Daily Archives: June 29, 2017

This would be the saddest thing Ive ever heard if it wasnt the funniest thing Ive ever heard ... Seth Meyers Photograph: YouTube

Late-night hosts on Wednesday took aim at Trumps fake Time magazine cover and the GOPs hugely unpopular healthcare legislation, the vote for which was delayed on Tuesday after failing to receive enough support from Republican senators.

Samantha Bee, of Full Frontal, began: Last week, Mitch McConnell and his gang of 12 finally unveiled their super-secret Obamacare repeal bill. Guess what the big secret was?

Bee went on to slam the bill, which includes huge cuts to Medicaid. Its called trickle-down, she said. Poor people will still get access to the antibiotics that rich people shed in their urine. It turns out, 13 rich white guys alone in a room isnt how good legislation happens. Its how Suicide Squad happens. But while Suicide Squad destroys your will to live, this bill destroys your ability to live.

Most people like Medicaid, including Republican people. Who the hell asked you to gut it by sending it to the states and capping its growth rate? she asked. Medicaid is the reason we dont have gangs of elderly people roaming the streets, robbing us of our soft food and sharing their thoughts about Asian people. Allowing states to cap Medicaid benefits also threatens the expensive long-term care that was so very important to Republicans back when it was keeping Terry Schiavo alive.

Bee then tore into Paul Ryan, who said hed been dreaming about the legislation since drinking out of a keg in college. While most college guys in the 90s were fantasizing about Pamela Anderson, Bee joked, Paul Ryan was jerking it to thoughts of poor people losing healthcare to pay for tax cuts. Easy there, cowboy! You might not be covered for carpal tunnel and blindness.

Amazingly, Mitch McConnells annotated copy of Atlas Shrugged wasnt greeted with unfettered senatorial rapture, Bee said. But dont put your sharpies and poster board away yet.

Stephen Colbert took aim at the legislation as well, a new version of which could be voted on after the Fourth of July recess.

The Senate Trumpcare bill suffered some setbacks this week because theres one major flaw to the legislation, he began. I dont want to get too wonky, but its a hot pile of garbage.

Yesterday, Senate majority leader and man trying to keep a bird from escaping his mouth Mitch McConnell announced that voting on the bill would be delayed until after the Fourth of July. Its a smart move. You dont want to strip people of healthcare until after the holiday that mixes booze and explosives.

Colbert continued: While theyve pulled the bill, Republicans say theyre going to come back with something better. And theres a lot of blame to go around. Today, the New York Times said Donald Trump faltered in his role as a closer. Usually, hes a great closer. Just look at his casinos. But you cant. Theyre gone.

The host then discussed the Times report, which detailed some of the internal efforts to get the bill passed. One Republican senator said the president did not have a grasp of some of the basic elements of the Senate plan, Colbert said, before beginning his impersonation of the president. Whoa, slow down. Slow down. Start from the beginning. Whats a Senate? And, follow-up question, whats a plan?

Trump claims he does understand the plan, Colbert continued, tweeting: Some of the fake news media likes to say that I am not totally engaged in healthcare. Wrong, I know the subject well and want victory for US.

He totally understands healthcare, Colbert quipped. He thinks you can win it.

Seth Meyers of NBC addressed healthcare legislation and the Washington Post report saying the president hangs a fake Time Magazine cover in many of his resorts and hotels.

This week the CBO projected that the GOP healthcare bill could leave 22 million more people uninsured, he began. So what has Trump been up to? Well, yesterday, he got up bright and early to retweet four different stories in a row from Fox & Friends attacking the Russia investigation and the Democrats.

Meyers continued: One of the stories Trump retweeted was a link to a monologue from Fox host Sean Hannity, whose surgery to have those bolts removed from his neck was apparently successful.

Trump is so obsessed with praise from the media that according to the Washington Post, he keeps this framed Time magazine cover hanging in several of his golf clubs, Meyers said. Cool cover, flattering photo. Just one problem. The Time cover is a fake. Thats right, Trump hung a fake Time Magazine cover with his face on it in his private golf club. That is the literal definition of fake news. This would be the saddest thing Ive ever heard if it wasnt the funniest thing Ive ever heard.

