As usual, a massive, PPT-orchestrated “rally” – based on not a shred of good news – has caused the mainstream media to completely shut down; let alone, on a weekend. Unfortunately, “Economic Mother Nature” is proving too powerful for their best manipulative efforts – as even the most jaded, system-compliant “technical analyst” can’t dispute the painful fact that the “Dow Jones Propaganda Average’s” chart is as ugly, and “toppy,” as can be imagined. I mean, just how similar to the August through November, PPT-orchestreated “stock save” has the past month’s 1,700 point rally been? And how ugly has the global economy gotten over that time – punctuated by China’s 25% year-over-year decline in February exports?
The same goes for the world’s most important market – given that it generates more corporate, municipal, and sovereign revenues than any on the planet – crude oil. This weekend’s “nail in the coffin” news from Iran, ending any remaining hope for the “production freeze” (let alone, production cuts) the market has hoped and prayed for, has damned the market to an upcoming bout with reality in the very near-term. And if you though the Dow’s chart was ugly, look at little ground the crude market has actually regained, despite its ridiculous, $12/bbl “oil PPT” orchestrated dead count bounce – in not even coming close to its 200 DMA, before becoming heavily overbought.
And the same goes for commodities in general, as the CRB Index’s minuscule 12% rebound has been even more pitiful. At 18%, crude oil is one of its highest-weighted components; so given how weak the index’s overall gain has been, consider how much weaker it would have been without oil’s 45% gain. And oh yeah, Precious Metals also have an 18% weighting – so their average 16% increase is also well above the CRB’s average gain. In other words, like your typical NFP employment report, the devil is in the details.
Yes, there have been plenty of “horrible headlines” this weekend – like hundreds of thousands protesting in Brazil, calling for Dilma Rousseff’s resignation; Iran saying an oil production freeze will not happen; miserable, well-below-expected Chinese retail sales and factor orders; a major political loss for Angela Merkel in this weekend’s German state elections; and heck, Deutsche Bank “selling” a trillion of toxic derivatives to the U.S. government – I mean, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Throw in the news that a cadre of Central banks, led by the Bank of England, “proudly” announced they have created their own version of Bitcoin – in other words, admitting their fears of the future of fiat currency; and you can see how the “hits keep coming,” whether “markets” are rising are falling, and will continue to do so ad infinitum. Oh, did I mention JP Morgan predicting that the ECB’s next move will be to directly monetize equities? As if they aren’t doing so already.
That said, it was a voice from the past that uttered this weekend’s “quote that says it all” – when Zero Hedge unearthed yet another dilly from “Maestro” Greenspan himself; i.e., the man that invented today’s modern Central banking horrors.
As most “sensitive” U.S. governmental records have a five year embargo placed on them, it wasn’t until this week that the “Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission” records from March 2010 were released. In which, one Alan Greenspan made the following quote, at a meeting amidst the inquiry proceedings.
“We didn’t forecast better than anyone else; we regulated banks that got in trouble like anyone else. Could we have done better? Yes, if we could forecast better. But we can’t. This is why I’m very uncomfortable with the idea of a systemic regulator, because they can’t forecast better.”
In other words, the most powerful monetary authority of the past century – whose “policies” have sentenced the world to generations of economic death – not only admitted its predictive powers were no better than any else’s (actually, far worse than pragmatists like myself); but that he’s uncomfortable with the concept of a systemic regulator (like the Federal Reserve) entirely, given its inability to understand economic trends.
Yet again, proving what we have known all along. Which is, that Central banks are as clueless as they are destructive, and compromised. And that, when said “monetary leaders” retire, they are all too willing to admit it, to distance themselves from the economic monstrosity they created.
Then again, this former disciple of Ayn Rand herself, just two years ago admitted “gold is money – and no fiat currency, including the dollar, can match it” – echoing JP Morgan himself a century earlier (ironically, one year before the Fed was created), in espousing “money is gold, and nothing else.”
Gee, I wonder how this will all end.