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Image | Interview with Jim Rogers: Why Inflation is Raging Worldwide And He’s Shorting US Treasury Bonds
Interview with Jim Rogers: Why Inflation is Raging Worldwide And He’s Shorting US Treasury Bonds
 PREVIEW
by Chris Martenson

“I see more inflation and more currency turmoil as we go forward. There are huge debt imbalances in the world. U.S. is the largest debtor nation in the world and all the assets are in Asia. The largest creditors in the world are China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore – this is where the assets are and the debts are in the West. Those imbalances have to be resolved. They frequently lead to more currency turmoil. We’ll see more inflation, we’ll see more governments fall. We just saw Tunisia fall – more are coming because the world is going to continue to have these problems, and especially inflation that is going to cause more social unrest.”

So said investing legend Jim Rogers when he spoke recently with PeakProsperity.com about the inflationary pressures rising dramatically around the globe, despite some governments’ best efforts to downplay them. Jim shares his “outside in” perspective on US monetary and fiscal policy, and how international players find themselves forced to react. He sees a lot of fundamental imbalances that need to be corrected for, as well as shortages of almost everything developing. In his words, “It’s going to be a real mess before it’s over.”

We’re making this important interview available first to our enrolled members.

Interview with Jim Rogers: Why Inflation is Raging Worldwide And He’s Shorting US Treasury Bonds
 PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

“I see more inflation and more currency turmoil as we go forward. There are huge debt imbalances in the world. U.S. is the largest debtor nation in the world and all the assets are in Asia. The largest creditors in the world are China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore – this is where the assets are and the debts are in the West. Those imbalances have to be resolved. They frequently lead to more currency turmoil. We’ll see more inflation, we’ll see more governments fall. We just saw Tunisia fall – more are coming because the world is going to continue to have these problems, and especially inflation that is going to cause more social unrest.”

So said investing legend Jim Rogers when he spoke recently with PeakProsperity.com about the inflationary pressures rising dramatically around the globe, despite some governments’ best efforts to downplay them. Jim shares his “outside in” perspective on US monetary and fiscal policy, and how international players find themselves forced to react. He sees a lot of fundamental imbalances that need to be corrected for, as well as shortages of almost everything developing. In his words, “It’s going to be a real mess before it’s over.”

We’re making this important interview available first to our enrolled members.

Image | Straight Talk with Paul Kedrosky: Don’t Count on Technology To Save Us
Straight Talk with Paul Kedrosky: Don’t Count on Technology To Save Us
by Chris Martenson

"Straight Talk" features thinking from notable minds that the PeakProsperity.com audience has indicated it wants to learn more about. Readers submit the questions they want addressed and our guests take their best crack at answering. The comments and opinions expressed by our guests are their own.

This week's Straight Talk contributor is Paul Kedrosky. Paul is an investor, writer, entrepreneur and editor of the widely-followed econoblog Infectious Greed. He is a prolific engine of commentary on the economy, the markets, and society – often looking through the lens of how technology serves (and dis-serves) all three. Paul is also a Senior Fellow at the Kaufman Foundation, an advisor to Ten Asset Management, The Berkeley Center for Innovative Financial Technology, and other companies and venture capital firms. He tweets tirelessly via @pkedrosky.

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1. You spend your time focusing on the intersection of entrepreneurship, innovation and the future of risk capital. From your vantage point, what are the most important trends you see right now to be driving – or threatening – the advancement of our society?

The list is endless. High on that list, however, is financialization: the absurd, uneconomic and disastrous distortions introduced into the U.S. economy by its overreliance on the financial sector.

Straight Talk with Paul Kedrosky: Don’t Count on Technology To Save Us
 by Chris Martenson

"Straight Talk" features thinking from notable minds that the PeakProsperity.com audience has indicated it wants to learn more about. Readers submit the questions they want addressed and our guests take their best crack at answering. The comments and opinions expressed by our guests are their own.

This week's Straight Talk contributor is Paul Kedrosky. Paul is an investor, writer, entrepreneur and editor of the widely-followed econoblog Infectious Greed. He is a prolific engine of commentary on the economy, the markets, and society – often looking through the lens of how technology serves (and dis-serves) all three. Paul is also a Senior Fellow at the Kaufman Foundation, an advisor to Ten Asset Management, The Berkeley Center for Innovative Financial Technology, and other companies and venture capital firms. He tweets tirelessly via @pkedrosky.

