Published on Jan 16, 2013

Bill explains how last week’s fiscal cliff deal gave tens of billions in tax breaks to Wall Street and corporations — what even the Wall Street Journal calls a “crony capitalist blowout.”

via Bill Moyers Essay: The ‘Crony Capitalist Blowout’ – YouTube.

The film currently taking America by storm begins with a black Union cavalryman pausing from the slaughter of the Civil War to recite the Gettysburg Address by heart as the president who gave it trudges past through the mud.And it ends with Abraham Lincoln in quiet triumph, his work done in seeing slavery banned throughout the nation, and the Confederacy of the American South brought to its knees.

Continued:

via Was Lincoln racist? Spielberg film lionises him but historians are now asking a shocking question | Mail Online.

While we will shortly present some practical perspectives on what the debt ceiling fiasco due in just about a month, means practically for the economy (think sequester, and another 1% cut to US GDP, which when added to the payroll tax cut expiration’s negative 1.5%-2% impact on 2013 GDP, and one wonders just how the US will avoid recession in 2013#, here is a must read perspective from Citigroup on how the markets may and likely will react to what is shaping up to be another “12:30th hour” #the New Normal version of the eleventh hour) debt ceiling resolution, which is now under a month away.

From Citi’s Steven Englander:

Debt ceiling — first complacency, then horror

Asset market markets are likely to ignore the debt ceiling till the last minute, or even later, and then react on panic if it gets breached. For FX this means that the risk on trade for EM and G10 risk-correlated currencies may have a month or six weeks to go before there is any indication that FX investors are even aware of what is going on in Washington.

The reason is that the past three fiscal driven sell-offs have had increasingly little market impact. The July 2011 debt ceiling crises + downgrade led to more than 15% drop in US equities (Figure 1, note that EUR was well north of 1.40 till late in August,

Continued:

via Citi On The Debt Ceiling: “First Complacency, Then Horror” | Zero Hedge.

Here are slides of my updated/revised presentation on sideways markets. Over the last three months I’ve given talks on sideways markets three times, to CFA Societies in South Florida, New Zealand, and Atlanta. It is very hard to be excited about the US stock market. I read that Rich Bernstein, former chief investment strategist at Merrill Lynch, is very optimistic about US stocks; he believes we are at a point similar to where the market was in 1982 – at the beginning of the 1982-2000 secular bull. After you’ve gone through my slides, you’ll understand why it is so hard for me to share Rich’s excitement.

Stocks were so expensive in 1999 that 12 years of economic growth did not cure the excesses of overvaluation. In fact, 12 years into this sideways market, valuations are still 30% above the historical average, while in 1982 they were about 30% percent below average! Also, historically, stocks spent a good amount of time at below-average valuations before sideways market turned into a secular bull market.

I hear that everyone is bearish, then I recall a line from a movie – would you rather believe me or your own eyes? Well, my own eyes tell me that the market is up this year, so not everyone is bearish. Higher taxes and lower government spending (which is good in the long run) are desti

via We Are Still Going Sideways | Zero Hedge.

When we first heard about it, we thought Handelsblatt had gotten something very wrong. The implications were just so staggering. Turns out the news was spot on. Here is the official announcement from the Bundesbank, which roundly refutes all the spin the Frankfurt bank spoon-fed the people in October and November when it repeated time after time that there is nothing wrong with keeping German gold in NY and Paris, and on the contrary, it was better for everyone involved.

From the Bundesbank:

via Bundesbank Official Statement On Gold Repatriation | Zero Hedge.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261962/Was-Lincoln-racist-Spielberg-film-lionises-historians-asking-shocking-question.html

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/01/15/attack-on-sovereignty-paul-craig-roberts/

By EconMatters

President Utilizing Media to Pressure Republicans on Debt Ceiling

Let me first state that I am not a Republican or a Democrat, or a Tea Party advocate; I just look at individual issues based upon their merit. The issues and the right solution is what is important to me, and not collective party ideology. But president Obama trying the same tactics of negotiation in the media to frame the debt ceiling debate as the Republicans being irresponsible, and not paying the Country`s bills is just media manipulation at its finest.

This tactic is very transparent and apparent to the educated members of society, unfortunately the tactic worked with regards to the fiscal cliff, and he is hoping to do the same thing again by putting all the pressure on the Republicans with these media shows, and essentially making the Republicans look like the bad guys here.

This kind of tactic I find repugnant because yes I am an American president Obama and I don`t agree with this tactic or the Democratic stance on this issue. The Republicans wouldn`t have to resort to this kind of negotiation if Democrats could ever be forced to cut any type of spending in any other manner.

Continued:

via President Obama:The Greek Politicians Won Elections As Well! | Zero Hedge.

Last night, when breaking the Buba repatriation story, we summarized it simply as follows “in brief: this is a momentous development, one which may signify that the regime of mutual assured and very much telegraphed – because if the central banks don’t have faith in one another, why should anyone else? – trust in central banks by other central banks is ending.” We are happy that the implicit message is so clear that everyone now gets it, including Bill Gross:

via Bill Gross Gets It | Zero Hedge.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-cusack/what-is-an-assange-part-2_b_2402236.html