Sunday, June 1, 2014

BlackRock’s Rieder: Treasuries ‘aren’t that bad’; we’ve shifted some assets out of the peripheral

BlackRock Inc., Co-Head Americas Fixed Income, Rick Rieder said BlackRock has shifted some assets out of peripheral bonds and yields will remain in a “low range for a long while.” Rieder said U.S. treasuries — which he predicts will “drift higher” –  “don’t look that bad compared with the rest of the world” after a bond-market surge pushed yields to the lowest level in a year.

The manager of BlackRock Strategic income made remarks this morning in an interview with Bloomberg’s Tom Keene, Scarlett Fu and Adam Johnson on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”


*CREDIT: BLOOMBERG TELEVISION’S “SURVEILLANCE”**

Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/blackrocks-rieder-treasuries-arent-that-bad-weve-shifted-some-assets-out-of-the-peripheral/#xHSDisIGt6RC5Feu.99

Gold And Silver – Debt Is Trouncing Precious Metals, For Now.

Animal Farm and 1984, meet 2014. The Western world no longer makes any sense, and
common sense has been sidelined for decades. It is lies, deceit, and debt ruling supreme.
The “American Way” [which once was a standard for emulation] is now a source of
embarrassment, advanced by the bankrupt federal government doing the bidding of the
moneychangers, those who adhere to and hide behind the Rothschild formula. What is
that formula? It has been expressed here on several occasions:
Give me control of a nation’s money, and I care not who makes the laws.”
Mayer Amschel Rothschild.
Whether Rothschild actually said it or not, this is the most profound statement, and its
reality has seized the entire wealth of the Western world. Rothschild learned early on how
incredibly profitable it was to lend to nations instead of individuals, and at times of war,
profits soared even more. Wars were expensive. Troops had to be paid, munitions bought,
and over a period of time, the expense of war drained a nation’s treasury.
Being recognized as the source for available funding, kings and rulers readily turned to
the Rothschild family for money. The Rothschilds always demanded gold and silver in
repayment, and when that ran out, control over the issuance of a nation’s money was
then demanded. Long story short, with its unparalleled, and unfathomable by most to
the extent of its accumulation, the Rothschild banking clan became almost the only
source of money to run a country.
While this may seem repetitive and, to some degree accepted as true, the review is
presented as context for what follows.
What may not be as widely known is that the English Rothschild bank funded the North
in America’s Civil War, while the French Rothschild bank funded the South. It did not
matter who would win, the Rothschild’s were going to increase both their wealth and,
more importantly for them, their influence in US politics. That had always been their
primary objective.
Lincoln did not want to pay the bankers up to 36% interest for loans to fund the war.
He decided to issue Greenbacks by the US government, interest free so that the country
was not burdened with any interest costs, a very big deal.  Lincoln was assassinated, [draw
your own conclusions], and after his death, Congress immediately repealed the Greenback
law. It should be known that when Lincoln announced his use of interest-free money as a
source of funding, bankers stormed to Washington D C t o complain bitterly.
Message:  Never mess with bankers.
Prior to the Civil War, the individual states that comprised the United States were the
primary source of power. After the Civil War, the Federal government started to take
control of power from the states and placed them under its umbrella. The bankers,
under the control of the Rothschilds, were gaining the influence for which they had
been scheming.
A few decades later, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was [illegally] passed, and control
of this nation’s money supply was now in the banker’s hands. It took 2 more decades
to officially bankrupt the United States and cause the nation to cease printing any of
its own U S Treasury Notes, which were backed by silver and gold, at the time. It was
then that Roosevelt declared a “banking holiday.” The banking system was shut down
for a few days, and when banks reopened, there were then under control of the Federal
Reserve and a few Wall Street banks.  [JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Chase]
For clarity: The Federal Reserve is a privately owned corporation. It is not federal,
there are no reserves, and what it issues are not Notes. The third sentence of this
article states, It is lies, deceit, and debt ruling supreme. Congress is mandated
by Article 1 section 8 clause 5 of the original Constitution “To coin Money, regulate the
Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;”
Nowhere in the original constitution does it allow for a private corporation to control
and issue this nation’s currency. Here you see the power of the bankers to come in and
take control of the policies, laws, and banking functions. The government, as most
people believe exists, in fact does not. The government is under total control of the
central banking system, the Federal Reserve.
The Federal Reserve does not issue money. To be clear, the Federal Reserve does
not issue money!
 It issues debt. Each and every Federal Reserve Note, [FRN] is a debt
instrument. The United States does not issue it own currency. When the US needs
money, it is borrowed from the Federal Reserve, and interest is paid on each and every
dollar and cent issued by that private banking cartel. When a nation no longer issues its
own currency, it is no longer sovereign. Guess who has to pay the interest on the nation’s
debt?
Read Article 14, first sentence of section 4 of the now Federal Constitution:
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law,
including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in
suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.
This will come as a surprise to most Americans, but it was the Rothschild faction,
the money controllers, the elites, who had that section written into the federal
constitution
