Investment/Trends

Bill Bonner: The worst candidate to replace Ben Bernanke

"Ben Bernanke is leaving the Fed at the end of the year. The leading candidates to replace him are all fully committed to continuing his policies, which consist of providing as much credit rope as you need to hang yourself. People come to think what they need to think when they need to think it. When they approach the 'end of their rope' phase of a financial catastrophe they need to believe that they have no choice but to play out a little more line. Doubts give way to desperate faith. Reflection is abandoned for action. All of the announced candidates for Bernanke's job -- Yellen, Summers and Kohn - are believers." Continue reading →

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Your Most Important Gold and Silver Questions — Answered

"Western central banks have no use for gold and, instead, want to make it obsolete. They want to move the world to an electronic currency that can be fully tracked, traced and taxed. In addition, Europe’s central banks, especially Germany, needs cash and liquidity to fight the European sovereign debt crisis. So you should indeed expect European central bank gold sales going forward. But importantly, that does not mean gold will go down. It would be more like the period from 1978 to 1980 in the U.S. when our Treasury dumped millions of ounces of gold on the market, and yet gold prices soared." Continue reading →

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Long Term US Interest Rates Hit Two Year High

"Long-term interest rates are on the climb again in the United States. Below is a chart showing the interest rate of the 10-year Treasury note since June, 2011. The rate hit a 2-year high today. This despite Fed bond purchases. In the EPJ Daily Alert, I have forecast that this is the start of a multi-year climb in rates. Despite absurd comments by members of the Fed that price inflation is below target, the MIT billion prices index shows price inflation is above target at around 2.5%. Buckle your seat belt." Continue reading →

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Obama Narrows Field for Fed Chairman to 3

"The proof that none of them deserve the job is that they all want the job. Given that interest rates are climbing, that price inflation is not far behind, that we are likely headed for stagflation and that there is $2 trillion in excess reserves overhanging the economy, you really have to be clueless to want the job. There is no way the next Fed chair is going to look like anything other than a bumbling incompetent. It is dumb to want the position." Continue reading →

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Bernanke: A Tenure of Failure

"Can Fed policy get worse under the leadership of either Dr. Yellen or Dr. Summers? Most definitely YES. Unfortunately leadership of the Fed is not the only problem. An institution that relies on good leadership to avoid harm to the economy and the nation is not a good institution. If banks and other financial institutions should not be too big to fail, neither should the Fed. While in the perception of too many, the Fed is both too big and too important to fail, it is an institution that not only could be, but has been, a complete failure." Continue reading →

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The rich are saving cash at a record pace

"Since the financial crisis, the wealthy have become the nation's top cash hoarders. The savings rate of the wealthiest 1 percent soared to 37 percent in the second quarter. That's up from 34 percent in the second quarter of 2012—and more than three times their savings rate in 2007. A separate study from Bank of America recently found that 56 percent of millionaires have a 'substantial' amount of cash. Only 16 percent of them plan to invest that cash in the next couple of months. Perhaps the wealthy are wise to keep more money on hand in case those record-breaking markets start to falter." Continue reading →

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Famed Trader Joe Lewis Backs Bitcoin With Swiss Fund

"Joe Lewis, a billionaire foreign-exchange trader who teamed up with hedge-fund manager George Soros in 1992 to bet against the Bank of England, is the latest high-profile financier to throw his weight behind the virtual currency called bitcoin. Mr. Lewis leads the Phoenix Fund, a Zurich-based private-equity fund that on Tuesday plans to invest $200 million in Avalon, a company that makes computer servers aimed at creating bitcoins, according to people familiar with the situation. The Phoenix Fund's investment in Avalon reflects the growing popularity of virtual currencies, which are also coming under scrutiny from regulators." Continue reading →

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Bakken flaring burns more than $100 million a month

"The amount lost to flaring pales in comparison to the $2.21 billion in crude oil production for May in North Dakota. Still, energy companies are working to build more pipelines and processing facilities to connect many of the state's 9,000 wells - a number expected to hit 50,000 by 2030. But it is a process that takes time and is not always feasible. Roughly 29 percent of natural gas extracted in North Dakota was flared in May, down from an all-time high of 36 percent in September 2011. But the volume of natural gas produced has nearly tripled in that timeframe to about 900,000 million cubic feet per day." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBakken flaring burns more than $100 million a month

How Important Is The Spot Price of Uranium?

"Though the spot price of uranium has fallen to US$34.50/lb.—a far cry from the US$140/lb it fetched a few years prior—how important is the spot price of uranium? The answer: not as important as the long-term price. In fact, over six times more uranium is traded in long-term market prices than in the spot market price. Currently, the long-term price for uranium is over 50% higher than the spot price. The long-term uranium price is currently set at US$57 per pound, whereas the spot price as of this writing is US$34.50." Continue reading →

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