Peter S. was the first of several readers to send this item: Over 100 Million Now Receiving Federal Welfare [1]. Peter’s comment: “If true, then this is worse than I previously thought and feared in the US. It is going to be ugly when the U.S. Dollar collapses…”
American Expatriate (“AmEx”) suggested this: Fed’s Fisher: Just Stop With the Easing [2]
Reader B.B. sent this: US Dollar already went off a fiscal cliff – what does a falling dollar mean to US families? Masking de-leveraging via debt markets. [3]
Coffematt forwarded this: Real recovery in home prices not expected until spring [4]. JWR’s Comments: This is yet another bit of “Sunny Skies Ahead” Pollyanna nonsense. Even if there is a housing “recovery” it will be short-lived and artificial because it will spring from huge taxpayer-funded bailouts, monetization (“Quantitative Easing”) of the debt, and the wholly unrealistic Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) — none of which can go on indefinitely.
Items from The Economatrix:
Italian PM Warns of the Break-up of the Eurozone and the European Union [5]
Eric Sprott: Silver is Suppressed or it Would Be $150/oz [6]
Greece Rating Outlook Cut to Negative By S&P as Economy Weakens [7]