Vanguard Precious Metals And Mining Down Over 70% In Last 6 Years

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Ouch, and down 75% from the 2008 high.

John Hussman Is Right: High Valuations Since The Late 1990s Have Coincided With Smaller S&P500 Returns

Here's Hussman:

Yes, several reliable valuation measures have hovered at much higher levels since the late-1990’s than were generally seen historically. But that in itself is not evidence that these historically reliable valuation measures are “broken.” It matters that those high valuations have been associated with a period of more than 13 years now where the S&P 500 has scarcely achieved a 3% annual total return.

Here's Ironman's chart of S&P500 returns for the 15 years ended October 2013 showing a real, that is inflation-adjusted, total annual return with dividends fully reinvested of . . . 2.88%:

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Here's Morningstar's chart showing how much better you'd have done in intermediate term bonds like Vanguard's VBIIX, 5.88% nominal per year over the last 15 years (roughly 3.4% real), and that's including this year's bond slaughter:

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Here's the Shiller p/e as of this morning, clearly and excessively above the mean level of 16.50 for most of the time from the 1990s:

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Hussman says investors should expect poor returns from stocks going forward:

[S]tocks are currently at levels that we estimate will provide roughly zero nominal total returns over the next 7-10 years, with historically adequate long-term returns thereafter.

Greedy Democrats Have Used Medicaid Since 1993 To Take Your Assets, Now It Ramps Up Under ObamaCare

Signing up for Medicaid may be signing away everything you own.

From the story here:

The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1993 [under Bill and Hillary Clinton and a Democrat Congress] requires states to pursue Medicaid asset recovery from persons who receive benefits at age 55 or older. At first, this applied mainly to nursing home benefits, but at state option, it could now include any items or services provided under Medicaid. ... A potential for greatly expanded use of estate recovery was created in Obamacare, as pointed out in an anonymously authored, well-documented article distributed by economist Paul Craig Roberts. Obamacare increases the number of people eligible for Medicaid by dropping the asset test for enrollment (Page 162 of Obamacare). ... Medicaid, supposed to be a program to help the poor, has become a cash cow for multibillion-dollar, managed-care companies, who milk federal and state taxpayers. Expanding Medicaid to persons with modest assets will enable estate recovery to become a cash cow for states to milk the poor and the middle class.

Is The S&P500 Still 13% Below Its Previous Peak?

Adjusted for inflation, the current level of the S&P500 has still not bested the 1999-2000 level, meaning there are bubbles, and then there are bubbles.

That said, the last "bubble" in 2007 has been surpassed already.

American Killer Obama Shakes Hands With Cuban Killer Castro

The outrage is that Obama's still our president, not that he shook hands with a fellow murderer.

Story here.

Former MT Governor Democrat Brian Schweitzer Calls Obama A Corporatist

The story, here, is attracting quite a discussion in the comments section about how a lefty like Obama could possibly also be a fascist, since Schweitzer characterizes Obama's entire presidency as a move to the right.

The true believers are furious with Obama.

Global Public Debt Is Up 72% Since 2007, Just Six Years Ago

Get Over It: Santa's Been White Since 1881

Actually, he was white before 1881, but this image by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly in 1881 became dominant in America from that time.

Bank Failure Friday: The 24th Bank To Fail In 2013 Is In Texas

Texas Community Bank, National Association, The Woodlands, Texas, failed today, costing the FDIC $10.8 million.

6,891 banks remain in the insured system of FDIC banks and savings institutions.

Over Two Times As Many Getting Stuck With Medicaid Vs. Insurance Under ObamaCare

"Coverage" does not equal care.

The Detroit News reports here:

Nationwide, 1.9 million people completed online applications in October and November, but just 365,000 selected an insurance plan. Those planning to buy on the health insurance marketplace — healthcare.gov — must enroll by Dec. 23 to have a policy in effect by Jan. 1. ... An additional 803,077 Americans were found eligible for Medicaid or the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program. That number includes 7,363 residents of Michigan, one of 25 states and the District of Columbia that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Wow, Jobless Claims Surge +146,241 To A Level Worse Than This Week Last Year: Sudden ObamaCare Effect?

The report is here.

This number is stunning. We haven't seen a level like this in 2013 except for once in July (410k) and three times way back in January to start the year.

Are companies letting people go in advance of ObamaCare kicking-in full-force about a year from now, to comply with the one-year look-back period?

Major market indices declined for a third straight day on the news, the DOW by 2/3rds of a percent.

Military Retirees Under 62 Screwed Under House-Passed Ryan/Murray Budget Deal

As reported here:

The Washington Free Beacon reported that under the budget agreement crafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D., Wash.), military retirees younger than 62 will receive 1 percentage point less in their annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). ...

A loss of one percentage point in their COLA translates into thousands of dollars in lost retirement income. ...

If an E-7 retires at 40, they would lose $83,000. Commissioned officers could lose much more. Lieutenant colonels and commanders (an O-5 rank) who retire at 40 would lose $124,000.

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Senate Republicans who oppose the cuts to military retirements are saying so loudly but will most probably be defeated in the Senate next week when the budget deal comes up for a vote in the Democrat controlled chamber.

Roll Call Magazine's 218 Blog Embraces The Oligarchy

"218: Because it's the only number that really matters in the US House."

Yeah, and that's the problem.

Current population: 316.8 million.

Implied representation on the constitutional formula rejected by the anti-Federalists: 10,560 US Representatives in the US House.

Preferred level: 21,120 in the US House. Let 'em camp in tents on FedEx Field.

