another site
Because when you have no POMO, and no QE on the horizon, you can always break a stock exchange and send the entire market… higher!?
To wit: “The CBOE did not disseminate quotes between 11:45am CDT and 11:48am CDT in the following classes- DEM, DENN, DEPO and PCLN. All systems are operating normally.”
And the result:
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1x9lCZC Tyler Durden
Almost all of the political jabber is about which
party gets to control the Senate or over a few tight gubernatorial
races. But local contests count in people’s lives too, and offices
further down the ticket are often more accessible to both
candidates and voters. There may be no place where that is more
true than in New Hampshire, which enjoys a 424-member legislature.
Libertarian-oriented Free Staters moving to the Granite State have
had such success in making waves that Democratic State
Representative Cynthia Chase
proposed to “restrict the ‘freedoms’ that they think they will
find here” just to make the state less attractive to migrants.
That genius is
still in office, sad to say. But a lot of liberty-friendly
people—some Free Staters, others locally sourced—have joined her in
the legislature. This year, the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, “a
non-partisan coalition working to increase individual freedom in
New Hampshire” boasts that “a
stunning 80% of NHLA-endorsed candidates advanced to the general
election.” Many of those candidates—mostly Republicans, but some
Democrats, too—are incumbents. There are a lot of them.
Are those lawmakers getting anything done?
Last month, Dick Desrosiers, Chairman of the Hampton Democratic
Committee, complained
in a letter to the editor:
As a result of the 2010 election, the New Hampshire Liberty
Alliance (NHLA), a main organization for carrying out the
strategies of the FSP, orchestrated the election of Representative
Bill O’Brien to the position of House speaker. As speaker, Mr.
O’Brien employed strong arm tactics to oust long-term Republicans
and replace them with Free Stators. He used such tactics to
introduce and pass legislation to remove any and all government
impacts on liberty and property rights and diminished the
importance of protecting and promoting the common good.
Yes, I thought that was an endorsement, too. But really, he was
expressing unhappiness with the situation. Go ahead and read the
rest of it.
And keep an eye on those local races in New Hampshire and,
hopefully, near you.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1tXywe8
via IFTTT
First Lady Michelle Obama – tireless advocate for healthy eating and exercise – appears to have reached her ethical limit when it comes to ‘getting out the vote’. It is no longer enough to offer free phones if the good people of America vote for Obama’s Democrat party, now the self-confessed food-Nazi is suggesting fried chicken if people vote Democrat today:
Obama gave her fried chicken blessing during an interview Monday with Roland Martin on News One for Black America (Transcription by Kristinn Taylor)
Martin: So can we, if we go out to the polls, can we say, we have ‘souls to the polls’ on Sunday, can we do ‘soul food after we vote’?
Obama: Absolutely, I give everyone full permission to eat some fried chicken after they vote only after – if you haven’t voted…(laughter.)
Martin: Just checking!
Obama: You make a good point because I am, I do talk about health. But I think that a good victory for Democrats on Tuesday, you know, should be rewarded with some fried chicken.
* * *
If you like your fried chicken, you can keep it… as long as you vote Democrat
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1E2GyDP Tyler Durden
Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
I can do this in just about random order, the idea should still shine through, and crystal clear at that. We’re on the verge not of a market correction, but of something much bigger. All it takes to know that is to connect a few dots. Ironically, the very same financial press that reports on the dots, refuses to connect them. Don’t they see it, or don’t they want to? It’s not even a very interesting question anymore: they’ll end up commenting only in hindsight.
What happens today in Japan is both a sign of what’s wrong with the entire global financial system, and at the same time the catalyst that will help bring that system to its knees. Japan goes where no man has gone before, because it’s further down the gutter than the rest. But they will all follow. Japan thinks it can escape collapse if the US does fine, and vice versa, and the same goes for China, Europe etc., but none of them can survive the big blow by themselves, let alone that one of them could lift any of the others up by the hair on their heads. It’s a desperate mirage. When you hear anyone say the US will lift up the world economy, switch your channel. Unless you’re already at Comedy Central.
