Gold World News Flash |
- Two BIG reasons NOT to keep your cash in the bank
- US Government Blames 9/11 On Iran, Fines Iran $10.5 Billion; Iran Refuses To Pay
- Gold Price Closed at $1230.40 Down $14 or -1.13%
- Moriarty says Rickards minimizes gold manipulation but Rickards actually emphasizes it
- China Freight Index Collapses To Fresh Record Low
- These Are The Energy Bonds Most Likely To Default In The Next Six Months
- Closer look at London Metal Exchange aluminum prices reveals anomalies
- U.S. inflation rears its ugly head as global cycle nears danger zone
- Et tu, Brute?: It Took a Month for the Commercials to Pull the Trigger?
- Why Do Americans Consume 80 Percent Of All Prescription Painkillers?
- Stefan Molyneux Don't Waste Your Money On College Degrees
- A Tale of Three Words
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Vulture
- The Greatest Expansion of Speculative Finance Ever
- Runaway Credit is the Biggest Threat to Life as We Know It - Video
- John McAfee and the FBI Finally Face Off On CNN (CNN Interview)
- Crumbling U.S Empire Drives Russia & China To Move Into Gold
- Zero-Hour for the Precious Metals… -
- After the Collapse: Cannibalism...
- A Harbinger for Collapse -- Jeff Berwick
- TF Metals Report: Gold futures market again in smashdown position
- Why Our Financial System is like the Titanic
- Gold Stocks: Surfing An Institutional Wave
- Get the Board Games Out – It’s a Fed Game Day
- Gold and Silver Rally Could Have Durability – SWOT Analysis
- HUI Gold Miners: A Correction in The Wind
- The GOLD PRICE closed at $1,244.4, down $14.30 or 1.14%
- Near-Term Gold Forecast: The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Indecision. . .
- Gold, Silver, Zika, ZIRP, and NIRP Viruses
| Two BIG reasons NOT to keep your cash in the bank Posted: 15 Mar 2016 07:40 PM PDT from Nestmann:
It's even worse knowing that once you deposit your money in a bank, it's not really yours anymore. You have turned over your property to the bank in return for a debt claim. You become an unsecured creditor holding an IOU. Worst of all, there's the "bail-in," which we all became familiar with during the 2013 banking collapse in Cyprus. Some uninsured depositors got half of their money back, although at one bank, customers received nothing of their deposits over the "insured" amount.
In 2014, the leaders of the Group of Twenty (G20) – representing the world's 20 largest economies – declared the Cyprus model should apply globally. They did so in a mind-numbing tome entitled Adequacy of Loss-Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks in Resolution. Deposits in banks that are "too big to fail" will be promptly recapitalized with their unsecured debt. And… guess what? The largest chunk of unsecured debt is your bank deposits. Insolvent banks will recapitalize themselves by converting your deposits into worthless bank stock. This avoids taxpayer-funded bailouts that proved politically unpopular during the last financial crisis. Oh, and get this… the G20 has also declared that derivatives – the toxic contracts Warren Buffett calls "financial weapons of mass destruction" – are secured debts. Since your bank deposits are only unsecured debt, guess who gets your money if the bet goes the wrong way for the bank? Answer: It's not you. Heads, the bank wins. Tails, you lose. It's practically guaranteed, too, that in the next financial crisis, there'll be a whole slew of bank failures. That's despite the fact that the mainstream financial media assures us that central banks have imposed higher capital requirements, stress tests, etc., on banks to ensure that when the "big one" hits, your deposits will be safe. Don't believe a word of it. The amount of capital that banks hold compared to the money on deposit is frighteningly low. In the US, the five largest banks have a capital ratio as a percentage of assets of only 6% – although that's double what it was in 2008. In effect, if every depositor in a bank demands their money back simultaneously – the classic "bank run" – the largest US banks could repay only six cents on the dollar before they ran out of money. And since most banks don't keep a lot of cash on hand, it could even be less. It's worth remembering that historically, US banks were much better capitalized. For instance, in 1842, US banks had an average capital ratio of 60% – ten times that of the largest banks today. That was an era in which bank competition was based on safety, because no deposit insurance was in effect. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| US Government Blames 9/11 On Iran, Fines Iran $10.5 Billion; Iran Refuses To Pay Posted: 15 Mar 2016 07:30 PM PDT Authored by Eric Zuesse, On March 14th, Iran announced that it will never pay the $10.5B that a U.S. court demanded it pay for the 9/11 attacks. The same Bill-Clinton-appointed judge who had ruled, on 29 September 2015, that Saudi Arabia has sovereign immunity for 9/11 and so can’t be sued for it, ruled recently, on March 9th that Iran doesn’t have sovereign immunity and fined Iran $10.5 billion to be paid to 9/11 victims and insurers; but, on March 14, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Iran won’t pay, because, as the Ministry’s spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari put it, "The ruling is ludicrous and absurd to the point that it makes a mockery of the principle of justice while [it] further tarnishes the US judiciary’s reputation.” The United States is allied with Iran’s enemy Saudi Arabia, the largest purchaser of U.S.-made weapons, and also the top influence in the Gulf Cooperation Council of Arabic oil royal families regarding where they buy their weapons. Those purchases, which are crucial to the stockholders in Lockheed Martin and other U.S. weapons-makers, are determined basically by the Saud family, the owners of Saudi Arabia. The Sauds, as the owners of the leading fundamentalist-Sunni country, including sole ownership of the world’s largest oil company Aramco, also own Islam’s two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, and are therefore the leaders of Islam worldwide, because all Muslims (not only fundamentalist Sunnis) are required to bow down in prayer five times every day facing Mecca — facing the Saud family and the clergy that authorize continued ownership of Saudi Arabia by the Saud family: the Wahhabist clergy. Back in 1744, the founder of Wahhabism, Muhammad Ibn Wahhab, and the founder of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad Ibn Saud, jointly swore an eternal oath that Saud’s descendants would own the country, and that Wahhab’s clergymen would grant them God’s approval of their ownership and of their right to conquer other lands to expand the faith. (Religions throughout history have mainly been spread by conquest.) Part of that oath was also that the Sauds would exterminate Shia Muslims, so as to unify Islam worldwide as fundamentalist Sunnis, in order to enable a unified (100% Sunni) faith to take over the entire world. Iran is the center of Shia Islam, and so is especially the target of the Sauds to conquer and ‘convert’ the world to Wahhabism — which is called “Salafism” outside Saudi Arabia, and which is known outside Islam as simply fundamentalist Sunni Islam. Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other global-jihadist groups, all are Salafists; they’re all Sunni fundamentalists. Shia Islam has no real equivalent to this “global Caliphate” idea, the goal of conquering the world to ‘convert’ all lands someday to Islam. Jihadism, in that sense, doesn’t exist, except in the Sunni variant of Islam. Perhaps this is what Mr. Ansari meant by calling that judge’s verdict “ludicrous and absurd.” (However, Shia Islam tends to be more anti-Israeli than does Sunni Islam; but, again, that’s no sort of global aspiration; it’s strictly Middle-Eastern.) (And, of course, historians, and the U.S. government, know these things, even if the U.S. public don’t — especially because it would be inconvenient for the U.S. government if the U.S. public knew what’s actually driving this nation’s foreign policies.) According to the evidence (or alleged evidence) that the judge in this case, George B. Daniels, cited in his “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” — in this case called “Fiona Havlish v. Usama Bin Laden”:
Iran’s news-report on March 14th summarizes that U.S. court decision by saying:
That alleged permission for “some attackers” to move freely through Iran instead of requiring them to use other countries to transit, is the basis of the court’s blaming Iran for 9/11, even though nothing is alleged in the court’s findings, that Iran participated in the 9/11 attacks, and also despite the following being noted even in the judge’s findings:
