Month: October 2013

Perhaps no (albeit brief) conversation sums up how the debacle of the last couple of weeks started than the following exchange that took place on October 2nd, according to Politico,

Obama: “John, What Happened”

Boehner: “I Got Overrun, That’s What Happened”

The question, prompted by the shutdown in the face of Boehner’s pledge to avoid it, set the scene for what Politico notes was a fiscal drama set on a series of complicated relationships – internicine Republican warfare and rare Democratic unity – as the House Republican confernce ran roughshod over Boehner.

 

Via Politico,

House Speaker John Boehner just wanted to sneak out of the White House for a smoke.

 

But President Barack Obama pulled him aside for a grilling. Obama wanted to know why they were in the second day of a government shutdown that the speaker had repeatedly and publicly pledged to avoid.

 

“John, what happened?” Obama asked, according to people briefed on the Oct. 2 conversation.

 

“I got overrun, that’s what happened,” Boehner said.

 

It may be the most concise explanation of a chaotic, 16-day standoff that prompted the first government shutdown in nearly two decades and ended only hours before the world’s largest economy nearly exhausted its ability to pay the bills. The fiscal drama turned on a series of complicated relationships, internecine Republican warfare and rare Democratic unity.

 

The House Republican conference ran roughshod over Boehner, a 22-year veteran of Washington who started the fight demanding to strip funds for Obamacare but settled in the end for the reaffirmation of a minor provision already in the law.

 

…

 

Republicans never believed Obama would hold firm on his refusal to negotiate and Democrats would maintain an unusual level of cohesion — united by a visceral desire to put the tea party in its place and an almost mama grizzly instinct to protect Obamacare.

 

“It was not a smart play,” McConnell said Thursday of the GOP’s Obamacare strategy. “It had no chance of success.”

 

…

Obama and Reid stuck together, emerging as the political victors. Their hard-ball tactics were designed to “break the fever” brought on by the tea party, but it also helped drive the country to the edge of default.

Republicans cycled through every option possible during the three-week standoff to save face.

Politico’s account of the behind-the-scenes drama was drawn from dozens of interviews with key players in Congress and at the White House. The look back reveals how Republicans waged a fight on Obamacare that their leaders knew they would probably lose but pushed anyways because many in their ranks truly believed that Democrats, like they’ve done so often before, would fold — especially under the threat of an historic default on U.S. debt.

As the Speaker himself summed it up…

“We fought the good fight,” Boehner told WLW radio on Wednesday. “We just didn’t win.”

 

Read more on the anatomy of a shutdown here…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Qi_nRziQ2Dg/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Perhaps no (albeit brief) conversation sums up how the debacle of the last couple of weeks started than the following exchange that took place on October 2nd, according to Politico,

Obama: “John, What Happened”

Boehner: “I Got Overrun, That’s What Happened”

The question, prompted by the shutdown in the face of Boehner’s pledge to avoid it, set the scene for what Politico notes was a fiscal drama set on a series of complicated relationships – internicine Republican warfare and rare Democratic unity – as the House Republican confernce ran roughshod over Boehner.

 

Via Politico,

House Speaker John Boehner just wanted to sneak out of the White House for a smoke.

 

But President Barack Obama pulled him aside for a grilling. Obama wanted to know why they were in the second day of a government shutdown that the speaker had repeatedly and publicly pledged to avoid.

 

“John, what happened?” Obama asked, according to people briefed on the Oct. 2 conversation.

 

“I got overrun, that’s what happened,” Boehner said.

 

It may be the most concise explanation of a chaotic, 16-day standoff that prompted the first government shutdown in nearly two decades and ended only hours before the world’s largest economy nearly exhausted its ability to pay the bills. The fiscal drama turned on a series of complicated relationships, internecine Republican warfare and rare Democratic unity.

 

The House Republican conference ran roughshod over Boehner, a 22-year veteran of Washington who started the fight demanding to strip funds for Obamacare but settled in the end for the reaffirmation of a minor provision already in the law.

