Friday, December 6, 2013
The "As If" Government Non-Farm Employment Report
Statism survives by looting. A free country survives by producing - Ayn Rand
What's amusing about the jobs report is that everyone discusses them as if they are valid. Even to the extent that they know the numbers are absurdly manipulated, they still dissect, analyze and discuss them "as if." It makes for terrific Broadway comedy and yet it's tragically pathetic. I laugh my ass off watching supposedly Ivy-league educated Wall Street experts get on Financial Comedy TV and opine on the latest numbers as if they are real or actually represent any semblance of truth or fact.
Today's number for instance, forget where and how the alleged job growth game from, we know that's wrong, but a much better than expected number should have sent the stock market and metals into a tailspin over the fear of a December taper. But the SPX is up 1% and the metals, after their customary "no matter what the news is bashing," are now up big from their post-report lows: up 2% for gold and 2.3% for silver.
Explain that one if the market really believes that the jobs report is valid, bona fide and truthful and if the market really believes that the Fed will taper.
The other interesting note is that the dollar soared right after the report, but it has since pulled back a stunning 36 basis points from it's high-tick today. The dollar index futures continuous contract can't hold the 50-day moving average any better than Warren Buffet can hold his bladder.
Beneath the Orwellian veneer of morose Government lies and misrepresentation, I think the market knows the truth. If not the bubblehead entitled idiots in this country, then certainly the biggest non-Japanese holders of dollars - namely the Chinese and Arabs.
I guess what would be the funniest part about the Government trying to force-feed the fraudulent data reports down our gullets like geese headed for the fois gras slaughter pen is that the average formerly middle class American is in financial pain. We see that from the plunging savings rate and soaring use of credit to try and finance the elusive and dubiously "good life" of the proverbial Joneses. By "middle class" I mean anyone not wealthy enough with cash to buy their own DC politician. That's clearly not these people who are part the 61% jump in those defaulting on luxury mortgages: Luxury Mortgage Default Rate Jumps 61%.
But the market eventually flushes out the truth, and that's becoming apparent with the decline in yesterday's consumption metric of the GDP report, with the decline in holiday retail sales and with the desperation being reflected by the preponderance of "for sale" and "coming soon" signs popping up outside of homes all over the country at the worst time of the year to sell a house.
Other than that Mary Todd, how was last night's showing of "Our American Cousin?"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/images/sp_en_6.gif)
Dave
ReplyDeleteYou're usually in the vanguard in acknowledging reality and this post is no different.
Finally someone reputable coming right out and stating what most either know or suspect.
The bulk of the government figures and statistics are purposely skewed.
Your assessment of middle class pain is corroborated by the FDIC's latest quarterly Statistics-at-a-Glance report, which actually comprises 2 one-page reports:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fdic.gov/bank/statistical/stats/2013sep/industry.html
http://www.fdic.gov/bank/statistical/stats/2013sep/fdic.html
With the FDIC's latest, we see a fresh financial depravity that even the 2008 meltdown avoided: 2 consecutive quarterly declines by insured account balances (those under $250K). At the same time, and perhaps not surprisingly, uninsured accounts have rocketed up to $3.6 trillion from a ten-year trend line of $2.5 trillion. A graph of these telltale data may be found here:
http://www.deadwrongfilms.com/2013/11/30/recovery-and-next-bailout/
28-Nov-13 0.06833 0.09333 0.10333 0.13667 0.16000
ReplyDelete29-Nov-13 0.07167 0.09167 0.10500 0.13333 0.16333
02-Dec-13 0.06667 0.09167 0.10500 0.13333 0.16333
03-Dec-13 0.06000 0.08333 0.10000 0.13500 0.16500
04-Dec-13 0.05833 0.07500 0.09500 0.13000 0.16500
05-Dec-13 0.03500 0.04833 0.06000 0.11333 0.14833
06-Dec-13 0.00667 0.01500 0.02833 0.08000 0.14500
http://www.lbma.org.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=55&show=2013
As used here :
Deletehttp://conscience-sociale.blogspot.fr/2013/10/limplosion-du-marche-comex-et-la-de.html
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZQMApG39huU/UpSgsmrWQQI/AAAAAAAACU0/cAdC6b72PbY/s1600/zoom+20131126.PNG
Middle class WAS I
ReplyDeleteAte and ate of the pie
Never douted THEIR lies
Now in pain in pain am I
Really enjoy this blog....am learning so much.....not prepared for what is to come secondary to no savings, unwise decisions with money.....but now have knowledge on whats happening in this country......vast majority do not......oblivious!