Continued here:

'The literal definition of fake news': late-night hosts on Trump's Time cover - The Guardian

Sam Bee on Wednesday railed into the GOP healthcare plan in a five-minute blitz that hit Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and even Ayn Rand.

Bee torched conservatives for cutting healthcare coverage for poor, working and sick Americans, pleading, dont kill Medicaid, its only 52 years old! It just joined curves and is learning to dance like nobodys watching!

She then turned to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), playing a video of the GOP leader bragging hes been dreaming of sending Medicaid back to the states [and] capping its growth rate, adding hes been dreaming of this since you and I were drinking at a keg.

Yes, while most college guys in the 90s were fantasizing about Pamela Anderson, Paul Ryan was jerking it to thoughts of poor people losing healthcare to pay for tax cuts, Bee said.

She then turned to Ryans comrade in the Senate, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for his thinly-annotated copy of Atlas Shrugged.

Watch the video below, via TBS:

Excerpt from:

WATCH: Sam Bee brutalizes Paul Ryan for 'jerking it to poor people ... - Raw Story

The markets central bank fetish is getting out of hand. The money manipulators were out in force yesterday. Their words moved markets all around the world.

Nothing else seems to matter these days, so lets delve into whats going on.

Bank of England (BoE) governor Mark Carney told markets last week that it wasnt time to raise rates yet. This week he said hed have to remove some stimulus.

The pound surged a per cent on the change in potential policy. But then the BoE PR team was out in force telling the markets they had it wrong. Carney wasnt going to raise rates imminently.

Meanwhile the BoEs chief economist put a date on the interest rate increases the second half of the year. Thats supposedly a bit of a scandal, as it puts his boss, the governor, into a corner. If Carney does vote to raise rates in the second half of the year, his economist appears to be running the show.

Yes, office politics and PR teams now run UK monetary policy. The former BoE Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member Kristin Forbes said so in her explanation for quitting the committee. In a speech to the London Business School she explained that the central bankers were too worried about the press to conduct proper monetary policy.

Central bankers around the world have accepted a far larger mandate than controlling inflation. Theyre now responsible for monetary policy, bank stability, unemployment, financial market stability, bank regulation, the stockmarket level and money itself. You can probably throw in exchange rates too. Not to mention the political issues that go with each of these.

The massive expansion in the role of central banking was supposed to make things more efficient and centralised. But it creates huge conflicts of interest and paradoxes. For example, what if meeting one goal comes at the expense of another? What if combating inflation means financial instability? When the central bank is faced with tough choices that cause problems within one of its spheres of influence, it can now be framed for incompetence.

Its not just in the UK that all this is happening. There must be an enormous jobs boom going on at central bank PR teams. Each time their governors, chairpersons and presidents open their mouths, the markets move and then the PR team comes out to clarify.

Its getting downright bizarre. For example, the comments from European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi which sent markets spinning were these:

As the economy continues to recover, a constant policy stance will become more accommodative, and the central bank can accompany the recovery by adjusting the parameters of its policy instruments not in order to tighten the policy stance, but to keep it broadly unchanged.

That gave investors a fright. The euro had its biggest move all year. The ECBs vice president promptly showed up on CNN to say the market had misunderstood the comments. They implied no change in policy.

Draghi is arguing that a change in monetary policy is not necessarily a change in monetary policy. Doing something can actually mean doing nothing.

Dont you see?

If we put on our central banking hat, it might make sense. If inflation rises, then increasing interest rates at the same speed keeps the real interest rate stable. The real rate is the interest rate minus inflation.

Despite the fact that Draghi said, even if he does do something, it will still be nothing, the market reacted. In the understatement of the century, the ECBs chief economist said markets are particularly sensitive to any perceived change in the future course of monetary policy.

