Author: admin

As posted yesterday at https://www.smartknowledgeu.com/blog, by JS Kim, Managing Director, SmartKnowledgeU

 

Currently in Bangkok, Thailand, protests against the government remain strong with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands regularly gathering across the city in an attempt to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from office. However, there are many reasons why such protests never achieve their long-term goals, even when they achieve their short-term objectives. For example, were the protestors to successfully oust current PM Yingluck Shinawatra from office as they so desire, the political system is so corrupt that another corrupt PM would just replace her. Therefore, the protestors, who fail to understand and attack the root of the underlying problems of corruption- the bankers that monopolize control of the country’s monetary supply- instead attack the symptoms and manifestations of the corruption. Thus, corruption will always remain. When a Prime Minister or President anywhere in the world states, and actually does, the following: “I will rout out all bankers that manipulate interest rates, stock markets, commodity markets, real estate markets, forex markets and every single banker that prevents free markets from operating within my country”, then that will be a politician worthy of the people’s support. Any politician that fails to do this is unworthy of leading their country and unworthy of the respect of the citizens whom they supposedly serve. Though there have been some violent confrontations among Thai protesters and police thus far, since the bankers that run all countries know that the people’s focus on a corrupt politician is a welcome distraction from the true culprits of economic malaise (them), they are willing not to escalate violence against the protesters. However, if the protesters ever turn their protests to the people they should be trying to kick out of their country – the banking elite – such tolerance will go right out the window, as it did with the US police and Occupy Wall Street protesters when the Occupy Wall Streeters brought much too much attention upon the corrupt banking cartels for their comfort. 

 

   
 
 

 

 

 Thailand Political Protests, Sukhumvit Road, 22 December 2013   

Kicking Yingluck Shinawatra out of Thailand, as is the misinformed goal of the protesters, will bring no sustainable change to Thailand despite the minformed hope among the protesters that doing so will bring about a “better tomorrow” for their country. Leave the same corrupt bankers in control of your country and they will replace an ousted corrupt politician with another. One merely needs to learn from the mistakes of other misguided citizens. In Mexico in 2000, Mexicans were enormously ecstatic in replacing the corrupt Ernesto Zedillo and the 71-year ruling PRI government with Vicente Fox, until Fox revealed his true colors as a corrupt wolf in sheep’s clothing. In America in 2009, corrupt Barack Obama replaced corrupt George W. Bush, and so on and so on. There is an old saying that we must be the change we desire to be. The problem with this saying is that many of us will support corruption as long as we benefit from that corrupt leader because we have a “what’s in it for me?” mentality that is detrimental for not only the citizens of the countries in which we reside, but also for the citizens of the world. Until we can expand our horizons beyond our socio-economic demographic and beyond our countries to support integrity, honor, courage and justice for all peoples in all countries outside of our race, religious and political affiliations, and socio-economic statuses, we will continue to fail to bring about real positive change in this world no matter how many hundreds of thousands of people stand beside us and protest corruption in this world.    

 

In the end, ousting political leaders is just about cutting off one of the snakes from the head of Medusa only to see another one grow back in its place. I spoke today to a good friend that attended the protests. He said that he spoke to an elderly woman that told him she was participating in the anti-government protests so she could leave a better country for her grandchildren. This false belief is precisely what is wrong with political protests of this nature, because ousting Yingluck Shinawatra from Thailand will accomplish nothing long-term in preventing corruption if the criminal bankers that back all corrupt politicians are not ousted along with her.  If we desire real change, we must unite with all of our brothers and sisters engaged in similar struggles around the world and attack the individuals that fund these corrupt politicians and rout the money masters behind these politicians out of our countries first and foremost. And that is how we can bring about real, sustainable positive change for all of humanity. If political protests focused on the real culprits of economic instability within their countries, then they could be immensely successful in bringing about real change. However, as long as they focus on distractions and the players of the game rather than the real culprits, politicians will continue to sell all of us “hope” and “change we can believe in” and continue laughing behind our backs all the way to the bank.

