Monday, May 31, 2010

Memorial Day Tribute

There is nothing more noble than serving society. It is an ultimate expression of integrity, honor and courage. And given we have a volunteer military force, a substantial number of those who serve our country are society's least economically mobile. Service provides an opportunity to better ones self economically. There is nothing more tragic than dying while serving our country. Especially if it may involve circumstances of political folly or games of international intrigue; empire is not consistent with democracy.

Personally, I believe there is incontrovertible evidence, without exception, that the size of bureaucracy has a near perfect inverse relationship to the greatest of human qualities. In other words, the larger and more insulated any bureaucracy, the more it takes on the ugliest qualities of the human condition. As Washington has consolidated power while usurping State's Rights, entrepreneurs, citizen rights and individual liberties over the decades, we have seen a bureaucracy develop which has created the disposable citizen, the disposable worker, the disposable entrepreneur & small business owner and now the disposable serviceman (serviceperson). They have all become grist for the Washington mill.

To honor those men and women who serve our country, often without receiving the support and respect they need from our government, ie disposable, we are bringing attention to the recently released documentary from Public Television titled 'The Wounded Platoon'. A horrifying look at the tragedy of humankind's most ugly of invention, War, and the lack of empathy and respect many of our most dedicated servicemen and women have to deal with in their struggles to survive both during and after their time of service. In fact, in recent years, there have been some months where serviceperson suicides have surpassed battlefield deaths as a result of the disposable serviceperson dynamic.

A timeless maxim is that old men, often of the aristocracy, create wars through their arrogance, greed, insecurities, hatred, bigotry and often emotionally-disturbed or emotionally-stunted views of this world while young men die in wars. No war has ever been started that did start with the complete lack of disregard for human life from one or all combatants. If, throughout history, these same old men had to lead the fight, we would find out how lacking in integrity, honor and courage they really are. In other words, there would be substantially less war. Smashing aggression with deterrence may be necessary and war is often inevitable but why would it ever be glorified? All violence is heinous at its very core. That is, unless it is self-defense.

Today we honor and respect those who died while serving our country with integrity, honor and courage. We are forever indebted to the beacon of virtue you provide us through your personal sacrifice for We the People.
posted by TimingLogic at 12:00 PM

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Congressman Kucinich - Our Monetary System Is Run By Communists, Our Economic Policies Are Created By Crooks And Our Banks Are Run By Extortionists

Okay, that's not exactly how he phrased it but that's effectively what he said using more politically correct prose. I remember when the status quo attempted to marginalize Kucinich during the Presidential campaign. They accused him of channeling aliens or some other nonsensical attempt to discredit him. Dennis Kucinich is a great American who hates government corruption and wants to restore rights and government to We the People. It's no coincidence one of his best friends is Ron Paul. It's funny how two people of completely different political ideology can agree on so many issues. I think that inevitable truth is called virtue. Americans of all ilk generally have the same value system. Honesty, transparency, democracy, equality, meritocracy, the rule of law, empathy and on and on and on. Virtues cannot be politicized. The status quo is finito and going the way of Benito.

Btw, as I discussed with a friend last night, The Real News is one of the best news channels out there. Surely better than ABC, CBS, NBC or CNBC. Why not support them rather than the corporatocracy?

posted by TimingLogic at 12:50 PM

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

BP, Dead Workers And Profit Versus Safety

posted by TimingLogic at 10:54 AM

Obama Hails Reformless Financial Reform Delivered By Party Bosses And Banksters And A Rant On The Silliness Of Viewing This Mess As A Debt Crisis





Last week in the Senate, Boss Tweed (Christopher Dodd) delivered a 'financial reform' bill embraced by Tammany Hall (Wall Street crooks). Now the bill goes to conference committee where the Tammany Hall lobbyists will weaken it even further. Appeasement of principles and virtue for political expediency or political gain is a fool's game that has many unintended consequences as Neville Chamberlain knows all too well.

The President tells us this "recession" (baaahaaa) was caused by Wall Street and political mistakes. Well the President is right. But unfortunately, they aren't the mistakes he believes are at the root of the crisis because he and every other person on God's green earth associate correlation with causation. They think with their eyes and not their brain.

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." -- Henry David Thoreau

We've written countless times over the past five years that this isn't a financial crisis at its core. That it's an economic crisis. I think we can all figure out by now the entire world isn't collapsing because of $700 billion in subprime U.S. mortgages. That's preposterous on every level as we have said over and over and over both before and after this collapse. I haven't outright said what the root cause of this crisis is but long time readers can surely string together the countless posts and draw some conclusions if they haven't already done so on their own. I am just silently watching more and more financial bloggers, ideologues, status quo supporters and mainstream media stick their foot in their mouth for the time being. We have called every single major event in advance of it happening around the world from China to the Euro zone to Russia to the Middle East to our banking crisis to currency moves to commodities and even some major turning points in gold markets. Most macro issues have been discussed for years. Well in advance of anyone else. So I think I have built some credibility that I live in a meritocracy and have some idea of what is going on comparative to the status quo. I am telling you this isn't a financial crisis. Not even remotely. Neither is it a debt crisis. Well, it has morphed into one but that is not even close to the underlying cause.

"A leader is best when people barely know he exits. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, 'We did it ourselves.'." - Lao Tzu

I could devise a politically mainstream plan to solve the U.S.'s debt problem and rapidly create 15-20 million middle-class jobs in the United States starting tomorrow. I'd bet my life on it. And those same policies would eventually end poverty in the United States. It would involve none of the extreme left wing or right wing measures proposed by batty ideologues on either side of the isle. And it would not involve more scope creep of corporatist government meddling embraced by our current political ideologues. And just as importantly, it would restore confidence and pensions and affordable healthcare to the American work force.
It wouldn't be easy but it would be a very specific actionable plan that would work. It would work because it has always worked. it would work because it is based on very sound fundamentals and because it would solve the root causes of this crisis.

If one person can determine pragmatic and easily implemented solutions to such substantial issues, imagine what 300 million Americans could do in a merit-based economy. Or what 300 million Americans could do to come up with even better refinements or outright better solutions than what I would propose. And my solutions wouldn't require every American to have a college degree as our President has recently decreed as necessary to survive the future American economy. Our President is simply shoveling more of Washington elitist bulloney by picking economic winners and losers via counter productive political meddling in markets. The President might wish to try his hand at empowering people rather than mandating to the people. An empowered society could not only come up with better ideas than political idiots, but they could solve a whole range of problems that face our society.

If the President believes recent political and bankster mistakes caused this crisis, then maybe he would like to tell us what our economy would have looked like over the last ten years without the mistakes he is referring to. If we didn't have a predatory financial industry acquiring 40% of all capital equipment expenditures to run its Ponzi schemes, or if we didn't have and endless array of fraudulent financial instruments which help contribute well more than 50% of American corporate profits (direct and indirect), or if we didn't have massive war spending in the trillions of dollars, or if we didn't engage in Washington's endless game of political intrigue around the globe costing trillions of taxpayer dollars, or if we didn't have Wall Street's fraudulent securitization of mortgages related to the housing boom, then what would our economy look like? We would have ended up right where we are today with tens of millions of unemployed and tens of millions in poverty. The only difference is it would have happened more than ten years ago with a whole lot less debt. The chickens have come home to roost.

"Policy does not allow a choice between depression and no depression, but between depression now and a worse depression later: inflation pushed far enough would undoubtedly turn depression into the sham prosperity so familiar from European postwar experience, and would, in the end, lead to a collapse worse than the one it was called in to remedy.
" -- Joseph Schumpeter

You've got countless financial bloggers, equity market bears, Wall Street mobsters, corporatist Republikaaners, government-loving Democrats and the media telling you that America's problem is its massive debt. There are people making hundreds of millions of dollars in the finance industry who are paid to see crises develop. Yet they missed it in its entirety. You need to repudiate mainstream thinking and the incessant babbling about this being a debt problem. As we have written dozens and dozens of times over the past five years, this is not a debt problem; debt is but a symptom of the root cause. The world will continue to collapse regardless of what our debt load is if we don't fix the underlying problems.

