page-loading-spinner

credit

Image | Europe’s Precarious Banks Will Determine the Future
Europe’s Precarious Banks Will Determine the Future
by Alasdair Macleod

Crying Wolf?

It is easy to get the impression that the naysayers are wrong about Europe. After all of the predictions of Armageddon, ten-year government bond yields for Spain and Italy fell to the 4% level, France (which is retreating into old-fashioned socialism) was able to borrow at about 2%, and one of the best-performing bond investments has been until recently – wait for it – Greek government bonds! Admittedly, bond yields have risen from those lows, but so have they everywhere. It is clear, when one stands back from all the usual euro-rhetoric, that, as a threat to the global financial system, it is a case of "panic over."
Europe’s Precarious Banks Will Determine the Future
 by Alasdair Macleod

Crying Wolf?

It is easy to get the impression that the naysayers are wrong about Europe. After all of the predictions of Armageddon, ten-year government bond yields for Spain and Italy fell to the 4% level, France (which is retreating into old-fashioned socialism) was able to borrow at about 2%, and one of the best-performing bond investments has been until recently – wait for it – Greek government bonds! Admittedly, bond yields have risen from those lows, but so have they everywhere. It is clear, when one stands back from all the usual euro-rhetoric, that, as a threat to the global financial system, it is a case of "panic over."
Image | Four Signs That We’re Back in Dangerous Bubble Territory
Four Signs That We’re Back in Dangerous Bubble Territory
by Chris Martenson

As the global equity and bond markets grind ever higher, abundant signs exist that we are once again living through an asset bubble – or rather a whole series of bubbles in a variety of markets. This makes this period quite interesting, but also quite dangerous.

With equity and bond markets at or near all-time record highs, with all financial assets consistently shrugging off bad – or worse – news as the riskiest of assets continue to find consistent upward bids, we find ourselves in familiar and bubbly territory.
Four Signs That We’re Back in Dangerous Bubble Territory
 by Chris Martenson

As the global equity and bond markets grind ever higher, abundant signs exist that we are once again living through an asset bubble – or rather a whole series of bubbles in a variety of markets. This makes this period quite interesting, but also quite dangerous.

With equity and bond markets at or near all-time record highs, with all financial assets consistently shrugging off bad – or worse – news as the riskiest of assets continue to find consistent upward bids, we find ourselves in familiar and bubbly territory.
Image | Japan vs. Newton (and Certain to Lose)
Japan vs. Newton (and Certain to Lose)
by Chris Martenson

Conventional thinking and reporting has it that Japan is conducting a larger version of the same monetary experiment they’ve been running for about 15 years.  The implication here is that we can safely analyze what Japan is up to through the same monetary lens as always, but with a slightly wider aperture.

By now, we are all familiar with the details.  Japan has initiated a program of monetary expansion that goes by the shorthand of 2-2-2.  In 2 years, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) will fully double the monetary base as they seek a minimum of 2% inflation.
Japan vs. Newton (and Certain to Lose)
 by Chris Martenson

Conventional thinking and reporting has it that Japan is conducting a larger version of the same monetary experiment they’ve been running for about 15 years.  The implication here is that we can safely analyze what Japan is up to through the same monetary lens as always, but with a slightly wider aperture.

By now, we are all familiar with the details.  Japan has initiated a program of monetary expansion that goes by the shorthand of 2-2-2.  In 2 years, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) will fully double the monetary base as they seek a minimum of 2% inflation.
Image | Say Goodbye to the Purchasing Power of the Dollar
Say Goodbye to the Purchasing Power of the Dollar
by Adam Taggart

On a long solo car trip this past weekend, I downloaded several podcasts to listen to as the miles passed. One was a classic: The Invention of Money, originally released by NPR's Planet Money team back in January of 2011. I highly recommend listening (or re-listening) to it in full.

The podcast is a great reminder of how any currency in a monetary system is a fabricated construct. A simpler way to explain this is to say it has value simply because we believe it does.

Say Goodbye to the Purchasing Power of the Dollar
 by Adam Taggart

On a long solo car trip this past weekend, I downloaded several podcasts to listen to as the miles passed. One was a classic: The Invention of Money, originally released by NPR's Planet Money team back in January of 2011. I highly recommend listening (or re-listening) to it in full.

The podcast is a great reminder of how any currency in a monetary system is a fabricated construct. A simpler way to explain this is to say it has value simply because we believe it does.

