Month: August 2017

After a two-year long bear market, bitcoin came roaring back in 2016, and has been climbing ever since.

The digital currency reached a new all-time high above $4,650 on Tuesday, an increase of more than 350% year-to-date. The sheer intensity of its gains has inspired some comparisons to the digital currency's initial run-up, which ended with the collapse of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in early 2014, marking the end of the first bitcoin bull market.

Given bitcoin's torrid advance, analysts from Bespoke Investments attempted to put its gains in context in a chart. The results are striking: Compared with infamous asset bubbles like tech stocks in the 1990s, bitcoin has climbed much further in far less time. According to Bloomberg, “there’s almost no comparison” between bitcoin and the tech-stock bubble.  

“Bespoke Investment Group contrasted the rise in bitcoin with infamous bubbles such as the tech market in the late nineties. There’s almost no comparison. Tech stocks rose just over 1,000 percent over the entire course of their bubble, and bitcoin is already up more than twice that. Take a look.”

According to CoinTelegraph, bitcoin analysts expect the digital currency to finish the year around $5,000.

And some expect the digital currency to go much, much higher. According to the Wall Street Journal, early Snapchat investor Jeremy Liew expects Bitcoin will reach $500,000 by 2030. Security company founder and notable eccentric John McAfee believes it’ll take only three years.

Alistair Milne, a popular bitcoin analyst who has a large Twitter following, calculated earlier this month that bitcoin would already be worth more than $7,000 if the digital currency’s share of the overall crypto market would return to its pre-2017 levels. Bitcoin’s market capitalization now represents less than half of the total for the broader market crypto market, down from about 90% early this year. The drop is largely due to bitcoin rivals like Ethereum and Litecoin, which put bitcoin's YTD rise to shame.

If Bitcoin returned to market dominance of ~84% (where it was before the Bitcoin Unlimited/forking fears), the price would be ~$7000 today

— Alistair Milne (@alistairmilne) August 15, 2017

Bitcoin has made a habit out of routinely defying its most ardent skeptics. But the shadow of Mt. Gox still looms large over the digital currency market. And the risk of another bull-market-ending catalyst like a 51% attack on the bitcoin network or another major hack at one of the more mainstream exchanges could force out the week hands, sparking another precipitous drop.

via http://ift.tt/2wjIvlK Tyler Durden

Yesterday, we detailed the story of a University of Tampa professor who suggested that Texans deserve the fallout from Hurricane Harvey because of their support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

As Campus Reform noted, Professor Ken Storey wrote…

“I don’t believe in instant Karma but this kinda feels like it for Texas, Hopefully this will help them realize the GOP doesn’t care about them.”

Of course, after posting this disgusting comment, he apologized…

“I deeply regret a statement I posted yesterday,” Storey tweeted. “I never meant to wish ill will upon any group. I hope all affected by Harvey recover quickly.”

But the damage was done, and today, as Campus Reform reports, the University of Tampa announced Tuesday that it has fired the professor.

In a statement sent to the university community, the school strongly condemned the comments made by Professor Ken Storey on Twitter, underscoring that the remarks “do not reflect UT's community views or values.”

“We condemn the comments and the sentiment behind them, and understand the pain this irresponsible act has caused. Storey has been relieved of his duties at UT, and his classes will be covered by other sociology faculty,” the university wrote.

 

“As Floridians, we are well aware of the destruction and suffering associated with tropical weather,” the statement concluded, adding, “Our thoughts and prayers are with all impacted by Hurricane Harvey.”

We wonder how "deeply" Storey "regrets" his disgusting hate-speak now?

via http://ift.tt/2wjbN3J Tyler Durden

Bloomberg’s David Westin spoke with Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett on his 87th birthday before his charity auction lunch at Smith & Wollensky’s in New York.

Among the topics discussed was the Fed’s upcoming balance sheet normalization: Buffett told Westin that the Federal Reserve will be “very careful” with how they handle quantitative easing as the Fed may have to find buyers for “trillions” in assets. Predictably, Buffett argued in support of QE which added tens of billions to his net worth: “[QE] did wonders for us coming out of 2008. Without it we would have gone back to the economics of 100 years ago. If the Fed had not been there to ease, we would have had a far different recovery. I think the Fed has overwhelmingly done the right thing. Now, we’ve never gone through a period like this and how it will all work out, we will find out. I think they will be intelligent about it but they’ve never played this game yet either.”

