Not Your Father's Beanery

Just yesterday we wrote financialspuds.blogspot.com/2016/09/bloomberg-no-decency, essentially about the shameful lack of truth telling in MSM. Accidental is one thing. Intentional another.

Today there is a Congressional inquiry going on about the lack of truth telling at Wells Fargo, one of the too-big to fail banks, that is expanding to include not just the CEO but the board of directors. One of the  heavy hitters on the inquiry is noted leftist Senator Elisabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

The implications of that tough Congressional talk from the likes of the seemingly outraged Warren is  that the higher ups should be held responsible, as well they should, but not just in corporate America but also the government. We are waiting to hear from you Senator Warren. The Bloomberg news outlet is, as we and others have written about, notorious for coloring the facts. Who is the headman there?

Now today comes this news about all those so-called new jobs from the Bureau of Labor. It turns out there were new jobs okay, but half of them were figments of some bureaucrats that run this mess who are long on imagination and short on truth. As you read this keep in mind that the head of BLS is a close associate of Fed Chair Janet Yellen and they both coauthored a while back materials about jobs. Keep in mind too jobs and their importance to the Fed and its so-called policies. Keep in mind also there is an election coming up and now MSM's  more than just apparent struggle with presenting the public the truth. And finally keep in mind that not all Whoppers are served through drive-in windows at local beaneries.

You can’t find lazier people than in the mainstream financial press, but their exuberant cheerleading about the purported 5.2% gain in the real median household income in 2015 surely was a new high in mendacity. And we are not talking about the junior varsity here: The Washington Post was typical with a headline of superlatives followed by even more exuberance in the text:

U.S. household incomes soared in 2015, recording biggest gain in decades………The data represents the clearest evidence to date that the nation’s long, slow and topsy-turvy economic recovery has finally begun to deliver prosperity for wide swaths of workers.

The self-evident fact is that the median household couldn’t have had an after-inflation income gain of 5.2% in 2015. There is not a single data point in the mountains of “incoming” economic data that is consistent with that proposition. Yet nothing in the Post story, or any other mainstream coverage, even hints that the Census Bureau’s whopper isn’t on the level.
In the context of what was by all accounts a sputtering economy during 2015, in fact, the Census Bureau unleashed the largest year-over-year gain in recorded history. But not a single reporter smelled a fish.

So let’s first put in perspective these ballyhooed claims about the purported 2015 gains. The latter still represents nearly a 17% real shrinkage of the median income since the year 2000, if you use an honest measure of inflation like our Flyover CPI; and a 2.2% decline even when incomes are deflated by the BLS’ sawed-off inflation measuring stick called the CPI-U-RS.
Either way, there is absolutely nothing to celebrate about a trend that has headed south longer than anytime in modern US history.

 
 
zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-21/biggest-washington-whopper-yet

We call it the “birther” theory of the labor market. It turns out that 52% of all the new jobs—-5.25 million—-reported by the BLS since the end o the recession were imagined, not counted.  This amounts to still another whopper from the government statistical mills, and more evidence that the so-called recovery is based on a tissue of lies

Overnight

Wednesday is the big central bank day for the central banks of Japan and the Federal Reserve Bank, but it's an even bigger day for investors trying to get a glimpse of what's ahead a d adjust their portfolios.The BOJ is expected to make negative interest rates the centrepiece of a new policy framework.

Whether that happens could trigger either a sell off or a buying spree of safe assets such as the long end of the bond market which has been tightening rates up before bankers reveal their cards. Shares were mixed in early trading with the Nikkei 225 down 0.5% following yesterday 's decline of 0.2%. 
Meanwhile, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.2%, theHang Seng Index was flat, the Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.1% and Korea’s Kospi edged 0.1% higher.

Growth and inflation have eluded central bankers who are now split over whether to continue with the experiment. After 3 1/ years of trying more normal monetary policy to recover the economy, central bankers opted for negative interest rates earlier this year. Confidence is becoming an important factor for central bankers everywhere and Japan is most likely, notwithstanding the Fed, facing more pressure at the moment.

