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32 Misinformation Schemes & Other Tactics Used by Wall Street, Corporate America & the Media, as Pointed Out Hilariously by WOLF STREET Commenters

January 15, 2020

32 Misinformation Schemes & Other Tactics Used by Wall Street, Corporate America & the Media, as Pointed Out Hilariously by WOLF STREET Commenters

Selected from so many Nits to Pick.

This is a collection of 32 tactics, instances, misnomers, immortal fake propaganda, and even wrong-doing cropping up ceaselessly on Wall Street, in the media, in press releases, in earnings reports, and in the broader nexus between Wall Street and the media. All of them were pointed out by WOLF STREET commenters. I put them together and grouped some of them, and added some explanations in a few cases even when not needed. In no particular order:

#1: “The moronic statements regarding ‘money on the sidelines.’”

“That ‘money on the sidelines’ thing drives me nuts. I sit around wondering how captured financial commentators must be to even entertain such concepts on such a regular basis.”

“Money on the sidelines is immortal. It has been cited all my investing life, and it will still be cited long after I’m gone, to be passed proudly from generation to generation, no matter how often it gets debunked.”

“I found a coin on the sidewalk once. It must be the infamous sidelines money. Just a million coins more, and I will have enough to go on vacation.”

#2: “The claptrap surrounding earnings beats – after earnings targets have been quietly but drastically reduced.”

#3: “Forward earnings projections” to rationalize high stock prices. Everyone is doing it, even the Fed. Forward earnings projections are part of the great body of American fiction and get slashed as earnings-report dates get nearer so that the much-lowered projections can then be “beat” (see #2 above). This produces the absurd situation where forward P/E ratios are always far lower (currently 18.4 according to FactSet) than the actual P/E ratios (currently 24.6, highest since the Financial Crisis).

#4: “The revolving door between government and Wall Street – ‘the swamp.’”  Drain it already.

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

Climate Change Bites Big Business

August 14, 2018

Climate Change Bites Big Business

“Electoral politics is not the solution to the Earth-threatening problems we face.”

– Jeffrey St. Clair, 10 August 2018, Counter Punch

There is now no non-violent way to reverse climate change. Even with morally unrestrained action, it is probable that there is now no physical possibility of reversing climate change. The time for action was 1973-1979, the time of the two oil embargoes (the post Israeli War – against Egypt and Syria – Arab Oil Embargo of 1973; and the related-to-the-Iranian-Revolution vengeful price gouge oil embargo of 1979). This was the period of the Watergate-climax finale of the Nixon Administration, the Ford Administration, and the Carter “energy crisis” Administration. Politically, the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 killed the possibility of US climate change action.

From Reagan through Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama to Trump, the mentioning of climate change – as one of government’s highest priorities, as one of corporate America’s foremost concerns (to be addressed, not suppressed), and as one of mainstream media’s primary and continuing focuses and leading stories – was minimized if not altogether absent. If anything, climate change denialism was heavily promoted by corporate and partisan (right wing) media, and by legions of corporate agents, flacks and factotums masquerading as elected representatives in federal and state governments. That has now changed.

Climate change is now all over the front pages of the newspapers and is the headline story of the mainstream mass media, primarily because of the massive fires in California whose smoke has even reached New York City. Why this new overt and blaring mainstream news attention to climate change, a subject that was officially hush-hush, trivial and fake news so recently in the past? Obviously because climate change has begun costing big money to major sectors of American capitalism.

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

SocGen: “Now We Know Why The Fed Desperately Wants To Avoid A Drop In Equity Markets”

April 12, 2016

SocGen: “Now We Know Why The Fed Desperately Wants To Avoid A Drop In Equity Markets”

With the ECB now unabashedly unleashing a bond bubble in Europe of which it has promised to be a buyer of last resort with the stronly implied hint that European IG companies should issue bonds and buy back shares, and promptly leading to the biggest junk bond issue in history courtesy of Numericable, it will come as no surprise that the world once again has a debt problem.

