InvestorMind

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...

The government of Iceland has forgiven the mortgage debt for much of its population. This nation chose a very different way of stopping the crisis from the rest of European countries. It decided to hear the requests of the population and to put politicians and bankers on the bench of the accused three years after their financial excesses would sank one of the most prosperous economies in 2008.

The Japanese Finance Minster, Yasushi Kinoshita, stated that, “”Japan is fiscally worse than Greece.“ This statement is huge. At a conference in Japan, the Finance Minister also noted that in 2011 Japan ran a 10% deficit and their debt to GDP ratio skyrocketed to over 230%. When we look back at economic history when a country breaks through the 160% debt to GDP number they usually have either economic collapse or a currency crisis. Only Great Britain during its imperial might in the 1700 and 1800’s were able to come out of a debt load this large. What makes all this particularly interesting is that most of Japan’s debt is held domestically. Because of this the Japanese financial system will be much more susceptible to fiscal shock. An additional piece of news makes the statement by the Japanese Finance Minister even more serious. This year alone Japan will have to pay back in full nearly $3 Trillion, nearly 25% of all the debt they owe. Financial stability will be completely ...

The regime of drastic cuts has tipped the economy into a violent downward spiral. They thought that private industry would muddle through as the state went through the austerity mincer. What the EU-IMF "Troika" did not fully understand is how many firms were really part of the state in disguise. "The Greek government outsources everything," said one official with close knowledge of the events. Faced with the guillotine, the state first slashed procurement contracts and then stopped paying its bills altogether. The government is now €7bn (£5.8bn) in arrears to private companies, including €3bn in unpaid VAT refunds for exporters. It is why business has borne the brunt of the fiscal squeeze, suffering 450,000 job losses, and why Greece's unemployment has soared to 21pc. At the same time the banking system seized up. More than €60bn of deposits were withdrawn. By November, no Greek bank could issue a letter of credit accepted anywhere in the world, with calam...

Just when we thought the US could not sink any further in its usurpation of civil rights, here comes the FBI to advise all those who tend to think that the broken economic model of the past century is the cause for the global insolvency, that wanton fiat diluation and reckless debt issuance does not 'fix' the problem of uber-leverage, and that the gold standard is the proper way to return to monetary stability, will henceforth be considered extremists. From Reuters: "Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday. These extremists, sometimes known as "sovereign citizens," believe they can live outside any type of government authority, FBI agents said at a news conference." And the most epic line ever written: "The extremists may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and believe the United States ...

This animated short film reveals the insidious and fraudulent nature of the Federal Reserve System. It explains basic concepts, historical facts, and ways out in a easy and fun to understand format.

Today James Turk informed King World News that a Greek default is imminent and investors should expect this rolling financial crisis to continue to propel gold higher. Here is what Turk had to say about the ongoing crisis and what to expect going forward: “I think the key item today is a Greek default looks imminent. The various parties are in the final stages of negotiating terms. They have now reached an impasse. Basically, the German government and the international institutions involved are insisting that the private lenders take a bigger loss and lower interest rate on the new bonds they are to receive.” James Turk continues: “Ironically, Greece itself is in the middle of this tug of war. But regardless of the outcome, what the negotiators are missing is that Greece does not have the capacity to repay even the reduced amounts being negotiated. So some kind of default looks inevitable, Eric, which in turn will ramp up the pressure on other over-leveraged governments arou...

Global Debt... a Dummies version.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Treasury on Tuesday started dipping into federal pension funds in order to give the Obama administration more credit to pay government bills. "I will be unable to invest fully" the federal employees retirement system fund beginning Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a letter to Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on Wednesday on the Obama administration's request to raise the country's legal debt limit to $16.394 trillion. However, unless the lower chamber and the Senate are able to shore up enough votes to block the White House request, the debt limit will be increased by $1.2 trillion next Friday and a repeat of last year's debt ceiling debacle will be averted. Geithner said Treasury started suspending reinvestments in a federal pension fund known as the G-Fund -- a tool Treasury has had to employ six times over the past 20 years in order to keep the ...

The Schiff Report January 14, 2012.

By Doug Casey, Casey Research Everyone knows that the US government is bankrupt and has been for many years. But I thought it might be instructive to see what its current cash-flow situation actually is. At least insofar as it's possible to get a clear picture. As you know, the so-called Super Committee recently tried to come up with a plan to cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion and failed completely. To anyone who understands the nature of the political process, the failure was, of course, as predictable as it was shameful. What's even more shameful, though, is that the sought-after $1.5 trillion cut wasn't meant to apply to the annual budget but to the total budget of the next 10 years – a fact that is rarely mentioned. Now whenever the chattering classes talk about cuts, it's always about cuts over the course of 10 years. Which is a dodge, partly because most of the supposed cuts will be scheduled for the end of the period, but also because new programs, new emerg...

