Banks try to criminalize the use of cash – Levenstein

by Lawrence Williams, MineWeb.com:
During the month of April, gold prices were range bound between $1180 and ounce and $1215 an ounce with much of the transactions being set at around the $1200 an ounce level.
Gold prices bounced off the previous session’s six-week low on Monday, but remained under pressure as the U.S dollar firmed while buyers remained cautious on the timing of a US interest rate hike. June gold closed up $12.60 an ounce at $1,187.10 an ounce and spot gold ended the day at $1187.80 per ounce.
Gold hit its’ highest since early April at $1,215 earlier this week but failed to hold that level after the latest Federal Reserve meeting.
Read More @ MineWeb.com

Following "Terrorist-Fighting" Ban On Cash, France Passes "Le Patriot Act"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2015 - 17:10 In its efforts to 'protect' its citizens from terrorists, France deemed it necessary in March to "fight against the use of cash and anonymity in the French economy,"  and drastically reduced the public's freedom and privacy to spend. Today, that freedom and privacy took another blow as the French government passed "Le Patriot Act" dramatically beefing up the government's spying powers.

Government Using Subprime Mortgages To Pump Housing Recovery - Taxpayers Will Pay Again

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2015 - 17:45 To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, anyone who wants the government and Federal Reserve to create a housing recovery, deserves to get it good and hard, like a four by four to the side of their head. Subprime mortgages, subprime auto loans, and subprime student loans driven by preposterously low interest rates are the liquefying foundation of this fake economic recovery. Most rational people would agree that loaning money to people who will eventually default is not a good idea. But it is the underpinning of everything the Fed and government apparatchiks have done to keep this farce going a little while longer. It will not end well – Again.

Chuck Norris Pledges To Protect Texas From Federal Invasion

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2015 - 15:45 Chuck Norris has a (long) message for "progressives" who think the paranoia surrounding the federal government's Jade Helm military exercises amounts to what Texas Republican Todd Smith branded "hysterical idiocy." In a new blog post, Norris — also known to some as Walker Texas Ranger — invokes Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, a Navy SEAL he met at a dinner party, and an antique store owner on the way to warning the government to stay off of his ranch.

Quantitative Easing Is A Squalid Little Lie That Appeals To Economists With No Grasp Of History

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2015 - 16:36 There is one thing riskier than investing in a free market: investing in a rigged market when you think the central bank has your back. At some point, the free market returns with a vengeance, like a coiled spring made out of pure risk. That time may be coming soon. When you devalue money and distort the supposed risk-free rate, you devalue every aspect of the capital structure, and of society itself.

Stocks Sinko-No-Buyo As Crude Hits 6-Month Highs

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2015 - 16:02

 

Collaboration, Adaptation & Risk: Innovate Or Die

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2015 - 15:21 The great irony of free-market capitalism is that the only way to establish an enduring security is to embrace innovation and adaptation, the very processes that generate short-term insecurity. Attempting to guarantee security leads to risk being distributed to others, or concentrated within the system itself. When the accumulated risk manifests, the system collapses.
 

SEC Commissioner Furious At Deutsche Bank's "Decade Of Lying, Cheating, And Stealing"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2015 - 15:01 "Deutsche Bank’s illegal conduct involved nearly a decade of lying, cheating, and stealing. This criminal conduct was pervasive and widespread, involving dozens of employees from Deutsche Bank offices including New York, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and London. Deutsche Bank’s traders engaged in a brazen scheme to defraud Deutsche Bank’s counterparties and the worldwide financial marketplace by secretly manipulating LIBOR. The conduct is appalling. It was a complete criminal fraud upon the worldwide marketplace." 
- SEC Commissioner Kara Stein

 

Four Key Catalysts To Watch In The Oil Sector

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2015 - 14:36 As with everything in life, there are winners and losers, and the recent rout in the oil market is no different. The four flip sides below should be closely monitored in the coming months, for the oil market will be impacted by these factors – regardless of if they change their tune, or become a broken record.
  

In The New Paranormal, Junk Bonds Are A "Haven Asset"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2015 - 14:15 With NIRP having turned traditional risk-free assets into guaranteed losers, investors have poured more than $9 billion into junk bond ETFs YTD, and while common sense dictates that buying at the top of an epic HY bubble just ahead of a rate hike cycle and against a backdrop characterized by disappearing liquidity in the secondary market for corporate credit is a fool's errand, most investors feel they have little choice.

Tepper Topples From Top 10 Highest-Earning Hedgies

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/05/2015 - 12:41 For the first time in 4 years, Appaloosa Management's David Tepper is not the highest-earning hedge fund manager in the world. Plunging from No.1 to tied-for-11th (with a mere $400 million earned last year) Tepper appears to have suddenly found investing difficult now that The Fed has stopped printing money (up just 2.2%). What is more ironic, perhaps, is that the other alleged beneficiary of Fed largesse (and recent hirer or blogger Ben Bernanke) - Citadel tops the list with Ken Griffin making $1.3 billion last year.

AN OPEN LETTER TO BALTIMORE & THE WORLD: HOW TO END POLICE BRUTALITY FOREVER

by Jeff Berwick, Dollar Vigilante:
I am going to make this as short and simple as possible because I know 99% of people are too busy to put much thought into solutions.
However, if you read this, you will have an answer that will rid the world of police brutality forever and it can start tomorrow. In one town, as you’ll learn below, it’s already started.
THE ANSWER
Question: How long has police brutality been around?
Answer: Ever since there was police.
Read More @ DollarVigilante.com

The Strange Case for Gold

from Armstrong Economics:
Question: Years ago, I thought I was so smart. Silver was 5 and gold was 300. I was pretty young and did not have a lot of money. I purchased 30k worth of silver coins and some gold coins. My thought process was that silver, most likely is not worth 0. As both metals were rising every year, I felt it was because the fed was trapped. We can never have high rates or real rates bc the debt load was too high and once you commit to constantly easing and needing inflation you can never go back. I never thought QE and all that monetization would have taken place like it has. However all that fed action made me even more bullish on the precious metals. Not because of inflation, I never really understood why we would have a hyper inflation simply because the govt was not handing out money to people. I know damn well I was not getting a check.
After the last couple years of reading you I realized I was just lucky for that time period however I am looking forward to Sept and the way Socrates sees what is going to happen to gold and silver. As I read you, and try to get in your head I feel like you try to explain what Socrates may be seeing in real time. (AM I correct?) However, you let your Socrates Code do the timing for shifting money around. I need to ask, if Socrates sees an ultimate 5000 target on Gold what or how do you explain that?
Read More @ ArmstrongEconomics.org

Fundamentals of Silver Sentiment vs. Ponzi Schemes vs. Ore Grades

from TruthNeverTold:

“Start Giving A Damn!”

from The Burning Platform:
I find it shocking how often I have people tell me the Constitution is out of date and is no longer relevant or necessary. Then there are the vast majority of people that think about the Constitution the same way they think about religion; it makes us feel good to believe in it and we’ll even worship it on a holiday or two The reality is that those who seem to get very worked up to the point that they are willing to act in defense of the Constitution even against the highest levels of government make up a very small minority of Americans. This is a real problem.
You see if people gave a damn the government couldn’t get away with negating the Constitution. But the vast majority of people just don’t give a damn and so the government very easily provides ridiculous and false legal sounding arguments to explain away why they have become a higher law than the Constitution. Now I’ve tried to understand why it is that we Americans are so damn apathetic about everything the government and government officials do.
Read More @ TheBurningPlatform.com
image/investigatinghistory.edu

/