Making Sense Of 2011
by Zero Hedge - December 31st, 2011 2:14 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.
Submitted by Econophile.
This article originally appeared in the Daily Capitalist.
This is the time of year when you are supposed to look back and make sense of what happened during the year and make predictions about the new year. A futile task if there ever was one.
How can anyone make sense of a world where:
- California prohibits the production or sale of beer to which caffeine has been added (They want drunks to fall asleep at the wheel?).
- Katy Perry and Russell Brand are getting divorced (Boy, didn’t see that coming).
- Cheetah, the famed comedian, dies at age 80 (Some controversy about he being the “real” Cheetah).
- Words like ”amazing,” “baby bump,” “shared sacrifice,” “occupy,” “blowback,” “man cave,” “ginormous” “the new normal” are banished (Just when I was thinking about building me a man cave).
- We are bombarded with coronal mass ejections—solar flares (see Harold Camping, below).
- Harold Camping retires in confusion over his faulty Rapture forecasts (Poor Harold; he should try econometrics).
- The Rugby World Cup boosted host country New Zealand’s GDP (It must have been the additional beer consumption).
- Brazilian shoppers boost U.S. holiday spending because things are cheap here (They have inflation and higher taxes—Bernanke and Obama, take note).
These data are just too confusing for me.
I’ve said enough about the economy this year and I’m fairly content with my calls. I don’t do those predictions for the new year any more. I did a 2010 forecast, and 12 out of the 15 forecasts were correct (not nos. 12, 13,and 14). My Megatrends article in 2009 is also pretty good, but I think I would like to re-write it to change some things in hindsight.
But here is what really interests me about 2011: Looking back in time since the Crash of ’08, I am impressed by how closely our depression has hewn to classic depression models, especially the Great Depression of the 30s and 40s where there was so much government meddling in the economy. (I urge anyone to read Murray Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression for the best analysis.) For example, we continue to experience the following indicia of a depression:
The classic credit crunch/liquidity freeze. It was “solved” but only for Wall Street and the…
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DiggSabrient Risers – 12/31/2011
by Sabrient - December 31st, 2011 2:00 pm
Reminder: Sabrient is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.
Top 5 Risers |
||||
| Stock | Rating | Analysis | ||
| PAY | BUY | VeriFone has shown a remarkable increase in projected value recently, with the majority of analysts expecting higher than previously expected earnings. | ||
| ATU | BUY | Actuant has been gaining recognition from analysts as a good canditate for achieving higher than expected earnings along with higher overall projected valuation. | ||
| DNR | BUY | Projected value continues to rise for Denbury while long term increases in earnings growth are also becoming more widely expected. | ||
| OZRK | BUY | Bank of the Ozarks has shown a remarkable increase in projected value recently, with the majority of analysts expecting higher than previously expected earnings. | ||
| ACAT | BUY | Arctic Cat has been gaining recognition from analysts as a good canditate for achieving higher than expected earnings along with higher overall projected valuation. | ||
Guest Post: A Future View Of Post-Bubbledemic America
by Zero Hedge - December 31st, 2011 1:49 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.
Submitted by Tyler Durden.
Submitted by Ben Tanosborn
A future view of post-bubbledemic America
Balancing the budget in 2032 is going to be a rather easy, mechanical task for future American politicians. A constitutional amendment requiring balanced budgets will be enacted by then, and Congress will only need to tackle projected deficits by adjusting variable pension and Medicare rates – for those retired – which will have replaced the current models for Social Security and Medicare. And if worst comes to worst, there will be room for additional cuts from the budget of an already octomated military which by then will lack any hegemonic designs as other major world powers claim their legitimate stakes and defend their grounds.
That’s my prognostication as we close 2011, a year of much turmoil around the world, and one with a hopeful spark for change in the United States of America, as Wall Street’s macabre face slowly becomes unveiled.
It will be the younger generations’ payback to the current generations for leaving them with an inherited debt approaching then twice the gross national product; a debt they will only be able to amortize on the backs of the retired population… the people who thought nothing of creating this burden for them, their children and their grandchildren. Such prediction does assume capitalism, in whatever form, remains in our midst; a likely occurrence, as “owners” of the current system will enforce it from the top down via the capitalists’ police force: the nation’s military. But that remains a questionable, not a sure thing.
