Der USA Bären-Thread

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/18/...pped-teens_n_5686784.html

Wieso regen sie die Iraker eigentlich über die Verletzung "ihres" Luftraums und "unerbetene Bombardements" durch US-Kampfflugzeuge auf?

Sie sollten lieber den Tatsachen ins Auge blicken: Irak ist als Vasallenstaat eine amerikanische Kolonie geworden. USA hat die 2000 Mrd. Dollar Kosten für den Irakkrieg ja nicht einfach so für lau "investiert". Ziel war, den Irak zu "befreien", den Verbrecher Saddam ins Grab zu bringen und in Ruhe nach Öl für den US-Export bohren zu können. Auch Saddams Massenvernichtungsarsenale wurden wie versprochen vernichtet. Das war ganz einfach, weil es sie gar nicht gab.

Diese 2-Billionen-Investition der Amerikaner schließt völkerrechtliche Ansprüche Iraks grundsätzlich aus! Was fällt den chronisch zerstrittenen Muselmännern dort eigentlich ein? Sie sollten sich freuen, dass nach dem 2003-Bombardement mit 1 Mio. Toten endlich demokratische Verhältnisse in ihrem Land herrschen. Auch das Öl wird von Halliburton zügig und zuverlässig exploriert und verschifft. Die religiösen Fanatiker sollten sich mal an ihre eigene Nase fassen. Im 19. Jahrhundert wären die Ureinwohner von Kolonien für solche Sprüche noch ausgepeitscht worden.

Die Ukraine kann sich jetzt schon freuen, dass sie - zumindest ihr Westteil - demnächst ebenfalls zur US-Kolonie wird. Der Sohn von US-Vizepräsident Biden hat bereits einen Vorstandsposten bei der größten privaten Gasfirma eingenommen. Bei so viel ökonomischen Know-How wird die Ukraine bald wirtschaftlich erblühen. Man muss nur noch warten, bis der terroristischen Sumpf im Osten im Bürgerkrieg trockengelegt ist.

www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/...ers-getroffen-fotostrecke-118055-3.html

www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-17/...l-what-have-we-accomplished-iraq

[Einige der Zahlen (Kosten, Zahl der Toten) hatte ich in meiner Polemik/Satire in # 877 übernommen.]

By Ron Paul

What Have We Accomplished in Iraq?

We have been at war with Iraq for 24 years, starting with Operations Desert Shield and Storm in 1990. Shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait that year, the propaganda machine began agitating for a US attack on Iraq. We all remember the appearance before Congress of a young Kuwaiti woman claiming that the Iraqis were ripping Kuwaiti babies from incubators. The woman turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US and the story was false, but it was enough to turn US opposition in favor of an attack.

This month, yet another US president – the fifth in a row – began bombing Iraq. He is also placing in US troops on the ground despite promising not to do so.

The second Iraq war in 2003 cost the US some two trillion dollars. According to estimates, more than one million deaths have occurred as a result of that war. Millions of tons of US bombs have fallen in Iraq almost steadily since 1991.

What have we accomplished? Where are we now, 24 years later? We are back where we started, at war in Iraq!

The US overthrew Saddam Hussein in the second Iraq war and put into place a puppet, Nouri al-Maliki. But after eight years, last week the US engineered a coup against Maliki to put in place yet another puppet. The US accused Maliki of misrule and divisiveness, but what really irritated the US government was his 2011 refusal to grant immunity to the thousands of US troops that Obama wanted to keep in the country.

Early this year, a radical Islamist group, ISIS, began taking over territory in Iraq, starting with Fallujah. The organization had been operating in Syria, strengthened by US support for the overthrow of the Syrian government. ISIS obtained a broad array of sophisticated US weapons in Syria, very often capturing them from other US-approved opposition groups. Some claim that lax screening criteria allowed some ISIS fighters to even participate in secret CIA training camps in Jordan and Turkey.

