Stocks & Equities

TORONTO, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Canada’s main stock index opened higher after Federal Reserve head nominee Janet Yellen’s indication of support for the U.S. central bank’s monetary stimulus program… … full article

NEW YORK, Nov 14 (Reuters) – U.S. stocks opened little changed on Thursday ahead of a congressional hearing on the nomination of Janet Yellen as Federal Reserve chair, while a slide in Cisco shares… … full article

YELLEN TO CRUSH THE MIDDLE CLASS

Posted by Simon Black - Sovereign Man

on Thursday, 14 November 2013 15:22

rich-poorIt’s a big club…. and you ain’t in it.”

— George Carlin

It must be a byproduct of the government-controlled education system; people still think they live in a free country with a representative democracy. It’s anything but.

Voting, elections, etc. are all just illusions to make people think that they have some influence in society.

A tiny elite orchestrates the whole system. And one of the most influential conductors is the Federal Reserve, a body soon to be chaired by Janet Yellen. Her confirmation process begins today.

Since most people have no idea how central banking really works, her confirmation hearing today is just a footnote.

Even people who are otherwise financially sophisticated simply trust that the men behind the curtain know what they’re doing.

This is quite strange when you consider that central bankers have nearly total control over the economy.

In their sole discretion, they are able to set interest rates, conjure money out of thin air, finance trillion-dollar government deficits, bail out commercial banks, etc.

And through these tools, they have the power to manipulate the prices of just about anything, from the Google stock to real estate in Thailand to turnips in Sri Lanka.

For the last several years, the US central bank has set the example for the rest of the world in aggressively using their policy tools.

Most significantly, they have unabashedly printed money in unprecedented quantities. And this has not been without consequence.

For some, the effects have been beneficial.

Rapid expansion of the money supply has pushed asset prices up all over the world. Stocks. Bonds. Many commodities. US Farmland. Artwork. Fine wines. Just about every asset class imaginable is near its all-time high.

People who are already wealthy have the available funds to invest in these markets. So their wealth has grown even more– exponentially.

The middle class, on the other hand, is experiencing an entirely different effect of money printing– retail price inflation.

And anyone who has been to a gas station, airport, university, doctor’s office, grocery store, etc. over the last few years understands this phenomenon very well.

A typical middle class family has little excess cash to invest after paying for rapidly increasing living expenses. Food. Fuel. Mortgage. Insurance. Etc.

And whatever wages or savings they have are being eaten away by inflation. So while the wealthy are getting wealthier exponentially, the middle class is actually getting poorer.

This explains why the wealth gap in the Land of the Free is the largest since 1929 at the start of the Great Depression.

Central bankers are responsible for much of this. In conjuring money out of thin air, they are benefitting one segment of society at the expense of another.

And with Janet Yellen soon chairing the Fed, very little will change.

Yellen has made it clear that she will continue to print unlimited quantities of money despite overwhelming data that such actions are ineffective and destructive for the the majority of the population.

Kyle Reese from the first Terminator movie sums up the consequences for the middle class rather succinctly:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu0rP2VWLWw

 

Until tomorrow, 
Signature 
Simon Black 
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com
 
About Simon Black

I’m an international investor, entrepreneur, permanent traveler, free man. Thisfree daily e-letter is about using the experiences from my life and travels to help you achieve more freedom.

Over the last few years I’ve traveled to over 100 countries, met with a President and several diplomats, briefed sovereign fund managers, flown an aerobatic stunt plane, started several companies, hitchhiked in Bogota, taken a train across the orient, lectured on entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe, and personally provided venture capital to new start-ups.

I’m a student of the world, and I believe that travel is the greatest teacher. My knowledge is practical, and hopefully of significant use to you. Off the top of my head I could quote you the price of beachfront property in Croatia, where to bank in Dubai, the best place to store gold in Singapore, which cities in Mexico are the safest, which hospitals in Asia are the most cost effective, and how to find condo foreclosure listings in Panama.

I believe that in order to achieve true freedom, you have to be able to make money, control your time, and eliminate the mindset that you are subject to a corrupt government that is bent on degrading your personal liberty.

