Month: November 2016

A Tale Of Two Economies: Singapore And Cuba

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By Frank Holmes – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com

On Friday November 25, Fidel Castro died at age 90. The former revolutionary and hardline dictator of Cuba was among the 20th century’s longest-serving leaders, third only to Elizabeth II and Bhumibol Adulyadej, the King of Thailand, who passed away in October.

Castro’s death comes at a pivotal moment in US-Cuban relations. With trade between the two countries on the path to normalization, and with US airlines making scheduled flights to Havana for the first time in more than 50 years, President-elect Donald J. Trump has pledged to reinstate many of the Cold War embargos that were lifted by President Barack Obama.

“If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the US as a whole, I will terminate deal,” Trump tweeted on November 28.

In light of Castro’s passing, we are rerunning this Frank Talk from March 2015, in which Frank compares and analyzes the widely divergent economies of Cuba and Singapore under their now-deceased leaders, Castro and Lee Kuan Yew.

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War On Cash Is Not Over…It’s About To Intensify

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By Graham Summers – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com

The Trump Presidency has distracted from the next major move to be implemented by Financial Elite.

That move is a cash ban.

Cash, particularly physical cash (as in bills and coins) is a huge problem for insolvent banks.

Indeed, it is the ONLY problem they have yet to address.

If you’re a large bank and you’re overleveraged due to excessive assets to capital ratios (particularly assets that are at risk of losing value or default) there are three key issues you need to control.

1)    You need to be able to value your assets however you please.

2)    You need access to liquidity without lowering you asset to capital ratios.

3)    You need to be able to stop bank runs or capital flights.

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UK Researchers: Tax Food to Reduce Climate Change

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[This is what you get by crossing Climate Alarmists with Vegans. – Bob]

By Eric Worrall – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change.

Pricing food according to its climate impacts could save half a million lives and one billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions

Taxing greenhouse gas emissions from food production could save more emissions than are currently generated by global aviation, and lead to half a million fewer deaths from chronic diseases, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.

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Devastating Expose of Climate Model Error

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By Eric Worrall – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

This video dates back to July, so it might not be news for some viewers. But the video elucidates in clear and simple terms why climate model error is actually far worse than those pretty spreads provided by the IPCC. I thoroughly recommend watching the video to anyone keen to understand why climate models are so bad at prediction.

 

Is a Religious War in Europe Imminent?

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From Vigileaks – Re-Blogged From http://www.iPatriot.com

Over the weekend, several people in France were taken into custody because of involvement in planned terrorist attacks in Paris. The intelligence communities in Europe, Israel and in the United States received tremendous amounts of warnings regarding imminent threats on cities in western Europe that are targets before the Christmas season, during the Christmas season, and right into the New Year!

We aren’t just talking about an isolated terror attack, we’re talking about the injection of millions of new Muslims in Europe. We’re talking about a religious war in Europe right now. The State Dept. just issued a warning either not to go to those places or to exercise extreme caution! This impending Religious War is ignored by mainstream media! Now is the time to forewarn friends, family, armed forces personnel, embassy workers, educators and contacts in Europe!

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Tesla Roof Shingles

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By Willis Eschenbach – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

Well, the man who has made billions with a “b” by sponging off of your taxpayer dollars, the man you can always find face-down at the government trough, is at it again.

elon-musk-solar-shingles

Elon Musk now says that his whiz-bang glass solar roofing shingles will be, get this, cheaper than a “normal” roof, viz:

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At This Current Pace, A Record-Shattering 2.4 Trillion Dollars Will Be Added To The National Debt This Year

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By Michael Snyder – Re-Blogged From http://www.EndOfTheAmericanDream.com

Barack Obama is about to become the 20 trillion dollar man. With less than two months to go in his second term, the U.S. national debt stands less than 150 billion dollars away from the 20 trillion dollar mark. And at the pace that the debt is increasing, it seems almost certain that we will cross 20 trillion dollars before Inauguration Day. After promising us that “deficits are under control”, the federal debt jumped by more than 1.3 trillion dollars last fiscal year, and so far this year it is on pace to rise by a record-shattering 2.4 trillion dollars. This is a recipe for national suicide, and yet it wasn’t even a major issue during the recently concluded presidential campaign.

uncle-sam

It is really, really hard to spend a trillion dollars. For example, if you were alive when Jesus was born and you had spent a million dollars every single day since that time, you still would not have spent a trillion dollars by now.

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Islam Wants Us Dead!

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[This is quite controversial and not my words. I’m especially interested in the author’s suggestion that success & education are more likely to predict terrorist activity.Thoughts? ]

By Barry Napier – Re-Blogged From http://www.iPatriot.com

muslim-signs

As I have shown in previous articles, Islam bases its claims on lies and deception (Taqiyya). Being untruthful about its reasons for existing is one of its propagandist ploys.

One of those excuses for violence is that Muslims are made poor by the West (?) and are poorly educated, so they rise up. For some reason this allows them to kill everybody who does not fit their particular set of values and descriptors! That Islamists killed from their inception, before there ever was a ‘West’, does not occur to our esteemed leaders.

