Search Results for: fracking

Mind Your Footings: The Global Slope Is Getting Slippery

Posted on by David Stockman
Ford and Nissan last week reported big drops in their Chinese business and the German export numbers also point to a more considerable slowdown there. Emerging markets will feel the pain of a slower China and stocks there, which had been a bright spot this year, are now in official correction territory, down over 10% from their peak. ........ But watch those oil prices. They might be a slippery slope that leads directly to recession. Login or Join Now To Read More

Behind Washington’s Demonization Of Putin: Graft For Hunter Biden, Shaft For Collaboration On Iran & Syria

Posted on by David Stockman
Those Obama-Putin diplomatic initiatives frustrated the desires of Israeli officials and the neocons to engineer “regime change” in those two countries.... Thus, the Obama-Putin relationship had to be blown up – and the Ukraine crisis was the perfect explosive for the destruction. Login or Join Now To Read More

The Time Warp At Jackson Hole: A Reprise For Leisure Suits, Disco Music And The Phillips Curve

Posted on by David Stockman
The stock market rallied hard into Janet Yellen’s speech Friday at Jackson Hole, expecting some epiphany I suppose about the future course of monetary policy. What we got instead was Labor Market Dynamics And Monetary Policy, the purpose of which I can only suppose was to bore the market to death. Economics is not the [...] Login or Join Now To Read More

Central Bank Distortions At Work: Cheap Debt And The Fraking Binge

Posted on by David Stockman
The financial hype around fracking, the limitless, nearly free liquidity provided by the Fed since late 2008, and investors so desperate for yield that they’re willing to incur just about any risks in their vain battle to come out ahead have had Wall Street frothing at the mouth.... the boundless stream of money has been searching for a place to go, and it went to an economic activity – fracking – where money goes to die. What’s left is debt, and gas wells, that will never produce enough to pay off the debt that was incurred to drill them. Login or Join Now To Read More

Bank Lending Boom Is Fueling Bubble In Stock Buybacks And M&A, Not Productive Assets

Posted on by David Stockman
Bad deals are made in good times. Bad deals are made when the cost of money is nearly zero, when the Fed has inundated the corporate world and banks with cash, when risks have been printed out of existence. And these bad deals, the essential product of the largest credit bubble in history? Login or Join Now To Read More

QE At Work: Pouring Cheap Debt Into The Shale Ponzi

Posted on by David Stockman
What is (was?) Quantitative Easing intended to accomplish? Here’s what Ben Bernanke said at Jackson Hole when he first proposed the program: The channels through which the Fed’s purchases affect longer-term interest rates and financial conditions more generally have been subject to debate. I see the evidence as most favorable to the view that such [...] Login or Join Now To Read More

Q1 Imports Below 2012—No Keynesian Escape Velocity Here

Posted on by David Stockman
April trade data for Chinese exports purportedly show a rebound forming, though its size and even legitimacy is still much in doubt. The fake Hong Kong invoice scandal of last year is making comparisons to this year difficult, but that doesn’t and won’t quell the extrapolations. The export data are “somewhat inconsistent with the weakness [...] Login or Join Now To Read More

Full Retard Alert: Brussels and Washington Scheme To Reverse Flow Of Russian Gas That Putin Controls!

Posted on by David Stockman
Get that? To avoid depending on Russian gas, they’re going to buy Russian gas from sources other than Russia. What New York Times editor can read this story without spraying her video display with coffee? What genius in John Kerry’s “Haircut-in-Search-of-a-Brain” State Department dreamed up this dodge? Login or Join Now To Read More

Well, I Did Tell You So: The Texas Gas Bubble Massacre (TXU) Was Bankrupt From Day One

Posted on by David Stockman
The wildest speculators in Leo Melamed’s pork-belly rings at the Chicago Merc could never have dreamed up a commodity trade as fantastical as that underlying the $47 billion LBO of TXU Corporation. It was basically a bet on a truly aberrational price gap between cheap coal and expensive natural gas—a “fuels arb”—that couldn’t possibly last. So the largest LBO in history was the ultimate folly of bubble finance.... Login or Join Now To Read More

The Meaning of Weak February Imports: US Economy Not Decoupling, Not Accelerating

Posted on by David Stockman
The word decoupling has made a comeback in recent months. In 2008, it was believed that the world would be able to withstand a slowdown in US growth, as global markets would “decouple” from the primacy of US consumers. In some ill-conceived instances, it was even argued that financial markets would as well. Of course, [...] Login or Join Now To Read More