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As cases continue to surface across America, the CDC is shifting its strategy to battle Ebola infections…
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1r4iDNe Tyler Durden
Submitted by Michael Snyder of The End of the American Dream blog,
This Ebola outbreak is being called the “most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times“, and the U.S. health care system is completely and totally unprepared for it. The truth is that most U.S. hospitals are simply not equipped to safely handle Ebola patients, and most hospital staff members have received little or no training on Ebola. And the fact that Barack Obama and our top public health officials are running around proclaiming that Ebola is “difficult to catch” is giving doctors and nurses a false sense of security. There is a reason why Ebola has been classified as a biosafety-level 4 (BSL-4) pathogen. It is an extraordinarily dangerous virus, and there are only a few facilities in the entire country that are set up to safely handle such a disease.
The Ebola patient that recently died in Dallas was the first to be cared for in a facility that did not follow biosafety-level 4 protocols. And so it should not be a surprise that this is the facility where transmission happened…
Of the six Ebola patients treated in the U.S. before the health worker’s case, Duncan was the only one not treated at one of the specialized units in several hospitals around the country set up to deal with high-risk germs.
The CDC’s director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, has said that any U.S. hospital with isolation capabilities can care for an Ebola patient. But his stance seemed to soften on Sunday, when asked at a news conference whether officials now would consider moving Ebola patients to specialized units.
“We’re going to look at all opportunities to improve the level of safety and to minimize risk, but we can’t let any hospital let its guard down,” because Ebola patients could turn up anywhere, and every hospital must be able to quickly isolate and diagnose such cases, he said.
The head of the CDC continues to underestimate the seriousness of this disease. His opinion that just about any U.S. hospital can safely handle Ebola patients is being contradicted by a whole host of medical experts, including ABC News chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser…
Besser said he does not agree with the Centers for Disease Control, which says any U.S. hospital can safely care for an Ebola patient.
“To do it safely, health care workers need to train and practice using protective equipment like they have been doing at the Emory and Nebraska facilities,” he said, referring to special biocontainment units at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta — where Fort Worth physician Kent Brantly was treated for Ebola exposure; and the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where an NBC photojournalist is currently being cared for. “I would never have gone into an Ebola ward in Africa without being dressed and decontaminated by experts — health care workers here should expect no less.”
And even if our hospitals had the proper equipment and hospital staff were being given proper BSL-4 protective clothing, the reality of the matter is that most of them have not received adequate training. Just check out the following excerpt from an NBC News article that was posted this week…
Three out of four nurses say their hospital hasn’t provided sufficient education for them on Ebola, according to a survey by the largest professional association of registered nurses in the United States.
National Nurses United has been conducting an online survey of health care workers across the U.S. as the Ebola outbreak has widened globally. After a Texas nurse who cared for the first patient diagnosed with the Ebola in the U.S. tested positive for the virus Sunday, the group released its latest survey findings.
Out of more than 1,900 nurses in 46 states and Washington D.C. who responded, 76 percent said their hospital still hadn’t communicated to them an official policy on admitting potential patients with Ebola. And a whopping 85 percent said their hospital hadn’t provided educational training sessions on Ebola in which nurses could interact and ask questions.
If this is indeed the most serious health emergency in modern times like the WHO is saying, then we need to get our health care personnel trained to face it immediately.
Sadly, if a major Ebola pandemic does break out in this country, there is no way that we are going to have the resources to be able to deal with it.
As I discussed yesterday, WND is reporting that there is only one BSL-4 care facility in the entire nation that is available to treat the general public…
Have you wondered why Ebola patients are being sent to Omaha, Nebraska?
It’s because one physician, Dr. Philip Smith, had the foresight to set up the Nebraska Biocontainment Patient Care Unit after the Sept. 11 attacks as a bulwark against bioterrorism. Empty for more than a decade, used only for drills, it was called “Maurer’s Folly,” for Harold Maurer, former chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
The unit has a special air handling system to keep germs from escaping from patient rooms, and a steam sterilizer for scrubs and equipment.
It could handle at most 10 patients at a time, but one or two would be more comfortable, owing to the large volume of infectious waste.
It is the largest of only four such units in the U.S., and the only one designated for the general public.
If the outbreak in the United States is limited to just a few patients we will probably be fine.
But what if it isn’t?
Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to do next to nothing to prevent more people infected with Ebola from traveling into this country.
Obama says that there is “extensive screening” at our airports, but that simply is not true.
The following is one example of the “extensive screening” that is taking place…
The World Health Organization is sending doctors to countries where the virus is most prevalent — Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Fusion’s Jorge Ramos spoke to one of the doctors, Dr. Aileen Marty, who recently returned home to Miami after spending 31 days in Nigeria. She says she was surprised what happened when she arrived at Miami International Airport.
“I get to the kiosk…mark the fact that I’ve been in Nigeria and nobody cares, nobody stopped me,” Marty said.
“Not a single test?” Ramos asked her, surprised.
“Nothing,” Marty answered.
And the head of the CDC continues to rule out a ban on air travel for non-essential personnel to and from the countries where Ebola is raging…
Dr. Frieden strongly argued against curtailing travel to and from West Africa, in part because that could make it harder to get supplies to those countries. “That will make it harder to stop the disease,” he said. “Whatever we do, we won’t stop travel to and from these countries.”
It is hard to put into words how foolish this is.
If this virus gets loose inside the United States it could easily become the worst health crisis our nation has ever seen.
The key is to keep the virus from getting into our country in the first place.
Banning air travel for non-essential personnel to and from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia would not be that big of a deal. Many other countries have already done it.
But the CDC and the Obama administration are not even considering it.
If they have made the wrong call on this, it could end up costing large numbers of Americans their lives.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1rt4Srn Tyler Durden
Yesterday we lamented the ridiculously oversold levels in West Texas Intermediate, which as BofA calculated, has hit “oversold” levels for only the third time in six years. We assumed that this could be the basis for a short-term rebound. We were wrong, because we clearly had no idea just how determined the Saudis are to crush Putin into the ground courtesy of plunging oil prices.
As of moments ago, WTI has tumbled nearly $4, some 5%, to just over $81…
… which just goes to show how idiotic any reliance on charts is in a centrally-planned world, in which commodities are nothing but political weapons. Bottom line: based on its weekly RSI chart, WTI has just hit the most oversold levels since Lehman.
But to our rather great dismay, what is gong on with Brent turned out to be far worse, and as the weekly RSI indicator shows the selloff in Brent is now the worst, well, ever!
In other news: Andrew Hall, our condolences.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1wB2q6z Tyler Durden
Courtesy of the StealthFlation Blog
Gold remains by far the best performing asset class of the entire new millennium. This is an undisputable categorical fact, and there clearly is a well established completely understood reason for it. Monumentally excessive debt burdens can no longer be discharged without necessitating the devaluation of the currency. Due to this certitude, throughout this millennium we have experienced an extended period of extraordinary monetary accommodation which is unprecedented in the modern central banking era.
This explicit trend is systemic in nature and will only continue, as all other remedies to satisfy insurmountable obligations are no longer within reach nor achievable. Currency devaluation is the singular viable available path forward to liquidate the imposing outstanding debt. Make no mistake, the most esteemed economic thinkers are well aware of this ominous predicament.
Moreover, current policy makers lack historically substantiated evidence to validate the stated and intended objectives of the extreme policy measures they have initiated, nor can they accurately ascertain the unintended consequences of the distorting market interventions they have performed. These are the known unknowns. Physical Gold, a long standing historically proven store of value which provides wealth protection with unencumbered counterparty risk, is clearly a judicious and prudent hedge for all investors facing these macro economic realities and policy measure uncertainties.
Furthermore, Precious Metals are inherently the most viable asset class which outperforms all other assets against the currency debasement and ensuing inflation that invariably follows periods of excessive monetary accommodation.
Historical monetary evidence overwhelmingly confirms all stated above. Olivia Newton John had it right; Get physical or get gang debased.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1wB2pQe Bruno de Landevoisin
Having noted last week of the rising tensions between the French (pushing forward with plans for a budget deficit that far exceeds EU Treaty rules) and Germany (letting a Frenchman run EU’s finances is “an unwise personnel decision”) and Brussels (planning to reject the French budget); it seems the French are unimpressed. As les Echos reports, French finance minister Michel Sapin has proclaimed he won’t change the budget, arguing that the EU commission has no power to reject a budget as sovereignty belongs to France’s parliament… fighting words for a ‘union’! In addition, the EU is now planning to reject Italy’s budget, due to its “serious violation” of EU rules.
