China Shares Wipe Out All Gains This Year WSJ
Investors Race to Escape Risk in Once-Booming Emerging-Market Bonds NYT. The word “race” in a headline always screams “narrative,” but whatever.
U.S. Stock-Index Futures Decline After Steepest Slump Since 2011 Bloomberg
Global Jitters Give U.S. Bonds an Unexpected Boost WSJ
Market turmoil leaves tech sector exposed FT. Hopefully, piratical grifters like Travis Kalanick will be reduced to busking. Or worse.
S&P Bulls Are Betrayed By Their Most Loved Stocks Bloomberg. Even I know you should never fall in love with a stock.
The Fed looks set to make a dangerous mistake Larry Summers, FT
The Fed Has a Theory. Trouble Is, the Proof Is Patchy WSJ
China fears and global growth doubts grip markets Reuters. Then again, Global fears, domestic calm may split week Reuters
China’s economic slowdown Econbrowser
Angry investors capture China exchange chief FT. Trouble with “stockpiled minor metals such as indium and bismuth.” And the Chinese don’t mess around!
When Fast Growing Economies Slow Down: International Evidence and Implications for China NBER (2011).
Swiss Launch Money Laundering Investigation Into 1MDB! Sarawak Report. How $700 million ended up in the personal bank account of the President of Malaysia. I mean, isn’t that rather a lot?
“The first key sign that the investigation into 1MDB has been globalised into the hands of other implicated regulatory authorities”
A Bit of a Miracle No More: The Decline of the Labor Share (PDF) Philadelphia Fed, Business Review
Grexit?
The need for honesty in the crisis over Greece Daily Star
Approvals for banking transactions gather pace Ekathimerini
Europe may find itself relying on success of Greece’s Tsipras CNBC
French National Front is ‘fascist, extremist’: German minister Reuters. Shoulda thought of that first, Wolfgang. Bonus points for “mistakes were made” sighting.
Europe’s Insane Plan to Destroy Migrant Boats Daily Beast
From Calais refugee to millionaire: one man’s story Al Jazeera
Syraqistan
Beirut protests turn violent for second day as PM threatens to quit Reuters
Thousands protest against Lebanese govt over uncollected rubbish France24
Youth Revolts are back– Lebanon, Iraq Shaken by demand for Services, end to Corruption Informed Comment
Turkey jails five mayors in Kurdish southeast over ‘self-rule’ claims France24
Measuring the love of the homeland with a washing machine Hurriyet Daily News
Talk of lone wolves misunderstands how Islamic militancy works Guardian (Dr. Kevin).
Israel turns to Kurds for oil supplies FT
The New Face of Jewish Terror Foreign Policy. Inflammatory headline — from the heart of the foreign policy establishment.
Black Injustice Tipping Point
The Short, Hard Life Of Freddie Gray Buzzfeed. Must read, long form. We chain people up and clamp lead shackles on their feet. Then we trip them up. Then we kick them while they’re down. Then we yank them up by their chains. Rinse, repeat.
The Black Belt Communists Jacobin
The Myth of the New Orleans School Makeover NYT
There is also growing evidence that the reforms have come at the expense of the city’s most disadvantaged children, who often disappear from school entirely and, thus, are no longer included in the data.
So the privatizers jiggered the numbers. I’m shocked.
In Pigtown, neighbors grill out to rebuild vandalized garden Baltimore Sun
2016
Hillary’s e-mail defense is ‘total BS’: former State Dept. officials New York Post. I know this is the Post, but it’s well-sourced. From the nature of level of detail, it sounds like Clinton made some worker bees at State very unhappy.
The secretary would have known better, the department officials say, because she was trained to understand the difference when she was “read in” on procedures to ID and handle classified information by diplomatic-security officials in 2009.
Clinton also went through a so-called “read-off” when she left office in 2013. In that debriefing, security officials reminded her of her duty to return all classified documents, including ones in which the classification status is “uncertain,” which would have included the e-mails stored on her private server — which she only this month turned over to authorities. The read-off would have included her signing a nondisclosure agreement.
Carville: Biden ‘hasn’t had the best track record’ running for president The Hill. Warning shot.