 

…

 

Republicans never believed Obama would hold firm on his refusal to negotiate and Democrats would maintain an unusual level of cohesion — united by a visceral desire to put the tea party in its place and an almost mama grizzly instinct to protect Obamacare.

 

“It was not a smart play,” McConnell said Thursday of the GOP’s Obamacare strategy. “It had no chance of success.”

 

…

Obama and Reid stuck together, emerging as the political victors. Their hard-ball tactics were designed to “break the fever” brought on by the tea party, but it also helped drive the country to the edge of default.

Republicans cycled through every option possible during the three-week standoff to save face.

Politico’s account of the behind-the-scenes drama was drawn from dozens of interviews with key players in Congress and at the White House. The look back reveals how Republicans waged a fight on Obamacare that their leaders knew they would probably lose but pushed anyways because many in their ranks truly believed that Democrats, like they’ve done so often before, would fold — especially under the threat of an historic default on U.S. debt.

As the Speaker himself summed it up…

“We fought the good fight,” Boehner told WLW radio on Wednesday. “We just didn’t win.”

 

Read more on the anatomy of a shutdown here…

Perhaps no (albeit brief) conversation sums up how the debacle of the last couple of weeks started than the following exchange that took place on October 2nd, according to Politico,

Obama: “John, What Happened”

Boehner: “I Got Overrun, That’s What Happened”

The question, prompted by the shutdown in the face of Boehner’s pledge to avoid it, set the scene for what Politico notes was a fiscal drama set on a series of complicated relationships – internicine Republican warfare and rare Democratic unity – as the House Republican confernce ran roughshod over Boehner.

 

Via Politico,

House Speaker John Boehner just wanted to sneak out of the White House for a smoke.

 

But President Barack Obama pulled him aside for a grilling. Obama wanted to know why they were in the second day of a government shutdown that the speaker had repeatedly and publicly pledged to avoid.

 

“John, what happened?” Obama asked, according to people briefed on the Oct. 2 conversation.

 

“I got overrun, that’s what happened,” Boehner said.

 

It may be the most concise explanation of a chaotic, 16-day standoff that prompted the first government shutdown in nearly two decades and ended only hours before the world’s largest economy nearly exhausted its ability to pay the bills. The fiscal drama turned on a series of complicated relationships, internecine Republican warfare and rare Democratic unity.

 

The House Republican conference ran roughshod over Boehner, a 22-year veteran of Washington who started the fight demanding to strip funds for Obamacare but settled in the end for the reaffirmation of a minor provision already in the law.

 

…

 

Republicans never believed Obama would hold firm on his refusal to negotiate and Democrats would maintain an unusual level of cohesion — united by a visceral desire to put the tea party in its place and an almost mama grizzly instinct to protect Obamacare.

 

“It was not a smart play,” McConnell said Thursday of the GOP’s Obamacare strategy. “It had no chance of success.”

 

…

Obama and Reid stuck together, emerging as the political victors. Their hard-ball tactics were designed to “break the fever” brought on by the tea party, but it also helped drive the country to the edge of default.

Republicans cycled through every option possible during the three-week standoff to save face.

Politico’s account of the behind-the-scenes drama was drawn from dozens of interviews with key players in Congress and at the White House. The look back reveals how Republicans waged a fight on Obamacare that their leaders knew they would probably lose but pushed anyways because many in their ranks truly believed that Democrats, like they’ve done so often before, would fold — especially under the threat of an historic default on U.S. debt.

As the Speaker himself summed it up…

“We fought the good fight,” Boehner told WLW radio on Wednesday. “We just didn’t win.”

