Thursday, June 12, 2014

How (and When) the Dollar Will Collapse

TODAY’S PODCAST: How (and When) the Dollar Will Collapse

On today’s podcast, Jerry Robinson begins a new educational podcast series on the life cycle of the U.S. dollar. Jerry discusses the events you should be watching for that will usher in the utter devastation of the dollar’s global reserve status. On the show, you will learn:
  • What is a fiat currency?
  • Why the money in your pocket is debt!
  • When the U.S. dollar was removed from the ‘gold standard’
  • Which Middle East nation holds the key to the continued survival of the dollar
  • How most of the U.S. foreign policy in the last five decades has been carried out to protect the dollar’s value
  • Why inflation (then deflation) is coming to America
Plus, Jerry also brings you his brief comments on the stock market and gold and silver prices. All this and more is right here on Follow the Money Daily!

1928 Silver Certificate

silver-certificate-640px
Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for the continuation of ‘How (and When) the Dollar Will Collapse’!

Links Mentioned on Today’s Podcast:

Jerry Robinson’s Market Barometer
Preparing for the Collapse of the Petrodollar System, by Jerry Robinson
How to Become an FTM Insider

Stocks “Getting Into Dangerous Territory”: Komal Sri-Kumar


The stock market has been on a tear lately, with the Dow and S&P 500 hitting a series of records. And while the market has been described as “boring” as volume and volatility recede, every major asset class — stocks, bonds, commodities, emerging and frontier markets — was up year-to-date as of Tuesday, making this certainly a unique and interesting moment.
Komal Sri-Kumar, president of the investment firm Sri-Kumar Global Strategies, says a dangerous conglomeration of factors is conspiring to threaten the rally.
“My concern now is we’re in the sixth year of monetary easing, going into the seventh, and still don’t have economic growth pickup to a sustainable pace,” he says. “We’ve done [easing] for a long period of time and there’s still no improvement for the growth picture.”

Government Is Cooking The Books On GDP Numbers



CT ObamaCare Exchange Vendor Leaves Private Information Of 400 Customers In Public


Indiana GOP candidate: ‘No one has the guts’ to let poor people ‘wither and die’

A northwest Indiana Republican has backtracked on outrageous comments he made on Facebook about poor people.
John Johnston, who is challenging Democratic state Rep. Chuck Moseley for the 10th District seat, said during a social media discussion on poverty that “no one has the guts to just let them wither and die.”
The Valparaiso resident told The Post-Tribune on Tuesday that his comments were simply hyperbole, and he told the paper no thoughtful society would allow people to go hungry.
“I was not trying to hurt anybody’s feelings,” Johnston said. “I saw the opportunity to say something. I think a lot of the poor have no way out, and there’s no motivation to improve your position. It’s like training a child, either you enable them or force them out at some point.”
The candidate made the comments in a discussion thread on the Mad Mac page, which covers local politics.
“For almost three generations people, in some cases, have been given handouts,” Johnston said during the discussion. “They have been ‘enabled’ so much that their paradigm in life is simply being given the stuff of life, however meager.”
“What you see is a setting for a life of misery is life to them never-the-less,” he continued. “No one has the guts to just let them wither and die. No one who wants votes is willing to call a spade a spade. As long as the Dems can get their votes the enabling will continue. The Republicans need their votes and dare not cut the fiscal tether. It is really a political Catch-22.”
“The voters are the ones in charge,” Johnston said. “(H)owever when only 10-11 percent show up to vote, not much will change. People simply are not hurting enough, or simply happy enough that they will do nothing. consequently the dole continues.”
However, Johnston told the newspaper he didn’t advocate the end to programs such as welfare or food stamps.
“My main point is that the programs are used as political tools,” Johnston said. “Sometimes it hurts, but you might give them less to motivate someone to get a job.”
[Image via Facebook]

Temporarily embarrassed millionaire Americans go back into credit card debt: Credit card debt begins to tick up as tapped out Americans re-leverage once again. Average household has $7,000 in credit card debt.