South Korea's Kospi index traded flat at 2,026.13. In Hong Kong, theHang Seng index traded flat at 23,527.92. Chinese mainland markets moved little in early trade, with the Shanghai composite flat at 3,020.85, while the Shenzhen composite gained 0.15 percent. In Japan, banking and export stocks traded mostly lower as the market looked ahead to the BOJ's decision due mid-day, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The dollar at 95.980 was lower in early trading from 96.026, up from level mid-dat Tuesday.
Oil prices advanced on Wednesday, with U.S. crude gaining 1.73 percent to $44.81 a barrel, while Brent added 1.2 percent to $46.43. The uptick in oil followed stateside data from the American Petroleum Institute that showed a 7.5 million barrel drawdown in U.S. crude inventories for the week ended September 16, according to Reuters.

Gold traded at $1314.80.

Bloomberg: No Decency

In MSM the bloom just never comes off the berg. It 's a steady drumbeat of misinformation, distortion and phony good tidings. That's something people need to take a closer look at. Who but the media would continue to publish in many cases what is just bold-faced misinformation?

The recent new housing start numbers missed the hoped for mark and Bloomberg chose to color the numbers cheerful. We understand your chosen candidate is up to her pneumonia vaccine in a tight election race. We understand who you want to win. But one would think you had a modicum of journalistic decency and respect for the truth somewhere in your claim of being professional.

You have no pride, no shame. Decent journalists would print the truth, not spin it, no matter what it looked and smelled like. You're not worthy of any respect. It's a mystery how you look your children, if you have any, in the face every day and give council about their future.

New home starts dipped 5.4%, led by single family starts down 6.0%.
Total starts came in at 1.142 million (SAAR), well under the consensus estimate of 1.190 million, and beneath the entire Econoday Range of 1.170 million to 1.220 million.
Nonetheless the Econoday robot said the “details are not as weak as the headlines”. Let’s investigate the claim.

Bloomberg spin.

The details are not as weak as the headlines as the new home market remains one of the positives for the economy. Housing starts and permits did fall in August, down a sharp 5.4 percent for starts to a lower-than-expected 1.142 million annualized rate and down 0.4 percent for permits to 1.139 million which is also lower than expected. But permit growth for single-family homes, which is a key indication on housing demand, rose a very solid 3.7 percent to a 737,000 rate which is about where permits were trending earlier in the year.

 mishtalk.com/2016/09/20/housing-starts-down-5-4-percent-bloomberg-says-not-as-weak-as-it-looks

 This chart below is further evidence that Bloomberg is one of MSM's leading spinmeisters.
 
 

Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO at Gallup
The Invisible American
I've been reading a lot about a "recovering" economy. It was even trumpeted on Page 1 of The New York Times and Financial Times last week.
I don't think it's true.

The percentage of Americans who say they are in the middle or upper-middle class has fallen 10 percentage points, from a 61% average between 2000 and 2008 to 51% today.

Ten percent of 250 million adults in the U.S. is 25 million people whose economic lives have crashed.
What the media is missing is that these 25 million people are invisible in the widely reported 4.9% official U.S. unemployment rate.
Let's say someone has a good middle-class job that pays $65,000 a year. That job goes away in a changing, disrupted world, and his new full-time job pays $14 per hour -- or about $28,000 per year. That devastated American remains counted as "full-time employed" because he still has full-time work -- although with drastically reduced pay and benefits. He has fallen out of the middle class and is invisible in current reporting.
More disastrous is the emotional toll on the person -- the sudden loss of household income can cause a crash of self-esteem and dignity, leading to an environment of desperation that we haven't seen since the Great Depression.
Millions of Americans, even if they themselves are gainfully employed in good jobs, are just one degree away from someone who is experiencing either unemployment, underemployment or falling wages. We know them all.
There are three serious metrics that need to be turned around or we'll lose the whole middle class.

1. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the total U.S. adult population that has a full-time job has been hovering around 48% since 2010 -- this is the lowest full-time employment level since 1983.
2. The number of publicly listed companies trading on U.S. exchanges has been cut almost in half in the past 20 years -- from about 7,300 to 3,700. Because firms can't grow organically -- that is, build more business from new and existing customers -- they give up and pay high prices to acquire their competitors, thus drastically shrinking the number of U.S. public companies. This seriously contributes to the massive loss of U.S. middle-class jobs.
3. New business startups are at historical lows. Americans have stopped starting businesses. And the businesses that do start are growing at historically slow rates.

Free enterprise is in free fall -- but it is fixable. Small business can save America and restore the middle class.

zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-20/we-havent-seen-great-depression-gallup-ceo-destroys-recovery-lie 

Google Spreads It Tentacles

 
We've been warning for a longtime now Google is a huge octopus with more tentacles than the one in Washington. It continues to encroach on your privacy.

