$1.342 trillion budget deficit for 2010. 
 I'll bet it's a lot higher...They will print money until we run out of trees...



Zero Hedge: The Dallas Fed Reminds That The Economy Is Doing Much Worse Than In The Administration's Worst Nightmare

Capitalism And Change

posted by Blogger at Jim Rogers Blog - 4 hours ago

Capitalism is replete with examples of companies and individuals that got fat and sassy and didn't see the changes taking place. I mean, you can take a look at the computer industry. Dozens of names that w...

Bullish On India

posted by Blogger at Marc Faber Blog - 4 hours ago

"If I look at the long-term potential....there is an emerging middle class and capitalism has now been truly endorsed by everybody. India also has some very well run companies. in CNBC Marc Faber is an i...

Visualizing America's Surging Personal Bankruptcy Filings

 

In The News Today

Posted: Aug 22 2010     By: Jim Sinclair      Post Edited: August 22, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Filed under: In The News
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

This is from the Dean of Gold, Harry Schultz. I am proud to say I am a lifetime member of HSL.
Harry is the Dean. Enough said.
Please read.

Jim,
This is a watershed article from WSJ. Good R&D, in my opinion. It clarifies and codifies what we already know and narrows the parameters, saves us time and worries about less vital aspects.
Harry

Rethinking Gold: What if It Isn’t a Commodity After All By JEFF OPDYKE
AUGUST 21, 2010
This won’t sit well with some people: Gold isn’t a commodity. There. I’ve said it.
But before you fire off an angry response, hear me out. The facts might change your view of gold’s role in a portfolio.
For a long time, we’ve all heard that gold is a commodity—no different, really, from silver or wheat or pork bellies. Its price ebbs and flows (supposedly) with inflation, which historically drives commodity prices.
Odd, then, that gold’s elevated price hasn’t fallen in response to tepid U.S. inflation numbers. The Consumer Price Index as of July pegged inflation at just 1.2% for the previous 12 months, not counting seasonal adjustments. Nor has gold reacted to what Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco’s chief executive, recently called "the road to deflation" on which he sees the U.S. traveling.
The conventional wisdom holds that neither of those scenarios—low inflation or deflation—should be good for gold. And yet it refuses to abandon record highs in the $1,200-an-ounce range. Something seems amiss.
I recently asked research firm Ibbotson Associates to run a correlation study to determine how closely inflation and gold-price movements track each other. You would expect gold, as a purported commodity, and inflation to move in tandem.
The data, going back to 1978 and capturing an inflationary spike, shows a correlation of, at most, 0.08.
More…




Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

The Banksters will soon have it all.
It is better stated as a headlined with the words "Middle Class" deleted.
Politically this has scary precedents.

On the Way Down
The Erosion of America’s Middle Class By Thomas Schulz
While America’s super-rich congratulate themselves on donating billions to charity, the rest of the country is worse off than ever. Long-term unemployment is rising and millions of Americans are struggling to survive. The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever and the middle class is disappearing.
Ventura is a small city on the Pacific coast, about an hour’s drive north of Los Angeles. Luxury homes with a view of the ocean dot the hillsides, and the beaches are popular with surfers. Ventura is storybook California. "It’s a well-off place," says Captain William Finley. "But about 20 percent of the city is what we call at risk of homelessness." Finley heads the local branch of the Salvation Army.
Last summer Ventura launched a pilot program, managed by Finley, that allows people to sleep in their cars within city limits. This is normally illegal, both in Ventura and in the rest of the country, where local officials and residents are worried about seeing run-down vans full of Mexican migrant workers parked on residential streets.
But sometime at the beginning of last year, people in Ventura realized that the cars parked in front of their driveways at night weren’t old wrecks, but well-tended station wagons and hatchbacks. And the people sleeping in them weren’t fruit pickers or the homeless, but their former neighbors.
Finley also noticed a change. Suddenly twice as many people were taking advantage of his social service organization’s free meals program, and some were even driving up in BMWs — apparently reluctant to give up the expensive cars that reminded them of better times.
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
And then there was EIGHT!
As California considers the use of IOUs again, four California banks blow up the same weekend.
This portends interesting times ahead.