It is hard to believe that a large part of the nation has already forgotten the Great Recession. A crisis created by too much debt and the financialization of global markets is now once again unleashing high levels of debt to keep consumption going. This makes sense given that 1 out of 4 working Americans is actually in a job that pays less than $10 per hour. Instead of confronting the storm clouds of low wage economics, banks after getting their bailout fill are now handing out credit cards to induce Americans to spend money that they really don’t have. There is a very reasonable place for debt in any economy. It becomes dangerous when we constantly rely on debt versus real economic growth to move forward. Credit card debt contracted severely during the Great Recession. Most of this came at the hands of bankruptcies. With the memories of the Great Recession fading away in this fast paced instant media culture, we are seeing credit card borrowing picking up. Without a doubt, solicitations for credit card offers are coming in at a steady flow in 2014.

Spending money you don’t have
Americans love their credit cards. We rely on FICO scores for a wide variety of things including buying a home, car, or even applying for a loan for college. One of the funny things about these credit scores is that they actually look at you taking on credit card debt to boost your score. So in a way, to play in this debt based system you have to go into debt. No debt and no credit cards and you are likely going to have a poor credit score even though you are in good financial standing. In other words, we have created a system where consumers are brainwashed into being comfortable with debt merely to access loans that are required to pursue middle class trappings.
It is clear that credit card debt fell after the Great Recession:
credit card debt
Credit card debt peaked at over $1 trillion and quickly fell back. Americans have a very low savings rate and this is also another reason why we are confronting a looming retirement crisis. Live for the moment. YoLo. Credit cards are the opiate to easy spending. People forget that buying a $1,000 TV on a high rate card and paying minimum payments can actually turn that TV into a $3,000 purchase over many years. Where does that extra interest go? Into the banking system that largely does not create anything and we see this with big banks buying single family homes and pushing out regular families from being able to afford a house.
Yet credit card debt is now once again increasing:
credit card last two years
The trend from the peak has been very clear as Americans de-leveraged. Today, it looks like households are re-leveraging up once again. The typical American household has something like $7,000 in student debt. That is a lot of debt to pay especially when a large portion of our society makes so little money annually.
Credit cards have their place in the current economic system but today people are using them like they did during the years prior to the Great Recession. They are using credit cards to pretend they are middle class while struggling to get by. People are going into massive mortgage debt, college debt, auto debt, and now credit card debt just to keep pretending they are wealthy when they truly are not. We don’t have to look far to know this. 1 out of 3 Americans has absolutely no savings but 9 out of 10 American adults has a credit card. Figure that one out.
During a casual conversation someone was mentioning how they are now trading stocks since the stock market is at a new peak. They of course mentioned a few hot stocks and how they plan on making more additional money moving forward. At the same time, they are living paycheck to paycheck with their expensive cars, big home, and constant eating out. They have a spending problem yet somehow, they suffer from the temporarily embarrassed millionaire syndrome. Most Americans are barely scratching by. Yet they want a piece of the action when the market heats up. They fail to realize that this low wage capitalism is slowly eroding their purchasing power. When the tide goes out as it did in 2007, these people realized what was truly going on for a short period. Yet the market is now up (most Americans don’t own one stock) and real estate is back-up (mostly because of investors). Now that prices are high, the public is ready to dive in (with debt) to get fleeced because they want to be the next millionaire while in reality, the economic facts show that wealth is aggregating in fewer and fewer hands.
The fact that the savings rate is so low yet credit card borrowing is up shows you that people simply don’t change. History doesn’t repeat but it certainly has a very familiar rhyme.

Money Likely To Flow Back Into Gold, Major Surprises Ahead: George Gero | Kitco News


Kitco News sits with RBC’s George Gero, who is also a board member for CME-COMEX division, to talk about the metals and how he thinks they are holding up so far this year. “The sentiment here [at the conference] so far is what I call ‘cautiously optimistic,’” he says. “I think we could have some major surprises because when everyone is complacent about something, the unexpected usually happens.” Tune in now to our conversation with IPMI board member, George Gero, live from the conference in Orlando, Florida. Kitco News, June 10, 2014.

