Wednesday, February 17, 2016
U.S. Presidential Campaign Slogans and Make Believe - ranking the best and the worst / ElectionOracle / US Presidential Election 2016
It is common understanding that the phrase "seeing is believing" means "I won't believe something until I see it." I won't believe that ghosts or UFOs exist until I actually see one and only then if I've exhausted all other possible explanations.
When the adage "seeing is believing" is turned upside down, i.e., "believing is seeing". It means we often project onto an object, person or event a preconceived notion rather than see it for what it is.
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Wednesday, February 17, 2016
U.S. Banks Ready for Negative Interest Rates? / Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2016
The test run proved that negative interest rates can push savers into minus territory. Public outrage, while registered is not heard by the central bankers. The reasoning that commercial banks will start making loans because of the cost of sitting on deposits is pure fantasy thinking. As the article, Low Interest Rates Impoverish Savers shows,
“How long will people accept this thief? The options to parking cash in hand with a FDIC insured institution seems worth an examination. However, few alternatives for working class savers exist. Surely, this occurrence is intentional because the real objective of the "New Normal" is to bankrupt Middle America. What other conclusion makes sense?”
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Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Gold Knocked for a Loop / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
This looks to me more like an overreaction to the down side in gold based off a sort of mini-panic out of the safe haven trades.
From a fundamental standpoint, nothing has changed in regards to the concerns about negative interest rates nor the chaotic nature of the forex markets. While today’s move in gold certainly was certainly unsettling, it should be kept in mind that this market has rallied nearly straight up since January 14 putting on almost $190 in a month. That is one impressive rally!
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Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Very Solid Stock Market Session and Nice Start to the Week / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
The stock market indices started off the week with a bang. They ran hard all day, with a huge gap down early morning, bounced, consolidated late afternoon, and then came on again right at the close to finish at the highs for the day. It couldn't be a better day.
Net on the day, the Dow was up 222.57 at 16,196.41, at the tick high for the day. The S&P 500 was up 30.80 to 1895.58, within pennies of its high. The Nasdaq 100 was up 85.14 to 4104.33, also at the tick high for the day.
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Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Did the Dow Just Prove Goldbugs Right? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
When celebrity investor Mark Cuban announces to the world that he is investing in gold, is that a sign that the ride up is just getting going, or that it has already peaked? The Gold Report reached out to long-time experts in the sector for a better understanding of what is moving the markets—negative interest rates, a topping dollar, Fed testimony, increased gold buying in China—and what that means for junior mining stocks in the coming months.
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Wednesday, February 17, 2016
BrExit - Visegrad Conspiracy, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Refuse to give up Migrant Benefit Payments from Britain / ElectionOracle / EU_Referendum
With single mindedness or madness the Visegrad conspirator nations of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic have refused to play along with the smoke and mirrors illusion that the European Commission has been constructing for David Cameron to hoodwink the British public into voting to remain within the EU. Instead all four conspirator nations are refusing to give up a single £1 in benefits payments from British tax payers to their citizens by flatly refusing any curb in child benefit payments claimed for several million children who reside in their home nations to the determent of British children in terms of a lower payout rate and tapering of child benefit than would otherwise be the case given an estimated 1/3rd of the budget is being siphoned off into eastern europe.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
The 2016 Financial Market Meltdown and The Golden Age / Stock-Markets / Financial Crisis 2016
The majority of the world’s stock indices topped out this month on Monday, February 1st, 2016 after a strong oversold technical bounce in price. Several indexes are now in the process of their first re-test of those multi-month lows which should act as support.
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My belief is that the FED will abandon its plan to raise short-term rates in March 2016, given the “economic global contraction” in economic data including the Baltic Dry Index and troubled banking systems in the European Union.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Has Chicago Reached Debt Boiling Point? / Interest-Rates / US Debt
In the 1890s Charles Dana, editor of the New York Sun, referred to Chicago as the “Windy City.” Chicago was one of many cities competing to host the World’s Fair, and clearly the writer intended the double entendre to apply to the city’s weather as well as its mouthy politicians.When it comes to Chicago’s weather, anyone who has visited “Chi-town” (as the city is known in CB-lingo) can attest to the screaming wind off of Lake Michigan. It howls for what seems like days at 40 mph, carrying with it sub-zero temperature in the winter.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Inflation Doesn't Come From Seasonally Adjusted Employment / Economics / Inflation
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 151k, 000 net new jobs created in the month of January, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.9%. The continuing increase in new job creation and removal of slack in the labor market is causing the Phillips-curve-obsessed Fed to maintain a tightening stance on monetary policy.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Gold Price Breaking Out or Just Another Letdown / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2016
From top to bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find ultimate foothold. Nothing can calm it, since its goal is far beyond all it can attain. Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.
