Wednesday 26March2014 - Chart of the Month!
From today's Elliott Wave Financial Forecast.
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Monday, 24 March 2014
Sunday, 23 March 2014
Sunday 23March2014 - The Deep State!
From Strategic Investment.
Yes, to what President Eisenhower described as the military-industrial complex. I just had lunch yesterday with Bill Bonner who’s been very smart about these things for a long time, and he told me that, it was something that I’ve noticed too, that President Eisenhower was so much better than they ever gave him credit for at the time. He gave a really prophetic final speech, his farewell speech, in the White House to the country on January 17, 1961. He said: "In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether soft or unsoft, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or our democratic processes."
Well we did, and unfortunately, nobody’s paid much attention to this.
But it’s all happened, and the new name for the military-industrial complex is the Deep State, and this was the subject of a long television program by Bill Moyers on www.strategicinvestment.com Page 7 of 12
PBS in February. And consequently, there have been dozens of articles in many different venues talking about aspects of the Deep State. And we’re in a situation where we have the president of the United States who, when he does things on behalf of the Deep State, can do anything he damn pleases.
And you can tell this is true, here’s an example: Obama was trying to get some guy appointed to the hugely important post of Surgeon General of the United States. His name is Vivek H. Murthy, and this guy — nobody wanted him. The senate said "no," the house said "no," and he’s probably going to be withdrawn.
Obama can’t get this guy appointed to a ceremonial post, but on the other hand, he can liquidate American citizens without due process, detain prisoners indefinitely without charges, conduct Dragnet surveillance on the American people without warrants and engage in unbelievable spying on everything you do, quite apart from the Constitution that says your privacy can only be invaded on due cause with a warrant.
And we have, in Utah now, a building which is the size of 17 football fields that is housing the equivalent of 500 quintillion pages of private information about American citizens that they are collecting daily without warrants. They’re listening to this call as well as every other call that you make or hear. For what? The Constitution says one thing, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference what the Constitution says when it comes to what the Deep State wants. George Bush, who was the president of the United States, described the Deep State as "the deciders," which I think is a very telling phrase.
You would think that he was the decider who was the president, but no, the Deep State people are the deciders. They’re the ones that tell the president what to do. That’s basically the way it works. www.strategicinvestment.com Page 8 of 12
Charles: That sounds about right, and it’s something we’ve had to contend with as long as there have been politicians.
There’s always been money involved, and the money has a way of buying people out. But you know, I think the biggest example of a Deep State enterprise is indeed the military-industrial complex, but you definitely see one on Wall Street as well.
And I think, to a lesser degree, we’re going to see a growing Deep State enterprise in the technology industry. You know, we have trillions of dollars sloshing around between the hands of Google, Microsoft, Apple, and a few other companies out there in Silicon Valley and in the west coast of the United States.
And these companies increasingly have more and more power over what we do, and they have access to all our information, messages and emails that we’ve sent, and business ideas that we’ve tossed around.
They have access to all of these things, and the government knows that it needs their cooperation in order to gain more access into what we do on a daily basis.
That gives these companies leverage.
No wonder we’ve seen an increase in lobbying by these institutions in Washington, D.C., and state governments and everywhere else.
And some people may think, "Well these things are fairly innocent in nature," but sometimes they’re not.
And sometimes this lobbying is done to ensure that laws get passed that would stifle competition.
This is something that I talked about before when it came to the smartphone industry in the United States www.strategicinvestment.com Page 9 of 12
and essentially how Apple is paying Microsoft royalties and Microsoft is paying Apple royalties, and they’re both paying Google royalties and Google is also paying them both royalties. So essentially, they each have one hand in each other’s pockets so that they’re all paying each other off. But anybody else who tries to get in the middle of those three companies suddenly owes all three of them a huge sum of money. This was reflected pretty well by Samsung actually; Samsung and Apple have been endlessly in court.