The dollar is dead, long live the Yuan


Oxfam 'perfect storm' poster attacked as 'shameful' by Conservative politicians

A message above the image said: “Lifting the lid on austerity Britain reveals a perfect storm - and it’s forcing more and more people into poverty.”

A leading aid charity is facing an investigation by the Charity Commission after Tory MPs complained about a poster campaign attacking the Government's austerity drive.

Oxfam published a picture of a faux film poster on their Twitter account depicting a raging sea under the tag line: "The perfect storm...starring zero hours contracts, high prices, benefits cuts, unemployment, childcare costs".
A message beneath the image said: “Lifting the lid on austerity Britain reveals a perfect storm - and it’s forcing more and more people into poverty.”
Conservative backbencher Conor Burns told The Daily Telegraph: "Many people who support Oxfam will be shocked and saddened by this highly political campaigning in domestic British politics.
"Most of us operated under the illusion that Oxfam's focus was on the relief of poverty and famine overseas. I cannot see how using funds donated to charity to campaign politically can be in accord with Oxfam's charitable status.
"For that reason I have asked the Chairman of the Charity Commission to investigate Oxfam as a matter of urgency."
Fellow Tory Charlie Elphicke added: "Political campaigning by charities like Oxfam is a shameful abuse of taxpayers' money."
"Oxfam is deliberately misleading people - after rising under Labour, child poverty and inequality have been falling under the Conservatives."
Tory MP Priti Patel told The Telegraph: "Oxfam are behaving disgracefully by misleading the public about Government policies and their political campaigning may be in breach of their charitable remit.
"With this Tweet they have shown their true colours and are now nothing more than a mouthpiece for left wing propaganda.
A Charity Commission spokeswoman said: "I can confirm that the commission did receive a complaint about Oxfam raising concerns that it breached the rules for charities on campaigning.
"The complainant hasn't specified the material to which he objects and so we will be contacting them for further information before determining whether there is any cause for regulatory concern here.
"Separately, we are aware of concern relating to a tweet by the charity and are currently assessing whether it raises any regulatory concern."
The poster is part of a wider campaign across social media addressing poverty in the UK. The OxfamGB account has invited people to hear how “we investigate the reasons why so many people are turning to food banks in Britain 2014”.
Another OxfamGB Tweet said: “We think all political parties need to commit to action on food poverty in the UK. RT if you agree #BreadlineKids.”
Asked about the row, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "The Prime Minister's view about the Government's deficit reduction programme hasn't changed.
"It underpins the long-term economic plan which is so important, for example, in terms of supporting private sector job creation and that, alongside things like welfare reform, is what is at the heart here in terms of ensuring that people can, in the long term, see their standards of living rise, and of course work being the best way to tackle poverty.
"So, that's the Prime Minister's view and not any other.
"Charities and other organisations will have their campaigns. The Government's job is to have the right policies and explain why those are the right ones."
Ben Phillips, Oxfam Campaigns and Policy Director, said: "Oxfam is a resolutely non-party political organisation - we have a duty to draw attention to the hardship suffered by poor people we work with in the UK.
"Fighting poverty should not be a party political issue - successive governments have presided over a tide of rising inequality and created a situation where food banks and other providers provided 20 million meals last year to people who could not afford to feed themselves.
"This is an unacceptable situation in one of the world's largest economies and politicians of all stripes have a responsibility to tackle it."


Why the Fed is Impotent


Why the Federal Reserve’s policies are impotent (don’t confuse this with important) for reviving our stalled economy.

Minimum Wage: No Inflation Here, Right?


Seattle is raising their minimum wage. Proof that there is no inflation! :P

REALIST NEWS - 1 Ton Gold Replaced With Fake Bars

Still Report # 276 – Bitcoin Refuses to Die


Bitcoin is running up again, but this time with strong support.