Therefore, the U.S. government blames 9/11 on Iran, and only on Iran (not at all on the Sauds and their Salafist friends). However, according to the bookkeeper and bagman for Al Qaeda — the man who travelled to collect in cash each one of the multi-million-dollar donations to Al Qaeda, with which donations the organization paid, as he said, the “salaries” of all of the fighters, including all of the 9/11 hijackers — almost all of the donors were members of the Saudi royal family, and a few of their friends. Among the named multimillion-dollar donors were: Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud, Prince Waleed bin Tallal al-Saud, Prince Turki al-Faisal al-Saud, and Prince Mohammed al-Faisal al-Saud. Furthermore, he delivered sealed letters back-and-forth between bin Laden and Turki as well as "Abdullah, Fahd, okay, Salman [the present King], Waleed bin Talal, Bandar, Turki of course, and ... Shaykh Bin Baz, Shaykh Uthaimeen, Shaykh Shehri, and Shaykh Hammoud al-Uqlaa.” Bin Laden was advising them on whom the next Saudi King should be. He also advised, on that, "Halad or Shaykh Abu Hasan, Shayk Mujahideen, Shaykh Aman, and Shaykh Abul Sef … they want to know who they should support.” However, ultimately, the deciders on whom the next King should be were “Ulema [the Wahhabist clergy], essentially they are the king maker, … the people who … certify the Islamic legality of the jihad of Osama bin Laden.” He explained that the royals donated to bin Laden because he was spreading the faith and was therefore important to the Ulema — the clergy. That’s why they funded Al Qaeda — to spread the faith. For example, "Prince Nawaf" (bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud), even though he, like “all the Prince(s), they were giving money” to Al Qaeda, was rejected by the Ulema, "because Nawaf was known as a(n) extremely anti-Islamic person, okay, Sul — Sultan was being seen as a sodomite.” So, the ultimate people behind 9/11 were not only the Saud Princes but the Ulema — the kingmakers (who, however, are required to select the King only from among the Saud Princes). But, like the Sauds, and their lesser royals (all of them likewise Salafist) who rule the other Arabic oil-kingdoms, the U.S. government wants to conquer (yet again, after the first time, the 1953 coup) Iran; so, the U.S. court-system, in this decision, is declaring the Iranian government to be not just a cause, but — in effect — the sole cause, of 9/11. It’s a way to squeeze Iran, to keep it down until another ‘revolution’ there (hoped to be by the CIA, like the first one was). And, as far as the 9/11-victim families are concerned: the U.S. government, obviously, has higher priorities than to be concerned about any sort of real “justice” for them. Punishing Iran (until it breaks, ‘America’s’ way) is far more important, to the powers-that-be in America. The victim-families can find their ‘justice’ only in heaven - if ever. (And, of course, the Salafists - including the 9/11 perpetrators - would have a different opinion regarding which individuals go to heaven, and which to hell.) * * * Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
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| Gold Price Closed at $1230.40 Down $14 or -1.13% Posted: 15 Mar 2016 06:59 PM PDT
Markets are still flinching before the Eye of Sauron hovering over Mordor- on-the-Potomac, waiting to see what the Fed orcs will growl on Wednesday. (I hate to use the same image two days running, but it was simply too apt to pass up.) Gold didn't do anything today on Comex that it hadn't already done yesterday in the aftermarket. Dropped $14.00 (1.13%) on Comex, playing catch up. Silver tumbled 26.3¢ (1.63%) to 1525.5¢ Hard to judge in the Shadow of Sauron whether gold & silver are strongly resisting lower prices, or fear of the Fed is keeping everyone out of the market. Either way, the FOMC's announcement Wednesday will take the lid off. Closes today drew both silver & gold below their 20 day moving averages, first tripwire of a decline. Gold already broke down out of that bear flag yesterday. Stocks edged down. Dow lost 15.65 (0.09%) to 17,213.48. S&P500 fell more, 9.04 or 0.45% to $2,010.60. They act like they have run out of moxie, but don't yet discount them. No telling what surprise parties the Fed might throw tomorrow. Despicable, that a nation of 350 million, some of them smart, energetic, & entrepreneurial, are held hostage to a bunch of atherosclerotic academics not competent to sell newspapers on the street. US dollar index tried to rise today, but closed unchanged at 96.67 -- a rare occurrence. Euro is flinching, too, up 0.06% to $1.1109. BoJ's equivalent of an FOMC announcement was made today and they did nothing. Meanwhile weak US retail sales stung stock buyers, oil stumbled, and equity markets around the world sank underwater. Yen gained 0.55% to 88.37, mostly spurred by folks fleeing dollar uncertainty. Ain't the central bank stabilizing effect great? Aurum et argentum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2016, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold or 18 ounces of silver. US $ and US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned: Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps. NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced. NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt. What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands. One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Moriarty says Rickards minimizes gold manipulation but Rickards actually emphasizes it Posted: 15 Mar 2016 06:50 PM PDT 10:03p ET Tuesday, March 15, 2016 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: No gold market analyst or mining stock tout is more determined to deny the manipulation of the gold market by central banks than Bob Moriarty, proprietor of 321Gold.com. Moriarty is always taking cracks, often gratuitous ones, at those who complain about that manipulation. But today Moriarty outdid himself. In commentary headlined "Reviewing 'The New Case for Gold,'" the new book by fund manager, geopolitical strategist, and author James G. Rickards, Moriarty writes -- http://www.321gold.com/editorials/moriarty/moriarty031516.html -- "One of the people I genuinely enjoy listening to at investment conferences is James Rickards, best-selling author of 'The Death of Money' and 'Currency Wars.' Well, he's out with a new book to be released in another three weeks titled 'The New Case for Gold.' ... He doesn't start slobbering and howling at the moon with a cry of 'manipulation.'" And yet exactly simultaneously with Moriarty's posting of his supposed review of Rickards' new book, Rickards himself did "start slobbering and howling at the moon with a cry of 'manipulation.'" That is, just as Moriarty was posting his praise of Rickards for not complaining much about gold market manipulation, Rickards' publisher, Agora Financial, posted an essay by Agora's Dave Gonigan quoting both Rickards' past assertions as well as assertions from his new book repeatedly affirming manipulation of the gold market. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT Direct Ownership and Storage of Precious Metals Goldbroker.com is a precious metals investment company that enables investors to own and store gold directly in their own name (no mutualized ownership) in Zurich and Singapore. Goldbroker's clients are not exposed to any counterparty risks. They own gold and silver in their own names (the ownership certificate cites the name of the investor and serial number of his bars) and they have storage accounts opened in their own name as well. So Goldbroker.com's storage partner knows the exact identity of each investor. Goldbroker.com doesn't store in the name of its clients; rather, Goldbroker's clients store personally. All investors have direct access to their gold and silver bars. Goldbroker.com was launched in 2011 so that investors would avoid any counterparty risk when investing in physical gold and silver. Goldbroker.com is listed among GATA's recommended monetary metals dealers: To invest or learn more, please visit: In "The Real Reason Gold Is Manipulated" -- http://agorafinancial.com/2016/03/15/the-real-reason-gold-is-manipulated... -- Gonigan wrote today: "'The manipulation of the gold market is not something that's really debatable any longer,' Jim Rickards said two years ago. 'If I were running the manipulation, I would actually be embarrassed at this point because it's so blatant.' "Jim described the purpose of the manipulation in detail in his second book, "The Death of Money." On the surface, it sounds ridiculous -- the United States facilitating a steady flow of gold from the West to China to make sure China has the proverbial 'seat at the table' whenever the global monetary system collapses and a new system has to be devised. ... "'The United States is letting China manipulate the market so China can buy gold more cheaply,' Jim writes in his follow-up book, 'The New Case for Gold' -- set for publication three weeks from today. "The fact is, for now, both the U.S. and Chinese governments need a suppressed gold price. "The U.S. government doesn't mind if the price goes up -- as long as it's an 'orderly' increase. If it turns into $100-a-day spurts, that's 'disorderly,' a sign of confidence evaporating from the markets, and the manipulators lower the boom. That's what happened in September 2011 -- a conscious decision was made that gold would not race past the round number of $2,000. "China, meanwhile, wants to buy as much gold as it can, as cheaply as it can, for as long as it can ... to get that seat at the table. ... "'Gold manipulation is not new,' Jim adds. 'You can go back to the 1960s' London Gold Pool or the U.S. and International Monetary Fund dumping of gold in the late 1970s.' "The mechanics of the manipulation are fascinating -- and a lot simpler than you might think. "There's no shortage of Internet screamers with mind-numbing analyses of the weekly commitment-of-traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. "But in 'The New Case for Gold,' Jim exposes the whole manipulation scheme in 11 easy-to-read pages. You'll understand exactly how it works and who's pulling the strings. You can impress friends at parties with your newfound knowledge. ..." But you probably won't impress Moriarty. While he says Rickards' new book downplays gold market manipulation, according to Rickards' own publicist the new book is all about gold market manipulation. So did Moriarty really read Rickards' book at all? Did he pick up Ben Bernanke's recent memoir by mistake? Or is Moriarty so committed to disinformation that he doesn't think anyone will notice? CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Join GATA here: Mines and Money Asia http://asia.minesandmoney.com/ Mining Investment Asia http://www.mininginvestmentasia.com/ Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of GATA's London conference in August 2011 or GATA's Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| China Freight Index Collapses To Fresh Record Low Posted: 15 Mar 2016 06:30 PM PDT The Baltic Dry Index has risen for the last few weeks, buoyed by hopes (a la Iron Ore) of a National People's Congress stimulus surge from China. While the scale of the 'bounce' is negligible in real terms compared to the total collapse, it has caused such momentum-muppets as Jim Cramer to proclaim China 'fixed' and investible. So we have one quick question - if everything is awesome, why did the China Containerized Freight Index just crash to new record lows? It appears BDIY gets over-excited relative to CCFI...
