History Repeating

The Bizarre Government Regulations that May Send Gasoline Prices Through the Roof

"Prices for premium gas are now about 30.2 cents over the price of regular. That is up from 24.1 cents in 2010 and 18.2 cents in 2000 Refiners blame Congress, arguing that the ethanol quota was set at a time when gasoline demand was expected to rise steadily. Instead, demand has declined, and refiners, obligated to blend more ethanol than they can actually use, have resorted to buying a lot of ethanol credits, known as renewable identification numbers (or RINs), to meet the mandated levels. Ms. Lundberg described this as 'buying forgiveness from the government.' The credits' popularity has driven up the price nearly tenfold since January." Continue reading →

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The Deeper Meanings of Cyprus

"This is not just the perfection of neocolonialism but of neofeudalism as well. The peripheral nations of the E.U. are effectively neocolonial debtors of the core (quasi-Imperial) banks, and the taxpayers of the core nations (now reduced to Germany and The Netherlands) are now feudal serfs whose labor is devoted to making good on any bank loans to the periphery that go bad. Though we can term the E.U. a plutocracy or oligarchy, the neofeudal structure compels us to distinguish a class of those holding wealth and political power that is not limited to national border: this is an Aristocracy." Continue reading →

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Scientist calls for caffeine to be a regulated substance

"Jack E. James argued in an editorial published Monday that researchers and lawmakers alike need to take a look at caffeine-related deaths and near-deaths. 'Armed with improved knowledge of caffeine toxicity and faced with extensive evidence of substantial harm to public health, today’s authorities appear more perplexed and less decisive than their counterparts of more than a century earlier,' James continued. 'In light of current international befuddlement and inaction, legislators, policy makers, and regulators of today confront a stark question — how many caffeine-related fatalities and near-misses must there be before we regulate?'" Continue reading →

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Debt addiction, USA: How much debt reduction has the crisis caused?

"The trend of ever-rising overall debt has thus continued. The deleveraging in the household and financial sector has, however, resulted in a reduced pace of debt accumulation overall, despite heavy borrowing from the federal government. In 2010, for the first time since 1992, the economy has grown faster than total debt, and this has continued in 2011 and in 2012, if at a slowing pace. Consequently, total debt stands at 359% of GDP today, slightly down from its peak of 381% in 2009. At 359% debt-to-GDP is back to where it was at in early 2007. Again, not much deleveraging has occurred in total." Continue reading →

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Has the bull market in stocks become ‘too big to fail’?

"Officially, the Federal Reserve isn't supposed to worry about keeping stock prices flying high. But when Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke was asked about the market's outlook last week on Capitol Hill, he sounded like a lot of bullish Wall Street investment strategists. 'I don't see much evidence of an equity bubble,' he told the Senate Banking Committee in his semiannual testimony on Fed policy. Stocks 'don't appear overvalued given earnings and interest rates.' More important for the markets, Bernanke pledged to continue the Fed's policy of pumping colossal sums into the financial system to support the economic recovery." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHas the bull market in stocks become ‘too big to fail’?

Treasury chief Jacob Lew not worried about financial bubble

"US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Thursday that he was not worried about a potential financial bubble forming as Wall Street stocks racked up record highs. 'The analysis that I’ve seen doesn’t give me reason to be worried right now,' Lew said in an interview on US business news channel CNBC. Lew nevertheless called for monitoring of the situation in order to avoid another crisis like the 2008 Wall Street crash that led to the Great Recession. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average on Thursday closed at a record high for the eighth day in a row, though the US economy remains sluggish and massive government spending cuts kicked in on March 1." Continue reading →

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Land prices rising even after year of record drought

"American farmers may have suffered an historic drought last year, but the price of their land is skyrocketing. In Iowa, the land prices jumped 24% in 2012 and and have gained 63% over the last three years, according to a study by Iowa State University. Last year, farmers recovered some $14.7 billion in insurance payments for crop damage, a record sum. US government forecasters expect overall farming income to gain 14 percent this year. 'Farmers have cash on hand and with low interest rates, the best place to make investments is to buy more land that they can farm to be more profitable in their operation,' said Lyle Hansen, a real estate agent." Continue reading →

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Kyle Bass Warns: “The ‘AIG’ Of The World Is Back”

"His single best investment idea for the next ten years is, 'Sell JPY, Buy Gold, and go to sleep,' as he warns of the current situation in markets, 'we are right back there! The brevity of financial memory is about two years.' The main thrust of the discussion is Bass' thesis on Japan's pending collapse - which we wrote in detail on here, here, and here - and while the details of this thesis should prepare most for the worst, it is the Q&A that provides some very clear insights into just what is going on in the world." Continue reading →

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New sanctions on Iran introduced to Congress

"The bipartisan House bill would allow President Barack Obama to impose penalties on foreign entities that provide Iran with goods to help maintain its struggling economy. The Nuclear Iran Prevention Act of 2013 also would provide Obama with broader authority to target strategic imports, such as mining or power generating equipment that could help Iran with its nuclear program, which the West and Israel say is a front for weapons development. The bill would designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization." Continue reading →

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