Walmart, Costco tied to slave labor in shrimp industry

Reuters / Kevork Djansezian
Reuters / Kevork Djansezian

The world’s largest shrimp farmer gets fishmeal used to feed its crop from supplier that use slave labor, according to a new investigative report. It then sells its farm-raised shrimp to food retail giants, including Walmart and Costco in the US.
Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods, based in Thailand, uses fishmeal, a commercial product made from fish and the bones and offal (or entrails) from processed fish, to feed the shrimp it farms. That fishmeal is bought from suppliers using “large numbers of men bought and sold like animals and held against their will on fishing boats,” the Guardian reported after a six-month investigation into the industry. CP Foods is the world’s largest shrimp farmer, and supplies the seafood to global retailers like Walmart, Costco, Carrefour and Tesco.
“Men who have managed to escape from boats supplying CP Foods and other companies like it told the Guardian of horrific conditions, including 20-hour shifts, regular beatings, torture and execution-style killings,” the Guardian reported.
“Some were at sea for years; some were regularly offered methamphetamines to keep them going. Some had seen fellow slaves murdered in front of them.”
There are an estimated two to three million migrant workers in Thailand, the bulk of whom are from Burma (now known as Myanmar), the US State Department noted in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report.
In 2013, the report listed Thailand as a member of the Tier 2 Watch List, it’s second-worst designation, meaning its government does not meet the standards laid out in the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (originally passed by Congress in 2000), “but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards,” yet slave labor is still increasing, according to the report’s definitions and methodology.
The majority of captive laborers used by the fishmeal suppliers are from Myanmar and Cambodia. Of the Burmans in the Thai seafood industry, 57 percent of the 430 workers surveyed experienced conditions of forced labor, according to the 2013 TIP report. A January 2011 report cited in the TIP said, “Burmese, Cambodian, and Thai men were trafficked onto Thai fishing boats that traveled throughout Southeast Asia and beyond, where they remained at sea for up to several years, not paid, forced to work 18 to 20 hours per day for seven days a week, and threatened and physically beaten.”
"I thought I was going to die," Vuthy, a former monk from Cambodia who was sold from captain to captain, said to the Guardian. "They kept me chained up, they didn't care about me or give me any food … They sold us like animals, but we are not animals – we are human beings."
In 2013, Thailand was to be designated as a Tier 3 country on the TIP list, which would allow the country to face mandatory “targeted sanctions” that cut “non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance” from the US, until Secretary of State John Kerry issued a pardon to the country, Global Post reported at the time.
“But after [the 2013] reprieve, according to US law, Thailand is out of pardons,” the Global Post wrote. “This means that, to stave off US sanctions, it must finally execute enough raids and arrests in the next 12 months to prove its sincerity in attacking traffickers.”
The Guardian investigation likely foreshadows that the US will drop the Asian country, in the midst of a military coup that began in late May, down to Tier 3 when it releases its 2014 report later in June. The new government has asked the State Department to overlook the country’s current political problems, or else the credibility of the report would be discounted by the new leaders, Undercurrent News reported.
"I trust you will let the merits of our case speak for themselves. Thailand has made clear progress in combating human trafficking. We are ready to do more in keeping to our firm belief in the dignity,” Thai permanent secretary for foreign affairs Sihasak Phuangketkaew wrote in a letter to Kerry, according to the Bangkok Post.
"There might be a political dimension to the report, but the TIP office should mostly consider our efforts to combat trafficking, which have made notable progress," Songsak Saicheua, director-general of the American and South Pacific Affairs Department, said to the Bangkok Post.
Yet the Guardian report shows little action by either the old government or the coup-installed one to combat slave labor in the “unregulated industry run by criminals and the Thai mafia.”
"The Thai authorities could get rid of the brokers and arrange [legal] employment," one high-ranking Thai official, who is tasked with investigating human trafficking cases, said on condition of anonymity. "But the government doesn't want to do that, it doesn't want to take action. As long as [boat] owners still depend on brokers – and not the government – to supply workers, then the problem will never go away."
In the meantime, the new government’s promises are of little consolation to the country’s slave laborers. "We'd get beaten even if we worked hard," one trafficking victim told the Guardian. "All the Burmese, [even] on all the other boats, were trafficked. There were so many of us [slaves] it would be impossible to count them all."
A group of 14 men from Myanmar rescued from boats last year has been in a government shelter in the south of Thailand, where they are working with the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), a British-based human rights charity, to build a case against their slave drivers. But most are now disillusioned and more interested in just going home than finding justice, Steve Trent, founding director of the EJF, told CNN.
"It's not good enough to say the judicial process is slow in Thailand,” Trent said. “In effect they are punishing these people again. They are the innocents involved."
The Guardian says it was able to trace the supply chain for the first time: “Slave ships plying international waters off Thailand scoop up huge quantities of 'trash fish', infant or inedible fish. The Guardian traced this fish on landing to factories where it is ground down into fishmeal for onward sale to CP Foods.”
CP Foods sells its own-brand fishmeal, supplied by slave ships, to other farms. It also sells frozen and cooked shrimp that eat the fishmeal, as well as ready-made meals, to food manufacturers and retailers around the world, the Guardian reported.
"We're not here to defend what is going on," said Bob Miller, CP Foods' UK managing director. "We know there's issues with regard to the [raw] material that comes in [to port], but to what extent that is, we just don't have visibility."
Walmart, already under fire for its working conditions in the US and its link to a deadly fire at a factory in Bangladesh, told the Guardian it is actively engaged in this issue and playing an important role in bringing together stakeholders to help eradicate human trafficking from Thailand’s seafood export sector.”
Costco said it requires its suppliers of Thai shrimp “to take corrective action to police their feedstock sources.”
But, in the end, it may not matter what the corporations buying CP Foods’ products have to say.
"If you buy prawns or shrimp from Thailand, you will be buying the produce of slave labour," Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International, told the Guardian.

