Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Sleepwalking Into the Abyss

"As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!)"

Donald J. Trump


"China uses a host of monopolizing strategies to extend its geopolitical and commercial power, everything from below cost pricing to grab market share, patent trolling, espionage, mergers, and financial manipulation. In fact, the CCP is best understood as a giant monopoly that also controls a nation of 1.4 billion people and a large military apparatus...

China’s biggest asset in gaining power was how most people in the West just didn’t realize that the CCP aimed to use it. Now China’s cover is blown. The raw exercise of power to censor a random Houston Rockets basketball executive has made millions of people take notice. Everyone knows, the Chinese government isn’t content to control its own nation, it must have all bow down to its power and authority.

Matt Stoller, How Joe Biden Empowered China's Censorship of the NBA

Matt overstates the headline I think.  The empowerment of China may have gone into higher gear with Bill Clinton perhaps, but has been fully supported by every President, both parties, and especially the moneyed interests in the US, who place their short term greed first and foremost.

Follow the money.  China is certainly not alone among organizations, and even nations, in playing on the personal greed, divided loyalties, and lust for power of our political and financial class. 

This in itself is nothing new.  But the extent of it, and the fashionable acceptance of it amongst our society's elites, the industrialization of political corruption and big money in politics, has been breathtaking.

Stocks were wobbly for much of today.

Trading volume was lackluster and the market action for the most part was 'dull.'

There was a brief rally around the middle of the day, when Larry Kudlow lit up the trading algos with talk about the progress being made in a trade deal with China.

That wore off fairly quickly, as the human beings quickly realized this was just another story designed to pump up the markets, and that there was no substance to it.

Gold and silver were off a bit and the Dollar was marginally higher in a seesaw session.

Have a pleasant evening.

Leaked DNC Memo Demands 'Unity' of All 2018 Candidates - GOP Tax Bill Shows a Party Beyond Repentance

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."

Harry Truman, Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950


"We must dissent from the poverty of vision and the absence of moral leadership.  We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.”

Thurgood Marshall

The political and social establishment is ensnared,  strangling within a credibility trap.  It prevents them from truly confronting themselves and what they have done, and what they are still doing in the service of power and money.

It prevents them from addressing the problems, much less the needed reforms.  It prompts them to act ineffectively and oddly, to the point that they obviously become a part of the problem and an impediment to progress.

The GOP seems almost beyond repair.  The Democrats need to unravel the Clinton/Wall Street wing of the party which has its head buried deep in their party power structure like a big fat tick.

The Republicans need a 'twelve step' program for any kind of helpful change to have even the slightest chance.

The GOP tax bill is blatant corporate giveaway for the benefit of the one percent, and one of the more recent signs of their blindness caused by ideology in service to greed.  They are not even bothering to excuse it anymore, except for the most naive of their supporters.  They try to hide it by voting in secret on largely undiscussed bills with little debate.  And as usual cover their perfidy with hypocritical slogans about freedom.

An even bigger disappointment because they have become content with failure, the DNC is purging itself of all progressive policies, dissent from the Wall Street status quo, with the Clintonistas trying to retain a tight grip on power— the power to keep losing elections unfortunately. But as long as they are pulling down fat consulting fees and favors from wealthy donors they seem to be content.

They cannot talk about real economic policy proposals for the benefit of their base. This would expose their hypocrisy and anger their real masters. All they have is negative campaigning about the other party, the 'lesser evil' proposition, and never ending fear tactics about Russia.

They too are serving their big money donors first and foremost, but at least have the modesty to cover themselves with the fig leaf of identity politics in addition to jingoism.

Both parties have come to resemble competing crime families, more so than representative political organizations.

There is another financial crisis coming, which will be fueled by the third artificial asset bubble since the GOP and the Clintons deregulated Wall Street, the financial sector, and the media, permitting the growth of powerful monopolies.

And there will be hell to pay. The problem is that they plan to stick the public with the tab, once again. That is why they wish to retain their control of the levers of power. 

Don't believe it? Watch, and be amazed. They have no shame in the pursuit of power and money.

President Carter: US Is Now 'Just an Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery"

You might not have heard about this interview on the mainstream media.  It occurred several days ago.  Apparently Jimmy is not gleefully participating in the triumphant Clinton-Bush winners road tour and congenial yukfest. 

 

Some, nearing the latter part of their days, tend to feel the weight of their conscience.  But certainly not all, especially not those who believe in nothing greater than themselves.

