Economy

(GoldPrices) – Gold, Silver and Mining Companies Shaping Up

We will kick off with a review of the charts for gold, silver and the gold bugs index, the HUI, in an attempt to see where we are now and just where we might go from here. However, to put the charts into context we need to take into consideration the surrounding political, economic and investment landscape. These are volatile times with the financial markets in turmoil as what were perceived to be sound and secure governments now toil under the strain of their own excesses. The borrow and spend philosophies are coming back like a bad penny, to haunt not just those who caused this mess, but also for the rest of us, who are expected to clear it up. Read More Here

(InternationalForecaster) – Towards Another Stock Market Meltdown? – Bob Chapman

This past week the Dow fell 4%, S&P 4.2%, the Russell 2000 fell 6.4% and the Nasdaq 100 fell 4.4%. Banks fell 5.4%; broker/dealers 4%; cyclicals fell 5.6%; transports 5.5%; consumers 3.4%; utilities 4.3%; high tech fell 3.7%; semis 1.3%; Internets fell 4.2% and biotechs 4.2%. Gold bullion fell $56.00, the HUI gold index fell 11.4% and the USDX, dollar index, fell 0.8% to 85.38. Read More Here

(BusinessInsider) – Video: Marc Faber – “The Banks Are Gone” – (Part 1 Video Below)

Marc Faber spoke with Bloomberg Television about his bearish views on markets yesterday, and they remain as bearish as always.

“The banks are gone,” according to Marc Faber, and are only being kept alive by European Central Bank and government aid programs. Part 2 Here

(HuffingtonPost) – $1 Trillion for Wars Makes No Sense By Any Measure

This May 30 at 10:06 a.m., we will reach another dubious milestone in our almost nine years of war. At that precise moment, we will have spent $1 trillion in operational costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tracked by the National Priorities Project’s cost of war counter. Read More Here

(SteveWatson) – Secret Clause Reveals Europe Bailout Designed To Destroy Global Economy

A secret exit clause written into the trillion dollar European bailout agreement will ensure the creation of more debt in Europe, worsening the global economy, decimating nation states and allowing power to be consolidated into fewer super-elite hands.

As the Financial Times reports today, the major German newspaper Bild says it has obtained a copy of the bailout agreement and has set about “exposing” a series of secret clauses. Read More Here

(GoldScents) – How Do You Answer The Question

Let me start off by pointing out that we did indeed break below the yearly cycle low yesterday. Read More Here

(AP) – Falling home prices stir fears of new bottom

Tax credits and historically low mortgage rates have failed to lift home prices so far this year. Prices fell 0.5 percent in March from February, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index released Tuesday.

That marks six straight months of declines — a sign that the housing market is going in reverse. Read More Here

(BigGovernment) – Faber: Nations Will Print Money, Go Bust, Go to War…We Are Doomed

Today the leading Austrian economic think tank, the Ludwig von Mises Institute held a conference at the University Club in Manhattan in which Marc Faber, famed contrarian investor and publisher of the “Gloom, Boom and Doom Report” gave his perspective on the financial crisis and his outlook for the future. Read More Here

(CNBC) – Libor Spike Is Rekindling Fears Of Another Financial Crisis

A recent spike in the rate banks charge each other for short-term borrowing is reviving investor fears that the market is returning to the abyss of the credit crisis. Read More Here

(OilPrice) – The Hard Truth About Residential Real Estate

Anyone who believes that housing is on the rebound, and that now is the time to buy, should take a very hard look at the numbers I dredged up for my spring lecture and luncheon tour.

There are 140 million personal residences in the US. Today, there are 26 million homes either directly or indirectly for sale. Read More Here

(Cryptogon) – Plummeting Marijuana Prices Create A Panic In California

Understand the purpose of the drug war with just one story. Hint: Law enforcement is used to keep supplies down and prices high.

So what changed?

