Yesterday, I attended (and apparently partially disrupted) the Bitcoin Law: Regulatory and Transactions Symposium at the New York Law School yesterday morning. See pics below, and make no mistake about it… the world is putting serious intellectual capital into the bitcoin economy now. There’s no turning back!
This panel presided over a discussion of payments and transactions…
Needless to say, the topic of Apple and Apple Pay came up. All of a sudden… BOOM! The RDF appeared out of nowhere and filled the room. Apple is this, Apple is that, Apple is so great as compared to Google. My regular readers and followers know the routine.
My regular readers and followers also know that I couldn’t just sit back and let the Apple RDF simply disrupt everything true, factual and real, so I stepped in and… well, I disrupted :-). Unfortunately, I didn’t get video of it since I was the one disrupting so I decided to put a little home made video in after the fact. Enjoy!
Those who wish to try our new trading platform to go long or short Apple or Google, or both – simply download the client and the quickstart guide, and let ‘er rip! Remember, this is the only place you can trade at this level – peer to peer, without banks, brokerages or exchanges and the counterparty/credit risk and privacy issues that they introduce.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1ouFfMz Reggie Middleton
It appears some of the ‘fundamental’ legs of the face-ripping ramp in stocks are fading. Broken Markets – nope; Fed Speakers – nope (blackout period); Crude rising – nope (WTI back under $81)
But wait – there is a “broken” market – June 2015 Long Bond Futures… fat-fingered, short squeeze, or hedge at any costs?
From Tepper’s “Short The Euro,” call (which he hopes does better than his “bond bull is over” call) to Icahn’s “HY credit is in a bubble… and I am short” warning, The 2-day Robin Hood conference in NYC had something for everyone. Paul Tudor Jones thinks US equities will outperform the rest of the world this year but “the piper will be paid one day,” and Larry Fink says “equities are health” after last week’s correction… and Whitney Tilson is short Lumber Liquidators (trade accordingly).
Day 1:
Greenlight’s Einhorn: reiterates long SunEdison, says long TerraForm; says he owns warrants on Greek banks Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank SA; betting on declines in French sovereign debt
Axel Capital’s Nikolayevsky: recommends long Ezcorp (whose products include pawn and payday loans)
Kynikos’ Chanos: recommends shorting Petrobras (“The economics are just so poor at Petrobras, that we really have called it a scheme, not a stock,”)
Tudor Jones: Paul Tudor Jones Said to See U.S. Stocks Beating Globe in 2014, Bubble in global credit, Rally in USD is over, Short JPY – “The piper will be paid one day.” Jones has been a longtime critic of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy of buying bonds. “If we maintain the status quo, what will be the probable outcome a decade from now? Look no further than Greece for the answer,” Jones told investors in 2010. He reiterated the reference to Greece yesterday by saying the U.S. is headed toward that country’s level of debt within the next 15 years.
Astenbeck’s Hall: Astenbeck’s Hall Said to Forecast Oil Prices Remaining Depressed
Knighthead’s Wagner: American Airlines ‘Attractive Investment,’ Wagner Says
Day 2:
Third Point’s Loeb: likes Amgen, urges breakup, says may be worth $249 per share in breakup; Third Point exited Sony stake in quarter; took stakes in EBAY, BABA in 3Q
Appaloosa’s Tepper: recommends shorting the Euro (based on ECB QE policy)
Icahn (Icahn sat on conference panel; made comments to Bloomberg after presentation) Says EBay Should Pursue PayPal Sale Now in Spin Dual Track; Icahn Had Dinner With EBay CEO John Donahoe Two Nights Ago; Says Buffett Sometimes Too Easy on Companies He Invests In; Says Bubble in HY – long HY CDX.
Glenview’s Robbins: likes Realogy, FNF Group, Community Health Systems, VCA Inc.
Eminence’s Sandler: likes Vivendi, EBay, GNC; sees EBAY climbing 40%; sees GNC up 45% in 6 mos.; likes Wolseley
Corvex’s Meister: recommends Crown Castle long; sees shrs hitting $120 next yr
Mangrove’s Nathaniel August: recommends shorting Australia’s Mesoblast; recommending short World Wrestling, going long Fortress Investment in CNBC interview
SQN’s Amish Mehta: likes Blucora long
EcoR1’s Oleg Nodelman: likes Clovis Oncology
Tiger Ratan’s Nehal Chopra: likes Charter Communications
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has published his fifth installment of
Wastebook, an annual tragicomic testimony to the power of
diffused costs and concentrated benefits. The catalog of 100
asinine government expenditures is wholesome fun for the whole
fiscally conservative family—especially your earnest Republican
aunt who sends you chain emails with that
Mark Twain quote we’ve all seen a million times.
