EVERYONE CAN'T DO IT

 
Jitters over high-yield junk bonds finally coming home to roost. 

What's-new-Argentina defaults on her debt. EU bureaucrats look as if they found some extra testosterone lying around and up sanctions on Mr. Putin. 

Eurozone inflation hits a four year low, putting more pressure on Whatever-it-takes Mario, the ECB president with an EU unemployment rate that is probably much higher than the officially listed 11.5 percent.

A recent poll in France shows the MSM-labled far right-wing National Front party of Marine La Pen leading for the first time in the next presidential election. Wealthy Russians are moving much of  their cash to Asian banks amidst fears of being shut out of  U.S. and EU banks. The currency of choice moving out of the dollar seems to be the Hong Kong dollar, which some believe is a good proxy for the U.S. dollar.

The current U.S. administration plays catch-up in Africa finally, belatedly, following China's heavy investing there among others like Brazil and India. As today's Financial Times reports at an upcoming summit with African leaders next week in Washington: "Up to 200 prominent US chief executives will be on the sidelines of  the Washington summit..." including one of former mayor Michael Bloomberg's and New York city's most hated corporate citizens, Walmart.  

Is there any party this administration hasn't been late to? 

Meanwhile, Congress is suing the administration. Congress which likes to pass laws permitting spying on everyone else is upset with the CIA for spying on them. Two leading Democrats, Senator Diane Feinstein, California, and Mark Udal, Utah, both on the Senate intelligence committee and both seemingly outraged, need to contact German leader Angela Merkel to see if there's any mutual interests in setting group therapy sessions.

According to what we've read the budget deficit has come down. Maybe there's some spare cash there.

From big-cereal maker Kellogg who recently reported earnings in the latest quarter fell 16% comes news a judge has given the company five days to resolve a money dispute with 226 employees over what is essentially about wages. Kellogg claims those workers average $28 an hour already, above the industry standard, and any further hike in benefits would make the Memphis-based plant unsustainable.

Here's quote from an article today on Yahoo by former Barron's longtime columnists Michael Santoli. It's really about opportunity.

Corporate profits have remained OK, on balance, arriving better than forecast but with plenty of clunkers and nasty reactions, reflecting the very mature state of the earnings cycle. 

Lower stock prices with aggregate earnings still rising make stocks less expensive – not more risky – and suggest (timidly) this is more like the shakeouts of April and in summer 2013 than the start of an enduringly nasty bear phase. This could be a needed “attitude adjustment” rather than recognition of a suddenly worsening fundamental picture. The mergers-and-acquisitions and activist-investing key party shows no signs of winding down, which are net positives for stocks in the intermediate term.

What this Kellogg situation says, this EU and African and Argentina situation, what all these situations are saying is they create opportunities for the alert, the brave and the savvy. If it were easy, remember, everyone would be doing it.

And that, thirsty friends, is one of the biggest fallacies of bureaucrats, politicians and statists everywhere since the dawn of civilization--everyone can do it.

And maybe they could, but only if they can stomach the risk, finance the cost and do their homework.