Tag Archives: Moneynews

A seesaw for three

I have heard many things in my life, there was a motorcyclist with a lack of discipline for speed run straight into Bus 70 in Rotterdam (the Netherlands), the consequence is that his brain got tactiled by his motor helmet; neither him nor his helmet was able to overcome the pressure of driving into the side of a bus at full speed. There was a girl jogging on the train tracks, her jogging in the rhythm of the music, she never heard the train whistle, the train was not able to slow down in time, she did not go faster, the girl lost the encounter, the train did not suffer injury!

All this relates to the item at hand, when we consider the seesaw (many child joyed at the mystery of that temporary conundrum) we see that it is a simple game of equilibrium. I push, my partner goes down, my partner pushes, I go down; there is little mystery in this exercise. So, what happens when we have a third player? When we have a double up on either side, that side goes down until that sides kicks off again, the bigger the difference the harder the action. However, there is a second version, in that version party number three is in the centre, on the seesaw axis, there this party defines the balance. That game seems nice, but it is no longer a game, the gamers at the end of the seesaw seem to get nullified playing. This is how I see what happened in the last 48 hours.

The most interesting source in this case is a site called ‘Quartz’ (at http://qz.com/327410/absolutely-everything-you-need-to-understand-what-happened-to-the-swiss-franc-this-week/), with this quote being the most interesting one “Because it was creating new francs and using them to buy euros, the SNB’s currency holdings exploded. This is hugely important. In the United States, the Fed is buying the safest financial instrument in the world, US government bonds. It can hold those bonds until they mature and be virtually assured it will be paid back. The SNB, on the other hand, is acquiring a giant pile of currencies that can whipsaw in value, potentially exposing the bank to large losses“, it is interesting for two reasons. First of all there is this part: ‘the safest financial instrument in the world, US government bonds‘ and there is ‘The SNB is acquiring a giant pile of currencies that can whipsaw in value, exposing the bank to large losses‘. I took a few unessential words out of the second quote. What we get is with one, that the illusion that US government bonds are the safest. With a president unable to control its spending, the US is about to start new wars, setting them back billions, the Dow Jones Index is trusted less and less, whilst in addition more sources are stating that a stock market crash will happen any day now (at http://www.moneynews.com/MKTNews/Market-Collapse-Finance-Stocks/2013/03/01/id/492699/). I have no value on moneynews.com, what they show looks nice, but charts can be explained in more than one way and what is ‘disastrous’ to some, can be explained away by others. I have had similar thoughts on the changes to the markets, but not based on these charts.

So as the stock market would collapse, the dollar would take a massive dive. The Dollar is about to take a dive because it is so intertwined with the Euro in many ways, so as the Euro takes a tumble, so will that mighty ‘safe’ dollar (not to mention the 18 trillion of debt). So now we get the second issue, if the danger to the SNB (Swiss National Bank) is so volatile, why take any risk at all. You see, the Americans (some not too bright) went after all these rich billionaires hiding their funds outside of the US. So the Swiss always played along, because if push came to shove, they had American billions, perhaps even a thousand of them (trillion dollar joke), which means that the risk was relatively small. As America hunted down these artful tax dodgers, those Americans struck deals and took away their cash, so why should the Swiss take any risk for the irresponsible spenders on end of the seesaw? It’s like there is one European on one side, two Americans on the other side and Switzerland was on the axial holding the mess in balance. Now, the axle player stops playing and we get this mess.

