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Shocking News: 36% Of Americans Have Less Than $1,000 Saved Up

According to Employee Benefit Research Institute 36% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings that can be used for retirement (excluding primary residence and benefit plans). See full story below. This is quite sad, yet it is indicative of the US Government who is hell bent on destroying the middle class and the American worker for the benefit of the Top 1%. By cutting interest rates into the negative territory and by flooding the market with money the FED shifted attention from productive economic growth to “paper shuffling” (aka..financial speculation). 

The result? Just as it should be. High unemployment, stagnating wages, speculative bubbles, no savings, massive debt, etc…. The worst part is, with the bear market of 2014-2017 just around the corner (according to our highly advanced mathematical and timing work) things are about to get a lot worse for an average American family. Unfortunately, 99.9% of American citizens can’t connect the dots. Hey, is American Idol on tonight? 

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Shocking News: 36% Of Americans Have Less Than $1,000 Saved Up Google

 

Retirement: A third have less than $1,000 put away

Most people have very little tucked away for retirement, and many aren’t even trying to figure out how much they’ll need later in life, a new national survey reveals.

About 36% of workers have less than $1,000 in savings and investments that could be used for retirement, not counting their primary residence or defined benefits plans such as traditional pensions, and 60% of workers have less than $25,000, according to a telephone survey of 1,000 workers and 501 retirees from the non-profit Employee Benefit Research Institute and Greenwald and Associates.

Only 44% say they or their spouses have tried to calculate how much money they’ll need to save by the time they retire so that they can live comfortably in their golden years, the survey shows. Workers who have done calculations on what they need to save tend to have higher levels of savings than those who haven’t crunched the numbers.

“There’s an incredible difference between those lucky enough to have a retirement plan and those who don’t,” says Jack VanDerhei, the institute’s research director and co-author of the 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey. “What’s really striking is that 73% of those without a retirement plan, such as an IRA, 401(k) or 403(b), have less than $1,000 in savings and investments.”

The reason defined benefits weren’t included in the total is most people don’t know how much those are worth, he says.

Many people realize that they are not on track in saving for retirement, and the two most important reasons they give for not saving more are cost of living and day-to-day expenses, VanDerhei says.

People’s confidence that they’ll have a comfortable retirement has risen slightly after record lows of the last five years, with 18% of workers in 2014 saying they are very confident they can retire comfortably, up from 13% who were very confident in 2013. Meanwhile, 24% are not at all confident they have enough saved for a comfortable retirement, about the same as 2013.

Retirement confidence is present mostly in people with higher incomes and in those with retirement plans, VanDerhei says.

The survey “highlights the impending retirement crisis that we will face over the next 20 years,” says Mark Fried, president of TFG Wealth Management in Newtown, Pa. “When I see these numbers I have ask the question: How did we get here? We need more financial education in the schools, in the media, in the workplace.”

If possible, people 40 and older should try to save up to 20% of their income, he says. “If you can’t afford to do that right now then set this as a target, and as you get annual raises put aside part of each raise until you reach the 20% number,” Fried says.

Invest in your company’s retirement account up to the match. One of the best ways to increase your retirement savings is to take advantage of your employer match if you have one, he says.

John Piershale, a certified financial planner at Piershale Financial Group of Crystal Lake, Ill., says: “Try to imagine how much you are going to need to have saved up to last you 20 to 30 years during retirement. The only way you can figure that out is do some retirement calculations. We help clients figure this out.”

If people are way behind in saving for retirement, they may need to work longer at their current job or get a second job to help fill the savings gap. Piershale says. “If you had the idea that you were going to retire at 62 or 65, and you don’t have enough saved up, then you have to keep working.”

Other survey findings:

• Debt is weighing heavily on many people, with 58% of workers and 44% of retirees saying they have a problem with their level of debt.

• Like workers, many retirees are also short on funds, with 58% of them having less than $25,000 in savings and investments, not counting their primary residence or defined benefits plans (traditional pensions); and 29% having less than $1,000.

• Although 65% of workers plan to work for pay in retirement, only 27% of retirees say they are working for pay during their golden years.

Total savings and investments reported by workers, not including value of primary residence or defined benefit plans such as a traditional pension.

Less than $1,000, 36%

$1,000 to $9,999, 16%

$10,000 to $24,999, 8%

$25,000 to $49,999, 9%

$50,000 to $99,999, 9%

$100,000 to $249,999, 11%

$250,000 or more, 11%

Total savings and investments reported by retirees, not including value of primary residence or defined benefit plans such as traditional pensions:

Less than $1,000, 29%

$1,000 to $9,999, 17%

$10,000 to $24,999, 12%

$25,000 to $49,999, 8%

$50,000 to $99,999, 7%

$100,000 to $249,999, 11%

$250,000 or more, 17%

Source: 

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What You Ought To Know About High Frequency Trading

This is a complex issues…….

Computer-driven trades can be executed in about 300 microseconds, according to one study. At that speed more than 1,000 trades can be made in the blink of a human eye, which lasts 400 milliseconds. At their peak, algorithms shot out about 323,000 stock-trading messages each second in the U.S. last year, compared with fewer than 50,000 for the busiest period in 2007, according to data compiled by the Financial Information Forum.

