The Bloomberg editorial board is clueless

Bring On the Cashless Future

Cash had a pretty good run for 4,000 years or so. These days, though, notes and coins increasingly seem declasse: They're dirty anddangerous, unwieldy and expensive, antiquated and so very analog.

Sensing this dissatisfaction, entrepreneurs have introduced hundreds of digital currencies in the past few years, of which bitcoin is only the most famous. Now governments want in: The People's Bank of China says it intends to issue a digital currency of its own. Central banks inEcuador, the Philippines, the U.K. and Canada are mulling similar ideas. At least one company has sprung up to help them along.

And this:

A digital legal tender could resolve this problem. Suppose the central bank charged the banks that deal with it a fee for accepting paper currency. In that way, it could set an exchange rate between electronic and paper money -- and by raising the fee, it would cause paper money to depreciate against the electronic standard. This would eliminate the incentive to hold cash rather than digital money, allowing the central bank to push the interest rate below zero and thereby boost consumption and investment. It would be a big step toward doing without cash altogether. 

No, you friggen idiots.  I am not going to fake it for the fools.

Cashless becomes pure cash, there is no way the central banker can do shit, except post a betting site for their particular currency,  The bots, in a digital currency world, are the central bankers, they run  the savings and loan site.  Further, no humans allowed, no human tampering, no human can decode the transactions, sorry, but that makes pure cash.  We are  moving to pure cash.

What is Bloomberg really advocating?

They advocate a system in which the Swamp can take money from  our accounts, at will, instantly without our knowledge.  Sounds like another form of Obamacare, we an call it Obamacash.  But I have news for Bloomberg, software engineers are much too smart for thaty lunacy.

Republican Communist Party adopts hammer and sickle

Not the Onion: The campaign arm of House Republicans used Soviet imagery in a Bernie Sanders-themed fundraising pitch.

The National Republican Congressional Committee released a fundraising note aimed at Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidate. With a large hammer and sickle image on the page, the pitch urged Republicans to "adopt massive deficit spending".

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Self fulfilling prophecy

What is on the  mind of investors?  Matt Turner asks a large investment firm, what's on investors  mind

The big question on investors' minds is where we are in the credit cycle, according to one of the analysts. The possibility that there might be a recession on the way is the talk of Wall Street. 

The energy sector has already taken a hammering, with high-yield markets showing signs of stress and big banks taking provisions in the fourth quarter on their energy loans.

The question now is whether that stress will spill over to the wider economy. Corporate balance sheets look surprisingly weak, according to one of the analysts, who said leverage ratios had risen and interest-coverage ratios had fallen.

Clients make the cycles, or semi-random sequences.   They do this motion on purpose, it fully explores the possible arrangements of their portfolios.   Multi-equilibria, we have to spend resources to drive through the sequence. But it is a loop and when the sequence restarts, accounts are first settled.

Ray Dalio slays Magic Walrus

Financial Times: We are seven years into the expansion phase of the business/short-term debt cycle — which typically lasts about eight to 10 years — and near the end of the expansion phase of a long-term debt cycle, which typically lasts about 50 to 75 years.
  

What I am contending is that there are limits to spending growth financed by a combination of debt and money. When these limits are reached, it marks the end of the upward phase of the long-term debt cycle. In 1935, this scenario was dubbed "pushing on a string."

The monetary cycle is finite.   Ray Dalio is a socialist, he wants the  nanny central banker to manage his money.  Hence Ray Dalio knows when the socialists run out of poop.  He is talking this chart:

Pretty friggen obvious from this chart. Interest on loans flow back to the currency banker.  That much is friggen obvious to any economists not schooled in MIT Basket Weaving.

Recession defined

Zero Hedge

When the top line, is like way out in front of the others. That means a severe bottleneck has hit the economy, and all recessions are, ultimately, a bottleneck Has any economists figured out to derive economic health from a distribution of prices?

Q4 sinking

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch)

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Demand for long-lasting “durable” goods sank in December, reflecting a downturn in business investment in 2015 that was especially acute in the waning months of the year. Orders for durable goods fell a seasonally adjusted 5.1% last month, marking the biggest decline in a year and a half, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
Economists polled by MarketWatch had predicted a 1.5% drop. The larger-than-expected decline could result in zero fourth-quarter growth or worse, some economists said. The MarketWatch forecast had called for 0.7% growth in the final three months of 2015. The report “tilted the scaled for fourth-quarter GDP, which now looks like it be in negative territory,” said Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at BNP Paribas. Most ominous, a key measure of business investment fell sharply, resulting in the largest year-over-year decline since 2009.

Unemployment claims dropped.  The drop in unemployment claims is good news, if it is real.  There is some issue because the filing period was shortened due to some holiday.

So this looks like a negative growth for 2015 Q4.

Counting backwards

 CNBC:The Bank of Japan adopted negative interest rates for the first time at the end of its two-day policy review on Friday, buckling under pressure to ease concerns about the health of the world's third-largest economy

We need a method of taking Yen off the table without resorting to paper cash.  These negative rates are mostly about regulatory costs of keeping liquidity on deposit.