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1. You spend your time focusing on the intersection of entrepreneurship, innovation and the future of risk capital. From your vantage point, what are the most important trends you see right now to be driving – or threatening – the advancement of our society?

The list is endless. High on that list, however, is financialization: the absurd, uneconomic and disastrous distortions introduced into the U.S. economy by its overreliance on the financial sector.

Image | Missing the Big Picture – Economists Risk Everything
Missing the Big Picture – Economists Risk Everything
 PREVIEW
by Chris Martenson

In a different time we could happily go about our lives, ignoring economists as largely irrelevant to our daily lives. That is no longer the case.

In helping to shape central bank policies, economists are performing one of the largest social and monetary experiments in all of history, and its outcome, good or bad, will shape all of our lives enormously over the coming years. In fact, this experiment is already well underway and yielding results. Perhaps not the desired results, but results nonetheless.

The biggest problem with most, but not all, economists is that their theories are founded on incorrect assumptions.

This biggest of them all is assuming that the economy has some sort of an ‘equilibrium point,’ a magic place where just the right number of monetary actions and policies will create high jobs, price stability, and economic growth.

Unfortunately, this is just completely the wrong way to look at things.

Niall Ferguson recently pointed this out and made a critically important point:

Missing the Big Picture – Economists Risk Everything
 PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

In a different time we could happily go about our lives, ignoring economists as largely irrelevant to our daily lives. That is no longer the case.

In helping to shape central bank policies, economists are performing one of the largest social and monetary experiments in all of history, and its outcome, good or bad, will shape all of our lives enormously over the coming years. In fact, this experiment is already well underway and yielding results. Perhaps not the desired results, but results nonetheless.

The biggest problem with most, but not all, economists is that their theories are founded on incorrect assumptions.

This biggest of them all is assuming that the economy has some sort of an ‘equilibrium point,’ a magic place where just the right number of monetary actions and policies will create high jobs, price stability, and economic growth.

Unfortunately, this is just completely the wrong way to look at things.

Niall Ferguson recently pointed this out and made a critically important point:

Image | Bill Fleckenstein: The Race to the Bottom Will Be Won by the Dollar
Bill Fleckenstein: The Race to the Bottom Will Be Won by the Dollar
by Chris Martenson

"This printing money is going to lead to huge trouble. It’s going to lead to higher interest rates. It’s going to lead to more inflation, and at some point there is going to be a train wreck in the currency and the bond market."

Market commentator and money manager Bill Fleckenstein sat down for a recent interview with PeakProsperity.com and excoriated the Fed and the monetary policy it's pursuing. He and Chris discuss the factors that enabled Bill to be one of the first to accurately identify and warn of the housing and credit bubbles – and how history is now repeating itself via the profligate printing of U.S. dollars. The interview covers a wide range of topics meaningful to the investor trying to make sense of where things are headed from here – including central banking culture, bubble psychology, high-frequency trading, inflation/deflation, and the true relative value of the dollar vs. the euro.
Bill Fleckenstein: The Race to the Bottom Will Be Won by the Dollar
 by Chris Martenson

"This printing money is going to lead to huge trouble. It’s going to lead to higher interest rates. It’s going to lead to more inflation, and at some point there is going to be a train wreck in the currency and the bond market."

Market commentator and money manager Bill Fleckenstein sat down for a recent interview with PeakProsperity.com and excoriated the Fed and the monetary policy it's pursuing. He and Chris discuss the factors that enabled Bill to be one of the first to accurately identify and warn of the housing and credit bubbles – and how history is now repeating itself via the profligate printing of U.S. dollars. The interview covers a wide range of topics meaningful to the investor trying to make sense of where things are headed from here – including central banking culture, bubble psychology, high-frequency trading, inflation/deflation, and the true relative value of the dollar vs. the euro.
Image | Bad Medicine: Dr. Marc Faber on Bernanke’s Quack Cures
Bad Medicine: Dr. Marc Faber on Bernanke’s Quack Cures
by Chris Martenson

"If there's one institution in the US that consistently and repeatedly messes up everything, the Federal Reserve is that institution."

