Latest Articles: Business/Finance
Crude Producers and Central Bankers Try to Scare the Bears — Will it Work?
Post Date: 2016-02-16 20:27:28 by BTP Holdings
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Crude Producers and Central Bankers Try to Scare the Bears — Will it Work? Mike Larson | Tuesday, February 16, 2016 at 4:20 pm After getting pummeled for weeks, central bankers and crude producers went on the offense in the past 96 hours. First, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi went before the European Parliament yesterday to proclaim the banking system sound and resilient. He said higher capital buffers and other things made the situation “very different from what it was in 2012" during the eurozone debt crisis. He also said the ECB “will not hesitate to act” further to combat economic weakness when it next meets on March 10. Second, officials from ...
Negative (Interest Rate) Reinforcement
Post Date: 2016-02-16 06:49:29 by BTP Holdings
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Negative (Interest Rate) Reinforcement Published Tue, Feb 16, 2016 | Alan Gula, Chief Income Analyst This "trend" is bad news for all. Negative Interest Rates May Come to U.S. The message coming from central bankers is clear: The beatings will continue until morale improves. If the global equity markets don’t perform well, negative interest rate coercion will be meted out. Last week, Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, cut its key interest rate from -0.35% to -0.5%. Two weeks ago, the Bank of Japan “unexpectedly” joined the negative interest rate policy (NIRP) movement. Thanks mostly to NIRP, there now exists $7 trillion worth of negative-yielding ...
Market turmoil shows folly of printing for prosperity
Post Date: 2016-02-16 06:29:38 by BTP Holdings
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Market turmoil shows folly of printing for prosperity Posted on February 15, 2016 by Ron Paul Dollars pile as background Last week U.S. stock markets tumbled yet again, leaving the Dow Jones index down almost 1500 points for the year. In fact, most major world markets are in negative territory this year. There are many Wall Street cheerleaders who are trying to say that this is just a technical correction, that the bottom is near, and that everything will be getting better soon. They are ignoring the real message the markets are trying to send: you cannot print your way to prosperity. People throughout history have always sought to acquire wealth. Most of them understand that it takes ...
Bill Gross Gives Thumbs Down to Negative Interest Rates
Post Date: 2016-02-13 20:58:11 by BTP Holdings
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Bill Gross Gives Thumbs Down to Negative Interest Rates Image: Bill Gross Gives Thumbs Down to Negative Interest Rates Friday, 12 Feb 2016 01:04 PM Prominent bond managers have a message for central bankers: negative interest rates won’t work. Bill Gross of Janus Capital Group Inc., Scott Mather of Pacific Investment Management Co. and Tad Rivelle of TCW Group said negative rates won’t stimulate growth and may have adverse consequences for economies and markets. Investors are fleeing bank stocks and other financials as concerns mount that low- and negative-rate policies will prohibit them from making a profit, Gross said. “Markets sense that and they go down,” ...
Simple Janet——The Monetary Android With a Broken Flash Drive
Post Date: 2016-02-13 08:20:12 by Ada
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This is getting just plain nuts. Here is what Janet Yellen said today about the possibility of negative interest rates: In light of the experience of European countries and others that have gone to negative rates, we’re taking a look at them again because we would want to be prepared in the event that we needed to add accommodation.“ The operative words here are “European countries” and “add accommodation”. Yet even a brief reflection on those items demonstrates that Janet is a delusional Simpleton. To adapt Jim Kunstler’s felicitous phrase about Senator Rubio’s 4-Peat incantation during the last GOP debate, our financial system is being led by a ...
Welcome To Obama's Recovery: Carrier Moving 1400 Jobs To Mexico
Post Date: 2016-02-12 22:29:22 by HAPPY2BME-4UM
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In his final state-of-the-union address, President Obama famously accused anyone who dares to question the strength of the US economic "recovery" of "peddling fiction." Shortly thereafter, we learned that the US economy grew at a paltry 0.69% in Q4. Below estimates. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the state of the economy - well, besides the fact that healthcare spending is essentially driving "growth" - is that the labor market has becoming a waiter and bartender creation machine. That's come at the expense of manufacturing jobs, where skilled workers can actually earn a decent living. Here's what the disparity looks like since 2007: No ...
