Market Update 122111

Submitted by: Francis Soyer

Today's update is a revisit of the big picture. It is easy to get lost in the minutia of daily data points and headlines. This makes it easier to take our eye off the ball and forget what we know as inevitable. Investment research requires 9 out of 10 times that when taking short term risk it is always wise to have your short term view in alignment with your long term view. Doing this increases your probability of success. Marc Faber below also known as "Doctor Doom" does a refresh on the big picture. Does this mean we crash tomorrow? No of course not, but something we have to keep vigil on probably throughout the coming year.

And now for a much needed uptick

Educational Tid Bit on Who Controlls The Market and The World for that matter...

Link to article:

http://www.republictradinggroupinternational.com/2011/12/17/the-federal-reserve-cartel-part-i-the-eight-families/


(Part I of a five-part series excerpted from Chapter 19: The Eight Families: Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf…)

 
The Four Horsemen of Banking (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) own the Four Horsemen of Oil (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP Amoco and Chevron Texaco); in tandem with Deutsche Bank, BNP, Barclays and other European old money behemoths. But their monopoly over the global economy does not end at the edge of the oil patch.
According to company 10K filings to the SEC, the Four Horsemen of Banking are among the top ten stock holders of virtually every Fortune 500 corporation. [1]

So who then are the stockholders in these money center banks?
This information is guarded much more closely. My queries to bank regulatory agencies regarding stock ownership in the top 25 US bank holding companies were given Freedom of Information Act status, before being denied on “national security” grounds. This is rather ironic, since many of the bank’s stockholders reside in Europe.

One important repository for the wealth of the global oligarchy that owns these bank holding companies is US Trust Corporation – founded in 1853 and now owned by Bank of America.
A recent US Trust Corporate Director and Honorary Trustee was Walter Rothschild. Other directors included Daniel Davison of JP Morgan Chase, Richard Tucker of Exxon Mobil, Daniel Roberts of Citigroup and Marshall Schwartz of Morgan Stanley. [2]

J. W. McCallister, an oil industry insider with House of Saud connections, wrote in The Grim Reaper that information he acquired from Saudi bankers cited 80% ownership of the New York Federal Reserve Bank- by far the most powerful Fed branch- by just eight families, four of which reside in the US. They are the Goldman Sachs, Rockefellers, Lehmans and Kuhn Loebs of New York; the Rothschilds of Paris and London; the Warburgs of Hamburg; the Lazards of Paris; and the Israel Moses Seifs of Rome.

CPA Thomas D. Schauf corroborates McCallister’s claims, adding that ten banks control all twelve Federal Reserve Bank branches. He names N.M. Rothschild of London, Rothschild Bank of Berlin, Warburg Bank of Hamburg, Warburg Bank of Amsterdam, Lehman Brothers of New York, Lazard Brothers of Paris, Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York, Israel Moses Seif Bank of Italy, Goldman Sachs of New York and JP Morgan Chase Bank of New York. Schauf lists William Rockefeller, Paul Warburg, Jacob Schiff and James Stillman as individuals who own large shares of the Fed. [3]

The Schiffs are insiders at Kuhn Loeb. The Stillmans are Citigroup insiders, who married into the Rockefeller clan at the turn of the century.
Eustace Mullins came to the same conclusions in his book The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, in which he displays charts connecting the Fed and its member banks to the families of Rothschild, Warburg, Rockefeller and the others. [4]

The control that these banking families exert over the global economy cannot be overstated and is quite intentionally shrouded in secrecy.
Their corporate media arm is quick to discredit any information exposing this private central banking cartel as “conspiracy theory”. Yet the facts remain. 

~ The House of Morgan ~
The Federal Reserve Bank was born in 1913, the same year US banking scion J. Pierpont Morgan died and the Rockefeller Foundation was formed.
The House of Morgan presided over American finance from the corner of Wall Street and Broad, acting as quasi-US central bank since 1838, when George Peabody founded it in London.
Peabody was a business associate of the Rothschilds. In 1952 Fed researcher Eustace Mullins put forth the supposition that the Morgans were nothing more than Rothschild agents. Mullins wrote that the Rothschilds, “…preferred to operate anonymously in the US behind the facade of J.P. Morgan & Company”. [5]

Author Gabriel Kolko stated, “Morgan’s activities in 1895-1896 in selling US gold bonds in Europe were based on an alliance with the House of Rothschild.” [6]

The Morgan financial octopus wrapped its tentacles quickly around the globe. Morgan Grenfell operated in London. Morgan et Ce ruled Paris. The Rothschild’s Lambert cousins set up Drexel & Company in Philadelphia.
The House of Morgan catered to the Astors, DuPonts, Guggenheims, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. It financed the launch of AT&T, General Motors, General Electric and DuPont. Like the London-based Rothschild and Barings banks, Morgan became part of the power structure in many countries.
By 1890 the House of Morgan was lending to Egypt’s central bank, financing Russian railroads, floating Brazilian provincial government bonds and funding Argentine public works projects.
A recession in 1893 enhanced Morgan’s power. That year Morgan saved the US government from a bank panic, forming a syndicate to prop up government reserves with a shipment of $62 million worth of Rothschild gold. [7]

Morgan was the driving force behind Western expansion in the US, financing and controlling West-bound railroads through voting trusts.
In 1879 Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Morgan-financed New York Central Railroad gave preferential shipping rates to John D. Rockefeller’s budding Standard Oil monopoly, cementing the Rockefeller/Morgan relationship.
The House of Morgan now fell under Rothschild and Rockefeller family control. A New York Herald headline read, “Railroad Kings Form Gigantic Trust”. J. Pierpont

Morgan and Edward Harriman’s banker Kuhn Loeb held a monopoly over the railroads, while banking dynasties Lehman, Goldman Sachs and Lazard joined the Rockefellers in controlling the US industrial base. [9]

