Category Archive: 6b.) Debt and the Fallacies of Paper Money

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Crony Socialism and Failed CEOs

2017-01-15

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2017-01-15

Golden Parachute
Whenever a failed CEO is fired with a cushy payoff, the outrage is swift and voluminous. The liberal press usually misrepresents this as a hypocritical “jobs for the boys” program within the capitalist class. In reality, the payoffs are almost always contractual obligations, often for deferred compensation, that the companies vigorously try to avoid.

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Trump’s Trade Catastrophe?

2017-01-15

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2017-01-15

Larry Summers
It is worse than “voodoo economics,” says former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. It is the “economic equivalent of creationism.” Wait a minute – Larry Summers is wrong about almost everything. Could he be right about this?

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Trump’s Plan to Close the Trade Deficit with China

2017-01-14

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2017-01-14

Jack Ma
Jack Ma is an amiable fellow. Back in 1994, while visiting the United States he decided to give that newfangled internet thing a whirl. At a moment of peak inspiration, he executed his first search engine request by typing in the word beer.

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Regime Change: The Effect of Trump’s Victory on Stock Prices

2017-01-13

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2017-01-13

Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, Daily
On January 20 2017 Donald Trump will be sworn in as the new president of the United States. On the stock market his victory has triggered a lot of advance cheer already: the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by a sizable 7.80 percent between the election and the turn of the year.

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Money Creation and the Boom-Bust Cycle

2017-01-12

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2017-01-12

Murray Rothbard
A Difference of Opinions, In his various writings, Murray Rothbard argued that in a free market economy that operates on a gold standard, the creation of credit that is not fully backed up by gold (fractional-reserve banking) sets in motion the menace of the boom-bust cycle.

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A Trade Deal Trump Cannot Improve

2017-01-08

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2017-01-08

Alice Meets Red Queen
BALTIMORE – People can believe whatever they want. But sooner or later, real life intervenes. We just like to see the looks on their faces when it does. By that measure, 2017 may be our best year ever. Rarely have so many people believed so many impossible things.

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A Biased 2017 Forecast, Part 1

2017-01-05

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2017-01-05

hind-sight
A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to see a live one hour interview with Michael Lewis at the Annenberg Center about his new book The Undoing Project. Everyone attending the lecture received a complimentary copy of the book. Being a huge fan of Lewis after reading Liar’s Poker, Boomerang, The Big Short, Flash Boys, and Moneyball, I was interested to hear about his new project.

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Global Recession and Other Visions for 2017

2017-01-02

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2017-01-02

Here-lies-a-vision
Today’s a day for considering new hopes, new dreams, and new hallucinations. The New Year is here, after all. Now is the time to turn over a new leaf and start afresh. Naturally, 2017 will be the year you get exactly what’s coming to you. Both good and bad. But what else will happen?

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Why the Fed Destroyed the Market Economy

2017-01-01

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2017-01-01

Swing voters are a fickle bunch. One election they vote Democrat. The next they vote Republican. For they have no particular ideology or political philosophy to base their judgment upon.

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How You Become a Crony

2016-12-31

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2016-12-31

Goldman Sachs Group
BALTIMORE – Who’s the biggest winner so far? “Government Sachs!” Fortune magazine reports that the winningest person since Trump’s election is Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

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Wreck the Halls

2016-12-30

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2016-12-30

Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, Daily
Despite the best efforts of the bulls to make history happen, they’ve been unable to ‘git-r-done.’ At the time of this writing, the Dow is facing another bout of arrested development; it has yet to notch 20,000 for the very first time.

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Fake News? It’s All Fake!

2016-12-29

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2016-12-29

the addled cannibals
BALTIMORE – In January of this year, the Empire Herald reported that a “meth-addled couple” had eaten a homeless man in New York City’s Central Park. Later, Now8News reported that a can of cookie dough had “exploded in a woman’s vagina”; the woman was alleged to be shoplifting.

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Moody’s & Reserve Bank of Australia Warn of Increasing Mortgage Arrears and Looming Apartment Defaults

2016-12-25

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2016-12-25

chart-1-moodys-delinqueny-rate
Moody’s & Reserve Bank of Australia Warn of Increasing Mortgage Arrears and Looming Apartment Defaults. Last Wednesday Moody’s reported that mortgage arrears continue to rise across Australia, particularly in the mining states of WA & NT:

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As Central Bankers Spin

2016-12-25

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2016-12-25

I know that I resemble the old guy in this cartoon, standing by helplessly as I watch central bankers experiment with the global economy. Bubbles are blown, again, in several asset classes. Negative interest rates have become an acceptable concept, as if they are just words and have no real economic meaning.

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The Reign of Bubble Finance

2016-12-21

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2016-12-21

Ross Wilbur
Financialization Genius BALTIMORE – When we left you last time, we were in the middle of describing the crooked hind leg of crony capitalism. We used billionaire businessman Wilbur Ross – Donald Trump’s pick for the Department of Commerce – for illustration purposes. Not that there is anything wrong with Mr. Ross. He plays the game, just as everyone else does. He’s particularly good at it.

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Has the Fed Turned “Hawkish?”

2016-12-18

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2016-12-18

Fed birdhouse
Juiced, Stimulus, in a general sense, is something that causes an action or response. A ringing alarm clock may prompt someone to exit their slumber. Or a fist to the gut may force someone to gasp for breath.

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“This Is Total Chaos” – Venezuela Shuts Colombia Border To Stop “Mafia” Currency Smuggling

2016-12-18

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2016-12-18

Banknotes
As if things were not already chaotic enough in the socialist utopia of Venezuela, following President Nicolas Maduro's decision to follow Indian PM Modi's playbook and announce that the nation's largest denomination bill (100-Bolivars - worth around 3c) will be pulled from circulation in 72 hours, he has tonight closed the border to Colombia to crackdown on currency smuggling by so-called "mafias".

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The Exiling of Risk

2016-12-17

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2016-12-17

NAAIM Exposure Index, SPX
A Quick Chart Overview Below is an overview of charts we picked to illustrate the current market situation. The selection is a bit random, but not entirely so. The first set of charts concerns positioning and sentiment. As one would expect, these look fairly stretched at the moment, but there are always ways in which they could become even more stretched. First a look at the NAAIM exposure index.

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The Seasonal Trends of Precious Metals

2016-12-15

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2016-12-15

Platinum Crystal
Long Term Seasonal Price Trends Prices in financial and commodity markets are exhibiting seasonal trends. This applies to the precious metals gold, silver, platinum and palladium as well. The chart below depicts the seasonal trends of the gold price over a time period of 45 years.

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The Climate Changes Back – What Comes Next?

2016-12-13

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2016-12-13

Daily Kos Penguin North Pole
Last year’s El Nino phenomenon temporarily provided succor to climate alarmists, who were increasingly bothered by the “Great Pause” – the fact that the tiny amount of warming experienced since the last cooling cycle ended in the late 1970s had apparently stopped. Despite trace amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere continuing to climb, mother nature decided to disobey alarmist models and temperatures went sideways for about 20 years (or even longer,...

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