Economy

COLLAPSE We Can Believe In … 20 Signs

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– 20 Signs That All Point To The Exact Same Thing – Can You Guess What That Is? (The Economic Collapse, July 18, 2012):

The U.S. economy is in a massive amount of trouble.  There aren’t enough jobs.  There isn’t enough money to go around.  Business activity is slowing down again.  Household wealth has been falling.  Food prices have been rising.  Many state and local governments all over the country are flat broke and are drowning in debt.  The federal government has been rolling up unprecedented amounts of debt in an attempt to keep things going, but everyone knows that kind of borrowing is simply unsustainable.  So where do we go from here?  We consume far more than we produce and we use debt to make up the difference.  40 years ago the total amount of debt in America (government, business and consumer) was less than 2 trillion dollars.  Today it is nearly 55 trillion dollars.  How in the world did we let the total amount of debt in the United States grow more than 27 times larger over the past 40 years?  Our economic system is fundamentally broken, but most Americans don’t realize it yet because times are still relatively good.

However, the next great economic crisis is going to wake a whole lot of Americans up.

And when they realize what has happened to our future, they are going to be really, really angry.

Enjoy the good times while they last.  The next recession is rapidly approaching, and it will not be pleasant.

The following are 20 signs that all point to the exact same thing….

Read moreCOLLAPSE We Can Believe In … 20 Signs

This Is The Government: Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account Has Been Denied – THE SEQUEL

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– This Is The Government: Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account Has Been Denied – The Sequel (ZeroHedge, July 19, 2012):

Two years ago, in January 2010, Zero Hedge wrote “This Is The Government: Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account Has Been Denied” which became one of our most read stories of the year. The reason? Perhaps something to do with an implicit attempt at capital controls by the government on one of the primary forms of cash aggregation available: $2.7 trillion in US money market funds. The proximal catalyst back then were new proposed regulations seeking to pull one of these three core pillars (these being no volatility, instantaneous liquidity, and redeemability) from the foundation of the entire money market industry, by changing the primary assumptions of the key Money Market Rule 2a-7. A key proposal would give money market fund managers the option to “suspend redemptions to allow for the orderly liquidation of fund assets.” In other words: an attempt to prevent money market runs (the same thing that crushed Lehman when the Reserve Fund broke the buck). This idea, which previously had been implicitly backed by the all important Group of 30 which is basically the shadow central planners of the world (don’t believe us? check out the roster of current members), did not get too far, and was quickly forgotten. Until today, when the New York Fed decided to bring it back from the dead by publishing “The Minimum Balance At Risk: A Proposal to Mitigate the Systemic Risks Posed by Money Market FUnds“. Now it is well known that any attempt to prevent a bank runs achieves nothing but merely accelerating just that (as Europe recently learned). But this coming from central planners – who never can accurately predict a rational response – is not surprising. What is surprising is that this proposal is reincarnated now. The question becomes: why now? What does the Fed know about market liquidity conditions that it does not want to share, and more importantly, is the Fed seeing a rapid deterioration in liquidity conditions in the future, that may and/or will prompt retail investors to pull their money in another Lehman-like bank run repeat?

Here is how the Fed frames the problem in the abstract:

Read moreThis Is The Government: Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account Has Been Denied – THE SEQUEL

The Naked Shorts Will Be Destroyed In The Gold Market

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– The Naked Shorts Will Be Destroyed In The Gold Market (King World News, July 17, 2012):

Today Stephen Leeb told King World News that the gold market now boils down to a “war between establishment and the non-establishment.”  Leeb, who is Chairman of Leeb Capital Management, also said, “When the banks finally get scared that they are short too much gold, you will see a major explosion in price.”

The acclaimed money manager also stated, “The banks continue to charge the customers for holding their gold as ‘allocated,’ even though the gold has gone out the door to aid in the gold price suppression scheme.  This is fraud, plain and simple, but this fraud is being encouraged by the establishment.”

…

I would just like to add that silver is going to explode higher as well, and everyone should be accumulating physical silver at these discounted prices.  Just buy it and put it away.  It’s been money for thousands of years, it’s like having a silver bank account.”

Matt Taibbi On Democracy Now! – Libor Rate-Fixing Scandal ‘Biggest Insider Trading You Could Ever Imagine’ … And More (Video)

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Must-see!