In 1903 Banker’s Trust was set up by the Eight Families. Benjamin Strong of Banker’s Trust was the first Governor of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
The 1913 creation of the Fed fused the power of the Eight Families to the military and diplomatic might of the US government. If their overseas loans went unpaid, the oligarchs could now deploy US Marines to collect the debts. Morgan, Chase and Citibank formed an international lending syndicate.
The House of Morgan was cozy with the British House of Windsor and the Italian House of Savoy. The Kuhn Loebs, Warburgs, Lehmans, Lazards, Israel Moses Seifs and Goldman Sachs also had close ties to European royalty. By 1895 Morgan controlled the flow of gold in and out of the US.
The first American wave of mergers was in its infancy and was being promoted by the bankers. In 1897 there were sixty-nine industrial mergers. By 1899 there were twelve-hundred. In 1904 John Moody – founder of Moody’s Investor Services – said it was impossible to talk of Rockefeller and Morgan interests as separate. [10]

Public distrust of the combine spread. Many considered them traitors working for European old money. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, Andrew Carnegie’s US Steel and Edward Harriman’s railroads were all financed by banker Jacob Schiff at Kuhn Loeb, who worked closely with the European Rothschilds.
Several Western states banned the bankers. Populist preacher William Jennings Bryan was thrice the Democratic nominee for President from 1896 -1908. The central theme of his anti-imperialist campaign was that America was falling into a trap of “financial servitude to British capital”. William Howard Taft defeated Bryan in 1908, but by that time Taft’s predecessor and mentor Teddy Roosevelt had been forced by this spreading populist wildfire to enact the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. He then went after the Standard Oil Trust.
In 1912 the Pujo hearings were held, addressing concentration of power on Wall Street. That same year Mrs. Edward Harriman sold her substantial shares in New York’s Guaranty Trust Bank to J.P. Morgan, creating Morgan Guaranty Trust. Judge Louis Brandeis convinced President Woodrow Wilson to call for an end to interlocking board directorates. In 1914 the Clayton Anti-Trust Act was passed.
Jack Morgan – J. Pierpont’s son and successor – responded by calling on Morgan clients Remington and Winchester to increase arms production. He argued that the US needed to enter WWI. Goaded by the Carnegie Foundation and other oligarchy fronts, Wilson accommodated.
As Charles Tansill wrote in America Goes to War, “Even before the clash of arms, the French firm of Rothschild Freres cabled to Morgan & Company in New York suggesting the flotation of a loan of $100 million, a substantial part of which was to be left in the US to pay for French purchases of American goods.”
The House of Morgan financed half the US war effort, while receiving commissions for lining up contractors like GE, Du Pont, US Steel, Kennecott and ASARCO. All were Morgan clients. Morgan also financed the British Boer War in South Africa and the Franco-Prussian War. The 1919 Paris Peace Conference was presided over by Morgan, which led both German and Allied reconstruction efforts. [11]

In the 1930’s populism resurfaced in America after Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bank and others profited from the Crash of 1929. [12]

House Banking Committee Chairman Louis McFadden (D-NY) said of the Great Depression, “It was no accident. It was a carefully contrived occurrence…The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so they might emerge as rulers of us all”.
Sen. Gerald Nye (D-ND) chaired a munitions investigation in 1936. Nye concluded that the House of Morgan had plunged the US into WWI to protect loans and create a booming arms industry.
Nye later produced a document titled The Next War, which cynically referred to “the old goddess of democracy trick”, through which Japan could be used to lure the US into WWII.
In 1937 Interior Secretary Harold Ickes warned of the influence of “America’s 60 Families”. Historian Ferdinand Lundberg later penned a book of the exact same title. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas decried, “Morgan influence…the most pernicious one in industry and finance today.”
Jack Morgan responded by nudging the US towards WWII. Morgan had close relations with the Iwasaki and Dan families – Japan’s two wealthiest clans – who have owned Mitsubishi and Mitsui, respectively, since the companies emerged from 17th Centuryshogunates.
When Japan invaded Manchuria, slaughtering Chinese peasants at Nanking, Morgan downplayed the incident. Morgan also had close relations with Italian fascist Benito Mussolini, while German Nazi Dr. Hjalmer Schacht was a Morgan Bank liaisonduring WWII. After the war Morgan representatives met with Schacht at the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland. [13]

~ The House of Rockefeller ~
BIS is the most powerful bank in the world, a global central bank for the Eight Families who control the private central banks of almost all Western and developing nations.
The first President of BIS was Rockefeller banker Gates McGarrah- an official at Chase Manhattan and the Federal Reserve. McGarrah was the grandfather of former CIA director Richard Helms. The Rockefellers- like the Morgans- had close ties to London. David Icke writes in Children of the Matrix, that the Rockefellers and Morgans were just “gofers” for the European Rothschilds. [14]

BIS is owned by the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, Bank of Italy, Bank of Canada, Swiss National Bank, Nederlandsche Bank,Bundesbank and Bank of France.
Historian Carroll Quigley wrote in his epic book Tragedy and Hope that BIS was part of a plan, “to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole…to be controlled in a feudalistic fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements.”
The US government had a historical distrust of BIS, lobbying unsuccessfully for its demise at the 1944 post-WWII Bretton Woods Conference. Instead the Eight Families’ power was exacerbated, with the Bretton Woods creation of the IMF and the World Bank. The US Federal Reserve only took shares in BIS in September 1994. [15]

BIS holds at least 10% of monetary reserves for at least 80 of the world’s central banks, the IMF and other multilateral institutions. It serves as financial agent for international agreements, collects information on the global economy and serves as lender of last resort to prevent global financial collapse.
BIS promotes an agenda of monopoly capitalist fascism. It gave a bridge loan to Hungary in the 1990’s to ensure privatization of that country’s economy.
It served as conduit for Eight Families funding of Adolf Hitler- led by the Warburg’s J. Henry Schroeder and Mendelsohn Bank of Amsterdam. Many researchers assert that BIS is at the nadir of global drug money laundering. [16]

