Month: January 2014

Back in April, when the S&P500 was at 1580 we forecast that the price target on the S&P500 for the global central bank syndicate was 1900. The S&P closed the year at 1850, just barely missing said target, which was merely a function of the correlation between the stock market and the straight-line, diagonally expanding consolidated central banks’ balance sheet (yes, it is a “market” for idiots, but such is life under central planning… while it lasts).

Incidentally, there was a time as recently as two years ago, when saying the Fed is merely propping up stocks, was blasphemous in polite economist circles. Since then even the most tenured economists (not to mention the US Treasury) have finally admitted the truth, and in the process none other than JPMorgan itself has just issued a chart titled “The era of central bank-driven equity rallies.“

So in the spirit of the holidays, and since nobody even pretends anymore that Mr. Yellen‘s only mandate is to push stocks higher, will the Fed finally be kind enough to release a newsletter each morning laying out where the S&P will close that day? The Fed could use the monthly $29.95 subscription fees toward paying for Kevin Henry’s et al Bloomberg terminal and REDI fee.

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

Back in April, when the S&P500 was at 1580 we forecast that the price target on the S&P500 for the global central bank syndicate was 1900. The S&P closed the year at 1850, just barely missing said target, which was merely a function of the correlation between the stock market and the straight-line, diagonally expanding consolidated central banks’ balance sheet (yes, it is a “market” for idiots, but such is life under central planning… while it lasts).

Incidentally, there was a time as recently as two years ago, when saying the Fed is merely propping up stocks, was blasphemous in polite economist circles. Since then even the most tenured economists (not to mention the US Treasury) have finally admitted the truth, and in the process none other than JPMorgan itself has just issued a chart titled “The era of central bank-driven equity rallies.“

So in the spirit of the holidays, and since nobody even pretends anymore that Mr. Yellen‘s only mandate is to push stocks higher, will the Fed finally be kind enough to release a newsletter each morning laying out where the S&P will close that day? The Fed could use the monthly $29.95 subscription fees toward paying for Kevin Henry’s et al Bloomberg terminal and REDI fee.

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

Throughout 2013, the distortions created by intervention in once-free markets have left many scratching their heads. The interventions have worked – almost faultlessly – but for them to do so has required the suspension of one belief system (economic reality) and the adoption of another – namely, that everything will be OK because … well, just because. Can the fantasy persist into 2014? Sadly, Grant Williams states "Yes. It most certainly can." Will it continue into 2014? Most likely. Will this new belief system become the new economic reality? Not a chance.

 

 

2013 was another year brought to you by the letters Q and E. Quantitative easing spanned the entirety of 2013 and, as was no doubt intended, the market, the public at large, and most certainly just about every single inhabitant of Capitol Hill became so inured to the creation of $85 billion each and every month that the enormity of that policy dissolved from the collective consciousness like early morning mist.

But amidst all the commentary and the debate surrounding QE, most people lost sight of what it actually is — even when we received the much anticipated news in December that there would, in fact, be a Taper after all.

Before we get to the Taper that happened, though, it's important to revisit the one that didn't.

On May 22nd, 2013, Ben Bernanke, in a question and answer session, said the following:

We're trying to make an assessment of whether or not we have seen real and sustainable progress in the labor market outlook. If we see continued improvement and we have confidence that that is going to be sustained, then we could in — in the next few meetings — we could take a step down in our pace of purchases.

Boom!

The consequences of that statement — and in particular, the last 20 words — reverberated around the financial world and wrought havoc in all sorts of weird and wonderful places. (In a presentation entitled "A Confederacy of Dunces" that I gave to a small group in Spain in late June, after Bernanke's comments, I pointed out the effects of the Taper threat and pinpointed some of those weird and wonderful places.)

The effect Ben's pronouncement on both the S&P 500 and the US 10-year yield were immediately obvious:

The S&P dropped a quick 6%, and 10-year rates (seen inverted in the chart above) spiked from below 2% to 2.6% — a big move.

But some of the other instruments affected by Bernanke's carefully floated idea weren't quite so readily apparent. Nonetheless, they demonstrated just how pernicious and far-reaching the tendrils of QE had grown.

