Author: David Stockman

First, there were seventeen. At length, there was one. Donald Trump’s wildly improbable capture of the GOP nomination, therefore, is the most significant upheaval in American politics since Ronald Reagan. And the proximate cause is essentially the same. Like back then, an era of drastic bipartisan misgovernance has finally generated an electoral impulse to sweep out the stables. Accordingly, the Donald’s patented phrase that “we aren’t winning anymore” is striking a deep nerve on the main street. But that is not on account of giant trade deficits or a faltering foreign policy and failed military adventures per se. Indeed, it has very little to do with any patriotic impulse with respect to America’s collective policy, and … Continue reading →

The post Trumped! appeared first on LewRockwell.

South Korea’s exports tumbled to $41 billion in April, marking the 16th consecutive month of declining foreign sales. Last month’s result represented an 11.2% decline from the prior year and an 18% drop from April 2014. Moreover, within that shrinking total, exports to China were down by 18.4% last month, following a 12.2% drop in March. The Korean export slump is no aberration. The same pattern is evident in the entire East Asia export belt. That’s because the Red Ponzi is in its last innings. Beijing is furiously pumping on the credit accelerator but to no avail. As can’t be emphasized enough, printing GDP by means of … Continue reading →

The post If the Global Economy Were an Airplane appeared first on LewRockwell.

It’s all over except the shouting. That is, the primary election season effectively ended last night and now the actual shouting match between Hillary and The Donald begins. This will surely be the most entertaining election in US history, and probably the most pointless, too. After all, Hillary wants to use government to make Government Great Again. And Trump promises to use government to make America Great Again. But the government doesn’t make anything great, including itself. It is a necessary evil that always and everywhere is driven toward self-aggrandizement and mission creep by the politicians and special interest lobbies which control its … Continue reading →

The post Anything Trumps Hillary appeared first on LewRockwell.

While the robo-traders play tag with the chart points, it is worth considering how it will all end. After all, at today’s close the broad market (S&P 500) was valued at 24.3X LTM earnings per share. That is, valuations are in the nosebleed section of history, but financial history has tumbled into the sub-basement of future possibilities. Stated differently, every first-year spreadsheet jockey knows that what drives LBO models and NPV calculations is the assumed terminal year growth rate. Get imaginative enough about the possibilities out there, and you can come up with a swell return on today’s investment even if the next … Continue reading →

The post A Soft Landing Is Impossible appeared first on LewRockwell.

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. But somebody besides the machines is getting paid the big bucks on Wall Street. Do they really think that dancing on a live volcano, as the estimable Ambrose Evans-Pritchard put it recently, is not semi-suicidal? Yet for the last 18 months that is exactly what they have been doing. The S&P 500 closed today exactly where it first … Continue reading →

The post Simple Janet appeared first on LewRockwell.

Even by The Donald’s standards, his 95-minute long interview with the Washington Post was remarkable. He let loose so many stray shots as to leave the establishment press clucking in a chorus of disbelief. It undoubtedly started with the stink bomb he lobbied at the ” all is awesome” meme about the US economy and stock market: Donald Trump said in an interview that economic conditions are so perilous that the country is headed for a “very massive recession” and that “it’s a terrible time right now” to invest in the stock market, embracing a distinctly gloomy view of the economy that … Continue reading →

The post Why Wall Street Is Shaking in Its Handmade Boots appeared first on LewRockwell.

It’s actually pretty easy. At an apt moment very soon, Trump should offer Governor Kasich the VP slot and Senator Cruz the vacant Supreme Court seat. Such a grand bargain would not only clear the primary field and quash any backroom hijacking of the nomination by the Washington GOP establishment; it would also permit each man to play his highest and best role at this great inflection point in the nation’s history. That is, Donald Trump’s job is to destroy the Republican/Neocon establishment and bring working class America back into a modern version of a McKinley-style Republican Party. Ted Cruz’ task is to spend a lifetime bringing strict constructionism back to the high court, thereby helping to restore constitutional … Continue reading →

The post Donald Trump Can Clear the Field appeared first on LewRockwell.

You can give it this much. The Thursday night GOP debate was civil, and probably the last one, too. Rubio is done, Kasich is on vapors and Senator Ted will never stop the Trump Express. In short, The Donald didn’t blow it, and therefore he is the presumptive GOP nominee. And probably the 45th President of the United States. For better or worse. Here follows an essay on the worse, as amplified in the Miami debate. What the latter showed is that the remaining GOP candidates represent the worst of both worlds and that The Donald was mainly right in the thick of it——echoing much of the same beltway … Continue reading →

The post Fiscal Follies, Warmonger Chants, Amnesty for Janet appeared first on LewRockwell.

