It Makes No Sense To Raise Fed Rates, & More News

Why The Fed Would Be Insane To Raise Rates: The Rising U.S. Dollar

The USD strengthening since last July is the core driver of the global recession.

The parlor game of the moment is laying odds on the Federal Reserve's decision to raise rates, leave rates unchanged, or (gasp!) hint at future stimulus. There are certainly a multitude of inputs to the Fed's decision, and a variety of potential consequences, but only one really matters: the effect on foreign exchange/currency markets.

It's not that difficult to understand the one dynamic that matters. If the Fed raise yields/interest rates in the U.S., that makes the U.S. currency, i.e. the U.S. dollar (USD), more attractive.

Higher yield = more attractive, especially when coupled with the liquid market for U.S. Treasuries and the relative safety of the dollar vis a vis other currencies issued by falling-into-recession nations and trading blocs.

A rare interview with the mathematician who cracked Wall Street 

Jim Simons was a mathematician and cryptographer who realized: the complex math he used to break codes could help explain patterns in the world of finance. Billions later, he’s working to support the next generation of math teachers and scholars. TED’s Chris Anderson sits down with Simons to talk about his extraordinary life in numbers.

Honda to test self-driving cars, manufacturers pledge auto-braking for the masses 

The AP reports that some driver advocates like the Center for Auto Safety were concerned that this pledge doesn’t do enough to get automatic breaking systems into cars. Those advocates would rather the government legally require cars to have automatic breaking systems, instead of rely on a voluntary promise to keep drivers safe. Another concern is that automatic braking systems are generally sold as add-ons to luxury vehicles, which would put them out of reach of most consumers

Big banks in $1.865 billion swaps price-fixing settlement 

Credit default swaps are contracts that let investors buy protection to hedge against the risk that corporate or sovereign debt issuers will not meet their payment obligations.

The market peaked at $58 trillion in 2007, according to the Bank for International Settlements, but shrank to $16 trillion seven years later as investors better understood its risks

Sovereign Debt for Territory: A new Global Elite Swap Strategy 

One often wonders why governments indebt themselves for so much more than they can ever hope to pay… Here, Western economists, bankers, traders, Ivy League academics and professors, Nobel laureates and the mainstream media have a quick and monolithic reply: because all nations need “investment and investors” if they wish to build highways, power plants, schools, airports, hospitals, raise armies, service infrastructures and a long list of et ceteras, economic and national activities are all about.

The Real Cost of Filling Up: Gasoline prices by country 

This ranking sorts 61 countries by price, earnings needed to buy a gallon, and annual income spent on fuel.

As a Boom Fades, Brazilians Wonder How It All Went Wrong

BRASÍLIA — The president of Brazil should have been ecstatic. She had just won re-election after an intense campaign in which she fiercely defended her role in making Brazil, for a few fleeting years, a rising star on the global stage.

But in the days after her victory last October, President Dilma Rousseff was worried, confronted in private deliberations with her closest advisers by signs that Brazil’s triumphs were at risk of coming undone.

“We went too far,” Aloízio Mercadante, Ms. Rousseff’s chief of staff, acknowledged publicly this month, describing the sense of alarm as the dust settled after the election and Ms. Rousseff and her aides grappled with the weaknesses in Brazil’s economy.

A Passing Thought...

Jim Rogers Thinks Deal To Bypass US Dollar Possible? & More

Jim Rogers Russia, China, Brazil Sign Deal To Bypass US Dollar?

Russia has little debt, ample resources and its currency freely floats and he speculates at some point a challenge to the US dollar will take place, he says

Jim Rogers thinks the US is a “flawed currency” that should be replaced and he thinks the BRICs nations can do it, minus India. Jim Rogers: Brazil wants to compete with the US dollar

Discussing the recent BRICs conference, Jim Rogers noted the steady drumbeat to displace the US as the world’s reserve currency of choice. “Brazil wants to compete with the IMF, the World Bank and the US dollar,” as do all participants in the BRICs conference, Rogers said when speaking on an RT interview.