. No one is allowed to question the validity of the public debt, no
matter how invalid it may be! Theft had become legalized with the passage of that
Article 14 of the federal constitution.
It is your debt, Americans, and to make matters worse, you have to pay interest on
every single dollar and cent loaned into circulation. Forget about what happens to
how FRNs are treated once in circulation, their very existence is debt. There is no
money in circulation. This country, the world, has been deceived into believing
that a FRN is a “dollar,” just because the word appears on each debt instrument.
It was no accident that Roosevelt passed his useless but effective Executive Order
that mandated all “persons” turn in their gold in 1933. In law, a “person” is a
corporation. Unless one worked for the federal government as an officer or was a
corporation, the deceit of the Executive Order was a pure ruse, as is the entire de
facto 
bankrupt federal government.
The reason for it was that the elites wanted to eliminate competition for its fiat
FRN. We cannot say it is backed by nothing, for it is backed by the birth of every
14th Amendment “US citizen,” a status which never existed prior to the elite mandated
passage of the 14th, another ruse to enslave American citizens within their own country
by a handful of elites who controlled the money which controls the government. If
anyone should doubt that, where does the US government turn when it wants money?
To the Fed banking cartel, and that same cartel issues debt that earns them interest.
[The point of the birth certificate is that it is used as security for loans based on the
premise that each birth will live for so many years, earn money and pay taxes back
to the elites.  The bith certificate is a form of security.]
The debt, by the way, can never be repaid.  It is a mathematical impossibility
because the interest owed is never loaned into existance.
This is a brief overview of how the US government has come to be usurped by a banking
cartel that controls everything: government, media, corporations, food supply, etc, etc,
all because of their control over the money supply in the Western world. We may
continue this theme in another article, for it is incredibly complex and rife with plausible
deniability by [puppet]governments acting at the behest of the totally in control elites.
Gold and silver are the exact opposite of debt. When you own gold and silver, you own
it outright. It is substance without any third-party obligation[s]. You know by the
unrelenting manipulation of the price for both by the central bankers how desperate
they are to keep it from challenging their grand fiat scheme. Many thought the Ponzi
scheme was unraveling last year, and many still believe fiat will be jettisoned in favor of
gold and silver this year, sooner rather than later. That does not appear to be the case.
We are adherents of letting the market interaction of price and volume, as found in the
charts, speak loudest and silence a great many “opinions” offered from a variety of
sources.
The explanation on the monthly chart is a sufficient summation. Gold has been moving
lower the past few months, but guardedly when it would be expected otherwise.
GC M 1 Jun 14
The promise of a strong rally in gold is far less than the luster on the metal itself. We did
not add the no. 3 so referenced. It was to be the wide range lower from the last swing
high in March. To a lesser degree, when compared to silver, the sell-offs have not been
very authoritative, despite the increasingly failing efforts of the central bankers. Within
the confines of an almost year-long TR, [Trading Range], neither side has a pressing
advantage, which says more for buyers holding their own against sellers.
GC W 1 Jun 14
In line with the theme of buyers somewhat containing sellers near recent lows, there is a
degree of support that sellers have to overcome if buyers are to be routed, which seems not
to be a large threat, near term.
GC D 1 Jun 14
Silver has moved lower, relative to gold, and has been kept more suppressed, but without
much to show for the effort of selling agents. The fact that last month was the smallest
range in 7 years is a tell against the inability of sellers to extend the range lower at an area
where they should be able to control buyers. The market activity says otherwise.
SI M 1 Jun 14
Charts give a pictorial that explains more than words can. Note the relative ease of the last
two rallies, dark bars, and the greater difficulty, especially in time, for price to decline.
This is not to say silver will not go lower in the next week or two, rather that moves to the
downside have not been very convincing.
SI W 1 Jun 14
The daily shows in more detail how sellers are struggling to move price lower. The fact
that the bars overlap so much indicates sellers are being met almost equally by buyers.
Of course, the edge remains with sellers, but any ground gains lower are accomplished
grudgingly.
Overall, while silver has not been able to gain as well as gold over the past several months,
it has been holding its recent lows fairly well. For as long as silver can hold it lows, as it
has, the downside for gold may be equally limited, on a relative basis.
SI D 1 Jun14


Food Inflation is here despite the government saying otherwise


Argentina Reaches Agreement with Paris Club Preventing IMF Austerity

WASHINGTON - May 30 - Argentina reached agreement with the Paris Club, a 19-member block representing some of the world's wealthiest countries, to repay nearly $10 billion in debts. The agreement ended a dispute that dates back to Argentina's 2001 default and ensures that there will be no International Monetary Fund (IMF) promoted austerity programs. Further, Argentina has renewed access to capital markets and strengthened its position within the G20.
"Argentina negotiated an agreement that keeps the IMF out of Argentina," said Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of the religious anti-poverty organization Jubilee USA. "IMF austerity programs have wreaked havoc in both poor and wealthy countries."
According to Spain's El Pais, two-thirds of the debt is rooted in previous Argentine dictatorships and corrupt regimes.

