another site
But…we have a deal in DC?! As the safety bid for bonds and bullion continues, stocks are greatly rotating lower, retracing all the post-payrolls (taper is a good thing) gains. Perhaps more notably, attempts to juice stocks with EURJPY are failing (for now)…
Retraced…
EURJPY not working…. But AUDJPY is…
Charts: Bloomberg
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/szz7OL9auCQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden
A modest cut in the slowdown of the growth of debt in the most indebted nation on earth is being heralded as a ‘win’ by many (even if the ‘market’ is entirely ignoring it). We leave it to Speaker Boehner to explain the “compromise” but remind readers that the extension of emergency claims is off the table (for now) and thusly, the unemployment rate is about to drop notably – providing the Fed the cover (along with this fiscal ‘tailwind’) to spin a tale of taper sooner rather than later.
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/NZzYjCLog_s/story01.htm Tyler Durden
A modest cut in the slowdown of the growth of debt in the most indebted nation on earth is being heralded as a ‘win’ by many (even if the ‘market’ is entirely ignoring it). We leave it to Speaker Boehner to explain the “compromise” but remind readers that the extension of emergency claims is off the table (for now) and thusly, the unemployment rate is about to drop notably – providing the Fed the cover (along with this fiscal ‘tailwind’) to spin a tale of taper sooner rather than later.
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/NZzYjCLog_s/story01.htm Tyler Durden
With private sector loan creation in the US and Japan virtually unchanged since Lehman levels (and the US in danger of posting a negative comp in a very months) and Europe loan creation contracting at a record pace, it falls upon the Fed and Bank of Japan (and possibly the ECB soon) to inject the much needed credit-money liquidity into the system. And, as everyone knows, month after month the Fed and the BOJ diligently create $85 billion and $75 billion in new outside money out of thin air (that this “credit” ends up in the stock market is a different topic).
So to help readers get a sense of perspective how the US and Japan compare when matched to China, below we present a chart showing the fixed monthly “money” creation by the Fed and the BOJ compared to the most comprehensive money supply aggregate available in China – the Total Social Financing – for the month of November. The chart speaks for itself.
Basically, while everyone focuses on the breakneck money creation by the Fed and the BOJ, what happened in the past month is that China quietly created some 20% more money. Perhaps most impotantly, between these three entities, nearly $400 billion in liquidity was created de novo in one month! Because when the entire world is a credit-fueled ponzi scheme, these are the kind of numbers that matter.
For those curious, here is a more detailed breakdown of the Chinese numbers from Bank of America.
New bank loans and TSF rebounded notably in November
Despite higher and volatile interbank rates and rising bond yields, credit growth remained quite robust towards year-end. Two most watched data points, new bank loans and Total Social Financing (TSF), rebounded notably to RMB625bn and RMB1230bn respectively in November from RMB506bn and RMB856bn in October. YoY bank loan growth remained unchanged at 14.2%, while yoy outstanding TSF growth moderated to 19.5% from 19.7%. Today’s money & credit data should be positive for markets which have been worried that the PBoC could tighten credit supply to reduce leverage by citing rising bond yields and interbank rates.
Details of TSF: All financing activities accelerated
Loan details: demand for working capital remained decent
* * *
So how long before the developed and developing world “have” to create $1 trillion or more in money supply each month to keep the house of cards from toppling?
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/3lToNGkt1XQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden
If Nixon deserved points for going to China, Rand Paul deserves
points for going to Detroit — and trying to convert the GOP
from a pasty white guys’ party to a multi-hued one where everyone,
even people with “pony tails, tattoos and earrings,” are
welcome.
But his actual plan to try and save Detroit by creating Economic
Freedom Zones, I note in the Washington Examiner this
morning, is simply old garb with new accessories. It’s basic
premise that it is not government but entrepreneurs who can revive
economic basket cases like Detroit is obvious to everyone (except
liberals, communists and the Pope). But the problem is that the
lovers of America’s regulatory state will never unshackle
entrepreneurs and let them work their magic as this plan would
require. I note:
This approach worked well in England,
turning London’s depressed docklands into a super-dynamic hub for
finance and other businesses in the 1980s. It also transformed
India’s
Bangalore from a sleepy little town (that Winston Churchill once
compared to a prison) into a global IT powerhouse in the 1990s.But it has been a disappointing failure in America. Why? Because
neither Republicans nor Democrats have ever managed to create
anything resembling a genuine enterprise zone.
Go
here to read the whole thing.
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/11/rand-pauls-sham-plan-to-save-detroit
via IFTTT
If Nixon deserved points for going to China, Rand Paul deserves
points for going to Detroit — and trying to convert the GOP
from a pasty white guys’ party to a multi-hued one where everyone,
even people with “pony tails, tattoos and earrings,” are
welcome.
But his actual plan to try and save Detroit by creating Economic
Freedom Zones, I note in the Washington Examiner this
morning, is simply old garb with new accessories. It’s basic
premise that it is not government but entrepreneurs who can revive
economic basket cases like Detroit is obvious to everyone (except
liberals, communists and the Pope). But the problem is that the
lovers of America’s regulatory state will never unshackle
entrepreneurs and let them work their magic as this plan would
require. I note:
This approach worked well in England,
turning London’s depressed docklands into a super-dynamic hub for
finance and other businesses in the 1980s. It also transformed
India’s
Bangalore from a sleepy little town (that Winston Churchill once
compared to a prison) into a global IT powerhouse in the 1990s.But it has been a disappointing failure in America. Why? Because
neither Republicans nor Democrats have ever managed to create
anything resembling a genuine enterprise zone.