– Taibbi on Democracy Now! LIBOR and More (Rolling Stone, July 19, 2012):

Visited with old friends Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now! this morning. The topic was LiBOR, although there is a second segment that will be appearing online that covers the muni bid-rigging case as well.

One editorial note: I said “tens of trillions” of losses at one point when I meant “tens of billions.” Later in the interview, which thankfully didn’t air this morning, I forgot Bill Richardson’s name. I think the heat is melting some data in my brain this week. Apologies all around, and thanks once again to Amy and Juan.

More On LIBOR: Plus, Eliot Spitzer Takes On Bartiromo In Japanese Monster-Movie Epic

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– More on LIBOR: Plus, Spitzer takes on Bartiromo in Japanese Monster-Movie Epic (Rolling Stone, July 17, 2012):

Was on Viewpoint with the inimitable Eliot Spitzer last night and joined Dennis Kelleher from Better Markets in discussing some of the more upsetting recent revelations from the LIBOR banking scandal — including most notably the not-so-surprising revelation that Tim Geithner was apprised of the rate-rigging as far back as 2008.

P.S. I advise everyone to check out the Godzilla-v.-Mothra death-battle between Spitzer and Maria Bartiromo from last Friday on her show on CNBC. Maria’s always been a little nuts, but this latest crusade to rewrite history and cleanse ex-AIG chief Hank Greenberg of culpability in a fraud scandal that at the time led to the biggest financial settlement ever paid is an absolute head-scratcher.

Read moreMore On LIBOR: Plus, Eliot Spitzer Takes On Bartiromo In Japanese Monster-Movie Epic

The Physical Silver Market Is Getting Dangerously Tight

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– The physical silver market is getting dangerously (Hang The Bankers, July 18, 2012):

With continued volatility in global stock markets, and gold staging a big rally off of the lows, today King World News interviewed one of the wealthiest and most street-smart pros in the business, Rick Rule. Rule told KWN that when it comes to silver, “there is the strong case for some very substantial upside.”

Rule, who is now part of Sprott Asset Management, discussed silver and gold at length. He also talked about the problems the world currently faces. But first, here is what Rule had to say about Sprott’s very successful offering in the Sprott Physical Silver Trust: “I think it’s evidence of two things: One, we felt we had reasonably good chances of buying the silver if we raised the money. Second, this points to the continuing strength of the high end retail investment market for silver in North America.”

Read moreThe Physical Silver Market Is Getting Dangerously Tight

11 Nails In The Coffin Of The U.S. Dollar

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– 11 International Agreements That Are Nails In The Coffin Of The Petrodollar (The Economic Collapse, July 18, 2012):

Is the petrodollar dead?  Well, not yet, but the nails are being hammered into the coffin even as you read this.  For decades, most of the nations of the world have used the U.S. dollar to buy oil and to trade with each other.  In essence, the U.S. dollar has been acting as a true global currency.  Virtually every country on the face of the earth has needed big piles of U.S. dollars for international trade.  This has ensured a huge demand for U.S. dollars and U.S. government debt.  This demand for dollars has kept prices and interest rates low, and it has given the U.S. government an incredible amount of power and leverage around the globe.  Right now, U.S. dollars make up more than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world.  But times are changing.  Over the past couple of years there has been a whole bunch of international agreements that have made the U.S. dollar less important in international trade.  The mainstream media in the United States has been strangely quiet about all of these agreements, but the truth is that they are setting the stage for a fundamental shift in the way that trade is conducted around the globe.  When the petrodollar dies, it is going to have an absolutely devastating impact on the U.S. economy.  Sadly, most Americans are totally clueless regarding what is about to happen to the dollar.

Read more11 Nails In The Coffin Of The U.S. Dollar

Capital One Fined For Misleading Millions Of Customers Into Buying Unnecessary Products

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– Capital One fined for misleading millions of customers (BBC News, July 18, 2012):

A US regulator has fined the credit card provider Capital One Financial for misleading millions of customers into buying unnecessary products.

Capital One has agreed to pay $210m (£134m) to settle the case and refund two million customers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said “deceptive marketing tactics” had been used.