Image | Let’s Stop Fooling Ourselves: Americans Can’t Afford the Future
Let’s Stop Fooling Ourselves: Americans Can’t Afford the Future
by Adam Taggart

The truth is: The three adult generations in the U.S. are suffering, and their burdens are likely to increase with time. Each is experiencing a squeeze that is making it harder to create value, save capital, and pursue happiness than at any point since WWII. At that point, we were a creditor nation with an economy exploding into dominance on the world stage. Now, however, the U.S. is the largest debtor nation and our economic hegemony is increasingly at seige across a number of fronts.

A continuation of the status quo is a decision to sleepwalk face-first into the constraints hurtling towards us.

Instead, shouldn't we stop fooling ourselves and ask: What should we be doing differently?
Let’s Stop Fooling Ourselves: Americans Can’t Afford the Future
 by Adam Taggart

The truth is: The three adult generations in the U.S. are suffering, and their burdens are likely to increase with time. Each is experiencing a squeeze that is making it harder to create value, save capital, and pursue happiness than at any point since WWII. At that point, we were a creditor nation with an economy exploding into dominance on the world stage. Now, however, the U.S. is the largest debtor nation and our economic hegemony is increasingly at seige across a number of fronts.

A continuation of the status quo is a decision to sleepwalk face-first into the constraints hurtling towards us.

Instead, shouldn't we stop fooling ourselves and ask: What should we be doing differently?
Image | Why Our Current Way of Living Has No Future
Why Our Current Way of Living Has No Future
by JHK

All of the sordid and spellbinding rackets working their hoodoo on the financial scene have obscured a whole other dimension of the fiasco that America finds itself in, namely the way we have arranged the logistics of everyday life on our landscape – the tragedy of Suburbia.

I call it a tragedy because it represents a sequence of extremely unfortunate choices made by our society over several generations. History will not forgive the excuses we make for ourselves, nor will it shed a tear for the tribulations we will induce for ourselves by living this way. History may, however, draw attention to our remarkable lack of a sense of consequence in transforming this lovely, beckoning New World continent into a wilderness of free parking. In any case, we’re stuck with what we’ve done, and the question naturally arises: What will we do now?
Why Our Current Way of Living Has No Future
 by JHK

All of the sordid and spellbinding rackets working their hoodoo on the financial scene have obscured a whole other dimension of the fiasco that America finds itself in, namely the way we have arranged the logistics of everyday life on our landscape – the tragedy of Suburbia.

I call it a tragedy because it represents a sequence of extremely unfortunate choices made by our society over several generations. History will not forgive the excuses we make for ourselves, nor will it shed a tear for the tribulations we will induce for ourselves by living this way. History may, however, draw attention to our remarkable lack of a sense of consequence in transforming this lovely, beckoning New World continent into a wilderness of free parking. In any case, we’re stuck with what we’ve done, and the question naturally arises: What will we do now?
Image | The Unsafe Foundation of Our Housing ‘Recovery’
The Unsafe Foundation of Our Housing ‘Recovery’
by charleshughsmith

What could go wrong with the housing 'recovery' in 2013?

To answer this question, we need to understand that housing is the key component in household wealth. And, that Central Planning policies are aimed at creating a resurgent “wealth effect,” as follows: When people perceive their wealth as rising, they tend to borrow and spend more freely. This is a major goal of U.S. Central Planning.

Another key goal of Central Planning is to strengthen the balance sheets of banks and households. And the broadest way to accomplish this is to boost the value of housing. This then adds collateral to banks holding mortgages and increases the equity of homeowners.

Some analysts have noted that housing construction and renovation has declined to a modest percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP). This perspective understates the importance of the family house as the largest asset for most households and housing’s critical role as collateral in the banking system.
The Unsafe Foundation of Our Housing ‘Recovery’
 by charleshughsmith

What could go wrong with the housing 'recovery' in 2013?

To answer this question, we need to understand that housing is the key component in household wealth. And, that Central Planning policies are aimed at creating a resurgent “wealth effect,” as follows: When people perceive their wealth as rising, they tend to borrow and spend more freely. This is a major goal of U.S. Central Planning.

Another key goal of Central Planning is to strengthen the balance sheets of banks and households. And the broadest way to accomplish this is to boost the value of housing. This then adds collateral to banks holding mortgages and increases the equity of homeowners.

