I came for my personals

 

 ‘Knowing what I know … what we need is awareness we can’t get careless’.

-Public Enemy – Fight the Power

‘I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin’.

-Alice

'Let’s turn on the juice and see what shakes loose’.

-Betelguese

Anonymous Monetarist

Anonymous Monetarist

Anonymous Monetarist

> 

> 

> Hello Cyberspace.

Let me dust off the hoot and holler ...

Hello, I am a raconteur. I have been a raconteur for a time, am once more for a bit, and perhaps then for the last time.

For now, just a fast one...

 

The kid was slick, will give him that.

I let him grab a chair for thirty minutes because his cold call pitch was tik-tok clinic.

‘Listen – it’s churn, run rate, factor cost and boom you scale’, he said, with his gold cuffs exposed and his teeth extended.

It was 99, we were coming up on Y2K, and all my folks in telecom were going to end up owning islands.

The young, suited, shark explained that my company could be valued on monthly run rate less churn times the factor from his billing/finance alliance that was ‘deploying funds’ to scale to the moon.

With a personal guarantee, my skin in the game, they would factor my receivables, and group me with other growing subnetworks around the nation to scale and then bail.

That moment, another in midtown Manhattan with my bond securitization team backstabbing my sponsor so I could replace him, and a few others that I will keep to my inner monologue… represent my personal fractal. Hint … I said hell no.

Fractals are kind of cool. They are self-similar on all scales. They suggest a rules based, deterministic system.

As an illustration …

Do you know a successful trader? If u do then they will tell you that they know a pattern. That is, they recognize a fractal. Fun part is that, by far, the majority of them do not recognize that it is a fractal.

Will give you the TLDR in a second; however if you would like to deep dive, search Mandelbrot on my blog or the intertubes. He was an extraordinarily interesting fella.

A fractal is self-similar on all scales. Mandelbrot coined the term.

Our erstwhile trader, although they preach some garbled version of random walk theory, albeit they recognize that the markets consist of millions of individual decisions, many by silicon proxy, has some pattern or some hook that they keep very close to their vest. That pattern or hook is a fractal and you may confirm that by hearing the trader describe how they are trading the same ‘thing’ on different charts (i.e., hourly, daily). Self-similar on all scales the fractal is.

The more advanced student will trade on charts where the time period itself is an important fractal.

The way the trader trades is entirely inconsistent with what they philosophically believe trading to be. It flies in the face of who they perceive themselves to be. But rules are rules!

Mandelbrot was asked by his credentialed colleagues why, given his robust intellect, he toiled in such a pedestrian field as trying to model exactly why/how markets behave. To paraphrase his response, ‘the markets are the dataset of humanity’.

If Mandelbrot were alive today perhaps he would search for fractal relationships in the metadata of the socials or in the promise of blockchain supercomputers.

Most certainly, and I can attest that I know this to be true, he believed in the following fractal, ‘The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun’.

It was in fact an ‘executable of this source code’ that allowed me to play tour guide for the creator of a fractal trading theory and show him that his discovery could be used to avoid lines at the game day turnstiles of Wrigley Field.

Open your eyes Neo.

Feeling sorry for the rats.

'What's in the box?'

-David Mills, Se7en

'And the eye-in the-sky is watching us all.'

-Ace Rothstein, Casino

'To be modern only means to fill new forms with eternal truths.'

-Joseph Goebbels

As a trader, there is time to reflect ‘tween the flickering ticks, often in the wee hours. Here in the Great City there is tranquility when the air is sepia; the darkness balanced by the illumination necessary to keep the cameras in focus as they watch the over-served stumble home whilst the bunnies litter the green space. Actually we have a bunny infestation here, but no one seems to mind. After all they are cute, cuddly, and as such of course harmless. The signs referencing infestation always refer to the rodents, many the size of rabbits. Both critters carry disease no doubt, but there are of course no proclamations with big red Xs superimposed over Thumper and his kin.

For the gnostic the wailing and gnashing of being spy gamed is about seven years too late.  The Federales mirrored the San Fran Carrier Hotel  back in ’06 and have never snooped back. They hack us for our freedoms dontchaknow. The digital binding of the left hand to the right foot, the requisite dissection of ones’ avataristic soul, with mercy dispensed as necessary in the name of national security.

The comics of course living up to their name in discourse, oblivious to any other amendment other than the second.  Snowden, Manning, and the like, you are no Daniel Ellsberg, for as we live through a bad sci-fi movie from the 70s the concept of whistleblower is being queued up as requiring a minimum sentencing standard. Pay no mind that the self-immolation of a Tunisian monk that purportedly initiated the Arab Spring was motivated by the Wikileaks disclosure of corruption in their government and direct your inattention to the fact that Snowden’s girlfriend is kinda hot eh?

No one asked us if we wanted a credit score. No one will ask us if we want a citizen score. Alas such a metric is undeniably coming to a job interview, college application, mortgage document and dating website near you. When the spooks gave away the basic algorithms to business  awhile ago assuring that there was no bottle for that genie, the ubiquitous commercial application of that military tech became inevitable.

At the end of the day the data intelligence complex is a job creation program. Oh certainly the usual suspects over time will be rounded up so our solons with flag pins suitably shined can trumpet the necessity of it all for there is data gold in them there hills; a digital homestead with free spoils .

Youth may be for the young but youthful indiscretion is now a thing of your past, available into perpetuity at the touch of the button by any opposable thumb that finds you within six degrees of nefarious separation.

Frankly, I feel sorry for the rats.

QE baby QE.. baby don't you spare no dimes on me...

Gordon Cooper: Who was the best pilot I ever saw? Well, uh, you're lookin' at 'im.

…

John Glenn: I'm tired of being forthright, gracious and magnanimous.

Gordon Cooper: Yeah.

John Glenn: I'm tired of these stupid questions from the press.

-The Right Stuff

In preparation for an Irish Wake this evening I  became a bit reminiscent of family and such.

Had the memory of when as a lad lived ‘downstate in the sticks’ for a few years where , foreshadowing my future as a trader, across  the street  from me resided a fella of the name of Cash Dollar. (Honest to goodness!) Oh… he would also wear a big hat and walk around in a stars and stripes get-up from time-to-time.  