Chart: Bloomberg Only to rapidly crash back to CCFI reality shortly afterwards. Given the complete collapse back of Iron Ore, the hopes placated on the dead-cat-bounce in BDIY appear a little misplaced. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| These Are The Energy Bonds Most Likely To Default In The Next Six Months Posted: 15 Mar 2016 06:10 PM PDT Over the past several weeks, courtesy of the jump in oil prices from 13 years lows, the narrowly reopened window granting some companies the chance to sell equity and in some cases debt (and promptly use the proceeds to repay their secured lenders), and the various last-ditch extensions afforded to near-default oil and gas companies, the dire reality of the default wave about to be unleashed in the shale patch has been swept under the rug, if only briefly. That is about to change. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Fitch's Eric Rosenthal paints a very disturbing picture: the rating agency senior director predicts that about $40 billion worth of energy debt will likely default in 2016. Here are some of the highlights behind his forecast of a 6% default rate, the highest non-recessionary rate since 2000.
On the ongoing liquidity concerns resulting from what remains mostly a shut high yield issuance window:
Is the recent bounce in oil prices enough to delay the day of reckoning?
Finally, on a topic very dear to us, recovery rates and what to expect if there is a 20% cumulative default rate in the energy sector.
In short, it looks like we may be in the eye of the hurricane, and it is only a matter of time before the pent up avalanche of energy defaults is unleashed. But how long; what are the specifics? For those who enjoy combing through forward calendars, we have conducted a quick search of all U.S. 144A oil and gas bonds trading at 30 cents on the dollar or less, and which have an interest payment over the next six month, starting in April through September. As can be seen from the 141 individual bonds that satisfy these criteria, the eye of the hurricane is set to leave and unleash some very strong wind.
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| Closer look at London Metal Exchange aluminum prices reveals anomalies Posted: 15 Mar 2016 05:18 PM PDT By Pratima Desai LONDON -- A first glance at aluminum prices on the London Metal Exchange yields few surprises, yet a closer look often reveals anomalies caused by one market participant holding large amounts of metal. Sources at commodity trading houses, warehouses, producers, brokers, and banks say recently one such company is U.S. bank JPMorgan. Others have done so in past. JPMorgan declined to comment. "There are no position limits" on aluminum contracts "as such on the LME. If you are financing physical material, there are no limits," a metals analyst said. "The LME is a physical market. No rules have been broken." While allowed under LME rules, holding a large, sometimes dominant position can to an extent have an influence on prices in the short term for contracts that will soon reach maturity. The LME declined to name any dominant position holders but said it "would seek additional information from market participants regarding activity that raises concern." The recent situation has left short position holders or sellers of metal for future dates, which could be bets on lower prices or hedges for physical holdings, having to pay more to buy back and roll positions forward. "JPMorgan have been doing this on-and-off for a long time. The backwardation (or premium) doesn't accurately reflect oversupply," a source at a commodity trading firm said. ... ... For the remainder of the report: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-aluminium-lme-positions-idUSKCN0WH0LA ADVERTISEMENT Silver Coins and Rounds with Employee Pricing and Free Shipping Grab your Silver Starter Kit at cost from Money Metals Exchange, the company named "Precious Metals Dealer of the Year" by industry ratings group Bullion Directory. Simply go to MoneyMetals.com and type "GATA" in the radio box at the top of the page. This special silver offer contains 4 ounces of silver coins and rounds in the most popular 1-ounce, half-ounce, and 10th-ounce forms. Claim yours now, because GATA readers get employee pricing and free shipping. So go to -- -- and type "GATA" in the radio box at the top of the page. Join GATA here: Mines and Money Asia http://asia.minesandmoney.com/ Mining Investment Asia http://www.mininginvestmentasia.com/ Support GATA by purchasing recordings of the proceedings of the 2014 New Orleans Investment Conference: https://jeffersoncompanies.com/landing/2014-av-powell Or by purchasing DVDs of GATA's London conference in August 2011 or GATA's Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| U.S. inflation rears its ugly head as global cycle nears danger zone Posted: 15 Mar 2016 05:10 PM PDT By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The trigger for the next global recession is at last coming into view after a series of loud distractions and false alarms. The Atlanta Federal Reserve's gauge of "sticky-price" inflation in the United States soared to a post-Lehman peak of 3 percent in February. This index is a "pure" measure of core inflation -- the underlying story once the noise is stripped out. The Cleveland's Fed's "median consumer price index" jumped to 2.9 percent, with big rises are in medical services, housing rents, car insurance, restaurants, hotels, women's clothing, jewelry, and car hire. This is the long-feared inflexion point we all forgot about in those halcyon days of deflation, now just a fond memory. ... ... For the remainder of the report: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/15/aep-us-inflation-rears-it... ADVERTISEMENT Free Storage with BullionStar in Singapore Until 2016 Bullion Star is a Singapore-registered company with a one-stop bullion shop, showroom, and vault at 45 New Bridge Road in Singapore. Bullion Star's solution for storing bullion in Singapore is called My Vault Storage. With My Vault Storage you can store bullion in Bullion Star's bullion vault, which is integrated with Bullion Star's shop and showroom, making it a convenient one-stop-shop for precious metals in Singapore. Customers can buy, store, sell, or request physical withdrawal of their bullion through My Vault Storage® online around the clock. Storage is FREE until 2016 and will have the most competitive rates in the industry thereafter. For more information, please visit Bullion Star here: Join GATA here: Mines and Money Asia http://asia.minesandmoney.com/ Mining Investment Asia http://www.mininginvestmentasia.com/ Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of GATA's London conference in August 2011 or GATA's Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Et tu, Brute?: It Took a Month for the Commercials to Pull the Trigger? Posted: 15 Mar 2016 05:00 PM PDT The Gold Report | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Why Do Americans Consume 80 Percent Of All Prescription Painkillers? Posted: 15 Mar 2016 04:00 PM PDT Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, If Americans are so happy, then why do we consume 80 percent of the entire global supply of prescription painkillers? Less than 5 percent of the world’s population lives in this country, and yet we buy four-fifths of these highly addictive drugs. In the United States today, approximately 4.7 million Americans are addicted to prescription pain relievers, and that represents about a 300 percent increase since 1999. If you personally know someone that is suffering from this addiction, then you probably already know how immensely destructive these drugs can be. Someone that was formally living a very healthy and normal life can be reduced to a total basket case within a matter of weeks. And of course many don’t make it back at all. According to the CDC, more than 28,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses in 2014. Incredibly, those deaths represented 60 percent of all drug overdose deaths in the United States for that year…
Many Americans that start out on legal opioids quickly find themselves moving over to heroin because it is often cheaper and easier to obtain, and the U.S. is now facing a tremendous epidemic of heroin abuse as well. In fact, the number of Americans that die of a heroin overdose nearly quadrupled between 2000 to 2013. Finally, the federal government has started to take notice of this crisis. A bill was recently passed to spend more than a billion dollars over the next two year fighting this problem. But as long as doctors are writing thousands upon thousands of new prescriptions for these painkillers each year, this crisis is not going to go away any time soon. In the Appalachians, these prescription painkillers are commonly known as “hillbilly heroin“, and all of the attention that the New Hampshire primaries received focused a lot of attention on how this crisis is destroying countless numbers of lives up in the Northeast. But one survey found that the states with the biggest problems with painkiller addiction are actually in the West…
Unless you are about to die, I would very strongly recommend that you resist any attempt by your doctor to put you on these “medications”. Just consider what happened to one stay-at-home mother named Norah Mangan…
Before too long, Norah had to turn to means that were less than legal in order to keep fueling her addiction. Her life was turned into a complete and utter disaster by drugs that were legally prescribed to her…
