Financial Crisis - 2013 - ????

[vector7]

http://map.norsecorp.com/

[Malsua]

http://map.norsecorp.com/

That is both cool and scary at the same time.

[American Patriot]

The "rumors" going around is Russia might have had something to do with the shit that happened yesterday.

This is a test, only a test.

[Ryan Ruck]

It is quite odd that there would be "glitches" that cause aircraft to be grounded and halt market trading at the same time.

The WSJ and financial websites going down, I can kind of see getting hammered by people trying to figure out what is going on and going down because of it.

[American Patriot]

My thinking on this is (when I said this is a test, only a test) is to observe what we do when the shit hits the fan and see how we react.

This is, in all seriousness, a TEST of our systems and responses. There is NO DOUBT in my mind something is about to happen, and they are checking our defenses.

Look at what the Russians did on the 4th with the bombers.

They've been poking at our defensive systems for months now.

(At this VERY moment, I am listening to the news an a former military guy is suggesting this was a cyber test against us, by a nation state).

I think this is a prelude to WWIII

[Malsua]

If it was a test, it wasn't very successful. One airline, a smattering of websites and the NYSE.

While problematic, it was just a distraction that involved a bunch of people who won't have anything to do with defending the country during a war. I.E. they made a bunch of IT guys go to work, but military folks weren't affected.

[vector7]

Hmmm....


German-owned Patriot missiles stationed in Turkey were briefly taken over by hackers, according to media reports on Tuesday

The attack took place on anti-aircraft ‘Patriot’ missiles on the Syrian border. The American-made weapons had been stationed there by the Bundeswehr (German army) to protect Nato ally Turkey.

According to the civil service magazine, the missile system carried out “unexplained” orders. It was not immediately clear when these orders were carried out and what they were.

SEE ALSO: Hackers ruin Bundestag computer network

The magazine speculates about two weak spots in the missile system which could be exploited by hackers.

One such weakness is the Sensor-Shooter-Interoperability (SSI) which exchanges real time information between the missile launcher and its control system.

The second exposed point is a computer chip which controls the guidance of the weapon.

Attackers might have gained access in two different ways, one that takes over the operating of the missile system and one that steals data from it.

The patriot missile has been in service in the US army since 1984 and was first used in operation in the first Gulf war in 1991.

In 2012 Turkey asked that its Nato partners support it by stationing Patriot missile systems there, after the civil war in Syria drew closer to its southern border.

In June 2015 Germany announced that it would replace its Patriot missiles with MEADS, an air defence system designed in cooperation with the USA and Italy.

[American Patriot]

If it was a test, it wasn't very successful. One airline, a smattering of websites and the NYSE.

While problematic, it was just a distraction that involved a bunch of people who won't have anything to do with defending the country during a war. I.E. they made a bunch of IT guys go to work, but military folks weren't affected.

I think it all depends on how you look at things.

See a security test doesn't take EVERYTHING down. It tests the responses.

If I wanted to test the response of a military installation's ability to respond I'd do something at the fence line first, later at a building door, something to see how the security forces respond.

Red Team intrusions are done a certain to trigger a response and then the elicited response is evaluated for the effectiveness of that response.

If you want to test the response against infrastructure you're not going to drop the whole thing, just pieces here and there, determine the response, the media response, the public response and then evaluate the effectiveness of the response against your intrusion.

So - in reality this was a VERY SUCCESSFUL test.

IF they were able to quickly mitigate what happened, then there's even more information.

NEXT time it will be very much more stuff going down.

[Ryan Ruck]

I was going to mention it depends on how you gauge success.

It could be as mentioned above or, it could also be a test of a mechanism that is in place in multiple locations being tested at certain locations that would not tip the hand to them being in other, more important locations.

(Sorry if that doesn't make perfect sense, I'm on the road at the moment and wanted to post it before I forgot.)

[Ryan Ruck]

Report: 3 Million More Children In Poverty Under Obama, 22% Of All Kids

July 21, 2015

Ever since President Obama took office, the poverty rate among children has soared to 22 percent, with three million more children living in poor conditions, according to an authoritative new report released Tuesday.

The 2015 "KIDS COUNT" report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation said that the percentage of children living in poverty jumped from 18 percent in 2008, the year Obama was elected, to 22 percent in 2013. It added that the rate dropped from 2012 to 2013, in line with the improving economy.



Among minority children and in some states, especially the South, however, the situation is dire. The report said, for example:

-- The rate of child poverty for 2013 ranged from a low of 10 percent in New Hampshire, to a high of 34 percent in Mississippi.

