Viernes 13/11/15 Inventarios de negocios

[Fenix]

Copper Plunges To Fresh 6 Years Low After Goldman Warns More Pain Ahead, Glencore Slides Back Under 100p
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 08:10

Overnight Goldman released a report titled simply enough "Copper poised to move even lower" which confirmed everything we said a month ago when we warned that the latest "production cut" initiatives by Glencore would have absolutely no impact on the longer-term price dynamics of the metal which has achieved "doctor" status. We were right:

COPPER FALLS 1.8% TO $4,856/TON, REACHING LOWEST SINCE 2009


Four US Firms With $4.8 Billion In Debt Warned This Week They May Default Any Minute
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/11/2015 - 22:35

The last 3 days have seen the biggest surge in US energy credit risk since December 2014, blasting back above 1000bps. This should not be a total surprise since underlying oil prices continue to languish in "not cash-flow positive" territory for many shale producers, but, as Bloomberg reports, the industry is bracing for a wave of failures as investors that were stung by bets on an improving market earlier this year try to stay away from the sector. "It’s been eerily silent," in energy credit markets, warns one bond manager, "no one is putting up new capital here."




'Gold' Spikes Off 2015 Lows As Gold Coin Sales Surge To Highest Since Financial Crisis
Submitted by Tyler D11/12/2015 09:46 -0500

With the 'paper' price of gold are a somewhat unprecedented barrage of selling currently (down 9 of the last 11 days) to 4-month lows, one could be forgiven for thinking that demand for the precious metal is dropping. However, as almost every nation in the world (ex US) is devaluing their currency, The World Gold Council reports that physical gold demand has risen dramatically with US gold Eagle coin sales at the highest levels since the financial crisis.

'Physical' Demand is exploding...


As 'Paper' prices collapse...


And then spike off 2015 lows...


As the latest report from The World Gold Council shows, gold buyers jumped on the new low prices...

"US retail investment demand jumped to 32.7 tonnes, generating growth of more than 200% year-on-year,"


"This signaled both a level of interest in gold investment not seen since the global financial crisis, and a level of price awareness on a par with that of Indian and Chinese retail investors. Nowhere was this more clearly demonstrated than in the US, where the US Mint reported rocketing sales of gold Eagle coins."



"Demand for was the highest for more than five years: in volume terms, sales hit 397,000 oz.,"


"Demand for newly minted coins surged across all key product lines: sales across all denominations were many multiples of their long-term average levels. Secondary market activity was correspondingly weak as profit-taking slumped in favor of bargain hunting."

Finally - who is buying? It's not just those crazy retail gold bug doomers... Central Banks continue to back up the truck, taking advantage of the 'low' prices...Gold as a reserve asset remains firmly on the radar

Central banks continue to build their holdings of gold, adding 175t to official reserves.


Purchases by central banks and other official sector institutions almost equalled the Q3 2014 record of 179.5t as gold’s diversification benefits were increasingly recognised and sought. A couple of new countries joined the ranks of repeat buyers, the most significant of those being China.


The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) confirmed in July that its gold reserves had expanded by over 50% since its last announcement in 2009. At 1,658t, that put China at number six in the global rankings. Subsequently, the PBoC has begun regularly to report changes to its gold holdings and has confirmed an additional 50.1t of purchases between July and September.


And in another small but significant step, the central bank of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) confirmed that, between April and September it added 5t of gold to its reserve asset portfolio, having held none since 2003. The result is that the UAE makes it into the top 100 holders of gold and expands the geographical spread of central bank buyers.

Q3 saw continued buying by regular names, primarily concentrated in the CIS region. Selling was again limited and sporadic.


So it makes all the sense in the world that gold 'prices' are testing the lowest levels since October 2009...


Charts: Bloomberg and The World Gold Council

[Fenix]

S&P 500 Tumbles Into Red For 2015, Breaks Key Technical Support
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 09:36

Bonds are back in town and stocks are tumbling. Dow Transports remain the worst performer of the major indices (down over 11% year-to-date), but, after the exuberance of October, November's reality of a tightening Fed has dragged first Small Caps, then The Dow, and now The S&P into negative territory for 2015. Only Nasdaq remains in the green (up a stunning and entirely unsustainable 10% YTD). The S&P 500 also broke below its 200-day moving average.



In "Permazero", Fed's Bullard Admits US May Be Entering Permanent Period Of Lower Inflation And Interest Rates
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 09:20

The most important thing Bullard said in his speech titled "Permazero" is that the the US may be entering a permanent period of lower inflation and interest rates. Wait, wasn't ZIRP and QE supposed to push the US economy, boost inflation and hike rates? Good to know 7 years later that the biggest monetary experiment in history did precisely the opposite of what it was supposed to achieve.



The Stench Of Freddie Mac Is Back - An $18 Billion Spree Of Crony Capitalist Thievery
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 13:20

[Fenix]

Strong 30 Year Auction Sees Second Highest Ever Allotment To Foreign Central Banks
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 13:12

The internals were mixed with the Bid to Cover sliding from 2.460 to 2.409, which however was above the 12 TTM average of 2.356. Offsetting the slightly weaker BtC print was the jump in Indirects, which rose from 56.4% to 60.3% the second highest on record, as foreign central bankers have again decided that the safety of US paper offsets the duration risk of holding it in a rate hike environment.