It is no coincidence that BIS is headquartered in Switzerland, favorite hiding place for the wealth of the global aristocracy and headquarters for the P-2 Italian Freemason’s Alpina Lodge and Nazi International.
Other institutions which the Eight Families control include the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Conference and the World Trade Organization.
Bretton Woods was a boon to the Eight Families. The IMF and World Bank were central to this “new world order”. In 1944 the first World Bank bonds were floated by Morgan Stanley and First Boston.
The French Lazard family became more involved in House of Morgan interests. Lazard Freres- France’s biggest investment bank- is owned by the Lazard and David-Weill families- old Genoese banking scions represented by Michelle Davive. A recent Chairman and CEO of Citigroup was Sanford Weill.
In 1968 Morgan Guaranty launched Euro-Clear, a Brussels-based bank clearing system for Eurodollar securities. It was the first such automated endeavor. Some took to calling Euro-Clear “The Beast”. Brussels serves as headquarters for the new European Central Bank and for NATO.
In 1973 Morgan officials met secretly in Bermuda to illegally resurrect the old House of Morgan, twenty yearsbefore the Glass Steagal Act was repealed. Morgan and the Rockefellers provided the financial backing for Merrill Lynch, boosting it into the Big 5 of US investment banking. Merrill is now part of Bank of America.
John D. Rockefeller used his oil wealth to acquire Equitable Trust, which had gobbled up several large banks and corporations by the 1920’s. The Great Depression helped consolidate Rockefeller’s power.
His Chase Bank merged with Kuhn Loeb’s Manhattan Bank to form Chase Manhattan, cementing a long-time family relationship. The Kuhn-Loeb’s had financed – along with Rothschilds – Rockefeller’s quest to become king of the oil patch. National City Bank of Cleveland provided John D. with the money needed to embark upon his monopolization of the US oil industry.
The bank was identified in Congressional hearings as being one of three Rothschild-owned banks in the US during the 1870’s, when Rockefeller first incorporated as Standard Oil of Ohio. [17]

One Rockefeller Standard Oil partner was Edward Harkness, whose family came to control Chemical Bank. Another was James Stillman, whose family controlled Manufacturers Hanover Trust. Both banks have merged under the JP Morgan Chase umbrella. Two of James Stillman’s daughters married two of William Rockefeller’s sons. The two families control a big chunk of Citigroup as well. [18]

In the insurance business, the Rockefellers control Metropolitan Life, Equitable Life, Prudential 
and New York Life. Rockefeller banks control 25% of all assets of the 50 largest US commercial banks and 30% of all assets of the 50 largest insurance companies. [19] 

Insurance companies- the first in the US was launched by Freemasons through their Woodman’s of America- play a key role in the Bermuda drug money shuffle.
Companies under Rockefeller control include Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, BP Amoco, Marathon Oil, Freeport McMoran, Quaker Oats, ASARCO, United, Delta, Northwest, ITT, International Harvester, Xerox, Boeing, Westinghouse, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, International Paper, Pfizer, Motorola, Monsanto, Union Carbide and General Foods.
The Rockefeller Foundation has close financial ties to both Ford and Carnegie Foundations. Other family philanthropic endeavors include Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, General Education Board, Rockefeller University and the University of Chicago- which churns out a steady stream of far right economists as apologists for international capital, including Milton Friedman.
The family owns 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where the national Christmas tree is lighted every year, and Rockefeller Center. David Rockefeller was instrumental in the construction of the World Trade Center towers. The main Rockefeller family home is a hulking complex in upstate New York known as Pocantico Hills.
They also own a 32-room 5th Avenue duplex in Manhattan, a mansion in Washington, DC, Monte Sacro Ranch in Venezuela, coffee plantations in Ecuador, several farms in Brazil, an estate at Seal Harbor, Maine and resorts in the Caribbean, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. [20]

The Dulles and Rockefeller families are cousins. Allen Dulles created the CIA, assisted the Nazis, covered up the Kennedy hit from his Warren Commission perch and struck a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood to create mind-controlled assassins. [21]

Brother John Foster Dulles presided over the phony Goldman Sachs trusts before the 1929 stock market crash and helped his brother overthrow governments in Iran and Guatemala. Both were Skull & Bones, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) insiders and 33rd Degree Masons. [22]
The Rockefellers were instrumental in forming the depopulation-oriented Club of Rome at their family estate in Bellagio, Italy. Their Pocantico Hills estate gave birth to the Trilateral Commission. The family is a major funder of the eugenics movement which spawned Hitler, human cloning and the current DNA obsession in US scientific circles.

John Rockefeller Jr. headed the Population Council until his death. [23]
His namesake son is a Senator from West Virginia. Brother Winthrop Rockefeller was Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas and the most powerful man in that state until he died in 2006.
In an October 1975 interview with Playboy magazine, Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller- who was also Governor of New York- articulated his family’s patronizing worldview, “I am a great believer in planning- economic, social, political, military, total world planning.”
But of all the Rockefeller brothers, it is Trilateral Commission (TC) founder and former Chase Manhattan Chairman David who has spearheaded the family’s fascist agenda on a global scale. He defended the Shah of Iran, the South African apartheid regime and the Chilean Pinochet junta. He was the biggest financier of the CFR, the TC and (during the Vietnam War) the Committee for an Effective and Durable Peace in Asia- a contract bonanza for those who made their living off the conflict.
Nixon asked him to be Secretary of Treasury, but Rockefeller declined the job, knowing his power was much greater at the helm of the Chase. Author Gary Allen writes in The Rockefeller File that in 1973, “David Rockefeller met with twenty-seven heads of state, including the rulers of Russia and Red China.”

Following the 1975 Nugan Hand Bank/CIA coup against Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, his British Crown-appointed successor Malcolm Fraser sped to the US, where he met with President Gerald Ford after conferring with David Rockefeller. [24]
Read Part II Freemasons & The Bank of the United States
[1] 10K Filings of Fortune 500 Corporations to SEC. 3-91
[2] 10K Filing of US Trust Corporation to SEC. 6-28-95
[3] “The Federal Reserve ‘Fed Up’. Thomas Schauf. www.davidicke.com 1-02
[4] The Secrets of the Federal Reserve. Eustace Mullins. Bankers Research Institute. Staunton, VA. 1983. p.179
[5] Ibid. p.53
[6] The Triumph of Conservatism. Gabriel Kolko. MacMillan and Company New York. 1963. p.142
[7] Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History that Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons and the Great Pyramids. Jim Marrs. HarperCollins Publishers. New York. 2000. p.57
[8] The House of Morgan. Ron Chernow. Atlantic Monthly Press NewYork 1990
[9] Marrs. p.57
[10] Democracy for the Few. Michael Parenti. St. Martin’s Press. New York. 1977. p.178
[11] Chernow
[12] The Great Crash of 1929. John Kenneth Galbraith. Houghton, Mifflin Company. Boston. 1979. p.148
[13] Chernow
[14] Children of the Matrix. David Icke. Bridge of Love. Scottsdale, AZ. 2000
[15] The Confidence Game: How Un-Elected Central Bankers are Governing the Changed World Economy. Steven Solomon. Simon & Schuster. New York. 1995. p.112
[16] Marrs. p.180
[17] Ibid. p.45
[18] The Money Lenders: The People and Politics of the World Banking Crisis. Anthony Sampson. Penguin Books. New York. 1981
[19] The Rockefeller File. Gary Allen. ’76 Press. Seal Beach, CA. 1977
[20] Ibid
[21] Dope Inc.: The Book That Drove Kissinger Crazy. Editors of Executive Intelligence Review. Washington, DC. 1992
[22] Marrs.
[23] The Rockefeller Syndrome. Ferdinand Lundberg. Lyle Stuart Inc. Secaucus, NJ. 1975. p.296
[24] Marrs. p.53
Written by Dean Henderson and published on The Intel Hub, December 8, 2011.