Google spread its tentacles further into the world of travel this week with the launch of Google Trips, a new smartphone app described by the internet giant as a “personalised tour guide in your pocket”.

Google, which is also working on a project to prevent ageing, claims Trips will not only help users manage their travel arrangements – from hotel bookings to flights – but also chaperone them around popular tourist attractions. Tour guides will no doubt be worried.  

The app works offline – travellers can download everything to their phone before setting off – though it does require users to log in with a Google account, from which the app extracts relevant information about your trip from Google Mail, such as hotel confirmations and e-tickets.  

Assuming it does work, Google Trips might seem like a handy travel companion. However, there are some issues travellers may want to consider before using it, chiefly privacy. In its policy, Google makes no bones about it: one of the reasons it mines information from you is to better target you with adverts. The more you give it, the better it gets at selling to you

It might not bother you at first, but data in the wrong hands--and as we have discovered with credit cards, that can happen, see Home Depot, Target, Citi and other large firms--but what and where is all that data used for and going? Your local friendly neighborhood terrorist?  There is another issue here, however, just the sheer power of Google.

There also a political issue. Despite statements to the contrary, there no such thing as impartial in today's charged world. And Google, whatever your feelings are, has not been squeaky clean or nonpartisan. There is also Google's role in censorship, a fact not a supposition.

Doing business with firm that might be behind the scenes trying to do in your very core beliefs is an interesting dilemma.

telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/google-travel-app-wants-to-be-your-tour-guide-but-is-that-a-good-thing/

The Soros Danger

George Soros is a very dangerous man. A meddler in national and local elections, using his millions to push his globalist agenda,. He is a serious threat to individual liberty and freedom.

Billionaire investor George Soros pledged on Tuesday to invest up to $500 million in programs and companies benefiting migrants and refugees fleeing life-threatening situations.

Announced against the backdrop of an ongoing United Nations (U.N.) summit in New York, Soros explained that he wished to harness the power of the private sector for public good.

The life-threatening situations there is a cover up, a carnard for his real, behind the scenes manipulation and agenda. That should read: for public enslavement not for good. He wants to harness power all right, but not the kind that has your interest at heart, especially if you oppose him. Soros is a friend of GMOs; he is a friend of everything that disdains and discredits localism. His money is dirty and all those who accept it are likewise dirty. Mr. Soros is a octogenarian, but that's no excuse. Like everyone else, he needs to be accountable for his acts against humanity.

 The increasing number of asylum seekers from those war-torn nations has sparked political debate in Europe and the U.S. over where the refugees should be resettled. The issue has been clouded by economic migration, with large numbers of people reportedly seeking entrance to developed nations in the hope of better prospects as global growth slows.

Here is another big lie. Many of these refugees are not from war-torn countries. But look no further and you will fine the footprint of another globalists organization your tax dollars are supporting, the UN.

The Open Society Foundations (OSF), a non-profit organization owned by Soros, will be in charge of the funds, the statement said. Any profits from the investments would go to the OSF's migrant and refugee-related programs, which include community centers in Greece and initiatives to provide Syrian refugees with legal advice.

"Refugees need access to financial and legal services, education, and employment opportunities; we believe the private sector is uniquely placed to help build the infrastructure needed to support these services," the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said of the Soros investment.

Overnight

Choppy or otherwise or whatever you want to call it, market activity won't be much until the two central banks much of investors around the globe are currenlthy focused on have their upcoming meetings this week.

Reuters reported earlier that the Japanese stocks traded upward in in choppy markets Tuesday morning with the Nikkei up 0.3% to 16,570 after opening at 16,403.22.  Wednesday is the big day when both banks will meet for two days and the outcome will be interesting.  Reuters, for example, is suggesting that now would be a good time for the Fed to surprise with a rate hike that might help "close" some of the confidence gap the Fed has. For our coin we think that's a bit of  a stretch with not a small patina of propaganda attached.

The Topix index traded nearly flat at 1,312.04. Across the Korean Strait, the Kospi was lower by 0.24 percent. The Japanese yen strengthened to 101.85 against the dollar measured against levels above 102.00 last week. The ASX 200 was off 0.15%., the Hang Seng down 018% while oil prices in Asian U.S. crude futures traded a touch lower, down 0.18 percent at $43.22 a barrel, after finishing up 0.6 percent in the U.S. session. Global benchmark Brent was down 0.11 percent at $45.91, following a 0.4 percent overnight gain.