What is even more batty are the absolutely ridiculous measures and solutions many are now espousing. Cutting the corporate tax rate to zero? Umm, this is the most ridiculous interpretation of the status quo's nonsensical embrace of neofeudal Corporate Personhood. It will result in complete collapse of the American economy. Guaranteed. Such stupidity has never worked in the history of civilization. Cutting wages and benefits? We've already hammered on that one. Some pruning needs to be done but we aren't going to cut our wages and benefits on the way to prosperity. There is also zero precedence for this. ZERO. That is, if you even need to be told such a ridiculous notion won't solve anything but instead unleash another round of crises. We need to save more? Are you kidding me? Where did this come from? We need to invest more. And we don't need more savings to invest more. Another ridiculous notion. This last one re savings is predicated on a consumer-based view of the economy. One we have repudiated by remarking that 80% of trade in the American economy is not consumer-related. 70% of GDP is consumer-related. But GDP is not an accurate portrayal of the American economy as we wrote quite some time ago. And recently the New York Times ran an article repudiating GDP as well, confirming its uselessness. I think we can all understand that fact with GDP up 5% and forty million Americans on food stamps. All of these ideas are nothing more than bat shit with no foundation in solid economic principles. Picking up on the debt problem, as many have done for some time, is the easy part. Anyone can see in a credit-based economy we cannot continue to issue more and more debt to solve our problems. But getting the underlying economics right and proposing viable solutions is something no one is doing. Even the best financial bloggers or economists out there are generally deluded in their view of sound economics. Some day someone with a microphone is going to figure this all out. In fact, I'm banking on it. At some point all of our solutions will trickle out on here or in some form of media.

In upcoming posts we'll take a very unique look at just how fraudulent this Congressional reform bill truly is. And as I wrote last week, we'll also take a reality-based look at the crisis in Greece.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:43 AM

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

More Signs Of The Booming Economic Turn Around - Private Wages Continue Their Long Term Decline Due To A Rigged Economy Benefiting The Ruling Elite

posted by TimingLogic at 2:48 PM

Treasury Secretary Continues Washington's Orwellian Doublespeak After Meetings With China This Morning

Bad is good. Black is white. Trade balances are improving. America learned from its crisis. And of course, Geithner praises China on currency reform. Baaahaaaa. Geithner's public statements after meeting with China's officials were generally distorted Orwellian doublespeak. In other words, outright misrepresentations of reality.

Let's see what other doublespeak our Washington overlords have shared with us recently. The economy is improving. Jobs numbers are encouraging. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are keeping us safe. The worst of the Great Recession has passed. The consumer is back. Cutting pensions and benefits is good....Decent benefits and wages are bad. (The public sector is now getting the same shaft the private sector got 10-15 years ago. And the mainstream media and status quo is accomplishing this by whipping up the ugliest of human emotions and the greatest of the seven deadly sins - envy.) Public sector wages have to adjust for one primary reason. We can't all work at Wal-mart with no pension or benefits and support people with a living wage and benefits. Mark my words, adding economic uncertainty to another 21 million government workers is going to have a profoundly negative effect for all Americans and the economy. (Public sector pensions, while out of control recently, again due to Wall Street's con game and glad-handing politicians giving away other people's money, need to be adjusted back into line with reality. But if we don't fix the economy, there won't be any public sector pensions. Period. They'll lose their defined benefit plans just like the private sector. And just like Social Security recipients are going to lose their benefits if we don't fix the economy.)

And, (drumroll) the biggest con job of all is that the Congress just passed financial reform.
posted by TimingLogic at 7:16 AM

Monday, May 24, 2010

National Audubon Society Worred About Food Chain Collapse Due To Gulf Oil Spill and Government's Dithering

posted by TimingLogic at 3:39 PM

The Gult Oil Spill Is Hammering Business From Louisiana To Florida

Long time readers know I was a big fan of Portfolio before the crisis caused its demise. Well, what isn't well known is that Portfolio re-emerged from the dead and is still in business. Today they release an excellent and concise story on the consequences of this spill. We'll have much more to say about this mess before its over but for now here's a look at how this crisis is killing businesses in Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. All while Washington politicians do nothing. This is a travesty in every sense of the word. Hard working people are going to lose everything. And I don't give a shit what Washington says, BP is not going to make it right for these people any more than Exxon made it right for the people of Alaska with Valdez. This will be in the courts for a decade or longer while untold thousands of businesses collapse and countless innocent lives are destroyed.

The social and economic impact of Valdez was immeasurable with increased suicides, alcoholism, mental illness, divorce and on and on and on. Even the cleanup efforts caused great economic upheaval in Alaska.

I don't blame President Obama for this mess. I blame the aristocracy before him. But I do blame him for perpetuating the aristocracy and a perpetuation of a political system that doesn't give a shit about anything other than getting re-elected and lining their own pockets at the expense of society.

And I do blame him for refusing to take ownership of the Gulf oil spill because it is a political hot potato. He doesn't want the blame and with ownership comes blame. A leader would have owned this crisis from day one. A politician dithers because he fears taking ownership may jeopardize his political career. So a politician jeopardizes his principals for political expediency. It's clearly evident which one defines our President and countless others before him.
posted by TimingLogic at 2:41 PM

Hedge Fund Bodhisattva Is Bullish On Global Economy

I think we can all surmise most financial and economic "gurus" (a word I use loosely) don't understand fundamentals any better than you or I understand how to divine a dead Jean Dixon with a Ouija board. But unlike Ouija boards, this dynamic is a very explainable phenomenon of systemic incompetence. These people have seen nothing but good times over their careers so they really have no idea how to analyze fundamentals. They are incompetent. They worship at the alter of the Federal Reserve always bailing them out.

I take endless remark of these credentialed gurus because society must reject their supposed brilliance for true competence to get out of this crisis. We must embrace reason and sound observations of reality in lieu of mindless opinions from the endless supply of brain-dead morons. This is the same reason why we embrace reason (a written rule of law) to the opinions and whims of would be tyrants. (Societies relying on the opinions of self-appointed leaders with no written rule of law. This is a major reason why the American economy is in the shitter. Our rule of law is being dismantled in favor of the opinion of elitist idiots. We are becoming Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, Communist China, etc.)

Biggs has affirmed his bullishness on many mainstream TV shows recently. As a reminder, Biggs was bullish on China within days of its bear market rally peak last summer. We put up a post critical of his very uninformed position at the time. Now he's bullish on the global economy again. As a reminder Biggs was incredibly bearish at the bear market bottom as well. Very much so. In fact he made quite a few extreme statements about buying land, food stocks and guns and fleeing from the cities.

Biggs must believe in the timeless concept of buying high and selling low. But then he's no different than any of the other financially-clueless elites in our country. These are who the politicians listen to when deciding policy decisions. Is it any wonder our economy is a mess? If they would listen to We the People as public servants are supposed to, we would be in a very, very different economy.

By the way, Biggs is famous for recently stating the China bears are wrong. And that China is not a bubble. Baahaa! I am not a bear. I simply use reason and incontrovertible mathematical evidence to make my decisions. Biggs might want to try it some time instead of one of those Ouija boards.


posted by TimingLogic at 9:19 AM

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Money Can't Buy You Love But Apparently It Allowed British Petroleum To Buy The U.S. Government. Washington Dithers While The Gulf Crisis Grows.

Link here.

This Gulf spill is pulling the veil back on what appears to be the endless fraud and corruption in our government. The new stories surrounding corruption and misinformation in the energy business are staggering. There are at least a dozen major revelations that have surfaced as a result of this spill. (ProPublica is mercilessly hammering this story as any good watchdog news organization should and has an excellent site dedicated to this crisis, the exposed fraud and to ongoing news related to the spill.) Additionally, BP could very well be hiding the size of this disaster according to scientists who just today say that the spill could be flowing at a rate of as much as 100,000 barrels a day and not the 5,000 barrel BP estimate. That is 4.2 million gallons a day.

We definitely know the spill is spewing out more than 5,000 gallons a day. BP is supposedly siphoning 5,000 barrels a day from the well with this straw they have inserted. It is siphoning off so little of the flow that it looks like a straw in a tipped-over 7-11 Big Gulp. ie, It ain't doin shit.

At a worst case 100,000 barrels, that would mean in the past thirty days we have potentially released twelve Exxon Valdez disasters into the Gulf. Much of it is below the surface. And our buddies at BP were using chemicals banned in Britain to try to disperse the massive mess. Thousands upon thousands of businesses are likely to go bankrupt because of this crisis. The ripple effect could be very substantial. Especially if the Gulf gyre dumps oil on the Florida coasts.

Is our government permanently brain dead? Has big money interests so destroyed its ability to govern that it is incapable of doing anything right? This is the biggest ecological mess this country has probably ever seen and the White House is doing just about everything it can to ignore it. There are six billion people in this world who may have ideas on how to deal with this. Why doesn't the government put up a web site to collect ideas? Or give a hotline number to the world's scientific community to recommend solutions? Or convene an emergency meeting of experts from around the globe and pay them to come and develop a plan? I have an idea. Drop a tactical nuclear bomb down the pipe and strap our entire regulatory code onto it and blow this thing shut so we can start rebuilding a regulatory structure that isn't a result of thirty years of corporate bribery.