…

Bernanke also committed the cardinal error of announcing that QE would END once unemployment fell to 7% — a statement he had to back away from, rather embarrassingly, as the slump in the participation rate brought 7% unemployment closer, rather faster than expected:

(WSJ, Dec 6, 2013 ): Back in June, when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke laid out a tentative timeline for winding down the bond-buying program, he said 7% is where the Fed expected the unemployment rate to be when it ended the purchases. He said central bank officials expected that to occur around mid-2014. Friday's jobs report showed the jobless rate hit that level in November, and the Fed hasn't even started scaling back the program.

 

The jobless rate for May, the latest data Mr. Bernanke had when he laid out that guide post, stood at 7.6%. Then it fell much more quickly than Fed officials expected, dropping to 7.4% in July and 7.3% in August.

 

In September, the Fed surprised many market participants and held the quantitative easing program steady. At his press conference after that meeting, Mr. Bernanke made no mention of the 7% guidepost he'd set out a mere three months earlier. When asked about it, he downplayed the importance.

 

"There is not any magic number that we are shooting for," he said. "We're looking for overall improvement in the labor market."

In short, the trial balloon floated to gauge potential reaction to a $20 bn per month Taper was a disaster, and that meant that when the September FOMC meeting came around, the governors in the voting seats just couldn't bring themselves to pull the trigger.

Oopsies!

When the minutes of the October meeting were released in November, it became clear that the FOMC, lessons duly learned, were going to try out the Taper again — perhaps in December:

(Fox Business): Federal Reserve policy makers are still struggling to find the right message for conveying to investors their plans for scaling back their easy-money policies, notes from the Fed's October meeting reveal.

 

The minutes, released Wednesday, also said members of the policy-setting Federal Open Markets Committee could see the central bank trimming its $85-billion-a-month bondbuying program at "one of its next few meetings."

If at first you don't succeed…

But they had clearly realized that even a $20 bn Taper was going to be taken poorly by the markets, and so the FOMC (and in particular its soon-to-be-retired chairman) needed to pull off a delicate balancing act.

On the one hand, Bernanke would want to leave the Fed with the wind-down of his expansionist policy underway so that he would have the kind of plausible deniability that history has gradually been stripping away from Alan Greenspan. ("Hey, don't blame ME. We were exiting QE when I left office!") On the other hand, though, he wouldn't want to hand Janet Yellen an impossible situation.

The solution?

Taper Lite!

"All the goodness of the Taper with no bitter aftertaste!"

… and the markets, after the scares in May and June, LOVED it!!

…

Errrr … sorry to spoil the party, but a couple of things here…

Grant Williams' full letter explains why below…

Ttmygh Dec 30 2013

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

Tomorrow is the first day for market trading in 2014.

 

In the very short-term, financial institutions will be repositioning their portfolios to start the year. This will likely mean more buying power in the markets.

 

The markets have broken out of the large wedge pattern formed in 2011-2012 and are entering a blow off top.

 

 

Wall Street is decidedly bullish now. There is no telling how high this rally can go based on momentum. Manias are always more powerful than one expects. And this is nothing if not a mania (investors are buying stocks at a rate not seen since the Tech Bubble).

 

Investors who choose to ride this momentum should be cautious. The market is already overbought and overextended. If I were to liken it to anything it would be 1999. We all know how stocks did 1-2 years out from that.

 

And while the US is taking off, there are other, potentially much larger opportunities outside of it. Take a look at the emerging market space. We are on the verge of breaking out of a massive triangle pattern, much like the one formed by US stocks in 2011-2012.

 

 

If we do breakout of this pattern to the upside, the move could be extreme (possibly as high as 60).

 

I believe the biggest opportunities for investors will be outside the US in 2014. Now is the time to look for greater diversification.

