Category: Economics & Investing

The banksters’ Negative Interest Rate Policy (NIRP) appears to have quietly put the IMF’s analysts in a Modified Stationary Panic. See this August 2016 IMF white paper: Negative Interest Rate Policy (NIRP):Implications for Monetary Transmission and Bank Profitability in the Euro Area.  Buried in the report is this little zinger; “Early evidence suggests that the adverse impact of negative rates on bank profitability may increase non-linearly as the policy rate declines further.” We are headed for some interesting times, folks! The Deutsche Bank death spiral may be just the beginning of a full-blown, widespread debt crisis contagion. o o o …

We were already tipped off long ago about gold in a world of negative interest rates.  Now consider Ray Dalio’s Long-Term Debt Cycle Charts (over at Barry Ritholtz’s The Big Picture.) o o o From Mr. Econocobas: Deutsche Bank Considers Thousands More Job Cuts: Source – Keep watching this. I fully believe that they don’t want this to happen and will do everything they can to help paper it over. But if Deutsche goes down then  it will make Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers seem like just a walk in the park.  It is noteworthy that Deutsche has some of …

Charles Hugh Smith:  Please Assume Crash Positions o o o Cash is piling up faster than Warren Buffett can invest it.  Most of the mainstream media analysts seem to see Buffet’s growing cash position as crafty planning for some major acquisitions.  But I suspect that he has actually become risk averse and is putting cash on the sidelines in anticipation of a major market correction. This correction would most likely be triggered by another global credit crisis that will dwarf the 2008 crisis. I predict that when Buffett again buys stocks substantially, it will be at or near the bottom. …

Bitcoin has been in the news recently for good and bad reasons. You are probably also seeing the word Blockchain, and may be curious what that is. It is important for people wary of government intervention in their lives to understand what Bitcoin is, and if it is an avenue that can be used to safeguard wealth or act as an investment. Five years ago, Bitcoin was the only major online currency. This is still the case, but there is competition from all sides. There have been many similar competing currencies released in the last few years, and these are …

Pre-1965 Silver Pocket Change Provides Investors With an Economic Future o o o The Case for Investing in Guns o o o This was posted last month at Zero Hedge: The only real currency if society breaks down is accelerated lead. o o o Graham Summers had some comments on the global currency markets: A Problem So Massive Even Central Banks Cannot Contain It o o o SurvivalBlog and its editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for details.

Nearly 7 in 10 Americans have less than $1,000 in savings o o o Need a [Home-Based] Business Idea? Here are 55 o o o Hillary Clinton’s planned tax increases o o o Deutsche Bank has another problem: Its ETF business.  (The bank’s stock has dropped from around 30 Euros per share to 12.36 Euros per share, over the past seven months, and meanwhile their funds outflows have been enormous. Collapse of the bank reportedly now appears inevitable.) o o o SurvivalBlog and its editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for details.

China must wean itself off debt addiction if it is to avoid financial calamity, warns IMF chief o o o Hubert Moolman: Silver Price Forecast: Higher Silver Prices For Many Years To Come o o o Bank of England investigating dramatic overnight fall in pound o o o Gold bounces back from biggest weekly drop this year o o o SurvivalBlog and its editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for details.

Simon Black’s Sovereign Man e-letter reports: “It’s official. The United States government closed out the 2016 fiscal year that ended a few days ago on Friday September 30th with a debt level of $19,573,444,713,936. ??That’s an increase of $1,422,827,047,452 over last year’s fiscal year close. ??Incredible. By the way, that debt growth amounts to roughly 7.5% of the entire US economy.” JWR’s Comment: Or look at it this way: The $1.4 Trillion in new debt surpasses all of the debt that the Federal government accumulated inclusively from 1787 to 1979—yes, and all in just one year. In all, in his …

Some quite bad news has come from an oft-cited “tax free” offshore haven: Vanuatu to impose their first ever payroll and income taxes—without any public comment. The plan is for a payroll tax, beginning in 2017, and then an income tax, beginning in 2018. Vanuatuan officials claim that the offsetting revenue generated by these new taxes will allow them to do away with the current rent tax and also to “reduce” import duties. They say that they also “hope” to eventually reduce the hated Value Added Tax (VAT), but they are making no promises. In sum, these new taxes make …

A FOREX update: It is noteworthy that following the recent British Pound plummet, the Swiss Franc just jumped to 98.075 to the Dollar.  It was closer to 96 cents, just a few weeks ago. Methinks that a fairly durable Dollar/CH Franc parity trading range can’t be far off! (Parity was touched once briefly on July 27th.) I now have no regrets whatsoever about having hedged into Swiss Francs back when they cost me around 77 cents each. – JWR o o o Many of the pundits who are bashing candidate Donald Trump’s economic plan seem uninformed. This analysis by Peter …

Pound Plummets Against Dollar in Chaotic Trading o o o  Pound-Dollar Parity Is Now a Possibility for Options Traders o o o Is The Oil Price War Finally Over? o o o Global Debt a ‘Record High”: IMF