Apparently yesterday one of the political stooges at the White House said it was illegal for the government to do anything. That BP was responsible for the clean up per 1990s legislation. Hahahahaha. WTF? You have got to be kidding me? That remark is right from the best-selling book 'The One Hundred Most Asinine Political Statements in History'. I could ask the next one hundred people going through the Taco Bell drive thru window and get one hundred better answera than that.

So, are you telling me if a private nuclear power plant in the United States blew up, we as a society would defer action to the company who owned the facility? This is a national catastrophe that is going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars and destroy the financial livelihood of thousands upon thousands of innocent businesses that are likely to go bankrupt because of this. Instead of action the President just convened a bipartisan political commission to study the crisis. Are you kidding me? We need action not political hot air. There will be plenty of time to point fingers. Right now we need a plan completely removed from the political arena. For God's sake, at least hire a qualified engineering firm or the Army Corps of Engineers to manage it. Someone who is in the business of managing highly complex engineering projects. If this truly is upwards of 100,000 barrels a day or anywhere near it, how long is the White House going to plead stupidity when asked what the hell they are going to do?

Will someone wake up the White House? While you're at it, will you check to see if the President actually has a pulse or if someone is pulling a Weekend at Bernie's on us? If he does have a pulse, could you also inform him upwards of 80 million Americans are now living near or below the poverty line and most Americans are broke now that we all work at Wal-mart?

This can't be real. Maybe a better idea is for someone to check and see if I have a pulse. If I do, please wake me up from this nightmare of systemic political stupidity! I think most Americans, including me, want our leaders to succeed. For God's sake, I feel like I'm playing the part in a new movie. It's a cross between Dumb & Dumber and Groundhog Day. I keep reliving the same systemic stupidity of our political leadership day after day after day. Week after week after week. Month after month after month. Year after year after year. Decade after decade after decade. First Ronald Reagan, then George Bush I, then Bill Clinton, then George Bush part deux and now Barack Obama. My adult life has seen no great President. There must be something in the water in Washington or someone has spiked my water with LSD and I'm in a permanent state of hallucination.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:09 AM

Friday, May 21, 2010

Renewed Actions By The Incompetent Aristocracy As The Voice Of Liberty Spreads. Expect A Very Real Possibility Of Negative Third Quarter GDP.

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the numbers of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.
-- Patrick Henry

And indeed, as an ongoing process of enlightenment sweeps the globe like a virus, the world's free peoples are beginning to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and now to provide for it. That is, our politicians have been busy selling our public institutions and our rule of law to the highest bidder, most often bankers, while both work in concert to pillage our societies in the process.

Just days before market volatility returned, President Obama told us the economic storm was receding. It isn't receding. I think we can all see that. A few days later the President said a healthy economy means a strong dollar. The economy was seemingly booming on the surface in 2005 and the dollar was cratering. Now the economy has fallen off of a cliff and we have nearly ten million more unemployed yet the dollar is rising. I think it's obvious the President is more than a little confused on what is driving the dollar. Just a few days after that the President remarked that jobs growth is encouraging. There is no jobs growth. The number of employed in the United States has not improved one iota from his first day in office. Not one new job. It's clear to me our President has no grasp of what awaits the global economy or he is purposefully misleading the American people or he arrogantly believes he has the power to change our economy with what has generally been nothing but hot air. There are only a finite number of possibilities for the ridiculous rhetoric and none of them are encouraging.

The President called Chancellor Merkel and stressed the importance of market confidence. A ridiculous position which continues to worship the false god of financial markets. His comments come straight from the investor class mentality that killed our economy in the first place. The only confidence measurement that matters is that of the majority of the "sovereign" of the United States correlated to wage growth and productive jobs. (Not banking and finance jobs. Not political delusions. Not the Ponzi scheme the President is so concerned about. ie, Global finance.)

The sovereign market of individuals in a free society, as opposed to the financial markets our President seemingly worships, promptly rejected his silly "confidence" notions shared with Merkel by registering a vote of no confidence by sacking Merkel's ruling government in German elections. They also sacked the U.K.'s Gordon Brown. Looks like the people of Greece are not alone in their disdain for the current aristocracy of Europe as volatility spreads like wild fire.

Merkel and other European Union bureaucrats (unelected finance ministers and EU cronies) promptly attempted to fight back against the sovereign people of Europe and approved a $1 trillion bailout for European banksters. And that means European central banks started buying Euro area sovereign debt, thus eventually having the opposite effect they desire. ie, these actions will cripple the Euro zone even further.

Now European countries who already cannot pay their bills have a new $1 trillion burden thrust upon them by mostly unelected bureaucrats. It's obvious to me we could see governments sacked all across Europe just as is starting to happen in state and federal elections the United States. I wouldn't be surprised to see votes of no confidence in the U.K. (scratch that, Brown resigned while I was typing this a week ago.) and Germany in the not too distant future. That means this $1 trillion Ponzi plan of tyranny is far from a certainty. What happens if a vote of no confidence is issued against Merkel before said bailout funds are disseminated? There are many uncertainties which could and likely will disrupt the actions of corrupt EU bureaucrats over coming months and even years. Throw in Japan for good measure where sacking incompetent politicians has become more popular than Pachinko. It looks like Japan is building up the momentum to sack another one.

The common theme in all of this? Incompetent politicians attempting to usurp the sovereignty of democratic countries on behalf of maintaining a fraudulent global financial and economic system. And often doing so via dubious, if not corrupt, neoliberal scams. Of course, all by the way of the sovereign people's wallets.

I believe it is highly plausible we are in the throws of a second revolution against the public-private-partnership central banking apparatus around the world that always results in wealth transfer and eventually leads to great poverty and massive tyranny. (Maybe the government should prosecute itself under the RICO racketeering Act.) The first revolution against the tyranny of this bankster-aristocracy racket was the original Age of Enlightenment we have talked about quite often. As we have noted a handful of times before, the dynamics of today are very, very similar to that leading up to the American Revolutionary War. It was not just the Revolutionary War either. Aristocracy across Europe was also sacked for the same general reason as volatility and word of America's revolution spread throughout Europe. Make no mistake, this is a very similar dynamic of the tyranny of repressive banksters and their beholden stooge aristocracy attempting to foist a great penalty on us poor peasants and in the process circumventing any and all forms of self-rule or self-determination. All while political stooges continue to feed their gluttonous system of incompetence by sacrificing lives of the proletariat in the grist of the fraudulent machine.

The English and French aristrocracy of two hundred years ago are more than comparative to the elite arrogance we see in a self-appointed aristocracy around the globe today. Washington, as an example, continues to feed like ravenous pigs with record lobbyist spending to gain favor for corporatist government handouts of taxpayer money. There was a recent black tie gala in Washington which brought in the most wealthy from the lobbyist community, the mainstream media and the political elites. When I saw the mainstream media's coverage of this event, the only thing I could think of was before 1789 when a gluttonous French aristocracy lived a life of excess while peasants starved. Would it be too much to ask our public servants to take an oath of personal austerity until they fix the crisis they created? Today many counties surrounding Washington DC have become the wealthiest in the United States due to influence-peddling and the bidding off of taxpayer money to socialist corporations while nearly one in three American children are on food stamps. The peasants are starving. Two hundred years later is the reason for social upheaval really any different?

Could the entire global financial apparatus be replaced in the coming decade as the sovereign vote out the profligate aristocracy? Could we be in the final throws of a private banking system and private money creation in democracies? If so, what will the Lloyd Blankfeins of this world do? Lloyd probably made $250 million in the last decade pushing around paper while doing God's work, betting against his customers and selling "shitty" products to any willing buyer. If we have a public treasury, what skills do the Lloyds of Wall Street have to contribute to society? Do they make anything? Are they inventors or entrepreneurs? Do they have a craft? Are they scientifically-trained and thus of benefit to the process of new invention? Can their artistic or creative talent produce culture, art or literature which deepens society? Doe they have any skill to provide a useful purpose to society? The Lloyds of Wall Street are bureaucrats. Paper-pushing banksters. They make or do nothing that increases the culture or wealth of society. If they could make or do something of value, they wouldn't be bureaucrats. If they can't live off of the monopoly of capital provided by the Federal Reserve or if they cannot suck society dry by living off of their productive work via never-before-seen levels of bankster usury in the United States, they'd probably be in a $75,000-a-year cubicle-job pushing paper. Possibly a necessary position but far from the master of the universe the banksters are perceived as today.

How did a bureaucrat whose company's only source of profits is a tax on society ever come to make $250 million? Society's values and our economic vibrancy have been completely hijacked by incompetent, self-serving stooges. That is why 14% of Americans view Congress as competent and even less view the banksters as valuable to society. Our self-appointed aristocracy, who are supposed to be public servants, do not reflect our values or ideals. And isn't this the only real driver of social instability around the world? The stooges are trying to save themselves rather than do what is best for We the People?