So when we see “The bank’s foreign currency holdings have grown to about 75% of GDP” and “So the SNB decided to abandon the ceiling on the franc, in response, the spring-loaded franc shot higher“, makes perfect sense. Why should a nation with a relative low debt hold this much in risk? So now we get a new dance! “The SNB’s decision to suddenly go back on a previous policy it had claimed to be committed to will make markets think twice before taking the bank at its word. That’ll make monetary policy tougher to carry out in the future” shows two sides, one is he term ‘previous policy’. That sounds pretty nice that Switzerland is shown as ‘the bad guy’, yet, is that true? Policy is one thing, but it requires accountability on the other side, for the Franc with a ceiling is one thing, the fact that the roof might be made from papier mâché during a blizzard is not good news if you are Swiss in nature, the ceiling issues requires actions from all involved players. Especially when the foreign currency holdings of Switzerland is set at roughly 75% of GDP (going by the numbers QZ is showing), if you doubt this, then I ask you to remember that small place called Cyprus, when that went pear shaped, the Cypriots were left holding an empty bag (a little under 2 years ago). I am not at all surprised that the Swiss want a better option for themselves and getting out whilst they can is not the worst idea. The last part is seen in this quote: “five years after the worst of the global financial crisis and Great Recession, the world still seems to be tip-toeing toward a deflationary vortex. It will take serious political efforts from governments and central banks to move against the tide. The ECB finally shows signs of joining the fight, which is a good thing. But the SNB’s decision suggests that some governments are giving up and just letting the current carry them away“, this I need to do in the following parts:

  1. It will take serious political efforts from governments and central banks to move against the tide‘, America has not kept their debt in check (as well as the ‘big’ Euro 4), it is still growing with a change of the guard (US presidential re-election) as well as the fact that another US debt ceiling is reached within the next 8 weeks. Add to that the Euro taking a few extra hits, this all adds up to a massive risk to Switzerland.
  2. The SNB’s decision suggests that some governments are giving up and just letting the current carry them away‘, this is the killer. The currency effort of not maintaining its value is implied as the Euro goes down (implied, not a given), in addition we see the Greek news ‘Inside its smoke-filled HQ, the far-left party is making plans to defy the EU over Greece’s debt and abolish draconian austerity measures imposed to shore up the euro‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/17/greek-elections-syriza-europe-eurozone-alexis-tsipras), so next week, if this becomes an issue, the Euro takes another big bashing because the Greeks could not contain themselves or the debt that they had created (their governments), so now the other players must pay for the short-sightedness of the Greeks. Why are there not more political parties very outspoken in this regard? I mean with the debt at hand, your private island could be a nice future (I’ll take ownership of Paros for 499 Euro)!

These elements are all in play, yet no one considered the effect of the risks. That empty headedness (as I personally see it), this part becomes visible when we look at ‘Swiss Franc Trade Is Said to Wipe Out Everest’s Main Fund‘ (at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-17/swiss-franc-trade-is-said-to-wipe-out-everest-s-main-fund.html). This is all interesting, especially “Everest Capital’s Global Fund had about $830 million in assets as of the end of December, according to a client report. The Miami-based firm, which specializes in emerging markets, still manages seven funds with about $2.2 billion in assets. The global fund, the firm’s oldest, was betting the Swiss franc would decline“. Did we not see this before (was it in 2004 or 2008)?

When we consider the additional “The SNB’s decision to end its three-year policy of capping the franc at 1.20 a euro triggered losses at Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays Plc as well as hedge funds and mutual funds“, which is due to the line ‘including a wager that the Swiss franc would fall‘. So if that is the case then several people made a very ‘dumb’ wager. The question becomes ‘did they make a bad wager, or was this orchestrated’?

There is no way for me to prove that there was any intent (I am not saying there was any orchestration, only asking on the chance of it). Yet, does this not represent another case of putting a few billion eggs in one basket? Yes, I agree that the statement “The franc surged as much as 41 percent versus the euro on Jan. 15, the biggest gain on record, and climbed more than 15 percent against all of the more than 150 currencies tracked by Bloomberg”, consider when we see the light of the seesaw, and the 75% of GDP that the SNB holds in foreign currency. When it makes this leap against the said 150 currencies, how much discipline are some currency controllers not showing in light of the earlier quote ‘some governments are giving up and just letting the current carry them away‘. Perhaps the question that Katherine Burton (the writer) at Bloomberg should be asking is “How come such managed levels of foreign currency holdings were left out in the open to this extend, especially after the Cyprus issue” is a question that should have run with every front page on the planet (at least 4 weeks ago), so it is not just the SNB that is now getting the spotlight, my questions becomes, which decision makers are now hiding in the shadows for allowing such levels of risk. It seems to me that a ‘policy’ is a poor excuse when people frown on the SNB, whilst not asking how it was allowed these levels of foreign holdings in the first place.