You can read the rest of her amazing story right here… The truth is that we are the most drugged people on the face of the planet. It has been estimated that 52 million Americans over the age of 12 have used prescription drugs in non-medical ways, and this problem gets worse with each passing year. According to research that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 59 percent of all U.S. adults are currently on at least one prescription drug, and 15 percent of all U.S. adults are on at least five prescription drugs. And the numbers are far worse for older Americans. The following statistics come from one of my previous articles…
We are a deeply unhappy nation that has been trained to turn to pills as a “quick fix” for our hurt and our pain. Yes, there are medical situations that call for prescription pain relievers. But what we are seeing in America today goes far, far beyond that. We are a nation of addicts that is always in search of a way to fill the gaping holes that we feel deep in our hearts. This prescription pain killer crisis is just another symptom of a much deeper problem. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stefan Molyneux Don't Waste Your Money On College Degrees Posted: 15 Mar 2016 03:09 PM PDT If Everybody In The World Dropped Out Of School We Would Have A Much More Intelligent Society." -Jaden Smith The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 15 Mar 2016 01:50 PM PDT This post A Tale of Three Words appeared first on Daily Reckoning. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, famously said, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." My update on Fitzgerald is that investors today who want to be first-rate need to hold three opposed ideas in mind at the same time. Those three ideas are the real world, the Fed's world, and the markets. As always, retaining the ability to function is essential. Let's take these three ideas one at a time. The real world of the economy is bleak. Global growth is slowing both because of weakness in developed economies (Europe and Japan), and weakness in some of the emerging markets champions (China, Brazil and Russia). The limits of monetary policy have been reached. (The evidence is now clear that negative interest rates don't stimulate spending; they are only good for devaluation in the ongoing currency wars). World trade is shrinking; a rare phenomenon usually associated with recession or depression. The U.S. is held up as a beacon of strength in this barren real world landscape, but that's also deceiving. U.S. manufacturing is already in recession. Dismissing manufacturing as a small part of GDP in a service-driven economy is facile. When gross manufacturing supply chain sales are counted (rather than net value-added used for GDP purposes), manufacturing looms much larger. It is also the source of higher-paying jobs compared to the service sector. These high-paying manufacturing jobs (now lost) are the key to real wage gains and aggregate demand. Strength in auto sales is also deceiving because sales are based on shipments to dealers, not final sales. In fact, inventories of unsold autos are sky high and will need to be worked off or else assembly lines will slow down. Distress in the energy sector is another well-vetted vector. The way the Federal Reserve sees the economy is quite different from the real world picture just described. In the Fed's world, models dictate reality rather than the other way around. The models (such as NAIRU, the Phillips Curve, and FRB/US) say that when unemployment is low and job creation is strong, inflation is imminent. Since monetary policy works with a lag, and since the Fed is determined not to be behind the curve on inflation, the implied policy of this model output is to raise interest rates. This is the theoretical basis for the Fed's tightening policy, which began in May 2013 with Bernanke's "taper talk" and continued in stages through Janet Yellen's December 2015 "liftoff" in interest rates. At the December 2015 FOMC meeting, the Fed laid out a path for interest rate hikes of 300 basis points over three years in small increments. The implication of this was that the Fed would raise interest rates 25 basis point every other meeting. (The FOMC meets 8 times per year, so the 25 basis point-per-meeting tempo would exactly meet the Fed's timetable). Based on the employment situation and other signs of strength, (the Atlanta Fed GDP "nowcast" indicates 2.2% GDP growth in the first quarter of 2016; a significant improvement over the fourth quarter of 2015), a 25 basis point rate hike was in the cards for this week's FOMC meeting. Clearly the Fed will not be hiking rates this week. (They would have signaled that already if a rate hike were in the cards). What happened? Why has the Fed abandoned its rate hike path so soon after taking the first step? The answer lies in the third world we have to consider – the markets. The market view of Fed policy is remarkably simple. Easy money is good, tight money is bad. There's not a lot else to know. Stocks are clearly in a bubble. The stock market is ignoring the strong dollar (which hurts exports and devalues overseas earnings). It is also ignoring declining corporate earnings, imminent defaults in the energy sector, and declining global growth in general. Never mind. As long as money is cheap and leverage is plentiful, there's no reason not to bid up stock prices, and wait for the greater fool to bid them up some more. Markets discount the future. What matters is not actual Fed policy but expectations about policy. Markets crashed from January 1 to February 11 at a time when they expected Fed tightening to continue. Once the markets saw fear in the Fed's eyes (as evidenced by the January FOMC statement and minutes, and a high-profile speech by New York Fed President Dudley), they rallied from February 11 until now. Markets concluded the Fed would not tighten after all, easy money was still on offer, and there was no reason for equity hedge funds and algos not to bid up stocks. By late February, the gap between market expectations of Fed policy (as revealed by fed funds futures and economist surveys) and the Fed's preferred path (as revealed by the December 2015 statement and Yellen press conference) was wider than the Grand Canyon. If the Fed raised rates on March 16 while markets expected no rate hikes as far as the eye can see, there would have been bloodbath as markets immediately repriced their expectations. In light of this looming train wreck, there were only two courses of action for the Fed. They either had to back off their rate hike path, or signal a rate hike and let the market reprice expectations in advance. In the crunch, the Fed blinked. A March rate hike is off the table. Markets are relieved that the Fed won't hike rates in March. But, markets are never satisfied any more than a junkie ever has enough dope. Once past March 16, the expectations game immediately shifts to June 15, 2016, the next likely date for a Fed rate hike. Which brings us back to the real world. The U.S. is probably heading into a recession later this year. Fed rate hikes make no sense in this environment and will make the recession more likely. The Fed wants to hike anyway because they don't see the recession; (they see "Fed World" through the lens of obsolete models). The Fed has never correctly forecast a recession in any case. They are always the last to know. Larry Summers has estimated that it takes 300 basis points of rate cuts to alleviate the impact of a recession and start the recovery process. The Fed is desperate to raise rates 300 basis points (as they projected in December) to have the dry powder they need to fight the next recession. The irony is that by hiking rates at all in a weak economy, the Fed makes the recession more likely. Meanwhile, markets are poised to crash as soon as the Fed does hike rates (because of tendencies toward recession and a strong dollar which hurts exports and corporate earnings). The looming March-to-June 2016 sequence is reminiscent of two prior episodes: the September-to-December 2013 sequence, and the September-to-December 2015 sequence. In September 2013 the markets widely expected the start of tapering. The Fed shocked most observers by not launching the taper. They then spent the next three months signaling that they would in fact taper. In December 2013 they did so. In September 2015 the markets widely expected the liftoff. The Fed surprised most observers by not raising rates. They then spent the next three months signaling that they would in fact raise rates. In December 2015 they did so. Now, in March 2016 the Fed will not raise rates despite creating the expectation they would do so as recently as last January. Markets have crushed that former expectation and now expect no rate hike. The Fed will acquiesce this time, but will spend the next several months getting markets ready for a June rate hike. (A September rate hike is off the table because of its proximity to the U.S. election. The Fed is in enough hot water with politicians and does not need the attention of seeming to favor one political party over another). If the Fed does not hike in June, they can forget about ever having enough dry powder for the next recession. So, they will hike in June. Getting market expectations aligned with the intended FOMC policy path will not be pretty. Expect higher volatility