Read moreCapital One Fined For Misleading Millions Of Customers Into Buying Unnecessary Products

Keiser Report: Cotton Candy Fraud (Video)

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YouTube Added: Jul 17, 2012

Description:

In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss how market participants are never more than a few milliseconds away from the next act of fraud and how a teaspoon of collateral leads to economic martial law. They also discuss German economists proposing that the wealthy be forced to buy bonds while in Spain the government and EU force bank losses on cooks and pensioners. In the second half of the show, oil analyst, Chris Cook, about how, despite sanctions, oil will always find a home; the Enron technique of pre-pay now being used by Enron’s former counterparties; and how stability is the death for the oil market middlemen.

US Senate Discovered That HSBC Gave Money To A Saudi Bank With Suspected Links To Terrorist Organizations Such As Al-Qaeda

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… to terrorist organizations such as Al-CIAda …

Follow the money!

– ‘HSBC report pushes West to rethink alliance with Saudi Arabia’ (RT, July 18, 2012):

A US Senate subcommittee has discovered that British banking giant HSBC gave money to a Saudi bank with suspected links to terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia has not responded to the findings.

­Middle East expert Ali Rizk told RT that the findings put pressure on the West to reconsider its friendly relations with Saudi Arabia.

A report published by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations states that HSBC provided funds to the Saudi Al-Rajhi Bank, which a number of media and government reports have tied to terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda. The company’s top executive appeared before the subcommittee’s hearing Tuesday, and apologized for failing to prevent such oversights. HSBC’s Head of Compliance, David Bagley, said he would resign.

Neither Saudi Arabia, nor Al-Rajhi responded to the subcommittee’s findings, however.

Read moreUS Senate Discovered That HSBC Gave Money To A Saudi Bank With Suspected Links To Terrorist Organizations Such As Al-Qaeda

Yahoo’s New CEO Marissa Mayer Is Pregnant

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See also:

– Meet Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s New CEO

– The CEO is pregnant: Yahoo’s new chief reignites the can-we-have-it-all debate, with a twist (Washington Post, July 17, 2012):

NEW YORK — “Another piece of good news today,” tweeted the expectant mom, announcing to her online followers that she and her husband were awaiting a baby boy.

But this wasn’t just any excited mom-to-be. This was 37-year-old Marissa Mayer, the newly named CEO of Yahoo — obviously a huge achievement for anyone, but especially for a woman in the male-dominated tech industry. And she was about six months

‘How Close Are We to New Great Depression?’ (CNBC): ‘If This Credit Bubble Pops, The Depression Could Be So Severe That I Don’t Think Our Civilization Could Survive It.’

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– How Close Are We to New Great Depression? (CNBC, July 16, 2012):

The risk of a new depression — a sustained, severe recession — has struck fear into the heart of markets and driven monetary policy in developed economies since the current financial crisis began.

“We’re in a very unfortunate position to be here,” Richard Duncan, author of The New Depression, warned on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Monday.

“When we broke the link between money and gold, this removed all constraints on credit creation. This explosion of credit created the world we live in, but it now seems that credit cannot expand any further because the private sector is incapable of repaying the debt it has already, and if credit begins to contract, there’s a very real danger that we will collapse into a new Great Depression,” he argued.

“If this credit bubble pops, the depression could be so severe that I don’t think our civilization could survive it.”

…

The Scariest Equity Market Chart Around … It’s Different This Time!

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– It’s Different This Time: The Scariest Equity Market Chart Around (ZeroHedge, July 16, 2012):

While analogs for periods past have been shown time and time again, the striking similarity of the last four months of this year and the same period last year is becoming extremely worrisome. The rips and dips are of almost perfectly equal size and duration and retail and professional participation is also very similar. July 21st marked the top last year after failing to break the highs of a July 4th week peak (which occurred on low average trade size). It would appear the bulls are hoping that it’s different this time – or else it is very scary with S&P 500 set for the magic 1200 Bernanke Put strike very soon.

Each green and red arrow is identical from the current period to last year’s. Notice the dark red arrow indicating the yellow bar (h/t @eminiwatch) indicating amateur or retail investors getting wrong-footed and then a subsequent failed rally with a lower high… which lead to the plunge – that would take us below 1200 in the S&P 500 currently…

The plunge in stocks – in case you were wondering – would imply a 10Y TSY rate around the magic 1% mark. While we do not use longer-term CONTEXTual models for trading, it is perhaps interesting to note how the highly correlated markets’ behavior of May would have played out to now – implying an S&P 500 of 1200 (based on those risk-asset relationships from May)…

Read moreThe Scariest Equity Market Chart Around … It’s Different This Time!

