Long Wave Economics is one of the most engrossing pastimes in the Universe. That’s because there is always a new way to look at things. Conventionally, the Kondratieff Wave (spelled Kondratiev by revisionists who haven’t read thee earliest translations, such as those by the American Economic Society circa 1933 where the Kondratieff spelling is used) is between 48 and 64 years in length.
Thing is, there are cycles other than Kondratieff. Strauss & Howe get to one in The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy – What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. The view is more to social than economic mood swings, but the views merge into whole cloth in real-time.
Another theory – one I worked with Ehor Mazurok to evolve back in 2000-2001 is the notion that there’s a regular cycle of currency collapse and replacement,. Running 83.5 years (ideally, but with 10-years of wiggle-room) the dinner plate is set when 95 percent of the purchasing power of a currency has been replaced by debt. The wiggle is due to central bank interventions along the way.
The thumbprint of the Fed this week hints they may be trying to normalize markets around current levels. In the H.6 Money Stocks report, we notice that in an earlier “sliding time window” – to the end of October (table 1) – the print rate of M1 – cash and equivalents – was annualizing at 1.7 percent. Last week, for the sliding window ending Dec. 10, we were shocked to see them mashing the “pedal to the metal” raising the M1 short-term print rate to 5.0%.
Here today (table 2) and looking at data through Dec. 17, we see the easy-money has dropped back to 4.7 percent annualized. A good clip, but not the kind of market-decline inducing rates of earlier this year. As the late Marty Zweig cautioned “You don’t fight the Fed.”
When we line up the data from 1929 and compare it with a broad measure like the S&P 500 futures, we can expect a decent pop – perhaps lasting into the New Year. However, thereafter things are dicey at best since the Fed – like angels and demons – work in mysterious ways.
For today? Out of the woods, but as the highlight indicates, is it only a pause in the music or is dancing the Declining Blues still in fashion?
Sadly, a short-term return to pseudo-normalcy may be just that. (You get to pick whether it’s pseudo or short-term, lol.)
Since Japan and China were up overnight, and since the European markets were trading up almost 1.7-percent, we could (as a member of my friend’s Church of the Almighty Basis Point) look for something near a 1.7-percent gain in the US, shortly.
That’s because in our global aggregated view, there’s only so much money in the world and, like schools of fish, it seems to swim one way and then the other. Today, the fish want to head up.
Aggregates reveal the state of things only on weekends when all markets are closed and near the end of the month when the biggest of the fish have to settle up with the banksters.
A parallel is seen between mafioso’s giving a stake to junior mobsters running a “numbers racket” to fund them, and how money-center banks fund the high-frequency trading operations – a specially-dispensated kind of numbers racket in and of itself. Overlooked by regulators because when a crime happens fast enough, it stops being a crime.
At least if you’re getting payoffs in the form of political clout and contributions… in which case, fast skimming is just fine in the Big Casino down on the Street…
As we see it, market volatility is probably due to “dueling skimmers” trying to fake one-another out. Algo delight?
Speaking of the Mob…
We forgot to mention that Wednesday was Dawood Ibrahim’s birthday. (If you find yourself asking “Who?” the answer follows from Wikipedia:
“Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar ( born 26 December 1955) is a Mumbai underworld criminal mobster, drug dealer, and designated terrorist, originally from Dongri in Mumbai, India. He currently resides in Dubai and heads the Indian organized crime syndicate D-Company which he founded in Mumbai in the 1970s. Dawood is wanted on the charges of murder, extortion, targeted killing, drug trafficking, terrorism and various other cases. He was designated as a global terrorist in 2003 with the head money of US$25 million.”
By our reckoning, had he not gone into organized crime, he would have made a splendid banker.
Gangs (other than the republicans and democrats) have become a dad fact of life – living as most do on the profits from things government’s not willing to let “free” people make up their own minds on. The result? MS-13 gang members charged in shooting death of Houston teen: report.
I see stories like this and wonder how many trillions in tax revenue we’ve forgone in order to dance the make-up-crimes dance? As we’ve written before, crime does pay…and very, very well. It’s just that most people don’t count cop, prosecutor, and judge salaries (plus their benefits plus tax-backed retirements) in their accounting!
Speaking of birthdays (which Elaine and I stop counting at 70), Stan Lee (of comic-book fame) would have been 95 if he hadn’t passed last month on the 12th.
And this is Denzel Washington’s birthday. 63 if I’ve figured out this damn calculator. I’ve made a note to hit Amazon tonight to watch a few Denzel Washington movies. Great actor. Top shelf. Equalizer was excellent. Crimson Tide...wonderful movies.
Government Vs. Idiots
The mail still showed up yesterday and the Social Security checks landed. BUT, we will have to do without the advance trade report due out from Census today because of the goobermint shutdown. (Our headline isn’t intended to denigrate Idiots who – unlike goobermint – generally don’t hold civilian populations as tax hostages.
Shall We Go Trend Hunting?
We see evidence of more digilante’s mounting up. Or, are they more properly seditionistas? Read Anti-Trump Oakland mayor insists she ‘did the right thing’ in tipping off illegal immigrants about ICE raid if you’re not tracking.
Responsible pet ownership seems to have been swamped by “killer breed” promoters. Two pit bulls are shot dead after attacking homeowner, guest and responding deputy, reports say. DogBite.org says 74% of fatal dog bites in 2017 (29 dead) were pit bulls. Inexcusable.