Central Bank Medicine Now Actually Making ‘Patients’ Sicker
Post Date: 2016-02-12 19:19:59 by BTP Holdings
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Central Bank Medicine Now Actually Making ‘Patients’ Sicker Mike Larson | Friday, February 12, 2016 at 4:20 pm Every doctor in the world knows it: Too much medicine makes patients sicker, not better. But the world’s central bankers have been ignoring that principle. They’ve been cutting rates deeper and deeper into negative territory. And now, not only is that strategy failing to HELP the economy or the markets, it’s actually HURTING them. That’s the crux of this fantastic Wall Street Journal story. It zeroes in on the problem by saying: “Those (negative interest rate) policies, which charge lenders for reserves they keep on deposit with central ...
MOODY'S MOOD? DOOM AND GLOOM
Post Date: 2016-02-12 06:52:02 by BTP Holdings
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MOODY'S MOOD? DOOM AND GLOOM The downturn in commodities has rippled across all asset classes, especially the credit markets. There's no light at the end of the tunnel, either, as Moody's Investors Service sees more negativity ahead. On February 4, Moody's presented its findings in a panel sponsored by the Fixed Income Analysts Society (FIASI), entitled "Commodity Downturn Intensifies." According to Group Credit Officer Mariarosa Verde, the commodity crisis is occurring during a more mature credit cycle. That means growing stress among commodities poses a great danger to the cycle itself. After several years of declining commodity prices, the pace of ...
Why there’s a war on cash; it’s about central banks consolidating power
Post Date: 2016-02-12 06:34:44 by BTP Holdings
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Why there’s a war on cash; it’s about central banks consolidating power Posted on February 12, 2016 by Bob Livingston cash hidden in mattress The war on cash has gone from overt to covert. Having expended all their ammo with Quantitative Easing to infinity and zero interest rate policy (ZIRP), central banks are now looking toward negative interest rates. What are negative interest rates? Right now, banks pay only slightly above 0 percent interest on savings. In reality, that’s already a negative rate of return. Real inflation (not the government’s fiction inflation) of the money supply is running north of 7 percent. So your money depreciates while in savings. You ...
How Big is a Ton of Gold?
Post Date: 2016-02-12 03:14:10 by Pinguinite
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Here's a great site that makes visualizing amounts of gold easy, from one ounce to all the gold ever mined. Great artistry. Click for Full Text!
The Biggest Financial Scam Ever (Hint: It’s Not Madoff)
Post Date: 2016-02-11 20:25:02 by BTP Holdings
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The Biggest Financial Scam Ever (Hint: It’s Not Madoff) By Michael Covel In late 2008, Bernard Madoff shocked the investment world when he confessed the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors estimated the size of the fraud to be $64.8 billion, based on the amounts in the accounts of Madoff’s 4,800 clients as of November 30, 2008. It was the largest accounting fraud in American history. But the Madoff scandal pales in comparison to the scam I’m talking about today. The government is involved. Universities are involved. Wall Street is involved. The mainstream media is involved. Everyone is in it. It’s such a widespread scam ...
Legit Investment… or a Ponzi Scheme?
Post Date: 2016-02-11 06:38:31 by BTP Holdings
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Legit Investment… or a Ponzi Scheme? Published Thu, Feb 11, 2016 | Martin Hutchinson, Global Markets Analyst How to Tell The Difference: Legit Investment or Ponzi Scheme Last week, more than 20 people were arrested in China over a $7.6 billion Ponzi scheme involving a peer-to-peer (P2P) lender called Ezubao. According to a report in the Financial Times, Ezubao had 900,000 investors, utterly dwarfing Bernard Madoff’s mere 13,500. As this latest example goes to show, we need to be extremely careful when faced with enticing sales pitches for new income opportunities. Unfortunately, it’s damnably difficult to tell whether something unconventional is a Ponzi scheme. Worst of ...
Here Is The Exchange That Left A Stunned Janet Yellen Looking Like A Deer In Headlights
Post Date: 2016-02-11 01:34:10 by HAPPY2BME-4UM
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For nearly one year, Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy has been Janet Yellen's nemesis over the ongoing probe into Fed leakage of material inside information via Medley Global and any other undisclosed channels, one which has seen subpoeans be lobbed at the Fed which has been doing everything in its power to stall said probe, and which cost Pedro da Costa his job when he dared to ask questions at a Fed presser that were not precleared by his WSJ "Fed mouthpiece" peers. Today, during Yellen's appearance before the House Financial Services committee, Duffy finally had enough, and in a heated exchange asked Yellen what on legal authority is the Fed exerting privilege to ignore ...