Not…..This should be illegal. Plain is simple. 

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What You Ought To Know About High Frequency Trading Google

High-Speed Trading Said to Face N.Y. Probe Into Fairness

New York’s top law enforcer has opened a broad investigation into whether U.S. stock exchanges and alternative venues provide high-frequency traders with improper advantages, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is examining the sale of products and services that offer faster access to data and richer information on trades than what’s typically available to the public, according to the person. Wall Street banks and rapid-fire trading firms pay thousands of dollars a month for these services from firms including Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. and IntercontinentalExchange Group Inc.’s New York Stock Exchange.

More from Bloomberg.com: WWE Free-for-All Awaits If Founder Sets Sale: Real M&A

The attorney general’s staff has discussed his concerns with executives of Nasdaq and NYSE and requested more information, said the person, who asked not to be named because the inquiry hasn’t been announced. Schneiderman’s office is also looking into private trading venues, known as dark pools, and the strategies deployed by the high-speed traders themselves.

“This new breed of predatory behavior gives a small segment of the industry an enormous advantage over all other competitors and allows them to use new technologies to reap huge profits based on unfair advantages,” according to a draft of Schneiderman’s speech to be delivered today at New York Law School. A copy was obtained by Bloomberg News.

More from Bloomberg.com: Obama Says Putin Must Pull Back on Crimea Annexation

Disrupting Strategy

The investigation threatens to disrupt a model that market regulators have openly permitted for years as high-speed trading and concerns about its influence have grown. Trading firms pay to place their systems in the same data centers as the exchanges, a practice known as co-location that lets them directly plug in their companies’ servers and shave millionths of a second off transactions. They also purchase proprietary data feeds, which are faster and more detailed than the stock-trading information available on the public ticker.

“We publicly file with the SEC for each and every one of these services, and we’re always engaged with government officials around the world,” Robert Madden, a spokesman for New York-based Nasdaq, said in a phone interview, referring to the U.S. regulator. He and Eric Ryan, a spokesman for NYSE, declined to comment on Schneiderman’s investigation.

More from Bloomberg.com: Ocean Off Perth Called Diverted Malaysian Plane’s Most Likely Last Position

Dark pools, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Sigma X and Credit Suisse Group AG’s Crossfinder, operate without the same regulatory oversight as the public exchanges and disclose little about their trading or the participants. Michael DuVally, a spokesman for New York-based Goldman Sachs, declined to comment, as did Drew Benson, a spokesman for Zurich-based Credit Suisse.

Mounting Concern

Special services have helped fuel high-frequency trading, in which computer programs execute orders in a fraction of a second and take advantage of fleeting discrepancies in security prices across trading venues. High-frequency activity represented more than half of all U.S. stock trading in 2012, according to Rosenblatt Securities Inc.

Critics including some regulators and market participants say that such trading, which captured the spotlight in the May 2010 flash crash in U.S. equities, serves little purpose, may distort the market and may leave retail investors at a disadvantage.

Computer-driven trades can be executed in about 300 microseconds, according to one study. At that speed more than 1,000 trades can be made in the blink of a human eye, which lasts 400 milliseconds. At their peak, algorithms shot out about 323,000 stock-trading messages each second in the U.S. last year, compared with fewer than 50,000 for the busiest period in 2007, according to data compiled by the Financial Information Forum.

Some Advantages

Andrew Brooks, head of U.S. equity trading at Baltimore, Maryland-based T. Rowe Price Group Inc., told a Senate hearing in late 2012 that the quest for speed has threatened the market.

Proponents say that high-speed trading actually increases the availability of shares in the market and that interfering with such programs would lead to higher costs and be harmful to financial stability. Indeed, the rise of computers in stock trading has helped squeeze out specialists and market makers, who had long facilitated transactions.

The current market structure, which has led to more participants, has lowered the cost of trading for investors, said Peter Nabicht, a spokesman for Modern Markets Initiative, an industry group formed last year by firms including Quantlab Financial LLC, Hudson River Trading and Global Trading Systems.

“Speed of decision-making and execution, often associated with high-frequency trading, gives traders more confidence in their interaction with the market, which allows them to efficiently make more competitive prices” and better meet investor demands, Nabicht said.

‘Tremendous Victory’

Schneiderman has previously voiced disapproval of services that cater to high-speed traders and give them a potential edge. When Business Wire, the distributor of press releases owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said last month it would stop sending the statements directly to high-frequency firms, Schneiderman called it “a tremendous victory.”

Taking his concerns public may help Schneiderman push the exchanges to alter practices, as Business Wire did, even without enforcement action. Among the powerful tools at his disposal is the Martin Act, an almost century-old law that gives him broad powers to target financial fraud in the state.

Exchanges Vulnerable

Targeting the exchanges could be the most straightforward way to deal with any ill effects of speedy trading, said James D. Cox, a securities law professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

“The exchanges are much more vulnerable to state and federal regulatory enforcement than the market participants,” Cox said. “They have a broad statute to maintain orderly markets and to do so in an ethical manner.”

