Tag: finance

Following the release of greatly embarrassing emails that are forcing Hillary to lose control of the narrative, Politico reports, The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched a probe into the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s emails. We are sure Director Comey will be closely watching and AG Lynch will once again take his word as gospel as somehow, we suspect, a narrative of Trump-Putin partnership will be created (or at the very least questions raised).

“The FBI is investigating a cyber intrusion involving the DNC and are working to determine the nature and scope of the matter,” the agency said in a statement.

 

“A compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously, and the FBI will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace.”

The Trump/Putin narrative has begun (via The Observer)…

It turns out there’s hardly any mystery there. It’s no secret that the DNC was recently subject to a major hack, one which independent cybersecurity experts easily assessed as being the work of Russian intelligence through previously known cut-outs. One of them, called COZY BEAR or APT 29, has used spear-phishing to gain illegal access to many private networks in the West, as well as the White House, the State Department, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. Another hacking group involved in the attack on the DNC, called FANCY BEAR or APT 28, is a well-known Russian front, as I’ve previously profiled.

 

These bears didn’t make much efforts to hide their DNC hack—in one case leaving behind a Russian name in Cyrillic as a signature—and Kremlin attribution has been confirmed by independent analysis by a second cybersecurity firm.

 

The answer then is simple: Russian hackers working for the Kremlin cyber-pilfered the DNC then passed the purloined data, including thousands of unflattering emails, to Wikileaks, which has shown them to the world.

 

This, of course, means that Wikileaks is doing Moscow’s bidding and has placed itself in bed with Vladimir Putin. In response to the data-dump, the DNC has said as much and the Clinton campaign has endorsed the view that Moscow prefers Donald Trump in this election, and it’s using Wikileaks to harm Hillary. This view, considered bizarre by most people as late as last week, is being taken seriously by the White House—as it should be.

But, as AP reports, Donald Trump on Monday dismissed as a “joke” claims by Hillary Clinton’s campaign that Russia is trying to help Trump by leaking thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta added fuel to the debate Monday, saying there was “a kind of bromance going on” between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump. The Clinton campaign says Russia favors Trump’s views, especially on NATO.

 

“The new joke in town is that Russia leaked the disastrous DNC e-mails, which should have never been written (stupid), because Putin likes me,” Trump wrote as part of a series of Tweets. “Hillary was involved in the e-mail scandal because she is the only one with judgement (sic) so bad that such a thing could have happened.”

 

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said U.S. officials have seen indications of foreign hackers spying on the presidential candidates, and that they expect more cyberthreats against the campaigns.

Clinton’s campaign stood firmly behind their claims of Russian involvement Monday.

“There is a consensus among experts that it is indeed Russia that is behind this hack of the DNC,” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told CNN.

 

On Sunday, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said that it was “concerning last week that Donald Trump changed the Republican platform to become what some experts would regard as pro-Russian.”

Trump’s senior policy adviser Paul Manafort called statements by the Clinton campaign “pretty desperate.”

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The US is in a recession.

Quarterly earnings by publicly traded corporations have fallen for SIX straight quarters. That covers a time of 18 months.

This has never happened outside of a recession.

Against this economic backdrop, stocks are in “la la land” rallying to new all-time highs.

The more earnings fall while stocks move higher, the BIGGER the bubble gets.

Stock bubbles are formed when stocks detach from fundamentals. By the look of things, this hit in 2015. And is has gotten significantly worse since then.

At current levels, the S&P 500 needs to fall almost 40% to catch up with earnings.

On that note, we are already preparing our clients for this with a 21-page investment report titled the Stock Market Crash Survival Guide.

In it, we outline the coming crash will unfold…which investments will perform best… and how to take out “crash” insurance trades that will pay out huge returns during a market collapse.

We are giving away just 1,000 copies of this report for FREE to the public.

