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Having been shunned by all the major broadcast networks (unlike his predecessor 8 years ago), President Obama’s ‘prime time’ address to the nation – which will be seen by dominant Spanish-language channel Univision viewers (and CNN and PBS) – will lay out the new steps he (and he alone in his executive order) is taking “to fix our broken immigration system.” As Politico comments, Obama appears to be going all-in as he speaks from Las Vegas, as the cooperation talk has disappeared – “Make no mistake. When the newly elected representatives of the people take their seats, they will act,” warned incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

 

 

“He needs to start doing sh— that’s going to energize our base,” one Democratic strategist complained after the midterms. “And these members need to pull their heads out of their asses. We already own the bad, so let’s get something for all of the good.”

The “must share” details…

Worth sharing: Here are the new steps President Obama’s taking to fix our immigration system. #ImmigrationAction http://ift.tt/1uYTBWh

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 20, 2014

Live Feed – The President is due to speak at 8:01pmET (but given no one is watching, who knows when he’ll turn up)

 

 

A little history…

And here are The White House’s 5 Talking Points for tonight’s speech which will now be regurgitated non-stop for the rest of the news cycle…

White House Details on Anticipated Administrative Relief by The National Immigrant Youth Alliance

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/14TQkxW Tyler Durden

Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

Pink Floyd – Time

I stumbled across two mind blowing charts yesterday that had me pondering how generations of Americans had frittered their lives away, spending money they didn’t have  on things they didn’t need, utilizing easy to acquire debt, and saving virtually nothing for their futures or a rainy day. We are a nation of Peter Pans who never grew up. While I was driving home from work, one of my favorite Pink Floyd tunes came on the radio and the lyrics to Time seemed to fit perfectly with the charts I had just discovered.

We were all young once. Old age and retirement don’t even enter your thought process when you are young. Most people aren’t sure what they want to do for the rest of their lives when they are in their early twenties. Slaving away at your entry level low paying job, chasing the opposite sex, getting drunk, and having fun on the weekends is the standard for most young people. But you eventually have to grow up. Because one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one tells you when to grow up. And based on the charts below, tens of millions missed the starting gun.

I graduated college in 1986 and started my entry level CPA firm job, making $18,000 per year. I did live at home for a year and a half before getting an apartment with a friend. I was able to buy a car, pay off my modest student loan debt, go out on the weekends, and still save some money. I was in my early 20’s and had opened a mutual fund account at Vanguard. Anyone who entered the job market from the mid 1970s through the mid 1980’s, which would be the late Baby Boomers and early Generation Xers, had job opportunities and the benefit of low stock market valuations.

P/E ratios of the market were single digits in the late 70s and early 80s, versus 20 today. Dividend yields on stocks averaged 5% for the S&P 500, versus 1.9% today. The Dow bottomed out at 759 in 1980, while the S&P 500 bottomed at 98. A 20 year secular bull market was about to get under way. Baby Boomers and Generation Xers had the opportunity of a lifetime. Even after six years of the bull, when I graduated from college the Dow stood at 1,786 and the S&P 500 stood at 521. I had just begun to invest when the 1987 crash wiped out 20% in one day. It meant nothing to me. I didn’t have much to lose, so I just kept investing.

The 20 year bull market took the Dow from 759 to 11,722 by January 2000. The S&P 500 rose from 98 to 1,552 by March 2000. You also averaged about a 3% dividend yield per year over the entire 20 years. Your average annual return, including reinvested dividends, exceeded 17%. Anyone who even saved a minimal amount of money on a monthly basis, would have built a substantial nest egg for retirement. If you had invested in 10 Year Treasuries, your annual return would have exceeded 11% over the 20 years. Even an ultra-conservative investor who only put their money into 5 year CDs would have averaged better than 7% per year over the 20 years.

Even with the two stock market collapses since 2000, your average annual return in the stock market since 1980 still exceeds 11%. That’s 34 years with an average annual total return of better than 11%. Every person who had a job over this time frame should have accumulated a decent level of retirement savings. That is why the chart below is so shocking. Over 15% of all people 60 and older and 23% of people 45 to 59 years old have NO retirement savings. None. Nada. Zilch. This means 25 million Boomers and Xers are stuck living off a Social Security pittance and choosing between keeping the heat on or eating a feast of Ramen noodles and Friskies. It seems they let 30 years get behind them. They missed the starting gun.

