The Whole Financial System Will One Day Collapse

Admin at Marc Faber Blog - 21 minutes ago

So, relative to Government Bonds, equities are attractive and if you really think it throughand you are as bearish as I am and you think the whole financial sysytem will one day collapse...we don`t know if in 3 years, 5 years or 10 years...but one day there will be a reset and everybody will essentially start at new. So you`re better off in equities than in governemnt bonds because a lot of government bonds will either default or they will have to print so much money that the purchasing power of money will depreciate very rapidly. - *excerpt from a in Bloomberg TV interview* *Marc... more » 

¥1,086,000,000,000,000 (Quadrillion) In Debt And Rising, And WhyThe ¥ Will Soon Be A $: "A Lost Decade... Or Two"

Yesterday the Japanese Finance Ministry made a whopper of an announcement: in the year ending March 2013, total Japanese debt will surpass one quadrillion yen, or ¥1,086,000,000,000,000. This is roughly in line with the Zero Hedge expectations that by this March total Japanese debt would surpass one quadrillion yen. In USD terms, at today's exchange rate, this is precisely $14 trillion. And while smaller than America's $15.4 trillion (net of all post debt ceiling breach auctions), which was $14 trillion about a year ago, the GDP backing this notional amount of debt, which just so happens is greater than the GDP of the entire Euro area, is a modest ¥481 trillion, so by the end of the next fiscal year, Japan will have a Debt to GDP ratio of 225%. And that's not counting all the household and financial debt. So prepare to add quadrillion to the vernacular. At this exponential rate of increase quintillion will appear some time in 2015 and so on. Yet the scariest conclusion is that as Bloomberg economist Joseph Brusuelas points out, America is not only next, it already is Japan. Actually scratch that, America is worse than Japan, which at least generated a real housing bubble in the years just preceding the onset of its multi-decade credit crunch, something not even America could do in comparable terms. More importantly, "the debt-to-GDP ratio of the U.S. recently surpassed 100 percent, and it did so in the four years after the onset of the recession, compared with the six years it took the Japanese debt-to-GDP ratio to do so." The Japanese may be better than America in most things, but when it comes to destroying its economy, the US has no equal. Brusuelas' conclusion: "If below trend growth is the most probable scenario in the U.S., the most likely alternative is that the U.S. economy is headed for a lost decade… or two." So... go all in?










Sorry Folks, Europe Is Not Fine... Not Even Close
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/sorry-folks-europe-not-fine%E2%80%A6-not...


Silver Sales Up As Supply Slips
http://www.silverseek.com/article/silver-sales-supply-slips


We're Headed to a Point Where Gold Will Go Parabolic
http://kingworldnews.com


The Great American Retirement Catastrophe
http://www.profitconfidential.com/economic-analysis/the-great-american-retire...


Draft Jeb Bush
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/288986/draft-jeb-bush-artur-davis#


Sure Sign of Economic Meltdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGqEzvqY4VA


How To Divert The Unprepared From Your Preps
http://modernsurvivalblog.com/preps/how-to-divert-the-unprepared-from-your-pr...


Denver Airport Allows Camera Crew in Underground Facility
http://youtu.be/qgbzBQgiq3g

Who Should Be The Next US President?

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 8 minutes ago

A recent interview, The Street. Topics: US Presidential elections, Adam Smith, Ron Paul; *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bloomberg and CNBC.* 

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Wal-Mart Pulls Greeters From Night Shift as Walton Legacy Ebbs

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 18 minutes ago

Sam Walton built an empire because he knew that some things were more important than money. Follow the money! Capital has been anticipating the "cost savings creep" and the death of Sam Walton’s legacy for years. Wal Mart (WMT) Headline: Wal-Mart Pulls Greeters From Night Shift as Walton Legacy Ebbs Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), the world’s largest retailer, has removed greeters from the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

 

Mainstream Entities Will Now Enter Gold Market

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 53 minutes ago

Jim's discussion below will attract more attention as the price of gold and silver blast through consolidation patterns in the coming day/weeks/months. Mainstream entities will quickly find out that strong physical demand for gold and silver is slowly pushing the COMEX paper price towards irrelevancy. Today’s developments are watershed events that are discussed in the following interview with... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] 

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China’s Treasury Holdings Fell in November as Yields Declined

