Monday, May 2, 2016

Visa Unveils Plan To Burden Millennials With Billions In Debt



For anyone concerned that $800 billion in student loans over the last decade simply won't be enough debt burden for millennials to carry, worry no more, a solution has been found.



China Manufacturing PMI Disappoints - In Contraction For 14th Straight Month

Despite a trillion dollars of credit spewed into the Chinese 'economy' speculative finance channels, Manufacturing remains in a slump as April's China PMI tumbled to 49.4 after a brief bounce back up to 49.8 (from the 48.0 low in Feb). This is the 14th month in a row of contraction. As Caixin reports, relatively weak market conditions and muted client demand contributed to a further solid decline in staff numbers, which seems to put a nail in the coffin of anyone who believes recent price action in industrial commodities is anything but speculative fervor.





Ben Tanosborn: How Blacks & Latinos Will Lose The Election For The Democratic Party In 2016

The probable end result, when subtracting from the potential Democratic vote disenchanted millennials, economic-revolutionaries, and doves could easily bury any and all hope for the Clintons to return to the White House.  Many millennials won’t vote; and many impoverished whites in the Democratic Party will feel forced to switch their anti-establishment allegiance from Bernie to Donald Trump, as incongruent as that may seem, hoping for a better economic future and/or a more constructive, less confrontational hawkish attitude internationally. For all the antipathy that might exist between African-American and Latino “super-minorities” and Donald Trump, it is these major minority voting blocks that appear to be clearing the path for this Demeaner-in-Chief to exchange his ostentatious quarters in Trump Plaza for the more modest ceremonial trappings of the White House.




Every Time This Has Happened, A Recession Followed

As of today, we now have three consecutive quarters of tightening lending standards. In fact, based on the latest survey, net lending standards tightened even more than during Q4 as shown in the chart below, and are now the tightest on net since the financial crisis. Needless to say, if a recession and a default cycle has always followed two quarters of tighter lending conditions, three quarters does not make it better.

The European Union Always was a CIA Project, as Brexiteers Discover

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph:
Brexiteers should have been prepared for the shattering intervention of the US. The European Union always was an American project.
It was Washington that drove European integration in the late 1940s, and funded it covertly under the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.
While irritated at times, the US has relied on the EU ever since as the anchor to American regional interests alongside NATO.
There has never been a divide-and-rule strategy.
The eurosceptic camp has been strangely blind to this, somehow supposing that powerful forces across the Atlantic are egging on British secession, and will hail them as liberators.
Read More



Ron Paul: Drafting Women Means Equality In Slavery

Last week the House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act requiring women to register with Selective Service. This means that if Congress ever brings back the draft, women will be forcibly sent to war. Some proponents of a military draft justify it as “payback” for the freedom the government provides its citizens. Those who make this argument are embracing the collectivist premise that since our rights come from government, the government can take away those rights whether it suits their purposes. Thus supporters of the draft are turning their backs on the Declaration of Independence.


Sparks Fly In German Press As Treatment Of Muslims Hits "Gunpoint"





Debt: The Key Factor Connecting Energy & The Economy

There are many who believe that the use of energy is critical to the growth of the economy. However, the thing that is not as apparent is that growth in energy consumption is dependent on the growth of debt. Both energy and debt have characteristics that are close to “magic,” with respect to the growth of the economy. Economic growth can only take place when growing debt (or a very close substitute, such as company stock) is available to enable the use of energy products. The situation we are facing today is one in which growing debt has been holding up oil prices and other commodity prices for a long time. We are now reaching limits on this process, as evidenced by growing wealth disparity, low commodity prices, and the frantic actions of governments leaders around the world regarding slow economic growth and the need for more stimulus.



Yentertainment Tonight - Kuroda Kollapse Kontinues As USDJPY Nears 105 Handle

Either The BoJ steps in soon and intervenes (even by just "checking levels") or Kuroda-san is truly terrified of The G-20. USDJPY has now crashed 7 handles since last Thursday's shock BoJ disappointment crashing to within 5 pips of a 105 handle tonight for the first time in 18 months...



Trump Leads Clinton In Latest Poll As Cruz Suffers 'Death Cross'

As the make-or-break Indiana primary looms for the GOP establishment, Ted Cruz suffered a develishly-dismal day. First, as Gallup reports, Cruz's favorability has utterly collapsed in the last few days (blame Carly?) with 45% unfavorable to 39% favorable (a negative spread for the first time in his campaign). But it got worse, as not only does trump hold a commanding 15-point lead in Indiana, but the latest Rasmussen survey shows Trump (41%) ahead of Hillary (39%) for the first time as The Donald is now doing twice as well among Democrats as Clinton does among Republicans.



