Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Winter Is Coming - FOMC Next Week

The Devil, in Greek diabolos  the 'divider', 'scatterer', 'slanderer'

“OMB Director Mulvaney cites a record high in gov’t revenue.  True, revenues hit a high in nominal terms over FY18, growing 0.4% Y/Y,   However after adjusting for inflation, growth actually fell by 1.6%”.

Steve Rattner


"Non Farm Payrolls puffed up all year, major negative adjustment to come later.  For most Americans this is not a strong economy, regardless of what Fed or Administration says.   When the jobs data is benchmarked to the tax data in February, there will be a massive downward revision. 

I just ran the October withholding, and there is no way that this number is correct.  Withholding was extremely weak.  Bureau of Labor Statistics overstating gains all year."

Lee Adler, Capital Stool


"Thanks [Lee] for the insight on the inconsistency of NFP with payroll withholding. I was about to have a quick look at tax receipts but you saved me from that task. As for avg wages rising I expect much wage gains concentration in top 10% (supervisory), similarly for per capita incomes...  [for a truer picture look at median numbers especially in times of record income disparity]

BLS says 250,000 jobs created. Zero attention to how number compiled. BLS number helped each month by "birth-death" ESTIMATE to account for unknown business shutdowns and startups.  Guess what?  The Birth-death estimate this time was +246,000. Good NFP before midterms."

Harald Malmgren

I would also point to the downward revision already from last month's headline number, in addition to the nice fat estimate from the 'Birth-Death' imaginary jobs estimate that helped to boost the headline number. 

And few mainstream economists look at these big benchmark revisions as referenced above with a critical eye.   That is where independent analysts like Lee Adler come in.

You have no idea [well, maybe you do] how glad I will be when these midterm elections are over. I have never received so many junk 'robo' phone calls, or knocks at the door, or seen so many ludicrously slimy TV ads.

Stocks put in another 'pop and flop' kind of day, finishing nearly unchanged after a ranging day of highs and lows that were remarkable.

This is not bullish, and not constructive action for equities.

Bully better hope that nothing untoward happens to trigger a selloff, before corporations can start using their tax cut money and dodgy accounting booty to game their stock prices through billion dollar buybacks again.

They *could* end up like GE some day, after many billions spent buying back their stock and not reinvesting in the business. They are now teetering, and some fear they may fall over into bankruptcy.

But the managers who ran the stock buybacks have cashed in their big stock price related bonuses and options, and have taken the money and run.

Gold and silver put in a weak performance but managed to hold their recent gains as the dollar chopped sideways after its big selloff from the recent top.

There will be an FOMC meeting next week. I have included the economic calendar. They are not expected to do anything except to make noises, that may provide some insights into the expected rate increases to come, the next being in December.

If they try to sneak an extra one in next week that *could* roil the markets.

Try to be kind to those you meet, for everyone is bearing a burden of their own.  Don't take people for granted, but thank them for the little things that they do.  I have never seen people acting with such aggressive foolishness and petty bullying in a very long time.  What are they thinking?

This is not us.  This is no way to live.  Don't let the increase in wickedness, and gross disregard for the truth and other people by some, harden and embitter your hearts.  Don't sell your soul so cheaply.

Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Have a pleasant evening.

Mark Blyth and Jim Green: Making Sense of Brazil's 2018 Presidential Election

I must confess to have not followed the political and economic situation in Brazil very much at all over the last few years, for reasons which would be obvious to most regular readers. My priorities were in great demand elsewhere.

This was a particularly interesting discussion, because it ties in what has been happening in Brazil with more general trends world wide, including the United States.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - As the Blood Flows - Madness for Your Minds and Hearts

Atë, Goddess of Delusion and Ruin, daughter of Strife and Zeus

"The mood among Germans is really bad.  There is a lot of frustration and verrohung. The common people work and can hardly make ends meet. Envy and resentment are widely spread in Germany.  When both the global financial crisis and the euro disaster come back with a vengeance, things will get pretty nasty.  You don't have to be a prophet to make that prediction. 

You just have to extrapolate the current mood in this relatively crisis-free period. Aside from the old and the dying, most Germans today have never experienced any real crisis."

Lars Schall, To Marshall Auerback on His Essay on German Voters


"Administration and Main Stream Media (MSM) say 'booming', much faster GDP and jobs growth than previous decade, but the reality is an occasional 1 or 2 quarter surge but baseline 2% growth rate trends remain unchanged.

