CIM Group in the news

Yahoo - Business Wire - CIM Group Fundraises, But Not as Registered “Investment Advisor,” Says UNITE HERE. According to a group called "UNITE HERE", the CIM Group has not filed as an investment adviser. According to the article this is okay because they are a real estate investment firm. Now 28 of the 30 top real estate investment firms did submit the documents and register.

Why does this matter if it is not illegal. The reason is simple, they are heavily funded by public pensions. One would think that Calpers, Lacers and the other public pensions would require their real estate investment firms to be fully transparent. How transparent is CIM Group? Lets see, practically nothing is known about two of it's owners. There is practically no information on Mr. Shaul Kuba or Mr. Avi Shemesh. Their company controls, according to their website, over $9 billion in assets.

How bad will the next market collapse be?

First of all the markets are all so interconnected that it will be universal. When it happens that may seem overwhelming; but, the response will also be coordinated and the reset will come fairly quickly. Stay calm when it happens.

Yahoo - AP - World stock markets fall on Fed uncertainty. The article is from yesterday and the point is that the mere thought of the Federal Reserve cutting back on pumping money into the economy effected stocks worldwide and not just in the United States.

Yahoo - CNBC - Warning: 'Prepare' for Commodity Supercycle End. This crash will effect all asset markets.

Huffington Post - The World Economy's a Ticking Time Bomb (and the Fuse Is Lit). A very well respected economist is about to tell us how bad things are going to get. You should read this article. If you prefer, I have a video of him. Yahoo - CNBC - Are We Heading for a New Financial Crisis?

Forbes - Great Reflation Produces Mirage Of Recovery In Housing. Basically, the "improvement" in the housing market is false.

CNBC - El-Erian: Walk, Don't Run From Equities Risk. All asset classes are going to be effected.

I want to talk about what got us here. The good professor from England summed it up rather nicely. This is not capitalism, this is insider traderism. A system that allows more money to be made when companies do poorly is going to lead to bad decision making. He said it in economist terms; but, the result is the same.

Two things, the economy this week and false redirects

I just deleted what I was going to post and will start over again.

The Telegraph - BIS records startling collapse of eurozone interbank loans. Okay, this is literally the news before it is news, this is what is coming out of England now.

ZeroHedge - Japanese Stocks Down Over 2% At Open; Nikkei 16% Off Highs. It is Monday morning and the Dow has not opened; but, things are already getting crazy. Take a deep breath and relax.

Expect high volatility in the stock market this week and don't sweat it. I have been saying for two weeks to expect volatility. If you are a regular reader then don't worry. This is a time when the sheep get sheared by the big guys, that is purpose of volatility and options. Don't play the options.

It's not looking good for the stock market or big banks

There is a group you have probably never heard of other than here and I don't talk about them often. It is called the Bank of International Settlements and it sort of coordinates between all the worlds central banks. Well, they just issued a paper on how they might recapitalize to big to fail banks with bail-ins and some other things.

Yahoo - Reuters - BIS lays out "simple" plan for how to handle bank failures

The actual proposal from BIS's own website is here. BIS - A template for recapitalising too-big-to-fail banks.

What is going on is that the IMF and governments want to take a "bail-in" approach favoring depositors and BIS wants to put some others in a better situation. What I find really interesting is that with all of these governments and banks suddenly publishing their plans for what to do with the investment banks fail again, why is it barely mentioned in any of the financial papers?

Here is what is going on with the banks at the moment. New York Times - Quantity Over Quality in Bank Profits. The large banks are showing higher profits; but, not from lending out money. One of the things these banks did was decrease how much they set aside in the event of losses on loans.

Traditionally banks were different. You would deposit your funds for safe keeping and they would loan money out to people to buy houses, start businesses and buy cars or other large purchases. The bank put money in real assets that effected their community. During the period of deregulation things changed. They allowed all banks to become investment banks. Banks began finding they could make more money off the stock market and keep the profit. They take your deposit and then gamble on the stock market. Risky investments don't matter because they are gambling with your money.

While I will link to the financial mainstream media, the fact is that you cannot trust them. How many of them predicted the housing crash or the stock crash? Yeah. The media acts as a cheerleader for Wall Street or they won't get the interviews or the insider information that allows them to make money too.

I expect volatility; but, the real challenge comes on the 21st. Be well.

Just More News About Wall Street and some music

I am a little bored and a little tired. I thought I might make a final post for the night and listen to some music. lets get the news out of the way.

Yahoo - Reuters - Wall Street Week Ahead: Good news on jobs may be bad for stocks. The article is saying that if more people get jobs, it will hurt stock numbers because the Federal Reserve might stop giving away cheap money to investment banks.

Yahoo - Wall Street Journal - Rising Stock Prices Flash a Warning…Selloff Ahead?. Psst, you cannot tell anyone; but, I will tell you what is going on. The smart guys are being played big time. The Federal Reserve is going to slow down on buying bonds so they scare investors into getting out of stocks and into bonds by saying that the market is going to drop and it probably is. Stocks, bonds, banks or your bed. You got to put your money somewhere. Keep an eye on the market and don't sell your stocks when the market goes crazy. If you have stocks in banks, get out. I am no financial adviser; but, that is what I tell my friends who ask me.