China Panics: Sends Fiscal Spending Through The Roof As Credit Creation Tumbles
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 12:50

In a sign that the slowing economy, rising bank NPLs, and lackluster demand for credit from overleveraged corporates is overwhelming Beijin's easing efforts, China's October loan growth data came in far weaker than expected in yet another sign that all is most certainly not well with the world's engine of global growth and trade. Meanwhile, fiscal spending soared as it now appears Beijing may have no choice but to go the helicopter route if it hopes to reignite growth.


Cramer Does It Again: Camera-On-A-Stick Plunges Below IPO Price
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 12:01

Having soared to almost $100 - because it was a social media company - Camera-on-a-stick maker GoPro has collapsed 75% from its highs and broken back below its $24 IPO Price for the first time.. which is odd as in July, CNBC's Jim Cramer said "Go Pro is heading higher... I know growth oriented money managers who would gladly pay as much as 60 times earnings for a company with these numbers. I think GoPro's a bargain at these levels."


The Amazing Chart Showing What All The Debt Issued This Century Has Been Used For
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 15:22

Virtually every single fungible dollar raised through issuance of debt has been used for one thing - to buyback stock!

[Fenix]

Maduro Nephews Arrested After Attempting To Smuggle 800 Kilos Of Cocaine Into The US
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 13:40

Two nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro were set to appear in front of a New York judge today after the pair was accused of attempting to smuggle some 800 kilos of coke into the US. The case raises further questions about drug smuggling among Venezuelan officials and individuals with ties to powerful figures. For his part, Maduro tweeted the following:"The fatherland will follow its course. Neither attacks nor imperialist ambushes can harm the people of the liberators."




This All Has A Familiar Ring To It
11/12/2015 19:00 -0500
Via NorthmanTrader.com,

The recent new highs on the $NDX accompanying the recent rally off of the August and September lows have been accompanied by bullish headlines. $SPX 2300+, $DJIA 20K, etc. And it is true the action in some stocks is truly awe inspiring.

Yet all the action has an oddly familiar ring to it and it may not be bullish. While most traders today haven’t really lived through the 2000 bubble older hats like me have institutional memory. Back then it was the “horsemen” of stocks that seemed to defy gravity and just kept pushing higher to stratospheric valuations. Yet back then the leadership was ever more narrowing and oddly enough we are now finding ourselves at a very similar spot.

And not only is the leadership narrowing, but it is happening at exactly the same price level.

In the $NDX chart below the horizontal red line is representing the exact same price as 15 years ago, right at the market’s peak of the year 2000. Note the negative divergence on the bullish percentage of stocks in the $COMPQ (click chart to zoom in). New highs with fewer stocks participating:

NDX

It is of course the $COMPQ that did not confirm news highs during this recent rally:

COMPQ



Not even close. Does this all point to an imminent crash similar to 2000? I can’t know, nobody can, but we can observe that the recent rally excels in non participation as opposed to participation.

On an equal weight basis both $RSP and $XVG indicate significant weakness:

XVGM

RSP

Insiders are not buying:

INSAX



And high yield? $JNK and $HYG are not playing along either:

JNK HYG



Now here’s where it gets interesting. The leaders that have been driving this rally are vastly disconnected from their moving averages and very overbought. Just a basic reconnect to their weekly 5EMA and 8MAs risks a 5-10% correction in these stocks.

Weekly chart examples:

GOOGL AMZN

FB

MSFT



Extended much? You decide. But all these factors together have a very familiar ring to them.

But before you think this issue is one of tech only, it is not. It’s one of haves versus have nots. And this large negative divergence extends to large cap stocks across the board as seen here in the $OEX:

OEX

The big difference now compared to 2000? All the central banks are “all in”, although the ECB may add to its QE program in December.

Last time central banks came to the rescue of a sharply correcting market by cutting rates. Who will be coming now?

[Fenix]

An Interactive Look At China's Massive Coal Bubble
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 21:45

China has given the green light to more than 150 coal power plants so far this year despite falling coal consumption, flatlining production and existing overcapacity. Modelling this expansion, Greenpeace EnergyDesk suggests that this would cause 6,100 premature deaths a year — that’s 150,000 over a 24-year operating life.



Here Is The Biggest, And Most Underreported, Risk Facing China
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 20:28

We wonder: just how much "more exponential" will China's "strike chart" have to get before everyone else finally notices?



Veterans Affairs Paid Out $142 Million In Cash Bonuses Immediately Following Deadly Scandal
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 20:00

The incentive structure throughout government, Wall Street, and big business generally is that “crime pays,” which is exactly why we’re seeing more and more of it. It will only get worse, until we grow up as a culture and demand accountability.




Can't Afford To Buy A House? Buy It Anyway Housing "Experts" Advise
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 18:30

“In metros with high-income growth, unaffordable mortgage payments can become affordable within a few years. For millennials, buying an unaffordable Home isn’t always a bad idea."

[Fenix]

US Government Shocked To Find Job Openings Continue To Surge Above Actual Hires
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/12/2015 - 17:27

Something odd is happening in the US labor market.



* China Doubles Margin Requirement for Stocks to Curb Leverage

* IEA Says Record 3 Billion-Barrel Oil Stocks May Weaken Prices


The Last Two Times Retail Sales Were This Bad, The US Was In A Recession
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 06:42

Amid the carnage in Macy's, Nordstrom, and JCPenney, one could be forgiven for expecting a weak retail sales print and sure enough...

[Fenix]

Dow Drops 600 Points From Recent Highs, Gives Up Post-QE3 Gains, Breaks Key Technical Support
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 09:35

The Dow is now down almost 600 points from last week's bounce highs and has broken notably below its 200-day moving-average. This tumble has erased all the briefly held gains since the end of QE3...