So when we look at the Guardian ‘Swiss currency crisis claims casualties across the world‘ (at http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/16/west-ham-sponsor-alpari-swiss-currency-crisis) “This has resulted in the majority of clients sustaining losses that have exceeded their account equity. Where a client cannot cover this loss, it is passed on to us”, so how many were ‘gambling’ that the Swiss Franc would take a dive and why did no one foresee this risk (when you bet the house and all your belongings on a ‘safe’ bet, you only have yourself to thank for moving to a carton box). The last statement sounds a little crass, but we saw this before then hedge funds took a dive, so why is there a lack of these checks and balances? Yet there is more, the Guardian has two more quotes that show the dangers here “We are very different to Alpari, which was designed for people who want to speculate” and “But I’m surprised they went bust so quickly. Ultimately, they should be able to go back to the client to recover the money they lost” which is the part I expected initially. When we see these levels of speculation, the question becomes, who was checking the window for icebergs ahead?

Finally there is one quote at the beginning, which I steered around. The quote “Shares in FXCM slumped 40% ahead of a formal announcement about its future after it admitted it faced $225m of losses“, should keep you thinking. Consider the question, that one currency jump could have this drastic an effect on Forex Capital Markets, the online Foreign exchange market broker based in the US. So, even though this could happen, the fact that it did, seems to be a nightmare for several players. All this and then we see the most astounding part in Forbes (at http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/01/17/this-is-just-too-lovely-about-fxcm-just-too-lovely-for-words/). Here we see “It’s not entirely obvious that those higher margin requirements would have saved FXCM but still, that is fun, isn’t it? They lobbied against the rules that would have protected them“, if you read the article, you get the whole picture (I was not willing to use three entire paragraphs there), so the need for ‘better’ margins pretty much costed them the farm in the last few days and even though Forex might survive, we need to take a harsh look at the ‘gambling’ that has happened, not just because of the gamblers, but the entire ‘policy’ part from the SNB does not sit well with me. With Cyprus 2 years ago, this issue should never have been allowed to exist in the first place, so before we start blaming and lynching Swiss people, let’s make sure that we get a complete list of all the currencies and the values that Switzerland was holding on 75% of their GDP, because we should be asking those involved parties a few questions on irresponsible parking such amounts.

Tim Worstall wrote the gem in Forbes, but neither him or those who set out the parts in Bloomberg and the Guardian are looking at the bigger picture (as I personally see it), as this economy was playing a game of seesaw, how did these adult players not realise that the person on the axial (SNB) was going to lose interest being at risk on the axle, whilst the other two sides were having the joys and benefits of controlled up and down movements.

The evidence as I see it is a simple as watching children play in the playground, the axle position of the seesaw is not the favourite place to be, not even for a short time!

 

2 Comments

Filed under Finance, Law, Politics

What was once America!

This story will go into a very different direction, it also holds several values that might not be agreed with and several are debatable to begin with.

You see, we are allies of America and I am fine with that. I think we need America in the free west, but the actions of America makes them more and more ‘unwanted’. As we see changes on the global scape that is all over the field, we see an America that has become unjust, unequal and desperate for political points on a sliding slope for governmental bankruptcy.

Perhaps some remember this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. It is in the constitution, a tourist attraction, currently on display north of the National Mall at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest, Washington, D.C. Most Americans have forgotten it, we might state that the bulk of Americans, might remember it, but they do not know exactly what it is any more.

