History Repeating

17 Signs That Most Americans Will Be Wiped Out By The Coming Economic Collapse

"The vast majority of Americans are going to be absolutely blindsided by what is coming. They don't understand how our financial system works, they don't understand how vulnerable it is, and most of them blindly trust that our leaders know exactly what they are doing and that they will be able to fix our problems. They seem to have forgotten what happened back in 2008. When the financial markets crashed, millions of Americans lost their jobs. Because most of them were living on the financial edge, millions of them also lost their homes. Unfortunately, most Americans seem convinced that it will not happen again. Right now we seem to be living in a 'hope bubble'." Continue reading →

Continue Reading17 Signs That Most Americans Will Be Wiped Out By The Coming Economic Collapse

Fed Committee Member Warns Off ‘Feral Hogs’ in Markets

"Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve and a member of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, said in an interview with the Financial Times that while the big players in financial markets acted like 'feral hogs' by scenting any weakness in policy makers’ intent, he did not think anyone could break the US central bank. Commenting on the market turbulence that has followed Fed chair Ben Bernanke’s signal that the bank could begin tapering its $85bn monthly bond purchases before the end of this year, Fisher told the FT: 'My personal feeling is that you don’t walk up to a lion and flinch.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFed Committee Member Warns Off ‘Feral Hogs’ in Markets

Bill Bonner: No Real Recovery Without “Hitting Bottom” First…

"The fireworks in the gold market are still, probably, far ahead. You'll hear the explosions when consumer prices begin to rise. And that won't happen for a while. And here is where the story gets interesting... and hard to follow. The bond market has turned. This could push the economy into a deeper funk unless growth starts to pick up. But it could be years before the new trend is firmly established. We remember the last turn... in the early 1980s. Paul Volcker announced it in 1979. But it was almost four years before investors fully absorbed the news." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBill Bonner: No Real Recovery Without “Hitting Bottom” First…

Former East German secret police captain says NSA spying ‘a dream come true’

"A former agent of the Stasi, the much-feared East German communist secret police, has said that the recently revealed NSA spying program would have been his agency’s 'dream come true' because it has collected 'so much information, on so many people.' Wolfgang Schmidt, 78, said in an interview that it is 'the height of naivete' to think that the information will never be used against U.S. citizens. As a lieutenant colonel in the Stasi, he said that technology limited the secret police’s ability to satisfy its voracious appetite for information. Their listening devices, he said, could only spy on 40 telephone lines at once. Targets had to be prioritized." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFormer East German secret police captain says NSA spying ‘a dream come true’

‘Don’t Follow the Fed’ Will Be the Smart Money’s New Slogan

"Wall Street has an old saying: 'Don’t fight the Fed.' That means if your investment strategy isn’t in synch with the central bank’s policies, you’re going to lose money. I have an update: 'Don’t follow the Fed.' That’s because the Federal Reserve, under Chairman Ben Bernanke, is about to torpedo the $39 trillion bond market. My thesis is simple: The Fed has lost control of the bond market. The bubble has gotten so big because it was allowed to inflate for so long, a fiasco is a done deal no matter what the Fed says or does." Continue reading →

Continue Reading‘Don’t Follow the Fed’ Will Be the Smart Money’s New Slogan

Bill Bonner: Why the Sell-Off in Gold is Good News

"Gold is giving us another good opportunity to buy a life vest before the boat sinks. No market goes up without a correction. Speculators typically get ahead of themselves. They need to be slapped around a bit... tested... and tempered. Like a steel blade, they need to be hammered before they are ready for the final battle. In the last major bull market in gold the gold price rose from $40 to over $800 an ounce. This was one of the greatest bull markets of all time. But it wasn't without its challenges. The price of gold moved up fast. It needed to be knocked down at least once before it finally reached its top. Gold fell by 47% before rising eight times to its peak in 1980." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBill Bonner: Why the Sell-Off in Gold is Good News

The Secret to Picking Winners in ‘Submerging Markets’

"With investors already on edge as global markets came unglued last week, China picked a fine time to engineer a credit crunch. Drowned out in the noise about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s tapering talk last week was the fact that half a world away, China’s banking system was caught up in a cash squeeze. Short-term lending rates tripled as the financial system essentially froze. It was frighteningly reminiscent of the 2008 financial crisis in the U.S. Hedge fund managers and economists have long warned of a potential bursting of China’s debt-fueled real estate bubble, a replay of our own subprime crisis. Could this be the beginning?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Secret to Picking Winners in ‘Submerging Markets’

Sitka Pacific Capital Management Client Letter, May 2013

"In many respects, the market action over the past 2 years — in stocks and gold — seems to reflect a misunderstanding of how periods of monetary expansion affect consumer prices and asset prices. In the pages that follow we’ll highlight a few of these monetary expansion/inflation misunderstandings, and we’ll explain why equity investors should be growing more pessimistic — not optimistic — in light of current market valuations and the Fed’s continued quantitative easing." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSitka Pacific Capital Management Client Letter, May 2013

McCain: We’ll make border with Mexico look like ‘the Berlin Wall’

"Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Tuesday that the Senate should include an amendment for increased border security in its new bipartisan immigration reform bill. In video featured by Talking Points Memo, McCain said that the amendment, proposed by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND) would make the border between Mexico and the U.S. into 'most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMcCain: We’ll make border with Mexico look like ‘the Berlin Wall’

Juan Cole: Top Ten Ways US TV News are Screwing us Again on NSA Surveillance Story (Iraq Redux)

"US television news is a danger to the security of the United States. First, it is so oriented to ratings that it cannot afford to do unpopular reports. Second, it is so oriented toward the halls of power inside the Beltway that it is unable to examine government allegations critically. US television news was an unrelieved cheering section for the launching of the illegal and disastrous Iraq War. Now, corporate television news is repeating this shameful performance with regard to the revelations by Edward Snowden of massive, unconstitutional government surveillance of Americans’ electronic communications. The full failure to do proper journalism was on display on Sunday." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJuan Cole: Top Ten Ways US TV News are Screwing us Again on NSA Surveillance Story (Iraq Redux)