So says famed investor Marc Faber in an interview he gave to PeakProsperity.com this week. In it, Chris and he dive deep into the Fed activity (encouraged by Washington and Wall Street) responsible for the current severe health of our economic system. Both feel that once you understand the nature of the critical role the Fed now plays, you have much better clarity into what the most probable outcomes for our economy and financial markets will be.
Bad Medicine: Dr. Marc Faber on Bernanke’s Quack Cures
 by Chris Martenson

"If there's one institution in the US that consistently and repeatedly messes up everything, the Federal Reserve is that institution."

So says famed investor Marc Faber in an interview he gave to PeakProsperity.com this week. In it, Chris and he dive deep into the Fed activity (encouraged by Washington and Wall Street) responsible for the current severe health of our economic system. Both feel that once you understand the nature of the critical role the Fed now plays, you have much better clarity into what the most probable outcomes for our economy and financial markets will be.
Image | JP Morgan Wins: CFTC Position Limits Do Not Apply (To Them)
JP Morgan Wins: CFTC Position Limits Do Not Apply (To Them)
by Chris Martenson

Speaking of changing the rules…

Gold and silver are now down hard over the past two days, and the reason may have something to do with the fact that the CFTC utterly caved to JPM in their long-awaited decision on position limits in a 4-1 vote.

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While position limits will eventually be set, maybe, someday, the course of action taken by the CFTC grandfathers in JPM’s (and HSBC, et al.) current outlandish positions.

Here’s the background (emphasis mine):

JP Morgan Wins: CFTC Position Limits Do Not Apply (To Them)
 by Chris Martenson

Speaking of changing the rules…

Gold and silver are now down hard over the past two days, and the reason may have something to do with the fact that the CFTC utterly caved to JPM in their long-awaited decision on position limits in a 4-1 vote.

width=

While position limits will eventually be set, maybe, someday, the course of action taken by the CFTC grandfathers in JPM’s (and HSBC, et al.) current outlandish positions.

Here’s the background (emphasis mine):

Image | Don’t Worry; They’ll Just Change the Rules
Don’t Worry; They’ll Just Change the Rules
by Chris Martenson

To anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, these remain very uncertain and trying times. On one side of the intellectual divide are the folks who are counting on deflationary forces overwhelming the normal credit-operated machinery of modern life, resulting in an implosion of economic activity. On the other side are those counting on hyperinflation as the most likely outcome of the grand printing experiment currently being conducted across the globe with its epicenter located within the United States.

In the middle of the intellectual divide are people like me, who are leaning slightly towards one view or the other. Not yet committed to any particular outcome, they are tensed and ready to spring in whichever direction necessary, like the last kids left standing in a game of dodge ball.

Some are expecting an imminent recovery (whatever that means), some a long, slow grind downwards, and others a rapid, if not chaotic, plunge into new and unwelcome territory of one sort or another.

There are no right or wrong views here. All sides are on equally firm intellectual standing. However, I want to let you know why it is that I lean towards the inflationary line a bit (okay, a lot, by some people’s standards) and why I think that a wide-scale, final fiscal collapse is in the cards.
Don’t Worry; They’ll Just Change the Rules
 by Chris Martenson

To anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, these remain very uncertain and trying times. On one side of the intellectual divide are the folks who are counting on deflationary forces overwhelming the normal credit-operated machinery of modern life, resulting in an implosion of economic activity. On the other side are those counting on hyperinflation as the most likely outcome of the grand printing experiment currently being conducted across the globe with its epicenter located within the United States.

In the middle of the intellectual divide are people like me, who are leaning slightly towards one view or the other. Not yet committed to any particular outcome, they are tensed and ready to spring in whichever direction necessary, like the last kids left standing in a game of dodge ball.

Some are expecting an imminent recovery (whatever that means), some a long, slow grind downwards, and others a rapid, if not chaotic, plunge into new and unwelcome territory of one sort or another.

There are no right or wrong views here. All sides are on equally firm intellectual standing. However, I want to let you know why it is that I lean towards the inflationary line a bit (okay, a lot, by some people’s standards) and why I think that a wide-scale, final fiscal collapse is in the cards.
Image | Can You Trust the Market?
Can You Trust the Market?
 PREVIEW
by Chris Martenson

This is the title of a recent editorial in the New York Times. It asks an extremely important question, one the gets right to the heart of our economic future.

