Saturday, April 2, 2016

Why the Anger? Obamanomics Has Failed


President Barack Obama, when asked to name an accomplishment for which he is most proud, said, "I'm proud of saving the American economy." Breathtaking.
Let's examine the facts, using only government, left wing -- or, at least, non-conservative -- statistics, sources or analyses.
In 2012, the third year of the Obama recovery, the Associated Press wrote: "Since World War II, 10 U.S. recessions have been followed by a recovery that lasted at least three years. An Associated Press analysis shows that by just about any measure, the one that began in June 2009 is the weakest. ... Economic growth has never been weaker in a postwar recovery. Consumer spending has never been so slack. Only once has job growth been slower. More than in any other post-World War II recovery, people who have jobs are hurting: Their paychecks have fallen behind inflation."
PBS' Tavis Smiley, who possesses industrial-style contempt for the economic policies of former President Ronald Reagan, said in January, 2016: "On every leading economic issue, in the leading economic issues black Americans have lost ground in every one of those leading categories. So in the last ten years it hasn't been good for black folk."
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., then the head of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in 2011, when the official black unemployment stood at 14.1 percent: "As the chair of the Black Caucus, I've got to tell you, we are always hesitant to criticize the President. With 14 percent (black) unemployment, if we had a white president we'd be marching around the White House."
According to the Federal Reserve, while white households' median wealth slightly increased from 2010 to 2013, Hispanic households' net worth dropped 14 percent, while black net worth fell from $16,600 to $11,000 -- a three-year drop of 34 percent.
The national "official" rate of unemployment -- as released by the U.S. Department of Labor and touted by the media -- stands at 4.9 percent, the lowest since 2008. As to this official rate, when, by 2015, it had dropped to 5.6 percent, Gallup CEO Jim Clifton wrote: "None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job -- if you are so hopelessly out of work that you've stopped looking over the past four weeks -- the Department of Labor doesn't count you as unemployed. That's right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news -- currently 5.6 percent. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren't throwing parties to toast 'falling' unemployment. ...
"There's no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie."

It’s Coming: Get ready for this new hidden tax on your savings

From Justin Spittler, Editor, Casey Daily Dispatch:

The “Bank Account Tax” is coming…
And it could cost you thousands of dollars each year.
If you have a bank account, please take a moment to read this.
You won’t hear about it in the mainstream news… but there’s a way to legally avoid this tax and save yourself thousands of dollars.
Opting out is easy. You don’t have to file a single tax form. You just have to take action while there’s still time.
I’ll tell you exactly how to “opt out” of this new tax in a moment. But first, you need to understand what this tax is and how it came about…
No matter what you think of the U.S. government, you have to admire one thing. The Founding Fathers made a smart move by spreading the government’s power between three separate branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial.
Their goal was to make sure no one branch could cause too much damage.
For example, the president can’t legally declare war on China. The Founding Fathers believed that no one man should have the power to start a world war. So they wrote the Constitution to require Congress to approve a declaration of war. We call this a system of “checks and balances.”
To raise taxes, the president must go through similar checks and balances. According to the law, a majority of the 535 members of Congress must vote “yes” to raise taxes.
In other words, the president cannot raise taxes without Congress’ approval.
It has worked this way for more than 200 years.
However, in 2016, a new loophole has taken root in the system.
This loophole—which has never existed before in the history of the United States—allows the president to raise taxes without the approval of Congress.
Even worse, it allows money to be taken directly from your bank account…much like the IRS takes money directly from your weekly paycheck.
You may know this loophole by its more common name, “negative interest rates.”
If you’ve been watching the news, you know negative interest rates are a huge story. The idea of negative interest rates may sound complicated. But I promise it’s easy to understand.
Typically, you earn interest on money you keep in a savings account. With negative interest rates, you pay interest onyour own money. And the more money you have in the bank, the more you pay.
It’s a crazy, upside-down policy that could only exist in a world where idiot politicians are in control.
Many governments around the world have already adopted negative interest rates. For example, Japan and several countries in Europe are using negative interest rates.
This means politicians around the world are ordering banks to charge depositors (you) a fee for storing cash.
It hasn’t happened in the U.S. yet. But it will. Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve, has said the Fed is “taking a look at” negative rates. She also said that negative interest rates “aren’t off the table.”
Of course, the government doesn’t call this a tax. And the mainstream media won’t dare call it a tax. So we’ll do it for them.
Think about it. The government is ordering banks to confiscate money directly from people’s bank accounts. That is a tax. It’s no different than the IRS ordering your employer to take taxes directly from your paycheck.
Negative interest rates are a direct tax on your cash.
Politicians think that by charging you to keep money in the bank, you’ll save less money. Instead, you’ll spend more money on things like smartphones and cars. You’ll invest in things like stocks and real estate.
This would “stimulate” the economy.
This thinking is very, very wrong.
But it’s exactly the type of thing Big Government types like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will do in a financial emergency.
If Clinton wins the election, she may not even wait for an emergency… we might see negative interest rates by next year.
Right now, you may be thinking that there’s an easy way around this tax… that you can pull cash out of the bank and keep paper dollars in your home. If your money isn’t in the bank, the government can’t tax it with negative interest rates.
If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re absolutely right. The government can’t reach your cash if you keep it at home.
And politicians know this.
That’s why governments are banning paper cash.
In just the past few years…
***Spain banned cash transactions over 2,500 euros.
***Italy banned cash transactions over 1,000 euros.
***France banned cash transactions over 1,000 euros, down from the previous limit of 3,000 euros.
Just a few weeks ago, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called for a ban on the $100 bill!
By making it so difficult (or illegal) to buy and sell things with cash, the government wants to force people into the banking system.
Once we’re all trapped in the banking system, the government can tax our bank accounts with impunity. We’ll have no alternative to keeping money in the bank.
Negative interest rates and the elimination of paper cash…it’s all a dream come true for government central planners.
Whether you agree with these regulations or not, the conclusion is obvious:
By driving us more and more towards trackable digital payments, the government has made it much, much easier to confiscate our wealth.