 

Carter's startling admission is at the root, the very heart of the lack of reform and recovery. 

 

But the pundits, even the so-called liberal media and the disgruntled conservative media, will not discuss it frankly and openly.   They traffic in shallow anger and distraction, and faithfully serve the special interests.

And there is as little serious discussion in the pampered corporatist media, whose mission is to obfuscate and distract the public from the key issues with 'bread, circuses, and sensationalism.'

This is the kind of thing that everyone in power, and almost all those who bask in that power, know but never talk about openly, feigning ignorance with dismissive ridicule.  

 

They are caught in a credibility trap of their own making.  And so they while away the days with private looting, waiting to see which way and when the winds of reaction may blow, while doing everything they can to maintain the status quo which they have created for their own benefit.

It is the dark heart of corruption, the quiet coup d'état that has overthrown the American republic.

 

The people are beginning to ask, 'After six years, why is there tremendous profits for those who caused the problems in the first place, but no recovery for the rest of us?'

And the elite look with bewilderment, fear, and anger at the fruits of their treachery and deceit.  

They think to themselves, 'We know that we are superior people, tasked with the burdens of leadership, so they must simply be ungrateful,  jealous of our success.'

 

A small but highly visible minority may look to the worst of the oligarchs as their leader and savior.  One might call it a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, but really it is just a perverse reaction, the impulse of the camp follower that identifies with their abusers, thinking that this elevates them from the rest.

 

And the media wisely warns them, slurring any candidates out of the mainstream control, the narcissist and the socialist, urging the people to stick with the familiar oligarchic brand names, Bush and Clinton, and in extremis that slickly formed alloy and extruded creation of the money masters, brand Obama.

Hubris begets nemesis.  If they were not so self-absorbed and morally stunted by their pride and selective experience they would understand that people will not stand by and allow themselves to be abused forever.

Transcript:

HARTMANN: Our Supreme Court has now said, “unlimited money in politics.” It seems like a violation of principles of democracy. … Your thoughts on that?

CARTER: It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members.

So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over. … The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.

Hat tip for the above to Sam Sacks and especially to Jon Schwarz at The Intercept.

 

Hyperinflation and the Pernicious Myth of Modern Monetary Theory: Dollar Vigilantes

"One might argue that when the government has to find a private sector buyer for its debt first, rather than selling the debt directly to the central bank, that imposes a certain degree of market discipline on fiscal policy. But it’s hard to see that there is all that much of a disciplinary bonus here.

When a central bank announces that it is prepared to buy government securities, the announcement automatically guarantees an eager private sector market for the securities – if there wasn’t one already. If dealers know that they can promptly re-sell newly purchased securities to the central bank, at some amount over the purchase price no matter how low, then they know they can make a profit from the purchase...

This is why we have no need to worry about those dreaded bond vigilantes in a country like the US that controls its own currency and monetary operations. To the extent that the Fed signals it is willing to buy US debt aggressively, the Treasury can set almost any price it wants for its debt. So it’s not just that there is no insolvency threat haunting US public debt. There is also not a bond vigilante attack threat – not unless the Fed allows that attack to occur."

New Economic Perspectives, Neoliberal Mythologies

The limit of the Fed’s ability to monetize sovereign debt is the value of the dollar and its acceptance, at value, for the exchange of goods in a non-compulsory environment.   And there is nothing neo-liberal about this. I don't like the neo-liberal approach, but this notion of pain-free monetization is nuts.

If one chooses to not worry so much about the ‘bond vigilantes,’ history suggest that they may well have a care for what I would call the ‘dollar vigilantes.’

The Fed may be hard pressed to buy dollars with — dollars.

The problem with such an approach is that one can ignore the risk for a time, trusting to probability and chance, but when the possible becomes more likely with repetition, it often results in a disaster. It is sort of like driving while texting, a tourist eating street food in Asia, or a small speculator being a non-insider customer at the Comex.

In a increasingly Machiavellian way, they could set up a reciprocity with another central bank or two, say, the BofE and BofJ, and perhaps even the ECB, and I think this has been done even if informally in the past.  

But the limitations are still there, even if hidden in a fog of financial engineering.   Such an arrangement, which I think exists somewhat informally today,  is merely kicking the can of currency failure down the road. 

"This is why we have no need to worry about those dreaded bond vigilantes in a country like the US that controls its own currency and monetary operations."