HOMELAND SECURITY ISSUES FEMA CAMP ACTIVATION: (Not Good)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIudw6sxvwE&feature=uploademail

Market Update and 2012 Look Ahead

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-three-charts-blow-doors-any-hope-2012-rally

Guest Post: Three Charts That Blow The Doors Off Any Hope Of A 2012 Rally

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/19/2011 10:04 -0500

Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Three Charts That Blow The Doors Off Any Hope Of A 2012 Rally 
The centrally-managed rally of March 2009 is over; reality is finally intruding on the manipulation and propaganda.
A good way to generate hate mail is to question 1) Santa's "guaranteed year-end rally" and 2) the notion that market rallies always resume soon enough because of the Federal Reserve's backstop/intervention.
If we step back from the latest shuck-and-jive data from the Ministry of Propaganda, a.k.a. the Status Quo managing perceptions, and take a longer view of the economy, money, credit and the stock market, we get an extremely troubling set of insights.
Courtesy of this site's Chartist Friend from Pittsburgh, here are three charts that completely undermine the fantasy that central planning/intervention can "save the market" once again in 2012 and beyond.
The first chart depicts annual percentage of change of Total Credit Market Debt and GDP. The black line tracks the annual percentage expansion of debt and the purple line shows the annual percentage of change in the Gross Domestic Product.
The second chart shows the velocity of M2 Money Supply and the S&P 500 (SPX) stock market index divided by the PPI (Producer Price Index). Velocity of money can be illustrated with a simple example: if the Federal Reserve creates a dollar out of thin air and a bank parks that digital dollar in its reserves, the velocity of that money is very low. If that dollar is lent out and spent at a business that then uses it to buy goods and services at another business where it is paid out as a wage that is spent, and so on, then the velocity of that money is high.
Dividing the SPX by the PPI is a way of adjusting for base inflation. This gives us a more accurate snapshot of reality than a nominal or unadjusted number.
The third chart presents the MZM (money zero maturity) Money Stock, a measure of supply of financial assets, and the 3-month T-Bill (Treasury bond) which reflects interest rates.
Here is our Chartist Friend from Pittsburgh's summary of the charts' fundamental meaning:

I think these three charts together do a good job of showing the correlation between the dynamics of money/credit and the real economy as measured by GDP, stock prices and interest rates. They paint a very clear picture: the economic contractions that we are experiencing today began roughly twenty years ago, and soon a full blown deflationary depression will be delivered.

Thank you, CFFP for sharing these excellent charts. I am adding a bit of commentary after each chart.


Note that GDP more or less tracked credit expansion until around 1979, often exceeding debt as the expansion of credit sparked real growth via investment in productive assets. In the inflationary 1970s, both credit and GDP rose. In 1986-87, credit exploded, leaving the real economy in the dust. From 1991 on, credit tended to expand at a much higher rate than the real economy, a trend that accelerated in the 2003-07 housing/credit bubble. This reflects the saturation or exhaustion of debt as a driver of growth, i.e. mis-investment in unproductive assets such as McMansions in the middle of nowhere.
Since 2009, GDP hasn't recovered to ite previous annual rates of change, and credit fell to a negative number, i.e. credit contraction, for the first time in the postwar era. It has since regained positive territory but the expansion is weak; simply put, people either don't want to borrow more or they can't borrow more.


The velocity of money rose in the stagflationary 1970s, even as stocks yielded negative returns when adjusted for inflation, i.e. to real returns. Velocity declined in the mid-1980s and then exploded higher in 1990s, topping out several years before the stock market topped in 2000.
Velocity and stocks were highly correlated from 2000 to 2009, when the market staged a sharp rebound even as velocity continued down to a historic low. This suggests stocks have some catching up to do with velocity, that is, the S&P 500 should decline significantly.


Many people have noted the explosive rise in money supply (not shown) since the 2008 financial crisis; this chart shows that this "new money" isn't entering the real economy at all, as money velocity has plummeted to zero.
This third chart shows a rough but long-term correlation between T-Bill yields (interest rates) and the supply of financial assets (money stock). The stock of money fell off a cliff in 2000, and that marked the highs in both the S&P 500 and the T-Bill yield.
Maybe near-zero interest rates aren't the panacea the Federal Reserve thinks they are.
If we look at civilian participation in the workforce and other basic measures of employment, we find they topped out in 2000 as well.


If there is any evidence of a resurgence in the real economy just ahead, it isn't present in these charts. Any stock market rally in 2012 will not reflect the real economy, credit, money stock and velocity or employment visible in these charts. Until these charts shows positive fundamental improvement, a rally can only be smoke and mirrors, a trick of central planning manipulation that is unlikely to last longer than a sugar high.