The odds are better than even whatever either of these two banks unfold it will be wrong or harmful. Investors seem more discombobulated about the BOJ than the Fed where it seems no change in rates is fairly well expected. In the U.S. many believe the markets have already done much of the work for the Fed as sell-offs in long bonds and safer dividend sectors like utilities and telecoms have already sold down some while the dollar has appreciated. The WSJ notes that "Since Labor Day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen 1.95%, while the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note has climbed 0.08 percentage point to 1.698% and the WSJ Dollar Index has risen 0.95%. On Monday, the Dow dropped 3.63 points to 18120.17."

 The rising cost of borrowing dollars for brief periods is hitting financial institutions and other companies around the globe, a tightening of conditions that further limits already slim prospects that the Fed will raise interest rates at its meeting ending Wednesday.

The rising cost of borrowing dollars for brief periods is hitting financial institutions and other companies around the globe, a tightening of conditions that further limits already slim prospects that the Fed will raise interest rates at its meeting ending Wednesday.

Oil had rallied on Monday before settling off its highs on scepticism over Venezuela's bid to talk up a potential OPEC output freeze, and on indications U.S. crude stockpiles had risen last week.
Spot gold XAU edged slightly higher to $1,313.80 an ounce.

Peso Election Tool

We've written about this before. Trump's election odds when the peso goes down against the dollar improve and they go down when the peso strengthens against the dollar. Exchange rate below. One week ago the peso was below 18.50. Today, it's 19.90.

People stand outside an exchange house advertising the sale of U.S. dollars at the rate of 19.90 Mexican pesos per dollar in Mexico City, Monday, Sept. 19, 2016. The Mexican currency reached the psychological barrier of 20 pesos per dollar, and analysts and commentators cited the role of the U.S. presidential campaign. 

yahoo.com/news/analysts-cite-clintons-illness-plunge-mexico-peso

If you want to know how Donald Trump is doing, all you need to do is check the Mexican peso.
Over the past four months, Mexico’s currency has repeatedly declined when Trump’s election outlook improves and rallied when his odds of winning slump. The peso tumbled to a 2 1/2-month low Monday after his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, canceled a two-day trip to California because she’s suffering from pneumonia.

financialspuds.blogspot.com/2016/09/backdoor-propaganda.

The Everything Bubble

Maybe you've never heard of the Everything Bubble. Maybe you think all bubbles are like snow flakes, unique.

Like Bigfoot, you probably think it's not out there, lurking in the shadows. The truth is the Everything Bubble and Bigfoot are related. Like Siamese twins joined at the hip. One day one twin said the other: "What do you mean you're going to join the Army?" The truth is it takes one to create the other.

Look at this chart and you'll see the Everything Bubble, alive and well. And now you'll know the the answer to the mystery of Bigfoot and just where he really is.


advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2016/09/19/support-drops-away 

Close Is Getting Closer

The "news" is that Trump is now up 2 in Colorado. The poll has a MOE of 3.4.
Reuters-Ipsos now has "high confidence" that Trump will win Vermont. Their current Electoral Vote prediction is Trump 243, Clinton 242. They rate Maine as a "toss-up" and do not predict Rhode Island because of insufficient data. (General commentary has recently said Trump has a chance in R.I.)
Their 60% turnout model has Clinton winning the election by 13; their current odds are Clinton 3:2.

Their 60% turnout model has Clinton winning the election by 13; their current odds are Clinton 3:2.

.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=11278

http://media.wix.com/ugd/3bebb2_b53ca6b673c14cdab9d68832bd7e74cb.pdf

Where Is The Money From?

Everyone professed from the beginning in this election to be concerned about money buying elections.

Is there some correlation between money spent and being owned by those who donate or make such funds available? Or this just a who's spending what and where matter of no consequence? Is Washington really just about money without which there is no entrance to the ultimate prize, power?

Does a sudden upswing in spending say anything about a particular campaign, as in a sense of panic setting in? Why would someone like millionaire George Soros tell one of his PAC committees to donate  money to a local election for, say, sheriff, in a far away state where the billionaire doesn't reside?



Something of note if the polls showing Trump closing the gap and maybe even making it a dead heat, who's trying to buy the election? Another fair question voters need an answer to and have a right to know before November is: Where is all that money coming from?