A Warning For Bears: Gartman No Longer "Aggressively Bullish", Is "Forced To The Sidelines"
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 09:28

"We fear we have been bullish over the course of the past several weeks… indeed rather aggressively so… and did not pay sufficient heed to the warning signs of lesser volume. We are not wise enough to say that a bear market is now upon us, and indeed we are wise enough NOT to say that but discretion is the far better part of valor and the safety of the sidelines after several weeks of real bullishness on our part is to be sought."

- Dennis Gartman


Key Manufacturing Industry Crumbles To Post-Crisis Lows
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 09:13

The past few weeks have brought a resurgence of the deflation theme. All matters of commodities and their associated equities have, to varying degrees, resumed the selling pressure that has characterized much of the past 18 months. The aluminum industry is no exception. In fact, using the Dow Jones U.S. Aluminum Index as a gauge, aluminum stocks closed today at their lowest levels since April 2009.



"Oil Bears May Not Hibernate" As Inventories Swell To Record 3 Billion Barrels
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 08:15

In true stop-running algo common sense, WTI crude jumped overnight, back above $42 briefly. However, a double whammy of warnings from IEA (of a "massive cushion" of 3 billion barrels worldwide) and the highest volume of supertankers for this time of year since 2013 has sent crude sliding back below $42.

[Fenix]

The Bubble Finance Cycle - What Our Keynesian School Marm Doesn’t Get
11/13/2015 10:31 -0500

Submitted by David Stockman
The world of Bubble Finance economies created by the Fed and other central banks is fundamentally different than that prevailing under the “Lite Touch” monetary policies which preceded the Greenspan era.

Those essentially reactive and minimally invasive central bank intrusions into the money and capital markets prevailed from the time of the Fed’s 1951 liberation from the US Treasury by the great William McChesney Martin through September 1985. That’s when the US Treasury/White House once again seized control of the Fed’s printing presses and ordered Volcker to trash the dollar via the Plaza Accord. In due course, the White House trashed him, too.

The problem today is that the PhDs running the Fed have an economic model which is a relic of the Lite Touch era. It is not only utterly irrelevant in today’s casino driven system, but is actually tantamount to a blindfold. It causes them to look at a dashboard full of lagging indicators like jobs and GDP components, while ignoring the explosive leading indicators starring them in the face on CNBC.

In a word, the rate of stock buybacks and M&A deals is 100X more important than the monthly jobs print, housing starts or retail sales.

The clueless inhabitants of the Eccles Building do not recognize that they have created a world in which Wall Street supersedes main street; and in which the monetary inflation that eventually brings the business cycle to a halt is soaring financial asset prices, not wage rates and new car prices.

During the Light Touch era recessions were triggered by sharp monetary tightening that caused interest rates to surge. This soon garroted business and household borrowing because credit became too expensive. And this interruption in the credit expansion cycle, in turn, caused spending on business fixed assets and household durables to tumble (e.g. auto and appliances), setting in motion a cascade of recessionary adjustments.

But always and everywhere the pre-recession inflection point was marked by a so-called wage and price spiral resulting from an overheated main street economy. Yellen’s Keynesian professors in the 1960s called this “excess demand”, and they should have known.

Professor James Tobin in particular, Yellen’s PhD advisor, had been the architect of a virulent outbreak of this condition during his tenure in the Kennedy-Johnson White House. He had been a pushy advocate of massive fiscal deficits under the guise of full employment accounting, and then had encouraged Johnson to unmercifully browbeat William McChesney Martin until he relented and monetized LBJ’s massive flow of “guns and butter” red ink.

Indeed, according to some historians Tobin and the White House Keynesians worked LBJ into a fiery rage about Martin’s reluctance to run the printing press, and had him summoned to the President’s Texas ranch for the “treatment”. As one journalist described it,

And in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson, who wanted cheap credit to finance the Vietnam War and his Great Society, summoned Fed chairman William McChesney Martin to his Texas ranch. There, after asking other officials to leave the room, Johnson reportedly shoved Martin against the wall as he demanded that the Fed once again hold down interest rates. Martin caved, the Fed printed money, and inflation kept climbing until the early 1980s.

This is to say, free market economies really don’t “overheat” on their own motion. The old fashioned kind of wage and price spirals happened because even Lite Touch central banks did not allow financial markets to fully and continuously clear.

Instead, they tended to sit on the front end of the yield curve too heavily and for too long. This tendency prevented the market from rationing excess demands for loanable funds through a flexible free market interest rate. A rising price for credit, of course, would curtail borrowing and induce additional savings and less spending, thereby preventing the general economy from getting out of balance.

In the era of Light Touch monetary policy, therefore, the Fed caused every recession, including when it accommodated artificial economic booms generated by war spending during Korea and Vietnam. That’s why it was perennially criticized by sound money advocates for being “behind the curve”.

Nevertheless, in attempting to belatedly catch-up the Fed invariably was forced to throw on the monetary brakes, as is was usually described. In due course, the rise of idle labor and industrial capacity would cause product price inflation to cool and union pressure for excessive wage hikes to abate.

At length, the wage-price spiral would settle back to a point low enough relative to the recent past to satisfy the FOMC that it was safe to supply new reserves to the banking system, and thereby restart the process of credit expansion.

The big difference between the relative success of Lite Touch monetary policy during the Martin era prior to LBJ’s 1965 ukase and the disaster of the 1970s under Arthur Burns and William Miller was a matter of degree.