Italy is now up for rejection:
As France previously did, but is now fighting back (as Bloomberg reports),
The EU Commission has no power to reject a budget as sovereignty belongs to France’s parliament, Finance Minister Michel Sapin says in an interview with Les Echos.
France will give nature and calender of planned structural reforms very soon, Sapin says in the interview.
* * *
Which seems odd – let’s see the Greeks pull the same game…
Via Les Echos,
The Commission, I believe, has absolutely no power to “reject”, “return” or “censor” a budget, as I have read it.
Here as elsewhere, sovereignty rests with Parliament French. About the bullies I hear often uttered anonymously, can only harm Europe …
France is a responsible country, we can not have the same currency without concern for consistency of budgetary developments in each of our countries.
The euro zone is in a situation of very low growth and very low inflation. With a clear risk of ” Japanese-style scenario .”
* * *
The bottom line is that France is arguing that it will run bigger deficits now to ensure better growth in the future and that the EU commission needs to comprehend that and let them off… once more, hope trumps reality – for now we wait to see just how quickly Brussels folds.
Or summing it up in two words, it appears France is telling the EU to “F##k Off” – we’ll do what we like! Having learned the lessons of the Greeks as beggars can be choosers…
UPDATE: and it seems the Italians will be saying the same soon.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1vs16Gj Tyler Durden
Equity markets live and die on several well-established conventions, according to ConvergEx’s Nick Colas, noting that these are the rules that investors use as the bedrock of their fundamental analysis. The volatility of the last few weeks shows that some of these paradigms are now under attack. Chief among the question marks: “Do central banks always have the power to tip the balance between growth and recession?” Another rising concern: “Can stocks constantly shrug off recessionary signals from commodity and fixed income markets?” Lastly, “How many exogenous, if largely unpredictable, global events can equities ignore before their collective weight halts a bull market?” Bottom line: the debate on these topics isn’t over for October or the balance of the year.
Via ConvergEx’s Nick Colas,
The last Mitford sister, Deborah, died late last month at the age of 94. If you are unfamiliar with this storied British family, think of them as a 20th century version of the Kardashian brood with posh British accents and infinitely more drama and controversy. Deborah was many ways the calmest of the six sisters, devoted to her enormous country estate, named Chatsworth, and a noted patron of the arts. Her obituary in The Art Newspaper featured a Lucien Freud portrait done in 1957, and he was just one of the boldfaced names from the art world to call the Duchess a good friend.
The other Mitford sisters tended to be far less conventional. Indeed, their lives of +50 years ago make modern reality TV seem tame by comparison. They did things that may seem commonplace today, but remember that they lived in the middle of the last century:
Nancy, the oldest, was a successful novelist and had a longstanding affair with a married French diplomat. Her novels tended to the semi-autobiographical, so this was not exactly a secret in British society. Or anyone else.
Pamela, #2, married and divorced a famous jockey of the time. After that, she was the longtime companion of an Italian horsewoman.
Diana, #3, left brewery magnate Bryan Guinness for a British fascist and spent World War II in prison.
Unity, #4, was also enamored of the German cause in the 1930s and tried to kill herself at the start of the war.
Jessica, #5, was a groundbreaking investigative journalist in the U.S. and her 1963 book “The American Way of Death” is still influential in the funeral industry to this day.
Flouting convention is all well and good for free-spirited British nobles, but when it comes to more conservative institutions like the world of investments breaking the rules leads to more than just scandalous headlines. When I read of the Deborah Mitford’s passing, I got to thinking about the unwritten rules to which we all subscribe – knowingly or not – when we analyze the value of financial assets generally and equities specifically. The recent volatility in global stock markets – something I am sure will last for a while longer – stems from more than simple twitchiness over U.S. earnings or whether Germany is technically in recession. Rather, it seems as if investors are questioning some of the most fundamental narratives by which they allocate capital and consider risk and return.
Consider the role of central banking in managing the U.S. and European economies. Since these institutions do not link their currencies to precious metals like gold or silver, their credibility comes solely from policy actions that achieve their mandates of social goals such as economic growth, managing inflation, and employment. The old chestnut of “Don’t fight the Fed” is an implicit endorsement of the notion that the U.S. central bank controls – or at least guides with a very heavy hand – the American economy and capital markets. Two Fed Chairs – Paul Volcker and Ben Bernanke – can claim the most credit for burnishing that reputation. The first tamed long-standing inflation, and the second dragged a near-dead financial system back from the brink.