I’m not shocked that over 50% of 18 to 29 year olds have no retirement savings. With the terrible job market, declining real wages, massive levels of student loan debt, two stock market crashes in the space of eight years, and 4% annual returns since 2000, young people today have neither the means nor trust in the system to save for retirement. Their elders had no such excuse. Just a minimal amount per paycheck saved over the last 30 years would have compounded to well over $100,000, even at modest salary levels. It is disgraceful that 25 million people over the age of 45 have saved nothing for their retirement. Far more disgraceful is the median household retirement balance of $3,000 for all working age households. There are 122 million households in this country and 61 million of them have $3,000 or less in retirement savings.

The far worse data points are the $12,000 median retirement balance of aged 55 to 64 households and the $10,100 median retirement balance of aged 45 to 54 households. These people are on the edge of retirement and have less than one year’s expenses saved. There is no legitimate excuse for this pitiful display of planning. These people had decades to save, strong financial market returns, and if they worked for a decent size organization – matching contributions to their retirement accounts. They didn’t need a huge salary. They didn’t need to save 20% of their salary. They didn’t have to be an investing genius. A savings allocation of just 3% to 5% would have grown into a decent sized nest egg after a few decades of compounding.

We know from the data in the chart, it didn’t happen. The concept of delayed gratification is unknown to the millions of nearly broke Boomers and Xers, shuffling towards an old age of poverty, misery and regret. A 64 year old has a life expectancy of about 20 years. They’ll have to budget “very” frugally to make that $12,000 last. The question is how did it happen. I don’t buy the load of crap that you can’t judge people as groups. I judge people by their actions, not their words. I know you can’t lump every Boomer and Xer into one box. Individuals in every generation have bucked the trend, lived within their means, saved for the future, and accumulated significant nest eggs for their retirement. But the aggregate numbers don’t lie. The majority of those over the age of 45 have squandered their chance at a relatively comfortable retirement. These are the people who most vociferously insist the government do something about their self created plight. It’s their right to free healthcare, free food, subsidized housing, free utilities, higher minimum wages, and a comfortable government subsidized retirement. They are wrong. They had a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It was up to them to educate themselves, get a job, work hard, and accumulate savings.

The generations of live for today, don’t worry about tomorrow Americans over the age of 45 have no one to blame but themselves. They bought those 4,500 sq foot McMansions with negative amortization 0% down mortgages. They had to keep up with the Jones-es by putting in granite counter-tops, stainless steel appliances, home theaters, Olympic sized swimming pools, and enormous decks. They have HDTVs in every room in their house and must have every premium cable channel along with the NFL package. They upgrade their phones every time Apple rolls out a new and improved version. They pay landscapers to manicure their properties. They lease new BMWs every three years. They have taken exotic vacations on an annual basis. They haven’t packed a lunch for themselves since they were 16 years old. Eating out for lunch and dinner has been a staple of their existence for decades. That morning Starbucks coffee is a given. A new wardrobe of name brand stylish clothes for every season is a requirement because your neighbors and co-workers are constantly judging you. Nothing proves you’re a success like a Rolex watch, Canali suit, Versace boots, or Gucci handbag. The have it now generations got it then and have virtually nothing now because they acquired all of these things with debt.

Real cumulative household income is up 10% since 1980. Consumer debt outstanding has risen from $350 billion in 1980 to $3.267 trillion today. That is a 933% increase. We’ve had decades of faux prosperity aided and abetted by Wall Street shysters, corrupt politicians, mega-corporation mass merchandisers, and Madison Avenue maggots trained in the methods of Edward Bernays to convince willfully ignorant consumers to consume. And consume we did. Saving, not so much. You can blame the oligarchs, bankers, retailers, and politicians for the fact you didn’t save, but it rings hollow. No matter how much propaganda is spewed by the ruling class, we are still individuals with free will. The older generations had choices. Saving money requires only one thing – spending less than you make. Most Boomers and Xers chose to spend more than they made and financed the difference. When the average credit card balance is five times greater than the median retirement account balance, you’ve got a problem. The facts about our consumer empire of debt are unequivocal as can be seen in these statistics:

• Average credit card debt: $15,593
• Average debt: $153,184
• Average student loan debt: $32,511

• $11.62 trillion in total debt
• $880.3 billion in credit card debt
• $8.05 trillion in mortgages
• $1.12 trillion in student loans