This month, ISIS became the target of a new US bombing campaign in Iraq. The pretext for the latest US attack was the plight of a religious minority in the Kurdish region currently under ISIS attack. The US government and media warned that up to 100,000 from this group were stranded on a mountain and could be slaughtered if the US did not intervene at once. Americans unfortunately once again fell for this propaganda and US bombs began to fall. Last week, however, it was determined that this 100,000 was actually only about 2,000 and many of them had been living on the mountain for years! They didn’t want to be rescued!

This is not to say that the plight of many of these people is not tragic, but why is it that the US government did not say a word when three out of four Christians were forced out of Iraq during the ten year US occupation? Why has the US said nothing about the Christians slaughtered by its allies in Syria? What about all the Palestinians killed in Gaza or the ethnic Russians killed in east Ukraine?

The humanitarian situation was cynically manipulated by the Obama administration --  and echoed by the US media -- to provide a reason for the president to attack Iraq again. This time it was about yet another regime change, breaking Kurdistan away from Iraq and protection of the rich oil reserves there, and acceptance of a new US military presence on the ground in the country.

President Obama has started another war in Iraq and Congress is completely silent. No declaration, no authorization, not even a debate. After 24 years we are back where we started. Isn’t it about time to re-think this failed interventionist policy? Isn’t it time to stop trusting the government and its war propaganda? Isn’t it time to leave Iraq alone?

erwartet.....
wie die Geier
....“All the five-star hotels are full of Western companies looking to position themselves to do business -- and also Japanese and Chinese companies,” says Sarosh Zaiwalla, a London-based lawyer who specializes in sanctions regulation and who travels frequently to Tehran.

Iran has seen a huge surge in the number of Western business delegations, says Amir Cyrus Razzaghi, the head of Ara Enterprise Group, a consulting firm in Tehran that provides market research and business intelligence to clients. In February, a group representing more than 100 French companies -- including engineering group Alstom SA, telecommunications company Orange SA and carmaker Renault SA -- visited Tehran, the largest foreign-trade mission the country had ever hosted. Groups from Canada, Europe and the U.S. have also come. Companies that were once active in Iran, such as French oil giant Total SA and Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, have publicly expressed interest in returning. .....

...And the Tehran Stock Exchange, or TSE, has a market capitalization of about $135 billion, three times the value of the main stock market in Vietnam, with a population of 89 million. .....

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, Rouhani invited CEOs and financiers to “come and visit Iran to see the investment opportunities.” .....

www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-17/...eal-ending-sanctions.html

obwohl ich auch die Sinnlosigkeit der beiden letzten Irakaktionen anerkenne, hier noch ein paar Fakten:

* die Opferzahl des 2. Irakkriegs ist sehr wahrscheinlich deutlich unter 200.000
* die Ölförderlizenzen sind international vergeben worden, die Amerikaner fördern hier
  nicht einfach für ihre Zwecke.

Förderlizenzvergaben, lt. Wikipedia:

- Rumaila-Feld (17,7 Milliarden Barrel): CNPC + BP, $2 pro Barrel, Fördermengenziel: 2,8
 Millionen bopd, damit wäre es das zweitgrößte ölproduzierende Feld der Welt
- Majnoon-Feld (13 Milliarden Barrel): Royal Dutch Shell + Malaysia’s Petronas;
 Beteiligung $1.39 pro Barrel, Fördermengenziel: 1,8 Millionen bopd
- West Qurna-Feld Phase 2 (12 Milliarden Barrel): Lukoil + Statoil Hydro, $1.15 pro
 Barrel, Fördermengenziel: 1.8 Millionen bopd
- Halfaya-Feld (4 Milliarden Barrel): CNPC + Total + Petronas, Fördermengenziel:
 535.000 bopd
- Badra-Feld (2 Milliarden Barrel): GazpromNeft + Kogas + Petronas + TPAO,
 Fördermengenziel 170,000 bopd, $5.50 pro Barrel
- Garraf -Feld (860 Millionen Barrel): Petronas + Japex, $1.49 pro Barrel,
 Fördermengenziel: 230,000 bopd
- Najmah-Feld: Sonangol
- Qaiyarah-Feld: Sonangol
- Middle Furat: bei Kerbala, kein Bieter

