The world isn't going in the right direction............

Trade like a pro.........

Hedge Fund manager: "So we look for red flags. Melting ice cubes, unsustainable leverage, and dishonest mgmt teams, to name a few." Potential Investor/Limited Partner: "That's fine on shorts, how do you find longs?" Hedge Fund Manager: "Those are longs. It's 2018. Nothing matters.

Mid Term Terror Out There.............

There was a revolution within the Republican party in 2016.  Trump won that battle.  No such thing has happened in the Democratic party.  They're still running dinosaurs and wondering why they can't win.  People like Pelosi will stay in power as long as she can.

No different that Stalin, Castro, Maduro, Jeremy Corbin, and all other notable lefties.  Once they have a taste of power, they can't let it go.

Demons everywhere.................

“If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food. It's a plus for everybody." -Anthony Bourdain

This is authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog. Great writer!!

If your family is really struggling right now, you are far from alone.  I have been publishing The Economic Collapse Blog for more than eight years, and all throughout that time I have seen the middle class in America get smaller and smaller and smaller.  It is almost as if we are all playing a really bizarre game of musical chairs and every month someone pulls a few more chairs from the game.  Yes, there are some people that have gotten exceedingly wealthy over the past eight years, and most of that wealth is concentrated in places such as New York, Washington D.C. and San Francisco.  But meanwhile, most of the rest of the country has been steadily getting poorer.  Just take a look at Detroit – at one time it had the highest per capita income in the entire nation and now it is a rotting, decaying war zone.  Of course dozens of other formerly great manufacturing cities all over the nation have suffered a similar fate.  Since 2001, we have lost more than 70,000 manufacturing facilities and millions of good paying manufacturing jobs.  Those good paying jobs have been replaced by lower paying “service jobs”, and you can’t support a middle class lifestyle on those types of jobs.

In order to have a thriving middle class, you need middle class jobs, and our country is in desperate need of more of those jobs.  At this point most American families are living on the edge, and more are falling into poverty with each passing month.  The following are 15 signs that the middle class in the United States is being systematically destroyed…

#1 78 million Americans are participating in the “gig economy” because full-time jobs just don’t pay enough to make ends meet these days.

#2 In 2011, the average home price was 3.56 times the average yearly salary in the United States.  But by the time 2017 was finished, the average home price was 4.73 times the average yearly salary in the United States.

#3 In 1980, the average American worker’s debt was 1.96 times larger than his or her monthly salary.  Today, that number has ballooned to 5.00.

#4 In the United States today, 66 percent of all jobs pay less than 20 dollars an hour.

#5 102 million working age Americans do not have a job right now.  That number is higher than it was at any point during the last recession.

#6 Earnings for low-skill jobs have stayed very flat for the last 40 years.

#7 Americans have been spending more money than they make for 28 months in a row.

#8 In the United States today, the average young adult with student loan debt has a negative net worth.

#9 At this point, the average American household is nearly $140,000 in debt.

#10 Poverty rates in U.S. suburbs “have increased by 50 percent since 1990”.

#11 Almost 51 million U.S. households “can’t afford basics like rent and food”.

#12 The bottom 40 percent of all U.S. households bring home just 11.4 percent of all income.

#13 According to the Federal Reserve, 4 out of 10 Americans do not have enough money to cover an unexpected $400 expense without borrowing the money or selling something they own.

#14 22 percent of all Americans cannot pay all of their bills in a typical month.

#15 Today, U.S. households are collectively 13.15 trillion dollars in debt.  That is a new all-time record.

When you think of “poverty in America”, you probably think of our blighted inner cities, but that is not where poverty is growing the fastest.

According to author Scott Allard, it is actually our suburbs where poverty is growing more rapidly than anywhere else…

According to a May report from the Pew Research Center, since 2000, suburban counties have experienced sharper increases in poverty than urban or rural counties.

This is consistent with research across the U.S. over the past decade – as well as my own book, “Places in Need.”

This is why tens of millions of square feet of retail space is being closed down and why formerly great shopping malls all over America now resemble ghost towns.

When I was growing up, the shopping mall was the place to be for average middle class kids.  My family was middle class and virtually everyone that I knew was middle class.  In fact, I don’t remember any really wealthy or really poor kids in my school at all.

But today most families have little to no financial cushion and are deep in debt.  As a result, discretionary income has really dried up and that means less shopping.

So we are on pace for the worst year for store closings in American history, and yet the mainstream media keeps telling us that the economy is in “good shape”.