-- The child poverty rate among African Americans (39 percent) was more than double the rate for non-Hispanic whites (14 percent) in 2013.

The report also explained that a lack of jobs or good income above the poverty rate of $23,624 was the reason more children have grown up in poor families.

-- In 2013, three in 10 children (22.8 million) lived in families where no parent had full-time, year-round employment. Since 2008, the number of such children climbed by nearly 2.7 million.

-- Roughly half of all American Indian children (50 percent) and African-American children (48 percent) had no parent with full-time, year-round employment in 2013, compared with 37 percent of Latino children, 24 percent of non-Hispanic white children and 23 percent of Asian and Pacific Islander children."

[Ryan Ruck]

Median Income Falls To A 20-Year Low

July 20, 2015



When Obama leaves office he is going to leave behind a legacy of failure. Not only with Iran possess nuclear weapons and our alliances be in tatters, but he has carried out a vicious, no-holds-barred war on the national economy and the American middle class. The left is pushing the concept of “income inequality” attempting to ignite class warfare. They are doing this not out any particular solidarity with the poor but to create a pinata to divert popular attention from the way the American family has been crushed under Obama.

The data is stunning.

Under Barack Obama, median household income has dropped (constant 2013 dollars) to where it was in 1995.



While some families are weathering this storm, families on the cusp of economic viability are being utterly thrashed. In particular black families have seen all the gains they made during the last decade and a half erased.

When this is coupled with the way actual wealth has been destroyed by the housing bubble (a bubble Obama is actively trying to recreate because if it was great once it has to be stupendous the second time), the high and intractable number of people who have either stopped looking for work or who are grossly underemployed, the loosening of Social Security disability standards to ease older workers out of the workforce, and the reluctance of companies to take on new employees, you have a perfect storm of economic stagnation that starts to make Jimmy Carter’s era of ‘malaise’ look like the Roaring Twenties.

[Ryan Ruck]

The New GDP Is BS

July 30, 2015

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Eric in Latham, New York. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Rush?

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: Mega dittos squared.

RUSH: I appreciate that. Thank you very much, sir.

CALLER: I don't know if you were watching this morning. I had CNBC on, and the government now has a new formula for calculating the GDP.

RUSH: Yes, we predicted this. What a prediction! We told you that they were going to revise the way they calculated GDP so as not to have to report how bad it is. This was some months ago.

CALLER: What has happened is, typically what happens is they report the number and then there's two or three revisions. Well, the final revision had been done on the first quarter, and it was negative. It was negative 0.2. Well, with the new formula, they've been able to revise that, because there's a new formula. Now it's positive.

RUSH: Yes, I have that story right here (paper shuffling) in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. I anticipated somebody calling about this today, and right here it is. I have it from Bloomberg, but CNBC has it too. Six of one, a half dozen to the other. The headline is (don't go away Eric), "The GDP Rises 2.3% Second Quarter; First Quarter Revised Upwards." He's right. It was negative 0.9%. But now there have been revisions, and what is the new number? It's like two point --

CALLER: It's 2.3.

RUSH: That is second quarter growth. They reported 2.3% second quarter growth. The first quarter has been revised up. This was last year. No, the 2.1% GDP for the first quarter of last year has been revised to a negative 0.9%. New adjustment. Now I'm confused what it is. But you're right. They've changed the whole formula. They announced they were going to, so the GDP is calculated a different way, so it never is portrayed to be as bad as it really is. That's part of managing the decline and establishing the "new normal," like the unemployment number. The same thing is happening there. They're revising that over and over again. There's no way it's 5.7% unemployment right now. It's just not possible.

CALLER: But it's also spun as if 2.3% is good.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: That's the current number. Now wait a minute. The weather's been good here in the second quarter.

RUSH: That's right. They gave the weather as the excuse for the 0.9% in the first quarter.

CALLER: Shouldn't it be 5%? Shouldn't it be 5%, because we've had pretty good weather.

RUSH: It should be 5%. If we had real recovery, economic growth going on here. You're exactly right. But this is part of defining the new normal. But here's the Wall Street Journal: "The Worst Expansion Since World War II Was Even Weaker -- The economic expansion -- already the worst on record since World War II -- is weaker than previously thought, according to newly revised data.

"From 2012 through 2014, the economy grew at an all-too-familiar rate of 2% annually, according to three years of revised figures the Commerce Department released Thursday. That's a 0.3 percentage point downgrade from prior estimates," and it will probably be downgraded, revised down again, in the coming years. But no, you're exactly right. The regime today is reporting GDP of 2.3% as though it is glorious news.