Boeing, Apple, Caterpillar and Amazon reporting a significant global slowdown

Econoday reports ... The factory sector ended 2015 with a giant thud. Durable goods orders fell 5.1 percent in December vs expectations for a 0.2 percent gain and a low-end estimate of minus 3.0 percent. Aircraft orders didn't help but they weren't the whole cause of the problem as ex-transportation orders fell 1.2 percent vs expectations for no change and a low-end estimate of minus 0.4 percent. Core capital goods, which exclude defense equipment and also aircraft, are especially weak, down 4.3 percent following a 1.1 percent decline in November. Shipments for core capital goods, which are an input into GDP, slipped 0.2 percent following a downward revised 1.1 percent decline in November (initially minus 0.4 percent).
 Orders for civilian aircraft lead the dismal list, down 29 percent in December. The other main subcomponent for transportation, motor vehicles, also fell, down 0.4 percent in a reminder that vehicle sales were slowing at year end. Capital goods industries show deep declines: machinery down 5.6 percent, computers down 8.7 percent, communications equipment down 21 percent, and fabricated metals down 0.5 percent. Other readings include a surprising 2.2 percent monthly drop in total shipments and a 0.5 percent drop in total unfilled orders. All this weakness isn't a plus for inventories which rose 0.5 percent to lift the inventory-to-shipments ratio sharply, to 1.69 from 1.64. The rise in inventories poses a headwind to the sector and will dampen future shipments as well as employment and is a reminder of the inventory warning in yesterday's FOMC statement.

 Hat Tip to Mish,

The problem, quite simply, the American consumer was expected to drive  global trade.  But debt and Obamacare killed off discretionary consumer spending.  The two exceptions was Chinese flows into housing, and the record year for auto sales.  But those sub-primer auto sales will be turned into auto leases,which is what they are.  So we get a huge amount of cheap used autos hitting the market, and that's not bad.   Used autos have a relatively cheap  inventory cost,  They can sit  for years and still be fine, and they come with self propulsion...


Otherwise, welcome to Nancy Pelosi's recession.

Bond vigilantes at work

SACRAMENTO — For those who wonder about the practical importance of transparency, I offer as evidence the latest result of a modest rule change from a mind-numbingly named organization – the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, or GASB (pronounced Gaz-bee). The group’s stated goal is to promote accountability through “excellence in public-sector financial reporting.” This is exciting stuff for people who wear green eyeshades.

But it has practical importance for taxpayers. For decades, state and local governments have been able to essentially hide – or at least downplay – the size of their unfunded pension and retiree health-care liabilities, or debts. GASB passed rule changes that make governments more directly account for these debts. California governments are starting to report pension debts differently in their 2015 financial statements, which is becoming a wake-up call. (Medical costs and other non-pension benefits will be accounted for differently in the 2017-2018 fiscal year.)

Where are the bond vigilantes?, Krugman always asks.   They were swarming all over California protecting bond holders from folks like Krugman.   Now we have permanent anit-Kanosian rules built into the accounting system, we can always calculate the cost of Kanosian fraud.

The article demonstrates that Jerry "Dills Act" Brown understands the nightmare.

Banker Bot vs the Chinese Communists

Reuters via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog: Europe's biggest lender HSBC will no longer provide mortgages to some Chinese nationals who buy real estate in the United States, a policy change that comes as Beijing is battling to stem a swelling crowd of citizens trying to get money out of China. 

An HSBC (HSBA.L) (0005.HK) spokesman in New York told Reuters on Wednesday that the new policy went into effect last week, roughly a month after China suspended Standard Chartered (STAN.L) and DBS Group Holdings Ltd (DBSM.SI) from conducting some foreign exchange business and as authorities try to limit capital outflows. China's stock market slump, slowing economic growth and weak real estate prices have encouraged Chinese individuals and companies to try to shift money offshore for higher returns, a headache for Beijing as the capital outflows undermine efforts to prop up the yuan and domestic investment. 

Realtors of luxury property in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Vancouver, said more than 80 percent of wealthy Chinese buyers have ties to China. In the United States, real estate agents and regulators say Chinese buyers often prefer to buy property in cash and they are the biggest foreign buyer. Data from the country's National Association of Realtors shows they bought $28.6 billion of property in 2015, up from $22 billion in 2014. HSBC declined to clarify which clients would be affected by the change beyond describing the policy as impacting some Chinese nationals. 

Luxury homes news website Mansion Global, which first reported the HSBC policy change, said it would affect Chinese nationals holding temporary visitor 'B' visas if the majority of their income and assets are maintained in China.

Is banker bot ready to battle  the communist Kanosians?  I have faith.  

Delong implies Obamacare is unsustainable

Via Delong: The coming of ObamaCare makes any willingness on the part of antitrust authority to allow these mergers to go through extremely dangerous and destructive policy indeed.

The imposition of the individual mandate to purchase health insurance makes maintaining competition in health insurance markets significantly more important. Usually, the exercise of market power and the ability to easily collude implicitly or explicitly made possible by large market shares are curved by the possibility of exit. The "exit the market and buy something else" option for consumers is the one competitor that the firm cannot acquire and merge with. It is the one competitor with which the firm cannot collude, implicitly or explicitly.

