Economics and Finance News

Family Of Italian Woman Whose Death Linked To AstraZeneca Jab Launches Legal Action While American lawmakers have taken steps to shield US pharma companies from any legal blowback caused by COVID vaccines, drugmakers in Europe haven't been so lucky. And after widespread skepticism of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, what was supposed to be the workhorse of the global immunization […]

Still Believe Digital Vaccine Passports Are Something Made Up By Conspiracy Theorists? Authored by Robert Wheeler via The Organic Prepper blog, In my past articles I wrote about Digital Vaccine Passport pilot programs in New York, global announcements and along the same lines, health passports and vaccine passport apps in which a traveler (or event goer, employee, or shopper) […]

Ukraine's Zelensky Invites Putin To Meet In War-Torn East: "Million Lives At Stake" Following on the heels of last week's Joe Biden invitation to Vladimir Putin for a bilateral summit proposed for the summer to tackle a range of still simmering contentious issues, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has issued a surprised invitation late Tuesday for Putin to meet him in the […]

Getting massacred on the edge of the stock market.

Hidden Russiagate Docs Expose More Misconduct, Evidentiary Holes: Ex-Investigator Authored by Aaron Maté via TheGrayZone.com, Kash Patel, a former Russiagate investigator on the House Intel Committee and senior White House official, says US intelligence leaders blocked the release of documents that expose more malpractice and critical evidentiary holes in their claims of sweeping […]

Meet The Tiny California Town "Full Of Dirt" That Snagged Elon Musk's Boring Company Elon Musk is taking his Boring Company circus on the road to Adelanto, California.  Adelanto is a town of 37,000 where the mayor, Gabriel Reyes, works part time and the city manager, Jessie Flores, is the full time chief executive of the city, according to a recent Bloomberg report.  The county […]

Company Sells Sex Robot "Clones" Of Dead Partners Using 3D-Modeling Technology Authored by Elias Marat via TheMindUnleashed.com, For many people who have lost their significant others, sex dolls have provided one way to ease the pain of grief and loneliness. However, sex robot company Lux Botics is taking things one step further – by offering a clone of dead partners using […]

Here's What $1,000 Invested In Vaccine Stocks Would Be Worth Now It’s often said that with every crisis comes great opportunity. While such catastrophes do create upheaval and uncertainty in financial markets, Visual Capitalis's Aran Ali details below that they can also lead to new opportunities for investors, as asset classes react to different environments. Since the World […]

The Biggest Threat To US Hegemony: China, Russia, Or Debt? Via The Mises Institute, Now that the Biden administration has settled in, it is time to reassess American policy towards Russia, China and the wider Asian scene. Is it going to be a continuation of the Trump administration’s policies, or is there something new going on? Given the continued tenure of staffers at the […]

Uninhabitable Bay Area Shack Listed For $575k A rustic log cabin in one of the Bay Area's most expensive neighborhoods has been listed for nearly $600k.  The 992 sqft log cabin from the 1890s is in considerable disrepair but hidden between Oakland hills and Piedmont's 94611 ZIP code. The average home value in the area is more than $1.5 million.  A Zillow description of the […]

Watch: Shocking Clip Shows Children Being Paraded Around Drag Queen Show Taking Cash Tips Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News, Yet another disgusting video has emerged of children being paraded around during a late night drag queen show in L.A. as they are encouraged to take cash tips from members of the crowd. The woman filming the video expresses her revulsion at the […]

While The Economy Collapsed In 2020, CEO Pay Surged At the same time the corporate world was suffering from implementing new burdensome Covid restrictions, dealing with shutting down in-person office sites, and generally trying to quell the panic of a government induced recession brought on by its pandemic response, CEO pay was soaring. During 2020, as millions lost their jobs, […]

Lacalle: Why The US Recovery Is Not That Strong Authored by Daniel Lacalle, The United States: Hardly A Recovery There is an overly optimistic consensus view about the speed and strength of the United States’ recovery that is contradicted by facts. It is true that the United States recovery is stronger than the European or Japanese one, but the macro data shows that the […]

Facebook Plans To Launch Stablecoin That Will Compete With Dollar Early Next Year A couple of days ago, Morgan Stanley warned that China's new digital renminbi - the first "central bank digital currency" (or CBDC) - could cement its status as the next reserve currency. But as government and Wall Street continue their embrace of virtual currencies that, some say, threaten to blow up […]