Here’s the litany for the day: China prints $25 trillion and buys Portugal. Japan’s national debt is 750% of tax revenue. US first time homebuyers are at a 27 year low. 40.5% of Greek children grow up in poverty, as Greece is part of the eurozone that should take care of all citizens. In the UK 72% of 18-21-year olds make less than a living wage. US and Japanese QE leads to ‘consumers’ spending less, which is the exact opposite of what QE is supposed to be intended for. China is trapped in the newfangled currency war Japan’s QE has unleashed across Asia, and which will soon be exported across the globe.
The common denominator? Debt. Sovereign debt, personal debt, corporate debt. Japan doesn’t want to recognize it yet, but it’s caught in the same trap with everyone. The difference is that Japan fights debt with more debt, while other parties are starting to find a little more nuance in their approach. Does it matter? Not one bit. Other than Japan’s hole will be deeper than the others. Let’s just track through today’s news. Bloomberg:
Portugal Sees Chinese Do 90% of Bids at Property Auction
As bargain-hunters waited in a packed room at a property auction in Lisbon last month, one language dominated their chat: Mandarin. About 90% of the bidders for the government-owned apartments and stores on offer were Chinese, according to Jorge Oliveira, the official overseeing the asset sale. They ended up acquiring more than two-thirds of the 45 properties, he said. “A Portuguese investor bought a store to start a bakery and coffee shop, but most of the properties went to the Chinese,” Oliveira said in an interview after the sale. Portugal is the latest target for Chinese investors who have been acquiring buildings around the world as China allows freer movement of funds in and out of the country.
Why would you want to sell your assets to a country that simply prints the money it uses to purchase those assets? Why not print that kind of money yourself and buy theirs? China printed $25 trillion and we allow them to buy Lisbon and Madrid and Rome with that? How much worse can this get? Portugal is defenseless, because it’s adopted the euro, but Germany would never allow the Chinese money printers to buy Berlin. Need any more info on why the eurozone is such an abject and perverse failure? Guardian:
More Than One Fifth Of UK Workers Earn Less Than Living Wage
More than a fifth of UK workers earn less than the living wage, with bar staff and shop assistants among the most likely to live “hand to mouth” because of low pay, a report warns on Monday. Published to mark living wage week, the research also finds that younger workers, women and part-timers are more likely to be paid less than the living wage, a voluntary threshold calculated to provide a basic but decent standard of living. New living wage rates will be announced on Monday, with the current rate at £8.80 per hour in London and £7.65 elsewhere. The report by consultancy firm KPMG adds to evidence of low pay remaining prevalent in Britain, despite the economic recovery. The proportion of employees on less than the living wage is now 22%, up from 21% last year, the study found. In real terms, that was a rise of 147,000 people to 5.28 million. [..] It found 72% of 18-21 year olds were earning less than the living wage
22% of your working population on less than a living wage is an insane disgrace. Certainly when at the same time you’re telling everyone your economy is doing great. There’s no excuse for that. But it can get worse: if 72% of your young people can’t survive on what they work for, you’re murdering your nation’s future. And your housing market, just to name an example, people can’t start families, it all ties together. MarketWatch:
US Consumers Resisting Enticements To Increase Spending
The U.S. is adding jobs at the fastest rate since the end of the Great Recession and another strong month of hiring is expected in October, but Americans still aren’t spending like good times are here to stay. The lackluster pace of consumer spending — outlays fell in September for the first time in eight months – largely explains why the U.S. is only growing at a post-recession annual average of 2.2%. Yet most economists think that could change in the near future.
The US is adding jobs that don’t pay enough to get people spending who are still buried in debt, just like Europe, just like Japan. That clear enough? The US economy ‘grows’ despite the American people. But ‘most economists think that could change in the near future’. Get a job. CNBC:
Bank of Japan Bazooka To Spark Currency War
The Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) stimulus blitz raises the specter of currency wars as a rapidly weakening yen threatens the competitiveness of export-driven economies, say strategists. “Whenever you have these kinds of disruptive moves by central banks, there’s always going to be fall out effects,” said Boris Schlossberg at BK Asset Management. Markets were caught off guard by the BoJ’s announcement on Friday that it would expand purchases of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and real estate investment trusts, extend the duration of its portfolio of Japanese government bonds (JGBs), and increase the pace of monetary base expansion.