Only growth in the stock market, other Fed inflated assets, and debt. Maybe we should ask MSM what is 'booming'. Official jobs numbers obscure 1/3 of labor force without jobs and not job seeking; job holders are a mix of full and part time; average hourly wages are rising because 'supervisors' (managers) wages are rising but flat for 90%.

Flawed startup jobs guesses (Birth Death Model) added to lift feeble  jobs created.  Payroll tax receipts are falling—  could the tax receipts decline be explained by tax cuts?

Tax cuts have primarily assisted corporations. They have had a negligible effect on payrolls taxes. Weak withholding receipts reflects continuing rise in part time workers and low wage substituting for full time workers.

And keep in mind the little growth that did take place was debt driven. Despite all the 'booming economy' cheerleading, the data shows a flat trajectory for growth at around 2% for the last decade, despite mountains of 'stimulus'.

A chart of the Dow looks rather different, suggesting all the stimulus went into the stock market instead.

The US economy is not booming. It has begun gradual slowdown. Housing and autos slump is just the most visible indicator of broad based downturn-"

Harold Malmgren

And into the pockets of the one percent.  QED

Trump was on the TV after the close, emphasizing that there is indeed a crisis on our border, even though the imminent threat of the caravan is laughable, and easily shown to be made up spin for the election.  They want to scare you into obedience for their own benefit.

He led off his speech this afternoon with the notion that unworthy immigrants are flooding into our country, and straining our resources, greedily and ungratefully taking things that should be used by honest hard-working and law-abiding people.   They are obviously parasites, bringing disease and crime and drugs.

This is the same argument, and similar imagery, that was widely used to prepare the German people for the detention and eventual holocaust of the disabled, and the different, and political opponents, and the Jews.   They were literally depicted as rats, overrunning the productive economy, and draining and poisoning it for those who are worthy.

Most will write this off as nonsense from unscrupulous politicians and their enablers ahead of the mid-term elections.   And that may very well be the case.  Trump is as changeable as the wind in his lying.  And a liar he is, from the beginning.

But like my German friend whom I quote above, there is concern that this penchant for unreasoned anger and accommodating retreat into the lies will lead to much worse things, and likely, blood in the streets, when the next crisis comes.

Glenn Greenwald just delivered a warning about this 'fire in men's minds' from Brazil.

Those who have been looting and rigging the economy for years are backing a campaign to create distractions and set up scapegoats.  Ask yourselves, who benefits from all this?  Who is ending up with most of the money and assets, and dishing out the lies and the pain and division for everyone else?

We in America are insular, and are accustomed to looking down our noses at the problems in the rest of the world, and thanking God for our exceptionalism and national virtue.

Let us be reminded that here, already, because of this filthy hate and these endless lies, we have just witnessed the worst incident of antisemitic murder in the history of this nation. 

And that it was perpetrated by a man who allowed his mind to be poisoned by this filthy rubbish from the alt-media, nurtured in a bed of lies, and stoked to a white hot fire of hate in online commentary.

Let that sink in.   The murders have begun.  Sociopaths may welcome this.   You will not.

This is not who we are.

Pray for the faith and the strength to shun the lies, and remain standing until the end.  And don't spend your time worrying about the speck in your neighbor's eye and their shortcomings;  tend to yourself, and you will have more than enough to do.

If you think you have already reached perfection, pray to God to show you your sins, so that you may repent of them here and now.  And that will keep you busy for the rest of your life.

And in this lies your hope, and a light worth following. 

Need little, want less, love more.  For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.

Greenwald: Lessons From Bolsonaro's Victory in Brazil

In the video below Glenn Greenwald discusses the recent election of Jair Bolsonaro, and what makes him substantially different from Donald Trump.

But he also ties in the dynamics that led to this election with the other recent political scenarios in Western democracies, like the US and the UK.

It is a short video and worth watching.

"The Right wing authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro cruised to a 10-point victory on Sunday night in Brazil, becoming president-elect of the world’s fifth most populous country and the most extremist leader in the democratic world. While some of the dynamics driving his victory are unique to Brazil, many of them are similar to prevailing political currents in North America, Eastern Europe and, increasingly, Western Europe.

Bolsonaro’s victory is highly consequential in its own right: For the 210 million people who live within the borders of the country, as well as for the region and the globe, he and his tyrannical movement now dominate. But beyond those consequences, there are valuable lessons to learn for all of the democratic world by understanding the sentiments that led Brazilians en masse to support someone who, a very short time ago, was relegated to the far fringes of political acceptability and whose ascension to power was unimaginable. I explored some of those key lessons in the eight-minute video."

Glenn Greenwald

You may see the original at The Intercept.