BLS Reveals That Big City Unemployment Is Much Higher Than The National Average Submitted by Nicholas Colas of Datatrek Research After a highly unusual several-month lag, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has finally updated its state and local labor market statistics, so we will dedicate today’s Data section to these numbers. The central message here is that US unemployment […]

Bill Gates Criticized For Blocking The Equitable Distribution Of COVID Vaccines Nearly 1 billion COVID vaccination shots have been distributed around the world, but in more than 120 countries, not a single dose has been received, much less administered. And as we explained recently, one man is to overwhelmingly to blame for this sorry state of affairs: Microsoft founder Bill Gates. […]

The Bankers Are Coming! The Bankers Are Coming... For Your Bitcoin Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog, One of the oldest arguments against Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies in general, is the Central Banker Attack. Anyone who’s spent more than fifteen minutes inside the crypto-world will have heard this one. That’s the argument where the person tacitly admits […]

China's Central Bank Researchers Urge Lifting Birth Limits To Keep Up With 'Skilled Immigration-Fed' US China is still desperately seeking to recover from its disastrous 'one-child policy' which was officially ended in 2015 and replaced by the current two-child policy, yet still by 2019 the country reached a decades low of 14.7 million births after years of observable stark decline, […]

The Lockdown Paradigm Is Collapsing Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research, It’s taken much longer than it should have but at last it seems to be happening: the lockdown paradigm is collapsing. The signs are all around us.  The one-time hero of the lockdown, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, is now deeply unpopular and most voters want him […]

68-Year Old President Of Chad Killed In Frontline Clashes With Rebels In a headline that almost defies belief given it's the 21st century, the president of the north-central African country of Chad has died from wounds sustained on frontlines while battling rebels seeking to oust his government.  The national armed forces announced Tuesday that Chad's President Idriss Déby […]

65.2 The Fed is right about inflation (this time)———Part 2 Summary———US producer prices surged in the month of March. But Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell said they won't last, that they are "transitory". HE IS RIGHT! But the reason he gives - the covo - is not correct. No, the reason is the same one [...]

When their paper came out in January 2010, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff put a number on bond vigilantism as it had been known in prior history. The idea behind investor fickleness was simple and intuitive: profligate governments who finance their ill spending ways by borrowing will literally end up paying the price once the [...]

Farmers Warn That The Megadrought In The Western US Threatens To Cause Devastating Crop Failures In 2021 Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, Throughout U.S. history, there have always been droughts in the western half of the country from time to time, but what we are dealing with now is truly alarming.  Scientists tell us that a multi-year “megadrought” […]

House Democrats Unanimously Support Waters' Calls For "More Confrontation", Block GOP Censure Vote In what is perhaps not a shocking vote at all in this insanely partisan world in which we live, The House has just rejected a Republican resolution to censure Rep. Maxine Waters for saying that “we’ve got to get more confrontational” about police brutality against African […]

Not-So-Super League: All 6 English Teams Abandon Breakaway Soccer Group Update (1815ET): All six English clubs have now pulled out of the European Super League. Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur announced they will withdraw from the new continental league, as the remaining Spanish and Italian clubs were left to survey their […]

Watch Live: Biden And Harris Comment On Chauvin Guilty Verdict Watch live: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris following the guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial. Biden and Harris called the family of George Floyd following the announcement of the verdict. Biden could be heard saying "Feeling better now. Nothing is going to make it all better, but at least […]

Oregon Mulls Making Mask Mandate Permanent Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, Officials in Oregon are considering making masking and social distancing requirements permanent. The requirements, first introduced last year in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19, are set to expire on May 4. Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Division […]

Amazon Confirms Fake Delivery Truck Prowling NYC Streets  A user on the Brooklyn chapter of the NextDoor social media platform posted a video earlier this month of what appears to be an Amazon delivery driver "loading up barricades into an Amazon truck."  The NextDoor user, who goes by the nickname "L.W.," wrote a post that said, "On Driggs Ave near the corner of Russell, I […]

The “delicate" 350-year-old piece was discovered in a field in the south of the island by Lee Morgan in late December. It was revealed in an inquest where it was officially declared treasure.

In today’s video you’ll receive Mike Maloney’s latest thoughts on gold and silver prices, inflation, Bitcoin and more. Thanks for tuning in.

