by Alasdair Macleod, Gold Money:
Some of the dust from Ben Bernanke’s “QE3” announcement
on 13 September has settled. The Federal Reserve is now committed to
spending $40 billion a month on agency mortgage-backed securities – an
open-ended plan. It is also extending extremely low interest rates
(together zero interest rate policy and Operation Twist) until mid-2015
by buying an extra $45bn of longer-term securities (mostly government
debt though this is not explicitly stated).It appears there are two broad objectives: to support the housing market and therefore consumer confidence, and to finance the government deficit while locking in low long-term interest rates.
Experience tells us that the only increase in money supply finding its way into the economy is by welfare spending. The banks and also their credit-worthy customers are simply risk-averse. They either leave this money with the Fed in the form of excess reserves, or they speculate with it in capital markets. It is no accident that derivatives have expanded dramatically in recent years, and large amounts of QE money have been recycled into other more dynamic economies offering higher returns. Banks think they do better by not lending money to cash-strapped Americans and their businesses.
Read More @ GoldMoney.com
by Zig Lambo, Gold Seek:
While the markets have been on edge for the past year or so and have
left most investors bewildered as to what to do next, portfolio manager
and author John Stephenson thinks that the course is set for higher gold
prices. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Stephenson
explains why he thinks we will avoid a worldwide economic crash and how
the continuing QEs and foreign government bailouts will push more
investors into the gold and mining share markets as gold moves above
$2,000/ounce.The Gold Report: Since you last spoke with The Gold Report in January, we’ve had a seemingly self-feeding cycle of expectations, plans, bailouts, lack of results and back-to-the-drawing-board. Do you see any ultimate resolution to the world’s economic dilemma, or will we somehow just muddle through, or have to go through an actual crash of some sort?
John Stephenson: I think we’ll basically muddle through from here. We’ve had several important developments over the last few weeks. The Federal Reserve’s Quantitative Easing 3 (QE3) $40 billion program targeting mainly mortgage securities has the potential to move the needle. There was a big rally to risk assets when that was announced but that has faded somewhat.
Read More @ GoldSeek.com
The Obama administration clearly hoped that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General report on Operation Fast and Furious would be the last word on the scandal. which has been tied to hundreds of deaths in Mexico and the murders of two American law-enforcement officials. However, a new report from Univision to be broadcast tomorrow, previewed here by ABC News, may put the issue back on the front pages. One source called Univision’s findings the “holy grail” that Congressional investigators have been seeking:
Read More @ HotAir.com
Goldman's Clients Are Skeptical About The Effectiveness Of QEtc., Worried About Inflation
While it is just as perplexing that Goldman still has clients, what is most surprising in this week's David Kostin "weekly kickstart" is that Goldman's clients have shown a surprising lack of stupidity (this time around) when it comes to the impact of QEtc. Shockingly, and quite accurately, said clients appear to be far more worried about the inflationary shock that endless easing may bring (picture that), than what level the S&P closes for the year. Incidentally with Q3 now over, and just 3 months left until the end of the year, Goldman's chief equity strategist refuses to budge on his year end S&P forecast, which has been at 1250 since the beginning of the year, and remains firmly there. From Goldman: "QE has succeeded in increasing asset prices and inflation expectations but has not convinced investors to raise their US growth expectations. Instead, equity investors have expressed concern about inflation risks while both gold prices and implied inflation rates show similar shifts."Fill your Pantry...
by Simon Black, Daily Reckoning.com.au:
Last summer, two researchers from the New England Complex Systems Institute published a short paper
examining the correlation between rising food prices and civil unrest.
It was a timely analysis, to say the least. A number of food riots were
occurring throughout the world, not to mention waves of revolution
sparked by the high cost of food. This is nothing new; throughout history whenever people have struggled to put food on the table for their families, social unrest has been a common consequence.
The French Revolution is a classic example; after decades of unsustainable fiscal and monetary practices that wrecked the French economy, the harvest season and subsequent winter of 1788 were particularly harsh. People went hungry, and it ultimately started the revolution.