America's Plunging Worker Productivity Explained (In 1 Depressing Chart)

The US became an unsustainable service sector based economy from the 1970s onward when service sector employment diverged from manufacturing without a corresponding boost in productivity. Even Alan Greenspan has warned that America is "in trouble basically because productivity is dead in the water..." There are numerous reasons for this plunge in worker-productivity, from perverted inventives not to work to unintended consequences of monetary policy enabling zombies, but perhaps the most critical driver is exposed in the following dismal chart...



The First Casualty Is Truth

The US, in its own decline, is showing this same self-destructive tendency. The worse things get, the greater the inclination of the citizenry to say, “Carry on, everything’s fine.”



Trump's Take On Close Encounters With Russian Fighter Jets: "At A Certain Point You Gotta Shoot"

"I don’t know, at a certain point, you can’t take it,” the businessman continued. “I mean, at a certain point, you have to do something that, you just can’t take that. That is not right. It’s against all, you know, when you talk about Geneva convention, there’s gotta be things that are against it. You can’t do that. That’s called taunting. But it should certainly start with diplomacy and it should start quickly with a phone call to Putin, wouldn’t you think?” "And if that doesn’t work out, I don’t know, you know, at a certain point, when that sucker comes by you, you need to shoot. I mean, you gotta shoot. And it’s a shame. It’s a shame. It’s a total lack of respect for our country and it’s a total lack of respect for Obama. Which as you know, they don’t respect.



Bank of Japan: The Limits Of Monetary Tinkering

Interestingly, the BoJ’s attempts to achieve its price inflation target continue to end in failure with unwavering regularity. While the central bank’s astonishing ineptness in this respect is a blessing for Japan’s citizens (at least for the moment, their cost of living doesn’t increase further), it harbors the danger that even crazier monetary experiments will eventually be tried.


Seymour Hersh Says Hillary Approved Sending Libya’s Sarin to Syrian Rebels

from strategic Culture:

The great investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, in two previous articles in the London Review of Books («Whose Sarin?» and «The Red Line and the Rat Line») has reported that the Obama Administration falsely blamed the government of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for the sarin gas attack that Obama was trying to use as an excuse to invade Syria; and Hersh pointed to a report from British intelligence saying that the sarin that was used didn’t come from Assad’s stockpiles. Hersh also said that a secret agreement in 2012 was reached between the Obama Administration and the leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, to set up a sarin gas attack and blame it on Assad so that the US could invade and overthrow Assad. «By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria».
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"It Has Been A While Since We’ve Had A Profitable Quarter To Report" - Einhorn's First Quarter Letter

"It has been a while since we’ve had a profitable quarter to report. Though we would like to make it a habit, trying to manage for quarterly  results is really not our philosophy. We think one of our advantages is the ability to be more patient than others, especially as investment horizons appear to be getting shorter.... the Fed’s “data dependency” doesn’t appear to relate to employment, which continues to improve, or core inflation, which is now running above its 2% target. We believe the increasingly adventurous monetary policy is bullish for gold."



Saudi Foreign Minister Repeats Warning To US Over Sept 11 Law

Today, the Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir, while speaking to reporters in Geneva after talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry which mainly focused on Syria, admitted this threat saying passage of the law would "erode global investor confidence in America" by which he was, of course, referring only to Saudi Arabia. However, to avoid another slap in the face of US foreign policy on the record, he denied that Saudi Arabia had "threatened" to withdraw investment from its close ally and instead called it a mere "warning."



"If..."

If the world’s economies were really out of intensive care, why would ultra-radical monetary policies like helicopter money be increasingly debated at the highest level of governments? Also, how come 70% of Americans believe the US economy is on the wrong course? And why do almost half of US citizens admit they couldn’t come up with $400 to meet an unexpected need? Yes, I know why ask why? And it is what is, and a bunch of other clichés. But this isn’t normal, it isn’t healthy, and - at least in the opinion of this author—it isn’t going to end well.



6 Charts That Show the Global Demographic Crisis Is Unfolding

The world is undergoing a profound demographic shift that will cause sweeping changes over the next few decades. Those changes will broaden the scope of our study of economics and investing; they will alter our understanding of sociology; and they will radically affect politics and governments.


