Tag: news

Tickets to see this year's frigid battle between Seattle and Denver would have cost no more than $85 if they had kept pace with the government's perspective of inflation (CPI). If Super Bowl  tickets had tracked the S&P 500's reflationary trajectory, they would cost $275. Instead, in what is the biggest surge in face-value prices YoY ever – more than doubling last year's – the highest Super Bowl tickets this year cost $2,600 face value, a record high.

Source: Bloomberg

However, resale tickets – where the market really sets the price – tell a quite different (and more) negative story. 

As ConvergEx's Nick Colas notes, in the 48 hours prior to the weekend before Super Bowl XLVIII, the average price paid for a ticket was $2,505, which ranks as the cheapest since the 2010 game.  Prices have fallen fast, too, down almost $1,000 and more than 27% in just three days.  Meanwhile, current hotel and airfare inflation for the New York area isn’t even close to what New Orleans experienced last year.

Note from Nick: Is New York City “The best corner in the game” to host a Super Bowl?  You’d think so, given Gotham’s popularity as a tourist destination and first-class sporting venues in New Jersey to showcase the actual event.  And you’d be wrong.  This year’s game has less of the frenzied pricing for tickets, rooms and amenities compared to past events.  Beth’s been looking at Super Bowl economics for the last four years and has all the details here.
 
It was billed as the most expensive Super Bowl on record, but it isn’t.  Despite Costco selling trip packages starting at $14,000 for two people and the National Football League (NFL) jacking up its maximum face value ticket price by more than 100%, a Super Bowl experience is a relative bargain-buy this year.  And while it didn’t pan out to be the priciest on record, the 2014 showdown between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks is indeed the “most amateur” in 32 years.  Peyton Manning is the only participant to have a Super Bowl ring; just three other Broncos have been to the game without winning; and no Seahawk has ever played for an NFL championship.  In other words, this year’s game showcases the fewest players with prior Super Bowl experience since 1982.

Which generally means both teams are really, really hungry for a win.  And coupled with the relative wealth of the New York City metro area, it wasn’t unrealistic to expect record high costs of attending the game.  Regardless, we analyze pricing surrounding the game every year, because in addition to being the most popular game in America’s most popular sport, the Super Bowl is also a useful case study in economics that allows us to gauge both the confidence of high-end consumers as well as the pricing of temporarily scarce resources.  The game occurs every year at roughly the same time, so this year’s data is comparable to other periods.  And obviously, the content is the same.  We summarize the costs of attending the 2014 edition below.

We’ll start with the ticket price to the game.  Getting into Super Bowl I in 1967 would have cost you $12, assuming you were lucky enough to pay face value to the NFL, which as we know today is no easy feat.  From there, stated ticket prices went to $50 in 1984, $100 in 1988 and $500 in 2003.  Today, the prices printed on the ticket for Super Bowl XLVIII in East Rutherford, NJ are between $500 and $2,600.  The NFL actually reduced the price of its cheapest ticket by $100 this year, but boosted the maximum price by 108% from last year’s $1,250.  The logic behind this huge price increase involves the population density of the Northeast, the probability for a greater number of fans driving to the game (saves money on airfare and rental cars) and the NFL’s desire to close the gap between resale and face value prices.

 

However, no one pays sticker price with the exception of very lucky lottery winners (roughly 30,000 entries for a chance at one of the one-thousand $500 seats), close friends and family of NFL players and coaches, and lucky season ticket holders for one of the two Super Bowl teams.  The “street price” always sets you back a bit more, but this less so this year than in recent years.  Resale prices started out high – $2,700 on average the Monday after the conference championship games – but fell fast and fell sharply.  As of January 24, with nine days to go before the Super Bowl, the cheapest price in the aftermarket was $1,779, which was $409 less than the same period a year ago and $809 less than in 2012.  By Monday, January 27 we found an upper-deck seat available for $1,242.

 

As for the cost of a plane ticket, it’s considerably higher than normal this weekend, though airfare inflation is nothing compared to what visitors to New Orleans experienced last year.  A nonstop, roundtrip flight from Denver to the New York area this weekend goes for about $480, compared with just $230 two weeks from now, or an increase of 196%.  Flights from Seattle to New York are available for $752 this weekend, versus $328 on a typical weekend, marking a 129% inflation rate.  Last year’s matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers in New Orleans resulted in airfare inflation of 335%.