and stock market drawdowns in April and May as markets reprice. A further stock market correction has been postponed, but not avoided. June is the new March. Regards, Jim Rickards P.S. Be sure to sign up for The Daily Reckoning — a free and entertaining look at the world of finance and politics. The articles you find here on our website are only a snippet of what you receive in The Daily Reckoning email edition. Click here now to sign up for FREE to see what you're missing. The post A Tale of Three Words appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Vulture Posted: 15 Mar 2016 01:17 PM PDT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Greatest Expansion of Speculative Finance Ever Posted: 15 Mar 2016 12:53 PM PDT This post The Greatest Expansion of Speculative Finance Ever appeared first on Daily Reckoning. With global risk markets staging a significant rally, it's an appropriate time to update my bursting global Bubble thesis. Three weeks ago I titled a CBB "Crisis Management." My view was that mounting global market instability had reached the point where concerted policy measures would be employed in an effort to bolster faltering global Bubbles. I do not expect such stimulus to succeed in resuscitating the global Bubble that inflated out of the 2009 crisis response. At the same time, policymakers obviously still retain some power to incite rallies in a grossly speculative marketplace. Let's try to put things into context: We've witnessed history's greatest financial Bubble. The Bubble has been fueled by a confluence of extraordinary financial innovation (i.e. securitized finance, leveraged speculation, derivatives, state-directed finance, etc.), unmatched debt growth, unprecedented central bank Credit expansion and market manipulation – and the global adoption of all of the above. Especially since 2009, global central bankers have embraced extreme monetization and rate measures specifically to target rapid Credit expansion and securities market inflation. The upshot has been the greatest expansion of speculative finance ever – finance operating as one massive "risk on" global speculative dynamic. When market participants were embracing risk-taking, this massive pool of global finance easily inflated securities and market prices virtually across the board. Over time, the divergence between inflating securities market Bubbles and deflating global economic prospects widened to precarious extremes. Simplistically, the prospect of faltering Chinese and EM Bubbles proved a catalyst for a problematic collapse in energy and commodities prices. Rather quickly, the global Bubble began to deflate as the promise of literally Trillions of rotten Credit began to unfold – commodities-related, China, EM and risky corporate debt more generally. Confidence that policy measures could hold things together began to wane, and market vulnerabilities rather quickly reemerged. I believe that confidence in global finance and faith in government policy measures have been irreparably damaged. This is central to my thesis that the global Bubble has burst. At the same time, now catastrophic risks ensure that policymakers employ all means to bolster the markets (sustain Bubbles). The outcome, as we've witnessed over recent months, is acute global market instability and volatility. When the massive pool of global finance turns risk averse, selling and hedging quickly overwhelm the markets into illiquidity and "flash crash" susceptibility. Then, when policy measures are employed to buttress frail markets, the subsequent unwind of substantial short positions and hedges spurs abrupt "rip your face off" market rallies. In short, epic market speculation is one massive Crowded Trade built on a flimsy foundation of faith in experimental policymaking, prone to the type of volatility and uncertainties that create a “money” management and performance nightmare. Reuters ran an article Monday: "The European Central Bank is checking liquidity levels at a number of Italian banks, including Banca Carige and Monte dei Paschi di Siena , on a daily basis…" It was a crucial week from my "Crisis Management" perspective. I have referred to Mario Draghi as the world’s most influential central banker. Recall how Draghi's failure to deliver additional QE back in early December proved a catalyst for a bout of global "risk off." Over recent months, Europe once again demonstrated its still festering financial and economic fragilities. And with global markets having recently rallied in anticipation of concerted stimulus measures, there was a lot riding on the outcome of this past Thursday's ECB meeting. "Whatever it takes" Draghi was clearly determined to wrest back his reputation for "beating market expectations." He lowered rates further into negative territory. More importantly, the ECB significantly boosted the size of monthly QE purchases by a third to euro 80 billion ($90bn). Moreover, the ECB will commence corporate debt purchases (details to come). Some analysts now expect the ECB to purchase up to $15 billion of corporate debt on a monthly basis. The ECB – and central banks more generally – are desperate to convey that they've not run short of ammunition. It's difficult to believe what has transpired at the ECB under Mario Draghi. Negative interest rates. Trillion annual QE as far as the eye can see – massive monetization of extremely overvalued sovereign bonds (including Greek, Italian and Portuguese) and now overpriced corporate debt. Expectations are that equities could be next. I always expected the Germans to eventually draw the line. Instead, we find overwhelming support for the tenet that once monetary inflation is commenced it becomes virtually impossible to rein it in. I have argued for some time now that China has completely lost control of its Credit Bubble. This week provided important additional confirmation. March 6 – Wall Street Journal (Mark Magnier and Lingling Wei): "China's leaders made clear they are emphasizing growth over restructuring this year, but suggested they are trying to avoid inflating debt or asset bubbles as they send massive amounts of money coursing through the economy… And for the first time, the Chinese government specified total social financing—a broad measure of credit that includes both bank loans and nonbank lending—as a metric for helping determine monetary policy… Both measures have increased sharply in recent months… This year, the two targets are paired, with both set to rise 13%." It's surprising that China's move to target 13% broad Credit growth ("total social financing") didn't garner more attention. Not only would this see Credit expansion likely more than double the rate of GDP growth, it would could amount to upwards of an astounding $3 Trillion of new system Credit. Using the U.S. Bubble as an example, total (non-financial and financial) Credit growth averaged about $700bn during the nineties. Credit Bubble dynamics had seen debt growth surge to $1.651 TN by 2003, and then inflate to $2.131 TN in 2004, $2.235 TN in 2005, $2.378 TN in 2006 and then the (still) all-time record $2.470 TN in 2007. China's Credit target is akin to U.S. officials having in 2007 moved aggressively to boost the rate of debt growth. The problem is that 2007 debt was already of extraordinarily poor quality – enormous amounts of weak mortgage Credit financing over-priced real estate, along with unprecedented amounts of non-productive corporate and household debt (financing a highly imbalanced "Bubble Economy"). Tremendous system impairment (real economy and financial) is wrought during "Terminal Phase" Bubble excess. Chinese officials claimed to have studied and learned from the wretched Japanese Bubble experience. And for several years China made varied and repeated efforts to rein in excess. I argued repeatedly that their Bubble would be impervious to timid measures. And as the Bubble attained only more powerful momentum, officials were unwilling to take the significant risks associated with orchestrating a bursting. China has completely capitulated. It's now growth at any cost. Let there be no doubt, the costs are potentially catastrophic. I have referred to a multi-decade experiment with unfettered global "money" and Credit. The U.S. experiment in economic structure, securitized finance and monetary inflation/manipulation went global. And there is the ongoing experiment in European monetary integration. There is as well the EM experiment in market-based finance and international financial flows. And now China is trapped in its own runaway experiment in central management of massive Credit expansion, economic development and currency control. The Goldman Sachs Commodities Index rallied 10% in two-weeks. Crude (WTI) surged 17%. The Brazilian real gained about 10% over two weeks, with the Australian dollar rising 6%. There's clearly been a major short squeeze unfold throughout commodities and EM. But on a fundamental basis, if Chinese officials ensure upwards of $3 TN 2016 system Credit growth this should at least somewhat help underpin demand for commodities (got gold?). The Chinese are playing a very dangerous game. Peg (highly suspect) Credit growth at about $3 TN, peg (highly imbalanced) economic expansion at about 6.5% and peg their (now highly suspect) currency versus the dollar. This amounts to truly epic financial and economic impairment. And, importantly, this predicament has become rather conspicuous. Waning confidence in policymaking is fundamental