Left whispers to Warren: It’s not too late to run The Hill. The usual suspects, however.
Bernie Sanders Visits Charleston (photos) Post and Courier
Bernie Sanders takes aim at ‘greedy’ Koch brothers Charlotte Observer
Deez Nuts endorses Sanders in Dem primary The Hill
Donald Trump’s immigration comments don’t seem to be hurting Republicans — yet WaPo
Donald Trump Puts ‘Hedge Fund Guys’ on Notice Bloomberg. Cory Booker’s gonna have a sad.
Why come fall, Republicans will need Democrats on Capitol Hill WaPo
Leadership gap hinders federal drought response McClatchy. Democratic weak bench again.
Arkansas Rejects Request for Hindu Statue at Capitol NYT. So here come the Satanists!
Hold On To Your Hats! US Hydropower Agency Dives Into 210 MW Solar Energy Buy For US Navy Clean Technica (PT)
Next Texas Energy Boom: Solar WSJ
Class Warfare
How the attempt to fix student loans got bogged down by the middlemen WaPo. Foaming the runway again?
Does Capitalism Cause Poverty? Project Syndicate
How to Get Low-Wage Workers Into the Middle Class The Atlantic
Q&A: Paul Romer on ‘Mathiness’ and the State of Economics WSJ
Survey: One-Third of Employees Would Sell Corporate Information for the Right Price The State of Security. True, they’re a security firm talking their book. But if, as a good neo-liberal, you believe that society is part of the market (and not the market part of society), why not be a rational actor and sell that information? What price would not be right? I’ll be gone; you’ll be gone.
Jeremy Hunt: NHS bosses face jail over links to drug firms Telegraph. Same incentives as above.
How a hugely overpriced hepatitis drug helped drive up U.S. health spending Los Angeles Times. Same incentives as above.
Cuisine and Empire Remains of the Day
Game of thrones The Economist. Unease in Thailand.
Rise of the citizen scientist Nature
A Brief Guide to The Evolution of Graffiti Short List
I’m now an Estonian e-resident, but I still don’t know what to do with it Ars Technica. No passports, unfortunately!
3 days of nerves, tears and joy: U.S. expats lead debate nerds in China Los Angles Times. Awesome!
Antidote du jour:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Comments are closed.
Footnote to Atlantic link is that it’s by Steven Greenhouse, one of the last “labor beat” reporters left by the time the NYTimes decided to retirement-package him out of the job last December, so they could continue to afford David Brooks speculating on the laziness of poor people and Ross Douthat’s comedy performance-art as a Sam’s Club Charles Maurras.
I tend to think of Atlantic pieces as guilty until proven innocent, so *very* pleasantly surprised they’re featuring Greenhouse, and thought I’d flag the fact for others with similar prejudices.
Thanks, I hear the trumpets, Gabriel
“Sam’s Club Charles Maurras.” Touché.
Anyone care to bet whether the US markets are even allowed to open today?
Hold off for a Green Tuesday tomorrow, after the Fed announces 1 trillion in new QE today?
damn. I was gonna go short last week and buy some UVXY and chickened out!
the USS 10 Bagger left the dock without me . . . again!
Hint the spread is 500 with an inflection point from dec which looks like a double black….
China Shares Wiped Out All Gains This Year.
Maybe China men, sorry, Chinese, should worry less about their China shar, sorry, Chinese shares than Chinese wages.
“Chinese wages flat in year xxxxx” just doesn’t alarm the brainwashed subjects like “Chinese shares flat so far in year xxxx, or wiped out all gains over the same time period.”
My son and I have for some days been purchasing sound common stocks.
There is nothing in the business situation to warrant the destruction of values that has taken place.
There are some who would say that there is nothing in the business situation to warrant the “values” in the first place.
The quote is from John D. Rockefeller, speaking in the pre-QE days of November 1929.
These days, ‘values’ are whatever the central planners decide they should be.
Pray that the Yellenites don’t morph into Mellonites!
For bonus points look at the % of S&P 500 stocks above 50-day moving average, start last October….
Skippy…. enjoy!