Erasmus University, Rotterdam, gives actual facts, and those facts state that most who buy into ISIS and Islamic violence are, in fact, intelligent, educated, and fairly wealthy. This, of course, does not fit what Islamists are trying to say to the deluded West, and the deluded West doesn’t want to hear the truth, but seem intent on asking Islam to take over, to destroy them. Imagine if Churchill invited the Nazi SS to visit, and to take over Britain during the war!

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Another Election Year, Another Bunch Of Fake Growth Numbers

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By John Rubino – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com

Some pretty good economic reports have energized various parts of the financial markets lately. Consumer spending is up, GDP is exceeding expectations and even factory orders, that perennial downer, popped this morning.

In response the dollar is soaring and interest rates are at breaking out of their multi-decade down-channel. The economy is clearly recovering, implying a return to normality. Right?

Nah, it’s just the usual election year illusion. When the presidency is at stake the party in power always pumps up spending in an attempt to put people back to work and create the impression of a well-run country whose leaders deserve more time in the spotlight. After the election, spending returns to trend and the resulting bad news gets buried in “political honeymoon” media coverage.

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Indonesia’s Coal Consumption Has Doubled Since 2010

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By Eric Worrall – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

h/t JoNova – According to BP, Indonesia’s coal consumption has doubled since 2010, promoting coal to be the largest source of Indonesian energy.

Indonesia’s coal consumption remains high: BP

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The BP Statistical Review 2016 revealed on Wednesday that Indonesia’s coal consumption had doubled since 2010. Last year, coal became the country’s dominant source of fuel, accounting for 41 percent of total energy consumption.

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“Last year, Indonesia’s exports for coal fell sharply. The reason was because the global demand decreased at that time, during which China, one of the country’s key markets for coal exports, cut its use of coal,” Dale said.

energy-plugged-in-coal

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Why ‘Doc’ Copper Is Never Wrong

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By Rick Ackerman – Re-Blogged From http://www.Silver-Phoenix500.com

There is as yet insufficient evidence to speculate on whether copper’s impressive post-election leap will turn into a belly flop, or instead prove to be the booster stage of a much bigger rally. Whichever is the case — and I strongly doubt there will be any in-betweens — it’s inconceivable that this legendarily sensitive economic barometer will guess the outcome incorrectly. Inflation, or deflation? Growth or economic stagnation?  Keep your eyes focused on ‘doc’ copper and you cannot miss an important turn — assuming one comes, and however unexpected — toward inflation following 35 years of the opposite.

From a technical standpoint, it is necessary to see that, so far at least, copper’s steepest rally in a decade is still just a fledgling on the weekly chart. Yes, it has surmounted a daunting multitude of minor peaks. However, these are mere foothills in comparison to the two ‘external’ peaks that I’ve labeled. The higher lies at 3.2790, and any rally from these levels that surpasses it without taking much of a breather along the way will be convincing evidence that the rip-roaring inflation of the 1970s is about to return in some shape or form. Anything less than that, however, can only suggest that an economic upswing of indeterminate strength is coming and perhaps no more.

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Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #249

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Brought to You by www.SEPP.org – The Science and Environmental Policy Project

By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)

“Not With a Bang But a Whimper”: The 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 22), the twelfth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 12), and the first session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 1) were held in Bab Ighli, Marrakech, Morocco from 7-18 November 2016. Reuters reported COP-22 began with bluster with the French President Francois Hollande claiming “inaction would be ‘disastrous for future generations and it would be dangerous for peace’”.

“Both he and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Trump, who has called man-made global warming a hoax, to drop a campaign pledge to cancel the global 2015 Paris Agreement that aims to shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energies.

“’The United States, the largest economic power in the world, the second largest greenhouse gas emitter, must respect the commitments it has undertaken,’ Hollande said to applause. The agreement was ‘irreversible’, he said.

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Gold Miners’ Q3’16 Fundamentals

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By Adam Hamilton – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com

The gold miners just finished reporting their third-quarter results, which proved very impressive.  While this small contrarian sector is now languishing in the doghouse following a brutal post-election selloff, the gold miners’ fundamentals are strengthening.  Lower costs and higher gold prices led to surging operating cash flows and profits.  The major gold miners are great fundamental bargains for contrarians today.

Gold-stock bulls are among the largest ever seen in all the markets.  The flagship HUI gold-stock index skyrocketed 1664% higher over 10.8 years ending in September 2011, trouncing general-stock-market losses of 14% per the S&P 500.  Even this year between mid-January and early August, the HUI soared 182% in just 6.5 months!  Radical wealth-multiplying upside like that is well worth any psychological price.

And that is extreme volatility in gold stocks, which alternatively soar then collapse.  After the election as futures speculators dumped gold hedges, the gold stocks suffered an incredible second mass-stopping event in less than 6 weeks.  That took the HUI’s total massive correction to a colossal 36.6% in just 3.3 months!  Provocatively mid-bull corrections of this magnitude have been suffered before in gold stocks.