To pick up yours, swing by:

http://ift.tt/1HW1LSz

Best Regards

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

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Earlier today, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere made waves when he said that the recent surge in deadly attacks on German soil is “unrelated to Merkel’s refugee policy” and instead suggested that  “psychiatric liability” is a possible motive behind the recent deeds.

German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere

Unfortunately, concurrent with his speech facts emerged which promptly refuted this hypothesis, when Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said that the Syrian refugee who blew himself up outside a music festival in Ansbach had pledged loyalty to the Daesh leader which confirmed an Islamist motive of the attack.

Fifteen people were injured in the Ansbach blast, four of them seriously, Ansbach Mayor Carda Seidel said. None of the injuries were life-threatening, she said.

“A video with a corresponding threat of an attack made by the assailant was found on his cellphone, in which he declares in Arabic…in the name of Allah allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a known Islamist leader, and threatens vengeance against Germans because they stand in Islam’s way,” Herrmann told reporters.

The bomber, a 27-year-old Syrian man who was supposed to be deported, had bomb-making materials in his apartment, Herrmann said. Those materials included fuel, hydrochloric acid, alcohol-based cleaner, soldering irons, wires, and pebbles.

The past year’s influx of refugees and migrants to Germany has unsettled parts of the public, with some politicians claiming it was only a matter of time before Islamist terrorism also made its way in. They were right.

More than a million people seeking asylum have arrived in Germany since January 2015, among them more than 300,000 Syrians, according to government figures. Having sternly denied any linkes between refugees and terrorist, two weeks ago Angela Merkel for the first time admitted that some terrorists entered Europe among the wave of migrants that fled from Syria adding that the refugee flow was used in part to “smuggle terrorists” on to the continent.

Refugees waiting transportation to Germany

The late Sunday blast in Ansbach, a small town in Bavaria, marked the fourth high-profile act of violence within in a week in Germany and the third involving an asylum applicant, ramping up jitters over last year’s influx of migrants and refugees into the country. The suicide bombing was also the first such attack in Germany in recent memory. While Belgium and France have suffered from Islamist suicide bombings in the past year, Germany has avoided significant terrorist attacks.

This is how it happened: at 9:45 p.m., security personnel noticed a young man with a backpack walking back and forth outside the entrance to the concert attended by 2,500 people, police said in a statement Monday. He then walked to the outdoor seating area of the bar, where the explosion hit, they said. The alleged terrorist had sought to enter the concert but couldn’t get in, Herrmann said earlier Monday.

He was already known to police and had been treated twice after trying to take his own life, Mr. Herrmann said. He was also known because of a previous drug misdemeanor, a police spokeswoman said.

The man had come to Germany two years ago and applied for asylum. His application was rejected last year but he wasn’t deported to Syria because of the civil war, as is standard practice in Germany, Mr. Herrmann said.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said he was instead supposed to be deported to Bulgaria because the man had been registered there on his way to Germany. It wasn’t clear, the spokesman said, why the man hadn’t yet left the country.

The WSJ adds that on his phone, authorities found an Arabic-language video in which the bomber threatens an attack against Germans “in the name of Allah” and pledges allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Herrmann said.

“He then warns explicitly of an act of revenge against the Germans because they are obstructing Islam,” Mr. Herrmann said. “According to this video, it is beyond doubt that this attack was a terrorist attack with a perpetrator who had Islamist convictions.”

In trying to moderate already rising resentment against refugees, Herrmann said violent extremism “wasn’t typical for refugees in our country.” But, he added, “it is clear that with these attacks in quick succession, the worries and fears in our population will grow.”

It’s not just the locals who will be worried. Ansbach hosts a U.S. military installation, United States Army Garrison Ansbach, which is home to the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade and has 7,000 soldiers, civilians, family members and retirees living on and off base.  The garrison implemented security measures on Monday that included two gate closures. A spokeswoman said no military personnel were among the injured in Sunday’s blast, and there were no indications that Americans were targeted. 

