Paul Brodsky: The Seeds of Our Destruction Were - And Still Are - Sown in the Bond Markets

Paul Brodsky does not trust the bond markets. That position may seem strange coming from someone who has spent most of his professional career trading bonds, but it's precisely this insider knowledge that has led him to start directing investors to safer harbors. In fact, he thinks our credit system is so far out of control that it will cause a massive - and largely unavoidable at this point - devaluation of the US dollar (and most other fiat currencies, as well). Ultimately, Brodsky recommends investors concerned with protecting the purchasing power of their wealth today get exposure to hard assets that can't be so easily inflated away.

American Anger: 58% Say Are "Furious About America's Politics" Compared To 49% In January, 37% Support #OWS

The Arab Spring, which yesterday claimed its first brutal televized murder, confirming that the new regime is unfortunately in no way more civilized or humane than the old one, is slowly gaining ever more traction, and those in power who think they are immune from the basest of human emotions like Gadaffi thought, even in so-called civilized countries, may be surprised to discover otherwise. According to a new AP-GfK poll, 37% of respondents back "Occupy Wall Street" and its various offshoot variants. As can be expected, "A majority of those protest supporters are Democrats, but the anger about politics in general is much more widespread, the poll indicates." What is more disturbing is that nearly two thirds of respondents are openly expressing anger with everything that is wrong in America, even if they can't quite place their affiliation with either the Tea-Party of the #OWS movement. "58 percent say they are furious about America's politics. The number of angry people is growing as deep reservoirs of resentment grip the country." The number was 49% in January - in other words it is rising with meteoric speed. And with the topic of Marxism lately quite prevalent if for purely intellectual masturbation purposes, perhaps the practical implications of Marxist "discontent" should also be considered, and the defining question becomes what will be the tipping point beyond which silent protest and peaceful occupation morphs into something far worse.

Bank Of America Is Restructuring Its Retail Bank Division - Full Memo

Any internal memo that is distributed on the last day of the week, and intercepted by American Banker at 5pm on a Friday, must surely be a portent of many good news for the bank which recently added a few trillion in derivative "assets" to match its OpCo deposit pool "liability". We can only hope that as a result of the restructuring, the company's retail banking website will no longer mysteriously crash following announcements of gratuitous debit card fees. Then again, any BofA announcement that has the following sentence in it, "remember, we have the best franchise, capabilities, and customer base in the industry" confirms that the level of mass delusion is unfixable, and that the website will most certainly be the first to go once the bank's $1 trillion in deposits realize they are the first line of defense to just a few extra trillion in derivative contracts.

Forget The NYSE Shorts, And Be Very Afraid Of The Resumption In Bearish EUR Sentiment (And Squeeze)

Just when one thought the oversold status of the all important Euro (by way of the market defining EURUSD) may have peaked and short covering resumed, we once again find that the technical reason (not to be confused with the fundamental one which has to do with EUR repatriation by French banks) why the EUR continues to melt up, and drag all 1.000 correlated assets along with it, is that after a brief retracement in mega bearish exposure in the currency as of last week, bearish sentment once again returned, and after 8,902 net short non-commercial contracts were covered in the weekend ended October 11, the subsequent most recent week saw another 3,925 net shorts added according to the CFTC's COT report, bringing net short exposure back to near 2011 'highs' at -77,720 contracts. This is, to put it mildly, disturbing, because while stock pundits look at NYSE short interest, in this day and age of ultra low volume and liquidity algo trading, the only real transaction occur on the uber-levered margin: i.e., the EURUSD, where one pip delta translates in roughly 2 DJIA points. But it is explicitly disturbing because while the EURUSD has just closed at 1.39, or the highest (resistance) level since early September when the pair broke down, the net short interest now is well over double when the EURUSD first traded at this level. 

On A Long Enough Timeline, Every CNBC Million Dollar Challenge Is Front Run To Smithereens

First, the algos took over the real markets. Now, they control the fake ones too...

Chinese buyers love gold's dips in London, King World News says

Sean Corrigan: Value can't be calculated after governments wreck markets

 

 

Gillian Tett in the Financial Times: It would be foolish to deride or ignore GATA

 

Why such a manipulated and covert gold market?, Rickards asks

Russian central bank acquiring 'huge volumes' of gold

 

 

Market manipulation and the second Great Depression

Chris Powell: Where in the world is the gold?

Long wait for silver delivery in manipulated market, trader tells King World News

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