FAIRNESS

We like to think of ourselves as even-handed as in that rare of rarest commodities today, fairness.

In the Good Book it recommends moderation in all things. That might be more than a stretch when it comes to today's Wall Street, bankers and politicians of all stripes. We'd like to say at least we gave it the old college try, but that's about as inflated as all those college GPAs.

So here's another take on the current economic situation fresh off the wire.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-economic-growth-cycle-2014-4?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29

METAPHORS

If you like metaphors, here's one.

Part of the student loan mess that is now a big bubble searching for a spot to go snap, crackle and pop should show anyone who cares to check: A good thing gone too far can become a bad thing.

A recent article in a major journal noted an increase during the recession of people of all ages applying for and receiving student loans to live off not attend school. Some might call it fraud. We just call it hopeless, jobless and broke, three attributes one needs today to qualify for a student loan.

Like water easy money will find its own level and that level is not always a good or an intended one. Massive liquidity and zero interest rates, sound familiar?

MSM and the other apologists aside, growth is slowing despite the huge money infusion as evidenced by a flattening yield curve. The S word as in spreads becomes critical here. The real estate market's  drop in new mortgages and new housing starts, among numerous other indicators, should tell you something.

As economist David Stockman recently noted, "It  don't snow in San Jose." So forget all the Wall Street warbling about winter. It's the line with least resistance. And forget, too, crack cocaine and the big H, this is a global economy high on easy money and low interest rates.

It's a party hardly anyone wants to end. Show me someone who loathes retrenchment and I'll show you an elected official. Cold Turkey Day when it arrives is much like karma--a beach!

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RANDON READS

Forget A Nunnery Get These Tips
http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2014/04/26/shakespeare-investing-tips/?iid=Lead

Words In Picture
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/since-2000-feds-balance-sheet-up-8x-real-median-income-down-8/?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Mailing+List+Saturday+9+AM

The Keystone Pipeline Affair
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-24/how-obama-shocked-harper-as-keystone-frustrator-in-chief.html

More Sanctions
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/26/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSBREA3O16720140426

What You Don't Know
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-your-bank-robbing-you-2014-04-25

MEDIA PUBLIC ENEMY

A word about gold.

Gold is the antithesis of paper assets.

It's not a media favorite. Surprise, surprise. And after essentially a 12 year run-up in price of nearly 900% that turned sour in 2013, main stream media with unbridled glee likes to pounce on the yellow stuff and anyone who touts its value every chance it gets.

People who follow or recommend gold are referred to as gold bugs. But hundreds of analysts and market seers, many of whom blatantly fudge their data, aren't referred to as equity freaks.

Corporations often massage their earnings numbers and analysts covering them frequently look the other way. It's called the cost of doing business or, better yet, the cost of cooperation.

Goldman Sachs lets it be known that gold will likely end the year around $1050 an ounce, a forecast unchanged from the one it put out at the beginning of 2014. The 2013 sell off came ready ordered for MSM. Higher gold prices would signal higher interest rates and higher interest rates would suck some air out of any hoped-for recovery central bankers pray for.

Half of Europe led by the dragster, Mario Draghi, is clamoring for a little inflation to inflate all the debt away. The key here is a little inflation. Gold money competes with paper asset money, a real no-no to MSM.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/peter-schiff-reckless-fed-may-push-gold-to-5000-2014-04-25?pagenumber=2

MOUTHPIECE

When you're a multi-billionaire like Warren Buffett, the so-called Omaha Sage and one of the planet's richest Homo sapiens, you easily slide into the role of mouthpiece.

Buffett's been for some time a mouthpiece for the Democrat Party, higher taxes and a leading opponent against the Canadian-US natural gas pipeline. All not without intended good-personal-gains reasons.

His opinion on equities has been revered by mainstream media folks for decades. Seventeen thousand adoring fans traipse to an isolated prairie setting annually to worship at his and his longtime compatriot, Charlie Munger's, Midwest equity hoedown. 

