Category Archive: 5) Global Macro

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The ZIRP/NIRP Gods and their PhD Priesthood Have Failed

2016-09-20

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2016-09-20

The priesthood's insane obsession with forcing people to spend their savings by punishing savers with ZIRP/NIRP has failed spectacularly for a simple reason: it completely misunderstands human psychology. Let's start with a simple chart of the Fed Funds Rate, which the Federal Reserve has pinned near zero for years.

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Oil and gas companies are facing major technological disruption

2016-09-20

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Pressure to reduce carbon emissions is putting the future of fossil fuel giants in jeopardy. Their survival plans involve carbon storage and floating wind farms. Meanwhile, one small German village is showing how large companies aren’t always essential. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 Over 80% of the world’s energy needs …

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Emerging Markets: Preview of the Week Ahead

2016-09-19

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2016-09-19

EM ended the week on a soft note. Volatility is likely to remain high as markets are jittery and choppy ahead of the BOJ/FOMC meetings on Thursday. Dollar gains were broad-based last week, but EM certainly underperformed. China markets will reopen after a two-day holiday, but good news out of the mainland is doing little to help EM.

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Emerging Markets: What has Changed

2016-09-16

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2016-09-16

The IEA forecast that the surplus in global oil markets will last for longer than previously thought. Philippine President Duterte called for US troops to leave the southern island of Mindanao. Relations between Poland and the EU are deteriorating. Former head of Brazil’s lower house Eduardo Cunha was expelled and banned from public office for eight years. Brazil’s central bank cut the amount of daily reverse swap contracts sold to 5,000.

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How About Presenting the Facts and Letting Voters Decide Who’s “Fit to Serve”?

2016-09-16

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2016-09-16

Ministry of Propaganda
This simple two-step process would greatly diminish the Ministry of Propaganda's influence. Here's a radical idea: how about presenting the facts and letting voters decide who is "fit to serve"? Consider the context of this presidential election and the judgment call as to who is "fit to serve":

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The Mainstream Media Bet the Farm on Hillary–and Lost

2016-09-15

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2016-09-15

The MSM has forsaken its duty in a democracy and is a disgrace to investigative, unbiased journalism. The mainstream media bet the farm on Hillary Clinton, confident that their dismissal of every skeptical inquiry as a "conspiracy" would guarantee her victory. It now appears they have lost their bet.

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It’s Time to Bring Back Bernie

2016-09-13

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2016-09-13

This tells you everything you need to know about how Hillary will operate as President: there will be no honesty, transparency or truth, ever. Hillary's bid for the presidency is no longer defensible; it's time to bring back Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee.

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How does a floating wind turbine stand up?

2016-09-13

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It is not just utility companies racing to respond to the rise of renewable energy. Oil and gas giant Statoil is building on four decades of offshore experience to erect its first floating wind farm. Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 The Disrupters is an original series exploring how major industries …

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Emerging Markets: Week Ahead Preview

2016-09-12

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2016-09-12

EM ended last week on a soft note. Perhaps it was the North Korean nuclear test (see below). Perhaps it was disappointment in the ECB or rising Fed tightening odds. Whatever the trigger was, EM FX weakness persisted and appears likely to carry over into this week.

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Change is in the air for oil and gas companies

2016-09-12

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Pressure to reduce carbon emissions is putting the future of fossil-fuel giants in jeopardy Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: http://econ.trib.al/rWl91R7 The Disrupters is an original series exploring how major industries – from music and cars to hospitality – are currently being disrupted by the latest wave of digital innovation. As well …

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If Everything Is So Great, How Come I’m Not Doing So Great?

2016-09-12

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2016-09-12

National health expenditures, Gross Domestic Product, Wages
While the view might be great from the top of the wealth/income pyramid, it takes a special kind of self-serving myopia to ignore the reality that the bottom 95% are not doing so well. We're ceaselessly told/sold that the U.S. economy is doing phenomenally well in our current slow-growth world -- generating record corporate profits, record highs in the S&P 500 stock index, and historically low unemployment (4.9% in July 2016).

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Control What You Can and the Asset Ownership of the Wealthy

2016-09-11

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2016-09-11

Our society does not make it easy to control what you can control. Assets are controlled increasingly by a smaller and smaller part of our society. Here's a couple of thoughts on productively controlling what we can control.

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Emerging Markets: What has Changed

2016-09-09

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2016-09-09

India has a new central bank head. North Korea detonated a nuclear device. The Turkish government may be eyeing the central bank for the next purge. Mexican Finance Minister Videgaray resigned. Incoming Mexican Finance Minister Meade announced new spending cuts.

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Our Selfie Society Is Incompatible with Democracy

2016-09-08

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2016-09-08

Now that the U.S. is a neoliberal selfie society, we have the worst of all possible worlds in terms of a failed, doomed democracy. Each individual's liberty to do whatever you want, be whatever you want, go wherever you want, etc. (within the legal boundaries set by the state) is the core of the American Dream. The individual's civil liberties and right to the unlimited pursuit of happiness is sacrosanct.

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Our Impoverished, Pathological Society

2016-09-06

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2016-09-06

If asked what's intrinsic to human happiness, most people in consumer societies will offer up answers such as money, status, a nice house, etc. But as Sebastian Junger observes in his book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, what's actually intrinsic to human happiness is: meaningful relationships within a community (i.e. a tribe); opportunities to contribute to the group and to be appreciated; being competent at useful tasks and opportunities for...

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Intriguing Eruditions: The weak month of the stock market

2016-09-02

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2016-09-02

On Tuesday, I noted the end of summer and the entrance into one of the weakest months of the year statistically speaking. “We can confirm BofAML’s point by looking at the analysis of each month of September going back to 1960 as shown in the chart below."

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MACRO ANALYTICS – 08-26-16 – “Fly-In-The-Ointment”! – w/Charles Hugh Smith

2016-09-02

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ABSTRACT: http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2016/09/01/charles-hugh-smith-the-fly-in-the-ointment-stagnant-wages-hidden-inflation/

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The “Secret Sauce” of the Byzantine Empire: Stable Currency, Social Mobility

2016-09-01

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2016-09-01

One of my reading projects over the past year is to learn more about empires:how they are established, why they endure and why they crumble. To this end, I've recently read seven books on a wide variety of empires. The literature on empires is vast, so this is only a tiny slice of the available books. Nonetheless I think these 7 titles offer a fairly comprehensive spectrum:

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The Fly-in-the-Ointment – 08-26-16 – FRA- w Charles Hugh Smith

2016-09-01

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ABSTRACT: http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2016/09/01/charles-hugh-smith-the-fly-in-the-ointment-stagnant-wages-hidden-inflation/

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Central Banks = Welfare for the Wealthy

2016-08-30

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2016-08-30

The fact that central banks provide welfare for the wealthy is now entering the mainstream. The fact that all central bank policies since 2008 have dramatically increased wealth and income inequality is now grudgingly being accepted as reality by mainstream economists and the financial media. The central banks' PR facade of noble omniscience on behalf of the great unwashed masses has cracked wide open.

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