Overt monetization only works for a protracted period in a system in which one has political control over everyone who uses that currency. The logical outcome of a global dollar regime with unilateral monetization is an eventual bid for a one world government where a false vision of reality can be enforced with -- force. Force and fraud are the perennial instruments of economic tyranny. 

Hence we are in what is called 'the currency war' wherein the US dollar monetarists are attempting to increasingly impose their will on the rest of the world, and a portion of the rest of the world defers to accept that arrangement.

Blatant exposure is the most dreaded pitfall of any Ponzi scheme.  A fiat currency is based on faith and confidence, and the monetary magicians can hardly show their hand, directly monetizing debt without any independent restraint, for fear of provoking a panic, first at the fringes and then at the core of the nation, or empire.

That is the policy error that is also known as 'hyperinflation,' a break in confidence in a currency that is analogous to a 'run on the bank.'  It is the case for hyperinflation which I am watching, and still give a low probability.   I am fairly sure that even Zimbabwe Ben would not fall for such an obvious trap.  But the craven dissembling of Alan Greenspan was also hard to imagine, until it happened.

Instances of Hyperinflation from Diocletian to Bernanke

There are other ways to deal with unpayable debts than merely printing money.  A novel idea is to make the issuers and holders of the bonds bear the negative effects of their bad judgement, as in the case of Iceland.  But the Banks will always try to shift the burden, which they have created, to the financially illiterate and the weak.   

And the problem is not even so much the Fed's propensity to stimulation in the manner of Keynes.  The problem is that they are pouring the stimulus into an unreformed rathole of corruption, in the manner of sending aid to a country where it is intercepted by thieves and regional warlords, with little reaching the people.

The US does not have a spending problem so much as it has a 'corrupt financial system problem,' a 'wealth inequality problem with a stagnant wage base,' an 'unsustainable healthcare model problem,' and 'a free trade without adequate domestic policy based boundaries problem.'   It was not all that long ago that the US was holding a small annual surplus.  What changed was financial deregulation with the financialization of the economy, the easing of trade conditions, concentration of corporate power, tax cuts for the wealthiest, a corrupting political campaign bubble, and unfunded discretionary wars with their associated profiteering.

Forcing small business and workers to compete with state directed slave labor while maintaining a social system founded on private business and median worker wages is insane.  The capitalists are not yet selling them the rope, but they are certainly selling them the 97%, and with them the bulk of their customer demand over time.

Perhaps the biggest problem is, as Lord Acton observed, that when you have a concentration of power, men with the mentality of gangsters have taken control. And the US financial system and corporate structure are highly concentrated based on historical standards, resembling the worst of the gilded age of robber barons, or some third world oligarchy in which the people live in voiceless misery.

In summary, I call this 'just monetize the debt without restraint' alternative  the “pernicious myth of modern monetary theory.”   There are quite a few examples of how this sort of other worldly myth, like the efficient market hypothesis, the Black-Scholes risk model, and the benefits of unrestricted trade, have turned out in the past.  When you crush the reality out of a model with a few key assumptions that allow you to obtain a license to do what you will, you often open a Pandora's Box.

The real shame is that an economic tragedy is not outside the plans of some of the worst of the country's elite. Crisis provides opportunity if one is powerful enough, positioned for it, and egotistically twisted enough to think that they can control the madness once it is unleashed. I suggested that the Bankers would make the country another 'offer that they think it cannot refuse' as they did in the manner of TARP. The so called fiscal cliff may be the wrapping paper for it.

I am not suggesting that the current debt based currency system is optimal, not at all.  The continual theme here is that the financial system is broken, and that it is based on an unsustainable US dollar regime, and the excesses of money creation through credit expansion by private banks.  But to merely shift the corruption from the banks to their partners in the government Treasury is hardly a viable solution.

The answer, as I calculate it, is transparency and reform, and equal justice for all, with malice towards none, in the rule of law.   That is an ideal never fully achievable, but that is the benchmark, and one that is worth pursuing,  It is sustainable if held close, and continually renewed.   That is the spirit of the American experiment in equality and freedom, and is something worth fighting for.

“The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.”

John Kenneth Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty


"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country.

When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin!

Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out."

Andrew Jackson,  Andrew Jackson and the Bank of the United States (1928) by Stan V. Henkels


"Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure!

Please make as many copies of this leaflet as you can and distribute them.