How to “Opt Out” of Hillary’s Cash Tax

Democrats pay lip service to helping the middle class. Although this plays well with voters, it’s complete garbage. Hillary’s Bank Account Tax will hit the middle class hardest of all.
The reason is simple. Wealthy people own a lot of stocks, bonds, and private businesses. They own a lot of art and real estate. Wealthy people tend to keep a large portion of their wealth in assets other than cash.
The middle class, however, tends to keep a larger percentage of wealth in cash. Their assets are ripe for the taking by desperate politicians.
But no matter how much cash you have, there’s one important thing to know.
Negative interest rates and the coming ban on cash will cause people to panic. They will cause an exodus out of cash.
People will search for something…anything…that will hold its value. Something that cannot be easily confiscated by the government.
People will turn to gold and silver.
Gold and silver have served as money for centuries. Gold is the ultimate currency because it doesn’t rot or corrode…it is durable…easily divisible… and it’s portable. It also has intrinsic value…is consistent around the world…and it cannot be created from thin air.
And unlike cash, it cannot easily be debased or confiscated by the government.
Negative interest rates and the ban on cash will wipe out many people. But you don’t have to be one of them.
Get into gold before millions of Americans start plowing money into it and you could be looking at gains of 100%, 200%, or more. Gold is at $1,270 an ounce today. It could easily go to $4,000 or higher as people flee cash.
The flood of money out of cash and into gold and silver will create what we call a huge underground currency market.
If you think that sounds unlikely, consider this. Gold and silver served as money all over the world for thousands of years. Only in the last few decades have people accepted unbacked government currency as money.
The coming underground currency market will return gold to its rightful place. Gold will regain its role as money. Millions of people who don’t want the government to confiscate their savings will buy gold.
If you own enough gold, the creation of the underground currency market could make you rich.
If you don’t own gold, buy some now.
If you do own gold, buy more.
And one more thing…
Right now, we have an extremely rare opportunity in gold. In short, a unique type of gold asset is set up to return 500%+ gains in a short period. This situation has only occurred a handful of times in the last 20 years. But every time it occurs, some investors see gains as large as 1,700%, 4,300%, and 5,000%.
With gold prices surging, the window of opportunity won’t be open long. And once it closes, we likely won’t get another chance like this for years. Read more here.
Regards,
Justin Spittler

Friday, April 1, 2016

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End Of An Era: Walmart Records First Ever Revenue Drop