For the best description of just how bad said problem is we go to SocGen’s Andrew Lapthorne, one of last few sane analyzers of actual data, a person who first reveaked the stunning fact that every dollar in incremental debt in the 21st century has gone to fund stock buybacks, and who in a note today asks whether “central bank policies going to bankrupt corporate America?”

His answer is, unless something changes, a resounding yes.

Here are the key excerpts:

Sensationalist headlines such as the one above are there to grab the reader’s attention, but the question is nonetheless a serious one. Aggressive monetary policy in the form of QE and zero or negative interest rates is all about encouraging (forcing?) borrowers to take on more and more debt in an attempt to boost economic activity, effectively mortgaging future growth to compensate for the lack of demand today. These central bank policies are having some serious unintended consequences, particular on mid cap and smaller cap stocks.

Aggressive central bank monetary policies have created artificial demand for corporate debt which we think companies are exploiting by issuing debt they do not actually need. The proceeds of this debt raising are then largely reinvested back into the equity market via M&A or share buybacks in an attempt to boost share prices in the absence of actual demand.

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

Negative Interest Rates Already In Fed’s Official Scenario

February 2, 2016

Negative Interest Rates Already In Fed’s Official Scenario

Over the past year, and certainly in the aftermath of the BOJ’s both perplexing and stunning announcement (as it revealed the central banks’ level of sheer desperation), we have warned (most recently “Negative Rates In The U.S. Are Next: Here’s Why In One Chart”) that next in line for negative rates is the Fed itself, whether Janet Yellen wants it or not. Today, courtesy of Wolf Richter, we find that this is precisely what is already in the small print of the Fed’s future stress test scenarios, and specifically the “severely adverse scenario” where we read that:

The severely adverse scenario is characterized by a severe global recession, accompanied by a period of heightened corporate financial stress and negative yields for short-term U.S. Treasury securities.

As a result of the severe decline in real activity and subdued inflation, short-term Treasury rates fall to negative ½ percent by mid-2016 and remain at that level through the end of the scenario.
And so the strawman has been laid. The only missing is the admission of the several global recession, although with global GDP plunging over 5% in USD terms, we wonder just what else those who make the official determination are waiting for.

Finally, we disagree with the Fed that QE4 is not on the table: it most certainly will be once stock markets plunge by 50% as the “severely adverse scenario” envisions, and once NIRP fails to boost economic activity, as it has failed previously everywhere else it has been tried, the Fed will promtply proceed with what has worked before, if only to make the true situation that much worse.

Until then, we sit back and wait.

Here is Wolf Richter with Negative Interest Rates Already in Fed’s Official Scenario

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

Gerald Celente: Get Prepped For Global Systemic Collapse

February 2, 2016

Gerald Celente: Get Prepped For Global Systemic Collapse

More ridiculous predictable market action today. The worse things become in the real world the more frantic the stupidity becomes. The American authorities are clearly terrified that their world role as hegemon is being threatened and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that your fears of war will turn out to be a reality. – John Embry

It was reported last week that a Government panel is recommending that all adults over the age of 18 should be screened for “depression” – LINK. Nothwithstanding the fact that the term “depression” is a subjective concept, it exemplifies the move in the Government to control the population. It’s a frightening movement toward Totalitarianism that has been in motion since the formation of the Federal Reserve and the ratification of the16th Amendment, giving the Federal Government authority to enact an income tax. Both events occurred in 1913.

Make no mistake about it, the Government panel’s recommendation, if it finds its way somehow through Congress, is an underhanded way for the Government to implement gun control. We can’t have depressed people running around with guns in their possession. In addition, there’s no doubt that one of the big drug or hospital corporations has devised some sort of “depression screening” protocol which generates very high margin profits. Even better if the testing is covered by Medicare and Medicaid so the taxpayers can fill yet another big trough from which corporate America feeds.

The irony in the Totalitarian creep of the Federal Government is that humans don’t like the idea that they can’t control their immediate lives and living environment. Thus, they want to believe with surprising adamance that their vote matters – that they can control the outcome of an election with their “participation” in the process. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth.