“Brazil, China and Russia could easily put something together to compete with the US dollar,” Rogers said, leaving out one component of the BRICs alliance. “The US dollar is a terribly flawed currency. I’m an American. I hate to say that. But the US has serious problems, the world has serious problems. We need something else” and potentially a competing world currency could be developed. If this were to occur, the US and its economy might be put in a straight jacket as the ability to engage in large deficit spending could be curtailed. Jim Rogers: BRICs developing an alternative banking system

To put together a competing world reserve currency and develop an alternative banking system, the BRICs might consider throwing India out of the equation, Jim Rogers said. India has been said to be the stumbling block in establishing the new world bank. “India and Brazil have big (national) debts. Russia is not a big debtor and has big international reserves,” Rogers noted, pivoting to Russian advantages in the interview. “Russia has a freely convertible currency and none of the others have a freely convertible currency.” 

Jim Rogers thinks Russia should spend its time courting suitors in its own neighborhood, however. “If I were Russia I would be more interested in selling to Asia than South America.”

As reported two days ago in ValueWalk, the leaders of Russia, India, Brazil, China and South Africa are in meetings ending July 17 to bring together plans to create a $100 billion bank to compete with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The planed bank is a piece in a larger puzzle to provide a global alternative to Western dominance of the financial system. This has been a stated goal of Russia and China, both of whom have engaged in trade deals that eschew the use of the US dollar.markets 

Jim Rogers started trading the stock market with $600 in 1968.In 1973 he formed the Quantum Fund with the legendary investor George Soros before retiring, a multi millionaire at the age of 37. Rogers and Soros helped steer the fund to a miraculous 4,200% return over the 10 year span of the fund while the S&P 500 returned just 47%. 

Doomsday clock for global market crash strikes one

 minute to midnight as central banks lose control 

8 - Overvalued US market In the US, Professor Robert Shiller’s cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio – or Shiller CAPE – for the S&P 500 stands at 27.2, some 64pc above its historic average of 16.6. On only three occasions since 1882 has it been higher – in 1929, 2000 and 2007.

A September To Remember?

In terms of overnight action, China’s equity market eked out a positive gain amid a stabilizing yuan, further aided by the Chinese market regulator essentially inferring it would prop up the equity market for years to come. I wonder what we’ll think in 30 years’ time when we look back at the market intervention we have seen across the globe in the last half a decade or so. Hum dee dum.

This Week In Energy: The Growing Threat From China 

In the U.S., low oil prices could be exacerbated by an outage at a major U.S. refinery. The Whiting refinery, based in Indiana right outside of Chicago, was taken offline by its owner BP (NYSE: BP) for unplanned repairs. The refinery’s total output is 410,000 barrels per day, and one of the units (with a 240,000 barrel-per-day throughput capacity) could be offline for a month or two.

The Secrets Of Extraordinary Survivors 

Their successes challenge many of our common notions about the resilience of the human mind. While some people understandably crumble after extraordinarily harrowing events, others, like Eugenie have an extraordinary capacity to rebound and survive. Understanding why could lead us to help many more recover and grow after their experiences.

Europe In Crisis:

Everyone from Putin to ordinary savers is stockpiling gold

European investors snapped up gold bars and coins at a rapid pace in the second quarter as turmoil in Greece threatened to push the country out of the eurozone.

The World Gold Council (WGC) said demand in Europe for the precious metal rose sharply in the three months to June compared with the same quarter last year amid rapid buying of bullion, even as global demand fell by 12pc to a six-year low of 915 tonnes.

The increase in Europe was led by Germany, where sales of bars and coins rose 24pc to 24.1 tonnes in the second quarter. Demand in Austria and Switzerland also rose sharply, according to the WGC's quarterly trends report.

Learning Success: 

APPLY Tips From The Best

Larry Page,  Google – 


Larry Page is another example of a businessperson who can persevere any challenge. Larry and his company have faced much criticism and received ample praise over the years for his company’s actions. But in the midst of the storm, he has never let what others think sway him from pursuing the course for his company that he considers the best.

Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

An Inconvenient Truth

"Battle For Oil" 

What Happens When Political Interests Get Desperate?

EXISTENTIAL REALITY 

"Coming To The End Of Oil Age"

 - Looking Beyond The Brink -

Nine Reasons Why Low Oil Prices Will Create Economic Mayhem, & More

Nine Reasons Why Low Oil Prices May “Morph” Into Something Much Worse

9. It is doubtful that the prices of energy products and metals can be raised again without causing recession.

We are not talking about simply raising oil prices. If the economy is to grow again, demand for all commodities needs to rise to the point where it makes sense to extract more of them. We use both energy products and metals in making all kinds of goods and services. If the price of these products rises, the cost of making virtually any kind of goods or services rises.

