saveyourassetsfirst3 |
- Video of the Day – Obamacare Architect Credits “Stupidity of the American People” for Passage of Healthcare Law
- Soybeans and Shortened Life Expectancy
- Top Ten Unfortunate Ways To Lose Bitcoins
- This is why the U.S. gov’t is guaranteed to fail
- There’s an Invisible Berlin Wall Being Built to Trap Your Money
- Precious metal manipulation unveiled
- Functional Economics – Getting Your House in Order
- High hopes for Indian gold imports in 2015
- Gold trying to break above 1272-1275 resistance
- Gold's dismal recovery
- Metals market update for November 12
- CENTRAL BANK INSANITY: The More Yen Japan Prints, The Lower Price Of Gold…Until???
- Which Cities/States Will Be the First to Default When the Economy Rolls Over?
- India's gold import bill triples to $3.5 billion in October
- Soybean Bulls Recapture the Bean Market
- Gold re emerges best performing precious metal: ETFS
- Swiss Regulator: “Clear Attempt To Manipulate Precious Metals ” … “Particularly Silver”
- Swiss watchdog flags up gold fix manipulation at UBS
- Stewart Thomson: Indian Gold Demand Shifts To Overdrive
- Swiss Regulator: “Clear Attempt To Manipulate Precious Metals ” … “Particularly Silver”
- Russia most likely to act to protect its gold
- Swiss regulator fines UBS for silver price manipulation so this is now a matter of fact not speculation
- Etihad Airways sells out of $20k luxury residence suites in its new A380
- Gold miners priced at near-death experience
- Russia to Launch New Payments System to Circumvent SWIFT Network
- Rocks to Riches with Thomas Schuster
- Iamgold Cuts Executive Team By 40% and Withdraws From World Gold Council
- Is the higher US dollar now close to the top of its trading range?
- Why are gold shares suddenly a hot commodity on Wall Street?
- Stronger dollar could send oil price to $30 claims economist Raoul Pal
- Japanese yen risks crashing as the carry trade unwinds
- Jim Willie: Chinese Have Acquired a Majority Controlling Interest in the Federal Reserve!
- 24 Reasons Why Millennials Are Screaming Mad About Our Unfair Economy
- Harvey Organ: Something is Spooking the Banksters!
- Canadian Venture Index - Gold and Penny Stocks
- If Everything Is Just Fine, Why Are So Many Financial Experts Forecasting Economic Disaster?
- Controversial post: Central banks are now panicking. Here’s proof…
- Marshall Swing: Gold & Silver’s Day of Reckoning to Begin 9/23/15!
- Trader alert: We just saw a “bullish wick” in this hated sector
- New Currency Wars Cometh - Gold To Be “Last Man Standing”
| Posted: 12 Nov 2014 01:00 PM PST A SHOCKING video clip has just emerged of MIT economics professor, and the architect of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, admitting that the Obamacare legislation was intentionally complex and misleading in order to pass Congress and elicit limited outrage from the "stupid" American public. Full MUST WATCH clip of Obamacare architect is below: Submitted by Michael Krieger, Liberty Blitzkrieg: The Hill reports that: […] The post Video of the Day – Obamacare Architect Credits "Stupidity of the American People" for Passage of Healthcare Law appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| Soybeans and Shortened Life Expectancy Posted: 12 Nov 2014 12:28 PM PST If you ever see me on the street and I am making some incoherent mutterings, I ask for your sympathy. You see, I am suffering from what is referred to as an acute case of SOYBEANITIS. This is a serious condition brought on traders by prolonged, incessant exposure to the bean market. It impacts different traders in different forms but the one common among them all is that it results in an inability to form complete sentences. Short bursts of random words such as: "What the ****!" "You've got to be kidding me!" " I am not believing this"! "What kind of idiot would do that"? "NO way"! "What planet do they live on?" When a trader afflicted with soybeanitis attempts to string all these expressions together, the words come out in rapid fire succession, more often than not, completely jumbled, intermixed, interposed and transposed with the result that it produces a strange amalgamation of sounds that some have said sounds a great deal like the Klingon language from the old Star Trek shows. What I am referring to is a follow up to the chart I posted earlier today. After today's session, those zombies on "The Walking Dead" are probably former soybean traders. Here is the updated chart AFTER the close of trading today.  There are a couple of things to point out here. First, in the early part of the session, funds went on a buying binge across the entire grain floor. They took this month bean contract up through the 100 DMA yesterday and proceeded to push it even higher. In the process they closed the gap formed on the continuous chart back in mid-July. That gap was formed from the transition from the July contract to the August contract which was trading at a discount to the July as traders had begun to dial in the enormity of this year's crop. However, after the fund buying exhausted itself, the market began to slowly fade. I get the impression that a lot of guys were looking at the huge rally from off the lows near $9.00 and turned to one another remarking: "What in the hell are we doing way up here?" Whether or not that is true is immaterial. What did happen however is that the market seemed to run out of buyers up here. Price then faded and as it did, it looks as if some of the longs began to bail out. I am unsure at the moment but I suspect we finally awakened some serious commercial hedge-related selling. The point is that the bulls failed to hold the priced above the 100 DMA. If they had been able to come in and buy it near that level and push it back away from there, I would have to say that they had a very good chance at changing the bear trend and actually cementing a longer term bottom. Now, I am unsure once more. Not only did they fail at the 100 DMA, they also failed to hold the price at the BOTTOM OF THE FORMER GAP. They had pushed into that gap in yesterday's session and actually closed the gap, but they penetrated through the upper edge of the gap again today. However, by the time the closing bell rang, price had fallen below the low of the gap. From a technical analysis perspective, that constitutes a failure and would normally usher in some selling. With this market however, who the heck knows? I thought the same thing after we got that USDA report on Monday. Then yesterday all hell broke loose to the upside with that outside reversal day ( in the meal) erasing the outside reversal day lower from Monday. I was actually hoping we would see yet one more outside reversal day today so we could make it a perfect trifecta. By the way, I am trying to recall any time in my entire trading career in which I ever saw three back to back outside reversal days. Guess that will have to wait for another time? The way this market has been of late, who the heck knows what it will do next. As of today however, the bulls have been wounded somewhat as the beleaguered and shell-shocked bears managed to land a body blow. Stay tuned - this one ain't finished yet... but maybe the bears are starting to dig in up here. Quick comment on gold - nothing doing right now... just stuck in a range as I had noted the other day. It might be a season for price consolidation before a fresh leg lower or the bulls might be able to take it up through $1180 and try changing the handle to a "12". Just like the beans, the jury is still out. |
| Top Ten Unfortunate Ways To Lose Bitcoins Posted: 12 Nov 2014 11:56 AM PST Originally appeared on Bitcoinomics.Net There are many ways to lose your bitcoins. This list goes over 10 of the most predominant episodes of Bitcoin loss. Generally, this list does not include outright theft. If theft is involved, it likely was due to obvious operator error. Read below to learn about how even experienced bitcoiners lose their bitcoins… 10. 10,000 BTC PizzaLaszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 bitcoins he’d mined for two pizzas. "It wasn't like Bitcoins had any value back then, so the idea of trading them for a pizza was incredibly cool," Mr. Hanyecz told the New York Times. Then the price of bitcoins skyrocketed. But Hanyecz is not bitter. Laszlo is in the Bitcoin history books, tht’s for sure, with his own page on the Bitcoin Wiki. His purchase is the first documented purchase with bitcoin. The two pizzas were from Dominos. He posted a buy request on May 17, 2010. On May 22 he successfully traded 10,000 BTC for two pizzas. The value of the bitcoins altogether were $41 at the time of purchase. The Pizza Index is the value of the bitcoins spent on the pizzas, were they to be sold rather than spent on pizza. The indicator peaked in November 2013 at $12.4 million. To commemorate the transaction, May 22 is dubbed Bitcoin Pizza Day. While this one might not exactly count as “lost” bitcoins, we highly doubt that those Dominos pizzas were worth 10,000 bitcoins… 9. Redditor Loses PasswordOne Redditor had 384 bitcoins in a wallet, the password to which he misplaced. He offered a fifty bitcoin bounty to anyone who assists in the retrieval. 8. BitcoinTalk user loses his coins…A BitcoinTalk user lost 500 coins. 7. MtGox Loses Half A BillionNews of the MtGox collapse shook the Bitcoin industry. The firm filed for bankruptcy protection saying it “had lost track of nearly $480 million worth of the virtual currency.” “Wearing a suit instead of his customary T-shirt,” Reuters wrote, MtGox CEO Mark Karpeles “bowed in contrition and apologized in Japanese at a news conference at the Tokyo District Court, blaming his firm’s collapse on a ‘weakness in our system,’ but predicting that bitcoin would continue to grow.” The New York Times’ DealB%k blog writes that MtGox says “it might have lost 750,000 of its customers’ coins, essentially all of them, in a hacking attack.” MtGox also could not track about 100,000 of its own bitcoins. At the time of the filing MtGox’s missing 850,000 bitcoins were worth $473 million. Reuters writes that MtGox had fallen out of favor with Bitcoiners in recent months:
Ultimately, MtGox found 200,000 bitcoins, worth $116 million at the time of finding. “On March 7, 2014, Mt.Gox Co., Ltd. confirmed that an old-format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC,” the statement said. 6. Redditor “TheDJFC” accidently sent 800 bitcoins (roughly $520,000) to the wrong wallet address."Messed up big time," the user posted on Reddit. "I had previously sent this address 300 bitcoin a year ago, and for the life of me I cannot remember what that was!" TheDJFC posted the wallet address and screenshotted proof of the transaction. The Bitcoiner asked the Reddit community for help, posting, “If you just received 800 Bitcoin out of the blue, it was from me."
