|
|||||
|
Pope Francis on Thursday called on world leaders to put an end to the “cult of money” and to do more to help the poor, warning that insecurity was rising in many regions of the world and the “joy of life” was diminishing in developed countries. “The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an [...] Venezuelans have just been experimenting one of the risks associated with paper money. Actually, they just lost 46% of their purchasing power in a single day, following the Venezuelan government’s decision to devaluate the bolivar by 46%, from 4,30 to 6,30 bolivars (to the dollar).
The currency war to the bottom is raging on the international scene but, contrary to other countries (Europe, USA, Japan) using obscure language, like ‘quantitative easing’ and [...] With Japan, China and the U.S. all pursuing weak-currency policies, other major economies are retaliating. The WSJ’s Deborah Kan speaks to James Rickards of Tangent Capital Partners about whether the drive to devalue will set off a trade crisis. http://live.wsj.com/video/why-no-one-will-win-the-currency-war/92B92B2A-7885-4817-B45A-317A96A157EA.html#!92B92B2A-7885-4817-B45A-317A96A157EA As developed countries like Japan and the U.S. try to kick-start their sluggish economies with ultralow interest rates and binges of money-printing, they are putting downward pressure on their currencies. The loose [...] Would this ever happen in America? This week, Brazil’s government announced that they were allocating $25 USD a month to each worker in the country to spend on cultural activities. That means some cash to see movies, go to museums, or buy books, music, or DVDs. “In all developed countries, culture plays a key role in the economy,” Culture Minister Marta Suplicy explained in an interview on national television. Read more: http://www.good.is/posts/cash-for-culture-brazil-gives-workers-25-a-month-to-spend-on-the-arts#ixzz2J67bbJdS Next year will prove to be a very difficult one for the hungry. World food stocks have fallen to dangerously low levels. The UN estimates there will be 5.5% less wheat on the world market in 2013. If the world experiences another shock, such as the droughts experienced in the US and Russia this year, 2013 could prove to be catastrophic for those who already struggle to feed themselves and their families. The [...] DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeff Gundlach told Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle on “Market Makers” today that “investors should be holding cash” in this environment.
Gundlach said that risk assets have “diminishing returns” on each round of QE and “it’s almost like a half-life of a radioactive particle.” Investors shouldn’t turn to risky assets as a “Pavlovian response.” Gundlach also said that, “I don’t see a lot of value in [...] by Climate Progress, Oil Price: ExxonMobil recently issued its latest global energy projections in a report called the “2013 Outlook for Energy: a view to 2040.” The report (pdf) is chock full of figures and graphs showing an inexorable rise in global energy demand and supply, as well as the growing market for Exxon’s products. As can be expected, the report shows that despite some recent efficiency gains, the world is on course to [...]  Thanks to passage of Proposition 30 last month, high-income Californians would pay the nation’s highest marginal income tax rates – nearly 52 percent — if President Barack Obama and Congress fail to make a deal to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff,” according to a new study. Without a fiscal cliff deal to the contrary, the Bush era tax cuts on high-income taxpayers would expire next year and rates would return to their previous [...] Bread That Lasts For 60 Days Could Cut Food Waste Food waste is a massive problem in most developed countries. In the US, figures released this year suggest that the average American family throws away 40% of the food they purchase – which adds up to $165bn (£102bn) annually. READ MORE @ BBC —————-
That’s insane. But there was no source for the figure quoted in this article, so I did some research. Here’s where [...] We’re quickly heading towards the point of no return. from Jeremy Grantham: The phenomenon of ever-more humans using a finite supply of natural resources cannot continue forever, Grantham says–and the prices of metals, hydrocarbons (oil), and food are now beginning to reflect that. Grantham believes that the planet can only sustainably support about 1.5 billion humans, versus the 7 billion on Earth right now (heading to 10-12 billion). For all of history except the [...] AFP - More than 350 million people suffer from depression globally, the World Health Organization said, ahead of World Mental Health Day on Wednesday. “It is not a disease of developed countries, it is a global phenomenon. It’s present in both genders and in rich and poor populations,” Dr Shekhar Saxena, head of the WHO’s mental health and substance abuse department, told reporters in Geneva. No region is free from the disorder and [...] By Satyajit Das SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Dear Doctor: Thank you for referring Mr. Global Economy to me. The patient’s history includes a seizure in 2007/ 2008 — financial losses, banking problems, a major recession. Liberal injections of taxpayer cash avoided catastrophic multiple organ failure, assisting a modest recovery. Governments ran large budget deficits in the period after the crisis. Interest rates around the world were reduced to historic lows, [...] Global economy’s cure is worse than the disease By Satyajit Das SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Dear Doctor: Thank you for referring Mr. Global Economy to me. The patient’s history includes a seizure in 2007/ 2008 — financial losses, banking problems, a major recession. Liberal injections of taxpayer cash avoided catastrophic multiple organ failure, assisting a modest recovery. overnments ran large budget deficits in the period after the crisis. Interest rates around the [...] Over a four years period from 2008 to 2011, Corning Inc. was one of 26 companies that managed to avoid paying any American income taxes, even though it earned nearly $3 billion during that time. In fact, according to Citizens For Tax Justice, the company received a $4 million refund from 2008 to 2010. That didn’t stop Susan Ford, a senior executive at the company, from telling the House Ways and Means Committee this [...] Graph showing disease decline (Australia) before introduction of vaccines “The decline in infectious diseases in developed countries had nothing to do with vaccinations, but with the decline in poverty and hunger.”