The Dollar Decline

Looking for ways to secure your financial future in these dire economic times? This blog is for you.

Showing posts with label bearish economy. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Fed Emergency - Fabricated Recovery Is Stalling

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Guys, THIS IS BIG.



In this video Mike Maloney tries explaining why and how the US Government is creating a false sense of economic security to the nation. If you work hard for your money and you want it to matter, I suggest you watch this. If you have further questions about how you can protect yourself against the pending wealth transfer, visit my site here.   

Take Care. (Of You & Your $$$)

 TheDollarDecline

Friday, September 26, 2014

Did A Little Video Digging (Video)

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Happy Friday Guys.

I went digging in the YouTube archives and found this GEM.

This interview was done about 4 years ago--and his predictions are about spot on. Jim Rogers and the rest of the world agree that within the next few years gold will be on the rise. It is usually coveted and bought when the world is in turmoil--which it is now.

With US Stocks out performing all other markets, US currency setting itself up for hyperinflation, and precursors to world conflict--These seems like the perfect time now to be in the gold buying market.





Do You Have YOUR Gold?

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Is Marc Faber On To Something...? (Videos)

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Hey guys,

Quick Video here from an snippet of a CNBC video with Gloom, Boom & Doom's Marc Faber and his view on the worlds stocks.

He makes some great points.







Here Marc speaks with Bloomberg on how the markets are responding to the current global events. This just makes sense to pay attention to.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Economic Recovery On The Horizon? 3 Stats To Watch

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Article from: CNN MONEY


There is so much data on the economy now, it is hard to figure out what is most important. Last week alone exemplified the flood of numbers: the Census Bureau, Federal Reserve and Labor Department released a variety of economic data points.
The big news makers -- employment, inflation and gross domestic product -- are always important statistics, but if you really want to know where things are headed, there are a few lesser known indicators that give a fuller picture of the economy's health.
To make some sense of it all, CNNMoney surveyed numerous economists. According to the experts, keep an eye on these three things.
1. People's spending: Shoppers have a big impact on the economy. Consumption makes up over two-thirds of the America's gross domestic product. The Great Recession made people a lot more cautious about buying things. And when people aren't buying, that also hurts company profits and jobs.
"You can't sustain strong economic growth without the consumer leading the way," said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.
The question is whether buying is back.
The best way to gauge that is the monthly Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index.

At the height of the recession in 2009, PCE decreased, and it still is not back to its pre-recession levels.
What most economists -- and businesses -- want to see is steadily increasing spending. But so far in 2014, there have been three months where PCE has dropped, including July. That's worse than 2013 where the PCE increased (or at least remained level) every month.
Bottom line: Not back yet

2. Home buying and building: The housing collapse was at the center of the recession. The slow recovery of the housing market serves as a microcosm of the economy's tepid comeback.
"Home ownership has historically been the single largest trigger to consumer spending," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago.
People who buy homes tend to buy more of other products than non-buyers, which suggests that home buying can trigger a positive ripple effect on personal spending and jobs, Swonk says.
Economists are watching a data point known as "housing starts."
Single-family housing starts in July numbered 656,000, or about 10% higher than the same time last year, according to the Census Bureau. Still, the number of these housing starts is 50% below a typical level, says Robert Denk, senior economist at the National Association of Home Builders in Washington D.C.

A more normal level of housing starts would be about 1.3 million, the average between 2000 and 2003, Denk says.
"The recovery truly can't be considered complete until housing gets back on track," Denk says. "[Housing] generates jobs and it still really is that sector of the economy that hasn't fully recovered, in fact it's only halfway back."
Bottom line: Not back yet

3. Manufacturing: America might be known for Silicon Valley more than steel these days, but the country still makes a lot of products.
Another indicator that holds implications for the greater economy is the PMI, an acronym for the wonky-sounding Purchasing Managers' Index (that term was actually abandoned in 2001). Created by the Institute for Supply Management, the PMI gauges manufacturing levels across the country, taking several factors into consideration, including employment and inventory levels.
In a positive sign for the recovery, the PMI hit a 12-month high in August at 59%, according to ISM. The average PMI at the recession's peak in 2009 was 46.4%. Thus far in 2014, the PMI has averaged 54.9%, signaling a healthy gain in manufacturing during the recovery.
There are some concerns that the really strong U.S. dollar could hurt manufacturing, since it makes American goods a lot more expensive to people in Europe and other parts of the world, but so far there doesn't seem to be an impact.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Oklahoma Affirms Gold and Silver as Legal Tender