GATA’s Powell On Gold Manipulation & How 90% of the Worlds Investment Gold May Not Exist

Secretary/treasurer of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee talks gold price manipulation.

Chris Powell is one of the founding members and secretary/treasurer of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA). He has also been a managing editor of the Journal Inquirer, a daily newspaper in Manchester, Conn., since 1974. HAI Managing Editor Sumit Roy recently spoke with Powell about his organization and the topic of price manipulation in the gold and silver markets.

HardAssetsInvestor:Would you briefly tell us about your organization, the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA)? Why was it formed and what does it hope to accomplish?

Chris Powell: GATA was incorporated in January 1999 to expose, oppose and litigate against manipulation of the gold market. It has documented that manipulation and shown that it is mainly a matter of longstanding Western central bank policy conducted largely in secret. 

The documentation GATA has compiled can be found here. 

A recent summary of that documentation, along with an explanation and history of the gold price suppression scheme, can be found here.

For some reason, critics of GATA and others who dismiss complaints of gold market manipulation, like CPM Group’s Jeffrey Christian, recently interviewed by HardAssetsInvestor, never address any of this documentation piece by piece. Is a document forged? Is it misconstrued? Why won’t they say?

HAI: I’ve been hearing the name Andrew Maguire a lot whenever the topic of gold manipulation comes up. What is his relevance to all this?

Powell: Maguire is a metals trader in London who complained independently and through GATA of manipulation of the monetary metals markets in London.

HAI: Who is manipulating gold and silver prices, and how are they doing it?

Powell: The manipulation is done largely by or at the behest of Western central banks, operating through the Bank for International Settlements and major investment banks. The futures market is a primary mechanism of price suppression

HAI: How long can this continue?

Powell: Until the financial news media start doing their job and investors wise up. The system’s end is a question of education and publicity, a question of whether central banks that are not part of the gold price suppression scheme and investors alike will ever realize that as much as 90 percent of the world’s investment gold—supposedly being held in trust for its owners—may not exist. If there is ever such a realization and delivery is demanded, gold will rise to multiples of its current price.

HAI: What do you think the impact on prices has been? Does GATA have any price targets?

Powell: The gold price suppression scheme has created a fractional-reserve gold banking system in which only a small fraction of the gold investors think they own actually exists. The impact on prices is enormous.

I try not to make price predictions. But it’s likely that if the world realized that much of the investment gold it thought it owned doesn’t exist, the price would be much higher.

HAI: What should an investor do in this environment? Should they buy gold and silver?

Powell: GATA is not an investment advisor. But GATA can say that investors who buy gold and silver should make sure that they really own the metal by removing it from the banking system and taking direct possession of it.

AGRI-FOOD – SECURE & ALWAYS NEEDED

Posted by Ned W. Schmidt - Ahead of the Herd

on Thursday, 14 November 2013 11:47

Grow It, and They Will Eat It. 

“Build it, and they will come” has been the motivation for many dreams. Baseball fields, restaurants, and other follies have sprouted from belief in this concept. Much of the real estate industry of times now past lived by this philosophy. That worked until they did not come, and then the bankers came for the remains.

In Agri-Food we have a similar motto: Grow it, and they will east it. We worry little about relying on such a belief, for people eating is, unlike baseball, not optional. That the world will eat it if it is grown can be observed in the following chart.

2013-10-28-ole

Note on chart: USDA works in crop years, not calendar years. At present we are in crop year 2014. That year runs from September 2013 through the end of August 2014. The current Northern Hemisphere harvest in process, which includes that now concluding in the U.S., is part of the data point for 2014 in the graph.

Plotted in the chart is percentage of the world’s total grain production that is consumed. That ratio is expressed as a percentage, and uses the right vertical axis. A solid black line highlights the 100% level which means that all of the world’s grain production is being consumed.

In the first three years plotted in the graph the world’s consumption of total grains produced averaged more than 100%. Essentially, over that period the world consumed all the grains produced plus some of that which had been stored from previous years. The value for 2013, the highest in the chart, is due in part to the drought which dramatically reduced U.S. grain production in the Fall of 2012.

…read more HERE