GlaxoSmithKline Whistleblower Exposes Shocking Details Of Bribery, Marketing Fraud And Other Pharma Crimes (Video)

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YouTube Added: 16.07.2012

– Exclusive: Glaxo whistleblower goes public with shocking details of bribery, marketing fraud and other pharma crimes (Natural News, July 17, 2012):

GlaxoSmithKline employee and whistleblower Blair Hamrick has helped make medical history. Together with his colleague Gregory Thorpe, Blair blew the whistle on criminal practices taking place inside GlaxoSmithKline which have now led to the largest criminal admission and financial settlement in the history of western medicine. GSK is paying a $3 billion fine while pleading guilty to felony crimes. (http://www.naturalnews.com/036416_GlaxoSmithKline_fraud_criminal_char…).

Blair recently joined Mike Adams on the Health Ranger Report for a video interview. In this astonishing interview, Blair describes his firsthand knowledge of the “bribery” of physicians, the push for off-label marketing of drugs for unapproved health conditions, the illegal marketing of drugs to children, how 80 percent of physicians were willing to be “on the take,” and other astonishing details from behind the scenes of the criminally-operated medical mafia known as Big Pharma.

Read moreGlaxoSmithKline Whistleblower Exposes Shocking Details Of Bribery, Marketing Fraud And Other Pharma Crimes (Video)

Sicily Is San Bernardino: With First Italian Region On Verge Of Default, Montius Pilate Washes His Hands

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– Sicily Is San Bernardino: With First Italian Region On Verge Of Default, Montius Pilate Washes His Hands (ZeroHedge, July 17, 2012):

Buried deep in the newsflow from Ben Bernanke is the following piece of very critical news for anyone who is still long Italian bonds: namely that Italy may not be Spain, or Uganda, but Sicily is about to become San Bernardino. From Reuters:  “Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Tuesday he expected the governor of Sicily to resign following a growing financial crisis that has pushed the autonomous region close to default.” Because the resignation of Sicily Governor Lombardo will somehow allow all those who care about the fundamentals of Italy to stick their heads in the sand… at least until Sicily is followed by Calabria, Campania, Lazio, Abruzzo, Tuscany, Lombardy, Umbria, Liguria, Veneto and so on. At least the governors of those respective provinces now have an advance warning what the endgame is.

More:

Monti said in a statement there were “grave concerns” that the island could default and he said he had written to the governor Raffaele Lombardo seeking confirmation that he would resign by the end of the month.

“The solutions which could be considered that involve action on the part of the government cannot fail to take account of the situation of the administration at regional level but rather have to be matched to this so as to deploy the most efficient and appropriate instruments,” the statement said.

As to how Italy will actually fund the bailout its insolvent regions, fear not: ze Germans will be delighted to step in and make it rain cash courtesy of the ESM, which may or may not be active one day.

Rosalie Bertell, PhD: Effects Of Depleted Uranium Inside The Human Body (Video)

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YouTube Added: 19.07.2007

Description:

Epidemiologist Rosalie Bertell (PhD, biometrics)explains the effects of the weaponized DU on the people of Iraq and the planet. In subsequent parts of this series, Dr. Bertell offers readily-accessible ways to detox some heavy metals and poisons from the body.

JPMorgan Mispriced Hundreds Of Billions In CDS: Is Dimon The Next Diamond?

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– Criminal Inquiry Shifts To JPMorgan’s Mispricing Of Hundreds Of Billions In CDS: Is Dimon The Next Diamond? (ZeroHedge, July 16, 2012):