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On June 4, Oklahoma joined Utah, Texas, and Louisiana in affirming that gold and silver coins are (as they always have been under the Constitution) legal tender in the payment of debts in the state. On the surface this seems almost nonsensical: affirming a right that already exists in Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution. But it is much more than that.
Senate Bill 862, which Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed into law this week, says,
Gold and silver coins issued by the United States government are legal tender in the State of Oklahoma.No person may compel another person to tender or accept gold or silver coins that are issued by the United States government, except as agreed upon by contract.
The new law also exempts all state-level taxes that Oklahoma residents would otherwise have to pay when exchanging gold or silver back into paper money:
For taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2015, there shall be exempt from Oklahoma taxable income, or in the case of an individual, the Oklahoma adjusted gross income, any amount of net capital gains ... which result from the sale or exchange of gold or silver for another form of legal tender.
All this appears to do is affirm the language from the U.S. Constitution: "No state shall ... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."
But it does much more. Sean Fieler, Chairman of American Principles in Action, one of the bill’s primary supporters and promoters, came close to explaining why:
I commend the people of Oklahoma, particularly Senator Clarke Jolley and Governor Mary Fallin, for asserting their state’s constitutional right to declare gold and silver legal tender.
With the Federal Reserve actively suppressing interest rates and eroding the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar, it is welcome news to see one more state give its citizens free access to money that holds its value over time.
It’s about options. When citizens become comfortable with using money that retains its value over time, it will mark the beginning of the end of paper currency backed by nothing. This would be the inevitable end point of the process that began on August 15, 1971 when then-President Richard Nixon unilaterally ended the dollar’s convertibility into gold. For the past 43 years the world has been subjected to floating currencies pegged to nothing other than future promises to pay in more paper money. As Ron Paul noted in his book The Case for Gold, first published in 1982,
Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy’s tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But [today’s] government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth [but] only by the government’s promise to pay out of future tax revenues....
In the absence of a gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation....
This is the shabby secret of the welfare states’ tirades against gold. [Unlimited] deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process.
Paul was referring to the "shabby secret" revealed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan before he was assimilated by the monetary Borg of the Federal Reserve. In July of 1966, Greenspan wrote in Gold and Monetary Freedom about that secret:
In the absence of a gold standard there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value....
If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his [paper] bank deposits to silver [or gold] ... bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless....
This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the “hidden” confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process....
If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.
That confiscation has been accelerating exponentially since 1971, as seen by clicking here to view price levels in the United States from 1965 through 2013. Once the gold standard was abandoned by Nixon in 1971, the price level in the United States has risen by a factor of six! Put another way, citizens’ paper money has lost almost 80 percent of its value in just 43 years.
That Oklahoma has joined with other states in its affirmation of gold and silver (with still others considering similar measures) could mark the beginning of the end of the paper machine itself — the Federal Reserve. William H. Greene is an economics professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. While a seemingly unlikely spokesman for the abolition of the Fed, his view of the coming inevitable end of the Fed is remarkable:
Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve Notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve Notes do will lead to a “reverse Gresham’s Law” effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve Notes). As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including ... an influx of banking business from outside the state ... and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve Notes for any transactions. [Emphasis added.]
This is most encouraging to the Tenth Amendment Center, which noted, "Once things get to that point, Federal Reserve notes would become largely unwanted and irrelevant for ordinary people. Nullifying the Fed on a state-by-state level is what will get us there."
That’s what makes Oklahoma’s affirmation of a right so important. If every state would affirm their rights under Article I, Section 10, the end of the Fed would merely be a matter of time. Federal Reserve Notes would become irrelevant — a relic of a failed statist experiment in organized, sophisticated theft.




Wednesday, September 17, 2014

The Bernanke BOMB...

