November 8: Daily Contrarian Reads

Election Day In America #1: The Task At Hand—–Bringing Down The Globalist Monster

The main issue in the world today is globalism versus national sovereignty, and it is playing out in the politics of countries on every continent. In the United States, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s critique of globalism – encapsulated in his campaign theme of “America First” – has galvanized a mass movement opposed to the internationalism of the regnant elites, their transnational allegiances and their foreign wars. In Britain, the opposition to the European Union culminated in a referendum which – against all odds, and against all the Powers That Be – repudiated the EU in a stunning blow to the political class.

Election Day In America #2—–The Odor of Rotting Carp

A mighty nausea wells up across the land as the awful day cometh. Who will receive the black spot of fate on Tuesday? I wouldn’t want to be him or her on that dreadful day. The flagship of Modernity has lost its vaunted mojo and nobody knows what to do about it as the USS-USA pitches and yaws into the maelstrom. FBI Director James Comey’s eleventh hour reprieve of Hillary in the email server case sent an odor of rotting carp wafting across the political landscape. Like, his peeps actually vetted 650,000 emails in a week? I’m sure. Of course, the FBI does not issue indictments; that’s AG Loretta Lynch’s job over at the Department of Justice. The FBI only makes criminal referrals to such. But this puts too fine a point on the matter because the much more serious issue is the Clinton Foundation case, and the arrant sale of influence while HRC ran the State Department

Election Day In America #3: America’s Ruling Elite Has Failed And Deserves To Be Fired.

America’s Ruling Elite is freaking out because a significant percentage of the American public is trying to fire them. The Ruling Elite has failed and deserves to be fired, and deep down, they know it–and this awareness of their self-serving failure fuels their panic and their loathing of the non-elite Americans who are trying to fire them.

Election Day In America #4: The Podesta/Clinton Crime Family: A Must View Video

Election Day America #5: The Voters Do Not Believe Obamacare Held Medical Inflation To 5%

Got that? The BLS assumes that regardless of what you pay, if the insurance company pays more to the hospital, you must have received more benefits! I expect major revisions to this nonsense sometime down the road. Tell me, are your medical expenses up only 5 percent from a year ago

Why Stocks Will Crash—-Market Far Beyond Double Its True Value

My continued impression is that the global equity markets broadly peaked in the second-quarter of 2015, and that the more recent marginal U.S. highs in August were a “throwover” in response to the post-Brexit plunge in global interest rates. High-yield credit is also rolling over, suggesting that the peak of yield-seeking speculation induced by central banks is probably behind us. That’s not to say that central banks will refrain from further attempts to compress yields in response to economic shortfalls. The problem is that even in a world where short-term rates remain compressed, the valuations and prospective long-term returns of risk-sensitive assets are already far outside the bounds that have historically delivered adequate risk-premiums.

Election Days Stakes—-Much More Than Trump

It doesn’t take an Ivy League degree to know that the national debt, $19 trillion and counting, is a big, scary number, and that the unfunded Social Security and medical care liabilities coming due are even bigger, scarier numbers. It does, apparently, take an Ivy League degree to believe that more debt is the answer to our economic problems, or that microscopic or negative interest rates will do anything but fund carry-trade speculators and screw those trying to fund their own postponed retirements, or that the limping economy since the financial crisis has “recovered.” Idiotic blather fills the elite, mainstream media, while much truth is suppressed and debate stifled in the name of political correctness.

C-Suite Punters At Work—–Company’s Buying Back Their Own Shares Are Down %126 Billion (15%) In Last Three Years

If you think your stocks are doing poorly, check out the performance of some of the most sophisticated investors, the ones with more knowledge about what’s going on inside businesses than anyone else: Companies that buy their own shares. The companies losing money on these bets are down a collective $126 billion over the past three years, a decline of 15 percent. Many corporations would have been better off investing that cash in an index fund instead of their own stock. The overall market rose 39 percent over the same period. The companies could also have distributed that cash as dividends to shareholders, allowing them to spend what is, in the end, their money.

Recessions, Predictions And The Stock Market

The problem with this is of course that by the time everybody realizes that  a recession is actually unfolding,  the stock market is usually already half-way to making its bear market lows. Mainstream economists and central planning bureaucrats are usually particularly clueless when it comes to forecasting recessions. They don’t even recognize them when they are staring them into the face. As an example, shortly before the market crashed in 2008, nearly everybody denied that a recession might already be in train or might be imminent. The ECB actually hiked its main refinancing rate in the summer of 2008. It is fair to say that no-one at the ECB had even the foggiest idea that an economic contraction was already underway.

The Restaurant Recession Has Arrived

Restaurant companies should brace for a challenging period as consumers grapple with the rising costs of rent, prescriptions and car loans and take advantage of cheaper groceries to eat at home more. That’s the verdict of Moody’s Investors Service, which on Tuesday slashed its operating-profit growth forecast for the restaurant sector and revised its outlook to stable from positive.