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

 

War On Cash Escalates: China Readies Digital Currency, IMF Says “Extremely Beneficial”

January 20, 2016

War On Cash Escalates: China Readies Digital Currency, IMF Says “Extremely Beneficial”

Remember when Bitcoin and its digital currency cohorts were slammed by authorities and written off by the elite as worthless? Well now, as the war on cash escalates, officials from The IMF to China are seeing the opportunity to control the world’s money through virtual (cash-less) currencies. Just as we warned most recently here, state wealth control is the goal and, as Bloomberg reports, The PBOC is targeting an early rollout of China’s own digital currency to “boost control of money” and none other than The IMF’s Christine Lagarde added that “virtual currencies are extremely beneficial.”

By way of background, as we explained previously, What exactly does a “war on cash” mean?

It means governments are limiting the use of cash and a variety of official-mouthpiece economists are calling for the outright abolition of cash. Authorities are both restricting the amount of cash that can be withdrawn from banks, and limiting what can be purchased with cash.

These limits are broadly called “capital controls.”

Why Now?

Why are governments suddenly so keen to ban physical cash?

The answer appears to be that the banks and government authorities are anticipating bail-ins, steeply negative interest rates and hefty fees on cash, and they want to close any opening regular depositors might have to escape these forms of officially sanctioned theft. The escape mechanism from bail-ins and fees on cash deposits is physical cash, and hence the sudden flurry of calls to eliminate cash as a relic of a bygone age — that is, an age when commoners had some way to safeguard their money from bail-ins and bankers’ control.

Forcing Those With Cash To Spend or Gamble Their Cash

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

There’s No Upside Left

December 16, 2015

There’s No Upside Left

The upside is ephemeral, illusory or wishful thinking; the downside is real and lasting.

There’s no upside left–not just in the real economy, but in jobs, politics or policy tweaks. Yes, there will be huge relief rallies in the stock market–relief that the Fed is still omnipotent, that the Fed didn’t destroy the world by withdrawing liquidity, etc., etc., etc.–but in terms of sales and profits, there’s no upside left: an increasingly nervous upper middle class is reining in profligate spending, while everyone below the top 10% is running out of credit cards, student loans, etc. to tap.

Whatever surplus the real economy generated has been skimmed by financiers, lenders and the central state. Stock buybacks have boosted the wealth of corporate managers and institutional owners while creating zero jobs; lenders have feasted on high-interest credit cards, federally backed student loans and subprime auto loans that are immediately spun off to credulous suckers (Widows and Orphans Fund of Norway, et al.) as high-yield securitized debt.

Anyone working for Corporate America or government has little upside but plenty of downside: bonuses are being slashed, divisions closed, sold off or privatized in the case of government, all to cut costs.

State and local pension funds, bloated by seven years of speculative frenzy, are about to start bleeding from every orifice as reality and risk intrude on the central banks’ fantasy of never-ending asset bubbles.

Whatever pension and bennies you were promised–start practicing your fractions, because only a fraction of the bloated promises made by politicos desperate to get re-elected can be paid in the real world.

Doing a great job will either get you fired or overworked: no upside there. If you have the courage (or foolish devotion to truth) to be honest, then you’ll be fired as a disruptive “non-team-player” who stepped on too many toes in the pursuit of excellence.

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

Private Police: Mercenaries for the American Police State

March 6, 2015

Private Police: Mercenaries for the American Police State

“Corporate America is using police forces as their mercenaries.”—Ray Lewis, Retired Philadelphia Police Captain

It’s one thing to know and exercise your rights when a police officer pulls you over, but what rights do you have when a private cop—entrusted with all of the powers of a government cop but not held to the same legal standards—pulls you over and subjects you to a stop-and-frisk or, worse, causes you to “disappear” into a Gitmo-esque detention center not unlike the one employed by Chicago police at Homan Square?

For that matter, how do you even begin to know who you’re dealing with, given that these private cops often wear police uniforms, carry police-grade weapons, and perform many of the same duties as public cops, including carrying out SWAT team raids, issuing tickets and firing their weapons.