The 1934 securities law that set up regulatory oversight of the U.S. financial markets specifies that exchanges enact rules to protect investors and the public’s interest, to promote equitable practices and to prevent fraud and manipulation.

Regulators have signaled concerns in recent years on how U.S equity markets operate. After the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly lost almost 1,000 points in the flash crash, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Schapiro, said she planned to increase scrutiny of high-frequency traders.

In an effort to avoid another flash crash, the SEC worked with exchanges to create price curbs designed to prevent losses in a single stock from snowballing into a marketwide rout. The current chairman, Mary Jo White, said in January the SEC would soon publish a review of research on high-frequency trading.

Regulator’s Dilemma

Cox, the Duke professor, said New York’s attorney general is the only law enforcement body or regulator likely to target the exchanges.

“The SEC wants to protect investors, but also strengthen and promote U.S. capital markets,” Cox said. “These twin functions conflict with each other, which is why they have so far turned a blind eye on this issue.”

Some in the trading business, like Joe Saluzzi, a partner and co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading LLC in Chatham, New Jersey, have called for restraining services. Saluzzi said he’s wary of the private feeds because they’re far more detailed than public data, showing when and how a stock order was changed or canceled, which can give an insight into a particular strategy.

“Inside these data feeds is information which allows folks to read it and re-engineer the behavior of others,” Saluzzi said. “A lot of high-frequency strategies are built on modeling the behaviors of someone else.”

Price Discrepancy

The private feeds also reach traders more quickly than the public-quote system because they are sent directly from each exchange to paying customers. Public feeds build in an additional step: Price data from dozens of venues where U.S. stocks change hands are sent to a central place for processing before that information is publicized. Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, provides its clients with access to some proprietary exchange feeds.

A study published in January co-authored by Terrence Hendershott, associate professor of finance at the University of California, Berkeley, found the average time difference was 1.5 milliseconds between calculating a stock’s price using the exchange’s proprietary data and waiting for the public information. That’s more than enough time for a speedy trader to recognize an advantageous price and execute a trade against someone using the slower feed.

Policing Profits

The draft of Schneiderman’s speech refers to an academic paper that suggests segmenting the trading day into thousands of auctions in an effort to prevent the quickest firms from jumping ahead of others.

The paper’s co-author, Eric Budish, associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, told Bloomberg News in February that non-stop markets create a race between speed traders.

Operating different data feeds has led to past disciplinary action. NYSE Euronext agreed to pay the SEC $5 million in September 2012 to resolve claims it violated rules by giving some customers a head start on trading information. NYSE sent data through proprietary feeds to paying customers before relaying the same information to the public feed, regulators said. The exchange said the incident was “not from intentional wrongdoing.”

The exchanges have a variety of duties and responsibilities not just to the public, but to members and shareholders. NYSE and Nasdaq are required to police their members’ activities. In the past decade, they have moved from member-owned utilities to publicly traded companies with an eye on generating returns for shareholders.

European Crackdown

Nasdaq said in an investor presentation last week that it had close to $40 million in revenue from U.S. proprietary market data in the fourth quarter last year. The company does not reveal how much it receives from co-location of servers.

The use of high-frequency trading strategies has come under scrutiny outside the U.S.

European Parliament lawmakers reached a draft deal with national governments to curb high-frequency trading as part of tougher rules for the bloc’s financial markets, said the chief legislator working on the plans in October. The draft requires algorithms to be tested and authorized by regulators and calls for circuit breakers, among other measures.

“The negotiation team achieved a significant breakthrough on this issue,” Markus Ferber, the lawmaker leading the measures, said in an e-mail at the time. “The area of high-frequency trading is lacking suitable regulation

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Is GOLD About To Start A Vicious Rally?

I am not sure about “vicious” , but Gold does look very good at this juncture. While it is likely to come down over the next two weeks to close the gaps it left behind, the short-term technical picture looks very good for all involved. Gold, miners and ETFs. I will be the first to tell you that I am not smart enough to figure out what Gold will do from the fundamental perspective. There are two many variables at play. Is it money or commodity, supply/demand, macroeconomics, geopolitical issues, etc… 

With that said, recent gold technical action is encouraging. Particularly, when you take the bear market of 2014-2017 in equities and a severe recession in the US into consideration. The FED will start printing again over the next 12 months to avoid another collapse, which typically bodes well for GOLD as a hedge. Once the short term correction is over I would definitely recommend taking a long position in the likes of ABX, NEM, GG, GLD with very tight stop losses. 

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Why gold is setting up for a vicious rally

Gold is at its highest price in more than six months thanks to economic and political uncertainty in places like Argentina, Venezuela, Turkey, and, of course, Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Bank’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets Wednesday to discuss further tapering of its monetary stimulus program.

Though gold was down Monday for the first time in over a week, will the overall rally in gold continue?