That is a load of nonsense.  The numbers don’t lie, and the U.S. economy is never going to be in “good shape” until the middle class starts growing again.

Is there a solution?

Well, the mayor of Stockton, California seems convinced that the solution is just to give people free money.  The following comes from Reuters…

Michael Tubbs, the 27-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, has a radical plan to combat poverty in his cash-strapped city: a “no strings” guaranteed basic income of $500 a month for its residents.

Starting in early 2019, Tubbs plans to provide the monthly stipend to a select group of residents as part of a privately funded 18-month experiment to assess how people use the money.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all just started getting big, fat checks from the government every month?

NYSE. New York Stock Exchange

This is without a doubt the finest "comment letter" ever written to the NYSE.     It goes without saying that an exchange should not be a for-profit entity.  If anything, the actual role of the SEC to facilitate trading (in a fair manner) should be paramount.  Like anything else, follow the money trail and one will quickly and understandably know that nothing about our exchange structure is open, fair or honest. 

 

Subject: Transaction fee pilot 82873 (file s7-05-18)
From: Danny Mulson

June 7, 2018

Dear Mr Fields,

Let me start by apologizing for my tardy response, to your request for comments. My dad has routinely tried to impress upon me the need to meet deadlines. In my defence I have been busy with mid term exams, at Aberdeen High, and only became concerned about this debate in recent days. 

Our grade 10 economics teacher, Mr Canton, mentioned your proposed pilot some weeks ago, but it was only when my dad showed me a letter the New York Stock Exchange had sent him - as CFO of a NYSE listed issuer - that I became alarmed about the state of this debate. As a shareholder in that company - my dad recently gave me shares for my 16th birthday - I felt I had to respond. 

The letter in question, and the BLOG piece it was linked to, contained a number of assertions that the NYSE knows, or ought to have known, were false. While I am a fan or rigorous two sides debate - and hope to join the Aberdeen Debate Society next year - I am not a fan of obfuscation, dishonesty or other logically trickery to win an argument. Debate should be honest, and engage in with an open mind, aimed at finding the greater truth. Instead the NYSE appears to be presenting indefensible numbers in an attempt to fear monger and protect ill gotten gains. Shame on them. 

In both the letter and the blog, NYSE confidently states that your pilot will harm investors to the tune of $1 Billion dollars. As a fan of the Austin Powers movies, I found that part awesome. But when I read the underlying analysis I cringed. 

NYSE assume that a reduction in average passive rebate, resulting from your pilot, will result in both the bid and offer being backed off, on average, by the exact same amount as the rebate reduction. My  understanding of markets suggests this is total nonsense for several reasons:

1) it assumes that only rebate driven liquidity providers set the quote. But in reality the quote is almost always set by natural investors, who have a view of fair price, that is informed by both fundamental and quantitative research as well as the likely impact of their own short term trading intentions. While some HFT are able to consistently gain top of book, they do so by modeling micro term order book dynamics and predicting quote changes. Removing rebates will not disrupt the desire of natural investors to post liquidity and tighten spreads.
2) A massive share of trading in the most liquid names currently occurs on venues - both lit and dark - where passive orders are not paid a rebate. These venues do not have wider spreads, so removing or reducing rebates at classic make / take venues should not result in wider spreads on these names. 

That said, let's give the NYSE this point. We will assume spreads magically widen by the rebate reduction, on average. The numbers calculated by NYSE are sill dishonest for the following reasons

1) the NYSE multiplies everything by 2. They suggest spreads will widen  by 2 times the rebate reduction, because both sides will back off. So in their calculation they multiple total shares traded times rebate reduction times two. But on any given trade only one side is paying the spread. For example take a stock trading on average at .10 - .11. Assume rebates decline by 10 mills. The new average quote is.099 - .101. If I buy 100 shares, my spread relate costs go up by 10 mills ( .101 vs.10) not 20 mills. Thus the number that NYSE published is overstated by AT Least 100 percent. Are we to believe nobody at the New York Stock Exchange understands such simple math? 

2) the calculation uses an ADV of 7.169 Billion shares. That is all trading in tape A, B and C names. Which is to say they include volume that doesn't currently involve a rebate- such as broker crosses, mid point dark, opening and closing auctions. That is flat out dishonest math.

3) they give no allowance for inverted venues. If passive rebate decline will wide  quotes, it must be true that passive posting fee declines will tighten spreads. 

