Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, we look at the investing aspect of the upcoming demise of gun-buying privacy in the United States. (See the Tangibles Investing section.)
Precious Metals:
Precious metals were up again Thursday evening (Friday morning, in Asia), on news of an Israeli retaliatory missile strike on Iran:
-
$2,421.40 up $25.10 (1.04%)
-
$28.87 up $0.35 (1.23%)
-
$961.30 up $2.80 (0.29%)
o o o
Alasdair Macleod: The Bullish Factors Behind Silver’s Rise.
o o o
Radomski, at Gold-Eagle.com: THE Reversal in Gold, THE Confirmed Breakout in USD/YEN.
Economy & Finance:
From Bloomberg: Larry Summers Says CPI Raises Chances That Fed’s Next Move Is to Hike.
o o o
The Fed may have no choice but to tip the US into recession, economist says.
o o o
Credit-Card Delinquency Rates Were Worst on Record in Fed Study.
o o o
By way of Zero Hedge, I found this piece by Charles Hugh Smith: Financial Forecast 2025-2032: Please Don’t Be Naive. Here is a pericope:
“You already know the global financial system is untenable. In a nutshell, the expansion of production and consumption has been funded by the expansion of credit–money borrowed from future resources and income. The rate of expanding debt far surpasses the anemic rates of expanding production, and this rapidly expanding mountain of debt is perched precariously on the phantom collateral generated by The Everything Bubble, the astounding expansion of asset prices as those with the lowest cost access to credit have bid up every asset class, from real estate to gold to bitcoin to stocks to fine art.
All these assets are phantom collateral because they were bid up on the wings of cheap, abundant credit. History is rather decisive: all credit-asset bubbles pop, and the price of the assets round-trips back to pre-bubble valuations. As the bubble pops, credit shifts from being abundant and near-zero in cost to being scarce and dear.”
o o o
We all saw this one coming: Labor group demands California’s $20 minimum wage for fast food workers extend to all sectors.Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”