Category: Economics & Investing

Greg C. was the first of several readers to send this: Irish Bombshell: Government Raids PRIVATE Pensions To Pay For Spending. (A trend coming soon to America?) Wall Street View from the Dollar Vigilante, Jeff Berwick. Berwick asserts that The Canadian Dollar’s fate is tied to the U.S. Dollar. Check out his Dollar Vigilante blog. (Thanks to Dan S. for the video link.) Smithfield CEO: Higher Food Prices Are Here To Stay. (Thanks to Kelly D. for the news tip.) Europe prays for Easter rain in worst drought for a century Items from The Economatrix: China Buying Silver Overnight Home …

SurvivalBlog’s G.G. sent this: ‘Underwater’ Homeowners Rise to 28 Percent: Zillow. JWR’s Comment: Please don’t try to tell me that the U.S. housing market has “reached the bottom”. It will continue to deteriorate. The bottom won’t be reached until after hundreds of billions of dollars in bad debt unwinds. At this point, the only viable way for the government and the Federal Reserve banking cartel to extricate themselves from this morass is to inflate their way out. It will only be when houses start selling for more than they did in 2007 that the market will start to “turn around.” …

C.D.V. sent this: Housing crash is getting worse: report. Observations of the Silver Smack Down. Steve K. forwarded a link to: Doomsday Scenario (from the Treasury Department, of all places!) G.P. suggested: $2 Trillion Mile Marker on Road to Perdition Items from The Economatrix: Florida Bank Fails; 40 Shuttered In 2011 Global Economic Crisis to Worsen n Fall The Silver Bull:  Despite This Week’s Selloff, We See Higher Prices Ahead Hopes For A Quick Decline In US Joblessness Dims Signs Are Pointing to a Big Commodity Selloff

Reader C.C.V. sent this: U.S. Payrolls Grew 244,000 in April; Unemployment at 9%. JWR Adds: “the recovery is cooling” they claim. I ask: What recovery? All that I’ve seen is a brief blip, caused by a massive infusion of Funny Money. (The monetization dubbed “Quantitative Easing”.) Chris Martenson interviews Addison Wiggin: We Can’t Afford the Solutions Needed To Reverse Our Decline I noticed an interesting article over at Fierce Finance: Goldman Sachs prodigy quits KAF sent this: Fannie Mae has asked the government Friday for an additional $8.5 billion in aid. (It lost $8.7 billion in the first three months …

Reader Fred Z. sent this: No Accounting for Benefits: Our taxes barely cover our social-welfare programs; everything else is on credit. KAF suggested this piece over at Zero Hedge: CME Margin Hike Is 4th AND 5th – Charting The Parabolic Rise In CME Silver Margin Hikes How the Fed triggered the Arab Spring uprisings in two easy graphs. (SurvivalBlog’s Poet Laureate G.G. sent the link.) Troy H. recommended a recent newsletter, wherein Jeremy Grantham gets downright Malthusian. Items from The Economatrix: China Said May Buy $1 Trillion in Gold US Service Sector Expanded at Much Slower Pace Economic Stress Drops …

I found this article linked at The Drudge Report: Food Prices Rise to Near-Record as Inflation Accelerates John R. recommended a piece by Martin A. Armstrong: The Next Wave B.B. sent this: Mexican Central Bank Quietly Buys 100 Tons of Gold Jim Rogers: Oil Price Will Keep Rising; Silver to Fall Debt-Ceiling Brinksmanship: Treasury Will Hit Legal Limit When It Borrows $13.86 Billion More Items from The Economatrix: Any Chance of Gold Confiscation? Precious Metals vs. The USD 10 States Where Pensions are Running Out of Money US Dollar Crash Warned May Be Underway Fresh US Dollar Slide Rekindles Pre-Crisis …

Here it comes, just as I predicted: Silver Investors Dump Futures as Comex Boosts Speculator Trading Costs 84%. But even if the COMEX governors kill the futures market, they won’t be able to destroy the physical silver market. The demand for physical silver is just too great. Expect lots of volatility with some huge price swings, in coming months. But in the long run, as the Western economies go into stagflation, physical silver will rightly be seen as a safe haven, gaining against the rapidly-inflating fiat currencies. (Or rather, I should say the currencies will be losing value, whilst silver …

[UPDATED] Silver investors: Here is one of those dips that I mentioned! Silver at under $35 per ounce is a definite buying opportunity. $35 per ounce equates to around 25 times face value (wholesale), for pre-1965 “junk” silver coins. They were a whopping 37 times face just six days ago. Buy now! C.D.V. send this: Underwater Mortgages a Threat to Recovery; Expect No More Than 3% Growth Until Housing Recovers Portugal becomes third euro country to get bailout. (Thanks to G.P. for the link.) Also from G.P.: About 1 in 7 in U.S. Receive Food Stamps Former Comptroller David Walker: …

I called this one right: Silver struggles again after futures market raises margin requirements. (Back on April 21st, I had written: “Also, be forewarned: The COMEX Governors are soon likely to slam on the brakes on the precious metals markets by changing their trading rules. (Most likely by raising margin requirements.) Prices will get very volatile. Be ready to take advantage of any steep sell-offs.”) D.B. in Seattle suggested this piece by Niall Ferguson: Sticker Shock. It begins: “The Fed may deny it, but Americans know that prices are rising. In this week’s Newsweek, Niall Ferguson takes a look at …

Housing Crash 2.0 Is Accelerating Jim Willie: Currency Dead End Paradoxes Banksters Covered 26 Million Silver Oz Short Position. (Thanks to Chris D. for the link.) Tyrone W. wrote to mention a Glenn Beck interview with G. Edward Griffin about the history of the Federal Reserve. Items from The Economatrix: Economy Slowed By High Gas Prices, Bad Weather More People Applied For Unemployment Benefits Currency Dead-end Paradoxes, The Besieged US Dollar

J.B.G. suggested this piece in The Washington Times by Arnaud de Borchgrave: Geneva Gnome’s Global Dread George S. mentioned some interesting news: North Dakota does today what no other state is able to do — cut taxes G.G. sent this inevitable bit of news: Thefts rise as price of gas goes up Items from The Economatrix: Critics Say Fed Policies Devalue The US Dollar Thanks to Obama, Gas Jumps in a Flash Will Silver Go Above $50 and Stay There? Bernanke Holds First Press Conference in Fed History