On the last day of May, when we first learned via Bloomberg that there was even the scantest likelihood that JPM may have been massaging its CDS marks within the (London-based of course) CIO organization – the backbone of hundreds of billions in notional exposure, and thus a huge counterfeited benefit to trader bonuses and corporate earnings – we wrote, “The Second Act Of The JPM CIO Fiasco Has Arrived – Mismarking Hundreds Of Billions In Credit Default Swaps“ in which we explained precisely how this activity would and did take place, precisely why other traders caught doing the same are on the verge of being thrown in jail, precisely why everyone else does it, and precisely why the biggest CDS self-reporting and client/banker owned-organization (this is where images of Libor should appear), MarkIt, may well be implicated in everything – very much in the same way that the BBA is the heart of Lie-borgate. Because unlike all other allegations of impropriety, most of which rely on Level 2 and Level 3 assets whose valuations are in the eye of the oh so very sophisticated beholder (in this case JPM) who has complex DCFs and speaks confidently when explaining marks to naive, stupid outsiders (in other words baffles with bullshit), when it comes to one of the last places where Mark to Market is still applicable and used: the OTC CDS market, and where daily P&L records are kept, it will take any regulator, enforcer, or criminal investigator precisely 1 minute to find out if there was fraud, or gambling, going on here.

Then lo and behold, none other than JPM admitted minutes before releasing its Q2 earnings that it had been doing precisely what Zero Hedge accused it of doing nearly 2 months earlier (but of course Jamie Dimon had no idea, no idea, what the media accused his firm of doing), and in doing so exposed itself to just as much litigation risk as Barclays in the Lie-borgate scandal, while further throwing a monkey wrench into the CDS market, where all the other banks (who had been doing just the same), will no longer be able to pick off the bid/ask spread in the process crushing CDS trader bonuses, and resulting in billions in foregone imaginary profits.

Most importantly, it opened up the firm to a criminal investigation. Which as Reuters reports, is precisely what has now happened.

From Reuters’ Matt Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan:

Read moreJPMorgan Mispriced Hundreds Of Billions In CDS: Is Dimon The Next Diamond?

Bulk Cash: HSBC’s Mexican Bank Shipped $7 BILLION In Bulk Cash To The Firm’s U.S. Bank In 2007 And 2008 (Bloomberg)

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Flashback:

– Former Assistant Secretary of Housing: The U.S. is the Global Leader in Illegal Money Laundering (Video)

From the article:

Bulk Cash

HSBC’s Mexican bank shipped $7 billion in bulk cash to the firm’s U.S. bank in 2007 and 2008. That was more than all HSBC affiliates and other banks in Mexico and left U.S. and Mexican authorities concerned that the volumes could only be supplied by the illegal drug trade, according to the report.

– HSBC Probe Shows Bank Allowed Money Laundering (Bloomberg, July 17, 2012):

HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) did business with firms linked to terrorism, failed to guard against money- laundering violations in Mexico and bypassed U.S. sanctions against Iran, according to U.S. Senate investigators.

HSBC affiliates worldwide gave terrorists, drug cartels and criminals a portal into the U.S. financial system, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a 335-page report yesterday detailing a decade of lax controls. Lawmakers plan to question senior executives from the London-based bank, Europe’s largest, at a hearing in Washington today.

Read moreBulk Cash: HSBC’s Mexican Bank Shipped $7 BILLION In Bulk Cash To The Firm’s U.S. Bank In 2007 And 2008 (Bloomberg)

US Senate Report: HSBC Acted As Financier To Clients Seeking To Route Shadowy Funds From The World’s Most Dangerous And Secretive Corners, Incl. Mexico, Iran, The Cayman Islands, Saudi Arabia And Syria

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– U.S. report slams HSBC’s anti-money laundering efforts (Reuters, July 16, 2012):

A “pervasively polluted” culture at HSBC Holdings Plc allowed the bank to act as financier to clients seeking to route shadowy funds from the world’s most dangerous and secretive corners, including Mexico, Iran, the Cayman Islands, Saudi Arabia and Syria, according to a scathing U.S. Senate report issued on Monday.

While the big British bank’s problems have been known for nearly a decade, the Senate probe detailed just how sweeping the problems have been, both at the bank and at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a top U.S. bank regulator which the report said failed to properly monitor HSBC.

Read moreUS Senate Report: HSBC Acted As Financier To Clients Seeking To Route Shadowy Funds From The World’s Most Dangerous And Secretive Corners, Incl. Mexico, Iran, The Cayman Islands, Saudi Arabia And Syria

China’s Catastrophic Deleveraging Has Begun – The End Game Is Coming

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– China’s Catastrophic Deleveraging Has Begun (Business Insider, July 15, 2012):

1. The frustrated and aggressive central bank

If one wants to know how bad the health of China’s economy has gone, look no further than the PBOC’s composure, which seems rather frustrated and aggressive as of late. On 5th July, the central bank cut benchmark interest rates for the 2nd time in less than a month. This happened right after the fact that in December 2011, PBOC cut the reserve requirement ratio(RRR) by a 50 bp to 21%, it followed up with another 50 bp in February and another 50 bp in May to 20% currently.