The surprise discovery of three jam jars filled with gold bars and hundreds of gold coins in an old building marked for renovation has left a mountain community in eastern France perplexed and celebrating.

Gold gained on Tuesday as a rise in U.S. Treasury yields stalled and the dollar steadied near multi-week lows.

Many Americans have one big question when it comes to their retirement: Will Social Security still be there when I need it?

Central banks around the world, especially in Europe and the United States, debased their currencies last year in record proportions.

A new conflict has begun between the United States and China that will shape the coming decades. No country will be unaffected, and Europe some day may have to pick sides. Risk premiums for financial assets will rise.

At €7.522tn ahead of this week's meeting as Lagarde keeps printing press rumbling. Total assets rose by €7.9bn on QE. ECB balance sheet now equal to 70.3% of #Eurozone GDP vs Fed's 36.3%, BoE's 37.4%, and BoJ's 130%.

It was supposed to be a temporary buffer -- more than $1 trillion of debt taken on by U.S. companies last year to ride out the economic devastation caused by Covid-19. But with the economy rebounding and interest rates still near all-time lows, it’s becoming increasingly tempting for corporations including Home Depot Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. to spend those cash cushions on […]

Commodities have been the talk of the town over the past several months, with grains, energy, and metals reaching new multi-month highs over the 12 months. And this has lead to concerns over input costs… and inflation.

Rather than worrying about the prospects of higher long-term expected inflation, the US Federal Reserve is exuding confidence that it can maintain price stability should the need ever arise. It should think again, before the inflation genie has escaped from the bottle.

Commercial bankruptcy filings drop to lows last seen in the loosey-goosey days just before the Financial Crisis.

A government is not a wealth-generating entity. The more it spends, the more resources it has to take from wealth generators. This in turn undermines the wealth-generating process of the economy. For instance, if the government plans to spend $3 trillion and funds these outlays by means of $2 trillion in taxes, there is going to be a deficit, or a shortfall, of $1 trillion.

Crescat invites you to take a look through our current macro deck. This research is an important component of our investment process, illustrating how Crescat evaluations the broader market and positions within our five strategies.

The U.S. economy is going to temporarily see "a little higher" inflation this year as the economy strengthens and supply constraints push up prices in some sectors, but the Federal Reserve is committed to keeping any overshoot within limits, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said...

The goal of this meeting will likely be to bide time...

President Biden’s tax plans show he is choosing to pander to the "very far radical side of the Democrat Party" instead of strengthening the American economy, Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, argued on FOX Business’ "Mornings with Maria" Tuesday.

States offer extra unemployment benefits to workers based on a certain metric. That trigger cut aid short for many people during Covid, a study said.

Asset prices do not normally respond to trade releases, but if the deficit is as wide as containers indicate, the USD downside risk may become clearer, especially with Fed commentary weighing on yields.

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Biden aims to approve the second phase of his infrastructure package based around child care and paid leave after passage of the first piece.

America's financial system and state are themselves the problems, yet neither system is capable of recognizing this or unwinding their fatal synergies.

But shipment volume, though strong, is not at record levels.

The Fed's massive QE program has failed to stimulate bank lending. Let's discuss the evidence and more importantly why it's happening.

The Netherlands, long considered to be at the heart of a system in which multinational corporations minimize their taxes by shifting profits, has signaled that it’s ready to support a U.S. proposal that ends the practice.

Never before have so many countries, including China, moved with such vigor at the same time to limit the power of a single industry.

The Biden administration is taking steps to protect the country's electric system from cyberattacks through a new 100-day initiative combining federal government agencies and private industry. The initiative, announced Tuesday by the Energy Department...

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for greater global economic integration and warned against decoupling while calling on the U.S. and its allies to avoid “bossing others around.

First quarter earnings season is less than a week old, but the biggest theme management teams are talking about is clear — higher costs.

The company also said that it will raise prices on some of its products to combat rising commodity costs.