So when the Omaha octogenarian utters in a television interview his beliefs about equity valuations you can bet it's a mouthpiece ploy that goes far beyond protecting the valuation of his empire. It's calming, homespun manna for the masses from the Big Equity Bopper himself. Reassuring to be sure: There's no water on board the Good Ship Global Financial Bubble. 

So just relax.

http://www.reuters.com/video/2014/04/24/buffett-not-worried-by-valuations?videoId=312705508&videoChannel=5

BIG PHARMACEUTICAL SUMMATION

 Here's as good a summation of big pharmacy and what's happened there over the past several years as you'll find on the Internet or anywhere else for that matter.

Can't blame Obama care for everything. Most things, yes, but not everything. There's always Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Kennedy and Roosevelt, to be brief and a bit picky.

The word metric should bubble to mind. If you think you're not a metric, you've got your head buried somewhere where the sun never shines. Metric is the new buzz word of the business world particularly the world of health care. And just to be thorough we won't leave out another bureaucrat favorite, outcomes.

One warped Washington politician a while back--we believe he was of the Democrat persuasion--ranted want he wanted was not equal opportunity for all but equal outcomes. His solution to income inequality so we gathered.   
 http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Blogs/Age-Reason/2014/04/24/Time-Upgrade-our-Pharma-Companies-New-Century

THEY'VE BEEN TALKING THE TALK

Mario Draghi and his band of ECB bankers have been talking the talk for some time now.

Much of it has had the patina of if-we-keep-doing-this-long-enough maybe it will all just go away and somehow,  miraculously, the EU economy will grow its way to the end of what's been a very dark economic tunnel for what is still a fledgling union still held together by ceiling wax, yarn and spit.

Put up or shut time draws nigh. And the Ukraine situation ain't helping one bit. Maybe that too has been part of Putin's plan, assuming he has one. Either way, Draghi can't keep dragging this out.

If you look closely at Draghi and most of the other major central bank leaders over the past several years, you'll detect, either directly or indirectly, the DNA of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs is Wall Street.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304518704579521100806846852?mod=World_newsreel_4

More on Draghi.  
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2014/4/20/draghis-bold-push-for-creeping-defaults-and-real-wage-cuts-i.html

ENERGY MYTHS: A HARD, SOBER LOOK

 

We cannot operate our economy on renewables alone, in part, because the quantity is far too small. Creation of new renewables and maintenance of such renewables is also fossil fuel dependent.

 One of the best websites we know to get the real skinny on energy is where this chart is from. The mesmerizing media likes to deceive folks into thinking that given all the fracking, natural gas, LNG terminals being built and such we are a nation indivisible under boundless energy independence. Not so. And this makes no allowance for the anti-fracking freaks and all the other environmentalists parading around out there.

Still another media canard: We can easily transition to these cleaner, newer sources of energy. Last time anyone looked there are now seven billion souls on planet earth. And those are the ones we know about. Maybe over time you've been enamored with government counting techniques, but we haven't. The truth is nobody knows for sure how many of us there are anymore than any market guru knows for sure when the next economic tsunami will hit. Here's the link to the full read.

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/04/23/eight-energy-myths-explained/

RANDOM READS

A Doc Speaks Up
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2014/4/23/doctors-perspective-perils-and-pitfalls-of-corporatized-medi.html

Buffett Speaks Out
http://www.reuters.com/video/2014/04/24/buffett-not-worried-by-valuations?videoId=312705508&videoChannel=5

Big Pharma's two Sides
When I was a young man my father gave me a piece of advice worth recalling in these mixed-up, quilted hodgepodge of a financial world days. "Just remember, son, there's always two sides to two sides."
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-ft-rips-bill-ackmans-new-deal-apart-2014-4?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29

One Man's View Of Ukraine
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-24/how-to-lose-in-ukraine

Inflation Textbook Style
http://www.businessinsider.com/textbook-price-inflation-2014-4?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29

MORE ON UKRAINE

Government troops and pro-Russian separatists clash in eastern area of Ukraine.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/24/ukraine-government-troops-move-against-pro-russian-separatists-live-updates