Mobile provider faces major FCC fine
The Federal Communications Commission has announced plans to fine a mobile provider $51 million for defrauding its Lifeline program.
Source: Mobile provider faces major FCC fine
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Brazil’s crisis … in 2 minutes
Brazil is in the midst of a political and economic crisis. If you’re just catching up, here’s how Brazil got to this point.
Source: Brazil’s crisis … in 2 minutes
How to get by in Beijing without a wallet
China’s fast-developing mobile commerce industry is estimated to dwarf that of the U.S., so CNN set out to see how far a phone would go in Beijing.
Source: How to get by in Beijing without a wallet
Sanders campaign lashes back at GE CEO
In Round III of the fight between Bernie Sanders and GE, the Sanders team gets personal about GE CEO Jeff Immelt.
Source: Sanders campaign lashes back at GE CEO
Lost Faith In Central Banks And The Economic End Game
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
We live in strange economic times, stranger perhaps than at any other point in history. Since 2007-2008, the globally intertwined and dependent fiscal system has suffered considerable declines in every conceivable area. Manufacturing around the world is in a slump, from Japan to China to Europe, with the minimal manufacturing accomplished in the U.S. also fading. Consumption is falling, most notably in petroleum and raw materials. Employment is truly dismal, with the U.S. posting over 94 million people as “non-participants” in the national work force.
High paying jobs are disappearing, and the only jobs replacing them are in the low wage service sector. This problem is becoming so pervasive that certain more socialist states including California and New York are attempting to offset the loss of sustainable income jobs by forcing retail and service companies into paying an inflated minimum wage. That is to say, states hope to stop the bloodletting in wages by magically turning low paying jobs into high paying jobs.
As anyone with any economic sense knows, you cannot have a faltering consumer sector in which people are buying less and force service based companies to pay their employees far more per hour than the job is worth. Those companies will simply lay off more employees, cut hours or shut down entire branches of their operations in order to maintain their profit margins. Either that, or those companies will go out of business.
One sector, though, has continued to reap certain benefits (for now), and that is equities. There is a good reason for this.
The stock market is a kind of Pavlovian control mechanism, a mental trigger in the minds of the masses that dominates their perceptions of the world’s financial health. The drooling public sees green lines and they hail impending “recovery;” they see red lines and suddenly they begin to wonder if all is not well. As the former head of the Federal Reserve Dallas branch, Richard Fisher admitted in an interview with CNBC, the U.S. central bank in particular has made its business the manipulation of the stock market to the upside since 2009:
“What the Fed did — and I was part of that group — is we front-loaded a tremendous market rally, starting in 2009.
It’s sort of what I call the “reverse Whimpy factor” — give me two hamburgers today for one tomorrow.
I’m not surprised that almost every index you can look at … was down significantly.” [Referring to the results in the stock market after the Fed raised rates in December.]
Fisher went on to hint at the impending danger:
I was warning my colleagues, “Don’t go wobbly if we have a 10-20% correction at some point…. Everybody you talk to … has been warning that these markets are heavily priced.”
Central banks have focused most of their efforts on levitating the Dow as well as energy markets for some time now.
Why? …read more
Source: Lost Faith In Central Banks And The Economic End Game
Uber settles California background check lawsuit
Uber agreed to change its safety language and cooperate with airports and state agencies.
Source: Uber settles California background check lawsuit
Nomura’s Bob "The Bear" Janjuah: "The Question Is What Would Be Necessary For The Fed To Do QE Or NIRP"
By Tyler Durden
The latest from Nomura’s Bob “the bear” Janjuah
Power of the Fed’s words waning?
