Archive - Nov 2014 - Story

If you thought Greek GDP was an impressive miracle of modern monetary policy manipulation... take a look at the 'gap' between European revenues and earnings...

"We are growing concerned about the potential for a pause or near term correction in the S&P500," warns BofAML's MacNeil Curry, as the options market flashes a warning to US equity bulls.

Our world, our life, has been built on debt and propaganda for many years. They have kept us from noticing how poorly we are doing. But now a third element has entered the foundation of our societies, and it’s set to eat away at everything that has – barely – kept the entire edifice from crumbling apart. Deflation.

For anyone curious how banks "represent and warrant" that they have thousands of tons of physical gold when in reality they have far less if not zero physical in storage and all in "synthetic" form, here is the blow by blow.

We need to restructure the world economy - right this very instant. The US economy is holding up the entire world economy right now and the growth rate is minimal. When we turn the economy down, look out below. These morons have been hunting taxes everywhere and as a result they have shut down global capital flows. Government lives in an illusion. These idiots have destroyed the world economy and we will understand the full impact soon.

"You might think legions of retiring Baby Boomers are to blame, or perhaps the swelling ranks of laid-off workers who’ve grown discouraged about their re-employment prospects. While both of those groups doubtless are important (though just how important is debated by labor economists), our analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data suggests another key factor: Teens and young adults aren’t as interested in entering the work force as they used to be, a trend that predates the Great Recession." - Pew

While most people's attention has been focused on the demise of the Russian Ruble this year, since the June highs in Crude Oil, the oil-producing nations of the world have seen their currencies devalue rapidly. From Brazil to Nigeria and Algeria, the impact of lower oil revenues is starting to create a vicious circle for many of these nations... and having consequences for the very Petrodollar flows that the US relies upon...

WD40 - it's for 'tight nuts' or a 'rusty tool'...

"I started this business a few years ago with savings of 15k. With a lot of hard work and determination i have succeeded, but it sure as hell was not easy. I am a long time lurker and have never seen anyone go in depth about what its like to own a small business and the reason why they are disappearing. Without going into to much detail, i own a furniture store so obviously things are different then other businesses but a lot of the things are the same. I wanted to begin with the things that are killing small businesses."

In a historic move showing just how profound the collapse in global commodity demand and trade is, earlier today the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Australia's biggest coal exporter Glencore, which last year concluded its merger with miner Xstrata creating the world's fourth largest mining company and world's biggest commodity trader, will suspend its Australian coal business for three weeks "in a move never before seen in the Australian market, to avoid pumping tonnes into a heavily oversupplied market at depressed prices." Putting this shocking move in context, it is something that was avoided even during the depths of the global depression in the aftermath of Lehman's collapse, and takes place at a time when the punditry will have you believe that the US will decouple from the rest of the world and grow at 3% in the current quarter and in 2015.

"As a drearily soulless, principle-free, power-hungry veteran of DC’s game of thrones, she’s about as banal of an American politician as it gets."

"Believe"

With Wall Street having bid real estate prices to the moon in the US (and become Spain's biggest slumlord), and handed them happily over to willing Chinese 'get-my-money-out-of-China' buyer greater-fools, it would appear the Chinese (having colonized America) have found a new more attractive place to park their excess liquidity. As Bloomberg reports, at a property auction in Lisbon, Portugal last month, about 90% of the bidders for the government-owned apartments and stores on offer were Chinese. They ended up acquiring more than two-thirds of the 45 properties, with one money-launderer investor noting "Lisbon is cheap if you compare it with other cities."

With gold already moving today on rumors of an increasingly positive tone towards Switzerland's referendum on the Gold Initiative, Axel Merk notes that it appears widely misunderstood and discusses implications for gold, the Swiss franc and Switzerland as a whole. "Gold is the people’s money, not the government’s money to splurge...gold is a store of value that ought to back the currency in circulation." Ultimately, people should never rely on their government to pursue a gold standard, but consider pursuing their own, personal gold standard.