Friday, July 5, 2013
The Government's Numbers Are A Complete Farce - Part Time Jobs +322k, Full-time down 240k
[Please note: the S&P 500 futures have plunged 26 pts from their intra-day high, the Dow briefly went red after opening up over 100 points. This fact confirms my analysis below]
In fact, our entire system is a joke. I see where it's being reported that the "inquiry" into Steven Cohen's insider trading will take years. That tells me everything I need to know: the rogue billionaire hedge fund trader has all the right people in all the right places paid off handsomely.
As for today's employment report, to say I'm nearly speechless over how just absurd it is would be nothing more than social correctness. I hope everyone takes note that 322k of the supposed jobs created were part-time - full-time jobs declined by 240k. I'm not going to take the time to dissect the entire report - you can go to Zerohedge.com for that. It's really a waste of time to try and analyze fraud. But here's my thoughts:
Today's jobs report featured 322k increase in part-time jobs. That would be in the services industry. The same services segment of the economy for which the Institute of Supply Management announced on Wednesday that its employment index plunged to its 2009 level: LINK
Who's right? The Govt bean counters or the businesses who do the actual hiring? I'll let you decide.
Please note that new orders per the ISM report plunged to 2008 levels.
Also please note that while the Govt released a number than enables the momentum traders to juice the SPX and hit the metals today, the Govt also made sure that the unemployment rate stayed comfortably above the 7% level and it was actually a bit higher than expected. The 7% level being the number everyone on CNBC is watching to decide if the Fed will really "taper."
Also note that overnight last night that India and Viet Nam were aggressively buying despite Govt attempts in both countries to curb gold buying.
Let the boys have their fun today with the low volume in all the markets and not many players around, now that the rest of the world has left for the weekend except our British lapdogs. And in a couple hours the Brits will go to their kennels for the weekend.
Next week and over the rest of the summer, it's going to become harder for the Government to lie about what's really going on the economy as the evidences of the truth will become more apparent to everyone.
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Most people in this country believe the lies that are told to them...and find 'their' truth from TV shows....this is the result of a school education that is tops in the world...for TPTB....We as a nation have run out of time for re- education...so now we will have to suffer the consequences...and it will not be to our benefit...imho
ReplyDeleteIt is stuff like this and everything in the last six months that makes me think that despite the fundamentals and everything going on, the metals will never get to anywhere near the price they should be until the day the price does not matter since all hell broke loose and we are fighting permanently for survival. Down 60% in 6 months. Will this joke ever end?
ReplyDeleteThis is so damn frustrating. These people are masters at this! How can I be watching a market this morning where stocks are UP, treasury rates are UP, oil is UP but gold is hammered DOWN! I want to go out and buy more gold today, but there is still always that little voice that I cannot kill that is like a siren song "Get back in the market...you can't lose... good news is good... bad news is good." Just unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteIt's simply a game of patience. PM ownership will undoubtedly pay off in the not too distant future, as the manipulators will be rendered impotent. Major cash gold markets are already appearing, and as people recognize the crucial distinction between those and the manipulated paper markets, the latter will disintegrate.
Delete"recovery fantasies are a mirage"
ReplyDeleteSo it will not make the gradual recovery, which many economists for the second half of the prospect?
Felix Zulauf: When I for the euro zone, a negative growth of about two percent had promised earlier this year, I was looked at very funny. But I think we get there. And Germany will cool accordingly. The whole recovery fantasies are a mirage.
What makes you so sure?
Felix Zulauf: they look at the credit growth in the euro zone. The lending shrinks with about four percent. In credit-based economies can thus achieve no growth. That is impossible.
Economists see the light at the end of the tunnel in the improved current account balances of individual peripheral countries.