Separately, Buffett said the relentless, artificial, central bank-induced rally over the last several years has made it “harder to find bargains”, but that stocks “remain his choice over bonds.” Asked by Westin why cash has been piling up at Berkshire, Buffett said “it tells us stocks aren’t as cheap as they’ve been most of the time.” Buying shares after the 2008 financial crisis, Buffett said, was like “shooting fish in a barrel”, although he forgot to add that the US government bailing out his core financial holdings, did not hurt either.

In any case, in recent year, Berkshire’s stock portfolio, which includes multibillion-dollar stakes in companies like Apple, the scandal-plagued Wells Fargo and Coca Cola, was valued more than $135 billion at the end of June, almost the same size as the AUM of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater.

Stocks “have gotten less attractive as they’ve gone along,” Buffett said. “They’re still very attractive compared to bonds.”

Buffett has plowed money into stocks this year, including Apple. But finding new acquisitions has been a challenge lately. Earlier this month, his bid to take control of Oncor Electric Delivery Co., Texas’s largest power distributor, fell apart. That failed effort came six months after a Berkshire-backed deal to buy Unilever hit the skids.

 

The collapse of two high-profile pursuits in such a short time frame is a rarity for Buffett, who did his last major deal in 2015 when Berkshire agreed to buy aerospace-parts manufacturer Precision Castparts Corp. for more than $35 billion. While he’s made many offers that went nowhere, it’s less common for such misses to play out in public.

According to Bloomberg, the recent deal drought has bigger implications for Berkshire. The company doesn’t pay a dividend and rarely buys back its own stock, so failing to consummate a few major transactions means cash piles up from its subsidiaries. At the end of June, Berkshire had just shy of $100 billion.

Finally, in a discussion of assorted items, Buffett said that the US economy does not feel like a 3% GDP, that anger in the US stems from wealth inequality and when asked what’s the one thing that Buffett generally feared, the answer was “if we’re talking broadly, the answer is weapons of mass destruction.”

“Now you’ve got weapons that can kill millions and millions and millions of people, and you’ve got them in unstable hands in certain cases. We live in a dangerous world that way, it’s the only real problem for humankind.”

Buffett then said that in this context, North Korea is at the top of his list: “if you have a small, relatively poor country that’s spending a significant part of its GDP trying to figure out how to get an ICBM to hit the west coast of the US, there’s something going on in somebody’s mind that I don’t like.”

Finally, the reason why Buffett was in the New York Smith & Wollensky today is to dine with the winner of an annual charity auction that raises money for Glide, a San Francisco non-profit. The top bidder, who chose to remain anonymous this year, paid $2.68 million to bring as many as seven friends to lunch with the billionaire at Smith & Wollensky steakhouse. With insights such as these, we think the many could have been spent with a much higher IRR elsewhere.

via http://ift.tt/2xz7q36 Tyler Durden

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

While it’s true there are a lot of stories about division and heartlessness, there are many stories coming out of storm-torn Texas that will give you hope for humanity again.

Kindness and love for our neighbors isn’t dead, despite a politically divided country. This is proof that we can work together and give selflessly.

This isn’t to underplay the death and destruction, but to highlight our humanity in the face of disaster.

Below, you can find 10 of my favorite heart-warming stories so far.

1. Four teenage boys rescued more than 50 people in Houston.  After waking up to discover his beloved truck was under water, a 17-year-old Texas boy enlisted his younger brother and two other teens to get on a fishing boat and rescue more than 50 people – and their pets – and bring them to the safety of a local shelter. (source)

2. Members of the Cajun Navy resuscitated an elderly woman found floating face-down in the flood water. As they were guiding their boat down a waterway that was formerly a road, three volunteers realized that what they initially thought was debris was an elderly woman. They jumped in and began resuscitating her in the water, saving her life. They were able to reunite her with her family and say she is doing well. This isn’t the first time that the Cajun Navy has thrown themselves wholeheartedly into a rescue effort, and Houston is welcoming their contributions. (source)