Coburn’s report has it all, from government bailouts for a sheep
research center in Idaho to high-end gym memberships for Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) employees. So pour yourself a stiff
drink (you’ll need it), sit back, and prepare to have your priors
confirmed and your hopes dashed. Because, really, if we can’t stop
the government from spending more than $300,000 to research
synchronized sea monkey dancing, surely we are doomed.
Some spending snafus will be old hat to Reason readers.
Taxpayer
subsidies for sports stadia: $146 million. DHS
grants for SWAT equipment to two sleepy New York towns:
$200,000. A
bankrupt United States Postal Service shipping groceries to
remote Alaskan villages: $77 million.
Others should come as no surprise. The demolition of a new
bridge because it was partially built with Canadian steel: $45,000.
A grant for the Vermont Historical Society to chronicle the state’s
hippie movement: $117,521. The Pentagon destroying $6 billion worth
of unneeded ammunition: $1 billion.
In total, Coburn documents $25 billion in ridiculous government
spending. In a world of multitrillion-dollar budgets, that’s a mere
rounding error. But the report isn’t meant to exhaustively document
all government waste—not even the most egregious. After all,
Medicaid
improperly spent over $14 billion in 2013, which doesn’t make
the list. Rather, the report serves as a colorful reminder that
flush, powerful government agencies combined with private special
interests make for a polity straight out of Joseph Heller.
In North Carolina, managing the retirement savings of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public employees is big business. As the sole fiduciary of the state’s $90 billion pension fund, Treasurer Cowell, a Democrat, was recently named the world’s 18th most important institutional investor by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. The State Employees Association of North Carolina (Seanc) estimates that North Carolina is on track to spend a billion dollars a year of retirees’ pension money on fees to private financial firms. Roughly half of all North Carolina pension deals involve placement agents, and Seanc estimates that has generated roughly $180 million in placement agent fees — costs that are effectively paid by the pension fund, according to critics.
Credit Suisse’s own internal regulations say the company aims to “establish a management organization that avoids the creation or appearance of conflicts of interests.” But the North Carolina agreement (the provisions of which were secret until Seanc’s open records request earlier this year) explicitly allows Credit Suisse to engage in “actual and potential conflicts of interest.” The agreement noted Credit Suisse could receive “placement fees” from the firms in which it invests North Carolina pension money.
When it comes to how the U.S. economy of fraud functions in 2014, the following article has it all. A government official, a global investment bank and a businessman/politician, all working together to enrich themselves at the public’s expense. It demonstrates how big bucks are really earned by insiders in the new American Dream, characterized by extreme cronyism and corruption.
from Liberty Blitzkrieg http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/10/22/another-pension-scandal-the-crony-love-affair-between-north-carolina-credit-suisse-and-erskine-bowles/
via IFTTT
Things were looking grim last week, especially on Wednesday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at one point down by 460.
The CBOE VIX indicator soared to the mid-20s for the first time in two years. Fear was palpable as investors had a classic panic attack.
But then, like the cavalry in those classic John Ford westerns, the Federal Reserve rode to the rescue.
James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said inflation far below its 2% target could lead the Fed to “go on pause on the taper … and wait until we see how the data shakes out into December.” The Fed is on track to finish “tapering” its extraordinary bond buying, or quantitative easing (QE3), at next week’s meeting.
‘They are afraid of the [stock] market going down and they will be blamed.’
James Bianco, president of Bianco Research
But, he added: “If the market is right and it’s portending something more serious for the U.S. economy, then the committee would have an option of ramping up QE [in December].”
Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren later said QE3 should end next week, but he could “easily imagine” not raising rates until 2016.
Translation: We’ve got your back. Don’t fight the Fed.
Investors got the message. The S&P 500 Index advanced for three straight days and the VIX fell under 20 again.
Bullard was only the latest Fed official whose words or actions “just happened” to boost the stock market when it was down.
“They are definitely in the market-manipulation business, and nothing has changed,” said James Bianco, president of Bianco Research LLC in Chicago and a longtime student, and critic, of the Fed.
Called the “Greenspan/Bernanke put,” the Fed’s willingness to jump in when stocks fall dates back a quarter-century.
“The put option is back. If the market sells off enough, they will give us QE4,” Bianco told me.
Conspiracy theorists have pinned it on a government “Plunge Protection Team” that wants to keep stocks from crashing at all costs.
