JAN 4 17 SIT EC
y POL
ZERO HEDGE
ECONOMICS
Empezaron las bancarrotas. Nomi Prints
is right: “Deregulating an inherently corrupt and
coddled banking industry, already floating on said capital assistance, would
inevitably cause another crisis during Trump’s first term.” Open her article below
Remember
when market cheerleaders said that holiday sales were expected to be far
stronger than usual, if only as a result of the newly-discovered optimism from
the Trump election? Well, at least when it comes to conventional retailers like
Kohl's and Macy's... not so much.
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Proponents
of minimum wage hikes will declare victory and ignore all the unseen
consequences imposed on the most vulnerable, unskilled, and marginal members of
the workforce.
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Manufacturing
jobs have already been decimated by robots. White collar workers are
next in line.
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While
mortgage applications tumbled across the two-week holiday period - even
seasonally-adjusted - it was the complete collapse in the refinancings that is
most notable. Down over 60% since August, the refi index crashed over 22%
over the xmas/new year period to its lowest since the post-Lehman collapse in
Oct 2008.
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Dow futures
exploded vertically at the cash open - perfectly tagging yesterday's highs,
running stops - before the algos ran out of ammo. The Dow has now erased
the entire opening ramp as once again, the machines were unable to squeeze
to Dow 20k at the open...
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Our condolences
to anyone who doubted that Obama would be able to hit $20 trillion in Federal
debt before leaving the White House.
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The USD Index slipped lower
overnight but after a brief dip post-Fed, pushed higher - but ended the day
lower unable to extend on yesterday's 14-year highs...
But perhaps the biggest news of the day was Bitcoin surged to record highs today... coming close to parity with gold...
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It's probably
nothing, but...
Remind
us again - it's "Buy Low and Sell High?"
U.S.
stocks have become too costly for mergers and acquisitions, according to Niels
C. Jensen, chief investment officer at Absolute Return Partners LLP.
…
As Bloomberg
reports, the U.K.-based investor cited the S&P 500 Index’s ratio to
earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, in a
monthly letter published Tuesday...
"Interesting
M&A deals are likely to be few and far between" with the price-to-Ebitda ratio at more than
11, he wrote. The indicator peaked at 11.35
as an Internet-driven bull market of the 1990s was ending... it's at 11.27
today!!
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Prosperity
= Abundant Work + Low Cost Of Living
[ Read related art below ]
An
economy that only serves the prosperity of the protected top 5% is an economy doomed
to rising inequality, stagnation and widespread social discontent...
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The bedrock assumption of the
Bull market is that corporate profits will keep rising indefinitely. Hiccups
are allowed, but current stock market valuations are implicitly based on
profits expanding.
The fly in the ointment here is
corporate profits have been stagnating since 2014. Here
is the St. Louis Federal Reserve (FRED) chart of pre-tax corporate profits:
Is it just coincidence that
profits have stagnated since the U.S. dollar strengthened in early 2014? Actually,
there is a causal connection between the USD and corporate profits.
The majority of
America’s large corporations are global, and up to half of their sales and
profits are earned overseas in other currencies.
Consider the impact of foreign
exchange fluctuations on profits when converted to dollars. When the euro and the dollar were
1-to-1 back in the early 2000s, 100 euros of profit earned by U.S. corporations
in Europe converted to $100 when stated in dollars.
When the euro
strengthened to $1.40 (and the USD weakened accordingly), the same 100 euros of
profit earned by the U.S. corporation in Europe converted to a $140 in profit
when stated in dollars–a hefty 40% premium gained entirely as a result of the
weak dollar.
So profits earned in euros soared
40%, not from rising sales or fatter margins, but as the direct result of a
weak USD. Now the trend has reversed, and as I have been
discussing for years, the USD is in a multi-year uptrend.