Markets, the Fed, and Asymmetry
Post Date: 2016-02-10 19:23:31 by BTP Holdings
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Markets, the Fed, and Asymmetry By Jim Rickards As the S&P 500 index plunged from 2,128 on July 20, 2015, to 1,880 last Friday (a 12% decline; technically a “correction,” not yet a “bear market”), calls have emerged for the Federal Reserve to “do something” to halt the decline. At a minimum, investors and analysts urge to Fed to desist from their planned path of interest rate hikes to avoid further damage to stocks. These calls were especially strident during the 11% mini-crash from Aug. 18 to Aug. 25, 2015 (following the Chinese shock devaluation of the yuan on Aug. 10), and the separate 11% air pocket from Dec. 29, 2015 to Jan. 20, 2016. (These ...
Are Credit Markets Warning of a Lehman-Style Crisis?
Post Date: 2016-02-10 04:25:54 by BTP Holdings
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Are Credit Markets Warning of a Lehman-Style Crisis? Mike Larson | Tuesday, February 9, 2016 at 4:20 pm Credit. Credit. Credit. That’s where the action is these days (and really, where it has been for the last year). And I’m here to tell you the credit markets look to be pointing toward an increasing chance of a Lehman-style crisis. Hyperbole? Hardly! Take a look at this chart, which shows the cost of insuring against a default on some of the bonds issued by Deutsche Bank (DB) … The cost of insuring Deutsche Bank debt. You can see the cost of credit-default-swap protection is exploding. So-called “CDS” contracts act like insurance against bond defaults, and the ...
Central banks ‘out of ammo’ to reverse economic meltdown
Post Date: 2016-02-09 21:38:54 by BTP Holdings
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Central banks ‘out of ammo’ to reverse economic meltdown Posted on February 9, 2016 by Sam Rolley Economic Crisis Graph Central banks throughout the world have set the global economy on course for a devastating crash. And as the harsh economic reality sets in, the world’s money manipulators are being forced to admit they’re powerless to soften the consequences of their reckless easy money policies. In a recent conversation with CNN Money, investment strategist Ed Yardeni put the troubling economic news as simply as possible, saying: “Major central banks have run out of ammo.” What he means is that central banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve have long ...
Oil prices are being driven down by debt
Post Date: 2016-02-09 09:29:54 by Ada
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The price of oil is being driven down by one simple thing: debt. In a post on Monday, Mark Dow at Behavioral Macro outlined the simple, but elegant and persuasive theory about why oil prices have been driven so low and why they remain their today. Quite simply it is about how oil companies were financed. Here's Dow (emphasis mine): But on [the subject of oil] we came away with an answer, something wiser (not smarter, wiser) market types have been suppurating for several months: the supply pressures won’t stop until debt-financed production becomes equity-financed production. It really is that simple. The reasoning is clear: We know you can’t hold back production to get ...
The Sharp Pain of the Overvaluation Sword
Post Date: 2016-02-08 21:39:58 by BTP Holdings
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The Sharp Pain of the Overvaluation Sword Mike Larson | Monday, February 8, 2016 at 4:22 pm Live by the overvaluation sword, die by the overvaluation sword. That’s a painful lesson investors are learning these days, what with “FANG” stocks getting gored — and other overvalued tech stocks tanking. You remember these stocks, don’t you? I wrote about the FANGs back in November when they were artificially propping up the averages. And I wrote back in September about the serious risk of a “Tech Bubble II.” Now, we’re watching all those risks I highlighted come home to roost. Just since the beginning of the year, Amazon.com (AMZN) has fallen 27.4%. ...
The Fed's Fata Morgana
Post Date: 2016-02-08 20:37:03 by BTP Holdings
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The Fed's Fata Morgana By Jim Rickards A Fata Morgana is a kind of mirage in which distant objects at sea appear to be floating in mid-air or upside down, sometimes both. One famous literary description of a Fata Morgana occurs in Chapter 135 of Herman Melville’s masterpiece, Moby Dick. As Ahab is pulled overboard, and the White Whale rams the Pequod, Melville writes: “The ship? Great God, where is the ship? Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana.” But, of course the ship was sinking, the vision was an illusion. The Federal Reserve now sees its own mirage. In a real Fata Morgana, the illusion is ...