 

Read more on the anatomy of a shutdown here…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Qi_nRziQ2Dg/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Perhaps no (albeit brief) conversation sums up how the debacle of the last couple of weeks started than the following exchange that took place on October 2nd, according to Politico,

Obama: “John, What Happened”

Boehner: “I Got Overrun, That’s What Happened”

The question, prompted by the shutdown in the face of Boehner’s pledge to avoid it, set the scene for what Politico notes was a fiscal drama set on a series of complicated relationships – internicine Republican warfare and rare Democratic unity – as the House Republican confernce ran roughshod over Boehner.

 

Via Politico,

House Speaker John Boehner just wanted to sneak out of the White House for a smoke.

 

But President Barack Obama pulled him aside for a grilling. Obama wanted to know why they were in the second day of a government shutdown that the speaker had repeatedly and publicly pledged to avoid.

 

“John, what happened?” Obama asked, according to people briefed on the Oct. 2 conversation.

 

“I got overrun, that’s what happened,” Boehner said.

 

It may be the most concise explanation of a chaotic, 16-day standoff that prompted the first government shutdown in nearly two decades and ended only hours before the world’s largest economy nearly exhausted its ability to pay the bills. The fiscal drama turned on a series of complicated relationships, internecine Republican warfare and rare Democratic unity.

 

The House Republican conference ran roughshod over Boehner, a 22-year veteran of Washington who started the fight demanding to strip funds for Obamacare but settled in the end for the reaffirmation of a minor provision already in the law.

 

…

 

Republicans never believed Obama would hold firm on his refusal to negotiate and Democrats would maintain an unusual level of cohesion — united by a visceral desire to put the tea party in its place and an almost mama grizzly instinct to protect Obamacare.

 

“It was not a smart play,” McConnell said Thursday of the GOP’s Obamacare strategy. “It had no chance of success.”

 

…

Obama and Reid stuck together, emerging as the political victors. Their hard-ball tactics were designed to “break the fever” brought on by the tea party, but it also helped drive the country to the edge of default.

Republicans cycled through every option possible during the three-week standoff to save face.

Politico’s account of the behind-the-scenes drama was drawn from dozens of interviews with key players in Congress and at the White House. The look back reveals how Republicans waged a fight on Obamacare that their leaders knew they would probably lose but pushed anyways because many in their ranks truly believed that Democrats, like they’ve done so often before, would fold — especially under the threat of an historic default on U.S. debt.

As the Speaker himself summed it up…

“We fought the good fight,” Boehner told WLW radio on Wednesday. “We just didn’t win.”

 

Read more on the anatomy of a shutdown here…

Five years after the “recovery” began, the Fed continues to monetize more debt as part of QE3 than at any time in history, and certainly more than during QE1, Twist, and QE2, as can be seen on the chart below (remember: all that matters is the flow, as we noted well over a year ago, and as even the Fed has finally realized).Why is this important? Because as even the Treasury has now admitted, the Fed’s daily liquidity injections are all that matters. Of note: in the just completed week, the Fed’s balance sheet increased by over $50 billion (again, in one week), by $100 billion in the past month, and by just shy of $1 trillion in the past year. Incidentally, this is “money” that continues to not make its way into the economy, and every single “reserve” dollar created by the Fed in exchange for monetization, is used by banks to ramp asset prices to now daily record levels.

 

And since in a centrally-planned market self-fulfilling prophecies always come true, and Fed balance sheet correlation is causation, the reason why for the second day in a row we have seen panic buying is because as we noted last week…

 

…. stocks have still substantial catch up (now certainly less than a week ago) to the “fair” Fed balance sheet implied fair value.

However, all that matters to the BTFATHers, is that a $4 trillion Fed balance sheet, which is where it will be on December 31, implies 1800 on the S&P.

 

Do it for the “wealth effect”… if only for some.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/qhaPGR852bc/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Five years after the “recovery” began, the Fed continues to monetize more debt as part of QE3 than at any time in history, and certainly more than during QE1, Twist, and QE2, as can be seen on the chart below (remember: all that matters is the flow, as we noted well over a year ago, and as even the Fed has finally realized).Why is this important? Because as even the Treasury has now admitted, the Fed’s daily liquidity injections are all that matters. Of note: in the just completed week, the Fed’s balance sheet increased by over $50 billion (again, in one week), by $100 billion in the past month, and by just shy of $1 trillion in the past year. Incidentally, this is “money” that continues to not make its way into the economy, and every single “reserve” dollar created by the Fed in exchange for monetization, is used by banks to ramp asset prices to now daily record levels.