⇒ Keep Reading
⇒ Keep Reading
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Today,
the only thing keeping a lid on financial calamity is epic amounts of artisanal
money. Deregulating an inherently corrupt and coddled banking
industry, already floating on said capital assistance, would inevitably cause another crisis during
Trump’s first term.
As tumultuous as last year was
from a global political perspective on the back of a rocky start market-wise,
2017 will be much more so. The
central bank subsidization of the financial system (especially in the US and
Europe) that began with the Fed invoking zero interest rate policy in 2008,
gave way to international distrust of the enabling status quo that unfolded in
different ways across the planet. My prognosis is for more destabilization,
financially and politically. In other words, the world's a mess.
Over 2016, I circled the earth to gain insight and share my
thoughts on this path from financial crisis to central bank market manipulation
to geo-political fall out, while researching my new book, Artisans of
Money. (I’m pressing to hand in my manuscript by February 28th –
the book should emerge in the Fall.)
Here the subtitles with 2 expanded : 5 and 10: conclusion.
Open this interesting article:
The state of
economies, citizens and governments remains more precarious than ever. Major
areas on the upcoming docket include – central bank desperation, corporate
defaults and related job losses, economic impact of political isolationism,
conservatism and deregulation, South America’s woes, Europe’s EU voter
rejections, and the ongoing power shift from the West to the East.
For now, I’d like to share with you some specific items -
which are by no means exhaustive, that I’ll be analyzing in 2017.
1) Watching the Artisans of
Money (Central Banks)
2) Volatility for Stock
Markets
3) Rising Corporate Defaults
and Oil Prices
4) Turmoil in South America
5) First Half: Rising Dollar/
Sideways Gold, Second Half: Reverse and Cash
Last year, I said
that despite other countries (and the IMF) seeking to battle the almighty
Greenback, global malaise would “keep the dollar higher than it deserves to
be.”
Then, I expected
gold “to rise during the summer as a safe haven choice” which it did and to
“end the year lower in US dollar terms” which it also did. This
year, it’s likely that the dollar will remain strong in the beginning given the
recent Fed hike, expectations of more, and initial enthusiasm for Trump’s promises.
This will keep a lid on gold.
Yet once it becomes
clear that US economic conditions remain lackluster and inequality rampant, the
dollar will weaken and gold will appreciate. In the backdrop, though the
US remains the world’s biggest gold holder, nations like China, India and
Russia will continue to stockpile gold in a bid
to diversify against the dollar.
In addition to
watching the yellow metal, as I’ve urged over the past few years, routinely
extracting cash from bank accounts remains a smart defensive play for 2017.
People have asked me where to keep it. The answers depend on individual
financial situations, but paying down debt, buying necessary hard assets and
staying liquid with the rest in physical reach (there’s a reason for the term,
keeping it ‘under the mattress’ is practical.
6) Power Shift from West to
East through China and Japan
7) More Anti-EU sentiment and
economic hardship in Europe
8) Upside for Russia
9) Angst in the United
Kingdom
10) The Trump Effect Will Accentuate Unrest
Trump is assembling the richest cabinet in the world to
conduct the business of the United States, from a political position. The problem with that is several fold.
First, there is a woeful lack of
public office experience amongst his administration. His
supporters may think that means the Washington swamp has been drained to make
room for less bureaucratic decisions. But, the swamp has only been
clogged. Instead of political elite, it continues business elite, equally
ill-suited to put the needs of the everyday American before the needs of their
private colleagues and portfolios.
Second, running the US is not
like running a business. Other countries are free to do their
business apart from the US. If Trump’s doctrine slaps tariffs on imports
for instance, it burdens US companies that would need to pay more for required
products or materials, putting a strain on the US economy. Playing hard ball
with other nations spurs them to engage more closely with each other. That
would make the dollar less attractive. This will likely happen during the
second half of the year, once it becomes clear the Fed isn’t on a rate hike
rampage and Trump isn’t as adept at the economy as he is prevalent on Twitter.
