Month: April 2016

Donald Trump continued to streamroll over all conventional narratives when during a massive 96-minute interview with the Washington Post on Thursday which was released today, in which he talked candidly about his aggressive style of campaigning and offered new details about what he would do as president, he said that economic conditions are so perilous that the country is headed for a “very massive recession” and that “it’s a terrible time right now” to invest in the stock market, which, the traditionally cheerful WaPo said embraces “a distinctly gloomy view of the economy that counters mainstream economic forecasts.”

Unfortunately, his “gloomy view” is supported by such events as the record surge in gun violence and deadly shootings in Chicago, where the locals also do not ascribe to the WaPo’s rosy take on events, and instead blame the economy and the lack of jobs for the ongoing social collapse in the windy city. 

In any case, Trump dismissed concern that his comments, which the WaPo said “are exceedingly unusual, if not unprecedented, for a major party front-runner”, which is precisely Trump’s style, “could potentially affect financial markets.”

“It’s irresponsible. It’s baffling that he would do this and also substantively wrong. There is no recession in sight.” -Doug Holtz-Eakin

— Robert Costa (@costareports) April 2, 2016

As the WaPo adds, “over the course of the discussion, the candidate made clear that he would govern in the same nontraditional way that he has campaigned, tossing aside decades of American policy and custom in favor of a new, Trumpian approach to the world.”

In his first 100 days, Trump said, he would cut taxes, “renegotiate trade deals and renegotiate military deals,” including altering the U.S. role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Below are some of the highlights of his bearish take on the economy via the WaPo.

Trump has for months contended that the U.S. economy is in trouble because of what he sees as an overvalued stock market, but his view has grown more pessimistic of late and he is now bearish on investing, to the point of warning Americans against doing so.

“I think we’re sitting on an economic bubble. A financial bubble,” Trump said. He made clear that he was not specifying a sector of the economy but the economy at large and asserted that more bullish forecasts were based on skewed employment numbers and an inflated stock market.

“First of all, we’re not at 5 percent unemployment. We’re at a number that’s probably into the twenties if you look at the real number,” Trump said. “That was a number that was devised, statistically devised to make politicians — and, in particular, presidents — look good. And I wouldn’t be getting the kind of massive crowds that I’m getting if the number was a real number.”

Trump said, “it’s precarious times. Part of the reason it’s precarious is because we are being ripped so badly by other countries. We are being ripped so badly by China. It just never ends. Nobody’s ever going to stop it. And the reason they’re not going to stop it is one of two. They’re either living in a world of the make-believe, or they’re totally controlled by their lobbyists and their special interests.”

“I’m pessimistic,” Trump said. “Unless changes are made. Changes could be made.” By Trump, for instance: “I can fix it. I can fix it pretty quickly.” Trump firmly believes that a turnaround on trade would be the necessary beginning of a solution to any looming recession.

He mentions the Trans-Pacific Partnership as one pact he would immediately seek to renegotiate, putting him at odds with congressional Republicans who supported giving the president fast-track trade authority last year.

Coupled with his push on trade would be a “very big tax cut,” which Trump unveiled last September. That proposal increases taxes on the “very rich” but reduces taxes for most taxpayers and would cut the corporate tax rate to 15 percent. To woo companies back to the United States, he would offer an incentive of a deeply discounted rate and would no longer allow corporations to defer taxes on income earned overseas.

* * *

The Washington Post was displeased by Trump’s pessimistic view, which it said “runs counter to that of most economists, whose rough consensus is that the U.S. economy has about a 20 percent chance of slipping into recession this year largely because growth remains weak across the world, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of economists in March.”

Most economists aren’t overly worried about an imminent downturn because job creation remains strong, workers are starting to see their wages grow and the Federal Reserve remains cautious about shifting away from the low-interest-rate stance that has helped stimulate the economy.

Cheerful economists promptly chimed in to defend the economy:

“It’s irresponsible. It’s baffling that he would do this and also substantively wrong. There is no recession in sight.” -Doug Holtz-Eakin

— Robert Costa (@costareports) April 2, 2016

 

Of course, whether Trump is right or not with his warning about the economy and the market, only time will tell, although as we reported in mid-January, Trump is certainly hoping for a market crash. The reason is that historically, the market performance in the three months leading up to a Presidential Election has displayed an uncanny ability to forecast who will win the White House… the incumbent party or the challenger. Since 1928, there have been 22 Presidential Elections. In 14 of them, the S&P 500 climbed during the three months preceding election day. The incumbent President or party won in 12 of those 14 instances. However, in 7 of the 8 elections where the S&P 500 fell over that three month period, the incumbent party lost.