 

The difference in hotel inflation this year is even starker.  The cheapest room still available within five miles of the Meadowlands is at the Knights Inn in South Hackensack, NJ; this 2-star accommodation is going for $133 a night, or 85% more than its usual nightly rate of $72.  For a more upscale experience, the Four Seasons in Manhattan has rooms available for $1,150 a night, or 82% more than the normal $633 nightly rate.  As of press time, there are plenty of rooms still available (ranging from 2- to 5-star options); last year though, the only choices this late in the game were 3-star hotels in the $2,600 to $2,700 range outside of downtown New Orleans.  Inflation there was as high as 1,645%.

Corporations, too, are getting somewhat of a break this year.  The cost of a 30-second ad stands at an exorbitant $4 million, but that’s flat from last year, when big companies faced a 14% markup from 2012.  Still, $4 million is tied for a record high, and the ad slots sold out months in advance of the game.  And as an indication of the relative importance of football versus baseball and basketball, Super Bowl ad sales generate more revenue than ALL of the World Series and the three game of March Madness Final weekend.

So what do we gather from all of this data?  At first glance, it would seem as though the mood of the high-end consumer is a little gloomier than in the past couple of years.  Resale ticket prices – where the market really sets the price – imply more about the economy than NFL-mandated pricing decisions, and this year’s aftermarket is quite soft and getting softer by the day.  And yes, the cost of traveling to New York City this weekend is more than double the norm, but it’s relatively “cheap” versus what New Orleans experienced last year.
 
To be sure, there are some noteworthy economic signals in the data, but a couple of distinct factors indicate that a lukewarm economy is note the sole reason for this year’s relatively soft pricing.  First, the abundant supply of hotel rooms in New York, as well as a total of three major airports in the area, means that resources for getting to the game aren’t as scarce as they are in most other cities in the country (i.e. New Orleans).  It’s basic economics – more supply equals less pricing power.  Also, East Rutherford was blanketed by over a foot of snow last week, and the current forecast for Super Bowl Sunday calls for a high of 38 degrees.  It’s really no surprise that a lot of people prefer to watch the game from the comfort of their own living room, especially with the super technologically-advanced TVs these days.
 
Luxury items are of course a good way to gauge the relative health of the upper middle to upper classes, though pricing a “Bucket list” item (such as the Super Bowl) is a bit harder than just luxury goods in general.  Next year’s game in is Glendale, AZ; it will be 73 and sunny on Sunday.  Since there is a Super Bowl every year, perhaps some people are waiting for a more climatically appealing destination before crossing this item off their bucket list.  True fans, however, will show up regardless of the conditions – they’re not in it for a fun vacation.  The NFL must have understood the pressure on pricing from a cold weather game, and its decision to hold the game in the Northeast in the dead of winter actually made the experience more affordable for diehard fans.  As a result, this year we’re uniquely able to isolate the value of the event to the true fan versus the event-driven bucket list person.  It is certainly enough to command a premium for tickets, airfare and lodging.  But we’ll likely have to wait for next year’s Super Bowl to have a reasonable economic comparison point to past warm weather games.

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Detroit U.S.A.: Once the most prosperous city in America. With a booming manufacturing sector and cultural magnetism, the city had bright horizons after World War II. But as the 1960?s rolled in, the marriage of Big Business and Big Government overtook Detroit. The central planners in government needed the powerful corporations, and the powerful corporations came to depend on the bureaucracy, too. The marriage worked well for the politicians and for their corporate cronies, but Detroit itself entered a decades-long decline. America watched as Detroit slowly bled people, jobs and revenue. Politicians tried spending money. They tried raising taxes. The more they taxed and spent, the faster the city declined.

 

Detroit still had its “Big Three” auto manufacturers, until two of its crown jewels, General Motors and Chrysler, imploded in 2008 under the weight of reckless and subsidized mismanagement.

Instead of allowing market forces to rebuild Detroit and the auto industry, the United States handed billions of dollars to General Motors and Chrysler.

Five years later, the city of Detroit is bankrupt and almost $20 billion dollars in debt. Meanwhile, General Motors has a cash balance of over $20 billion, still owes the taxpayers over $10 billion dollars that outgoing CEO Dan Akerson said will not be paid, and the company continues to benefit from an unprecedented $18 billion tax gift from the bankruptcy.