Let's jab our finger into the bullish comments of the status quo including our corporatist Wall Street-beholden President. From what I see, From some data points I'm looking at, I believe it is highly plausible we could actually see negative U.S. GDP in the third quarter. (For the true believers, the President is substantially responsible for killing the Grayson/Paul Federal Reserve audit in the Senate. The only legislation he has actively tried to stop since he took office. In addition to his bankster-dominated staff and both his campaign's and the Democratic party's large financial contributions from the banksters. The President and many politicians may be virtuous persons in an broken system but they are benefiting from that broken system and its lack of virtue. In other words, they may not be responsible for creating this dynamic but they are complicit in its continuation. And the end result to society is the same regardless of who is to blame. That is, more anti-democratic government and financial fraud.)

Market weakness from a few weeks ago was not because of a computer glitch. Market weakness was because there were no buyers. Do you remember the numerous posts we made last year where we talked about the dynamic where Wall Street would eventually trade liquidity and counterparties out of the stock market and we would be left with a handful of firms batting shares back and forth? Very unique fundamentals of today nearly guarantee that is going to happen unless the Federal Reserve and/or our government changes its policies. I believe it is highly probable the trading dynamic which is supposed to add liquidity but actually drains it was the cause of this recent mini collapse. When firms turned their computers off because the market was cratering (or so it seems to be reported), there were no bids in the market. No buyers other than the Frankenstein computer algorithms Wall Street has created. A Frankenstein beholden Washington politicians continue to allow to operate. We either have or are likely close to a point where no one is left as a major counterparty to stock market activity beyond the Frankenstein that is Wall Street. Just like 1987. And that is what we wrote would happen. Wall Street has already become the economy. Wall Street has also become the stock market. Because of this, we have a quandry. If we turn the machines off, the market will eventually find its true steady state. That is a valuation based on some intrinsic value... or less. That value is our downside target of 200-450 on the S&P. In fact, I wrote in the comments section many months ago that I believe it is mathematically impossible for the economy to recover without the stock market first collapsing. Obviously I am not sharing the specifics behind that statement but it is based on assumptions of Washington's economic policies. Some people will understand this once they think about it but it's obvious Wall Street and Washington don't.

The stock market has become a liquidity-sucking Frankenstein. Where will continued market liquidity come from? The economy isn't spinning off enough free cash flow to even pay its bills and many market participants have walked away because the SEC, the CFTC, the Federal Reserve and the federal government are perpetuating rigged markets. We are simply repeating the same fraud that was outlawed after the collapse post 1929. Wall Street and politician behavior is timeless - pride, envy, greed, lust and gluttony in lieu of generally cherished virtues of a free society including charity, temperance, justice, prudence and courage.

Unless we see large capital flows from Europe into the United States as a result of this latest bailout foolishness, (and I see no substantial dynamic allowing this as of right now. The EU's bailout does not include arming the financial speculators as the Federal Reserve has done.) I'm dubious of the EU's bailout even coming to pass. We still don't have any idea if this $1 trillion dollar plan is legal, will be approved, will not be challenged, will not cause more countries to sack their leadership, etc. It's a lot of talk right now. Unlike politicians who love hot air, we don't place any merit in talk. None.

Remember our discussion of LTCM and Wall Street's "models" that were scraping nickels from fixed income markets twelve years ago? Their models didn't predict riots in the streets, resulting bank failures in Asia and sovereign deb defaults? The ensuing volatility in financial markets forced the federal government to step in and stop what would have been a larger virus that may have potentially caused serious financial damage, if not outright failure, to most Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs. Twelve years later we still have this interconnectedness but now only worse.

Let's see. Wall Street is now scraping nickels from the stock market with computer trading models that have never been stress tested nor has anyone contemplated their unintended consequences. And we are seeing riots in the streets and a growing possibility of sovereign debt defaults. Hmm.... The exact specifics are different but tell me what is different this time? But remember, LTCM was hedged. And, again Wall Street tells us they are hedged. But, in fact, it is a handful of firms hedging each other in a bout of circular lunacy. There is no hedge against Wall Street's stupidity and the monster they have created. The only hedge is to ban all trading and all derivatives from our banking system. The only sound hedge for our banking system is a fundamentally-sound economic model as we have seen with the constant collapse of their hedged scams.

How many tens of trillions of dollars of other people's money will the status quo piss away for personal gain trying to save a fraudulent system? The aristocracy doesn't have the ability to save the global economy. Ironically, it is only the aristocracy which arrogantly believes it can save the mess they created as misery-related poll numbers, data points, economic numbers and volatility around the globe substantiates. Each time we see a crisis, we are told this is the end of "the crisis" by political idiots and banksters. All of these fire drills are unreasoned patches on a Frankenstein that cannot be resuscitated. But then, isn't that how politicians operate? Unreasoned behavior induced by financial or political favor in lieu of the search for knowledge, reason and truth? Wasn't that the driving force behind the Age of Enlightenment? Eventually financial and political favor will be exhausted and a new age of enlightenment will expose all to the massive incompetence of political favoritism, cronyism, fraud, market-rigging and personal greed that is perpetuated by the aristocracy.

The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on.

Vote out the bankster-loving political elites sucking our societies of their economic vibrancy and dismantling our rule of law for special favors to the banksters, special interests and corporations.

Vive la Revolution. Next week we'll look at the Greek crisis from a perspective of reality. That is, a revolution of democracy, instead of the lies and bulloney fed to us by the Wall Street mobsters and the status quo that Greece is a profligate and unproductive society.
posted by TimingLogic at 5:21 AM

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Floyd Landis Accuses Top Cycling Teams Of Doping. This And Many Other Social Dynamics Are A Direct Result Of A Fraudulent Banking System.

I've been an avid biker since I was old enough to hop on a bike. The rumors have swirled for years and apparently we have had an environment where cycling teams tried to stay one step ahead of regulators to game the system. Sound familiar? This hyper-competitive belief system has really developed over the last generation or so. It spans all of society and I am extremely confident it is primarily driven by a scarcity of economic opportunity. As an example, we now have record cheating in universities. (Research has shown MBAs are far and away the worst chronic cheaters. In other words, the people who are running Wall Street.) The drive to achieve perfect academic results or win the Tour de France or any other example are primarily twofold. One is the culture of me-isms. In other words, society be damned, I'm going to get mine. But the second dynamic is really the driver of the first. That is, there is limited economic opportunity. So, as an athlete or a college student or whomever, there is some feeling that if I am not at the top of my game, if I do not succeed at this, there will be little, if any economic opportunity for me in society. What comparable economic opportunity does Floyd Landis have if he fails at cycling? By the way, the extreme purses in sports and entertainment have been driven by a money bubble. Before the money bubble, a Tour de France winner or professional football player made 5x the average salary in the United States. Today it is 500x.

And do you know what drives this entire dynamic? Well, Sparky, that would be a private banking system and private money creation which by its very nature limits economic opportunity, perpetuates racism, creates class struggle and destroys economic opportunity. And over time concentrates that opportunity into the hands of fewer and fewer people. And who are those fewer and fewer people? Are they the most capable in society? Well, Sparky, that would not always be the case. It is often those most willing to fock over their fellow man or those most willing to game the system to be extremely frank about it. So, rather than the cream of society rising to the top, we have sociopaths and criminals running our society at the expense of society. Because those are the qualities that most guarantee success. Which is why we have record cheating in our society. In other words, generally decent people often willing to take major risks to succeed given the alternatives. No more pensions, no more health care, no more social safety nets means I have to get mine while I am capable of getting it.

Funny how that works. Floyd Landis' doping can be tied back to our fraudulent banking system.

They are coming for your Social Security next.

It's time for a public banking system.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:38 AM

David Cameron Is Apparently Going To Be The Change Agent Barack Obama Should Have Been. Cameron Proposes Greatest Reform In Britain Since 1832.

Very worthwhile look at Cameron's outline for reform. And a very interesting parallel to what President Obama could have and should have done and, frankly, was elected to do. That is, fix Washington. Cameron appears to be bet on change you can believe in - cleaning up the lobbyist corruption, ending the police state, sacking a political structure often based in lineage rather than ability, decentralizing government to create a more self-governed society as State's Rights would do here, etc, etc, etc. The question is if he can succeed. One never knows until they try now do they. 90% of life is simply showing up.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:21 AM

You Have The Right To Remain Constitutional

posted by TimingLogic at 5:28 AM

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

BP Apparently Is Now Our Law Enforcement Agency In The Gulf Oil Debacle

When these potato heads from the Coast Guard and BP told this CBS news crew to leave or be arrested I think I might have asked for a clarification on camera. Maybe something like this. We are filming this for the CBS evening news where the President of the United States, every constitutional attorney in the United States, every lawsuit loving attorney and millions of Americans will be watching. Would you mind clarifying what authority or specific code of law you are citing in your threats of arresting a news crew?

