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The Real Bleep-Hole Moment—–$40 Trillion And Counting

The Real Bleep-Hole Moment—–$40 Trillion And Counting

You can call it the bleep-hole moment (per the Fox “family channel”) or the shit-hole moment (per the rest of the MSM), but what you can’t call yesterday’s contretemps in the White House is evidence that sentient adults are in charge of the Imperial City.

And, no, we are not getting down on the Donald for using a swear word—nor are we trying to out race-card Don Lemon as to the obvious implications of the President’s crude phraseology.

Indeed, even prior to yesterday’s outburst it was hard to deny that Trump is a semi-literate bully and that he never got (read) the memo on racial comity and respect. But we actually happen to think that the Donald’s potty-talk eruption resulted not from some dark place in his mind and heart, but from sheer frustration as the intractability of the immigration issue closes in on him.

What we mean is that neither party has its cards face up on the matter—-which goes way beyond the potential deportation of the 800,000 dreamers, chain migration, the diversity lottery and the Wall. Underneath it all there is a brutal, raging political struggle for dominance which is almost existential in import.

To wit, the sundry Dem caucuses want more immigrants, and the browner the better, because it’s their only route to electoral dominance. By contrast, the hard core GOP immigrant-thumpers are desperately attempting to hang-on to Red State rule in the face of the forbidding demographic math of the white population—and the fact that not many Norwegians want to come to America anyway.

It would not be too far-fetched to say that the partisan battle for office is morphing into a racial-ethnic war.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Unhinged, Part 1: The GOP’s Fiscal Madness

Unhinged, Part 1: The GOP’s Fiscal Madness

The watchword for 2018 is: UNHINGED!

That refers to Wall Street, Washington, the Dems and the GOP, and all the far and near corners of the planet which are implicated in their collective follies.

The latter begins with the fact that Imperial Washington has become so dysfunctional that the most powerful government on earth can’t seem to keep its doors open for more than a few weeks at a time.

The next continuing resolution (CR) deadline is January 19 and the route thereto resembles nothing less than kick-the-can-alley. It’s strewn with $100 billion of unfunded disaster aid, defense and nondefense sequester caps fixing to be busted by another $100 billion, 700,000 dreamers waiting to be deported, 9 million poor children (CHAPS) facing termination of medical care and millions more ObamaCare recipients who have been promised that cost abatement subsidies to insurance companies will be funded forthwith.

And along with those major bouncing cans are countless more articles of graft and booty cued-up on Capitol Hill looking for a legislative gravy train (i.e. CR) to hop aboard.

Likewise, the casino gamblers on Wall Street complacently attempt to tag another record at 2700 on the S&P 500. Yet that would represent a nosebleed 25X LTM earnings heading into a bond market rout that is certain to result from soaring treasury issuance and the Fed’s impending bond dump-a-thon.

Worse still, the Donald insouciantly unleashes tweet storms about the alleged Trumpian boom when the next recession is statistically just around the corner. After all, the current so-called recovery will pass the existing 118 month record, which occurred under the far more propitious circumstances of the 1990s, in April 2019.

But when it comes to Unhinged, nothing tops the GOP’s disgraceful plunge into fiscal turpitude. The once and former party of fiscal rectitude and a constitutionally required balanced budget has unleashed a torrent of red ink, which under the circumstances, makes Barack Obama’s profligacy pale by comparison.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Greatest Bubble Ever: Why You Better Believe It, Part 2

The Greatest Bubble Ever: Why You Better Believe It, Part 2

During the 40 months after Alan Greenspan’s infamous “irrational exuberance” speech in December 1996, the NASDAQ 100 index rose from 830 to 4585 or by 450%. But the perma-bulls said not to worry: This time is different—-it’s a new age of technology miracles that will change the laws of finance.

It wasn’t. The market cracked in April 2000 and did not stop plunging until the NASDAQ 100 index hit 815 in early October 2002. During those a heart-stopping 30 months of free-fall, all the gains of the tech boom were wiped out in an 84% collapse of the index. Overall, the market value of household equities sank from $10.0 trillion to $4.8 trillion—-a wipeout from which millions of baby boom households have never recovered.