The researchers’ analysis went a step further, though; they modeled the relationship between food prices and social unrest to reach a simple conclusion whenever the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)’s global food price index climbs above 210, conditions ripen for social unrest.
Read More @ DailyReckoning.com.au
Is The Money-Laundering Driven Real Estate "Boom" Ending?
One
by one all the money-laundering loopholes in a broke world are coming
to an end. First it was Swiss bank accounts, which for centuries
guaranteed the depositors absolute secrecy, and as a result saw money
inflows from all the wealthiest savers in the world, who felt truly
safe their wealth (obtained by legal means or otherwise) would not be
redistributed forcefully. In the ecosystem of finance, Switzerland was the
depositor bank. Then 2008 happened, and starting with the US, shortly
to be followed by every other insolvent country, demands were issued for
a full list of people who had used Zurich and Geneva bank vaults to
avoid the risk of asset taxation, capital controls and confiscation on
their own native soil. The result was the end of the Swiss banking
sector as the ultimate target of all global money laundering. In the
ensuing power vacuum, others have sprung up to take its place, most
notably Singapore, but its days as a tax-haven are numbered by how long
it takes China to fall face first into a hard landing at which point no
saving on the Pacific seaboard will be safe.Now, it is the turn of real estate.
Wealth Inequality And The Income Inequality Is Far Larger Than 20 or 30 Years Ago
Admin at Marc Faber Blog - 2 hours ago
Basically we have one thing for sure, is that today the wealth inequality
and the income inequality between say the 1 percent wealthiest people and
the 99 percent that are less wealthy is far larger than it was 20 or 30
years ago.
And very clearly money printing historically has always benefited a few at
the expense of the many. - *excerpt from a recent interview on asset bubbles
*
*Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions
of the stock market and futures markets around the world.*
Robert Wenzel talks to Rogers about topics Rogers has never discussed
before in the media. On the show, Rogers explains why he considers
North Korea a top place to invest and the one event that would cause him
to invest in Zimbabwe.
China's Great Wall Of Suds: Chemical Spill Results In 50 Foot Foam Tsunami
This is just the second time in three days that China's province of Guangdong is being discussed on Zero Hedge. On Thursday we wrote that the mega city of Dongguang, once Guangdong richest, is now on the verge of bankruptcy as China's hard landing begins to take its toll. Today, we learn that instead of the rivers running red once all hell breaks loose in China, the color will be soapy white. Specifically, following a chemical spill in Xintang, in the provine of Guandong, the result was a 50 foot tsunami of foam which was swept down a river by heavy rainfall, causing widespread panic and evacuations. It also caused the following brilliant explanation from a Chinese spokesman: "People are right to be cautious but it is harmless. It made very large bubbles when it went over a waterfall, but apart from one or two dead fish, it is harmless." We can't wait to hear Chinese justifications of mushroom clouds: "aside from one or two billion dead people, they give you a healthy green afterglow"?
Spanish banks will need close to €60-billion ($77.24-billion U.S.) in
new capital, according to the results of an independently conducted
stress test of the country’s 14 largest lenders that Madrid hopes will
dispel investor doubts over the true extent of losses in the sector.Seven out of the 14 Spanish banks under review failed, according to the results of the three-month so-called “bottom up” review, which involved the individual assessment of 115,000 loans making up 11 per cent of the value of the sector’s total credit assets.
While the bulk of the failing banks were institutions already nationalized or that had taken state aid, Banco Popular, Spain’s sixth biggest bank by assets, will need to raise €3.2-billion according to the test, just below its €3.58-billion market value – meaning it will probably need state aid to survive.
Madrid hopes the tests, conducted by the consultancy Oliver Wyman aided by the Big Four auditors under the supervision of the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, will finally restore confidence among investors that no more surprises lurk in the Spanish banking sector.