The oil price crash on the back of the COVID-19 lockdowns has accelerated the coming supply crunch. Both national and international oil companies have slashed CAPEX and maintenance spending, which will push up decline rates and US shale drillers finally focus on profitability instead of growth. Current longer-dated oil prices are too low to give enough incentive to oil companies to invest in […]

A Trader’s Federal Lawsuit Against JPMorgan Chase Offers a Window into the Crime Culture at the Five Felony-Count Bank By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 20, 2021 ~ Donald Turnbull, a former Global Head of Precious Metals Trading at JPMorgan Chase, has filed a doozy of a federal lawsuit against the bank. Turnbull worked on the same JPMorgan Chase precious metals desk that was deemed to be […]

Gold prices inched higher on Tuesday, hovering below a seven-week peak hit in the previous session, bolstered by a pullback in U.S. Treasury yields and a weaker dollar.

Institutional Investor Hall of Famer Richard Bernstein is finding a lot of denial about inflation risks in the market.

The four largest U.S. banks gathered $919 billion in additional deposits last year, money that they either parked in cash or used to increase their holdings of securities, new data show. Deposits at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and...

The report comes at a time when policymakers are under intensifying pressure to deliver on promises made as part of the Paris Agreement.

Led by countries as large as China and as small as the Bahamas, digital money is drawing stronger interest.

Johnson & Johnson reports $100 million in quarterly sales from Covid vaccine

Demand and supply pressures are likely to offset each other in the oil market, said oil expert Dan Yergin.

U.S. Treasury yields rose on Tuesday morning, as investors eye on the latest corporate earnings.

The latest news and updates on the coronavirus outbreak from CNBC’s global teams in Asia, Europe and the U.S.

But shipment volume, though strong, is not at record levels.

Ben Bernanke saw it even before he took over from Alan Greenspan. Like his “maestro”, however, Bernanke didn’t really know what to make of it. So, while early in 2005 Greenspan told of his version as an interest rate “conundrum”, his successor a month later tried to add more dimensions and details to the same [...]

Then-President Trump was eager to talk in May 2017. Having been elected in 2016 by giving voice to what he called the “fake” unemployment rate on the campaign trail, and therefore mobilizing millions of the disaffected uncounted by that official ratio’s official definitions, it was enough to put him just barely over the top. To [...]

There is a lot of coverage of the shortage of silver supply, which is an increasing problem.

Gold prices scaled a more than seven-week peak on Monday as a softer dollar and lower U.S.Treasury yields lifted the yellow metal's appeal even as the appetite for riskier assets remained strong.

We do not usually associate disruption with central banks. But a major move to introduce central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could actually disrupt the financial system.

The debate between inflation and deflation/disinflation is inherently uncertain as assumptions are at risk of invalidation and narratives are unpredictable.

15 to 64 year old US working age population versus Federal Funds Rate & US currency in circulation. Honestly, no words are necessary.

Archegos shows how leverage is the great accelerator of stock prices on the way up, and on the way down. One of its bets, ViacomCBS collapsed by 60%.

Homebuilders remain the biggest beneficiary of Covid-19 thanks to the Fed's reaction to it.

Since the financial crisis, commodity prices have declined by about 60% versus U.S. M2 money supply growth while the S&P 500 has beaten M2 by about 40%, according to the report.

65.1 This is what caused the 1970s Dollar Devaluation———Part 1 Summary———US President Jimmy Carter told the nation that the US dollar's devaluation "is clearly not warranted by the fundamental economic situation". In fact, it was unreservedly deserved as the necessary consequence of prolonged official incompetence. ———See It———– […]

Large euro zone banks have been underreporting their risky assets by 275 billion euros by using their own models to quantify potential losses, the European Central Bank said on Monday. Since the 2008 financial crisis, regulators around the world have been picking apart...

While acknowledging that the difference could be due to commercial reasons, it’s also possible that these banks intervened on behalf of the PBOC to cover the central bank’s tracks, the Treasury said (ZH: or, it is the case that China has been stealthily accumulating some $180 billion in gold, as discussed last Friday in "Beijing Greenlights Purchases Of Billions In Bullion").

Two factors that affect the quality of the recovery should worry us: The upgrade comes mostly from higher government spending and rising debt, and the job recovery is much slower than in previous cycles.

Rival powers, in particular Russia & China, could now be emboldened to test the Biden administration’s resolve a little further. The obvious flashpoint are Ukraine & Taiwan. In recent weeks, the Kremlin has assembled more troops on its border with Ukraine than at any time since 2014 when Russia grabbed Crimea. Last week, China sent a record number of military jets into Taiwanese […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to respond to the latest round of U.S. sanctions threats as he has to past ones: by speeding his drive to make Russia’s economy more self-sufficient. In the seven years since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Putin’s government...