But – and this is a big “But” – there are clearly rising concerns over how much central banks can really do to engender secular economic growth. In the U.S., equity market valuations of 16-17x current earnings imply further expansion with little chance for recession. At the same time, the Fed desperately needs to normalize short-term rates at something closer to 1-2% from today’s 0-0.25%. That’s essentially like taking a still-weak patient off life support and hoping they can breath on their own. The recent Fed minutes, with their worries over a strong dollar and weakening global economy, don’t read like a promising diagnosis in that regard.
In Europe, the problems are deeper. The U.S. central bank has +100 year track record of responses (good and bad) to financial crises; the European Central Bank is still working through its first. Germany’s unemployment rate of 4.9% is less than half of the EU’s 11.5%, creating a notable rift in how the continent’s largest economy views appropriate monetary policy versus the rest of Europe. If central banks need one thing to maintain a sense of control – a necessary convention to achieve long-term social goals – it is for investors to feel that policy is predictable and correct to the current economic conditions. Right now, belief in that convention is eroding when it comes to the ECB.
Another maxim of capital markets – one that the well-dressed Mitford sisters would have appreciated – is that everything should largely match. If stock markets believe in economic growth, then fixed income and commodity markets should share that belief. Global bond yields have been in decline all year, but equity markets (until recently) shrugged that off as fears of localized deflation in Europe. Now, commodity prices like crude oil are following suite with near-dated contracts for West Texas Intermediate at $86, down from $104/barrel in July. With continuing threats from ISIS to the stability of oil-producing parts of the Middle East, you’d think we’d be talking about geopolitical risk premiums in the market. Not deflation.
That drop in oil prices brings us to our third and last broken convention: that markets generally ignore all but the largest and most immediate exogenous shocks. ISIS militants are close to Baghdad and threatening border towns near Turkey, but that group has been terrorizing the region for over a year. Ebola is just the latest in threatened global pandemics – recall concerns over avian influenza or several SARS outbreaks over the last decade. The California drought’s effect on food prices doesn’t get much press at the moment, but beef prices are near all time highs in the U.S. In isolation, all these catalysts would typically be manageable concerns. However, we’ve seen U.S. markets respond negatively to Ebola headlines in the past week, signaling that perhaps the weight of several currently “Smaller” crises can have the same damaging effect as one large one.
In the end, the most central convention of investing – that asset prices move in quasi-predictable cycles – is the one investors seem to be questioning most closely at the moment. After a damaging Financial Crisis and difficult balance sheet recession, owners of financial assets have been ready and willing to believe in a long slow upswing for global economic growth and – correspondingly – the price of stocks. The underpinnings of that belief – central bank policy, corroborating evidence from bond and commodity markets, and a lack of geopolitical challenges – now seem shaky.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1w6CkKL Tyler Durden
A few minutes ago, all hell broke loose in Intel stock when a Reuters fat finger did a JPM deja vu (as a reminder, JPM earnings were released just after 4 am, some three hours before their scheduled release due to a Nasdaq news release error) and released what the robots thought was INTC’s Q3 earnings. Moments later, it was uncovered that while it was a fat finger, the finger hit the wrong button and had erroneously leaked Q2 earnings once again.
Nonetheless, what happened in the interim was your typical algo idiocy, which as Nanex’ Eric Hunsader summarized best, as follows: “This is crazy – note the wide swings in $INTC – some lasting less than 1 second. #HFT madness“
To all those who had limit/stop loss orders, or expected unbroken markets, our condolences.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1sHlbr6 Tyler Durden
With more than 4,400 people dead from Ebola – mainly in West Africa – senior WHO official Bruce Aylward told reporters on Monday that the outbreak was continuing to spread geographically to new districts in the capitals of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. As The BBC reports, the WHO says it is alarmed by the number of health workers exposed to the disease and warned the epidemic threatens the "very survival" of societies and could lead to failed states. "Any sense that the great effort that's been kicked off over the last couple of months is already starting to see an impact, that would be really, really premature," Aylward said, as WHO further warned the number of new Ebola cases may jump to 10,000 a week by Dec. 1 as the deadly viral infection spreads – "the virus is still moving geographically and still escalating in capitals, and that’s what concerns me."