Let's see. Private firms fight our wars. Private firms run our prisons. Private firms run our federal government. What's next? Well, apparently BP runs our law enforcement agencies and makes up the rule of law as they see fit.

Link here.
posted by TimingLogic at 3:24 PM

Systemic Incompetence- Over The Last 25 Years Wall Street's Annual Earnings Estimates Have Proven To Be Astronomical Comparative To Reality

This type of systemic incompetence can be explained via one overriding dynamic. That is, Wall Street has been granted monopoly access to society's money via the equally incompetent Federal Reserve. Deer in the headlights. While tens of millions of Americans struggle for their very economic existence, the most incompetent in society bask in untold riches of usury all courtesy of Washington politicians.

If you live in Compton, California or Detroit, Michigan or New Orleans, Louisiana, you might be the next Albert Einstein or Michelangelo Buonarroti but society will never know it because Wall Street stooges have monopoly control over society's capital and they'll be damned before they ever give you access to it. Instead they piss it away on fraudulent scheme after fraudulent scheme - incompetent private equity, big business loans, technology bubbles, personal bonuses, hedge funds, proprietary trading, mergers & acquisitions, government bribes, banking usury, loans to move factories overseas, you name it. You aren't getting any of it.

Racism, poverty, systemic drug addiction, an overloaded prison system, systemic unemployment, lack of economic vibrancy and more is a direct result of our corrupt banking system.

Link in the title
posted by TimingLogic at 9:47 AM

Goldman Sach's Advice To Clients This Year Has Been Horrendous. Maybe Goldman Clients Should Replace Advice With Much More Lucrative Coin-Flipping.

We said this dynamic would develop as the future became one in which Wall Street could not manipulate the game to win. Now it comes down to pure skill and ability. Now we see Goldman's productive predictive ability when it isn't rigging markets is about 25%. Clients would have substantially higher odds of success by flipping a coin. The only way Goldman Sachs, and for that matter all Wall Street firms, are making any money right now is in rigged markets and by killing the economy through the mergers and acquisitions business.

Informed individuals can always beat big firm returns in the long run. They don't need to make big bets about the future but rather take what comes to them. I don't care how many PhD's Goldman has working for them. Big bets are never, ever, ever successful over the long haul. The drawdowns are simply unsustainable. As it is with all of Wall Street. That is why we have tens of trillions of dollars backing the incompetence of these timeless fools. Big bets across the board failed. Everything Wall Street has touched turned to stone.

Take away rigged markets and where is Wall Street's brilliance? I'll tell you where it is. It's in the minds and hands of the American people. All of Wall Street's capital came from the most productive capital generator in the world. That is, the American entrepreneur and the American worker. It's no coincidence Wall Street is failing. They convinced themselves, politicians and most of society of the most foolish notion imaginable. That is, that they are brilliant. Brilliance is in the mind of a society that embraces free thought, free association, freedom of expression and economic self-determination. It is the embracing of a free individual's ability within the framework of the greater good for We the People. Slaving away in an office job, especially in a bank, is seldom any of these. And Wall Street has clearly shown its utter and complete incompetence by not understanding this timeless fact. By believing they were indeed masters of the universe. When all they really are is a tax on society's capital.

Link here.
posted by TimingLogic at 7:56 AM

Clients Worried About Goldman Sach's Conflicts Of Interest

posted by TimingLogic at 7:55 AM

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Goldman Sachs Sued For Oil Fraud

By the time this crisis has passed, will the curtain be pulled back enough to see how much Wall Street ripped off American consumers by manipulating commodities markets?
posted by TimingLogic at 4:07 PM

Issuers Accuse Goldman Unit Of Pressure To Remove The Company From A Bid-Rigging Conspiracy Lawsuit Involving American Municipalities

posted by TimingLogic at 9:44 AM

Goldman Sachs, Sporting A 4% Approval Rating, Wants To Manage Your 401K. "We Understand Risk". Really? The Greatest Risk Is A 4% Approval Rating.

How can anyone say they know how to manage risk if they have a 4% approval rating? The greatest risk in business is your approval rating. Your customer satisfaction. By the way, the reason why you have a 401K, where you can invest in all types of risky schemes dreamed up by Wall Street, instead of a defined benefit pension plan as Americans used to have, is because of Wall Street.

4% Approval Rating Here

We know how to manage risk here.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:33 AM

The White House Spin Machine On Jobs Is Completely Disingenuous

The President tells us he is encouraged by jobs growth in the American economy. What happens when the auto, appliance and home buyer's stimulus disappears? When the When the nearly million census workers are gone? Well, you guessed it. With government GDP nearing half of the economy already, he wants to hire more government workers. In other words, he wants to raise taxes on the rest of us to grow the already incredibly incompetent corporatist bureaucracy in Washington. If no one seems to be regulating any of our industries, what do all of these people in Washington actually do?

At the same time, the President's bipartisan budget commission is holding secret meetings. Want to guess what's on the agenda? Social Security and Medicare cuts because the government has been raiding our Social Security fund for ages. Bailouts for Wall Street? We have plenty of money for that. In fact, the Federal Reserve is giving them all of the money than can consume for their Ponzi schemes at zero percent interest. Money for wars of choice? Keep the military-industrial complex humming. Iraq and Afghanistan are now the second and fifth most corrupt governments on earth under U.S. political leadership. Your tax dollars hard at work. Fascist-type, lobbyist-induced, taxpayer-funded incentives for special interests in real estate, the auto industry, the appliance industry and anyone else who has the money to bribe Congress? Keep them coming. Money for Congressional raises? Sure thing. Money to provide the best health care in the world for Congress? Absolutely. Money to run political campaigns costing billions of dollars? No problem at all. The corporatocracy doesn't care about the American people. Words mean nothing. Actions mean everything.

As we have said many times, the government is trying to recreate the last economic model under the completely inaccurate premise that the only thing wrong with the American economy was Wall Street's "temporary" financial crisis of liquidity. A subprime housing problem. Seemingly a belief that this was some repeat of 1998 or 1907. A preposterous notion perpetuated by a completely incompetent Federal Reserve, Wall Street, White House economics team, Congress, the mainstream media and general economics community. A notion we have consistently railed against, even before this crisis started. As the world begins to reveal itself, more and more people will see how systemic this lie truly is. The world is collapsing and what does it have to do with subprime U.S. mortgages? To the contrary, the exact opposite of what we have read or heard from every one of these incompetent sources is true. That is, the production of subprime U.S. mortgages (and other asinine government and financial stupidity) is the only thing that kept the American economy from completely collapsing post the 2000-2003 stock market crash. Just like China's government and financial stupidity is trying to keep a collapse from happening in its country today.

Soviet-style government-directed production quotas aka stimulus programs were and are feeding future economic defaults courtesy of incompetent bureaucrats who instead are reacting to lobbyist pressure for policy decisions. ie, Many people who took advantage of those programs will eventually default on them. We already see this dynamic in the "re-default" rate of mortgage adjustments. And if the government thought these stimulus programs would result in hiring back 15 million of the unemployed or would give greater economic opportunity to the additional 15 million underemployed, well the chart below tells a different story. All these programs did was transfer taxpayer money to people who were already employed who didn't need stimulus in the first place.

I don't spend a lot of time talking about employment as an economic metric. It's generally irrelevant to any macro analysis. ie, It's a second or third degree of data and one can accurately anticipate employment trends well in advance by focusing on what actually matters. But when the political apparatus starts telling us employment is improving, it's an outright misrepresentation of the facts. The President hasn't fixed anything other than "fixing" the wallets of big corporations and Wall Street mobsters.



posted by TimingLogic at 8:38 AM

Monday, May 17, 2010

Shanghai Index Has Another Murderous Decline Overnight And Makes New One Year Price Low. Next Stop A Retest And Break Of The 2008 Bear Market Lows?

China's equity markets have been in a bear market since 2007. It's underlying economy has been collapsing for over a year. If you really understand economics, you know why I have been confident stating this many times on here. In fact, last year we wrote why soaring auto sales were a sign of impending doom. This while the mainstream media and Wall Street bullishly. and very incorrectly, focuses on the massive auto sales and real estate boom in China. We were probably the only voice known to mankind who accurately called the implosion of Chinese equities and the coming collapse in its economy. Well, except for long time reader, commiserator and European economist Frank.