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The Serfs Have Rebelled…Europe Next?

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By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From http://www.Silver-Phoenix500.com

Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom described how personal freedoms are progressively eroded by the state in the name of the common good. His warning is more associated with totalitarianism and dictatorships, than modern democracies, but the statist attitudes he warned about still apply today and lead to the same loss of personal freedom and increase of state control. In the main, the serfs are patient and tolerant of their masters, but in a democracy, the establishment behind the state risks being challenged. And that has happened twice this year, first with Brexit and now with Trump in America.

We can be certain that the establishment in Britain and America will reinvent itself. Theresa May is not out to change the world, but is adapting to the new realities. Donald Trump is still mostly an unknown quantity, but the initial impression is one of appalling economic ignorance, dressed up as the new Reaganomics. He proposes substantial tax cuts and state-directed infrastructure spending “to make America great again”. But unless tax cuts and infrastructure commitments are made in lock-step with reductions in government spending, which seems extremely unlikely, the outcome will be to stimulate latent price inflation to a surprising degree.

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King of Debt Takes the Reins

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By Peter Schiff – Re-Blogged From http://www.europac.com

The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 provides the best recent precedent for the unexpected triumph of Donald Trump (in my opinion, the other post-war Republican takeovers of the White House –Ike in ’52, Nixon ’68, and W. in ’00 – did not constitute a real break from the status quo.) As many people expect great changes from Trump, it is worthwhile to look at what the Reagan Revolution actually wrought.

Both Reagan and Trump were better known to many as entertainers rather than politicians, both came from outside the Republican mainstream, and both engineered hostile takeovers of the Party. During the 1970s, the Republican Party was dominated by “Rockefeller Republicans,” the Ivy League-educated liberal Eastern elites. Reagan was the Western heir apparent to Barry Goldwater, the deeply conservative standard-bearer who went down in flames in 1964. In 1976, the brash Reagan had the nerve to challenge incumbent Republican President Gerry Ford in the primary, thereby weakening him in the general election, which he ultimately lost to Jimmy Carter. While Reagan was simply too conservative for the Rockefeller wing, Trump’s various positions are similarly inconsistent with much of the mainstream neo-conservative orthodoxy. Both candidates also capitalized on a weak economy as a catalyst to encourage voters to cross traditional party lines. Many of the rust belt “Reagan Democrats” came home to Trump.

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Saudi Arabia Warns Trump Against Banning Oil Imports

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By Matt Egan – Re-Blogged From http://www.money.cnn.com

Saudi Arabia is cautioning President-elect Donald Trump against carrying out a threat to cut off American purchases of the kingdom’s oil.

Trump made the threat earlier this year, saying that if elected he might halt imports of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries if they don’t commit ground troops to fight ISIS, or at least reimburse the U.S. for efforts to battle the terror group.

“Without us, Saudi Arabia wouldn’t exist for very long,” Trump told The New York Times in March.

Trump later said in a major energy speech that he would bring about “complete American energy independence” from “our foes and the oil cartels.”

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Ban Ki-Moon to Trump: Action on Climate Change is “Unstoppable”

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By Eric Worrall – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

red-ban-ki-moon

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has warned President-elect Trump that he will not have the power to derail climate programmes, even climate programmes in the USA.

France, U.N. tell Trump action on climate change unstoppable

France and the United Nations on Tuesday stepped up warnings to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump about the risks of quitting a 2015 global plan to combat climate change, saying a historic shift from fossil fuels is unstoppable.

French President Francois Hollande, addressing almost 200 nations meeting in Morocco on ways to slow global warming, said that inaction would be “disastrous for future generations and it would be dangerous for peace”.

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Trump Triumphs as Brexit Faces a Serious Threat

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By John Browne – Re-Blogged From http://www.europac.com

Brexit and the Donald Trump presidential victory should rightly be viewed as the most significant international developments of the last decade. Both events illustrate a breaking down of globalist order and they both threaten the entrenched elite that has so ruthlessly and painfully hurt the middle and working classes. But as Trump supporters revel in the largely unanticipated victory, Brexit faces a serious new challenge.

On November 3, 2016, The English High Court ruled that the UK’s withdrawal from the EU would affect substantially the “rights of individuals within the UK.” As a result, the Court concluded that despite the referendum, and the “Crown prerogative” that grants the Government considerable leeway, particularly in matters of foreign affairs, the decision to leave the EU must be made by Parliament. Given that the government has made many decisions to increase the UK’s “ever-closer” integration into the EU over the years, which clearly affected the “rights of UK individuals,” it is curious that the Court would finally decide to step in when the government was moving in the other direction.

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Donald Trump Foreign Policy Strategy – AWESOME!

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By Joe Scudder – Re-Blogged From http://www.Constitution.com

While everyone mocked or reviled the Trump foreign policy positions, I couldn’t be happier with how things are going. In the first place, rather than go to war with Russia to defend terrorists, Trump plans to work with Vladimir Putin to destroy ISIS.

According to the Mirror,

President-elect Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin have vowed to tackle ISIS together after holding breakthrough talks on the telephone.