 

For a FREE Special Report outlining how to profit from bear market crashes and bull market runs, swing by: http://phoenixcapitalmarketing.com/special-reports.html

 

Best Regards

Phoenix Capital Research 

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/wYDgeMwSBKw/story01.htm Phoenix Capital Research

Submitted by Robert Murphy of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada,

When newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised new deficit spending and pedal-to-the-metal monetary inflation, the progressive Keynesians were excited. And indeed, debasing the yen seemed to work for a few months, with analysts saying US policymakers should follow Japan’s lead. Yet now Japan’s recovery seems to be collapsing, leading its Cabinet to approve yet another “stimulus” package. Does anyone else have a sense of deja vu?

Abe has been Prime Minister of Japan since December 2012. You can see what has happened to the Yen/USD exchange rate under his brief tenure:

 

During Abe’s first year in office, the yen has fallen about 20 percent against the US dollar. Yet Abenomics was hailed as a good thing by several progressive Keynesians early on. For example, in May 2013 Paul Krugman held up “Japan the Model,” writing:

[T]he ongoing economic experiment…is so important, not just for Japan, but for the world.

 

In a sense, the really remarkable thing about “Abenomics” — the sharp turn toward monetary and fiscal stimulus adopted by the government of Prime Minster Shinzo Abe — is that nobody else in the advanced world is trying anything similar. In fact, the Western world seems overtaken by economic defeatism.

 

…So, how is Abenomics working? The safe answer is that it’s too soon to tell. But the early signs are good…

 

The good news starts with surprisingly rapid Japanese economic growth in the first quarter of this year — actually, substantially faster growth than that in the United States, while Europe’s economy continued to shrink. You never want to make too much of one quarter’s numbers, but that’s the kind of thing we want to see.

 

Meanwhile, Japanese stocks have soared, while the yen has fallen. And, in case you’re wondering, a weak yen is very good news for Japan because it makes the country’s export industries more competitive.

 

…So the overall verdict on Japan’s effort to turn its economy around is so far, so good. And let’s hope that this verdict both stands and strengthens over time. For if Abenomics works, it will serve a dual purpose, giving Japan itself a much-needed boost and the rest of us an even more-needed antidote to policy lethargy.

Other progressive Keynesians made similar pronouncements with even more confidence. For example, Matt Yglesias wrote in May: “Japan’s economic reform…has important lessons for us. Japan fell into the trap of prolonged high unemployment and zero interest rates long before the United States did. It’s in many ways fitting that they now seem to be leading the path forward to recovery.”

For a third example, in August Dean Baker wrote:

Fortunately for the Japanese people, the folks currently running their economy are more interested in sound economic policy than pushing scare stories about debt and deficits. Rather than rushing to reduce the deficit, Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, went in the opposite direction. He deliberately increased spending to create jobs.

 

…While we are still in the early days of Abe’s program (he just took office at the end of 2012), the preliminary signs are positive. The economy grew at a 2.4% annual rate in the second quarter, after growing at a 3.6% rate in the first quarter. By comparison, GDP in the United States grew at an average rate of just 1.4% in these two quarters.

 

…At this point, America’s deficit hawks are jumping up and down screaming that the boost to Japan’s economy is just a “sugar high”, and that it will soon face a horrible collapse as payback. Of course, anything can happen in the future, but we just don’t see any real evidence of the deficit hawks’ doom story as of yet.

 

…In short, it is hard to tell a story about how Japan will suffer as a result of the measures its government is taking to boost growth and create jobs. These policies are 180 degrees at odds with the deficit fixation that dominates Washington policy debates.

 

In the quotation above, I show how Baker is explicitly contrasting Abenomics with the “deficit hawks” running US policy. I can point to plenty of examples of Krugman and Yglesias warning that budget “sequestration” in the US would hurt the tepid recovery. This is of course a natural implication of their Keynesian worldview: The US economy should have slowed, perhaps even slid back into recession, during 2013, because of idiotic budget cuts. In contrast, the deficits and monetary inflation in Japan should have bolstered their growth.

Well, as Dean Baker says, anything is possible in the future. But the current numbers say that Japan’s robust real GDP growth has fallen sharply to 1.1 percent by the third quarter, and despite the weaker yen Japan’s November trade deficit was the largest on record, with a string of consecutive monthly trade deficits not seen in decades.

In contrast, the latest estimate for US real GDP growth in the third quarter was a very robust 4.1 percent.