Some analysts have noted that housing construction and renovation has declined to a modest percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP). This perspective understates the importance of the family house as the largest asset for most households and housing’s critical role as collateral in the banking system.
Image | QE for Dummies
QE for Dummies
by Chris Martenson

A PeakProsperity.com reader recently lamented:

I have been trying to get my head around the mechanism of QE. Not being an economist or experienced investor I don't really understand a lot of the jargon. The usual simple definition of QE as "thin air money printing" does not satisfy my need for understanding either. Have hunted for a description of QE for dummies that leaves me feeling like I get it, but with no luck. My difficulty is in understanding how thin air money gets into circulation.

So I'm going to do my best to answer this plea in as intuitive and straightforward a manner as I can. I, too, share the need to understand the mechanism of a process in order to feel like I have a grasp of it.  And I think it's critically important to understand QE (also known by its full name, "quantitative easing") and what it really represents. Because it is, without a doubt, one of the largest market-shaping forces of our times.
QE for Dummies
 by Chris Martenson

A PeakProsperity.com reader recently lamented:

I have been trying to get my head around the mechanism of QE. Not being an economist or experienced investor I don't really understand a lot of the jargon. The usual simple definition of QE as "thin air money printing" does not satisfy my need for understanding either. Have hunted for a description of QE for dummies that leaves me feeling like I get it, but with no luck. My difficulty is in understanding how thin air money gets into circulation.

So I'm going to do my best to answer this plea in as intuitive and straightforward a manner as I can. I, too, share the need to understand the mechanism of a process in order to feel like I have a grasp of it.  And I think it's critically important to understand QE (also known by its full name, "quantitative easing") and what it really represents. Because it is, without a doubt, one of the largest market-shaping forces of our times.
Image | QE 4: Folks, This Ain’t Normal
QE 4: Folks, This Ain’t Normal
by Chris Martenson

Okay, the Fed's recent decision to boost its monetary stimulus (a.k.a. "money printing," "quantitative easing," or simply "QE") by another $45 billion a month to a combined $85 billion per month demonstrates an almost complete departure from what a normal person might consider sensible.

To borrow a phrase from Joel Salatin: Folks, this ain't normal.  To this I will add …and it will end badly.
QE 4: Folks, This Ain’t Normal
 by Chris Martenson

Okay, the Fed's recent decision to boost its monetary stimulus (a.k.a. "money printing," "quantitative easing," or simply "QE") by another $45 billion a month to a combined $85 billion per month demonstrates an almost complete departure from what a normal person might consider sensible.

To borrow a phrase from Joel Salatin: Folks, this ain't normal.  To this I will add …and it will end badly.
Image | Robert Wiedemer: Awaiting the Aftershock
Robert Wiedemer: Awaiting the Aftershock
by Adam Taggart

Bob Wiedemer, author of the best-seller The Aftershock Investor: A Crash Course in Staying Afloat in a Sinking Economy, regards the 2007 puncturing of housing market prices and the 2008 financial market swoon as the precedents to two much larger and much more dangerous bubbles.

These more pernicious threats are the dollar bubble ("printing money") and the government debt bubble ("borrowing money"). While both are expanding at a sickening pace, in the near term they deceptively make things seem much better than they are.

But, like all bubbles, they are unsustainable. And when these collapse, they are going to take the entire financial system, and very possibly the currency, with them (a.k.a. the "aftershock")

Bob predicts that the rupture of both these bubbles will most likely happen in the next 2-4 years and accelerate astonishingly rapidly once it begins.

Robert Wiedemer: Awaiting the Aftershock
 by Adam Taggart

Bob Wiedemer, author of the best-seller The Aftershock Investor: A Crash Course in Staying Afloat in a Sinking Economy, regards the 2007 puncturing of housing market prices and the 2008 financial market swoon as the precedents to two much larger and much more dangerous bubbles.

These more pernicious threats are the dollar bubble ("printing money") and the government debt bubble ("borrowing money"). While both are expanding at a sickening pace, in the near term they deceptively make things seem much better than they are.

But, like all bubbles, they are unsustainable. And when these collapse, they are going to take the entire financial system, and very possibly the currency, with them (a.k.a. the "aftershock")

Bob predicts that the rupture of both these bubbles will most likely happen in the next 2-4 years and accelerate astonishingly rapidly once it begins.

Total 63 items

Community

Top Conversation

 Prep Now for the Coming Winter Challenges
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the needs and sustainability of our family. We have six young children, our oldest just turned 12 and our youngest just turned 3 months old. I love the considerations that the article had above and thought I would add a few things that I have considered for our situation. My...
Image | hgrootveldgmail-com by hgrootveldgmail-com
36 95
View the conversation
Image | American Gold Exchange

American Gold Exchange

Learn more
Image | Above Phone

Above Phone

Learn more