“This scares the hell out of me,” said Gregory Garcia, a 31-year-old military veteran in Ansbach who is from Texas. “It does remind us of wartime”, Gregory added quoted by the WSJ.

One thing that will not help is that moments after the press conference determining that terrorism was indeed the cause, ISIS’ Amaq media outlet claimed that the Ansbach attack was carried out by an ISIS “soldier.” 

Breaking: #ISIS‘ Amaq claims that #Ansbach #Germany attack carried out by #ISIS “soldier”, based on”insider source” http://pic.twitter.com/6lCQ6HRLjX

— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) July 25, 2016

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With President Obama determined not to allow the nation to believe in reality – proclaiming the error of the "doom and gloom" narrative – we found it fascinating that real Americans (as exemplified by Dallas Fed respondents) appear to see a different less 'exceptional' America that the propagandist-in-chief: "Entry-level candidates cannot read or follow instructions. Most cannot do simple math problems. What is wrong with the educational system?"

June responses (from real American business owners, not politicians)…

Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing

• Industrial production and machinery exports are hurting big time. The global economy, dollar and EuroAsia financial problems are not helping American manufacturers.
• Macroeconomic concerns are causing softening in demand.

 

Transportation Equipment Manufacturing

• Our business is seasonal, so we generally see a downturn in fall/winter. This is not an indication of economic conditions.
• The economy is nervous, shaky and uncertain. Fed policy has us locked into a lethargic and tenuous position. It appears the Fed doesn’t know how to get off the horse it created. The Fed talks interest rate increases but looks for every reason not to do it. Until the Fed backs out of trying to manage the economy, we will be stuck on the cusp of slow growth and a recession. Add the difficulty in getting commercial and retail financing and rising employee costs (health care, minimum wage threats and the ridiculous overtime executive order), and hiring for many of us will be minimal. We cannot have millions of people out of the workforce and be healthy economically—they are a burden not a benefit.

 

Printing and Related Support Activities

• June has become stupid slow for us, and we are not sure why. We have a decent backlog of work but nothing is here for us to work on now. We are very worried about this goofy decision by the Department of Labor to adjust salary levels for overtime; that makes zero sense to us and will have a negative impact on how we go about compensating office people.

 

Miscellaneous Manufacturing

• We are experiencing major demand instability in the U.S. Continued management focus on upcoming regulatory changes is keeping us from pursuing new markets (especially internationally) and delaying making long-term investments. Major human resources policy updates and changes have resulted in eliminating positions (in the future as people are promoted or leave the company they will not be replaced) and considering moving all salary people who do not travel to hourly. Although we need more people, we are increasing the requirements for the open positions to reflect higher cost thresholds and most likely will delay hiring decisions for most positions until the impacts of the changes are fully understood.
• The Affordable Care Act (ACA) continues a downward push on productivity as it limits our hiring because we can't afford the estimated 60 percent increase in health care premiums that an ACA-compliant policy would cost. Steel raw material costs are rising, but the steel scrap is falling, therefore increasing our costs. Customers are not accepting price increases. It is slow, and the general business climate seems tepid at best.

July responses (from real American business owners, not politicians)…

Chemical Manufacturing

• Entry-level candidates cannot read or follow instructions. Most cannot do simple math problems. What is wrong with the educational system?

 

Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing

• There is a shortage of both skilled and unskilled labor. With labor costs increasing, we may be forced to drop health care, which is increasing in cost also.
• Large customers are dragging out their payments, causing cash flow problems.
• The ability to find qualified employees is our largest problem at this time.
• The global economies and the U.S. economy are very weak and uncertain.

 

Machinery Manufacturing

• The six-month survey is hopeful, not a forecast. Low oil prices are still having a negative impact on overall business growth.
• The longest and worst oil price plunge in recent history continues to have a strong negative effect on Texas business activity. We also see a weak market for capital equipment for manufacturing across the country. We expect the Federal Reserve will soon acknowledge the fact we are in recession and drop interest rates.