Now I haven’t seen our Keynesian pundits address Japan recently, but I think I know their position without even looking: The US economy would have grown even faster still had the Congress not foolishly cut spending or engaged in the pointless and destructive government shutdown. Furthermore, Abenomics really is working out great, just like they said, only Abe hasn’t run deficits quite big enough, or debased the yen quite enough. But trust them, they have science on their side.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/8QLF2EIp7G8/story01.htm Tyler Durden

The Santa Claus Lie – A Gateway Drug to Collective (Self) Deception

By

Cognitive Dissonance

 

I spend what some might imagine is an inordinate amount of time thinking about lies and self deception. But from my point of view it is a fundamental flaw that cripples us as individuals and as a society. Lying and lies permeate our culture from top to bottom in ways we often never perceive and rarely wish to see. Essentially it is the foundational building block that supports all that is wrong with us and why we continuously repeat our oftentimes disastrous personal and societal mistakes. Deception, self and societal, is the fatal flaw, something we have come to call ‘being human’.

Do as I Say, Not as I Do

Consider for a few moments how often we as parents come face to face with the sometimes embarrassing problem of explaining to our young children why we tell public and private lies, but that they should not lie to us. How our telling a lie can actually be good under certain circumstances, such as shielding our self and others from a painful (self) truth or a blow to (our) their ego. What is often unspoken is that we lie to others in order to be lied to by others.

The odd thing is that if you were to ask random people on the street if they believed themselves to be honest you would get answers along the lines of “Yes”, “It depends”, “For the most part” or “Most of the time”. I suspect my readers have answered the question in a similar vein; I know this author has. We really do believe we are (basically) honest because we have willingly (eagerly?) deconstructed the dividing line between ‘honest’ and ‘dishonest’ and reformed it into a soft squishy malleable moving target somewhere near the center.

In other words we ‘know’ that stealing $1,000 from our employer or family is dishonest, but taking some pens and paper from the office or an old mechanics socket set from gramps………well, that isn’t really ‘stealing’ per se, just sort of borrowing on a semi permanent basis. Unless of course we want to believe that they ‘deserve’ to be stolen from, thus righting some previous wrong. Then all bets are off.

Seven Billion and Counting

The examples of personal and social dishonesty are as numerous and varied as the people who practice (self) deception, which pretty much means all of us. And while just about anyone can conduct a reasonably honest philosophical discussion about self and social dishonesty, few of us would reveal our deepest darkest secrets to even our closest friends, family or spouse because those secrets often revolve around overt or covert dishonesty, even if only to ourselves.

And then there is the self deception that we aren’t consciously aware of, clouded by both denial and social programming. While my previous articles have discussed denial ad nauseam I wish to focus a bit on the social programming aspect promoted mostly by herd behavior and alluded to by the title of this article.

I have long felt that religion was (and in many respects still is) a gateway drug to rampant self deception and public enabling of the cultural lie. Please understand that I am talking about manmade and man administered ‘religion’ and not about whether or not there exists a supreme being. But as the world’s population slowly drifts away from blind religious obedience and begins to recognize the inherent hypocrisy of those who promote religious fervor and division (my God way or the highway) another mind control mechanism has risen to take its place………narcissistic consumerism based upon the lie of endless resources and ever increasing debt.

I propose that some of, if not most of, our lying behavior is programmed into us culturally by social acceptance of ‘harmless’ self deceptions such as the Santa Claus lie. The key is that the lie must be perceived as harmless or as causing less harm (a wonderfully relative term that can be made to accommodate any lie) than the ‘truth’ might cause to the victim of the lie. From that point on our own internal psychological rationalization and justification process takes over and we reform the lie into a (relatively) harmless half truth/white lie in our own ‘eyes’. Or at least a lie softened enough for most of us to stomach.

Of course this entire process is infinity more complex than I have just outlined and yet amazingly it is that simple. And it all starts when we as very young children begin to receive our own personalized imprinting courtesy of our initial programmers, our parents and primary care givers who themselves have been, and continue to be, imprinted by society at large and their inner social circle of personal peer review. From there it trickles down into our inner consciousness for final fine tuning and assimilation.