UBS' Advice On What To Buy In Case Of Eurozone Breakup: "Precious Metals, Tinned Goods And Small Calibre Weapons"

From Zerohedge:

Three months ago, Zero Hedge presented the first of many narratives that started the thread of explaining the "unmitigated disaster" that would ensue should the Euro break up, which in the words of authors Stephane Deo and Larry Hatheway, would leads to such mutually assured destruction outcomes as complete bank failure and/or civil war or far worse. Because if there is one thing the banks have learned in the aftermath of Hank Paulson, is that scaremongering when bonuses are at stake is the only to get taxpayer money to fund exorbitant lifestyles. Unforthttp://www.zerohedge.com/news/ubs-advice-what-buy-case-eurozone-breakup-precious-metals-tinned-goods-and-small-calibre-weaponunately since the first UBS report, despite the best intentions of the status quo, the Eurozone's plight has only gotten far, far worse, reaching a Lehman-like crescendo when the house of cards threatened to collapse if not for a last minute Fed rescue. However, as Deutsche Bank and every other bank knows well, that measure was merely a short-term fix.
Today, Larry Hataway has released yet another sequel to the original piece, focusing on this so very critical week for Europe, which as Olli Rehn said, must find a solution by Friday or see the EU "disintegrate", in which the vivid imagery, loud warnings and level of destruction are even greater than before. In other words, Europe has 4 more days, something which S&P tried it best to remind Europe of, as the alternative is "or else." And here comes UBS to remind everyone that anything but a "fix" to a system that was broken from the very beginning, would be a catastrophe, captured probably the best in Hatheway's recommendations of assets to be bought as a hedge to a Euro collapse: "I suppose there might be some assets worthy of consideration—precious metals, for example. But other metals would make wise investments, too. Among them tinned goods and small calibre weapons." But even that is nothing compared to the kicker: "Break-up runs the risk of becoming one wretched scenario. Sadly, however, it can’t be ruled out, just as it would have been improper to rule out the horrors of the first half of the 20th century before they happened." And there you have it: a reversion by Europe to the perfectly stable system from a decade ago, is now somehow supposed to result in World War. And with that the global banking cartel has official jumped the shark, just like the FT's latest rumor earlier today did the same by indicating that the well of European "bailout" ideas has officially run dry.
Here is how Hatheway frames the end of the world:

The unfolding Eurozone crisis is not something to be taken lightly. The consequences of policy action are material, not just for the 330-odd million residents of the Euro area, but assuredly for the world economy and financial system as well.

This week, Europe’s heads of state gather again to see if they can finally get on top of the problem. The challenges confronting the Eurozone are complex and defy easy solution. Sadly, that hasn’t prevented some observers from proposing some silly ideas. Indeed, it is distressing to see how many misconceived ‘remedies’ are put forward by seemingly reasonable people. In what follows we review some of the odder ones and explain why they don’t make sense.

Why a euro break up is the end of the world: Take 1 - base case

The Eurozone was flawed from the start. The wrong countries joined and the Euro area lacks the appropriate policy framework to deal with its imbalances, lack of growth, and internal inflexibility.

Correct.

So, the remedy must be to break it up, right?

Wrong.

The preferred outcome is to fix what is broken.

But before we go further, let’s make one point absolutely clear. Even if fixing the Eurozone is better (on any measure) than breaking it up, that does not imply that break-up can’t happen. Countries, like individuals, often make decisions they subsequently regret. When passion (populism or nationalism) dominates reason, stuff happens.

Back in September, my colleagues Paul Donovan and Stephane Deo and I outlined the costs of breaking up the Eurozone. The interested reader can refer to the relevant research for details (available on request). Suffice it to say that the combination of cascading cross-border defaults, collapsing banking systems, soaring risk premiums, and currency dislocations would result, according to our estimates, in losses approaching 20% of GDP for creditor countries and 40% of GDP for departing debtors.

On reflection this author, at least, feels the estimates are probably conservative—the true costs could well be higher. That’s because once Europe (and the world economy) finds itself in depression, policy probably couldn’t arrest the decline. Broken financial systems and ruined economies are the stuff of prolonged deflation or worse. And it is by now abundantly clear that even unconventional macro-policy cannot deliver results if the financial system is in tatters.

Our report received a lot of attention from clients and in the press. And to our knowledge, its findings have never really been disputed. So here’s the point. If most observers agree that a Eurozone breakup significantly increases the risk of widespread economic and financial mayhem, how can't be best? Reasonable people don’t play Russian roulette. So why are some economists suggesting that Europe should?

Why a euro break up is the end of the world: Take 2 - crank it up a notch

It’s only Greece, why worry?

Ok, the break-up crowd grudgingly admits. You’ve got a point—Italy can’t leave. But what about Greece? Surely it is so small its departure won’t matter?

And its economy is so broken, wouldn’t Greece benefit from leaving the Euro? Wrong again. First, Greece is unlikely to be better off outside the Eurozone than in it. Forced conversion of bank deposits and strict capital controls would be required to prevent massive capital flight in the event a ‘new drachma’ is introduced. While Greek government debt might be redenominated into ‘new drachma’, private sector debt owed to non-Greek financial institutions would remain liable in euros, dollars, Swiss francs or whatever the currency of the original obligation. With the ‘new drachma’ depreciating in the currency markets (why else issue it?), the Greek private sector would experience large and rolling defaults. That’s because after more than a decade of current account deficits, Greek residents owe the rest of the world a lot. Specifically, since the euro was introduced, Greece has racked up external liabilities (cumulative current account deficits) of nearly $300bn, just over 100% of its GDP.

So the Greek financial sector would collapse, alongside much of the nonfinancial sector. Credit would evaporate and recession (more like  depression) would result. But that’s not all. Given a very open economy to trade, drachma weakness would result in rising import price inflation, eroding domestic purchasing power (hence deepening the downturn) and undermining the hopedfor competitiveness stemming from nominal depreciation.

So the tally is depression, widespread private sector bankruptcy, a ruined financial sector, and surging inflation, offset by modest gains in competitiveness.

That’s not a terribly persuasive case for exit.

But the biggest reason why the ‘it’s only Greece’ narrative is naive and dangerous is that it almost certainly would not be ‘only Greece’. Once one country leaves the Eurozone, residents in other at-risk member countries would plausibly conclude their country might be next to go. Logic dictates they would send their wealth abroad, resulting in a run on their domestic banks, precipitating a collapse of their financial sectors and economies.

The ‘it’s only Greece’ crowd conveniently fails to consider the risks to the rest of the Eurozone.

Stuff—in this case, contagion—happens.

Why a euro break up is the end of the world: Take 3 - bring up the cheating spouse analogy: that will get their attention

I promise, really, I’ll only cheat once

Recently, another bad idea has made the rounds. How about a weekend exit, where a country (say, Greece) leaves the Euro area, devalues and rejoins, all by breakfast on Sunday, primed to compete against the mighty Germans.