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Trust in Gold Not Bernanke as U.S. States Promote Bullion




Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has pushed interest rates to near zero since...Read More

Distrust of the Federal Reserve and concern that U.S. dollars may become worthless are fueling a push in more than a dozen states to recognize gold and silver coins as legal tender.
Arizona is poised to follow Utah, which authorized bullion for currency in 2011. Similar bills are advancing in Kansas, South Carolina and other states.
The measures backed by the limited-government Tea Party movement are mostly symbolic -- you still can’t pay for groceries with gold in Utah. They reflect lingering dollar concerns, amplified by the Fed’s unconventional moves in recent years to stabilize the economy, said Loren Gatch, who teaches politics at the University of Central Oklahoma.
“The legislation is about signaling discontent with monetary policy and about what Ben Bernanke is doing,” said Gatch, who studies alternative currencies at the Edmond, Oklahoma-based school. “There is a fear that the government, or Bernanke in particular and the Federal Reserve, is pursuing a policy that will lead to the collapse of the dollar. That’s what is behind it.”
Bernanke has pushed interest rates to near zero since the 18-month recession that began in December 2007. The Fed said in March it would continue buying $85 billion in securities each month in a program known as quantitative easing that has ballooned its assets beyond $3 trillion and is aimed at keeping long-term borrowing costs low to support economic growth.



Photographer: Thomas Ernsting/laif/Redux
Lawmakers in Arizona are poised to follow Utah, which authorized bullion for currency...Read More

Tame Inflation

Consumer prices rose just 1.3 percent in February from a year earlier, according to an inflation measure favored by the Fed. That was below the central bank’s 2 percent target and compares with occasional bouts of more-than 10 percent increases in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Bets that inflation would pick up because of economic- stimulus measures helped fuel a 78 percent jump in gold since December 2008. The dollar’s rise to less than 1 percent below a one-year high set in July and monthly increases of about 2 percent or less in the U.S. consumer price index have curbed demand for bullion. Since reaching a record $1,923.70 an ounce in 2011, gold prices have fallen and are near a bear market.
Gold futures for June delivery fell almost 0.2 percent today, to $1,573.20 an ounce on the Comex in New York and have lost 6.1 percent this year. The price touched $1,539.40 on April 4, a 10-month low for a most-active contract.

Texas Depository

In Texas, lawmakers are considering a measure supported by Republican Governor Rick Perry to establish the Texas Bullion Depository to store gold bars valued at about $1 billion and held in a New York bank warehouse. The gold is owned by the University of Texas Investment Management Co., or Utimco, which took delivery of 6,643 bars of the precious metal in 2011 amid concern that demand for it would overwhelm supply.
The proposed facility would also accept deposits from the public, and would provide a basis for a payments system in the state in the event of a “systemic dislocation in a national and international financial system,” according to the measure.
Should Texas take such a step, it would offer sovereign backing for deposits and make buying and storing gold easier, said Jim Rickards, senior managing director at Tangent Capital Partners LLC in New York and author of “Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis.” He said the coin measures, while impractical, have symbolic value.
“We are seeing a distinct movement back to a world where gold is considered money,” Rickards said.

Inflation Protection

The measures give “people the option of using money that won’t lose any purchasing power to inflation,” said Rich Danker, economics director at theAmerican Principles Project. The Washington-based public-policy group supports the steps as well as a return to the gold standard, which pegged the dollar’s value to bullion. President Richard Nixon formally ended the convertibility of U.S. currency to the precious metal in 1971.
“People in these states find the idea of having the option to use hard currencies appealing over these policies they have no control over,” Danker said.
The U.S. Constitution bars states from coining money and also forbids them from making anything except gold and silver coin tender for paying debts. Advocates say that opens the door for the states to allow bullion as legal tender. The measure being considered in South Carolina would recognize foreign or domestic minted coins as legal tender.
Utah’s law applies only to U.S.-minted coins, while other states are less clear on whether privately produced coins qualify. Arizona leaves the door open for private coins if they are declared legal by a non-appealable court order.

Tax Breaks

In Utah and some other states, the measures also eliminate state capital gains or other taxes on the coins.
Critics say the state measures are unwieldy. In Arizona, Senator Steve Farley, a Democrat, unsuccessfully offered an amendment that would have recognized as legal tender other state commodities, such as citrus fruit, as well as sunbeams. The amendment was intended to reflect the absurdity of the bill, said the 50-year-old lawmaker from Tucson.
“It is simply grandstanding to get people afraid that somehow President Obama’s agenda is going to drive us into hyperinflation and economic collapse,” Farley said. “We have enough real problems to deal with. I don’t see undercutting our entire financial structure as a priority.”
In Utah, officials haven’t yet figured out how to accept gold and silver for tax payments -- though some residents have asked to pay that way -- or integrate the precious metals into commerce, state Treasurer Richard Ellis said. Lawmakers have established a task-force to study implementing the law and to examine how the state can accept gold and silver, with their fluctuating values, for payment, Ellis said. He’s not optimistic that it will work, he said.