Mr. Dollar owned horses and he would corral them with an electric fence.  Not enough to harm the horse,  the fence’s setting was strong enough though, to get their attention.

As a young’un was into a young’un’s ways and sometimes out of love and devotion , of course, was perhaps  just a tad bit mischievous toward some of me dear relatives. My plan, admittedly a bit reckless, was to apply the juice meant to apply said ‘horse sense’ in a less than judicious manner to whoever happened to be visiting at the time.

Would not  usually have difficulty luring the relative, and am ‘membering a specific occurrence with a cousin,  to feed apples to the horses, and invariably this fella  had a pretty big construct, although sometimes it varied, on the setup. ..

With this cousin the sting was the ‘passioned representation that I had in fact procured superhuman powers and that as proof would lay hands upon her where she would both feel my power and might.

Upon my plaintive cry would then  grab the electric fence and reach over to the victim and give them literally a jolt.

Truth being stranger am sure the analogy is not lost on you gentle reader.

If I were the Fed, and my dear cousin Marie were …well… you, my dear fellow surplus eater,  can only assure you that the expression on her face from this betrayal  should clearly imitate that yonder on yours.

Delivering dollar’s juice might be couched with nice apples but betrayal  ain’t going to go down well.  

Our testy solons though are confident that it will be Japan first  (after Europa) or at least for what passes as confidence these days from the fireman that go from room to room putting out the work of their arson.

These troubles always end in currency crises don’tcha  know.

Yeh and they do too.

The Theohphilus Thistle, a secular epistle, Bennie's wet whistle

'Our blessed leaders at the Fed have a God Complex, they believe they are bigger than the markets, they will suffer the judgement that history bestows upon all fools.' - unattributed

'A vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who have nothing in them of the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and splendid government of aristocracy, founded on banking institutions and monied incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry.'

-Thomas Jefferson 

'Say 'what' again! Say 'what' again! I dare you. I double-dare you...' - Jules, Pulp Fiction

'It's not a panacea' - Bernanke on QE3

'The time has come for someone to put his foot down and that foot is me.' -Dean Wormer, Animal House

So much outrage so little rhyme.

The fact that the Federales had to build the biggest computer in the world to break every code in the world in order to fill up the biggest data center in the world is freaky enough. The latest revelation that everyones' license plates have been scanned and if you make a public record request you can get a hold of a couple hundred images of yourself driving across these  here Yoo Knighted States is downright creepy. Get ye back Datalogix. Remember it is not a police state until they knock on your door.

But don't worry dear citizen 'tis only to fight the evildoers. Hey if you are innocent then you have nothing to fear and if not well then tie the left hand to the right foot and have mercy on the accused's soul.

Lot of folks crying mercy today. That irascible Uncle Fed, pinching cheeks and givin' noogies to the Atticus Finches of this world that thought that hard work if not returning reward would at least yield some er.. yield.

But yield is for the more equal brainworkers that posit the rest of the economy must yield to their troubles, the never ending gurgling emitted from the rabbithole whence all the QSPEs and VIEs were deposited. The deflationary chasm if you will. All but disappeared from the eyes of us mere surplus eaters, gently ensconced in the depths of the Google Cache.

How much cred does the Fed Head shed  if the Fed Head still had cred? Verily the great Bernak will monetize cows to drive up the price of milk.  A friendly professor employing friendly persuasion to corral the assorted sycophants into enabling Nancy Capitalism and the grand criminal syndicate that is the American financial system. We will keep firing away until morale improves proclaims the Oracle at Eccles. The portfolio balance akin to a trapeze walker, the safety net only stretched for those too Big to Fall.  The subliminal to the folks on the Street is that this generation busted by liquidity lusted  is only partially through the generational workout; we can keep papering over declining living standards with policies that are, of, for, and by the banks; and can win the hearts and minds with the pablum narrative of decreasing the unemployment rate by kicking folks out of the labor force (nudge nudge wink wink) - 89 million and counting.. BOOHAH!

If ideology is the devil verily we live in a ring of hell. Leader Obama rightfully is betwixt and bewildered that the banksters don't love him, seriously(goes his plaintive cry) do you think you would have got half as much from McCain? At minimum Hobgoblin Geithner should wear a monocle and top hat when he disdainfully addresses Congress cackling about reforms and expressing his personal outrage at the latest book that weighs him in the balance and finds him comically lacking. This 'seminal' election that offers the clearest distinction since the founding of the union is naught but a choice of two peas in a pod, the noise masquerading as debate akin to galley slaves fighting over the color of their master's tie. 

Romney Robot is equally dismayed that his mercenary past doesn't sell in Peoria. Do they not understand that bloodletting is good for the patient? The black guy said you didn't build it! For the love of Pete they even made me pay more in taxes last year than I should have just to prove that I am a patriot...what more do you people want?

What we want Mittens is what we got. The real referees are back. And all is well.

God Bless America and Go Bears! Golly gee... that flyby was cool!

Fight the Power

'How low can you go?...here we go again... They'll never care for the brothers and sisters'.

-Public Enemy, Bring the Noise

'You know, we always called each other good fellas. Like you said to, uh, somebody, :You're gonna like this guy. He's all right. He's a good fella. He's one of us.: You understand?... It's like a license to steal. It's a license to do anything.'

-Henry Hill, Goodfellas

'U.S. futures industry investigators are looking into why Iowa-based collapsed brokerage PFGBest used a tiny accounting firm that appears to be operating from inside a suburban Chicago home to audit its books...'

- Chicago Tribune 07/12

'All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.'

-Howard Beale, Network

As the latest Ponzi within a Ponzi unravels within the comics perhaps a moment should be taken to focus on the bigger picture.

A progressive reading the FT and WSJ on a daily basis for years may seem to epitomize the duality of life but in truth how can one fight the power lest one at least stay acquainted with the outtake of said propaganda mills?

To wit, a young turk with most certainly an unabashedly bright future of the name Matthew Schoenfeld ( with CV of  'recent graduate of Harvard Law School'), penned a piece in the WSJ two or 'tree' days ago that was most certainly received fondly by the the proponents of the 'ideology of the rich' and their assorted sycophants. 