Likewise, the second Greenspan housing and credit boom generated a similar round trip of bubble inflation and collapse. During the 57 months after the October 2002 bottom, the Russell 2000 (RUT) climbed the proverbial wall-of-worry—-rising from 340 to 850 or by 2.5X.

And this time was also held to be different because, purportedly, the art of central banking had been perfected in what Bernanke was pleased to call the “Great Moderation”. Taking the cue, Wall Street dubbed it the Goldilocks Economy—-meaning a macroeconomic environment so stable, productive and balanced that it would never again be vulnerable to a recessionary contraction and the resulting plunge in corporate profits and stock prices.

Wrong again!

During the 20 months from the July 2007 peak to the March 2009 bottom, the RUT gave it all back. And we mean every bit of it—-as the index bottomed 60% lower at 340. This time the value of household equities plunged by $6 trillion, and still millions more baby-boomers were carried out of the casino on their shields never to return.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Greatest Bubble Ever: Why You Better Believe It, Part 1

The Greatest Bubble Ever: Why You Better Believe It, Part 1

During the 40 months after Alan Greenspan’s infamous “irrational exuberance” speech in December 1996, the NASDAQ 100 index rose from 830 to 4585 or by 450%. But the perma-bulls said not to worry: This time is different—-it’s a new age of technology miracles that will change the laws of finance forever.

It wasn’t. The market cracked in April 2000 and did not stop plunging until the NASDAQ 100 index hit 815 in early October 2002. During those heart-stopping 30 months of free-fall, all the gains of the tech boom were wiped out in an 84% collapse of the index. Overall, the market value of household equities sank from $10.0 trillion to $4.8 trillion—-a wipeout from which millions of baby boom households have never recovered.

Likewise, the second Greenspan housing and credit boom generated a similar round trip of bubble inflation and collapse. During the 57 months after the October 2002 bottom, the Russell 2000 (RUT) climbed the proverbial wall-of-worry—-rising from 340 to 850 or by 2.5X.

And this time was also held to be different because, purportedly, the art of central banking had been perfected in what Bernanke was pleased to call the “Great Moderation”. Taking the cue, Wall Street dubbed it the Goldilocks Economy—-meaning a macroeconomic environment so stable, productive and balanced that it would never again be vulnerable to a recessionary contraction and the resulting plunge in corporate profits and stock prices.

Wrong again!

During the 20 months from the July 2007 peak to the March 2009 bottom, the RUT gave it all back. And we mean every bit of it—-as the index bottomed 60% lower at 340. This time the value of household equities plunged by $6 trillion, and still millions more baby-boomers were carried out of the casino on their shields never to return.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Gold Only Safe Asset Left – David Stockman

Gold Only Safe Asset Left – David Stockman

Record high stock and bond prices are flashing danger signs to former Reagan White House Budget Director David Stockman. Stockman contends, “I don’t think we are going to have a liquidity crisis.  I think it’s going to be a value reset.  I think there is going to be a jarring downward price adjustment both in the stock market and in the bond market.  This phantom or phony wealth that has been created since the last crisis is going to basically evaporate.”

So, what asset is safe? Stockman says gold and goes onto explain, “I think the time to buy (gold and silver) is ideal.  Gold is the ultimate and only real money.  Gold is the only safe asset when push comes to shove.  They tell you to buy the government bond, that’s a safe asset.  It’s not a safe asset at its current price.  I am not saying the federal government is going to default in the next two or three years.  I am saying the yield on a 10-year bond of 2.4% is way below of where it’s going to end up.  So, the only safe asset left is gold.  This crazy Bitcoin mania has drained off what would otherwise be a demand for gold. . . . When Bitcoin collapses, spectacularly, which it will because it’s sheer mania in the markets right now.  When it collapses, I think a lot of that demand will come back into gold, as well as people fleeing the standard stock and bond markets for the first time in 9 or 10 years.”