I don’t blame those in their 20’s and 30’s for not having retirement savings. Anyone who entered the workforce around the year 2000 has good reason to not trust the system or their elders. There have been two stock market collapses and every asset class is now extremely overvalued due to the criminal machinations of the Federal Reserve. There are far less good paying jobs. Real wages keep declining. They were convinced by their elders to load up on student loan debt, leaving them as debt serfs. The Wall Street/Federal Reserve scheme to boost home prices and repair their insolvent balance sheets has successfully kept young people from ever being able to afford a home. So you have young people unable to save, invest or spend. You have middle aged and older Americans with little or no savings, mountains of debt, low paying service jobs, and an inability to spend. The only people left with resources are the .1% who have captured the system, peddle the debt, and reap the rewards of consumption versus saving. They may be able to engineer a stock market rally to further enrich themselves, but they can not propel the real economy of 318 million people. Our consumer society is dying – asphyxiated by debt – shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

I’d love to offer some sage advice on how to fix this problem, but it’s too late. Too many people missed the starting gun. More than ten years got behind them. No one is going to come to the rescue of people who never saved for their future. The Federal government has already made $200 trillion of entitlement promises it can’t keep. State governments have made tens of trillions in pension promises they can’t keep. They can’t tax young people who don’t have jobs. Older generations who think the government is going to rescue them from their foolish shortsighted choices are badly mistaken. Their benefits are likely to be reduced because the unsustainable will not be sustained. The 45 to 64 year old cohort who chose not to save can run and run to try and catch up with the sun, but it’s too late. It’s sinking. Their plans have come to naught. They are destined for lives of quiet desperation. There is nothing more to say.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter; never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I’d something more to say.

Pink Floyd – Time

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/11kxg9W Tyler Durden

Did this actual 2007 Craigslist ad provide the inspiration for President Obama’s forthcoming solution to America’s languishing economy by killing (not literally) two birds with one stone?

 

 

h/t @RudyHavenstein

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

In the second of three interviews (part 1 here), Hugh Hendry tells MoneyWeek's Merryn Somerset Webb why central banks will go even further than anyone expects to keep the global economy afloat. Hendry notes, "there’s so much debt that if you reprice debt, the economy slows down. We saw that I think in 2012, after the taper tantrum and ten-year bond use went over 3%. What happened next? The economy slowed down. If anything I would be a buyer of U.S. Treasuries."

 

 

Key excerpts (full transcript here)

Let’s move on to looking at markets more specifically.

Hendry: This is almost unparalleled in being the most exciting moment for global macro today. And I predicate that upon making an analogy with the Central Bank coordinated policy intervention, in the foreign exchange markets, after the Plaza Accord in, I believe, 1985. There was a profound unease at the current account and particularly the trade deficit that America was running up, especially against the Japanese, which was deemed to be contentious. The real economy is composed of slow-moving prices, wages are slow and the notion of having to wait for productivity improvements and wage price negotiations to work their course, via the U.S. corporate landscape in Japan, such as those deficits would be resolved successfully and become less politically contentious. It was just too long. Politicians just don’t have that time and so they jumped into the world of macro. Macro’s all about fast-moving prices. Foreign exchange is fast. Stock markets prices are fast.

 

So the notion then was that the Yen and the Deutschmark would appreciate. Now for hedge funds that was amazing. This is the period of the alchemy of finance, as George Soros has celebrated in very successful financial adventures. They just run the biggest long positions. No one stopped to say “Well, the Deutschmark’s getting expensive.” It didn’t really enter into the vernacular of trading in that market. It was macro, there was a policy impulse, a sponsorship by the world’s monetary authorities and you were trending and you had to have that position.

 

By and large it succeeded. So what I would said to you today is that the policy response can’t be found in foreign exchange markets. It’s been muted somewhat by the “Beggar thy neighbour” way that everyone can pursue the same policy. So currencies, up until very lately, haven’t really moved that much. Instead the drama is unfolding in the stock market.

 

I would say to you that policymakers are so absolutely beside themselves with regard to how structural these deflationary forces are, and that they recognise that they really have very little to offer once policy rates are at zero, the zero lower band, that they have to stave this crisis off. They cannot have deflation today.

 

I believe they are now responding to the fast-moving circuit of the stock market and clearly America’s demonstrated something. That policy response underwrote a very virtuous cycle of higher asset prices.

