December Global Financial Wresting‘s (DGFW) feature match this week involves a handful of powerful central bankers in a tag-team fiasco against a lone, overweight (and looking like a CHD victim waiting to happen) old man in a red suit. Who do you bet on? After being sent to their corners for the weekend following what was a basically 500-point collapse Friday, the markets this morning come out of their corners still looking dazed and confused.
We’ve got a modest wager on the bankster tag-team. “Jerry and the Feds” have been training for this match-up since their last Big Match – the Housing Battle Royale of 2009,
Their training method has been obtuse. First, they bail the country out of a pending Depression by volunteering for massive bag-holding and money creation back then. Zip forward to The Now and having unloaded most of the “held bags” (which you noticed coming off the Fed balance sheet), Jerry and the Feds are now trying to jack-up rates.
What they’r oblivious to is that in trying to bolster their team’s financial condition, they have already planted the seeds for the next Collapse Match – which will appear to the unschooled as the Great Recession (though it might shade into Depression) of 2019.
Depressions, as you know, always have a point to them. Jerry and the Feds are dogged by another challenger, Carrot Head, who has legal and HR problems out the wazoo, but wrestles on with all-comers.
Among the fans of Grand Staged Wrestling, the Globalists are seen already unloading around the world since our Global Aggregate Index highs, are already heading for the hills. As you can see, they’ve had a dandy run since 2009….
(We trust you’ve dried-out enough to remember the BTFD crowd is Buy The Freakin Dips people? It works, until it doesn’t…a great strategy, though, for history dropouts…)
Classically, this has been a “distribution from strong hands to weak.” When things get bad enough, they’ll scoop up bargains and run things up again. It’s like that when you sit in The Owner’s box.
Santa, however, has a different training regimen because he’s got a different set of problems.
You see, he’s been wrestling with Global Staged Wrestling since it was co-opted in a merger between the European Belief Team in pre-Middle Ages. The big wrestling event in Early Europe was the Pagan/Wiccan Mid-Winter Games. These were previously held in mid January and involved running of the saps, looking for the return of foliage.
In the merger, the Belief Team wrestling rebranded the formerly Pagan MWG resulting in the Belief Team’s Ex-Pagan Mass Battle…resulting in the pending even snow simply The XMAS.
Every year, Santa (a/k/a/ The Santafier) sells tickets and anything else he could. Or, as least he used to. Social media’s cut him off. Now, it’s screw the Santifier – just give us the entitlement and we’ll get back to digital mobbing…
A marketing study, commissioned by Nutjobs in the Woods, found that Santa’s technique has been in slow decline. The 543-page study found that…
- Santa and the Belief Team’s XMAS was once the only event in town. Doggone moveable type, anyway, huh?
- Since then, a variety of challengers have appeared globally including the Chinese New Year’s Event with huge crowds, Hanukah, and even (since Ronald Everett’s creation of it in 1966) Kwanzaa.
- (*Serious note to self: The holiday Kwanzaa has 3 A’s in it, the Angolan currency Kwanza has 2 A’s. The third A in the holiday – like Elizabeth Warren – should be silent.)
Nutjobs in the Woods aren’t the only ones out surveying and pondering Santa’s Dilema (how to treat credit-card burns): The Wall Street Journal has come to a similar conclusion; ‘Mericans are becoming more pessimistic in their outlook. Gee, golly…yah think?.
Since the Belief Team has a problem with their star (Santa) of declining attendance, this month’s wrestling outcome will be, in our view, determined by declining Millennial attendance as the December Wrestling has become largely faithless and is in a retail sense, returning to Pagan. In other words, being faithless now, the XMAS event reverts mainly financial. Soon to join January White Sales.
In today’s faithless world, White Sales, too, will have to go. Racist, isn’t it?
Oh, you might not think so, based on Wikipedia’s entry:
“In 1878, John Wanamaker of Philadelphia department store fame decreed January to be the time for a “White sale.” Bed linens, which were available in white only, were sold at a discount. This was done to increase sales for these items at a time of the year when sales were normally slow.”
Ha! Since “color entered the boudoir” how many decades ago (?) we think White Sales, like Nancy Pelosi should be relegated to the past where they belong.
(No shit, this is amazing coffee this morning…) In a somewhat less Lewis Carroll moment, you could read Reuters “Ten years on, Fed’s long, strange, trip to zero redefined central banking” but it’s dreadfully boring compared to the December Global Financial Wrestling framework offered here. Or, maybe not.
Hmm…where were we?