“In fact, it is sustainable,” says Talking Numbers contributor Richard Ross, Global Technical Strategist at Auerbach Grayson. “We’ve been very bullish here on the US, but we’re seeing things are getting a little dicey out there from a global standpoint. Emerging markets are on the ropes right now. You’re seeing what’s going on in Russia. Even in Europe, the momentum is slowing. All of that continues to favor gold.”

Ross notes that gold has broken above its 200-day moving average and is headed towards resistance not far above its Monday settlement price of $1,392.60 per ounce.

“I think the next stop if $1,420,” says Ross, who sees the yellow metal potentially making its way to $1,560 per ounce. “Clearly, you want to be a buyer down here and a seller higher later.”

CNBC contributor Andrew Busch, editor and publisher of The Busch Update, believes gold can indeed get close to Ross’ initial target of $1,420 but Busch doesn’t see it going much higher. It will depend on what happens at the FOMC meeting, he thinks.

“We’ll get some information on that Wednesday,” says Busch. “We’ll get Janet Yellen to talk. It’s really going to be what she says moving forward and what kind of forward guidance they give us for interest rates because the Fed is going to stay tapering and that will hurt gold overall.”

“I think we can get up to about $1,425 but I’d love to start shorting it there.”

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Warning: Wall Street Is Sharply Divided On 2015.

Wait a second…… What the hell happened to 2014, are we done already? Yes, sorry, I forgot. As per CNBC, Goldman Sachs and most money managers out there we should have a 20-40% rally this year. It’s a done deal. My bad. 

Listen, this is rather simple. Our mathematical and timing work shows that we will have a severe bear market and a recession between 2014-2017. When economic data starts to confirm a recession, the FED will open the flood gates, once again, to try and re-inflate the markets and the economy. Until that happens they will continue cutting QE as per their originally publicized schedule. Down and up we go. Again. 

If you would like to know exactly when the bear market of 2014-2017 will start and it’s internal structure, please CLICK HERE. 

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Warning: Wall Street Is Sharply Divided On 2015.  Google

Janet Yellen will chair her first meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee with broad agreement on Wall Street over the outlook for policy this year and a forecast for stronger U.S. growth this year and next. But the March CNBC Fed Survey finds sharp divisions over what happens to Federal Reserve policy in 2015 and a cloud of geopolitical concern hanging over the outlook.

All but one of the 41 respondents, who include economists, fund managers, and strategists, see the Fed tapering at the meeting this week, and 81 percent expect tapering at each of the remaining meetings this year.

That’s up from 72 percent in January. On average, respondents see the Fed tapering by around $10 billion at each meeting. A strong 59 percent agree with the $10 billion pace of tapering, with 27 percent saying the Fed should go faster and 10 percent saying slower.

The Fed currently is purchasing $65 billion in assets every month to try and drive down interest rates and stimulate the economy. It has signaled it would reduce or taper its purchases by $10 billion at each meeting this year, which would effectively ends it purchase program by December.

(Read more: US manufacturing output posts largest gain in six months)

Tom Williams | CQ Roll Call | Getty Images
Janet Yellen

“The strong February jobs report gives ammo for the Fed to continue tapering its stimulus program by $10 billion a month through 2014,” Robert Morgan of Fulcrum Securities wrote in response to the survey.

There are greater divisions emerging over what happens next year, however. About 60 percent see the Fed hiking interest rates in 2015 and 40 percent look for it to wait until 2016 or later. While 60 percent see the Fed maintaining its large balance sheet, now at $4.1 trillion and growing, 40 percent see the Fed reducing it, which can happen either through asset sales or by not replacing bonds that mature. Those who think the Fed reduces the size of its balance sheet in 2015, look for an average decline of $108 billion in 2015.

An overwhelming 95 percent of respondents think Yellen and the FOMC will scrap the guidance that says the Fed will consider raising interest rates once theunemployment rate drops to 6.5 percent, but they are unclear how the Fed fixes the problem. The rate has already declined to 6.7 percent and Yellen and other Fed officials have said that it does not tell the full story of excess slack in the labor market and the need for continued low rates.

“They will use Yellen’s first press conference to move away from the 6.5 percent unemployment threshold,” said Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial.

About half of respondents think the Fed will drop a numerical target all together. A fifth of respondents think the threshold will be replaced by another number, with the average being 5.6 percent.

“Fed policy is not going to be bound by single hard numeric unemployment targets, but by the Fed’s judgment of the strength of the labor markets,” wrote Rod Smyth of Riverfront Investment Group.

Tony Crescenzi of Pimco called removing the threshold, together with an end to the bond-buying program, “a recipe for a steep yield curve, because longer maturities tend to bear the burden of uncertainty.”

Play Video
 
Expectations for the Fed
CNBC’s Steve Liesman thinks Fed Chair Janet Yellen will continue reducing monthly bond purchases by $10 billion.

Respondents to the survey also see economics new risks on the horizon, with most of them being the foreign horizons of China and Ukraine. “The financial markets are too complacent over a tail risk that could turn into a new ‘cold economic and financial war,'” wrote Allen Sinai of Decision Economics.