Well, Brad,you friggen idiot, if moar anti-trust is essential for Obamacare, then you have been  lying about the program for five years.    When you said DC can control costs under the current Obamacare, you were lying, that was not true. What you are stating, in  simple terms, Kanosians are known fraudsters, which you now acknowledge. 

Federal bail out of the Kanosian disaster?

Pension Tsunami: Should the state of Illinois, with its dubious distinction of running the nation’s most poorly funded public pension system, encourage the federal government to provide financial assistance or even a massive bailout? 

 That is a basic, yet controversial question that few power brokers want to confront. Yet it is not going away, especially as the state pension crisis deepens, a BGA Rescuing Illinois report has found. Those who oppose federal intervention—and there are many—argue that Illinois alone must fix the pension disaster by using all the tools at its disposal, including raising revenue to fund pensions and reorganizing or cutting retiree benefits.
  

Other observers, however, contend that the funding shortfall for the state’s major pensions is so daunting, $111 billion and counting, that it surpasses Illinois’ ability to solve its own problems. As a result, some legal and financial experts suggest federal assistance may become a last-resort option just as it proved to be in 2008 for failing banks and domestic automaker giants.

How is California doing?

The figure, which captures unfunded retiree health care costs as of mid-2015, grew nearly $2.4 billion from the year before. It does not account for the impact of future inflation.
Still, the increase was $1.5 billion less than actuaries anticipated a year earlier. Insurance claims grew more slowly than expected, while changes to how health care is delivered and assumptions about long-term trends lowered the liability by $1.76 billion, actuaries estimated. Against that, demographic shifts among retirees added more than $250 million to the debt figure.
The state pays retiree medical expenses as they come up, about $1.9 billion for the current fiscal year. But since the pay-as-you-go policy doesn’t set aside anything for promised benefits, the annual costs increase as more state employees retire and need health care.

Remember this is state level employees only, and the vast majority of the labor costs occur at the local level.   Nation  wide these local governments will face a 25% budget hole with the mild recession.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article56844253.html#storylink=cpy

Get me a ticket

Zero Hedge, a national treasure

Zero Hedge: After the Fed's statement, one thing was clear: the career economists at the Marriner Eccles building are very confused, admitting to hiking rates for the first time in nine years "even as economic growth slowed late last year". But more confused are the Wall Street economists who follow the Fed and are expected to interpret what the Fed says, means and hints, especially when said Fed has no clue what is going on, like right now. So while their opinions are utterly worthless, for the record, here is what the economisseds see in today's 558 words of sheer Fed confusion.

The site is hilarious, and informative. 

Let's fix wheel chair tennis

The hand on the wheel for motive power?

Horrific, that hand belongs up with the racket hand maintaining counter pose.  Get some electric juice on those wheels, and use motion detectors on head and both arms.  The directed motio  of tyhe head and arms will determine the direction and ratye of travel.  A little training, andm legs don't matter, a juiced up wagon lets you beat Federer with  legs.  This is something Silicon Valley can do with chump change.
 Seriously, we are this far behind in  building a tennis bot?

Chicago will be evacuated

So, the city is not viable.   Kanosdians plan the same future for Chicago that they had for Detroit.  Los Angeles is next on their target list.  Mass, forced Kanosian migration, war crimes by any other name.

Tim Duy is a bit confused

Fed Watch: On The Dispersion, Or Lack Thereof, of Economic Weakness

Tim says the probability of a recession  requires dispersion of the bad new across all sectors (like the oil shock).  He claims the industrial sector, which is in recession , will not disperse, and her has the probability of a recession  at 10%.

Let's see what a bottleneck in  Obamacare  causes to the economy.  Medical inflation is running at 4%, general inflation at zero. I think we have a a 30% riser in premium costs, and major insurers are likely losing money.

Is that dispersive? You bet, the consumer is dead in  the water, spending his discretionary cash on adverse selection inm  a losing game.  That consumer is 70% of the economy. 

The Democrat Party in Chicago is now ruled by gangs

Chicago is on fire. It’s America’s mass shooting capital. Its deadliest neighborhoods are gang territories prowled by thousands of killers with some of the highest murder rates in the world.

So far, 442 people have been shot and killed in Chicago this year. 2,540 were shot and wounded. 2,982 were shot. Fewer Americans died fighting Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War than in a year in Chicago.

On Christmas Day, two people were killed and 10 wounded. Chicago has tens of thousands of gang members and someone usually gets shot every 3 hours.

Or at least beaten up.

On Sunday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s African-American Deputy Chief of Staff was assaulted at a prayer vigil for a police shooting by an attacker shouting anti-Semitic slurs. Rapper King Louie, who coined “Chiraq” was released from the hospital after being shot seven times.

He blamed the devil. "The devil's working overtime. That's what's going on in Chicago."

But in Chiraq, the devil is a Democrat. Chicago Democrats are closely entangled with its 68,000 gang members who deliver the votes and the money. There are more gang members in Chicago than people of English ancestry. That makes them a powerful voting bloc. And Democrats bow to their wishes.

A Latin Kings member described how the vote organizing worked. “Every chapter had to vote for that guy… That was a direct order. That means you can’t say no.” Under the Dems, that’s Chicago democracy.