Read moreChina’s Catastrophic Deleveraging Has Begun – The End Game Is Coming

Scientist Leuren Moret: Intentional Collapse And Takedown Of The USA – Depleted Uranium (Video)

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MUST-SEE!


YouTube Added: 11.02.2011

Former OMB Director David Stockman: ‘We’re At The Fiscal Endgame’ (Video)

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– OMB’s Stockman: “We’re At The Fiscal Endgame” (ZeroHedge, July 16, 2012):

To those on the hill and elsewhere who suggest this growing ‘fiscal cliff’ and ‘debt ceiling’ crisis will all get solved, former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director David Stockman tells Bloomberg TV that “they will punt, punt, punt and kick the can with partial solutions driven by eleventh hour crisis-based extensions that will go on for the whole of the next term!” When asked whether this economy will be mired in the doldrums, he rather ominously states “it will be worse, because we will be in recession” and notes that when the lame ducks re-look at the budget numbers with a realistic recession (instead of the current assumption of no recession within 12 years) it will be far worse and in a political environment where ‘we cannot possibly raise taxes – and we cannot possibly cut spending’. With a 78% disapproval rating for the ‘do nothing’ Congress, Stockman is surprised that 16% somehow approve – approve of what? His warning is that unlike in past periods, today “we are completely paralyzed, there is an ideological divide on taxes and entitlement like we’ve never had before” and while he realizes that “the debt problem doesn’t become a debt problem until the market suddenly have a wake up call and realize that if the Fed doesn’t keep printing, it’s game over.”

“The fact that rates are so low is not a reflection of the US as a safe-haven but a bet on the Fed not allowing rates to rise.”

“The perverse low-rate environment simply tells Congress that they can borrow a trillion dollars for 10 billion a year.”

If rates rose then it would break this huge partisan stalemate we have today”

“There is a huge costs to stalemate!”

In a little under six minutes, David factually describes the certainly-not-priced-in dismal reality of the political situation we face in the next few months… must watch…

America’s Largest Pension Fund Calpers Generates 1% Return, Misses Discount Rate Target By 87%

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See also:

– Billionaire Eric Sprott: ‘There Isn’t A Solution To The Problem’ – ‘If The People Had Any Sense They Would Be Buying (PHYSICAL) Gold And/Or Silver’

– Calpers Generates 1% Return, Misses Discount Rate Target By 87% (ZeroHedge, July 16, 2012):

“Thank you ZIRP, may we have another.” This is what the 1.6 million workers who have invested their retirement money with America’s largest pension fund, California’s CALPERS, may want to ask Chairman Ben following the firm’s just announced results for Fiscal 2012 (ended June 30). The end result: +1% nominal return, which means a negative real return. And this is even including the now traditional end of June ramp which this year came courtesy of the now largely irrelevant European summit, which nonetheless ramped stocks and likely meant the difference for Calpers between positive and negative on the year! Sadly just one “another” year would not be enough, but a whopping 7 more would be needed, because as is well known, for all actuarial purposes Calpers, as well as the bulk of US pension funds, use a 7.5% discount rate. In other words, Calpers missed the minimum return it needs to not require overfunding by, oh… 87%. Here is Calper’s Mea Culpa: “CalPERS 1 percent return is below the fund’s discount rate of 7.5 percent, a long-term hurdle lowered recently in response to a steady decline in inflation and as part of CalPERS routine evaluation of economic assumptions.” At this rate, courtesy of ZIRP and the destruction of equities as an asset class, until the 2s30s is flat, and we have terminal wheelbarrow lift off, Calpers will no choice but to keep revising lower and lower until its discount rate is negative in line with the imminent advent of NIRP. Good luck with those actuarial tables with a negative discount rate.

From Calpers:

Read moreAmerica’s Largest Pension Fund Calpers Generates 1% Return, Misses Discount Rate Target By 87%