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Unwinding The Spin

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We are caught in a steady “spin cycle” of contradictory reports about our most fundamental concerns:  the environment and the economy.  Will China financially intervene to resolve the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and save us all from the economic consequences that loom ahead?  Will the “China syndrome” finally become a reality at Fukushima?  When confronted with a propaganda assault from the “rose-colored glasses” crowd, I become very skeptical.

Widespread concern that Greece would default on its debt inflamed lingering fear about debt contagion throughout the Eurozone.  Economist John Hussman, one of the few pundits who has been keeping a sober eye on the situation, made this remark:

Simply put, the Greek debt market is screaming “Certain default. Amésos.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that China Investment Corporation has been involved in discussions with the government of Italy concerning Italian bond purchases as well as business investments.  Bloomberg BusinessWeek quoted Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice chairman of China’s top economic planning agency, who affirmed that nation’s willingness to buy euro bonds from countries involved in the sovereign debt crisis “within its capacity”.

Stefan Schultz of Der Speigel explained that China expects something in return for its rescue efforts:

The supposed “yellow peril” has positioned itself as a “white knight” which promises not to leave its trading partners in Europe and America in the lurch.

In return, however, Beijing is demanding a high price — the Chinese government wants more political prestige and more political power  .  .  .

Specifically, China wants:  more access to American markets, abolition of restrictions on the export of high-technology products to China as well as world-wide recognition of China’s economy as a market economy.

Even if such a deal could be made with China, would that nation’s bailout efforts really save the world economy from another recession?

As usual, those notorious cheerleaders for stock market bullishness at CNBC are emphasizing that now is the time to buy.  At MSN Money, Anthony Mirhaydari wrote a piece entitled, “The bulls are taking charge”.

Last week, Robert Powell of MarketWatch directed our attention to an analysis just published by Sam Stovall, the chief investment strategist of Standard & Poor’s Equity Research.  Powell provided us with this summary:

Consider, at a place and time such as this, with the economy teetering on the verge of another recession, none of the 1,485 stocks that make up the S&P 1,500 has a consensus “Sell” rating. And just five, or 0.3%, are ranked as being a “Weak Hold.”

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From his vantage point, Stovall says it “appears as if most analysts are not expecting the U.S. to fall back into recession, and that now is the time to scoop up undervalued cyclical issues at bargain-basement prices.”

However, in S&P’s opinion, it might be high time to “buck the trend and embrace the traditionally defensive sectors (including utilities), as the risk of recession — and downward earnings per share revisions – appear to us to be on the rise.”

On September 14, investing guru Mark Hulbert picked up from where Robert Powell left off by reminding us that – ten years ago – stock analysts continued to rate Enron stock as a “hold” during the weeks leading up to its bankruptcy, despite the fact that the company was obviously in deep trouble.  Hulbert’s theme was best summed-up with this statement:

If you want objectivity from an analyst, you might want to start by demanding that he issue as many “sell” recommendations as “buys.”

It sounds to me as though Wall Street is looking for suckers to be holding all of those high-beta, Russell 2000 stocks when the next crash comes along.  I’m more inclined to follow Jeremy Grantham’s assessment that “fair value” for the S&P 500 is 950, rather than its current near-1,200 level.

While the “rose colored glasses” crowd is dreaming about China’s rescue of the world economy, the “China syndrome” is becoming a reality at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power facility.  Immediately after the tragic earthquake and tsunami, I expressed my suspicion that the true extent of the nuclear disaster was the subject of a massive cover-up.  Since that time, Washington’s Blog has been providing regular updates on the status of the ongoing, uncontrolled nuclear disaster at Fukushima.  The September 14 posting at Washington’s Blog included an interview with a candid scientist:

And nuclear expert Paul Gunter says that we face a “China Syndrome”, where the fuel from the reactor cores at Fukushima have melted through the container vessels, into the ground, and are hitting groundwater and creating highly-radioactive steam . . .

On the other hand, this article from New Scientist reeks of nuclear industry spin:

ALARMIST predictions that the long-term health effects of the Fukushima nuclear accident will be worse than those following Chernobyl in 1986 are likely to aggravate harmful psychological effects of the incident.

As long as experts such as Paul Gunter and Arnie Gundersen continue to provide reliable data contradicting the “move along – nothing to see here” meme being sold to us by the usual suspects, I will continue to follow the updates on Washington’s Blog.