Felix Zulauf: That is absolute nonsense. Improve the current account only because a collapse in imports due to the shrinking domestic demand. But as you can not heal. You can not be healthy if you hungry.
http://www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/boerse-maerkte/anlagestrategie/felix-und-roman-zulauf-im-interview-deflationsgefahr/8446814-8.html
Spanish banking concentrates 1 in 2 risk euro debt Europe is in Portuguese
ReplyDeleteSpain Banks Hold $73.4b of Portugal Debt. Spanish banks' exposure to Portuguese sovereign debt represents 52% of total European banks' exposure, citing Bank For International Settlement Data.
http://www.elconfidencial.com/mercados/2013/07/04/la-banca-espanola-concentra-1-de-cada-2-euros-del-riesgo-que-europa-tiene-en-la-deuda-lusa-10918
Crime Pays
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/794gZqDg1qA
...........and everybody loves it...
It may have to come down to this : http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/570.cfm
ReplyDeleteI know that the price of Comex gold is not the real price. The reality is that one day soon the dollar will be toast. The fed is not only buying 70% of all Bonds but also sending E.U. dollars. There will be no gentle wake up call for everyone to move into gold & silver. First a bank holiday,then most likly a default by the U.S. on the debt. It will be a flash with dire consequences.
ReplyDeleteAre Things Too Cozy In London’s ‘City’ Within A City?
ReplyDelete“It runs its own police force, it has its own mayor, and … most importantly, it runs its own foreign policy,” says Ronen Palan, a professor at the City University London.
The City has fewer than 7,500 residents. Yet, it has 125 elected officials. Its Lord Mayor travels the world promoting business. And, it has a cash account worth roughly $2 billion.
http://www.npr.org/2013/07/05/198389370/are-things-too-cozy-in-londons-city-within-a-city
Yes and the Corporation of the City of London is registered at Companies House as a foreign entity. The Corporation which runs the police force and elects the major was established when the Dutch bankers took over the country on their appointment of George 1. It is registered in the Channel Islands and does not pay tax it is the legal framework to support the Bank of England another foreign registered entity, having it's own police force own foreign policy etc. Been that way for 400 years don't think it will change without a revolution.
DeleteFor a 'Galactic observer --- we humans, as a group, don't look all that intelligent.
ReplyDeleteAgree with you Cortopassi
I don't like to begrudge anyone's good fortune but when my sister-inlaw told me that a co-worker who at 42 was retiring from the police force as a lieutenant at 65% of his salary - approx $85,000.00 per year with benefits I just shook my head in disbelief. Not really sure how much longer these municipalities will be able to afford these kind of generous pension plans for civil servants.
ReplyDeleteKen
this long....
Delete600 Long Island Rail Road Retirees to Lose Disability Pay in U.S. Inquiry –
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/nyregion/600-long-island-rail-road-retirees-lose-disability-pay-in-us-inquiry.html
It'll come crashing down cause half of their retirement comes from taxpayers. They complain that they have put 11+ percent into it compare to the 8+ percent we do for social security but they forget about the 11 percent taxpayers also put in (states have to match retirement). That's a 22% retirement that the rest of us don't get. If they choose to go employer only when vested after 5 years, it's all paid by taxpayers.
DeleteWhen states declare bankruptcy, it'll all go bust. And the more they go after SS, the more we taxpayers will have to go after state pensions. The problem is that state officals and their families are on the payroll as well so they don't want them touched.
Your sister-in-law can also "double-dip" (depending on the state) and go back and work in her department as a "retiree" and make that money on top of her retirement (specially at 42).
[I used to be a state worker in Nevada so I know the system well. It's pretty much the same except each state has a very different laws applying to the system.]
Ron Paul: Hypocrisy
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/Y26Sjp_5DyA?t=21s
Why Britons are rightly rejecting stock market bonds
ReplyDeleteOne million Germans snapped up stock market bonds - which Britons no longer want. For once, we're ahead of the curve, says Andrew Oxlade.
The European Union is often derided, but on the odd occasion its policy wonks are bang on the money. Consider stock market-linked bonds, for example. You know the ones I mean. They were often given the hard sell in bank branches by salesmen, I mean advisers.