Infinite Creativity

We are all individual conscious entities engulfed within a herd of like minded individuals, interconnected yet separate, seemingly born without an operating manual yet infinitely capable of self expression, creativity and inspiration beginning at a very young age. We are born into this reality as individuals, yet we spend our entire lives trying to be just like the rest of the herd, a product of centuries (millennium?) of conditioning to ignore the innate knowledge and wisdom that springs from within in order to blindly follow the herd and the alpha directly ahead.

Seen from this perspective, something like The Santa Claus Lie has great utility in the conditioning process. Something that started out innocent enough, a tale of Saint Nichols, is slowly hijacked and commercialized by entities who wish to condition us in a way that creates ‘demand’ for products and services, many of which we do not need or even desire except for the fact that others in the herd are conditioned to believe they ‘need’ them, thus we do.

I find it endlessly fascinating that in ancient indigenous cultures the shaman or healer’s purpose was not just to administer the natural healing arts to his local tribe members, but to teach and guide the tribe to be emotionally and psychologically healthy and fit. Call it original sin, call it ‘being human’, call it herding behavior, but the shaman understood these self destructive tendencies and worked to help his people overcome this strange attraction in order to grow and blossom as powerful reality creators.

Intraspecific Kleptoparasites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptoparasitism

Yet the modern sociopathic man, essentially parasitic individuals who present themselves as our so called ‘leaders’ and thus the ultimate in Intraspecific Kleptoparasites, (Kleptoparasitism may be intraspecific (the parasite is the same species as the victim) or interspecific (the parasite is a different species) make every effort possible to exploit and enflame the very human flaws ancient shaman tried to heal. At the very least the shaman helped the tribe be aware of, and thus better able to defend themselves from, their own psychological and emotional flaws.

Seen from the perspective of the larger battle between reality creating humanity and those who wish to subvert and control humans for the parasite’s own benefit, one must question everything and anything that presents itself as (innocent) cultural expressions.

We tend to think that large population ‘control’ is nearly impossible because there are so many different human (re)actions to control. The key to understanding how this is done is to recognize that subverted humanity is perusing what it believes is its own self interest rather than that of the parasites. Thus total control is not needed, just a deceptive nudge here and there to move the willingly compliant herd along in the general direction desired by the Intraspecific Kleptoparasites.

 

Cognitive Dissonance

01-01-2014

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/_cuPE0D7_74/story01.htm Cognitive Dissonance

Either the Volcker Rule is making Wall Street’s menu of investment choices so unbearably limited, or traditional assets are so overpriced Wall Street won’t even touch them with other people’s money, but when it comes to allocating capital the smartest conmen in the room are coming up with some truly unorthodox products. Such as investing in ex-convicts in the form of 2000 newly released prisoners.

According to Reuters, Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust reached out to some high-powered clients this quarter to invest in a social-impact bond whose proceeds finance a program to lower recidivism rates among ex-convicts in New York.

“The project raised $13.5 million over 60 days from clients of the Bank of America Corp-owned brokerage and wealth management firms. Investors included former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Utah philanthropist James Sorenson, hedge fund founder Bill Ackman‘s Pershing Square Foundation and billionaire investor and oil trader John Arnold, according to the bank.”

Merely the presence of the bolded words in the above paragraph is enough to explain why this latest investment product will be an inevitable disaster. But at least in the meantime, it will allow people such as Larry Summers to purchase a clean conscience if only for a few months. And of course, let Merrill collect structuring and “advisory” fees.

“They are looking for new and creative ways … to have a more direct connection between the dollars they are investing and the impact it is having on a social problem that they care about,” Andy Sieg, head of global wealth and retirement solutions at Merrill Lynch said during a telephone news conference on Monday.

In an ideal world, however, where investing in ex-criminals has a happy ending, what kind of return can investors hope for? “Investors can realize annual returns of up to 12.5 percent over five-and-a-half years, although the probable return is in the high single digits, he said. Actual returns depend on the success of job-training programs for 2,000 newly released prisoners administered by the Center for Employment Opportunities. Success rates will be determined by Chesapeake Research Associates.”