A satirical short film taking a look at the national debt and how it applies to just one family.

Update: HOUSE TO VOTE JAN. 18 ON OBAMA'S DEBT-LIMIT INCREASE REQUEST Two days ago we wondered how long it would take for Obama to restart the debt ceiling theater. Not that long it turns out. OBAMA SENDS CONGRESS REQUEST TO RAISE DEBT CEILING OBAMA NOTIFICATION STARTS 15-DAY CLOCK FOR CONGRESS TO VOTE So with Congress in recess, will Obama succeed in passing another automatic vote using base trickery? The same Obama, who as recently as 3 hours ago warned Congress that any attempts to pass approval on the Keystone Pipeline without his involvement are "counterproductive"... In other news, America' new debt ceiling of $16.3 trillion, or 107% of GDP is now just a formality, about to be interrupted by a little circus clowning. From Bloomberg: President Barack Obama formally notified Congress today that that the government needs more borrowing authority. The written certification to raise the debt ceiling to $16.394 trillion starts a 15-day clock for Con...

America may have breached its debt ceiling, but that is certainly not preventing it from issuing debt, placing another $21 billion in  10 Year bonds in a reopening , which priced 1.5 bps through the WI tail of 1.915% or at 1.90%. This is merely the latest record low yield in the history of the auction. The Bid To Cover came at 3.29: not a record, but certainly one of the top 5 highest. Oddly enough, while the Directs disappeared from yesterday's 3 Year auction, today they surged, coming at double last month's 8.4% at 17.4%, the highest since the August post-downgrade auction. Primary Dealers accounted for 44.3% with Indirects coming in at a very weak 38.3%. Still, the take home is that in the past two days, the US has raised over $50 billion in debt with no capacity, and instead is plundering from government retirement accounts, just like it did back in July 2011 at the first, but not last, debt ceiling theater. SSDD.At least we know what it takes to get new record low yields:...

If 1 penny = $100,000,000. How much would that be? There were 2 Bailouts in the US. $700,000,000,000 Tarp Bailout: 7000 pennies ($70) $16,000,000,000,000 Secret Federal Reserve Bailout: 160,000 pennies ($1600) Let's see what they look like.

In this letter to investors written by Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital Management. He talks about what he thinks may lie ahead for Europe and Japan. Hayman_Nov2011

In this video Chris Martenson, economic analyst at http://chrismartenson.com and author of 'The Crash Course', explains why he thinks that the coming 20 years are going to look completely unlike the last 20 years. In his presentation he focuses on the so-called three "Es": Economy, Energy and Environment. He argues that at this point in time it is no longer possible to view either one of those topics separately from one another. Since all our money is loaned onto existence, our economy has to grow exponentially. Martenson proves this point empirically by showing a 99.9% fit of the actual growth curve of the last 40 years to an exponential curve. If we wanted to continue on this path, our debt load would have to double again over the next 10 years. By continually increasing our debt relative to GDP we are making the assumption that our future will always be wealthier than our past. He believes that this assumption is flawed and that the debt loads are already unmanag...

Italian Welfare Minister Elsa Fornero broke down in tears and was about to announce to the Italian people that they will put an end to inflation indexing on all but the lowest pension bands, a move that will mean an effective income cut for many pensioners. She was unable to say the word "sacrifici" or sacrifice. In which the new Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti took over and said the word "sacrifici". The Italian people will suffer because the Italian politicians ran wild borrowing billions to continue their spending habits. Because of these borrowings which was encouraged by the banks, the Italian debt went to astronomical levels that the Italian people will now have to pay off. This is another bailout of banks where the people will suffer and the banks get their money back even if they were the ones who encouraged the risky lending.

With investors wondering where the next major move is for gold and silver, today King World News interviewed four decade veteran, John Hathaway, the prolific manager of the Tocqueville Gold Fund. Many investors are on edge, waiting for a resolution to the European problem. Hathaway had this to say about what central planners face today, “Oh, it’s terrible, it’s really terrible. Then answer to all of these issues, in terms of what they are proposing, is austerity. Well that’s fine if you are a technocrat like the new head of Greece or the new head of the European Central Bank or the new guy in Italy. I mean these guys are all technocrats.” John Hathaway continues: “But I think they’ve got six months before people start to get very restive with their medicine of tightening government spending, cutting back on entitlements and all that kind of thing. I think if you want to have a bet that they don’t have as much time as they need, you should have some gold. What I expect (out ...

The stock market is up big time today. The Dow Jones is up 400 points as of this writing. The major central banks agreed to ease the strains in the European credit markets. The Federal Reserve agreed to provide cheaper dollar funding to the European Central Bank which can then provide cheaper dollar loans to European banks. We're not going to see an end to any money printing anytime soon.