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 1 hour ago

The United Kingdom through its various fronts for backdoor money and Japan easily cover China's reduction in holdings. The movement of capital responds not to can but rather how the deficits are financed. A slow withdrawal by the Chinese represents a unique challenge of "finding" the money without raising red flags created by unusual money flows. Major Foreigner Holders of US Treasury... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] 

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Geithner Is Getting Canned

Dave in Denver at The Golden Truth - 13 hours ago

I will be throwing a big celebration party when he's gone: LINK The cover story is that Obama is not going to ask him to remain if TOTUS (Teleprompter Of The U.S. - zerohedge original) gets re-elected. But I'm sure the only reason is that Obama is trying to polish up his image with respect to amount of bending over he's done for Wall Street and the amount of Taxpayer money that Geithner has transferred like a good stage monkey to the too big to fail banks. I can honestly say that Geithner has got to be one of the dumbest, most useless high-ranking public officials I have ever o... more » 

Baltic Dry Plunges 42% More Than Seasonal Norm To Start The Year

Whether it is an over-abundance of ships (mis-allocation of capital) or a slowing global growth story (aggregate demand), the crash in the Baltic Dry Index has been significant to say the least. Seasonals are prevalent (and Chinese New Year impacts) but to try and clean up that perspective, we find that so far this year the Baltic Dry has fallen 42% more than its seasonal normal and is down by more than 50% since 12/30/11. Nothing to see here move along.

Jobless Claims Miss, Durable Goods Better Than Expected

And so the volatility continues: initial claims go from 402K to an upward revised 356K, to 377K, on expectations of 370K. The swings in this data series are getting as big as those in the stock market on those rare occasions when reality sets in. The miss is in line with the Fed perceived weakness in the economy. Continuing claims also missed coming at 3554K up from an upward revised 3466K, higher than expectations of 3500K. A whopping 146K dropped out of extended claims: in fact, in the past year the unemployed collecting post 6 month benefits either EUCs or Extended Benefits have plunged from 4.6 million to 3.4 million. As for last week's massive drop of nearly 50K initial claims, we learn that somehow it was New York to thank for this, with 27.7K less claims than the week before due to "Fewer layoffs in the transportation, educational, and construction industries." How about layoffs in the financial services industry, and also how much do those jobs pay vs "transportation, educational and construction" jobs?  What however does not justify the Fed's ZIRP through 2015 or so, is the Durable Goods number which came at 3.0%, on expectations of 2.0%, down from an upward revised 4.3%. The bulk of this was in airplane orders thanks to Boeing as noted previously. However what was surprising is that Durable Goods ex transportation came in at a blistering 2.1% on Exp of 0.9%, and Capital Goods Orders ex Non-Def and Aircraft which rose 2.9% on expectations of 1.0%. However since the Fed has made it clear it will boost its balance sheet, and as of today the implied increase is over $800 billion, at the smallest whiff of trouble, the risk bubble is in full on mode as bad news is good news, and good news is better news.

Portugal 10 Year Yield Passes 15% For The First Time, Is Where Greek 10 Year Was In August

As the world awaits resolution out of Greece and the debt exchange offer which even if passed today would have to cram 6 months of actual work into 54 days, the global bond vigilantes are not sticking around, and continue to attack the next weakest link - Portugal, whose 10 Year bonds just passed 15% in yield, and were trading well below 50 cents of par with CDS hitting a new record of 1350 bps. Naturally this has brought out the ECB's crack bond buying team (only at a central bank does a "trader" need only know how to buy, selling skills are optional) which tried to put the genie back in the bottle but now it is too late. After all, vigilantes are just wondering what form the Portuguese restructuring will take place considering that unlike Greece the bulk of its bonds have strong protections. So if one does use Greece as a benchmark how long does Portugal have? As the third chart shows, the last time 10 year GGBs passed 15% was back in August. So Portugal has 6 months. Give or take.