Third, an overly aggressive Trump
administration, combined with its ample conflicts of interest could render
Trump’s and his cohorts’ businesses the target of more terrorism,
and could unleash more violence and chaos globally.
Fourth, his doctrine is
deregulatory, particularly for the banking sector. Consider
that the biggest US banks remain bigger than before the financial crisis.
Deregulating them by striking elements of the already tepid Dodd-Frank Act
could fall hard on everyone.
When the system crashes, it doesn’t care about Republican or
Democrat politics. The last time deregulation and
protectionist businessmen filled the US presidential cabinet was in the 1920s.
That led to the Crash of 1929 and Great Depression.
Today, the only thing
keeping a lid on financial calamity is epic amounts of artisanal money. Deregulating an inherently corrupt and coddled banking
industry, already floating on said capital assistance, would inevitably cause
another crisis during Trump’s first term.
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The initial reaction to the hawkish Fed minutes
was the ubiquitous VIX slam which
sparked algo buying panic running stops above the opening Dow highs...
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QUE HACER? WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
"For 105 years, the Federal Reserve has
exercised almost absolute and unquestioned authority over America’s monetary
policy. The result has been a boom-and-bust business cycle, growth in
government, increasing income inequality, and a loss of over 90% of the
dollar’s purchasing power. No wonder almost 80% of Americans support Audit the
Fed!"
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“The U.S. House has responded to the American
people by passing Audit the Fed multiple times, and President-elect Trump has
stated his support for an audit. Let’s send him the bill this Congress,” said
Rand Paul in proposing the latest incarnation of the "Audit the Fed"
bill.
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POLITICS
And so it begins...The Republican plan
to repeal Obamacare overcame its first procedural hurdle in the Senate this afternoon by a vote of 51-48.
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The smooth transition appears to be
getting bumpier.
Following president-elect Trump's earlier tweet on the "Obamacare disaster," President
Obama delivered a mandate to Democrats on
Wednesday:"Don't rescue" Republicans on
Obamacare. With his
legacy in tatters, CNN
reports Obama also floated this idea: Start referring to the GOP's new plan as
"Trumpcare."
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The House of Representatives passed legislation
on Wednesday giving Congress the power to kill so-called "midnight
rules", months of recently enacted Obama
administration regulations with just one vote, as Republicans charged ahead on
their campaign to strip down federal regulations.
The House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday
giving Congress the power to kill so-called "midnight rules", months
of recently enacted Obama administration regulations with just one vote,
as Republicans charged ahead on their
campaign to strip down federal regulations.
If passed by the Senate and signed by President-elect Donald
Trump, the legislation would amend the Congressional Review Act to allow
lawmakers to bundle together multiple rules and overturn them en masse with a
joint resolution of disapproval. The White House has already threatened to veto
the bill if it were to make it to President Obama's desk before he leaves
office.
"Because outgoing
administrations are no longer accountable to the voters, they are much more
prone to issue midnight regulations that fly in the face of the electoral
mandate the voters just gave the new, incoming administration," said
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte before the vote. "Waves
of midnight rules can also be very hard for Congress or a new administration to
check adequately."
It was the second time the Republican-dominated chamber took
up legislation blocking "midnight rules," those rolled out at the
close of a president's term. However, the previous bill, introduced in
November, had faced a certain veto from President Barack Obama, a Democrat. On
its second day back in session, the House passed the bill on a vote of 238 to
184.
Under a law known as the Congressional Review Act, Congress
has the right to review regulations for a certain period of time after they are
issued. That means any federal regulation
approved since May could be voided by the Republican-led Congress once
President-elect Donald Trump moves into the White House and can sign off on
their disapproval.
It would take just a simple majority of both chambers to
reverse a rule, giving Senate Democrats little power to block a vote with a
filibuster. Called a shotgun approach for a reason as disapproving each
regulation separately could span days, Republicans
would like to simply vote once to end a variety of new rules on energy,
the environment, transportation, banking, finance, education and media
ownership.