I did make a few accusations, here is the reasoning (without it, an accusation is just hollow).

Unjust

Injustice is harder to state, we see it, many feel it, but where is the injustice? There is social injustice, economic injustice, racial injustice? As American is a nation of laws, there is also a part that is not covered by laws. Yes, there lies the injustice, consider the enabling of wealth as I wrote about it on September 29th in the article ‘Vindication‘, how “Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are both calling for Congress to investigate the New York Federal Reserve Bank after recently released secret recordings show the central bank allegedly going light on firms it was supposed to regulate” which came from the Huffington Post. We see an enabling force to those swallowed by greed and wanting ever more. Racial injustice remains, as it always has. This is not meant to be an attack, but a mere statement of fact.

Unequal

This is seen in the Business Week article of last April (at http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-04-03/top-tenth-of-1-percenters-reaps-all-the-riches), it boils down to the fact that the top 1% owns the same wealth as the bottom 90% of the entire American population. The wealthiest 85 persons on the planet (not all Americans) have more wealth then the sum of the bottom half of the planet, if we consider this as an iceberg, then we see 9% above water, the rest is just drowning. This sliding measurement of equality is even more visible in America, whilst the Walton Family gains billions each year, the bulk of its entire full time staff is on food stamps and requires additional government support. Some would argue that workers value is where we value it at, but in this age of exploitation we see that as people are numbered into spread sheets, we see how people are numbered out of existence. We see large places (not just Wal-Mart!) sell at ridiculous low prices, which gives us “at least two of the factories on the list have continued to send massive shipments of sports bras and girls’ dresses to Wal-Mart stores in recent months, according to interviews and U.S. customs records“. Consider getting three sport bra’s from Wal-Mart at $8. I took that article as it requires a little more work than a boxer short. How can you make any profit on something that seems to be cheaper than the bare materials required; now it needs to be made, packaged and shipped? How dim is the person thinking that things are truly made that cheap? When we read on how some clothes from Wal-Mart comes from Bangladesh, where ethicality is out the window and the children get to work for a living and a future they will never have. How surprised can you even be?

Desperate

Now we get to the good stuff, here is where the connected danger lies. There is a presumption that you must take into account, much of this is directly from news sources, I have tried to focus on certain parts, but as any analyst can tell you, the better the data quality, the more reliable the information and the assessment of that what is in play. The first part is ‘Binyamin Netanyahu ‘chickenshit’, say US officials in explosive interview’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/29/binyamin-netanyahu-a-chickenshit-say-us-officials-in-explosive-interview), of course, there are questionable issues with this, or was the ‘slip of the tongue’ literally applied. The quote “The other day I was talking to a senior Obama administration official about the foreign leader who seems to frustrate the White House and the State Department the most” (at

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/10/the-crisis-in-us-israel-relations-is-officially-here/382031/), you see, this has been discussed by me before, however, until now, most of it was debatable (as I would readily admit), and in light of these two articles we get a new vision. I wrote about all this in ‘Selling Israel‘ on October 3rd and ‘Puppet on a string‘ on July 30th. These were about the side of Israel, now here we see the side of America. America is in a bad way, it needs to show resolve, it needs to show success. This current administration has bungled more than once and as the tally comes, they are seeing that their balance is not good. “Israel has rebuffed those requests and demands in ways that have been very embarrassing to Obama administration” from US News, as well as “Kerry, who made pursuing Middle East peace a cornerstone of his time leading state, was a part of the peace process that collapsed earlier this year, and relations between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama have long been chilly further complicating any hope for a resolution to the region’s strife“. I foresaw several of these points never working in July, so why did some think it was ever going to work? Israel is surrounded by people who want them dead, ever since WW2, they still want to wipe Israel from the face of the earth. That will NEVER ever be the setting of success. An interesting article can be seen in the LA Times (at http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-makdisi-israel-apartheid-20140518-story.html) in regards to Israel and apartheid, with the link to the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1973. I do not completely agree with the article, as Israel has been the victim of apartheid, pretty much since Germany European Tour 1939-1945, so as we see the term apartheid, are we certain that it is correctly applied? When we see the quote: “While overcrowded Palestinian schools in Israel crumble, Jewish students are given access to more resources and curricular options“, which sounds nice, yet consider the no-stop attacks on Israel, in August 2014, the numbers if even partially correct, implies that the funds required to fire these missiles in one month exceeds ten times my average annual income of the last 15 years. So, perhaps not firing missiles and using the cash for upgrading schools might be an idea?