Go
here to read the whole thing.
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/11/rand-pauls-sham-plan-to-save-detroit
via IFTTT
Time has
picked the pope as its person of the year, thus angering those
readers who are certain that the title should have gone to some
other figure (usually Edward Snowden). My position this year is the
same as every year. As I put
it back in 2002, after the magazine gave its honor to a
trio it dubbed “The Whistleblowers”:
My hat goes off to Time—not for its
selection, but for once more inspiring so many people to discuss
the world’s single vaguest annual award as though it were
meaningful and important. Even People‘s yearly
announcement of the Sexiest Man Alive—isn’t it funny how the
sexiest man alive always turns out to be famous already? What are
the odds of that?—has the advantage of being restricted to one
qualification (sexiness); if an aggrieved fan wants to dispute the
pick, she at least knows what she’s disputing. To this day, I’m not
sure how one outqualifies someone else to be Man of the Year. The
magazine’s definition—”the single person who, for better or worse,
has most influenced events in the preceding year”—isn’t helpful,
since the mag regularly ignores the “single person” bit in practice
and doesn’t seem very interested in the admittedly impossible task
of measuring “influence,” either.Nonetheless, each December people behave as though there is some
platonic ideal Man of the Year out there, and that the
disinterested scientists at Time somehow misidentified it.
Last year the rap on the editors was that they only picked Rudy
Giuliani because they were too scared to select Osama bin Laden.
(Their stated rationale was that he was “not a larger-than-life
figure with broad historical sweep,” but “a garden-variety
terrorist whose evil plan succeeded beyond his highest hopes.”)
This time the complaint is that they’ve picked three people whom
hardly anyone’s heard of and who didn’t make much of a difference
in the big picture anyway. (They are nonetheless, one presumes,
larger-than-life figures with broad historical sweep.)…The more
dissension, the bigger the buzz; the bigger the buzz, the better
for Time. What can I say? It’s a great way to sell
magazines.
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/11/sham-of-the-year
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“When I’m talking to a libertarian and I make the point that the
USDA food pyramid is not god’s truth, they’re like, ‘Oh, right, of
course it isn’t,’ says John Durant, author of
The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong
Health. “It doesn’t require a lot of persuasion that the
official guidelines on diet are wrong.”
Durant’s book tells the story of how he discovered his inner
hunter-gatherer, and it offers practical guidelines for how to
transition to the meat-heavy low-carb diet favored by our
Paleolithic ancestors—and a surprising number of libertarians.
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/11/discovering-your-inner-hunter-gatherer
via IFTTT
“When I’m talking to a libertarian and I make the point that the
USDA food pyramid is not god’s truth, they’re like, ‘Oh, right, of
course it isn’t,’ says John Durant, author of
The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong
Health. “It doesn’t require a lot of persuasion that the
official guidelines on diet are wrong.”
Durant’s book tells the story of how he discovered his inner
hunter-gatherer, and it offers practical guidelines for how to
transition to the meat-heavy low-carb diet favored by our
Paleolithic ancestors—and a surprising number of libertarians.
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/11/discovering-your-inner-hunter-gatherer
via IFTTT
If you don’t like the frequency of your air-quality alerts, you don’t have to keep them. That is the message that the Chinese government has made loud and clear as Bloomberg reports, Shanghai’s environmental authority took decisive action to address the pollution – it cynically adjusted the threshold for “alerts” to ensure there won’t be so many. In a move remininscent of Japan’s raising of the “safe” radioactive threshold level, China has apparently decided – rather than accept responsibility for the disaster – to avoid it by making the “safe” pollution level over 50% more polluted (up from 75 to 115 micrograms per cubic meter) – almost 5 times the WHO’s “safe” level of 25 micrograms.
As the smog that has choked Shanghai for much of the last week reached hazardous levels, the city’s environmental authority took decisive action to address the frequent air-quality alerts: It adjusted standards downward to ensure that there won’t be so many.
It was a cynical move, surely made to protect the bureau’s image in the face of unrelenting pollution that only seems to grow worse, despite government promises to address it. At this advanced stage in China’s development, nobody in the country (or elsewhere) — not even the loyal state news media — seems to believe that the problem is solvable, at least not any time soon. Even worse, nobody — not the state and certainly not the growing number of middle-class consumers (and car buyers) — seems ready to take responsibility for the mess.
…
If you can’t fix it, you might as well try to avoid responsibility for it, the thinking seems to go. It therefore comes as no surprise that Shanghai’s Environmental Protection Bureau decided to lower the benchmark for alerting the public about pollution risks. It will now issue alerts only when the concentration of the most dangerous particulates in the city’s air, known as PM2.5 (particulates smaller than 2.5 micometers in diameter) reach 115 micrograms per cubic meter. The previous standard was 75 micrograms per cubic meter. (The World Health Organization recommends not exceeding 25 micrograms per cubic meter in a 24-hour period.)
…
The state-owned English-language China Daily explained the decision in tone that almost obscured the absurdity of the maneuver: “The bureau said it believes the original standard is too strict, given that haze is common in the Yangtze River Delta region in winter.”
…
“On social networks like Weibo and Wechat, Beijingers now show photos of blue skies and white clouds as if they’re on vacation.” This show-off behavior left a bad taste, he concedes, before concluding with a final sentence that ought to serve as a rallying cry in China: “I really hope that someday people will resume reacting to blue skies and white clouds in a ‘normal’ manner.”
That’s a hope that probably won’t be fulfilled in this decade or even the next.
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/N_3CCAogWeo/story01.htm Tyler Durden
