Reading for the Weekend

Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it...

Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us! Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison!

Do you think he is so unskillful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth?

No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform. He promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind.

He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods.

Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his."

John Henry Newman

Beta Monster: The Most Dangerous Banks In the World

The most leveraged bank by far is the-investment-bank-which-must-not-be-named. It is followed by J.P. Morgan on a percentage basis, but JPM is far larger nominally than these charts indicate because of its much larger capital base. Its in the nature of the difference between a cardshark (GS) and a pawnshop (JPM). Or perhaps just the capital requirements of the short versus the long con.

Luckily for the US financial system the big banks are incapable of making errors in risk management, and always seem to get by with a little helpful information from their friends, and a lot of money from the public.

We would ask Timmy for an explanation on how this could happen so soon after a crisis in which the Treasury had to ask Congress to stop financial armageddon overnight because of the perils of excessive leverage on dodgy capital, but he is taking dictation from Lloyd on line 1, and Jamie is on hold on line 2.

Mutual Funds Are at Cash Levels Not Seen Since the 2007 Market Top

Trend following beta monkeys (TFBM) using Other People's Money (OPM).

They'll never learn.

Because they don't care after they have collected their fees and bonuses.

Herd behaviour does not begin to describe this phenomenon.

The US financial system is designed to maximize financial management returns and encourage the mispricing of risk, and ultimately the distribution of wealth from the many to the few through fraud, fiduciary recklessness, and Ponzi schemes.

The root cause of the US's problems are with the distorted monetary policies of the Federal Reserve, and the regulatory failure of a government corrupted by its financial sector.