Die Motive für diese Aktionen sind vielschichtig und zumindest für mich nicht direkt fassbar. Es ist ein Mix aus Partikulärinteressen und Überzeugungen, unter denen die direkte Ölversorgung oder der potentielle Profit daraus m.E. mit am unwichtigsten ist. Eher spielt eine diffuse geostrategische Überlegung von einer Umzingelung Russlands eine bedeutendere Rolle.

auf deutsch!

schreibt Charles H. Smith im "TwoMindsBlog".

charleshughsmith.blogspot.de/2014/08/...ppen-just-because.html

Don't Think It Won't Happen Just Because It Hasn't Happened Yet: Loss of Faith in the Fed

Much of the supposedly godlike power of central banks is participants' faith in their powers to control not just finance but the real world that can be leveraged by finance.

The Grand Narrative of the global economy since the 2008 financial meltdown has been: whatever the problem, zero interest rates and more credit will fix it. Too much debt? Zero-interest rates and more credit will fix that. Government spending far exceeds tax revenues? Zero-interest rates and more credit will fix that. Economy sluggish? Zero-interest rates and more credit will fix that. Few jobs being created? Zero-interest rates and more credit will fix that.

Had a bad hair day? Zero-interest rates and more credit will fix it.

Implicit in this narrative is the notion that there are no hard limits on credit or central bank money creation. If creating $1 trillion in new credit-money and pushing it into the hands of financiers doesn't do the trick, then push $2 trillion more.

Equally implicit is the assumption that the central banks repressing interest rates and creating trillions of dollars out of thin air can control any blowback or unintended consequences triggered by the free money for financiers tsunami. The central banks implicitly claim to be Masters of Universe: not only are there no hard limits on zero interest rates or nearly unlimited monetary heroin, there are also no limits on the power of the Federal Reserve and other central banks to bend markets and behaviors to their will.

These implicit assumptions have fostered a quasi-religious belief in the unlimited powers of the central banks and the freshly created credit they issue.

In other words: there are no hard limits on central banks or credit creation. If central banks want to keep interest rates at near-zero, they can do so with no limit. If they want to push the stock market higher they can do so with no limit.

I have discussed [that.] My point is that manipulating markets strips markets of price discovery of assets and risk and the feedback that enables markets to recover equilibrium; decisions made when risk and price have both been suppressed or hidden by manipulation are necessarily catastrophically mis-informed.

But that is only one hard limit on central banks' supposedly unlimited power to mold the world to their liking with unlimited monetary heroin: there are others. One is energy: central banks can create more credit with which to buy energy, but they cannot create more energy. Stripped of artifice, all central bank credit can do is bid the price of energy up to the point that only those with access to central bank free money can afford it.

When energy markets tighten up, free money for financiers will only exacerbate the inequalities of energy access and consumption; zero-interest rates and monetary heroin can't and won't stabilize access to energy or the extraction of more energy.

Another hard limit is leverage. Zero-interest rates and free money for financiers can push leverage higher, so every $1 in cash supports $25 in credit and $100 in derivatives, but it doesn't stop the reverse leverage when the collateral declines in value: if the collateral underlying a bank that is leveraged 25-to-1 declines by 5%, the bank is insolvent.

As longtime correspondent Harun I. explained in Resolution #1: Let's Call Things What They Really Are in 2014 (January 15, 2014), the Federal Reserve is itself leveraged 72-to-1.

Issuing more credit at zero interest does not increase the value of collateral. The only way to keep the value of phantom collateral rising is to inflate asset bubbles, one after another.

But inflating asset bubbles by injecting unlimited credit into markets is not a game without limits; indeed, recent history has shown that bubbles are intrinsically unstable and they deflate violently due to internal dynamics that cannot be controlled by central banks issuing more credit at zero interest. Reduce complex systems' feedbacks to a monoculture or single input and you doom the system to collapse.

A third hard limit is the political loss of faith in the godlike powers of central banks. In the moment, it seems as if central banks have had their way for six years, and there is no reason not to believe they will have their way for another six years, or sixty years.