He used the example of 'Micheal Jordan's exorbitant salary as making the Bulls better overall and by extension the league' to exclaim that income equality ain't what your lyin' eyes record. Quoting the Grand Poobah of Unintended Consequences, Larry Summers, "From the time of Pericles until the end of the 18th century in London-2300 years, standards of living increased perhaps 100%." ; Schoenfeld continues with, 'In the U.S. since 1790, by contrast, real per capita gross domestic product has increased nearly 4000%. Quality of life, in other words, increased 40 times more in 220 years of American history than it had globally over two millenia.'

He concludes with, 'perhaps a century from now low-income Americans will pity the living standards of today's 1%'. 

Golly gee so I guess the surplus eaters stricken by the failure to liquidate the insolvent criminal syndicate and suffering from the greatest level of income inequality (give or take a few percentage points) since I don't know... the Tyler Rebellion of 1381... should count their blessings that they have indoor plumbing, and neither have to worry about the plague nor the fixing of maximum wages?... (they only fix minimum now).

Well done liege Schoenfeld, well done... verily though...

Let me retort.

It is obvious Matthew that your time at Goldman Sachs , Lehman Brothers, 3GCapital, and your upcoming stint at Morgan Stanley after graduation has and will give you a robust appreciation of the 'little people'.

Perhaps you might though be interested  in what some of your fellow students (admittedly  from a much lower caste) have to say on the troubles of the 99%.

Cwcs.ysu.edu/resources/cwcs-projects/defacto  ...  has been compiling a metric for 5 years now that calculates the defacto unemployment rate.

It is of interest to discerning folk for it closely mirrors the methodology employed to calculate unemployment during the First Great Depression.

The last tabulation was performed in January of 2012:

Unemployed ...8.3%

Marginally Attached...1.8%

Discouraged....0.7%

Underemployed...5.3%

Excess Disability...6% (est)

Government Programs 4% (est)

Total 26.1% (looks like there is a typo on their site on the discouraged total).

Again their methodology is similar to GD1, where they basically counted up folks that were able, and had worked in the past,and were not working now. Yes I know that  the Jan '12 defacto total includes disability but gentle reader we all know folks on disability... need I say more?

Another adjustment when comparing to GD1 is that given the Keating-Owen Act there were industries where it was legal to hire 'em on their 14th birthday.

Lastly, the unemployment rates in 1932, 1933 and 1934 were 23.53%, 24.75%,  and 21.60%

So gentle reader forget about income inequality, forget about the defacto unemployment rate, cause the top1% back in GD1 should be pitied by today's huddled masses where the intertubes are free and the check is in the mail.

To each according to their eligibility ...for each according to their greed.

Fight the Power.

So Long, and thanks for all the fish Matthew.

Nuke 'em. Let's nuke the bastards.

' I saw... its thoughts. I saw what they're planning to do. They're like locusts...  After they've consumed every natural resource they move on ...'
-President Thomas Whitmore (Independence Day)

The same "Senior Compliance Manager" who signed off on the PFGBest affadavit and who is listed on the NFA website as both the "Director of Audits/Investigations" and the "Director of FOREX Compliance", Lauren Brinati, is the same woman whom I and my attorneys dealt with two years ago. {Brinati told my lawyer...}
"I don't actually understand any of this stuff. I just sign whatever comes across my desk." 
Lauren Brinati, June 2010
-barnhardt.biz


'Outside theft is even harder to stop in advance than foolish risk-taking. No reform proposal  should adopt the impossible goal of eliminating the need for trust and integrity. The cost of any proposed remedy will ultimately be passed on to brokerage customers.'
-Financial Times 7/11/12


'Client funds held by PFG Canada are also covered by the Canadian Investor Protection Fund, which puts them at an advantage over U.S. clients. The U.S. equivalent to the CIPF, the Securities Investor Protection Corp. doesn’t cover futures accounts, while CIPF covers all investment accounts, from stock to futures to currencies.
CIPF was apprised of the situation late Monday afternoon but does not believe it will be called upon to cover any losses, said vice-president Barbara Love.
Regulators are working “very quickly. There’s a lot more knowledge in Canada about the futures industry after MF Global.”
-globeandmail.com 7/10/12


Bad people do bad things.
Clearly, mistakes were made.
Madoff? Lone wolf. MFG? Market turned against them...whoops! PFG? How were we supposed to know that P.O. Box was a fake? He was such a nice man.


The second time this fella has missed a ponzi by whiskers. The first saw overseas institutions take a hit. Caveat Emptor Deutschland!


This time its' personal. Good folks, some known to me, who through no fault of their own...wiped out. Financial detritus strewn about with the skidmarks of another clown car.



This morning whilst grabbing the normal cup of joe got into a conversation with a MF Global refugee. A stranger who overheard my riffin' on the PFG headline in today's comics.
Everytime he reads how 'most' have received 70-80% back he wants to grab a pitchfork... he has seen nada and knows many that have garnered just as much.



'When you tell folks that it is a criminal syndicate they roll their eyes', I opined.


'They have no idea', he replied.


Let me though gentle reader, fan such a thought, provide perhaps a gentle breeze to just such an ember in your mind....  


' The disability ranks have outpaced job growth throughout President Obama's economic recovery.  While the economy has created 2.6 million jobs since June 2009, fully 3.1 million workers signed up for disability benefits…     After adjusting for inflation, median annual household income dropped 5.3% between June 2009 and May 2012. In contrast, median incomes dropped 2.6% during the 18-month recession, Sentier found.  "The recession was bad enough," said Sentier's Gordon Green, "but what's extraordinary is the even larger decline during this so-called economic recovery."… 
investors.com  7/6/12


Oh and the situation is much much worse if you exclude entitlement payments.


Clearly the Band of the Hand can only create a Potemkin demand. This so-called recovery, with so-called free markets, and so-called regulators, should be called for what it is ...a Ponzi reliant upon the charisma of the schemer. 

The criminal syndicate strikes again ...Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce..'
-Karl Marx 


I have spoken to the heads of various Wall Street equity derivative trading desks and every single one of the senior managers told me that Bernie Madoff was a fraud. Of course no one wants undue career risk by sticking their head up and saying that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. As a result of this case several careers on Wall Street and in Europe will be ruined. Therefore, I have not signed nor put my name on this report. I am worried about the personal safety of myself and my family.'
-Harry Markopolos in 2005. 