In other words, if Trump wants to win he would certainly benefit from a major drop in the S&P in the all important September to November period. That is, assuming he gets the nomination.

* * *

Of note also was Trump’s insistence that he would be able to get rid of the nation’s more than $19 trillion national debt “over a period of eight years.” This is how he says he would do it: “I’m renegotiating all of our deals, the big trade deals that we’re doing so badly on. With China, $505 billion this year in trade.” He said that economic growth he foresees as a consequence of renegotiated deals would enable the United States to pay down the debt.

But Trump’s most interesting comment had nothing to do with economics – it was his admission that everyone close to him — family, friends, Republican leaders — have been urging him to tone down his attacks and reach out to former rivals, both to reassure wary voters and to begin the difficult process of unifying a party in which many have sworn to never back him. Trump does not intend to take the advice. He said such overtures are “overrated.” “I think the first thing I have to do is win,” he said. “Winning solves a lot of problems. And I have two people left”: his two remaining Republican rivals, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Bob Woodward summarizes his take of the Trump interview

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/220tbA4 Tyler Durden

Various far-right groups, including the anti-migrant Generation Identitaire movement, demonstrated in Belgium’s notorious Molenbeek district, the notorious terrorist breeding ground of the Belgian capital, on Saturday. At the same time, leftist groups held counter-rallies. Though the demonstrations were banned in Brussels following the March attacks, several rallies still took place in Belgian capital.

Since the attacks in Brussels Zaventem Airport and Maelbeek metro station that rocked the Belgian capital on March 22, Belgium has been on high alert, while tension between various local groups and migrants has escalated to unprecedented levels, confirmed by today’s events, when according to local news, at an anti-racism rally in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, the police clashed with hundreds of youths. Later, police temporarily closed the area after the police made 19 arrests at the Place de la Bourse, according to RTL

Thirteen rioters were arrested in the neighborhood which appears like a warzone.

@B3zero https://t.co/MN1O3v4gJS

— B3zero (@B3zero) April 2, 2016

#Molenbeek en sécurité http://pic.twitter.com/2hdLduXD2P

— samirlebelge (@samirlebelge) April 2, 2016

Happening Now – Brussels police detains about 30 peaceful anti racists chanting at place de la bourse http://pic.twitter.com/bkT4i4NWMU

— denise reese (@denice_ruptly) April 2, 2016

 

According to RT, at least two armed far-right activists with Molotov cocktail arrested in the Molenbeek district.

But the most shocking and violent moment took place when a car drove toward the police line, spraying a fire extinguisher. While driving off, the Audi hit a woman head on, according to twitter reports.

The video below captures the moment of impact of what RT reports, was a Muslim woman wearing a hijab, without so much as slowing down, as she bounces off the bonnet. The woman was taken to hospital immediately afterwards

Viewer discretion advised.

 

The perpetrator, who the Belgian media say is a resident of Molenbeek, has since reportedly been arrested.

#Molenbeek #zonderwoorden #nocomment #perplexe http://pic.twitter.com/pSKINbUXMv

— brussels mood (@brusselsmood) April 2, 2016

And as the world becomes witness to increasing violence by both sides, one thing is certain: Molenbeek residents will feel compelled to escalate their acts of violence even more in the next inevitable attack, which in turn will lead to an even more violent response, and so on until deadly violence between assorted groups of people is a daily fixture across Europe.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1RUjJ1O Tyler Durden

Today’s Wikileaks disclosure, in which two IMF officials hinted that the IMF may use a “credit event as a means to pressurize(sic) Greece” as it has been subsequently put by Greek officials, has elicited another round of widespread anger in Athens and could jeopardize the upcoming Greek debt negotiations.

The anger has been made more acute because Greece previously accused Poul Thomsen, one of the IMF staffers caught on the leak, of effectively sabotaging talks in the past when the IMF refused to compromise on Greek pension cuts after the government proposed alternatives with an equivalent fiscal impact.

As such, hoping to ride on the latest wave of populist anger, it was only a matter of time before the country’s prime minister Alexis Tsipras officially responded to the IMF.