 

Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing

• We are seeing very slow, but steady growth. We have no expectation of that changing for the foreseeable future.
• We have to do something about the dollar—the high dollar is killing our capital equipment manufacturing; our products are not competitive out in the world.

 

Textile Product Mills

• It is very difficult to get qualified employees.

 

Miscellaneous Manufacturing

• Europe, hot weather, riots, shootings and the political situation are not conducive to a healthy economy.

Yeah but apart from that, everything is awesome?

Which may explains this…

TRUMP now leads in 538's now-cast, our estimate of what would happen in an election today. https://t.co/djsqNajFrh http://pic.twitter.com/7DvrdieHOw

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 25, 2016

Source: Dallas Fed

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Authored by Michael Moore,

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, ‘cause you’ll be saying them for the next four years: “PRESIDENT TRUMP.”

Never in my life have I wanted to be proven wrong more than I do right now.

I can see what you’re doing right now. You’re shaking your head wildly – “No, Mike, this won’t happen!” Unfortunately, you are living in a bubble that comes with an adjoining echo chamber where you and your friends are convinced the American people are not going to elect an idiot for president. You alternate between being appalled at him and laughing at him because of his latest crazy comment or his embarrassingly narcissistic stance on everything because everything is about him. And then you listen to Hillary and you behold our very first female president, someone the world respects, someone who is whip-smart and cares about kids, who will continue the Obama legacy because that is what the American people clearly want! Yes! Four more years of this!

You need to exit that bubble right now. You need to stop living in denial and face the truth which you know deep down is very, very real. Trying to soothe yourself with the facts – “77% of the electorate are women, people of color, young adults under 35 and Trump cant win a majority of any of them!” – or logic – “people aren’t going to vote for a buffoon or against their own best interests!” – is your brain’s way of trying to protect you from trauma. Like when you hear a loud noise on the street and you think, “oh, a tire just blew out,” or, “wow, who’s playing with firecrackers?” because you don’t want to think you just heard someone being shot with a gun. It’s the same reason why all the initial news and eyewitness reports on 9/11 said “a small plane accidentally flew into the World Trade Center.” We want to – we need to – hope for the best because, frankly, life is already a shit show and it’s hard enough struggling to get by from paycheck to paycheck. We can’t handle much more bad news. So our mental state goes to default when something scary is actually, truly happening. The first people plowed down by the truck in Nice spent their final moments on earth waving at the driver whom they thought had simply lost control of his truck, trying to tell him that he jumped the curb: “Watch out!,” they shouted. “There are people on the sidewalk!”

Well, folks, this isn’t an accident. It is happening. And if you believe Hillary Clinton is going to beat Trump with facts and smarts and logic, then you obviously missed the past year of 56 primaries and caucuses where 16 Republican candidates tried that and every kitchen sink they could throw at Trump and nothing could stop his juggernaut. As of today, as things stand now, I believe this is going to happen – and in order to deal with it, I need you first to acknowledge it, and then maybe, just maybe, we can find a way out of the mess we’re in.

Don’t get me wrong. I have great hope for the country I live in. Things are better. The left has won the cultural wars. Gays and lesbians can get married. A majority of Americans now take the liberal position on just about every polling question posed to them: Equal pay for women – check. Abortion should be legal – check. Stronger environmental laws – check. More gun control – check. Legalize marijuana – check. A huge shift has taken place – just ask the socialist who won 22 states this year. And there is no doubt in my mind that if people could vote from their couch at home on their X-box or PlayStation, Hillary would win in a landslide.

But that is not how it works in America. People have to leave the house and get in line to vote. And if they live in poor, Black or Hispanic neighborhoods, they not only have a longer line to wait in, everything is being done to literally stop them from casting a ballot. So in most elections it’s hard to get even 50% to turn out to vote. And therein lies the problem for November – who is going to have the most motivated, most inspired voters show up to vote? You know the answer to this question. Who’s the candidate with the most rabid supporters? Whose crazed fans are going to be up at 5 AM on Election Day, kicking ass all day long, all the way until the last polling place has closed, making sure every Tom, Dick and Harry (and Bob and Joe and Billy Bob and Billy Joe and Billy Bob Joe) has cast his ballot?  That’s right. That’s the high level of danger we’re in. And don’t fool yourself — no amount of compelling Hillary TV ads, or outfacting him in the debates or Libertarians siphoning votes away from Trump is going to stop his mojo.