So, gang rule is Obama's legacy?  Why do gangd bnow rule?

First, the Windy City’s economic strength over the last generation was facilitated, in part, by a sharp decline in violent crime. Experts differ as to why crime fell, but aggressive policing probably played a role, just as it did in cities across the United States. Yet that aggressive policing also led to more confrontations between cops and civilians, and contributed to the development of a culture and ethos on the force that made civilian deaths more likely. It’s unclear how far Chicago (or any other American city) can go in dismantling the structure of aggressive law enforcement without seeing a resurgence of the crime levels that once ravaged urban communities across the country and sparked an intense political backlash.

Second, the police problem is partly an offshoot of an even wider and more intractable problem: the consequences of public sector unions and life tenure for city employees. There is a harsh conflict of interest between the city’s employees and the city’s voters. The pension crisis, now forcing Chicago (and many other cities and states across the country) to raise pension contributions at the cost of reduced spending on vital city functions, is a big part of the problem. The city’s bloated pension obligations have already forced Emanuel to make severe education cuts. It will continue to force cuts in city services in various cities, making it harder and harder for mayors to govern, and increasing the antagonism among various constituencies.

So, we gave yhe plot.  Dems enable unions, unions rob the citizens blind, citizens get desperate and gang violence becomes the norm. 

California readys for the recessionb

CalWatch: In Gov. Jerry Brown’s State of the State Address last week, he noted that California’s budget has repeatedly failed to prepare for recession, resulting in “painful and unplanned-for cuts” to schools, child care, courts, social services and other programs. He added, “I don’t want to make those mistakes again.”

But the governor’s proposed $170.7 billion budget ($122.6 billion general fund) for the 2016-17 fiscal year would lead to repeating that mistake when the next recession hits.

Revenues will plunge $55 billion over three years if an average recession hits next year according to the budget summary. That would result in a $29 billion budget deficit in 2020 based on Brown’s current spending proposal, which includes $4 billion in one-time expenditures. If the Legislature instead spends that $4 billion on new or ongoing programs, the deficit would balloon to $43 billion – larger than occurred during the Great Recession.

Recession Expected

California is in the seventh year of economic expansion. That makes it two years overdue for a recession, which has occurred every five years on average, according to Keely Bosler, chief deputy director of the California Department of Finance.

“While there is significant uncertainty in forecasts, there is one thing that is quite certain: and that is history,” Bosler told the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee Jan. 19. “It’s this boom-and-bust cycle that this budget really aims to avoid going forward.” But she acknowledged that “the budget in the state of California does remain precariously balanced over the long term.”

Her cautionary words were echoed by committee Vice Chairman Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Tehama.

“We must keep in mind that though times are a little bit better, some parts of our economy have not improved,” he said. “And therefore we must exercise constraint and not get overly ambitious. And that will be what governs our progress in the budget. Let’s not get overly ambitious, and let’s not let government get out of control.”

Angry Marin County citizen

Marin pension critic pursues judicial review of benefits approval

A state appeals court has rejected a Mill Valley public pension critic’s bid for judicial review of pension payments, but left open the door for him to take his case to Marin Superior Court.

David Brown, a member of Citizens for Sustainable Pension Plans, filed a formal petition with the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, after a civil grand jury finding that Marin agencies repeatedly broke the law by approving benefits without public notice.

Brown asked the court to evaluate the situation in order to determine if the benefits were adopted illegally.

But in a ruling Friday, the court denied the petition “without prejudice to petitioner’s exhausting his remedies in the Superior Court.”

“We will definitely refile in Superior Court,” Brown said in an email Saturday. “I made a mistake and filed the petition at too high a level in the judicial system. This demonstrates the disadvantage at which ordinary citizens are forced to operate when they take on legal professionals in an attempt to right the wrongs the system has wrought.”

A violation  of the law in Marin County to sneak soke the pensions.  In this case there was prior agreement thay pensio n spiking is reviewed.

Is this a rights case or a contracts case? We do not even need Due Process, the Marin  County pension  spikers broke the law, says the evidence.  The citizen  can file a criminal law suit, make it class action   What can Jerry do?  Pass a other law that makes unions royalty?

Let's fly an Elon Musk booster home

All we do is add digital stepper motors to those suspension ropes, and the bot can steer home. Put a very small drag chute on the rocket nose and you can select the region of airflow for maximum stability.  Three point landing, easy as pie, assign it to the undergrads.

When workers suddenly lose three hours of work

Then we get a recession!

From Mankiw, it's the number of hours working to buy a barrel of crude.  Note in  20023 to 2008, workers lost the equivalent of five hours of work.  Our economy uses about 60 barrels per person per day, says IndexMundi.  The numbers do not match because Mankiw uses labor rates, which is not a complete incomer set.  But, it is clear the 2009 crash was an oil shortage.

Unemployment trending up

Zero Hedge

So expect Krugman to make hissing sounds,

Quote of the day

Mish, naturally:

When a politician's job depends on not understanding a problem, there's no way in hell the problem will be understood.