3. When a stranded woman went into labor, a human chain, a fire department, and a dump truck got her to the hospital. Luckily for a woman who went into labor early, the neighborhood worked together to get her to the hospital in time to give birth. As her new baby girl required intensive care immediately after she was born, it was a good thing that she was not born at home. (source)

They used a human chain to get her safely to the truck!! (Video shot by my roommate) Happy thoughts & prayers to the new parents! ?? http://pic.twitter.com/nlEaa9J8E4

— Callie Hatcher (@calliecalliejo) August 27, 2017

 

4.  Some employees who were stranded at a bakery by the flood made bread for hungry survivors. The bakers were stuck at the bakery for two days, but instead of being idle, they worked all night long to make hundreds of loaves of pan dulce bread to help nourish fellow flood victims. (source)

5. Bass Pro provided 80 boats for search and rescue efforts. When Houston officials ran out of boats, they asked for volunteers with boats to come and help out. Bass Pro answered the call with the use of 80 of their boats and $40,000 in emergency supplies. (source)

6. Two furniture stores turned their locations into pet-friendly shelters. Mattress Mac welcomed displaced residents, their children, and their pets into their stores to provide them with a comfortable place to stay. (source)

7. A storm chaser rescued a lost dog. A storm chaser stopping for gas on his way home was surprised when a bedraggled dog hopped into his Jeep. After he posted a photo on social media, he was able to connect with the dog’s owner and return him. (source)

8. A reporter and camera crew in a boat rescued a stranded family shouting for help. As the crew went past a home, they heard people calling for a help. The family’s home was being flooded with waist-high water. Their elderly mother suffered from Alzheimer’s. They were helped onto the boat and taken to shelter. (source)

9. Not one to let a disaster get him down, this man caught a fish in his living room. Watch these three videos…

10. Anheiser Busch stopped producing beer to can water. The Georgia brewery stopped production to provide 155,000 cans of safe drinking water for flood victims.

We're sending more than 155,000 cans of emergency drinking water to those affected by #HurricaneHarvey. Stay safe everyone. http://pic.twitter.com/Wc1YzQQA9M

— Anheuser-Busch (@AnheuserBusch) August 29, 2017

These stories go to show you that we can all look past race, politics, and religious disagreements to help our neighbors, keep our spirits up, and perform acts of kindness. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could continue acting like neighbors after the disaster has passed?

 

via http://ift.tt/2wKQHfU Tyler Durden

Google, pardon Alphabet’s efforts to influence the American political discourse (not to mention presidential election outcome) stretch far beyond the company’s penchant for subtly disadvantaging independent and conservative thinkers on platforms like YouTube. By financially supporting left-leaning policy shops, Google’s parent company has helped raise a liberal army intent on hashing out policy minutiae to help bend US policy to their benefactors’ advantage.

But what happens when these supposedly “independent” think tanks publish something that displeases their corporate master? As one researcher at the left-leaning New America think tank learned, the punishment is swift and severe.

Barry Lynn, formerly a top researcher at New America, learned that lesson the hard way after publishing a paper praising European Union antitrust regulators for fining Google nearly $3 billion for purportedly rigging its search algorithm to favor its own services over its rivals.

According to the New York Times, the New America Foundation has received more than $21 million in funding from Google, Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt and his family’s foundation since the think tank was first established in 1999. The money helped establish New America as an “elite voice” in policy debates on the American left.

“But not long after one of New America’s scholars posted a statement on the think tank’s website praising the European Union’s penalty against Google, Mr. Schmidt, who had been chairman of New America until 2016, communicated his displeasure with the statement to the group’s president, Anne-Marie Slaughter, according to the scholar.”

Slaughter, a close ally of the Clintons who’s best known for her 2012 Atlantic Cover Story “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” quickly caved.

The statement disappeared from new America’s website, only to be reposted without explanation a few hours later. But word of Mr. Schmidt’s displeasure quickly rippled  through New America, which employs more than 200 people, including dozens of researchers, writers and scholars, most of whom work in sleek Washington officers where the main conference room is called the “Eric Schmidt Ideas Lab. The episode left some people concerned that Google intended to discontinue funding, while others worried whether the think tank could truly be independent if it had to worry about offending its donors.”

