Low Inflation? The Price Of Ground Beef Has Risen 17 Percent Over The Past Year

Jon

Thanks to the Federal Reserve, the middle class is slowly being suffocated by rising food prices. Every single dollar in your wallet is constantly becoming less valuable because of the inflation the Fed systematically creates. And if you try to build wealth by saving money and earning interest on it, you still lose because thanks to the Federal Reserve’s near zero interest rate policies banks pay next to nothing on savings accounts. The Federal Reserve wants you to either spend your money or to put it in the giant casino that we call the stock market. But when Americans spend their paychecks they are finding that they don’t stretch as far as they once did. The cost of living continues to rise at a much faster pace than wages are rising, and this is especially true when it comes to the price of food.
Someone that I know wrote to me today and let me know that she had to shut down the food pantry that she had been running for the poor for so many years. It isn’t that she didn’t want to help the poor anymore. It was that she just couldn’t deal with the rising food prices any longer. Now she is just doing the best that she can to survive herself.
Perhaps you have also noticed that food prices have gotten pretty crazy lately. In particular, meat prices have become absolutely obscene. For example, the average price of ground beef has risen to a new record high of over $4.09 a pound. Over the past twelve months, that works out to a whopping 17 percent increase…

This post was published at The Economic Collapse Blog on October 22nd, 2014.

This Is How Caterpillar Just Blew Away Q3 Earnings

Jon

Those who have been following Caterpillar actual top-line performance know that things for the industrial bellwether have been going from bad to worse, with not only retail sales declining across the globe, as documented here previously, but with the current stretch of declining global retail sales now longer than during what was seen during the Great Recession.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 10/23/2014.

Gold and Silver, an Antidote for the Internet of Money?

Jon

Denmark’s central bank to stop producing money … The outsourcing of banknote and coin production will result in 100 million kroner in savings, the bank said. With more and more people paying with credit cards and their smartphones, Denmark’s central bank Nationalbanken says it no longer pays to print banknotes or mint coins. – Denmark, The Local
Dominant Social Theme: Digital money is all that counts.
Free-Market Analysis: It seems these days that every time we identify a new meme, we see a “fast-track” evolution. The “Internet of Money” is no exception.
We wrote about the Internet of Money on October 20, and now in this article in The Local, we see an apparent furtherance of this dominant social theme.
We are told that physical money is becoming less and less important. Now the Danish central bank is going to outsource its printing and save millions.
“Efficiency” itself is a meme. We ran into this recently when we wrote about how much more efficient it was to grow food using green techniques than organic, small-farm ones. The only trouble with green efficiencies is that it now turns out that such farming has changed the bacterial composition of soil for the worse.
There’s nothing efficient about a technique that seems to save money initially but that in the long run is highly destructive. And so it would seem when it comes to the outsourcing of physical money. More on that in a minute.

This post was published at The Daily Bell on October 23, 2014.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – Consolidation Day and Tragedy In Canada

Jon

“Anger is the enemy of non-violence, and pride is a monster that swallows it up.”
Mahatma Gandhi
There was a terrible shooting of some innocent people near the Parliament in Ottawa today. Such actions are never justified, and are simply murder, no matter what rationales some may wish to put forward. That these types of things may be used to promote oppressive responses by some is simply a doubling of the tragedy and injustice.
As Gandhi said, ‘an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.’
Gold and particularly silver were under pressure for most of the day. They may have taken a pause at support.
It is interesting to see them run with stocks today, in the face of some exogenous risk events. They are certainly acting oddly. One has to wonder if this is a related action by the ‘Plunge Protection Team’ which feels free to purchase stocks at key points apparently to help restore confidence.
Huge offtakes of physical gold are occurring, as highlighted by the official statement from China concerning their acquisition of 2,199 tonnes of gold bullion in 2013.

This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 22 OCTOBER 2014.