Read More @ TheGlobeAndMail.com
The Law Of Diminishing Returns
In the discipline of rational economics - and even in the “economics” which has sadly taken its place - the law of diminishing returns applies to productive processes. It states that with all other factors remaining the same, the addition of more units of one factor of production will at some point result in a lower yield per unit. There is always an optimum combination of factors of production which yields the highest return per unit of production. Increase one of these units beyond that optimum and the yield provided starts to drop. This does not necessarily mean that the amount of output drops. It means that the output is now not being produced in the most efficient manner. Factors of production are being wasted.Master media decoder Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center and founder of FactCheck.org, joins Bill
to discuss a recent Annenberg Center report that reveals widespread ignorance of the presidential candidates’ major policy positions.
The two also view and assess the veracity of Obama and Romney’s recent TV ads, and talk about the potential impact of upcoming presidential and vice presidential debates.
“We’ve been studying presidential debates for a long time as a scholarly community,” Jamieson tells Bill. “And to our surprise, we consistently find that those who watch debates, regardless of the level of knowledge they come in with, come out with more accurate knowledge as a general group.”
“What we need from the candidates in the debates is not simply greater adherence to facticity about their own records and their opponents records, but also more disclosure about what they’re actually going to do in governance.”
from LewRockwell.com:
Will Mitt Romney and his Neocon entourage be even worse than Obama? Eric Margolis talks to Lew Rockwell about the Middle East.
Click HERE to Listen to the Audio
from Silver Vigilante:
The Vatican has been embroiled
in conspiracy since the Vatileaks scandal of last Fall. And, currently,
the trial of the butler of Pope Benedict, who is accused of leaking
secret documents, is underway. Motivated by a desire to expose
corruption and greed from within, the butler released the documents to
journalists. In them, skulduggery and intrigue at the highest levels of
the Catholic Church should have served to surprise nobody. Mr Gabriele,
the defendant, said he was appalled by the “evil and corruption” of the
Church, which he called “the kingdom of hypocrisy.” What is being
missed by the US media, to be sure, is the closeness of the US’s biggest
bank, JPMorgan, to Vatican City disregard for moral hazard and law.
Sure, the press has recently covered
JPMorgan failing to comply with anti-money laundering laws, but
JPMorgan has been implicated (not legally) in a laundering scandal much
more grave than the ones being investigated by US authorities. While
currently the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is looking into
JPMorgan’s systems designed to monitor money laundering, there has been
no word in the US press (except for here at Silver Vigilante) regarding
JP Morgan laundering money for the Vatican.
Read More @ Silver Vigilante
The Vatican has been embroiled
in conspiracy since the Vatileaks scandal of last Fall. And, currently,
the trial of the butler of Pope Benedict, who is accused of leaking
secret documents, is underway. Motivated by a desire to expose
corruption and greed from within, the butler released the documents to
journalists. In them, skulduggery and intrigue at the highest levels of
the Catholic Church should have served to surprise nobody. Mr Gabriele,
the defendant, said he was appalled by the “evil and corruption” of the
Church, which he called “the kingdom of hypocrisy.” What is being
missed by the US media, to be sure, is the closeness of the US’s biggest
bank, JPMorgan, to Vatican City disregard for moral hazard and law.
Sure, the press has recently covered
JPMorgan failing to comply with anti-money laundering laws, but
JPMorgan has been implicated (not legally) in a laundering scandal much
more grave than the ones being investigated by US authorities. While
currently the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is looking into
JPMorgan’s systems designed to monitor money laundering, there has been
no word in the US press (except for here at Silver Vigilante) regarding
JP Morgan laundering money for the Vatican.Read More @ Silver Vigilante
by Harlan Ullman, UPI.com:
The author says the Obama administration is making a defense and geopolitical “pivot to nowhere” and unless it is redirected, few of the consequences will be good.
When Britain and France launched pre-emptive military strikes last year
that would eventually depose Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and his
regime, one of President Barack Obama’s most senior advisers described
U.S. involvement as “leading from behind,” a most unfortunate descriptor
that haunted the administration much as George W. Bush’s “mission
accomplished” label early in the 2003 Iraq war repeatedly hounded him.