Why is General Motors walking away with billions while Detroit dies?

How did so much money change hands between the world’s most powerful corporate leaders and government officials while delivering on so little of the promise sold to America by central planners? Bankrupt: How Cronyism & Corruption Took Down Detroit answers this question, and many others.

Complete with the candid analysis of pundits, journalists, analysts and government officials, sourcing of historical news and government archives, and on-scene interviews with everyday Detroiters, Bankrupt sheds light on what happened to Detroit, and who is to blame.

 

And most importantly, it asks “What is next for the Motor City?”

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From Sean Corrigan of Diapason Commodities Management

What Goes Up…?

In terms of markets, equities are sufficiently overpriced and arguably so widely over?owned as to be vulnerable to any disequilibrating change in mass perception.
Though the week which unfolded as this was being written was a more rocky one than has been the case of late, it had not – at publication time – led to an open and widespread retreat from Panglossianism.

Yes, it is true that, just as had happened six months ago when the Fed first started its public ruminations about whether and when to start to reduce its stimulus, emerging markets have suffered a further bout of turbulence and it is also true that some of these are facing increasingly fraught social and political tensions, to boot. The cynic would say that such periods of upheaval are almost intrinsic to their designation as ?emerging? but he would also be quick to point out that such susceptibilities are supposed to be rewarded with either a yield premium or its converse, a price discount.

The ironists among market punters will even attempt to construe all this as a reason to buy more developed world stocks on the premise that the money flooding out of such places as Thailand, the Ukraine, Turkey, and Argentina will be parked in the S&P and the DAX (perhaps overlooking the fact that the purchase price of these now?unwanted positions was most likely borrowed, meaning that their liquidation will also extinguish the associated credit, not re?allocate it).

The Goldilocks lovers will also tend to assume that any such disruption will serve to delay the onset of genuine tightening and may even induce further ill?advised stimulus measures on the part of the major central banks. Certainly Madame Christine Defarge – that tax-sheltered tricoteuse who knits beside the guillotine set up for the hated bourgeoisie – has already begun to militate for such a response.

For their part, the biddable are already trying to drown out the noise of the Cacerolazo by making the fatuous argument that the EMs account for such a piffling portion of world GDP that their fate should be a matter of complete indifference to the rest of us. Needless to say this is a touch disingenuous at best. Their share of end consumption?biased GDP may be lower, but they account for an equivalent fraction, if not a small majority, of global industrial production – and they have been responsible for an even bigger proportion of its growth this past decade. Ditto for trade and ditto for resource use.

Thus, even if the party?goers are becoming a little bleary?eyed and the band a little ragged in its timing, the punch bowl has not yet been drained completely dry, while the only authority figures in sight have rather promised to recharge it than threatening to take it away. We have had sufficient say above about equities, per se.

For bonds we can only add that, for now, the 3% level in the 10?years suffices to satisfy even the most avid fixed income vigilante while a reversal in credit will probably require either an equity collapse or a macro?economic reversal to shake out the yield?hungry and riskpurblind.

As for commodities, they sit at an interesting juncture, with total returns beginning to bump up against their long down trend, thanks partly to steep backwardations in energy and the collision between an unusually cold US winter and a deceleration in dry gas production in the nation’s vast shale deposits. Industrial metals having traded sideways for six months are now hemmed in against the last 4 ½ years’ lows and a trend drawn off 2011’s post?crash zenith (on a TR?in?Yuan basis). Precious metals, after their annus horribilis in 2013 find themselves in not wholly dissimilar circumstances. Thus for each, a break either way could prove decisive. Agri’s bad run now stretched back 15 months and 20% and, guess what, the index is resting on resistance drawn through a series of lows set over the past 3 ½ years, hard up against a (slightly less compelling) down trend from the 2012 local max.

Perhaps more compelling is that, on the longest of long-term charts stretching back a century, metals are back to the centre of the trend of 3.1% (real growth related?) annual stock outperformance, while crude is homing in rapidly on its own 1% trend slippage versus the S&P.