UK Paedophiles Are Free To Look But Not Touch

Jon

4
Note: This was sent to me by Bex, a regular reader of Underground Medic. I have published her views because she is right. She speaks for the vast majority of the British public, and as such her words need to be heard. Liz
***
Have you ever been ashamed to admit you’re a citizen of your own country? Today I am. How dare the British government declare that the United Kingdom is a civilized nation when they declare that many paedophiles will be free from prosecution provided they only look, but do not touch their victims?
There are apparently some offences against children that no longer warrant prosecution.
The news that up to 50,000 paedophiles will face not criminal charges or even a criminal investigation for downloading indecent images of children disgusts me. Even watching live streamed child abuse on the internet will in many cases not lead to prosecution. This has left me with the taste of bile in my mouth and simmering rage in my belly. I am with every fibre of my being, utterly disgusted.
I am disgusted with a government that will gladly spend millions of taxpayers pounds to set up and fund useless studies and quangos but cannot afford to invest in extra resources to protect our young. I am disgusted in the National Crime Agency and its head Mr Keith Bristow who was earlier this week quoted in a BBC news report as saying:

This post was published at The Daily Sheeple on October 22nd, 201.

Silver Investment Demand To Increase By One Billion Ounces Over Next Decade

Jon

Investors are likely to increase their net silver purchases in the years ahead, largely due to an ongoing weak global economy, for capital preservation and silver’s pedigree as a leading industrial metal, according to a report released today by the Silver Institute. The report, entitled ‘Silver Investment Demand,’ suggests that investors may accumulate as much as one billion additional ounces of silver in various investment instruments over the next decade. This is on top of the more than 860 million ounces of silver purchased as an investment since 2006.
Other significant points of the ‘Silver Investment Demand’ report include:
Investment demand remains the single most important driver of prices in the silver market; The silver market is the second largest of the precious metals markets, behind only gold in terms of the value of metal flowing through the market on an annual basis; The dollar value of the silver market, which includes trading volumes on the major futures and options exchanges and clearing volumes of the London over the counter market, combined with newly refined silver supply, stood at US$5.1 billion in 2013; At the close of 2013, at least 2.3 billion ounces of silver were held in bars and coins around the world;

This post was published at GoldSilverWorlds on October 22, 2014.

OCTOBER SILVER EAGLE SALES BEST EVER…. And With 10 Days Remaining

Jon

While the Fed and Western Central Banks continue to prop up the entire market, investors took advantage of the manipulated low silver price by purchasing a record amount of Silver Eagles in October. Silver Eagle sales were also extremely strong last month as total sales reached 4.1 million in September.
In the beginning of October as the price of silver was clobbered below $17, investors purchased more silver eagles in one week than in any other week throughout the year. This trend continues as sales in October are the strongest ever compared to previous years.
If we look at the chart below, we can see that investors only bought 550,000 Silver Eagles in October 2007. Then in the next few years, purchases of Silver Eagles increased dramatically to 1,425,000 in Oct 2008 and 2,939,000 in Oct 2009. However, since 2010…. October sales were relatively flat – between 3.0 to 3.1 million.

This post was published at SRSrocco Report on October 22, 2014.

Barron’s Big Money Poll: More of the Same

Jon

A Fount of Originality and Contrarian Thinking … Just pulling your leg, dear reader. The Barron’s big money poll contains about as much originality and contrarian thinking as you can find on CNBC…slightly less, actually.
So what are the big money’s big ideas this time around? They continue exhibit a huge bearish consensus on bonds, which we have in the past flagged as a big contrary indicator (you will notice that we also pointed out their bearish consensus on the Nikkei in this past article – the Nikkei promptly had an explosive rally right after the survey was published). Otherwise they are still ‘investing by ruler’ – in other words, they are simply extrapolating what has happened in the recent past into the future, which is precisely what most Wall Street strategists and most mainstream economists do as well. Not one of these groups will ever identify a turning point in a timely manner.
The biggest bullish consensus is on US large cap stocks with 84% bulls, the biggest bearish consensus (certain to be wrong for the umpteenth year in a row) is on US treasury bonds with 91% bears (!).
Gold aficionados will be pleased to learn that there is a 76% bearish consensus on gold, which provides a nice contrast to the 69% bullish consensus that pertained in October of 2012, just as gold was getting ready to tank big.