Photo Credit Mike Mozart
Photo Credit Mike Mozart
(Shelly Banjo)  Not every milestone is worth celebrating.
For the first time ever – or at least since the company went public some 45 years ago – Walmart’s revenues shrank from the year before, according to its annual financial filing released Wednesday.
Walmart is clearly having trouble adapting its gigantic stores to the Internet age. To be sure, it is a retail juggernaut that brings in half a trillion dollars (that’s right, trillion) in sales every year. And with more than 11,500 stores in 28 countries,there’s no way it will disappear anytime soon.
Still, Walmart might have just hit its growth limit.
And the sales dip comes despite the fact that Walmart spent $11.5 billion (roughly matching what J.C. Penney made in sales last year) to build more than 400 new stores, remodel old locations, and revamp its website and other technology to better serve its customers.
Though Walmart shares were a safe haven in the rocky start of 2016, investors are pricing in more weakness. The stock has fallen behind retail competitors and the broader market.
In February, Walmart lowered its annual net sales growth forecast to “relatively flat,” from earlier guidance that called for an increase of as much as 4 percent (the company has pointed out that previous guidance didn’t account for currency changes, which have stung the global retailer).
Wednesday’s filing attributes part of the 2015 sales drop to currency impacts and a decrease in fuel sales due to lower gas prices. Sales have also suffered from ongoing store closures, including the shuttering of its entire fleet of smaller, “Express” stores.
But Walmart also acknowledged it has shifted the way it runs the company, dropping a long-time focus on growing net sales and cutting operating expenses as a percentage of sales. Its aim now is on making “strategic investments” to support the “long-term health of the company.”
While that’s happening, Walmart warned, it may not be able to deliver the kind of steady net sales and profit growth investors have grown accustomed to seeing. (Though it notes it will continue to build new stores and e-commerce capabilities and grow sales at established stores.)
While jarring, these changes aren’t necessarily bad. Walmart remains a massive retail force, and investors shouldn’t discount the muscle behind any decision it makes. This can already be seen in its fast-growing mobile app and its rapidly expanding and seemingly successful grocery pick-up program, which lets shoppers order groceries online and then swing through a Walmart drive-through to pick them up.
It’s also pretty amazing that executives are finally willing to take poor results on the chin and veer away from precedent in order to morph the company from a mostly brick-and- mortar operation into one that serves customers the way they want to shop – whether in stores, the web, on mobile, or a mix of all three. And if these investments work, they could position the company for another half-century of retail dominance.
But what Walmart doesn’t have is an unlimited amount of time. Reporting declining sales might be OK for a year or two, but at some point a turnaround plan could become a failed strategy. Its first revenue decline should serve as a wake-up call.