'No one at MF Global ... has been accused of any wrongdoing....The CME Group...has not been accused of any wrongdoing.' - New York Times


'A “spot check” performed on US futures brokers’ customer accounts in the wake of the MF Global failure found all, including PFG, were in compliance, CFTC said in January.The Chicago-based NFA had responsibility for auditing the broker’s accounts. 
After contacting US Bank on Monday, the NFA found that PFG had only $5m on deposit there, NFA said. Further, NFA found that two balances of $207m and $218m reported by PFG for February 2010 and March 2011 respectively at US Bank were false. PFG only had less than $10m for each of those months, the NFA said.' - Financial Times


 'Only now at the end do you understand. Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side...'
-Emperor Palpatine


'We have to show these men and women freedom by enslaving them, and show them courage by frightening them.' - Fight Club


"FCM's should be required to develop automated daily reports that divulge their segregated customer account balances and holdings to exchanges.  Appropriate information such as compliance to guidelines need to be made public," Alex Kins, CEO, AlphaMetrix


The criminal syndicate strikes again.


The NFA, National Futures Association (NFA) is the industrywide, self (er scratch that) stealth-regulatory organization for the U.S. futures industry. NFA strives every day to safequard market integrity, protect investors and blah blah blah (insert your derision here).


Obviously the (smurfs at the) NFA's  spot-check of PFG, the most recent happening 'that could never happen'  involved making sure that the officious document asserting  a couple hundred million at US Bank was  uh.... officious looking.  Hold it up to the light to see a watermark perhaps? Check the PFG website to make sure it was the correct company letterhead? Did the fella sign it? OK!! Put it in the official file.


Of course actually contacting the institution to confirm funds was too obtrusive and outside the NFA's striving mandate to safeguard and protect the criminal syndicate and its' associated sycophants.


Golly gee, they will no doubt exclaim we don't have a mandate or the manpower (er scratch that) willpower to police the thousands of FCMs ( er scratch that...  less than 100!... see    http://www.futuresbuzz.com/fcm_accounts.html)  and besides that responsibility if it were to exist would rightfully need to be explained away by one of our brethren regulators (er scratch that... wolves).


Today's 'hen special' of two or 'tree' hundred million vaporized will quickly cycle through the pablum narrative... the 'regulators' even now divining what mitigating action need be taken to turn the page , to start afresh, to restore confidence and integrity to the folks who serve as the necessary fodder for the armaments of the more equal brainworkers.


The only hope for the good people, which I can assert since they include friends and acquaintances, who now stand victimized and vulnerable, is that the dollar cost to the Cosa Nostra of the hit to whatever these solons desire their 'reputation' to be is greater than the dollar cost of making clients of PFG whole.


The 1st rule of Fight Club is that you do not talk about FIGHT CLUB. The 2nd rule of Fight Club is that you DO NOT talk about FIGHT CLUB.


Watch as they try to change the conversation again.


Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?


@$#%@#$%@#$ Honey! Where is my scotch?

Those too astute to buy refute you.

A brief dispatch from a pragmatic outpost on the outskirts of the ideological empire.

Manufacture of contempt cause it's only a Great Depression if they say it is? Check.

Beware the Trojan Hoax? Check.

Failure to liquidate the insolvent banksters has liquidated the productive economy? Check.

Verily, let them eat debt? Checkmate.

No need for this fella to opine regularly as the song remains the same although there have been a few amusing happenings as of late... and that's a gift that our political cycle just can't help giving.

Watching the POTUS's SOTU half expected to see a crawl at the bottom showing job listings. Human Resource Manager in Chief... seriously?

And the publican response? Why it's Mourning in America. Our nation as a whining city upon a hill whose QE blight beguiles Nancy Capitalist loving people everywhere.

Replace their conflicted moderate with our conflicted moderate and we'll regulate through repeal and bring back the Old Deal.

And more importantly sayeth Mortimer we'll get those soldiers back in there! We'll turn those wars back on, or at least do a little Persian nation building.

It's a job creation program dontcha know.

But to top it off.. to find that in this election cycle the establishment political candidate that purportedly supports the only rational economic policy is, given his co-opting of Dr. Paul, Newton Leroy McPherson? Well for a liberal progressive that isn't just falling through a rabbithole it is a rip in the space time continuum.

Ah Newt... born of teenage parents, participant in Venn Diagram marriages, Freddie Mac millionaire...who else could take the mantle of an outsider preaching family values. Given that his teenage parents were married for three days he obviously felt he had the experience to once advocate orphanages for the children of single unwed welfare mothers.

His surname of Gingrich came from his teenage father giving up parental rights in exchange for skipping his child support payments.

He truly is, aside from a complete inability and/or desire to connect on a retail level, the Republican Clinton.

Mere fodder for the comedy channels no doubt...

But here in and about the heartland it is about the jobs stupid.
You can screw with the denominator.
You can screw with the deflator.
You can villify the victims and break bread with the satyrs.
You can cut them in half while they are smiling ear to ear... what magic!

But at the end of the day sus lying ojos can't help but make the smiling propaganda gazetter's black and white arguments seem a bit more sepia.

The Grey is more than just Liam versus the wolves it is the shade we all live in, the twilight of Empire, where the ideology of the rich battles the struggling pragmatism of making a payment on time.

It is the cusp of the demographic black diamond slope versus the bright light of entitlement for the more equal brainworkers.

The battle of right versus trite, exposition versus expediency, socialized guts versus diminished glories, and ultimately Mr. Hand's chimera of currency debasement versus productive growth.

Truth makes strange bedfellows but not if folks fail to agree that there is at least a bed in a room in a house on a block somewhere... anywhere ...where the pillow talk isn't impuning the other's patriotism.

Doing God's work whilst being hell bent to seek rent doesn't trickle too terribly well when the world is concurrently walking through the Valley of Debt and fearing no easing.

Eventually something has got to give.

To all the naysaying nabobs of Nancy Capitalism, who think that social mobility is accessing Facebook on their cell, that the Pareto curve describes a major leaguer's out pitch, who believe the worth of a man is judged by the size of his wallet, who continue to argue about nickels whilst the solons steal gold bars out the back, and try and sell hope by enabling despair...

