Late stage casino

 Prediction markets could soon be available in your retirement account

Sunday morning comedy from CNBC

 

There are only 4 U.S. cities where the average American can afford a starter home

 

Detroit, Tulsa, Memphis, and Oklahoma City

 

Pack the bags, honey! We're moving! 

If the Fed can break the economy, it's not a capitalist economy

 It's a casino, and the table is rigged.

• A day after Powell’s assurances about the economy, markets are worried that ‘Fed breaks something’ 
  

LOL Kevin Williamson: He had a such good sermon going and then suddenly took the inevitable left turn with it and crashed it into a ditch filled with gobbledygook

We who have been exiles must be the new mothers and new fathers to exiles. We who have been poor and hungry, who have been powerless, who have been dependent on the kindness of others, must be splendid in our own generosity. And we who have benefited from the example of the meekest of all the men who were upon the face of the Earth — we must not forget our true heritage — must not consent to be called the sons of Pharaoh’s daughter. This pilgrim republic, fearfully and wonderfully made, was made for better things and higher things. Wealth, power, reputation — these are, at best, means to some higher end, to be used judiciously and with gratitude but never with awe. These are our instruments — they must not be our gods.

Come out from among them, and be ye separate, Americans. Come home. 

More.

It never occurs to Williamson that America as the New Israel pretty much did what the Old Israel did, invading the land flowing with milk and honey where they slew all the Canaanites.

Well, almost all of them. The failure of nerve which plagues America still, most obviously in Williamson, was present already at the beginning. Now the roles are reversed and it is the Injuns who ply US with alcohol and take all our money at the casinos.

Some analogies just shouldn't be pressed too hard unless you want to join the left in wringing your hands over what our forefathers did. Doing so only leads in one other direction: The Biblical imagery coheres better with the alt-right vision of America.

Cancel, or keep getting canceled until the country is no longer yours and your posterity's.

The Casino is minting millionaires as we speak

When stock is high, they come between, 

Making by second hand their offers;

Then cunningly retire unseen,

With each a million in his coffers.

-- Jonathan Swift

Obviously Pocahonky has never observed how Injuns routinely fleece whitey at their casinos

Stock Markets Are Casinos Of Sentiment Easily Swayed By Important Global Events Like The Crimean Invasion

Markets tank less than 1% on Russia's Crimean invasion . . .

. . . then they recover all that and then some the day after.

Uninsured Deposits Make America A Much Bigger Casino Than Cyprus

According to the FDIC, here, at the end of 2012 there were $7.406 trillion in insured deposits, but that report covers commercial banks only.

According to the FDIC, here, at the end of 2012 there were $9.447 trillion in domestic deposits in the entire system of 7,083 institutions.

Does that mean there are $2.041 trillion in uninsured deposits? It's not that simple, and the number is actually much bigger than that.

Separately in its statistics on depository institutions the FDIC states that at the end of 2012 there were $8.6 trillion held in "domestic offices" of 6,096 commercial banks, of which 62.6% were insured, and $.8 trillion held in "domestic offices" of 987 savings institutions, of which 86.3% were insured. That's a total of 7,083 institutions with $6.1 trillion insured, and $3.3 trillion uninsured. Just over a year ago Felix Salmon put the figure then at about $3.1 trillion, properly not counting those deposits held outside of domestic offices in running the numbers, so the current $3.3 trillion today looks about right for one year later.

With $10.8 trillion in total deposits, however, both inside and outside of "domestic offices", does it not shock you that just $6.1 trillion is insured? That's insurance for just 56% of total deposits, and no insurance for 44%. It's a little misleading of the FDIC to say 64.27 is the percentage insured. Yeah, the percentage of "deposits held in domestic offices", not the percentage of "total deposits". The relevant line is indented in the illustration attached for a reason. It's a subset of what immediately comes before, not of "total deposits".

(Incidentally, at the end of 2003 there were 9,181 total institutions in the FDIC system. Today there are just 7,083, a decline of 23% in almost 10 years, most of it due to consolidation and just 22% due to bank failures since 2003.)

We're told that in the EMU bank heist in Cyprus, 38 billion euros of 68 billion euros in total deposits is held in accounts over 100,000 euros. But that's not saying 38 billion euros is uninsured. Anything over 100,000 euros is not insured, and that's what's getting plundered. But how much is that?

We're told the idea is to raise about 5 billion euros by expropriating depositors' funds, and that now all of it is going to come from the big depositors, not from the people with up to 100,000 euros. Reports say that the hit to these high rollers is going to be in the neighborhood of 30%. Simple math tells you therefore that 5 billion euros raised at a 30% rate must mean uninsured deposits in Cyprus run in the neighborhood of 17 billion euros, or just 25% of total deposits.

In the US it's 44% of total deposits, so whose banking system is the bigger casino, huh Mr. Moscovici?

With banks closed for the last week, the Central Bank of Cyprus imposed a 100-euro daily limit on withdrawals from cash machines at the two biggest banks to avert a run.

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici rejected charges that the EU had brought Cypriots to their knees, saying it was the island's offshore business model that had failed.

"To all those who say that we are strangling an entire people ... Cyprus is a casino economy that was on the brink of bankruptcy," he said.

John Hussman Describes The Recent Victory Of Global Fascism, Without Using The Term

Just yesterday, in his column, here:

[O]ver the past 15 years, the global financial system . . . has been transformed into a self-serving, grotesque casino that misallocates scarce savings, begs for and encourages speculative bubbles, refuses to restructure bad debt, and demands that the most reckless stewards of capital should be rewarded through bailouts that transfer bad debt from private balance sheets to the public balance sheet.

What is central here is that the government policy environment has encouraged this result. This environment includes financial sector deregulation that was coupled with a government backstop, repeated monetary distortions, refusal to restructure bad debt, and a preference for policy cowardice that included bailouts and opaque accounting. Deregulation and lower taxes will not fix this problem, nor will larger "stimulus packages."  

The Permabulls' Latest Ploy

You know your leg is being pulled when steep market declines are just flash crashes to be blamed on high frequency trading, but buying on the dips couldn't possibly be pre-programmed to cause flash rallies.

Have fun at the casino!