For ‘the system’ to operate well, the game must go on, and a big part of that game requires individual investors, either directly or indirectly via their pensions, to continue to contribute their hard-earned savings into the stock market casino.

For a very long time, stocks have been viewed by many as the path to building wealth. Recently it has become clear to many that stocks are little more than a way for well-connected Wall Street and corporate insiders to enrich themselves at everybody else’s expense. Stocks are a confidence game and all but a privileged few are the suckers, is how one prominent line of thinking goes.

The New York Times editorial addresses a very important topic, and even gets close to the core issues, but misses the mark by failing to go far enough and connect all the dots.

Can You Trust the Market?
 PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

This is the title of a recent editorial in the New York Times. It asks an extremely important question, one the gets right to the heart of our economic future.

For ‘the system’ to operate well, the game must go on, and a big part of that game requires individual investors, either directly or indirectly via their pensions, to continue to contribute their hard-earned savings into the stock market casino.

For a very long time, stocks have been viewed by many as the path to building wealth. Recently it has become clear to many that stocks are little more than a way for well-connected Wall Street and corporate insiders to enrich themselves at everybody else’s expense. Stocks are a confidence game and all but a privileged few are the suckers, is how one prominent line of thinking goes.

The New York Times editorial addresses a very important topic, and even gets close to the core issues, but misses the mark by failing to go far enough and connect all the dots.

Image | Why I Don’t Trust the Official Inflation Numbers (and Neither Should You)
Why I Don’t Trust the Official Inflation Numbers (and Neither Should You)
 PREVIEW
by Chris Martenson

In justifying the massive money printing operations of the Fed, Bernanke used inflation data to bolster his case that the Fed’s actions are both prudent and worth continuing.

Here’s what he said:

Recent data show consumer price inflation continuing to trend downward. For the 12 months ending in November, prices for personal consumption expenditures rose 1.0 percent, and inflation excluding the relatively volatile food and energy components–which tends to be a better gauge of underlying inflation trends–was only 0.8 percent, down from 1.7 percent a year earlier and from about 2-1/2 percent in 2007, the year before the recession began.

(Source) 

Why I Don’t Trust the Official Inflation Numbers (and Neither Should You)
 PREVIEW by Chris Martenson

In justifying the massive money printing operations of the Fed, Bernanke used inflation data to bolster his case that the Fed’s actions are both prudent and worth continuing.

Here’s what he said:

Recent data show consumer price inflation continuing to trend downward. For the 12 months ending in November, prices for personal consumption expenditures rose 1.0 percent, and inflation excluding the relatively volatile food and energy components–which tends to be a better gauge of underlying inflation trends–was only 0.8 percent, down from 1.7 percent a year earlier and from about 2-1/2 percent in 2007, the year before the recession began.

(Source) 

Image | Dan Ariely Decodes Why Humans Are Hard-Wired To Inflate
Dan Ariely Decodes Why Humans Are Hard-Wired To Inflate
by Chris Martenson

Looking back at the carnage created by the bursting of the credit bubble, it’s natural to scratch your head and ask “How did we ever let that happen?” Behavioral economics exists to answer questions like this.

Last week Chris sat down with Dan Ariely, gallivanting behavioral-economics-researcher-extraordinaire, who is breathing new life into this previously obscure field of study. The resulting interview is full of fresh, non-intuitive insights and shines light on how the human brain is often hard-wired for irrational action when it comes to money.

One of the key takeaways for us was how Dan’s research provides an empirical explanation for why inflation will likely win the day: our mental programming leads us to prefer behavior that favors it.

 
Dan Ariely Decodes Why Humans Are Hard-Wired To Inflate
 by Chris Martenson

Looking back at the carnage created by the bursting of the credit bubble, it’s natural to scratch your head and ask “How did we ever let that happen?” Behavioral economics exists to answer questions like this.

Last week Chris sat down with Dan Ariely, gallivanting behavioral-economics-researcher-extraordinaire, who is breathing new life into this previously obscure field of study. The resulting interview is full of fresh, non-intuitive insights and shines light on how the human brain is often hard-wired for irrational action when it comes to money.

One of the key takeaways for us was how Dan’s research provides an empirical explanation for why inflation will likely win the day: our mental programming leads us to prefer behavior that favors it.

 
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