Those too astute to buy refute you.

Once upon a time...

Time for bed son.

But you promised me a story Daddy!

Yes I did…

There once was a country called America.

It was started by a bunch of rich white guys who were upset about their taxes.

Eventually they became the most powerful country in the world when the rest of the powerful countries darn near destroyed themselves.

The rich and powerful Americans saw a lot of opportunity to plunder the planet. They stopped a lot of other countries from developing self-sufficiency through either war or debt. Their wars were fought to make the other peoples free. The debt was created to make the other peoples prosperous.

It was called free market capitalism and democracy and it was good.

But then there was a war that America lost. The war was very expensive and the American people didn’t approve of it.

So rich and powerful Americans had to change the way they used war and debt to plunder.

They started to use debt to make their own people more prosperous and to make wars less messy.

But the wars were very expensive and their prosperous people became more and more indebted to their prosperity.

Prosperity got out of control and the free market crashed.

So the rich and powerful Americans created more debt and launched more wars.

But the free market crashed again.

So the rich and powerful Americans decided that the free market had to be abandoned in order to save it. They created all the debt they could in order to protect their riches and their power. Eventually they couldn’t afford the wars. Eventually they couldn’t afford the debt.

The people became very upset.

And a bunch of rich folks, not just, but mostly, white men (guess that’s progress!), became very very upset about their taxes.

THE END.

Is that all Daddy?

What happened to America?

Well son, that’s exactly what folks began to ask themselves.

But the real America was less of a place than an ideal and lots of folks in lots of other countries aspired to that same ideal.

So America went global as did their prosperity. And although times in the old country might be hard right now at least we have a chance to pursue the American dream.

Now it’s time to go to sleep son you need to be well rested for your exam tomorrow if you want to join the cadre.

Sweet dreams.

To each according to their eligibility... for each according to their greed.

You got no time for the messenger,
got no regard for the thing that you don't understand,
you got no fear of the underdog,
that's why you will not survive!
-Billy Joel


The Oracle at Eccles will bless us mere surplus eaters with transparency this week er scratch that will bless us with unveiling the latest in a series of Jedi mind tricks.

‘You don’t need to see our collateral.’

‘This is not the monetization that you are looking for.’

‘Go about your recovery.’

‘Move along.’

After all it can’t be monetization if it is only temporary unlike death and taxes which unless we apply some semblance of egalitarianism to the latter will result in the economic forecast, the least for the most, of the former.

And golly don’t expect us to keep track of the collateral folks, seriously we’re still using Windows 95. And it is hard to get that stuff onto floppies. Would you care for a nice game of Pong?

But let us all raise our liquidity chalices Nancy Capitalists to the Glee-shaped Recovery! Let us cheer the depreciating scrip and the magnificence of America’s wealth exporting machine!

Nothin’ but blue skies…. waitaminnit…

Thefiscaltimes.com: ‘According to the Census Bureau households paid $2.2 trillion in taxes in 2010 and received $2.3 trillion in some kind of government support. 59% of the 309 million Americans in this country got at least one federal benefit in 2009 according to the Census Bureau. Government cash handouts accounted for 79% of household growth since 2007.’

All this whilst wealth inequality is approaching levels last seen since, gee I don't know, the Tyler's Rebellion of 1381?

No wonder 84% want no change to Medicare. No wonder a majority favor increased spending over decreased spending. In fact the only majority for decreased spending is for foreign aid (YouGov poll). McClatchey-Marist recently reported that almost 70% oppose raising the federal debt limit - however 80 percent, including 70% of the teabaggers, oppose cutting Medicare or Medicaid to deal with the budget deficit. Good luck with that.

Where you sit is where you stand.

But you are going to need to stand for something America lest you fall for anything.

Perhaps it is appropriate that a narcissistic, egomanic, borderline pathological, deadbeat shill is at the top of the leader board in the Republican sweepstakes.

Every day in every way this s#$ is starting to resemble a bad science fiction movie from the 70s.

Let’s investigate the oil price Barry? Hint , google Eccles. Let’s arm the mudžahedin against a bad guy? Sure... worked pretty good last time! Let’s bring down insurance costs by giving Big Pharma a half a trillion bucks worth of new premiums? Brilliant! Let’s make the banking system solvent by shoving trillions of bad speculative bets into the rabbithole? Outstanding!

But above all let’s get the spokesperson for the supranational star chamber to better articulate the psych-ops that will keep those shoppers happy and ignore this slow train-wreck of a Great Depression by refuting, negating, and verily daring them to believe their lying ojos….

And at no time will his hands leave his arms.

To each according to their eligibility... for each according to their greed.

The truths you hold to be most dear are lies told to you by liars.

‘Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen this?’ – Ezekiel 47:5-6

‘There’s blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles.’- Jim Morrison

‘The iron never lies to you.’ –Henry Rollins

As I sit here in my new office (purchased at 30% off 1998 prices …viva la recovery!) getting ready to spend a full Saturday perusing charts - for whatever reason - the Spirit is movin’ this fella to a lonely bray into the wilderness of the blogosphere yet again. Please excuse the indulgent and self-centered segue gentle reader but a recent article illuminating the consequence of the ‘manufacture of contempt’ oft-referenced here has left me scratching my curmudgeon keppe.

About a week ago a group called GlobeScan asked 12,884 folks nestled in 25 different countries whither they agreed or disagreed with the statement that ‘the free market is the best system on which to base the future of the world.’

In 2002, despite the tulip er dot-com crash, 80% of Americans stated that they either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that the free market was the best economic system for the future which, not surprisingly, was the highest percentage of any country.

That percentage is now down to 59%, less than Brazil (68%) and less than China(67%).

But that’s not all!

A majority of our youth, per the American Red Cross, approve of torturing or even killing captured enemies.

And to round out this trifecta of tyranny…

59% of adults, per McClatchy-Marist, believe that those who publish confidential or secret U.S. documents should be prosecuted. 22% think it is a ‘good thing’.

Oh shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere, you knew Daniel Ellsberg, Daniel Ellsberg was a friend of yours… Bradley E. Manning you’re no Daniel Ellsberg.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of justice…you’ve been punked.

How in the frak did we get here? Was it the ideological institualization of stupid… the crazy- hole, Big Lie, co-opting of regular folks’ inner monologues so that they would vote against their self-interests?