First – the good news:
But – as The FT reports,
The Ebola epidemic in west Africa is set to reach a peak of between 5,000 and 10,000 cases a week by early December – up to 10 times the current official figure – before international action is likely to reverse the rise, the World Health Organisation has predicted.
Dr Bruce Aylward, who recently took charge of the WHO’s operational response to the crisis, also warned on Tuesday not to misinterpret the official Ebola lethality numbers. The latest figures show 8,914 cases and 4,447 deaths so far, suggesting that about half the patients recover, but may only show half the real toll.
…
“We anticipate that the number of cases [per week] occurring by that time will be 5,000 to 10,000,” he said. “It could be higher, it could lower, but it’s going to be in that ballpark.”
* * *
Outside of West Africa, cases continue to rise:
Sadly, European cases continue to deteriorate…
A UN medical worker infected with Ebola has died at a hospital in Germany. Doctors at the hospital in Leipzig said the man, 56, originally from Sudan, died despite receiving experimental drugs to treat the virus. (via BBC):
The man who died in Leipzig had been working as a UN medical official in Liberia – one of the worst affected countries – when he caught Ebola.
He arrived in Germany last Thursday for treatment and was put into a hermetically sealed ward, accessed through airlock systems.
"Despite intensive medical measures and maximum efforts by the medical team, the 56-year-old UN employee succumbed to the serious infectious disease," a statement from St Georg hospital said.
He was the second member of the UN team in Liberia to die from the virus, the BBC's Jenny Hill in Berlin says.
He was also the third Ebola patient to be treated for the virus in Germany after contracting the disease in West Africa.
The Spanish nurse remains in critical condition after becoming the first person to contract the disease outside of Africa last week, although doctors say there are signs of improvement
In the US, potential cases continue to appear…
In Jacksonville, Florida a patient with flu-like symptoms was isolated and tested for Ebola “on the basis of self-reported casual contact with a West Africa traveler,” according to the hospital.
In Boston, Massachusetts on Monday, a patient who had recently traveled to Liberia was evaluated for Ebola and deemed not to have the virus.
And finally, the most worrying case for Americans remains in Kansas…
Kansas University Hospital officials have placed a man into isolation while awaiting the results of Ebola tests, officials said Monday. The patient—a medic who had recently worked in West Africa treating locals for the virus—admitted himself to the hospital with flu-like symptoms. Despite his exposure, officials described his case as “a low risk patient.”
Since once Ebola hits the heartland, one might expect domestic air travel to slow dramatically.
* * *
We leave it to UN Ebola mission leader Tony Banbury to sum up what's needed:
"We need everything. We need it everywhere, and we need it superfast."
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1sHlbaH Tyler Durden
Actually, it may well be QE5, or QE6 depending on how one counts Operation Twist and the extension of QE3, but what matters is that the countdown to whatever it is, has begun courtesy of none other than one of the Fed’s biggest doves, the head of the Fed which spawned Janet Yellen, San Francisco Fed’s John Williams
This is what a happy, money-printing John Williams looks like:
Mor from Reuters:
The head of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank on Tuesday said he would be open to another of round asset purchases if inflation trends were to fall significantly short of the U.S. central bank’s target.
Although he said it would take a big shift in the U.S. economic outlook for the Fed to restart its bond buying, John Williams said the possibility of a new downturn in Europe and other global economic woes pose a risk to the United States. “If we really get a sustained, disinflationary forecast … then I think moving back to additional asset purchases in a situation like that should be something we should seriously consider,” Williams said in an interview with Reuters.
Rinse, repeat, for round number 4 (or 5, or 6), in the process completely destroying what little is left of the middle class and making the uber super rich uberer, superer richer. Because when all is said and done, the Fed will either get runaway inflation through money printing or hyperinflation through collapse of the US reserve currency. There is now no middle ground, further compounded because the Fed has sole control of the CTRL and P buttons.
Needless to say, Williams is right and more QE is just a matter of time before the data-dependent (dependent on the data describing the drop in the S&P that is) Fed realizes that this aggression against rigged markets can not stand. What’s worse, this lunacy will continue until the US people finally go all “French revolution” on the Marriner Eccles building and give the locals the Marie Antoinette “haircut.”