(Read more: Fed meets amid market skittishness)

Guy LeBas of Janney Montgomery Scott wrote that growing evidence that China and other emerging markets are slowing or even contracting is “a major impediment to global and thereby U.S. economic growth right at the time that the domestic situation is supposedly looking better.”

Still, average growth is seen picking up from 2.3 percent in 2013 to 2.8 percent in 2014 and 3 percent in 2015. The weather is seen subtracting about six-tenths of a point off growth in the fourth quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, but it will recapture four-tenths of that loss in the second quarter of this year.

Wall Street is reasonably comfortable with its outlook for Fed policy. Just a quarter say the risk is that the Fed is more hawkish than they forecast, a third say the risk is for a more dovish Fed. Forty percent say the risks are balanced. That’s up from 35 percent in the January meeting, the last one chaired by Yellen’s predecessor Ben Bernanke.

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Seriously…..Who Is Killing The JP Morgan Bankers?

According to the New York Times, a 28-year old Manhattan associated with JP Morgan investment banker has died in an apparent suicide, police sources said. Kenneth Bellando, who worked at Levy Capital since January, was found dead on the sidewalk outside his East Side building on March 12 after allegedly jumping from the sixth-story roof, sources said. Bellando, was former investment bank analyst at JPMorgan. 

My condolences go out to the Bellando family. I know what it is like to face suicide due to financial/market losses, but what the hell is going on here. This is the 11th financial professional to commit suicide since the start of the year and the 5th directly associated with the JP Morgan Chase. I understand if the market were crashing, but they are close to all time highs. 

Previous Post: From February 21st, 2014

As they say, real life is sometimes stranger than fiction. If you haven’t been paying attention, a number of high profile bankers have committed “suicide” over the last 30 days. Mostly, by “jumping” from the rooftops of their office towers. Seven of them to be exact (please see the list below) With three of them being from the JP Morgan Chase.

So, is there something in the air that is forcing these otherwise young and wealthy bankers at the prime of their career to commit suicide? Did we have a 1929 style market crash or is that a new termination policy at the major banks? Am I missing something here? 

Any notion that all of the said bankers have committed suicide is laughable. Take Richard Talley for instance, who ended up shooting himself 8 times with a nail gun in both torso and head. How is that even possible?  Plus, with multiple connections between the dead bankers, particularly those working at JP Morgan Chase, something doesn’t add up.  

Recently Madoff acknowledge that top brass at JP Morgan knew about his Ponzi scheme for over 10 years. Letting it go on and collecting massive fees in the process. This was part of a $2 Billion settlement JPM reached a few months back. So, is JPM terminating its own employees or is this a hit ordered by someone? 

Here are my two cents. I don’t think JPM has anything to do with this, but I do believe the people in question have found themselves on the wrong side of a trade or they have screwed someone. Big time. Perhaps an organized crime group, maybe a government. Basically, they took someone’s money (whether legitimately or not) and that someone put a hit on them. Simple as that. Just another point of reference that Wall Street is turning into a war zone. 

The lesson for Wall Street bankers is as follows. Next time you screw most of the world out of billions of dollars (mortgage backed meltdown), there might be people, organizations or governments out there crazy enough to put a hit out on you.

One thing is for sure, dead bankers don’t talk. 

jpmorgan_man on ledge

List of dead bankers

-Li Jie – 33 year old investment banker at JP Morgan jumped to his death from the roof of the bank’s headquarters in Central Hong Kong yesterday. Witnesses said the man went to the roof of the 30-storey Chater House in the heart of Hong Kong’s central business district and, despite attempts to talk him down, jumped to his death.

 
 

– On January 26, former Deutsche Bank executive Broeksmit was found dead at his South Kensington home after police responded to reports of a man found hanging at a house. According to reports, Broeksmit had “close ties to co-chief executive Anshu Jain.”

 

– Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old senior manager at JP Morgan’s European headquarters, jumped 500ft from the top of the bank’s headquarters in central London on January 27, landing on an adjacent 9 story roof.

 

– Mike Dueker, the chief economist at Russell Investments, fell down a 50 foot embankment in what police are describing as a suicide. He was reported missing on January 29 by friends, who said he had been “having problems at work.”

 

– Richard Talley, 57, founder of American Title Services in Centennial, Colorado, was also found dead earlier this month after apparently shooting himself with a nail gun.

 

– 37-year-old JP Morgan executive director Ryan Henry Crane died last week.

 

– Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, also died last month, although the circumstances surrounding his death are still unknown.

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Seriously…..Who Is Killing The JP Morgan Bankers? Google

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What I Would Like To Hear From The FED Chair Yellen

Earlier today Daily Ticker published an article “What markets want to hear from Fed Chair Yellen this week” (see below). Because you know, whatever lies come out of her mouth will determine what the stock market will do and/or what path the economy will take. What a bunch of nonsense. Here is what I would like to hear come out of her mouth.