The Federal Reserve is a natural born spread killer! The Federal Reserve is a natural born spread killer! (Bloomberg) — The tsunami of money and credit pouring into financial markets has washed away much of the available spread for mortgage bond investors.

The Jones Act shields the American shipping industry from foreign competition and harms both the environment and disadvantaged communities.

When it comes to consumer prices, our generation has been brainwashed into thinking a certain way. Rampant inflation is bad, a little inflation is good, and deflation is bad.

The Fed has an inflation problem, but it's not the failure to meet an arbitrary target. The problem is that there is a significant separation between reported and market inflation. The uncoupling is not new and is a statistical issue. But it has become a thorny policy problem as easy money creates more market than reported inflation.

Now that the Biden administration has settled in, it is time to reassess American policy towards Russia, China and the wider Asian scene. Is it going to be a continuation of the Trump administration’s policies, or is there something new going on?

Covid-19 has changed life forever in more ways than we can count. It has also changed end-of-life estate planning and estate modification. It can be very difficult having that conversation with a spouse who’s dying. Estate planning conversations are often put off because they are a reminder of the inevitable for every mortal on the [...]

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” — Ayn Rand

The U.S. consumer watchdog is scrutinizing mortgage servicers' compliance with pandemic relief programs amid concerns struggling homeowners are not getting the help they need to avoid foreclosures, or are being discriminated against, said a dozen people with knowledge of the regulatory effort.

The people living in those tents had no idea that their burgeoning village kept this man, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, up at night, or that he kept thinking about them as he drove two blocks south to his office. Powell doesn't know their names or backstories, either. But what he saw was clear. A visceral reminder of the uneven economic recovery. Right there in the Fed's shadow.

Ignore what central bankers are saying; instead, watch what they are doing.

From valuations, to technical deviations, and outright exuberance, there is no way this bull market doesn't end badly for investors once again.

Right now, the stock market is in the land-where-there-should-be-sea phase. What we don’t know is when the wave is coming. Maybe there’s time to venture out and see what treasure was hidden beneath the waves... or maybe not. Prudence would suggest that we go searching for treasure on higher ground.

Since 1972 gold has gone from $35 to $1,750. That’s the power of precious metals. In my opinion the coming inflation and soaring global debt levels all but guarantee another gold run is on its way.

Wall Street’s Mega Bank CEOs To Be Hauled Before Congress in May; Nobody Will Say Why By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 19, 2021 ~ We’ve been closely monitoring the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees for the past 15 years. We can think of no other time when the Committees issued a joint statement to announce they were hauling the most powerful men on Wall Street to […]

The talk of a “commodity supercycle” has been heating up in the wake of a rally in the Bloomberg Commodity Index off April 2020 record lows. As of early April the index is up 33% over a year earlier. During that same time period, lumber has rallied 280%, with copper and corn rallying 100% and 80%, respectively.

Warming weather and continued progress administering Covid vaccines will help lower U.S. coronavirus cases, Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC.

Gold prices scaled a more than seven-week peak on Monday as a softer dollar and lower U.S.Treasury yields lifted the yellow metal's appeal even as the appetite for riskier assets remained strong.

The drop appears to coincide with reports that the US Treasury is planning to tackle financial institutions for money laundering carried out through digital assets.

“US financial institutions are being weaponised,” a banking regulatory lawyer told the Financial Times, referring to the use of sanctions as foreign policy tools. Experts this week argued that the US government was “outsourcing US foreign policy” to US banks or deploying them as “forward basing” — military terminology for establishing an enduring armed presence beyond home turf.

JPMorgan's ominous concludes, "whether the protracted post Lehman period weakness in bank lending is repeated in the current post virus cycle will be critical in determining both the inflation and liquidity picture over the longer term. So far the trajectory for bank lending shows more similarities than differences to the post Lehman crisis period."

It sounds like an odd problem to have: we're running out of places to rotate into. But for active traders, it's a serious issue.

The US has long relied on China for rare earth metals, but domestic supply chains are being pursued as climate and technology investments increase under Biden.

Earnings will be the major focus in the week ahead, as investors home in on whether rising costs are squeezing margins and signaling inflationary pressures.

A trial with foreign visitors at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics would be the first test for China's digital yuan with international users.