The answer to that last question, as employees of New America quickly learned, is, obviously, no, it can't. A few days after the incident Slaughter summoned to Lynn to her office, where she summarily dismissed him – along with 10 of his underlings.

“Those worries seemed to be substantiated a couple of days later, when Ms. Slaughter summoned the scholar who wrote the critical statement, Barry Lynn, to her office. He ran a New America initiative called Open Markets that has led a growing chorus of liberal criticism of the market dominance of telecom and tech giants, including Google, which is now part of a large corporate entity known as Alphabet, for which Mr. Schmidt serves as executive charman.

 

Ms. Slaughter told Mr. Lynn that ‘the time has come for Open Markets and New America to part ways,’ according to emails from Ms. Slaughter to Mr. Lynn. The email suggested that the entire Open Markets team – nearly 10 full-time employees and unpaid fellows – would be exiled from New America."

While she asserted in the email, which was reviewed by The New York Times, that the decision was ‘in no way based on the content of your work,’ Ms. Slaughter accused Mr. Lynn of ‘imperiling the institution as a whole.’”

Lynn, who eventually shared his story with the NYT, blasted Google’s aggressive tactics, which the company has denied through its communications machine.

And the punchline, which also serves as the title for this post: "Google is very aggressive in throwing its money around Washington and Brussels, and then pulling the strings.” said Lynn. “People are so afraid of Google now.”

In a series of statements published on Twitter, Slaughter and New America slammed the NYT’s story as “absolutely false.”

Let me be clearer in era of fake news; facts are largely right, but quotes are taken way out of context and interpretation is wrong. https://t.co/ynlNR8FDEx

— Anne-Marie Slaughter (@SlaughterAM) August 30, 2017

 

New America's Response to the New York Times: https://t.co/JGmSk1oldY http://pic.twitter.com/VS6DJTKVIH

— New America (@NewAmerica) August 30, 2017

In a separate email sent last year, Slaughter castigated Lynn for organizing a conference where he intended to criticize tech companies’ hegemonic influence.

“We are in the process of trying to expand our relationship with Google on some absolutely key points,” Ms. Slaughter wrote in an email to Mr. Lynn, urging him to ‘just THINK about how you are imperiling funding for others.’”  

Slaughter is now reportedly helping the Open Markets team secure financing for a new, separate nonprofit entity. However, no money will be forthcoming from Google.

Google spent more than $9.5 million on lobbying during the first half of 2017, more than almost any other company. It has helped organize conferences at which key regulators overseeing investigations into the company were presented with pro-Google arguments, sometimes without disclosure of Google’s role in funding NA, according to the NYT.

The company has also donated to more than 170 groups from across the political spectrum, according to voluntary disclosures on its website.

What was that about “don’t be evil”?

via http://ift.tt/2xz5EiF Tyler Durden

Gold Reset To $10,000/oz Coming “By January 1, 2018” – Rickards

– Trump could be planning a radical “reboot” of the U.S. dollar
– Currency reboot will see leading nations devalue their currencies against gold
– New gold price would be nearly 8 times higher at $10,000/oz
– Price based on mass exit of foreign governments and investors from the US Dollar
– US total debt now over $80 Trillion – $20T national debt and $60T consumer debt
– Monetary reboot or currency devaluation seen frequently – even modern history
– Buy gold eagles, silver eagles including monster boxes and gold bars 
– Have a 10% allocation to gold, smaller allocation to silver

Editor: Mark O’Byrne

A new monetary standard which will see the dollar “reboot” and gold be revalued to $10,000/oz according to best-selling author and Pentagon insider Jim Rickards.

A monetary ‘reboot’ is not unprecedented

Articles about an imminent return to the gold standard are not exactly infrequent in the gold world and it can be easy to become immune to them and dismiss them without considering the facts and case being made.

Many of the articles are not just based one ever-wishful daydreams. Much of it comes from information that is true about today and is then applied to situations that we have seen in the past.

Rickards makes this point himself. A monetary reset is not unheard of. Since the Genoa Accord in 1922 there have been a further eight reboots. The most recent was in 2016 in what Rickards refers to as the Shanghai Accord which purportedly saw deals done that would allow China to ease without leading to a sharp correction in the US stock market.