 

And since in a centrally-planned market self-fulfilling prophecies always come true, and Fed balance sheet correlation is causation, the reason why for the second day in a row we have seen panic buying is because as we noted last week…

 

…. stocks have still substantial catch up (now certainly less than a week ago) to the “fair” Fed balance sheet implied fair value.

However, all that matters to the BTFATHers, is that a $4 trillion Fed balance sheet, which is where it will be on December 31, implies 1800 on the S&P.

 

Do it for the “wealth effect”… if only for some.

Presented with little comment aside to note that Google is now up 13% on the day… (at $1006.58)

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/GVQwm4dJoWI/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Presented with little comment aside to note that Google is now up 13% on the day… (at $1006.58)

 

Presented with little comment aside to note that Google is now up 13% on the day… (at $1006.58)

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/GVQwm4dJoWI/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Presented with little comment aside to note that Google is now up 13% on the day… (at $1006.58)

 

The Dow has been the laggard in all the recent exuberance and opened down this morning once again (as IBM slips a little lower). It seems the 15,380 (“Summers is Out”) level is key resistance for now…

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/OWeo_eiw7Fs/story01.htm Tyler Durden

The Dow has been the laggard in all the recent exuberance and opened down this morning once again (as IBM slips a little lower). It seems the 15,380 (“Summers is Out”) level is key resistance for now…

 

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Analytic systems share system limits with financial markets.

Correspondent Lew G. recently sent me a thought-provoking commentary on the limits of "total information awareness" in terms of any information system's intrinsic rate of generating false positives.

In essence, the rate of false positives limits the effectiveness of any predictive system. The process of attempting to eliminate false positives is inherently one of diminishing return: even with no expense spared, the effort to eliminate false positives runs into boundaries of signal noise and generation of false positives.

To the degree that financial markets are ultimately predictive systems, this suggests a systemic cause of "unexpected" market crashes: signal noise and the intrinsic generation of false positives lead to a false sense of confidence in the system's stability and its ability to predict continued stability.

Here are Lew's comments: 

Resources to deal with reality are inherently limited by that reality.

Information, to the contrary, is inherently infinite, because of the fractal nature of reality.

 

A property of that information reality is that 'meaning' is relative to other items of info, and that any single item can change the interpretation of a big set of facts. E.g., "Muslim, bought pipes, bought gun powder, visits jihadi sites, attends the Mosque weekly, tithes …" can be completely changed in meaning by a fact such as 'belongs to the Libertarian Party', even 'is a plumber, 'is a target shooting enthusiast'".

 

This will continue to be true no matter how much info the NSA gathers: it will be a small subset of the information needed to answer the question 'possible terrorist?'.

 

Thus NSA's tradeoff of privacy vs security is inconsistent with reality: no matter how much info they gather, no matter how sophisticated their filters, they can never detect terrorists without a false positive rate so high that there will be insufficient resources to follow up on them.

In other words, if the system's lower boundary is one false positive per million, no additional amount of information gathering or predictive analysis will lower that rate of false positive generation to zero.

Why does this matter? It matters because it reveals that large-scale analytic systems are limited by their very nature. It isn't a matter of a lack of political will or funding; there are limits to the practical effectiveness of information gathering and predictive analysis.

Though Lew applied this to the NSA's "total information awareness" program, couldn't it also be applied to other large-scale information gathering and analysis projects such as analyzing financial markets?

This was the conclusion drawn by the father of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot, in his book The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. As Mandelbrot observed: "When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed."