What about the so-called Trump tax cuts? Stockman predicts, “I think it’s going to be a fiscal calamity of Biblical proportions.  I want to be clear.  I am always for tax cuts and shrinking the size of government, but you have to earn it.  You have to cut spending and entitlements and this massive defense budget.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Fantasy Time

Peak Fantasy Time

If you want to know why both Wall Street and Washington are so delusional about America’s baleful economic predicament, just consider this morsel from today’s Wall Street Journal on the purportedly awesome November jobs report.

Wages rose just 2.5% from a year earlier in November—near the same lackluster pace maintained since late 2015, despite a much lower unemployment rate. But in a positive signfor Americans’ incomes, the average work week increased by about 6 minutes to 34.5 hours in November…. November marked the 86th straight month employers added to payrolls.

Whoopee!

Six whole minutes added to a work week that has been shrinking for decades owing to the relentlessly deteriorating quality mix of the “jobs” counted by the BLS establishment survey. In fact, even by that dubious measure, the work week is still shorter than it was at the December 2007 pre-crisis peak (33.8) and well below its 2000 peak level.

The reason isn’t hard to figure: The US economy is generating fewer and fewer goods producing jobs where the work week averages 40.5 hours and weekly pay equates to $58,400 annually and far more bar, hotel and restaurant jobs, where the work week averages just 26.1 hours and weekly pay equates to only $21,000 annually.

In other words, the ballyh0oed headline averages are essentially meaningless noise because the BLS counts all jobs equal—-that is, a 10-hour per week gig at the minimum wage at McDonald’s weighs the same as a 45 hour per week (with overtime) job at the Caterpillar plant in Peoria that pays $80,000 annually in wages and benefits.

When the line is trending inexorably from the upper left to the lower right, of course, it means there are more of the former and fewer of the latter. Six more minutes of continuing worse—-is still bad.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mind the Junk—-This Ain’t Your Grandfather’s Capitalism

Mind the Junk—-This Ain’t Your Grandfather’s Capitalism

The financial system is loaded with anomalies, deformations and mispricings—-outcomes which would never occur on an honest free market. For example, the junk bond yield at just 2% in Europe is now below that of the “risk-free” US treasury bond owing solely to the depredations of the ECB.

Indeed, madman Draghi has purchased $2.6 trillion of securities since launching QE in March 2015, and during the interim has actually bought more government debt than was issued by all the socialist governments of the EU-19 combined!

Euro Area Central Bank Balance SheetOutrunning Europe’s deficit-addicted welfare states is quite a feat in itself, but that wasn’t the half of it. The ECB’s printing press became so parched for government debt to buy that it has ended up owning more than $120 billion of corporate bonds. In some recent cases, the ECB has actually taking down 20% or more of new corporate issues—an action that surely leaves the fastidious founders of its Bundesbank prodecessor turning in their graves.

In turn, the ECB’s Big Fat Thumb on the investment grade scale stampeded fund managers into the junk market in quest of yield, especially for BB rated paper which makes up 75% of the European high yield market. So doing, these return hungry managers have crushed the the yield on the Merrill Lynch junk bond index, driving it down from 6.4% in early 2106 to an incredible 2.002% last week.

That is to say, leveraged speculators in European junk have made 100% plus returns over the last 20 months on dodgy paper that should be yielding double or triple its current rate.

In fact, the current lunatic euro-trash yield is completely off the historical charts. Euro-junk rarely yielded under 5% in the past, and had spiked to upwards of 10% at the time of Draghi’s “whatever it takes” ukase, which, in turn, was modest compared to the 25% blow-0ff high during the depths of the financial crisis.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Yawning Debt Trap Proves the Great Recession is Still On

Yawning Debt Trap Proves the Great Recession is Still On

Published in the US before 1923 and public domain in the US. Used to represent people piling up America's national debt.While David Stockman stated early this year with resolute certainty that the debt ceiling debate would blow congress up and send the nation reeling over the financial precipice, I avoided jumping on the debt-ceiling bandwagon. While I was convinced major rifts in the economy would start to show up in the summer, I was not convinced they would have anything to do with the debt ceiling debate. If there is anything you can be certain of this in endless recovery-mode economy, it is that the US will just keep pushing its bags of bonds up a hill until it can finally push no more. So, I figured another punt down the road was more likely.

