Heading for Economic Collapse

by Stephen Lendman, SJLendman.Blogspot.com:

The late Bob Chapman predicted it years ago. So does Paul Craig Roberts. It could “destroy Western civilization,” he believes.
Untenable political and financial decisions put US and European economies on a collision course with disaster. Bailouts and market manipulation delay the inevitable.
A tipping point approaches. Only its timeframe is unknown.
Money power runs world economies. Wall Street and giant European banks run Western societies.
“Financial deregulation converted the financial system (into) a gambling casino….,” says Roberts. Zero interest rates destroy household savings. Media scoundrels suppress ugly truths.
Western governments letting banking crooks scam the system for profits “is a system that is headed for catastrophic failure.”
Bad news keeps getting worse. Public acknowledgement arrives late. Moody’s June 21 downgrade of 15 major banks conceded what’s been known for years.
Read More @ SJLendman.Blogspot.com

Forget the PIIGS, the EU as a Whole is Insolvent

Posted by: Phoenix Capital...

Post date: 06/23/2012 - 20:56

Let’s consider Germany. According to Axel Weber, the former  head of Germany’s Central Bank, Germany is in fact sitting on a REAL Debt to GDP ratio of over 200%. ...

Trade Deficits and the Freedom of Choice

by Gregory Cummings, Mises.ca:

Alan Uke, author of Buying America Back: A Real-Deal Blueprint for Restoring American Prosperity, has published an article at The Huffington Post entitled The High Cost of Cheap Imports. Here he claims that the current economic crisis in America is due to its balance of payments.

Our current economic crisis is not the fault of international trade but of the fact that much of it is dangerously imbalanced. For every dollar Americans spend on Chinese goods, only $0.25 is returned. It doesn’t take a math wiz to figure out that eventually we’re going to be pretty short on cash. These kinds of trading partners cause the bulk of our massive trade deficit.

According to Uke and other anti-trade deficit protectionists, the economic crisis could be fixed by eliminating the trade deficit. In theory, this could be accomplished in one of two ways: either by increasing exports or decreasing imports. Increasing exports would benefit exporting industries. Decreasing imports, through tariffs or quotas, would benefit domestic competitors of foreign-imported goods. In either case, profits and wages of the affected domestic industries would likely rise. Because of this, it is concluded that trade deficits are economically harmful. State protection in the form of badges and guns is deemed necessary in order to prevent a trade deficit and provide a net benefit to the country.
Read More @ Mises.ca

 

Muslim Brotherhood-Backed Candidate Wins Egyptian Presidential Election

In a move not too surprising to those who have followed the Egyptian presidential election, the candidate who is now president of the country one year after its "liberation" is the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohammed Mursi (for an extended interview with Mursi delineating his views read this ), who has won with over 13 million, or 51.73% of the votes. This means that at least superficially the Egyptian military is being pulled back from power, and instead the Islamist forces will be in control. How this ultimately impacts the region, and especially Egyptian neighbor Israel, remains to be seen, although a major Islamist power ascending in control of a formerly secular nation will hardly be very beneficial to Israel, especially in the long-run even if the just elected president has pro-western beliefs.

NATO Member Turkey Says Syrian Jet Take Down Is A Hostile Act

And so the escalation-cum-provocation-cum false flag is complete. There was a time when shooting down a foreign jet over one's territory was considered self-defense. But not when the one doing the defending is perpetual media bogeyman Syria, which "unnamed sources say" kills hundreds, nay thousands of its own people daily, usually in round, soundbitey numbers. Of course, the other side to the story is irrelevant: the Western-led media is never known to fabricate stories that suit the status quo's power and military industrial complex interests. All that is relevant is for the west, aka NATO, aka Hillary Clinton to get an angle to push for provocation. She just got it. As we suspected on Friday, there was much more than met the eye with the Syrian take down of a Turkey F-4 jet. Remember what we said on Friday: "The only question remains whether Syria's act was offensive or defensive. Naturally, its version is one of self-defense. Turkey obviously will claim it was in its right to be wherever the plane may be, and will say this was an act of provocation. Then NATO, read Hillary Clinton, will promptly step in, and make this a case in which Turkey was in its right and that Syria committed an act of aggression. From there, things will just escalate, and can potentially deteriorate to a far more troubling scale, because as we reminded earlier, Syria has recently become a major symbol for NATO vs the Russia-China axis." And sure enough, just out from CNN: "Turkey declares jet shoot-down a 'hostile' act."