Bank Closing Information – August 20, 2010
These links contain useful information for the customers and vendors of these closed banks
Sonoma Valley Bank, Sonoma, CA
Los Padres Bank, Solvang, CA
Butte Community Bank, Chico, CA
Pacific State Bank, Stockton, CA
ShoreBank, Chicago, IL
Imperial Savings & Loan Association, Martinsville , VA
Independent National Bank, Ocala, FL
Community National Bank of Bartow, Bartow, FL
www.fdic.gov




Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The miraculous dispersing oil story has been repealed. When you are caught in a total fabrication it is embarrassing.
These are the same people who run the bureau of statistics. That should give you something to think about.

Senior U.S. scientist rescinds previous claim that 3/4 of oil from spill is gone, says most is still there Thursday, August 19th, 2010 at 9:27 pm  
Monica Lawrence
WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) – A senior U.S. government scientist on Thursday admitted that three-quarters of the oil that was released into the Gulf of Mexico after BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill was still there, contradicting his earlier claim that the worst of the spill had passed, the Guardian reported.
Bill Lehr, senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), presented a radically different picture than the one the White House had presented to the public earlier this month. He contradicted his own reports from two weeks ago that suggested that the majority of the oil had been captured or broken down. “I would say most of that is still in the environment,” Lehr told the House energy and commerce committee.
His statement seems to all but confirm suspicions within the scientific community that the White House was trying to spin and hide scientific data regarding the damage of the oil spill. The only member of Congress who turned up at the hearing was Ed Markey, the committee chair. Lehr did, however, revise the amount of oil that spilled into the gulf, saying that only 4.1 million barrels were spilled versus the previous estimate of 4.9, noting that 800,000 barrels were siphoned directly from the well.
A number of estimates that aren’t coming from the White House suggest that as much as 90 percent of the oil is unaccounted for. Lehr himself said that only 6 percent was burned and the other 4 percent was skimmed, but he wasn’t confident on the amount collected from beaches.
Markey was visible upset and critical of Lehr, saying that the released report by NOAA gave the public a false sense of confidence. “You shouldn’t have released it until you knew it was right,” he said.
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Do you recall all the hype about this program?

Nearly 50 percent leave Obama mortgage-aid program
Obama mortgage-aid effort is struggling to stem the rising number of foreclosures in US  Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer, On Saturday August 21, 2010, 2:49 am EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.
The program is intended to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly mortgage payments. Friday’s report from the Treasury Department suggests the $75 billion government effort is failing to slow the tide of foreclosures in the United States, economists say.
More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007, according to foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc. Economists expect the number of foreclosures to grow well into next year.
"The government program as currently structured is petering out. It is taking in fewer homeowners, more are dropping out and fewer people are ending up in permanent modifications," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
Besides forcing people from their homes, foreclosures and distressed home sales have pushed down on home values and crippled the broader housing industry. They have made it difficult for homebuilders to compete with the depressed prices and discouraged potential sellers from putting their homes on the market.
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Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
There is a distinct stench coming from the West Coast. That is not exactly dollar positive.

California faces issuing IOUs again By Matthew Garrahan in Los Angeles
Published: August 19 2010 19:11 | Last updated: August 19 2010 19:11
California will be forced to issue IOUs to public workers and other creditors in lieu of cash in the next two months if a budget deadlock cannot be broken, the state’s financial controller has warned.
America’s most populous state faces a repeat of 2009, when a slumping economy and its failure to agree a budget caused an unprecedented fiscal crunch and the issuing of $2.6bn of IOUs, which damaged California’s credit rating and forced it to scrap some social programmes.
John Chiang, California’s controller, told the Financial Times that the state was once again flirting with IOUs because of a budget stalemate between Arnold Schwarzenegger, its governor, and the state government. The budget is two months late.
“If the governor and the legislature act responsibly and pass a budget then we won’t have to issue IOUs – it’s as simple as that,” said Mr Chiang.
However, Mr Schwarzenegger and the state legislature do not appear to be close to agreeing a new financial plan for California, which issues more municipal debt than any other US state. The governor has outlined drastic spending cuts to close a $19.1bn deficit, which many in the state legislature have opposed.
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