Finansiella Insikter

ZeroHedge har publicerat en sammanställning över vad man kallar tyska bedragare som med all sannolikhet mycket väl kände till de gigantiska riskerna med att investera i grekiska statspapper men som trots allt gick ut och rekommenderade dessa till allmänheten i maj 2010. Låt detta bli ännu en i raden av varningar om att man inte skall lyssna på vad sk ‘experter’ har att säga eftersom de är beredda att göra allt för att hjälpa till med att hålla skenet uppe.

Här är några av de positiva kommentarerna om grekiska statspapper:

A stabilization can only be achieved if Greece can access capital markets. What is needed is a contribution of major banks. What is also needed is a sign of trust by the citizens of Europe. This is the purpose of our action call “I am buying Greek government bonds”. Last Friday, as a sign of responsibility, I have ordered EUR 5,000 Greek government bonds.” – Gabor Steingart, chefredaktör, Handelsblatt

“For the first time in my life I am buying government bonds – Greek government bonds! Because we have to keep the Euro-zone together. The Greek population has to bring great sacrifices, there is no way around that. But we should show our solidarity.” – Hans Eichel, fd finansminsiter Tyskland

En herre som man definitivt inte skall lyssna på är Luxemburgs premiärminister och mästerlögnare Jean Claude Juncker, som de de flesta nog känner till vid det här laget. Om inte så är här ett underbart inlägg, igen via ZH, som plockat upp en intervju som Der Spiegel gjort med Juncker.

Här är ett utdrag:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Prime Minister, you are a Christian Democrat and a Catholic, which is why we want to talk to you about the Ten Commandments.

Juncker: I already have an idea of what you are getting at.

SPIEGEL: Are you familiar with the Eighth Commandment?

Juncker: Of course. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

SPIEGEL: Apparently you don’t take it very seriously. More than two weeks ago, you denied a report by SPIEGEL ONLINE about a secret meeting of several European Union finance ministers to discuss the situation in Greece, even though the official limousines were already pulling up in Luxembourg.

Juncker: The most important commandment is not to inflict harm on others. Although it isn’t stated quite that way in the Ten Commandments, it follows from them. The finance ministers of several Euro Group nations had agreed to meet on Friday with the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Jean-Claude Trichet. Because the financial markets in Europe were still open and trading was still underway on Wall Street, we had to deny the existence of the meeting. Otherwise the course of the euro against the dollar, which had already fallen as a result of your report, would have plunged disastrously.

SPIEGEL: When secret meetings are held and the truth isn’t always being told, people gain the impression that there must be something wrong with this Europe.

Juncker: People understand perfectly well that politicians have to discuss sensitive issues behind closed doors. I had 10 seconds to decide how to react to the report in SPIEGEL ONLINE. Let us say, hypothetically, that I had said: “Okay, we are having a meeting, but I’m not going to tell you what we intend to talk about.” That would have triggered a tsunami in the financial markets. Instead, I chose to produce a small wave of outrage over a white lie.

Ännu ett lysande inlägg från den utomordentlige Mike Krieger där han tar upp den aldrig sinande propagandan, genomskådar Bernankes bluff och, inte minst, ger oss ett färskt och skrämmande exempel på hur mänskligheten är fullt upptagen med att degenerera samtidigt som De Styrande skrattar och stjäl de sista slantarna ur det snart kollapsande finansiella systemet – här kommer ‘The Slut Walk’.

Noterade förresten att ‘Slut Walk’ kommer till Stockholm den 4 juni.

Printing and Propaganda

As I have been saying for the past several years, the misguided Keynesian witch doctor central planners unfortunately in charge of our economic fate are attempting a grand experiment on us based on completely insane and nonsensical theories that have no chance at success.  These clowns claim to have all sorts of “tools” but in reality they have nothing.  When faced with a complete credit collapse of proportions never seen before in recorded history there were and are only two “tools.”  It’s the two P’s:  Printing and Propaganda.

While I have written about both of these “tools” before I am going to focus on the propaganda part today since it is the most applicable to the current state of the financial markets.  We all know by now that the centrals planners believe the tail wags the dog.  So the economy doesn’t lead to higher stock prices but higher stock prices will lead to a better economy.  Insane?  Absolutely.  Is it their religion?  100%.  The other important thing for investors to be aware of now when they are comparing the current state of affairs to what many lived through in the 1970’s is that the central planners have learned some lessons.  What we must always remember about central planners is that they will never renege on their core philosophy which is that an elite academic and political class in their wisdom are better stewards than free humans interacting in a marketplace.  That said, most people do not share their worldview for obvious reasons (who wants their lives micromanaged) so the trick of the central planners is to micromanage your life while you think you are in charge.  As Goethe said “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”  He didn’t just make up this clever quote, it is a tried a true method of the most successful control systems throughout history.