Mike Krieger: Twisted

No one believes in their positions (other than people that hold hard assets like precious metals outside of the banking system and will not sell until the system is reset), rather investors and traders are forced to be involved in positions as a function of their mandates.  Their decisions are no longer driven by economic or business prospects but rather by some view on what the Central Planners of the world will do next.  The markets seem calm but there is a storm brewing beneath them and the pressure will be released one way or the other.  We are now in the crucial six week period between Fed meetings.  The reason I think this is such an important time is because not only will investors come to grips with the reality on the ground (recession) but it is also earnings season.  As I pointed out during the last earnings period, stocks that had even a whiff of weakness in their numbers or outlook were decimated.  Even names that had good results did not break out.  This sent a clear signal that too much goodness is priced into many shares out there.

The Loophoole That Placed MF Global Customers At Risk Is Still Being Used

Europe & US Combined Are 30 Times Bigger Than The Indian Economy

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 1 hour ago

Now, Europe and America are gigantic economies. They combine together a 30-40 times of the Indian economy. So, when they have problems, it is going to affect everybody including India. - *in NDTV * *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.*

Surprise Strength in Gold

by Adrian Ash, Gold Seek:

Given the challenges it faces, gold so far in 2012 has in fact proven strong…
“GOLD PRICE PLUMMETS” is the obvious headline right now. But fact is, the gold price has in truth been surprisingly strong so far this year.
First up, the US gold futures and options market. These contracts rarely run to physical settlement, but still they wag the dog of physical prices near-term. Because the price of gold for future delivery of course affects how much people ask or bid for metal today.
That future price, whether being set by hedge funds or chased by doctors and dentists (private traders risk getting “filled and drilled” by retail brokers, or so goes the joke), is bet on with borrowed money. So credit is a big factor. And credit has vanished since last summer’s big peak in the gold price, just as did when Lehmans collapsed.
Next up, the world’s heaviest physical buyers – Indian households. Now overtaken by Chinese consumers, India buyers are always quiet this time of year (what with the monsoon season, a lack of auspicious festivals, and the post-harvest wedding and Diwali season still four months off). But New Delhi’s active policy of trying to stem gold bullion imports in 2012, plus the record-high prices set by the fast-sinking Rupee, have chewed up this massive support for global demand by perhaps 30% or more on best estimates.
Read More @ GoldSeek.com

On the Edge with Greg Hunter

from PressTVGlobalNews:

Jim Puplava: Oil Is The New Federal Funds Rate

by Chris Martenson, Financial Sense:
Jim Puplava has made a decades-long career of interviewing hundreds of notable experts on the economy, energy, precious metals, geopolitics, agriculture and other sectors that impact our future.
The outlook he has developed as a result of all this input is less than sanguine. Jim concludes that economic growth will be constrained both by world governments’ chronic addiction to spending more revenue than they take in, and by the systemically-rising costs of fossil fuel-driven energy.
In terms growth, he sees political leadership becoming less and less relevant in its ability to effect outcomes. In fact, he declares the price of oil as now being more influential in stimulating or depressing sovereign economies than central bank interest rates. In his words, “”oil is the new Federal Funds rate”".

