Monday, April 25, 2016

The Most Dangerous Divergence...



The dangerous divergence will then take a nasty turn. The bottom half of the 1% will now be as angry as the 99%. Any attempt by the establishment to further screw the nation by bailing themselves out will be met with violent disapproval. The country is a powder keg. The upcoming election is guaranteed to inflame opposing factions. A stock market crash in the next six months would sow the seeds of financial, political, and social upheaval not seen in this country since the 1960s. The established social order will be swept away in a swirl of chaos and retribution. The dangerous divergence will be resolved.


It's Now Almost Impossible To Save For Retirement

Zero (or negative) interest rates around the world have practically destroyed any reasonable expectation of savings. Simply put, saving money guarantees that you will lose after adjusting for inflation, at a time when the US government’s finances have never been more precarious. Crazy. Buying ‘risk free’ bonds, dumping money in a mutual fund, and waiting for the government pension to kick in just won’t produce the results that it used to.


The Chances of a COMEX Default … GUARANTEED!

by Bill Holter, JS Mineset, SGTreport.com:
 The Chances of a COMEX Default … IS GUARANTEED in my opinion!
I would not normally write something like this but it seems I had to. Last week, Bob Moriarty of 321 Gold wrote a story with the exact same title and came to this conclusion: “…is zero“. He began his article by saying “So anyone telling you Comex is about to default either doesn’t have a clue as to how commodity markets work or they are deliberately lying to you.”
He then goes on to say “But the chance of a ‘Gold Derivatives Time Bomb,’ is also zero. There is no such thing. And there is no such thing as a ‘Commercial Signal Failure’ or a 400 ounce gold bar made of tungsten.” Is he serious? When well over 100 pieces of paper “call” on the one underlying real ounce …there is no chance of failure? Is he trying to say the commercials can NEVER ever be wrong and forced to cover because they cannot deliver “promised” but non existent gold? Is he trying to say 400 ounce tungsten bars have not already turned up? I do want to point out, this is the same man who said a derivatives blowup can never happen. I think those at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers would beg to differ with him! We already know for a fact, we were only hours away from a total financial meltdown in 2008 were it not for the Fed magically creating $16 trillion. It is clear to me, since the amount of global derivatives far exceed the underlying assets they represent, true “settlement” or “performance” is a foregone impossibility as the “pie” only gets bigger. The only question now is “how big is TOO big”?
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Why For Traders "The Nightmares Just Keep Coming"

"For traders, just when they were promised an end was in sight, policy divergences would become tradable and correlations would weaken, the nightmares keep coming.  The problem is, that despite all of the emphatically reasoned analysis, no one really believes anything. And it may not pay to. The distortions are just too great....  Think it was a big deal to be threatened with a Treasury portfolio sell-off? Wait until it’s the S&P 500."



While America Debates The $20 Bill, China Moves Closer To Gold

In spite of Ben Bernanke’s assurances to the contrary, it is clear that China still sees gold as money. Along with bolstering their gold holdings, China has reformed its banking system to be friendlier to gold trading.



For The First Time US Deploys Two F-22 Raptors Close To Russia To "Deter Aggression"

Two American F-22 Raptor 5G stealth fighter jets and a refueling aircraft have been deployed to an airfield in Romania as manifestation of NATO’s support to its Eastern European members against Russian aggression. “For the first time in Romania, the next-generation combat aircraft F-22 Raptor, part of the US Air Force Europe mission, arrived today at Mihail Kogalniceanu military base,” the US Embassy said on its Facebook page Monday.



"The Government Is Crushing The Piggy Bank" - Norway Boosts Withdrawals From Its Sovereign Wealth Fund

As it deals with the economic slowdown and a plunge in oil prices, Norway has turned to its massive sovereign wealth fund in order to cover 2016 budget deficits, in continuation of a trend noted here first last October. As Bloomberg reports, the country withdrew $898 million in March from the fund, putting the year-to-date total at roughly $3.1 billion, a run rate that is higher than the estimate the central bank governor gave just this past February.



The Real Reason Saudi Arabia Killed Doha

Saudi Arabia single-handedly scuttled the Doha meeting, knowing all along that Iran would not participate, with a valid reason. The Russians and others agreed to proceed without Iran, planning to include them at a later date. So if everything was known beforehand, why did the Saudi’s pour cold water on the aspirations of the remaining members, risking its alienation from Russia and the OPEC community? Was it simply Saudi enmity toward Iran? Not exactly. Upon closer scrutiny, we can find the Saudi masterstroke behind Doha.



"The Damage Could Be Massive" - How Central Banks Trapped The World In Bonds

Yields on $7.8 trillion of government bonds have been driven below zero by worries over global growth, forcing investors looking for income to flood into debt with maturities of as long as 100 years. Worse still, as Bloomberg reports, central banks’ policy is exacerbating matters, as the unprecedented debt purchases to spur their economies have soaked up supply and left would-be buyers with few options. This has driven the 'duration' - or risk sensitivity - of the bond market to a record high, meaning, as one CIO exclaimed, even with a small increase in rates "the positions are so huge that the damage can be massive... People are complacent."