So even the brainwashed masses out there understand that price controls were tried in the 1970’s and failed.  We also know why.  Therefore, the last thing the current group of central planners will want to do is announce price controls.  That doesn’t mean they don’t attempt them anyway.  They have been rigging stocks in the United States consistently for the past two years and most people get this and accept it as a part of the current state of disunion we are in.  However, as I wrote last week we have now entered Phase 2.  This was represented by the raid on commodities.

A tried and true strategy that TPTB have used in precious metals for years has been to create such tremendous volatility in gold and silver and especially the shares that most investors stay away since they can’t stomach it.  This strategy is now seemingly being employed to a much wider spectrum of commodities, hence my warning on trading futures last week.  The entire game was perfectly summarized by a quote in the most recent 13D report where it was stated:  “Unfortunately, this battle between finding a safe haven and the authorities’ desire to render it ‘unsafe’ is only in its earliest stages.  Our manta since 2007 – governments can and will do anything to survive.”

The Bernank Bluff

So part of the propaganda “tool” used by the central planners is the manipulation of financial markets, which seems to increased in emphasis in recent weeks.  The other consists of outright lies and disinformation.  Put yourself in The Bernank’s shoes for a moment.  This guy loves printing more than Hewlett Packard.  He is despondent beyond belief that the markets and an increasing amount of financial commentators have criticized his precious QE insanity.  Meanwhile, the economic data is starting to roll over and housing looks set to launch into another spiral lower.  So what is a Bernank to do?  Bluff the heck out of the markets.  He knows that the only way he can have cover for his printing party is to smash commodities because the rise in commodities is the biggest point of contention amongst the masses.  Unfortunately, most people don’t delve deep enough into how the system works to have the serious moral and philosophical issues with the central planning system as I and many others do.  The Bernank knows this.  Bread and circus is a tried and true method.  Problems emerge when the bread runs out.  So the period we are in right now is huge for the Bernank and his merry band of mental patients.  They don’t have to make any decision on more printing until June when the current fiasco ends.  It is during this window when they think they can have their cake and eat it too.  They can print like mad yet at the same time claim they are about to stop and maybe even tighten.  Yeah, and the Easter Bunny is sitting next to me trading LinkedIn shares.

In any event, this is The Bernank Bluff and he is milking it for all it is worth while at the same time orchestrating raids on commodity futures.  This is just a massive psychological game against the investors class to keep them from the assets that will actually provide protection.  Well Bernank you’ve got a month left.  Make the most of it because after that you need to act.  I can’t wait to see you try to tighten as the economy rolls over.

The Slut Walk

While millions around the world from the Middle East to Europe rush into the street to protest the rape and pillaging of their respective economies by the banksters and their political puppets guess what the good citizens of Boston, the heart and soul of the first American Revolution, are protesting.  For the “right to be dirty.”  I kid you not.  The article is right herehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/women_shealth/8510743/These-slut-walk-women-are-simply-fighting-for-their-right-to-be-dirty.html.  Now let me make one thing crystal clear.  I am not trying to be the moral police.  I could care less how people treat themselves or behave as long as it doesn’t harm me.  The point I am trying to make is that as the biggest theft in American history has just occurred and continues to occur, this is what they are protesting about in Boston.  You know what the elites on Wall Street and Washington think when they see this?  They smile from ear to ear.  What a bunch of sheep.  We just stole trillions and they are protesting for the right to be slutty.  Look, I think I am a pretty decent observer of cultural trends.  Rest assured ladies, sluttiness is in a secular bull market.  It is encouraged by the elites.  What they fear is not degeneracy but rather self-respect and logic.  They want you to behave like animals so they can justify treating you like animals.  Has anyone read Aldus Huxley’s books?  This is worth reading http://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/index.html.   You go girl!

Peace and wisdom,
Mike

Vi har visserligen talat om det otaliga gånger tidigare, men här är ett smått chockerande bevis på varför vi inte skall tro att våra kära folkvalda kommer att säga sanningen när ‘skiten håller på att nå fläkten’.

Eller vad sägs om följande absoluta pärla till citat från Juncker (Eurogruppens ordförande och Luxemburgs premiärminister):

“När det blir allvarligt måste man ljuga”

Ni kan definitivt INTE säga att ni inte blivit varnade.