The White Rose, First Leaflet, Munich, 1942

Ex-President Carter: US Political System Is Corrupted By Big Money

Financial reform and political reform go hand in hand. 

The current system is an artifice of soft bribery and political corruption that isolates the representatives from the people in meaningful ways, encourages "mass persuasion," which is a euphemism for propaganda, and substitutes spectacle and demagoguery for compromise and effective governance.

Bernie Sanders has some insights into the problem in this interview published below here.

The media may show pictures of politicians eating hot dogs, shaking hands, and even getting hugs with the common people, but in the back rooms the real players are handing over suitcases full of money. And when you have someone who loves money and power by the wallet, their heart will follow.  

The problem is that the big media loves the ad dollars and access, the politicians love huge slush funds that allow them to become overnight multimillionaires and power brokers, academics love important appointments and funding, and the corporations love the ability to buy influence that circumvents the political process for their own ends.   Freedom and truth have few powerful friends in a society consumed by the unashamed worship of greed, where honor and integrity are looked upon as quaint relics from the past. 

"And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that."

John Dalberg Lord Acton

This is going to end. Badly.

CBC
Jimmy Carter slams ‘financial corruption’ in U.S. elections
Sep 12, 2012 3:57 AM ET


(AP) Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter issued a blistering indictment of the American electoral process Tuesday, saying it is shot through with "financial corruption" that threatens democracy.

Speaking at the international human rights centre that bears his name, Carter said "we have one of the worst election processes in the world right in the United States of America, and it's almost entirely because of the excessive influx of money."

The dynamic is fed, Carter said, by an income tax code that exacerbates the gap between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of the electorate, allowing the rich even greater influence over public discourse and electioneering.

The 39th president lamented a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited contributions to third-party groups that don't have to disclose their donors.

He added that he hopes the "Supreme Court will reverse that stupid ruling," referring to the case known as Citizens United.

Carter praised Mexico and several countries where staff at his centre have monitored publicly financed elections, and he said the United States should return to publicly financed elections for president. The system technically is still in place, but it is voluntary and both President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney have chosen to bypass the taxpayer money because they can amass far more on their own.

"You know how much I raised to run against Gerald Ford? Zero," Carter said, referring to his 1976 general election opponent. "You know how much I raised to run against Ronald Reagan? Zero. You know how much will be raised this year by all presidential, Senate and House campaigns? $6 billion. That's 6,000 millions."

Source

The American Political Process In One Picture

"Money! It is money! Money! Money! Not ideas, nor principles, but money that reigns supreme in American politics."

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, March 20, 1997

US Corporate Taxes As a Percent of Corporate Profits

"Once upon a time, the corporate income tax generated a significant share of tax revenues; now, it’s bumping along in the 2%-of-GDP range. Yes, the marginal rate of corporate income tax is high, at 35%. But US companies are extremely good at not paying that.

But at least we know the aggregate amount that corporations pay in taxes. What we don’t know — because they won’t say, and no one’s forcing them to say — is how much any given public company pays.

Allan Sloan has a very good column on this today. Companies already report 16 different tax metrics; they should simply be required to add a 17th — the amount they pay the IRS in taxes — which in many ways is most important. The companies already file tax returns; the number’s right there, on lines 31 and 32. They just refuse to say what it is."

Charts of the day, Corporate Income-tax Edition, Felix Salmon

One thing that is true is that the US has a high 'headline' corporate tax rate at 35%. This was used to justify the distribution of corporate profits as dividends that were made tax free.

But like most things in America, the headline numbers are one thing, and the reality behind the headlines is a very different picture. Some of the loopholes that allow 'offshoring profits' are eating like acid into the real economy. Why is this? As Jack Abramoff recently admitted, Congress is a willing vassal to the monied interests.

"During my years as a lobbyist, I saw scores of congressional staff members become the willing vassals of K Street firms before soon decamping for K Street employment themselves. It was a dirty little secret. And it is a source of major corruption in Congress."

And nothing will make this more clear than the discussions about the US budget. All politicians will work for tips and favors and campaign funds. But if you cannot spot who is on the full-time payroll of the 1 percent, then you might need to change your news channel.

The corporate propagandists do a good job of managing the American people. As one of the more pre-eminent of the pigmen once privately told me: 'Old people are the easiest to handle. You just scare them.'