"One of the principle problems with Paris Club negotiations is the unwillingness to assign fault to lenders that kept corrupt governments in power that abused their people. We are sending the wrong message to emerging democracies when they are forced to pay for the sins of their oppressors," shared LeCompte, who is also an expert to United Nations working groups on these issues.

Meanwhile, on May 27th the country filed its final arguments at the US Supreme Court in its dispute with hold-out creditors NML Capital and Aurelius Capital. These predatory hedge funds seek more than $1 billion in debt payments and refuse a deal that nearly 93% of Argentina's creditors accepted after its default. The high court is expected to decide in June whether or not to take the case. Because of the case's impacts on poor populations, global debt restructuring and poor country access to credit, Jubilee USA filed an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court. 
###
Jubilee USA Network is an alliance of more than 80 religious denominations and faith communities, human rights, environmental, labor, and community groups working for the definitive cancellation of crushing debts to fight poverty and injustice in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

GDP Report Is Far Worse Than It Looks | John Rubino


Working More to Earn Less | Why the Poor Stay Poor | Learn Liberty

Saturday, May 31, 2014

US money slump flashes warnings as economy contracts

The US seems caught in a Japan-style trap, endlessly masking the effect by stealing a little extra growth from the future with artificial stimulus

American flags fly in front of the New York Stock Exchange before the start of trading
The concern is that this recovery may die of old age after five years Photo: AP
 
 
The US economy contracted sharply in the first quarter and bond yields have been falling at the fastest rate since the recession scare two years ago, in signs that bond tapering by the Federal Reserve is biting more than anticipated.
The slowdown comes as a key indicator of the US money supply flashes slowdown warnings, though the picture remains murky after extreme weather conditions over the winter.
Output fell at an annual rate of 1pc, led by a 7.5pc fall in business spending following the expiry of tax concessions. The tax rules had brought forward investment in 2012 and 2013, leading to a cliff-edge drop this year.
“We think there is more to this than just weather. Our leading indicators were already weakening late last year,” said Lakshman Achuthan, from the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI).
“We may get a snap-back in the second quarter but I don’t see us reaching escape velocity. The economy is below stall-speed, according to the Fed’s own model,” he said.
Chris Williamson, from Markit, said the GDP investment data are volatile and can be distorted by shifts in the oil and gas industry. He said the US manufacturing and services PMI index rose at the fastest pace for three years in May while unemployment claims have fallen to the lowest since 2007, pointing to a solid recovery. “The acid test of economic resilience will be how the data settle after the second quarter,” he said.
ECRI said the housing recovery has rolled over and is now in a “cyclical downswing”, with the building permits for single-family homes falling to a three-year low. There will be less “fiscal drag” this year as austerity fades but this is more than offset by the drag of excess inventory.
Mr Achuthan said the economy may muddle through, but recoveries have been getting weaker with each cycle for the past 40 years. The US now seems caught in a Japan-style trap, endlessly masking the effect by stealing a little extra growth from the future with artificial stimulus.
Data from the Centre for Financial Stability in New York show that growth of the “Divisia M4” money supply slowed abruptly to 1.6pc in April, down from 6pc in early 2013.
Divisia M4 is a dynamic measure that aims to capture shifting uses of money. It is has been one of the best weather vanes over recent years, signalling economic health a few months ahead.
Professor William Barnett, a former Fed official now at the University of Kansas, said the weak M4 figures are a sign that the US is not recovering properly, leaving the Fed with a grim choice as it tries to wean the economy off emergency policies that are themselves causing havoc. “The Fed faces a 'Catch 22' decision. I am glad I am no longer on the Board's staff,” he said.
The Fed has cut its bond purchases from $85bn to $45bn a month, and is expected to halt quantitative easing altogether by October as it pares back $10bn at each meeting. The taper is clearly chipping away at a key prop of the economy. The stock of narrow M1 money has not grown for four months, and M1 velocity has fallen to an all-time low of 6.3.
John Hathaway, from the Tocqueville Gold Fund, said the Fed may find it cannot extricate itself from QE without aborting the recovery. “The US economy is quite anaemic. There's a good chance that they may have to reverse their course on tapering,” he told CNBC.
US Treasuries have fallen to an 11-month low of 2.41pc, dropping 60 basis points since January in a pattern that would normally signal a slowdown.
Jan Loeys, from JP Morgan, said the strange action in the bond markets is causing a “growing unease among investors that something is not right about the world economy”, but it may merely be the result of very low inflation and therefore benign.
Former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said recently that long-term yields would never reach 4pc again in his lifetime, portraying a changed world where nothing returns to normal.
The concern is that this recovery may die of old age after five years, even though it has been the weakest expansion since the Second World War, failing to close the output gap or bring the long-term unemployed back into the workforce. The Fed fears it has exhausted its arsenal. “It is too awful to think about what will happen in the next recession, so nobody does,” said Mr Achuthan.