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1v95xEz Tyler Durden
Submitted by Ben Hunt via Salient Partners' Epsilon Theory blog,
People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
? Bill Watterson, “Calvin And Hobbes”
The words are not lies. But they’re only not-lies because if they were found to be lies that would be counterproductive to the social policy goals, not because there’s any fundamental objection to lying. The words are chosen for their truthiness, to use Stephen Colbert’s wonderful term, not their truthfulness. The words are chosen in order to influence us as manipulable objects, not to inform us as autonomous subjects.
It’s always for the best of intentions. It’s always to prevent a panic or to maintain confidence or to maintain social stability. All good and noble ends. But it’s never a stable equilibrium. It’s never a lasting legislative or regulatory peace. The policy always crumbles in Emperor’s New Clothes fashion because we-the-people or we-the-market have not been brought along to make a self-interested, committed decision. Instead the Powers That Be – whether that’s the Fed or the CDC or the White House – take the quick and easy path of selling us a strategy as if they were selling us a bar of soap.
This is what very smart people do when they are, as the Brits would say, too clever by half. This is why very smart people are, as often as not, poor game players. It’s why there aren’t many academics on the pro poker tour. It’s why there haven’t been many law professors in the Oval Office. This isn’t a Democrat vs. Republican thing. This isn’t a US vs. Europe thing. It’s a mass society + technology thing. It’s a class thing. And it’s very much the defining characteristic of the Golden Age of the Central Banker.
Am I personally worried about an Ebola outbreak in the US? On balance … no, not at all. But don’t tell me that I’m an idiot if I have questions about the sufficiency of the social policies being implemented to prevent that outbreak. And make no mistake, that’s EXACTLY what I have been told by CDC Directors and Dr. Gupta and the White House and all the rest of the super genius, supercilious, remain-calm crew.
I am calm. I understand that a victim must be symptomatic to be contagious. But I also understand that one man’s symptomatic is another man’s “I’m fine”, and questioning a self-reporting immigration and quarantine regime does not make me a know-nothing isolationist.
I am calm. I understand that the virus is not airborne but is transmitted by “bodily fluids”. But I also understand why Rule #1 for journalists in West Africa is pretty simple: Touch No One, and questioning the wisdom of sitting next to a sick stranger on a flight originating from, say, Brussels does not make me a Howard Hughes-esque nutjob.
I am calm. I understand that the US public health and acute care infrastructure is light years ahead of what’s available in Liberia or Nigeria. I understand that Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas is not just one of the best health care facilities in Texas, but one of the best hospitals in the world. But I also understand that we are all creatures of our standard operating procedures, and what’s second nature in a hot zone will be slow to catch on in the Birmingham, Alabama ER where my father worked for 30 years.
The mistake made by our modern leaders – in every public sphere! – is to believe that they are operating on a deeper, smarter, more far-seeing level of game-playing than we are. I’ve got a long example of the levels of decision-making in the Epsilon Theory note “A Game of Sentiment”, so I won’t repeat all that here. The basic idea, though, is that by announcing a consensus based on the Narrative authority of Science our leaders believe they are stacking the deck for each of us to buy into that consensus as our individual first-level decision. This can be quite effective when you’re promoting a brand of toothpaste, where it is impossible to be proven wrong in your consensus claims, much less so when you’re promoting a social policy, where all it takes is one sick nurse to make the entire linguistic effort seem staged and for effect … which of course it was. The fact that we go along with a game – that we act AS IF we believe in the Common Knowledge of an announced consensus – does NOT mean that we have accepted the party line in our heart of hearts. It does NOT mean that we are myopic game-players, unerringly led this way or that by the oh-so-clever words of the Missionaries. But that’s how it’s been taken, to terrible effect.
I am calm. But I am angry, too. It doesn’t have to be this way … this consensus-by-fiat style of policy leadership where we are always only one counter-factual reveal – the sick nurse or the sick economy – away from a breakdown in market or governmental confidence. I am angry that we have been consistently misjudged and underestimated, treated as children to be “educated” rather than as citizens to be trusted. I am angry that our most important political institutions have sacrificed their most important asset – not their credibility, but their authenticity – on the altar of political expediency, all in a misconceived notion of what it means to lead.
And yet here we are. On the precipice of that breakdown in confidence. A cold wind of change is starting to blow. Can you feel it?
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1r3tBCQ Tyler Durden