“The hottest currency war today is Japan vs Korea. That’s probably the one to keep an eye on. The yen-won cross rate is very sensitive as Japan and Korea compete in a lot of key areas,” said Sean Callow at Westpac. The Japanese currency has fallen around 20% against the won since the BoJ launched its unprecedented stimulus program in April 2013. Currency strategists say the BoJ’s actions could encourage the Bank of Korea (BoK) to become more defensive against local currency strength through intervention in the foreign exchange market or a rate cut.
That’s the big one for now. It’s not just Japan and Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and quite a few others are in the same merry go round. And of course China, as the following MarketWatch piece identifies: “The move will be particularly problematic for China, as its slow-crawling managed rate to the U.S. dollar renders it is effectively defenseless when confronted by currency wars.”
China Faces Trap In Currency War
Last Friday, the Bank of Japan effectively tossed a grenade into the region’s currency markets with its surprise announcement of a new round of quantitative easing sending the yen to fresh lows. The move will be particularly problematic for China, as its slow-crawling managed rate to the U.S. dollar renders it is effectively defenseless when confronted by currency wars, in which countries try to steal growth from their trading partners through competitive devaluations. It also comes at a time when Beijing is already battling foes on two fronts: hot-money outflows and an economy flirting with deflation. The consensus is that the world’s largest trading nation will resist the temptation to enter the fray with a competitive devaluation or move to a market-based exchange rate. Yet Japan’s latest actions will hurt, as they hold Beijing’s feet to the fire.
As long as China holds its (semi) peg to the USD, it may wake up to some ugly surprises, certainly when USDJPY goes to 120 or beyond. But the, when that happens, China won’t be alone. The next piece by Pater Tenebrarum, h/t Durden, may be the best I’ve read on Japan‘s despair move on Friday:
The Experiment that Will Blow Up the World
In order to explain why the pursuit of Kuroda’s policy is edging ever closer to a catastrophic outcome, we have to delve a bit into the details of Japan’s monetary data. In spite of the BoJ’s “QE” reaching record highs, it mainly creates bank reserves and furthers carry trades. The economy sees no private credit growth so far. Commercial banks in Japan continue to shrink the stock of fiduciary media – this is to say, they are reducing outstanding credit, which makes more and more unbacked deposit money disappear. Hence, Japan’s money supply growth has recently declined to a mere 4.3% year-on-year.
“… the markets are pouncing on the yen because they are forward-looking: the BoJ is monetizing ever more government debt and this is expected to continue, because the public debtberg has become too large to be funded by any other means. In spite of the relatively low money supply growth this debt monetization has produced so far, it also creates the perverse situation that an ever greater portion of the government’s outstanding stock of debt consists actually of debt the government literally “owes to itself”.
Japan has debt levels that are unequalled not just in the world, but most likely in human history, and I’m not saying that to take anything away from the demise of Rome:
And then we get back home with the NAR and Lawrence Yun and all of its cheerleaders, who got their faces all full of mud and shit and sand, and will never admit to it. Zero Hedge:
Why Housing Is Dead: First-Time Buyers Collapse To 27-Year Lows
The Millennials (one of the biggest generations in US history) are just not getting with the status quo program. As we detailed previously, with lower credit scores, less disposable income, and a soaring number of people living with their parents; so it should be no surprise that The National Association of Realtors (NAR) today admitted that first-time homebuyers plunged to the lowest level in 27 years. The blame – of course – rather than low/no-growth fiscal policies, student debt servitude, and inequality-driving cheap-funding monetary policy, is price competition from ‘investors’ and too “stringent credit standards,” perfectly mirroring FHFA’s Mel Watt’s Einsteinian insanity desire to dramatically ease lending standards and slash minimum down-payments (as we noted previously). Perhaps NAR accidentally stumbles on the biggest reason no one is buying in their profiling: the typical first-time buyer was 31-years-old, while the typical repeat buyer was 53 – smack in the middle of the Millennial collapse.