Here are the 5 reasons Trump is going to win:

1.Midwest Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt Brexit.  I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump is going to hammer Clinton on this and her support of TPP and other trade policies that have royally screwed the people of these four states. When Trump stood in the shadow of a Ford Motor factory during the Michigan primary, he threatened the corporation that if they did indeed go ahead with their planned closure of that factory and move it to Mexico, he would slap a 35% tariff on any Mexican-built cars shipped back to the United States. It was sweet, sweet music to the ears of the working class of Michigan, and when he tossed in his threat to Apple that he would force them to stop making their iPhones in China and build them here in America, well, hearts swooned and Trump walked away with a big victory that should have gone to the governor next-door, John Kasich.

 

From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them nice big check before leaving the room. What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here. Elmer Gantry shows up looking like Boris Johnson and just says whatever shit he can make up to convince the masses that this is their chance! To stick to ALL of them, all who wrecked their American Dream! And now The Outsider, Donald Trump, has arrived to clean house! You don’t have to agree with him! You don’t even have to like him! He is your personal Molotov cocktail to throw right into the center of the bastards who did this to you! SEND A MESSAGE! TRUMP IS YOUR MESSENGER!

 

And this is where the math comes in. In 2012, Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s 64. All Trump needs to do to win is to carry, as he’s expected to do, the swath of traditional red states from Idaho to Georgia (states that’ll never vote for Hillary Clinton), and then he just needs these four rust belt states. He doesn’t need Florida. He doesn’t need Colorado or Virginia. Just Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And that will put him over the top. This is how it will happen in November.

 

2. The Last Stand of the Angry White Man. Our male-dominated, 240-year run of the USA is coming to an end. A woman is about to take over! How did this happen?! On our watch! There were warning signs, but we ignored them. Nixon, the gender traitor, imposing Title IX on us, the rule that said girls in school should get an equal chance at playing sports. Then they let them fly commercial jets. Before we knew it, Beyoncé stormed on the field at this year’s Super Bowl (our game!) with an army of Black Women, fists raised, declaring that our domination was hereby terminated! Oh, the humanity!

 

That’s a small peek into the mind of the Endangered White Male. There is a sense that the power has slipped out of their hands, that their way of doing things is no longer how things are done. This monster, the “Feminazi,”the thing that as Trump says, “bleeds through her eyes or wherever she bleeds,” has conquered us — and now, after having had to endure eight years of a black man telling us what to do, we’re supposed to just sit back and take eight years of a woman bossing us around? After that it’ll be eight years of the gays in the White House! Then the transgenders! You can see where this is going. By then animals will have been granted human rights and a fuckin’ hamster is going to be running the country. This has to stop!

 

3. The Hillary Problem. Can we speak honestly, just among ourselves? And before we do, let me state, I actually like Hillary – a lot – and I think she has been given a bad rap she doesn’t deserve. But her vote for the Iraq War made me promise her that I would never vote for her again. To date, I haven’t broken that promise. For the sake of preventing a proto-fascist from becoming our commander-in-chief, I’m breaking that promise. I sadly believe Clinton will find a way to get us in some kind of military action. She’s a hawk, to the right of Obama. But Trump’s psycho finger will be on The Button, and that is that. Done and done.