We have written numerous times that technical analysis is simply a self-fulfilling manifestation of fundamentals. There is absolutely no replacement for accurate fundamental analysis. Back in October of 2008 people were citing RSI readings, percentage of stocks below their moving averages or whatnot as a reason to buy kept getting their asses kicked as the stock market kept imploding for another six months into March of 2009. Why? Because they didn't understand fundamentals. It was not an oversold reading of technicals that started this rally in March of 2009. It was a change in fundamentals. Period. If fundamentals had not changed, the market would have kept imploding. People who do not understand the limitations of any type of analysis all worship false gods. And worst of all are the people on Wall Street who generally worship no god. In other words, they don't understand anything. Which is why 99% of money managers, private equity managers, bank CEOs, traders and hedge fund managers would be living under a bridge panhandling for money right now were it not for the people who work in Wal-mart stores who had to bail out these generally megalomaniacal, arrogant and ungrateful bastards who killed our economy.

Back in the first few days in May, a very prominent financial blogger remarked that sentiment was possibly becoming too bearish on China with a handful of people now calling for an implosion in China over the past four or five months. Below in italics is what I said to him at the time. It's a variation of what I have written on here many times about sentiment eventually failing.

Getting the specifics right about the future are not easy but they are predictable on a macro level. That is, China is finished.

Trying to apply sentiment to this situation is preposterous. You must apply reason. Did the Russians believe the end of World War II was just around the corner when ten million of its citizens had been killed? Could it get any worse? Why yes it did. Another ten million lost their lives.

You simply cannot apply sentiment to a macro situation like this. It's ridiculous. You cannot stop a collapse from happening after printing money at a pell-mell rate for a decade. It would be like applying sentiment to whether the volcanoes in Iceland are going to stop erupting.

Countless people saw the collapse in the United States in 1929 and in Japan in 1989. If you know what is happening in China and actually follow the statistics, the collapse has already begun.

Remember, on here we always listen to what gold is telling us. But in this environment we do not like gold. A very, very, VERY lonely position. If you bought the shiny metal at $200 or $400 or somewhere when it was despised, there is no imminent danger. But, there are maybe 1% of gold holders who bought at those prices. If you did, consider yourself lucky or smart or both. The vast majority of gold purchases have been made at very elevated levels. With China under pressure, you might consider buying some antiperspirant. ie, I would be sweating my positions just about now.

Shanghai link in the post title.
posted by TimingLogic at 7:43 AM

Friday, May 14, 2010

Amateur Video Of America's Chernobyl - The Gulf Oil Spill. What's Next? The Collapse And Rebirth Of The United States?

There seems to be no idea how to stop what is most surely going to be the worst man made disaster in American history and the worst globally since Chernobyl. NPR reports that the spill is already far larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster. Is BP trying to hide the truth? Who knows. But what we do know is that BP has a history of morally-dubious behavior in the United States. Of course, all of this is a direct result of a corrupt federal government. We do know the economic and environmental impact of this disaster will be absolutely astronomical. Hundreds of billions of dollars if not more. Don't listen to the ridiculous estimates of a few billion given by BP. Those are numbers scrubbed by corporate attorneys.

Amateur video of the enormity of the spill here.

I use Chernobyl as a comparative example for obvious reasons. Additionally, while there is some dispute as to what caused the Chernobyl disaster, just as we see with the Gulf spill today, it is generally believed to be caused by a lack of regulatory controls. Sound familiar? Sounds like the same problems in the financial industry, the energy industry, the airlines, the food and drug industries, the deregulation of monopolies ... the deregulation of everything. Courtesy of bribe-loving politicians.

Is it a coincidence that the Soviet Union had already started to crumble when the failure at Chernobyl occurred? Was the Chernobyl accident a random uncorrelated event or was it a result of the crumbling of a regulatory system associated with the crumbling of the Soviet Union and the crumbling of its institutions? Is there a parallel to the crumbling of the regulatory structure, institutions and rule of law in the United States to that of the Soviet disaster and the Gulf oil spill? The financial crisis? The collapse of the American economy? The Katrina embarrassment? The increase in our food safety issues? One in 3.5 children on food stamps? Just to name a few... Three years after the Chernobyl disaster we saw the collapse of the Soviet Union. Three years after the Gulf oil spill................

How's nuclear power looking after our own Chernobyl in the Gulf of Mexico? Still convinced a Chernobyl cannot happen here? We hear such a comparison is preposterous. But the United States has had quite a few nuclear accidents. Most of which have never been reported in the mainstream media. Three Mile Island was substantially downplayed in its severity.

We saw the first Chernobyl here in 2008's economic collapse. The start of a second last week in the stock market. And we are already witnessing another in the Gulf of Mexico. Coincidences? I think not. Instead a result of a corporatist government beholden to the highest bidder.

Personally, after witnessing so much fraud in our federal government, I don't want another nuclear power plant in the United States. At least not current generation technology. There are some substantial research projects that could change my mind in the future. But those are years off. The consequences of a disaster cannot be quantified regardless of the odds. Would you play Russian roulette if the odds were the same as a nuclear disaster? And, if we ever do get more new reactors, I would hope they won't be finished until after our federal government had been returned to the people of this country rather than decision-making awarded to the highest corporate bidder for special favors.

I would suppose nuclear power and special favors to lobbyists don't seem to go well together. We already see our entire regulatory structure in every single industry is in shambles. Makes you sort of wonder about the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, eh?

Funny you mention it.

Here - The Nuclear Lobby's $645 million Con Job
And Here - OpenSecrets Nuclear Energy Lobbying Database
And Here. - Nuclear Lobby Downplays Safety Concerns

It's good to be the king. Not much longer though.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:27 AM

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Shanghai Index Falls Equivalent of 2,000 Dow Points In Past Few Weeks While Copper Nears Bear Market Territory In Sympathy


Above is a chart of the Shanghai composite (colored candlesticks) with the price of copper overlaid on it. (black solid line) I'm not convinced action in the U.S. stock market last week was related to Europe in any way. Industrial commodities came crashing down as well. The media has to blame it on something they can see. ie, Riots in the street of Greece and Wall Street's scheming in the Greek sovereign debt markets.

The correlation between copper and the Shanghai index is literally a nearly perfect daily correlation. For some reason no one else still wants to talk about this. But the reason we are paying $80 for a barrel of oil and $3.50 for a pound of copper is because Wall Street is front running the commodities market just like they are front running investors in the stock market with computer trading. I wrote on here years ago that it costs about 5 cents a pound to mine copper and the average price of copper over the last sixty years has been about 50 cents. But, instead we now hear the world is running out of the shiny metal. Why? Because it fits Wall Street's fraud.

Wall Street is completely extorting China's massive purchase of commodities by inserting themselves into the commodities space and creating this commodities bubble. Not to mention that they are ripping off every single American by forcing prices higher. Wall Street's entire existence is predicated on front running.
Historically, Wall Street had made its money front running credit as we have highlighted numerous times. Something their monopoly access to capital grants them. Monopoly access given to private bankers about eighty years ago through what was most assuredly lobbyist bribery of our Congress. But now these scumbags have their fingers in everything. Front running food commodities, industrial commodities, energy commodities, gold, etc. They front run consumers with every type of banking fee imaginable. (late fees, application fees, every type of credit card fee imaginable, ATM fees, account fees) They front run our schools and municipalities in the fees they extort for raising capital and selling risky protection schemes that don't work. They front run our retirement accounts by charging astronomical management fees for what almost always amounts to guaranteed underperformance. They front running our government by extorting massive federal debt interest penalties from the American people. They are front running Greece's crisis by ripping off the sovereign people of Greece by front running its debt issuance and even helping to create that crisis. Wall Street is nothing more than a massive and fraudulent tax on society. A killer of wealth. A destroyer of freedoms. A murderer of economic opportunity.

Eventually people will have to choose between social programs or Wall Street's massive tax. Social Security or Wall Street fees? Funding for special needs children or Lloyd Blankfein's salary?


Commodities are imploding because the Shanghai Index is imploding, not because of Greece. Not that they are completely unrelated. And the correlation between the Shanghai Index and commodities is surely driven by the Frankenstein mathematical models Wall Street has built for the commodities markets. Something President Clinton's deregulation has allowed.

For years we have written that this commodities bubble was manufactured by Wall Street. Somehow this continues to escape mainstream discussion. It's really because society has no idea how Wall Street has rigged the game. It's Enron redux. The lack of transparency allows any type of scheme imaginable by a predatory financial and banking system.