Now this is not to say that the market, having swung from commodity overvaluation in 1980, to a relative stock extreme at the end of the 90s, and then back in favour of commodities in 2011, cannot overshoot again to the equity side of the pendulum. But what it does mean is that any further outperformance will henceforth be adding a premium, not reducing a discount.

It is perhaps too pat to rehearse the argument that if economic activity picks up so as to justify major stock market forward pricing, commodities can only improve while if not, then the impact of such a disappointment on overbought, over?leveraged equities must be bigger than it will be on unloved, under?owned commodities. Life very rarely offers such clear win:win situations – or at least not without a good deal of profit? and moralesapping path dependence ahead of the twin goalposts.

But, for all that, it is not too much of a leap to say that if we believe that the scope for producing profits out of an accounting package rather than off the end of an assembly line is somewhere close to its achievable limits then the maintenance of high, much less higher, stock prices must surely require confirmation in the macro numbers, that finally, after two?and?a?half years of stagnation, we see a meaningful pick up in trade flows, accompanied by signs that smoke is once more emerging from Europe’s factory chimneys.

Additionally, given the close correspondence between emerging equities and industrial commodities, the cry of ‘Fire!’ in that particular Theatre of the Absurd will almost certainly do more damage to the mainstream asset than to the alternatives.

On such a frail foundation of relativities, if for no more solid a reason, it may accordingly be time to start to rebalance portfolios away from those formerly winning positions in which there are too many co?owners and back towards the recent losing ones which have few, if any, friends at all. Risk and reward, is supposed to be the mantra after all.

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Bloomberg notes:

Completion of the entire [Keystone] pipeline would raise prices at the pump in the Midwest and Rocky Mountains 10 to 20 cents a gallon, Verleger, the Colorado consultant, said in an e-mail message.The higher crude prices also would erase the discount enjoyed by cities including Chicago, Cheyenne and Denver, Verleger said.

CNN Money reports:

Gas prices might go up, not down: Right now, a lot of oil being produced in Canada and North Dakota has trouble reaching the refineries and terminals on the Gulf. Since that supply can’t be sold abroad, it reduces the competition for it to Midwest refineries that can pay lower prices to get it.

 

Giving the Canadian oil access to the Gulf means the glut in the Midwest goes away, making it more expensive for the region.

Tyson Slocum – Director of Public Citizens’ Energy Program – explains:

How does bringing in more oil supply result in higher gas prices, you ask? Let me walk you through the facts. A combination of record domestic oil production and anemic domestic demand has resulted in large stockpiles of crude oil in the U.S. In particular, supplies of crude in the critical area of Cushing, OK increased more than 150% from 2004 to early 2011 (compared to a 40% rise for the country as a whole). Segments of the oil industry want to import additional supplies of crude from Canada, bypass the surplus crude stockpiles in Oklahoma in an effort to refine this Canadian imported oil into gasoline in the Gulf Coast with the goal of increasing gasoline exports to Latin America and other foreign markets.

 

***

 

Cushing typically is a busy place – I noted in my recent Senate testimony how Wall Street speculators were snapping up oil storage capacity at Cushing. And all of that surplus capacity is pushing WTI prices down – and for many in the oil business, downward pressure on prices is a terrible thing. As MarketWatch reports, “[B]y running south across six U.S. states from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, [the Keystone pipeline] would skirt the pipeline hub at landlocked Cushing, Okla., a bottleneck that has forced Canadian producers to sell their oil at a steep discount to other crude grades facing fewer obstacles to the market.

 

***

 

There are several global crude oil benchmarks, and the price differential between Brent and WTI now is around $10/barrel, which is a fairly significant spread, historically speaking. Moving more Canadian crude to bypass the                WTI-benchmarked Cushing stocks, the industry hopes, will align WTI’s current price discount to be higher, and more in line with Brent.

 

***

 

The Keystone pipeline isn’t just about expanding the unsustainable mining of … Canadian crude, but also to raise gasoline prices for American consumers whose gasoline is currently priced under WTI crude benchmark prices.

Slocum notes that oil is America’s number 1 import at time same that fuel is America’s number 1 export.

Specifically, more oil is being produced now under Obama than under Bush. But gas consumption is flat.

So producers are exporting refined products. By exporting, producers keep refined products off the U.S. market, creating artificial scarcity and keeping U.S. fuel prices high.

