THe SiLVeR INTeRNaTioNaLe (HaPPY MaY DaY Part II)(REGRESSED)
by Zero Hedge - April 30th, 2011 3:12 pm
Courtesy of williambanzai7
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THE SILVER INTERNATIONALE
WilliamBanzai7
Arise ye victims of Banksta plunder
Arise ye sufferers of Wall Street greed and want
For simple reason in revolt now thunders
And at last comes the age of the bailed out Banksta bitchez hunt.
Away with all those neo-Keynesian superstitions
Arise ye masses arise, arise
We’ll end henceforth the old Wall Street swindler tradition
And spurn the toxic shit to win the precious silver prize.
So silver comrades, come rally
And the bailed out Wall Street scum let us now face
The Silver Internationale unites the anti-banksta human race
So silver comrades, come rally Don’t let that banksta scum disappear without a trace
The Silver Internationale unites the anti-banksta human race
No more deluded by conniving quantitative distraction
On bailout pimps we’ll make systemic war
The 401k holders too will take evasive action
They’ll break ranks and tell those thieving money changing whores: “Up Yours!”
And if those swindling Bankstas keep on trying
To sacrifice our dwindling wealth for their greedy Wall Street hides
They soon shall hear the silver-anti banksta bullets flying
We’ll kick thos scheming bitchez where the Ponzi sun don’t shine
So silver comrades, come rally
And the bailed out Wall Street scum let us now face
The Silver Internationale unites the anti-banksta human race
So silver comrades, come rally
Don’t let that bailout scum disappear without a trace
The Silver Internationale unites the anti-banksta human race
No market saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in captive regulatory fear
On their thieving crony hands the silver chains must shiver
Chains to punish selfish greed and foolish pride
E’er those low down banksta thieves will disappear with all their pilfered booty
And keep it all for their scrappy lot.
Each at the anti-banksta silver forge must do their duty
And we’ll strike while the precious metal iron is still hot.
So silver comrades, come rally
And the bailed out Wall Street scum let us now face
The Silver Internationale unites the anti-banksta human race.
So silver comrades, come rally
Don’t let that bailout scum disappear without a trace
The Silver Internationale unites the anti-banksta human race
Happy Berkshire Hathaway Day as Well!
Calling All Ants
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DiggIt’s 2008 All Over Again… Only Worse
by Zero Hedge - April 30th, 2011 2:57 pm
Courtesy of Phoenix Capital Research
Bernanke and pals wanted to recreate the same booming leverage and fiscal insanity of the bubble years. And they’ve done that in a big way. Among their various successes:
§ Commodities are at levels not seen since 2008.
§ Gas prices are at levels not seen since 2008.
§ The US Dollar has fallen to levels not seen since 2008.
§ Bank leverage is at levels not seen since 2008.
§ Microcap stocks are at levels not seen since 2007.
§ Wall Street bonuses are at levels not seen since 2007.
It’s really striking the similarities. And all the Fed and US Government had to do was:
1) Make itself insolvent
2) Bankrupt the US
3) Spend Trillions in Bailouts and Stimulus
4) Trash the US Dollar
So what’s the difference this time around?
Well, first off, the US consumer is in far worse shape than in 2008. The US has lost some 7.5 million jobs since 2007. The U-6 unemployment rate (which accounts for unemployed and underemployed) stands at 16.2%. These folks are in far worse positions to stomach higher fuel and food prices this time around.
Speaking of which, the number of people on food stamps is also up 58% since 2007.…
Paul Giamatti As Ben Bernanke – Was Jeff Goldblum Over Budget?