This January, in announcing a new defense strategy, the White House made another blunder. This strategy was proclaimed as “a strategic pivot to Asia.”
Almost immediately, the administration reversed gears. No one easily accepts responsibility for a major gaffe and “rebalancing” became the palliative excuse.
Read More @ UPI.com
The author says the Obama administration is making a defense and geopolitical “pivot to nowhere” and unless it is redirected, few of the consequences will be good.
When Britain and France launched pre-emptive military strikes last year
that would eventually depose Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and his
regime, one of President Barack Obama’s most senior advisers described
U.S. involvement as “leading from behind,” a most unfortunate descriptor
that haunted the administration much as George W. Bush’s “mission
accomplished” label early in the 2003 Iraq war repeatedly hounded him.This January, in announcing a new defense strategy, the White House made another blunder. This strategy was proclaimed as “a strategic pivot to Asia.”
Almost immediately, the administration reversed gears. No one easily accepts responsibility for a major gaffe and “rebalancing” became the palliative excuse.
Read More @ UPI.com
by Marin Katusa, Casey Research:
In its later days, the Soviet Union was desperate for strong
leadership. Instead the country found itself with a succession of weak
leaders who kept dying on the job.
Leonid Brezhnev helmed the country for 18 years until his death in 1982. Yuri Andropov took over after Brezhnev’s passing but suffered renal failure within a few months. He continued to govern from the hospital for another year before dying just 15 months after taking office.
The next leader of the USSR did not even last that long. Konstantin Chernenko was 72 years old and in poor health when sworn in as First Secretary in early 1984. In March 1985, after only 13 months in office, Chernenko died, the third Soviet leader to die in less than three years.
When Ronald Reagan was informed of Chernenko’s passing, the US president supposedly said, “How am I supposed to get any place with the Russians if they keep dying on me?”
Read More @ CaseyResearch.com
In its later days, the Soviet Union was desperate for strong
leadership. Instead the country found itself with a succession of weak
leaders who kept dying on the job.Leonid Brezhnev helmed the country for 18 years until his death in 1982. Yuri Andropov took over after Brezhnev’s passing but suffered renal failure within a few months. He continued to govern from the hospital for another year before dying just 15 months after taking office.
The next leader of the USSR did not even last that long. Konstantin Chernenko was 72 years old and in poor health when sworn in as First Secretary in early 1984. In March 1985, after only 13 months in office, Chernenko died, the third Soviet leader to die in less than three years.
When Ronald Reagan was informed of Chernenko’s passing, the US president supposedly said, “How am I supposed to get any place with the Russians if they keep dying on me?”
Read More @ CaseyResearch.com
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times.com:
Make no mistake; the Emir of Qatar is on a roll.
What an entrance at the UN General Assembly in New York; Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani called for an Arab coalition of the willing-style invasion of Syria, no less. [1]
In the words of the Emir, “It is better for the Arab countries themselves to interfere out of their national, humanitarian, political and military duties, and to do what is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Syria.” He stressed Arab countries had a “military duty” to invade.
What he means by “Arab countries” is the petromonarchies of the Gulf Counter-Revolution Club (GCC), previously known as Gulf Cooperation Council – with implicit help from Turkey, with which the GCC has a wide-ranging strategic agreement. Every shisha house in the Middle East knows that Doha, Riyadh and Ankara have been weaponizing/financing/providing logistical help to the various strands of the armed Syrian opposition engaged in regime change.
Read More @ ATimes.com
Make no mistake; the Emir of Qatar is on a roll.
What an entrance at the UN General Assembly in New York; Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani called for an Arab coalition of the willing-style invasion of Syria, no less. [1]
In the words of the Emir, “It is better for the Arab countries themselves to interfere out of their national, humanitarian, political and military duties, and to do what is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Syria.” He stressed Arab countries had a “military duty” to invade.