Oh Yeah: Checking on the Elves
A bit shorter in stature than the Gnomes of Zurich (who you’ll remember from Lords of the Cash), the financial Elf-Check du jour involved the Backroom Boyz of the NY Fed.
Since the world is running out of resources, The Elves shelved making physical goods and instead now make statistics to pass out to all the good little boys and girls silly enough to be playing in The Street. Wrapped up as the Empire State Manufacturing Survey the Elves have been out waterboarding innocent NY machinists to get them to spill statistical beans. This result?
Which means – when put into words – what?
“Business activity grew at a slower pace than in recent months in New York State, according to firms responding to the December 2018 Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The headline general business conditions index fell twelve points to 10.9. New orders increased modestly, while shipments continued to climb significantly. Delivery times lengthened slightly, and inventories moved higher. The employment index rose twelve points to 26.1, indicating that employment grew strongly, and hours worked increased modestly. The prices paid index, while still elevated, moved down five points, and the prices received index held steady. Looking ahead, firms remained fairly optimistic about the six-month outlook, though optimism was slightly more tempered than in November.”
With the Empire State report, you are advised to use caution while playing in the Street today because you may be run-over by a runaway hedge fund.
The market’s already down 100 on the Dow futures. But that’s OK, since we told you last week we were betting on an S&P of 2,550 (or lower) by the end of this week. Sure, it sounded crazy back then, but you know what? A lot less insane-sounding today, isn’t it? (It only sounded crazy based on where we were. Remember, when we predicted this, we were 700 Dow points back up the hill we’re now rolling down…)
On to Other News
Assuming you remember a) Everything’s a Business Model… and b) The only point to wasting time sucking-in News is to Find Ways to Make More F#$%^ Money (FWTMMFM) or to lose 20-pounds…
By these (somewhat rational) metrics, most of the lard passed out by (government influenced) network television is pointless. OK, beyond pointless…let’s not quibble.
Still, these headlines amused us today:
Showing a sensitivity to the Ghosts of Christmas Past, the Chinese are still after fair – and then some – trade deals as “China says U.S. has brought back ‘the ghost of unilateralism’ to WTO.” Perhaps the Chinese fail to comprehend that prior to the Income Tax ( the US banker’s coup) the US federal government was entirely supported by tariffs. Perhaps they need a Tea Party to grok this.
Not that it matters, we have been living in the World of Variable-Value Money, ever since. Idjits lining up to buy Bitcoins (presently $3,382 at click-time) don’t realize their digital dahlings are just another VVM (variable-value money). The Oil, Food, Gold and Silver…then tere’s the VVM’s.
Corporate Geo-diversity is going large: Last week we were hearing about Apple and today Google to spend $1 billion to establish new campus in New York. All without a scammly bidding war, we notice, to see which local governments would sell-out the most..
While ‘Justice’ Is Merriam-Webster’s 2018 Word of the Year, we would have preferred something new and with a little more panache and zing to it like…. How about gefeeblenappin? “Justice” (which is really about “Just-Us” in most use-cases) is just so blatantly, oh, you know…correct. Maybe that’s why we refer to the UrbanDictionary more than the MW these days. More relevant to the now.
We weren’t sure what to make of this one: UTSA wins Intel grant to cure cybersickness. Hell, I can do that FREE1 (Just unplug the damn thing…too hard and lacking in monetization angles? Stand by brothers and sisters, here come Digital Diseases… a whole new class of monetizations! Coming soon to an everywhere you look!
On that note, we will set aside the pseudo-drama on Comey on the Hill as failing to pass our FWTMMFM content filters. (This is assuming Comey doesn’t show up here at the ranch for a highball after his visit to the Hell Hill. Drinks are at 4 PM, Jim.)
Also not in the brain-blender is the “Will Trump Shut Down Government over Wall Funding?” silliness. Everyone with half a brain knows “Hell Yes He Will (HYHW).” Except democrats who have always been light on the facts…maybe they’re the learning disabilities party – there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to support that theory. Their seemingly total incomprehension of what the word Border means, for example.
Last, but not least, while a transgender marketing group is telling kids in the UK that “boys can have periods, too” here comes the real population reduction plan of the Globalist Elites (who’ve been quietly promoting LBGTQRS marketing globally for years): “Study predicts SHOCK end of humanity: Mankind will FAIL to mate ‘like anti-social mice’.”
The way we figure it, Planned Parenthood should buy Porn.com to keep the situation “in hand.”
With puns this bad, my brain must be running out of food. I’ll go remedy that and be back here with moron the ‘morrow. Ya’ll come back, y’hear? And bring a few million of your closest friends along while you’re at it..
