News Commentary

No Military Coups for America? What About November 1963?

"Let’s just keep living our little myths and deferring to the wisdom and authority of our beloved Cold War national-security state, which suspends our freedom and privacy in order to keep us 'safe' from the threats of terrorism that it itself produces. Let’s just keep believing that it’s only foreigners, not Americans, who make 'mistakes' in elections — mistakes that unfortunately sometimes have to be rectified with coups and assassinations. While our national-security state believes in helping foreign counterparts protect their nations from bad rulers through coups and assassinations, let’s just keep telling ourselves that it would never do the same here at home." Continue reading →

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Telegraphing the Turnaround in Gold

"While the current correction hasn't been as deep as that of the mid-'70s, the decline is already longer, and it's the most prolonged of the current cycle. It is thus reasonable to expect gold to take two years or more to regain the $1,900 level and continue beyond. Barring a black swan event, gold will likely log its first annual loss since 2000 this year. However, it's not all bad news, as the chart shows: gold nearly doubled in the two years from its '76 low to its '78 return to former highs. The message here is obvious: add to your inventory at depressed levels. And don't worry about missing the bottom." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTelegraphing the Turnaround in Gold

Is It Good News or Bad News that the White House Has Delayed the Obamacare Employer Mandate?

“So part of me is happy that the White House has bumped into reality and now admits that it hasn’t been able to come up with a workable plan for the employer mandate.  But another part of me is unhappy.  … Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIs It Good News or Bad News that the White House Has Delayed the Obamacare Employer Mandate?

Bill Bonner: The End of Low Interest Rates

"A generation has come of age in a time of falling interest rates. When the last turn came, the boomers were just reaching maturity, setting up families, beginning their careers and starting to think about investing. From 1981 until last month, they knew nothing else. A world of falling interest rates is a gentle, forgiving world. But it is a strange world too... It is a world of make-believe, where people pretend they have income they don't really have. What happens when people have debt up the wazoo... and interest rates rise? What happens when the entire economy depends on unprecedented levels of debt at unsustainably low interest rates? That is what we are going to find out." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBill Bonner: The End of Low Interest Rates

Moral of the Story: Tax Havens Are Okay if You’re a Politically Connected Leftist

"You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Secretary Lew wasn’t the first Democrat to utilize tax havens. Lawmakers such as John Kerry, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and others on the left also have utilized tax havens to boost their own personal finances. And it appears that Mr. Lew won’t be the last Democrat to be caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Here’s some of what’s being reported by the New York Times with regards to the President’s nominee to be U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMoral of the Story: Tax Havens Are Okay if You’re a Politically Connected Leftist

Foreclosures are the Solution, Not the Problem

"The majority of those foreclosed on and who sold short would have become clean potential buyers in 3 to 7 years ensuring a housing recovery was not only on deck but would be 'durable'. Millions of legacy HELOCs and HELOANs preventing folks from rebuying real estate indefinitely would have been exterminated making millions more potential buyers within 2 to 5 years. Bottom line, history will not be kind to loan mods and workouts. It will show that modifications, anti-foreclosure laws, banks protecting their HELOC assets — in general, unabated can-kicking — was responsible for housing to remain in a depression for years longer than it would have." Continue reading →

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Ron Paul on New Egyptian War: Americans Lose, Again

"Looking at the banners in the massive Egyptian protests last week, we saw many anti-American slogans. Likewise, the Muslim Brotherhood-led government that was deposed by the military last week was very critical of what it saw as US support for the coup. Why is it that all sides in this Egyptian civil war seem so angry with the United States? Because the United States has at one point or another supported each side, which means also that at some point the US has also opposed each side. It is the constant meddling in Egyptian affairs that has turned Egyptians against us, as we would resent foreign intervention in our own affairs." Continue reading →

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Part-Time Track Jobs For Mainstream Professionals?

"'Ford didn’t offer paternity leave, but it did offer a part-time track so long as an employee’s manager approved it. When baby Dylan arrived, Trombley went to his bosses and told them he wanted to drop down to 70 percent and work from home two days a week. [...] There are now three other men in his department with similar part-time setups; there were none when Trombley started.' Is there a list of large, Fortune 500 employers that offer such a 'part-time track' option? Hopefully the idea of breaking down the traditional 'full-time' job into smaller pieces is gaining momentum in the corporate world." Continue reading →

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Marc Faber: This Will End In Disaster

"With gold and silver plunging, the US dollar strengthening, and oil still above $100 a barrel, today Marc Faber told King World News this will 'end in disaster.' This is part I of a series of written interviews that will be released today on KWN in which Faber discusses the end game, government theft, how investors can protect themselves, gold, silver, bail-ins, central planner actions, global markets, and much more." Continue reading →

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Can the Fed Become Insolvent?

"In light of my recent posts on Morgan Stanley’s analysis of this question–which show that a rise of less than a percentage point across the yield curve would render the Fed 'bankrupt'–let me direct you to my original Mises.org essay on this question. I walk through various hypothetical Fed balance sheets to show what we mean by saying it could become insolvent. Then, in this article I walk through the January 2011 change in accounting rules that was instituted so that technically, the Fed can’t have negative equity from a fall in its asset prices. It would, however, drive home to more people around the world just how screwy our 'modern' monetary system really is." Continue reading →

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