Another Redditor identified the recipient: defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox. Mt. Gox was the biggest Bitcoin exchange in trade volume in the world until it declared bankruptcy in February, claiming to have “lost” about 850,000 bitcoins. The Redditor posted an update saying he was trying to get a hold of Mt. Gox administrators to return the bitcoins, seeming notably blasé about losing over a half-million dollars. "Hopefully bitcoin can learn from my mistake," he wrote. "Apple accepting bitcoin…hell ya!"
Like all examples on this list, this story highlights how bitcoins are very much like digital cash. The importance of organization and security cannot be understated. Once you send bitcoins to a particular address, there is no recourse other than the recipient. Ultimately, this story has a happy ending, as the sender got his bitcoins back. 5. Bitcoinica Leaves Password In Open-Source CodeBitcoinica had numerous problems with hacks. On July 13, 2013 someone withdrew the maximum possible amount from Bitcoinica’s MtGox account of 40,000 BTC or $350,000 at the time of the breach. The attack was made possible by a LastPass account storing passwords needed to access MtGox account, which had the same password as the MtGox API key used by the Bitcoinica server to access funds. The chance to exploit this became possible when the Bitcoinica server’s source code was publicly released to the internet. With the API key stored in the source code, it was very easy for the thief to detect that the key was also the LastPass password. There was no second-factor authentication on the account, so it was easy from there to move the funds. Amir Taaki wrote, "The breach today occurred because the password for LastPass was in fact a duplicate password which had been compromised during the hack. Unbeknownst to us, Tihan was using the mtgox api key as the password for a website called LastPass." Tihan, on the other hand,wrote on the Bitcointalk forums :"I claim no expertise to judge the security of the master password but it was very long. Its status as a master password and its use in all respects were fully understood by the Consultancy upon acceptance. If the Consultancy deemed this password to be unfit for ongoing use, they certainly had the opportunity and the duty to change it." Bitcoinica users ultimately filed a lawsuit. 4. Linode Customer Service Rep Lets Hackers InThis one sort of has something to do with Bitcoinica, but not entirely. Online bandits stole at least $228,000 worth of the virtual currency Bitcoin by exploiting Linode, a widely used webhost. The theft of 47,703 BTC was conducted by gaining access to a server by tricking a customer service representative at Linode. “All activity by the intruder was limited to a total of eight customers, all of which had references to ‘bitcoin,'” Linode’s advisory stated. “The intruder proceeded to compromise those Linode Manager accounts, with the apparent goal of finding and transferring any bitcoins. Those customers affected have been notified.” 3. The People Who Lost Money On MtGoxMtGox users themselves surely deserve a place on this list entirely their own. The biggest Bitcoin exchange went bankrupt so people who still had coins there lost them all. Here are just a few of the stories. One person lost 4700 bitcoins..  -I am the biggest loser at 4700+ BTC. Screenshot from a few days ago for the purposes of record keeping.I don’t know how dying feels, but I’m pretty sure that’s how I feel now.
Here is a thread devoted to MtGox horror stories. 2. WinnersAndLosersOne man lost his entire life savings online. He posted on Reddit: “Starting with almost nothing, I made almost $500,000 gambling with Bitcoin. I then lost it all in about 60 seconds. I am now $50k in debt and will most likely lose my job, my visa status, my fiancee. AMA.” His Reddit account name is WinnersAndLosers. “This is a story of luck, hope, greed, despair, stupidity,” he writes. It began with Bitzino and black jack, which he “for small stakes,” and “made some money, then took a couple of bad bets.” Next was roulette. “This was the beginning of the end,” he says. He continues:
He goes on: “I honestly do not feel that I was fully in control of my actions. If it happened to me, it can happen to you too, and I sincerely hope that after reading this, it never will.” 1. The 7,500 Bitcoin Hard DriveJames Howells threw a hard drive with 7,500 bitcoins on it. He had mined them. “You know when you put something in the bin, and in your head, say to yourself ‘that’s a bad idea’? I really did have that,” Howells, who works in IT, told the Guardian. “I don’t have an exact date, the only time period I can give – and I’ve been racking my own brains – is between 20 June and 10 August. Probably mid-July”. When Howells threw the bitcoins away, they were worth £500,000. “I’ve searched high and low. I’ve tried to retrieve files from all of my USB sticks, from all of my hard drives. I’ve tried everything just in case I had a backup file, or had copied it by accident. And … nothing.” His visit to the landfill did not go well. “I had a word with one of the guys down there, explained the situation. And he actually took me out in his truck to where the landfill site is, the current ditch they’re working on. It’s about the size of a football field, and he said something from three or four months ago would be about three or four feet down.” Howells stopped mining and stopped thinking about the bitcoins. “I hadn’t kept up on Bitcoin, I’d been distracted. I’d had a couple of kids since then, I’d been doing the house up, and forgot about it until it was in the news again.” Howells considered retrieving the hard drive, but “even for the police to find something, they need a team of 15 guys, two diggers, and all the personal protection equipment. So for me to fund that, it’s not possible without the guarantee of money at the end.” “There’s a pot of gold there for someone … I’m even thinking of registering www.returnmybitcoin.com. It’s available,” he said. Howell also also set up a Bitcoin wallet for donations in order to recover the hard drive. “If they were to offer me a share, fair enough,” he said. “If they were to go out and find it for themselves … it’s my mistake throwing the hard drive out, at the end of the day.” The Newport council said that “obviously, if it was easily retrieved, we’d return it.” Howell is content with the reality. “I’m at the point where it’s either laugh about it or cry about it,” Howells says. “Why aren’t I out there with a shovel now? I think I’m just resigned to never being able to find it.” Howell is still bullish on Bitcoin. “I still think it’s going to go higher. I just think it’s the next step of the internet, which is why I mined it in the first place. When I first came across it, I knew straight away. We had everything else at the time; Google, Facebook, they were already the market leaders in their areas. The only thing that was missing was an internet. What Happens To Lost Bitcoin? One thread on BitcoinTalk has calculated 134,584.15 bitcoins have been lost. That is nearly 1%. The creator of the thread thinks there are more lost:
|
