Central Perk: 2 feb. 2014

duminică, 2 februarie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Gold and Silver Derivatives in Chart Form: What Market Makers Have Controlling Interests?

Posted: 02 Feb 2014 08:11 PM PST

Here are a few charts from Sharelynx Gold regarding precious metal derivative holdings. The charts are as September 30, the latest data available. Click on any chart for sharper image.

OCC Gold Derivatives All Maturities

OCC Silver, Palladium, Plagtinum Derivatives All Maturities

Aggregate Precious Metal Derivatives

Some will point to these charts as "proof" of manipulation. I suggest it is proof of "possible" manipulation.

Is there manipulation? Of course there is. But there is no evidence to prove it is in one direction only, or that central banks are behind it all, as some maintain.

For further discussion, please see Gold Manipulation: Is it Illegal? Risk Free? What About JP Morgan?

As always, views expressed regarding charts created by other, are mine.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Real Life Obamacare Small Business, Benefit-Shifting Example

Posted: 02 Feb 2014 10:00 AM PST

Here is an interesting video regarding the effects of Obamacare on all the employees at at Simonetta's auto repair shop in Pennsylvania. The video was made by a local TV station.

A couple premiums dropped, but most went up, some by huge amounts. In every case deductibles soared. Every person involved is worse off than before.

Link if video does not play: Employees in Pennsylvania Company Learn of Increased Health Costs Due to Obamacare

Partial Transcript

Jeff and Dave used to have a $1,250 deductible. Since Obamacare went into effect, it's now jumped 60 percent to $2,000. That's nothing compared to Brian, Kristi, and Judy who have kids. they are going to pay twice that, four grand."

"I don't know how President Obama thinks he's helping us because we can't afford this, we can't afford to pay these co-pays, to pay these deductibles on what we're making," says one of the workers.

Another worker adds, "They call it the affordable health plan. There's nothing affordable about it. I can't afford it."

Winners and Losers

Obamacare shifted the winners and losers.

A small number of people gained big (those with no insurance, those with preexisting conditions, and those who get free Medicaid). To pay for that, a large number of people lost, to varying degrees.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Seth's Blog : Groundhog day and the Super Bowl

Groundhog day and the Super Bowl

One way the tribe identifies is through the observance of a holiday, of a group custom, of the thing we all do together that proves we are in sync. People thrive on mass celebration, but as our culture has fragmented, these universal observances are harder to find. We used to watch the same TV shows at the same time, eat the same foods, drive the same car. Given a choice, though, many people take the choice—and so, as the culture fragments, we move away from the center and to the edges.

Halloween and the Super Bowl are the new secular holidays, the group-mania events that prove we're able to stay in sync. Every year, signed up for it or not, each of us is expected to survive the relentless hype. We see almost a month's worth of never-ending media about the Super Bowl—business articles, travel articles, legal articles, cooking articles—a huge onslaught of content-free noise.

And every year, the commercials disappoint, while the game includes eleven minutes of action over the course of four hours of not so much.

And yet we do it again and again. Because the corporate hoopla is beside the real point, which is a chance for all of us to talk about the same thing at the same time. This is part of what it means to belong.

While the Super Bowl is a large-scale example of this happening across a huge swath of people, these occurences happen often in much smaller tribes as well. The buzz about Fashion Week or CES or the latest from Sundance are micro varieties of the same desire to be in sync. Your customers and your employees want to feel what it feels to do what other people are doing. Not everyone, just the people they identify with.

It's easy to be persuaded that this event is somehow about the game, or the coverage or the hype, but it's not. Like Groundhog day, it's a pointless thing we do over and over again, because hanging out with people you care about (even if it's just to eat junk food and talk about how bad the commercials are) is almost always worth doing.