ND MAY 2 19 SIT EC y POL
ND denounce Global-neoliberal debacle y propone State-Social
+ Capit-compet in Eco
ZERO HEDGE ECONOMICS
Neoliberal globalization is over. Financiers know it, they
documented with graphics
When Doves Cry: US
Econ today.
The market asked Powell, "where's the 'dovish' meat?"
and he had no answer...and the market suddenly tightened its rate-cut
expectations by 14bps!!
in case you wondered where the meat was - it was here! Beyond Meat soars over 175% from its IPO price...
The Dow is heading for its second
down week in a row (the first consecutive loss since Dec 21st) - a terrifying
thought - and as Nomura's
Charlie McElligott noted, CTAs have just flipped to 100% short...
See Chart:
VIX specs are at a record short...
See Chart:
VIX Future/Options NET Speculative Position
The yield curve has flattened quite
notably after an initially exuberant steepening...
See Chart:
Inflation breakevens continued to
slide (along with crude prices)...
See Chart:
The Dollar extended yesterday's
gains post-Powell...
See Chart:
And finally, as BMO's Brad Wishak highlighted, the world's favorite (and also largest) index
to completely ignore is flashing another negative divergence here...the exact same divergence that kicked off the the fall equity
slide lower.
Back in SEP the SPX pushed to new all time highs while the NYSE did
not, flagging the initial divergence. Y'day the SPX again made fresh all time
highs with the NYSE again NOT confirming.
Is it different this time?
….
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Being "middle class" is no longer a buffer
to the indignities and friction of a dysfunctional, costly status quo that only serves the wealthy with anything resembling what
was once afforded the middle class...
What qualifies as
middle class? I've defined it by characteristics rather than income: starting
with What
Does It Take To Be Middle Class? (December 5, 2013), I've used 12
minimum standards of membership that were implicit characteristics of the
conventional middle class a generation ago:
1. Meaningful healthcare insurance
($5,000 deductible plans don't qualify, and neither does government-provided
low-income coverage such as Medicaid.)
2. Significant equity (25%-50%) in a home or other real
estate
3. Income/expenses that enable the
household to save at least 6% of its income
4. Significant retirement funds: 401Ks, IRAs, etc.
5. The ability to service all debt
and expenses over the medium-term if one of the primary household wage-earners
lose their job
6. Reliable vehicles for each wage-earner
7. If a household requires
government assistance to maintain the family lifestyle, their Middle Class
status is in doubt.
8. A percentage of non-paper, non-real estate hard assets
such as family heirlooms, precious metals, tools, etc. that can be transferred
to the next generation, i.e. generational wealth.
9. Ability to invest in offspring
(education, extracurricular clubs/training, etc.) without going into debt to
pay for the extracurricular activities.
10. Leisure time devoted to the maintenance of
physical/spiritual/mental fitness.
11. Continual accumulation of human
and social capital (new skills, networks of collaborators, markets for one's
services, etc.)
12. Family ownership of income-producing assets such as
savings bonds, etc.
To these core
attributes we might add the host of services that are being cut back or
eliminated en masse listed in yesterday's guest post, ‘Workarounds’
Galore: How Real Americans Deal with ‘Real’ Inflation: attending sporting
events, regular haircuts, dry-cleaning, membership in service clubs and country
clubs, and dozens of other once-standard benefits of middle class life.
The decay of this
standard of living is not just quantitative, it's qualitative.
Yes, the
super-wealthy have siphoned off most of the gains in income and wealth
generated by financialization as shown on this chart. But that's
only part of the picture, as that only impacts income and capital--it doesn't
measure the decay of purchasing power and the quality of life available to
everyone below the top of the wealth-power pyramid.
See Chart:
Many of
the most richly compensated people in our economy are those who figure out ways
to eliminate costs by degrading quality and service. Ironically, their ample compensation allows them to avoid
the poor-quality services they've designed for everyone below them.
Of related interest:
Honey,
I Shrunk the Middle Class: Perhaps 1/3 of Households Qualify December
28, 2015
What
Does It take to Be Upper Middle Class? June 22, 2016
What's
Eroding the Middle Class? January 2016
What
Killed the Middle Class? March 24, 2016
….
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He has no idea what he is doing...
At his press conference today, the Federal Reserve’s Chair
(no more “man”) reiterated his new redline. Inflation is down again, unexpectedly,
but it will surely pop right back up. What’s holding it back are some new “transitory” factors
(mentioning airline tickets and financial services) that have, unexpectedly,
replaced the old set
of transitory factors (Verizon).
You
may have noticed how there has been an almost continuous string of transitory
factors that strung together add up to this persisting undershoot. Powell even had the nerve to use a form of that very
word:
If we did see inflation running persistently below, that is
something the committee would be concerned about and
something we would take into account when setting policy.
See Chart:
Price Index
The last
111 months (shown above) have been the very model of “persistent” when it comes
to inflation. Economists
would have you believe, though, that something substantial has changed in the
past few years. The persistent undershoot is now persistent transitory
inflation factors, as if that’s actually different even though both end up with
the same result.