You’re telling us that QE worked.

Hugh: It’s all about to which degree does it work? Now if you wish to take the other side and say “QE doesn’t work.” It worked by redistributing but it doesn’t create wealth, clearly.

 

What it aims to do, is redistribute economic growth from one part of the global system to another. So as the U.S. has come to the forefront in the last five years, China’s found its growth rate has, from this perpetual notion of 10% GDP expansion, is now 7%, and everyone’s scratching their head and has great doubts that 7% can be maintained.

 

Europe needs high equity prices and high animal spirits and then you’ll get people feeling more confident about the collateral

 

It may not work, but presently the perception is that it will work and those asset prices are trending and you should participate. Then within Europe, such is the political timeframe and the stakes are so enormous, that is has to work now and we have the French elections, national elections are in 2017. Europe has been slow to this game of quantitative easing. As a result they are clearly behind the curve.

 

So economies from France to Italy and others have been unsuccessful in bringing these deficits below 3%, which of course, then imposes further austerity measures which are toxic in the political/social space, and we’re seeing radicalization of policy.

 

It may be contentious to say, but if the French election was held today, I would worry that Marine Le Pen’s party would win. That’s not to say, necessarily, to cast aspersions on that side it’s just to say that I think the thrust of her policy would be to take France out of the Euro.

The people who very angry about QE – who disapprove of it. They would say the moral imperative is not to do QE, but you suggested that for you the moral imperative in Europe is to do proper QE.

Hugh: Well, desperate times breed desperate measures and the fatal policy errors are I believe, all in the past. Economies across the world were allowed to take on so much debt, and taking on debt, you’re borrowing from the future. You’re borrowing consumption to spend it today. So we overinflated the GDP growth rate. There’s no surprise to me when people are disappointed by today’s growth rate. Because it’s like “I ate your sandwich yesterday.” It’s not there. So I don’t see this as a clean solution.

 

I see this is a grubby solution, but it’s closer to being a solution than anything else that I conceive of. With QE, again, I say I think we barely scratched the surface in terms of what will happen. I think it will spread into central banks essentially having to endorse higher government budget deficits to sponsor public work projects or favourably to sponsor tax cuts. I think that is in the future, because we have not resolved that deficiency of demand. Which, of course, is a function of having over-borrowed from the future to spend yesterday.

On Treasuries…

I think Dylan Grice was the great architect of the notion that you can define the upper bound to today’s interest rates by trying to determine society’s capability to meet those interest rates at higher and higher levels. What you find is we cannot live with a Paul Volcker putting interest rates at 15%. It doesn’t work. There’s so much debt that if you reprice debt, the economy slows down. We saw that I think in 2012, after the taper tantrum and ten-year bond use went over 3%. What happened next? The economy slowed down. If anything I would be a buyer of U.S. Treasuries and I’ll come back to that.

 

…

 

Well, we are long on 30-year Treasury bond use and this year we have, I think, been among a select group of macro-investors who have actually made money being long U.S. Treasuries. It’s been a very popular trade being short. It’s particularly relevant since the Jackson Hole Central Bank soiree in late August. That there seems to have to come out of it, some tolerance that the dollar would rise.

 

Typically that’s the fiefdom of the Treasury and not the Central Bank. But I’ll let that pass. The dollar has been on a tear ever since that meeting. My take on that is that I think America looks at it and increasingly feels confident, rightly or wrongly. I’d err on the side of caution. But when it looks to the global theatre, it’s desperately concerned about China, desperately concerned about the Europe. So the last five years were, if you will, it redistributed global growth and by “redistribution” bear in mind, I’m saying that quantitative easing as pursued by the Federal Reserve had the explicit policy aim of ensuring that the dollar would not rise.

 

The dollar always rises when there’s a deflationary crisis in the marketplace. The dollar index was trading at 80 pre- the events of late 2008. It briefly flared and then you had . . .  Immediately you had quantitative easing and it sat at 80 for five years. That’s about America being determined that dollars earned in America create jobs and prosperity in America.

 

Whereas in the last 10-15 years the mercantilist axis of Europe, and of course, China has meant that those dollars were exported via the trade deficit to elsewhere. That just couldn’t be allowed to happen. That hasn’t happened, which is to say that again, boosted by shale oil, of course, the trade deficit has been falling.