Regulatory Barriers

“People point to Utah and say we are leading the way, but nothing much has happened because regulatory hurdles have gotten in the way,” said Ellis, a Republican. If gold and silver is being used in the state as legal tender, it is probably only in transactions between individuals, he said.
The Utah Precious Metals Association, established after passage of the 2011 law to advocate for the use of gold and silver coins, has about two dozen members enrolled in a two month-old bill-pay service in which their accounts are held in gold, said Lawrence Hilton, the group’s chairman. Hilton envisions a future with an alternative monetary system based on precious metals in which merchants accept silver coin while gold mostly backs electronic transfers.

Gold Producers

The Republican-sponsored Arizona measure passed the House of Representatives 36-22 today, after being amended last week. Before landing on the desk of Governor Jan Brewer, a Republican, the bill must go back for another vote in the Senate, where it was approved 17-11 on Feb. 28. Gold is mined in both Arizona and Utah, while Nevada is the largest U.S. producer, according to figures from the National Mining Association in Washington.
The bill’s sponsor, Senator Chester Crandell, 66 of Heber, said he is convinced the move is the “logical thing for the state of Arizona to do.”
“I think you look at some of the things that are happening and the amount of money printed by the Federal Reserve and who has control of that money, and I think anybody would be concerned,” Crandell said. “Gold and silver have been around a long time and people are secure with it and we should give them an opportunity to use it.”

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Is The Stock Market Your Financial Savior? Investors Beware!

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 This fall could be a season of dropping stocks


After an easy, breezy summer, September's reputation as a historically difficult month is threatening some excitement as we head toward October.
The Dow Jones industrials index lost the 17,000 level on Friday after repeatedly testing that threshold over the last four weeks. The S&P 500 spent another day below the 2,000 level. And the Russell 2000 small-cap index fell into negative territory for the year-to-date.
The pressure continued on Monday as the Russell 2000 dropped back below its 200-day and 50-day moving averages, indicating a medium-term downtrend. The evidence is building that additional losses are likely in the weeks to come.
To start, investor apprehension is growing over the approach of the Federal Reserve's first interest rate hike. The QE3 bond purchase program that began in 2012 is set to end next month. And much of the reason for the market's recent underperformance is the growing likelihood that after its next rate-setting meeting on Wednesday, the Fed will drop the "considerable time" language from its policy statement in terms of when that first rate hike will happen.

091514rut.png

This is a big deal, given how deeply the Fed cut rates and for how much longer than usual it has held them down. And with the Fed not satisfied with merely cutting short-term interest rates to near zero percent, multiple iterations of bond buying has swelled the central bank's monetary base from $800 billion before the recession to more than $4 trillion now.
As a result, the financial system is been doped up on cheap money in a way that it never has before. No one knows what will happen when that monetary morphine is pulled away. But additional volatility is likely as expectations for the course of monetary policy are reset given that current market expectations, as discussed in a recent San Francisco Fed paper, are lagging behind the Fed's own projections from back in June (before the U.S. job market showed further improvement).
With bond yields so low, and so much money piled into bond funds ($1 trillion into U.S. bond funds since 2009) amid very low secondary market trading volumes, large price swings in areas like high-yield corporate bonds are a significant risk.
To this point, the Institute of International Finance -- a global association of banks -- recently warned of potential trouble here. And back in June, the Financial Times wrote that the Fed was looking at limiting a possible stampede out of bonds by imposing an exit fee to sell.
All of this comes at a time of relatively high investor complacency. According to the American Association of Individual Investors poll, only 26 percent of investors are "bearish" right now -- the lowest share since 2004.
Add to all this negative seasonality (market tends to underperform in September), extended stock market valuations (price-to-earnings ratios have rarely been higher, for instance), and weak technicals (breadth has been mediocre over the last month as fewer stocks have participated to the upside), and the potential for market fireworks this fall is high.

091514dug.png

In response, I've recommended investors look to profit from the situation via leveraged inverse exchange-traded funds such as the ProShares UltraShort Oil & Gas (DUG), which is up more than 5 percent since added by Edge subscribers on Sept. 9.