This is the growing dilemma we now face as private police officers outnumber public officers (more than two to one), and the corporate elite transforms the face of policing in America into a privatized affair that operates beyond the reach of the Fourth Amendment.

Mind you, it’s not as if we had many rights to speak of, anyhow.

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

Hounded by Evil Dollar & Collapsed Commodity Prices, Corporate America Clamors for Total Currency War

January 28, 2015

Hounded by Evil Dollar & Collapsed Commodity Prices, Corporate America Clamors for Total Currency War

Consumers are feeling practically euphoric. The Conference Board index jumped almost ten points to 102.9, the highest since August 2007, just before the whole construct came apart. Not that reality has suddenly improved that much. But hey, we’re born survivors. Sooner or later, we adjust to lower real incomes and reduced standards of living and start feeling good again.

This exuberance came just as our largest corporate citizens were hit by a tornado of problems that sank the stock market for the day: currency volatility, crashing commodities prices, disappearing XP computers, farmers switching from corn to wheat…. It was all there.

Freeport-McMoRan, one of the largest copper producers in the world, reported an 11% drop in revenues for the fourth quarter and a salty $2.85 billion loss, which included $3.4 billion in losses for its oil and gas business that it got into via two impeccably-timed acquisitions in 2013. The depressed price of copper isn’t helping. It cut its 2015 budget by $2 billion and might cut it some more. Shares dropped 6%.

Long-suffering Peabody Energy, the largest coal producer in the US, reported a net loss for the quarter of $566 million on revenues that declined 3.3%. It projected a much wider loss than expected for the first quarter and cut its dividends to nearly nothing. It’s all about preserving cash and hanging on in a desperately tough pricing environment for coal producers. Shares dropped 6.5% to $6.24, down from $72 during the glory days in early 2011.

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

oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Here’s What’s Wrong with Corporate America–and the U.S. Economy

December 17, 2014

oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: Here’s What’s Wrong with Corporate America–and the U.S. Economy.

Will we ever tire of navigating the multiple layers of intermediaries between the customer and the provider, while corporate profits soar to unprecedented heights?

 
If we had to summarize what’s wrong with Corporate America and the entire U.S. economy, we can start with all the intermediaries between the provider and the customer. There are a number of examples we’re all familiar with.
 
One is healthcare, where a veritable phalanx of intermediaries filters the interactions between doctors and patients so heavily that the traditional practice of medicine has been nullified.
 
By traditional I mean the arrangement that was conventional a few short decades ago: you went to the doctor of your choice (typically, the same doctor your family used), he/she treated you, and you paid the doctor’s bill in cash. Only hospitalization was covered by the minimal (and minimally limiting) healthcare insurance plans of the time.

The second example is home appliances purchased at a Big Box retailer. Here’s the list of interactions between Corporate America and the customer:

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

oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: What Choice Do We Have?

December 15, 2014

oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: What Choice Do We Have?.

The bottom line for the vast majority of us is that there is an extremely high price to be paid for independence from fealty to the State or Corporate America.


It’s jolly good fun to discuss alternatives to the doomed status quo, but what choice do most of us have to participating in the current system, even if we loathe it? The lack of choice is of course a key characteristic of the status quo– if alternatives were plentiful, how many would opt out of Corporate America and the Financial Nobility’s manor house of debt servitude?
 
The absence of alternatives results from several interacting dynamics.The first is false choice, the illusion of choice that enables the Powers That Be to claim we live in a democracy that is also a meritocracy where anyone can rise to the top if they follow the prescribed pathway: a four-year university degree, followed by a graduate degree, and so on.

The political slaughterhouse has two entrances: Democratic and Republican. Nothing about the system changes regardless of which door you enter. “Democracy” is a false choice in a nation in which the big banks order their politico flunkies, toadies and lackeys to do their bidding: Fed Vice Chairman Shocked At Wall Street Influence After Jamie Dimon “Whips” Congressional Votes.
 

…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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