The U.K. Treasury and Bank of England have launched a joint taskforce to explore a potential central bank digital currency.

The latest news and updates on the coronavirus outbreak from CNBC’s global teams in Asia, Europe and the U.S.

The global death toll from the coronavirus topped a staggering 3 million people Saturday amid repeated setbacks in the worldwide vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in places such as Brazil, India and France.

One of the most common complaints I hear about the markets is that they are "divorced from reality", that they aren't acting as the current economic data would seem to dictate. I've been in this business for 30 years and I think I first heard that in year one. Or maybe even before I decided [...]

My Site Will Remain Open for All to Read, Even as More Sites Put Up Paywalls.

Wolf Richter on "This Week in Money."

Archegos shows how leverage is the great accelerator of stock prices on the way up, and on the way down. One of its bets, ViacomCBS collapsed by 60%.

With government cash being shoveled into personal and corporate bank accounts, US consumers have reported that they are being more optimistic about the state of the economy. Before that, they went on a spending binge as stated unequivocally by historic retail sales figures. Why, then, so much higher spending than improved happiness and certainty while [...]

Gold's gains came despite U.S. data showcasing robust retail sales and a significant drop in weekly jobless claims.

Its a revival for Gold and Silver! Gold and silver are staging a revival with the decline in the US Dollar since the end of March. When we include Bitcoin (pink line), we see that gold and silver have increased in price more than Bitcoin (red trend line).

People massively chased their dream and started new businesses, and that is wonderful. Then there’s the issue of large-scale PPP loan fraud.

There are several variations of the quote: Never believe anything until it has been officially denied. The newest member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, Christopher J. Waller gave a speech last week about the importance of Central Bank independence, where he effectively denied the Fed’s culpability in propping up the US Government.

The latest Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting minutes shows a series of questionable ideas. Other than the people in the closed door meeting, it’s difficult to know whether they believe what they discuss, or just go through the motions, attempting to stave off economic collapse for as long as possible.

Those cheering today’s sky-high asset prices say they don’t worry because “the Fed has the market’s back”. And they haven’t been wrong to-date. There’s no doubt that the Fed’s $trillions in monetary stimulus has pushed the prices of stocks, bonds, real estate and nearly every other asset class to all-time highs.

In other words, as BofA concludes, the current moves implies a projected 12-month price return of -4%, all else equal... although it isn't because never in the history of humanity has the market been injected with so much central bank liquidity as it is now.

Simple is better when identifying a stock market bubble, so let's go with that old standby margin debt, which points to an imminent crash.

Bank of America Corp. is struggling to compete with the money-printing presses of America.

The prospect of recovery from the COVID-19 crisis makes it all the more urgent to have a firm vision of how the burden of public debt can be reduced once the coronavirus has been vanquished. For this reason, every country must work on itself and strive to maintain budgetary discipline.

'If the central bank scales back its purchases of $80 billion of U.S. Treasuries and $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities each month, wouldn’t that lack of support push yields higher? History suggests that’s not the case.'

The expenditures component of the Cass Freight Index posted its third all-time record in the past four months in March, and was 27.5% above year-ago levels, surging from 16.9% y/y growth in February.

Government is always limited to how much it can tax the people directly. People will ultimately rebel against high taxes. So, as a workaround, a monopoly was granted to The Federal Reserve. If the government wants money, The Fed can just print it. The people will still pay for this, of course, but not directly. They'll pay when they see rising prices in the marketplace.

Chinese gold ETF total holdings stood at 72.4t (US$3.9bn; RMB25.8bn) as of March, 5.3t (US$287mn; RMB1.9bn) higher m-o-m. In tonnage terms, Chinese gold ETF holdings set a new record in March and in value terms, the second highest.

To understand where the stock market may be heading, a Nobel laureate examines the pop culture of one of the greatest bull markets in history.

Bloomberg and Google news trends show reflation headlines are everywhere. Widespread coverage is typically a sign that trends are starting to exhaust and that markets are due for a period of consolidation, before the next leg higher Our growth and liquidity LEIs remain very positive. While we don’t want to be contrarian for contrarian’s sake,

Brazil's central bank struck back with shock-and-awe rate hike. Mexico's central bank in tough spot after hit to economy. Argentina's inflation at 42%.

