch to bring Iraq down to dead last on the list; and,
don’t forget war criminal nation america has probably played a role in Iran’s
status in light of criminal america’s op’s to destabilize Iran. In sum, the
study/ranking confirms if not understates my own direct observation and
experience with meaningfully lawless criminal america.
Finland
ranks as world's sixth most peaceful country Helsingin Sanomat
Norway tops
peaceful nation list, Iraq rates lowest Radio Australia
Magazine's
'peace index' puts US, Iran near bottom of list, Canada ...
Norway tops
peaceful nation list, Iraq (thanks to america) rates lowest Iraq (thanks to criminal nation america)
was in last place, with Sudan and international war criminal nation israel just
above. Some two-dozen indicators were used, including wars fought in the past
five years, arms sales, prison populations and incidence of crime.
Britain
drops down peace table Metro, UK - May 30, 2007
The wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan have pushed Britain down into criminal america’s league of
violent/unpeaceful nations.
Ghana:
World's 40th most peaceful The Statesman Online, Ghana - Scandinavian countries are the most
peaceful in the world. New Zealand ranks second and Denmark third on the list,
which notably puts Japan near the top and ...
UAE Ranks Among
World's Top 50 Peaceful Countries Bernama, Malaysia - ABU DHABI, May 31 (Bernama) -- The
UAE is in the top 50 of the world's more peaceful nations, and is the third
most peaceful Gulf country,
Iran,
US have something in common: Both rank high in violence Detroit Free Press
The United
States and Iran finished in a virtual dead heat, and way down the list, in a
magazine's assessment of the peacefulness of 121 countries. Meaningfully
lawless uncivilized criminal nation america has added their tainted touch to
bring Iraq down to dead last on the list; and, don’t forget war criminal nation
america has probably played a role in Iran’s status in light of criminal
america’s op’s to destabilize Iran. In sum, the study/ranking confirms if not
understates my own direct observation and experience with meaningfully lawless
criminal america.
New
Peace Index Ranks US Among Worst Nations Chosun
Ilbo, South Korea - A new study has ranked Norway as the most
peaceful country in the world, while placing the US near the bottom.
US
ranks low, just above Iran on peace index China
Daily, China - WASHINGTON - The United States is among the
least peaceful nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and Iran,
according to a new index released on 5-31-07.
The data were drawn
from the United Nations, the World Bank, peace groups and the magazine
researchers' own assessments, Williamson said. "We are just mechanics and
technicians behind the index," he said. Norway was rated as the country
most at peace, followed by New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland and Japan. Canada
placed eighth, behind Finland and Sweden. Iraq was in last place, with Sudan
and international war criminal nation israel just above. The united states is among the least
peaceful nations in the world. Some two-dozen indicators were used, including wars fought in the
past five years, violence, organized crime, arms sales, prison populations and
incidence of crime.
In sum, the study/ranking confirms if not understates my own direct
observation and experience with meaningfully lawless criminal america.
Judicial Watch
... friendly page For Immediate Release Oct 8, 2002 Contact:
Press Office 202-646-5188 LOUIS FREEH WILL NOT ESCAPE ACCOUNTABILITY Judicial
Watch Lawsuits and Investigations Seek To Hold Him ...
Description: Judicial Watch is a non-profit, public interest
law firm dedicated to fighting government corruption.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/2619.shtml - Click here
LOUIS FREEH WILL NOT
ESCAPE ACCOUNTABILITY
... For Immediate Release Oct 8, 2002 Contact: Press Office
202-646-5188 LOUIS FREEH WILL NOT ESCAPE ACCOUNTABILITY Judicial Watch Lawsuits
and Investigations Seek To Hold Him Accountable ...
Description: no description
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_2619.shtml
- Click here
Judicial Watch
... CASE BY ENERGY DEPARTMENT WHISTLEBLOWER TO PROCEED
AGAINST FORMER FBI DIRECTOR LOUIS FREEH NOTRA TRULOCK ALLEGES ILLEGAL FBI
SEARCH AND SEIZURE IN RETALIATION FOR ARTICLE CRITICAL OF ...
Description: Judicial Watch is a non-profit, public interest
law firm dedicated to fighting government corruption.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/1107.shtml - Click here
JUDICIAL WATCH
VICTORY: APPEALS COURT ALLOWS CIVIL RIGHTS CASE BY ENERGY DEPARTMENT
WHISTLEBLOWER TO PROCEED AGAINST FORMER FBI DIRECTOR LOUIS FREEH
... CASE BY ENERGY DEPARTMENT WHISTLEBLOWER TO PROCEED
AGAINST FORMER FBI DIRECTOR LOUIS FREEH NOTRA TRULOCK ALLEGES ILLEGAL FBI
SEARCH AND SEIZURE IN RETALIATION FOR ARTICLE CRITICAL OF ...