*  *  *
 

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1uZ3ovl Tyler Durden

Submitted by Lance Roberts of STA Wealth Management,

Stock/Bond Ratio Not Confirming Rally

Following the October swoon, stocks have vaulted to all-time highs. As I discussed previously in "Sentiment Is Off The Charts Bullish," there have only been few occasions where investors have felt so "giddy" about the financial markets. Such periods of exuberance have never ended well for investors as they were deluded by near-term "greed" which blinded them to the building risks.

One of the things that I pay attention to is the ratio of the S&P 500 compared to longer duration bonds. The theory is that when investors are willing to take on more risk, money flows out of "safe haven" like bonds to equities as portfolio allocations become more aggressively tilted. The opposite occurs as investors began to reduce "risk exposure" in portfolios and focus more on "safety."

As you can see in the chart below, there is a very high level of correlation between the rise and fall of the stock/bond ratio and the S&P 500. Well, that is until just lately.

Notice that currently, the ratio has deviated substantially from its normal correlation with the S&P 500 index. Importantly, this deviation began precisely when the Federal Reserve began extracting their liquidity support from the financial markets at the beginning of this year. With money rotating from "risk to safety" it is likely a clear warning that risks of a more substantial correction are building.

Given the economic slowdown globally, as discussed yesterday, rising deflationary pressures and elevated valuations it is highly likely that the majority of market gains have already been achieved. Furthermore, with the Federal Reserve now signaling that they are focused on raising interest rates, the tightening of monetary policy in an extremely weak economic environment will be a stronger headwind than currently anticipated. 

With everybody seemingly in the "bullish camp," and a good degree of history forgotten, Bob Farrell's rule #9 comes to mind:

"When everyone agrees; something else is bound to happen."

While the markets are indeed hitting new highs, this is an event that has only occurred during very short periods of our long market history. Of course, this only makes sense that when considering that the market spends the majority of its time making up previous losses. As my father often told me:

"Breaking even is not an investment strategy."

 

Market Finally Breaks Even

Speaking of "breaking even," investors can rejoice that after 14 years and 3 months they have once again broken even on an inflation adjusted basis. As shown in the chart below, it took 24 years previously for the S&P 500 to round trip back to positive territory.

Anthony Mirhaydari made some interesting observations in the Fiscal Times:

"On a number of measures, it's looking long in the tooth and vulnerable. Here's why.

 

Longevity: This bull market is currently the fourth longest out of 23 in terms of duration and is the sixth best in terms of total percentage gain. That puts this well ahead of the average for the Dow Jones Industrial Average going back to 1897, when Grover Cleveland was president and Mark Twain famously quipped that the 'report of my death was an exaggeration.'

 

The three other bull markets that outlived the current one started in 1949, 1990, and 1921. None lasted longer than eight years. So, at the very least, this suggests the bull market will be unable to live past 2017 putting the date of the final top, conservatively, sometime in 2016.

 

Evidence is building that market conditions suggest caution is warranted.

 

Short-term: Since the October 15th low, the S&P 500 has yet to close below its five-day moving average — a run of consistency that hasn't been seen since the 1990s.

 

The current range on the S&P 500 is the tightest in history. Over the last six sessions the S&P 500 hasn't moved more than 0.077 percent on a closing basis. The next tightest range was in 1965 at 0.080 percent.

 

Moreover, breath is tightening as U.S. large-caps look invincible. The Russell 2000 small-cap index dropped 0.8 percent on Monday for its third loss in a row — its worst streak since the middle of October. The iShares High-Yield Corporate Bond Fund (HYG) is down four days in a row, pushing below its 200-day moving average as junk bonds come under pressure. And the CBOE Volatility Index, Wall Street's "fear gauge," has popped back over its 200-day moving average and is up 11.9 percent from its intraday lows last Monday.

 

Medium-term: Valuation metrics are more than fully valued. The cyclically adjusted S&P 500 price-to-earnings ratio is at levels that have only been exceeded in the run up to the 1929, 2000, and 2007 market bubbles. Investor sentiment is extended, with mutual fund cash reserves at record lows." (Click here for charts)

Good food for thought.

 

What Are Commodities Saying About The Economy

Staying with the "market versus the economy" theme, the continuing decline in commodity prices is certainly worth noting. As shown in the chart below, the general trend of commodity prices has a fairly close relationship to overall economic growth.

This relationship is not surprising given that when an economy is growing, the demand for commodities to consume, manufacture or produce goods and services rises which cause prices to rise. However, the current decline in commodity prices suggests that the globally weak economic environment is a rising deflationary force.