Rickards isn’t the only one who is speculating that there could be some big monetary changes on the horizon. In March intelligence service Stratfor wrote:

Trump may consider unilateral or, failing that, multilateral currency interventions to bring it back down…Negotiating a new coordinated monetary intervention

Stratfor’s analysis was considering the threat of a strong dollar on Trump’s plans to reduce the trade deficit. We have recently discussed the danger of political deadlock and uncertainty on the US Dollar and how this will benefit gold.

Rickards’ comments come from a similar viewpoint in that there is decreasing faith in the US dollar. This lack of trust is mainly driven by the more than $100 trillion debt ($20 trillion national debt and another $100 trillion in off ‘balance sheet’ liabilities) in the country and the ongoing dedollarisation by major economies.

Should Trump continue to stumble, disappoint and provoke then we will no doubt see this issue snowball even faster.

No longer banking on debt

The Federal Reserve — America’s central bank — has lowered interest rates and printed nearly 4 trillion new dollars out of thin air since the economic crisis in 2008.

That’s equivalent to nearly one quarter the size of the entire U.S. economy.

The number one consequence of all of this money printing so far hasn’t been inflation at all…

It’s been debt.

Total U.S. debt — across all private sectors — has risen to nearly $60 TRILLION…

That’s over three times as big as the entire U.S. economy.

If you add the federal debt to that number, you get $80 trillion! That’s more than four times the size of the U.S. economy.

In fact, the Government Accountability Office just reported this year that the U.S. is at risk of “fiscal failure.”

And Harvard Economics Professor Kenneth Rogoff says, “There’s no question that the most significant vulnerability… is the soaring government debt. It’s very likely that will trigger the next crisis as governments have been stretched so wide.”

And Investor’s Business Daily reports that: “Current total debt, at roughly 105% of GDP, is already in the danger zone — and based on historical economic studies, this is where nasty things can happen.”

All of this is the result of too much debt… too many Obama policies… and too much meddling by the Federal Reserve.

But what happens when there is too much debt? The dollar is still relatively strong so does it matter? Yes, says Rickards, ‘many countries are relentlessly abandoning the dollar.’ 

Too much debt to make America Great Again

Countries aren’t sticking around to figure out whether the U.S. can really pay back its debt or wait to see if their dollar reserves are going to keep losing their value…

Like billionaire investor Warren Buffett said

“People are right to fear paper money… it’s only going to be worth less and less over time…”

And he’s right. The U.S. dollar has lost 96% of its value since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. Meanwhile the national debt has skyrocketed!

The dollar and debt are two sides of the same coin:

Source: Jim Rickards via Agora

That’s why many countries are relentlessly abandoning the dollar.

Typically most foreign governments invest their surplus or savings in U.S. financial assets.

Global trade is typically conducted in U.S. dollars, too.

The dollar is what’s called the “world’s reserve currency.”

As one Forbes columnist put it, “ There is a global currency. It’s called the ‘U.S. dollar.’”

But all of that is about to change if the dollar is not rebooted.

The dollar is getting dumped around the globe because of our debt, spending and money printing.

The total amount of “de-dollarization” is at least: $1.14 TRILLION…

But it’s not just the “de-dollarization” of the world that’s making this so urgent. You see, countries have not only stopped buying U.S. Treasuries… but they’re selling them at a record clip.

Bloomberg reports, “ America’s Biggest Creditors Dump Treasuries in Warning to Trump .”

The Economist says, “As America’s economic supremacy fades, the primacy of the dollar looks unsustainable.”

Trump to call global summit and take control

Rickards believes that the situation of dedollarization will get so bad that the US President will be forced to call a summit of world leaders and monetary authorities.

Using his stature as leader of the free world, he’ll bring the financial leaders of the globe together.

This would include delegates from the U.S., China, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, the UK and the International Monetary Fund.

Then, they’ll agree to simultaneously revalue all of their currencies against gold until the price reached $10,000 per ounce.

Will Trump really call a global summit? Who knows. His own team probably won’t know until he tweets about it.

But you should consider one element that Rickards mentions. Aside from a new monetary order, Trump is about to become the most powerful US president when it comes to looking after the US Dollar.