As I see it, we are still in for a decade of social and economic turmoil in a nation of proud yet disposed people, with much economic juggling continuing to be performed by never-learn politicians as we march to do battle with a few more economic bubbles. Our capitalist and prolific economic motherland will birth a few more bubbles before bubble-hysterectomy is finally forced on her; a little too late, I am afraid, with only symbolic significance and little else. The housing bubble, only partially deflated during the past four years, will continue to lose air and new bubble-twins will make their entrance in the form of state and municipal debt which cannot be repaid; not to forget the ugliest sibling of all yet to be birthed: government guarantees…
Sabrient Baker’s Dozen Webinar
by Sabrient - December 31st, 2011 1:47 pm
Reminder: Sabrient is available to chat with Members, comments are found below each post.
| Up Market – 2009 | Sideways Market – 2010 | Down Market – 2011 |
|---|---|---|
| TTES: +170% | JOY: +68% | HS: +105% |
| JOY: +125% | ALK: +64% | SFD: +17% |
| AAWW: +97% | CACC: +49% | MKSI: +8.9% |
| DRC: +83% | TEO: +48% | ABG: +8.8% |
DATE: Thursday, January 5, 2012
TIME: 1:30 pm Pacific Time; 4:30 pm Eastern Time
DURATION: 60 minutes
Watch Sabrient’s Live InterActive WebCast on your iPhone or Android
2011 Greatest Hits: Presenting The Most Popular Posts Of The Past Year
by Zero Hedge - December 31st, 2011 12:27 pm
Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.
Submitted by Tyler Durden.
Continuing our tradition of listing what according to Zero Hedge readers were the key news events of the year for the third year in a row (2009 and 2010 can be found here and here), we present, as is now customary, the most popular posts of the year as determined by the number of page views, or said otherwise – by the readers themselves. So without further ado, here are this year’s top 20.
- In 20th place, with 70,324 reads, and confirming that in addition to all the vast changes in the financial arena (recall that the downgrade of the US was the straw that broke the camel’s back and literally broke the market as well), 2011 was a year of vast geopolitical tensions, fears and overhauls, we have “Aircraft Carrier CVN-77 Parks Next Door To Syria Just As US Urges Americans To Leave Country “Immediately”.” Needless to say, Syria will most likely be the unofficial conduit to a military escalation involving Iran. Unless of course the foreplay is skipped and the US military industrial complex skips right to the main course.
- In 19th place, with over 71,000 reads, we brought to our readers’ attention that in addition to being the year of outright denial, there were glimmers of acceptance that the status quo is failing and no matter what, a new regime will be needed… but only after a “global financial apocalypse takes place” – behold: “Step Aside BBC “Trader”: Head Of UniCredit Securities Predicts Imminent End Of The Eurozone And A Global Financial Apocalypse.”
- If there was one person of the year award, it likely would have to go to Kyle Bass, who at 18th place with 72.5k reads have our readers “Some words of advice.” It is not that Bass discovered something huge or ground-shattering in 2011 – to the contrary – he continued his slow, steadfast unraveling of the broken system, and unlike other flip-floppers stuck to his story. He was proven right in many ways in 2011. Will he be proven even more right in 2012, with a collapse of Japan to follow that of Europe? Stay tuned and find out.
- The 17th most popular post, with over 73,000 reads came from an unsuspecting source, the BBC, which continued the theme of unexpected
…
Biderman On 2012: Long Gold, Short EUR And Stop Praying For A Miracle
by Zero Hedge - December 31st, 2011 11:41 am
Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.
Submitted by Tyler Durden.
Wearing a shirt that only a mother could love, Charles Biderman of TrimTabs offers his insightful perspective on the year ahead. Against the backdrop of a fog-bound Sausalito, Biderman sees only one path over the medium-term for Gold (up) as developed market central bankers print their respective fiat currencies and emerging market central bankers horde the one true sound money alternative. Just as we have been pointing out, he notes that the ECB has been QE-ing in all but name and the region faces at best a recession and at worst a depressionary breakup. Cost averaging into a Long Gold, Short EUR position is among his favorite ideas for 2012. Furthermore, he likes non-USD commodity producers in local currencies – implicitly long commodities and short the USD but it is his epiphany that a ‘Miracle on Main Street’ is hoped for by any and every market observer and media hack that rings truest. The hoped-for miracle that explosive growth (just as has always been the case post WWII) is just around the corner and will rescue us from the doldrums-like state we are meandering through is simply our heuristic biases run wild (together with an entire industry of asset managers and strategists who always see 10-15% appreciation ahead in broad equity markets over the next year). Until there is a total restructuring of developed market economies to the point where entrepreneurs are encouraged to act and where government spending is ‘closer’ to government income and not to ‘wish fulfillment’, there can be no jump-start to growth. Political will remains bereft of desire to do anything but kick the can down the road – and unfortunately, that can is getting bigger and heavier by the minute.