These bonds would promise to protect your original investment but still offer some capital growth or income if the stock market were to rise. So your returns become linked to the level of the FTSE 100 in future, but normally in an indecipherable way.
The reality is that these bonds are far too complex for the vast majority of us to understand, judging whether the risk of tying up capital is worth rewards is therefore difficult to judge. But they have sold well because income on offer elsewhere has shrunk.
This has caught the attention of the men in Brussels. The European Securities & Markets Authority (ESMA) this week published a report into such structured products that was largely overlooked – but should be essential reading for the hundreds of thousands of investors who have bought these bonds.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/comment/10161004/Why-Britons-are-rightly-rejecting-stock-market-bonds.html
Mortgage Backed Securities Clobbered
ReplyDeleteMichael Becker at WCS Funding Group says today is one of the worst selloffs in mortgage backed securities (MBS) that he has ever seen.
For example a 30-year FHA loan that Becker placed on Tuesday at 4 1/8% would be 4 3/4% today.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/07/mbs-clobbered-and-treasury-yields-soar.html
Argentina Applies Law That Jails Hoarders as Bread Prices Double
ReplyDeleteArgentina plans to apply a law that forces holders of wheat and flour suitable for bread making to sell stock on the domestic market in a bid to contain inflation.
Interior Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno announced the measure in the official gazette today. The 1974 law allows authorities to freeze prices and obliges companies to maintain supply. Those in breach are subject to fines and imprisonment.
“If the law on supply is applied, the one who should go to jail is Moreno himself,” former Economy Minister Martin Lousteau said in an interview with Radio Mitre today. “He’s to blame for the lack of wheat in Argentina.”
Supermarkets Closed
Moreno closed stores owned by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Carrefour SA (CA) and Cencosud SA (CENCOSUD) for a few hours yesterday after the government found shortages of some goods. Grocers agreed last month to freeze prices of 500 goods and ensure supply as part of the government’s efforts to stem inflation.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-05/argentina-applies-law-that-jails-hoarders-as-bread-prices-double.html
Elizabeth Warren Tackles Wall Street
ReplyDeleteThe labor force has shrunk by nearly 4 million since the recession began—people so discouraged they’ve stopped looking for work. The conventional assumption is that they’ll come back once the economy picks up steam, but Posen and others doubt it. “We have destroyed some of our labor market capacity,” he said. “The real reason people like me were fighting so hard for more stimulus was that we didn’t want this to happen.”
When the Fed created trillions of dollars to rescue Wall Street, skeptical citizens began asking, “Where’s my bailout?” They correctly identified the fundamental contradiction facing the central bank, which refused to provide a similar kind of emergency aid to producers and consumers. Authorities claimed that was impossible, even illegal, and most of the media dismissed the question as uninformed. People were not told, however, that in the shadow debate on Fed policy, experts like Posen were asking the very same question. The advocates for more aggressive alternatives insist the country would have had a stronger, faster recovery if the Fed had responded to their pleas.
Posen points out the political impediments to greater Fed action. “The Treasury was not encouraging,” he said. “That’s part of it. If the Treasury and White House had said, ‘We should do this’… but the Treasury wasn’t putting itself out there to do more mortgage restructuring.” Why didn’t Bernanke act? “It’s just a self-imposed political barrier,” Posen said of the Fed chair, with whom he wrote a book in the 1990s. “It’s not historical. It’s not economics. If anything, the economics tells you that the more you buy assets with cash, the bigger effect you are going to have on the real economy.” The Fed was afraid to act boldly, Posen surmised, for fear that Congress would take away some of its power. “The Fed would say to itself, ‘OK, we’re already under attack. We do need to stand up and fight for more quantitative easing, but there’s an argument that this is not our core mission. So let’s stick to our core mission.’” To put it bluntly, Bernanke choked.