All this should arouse a sense of humility about our ability to predict events, risks and crashes of one kind or another. In other words, risk cannot be entirely eliminated. Beyond a certain point, we're sacrificing treasure, civil liberties and energy for not just zero gain but negative return, as the treasure squandered on the quixotic quest for zero risk carries a steep opportunity cost: what else could we have accomplished with that treasure, effort and energy?

This entry was drawn from the Musings Reports, which are sent weekly to subscribers and major contributors.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/BqrLr9ZtK9U/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Analytic systems share system limits with financial markets.

Correspondent Lew G. recently sent me a thought-provoking commentary on the limits of "total information awareness" in terms of any information system's intrinsic rate of generating false positives.

In essence, the rate of false positives limits the effectiveness of any predictive system. The process of attempting to eliminate false positives is inherently one of diminishing return: even with no expense spared, the effort to eliminate false positives runs into boundaries of signal noise and generation of false positives.

To the degree that financial markets are ultimately predictive systems, this suggests a systemic cause of "unexpected" market crashes: signal noise and the intrinsic generation of false positives lead to a false sense of confidence in the system's stability and its ability to predict continued stability.

Here are Lew's comments: 

Resources to deal with reality are inherently limited by that reality.

Information, to the contrary, is inherently infinite, because of the fractal nature of reality.

 

A property of that information reality is that 'meaning' is relative to other items of info, and that any single item can change the interpretation of a big set of facts. E.g., "Muslim, bought pipes, bought gun powder, visits jihadi sites, attends the Mosque weekly, tithes …" can be completely changed in meaning by a fact such as 'belongs to the Libertarian Party', even 'is a plumber, 'is a target shooting enthusiast'".

 

This will continue to be true no matter how much info the NSA gathers: it will be a small subset of the information needed to answer the question 'possible terrorist?'.

 

Thus NSA's tradeoff of privacy vs security is inconsistent with reality: no matter how much info they gather, no matter how sophisticated their filters, they can never detect terrorists without a false positive rate so high that there will be insufficient resources to follow up on them.

In other words, if the system's lower boundary is one false positive per million, no additional amount of information gathering or predictive analysis will lower that rate of false positive generation to zero.

Why does this matter? It matters because it reveals that large-scale analytic systems are limited by their very nature. It isn't a matter of a lack of political will or funding; there are limits to the practical effectiveness of information gathering and predictive analysis.

Though Lew applied this to the NSA's "total information awareness" program, couldn't it also be applied to other large-scale information gathering and analysis projects such as analyzing financial markets?

This was the conclusion drawn by the father of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot, in his book The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. As Mandelbrot observed: "When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed."

All this should arouse a sense of humility about our ability to predict events, risks and crashes of one kind or another. In other words, risk cannot be entirely eliminated. Beyond a certain point, we're sacrificing treasure, civil liberties and energy for not just zero gain but negative return, as the treasure squandered on the quixotic quest for zero risk carries a steep opportunity cost: what else could we have accomplished with that treasure, effort and energy?

This entry was drawn from the Musings Reports, which are sent weekly to subscribers and major contributors.

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Analytic systems share system limits with financial markets.

Correspondent Lew G. recently sent me a thought-provoking commentary on the limits of "total information awareness" in terms of any information system's intrinsic rate of generating false positives.

In essence, the rate of false positives limits the effectiveness of any predictive system. The process of attempting to eliminate false positives is inherently one of diminishing return: even with no expense spared, the effort to eliminate false positives runs into boundaries of signal noise and generation of false positives.

To the degree that financial markets are ultimately predictive systems, this suggests a systemic cause of "unexpected" market crashes: signal noise and the intrinsic generation of false positives lead to a false sense of confidence in the system's stability and its ability to predict continued stability.

Here are Lew's comments: 

Resources to deal with reality are inherently limited by that reality.

Information, to the contrary, is inherently infinite, because of the fractal nature of reality.