Was it the incessant worshipping of all things military? Fly-bys,and medals of honor,and colour presentations at every single sporting event of note, wars of choice with a roulette wheel supporting our ‘tribes with flags’ du jour … Eisenhower no doubt for many years has been convulsing in his tomb.

Was it the full-out psych-ops perpetrated by our solons to keep the shoppers happy? Employment improvement through division causing derision, retail improvement through survivor bias causing folks to contemplate their lyin’ eyes, magical deflators applying Potemkin lipstick to an economy of craters?

Perhaps all to some measure.

Eras have markers, signifying events, as it were, that although part of the scenery at the time become a sentence or two that future history texts are built on.

For my demographic -give or take a couple weeks am the very last of the boomer generation- the snippet of our times is best elucidated by the epigram of ‘ failure to liquidate the insolvent banksters, to apply the acid-bath of price discovery, to effect the principles of capitalism long espoused by the plutocracy, to rich folks’ bad speculative bets… has liquidated a large part of the productive economy.’

It is the wellspring of derision marking the inflection that, to be gentle, will for some future student be seen as the ‘transition’ of the American empire.

The solutions are quite simple hence the arguments made by the aristocracy are by necessity so complex. Failure to stand for, and embrace, the simple is why we fall for the complex.

As an example, if the markets are the dataset of humanity, then given the ridiculous complexity of the latter, theories on the former must be comparably so.

And yet the methodology that generates…

AUDJPY sell
AUDUSD buy
AUDCAD sell
AUDCHF buy/sell
CADCHF buy/sell
CADJPY buy/sell
EURAUD sell
EURGBP buy/sell
EURJPY sell
EURUSD buy/sell
EURCAD sell
EURCHF buy/sell
GBPCHF sell
GBPJPY sell
GBPUSD buy/sell
GBPAUD sell
GBPCAD buy/sell
NZDJPY buy/sell
NZDUSD buy
NZDCHF buy
USDCAD buy/sell
USDJPY buy/sell
ZC buy/sell
CL3 buy
GX buy/sell
YM buy
DX buy/sell
GC3 buy
ES buy
SI3 buy
ZS sell
ZB buy
ZW buy

… with proprietary linked entry stops and exit stops and limits (for next Sunday-Monday trading) works to the utter bafflement of the adherents of the failed-theory of randomwalking.

The Book of Books states that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like … children.

Indeed.

My eight year old has a better sense of things then the bloviating publicans and libs.

Unfortunately the simple children will become complex adults. And verily, complexity for complexity’s sake is most certainly the road to perdition.

Although the truths you hold to be most dear are lies told to you by liars, much like Rollins’ iron which never lies… neither do the charts.

So back to ‘em.

AM out.

It's Raining Ben! Hallelujah! It's Raining Ben!

"Note to Fed -namby-pamby won't allow you to realize your goals,"
-David Ader, CRT Capital

Bloomberg: Bernanke said resuming large-scale asset purchases should boost economic growth through larger borrowing costs and higher stock prices and that concerns about the strategy are "overstated". 'This approach eased financial conditions in the past', Bernanke said.

(Bea.gov): Personal income decreased $16.8 billion, or 0.1 percent… Personal current transfer receipts decreased $21.5 billion in September, in contrast to an increase of $35.1 billion in August. The September change reflected the effects of unemployment compensation legislation, which reduced emergency unemployment insurance benefits by $25.5 billion at an annual rate in September, after boosting benefits by $20.5 billion in August…Real disposable income decreased 0.3 percent in September, in contrast to an increase of 0.2 percent in August.

Quelle surprise! The demand restoration project is still not working. Hoocoodanode?

Once again, here are the top ten reasons why this ends in tears or (hopefully not) fireworks...

10. Nancy Capitalists in a Sovereign Democracy that are Hell Bent to Seek Rent.
9. Although we walk through the Valley of Debt we fear 'No Easing'.
8. Socialized Guts will lead to diminished glories.
7. Failure to liquidate the insolvent banksters has led to the liquidation of a large part of the productive economy.A taxpayer financed bailout of rich folks' bad speculative bets has resulted in zombie banks and zombie customers... a fiscal tide that lifts no boats.
6. The cold hard fact of our age is that the bankrupt ideology of the rich that had greatly succeeded in drafting the inner monologue of regular folks so that they would vote against their self-interests is colliding head-on with a Mr. Market that is a bit pissed off that we've inflated it out of the business cycle for the last quarter century.
5. Mr. Hand's strong dollar policy is the chimera of currency debasement masquerading as America's wealth exporting machine that is regularly promulgated by our leaders as an exceptional example of America's resiliency.
4. Yes Virginia, there is no collateral.
3. The government is 'all in' and can't pull out.
2. Employment, inflation, productivity, GDP, and other sundry stats are massaged into irrelevance ... the markets are rigged.
1. After World War 2, our blessed leaders, impressed by German 'organizational' skills crafted a policy of manufacture of consent.Over time these techniques moved to the economic realm in an attempt to manufacture content.Federales now risk the manufacture of contempt, for it is only a Great Depression if they say it is.

Bernanke institutionalizes the concept of PPT, tinfoil hat comrades?, as the pablum narrative collectively shrugs. The continuation of QE1 is estimated as the equivalent of cutting the fed funds rate by three quarters of a percentage point, per the Fed, and even double this amount would result in no more than a .2 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate by 2011, per Macroeconomic Advisers.

One neither need have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night nor need have worn a Sherlock Holmes costume on Halloween to deduce that The Fed's mandate of reducing unemployment is unattainable.

What then of the fabled stratagem of 'price stability'? Stability where? A special sauce applied to the trillions of bad meatballs at the insolvent banks where the excess reserves are nothing but DIP financing for a generational workout? That's the deflationary chasm that has already been disappeared from the ojos of us mere mortals - QSPEs and VIEs existing only in the realm of the Google Cache. Stability through debasing our standard of living for a Potemkin recovery where the commons can enjoy prices declining in things they want but can't afford and prices rising in things they need but can barely afford? Ah, say our solons, stability per the pablum narrative description of Federales Psych ops, the clever chestnut of 'portfolio balance'. The Divine Might of Wizards through buying bonds will increase the 'demand' for those hell bent to seek rent in equities, thus trickling household wealth and the resultant spending to the surplus eaters.

