Empirically Bankrupt

11/15/13 08:23AM EST

“Much of the profession is empirically bankrupt because it is no longer taught economic history.”

-Charles Kindleberger

That quote comes from Chapter 12 “The Scandal of Money” (pg 115) in one of the only forward thinking economics books of 2013 (George Gilder’s Knowledge and Power).  It’s market practitioners like me vs the government PH.Ds. And it’s on.

 

The reason why Gilder gets it is that he combines the weaponry of A) economic history and B) math (chaos theory). The late Charles Kindleberger, of course, wrote one of the most important market history books ever (Manias, Panics, and Crashes) in 1978.

Keynesian economists (who Kindleberger alluded to as “the profession”) don’t do non-linearity, entropy, etc. They are all about “smoothing” cycles, and “equilibrium” (or something like that) which are designed to promise the end-user (Big Government Interventionists) certainty. NEWSFLASH: markets, bubbles, and economies are grounded in uncertainty. Embrace it.

Back to the Global Macro Grind

If you don’t get what I am talking about, take a few minutes to watch and listen to Janet Yellen’s confirmation hearing yesterday. Watching a human being’s body language is always as important as attempting to listen to what it is they are trying to say.

If you don’t want to study the kinesics of it all (the study of lying) or read economic history, read my friendly competitor’s (Zervos) rant yesterday about how he loves Yellen. There’s no math or history in his analysis; it’s all about the storytelling.

Critical to #KeynesianCrack storytelling is the fear-mongering and the emotion of it all. Just so you know the difference between our perspectives, David Zervos is a Ph.D. who worked for the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C.  I’d boil down his backslapping of his groupthink tank’s (The Fed’s) anti-dog-eat-dog-economic-cycle-gravity-banning-central-planning idea as follows:

  1. “Optimal Control Policy”
  2. “Rule evolution”
  3. “Equilibrium risk-free”

Like many in Washington, he’s entertaining – and he gets markets right too. But how he thinks this all ends for America, her former “free” markets, and economy is about as far off on another planet as I’ll ever be. To him, I’ll sound crazy this morning.

Calling our kings and queens crazy? People often ask me what I’d do differently if I was at the Fed. Since I’m not the central planning type, I’d either do what Volcker did (end the madness of stagflation policy), or just shut the place down.

People also ask me what I’d ask our almighty Federal Reserve Ph.D.’s if I was in Congress. Well, since I have never voted for a politician in my life, I doubt being in Congress is in the cards, but here are some questions for my friends sipping the Keynesian chartreuse:

  1. What the hell is an “optimal control” policy model and why use any model when every model the Fed has used has failed?
  2. Does “rule evolution” mean that when the prior optimal policy doesn’t work, you just change the rules?
  3. How do you think keeping the “risk free rate” at 0% ends when the bond market turns on your expected “equilibrium”?

Traditional anti-Marxists would call trying to mark markets to some damn “optimal” model and/or price floors just plain dumb. But I won’t do that this morning. I am Mucker. How dare I challenge a Ph.D. “science” of charlatans?

Yes I called them charlatans. If you don’t think I’m crazy yet – watch this video I made for my Washington friends yesterday titled #Yellen: Tools, Crickets, and Crack: http://app.hedgeye.com/media/697-yellen-tools-crickets-crack?media=all&page=1

Yep, too many pucks to the head. But before these Ph.D.’s bubble (and blow) up markets for the umpteenth time in world history, I’ll be standing on the front lines against their academic dogmas. Yes, Mr. Zervos – I’m the one who knocks.

Back to how we risk managed the event risk of Yellen being who she is (The Mother of All Doves), we made the playbook move of buying slow-growth Yield Chasing assets that drive what Jefco calls the “spooooz” higher.

But do not mistake Gold, Bonds, and Utilities leading yesterday’s short squeeze to another all-time US stock market (SPY) high for rising growth expectations (the Russell Growth Index was down). Remember, a Policy To Inflate nominal is not real economic growth.

Oh, and I sold all my Gold and Bonds by 11AM EST. Yellen’s darting eyes toward Nero Corker (the Keynesian overlord from Tennessee) did me in. I just couldn’t stomach being long their empirical bankruptcy for more than a few more hours. Keep moving out there!

Our immediate-term Risk Ranges (its math – we have 12 Big Macros in our Daily Risk Range product) are now:

UST 10yr Yield 2.66-2.81%

SPX 1

VIX 11.99-14.41

USD 80.53-81.41

Pound 1.59-1.61

Gold 1

Best of luck out there today,

KM

Keith R. McCullough
Chief Executive Officer

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