The money masters at the Federal Reserve have done a splendid job, haven’t they? Well, no, and all the more reason to End the Fed, in the legendary slogan of Ron Paul.
Every few months since the great meltdown of 2008, there’s been some announcement that appears in the financial press about the latest fancy-pants m... (more)
Who ever imagined that Ben Bernanke would become a poster child for the student loan debt problem in America? Recently Bernanke told Congress that his son will graduate from medical school with about $400,000 of student loan debt. For most Americans, such a staggering amount of debt would almost certainly guarantee a lifetime of debt slavery. Unfortunately, Bernanke's son is not al... (more)
Late last month, Bloomberg reported that British Petroleum continues to experience substantial growth in the amount of money it receives from the Pentagon for its oil services. From 2010 to 2011, Pentagon contracts with BP increased by one-third from about 1 billion to 1.35 billion.
This was presented by some in the media as a scandal, since presumably, BP... (more)
Being a billionaire isn't such an exclusive group anymore. Back in 1998, there were reportedly 230 billionaires worldwide. Now, according to Forbes magazine, the number has grown to 1,226. The United States still has the most with 425, but now 58 countries have billionaires. Russia and China have nearly 100 each.
Nobody seems too excited about billionaires, likely because a billion is an unimaginable number--a thousand million. There was once a time when being a millionaire... (more)
The gold doomsayers have found their champion in the media's favorite financial advisor and one of the world's richest men. Warren Buffett, the man dubbed the "Oracle of Omaha," has repeatedly and publicly denied that gold is an investment, and called gold buyers "speculators" and people "who fear almost all other assets." In fact, Buffett claims that gold's rise has the same characteristics as the housing and dot-com bubbles, and it is only a matter of time before it reverses course. ... (more)
The Obama Administration's green energy development program, which has leveraged billions of taxpayer dollars into high-risk green energy startups, is rapidly turning out to be one of the biggest financial scams on the American people in recent history. A new investigative report by ABC News has revealed that many of the now-bankrupt green energy companies that received massive taxpayer-funded loan infusions from the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded huge cash bonuses to their exe... (more)
The U.S. government last year announced a $10 million award, dubbed the “L Prize,” for any manufacturer that could create a “green” but affordable light bulb.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the prize would spur industry to offer the costly bulbs, known as LEDs, at prices “affordable for American families.” There was also a “Buy America” component. Portions of the bulb would have to be made in the United States.
... (more)
In its history, America has experienced two major periods of drug prohibition. This first was the Federal alcohol prohibition from 1920-1933. The second is the current war on drugs, which began in 1971.
According to Prof. Angela Dills, during these periods of prohibition in America, both homicide rates and police enforcement costs increased. This makes s... (more)
Robert Rubin, who as U.S. Treasury secretary in the 1990s promoted a stronger dollar, said he has too much of his personal investments in the currency.
A “disproportionate amount” of his assets are in cash and he “should be more allocated away from the dollar,” Rubin, 73, said yesterday in a speech at the TradeTech conference in New York. He said he also was “greatly overweighted” in private equity and had investments in hedge funds.
The communist revolutions in the 20th century sought to nationalize the wealth generated by privately held industries back to the “exploited” workers on whose backs the profits were supposedly derived. America has made the rejection of this idea and its support of free market principles the centerpiece of its economic narrative. However, as a result of our current and proposed tax policies towards corporate shareholders, our government collects a portion of industrial output that would inspire e... (more)
With more than 40 years as an economist to his credit and claiming gold as the "biggest position in my life," Gloom Boom & Doom Report Publisher Marc Faber assures us that gold is nowhere near a bubble phase, but cautions that corrections of 40% are not unusual in a bull market. At the end of March, Faber will share his secrets for surviving corrections at the World MoneyShow in Vancouver. In advance of that appearance, he sat down with The Gold Report for this exclusi... (more)
Marc Faber, the publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, is typically optimistic on equities as an asset class.
However, Faber told CNBC that he expects a correction in global stocks in the near term:
“Markets are overbought, technically they have deteriorated, and we have very heavy insider selling, so I think a correction is coming. ...I don’t think (investors) should be shooting for huge gains, but rather for pres... (more)
Corporate profits that doubled since 2009 have left the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index cheaper than at all 34 peaks since 1989, even as options traders push the cost of protecting against losses to the highest in four years.
Companies in the benchmark gauge of U.S. stocks trade for 14.1 times earnings after advancing 102 percent since March 2009 to an almost four-year high last week, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Valuations are lower than at every 52-week peak since 1989. Traders ... (more)
Perhaps this is a signal people are not buying into the easy money induced high. - Chris
The Obama administration will extend mortgage assistance for the first time to investors who bought multiple homes before the market imploded, helping some speculators who drove up prices and inflated the housing bubble.
Landlords can qualify for up to four federally-subsidized loan workouts starting around May, as long as they rent out each house or have plans to fill them, under the revamped Home Affordable Modification Program, also known as HAMP, according to Timothy Massad, t... (more)
If you want to get paid for doing something stupid, just turn to the U.S. government. The U.S. government is paying researchers to play video games, it is paying researchers to study the effects of cocaine on Japanese quail and it has spent millions of dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly. The amount of money that the government wastes is absolutely horrifying. Do you remember all of that political wrangling over the debt ceiling deal last year? Do you remember how our p... (more)
After being cited in a Bloomberg article about the impact of falling Wall Street bonuses, Andrew Schiff is feeling the heat from Americans outraged that someone (anyone) who makes $350,000 a year could complain about their lot in life. The story has gone viral, sparked a boatload of copycat pieces and blogs, most of them highly critical of Schiff, who says he's receiv... (more)
Peter Schiff's brother is being vilified because he dared to complain about the skyrocketing cost of living in the US.