CALLER: I think we're going to look back on this era as the era of false numbers, because it's got to come out some day. I mean, numbers don't lie.

RUSH: Well, numbers lie all the time. Numbers can be made to lie. If you write the numbers, if you control the calculation, you can make the numbers whatever you want them to be, which is what is happening here. But I agree with you. You're kind of echoing a point that I made yesterday, and that is 100 years from now Americans are going to be looking back at this era with utter shock.

They're going to learn what was discovered going on at Planned Parenthood. They are going to read how the people in charge made excuses for what they were doing, killing babies in the womb and harvesting the organs supposedly for research. One hundred years from now people are not going to believe that that kind of thing, this kind of thing, that is routine, actually happened in this country.

If I'm wrong about that, if 100 years from now that kind of news does not shock people, then this isn't going to be the kind of country we want to contemplate anyway. But I think it's going to be. We always have cyclical valleys and hills and peaks and we're definitely in a down valley right now, culturally, generationally. We're going to recover from this. That's the history of the country. We always do. We always have.

And at some point down the road in the future, when the people writing history today are no longer around to write it and there's an opportunity for more objective look back, because the facts here will not be able to be erased. There's now an alternative media, alternative history writers. So the facts of what's being learned today, what's happening, will always survive. I'm telling you, people will look back and, like you say, look back at the economy. They're going to look back at -- with an objective look -- just how stagnant, unproductive, flat or worse, this economy was.

And they're then going to read that the American people were gloriously in support of the administration responsible for it. And they're going to scratch their heads and they're not going to understand it. And hopefully it will be a learning experience that never again would people responsible for what's happening in our country be elected and given positions of power. Sadly, that's the thing that hasn't been learned.

END TRANSCRIPT

[Ryan Ruck]

Fed's Trillions Haven't Helped Worker Paychecks

July 31, 2015

The central bank printed $4.5 trillion and all we got was a lousy 0.2 percent wage increase.

While that sounds like a T-shirt for policy geeks that one might buy at the shore, it actually pretty accurately describes the plight of the average American worker. After years of easing never seen before in global central banking history, the Federal Reserve's efforts have amounted to little when it comes to stimulating "good" inflation, particularly in terms of wage increases.

The employment cost index, an otherwise secondary data point that suddenly has taken on more importance, painted a bleak picture for workers in its latest update Friday.

On a quarterly basis, it showed wages and salaries increasing just 0.2 percent, believed to be the lowest three-month move ever for a data set that goes back to 1982. That translated to a 2 percent annualized gain in compensation costs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What's more, the scant growth went mostly to government workers, who saw a 0.6 percent increase, while the private sector was flat. On a 12-month basis, private worker compensation rose just 1.9 percent, which actually was a slight decrease from the 2.0 percent at the same time in 2014. Wages and salaries alone grew 2.1 percent, which actually was an increase from the 1.8 percent a year ago.

Taken together, the numbers seem less an indication of the rip-roaring economy Fed stimulus was supposed to generate and more an indicator of the same old, same old: Outsized benefits to stock market investors and debt-heavy corporations, with little feeding back into the real economy.

"We keep seeing these predictions that things are going to get better, but they just haven't," said Irene Tung, senior policy researcher at the National Employment Labor Project. "The Fed has been holding off on raising interest rates to try to move things along, but it's just clear that they should stay the course and not raise interest rates at all in the near future given what we're seeing."

Market participants have been making bets and staking positions on a Fed seemingly ready to tighten at some point this year. The current anecdotal consensus is that the first hike in more than nine years will happen in September, though the futures market at the CME has assigned a zero percent chance of that happening. The greater likelihood, according to traders, is December for the move that will take the Fed off its zero-bound range where it has been since December 2008.

As far as policy goes, next Friday's BLS nonfarm payrolls report could be a difference maker, particularly if it reflects the same lack of wage pressure.

"We still think September is the most likely time for the first hike of the fed funds rate, but you would have to be less confident today than you were yesterday with the new data," said Ed Keon, managing director of QMA, which manages $118.2 billion for clients. "The Labor report is always important, but it's going to be even more important than usual. If we have a weak report it probably means the Fed is on hold into December if not into 2016."

However the central bank proceeds, it will have to be careful that its actions are not disruptive to an economy that has seen fragile growth—with a mere 1.5 percent increase in GDP for the first half—and inflation still not cracking the 2 percent barrier.