The decliners have been increasingly outnumbering the incliners for a while. It’s been a Nifty shifty market.
Nasdaq 100 futures Halted below 4000
for kicks: Global interest rates are currently at five-year lows, 50-year lows, 500-year lows or 5,000-year lows? (5K)
@TDANSherrod
⚠️ Intraday margin on futures has been disabled for the day at TD Ameritrade. ⚠️
8:42 AM – 24 Aug 2015
Where the human need for order meets the human tendency to mayhem, where civilization runs smack against its discontents, you find friction, and a great deal of general wear and tear.
Ian McEwan
what an opening! they’re ALL HALTED
The Dow is now down 850 points from Friday’s close and halted…
The S&P 500 Futures is halted for the first time in history.
Circuit breakers on S&P futures have been activated before on at least a couple of occasions. This one was on Oct. 24, 2008:
It’s a great morning for bottom fishing, comrades.
Well, any takers just lost. All US markets halted before the open. (except the dark ones, prolly)
Please forward your lost bet money to craazyman. He deserves a break, once in a while.
My God! Are you saying that high frequency trading just hit the zero bound?
My gosh! Are you saying Bernie Sanders has a chance of a snowball in Washington?
craazyman for VP.
Woo Hoo! I’ve had a longstanding very lowball limit order on VIG, a grandmother dividend ETF. For some unfathomable reason, it was briefly down 40% today, and my order triggered. Praying they don’t cancel the trade. Flash crashes have been good to me, but the waits in the interim require the patience of Job.
https://www.minds.com/view/481177027093737472
Reuters: China says local govt pension funds can buy stocks
China on Sunday published finalized rules that allow pension funds managed by local governments to invest in the stock market. Under the new rules, these pension funds, with assets estimated at more than 2 trillion yuan, or about $322 billion, can invest up to 30% of their net assets in stocks, equity funds and balanced funds. They previously had been limited to bank deposits and Treasury’s.
*The Shanghai Composite index [cn:shcomp] closed down 8.5% on Monday, wiping out its gains for 2015 and bringing its losses since its mid-June peak to nearly 38%.
The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters. Genghis Khan
The key, as always, is to allow the central bank to invest in the stock market.
And also the government. When the government can buy stocks, you will never have to fear crashes ever again, unless it prints/acts too slow or is incompetent.
“How $700 million ended up in the personal bank account of the President of Malaysia. I mean, isn’t that rather a lot?”
I thought it was about $650-680 million depending on the date, but what’s $20-50 million here or there. The money moved in and most moved back to the account it originated from. The difference was about $30 million. It appears to be a way to launder about $30 million rather than $700 million. Where did the $30 million go when the destination account was closed? Transferred to another account of the PoM? Back to the originator? Into some CIA slush fund? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?
The PoM is on the US regime change hit list. There is a color coordinated ‘anti-corruption’ NGO associated with the incumbent PoM’s opponent Anwar Ibrahim (and US’s “our bastard”) who is no doubt pure as driven snow. The NGO Berish is funded by NED and members have been trained by Soros’ Open Society stooges. The Otpor clenched fist logo is used. When MH370 happened, it was exploited in an attempt to remove PoM from power. The pilot of MH370 is described as having a fixation on Ibrahim. The we had MH17 and Malaysia didn’t play ball with the US attempt to frame Russia. Only once the hint of corruption was revealed did Malaysia go along with the MH17 Tribunal idea.
https://mediachecker.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/shock-political-twist-mh370-pilot-was-obsessed-with-anwar-ibrahim/
http://mymassa.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/bersih-under-change-by-ned.html
http://www.empirestrikesback.net/mh370-just-loss-plane/
https://www.corbettreport.com/phoney-opposition-the-truth-about-the-brics/
http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/08/bernie-sanders-just-promised-to-end-the-for-profit-prison-industry/
“the message from the private prison industry which is threatening to sue states if they don’t start locking more people up.
The private prison companies, well-known for profiting off of incarceration and crime, is now saying that the state’s they have contracted with aren’t keeping up their end of the bargain. The private prisons rely on a certain number of inmates for free and virtually-free slave labor.