 

Why Political Protests End Up Changing Absolutely Nothing

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/S1g6BfaUgRk/story01.htm smartknowledgeu

Authored by Pingfan Hong, originally posted at Project Syndicate,

The world economy has experienced another year of subdued growth, having failed to meet even the most modest projections for 2013. Most developed economies continued trudging along toward recovery, struggling to identify and implement the right policies. Meanwhile, many emerging economies encountered new internal and external headwinds, impeding their ability to sustain previous years’ economic performance.

Nonetheless, some positive developments in the latter part of the year are expected to gain momentum through the coming year. Indeed, according to the United Nations, the world economy is likely to grow by 3% in 2014 – notably stronger than the 2.1% annual rate estimated for 2013.

Among developed countries, the eurozone has finally extricated itself from a protracted double-dip recession; the pace of growth in the United States has continued to accelerate; and Japan’s expansionary policies seem to be working better than anticipated. For the first time since 2011, all major developed economies are expected to align themselves on the same upward trajectory, possibly triggering a virtuous cycle that lifts the entire global economy.

While the US Federal Reserve is poised to begin tapering its bond-buying program – so-called quantitative easing (QE) – developed-country monetary policy will remain largely accommodative in the next two years, creating a salutary environment for continued strengthening of the financial sector and the real economy. Moreover, European and US fiscal-austerity programs are expected to be scaled back, if not terminated, in the coming year, alleviating the concomitant drag on growth.

In the developing world, large economies like Brazil, China, India, and Russia have managed to halt the slowdown that they have been experiencing in the last two years. In some cases, growth has even begun to quicken, albeit moderately. Meanwhile, African countries’ growth prospects remain relatively robust, buttressed by increasingly effective economic governance and higher infrastructure investment to accommodate rapid urbanization.

But these economies are also facing tough macroeconomic-policy tradeoffs, owing to volatile capital flows, commodity prices, and exchange rates, which are accompanied in some countries by inflationary pressure and widening budget deficits. Fortunately, many developing countries are undertaking critical reforms – covering areas like social security, income distribution, the financial sector, taxation, energy, transportation, education, and health care – which should improve their longer-term potential growth rates.

Another positive development is the $1 trillion trade deal reached, after 12 years of impasse, at the World Trade Organization’s recent ministerial conference in Bali. Although the agreement failed to meet the ambitious goals set out in Doha in 2001, and is not expected to boost world trade in the short run, it has renewed faith in the multilateral trading system – and thus confidence in the global economy’s future.

But the global economy is still subject to significant downside risks. Among the most important stems from the uncertainty associated with the unwinding of QE by major central banks. The Fed’s recent announcement that it would begin to taper QE in January did not generate any financial turbulence, largely because markets had already undergone sizeable adjustments last summer, when the Fed first indicated its plans to move in this direction. But there is no guarantee that the eventual unwinding of QE will go smoothly – especially given that the policy has caused major central banks’ balance sheets to swell in recent years.

A disorderly unwinding of QE could cause long-term interest rates to rise too high too fast, triggering a sell-off in global equity markets, a sharp reversal of capital flows toward developed countries, and a spike in emerging economies’ external-financing risk premiums, as occurred in mid-2013. This could lead to a hard landing for emerging economies with large external deficits and deteriorating budget balances. In fact, falling capital inflows led to sharp currency depreciations in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey, and South Africa earlier this year – and, in some of these countries, depreciation pressures are again intensifying.

China, which is less susceptible to external shocks than its fellow emerging economies, is also experiencing rising risk, stemming from its shadow-banking sector, mounting local-government debt, a growing housing bubble, and widespread overcapacity. The good news is that the Chinese authorities have acknowledged these risks, and seem to be taking steps to minimize them.

Furthermore, while the eurozone has made some progress in the last year, it remains subject to substantial fragilities, with credit conditions extremely inhospitable in some member countries and aggregate demand exceptionally weak. At the same time, unemployment rates have skyrocketed, reaching as high as 27% in Greece and Spain.

For their part, Japan and the US are facing policy-related uncertainties. The effects of the long-awaited “third arrow” of Abenomics – namely, structural reforms aimed at supporting Japan’s long-term growth – are yet to be seen. And, although the US has managed to reach a bipartisan agreement on the budget, political wrangling over the debt ceiling and other fiscal issues may continue to plague policymaking.