Chair Janet Yellen and her fellow members of the Federal Open Market Committee seem fairly satisfied with the 5.3 percent headline unemployment rate, which rises to 10.5 percent when accounting for discouraged workers and those employed part time for economic reasons. But they've continued to express concern about the lack of wage growth, something that experts attribute to a variety of factors.

"Employers seem to have a lot of choice. ... The patterns of technology and globalization have been working in their favor," said Harry Holzer, professor of public policy at Georgetown University. "They find all sorts of new ways to save on labor costs. When they do that, they just don't need to pay higher wages and hire and retain these workers."

Those kinds of conditions create a difficult environment for tightening monetary policy.

"We're disappointed, but it's not surprising," Tung said. "It's a good reminder that we can't just rely on the market to address the wage issues that we have."

[Ryan Ruck]

Did You Ever Notice the Asterisk on Your Social Security Statement?

July 30, 2015

While engaging in the mundane task of gathering financial statements for a “secure retirement” meeting with my husband’s and my adviser, this Baby Boomer stumbled upon documented proof that our nation does not have the guts to confront one of its most serious economic problems. The realization came when I pulled from my files a document statement innocently titled, “Your Social Security Statement.”

At first glance, the statement did not appear menacing. I was told I could expect to receive a benefit of “about $2,136 a month” upon reaching age 70 — which certainly seems like good news. But immediately I thought of a parallel of President Obama’s infamous Obamacare promise: “If you like your Social Security, you can keep your Social Security.”

Then, as if on cue, I saw an asterisk with the following message:

The law governing benefit amounts may change because, by 2033, the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 77 percent of scheduled benefits.

My full form:



I could not believe I was seeing the equivalent of what I was just thinking, but with a new twist, “If I like my Social Security, I can keep 77 percent of it.”

With an asterisk, my beloved government was informing me that they will be unable to fulfill their part of a financial arrangement into which, as their statement attested, I had been making mandatory contributions starting in 1971 at age 16.

This impending “benefit rationing,” reducing my future financial “security” by $492 a month, may, in fact, not be the worst of it.

Sitting in the back of my Social Security file was an earlier statement dated March 10, 2009. Again, followed by an asterisk was a sentence that read exactly like my 2015 statement except for two major differences (emphasis added):

The law governing benefit amounts may change because, by 2041, the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 78 percent of your scheduled benefits.

Clearly, in 2009, the government’s prediction — that Social Security would have to be cut to 78 percent of benefits come 2041 — was overly optimistic.

Now, in 2015, they are projecting 2033, eight years earlier, with one percentage point less of my projected benefits. The projections have steadily worsened over the past few years, helped by a much weaker economy than the federal government expected. Does anyone really expect these numbers to get better?

The skepticism I felt when I saw my initial monthly benefit was entirely justified. There are just too many Baby Boomers and too many financial promises with elected leaders too afraid to inflict the necessary pain of real reform.

But the pain will be much, much greater when monthly Social Security benefits are rationed. Now is the time for Baby Boomers to force their elected leaders to confront this issue and take action. The planned benefit reduction should be a major talking point for every 2016 presidential candidate, but somehow it is not.

Why? Politicians fear confronting the truth, and they fear Americans can’t handle it.

Meanwhile, here is the truth, as stated by the Social Security Administration in its annual Trustees Report from 2014:

Social Security is not sustainable over the long term at current benefit and tax rates. In 2010, the program paid more in benefits and expenses than it collected in taxes and other noninterest income, and the 2014 Trustees Report projects this pattern to continue for the next 75 years.

The old cliché “demographics is destiny” has never been more applicable. In January 2011, the first 1946-born Baby Boomers began turning age 65, at the rate of 10,000 a day. This gray-haired evolution continues for 19 straight years — until the end of 2029 — when the youngest crop of Baby Boomers, born in 1964, finally turn 65.

That adds up to just over 69 million former hipsters who changed America at every stage of their lives (though, of course, some of them have died). Now, many equipped with artificial hips and knees, they’re expecting generous automated deposits from the government at the first of each month. (With many millions of them over time eventually receiving far greater amounts than what they initially contributed.)

Keep in mind that those millions of surviving Baby Boomers do not include all the immigrants, also aging, who came to America in the past decades. The official total is 74.9 million Boomers native and foreign-born.

Here is more truth (and pain) from the Social Security Administration:

The population of retirees is projected to double in about 50 years. People are also living longer, and the birth rate is low.

Baby Boomers can expect to live longer than any previous generation, which compounds the problem, and on the other side of the equation, we have the low national birth rate. Combined, the Social Security actuaries put it this way:

Trustees project that the ratio of 2.8 workers paying Social Security taxes to each person collecting benefits in 2013 will fall to 2.1 to 1 in 2032.