And Apple finally threw Samsung a settlement and said, "Well if you just pay us $40 in royalties for every phone you sell, then we’d be completely even." Can you imagine that? $40 in royalties [Laughter] for every Samsung phone sold that goes straight to Apple.
And this is Samsung, a company that has a lot of power; they’re huge, and they can work out a favorable deal. Now what happens to all the other smaller phone companies that can’t make that kind of deal? They’re basically out of the industry; there’s no competition there.
And that happens throughout all the different industries. I think one of the bigger examples that you’ve always brought up is in the sugar industry.
From Strategic Investment.
Yes, to what President Eisenhower described as the military-industrial complex. I just had lunch yesterday with Bill Bonner who’s been very smart about these things for a long time, and he told me that, it was something that I’ve noticed too, that President Eisenhower was so much better than they ever gave him credit for at the time. He gave a really prophetic final speech, his farewell speech, in the White House to the country on January 17, 1961. He said: "In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether soft or unsoft, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or our democratic processes."
Well we did, and unfortunately, nobody’s paid much attention to this.
But it’s all happened, and the new name for the military-industrial complex is the Deep State, and this was the subject of a long television program by Bill Moyers on www.strategicinvestment.com Page 7 of 12
PBS in February. And consequently, there have been dozens of articles in many different venues talking about aspects of the Deep State. And we’re in a situation where we have the president of the United States who, when he does things on behalf of the Deep State, can do anything he damn pleases.
And you can tell this is true, here’s an example: Obama was trying to get some guy appointed to the hugely important post of Surgeon General of the United States. His name is Vivek H. Murthy, and this guy — nobody wanted him. The senate said "no," the house said "no," and he’s probably going to be withdrawn.
Obama can’t get this guy appointed to a ceremonial post, but on the other hand, he can liquidate American citizens without due process, detain prisoners indefinitely without charges, conduct Dragnet surveillance on the American people without warrants and engage in unbelievable spying on everything you do, quite apart from the Constitution that says your privacy can only be invaded on due cause with a warrant.
And we have, in Utah now, a building which is the size of 17 football fields that is housing the equivalent of 500 quintillion pages of private information about American citizens that they are collecting daily without warrants. They’re listening to this call as well as every other call that you make or hear. For what? The Constitution says one thing, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference what the Constitution says when it comes to what the Deep State wants. George Bush, who was the president of the United States, described the Deep State as "the deciders," which I think is a very telling phrase.
You would think that he was the decider who was the president, but no, the Deep State people are the deciders. They’re the ones that tell the president what to do. That’s basically the way it works. www.strategicinvestment.com Page 8 of 12
Charles: That sounds about right, and it’s something we’ve had to contend with as long as there have been politicians.
There’s always been money involved, and the money has a way of buying people out. But you know, I think the biggest example of a Deep State enterprise is indeed the military-industrial complex, but you definitely see one on Wall Street as well.
And I think, to a lesser degree, we’re going to see a growing Deep State enterprise in the technology industry. You know, we have trillions of dollars sloshing around between the hands of Google, Microsoft, Apple, and a few other companies out there in Silicon Valley and in the west coast of the United States.
And these companies increasingly have more and more power over what we do, and they have access to all our information, messages and emails that we’ve sent, and business ideas that we’ve tossed around.
They have access to all of these things, and the government knows that it needs their cooperation in order to gain more access into what we do on a daily basis.
That gives these companies leverage.
No wonder we’ve seen an increase in lobbying by these institutions in Washington, D.C., and state governments and everywhere else.
And some people may think, "Well these things are fairly innocent in nature," but sometimes they’re not.
And sometimes this lobbying is done to ensure that laws get passed that would stifle competition.
This is something that I talked about before when it came to the smartphone industry in the United States www.strategicinvestment.com Page 9 of 12
and essentially how Apple is paying Microsoft royalties and Microsoft is paying Apple royalties, and they’re both paying Google royalties and Google is also paying them both royalties. So essentially, they each have one hand in each other’s pockets so that they’re all paying each other off. But anybody else who tries to get in the middle of those three companies suddenly owes all three of them a huge sum of money. This was reflected pretty well by Samsung actually; Samsung and Apple have been endlessly in court.