Treasury Sells $26 Billion In Lacklustre, Tailing 2 Year Auction

Following the early weakness in the Treasury complex, many dealers predicted that today's 2 Year auction may tail the When Issued at pricing, and that is what happened, albeit by the smallest possible amount: today's 2 Year auction closed at 0.842%, stopping through the When Issued 0.841% by the smallest possible increment of 0.1bps.



The Status Quo Has Failed And Is Beyond Reform

That the status quo--the current pyramid of wealth and power dominated by the few at the top - has failed is self-evident, but we can't bear to talk about it. This is not just the result of a corporate media that serves up a steady spew of pro-status quo propaganda--it is also the result of self-censorship and denial. The truth is the usual menu of reforms can’t stop this failure, so we have to prepare ourselves for the radical transformations ahead.




"China Is Hoarding Crude At The Fastest Pace On Record"

One Chart Shows Where The World's Record Surplus Oil Has Gone



filed under "white trash"...

Hillary Unleashes Million-Dollar Professional Internet Troll Army

Hillary Clinton-aligned Super PAC, Correct the Record, is taking a page out of Vladimir Putin’s playbook by employing a $1 million dollar professional internet troll army to build a paid, positive consensus about the Clinton campaign. "Breaking Barriers 2016" means it’s becoming increasingly hard to decipher a distinction between actual Clinton supporters, unbiased political commentators, and paid campaign shills.


The Criminals Who Support Hillary Clinton

by Dave Hodges, The Common Sense Show:

In the aftermath of Benghazi combined with Aaron Klein’s revelations that some of the illegal Clinton emails were transmitting his location prior to his death, should we not question the wisdom of anyone who would support Clinton’s run for the Presidency? And when we look all of the other criminal activities by this sociopath, shouldn’t we question the sanity and character of anyone who would support Clinton in this critical time in the history country?
The following is a partial list of Clinton supporters and this small, but representative sample size of Clinton supporters should make America realize that stopping her run for the Presidency is as important, if not more so, than it is to get Donald Trump elected.
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Fund CIO Explains "The Only Way To Make Money This Year"

"Central banks are mistaken. They think they’re targeting employment and inflation,” he continued. “They’re actually targeting asset prices and leverage.” When asset values rise, inflation and employment gradually increase. When assets fall, inflation collapses; it’s a coincidental variable. “At these levels of asset prices, it takes a lot of leverage to lift them further.” So the second central banks see a little inflation and curb leverage, rates rise and it all unwinds. “The only way to make money this year is to understand this sequence, and trade it.”



Obama Brexit Blowback - Majority Of Brits Think Comments "Inappropriate"

Who could have seen that coming? It appears President Obama's ill-advised Op-Ed and visit to The United Kingdom, exhorting his "friends" to 'just say no' to Brexit and vote democratically to stay part of an undemocratic superstate, has backfired for the establishment. A poll by YouGov suggests that Obama's high profile intervention in the UK's EU Referendum failed with 65% of Brits seeing his comments were not "appropriate."



A Bird's-Eye View Of How The US Economy Is Falling Apart (In 4 Simple Charts)

Whether you support him or not, my guess is that most middle-aged Americans are very surprised about Bernie Sanders' popularity. However, it shouldn’t be a surprise given the economic stress many Americans face. The four charts below capture the essence of what I’m talking about...


Dollar FMQ update

by Alasdair Macleod, Gold Money:
The Fiat Money Quantity continues to rise at an accelerated pace, and now stands at $14.286 trillion.
If it had continued to rise at the pre-Lehman crisis pace, it would be standing at only $8.474 trillion, a difference of $5.82 trillion. FMQ measures the quantity of money issued in return for the gold, first deposited in the forerunners to today’s commercial banks, and then transferred to the Fed after the creation of the Federal Reserve system. It is the sum of true money supply and the bank’s reserves held on the Fed’s balance sheet, adjusted for short-term distortions applied to the reserve total, particularly, but not limited to, repurchase and reverse-repurchase agreements.
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In 1 Out Of Every 5 American Families, Nobody Has A Job

by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:

If nobody is working in one out of every five U.S. families, then how in the world can the unemployment rate be close to 5 percent as the Obama administration keeps insisting? The truth, of course, is that the U.S. economy is in far worse condition than we are being told. Last week, I discussed the fact that the Federal Reserve has found that 47 percent of all Americans would not be able to come up with $400 for an unexpected visit to the emergency room without borrowing it or selling something. But Barack Obama and his minions never bring up that number. Nor do they ever bring up the fact that 20 percent of all families in America are completely unemployed. The following comes directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
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IS CHINA MASSING TROOPS ALONG NORTH KOREA’S BORDER?

by Joshua Krause, The Daily Sheeple:

On Saturday, North Korea test fired a submarine based ballistic missile off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula. Though the missile only traveled 19 miles, which has led South Korean officials to deem the test a failure, the test is the most successful to date. The US military tracked a previous submarine launch on April 14th, which didn’t appear to reach flight at all.
Prior to the launch, multiple international news agencies reported that 2,000 Chinese soldiers were massing along the border with North Korea, in anticipation of a possible 5th nuclear test (which hasn’t happened). China’s Defense Ministry vehemently denied the claim, saying “The relevant report does not accord with the facts…the Chinese military maintains normal combat readiness and training on the China-North Korea border.”
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