Read more: Elizabeth Warren Tackles Wall Street | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/175084/elizabeth-warren-tackles-wall-street#ixzz2YDKFFgQG
Dave, do you think tapering is relevant to gold and silver price? I start to think that tapering is irrelevant. If the Fed tapers, India and China will reduce their purchase of physical bullions? I don't think so. Then why so many people think tapering is bearish for gold and silver?
ReplyDeleteTapering isn't relevant period because the Fed ain't gonna taper. I said that from the start. Now several analysts I respect are saying the same thing, including John Williams, Marc Faber and James Turk, among others.
DeleteThe Fed knows that employment number was bullshit.
But where's the break-down of the numbers? How many are full-time or part-time? How many are these jobs only for 3-8 months? How many are these jobs just "sales positions" - you only get a commission from each sale you make? How many of these jobs are really just "vacant positions" - the company has no intent to fill them?
ReplyDeleteI have seen jobs that I applied for being consistently re-posted through job connect (unemployment) and job sites (indeed, careerbuilder, craiglist,etc.) a month or two later. It's always the same companies posting the same jobs that it has become monotonous - Dull, tedious, and repetitious. There are plenty of qualified people for these jobs (Nevada has the highest unemployment) and yet these jobs are being re-posted all the time. Either the company is firing alot of people all the time (or working them to death till they quit) or there really isn't a vacant slot at all. And you can see these companies sight-of-range is the 18-35 age group when you go for an interview. I couldn't even get retraining through any of the state's programs because of my age (a lot of the monies come from "investors" and they want to see their monies worth. At 55, I'm not considered worth it compared with someone 20 or 30 years younger).
No such thing as Corporate America today. They are Global Corporations who are no more American than they are Chinese, Russian, or European. They main goal is the survival of the business and how the business can survive the ups-and-downs of the global markets, political unrest, and supply-chain shortages. They are also interested in new markets and potential revenue for future stability.
Here lies McKinsey Global Institute (http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/mgi). They work with Global Businesses on where future markets are and where to put their resources at. Many officials in CEO and President positions in companies as well as government have come out of this group. They represent the "Business Mind" and they see shortfalls in the US and gains in the Asian countries.. They see the Chinese as the new consumption-driven addict (known as "Generation-2 Consumer"):
http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/consumer_and_retail/chinas_next_chapter_the_rise_of_the_generation_2_consumer
But there's a problem: US Manufacturing and production Sector (or what's left of it). These countries can't compete with it and yet Global Corporatism can't fulfill its dreams of unlimited revenue unless it can. Outsourcing was one way and automation is becoming more cheaper now to replace any worker in the US. Now simply get rid of the experienced worker and replace them with an inexperienced one (and mandate that they go into debt through "student loans" to keep that temp job). Meanwhile, those other nations are always taking their smartest and brightest and putting them to work. How long will it be before they catch us? Not long at all.
The myth that Americans are under-educated is simply to fuel the debt machine. Many that I have talked to have already defaulted on their massive student-loans debts. Many older workers that have upgraded their skills or "re-train at their cost" have also as well as they are still unemployed. Many have taken out all their savings and IRA's - what happens when there's nothing left to sacrifice? More under-water homes? More poor retail sales? Something has to blow up and very hard!
I remember reading a business article in the early 2000's that stated the business world didn't feel gulity if one American goes into poverty if five Chinese rise up from it. They forsaw the possibilty of a calcutta in the US just like in India..
Emancipation of gold
ReplyDeletehttp://www.johnbudden.com/the-latest/video/jim-sinclair-2.html
Amazon Cuts Back Discounts
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/business/as-competition-wanes-amazon-cuts-back-its-discounts.html?pagewanted=all
They said it's due to a lack of competition but I really wonder if it's due to a lack of consumerism.
Has anyone been to best buy and looked at the prices of their laptops? They're $150 more expensive except for their cheapo models.