William McChesney Martin had experienced first hand the Fed induced financial boom of the 1920s and the thundering bust of the Great Depression. He was therefore extremely reticent to use the monetary accelerator during expansions and was quick to tap the brakes after the recovery got started.

He did this within months of the 1958 rebound and famously described his moves to raise interest rates and increase stock market margin loan requirements as “taking away the punch bowl just when the party is getting started.”

By contrast, Arthur Burns was a pipe-smoking economist who had pioneered business cycle studies at Columbia University during the 1930s and 1940s, and as fate had would have it, was also Milton Friedman’s PhD advisor.

Unlike Martin, Burns was an arrogant prig who thought he could read the business cycle tea leaves better than Mr. Market. He was also a coward who craved political power, publicity and praise.

An historical ill-wind was blowing, therefore, the day he hitched his star to the power-mad Richard Nixon in the Eisenhower White House, and then rode to power after the 1968 election. But soon after being appointed Fed Chairman in January 1970, he was hauled into the oval office by Tricky Dick’s praetorian guard and told in no uncertain terms that his sole mission at his new berth in the Eccles Building was to generate a rip-roaring economic boom by the time of the 1972 election.

Burns complied with supine enthusiasm. Soon a virulent domestic wage and price spiral was underway compounded by a global commodities boom, including the then shocking surge of oil prices in late 1973. This was all blamed on nefarious political maneuvering by the Saudis and the newly ascendant OPEC cartel, but it was nothing of the kind.

As I documented in detail in The Great Deformation, the Nixon-Burns monetary explosion caused such a huge surge in US imports that it literally absorbed all available capacity to produce oil, copper, soybeans, iron ore, polyethylene, rubber, industrial tallow etc. and manufactured goods throughout the global economy.

It was a massive worldwide demand shock emanating from the Eccles Building on the Potomac. The historical data clearly show how it was transmitted through a booming expansion of US bank credit which, in turn, financed massive artificial demand for capital goods and consumer goods alike.

At length, even the craven Burns had to end the party, throwing on the monetary brakes hard and thereby triggering the deepest recession of the post-war period as of that time. Undoubtedly, his courage quotient had risen sharply after Nixon was Watergated out of office.

Nevertheless, the “stop and go” business cycle pattern of the Lite Touch era of monetary policy was now well established. However, rather than being taken as a warning sign that central bank management of the business cycle was an inherently dubious proposition, the expanding colony of economists on Wall Street and in Washington took the Nixon-Burns disaster as a challenge to do more, not less.

Soon they had equipped themselves with computer based econometric models that aspired to capture and connect all of the moving parts and the entirety of the short-run ebb and flow of the then trillion dollar US economy. Henceforth, Fed policy would avoid the extremes of Burnsian stop and go by equipping the FOMC to forecast the future direction of the macroeconomy and deftly calibrate its policies accordingly.

This was Lite Touch on a mainframe. It was destined to fail but Milton Friedman and his disciples launched an historic detour that eventually led to the Greenspan/Bernanke/Yellen era of Bubble Finance and the resulting crisis of growth, democracy and capitalism which now weighs heavily upon us.

The Friedmanesque detour, in a word, was the massive, continuous and egregious export of US dollar liabilities to the rest of the world after Nixon closed the gold window at Camp David in August 1971. It was that disastrous act—–advocated and vouchsafed to Nixon by Professor Friedman—–of unshackling the Eccles Building from its need to husband the nation’s gold reserves that had unleashed the Nixon/Burns re-election party in 1972.

Had the US honored its Bretton Woods obligations to redeem for gold the huge overhang of unwanted dollars that had built-up abroad owing to the Keynesian policies of the 1960s, and especially due to the dollar trashing policies of Professor Tobin, there would have been a hair-curling Nixon Recession in 1972, and the world would have been spared his reelection and the monetary mayhem which followed.

Indeed, within a few years even Arthur Burns recognized the immense mistake that had been made a Camp David and advocated a return to some version of a fixed exchange rate and gold convertibility anchor on the FOMC. But it wasn’t to be.

By then the Nixon-Ford White House was crawling with Professor Friedman’s disciples, most especially an insufferably pedantic professor of labor relations from the Chicago Business School, George Shultz, who shared Friedman’s naïve view that the Fed could be trusted with an unfettered printing press. That is, that an organ of the state should be put in charge of the most important pricing mechanism in all of capitalism——price discovery in the money and capital markets—-in order to foster capitalist prosperity.

What it actually fostered, however, was the greatest binge of monetary profligacy known to history, and there is a simple indicator that measures it precisely. Namely, the gigantic and continuous current account deficits that emerged after the 1970s—–and which have now cumulated to $8 trillion and counting.

In an anchored system of sound money the above graph could have never happened. The outflow of gold or other reserve assets in response to this borrowing hemorrhage would have stopped the money printers at the Fed short decades ago. And Alan Greenspan would have never discovered the figurative printing press in the basement of the Eccles Building at the time of the October 1987 stock market crash because the latter never would have happened under a regime of sound money and an shackled central bank.

Nor is this merely a historical curiosity. The flip side of the massive US current account deficits has been a reciprocal explosion of central bank balance sheets on a worldwide basis. That’s because foreign central banks—especially those of mercantilist oriented Asian state driven economies and the Persian Gulf oil exports—–were under unrelenting pressure to peg their currencies by purchasing excess dollars and expanding their own money supplies.