You see, there are seven total seats on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. That’s the group that makes our central bank’s decisions.

The president appoints each governor.

That means Trump could be able to appoint five governors in the coming months, including a chair and two vice chairs.

Trump will have six out of seven board seats in Republican hands.

In effect, Trump will own the Fed!

The Republicans will also have the White House…

And a majority in the House of Representatives and Senate…

Conservatives will soon be a majority on the Supreme Court, too.

And there are more Republican state legislatures and governors in the state mansions than at any time since Civil War reconstruction.

This means President Trump could have zero resistance to changing the debt-dollar system we have.

Whether Trump ‘owning’ the Fed means he would seek to upend the international monetary order is one thing. But, even if he doesn’t do that, investors would be wise to consider what impact a Trump-controlled Federal Reserve would have on the world.

Why $10,000 per ounce?

It’s the gold price Donald Trump will need to use to “reboot” the U.S. dollar and the world’s international monetary system.

This isn’t a far-fetched concept, by the way…

Since the world financial crisis in 2008, many of the world’s governments have been buying physical gold in record amounts.

In fact, according to a recent report by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), world central banks have been buying gold at a rate of 385 tons per year since the 2008 crisis.

Those are levels last seen when the world was on the gold standard pre-1971.

Why are they buying so much gold?

Because they know gold is going to be money again…

And the more gold they own, the more leverage they’ll have when Trump calls the world’s financial powers together to reform the monetary system at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

As with chat surrounding soon-to-be gold standard, calls for $10,000/oz gold (or more) are also not uncommon in precious metal spheres. Since I began in the gold industry I have been reading about the imminent rise of the gold price to $30,000 even $40,000.

In truth, I believe such outlandish predictions are damaging for the long-term reputation of the gold and silver investment community. Regardless of where you think the gold price and gold standard could head to, it is all relative to your own situation, your own portfolio and the currencies you buy it in.

At the same time, while gold at $10,000 per ounce seems outlandish now, it is not impossible and indeed the scale of the levels of debt in the U.S. and internationally make it quite possible. When gold was trading at $250/oz in 2002, a rise of more than seven times and gold at $1,900 seemed outlandish to most.

Whether or not you believe Trump will ever achieve a new gold standard in a currency reset, it is vital to consider the point that central banks have been net buyers of gold for some time. A lesson for all investors.

And the most important nugget to takeaway from pieces such as this is that governments are in a completely unsustainable, debt-laden position. The current state of the global economy is unprecedented. We are also in unknown times when it comes to technology, cyber threats and nuclear sabre rattling. Governments buying gold is sensible portfolio diversification.

Buying gold coins and bars a prudent way to hedge coming currency devaluations

Rickards, Stratfor and even us here at GoldCore cannot predict what will happen in terms of the gold price. What we do know is that gold has played a very important role throughout history – especially as a hedge against currency devaluation.

Currency devaluations are coming and currencies are set to fall in value against gold as they have done throughout history. The only question is how much fiat currencies will fall versus gold and silver.

History has taught us that governments rarely know what they are doing when it comes to financial and monetary planning. It has also taught us that when times are tough countries turn on one another and war becomes common. Trade wars lead to currency wars lead to real wars. We are seeing that today.

Investors and savers are wise to think small. They should consider their own form of gold standard and how they can protect themselves. Buying gold bars, gold eagles and silver eagles including monster boxes is a prudent way to hedge the real risk of global currency debasement today.

The extracts are taken from an article which originally appeared on Agora Financial.

Gold eagles can currently be acquired from GoldCore at record low premiums of 3%.
Please call to secure coins as this is a phone call offer only and not available online.