Yet, this was all about America, why the side step? America needs success stories, John Kerry came up short, which we knew was going to happen, yet this is not the only issue. If Donald Trump is even only partially correct, then we will see no later than march 2015, that the US will get an enormous fall in economy, a large rise of the jobless population and the cost of living will go through the roof making America not that great a place to be. In addition, as we see in Moneynews (at http://www.moneynews.com/Outbrain/Trump-Aftershock-American-Economy/2012/11/06/id/462985/), in addition In 2006, Robert Wiedemer and a team of economists foresaw the coming collapse of the U.S. housing market, equity markets, private debt, and consumer spending, and published their findings in the book America’s Bubble Economy. Now we have ourselves a party, as the US is losing ground, as they are losing the economy and as they are again in some dispute with ISIS (one that they should have dealt with some time ago) we see a nation with bills, no real production other than virtual events and one with an aging population that needs an almost exponential need for healthcare and social security. In that field we now see a faltering democratic party that needs to score, which gets us back to the Israel debacle. The quote at the end states “Instead of attacking Israel and forcing it to accept suicidal terms, it should be strengthened. I call on the US administration to renounce these coarse comments and to reject them outright“, here we see the crux. America lost out to Israel on selling missile technology to India. It is only half a billion, but there is prestige on the line, in addition to long term additional orders we see that Israel has taken a step forward. The fact that they also got drone technology from Israel gives pause to wonder, is Israeli merchandise better, or is the US too expensive? That debate is up in the air as I have none of the facts, but in an age where any bit of good news counts, losing 0n these two orders just does not help, insulting the Israeli Prime Minister might have additional consequences, I personally see it as a consequence of not getting a grip on the deficit for half a decade, more and more players in the field are now seeing that America WAS a great nation, its future however remains for now extremely uncertain, a possible legacy that the Democratic party is desperate to prevent. It is not just my voice here, to some extent we can see similar issues in the Washington post, which does not suddenly make my revelation fact, but it does show that there is an issue of leadership, on that is showing to be unable to do what actually needs to be done.

It is also important to give notice to one element that was not within their control, Wiki-leaks, when it released the diplomatic cables instigated waves of hardship that were equally unjust. Not because of what they published, but because they published only one side, the American cables, which means that America was continuing a poker match whilst all their cards were in the open and the others remained hidden. This is not the largest issue, but it is an issue. We see ‘attempts’ to get another peace talks in the works, we see America now talking to Iran, Gaza is not going their way and Russia remains a hot potato, these are all reasons for concern, but to what extent?

That is at the heart of the matter, yet it is also an unknown, we might decide to trust the IMF, the DOW and other proclaimers of good news, yet in the last two years, most predictions were missed and overly positive.

Consider these two texts: “After a temporary setback in the first quarter of 2014, the U.S. economy has rebounded. Temporary constraints—an unusually harsh winter and a sharp correction to an earlier inventory build-up—have now receded. Growth reached an annualized 4.2 percent in the second quarter. Improving housing activity, stronger on residential investment, and steady payroll gains suggest that the rebound is becoming more sustainable (Figure 2.2). The unemployment and labor participation rates stood at 6.1 percent and 62.8 percent, respectively, in August” From the official World Economic Outlook for the IMF.