California guarantees that prisons will be filled to 70% capacity at all times. Arizona promises almost 100% occupancy.
With crime dropping, the private prison industry is losing money and they are none too pleased.
In order to avoid these lawsuits, judges will have to dish out extra-long maximum sentences – not because the defendant deserves it, but because the state wants to keep these contracts in good standing with the private prison industry.”
the dropout rate should boost their numbers soon enough
On the weekend I posted links to the Federal Election Commission site with the recipients of donations from private prison political action committees:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/08/links-82215.html#comment-2486391
The recipients of private prison largess include numerous Republicans, and Democratic trade traitors Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ron Wyden.
I do miss comments on regular articles, but reading comments on zerohedge reminds me why your decision was probably correct.
Anyway, I wonder why the big sell off, as the fraudulent and bubble shaped nature of the Chinese market was so well known.
Possible reasons
1) Wall Street had a Sunday night meeting, and decided to sell.
2) The markets watched China spend a trillion to prop up the bubble in China and fail. They then concluded that whether the Fed makes interest rates be 1/4 or 1/2 percent can’t really matter much.
3) Greece.
4) Putin went short.
5) Chinese hackers hacked Citadel and injected a HFT shorting algo.
6) Banks ran out of money – but we are the last to find out.
7) Least likely – the market looked at weakening global fundamentals.
8) Newton published his theory of gravity over the weekend.
“Don’t sit under a stock-market tree, lest you be hit on the head with falling shares.”
“Eureka!!!”
Again we don’t live in a frictionless world and a falling ball doesn’t bounce back to its original position; even then, you have to add energy to make it go over the old peak.
I pick curtain # 5 for the mainstream culprit which means we must indemnify Citadel, shore up and indemnify for our security. Number 7 is a no brainer as the least possible reason for a market to go down as global fundamentals didn’t improve while the market was going up, what do fundamentals have to dow with it? Numbers 1 and 2 are not bad guesses.
The hustlers on Wall Street may or may not look at the freight train barreling through the middle of town as it flies off the tracks but the rest of the people on Main Street do. Real world events have driven (as in the past 6-18 months) the world economy into recession. Marketeers from Maastricht to Shanghai to London to New York City may have uttered words of false hope in the past two years. They knew their blaspheming ways would meet their just deserts. The wrath of the gods of destruction are now speaking; in the end all markets will now pass into oblivion. We are at that end. Enjoy the creative mass destruction while it lasts.
Rumor and speculation aren’t real until they are real. The issue with today’s drop might have been reaching a panic point in China which doesn’t make the cut and paste articles. Back in ’06, George Allen’s “macacawitz” moment didn’t catch fire because he made what sounded like a coded ethnic slur but was confirmation of stories everyone had heard from credible sources with no evidence (lack of recordings). It immediately exploded in a way it wouldn’t hurt a candidate without those rumors who could brush it off as a mumble.
“Wow, didn’t they know the Chinese weakness” doesn’t equate to understanding or prophetic powers, and as ancient writers noted, prophets aren’t recognized in their own land.
Cuisine and Empire. I’m not so sure about many of the assertions in that piece. Just one: Lasagna is not an invention of the northern Italian borghesia. Lasagna is probably the original “pasta,” and its history goes back to Greek settlements in Sicily about 500 B.C. There is a recipe for what is recognizably lasagna in the work of Ovid.
For an antidote to current food excesses, and misinformed food writing, I suggest Honey from a Weed by Patience Gray and Pomp and Sustenance by Mary Taylor Simeti. Gray spent most of her life in Puglia, near Taranto. Simeti lives most of the time in Palermo.
And the idea in Cuisine and Empire that most people never ate fresh vegetables and greens is a bit odd. Cato is notorious for passing along his cabbage recipes (in 100 BC).
In hinayana or theravada, one is allowed to eat meat, so I am not sure if Siddhartha was a vegetarian.
But he probably ate a lot of vegetables and probably fresh. Not a lot of canned or frozen vegetables at that time.