I wanted to update my two earlier notes from this year, published on 7 January (link) and 4 March (link). The two specific drivers for this update are outlined below and are linked to each other and to the two notes referenced above:
1 – The rally off of the February lows in risk assets has been marginally stronger than I had earlier anticipated, but in particular has lasted a fortnight longer than I had expected. As per my March note my stop loss for the rally off of the February lows was set at (based on the cash S&P500 index) consecutive weekly closes above 2040. And I expected the next bear leg to begin in early or mid-March. So far my stop loss has NOT been triggered – we have come close, and if we close above 2040 this Friday then my stop loss will be activated, but 2040 has proven to be a great pivot point for the last three weeks. I also note with much interest that outside of the major large cap US indices things already look much more bearish, most notably in Japan and Europe, where in both cases risk markets have been rolling over into bearish price action since early March. Furthermore, core duration markets have traded very well, not just in Europe and Japan, but also in the US. Nonetheless, as my stop loss may soon get triggered I wanted to present this update.
2 – I set out in January that (globally) risk assets (stocks, credit, commodities and EM) would struggle through H1 2016 and that the only relief would come from the Fed admitting failure and flipping to dove mode again, thus weakening the USD and providing relief to crude, commodity, EM, credit and equity markets. In March I re-emphasised my view that the Fed ‘put’ (i.e., the point at which the Fed admits failure and flips from hawk to dove) would not be seen until mid-2016 and would require the cash S&P500 index to drop into the 1500s. Clearly, I had given the Fed too much credit – it flipped after a drop to 1810 and shifted in March, all much earlier than I had expected.
With all this in mind, how am I left?
1 – Clearly, my confidence on my negative views for global growth, on my belief in deflation over inflation and on the deeply negative outlook for earnings are now set even more in stone. The Fed has told me as much. In fact, I suspect that the Fed in private is far more concerned about these factors then it is currently willing to admit.
2 – The Fed’s change in March was all about weakening the USD, which in turn is designed to help the US economy fight off imported deflation, instead of which the Fed hopes to import inflation into its economy (all …read more
Nomura’s Bob "The Bear" Janjuah: "The Question Is What Would Be Necessary For The Fed To Do QE Or NIRP"
By Tyler Durden
The latest from Nomura’s Bob “the bear” Janjuah
Power of the Fed’s words waning?
I wanted to update my two earlier notes from this year, published on 7 January (link) and 4 March (link). The two specific drivers for this update are outlined below and are linked to each other and to the two notes referenced above:
1 – The rally off of the February lows in risk assets has been marginally stronger than I had earlier anticipated, but in particular has lasted a fortnight longer than I had expected. As per my March note my stop loss for the rally off of the February lows was set at (based on the cash S&P500 index) consecutive weekly closes above 2040. And I expected the next bear leg to begin in early or mid-March. So far my stop loss has NOT been triggered – we have come close, and if we close above 2040 this Friday then my stop loss will be activated, but 2040 has proven to be a great pivot point for the last three weeks. I also note with much interest that outside of the major large cap US indices things already look much more bearish, most notably in Japan and Europe, where in both cases risk markets have been rolling over into bearish price action since early March. Furthermore, core duration markets have traded very well, not just in Europe and Japan, but also in the US. Nonetheless, as my stop loss may soon get triggered I wanted to present this update.
2 – I set out in January that (globally) risk assets (stocks, credit, commodities and EM) would struggle through H1 2016 and that the only relief would come from the Fed admitting failure and flipping to dove mode again, thus weakening the USD and providing relief to crude, commodity, EM, credit and equity markets. In March I re-emphasised my view that the Fed ‘put’ (i.e., the point at which the Fed admits failure and flips from hawk to dove) would not be seen until mid-2016 and would require the cash S&P500 index to drop into the 1500s. Clearly, I had given the Fed too much credit – it flipped after a drop to 1810 and shifted in March, all much earlier than I had expected.
With all this in mind, how am I left?
1 – Clearly, my confidence on my negative views for global growth, on my belief in deflation over inflation and on the deeply negative outlook for earnings are now set even more in stone. The Fed has told me as much. In fact, I suspect that the Fed in private is far more concerned about these factors then it is currently willing to admit.
2 – The Fed’s change in March was all about weakening the USD, which in turn is designed to help the US economy fight off imported deflation, instead of which the Fed hopes to import inflation into its economy (all …read more
What scares America’s 4 Fed chiefs
The U.S. is not in an economic bubble, but America’s current and former Federal Reserve chairs are still concerned.
Source: What scares America’s 4 Fed chiefs
