investment

Wire Fraud: A Terrifying New Trend Targeting Financial Advisors

"A disturbing new trend is that some thieves are beginning to directly target financial advisors and their clients – as famous bank robber Willie Sutton noted, if you want to get rich by stealing, go to where the money is! Accordingly, financial advisors and investment custodians have seen a noticeable increase in attempts at fraudulent wire transfers by 'spoofing' – where a request sent 'from the client' is actually a spoof from a fake-but-similar email account (or sometimes is even the client’s actual account!), and asks the advisor to process a wire transfer to a third party bank account. By the time anyone realizes the request was fake, the money is already gone." Continue reading →

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Harry Browne: The Coming Devaluation (Sept. 3, 1970)

"Taped Sept 3, 1970, this insightful economic conversation remains relevant today. Note Mr. Browne predicts that, 'as an act of economic desperation,' our government will have to 'renege on their promise to foreign governments to pay one ounce of gold for every $35 turned in at the Treasury.' On August 15, 1971, the Nixon Administration did so." Continue reading →

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Why Bitcoins Are Just Like Gold

"Bitcoin is gold on steroids, designed for a society that lives through the internet. Bitcoin is designed with the ideals of the contemporary cyber movement in mind: decentralization, peer to peer, cryptography. Easily transferable in ones and zeros, it’s a storage of value for a virtual society. As a payment system, it's a temporal store of money that can be easily sent across the globe securely and speedily without counterparty risk. No matter the price of bitcoin, these benefits will always give it purpose. Given its self-contained nature, it eliminates the need for inherent human interference. There’s no need for a central bank because bitcoin self-regulates." Continue reading →

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Housing: Addicted to Fiat Money

"We are told that the housing recovery is strong. Then why is the best-performing new home building stock losing money? The Federal Reserve is buying about $40 billion worth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds every month in order to sustain the present housing recovery. How is this market going to be sustained when the Federal Reserve finally stops creating half a trillion dollars a year worth of fiat money in order to goose the housing market? This is clearly the most manipulated market in the history of the United States. Bernanke and his associates have decided that it is the Federal Reserve’s job is to subsidize housing in the United States." Continue reading →

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Bernanke Saying He’s Dispensable Suggests Tenure Ending

"Rates have been low for so long that they have continued to facilitate rash borrowing. Now rates literally cannot be lifted without causing extreme pressure on US disbursements. Second, to keep rates down, Bernanke has virtually doomed the Fed to perpetual monetary debasement. No matter what happens, boom or bust, the Fed will need to promote huge inflationary programs. Perhaps it is unfair to Ben Bernanke, but anyone examining the totality of his actions and their likely result would be tempted to come to the conclusion that he wants to leave before the proverbial house of cards comes tumbling down." Continue reading →

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Jim Rickards: Forget Cyprus, Nobody Is Stealing from Depositors More than Bernanke

"'At this stage of a recovery normalized interest rates should be around 2-3%,' says Rickards. 'Apply that 2-3%…to the entire multi-trillion-dollar deposit base of the United States of America and that’s a $400-billion per year wealth transfer from savers to bankers so they can pay themselves bigger bonuses or make crazy bets.' Over time, Rickards says, that wealth transfer could reach $1 trillion. Rickards says zero interest rates are just one way the Fed is fleecing depositors. Others include increasing inflation, which Bernanke is trying to do, and taxing deposits like Cyprus is pushing for." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJim Rickards: Forget Cyprus, Nobody Is Stealing from Depositors More than Bernanke

Bank of Japan vows ‘all means available’ to smash deflation

"The new team is much closer to the Fed and the Bank of England, but critics say the bank risks becoming a mere branch of the finance mininstry -- where Mr Kuroda spent much of his careers. The great fear is that Japan will lurch from stable deflation to an unstable price spiral that suddenly causes investors to question the integrity of the country's 23 trillion public debt, the world's largest. The IMF says Japan's gross debt will reach 245pc of GDP this year. It has been possible so far because banks have gobbled up government bonds worth 100pc of GDP but this makes the banking system ever more vulnerable to a sudden rise in rates." Continue reading →

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Peter Schiff Global Investor Newsletter – March 2013

"The Keynesians have overlooked a much more dangerous and demonstrable pitfall of their own creation: something that I call 'The Stimulus Trap.' This condition occurs when an economy becomes addicted to the monetary stimulus provided by a central bank, and as a result fails to restructure itself in a manner that will allow for robust, and sustainable, growth. The trap redirects capital into non-productive sectors and starves those areas of the economy that could lead an economic rebirth. The condition is characterized by anemic growth (masked by the delivery of perpetual stimulus) and deteriorating underlying economic fundamentals." Continue reading →

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Gold and Silver Coins in Arizona May Become Legal Tender

"Arizona is likely to become the second state after Utah to pass a law specifying that gold and silver coins will be regarded as legal tender inside the borders of the state. The important thing about this legislation, as well as the law in Utah, is that it is now becoming clear to more voters that there is something fundamentally wrong with a monetary system that is run by a committee of tenured bureaucrats in Washington. This kind of legislation would have been inconceivable 10 years ago. The legislation is important mainly as an economic indicator of a change in public opinion, at least in Western states, regarding the future of fiat money." Continue reading →

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