Slocum said that the main goal of the Keystone Pipeline is to import Canadian crude so the big American oil companies can export more refined fuel, driving up prices for U.S. consumers.

 

Tom Steyer points out:

Statements from pipeline developers reveal that the intent of the Keystone XL is not to help Americans, but to use America as an export line to markets in Asia and Europe. As Alberta’s energy minister Ken Hughes acknowledged, “[I]t is a strategic imperative, it is in Alberta’s interest, in Canada’s interest, that we get access to tidewater… to diversify away from the single continental market and be part of the global market.”

And see this NBC News report.

As Fortune explains, the U.S. is now an exporter of refined petroleum products, but Americans aren’t getting reduced prices because the oil companies are now pricing the fuel according to European metrics:

The U.S. is now selling more petroleum products than it is buying for the first time in more than six decades. Yet Americans are paying around $4 or more for a gallon of gas, even as demand slumps to historic lows. What gives?

 

***

 

Americans have been told for years that if only we drilled more oil, we would see a drop in gasoline prices.

 

***

 

But more drilling is happening now, and prices are still going up. That’s because Wall Street has changed the formula for pricing gasoline.

 

***

 

Until this time last year, gas prices hinged on the price of U.S. crude oil, set daily in a small town in Cushing, Oklahoma – the largest oil-storage hub in the country. Today, gasoline prices instead track the price of a type of oil found in the North Sea called Brent crude. And Brent crude, it so happens, trades at a premium to U.S. oil by around $20 a barrel.

 

***

 

So, even as we drill for more oil in the U.S., the price benchmark has dodged the markdown bullet by taking cues from the more expensive oil. As always, we must compete with the rest of the world for petroleum – including our own.

 

This is an unprecedented shift. Since the dawn of the modern-day oil markets in downtown Manhattan in the 1980s, U.S. gasoline prices have followed the domestic oil price ….

 

In the past year, U.S. oil prices have repeatedly traded in the double-digits below the Brent price. That is money Wall Street cannot afford to walk away from.

 

To put it more literally, if a Wall Street trader or a major oil company can get a higher price for oil from an overseas buyer, rather than an American one, the overseas buyer wins. Just because an oil company drills inside U.S. borders doesn’t mean it has to sell to a U.S. buyer. There is patriotism and then there is profit motive. This is why Americans should carefully consider the sacrifice of wildlife preservation areas before designating them for oil drilling. The harsh reality is that we may never see a drop of oil that comes from some of our most precious lands.

 

***

 

With the planned construction of more pipelines from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, oil will be able to leave the U.S. in greater volumes.

This isn’t old news … or just a hypothetical worry.

As Bloomberg reported in December 2013:

West Texas Intermediate crude gained the most since September after TransCanada Corp. (TRP) said it will begin operating the southern leg of its Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf Coast in January.

 

[West Texas Intermediate oil] prices jumped to a one-month high, narrowing WTI’s discount to Brent. TransCanada plans to start deliveries Jan. 3 to Port Arthur, Texas, via the segment of the Keystone expansion project from Cushing, Oklahoma, according to a government filing yesterday. Cushing is the delivery point for WTI futures. Crude [oil pries] also rose as U.S. total inventories probably slid for the first time since September last week.

 

“With the pipeline up and running, you are going to see drops in Cushing inventories,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts. “It drives up WTI prices far more than Brent. You are going to see a narrowing of the Brent-WTI differential.”

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1k0LmUL George Washington

There are some things that today's multi-dimensional, always-on, super-eagle-eye 4k HD televisual extravanganza will not show. High above the crowds roaring in satisfaction at $2,600 per ticket show, SWAT teams and snipers will be attending Super Bowl XLVIII. The Super Bowl, simply put, is a level one national security event. So, behave yourself; do not chant 'hawks' too loud; don't boo the 'Omahas' too much; but most of all don't worry, since the FBI is watching you – “If you have an active shooter or you have anyone who may have a bomb. Snipers have a better angle then anyone who is on the ground to actually hit that target… you have individuals who are at high altitudes inside the arena and then you have individuals that are on the ground moving in and around the crowd."

From My9 New Jersey:

 Along with excited and eager fans, SWAT teams and Snipers will be attending Super Bowl XLVIII. The reason for such high precautions is because the Super Bowl is a level one national security event.

