Mayday Mayday! Fed Week…

There are only a couple of stories to concern yourself with today:  One being this is May Day so some of the Global Markets are closed.  Second is that the Fed meeting starts tomorrow and will announce (more’n likely) no change of rates at their Wednesday afternoon report.

In places as diverse as Finland, France, and Austria, this is the international version of Labor Day (spellings vary).

Here, we expect the usual assault of Anti-Trump rallies with Clinton-endorsing USA Today promoting before the fact.

So if you’re trying to get a big “Aha!” moment out of looking at overnight results, a word of warning to take the financial press hype about what a big day it was Monday in Japan with a grain of salt…or whatever your cardiologist will allow.

(continues)

The second point (once we plugged in  the open markets and found that our Global Aggregate Index had actually dropped 38 points prior to the U.S. opening) is that we may see a bit of weakness from mid-session today through Fed announcement time Wednesday.

As always, though, none of it is likely to be very surprising.  For as we told Peoplenomics subscribers this weekend, the Fed seems to have taken a LOT of “juice” out of the money supply in the past three weeks.

Anyone can see the Fed moves plain as day by going to their home page, clicking on the H.6 Money Stocks report, and then comparing the two “windows.”

There are two:  One is a 13-week moving average and last week’s was current through April 17th.  T’other is the 3-month numbers which are presented through the end of March.

It doesn’t take too much coffee to figure out that in the latter part of the month, you can see the difference between the three most recently completed months and the “sliding window.”

What it’s saying at the moment is that the market has enough “play money” in here for a while.

It’s true that we expect a blow-off top, but the congressoids hitting a Schumer-gloat with the temporary budget bill is not exactly a breakthrough for average Americans.  It doesn’t reduce medical costs, it doesn’t reduce taxes, and it’s a continuation of what the president was talking about this weekend:

Namely that he’s being given no substantive change-oriented legislation.

Which means Paul Ryan (and the rest of the crooked Labels of Convenience holders) in what was once the Republican Party are really a kind of mongoloid mix of pseudo-republicans and frightened democrats who won’t label themselves for what they are.

All of which leaves Trump with little but the bully pulpit, redrafting Executive Orders, and time to think about North Korea.

No of which we particularly care about:  What would be nice is some real innovation in this ol’ country and some leadership again.

My sadly cynical outlook for this particular Monday is the Me-too press will splash endless May Day anti-Trump BS while the market trades trying to figure out whether to make Wednesday’s Fed report (and the Friday Job report) “Buy the rumor, sell the news…” OR “Sell the Rumor, Buy the news…”

Did you happen to catch CNBC’s “Former Fed Chair Bernanke casts doubt on Trump’s growth expectations?”  I tend to agree, but let’s see if Congress can ever get around to actually doing anything.  Do Nothing Fools on the Hill should not be confused with the Oval Office occupant but that’s the MSM  swish on things.

Market optimism argues higher, but the facts on the ground and Fed money tightening argue the other.  So we sit in cash waiting for an opportunity to pounce.  Meantime, no point trying too hard to figure out which way the stampede will go next.

Coffee?

Personal Income – Press Release du Jour

Get ikt while it’s hot:

Personal income increased $40.0 billion (0.2 percent) in March according to estimates released today
by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $35.0 billion (0.2 percent)
and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $5.7 billion (less than 0.1 percent).

Real DPI increased 0.5 percent in March and Real PCE increased 0.3 percent. The PCE price index
decreased 0.2 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index decreased 0.1 percent.

And the fracturing fairytales?

Personal outlays increased $4.9 billion in March (table 3). Personal saving was $849.1 billion in March
and the personal saving rate, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 5.9
percent

Boy, they can sure tell ’em, can’t they?  I want to be one of those 5.8%’ers.

Dow futures up 40  here 45-minutes to the opening…

Back in Tornado Alley

It’s the time of the year when seasonal weather drives hot and cold front collisions, a lot of vertical mixing takes place, and then you get wall clouds.

See giant twister swirl through Texas.