Less than a week after the billionaire’s election, the Kremlin said Putin called Trump yesterday to begin negotiations over how best to tackle to terrorism.

The Russian is reported to have said he is ready for dialogue with the US “on the basis of mutual respect, non-intervention into each other’s internal affairs”.

According to the news agency Kremlin, Putin and Trump have agreed to “work to channel bilateral relationships into constructive cooperation, to combine efforts to tackle international terrorism and extremism, and to continue contact by telephone and to work towards meeting in person.”

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Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #248

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The Week That Was: November 12, 2016 – Brought to You by www.SEPP.org

By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project

When Does A Scientific Assumption Become a Myth? As discussed in the October 22 TWTW, the influential 1979 Charney Report asserted that laboratory results showed that any increase in surface temperatures from a doubling of atmosphere carbon dioxide (CO2) would be very modest. Further, the influence of CO2 on temperatures is logarithmic. As the concentration increases, the total influence increases, but the influence of each additional amount declines. For practical purposes, this warming would be insignificant and cannot be differentiated from natural variation.

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Trump May Have Won Popular Vote

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By Paul Joseph Watson – Re-Blogged From http://www.InfoWars.com

Three million votes in the U.S. presidential election were cast by illegal aliens, according to Greg Phillips of the VoteFraud.org organization.

If true, this would mean that Donald Trump still won the contest despite widespread vote fraud and almost certainly won the popular vote.

“We have verified more than three million votes cast by non-citizens,” tweeted Phillips after reporting that the group had completed an analysis of a database of 180 million voter registrations.

 

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The Benchmark Unions and Government’s Ignore

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By Dale Netherton – Re-Blogged From http://www.iPatriot.com

If you look at the structure of our government and compare it with how unions are structured you see one fundamental similarity.  The government and the unions do not target a bottom line.  Both of these organizations have nothing to rein in their spending in the case of government and nothing to rein in their demands in the case of the unions.  This oversight by these organizations places them on an eventual clash with the reality of fiscal sanity.

We have seen the unions that have bankrupted the companies they have infiltrated by making demands for wages and benefits that eventually became unaffordable.  We are seeing that phenomena played out in the state of Wisconsin. Likewise the government has reached a point where it too cannot just spend with impunity as it has done in the past.  The reality of living off of borrowed money has appeared as the fact that creditors that don’t get paid don’t continue to loan money. When the source of loans dries up there is no longer an alternative for the government to acquire money.  The illusion that the government can always tax the citizens reaches a point of diminishing returns not only by the unavailability and the affordability but also by political unpopularity.  This in the world of finance is bankruptcy whether the government wants to declare it or not.

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Renewable Energy Would Be Great – If It Worked

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By Eric Worrall – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

One of the great myths promoted by renewables proponents is that government subsidies are not the enablers of renewables, they are simply accelerating a transition which would occur anyway, even without taxpayer help.

Trump: Ugly for world, ugly for climate, ugly for clean energy

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Nevertheless, it doesn’t look good. And on any conventional assessment, it is a disaster on many levels – particularly for the efforts to address climate change and for the clean energy industry in the US.

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Perilous Government Finances

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By Alasdair Macleod – Re-Blogged From http://www.Silver-Phoenix500.com

President-elect Trump stated in his victory speech that he intends to make America great again by infrastructure spending. Unfortunately, he is unlikely to have the room for manoeuvre to achieve this ambition as well as his intended tax cuts, because the Government’s finances are already in a perilous state.

It is also becoming increasingly likely that the next fiscal year will be characterised by growing price inflation and belated increases in interest rates, against a background of rising raw material prices. That being the case, public finances are not only already fragile, but they are likely to become more so from now on, without any extra spending on infrastructure or fiscal stimulus. So far, most informed commentaries on the prospects for inflation have concentrated on the negative effects of an expansionary monetary policy on the private sector. With the pending appointment of a new President with ideas of his own, this article turns our attention to the effects on government finances.

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India’s Government Makes Banknotes Worthless by Decree Overnight

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By Jayant Bhandari – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com

As I write this in the morning of 9th November 2016, there are huge lines forming outside gold shops in India — and gold traded heavily until late into the night yesterday. Depending on who you ask, the retail price of gold has gone up between 15% and 20% within the last 10 hours.

Gold quotes in India – gold traded for as much as Rs 49,000 per 10 grams or US$ 2,294 per ounce

At some places, it was sold for as much as US$ 2,294 per ounce. That is, if you can actually find physical gold — gold inventories at stores are rapidly depleting. All of this happened well before the international price started to move up because of the election results coming out of the US.

Last night (8th November 2016), India’s government banned the use of Rs 500 (~$7.50) and Rs 1,000 ($15) banknotes. This pretty much made most currency-in-use illegal. Banks and ATMs are closed today. The government believes that doing this will help eradicate corruption and push counterfeit money out of circulation. According to the Indian government, the counterfeit money tends to come from Pakistan and helps finance terrorism.

