Wednesday, May 21, 2014

2007 Deja Vu: Fat and Happy All Over Again

The Financial Greed Index is back at a multi-decade extreme, as Wall Street's best and brightest hail money printing as their new El Dorado, 25x better than subprime.

I have no sympathy for the Kardashian-stoned dumbfucks this time around. It's only 6 years later and they are making the EXACT same mistake all over again. For any extraterrestrial aliens looking for signs of intelligence, keep searching - there is no such thing on this planet... 

No, they never learn
The developed-world sovereign debt level is 50% higher today than it was in 2007, yet the Financial Stress Greed Index is Mis-priced back to a 20+ year low
"The last time the index was this low was right before the financial crisis"
"Credit risk is being priced particularly low"
The Financial Stress Indicator measures 18 different risk/complacency indicators - one of which is VIX


Even the Fed admits that there's no way out of their Hotel California
Something any third grader could have figured out, when presented with the facts...

The Scylla and Charybdis of Inflation and (then) Collapse
Yesterday, Philly Fed President Charles Plosser said that Bernankenstein's trillions in printed money are a "ticking time bomb", because there is a real risk that some of that free money may be transferred from carry traders buying Spanish bonds leveraged 10x - to the real economy, where it could be used by real people to buy real things. Sure, whatever. Jobless "consumers" leveraged to 400% of GDP are going to start spending any year now. The minute those Spanish bonds get sold and/or Treasuries sell-off due to higher inflation, this shit show will end post haste.

Following the 2008 Collapse-O-Nomics for Idiots Manual, step-by-step
It gets better, or worse depending on your preference for sado-masochism - yesterday Fed dove William Dudley cited "low volatility" and complacency as key risks [all of which was sponsored by Fed policy]. He also cited "a frothy loan market", illiquid investments and other risks that are straight out of 2008's collapse-o-nomics for Idiots guide. Meanwhile, the same article states that volatility is at multi-year lows across the board in stocks, bonds and exchange rates. According to this other article, stock market volatility is at an 8 year low and in the past 45 times visiting this level, has moved higher 93% of the time. I call that 100% of the time, since volatility is inherently mean reverting and I see no instances in the past 20 years where the VIX sat at 12 indefinitely.

No Easy Way Out of Easy Money: Farmland values up 112% since 2009
Somehow, it gets crazier, last year Fed member, Esther George, cast the first ever dissenting vote in Fed history. Now she is no longer a voting member - go figure. Sounds like my marriage. With a penchant for stating the obvious she indicates that the Fed's easy money policies won't be easy to end. She cites parabolic farmland prices as an example of irrational exuberance - apparently even "preppers" are taking advantage of low interest rates. I guess they figure they won't have to pay the money back, so what the hell.

Rage Against the Machine
In a similar vein, this week ZH reported that a Chilean Activist burned half a billion in student loan records to free the students from indentured servitude. The moral of this story is that it's ok to have debt, as long as you are planning to burn your bank to the ground. A theme I'm sure that will be highly popular in the days to come. Here in the U.S., student loans are the only type of debt that can't be discharged in bankruptcy. Debt issued by country club CEOs to pay *special dividends* out to offshore bank accounts, can be discharged, but not student loans held by unemployed and impoverished people in their early 20s (scroll down for my profane rant). 

And to top it all off, today Fed. Chairwoman Janet Yellen, told graduates from New York University to go forth and emulate Bernanke - print money and always look for the easiest way out of every situation. As always you can't make this shit up.

Everyone, please go apply for a job at the Fed right now. There are several board member openings and no intelligence is required. If you have intelligence, hide it by every means possible or you will not get the job.

[INSERT STANDARD PROFANE END OF THE WORLD RANT HERE]