The story is that the Buddha’s final meal was of pork and mushrooms, willingly eaten, although he was not sure of the quality of the pork. The pork is what made him ill.
although he was not sure of the quality of the pork… he kept eating. Judging by the statues I’ve seen of him, he was no one to push away from the table precipitously.
There is also a story that Diogenes made his living by washing lettuce in the marketplace in Athens. So if there was a lettuce-washer, there would have been many customers, mainly from the Athenian class of resident foreigners and “rude mechanics.”
I’ve shopped at many local markets in Africa, since a child. There is ALWAYS fresh fruit & veg.
The Times editorial by Andrea Gabor was the first critique I’ve read of the “reform” movement in that newspaper. MAYBE they got a look at the recent Phi Delta Kappa Survey that showed that the majority of Americans are fed up with the test-punish-privatize cycle favored by conservatives and neo-liberals.
RE: Does Capitalism Cause Poverty? Project Syndicate
I’ve just finished reading Ravi Batra’s new book End Unemployment Now. It is tremendously persuasive and a great read.
His contention is that while “capitalism” is the best, most economically-empowering system, it is MONOPOLY “capitalism,” also known as “crony” capitalism or oligopoly, that causes unemployment and the resulting poverty.
Monopolies control all aspects of the economy from wages and employment levels to product quality and price. Their ability to restrict competition denies the benefits of “capitalism” to any other than themselves.
Most importantly, monopolies are able to deny the benefits of increased productivity, the inevitable result of “progress” and “innovation,” to labor. According to Batra, increased productivity MUST be accompanied by a commensurate rise in wages. Increasing productivity results in increased supply, and without a rise in wages, the demand necessary to absorb that supply does not exist. This leads to surplus which, if not absorbed through debt or export, results in unemployment and poverty.
As most here already know, monopoly capitalism also leads to loss of their representative democracy and the resulting inability of citizens to effect systemic change.
In short, well-regulated capitalism which assures honest competition does not cause poverty. Monopolistic “capitalism” masquerading as such most certainly does.
When economic power is under constraint through market regulation and anti-trust legislation it will always seek to free itself from it’s shackles. When capitalism is free from this burden it always skews towards monopolies. The free market is a convenient myth which ignores asymmetric information, the distribution of wealth, and other disparities which renders the idea of a level competitive field a sick joke. The pro-capitalist crowd decrying crony capitalism are like the Marxists who awaited the arrival of true communism.
It’s been awhile since anybody has mentioned Batra so thanks for the heads up about his new book. His last book was a real hoot that predicted a new golden age in America. It was published in 2007. Like Fukuyama it’ll be interesting to see if and how he backtracks from some of his earlier claims.
Keep waiting for “good” capitalism to come about and you’ll soon be dead.
Not that capitalism, but this one. AKA No true Scotsman would do such a thing.
Jacobin’s article in my opinion is spot on.
I really hate and reject the idea that everyone is a racist. I’m more inclined to believe that instead we tend to see things and draw conclusions from the lens of our own experiences. Ultimately though, I don’t believe you beat systemic racism by essentially focusing on race and insulating yourself from others that might have the same problem but a different skin color. If you want to get past race then you have to look past race when choosing allies, you can’t just say ” they aren’t black so they can’t understand what it’s like to be black (conversely having never been white, you probably don’t realize how hard it is for a poor white person either.) You beat racism by day after day focusing on problems we have in common and putting yourself out there as part of the solution for EVERYONE. If you want to get past racial bias, then you have to be willing to put your own racial bias away.
RE: French National Front is ‘fascist, extremist’: German minister
Silly neoliberals! There’s ALWAYS an alternative.
After all democracy is merely the rule of money power. The petty tyranny of economic oligarchs. It’s commitment to civil rights and human dignity is a torrid mockery of common decency…. Just kidding! Boy, am I glad Niebuhr is re-gaining popularity and getting re-published nowadays. I just hope people don’t forget his defense of democracy The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness.