It is the theater
of absurd repeating itself all over again. Nobody has paid
any attention to Bill Dudley. That guy more than any of the others in 2007
made these very same mistakes of downplaying bad market signals.
The only change to the FOMC’s policy
today is IOER. The Committee has voted for a third “technical adjustment” to
its policy mechanics. Starting tomorrow, the central bank will now pay 235 bps
on excess reserves placed with the central bank. That’s a change to 15 bps
below the upper bound (which didn’t change), 5 bps further down than today.
Presumably,
this will
incentivize anyone with spare liquidity to
seek better returns which just so happen to be quite literally everywhere
already.
See Chart:
FED Funds: Trading Range
But it’s not QT. It is instead the dealers, the only “money”
that matters. They won’t supply it. Increasingly, they are hoarding. Again.
Jay Powell looks at the unemployment rate and from it alone
he, like Yellen and Bernanke, concludes a whole bunch of sweeping generalizations that
are about to blow up in his face. At less than 4%, to officials it must mean: the financial system is totally healed; the economy is fully
mended; and all because central bankers know what they are talking about. QE
was genius.
SEE Chart:
Employment Cost Index
There’s just no inflation, there’s not even wage data (the
latest Employment Cost Index, released yesterday, shown above) to suggest
there’s a tight labor market let alone one epically imbalanced in the positive
direction, and now proliferating minuses all over the global economic
landscape. Three technical
adjustments. The very things that would make an honest person a little
skeptical about the mainstream story, maybe even to consider a better chance of
a rate cut certainly than rate hike. Whether or
not Jay Powell today wants to, that’s entirely beside
the point.
See Chart:
He has no
idea what he is doing. Kicking and
screaming. Don’t fight the Fed? The Fed
always fights…reality.
….
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Every government intervention into the economy may not be
socialism, but it is a
step toward socialism...
But .. is there a
reasonable “third way”?
The defining difference between socialism and capitalism, as
described by Ludwig von Mises in his 1950 essay “Middle of
the Road Policy Leads to Socialism,” is “the substitution of public
control of the means of production for private control.”
At this point of government control of prices over all the
means of production, Mises concluded,
“This is no longer capitalism, it is all-around planning by the government, it
is socialism.”
There is
no sustainable “third way” to organize the economy. The fundamental struggle is between
capitalism and socialism, between true private ownership over the means of
production and their collective ownership.
Any
intervention, even those thought to be benign, eats away at private ownership
rights and pushes the economy toward socialism. As Mises argued: “Interventionism
cannot be considered as an economic system destined to stay. It is a method for
the transformation of capitalism into socialism by a series of successive
steps.”
….
Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-02/freedom-or-government-control-there-no-true-third-way
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US
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Seudo democ duopolico in US is obsolete; it’s full of frauds
& corruption. Urge cambio
The large cities with the
fastest home appreciation were Newark, Dallas, and Buffalo where prices
increased more than 15% in each place. The large city where prices decreased the fastest was Seattle,
where home prices actually fell 2.4%.
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Since we are told several times a day by the media that the economy is
booming, why are so many young workers
so disastrously melancholy all the time?
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This is a story about a legal
chess match played for the highest
stakes imaginable...
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...incidents
included “accidental overdoses, falls,
burns, near drowning, exposure
to extreme cold temperatures leading to loss of limb, carbon monoxide
poisoning, drowning, hypothermia, motor
vehicle collisions..."
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SPUTNIK and RT SHOWS
GEO-POL n GEO-ECO
..Focus on neoliberal expansion via wars & danger of WW3
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NOTICIAS IN SPANISH
Lat Am search f alternatives to neo-fascist regimes &
terrorist imperial chaos
REBELION
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ALAI ORG
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RT EN
ESPAÑOL
- ¿Por qué no se aprobó la reforma educativa en México?
- Facebook e Instagram cierran la página de teorías conspirativas Infowars y otras ultraderechistas de EE.UU.
- Científicos advierten que la desaparición del permafrost despertará al "gigante dormido"
- Hezbolá promete aniquilar las fuerzas de Israel si atacan el Líbano
- Instituto Ron Paul: "Guaidó ahora vale más muerto que vivo para la CIA y para la oposición"
- Justicia británica aplaza la sentencia sobre la extradición de Julian Assange a EE.UU.
- Keiser Report "La economía estadounidense se basa en las pérdidas"
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GLOBAL RESEARCH
Geopolitics & Econ-Pol crisis that leads to more
business-wars from US-NATO allies
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DEMOCRACY NOW
Amy Goodman’ team
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PRESS TV
Resume of Global News described by Iranian observers..
- Iran condemns US 'coup attempt' in Venezuela
- Pentagon reports 38% spike in sex assaults
- US pursuing regime-change in Iran: Analyst
- Loss of Iranian crude imports will hurt India
- Maduro urges VEN military to fight ‘any coup plotter’
- ‘Israeli forces to be destroyed if they attack Lebanon’
- 'US attempting to lobby UN against Iran's missile work'
- Programs
- Julian Assange and Wikileaks
- U.S. Iran sanctions
- Botched coup attempt in Venezuela
- US Venezuela Intervention
- Grotesque killing spree
- Iran responds to US hostile moves
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