Från ZeroHedge:

Head Of Eurogroup Admits To Lying About “Secret Greek Meeting” Out Of Fears For Market Collapse – “When It Becomes Serious, You Have To Lie”

On Friday the misinformation floated about the Greek expulsion event hit a fever pitch: while we correctly speculated that nobody would be expelled from the Eurozone, the amount of conflicting info was at an all time record, with glaring inconsistencies between various quoted authoritarians. Now, courtesy of the WSJ blog, we learn that, for the first time in history, a spokesman for Jean Claude Juncker, the PM of Luxembourg, and the head of the Eurogroup council of eurozone finance ministers, admits openly to having lied to media outlets. “In a phone call and text messages with two reporters for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Schuller repeatedly said no meeting would be held. He apparently said they same to other news outlets; at least one more moved his denials on financial newswires. Of course, there was a meeting–although not, apparently, to talk about Greece quitting the currency, which would be an extreme step to say the least. Mr. Juncker even said a few words to reporters who had hustled to Luxembourg to stake out the gathering. So why the lie? “I was told to say there was no meeting,” said Mr. Schuller, reached by telephone Monday. “We had certain necessities to consider.”  Necessities? Why yes: such as perpetuating the now open lie that is the ponzi market: “Evening in Europe is midday in the United States. “We had Wall Street open at that point in time,” Mr. Schuller said. The euro was falling on the Spiegel report, which had overhyped the meeting. “There was a very good reason to deny that the meeting was taking place.” It was, he said, “self-preservation.”” And there you have it: the Eurozone itself now admits that it will sacrifice credibility at the expense of a few FX pips and a few basis points in the ES.Everything else is smoke and mirrors. And people think that central bankers will consider the threat of inflation should the Russell 2000 ever retrace back into bear market territory…

And it gets even more surreal:

Asked whether such deliberate misinformation would undermine the market’s confidence in future euro-zone pronouncements, Mr. Schuller, lamenting that the market had practically no confidence in pronouncements already, said “not at all.”

When Mr. Juncker, or European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, or French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde says something to the markets, Mr. Schuller said, “nobody seems to believe it.”

Mr. Juncker has voiced support for the practice of lying before.

The Web site EUobserver has video of Mr. Juncker, at a conference on economic governance in April, expounding on the practice and reasons for lying in financial and economic communications.

On the tape, Mr. Juncker says he has “had to lie” and, speaking about touchy economic topics, “When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”

At this point Europe no longer even attempts to hide that everything is one big lie, and that should the truth emerge the market will crash more than ever in history. And why would the US be any different? It woulnd’t which is why we can now safely say that pretty much any information coming out from the government and its proxies that has a stock market impact is false until proven true. Of course, for everything else, one can blame the conspiratorial blogs…

Här är klippet med Juncker:

Ooups! Tror ni köpsuget efter amerikanska statspapper kommer öka efter detta. QE3 är garanterat. Dags för Obamas PR-strateger att ge sig ut på turné igen för att återställa illusionen om den sk ‘återhämtningen’.

Government posts biggest monthly deficit ever

The federal government posted its largest monthly deficit in history in February at $223 billion, according to preliminary numbers the Congressional Budget Office released Monday morning.

That figure tops last February’s record of $220.9 billion, and marks the 29th straight month the government has run in the red — a modern record. The last time the federal government posted even a monthly surplus was September 2008, just before the financial collapse.

Last month’s federal deficit is nearly four times as large as the spending cuts House Republicans have passed in their spending bill, and is more than 30 times the size of Senate Democrats’ opening bid of $6 billion.

Senators are slated to vote this week on those two proposals — both of which are expected to fail — and then all sides will go back to the negotiating table to try to work out a final deal.

Den som mot alla odds behöver ytterligare bevis för att BLS manipulerar den amerikanska sysselsättningsstatistiken, trots den desperata justeringen av arbetskraften för att nå en arbetslöshet om 9% , bör kolla in diagrammet nedan och läsa kommentaren (via Zerohedge). Resultatet: Statistiken från BLS är helt meningslös.

What could possibly be the biggest tell in the BLS tendentious spin of data comes courtesy of the BLS “period 13″ data reporting, which is the full year adjustment the BLS gives at the end of every single year (it can be pulled from BLS data series CEU0000000001). And as John Poehling shows after parsing the data, in 72 years, there have been just 5 positive adjustments. And curiously, of these 5, the two largest ones by a huge margin occurred in the prior 2 years: 2008 and 2009, when year end adjustments (subsequently revised lower in the interim) added a total of 2.2 million jobs for the current administration. In 2010 there was no such luck, as the period 13 revision took out 1,243,000 jobs from the running total.