Aug. 31, 2012: In his annual speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke all but announced the third round of QE, extraordinary bond buying of $85 billion a month. The S&P 500, which had languished after a nearly 10% decline, rallied from 1,399 points and hasn’t corrected substantially until now.
Sept. 22, 2011: Following a 19.4% stock sell-off amid a debt crisis in Europe and the U.S., the Fed launched Operation Twist, in which it sold short-term and bought long-term securities to push down long rates. After first slipping, the S&P 500 resumed a multiyear take-off that, with a little help from the Fed, ultimately drove it 80% higher.
Aug. 27, 2010: In another famous Jackson Hole speech, Bernanke vowed the Fed would “do all that it can” and would “provide additional monetary accommodation through unconventional measures if … necessary.” After a 16% correction in the S&P 500, the Fed’s purchase of $600 billion in securities through QE2 would help push stocks 22.8% higher, according to Bianco Research.
Nov. 25, 2008: In the heat of the financial crisis, Bernanke announced the Fed’s first bond-buying program in which it wound up purchasing $1.7 trillion worth of securities. QE helped launch the new bull market and drove the S&P 500 up 50%.
“Three times they put down markers they were going to end QE,” Bianco said. “In all three cases — 20%, 17%, 10% down in the stock market — they reversed.”
As this terrific chart shows, Bianco Research estimates that during all the QEs, stocks rose by 147.5%. Subtracting periods of QE, they lost 27.5%.
Bianco Research LLC
Back in the fall of 1998, Alan Greenspan cut rates three times during the Asian/Russian financial crisis and after the bailout of Long-Term Capital Management. That set the stage for the 1990s bull market’s final blow-out phase.
And after the 1987 stock market crash, when the Dow fell 22.6% in a single day, Greenspan’s Fed bought $17 billion worth of bonds (a lot in those days) and declared the central bank ready “to serve as a source of liquidity to support the economic and financial system.” The panic eased and the bull continued for years.
As in 1987, the specter of 1929 still haunts the Fed. “They are afraid of the market going down and they will be blamed,” explained Bianco. If that means “guiding” the stock market, so be it.
Problem is, Congress gave the Fed a mandate to “promote maximum employment, production, and price stability”; it never explicitly authorized propping up stocks. Yet through a remarkable theoretical stretch called the “wealth effect,” that’s exactly what the Fed is doing.
Don’t get me wrong: This bull market reflects a genuine, albeit below-normal, recovery, and the U.S. is much stronger than the rest of the world. The Fed helped by giving the economy time and breathing room.
But the emergency is over and once accumulated, power is not easily shed. If this pattern continues, the U.S. economy and markets will never stand on their own feet again.
This may be the ultimate test for Janet Yellen and could determine whether she’s remembered as a great Fed chair or just another caretaker of a dead-end course if there ever was one.
via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/OyVXjD-rIbk/story01.htm Tyler Durden
The US government’s debt is getting close to reaching another round number—$18 trillion. It currently stands at more than $17.9 trillion.
But what does that really mean? It’s such an abstract number that it’s hard to imagine it. Can you genuinely understand it beyond just being a ridiculously large number?
Just like humans find it really hard to comprehend the vastness of the universe. We know it’s huge, but what does that mean? It’s so many times greater than anything we know or have experienced.
German astronomer and mathematician Friedrich Bessel managed to successfully measure the distance from Earth to a star other than our sun in the 19th century. But he realized that his measurements meant nothing to people as they were. They were too abstract.
So he came up with the idea of a “light-year” to help people get a better understanding of just how far it really is. And rather than using a measurement of distance, he chose to use one of time.
The idea was that since we—or at least scientists—know what the speed of light is, by representing the distance in terms of how long it would take for light to travel that distance, we might be able to comprehend that distance.
Ultimately using a metric we are familiar with to understand one with which we aren’t.
Why don’t we try to do the same with another thing in the universe that’s incomprehensibly large today—the debt of the US government?
Even more incredible than the debt owed right now is what’s owed down the line from all the promises politicians have been making decade after decade. These unfunded liabilities come to an astonishing $116.2 trillion.
These numbers are so big in fact, I think we might need to follow Bessel’s lead and come up with an entire new measurement to grasp them.
Like light-years, we could try to understand these amounts in terms of how long it would take to pay them off. We can even call them “work-years”.
So let’s see—the Social Security Administration just released data for the average yearly salary in the US in fiscal year that just ended. It stands at $44,888.16.
The current debt level of over $17.9 trillion would thus take more than 398 million years of working at the average wage to pay off.
This means that even if every man, woman and child in the United States would work for one year just to help pay off the debt the government has piled on in their name, it still wouldn’t be enough.