 

A property of that information reality is that 'meaning' is relative to other items of info, and that any single item can change the interpretation of a big set of facts. E.g., "Muslim, bought pipes, bought gun powder, visits jihadi sites, attends the Mosque weekly, tithes …" can be completely changed in meaning by a fact such as 'belongs to the Libertarian Party', even 'is a plumber, 'is a target shooting enthusiast'".

 

This will continue to be true no matter how much info the NSA gathers: it will be a small subset of the information needed to answer the question 'possible terrorist?'.

 

Thus NSA's tradeoff of privacy vs security is inconsistent with reality: no matter how much info they gather, no matter how sophisticated their filters, they can never detect terrorists without a false positive rate so high that there will be insufficient resources to follow up on them.

In other words, if the system's lower boundary is one false positive per million, no additional amount of information gathering or predictive analysis will lower that rate of false positive generation to zero.

Why does this matter? It matters because it reveals that large-scale analytic systems are limited by their very nature. It isn't a matter of a lack of political will or funding; there are limits to the practical effectiveness of information gathering and predictive analysis.

Though Lew applied this to the NSA's "total information awareness" program, couldn't it also be applied to other large-scale information gathering and analysis projects such as analyzing financial markets?

This was the conclusion drawn by the father of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot, in his book The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. As Mandelbrot observed: "When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed."

All this should arouse a sense of humility about our ability to predict events, risks and crashes of one kind or another. In other words, risk cannot be entirely eliminated. Beyond a certain point, we're sacrificing treasure, civil liberties and energy for not just zero gain but negative return, as the treasure squandered on the quixotic quest for zero risk carries a steep opportunity cost: what else could we have accomplished with that treasure, effort and energy?

This entry was drawn from the Musings Reports, which are sent weekly to subscribers and major contributors.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/BqrLr9ZtK9U/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Analytic systems share system limits with financial markets.

Correspondent Lew G. recently sent me a thought-provoking commentary on the limits of "total information awareness" in terms of any information system's intrinsic rate of generating false positives.

In essence, the rate of false positives limits the effectiveness of any predictive system. The process of attempting to eliminate false positives is inherently one of diminishing return: even with no expense spared, the effort to eliminate false positives runs into boundaries of signal noise and generation of false positives.

To the degree that financial markets are ultimately predictive systems, this suggests a systemic cause of "unexpected" market crashes: signal noise and the intrinsic generation of false positives lead to a false sense of confidence in the system's stability and its ability to predict continued stability.

Here are Lew's comments: 

Resources to deal with reality are inherently limited by that reality.

Information, to the contrary, is inherently infinite, because of the fractal nature of reality.

 

A property of that information reality is that 'meaning' is relative to other items of info, and that any single item can change the interpretation of a big set of facts. E.g., "Muslim, bought pipes, bought gun powder, visits jihadi sites, attends the Mosque weekly, tithes …" can be completely changed in meaning by a fact such as 'belongs to the Libertarian Party', even 'is a plumber, 'is a target shooting enthusiast'".

 

This will continue to be true no matter how much info the NSA gathers: it will be a small subset of the information needed to answer the question 'possible terrorist?'.

 

Thus NSA's tradeoff of privacy vs security is inconsistent with reality: no matter how much info they gather, no matter how sophisticated their filters, they can never detect terrorists without a false positive rate so high that there will be insufficient resources to follow up on them.

In other words, if the system's lower boundary is one false positive per million, no additional amount of information gathering or predictive analysis will lower that rate of false positive generation to zero.

Why does this matter? It matters because it reveals that large-scale analytic systems are limited by their very nature. It isn't a matter of a lack of political will or funding; there are limits to the practical effectiveness of information gathering and predictive analysis.

Though Lew applied this to the NSA's "total information awareness" program, couldn't it also be applied to other large-scale information gathering and analysis projects such as analyzing financial markets?

This was the conclusion drawn by the father of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot, in his book The (Mis)Behavior of Markets. As Mandelbrot observed: "When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed."