Not incidentally, that is exactly what Professor Tobin prescribed to the rest of the world during the 1960s. To wit, if you are accumulating too many unwanted dollars there is a simple solution: Man-up and run your own printing press, thereby sequestering unwanted dollar liabilities on your own balance sheet.

That is exactly what has happened since the mid-1990s and is the reason why the James Tobin version of Keynesian bathtub economics has become such a destructive force.

Global Central Bank Balance Sheet Explosion



What it did was obliterate the economic borders on which the entire apparatus of central bank demand management policies are based and made irrelevant the dashboard of lagging economic indicators that our Keynesian school marm so blindly tracks.

* * *

Next comes Part 2: The Recession Signs In Plain Sight.

[Fenix]

"Deflationary Mindset" Remains As UMich Survey Shows Inflation Outlook At 35 Year Lows
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 10:15

Time to hike rates then?





As December looms, markets continue to price in the prospect of a Fed rate lift-off
Submitted by RANSquawk Video on 11/13/2015 - 14:02





The European Union Is Disintegrating: Austria Builds New Fence; Germany, Sweden Resume Border Checks
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 13:20

In the latest from Europe's border battles, Austria has responded to Slovenia by building its own version of an anti-migrant fence while Sweden has began checking trains coming from Denmark and removing anyone without the proper papers. Saving Schengen truly is a "race against time."



Is The Fed About To Become "Weather Dependent?" Goldman Says El Nino To Boost Winter Growth
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 12:42

There's been no shortage of discussion about the weather among economists this year as "snow in the winter" took the blame for a bevy of bad data in H1 while summer is Citi's new scapgoat for any weakness in August and September payrolls. Meanwhile, unseasonably mild temps took the fall for poor October retail sales and now, going into the winter, it's all about El Nino.

[Fenix]

It's Official: Barack Obama Wants To "Help" You Manage Your Retirement Savings
11/13/2015 15:15 -0500
Submitted by Simon Black
In 1875, right around the time the United States overtook the UK as the largest economy in the world, the American Express Company established the very first private pension plan in the US.

American Express had a simple goal: attract the best and brightest employees by giving them retirement security.

At the time, this was a revolutionary idea. The concept of “retirement” was practically martian.

Back then, most people worked until they were no longer medically fit to do so.

To voluntarily stop working and live out your golden years on perpetual vacation was a complete fantasy.

But a century after American Express, thanks in large part to rising prosperity in the 20th century, retirement had become the norm.

Private companies’ pension plans covered over 40% of the American workforce and millions of Americans were receiving Social Security by the 1970s.

Then in 1974 the government passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, establishing Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to help people save for retirement in a tax advantageous way.

Fast-forwarding to 2015, we can see that none of this turned out quite like they’d expected. The state of retirement in America is now pretty abysmal.

First and foremost, Social Security is desperately, woefully unfunded.

Again, this is not Simon Black’s conjecture. The Treasury Secretary and the Labor Secretary both sign an annual report stating that Social Security is close to “trust fund depletion”.

In fact one of Social Security’s major trust funds is literally days away from running out of money.

Federal retirement trust funds across the board, like the Railroad Retirement Fund, are also nearly exhausted.

Meanwhile, private companies have followed the government’s example, with many private pension funds similarly approaching insolvency.

You see this frequently in the news as the cost of their pension funds push airlines and manufacturers into bankruptcy. They simply cannot pay their retirees.

Not to worry, the federal government has an agency called the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to bail out guarantee insolvent private pensions.

It’s like the FDIC for private pension funds.

There’s just one problem. The PBGC itself needs a bailout.

PBGC’s latest report shows a net financial position of NEGATIVE $62 billion, which is how much more they have in liabilities than assets. There’s another word for that: insolvent. So there goes that idea.

Last, there are individual retirement plans, like IRAs and 401(k)s.

Unfortunately, most Americans’ individual retirement plans are woefully underfunded.

According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, the median IRA balance in the US was just $32,179 at the end of 2013.

And the median amount saved by baby boomers amounts to just 13% of what their projected retirement needs are.

But not to worry, once again the federal government is to the rescue.

Last week the Obama administration officially rolled out its MyRA program.

MyRA is a special form of IRA that ‘helps’ Americans save for retirement by making it easy for you to loan your money to the federal government.

Like a retirement account, the idea is to save a little bit every month or every year to be set-aside in a tax-advantageous way for retirement.

The big catch here is that for MyRA accounts, there’s only one investment: US government bonds.

At present, US government bonds fail to pay interest rates that meet the government’s officially published rate of inflation.

So with these MyRA accounts, when adjusted for inflation, you’re guaranteed to lose money.

The Obama administration, of course, entirely dismisses this criticism, saying that these MyRA accounts are for “people who aren’t saving and who have a fear of losing their principal.”

It’s pretty appalling when you think about it.

Private pensions are nearing insolvency, and the government’s guarantee agency is insolvent.

Public pensions and retirement funds are also nearing insolvency. And individual retirement funds are completely undercapitalized.

This will become an epic retirement funding crisis..

Yet the government ‘solution’ is to encourage Americans who are at risk of losing their retirement to loan their money to the greatest debtor that has ever existed in the history of the world at interest rates that don’t even keep pace with inflation.

The government claims that MyRAs are guaranteed.

But the only thing guaranteed is that you’ll lose money… whether through inflation, default, or confiscation.

The lesson here is clear: don’t rely on the government for your retirement. YOU are a far more reliable manager of your own money.

But as with anything, financial success starts with financial education.

So before you invest your money, invest your time in learning about winning investment strategies, unconventional investments, and real retirement options.