In short, while the global economic outlook for 2014 has improved, policymakers worldwide must remain vigilant about downside risks and strengthen international cooperation. Developments in 2013 provide strong incentive for policymakers to do so.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/jjOFV7ENe1k/story01.htm Tyler Durden

With an ever-rising number of 1%-ers in the public eye for less-than-god's-work-like behavior, Town and Country magazine knows it can be tough dressing for court when nothing in your closet is off the rack! Here are some fashion strategies for the wealthy and notorious as they approach the bar… the dock is the new red carpet and one must, must find the balance between Brioni and bankruptcy… or Couture over Kevlar…

Michael Steinberg, Insider Trading.

Mr. Steinberg, a top portfolio manager and close confidant of Steve Cohen at SAC Capital Advisers, wears a navy crew neck, a dark suit, and an open collared starched white shirt, projecting the image of the harried trader who'd just stepped away from his terminal. Some details—the hand-sewn buttons and the French shirt placket—do betray the presence of a personal shopper, but clearly Steinberg here is obeying the injunction his wife Liz sent out to friends, to lose the bling if you're going to attend proceedings.

Postscript: Mr. Steinberg, who was found guilty yesterday, briefly fainted as the jury returned to render the verdict, which is probably not a good sign for his superior, Steve Cohen, who must hope that Steinberg doesn't crack in the pen. Steinberg now faces an entirely more difficult fashion challenge: what to wear to his sentencing hearing April 25.

Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi, both called as witnesses during an embezzlement trial.

The couple have had their own War of the Roses playing out in the press of late. But when Lawson's assistants were accused of bilking her husband of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the estranged couple both appeared in court, she in dramatic dark navy and he in primly buttoned penetential solids.

Martha Stewart, ImClone insider trading (left) and JCPenney licensing (right).

The matchy-match mogul of Omnimedia remains insouciantly beige in the face of the law, whether it's her freedom at stake (the ImClone trial in 2003) or merely her product lines (JCPenney lawsuit this fall).

Rajat Gupta and Fabrice Tourre, securities fraudsters.

The Goldman gang, like the boys at Lloyds of London, maintains a strict but uncodified bankerly uniform. Rajat, who ducked out of a board meeting to urge a friend to sell a particular stock, sports the crisper senior partner interpretation, and Fabrice, with his lilac shirt and uncinched lavender tie on a field of gray, a more fabulous if midlevel take on the uniform of insider trading.

Boris Berezovsky, Roman Abramovich, ownership disputes over Sibneft.

Two generations of Russian oligarch faced off in a London court over Berezovsky's claims that Abramovich had bilked him of promised billions. The wildly entertaining spectacle pitted stylistic opposites, with Berezovsky pursuing a dapper-by-proxy strategy (his henchman looks sharper than he does!) and Abramovich trying to broadcast a CEO-like unflappability in a blue suit that seems to be a blend of wool and kevlar.

Anthony Marshall, conspiracy, grand larceny, elder abuse.

The son of Brooke Astor, stepson of Vincent Astor, and for many years the executor of the Astor estate, often dressed for court like a mallwalking elder, perhaps emulating the strategy of Vincent the Chin Gigante, who bolstered his insanity defense by his unorthodox fashion choices in court.

Although Marshall was found guilty on various counts, his oddly disinterested wardrobe seems to have paid off: he recently was awarded medical parole after serving just eight weeks of his 1 to 3 year sentence.

Phil Spector, murder.

Mr Spector reinforced an overall impression of untrustworthiness by donning a succession of wigs that made him look like a transgendered Zombie version of 70s pinup idol Farrah Fawcett.

Kenneth Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, executive malfeasance.

Both Lay and Kozlowski provided windows into the high-flying lifestyle of the bald CEO, but their wardrobe choices—grays, club ties, solid shirts of blue or white—are the fashion equivalent of a hurried "no comment."

Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, securities violations.