 

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Left Out

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Support for President Obama’s re-election bid is in disarray.  His sinking poll numbers have left many Democrats hoping for a miracle (i.e. some degree of economic recovery before November of 2012).  A significant component of the party’s progressive bloc is looking for a challenger to step forward – as can be seen at the StopHoping.org website.  One of the bloggers at Corrente – Hugh – recently had a good laugh at those who were anticipating a possible Primary challenge to Obama from former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold.  Here is some of what Hugh had to say:

The point is that Feingold could have been, and should have been, if he were legit, a focus for progressive organizing.  But he wasn’t.  . . . Feingold could have been the voice of opposition to Bush and his policies, but the silence from the Wisconsin Senator’s office was deafening.  He could have played the same role opposing Obama’s right wing corporatist agenda.  He did not.  Indeed he lost his Senate seat largely because of his failure to distance himself from Obama.

There are other reasons to dislike Feingold and question his progressive credentials.  He voted for John Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He voted for Obamacare.  And he is a deficit hawk.

Many left-leaning commentators have been offering suggestions to the President as to what actions he should be taking – as well as what message he should be delivering.  Experience has demonstrated that Obama never pays attention to well-intentioned, sensible advice.  How many times has Robert Reich written a roadmap for the President to use toward saving the economy as well as Obama’s own Presidency – only to be ignored?  As the campaign drags on, try to keep count of how many commentaries are written under the theme:  “What Obama Needs to Say and Do Right Now”.  Rest assured that he won’t say or do any of it.

Meanwhile, Republican voters are currently flocking to the standard-bearer du jour, Texas Governor Rick Perry.  Alexander Cockburn of CounterPunch wrote a great essay about Perry’s unmatched political instincts and the challenges ahead for both parties in the upcoming Presidential race:

The obvious question is whether Perry, having won the right, can clamber back along the kook branch towards something vaguely resembling the solid timber of sanity, to capture the necessary independents and disillusioned folk who bet on Obama in 2008.  Hard to say.  Perry is pretty far out on the limb.  Reagan, with the strenuous help of the press, managed the crawl back in 1980, amid widespread disappointment and disgust with Jimmy Carter.  Disappointment and disgust with Barack Obama?  The president has slithered down in the most recent polls, and now is just above the 50 per cent disapproval rating.  There are still around 30 million Americans without work, or enough work. There’s the endlessly cited observation that no president presiding over more than a 7 per cent jobless rate can hope for a second term.

The progressive sector is already rallying the Obama vote by pounding out the unsurprising message that Perry is a shil and errand boy for corporate America, Amazing! Imagine that a conservative Texas Republican would end up in that corner, arm in arm with Barack Obama, messenger of hope and change, also shil and errand boy for corporate America, starting with the nuclear industry, the arms sector, the ag/pesticide complex and moving on through Wall Street and the Fed, and equipped with truly noxious beliefs about fiscal discipline, the merits of compromise.  He’s a far more dangerous man to have in the Oval Office than Perry.  We need a polarizer to awaken the left from its unending, unbreakable infatuation with our current president, despite all the horrors he has perpetrated and presided over, most significantly the impending onslaught on Social Security and Medicare.

Any Republican who wants to maintain a viable candidacy will be forced to start taking some hard swings at Rick Perry.  Jon Huntsman has already started to do so.  Michele Bachmann might not, if she wants a shot at becoming Perry’s running mate.  It won’t matter what Ron Paul says … because the mainstream media are pretending as though he doesn’t exist.  If you haven’t seen it yet, Jon Stewart ran a superb piece, exhibiting how all of the major news outlets – including Fox – were apparently reading from the same script after Congressman Paul came within 100 votes of beating Michele Bachmann in the Iowa Straw Poll.  Watching those reports could have led one to believe that Ron Paul had dropped out of the race.  On August 17, Tara Sartor of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism provided this analysis of how the television news organizations squelched Ron Paul’s near-victory in Iowa:

In a further attempt to gauge the post-straw poll attention to Paul’s campaign, PEJ also used the Snapstream server’s closed captioning capability to assess the candidates’ television coverage in the first few days after that balloting.

The sample included the three network Sunday morning panel shows on August 14, the morning and evening network news programs on August 15 and four hours of prime-time cable and one hour of daytime from each of the three major cable news networks on August 15.

According to that analysis, Paul was mentioned just 29 times. By comparison, Perry was mentioned 371 times, Bachmann was mentioned 274 times, and Romney was mentioned 183 times.

I hope that the anti-Paul conspiracy helps to energize those voters who had been ambivalent about supporting the “other Texan” in the race.

At some point, the progressive Democrats are going to be faced with the ugly reality that they don’t have a candidate in the 2012 Presidential campaign.  As has been the case with Ron Paul and his supporters – the Left will be left out.


 

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