World Bank Cuts Global Growth Forecast

Lightest Volume Of 2014: Why This Means A Stock Crash Coming


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Fed’s Dollar Debasement Could Lead To “Economic Meltdown” – Steve Forbes

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,262.50, EUR 932.63 and GBP 751.76 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,253.50, EUR 924.62 and GBP 746.22 per ounce.
Gold climbed $7.50 or 0.6% yesterday to $1,260.80/oz. Silver rose $0.15 or 0.79% to $19.23/oz.
Gold and silver rose strongly yesterday on short covering and speculation that Indian demand is picking up.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new government has signalled a loosening of gold import rules and this morning India’s Trade Secretary said that India needs to rationalise import duties on gold bullion. Gold may also have been bid higher due to concerns about commodity financing deals in China.
Gold held near the highest in almost two weeks and palladium traded near over a three-year high at $852 per ounce. Palladium has surged 19% this year due to concerns regarding Russian supply and continuing, significant industrial unrest in South Africa, the second-largest producer after Russia. Labour talks ended acrimoniously again two days ago in South Africa.
The global gold price setting benchmark or “fix” is open to manipulation, said the head of the London Metal Exchange (LME), which is competing to offer an alternative to the silver fix when the system is disbanded in August.

Gold in U.S. Dollars – 1 Year (Thomson Reuters)
Fed’s Dollar Debasement Could Lead To “Economic Meltdown” – Steve Forbes
The chairman and founder of one of the world’s top financial magazines and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes’ has issued a warning that the Federal Reserve and other central banks ultra loose dollar policies could trigger an “economic meltdown.”
The Fed’s “vastly misguided monetary policies are now setting the stage for a new economic and social catastrophe — one that could rival the financial crisis and horrors of the 1930s,” Forbes warns.
His warnings come at a time of important recent monetary and geopolitical developments regarding the increasing use of the renminbi in the international payments system, as a trade currency and as a reserve currency. In 2000, the U.S. dollar made up 71% of all reserves held by governments around the world. Today it accounts for just 62% and this number is expected to fall this year and in the coming years.
Overnight came news that Azerbaijan’s sovereign wealth fund plans to invest up to $1.8 billion in renminbi this year, in what would be one of the largest investments in the Chinese currency to be made public – and a further indication of its rapid move towards reserve currency status.
Shahmar Movsumov, chief executive of the $37 billion State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (Sofaz), told the Financial Times that the fund hoped to start investing in the currency by the end of the year.“It’s one of the currencies that are becoming important, so why not invest in renminbi?” he said.
Forbes warns about this trend and advises a return to a “gold standard” as the only way to avoid disaster in his new book, ‘Money: How the Destruction of the Dollar Threatens the Global Economy — and What We Can Do About It’ (McGraw Hill, May 2014).
He says that U.S. economic success and prosperity will only return if the dollar is fixed to gold bullion and not subject to the Fed’s arbitrary liquidity hydrants.
The book is co-authored by the respected Elizabeth Ames. It says that a gold standard would “lower interest rates,” provide for “cheaper capital” and lead to “gangbuster growth,” Forbes says, adding:  “If the American economy had the growth rates it once achieved under a gold standard, it would be three times — instead of two times — the size of the Chinese economy today.”
Steve Forbes believes that a new gold standard would curtail reckless government spending and make government more accountable. Alas, today’s Fed is now abetting the reckless spendthrifts in government by buying and monetizing U.S. debt.