Emile Durkheim
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Why Negative Interest Rates Will Fail / Interest-Rates / Financial Crisis 2016
It is now just a matter of time before the US central bank follows the central banks of Japan, the EU, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland in setting negative rates on reserve deposits.
The goal of such rates is to force banks to lend their excess reserves. The assumption is that such lending will boost aggregate demand and help struggling economies recover. Using the same central bank logic as in 2008, the solution to a debt problem is to add on more debt. Yet, there is an old adage: you can bring a horse to water but you cannot make him drink! With the world economy sinking into recession, few banks have credit-worthy customers and many banks are having difficulties collecting on existing loans.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
SPX Rolling Over / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
SPX went on a low volume ramp over the extended weekend, topping out near 1895.00, the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level at midnight. Since then it has eased down near Short-term resistance at 1884.20. Today is a double Pivot Day in the Cycles Model, suggesting a strong reversal may be happening.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Euro Bond Crisis Returns As Germany Pushes Euro Sovereign Debt Bail-in Clause / Stock-Markets / Eurozone Debt Crisis
European Banks holding European sovereign debt may have to take haircuts and be part of bail in plans should that same debt default, according to a plan being pursued by German government advisers. In another attempt to shelter German tax payers from the largess and excess of fellow European neighbouring countries’ national banks, the move could trigger a run on billions of euro of sovereign debt of said banks. In an article penned by the Telegraph’s Ambrose-Evans Pritchard, one of the council’s dissenting members describes the plan as the “fastest way to break up the Eurozone”.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Latest Declines Suggest Stock Market Buying Opportunities / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
For most of this year, stock markets around the world have been under pressure as the majority of investors are starting to take profits and prepare for the inevitable tightening cycle that is now expected for global interest rates. Of course, increases in interest rates will take some time to actually filter through the market but an ounce of expectation is worth a pound of action in the financial markets -- and this is why stock prices are currently falling through important psychological support levels.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
EU President Tells David Cameron to Get Stuffed on Migrant Benefits Reforms / Politics / EU_Referendum
The un elected President of the European Parliament, warned David Cameron that even the heavily watered down agreement due to be announced by the end of this week would not be legally binding and subject to debate and revision by MEP members AFTER the UK votes to stay in the European Union, members who will be guided by their respective UK benefits recipient governments such as Poland, Hungary, and a dozen other eastern european UK benefits claiming states.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Steve Hanke On Hyperinflation Hype / Economics / HyperInflation
The Great Recession of 2008-09 brought with it quantitative easing. This, in turn, spawned a cottage industry of books, articles and blog posts about hyperinflation. The burgeoning literature contains a great deal of hype, which validates the 95% Rule: 95% of what is written about economics and finance is either wrong or irrelevant.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
The Phantom Free Syrian Army Moderate Rebels / Politics / Syria
So-called Free Syrian Army moderates exist only in US-led Western and media scoundrel propaganda reports - along with deliberate deception from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other regional rogue states.
No such forces exist. All anti-Syrian elements are US-created terrorist groups, including ISIS, Al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra and their offshoots.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Stocks Dive as Confidence in Fed Fades / Stock-Markets / Stock Markets 2016
“Investors are losing confidence in central bank policies. (They) have done all they can do, and these policies may not improve economic growth or may not support financial markets.” — Anthony Valeri, investment strategist at LPL Financial
Zero rates and QE have stopped working and that has investors worried. Very worried.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Savers Brace for More Savings Interest Rate Cuts / Personal_Finance / Savings Accounts
Data from Moneyfacts.co.uk can reveal that rate reductions in the savings market have now outweighed rate rises for four consecutive months, the first time this has happened since daily rate change monitoring began.*
In January, Moneyfacts recorded just 21 savings rate rises, with only one deal posting a significant increase of 0.20%. Disappointingly, rate reductions over the same period completely eclipsed this figure, with the number of rate decreases over the month standing at a staggering 138, with some deals falling by as much as 0.75%.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Creditors: What’s Behind Their Interest in Investing in Your Debt? / Personal_Finance / Debt & Loans
According to some definitions, debts are financial obligations defined by law, that must be repaid to a creditor or lender who have invested certain amount of money and have decide to take a risk by borrowing money. In other words, they were fully aware that the loan taker might not be able to pay off the debt. But, it is an interesting fact that even though there is great risk involved in this activity and there are many people who fail to repay the money, the number of lenders and creditors is growing. So, why is this happening?Read full article... Read full article...