another site
In a rational world, women in the U.S. would be
able to buy birth control over the counter — something that is
perfectly safe to do, and that women in other countries do as a
matter of routine. But, says A. Barton Hinkle, because American
women cannot, the country is now embroiled in an unnecessary debate
— one that, exacerbated by tendentious red-team/blue-team
cheerleading.
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/11/a-barton-hinkle-says-more-contraception
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The following Third Point letter may or may not have been actually sent, although if indeed shareholder activists – more aggressive now than ever thanks to the brilliant idea of forcing management teams to lever themselves up to the gills with what for now appears to be cheap credit – do get some original ideas thanks to this particular Vanity Fair lampoon, then children around the world will have a fabricated Dan Loeb to thank for having their Christmas presents delivered by an army of highly efficient and profit-maximizing Amazon drones.
Source: a rather humorous Vanity Fair
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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/xhu4iEozHuI/story01.htm Tyler Durden
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the next column to your right. What do you see? A donation box
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Take it away, Nick Gillespie & friends!
from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/11/last-day-of-the-reason-webathon-lets-mak
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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
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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
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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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