You might find that you could live in absolute luxury somewhere overseas for a tiny fraction of what it would cost you back home. (Colombia comes to mind)

Or that you can generate substantial rates of return from buying high-yielding private businesses, or through asset-backed peer-to-peer lending programs.

You won’t hear about any real solution from the government. But with a reset in thinking, that dream of sipping Mai Tai’s by the pool can still be a realistic vision.

[Fenix]

Will 92% Of Economists Be Wrong Again?
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 15:53

Should the Fed not hike rates on December 16, then we will know with certainty that over 90% of economists are unable to accurately forecast a simple yes/no event, which is due to take place in just over a month



Something Went Wrong On The Way To The Future
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 17:50

In very raw terms, if a man wanted to buy a house and a car in 1975 he had to work just under five years to pay for them.

If he wants a house and a car today, he has to work almost 11 years...



Paris Under Siege: French Military Deployed After Shootout, Explosions Leave 60 Dead, 100 Hostages Taken - Live Feed
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 16:11


French President Declares State Of Emergency, Enforces Curfew, Closes Borders, Reinforces Army
Submitted by Tyler D.
11/13/2015 - 18:05

In the wake of the stunning wave of bombings, shootouts, and hostage situations unfolding in Paris on Friday, French President Francois Hollande has closed the French border.

[Fenix]

The Root of Gold Conspiracy Theories
11/13/2015 05:55 -0500

The Root of Gold Conspiracy Theories

Written by Keith Weiner




Most people who own or trade gold have a higher price in mind, a price determined by what they think the metal is worth in dollar terms. That’s normal. However, some make a leap from the fact that gold doesn’t trade at this price today, to belief in manipulation. Short sellers—who are sometimes supposed to be illegally profiting, and sometimes said to be not-for-profit—come in to the market and sell the metal down. Or so the theory claims.

This theory is not true, and I plan to show the data to prove it in a future article. For now, I want to discuss the fallacy at the core of it.

The Root of Gold Conspiracy Theories - Keith Weiner

The error is dollar thinking.

What do I mean? Simply, most people assess the value of something based on its price in dollars. If nefarious parties could somehow suppress the price of gold, then they could undermine its value. That would be an evil act. How could one not feel something, at such a crime against the natural order? It’s personal too, an attack on your very wealth. You buy gold to protect yourself from a likely dollar collapse, and instead find you are losing your wealth. You’re forfeiting it to the very monetary planners from whom you thought gold would protect you from in the first place: the central banks.

Let me suggest that this is the wrong way to think about it. Gold does not go down (or up). Gold cannot be properly measured in dollars.

Let’s start with an example of measurement. Suppose you’re cutting some boards to build a house. You use a meter stick to tell you the length. For example, a board is 3 meters long. You would never wonder how many boards long a meter is. That’s because a board is not a good measure of length. The length of one board is not the same as the length of another. And, the length can change, for example by cutting it with a saw. The meter doesn’t change, but boards do. Therefore, boards are measured in meters.

The same applies to economic value. The value of the dollar varies from one day to the next and, of course, it falls over long periods of time.

So the question is not: how many dollars is an ounce of gold worth? The question is: how many ounces is a dollar worth? Far less than an ounce, it’s about 27 milligrams.

When you look at this way, things becomes clearer. It’s the dollar that goes down, not gold that goes up (the dollar can also go up, as it has since 2011, due to pressure on debtors).

One implication of this is that a rising gold price does not provide a profit to gold owners. Sure you have more dollars, but each dollar is worth proportionally less. For example, if the price of gold in dollars goes from $1,110 to $2,220, then that’s just the mirror image of the dollar going from 28 to 14 mg gold.

Conversely, if the price of gold falls, it’s just an increase in the dollar. So what? If the dollar goes up, it is not important (or permanent). Why worry if the price of something you don’t own goes up? I didn’t own bitcoin when it went up from a few dollars to $1,200. I didn’t worry about it, either.

Many gold owners do worry about a rising dollar, which they think of as a falling price. Why? They say the dollar will soon be worthless (it will be worthless one day, but not as soon as many say), so they buy gold. And then they get upset when the collapse doesn’t happen, and the dollar strengthens.

The dollar collapse is just their backstory. The real reason they buy gold is to sell it. They want more dollars, no matter what they say about hyperinflation. They want profits, which they think of in dollar terms. As I said above, you can’t profit from a rising gold price (unless you use leverage).

So cheer up. Most people do have a dollar income and assets. A dollar collapse will be a disaster, but a flat or falling price of gold supports the dollar, and hence, most people.

If you have a dollar denominated income or assets, then here is a simple step you can take. Measure it in gold. For example, suppose you have real estate and stocks totaling $1,100,000. Divide that by the current price of gold—about $1100—and you are worth 1,000 ounces. If it goes down next year, despite hard work and risk, then you have become poorer. You would actually have been better off simply holding gold—even if your net worth goes up in dollar terms.

There’s no reason to sweat a drop in the gold price or cheer a rise.

[Fenix]

Largest Ever Chinese Gold Reserve Found But There's Just One Problem
11/12/2015 13:57 -0500

Largest Ever Chinese Gold Reserve Found But There's Just One Problem

Written by Nathan McDonald


Gold is an incredibly rare, valuable and thus highly sought after asset. This is just as true today, despite what Western mainstream media would have you believe, as it has been for thousands of years.