Draghi may have a point though. When the Federal Reserve increased rates, the stockmarket reacted in the way youd expect from a rate cut. When Goldman Sachs chief economist tried to make sense of this, he concluded that the increase in rates was actually pushing the market higher because it wasnt big enough to count as a real increase.

Not only are the PR reps obfuscating in force, so are the economists.

The central bank fetish dominates markets. While it continues, its hard to see how a drop in markets could occur. Central bankers have the powers, the mandate and the infinite budget to offset any problem I can come up with. That implies a steady boom in asset prices, which you can take advantage of.

But it also puts us in some sort of weird doldrums. Its the stability of the world described in Atlas Shrugged, whatever you think of the book and its philosophy.

Central bankers have destroyed financial markets as a mechanism for accountability, risk pricing, capital efficiency and anything else. Financial markets have become a government welfare system run by central bankers. Investments are just a pool of pension funds which must be kept afloat by pumping stock prices.

The question is whether this imposed stability really is stable. The economist Hyman Minsky said that stability begets instability.

Lets go back to the resigning BoE MPC member who highlighted the BoEs PR paranoia. The central bank has too many roles. Some of which can conceivably conflict. Perhaps this is where our answer lies.

At the moment, the various indicators that central bankers have to control are pulling in opposite directions. Inflation falls when the financial sector is in trouble, so the BoE can rescue and print money without worrying about inflation. Inflation rises as the financial systems health improves, so the BoE can tighten policy without fear of sabotaging the banks.

But these relationships need not persist. Perhaps the BoE will some day be forced to choose between its mandates. It will have to sacrifice inflation, the stockmarket or the banks. And then our stability ends.

Like some sort of circus, the authorities are keeping the markets distracted from the bigger questions. The latest act was bank stress tests in the US and an analysis of financial stability by the BoE.

Every now and then regulators around the world pretend to run a health check on their banks. Why? To look busy. And reassure everyone.

These test and reports are usually meaningless. But theyve opened the door to something else less innocent.

Back when a Mr Cowperthwaite was in charge of the Hong Kong economy, he refused to collect statistics. This stopped the central planners and economic meddlers in their tracks because they didnt have the data to justify their schemes. You cant regulate what you dont know anything about. Hong Kong boomed under the unique way of imposing free markets.

The regulators and central banks constant analysis of banks is an example of the opposite phenomenon. They have some much information, they cant help but meddle.

In the UK, the BoE decided to call upon banks to raise more than 11 billion as a capital buffer. The idea is to put money away for a rainy day. The rain being consumer credit defaults in this case.

This is an interesting turn of events. Central bankers are trying to run banks actively now. And the bankers arent happy about it. The increase in capital means they can lend less, or return less to shareholders. It also smells like backdoor monetary policy. By restricting bank lending, the BoE is reducing the economys money supply indirectly. We await the PR teams response on this.

Over in the US, the results of the second segment of the bank stress tests are out. All but one bank passed the first test with flying colours. Their stocks reacted accordingly.

The second test focused on the banks desire to pay profits out to shareholders. Such intentions must now be approved by the authorities as not endangering a banks financial stability because a payout to shareholders reduces capital. Again, this is regulators running bank business decisions. More symptoms of an Atlas Shrugged world.

The margin for error in the stress tests was large, with banks running far more safely than regulators decided was the bare minimum. The banks promptly decided to return funds to shareholders in the immediate wake of the stress test release. The $100 billion payout of the six biggest banks is close to 100% of their profits. In other words, they only had to behave until the report card came out.

At the heart of whats going on here lies an old question. Are banks businesses or utilities? They run a public function the money supply by providing the debt which creates money. The central bank is just the first step in the process. Banks control most of it. Having private institutions running a public function creates the problems we have now.

The debate is that we should choose between two options. Either banks should become proper utilities and controlled as such, or money shouldnt be a public function.

Until next time,

Nick Hubble Capital & Conflict

Category: Central Banks

Read the rest here:

The central bank fetish - Capital & Conflict