The ArkLaTex area was getting the brunt of it this weekend.  We had a mere eighth of an inch in the gauge here in the cheap seats.

Philippines: It Sells Papers Dept.

The headline at the Daily Beast reads Donald Trump Has a New Favorite Dictator: Rodrigo Duterte.  And then it goes on to characterize the Philippine president as a murderous fellow.

Strangely, no mention of Abu Sayyaf or the Muslim insurgency.  Missing in action, perhaps?

To be sure, Duterte has been accused of using death squads – a kind of echo of events in Peru years back.  “Filipino lawyer Jude Sabio launches action over ‘terrifying, gruesome and disastrous’ drug war that has left more than 7,000 people dead.”

All of which (timed to May Day) gives the anti-Trump press one more ragging point to whine about.

You will note, please, that the REST OF THE STORY is that Duterte has a full-on militant Islamic insurgency going.  Even Forbes last winter was reporting “Philippines’ Fight Against Muslim Insurgents Is Hitting A New And Sticky Blockade…”

We sense a similarity in tactics between Duterte’s violent battle against an insurgency.  While it’s true that it smacks of Peru’s Grupo Colina during the Fujimori presidency, it did work, at least in the sense that Sandero Luminos did not seize power in Peru.  Yes, violent and extrajudicial, but we note that neither Sandero in Peru nor Abu Sayyaf went the lawyerly route cheered by the left.

Wars of national survival are, by the nature, extrajudicial.  When history is written partisans, a few things get left out and only the odd “old reporter” might be so rude as to mention them.

You see, the (biased?) media in America are anxious to find anything in order to gin up more anti-Trump rallies.  But how about we look at the bigger picture here?  Understand, for example, what the Moro Conflict is all about…

Due to marginalization produced by continuous Resettlement Policy sustained at start of Mindanao and Sulu inclusion to the Philippine Commonwealth territory of 1935, by 1969, political tensions and open hostilities developed between the Government of the Philippines and Moro Muslim rebel groups.^[28] The developing Moro Insurgency was ultimately triggered by the Jabidah massacre, which saw the killing of 60 Filipino Muslim commandos on a planned operation to reclaim the eastern part of the Malaysian state of Sabah. In response, the University of the Philippines professor Nur Misuari established the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), an armed insurgent group that was committed to establishing an independent entity composed of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan. Over the successive years, the MNLF has splintered into several different groups including the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which wanted to establish an Islamic state within the Philippines. The Moro Insurgency is rooted in a long history of resistance by the Bangsamoro people against foreign rule, dating back to the American annexation of the Philippines in 1898 even as they are not part of Spain’s Act of War. Since then, Moro resistance has persisted against the Philippine government.

This is what Duterte has been fighting.  Not nicely, either.

It will today be popular – and ground into the American media users – that “Oh, yeah, Trump’s latest dictator buddy…”

It’s another half-truth.

Those who understand the global clash of cultures look a little further than the headlines and some see Duterte has having a dirty job to do and yes, innocent people do get killed.

But the the press doesn’t spin up anger toward the extremists of Abu Sayyaf or their darlings of the insurgencies who also kill without trials. They get a free pass.  This uprising is a two decades (and longer) mess.

So why would the America media fail to mention the Muslim insurgency? Deaths on the other side?

Why bother with the name Abu Sayyaf?

You see the problem is Abu is not as easily monetized as the simple and still highly profitable Anti-Trump drumbeat and email campaigns.

Check your email this week and look for more money-raising based on “Trump supporting dictators!” pitch letters.

However…

Washington Post this morning “Trump administration still considering how to make it easier to sue the media, Priebus says.”

As long as there’s a jury trial, case law is pretty clear.  Being a public figure is fine, but malicious reporting, yeah that’s already a no-no if it deliberately misstates the truth.

I consider UrbanSurvival more a commentary and contexting site than breaking news, although we do run some of that in the economic sphere.

This Made Time Magazine?

“Kelly Ripa Is Announcing a New Co-Host on ‘Live with Kelly’.”

Where’s my ViseGrips?  Where’s the old Planet Earth go?

I’m going to go mow the lawn now…