The second text are two texts from the same article: “The third-quarter gain in output outstripped economists’ expectations, but growth in domestic demand braked to a 2.7 percent pace after a brisk 3.4 percent gain in the April-June period, giving the report a softer tenor” and “A slowdown in inventory building weighed on growth, and economists warned that pressure would likely persist into the fourth quarter“, the second source is Reuters (at http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/30/us-usa-economy-idUSKBN0IJ0A020141030).

The people are bombarded with several DIFFERENT sets of results (which look like statistical results); we see a massive push for reports on a restoring economy, which is in all matters not exactly true. Yes, the economy is picking up, but the only ones truly seeing that happen are those who are a member of the top 9%, also known as those not drowning at present. There is no real solution until America changes and I mean truly changes the way they operate and the way they hold people to account. Their solution of taxing the rich is equally unwise (stupid seems so harsh a label). I am not against holding the rich accountable, but that there is a difference, holding the rich accountable is not the same as taxing the rich, the latter looks, reads and smells like discriminatory injustice, which is what we do not want either. Yes, they must pay their fair share, but the emphasis is on fair. There is no real fairness at present, instead of designing ‘custom’ tax deductibility’s where only the top 2% gets a joy out of, why not tax EVERYONE and every business at 15% and make every tax deductible program obsolete, no hiding, no off-shoring and no complications. The current path is not working, it only works for the top 3% and they do not want change, so is adhering to them in an age of democracy not plain treason? Is America not for ALL the people (in America mind you).

By not acknowledging cycles and cold years of industry, all got sentenced to an autumn of life with only winter to look forward to, with every cycle, the autumn got longer, whilst captains of industry avoided winter, yet what came, the spring and summer are now shorter and shorter, whilst the autumn is getting longer and longer, which is doing no one any good.

This is what once was America, past summer in mid-autumn with as we see it now, 5 years of autumn ahead and possible no spring after that. When a nation is about the time past summer and only 1% gets to see the sunshine, life for a democratic option becomes less and less likely. This now gets us to the final part of the Israel debacle. As we watch USA Today (at http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2014/10/29/obama-benjamin-netanyahu-israel-iran/18106253/) we see how the White House is distancing itself from insulting comments that unnamed officials made about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a new magazine article. Distancing, not investigating, and not prosecuting, but mere distancing! The man who spoke is taking one for the team I reckon, a team I might add that once spoke so highly and still claims to speak highly on the USA – Israel bond, yet at present we see the quotes “US officials, while not confirming the reports, have recently said there are multiple combinations of ways that Iran’s breakout time could be extended, and the focus should not only be on the centrifuge numbers in a deal. The goal, US officials said, should be a deal that closes off all possible pathways for Iran to make fissile material for a nuclear weapon, either through producing weapons-grade uranium, plutonium or through a covert facility” (at http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/28/the-endgame-for-iran-nuclear-talks) and “Discreet, low-level intelligence sharing: The United States can degrade Islamic State from the air, but Iran is crucial to root out and destroy them on the ground, at least on the frontlines. Since Washington doesn’t talk to Tehran directly, the Pentagon still presumably coordinated airstrikes with Kurdish and Iraqi intermediaries” (at http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/10/28/the-u-s-iran-non-alliance-alliance-against-islamic-state/) all these events (including calling Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘merda di pollo‘, I used Italian to make it sound at least the tiniest fraction of diplomatic), now we see the links, as the implied brotherhood between Israel and USA is under strain, other parties seem to be brokering deals with Iran so that the current political democratic wind can leave the boots on the ground to Iran and the Obama administration is left with the statement ‘we kept OUR promise, no boots on the ground!’, a promise that was never realistic until they left that part to someone else. So how good are relations between Israel and USA as we see these developments?

This is open to debate, but as this economy continues, that what was once a great America is now for sale at Wal-Mart on isle 5 and its going cheap.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Military, Politics