Greed draws people in, and fear keeps them in line. Its a well-worn script. It is the basis for most ponzi schemes and financial frauds. It is the well-spring of a credibility trap.

The reporting on NYC financial TV was particularly repugnant this morning, as they called the OWS movement over, with nothing left but a few professional agitators.

They contrasted its lack of strict purpose and organized ideology with the much more compliant Tea Party Movement, that allowed itself to be reorganized around corporate advertising principles. It morphed from a financial reform movement into obedient lobbyists for the Koch Brothers and the monied interests.

And it angers the Wall Street demimonde that the loose organization of OWS does not permit an easy foothold with a few influential leaders that can be easily bought and scripted.

Hey Rube, Here's Why Your Lawmakers Ignored All Those Calls and Faxes

"The financial industry has spent $251 million on lobbying so far this year as lawmakers hammered out new rules of the road for Wall Street, according to the latest lobbying reports compiled by a watchdog group."

Money Talks. And money in the hands of the man who is sitting in the offices and standing in the halls of Congress is an effective tool for buying the influence and the laws that you want.

Political campaign financing reform, including stricter limitation of direct contributions by special interests to targeted lawmakers, is at the heart of it.

Does the First Amendment cover soft bribery? That is how they will spin it.

Goldman Sachs has the right to express its opinion to your congressman, while wrapping it in a thick rolls of hundred dollar bills, charged to expenses, and paid for by you.

And while it is a nice cushion, $251 million is small potatoes compared to the real payoff in jobs and speaking engagements with huge stipends, consulting fees, and sinecures after leaving office. And that is on top of their fat pensions and cadillac benefits.

Corporatism is the parternship of big business and government. And in the organizational state, the individual (that's you Mr. Potato Head) is irrelevant. Except for comic relief, someone to be played for the fool, the emotional plaything of paid pundits and party politics. Someone whom they can whip into a frenzy, who really enjoys the show.

Yeah boy, we'll show those new crooks a thing or two, and vote the old crooks back in November. Especially the ones that make no bones about being in it for the money and the power, and appeal to the worst in us with stereotypes and caricatures. That will teach Washington something about us.

You bet it will.

CNN
Wall Street's lobbying pricetag: $251 million
By Jennifer Liberto
August 2, 2010: 2:08 PM ET

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- The financial industry has spent $251 million on lobbying so far this year as lawmakers hammered out new rules of the road for Wall Street, according to the latest lobbying reports compiled by a watchdog group.

The financial sector spent more than any other special interest group from April through the end of June -- a whopping $126 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' latest estimates. Wall Street banks, as well as insurance and real estate firms, hiked the amount they spent on lobbying by 12% in the second quarter compared to the same period last year.

"Financial reform certainly drove Wall Street lobbying efforts," said Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. "Even as the economy remains beaten and bruised, with some financial institutions continuing to struggle, most banks and securities houses found it in their budgets to hire lobbyists - and lots of them."

In the first half of 2010, Goldman Sachs spent $2.7 million, just $100,000 shy of the total the firm spent on lobbying in all of 2009. The firm's reports to the federal government said it lobbied Treasury, White House and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as well as Congress...

There was plenty of evidence of financial sector lobbying throughout in the period leading up to final passage of the Wall Street reform bill last month.

In June, during the final 20-hour meeting of the panel to reconcile differences between the House and Senate reform bills, lobbyists suddenly packed a congressional office meeting room a bit after midnight, as lawmakers started tackling the final details of making derivatives more transparent. In hallways, they cornered House members who serve on the Agriculture Committee, in particular.

In late May, JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon made calls to a couple of lawmakers who were expected to be named to the conference panel.JP Morgan Chase spent $3 million on lobbying in the first half of the year, about the same as in 2009, according to the Center.

While the financial sector was active, other industries also dug deep into their wallets to talk to lawmakers. Despite the fact that the health care bill passed in March, the Center said health firms spent nearly as much as Wall Street firms did in the second quarter, $125 million. So far this year, the health care industry has spent $267 million on lobbying.

Overall, all lobbying totaled $1.78 billion in the first half of the year, up 7.5% in from the same six months in 2009. If it continues at that pace, 2010 will be a record year for lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

However, fewer lobbyists are pounding the pavement, as the number of lobbyists dropped 5% compared to the same period in 2009.

Financial Reform: Day of the Pigmen

I Fratelli Gemelli: Infamia e Disonore




Wall Street's War - Matt Taibbi