While economic growth in the U.S. rebounded sharply for the 2.1% decline in the first quarter, the question of sustainability remains in question. Internationally, the weakness of global growth, a rising U.S. dollar and weak foreign demand will likely weigh on exports and corporate profits.

Domestically, the early bout of extremely cold winter weather, stagnant wage growth and the impact of higher healthcare costs and taxes from the full onset of the Affordable Care Act will provide additional headwinds.

Commodities are likely telling a story about the real economy. Jeffrey Snider at Alhambra Investment Partners summed up this idea well:

"This correlation can be extended to other commodity prices as well, which again precludes the predominance of 'supply' as the driving force in prices. Credit markets and oil prices are in tandem warning about the next phase of 'global growth' as it exists within the modern occurrence of the elongated business cycle. If the history of that since 1985 is indicative of what to expect, the elongated peak may be finally coming to an end. That would fit with intuitive perceptions where central bank actions after the 2012 slowdown are coming up far short of intents, and thus that deficient baseline is once again being revealed as well beyond monetary 'aid.'”

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1F5Q75z Tyler Durden

Clearly, what US GDP needs is more not less epic snowstorms such as what this house in upstate New York just experienced, because where else do you get the twin Keynesian GDP-boosting fallacies of broken windows and gushing zero velocity liquidity all rolled into one Ghostbusters reference?

As of this posting it was unclear if Paul Krugman had put in a bid for this economically-stimulating house, or if he was waiting for an alien invasion first.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/14ThpBn Tyler Durden

It appears Lazard’s investment banker Antonio Weiss’ “help” in tax inversions is not ‘unpatriotic’ enough to scare President Obama off – as we suspect Weiss’ bundling and donating help more than offset any ethical challenges. However, in a somewhat eye-opening financial disclosure, Bloomberg reports that Obama’s nominee for undersecretary of Treasury for domestic finance, has between $54 million and $203 million in assets spread across various family trusts and his anticipated compensation in 2014 is between $5 million and $25 million. It’s good to know the ‘people’ are well-represented once again in Washington…

 

A little color on the nominee… (via LittleSis)

 

President Obama’s nomination of Antonio Weiss to serve as Under Secretary for Domestic Finance at the Treasury Department has been met with opposition from MA Senator Elizabeth Warren and the Independent Community Bankers of America trade group. In a piece for the Huffington Post Warren wrote:

One of the biggest and most public corporate inversions last summer was the deal cut by Burger King to slash its tax bill by purchasing the Canadian company Tim Hortons and then “inverting” the American company to Canadian ownership. And Weiss was right there, working on Burger King’s tax deal. Weiss’ work wasn’t unusual for Lazard. That firm has helped put together three of the last four major corporate inversions that have been announced in the U.S.

 

And like those old Hair Club commercials used to say, Lazard isn’t just the President of the Corporate Loopholes Club — it’s also a client. Lazard moved its own headquarters from the United States to Bermuda in 2005 to take advantage of a particularly slimy tax loophole that was closed shortly afterwards. Even the Treasury Department under the Bush administration found Lazard’s practices objectionable.

A quick glance at Lazard’s profile on LittleSis shows several alumni who have taken a spin through the revolving door to/from the Treasury.

Weiss is a major Obama donor and bundler, having personally given $95,400 to Obama’s campaigns since 2007. That total includes Weiss and his wife, Susannah Hunnewell’s attendance at Obama’s $35,800-a-plate fundraiser dinner in March 2012.

*  *  *

And now, as Bloomberg reports,

*U.S. TREASURY NOMINEE WEISS DISCLOSES $54M-$203M IN ASSETS

 

Antonio Weiss, President Barack Obama’s pick to be a top Treasury official, reported compensation of $15.4 million over almost two  years as global head of investment banking at Lazard Ltd., his financial disclosure showed.

 

The filing of more than 40 pages shows Weiss’s assets, which are listed in ranges, are valued at $54 million to $203 million. The documents illustrate the range of investments he has after a two-decade career with the Hamilton, Bermuda-based company.

 

His anticipated 2014 bonus from Lazard is listed as an asset ranging from $5 million to $25 million, the filing shows.

*  *  *

Government of the (rich) people, by the (rich) people, for the (rich) people…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1uFa00v Tyler Durden