Global Market Commentary, Analysis and Investments
Yesterday was a good day for stock market investors. Prices went up. The Dow rose 254 points, leaving us uncertain about its near-term intentions.
Of course, we’re always uncertain. But sometimes we’re more uncertain than others. What seems certain to us is that stocks are a bad bet.
[Read more...]Since I am known as something of a gold bug, a lot of people write to me about gold, but since I am a paranoid lunatic, I don’t read their letters, mostly because I now call myself Marvelous Macho Grande (MMG), figuring that an established alias could potentially come in handy when the prices of gold, silver and oil shoot higher and higher as inflation in consumer prices starts going parabolic as a result of the despicable Federal Reserve creating so, so, so much money, especially so that the despicable federal government can borrow and spend that selfsame so, so, so much money.
[Read more...]Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke delivered a much-anticipated speech on Friday, August 27, 2010. There was no reason to think this talk would be more or less important than his other talks except for the degree of hysteria whipped up by the media in advance.
Bernanke was addressing an audience of fellow central bankers and their camp followers at an annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. There have been memorable comments at these late summer getaways, such as, in 2005, when past-Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Alan Blinder claimed then-current-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan might be the “greatest central banker who ever lived.”
[Read more...]In Jackson Hole, Wyoming today Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the risk of an “undesirable rise in inflation or of significant further disinflation seems low.” Yup, can’t argue with that.
If you are operating a bank, and you had lost your depositors’ funds by making bad real estate loans, normally you would be sweating bullets by now, or among the 14.6 million pounding the pavement looking for work. But you need not worry. You got $1.3 trillion of reserves to tide you over while your bad loans continue to deteriorate.
[Read more...]Gold remains in high demand among individual investors, hedge funds, and central banks all swapping cash for the yellow metal. This past weekend, an FT reportage looked into what the latest money flows into gold can tell us about it’s real importance.
Among others, the Financial Times spoke with Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul:
[Read more...]Recall, last Friday, we were waiting for the second quarter GDP print to see if any of the Fed Heads at the Jackson Hole boondoggle would comment on what I expected to see, which was GDP falling to 1.5%…
Well… I should have booked a flight to Vegas on Friday, as I darn near hit the GDP downward revision bang on! The actual number, that is if you even believe that this number is really the “actual numberâ€�, was 1.6% for the second qurarter. But, I don’t gamble, except for my annual World Series bet on the Cardinals, and an occasional neighborhood, nickel, dime poker game, so… I’ll stick to writing…
[Read more...]The printing of money used to replenish the financial system may cause inflation — whether or not this series of radical measures is adopted. It will monetize public and private debt, and the key to not letting the surge in inflation become embedded permanently will be the taking of a credible stance to redraw our system with reduced liability going forward. While we are printing money, our government should quietly (if possible) buy gold with which it would promise to redeem dollars beginning at some point when our economic recovery is certain. No doubt this would be at a price that might shock the world today: perhaps $5,000, $10,000, or higher. Let the market bracket the possibilities; perhaps gold ETFs or digital gold accounts such as those at goldmoney.com would be our new private currency, and we could get out of the money-printing business once and for all.
[Read more...]I remember the good old days of the Cold War when the Russians were humorless robots who could always manage to catch James Bond, a British secret agent better known by his “License to Kill� number: 007.
But the clumsy, doltish Russians could never hold onto him, and in the process, a lot of Russian secret agents, soldiers, miscellaneous employees, assorted affiliates and innocent bystanders all died, usually in a blaze of gunfire or explosions of some kind.
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How Gold-As-Money Can Prevent Mob Rule
Ellen Kelleher, writing for The Financial Times, opens her article with how Baird & Co., in their warehouses in London, purify gold by heating it to molten form to make “medallions, bars, and rings,� which sounds like a lot of heavy, hot, back-breaking, dangerous work to me, as if the word “work� was not bad enough by itself with the terrifying adjectives.
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