pay attention or pay the offer» Politics

Scary Chart

ChrisC — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:08:46 +0000

Here’s a scary chart. Year-over-year rate of change in the total U.S. national debt. The debt is growing at a 15% annual clip right now, and the big bailouts of late 2008 are already outside of the comparison. Be afraid, be very afraid!

click chart to enlarge

In My eMail Box

chris — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:13:33 +0000

“Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism”

Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867

The quote may not be authentic.

It’s All About Volume

chris — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:50:25 +0000

There’s nothing wrong with both eMini charts below. Stocks seemingly have no technical reason to go lower now, at least based on those indicators. And yet, we have times like this morning when relentless selling dominates. I watch some intra-day oscillators built on advancing and declining volume and no matter how good the rest of the universe of indicators looks, the market can’t go higher without advancing volume having the upper hand over declining volume. Which makes today interesting, because it’s important that it not have a typical down day where my oscillators close on their lows of the day. And so, it was heartening to see these oscillators turn around and head higher today around 2 PM EST. It’s not that these volume oscillators can’t still close on their lows of the day, but the edge today is now on the bull’s side.

click chart to enlarge

Obama Takes Aim on the Futures Markets

chris — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:52:07 +0000

Obama Calls for Oil Crackdown

.…2) Ensure That U.S. Energy Futures Cannot be Traded on Unregulated Offshore Exchanges: CFTC oversight of oil market speculation is also limited by rules that allow energy traders to engage in unregulated transactions through foreign subsidiaries of U.S. exchanges. Currently, about 30 percent of U.S. oil futures trades fly below the regulatory radar because they are transacted on a U.S. exchange that works through a subsidiary in London. Similar arrangements are being pursued by U.S. exchanges in partnership with Dubai as well. Barack Obama would limit the price impacts of excessive speculation by preventing traders of U.S. crude oil from routing their transactions through off-shore markets in order to evade speculation limits and also impose reporting requirements…

Let’s be clear what Obama is proposing. He’s wants foreign futures markets to submit to U.S. regulation, and if they don’t; U.S. citizens, funds, and financial entities will be barred from trading on those foreign markets. This heavy-handed, Soviet-style, restraint of trade will accomplish only one thing, to drive capital out of the United States. Obama’s distaste for free markets and capitalism is plainly evident, but not as evident as the catastrophe that would accompany the implementation of this misguided nightmare.

If politicians are looking for a scapegoat on which to blame soaring oil prices, perhaps they need only look at the Federal Reserve, who’s massive injections of capital into the system coincided perfectly with the recent rocket launch in oil prices. (See chart.) As I see it, the Fed has pumped money into the system to re-liquefy credit markets and stem the housing collapse. Unfortunately, money injected into the system cannot be directed to a specific need, like botox to a matron’s wrinkle. Rather, the spare cash naturally goes into those markets that are rising (oil) rather than falling (houses.) The Fed’s attempts to fix the housing collapse are in part, responsible for the oil bubble.

click chart to enlarge