Now to the music. The Pimpernel listens mostly to Rock and Roll, I listen to it all, punk to pop. I listen to Opera, classical, country and love big bands; but, my heart is in jazz. Modern jazz, old school, new school, anything. I love jazz, it grabs me. Here are some modern twists on it that I am in love with.

YouTube - BOZ SCAGGS - Breakdown Dead Ahead

YouTube - Steely Dan | Home At Last

YouTube - Dave Brubeck - Take Five

YouTube - Love Story Theme - By Henry Mancini

Want to hear something wonderful. A very sultry and sexy version of an old torch song. Watch it all the way through. YouTube - Alice Fredenham singing 'My Funny Valentine' - Week 1 Auditions | Britain's Got Talent 2013. I wish the young lady joy.

YouTube - one from the heart.

More Economic News and Concerns

I was fortunate enough to have dinner with two friends. They are a little older than me and I used to work for the husband. I really look up to them both because of how they live their lives. He gave me a document to read that someone put online that talked about some of the same things that I am seeing in the economy. What is even funnier is that just before I left for dinner I got a call from another friend who wanted to talk about where to keep his money. Beyond this blog a lot of people that know me personally know that what is going on today I have been saying was coming for quite a while. Warren Buffet talked about it in his letters and tried to get businesses to understand that they have to be well run places which care about their product and are seeking long term growth. He said that because we don't follow these principles we were going to see a decline in America.

As I have said for one or two weeks now, there is something that has turned. I don't know exactly what it was; but, it is what is causing the market volatility and we are headed for real problems and I think soon. The date to watch the stock market is June 21st, that is the triple witching hour on wall street. I haven't wanted to commit to a date and still won't; but, I read something today that would lead me to believe the date is due.

The Business Insider - THE HINDENBURG OMEN HAS APPEARED. I don't follow charts or trend formulas when I look at the stock market because I know the market is manipulated. Still, it is worth reading. According to the author there is a trading pattern that means that if you see it you should be in a full fledged market crash within 30 days. Apparently the indications manifested themselves on May 29th.

My belief that we were going to enter a deep recession (were not supposed to call it a depression) was partly due to the fact that we had a inverted yield curve. Boy, I haven't talked about that in awhile and you can look it up on Wikipedia. There are certain indicators that are leading indicators and it sounds as if this "Hindenburg Omen" is one of those. Well, If the article is correct then that June date is looking like the time when it would happen.

Now for some history. When the market crashed a few years ago there were some interesting things that happened. The most important one is that during the one hour of the crash hedge funds bought 75% of all the Treasury Bonds and banks bought 25%, this is the exact opposite of what traditionally happens. You may also remember that the computers did not track trades during that hour.

Yahoo - Reuters - NYSE asks SEC to reinstate volatility curbs. I guess others are expecting extreme volatility.

Reuters - Major Japan banks' JGB holdings plunge in April - BOJ. Basically, the Japanese banks are owning less of the nations Treasury bonds.

CNBC - Stocks close with big drop; Dow tumbles 200 points on uncertainties. Today another swing.

Yahoo - Crash, Correction or Pullback: What Follows a Seven Month Rally?. Another article on how the market is acting strangely.

Yahoo - Reuters - Digital currency firms rush to adopt anti-money laundering rules. Before the governments get into digital currencies, they want private enterprise to pay for proving how it should be done correctly.

Intellihub - Bilderberg, Google and the G8: New Global Tax Regime Already in the Works. Increasing the chatter about global taxation.

Mail Online - The hi-tech tattoo that could replace ALL your passwords: Motorola reveals plans for ink and even pills to identify us. Wait, wait, wait, okay say it. Yes, I have been saying this would come for a long time.

Well, that is a lot of stuff for you to read and listen to. I wish to say that this blog now has more hits per month than it ever has. I don't think the Drudge Report is shaking in it's boots; but, it sure gives me a reason to keep writing. I hope when the currencies crash that this blog sort of shows how and why we are the state we are in. I hope people go back and point to what I have said and ask the simple question, how come nobody else talked some of these things. Why isn't anyone talking about The Chicago Plan Revisited that the IMF published, why isn't anyone talking about the agreement between the FDIC and Bank of England? The Mainstream media doesn't talk about it because their companies owners have inside knowledge and benefit from it. The "alternative" media like Alex Jones, David Icke and even Peter Schiff doesn't talk about it because they have something to sell. I have nothing to sell and don't want to sell anything or even have advertisements on my blog.

You have to be very careful of anyone who writes because they have an economic stake in it, it tends to cause them to either manipulate their readers or attempt to cause to overexcite them to increase viewership. Look, everything is going to be okay, it is going to be what it is going to be. Oh, by the way, the Bildergerg meeting is June 6th to the 9th. We are passengers on this ship and don't have any control over where the ship is going. Enjoy the trip as best you can.

UPDATE:

I forgot to post this video from CNBC of another Wall Street expert saying that something is not right. 90 Seconds with Art Cashin: Volume & Volatility. I have said that I may not have the timing right; but, there sure are a lot of people implying that it is soon and June seems to be the time.

Stomach Flu and Economic News

The Pimpernel and friends have all had the stomach flu for the past week. For my part I made sure that I drank lots of water and we all slept more than usual. It also made me feel more hungry than usual which I find odd. I was sort of dopey because of it all for the past couple of days. As a consequence I have not paid attention to the news as much as I usually do; but, I do have some interesting articles that I came across.

Yahoo - A Remote Control For The Body. I don't know about you; but, I don't like the idea of having somebody remote controlling my body. I was in the hospital once and they wanted to check my heart by giving me what is called a stress test; but, they didn't want me to stress myself by walking on a treadmill so they chemically induced by heart to speed up and slow down. It was strange knowing that the nurse had control over my body. A very strange experience.

Mail Online - Buying pizza? Expect a healthy reminder from Tesco: Supermarket giant will use loyalty card data to see who is eating what
. It should be so obvious where this is going to my long time readers. I have written about this a few times. Lets say you want to save money on healthcare and food subsidies for the poor. You simply track what they buy and make healthy and cost saving suggestions. This will come to America very soon.

CNBC - Texas Counties Set Example for Retirement
. Now here is another repeating of the big lie. The article states that cities and counties did not meet their obligations to put more money into public pensions; but, the fail to mention that the cities and counties couldn't because during the boom, the pensions were overfunded and they were not allowed to be. The response in many municipalities was to stop making their contributions and increase retirement benefits. There was no need to increase benefits.

CNBC - Reuters - Congress returns to U.S. public pension battle with new bill. At the bottom of the article it mentions a group called the "Governmental Accounting Standards Board" or GASB. GASB makes recommendations for how state and local governments do accounting. A few years back they changed the way pensions are reported and that change makes the pensions appear to be in trouble when in fact they are not. The trick is simple. How much money do I need to make a year to buy a house? Lets say if I make $50,000 a year I can buy a $100,000 home. My debt is $100,000; but, the total amount I will pay in mortgage payments is $300,000 because of interest and amortization. I don't show that I owe $300,000 when I go to buy a car; but, that is how they show it when discussing pensions.

Now lets ask a question. If there is no problem then why the story and spin. Look, San Bernadino declared bankruptcy and said they couldn't pay their pension obligations; but, when Calpers investigated it turned out that they could pay the costs and were hiding the money. They don't want to tell the truth, the truth is that people on average are living longer and we need people to therefore work longer.

ABC - Last Living Man Born in 19th Century Likely Has Genes to Thank. I post this story because of something that happened to me long ago. I was in college and lived in a raggedy studio across from the school. I actually slept on a cot and when I turned on the oven would watch all the cockroaches leave it. Anyways, I was sitting there one night and across the way could see the college library where there was one person reading a book in the window. It made me wonder what if you were the oldest person in the world, the last person from a long gone generation. You would have outlived all of the people on the earth that lived here when you were born. Everyone on earth changed around you and you remained relatively the same.

Detroit News - U.S. urges states not to allow general use of self-driving cars. The question is what will the regulations be. One is that you have to be behind the wheel, will biometrically identify yourself be next?

The Telegraph - No saviour in sight as world credit cycle rolls over. Here is the short on the article; but, I recommend you read it anyways. The short is that if you have high yield and high risk investments, you are going to lose big time. The economies of the west are unsustainable.

NBC - Reuters - Wealthy benefit the most from top tax breaks, government study shows. It is not about tax rates, it is about deductions.

Fox News - Could bitcoin go legit?. The blueprint for future government backed electronic currencies is being written and as you read the article notice how it says that you have to prove who you are to use the trusted bitcoins.

Mail Online - After death of cheques now CASH is in the firing line as figures show Britons did 10% less shopping with coins and notes in 2012. I never read an article which talks about why we should keep physical money. We will end up with an all electronic currency, you will not have a choice.

Now enjoy some fun stuff. Firstly, a young lady that knows how to play the guitar.

YouTube - Tina S - Van Halen cover- Eruption.

YouTube - JACK CARROLL - BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT 2013 SEMI FINAL PERFORMANCE. I just love this kid, he is hilarious.

YouTube - Owen Campbell - Angry Busker - Australia's Got Talent 2012 audition 3 [FULL].

YouTube - Anna Graceman, 11 ~ America's Got Talent 2011, Atlanta Auditions. She reminded me of someone else, she reminded me of a young girl a very long time ago who sat on my stage and sang the saddest song, she moved the whole audience and I was fortunate enough to light her. This is the song she sang. YouTube - Carly Simon - That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be - 1971
. I saw a 13 year old girl sing that song and you could feel her pain. She sang it the same everytime, every show and every rehearsal. I didn't know her well, just another performer on my stage; but, I knew she knew the pain she sang about. She found the perfect way to express it and use it.

Now some old school fun. YouTube - The Sweet - Love Is Like Oxygen ( HQ 1080p HD Upscale ).