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Possible United States Climate Change Action Plan

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By Anthony Watts – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

Last night, there was this tweet:

stein-lost-battle-climate

The fellow works for Buzzfeed, and highly liberal and pro-climate outfit. It was quite an admission. Since existing climate plans are almost certain to be on the scrap heap now, here’s a new plan from Christopher Monckton.

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Sound Familiar? Germany Announces Major Immigration Policy Shift, Worries Russia is Meddling in their Elections!

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By Onan Coca – Re-Blogged From http://www.Constitution.com

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is on the ropes. After years of leading the European dynamo, Merkel has sunk to new lows in popularity.

The center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Party embraced the ideals of multiculturalism and welcomed the flood of Muslim refugees from the Middle East and North Africa with open arms. Sadly, the decision has backfired on the CDU thanks to surging crime rates, terrifyingly high sexual assault cases, and a crushing economic slowdown (due in part to Germany’s generous welfare state and the major increase in new welfare cases).

On top of that, beleaguered Mrs. Merkel has come under huge political pressure over her enormously unpopular open door asylum policy, which has seen a number of humiliating electoral defeats inflicted on her party in regional elections. 

There has been talk in political circles of her one-time allies ousting her as leader of the country unless she agrees to significantly harden her stance on refugees and win back the confidence of voters. 

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China Announces a Massive 20% Increase in Coal – by 2020

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By Eric Worrall – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

China has unveiled a crash plan to increase coal capacity and usage by 20% over the next 3 years.

China Doubles Down on Coal Despite Climate Pledge

Coal would still make up more than half of the country’s energy mix by 2020, according to latest plan.

BEIJING—China’s government said it would raise coal power capacity by as much as 20% by 2020, ensuring a continuing strong role for the commodity in the country’s energy sector despite a pledge to bring down pollution levels.

In a new five-year plan for electricity released Monday, the National Energy Administration said it would raise coal-fired power capacity from around 900 gigawatts last year to as high as 1,100 gigawatts by 2020. The roughly 200-gigawatt increase alone is more than the total power capacity of Canada.

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We’re All Hedge Funds Now, Part 4

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By John Rubino – Re-Blogged From Dollar Collapse

Central Banks Become World’s Biggest Stock Speculators

At first, the idea of central banks intervening in the equity markets was probably seen even by its fans as a temporary measure. But that’s not how government power grabs work. Control once acquired is hard for politicians and their bureaucrats to give up. Which means recent events are completely predictable:

SNB’s U.S. Stock Holdings Hit $62.4 Billion

(Bloomberg) – The value of the Swiss National Bank’s portfolio of U.S. equities rose nearly 1 percent to a record in the three months through September on the back of rallying share prices.

The holdings increased to $62.4 billion from $61.8 billion at the end of June, according to calculations by Bloomberg based on the central bank’s regulatory filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and published on Monday.

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Elimination of GMO Crops Would Cause Hike in Greenhouse Gas Emissions

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By Anthony Watts – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

From PURDUE UNIVERSITY and the “better living through genetics” department comes this press release that is sure to setup an impossible quandary in the minds of some anti-GMO zealots who also happen to be climate proponents…

Planting GMO crops is an effective way for agriculture to lower its carbon footprint.

Model predicts elimination of GMO crops would cause hike in greenhouse gas emissions

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A global ban on genetically modified crops would raise food prices and add the equivalent of nearly a billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, a study by researchers from Purdue University shows.

Using a model to assess the economic and environmental value of GMO crops, agricultural economists found that replacing GMO corn, soybeans and cotton with conventionally bred varieties worldwide would cause a 0.27 to 2.2 percent increase in food costs, depending on the region, with poorer countries hit hardest. According to the study, published Oct. 27 in the Journal of Environmental Protection, a ban on GMOs would also trigger negative environmental consequences: The conversion of pastures and forests to cropland – to compensate for conventional crops’ lower productivity – would release substantial amounts of stored carbon to the atmosphere.

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U.S. Puts a Climate Denier in Its Highest Office and All Climate Change Action in Limbo

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By David Middleton – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

This is the best election aftermath I have ever seen… and I’ve been voting since 1977.  This even tops 1980…

In Trump, U.S. Puts a Climate Denier in Its Highest Office and All Climate Change Action in Limbo

His anti-regulatory stances, support of unfettered fossil fuel production, and his threat to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement, send ripple effects worldwide.

BY MARIANNE LAVELLE, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS
NOV 9, 2016

Donald Trump’s astonishing victory has turned the world of climate action upside down, setting back U.S. environmental policy and threatening the international drive to cut carbon pollution and slow global warming.

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Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #247

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The Week That Was: November 5, 2016 – Brought to You by www.SEPP.org

By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project

Svensmark Hypothesis Criticized: The Svensmark hypothesis that high energy cosmic rays can be a building block for cloud formation has been demonstrated in the laboratory, most recently by CERN. The cosmic rays are modulated by changes in solar wind, which are the result of solar activity. The activity of the sun is estimated by frequency and intensity of sunspots. An active sun results more solar wind and a corresponding net decrease in cloud formation. A dormant sun results in less solar wind and a corresponding net increase in cloud formation and a corresponding decrease in temperatures. This hypothesis is consistent with earlier thoughts about conditions in Europe during the Little Ice Age, when the skies were cloudy, winters were cold, and crops did not ripen, resulting in periods of famine.