But households only have about 7 trillion in equities and if you calculate equities going up 10% from here that translates into about one-quarter of one percent of GDP.

As the Oracle of Eccles goes on his speaking tour over the next few days what will be said is, given the slack in the economy we have to do something... we have the technology to reduce this portfolio... Washington needs to get its' house in order... and the world needs a vibrant and growing America.

What won't be said is @#$%^#$#%$% I pray for the day when I can declare victory and walk away.

And the Nancy Capitalists with their chalice of confidence raised toward liquidity's faucet chortle, 'It's Raining Ben! Hallelujah! It's Raining Ben!'

Squircling the drain, the name for our pain?... the inculcation of disdain.

Two generations from the denouement of the summer of love and we've portmanteaued from the counter culture to the culture counter. Today's political discourse akin to the fellas at Stuckey's rippin' on anything that isn't white and male or subservient to same. The grizzly MILVF's, (Mom's I'd Like to Vote For) today's surrogate for dingbat housewife, the cynical pablum narrative akin to the hot meal waiting with scotch properly poured.

It's a feedback loop that doesn't stop giving. Besmirch the stupidity and the authors of same use such accusations as proof of their legitimacy. And the press? Trapped in the hell of cognitive dissonance. This just in... the science of ambulation but first a special report from a momma whose back was broken when yonder crack was stepped on.

In my life no matter what the pursuit there has always been a line of intellectual demarcation best described as retail and wholesale. Perhaps it is conceit to suggest that the chasm between the two seems wider than I've ever perceived but verily if stupid is as stupid does, the wholesale product has transcended the continuum of criminally stupid or stupidly criminal.

Economically we seem damned to exacerbate this Potemkin recovery into something that not even the Divine Might of Wizards can transmogrify. The Great Game as a scum scrum for the crumbs. The unarmed combatants staring at their impotent swords of currencies like Black Knights. Even if reality were to declare the 'fight is mine' the solons would proclaim it to be naught but a flesh wound as they launched the middle class, their chests as cannons, at the great whale of deflation.

Politically, the devils in red dresses, manchurian candidates of the fear industrial complex whose denizens are uniformly hell bent to seek rent, employing 'common' wisdom for the 'common' man for purposes of anything but the commons. Verily, they will hand power to the elites in a way that will beggar credulity all the while being incredulous at any treatises of reasons that might suggest contrary.

Not only must the windfall apples be reserved for the more equal of brainworkers but the tree of egality must be refreshed with the blood of your standard of living.

After World War 2, our blessed leaders, impressed by German 'organizational' skills crafted a policy of manufacture of consent.Over time these techniques moved to the economic realm in an attempt to manufacture content.Federales now risk the manufacture of contempt, for it is only a Great Depression if they say it is.(AM Rule #1)

Squircling the drain, the name for our pain?... the inculcation of disdain.

*%&$^# Eh what the hell.... Honey? Where's my scotch!

Sipping sweet ambrosia from the skull cap of the common man.

'Bernanke and his ilk are not just trying to boost the US economy, they are trying to salvage their reputations and theories. The crime is that they are savaging average Americans and have bet the country in a desperate attempt to prove that they know best.'
-Bill King, the King Report 10/14/2010

'The effect of QE2 on interest rates could be small and limited to an announcement effect...many believe that the effect on output or employment would be small...unlikely to stimulate aggregate demand...little effect on aggregate demand implies a corresponding small effect on output and, hence employment. QE2 could have adverse effects.'
-Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

'The folks at the Fed are frozen in fear. They don't know what to do.'
-Chris Whalen

'But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil...'
- 1 Timothy 6:9-10

'There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man...'
- 1 Corinthians 10:13

'Don't Task Don't Smell', the central plank of the 'I Can't Believe it's Not Capitalism Plan', has given us Sugar Mountain, where stupidity is cupidity.

Ringfencing the multitude through financial pulchritude is but Federales psych ops, masquerading debasement as growth, as the plutocracy sips sweet ambrosia from the skull cap of the common man.

Phat, Plummed and Cupid is no way to go through strife son. Mr. Hand's strong dollar policy is the chimera of currency debasement masquerading as America's wealth exporting machine that is regularly promulgated by our leaders as an exceptional example of America's resiliency(AM Rule #5). Timmy G even takes credit for the creation of the 'strong dollar' policy.'Nuff said!

As the epigram, 'Yes Virginia , there is no collateral' becomes an accepted norm, as the metaphorical fork in the middle of the road er scratch that kicked can hangs with horsehair, the splinter of our disconnect in the deep bosom of our equity buried is proclaimed by the Federales as nothing but a thorn discovered as they fervently hope not to be cast to the lions.

Is it Back to the Future of folly and bubbles or Fade to Back as we peer down the chasm of the black diamond demographic? Building a bridge to nowhere is at least doing something, but please don't peer down dear citizens lest ye randomwalkers realize the gravity of our situation.

The Oracle at Eccles and assembled throngs of Nancy Capitalists beseech their models that show 100% chance of 'no fail' when the money is easy and free to deliver them like Aesop's Shepherd so when the masses see that which healed them, they will pardon and not attack.

Golden goose or scrambled eggs?

The answer it would seem as we destroy our standard of living to create a Potemkin recovery, is both, in an ever increasing divergent measure.

The insouciance of elites and the Antoinette economy.

Verily, let them eat debt.

Fed for the people, chasing Bennie's steeple, gathereth the reapers.

'As we have been asserting, the FED continues to apply QE, despite it official announcement that Q.E 1.0 ended two quarters ago. For the week ended on Wednesday, the Fed balance sheet increased $9.358B due to the monetization of $7.390B of Treasury notes and an increase of $2.248B of 'assets denominated in foreign currencies' (footnote #13; currency swaps?)'
-The King Report, Issue 3856, October 8,2010

...He that gathereth not with me scattereth...
- Matthew 12:30

Faced with the surplus eaters rubbing sus ojos Bernanke had to fire up the psych ops jets after the Jackholios shrimpfest.

The Diving Might of Wizards again on display, gangbanging the string framed as many easings away, the levers of debasement screened whilst shadowfoxing the fray, all in the blind hope that we can avoid anchors aweigh.