 

Former FBI agent Jonathan Gilliam explains how snipers work in coordination with SWAT teams to give the fans and players ultimate safety. “If you have an active shooter or you have anyone who may have a bomb. Snipers have a better angle then anyone who is on the ground to actually hit that target. It’s an entire team that communicates. You have individuals who are at high altitudes inside the arena and then you have individuals that are on the ground moving in and around the crowd,” he explained.

 

Gilliam discussed an exclusive video of a sniper- Initiated hostage rescue exercise. The video showed how snipers maneuver once shots are heard. Snipers are always hidden and are not visual. These same procedures will be taken if need be during the game.

 

Just because sniper and SWAT teams will be present at the game, doesn’t mean there is anything for game-goers to worry about. This is a typical assurance taken for an event like the Super Bowl, and the same protocol is always followed every year. The snipers will just be doing their job so fans can have an enjoyably safe experience.

… unless you piss off the sniper that is.

 

My9 New Jersey

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: The Daily Mail

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

There are some things that today's multi-dimensional, always-on, super-eagle-eye 4k HD televisual extravanganza will not show. High above the crowds roaring in satisfaction at $2,600 per ticket show, SWAT teams and snipers will be attending Super Bowl XLVIII. The Super Bowl, simply put, is a level one national security event. So, behave yourself; do not chant 'hawks' too loud; don't boo the 'Omahas' too much; but most of all don't worry, since the FBI is watching you – “If you have an active shooter or you have anyone who may have a bomb. Snipers have a better angle then anyone who is on the ground to actually hit that target… you have individuals who are at high altitudes inside the arena and then you have individuals that are on the ground moving in and around the crowd."

From My9 New Jersey:

 Along with excited and eager fans, SWAT teams and Snipers will be attending Super Bowl XLVIII. The reason for such high precautions is because the Super Bowl is a level one national security event.

 

Former FBI agent Jonathan Gilliam explains how snipers work in coordination with SWAT teams to give the fans and players ultimate safety. “If you have an active shooter or you have anyone who may have a bomb. Snipers have a better angle then anyone who is on the ground to actually hit that target. It’s an entire team that communicates. You have individuals who are at high altitudes inside the arena and then you have individuals that are on the ground moving in and around the crowd,” he explained.

 

Gilliam discussed an exclusive video of a sniper- Initiated hostage rescue exercise. The video showed how snipers maneuver once shots are heard. Snipers are always hidden and are not visual. These same procedures will be taken if need be during the game.

 

Just because sniper and SWAT teams will be present at the game, doesn’t mean there is anything for game-goers to worry about. This is a typical assurance taken for an event like the Super Bowl, and the same protocol is always followed every year. The snipers will just be doing their job so fans can have an enjoyably safe experience.

… unless you piss off the sniper that is.

 

My9 New Jersey

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: The Daily Mail

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

So which is it?

On one hand, the record build up of inventory in the past year and especially in the last two quarters, is the primary reason why so many economists were fooled into believing the US economy was approaching escape velocity, as can be seen in BEA data. On the other hand, the composite of the manufacturing and non-manufacturing ISMs suggest that not only did inventory accumulation halt in the second half, but with a most recent print of 47.5, imply that inventory was already being rapidly liquidated as 2013 was ending.

One thing is clear: they can’t both be correct.

If the BEA data is accurate, then the GDP heading into 2014 will be a major disappointment as $127 billion in inventory will be subtracted from whatever consumption-driven growth there is in the new year (and judging by retailer performance in Q4 as well as the collapse in the personal savings rate, there is hardly anything left in the pocket of the US consumer to drive consumption higher).

If the ISM data is accurate, then recent GDP is set for the mother of all downward revisions, as it becomes clear that growth in H2 was artificially inflated precisely as we explained in December, and about 2% of annualized economic growth has to be removed from Q3 and Q4 numbers, suggesting that the Fed made an epic miscalculation with its Taper timing, withdrawing much needed “flow” injections just as the economy had in reality hit a brick wall.

We eagerly look forward to finding what the answer is to this latest Schrodinger riddle of a schizophrenic economy which, like in China, can magically grow and contract at the same time and but whose real purpose, is to baffle as many with bullshit as possible.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1fBzww4 Tyler Durden

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