This post was published at Acting-Man on October 22, 2014.

Central Banker Admits Central Bank Policy Leads To Wealth Inequality

Jon

Six years after QE started, and just about the time when we for the first time said that the primary consequence of QE would be unprecedented wealth and class inequality (in addition to fiat collapse, even if that particular bridge has not yet been crossed), even the central banks themselves – the very institutions that unleashed QE – are now admitting that the record wealth disparity in the world – surpassing that of the Great Depression and even pre-French revolution France – is caused by “monetary policy”, i.e., QE.
Case in point, during the Keynote speech by Yves Mersch, ECB executive board member, in Zurich on 17 October 2014 titled “Monetary policy and economic inequality” he said:
More generally, inequality is of interest to central banking discussions because monetary policy itself has distributional consequences which in turn influence the monetary transmission mechanism. For example, the impact of changes in interest rates on the consumer spending of an individual household depend crucially on that household’s overall financial position – whether it is a net debtor or a net creditor; and whether the interest rates on its assets and liabilities are fixed or variable. Such differences have macroeconomic implications, as the economy’s overall response to policy changes will depend on the distribution of assets, debt and income across households – especially in times of crisis, when economic shocks are large and unevenly distributed. For example, by boosting – first – aggregate demand and – second – employment, monetary easing could reduce economic disparities; at the same time, if low interest rates boost the prices of financial assets while punishing savings deposits, they could lead to widening inequality.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 10/22/2014.

Caught On Tape – Folks Jumped The White House Fence, Again

Jon

Just weeks after WhiteHouseFenceJumperGate saw the head of the Secret Service dispatched – having been disappointed not to be able to implement her reforms that would ensure the safety of the White House, the agency reports:
*MAN STOPPED AFTER JUMPING WHITE HOUSE FENCE: SECRET SERVICE What is worse – much worse – is this african-american chap proceeds to kick and harass the guard dogs sent to dispatch him… an egregious act in anyone’s book.
*AGENTS WITH DOGS STOPPED WHITE HOUSE JUMPER, AGENCY SAYS Caught On Tape – the dreadful dog-kicking moment…


This post was published at Zero Hedge on 10/22/2014.

The BBC is Using Anti-Terror Surveillance to Find Tax Dodgers

Jon

Many commentators, including myself, have been sounding the alarm for many years that only a short-sighted society filled with fearful imbeciles would ever grant government tyrannical powers in the name of fighting an overhyped, outside enemy. As has happened countless times in world history, once these powers are granted they are always eventually used against the domestic population. Sometimes it is used to crackdown on dissent, but sometimes it’s used just to earn money and shake down the domestic plebs. It appears the British Broadcasting Corportation (BBC) in Great Britain is now using it simply to collect tax.
The Daily Mail reports that:
The BBC is using laws designed to catch terrorists and organized crime networks to track down people who dodge the license fee, it emerged yesterday.

This post was published at Liberty Blitzkrieg on Oct 22, 2014.

New data shows it will take 398,879,561 years to pay off the debt

Jon

Santiago, Chile
The US government’s debt is getting close to reaching another round number – $18 trillion. It currently stands at more than $17.9 trillion.
But what does that really mean? It’s such an abstract number that it’s hard to imagine it. Can you genuinely understand it beyond just being a ridiculously large number?
Just like humans find it really hard to comprehend the vastness of the universe. We know it’s huge, but what does that mean? It’s so many times greater than anything we know or have experienced.
German astronomer and mathematician Friedrich Bessel managed to successfully measure the distance from Earth to a star other than our sun in the 19th century. But he realized that his measurements meant nothing to people as they were. They were too abstract.
So he came up with the idea of a ‘light-year’ to help people get a better understanding of just how far it really is. And rather than using a measurement of distance, he chose to use one of time.
The idea was that since we – or at least scientists – know what the speed of light is, by representing the distance in terms of how long it would take for light to travel that distance, we might be able to comprehend that distance.
Ultimately using a metric we are familiar with to understand one with which we aren’t.
Why don’t we try to do the same with another thing in the universe that’s incomprehensibly large today – the debt of the US government?
Even more incredible than the debt owed right now is what’s owed down the line from all the promises politicians have been making decade after decade. These unfunded liabilities come to an astonishing $116.2 trillion.