Bernie whooping Hillary

Here comes Bernie, here comes  Bernie
Right down New Hampshire Lane
Single payer, and all his taxpayers
Dragging down GDP

Accounts are draining; ratings downgrading
Cities are stuck in muck
File bankruptcies and say a prayer
'Cause Bernie comes tonight

Black swan alert

Mid-Atlantic Braces for Potentially Epic Blizzard

Unknowable. If its unknowable, then the betting bot has to rebalance, his zeroeth, first and second derivative condition s don 't meet spec.  Its a currency risk.

Amazon going to make pure cash?

Billionaire VC says that most companies will eventually pay an Amazon 'tax'

"I think Amazon is the most interesting company right now and represents the surest path to a $5 trillion (15-20x from current levels) market cap within 50 years," Palihapitiya wrote in a Quora Q&A session held this week.

But Palihapitiya's bet would have nothing to do with Amazon's e-commerce segment, the part of the business that generated over $23 billion in revenue last quarter alone. Instead, it's all about Amazon Web Services, the cloud-computing unit of the company that's booking roughly $7 billion a year.

The author goes on  to say that Amazon web services will make a trilljon  dollar valuation.  But web services are the most easily automated, and ultimately the businesses are renting out connected disk drives.  Microsoft in this market has Azure and heavy use of Python. The tools are Azure and the medium   is ethereum..  But, JSON and Javascript ire also bigger, and more fundamental.  Whatever solution will support banker bot, as we know and love it. We are getting smart cards.

Dem politics vs national security

Mark hits the nail on the hammer.

Mark Thiessen: The Daily Beast reports that the Obama Pentagon is considering retroactively demoting retired Gen. David Petraeus:

The decision now rests with Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, who is said to be willing to consider overruling an earlier recommendation by the Army that Petraeus not have his rank reduced. Such a demotion could cost the storied general hundreds of thousands of dollars—and deal an additional blow to his once-pristine reputation.

This is simply outrageous. Gen. Petraeus is an American hero. He is the most consequential American general since World War II. He not only saved the country from a humiliating, Vietnam-like defeat in Iraq. He brought us a great military victory over the forces of terror in Iraq – a victory later squandered by the Obama administration’s withdrawal of all US forces which allowed the rise of ISIS.

Petraeus committed a crime in mishandling classified information, but he has paid his debt to society. He pled guilty in federal court, paid a $100,000 fine, and was sentenced to two years’ probation. He lost his job, his reputation, and his public career. Why on earth would the Obama administration want to further humiliate him? Moreover, with Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya all on fire, doesn’t the secretary of defense have more pressing matters on which to spend his limited time?

And what kind of world do we live in where Gen. Petraeus could face a demotion while Hillary Clinton seeks a promotion to commander in chief?  What Petraeus did pales in comparison to Hillary Clinton’s gross negligence in the handling of classified information. On the same day the Petraeus news broke, Fox News reported:

Hillary Clinton’s emails on her unsecured, homebrew server contained intelligence from the US government’s most secretive and highly classified programs, according to an unclassified letter from a top inspector general to senior lawmakers.

Fox News exclusively obtained the unclassified letter, sent Jan. 14 from Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. It laid out the findings of a recent comprehensive review by intelligence agencies that identified “several dozen” additional classified emails — including specific intelligence known as “special access programs” (SAP).

That indicates a level of classification beyond even “top secret,” the label previously given to two emails found on her server, and brings even more scrutiny to the presidential candidate’s handling of the government’s closely held secrets.

In the case of Petraeus, national security was not compromised in any way.  He shared paper copies of classified information with one person who should not have seen them. But she had a security clearance and no one has suggested the information he shared with her ever fell into the wrong hands or compromised US security in any way.

Hillary Clinton, by contrast put more than 1,300 classified emails onto an unsecured personal server that might very well have been hacked by our enemies. We know that she instructed aides to take classification markings off of classified information and send it to her on unclassified systems.

Moreover, Petraeus admitted to his crime, resigned from office, publicly apologized, and pled guilty in federal court.

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, has repeatedly changed her story about the classified information on her server, and continues to deny any wrongdoing.  She has not admitted to her crimes, publicly apologized, or paid her debt to society. Quite the opposite, while Petraeus’ life, reputation, and political ambitions are ruined, Hillary Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States.

CNN cheating in the elections

A hastily scheduled town-hall-style event, announced Wednesday by CNN and scheduled to take place just one week before the Iowa caucuses, could be a saving grace for Hillary Clinton, whose presidential campaign has faced an unexpectedly formidable challenge from Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.

Schedulin g a 'hasty' town hall for Hillary?  That seems to be a conflict with election  law, and most likely it is CNN enforcing the affirmative action  policy of the Dem party.  That leaves us with Bernie, who is evidently a sexist asshole for not obeying the affirmative action  quota system.

Zero Hedge has a clue about the business cycle

Now, what two quarter event happens every 7.5 years.  If you said recession or presidential election  you are right.  This chart says one thing, you will never identify government multipliers greater than one.

Allowing a Chicago pension bankruptcy

"Chicago Tonight” has learned that Gov. Bruce Rauner and top Republican leaders are planning to introduce legislation aimed at an emergency financial takeover of the city of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools. This comes in light of an imminent $500 million shortfall within the Chicago Public Schools system.

The Republican leaders are set to announce the legislation tomorrow, but Paris Schutz has the exclusive information tonight.