What he means by “Arab countries” is the petromonarchies of the Gulf Counter-Revolution Club (GCC), previously known as Gulf Cooperation Council – with implicit help from Turkey, with which the GCC has a wide-ranging strategic agreement. Every shisha house in the Middle East knows that Doha, Riyadh and Ankara have been weaponizing/financing/providing logistical help to the various strands of the armed Syrian opposition engaged in regime change.
Read More @ ATimes.com
by Doug Noland, PrudentBear.com:
The focus of analysis this week shifts back to Europe. My thesis
remains that the unfolding European debt and economic crises provide a
potential catalyst for a bout of problematic global
de-risking/de-leveraging. An argument can be made that the recent rally
and short squeeze throughout global risk markets actually heightens
market vulnerability.
I have expected that policy would have little success in halting the bad debt cancer spreading methodically from Europe’s periphery to its core. I have also posited that with core country Spain enveloped in Credit tumult, crisis momentum had passed a critical juncture. It is worth recalling that Spanish 10-yr yields reached 7.5% in late-July, as Italian yields surged to 6.6%. An important part of the thesis, as well, has been that the European crisis would expose Bubble fragilities fermenting in the “developing” economies, especially in China, Brazil and India. There has been important confirmation in the thesis, both from financial and economic perspectives.
Read More @ PrudentBear.com
The focus of analysis this week shifts back to Europe. My thesis
remains that the unfolding European debt and economic crises provide a
potential catalyst for a bout of problematic global
de-risking/de-leveraging. An argument can be made that the recent rally
and short squeeze throughout global risk markets actually heightens
market vulnerability. I have expected that policy would have little success in halting the bad debt cancer spreading methodically from Europe’s periphery to its core. I have also posited that with core country Spain enveloped in Credit tumult, crisis momentum had passed a critical juncture. It is worth recalling that Spanish 10-yr yields reached 7.5% in late-July, as Italian yields surged to 6.6%. An important part of the thesis, as well, has been that the European crisis would expose Bubble fragilities fermenting in the “developing” economies, especially in China, Brazil and India. There has been important confirmation in the thesis, both from financial and economic perspectives.
Read More @ PrudentBear.com
from Bullion Street:
Significant increase in Turkey’s Gold exports, bulk of it to Iran
helped country’s trade deficit to fall 30 percent in August, according
to Turkish Statistics Institute.
TSI said Turkey’s trade deficit fell to $5.86 billion,compared with $7.89bn deficit in July.
Gold exports in the first eight months jumped more than four-fold to $11.2bn as Iranians turn to the precious metal to protect savings and, potentially, to trade as Western sanctions aimed at forcing the Islamic republic to curb its nuclear programme tighten.
Overall exports to the United Arab Emirates jumped eight-fold to $2.23bn, making the UAE Turkey’s biggest export destination in August.
Exports to Africa and the Middle East rose 43 percent and 63 percent respectively, while exports to Europe, Turkey’s main trading partner, fell 9 percent.
Read More @ BullionStreet.com
Significant increase in Turkey’s Gold exports, bulk of it to Iran
helped country’s trade deficit to fall 30 percent in August, according
to Turkish Statistics Institute.TSI said Turkey’s trade deficit fell to $5.86 billion,compared with $7.89bn deficit in July.
Gold exports in the first eight months jumped more than four-fold to $11.2bn as Iranians turn to the precious metal to protect savings and, potentially, to trade as Western sanctions aimed at forcing the Islamic republic to curb its nuclear programme tighten.
Overall exports to the United Arab Emirates jumped eight-fold to $2.23bn, making the UAE Turkey’s biggest export destination in August.
Exports to Africa and the Middle East rose 43 percent and 63 percent respectively, while exports to Europe, Turkey’s main trading partner, fell 9 percent.