to my bursting global Bubble thesis. Markets can pretend for a time that Chinese officials have taken measures that have stabilized their finance, economy and currency – and in the process stabilized global markets. Yet the Chinese and global backdrops are anything but stable. There are already indications that acute monetary disorder is stoking a speculative melee in Chinese debt and some real estate markets. It's been my view that Chinese risks have been the major factor weighing on commodities and EM. And while Chinese policies have supported markets in the near-term, risks of a global crisis of confidence now rise (exponentially?) right along with prolonged historic Chinese "Terminal Phase" excess. It's worth noting that the euro surged abruptly on the ECB announcement, confounding central banker and market participant alike. Similar to the yen's recent market-surprising response to additional BOJ stimulus measures, central bankers appear to have lost their capacity to manipulate currency markets. This implies major market uncertainty and volatility. Another crucial aspect of my bursting global Bubble thesis is that uncertainties now stipulate significantly less leverage throughout various currency "carry trades." Especially since the summer of 2012, I believe currency speculation-related leverage came to play a prominent role in securities market liquidity around the globe. While the consequences of the recent momentous market shift are masked during squeezes and rallies, I expect the issue of waning liquidity to resurface whenever the next "risk off" unfolds. It's worth noting that Italian bank stocks rallied 8% Friday, with European bank stocks up almost 5%. Italian stocks rallied 3.9% this week, with Spanish equities up 3.2%. Italian 10-year spreads to German bunds narrowed 17 bps this week. Portuguese spreads narrowed 19 bps. Greek yields sank 79 bps. Clearly, some large bets had been waged over recent weeks on the return of systemic crisis in Europe. And perhaps Draghi and the Chinese can hold crisis at bay. But the bottom line is that central bankers have had to resort to only more obvious desperate measures, while the Chinese have succumbed to lunacy. It's all anything but confidence inspiring. Regards, Doug Noland P.S. Be sure to sign up for The Daily Reckoning — a free and entertaining look at the world of finance and politics. The articles you find here on our website are only a snippet of what you receive in The Daily Reckoning email edition. Click here now to sign up for FREE to see what you're missing. The post The Greatest Expansion of Speculative Finance Ever appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Runaway Credit is the Biggest Threat to Life as We Know It - Video Posted: 15 Mar 2016 12:48 PM PDT Transcript excerpt: Tuesday March 15 2016 today I'm gonna be talking about runaway credit and how life as we know is under threat from runaway credit debt I don't wanna sound alarmist but I think I need to cover this subject I'll start out with a comment John Pierpont Morgan JP Morgan back in 1912 the poo poo joe meat committee hearing at the EUS House of Representatives here he was asked what gold was and he said money is gold and nothing else they they don't have a variations that this and some people say that he said money is golden everything else is credit but I think he was that's a misquote patient but it still serves | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| John McAfee and the FBI Finally Face Off On CNN (CNN Interview) Posted: 15 Mar 2016 12:30 PM PDT John McAfee squares off against former FBI officer Steve Rogers about the iPhone backdoor demanded by the FBI. Steel cage match. The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers ,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Crumbling U.S Empire Drives Russia & China To Move Into Gold Posted: 15 Mar 2016 12:20 PM PDT SRSRocco Report | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Zero-Hour for the Precious Metals… - Posted: 15 Mar 2016 12:12 PM PDT Just as the world was breathing a massive and collective sigh of relief that a new bull market in gold and silver had arrived with all the pomp and pageantry of a Royal Wedding, the Barbarians climbed the walls and are now very close to razing the palace, says precious metals expert Michael Ballanger. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| After the Collapse: Cannibalism... Posted: 15 Mar 2016 12:00 PM PDT This is an in depth exploration of cannibalism as a factor in a post-collapse world... I discuss the many aspects of cannibalism, the psychology of it, wendigo psychosis, famine based cannibalism, filial cannibalism, prehistoric cannibalism, neurological affects, and why it will be an important... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A Harbinger for Collapse -- Jeff Berwick Posted: 15 Mar 2016 11:35 AM PDT A Harbinger for Collapse ~ Interview with Jeff Berwick The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| TF Metals Report: Gold futures market again in smashdown position Posted: 15 Mar 2016 10:57 AM PDT 1:56p ET Tuesday, March 15, 2016 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: The TF Metals Report's Turd Ferguson today examines the charts of the gold futures market positions of the bullion banks and the small speculators and notes that the two groups are positioned as they always are just before the gold is smashed down in the famous "wash, rinse, repeat" cycle of gold price suppression. Ferguson grouses again at the failure of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to do anything about this, but if the bullion banks are executing trades for governments and particularly for the U.S. Exchange Stabilization Fund, the CFTC would be powerless, as the ESF is explicitly authorized by U.S. law to trade secretly in any market in the world -- that is, to rig any market in the world: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/international/ESF/Pages/esf-ind... Ferguson's analyis is headlined "CoT Persepctive" and it's posted at the TF Metals Report here: http://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/7508/cot-perspective CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT We Are Amid the Biggest Financial Bubble in History; With GoldCore you can own allocated -- and most importantly -- segregated coins and bars in Switzerland, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Switzerland, Singapore, and Hong Kong remain extremely safe jurisdictions for storing bullion. Avoid exchange-traded funds and digital gold providers where you are a price taker. Ensure that you are outright legal owner of your bullion. If you do not own segregated bullion that you can visit, inspect, and take delivery of, you are exposed. Crucial guides to storage in Singapore and Switzerland can be read here: http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-singapore http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-switzerland GoldCore does not report transactions to any authority. Safety, privacy, and confidentiality are paramount when we are entrusted with storage of our clients' precious metals. Email the GoldCore team at info@goldcore.com or call our trading desk: UK: +44(0)203-086-9200. U.S.: +1-302-635-1160. International: +353(0)1-632-5010. Visit us at: http://www.goldcore.com Join GATA here: Mines and Money Asia http://asia.minesandmoney.com/ Mining Investment Asia http://www.mininginvestmentasia.com/ Support GATA by purchasing recordings of the proceedings of the 2014 New Orleans Investment Conference: https://jeffersoncompanies.com/landing/2014-av-powell Or by purchasing DVDs of GATA's London conference in August 2011 or GATA's Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Why Our Financial System is like the Titanic Posted: 15 Mar 2016 10:05 AM PDT This post Why Our Financial System is like the Titanic appeared first on Daily Reckoning. Why did the Titanic sink, despite being considered unsinkable? The conventional answer is the design of its watertight compartments was flawed: the watertight bulkheads were limited in height to a few feet above the waterline. The ship was designed such that if the first few compartments were flooded, the flooding would be contained by the watertight bulkheads. But the iceberg ripped open a gash almost a third the ship’s length, flooding the first six compartments. As the ship’s bow sank, water poured over the bulkhead into the seventh compartment, and so on, until the ship’s bow sank deep enough to bring the ship almost vertical, at which point the hull broke roughly in half–hence the two hull sections discovered on the bottom of the Atlantic in 1985. But further analysis has revealed this isn’t the only reason Titanic sank. It turned out the ship’s hull plates were brittle due to high sulfur content in the steel, especially at cold temperatures (the water was near freezing at the time of the wreck). Rather than deform as the iceberg scraped against the hull, the plates and rivets fractured, opening the gash that sank the ship. The technologies of the early 1900s enabled shipbuilders to construct enormous ships almost 900 feet in length capable of steaming at 24 knots, transporting passengers across the Atlantic in comfort, but the technologies that made such ships and transits low risk were not yet developed. The fact that large ships and powerful engines could be built created the illusion of low risk, because the risk factors were invisible until