"This economy would have to improve dramatically to get to mediocre," warns Schiff, otherwise, as Santelli rages they would be hiking rates and talking confidently, adding that either Fed-watchers are "going along with it to earn a paycheck" - just as they did in 2008 - or "they are ignorant."
Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
You have to wonder whether there are any carbon units left in the casino. The robo traders and HFTs, of course, have an attention span of 10 milliseconds. So their utter lack of concern about context, fundamentals and history is readily explainable. They never get around to it.
Japan is introducing a system which will not only be an alternative to cash, but to card payments as well. Starting this summer, the government will begin testing the new system where foreign tourists will be able to verify their identities and buy things at stores using only their fingerprints. Tourists will have their identities verified, and then be able to make purchases from shops with a flash of their finger when their card details have been processed. RT reports: The system will calculate how much money a customer has based on a fingerprint.
Excerpted from Doug Noland's Credit Bubble Bulletin blog,
Bubble Economy or Not?
Nearly a decade since the housing bubble burst the dirty skeletons still emerge from the closet, and still nobody goes to jail.
In the latest example of how criminal Wall Street behavior leads to zero prison time and just more slaps on the wrist, overnight Warren Buffett's favorite bank, Wells Fargo, admitted to "deceiving" the U.S. government into insuring thousands of risky mortgages. Its "punishment" - a $1.2 billion settlement of a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit, the highest ever levied in a housing-related matter.