Dear American People,

Since 1987, myself,  Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Bernanke worked tirelessly to destroy the American economy. Instead of following prudent monetary policy we flooded our markets with massive amounts of cheap credit every chance we got in 1994, 1998, 2001-06, 2008-today. We worked overtime to blow bubble after bubble to give a perception that the US Economy is doing great. We thought that by simply adding more credit into the system we could swipe all of the bad debt and zombie businesses under the carpet in order to continue rapid economic growth. Yet, it didn’t work. Instead of fixing the system, we have distorted to an extent unimaginable just 10 years ago.  

Particularly, our efforts backfired when instead of inflation and dollar devaluation we ended up in a credit default deflationary environment. An environment where we have destroyed the middle class for the benefit of the “Top 1%”. Now, there is no way out. We will have to go through a lot of economic pain to work such imbalances out of our economic system. I am truly sorry about this.  

That’s what I would like to hear. We can all dream….right? 

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What I Would Like To Hear From The FED Chair Yellen  Google

What markets want to hear from Fed Chair Yellen this week

Federal Reserve watchers are expecting the Federal Open Market Committee to announce an additional taper of $10 billion to its monthly bond-buying program Wednesday. The Fed started to reduce its bond purchases in January as it gauged the economy to be strong enough to withstand the move.

Janet Yellen will also answer reporters’ questions Wednesday in her first press conference as Fed Chair since taking over from Ben Bernanke in February. She does not want to “rock the boat” says BNP economist Julia Coronado, and will likely signal that the Fed has no intention of altering course as it gradually reins in the stimulus program known as “quantitative easing.” The Fed’s balance sheet has ballooned to above $4.1 trillion as a result of its monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, up from $869 billion in August 2007.

Like other economists, Coronado says the Fed may also reduce the threshold it has set for beginning to raise short-term interest rates. The Fed has linked that to a jobless rate of 6.5% or so. But the unemployment rate has already fallen to 6.7%, and with the Fed likely to keep rates close to 0 into 2015, an adjustment in the target rate seems necessary.

Related: Jobs better-than-expected but “the labor market is still weak”: NYT’s Greenhouse

“The Fed will abandon those numerical thresholds,” Coronado explains in the video above. “At least half of the decline in the unemployment rate is due to falling labor participation, a sign of weakness.” But the jobs report was not the “decisive factor” in the change, she adds.

“The Fed never reacts to just one data point and it’s willing to look through a lot of the weakness we’ve seen in hiring and other data reflective of the severe winter weather,” Coronado says.

Even as the Fed further reduces its stimulus program, Coronado argues that $55 billion in monthly bond purchases is “still a lot of money” to inject into the economy. That stimulus will keep the markets “resilient” and prolong higher interest rates for a lot longer.

What will Yellen’s first press conference be like? Watch the video to find out!

 

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Did The US Navy Land Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 At It’s Diego Garcia Base In The Indian Ocean? (Part II)

Let’s continue with our top notch conspiracy theory reported on yesterday. WHY? Well, quite frankly because the report below makes more sense than traditional media BS we are being fed. I mean….come on. The plane vanishes into thin air in a highly trafficked and militarized area full of radars and no one has any idea what happened to it? Give me a break. Mind you, that is in a day and age when NSA knows if I am typing this blog post on my desktop or on my smart phone while sitting on a toilet. Plus, this type of thinking and questioning expands your mind and challenges traditional way of looking at things. Which should be done anyways. 

On a more serious note, as per last known location, the plane traveled directly towards Diego Garcia US Naval Base in the Indian Ocean. Yet, not a single news agency even mentioned that. The same Naval Base that has an air strip long enough to land a space shuttle and radar capability strong enough to cover most of the Indian Ocean. And they couldn’t see flight 370? Yeah, right. Was there something going to China that the US Government wanted to intercept? A disease? One thing is for sure, it’s a fascinating story. Read the report below and decide for yourself.   

z18.

 

Learn More About Diego Garcia Base Here

A grim report prepared by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU) on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is stating today that within 24-hours of this aircrafts “diversion” to the highly secretive Indian Ocean US military base located on the Diego Garcia atoll, no less than four flights, within the past week, containing top American and Chinese disease scientists and experts have, likewise, been flown to there.

According to this report, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (also marketed as China Southern Airlines flight 748 through a codeshare) was a scheduled passenger flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing, China, when on 8 March this Boeing 777-200ER aircraft “disappeared” in flight with 227 passengers on board from 15 countries, most of whom were Chinese, and 12 crew members.

As we had previously noted in our report “Russia “Puzzled” Over Malaysia Airlines “Capture” By US Navy,” the GRU had previously notified China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) of its suspicions regarding this flight due its containing a “highly suspicious” cargo that had been offloaded in the Republic of Seychelles from the US-flagged container ship MV Maersk Alabama.

First arousing the GRU’s concerns regarding this “highly suspicious” cargo, this report continues, was that after its unloading from the MV Maersk Alabama on 17 February, its then transfer to Seychelles International Airport where it was loaded on an Emirates flight bound for Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, after first stopping over in Dubai, the two highly trained US Navy SEALS who were guarding it were found dead.