With Obamacare
already being dismantled, the adverse impact on what's left of Obama's legacy could
be dire. As Reuters
adds, many Wall Street regulations inspired by the 2007-09 financial
crisis have only recently taken final form or are on the cusp of completion,
putting them in the disapproval line of fire. That includes two pending rules on payday lending and mandatory
arbitration clauses in contracts - both of which have raised Republican ire.
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“Trump
is surrounding himself with people who are a very clear and present danger to
the economic prosperity of California. It was very clear that it wasn’t just
campaign rhetoric. This means we are very, very serious."
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"While a public employee does have a
'vested right' to a pension, that right is only to a 'reasonable' pension — not an immutable entitlement to the
most optimal formula of calculating the pension."
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In what some see as a pre-emptive countercoup,Donald Trump
is reportedly working on a plan that would scale down and pare back both the
CIA, and the nation’s top spy agency, the ODNI, prompted by his belief that US
intelligence has become "bloated and politicized."
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WORLD ISSUES and ME
LA SITUACION GLOBAL indica a las
claras que el neoliberalismo se va a la merda
Following another day of upbeat economic data,
with growing signs that inflation on both sides of the Atlantic is
accelerating, investors rediscovered their faith in the Trumpflation rally,
pushing global stocks and US equity futures higher, fuelling a second day of
2017 equity gains ahead of today's release of the Fed's December minutes.
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"Looking back over eight centuries of
data, I find that the 2016 bull market was indeed one of the largest ever
recorded. History suggests this reversal will be driven by inflation
fundamentals, and leave investors
worse off than the 1994 “bond massacre”."
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A RIO REVUELTO.. GANANCIA DE PESCADORES
In a surprising move on Tuesday the Russian
destroyer Admiral Tributs and sea tanker Boris Butomato arrived in the
Philippines to conduct military training exercises in what the Russian mediadescribed as "an unprecedented navy-to-navy contact between
the two nations."
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LA DERECHA TAMBIEN TIENE SUS PESCADORES QUE
GOZAN DEL RIO REVUELTO
French presidential candidate and National
Front leader, Marine Le Pen, said she wants to take France out of the euro,
reiterating comments made the day before, and - taking a page out of the Yanis
Varoufakis Grexit negotiating strategy playbook - added she wants to redenominate French government debt
in a new national currency.
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DEMOCRACY NOW
New
Trump Immigration Memo Revives Call for Obama to Pardon All Undocumented
Immigrants, Extend DACA
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GLOBAL RESEARCH
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U.S.
Quietly Drops “Financial Bombshell”: Wall Street Banks Have $2 Trillion
European Exposure By Pam and Russ Martens
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INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE
Good News: Washington Frozen Out of Syria
Peace Plan By Ron Paul Title foul
but content GOOD
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COUNTER PUNCH
Paul Street Beyond
Anti-Trump
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Patrick Cockburn Why
Turkey Can’t Stop ISIS
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Norman Solomon The
Democratic Party Line That Could Torch Civil Liberties… and Maybe Help Blow Up
the World
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Peter Berllios The
Opposite of Privatize is Socialize
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SPUTNIK and RT SHOWS
Obama’s Anti-Trump War Comes At The Expense of American
Interests
https://sputniknews.com/us/201701041049269910-obama-anti-trump-costs/
https://sputniknews.com/us/201701041049269910-obama-anti-trump-costs/
Related
US Congress May Sharply Respond in Case Trump Reverses
Anti-Russian Sanctions
https://sputniknews.com/us/201701041049269910-obama-anti-trump-costs/ La revocatoria de congresistas via Referendums es tarea popular ya en camino. En la cadena corrupta del senado hay muchos eslabones débiles por dónde empezar (elect frauds) y en esto hay que hilar fino y fuerte. La paranoia anti-RU (pro WW3) está financiada y a estos y sus peones en el senado hay que atacar.
https://sputniknews.com/us/201701041049269910-obama-anti-trump-costs/ La revocatoria de congresistas via Referendums es tarea popular ya en camino. En la cadena corrupta del senado hay muchos eslabones débiles por dónde empezar (elect frauds) y en esto hay que hilar fino y fuerte. La paranoia anti-RU (pro WW3) está financiada y a estos y sus peones en el senado hay que atacar.