If our government didn't borrow money from private banksters but instead printed it into existence as we used to, we would have enough money to give every American a home, wean ourselves off of foreign energy, finally democratize our educational system and recover much of our lost economic opportunity. As I wrote on here before, Thomas Jefferson wanted to give everyone their own property courtesy of the government. We don't need to borrow money to do that either. But can you imagine if that were suggested today? Jefferson would be labeled a communist. A Nazi. Un-American. Because Wall Street controls the microphone and has brainwashed the vast majority of society into this absurd mess we have gotten ourselves into. Is it any different than people defending a predatory dictator? Our dictator resides on Wall Street. Those brainwashed into supporting this dictator are the political elites and the wealthiest members of society who benefit from such predatory actions.

It's time to send Wall Street mobsters packing. Public banking is needed to encourage the development of humanity and democracy - which should be its primary goal anyway.

There is no real financial reform. Only loopholes and more fraud.
posted by TimingLogic at 2:09 PM

Confessions From Wall Street - "This Whole Fucking Economy Is Built On Fraud And Lies And Garbage."

The time has come for public banking.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:59 AM

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Unelected And Unaccountable EU Bureaucrats Seek To Tighten Control Over EU States By Crippling National Sovereignty And Democracy Via New Treaty Rules

Diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interim period, appeasement of Fascism.
-- Barbara Tuchman

Article link in the title.
posted by TimingLogic at 12:04 PM

The Greek Crisis Is A Litmus Test For Democracy In Europe And Eventually For Our Freedoms In The United States

I have a different perspective on the crisis in Greece than most. Definitely different than you will read in the mainstream media. I support the people of Greece who are rising up against neoliberalism, deregulation and the theft of society's resources by criminal banksters, elites and political idiots. Just as I support the right of homeowners in the United States to challenge the legitimacy of their contracts based on the massive fraud that turned many innocent homeowners upside down. When the entire system of inflating prices is based on fraud, individual contracts are also impacted by that same fraud.

I support the right of Greeks, Spaniards and the Irish to challenge the legitimacy of the claims against them by the banksters just as I support the rights of Americans to challenge the legitimacy of many schemes we see today. The dynamic in Europe and the United States is absolutely no different. The political stooges and financial crooks are trying to saddle the people of Europe with their fraudulent shams without any financial or economic reforms of what has become a ruling class around the globe. I believe the people of Europe should repudiate many of these financial claims just as Americans repudiated the many financial claims foisted upon them by the Bank of England and their beholden political stooges in London before the Revolutionary War.

Do you believe in democracy? Do you believe the American economy can survive under the current economic model? Do you believe this economic model is consistent with democracy? Do you even understand what economic model made America the envy of the world? The vast majority of financial bloggers have no idea.

We have 40 million Americans on food stamps. We have no realistic economic opportunity for tens of millions of Americans. We have a President who just stated days ago that a college degree is necessary to have any chance at economic opportunity in our future. At the minimum, a massive misunderstanding of what made our economy great. In our economy we pay Harvard MBAs tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to play with money all day. Our Treasury Secretary and the federal government defends this dynamic as the crown jewels of the American economy. Or, at least corrupt politicians do. I guess our President is intimating his support for the same ideology with the statements cited above.

You had better pay close attention to what is happening in Greece if you live in the United States. The same pinheads trying to ram austerity measures down the throats of Greek citizens are going to be soon enough coming for our Social Security and Medicare. Our social programs for children. Our programs to support special needs Americans. Our educational system. And on and on. They already destroyed most American's pensions that have been pillaged over the last twenty years. And they already took tens of millions of our jobs. Mark my word. Those who believe in freedom and the rights of people to rule need to stand behind the democratic movements in Greece, Germany, Spain or wherever this European crisis lands. The people living in one of the cradles of democracy are trying to take back their self-determination from crooks who are attempting to transfer even more power from the people of Greece into the hands of a few. Soon enough, they are coming your way.

"The people of Greece are fighting for the whole of Europe" - Story link here.
posted by TimingLogic at 5:28 AM

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Britain Sacks One Of The Biggest Political Boobs In Europe. New Prime Minister Appointed.

posted by TimingLogic at 6:13 PM

Very Watered Down Federal Reserve Audit Passes The Senate 96-0 (It's Not Really An Audit Anymore)

I got an email today that said we beat the banks. That is hardly anywhere close to reality. I really don't think all but a handful of people really understand the depth of the impact a quasi-private central bank has on our economy and on our democracy. It promotes racism, limits economic opportunity and puts our democracy in the hands of a few incompetent bureaucrats on Wall Street. In fact, it is so far removed from reality to consider this a victory over the banksters that it really takes the eye off of the real issue. That is, we need the Federal Reserve to be part of the Treasury and to become a completely public institution under the direct control of the American people. But this look into the books of the Federal Reserve (it isn't really an audit anymore) is better than nothing for an institution that has become more overt in its perpetuation of fraud than anything I ever could have imagined just a handful of years ago.

But, we have to start somewhere. This is a start.

Story link here.
posted by TimingLogic at 5:57 PM

Monday, May 10, 2010

For Any Remaining Doubters,The Proof Is Now Incontrovertible. Markets Are Rigged. Goldman Sachs Racks Up Quarter With ZERO Trading Losses.

"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve. But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime." -- Frederic Bastiat
posted by TimingLogic at 4:21 PM

Friday, May 07, 2010

Global Financial Volatility

I really wasn't planning on posting anything about this week's action in financial markets beyond my last post. I think my last post and countless others over the last few months remarking of what I believe is an imminent top and a return to volatility speak for themselves. But here are my thoughts.......

"This brings up a timely point. The environment today is eerily similar to that of times past including 1987 and then in 2008 before financial markets collapsed......." -- March 18, 2010 remarks I made on this blog.

To those who point to a computer glitch as the source of this week's action, I have but one thing to say. I guess they have the same computer glitch in global debt markets, Asian markets, commodity markets, European markets and foreign exchange markets. Eh? The whole global financial system is a house of cards built by financial con men and their beholden political stooges. If the market were trading on fundamentals, it would be trading at our downside target of 200-450 on the S&P.

That's about all I have to say for now.
posted by TimingLogic at 10:00 AM

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

The Back End Of The Global Economic Storm: Possible NYSE Index Peak And Next Wave Down Plus A Reaffirmation Of Many Macro Themes

Click on the graphic for a larger view. We first threw up this chart of the New York Stock Exchange Index back in December of 2006 if you want to dig through the archives. As part of that post we highlighted an Andrews' Median Line analysis on the Index as supporting evidence of just how extremely overbought the market was on a twenty five year analysis. It may be difficult to remember now but Wall Street was incredibly bullish at that time. We highlighted that fact a month or so later citing the projections of Wall Street "experts" that was overwhelmingly positive. Soon thereafter the market peaked and had one of the biggest collapses in history.

Let's briefly review some key points necessary to understand this graphic. The NYSE Index is considered the institutional index. It's where large money investors have historically done business. It is the broadest American index most representative of the global economy today. The chart above is of the NYSE Index starting with the bull market starting in 1982 till today. Overlaid on the chart are Andrews' Median Lines in red.

Andrews' Median Lines are meant to contain price. In other words, they are a form of regression shown visually. They are drawn by selecting three points (A, B and C) on a chart. For this graphic we start by selecting the end of a multi-decade bear market in 1982 (A) which is considered the start of the greatest bull market in history. We then select the price peak in 2000 (B) which was the end of that bull market. Finally, we select the price low in the post 2000 bear market (C). I've got software which then automatically draws the median lines but if you were to draw them manually like Andrews did eighty odd years ago, here's how you would do it: Connect lines B and C. Determine the midpoint of that line and draw a line from A through the midpoint. Then draw lines parallel to the that midpoint line from points B and C for the upper and lower median lines. There you have it.

Now, the reason we chose the points we did for this Andrews' Median Line analysis is because the bull market for the American economy ended in 2000 While it may seem counter intuitive, the 2003-2007 rally could easily be explained as a bear market rally. Although we seldom witness it, bear market rallies can indeed surpass old market highs as the NYSE Index did by surpassing the 2000 peak this past cycle. As we have written many times, the 2000 stock market collapse was driven by an underlying economic collapse in the United States that had been building for many years. We are still in the middle of that economic collapse but it has been hidden by an ever-growing debt bubble, the war machine, a truly massive mergers & acquisitions bubble, a real estate bubble, a finance industry bubble, a private equity bubble, massive growth in government spending and a temporary dynamic we now call globalization. None of these create any wealth but in fact are simply transfers of wealth, thus leading to the substantial concentration of wealth that has accelerated over the last decade. The entire world, be it bull or bear, incorrectly believes 2000's stock market peak was followed by a minor recession. And that the cause of this crisis is a housing bubble stoked by Alan Greenspan lowering rates below the market in 2001 and 2002. First it was remarked to be a subprime problem. But then we saw prime mortgage defaults outstrip subprime. Now we see the entire world unraveling. With the world now starting to reveal itself, doesn't a root cause of this crisis being a housing bubble seem absurd? Because it is. I will eventually prove all of this with substantial data and an analysis of economic principles you won't find anywhere else. Because apparently no economist understands sound economic principles. But I'm well ahead of myself. In other words, I don't see discussing that data in detail any time in 2010. And if I do, not until very late in the year. Although if you have been with me from the beginning, you should be able to string hundreds of posts together to see where this will eventually lead.