Rush Limbaugh's comments on the pope have been nothing if not lazy, so what's new?

Rush Limbaugh's comments on the pope have been nothing if not lazy, which most of his comments are in this late period of his career, and which is why one week after he made them on the pope we are still hearing about them in the media and on his own radio show. If Rush is being talked about, it's there on the show that you're sure to hear about it, because relevance was never so hard to keep up as it is in these days.

Here's Rush this very day in fact, claiming Reuters translated "unfettered capitalism" from the pope's remarks when Reuters hadn't done any such thing, one of the many little half-truths which are the stock in trade of The Rush Limbaugh Program; that phrase "unfettered capitalism" was never in quotation marks in the original Reuters story:

Now, what I had was a Reuters story that was reporting via the translation of the Holy Father's remarks, and in that translation were "unfettered capitalism," a huge, huge hit on what the pope was said to have called "trickle-down," and a plea for leaders of the world to do something about "income inequality" and about poverty and so forth, as though no one's been doing that.  I remember when I saw it, I was really shocked.  I could not believe...

Here's the original Reuters story speaking of unfettered capitalism but not in quotation marks:

Pope Francis called for renewal of the Roman Catholic Church and attacked unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny," urging global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality in the first major work he has authored alone as pontiff.

The fact is Reuters skewed this story in the direction of "unfettered capitalism" while the pope never used the words "unfettered" or "capitalism", choosing instead "the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation" as the "new tyranny".

Here's as close as the pope comes to "unfettered capitalism" (this is easy to find online, but Rush cannot seem to), who only spoke of "unbridled consumerism" and never once mentioned unfettered capitalism, which comes as a surprise to Rush when callers protest as one did just today:

60. Today’s economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric. Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve. It serves only to offer false hopes to those clamouring for heightened security, even though nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create new and more serious conflicts. Some simply content themselves with blaming the poor and the poorer countries themselves for their troubles; indulging in unwarranted generalizations, they claim that the solution is an “education” that would tranquilize them, making them tame and harmless. All this becomes even more exasperating for the marginalized in the light of the widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries – in their governments, businesses and institutions – whatever the political ideology of their leaders.

The pope's message, after all is said and done, is really quite simple, as all ideologies are, the difference being that his is a heavenly one, not a terrestrial. He's obviously uncomfortable with American Catholics of the conservative persuasion who have been allying themselves with what is commonly called libertarian ideology, the devotees of which Russell Kirk famously named the "chirping sectarians" of the conservative movement, Rep. Paul Ryan being a prominent contemporary example thereof. For Kirk, it was their ideological habit of mind which marked them out as outsiders of the movement because they could not abide the persistent lack of conformity to principle which is endemic to fallen, human nature in need of salvation, and substituted for it a bastardized, immanentized eschaton of infinite freedom:

208. If anyone feels offended by my words, I would respond that I speak them with affection and with the best of intentions, quite apart from any personal interest or political ideology. My words are not those of a foe or an opponent. I am interested only in helping those who are in thrall to an individualistic, indifferent and self-centred mentality to be freed from those unworthy chains and to attain a way of living and thinking which is more humane, noble and fruitful, and which will bring dignity to their presence on this earth.

In the final analysis, conservatism represents an acquiescence to the sad predicament of human existence against which libertarianism never stops revolting, and Christianity represents a temporal and by definition incomplete response of God to life in that world. But for libertarianism, incomplete just isn't good enough.

Have Households Started To Borrow? Probably for cars.

PragCap thinks so here, but it's only been up $169 billion year over year. The monthly rate of vehicle sales annualized is up 1.6 million units over the same period. Could be that. Subprime, loan to value in excess of 100% and longer terms are all up in the space, according to Reuters here just in recent days.

The Passive Long-Term Investor's Dilemma: Both Equities and Treasurys Are Unattractively Priced

From John Hussman, here:

So passive buy-and-hold investors – who lock in a price and don’t alter their investment positions for a long period of time – should recognize that Treasury bonds are likely to outperform stocks over the coming decade, with substantially less risk. In my view, neither asset class is attractively priced, but in a world of zero returns on Treasury bills, our risk budget for passive investors would lean more toward bonds than equities here nonetheless.

Michigan Gov. Snyder Brags He's The Most Pro-Immigration Governor In The Country

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, someone who will never be president, here:

“I’m probably the most pro-immigration governor in the country and I’m proud of that,” said Snyder, who included farm workers in his call for opening the state’s borders to immigrants who can create jobs for the state’s economy.

Best comment on the story:

"I never see advertisements for farm labor." 

Government Logo On NSA Spy Satellite BRAGS "Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach"

Pics here and here. Story here.

Remember the great vampire squid of banking?

Birds of a feather, er . . . cephalopods of a tentacle.

Obama Lies About Everything, Even The Small Stuff Like His Illegal Alien Uncle Omar

From The Boston Herald, here:

[I]n 2011 ... media outlets asked the White House if the two men had ever met. The answer was no. ... However ... Uncle Omar testified in court that his nephew had stayed with him for three weeks when he was at Harvard Law School . . .. And what do you know, the president confirmed his uncle’s story.

Full Time Jobs Are Still 6.344 Million Below The July 2007 Peak

There are just 116.875 million usually full time employees in the US nearly 6.5 years since peaking above 123 million in July 2007.

Obama's laser-like focus vaporized full-time jobs, which plunged from 120 million a month before his election in 2008 to below 109 million one year later.