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Articles by Uber Vandal
Lawrence Wilkerson: "The American 'Empire' Is In Deep, Deep Trouble"
Former US army colonel and Chief of Staff for Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson unleashed a most prescient speech on the demise of the United States Empire. As Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith notes, Wilkerson describes the path of empires in decline and shows how the US is following the classic trajectory. He contends that the US needs to make a transition to being one of many powers and focus more on strategies of international cooperation.
Global Stocks, EM FX Extend Losses Despite China Saying "No Collapse Is Nigh"
US equity futures have retraced the late-day ramp from Friday with Dow down around 65pts. Asia is opening weaker (NKY -900 from Thursday highs) with EM FX appearing not to get the "but we didn't hike" message from The Fed with MYR the worst hit for now (after a few days of strength). EM outflows accelerated according to Morgan Stanley, down 6% AUM in 12 weeks. PBOC devalued the Yuan fix by 0.11% (the most in 2 weeks).
US Futures Jump Unaware Gartman Short Has Been Stopped Out, China Hugs Flatline
Following a string of weak economic news out of both Japan and the US, it was China's turn to disappoint which it did over the weekend with the worst fixed-asset investment data - the primary driver of China's GDP - since 2000, as well as yet another miss in Chinese industrial output, just the latest two indications that China's economy is grinding to a halt if not slamming into reverse.
Default Wave Looms As Energy Sector Credit Risk Surges To Record High
With oil prices pushing cycle lows and Shale firms as loaded with debt as they have ever been, the spike in energy sector credit risk should come as no surprise as the hopes of the last few months are destroyed. At 1076bps, credit risk for the energy sector has never been higher. As UBS recently warned, more defaults are looming and, as we discussed this week, private equity is waiting to pick up the heavily discounted pieces.
You Live In A Country Run By Idiots If...
We truly live in a country run by idiots. The contradictions between common sense and government actions are just too many to have happened by accident or chance. But perhaps the leaders are not the idiots. Maybe the people tolerating such leaders and laws are the true idiots. What follows is a contrast between common folk wisdom and what Washington considers wisdom. These contradictions are inconvenient for government, threatening to reveal their incompetence or hidden agenda.
Participation Trophy Nation
Submitted by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog, What a pathetic nation of entitled whiners we’ve become. When did participation in a sport or any competition deserve a trophy? Trophies are for winners. Trophies are for the people who excelled. Trophies are for the people who worked harder than their competitors and won. The bullshit about every child being a special snowflake has permeated our society and created generations of momma’s boys and girls.
Greece May Sue Goldman Over Bank's Role In Greek Collapse
It's Goldman Sachs' world, we just happen to live in it. That rather unfortunate, yet exceedingly accurate, characterization of the global financial and geopolitical landscape seemingly becomes more true with the passage of time and perhaps nowhere is it more evident than Europe, where the common currency experiment (which never had any hope of working without some semblance of a fiscal union) is on the brink of collapse.
China Must Be Getting Really Nervous To Do This
One of the most stunning data points of the ponzi bubble called Chinese Stock Markets has been the greater-than-exponential rise in the opening of new retail stock trading accounts in the last few months. If ever there was a better indicator of speculative excess or a government policy out of control, it was the pace of new account openings. So...
California Water Wars Escalate: Government Orders Massive Supply Cuts To Most Senior Rights Holders
Just two weeks after California's farmers - with the most senior water rights - offered to cut their own water use by 25% (in an attempt to front-run more draconian government-imposed measures), AP reports that the California government has - just as we predicted - ignored any efforts at self-preservation and ordered the largest cuts on record to farmers holding some of the state's strongest water rights.
Who's On The Other Side Of The Trade?
Our opinion – unchanged from the bottom of the crisis in 2009 to today – has been not only that the economy was not recovering, but also that it couldn’t recover – not as long as the feds were on the case. This week, we have more evidence… Six years after the “recovery” train supposedly left the station, and GDP is backing up again. That is according to the feds’ own numbers, just revised. They tell us that the economy shrank at a 0.7% annual rate in the first quarter.
Peter Schiff Is Furious At "Double Seasonally Adjusted" Economic Data
Days before the BEA made it official that it would "double seasonally adjust" GDP data so it is more in fitting with a recovery narrative, Zero Hedge first suggested that this is simply an exercise in giving Janet Yellen a green light for a rate hike later in the year as not even the Fed would dare proceed with tightening at a time when the first half of the year shows a GDP that is on the cusp of, if not outright, negative.
The "War On Cash" Migrates To Switzerland
The war on cash is proliferating globally. It appears that the private members of the world’s banking cartels are increasingly joining the fun, even if it means trampling on the rights of their customers.
7 Habits Of Highly Effective Libertarians
Submitted by Jeffrey Tucker via The Foundation for Economic Education, What does it mean to be an effective advocate of liberty? It means to love what you do and adopt sustainable patterns of thinking and living that contribute to making the world a freer place. Sustainability is key. Most of today’s attacks on freedom lovers include a dismissal that libertarianism is an ideology for idealistic (or maybe deluded) kids, not one for adults.