 

Let’s face it: Our biggest problem here isn’t Trump – it’s Hillary. She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70% of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really believing in anything other than what can get you elected. That’s why she fights against gays getting married one moment, and the next she’s officiating a gay marriage. Young women are among her biggest detractors, which has to hurt considering it’s the sacrifices and the battles that Hillary and other women of her generation endured so that this younger generation would never have to be told by the Barbara Bushes of the world that they should just shut up and go bake some cookies. But the kids don’t like her, and not a day goes by that a millennial doesn’t tell me they aren’t voting for her. No Democrat, and certainly no independent, is waking up on November 8^th excited to run out and vote for Hillary the way they did the day Obama became president or when Bernie was on the primary ballot. The enthusiasm just isn’t there. And because this election is going to come down to just one thing — who drags the most people out of the house and gets them to the polls — Trump right now is in the catbird seat.

 

4. The Depressed Sanders Vote. Stop fretting about Bernie’s supporters not voting for Clinton – we’re voting for Clinton! The polls already show that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary this year than the number of Hillary primary voters in ’08 who then voted for Obama. This is not the problem. The fire alarm that should be going off is that while the average Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to somewhat reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be what’s called a “depressed vote” – meaning the voter doesn’t bring five people to vote with her. He doesn’t volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never talks in an excited voice when asked why she’s voting for Hillary. A depressed voter. Because, when you’re young, you have zero tolerance for phonies and BS. Returning to the Clinton/Bush era for them is like suddenly having to pay for music, or using MySpace or carrying around one of those big-ass portable phones. They’re not going to vote for Trump; some will vote third party, but many will just stay home. Hillary Clinton is going to have to do something to give them a reason to support her  — and picking a moderate, bland-o, middle of the road old white guy as her running mate is not the kind of edgy move that tells millenials that their vote is important to Hillary. Having two women on the ticket – that was an exciting idea. But then Hillary got scared and has decided to play it safe. This is just one example of how she is killing the youth vote.

 

5. The Jesse Ventura Effect. Finally, do not discount the electorate’s ability to be mischievous or underestimate how any millions fancy themselves as closet anarchists once they draw the curtain and are all alone in the voting booth. It’s one of the few places left in society where there are no security cameras, no listening devices, no spouses, no kids, no boss, no cops, there’s not even a friggin’ time limit. You can take as long as you need in there and no one can make you do anything. You can push the button and vote a straight party line, or you can write in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There are no rules. And because of that, and the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for Trump not because they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can. Just because it will upset the apple cart and make mommy and daddy mad. And in the same way like when you’re standing on the edge of Niagara Falls and your mind wonders for a moment what would that feel like to go over that thing, a lot of people are going to love being in the position of puppetmaster and plunking down for Trump just to see what that might look like. Remember back in the ‘90s when the people of Minnesota elected a professional wrestler as their governor? They didn’t do this because they’re stupid or thought that Jesse Ventura was some sort of statesman or political intellectual. They did so just because they could. Minnesota is one of the smartest states in the country. It is also filled with people who have a dark sense of humor — and voting for Ventura was their version of a good practical joke on a sick political system. This is going to happen again with Trump.

Coming back to the hotel after appearing on Bill Maher’s Republican Convention special this week on HBO, a man stopped me. “Mike,” he said, “we have to vote for Trump. We HAVE to shake things up.” That was it. That was enough for him. To “shake things up.” President Trump would indeed do just that, and a good chunk of the electorate would like to sit in the bleachers and watch that reality show.

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The Canadian Dollar has now dropped 5 straight days, breaking above 1.3200 to the USD – its weakest in 4 months – as FX and equity markets catch up to oil’s recent demise…

We are sure this will ‘help’ US corporate earnings… but when has that ever mattered.

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There was a time when Caterpillar was considered a key bellwether for trends in global heavy industries, and thus a proxy for the manufacturing sector. However, over the past 3 years that has not been the case for one simple reason: if one looks only at trends revealed by CAT’s retail sales the global economy has been mired not in a recession but an unprecedented depression, one which has now lasted some 43 months. That’s how long CAT has gone without a single positive month in global retail sales, well over double the duration of the acute collapse in demand following the financial crisis.