disaster struck. After the disaster, the flaws in the design of the watertight bulkheads, the inadequacy of the lifeboat requirements (there were not enough lifeboats for the crew and passengers), and the deficiencies in the wireless/radio requirements (ships were not required to have radio operators on duty 24 hours a day) were all obvious. But the flaws in the steel plates and rivets would remain invisible until the technologies of steel production finally caught up with the other shipbuilding technologies. And better detection and tracking of icebergs would have to wait for radar and better navigational technologies. Our financial system is like the Titanic: technologies such as high-frequency trading (HFT) and innovations such as securitization and complex derivatives have enabled major players to construct an enormous, fast-moving financial system that creates the illusion of low risk because the risks are not visible until disaster strikes. The Global Financial Meltdown of 2008-09 was a close call, the equivalent of the Titanic veering off and barely missing the iceberg. In response, authorities imposed a variety of new regulations that are the equivalent of changing the regulations guiding lifeboats and radio operations. But these regulations did nothing to address the risks created by the technologies of financialization that have leapfrogged safety systems and the real economy. In effect, the idea that the financial system is unsinkable remains intact, even though the flaws in its design (the equivalent of the watertight bulkheads) and its core technologies (the equivalent of the flawed steel plates) remain invisible. The financial system’s huge size and apparent strengths have created a false confidence that it is unsinkable, and the ineffective regulations imposed after 2008-09 have only added to the illusion that the risk of a complete collapse is low. All that has been accomplished since 2008-09 is there are a few more lifeboats and better communication when disaster strikes. But the risks of financial disaster have actually increased since 2008-09, as participants have bypassed regulations via shadow banking, dark pools,etc., and deepened their dependence on HFT skimming via superfast trades executed by superfast computers. The “unsinkable” global financial system is rushing headlong toward its encounter with the iceberg, while the passengers and crew remain supremely confident and unaware of the risks, risks that will only become “obvious” after the global financial system has broken in half and sunk to the bottom, destroying most of those who believed it unsinkable. Regards, Charles Hugh Smith P.S. Ever since my first summer job decades ago, I've been chasing financial security. Not win-the-lottery, Bill Gates riches (although it would be nice!), but simply a feeling of financial control. I want my financial worries to if not disappear at least be manageable and comprehensible. And like most of you, the way I've moved toward my goal has always hinged not just on having a job but a career. You don't have to be a financial blogger to know that "having a job" and "having a career" do not mean the same thing today as they did when I first started swinging a hammer for a paycheck. Even the basic concept "getting a job" has changed so radically that jobs–getting and keeping them, and the perceived lack of them–is the number one financial topic among friends, family and for that matter, complete strangers. So I sat down and wrote this book: Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy. It details everything I've verified about employment and the economy, and lays out an action plan to get you employed. I am proud of this book. It is the culmination of both my practical work experiences and my financial analysis, and it is a useful, practical, and clarifying read. The post Why Our Financial System is like the Titanic appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold Stocks: Surfing An Institutional Wave Posted: 15 Mar 2016 09:30 AM PDT Graceland Update | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Get the Board Games Out – It’s a Fed Game Day Posted: 15 Mar 2016 07:48 AM PDT This post Get the Board Games Out – It’s a Fed Game Day appeared first on Daily Reckoning. And now… today's Pfennig for your thoughts… Good Day. And a Tom Terrific Tuesday to you! Well, get the board games out, it’s time to have a fed game day! Remember when I used to talk about how I could hear one Fed member tell another Fed member, “by Joe, you’ve sunk my battleship”? Well, I think the Fed members have moved on from Battleship, and now prefer the “new Monopoly”. Have you heard of this game? The “monopoly money” has been removed, and credit is used to navigate, buy real estate, etc. and build your “monopoly”. I would think the Fed members balked at the removal of the “monopoly money”, wink, wink. But seriously, the Fed begins their two-day FOMC meeting today, but nothing will come of it until they adjourn tomorrow afternoon, right after lunch. And that’s when the markets will learn a lesson. And that lesson is, “don’t believe everything you hear”. Three months ago, the markets heard the Fed loud and clear, that they were going to hike rates four times in 2016, and so the markets, naturally, believed that the Fed would begin that journey down the four rate hike road in 2016, at their March meeting. And for the longest time (up until yesterday), I thought like the markets did, that we should take the Fed at their word and that rates would get hiked in March. (Yes, I know the Fed never said, “we will hike rates in March”, but they may have well done so, given all their talk). So, what you’re telling us Chuck is that you’re doing something you always tell us not to do, and that is changing horses in the middle of the stream? Yes, that’s what I’m saying, as I just can’t keep saying something when all the facts point to the opposite thought. But, I’m going to keep my initial thought in my back pocket to pull out should the Fed pull a rabbit out of their hat, and hike rates to add arrows to their quiver. But for now, that thought has to be put in my back pocket, because the Fed Funds Futures say no rate hike. Currency traders are still buying dollars though, and this is the thing that finally got me to see the light about the rate hike. I read not one, not two, but three or four articles yesterday, after returning home from the ballpark, about how traders were now looking for the Fed to continue to “talk aggressive” about rate hikes, but not looking for a rate hike now. I said to myself, ” So this is what this has come down to? It’s all about the ‘the talk’ and not the ‘the walk’? The markets are telling the Fed, “come on, talk aggressive to me”. The price of oil has dropped over $2 since Friday, and this morning, the Petrol Currencies are getting whacked, all of them, and whacked badly. The Russian ruble is the worst performer overnight, and followed closely by the Norwegian krone, Mexican pesos, Canadian dollar/loonie, and Brazilian real. The S. African rand is also a Big loser this morning, as rate hike thoughts disappear in S. Africa, causing a mass exodus from the currency. The euro is down vs. the dollar, but not by much, as it was reported this morning that Eurozone Industrial Production (IP) had a very nice January print, rising 2.1% vs. the previous month, and that has underpinned the euro. And the fact that the euro isn’t a Petrol Currency, sure helps this morning! The Bank of Japan (BOJ) met last night and kept rates unchanged and didn’t add to stimulus, but what they did do is talk about their three dimensions, and I think as we go along the situation in Japan is going to lead to more yen weakness. But this morning, yen is one of the few currencies with a gain vs. the dollar on the non-action by the BOJ last night. Let me see if I can explain this three dimensions thing correctly (I can do it in my head, but can I explain it correctly is the question!). Recall how in January, when the BOJ announced negative rates on new deposits, they mentioned how negative rates were now their main policy tool? Well, last night they dropped that statement, and replaced it with a discussion of how they were going to maintain the option of “easing in three dimensions” Those three dimensions would be quantity and quality of assets purchased and rates. Whew! I’m worn out after that! Well, what’s new on the BREXIT front? For those of you new to class, BREXIT stands for British exit from the European Union, which will be put to a public referendum in June, and I’ve gone on record saying that I believe the referendum will go to the BREXIT voters. The British pound sterling (pound) was getting clobbered daily when this was the talk of the town last month, but a month later, that the pound is firmly back above 1.40, so what gives? Did the BREXIT talk fade? Well, the “talk” in general faded, until a poll was taken and made public showing that the BREXIT vote had the majority. But it was closer than I would have thought. So, there you go. Keeping you abreast of the news, that’s my goal (I hope you know that I say that in jest. My main goal is to get you to think and then to take action, in response to thinking!). The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) meeting minutes printed last night. This is from the last meeting of two weeks ago, when the RBA left rates unchanged. The minutes didn’t add anything to what RBA Gov. Stevens had told them two weeks ago. And