It is hard to know where to begin with the instantaneous exit and re-entry ‘remedy’. Leave aside the legal and practical challenges involved (Can a country exit and rejoin without treaty change? Is it legal to re-denominate private sector assets?). The notion is fundamentally flawed on its own.

To be sure, the new lower real exchange rate would boost competitiveness. But what about borrowing costs? Undoubtedly, they will soar and remain high for a long time. That’s because creditors (who just suffered a currency haircut over the exit/re-entry weekend) have memories.

Unsustainable sovereign credit risk premiums would be replaced by unsustainable currency risk premiums. This ‘remedy’ is, after all, no more than a return to a fixed-but-adjustable exchange rate system with all the credibility problems it embeds.

And currency risk premiums would appear not only in the ‘weekend divorce’ country. Others in a similar predicament would lose credibility and suffer rising bond yields—once again contagion effects.

In essence, the ‘weekend divorce’ only works if the jilted partner (the creditor) is gullible enough to believe that the other partner will only ‘cheat’ once.

I don’t know about you, but…

Why a euro break up is the end of the world: Take 4 - time for some carpet bombing imagery "inception"

What if Napoleon had a B-52 at Waterloo?

The last of our weird reasoning cases is the idea that banks, companies and even countries can somehow prepare for Eurozone break-up. In recent weeks various stories have appeared in the press about foreign exchange brokers, multinational companies, banks, and even countries mobilizing teams to figure out how to deal with new currencies, recalibrate cross-border accounting and invoicing systems,or estimate the costs and benefits(?) of break-up.

Talk about fantasy. That’s like asking Wellington to stress test his army against a scenario where Napoleon has a B-52 at Waterloo. You don’t re-position the troops—you retreat as quickly as possible across the channel, if not across the Atlantic.

Of course, we get it, contingency planning is prudent. But just what contingency are we planning for? In break-up new currencies will be introduced. But will they trade freely? Probably not. As we noted in our original piece on the costs of break-up, it is highly probable that capital controls would accompany exit. Spot, forward, futures, swaps, options and other currency derivative contracts might not even materialize, or perhaps only for limited current account transactions.

Companies preparing plans on how they might manage multi-currency cash flows in a post-Eurozone world might be advised instead to pay attention to the risk of not getting paid at all, never mind in which currency. Counterparty risk— bank-to-bank and company-to-company—would soar as defaults mount.

Bank risk management teams would be similarly advised not to ask how far new currencies might depreciate or how high risk premiums might rise, but whether the bank would survive a collapse of the payments system, a run on deposits, and widespread default on assets.

Why a euro break up is the end of the world: Take 5, epilogue, or how "you damn dirty apes blew it all to hell"... and by it we mean our bonuses

Simply put, linear thinking doesn’t work in a non-linear world. And break-up is likely to produce a very non-linear set of outcomes.
Which brings me, lastly, to the question I sometimes get about what is the ‘right’ asset allocation in the event of break-up.

I suppose there might be some assets worthy of consideration—precious metals, for example. But other metals would make wise investments, too. Among them tinned goods and small calibre weapons.

Break-up runs the risk of becoming one wretched scenario. Sadly, however, it can’t be ruled out, just as it would have been improper to rule out the horrors of the first half of the 20th century before they happened.

But it is very hard to see break-up as a solution. Let’s hope Europe’s politicians and policymakers agree and take action this week to fix what is broken before itall really breaks up.

At this point we have to say that we find it supremely ironic that a man warning against the futility of linear forecasts does just that for 4 pages, and all based on the flawed premise that returning the system that actually worked, would be tantamount to the apocalypse. Yet as Hatheway says, let's hope that "Europe's politicians agree"... although agree with what is not quite clear - to fund the existence of an obvious fiscal and monetary experimental failure at the expense of trillions more in diluted or outright confiscated funds, just so the continent's (and world's) bankers, who outside of writing trite essays have no utility in the real world, get another massive outlier of a bonus? That actually sounds about right.
As for us, we will bet on the fact that as in every historical event in the past 20 centuries, the powder keg that is Europe, with its tens of religions, hundreds of mutually exclusive cultures, and millennia of hatred, almost without fail took the decision that led to massive game theory fail, and an outcome that resulted in bloodshed. Which is why the only take home message for us here is to do precisely what Hatheway warns to do as a euro breakup Plan Z: buy gold, spam and guns.
Everything else we leave to the only market makers left in town - the world's central banks.

Election Update 2012

Submitted by: Francis Soyer

I am getting political Wednesday's articles on current political events out of the way today on Monday. With Cain dropping out I wanted to remind republicans of who is the candidate to support. Please see the below:

EUR Tumbles: S&P About To Put Europe's AAA Club (Including Germany, France And Austria) On "Creditwatch Negative"

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/sp-about-put-europes-aaa-countries-germany-france-holland-austria-and-luxembourg-creditwatch-ne

Here it comes. From the FT: "Standard and Poor’s has warned Germany and the five other triple A members of the eurozone that they risk having their top-notch ratings downgraded as a result of deepening economic and political turmoil in the single currency bloc. The US ratings agency is poised to announce later on Monday that it is putting Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, and Luxembourg on “creditwatch negative”, meaning there is a one-in-two chance of a downgrade within 90 days. It warned all six governments that their ratings could be lowered to AA+ if the creditwatch review failed to convince its experts. Markets have been braced for a potential downgrade of France but few expected Germany’s top rating to be called into question. With regard to Germany, S&P said it was worried about “the potential impact (...) of what we view as deepening political, financial, and monetary problems with the European economic and monetary union.” Standard and Poor’s has warned Germany and the five other triple A members of the eurozone that they risk having their top-notch ratings downgraded as a result of deepening economic and political turmoil in the single currency bloc." How this critical news was leaked, we have no idea. However, what is important is that now may be a good time to panic, unless Allianz has another CDO Quadratic plan up its sleeve...

The result: the EURUSD promptly forgets the bullshit it was being fed all morning by the Eurocrats.