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How to Fix Unemployment

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By Dale Netherton – Re-Blogged From http://www.iPatriot.com

Unemployment is at 4.9% if you believe government figures.  Some have placed it as high as 17%.  Like the fudged figures of global warming and inflation they are probably not only inaccurate but distorted.

When the first jobs came into being they were the result of a businessperson seeking labor to increase his production rate to meet the demand of his customers.  These laborers were hired and paid from the profits the businessperson was able to make.  Anything before this phenomena took place was the result of plunder and confiscation.  The method of confiscation is the way of government and criminals.  Government takes and redistributes but it neither creates wealth or trades for its revenues.  The government could trade if it were confident it could raise revenues voluntarily but it prefers to use the method of the criminal by way of taxation.

In the scheme of things government is a limited agency that is created to protect the individual rights of the citizens.  It cannot be created for anything else without introducing a method of confiscation.  When that occurs its reason for being is negated by the injustice it promotes and enforces.  Eventually all government that ignores this fundamental ingredient of its reason for being evolves from a free society to a slave pen where the government rules by regulation and taxation, eventual deficit spending and hyperinflation which destroys the currency and demolishes the fiscal integrity of the nation which leads to chaos, rioting, revolution and unless a limited government is created, the scenario repeats itself.

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Q3 GDP Growth was Hogwash

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By Michael Pento – Re-Blogged From http://www.PentoPort.com

Since most everyone is focused on the upcoming US elections, many investors may not have had the time to peel back the onion on the third quarter US GDP report. So, if you just glanced at the headline GDP number of a 2.9% annualized growth rate, you may have concluded that the US economy was finally on its way to sustainable growth.

That 2.9% read was the biggest in the last two years…and it also beat the median forecast of 2.6%. However, to put that number in perspective, average GDP growth over the past four quarters was only 1.5%, and the average for first three-quarters of 2016 is just 1.7%.

So before you get out your party hats and declare this economic malaise over, there were a few notable concerns in that Q3 GDP report.

First off, consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity and just under 70% of GDP growth, fell significantly during the quarter to an annualized rate of 2.1%. That 2.1% is a little bit over half the level of spending posted in the previous quarter. Also, spending on durable goods fell three-fold from Q2 levels.

Third-quarter growth was also flattered by a buildup in business inventories, as re-stocking shelves added 0.61 percentage points to GDP.

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Today’s Market Manipulation

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cropped-bob-shapiro.jpg   By Bob Shapiro

As the victory of Donald Trump took shape last night, futures on the various stock markets began to plunge. S&P 500 futures were down the unofficial limit of 4% at one point. The Japanese Nikkei 225 Index closed down about 920 points overnight.

The theory was that President Trump would be bad for the US Economy, not the least by pressuring the FED to normalize (raise) interest rates. And, indeed, we see 30 year Treasuries now yielding around 2.84% – up almost a full quarter point from yesterday (see http://finance.yahoo.com/bonds/composite_bond_rates?bypass=true).

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White Liberal College Students say Requiring IDs to Vote is Racist, African-Americans Disagree

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By Onan Coca – Re-Blogged From http://constitution.com

For years members of the left and the right have been arguing about the conflict between voter suppression and voter fraud. The left argues that any attempt to make voters prove who they are, when voting, is voter suppression. The right argues the converse — that not forcing voters to prove who they are, is a blatant attempt to make voter fraud easier.

Further, the left routinely uses the African-American community as a bludgeon against the right’s attempt to end voter fraud. Liberals argue that asking voters to present an ID when they vote is racist, because black voters either have a difficult time getting an ID or because black voters don’t know how to get an ID.

Think about that argument for a second. Doesn’t it become blatantly obvious that liberals believe the black community is stupid? The liberal argument against voter IDs is in and of itself… racist. If you need more evidence, then watch this great video from Fox News’ Ami Horowitz and see how black voters in Harlem react to liberal arguments against voter IDs.

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Battle with Bureaucracies

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By Dr. Tim Ball – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.comcsiro-logo

I am in Australia at the invitation of Senator Malcolm Roberts to promote his investigation of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), the agency responsible for climate change. We are joined by Tony Heller (aka Steve Goddard) who brings his devastating analyses of ‘adjustments’ to temperature at NOAA and NASA GISS as well those of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). Jennifer Marohasy is contributing even more detailed analysis of adjustments to the Australian record by the BoM.

There are two major components of the global warming/climate change deception. The involvement of the bureaucrats of each national weather agency and the lack of empirical data. The latter includes inadequate data for creating the climate models and the lack of empirical evidence to support the claims and predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Maurice Strong guaranteed the inclusion and the control by bureaucrats by using the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide members to the IPCC. This determined it was controlled by the national weather offices. They, in turn, became the sole source of information to the politicians in each nation. It evolved into proof of Mary McCarthy’s definition of a bureaucracy as the rule of no one, the modern form of despotism.