–Dr Buchwald, M.D. “Up to 90% of the total decline in the death rate of children between 1860-1965 because of whooping cough, scarlet fever, diptheria, and measles occured before the introduction of immunisations and antibiotics.”—Dr Archie Kalokerinos, M.D. Table 1: Deaths [...] Stagflation is one of the worst economic conditions a country can be in, and the United States just entered it. It has actually been responsible for revolutions and uprisings in developed countries around the world. Most recently Greece, Spain and Portugal are experiencing severe doses of this dreaded economic condition. It is extraordinarily difficult to work through and often destroys wealth for generations. Stagflation is simply defined by high unemployment, slow economic [...] People worldwide are living three years longer than expected on average, pushing up the costs of aging by 50 percent, and governments and pension funds are ill prepared, the International Monetary Fund said. Already the cost of caring for aging baby boomers is beginning to strain government budgets, particularly in advanced economies where by 2050 the elderly will match the numbers of workers almost one for one. The IMF study shows [...] From Sovereign Man: One of the things that sets Thailand apart from nearly every other place on the planet is how absurdly cheap things are given the high quality of service. This becomes crystal clear to even the most casual observer who wanders in to one of the country’s thousands of massage studios, where, for a whopping $5, a local will put his/her heart and soul into rubbing your feet for an [...] So, here’s a formula: take $55 or so trillion of reported total debt (from the Fed’s Z-1 report), and $100 or so trillion of unfunded liabilities, and toss in a modest portion of the derivatives that are effectively debt (any thoughts on that one?), and divide by 300 million Americans – we get more than half a million per capita. Anyone have some other suggestions for the formula to determine [...] telegraph.co.uk Robert Zoellick said the World Bank would support a Brics bank, an idea formally proposed at a summit in New Delhi last week. The World Bank has previously backed the creation of the Islamic Development Bank and the Opec Fund to build financing and analytical capabilities. If Brics nations “decide they want another financing vehicle – fine. Let’s figure out how to work with it … I’m enough of an economist [...] It is rather surprising that in a world in which anything and everything is only about money, it is next to impossible to find a consolidated balance sheet of the world’s insolvent economies (i.e., the developed countries: US, Japan and the Euro Area). So for all those seeking a visual presentation of all the liabilities that have to be inflated away by the central banks (because that’s what this is [...] ECRI Indicators Improve, But Beware The ”Yo-Yo Years” Advisor Perspectives (dshort.com)
The Weekly Leading Index (WLI) growth indicator of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) came in at -0.4 in today’s public release of the data through March 16th. This is the tenth consecutive week of improvement (less negative) data for the Growth Index and the highest level (i.e., least negative) since August 12th of last year. The [...] http://www.marketwatch.com/story/medical-journal-article-14000-us-deaths-tied-to-fukushima-reactor-disaster-fallout-2011-12-19 Japan is reknown for the high quality of their engineering. If they experience these problems then consider what a less developed country with worse standards would experience. Look at it using a risk matrix, if the worst possible event does happen it’s catastrophic, thousands of years of vast amounts of land rendered uninhabitable. The chance of these event happening is not minimal, chernobyl, three mile island and fukishima are proof that [...] From Bloomberg: The Bank of Israel will begin today a pilot program to invest a portion of its foreign currency reserves in U.S. equities. More from Globes: The Bank of Israel today began investing a small part of its $77 billion in foreign currency reserves in US stocks. The central bank’s latest Markets Division report states that the new Bank of Israel Law (5770-2010) allows the Bank of Israel to make equity investments, and that it began to do [...] Note that the main discrepancy is simply what is reported vs. what people are in fact doing in order to stay alive. “Robert Neuwirth is a journalist who is preoccupied with this question: What do people do when the state has made satisfaction of their wants, their natural desire to improve their lives, almost impossible?” http://mises.org/daily/5809/The-Education-of-Robert-Neuwirth “…small, illegal, off-the-books businesses collectively account for trillions of dollars in commerce and employ fully half the [...] by Carl Herman Reuters and wanttoknow.info provide prima facie evidence that the US 1% runs Wall Street as rigged-casino gambling to transfer wealth from the 99% to themselves. The amount of money fraudulently gambled is not millions of dollars, not billions, not even tens of trillions, but over five hundred trillion ($532,000,000,000,000). Look at Demonocracy’s images to get an idea of this magnitude of money. Let this sink in: $532 trillion means that the 1% US banksters gamble over $5 million dollars [...] |
Custom Search
    |
||||
|
Copyright © 2013 InvestmentWatch - All Rights Reserved |
|||||
Fulcrum: rare disaster risk explains bonds- abnormally low yields but rising credit risk alongside, more ‘equity like’
Two-year bond yields in six European countries recently turned negative. The decline in bond yields has prompted a growing number of commentators to say that bonds are overvalued.
In this column, we present a framework that can rationalise and explain current bond prices. The framework also sheds light on other trends in bond markets. It builds on the rare-disaster framework of Reitz (1988), Barro (2006), Barro et al. (2010), Barro and [...]