California is broke and the state government wants a cut of the action. Read More Here

(RevoltofthePlebs) – Fear and Loathing (and Lost Wages)

Last week, Barrack Obama brought his stage show to a manufacturing plant in Youngstown Ohio and took credit for 290,000 new jobs added to US payrolls in April. “The fact is, our economy is growing again,” he boasted “Any fair-minded person would say that if we hadn’t acted … more people across America would be out of work today.” He’s speaking of course of the $787 billion Recovery Act that pumped even more counterfeit cash into the economy and is now redeemable (at interest) by the Federal Reserve from your American tax dollar. Read More Here

(BusinessWeek) – Christie Says N.J. ‘Careening Toward Becoming Greece’

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said the state is “careening our way toward becoming Greece” and can’t afford the cost of benefits and pensions for current workers. Read More Here

(Bloomberg) – Moody’s Reiterates U.S. Spending Risks Credit Rating

The U.S. government’s Aaa bond rating will come under pressure in the future unless additional measures are taken to reduce projected record budget deficits, according to Moody’s Investors Service Inc. Read More Here

(FoxNews) – Despite Soaring National Debt, Congress Goes on Spending Spree

As the national debt clock ticked past the ignominious $13 trillion mark overnight, Congress pressed to pass a host of supplemental spending bills to, among other things, fund the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, ramp up security on the U.S.-Mexico border and prevent teacher layoffs. Read More Here

(PaulWatson)  – Video: Rothschilds Engineer Fire Sale Of UK Infrastructure To Offshore Corporations

The Rothschild banking family is pushing for the privatization of the UK’s motorway network that would force Brits, who already pay road tax, to enrich the coffers of private corporations intimately tied in with the Rothschilds by means of road tolls and pay-by-mile schemes enforced with spy cameras.

“A plan to privatize the UK’s motorway network, giving toll firms access to large swaths of road, would take place under the guise of paying down the government’s debt, British media reported Tuesday, citing a number of key officials who support the scheme, proposed to all major political parties by NM Rothschild, one of the world’s oldest, most influential and little discussed investment banks, founded by the Rothschild family,” reports Raw Story. –

Top Ratings Agency Warns Austerity Riots Could Hit America

(PaulWatson) – Top ratings agency Moody’s has predicted that the U.S. and the UK could witness similar riots to those seen in Greece in response to emergency austerity measures imposed by governments in an effort to retain their AAA credit status.

MSM: America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels

(LondonTel) – December was the worst month for US unemployment since the Great Recession began.
The labour force contracted by 661,000. This did not show up in the headline jobless rate because so many Americans dropped out of the system. The broad U6 category of unemployment rose to 17.3pc. That is the one that matters.

Officials and Experts Warn of Crash-Induced Unrest

(WashingtonsBlog) – Numerous high-level officials and experts warn that the economic crisis could lead to unrest world-wide – even in developed countries:

• Today, Moody’s warned that future tax rises and spending cuts could trigger social unrest in a range of countries from the developing to the developed world, that in the coming years, evidence of social unrest and public tension may become just as important signs of whether a country will be able to adapt as traditional economic metrics, and that a fiscal crisis remains a possibility for a leading economy, it said that 2010 would be a “tumultuous year for sovereign debt issuers”.

Mass Layoffs: The Continuing Devastation

Stock market investors shrug off a disaster in our midst: mass layoffs. Investors act as though it will soon be business as usual. Companies cut costs by firing employees that have been with them for decades. Then the companies can report higher earnings from cost-cutting measures. The media then proclaim an increase in earnings. But how will these increases be sustained? How will an unemployment rate of 11% help get the economy back on its feet?

Next Wave of Banking Crisis to come from Eastern Europe

European banks face an entirely new wave of losses in coming months not yet calculated in any government bank rescue aid to date. Unlike the losses of US banks which derive initially from their exposures to low-quality sub-prime real estate and other securitized lending, the problems of western European banks, most especially in Austria, Sweden and perhaps Switzerland arise from the massive volumes of loans they made during the 2002-2007 period of extreme low international interest rates to clients in eastern European countries.