His letter to the head of the IMF is below:

Dear Christine

 

I am writing to you to express my deep concern about publications on the position of IMF officials with key roles in the Greek program.

 

The first issue is, of course, whether their position reflects the official IMF view. Using a credit event as a means to pressurize Greece and the other member states is clearly beyond the bounds of the negotiation process as we understand it.

 

The second issue is whether Greece can trust, and continue negotiating in good faith with, IMF officials who express views such as those expressed in these publications. Particularly so as they seem to be threatening to delay the process in the belief that only a credit event will work to extract concessions. Successful negotiations are often difficult but they always require trust and credibility from all sides. I sincerely hope that the IMF position is to reach a quick, successful and sustainable conclusion of the review and I am sure you will take all necessary measures to ensure that the negotiation process will remain on track.

 

As always, I would be happy to talk to you any time on these issues, as I am sure your share my concern.

 

Yours Sincerely,

 

Alexis Tsipras

A snapshot of the letter:

While we expect that this latest scandal will quickly be forgotten, what we find most paradoxical about the situation is that the Greek ire is focused on the one entity that, while hardly innocent as per Lagarde’s previous comments, is actually is pushing for a Greek debt reduction over the refusal of European, and especially German, institutions. Granted, we also understand the Greek ire: being used as guniea pigs by the IMF in its policy battle with other NGOs is hardly pleasing and if anything, is a reflection of the Greek recent collapse into quasi-vassal status and ongoing ward of the ECB. Recall that Greece still has capital controls as its banking system is completely insolvent, and that this leverage Europe has over the country and the money of its savers will not change for a long time.

 

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Y7hmXK Tyler Durden

Submitted by Jeff Nielson via SprottMoney.com,

Several months ago, a chart produced by one of the Big Banks was presented to readers . It was supposed to be innocuous data on global wealth distribution, but instead portrayed a horrifying picture.

 

The focal point of the aforementioned article was that when it came to “the world’s poorest people,” the Corrupt West has now produced a greater percentage of severe poverty in its own populations than in India, and an equal percentage of such poverty as exists in Africa.

Stacked beside this, we see that when it comes to the richest-of-the-rich, the Corrupt West remains in a league of its own. Supposedly, we are living in “the New Normal,” where life is supposed to get increasingly harder and harder. So why does the New Normal never affect those on top?

Of course all of these extremely poor people being manufactured by our governments (as these regimes give away our jobs, destroy wages, and eviscerate our social programs) have to come from somewhere. Certainly they don’t come from the Wealthy Class.

Indeed, the chart above provides us with a crystal-clear view of where all these poor and very-poor people are coming from: the near-extinct Middle Class. In order to manufacture hundreds of millions of impoverished citizens in our nations, the Old World Order has had to engage in a campaign to end the Middle Class.

We are conditioned to consider economic “classes” within our own societies, but with the chart above, we’re given a global perspective. Where does the Middle Class exist today, globally? At the upper end, it exists in China, and to a lesser extent, in Latin America and other Asian nations. At the lower end of the Middle Class, we see such populations growing in India and even Africa.

Only in the West, and especially North America, is the Middle Class clearly an endangered species. Two incredibly important aspects of this subject are necessary to cover:

1) How and why has the One Bank chosen to perpetrate Middle Class genocide?

2) What are the consequences of the Death of the Middle Class?

Attempting to catalogue the nearly infinite number of ways in which the oligarchs of the One Bank have perpetrated their Middle Class genocide is impractical. Instead, discussion will be limited to the five most important programs responsible for the Death of the Middle Class: three of them relatively new, and two of them old.

a) Globalization

b) Union decimation/wage destruction

c) Small business decimation

d) Money-printing/inflation

e) Income taxation

Globalization was rammed down our throats in the name of “free trade,” the Holy Grail of charlatan economists . But, as previously explained, real free trade is a world of “comparative advantage” where all nations play by a fair-and-equal set of rules. Without those conditions, “free trade” can never exist.

The globalization that has been imposed upon us is, instead, a world of “competitive devaluation,” a corrupt, perpetual, suicidal race to the bottom. The oligarchs understood this, given that they are the perpetrators. The charlatan economists were too blinded by their own dogma to understand this. And, as always, the puppet politicians simply do what they are told.

