News Commentary

What Higher Mortgage Rates Mean in the Real World

"Rates on the roughly 48 million outstanding mortgages in the U.S. will rise. There are still millions of adjustable rate mortgages out there, often second mortgages or HELOCs. Those will start ticking higher in the months ahead. $240 a month ($2,880 a year) may not seem like much, but multiply that by a million, and then by many millions, and the number starts becoming consequential: that money is no longer available for consumption or investment. Rising mortgage rates reduce household purchasing power just like higher taxes and inflation. That means there is less household income to spend on other things, and that's not good for 'growth.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhat Higher Mortgage Rates Mean in the Real World

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…

Smearing Glenn Greenwald: The Gregorian Connection

"The campaign to demonize Edward Snowden, whose revelations about the National Security Agency’s ubiquitous and ongoing spying on the American public has the Obama regimein furious disrray, has taken on a new dimension – now they’re going after Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian reporter and columnist Snowden chose to tell his story. Glenn has alreadypreempted some of this in his Guardian column, but there is sure to be more. What’s interesting about this effort is that it tells us far more about the smear-merchants – and who they serve – than it does about Greenwald." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSmearing Glenn Greenwald: The Gregorian Connection

‘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

For those concerned about the Voting Rights Act

"It would be a mistake to assume that the Voting Rights Act in any way ensured that all African Americans were able to vote. The biggest factor in suppressing minority vote is not even addressed by the Voting Rights Act — felony disenfranchisement. 5.8 million Americans are unable to vote because of our obsession with over-incarceration and the drug war, and it hits minorities hardest by a long shot. 1 in 13 African-Americans nationally are unable to vote. Drug war incarceration has been referred to as the 'New Jim Crow,' and built right into our drug laws are enforcement incentives that make racist outcomes certain." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFor those concerned about the Voting Rights Act

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

Here Come The “National Service” Peddlers

"WaPo's Michael Gerson feels a little edgy about Americans 'criticizing the National Security Agency as though it were enforcing the Alien and Sedition Acts.' You see, the serfs are not supposed to question, let alone have a problem with, having their every move monitored and watched by the State. So Gerson, looking for a panacea to this individualistic disease, suggests that 'National service can heal a divided nation.' Adding to Gerson's plea, there's also HuffPo who says 'That a year of full-time national service should become a civic rite of passage for all young Americans.' One must ask: Are the government schools not enough anymore?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHere Come The “National Service” Peddlers

Glenn Greenwald: The personal side of taking on the NSA

"So that's the big discovery: a corporate interest in adult videos (something the LLC shared with almost every hotel chain), fabricated emails, and some back taxes and other debt. I'm 46 years old and, like most people, have lived a complicated and varied adult life. I didn't manage my life from the age of 18 onward with the intention of being a Family Values US senator. If journalists really believe that, in response to the reporting I'm doing, these distractions about my past and personal life are a productive way to spend their time, then so be it. None of that will detain me even for an instant in continuing to report on what the NSA is doing in the dark." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald: The personal side of taking on the NSA

Honduras Startup City Redux: from RED to ZEDE to … Freedom?

"The legislation triggered fierce opposition by municipalities, which feared competition. Those objections were answered in floor debate by the observation that municipalities could themselves convert to ZEDE, winning all the same advantages. On June 12, 2013, the ZEDE legislation passed by a vote of 102 to 26. In broad terms, the ZEDE legislation authorizes the creation of startup cities that will operate under the supervision, but not direct control, of the central government. The ZEDE might not sound much different from China’s special economic zones or Dubai’s International Financial Centre, but the Hondurans have authored a daring new approach to governance." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHonduras Startup City Redux: from RED to ZEDE to … Freedom?