Absurdity is the New Normal

by Bob Rinear, The International Forecaster:

We’re mired in a global debt and derivative “bomb” that is Mathematically impossible to get rid of. We’ve got quadrillions in derivatives and even the best experts suggest that they have no way of knowing how many millions of people would be affected by the failure of just a tenth of them.

I don’t know if you are aware, but because of the insane rise of bitcoin, anything with the word “digital currency” or better yet, “block chain” has gotten immediate attention. So not being stupid, some smart guys at a few micro-cap companies figured “hey, if we find a way to say we use blockchain technology, our stock will go up.” It’s worked.

Maybe some of you remember this from back in December (courtesy of CNBC: $24 million iced tea company says it’s pivoting to the blockchain, and its stock jumps 200%. Farmingdale, New York-based beverage maker Long Island Iced Tea says it’s changing its name to “Long Blockchain Corp.” as it shifts its focus to investing in the technology behind bitcoin. Shares soar 200 in the open percent, although the company says it’s only in the “preliminary stages” of evaluating potential business opportunities in blockchain.

So, a tea company puts the words blockchain in a press release and “boom” up it goes. But it hasn’t been just them. A bra manufacturer, a couple fruit juice manufactures and others have figured out the game.

Today it was Kodak. Yes Kodak, once one of the “nifty fifty” best stocks that has since gone bankrupt a few times, they came out to say that they too are going to use blockchain technology. And guess what? It worked. This is according to Koday:

For many in the tech industry, ‘blockchain’ and ‘cryptocurrency’ are hot buzzwords, but for photographers who’ve long struggled to assert control over their work and how it’s used, these buzzwords are the keys to solving what felt like an unsolvable problem,” said Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke. “Kodak has always sought to democratize photography and make licensing fair to artists. These technologies give the photography community an innovative and easy way to do just that.”

Guess what happened? KODK the stock went from about 3 bucks to almost 6 instantly. Has sanity left the building? You bet.

Actually what’s happened is algo-bots have been programmed to search the news headlines for specific words or strings of words. If the artificial intelligence decides that the right words fit, words like “blockchain”, they are programmed to buy the stock.

Here’s some more from the Kodak press release:

Today Kodak and WENN Digital, in a licensing partnership, announced the launch of the KODAKOne image rights management platform and KODAKCoin, a photo-centric cryptocurrency to empower photographers and agencies to take greater control in image rights management.

Utilizing blockchain technology, the KODAKOne platform will create an encrypted, digital ledger of rights ownership for photographers to register both new and archive work that they can then license within the platform. With KODAKCoin, participating photographers are invited to take part in a new economy for photography, receive payment for licensing their work immediately upon sale, and for both professional and amateur photographers, sell their work confidently on a secure blockchain platform. KODAKOne platform provides continual web crawling in order to monitor and protect the IP of the images registered in the KODAKOne system. Where unlicensed usage of images is detected, the KODAKOne platform can efficiently manage the post-licensing process in order to reward photographers.

Look, keeping track of all that is probably wonderful. But let’s face reality, the only reason it’s up so big is because they used the right buzz words. How insane is it to think that a tea company or a sports bra company is worth more because of blockchain?

We’re mired in a global debt and derivative “bomb” that is Mathematically impossible to get rid of. We’ve got quadrillions in derivatives and even the best experts suggest that they have no way of knowing how many millions of people would be affected by the failure of just a tenth of them.

But that sort of thing has gone on for ages. When the “buzz word” was rare earth metals, because they were so hot, mining companies that couldn’t possibly find a rare earth metal, were quick to put those words in their press release. It was mind boggling to watch. Companies that only mine zinc or copper were talking of these great deposits of rare earths they “think” are on their sites, and sure enough the stock would pop higher.

Which brings up the next level of absurdity. I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing me moan about how the Swiss National bank prints up money out of thin air and then uses it to buy stocks. Well now according to the Wall Street Journal, the SNB has taken in a whopping 55 billion in profits from those stocks!

Yes you read that right. Because they have about 800 billion worth of foreign stocks and as we know, stock markets have been roaring higher, they made more money than AAPL, JPM, and Berkshire Hathaway COMBINED.

How is that not absurd? Can you print money on your little laser printer, buy the SPY or DIA’s and then cash in? No, you would go to jail because that’s counterfeiting. But if you’re a Central bank, then, okay no problem.

So let me ask the elephant in the room question. What’s to stop them from buying 900 billion, or a trillion, or 2 trillion? Nothing. Why would they even think about stopping all that when they’re raking in profits?

Want some more absurdity? Fine, I’ve got a lot of it. Let’s take the global debt situation for a minute. Right now, depending on which report you read, the globe is swimming in 233 TRILLION worth of debt, and that doesn’t count the Quadrillions in derivatives and counter party swaps.

So, we see these central bankers come up with programs and stimulus measures that once upon a time were ONLY used in the most dire of circumstances, become the “new normal”. I’ve said until I’m blue that if the Central banks stopped printing, we’d see a global crash, and I think many of you just think I’m being flippant. I’m not.

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