Silver – a Long-Term Perspective
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Forbes Yanks a Negative Article on JPMorgan While the Bank Pays for Content – P.M.
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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 “policy of modestly negative interest rates might be a reasonable compromise between no action and rolling out the big QE gun.”
Struggling US Oil and Gas Companies Eye Rare Financing Deals (Reuters) Excerpt: “Severely distressed companies may issue so-called 1.5 lien debt, sandwiched between the first and second liens, to raise new capital. Investors with a stomach for risk would get a better yield than for the top debt, and have a stronger claim than junior creditors if the company filed for bankruptcy.”
Fed Bank Supervisors Can Curb But Not Eliminate Failures: Dudley (Reuters) Excerpt: “The army of supervisors from the Federal Reserve and other agencies can reduce but not eliminate the risk of bank failures….” A tool to help assess the financial health and well-being of your bank follows: Texas Ratio: Bank Ratio for Analyzing Safety and Soundness (Best Cash Cow)
Civil Forfeiture Vote Coming (Before It’s News) Attention Nebraska… Protect your property rights! Excerpt: “Civil forfeiture laws create a perverse incentive for police to target and seize property INSTEAD of targeting, investigating, and proving actual criminal behavior. L.B. 1106 would reform civil asset forfeiture and put an end to this attack on property rights.”
International News
Some “Appalling Injustices” in Property Seizures (Radio Canada International) Excerpt: “What I find especially outrageous, as if that weren’t bad enough…is that a judge has already ordered those properties sold before the trial (of the tenants) has even taken place, which really surprised me….”
ECB’s Bazooka Has Not Run Out of Ammunition, Says Chief Economist (The Telegraph) Excerpt: “The European Central Bank is prepared to slash interest rates deeper into negative territory if the economic outlook deteriorates….”
Personal Economics and Household Finance
A Cabin Full of Food: Cook from Scratch, Preserve at Home, Save Money (Just Plain Living)
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