Seven Years to Nowhere: Real Unemployment At 2008 Recession Levels

In Orwellian Newspeak, the official unemployment rate is 5.5%

According to the government, retiring in one's 20s is more popular than ever. 

"Early retirement" visualized
Employment Rate Ages 25-54

ZH: April 3rd, 2015

No Country For Young (Wo)Men

Seven years to nowhere:
The true rate (red) is finally down to Lehman levels which was the middle of the last recession.
"The U-6 rate fell in March to 10.9 percent, the first time it has been below 11 percent since Aug. 2008." (aka. the month before Lehman)

The publicized unemployment rate versus the true unemployment rate.

The Disposable Age of Entitlement

Sponsored by the pervasive delusion that Third World slaves and future generations will pick up the tab for this clusterfuck

God gave us everything we needed, so we threw it in the landfill. Mankind then proceeded to create its own religion called mass consumption, featuring the plastic-fantastic disposable economy:

"The rapid, inorganic generation of disposable junk with complete disregard for the environmental, economic, and social impacts of unsustainable growth."

Powered by the disposable consumption Borg:
Like everything else, the corporate commodification machine turned people into shrink-wrapped mass consumption drones, devoid of critical thought and wholly incapable of thinking for themselves. A Corporate Idiocracy programmed to consume and be consumed. Disposable batteries trickle charging the Corporate rat race to nowhere. The end game state being a stagnant monoculture mainlining junk food and junk culture, and incapable of appreciating anything in its natural form. An iGadgetized Matrix at one with its machine. 

The lifeblood of the machine is its imaginary wealth i.e. what the next tool will pay for worthless assets. 

Pull that plug and this shit show ends post haste.

The Banquet of Consequences Has Been Set

One by one people are starting to figure out that this shit show is ending. First the trickle, then the flow.

Another look at Transports (ratio of S&P 500), the drivers of the economy. Literally.

All bets are Off

"I'm taking the blue pill now"...

A Pathological Society

Can't possibly accept that "we" are not better than "them"

"George Orwell offered an excellent explanation for this phenomenon: as the imperial end-game approaches, it becomes a matter of self-preservation to breed a special-purpose ruling class—one that is incapable of understanding that the end-game is approaching" - License to Kill, Orlov

Watch For Exploding Bullshit

Only history's largest bag of liars could make this all possible

The Question of the Day Month Year:

The first non-recovery in U.S. history

Forward (1-year) interest rate expectations:

Widely Accepted Mega-Lies Right To The Bitter End

It's the Idiocracy's belief in this bullshit that makes 'unforeseen' collapse inevitable...

"Research" courtesy of the Fed's own database...

Maximum Shock And Awe. Maximum Impact.

Due to Central Planning for billionaires, for the first time ever, the economy is leading the stock market. DOWN.

WTF Chart of the Day:
April 1, 2015 Atlanta Fed now sees 0% U.S. GDP Growth in Q1
Q1 "Growth" projections since February:

WTF Logic of the Day:

Barrons, March 30th

Transports are tanking, blame the railroads, not the airlines...

Malthus Was Right

Sadly, despite the incessant bullshit, this era of Globalization has nothing to do with money printing, interest rates, debt, deficits nor stock markets. It is strictly about resource scarcity and the non-sustainability of the consumption oriented lifestyle. A concept that appears to be beyond the grasp of Econo-dunces everywhere.

3rd Grade Question:

If the human population doubled in forty-five years since 1970 and the wildlife population was cut in half in the same period, what is the change in the ratio of humans to wildlife?

400%

And therefore, given this new ratio, would we assume that the rate of wildlife/resource attrition is accelerating or decelerating over the next forty-five years?

Under the WalMart configuration, this planet has 20 years at best. The widely hailed advent of crop monocultures and agri-business has massively accelerated the unsustainable divergence between population and resources.

Collapse and reset can't come soon enough. Blowing away the denialists in the process is just the icing on the cake.

The Lehman Crash Came On the Right Shoulder

Draining the Lake: Lowest liquidity in three years
A 12 year history of Price / Volume (12 week moving average):
L,H,R (left shoulder, head, right shoulder):

ZH: March 31, 2015
Overnight Flash Crash: A glimpse into the future

Overnight, we got a taste of things to come, as S&P futures fell 25 points in a matter of minutes as the Japanese Yen strengthened against the dollar. In the scheme of things, it was a minor blip that hammered the carry trades causing a knee-jerk "RISK OFF" across all assets. After-the-fact, Skynet did what it's been doing for three years straight: take out liquidity, lower volume and then systematically walk the market higher. By the time Europe opened, the Draghi-bid had retraced the entire loss. 

The current state of Yen: Dollar (red) versus S&P 500 (black):

A five lane highway in, a goat trail out. 
Still, it was merely a warning for what is to come i.e. a low liquidity crash off hours, because today's prices are wholly disconnected from economic reality - they are the sole fabrication of Central Banks and HFT Bots working in a low liquidity environment rife for market manipulation.

In A Real Economy, There Is No Walmart

Buying cheap junk from factory slaves in the Third World and selling it to jobless "consumers", brokering the difference with debt.

MW: April 1, 2015: 

Larry Summers and Ben Bernanke debate the best way to apply Ponzinomics

One dunce asserts that the U.S. is in a secular stagnation caused by zero interest rates - a problem that can only be resolved with more government spending. This is the Paul Krugman view that 35 years of government deficits can be fixed with even larger government deficits. A counter-cyclical policy of Keynesian fiscal stimulus can fix a secular problem of insufficient demand caused by outsourcing the entire economy. 

The other dunce asserts that zero interest rates are succeeding where 1% interest rates failed catastrophically, and everything is getting better right now - you can't make this shit up...