Serial bubbles that deflate violently, rising wealth inequality driven by free money for financiers, the crippling of market dynamics, including the markets for energy, risk and capital, the extraordinary increase in systemic leverage based on phantom collateral--any one of these has the potential to push the number of people opting out of "the central bank and state have godlike, unlimited powers" faith above the Pareto Distribution tipping point, where the vital few 4% influence the 64%.

In other words, much of the supposedly godlike power of central banks is participants' faith in their powers to control not just finance but the real world that can be leveraged by finance. Once this belief fades, so will the powers of central banks....
.
.

---

Smith lässt am Ende offen, welcher Event den Vertrauensverlust in die "Gotteigenschaft"  der Fed auslösen könnte. Andere Quellen nennen die bekannteste Ursache für plötzliche Meltdowns - ein Austrocknen der Liquidität wie ab Sommer 2007.

So rechnet etwa John Burbank (verwaltet Fonds mit 4 Mrd. Assets) mit einem -22-%-Crash im Stile von 1987, der durch plötzliche Illiquidität verursacht wird:

www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-17/...-next-crisis-may-look-1987-crash

Passport's John Burbank: "The Next Crisis May Look Like A 1987 Crash"

John Burbank, whose Passport Capital has grown from $800K to $3.9 billion in 14 years (not your typical basement-dwelling, tinfoil blogger) was interviewed by Bloomberg TV on Friday, discussing his outlook on the US economy (bullish on San Francisco, bearish on the rest) which he defines as an "anomalous high change, low GDP" environment: "a lot of the change that is happening is degrading the GDP."

And while he is generally bullish on US companies, he is "very bearish" about liquidity, driven by what he calls a "tightening environment" (even with the Fed and BOJ still injecting billions under ZIRP and the ECB expanding its LTRO for the second time in 3 years, having pushed ZIRP into NIRP) and bad liquidity in the market.

Where it gets interesting: asked what could happen during the next crisis, Burbank's response: "it could fall fast"... "there is the possibility of a 1987 dislocation that does not reflect long-term economic stress but could reflect illiquidity in the market."

Furthermore it is good to see that unlike a legion of clairvoyants who "know" with pinpoint accuracy just where the S&P will close the year, Burbank does not fall for the usual predictive BS: "It's impossible to easily say: here what's going to happen because we're in a situation that nobody predicted and we've never confronted before.... The Fed's Fisher will be leading a tightening effort that Yellen may not have wanted." Asked if that could be the catalyst for a 1987-style correction, Burbank is laconic: "Could be. Illiquidity is a primary driver; it works both ways: can drive prices up and drive prices down."

His conclusion: "When there is a signal to sell, there won't be a lot of buying." That is assuming selling hasn't been made illegal by then or, as the recent bankruptcy of Banco Espirito Santo showed, if and when the time to sell comes, all sellable stocks are suddenly halted indefinitely while a committee of conflicted banks decides behind the scenes that no event of default has actually occurred...

TEHRAN, August 18. /ITAR-TASS/. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton will meet in early September, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said on Monday.

“The meeting venue has not been determined yet,” he said. “But it’s clear that several bilateral meetings will be held, expert-level meetings are also planned.”.....
en.itar-tass.com/world/745527

Ich hab das in # 877 alles satirisch überspitzt. Der Iraker werden ja auch nicht von den Amis ausgepeitscht...

Tatsächlich fördern mehrere Konzerne aus unterschiedlichen Ländern das Irak-Öl.

Hingegen scheint die Zahl von 1 Mio. Toten im zweiten Irakkrieg korrekt zu sein, ich habe sie von Ron Paul. Womöglich hat deine Quelle die Zahlen (propagandistisch?) zu tief angeben.

Ron Paul schreibt in # 879 zu den Kosten und den Toten der zweiten Irak-Kriegs (2003):

"The second Iraq war in 2003 cost the US some two trillion dollars. According to estimates, more than one million deaths have occurred as a result of that war. Millions of tons of US bombs have fallen in Iraq almost steadily since 1991."