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Science Is In Deep Trouble

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By Anthony Watts – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

‘Fraudulent research makes it past gatekeepers at even the most prestigious journals’

peer-review-josh-donna

London 31 October:  A new report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals the extent to which current policy-making is reliant on untrustworthy peer-reviewed research, much of which cannot be replicated and “may be simply untrue”.


click on the image above to watch a short video about the GWPF report

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Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #246

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The Week That Was: October 29, 2016 – Brought to You by www.SEPP.org

By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project

Constitutional Tug-of-War: During the turmoil following the Revolutionary War, which ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, it became evident to many of the political leaders that the central government under the Articles of Confederation was not working as hoped. A stronger central government was needed. In a 1787 prolonged meeting, later called the Constitutional Convention, many leaders participated to form a new charter to make a more effective central government. Of the many participating, one of the most important was James Madison, a scholar of history and political theorist. During the process from the drafting of the Constitution in May 1787, to its adoption in September, and its implementation in 1789, many ideas emerged. During the period of ratification, Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton wrote the very influential essays now called the Federalist Papers. Others, opposing ratification of the Constitution, wrote essays now collected and called the Anti-Federalist Papers. Probably, the now best-known of the anti-Federalists was Patrick Henry. These skeptics gave rise to the Bill of Rights, which articulate specific human rights upon which the central government cannot infringe. Madison did not perceive a need for the Bill of Rights because he believed human rights are many, broad, and well-established and that the proposed Constitution clearly restricted the powers of the Federal government so that it could not interfere with those rights.

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Stocks Really Sway Elections

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By Adam Hamilton – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com

With 2016’s contentious US presidential election just days away now, traders are still trying to game the outcome of this tightening race.  With a Hillary Clinton victory long priced in, the mounting odds Donald Trump will prevail have big implications for major markets.  One critical place traders should look for clues to how Americans will vote is the stock markets.  Recent stock performance really sways election results.

This assertion certainly sounds dubious.  When Americans are asked what the most-important issues for determining their votes are, the stock markets wouldn’t even make the list.  But interestingly a recent Pew Research poll found that the economy was the number-one issue in this election.  90% of Trump supporters, 80% of Clinton supporters, and 84% of all registered voters rated the economy at the very top.

That beat out terrorism as very important to 80% of all voters, foreign policy at 75%, health care at 74%, gun policy at 72%, and immigration at 70%.  Nothing is more important to Americans than the economy.  The state of it greatly affects our abilities to earn healthy incomes to support our families, our states of well-being, and our hopes for higher standards of living in the future.  Americans have long voted with their wallets.

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Billionaire Crony Corporatist Schemes

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By Paul Driessen – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

Shady cash from Vladimir Putin’s Russian energy oligarchs and other rich donors is being laundered through Bermuda-based lawyers and middlemen to “green” pressure groups, lobbyists and spinmeisters – to promote “green energy” schemes that bring billions of dollars from government agencies (and thus from us taxpayers and consumers) to a cabal of billionaires and crony companies. At the epicenter are hedge fund millionaire Nathaniel Simons, his wife Laura and their secretive Sea Change Foundation.

“Investors” become even wealthier, as billions of dollars are transferred annually to environmentalists, scientists, politicians, bureaucrats and crony-corporatists in Renewable Energy & Climate Crisis, Inc. The alleged “urgency” of replacing fossil fuels with “eco-friendly renewable energy” (to prevent catastrophic manmade climate change) drives and excuses operations that define or barely skirt “corrupt practices.”

The arrangements are too convoluted to explain in one article. Even the US Senate’s “Billionaires’ Club” report, Environmental Policy Alliance’s “From Russia with Love” study, and articles by investigative journalists like Ron Arnold and Lachlan Markay (here, here and here) barely scratch the surface.

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Near-Record 94.6 Million Americans Aren’t in Workforce

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Re-Blogged From http://www.newsmax.com

Behind the cheerful spin the Labor Department and government talking heads put on the official monthly jobs data is a sobering reality: a more-realistic unemployment rate is probably closer to 10 percent and a wide swatch of the American public remains out of work.

Friday’s report sketched a picture of a resilient job market that likely keeps the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates when it meets next month.

Yet the economy remains pocketed by weaknesses that have left many feeling left behind on the eve of Election Day. Job gains have been steady, but pay raises have only recently become widespread. And millions of Americans are working part time but would prefer full-time work.

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Regardless of Who Wins the Election, Confidence in Washington DC ALREADY Is Shattered

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By Clint Siegner – Re-Blogged From https://www.moneymetals.com

It just doesn’t matter much whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump wins the election, at least in terms of gold and silver market fundamentals. That said, the contest itself is signaling something important precious metals investors should be watching intently.

This campaign is dragging whatever prestige is still associated with the Office of President into the mud. Few voters on either side bother to spend much time arguing the greatness of their candidate. When both Trump and Clinton carry more baggage than American Airlines, it’s easier to focus on their opponent’s shortcomings.