| This is why the U.S. gov’t is guaranteed to fail Posted: 12 Nov 2014 11:43 AM PST From Bill Bonner, Chairman, Bonner & Partners: “Hi, this is Michelle Obama…” You hear the most amazing things on the streets of Baltimore. On Election Day, a loudspeaker mounted on a white van makes its way up and down the streets with a recorded message. As near as we could make out, Mrs. Obama was urging grown-ups to vote. As they say on Wall Street, she was “talking her book.” The political elite needs the voting masses like a tractor-trailer needs diesel fuel – to get where it is going. In the Wall Street Journal last week our spirits were buoyed when we realized that we had more life left than we thought. New figures show a man who reaches age 65 will likely live to be 86.6 years old – a full two years more than the last forecast. Two more years? What will we do with them? Run for public office? Learn a foreign language? Rob a liquor store and serve 24 months in jail? Wait. There must be a cloud to go with this silver lining. “The new estimates [... ] could eventually increase retirement liabilities by roughly 7%,” says the Journal. The last time we looked, the U.S. was already so far underwater it was almost sure to get the bends. According to GAAP accounting, Washington owes about $212 trillion – most of it in money it doesn’t have – to pay pensions and health care benefits. If people are living longer, those liabilities must increase. Let’s see, 7% of $212 trillion… Hmmm… You can do the math as well as we can. The new total should be about $15 trillion more. And if that is so, what does it mean for government pension and health care systems throughout the developed world? What it means is that they are all going broke. Led by those aging pacesetters: the Japanese. Yes, in the race to see which modern, debt-funded social welfare state will go broke first, Japan is in the lead. Armed Robbery As longtime Diary sufferers already know, the essence of government is armed robbery. Coaxed to the polls by Michelle, voters may fantasize that they set the course for the United States of America. But it is the elite who are in the driver’s seat. That is our observation… and the conclusion of two university studies reported recently in these pages. The public merely votes for whichever candidates have done the best job of hoodwinking it. Then the elite use the police power of the state to transfer wealth and power from the voters to themselves. Which is why the paramilitary buildup of local police forces is so alarming: It suggests they are going to strong-arm us all. In the old days, they were unapologetic about it. Even as late as the 19th century, Napoleon’s army stomped over Europe with Liberty, Equality and Fraternity on its lips. But larceny was in its heart. The soldiers of the Grande Armée stole everything they could cart away. Modern government demands more fraud than force. Capitalism depends on complex, trusting relationships and long-term fixed investments. Stealing things outright disrupts it. Output goes down. Nations that have no respect for the requirements of capitalism have weak economies. And weak economies can’t afford much firepower. That was what led China and Russia to abandon their Communist creeds in the late 20th century. Command economies are weak economies, and weak economies can’t compete militarily. Wolves and Lambs After the French Revolution, almost all major countries found they needed to make the common people feel that they were in charge of government. And after Bismarck, political parties found they needed to offer the voters some form of social welfare. Otherwise, they faced a “revolt of the masses.” That is what turned today’s governments into huge kleptocratic insurance companies. They run grossly inefficient health care and pension programs; the elites steal a large part of the cash flow (sugar subsidies, QE, Fannie Mae, pharmaceuticals, bailouts, etc.). This model has worked reasonably well for the last 150 years. Capitalists added more meat to the average man’s diet and more leisure to his time. Wealthier, he demanded… and was able to support… increasingly ambitious insurance programs. But Bismarck’s model reached its peak in the last half of the 20th century. In Europe and the US, substantial real income gains ended in the 1970s. The old Fords and Rockefellers were gone. And the new capitalists were so fettered with taxes, rules and regulations that they found it hard to move ahead. Debt and demography, too, reduced growth rates. But people still wanted more benefits. They looked to the government and the credit industry to supply them. Presidents Johnson and Nixon cut the dollar loose from gold in 1968 and 1971 – making it possible to go deeper into debt than ever before. As benefits rose, the more important they became to the people receiving them… and the more costly they became to the governments. Politicians found they could not raise taxes or cut benefits. All they could do was borrow more. As is recounted superbly by former Reagan budget adviser David Stockman, in the fight for balanced budgets in the early 1980s the Republican Party took a dive. Thereafter, there was no serious opposition to deficits. By early in the 21st century, more than half of the voters were receiving support from the government. The wolves outnumbered the lambs at the polling stations; the dinner menu was a foregone conclusion. In the U.S., cutting military spending could still finance social welfare spending. But the security industry too has been turned into a giant part of the insurance complex – with millions of wolves relying on jobs, contracts, health care and retirement benefits. And now – with graying populations, falling birthrates, heavy debt, and slow growth – claims rise. The insurance company model is headed for a bust. The good news from last week’s life expectancy numbers is that we have a good chance of living long enough to see it. Regards,
Bill Crux note: Bill has done something he’s never done before… In his latest book, he explains in detail the simple secret that’s helped him to build a near-billion dollar fortune… and turned 50+ of his employees into millionaires. If you’re looking to build real, lasting wealth for your family, you must read this book. Click here now to get your copy. |
| There’s an Invisible Berlin Wall Being Built to Trap Your Money Posted: 12 Nov 2014 11:00 AM PST Americans’ funds are being increasingly trapped in a system where you have almost zero good options. Bank deposits guarantee that you'll lose money when adjusted for inflation. Stock and bond markets are at all-time high nosebleed levels. Many banks are still under-capitalized. The government is able to confiscate your assets with a few mouse clicks. And the […] The post There's an Invisible Berlin Wall Being Built to Trap Your Money appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| Precious metal manipulation unveiled Posted: 12 Nov 2014 09:36 AM PST Further proof of manipulation of gold and silver prices came overnight as Switzerland's financial regulator, FINMA, found "serious misconduct" by UBS employees in precious metals trading, particularly with silver. |
| Functional Economics – Getting Your House in Order Posted: 12 Nov 2014 09:30 AM PST Many of you have are aware of the incredibly fragility in the world financial system. Most have seen it coming for some time. Many of you saw it all coming before the great crisis of 2007-2008. Some of you saw it before the “Dotcom” crash. Perhaps a few of you saw it all […] The post Functional Economics – Getting Your House in Order appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| High hopes for Indian gold imports in 2015 Posted: 12 Nov 2014 09:21 AM PST According to Sunil Kashyap, the Indian gold demand in 2015 will be determined by two key factors: domestic gold prices and macroeconomic conditions. |
| Gold trying to break above 1272-1275 resistance Posted: 12 Nov 2014 09:19 AM PST Commodity Trader |
| Posted: 12 Nov 2014 09:01 AM PST The U.S. Comex gold futures fell 0.15% last week, recovering from the larger decline earlier in the week. In the past two days, the gold futures fell a further 0.58% to end at $1,163 on Tuesday. |
| Metals market update for November 12 Posted: 12 Nov 2014 08:52 AM PST Gold climbed $16.40 or 1.43% to $1,165.80 per ounce yesterday and silver rose $0.18 or 1.16% at $15.74 per ounce. |
| CENTRAL BANK INSANITY: The More Yen Japan Prints, The Lower Price Of Gold…Until??? Posted: 12 Nov 2014 08:00 AM PST Since Japan's December 2012 turn to "Abenomics", Gold and the Yen have moved tick for tick. The more Yen Japan prints, the farther the price of gold falls…ahhhh the irony that gold, the finite measuring stick of infinite currencies, seems now only to be measuring the depths TPTB will go to hide currencies relative worth! […] The post CENTRAL BANK INSANITY: The More Yen Japan Prints, The Lower Price Of Gold…Until??? appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| Which Cities/States Will Be the First to Default When the Economy Rolls Over? Posted: 12 Nov 2014 07:04 AM PST What happens to local governments when the economy rolls over? Though we’re constantly reassured the “recovery” that’s stumbled for five years has years of strong growth ahead, history suggests the “recovery” is due to roll over. Few recoveries last longer than 5 or 6 years, and the business cycle is graying fast: subprime auto loans are not exactly the foundation of “strong growth.”