4) the 7.169 Billion shares includes volume for all stocks, But only 3000 names will be impacted by the pilot. The letter and blog clearly state the pilot may cost investors 1 Billion dollars. But more than 50 percent of names wont be in the pilot. Including their volume is again intellectually dishonest.

As a 10th grader I believe we should base policy on honest data, not fear mongering and spin. I have told my dad he should move his stock to IEX. The NYSE has a mandate to do public good. Their dishinesty belies that mandate. They need to do better.

I wish you good luck with your pilot, and thank you for your efforts. I apologize for any typos, the iPhone X's keyboard is awful.

Sincerely,

Danny Mulson
10th Grader
Aberdeen High
Wetlawn, Oregon

Friday analysis of the SWAMP!

The NY Times reporter who said there is no such thing as the Deep State was sleeping with and getting classified documents from the Director of Senate Intel Security who was married to a 20 year FBI agent Let that sink in

If you are keeping score...........

Jeff Sessions.

In 18 months.

2 arrests.

GMAFB...............

Facts. Just the facts.

Trump = 7 ppl granted clemency
Obama = 1,927 ppl granted clemency
Carter + Reagan + George H.W. Bush + Clinton + George W. Bush = 1,708 ppl granted clemency

Suicide by invasion or multiculturism?

UN member states should prepare for great migratory movements, said UN Secretary General António Guterres on 11^th of January 2018 during the presentation of the report on the management of migration processes. And this is not a joke: The UN, led by António Guterres, wants to manage and influence migration. All this, of course, is dressed up in pretty words about the need to provide humanitarian aid, and also justified by the benefits that resettlement of the population is to give to the economies of particular countries. However, in fact, this means only one thing: Europe and the entire Western World must prepare for the flood of Africans.

Currently, nearly 1,3 billion people live in Africa, and by the end of this century there will be 350% more, or 4,4 billion.¹⁾ It is obvious that the continent, whose inhabitants are not able to feed themselves, let alone achieve an adequate level of urbanization and industrialization, cannot cope with such a sharp demographic increase. The UN therefore came up with the idea of resettling Africans to Europe and highly developed countries on other continents.

At the end of 2016, just after his election as UN Secretary General, António Guterres said: “We must convince Europeans that migration is inevitable and that multiethnic and multireligious societies create wealth”.²⁾ It can be assumed here that the goal set by the former UN commissioner for refugees (A. Gutters served this function from June to December 2015), is to promote migration, give it a legal framework and manage it globally.

The first major step towards formalization of this phenomenon was the creation of the “Making Migration Work for All” report, which says in no uncertain terms that nation-states are to cease to exist. The document says that migration would be beneficial to everyone. And it is beneficial… to migrants alone (who apart from being accommodated in apartments live on undeserved entitlements) rather than to the average European who has to work to make a living for himself and his family, pay for his home and, additionally, provide for millions more newcomers.

The position expressed by Gutters during the presentation of this report makes our hair stand on end.³⁾ The analysis of the speech of the UN secretary implies a simple conclusion: migration will still be bigger, we (UN) will manage it, and you (Western countries and societies) have to adapt:

„The fundamental challenge is to maximize the benefits of this orderly, productive form of migration while stamping out the abuses and prejudice that make life hell for a minority of migrants.”

and:

„States need to strengthen the rule of law underpinning how they manage and protect migrants — for the benefit of their economies, their societies and migrants themselves.”

The propaganda statement that migration brings social and economic benefits has become so deeply rooted in the media and political rhetoric that some people have begun to believe in it. It is a pity that theses statements are not supported by any calculations or analyses.

„Migration is a positive global phenomenon. It powers economic growth, reduces inequalities, connects diverse societies and helps us ride the demographic waves of population growth and decline.”

According to a research⁴⁾ conducted by the Hungarian Századvég foundation, mass migration is perceived by the citizens of all 28 European Union countries as a threat to the EU economy, the heritage of the member states and the presence of Third World aliens is believed to undermine security. The vast majority, as many as 68%, are afraid of the inflow of migrants from North Africa. For 70% of the inhabitants of the Old Continent, the growing number of Muslims is a serious threat, while only 8% say that this issue is not a problem. Citizens of European countries are afraid of increased crime and subsequent terrorist attacks. More than half of the pollees think that immigrants come to Europe mainly for economic reasons, that is, they are attracted by a high level of social benefits. 57% of respondents believe that the influx of immigrants from Africa and the Middle East will change the culture of their country, and 73% state that financial support for migrants will be a serious burden on state budgets. 61% believe that the influx of people from the Third World will weaken the EU economy.