that is the RBA will keep their easing bias as needed. So, as usual, we need to watch the data in Australia, for it will tell us what to expect from the RBA going forward. The Aussie dollar (A$) continues to see an unwinding of the strong risk sentiment that persisted a week ago, but has since faded. The same can be said for the New Zealand dollar/kiwi. However, kiwi had a spanner thrown in its rally works, by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) who cut rates last week. New Zealand will print their latest Trade Balance tonight. This is where New Zealand gets into trouble with the markets, as their Trade deficit has remained stuck around 3.3% of GDP. Not the worst in the world, but certainly not the best either, and with an economy as small as New Zealand’s (compared to the Big Boys) this really begins to stick out like a sore thumb! Gold took a shot to the mid-section yesterday. At the end of the day, gold was down $15 from the previous day. And the other precious metals, silver, platinum and palladium are all following gold lower. Gold is flat this morning but has been down a couple of bucks or so, as I’ve been writing. I was reading Ed Steer’s letter, and thought he nailed silver’s recent moves, as he was not happy that a certain entity (I won’t give them credit here) had been on the sidelines recently as silver rose in price and attempted to narrow that ratio percentage with gold. But he believes he saw this certain entity back in the silver markets with 3,000 new short contracts in silver. He also believes, as do I, that if those 3,000 short contracts in silver hadn’t shown up that silver was about to explode in price upward. Oh, well, we live to fight another day, another battle, right? The U.S. Data Cupboard finally gets restocked today! And February Retail Sales will print. The BHI indicates to me that the report will be disappointing at best. Uh-oh! But don’t be discouraged there will be plenty of other data prints this week. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up too much that they will be strong and show the U.S. economy growing at a better than 2% clip, which is what we’ve been stuck at since 2008. The data cupboard will also have PPI for February, the Empire Manufacturing Index (NY region) for March (so far), and the old Total net TIC Flows, which used to be important, but not any longer. Sort of like the late great Yogi Berra’s quote about a popular restaurant, “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”. HA! Thanks to dear reader Bob, for alerting me to this report from the BIS (Bank for International Settlements) that highlights what they think is going on between the markets and Central Banks. Something that I’ve talked about for a few months now, and that is simply that in the markets’ eyes, Central Banks have lost credibility. Let’s check out some of the stuff the BIS put in their recent report titled: “Uneasy Calm Gives Way To Turbulence” and can be found in its entirety here. But I have some highlights that I circled while reading the report, even a guy like me that has said this over and over, I got chills reading it, because, now it’s coming from someone, or some entity that’s much larger than Chuck Butler. Let’s lend an ear here:
Chuck again. So, basically in the end the BIS report refuses to blame Central Banks for condition of the world economy, and I find that distasteful. The massive debt overhang, and the stock markets binge, and the global economy is all directly attributable to the zero interest rate policies, and bond buying schemes that led to cheap money, should be at the top of anyone’s list for the problems today around the globe, and then add to it the bad timing of a Chinese slowdown and a plunge in the price of oil, and you’ve got the perfect storm brewing for another financial crisis. That could have been averted, but those that make the rules didn’t seem to think it was necessary to put an end to the party by removing the punch bowl. That’s just my two-cents plain.. my humble opinion of which could be wrong! And on that note, I’ll get out of your hair for today, and hope you have a Tom Terrific Tuesday! And remember, Be Good To Yourself! Regards, Chuck Butler P.S. Be sure to sign up for The Daily Reckoning — a free and entertaining look at the world of finance and politics. The articles you find here on our website are only a snippet of what you receive in The Daily Reckoning email edition. Click here now to sign up for FREE to see what you're missing. The post Get the Board Games Out – It’s a Fed Game Day appeared first on Daily Reckoning. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold and Silver Rally Could Have Durability – SWOT Analysis Posted: 15 Mar 2016 07:24 AM PDT Gold and silver’s fundamentals look good and the rally in bullion and gold stocks may have durability points out Frank Holmes of U.S. Funds writing in Gold Seek today. In his weekly SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats – of the precious metal markets, Holmes notes that: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HUI Gold Miners: A Correction in The Wind Posted: 15 Mar 2016 04:15 AM PDT The Gold Miners have started the year with a cracking rally pretty much as they started last year. They have finally broken out of their downward trend which has been in place for around 4 years. As we write the HUI currently stands at 169.44 which is well off its recent lows, but is some 73% below its previous high of 630. The HUI now looks to be rolling over, although it is too early to say that this rally is over for now, it is beginning to look that way. A recent golden cross, whereby the 50dma crosses over the 200dma in an upward motion should be good for the HUI, but often this is not the case and a reversal follows. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The GOLD PRICE closed at $1,244.4, down $14.30 or 1.14% Posted: 15 Mar 2016 01:35 AM PDT
Well, this week the whole world will be in suspense under the evil Eye of Sauron hovering above Mordor on the Potomac, waiting for the Fed orcs to announce how they will next torture the economy & common sense. That happens Wednesday, so until then markets will be holding their breath. After all, Sauron (an acrostic for c-e-n-t-r-a-l-b-a-n-k) sees all & knows all & fixes all, doesn't he? Wildest surprise (and most suicidal) that might come from the Fed is a rise in interest rates. Otherwise 'twill be all puff & blow, threatening big stuff for later. Some time. Meanwhile SILVER and GOLD began that correction I have been looking for. The GOLD PRICE closed at $1,244.4, down $14.30 or 1.14%. In the aftermarket it dipped to $1,229.90, but later recovered to $1,234-ish. On Comex silver lost 8.9¢ to 1551.8¢, a mere 0.6%. Gold closed below the lower boundary of that bearish flag we've been watching, & projects a drop to $1,195.5 to $1,167. If it remains as peppery as it has been, look for that upper target. Volume did NOT rise on this fall, which suggests gravity has not much force behind it. Silver ought to make a lower low that the 1461¢ on 29 February. Most logical to me seems 1440¢ area, where silver broke out of that bowl. However, interpreting the pattern as a cup & handle says that silver shouldn't drop below 1485¢. Don't bother throwing crockery at my head. I just report what I see, I don't fabricate, pervaricate, or masticate. Res ipsa loquitur. US dollar index rose 44 basis points (0.45%) to 96.67. This is no stupor mundi. High today came same place as Friday's, 96.74, and stopped, although it closed higher. After the ECB debacle last week, traders will be right shy of loading up on dollars or any other currency, so little should happen before that Fed bloviation on Wednesday. Stocks are flat. Dow rose 15.82 (0.09%) to 17,229.13 while the S&P500 backed off 2.55 (0.13%) to 2,019.64. Waiting for Sauron to speak. Aurum et argentum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2016, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold or 18 ounces of silver. US $ and US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned: Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps. NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced. NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt. What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands. One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Near-Term Gold Forecast: The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Indecision. . . Posted: 14 Mar 2016 10:06 AM PDT Man-oh-man, the heat I am taking over my recent "Caution" stance on the near-term outlook for gold and silver is now verging on the theatre of the absurd, says precious metals expert Michael Ballanger. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gold, Silver, Zika, ZIRP, and NIRP Viruses Posted: 14 Mar 2016 09:28 AM PDT The Zika virus is the newest threat to humanity, especially pregnant women, so they say. Big Pharma is working feverishly to create a vaccine. Chances are the vaccine will be created, highly profitable, and Big Pharma will be “held harmless” for injuries to those who were vaccinated. Add GM mosquitos, birth defects, Brazilian Olympics, big profits, and the story becomes a huge distraction. John Rappoport has suggested there is more to the story. |
It's bad enough depositing your money into a bank account and earning essentially zero interest on it, or in some countries, having a negative interest rate.
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