This post was published at Sovereign Man on October 22, 2014.

‘Evidence Of A Sweeping Housing Bust Is Starting To Appear’

Jon

Bloomberg notes, for instance, that in the immediate vicinity of One57, three copycat buildings are ‘rushing’ toward completion, and ‘some real-estate experts warn of an oversupply of luxury dwellings.’ Across the river in New Jersey, the story is the same: ‘Real estate officials are predicting the [market] is heading toward a glut’ (NorthJersey.com, Sept. 21).
In the housing bellwether of Southern California, sales plunged in July and August. In fact, at less than 18,800 units sold, they were down 18.5% from a year earlier, the lowest total in four years. (source link for both quotes: Vantagepointtrading.com)
It’s coming. I’m seeing in the number of newly listed homes on the market all around Denver. I get a daily email from REColorado.com that is filtered to send new listings and price reductions for all the zip codes in central Denver. I get several of each every day now.

This post was published at Investment Research Dynamics on October 23, 2014.

There Is A Plunge Protection Team – – It’s Called The FOMC

Jon

Things were looking grim last week, especially on Wednesday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at one point down by 460.
The CBOE VIX indicator soared to the mid-20s for the first time in two years. Fear was palpable as investors had a classic panic attack.
But then, like the cavalry in those classic John Ford westerns, the Federal Reserve rode to the rescue.
James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said inflation far below its 2% target could lead the Fed to ‘go on pause on the taper … and wait until we see how the data shakes out into December.’ The Fed is on track to finish ‘tapering’ its extraordinary bond buying, or quantitative easing (QE3), at next week’s meeting.
‘They are afraid of the [stock] market going down and they will be blamed.’
James Bianco, president of Bianco Research But, he added: ‘If the market is right and it’s portending something more serious for the U. S. economy, then the committee would have an option of ramping up QE [in December].’
Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren later said QE3 should end next week, but he could ‘easily imagine’ not raising rates until 2016.
Translation: We’ve got your back. Don’t fight the Fed.
Investors got the message. The S&P 500 Index advanced for three straight days and the VIX fell under 20 again.
Bullard was only the latest Fed official whose words or actions ‘just happened’ to boost the stock market when it was down.
‘They are definitely in the market-manipulation business, and nothing has changed,’ said James Bianco, president of Bianco Research LLC in Chicago and a longtime student, and critic, of the Fed.
Called the ‘Greenspan/Bernanke put,’ the Fed’s willingness to jump in when stocks fall dates back a quarter-century.
‘The put option is back. If the market sells off enough, they will give us QE4,’ Bianco told me.
Conspiracy theorists have pinned it on a government ‘Plunge Protection Team’ that wants to keep stocks from crashing at all costs.

This post was published at David Stockmans Contra Corner on October 22, 2014.

Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver Fall With Stocks

Jon

The Metals:
Gold edged up to $1249.35 in Asia before it dropped back to $1241.45 at about 9AM EST and then bounced back higher into midday, but it then fell back off again in the last couple of hours of trade and ended with a loss of 0.54%. Silver slipped to as low as $17.122 and ended with a loss of 2.06%.
Euro gold remained at about 982, platinum lost $12 to $1262, and copper fell a couple of cents to about $3.01.
Gold and silver equities fell throughout most of trade and ended with about 3% losses.

This post was published at GoldSeek on 22 October 2014.