Negative processes accompanying the resettlement of people were, however, completely ignored by the UN and transferred to countries which are not able to cope with this phenomenon:

„Migration (…), which powers economic growth, reduces inequalities, connects diverse societies (…) remains poorly managed.”

and:

„The best way to end the stigma of illegality and abuse around migrants is, in fact, for Governments to put in place more legal pathways for migration.”

The report completely distorts the nature of threats to Western civilization, and also underestimates the importance of homogeneity, rejecting entirely the advantage that national states offer. The United Nations points out that shrinking populations is a danger for Europe, and Antonio Guterres suggests that the demographic collapse can be remedied by resettling the population surplus from Africa. By the end of this century, the number of indigenous Europeans will amount to fewer than a quarter of a billion, whereas there will be almost 4.4 billion Africans. The host society, according to the UN Secretary General, has no right to think that migrations are a negative phenomenon:

„It can be seen, too, in the political impact of public perception that wrongly sees migration as out of control. The consequences include increased mistrust and policies aimed more at stopping than facilitating human movement.”

Also, the International Migration Organization, which participated in the work on this report, states on its Twitter account that „Migration is inevitable, desirable and necessary”.⁵⁾ The question arises: who wants migration and who thinks it is necessary? Certainly not the inhabitants of the countries to which the alleged refugees are streaming.

The report states that:

• migration is inevitable, therefore it must be properly organized and the UN provides guidance on how to manage it;
• nation states must adapt to the admission of migrants in accordance with the guidelines;
• the societies of developed countries must become accustomed to having their countries flooded with masses of migrants.

The powers that be are trying to convince us of the alleged benefits of mass migration and the resettlement of Africans into Europe. Reality contradicts wishful thinking. Increasingly, citizens of host countries are afraid to leave their homes not to mention that an increased part of their earnings, is used to provide for the newcomers. We have also come to the point where negation of positive aspects of migration is regarded as racism and xenophobia, and to the fact that if someone wants to live in a one-nation state, he is labelled as a nationalist, with the word being unjustifiably negatively charged.

A mass inflow of the so-called “refugees” on the Old Continent is not perceived by its inhabitants as a phenomenon that h culturally enriches and will also have a positive impact on the economy. However, global organizations do not take this into account and enforce their own plan to create a nationally and religiously heterogeneous society, where tradition and cultural identity are not desirable. António Guterres and the UN better know what is good for western nations, ignoring the data presented by many organizations, including the Gefira Foundation, which underline a number of negative phenomena caused by the mass flooding of Europe by Third World populations.

Does anyone care?

That we are under constant surveillance by digital technology:  web browsing patterns, text and voice messages, screenshots, keystrokes, social media posts, car travel, satellites, drones, verbal communications and TV viewing? 

Everything is stored, organized and evaluated.

Where I come from they would say that privacy has gone the way of the sheep wagon.

Bullshit of the highest order..............

Joy Ann Reid made homophobic, anti-Semitic blog posts, lied about it, got the FBI involved, and then promoted a Nazi website over Twitter, and somehow keeps her job. 

Samantha Bee calls Ivanka Trump a "Feckless c*nt" on TBS - a comment which would have been approved by TBS management, and keeps her job despite two advertisers bailing. 

Bill Maher compared President Trump to an orangutan and kept his job. 

The Daily Show's Trevor Noah has made a ton of anti-Semitic tweets and kept his job. 

Roseanne Barr compares former Obama admin official Valerie Jarrett to an ape and loses her show within 24 hours. 

The message is clear; if you're going to be a bigot, just make sure you're a liberal first. And while it's perhaps notable to point out the glaring hypocrisy over the way controversial comments are dealt with depending on political affiliation, maybe everyone can just chill out over words - which unlike sticks and stones, don't actually harm anyone.

Does ANYONE work in America?

In May, the number of people not in the labor force increased by another 170K, rising to 95.915 million, a new all time high.

Adding to this the 6.1 million currently unemployed Americans, there are 102 million Americans who are either unemployed or out of the labor force (and it is also worth noting that of those employed 26.9 million are part-time workers).

In other words, contrary to prevailing economist groupthink, there is slack in the economy, and if as the latest Beige Book revealed, employers are now hiring drug addicts and felons to make up for the shortage of qualified candidates, a long time will be pass before wages see significant gains.