The Only Two Charts That Matter For The Fed

Here are the only two charts that matter:

First, the Fed now owns a third or 32.47% of all 10 Year equivalents, up 32.22% from the prior week, and rising at a pace of 0.3% per week.

 

Second, the Fed is now monetizing a record 70% of all net US 10 Year equivalent issuance.

 

That is all.

Source: Stone McCarthy and RBS


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/EqvtxoYWPjo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Ohio Governor Delays Man’s Execution over Prospect of Organ Donations

Ronald PhillpsRonald Phillips was supposed to
die today in Ohio, sentenced to be executed for raping and killing
a 3-year-old girl. He made an unexpected last-minute request: to

donate his organs
after execution. His attorney said in a
letter that it wasn’t a delaying tactic but an attempt to “do a
charitable act,” reported the Associated Press. Phillips’ own
mother could be a potential beneficiary of such charity. She is on
dialysis for kidney disease.

Prison officials initially rejected the request because it was
made so late they couldn’t accommodate him. But Ohio Gov. John
Kasich announced that the state will delay the execution until July
in order to determine if organ donation is a possibility. The
Columbus Dispatch

reported
:

Kasich’s action is unprecedented in the nation in the case of an
imminent execution, a death-penalty expert said.

The Republican governor said he halted Phillips’ execution “so
that medical experts can assess whether Phillips’ nonvital organs
or tissues can be donated to his mother or possibly others.”

“Ronald Phillips committed a heinous crime for which he will
face the death penalty,” Kasich said in a statement less than 18
hours before the condemned man was to be lethally injected using
two drugs never before used in combination. “I realize this is a
bit of uncharted territory for Ohio, but if another life can be
saved by his willingness to donate his organs and tissues, then we
should allow for that to happen.”

The governor said if Phillips “is found to be a viable donor to
his mother or possibly others awaiting transplants of nonvital
organs, such as kidneys, the procedures would be performed and then
he would be returned to Death Row to await his new execution
date.”

A commenter at the Dispatch noted the connection
between what may happen to Phillips and the “Known Space” sci-fi
works of author Larry Niven, where the Earth’s government used
condemned criminals for organ replacements, ultimately leading to a
repressive society where every crime was made a capital crime (for
the sake of my future as a presidential candidate, I haven’t read
these works myself and am taking the explanation from Wikipedia).

Fortunately, given where real science is actually heading with

bioengineering and 3D-printing new body parts
, we won’t likely
be descending into Niven’s scenario.

More Reason on organ donations, and the restrictive regulations
that result in a governor hoping to get a condemned man’s kidneys,
here.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/14/ohio-governor-delays-mans-execution-over
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Yellen Timestamp: "No Bubble"

For the benefit of the revisionist media (if there is any media left) once the final asset bubble has popped in a few years time, and which like now will try – incorrectly – to make Yellen appear Oracular in her prophetic “bubble warnings”, we would just like to “timestamp” what she just said:

  • YELLEN SAYS FED DOESN’T SEE BUILDUP OF FINANCIAL RISKS
  • YELLEN SEES LIMITED EVIDENCE OF ‘REACH FOR YIELD’
  • YELLEN SAYS FED LOOKS OUT FOR ANY POTENTIAL ASSET PRICE BUBBLES
  • YELLEN DOESN’T SEE `MISALIGNMENTS’ IN ASSET PRICES

So there you have it: No risks, no bubbles, and on the record. Thank you Mr. Chairwoman. And now, you may continue BTFATH.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/NtSwqL7ZruQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Yellen Timestamp: “No Bubble”

For the benefit of the revisionist media (if there is any media left) once the final asset bubble has popped in a few years time, and which like now will try – incorrectly – to make Yellen appear Oracular in her prophetic “bubble warnings”, we would just like to “timestamp” what she just said:

  • YELLEN SAYS FED DOESN’T SEE BUILDUP OF FINANCIAL RISKS
  • YELLEN SEES LIMITED EVIDENCE OF ‘REACH FOR YIELD’
  • YELLEN SAYS FED LOOKS OUT FOR ANY POTENTIAL ASSET PRICE BUBBLES
  • YELLEN DOESN’T SEE `MISALIGNMENTS’ IN ASSET PRICES

So there you have it: No risks, no bubbles, and on the record. Thank you Mr. Chairwoman. And now, you may continue BTFATH.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/NtSwqL7ZruQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Gold Spikes As QEeen Yellen Mentions Fed's Tools (Then Slides As She Warns "QE Can't Go On Forever")

UPDATE: Gold is slipping back as Yellen notes:

  • *YELLEN SAYS QE `CANNOT CONTINUE FOREVER’
  • *YELLEN SAYS FED TAKES RISKS OF QE `VERY SERIOUSLY’

 

Yesterday was equity markets turn to get all exuberant over Yellen’s promises. Today, it is the reality that she will do whatever it takes and her mention of data-dependence and ongoing use of Fed tools that is sending gold (and silver) higher.

 


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/wGJw4uHHADs/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Gold Spikes As QEeen Yellen Mentions Fed’s Tools (Then Slides As She Warns “QE Can’t Go On Forever”)

UPDATE: Gold is slipping back as Yellen notes:

  • *YELLEN SAYS QE `CANNOT CONTINUE FOREVER’
  • *YELLEN SAYS FED TAKES RISKS OF QE `VERY SERIOUSLY’

 

Yesterday was equity markets turn to get all exuberant over Yellen’s promises. Today, it is the reality that she will do whatever it takes and her mention of data-dependence and ongoing use of Fed tools that is sending gold (and silver) higher.

 


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/wGJw4uHHADs/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Talking Real Money: World Monetary Reform

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,283.25, EUR 955.23 and GBP 801.53 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,276.00, EUR 951.25 and GBP 798.75 per ounce.