Happy New Year…
PaRTY LiKe IT’S 1929!
by Zero Hedge - December 31st, 2011 11:41 am
Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.
Submitted by williambanzai7.
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PARTY LIKE ITS 1929
The Asshole Formerly Known as Printz
(The Artist Known as WilliamBanzai7 December 31, 2011)
I was dreamin’ when I wrote this
Forgive me if it goes astray
But when I woke up this mornin’
Coulda sworn it was Wall Street judgment day
The S&P was purple and the Reuters screen was gray,
There was busted Bankstas runnin’ everywhere
Tryin’ to run from the destruction,
U know I didn’t even care
CHORUS
say say
Dow headed down to zero
Wall Street Ponzi party over, oops out of time
So tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1929
I was dreamin’ when I wrote this
So sue me if I go to fast
But Wall Street life is just a Ponzi, and Ponzi weren’t meant to last
QE profits all around us, my trading mind says prepare for flight
So if we gotta die lets go and hang Bernank tonight…
say say
Dow headed down to zero--
Wall Street Ponzi party over, oops out of time
So tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1929
Lemme tell ya somethin’
If U didn’t come to party,
don’t bother knockin’ on the money Printz’s door
Ink’s leaking holes in his pockets,
and baby he’s ready to roll some dough
Yeah, everybody’s got an unhedged bomb,
we could all blow any day
But before we let that happen,
We’ll dance our Keynesian lives away
Oh, they say say Wall Street Ponzi party over,
oops out of time
So tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1929
say say DOW headed down to zero ponzi party over,
oops out of time
So tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1929
we gonna, oww 1929
Dont ya wanna go 1929
Dont ya wanna go 1929
Dont ya wanna go 1929
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.
.
.
.
.
.
A brief moment of silence please…
.
Ok, Lets go!
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College Students Fall Out of Love with Wall Street
by ilene - December 31st, 2011 2:21 am
Courtesy of Joshua Brown
Michael Lewis is out with his latest faux-Wall Street internal memo…
To: The Upper Ones, From: The Strategy Committee, Re: The Alarming Behavior of College Students
The committee has been reconvened in haste to respond to a disturbing new trend: the uprisings by students on elite college campuses.
Across the Ivy League the young people whom our Wall Street division once subjugated with ease are becoming troublesome. Our good friends at Goldman Sachs, to cite one example, have been forced to cancel their recruiting trips to Harvard and Brown. At Princeton, 30 students masquerading as job applicants entered a pair of Wall Street informational sessions, asked many obnoxious questions (“How do I get a job lobbying the U.S. government to protect Wall Street interests?”), rose and chanted a list of charges at bankers from JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, and, finally, posted videos of their outrageous behavior on YouTube.
The committee views this latter incident as a sure sign of trouble to come.
Keep reading:
Princeton Brews Trouble for Us 1 Percenters: Michael Lewis (Bloomberg)
Sabrient Divers – 12/31/2011
by Sabrient - December 31st, 2011 12:00 am
Top 5 Divers |
||||
| Stock | Rating | Analysis | ||
| BAK | SELL | Recent earnings changes for Braskem are troublesome, as is a sinking projected valuation. | ||
| CSC | SELL | Degradation in recent earnings and declining long term growth prospects are pushing Computer Sciences lower and lower in our stack. | ||
| CS | SELL | We project an unfortunate decrease in value for Credit Suisse, and we’re not alone in this opinion as other analysts are also reducing expectations. | ||
| CPNO | SELL | A double whammy of reduced long-term expectations and recent significant declines in historical earnings result in Copano Energy showing up on our Divers list. | ||
| AMED | SELL | Degradation in recent earnings and declining long term growth prospects are pushing Amedisys lower and lower in our stack. | ||
Warren Pollock Interviews James Kotoulas on MF Global and JP Morgan’s Role In Its Bankruptcy
by ilene - December 30th, 2011 10:33 pm
Courtesy of Jesse’s Cafe Americain
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