All this should arouse a sense of humility about our ability to predict events, risks and crashes of one kind or another. In other words, risk cannot be entirely eliminated. Beyond a certain point, we're sacrificing treasure, civil liberties and energy for not just zero gain but negative return, as the treasure squandered on the quixotic quest for zero risk carries a steep opportunity cost: what else could we have accomplished with that treasure, effort and energy?

This entry was drawn from the Musings Reports, which are sent weekly to subscribers and major contributors.

In what is a staggering example of not only state meddling in the affairs of the “free press”, but worse, sheer state idiocy, yesterday the WSJ posted an article on its website revealing that as many as 24 co-conspirators would be exposed shortly in the ongoing Libor manipulation scandal and divulging the names of various individuals on this list. What promptly followed was truly bizarre. As the WSJ reports shortly after posting the article, “a British judge ordered the Journal and David Enrich, the newspaper’s European banking editor, to comply with a request by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office prohibiting the newspaper from publishing names of individuals not yet made public in the government’s ongoing investigation into alleged manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.” This happened at 7:18 pm London time, after the original WSJ article had already hit the Internet.

The WSJ added that “The order, which applies to publication in England and Wales, also demanded that the Journal remove “any existing Internet publication” divulging the details. It threatened Mr. Enrich and “any third party” with penalties including a fine, imprisonment and asset seizure.”

As a result, the media organization decided to comply with this gross example state censorship, and now in the place of the article, one could find the following note:

… but not before protesting vocally.

The article said the government was preparing to name roughly two dozen traders and brokers, adding that prosecutors were still finalizing their plans and that the list could change, citing people familiar with the process. Inclusion on the list doesn’t represent a formal accusation of wrongdoing and doesn’t mean the individuals will be charged with crimes.

 

“This injunction is a serious affront to press freedom,” said Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Journal. “We have been left with no choice but to remove the previously published story from WSJ.com and to withhold publication from the print edition of The Wall Street Journal Europe. However, we will continue to vigorously fight the injunction in the coming days.”

Yet it is not the censorship that is most shocking here, but the way the UK’s SFO went about scrubbing the trail. Because while the European version of the newspaper may have retracted the article from today’s print edition, the piece was still in the US version. Furthermore, since the original WSJ article hit the net before it was pulled, it was promptly picked up and reforwarded by either robotic or manned resyndicators of the WSJ. One such example was ValueWalk which took down the salient details that the SFO is so concerned about:

Among those who could be name are several of Hayes’ former coworkers at both Citigroup Inc and UBS AG. Michael Pieri, who was Hayes’ boss while he worked at UBS, was fired by the bank and moved to Australia. Hayes’ former assistant at UBS, Mirhat Alykulov, could also be on the list. Sources said he has been cooperating with investigators from the U.S.

 

Another name which could be on the SFO’s list is Christopher Cecere, who was Hayes’ boss while he worked in Citigroup’s Tokyo operations. Cecere resigned from his position at Citigroup around the same time Hayes was fired. Other people who could be on the list are ex HSBC Holdings plc trader Luke Madden, former JPMorgan Chase & Co. employee Paul Glands, and former Rabobank employee Paul Robson.

And, of course, the full list is in today’s US print edition of the WSJ. Which begs the question: aside from matter of state censorship and free press intervention, what exactly did the UK hope to achieve here? After all, a cursory one minute search would reveal all the names hidden, but now the extra buzz generated by UK’s attempt to quash the story, merely made it that much more interesting to all, and whereas some may have skipped it – after all who really cares about Libor manipulation anymore considering the entire market is openly manipulated by the Fed now – now everyone will focus on the names that were purposefully withheld.

Sheer statist stupidity.