Das Handelsblatt hat die Falschinformationen am Anfang des ursprünglichen Artikels jetzt korrigiert, allerdings ohne auf die nachträgliche Korrektur hinzuweisen:

www.handelsblatt.com/politik/international/...gedrungen/10343482.html

Alte Version (siehe # 865):

Russland hat nach eigenen Angaben wieder einen Militärkonvoi in die Ostukraine geschickt. Die Separatisten sollen einen weiteren Kampfjet abgeschossen haben. Und die ukrainische Regierung stellt eine heikle Forderung.

Unter demselben Link steht nun:

Russland soll wieder einen Militärkonvoi in die Ostukraine geschickt haben. Das behauptet die ukrainische Armee. Die Regierung in Kiew bittet EU und Nato um militärische Hilfe im Konflikt mit den Separatisten.

---------------------------

Im seriösen Journalismus ist es üblich, auf solche nachträglichen Veränderungen, zumal wenn sie unter demselben Link erscheinen, hinzuweisen. In der neuen Version findet sich jedoch keinerlei Hinweis auf die nachträgliche "Umschreibung".

- offenbar wegen Problemen auf der Handelsplattform "BATS".

.
empfinde ich schon bei dieser Meldung, obwohl es mich nach so langer Zeit nicht mehr berühren sollte. Auch wir hatten ein Haus im "million-pound-plus-district" von Greater London, fast unmittelbar am Richmond Park unweit der Deutschen Schule London. Was wir damals für 74.000 GBP (entspricht heute durch den Kursverfall 128.000) verkauft haben, geht heute für das Zehnfache weg.
*schluchz*
.

Bei dem Preisverfall kannst du es in zwei Jahren zum alten Preis zurückkaufen ;-)

Das sind die von der irakischen Regierung korrigierten Zahlen der ersten Schätzungen. Demnach sollte die Zahl der direkten Kriegsopfer unter 100.000 geblieben sein. Vorher gab es nur Schätzungen aus unterschiedlichen Quellen, bei denen teilweise schon 200.000 gefallene irakische Soldaten angenommen wurden. Ich kann nicht sagen, wer hier recht hat und wer Propaganda macht. In dubio pro reo, also die kleinere Zahl. So oder so sind es zu viele.  

Die Schätzungen über die Zahl der Toten im zweiten Irakkrieg reichen von 151.000 bis zu über 1 Million.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

Lancet (Medizinfachzeitschrift) ist seriös und verlässlich. Der Survey kommt auf über 600.000 Irak-Tote.

Ron Paul hat sich offenbar auf die Zahl des "Opinion Research Business Survey" gestützt, der die Zahl der Irak-Toten (Zeitraum März 2003 bis August 2007) mit 1,033.000 beziffert.

Deine Zahlen von "unter 100.000" bestätigt keine der Quellen.

fragt sich Lance Roberts in seinem Blog. Die Antwort: Das ist zwar prinzipiell möglich, aber nicht wahrscheinlich - auch angesichts der sich eintrübender Makrodaten.

streettalklive.com/index.php/...51-is-the-correction-over.html

(mit vielen Chart).

Fazit:

While it is entirely possible that the recent "correction" in the market is over, it is important to remember that what goes "up" must eventually come "down." Despite the best of intentions by Wall Street and the Federal Reserve to ensure that a correction "never" happens again, the reality is that the laws of physics apply to stock market prices just as much as Newton's apple.

The question that you have to reconcile with yourself is: "When the market does eventually break, will you be prepared?"

History clearly shows that few ever are. While the process of "weeding and pruning" may sound a "bearish" in an overwhelmingly "bullish" environment, the greatest investors in history have all had a disciplined risk management process embedded within their long-term investment strategy. While it sounds simple, "buying low and selling high" is extremely hard for most to do.

Meine sind vom ersten irakkrieg (zweiter golfkrieg). Tut mir leid. Hätte aber auch nicht mit so vielen gerechnet.  

blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2014/08/18/...re-very-expensive/

“The United States stock market looks very expensive right now.” And with that, Yale professor Robert Shiller is at it again, telling us to worry.