What might push the economy over the cliff? The strong U.S. dollar is crimping overseas sales and profits, the global economy is already recessionary, mortgage applications have dried up, auto sales are being driven by subprime loans, and the valuation bubbles in stocks and real estate are due for a breather, if not an outright reversal. Retail sales are flat, and with all these headwinds, growing profits by 10% to 20% a year becomes impossible for the vast majority of enterprises. So what happens to local governments when the economy rolls over? Tax revenues decline. The consensus is that local governments are sitting pretty: sales and property values have risen smartly, pushing tax revenues higher, and the cost of borrowing money via tax-free municipal bonds has fallen. Nice, but these are all functions of expansion and rising tax rates. The uneven nature of the “recovery” has left some cities and states more vulnerable to a downturn than others. Let’s catalog the various risk factors that might become consequential as the global and U.S. economies weaken. 1. Those dependent on foreign tourism. The weak dollar made America a bargain destination for the past decade. As the dollar strengthens and other currencies lose purchasing power, America is no longer a bargain–especially as job cuts decimate the number of people who can blow a few thousand dollars on overseas vacations to the U.S. 2. Auto manufacturing-dependent locales. Vehicle sales have been strong, and the cheerleaders claim sales will keep rising for years to come. Really? With what money? As soon as layoffs hit the marginal workforce and the subprime auto loan bubble implodes, vehicle sales will follow suit. 3. Cities and states that depend heavily on capital gains taxes. Once the current housing and stock bubbles deflate–or simply stop expanding–tax revenues from the enormous capital gains reaped in the past five years will wither. 4. Locales dependent on high income taxes. Given that most of the job growth of the past five years has occurred in low-wage sectors, adding jobs hasn’t boosted income taxes much. High income-tax states have jacked up rates on high-income earners, but there is no law of nature that says high-income jobs will survive a global downturn. Rather, enterprises desperate to tighten operating costs will want to jettison high-cost employees first. 5. Local governments with enormous debt burdens. With interest rates low, municipalities and states went to the bond market over the past few years for “free money.” Once tax revenues plummet, the interest on all that “free money” will take a larger percentage of tax revenues, heightening the cost of new bond debt as buyers start adding in the risk of eventual default. 6. Locales with high fixed costs. These include high healthcare costs for homeless, elderly, government employees, etc., interest on all those bonds, government employee pensions, etc. The fixed costs only increase every year, regardless of tax revenues. Every local government with high fixed costs is in a tightening fiscal vice once tax revenues plummet. 7. Local governments with generous employee benefits and pensions. Once the stock market rolls over, the big capital gains that have funded public pension plans dry up, and the annual contribution has to be paid out of declining tax revenues. Should interest rates actually rise, pension fund bond portfolios would plummet in value, too. 8. Local governments dominated by self-serving entrenched interests. That is, all of them: sclerotic, self-serving, entrenched interests resolutely refuse to accept any cuts in their swag. As tax revenues fall off a cliff, government managers will face a dilemma: they can’t cut costs because the self-serving interests have made that politically impossible, and they can’t borrow money for operating expenses. That leaves defaulting on debt as the only choice left. And since that’s the only choice left, that’s what they’ll do. The vice will close on some cities and states sooner than others, but it will eventually squeeze every city and state with declining revenues and rising fixed costs into default. How to forge a career in a lousy economy: |
| India's gold import bill triples to $3.5 billion in October Posted: 12 Nov 2014 06:40 AM PST India's gold import bill is estimated to have more than tripled during the month of October. The total gold imports during the month are likely to cross 90 tons, thereby lifting the bill to whopping $3.5 billion. |
| Soybean Bulls Recapture the Bean Market Posted: 12 Nov 2014 06:28 AM PST I have been writing of late how the strength in the meal has led the entirety of the grain floor higher, as it has been dragging not only the actual beans higher, but also the corn. It now appears that the beans themselves, which had been moving higher but had not put in as impressive a performance on the charts as had the meal, are now doing just that. Bulls have not only managed to close a significant chart gap, but they have also bested a key technical indicator, namely the 100 day moving average. That level should now serve as support on any downside tests for the bulls to maintain control of this market.  If it does, the next likely target for the bulls is near the highs made in August. As unlikely as it seemed based on the size of the mammoth crop, the logistics involved in an historically low 2013-2014 carryover of some 90 million bushels, have set meal and bean buyers competing against each other to secure sufficient supplies to meet current demand. I do not know how long this can last in front of such a massive crop but one cannot argue with the charts and expect to either prosper or survive, especially in this day and age of gargantuan hot money flows which obliterate everything in their path. With so very few commodity markets moving higher on account of the strong Dollar, when funds do find a market that they can push from the long side, as they recently did with cattle, they will mercilessly force it higher to maximize their profits. It is interesting that the Brazilian Real continues to sink against the Dollar making US beans less and less competitive on the global market but for now, no one seems to care as the mad scramble is on to obtain meal supplies, regardless of cost. How the bean and meal markets end this week is going to be key to whether or not this is the merely the waning moments of a counter trend move or the actual start of a new bull trend. I will be the first to admit that I did not think this was possible given the currency differentials, the soaring Dollar, and the size of the crop, both here in the US and what is expected in S. America. There is certainly not going to be any shortage of beans based on all the available information we have but apparently demand is there to absorb it all, at least for now. I still wonder what is going to happen to prices when the supplies of meal become more plentiful and crushers' margins start to erode. |
| Gold re emerges best performing precious metal: ETFS Posted: 12 Nov 2014 05:43 AM PST ETF Securities Ltd (ETFS) said in a weekly report that the yellow metal only declined only 0.8% compared to 4.8% decline in silver and 2.4, 2.7% declines in platinum and palladium respectively. |
| Swiss Regulator: “Clear Attempt To Manipulate Precious Metals ” … “Particularly Silver” Posted: 12 Nov 2014 05:02 AM PST gold.ie |
| Swiss watchdog flags up gold fix manipulation at UBS Posted: 12 Nov 2014 05:01 AM PST Regulator FINMA says it found a 'clear attempt' to manipulate precious metals benchmarks during its probe at UBS. |
| Stewart Thomson: Indian Gold Demand Shifts To Overdrive Posted: 12 Nov 2014 05:00 AM PST Take a look at the HUI/gold ratio chart below in the year 2000 – 2001 period. While gold went nowhere, gold stocks surged from late November in the year 2000, until the spring of 2001. I think a similar situation is on the horizon now. Is the Western gold community prepared to profit, if it […] The post Stewart Thomson: Indian Gold Demand Shifts To Overdrive appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| Swiss Regulator: “Clear Attempt To Manipulate Precious Metals ” … “Particularly Silver” Posted: 12 Nov 2014 05:00 AM PST Swiss Regulator: "Clear Attempt To Manipulate Precious Metals " … "Particularly Silver" Further proof of manipulation of gold and silver prices – if any were needed – came overnight as Switzerland's financial regulator (FINMA) found "serious misconduct" and a "clear attempt to manipulate precious metals benchmarks" by UBS employees in precious metals trading, particularly with silver.
Banks continue to get mere slaps on the wrists for breaking the law. Very few traders or bankers have faced prosecution or jail time. Instead, regulators levy completely ineffectual fines that are tiny when compared to their annual bonuses and indeed profits. As long as this continues, we will continue to see criminal behaviour and banks attempting to manipulate and rig markets at the expense of investors and other financial market participants. Such behaviour is creating huge distortions in markets and will likely contribute to another financial crash and crisis.