I was just thinking… Why do we even have a Congress anyway???
other than letting them take the blame for any miss-fortunate results from events planned by the PTB..
we all pretty much realize they are controlled by powers beyond them..it sure would be easier if we just had some blow up dolls with speakers in them then the ones that truly control the country could voice their concern.. the floor of congress would look busy instead of empty because the congress we have is always gone or off work.. they could use velcro… hold them in their seats.. or like a noodle man make them stand up.. or sit down raise their hands..all by the use of a little air compressor..
what we have sure doesn’t do anything.. heck they don’t even have to be there for the votes.. they don’t read what is put before them.. they are gone eleven months out of the year.. nothing more than talking heads..Blow up dolls make a lot more sense.. don’t want to hire new employees.. blow up dolls.. instant assistant.. sensor activated to tell you were to seek a live person.. AI at its best.. multi function with purpose to.. to pass this bill.. all stand up and say aye..
More than fair question: Put all policies on eBay and put ’em up for bid and all the money saved just on lobbying and the K Street mafia plus percs and pennies for the fools on the hill…why that could build a wall and/or put one hell of a dent in the national debt piled up…
Wow George, I had trouble following all that! Lol Maybe I should start drinking coffee to.
Didn’t know what to make of your column this morning. You use professional wrestling as a theme…and as we all know…since WWF and it’s WWE sister are all fake and scripted entertainment…is this what our government has become? Is Trump just the producer/director of the biggest, fake reality show on planet earth? Have we taken the bait?
Yum yum…delicious bait, ain’t it? When you can see past the ring (or cage if the harder fighting styles appeal), all becomes clear.
There was an advertisement that used to run in Popular Mechanics back in the day.
There was a businesslike fellow sitting at a piano and the headline was
“They laughed when I Sat Down to Play…”
And of course, he played great and the ad was a pitch for a teach-yourself-piano course.
But the truth is, Mark, I’ve got the Scrooge McDuck suit out for ironing because last week I said
“Without giving it all away, there is a kind of symmetry to how this postulated AI at work in financial markets would operate. And based on this (wildly delusional, incredibly speculative, and obvious whack-job) line of thinking, we anticipate the S&P 500 could trade down to 2,473.98 and (again this is whack-job forecasting) by the end of next week.” (Dec 13 column which accurately called the market turn before the opening (https://urbansurvival.com/turn-down-thursday-or-friday/ )
I wrote that when the S&P was at 2,651..last Wednesday’s close.
I believe I’m able to make these (and lots of other useful observations) because I have a high degree of skill at REFRAMING things.
You see, we all use “thought templates” that define how we ALLOW ourselves to think about things. A person is not really FREE until they can UNCONSCIOUSLY reframe EVERYTHING on the fly.
Take your own business – high end real estate guru in the South Bay. I am sure what you think of the market is well-defined by “the usual metrics” – like the prices bid and paid and the number of listings in the MLS each week.
But in order to really see the future, you need to step back (using reframing metaphors like this morning’s wrestling mania, lol, you won’t be able to test your perception of the “future in southbay real estate” jusdt based on industry numbers. It’s the old “exogenous” versus “endogenous” data problem.
The endogenous data says things are fine. Just change is always just ahead. So, were I consulting on the future of real estate in your digs, I would find other indicators…things like the number of column-inches of help wanted adds (and average wages offered) every week. Jobs fund housing…
So yes, most people just “take the bait” and without someone to teach them reframing and toss out an example now and then – like this morning’s column – they will just continue on in the mental wagon ruts. A few – like you because your “sense of inquiry ” demands it will ask (Why wrestling, George?) and learn to seek-out more widely dispersed coincident (exogenous) indicators to “make or break our plans” for the future.
Hope this helps?
Yes…helps a lot…and I always look ahead and seek out different metrics (exogenous) than the usual suspects the industry feeds us. I switched my focus more to buyers when I saw inventory start to creep up…I spread my geographical boundaries to more exurban neighborhoods (less expensive outside the core) when interest rates climbed. I am in tight with most of the top HR personnel at the Silicon Valleys biggest companies. They control the pulse of the incoming high paying engineers and executives.
And it’s random things like when Boston has a bad winter, the biotech industry here( the nations largest) poaches scientists from Boston ( the nations second largest in bio-tech). Our January weather is in the 60’s, so when Boston is under 3 feet of snow and in the teens…the combination of salary and lifestyle is a no brainer. I know the HR people in the South San Francisco and Mission Bay bio-tech corridors and am the buyers agent on incoming talent.
I don’t particularly like any kind of bait…It’s all fishy…just like our President. (Had to get my daily bash in…ECS will take the bait)
If you believe that a globalist cabala is deconstructing nationalist states in pursuit of a ‘new world order,’ I would not call you entirely insane. Evidence #1 – Macron fomenting chaos in France. Evidence #2 – Putin, like a Pac Man ghost, gobbling up bordering territory in an attempt to destabilize alliances and national governments alike. Evidence #3 – Brexit, approved by the UK masses but vehemently rejected by the ruling elite (which demand another vote now that the public has been properly educated). Evidence #4 – Trump v. Clinton; HRC would have had a similar polarizing effect across America and among the nation’s allies (a different effect, to be sure, but polarizing none-the-less). However, Trump was ‘elected’ to office to legitimize the necessary globalization of the American Republic by demonstrating all of the evils of nationalism embodied in all things ridiculously Donald. All of these (and more) make excellent arguments for abolishing such problematic nationalist sentiment, steering humanity toward one true enlightened path. But what entity might be the chief architect of such a plan? Ure guess is as good as mine (OK, maybe a tad better). But NOTE that the top two topics on the agenda for this year’s Bilderberg Meeting agenda were “populism in Europe” and “the inequality challenge.” Effectively patronizing the serfs seems to be the key to a successfully prosecuted globalist agenda.
Here here wh.
Except we’ve changed up from bread & circuses to wrestling & social…but a near ‘nuf to pencil out.
Yes, we have taken the bait and then some. Guys and gals, it’s ALL fake and THAT is what many people cannot wrap their heads around!
Lol lol lol …
The bait was taken back in what 1913…combine this book the creature with Adolph’s second book and you can see a pattern
The book is better … And a fast read I think I read the book in three hours.. It was my number one scariest book .. Now Adolph second book is..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_VqX6J93k
…Not even coal this year.. Just Krampus and reindeer poop…..
Hi George, happy holidays to you and Ure’s
seems to me Xmas is evolving into Festivus. … The non-commercial holiday’s celebration, as depicted on Seinfeld, occurs on December 23 and includes a Festivus dinner, an unadorned aluminum Festivus pole, practices such as the “Airing of Grievances” and “Feats of Strength”, and the labeling of easily explainable events as “Festivus miracles”.
In the US era of the Trump, this may more than explain the evolving ethos of what has changed from Christmases Past. I’m watching in total amazement. Stunned really. From Canada.
vic s
As are all thinking people…stunned.
No George the early government was not run on just tariffs ,for you had Shea’s rebellion in the New England states which came close to another revolution, which was when they placed a tax on land,the city dwellers were exempt,then you had the whiskey (tax) rebellion which required Washington to march on the bootleggers and force the tax on them,and without a doubt other means for the new government to collect their taxes….
Market Mania – A December to Remember 2018
Interesting take on classifying Bitcoin/Litecoin as a VVM, while classifying Oil, Gold and Palladium, and FOOD in a separate category. The ‘crankopotami’ still doe not want to see and or understand the concept of ‘moneyness’. Oh well, their loss (s).
Did not get Long enough PALL last week, according to further research conducted over the past weekend. There is a “game afoot” in Palladium market right now, and that ‘game’ is just in the 1st Qtr.
Seems there is a Yuge supply deficit in Palladium, not coming out of Russia. Strategic maneuvers in Noble Metals Market? There is very little physical metal outside of the Motherland, including South Africa.
Lots of risky Risk involved with investing in Noble Metals that are only sourced from to 2 politically risky countries; Russia & South Africa. Where there is great investment risk, there is also great opportunity for MOAR profits..or losses.
Good morning to all from the best year around weather capital of the world. Albuquerque NM. Just a note on cyber sickness. I have the good fortune to attend my granddaughters gymnastic class every week. In the beginning just young parents pulling out phones before setting down in bleachers to observe, Now even the grands are doing the same. Seems such a waste. Read a futurists about 30 years ago and his prediction was “If you think opiumn(sp) is addictive wait until Virtual Reality gets here”. We seem to be well on the way.
Just dawned on me. Sure seems like an exciting time to be alive. There is so much going on world wide that seems to make this a high energy time to be on this planet.
Loosh – ripening for harvest?
George, since you’ve been correct so often with your financial prognostications perhaps you can write a column, at your convenience of course, why people choose to make choices that are detrimental to their general wellbeing.
Dont seem to get real exact but S&P should hold up around 2400 for now until it gets time for the big plunge. Oh George, great column this morning.