Sources tell “Chicago Tonight” that the governor and his top two legislative leaders – Senate minority leader Christine Radogno and House minority leader Jim Durkin will file a package of legislation Wednesday that would allow for an emergency financial oversight board appointed by the state to take over the financially strapped school district. Other legislation would allow for emergency financial oversight of the credit-beleaguered city of Chicago.

Legislation would also allow for CPS and the city of Chicago to declare bankruptcy – something by law both cannot currently do.

We’re also told that the legislation would call for an elected Chicago Public Schools board once the financial situation is remediated. This, in light of the fact that CPS has set now as a deadline to receive $500 million in relief from the state or else lay off thousands of employees, including teachers.

Bottlenecked

The price changes are distorted.   Headline consumer prices show everything dropping except medical, going up 3%, and housing. and transportation services.   This is a bottleneck in distribution, everyone is waiting to see what the medical benefits are going to cost.

Dan Walters, on the warpath

Fresno Bee: With no thought to long-term financial consequences, California politicians, both state and local, have saddled taxpayers with hundreds of billions of dollars in debt for pensions and retiree health care.No one truly knows the extent of what are called “unfunded liabilities,” because official estimates of the debts, around $200 billion, assume pension trust funds will achieve earnings that are likely unrealistic. Meanwhile, almost nothing is being put aside for rapidly increasing health care obligations.
In a rational world, the situation would demand tough, even painful, steps to close the funding gaps by modifying benefits and/or increasing “contributions” – a term of art – from taxpayers or employees themselves.
Recently, there have been a few baby steps in that direction, such as a new plan to slowly close the teacher pension gap.
However, retiree benefit liabilities continue to increase and the bankruptcy of three cities, in large measure because of unsustainable pension costs, have underscored the looming problem.
The dynamics that created the problem – expedient actions by politicians, pressured by powerful unions, to fatten benefits without steps to pay for them – make decisive action unlikely, as demonstrated by the collapse of the latest attempt at a big pension fix.

The legislature failed to prepare, and California will be burned this 2016 recession.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/political-notebook/article55511845.html#storylink=cpy

How high the interest costs?

Corporations and all governments everywhere did the 'deficits don't matter', and their debt load s up some 60%.  So, for China, 1.3% more of their GDP growth is devoted to paying interest, forever.  I say growth because this is yield, surplus that has to be accumulated from operations. So, potential and actual growth drop over the entire Walrus.

This is a sympton of he SecStags, the ultimate cause if the demograpbhic shifts caused by Kanosian policy, the Kanosian war crimes.  We self adjust, both sides adapt, so if you want to kill off the young, promise more cookies to the old.

Classic MIT Basket Weaving

Regarding the potential exit of United Healthcare from Obamacare:

UnitedHealth, the nation’s biggest health insurer, has been vocal with its concerns about the profitability of Obamacare plans. In November, it warned it was considering exiting the exchanges after suffering significant losses on policies.

Three months later, the policies continue to figure prominently in the company’s earnings. And while other insurers have left the marketplace, UnitedHealth would be the largest one to do so.

But even if it carried out the threat, it wouldn’t doom the health care law, said MIT economist Jonathan Gruber. “Not that by a long shot,” he said.

But it would mean higher premiums as well cost sharing for consumers, particularly in small markets where UnitedHealth is a big player, he and other experts said.

That wouldn’t affect those with subsidies—who make up the majority of the market—but for non-subsidized others it would be a double whammy of “fewer choices, and higher premiums,” Gruber said.

The italics are mine. Gruber claims to be an expert, yet he fails to notice that he just identified the adverse selection  problem.  Since he mentioned it before, one can  conclude that is is held hostage by the fraudulent denials that have been oi g on  in  MIT Basket Weaving for 45 years.  MIT ob ai s government  money for fraud, plain  and simple.  From he same article, here is the opposing view:

But Joel White, president of the advocacy group, the Council for Affordable Health Coverage, warned that insurance market tensions were at a breaking point.

Obamacare constraints on cost-cutting, paired with “less than robust enrollment,” have made for accelerating health care costs, he said. “It looks like the start of a death spiral.”

“No company can sustain the kinds of losses UHG is experiencing... and stay in this market long, nor should they,” White wrote in an email. “If policies aren’t adopted to ease the market rigidity, we would expect more to leave the exchange marketplace in 2017.”

Kanosian fraud, right in  front  of us. 

Sarah and the Tea Party opt for big government Trump

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee who became a Tea Party sensation and a favorite of grass-roots conservatives, will endorse Donald J. Trump in Iowa on Tuesday, officials with his campaign confirmed. The endorsement provides Mr. Trump with a potentially significant boost just 13 days before the state’s caucuses.
“I’m proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for president,” Ms. Palin said in a statement provided by his campaign.
Her support is the highest-profile backing for a Republican contender so far.

Naturally, Sarah's home state, Alaska is going to need some of the Swamp bailout soon, and the Tea Party has been nothing but in bed with deficit spending from  the King.

Obamacare, unsustainble

UnitedHealth Group Inc. said profit declined in its latest quarter as the biggest U.S. health insurer struggles with its health-care exchange segment.