The two kingpins of the financial ascendency turned on each other in court. Boesky, the comparatively more buccaneer of the pair with his sharp pointed collars and flowy Armani suits, was surprised to find that the SEC might enforce rules against massive insider trading, and quickly turned state's evidence on Milken, the junk bond pioneer, who signaled his remorse to the world after serving a sentence of 22 months by abandoning forever his outrageous Brillo pad toupees.

 

So when the music stops this time… and they haul another bunch of 1%-ers into the dock… what will they be wearing?

 

Source: Town & Country

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

While some individual stocks (cough TWTR cough) may have reached irrational bubble territory, the US equity market is undergoing a seemingly 'rational' bubble. However, as John Hussman illustrates in the following chart, the probability of a stock market crash is growing extremely rapidly.

Based on the this paper, Hussman simplifies the rational bubble as:

You only hold one long one more period if expected return is positive – requiring EXTRAGAIN x (1-p) + CRASHLOSS x (p) to be greater than 0.

As John goes on to explain, The diva is already singing, the only question is how long they hold the note…

Regardless of last week’s slight tapering of the Federal Reserve’s policy of quantitative easing, speculators appear intent on completing the same bubble pattern that has attended a score of previous financial bubbles in equity markets, commodities, and other assets throughout history and across the globe.

The chart below provides some indication of our broader concerns here. The blue lines indicate the points of similarly overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yield conditions across history (specific definitions and variants of this syndrome can be found in numerous prior weekly comments). Sentiment figures prior to the 1960’s are imputed based on the relationship between sentiment and the extent and volatility of prior market fluctuations, which largely drive that data. Most of the prior instances of this syndrome were not as extreme as at present (for example, valuations are now about 35% above the overvaluation threshold for other instances, overbought conditions are more extended here, and with 58% bulls and only 14% bears, current sentiment is also far more extreme than necessary). So we can certainly tighten up the criteria to exclude some of these instances, but it’s fair to say that present conditions are among the most extreme on record.

This chart also provides some indication of our more recent frustration, as even this variant of “overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yield” conditions emerged as early as February of this year and has appeared several times in the past year without event. My view remains that this does not likely reflect a permanent change in market dynamics – only a temporary deferral of what we can expect to be quite negative consequences for the market over the completion of this cycle.

 

 

Narrowing our focus to the present advance, what concerns us isn’t simply the parabolic advance featuring increasingly immediate impulses to buy every dip – which is how we characterize the psychology behind log-periodic bubbles (described by Didier Sornette in Why Markets Crash). It’s that this parabola is attended by so many additional and historically regular hallmarks of late-phase speculative advances. Aside from strenuously overvalued, overbought, overbullish, rising-yield conditions, speculators are using record amounts of borrowed money to speculate in equities, with NYSE margin debt now close to 2.5% of GDP. This is a level seen only twice in history, briefly at the 2000 and 2007 market peaks. Margin debt is now at an amount equal to 26% of all commercial and industrial loans in the U.S. banking system. Meanwhile, we are again hearing chatter that the Federal Reserve has placed a “put option” or a “floor” under the stock market. As I observed at the 2007 peak, before the market plunged 55%, “Speculators hoping for a ‘Bernanke put’ to save their assets are likely to discover – too late – that the strike price is way out of the money.”

The following chart is not a forecast, and certainly not something to be relied upon. It does, however, provide an indication of how Sornette-type bubbles have ended in numerous speculative episodes in history, in equities, commodities, and other assets, both in the U.S. and abroad. We are already well within the window of a “finite-time singularity” – the endpoint of such a bubble, but it is a feature of parabolas that small changes in the endpoint can significantly change the final value. The full litany of present conditions could almost be drawn from a textbook of pre-crash speculative advances. We observe the lowest bearish sentiment in over a quarter century, speculation in equities using record levels of margin debt, depressed mutual fund cash levels, heavy initial public offerings of stock, record issuance of low-grade “covenant lite” debt, strikingly rich valuations on a wide range of measures that closely correlate with subsequent market returns, faith that the Fed has put a “floor” under the market (oddly the same faith that investors relied on in 2007), and the proliferation of “this time is different” adjustments to historically reliable investment measures.