|
| Russia most likely to act to protect its gold Posted: 12 Nov 2014 04:39 AM PST Julian Phillips discusses reports saying Russia's central bank is buying up domestic gold output which can't be sold to Western markets. |
| Posted: 12 Nov 2014 04:12 AM PST The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority found evidence of ’serious misconduct’ by UBS employees in trading precious metals and most markedly in silver in an investigation of the bank’s foreign exchange and precious metal trading operations, it emerged today. Traders have used electronic chat media to front run silver prices. That is to say traders have been illegally employing their knowledge of an upcoming silver transaction to profit from price-sensitive orders. Like forex manipulation ‘The behavior patterns in precious metals were somewhat similar to the behavior patterns in foreign exchange,’ said Mark Branson, Finma CEO. ‘We have also seen clear attempts to manipulate fixes in the precious metals markets.’ Regulators in Switzerland, the UK and US ordered UBS and four other banks to pay about $3.3 billion to end an investigation into the rigging of foreign-exchange rates and precious metal markets. Nobody is going to lose their jobs but ‘bonuses for foreign exchange and precious metals employees globally will be capped at 200 per cent of their basic salary for two years’. This will come as a welcome official acknowledgment of price fixing in the precious metals trade which has long been a matter of speculation without proof. Today the Swiss regulator confirmed what has been alleged but many in the business will still be asking whether the penalty applied is appropriate to the scale of the damage to the market. There is no talk of compensation for customers who have been swindled by these traders. Silver is a $5 trillion per annum global market and even comparatively small percentages syphoned off would amount to a very great deal of money. False market There is also the matter of creating a false market in silver. What would the price have been without this manipulation? More importantly for silver investors now, where will the price go without this manipulation in play? Will the bankers who took the calls from the central banks not pick up the phone any longer? Not it would seem if the kind of blatant manipulation seen since the Bank of Japan’s QE9 money printing started is anything to go by. Really the regulators should not be signing off so quickly on silver price manipulation. The market needs a deeper probe to be assured that still obvious price manipulation is stopped. |
| Etihad Airways sells out of $20k luxury residence suites in its new A380 Posted: 12 Nov 2014 01:50 AM PST Bloomberg's ‘Money Clip’ Host Olivia Sterns reports on Etihad Airways selling out of their twenty thousand dollar residence suites for the first ten trips. Australian model and singer Dannii Minogue stars in the promotional video and introduces what’s on offer. Is this the ultimate flying experience? Get in the queue if you want to find out… |
| Gold miners priced at near-death experience Posted: 12 Nov 2014 01:41 AM PST Prices have fallen so far that shares are worth the same amount of gold as they were in 2008. |
| Russia to Launch New Payments System to Circumvent SWIFT Network Posted: 12 Nov 2014 12:53 AM PST Many observers have become unduly excited about what they depict as efforts to break the dollar hegeomony, such as the joint effort by the so-called BRCS nations to form a development bank. While having a suite of internationals funding entities, particularly ones focused on activities that in theory increase the collective benefits of relying on a reserve currency, are seen to be important, it does not follow that launching useful new funding institutions will break dollar dominance. As much as US abuse of its position as issuer of the reserve currency is correctly resented, there isn't a competitor waiting in the wings. The Eurozone has blown it with its failure to clean up even sicker banks than the US has, and by compounding a bad situation with its adherence to destructive austerity policies. China clearly has the potential to displace the US longer-term, but it is unwilling to run the requisite trade deficits, since that means exporting demand and hence jobs. And no country had made the transition from being a major exporter to being consumer-driven smoothly; a crisis or protracted malaise would also delay China displacing the US as currency top dog. But not being able to get rid of the dollar any time soon does not mean that countries that the US is trying to punish by using its influence over international payments system won't find nearer-term escape routes. |
| Rocks to Riches with Thomas Schuster Posted: 12 Nov 2014 12:00 AM PST The key to finding gold is understanding the rocks. Thomas Schuster is a geologist and mining analyst with a deep understanding of where the gold hides. In this interview with The Gold Report, he... Visit the aureport.com for more information and for a free newsletter |
| Iamgold Cuts Executive Team By 40% and Withdraws From World Gold Council Posted: 11 Nov 2014 10:19 PM PST "It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out" ¤ Yesterday In Gold & SilverGold rallied a few dollars in early Far East trading, but that ended about 9:45 a.m. Hong Kong time. The price got turned over at that point, hitting its low tick minutes after 1 p.m. in Hong Kong---and from there it rallied in fits and starts to its 2:15 p.m. EST high tick. It got sold down into the 5:15 p.m. electronic close. It appeared, at least to me, that every rally attempt during the Tuesday session got capped before it could get too far, although the final sell-off appeared to have been dollar index related, as it happened to all the other precious metals, except palladium. The low and high ticks were reported by the CME Group as $1,145.50 and $1,172.50 in the December contract. The gold price closed in New York yesterday at $1,162.90 spot, up $11.30 on the day. Net volume was pretty decent once again at 155,000 contracts. The silver chart for the Tuesday session looked the same as the gold chart, except for the fact that the low price of the day came about 8:45 a.m. GMT in London. The low and high in this precious metal were recorded as $15.445 and $15.88 in the December contract. Silver finished the Tuesday session at $15.70 spot, up a whole 9 cents on the day but, like gold, would have obviously closed much higher than that if allowed to trade freely, which it obviously wasn't. Net volume was around 33,000 contracts. Platinum spent most of the Far East session in positive territory, but began to get sold off around 2:30 p.m. Hong Kong time, with the low of the day coming at noon in Zurich. After that it traded like gold and silver, with its high tick coming shortly after 2 p.m. EST as well. From there it got sold down hard---back to almost unchanged. Platinum was closed up a buck. As you can see from the chart below, palladium traded the same as platinum, with the only difference being that the high of the day came minutes after 12 o'clock noon in New York---and it traded almost ruler flat after that---finishing up 9 dollars on the day. The dollar index closed late on Monday afternoon in New York at 87.78---and after dipping a bit in mid-morning trading in Hong Kong, rallied to its 88.03 high shortly before 10 a.m. GMT in London. From that point it drifted quietly lower until the London p.m. gold fix---and from there headed lower in a much more dramatic fashion until 'gentle hands' appeared to rescue it at the 87.38 mark around 2:15 p.m. EST, which turned out to be the high tick in three of the four precious metals. From there it 'rallied'---and finished the Tuesday session at 87.59, which was down 19 basis points from its Monday close. Here's the 6-month U.S. Dollar index---and I'm still of the opinion that, looking at the RSI trace, this rally is pretty much done. Time will tell---and not too much I would think. The gold stocks gapped up a percent and change at the open yesterday---climbing to their high around 2:20 p.m. EST, before selling off a bit into the close. The HUI finished up 3.89% on the day. The silver equities follow a very similar pattern to the gold stocks, but Nick Laird's Intraday Silver Sentiment Index closed up 4.74%---and was up over 6 percent at one point. The CME Daily Delivery Report was another bust, as nothing was reported for delivery in either gold or silver tomorrow. The CME Preliminary Report for the Tuesday trading session showed that there were 29 gold contracts still open in the November contract, up 3 from Monday's report. Silver's November o.i. was down 12 contracts to 110. It was another day with a withdrawal from GLD. This time it was a more modest amount, as an authorized participant took out 28,832 troy ounces. And as of 8:59 p.m. EST yesterday evening, there were no reported changes in SLV. Just as a point of interest---since the end of October 538,228 troy ounces of gold have been withdrawn from GLD---and over the same period 514,335 troy ounces of silver have been added to SLV. Once again there was no updated short positions posted for either GLD or SLV by the good folks over at shortsqueeze.com. They're late. The folks over at Switzerland's Zürcher Kantonalbank updated their website early this morning with the latest data for their gold and silver ETFs as of November 7---and this is what they had to report. Both ETFs were down---gold by 39,131 troy ounces---and their silver ETF by 461,980 troy ounces. There was no sales report from the U.S. Mint. It was another quiet day over at the COMEX-approved depositories on Monday, as only 8,037 troy ounces of gold were reported received---and 2,668 ounces were shipped out. In silver, nothing was received---and a smallish 148,847 troy ounces were shipped out, with the deliveries split between three different warehouses. I'm happy to report that I don't have all that many stories for you today---and I hope you find the odd one of interest in the list below. ¤ Critical Reads Regulators fine global banks $3.4 billion in forex probeGlobal regulators imposed penalties totalling $3.4 billion on five major banks, including UBS, HSBC and Citigroup, on Wednesday for failing to stop their traders from trying to manipulate foreign exchange markets. Royal Bank of Scotland and JP Morgan were also fined over attempts to rig currency benchmarks in a year-long probe that has put the largely unregulated $5 trillion-a-day market on a tighter leash, with dozens of dealers suspended or fired. Switzerland's UBS swallowed the biggest penalty, despite being the first bank to come forward with evidence of possible misconduct, paying $661 million to Britain's Financial Services Authority (FCA) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). UBS was ordered by Swiss regulator FINMA, which also said it had found serious misconduct of the bank's employees in precious metals trading, to hand over 134 million Swiss francs. This Reuters story, co-filed from London and Zurich, showed up on their website at 5:17 a.m. EST this morning---and I thank Orlando, Florida reader Dennis Mong for sliding it into my in-box long after I'd filed this morning's column.  