Gold Market Update
Post Date: 2016-02-08 17:24:42 by Ada
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For the 1st time in years, everything is in place for a major bullmarket phase to get underway in gold and silver. There are two big reasons for this. One is that the dollar is looking set to drop – and has started to already. The other reason, which is of course related, is that those in power look set to attempt to loosen the intensifying deflationary stranglehold on the world economy by unleashing a global QE blitz that could dwarf anything that has come before, and will end in hyperinflation. Egon Von Greyerz talks about this in an article on King World News entitled Legend Warns Global Panic Is Coming. Don’t be put off by the lurid, blood-curdling presentation – I ...
Privatization Is the Atlanticist Strategy to Attack Russia
Post Date: 2016-02-08 13:07:28 by Ada
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NOTE: Readers are asking to know who, in addition to the Western-financed NGOs, are the Fifth Columnists inside Russia. Michael Hudson and I left the description general as Atlanticist Integrationists and neoliberal economists. The Saker provides some specific names. Among the Fifth Columnists are the Russian Prime Minister, head of the Central Bank, and the two top economics ministers. They are springing a privatization trap on Putin that could undo all of his accomplishments and deliver Russia to Western control. http://thesaker.is/putins-biggest-failure/ Two years ago, Russian officials discussed plans to privatize a group of national enterprises headed by the oil producer Rosneft, ...
Global gloom provides a silver (and gold) lining
Post Date: 2016-02-08 04:24:38 by BTP Holdings
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Global gloom provides a silver (and gold) lining Posted on February 8, 2016 by GS Early gold and silver bullion Before the first week of the new year was in the books, the Chinese stock market lost more than 14 percent and triggered circuit breakers that have led to the shortest trading day in the stock market’s 25-year history. As far as stocks are concerned, the Chinese market made huge gains — up over 100 percent — from early 2014 into early 2015. Then we had the selloff in the summer and the market came back again. Given the massive gains, it’s not surprising that there’s going to be a significant correction, circuit breakers or not. The circuit breakers, ...
THE BIGGEST ACCOUNTING HOAX SINCE ENRON
Post Date: 2016-02-07 16:10:40 by BTP Holdings
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Dear reader, In late 2000, Charles Pearse, 63, retired a millionaire. Just a few months later he was flat broke. With a portfolio worth $1.3 million, he thought he would spend his golden years relaxing on a beach, playing golf with his friends, and traveling around the world. But when his company Enron went bust, his retirement fund went from $1.3 million to $13,000… in a little more than a year. It took him 33 years to save all that money. But in the blink of an eye, he lost everything. His retirement dreams were crushed. And now he’s trying to survive on a ridiculous $1,800 monthly Social Security check. His story is not unique. When Enron collapsed in 2001, more than 20 ...
Obama bullied bank to pay racial settlement without proof: report
Post Date: 2016-02-07 10:49:41 by Ada
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Newly uncovered internal memos reveal the Obama administration knowingly exaggerated charges of racial discrimination in probes of Ally Bank and other defendants in the $900 billion car-lending business as part of a “racial justice” campaign that’s looking more like a massive government extortion and shakedown operation. So far, Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has reached more than $220 million in settlements with several auto lenders since the agency launched its anti-discrimination crusade against the industry in 2013. Several other banks are under active investigation. That’s despite the fact that the CFPB had no actual complaints of racial ...
The War On Savers And The 200 Rulers Of Global Finance
Post Date: 2016-02-07 07:47:38 by Ada
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There has been an economic coup d’état in America and most of the world. We are now ruled by about 200 unelected central bankers, monetary apparatchiks and their minions and megaphones on Wall Street and other financial centers. Unlike Senator Joseph McCarthy, I actually do have a list of their names. They need to be exposed, denounced, ridiculed, rebuked and removed. The first 30 includes Janet Yellen, William Dudley, the other governors of the Fed and its senior staff. The next 10 includes Jan Hatzius, chief economist of Goldman Sachs, and his counterparts at the other major Wall Street banking houses. Then there is the dreadful Draghi and the 25-member governing council of ...
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