Frontrunning: January 26

• BOJ Should Be Allowed $643 Billion Fund to Buy Foreign Bonds, Iwata Says (Bloomberg)
• Banks Hoarding ECB Cash May Double Company Defaults (Bloomberg)
• China Police Open Fire on Tibetans as Protests Spread (Bloomberg)
• Sarkozy Presidential Rival Hollande Would Lower Retirement Age, Lift Taxes (Bloomberg)
• IMF takes tougher stance over Greek debt (FT)
• Iran threatens to act first on EU embargo (FT)
• PM says ‘no complacency’ on economy (FT)
• George Soros: How to pull Italy and Spain back from the edge (FT)
• Japan's NEC to slash 10,000 jobs (Reuters)
• Obama Planning Corporate Tax Overhaul (Bloomberg)

Continuing Negative Real Interest Rates Sees Gold Rise Above $1,700/oz

Gold rose 2.5% yesterday and broke $1,700/oz to $1,712.80, its biggest one-day gain in the past 4 months, as the US Federal Reserve’s 11 out of 17 members voted that interest rates would likely remain near zero into late 2014. Investors sought safe haven refuge into gold fearing their portfolios would lose value as Central Banks flood the markets with loose monetary policies and more cash for governments that can't seem to manage their balance sheets.  A group of 7 major economies now have interest rates that average .5%.  Silver also rallied up 4%.  Today's Comex February gold option expirations will show more activity in the gold markets. One trader stated that gold's gains on Wednesday could be due to a huge cover on a short position before today's option expiration.

Rumors Start Early: Greek Creditors "Ready To Accept" 3.75% Cash Coupon But With Untenable Conditions

As a reminder, the primary reason why the Greek PSI deal "officially" broke down last week, is because the European Fin Mins balked at the creditor group proposal of a 4%+ cash coupon. So now that creditor talks, which incidentally don't have a soft deadline so they can continue indefinitely, or until the money runs out on March 20, whichever comes first, have resumed we already are getting the first totally unsubstantiated "leaks" that negotiations are on the right path. As various US wires reported overnight, including DJ, BBG and Reuters, citing completely "unbiased" and "unconflicted" local Greek media, "Greece's private creditors are willing to improve their "final offer" of a four percent interest rate on new Greek bonds in order to clinch a deal in time to avert a messy default, Greek media said on Thursday without quoting any sources. With time running short ahead of a major bond redemption in March, private creditors are now considering an average coupon of around 3.75 percent on bonds they will receive in exchange for their existing investments, the newspapers wrote." All is good then: the hedge funds will make the proposal to Europe and Europe will accept, right? Wrong. "Another daily, Kerdos said participation of public sector creditors including the ECB in the swap deal was a pre-condition for that offer, which it said could bring the average interest rate to about 3.8 percent." And that as was reported yesterday is a non-starter. So in other words, the latest levitation in the EURUSD started at about 4am Eastern is nothing but yet another rumor-based attempt to ramp up risk. Only this time the rumor is actually quite senseless, which probably explains why even the market which has been completely irrational lately, has seen the EURUSD drop from overnight highs. That said, expect this rumor to be recirculated at least 5 more times before end of trading.

Guest Post: Something's Fishy in Tripoli

In October, rebel forces presumably said to hell with it and figured they'd save everyone a lot of time by killing Gadhafi themselves. The ICC didn't seem to mind much and a now-fractured interim government did little to worry the Italian government enough to decide during the weekend that business was booming in post-Gadhafi Libya.  Before the conflict began, a group of Democratic lawmakers in Washington issued a 123-page report claiming the 2009 decision to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was tied to commercial oil interests with Tripoli.  A British inquiry into the case found BP was involved to some extent in the 2009 decision because, according to New York's Sen. Chuck Schumer, London wanted an oil deal to go through with the Gadhafi government.   So where were these same senators when it was announced in November that Abdulrahman Ben Yezza was appointed as the new Libyan oil minister? He's the former chairman of Eni Oil Co., a joint venture between the Italian energy company and Libya's National Oil Corp. Why no furor when Eni Chief Executive Officer Paulo Scaroni became the first executive from an oil major to visit when he went to Tripoli in September? For that matter, where are the Democrats in the United States? It seems rather duplicitous to on one hand sit and debate censuring Syria at the Security Council for 10 months while it took, what, a few weeks to get one through on Libya? Was Gadhafi's Libya somehow ripe for the picking? Was the Libyan resolution simply too crafty for those pesky Russians?  Italy and Libya during the weekend signed a letter that spells out bilateral coordination for the protection of its borders and oil installations. Makes you wonder who is drawing up what at which European energy company as U.S. battle carriers head to the western Iranian coast.




Think Your Vote Counts???

Hacking Democracy

from truthseekertimes:
[Ed. Note: For those who have not seen the incredible documentary "Hacking Democracy" featuring Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org, check it out. It explains HOW the integrity of our elections has been breached by easily hacked Diebold voting machines.]

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