Archive - Sep 26, 2015 - Story

Neoliberal economics is blind to reality and serves to justify the destruction of the economic prospects of the Western World. It remains to be seen if Russia and China can develop a different economics or whether these rising superpowers will fall victim to the “junk economics” that has destroyed the West. With so many Chinese and Russian economists educated in the US tradition, the prospects of Russia and China might not be any better than ours. The entire world could go down the tubes together.

As proxy wars morph closer and closer to outright confrontations, the Cold War 2.0 meme continues to mount and questions arise of how this rapidly escalating sabre-rattling will end. With that in mind it is perhaps worth remembering Vasili Arkhipov; and how - at the height of The Cold War (with the civilized world on the brink of extinction) - one person can indeed change the fate of the world.

"This is a monetary moment... we are looking at the beginning of the world’s reappraisal of the words and deeds of central bankers like Janet Yellen and Mario Draghi. You see monetary disorder manifested in super low interest rates, in the mispricing of credit broadly and you see it in the escalation of radical monetary nastrums that are floating out of the various central banks and established temples of thought: Negative real rates, negative nominal rates and the idea of helicopter money. So you need some hedge against things not going according to the script and that makes gold and gold mining equities terrifically interesting now."

With Janet Yellen choking back the vomit as she shifted The Fed's stance to a "hawkish hold," markets remain just as confused (and disconnected) as they were after The FOMC's "dovish hold." The problem, as Deutsche explains, is The Fed's reliance on 'conventional' inflation dynamics (and its mean-reversion - higher in this case) as opposed to actual market expectations (which are collapsing), leaving them open to a major Type II policy error -  the risk of rejecting something that is, in actuality, true. The Fed's credibility is teetering on the brink as inflation 'reflexivity' - that is, Fed expectations strengthen the dollar, depress risk in general and commodities in particular, with lower commodities driving headline inflation lower - raises the prospect that the Fed fails to raise rates at all in 2016.

Despite billions spent to eradicate opium crops in Afghanistan, the crop is more popular than ever there, leading many to wonder whether some U.S. forces may actually be encouraging its growth and the heroin it later becomes.

"...there’s an enormous and growing disconnect between the cash and physical markets for gold. This is exactly what we would expect to precede a major market-shaking event based on a physical gold shortage."

And for once it isn't Apple...

"... the United Nations proposes both that social networks proactively police every profile and post, and that government agencies only “license” those who agree to do so."

After borrowing (and largely wasting) $15 trillion during the Great Recession, China now looks like a typical decadent developed-world country, complete with slow growth, anemic consumer spending and unstable financial markets. But it’s not France, Canada or the US, where recessions happen and voters peacefully replace one major party with the other. China, within living memory, has seen civil unrest beget open rebellion beget multi-decade civil war. Take a surplus of young men (the result of China’s one-child policy which put a premium on male children), combine it with a shortage of good jobs, and the obvious result is instability.

"This is a risky business. Can they get it wrong? Absolutely they can get it wrong."

It’s a rare and precious moment when a politician does something which perfectly demonstrates what he or she really thinks about democracy and power. This is one of those times.

Another day, another "what difference does it make" lie exposed for the mainstream media to ignore and excuse as simple witch-huntery. However, this 'lie' is unarguable and proves once again that Hillarinochio seems to believe she is above the law.  The Obama administration has discovered a chain of emails (exchanged with retired Gen. David Petraeus when he headed the military’s U.S. Central Command, responsible for running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) that Clinton failed to turn over when she provided what she said was the full record of work-related correspondence as secretary of state, officials told The Associated Press on Friday. Is it any wonder her support has been plunging recently?

Did Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott just lose his job because of fears that a probe and audit of the "data" and "statistics" behind global warming could threaten to destroy Goldman Sachs' best laid cap-and-trade, emissions trading scheme and carbon tax plans?

No risk, no gain. But risk can deliver staggering, crushing losses if it isn't limited or hedged. Times are going to get harder going forward, for all the reasons that are already visible in today's headlines. So what can we do to make our own lives easier as times get tougher? Here are three suggested strategies...