Forbes adds that those inflation fears could be assuaged by a gold-based currency board, which he adds have been around for more than 150 years. In fact, Hong Kong, Denmark, Lithuania and Bulgaria use a currency board, a basket of currencies, euros and euro bonds along with gold, to back their national currencies.
Gold is not a strict, unwavering standard, as critics suggest as the price can change. “Gold is far less rigid than people realize. It is both flexible and stable,” Forbes wrote. “A gold standard no more means a fixed supply of money than a use of the metric system means there has to be a fixed number of rulers.”
The Fed’s easy money policies could end up being the black swan event that leads to market meltdown. Interest rate spikes and inflation hikes frequently lead to economic crises. Currently, economists note inflation is not a problem, but once the trillions in bank reserves, created by the Fed, come pouring into the U.S. economy, that will change.
Higher commodity prices are the canary in the coal mine for inflation, notably food price spikes.
There is also the fact that the Fed and other central banks have again created significant and dangerous bubbles in stock, bond and property markets.
The size and complexity of the U.S. economy would make the conversion to a gold standard difficult  to do, analysts have noted. In order to back the dollars now in circulation and on deposit — about $2.7 trillion — with the approximately 261 million ounces of gold believed to be held by the U.S. government, gold prices would have to rise as high as $10,000 an ounce.

Signs Of Next Stock Market Crash Is Rapidly Approaching


Bearish bets against the S&P  SPX  have risen to levels not seen since 2012
For five years it’s been the fate of American short sellers to be wrong, as the biggest rally since the Internet bubble steamrolled defensive trades.
They’re loading up again, sending bearish wagers in the SPDR exchange-traded fund tracking the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (VIX) to almost 11 percent of its shares, the highest proportion since 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and Markit Securities Ltd. Bets against atechnology ETF are 67 percent above the 12-month average.
One of the best things you could do in the stock market over the last three years has been to buy shares from short sellers, who borrow stock with the aim of replacing it once the price falls. After bearishness peaked in 2011 and 2012, theS&P 500 rallied more than 14 percent within six months. With U.S.valuations approaching levels not seen since 2007 and the Federal Reserve scaling back stimulus, the bears are back again.
“That, from a trader’s standpoint, is a bullish sign, because you don’t have too much optimism in the market,” Walter “Bucky” Hellwig, who helps manage $17 billion at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham,Alabama, said by phone. “That there isn’t unbridled optimism shows that there could be more upside.”
EPS going down and markets going up.
World Stocks Near All-Time Highs
The Financial Stress Index fell to -1.281, the lowest in its history.
Last time this happened, the financial crisis broke out
Skyrocketing Chinese Late Payments & A Global Meltdown
With a non-stop flow of propaganda from Western mainstream media outlets, today Michael Pento sent King World News a fantastic piece which warns that skyrocketing Chinese late payments may set off a global chain reaction and subsequent meltdown. Pento also discusses the reason for the historic low global bond yields.
By Michael Pento of Pento Portfolio Strategies
June 7 (King World News) – Skyrocketing Chinese Late Payments & A Global Meltdown
It seems that nearly everyone is confounded by the record low bond yields that are prevalent across the globe today. If investors can correctly pinpoint the real reason behind these low sovereign debt yields, they will also be able to find a great parking place for their investment capital to weather the upcoming storm….
China just did another stimulus.
The People’s Bank of China has just cut the reserve ratio by 50 basis points for “selected banks” according to an announcement.
The cuts come in the face of a well-known Chinese slowdown. The country is trying to balance economic growth with a desire to deflate asset bubbles, hence the “targeted” cuts.