He’s got plenty of company these days among those who fear this bull market can’t possibly keep going. Shiller’s particularly uncomfortable about the CAPE ratio (cyclically adjusted price-earnings), a stock-price measure that he helped create. He said something similar in June. (Just Google Robert Shiller bubble for more instances of his bubble theories.)

Otherwise known as the Shiller P/E, the ratio basically takes average inflation-adjusted earnings for the S&P 500 SPX over the previous 10 years. In Shiller’s New York Times article from Saturday, he notes that when he touched on this topic over a year ago, that ratio stood around 23, far above its 20th-century average of 15.21. It now stands at 25, a level that since 1881 has only been surpassed in three other periods — the years surrounding 1929, 1999 and 2007. And we all know what came next after the market peaks in those years.

Shiller says the CAPE was never intended to indicate timing on when to buy and sell, and that the market could remain at these valuations for years. But given that this is an “unusual period,” investors should be asking questions, he says.

His question: Given that the ratio shows valuations have been elevated for years, are there legitimate factors that could keep stock prices high for decades longer? He points that his own questionnaire surveys show investors are getting more worried. Other than that, unfortunately there is no “slam-dunk” explanation for these high valuations, says Shiller.

“I suspect the real answers lie largely in the realm of sociology and social psychology — in phenomena like irrational exuberance, which, eventually, has always faded before,” says the Nobel-Prize winner. “If the mood changes again, stock market investments may disappoint us.”...

....On Main Street (otherwise known as the reader comments attached to the New York Times article), theories abound:

“…The liquidity pumped in by the Fed is making valuations based on fundamentals impossible…” — Ashwin Kalbag.

------------

A.L.: Immer wenn behauptet wird, "fundamentale Maßstäbe gelten nicht mehr", ist Gefahr im Verzuge. Zuletzt hörten wie es Anfang 2000. Im Oktober 2002 stand der Nasdaq-Composite 80 % tiefer (fiel von 5000 auf 1000).

Danke, lumpi. "Ja, hast recht" hat mir in 10 Jahren bei Ariva noch niemand gesagt ;-)

(wenn es nicht noch stark fällt bis 22 Uhr)

Im März 2000 erreichte der Nasdaq-Composite den bisherigen Rekordwert von 5000. Im Herbst 2002 stand er bei 1000 - d.h. 80 % tiefer.

Der aktuelle Stand von 4500 hat schon wieder Rinderwahn-Qualität.

In Jackson Hole hatte Bernanke mehrmals neue QE-Runden beschlossen. Das nächste Fed-Treffen in Jackson Hole findet ab 22. August statt (nächsten Freitag).

davidstockmanscontracorner.com/...lly-its-jackson-hole-stupid/
by David Stockman • August 18, 2014

Today’s Mindless Rally: Its Jackson Hole, Stupid

There is no reason rooted in the real world for today’s frothy stock market rally. In every single region of the planet, the post-crisis, central bank fueled expansion cycle—-tepid as it was in the global aggregate—is faltering badly.

Japan’s economy is only a hair bigger than 5 quarters ago (0.8%) before Abenomics supercharged the BOJ printing presses. Meanwhile, even as real wages in Japan plummet to modern lows, the BOJ’s balance sheet has now reached 55% of its GDP—–a ratio that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago.

Likewise, notwithstanding Mario Draghi’s “whatever it takes” bluster, the only thing that has happened in perpetually recessionary Europe is a short lived stampede of the fast money into peripheral debt. And that was on the tenuous predicate that the debt issued by basket cases like Italy and Spain can only go up because Mario might be buying it sometime down the road. Soon it will be apparent, however, that the Euro area economy benefited not a wit from Mario’s monetary magic, and that the hedge fund punters can dump their rented bonds as fast as they piled on.

And the schizoid policy of the comrades in Beijing needs no elaboration. Stabilizing China’s tottering tower of $25 trillion in debt is far beyond the pay and grade of people who believe with Mao that power comes out of the barrel of a gun, and with Wall Street Keynesian’s that prosperity comes out of the end of a printing press.