The Debt Ceiling Debate that Didn’t Happen

The reason I didn’t think that debate would blow apart is that Republicans have more than once experienced the political reality that comes from taking the nation to the brink of default or of shutting down government. Each time that kind of thing has happened, it has hurt Republicans far more than it has hurt Democrats. I doubted establishment Repubs (the majority) had the stomach to take us through another credit downgrade, though I’ve noted such an event was possible.

Unsurprisingly to me, then, Congress did the only thing it seems to be capable of any more and just kicked that can a little further down the road with hardly a kerfuffle about it. Hurricane Harvey made things a lot easier for congress to kick the can again by providing a good excuse to dodge that unwanted debate on the basis of massive human suffering that truly did need tending to. Much-talked-about government shutdown put off for a better time

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Deep State’s Bogus ‘Iranian Threat’

The Deep State’s Bogus ‘Iranian Threat’

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Yesterday we identified a permanent fiscal crisis as one of the quadruple witching forces arising in October 2017 which will shatter the global financial bubble. Today the Donald is on the cusp of making the crisis dramatically worse by decertifying the Iranian nuke deal, thereby reinforcing another false narrative that enables the $1 trillion Warfare State to continue bleeding the nation’s fiscal solvency.

In a word, the whole notion that Iran is a national security threat and state sponsor of terrorism is just as bogus as the Russian meddling story or the claim that the chain of events resulting from the coup d’ etat fostered by Washington on the streets of Kiev in February 2014 is evidence of Russian expansionism and aggression.

Likewise, it’s part of the same tissue of lies which led to Washington’s massive, destructive and counterproductive interventions in Syria and Libya — when neither regime posed an iota of threat to the safety and security of the American homeland.

To the contrary, all of these false narratives are the cover stories which justify the Warfare State’s massive draw on the nation’s broken finances. We will get to the Big Lie about Iran momentarily, but first it is useful to demonstrate just how enormously excessive the nation’s defense budget actually is, and why the denizens of the Imperial City—especially the neocon ideologues—-find it necessary to peddle such threadbare untruths.

Spoiler alert: Iran has actually never attacked a single foreign nation in modern history whereas Washington has chosen to unilaterally intervene in or arm virtually every surrounding country in the region.

Here’s some historical context that dramatizes our point about Washington’s hideously excessive spending on defense. Back in 1962 on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US defense budget was $52 billion, which would amount to $340 billion in today’s (2017$) purchasing power.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Can Kicking Time In The Imperial City

Can Kicking Time In The Imperial City

You have to hand it to the Donald. He speaks his mind. This week he dropped an unwelcome stink bomb on Capitol Hill during his Phoenix rant Tuesday night. If Mexico won’t pay for my wall, he seemed to say, than Congress will—-even if I have to shutdown the Imperial City to extract the first $1.6 billion of seed money:

“We’re going to get our wall,” Mr. Trump said at a rally in Phoenix. “If we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall.”

The Mexican Wall waste an estimated $20 billion needed to complete, and would place ICE agents at the border handing out guest worker papers to anyone who comes across looking for a job. That would mean more domestic production and tax revenue, and a tad less addition to the crushing national debt that Washington is handing generations to come.

It didn’t take long for Washington’s permanent political class to say “no dice” to the shutdown idea. It seems Speaker Paul Ryan has been domiciled in the Imperial City since he was 21 years old and makes no bones about his priorities.

“I don’t think anyone’s interested in having a shutdown,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said at a stop at an Intel Corp. facility in Oregon on Wednesday…….

Mr.. Ryan said he expected lawmakers would need to pass a short-term spending bill in September to give them more time to work out a broader budget agreement later this year.