The two US Navy SEALS protecting this “highly suspicious” cargo, Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44, were found dead under “suspicious circumstances” aboard the MV Maersk Alabama, this report says, further raising Russian intelligence suspicions as they were both employed by the Virginia Beach, Virginia-based maritime security firm The Trident Group which was founded by US Navy Special Operations Personnel (SEAL’s) and Senior US Naval Surface Warfare Officers and has long been known by the GRU to protect vital transfers of both atomic and biological materials throughout the world.

Upon Flight 370’s departure from Malaysia on 8 March, this report continues, the GRU was notified by the MSS that they were going to divert it from its scheduled destination of Beijing to Haikou Meilan International Airport (HAK) located in Hainan Province (aka Hainan Island).

Prior to this planes entering into People Liberation Army (PLA) protected zones of the South China Sea known as the Spratly Islands, however, this report continues, Flight 370 “significantly deviated” from its flight course and was tracked by VKO satellites and radar flying into the Indian Ocean region and completing its nearly 3,447 kilometer (2,142 miles) flight to Diego Garcia.

In a confirmation of the GRU’s assertion that Flight 370 was, indeed, flown to Diego Garcia, this report says, satellite transmission data analyzed by US investigators showed that this planes most likely last-known position was in a zone about 1,609 kilometers (1,000 miles) west of Perth, Australia in the Indian Ocean..

Most troubling to the GRU about Flight 370’s “diversion” to Diego Garcia, this report says, was that it was “nearly immediately” followed by some of the top disease scientists and experts from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDCP) embarking to Diego Garcia on at least four flights.

As to why both American and Chinese disease experts were taken to Diego Garcia where Flight 370 is now known to be, this report says, has as yet not been answered by either of these governments after repeated Foreign Ministry requests for “explanations and clarification.”

What is to be known, this report says, is that as Malaysia has been forced to admit Flight 370 was, indeed, “diverted” from its flight path as the GRU had previously reported, and as at least 25 nations are now involved in searching for it, it remains a mystery as to what is actually occurring.

Also known, this report concludes, is that Diego Garcia as a designated ETOPS emergency landing site for flight planning purposes of commercial airliners transversing the Indian Ocean, and as one of 33 emergency landing sites worldwide for the NASA Space Shuttle, it is “inconceivable” that any type of aircraft, let alone Flight 370, can fly anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere without being tracked, monitored and recorded in totality. 

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Inflation….What Inflation?

Core inflation dropped to a 10 Year low of 1.1% Y-O-Y or 0.1% in February. Bad news for Gold Bugs expecting Zimbabwe type of an inflationary environment. I have been a strong proponent, since about 2002, that we are in a deflationary environment as opposed to an inflationary one. Massive bad debt we have in our system must be liquidated, which is deflationary. The reason we see resemblance of inflation is due purely to FED’s efforts.

By pumping a tremendous amount of credit into our financial system the FED was able to create an illusion of inflation. However, most of this inflation went right into the stock market and the real estate market. Creating massive bubbles in both today and in 2007. Today’s low CPI is another confirmation of that. As the FED slows QE even further it won’t be long before net positive CPI number turns into a negative one. 

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Inflation….What Inflation?  Google

The Labor Department has released its latest report on retail inflation via the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Prices in February were up 0.1% on the headline CPI. Core inflation, excluding food and energy, rose by 0.1% as well. Bloomberg had estimates of 0.1% on the headline and 0.1% on the core inflation reading.

The end result is that prices were up only 1.1% from a year ago. What stands out here is that this is the weakest 12-month gain in about six months, but furthermore it remains well under the Federal Reserve’s inflation target of 2% — the same day that an FOMC meeting is starting. The core inflation was up by 1.6% from a year ago.

Food prices were up by 0.4%, but energy prices were down by -0.5%. The gain in food was the most in over two years, which may be partly driven by that West Coast drought. Lower gasoline prices around the country offset higher heating bills in the Midwest and Northeast.

Stock futures surged Tuesday morning on Putin’s comments that he does not want to enter other parts of Ukraine. Tuesday’s CPI report has not taken any noticeable gains away.

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Putin To The West: Shut Up Already. You Did The Same Thing In Kosovo

Whatever you think of Putin, you got to respect a man who is willing to stand up for what he believes in. Take notes Obama. Putin gave an important speech overnight and here are some of his major points. Pay close attention to the first two points to understand why he was willing to go to war over Ukraine.  

  • Putin accused the West of cheating Russia on many occasions, doing whatever it wants in pursuit of its own interests regardless of the legality of such actions. He said it was high time for Western powers to admit that Russia has its own international agenda and national interests too, and that they must be respected.
  • Russia would not tolerate the expansion of NATO to its borders and the military threat it poses, Putin said. Moscow is not against cooperation with NATO, but only if it is done with mutual respect.
  • Putin dismissed criticism of the Crimean referendum, which calls the move illegitimate. He cited Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence as an example of self-determination praised by the West.
  • He dismissed the notion that Kosovo was a unique case due to the bloodshed and ethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia, a position maintained by Washington.
  • The president brushed aside the allegations that Russia “invaded” Crimea ahead of the referendum. He said Moscow only reserved the right to use its troops to protect ethnic Russians from the radicals, but never did so.
  • The referendum on independence in Crimea was conducted in strict accordance with democratic principles and the international law, President Vladimir Putin told the Federal Assembly, as he was welcomed by a standing ovation.
  • Putin stressed that the results of the referendum, in which more than 82 percent of Crimean residents came to polling stations and more than 96 percent of those voted for rejoining Russia, leave no room for equivocation.
  • He said he sympathized with Ukrainians who took to the streets of Kiev in protest against President Yanukovich, whom they saw as profoundly corrupt.