The Illusion of Democracy in the Modern World

from Zen Gardner:

Most of the ‘terrorist’ bomb attacks of the past sixty years have been false-flag attacks that were actually committed by the Israeli Mossad, the CIA, and British intelligence. For six decades the allied Western intelligence agencies have been carrying out an ongoing campaign to frame Muslims for bombings which were actually perpetrated by the Western intelligence agencies themselves. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11/2001 were a joint CIA/Pentagon/Mossad false-flag operation that was intended to provide an excuse for the subsequent US-led Coalition invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Western nations are not unique in their use of false-flag bombings to inspire public support for a government policy of aggression. The Russian government blamed Chechen ‘terrorists’ for perpetrating the horrific Moscow apartment bombings of the summer of 1999, but agents of the Russian FSB were seen placing military-grade explosives in the basement of an apartment building in Ryazan, near Moscow.
Read More…

What the Heck is Going on With the Dollar and “Fear?”

from Wolf Street:
Speculators are losing faith.”
Gold jumped 2.2% on Friday to $1,294.90 an ounce. It’s up nearly 5% for the week and hit the highest price since January 2015.
Silver rose 1.7% on Friday to $17.80 an ounce. During the day, it kissed the highest price since January 2015. It has jumped 15% in April.
The yen, which the Bank of Japan successfully crushed for a while, has re-soared, from ¥126 to the dollar in June last year to ¥112 by last Wednesday morning in Tokyo. At that point, the BOJ announced that it would keep its scorched-earth campaign of negative interest rates and money printing unchanged, rather than adding to it.
Read More


Have to keep the sheep scared...

EMP Alert! N. Korea Has Satellites In US Skies Capable Of Sending Us Back Into The Dark Ages

from The Sleuth Journal:

Is a great evil about to befall our nation? The entire world is on edge and senses that something major is about happen and one would have to be in denial not to see something is right around the corner. Our government has been preparing for years by storing up food, supplies, and ammo. Also emergency red alert tests have been going out like clockwork, not to mention the media blackouts on the topic. What on earth is going on?
Could it be the fact that North Korea now has two satellites orbiting our country that are capable of setting off an EMP attack, at least that is the warning given to us from Peter Vincent Pry the executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and director of the US Nuclear Strategy Forum, who told Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin that the satellites can be commanded either to de-orbit and hit a target on the ground or explode at a high altitude to create an EMP effect that would knock out the unprotected U.S. national electrical grid system.
Read More

Are you eating glyphosate for breakfast? The numbers surrounding breakfast food toxicity are astounding

by J. D. Heyes, Natural News:
Residues of the toxic herbicide glyphosate can be found on many popular breakfast foods, some of them in levels higher than maximums set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to an analysis conducted by the Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA).
The foods found to be tainted included breakfast cereals, eggs and bagels. Additionally, the researchers discovered evidence that glyphosate can accumulate in the human body.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, the top selling herbicide in the world. Roundup was first introduced in 1974, but its use did not explode until the introduction of the first Roundup-resistant genetically modified (GM) crops in the 1990s.
Read More

Did The Big Silver And Gold Market Event Arrive?

from SilverSeek:

In a previous article (September 2015), I presented the following analysis (in italics) to show how we are close to a point were a significant event could happen in the bond market and/or gold & silver markets:
Above, is a chart (from macrotrends.com) that shows the ratio of the gold price to the St. Louis Adjusted Monetary Base back to 1918. That is the gold price in US dollars divided by the St. Louis Adjusted Monetary Base in billions of US dollars. So, for example, currently the ratio is at 0.28 [$1 125 (current gold price)/ $4 019 (which represents 4 019 billions of US dollars)].
On the chart, I have indicated the three yellow points (a) where the Dow/Gold ratio peaked.
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Silver And Mining Stocks Continue Up The “Wall Of Worry”

by Dave Kranzler, Investment Research Dynamics:

Currently skepticism toward the ongoing rally in the precious metals sector is rampant. A lot of it based on shamelessly presented analysis of the COT data. But the COT data analysts have been wrong since March on their doom and gloom outlook based on the attributes of the long/short data in the weekly COT report.
Let me preface this with the proviso that the veracity of the COT data is predicated on the reliability of reports generated by the likes of JP Morgan, HSBC and Scotia. If these banks are providing bona fide, non-fraudulent Comex data reports, it would be the only area of their entire business for which they are not publishing corrupted financial information.
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