Wow. Super Tuesday was an earthquake, and not just because Donald Trump ran the tables. The best thing was the complete drubbing and humiliation that voters all over America handed to the little Napoleon from Florida, Marco Rubio. So doing, the voters began the process of ridding the nation of the GOP War Party and its neocon claque of rabid interventionists. They have held sway for nearly three decades in the Imperial City and the consequences have been deplorable. It goes all the way back to the collapse of the old Soviet Union and the elder Bush’s historically foolish decision to invade the Persian Gulf in February … Continue reading →

The post To the Dumpster With the Establishment appeared first on LewRockwell.

The bear will soon be arriving in earnest, marauding through the canyons of Wall Street while red in tooth and claw. Our monetary central planners, of course, will once again—for the third time this century——be utterly shocked and unprepared. That’s because they have spent the better part of two decades deforming, distorting, denuding and destroying what were once serviceably free financial markets. Yet they remain as clueless as ever about the financial time bombs this inexorably fosters. The sum and substance of Keynesian central banking are the falsifications of financial prices. In essence, this means pegging interest rates below market clearing levels on the theory that more borrowing and spending will thereby ensue. … Continue reading →

The post Hidden in Plain Sight appeared first on LewRockwell.

Larry Summers is a pretentious Keynesian fool, but I refer to him as the Great Thinker’s Vicar on Earth for a reason. To wit, every time the latest experiment in Keynesian intervention fails——as 84 months of ZIRP and massive QE clearly have—–he can be counted on to trot out a new angle on why still another interventionist experiment or state sponsored financial fraud is just the ticket. Right now he is leading the charge for the greatest stroke of foolishness yet conceived. Namely, negative interest rates based on the rubbish theory that the “natural” money market rate of interest is at an extraordinarily low point. Accordingly, the central bank should drive the … Continue reading →

The post Why They’re Coming for Your Ben Franklins appeared first on LewRockwell.

This is getting just plain nuts. Here is what Janet Yellen said today about the possibility of negative interest rates: In light of the experience of European countries and others that have gone to negative rates, we’re taking a look at them again because we would want to be prepared in the event that we needed to add accommodation.“ The operative words here are “European countries” and “add accommodation”. Yet even a brief reflection on those items demonstrates that Janet is a delusional Simpleton. To adapt Jim Kunstler’s felicitous phrase about Senator Rubio’s 4-Peat incantation during the last GOP debate, our financial system is being led by a … Continue reading →

The post The Monetary Droid With a Broken Drive appeared first on LewRockwell.

Needless to say, none of that stink was detected by Steve Liesman and his band of Jobs Friday half-wits who bloviate on bubble vision after each release. This time the BLS report actually showed the US economy lost 2.989 million jobs between December and January. Yet Moody’s Keynesian pitchman, Mark Zandi described it as “perfect”Yes, the BLS always uses a big seasonal adjustment (SA) in January——so that’s how they got the positive headline number. But the point is that the seasonal adjustment factor for the month is so huge that the resulting month-over-month delta is inherently just plain noise.To wit, the seasonal adjustment factor for the month was 2.165 million. That means the headline jobs gain of 151k reported on Friday amounted to only7% of the adjustment amount!Any … Continue reading →

The post The Bulls Will Be Slaughtered appeared first on LewRockwell.

There has been an economic coup d’état in America and most of the world. We are now ruled by about 200 unelected central bankers, monetary apparatchiks and their minions and megaphones on Wall Street and other financial centers. Unlike Senator Joseph McCarthy, I actually do have a list of their names. They need to be exposed, denounced, ridiculed, rebuked and removed. The first 30 includes Janet Yellen, William Dudley, the other governors of the Fed and its senior staff. The next 10 includes Jan Hatzius, chief economist of Goldman Sachs, and his counterparts at the other major Wall Street banking houses. Then there is the dreadful Draghi and the 25-member governing council of the ECB and  still more … Continue reading →

The post The 200 Rulers of Global Finance appeared first on LewRockwell.

Last Wednesday we noted there is something rotten in the state of Denmark, meaning that the world’s great potemkin village of Bubble Finance is unraveling. The evidence piles up by the day. To wit, now comes still another story about the Red Paddy Wagons rolling out in China. This time they are rounding-up the proprietors of a $7.6 billion peer-to-peer (P2P) lending Ponzi called Ezubao Ltd.  Ezubo investors lined up outside a government office in Beijing last month; having shut down the online peer-to-peer investing. The particulars of this story are worth more than a week of bloviating by the Wall Street economists, strategists and other shills who visit … Continue reading →

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