Category: Economics & Investing

Study Finds Public Pension Promises Exceed Ability to Pay – G.G. o o o Reader T.A. submitted this article from Zero Hedge: A Glimpse of Things to Come: Canadian Oil Company Liquidates Hours After Bank Demands Repayment o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News Puerto Rico’s Financial Crisis Has Been Brewing for 75 Years (Business Insider) Excerpt: “If Puerto Rico and its bondholders are to receive a bailout, it should at least be accompanied by the long overdue privatization of its New Deal structures.” Puerto Rico’s Slide (Bloomberg QuickTake) Excerpt: “It’s a tale of financial mismanagement, Wall Street …

Silver – a Long-Term Perspective o o o Forbes Yanks a Negative Article on JPMorgan While the Bank Pays for Content – P.M. o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News To Oppose Free Trade is to Embrace Violence (Mises) Excerpt: “To oppose free trade, on the other hand, is to engage in the imposition of fines, prison terms, and other sanctions on people for engaging in non-violent exchange.” Bernanke: Negative Interest Rates Could Be “Reasonable” (Washington Examiner) Excerpt: “…in a scenario in which the economy weakened and the Fed had already cut short-term interest rates to zero, a …

DOW JONES vs SILVER: Trading Volume Says It All o o o Central banks are already doing the unthinkable – you just don’t know it – G.G. o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News Including the Ocean Floor, the Feds Own Much More Land than You Think (Mises) Excerpt: “Is US land ownership heavily socialized? Let’s begin answering this question by considering the states with the largest percentages of government-owned lands.” The next post is a commentary from Judge Andrew Napolitano from 2014. It’s an older post, but it’s well worth reading in the context of the broad …

Social Security Administration Beneficiaries Top 60,000,000 – B.B. o o o Subprime Auto Delinquencies Soar Past Crisis Levels, Now Highest In 20 Years – G.G. o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News We Need the Pain that Comes with More Saving (Mises) Jacques: When Will the Sky Fall for Detroit Public Schools? (Detroit News) Excerpt: “The district’s latest emergency manager, former bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, is trying to strike fear into lawmakers this week about the impending cash flow woes, in the hopes that the April 8 deadline will force the Legislature to pass bills to send an …

Greek Banks Admit To Charging Customers To Exchange Big Bills For Smaller Ones – G.G. o o o Items from Mr. Econocobas: Bernanke: Monetary Policy ‘Reaching Its Limits’ – Isn’t this what Japan said right before going negative. “We are not considering negative rates”… Silver Soars Post-Fed As Gold Ratio Tumbles Most In 5 Months Items from Professor Preponomics: US News Obamacare Enrollment to Cap at Estimated 14.7 Million Americans (Washington Free Beacon) Excerpt: “Absent a substantial boost in outreach or changes to the subsides to make insurance more affordable, substantial increases in marketplace enrollment are unlikely.” CCAGW Releases 2015 …

Largest U.S. Coal Producer Skips Interest Payment, Warns Of Bankruptcy; Stock Crashes – B.B. o o o Companies to reduce employment in 2016? – P.S. o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News The Liquidity Endgame Begins: Whitings Revolver Cut by $1.2B as Banks Start Slashing Credit Lines (Zero Hedge) Excerpt: “But while lender banks are all too eager to take advantage of the brief surge in equity prices just so they can “help” their clients dilute their shareholder base so to repay the very same lender banks, they know quite well that the equity offering window is rapidly …

AEP: US inflation rears its ugly head as global cycle nears danger zone – G.G. o o o What Happens When Walmart Dumps You – RBS o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News US Tornadoes, Storms in February May Cost More than $1B (Bloomberg) Excerpt: “The U.S. suffered the most February tornadoes since 2008, with storms hitting the Plains, Midwest, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, the London-based insurance broker said Tuesday in a report. Heavy snow, ice and hail also caused wreckage across the country.” Our Dangerous Reality (US News & World Report) Excerpt: “In terms of potentially large-to-catastrophic …

12 Frugal Lessons From the Great Depression – D.S. o o o What The Smart Money Is Most Worried About o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News We are Headed Toward a Cashless Society? (Mises) House GOP Conference Chair Unveils Bill to Fight Government “Zombies” (Washington Free Beacon) Excerpt: “The legislation would pressure Congress to reexamine government programs whose authorizations have expired by subjecting such programs to a rolling sequester, which would take place over three years and end with a complete elimination of funding if lawmakers have not acted to reauthorize the program. Currently, the federal government …

Amid sales surge, Dollar General plans 900 new stores – RBS o o o Some people just never learn: US credit card debt balloons to $917B: What it means – G.P. o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News The Biggest Force Powering the Stock Market is Starting to Disappear, and It Could be a Huge Problem (Business Insider) Excerpt: “The issue that should scare investors is what would happen if this corporate stimulus went away.” Without Buybacks There is No Earnings Per Share Growth (Contra Corner) Excerpt: “According to a chart from Deutsche Bank, as sales and profit …

Food Stamp Beneficiaries Exceed 45M for 56 Straight Months – Sent in by B.B. o o o Hold off on buying forever stamps until after April 10th – The value will drop to $.47 Sent in by C. Maxwell (You might want to check his website out at www.foreverstampvalue.com/ .) o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News Senators Accuse State Department of Defying Congress with $500M UN Climate Payment (Fox News) Excerpt: “Lawyers cannot replace the constitutional requirement that only Congress can appropriate money….” Puerto Rico’s Game is Rigged (Washington Examiner) Excerpt: “But as happened 70 years ago, …

SILVER OUTBREAK: Investment Demand Will Totally Overwhelm The Market o o o North Milwaukee State Bank is closed, taken over by a North Carolina bank. – Sent in by G.G. o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News The Incredible Story of How Hackers Stole $100M from the New York Fed (Zero Hedge) Excerpt: “…everything from casinos, to money laundering and ultimately a scheme to steal $1 billion from the Bangladeshi central bank.” Warning: Commentary following the article may include bad language and/or inappropriate avatar images. $1B Plot to Rob Fed Accounts Leads to Manilla Casinos (Bloomberg) Excerpt: “…just …

The Curious Case Of The 550 Million Missing Barrels Of Crude Oil o o o Commercial property bubble gets out of control: Commercial real estate is now up 102 percent from the lows reached in 2009. o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News Demand Agencies Go to the Chopping Block (Government Waste Fraud and Abuse) This is an excellent opinion piece written by columnist Cal Thomas. Excerpt: “We live in troubled times. The institutions we once trusted no longer seem reliable.” Feds Paid $709,000 to Academic Who Studies How Glaciers are Sexist (Daily Caller) “Merging feminist postcolonial science …