The bottom line: the average adjustments from 1939 to 2010 is a negative 1,447,000. So why does anyone put any faith in the BLS numbers again please? And a better question: why pretend any economic data matters any more? After all, everything ends up being crushed following final adjustments. As usual – the only thing that does matter, and has over the past 30 years, is how much free money can the Fed pump into the market. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

Våra kära ‘prominenta ekonomer’ är i farten igen med sina prognoser (se artikeln nedan från Reuters). Denna gång handlar det om att den amerikanska ekonomin inte kommer att återhämta sig på 10 år och att man kommer att bli omsprungna av Kina. Knappast någon överraskning.

Men om man betänker det vi skrev om objektiviteten hos ekonomer nyligen så blir det hela lite mer intressant. Det vi påpekade då var att dessa ‘prominenta ekonomer’ tidigare bara vågade säga sanningen bakom stängda dörrar. Att man nu vågar erkänna att den amerikanska ekonomin inte kommer att återhämta sig på 10 år torde innebära att situationen i själva verket är ÄNNU VÄRRE. Det handlar inte längre om att skapa en ‘återhämtning’ av ekonomin utan att förhindra en ekonomisk kollaps.

Om denna kollaps pratas det sannolikt bakom stängda dörrar just nu. Räkna dock inte med att dessa ekonomer kommer att tala om detta öppet, för det skulle göra kollapsen till ett faktum på nolltid.

Economists foretell of U.S. decline, China’s ascension

DENVER (Reuters) – To hear a number of prominent economists tell it, it doesn’t look good for the U.S. economy, not this year, not in 10 years.

Leading thinkers in the dismal science speaking at an annual convention offered varying visions of U.S. economic decline, in the short, medium and long term. This year, the recovery may bog down as government stimulus measures dry up.

In the long run, the United States must face up to inevitably being overtaken by China as the world’s largest economy. And it may have missed a chance to rein in its largest financial institutions, many of whom remain too big to fail and are getting bigger.

On the one hand, Harvard’s Martin Feldstein said he believes the outlook for U.S. economic growth in 2011 is less sanguine than many believe.

First, the boost to growth from government spending will be drying up this year, he said. Renewal of expiring tax cuts is no more than a decision not to raise taxes, and the impact of one-year payroll tax cut is likely modest, he said.

“There’s really not much help coming from fiscal policy in the year ahead,” he said. Woes from the dire situations of state and local governments may actually be a drag on growth, he said.

Growth got a lift from a lower saving rate in 2010, but that probably will not last this year as households worried about an uncertain future return to paring back debt and socking more away, Feldstein added. Discouraging declines in home values mean there is less to save from, he said.

“People are worried, so there’s a strong reason for precautionary saving,” he said.

THE RACE IS ON

On the other hand, there is the race with China and the dynamic Asian economies, including India. Most estimates put the size of the Chinese economy on par with the United States by the early 2020s, said Dale Jorgenson, also of Harvard.

Jorgenson sees Asian emerging markets as the most dynamic in the world, eclipsing other emerging market contenders such as Brazil and Russia with steady growth over the next decade.

“The rise of developing Asia is going to accompany slower world economic growth,” he said.

The United States will need to come to terms with the fact that its prevalence in the world is fated to come to an end, Jorgenson said. This will be difficult for many Americans to swallow and the United States should brace for social unrest amid blame over who was responsible for squandering global primacy, he said.

MIT’s Simon Johnson put it more bluntly, saying the damage from the financial crisis and its aftermath have dealt U.S. prominence a permanent blow.

“The age of American predominance is over,” he told a panel. “The (Chinese) Yuan will be the world’s reserve currency within two decades.” Johnson said he believes the United States has failed to learn its lesson from the financial crisis and continues to implicitly back its largest financial institutions.

“I’m concerned about the excessive power of the largest global banks,” he said.

“Who are the government-sponsored enterprises now? It’s the six biggest bank holding companies.”

To be sure, Raghuram Rajan, a former IMF chief economist now with theUniversity of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, could still envision an ongoing U.S.leadership role.

Nothing proceeds in a straight line, he said, and there are many pitfalls along the way even for dynamic Asian economies.

“I would say the age of American dominance may be nearing an end. But America as the biggest mover will be in place for a long time,” he said.