When you pick up a solid gold bar for the first time in your life (an experience I recommend to all) you come to the true realization that "this is money". Not the phony fiat nonsense that governments around the world have manipulated the masses into saving their life's wealth; not some IOU that they tell you will "one day" have value.

The Chinese government and its people know this more than just about any other country in the world, perhaps only rivaled by Russia and India. Because of this fact, they are now the worlds largest producer of gold and one of the largest "official" holders of the yellow metal.

This connection to gold runs deep within the Chinese population and there is a strong desire to continue on with this trend. The only problem with this fact goes back to my opening paragraph, gold is rare.

Not only is gold incredibly rare, but it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find new reserves. To make matters worse, much of the easy to mine gold has already been discovered and mined, leading exploration companies to search for the king of metals in locations where the ore is becoming increasingly difficult to extract.

Largest Ever Chinese Gold Reserve Found But There's Just One Problem - Nathan McDonald

One such search has hit the motherload. The Shandong Provincial No. 3 Institute of Geological and Mineral Survey on Monday announced that they have discovered the largest ever Chinese gold deposit.

The only problem? It's 2000 meters undersea. This discovery which is located in Laizhou, eastern ?China’s Shandong province, is estimated to contain 470.47 tonnes of gold. This amount is truly staggering and equates to approximately $16 billion US dollars, based on current gold prices.

The magnitude of a project to acquire this gold should not be overlooked. Yes, offshore mining technology has come a long way, but the cost to achieve the end results may make the venture utterly unprofitable at current market prices.

Yet the true takeaway from this story is the fact that companies are having to venture further and further into completely undesirable locations to find new reserves and should point out the fact that eventually prices WILL make these ventures profitable.

The reality is, the world isn't creating anymore gold. As the global economy continues down this path of uncertainty there will be one asset that the world will turn to in its hour of need more than any other- the king of metals, gold.

[admin]

RESUMEN-Francia promete respuesta "despiadada" tras ataques islamistas que dejan 129 muertos
sábado 14 de noviembre de 2015 16:51 GYT Imprimir [-] Texto [+]
Flores y velas son colocadas en un lugar cerca de la escena de uno de los mortales ataques en París del viernes, Francia, 14 de noviembre de 2015. REUTERS/Yves Herman
1 de 1Tamaño Completo
Por Ingrid Melander y Marine Pennetier

PARÍS (Reuters) - Un encolerizado presidente Francois Hollande prometió el sábado una respuesta "despiadada" de Francia a la ola de atentados de hombres armados y atacantes suicidas que causó la muerte de 129 personas en París, y describió la masacre reivindicada por el Estado Islámico como un acto de guerra contra el país.

Un funcionario de la municipalidad de París dijo que cuatro hombres armados mataron a tiros al menos a 87 personas en un concierto de rock que ofrecía una banda estadounidense en la sala de teatro Bataclan, en el ataque más feroz de los que se produjeron viernes por la noche, antes de que los comandos anti terroristas pudieran intervenir.

Unas 40 personas más fueron asesinadas en otros cinco ataques en varios puntos de París, dijo el funcionario, incluyendo un atentado suicida doble fuera del Stade de France, donde Hollande y el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Alemania observaban un partido de fútbol entre las selecciones de Francia y Alemania.

El fiscal de París, Francois Molins, dijo que un total de 129 personas fallecieron en la masacre, en la cual habrían actuado tres equipos coordinados. La crisis finalizó con ocho atacantes muertos, varios de ellos tras haberse inmolado.

En un comunicado oficial, Estado Islámico se atribuyó la responsabilidad por los hechos de violencia.

"Para enseñar a Francia, y a todas las naciones que siguen su camino, que permanecerán en lo más alto de la lista de blancos de Estado Islámico, y que el olor a muerte no se irá de sus narices hasta que dejen de participar en su campaña cruzada", dijo el grupo sobre su motivación.

Los ataques ocurrieron en momentos en que Francia, miembro de una coalición internacional que está lanzando ofensivas contra el Estado Islámico en Siria e Irak, se encontraba en alerta máxima por atentados terroristas, un asunto que genera cuestionamientos sobre cómo pudieron suceder estos hechos.

El Gobierno indicó, sin embargo, que Francia continuaría con sus operativos militares en Siria con el objetivo de derrocar al grupo fundamentalista. Se trató del peor atentado de este tipo perpetrado en Europa desde los ataques con bomba en Madrid, donde murieron 191 personas.

Hollande dijo que los ataques fueron planificados en el exterior por el Estado Islámico, pero que el grupo recibió ayuda interna. Los investigadores se estaban concentrando en determinar si los militantes estaban vinculados con Francia, si eran ciudadanos o si llegaron desde otros países.

PESQUISAS ANTI TERRORISTAS

Fuentes cercanas a la investigación dijeron que uno de los atacantes fallecidos era de nacionalidad francesa con vínculos a militantes islamistas. El portador de un pasaporte griego hallado cerca del cuerpo de uno de los atacantes pasó por la isla griega de Leros en octubre, de acuerdo a las autoridades locales. La policía se negó a revelar su nombre.

Los ataques en París seguramente influenciarán el debate en Europa sobre cómo manejar la crisis de inmigrantes generada por el conflicto en Siria. En una señal de potenciales divisiones, Polonia dijo que ahora no está en condiciones de recibir su cuota de refugiados asignada bajo un plan de la Unión Europea.

Muchos de los inmigrantes que actualmente acuden a Europa provienen de Siria.