We’ve been keeping the long lost idea of our long lost society alive by squeezing our own children wherever we can, and telling them that if they only work hard enough, they can be whoever they want to be. But they can’t, that notion is also long lost. When you keep home prices artificially high, homeowners don’t suffer as much, even if they bought at insanely high prices, but the suffering is switched to potential buyers, who remain just that, potential, while they live in their mom’s basements for years.
A surefire way to kill a society while everyone’s eagerly awaiting the growth that is just around the corner and will forever remain there. Take it from your kids. Take it from somewhere else in the world.
And that’s where we’re now passing a barrier: there’s no-one to take it from anymore. Not through sleight of hand or spin or propaganda. You can only keep a quarter of your people below living wage levels for so long. Japan can only wage a currency war on its neighbors for so long (not very long). Japan can only wage a consumer price war on its own people for so long.
Japan’s QE9 has set the world on fire. It didn’t need much of a spark to begin with, but it’s certainly got one now.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1x48iYx Tyler Durden
Didn’t vote? Don’t want to vote? Don’t worry about it. It almost
certainly won’t matter anyway. In this 2008 video, Gordon Tullock,
a Professor Emeritus at the George Mason University School of Law,
and one of the founders of public choice economics, explains
why.
Vote if you want to. Vote if you enjoy voting. Vote if you care
about a candidate, or about the process itself. But don’t vote
because you feel obligated to do so, or because you think your vote
alone is likely to make a difference. And no matter what, if you
don’t vote, don’t feel bad about it.
In 2012, Reason‘s Katherine Mangu-Ward explained why
your
vote doesn’t count. And over at Bloomberg View, Megan McArdle*
offers five good reasons to
skip voting today. For the counterargument, here’s
Reason‘s Ed Krayewski
making the libertarian case for voting.
*I am married to this person.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1urjVJF
via IFTTT
The most entertaining election data of the day comes from
Google, which has
posted the most popular search terms associated with candidates
around the country. Here, for example, are the results for
Georgia’s would-be governors:
Deal is
ahead in the polls, but evidently he’s losing the
word-association race. I mean, “Related To Jimmy Carter” isn’t the
first thing I’d want people searching with my name, but
Deal clearly has it worse.
In Michigan, meanwhile, the gubernatorial race appears to be a
contest between “Net Worth” and “Not Prepared”:
“Not Prepared” has been a popular pair of words in this race:
The Democrat deployed the phrase in a gaffe last
spring and the GOP has been running
with it ever since. Snyder’s net worth, for the record, is
“in
the vicinity of $200 million.”
Elsewhere, Scott Brown’s Cosmo
centerfold is still on people’s minds, in whichever organ those
minds might be located:
Finally, these are the results for President Obama, who isn’t
running for anything this year but
looms ominously above all the Democrats who are:
The term at #3
surprises the staff of The Federalist: “The third
most-searched term connected to Obama is ‘divorce’? Really?” I’m
not so shocked: Given how hard The National Enquirer has
been
hitting the dubious idea that an Obama divorce is on the
horizon, I’m surprised the word isn’t ranked even higher. There are
people who buy supermarket tabloids, and there are people who wait
til they get home and then Google what they saw on the cover. Or,
um, so I hear.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1urjVcw
via IFTTT
Think twice before you post
that grinning voting booth selfie followed by the #turnoutforwhat
hashtag, because you may be commiting a felony.
As reported by the Peoria
Journal Star, “Section 29-9 of
(Illinois‘) election code essentially says that you
can‘t show other people who you‘re voting
for, even in a photo after the fact.“ The law has
been on the books since 1974, passed by the legislature as a means
of
stifling “vote-buying“ schemes,
intimidation, and other forms of tampering. Though local election
officials told the Journal Star they had never heard of
the law being enforced and the Peoria County State‘s
Attorney said he would
be “unlikely“ to prosecute a
voting booth selfie violator, the code remains a Class 4 felony on
the state books.
