Archive for October, 2009
By Peggy Noonan
The new economic statistics put growth at a healthy 3.5% for the third quarter. We should be dancing in the streets. No one is, because no one has any faith in these numbers. Waves of money are sloshing through the system, creating a false rising tide that lifts all boats for the moment. The tide will recede. The boats aren’t rising, they’re bobbing, and will settle. No one believes the bad time is over. No one thinks we’re entering a new age of abundance. No one thinks it will ever be the same as before 2008. Economists, statisticians, forecasters and market specialists will argue about what the new numbers mean, but no one believes them, either. Among the things swept away in 2008 was public confidence in the experts. The experts missed the crash. They’ll miss the meaning of this moment, too.
Continue reading We’re Governed by Callous Children
By Gary Dorsch
Operating under the elixir of ultra-low interest rates, and flush with trillions of fiat currency at their disposal, courtesy of the world’s top-20 central banks, hedge funds and banking Oligarchs are once again making risky and daring bets in commodities, emerging markets, junk bonds, and blue-chip stocks, defying gravity with trades that would have been un-thinkable just six-months ago.
In order to engineer a 180-degree turnaround in trader psychology, from the chronic fear of meltdowns last year, to the opposite side of the spectrum - the euphoric illusions of V-shaped recoveries, the “Group-of-20″ have committed $12-trillion of taxpayer money, equivalent to a fifth of the entire globe’s annual economic output. The G-20’s largesse has been used to fund capital injections into banks, soaking-up toxic assets, guaranteeing financial company debt, and flooding the world credit and stock markets with ultra-cheap liquidity.
Continue reading Dangerous Side Effects of Ultra-Easy Money
View this week’s chart comparisons of gold against fiat currencies, oil and the Dow. Stay tuned for our next Money & Markets segment of The Solari Report, Thursday, November 5, 2009.
Click here to view all charts as a pdf file.
Previous Money & Markets Charts blog posts: Oct 2009 (1) (2) (3) (3) (4) / Sep 2009 (1) (2) (3) (4) / Aug 2009 (1) (2)(3) (4) / Jul 2009 (1) (2) (3) (4) / Jun 2009 (1) (2) (3) / May 2009 (1) (2) (3) (4) / Apr 2009 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) / Mar 2009 (1) (2).
Currency charts are from Kitco.com, all others are from StockCharts.com.
Mission managers watch as NASA’s Ares I-X rocket launches from Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009. The flight test will provide NASA with an early opportunity to test and prove flight characteristics, hardware, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I.
Continue reading Ares I-X Lifts Off
Dear Ms. Fitts:
I listen to you on Coast to Coast AM.
I have noticed the number of Chase Banks that have popped up all over the place.
When a Washington Mutual is taken over by Chase, it is given a fresh Chase Bank sign and the bank is open for business despite there being another Chase bank within a 1/2 mile of it. In some instances there are two freestanding Chase Banks right across the street from each other.
Is there any way to bring this to anyone’s attention? I see what you are saying to be true and am alarmed. I wish I knew how to bring this to the media’s attention.
Within 5 miles of my house there are 22 freestanding Chase Banks. Something is wrong.
They needed so much stimulus money yet they maintain so many branches. I feel like there is nothing I can do but watch our currency inflate away.
Sincerely Yours,
A Texas Subscriber
By Polina Devitt
The Russian government said on Tuesday it had postponed its plans to sell up to 50 tonnes of gold this year, after information about the sale was leaked to the market, but the gold market failed to react.
“Due to the leak of the information the sale in the reported period and in the reported form will not take place,” deputy head of the government agent for precious metals sales, Sergei Gorny, told Reuters.
He declined to say when the sale may take place.
Continue reading Russia Will Not Sell Gold In 2009
By Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark
The Finchley Road is one of the busiest thoroughfares heading out of London. It leads traffi c north past Lord’s Cricket Ground and the multimillion-pound houses of some of the country’s richest hedge-fund managers all the way to the M1. At three in the afternoon it’s always pretty slow going, but on this particular summer Monday the traffi c was almost at a standstill.
This was partly because the normal three lanes going north had been cut down to one. But it was also because of drivers slowing down to a crawl so they could gawp at the massive police operation unfolding on a busy corner of the road.
Police vehicles - both cars and menacing armoured trucks - jammed up two lanes. Dozens of armed o fficers in bulletproof vests were standing ready, waiting to be called inside an anonymous-looking building. From the sheer manpower and weapons on display it looked like the capital was under another terrorist attack.
Continue reading The Raid That Rocked The Met: Why Gun And Drugs Op On 6,717 Safety Deposit Boxes Could Cost Taxpayer A Fortune
By Javier Blas
Saudi Arabia on Wednesday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The decision by the world’s biggest oil exporter could encourage other producers to abandon the benchmark and threatens the dominance of the world’s most heavily traded oil futures contract. It is the main contract traded on Nymex.
The move reveals the growing discontent of Riyadh and its US refinery customers with WTI after the price of the price of the benchmark became separated from the global oil market this year.
The surge in oil inventories in Cushing, Oklahoma, where WTI is delivered into America’s pipeline system, depressed the value of the WTI against other global benchmarks, throwing the global oil market into disarray.
Continue reading Saudis Don’t Want Oil Price Set In U.S. Anymore
The Living Matrix
The Living Matrix – The Science of Healing uncovers new ideas about the intricate web of factors that determine our health. You will meet a group of dedicated scientists, psychologists, bioenergetic researchers and holistic practitioners who are finding healing potential in new places.
Continue reading Inside the Revolution in Alternative Healing