Gold and Silver Bullion – News and Commentary

Gold slips on stronger dollar; geopolitical risks support (Reuters.com)

Asian markets rebound, shrugging off North Korea tensions (Marketwatch.com)

Crude slips, gasoline jumps as storm shuts a fifth of U.S. fuel output (Reuters.com)

ICE to take over London silver benchmark on Sept. 25 (Reuters.com)

Wall Street insiders sell bank shares as Trump rally reverses (Irish Times)

Source: GoldCore

Gold to surge to $1,400 by early 2018 as rates stay low – BoA (Gulf News)

The Battle for India’s $45 Billion Gold Industry Has Begun (Bloomberg)

Stevenson-Yang Warns “China Is About To Hit A Wall” (Zerohedge)

U.S. may revalue gold if debt ceiling isn’t raised – Rickards  (Daily Reckoning)

Gold may assume traditional role as “risk mitigator” … Cryptocurrencies “vulnerable” – El-Erian (Bloomberg)

Gold Prices (LBMA AM)

30 Aug: USD 1,310.60, GBP 1,014.93 & EUR 1,096.71 per ounce
29 Aug: USD 1,323.40, GBP 1,020.34 & EUR 1,097.36 per ounce
25 Aug: USD 1,287.05, GBP 1,003.90 & EUR 1,090.90 per ounce
24 Aug: USD 1,285.90, GBP 1,003.26 & EUR 1,090.44 per ounce
23 Aug: USD 1,286.45, GBP 1,004.33 & EUR 1,091.68 per ounce
22 Aug: USD 1,285.10, GBP 1,000.71 & EUR 1,091.95 per ounce
21 Aug: USD 1,287.60, GBP 999.82 & EUR 1,096.52 per ounce

Silver Prices (LBMA)

30 Aug: USD 17.44, GBP 13.49 & EUR 14.60 per ounce
29 Aug: USD 17.60, GBP 13.59 & EUR 14.62 per ounce
25 Aug: USD 17.02, GBP 13.26 & EUR 14.40 per ounce
24 Aug: USD 16.93, GBP 13.20 & EUR 14.36 per ounce
23 Aug: USD 17.06, GBP 13.32 & EUR 14.48 per ounce
22 Aug: USD 17.02, GBP 13.27 & EUR 14.48 per ounce
21 Aug: USD 17.02, GBP 13.20 & EUR 14.48 per ounce

Recent Market Updates

– Gold Surges 2.6% After Jackson Hole and N. Korean Missile
– Diversify Into Gold On U.S. “Political Instability” Advise Blackrock
– Trump Presidency Is Over – Bannon Is Right
– The Truth About Bundesbank Repatriation of Gold From U.S.
– Cyberwar Risk – Was U.S. Navy Victim Of Hacking?
– Global Financial Crisis 10 Years On: Gold Rises 100% from $650 to $1,300
– Mnuchin: I Assume Fort Knox Gold Is Still There
– Buffett Sees Market Crash Coming? His Cash Speaks Louder Than Words
– Gold, Silver Consolidate On Last Weeks Gains, Palladium Surges 36% YTD To 16 Year High
– Must See Charts – Gold Hedges USD Devaluation, Rise in Oil, Food and Cost of Living Since Nixon Ended Gold Standard
– World’s Largest Hedge Fund Bridgewater Buys $68 Million of Gold ETF In Q2
– Diversify Into Gold Urges Dalio on Linkedin – “Militaristic Leaders Playing Chicken Risks Hellacious War”
– Gold Has Yet Another Purpose – Help Fight Cancer

Important Guides

For your perusal, below are our most popular guides in 2017:

Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Switzerland

Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore

Essential Guide to Tax Free Gold Sovereigns (UK)

Please share our research with family, friends and colleagues who you think would benefit from being informed by it.

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Authored by Michael Lebowitz via 720Global.com,

The amount of monetary stimulus increasingly imposed on the financial system creates false signals about the economy’s true growth rate, causing a vast misallocation of capital, impaired productivity and weakened economic activity.

To help quantify the amount of stimulus, please consider the graph below.

Data Courtesy: Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve (Fed) stimulus comes in two forms as shown above.

First in the form of targeting the Fed Funds interest rate at a rate below the nominal rate of economic growth (blue).

 

Second, it stems from the large scale asset purchases (Quantitative Easing -QE) by the Fed (orange).

When these two metrics are quantified, it yields an estimate of the average amount of stimulus (red) applied during each post-recession period since 1980.

It has been almost ten years since the 2008 financial crisis and the Fed is applying the equivalent of 5.25% of interest rate stimulus to the economy, dwarfing that of prior periods.

The graph highlights that the Fed has been increasingly aggressive in both the amount of stimulus employed as well as the amount of time that such stimulus remains outstanding.