by Zero Hedge - April 30th, 2011 2:17 pm
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
Each day the general population gets at least one dose of teleprompter humor. So for a bit of variety, courtesy of William Banzai, we bring you some teleporter tragicomedy (which also explains so very much…)
Lead in:
Panel 1
Panel 2
Conclusion:
As Munger’s Anti-Gold Campaign Kicks Into High Gear, Buffett Confirms He May Have “Held Something Back” About Sokol
by Zero Hedge - April 30th, 2011 1:49 pm
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
Crony capitalism bailout induced dementia may be a bitch but it sure does put things on the fast track. Specifically, from “Neither Dave nor I feel his Lubrizol purchases were in any way unlawful” to “the Sokol situation is inexplicable and inexcusable” in thirty days. Ignore the fact that Buffett both “explained” and “excused” it when he first announced it hoping that would be the end of course. After all who would dare disturb the kindly old Octogenarian of Omaha atop his perch, after he himself made billions off the backs of taxpayers, the same people his sidekick Munger who did precisely the same illegal frontrunning when he bought a boatload of BYD (oddly nobody brought that one up yet: we are confident it is being saved for the Too Bit To Fail launch party at the Museum of Mirrors) told should only buy gold if they believe the country they live in is going to kill them. We wonder if Munger has seen the price of gold lately, and if that to him is any indication of the genocidal inclinations of said host country. As for the demented one, who ended his letter with: “I have held back nothing in this statement. Therefore, if questioned about this matter in the future, I will simply refer the questioner back to this release” we wonder: now that the validity of that statement has been thoroughly refuted by none other than grandpa Warren, whether he would like to revise it, and if so, can he absolutely, definitely guarantee us that his heir apparent (not to mention Munger) was the only one who would frontrun Berkshire on corporate acquisitions in the past? We promise to believe him this time.
From Reuters:
Warren Buffett said he had made a mistake by not asking more about David Sokol’s purchases of Lubrizol Corp stock while his former top lieutenant was pitching the chemicals company as a possible takeover target for Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Sokol was widely considered a leading candidate to succeed Buffett as Berkshire’s chief executive, but he resigned last month after it was revealed that he had bought $10 million of shares in Lubrizol. Sokol got a roughly $3 million profit on that stake when Berkshire agreed to buy Lubrizol.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
…
On Levered ETFs, Personal Responsibility, and Having Enough Rope With Which To Hang One’s Self
by Zero Hedge - April 30th, 2011 1:21 pm
Courtesy of Stone Street Advisors
This is from Stone Street Advisors
My boy Felix Salmon has a curious post up this evening, wherein he says anyone who isn’t a (professional?) day-trader should be barred from trading levered ETFs, and that the SEC needs to protect these people (from themselves). I like Felix, but he is seldom (as) off the mark on anything as he is here. His post ignores both existing regulatory practice and the – bear with me here – relatively simple workings of levered ETFs. Allow me to explain…
Levered ETF’s like TBT (which Felix mentions) – or my two favorites, FAS and FAZ – have embedded leverage, that is, they are designed to produce 3x (for FAS/FAZ) the daily return of a basket of stocks/index (or the inverse thereof, in the case of FAZ). The key word here is “daily.” Daily, as in, if the index gains 1% ON THE DAY, the levered ETF will (er, is designed to) return 3%, and the inverse ETF -3%. EACH DAY. Not over-time, EACH. DAY. This is spelled out in extremely plain language in various places, for example, on the Direxion (the sponsor for the ETF) website, under the column “daily target.” The detailed page for each specific ETF, for example FAS, says in the very first paragraph:
Fund Objective
The Financial Bull 3X ETF seeks daily investment results, before fees and expenses, of 300% of the price performance of the Russell 1000® Financial Services Index (“Financial Index”).
This is repeated in several other places, including the fund prospectus, and after it became apparent retail investors had no idea what they were getting in, various additional disclosure from brokerage firms before executing buy orders for these securities. Still, despite the myriad painfully clear explanations of how these securities work, retail “investors” put their capital at-risk without doing even the most basic and cursory “research.” To many of these “investors,” (3x) leveraged ETF’s are somehow supposed to produce the > daily return of the underlying index.
I constructed an example case a few years ago to illustrate what happens here, and how such misunderstanding causes ignorant, naive, and frankly masochistic “investors” to potentially bet the farm on a volatile security they do not understand. Imagine the possible returns for the index are {+-5%, 10%}, arbitrarily assigned over 10…
The Weekend Interview with C. Larry Pope: It’s Getting Harder to Bring Home the Bacon
by ilene - April 30th, 2011 1:15 pm
(h/tip pstas)
Mr. Pope is the chief executive officer of Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s largest pork processor and hog producer by volume. He doesn’t mince words when it comes to rapidly rising food prices. The 56-year-old accountant by training has been in the business for more than three decades, and he warns that the higher costs may be here to stay.