Mind you that this means contributing everything you earn, without taking anything for your basic needs—which equates to slavery.
Now, rather than saying that the national debt is reaching $18 trillion, which means nothing to most people, you could say that the debt would currently take almost 400 million work-years to pay off. Wow.
When accounting for unfunded liabilities, the work-years necessary to pay off the debt amount to astonishing 2.38 BILLION work-years…
And the years of slavery required are only growing.
As an amount alone the debt is meaningless, but in terms of your future enslavement it can be better understood.
To put this in perspective even further—what was the situation like previously?
At the end of the year 2000, the national debt was at $5.7 trillion, while the average yearly income was $32,154. That’s 177 million work-years.
Again—wow.
So just from the turn of the century, we’ve seen the time it would take to pay off the national debt more than double. That means that more than twice as many future generations have been indebted to the system in just 14 years.
It sounds terrible, and it is. But remember, your future generations will only be indebted if you let them be.
What the US government does may affect everyone, but it’s up to you whether or not you and your children are directly enslaved and tied to the system.
Break your chains while you can and set yourself and your offspring free.
from SOVEREIGN MAN http://ift.tt/1DB4AYs
via IFTTT
If you wondered why “The Fed turned the market around” last week, acting so sensitively aggressive to act with stocks only down modestly from record highs, one glance at the following chart might answer the question. During last week’s turbulence, ICSC-Goldman Chain Store Sales growth plunged to a mere 2.1% YoY – the weakest in 5 months and worst for this time of year since 2010.
Does this seem like a nation of consumers willing to take up the animal spirits, confident-about-the-future, torch of escape velocity spending from The Fed?
A group of California business
people gather last month at a confab hosted by the San Gabriel Valley Economic
Partnership to discuss the challenges of operating in the
state. What’s the takeaway in a news story about the meeting?
“Cynthia Kurtz, president and CEO of the San Gabriel Valley
Economic Partnership, acknowledged that California’s stifling
taxes, regulations and environmental mandates won’t be revamped to
more reasonable levels anytime soon.”
Jesus fucking Christ. Why not just throw in the towel, already?
Or at least load up the trucks and head for the state line.
When asked how California’s regulations are affecting their
operations, Mike Mulhausen, president of California Custom Fruits
& Flavors, was quick to respond.
“Since 2009 our workers comp insurance has gone up 300 percent,”
he said.
Strict regulations, high taxes and tough environmental laws have
made day-to-day operations increasingly costly and tough to
navigate.
That was the consensus of a group of local business leaders who
met Wednesday in Walnut to discuss the challenges they face.
…
Wayne Ratkovich, president and CEO of The Ratkovich Co., said
construction projects are frequently bogged down by California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) regulations and the litigation
that often follows. His company’s mission is to profitably build
developments that improve the quality of urban life.
“It’s had a dramatic impact on the ability to build facilities
that are needed,” he said. “It’s rare to find an institutional
investor who will invest in California condos because of all the
litigation.”
Sounds like a great environment for masochists—which might well
be a good description of those who continue to bang their heads
against the wall if they sincerely believe “that California’s
stifling taxes, regulations and environmental mandates won’t be
revamped to more reasonable levels anytime soon.”
That low opinion of the California business climate isn’t
confined to a room full of depressed busines executives. Chief
Executive magazine has ranked California as the
single worst state in which to do business for ten years in a
row. The magazine quotes a CEO saying, “California’s attitude
toward business makes you question why anyone would build a
business there.”
The Tax Foundation isn’t quite so harsh; it puts
California at 48 out of 50 in terms of state business tax
climate—New Jersey and New York fare worse. “The states in the
bottom 10 suffer from the same afflictions: complex, non-neutral
taxes with comparatively high rates.”
Forbes is less tough still, putting California at 39—thought
that’s 43 for regulatory environment. The upwards adjustment seems
to be largely due to an optimistic perception of growth prospects
in what remains a ginormous economy with lots of venture capital
for those willing to stay put.
In North Carolina, managing the retirement savings of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public employees is big business. As the sole fiduciary of the state’s $90 billion pension fund, Treasurer Cowell, a Democrat, was recently named the world’s 18th most important institutional investor by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. The State Employees Association of North Carolina (Seanc) estimates that North Carolina is on track to spend a billion dollars a year of retirees’ pension money on fees to private financial firms. Roughly half of all North Carolina pension deals involve placement agents, and Seanc estimates that has generated roughly $180 million in placement agent fees — costs that are effectively paid by the pension fund, according to critics.