"Bennie-boy, whaddaya say there pal of mine ?"

"You know Mr. Market, I've been watching you.
And I know you've been watching me.
You watch me! I know!"

"So, Bennie, what are you gettin' at?"

"Mr. Market, my friend!
How would you like to pump me up the curve?"

"I know you wanna pump me, Market!"

"And you know that I know that you know
that I know that you wanna pump me!"

"Now I'm gonna leverage up,
and when I do, start pumpin'!"

And yet there is dissension in the chattering class of Nancy Capitalists, who with their chalice of confidence half-empty, parry like duck and rabbit.

'Fiscal Stimulus! Monetary Stimulus!'

'Fiscal Stimulus! Monetary Stimulus!'

'Monetary Stimulus!'

Pause

'Fiscal Stimulus!'

Verily they are all despicable. The struggle of virtue and vice is writ large as the debate between deflationistas and debasionistas. The former pines for reason before farce, the latter embraces the tragedy.

The Oracle at Eccles contemplating Rallye's mend at Recession's end scratch that Depression's bend.

To QE, or not to QE: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the markets to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to halt QE against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end the rally?

To short: to buy;
No more; and by buy to say we end
The heart-burn of the thousand little trades
That this office is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.

The butterfly wings of the banksters reflected back by the synarchy of the squatters reflected back by the imperfection of collateral liens reflected back by the political palliative of misdirection through scapegoating.

Now is the splinter of our disconnect
Made glorious summer by this sun of Ben;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of our equity buried.

At this point at the end of the trend - 2009 low besting the 2002 low breaking a line of lower lows from 1897 up- our prosperity is now in the hands of Fleck's battle of unarmed combatants (currencies) where the U.S. is the dealer (reserve), at least for the near term.

It is not so much a race to the bottom as it is a pace to a bottom. QE2 can't sail until Euroland hits the rocks again. We can't let their upcoming crisis go to waste.

In choosing 'prophetic' models with a track record of failure we are mortgaging the ability to be masters of our fate. To foresee a future that rhymes with a past is not, as the pablum narrative whines, to refute self-determination but ironically such recognition would harness the same to shape the unknown to a more benevolent conclusion.

Deficits do matter, belief in a random deliverance is foolish, better to accept a mandatory across the board cut and employ a fair and flat tax.

Free market statistics that are transparent and real allow the free market to allocate resources productively and intelligently.

Creative destruction is the progenitor and the instigator of the wealth creating mechanism of capitalism.

Empires are not eternal. The hard fought blessings of liberty are secured by the prudent not the profligate.

Years from now all this, and most assuredly more, will be obvious and this chapter in history, marked by excesses and folly, will be seen as similar to the ones preceding.

Fed for the people, chasing Bennie's steeple, gathereth the reapers.

We will kick the can until the can kicks us.

"Bennie-boy, whaddaya say there pal of mine ?"

The greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than that they are in fashion.

'To say of what is that is not, or of what is not that it is, is false; while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that is not, is true.' -Aristotle

'The greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than that they are in fashion.' -Samuel Johnson

'A man can get to love shit if his livelihood depends on it, if his happiness is involved.' -Henry Miller

'Free your mind.' -Morpheus


Just for giggles took a look at the Investment Company Institutes Long term Mutual Fund Flows Historical Data at http://www.ici.org/pdf/flows_data_2010.pdf

April 2009 through August 2009 : 55.832 billion in
September 2009 through December 2009 : 23.271 billion out
January 2010 through April 2010 : 39.131 billion in
May 2010 through September 2010 : 72.958 billion out

So since April 2009 we have net approx... 1 billion out. With the week ended 9/22/2010 being 1.9 billion out that means we broke even (from April 2009) a few days ago.

Bwahahahahahahaha!

You just have to hand it to 'em. When it was clear to many of us discerning folk that the wheels were going to come off hard, the silver lining perceived was that sobriety and propriety would return. In fact the exact opposite has occurred. The Federales turned the psych ops up to 11, the plutocracy expounding the Big Lie in a manner and scope that has truly beggared the imagination of us mere surplus eaters.

Lies of course have consequences. When this ends is known to no one. How it ends seems fairly clear. The denouement of the trusted, the sound of great applause lauding folly, and then a long period of silence.

In many ways it is the age old story of Emperors and Pirates, deflation being the Jolly Roger, and a headlong drive into oblivion with the argument that forcing the issue will resolve it. Rummy's chestnut of "If you can't solve a problem, make it bigger' is exemplified by replacing mojo with POMO and the fraudulent conveyance that is gubmint statistics.

But there are unknown unknowns.

What we do not know that we don't know is how the continuing liquidation of Main Street and bifurcation of America will interact with the bankrupt ideology of the rich that had greatly succeeded in drafting the inner monologue of regular folks so that they would vote against their self interests and are trying to do it again.

What we do not know we don't know is what the long finger of instability from the Hand will ultimately do to the markets and the economy that are still the home of the brave but alas are now a different land.

The Pump and Happenstance that is the bedrock of Nancy Capitalism is killin' Sam, the wafting asset values per debasement lubricating sovereign democrats that are hell bent to seek rent.

The elitist insouciance of thanking the heavens for the bank bailouts as Bernanke promises to monetize cows to increase the price of milk is manufacturing a chasm of contempt at recession's end... er scratch that... depression's bend.

Eventually something's got to give.

With arms extended, if it may please the court, I present the real unemployment rate in this country.

Over 30%.

Have been following (http://cwcs.ysu.edu/resources/cwcs-projects/defacto) for awhile ... kids say the damnedest things don't they?... and what is germane for historical purposes is that the defacto rate of 30% is actually 5 percentage points higher than the worse unemployment levels experienced in the Great Depression Volume 1. In addition, at least per this fella's research,the defacto rate is the most similar measurement to the metric used back then which was as follows: individuals who had at some time worked in an occupation in which they earned money or the equivalent, or in which they assisted in the production of marketable goods, whom were unemployed. The only caveat is that back then, in some instances, 14 and 15 year olds were included in the unemployment rate.

Let me tell you why you're here gentle reader. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

It is the splinter of our disconnect.

Free your mind.