Read More @ BullionStreet.com
by Pater Tenebrarum, Acting-Man.com:
There Is No Choice
We have previously pointed out that there is actually no choice at all for the US electorate at the upcoming presidential election. This is because in terms of the policies they support, it is nigh impossible to differentiate between the two candidates. We were not just making an unsupported assertion – we offered proof, by showing a video in which they speak for themselves. If one cannot rely on their own words to represent what they stand for, what should one rely on?
Of course it has often been that way in the past too, but usually one only finds out for sure after the election, not already before it. However, the Obamney – clones are so glaringly similar that this time there can be no doubt about it from the very outset. Anyone who actually votes in this election (except if they log a protest vote for a write-in candidate) is basically wasting his time. Not only that, they are announcing that they are gullible and that they meekly support the status quo. As George Carlin once said, ‘they lose the right to complain‘.
Read More @ Acting-Man.com
There Is No ChoiceWe have previously pointed out that there is actually no choice at all for the US electorate at the upcoming presidential election. This is because in terms of the policies they support, it is nigh impossible to differentiate between the two candidates. We were not just making an unsupported assertion – we offered proof, by showing a video in which they speak for themselves. If one cannot rely on their own words to represent what they stand for, what should one rely on?
Of course it has often been that way in the past too, but usually one only finds out for sure after the election, not already before it. However, the Obamney – clones are so glaringly similar that this time there can be no doubt about it from the very outset. Anyone who actually votes in this election (except if they log a protest vote for a write-in candidate) is basically wasting his time. Not only that, they are announcing that they are gullible and that they meekly support the status quo. As George Carlin once said, ‘they lose the right to complain‘.
Read More @ Acting-Man.com
by Bruce Krasting, Bruce Krasting Blog:
ther than the fact that this is an incredibly big number, there is
nothing eye-opening about the payout. SS missed hitting the $65b
milestone by a fraction in September. In November, it will be higher
again. $70b will be hit by December 2013. The ladder to higher payouts
never stops.
$65b is a very big number:
-The monthly SS payout is bigger than the market cap of some well know companies, including: Amex, 3M, US Bankcorp, Amgen, eBay and Caterpillar. Goldman Sachs is worth a measly $54b. SS could buy the whole thing with just three-weeks worth of payout.
-The annual cost for SS is greater than the
ridiculousmonster market cap for Apple. If SS used its muscle to buy big cap
stocks, it could buy up all of the shares of Microsoft, Wal-Mart and
Google in less than a year.
The annual SS payout is about the same as the GDP of the Netherlands. It is well larger than the output of either Turkey, Switzerland or Saudi Arabia. In 2013 SS will spend more than the GDP of Indonesia, a country of 250m people.
Read More @ BruceKrasting.blogspot.com
from Gregory Mannarino:
ther than the fact that this is an incredibly big number, there is
nothing eye-opening about the payout. SS missed hitting the $65b
milestone by a fraction in September. In November, it will be higher
again. $70b will be hit by December 2013. The ladder to higher payouts
never stops.$65b is a very big number:
-The monthly SS payout is bigger than the market cap of some well know companies, including: Amex, 3M, US Bankcorp, Amgen, eBay and Caterpillar. Goldman Sachs is worth a measly $54b. SS could buy the whole thing with just three-weeks worth of payout.
-The annual cost for SS is greater than the
The annual SS payout is about the same as the GDP of the Netherlands. It is well larger than the output of either Turkey, Switzerland or Saudi Arabia. In 2013 SS will spend more than the GDP of Indonesia, a country of 250m people.
Read More @ BruceKrasting.blogspot.com
Communication Items You’ll Want Before TSHTF – Part 2
It’s not a question of “IF” TPTB will shut the internet down it’s “WHEN”? The purpose of these articles it to create awareness in becoming independent of the internet and become your own beacon of news by maintaining contact through the coming difficulties.from Gregory Mannarino:
Total Donations over the last 3 1/2 years. approx $165.00 (Thank You).
Donations will help defray the operational costs. Paypal, a leading provider of secure online money transfers, will handle the donations. Thank you for your contribution.
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