Just what is a “social impact bond”:

The social impact bond is the first pay-for-success instrument in which Bank of America participated, and the first in which a state, New York, is participating. Reducing recidivism will help control prison costs, the fastest growing budget item in New York in 2012 after Medicaid, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news release.

 

About 20 pay-for-success bonds have been issued in programs worldwide, but more than 10 U.S. states are considering the programs, said Tracy Palandjian, chief executive of Social Finance Inc, a nonprofit that structures such investments.

 

The new issue attracted an average order of $350,000 from 40 high-net-worth individuals and from family and other foundations. Capital from investors will come in two stages, this June and again in early 2016.

As for the lead investors, no surprises there:

The Rockefeller Foundation provided a $1.32 million guaranty that covers 10 percent of investors’ principal should it fail to repay 100 percent of their investment. The Robin Hood Foundation, a nonprofit with strong support from Wall Street and private equity, invested $300,000 in the project.

Supposedly the Reverse Robin Hood foundation was too busy using the proceeds from QE to inflate away the purchasing power of the few hundred people left in the middle class. As for Wall Street investing in ex-cons, why just think of all the money saved from not having to perform any diligence.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ZfLivYXcZ0k/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Either the Volcker Rule is making Wall Street’s menu of investment choices so unbearably limited, or traditional assets are so overpriced Wall Street won’t even touch them with other people’s money, but when it comes to allocating capital the smartest conmen in the room are coming up with some truly unorthodox products. Such as investing in ex-convicts in the form of 2000 newly released prisoners.

According to Reuters, Merrill Lynch and U.S. Trust reached out to some high-powered clients this quarter to invest in a social-impact bond whose proceeds finance a program to lower recidivism rates among ex-convicts in New York.

“The project raised $13.5 million over 60 days from clients of the Bank of America Corp-owned brokerage and wealth management firms. Investors included former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Utah philanthropist James Sorenson, hedge fund founder Bill Ackman‘s Pershing Square Foundation and billionaire investor and oil trader John Arnold, according to the bank.”

Merely the presence of the bolded words in the above paragraph is enough to explain why this latest investment product will be an inevitable disaster. But at least in the meantime, it will allow people such as Larry Summers to purchase a clean conscience if only for a few months. And of course, let Merrill collect structuring and “advisory” fees.

“They are looking for new and creative ways … to have a more direct connection between the dollars they are investing and the impact it is having on a social problem that they care about,” Andy Sieg, head of global wealth and retirement solutions at Merrill Lynch said during a telephone news conference on Monday.

In an ideal world, however, where investing in ex-criminals has a happy ending, what kind of return can investors hope for? “Investors can realize annual returns of up to 12.5 percent over five-and-a-half years, although the probable return is in the high single digits, he said. Actual returns depend on the success of job-training programs for 2,000 newly released prisoners administered by the Center for Employment Opportunities. Success rates will be determined by Chesapeake Research Associates.”

Just what is a “social impact bond”:

The social impact bond is the first pay-for-success instrument in which Bank of America participated, and the first in which a state, New York, is participating. Reducing recidivism will help control prison costs, the fastest growing budget item in New York in 2012 after Medicaid, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news release.

 

About 20 pay-for-success bonds have been issued in programs worldwide, but more than 10 U.S. states are considering the programs, said Tracy Palandjian, chief executive of Social Finance Inc, a nonprofit that structures such investments.

 

The new issue attracted an average order of $350,000 from 40 high-net-worth individuals and from family and other foundations. Capital from investors will come in two stages, this June and again in early 2016.

As for the lead investors, no surprises there:

The Rockefeller Foundation provided a $1.32 million guaranty that covers 10 percent of investors’ principal should it fail to repay 100 percent of their investment. The Robin Hood Foundation, a nonprofit with strong support from Wall Street and private equity, invested $300,000 in the project.

Supposedly the Reverse Robin Hood foundation was too busy using the proceeds from QE to inflate away the purchasing power of the few hundred people left in the middle class. As for Wall Street investing in ex-cons, why just think of all the money saved from not having to perform any diligence.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/ZfLivYXcZ0k/story01.htm Tyler Durden