Gold Market Update 12/5/11

Gold Market Update

originally published December 4th, 2011

http://www.clivemaund.com/article.php?art_id=68&PHPSESSID=bf8c2bcefdf51e253dea4dd94d1f3934

It is now evident that the gold price has been trapped in a narrowing trading range since its early September pre-plunge peak - a Symmetrical Triangle. This type of Triangle, which indicates a state of collective indecision, can lead to a breakout in either direction, depending on what fundamental developments ensue. The main reason that this large standoff pattern has developed at this juncture, in addition to that of an overbought condition having developed that needed correcting, is that the market has been unable to determine which of the primary economic conditions of deflation or inflation is set to take precedence.
In recent weeks the markets have been breaking out in a cold sweat at the prospect of the deflationary implosion that would surely follow if Europe were to go belly up, but then they suddenly realized last week that the global banking elite are going to attempt to come riding to Europe's rescue, in order to prevent a collapse and protect their vested interests which will include pushing the bill for the mess they have created onto the ordinary citizen, and this realization fuelled a strong recovery rally.
Without veering off into a rant it is safe to say that the hopeless economic mess that we find ourselves in today is the direct result of the ballooning of debt and derivatives over many years by opportunistic and irresponsible banks and other companies in the financial sector, with the support and collusion of cronies in government and throughout the business community, with the result that the debt and derivative mountains have grown to such monstrous proportions that they are bringing the world economy to a dead stop, verging on collapse.
The banks and financial sector companies are on the hook for massive losses and after years of garnering huge profits from deals associated with this debt pyramiding, are now scrambling to push all of their snowballing bad debts onto the ordinary citizen. They have already succeeded in doing this in 2008 - 2009 in the US with their "too big to fail" mantra and to put it crudely, the average US citizen has been well and truly shafted, the way that the average European citizen is looking set to be. The reason that they are now getting serious about rescuing Europe, which is why the market rallied last week, is that if they don't they are going to take a massive hit there, that will spill over into the US, as many big US banks hold a vast quantity of European debt instruments. So the name of the game is to get Mrs Merkel and Germany out of the way and proceed to pump up the European Central Bank with manufactured money so that it is up to the task of doing massive QE to maintain basic liquidity in Europe - and also up to the task of committing to massive bailouts, so that the international banking cartel get off as near to "scot free" as possible, and all the debts are pushed off onto the hapless European middle and lower classes. This is, of course, a super-inflationary solution, which is why we are rambling on about all this. The key point to understand is that because the big banks have far more power over the government and individual politicians than the ordinary citizen has, their will is going to prevail and governments will in the end do their bidding. If this reasoning is correct then we should in due course see a rapid shift in Europe towards a major QE operation that will inject liquidity on a massive scale, support the bond markets and bring down yields, and involve intervention to buy up bad debt to insulate the banks from loss and generally ease the acute state of crisis. All this will of course breed what Germany fears so much - roaring inflation, but it will achive its main objectives from the perspective of the elites, which is to insulate the banks from losses and "kick the can down the road".
The previous paragraph is not some hypothetical rambling designed to pad out this article, it is the explanation for last week's explosive rally across the markets. The markets have suddenly started to grasp the "game plan" and are starting to move to discount the highly inflationary implications of it. Massive money printing in Europe will provide "rocket fuel" for the commodity and stockmarkets, regardless of the underlying state of economies, especially if other economic power blocks such as China and the US see what's going on and decide to follow suit. A key point to note here is that a substantial percentage of the market's possible future gains as a result of the pursuit of such policies will be cancelled out by the rapidly diminishing value of money. Now that we have considered the fundamental backdrop, let's proceed to see what the latest charts have to say.
We will start by looking at the broad market using the 3-month chart for the S&P500 index. On this chart we can see the reamrkably strong rally that occurred last week, with a really big up day on Wednesday. However, by Thursday the bulls were temporarily exhausted and the market stalled out beneath its falling 200-day moving average where a couple of rather bearish candlesticks formed on Thursday and Friday, a "doji", followed by a "shooting star", which together suggest that we are likely to see a minor reaction next week. Seeing the rally coming last weekend we scrambled to ditch our shorts on Monday morning, and although adversely impacted by the start of the rally, we still got out with a good profit. Despite the likelihood of a short-term reaction, the action overall last week is regarded as bullish in purport and further gains are expected in due course.
Although the broad stockmarket stole the limelight last week, so that gold and silver made but modest gains, the factors that are bullish for the stockmarket are also bullish for gold and silver, which is why gold is expected to break out upside from the Symmetrical Triangle shown on our 6-month chart before much longer. However, like the broad market, bearish candlesticks showed up on the charts of both gold and silver on Thursday, pointing to a probable short-term reaction back within the Triangle first.


The factors that are bullish for gold here are that it has found support recently exactly at its 150-day moving average, from which it has rallied on no less than 6 occasions in the last 3-years, not including the recent reaction, as we can see on the 3-year chart for gold below. This means that the long-term uptrend remains unbroken. Another bullish factor that we can see on this chart is that the Accum-Distrib line has advanced to new highs, even as the Triangular consolidation pattern has developed. This is a very favorable sign. Finally the COT chart (not shown) is historically speaking certainly looking bullish, although not so outstandingly so as silver.


Someone wrote in to me to say that if they do massive QE in Europe. it will surely knock down the value of the euro, and so the dollar will rise, which is bad for gold. I responded that the euro is currently severely depressed due to the risk of its becoming a defunct currency, and that therefore it would benefit from a massive relief rally immediately it became apparent that the global banks were going to come riding to the rescue of Europe, regardless of the prospect of its later being devalued by money printing. This is certainly what the Commercials appear to be thinking for as we can see on the latest COT chart for the Euro FX, they are massively long the euro, with their holdings now at record levels by a country mile. Given that these people are seldom if ever wrong on the big moves, it looks like a big rally for the euro is brewing, regardless of all the current doom and gloom.


Thus it is interesting to observe on the euro chart that it appears to be completing a Double Bottom formation, with downside momentum having eased on the latest drop. The euro is certainly oversold on this chart with plenty of room to rally.


If the euro looks set to rally - what about the dollar. The dollar chart appears to be the inverse of the euro chart, with a potential Double Top completing, and the latest rally not confirmed by momentum, as made clear by the MACD indicator at the bottom of the chart.


