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.