Raising the cost of energy products and metals leads to the problem represented by Growing Inefficiency (Figure 4). As we saw in Point 5, wages tend to go down, rather than up, when other costs of production rise because manufacturers try to find ways to hold total costs down.

Lower wages and higher prices are a huge problem. This is why we are headed back into recession if prices rise enough to enable rising long-term production of commodities, including oil.

IMF warns of gloomy eurozone outlook

Reforms and action needed urgently as fears over Greece, high unemployment, structural flaws and a still-shaken bank sector slow growth

The International Monetary Fund has warned the eurozone faces a gloomy economic outlook thanks to lingering worries over Greece, high unemployment and a banking sector still battling to shake off the financial crisis.

The IMF’s latest healthcheck on the eurozone found it was “susceptible to negative shocks” as growth continues to falter and monetary policymakers run out of ways to help. It called for an urgent “collective push” from the currency union to speed up reforms or else risk years of lost growth.

“A moderate shock to confidence – whether from lower expected future growth or heightened geopolitical tensions – could tip the bloc into prolonged stagnation,” said Mahmood Pradhan, the IMF’s mission chief for the eurozone.

Greece rocked by reports of secret plan to raid banks for drachma return

Opposition demands answers after covert proposals attributed to Yanis Varoufakis and fellow ex-minister highlight deep split in Syriza party

Some members of Greece’s leftist-led government wanted to raid central bank reserves and hack taxpayer accounts to prepare a return to the drachma, according to reports that highlighted the chaos in the ruling Syriza party.

It is not clear how seriously the government considered the plans, attributed to former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. Lafazanis was sacked from his post and Varoufakis resigned earlier this month. However, the revelations have been seized on by opposition parties who are demanding an explanation.

 The Donald and the Delusional

But the Republican base isn’t eager to hear from SHCs; it has never put McCain on a pedestal; and people who like Donald Trump are not exactly likely to be scared off by his lack of decorum.

For what it’s worth, I still don’t expect The Donald to win the nomination; the big money will presumably coalesce around someone — though given Jeb’s foot-in-mouth performance it’s hard to see who — and will probably squeeze him out in the end. But the story so far has been a remarkable illustration of how little many professional political pundits seem to understand.

BRIEF-Philips CEO says China is really slowing down, as is Brazil

Raoul Pal: GroupThink Is Almost Ubiquitous (& The 1 Chart That Matters) )

My overarching belief is that this is the most “pure macro” environment we have been in for over a decade, probably since the Asian Crisis in the late 1990s, and I just don’t think people understand what is going on.

My entire thesis rests neatly on the US Dollar. Nothing else matters and if my view is wrong on that, then it is likely wrong on many things. What is really weird to me is that most people agree with my views on the dollar but don’t have the trade on, and were less versed on the macro knock-on effects of a strong dollar. Groupthink has tended to isolate particular parts of the US or global economy and ignore the bigger picture.

Memorize This, Earn A Dollar 

Importantly, actual breakdowns in market internals have been followed by market losses, on average, even since 2009 (as we saw in the near-20% plunge of 2011). In mid-2014, we imposed the requirement that market internals or credit spreads must actually deteriorate as a precondition to establishing a hard-defensive market outlook. That adaptation brings our present methods back in line with the central considerations that were responsible for our success prior to 2009.

Learn Success: APPLY Tips From The Best

Jeff Bezos, Amazon– Jeff Bezos is a pioneer in world of internet commerce, and was instrumental in defining this space that is now defining many aspects of the internet world. It is Jeff Bezos who innovated the concept of “predictive analytics”–recommending products to customers based on search history and buying habits. Whether you like the concept or you hate it, the idea has made online commerce more profit rich and efficient, and is making online shopping a better experience for consumers throughout the world.

Top Weekly Ideas and Insights

An Inconvenient Truth:

What Happens When Science Confronts Unsubstantiated Fiction?

 EXISTENTIAL REALITY 

"Humanity Coming of Secular Age"

 - The Last Days of Theism -