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After hours of negotiating, European policymakers agreed on Friday morning that the bloc’s bailout fund, better known as the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), would be able to lend directly to recapitalize struggling banks. Following the news, the markets reacted happily in agreement. But one person doesn’t see it as joyfully… Ever-skeptical investor Jim Rogers told CNBC that the move does absolutely nothing to help solve the region’s biggest problem of high debt levels. “Just because now you have a way to get [the banks] to borrow even more money, this is not solving the problem, this is making the problem worse,” Rogers said. Negotiations lasted throughout the night into Friday morning and finalized the agreement that these banks would be able to have money lent to them to recapitalize without increasing a country’s budget deficit and without preferential seniority status. The market euphoria brought on by the news of the agreement by European officials surged the Asian stoc

With tremendous volatility in global markets, today King World News interviewed James Turk out of Europe. Turk told KWN that we are headed into an extraordinarily dangerous time for both the markets and the financial system, that will end in a massive panic. Here is what Turk had to say about what is taking place: “Today was a very important day, Eric, because gold was strong while the stock markets were weak. This is a trend I expect to continue, and one that will baffle many financial analysts, going forward, that don’t understand this type of cycle.” James Turk continues: “I was hoping to see more strength in the precious metals at the end of last week, Eric, given the pummeling gold and silver were given. But I guess that was too much to ask for with July option expiry this week. Having driven the price of gold and silver down to this low level, I assume the paper-shorts will try to keep prices as low as possible, in order to maximize their profit by having calls they sol

Today 40 year veteran, Don Coxe, told King World News “...the amounts involved are at mind-boggling levels,” in terms of what is needed for Europe’s governments and banks. Coxe, who is Global Strategy Advisor to BMO ($538 billion in assets), also said that European banks, “...have borrowed huge amounts of money, in dollars, under currency swap arrangements,” and “if banks start to go down, we know from 2008, when banks start to crumble, then the whole system falls.” Here is what Coxe had to say about the ongoing crisis: “Well, first of all we’ve got to stop using ‘billions’ because if there is going to be a fund that works, it’s going to have a ‘T’ (for trillions) on it. We are dealing with some very big numbers in the sense that Italy, although it’s not that big of an economy, it’s got the third largest amount of bond debt outstanding.” Don Coxe continues: “So Italy’s situation is truly serious because they also have a short duration on their debt. If you were holding a three

This chart, better than any we have seen so far, summarizes just how much has been injected already to preserve the Eurozone from collapse. This is what is known as a sunk cost, because last time we checked (and just as we explained back in March at the market highs when everyone was euphoric that Europe is now fixed) nothing has been fixed, and Europe is one 'rogue' democratic vote away from an EMU exit, and thus oblivion (or so they said last year, now everyone is prepared for a Greek departure, or so they say now, expect for the Greeks of course - they go straight to the 10th circle of hell and do not pass go). The truth is that by the time the status quo finishes its extend and pretend game, which incidentally has only one real outcome, the €2 trillion spent to date, will be orders of magnitude higher... Original source

At the latest Casey Research conference, Recovery Reality Check, James Rickards, senior managing director of Tanget Capital Partners and author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis, debates Harry Dent, founder and president of HS Dent Foundation, on the subject of which is more likely in the near-term economic future, inflation or deflation.

As I’ve assessed in earlier pieces, neither the Fed, nor the IMF, nor the EFSF, nor the ECB has the firepower or the political backing to prop up Spain or the EU. This ultimately leaves the ESM, the permanent European Stability Mechanism… which technically doesn’t even exist yet (it’s supposed to be ratified by July 2012). That’s right… the bailout fund which is meant to SAVE Europe doesn’t even exist yet. And it’s not clear that it will anytime soon either… Indeed, in order for the ESM to be ratified it needs the individual EU member states that will contribute 90% of its capitalization to first ratify it on an individual basis. Here’s the list of countries that represent that 90% of capital as well as the status of their individual ratifications and the percentage of funding they are to provide. Read the full article at Zero Hedge

Welcome to Capital Account. Federal Reserve Chairman - and central planner in chief - Ben Bernanke trotted to the hill today to give another one of his "economic outlook" speeches, as traders listened carefully for any news that might give them an edge on their dailyspeculations...hoping to make a quick buck. A quick buck, it seems, is all that Americans can hope to make these days, with interest rates suppressed at near zero for almost 4 years, forcing more andmore hard-working people to speculate on riskier assets if they would like any sort of return on their money at all. For those less inclined to spin the roulette wheel, there is always the comfort of one's mattress, which guarantees a return of some of your money - whatever is not confiscated through what Mr. Bernanke so euphemistically calls Quantitative Easing: We call it counterfeiting. More confrontational souls may refer to it as outright theft... Bernanke and other Fed governors like Janet Yellen, who in

An episode of Pawn Stars where a guy went in to sell 3,000 oz of silver.

At the latest Casey Research Conference, "Recovery Reality Check" in Weston, Florida.James Rickards, senior managing director of Tanget Capital Partners and author of "Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis," talks about inflation and the gold standard in the 20th century.

This is so freaking epic. The I guess the person who stitched this video nailed it on how cash for gold works.

The spokesman for Greece's extremist far-right Golden Dawn party caused an uproar today when he physically assaulted two left-wing deputies on live television during a morning political show. Tempers frayed on the political show on the private Antenna television station during a discussion on the country's politics in the run-up to repeat elections on June 17th. Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris took offence at a reference by radical left Syriza party member Rena Dorou over a court case pending against him. Mr Kasidiaris (31) bounded out of his seat and hurled a glass of water across the table over Ms Dorou when she said there was a "crisis of democracy when people who will take the country back 500 years have got into the Greek parliament". He then turned on prominent Communist Party member Liana Kanelli, who had got out of her chair with a newspaper in hand and appeared to throw it at the Golden Dawn member. Talk show host Giorgos Papadakis ran over t

The Eurozone debt crisis is getting dangerously close to the monetary union's powerhouse - Germany. Moody's has cut the ratings of several German banks, including the country's second biggest lender. Austria is also affected. Max Keiser, RT's financial guru and host of The Keiser Report smells a rat in all this. He says, the crisis is the chance for some to make a fast buck.

Ever seen the TV show Pawn Stars? Well, this is Richard "The Old Man" Harrison checking out his silver bars. Source

In 2008 the world experienced one of the greatest financial turmoils in modern history. Markets around the world started crashing, stock prices plummeted, and major financial institutions, once thought to be invincible, started showing signs of collapse. Governments responded quickly, issuing massive bailouts and stimulus packages in an effort to keep the world economy afloat. While we’re told that these drastic measures prevented a total collapse of our system, a growing sense of unease has spread throughout the population. In the world of finance, indeed in all facets of modern life, cracks have started to appear. What lies ahead as a result of these bold ‘money printing’ measures? Was the financial crisis solved, or were the problems merely ‘kicked down the road?’