Facebook revelations just don’t stop: Facebook’s massive, secret rulebook for policing speech reveals inconsistencies, gaps and biases. Mean like shadow banning conservative viewpoints, and such?
And the Mueller investigation may last longer than the Ice Age, the rate things are going. The latest glacial movement: “Mysterious ‘nude selfie’ said to be in Mueller’s possession, lawyer for Russian firm asserts in court filing.”
So, who’s the selfie of? Hmmm…
Well, this certainly has been fun. The Dow futures have dropped back a bit (+90) with 90-minutes to the open.
Off to chow-down so drop by for moron the ‘morrow…
G – As General Akbar(Return of the Jedi) once famously stated..”its a trap!”…. a classic Bull Trap – text book example yesterday on 27th. Face ripping rallies historically occur during BEAR markets.
DeBears’ Position in SPY Jan 260 Puts has more than quadrupled in past month – so rolling down into Feb 250 Puts, booking delta in the aforementioned super high yield ETF and dividend paying metal streamers.
This is like shooting fish in a barrel, steady focus on taking money from the “bulls”. Greedy bastards had no problems with the Program trading when they were buying, but now that the algos are Selling, all the Hedgies are cyring. The current Program buys being executed for year end Re-Balancing of Stock/Bond 60/40 “balanced” Mutual Funds, just provide more Bulls for the Bandicoot to take money from, just like taking candy from a baby…suckers.
I, too, say thanks for your hard work/fun viewpoints you share. I find your letter to be a useful link between the theoretical and the practicalities of life. I do wait to hear that you are putting in a tornado shelter to have your home unit complete. And, as to todays report… to me, the debate for years now seems to have been between “how can the folks at the top be so stupid to not see…..” and the folks at the top are conspiring against the rest of us. I favored stupidity for a very long time but now I have come to believe there are coordinated efforts to have the world turning as it is, just to high a level of benefits for the top money people for too long over time to be anything else. Your observations today give me a confirmation of that belief.
The folks at the top are not so stupid as to not see!! They see, and they understand that they can do some good to some of the people, (friends & associates!).
They are NOT conspiring against the rest of us. Where are the purple people eater? There are too many of us.
We have to get over this conspiracy talk. Folks at the top just have it ALL together, of that which most of us lack, in one respect or another. Think!
M…read Adolph’s second book..page by page.. My new scariest book..if I understood his plan right it was to
Make the vast majority of the common laborers dependent on social programs.. Then cause a ruckus by taking the programs away from those dependent on them for their survival and giving it back to the upper 30 percent.
Once the fire is lit get the support of the masses to imprison the twenty nine percent so that the one percent can acquire the control over their assets while keeping the vast majority dependent on the programs..
That’s descriptive if what happened during ww2.. A few false flags the puppeteers get what they want…
The USA in my opinion has been dumming down the population so much especially the last thirty years. It use to be.. You got a few daily papers..the baron the journal N.Y. post had coffee sat and read it. After NAFTA mom had to go to work children are placed in daycares dad has to work a part time job..time is short you scan the MSM news and take it at face value..
Why Time Travel wouldn’t allow you to make a fortune in the stock market & enjoy your riches. When you travel back in time & make your trades, you are in a different dimension. So when you return to the present, your account would be the same because you are now back in what l will call the current dimension. Your riches would be in a past dimension. Also, each time you travel back in time, you enter another dimension. So all is lost because each time you travel back, you enter a different dimension. In addition, each past dimension is limited in time. If you stay in one past dimension too long, it & you disappear & become another unexplainable missing person statistic.
If you travel forward in time to see what the future holds for the stock market, another problem arises. The future dimension may not be exactly what is happening in the current dimension. So when you return to the current dimension, the information you obtained may not work in the current dimension.
CONCLUSION: You cannot travel forward or backward in time to obtain stock market profits. It is like praying to God for stock market profits, it doesn’t work.
And what real evidence do you have to support you conclusion?
A vision from within. Another theory is that past & future time only exists in your mind. The only time that actually exists is the present. “I AM THE I AM” means infinity without time, so in reality, time doesn’t exist.
Until you need to pee. Then, I’ve noticed time gets pretty damn real.
IOW Philosophy is fine but needs a pee test now and then.
The need to pee is your present situation, the result of too much coffee or beer. It is only a bodily function & not a function of time. You cannot pee in the past or future, only the present.
HUH?
Hold up there pahdnah. I have peed in the past and I hope to pee in the future.
What are you telling me?
A variant of “Today is the tomorrow your worried about yesterday?”
My only concern is the present. Yesterday is over & forgotten. Tomorrow will just arrive & be the present. The present moment is the only moment we can be in.
In addition to the Facebook revelations:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/how-much-of-the-internet-is-fake.html
And HB to your website, there are some wonderful commentors/posters.
Good article on Zerohedge about massive buys jerking NYSE around again.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-28/here-they-come-stock-spike-second-biggest-buy-order-history-hits
Any comment?
The fourth turning…
Great book. Insightful ..
And it brings future predictions of old nostradamis to my mind.
Which reminds me that I have to visit the age of desolation site to see what is predicted..
George..Check out the book Albions seed.. Cambrige it’s another insightful book..
“Is this bad result evidence of stupidity or evil intent?” It’s all either stupid or evil. Start here.