What has the GOP Congress been doing the last nine months that it hasn’t enacted into law a single one of the 12 annual appropriations bills? The same bills that would provide upwards of $1.1 trillion to run the Pentagon and the domestic agencies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Goldman Sachs Regency

The Goldman Sachs Regency

There’s not many tears being shed over Steve Bannon’s departure. His ethno-nationalist and protectionist worldview are opposite to true notions of liberty, free markets and a minimalist state.

While Bannonism presented itself as a coherent alternative ideology to mainstream Big Government, it actually boiled down to an incoherent potpourri of cultural resentments and prejudices, economic shibboleths and amateur historical theorizing. His message appealed to the alt-Right because it proposed to replace oppressive statism with a more right wing version rooted in protectionism and nativism.

Notwithstanding the rotten essence of Bannonism, however, the firebrand self-promoter who was the Donald’s chief strategist got it right in his parting shots at his internal White House enemies. In so many words, he correctly asserted that the nation will now be ruled by a Goldman Sachs Regency and a team of generals.

The move embodies the essence of Albert Einstein’s famous definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

“The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” Bannon told the conservative Weekly Standard on the Friday after his White House departure. “We will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over.”

The Donald will now function, as Robert Wenzel aptly described it, as “something of a tweet master frontman” with the Vampire Squid riding higher than ever before. Expect him to be riding even higher than when the George W. Bush handed a blank check to Wall Street for a bailout at the Treasury led by former Goldman CEO, Hank Paulson.

Goldman’s crew in the current White House – Gary Cohn, Steve Mnuchin, Dina Powell and Jared Kushner – are likely to bring about the final destruction of the Trump presidency. The cast of characters will eventually trigger a thundering collapse in the markets which will finally crush Goldman Sachs and its posse of gamblers and crony capitalist.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Don’t Forget About The Red Swan

Don’t Forget About The Red Swan

[Urgent Note: The nation’s future and a massive debt ceiling hangs in the balance as Trump pushes beyond the Comey hearings. That’s why I’m on a mission to send my new book TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… and How to Bring It Back to every American who responds, absolutely free. Click here for more details.]

Given the anti-Trump feeding frenzy, we continue to believe that a Swan is on its way bearing Orange. But if that’s not enough to dissuade the dip buyers, perhaps the impending arrival of the Red Swan will at least give them pause.

The chart below comprises a picture worth thousands of words. It puts the lie to the latest Wall Street belief that the global economy is accelerating and that surging corporate profits justify the market’s latest manic rip.

What is actually going on is a short-lived global credit/growth impulse emanating from China. Beijing panicked early last year and opened up the capital expenditure (CapEx) spigots at the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) out of fear that China’s great machine was heading for stall speed at exactly the wrong time.

The 19th national communist party Congress scheduled for late fall of 2017. This every five year event is the single most important happening in the Red Ponzi. This time the event is slated to be the coronation of Xi Jinping as the second coming of Mao.

Beijing was not about to risk an economy fizzling toward a flat line before the Congress. Yet that threat was clearly on the horizon as evident from the dark green line in the chart below which represents total fixed asset investment.

The latter is the spring-wheel of China’s booming economy, but it had dropped from 22% per annum growth rate when Mr. Xi took the helm in 2012 to 10% by early 2016.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Bull: Fake Economy, and Fake News

Peak Bull: Fake Economy, and Fake News

[Urgent Note: David Stockman warns that the nation’s economy and a massive debt ceiling hangs in the balance as Wall Street’s peak bull stocks carry on. The economist is on a mission to send his new book TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… and How to Bring It Back out to every American who responds, absolutely free. Click here for more details.]

The American economy has been mangled by decades of assault on capitalist prosperity.

Growth is now dying because the Federal Reserve’s hit on corporate America that has strip-mined its balance sheets to feed the halls of Wall Street. Trillions of dollars have been thrown into financial engineering (stock buybacks, M&A deals and leveraged recaps) while neglecting real investment and productivity in Flyover America.