Description: no description
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_1107.shtml
- Click here
Judicial Watch
... BUSH ADMINISTRATION EFFORT TO BLOCK CIVIL RIGHTS SUIT
AGAINST FORMER FBI DIRECTOR LOUIS FREEH BY ENERGY DEPARTMENT WHISTLEBLOWER
NOTRA TRULOCK (Washington, DC) Judicial Watch also announced ...
Description: Judicial Watch is a non-profit, public interest
law firm dedicated to fighting government corruption.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/1761.shtml - Click here
Judicial Watch
... Contact: Press Office 202-646-5188 SUPREME COURT RULES
AGAINST FORMER FBI DIRECTOR LOUIS FREEH Judicial Watch Wins Victory on Behalf
of Client Notra Trulock Case to Proceed to Discovery ...
Description: Judicial Watch is a non-profit, public interest
law firm dedicated to fighting government corruption.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/2814.shtml - Click here
JUDICIAL WATCH
VICTORIES
... BUSH ADMINISTRATION EFFORT TO BLOCK CIVIL RIGHTS SUIT
AGAINST FORMER FBI DIRECTOR LOUIS FREEH BY ENERGY DEPARTMENT WHISTLEBLOWER
NOTRA TRULOCK (Washington, DC) Judicial Watch also announced ...
Description: no description
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_1761.shtml
- Click here
SUPREME COURT RULES
AGAINST FORMER FBI DIRECTOR LOUIS FREEH
... Contact: Press Office 202-646-5188 SUPREME COURT RULES
AGAINST FORMER FBI DIRECTOR LOUIS FREEH Judicial Watch Wins Victory on Behalf
of Client Notra Trulock Case to Proceed to Discovery ...
Description: no description
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_2814.shtml
- Click here
Judicial Watch
... directed against him by Clinton administration
officials, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, and the now thoroughly discredited
FBI. Trulock’s First Amendment rights were violated by ...
Description: Judicial Watch is a non-profit, public interest
law firm dedicated to fighting government corruption.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/3431.shtml - Click here
JUDICIAL WATCH
VICTORY: JUDGE ORDERS CIA TO PRODUCE TRULOCK DOCUMENTS FOR REVIEW
... directed against him by Clinton administration
officials, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, and the now thoroughly discredited
FBI. Trulock’s First Amendment rights were violated by ...
Description: no description
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_3431.shtml
- Click here
Judicial Watch
... Circuit. This reinstated case involves Trulock's claims
against former FBI Director Louis Freeh for violating his constitutional
rights. “The Bush Justice Department feared that if the Trulock ...
Description: Judicial Watch is a non-profit, public interest
law firm dedicated to fighting government corruption.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/1431.shtml - Click here
Judicial Watch
... wiretap warrant applications by FBI agents (signed-off
by the former FBI Director, Louis Freeh) to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) Court. Prior to September 11th, SA Wright ...
Description: Judicial Watch is a non-profit, public interest
law firm dedicated to fighting government corruption.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/2469.shtml - Click here
Judicial Watch
... waiting for documents to be produced by the government.
Notra Trulock’s case against Louis Freeh was settled in early 2004. Notra
Trulock’s case against Wen Ho Lee ended with a summary judgment ...
Description: Judicial Watch is a non-profit, public interest
law firm dedicated to fighting government corruption.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/ntrulock.shtml - Click here
TRULOCK CASE AGAINST
WEN HO LEE DISMISSED AT REQUEST OF PRESIDENT BUSH
... Circuit. This reinstated case involves Trulock's claims
against former FBI Director Louis Freeh for violating his constitutional
rights. “The Bush Justice Department feared that if the Trulock ...
Description: no description
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_1431.shtml
- Click here
FBI AGENT ROBERT
WRIGHT SAYS FBI AGENTS ASSIGNED TO INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS CONTINUE TO PROTECT
TERRORISTS FROM CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS AND PROSECUTIONS
... wiretap warrant applications by FBI agents (signed-off
by the former FBI Director, Louis Freeh) to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) Court. Prior to September 11th, SA Wright ...
Description: no description
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_2469.shtml
- Click here
Notra Trulock v.
Wen Ho Lee, et al.
... waiting for documents to be produced by the government. Notra Trulock’s
case against Louis Freeh was settled in early 2004. Notra Trulock’s case
against Wen Ho Lee ended with a summary judgment ...
Description: no description
http://www.judicialwatch.org/printer_ntrulock.shtml -
Click here
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