I am a firm believer in the natural phenomenon of ABC patterns as we have discussed numerous times. It's often difficult to accurately predict them, especially in the shorter term. The patterns though are clearly identifiable once they have revealed themselves. Fortunately, for the purposes of this post, a very substantial market dynamic has indeed already revealed itself. That is the 2000-2003 ABC correction pattern marked in blue on the chart above.

So why do I like the ABC pattern? Well there are a few reasons but one we have mentioned on here is that it can be viewed as a time-independent Fibonacci representation of the Fibonacci (or logarithmic) spiral. We can then more easily use this representation in lieu of the spiral to analyze markets. (Although Fibonacci spirals can also be used. But that's beyond the scope of this blog as they introduce time dependency and I don't typically talk about time dependency on here. What do you expect for free?) On that note, we have likened this crisis to that of a hurricane, itself a Fibonacci spiral pattern. That is, a front end storm(A), followed by the eye of the storm(B) (a period of low volatility and perceived recovery) then again followed by the back end storm's most powerful wave(C). That is, ABC. In other words, the storm itself can be represented as an ABC pattern. This phenomenon is similar to the dynamics of a tsunami and, in fact is a pattern that repeats itself quite regularly throughout the natural universe. What's more important is this pattern has repeated itself time and again in financial markets including the onset of the Great Depression. I believe it will also likely manifest itself on some level with the onset of the new depression the world is just starting to enter.

Why would we expect financial market or seemingly what many perceive as a man-made phenomenon to be any different than that of a natural storm or natural phenomenon re a Fibonacci pattern? We are indeed in an economic storm. And are we not simply a small but representative component of the natural cosmos? Are we not impacted by the same forces of the universe that affect our planet, even if we don't understand or most often even recognize them? Would then natural patterns not be applicable to human behavior, markets and economics? Of course they would. Of course they are.

There is some reason to assume some market patterns of today will parallel that of the post 2000 market collapse. ie, The Federal Reserve flooded the market with liquidity post 2000 in an attempt to stave off an economic collapse. They did so because the American economy was collapsing. As we have noted before, many business leaders were contacting the government and the Federal Reserve post 2000 stating the economy was literally collapsing, something that has never been widely reported or understood. After the initial pulse downward post 2000, many became bullish again believing the crisis has passed. The market then punished those who had believed the storm had passed in 2001 with a slaughter into 2002 and early 2003. I bring this up because it is representative of the intellectual capture of just about everyone on Wall Street. An entire system of people who are completely deluded by a false sense of reality better known as conditioning or brainwashing. Wall Street is modern society's Pavlov's dog. Again, the 2000-2003 pattern is the exact same one we witnessed with the onset of the Great Depression. The pulse lengths were different for various reasons. Most of which I believe are explainable.

As a parallel to the post 2000 collapse, in today's world we see the exact same dynamics of central bankers dropping rates and flooding the financial market with liquidity. This has been followed by a period of rising markets and a perception the economy has recovered by both bulls and many bears. (Nearly 90% of economists now discount any chance of a double dip. A very, very bad sign for a professional lemming community void of critical thought which entirely missed the first collapse.) But instead of today's pattern being a U.S. phenomenon, these dynamics have occurred globally in an attempt to save the global economy. ie, We are witnessing the exact same pattern of behavior by central banks and politicians as post 2000 but on a global scale. Global synchronized tomfoolery driven by the political idiots of the G20 who are attempting to save the status quo. (How often have we remarked that G20 economic crisis meetings were ridiculous notions by ridiculous bureaucrats which would accomplish nothing? How many G20 leaders were able to stop the volcano from erupting in Iceland? That's the same number that will be able to stop this economic storm.) So because of this commonality in patterns and behavior, we might expect the equity and commodity markets to follow a similar pattern to that of equity markets post 2000. So far they have. In fact, the outline on the graphic in blue from the 2007 peak to the 2009 bottom through the rally of today is an almost exact pattern match in scale to that of the post 2000 collapse and 2001 rally. And if we continue to follow that same pattern, we are nearing a very, very substantial top and a return to volatility. A return to the economic storm.

The next cycle down, regardless of whether the pattern follows through in the manner we have shown, will put the final nails in global finance and globalization as we have written of ad nauseam. It will reveal the massive bubble that is China and commodities. (China's economy has actually been collapsing for well over a year now and if you understand capital flows, you know what I am talking about. If not, well then just sit back and watch. And as we have rebutted recent remarks by new China bears, China is not just experiencing a real estate bubble. It is far, far more severe than that. Massively more severe. Again, people focusing on real estate are well too reliant on correlation equaling causation. The world is seldom as it is seen. ie Too many people think with their eyes and not their brain.) It could very well mean an end to the European Union as we know it. It will also take down the status quo who have created this economic Frankenstein. A Frankenstein that the status quo is protecting at all cost with other people's money. It could also fulfill our thesis that President Obama is a modern-day Herbert Hoover, (both brilliant men perceived as saviors but both atrocious leaders beholden to the status quo. Sacrilege to the true believers in our current savior, as it would have been sacrilege to Hoover's true believers in 1928 and 1929.) And the potential rise of a third party Presidential candidate in 2012 we wrote of early last year. And of course a global storm of economic collapse in emerging markets that we have been writing about for years. And finally it will play quite nicely into our thesis that economic recovery will be a process driven by localization. And, of course, our long running thesis that the United States will eventually dominate the global economy unlike it has in generations. (Note: I would not expect bond markets to follow a similar patten because dynamics are driven by a debt-fueled response to this crisis which does not match the pattern post 2000. Maybe we'll cover what pattern I expect the bond market to follow in another post.)

So to summarize, if we look at the ABC pattern of the correction post 2000 (highlighted in blue), and we use the same ratios to the post 2008 collapse, we get a new projection. (also highlighted in blue), We also get a downside target. There is no irony that downside target would give us a decline similar in scale to that of 1929. How often have we mentioned over the years that this market is more expensive than 1929 and this is the biggest global bubble in history? I was never convinced we could rally quite this high, and in fact, if we did get a substantial rally we wrote that it would likely fail in the 1,000 to 1,100 level of the S&P. The NYSE following a peak in the S&P of 1,000 to 1,100 off of the 2007 peak is shown in the orange pattern drawn side-by-side the blue ABC pattern in the 2007 peak to today. Price is now between these two projection patterns, (blue and orange) and that could be why we are witnessing greater volatility. In other words, just as happened near the peak of the upward thrust in the post 2000 collapse, we are getting closer and closer to a top somewhere in here as liquidity continues to drain out of the global economy. (Remember, all of these projections are price only. There is no time projection included in any of this post so the graphic is not to be interpreted with any time component. ie, It is not indicating we will see price lows in 2010.)

The overall pattern of the NYSE matches up nicely with the downside target we have for the S&P. Our original downside target has been 400-450 for the S&P but given the size of this crisis swelled due to government bureaucrat incompetence, we changed that target soon after the market collapsed to that of 200-450 on the S&P. Using the pattern on the chart above, we would expect a downside S&P target of around 300-350, although I did not selected my downside target for the S&P using this methodology but instead based on fundamental valuation metrics. That two completely separate analyses align quite closely simply adds more concern I have for the future of financial markets.

This analysis looks quite ridiculous doesn't it? Well, I wouldn't bet my life the pattern above will work out perfectly. That would be too easy. It is simply a guesstimate. But I do believe fundamentals support a coming drop in financial assets which will be enormous. And I do believe we will meet or come very close to our downside target in both the NYSE and S&P. I just don't know if it will be a reasonably straight shot down either via another collapse or a steady drop as post 1929. Or if there will be fits and starts along with way. Of course, most every major macro projection we have written on here was hilarious at the time we originally posted it. Not so hilarious now. Almost all of our macro projections have either started to come to pass or are already in full bloom. Remember, five years ago when the world was partying hard and the intelligentsia were extolling Pax Globalia, we wrote, "This is the biggest bubble the world has ever seen. The world will literally shudder and shake when this cycle ends.".

And so it should be with the biggest global economic storm in recorded history.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:09 PM