How long before any of us are incarcerated for speaking the truth ? Look what the Japanese implemented in the middle of the night.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-06/japan-secures-final-passage-secrecy-bill-designed-kafka-inspired-hitler
But the stock market is still the place to be while gold and silver are capped at ridiculously low levels. They have pumped it up longer than anyone thought they could (I've been reading crash since 2009), and they will pump it for at least a few more years despite what the "experts" say, and gold and silver will continue to be capped despite the hype from those on KWN and others.
ReplyDeleteI was 5 years too early this sector, and paid dearly for it by losing a ton of money getting in at higher levels. Lesson definately learned.
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nv, denied a CNN report saying that he was the only top congressional leader to exempt “some of his staff from having to buy insurance through the law's new exchanges.”
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rgj.com/article/20131206/NEWS19/312060025/Nevada-s-Harry-Reid-CNN-is-wrong-on-health-care-report
Off the topic. Dave, you mentioned that if you were in the position of China, you would take the short position to manipulate gold prices downwards. This is basicly a thesis floated by Chris Powell. However, I think this is utter nonsense. Between 2004 and 2006, China's State Reserves Bureau was short copper because the trader there believed that the copper price would fall. However, instead of falling, the copper price skyrocketed because the demand for physical copper in China was too strong. China's State Reserves Bureau lost hundreds of millions of dollars and the Chinese trader was sentenced to 7 years in prison. It's hard to believer the Chinese government would take the short side and try to manipulate the gold price downwards.
ReplyDeletecopper is different because its depletable. i.e. the metal mined gets used in applications that are consumed.
Deletewhen i suggest that China is helping to manipulate the gold price, i'm saying that they are making strategic short term use of selling of the paper to help keep the price lower than it should be because they know they will taking delivery of the physical in the london LBMA forward market. it's how any smart trader would trade the paper market short term in order to help his goal of achieving the long term goal of accumulating as much of an asset as cheaply as possible.
You have only lost money if you sold....Most here are still adding at these bargain basement prices....
ReplyDeleteWhat is comical is how the financial media tout the "strong" job numbers for the melt-up of the markets. Check all the financial news sites and cheerleaders, and they'll all attribute the market's gains to the recovery of the job market. This is laughable. I'm reminded of one of the biggest shill's of all who a few weeks ago had the audacity to suggest that "correlation is not causation" in the big picture when looking at the stock market rise compared to Fed's balance sheet. LOL! Yes, I'm sure we would have had the same 25% gain in the S&P this year if the Fed wasn't throwing $85 billion per month into the markets to keep banks and equities afloat.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Banana Republic!
http://aaronlayman.com/2013/12/november-jobs-report-shows-the-employment-engine-is-still-broken/
Dave,
ReplyDeleteThere is a great article on PeakProsperity.com by Alasdair Macleod on how there is too little gold in the west. I wonder if you read it and your thoughts? IMO he knows his shit!
I've been reading AM for a long time. He's one of the best analysts out there. There's no question there' s growing shortage of physical gold in the west. They've drained close to 1/2 off GLD in order to source gold to deliver to China. I would bet my dog's life that the a lot less than the 838 tonnes reported to be in GLD is really in there.
DeleteJust wait until the dollar starts to really sell off and there's a serious scramble for physical gold that needs to be delivered.
the article referred to is one of the best breakdowns and long term overviews of the significant factors leading to central bank selling and price manipulations in the metals markets. too bad we can't access part 2 without a $30 enrollment at Chris Martenson's site.
DeleteInteresting passage in this short essay on the 1790's France hyperinflation, about 72 years after the horrible John Law experience there:
ReplyDeletehttp://mises.org/daily/6584/
To purchase government land, only a small down payment was necessary with the rest to be paid in fixed installments. These debtors quickly saw the benefit of a depreciating currency. Inflation erodes the real value of any fixed payment. Why work for a living and take the risk of building a business when speculating on stocks or land can bring wealth instantaneously and with almost no effort? This growing segment of nouveau riche quickly used its newfound wealth to gain political power to ensure that the printing presses never stopped. They soon took control and corruption became rampant.
sounds now like the entire world since 2009!
several other passages also say they could just as easily be describing today's world.
Dec 6, 2013
ReplyDelete"The police officer arrested for refusing to remove his “Anonymous” mask at an anti-Obamacare rally gave an interview to Red Pill Philosophy and WeAreChange in which he said that “there’s a war coming” and “it’s time to fight.”
Ericson Harrell wore the Guy Fawkes mask, he said, because it’s a “symbol of protest.”
“I always keep my mask in my truck, my cape in the truck, the flag in truck and everything,” he said. “So I put on the mask and the cape, grabbed the flag, and I stood on the corner.”
Eventually a female police officer confronted him, at which point he asserted “my right to free speech,” and tried to convince the officer that the anti-masking statute didn’t apply to him, because that statute “was not put into place for peaceful protests, not for figures just standing on the side of the road trying to express their first amendment rights.”
After her supervisor showed up, he was arrested for refusing to remove his mask or identify himself.