Conclusion: notwithstanding a possible minor short-term reaction, which is suggested by the action late last week, it looks like gold is limbering up to break out upside from a large consolidation Triangle, which could be preceded by a false break to the downside first, as sometimes happens when a breakout does not occur until the price is almost at the apex of the Triangle, as is the case here. A clear breakout should lead to another major uptrend taking gold comfortably to new highs and probably above $2000 on this run. Downside risk will be reduced when the price succeeds in breaking above resistance at $1800, and a close above this level will be a good point to add to longs. As a big move one way or the other is likely soon, this is one of those rare times when straddles, in gold itself or gold proxies like some ETFs, are an effective strategy, and after last week's rally the short side of the trade, which may be used to protect existing holdings, is cheap.

The Pressing Weight of Compounding Debt

http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/richard-russell/2011/12/05/pressing-weight-compounding-debt

The world's major central banks launched a joint action to provide chief emergency US dollar loans to banks in Europe and elsewhere.

In a desperate effort to raise stocks the central banks of the world coordinated by forcing more money into the world system. The obvious result was a surge in stock prices with the Dow rising almost 500 points. This is exciting for now but it will result in inflation within 6 months to a year. Along with rising inflation will be its cousin, higher interest rates. This will impact everything from commodity prices to the rising cost of financing the federal debt. Right now the federal debt is being rolled over at extremely low interest rates, but as rates climb, compounding will occur and the cost of rolling over the federal debt will become a critical problem.

Remember, 40 % of the federal debt matures in less than one year and the average rate of the entire federal debt is 4.3%. This is when compounding of the federal debt becomes poisonous. The problem of borrowing to finance the federal debt becomes prohibitive. For now the act by the federal bank of flooding the market again with cash acts as a stimulant, but the same stimulant becomes, in a matter of years, inflation poison. The first bubble to be crushed will be the ridiculous federal debt. The second crushed will be the US dollar. The compounding federal debt will act as a steam roller, rolling everything in its path. The island of safety will be pure wealth, better known as gold. Patient subscribers will be rewarded for their patience. The great enemy will be the act of compounding pressing its weight of the US debt. Just as compounding turned rising money supply into fortunes, compounding the rising interest rates will turn fortunes into shoestrings.

Gold Silver and Market News for 12/2/11

Submitted by: Francis Soyer

Today's trading session is all about the Jobs number at 8:30 a.m. The street is looking for a Non Farm Payroll print of 125k. Given the recent fluff coming from the BLS I will not be surprised to see a print in the ball park of 200k.

Wednesday after a massive short covering rally thanks to a symbolic Fed move to lower window rates by 50 bps. We know that Bears were marched into a buzz saw after that announcement. The announcement coming of course after the Banking sector's credit ratings were cut by S&P. The Fed had to act to prevent an exodus from the Markets and the Bears were counting on it. Thus the Fed hammered them, one of things Bernanke is very good at. We also know there are still shorts out there scrambling to cover as yesterday some traders reported not being to find a locate (borrow shares) for the S&P 500! or specifically the Spiders (SPY) Spiders are extremely liquid and normally incredibly easy to borrow for shorting. This tells me that from a fundamental point of view money managers are very bearish and for good reason.

From a hard numbers point of view the Feds activity Wednesday is really a gesture of empathy towards the banking industry and will do nothing to help save the EURO. The ECB bankers know this and know the EURO is defacto dead. The timing of its death is the 60 trillion dollar question. It will depend on how long the EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) can buy time and prepare for the exit of Euro. According to some news out of London authorities are making preparations for civil unrest. In the meantime expect a steady stream out of Europe of "proposed solutions" to remedy the situation designed to inspire market confidence.

All of these proposed solutions will fail. Given that most astute money managers know this are short the markets like never before. Hence my bias in the short term is that this rally will continue today and until the lions share of these shorts are Murdered. The inflated non farm print will also be by design to aid the killing of Bears. Expect this monster NFP print to be revised down later and grossly so. January I see as being a completely different environment and probably where Bears will want to be. Below the ECON data agenda for today:

8:30 Non Farm Payrolls

9:00 Richard Fisher Speaks

10:00 Charles Plosser

1:30 p.m. Eric Rosengren Speaks

and for a much needed TGIF uptick:

RETIRED  HUSBAND

After  I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her  on her trips to Target.

Unfortunately,  like most men, I found shopping boring and  preferred to get in and get out. Equally  unfortunate, my wife is like most women - she  loves to browse.

Yesterday  my dear wife received the following letter from  the local Target:

Dear Mrs. Harris ,

Over  the past six months, your husband has caused  quite a commotion in our store. We cannot  tolerate this behavior and have been forced to  ban both of you from the store. Our complaints  against your husband, Mr. Harris , are listed  below and are "documented  by our video surveillance cameras":

1.  June 15: He took 24 boxes of condoms and  randomly put them in other people's carts when  they weren't looking.

2.  July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares  to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3.  July 7: He made a trail of tomato juice on the  floor leading to the women's restroom.

4.  July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her  in an official voice, 'Code 3 in Housewares. Get  on it right away'. This caused the employee to  leave her assigned station and receive a  reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn  resulted with a union grievance, causing  management to lose time and costing the company  money.

5.  August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to  put a bag of M&Ms on layaway.

6.  August 14: Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to  a carpeted area.

7. August 15: Set up a  tent in the camping department and told the  children shoppers they could come in if they  would bring pillows and blankets from the  bedding department to which twenty children  obliged.

8.  August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help  him he began crying and screamed, 'Why can't you  people just leave me alone?' EMTs were  called.

9. September 4: Looked right into  the security camera and used it as a mirror  while he picked his nose.

10.  September 10: While handling guns in the hunting  department, he asked the clerk where the  antidepressants were.

11.  October 3: Darted around the Store suspiciously  while loudly humming the 'Mission Impossible'  theme.

12.  October 6: In the auto department, he practiced  his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of  funnels.

13.  October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when  people browsed through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK  ME!'

14.  October 22: When an announcement came over the  loud speaker, he assumed the fetal position and  screamed 'OH NO! IT'S  THOSE VOICES AGAIN!

15. Took a box of  condoms to the checkout clerk and asked where is  the fitting room?

And last, but not  least:

16.  October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the  door, waited awhile, and then yelled very  loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in  here.'

One  of the clerks passed out.