Amazingly few investors seem to comprehend that despite the massive level of monetary stimulus, economic growth is trending well below recoveries of years past. Additionally, as witnessed by historically high valuations, the rise in the prices of many financial assets is not based on improving economic fundamentals but simply the stimulative effect that QE and low interest rates have on investor confidence and financial leverage.

Now consider the ramifications of a Fed that continues to increase the Fed Funds rate and moves forward with plans to slowly remove QE.

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In our preview this morning, we noted that it seemed odd that Trump’s tax speech had reportedly been drafted by White House aide Stephen Miller, the leader of the nationalist arm of the White House staff, as opposed to his Chief Economic Advisor Gary Cohn.

While notable because it indicated that Trump might return to his populist roots in his first tax reform cheerleading session, most didn’t ascribe any more value to the information than that. 

That is until Trump took the stage earlier this afternoon and thanked a litany of advisors for their help in crafting his tax policies but noticeably left out Gary Cohn.  As The Hill notes, Trump gave credit to everyone from Mnuchin to Linda McMahon and host of local Missouri politicians but seemingly snubbed Cohn.

As Trump took the stage in Springfield, Mo., to kick off his tax reform push, he welcomed his administration’s major players in the debate who joined him at the event but failed to mention Cohn, who was also there.

 

Trump specifically named Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon, who flew with the president to the event.

 

Trump went on to name the long list of Missouri lawmakers who sat in the crowd, joking at one point that he debated whether to name them all because “I have so many.”

 

Of course, this could mean absolutely nothing, or it could mean that there was more to the rumors that surfaced over the weekend and last week about rising tensions between Cohn and Trump.

Over the weekend, Axios noted rising tensions over tariffs and a continued power struggle between Trump and the “globalists” in the White House who continued to resist the President’s controversial economic agenda in the absence of Steve Bannon.

“John, you haven’t been in a trade discussion before, so I want to share with you my views. For the last six months, this same group of geniuses comes in here all the time and I tell them…

 

‘Tariffs. I want tariffs.’ And what do they do? They bring me IP. I can’t put a tariff on IP.“

 

“China is laughing at us,… Laughing.”

 

“John, I want you to know, this is my view. I want tariffs. And I want someone to bring me some tariffs.“

 

“John, let me tell you why they didn’t bring me any tariffs,” he said.

 

“I know there are some people in the room right now that are upset. I know there are some globalists in the room right now. And they don’t want them, John, they don’t want the tariffs. But I’m telling you, I want tariffs.”

Meanwhile, this latest sign of a ‘stressed’ relationship also comes after Cohn expressed some concerns to the FT over how Trump handled the Charottesville tragedy.  The interview resulted in immediate speculation that Cohn’s resignation was imminent.  Here was our take from last week:

As discussed earlier, in an unexpectedly harsh response to Trump’s Charlottesville comments, Trump’s top economic adviser Gary Cohn said in an FT interview published this morning that the administration needs to be more unequivocal in condemning hate groups, but added he was “reluctant” to quit over its response to a recent protest.’

 

“I believe this administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups and do everything we can to heal the deep divisions that exist in our communities,” Cohn told the FT in his first public comments since the controversy.

 

Cohn said that as a “patriotic American” he did not want to leave his job as the director of the national economic council. “But I also feel compelled to voice my distress over the events of the last two weeks.” He added that “Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the K.K.K.,” Mr. Cohn said. “I believe this administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups and do everything we can to heal the deep divisions that exist in our communities.”

 

Cohn added, “As a Jewish American, I will not allow neo-Nazis ranting ‘Jews will not replace us’ to cause this Jew to leave his job” and said that Trump’s administration said that the White House “can and must do better” in consistently condemning hate groups. Cohn’s remarks were in stark contrast to a statement from the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, who defended the president. Mnuchin is also Jewish, and is also a former Goldman employee.

Then again, maybe it’s just all a big misunderstanding….

Re: Gary, WH spox emails to note that staff is typically not called out in prepared remarks, only Cabinet members. So not intentional slight

— Eamon Javers (@EamonJavers) August 30, 2017

 

What say you?  Media attempt to “criminalize behavior that is normal”…or is Yellen safe in her Fed seat for just a little longer?

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