Since there is little we can add to this story that we haven’t sasid for the past 42 months in our monthly monitoring of demand for CAT products, we will just lay out the breakdown:

• Asia Pacific: down 7%,
• Europe, Africa, and Middle East: down 4%
• Latin America: down 38%
• North America: down 12%
• Total: down 12%

And while there was a silver lining in construction industries, wwhere Asia/Pac and EAME posted a welcome rebound of 1% and 3%, respectively, the collapse in demand for resource industries machine continues at an unprecedented pace:

• Asia Pacific: down 28%,
• Europe, Africa, and Middle East: down 24%
• Latin America: down 41%
• North America: down 31%
• Total: down 30%

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For the 19th week in a row, it appears low oil prices are not “unequivocally good” for the Dallas Fed region. Despite surging from -18.3 to -1.8 (beating expectations by 3 standard deviations) we note that wages tumbled on the month (to lowest since Sept 2013), as did prices received. The biggest driver of the bounce appears to be ‘hope’ about the future new orders growth rate (20.3 to 34.7)…

Dallas Fed bounced to its highest since Dec 2014… but remains in contraction

As Wages drop to Sept 2013 lows…

Charts: Bloomberg

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The dramatic shrinkage of Greek earnings due to recession, the explosion of unemployment and the dominance of flexible forms of employment is exposed in a new document submitted by an experts’ committee to Greek Labor Ministry. As KeepTalkingGreece reports, the document featured details wage inequality during the period 2010-2015 and exposes a new social class of workers: the Neo-Poor Greeks earning wages much less than the unemployment allowance of 360 euro.

According to data of the Ministry:

126,956 employees are paid a gross monthly salary of 100 euros.

 

343,760 employees are paid monthly salaries between 100 and 400 euros gross.

 

Basically it is workers with part-time or job rotations of two or three days a week or even of a few hours a week.

It is worth noting that, according to data from Greece’s biggest Social Security Fund for Employees (IKA),  the average wage for part time ranges from €400 to €420 gross per month.

These figures show that the number of the new-poor workers paid monthly wages up to €510 gross totals 432,033 people.

Data: monthly gross salary for private sector workers for 2015

Left column: wages in euro Right column total number of workers

Note: Full Time Minimum monthly wage for those below 25 years old is €510.94 gross. Minimum wage for those above 25 is €586* gross. (source: Naftemporiki)

Further data from the Labor Ministry show the increase of part-time contracts/flexible work contracts.

For example: in the time period July 2013 – July 2016:

152,636 full time contracts were changed into part-time or rotating job contracts.

The paper However, contrary to the International Monetary Fund that connects ‘competitiveness’ with ‘labor cost’ the paper stresses that:

"The lack of competitiveness is characterized as a “structural problem” which is mainly related to the specialization of the global division of labor in conjunction with the methods of organization and administration of the Greek economy rather than to the labor cost.

 

The data suggest that the economic downturn has acted as an accelerator of the expansion of part-time forms, resulting especially after 2012 to have a dramatic increase in the number of part-time workers, but also an increase in converting  full-time contracts to part-time or job rotation.”

“Labor Reforms” is the next hot potato between the Greek government and the lenders and ‘negotiations’ are expected to open officially in September. Among others, lenders want lowering the minimum wage, scrapping the 13th & 14th salary (Christmas and vacation bonus), scrapping wage raises every 3rd year.

Labor Reforms are a precondition for the second Review of the Greek Program.

* the cost for employer is additional €78 per month employers’ share for social security (13.33%) – The wage per hour has dropped down to €3.

Even if the above date show the grim reality of workers’ lives, the only good thing out of it is that they refer to “registered work” with social security. That means, that workers have at least some form of health care. On the other hand, these ‘flexible’ and low paid jobs do not add exactly to fill social security funds with much needed euro. Furthermore, those working at these ridiculous wages, they will suffer a very bitter shock, once they will have to go to retirement.

via http://ift.tt/2a8QxCV Tyler Durden