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March 2010

The Coming Precious Metals Short Squeeze

by John Rubino on March 30, 2010 · 56 comments

With the gold price suppression scheme apparently breaking open — see this article and this interview — the question becomes when, not if, holders of futures contracts will start demanding physical delivery. Most will discover that the metal isn’t there, which will, ahem, unsettle the commodity and currency markets. This impending bullion bank disaster is [...]

Collapsing Spreads and Booming Junk: Time to Get Short

by John Rubino on March 29, 2010 · 6 comments

Looks like the past year’s borrowing and printing are finally paying off. Junk bonds are setting records and emerging stock markets are booming. See this overview and this look at today’s action. But even in this kind of hot money environment, the collapse in spreads between emerging market bonds and U.S. Treasuries is remarkable: Emerging [...]

Art of the Collapse

by John Rubino on March 22, 2010 · 7 comments

Extreme times spawn interesting art. From the Great Depression, Brother Can You Spare a Dime, Grapes of Wrath, We’re in the Money, and about a thousand other works live on as classics. And the chaos of the 1960s gave us the Beatles, the Stones and the rest of classic rock’s pantheon. So it’s not surprising [...]

Classic Videos: Hyperinflation Nation 2/3

by John Rubino on March 20, 2010 · 13 comments

Here’s the middle part of a great series created by the National Inflation Association. It begins with a look at Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation, then goes on to explain that the U.S. is traveling the same road. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, the dollar is heading for its intrinsic value, and gold is the solution. It [...]

The Boredom Before the Storm (Time to Buy Volatility)

by John Rubino on March 17, 2010 · 9 comments

As eventful as the past few months have been (what with Greece, California, Illinois, Iran, the Lehman Brothers revelations, U.S./China trade friction, and record deficits just about everywhere), you’d think the financial markets would be agitated, to put it mildly. Instead, just about everything is range-bound, and the things that aren’t, like U.S. stocks, are [...]

Technology Ends Offshore Tax Evasion

by John Rubino on March 15, 2010 · 11 comments

Not so long ago, one of first things a newly-rich person would do was move some money into a numbered Swiss account or Cayman trust, where it would be safe from spouse, creditors, and tax collectors. Maybe not the most ethical way to behave, but what the hell, you’re rich and you can get away [...]

The Difference a Printing Press Makes, Part 2

by John Rubino on March 11, 2010 · 8 comments

The original, long-since discarded, blueprint for the United States had the central government managing foreign affairs and protecting citizens’ Constitutional rights while the states designed and ran their own economies. The wisdom of this setup wasn’t always clear (segregation for instance) but lately the contrast between states that have to balance their budgets and are [...]

Classic Videos: Ron Paul During the Last Election

by John Rubino on March 8, 2010 · 33 comments

The best way to understand how far the U.S. has drifted from its original design is to listen to Ron Paul. He sounds like Thomas Jefferson would if he were around, which makes him a flake and a radical to most of today’s Republicans and Democrats. But he strikes a chord with a surprisingly wide [...]

Inflationary Head Fake

by John Rubino on March 5, 2010 · 19 comments

Today (Friday the 5th) has a meaningful feel. The news is good on U.S. employment and Greek finances, and the markets are in recovery mode: stocks are up, gold is rocking, and bonds are getting smacked. Inflationary days are here again, in other words. But — while uncontrolled currency creation will absolutely without a doubt [...]

Classic Videos: Ben Bernanke’s Predictions

by John Rubino on March 2, 2010 · 32 comments

Of all the surreal choices the U.S. has made in the last few years, the strangest might be our decision to put the people who ruined the old system in charge of fixing it. Ben Bernanke, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd, Tim Geithner et al built the monetary policy and regulatory structure that let [...]