The Minnetonka, Minn., company in November said it had suffered major losses on policies sold on the Affordable Care Act's exchanges in 2015, and warned that those losses would continue this year. Exchanges represent a small share of UnitedHealth's overall membership and revenue, but UnitedHealth said it booked a $245 million loss in the fourth quarter for advance recognition of 2016 losses.

UnitedHealth said the exchanges contributed to the company's consolidated medical-care ratio--the amount of premiums used to pay patient medical costs--rising to 82.7% in the fourth quarter, up from 80.9% in the third quarter and 80.1% in fourth quarter 2014. In addition, the company set aside $95 million in reserves for expected losses stemming from a state Medicaid contract.

Kanosians at work robbing the poor

Subsidizing the rich through California’s solar scheme

Basically, Jerry Brown as set up a network metering scheme that generates rate subsidies for the wealthy and robs the poor.  Environmentalists afre ead wrong about the scheme for global warming,.  Its a two side statistical problem.  The poor and aprtment dwellers would norm ally cut back energy usage to gain  the tax subsidies.  The problem solved b y Jerry Brown is n=ot global warming, it is taxing the poor to subsidize the spec ial interests.

The Swamp is restarting its borrowing cycle

(WASHINGTON)—A government report released Tuesday estimates that this year’s budget deficit will rise to $544 billion, an increase over prior estimates that can be attributed largely to tax cuts and spending increases passed by Congress last month.

The estimate from the Congressional Budget Office also sees the economy growing at a slower pace this year than it predicted just a few months ago. It projects the economic growth will slow to 2.7 percent this year; it foresaw 3.0 percent growth in 2016 in last summer’s prediction.

Over the coming decade, CBO predicts deficits totaling $9.4 trillion. That’s up $1.5 trillion from its August estimate, with much of the increase mostly due to last month’s tax legislation, which permanently extended several tax cuts that Congress had typically renewed temporarily.

The Republicans start borrow and bailouts then the recession is likely here.  What is being bailout?  Taxes have been rising at 5-10% for the whole cycle, unsustainable.  Obamacare is over budget with medical inflation rising at 5%..  And continuing retirement of the boomers.

Spring loading the pinkie

 This is not tennis, his is a lab apparatus using tennis tools. It is about the three fingered grasp, scoot the pinkie underneath the butt of the racket.  I report the latest results.

Thew grasp will spring load the pi kie, it acts like an energy storage sprin g.

And, the grasp acts like you have a ball joint, articulated, at the butt of the racket.   The racket is not going to fly lose, and a jerk of the hand gets you between continental or western, all three finger mode.  Increased speed or precision by 10%, I think.

White Man's Burden is back

Portland Community College has designated April "Whiteness History Month" (WHM), an "educational project" exploring how the "construct of whiteness" creates racial inequality.

I think the Chinese out to carry the load.  They are smarter than us whites, make more money.  They hardly kill each other, or themselves; except for central planning accidents.

Elon Musk, I have a clue

Rockets do not fly backwards.  In the definition , I think, yes:

Rocket - Thing that goes very nicely in one direction  only.

Funk and Company Dictionary.

California's olden goose is taking a break

USA Today: SAN FRANCISCO — Is tech in for a rude awakening this year after a magic carpet ride the past few years?

The numbers, and recent actions by once high-flying start-ups, would seem to suggest so.

Consider: Mega-rounds, defined as funding of more than $100 million for venture capitalist-backed companies, are in free fall. The rate of private start-ups attaining unicorn status — a valuation of at least $1 billion — are grinding to a crawl. Friday layoffs at tech start-ups, deemed Black Fridays, are increasing. Bellwether tech stocks such as Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon have been taking it on the chin.

"It's a time to recalibrate — so many companies can't burn extraordinary amounts of money forever," says Sunil Panel, co-founder of Sidecar, a pioneer in the crowded ride-sharing space that shuttered operations on Dec. 31.

Last year, Silicon Valley projected unbridled swagger. Today, "there is definitely an era of reckoning," says Chris Sacca, a venture investor with stakes in Uber and Twitter. "Reality is setting in."

What did Jerry brown imply in  his budget statement?  The recession  is coming and mandatory spending will melt the budget.  The four big techs are some 20% of the market, so pensions take a big whammy, and n ow we see it double back to hit state capital gains taxes.  Thd legislature in  California is pro-cyclical, to say the least.  They make promises to the world when  we see a bit of surplus, then  crash when  we get a slight down turn.

Bill drops top drawer for Hillary

 LA Times: Hillary Clinton has seen her lead evaporate in Iowa, and some allies are openly fretting that she could repeat her 2008 loss here, she is deploying one of her most powerful weapons - her husband.

With just more than two weeks before Iowa holds the first nominating contests of 2016, former President Clinton crisscrossed the state for rallies in metropolitan areas and rural outposts, trying to convince voters that his wife is uniquely qualified to be president now because of her experience and mettle.

Let's invent wheel chair tennis

Take the electric wheel chair.  Make the seat pivot above the wheel centerline.  Give the wheels independent  motion.