 

 

Even at 1818 on the S&P 500, we have to allow for the possibility that speculators have not entirely had their fill. In my view, the proper response is to maintain a historically-informed discipline, but with limited concessions (very small call option positions have a useful contingent profile) to at least reduce the temptation to capitulate out of undisciplined, price-driven frustration. Regardless of whether the market maintains its fidelity to a “log-periodic bubble,” we’ll continue to align our position with the expected return/risk profile as it shifts over time. That said, the “increasingly immediate impulses to buy every dip” that characterize market bubbles have now become so urgent that we have to allow for these waves to compress to a near-vertical finale.

The present log-periodic bubble suggests that this speculative frenzy may very well have less than 5% to run between current levels and the third market collapse in just over a decade.

As I advised in 2008 just before the market collapsed, be very alert to increasing volatility at 10-minute intervals.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/-4b3rhPlPR4/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Propaganda, phony fixes and more debt can only cover the widening gap between fiscal reality and official fantasy for so long.

So what else besides the potential for another global financial meltdown bears watching in 2014? Here are a few worthy prospects. Continuing our end-of-the-year tradition of exploring themes that have disruptive potential in the coming year, Gordon Long and I discuss a half-dozen such topics in 2014 Themes: CHS with Gordon T. Long(28 minutes).

 

My short list is centered not on one-time crises or potential black swans but on long-festering systemic problems that cannot be fixed within the current status quo, and thus they are destined to continue eroding systemic resilience. Kicking the can down the road and phony accounting "solutions" fix nothing, and so these systemic problems will eventually explode into crises that cannot be tamped down with the usual fiscal and monetary tricks.

Student loans and the impossible-to-solve conflict between skyrocketing local government pension and healthcare costs and delivering services to taxpayers/residents are both prime examples. Something's got to give in both of these bubbling pressure cookers, and propaganda, phony fixes and more debt can only cover the widening gap between fiscal reality and official fantasy for so long.

Five years of phony fixes have gotten us to 2013; I doubt the same illusions and tricks will get the global economy through 2014-2015 unscathed.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/8TsfLn2Krv8/story01.htm Tyler Durden

As everyone is well aware by now, Twitter investors and speculators have been on a sharp, sudden and very relentless buying spree, sending the company nearly 50% higher since the first week of December, and nearly doubling it since late November.

Why the stock has exploded the way it has, nobody knows, and frankly nobody cares: it has entered that mythical zone of raging momentum where things work, until they don’t for whatever reason. But in order to present readers with a sense of where TWTR’s $40 billion market cap, which is greater than 403, or 80%, of all S&P 500 companies, puts in in the context of several companies all of which have a market cap that is lower than Twitter’s, we have shown on the chart below Twitter’s 2014 projected Revenue compared to this same universe of immediately smaller S&P500 companies. Again, just for the sake of perspective.

Certainly, we have no doubt that Twitter’s growth curve, based on the realistic assumption of infinite and growing advertising budgets, will promptly eclipse not only the revenues but certainly the earnings and cash flows of all the below-listed companies, and why not all other companies, both in the US and the world, too. Surely, more idiotic things have happened under Bernanke’s centrally planned regime.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/p9Qljm6b3Qo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

As everyone is well aware by now, Twitter investors and speculators have been on a sharp, sudden and very relentless buying spree, sending the company nearly 50% higher since the first week of December, and nearly doubling it since late November.

Why the stock has exploded the way it has, nobody knows, and frankly nobody cares: it has entered that mythical zone of raging momentum where things work, until they don’t for whatever reason. But in order to present readers with a sense of where TWTR’s $40 billion market cap, which is greater than 403, or 80%, of all S&P 500 companies, puts in in the context of several companies all of which have a market cap that is lower than Twitter’s, we have shown on the chart below Twitter’s 2014 projected Revenue compared to this same universe of immediately smaller S&P500 companies. Again, just for the sake of perspective.