Courtesy of? "I’m not going to say, ‘a political policy,’" he tells me. (His senior vice president, a lawyer by training, sits close by, ready to "kick his leg" if his garrulous boss speaks too plainly.) But politics indeed plays a large role, as Congress subsidizes favorite industries and the Federal Reserve pursues an expansive monetary policy.
Ours is a timely chat, given the burst of food inflation the world is living through. Mr. Pope is running a multibillion-dollar business in the midst of economic turmoil, and he has strong views about why prices are rising and what can be done about it.
The Southerner is an old hand when it comes to food. He graduated from William and Mary in 1975, spent a few years at an accountancy, then joined Smithfield and worked his way up the ranks. He’s something of an evangelist about his trade: He boasts that Smithfield employs some 50,000 people, many of whom are high-school graduates and immigrants others would consider "hard to hire." It’s a "good business" that "gives people a good start."
It’s also a business under enormous strain. Some "60 to 70% of the cost of raising a hog is tied up in the grains," Mr. Pope explains. "The major ingredient is corn, and the secondary ingredient is soybean meal." Over the last several years, "the cost of corn has gone from a base of $2.40 a bushel to today at $7.40 a bushel, nearly triple what it was just a few years ago." Which means every product that uses corn has risen, too—including everything from "cereal to soft drinks" and more.
Full article here: The Weekend Interview with C. Larry Pope: It’s Getting Harder to Bring Home the Bacon – WSJ.com.
Geithner Vs Gross Round 2: Is The Latest “Market Normalization” Proposal By The Treasury A Warning Shot Fired Straight At Alarmist PIMCO?
by Zero Hedge - April 30th, 2011 12:39 pm
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
For months Bill Gross has been very vocally antagonizing the US Treasury by telling anyone who cared to listen that US debt is nothing short of the world’s biggest ponzi and that Ben Bernanke is satan. For the longest time Tim Geithner took this effrontery peacefully, always willing to offer the other cheek. Until last night. In what is quite possibly a direct warning shot fired straight at Pimco’s primary revenue driver, the Treasury has made it clear Bill may want to focus on unicorns and rainbows in his next monthly letter.
What happened?
Earlier this week, The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (“TBAC”), a advisory group chaired by JP Morgan’s Matt Zames and Goldman Sachs, which also counts PIMCO among its members, basically made it clear that the hedge fund crew is firmly behind the debt ceiling hike, as an alternative would result in fire and brimstone falling from the sky – in other words the end of the Ponzi would mean the end of the world. And they should know: after all it is the same Matt Zames of whom JPM’s John Hogan said back in 2007: “For whatever it[’]s worth, I am sitting at lunch with Matt Zames who just told me that there is a well-known cloud over the head of Madoff and that his returns are speculated to be part of a [P]onzi scheme.” Considering how right Zames was about Madoff, perhaps we should take his word for that far, far bigger ponzi scheme, the United States. In other words, the TBAC made a mortal enemy out of living within one’s means (let alone austerity): surely such a mindboggling concept would be the end of Wall Street (which urgently needs to double world GDP to $200 trillion by 2020 to keep record bonuses flowing). Oddly enough the TBAC’s sister organization at the New York Fed: the Treasury Market Practices Group (“TMPG”), which has most of the same member firms (except for PIMCO, relevant in a second, and also “curiously: has Matt Zames presiding on that particular group) may have made a comparable, though far more powerful enemy, out of PIMCO, after it proposed the introduction of fails charges for MBS trades, an action that is a direct affront to none other than Bill Gross’ PIMCO, one of the world’s most active managers of MBS/Agency securities. Should the…
Weekly Bull/Bear Recap: Apr 25-29, 2011
by Zero Hedge - April 30th, 2011 11:19 am
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
Submitted by Rational Capitalist Speculator
Weekly Bull/Bear Recap: Apr 25-29, 2011
Bull
+ Earnings and revenues for various bell-weathers portray improvement in corporate performance. Revenue-beat rates are the highest since the bull market began (there’s your top line growth bears). A steady trend of share buybacks and increased dividends will keep the bull market trend in place since March 2009 intact as companies return profits to investors.
