Money Parked Overseas Continues To Increase [View article]
It's a sign of an utterly corrupt government that they've allowed this to get this way. Microsoft in California sells software to a company in California and the sale is booked in Ireland. Even the Ireland sale shows no "profit" however since Ireland must "license" the IP contained in the software from Microsoft's Luxemburg subsidiary, where there are no taxes. But if John Q. Struggler on Main Street misses paying any taxes they immediately confiscate his house and throw him in jail. Bank lobbyists running the SEC (Mary Shapiro), bank failures running the Treasury (Lew), torturers running the CIA (Brennan), gun runners in charge of the US "Justice" Department. Save us all.
Sure, sure, there's lots of tech. But to see it as always a net positive is wrong. As an example, I needed a video for my website. Just ten years ago this would have employed several people at a video design firm and earned them probably $8-10,000. Instead I got a guy on the web from Pakistan to do it: $600, super-professional job. Now explain to me why that is a great addition to the world's GDP again? Yes I know you focused on corporate bottom lines...but even Henry Ford knew that he needed to pay his workers...because they were also his customers.
Libya: Oil Zone, War Zone, Or Both? [View article]
Spoken like someone who never travels outside the US. The US Interstate Highway system (built by Dwight Eisenhower) is one of THE reasons America has prospered. But today America's highways ports bridges and especially airports are Third World. Actually that's an insult to many Third World nations like Thailand with her gleaming modern & efficient airport that looks like something from a scifi movie. Compare that to LAX or JFK? Please. America's been so busy building highways and bridges and hospitals in places like Iraq and Afghanistan it has completely neglected the home front. And infrastructure investments actually get a return, not like the billions we spend figuring out new ways to kill people around the globe. Bring our boys home and put them to work on the home front.
Libya: Oil Zone, War Zone, Or Both? [View article]
Do not underestimate these people and just how much is at stake. The US burns *86 million barrels of oil per day* just to keep the lights on and the fact we can just print the dollars to pay for them has been a HUGE wind at our backs. Everybody else needs to work, make a profit, then buy the dollars to then buy their oil. Make no mistake this is the biggest game of all. Sanctions on Iran, cutting them off from the SWIFT banking network were designed to squeeze them, and the US said any country dealing with Iran would be punished. Problem was that Japan, Turkey, South Korea etc all came to the US and asked for exemptions. And Turkey has resorted to trading gold for Iranian oil. Always ask "cui bono" (who benefits?) when you read the headlines. It will be interesting to see what happens when Chavez goes, I wouldn't be surprised at all if we start finding "terra" groups in Venezuela, then a hop skip and jump and the Fifth Fleet is parked offshore. Might be a prize too big and too close to ignore, nice quality too, not that shale-based sludge everybody's so excited about.
Libya: Oil Zone, War Zone, Or Both? [View article]
If you read this link below you might question whether the West really needed to overthrow this guy. Or perhaps if there were other reasons beyond "The War on Terra" for disposing of him.
The US has been trying to give Egypt $5 billion for a little while now. The Muslim Brotherhood said "no thanks" because they didn't like the attached strings. Finally the Egyptian military won the argument, they got the money...and immediately proceeded to place a nice big arms order with Lockheed and a few others. That's how this game works, folks.
Libya: Oil Zone, War Zone, Or Both? [View article]
My brother-in-law is French and has lived the last five years in Tripoli and operated at the highest levels. It's always good to get your intel from people on the ground you can trust, rather than the controlled narrative from sources that are nothing but conflicts-of-interest. (You probably know that NBC is owned by GE...that happens to make most of the missile engines the US Military uses...so whipping up war frenzy is a good way to move sales inventory. This has worked since the times of Hearst and the Spanish/American War). Keep digging, this is a war, an information war. The army with the best intel wins.
Libya: Oil Zone, War Zone, Or Both? [View article]
It's all getting just really transparent. One week Gaddafi is having dinner with Tony Blair and about to receive a UN Humanitarian award, the next week he's the worst guy in the world and the US and NATO must kill him immediately. What changed? Um let's see, Italian bank UniCredito owed him many billions after 2008 that they didn't want to repay. Gaddafi was running around Africa promoting his gold-backed pan-African dinar currency that would bypass the US Dollar. Our ambassador in Benghazi got caught playing a dangerous game, smuggling heavy weapons from Libya to Syria and picked the wrong al-Qaeda faction to partner with. The US and NATO wanted to thwart Chinese oil company deals in the country. Take your pick. But now they get to reap what they sowed: chaos and spreading al-Qaeda throughout North Africa, Mali, Niger etc. US needs to stop meddling around the globe and just get down to business: rebuild the US, invest in education and innovation, stop trying to cheat by tilting the playing field around the world because it doesn't work. Not for long anyway and we can't afford it any more.
Thursday Thump: Delusional Systems Kick Back In [View article]
Please DON'T leave the politics out of it. It's a key part of determining where we go next in these politically-controlled markets. And the IMF report you cite should have been viewed as a major major earthquake. They basically admitted that the "neo-Keynesian" pain they had inflicted around the world for the last 30 years, from Argentina to Indonesia, was completely wrong and unnecessary. Gee, thanks for that. Too bad Washington and Brussels aren't listening.