Bernie Sanders is closing in on the 100,000 or more RSVPs he’s shooting for to attend his biggest rally yet at the Washington Mall on or around October 17th; he’s up to 89,000 going as of now. I’m planning on making a little detour on my trip to New Hampshire in order to attend. The only other time I was in DC was to attend Stewart & Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” in October of 2010. Hopefully the weather will be a little cooler and the bodies won’t be packed as tight this time.
http://observer.com/2015/08/breaking-bernie-sanders-grassroots-planning-huge-march-on-washington/
Forgot to mention, this rally is in the “idea phase”. After the organizers get 100,000 RSVPs, they will submit it to Bernie’s campaign team for endorsement and coordination, which is why it is scheduled to be “on or around” October 17th.
bump http://www.auroraadvisors.com/articles/Optimism.pdf
More than 5,000 migrants are taken into Serbia in trains laid on by Macedonian authorities after they give up trying to police the border Daily Mail
Discussing how the Global North is embracing a militarized adaptation to climate change, Christian Parenti writes
“This sort of ‘climate fascism’, a politics based on exclusion, segregation, and repression, is horrific and bound to fail. There must be another path. The struggling states of the Global South cannot collapse without eventually taking wealthy economies down with them. If climate change is allowed to destroy whole economies and nations, no amount of walls, guns, barbed wire, armed aerial drones, or permanently deployed mercenaries will be able to save one half of the planet from the other.”
Hats off to the US Navy and a greener, renewable world.
Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis: Sweet Deals and Cookie Crumbles; Sugar, Sugar
Mish’s simplistic ‘consumers have to pay more for steel (or whatever)-containing goods’ argument ignores the fact that offshored manufacturing jobs are almost without exception either not replaced at all or ‘replaced’ by crapified Walmart-greeter-style McJobs. Thus the affected workers suffer a massive loss of purchasing power, which is likely far more detrimental to society as a whole than folks having to pay a few dollars more for a car, or putting off purchasing cheap imported CrapGoods they didn’t really need to begin with. Obviously one should promote efficiency to a point, but offshoring good jobs to places with quasi-slave labor and nonexistent environmental regulations does not accomplish that, in fact it invariably leads to less efficient manufacturing in an overall sense which includes sustainability. Typical myopic ‘pay no attention to the supply chain upstream of your bargain-priced prawduct’ (= the manufactured-good analog of a ‘jawb’) neoliberal claptrap.
But I believe he has proven mathematically that no robots can replace him as a blogger (in one of his posts recently), and therefore, let the robot revolution begin – he is going to enjoy its contribution to the economy’s improved productivity and efficiency, his world is going to be really wonderful…cheaper goods and services.
No where did he say that if it was possible that he could be replaced by a robot, he would not be devastated.
I am actually a real Latvian Citizen, and really it means nothing except I have an EU Passport if things go poorly for my American one.
In response to posts about headlines screaming and races to the exit:
Just remember-
the news was announced first right here-
Big Recession on the Horizon as World Monetary and Financial Markets Collapse into Oblivion.
Today we get a mundane China fears and global growth doubts grip markets
Some forecasters have been saying for a while that things will fall down and go boom (as in “Honey, I killed the Kids”) Ten warning signs of a market crash in 2015
1. The Bloomberg Commodity Index has gone from a high of 175 in April of 2011 to 85.8 today. Look at the slope of the line and know that we have a long way to go before it goes back up-and how do factories produce more on fewer raw materials? -they can’t and they don’t and they won’t.
2. Stock are overvalued-Homer Simpson moment-Dohhh. Homework assignment-find proof of this with a meaningful discussion in two pages or more.
3. But here’s the kicker and there has been much made of this-rightly so- at NC. Employed to population ratio has grown less than 1% in five years.
But some folks have yet to be converted to believers and that is a problem. White House’s says we have a strong economy.
So batten down the hatches.
Remain calm. Enjoy the beauty of the storm.
Buy bottled water. Lots of jars of food-you won’t worry about the expiration date when you’re very hungry. Get an extra winter coat or two.
And do the battening down very, very snugly. It will pay off. All the better to watch the swirling rain, snow, sleet and whatever else comes falling down.
Lose your job in the coming depression, end up homeless when you can’t pay rent or mortgage, die when you can no longer afford ExtortionCare. One doesn’t have to live close the edge, to be able to see it from here.