Mapping China’s Bursting Real Estate Bubble

Jon

With global growth concerns on the rise, whether a bust in the Chinese housing sector could threaten the economic activity and financial stability of the world’s largest contributor to growth is top of mind for Goldman Sachs. As Michael Pettis warns, “this story only has a few possible endings, all of which imply a significant reduction in economic growth as debt problems are addressed.” The following 3 charts suggest Pettis is right…

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 10/22/2014.

Thoughts from the Frontline: The Flat Debt Society

Jon

International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde says the global economy is facing ‘the risk of a new mediocre, where growth is low and uneven.’… Lagarde said Europe’s 18-nation bloc that uses the euro currency – collectively the world’s biggest economy – is facing the “not insignificant” risk of falling back into a recession. (VOA News)
Since at least the beginning of 2006, the most asked question I get after a speech is ‘Do you think we will have inflation or deflation?’ In an attempt at humor, my answer has been ‘Yes.’ I go on to try to explain that we are in a deflationary environment, but eventually we will see inflation. When QE1 was announced, there were many pundits (none of the Keynesian variety) who immediately said the risk was for significant inflation, and there were even those (like Peter Schiff) who talked of hyperinflation and the demise of the dollar. Interest rates would rise, and US government bonds would collapse.
My response at the time was that the Federal Reserve would print more money than any of us could possibly imagine (and who imagined $3 trillion?), and we would not see any inflation. My reasoning was that we were in a deleveraging world where the velocity of money was clearly falling. I explained – once again – the relationship between inflation and the velocity of money.
Beginning with last week’s letter, ‘Sea Change,’ my answer to that question for the foreseeable future will be simply, ‘Deflation.’ In Endgame Jonathan Tepper and I described the economic environment of a deleveraging world, especially that of Europe. InCode Red we described the coming world of currency wars, with Japan having fired the first shot. Sadly, we continue to see the themes of those books play out in the real world.

This post was published at Mauldin Economics on OCTOBER 22, 2014.

Is A Demand Shock In The Gold Market Coming?

Jon

On November 30, Switzerland’s citizens will cast a very critical vote.
Through a referendum, they will vote for or against the Swiss National Bank increasing its gold bullion reserves to 20%, the central bank halting the selling of gold, and the storing of gold bullion in the country. (Source: Kitco News, September 30, 2014.)
If the results are in favor of the referendum, it will mean Switzerland’s central bank will be forced to buy a significant amount of gold bullion.
According to the most recent data from the World Gold Council, Switzerland has 1,040 tonnes of gold bullion in its reserves, equal to only 7.8% of its total reserves. (Source: ‘World Official Gold Holdings,’ World Gold Council web site, last accessed October 16, 2014.) To bring its gold bullion holdings to 20% of total reserves, the central bank of Switzerland will have to buy 1,600 more tonnes of gold, or about 60% of all global mine output this year. Will the gold market be able to handle this kind of demand shock? I highly doubt it.
And if the central bank of Switzerland stops selling gold, a significant amount of gold will come off the market.

This post was published at GoldSilverWorlds on October 22, 2014.

THE MATTERHORN INTERVIEW – October 2014: Keith Barron PhD

Jon

“I believe we’ve seen Peak Gold* ‘ Podcast interview: On behalf of Matterhorn Asset Management, financial journalist Lars Schall talked with exploration geologist and mining entrepreneur Dr. Keith Barron.
Keith is a scientist and he explains in no uncertain terms what is going on in the mining industry, the false accounting relative to the cost of exploration, what happened when gold went up to 1,900, why gold versus USD simply must go to at least 5,000, why ‘gold above ground’, if anything, is overstated and why the Swiss GoldInitiative is indeed very important and not just for the Swiss People, as well as Keith Barron’s view on Silver.
This is clearly one of the best interviews on the subject of gold mining and a must listen for all Gold investors or anyone interested in gold, silver and mining * Peak gold is the term used for a date in history after which gold production will enter a period of decline, because extraction capacity is diminishing.


This post was published at GoldSwitzerland on October 22nd, 2014.