All those who were hoping global stock markets would surge tomorrow based on a ridiculous rumor that China would revalue the CNY by 10% will have to wait. Instead, China has decided to serve the world another surprise. Following last week's announcement by PBoC Governor Zhou (Where's Waldo) Xiaochuan that the country's excessive stockpile of USD reserves has to be urg... (more)
Even though the White House has publicly downplayed the credit warning issued Monday from a leading agency, Obama administration officials were privately trying in recent weeks to convince Standard & Poor's not to lower its outlook for U.S. debt from "stable" to "negative," Fox News has confirmed.
But after a series of meetings between the Treasury Department and S&P, the ratings agency ignored the pressure and told administration officials late Friday that the U.S. government was... (more)
U.S. households are now getting more in cash handouts from the government than they are paying in taxes for the first time since the Great Depression.
Households received $2.3 trillion in some kind of government support in 2010. That includes expanded unemployment benefits, as well as payments for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and stimulus spending, among other things.
But that's more than the $2.2 trillion households paid in taxes, an amount that has... (more)
As a result of active "demonetization" efforts by the IMF and its member central banks, gold and silver have experienced the type of volatility that has given conservative investors reasons not to perceive the metals as dependable cash alternatives. Instead gold and silver have become known as the asset class to hold as a hedge against inflation.
However, during the 1990's, when inflation was in general much higher than it has been since the turn of the millennium, ... (more)
Investors who poured more than half a trillion dollars into bond mutual funds since 2007 will experience a market crash when interest rates rise, according to Marilyn Cohen, a Los Angeles money manager.
Cohen lays out a grim scenario in “Surviving the Bond Bear Market” (John Wiley & Sons Inc.), co-written with husband Chris Malburg. Rates will surge if the global economy strengthens or because investors lose faith in governments with growing deficits, said Cohen, whose... (more)
The United States is in the middle of a devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny it. Over the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing statistics in my articles about the U.S. economy. I have done this in order to make an overwhelming case that the U.S. economy is in deep decline and is dying a little bit more every single day. Until we understand exactly how bad our problems are we will never be willing to accept the solut... (more)
It is rare in recent history for precious metals to appreciate in parallel with the broader stock market. Yet, this has been the case in the two years since the stock market began crawling out of the wreckage of the 2008 financial crisis. Although metals have vastly outperformed US equities over that time frame, it is noteworthy that stocks have gone up at all. Since January 2, 2009, the S&P 500 stock index is up just about 50%. Over the same time, gold is up 68% and silver is up a st... (more)
The only thing more ridiculous than S&P's too little too late semi-downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt was the market's severe reaction to the announcement. Has S&P really added anything to the debate that wasn't already widely known? In any event, S&P's statement amounts to a wake up call to anyone who has somehow managed to sleepwalk through the unprecedented debt explosion of the last few years.
Given S&P's concerns that Congress will fail to address its long-term fis... (more)
Everything that you own is slowly being taken away from you. It is being done purposely and it is being done by design. Many Americans like to think of themselves as "well off", but as will be demonstrated below, we don't "own" nearly as much as we think that we do. The truth is that most of us have to frantically run around accumulating wealth as rapidly as we can so that we can somehow stay ahead of the rate that wealth is being taken away from us. The entire system is ... (more)
Last week, Congress and the administration refused to seriously consider the problem of government spending. Despite the fear-mongering, a government shutdown would not have been as bad as claimed.
It is encouraging that some in Washington seem to be insisting on reduced spending, which is definitely a step in the right direction, but only one step. We have miles to go before we can even come close to a solution, and it will involve completely redefining the role of go... (more)
....for Thiel, the bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble. “A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” he says. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”
Like the housing bubble, the education bubble is about security and insur... (more)
Fri 08 Apr 11 | 06:36 AM ET
Marc Faber, editor and publisher of "The Gloom Boom & Doom Report," discusses the world economy and the amount of paper being printed by central banks. His preference, as a result, is gold. Faber adds that in the current environment, cash and bonds are dangerous. Everything is going up, he says. Only at th... (more)
This is an excellent interview from Marc Faber, the interviewers are, of course, retarded, but Marc makes some very insightful observations about the nature of inflation.
Tax Day (April 18) is fast approaching, which means anxiety and night sweats for about 99 percent of taxpayers.
And bitching and moaning by those at the top of the income pyramid about how they aren't forced to pay more in taxes. Secretary of State and cattle-futures queen Hillary Clinton, super-investor Warren Buffett, and b... (more)
While a majority U.S. Voters says the average American shells out 30% or more of their income in taxes, most believe they should pay no more than 20%.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of Likely Voters say, when thinking about all federal, state and local taxes, the average American pays 30% or more of their income in taxes. Thirty percent (30%) believes the average American pays 20%, while 10% say they pay 10% of their income in taxes. The... (more)
The people creating the most wealth in our society pay over 50% of their income in assorted taxes (see this list), then on top of it all, when they die they have half of their wealth stolen post-death. That means 75% of the wealth they produced over their life was stolen for socialist schemes and murdering people. - Chris
Updating on "the foreclosure mess" that continues "to speed struggling homeowners" out onto the streets, Yahoo News' Zachary Roth notes the "potentially fr... (more)