And now the usual Wall Street suspects are also busily marking down their US GDP numbers for Q2 and their outlook for the balance of the year. What was supposed to be the year of 3%+ “escape velocity” is heading for the lowest rate of GDP growth—about 1.5% at best—-since the 2009 bottom.  And even that depends upon believing that the Commerce Department’s GDP deflator is actually only running at a 1.4% annual rate. There’s not a chance that’s true for households which consume energy, food, health care, transportation and educational services, not iPads.

So with the global expansion cycle faltering, profit ratios at all-time highs and PE multiples in the nose-bleed section of history—nearly 20X reported earnings for the S&P 500—there is only one thing left for the Wall Street robots to do. Namely, vigorously buy the latest dip because the Fed has yet another new sheriff heading for Jackson Hole purportedly bearing dovish tidings. To wit, after 6 years of pinning money market rates to the economic floorboard at zero, Janet Yellen espies an economy still encumbered by “slack”, and will therefore be inclined to keep Wall Street gamblers in free money for a while longer.

This is just more Keynesian bathtub economics, but the Wall Street Journal does have a pretty cogent take on Yellen’s pending utterances. It seems that after $3.5 trillion of balance sheet expansion, the US economy has not yet achieved the performance metrics—especially in the labor market—that was exhibited during the last central bank fueled expansion cycle of 2002-2007:

Consensus is that she will likely highlight that the alternative measures of labour market slack in evaluating the ongoing significant under-utilisation of labour resources (eg, duration of employment, quit rate in JOLTS data) have yet to normalise relative to 2002-2007 levels.

Now that is downright insulting! The phony prosperity that the Fed unleashed through the Greenspan housing and credit bubble was the exact cause of the 2008 financial crisis and recessionary spiral which followed hard-upon it. So why in the world would the Fed want to push its money printing campaign to the edges of sanity in order to replicate its last disaster?

The answer is not hard to find. Yellen has no clue that the US economy has stalled out because it has reached a condition of peak debt saturation. Indeed, the 2002-2007 benchmark now being proffered by Yellen was actually fueled by the final blow-off phase of a 30-year national LBO.

As shown below, between 2002-2007 credit market debt outstanding—-public and private—soared by the incredible sum of $21 trillion while nominal GDP grew by only $3.5 trillion. And that was the end of the road in terms of the Fed’s patented formula of cheap debt fueled expansion of domestic consumption and nominal GDP.

Ever since the crisis, in fact, the Fed has been pushing massively on the credit string, but nearly the entire flow of liquidity has never left the canyons of Wall Street. Instead, it is parked in the excess reserve accounts at the New York Fed, having cycled through the money markets and pinned the cost of carry-trade gambling at zero percent.

So the casino is having yet another bullish moment because it expects they new monetary sheriff to keep the gamblers in poker chips for another go-round.

Five years of profit growth exceeding 17 percent is poised to slow in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, reducing returns as the bull market ages, according to Leuthold Group LLC and Barclays Plc.

Equity price gains approaching 25 percent annually will weaken to 3 percent over the next decade as the profit expansion reverts to its historic rate since 1929, said Doug Ramsey, the chief investment officer at Leuthold. Jonathan Glionna of Barclays says overseas markets are generating too little demand to push the S&P 500 up more than 1 percent in the rest of 2014. While neither Ramsey nor Glionna sees the bull market ending, measures of sentiment are turning lower amid an advance that has gone virtually uninterrupted for more than two years. ........
www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-17/...s-1-gain-for-s-p-500.html

ich glaube auch nicht dass es zu einem richtigen Crash kommt,es sei denn die zündeln weiter mit Kriegen.Und es wird immer Werte geben die steigen und andere die fallen,man muss nur diejenigen mit Zukunftsaussichten erwischen

www.spiegel.de/panorama/...i-deutsche-journalisten-fest-a-986815.html

Ferguson/St. Louis - Die Polizei in der von Krawallen erschütterten Stadt Ferguson hat zwei deutsche Journalisten festgenommen, die über die Proteste berichten wollten. Wie die "Welt" meldet, wurden Ansgar Graw und Frank Herrmann in Handschellen abgeführt und ins Gefängnis gebracht. Drei Stunden später seien sie freigelassen worden. Graw schreibt für die "Welt"-Gruppe, Herrmann für eine Reihe von Regionalzeitungen.

