CHART: Stock Market Would Be 50% Lower Without The Fed

• The Puzzling Pre-FOMC Announcement “Drift” - NY Fed
• Stock Market Would Be 50% Lower Without The Fed
• Wells Fargo pays out $175m to settle claim of racial bias in lending
• Allegations of fraud at futures broker fuel further mistrust in industry
• Max Keiser - European banks are technically bankrupt
• Peregrine's Wasendorf arrested; suicide note cited
• New food crisis fears as US corn prices soar - FT
• Visa, MasterCard, banks in $7.25 billion retail settlement
• PFG bankruptcy shakes up futures industry in more ways than one
• After pressure, USDA removes Spanish food stamp soap operas from website
• San Bernardino Bankruptcy: Criminal probe now underway
• Obama guts federal welfare reform with quiet policy change, GOP 'furious'

Comments

[DailyBail]

Convicted bank robber gets 1,256 years in prison

Read more: http://www.gazette.com/articles/bank-141658-gets-tricks.html#ixzz20cZSAslg

[DailyBail]

The Department of Homeland Security on Friday warned that a popular system used by organizations around the world to manage millions of machines and devices over the Internet is vulnerable to attack from hackers.

The software system known as the Niagara Framework enables corporate, military, health-care and other users to remotely control or monitor medical devices, elevators, video cameras, security systems and a wide array of other sensitive operations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/homeland-security-warns-of-hackers-targeting-popular-niagara-software/2012/07/13/gJQA0l7NiW_print.html

[DailyBail]

Obama's War On Medical Marijuana Just Got Even Uglier

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/07/obamas-war-on-medical-marijuana-just.html

[S. Gompers]

" Stock Market Would Be 50% Lower Without The Fed"

But the value of the dollar might have been 50% higher.

"New food crisis fears as US corn prices soar - FT"

Pay attention to the drough,t if it lasts, and the correlation to meat prices if they have to slaughter the herds due to the situation, you will save some money if you stock up when the time is right. Beef will dip briefly, and then rise.

[Cheyenne]

Thanks, Gomp, good call.

It's worth recalling that the Fed's first major round of quantitative easing, which began in late 2007 with TAF, was occasioned by food riots around the world:

"During that period [2007-09], more than 60 food riots occurred worldwide, according to the U.S. State Department."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-25/risk-of-riots-rising-as-governments-cut-food-subsidies-un-s-sheeran-says.html

The derivatives and futures markets, in theory at least, serve as a buffer between wildly volatile ag commodities and the shelves in grocery stores.

"[W]ell functioning derivatives markets for agricultural commodities, could play a significant role in reducing or smoothing price fluctuations – indeed, this is one of the primary functions of commodity futures markets."

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/40/34/48152638.pdf

Episodes like MF Global and PFG Best only erode confidence in those markets. Coupled with another round of QE, the results could get ugly very fast.