Japan CB is printing an additional 10 Trillion yen, and their charter lets them invest directly in foreign securities including stocks. My guess is that they'll want to strengthen the Korean won because it's Samsung, LG, Kia, Hyundai that are killing them. This should support the KOSPI. These "suicide bankers" cannot be stopped, look for more fireworks from the new guy at the BOE, then BenB might take the lead again and buy Chinese stocks...you just cannot underestimate these people
A New Permanent Portfolio For The 21st Century [View article]
I have a few problems with the PermPortfolio approach. First is that only recently have we become "zero-bound" on interest rates, where there is very very little room for them to decline more. This is a huge change from the historical context when the PermPortfolio performed previously. When the largest and best bond managers in the world (PIMCO, Loomis Sayles) are telling people to avoid bonds, I listen. When UBS changes the status of clients with high allocations to bonds to "aggressive investors", I listen. Bonds simply cannot respond the way they have in the past. Mid-cap emerging market bonds still show some value, but you're taking a big currency risk. My second problem has to do with the precious metals allocation. I love gold and silver, but Wall St has financialized them. They can create unlimited phantom gold and silver now via issuance games with GLD and via naked short selling which the regulator ignores. You might consider instead a basket of commodities (Ag, industrial metals, precious metals); and multi-currency cash instead of bonds (AUD SGP CAN HK USD)
Headwinds Getting Stronger: Time To Go Long Volatility [View article]
If there's a message from the last 20 years it should be DO NOT underestimate these central bankers. The Japanese just announced QE10. The new head of the BOE (serial bubble blower from Canada) says the CBs still have plenty of tricks up their sleeves. BenB could just buy Chinese stocks, for example.
Headwinds Getting Stronger: Time To Go Long Volatility [View article]
It's easy to see what happened after December when the Fed replaced the guy at the Plunge Protection Team. The old guy liked to drop 25,000 e-mini contracts on the market at about 2:30PM when they needed it to go up. The new guy just sells vol by the truckload. Much cheaper, same effect. VXY can go to 10, easy.
Central Banks Make Unintended Consequences 'Tolerable' [View article]
I don't know why everybody wants to overcomplicate this issue so much. We would all agree that the government stepping in to try and guess at and then manipulate the price of something is a bad idea. Always a bad idea. Yet that's precisely what The Fed does with the most important price of all: the price of money. Read Jim Grant on the Fed's original charter and just how very very far away they are from that.
Central Banks Make Unintended Consequences 'Tolerable' [View article]
Excellent article. The world has had enough of the suicide bankers. "Just give us all the taxpayer money or else we're going to blow this thing up!" Abe, Carney (late of the Canadian housing bubble) are the leaders this time. BenB will not be far behind, maybe he'll just purchase Chinese stocks outright? There is nothing that will stop these mad scientists and their infernal "models" that show the Earth at the center of the solar system. It's simple, folks. There are no shortcuts. Sound money is what we need.
Money Parked Overseas Continues To Increase [View article]
But if John Q. Struggler on Main Street misses paying any taxes they immediately confiscate his house and throw him in jail.
Bank lobbyists running the SEC (Mary Shapiro), bank failures running the Treasury (Lew), torturers running the CIA (Brennan), gun runners in charge of the US "Justice" Department. Save us all.
High Margins Are Here To Stay [View article]
Now explain to me why that is a great addition to the world's GDP again? Yes I know you focused on corporate bottom lines...but even Henry Ford knew that he needed to pay his workers...because they were also his customers.
Libya: Oil Zone, War Zone, Or Both? [View article]
Libya: Oil Zone, War Zone, Or Both? [View article]
Libya: Oil Zone, War Zone, Or Both? [View article]
The US has been trying to give Egypt $5 billion for a little while now. The Muslim Brotherhood said "no thanks" because they didn't like the attached strings. Finally the Egyptian military won the argument, they got the money...and immediately proceeded to place a nice big arms order with Lockheed and a few others. That's how this game works, folks.
http://bit.ly/XCnoCd
Libya: Oil Zone, War Zone, Or Both? [View article]
Keep digging, this is a war, an information war. The army with the best intel wins.
Libya: Oil Zone, War Zone, Or Both? [View article]
US needs to stop meddling around the globe and just get down to business: rebuild the US, invest in education and innovation, stop trying to cheat by tilting the playing field around the world because it doesn't work. Not for long anyway and we can't afford it any more.
When Safe Havens Fall [View article]
Thursday Thump: Delusional Systems Kick Back In [View article]
And the IMF report you cite should have been viewed as a major major earthquake. They basically admitted that the "neo-Keynesian" pain they had inflicted around the world for the last 30 years, from Argentina to Indonesia, was completely wrong and unnecessary. Gee, thanks for that. Too bad Washington and Brussels aren't listening.
Correction? Watch The Cyclicals! [View article]
A New Permanent Portfolio For The 21st Century [View article]
My second problem has to do with the precious metals allocation. I love gold and silver, but Wall St has financialized them. They can create unlimited phantom gold and silver now via issuance games with GLD and via naked short selling which the regulator ignores.
You might consider instead a basket of commodities (Ag, industrial metals, precious metals); and multi-currency cash instead of bonds (AUD SGP CAN HK USD)
Headwinds Getting Stronger: Time To Go Long Volatility [View article]
The Japanese just announced QE10.
The new head of the BOE (serial bubble blower from Canada) says the CBs still have plenty of tricks up their sleeves.
BenB could just buy Chinese stocks, for example.
Headwinds Getting Stronger: Time To Go Long Volatility [View article]
Central Banks Make Unintended Consequences 'Tolerable' [View article]
Read Jim Grant on the Fed's original charter and just how very very far away they are from that.
Central Banks Make Unintended Consequences 'Tolerable' [View article]
Abe, Carney (late of the Canadian housing bubble) are the leaders this time. BenB will not be far behind, maybe he'll just purchase Chinese stocks outright? There is nothing that will stop these mad scientists and their infernal "models" that show the Earth at the center of the solar system.
It's simple, folks. There are no shortcuts. Sound money is what we need.