The Fed Won: America's 0.1% are Now Wealthier Than the Bottom 90%As The Economist reports, according to a new paper by authors at liberal bastion U.C. Berkeley and the LSE, U.S. inequality in wealth is approaching record levels (actually it already surpassed it as reported long ago). "The authors examine the share of total wealth held by the bottom 90% of families relative to those at the very top. In the late 1920s the bottom 90% held just 16% of America’s wealth—considerably less than that held by the top 0.1%, which controlled a quarter of total wealth just before the crash of 1929. From the beginning of the Depression until well after the end of the second world war, the middle class’s share of total wealth rose steadily, thanks to collapsing wealth among richer households, broader equity ownership, middle-class income growth and rising rates of home-ownership. From the early 1980s, however, these trends have reversed. The top 0.1% (consisting of 160,000 families worth $73m on average) hold 22% of America’s wealth, just shy of the 1929 peak—and almost the same share as the bottom 90% of the population." That was as of 2013. By now the wealth of the top 0.1% is not only well above that of the "bottom 90%" but higher than it has ever been. This brief article, along with an excellent chart, appeared on the Zero Hedge website at 3:30 p.m. EST yesterday afternoon---and I thank reader 'David in California' for passing it around yesterday. There was also a similar story from The Christian Science Monitor that was picked up Yahoo News yesterday---and it's headlined "Economic inequality in the U.S. reaches levels not seen since Great Depression". I thank Brian Farmer for sending it.  David Galland: Breakfast with a Lord of WarIn late 2010, I was invited to a private breakfast meeting with an individual near the apex of the US military’s strategic planning pyramid. Specifically, the individual we were to breakfast with sits at the side of the long-serving head of the department in the Pentagon responsible for identifying and assessing potential threats to national security and devising long-term strategies to counter those threats. The ground rules for the discussion—that certain topics were off limits—were set right up front. Yet, as we warmed up to each other over the course of our meal, the conversation went into directions even I couldn’t have anticipated. In an earlier mention of this meeting in a Casey Daily Dispatch, I steered clear of much of what was discussed because frankly, it made me nervous. With the passage of time and upon reflection that it was up to my breakfast companion, who spends long days cloaked in secrecy, to know what is allowed in daylight, I have decided to share the entire story. During our discussion, there were four key revelations, each a bit scarier than the last. This commentary by David Galland showed up in the Tuesday edition of the Casey Daily Dispatch---and it's definitely worth reading.  Mike Maloney: Dollar Burns in Slow MotionIn this must-watch update Mike Maloney gives news of recent international developments that all add up to one thing: The inevitable demise of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency. This was posted on the hiddensecretsofmoney.com Internet site early yesterday EST---and the video clip runs for 4:06 minutes.  Sprott Money: Ask the Expert: Chris MartensonThis interview, which is on the longish side, appeared on the sprottmoney.com Internet site yesterday evening---and I must admit that I haven't had time to either watch it, or read the transcript.  Hawai'i lava flow destroys first house in rural townLava has been slowly snaking its way toward Pāhoa for months, but it took an oozing stream of molten rock just 45 minutes to burn down an empty house. Firefighters standing by to tackle any spreading wildfires, let the flames consume the 1,100-square-foot structure Monday afternoon as a relative of the homeowner watched and recorded video of the destruction with an iPhone. It was the first house incinerated by a lava flow from Kilauea volcano on the Big Island that scientists have been warning the public about since August. And it likely won't be the last. This very interesting AP story, filed from Honolulu, appeared on the foxnews.com website yesterday sometime---and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sharing it with us. The 56 second embedded video clip is worth watching.  Fantastic Voyage: Europe Prepares First Comet LandingZschaege is one of the veterans in the European Space Agency's (ESA) control room and he has been accompanying Rosetta on its trip through the solar system for more than a decade. Now, finally, the mission is nearing its climax: On Wednesday, a landing vehicle released by Rosetta is set to actually touch down on a comet. A maneuver like this has never before been attempted, partly because of the extreme difficulties associated with such a landing. Researchers are essentially trying to land a probe on an object with a surface area roughly equal to Manhattan as it speeds through space 20 times faster than a rifle bullet. If they're unlucky, the comet's surface could be as crumbly as a cracker. Zschaege's superior, Italian flight director Andrea Accomazzo, has been waiting for Wednesday's landing for 17 long years. "For all of us, it feels like a second moon landing," he says. Even measured against other voyages into space, Rosetta's rendezvous with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko took a long time. When Rosetta was first fired into space, Gerhard Schröder was still Germany's chancellor and America's invasion of Iraq was just a year old. Since its launch on March 2, 1994, the probe has traveled 6 billion kilometers, roughly 40 times the distance between Earth and the sun. Many of those who worked on the mission in its early years have long since retired. This amazing story appeared on the German website spiegel.de at 5:21 p.m. Europe time yesterday---and it's courtesy of Roy Stephens. You can watch the landing live in HD by clicking here.  NATO's Estonia drills are anti-Russian, don't make Europe more secure – MoscowMoscow believes NATO drills in Estonia are of “a clearly anti-Russian nature” and will scarcely contribute to European safety, according to a statement by the Russian Defense Ministry. NATO has conducted five military exercises near the Russian border over the past six months, the head of the ministry’s Department of International Cooperation, Sergey Koshelev, told journalists on Tuesday. “Obviously the policy chosen by our colleagues from NATO will hardly make Europe a safer place,” he said. The comment was in response NATO’s plans of having so-called ‘Trident Juncture’ drills in Estonia. Koshelev believes the exercises have been inspired by warnings of a “Russian threat,” as voiced by NATO's supreme allied commander, Philip Breedlove. This article was posted on the Russia Today website at 12:48 p.m. Moscow time on their Tuesday afternoon---4:38 a.m. EST---and it's courtesy of Roy Stephens.  Russia braces for long economic war with the WestRussia is battening down the hatches for a long battle with the West, expecting sanctions to last until at least 2017 and admitting that capital flight has been significantly higher than previously claimed. The central bank slashed its growth forecast for next year to zero and warned of near-recession conditions until late in the decade. It said capital outflows would reach $128bn this year. The new realism ends the pretence that Russia is strong enough to weather the end of the commodity supercycle without suffering serious damage, or that Western sanctions are little more than an irritation. President Vladimir Putin had previously said the effect would dissipate within months. This commentary by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard showed up on the telegraph.co.uk Internet site at 8:45 p.m. GMT on Monday evening---and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it. It's definitely worth reading. Russia to launch alternative to SWIFT bank transaction system in spring 2015Russia intends to have its own international inter-bank system up and running by May 2015. The Central of Russia says it needs to speed up preparations for its version of SWIFT in case of possible ”challenges” from the West. "Given the challenges, Bank of Russia is creating its own system for transmitting financial messaging... It’s time to hurry up, so in the next few months we will have certain work done. The entire project for transmitting financial messages will be completed in May 2015," said Ramilya Kanafina, deputy head of the national payment system department at the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). Calls not to use the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) system in Russian banks began to grow as relations between Russia and the West deteriorated over sanctions. So far, SWIFT says despite pressure from some Western countries to join the anti-Russian sanctions, it has no intention of doing so. This news item put in an appearance on the Russia Today website at 3:55 p.m. Moscow time yesterday---and I thank reader 'h c' for being the first person through the door with it. Sputnik launched to news orbit: Russia's new international media to offer alternative standpointRussia has launched an ambitious new project: an international news |
| Is the higher US dollar now close to the top of its trading range? Posted: 11 Nov 2014 08:09 PM PST The long dollar story is getting overstretched thanks to the weakness of the yen says top BK analyst Kathy Lien. The US dollar index has surged 10 per cent this year, but the trade may now be looking overstretched. Where next for the greenback? With CNBC’s Brian Sullivan… |
| Why are gold shares suddenly a hot commodity on Wall Street? Posted: 11 Nov 2014 07:42 PM PST The last couple of days have seen a big bounce in gold stocks. If the outlook for the yellow metal is do dismal why the sudden interest in its producers? is there any method in this madness? CNBC’s Bob Pisani dissects the move in gold stocks and the S&P’s decision to create a new real estate sector… |
| Stronger dollar could send oil price to $30 claims economist Raoul Pal Posted: 11 Nov 2014 07:32 PM PST Crude oil prices face several factors that could send it as low as $30-40 a barrel, notably the quickly strengthening US dollar, Raoul Pal of Global Macro Investor told CNBC. ‘The probability of a dollar breakout is very big. So, if that happens, then the chances of the dollar moving much more rapidly than we’ve seen for many, many years, and that would lead oil to go much further,’ he said. ‘So, prices in oil could go down to $30, $40 easily if the dollar moves in the way that I’m thinking it possibly will.’ Brent crude dipped below $81 per barrel for the first time in four years. Meanwhile West Texas Intermediate crude clocked in at $77.48 per barrel… |
| Japanese yen risks crashing as the carry trade unwinds Posted: 11 Nov 2014 07:24 PM PST What’s happening to the Japanese yen at the moment risks becoming a disorderly crash in the currency as the carry trade unwinds and money borrowed in yen to invest in dollars flows back in the opposite direction. Discussing the global economy, and key levels to watch in the US dollar and the Japanese yen, with Raoul Pal, Global Macro Investor publisher… |