It’s not just Illinois. Dozens of states have restrictions
on photographing your ballot. The Digital Media Law
Project produced a
thorough examination of ballot disclosure laws in 2012, which
they described as a “First Amendment Anomaly”:
As reflected in our new guide, many states have statutes that
prohibit the display of one’s own marked ballot to others. A small
number of these states only prohibit disclosure of one’s ballot in
the voting room or prior to submission of the ballot, but most
impose a flat prohibition on disclosure backed up by criminal
penalties or cancellation of the vote in question. These statutes
by their explicit terms appear to ban sharing of a photograph of
one’s ballot even after the election is over.Now, we can debate the wisdom of a voter openly declaring the
candidate for whom he or she voted. There are sound reasons for a
person to keep his or her ultimate selection secret, whether to
prevent intimidation at the polling place or retribution by
employers or others after the fact. It is easy to imagine
situations in which the thoughtless posting of a marked ballot on
Facebook could result in negative consequences, as with the posting
of so many other ill-advised Facebook photos.And yet, the First Amendment’s protection is at its peak in the
realm of speech on political issues. Can a law prohibiting a voter
from disclosing his or her own marked ballot be constitutional?
Just this week, the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against
the “Live Free or Die” state of New Hampshire for updating its
existing ban on photographing a marked ballot to specifically
prohibit “taking a digital image or photograph of his or her marked
ballot and distributing or sharing the image via social media,”
punishable by up to a $1,000 fine.
Unlike in Illinois, the law is being enforced. According to
Boston.com, at least 3 citizens of the Granite State have been
investigated by the state’s attorney general for posting their
ballot to social media, including a police officer who voted for
his dead dog as a write-in candidate for the Senate. In an act
of defiant rebellion against his own state’s law, State Rep. Leon H. Rideout
(R-NH), a co-plaintiff in the ACLU’s lawsuit, tweeted
his marked-up ballot during this past September’s Republican
primary election “to
make a statement.” To date, he has not been fined.
So be careful out there today when bragging about fulfilling
your civic duty, or at least check the Digital Media Project’s
helpful guide to see if your state has laws curtailing
post-election political speech. As civil liberties
lawyer and Reason contributor Harvey
Silverglate wrote in his book “Three
Felonies a Day,“ the average American
may regularly and unwittingly
engage in felonious activity, but he/she will
generally not record and publish these petty crimes all over social
media.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1urjSNM
via IFTTT
The cacophony of various talking heads proclaiming this morning that oil price weakness is not due to weak demand but to over-supply (which are obviously merely different sides to the same coin) was deafening. While he hate to steal the jam from their aggregate donuts, the following chart may just provide a hint at what is really driving oil prices… “it’s the economy, stupid!”
Correlation is not causation but.. well in this case, it is!
* * *
But while this chart is an inconvenient truth, we are sure the meme of US growth saving the world will continue to be spewed as gospel (oh wait a minute… isn’t the entire sell-side now taking a chainsaw to their Q3/Q4 GDP growth estimates after construction spending and trade deficit data?)
Chart: Bloomberg
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1yVcj0G Tyler Durden
November 4, 2014
Santiago, Chile
Don Quixote is easily one of the most entertaining books of the Renaissance, if not all-time. And almost everyone’s heard of it, even if they haven’t read it.
You know the basic plot line- Alonso Quixano becomes fixated with the idea of chivalry and sets out to single-handedly resurrect knighthood.
His wanderings take him far across the land where he gets involved in comic adventures that are terribly inconvenient for the other characters.
He famously assaults a group of windmills, believing that they are cruel giants. He attacks a group of clergy, believing that they are holding an innocent woman captive.
All of this is based on Don Quixote’s completely delusional view of the world. And everyone else pays the price for it.
Miguel de Cervantes’ novel is brilliantly entertaining. But the modern-day monetary equivalent is not so much.
Central bankers today have an equally delusional view of the world. Just three months ago, Mario Draghi (President of the European Central Bank) embarked on his own Quixotic folly by taking certain interest rates into NEGATIVE territory.
Draghi convinced himself that he was saving Europe from disaster. And like Don Quixote, everyone else has had to pay the price for his delusions.
On November 1st, the first European bank has passed along these negative interest rates to its retail customers.
So if you maintain a balance of more than 500,000 euros at Deutsche Skatbank of Germany, you now have the privilege of paying 0.25% per year… to the bank.
We’ve already seen this at the institutional level: commercial banks in Europe are paying the ECB negative interest on certain balances.