Read More Part 1 @ Financial Sense.com

Does Syria Want a War?

from Azizonomics:

We know for sure that Syria intentionally shot down a Turkish — and thus protected by NATO — warplane in its airspace. We also know that Syria is comfortable enough to admit it.
The AP reports:

Syria said Friday it shot down a Turkish military plane that entered Syrian air space, and Turkey vowed to “determinedly take necessary steps” in response.
It was the most clear and dramatic escalation in tensions between the two countries, which used to be allies before the Syrian revolt began in March 2011. Turkey has become one of the strongest critics of the Syrian regime’s brutal response to the country’s uprising.
Late Friday, Syria’s state-run news agency, SANA, said the military spotted an “unidentified aerial target” that was flying at a low altitude and at a high speed.
“The Syrian anti-air defenses counteracted with anti-aircraft artillery, hitting it directly,” SANA said. “The target turned out to be a Turkish military plane that entered Syrian airspace and was dealt with according to laws observed in such cases.”

Read More @ Azizonomics.com

The Unseen Hand

from, Gold Money:
The assessment of economic growth based on Gross Domestic Product is a fallacy, because GDP is merely a measure of the amount of money in an economy. The one thing it does not measure, which is central to economic progress (note progress, not growth), is the level of entrepreneurial activity. This has important implications for the efficacy of government interventions and solutions to the current economic crisis.
I have written about GDP before, but to refresh the reader’s memory, GDP is basically the sum total of recorded business activity at the consumption level plus government spending expressed in money terms. If the government spends more, GDP rises; give more money to consumers, GDP rises; give more bank credit to consumers or business, GDP rises. Cut government spending, GDP falls. This is not contentious and has nothing to do with economic progress. Importantly, it excludes future entrepreneurial activity, except to the extent that an entrepreneur has actually spent some money putting his future plans into action. The obsession with GDP means that entrepreneurial activity, which is Adam Smith’s unseen hand that guides our future, is invisible to economic planners.
Read More @ GoldMoney.com

CNBC: We Are All SLAVES to CENTRAL BANKERS

from TNSONSOFLIBERTY:

Silver Collateral Damage in Oil War Between Washington & Moscow?

from Silver Vigilante:
If there are doubts to be thrown at the theory of globalization as power consolidation by few international players, which amounts to a very narrow pyramid structure for the global society with demise-of-the-state globalists running the show, Russia might be one of them. Even stalwarts of the theory of a New World Order run by corporate heads and bankers who have engineered the once-society of nations into an international society with dimming borders are perplexed at explaining Russia’s place in the system. Much points to the idea that Putin is an obstacle in the way of western powers’ goal of a hegemonic system spanning across the entire globe.
For example, it is often publicized how Putin keeps oil magnates and titans waiting not only for meetings, but even for potential deals. According to Reuters, Putin recently left global oil executives waiting, thus leaving “little doubt as to who was the master of the world’s largest energy reserves.” According to Reuters:
“But the chief executives of BP, ConocoPhillips , Shell and Chevron stood with a dozen colleagues in a dark, chairless foyer, shifting from foot to foot on Thursday as they waited three hours for an audience.”
Read More @ Silver Vigilante

Nuclear talks with Iran end with “no progress made”; more sanctions and potential war loom

by Madison Ruppert, Activist Post
After three rounds of talks between Iran, the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany (known as the P5+1), on the Iranian nuclear program, no visible progress has been made.
This is likely because one side – particularly the West – came to the table with unreasonable expectations which reflect the wishes of extremist, delusional Israeli politicians who have expressed concerns over the nuclear talks blocking Israel’s ability to conduct a unilateral strike.
It is worth restating that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and is not even pursuing them as stated by none other than U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta (twice), Israeli military chief Benny Gantz, and the U.S. intelligence community, to name a few.
Unfortunately, due to the lack of measurable progress in the negotiations, there are currently no plans for further negotiations.This means that starting July 1, a new round of the crippling sanctions which have been imposed on Iran will be become active.
Read More @ Activist Post

Why Is No One Buying Silver Anymore?

from ScrapGoldBusiness :

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