Next on the list: union decimation and wage destruction are inseparable subjects, virtually the flipside of the same coin. “But wait,” shout the right-wing ideologues, “unions are corrupt, everyone knows that.”

Really? Corrupt compared to whom? Are they “corrupt” standing next to the bankers, who have stolen all our wealth ? Are they “corrupt” standing next to their Masters, the oligarchs who are hoarding all our stolen wealth ? Are they “corrupt” standing next to our politicians, who betrayed their own people to facilitate this economic pillaging? No, compared to any of those groups, unions (back when they still existed) were relative choir-boys.

When it comes to corruption, nobody plays the game as well as those on top. Compared to the Fat Cats, everyone else are rank amateurs. When unions were strong and plentiful, everyone had jobs. Almost everyone earned a livable wage (or better). Gee, weren’t those terrible times! Look how much better off we are now, without all those “corrupt unions.”

The other major new component in the deliberate, systemic slaughter of the Middle Class was and continues to be Small Business decimation. “Small business is the principal job-creator in every economy.” Any politician who ever got elected can tell you that.

If this is so, why do our corrupt governments funnel endless trillions of dollars of Corporate Welfare (our money) into the coffers of Big Business, while complaining there is nothing left to support Small Business? Why do our governments stack the deck in all of our regulations and bureaucracies, greasing the wheels for Big Business and strangling Small Business in their red tape?

Why do our governments refuse to enforce our anti-trust laws? One of the primary reasons for not allowing the corporations of Big Business to grow to an illegal size is because these monopolies and oligopolies make “competition” (meaning Small Business) impossible. One might as well try to start a small business on the Moon.

Then we have the oligarchs’ “old tricks” for stealing from the masses (and fattening themselves): banking and taxation. Of course, to the oligarchs, “banking” means stealing, and you steal by printing money. As many readers are already aware, “inflation” is money-printing – the increase (or inflation) of the supply of money.

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings [i.e. wealth] from confiscation through inflation .

– Alan Greenspan (1966 version )

Remove the Golden Handcuffs , as central banker Paul Volcker bragged of doing in 1971, and then it’s just print-and-steal – until the whole fiat currency Ponzi scheme implodes.

Then of course we have income taxation: 100 years of systemic thievery. No matter what the form or structure, by its very nature every system of income taxation will:

i) Provide a free ride to those at the very, very top

ii) Be revenue-neutral to the remainder of the wealthy

iii) Relentlessly steal out of the pockets of everyone else (via over-taxation)

This is nothing more than a matter of applying simple arithmetic. However, many refuse to educate themselves on how they are being robbed in this manner, year after year, so no more will be said on the subject.

These were the primary prongs of the oligarchs’ campaign to exterminate the Middle Class. As always, skeptical readers will be asking “why?” The answer is most easily summarized via The Bankers’ Manifesto of 1892 . This document was presented to the U.S. Congress in 1907 by Republican congressman, and career prosecutor, Charles Lindbergh Sr.

It reads, in part:

The courts must be called to our aid, debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible.

When through the process of law, the common people have lost their homes they will be more tractable and easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government applied to a central power of imperial wealth under the control of the leading financiers [the oligarchs]. People without homes won’t quarrel with their leaders.

We have “the strong arm of government.” The oligarchs saw to that by bringing us their “War on Terror.” When it comes to throwing people out of their homes, and creating a population of serfs, that’s a two-part process.

Step 1 is to manufacture artificial housing bubbles across the Western world, and then crash those bubbles. However, this is only partially effective in turning Homeowners into Homeless. To truly succeed at this requires Step 2: exterminating the Middle Class. A Middle Class can survive a collapsing housing bubble, assuming they remained reasonably prudent. The Working Poor cannot.

Finally, after more than a century of scheming, the oligarchs have all of their pieces in place. In the U.S., they’ve even already built many gulags – to warehouse these former Middle Class homeowners – since a large percentage of those people are armed.

This brings us to one, final point: the consequences of the Death of the Middle Class. What happens when you destroy the foundation of a house? Just look.

 

As readers have been told on many previous occasions, the “velocity of money” is effectively the heartbeat of an economy. It is another way of representing the economics principle known as the Marginal Propensity to Consume, probably the most important principle of economics forgotten by charlatan economists.