He stated that the officer and her supervisor thought he was part of a larger anti-Obamacare protest, but “in actual reality, I was alone at the time. I was a soldier of one.”
Harrell also claimed that he only announced himself as a police officer “after the fact, because I didn’t want to get any preferential treatment.”
The anti-masking statute, he correctly claimed, was put into place “sometime in the 1950s because of the Ku Klux Klan trying to intimidate a certain group of people — a certain race of people.” He declined to specify which “group” or “race” that was.
Harrell is currently on administrative leave, and his department will make a decision as to his permanent employment situation after the charges against him are dealt with."
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/06/florida-cop-arrested-for-wearing-anonymous-mask-warns-theres-a-war-coming/
(full video)
"In the age of modern digital surveillance, AT&T can keep its silence about what it tells the government, while the FBI can make your laptop keep its silence even while it’s secretly filming you.
ReplyDeleteShareholders are pressing AT&T to disclose what it does with its customers’ data in light of NSA requests. But AT&T has flatly refused to do so, and sent a letter Thursday to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to that effect.
The AP reported Saturday that AT&T said it protects customer information and complies with government requests for records “only to the extent required by law
Last month, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, an AT&T shareholder, filed a shareholder resolution calling on the telecom giant to be more transparent about the way subscriber data is shared with the government. The resolution calls for semi-annual reports detailing information about government data requests, similar to the transparency reports now being issued by Facebook, Google and Microsoft."
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/07/at-fbi-can-secretly-turn-your-laptop-camera-on/
All you have to do is put black electrical tape over the camera lens and use an external webcam when needed.
FBI Can Turn On Your Web Cam, and You’d Never Know It
ReplyDeleteNyPo reports:
The FBI has developed advanced surveillance techniques that give it the power to covertly activate Web cams to spy on unsuspecting computer owners.
Tech savvy G-men can remotely turn on cameras that transmit real-time images to investigators — without triggering the light that shows the camera is in use, according to The Washington Post.
The FBI can also burrow into a suspect’s computer and download files, photographs and stored e-mails.
The new snooping capabilities came to light during an investigation of a mysterious man named “Mo’’ – who threatened to blow up a building filled with innocent people unless authorities free Colorado movie-theater shooting suspect James Holmes.
He also threatened to bomb a jail, a hotel, three colleges and two airports.
No bombs were found at the targets he mentioned.
He first contacted federal authorities in July 2012. It’s not clear how long Mo and the FBI were in touch.
The paper said he sometimes used an untraceable e-mail, other times an encrypted phone.
Mo even sent the FBI pictures of himself fashionably decked out in an Iranian military uniform.
The FBI, frustrated in its attempts to track him down, used special software that would install itself in Mo’s computer when he opened his e-mail.
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/12/fbi-can-turn-on-your-web-cam-and-youd.html
Interesting People - Prof Carroll Quigley and His Legacy
ReplyDeleteThe Main Reason I bring Quigley up is this quote from his book “Tragedy & Hope” in 1966:
“This radical Right fairy tale, which is now an accepted folk myth in many groups in America, pictured the recent history of the United States, in regard to domestic reform and in foreign affairs, as a well-organized plot by extreme Left-wing elements.... This myth, like all fables, does in fact have a modicum of truth. There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the Radical right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other group, and frequently does so. I know of the operation of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies... but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.”
http://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/5307/interesting-people-prof-carroll-quigley-and-his-legacy
The man with the key to China: Barrick Gold’s quest to open new doors
ReplyDeleteMr. Thornton’s clout in China is the key reason Barrick founder and outgoing chairman Peter Munk chose him as his successor and persuaded the company’s board to award a $11.9-million (U.S.) signing bonus – an amount that became a flashpoint for shareholders already upset with the company’s performance. Barrick’s stock price has dropped sharply amid nearly $14-billion in writedowns tied to two major projects and a recent $3-billion share issue to help pay down its $15-billion debt load.
Since becoming Barrick’s co-chairman in a June, 2012, management shakeup, Mr. Thornton said he has been laying the groundwork with the Chinese.
The former Goldman Sachs president has spent more than 20 years working with Chinese policymakers. He shares Mr. Munk’s vision of turning Barrick into a diversified mining giant and tapping China to join the effort.
“We are the world’s leading gold company and we should continue to be that under all circumstances. We are in copper. I personally happen to think we should be in copper,” Mr. Thornton said in an interview this week after Barrick announced he will become chairman at the next annual meeting.
In Mr. Thornton’s view, forging ties with China in some ways is simply a natural fit. For example, rumours circulating for months suggest Barrick may want to sell its gold directly to China’s reserve bank to help increase its gold reserves.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/the-man-with-the-key-to-china-barrick-golds-quest-to-open-new-doors/article15814739/