The letter sent to the WSJ is below:

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/6jeTzE41y5s/story01.htm Tyler Durden

In what is a staggering example of not only state meddling in the affairs of the “free press”, but worse, sheer state idiocy, yesterday the WSJ posted an article on its website revealing that as many as 24 co-conspirators would be exposed shortly in the ongoing Libor manipulation scandal and divulging the names of various individuals on this list. What promptly followed was truly bizarre. As the WSJ reports shortly after posting the article, “a British judge ordered the Journal and David Enrich, the newspaper’s European banking editor, to comply with a request by the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office prohibiting the newspaper from publishing names of individuals not yet made public in the government’s ongoing investigation into alleged manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.” This happened at 7:18 pm London time, after the original WSJ article had already hit the Internet.

The WSJ added that “The order, which applies to publication in England and Wales, also demanded that the Journal remove “any existing Internet publication” divulging the details. It threatened Mr. Enrich and “any third party” with penalties including a fine, imprisonment and asset seizure.”

As a result, the media organization decided to comply with this gross example state censorship, and now in the place of the article, one could find the following note:

… but not before protesting vocally.

The article said the government was preparing to name roughly two dozen traders and brokers, adding that prosecutors were still finalizing their plans and that the list could change, citing people familiar with the process. Inclusion on the list doesn’t represent a formal accusation of wrongdoing and doesn’t mean the individuals will be charged with crimes.

 

“This injunction is a serious affront to press freedom,” said Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Journal. “We have been left with no choice but to remove the previously published story from WSJ.com and to withhold publication from the print edition of The Wall Street Journal Europe. However, we will continue to vigorously fight the injunction in the coming days.”

Yet it is not the censorship that is most shocking here, but the way the UK’s SFO went about scrubbing the trail. Because while the European version of the newspaper may have retracted the article from today’s print edition, the piece was still in the US version. Furthermore, since the original WSJ article hit the net before it was pulled, it was promptly picked up and reforwarded by either robotic or manned resyndicators of the WSJ. One such example was ValueWalk which took down the salient details that the SFO is so concerned about:

Among those who could be name are several of Hayes’ former coworkers at both Citigroup Inc and UBS AG. Michael Pieri, who was Hayes’ boss while he worked at UBS, was fired by the bank and moved to Australia. Hayes’ former assistant at UBS, Mirhat Alykulov, could also be on the list. Sources said he has been cooperating with investigators from the U.S.

 

Another name which could be on the SFO’s list is Christopher Cecere, who was Hayes’ boss while he worked in Citigroup’s Tokyo operations. Cecere resigned from his position at Citigroup around the same time Hayes was fired. Other people who could be on the list are ex HSBC Holdings plc trader Luke Madden, former JPMorgan Chase & Co. employee Paul Glands, and former Rabobank employee Paul Robson.

And, of course, the full list is in today’s US print edition of the WSJ. Which begs the question: aside from matter of state censorship and free press intervention, what exactly did the UK hope to achieve here? After all, a cursory one minute search would reveal all the names hidden, but now the extra buzz generated by UK’s attempt to quash the story, merely made it that much more interesting to all, and whereas some may have skipped it – after all who really cares about Libor manipulation anymore considering the entire market is openly manipulated by the Fed now – now everyone will focus on the names that were purposefully withheld.

Sheer statist stupidity.

The letter sent to the WSJ is below:

As the excitement of another US equity day session approaches, the BTFATHers can’t help themselves and have lifted the S&P 500 futures to another new all-time record high. Sure, why not, when the Fed has the path illuminated… It would seem the dips that are bought have now been reduced to 3-4 points though what is perhaps more worrisome is that EURJPY has ‘decoupled’ from the exuberance in the last hour.

 

 

but carry is fading…

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ug6aTGn1PuQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden

As the excitement of another US equity day session approaches, the BTFATHers can’t help themselves and have lifted the S&P 500 futures to another new all-time record high. Sure, why not, when the Fed has the path illuminated… It would seem the dips that are bought have now been reduced to 3-4 points though what is perhaps more worrisome is that EURJPY has ‘decoupled’ from the exuberance in the last hour.

 

 

but carry is fading…