Author: Tyler Durden

With countless settlements documenting the rigging of every single asset class, it was only a matter of time before the regulators – some 10 years behind the curve as usual – finally cracked down on gold manipulation as well, even though as we have shown in the past, central banks in general and the Fed in particular are among the biggest gold manipulators. That said, we are confident by now nobody will be surprised that there was manipulation going on in the gold casino. In fact, ever since Germany’s Bafin launched a probe into Deutsche Bank for gold and silver … Continue reading →

“We are heading towards disaster” exclaims UKIP’s Nigel Farage in this brief clip. Having warned for months about both the consequences of actions and the EU’s disastrous policies, the flood of immigrants, Farage warns “we face a direct threat to our civilization if we allow large numbers of people from that war-torn region into Europe.”Simply put, he fears within EU policy “there is no way to filter out extremists in favor of people fleeing in genuine fear of their lives,” and suggest following the Australian policy. Reprinted with permission from Zero Hedge.

The biggest shocker in today’s Fed announcement is not that the Fed did not hike: that was telegraphed far away. It is highlighted on  the chart below in red: for the first time ever, one FOMC predicts negative rates in 2015 and 2016. Was it permadove Kocherlakota: probably not, he is out next year…   In retrospect, this too should come as no surprise: over the weekend we asked if “Yellen About To Shock Everyone: Goldman Says The “Fed Should Think About Easing.” The lack of a hike was not a shock, but the negative dot, oh yes. And earlier … Continue reading →

Going into Thursday, everyone – and we do mean everyone – is scrambling to predict which asset classes are most susceptible to a Fed hike. As we explained over the weekend, there’s quite a bit of ambiguity this time around and not just because a third of Wall Street has never seen a rate hike in their professional careers. The prolongation of ultra accommodative monetary policies across the globe (to the point that what was once “unconventional” might now fairly be classified as thoroughly “conventional”) and the failure of the Fed to normalize while it had the chance, has served … Continue reading →

Why did we focus so much attention yesterday on a post in which the IMF confirmed what we had said since last October, namely that the BOJ’s days of ravenous debt monetization are coming to a tapering end as soon as 2017 (as willing sellers simply run out of product)? Simple: because in the global fiat regime, asset prices are nothing more than an indication of central bank generosity. Or, as Deutsche Bank puts it: “Ultimately in a fiat money system asset prices reflect “outside” i.e. central bank money and the extent to which it multiplied through the banking system.” … Continue reading →

You know things have become bad when… Common core is so wonderful that Lily Tang Williams, a Chinese-American mother of three who grew up in Communist China, says it reminds her of her oppressive, statist nature of her childhood education. “Communist” Core… Source: Freedomworks h/t Alt-Market.com Reprinted with permission from Zero Hedge.

Three years ago, we noted the dumbification of America was accelerating as SAT scores hit record lows. It appears the need for the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can’t Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too has never been greater as Bloomberg reports that students in the high school class of 2015 turned in the lowest critical reading score on the SAT college entrance exam in more than 40 years, with all three sections declining from the previous year. The mean score on the math portion of the SAT, 511, is the lowest since 1999. … Continue reading →

Markets have “reached some kind of a tipping point,” warns Marc Faber in this brief Bloomberg TV interview. Simply put, he explains, “because of modern central banking and repeated interventions with monetary policy, in other words, with QE, all around the world by central banks – there is no safe asset anymore.” The purchasing power of money is going down, and Faber “would rather focus on precious metals because they do not depend on the industrial demand as much as base metals or industrial commodities,” as it’s now “obvious that the Chinese economy is growing at nowhere near what the … Continue reading →

What better way to mute demands for a return to sound money and the gold standard, than by making them equivalent to jihadist terrorism? Why, there are none, which is why some were thoroughly amused to see that yesterday the Islamic State’s so called media center, the al Hayat, released a video whose production qualities are nothing short of Hollywood (or San Fernando valley at worst), in which the latest and greatest “jihadist terrorist group” that was a byproduct of US intervention in the Middle East, announces it is preparing to take on the Fed itself with, drumroll, “the return … Continue reading →

There’s little question that the collapse of the financial universe in 2008 dealt a dramatic blow to retail’s confidence in US capital markets. Taxpayers were forced to foot the bill for a Wall Street bailout just as 45% of their 401ks was being vaporized and to make matters immeasurably worse, CNBC ensured that mom and pop could watch their retirements disappear in real time on the same channel that had, for the better part of a year, been telling them that everything was fine. To the extent that the Fed-driven, six-year rally restored some semblance of trust between retail investors … Continue reading →

Yesterday, in the aftermath of the Dallas Fed’s grotesque hire of a former Goldman banker, Robert Kaplan (while former Dallas Fed president Dick Fisher is now collecting a sallary from Barclays, where he is now a “Senior Advisor“) even some “very serious people” employed by the WSJ were shocked by this blatant flaunting of central bank capture by Goldman Sachs: consider that in addition to all the other global power posts currently held by Goldman alumni, three of the Fed’s 12 presidents are now Goldman Sachs alumni. As a further reminder, it is not just the Fed – the Goldman … Continue reading →

A week before The EPA disastrously leaked millions of gallons of toxic waste into The Animas River in Colorado, this letter to the editor was published in The Silverton Standard & The Miner local newspaper, authored by a retired geologist detailing verbatim, how EPA would foul the Animas River on purpose in order to secure superfund money… “But make no mistake, within seven days, all of the 500gpm flow will return to Cememnt Creek. Contamination may actually increase… The “grand experiment” in my opinion will fail. And guess what [EPA’s] Mr. Hestmark will say then? Gee, “Plan A” didn’t work … Continue reading →

For the last three weeks, gold has experienced something that has never happened before – hedge funds aggregate net position has been short for the first time in history.   However, as Dana Lyons notes, this week saw another ‘historic’ shift in gold positioning as commercial hedgers shifted to the least hedged since 2001… so the ‘fast’ money is chasing momentum and the ‘smart’ money is lifting hedges into them. Via Dana Lyons’ Tumblr, It’s no secret that commodities have taken a drubbing during the deflationary spiral over the past year. And precious metals have been right up front in … Continue reading →

Last week, in “Economics 101: Wal-Mart Hikes Wages, Prepares To Fire 1000,” we highlighted an internal memo circulated at Arkansas recruiting firm Cameron Smith & Associates. The letter, which was obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, advised employees to prepare for an expected wave of layoffs at WalMart’s home office in Bentonville. “Please remember, these people are our neighbors and friends,” Cameron Smith tells his recruiters, “you have a skill that will be very much in need when this goes down.” The retail giant has received quite a bit of scrutiny this year (more than usual), after abruptly and simultaneously closing … Continue reading →

We hardly need to expound on Greece’s near-death economic state: if anyone has missed the surreal tragicomedy of the pas 5 years all we can say is we envy you. Of all countries around the globe, if there is one nation where everyone by now knows is, or should have defaulted long ago, it is the Hellenic Republic. But when it comes to default risk implied by government bond prices and their inverse “hedge”, credit default swaps, few may be aware that Venezuela’s default probability is orders of magnitude higher. Of course, our readers will be well aware of this: … Continue reading →