Financialization of the US economy since Greenspan

The single most important thing that speculators and bulls on Wall Street should be looking at now is where we came from. If Wall Street understood this, they wouldn’t continue to expect the “born again” Reagan stimulus that has been imagined since Trump’s inauguration.

The extent of what actually happened during the Reagan era is also important to examine. In the eight years after Reagan’s tax bill got handed out, the national debt and defense budget exploded. We had more red ink during in that eight year period than during the first 190 years of the Republic – in fact it doubled.

Federal Debt as GDP

The national debt, which you can see starting in 1980 went from around $800-900 billion to well over $3 trillion. The share of GDP soared during that period.

This is how the Reagan defense and tax cuts were funded. The move left the nation’s fiscal accounts in a dramatically different condition than when it started. Even Ronald Reagan, with his best of intentions, went in believing he was going to end up with less national debt and balanced budgets – though he ended up adding $1.8 trillion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Derangement And Danger On The Potomac

Derangement And Danger On The Potomac

undefinedThe horrific shooting spree on the practice field of the GOP’s congressional baseball team happened early yesterday morning, but it was hardly the end of Wednesday’s madness on the Potomac.

As it happened, the former was apparently another random eruption by of one of America’s sicko lone wolves — a wretch in the same league as South Carolina church killer, Dylann Roof. Notwithstanding that the latter had littered the nether regions of the internet with racist rantings while the former was apparently a prolific Never Trumper left-winger, neither represented a real threat to the nation’s equanimity — even if they did bring a savage rain of violence to bear on those unfortunate dozens caught in their immediate line of fire.

Not so for the 325 million American citizens who were pounded upon during the balance of the day by the allegedly “sane” Imperial City officialdom which rules the roost in America.

Specifically, we have in mind Janet Yellen’s hideous presser in which she declared “mission accomplished” and that the US economy is blessed with “solid fundamentals” that are getting ever stronger. And in the same vein of unreality, there soon came the Senate’s 97-2 vote to smack the Donald in his ample jaws and impose even more sanctions on Russia, thereby bringing the nation another step closer to the brink of war and bankruptcy.

Let us unpack this. The American people are being brought to ruin by three institutions that are mortal threats to liberty and prosperity. To wit, the Federal Reserve, the military/industrial/surveillance complex and a sinecured Congress that is burying unborn generations in debt — even as it sanctimoniously presumes that it is doing god’s work by servicing the beltway racketeers who keep it perpetually in office.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why The Markets Are Overdue For A Gigantic Bust

r.classen/Shutterstock

Why The Markets Are Overdue For A Gigantic Bust

It’s just not possible to print our way to prosperity
Let me begin with a caveat: confirmation bias is an ever-present risk for an analyst such as myself.

If you’re not familiar with the term, ‘confirmation bias’ suggests that once we’ve invested time and emotional energy into developing a worldview, we’ll then seek information to confirm that view.

After writing about the economy for so many years, I’m now so convinced that we can’t print our way to prosperity that I find myself seeing signs confirming this view everywhere, every single day. So that’s the danger to be aware of when listening to me.  I’m going to keep repeating this mantra and Im going to keep finding data that supports this view.

Based on lots of historical inputs, I have concluded that Printing money out of thin air can engineer lots of things, including asset price bubbles and the redistribution of wealth from the masses to the elites.  But it cannot print up real prosperity.

As much as I try, I simply cannot jump on the bandwagon that says that printing up money out of thin air has any long-term utility for an economy. It’s just too clear to me that doing so presents plenty of dangers, due to what we might call ‘economic gravity’: What goes up, must also come down.

Which brings us to this chart:

The 200 bubble blown by Greenspan was bad, the next one by Bernanke was horrible, but this one by Yellen may well prove fatal.  At least to entire financial markets, large institutions, and a few sovereigns.

It’s essential to note that more than two-thirds of the net worth tracked in the above chart is now comprised of ‘financial assets.’  That is, paper claims on real things.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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