"Enfrentados con la guerra, el país debe tomar una acción apropiada", dijo Hollande luego de sostener una reunión de emergencia con sus jefes de seguridad. El presidente también anunció tres días de duelo nacional. "Francia será despiadada en su respuesta a estos bárbaros de Daesh", dijo, utilizando el acrónimo en árabe para el Estado Islámico.

Además de los operativos domésticos, naciones europeas como Gran Bretaña y Bélgica realizaban pesquisas y allanamientos mientras determinaban la posible conexión con los atentados de París.

Las autoridades belgas iniciaron una investigación anti terrorista en la que detuvieron a varias personas en un distrito de Bruselas, mientras que la policía británica dijo que la evacuación del aeropuerto de Gatwick en Londres más temprano en el día estaba relacionada con el hallazgo de una posible arma de fuego y que un hombre francés de 41 años había sido arrestado.

En tanto, los líderes de la Unión Europea dijeron el sábado que sus gobiernos harán todo lo posible por mantener la seguridad en Francia.

[admin]

RESUMEN-Francia promete respuesta "despiadada" tras ataques islamistas que dejan 129 muertos
sábado 14 de noviembre de 2015 16:51 GYT Imprimir [-] Texto [+]
Flores y velas son colocadas en un lugar cerca de la escena de uno de los mortales ataques en París del viernes, Francia, 14 de noviembre de 2015. REUTERS/Yves Herman
1 de 1Tamaño Completo
Por Ingrid Melander y Marine Pennetier

PARÍS (Reuters) - Un encolerizado presidente Francois Hollande prometió el sábado una respuesta "despiadada" de Francia a la ola de atentados de hombres armados y atacantes suicidas que causó la muerte de 129 personas en París, y describió la masacre reivindicada por el Estado Islámico como un acto de guerra contra el país.

Un funcionario de la municipalidad de París dijo que cuatro hombres armados mataron a tiros al menos a 87 personas en un concierto de rock que ofrecía una banda estadounidense en la sala de teatro Bataclan, en el ataque más feroz de los que se produjeron viernes por la noche, antes de que los comandos anti terroristas pudieran intervenir.

Unas 40 personas más fueron asesinadas en otros cinco ataques en varios puntos de París, dijo el funcionario, incluyendo un atentado suicida doble fuera del Stade de France, donde Hollande y el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Alemania observaban un partido de fútbol entre las selecciones de Francia y Alemania.

El fiscal de París, Francois Molins, dijo que un total de 129 personas fallecieron en la masacre, en la cual habrían actuado tres equipos coordinados. La crisis finalizó con ocho atacantes muertos, varios de ellos tras haberse inmolado.

En un comunicado oficial, Estado Islámico se atribuyó la responsabilidad por los hechos de violencia.

"Para enseñar a Francia, y a todas las naciones que siguen su camino, que permanecerán en lo más alto de la lista de blancos de Estado Islámico, y que el olor a muerte no se irá de sus narices hasta que dejen de participar en su campaña cruzada", dijo el grupo sobre su motivación.

Los ataques ocurrieron en momentos en que Francia, miembro de una coalición internacional que está lanzando ofensivas contra el Estado Islámico en Siria e Irak, se encontraba en alerta máxima por atentados terroristas, un asunto que genera cuestionamientos sobre cómo pudieron suceder estos hechos.

El Gobierno indicó, sin embargo, que Francia continuaría con sus operativos militares en Siria con el objetivo de derrocar al grupo fundamentalista. Se trató del peor atentado de este tipo perpetrado en Europa desde los ataques con bomba en Madrid, donde murieron 191 personas.

Hollande dijo que los ataques fueron planificados en el exterior por el Estado Islámico, pero que el grupo recibió ayuda interna. Los investigadores se estaban concentrando en determinar si los militantes estaban vinculados con Francia, si eran ciudadanos o si llegaron desde otros países.

PESQUISAS ANTI TERRORISTAS

Fuentes cercanas a la investigación dijeron que uno de los atacantes fallecidos era de nacionalidad francesa con vínculos a militantes islamistas. El portador de un pasaporte griego hallado cerca del cuerpo de uno de los atacantes pasó por la isla griega de Leros en octubre, de acuerdo a las autoridades locales. La policía se negó a revelar su nombre.

Los ataques en París seguramente influenciarán el debate en Europa sobre cómo manejar la crisis de inmigrantes generada por el conflicto en Siria. En una señal de potenciales divisiones, Polonia dijo que ahora no está en condiciones de recibir su cuota de refugiados asignada bajo un plan de la Unión Europea.

Muchos de los inmigrantes que actualmente acuden a Europa provienen de Siria.

"Enfrentados con la guerra, el país debe tomar una acción apropiada", dijo Hollande luego de sostener una reunión de emergencia con sus jefes de seguridad. El presidente también anunció tres días de duelo nacional. "Francia será despiadada en su respuesta a estos bárbaros de Daesh", dijo, utilizando el acrónimo en árabe para el Estado Islámico.

Además de los operativos domésticos, naciones europeas como Gran Bretaña y Bélgica realizaban pesquisas y allanamientos mientras determinaban la posible conexión con los atentados de París.

Las autoridades belgas iniciaron una investigación anti terrorista en la que detuvieron a varias personas en un distrito de Bruselas, mientras que la policía británica dijo que la evacuación del aeropuerto de Gatwick en Londres más temprano en el día estaba relacionada con el hallazgo de una posible arma de fuego y que un hombre francés de 41 años había sido arrestado.

En tanto, los líderes de la Unión Europea dijeron el sábado que sus gobiernos harán todo lo posible por mantener la seguridad en Francia.