Forget The Snow, It's The Drought That Is Crushing The US Economy
With all eyes and talking heads focused on the 'weather', it seems cold, wet, snowy, and frigid are the most GDP-destructive adjectives. However, as Bloomberg reports, the drought out West is starting to infiltrate U.S. housing data, according to the chief economist of a homebuilders' group, and weakening a major part of the nation's economy. Housing starts in the West fell for a third straight month, dropping by 19 percent in March to an annualized rate of 201,000 for the weakest since May.
Draghi Tells Euro Shorts To "Make His Day", Again
With a “defiant” Syriza determined to hold onto any shred of dignity and legitimacy that may remain in the wake of months of painful negotiations with its creditors and with a €5 billion advance from Russia (a large chunk of which will promptly be paid to the IMF which use it to bailout Ukraine which will hand it right back to Russia) shaping up to be the last lifeline for Greece before Athens is reduced to issuing IOUs to pay pensions and salaries, the focus is beginning to shift away from...
Another Electric Car Bites The Dust: Current Chevy Volt To Go The Way Of The Aztek Due To Plunging Sales
A week ago when observing the latest GM deliveries, we noticed something troubling: Here is the unpleasant detail for a car that five years ago was among the biggest hopes for the recently bankrupt auto maker: It was thus inevitable that the car which first went on sale in 2010 amid very high expectations, and whose lackluster sales of 70,000 to date, far below initial company forecasts amid low gasoline prices and the release of more capable electric models from competitors, was about to be...
European Derivatives Market Breaks... And Futures Surge
Because nothing says "liquid and efficient" market like yet another broken market. Just as we saw yesterday afternoon as US equities collapsed into the close, Euronext has broken in the pre-open European markets... *EURONEXT SAYS EXPERIENCING SOME TECHNICAL ISSUES *EURONEXT DERIVATIVES MKT STATUS - SYSTEMS AFFECTED: CCG ISSUE *EURONEXT: CCG NUMBER 10, 11, 12 MAY SEE CONNECTIVITY ISSUE and sure enough, DAX stock futures surge... And so did US equity futures...
Drowning In Liquidity But None In The Bond Market: The Spark Of The Next Financial Crisis?
Of all the themes we’ve been pounding the table on of late, the idea that a lack of liquidity in certain markets will eventually lead to an “accident” or “adverse event” (to use the Center for Financial Stability’s words) is perhaps the most pressing because with the Mario Draghis and Haruhiko Kurodas of the world intent on monetizing every bit of government paper they can get their hands on, “outlier” events such as the Treasury flash crash that occurred last October are likely to become far...
10 Charts Which Show We Are Much Worse Off Than Just Before The Last Economic Crisis
Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, If you believe that ignorance is bliss, you might not want to read this article. I am going to dispel the notion that there has been any sort of “economic recovery”, and I am going to show that we are much worse off than we were just prior to the last economic crisis. If you go back to 2007, people were feeling really good about things. Houses were being flipped like crazy, the stock market was booming and unemployment was relatively low.
Harvard Business Review Throws Up All Over Stock Buybacks
When even the Harvard Business Review throws up all over stock buybacks, you know it is only a matter of days before Obama signs an executive orders banning these for good (as he should have back in April 2012 when we explained why it is all the Fed's fault that instead of investing in growth and expansion, companies are instead cashing out their stockholders and boosting management equity-linked comp to record leves).
This Is What A World Addicted To Debt Looks Like
As we spelled out explicitly and succinctly late last month, there is one overriding and extremely simple reason why seemingly every central bank in the developed world is bound and determined to move heaven and earth in the pursuit of generating a “healthy” level of inflation. With 9 countries sitting on debt-to-GDP ratios of 300%+, it’s either inflate the debt away or be crushed under the sheer weight of it.
US Macro Weakest Since July 2011 As Goldman Affirms Global Economy In Contraction
Goldman's Global Leading Indicator (GLI) final print for February affirms the global economy has entered a contraction with accelerating negative growth. Just six months after "expansion", the Goldman Swirlogram has collapsed into "contraction" with monthly revisions notably ugly and 9 out of 10 components declining in February. Some have suggested, given US equity's strong February (buyback-driven) performance, that the US economy will decouple from the world... or even drive it..
Time For #GreekLivesMatter
Submitted by Yves Smith via Raul Ilargi Meijer's The Automatic Earth blog, This is a post by Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, who shares my worries (and quotes me) – as well as Syriza’s, of course – about what’s happening in Greece. She’s dead on in making the connection between #BlackLivesMatter and #GreekLivesMatter. What’s being done to Greece in this Chicago School style experiment is reprehensible and immoral.
25% Of Americans Prefer Socialism Over Capitalism
While Americans are preached that "free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity," it appears that not everyone is buying it. Whether it is the failure of prosperity to trickle down (and the inequality that has been created) or just the herd-like need to be told what to do (and never take risks), Pew Research finds a stunning 25% of Americans do not believe people are better off in a free market system - implicitly preferring centrally-planned lives.
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