The principle is a simple one, since it is half basic arithmetic and half common sense. Unfortunately, these are both skills beyond the grasp of charlatan economists. If you take all of the money out of the pockets of the People, and you stuff it all into the vaults of the Wealthy (where it sits in idle hoards), then there is no “capital” for our capitalist economies – and these economies starve to death .

What is the response of the oligarchs to the relentless hollowing-out of our economies? They have ordered the puppet politicians to impose Austerity: taking even more money out of the pockets of the people. It is the equivalent to someone with anorexia going to a doctor, and the doctor imposing a severe diet on the patient (i.e. victim). The patient will not survive.

The Middle Class is dying. Unlike the oligarchs’ Big Banks, we are not “too big to fail.” Our jobs are gone. Our unions are gone. Our Middle Class wages are gone. Very soon, our homes will be gone. But don’t worry! It’s just the New Normal.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1TrVqYk Tyler Durden

Submitted by Jeff Nielson via SprottMoney.com,

Several months ago, a chart produced by one of the Big Banks was presented to readers . It was supposed to be innocuous data on global wealth distribution, but instead portrayed a horrifying picture.

 

The focal point of the aforementioned article was that when it came to “the world’s poorest people,” the Corrupt West has now produced a greater percentage of severe poverty in its own populations than in India, and an equal percentage of such poverty as exists in Africa.

Stacked beside this, we see that when it comes to the richest-of-the-rich, the Corrupt West remains in a league of its own. Supposedly, we are living in “the New Normal,” where life is supposed to get increasingly harder and harder. So why does the New Normal never affect those on top?

Of course all of these extremely poor people being manufactured by our governments (as these regimes give away our jobs, destroy wages, and eviscerate our social programs) have to come from somewhere. Certainly they don’t come from the Wealthy Class.

Indeed, the chart above provides us with a crystal-clear view of where all these poor and very-poor people are coming from: the near-extinct Middle Class. In order to manufacture hundreds of millions of impoverished citizens in our nations, the Old World Order has had to engage in a campaign to end the Middle Class.

We are conditioned to consider economic “classes” within our own societies, but with the chart above, we’re given a global perspective. Where does the Middle Class exist today, globally? At the upper end, it exists in China, and to a lesser extent, in Latin America and other Asian nations. At the lower end of the Middle Class, we see such populations growing in India and even Africa.

Only in the West, and especially North America, is the Middle Class clearly an endangered species. Two incredibly important aspects of this subject are necessary to cover:

1) How and why has the One Bank chosen to perpetrate Middle Class genocide?

2) What are the consequences of the Death of the Middle Class?

Attempting to catalogue the nearly infinite number of ways in which the oligarchs of the One Bank have perpetrated their Middle Class genocide is impractical. Instead, discussion will be limited to the five most important programs responsible for the Death of the Middle Class: three of them relatively new, and two of them old.

a) Globalization

b) Union decimation/wage destruction

c) Small business decimation

d) Money-printing/inflation

e) Income taxation

Globalization was rammed down our throats in the name of “free trade,” the Holy Grail of charlatan economists . But, as previously explained, real free trade is a world of “comparative advantage” where all nations play by a fair-and-equal set of rules. Without those conditions, “free trade” can never exist.

The globalization that has been imposed upon us is, instead, a world of “competitive devaluation,” a corrupt, perpetual, suicidal race to the bottom. The oligarchs understood this, given that they are the perpetrators. The charlatan economists were too blinded by their own dogma to understand this. And, as always, the puppet politicians simply do what they are told.

Next on the list: union decimation and wage destruction are inseparable subjects, virtually the flipside of the same coin. “But wait,” shout the right-wing ideologues, “unions are corrupt, everyone knows that.”

Really? Corrupt compared to whom? Are they “corrupt” standing next to the bankers, who have stolen all our wealth ? Are they “corrupt” standing next to their Masters, the oligarchs who are hoarding all our stolen wealth ? Are they “corrupt” standing next to our politicians, who betrayed their own people to facilitate this economic pillaging? No, compared to any of those groups, unions (back when they still existed) were relative choir-boys.

When it comes to corruption, nobody plays the game as well as those on top. Compared to the Fat Cats, everyone else are rank amateurs. When unions were strong and plentiful, everyone had jobs. Almost everyone earned a livable wage (or better). Gee, weren’t those terrible times! Look how much better off we are now, without all those “corrupt unions.”

