Meltdown

Like medical chemotherapy, Iceland's economic chemotherapy was horrible, but the cancer of debt-deflation was eradicated and the system made whole.

Roughly ONE THIRD of the advisory firms the SEC examined failed to meet custody rule requirements.

From the bowels of Australia’s iron ore mines to the top of Dubai’s pointless 100 story office towers, the entire warp and woof of the global economy has been distorted and bloated by the central bank money printing spree of the last two decades, led by the red credit machines of Beijing. Everywhere economies have succumbed to over-building, over-consumption, over-financialization and endless dangerous, unstable speculation. Stated differently, China’s red capitalism is the new black swan. There is nothing rational, stable or sustainable about it.

"Then tell me, future boy, who's President of Brazil in 2016? Then who's vice president?"

"There are so many fault lines that the nation seems consumed by a conflict of all against all... there is an inevitable “revolution” coming because our politics, culture, education, economics and even philanthropy are so polarized that the country can no longer resolve its differences."

First The Bank of Japan destroyed the Japanese bond market, and then, back in May we warned that The Bank of Japan had 'broken' the stock market. Now, it appears the all too obvious consequences of being the sole provider of buying power in an antirely false market are coming home to roost as Nomura reports the "temporary suspension" of new orders for 3 leveraged ETFs - the largest in the world - citing "liquidity of the underlying Nikkei 225 futures market."

Never in history has the US entered a recession when rates were this low. And it spells serious trouble for the financial system going forward.

This. Will. Not. End. Well. As WSJ reports, "retailers such as Kmart and Office Depot this week are starting to roll out cards that give the recipients small amounts of stock in some of the country’s best-known companies." "I have always wanted to get into the stock market business, but I honestly don’t have the time to explore what’s going on in the market trends of the day"...

14 Months after abandoning the "Game of Thrones"-esque frozen-water-wall containment plan for Fukushima, Bloomberg reports that TEPCO expects to begin freezing a soil barrier by the end of the year to stop a torrent of water entering the wrecked Fukushima nuclear facility, moving a step closer to fulfilling a promise the Japanese government made to the international community more than two years ago. Officials noted, rather uninspiringly, the frozen wall, along with other measures, "should be able to resolve the contaminated water issues before the Olympic games."

Investors should hope for the best while making preparations for less benign scenarios. This can be achieved by reducing leverage and speculation and having a healthy allocation to physical precious metals in the safest vaults in the world.

Children living near the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer at a rate 20 to 50 times that of children elsewhere, according to a new study. As AP reports, most of the 370,000 children in Fukushima prefecture have been given ultrasound checkups since the meltdown and thyroid cancer is suspected or confirmed in 137 of those children. "This is more than expected and emerging faster than expected," according to the lead author of the study, and raises doubts about the government's less fearful view.

The US has now joined Canada, Cyprus, New Zealand, the UK, and Germany with plans to seize bank accounts during the next financial crisis. 

"Central bank credibility is priceless and they desperately need to reclaim the intellectual high ground. The continuous public back-and-forth through speeches and attempts at expectation management just aren’t working."

"The impotence of monetary policy in boosting growth and staving off deflationary pressures has become painfully apparent, especially when it is acting in isolation and when a large number of countries are resorting to the same limited playbook."