Like it or not, the worker shortage is a key reason why our government is importing immigrants (both legal and illegal). Don’t buy it? See this 50th anniversary video commemorating President Johnson’s signing Medicare into law, produced by a group promoting immigration reform — clearly implying more immigration is what’s keeping Social Security and Medicare afloat:



The Social Security trustees go on to warn that “if no changes are made to the program,” they project that “assets will be sufficient to allow for full payment of scheduled benefits through 2032” — hence the most recent warning on my Social Security statement.

Don’t you just love understated government language explaining what will soon become a Baby Boomer revolt?

My favorite phrase: “If no changes are made to the program.”

Let’s face it. Congress is never going to make changes to the program. It won’t happen, or certainly won’t happen any time soon, because (surprise) Baby Boomers themselves are against changing the benefit formulas.

So, barring some positive developments, in 18 years — or less — Washington, D.C., will be filled with aging protesters, many using walkers, wheelchairs, or scooters. They will carry signs reading, “Give me my full benefits” and “It’s my money.” Old men wearing Vietnam veteran caps will be demanding, “100 percent and no less.” By that time, it will be too late.

What comes to mind is a classic 1965 song by The Who, “My Generation.” If you are of a certain age you know the famous lyrics, “I hope I die before I get old.” Now, since the Baby Boomer generation is already redefining what it means to be “old,” it’s time to rewrite the lyrics: “I hope I die before the government goes broke.”

As things are going right now, you won’t, but it will.

[Ryan Ruck]

How A Deeper Dive By Apple Could Crush This Market

August 4, 2015

Crumbles by commodities and the Colossus of Cupertino have been getting much of the blame for the stock market slumping in seven of the past 10 sessions.

“If AAPL doesn’t find its footing soon, it may risk a deeper drop,” writes Andrew Nyquist, over at See It Market.

And as goes the largest company by market value, so goes the whole U.S. stock market. Or at least a further slide by Apple would act as a mighty powerful brake on the S&P 500 SPX, -0.22% SPY, -0.20% , where it’s about 4% of the benchmark, and on the growthier Nasdaq 100 NDX, -0.28% QQQ, -0.19% where it’s a 14% chunk.

So, what’s the matter with Apple AAPL, -3.21% ? For the first time since September 2013, the tech giant’s stock has knifed under the closely watched 200-day moving average. Many chart lovers use that as a guide to a stock’s long-term trend.

Also, Apple has entered into what’s often called “correction territory,” by dropping more than 10% from its peak. Go here for more on the iPhone maker’s technicals, from one of MarketWatch’s resident chart nerds, Tomi Kilgore.

Nyquist suggests Apple, which closed at $118.44 on Monday, could tumble into the $109-to-$115 range — an area the tech giant jumped out of in January, after quarterly results crushed forecasts.

“A move lower would likely target the open gap from the late January earnings ‘beat.’ But a pivot higher in the $115-$118 zone (give it a little wiggle room) would neutralize the selling pressure and give bulls a chance to regroup,” Nyquist says. Here’s his chart:



What about the crumble by commodities? More on that in today’s chart of the day and call of the day.

The Stat

Charlie Bilello, research director at Pension Partners, notes that joining the Dow DJIA, -0.27% has been a bit of a kiss of death for Apple, as the iPhone maker has lost 7.2% since then.

That’s exactly as some market watchers predicted, and hardly an ascension, as some of our Dow Jones colleagues have viewed it. (Don’t get us started on the dinosaur Dow’s usefulness as a stock-market gauge, or you’ll just get vitriol and bile.)

Bilello offered that 7.2% stat and more in this tweet:

Since Apple replaced AT&T in the Dow back in March...
Dow: -3.0%
$AAPL: -7.2%
$T: +5.9% pic.twitter.com/HNLw3wwV5p

— Charlie Bilello, CMT (@MktOutperform) August 3, 2015

[Ryan Ruck]

Futures are currently very no bueno.

http://www.finviz.com/futures.ashx

Looks like DOW down 407 right this moment.

[Malsua]

I should have gotten into cash when the bottom of China fell out. I didn't....so now I need to wait for the bounce or I've locked in my losses.

Oh well, it'll probably hit 5k and that will be that. heh.

[Ryan Ruck]

Down 667 right now.

[Ryan Ruck]

Down over 1000 and flirting with 1100.

[Ryan Ruck]

Damn, last time I remember such a big drop was around 2010 when it dropped 900+. Was listening to Rush as it was happening.