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Putin To The West: Shut Up Already. You Did The Same Thing In Kosovo  Google

Putin: Crimea similar to Kosovo, West is rewriting its own rule book

The referendum on independence in Crimea was conducted in strict accordance with democratic principles and the international law, President Vladimir Putin told the Federal Assembly, as he was welcomed by a standing ovation.

Putin stressed that the results of the referendum, in which more than 82 percent of Crimean residents came to polling stations and more than 96 percent of those voted for rejoining Russia, leave no room for equivocation.

He said the history of Crimea, its cultural, religious and spiritual ties bind it with the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, which explains the attitude Russians have towards the peninsula.

The president said Crimea had dark pages in its past, particularly the persecution of Crimean Tatars and other minorities in the USSR. The authorities of Crimea seek to recompense for those ills. One such move would be accepting the language of Crimean Tatars as an official language in Crimea on par with Russian and Ukrainian.

Putin lashed out at former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, under whose rule Crimea was attached to the Soviet Ukraine without any regard for Crimeans’ wishes and in violation of the laws of the time.

Crimean separation from Russia was reinforced again after the split of the Soviet Union, Putin said. This could be partially blamed on Moscow too, as it hailed the so-called “parade of sovereignty” of the Soviet Republics.

 

Russia has since respected the results of the USSR’s dissolution, including Crimea’s being part of Ukraine.

Russia’s position was based on the assumption that Ukraine would remain a friendly partner respecting the historic ties between the two countries. Russia continues and will continue to see these relations as most important.

Putin criticized several governments in Kiev for neglecting average Ukrainians, seeing the country as a source of profit.

He said he sympathized with Ukrainians who took to the streets of Kiev in protest against President Yanukovich, whom they saw as profoundly corrupt.

But the new authorities who replaced Yanukovich after an armed coup are to a large degree controlled by the radical nationalists, Putin stated.

Those same radicals voiced threats against Ukrainians who resist their rule, particularly those living in Crimea.

Turning a blind eye to those threats and the moves of the new authorities, which violated the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, would be betrayal on part of Russia, Putin said.

The president brushed aside the allegations that Russia “invaded” Crimea ahead of the referendum. He said Moscow only reserved the right to use its troops to protect ethnic Russians from the radicals, but never did so.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly, including State Duma deputies, members of the Federation Council, regional governors and civil society representatives, at the Kremlin in Moscow March 18, 2014. (Reuters / Maxim Shemetov)

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly, including State Duma deputies, members of the Federation Council, regional governors and civil society representatives, at the Kremlin in Moscow March 18, 2014. (Reuters / Maxim Shemetov)

 

Whatever troops Russia has in Ukraine are present lawfully, since Russia can deploy up to 25,000 troops as part of the contract to maintain its naval base in Crimea, Putin said.

Putin dismissed criticism of the Crimean referendum, which calls the move illegitimate. He cited Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence as an example of self-determination praised by the West.

That ballot was ruled legitimate from the standpoint of international law by the International Court of Justice, and the same rule applies to Crimea, he said.

He dismissed the notion that Kosovo was a unique case due to the bloodshed and ethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia, a position maintained by Washington.

The ICJ says nothing about number of victims in justifying Kosovo’s secession from Serbia, Putin said.

Russia dismisses the “need” for victims for Crimea to declare independence, Putin said. He added that there could be victims there, if it were not for the Crimean self-defense forces, which prevented any possible provocations.

The Russian president also praised the Ukrainian military in Crimea, who showed restrained during the crisis and did not allow any bloodshed in the defiant peninsula.

Putin accused the West of cheating Russia on many occasions, doing whatever it wants in pursuit of its own interests regardless of the legality of such actions. He said it was high time for Western powers to admit that Russia has its own international agenda and national interests too, and that they must be respected.

Russia would not tolerate the expansion of NATO to its borders and the military threat it poses, Putin said. Moscow is not against cooperation with NATO, but only if it is done with mutual respect.

Putin said that amid the Ukrainian turmoil and considering the historic context, he understood well why the Crimean people chose to join Russia. Any other status would not ensure the stability and safety of Crimea. Crimea wants to be under a stable sovereignty, and the fact is that this sovereignty may only be Russian, he stressed.

The Russian population is overwhelmingly in favor of accepting Crimea as part of Russia, Putin said.

Considering all those factors, Putin is submitting a draft federal law which would incorporate Crimea and the City of Sevastopol into Russian territory, as well as a request to ratify an international treaty with the government of Crimea to make this happen. He said he was sure of the legislature’s support for both documents.