Gold rose $4.40 or 0.35% yesterday, closing at $1,273.30/oz. Silver slipped $0.19 or 0.92% closing at $20.56. Platinum fell $5.55 or 0.4% to $1,424.20/oz, while palladium fell $9.50 or 1.3% to $727.97/oz.

Gold inched up again after Federal Reserve Chairman nominee Janet Yellen said the U.S. economy and labor market must improve before QE is reduced. This lifted confidence as silver prices recovered from their lowest levels since August. “The focus for the bullion market may shift to the upcoming testimony by Yellen,” James Steel, an analyst at HSBC, commented. “Chinese gold demand remains brisk. However, gold is likely to remain on the defensive in the near term”, wrote Steel.

The latest long term gold trend research from Nick Laird at ShareLynx indicates that the price of gold may rise in the near future. In the chart below, Nick references those periods from the past when it was prudent  to buy and to sell. He also indicates that this particular period, November 2013, may be a prudent time to to buy. This chart reaffirms GoldCore’s long term outlook for the price of gold.


Long Term Gold Trend (www.sharelynx.com)

“Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean.” Bob Dylan

The Bank of England says the UK recovery has taken hold and Chancellor George Osborne is reported as saying “the report was proof the government’s economic plan was working.” The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said the bank will not ‘consider’ raising interest rates until the jobless figure falls below 7%.

However, The Bank of England threw a get-out-of-jail card on the table and said that there was a two-in-five chance of the unemployment rate reaching the 7% threshold by the end of 2014. And then added that the corresponding figures for the end of 2015 and 2016 are around three in five and two in three respectively. What exactly does the Bank of England mean or what does this not mean?

The financial crisis of 2007-2008 has sparked the most intense interest in international monetary reform since Richard Nixon closed the gold window at the New York Fed and devalued the U.S. dollar in 1971. Nixon’s action was widely seen at the time as presaging the end of the dollar-based world trade and financial system. On the face of it, this probably wasn’t an unreasonable expectation at the time. Within fewer than ten years, however, it was proven to be far off the mark. The dollar fell alright, but by the middle 1980s had recovered strongly.

In retrospect it is clear why the dollar sceptics were wrong. To begin with, the U.S. economy was still the world’s largest and the U.S. was still the leader of the “free world,” that is to say the world outside the communist bloc. The NATO countries of Western Europe were wholly dependent on the U.S. for security as well as for markets.

The same applied to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, while the signatories of the secret UK/USA intelligence agreement (the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) represented the Anglo core of the old British Empire, a group with no interest in seeing the dollar replaced. Communist Russia and China were in no position to register an opinion, much less offer an alternative. By default, the dollar soldiered on, thanks to the geopolitical realities of the time.

But what about today’s realities? Continue this fascinating story in our November edition of Insight – Talking real money: World Monetary Reform.

Click here to download your own copy of Talking real money: World Monetary Reform

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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/nkU5IH8gGv0/story01.htm GoldCore

TSA Blows Cash on Unproven Terrorist-Detection Scheme, Says Government Report

Fortune tellerTransportation Security
Administration agents aren’t so good as they might claim at honing
their spidey senses to detect would-de doers of evil deeds. And
they’re persistently not good, expending time and
money—lots of money—on a behavioral indicators program that has
never shown much promise for heading off terrorists. That’s the
word from just the latest Government Accountability Office report
to give a big bronx cheer to the Screening of Passengers by
Observation Techniques (SPOT) program, which the TSA has pursued in
the total absence of any promising evidence of success, or even of
a decent plan for gathering such evidence, in its quest for a
magical way to do its job. Just stop, says the GAO.

In TSA
Should Limit Future Funding for Behavior Detection
Activities
(PDF), the authors write:

Available evidence does not support whether behavioral
indicators, which are used in the Transportation Security
Administration’s (TSA) Screening of Passengers by Observation
Techniques (SPOT) program, can be used to identify persons who may
pose a risk to aviation security. GAO reviewed four meta-analyses
(reviews that analyze other studies and synthesize their findings)
that included over 400 studies from the past 60 years and found
that the human ability to accurately identify deceptive behavior
based on behavioral indicators is the same as or slightly better
than chance. Further, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS)
April 2011 study conducted to validate SPOT’s behavioral indicators
did not demonstrate their effectiveness because of study
limitations, including the use of unreliable data.

Translation: Not only has the TSA offered no evidence that this
approach works, nobody has ever found any support for the
idea.

So, what should the folks tasked with poking and prodding us at
the nation’s airports, all for our own good, we’re told, do?

Until TSA can provide scientifically validated evidence
demonstrating that behavioral indicators can be used to identify
passengers who may pose a threat to aviation security, the agency
risks funding activities that have not been determined to be
effective.

That’s sad news for the roughly 3,000 behavior detection
officers the TSA deploys at airports around the United States to
engage in what the GAO concludes is essentially voodoo. That’s
voodoo at an annual cost of about $200 million, and a cost to date
of $900 million since 2007.

Note that this is not the first time the GAO has called out the
TSA for putting lots of resources into unproven behavior detection
schemes. Reports in
2010 and 2012
also slammed the uniformed crotch-fondlers for
deploying SPOT “without first validating the scientific basis for
identifying suspicious passengers in an airport environment.”

The earlier GAO reports also took the TSA to task for not
investigating the reliability of other programs, such as biometric
identification cards for controlling access to sensitive port
facilities, and for purchasing expensive equipment and then leaving
it to gather dust.

But the TSA has mastered sullen groping, as we all
know.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/14/tsa-blows-cash-on-failed-terrorist-detec
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