The motion is controlled from two intertial detecting wrist bands, each wrist.   From there on  it  is a learning process, human and bot teaching each other how to   move and hit.  I tested part of the invention with an office chair, my bare lliving room and the racket/fuzzy.  This s great indoor drill, and anyone can play, its a fair game, no legs or feet allowed.

I assign  this to the same undergraduate team making tennis bot.

California's Legal Illegal Alienship business is booming

CalWatch: Roiled by immigration fears on both sides, California supplied drivers licenses to big numbers of the otherwise undocumented, further sharpening the statewide debate.

“California issued more than a half-million driver’s licenses under a new law granting the identifying documents to immigrants who may be in the country illegally,” the Associated Press noted. “The Department of Motor Vehicles announced Wednesday that 605,000 licenses were issued since AB60 took effect last January. That’s out of 830,000 applications.”

It is the 'No saddleback condition '

Why is Pi in  the normal distribution, asks Dave Giles. He shows us when we consider the formula.

The formula has Mr. Euler's number, the natural log thing.  When that was specified, then the implicit condition  is no saddle back in the ensembles, they always monotonically converge to their global statistics..  The assumption specifies Euler's number.  But Euler's number is an algorithm, the numerical method to compute the next most accurate natural log from the previous.  Pi appears because the maximum, no saddleback dispersion  differential converges to Pi and the natural log converges to Euler.

In  finite terms, normal means the system will  not cycle when  left to its own  devices.

Tennis and neurology

The big kinetic action  explanation of tennis strokes is out there, done by a physiologist.   That definition  breaks the kinetic wave into a sequence  of motions in a connected pendulum system.

So the neurologist wants to know the precision of the shot.   Take the tennis pro and have him drill a target with the same stroke, measure the distribution.  Then the mathematics pro will break that precision  down to the various pendulum moments, using the physiologist equations.  That separation of precision is nearly proof that there is a neuronal firing sequence of the same dimensionality.

So the doctor wants to know, can the dimensionality be increased?  If so, then we use tennis to track and cure brain damage.  Muscle training   may not be enough, hand eye exercise may be needed.

A market correction precedes mass layoffs

  This chart is two years old.  The red line, the market just retraced abut a third of its path up.

That would be more inequality

Illinois Policy: Contract negotiations between Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees nearly reached an impasse last week. The governor’s office and AFSCME have been in talks for nearly a year to replace the most recent contract, which expired at the end of June 2015. These talks are ongoing despite the union’s assertion Jan. 8 that negotiations had fallen through. Reaching an affordable agreement with AFSCME is imperative for the state, given that AFSCME worker salaries grew five times faster than Illinois workers’ earnings from 2005 to 2014, costing Illinois taxpayers $3.5 billion.

If true, then  we have the smoking gun. It is workers who pay the taxes.

The NowCast bet has cleared.

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2015 is 0.6 percent on January 15, down from 0.8 percent on January 8. The forecast for fourth quarter real consumer spending growth fell from 2.0 percent to 1.7 percent after this morning's retail sales report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the industrial production release from the Federal Reserve.

 I thought fourth quarter 2015 has already past. 

Yes on the three fingered

OK, this is not yet tennis, but I play the short  game in the living room  out to ten feet, using the low pressure ball.  My three fingered comes with a glove, as the grip may bust up pinkies, beware.

Anyway, I can verify that I seem to have an other inch view of the ball track, mainly because I have the last moment three fingered adjust.  That extra inch is a half step, a choice of spin, or a moment to get that pinky up for power.  One last choice for the player.

One and a third of California workers pay for one retiree

CalPers: For the first time in the fund’s history, retirement benefits paid out exceeded the amount of contributions.

Like many pension funds across the country, CalPERS is facing demographic headwinds.

There are now 1.3 participants contributing to the fund for every retiree. The ratio was two active participants for every one retiree 10 years ago. The fund has obligations to more than 1.2 million active and inactive participants.

Trustees expect that downward trend to continue for the next 20 years, when the ratio of active participants to retirees is expected to be less than one,

And that means Bezerkeley Kanosians had better start praying.

Here is pension stuffing in  action:

ORINDA -- Retiring Orinda School District Superintendent Joe Jaconette has received another base salary increase that could give him an even higher pension payout.

Following a reception honoring the superintendent attended by local leaders, including state Sen. Steve Glazer and Orinda Mayor Victoria Smith and Councilwoman Amy Worth, the governing board approved Monday a 1.5 percent base salary hike that will escalate the administrator's base salary from $218,042.76 to $222,928, according to district data.

This is Marin County, a hot bed of pension corruption.  It's Boxers home turf.  Pension Tsunami lists all the crooked actions as they happen.  Here is one from  Florida:

Straying from a policy of prohibiting employees from “double dipping” — working beyond a retirement date and collecting both a pension and a paycheck — Miami’s city manager has elected to retain Fire Chief Maurice Kemp for an extra year.

Kemp was slated to retire March 24, a date set when he enrolled in the firefighter pension trust’s deferred retirement option plan, which allows employees to continue working for a set period while a monthly pension benefit is paid into a tax-deferred account. But City Manager Daniel Alfonso agreed to keep Kemp an extra year, saying he needs more time to finish important initiatives and guide a young, relatively inexperienced department.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article54749910.html#storylink=cpy