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Julian Assange Claims President Obama Targeted His Family.
Lo más nauseabundo de Obama!
https://sputniknews.com/us/201701051049274698-assange-claims-obama-targeted-family/
https://sputniknews.com/us/201701051049274698-assange-claims-obama-targeted-family/
Related 1
Nearly Half of Grizzly Steppe's 'Russian Hacking' IP
Addresses Prove Nothing
https://sputniknews.com/military/201701051049274027-grizzly-steppe-ip-addresses-proof/
https://sputniknews.com/military/201701051049274027-grizzly-steppe-ip-addresses-proof/
Related 2
Sorry, Again! Washington Post’s Story on Russian Hackers
Accessing US Power Grid was Fake News
https://sputniknews.com/military/201701051049274027-grizzly-steppe-ip-addresses-proof/
https://sputniknews.com/military/201701051049274027-grizzly-steppe-ip-addresses-proof/
Related 3
Spy vs. Spy: DNI Refuses to Support CIA 'Russian Hack' Claim,
Citing Lack of Proof
https://sputniknews.com/military/201701051049274027-grizzly-steppe-ip-addresses-proof/
https://sputniknews.com/military/201701051049274027-grizzly-steppe-ip-addresses-proof/
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RT SHOWS
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WASHINGTON BLOG
Posted on January 4, 2017 by Eric Zuesse.
About ‘Russian Hacking of the
Election’
Julian Assange, who received the computer-data from
what U.S. President Barack Obama alleges was ‘Russian hackers’, had an opportunity, in his 3 January 2017 interview with Fox
News Channel’s Sean Hannity, to deny the allegation by Craig Murray (a former
British Ambassador and longtime friend of Assange) that no Russian or any other
hackers were involved passing that information to Wikileaks; and, in
reply, Assange declined the invitation to deny it, and he said, in short:
Obama and his Administration are flat-out lying about
this matter.
Hannity then probed further, to find whom the source actually
was:
(See 55:00- in this interview, especially at 56:50-)
Hannity: There was one report in the [UK
newspaper] Daily Mail that suggested somebody
that you are friendly with, actually was handed the documents at American
University, in a wooded area, by a disgruntled Democrat, who felt betrayed
because the revelations showed that Bernie Sanders had been betrayed and they
didn’t like the corruption of the Clinton Foundation. Can you confirm or
deny that?
ASSANGE: Well that statement
came from Craig Murray, a friend of mine, but Wikileaks is a source-protection
organization. We are famous for never having exposed one of our sources.
That’s why sources trust us and they come to us. So, I can’t comment on other
people’s statements about our sources, except what we have said, which is that
our sources [in this] are not a state party [such as
Russia or any other government].
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NOTICIAS IN SPANISH
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Cómo humanizar ciudades desde la
experiencia feminista Eduardo Bayona
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Esta es la
primera medida del legado de Obama que Trump planea revocar Lo poco en salud “Obama-care” fue lo único bueno que dejo OB, debió
afectar a la Pharma y no lo hizo. Dudo que Trump lo haga Sin duda la medida apunta
a aislar a Trump del pueblo. La traición interna del GOP era de esperarse.
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PRESS TV
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Israel
sentences UN staff to jail over alleged
aid to Hamas
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US
Republicans plan to repeal Obamacare To serves who?
This sensitive issue
may isolate Trump from the Nation
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‘Riyadh
seeking to eliminating Palestinian in
ties with Israel
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