And Apple finally threw Samsung a settlement and said, "Well if you just pay us $40 in royalties for every phone you sell, then we’d be completely even." Can you imagine that? $40 in royalties [Laughter] for every Samsung phone sold that goes straight to Apple.
And this is Samsung, a company that has a lot of power; they’re huge, and they can work out a favorable deal. Now what happens to all the other smaller phone companies that can’t make that kind of deal? They’re basically out of the industry; there’s no competition there.
And that happens throughout all the different industries. I think one of the bigger examples that you’ve always brought up is in the sugar industry.
Thursday, 20 March 2014
Thursday 20March2014 - Danielle Park's Comment of the Day!
"The more things stay the same…only today the speculation has been far beyond just mining shares. The financial world is set up to suck in and prey on the weak and undisciplined. The only way to beat them at their game is to do exactly the opposite of what they are selling and recommending. When the risk sellers are looking genius and all-powerful, we are wise to stand clear and patiently devise our own plan of execution. When the risk-sellers are once more imploding in their leverage and hubris, those who are ready and liquid take charge buying assets off of failing hands and fools. The below chart summarizes the cycle perfectly. This particular cycle the last great investor opportunity was in the spring of 2009, and the black dot signifying the speculative phase kicked off in mid-2010 when QE-mania spurred unrealistic faith in the power of Central Banks. Investing is the quintessential mental game of tortoise and hares. Are you set up to fail with the hare masses or prevail with the tortoise few?"
"The more things stay the same…only today the speculation has been far beyond just mining shares. The financial world is set up to suck in and prey on the weak and undisciplined. The only way to beat them at their game is to do exactly the opposite of what they are selling and recommending. When the risk sellers are looking genius and all-powerful, we are wise to stand clear and patiently devise our own plan of execution. When the risk-sellers are once more imploding in their leverage and hubris, those who are ready and liquid take charge buying assets off of failing hands and fools. The below chart summarizes the cycle perfectly. This particular cycle the last great investor opportunity was in the spring of 2009, and the black dot signifying the speculative phase kicked off in mid-2010 when QE-mania spurred unrealistic faith in the power of Central Banks. Investing is the quintessential mental game of tortoise and hares. Are you set up to fail with the hare masses or prevail with the tortoise few?"
Tuesday, 18 March 2014
Monday, 17 March 2014
Monday 17March2014 - Chart of the Day!
From Danielle Park's Web Site.
"Commodity producers and currencies are all closely connected to the deflation of the Chinese [debt] miracle. This next chart maps the topping pattern in copper and the Canadian dollar today that resembles a similar break down heading into the 2008 recession."
From Danielle Park's Web Site.
"Commodity producers and currencies are all closely connected to the deflation of the Chinese [debt] miracle. This next chart maps the topping pattern in copper and the Canadian dollar today that resembles a similar break down heading into the 2008 recession."
Saturday, 15 March 2014
Saturday 15March2014 - What Next?
From Richard Russell newsletter.
“The US is now actually borrowing to pay off the interest on its huge and growing debt. The Treasury continually issues bonds. But who will buy them? Can you believe it, the US is reduced to actually buying its own debt via the Federal Reserve. What does the Fed buy our debt with? It buys our own debt with money that it conjures up out of thin air by means of a bookkeeping entry. The Fed has been doing this for years and the Fed's basket of bonds is now over $4 trillion dollars worth of assorted bonds."
From Richard Russell newsletter.
“The US is now actually borrowing to pay off the interest on its huge and growing debt. The Treasury continually issues bonds. But who will buy them? Can you believe it, the US is reduced to actually buying its own debt via the Federal Reserve. What does the Fed buy our debt with? It buys our own debt with money that it conjures up out of thin air by means of a bookkeeping entry. The Fed has been doing this for years and the Fed's basket of bonds is now over $4 trillion dollars worth of assorted bonds."
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