Gold climbed to the highest since February amid a retreat in bond yields and a report that top buyer China may import more of the metal.A fter weeks trading in a narrow range, gold has advanced as Treasuries and the dollar head for weekly losses.

The blue-chip Dow rose 300 points to top the 34,000 milestone amid blowout economic data.

The short-term inflation outlook isn't as grim as it looks, but the long-term situation could be awful

Despite stimmy checks and soaring stocks and vaccination successes and COVID case collapse, preliminary April data from UMich sentiment survey fell short of expectations.

The government better not ever stop dousing consumers with free money.

Here's a couple month look ahead at what I expect for the CPI.

Perhaps Peter Thiel is right... and bitcoin is the trojan horse to attack the dollar and make way for a gold-backed yuan?

China has given domestic and international banks permission to import large amounts of gold into the country, five sources familiar with the matter said, potentially helping to support gold prices after a months-long decline. China is the world’s biggest gold consumer, gobbling up hundreds of tonnes worth tens of billions of dollars each year...

Scorpion Capital Calls a New York Stock Exchange Listed Company a Fraud By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 16, 2021 ~ On April 1 we wrote the following about the sorrowful state of the listing standards at the New York Stock Exchange: “We rarely make predictions but we’re going to make one with confidence today. The New York Stock Exchange’s efforts to capture more market share of the […]

“A decisive breach of its 100-day SMA, which currently resides around the psychologically important $1,800, may just do the trick as a clarion call for gold bulls to rush back in.”

The government better not ever stop dousing consumers with free money.

Subsidizing CMBS impedes the necessary market adjustment away from commercial property and toward residential redevelopment.

A reminder why they always will be sound money and why bitcoin cannot fill that roleWith bitcoin’s price still rising and expected to rise even more, there has been a growing belief in cryptocurrency circles that it will replace unbacked government currencies when they eventually fail. The assumptions behind this conclusion are naïve, exposing hardly any knowledge in what qualities are needed […]

It has been recently estimated that global debts stand at $284 trillion equivalent, representing 355% of global GDP. Estimates such as these must be treated with caution, and they probably underestimate financial sector debt. Furthermore, no allowance in these figures is made for OTC derivatives, which according to the Bank for International Settlements have a gross value of $15.48 […]

This article explains the fundamental mistake behind Keynes’s General Theory, the vade mecum for all macro and mathematical economists today. It is no exaggeration to say that his casual rejection of Jean-Baptiste Say’s economic theories in his off-hand interpretation of them, that demand creates its own supply, is at the root of thew global economic and monetary crisis today.There never […]

In a continuing cold war, America is already on the back foot. We have yet to see how long it will be before the Biden administration realises its few victories will be unaffordably Pyrrhic, and by merely not responding to American provocation the Chinese/Russian partnership will emerge as the victors.Halford Mackinder’s century-old vision of a Eurasian superstate, based between the Volga and […]

Equity markets have relentlessly rallied over the past 12 months, pushing valuations to extreme levels based on traditional metrics. In this report, we analyze the two common arguments by equity bulls why this time is different and current valuations are justified. We find that markets are either currently mispricing gold or equities, as either of these arguments would imply that gold should […]

The European Commission is failing. Its response to Brexit and the pandemic, where it is now threatening emergency powers in order to secure vaccines is a latest throw of the political dice. Even before this development markets were getting the message with capital flight worsening.The only thing that holds the Commission together is the magic money tree that is the ECB.Following the recent […]

President Biden has now had his $1.9 trillion stimulus package passed into law, and it will not be the last in the current fiscal year. Covid is not over and is sure to resurge with new variants next winter.But even assuming that is not the case, we still have to contend with the aftermath of the pre-covid conditions, whereby banks had run out of balance sheet capacity combined with trade tariffs […]

The relentless rally in equity markets has pushed valuations to extreme levels based on traditional metrics. In this report, we analyze the two common arguments made by equity bulls on why this time is different and current valuations are justified. We find that either gold or equities are currently mispriced, as, a) both arguments would imply that gold should outperform stocks and b) if neither […]

I can prove anything with statistics, except the truth-- Lord Canning, c. 1819Does Canning’s aphorism still hold true, given that data collection and statistical analysis have progressed beyond all recognition in the last two hundred years? This article tests that proposition.It is still true, because of the interests for which statistics are deployed. We know, or should know, that CPI […]