US Job Market Recovers Losses Yet Appears Weaker
Personal Income Tax Revenues Show Significant Softening in Q4 2013, Decline in Q1 2014
For two consecutive quarters, state income tax revenues have disappointed. And in the first quarter of 2014, state income tax revenue actually declined.
State Tax Revenues 2008-2014
McDonalds Has Longest Stretch Without Rising US Sales In History
S&P 500 peaked in 2000 & 2007, when Margin debt did this…
 
CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE
Margin debt reaching all-time highs can be viewed as a sign of excessive confidence in the markets, yet knowing this hasn’t been really that helpful when it comes to portfolio construction.
What has happened in the past that has been helpful when it comes to margin debt is this…when Margin Debt was hitting all-time highs and turned lower (which in did back in 2000 & 2007), the S&P 500 was near a peak in prices.
Doug Short updates us in the chart above, reflecting that Margin debt now for the second month in a row has decreased from the highest levels in all of history at (1). Does this mean that “the top” is in for the S&P 500? Not in my opinion. Does it send a word of caution towards very large portfolio exposure to the stock market? The Patterns would suggest it does.

Tick, Tick, Tick

Just a matter of time…
h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer
Deutsche Warns Markets Have Left The “Complacency” Phase, Have Entered Full Blown “Mania”
With a closing P/E ratio over 17 and a VIX under 11, Deutsche Bank’s David Bianco is sticking with his cautious call for the summer. Their preferred measure of equity market emotions is the price-to-earnings ratio divided by the VIX. As of Friday’s close, thissentiment measure has never been higher and is in extreme “Mania” phase. Deutsche’s advice to all the summertime-’chasers’ – “wait for a better entry.”
Via Deutsche Bank,
We find the current PEs demanding.

S&P median PE at 18.9, non-financial PE at 18.1 and trailing PE at 17.5 are all elevated vs. history.

And the P/E to VIX ratio suggests we have shifted from compacency into mania…
Don’t Chase…
What Is Driving The Market According To Mainstream Media: “Extreme Greed”
CNN Money’s model consists of 7 indicators…
China Land Sales Continue To Plunge In May—Down 38% Y/Y; No Transactions In Some Major Cities
Amid ongoing central government curbs, China’s property market is cooling off dramatically despite the onset of the sector’s traditionally “hot season,” as both land sales and transaction values plunged in May across 300 major Chinese cities.
Total land sales fell to 1,767 transactions in May in 300 Chinese cities, down 45% from a year ago and 19% lower than in the previous month, according to a survey published Friday on China’s leading real estate website Soufun.com.
In the same month, the total transaction value for land sales dropped 38% year-on-year, marking a 30% drop from April, to 13.75 billion yuan ($2.2 billion).

In Australia The Government Is Now Confiscating Bank Accounts That Are More Than 3 Years Old


The job market in America is getting worse, all we are doing is replacing the full time jobs for low paying jobs. In Australia the government is now confiscating bank accounts that are more than 3 years old. The payment system that will bypass America is in full swing in Russia. Another mass shooting was reported and it occurred in Oregon. The government officials are now pushing their agenda to disarm the American people. American towns are now being supplied with military assets to combat the people during the collapse. China is now getting involved in Sudan. Iraq is losing control as the people rise up and take back their country. Israel is using propaganda to convince the world Iran will have nuclear weapons. Syria has started to release prisoners. The central bankers/US government is now keeping a low profile regarding Syria, something is being planned, be prepared.