The victor in this epically polarized contest will garner only tepid support from a minority of Americans. He or she will be despised by most everyone else.

Washington DC is having a very bad decade. This year’s election is just part of a larger pattern that has big ramifications for the dollar and therefore precious metals; the devolution of confidence in our federal institutions.

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Clinton & Islamic State Funded By Same Money

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By Tim Brown – Re-Blogged From Freedom Outpost

In a segment of the John Pilger Special which airs Saturday on RT, Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange will accuse Hillary Clinton of deceiving the America people about the scope of support that Middle East allies in Washington, DC have for the Islamic State.

As we have already reported, Assange’s Wikileaks dumped emails in which Hillary Clinton admitted that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia backed the support of the Islamic State.

In referencing that email, he said, “I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection.”

“All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some ‘rogue’ princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves,” he added. “But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.”

See Video Interview with Julian Assange:

https://www.rt.com/news/365299-assange-pilger-saudi-clinton/video/

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California Governor Ok’s Voting for Illegals!

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By Austin Miles – Re-Blogged From http://ipatriot.com

SACRAMENTO 11/1/16–California Governor Jerry Brown is better known in the Golden State as Governor Moonbeam, and for good reason. First of all, Brown, seemingly not knowing who or what he is, started his adult life in a Jesuit School, training to be a priest. He then switched to Buddhism, a religion that first requires adherents to empty their minds so as not to be distracted by things of the world, a discipline that has been consistently demonstrated throughout his governmental life.

He has used billions of dollars to construct a bullet train that nobody needs, or wants. He spent billions more on a project to drill huge holes under the Delta to ship water from drought weary Northern California where fields are parched, country clubs are closing due to the lack of water for the greens, and Central Valley, one of the world’s main suppliers of vegetables and fruits, needs every drop of water they can get to survive. They have too little as it is. Yet Brown wants to take what little water they have to give it away to others.

He wants to ship this life saving water to Southern California so that basically, the rich movie stars can water their lawns surrounding their mansions and keep their swimming pools full.

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Dr. Neil Frank: Hillary Clinton Is No Hurricane Expert—But I Am

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By Dr. Neil Frank, former Director, National Hurrricane Center – Re-Blogged From http://www.WattsUpWithThat.com

As former Director of the National Hurricane Center (1974–1987), I was appalled when, in a campaign rally at Miami-Dade College October 11, Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said, “Hurricane Matthew was likely more destructive because of climate change.”

That is false.

We were extremely fortunate that Matthew—category 5 through much of the Caribbean—weakened to category 2 before landfall in South Carolina. It could have been much worse.

In 1893 a much stronger hurricane followed nearly the same track. When its eye reached the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, a 15–20 ft. storm surge inundated the coastal islands. Though population was a small fraction of today’s, between 2,000 and 3,000 died, making that the second deadliest hurricane in U.S. history. The same year another major hurricane killed 2,000 in Louisiana.

All together five hurricanes hit the U.S. in 1893, something that’s happened only 4 times in over 150 years (1886, 1893, 1916, 1933)—all long before CO2 levels rose enough to theoretically cause rapid global warming.

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Divergent Themes In Late 2016

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By Andy Sutton & Graham Mehl – Re-Blogged From http://www.Silver-Phoenix500.com

Despite the arrogance, hubris, and lying (obviously – its election season!), we have never seen a cycle that has be more absent in terms of policy details worthy of analysis. Outrageous claims about job creation, making America strong, and so forth are issued, but there is no substance. We have tried on numerous occasions to find enough specifics to even perform cursory analysis and it is just not there. It is very reminiscent of Nancy Pelosi telling America in 2010 that if they wanted to read the healthcare bill they had to pass it first. This is what passes for economic jurisprudence in the Republic the founders gave us all those years ago.

Rest easy good friends, this is not an article about the election. Andy said he’d rather watch goat races in Antarctica and frankly we think many people might be inclined to join us rather than hear another word about the election. We have long stated that this country will not rise from the ashes by the presence of a single person at the top, but rather from the millions below. That’s where the power is.

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What Will Be The Fed’s Excuse(s) This Time?

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By Andrew Hoffman – Re-Blogged From http://www.Gold-Eagle.com

There’s a rising tide of discontent sweeping over America, just as it has in Western Europe, most of South America and the Middle East – which shortly, will consume China, Japan, and the rest of the world.  In some cases, it’s due to actual, specific crises – as in “vulnerable” second and third world countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Syria, and Iraq.  In others – particularly, “first world” Western nations, defined largely by the power of their printing presses – it’s the cumulative impact of years of relentlessly disastrous monetary, fiscal, and foreign policy, creating unprecedented post-War political instability; widespread poverty and helplessness; creeping rights forfeiture; and wealth disparity not experienced since feudal times.  In the past two years, elections have served as rallying cries for discontent – sometimes proactively, such as the referendums in Scotland, Greece, Catalonia, the UK; and next month, Italy; and sometimes, as a matter of course, per the regularly scheduled elections as in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, and the United States.

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