The other major new component in the deliberate, systemic slaughter of the Middle Class was and continues to be Small Business decimation. “Small business is the principal job-creator in every economy.” Any politician who ever got elected can tell you that.

If this is so, why do our corrupt governments funnel endless trillions of dollars of Corporate Welfare (our money) into the coffers of Big Business, while complaining there is nothing left to support Small Business? Why do our governments stack the deck in all of our regulations and bureaucracies, greasing the wheels for Big Business and strangling Small Business in their red tape?

Why do our governments refuse to enforce our anti-trust laws? One of the primary reasons for not allowing the corporations of Big Business to grow to an illegal size is because these monopolies and oligopolies make “competition” (meaning Small Business) impossible. One might as well try to start a small business on the Moon.

Then we have the oligarchs’ “old tricks” for stealing from the masses (and fattening themselves): banking and taxation. Of course, to the oligarchs, “banking” means stealing, and you steal by printing money. As many readers are already aware, “inflation” is money-printing – the increase (or inflation) of the supply of money.

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings [i.e. wealth] from confiscation through inflation .

– Alan Greenspan (1966 version )

Remove the Golden Handcuffs , as central banker Paul Volcker bragged of doing in 1971, and then it’s just print-and-steal – until the whole fiat currency Ponzi scheme implodes.

Then of course we have income taxation: 100 years of systemic thievery. No matter what the form or structure, by its very nature every system of income taxation will:

i) Provide a free ride to those at the very, very top

ii) Be revenue-neutral to the remainder of the wealthy

iii) Relentlessly steal out of the pockets of everyone else (via over-taxation)

This is nothing more than a matter of applying simple arithmetic. However, many refuse to educate themselves on how they are being robbed in this manner, year after year, so no more will be said on the subject.

These were the primary prongs of the oligarchs’ campaign to exterminate the Middle Class. As always, skeptical readers will be asking “why?” The answer is most easily summarized via The Bankers’ Manifesto of 1892 . This document was presented to the U.S. Congress in 1907 by Republican congressman, and career prosecutor, Charles Lindbergh Sr.

It reads, in part:

The courts must be called to our aid, debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible.

When through the process of law, the common people have lost their homes they will be more tractable and easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government applied to a central power of imperial wealth under the control of the leading financiers [the oligarchs]. People without homes won’t quarrel with their leaders.

We have “the strong arm of government.” The oligarchs saw to that by bringing us their “War on Terror.” When it comes to throwing people out of their homes, and creating a population of serfs, that’s a two-part process.

Step 1 is to manufacture artificial housing bubbles across the Western world, and then crash those bubbles. However, this is only partially effective in turning Homeowners into Homeless. To truly succeed at this requires Step 2: exterminating the Middle Class. A Middle Class can survive a collapsing housing bubble, assuming they remained reasonably prudent. The Working Poor cannot.

Finally, after more than a century of scheming, the oligarchs have all of their pieces in place. In the U.S., they’ve even already built many gulags – to warehouse these former Middle Class homeowners – since a large percentage of those people are armed.

This brings us to one, final point: the consequences of the Death of the Middle Class. What happens when you destroy the foundation of a house? Just look.

 

As readers have been told on many previous occasions, the “velocity of money” is effectively the heartbeat of an economy. It is another way of representing the economics principle known as the Marginal Propensity to Consume, probably the most important principle of economics forgotten by charlatan economists.

The principle is a simple one, since it is half basic arithmetic and half common sense. Unfortunately, these are both skills beyond the grasp of charlatan economists. If you take all of the money out of the pockets of the People, and you stuff it all into the vaults of the Wealthy (where it sits in idle hoards), then there is no “capital” for our capitalist economies – and these economies starve to death .

What is the response of the oligarchs to the relentless hollowing-out of our economies? They have ordered the puppet politicians to impose Austerity: taking even more money out of the pockets of the people. It is the equivalent to someone with anorexia going to a doctor, and the doctor imposing a severe diet on the patient (i.e. victim). The patient will not survive.

The Middle Class is dying. Unlike the oligarchs’ Big Banks, we are not “too big to fail.” Our jobs are gone. Our unions are gone. Our Middle Class wages are gone. Very soon, our homes will be gone. But don’t worry! It’s just the New Normal.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1TrVqYk Tyler Durden

Presented with no comment…

 

 

Source: Townhall.com

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1qeCIIv Tyler Durden

In recent weeks, JPMorgan has turned decidedly sour on the US equity market: one month ago, on March 3, JPM announced that “for the first time this cycle”, it has gone underweight stocks.

