The Aussie Dollar Rises on a Cocaine Fueled Bond Buying Plan

The Aussie dollar took center stage as a risk on currency overnight as the fed pledged to sprinkle cocaine on the stock markets.

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Oil pushed over a $100 per barrel on a bond buying plan announced by the fed yesterday.

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Yields for Italy, Spain, France,  and Germany …

Apologies to Mr. Stein for re-printing a portion of his article. I had to, considering a couple colleagues can attest to me saying almost these exact words, a few hours before Stein published his piece.

By Ben Stein on 9.13.12 @ 8:00AM

Al Qaeda is. Please inform your Ministry of Truth.

So, let me get this straight:

It is September 11, 2012. An Al Qaeda sponsored mob is marching, running, screaming towards the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Supposedly they are angry about an e-mail cartoon about the Islamic figure, Mohammed. It is known right away that the organizers of the march are the same entity that did the mass murder of Americans on 9.11.01.

The Embassy issues an apology for an American using his free speech rights about a matter of deep concern. They attempt to appease the mob. It doesn’t work. The mobs acts violently and disrespectfully towards the U.S. Embassy. They are al Qaeda. This is what they do.

No comment or almost none from Mr. Obama.

Then an al Qaeda mob attacks the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya, burns it, kills the U.S. Ambassador and three other heroic American diplomats. Again, in a classic al Qaeda move, it is all timed perfectly to infuriate the USA. It isn’t spontaneous. It was 9/11, for Pete’s sake.

No comment from Mr. Obama except terse condolences.

Then along comes Governor Romney, who rightly says, “Hey, why are we appeasing an al Qaeda mob? Why aren’t we calling these guys the vicious killers that they are? Why are we back in this apology to bad guys mode?”

Then, and only then, the Obama White House goes into hyper drive. It turns out that the real problem is not al Qaeda. No, and it’s not Mr. Obama’s appeasement. No, the real threat to America is (wait for it), Mitt Romney. Yes!!! According to White House uber-pal, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Romney is working with the terrorists against the U.S. government by calling for criticism of the al Qaeda!

Yes, Romney is the enemy for pointing out that Mr. Obama is ass kissing the terrorists!

This is terrifying. The media line up to get their marching orders from the Obama Ministry of Truth and suddenly it’s Gospel: the problem is not al Qaeda. It is Romney. With a “more in sorrow than in anger…” look and tone, Mr. Obama pities Romney’s naïveté.

This is disgusting. It is nauseating. This is what happens when you have a one-party media. The lie becomes the truth. George Orwell saw it coming. In 1984, his MiniTrue had up its mission.

Who controls the present, controls the past.
Who controls the past controls the future.

It has happened. The MSM and the White House have outlawed truth. Some of us old ones can remember when it was legal and the media worked to keep it alive. Now, like the firemen in Fahrenheit 451, the MSM press exists to obliterate truth — not to preserve it.

Read the rest here.

Earlier this year, the Federal Reserve reached a crossroads. It had lowered short-term interest rates to zero and promised to keep them there until 2013, and then 2014. It had undertaken multiple rounds of bond purchases to lower long-term interest rates. Yet the recovery was actually losing steam; unemployment had stopped falling. Was there anything left to try?

The answer, it turns out, is yes. The Fed made one of its most consequential announcements yet today. The detailed actions were, in themselves, similar to previous steps: it will buy $40 billion of mortgage backed securities per month, and extend the period of short-term rates near zero until at least mid-2015. But the game changer was what it said: it will keep buying bonds until, and beyond, when the recovery is firmly established. Specifically, the Federal Open Market Committee said in its statement:

If the outlook for the labor market does not improve substantially, the Committee will continue its purchases of agency mortgage-backed securities, undertake additional asset purchases, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate until such improvement is achieved in a context of price stability… [A] highly accommodative stance of monetary policy will remain appropriate for a considerable time after the economic recovery strengthens.

There are two key innovations here, both aimed at altering expectations. First is the commitment to open-ended bond purchases. Last week, the European Central Bank put its unlimited capacity to print money to bear on the euro crisis by promising to buying peripheral country bonds with no “ex ante quantitative limit”.  The Fed has done the same thing, though in the cause of boosting output rather than saving the euro. Do not underestimate the psychological impact on investors of “unlimited.”

Read the rest here.

Wait until newspapers figure out how Obamacare will impact their bottom lines. They are barely keeping their heads above water as it is.

The International Franchise Association held a convention in Washington this week where most of the Radio Shack, Dunkin Donuts, Curves and other franchisers were grumbling about new federal regulations, especially the impact of Obamacare.

Most, said Atlanta Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken franchiser David Barr, presumed that the reports about how hard Obamacare will hit them were overblown. “They had their head in the sand,” he told Secrets.

That is until he pulled out his powerpoint showing how funding Obamacare will cut his–and likely their–profits in half overnight. With simple math the small business folks understood, he spelled out that their only choice is to slash employee hours so they aren’t eligible for company-paid health care or stop offering insurance and pay the $2,000 per employee fine.

Read the rest here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7hzpC_mIzec

The killings of the US ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were likely to have been the result of a serious and continuing security breach, The Independent can reveal.

American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential.

The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the “safe house” in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed “safe”.

Read the rest here.

Unreal

Gapping up 

LRN +12.3%, PLL +8%, NDZ +1.9%, DSW +1.7%, JIVE +2.4%,  CLF +2.4%,

AEO +2.3% ,  ROST +0.5%,

Gapping down 

PSTI -11.9%, SEH -7.1%, HK -5.7%, GWR -4.3%, CHSP -3.9%, SAAS -3.5%,

RIO -2.3%, TWO -1.3%, MT -1.2%, INTC -0.8%, MRVL -0.5%,  UPS -0.4% ,

NKE -0.3%

FB, SIRI, INTC, MSFT, ZNGA, AAPL, ORCL, YHOO, CSCO, DELL,

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In Play ,

On the Wires 

Fun times developing….

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More fun times to come….

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Fun times…..

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Political unrest, strikes, and monetary debasement have the precious metal markets flying high. Still well below inflation adjusted highs. ALL ABOARD !

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“Opinions are still somewhat split on just what the Federal Reserve will decide to do at a two-day meeting that wraps up Thursday, but the general consensus seems to be that Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues will announce a third round of asset purchases.

Goldman’s chief U.S. economist Jan Hatzius believes there is a better than 50% chance the Fed extends the duration of its low interest rate pledge and announces further asset purchases, largely due to Bernanke’s “self-described ‘grave concern’ about the labor market.”

Two previous rounds of quantitative easing provided a big lift for the stock market, particularly more risky, speculative names. In an equity research note Wednesday, Goldman Sachs tells clients that QE3 is likely to have the same effect.

“If history is a guide,  lean cheap and towards growth,” Goldman advises. “[S]tocks with low valuations or high growth prospects … have historically outperformed around policy statements.”

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“(Reuters) – Silicon Valley, the birthplace of the microprocessor, the personal computer and the iPhone, is a model of private enterprise at work. But not when it comes to getting a mortgage.

In Santa Clara County, the center of the global tech industry and one of the wealthiest places in the United States, most home buyers get help from the government, an analysis of government lending data shows. The same is true in other wealthy enclaves such as Nassau County, outside New York, and Arlington County, outside Washington, the analysis of more than 50 million loans finds.”

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