+ The Bull Market rolls on as the Dow Theory is confirmed with both DJ Transportation & Industrials averages breaking through their prior bull market highs. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq have finally confirmed as well by breaking their previous bull market highs set in Feb. Even better, there’s a good bit of skepticism out there in regards to this latest breakout, the wall of worry remains.
+The Chicago Fed National Activity Index points to above-trend economic growth and refutes claims that economic activity has fallen. Manufacturing continues to lead the way and the report points to strong contributions from the Job market. Small businesses are slowing recovering and hiring is increasing in breadth.
+ Durable Good Orders rise a healthy 2.5%, while core-capital goods rise a strong 3.7%. Orders have now risen for 3 straight months. Shipments climb for the 5th straight month as well. Meanwhile, Chicago’s Midwest Manufacturing Output index increases 1.9% led by strong auto-related production. Finally, ATA truck tonnage levels and recent railroad data point to continued expansion in the manufacturing sector.
+ Consumers continue to spend as evidenced by recently released weekly sales metrics and the Restaurant Index. Easter demand has been solid thus far. Consumers have become accustomed to higher gas prices and continued improvement in the job market will ensure that spending growth continues.
+ The Conference Board reports that consumer confidence for April continued to stabilize as the “current conditions” component rose for a 7th straight month. The recovery continues. Plans to buy a house, an auto, or an appliance rose in renewed confidence that incomes will improve in the months ahead. This confirms recent improvement from the University of Michigan sentiment survey.
+ Despite all the bearish chatter, …
From Cool To iTool: Did South Park Just Hack Apple’s Coolness Away?
by Zero Hedge - April 30th, 2011 10:22 am
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
The same two geniuses who made “Aaaand, it’s gone” a household phrase, bring you the HUMANCENTiPAD. Was Apple just hacked from cool to iTool?
St. Louis Fed Stunner: Admits QE May Lead To Rise Rather Than Drop In Unemployment
by Zero Hedge - April 30th, 2011 9:45 am
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
It’s one thing for bloggers and even various non-mainstream economists to charge the Fed with pandering exclusively to Wall Street’s interests, and accuse Ben Bernanke of hypocrisy when he says that the Fed’s ultimate goal is the strengthening of the economy through a decrease in unemployment (recall that one of the original two mandates of the Fed is “maximum employment”… that is until it was supplanted by the third and only one: “Russell 2000 to 2000″) and caring for “lower-income households.” It is something far more serious when the one doing the accusing is… the Federal Reserve. In a seminal paper which we are convinced will make the rounds the next time the puppetmaster is undergoing his periodic grilling by Congressional and Senate critters, Yi Wen of the St. Louis Fed indicates that the entire experiment in increasing the adjusted monetary base by $2 trillion in 2 years is not only not benefiting the economy, but is in fact having an adverse impact on such key economic drivers as unemployment. To wit: “permanent increases in the monetary base foreshadow eventual increases in inflation that can increase, rather than reduce, unemployment over the long term.” We wonder if Bernanke knew in advance that LSAP (aka QE2) had a statistically greater chance of resulting in greater unemployment, and thus more pain for the working class, and if the only offset, a doubling in the stock market when ever more capital is diverted from organic economic growth to pursuing speculative risk, was important enough for the Fed to effective replace its employment mandate with one of stock market manipulation?
Here is how the St. Louis Fed confirms that the Chairman is nothing but a puppet in the hands of Wall Street:
The impact of LSAP programs on economic activity depends on the programs’ effects on longer-term interest rates and the responsiveness of aggregate demand to such changes. The St. Louis-based consulting and forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers recently estimated that the Federal Open Market Committee’s current $600 billion LSAP program likely will reduce the 10-year Treasury yield by 20 basis points, increase the eight-quarter-ahead level of real gross domestic product by 0.4 percentage points, reduce the unemployment rate by 0.2 percentage points, and increase employment by 350,000 jobs. Although analyses conducted by other institutions (such as the Boston and
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