And large investors are paying European governments negative interest on certain bonds.
Now we’re seeing this effect bleed over into retail banking.
It’s starting with higher net worth individuals (the average guy doesn’t have half a million euros laying around in the bank). But the trend here is pretty clear– financial repression is coming soon to a bank near you.
It almost seems like an episode from the Twilight Zone… or some bizarre parallel universe. That’s the investment environment we’re in now.
Bottom line: if you’re responsible with your money and set some aside for the future, you will be penalized. If you blow your savings and go into debt, you will be rewarded.
If we ask the question “cui bono”, the answer is pretty obvious: heavily indebted governments benefit substantially from zero (or negative) rates.
Case in point: the British government just announced that they would pay down some of their debt that they racked up nine decades ago.
In 1927, then Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill issued a series of bonds to consolidate and refinance much of the debt that Britain had racked up from World War I and before.
This debt is still outstanding to this day. And the British government is just starting to pay it down– about $350 million worth.
Think about it– $350 million was a lot of money in 1927. Thanks to decades of inflation, it’s practically a rounding error on government balance sheets today.
This is why they’re all so desperate to create inflation… and why they’ll stop at nothing to make it happen. (It remains to be seen whether they’ll be successful, but they are willing to go down swinging…)
What’s even more extraordinary is how they’re trying to convince everyone why inflation is necessary… and why negative rates are a good thing.
On the ECB’s own website, they say that negative interest rates will “benefit savers in the end because they support growth and thus create a climate in which interest rates can gradually return to higher levels.”
I’m not sure a more intellectually dishonest statement could be made; they’re essentially telling people that the path to prosperity is paved in debt and consumption, as opposed to savings and production.
These people either have no idea how economies grow and prosper, they’re outright liars, or they’re completely delusional.
I’m betting on the latter. Either way, this assault on windmills has only just begun.
As Don Quixote himself said, “Thou hast seen nothing yet.”
from SOVEREIGN MAN http://ift.tt/1x46bnu
via IFTTT
Simple and personal are two things not often used
to describe government. Internet giants like Facebook and Google
want to change that for Election Day.
The Hill
explains:
“While every election is important, the voting process can often
feel complicated, with the information about how to head to the
polls spread across multiple official sources,” Google executive
Anthea Watson Strong wrote in a recent blog post.To simplify the process, Google is displaying state-specific
details when people use search phrases such as “register to vote”
or “how do I vote.”Searching on Google for “who is on my ballot” brings up a list
of all the candidates running for the federal, statewide and local
offices in any given area, while “where is my polling place” lists
local polling places.A Google page specifically set up for the elections —
google.com/elections — lists the latest news and YouTube videos
about the candidates as well as aggregated data about common
political Google searches.
Facebook users may have noticed the “I’m Voting” button, known
as the “voter megaphone,” at the top of their newsfeed today. It’s
been rolled out slowly each election season since 2008, and it’s
now visible to anyone 18 or over.
“Our effort is neutral,” a Facebook representative
tells The Verge. “While we encourage any and all
candidates, groups, and voters to use our platform to engage on the
elections, we as a company have not used our products in a way that
attempts to influence how people vote.”
Still, people have been wary of the social media site’s
influence since it conducted an apolitical psychology experiment by
tailoring what shows up on a user’s newsfeed. And, the vote button
did, according to a 2010 study, account for
around 600,000 additional votes that year. “If you’re told your
friends have voted, you’re 0.39 percent more likely to vote
than someone who hasn’t,” The Atlantic explains.
In general, social media and technology are playing a larger
role in the way people participate in our democratic republic.
“Sixteen percent of registered voters said they follow politicians
on social media, compared with the 6 percent who said they did so
in 2010. The leap has been even bigger among middle-aged voters. Of
registered voters from 30 to 49, 26 percent said they follow
politicians online and 40 percent of whom said they’ve used their
phones to help keep up with news about the elections,” CNN
reports based on Pew Poll data released yesterday.
Reason previously noted that another tech giant,
Microsoft, has also put some skin in the game. They’ve predicting
the outcome of the election.
Guess who the big winners are.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1rZva50
via IFTTT