| Jim Willie: Chinese Have Acquired a Majority Controlling Interest in the Federal Reserve! Posted: 11 Nov 2014 07:00 PM PST In this MUST LISTEN interview, Hat Trick Letter Editor Jim Willie discusses the coming COMPLETE COLLAPSE of the US economy, & whether the Federal Reserve intends to buy up assets for pennies on the dollar in the aftermath of the collapse. Willie also discusses’ China’s recent acquisition of JPM’s HQ at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, […] The post Jim Willie: Chinese Have Acquired a Majority Controlling Interest in the Federal Reserve! appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| 24 Reasons Why Millennials Are Screaming Mad About Our Unfair Economy Posted: 11 Nov 2014 06:36 PM PST
#1 The current savings rate for Millennials is negative 2 percent. Yes, you read that correctly. Not only aren't Millennials saving any money, they are actually spending a good bit more than they are earning every month. #2 A survey conducted earlier this year found that 47 percent of all Millennials are using at least half of their paychecks to pay off debt. #3 For U.S. households that are headed up by someone under the age of 40, average wealth is still about 30 percent below where it was back in 2007. #4 In 2005, the homeownership rate for U.S. households headed up by someone under the age of 35 was approximately 43 percent. Today, it is sitting at about 36 percent. #5 One recent survey discovered that an astounding 31.1 percent of all U.S. adults in the 18 to 34-year-old age bracket are currently living with their parents. #6 At this point, the top 0.1 percent of all Americans have about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of all Americans combined. Needless to say, there aren't very many Millennials in that top 0.1 percent. #7 Since Barack Obama has been in the White House, close to 40 percent of all 27-year-olds have spent at least some time unemployed. #8 Only about one out of every five 27-year-olds owns a home at this point, and an astounding 80 percent of all 27-year-olds are paying off debt. #9 In 2013, the ratio of what men in the 18 to 29-year-old age bracket were earning compared to what the general population was earning reached an all-time low. #10 Back in the year 2000, 80 percent of all men in their late twenties had a full-time job. Today, only 65 percent do. #11 In 2012, one study found that U.S. families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent. #12 Another study released back in 2011 discovered that U.S. households led by someone 65 years of age or older are 47 times wealthier than U.S. households led by someone 35 years of age or younger. #13 Half of all college graduates in America are still financially dependent on their parents when they are two years out of college. #14 In 1994, less than half of all college graduates left school with student loan debt. Today, it is over 70 percent. #15 At this point, student loan debt has hit a grand total of 1.2 trillion dollars in the United States. That number has grown by about 84 percent just since 2008. #16 According to the Pew Research Center, nearly four out of every ten U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 40 are currently paying off student loan debt. #17 In 2008, approximately 29 million Americans were paying off student loan debt. Today, that number has ballooned to 40 million. #18 Since 2005, student loan debt burdens have absolutely exploded while salaries for young college graduates have actually declined…
#19 According to CNN, 260,000 Americans with a college or professional degree made at or below the federal minimum wage last year. #20 Even after accounting for inflation, the cost of college tuition increased by 275 percent between 1970 and 2013. #21 In the years to come, much of the burden of paying for Medicare for our aging population will fall on Millennials. It is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025. In addition, it has been estimated that Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years. That comes to approximately $328,404 for every single household in the United States. #22 In the years to come, much of the burden of paying for our exploding Medicaid system will fall on Millennials. Today, more than 70 million Americans are on Medicaid, and it is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls. #23 In the years to come, much of the burden of paying for our massive Ponzi scheme known as Social Security will fall on Millennials. Right now, there are more than 63 million Americans collecting Social Security benefits. By 2035, that number is projected to soar to an astounding 91 million. In 1945, there were 42 workers for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits. Today, that number has fallen to 2.5 workers, and if you eliminate all government workers, that leaves only 1.6 private sector workers for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits. #24 Our national debt is currently sitting at a grand total of $17,937,617,036,693.09. It is on pace to roughly double during the Obama years, and Millennials are expected to service that debt for the rest of their lives. Yes, there are certainly some Millennials that are flat broke because they are lazy and irresponsible. But there are many others that have tried to do everything right and still find that they can't get any breaks. For example, Bloomberg recently shared the story of a young couple named Jason and Jessica Alinen...
Can you identify with them? Most young Americans just want to work hard, buy a home and start a family. But for millions of them, that dream might as well be a million miles away right now. Unfortunately, most of them have absolutely no idea why this has happened. Many of them end up blaming themselves. Many of them think that they are not talented enough or that they didn't work hard enough or that they don't know the right people. What they don't know is that the truth is that decades of incredibly foolish decisions are starting to catch up with us in a major way, and they just happen to be caught in the crossfire. Sadly, instead of becoming informed about what is happening to our country, a very large percentage of our young people are absolutely addicted to entertainment instead. Below, I want to share with you a video that I recently came across. You can find it on YouTube right here. A student at Texas Tech University recently asked some of her classmates a series of questions. When they were asked about Brad Pitt or Jersey Shore they knew the answers right away. But when they were asked who won the Civil War or who the current Vice-President of the United States is, they deeply struggled. I think that this video says a lot about where we are as a society today... So what do you think about all of this? Please feel free to add to the discussion by posting a comment below... |
| Harvey Organ: Something is Spooking the Banksters! Posted: 11 Nov 2014 04:23 PM PST The bankers came to work early yesterday in the access market knocking both metals down. However throughout the night, gold rose nicely and then at 12 noon today, something spooked our bankers as gold rose to $1165 only to be repelled back to $1163.00 on closing. However late in the access market, gold again rose […] The post Harvey Organ: Something is Spooking the Banksters! appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| Canadian Venture Index - Gold and Penny Stocks Posted: 11 Nov 2014 03:00 PM PST GoldandOilGuy |
| If Everything Is Just Fine, Why Are So Many Financial Experts Forecasting Economic Disaster? Posted: 11 Nov 2014 01:30 PM PST The parallels between the false prosperity of 2007 and the false prosperity of 2014 are rather striking. If we go back and look at the numbers in the fall of 2007, we find that the Dow set an all-time high in October, margin debt on Wall Street had spiked to record levels, the unemployment rate […] The post If Everything Is Just Fine, Why Are So Many Financial Experts Forecasting Economic Disaster? appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| Controversial post: Central banks are now panicking. Here’s proof… Posted: 11 Nov 2014 11:38 AM PST From Chris Martenson at PeakProsperity: The central planners are in a state of fear and panic. They are trying everything and anything to create market validation for their policies, watching with trepidation as their favored economic metrics fail to respond to all of their frenzied efforts. They are so far over the tips of their skis right now that there’s nothing they won’t do. They’ve summarily thrown granny under the bus because they have this idea that negative real interest rates are the cure. The cure for what? The massive amounts of debts and imbalances their prior policies caused. So savers are punished in the pursuit of policy. You know, ‘for the greater good’ and all that. They’ve spurred the greatest wealth gap ever in U.S. history, greater even than at the extremes of the Great Depression, apparently without the slightest concerns for Plutarch’s ancient admonition that “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” They’ve even gone so far in Europe as to now force negative nominal interest rates on savers, dispensing with their usual slight-of-hand of letting inflation steal from each unit of currency in their system. When you’re panicking, there’s no time for subtlety. They look the other way as “someone” dumps huge amounts of gold contracts into the wee hours of the night, seeking one thing and one thing only: lower prices. But that’s okay because the central banks destroyed price discovery a long, long time ago. First by invalidating the price of money itself (by driving interest rates to zero), and then in everything else — most importantly risk. The Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan (BOJ), and the ECB have decided that they want you to take your money out of your bank account and place it into the stock market. Apparently they have models that say this is a good thing. Or they just want you to spend it. And to be sure that you follow their wishes, they don’t leave you any better options — and so virtually every hard asset has been targeted for price suppression. Except real estate because, hey, you have to borrow a lot of money from the banks for that, so they encourage and cheer your participation there. In short, everything the central planners have tried has failed to bring widespread prosperity and has instead concentrated it dangerously at the top. Whether by coincidence or conspiracy, every possible escape hatch for 99.5% of the people has been welded shut. We are all captives in a dysfunctional system of money, run by a few for the few, and it is headed for complete disaster. To understand why, in all its terrible and fascinating glory, we need look no further than Japan. A Black Swan Flaps Its Wings Back in 2012, Japan was my favorite candidate to be the black swan of the year — meaning it could shock everyone and flip our reality to a new state. Of course, this has taken longer to play out than I initially thought. However, here in November 2014, the world finally seems to be on the verge of waking up to the inevitable financial disaster that stalks Japan. Japan is really in no better or worse shape than the rest of the developed world. But is a few chapters further along in the story, which means it holds both explanatory and predictive power for most of the developed nations. This is why we should study it closely. The mystery, as always, is how so many participants are willing to pretend all is normal with Japan; merrily buying and holding Japanese yen and government debt instruments. In a nutshell, every single monetary, economic, fiscal and demographic trend is working against the very goals that the Bank of Japan, in cahoots with the Japanese government, is trying to attain. To make this clear, first, we’re going to sketch the outlines of predicament and then, next, examine what will happen when it all finally breaks down. The Halloween Massacre On Friday, October 31 2014 the Bank of Japan (BOJ) made a surprise announcement of a major new policy move that was specifically targeted to have maximum impact on the markets. But it wasn’t a unanimous or popular decision:
The announcement specifically was that the BOJ would increase its purchases of Japanese government bonds to 80 trillion yen (up from 60 – 70 trillion) and triple its purchases of stock funds to 3 trillion yen annually. You have to love the coded phrase used in the above article − “gave a lift to its fight against deflation” − which decoded means “they partially wrecked the yen which makes import prices go up (and which is not the same thing as the inflation they seek).” When you wreck your currency, all you do is steal purchasing power from savers and transfer it somewhere else, in this case to those most indebted and/or leveraged − the biggest of these beneficiaries being the Japanese government and large speculators. Also the 5-4 decision is quite telling. It indicates that this bold − or reckless − policy (depending on your point of view), is already not very popular, suggesting that it’s more of a last, desperate move. Patience is wearing thin. While some still question whether the U.S. Federal Reserve is monkeying about directly in U.S. equity markets, there is no such uncertainty with the BOJ: it openly buys equities under the pretense that a rising equity market is somehow good for the Japanese economy. This is a rather indefensible view, because the relative elevation of the Nikkei has nothing to do with how the economy will perform, as it’s a derivative of the economy (or is supposed to be), not a driver of the economy. After all, once a stock has been launched into the stock market, all that happens when a stock moves up and down is that money flows from one set of trading accounts to some others as people buy and sell. By buying equities, the BOJ has effectively said it wishes transfer an even greater amount of money from its accounts to others. It’s merely a gift to current holders of Japanese equities, which is a subset of the Japan population. Again not a terribly defensible, rational or fair policy. But there you have it. Immediately on the news of this next round of wealth transfers and money printing, the Nikkei index leapt 1700 points and the yen plunged:
(Source - ZH) The virtual lockstep nature of the falling yen and rising Nikkei tell us that we are living in an age of massive and rampant speculation where financial markets react in concert to the newly-unleashed liquidity floods. All that matters in today’s “markets” is how much more money the central banks are going to throw into the system. That’s all the gigantic speculators care about, and fundamentals and long-range issues are not even remotely near the top of their list of important trading variables. Unfortunately, like most market moves these days, the recent plunge in the yen and the rise in the Nikkei provide few useful clues as to Japan’s actual current and/or future economic prospects. What This Really Means Okay, it’s time to face some unpleasant facts. Ignoring the market gyrations, because those have pretty much lost all of their true signaling capabilities, the most recent move by BOJ governor Kuroda smacks of sheer desperation. It’s important for all of us frogs sitting in this nice pot to recall that even five years ago such a move by the BOJ would have been utterly shocking. It would have commanded our thoughts and actions for weeks to come. But today, like the rest of the world, I’ll bet you’ve already lost it into the din of other accelerating events barely a week later. That Kuroda, just one man, can bet so much on an untested and radical experiment is mind-boggling. If he succeeds, he gets to claim honor and success. If he fails he ruins the 3rd largest sovereign economy in the world, along with its inhabitants’ future dreams, for a very long time. How can such power be entrusted to a single person? Unfortunately, this gamble cannot succeed over the long haul, and he has to know this. So perhaps he’s simply focused on keeping things hanging together until he leaves office. Here’s how the ever-colorful David Stockman described the Halloween Massacre:
Yes, my fellow frogs who share this increasingly warm bath with me, Kuroda’s move is pure madness. The BOJ has jumped the monetary shark and we need to keep that firmly in view as we make our decisions about where all of this is headed, and how likely it is to create a future financial accident of global and unprecedented proportions. Bloomberg’s Willaim Pesek described it this way, and I think quite accurately:
If I lived in Japan, I would, under no circumstances, ever keep my money in yen. If you live there, get out of yen as much as you possibly can. Your central bank has said it wants to destroy the yen and their actions confirm this, so they are apparently quite serious about doing exactly that. Imagine if the Federal Reserve was monetizing $3 trillion a year, which pencils out to some $250 billion a month(!). A proportional amount of money is being dumped into the Japanese financial system under the new policy. And so naturally, stocks rose and the yen fell, which makes some (twisted) sense. But gold fell heavily on the news, which makes no sense at all from a fundamental standpoint. However, it makes all the sense in the world if you understand that extreme central bank policies cannot tolerate even the slightest whiff of challenge. Rising gold prices would signal doubts about the central banks’ course of action. Conversely a falling gold price signals utter faith in the central planners. And so a falling gold price is what we get (but true demand for gold and silver demand another matter entirely). The reason for all of this extreme central bank panicking and fear, we’re told, is because Kuroda has a white whale he seeks, which has ’2% inflation’ stenciled on its side. But inflation is not what central banks actually seek, even though the press consistently tells us that’s what they want. Inflation is not a cure for anything and the banks know it (and our press really should know it by now, too). Instead what the central banks desperately want, and know the banking system and over-extended governments need, is negative real interest rates. That is, they want to force upon savers the condition where their saved money is getting a lower rate of interest than the rate of inflation, which is what we mean by a negative real return. We wrote about this extensively as a process in this article about the Fed purposely attacking savers. But the mechanism and rationale is the very same for the BOJ as it is for the Fed. Briefly, when running this program of financial repression the BOJ (and the Fed, et al.) do not care if inflation is 6% and bonds are 4%, or if inflation is 2% and bonds are 0%, as both offer negative real interest rates. Negative real rates serve to confiscate purchasing power from the general population and transfer it to other parties. Those parties include the big banks. But perhaps that’s just another happy coincidence in the game that central banks and bankers like to play with us which they call ‘heads we win, tails you lose.’ But let’s not be fooled. By the time a central bank is behaving as recklessly as Japan, it’s time to edge towards the exit, because the chance of a flash fire in the building has grown uncomfortably high. That is, instead of providing comfort, these most recent moves should invoke greater worry for those of us alert enough to see them for what they are: acts of panic. There’s just no other way to interpret the equivalent of $3 trillion of thin-air money besides an overt act of desperation. No, things are not okay. Yes, the risks for a disaster are growing. Whether we call this the largest bond bubble in history, “reckless”, “mad” or “insane”, Japan has truly jumped the monetary shark. There’s no way back and no way forwards that will be pain-free and this terrifies the BOJ. The best advice I have is that when you see your central bank panic, you should panic too and avoid the rush. In Part 2: What Will Happen When Japan Breaks, we delve into the only questions that really matter: When will it happen? And how deeply painful will it be? And last, but certainly not least: How much of the rest of the world’s financial system will come crashing down with Japan’s because they are all so interlinked now? Click here to access Part 2 of this report (free executive summary; enrollment required for full access). |
| Marshall Swing: Gold & Silver’s Day of Reckoning to Begin 9/23/15! Posted: 11 Nov 2014 11:05 AM PST I believe what is coming is far bigger than a mere significant economic collapse. I believe the coming financial collapse will be a worldwide economic collapse, and the institution of a one world government with a one world currency, in the 6-9 months following these events. Submitted by Marshall Swing: Rising open interest and declining price. Those stats […] The post Marshall Swing: Gold & Silver’s Day of Reckoning to Begin 9/23/15! appeared first on Silver Doctors. |
| Trader alert: We just saw a “bullish wick” in this hated sector Posted: 11 Nov 2014 11:01 AM PST From Chris Kimble at Kimble Charting Solutions:
CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE The Gold Miners ETF (GDX) broke below the lows of almost a year ago (Dec 2013), and promptly lost nearly 20% of its value in less than two weeks. This decline took it down to its Fibonacci 161% extension level (based upon the lows of a year ago and the highs this past summer). The inset chart above from SentimenTrader, reflects that only 39% of investors are bullish on GDX at this time. We need this ratio to head higher…
CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE Quality rallies in the mining sector take place when junior miners (GDXJ) are stronger than seniors. The ratio above reflects how weak the juniors have been the past couple of years, sending an overall bearish message to this sector. Could a double bottom be taking place in this ratio right now? Humbly, I believe it could be, but it’s too early to tell. I am watching the bullish wick in GDX and the level of this ratio very closely. Premium & Metals Members took a position in this sector last week due to this ratio. |
| New Currency Wars Cometh - Gold To Be “Last Man Standing” Posted: 11 Nov 2014 05:02 AM PST gold.ie |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Gold World News Flash 2 To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment