NIRP is back.
On Friday, when Germany reported disastrous mfg and service PMI prints, the 10Y German Bund finally threw in the towel, with the yield sliding back under zero for the first time in three years. When that happened, and when the 3M-10Y yield curve inverted in the US right around that time, just over $400 billion in global debt changed the sign on its yield from positive to negative.
As a result, the total notional of global negative yielding debt soared on Friday, rising above $10 trillion for the first time Since September 2017, and which according to Bloomberg has intensified "the conundrum for investors hungry for returns while fretting the brewing economic slowdown."
Paradoxically, the amount of negative-yielding debt has nearly doubled in just six months, and confirms that the global asset bubble is back because as Gary Kirk, a founding partner at London-based TwentyFour Asset Management, said "money managers face increasing pressure to reprise the yield-chasing mentality synonymous with quantitative easing."
“This obviously tempts those investors holding cash to move along the maturity curve -- or down the rating curve -- to seek yield, which is once again becoming a scarce commodity,” he said. “It’s a classic late-cycle conundrum.”
Despite the Fed's renewed herding of investors into the riskiest assets, Kirk is so far "resisting the temptation" to snap up longer-dated credit obligations that will be the first to default when the next recession hits, and prefers duration bets in interest-rate markets.
Others won't be so lucky: as we noted last Friday, the 'reverse rotation', or flood into fixed income instruments, is accelerating and fund flows confirmed the fresh panic for yield just as the specter of QE4 returns as investors in the latest week parked $6.6 billion into investment-grade funds, $3.2 billion into high-yield bonds and $1.2 billion into emerging-market debt, according to EPFR data.
"The extraordinary abrupt end to central bank hiking cycle + Fed paranoia of credit event is uber-bullish credit & uber-bearish volatility," BofA's Michael Hartnett wrote on Thursday night.
Meanwhile, negative yields mean that investors will lose money just by holding bonds to maturity, and are merely hoping that the Fed's insanity will push prices even higher, allowing them to sell to other panicked bond investors at even lower yields down the road, which wouldn't be that difficult if a global depression emerges, resulting in negative growth and/or outright deflation. But - as Bloomberg notes- along the way, risk assets may be entering the danger zone.
"We’ve never seen monetary easing so long, so broad, so big," William Blair's Brian Singer told Bloomberg. "What’s happened after every significant period of accommodation is a reckoning. This time the bubble is lower-rated credit and illiquid private assets."
How or when this bubble ends remains unclear; one thing is certain: when Ben Bernanke said in 2014 that there will be no rate normalization in his lifetime, he was - perhaps for the only time in his career - correct.
The Southern Poverty Law Center - the "vicious left-wing attack dog" used by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google and Amazon to identify "hate groups" - is unraveling.
A week after co-founder Morris Dees was ousted over sexual misconduct claims - with two dozen employees signing a letter of concern over "allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism," the head of the SPLC, Richard Cohen, as well as the organization's legal director, Rhonda Brownstein, resigned on Friday.
Cohen had been with the organization 33 years and was one of its most prominent figures.
At 5:03 p.m. Friday, Cohen sent a message to staff, with the subject line “Stepping Down,” announcing that he, too, would be leaving the organization that he and Dees had turned into a research and fundraising juggernaut.
“Whatever problems exist at the SPLC happened on my watch, so I take responsibility for them,” Cohen wrote, while asking the staff to avoid jumping to conclusions before the board completes an internal review of the Montgomery, Ala., organization’s work culture. -LA Times
Earlier this week, the SPLC board of directors appointed Michelle Obama's former chief of staff, Tina Tchen - who, in an unrelated matter, unsuccessfully tried to pull strings and have the Jussie Smollett case transferred from the Chicago PD to the FBI. Tchen is heading up the inquiry into the sexual misconduct claims.
Also out on Friday was Rhonda Brownstein - who had worked with the organization for nearly three decades, according to the Montgomery Advertiser's Melissa Brown.
Inside the SPLC "Scam"
As the Washington Examiner's Beckett Adams writes, the Southern Poverty Law Center is a "scam," which has taken " no care whatsoever for the reputational and personal harm it causes by lumping Christians and anti-extremist activists with actual neo-Nazis."
As it turns out, the SPLC is a cynical money-making scheme, according to a former staffer’s blistering tell-all, published this week in the New Yorker. The center’s chief goal is to bilk naive and wealthy donors who believe it's an earnest effort to combat bigotry.
The only thing worse than a snarling partisan activist is a slimy conman who merely pretends to be one. -Washington Examiner
"“Outside of work," recalls Bob Moser of his days working for the organization, "we spent a lot of time drinking and dishing in Montgomery bars and restaurants about … the hyperbolic fund-raising appeals, and the fact that, though the center claimed to be effective in fighting extremism, ‘hate’ always continued to be on the rise, more dangerous than ever, with each year’s report on hate groups. ‘The S.P.L.C.—making hate pay,’ we’d say."
"[I]t was hard, for many of us, not to feel like we’d become pawns in what was, in many respects, a highly profitable scam," added Moser.
The way Moser tells it, the center’s chief founder, Morris Dees, who was dismissed unceremoniously last week for unspecified reasons, discovered early on that he could rake in boatloads of cash by convincing “gullible Northern liberals” that his group is doing the hard work of fighting “hate.”
But the center’s supposed mission of combating bigotry doesn’t actually matter to its top brass, Moser says. It’s just a business choice and one that has been extremely lucrative throughout the years. Moser’s article reminds readers of the time Dees actually said of the SPLC in an interview with then-Progressive magazine reporter John Egerton, “We just run our business like a business. Whether you’re selling cakes or causes, it’s all the same.” -Washington Examiner
Moser claims that the SPLC's business model centers entirely around keeping its precious donors in constant fear using gimmicks such as "hate maps" and "hate lists."
"[T]he center continues to take in far more than it spends. And it still tends to emphasize splashy cases that are sure to draw national attention,” he writes adding the group’s “central strategy” involves “taking on cases guaranteed to make headlines and inflame the far right while demonstrating to potential donors that the center has not only all the right enemies but also the grit and know-how to take them down."
Moser adds there is an inescapable sense of “guilt” that comes with thinking about “the legions of donors who believed that their money was being used, faithfully and well, to do the Lord’s work in the heart of Dixie. We were part of the con, and we knew it.”
Who knew you could make the big bucks simply by lumping Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ben Carson with actual, honest-to-God neo-Nazis? -Washington Examiner
Right wing commentator and Vice co-founder Gavin McInnes is currently suing the SPLC for labeling his right-wing fraternal organization, the Proud Boys, a hate group.
The SPLC has gone from a noble institution genuinely dedicated to eradicating hate to a hate group in and of itself that pretends this country is frothing with bigots desperate to foment World War III," McInnes said in a press release.
McInnes has raised nearly $200,000 out of a goal of $250,000 to continue his lawsuit. From his website Defendgavin.com:
I'm suing the SPLC. And it's not just because they destroyed my career and shattered my reputation. It's because they could do the same to you. Though this group is often cited as a credible source by the media, nobody who actually knows stuff takes them seriously.
No, being called an extremist by the SPLC does NOT mean you're an extremist. No, being called a Hate Group by the SPLC does NOT make you a Hate Group. And no, being called a racist or an anti-Semite or an Islamophobe or a transphobe or a homophobe by the SPLC does NOT make you any of those things. -Gavin McInnes
We wonder if there will even be an SPLC left to sue by the time it reaches a courtroom.
The hosts of Fox & Friends went off Saturday morning on the completion of the Mueller investigation, with expectations it’s going to show Democrats got way ahead of themselves on this.
Pete Hegseth asked at what moment Robert Mueller said, “Oh, man, we don’t have anything. What do we do now?”
There was all this hype and all this stuff and all this dossier and then they looked into it and realized there was no collusion. And no obstruction,” he added.
Ed Henry cautioned that we haven’t actually seen the report yet, but knocked Democrats for “trying to move the goal posts” and comments a number of them have made about continuing investigations.
Regarding calls for the Mueller report to be made public, Katie Pavlich noted there’s been Republican calls for transparency too. Henry noted the likely national security redactions and said clearly Democrats want any information damaging to the Trump administration, even if it’s not criminal, out there.
“The argument from the beginning is there was Russian collusion. This is why the special counsel needed to be appointed,” Pavlich said. “It then moved to conspiracy and obstruction of justice and Democrats are now probably going to move to some other argument.”
They showed some of the reactions from other networks to the Mueller report’s completion before Hegseth said this:
“What happens when your savior becomes the absolver of your enemy? That’s what’s happening for them right now. Bob Mueller was going to bring the heat on the man they hate the most. And what if this report says no, actually, guys, you’ve spent 675 days yelling about nonsense, which some of us have said from the beginning, and now this report comes out. There’s a few things in there. A couple bad business dealings in the past, but ultimately Trump actually just won the election. They’ll go nuts.”
You can watch above, via Fox News.
[image via screengrab]
Jimmy Carter became the oldest living former U.S. president ever at 94 years and 172 days on Friday.
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
The Robert Mueller investigation which monopolized political discourse for two years has finally concluded, and his anxiously awaited report has been submitted to Attorney General William Barr. The results are in and the debate is over: those advancing the conspiracy theory that the Kremlin has infiltrated the highest levels of the US government were wrong, and those of us voicing skepticism of this were right.
The contents of the report are still secret, but CNN’s Justice Department reporter Laura Jarrett has told us all we need to know, tweeting, “Special Counsel Mueller is not recommending ANY further indictments am told.” On top of that, William Barr said in a letter to congressional leaders that there has been no obstruction of Mueller’s investigation by Justice Department officials.
So that’s it, then. A completely unhindered investigation has failed to convict a single American of any kind of conspiracy with the Russian government, and no further indictments are coming. The political/media class which sold rank-and-file Americans on the lie that the Mueller investigation was going to bring down this presidency were liars and frauds, and none of the goalpost-moving that I am sure is already beginning to happen will change that.
Say it again: Mueller has indicted *zero* Americans for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election, which was central impetus for the Special Counsel in the first place. Anyone who denies this is an abject liar https://t.co/gRQdr01ZCv
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 22, 2019
Can we get it any clearer than this?? From the NYT: https://t.co/47APcLxf0l pic.twitter.com/gvtDLGblSp
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 23, 2019
It has been obvious from the very beginning that the Maddow Muppets were being sold a lie. In 2017 I wrote an article titled “How We Can Be Certain That Mueller Won’t Prove Trump-Russia Collusion”, saying that Mueller would continue finding evidence of corruption “since corruption is to DC insiders as water is to fish”, but he will not find evidence of collusion. If you care to take a scroll through the angry comments on that article, just on Medium alone, you will see a frozen snapshot of what the expectations were from mainstream liberals at the time. They had swallowed the Russiagate narrative hook, line and sinker, and they believed that the Mueller investigation was going to vindicate them. It did not.
I’ve been saying Russiagate is bullshit from the beginning, and I’ve been called a Trump shill, a Kremlin propagandist, a Nazi and a troll every day for saying so by credulous mass media-consuming dupes who drank the Kool Aid. And I’ve only taken a fraction of the flack more high profile Russiagate skeptics like Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey have been getting for expressing doubt in the Gospel According to Maddow. The insane, maniacal McCarthyite feeding frenzy that these people were plunged into by nonstop mass media propaganda drowned out the important voices who tried to argue that public energy was being sucked into Russia hysteria and used to manufacture support for dangerous cold war escalations with a nuclear superpower.
Just think what we could have done with that energy over the last two years. Think how much public support could have been poured into the sweeping progressive reforms called for by the Sanders movement, for example, instead of constant demands for more sanctions and nuclear posturing against Russia. Think how much more attention could have been drawn to Trump’s actual horrific policies like his facilitation of Saudi butchery in Yemen or his regime change agendas in Iran and Venezuela, his support for ecocide and military expansionism and the barbarism of Jair Bolsonaro and Benjamin Netanyahu. Think how much more energy could have gone into beating back the Republicans in the midterms, reclaiming far more House seats and taking the Senate as well, gathering momentum for a presidential candidacy that truly threatens Trump instead of 9,000 primary candidates who will probably be selected by superdelegates after the first ballot when there’s too many of them to establish a clear majority under the new rules.
.@caitoz sums up: "Mock the Russiagaters.Mock them ruthlessly, and never, ever let them forget the horrible thing that they did. Never stop making fun of them and reminding them how stupid and crazy they acted during this humiliating period of US history." https://t.co/rWTs9vHYPe
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 22, 2019
We must never let them forget what they did or what they cost us all. We must never let mainstream Democrats forget how crazy they got, how much time and energy they wasted, how very, very wrong they were and how very, very right we were.
Never stop reminding them of this. Never stop mocking them for it. Never stop mocking their idiotic Rachel Maddow worship. Never stop mocking the Robert Mueller prayer candles. Never stop making fun of the way they blamed all their problems on Susan Sarandon. Never stop reminding them of those stupid pink vagina hats. Never stop mocking them for elevating Louise Mensch and Eric Garland. Never stop mocking them for creating the fucking Krassenstein brothers.
Every politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this moronic load of bull spunk has officially discredited themselves for life. Going forward, authority and credibility rests solely with those who kept clear eyes and clear heads during the mass media propaganda blitzkrieg, not with those who were stupid enough to believe what they were told about the behaviors of a noncompliant government in a post-Iraq invasion world. The people who steered us into two years of Russiavape insanity are the very last people anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world.
* * *
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Gov. Edwards: 'I am praying for her'
DOJ staffers who like money and know where AG Barr keeps the keys to his safe, take note. WikiLeaks has launched a $1 million fundraiser over the next seven days "used to facilitate the full publication" of the long-awaited Mueller report, which was completed on Friday and submitted to Attorney General William Barr for review.
A summary of key findings is expected to reach Congress this weekend, which is expected to be made public. A release of the full report, however, will be up to Barr, the White House and Congress.
And while many on the left - including Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer - are calling for the public release of the report so they can pick through its findings for "Gotchas!" to ride into 2020, conservatives are similarly calling for its release so they can finally put the conspiracy theory to rest and expose the investigation as a "witch hunt" once and for all.
How has it not been leaked yet
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 22, 2019
Enter WikiLeaks:
ANNOUNCE: @WikiLeaks launches $1m goal for the full publication of the 'Mueller report'. All contributions to over the next seven days (from now until Friday 29 March 23:59 GMT) will be exclusively used to facilitate the full publication of the report. https://t.co/MsNZhrTzTL pic.twitter.com/buyvw1Yvs1
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 22, 2019
It is unclear on how the whistleblower organization plans to obtain the report once the million dollars is raised - as it appears they assume someone will step up and claim their golden ticket to the chocolate factory (or prison, if caught).
On Wednesday, President Trump said he has no problem with the public seeing the report.
#Twitter “is a way to get out the word when there’s a corrupt media,” says @PoTUS.
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) March 20, 2019
We expect at some point the public will [redacted] a [redacted] copy of the report, which will reveal that [redacted] plotted against [redacted]. And since nobody is watching the watchers, [redacted] will never face justice.