Hintergrund der Festnahme soll laut "Welt" eine Aufforderung der Polizei gewesen sein, auf einer fast menschenleeren Straße nicht stehenzubleiben. Beide Reporter versichern, der Aufforderung gefolgt zu sein. Die Vorwürfe seien "völlig absurd", vielmehr hätten Journalisten eingeschüchtert und von ihrer Arbeit abgehalten werden sollen, sagte Herrmann.

wolfstreet.com/2014/08/18/...but-who-the-heck-is-still-buying/

.... US net capital outflows soared to $153.5 billion, the largest ever recorded.

So who the heck did all the selling?

Nope, it was not the category of “major foreign holders of Treasury Securities” that did the wholesale dumping. Given the crappy yields, they had all the reasons in the world to sell Treasuries. But they were adding to their positions. While there were some ups and downs, the grand total of Treasuries owned by these “major foreign holders” rose by $37 billion from May to $6.013 trillion. The most ever. Since June last year, the amount that the US government is in hock to overseas entities has jumped by $418 billion.

The two largest holders, China and Japan sold a little. Usual suspect Russia, whose Treasury holdings had been plunging earlier this year, actually added $2.5 billion. And Belgium, the 3rd largest holder of Treasuries added some as well. Treasury holdings in Belgium had been soaring since September. How could that tiny country be the third largest holder of Treasuries?wolfstreet.com/2014/05/15/...es-but-why-the-heck-in-belgium-2/

....But only two entities bought this new debt:

Foreigners added $418 billion in Treasuries to their holdings over that period – so nearly half of the new debt. Who bought the remaining $446 billion?The Fed. During that period, it piled an additional $464 billion in Treasuries on its balance sheet.

So the two remaining net buyers, the only two forces left standing to buy US government debt, were foreign countries and the Fed. Their combined holdings of Treasuries soared by $882 billion – $18 billion more than the Treasury issued. The rest of the world, that is US and global investors, were net sellers of US Treasuries.And what happens as the Fed tapers its Treasury purchases out of existence? Who’s going to buy its share?

....But that explains only Treasuries. It doesn’t explain why foreigners went on a rampage in June, dumping other US financial assets. Even official investors bought only a net of $3.4 billion in US financial assets, having splurged on Treasuries and soured on other assets. And private investors? They unceremoniously dumped $156.9 billion.

Data on these transactions are notoriously volatile. But in March foreign investors had already unloaded a net of $123 billion. For the 12 months through June, foreigners bought only a net of $95 billion, including as we’ve seen, $418 billion in Treasuries. Thus they’d dumped a net of $323 billion in other securities.

Who are these private investors that are dumping American securities?
Russian oligarchs? As much as we’d like, there is no list of names in the TIC data. ....

The stock manipulation game on Wall Street has been honed to perfection. Everyone is playing along with it, has to play along with it as part of their job, whether on Wall Street or in the financial media, and it must not be doubted or disparaged in any way.
Best of all, it performs miracles.

Or rather, it did work. Because now suddenly, the system is inexplicably broken......

FactSet found that this time around the market didn’t reward these juicy earnings surprises at all. Stocks of these companies actually dropped 0.1% over the four-day window. And downside earnings surprises got hit with a 3% decline......
wolfstreet.com/2014/08/11/...ype-machine-suddenly-breaks-down/

eine der Erklärungen zu Belgiens mysteriösem Euroclear :
Moving Russia’s holdings of US Treasuries is no big deal for Euroclear. It would simply become the custodian of Russia’s holdings; so officially, they’d be held by Belgium. Then Euroclear would mingle them with other Treasuries and transfer the whole schmear under its own name back to the Fed. Being officially held by Belgium, they’d be beyond the reach of the American government. Neither Congress nor the Administration, which have been wildly but ineffectually flailing their arms about imposing more sanctions, could credibly threaten to freeze these Treasuries. And Putin is grinning off-screen.
wolfstreet.com/2014/05/15/...es-but-why-the-heck-in-belgium-2/