Friday, September 11, 2009
Natural Gas Snap Back
4 Hour chart
Late Day Grain Trading
Grains Turn Bearish on USDA Report
Stocks March Higher Seven Days In a Row
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Up To The Edge for Stocks
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Unemployment Beneath the Government's Figures
Here are a few thoughts from David Rosenberg:
"What was really key were the details of the Household Survey, which provide a rather alarming picture of what is happening in the labor market.
"First, employment in this survey showed a plunge of 392,000, but that number was flattered by a surge in self-employment (whether these newly minted consultants were making any money is another story) as wage & salary workers (the ones that work at companies, big and small) plunged 637,000 — the largest decline since March (when the stock market was testing its lows for the cycle). As an aside, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also publishes a number from the Household survey that is comparable to the nonfarm survey (dubbed the population and payroll-adjusted Household number), and on this basis, employment sank — brace yourself — by over 1 million, which is unprecedented. We shall see if the nattering nabobs of positivity discuss that particularly statistic in their post-payroll assessments; we are not exactly holding our breath."
my note: This 1 million figure being true, this would be the first time in history that more than 1,000,000 Americans lost their jobs in a single month!
Dollar Sent to Slaughter
Daily chart - shows the magnitude of the break-out
Following the new CFTC limits imposed a few weeks ago, the natural consequence is beginning to impact the financial markets. The capital flight has already begun. The Dollar has broken out to the down side. Commodity prices across the board are skyrocketing in the past two days. Oil has exploded nearly $6/barrel, natural gas has risen 21% in 4 days (after a 14-mo. downtrend), gold has blasted through $1000/oz. and even the grains are rising powerfully after being in a downtrend. The longer-term consequences of monetizing the debt are beginning to take shape.
It will get worse. As the capital flight continues, the Dollar will be sent to the slaughterhouse, with commodities prices taking off. But this time, speculators can't be blamed because they have been sharply curtailed and position limits have been imposed. The worst is yet to come too, because the liquidity that funded the production of those commodities has also been curtailed. That means shortages down the road! I hope you have food stored in the garage. You're going to need it!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Wheat: Flat in July, Down in August
China Sets Off More Alarm Bells, Quotes Ben Franklin On Fiscal Responsibility
from the Daily Telegraph:
Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed's recourse to "credit easing"...
"If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies," he said.
China's reserves are more than – $2 trillion, the world's largest.
"Gold is definitely an alternative, but when we buy, the price goes up. We have to do it carefully so as not to stimulate the markets," he added.
The comments suggest that China has become the driving force in the gold market and can be counted on to
buy whenever there is a price dip, putting a floor under any correction.
Mr Cheng said China had learned from the West that it is a mistake for central banks to target retail price inflation and take their eye off assets.
"This is where Greenspan went wrong from 2000 to 2004," he said. "He thought everything was alright because inflation was low, but assets absorbed the liquidity."
Mr Cheng said China had lost 20m jobs as a result of the crisis and advised the West not to over-estimate the role that his country can play in global recovery.
China's task is to switch from export dependency to internal consumption, but that requires a "change in the ideology of the Chinese people" to discourage excess saving. "This is very difficult".
Mr Cheng said the root cause of global imbalances is spending patterns in US (and UK) and China.
"The US spends tomorrow's money today," he said. "We Chinese spend today's money tomorrow. That's why we have this financial crisis."
Yet the consequences are not symmetric.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Obama's Ties to Radical Socialist Party
from WND:
Excerpt from New Party publication (Courtesy New Zeal blog) |
The New Party, formed by members of the Democratic Socialists for America and leaders of an offshoot of the Community Party USA, was an electoral alliance that worked alongside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The New Party's aim was to help elect politicians to office who espouse its policies.
Among New Party members was linguist and radical activist Noam Chomsky.
Obama's campaign has responded to the allegations, denying the presidential candidate was ever a member of the New Party.
But the New Zeal blog dug up print copies of the New Party News, the party's official newspaper, which show Obama posing with New Party leaders, list him as a New Party member and include quotes from him.
The party's Spring 1996 newspaper boasted: "New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary). The paper quoted Obama saying "these victories prove that small 'd' democracy can work."
The newspaper lists other politicians it endorsed who were not members but specifies Obama as a New Party member.
Barack Obama pictured in New Party publication (Courtesy New Zeal blog) |
Becoming a New Party member requires some effort on behalf of the politician. Candidates must be approved by the party's political committee and, once approved, must sign a contract mandating they will have a "visible and active relationship" with the party.
The New Party, established in 1992, took advantage of what was known as electoral "fusion," which enabled candidates to run on two tickets simultaneously, attracting voters from both parties. But the New Party went defunct in 1998, one year after fusion was halted by the Supreme Court.
Following the initial reports of Obama's purported membership in the New Party, Obama associate and former Chicago New Party activist Carl Davidson posted a statement on several blogs claiming his former party was not socialist, but he admitted it worked with ACORN.
"[The New Party] was a pragmatic party of 'small d democracy' mainly promoting economic reforms like the living wage and testing the fusion tactic, common in many countries but only operational in New York in the U.S. The main trend within it was ACORN, an Alinskyist outfit, which is hardly Marxist," wrote Davidson.
But the socialist goals of the New Party were enumerated on its old website.
Among the New Party's stated objectives were "full employment, a shorter work week, and a guaranteed minimum income for all adults; a universal 'social wage' to include such basic benefits as health care, child care, vacation time, and lifelong access to education and training; a systematic phase-in of comparable worth and like programs to ensure gender equity."
The New Party stated it also sought "the democratization of our banking and financial system – including popular election of those charged with public stewardship of our banking system, worker-owner control over their pension assets, community-controlled alternative financial institutions."
Many of the New Party's founding members were Democratic Socialists for America leaders and members of Committees of Correspondence, a breakaway of the Communist Party USA. Obama attended several DSA events and meetings, including a DSA-sponsored town hall meeting Feb. 25, 1996, entitled "Employment and Survival in Urban America." He sought and received an endorsement from the DSA.
According to DSA documents, the New Party worked with ACORN to promote its candidates. ACORN, convicted in massive, nationwide voter fraud cases, has been a point of controversy for Obama over the presidential candidate's ties to the group.
In 1995, the DSA's New Ground newsletter stated, "In Chicago, the New Party's biggest asset and biggest liability is ACORN.
"Like most organizations, ACORN is a mixed bag. On one hand, in Chicago, ACORN is a group that attempts to organize some of the most depressed communities in the city. Chicago organizers for ACORN and organizers for SEIU Local 880 have been given modest monthly recruitment quotas for new New Party members. On the other hand, like most groups that depend on canvassing for fundraising, it's easy enough to find burned out and disgruntled former employees. And ACORN has not had the reputation for being interested in coalition politics – until recently and, happily, not just within the New Party."