Equities, credit and commodities have all rallied in the last three weeks, as some of the immediate threats to the world economy have faded from attention, possibly only because the bad earnings season has wound up. But, to us, the fundamentals of growth, earnings and recession risk have not improved, and if anything have worsened. We remain wary of the near-empty ammo box of policy makers.

 

Our 12-month-out US recession odds have risen to 1/3, while equity-implied odds have instead fallen to near 1/5. But even with no recession this year or next, we see US earnings rising only slowly by low single digits and see little to boost multiples. The eventual recession should bring US stocks down some 30%, creating a strong downward risk skew to returns over the next few years.

 

We use the rally in stocks to sell it and go underweight stocks, versus HG corporate bonds and cash. The strong rebound of the past few weeks does create near-term momentum, and thus keeps our first UW small.

To be sure, the continued bounce since the JPM call has not been exactly reassuring of the forecast’s accuracy. However, what is surprising is that when faced with unpalatable price action, sellside researchers usually flip their call quickly.

Not in this case, because in a surprisingly candid piece released overnight, JPM’s Jan Loeys doubles down, and after asking rhetorically “Can central banks really save the day, or cycle?”, his answer is no. In fact, after saying now is the time to sell stocks, JPM’s head of global asset allocation is now even far more concerned about the over economy where his biggest concern is that central banks are powerless to stop the “collapsing productivity growth.”

Loeys begins as follows:

Equities and bonds are both up on the week, fueled by supportive central bank talk. Commodities and the dollar are down, with EM asset classes continuing to outperform. Our overall strategy remains on the defensive side. We started a year ago to dollar-average from the long risk positions we have held over the past seven years towards a more defensive one where we finally arrived last month.

 

The main drivers of this year-long process are the sense that the cycle in economic and earnings growth is maturing, leading us to the eventual recession, as well as the more structural force of the global collapse in productivity growth. Of the two, we view the latter one as the more ominous, as it is potentially much longer lasting, with no obvious force driving it, nor a policy solution in sight to reverse it.

 

Both of these negatives to world economies and risk markets have in common that they are of uncertain timing. Hence, our use of the time-honored strategy is going slowly by dollar averaging. Over the past month, data are tracking our economic forecasts, and have kept our global projections on net unchanged.

 

That is good news after the steady drip-drip of downgrades of the past two years. It has allowed us to reduce our 12-month US recession risk to 28%, even as it keeps us with a view that the US economy is more likely than not to contract over the next 2-3 years in response to falling profits.

And here is why JPM’s explanation why central banks are now powerless to stop the ongoing global contraction: 

We are not getting any solace on our fears over collapsing productivity growth, though. Investors have been happy to see the 628K rise in US payrolls in Q1, but at that pace, jobs are growing faster than the economy, implying that GDP per worker/hour, which is productivity, is actually falling. US companies are hiring people frantically as they are unable to get more product and services out of their existing workforce. This is not a good omen for future growth in the economy and earnings, in our view.

This is something we noted last night when we noted the increasing prevalence of warnings about an upcoming US stagflation. It is also what is most troubling to JPM.

Without real upgrades to earnings or growth forecasts, we think that the recent rally in risk assets gained much from dovish actions and messages from central banks, in particular the ECB, Fed and the PBoC. One can only applaud the seriousness and pro-activeness that central banks apply to their mandates. But aren’t investors counting too much on central banks carrying the day if not the cycle?

 

This analyst thinks so, without disparaging their efforts, as central banks are almost out of ammo, and their tools are not well suited to handle the problems of slowing company profits and productivity.

 

It is our perception that much of the weaker than expected growth over the past 4 years results from a supply side problem. Lower rates can boost spending, but are not much of a solution to falling productivity growth. The latter needs greater innovation, competition, globalization, and capital investment, in our view. Low rates can boost the latter, but have not helped enough, as rising capex over recent years did not prevent falling productivity growth.

* * *

But perhaps most amusing was the following Freudian slip in the JPM piece:

“We do not see easy money as a bait to lure unsuspecting investors into risky assets.”

Then why bring it up… and if you don’t, who does?

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1RwlksD Tyler Durden

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

Not only does President Obama refuse to join the words “Islam” and “terrorism,” but the White House won’t let anyone else do it either.

