U.S. Hegemony, Oil, and Precious Metals
The Underground Investor has an interesting interview concerning the Federal Reserve and the banks that own it, and how they have been controlling the world economy since 1913 using leveraged futures contracts on the oil, silver, and gold commodities markets in New York and London. The interview goes on to discuss how Europe, in concert with Russia and China could break Read more
Don’t Shoot the Messenger for Revealing Uncomfortable Truths
Just released in The Australian
IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide’s The News, wrote: “In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win.”
His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch’s expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.
I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.
These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth. Read more
Fooled by Stimulus
Fooled By Stimulus
By Eric Sprott & David Franklin
Sprott Asset Management
Despite our firm’s history of investing primarily in equities, we’ve spent much of this past year writing about the government debt market. We’ve chosen to focus on government debt because we fear its impact on the equity markets as a whole. Government debt is an intrinsically important part of the financial landscape. It is the bellwether by which we measure risk, and we believe we have entered a new era where traditional “risk-free” assets are undergoing a tremendous shift in quality.
In studying the government debt market, we have inadvertently been led to question the economic theory that most fervently justified recent government spending programs: that of Keynesian economics. The so called “beautiful theory” of Keynesian economics is arguably the most influential economic theory of the 20th Century, shaping the way Western democracies approached the balance between free market capitalism and government initiatives. Like many beautiful theories, however, Keynesianism has ultimately succumbed to the ugly facts. We firmly believe the Keynesian miracle is dead. The stimulus programs are simply not producing Read more
The Dangers of a Failed Presidency
The Dangers of a Failed Presidency
By Michael Krieger, of KAM LP
I have been calling Barrack Obama’s Presidency a failure for at least six months now and it seems that I now have considerable company in this assessment as it becomes obvious to most. It is not a failure because of the Republicans. It is not a failure because of events beyond his control. It is a failure because this was a man that filled a depressed and downtrodden nation with the audacity of hope. When I voted for the man I knew it was against my personal financial interests. It was clear what he would do with taxes. Nevertheless, I got to the polls and voted for this fifth avenue creation thinking maybe, just maybe he might do some of the things he said. Most important to me were two issues related to Read more
Fed Money Supply Monopoly Being Challenged
In the U.S., frustrations over Washington’s seeming inability to resist fiscal profligacy have found voice in the tea party movement. As national sentiment grows in favor of limited government and constrained powers, legislation has been introduced in nine states to nullify federal legal tender laws; the Fed’s monopoly on supplying the money U.S. citizens must use is being challenged Read more
Zero Hedge Feed- Guest Post: Baltic Dry Index Signals Renewed Market Decline January 30, 2012
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- Spain Appears Headed for “Double-Dip” Recession January 30, 2012Spain’s economy contracted by 0.3 per cent during the fourth quarter, according to official figures released Wednesday, edging the country closer to a new recession as it deals with huge levels of unemployment and painful austerity cuts. The figure announced by the National Statistics Institute broke a run of seven quarters without economic contraction. The […]
- More EUR Concessions Required January 30, 2012The 1.32 EUR handle is in danger of becoming a distant past. Today’s Euro summit could fail to appease investors concerns about the fiscal outlook of Greece. If that is the case, then the single currency price action is on the verge of repeating itself; a pattern of pre-summit gains and post-summit losses. The Greek economy is only “one” of the Euro peripher […]
- Week in FX Europe Jan 22-27 January 27, 2012Plans for the Greek Private Sector Involvement remain a source of considerable uncertainty for peripheral markets, and the inconclusive result of negotiations over the past few days will leave the EUR and risk complex vulnerable to a large correction. However, the EU economic and monetary commissioner has indicated that authorities are very close to concludi […]
- US GDP Hidden Surprise Supports QE January 27, 2012“Key” surprises have ended up being the theme of this week. The Fed has extended the term of free money by 18-months and the door is now ajar for further QE. It’s the “when” that many appear to disagree with. It seems unlikely to be applied until after operation twist ends in June. QE2 and the ‘twist’ arrived after extensive debates and many months of weak d […]
- A Yen to Lead January 27, 2012Other regional data and policy innovation has mostly been positive for the Asian region this week. The Fed’s surprise extension of its commitment not to raise US rates for another 18-month’s, until late 2014, “should be the key to medium-term development”. Yen is expected to be the natural beneficiary of the latest dovish rhetoric by Bernanke and company and […]
- US 4th Quarter Growth Falls Below Expectations January 27, 2012Despite expanding at the fastest rate in over a year, U.S. 4th quarter growth fell short of the 3.0 percent expansion economists had predicted. Still, the 2.8 percent annualized increase was a strong improvement over the 1.8 percent recorded in the previous quarter. However, there are concerns that given the main areas responsible for driving growth for the […]
- Japan CPI and Retail Sales Fall January 27, 2012Japan’s Core Consumer Price Index declined 0.1 % The figure came after Tokyo’s CPI 0.4% decline a month earlier. Coupled with a 1.2% drop in Retail Sales due to a strong yen that makes Japanese exports less competitive and imports more attractive signal a reduced wage expectation from the net exporting nation. The Bank of Japan and the government concede tha […]
- US Yields Move Ahead of GDP January 27, 2012With little excitement in the currency markets O/N, US benchmark yields have backed up a tad ahead of this mornings US GDP report. Treasuries have managed to snap a two-day rally that sent five-year yields to a record low yesterday (+0.75% intraday) as the market expects the report to show that US growth quickened in the last quarter of 2011 (+3% vs. +1.8%, […]
- Recession Fears Could Delay UK Deficit Reduction Plans January 26, 2012On Wednesday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the UK economy contracted by 0.2 percent for the final quarter of 2011. Economists had predicted a slight increase of 0.1 percent for the last three months of the year. Despite the feeble ending to the year, the latest ONS data shows overall growth for 2011 was a mediocre, but still positiv […]
- UK Prime Minister urges EU leaders to be bolder January 26, 2012As part of the Davos World Economic Forum, UK Prime minister, David Cameron is urging his EU counterparts to follow Britain’s example. In his words: “In Britain we had to be bold”. In a message to his European counterparts, Mr Cameron argued his government’s efforts to tackle its deficit had “earned credibility and got (the UK) ahead of the markets”, and eur […]
- Spain Appears Headed for “Double-Dip” Recession January 30, 2012