Certainly, we have no doubt that Twitter’s growth curve, based on the realistic assumption of infinite and growing advertising budgets, will promptly eclipse not only the revenues but certainly the earnings and cash flows of all the below-listed companies, and why not all other companies, both in the US and the world, too. Surely, more idiotic things have happened under Bernanke’s centrally planned regime.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/p9Qljm6b3Qo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Submitted by Jordan Bruneau via the Ludwig von Mises Institute,

Even left liberals are coming to realize that Obamacare is fatally flawed. Perhaps this is because fewer people will be insured at the end of the year, under Obamacare, than at the beginning of the year as insurers are forced to drop coverage. Stories of such cancellations to cancer-stricken children certainly don’t help matters. For a program whose expressed purpose is to bring insurance to more people, this irony seems even too much for the interventionists to stomach.

Obamacare’s negative effects, however, are simply a microcosm of government policy in general. Virtually all well-intended (assuming they are in fact well-intended) government policies bring negative unintended consequences that hurt the very people they intend to serve. The prevalence of this paradox, called iatrogenics (originally used in the medical context to refer to doctors’ actions that hurt patients), should give pause to those who favor government intervention to solve societal problems.

Take rent control policies, for example, intended to make housing more accessible to those with lower incomes. In reality these policies shrink the amount of available housing because potential landlords have less incentive to rent out, and developers have less incentive to build new, units. As a result, less housing is available for those with lower incomes. Just look at the apartment shortage in New York or San Francisco, the two cities with the most stringent rent-control policies, for proof.

This process of iatrogenics also exists in financial regulation. Polemicist Nassim Taleb has illustrated how increased financial regulation intended to prevent another financial crisis has actually made one more likely. Regulations entrust the fate of the financial system to a handful of big banks because they are the only ones who can afford to comply with them. This consolidation of power among the big banks makes the financial system riskier because if one of these few banks fails the damage will be much greater to the economy than from the failure of one small bank among many. “These attempts to eliminate the business cycle,” says Taleb, “lead to the mother of all fragilities.”

In terms of protecting society’s most economically disadvantaged, sociologist Charles Murray chronicles, most recently in his bestseller Coming Apart, how the federal government’s war on poverty paradoxically hurts the poor. He explains that though welfare benefits are well intentioned, what they in effect do is pay people to stay poor, hurting the very people they intend to help. These misaligned incentives are a leading reason why $15 trillion in welfare spending over the past 50 years has perversely resulted in a 50-year-high poverty rate of 15.1 percent.

Those currently advocating for a raise of the minimum wage should first examine its iatrogenic history of bringing about negative unintended consequences to the very low wage people it intends to help. Minimum wage increases actually hurt low wage earners because business owners lay off staff and cut back on hours to try to recoup their losses from such mandated wage increases. This leaves those with a tenuous grasp on the labor market in an even more precarious position. “Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws,” says economist Thomas Sowell, “and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they either lose their jobs or fail to find jobs.”

Of course it’s not only left liberal policies that generate negative unintended consequences that hurt the very people they’re intended to help, but also conservative ones like the war on drugs and the war on terror.

The war on drugs intends to help drug-blighted communities by enacting and enforcing strict penalties on drug use. What it in effect does is hurt these communities by making criminals out of a significant portion of its inhabitants. Drug users now make up nearly 25 percent of federal and state prison inmates, many of whom go in for simple possessions and come out hardened criminals wreaking untold damage on their communities. Even those who do not run afoul with the law again face a lifetime of job and social struggles with a criminal record attached to their name.

The same iatrogenic story exists in the war on terror, which intends to keep us safe by waging a multipronged offensive against potential terrorists and the geographies they may inhabit. Unfortunately, as former CIA intelligence officer Michael Scheuer has illustrated, some of these prongs, such as aggressive drone warfare and support for apostate regimes, actually fan the flames of US hatred making us less safe. “It’s American policy that enrages al-Qaeda,” says Scheuer, “not American culture and society.”

Government intervention, no matter what its form or intention, causes iatrogenics — unintended negative consequences that hurt the very people they’re intended to help. Nowhere is this better exemplified than with Obamacare, a policy intended to bring insurance to all that has in effect taken it away from many. Perhaps the growing coalition of people recognizing this paradox will take this revelation and apply it to other policy arenas as well. For the affected classes, we can only hope.

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