In a video that appeared on the White House website this morning, the words of French President Francois Hollande were censored to remove the following segment:

Islamist terrorism, is in Syria and in Iraq. We therefore have to act both in Syria and in Iraq, and this is what we’re doing within the framework of the coalition.

Here’s the censored video that has since been taken down from the White House website.

Here’s a screenshot of the transcript that was published on the site, which contains President Hollande’s full statement.

You know it’s obvious that Obama is avoiding using the phrase “Islamic terror” when even the NY Post notices. Back in November, after the Paris attack, columnist Michael Goodwin called for the President’s resignation. Goodwin wrote:

President Obama has spent the last seven years trying to avoid the world as it is. He has put his intellect and rhetorical skills into the dishonorable service of assigning blame and fudging failure. If nuances were bombs, the Islamic State would have been destroyed years ago.

 

He refuses to say “Islamic terrorism,” as if that would offend the peaceful Muslims who make up the vast bulk of victims. He rejects the word “war,” even as jihadists carry out bloodthirsty attacks against Americans and innocent peoples around the world.

After the attacks in San Bernadino, California in December, we pointed out that Obama attempted to shift the blame away from radical Islam to…wait for it…workplace violence.

President Obama said that the San Bernardino terrorists had mixed motives for killing 14 people and injuring 17 others. He warned Americans not to draw any conclusions:

“At this stage, we do not yet know why this terrible event occurred.”

 

“We do know that the two individuals who were killed were equipped with weapons and appeared to have access to additional weaponry in their homes. But we don’t know why they did it.”

 

…

 

“It is possible that this was terrorist-related, but we don’t know. It’s also possible this was workplace-related.”

 

“We don’t know why they did it. We don’t know at this point the extent of their plans.”

Are you f*cking serious, Mr. President?

 

As we noted earlier, The Intent Here Was Jihad And It Was Carefully Premeditated And Planned. President Obama, his national security team and the FBI know this.

Maybe if we all hide under our blankies and refuse to say the words, we can pretend this threat doesn’t exist too.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1TrJhCK Tyler Durden

When we wrote earlier that based on a leaked Wikileaks transcript, which the Greek government interpreted “as revealing an IMF effort to blackmail Athens with a possible credit event to force it to give in on pension cuts which it has rejected“, the article promptly went viral. While it remains to be determined if the IMF indeed made such an implied threat, we attribute this spike in interest to the general public’s surprise that the IMF could stoop to such a low, even by its own standards, level as to use a nation of 11 million people as a lab rat on which to conduct policy experiments.

But why the surprise?

As the below transcript from a April 2012 interview given by Lagarde to the Wharton school at UPenn, none other than IMF president Lagarde herself admitted that for the IMF to “thrive”, the world has to “goes downhill“, and that the IMF “to be sustainable” it needs to be “very in touch with our client base.”

She added that “when the world goes well and we’ve had years of growth, as was the case back in 2006 and 2007, the IMF doesn’t do so well both financially and otherwise”

It goes without saying that Lagarde’s sole prerogative as the managing director of the IMF is to make sure it “does well.”

She concluded by saying that “we need to be able to invent and reinvent ourselves in many ways.” One such client-facing “reinvention” just happened to be caught on tape.

Here is the key section:

Knowledge@Wharton: Of all the things that you do here, what are you most passionate about? What would you really like to make sure happens? It could be a small thing, it could be a large thing. What is it that really has your heart?

 

Lagarde: That’s complicated. I think it’s this issue of relevance … that is of real concern to me. You see, this is a very fascinating institution because it’s completely counter-cyclical. When the world around the IMF goes downhill, we thrive. We become extremely active because we lend money, we earn interest and charges and all the rest of it, and the institution does well. When the world goes well and we’ve had years of growth, as was the case back in 2006 and 2007, the IMF doesn’t do so well both financially and otherwise.

 

For this institution, which is a fascinating mix of almost all countries of the world with a single objective that should transcend all their respective individual policies and strategies, for it to be sustainable, we need to be very agile, very in touch with our membership, with our client base, if you will. We need to be able to invent and reinvent ourselves in many ways. So, as I was explaining about going from bilateral to multilateral surveillance, from a narrow focus to something that is more holistic, that is exactly what is at stake

h/t @rudyhavenstein

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1TrDRrd Tyler Durden