Five OPEC producers are on the verge of collapse

Photo Credit Sergio Russo
Photo Credit Sergio Russo

The global oil price rout has left many oil producers reeling across the world. From Canada to Norway, Saudi Arabia to Russia, none of the world’s largest oil exporters have been spared from oil prices that declined 45 per cent last year alone.
While some of the biggest producers will stumble along, five oil-producing economies are on the verge of collapse if oil prices do not stabilize soon, according to RBC Capital Markets.
“There are five sovereign producers that are on the precipice of a major crisis amid the current low oil price environment,” Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy, said in a report.
FP0401_Oil_fragile_5_C_MF
These countries face a mix of social, political and terrorism-related upheavals that could either lead to a regime change or create great instability that could knock out their oil production, leading to an oil-supply shock.
“Our ‘fragile five’ states…were already facing severe political and security challenges when oil prices were above $100/bbl and the situation has grown far more grim as these countries have struggled to fund their state apparatuses and provide essential services,” Croft wrote.
Here are the five countries most vulnerable to a protracted oil downturn (in alphabetical order):
ALGERIA
The Algerian government is struggling to develop a new economic plan after its foreign reserves declined US$35 billion last year to US$143 billion, while the fiscal deficit nearly doubled to 16 per cent of GDP on lower hydrocarbon revenues.
“Algeria faces important challenges, with the large decline in oil prices expected to be sustained over the medium term. In response, the authorities have begun to undertake fiscal consolidation and implement selected reforms,” the International Monetary Fund said in a report. “These efforts need to be intensified.”
The OPEC member produced 1.11 million barrels per day in February.
High oil prices are a key tool for the regime led by Abdelaziz Bouteflika to control its restive population and rule the country with an iron fist. In the past, the government has paid lip service to economic and social reforms, but a continued crisis may force the government to loosen its tight grip on the economy.
“Algeria is also facing renewed terrorist threats, as evidenced by the recent Al Qaeda rocket attack on the Krebcha gas plant, which prompted BP and Statoil to withdraw its Algerian based staff,” RBC said.
Oil breakeven price: US$114.8 per barrel
IRAQ
Iraq is one of the few countries in the world that can raise crude oil production significantly.
The country produced 3.99 million bpd on average last year and could see production exceeding 4.22 million bpd this year, according to the International Energy Agency estimates.
The country’s oil production has been resilient despite a war raging in neighbouring Syria and ISIS terrorism activities in the north of the country, which has displaced nearly four million people.
“Northern Iraqi exports are increasingly at risk due to trouble in neighbouring Turkey, as well as dysfunctional Iraqi political dynamics,” Croft said in the report.
While most analysts believe that Iraq’s oil infrastructure in the south remains well-protected, the country faces a political crisis.
The country’s real GDP contracted by 2.1 per cent in 2015 owing to the conflict, destruction of infrastructure and assets, disruptions in trade, and deterioration of investor confidence, according to the IMF.
“Iraq needs to put its economic house in order, reducing waste of precious resources, strengthening accountability, and undertaking important, necessary reforms,”  Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group president said in a speech in Baghdad earlier this month.
Oil breakeven price: US$77 per barrel
LIBYA
Libya’s oil production of 1.6 million barrels before 2011 has now contracted to just around 460,000 barrels per day, as various factions seek control of the country. A civil war has decimated the oil and gas industry, and the country’s GDP is set to fall to US$42 billion this year, compared to US$72 billion in 2012.
“Fighting between militias is growing, while terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaida have gained a stronger presence in the country and growing numbers of refugees are fleeing across the borders,” said the Institute of International Finance.
Oil breakeven price: US$68.8 per barrel
NIGERIA
RBC also raised concerns about Nigeria. The country produces around 1.90 million bpd, but as much as 15 per cent of output remains offline.
“In fact, the government appears to be on course for a head on collision with armed militants in the oil region,” RBC said.
Assailants damaged a 250,000-bpd underwater pipeline linked to a Royal Dutch Shell Plc. facility, rendering it idle and exposing the fragility of the country’s energy infrastructure.
“Nigerian production has been slowly grinding lower over recent years, even absent acute outages due to natural declines, and this will be compounded over the next several years given the number of shelved projects,” RBC said. “The significant risks posed by the political, security, and economic risks mounting only adds to these falls in production.”
Oil breakeven price: US$122.70 per barrel
VENEZUELA
Venezuela’s economic meltdown belies its status as the world’s largest holder of crude oil reserves. The country, which has stopped releasing basic economic data on a timely basis, was set for a 10 per cent contraction in GDP last year, according to the IMF. Another 6 per cent economic decline was on the cards this year, the IMF estimated in a report last year.
Venezuela, which produced 2.37 million bpd last month, suffers from electricity and water shortages and has a dearth of basic medical and food supplies, as President Nicolas Madura’s party has failed to contain the damage from decade-low crude oil prices.
In addition, the country’s inflation rate is expected to skyrocket to 720 per cent this year, according to the IMF. The country’s central bank admitted last year’s inflation rate was at 180 per cent.
While the country was broken even before the oil price decline, Venezuela needs much higher oil prices to avoid a complete economic meltdown.
Oil breakeven price: US$117.5 per barrel

CIA ADVISOR JIM RICKARDS REVEALS THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GOLD BACKED CHINESE YUAN, WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE BRICS BANK GLOBAL ECONOMIC TAKOVER



Jim Rickards, Financial Threat and Asymmetric Warfare Advisor and best selling author joins Gary Franchi to reveal the truth behind claims of an emergent gold backed Yuan and Ruble to challenge US Dollar dominance globally. What you’re about to discover may shock you.
James new book “The New Case For Gold” is available at Amazon:
http://nnn.is/Amazon-Rickards-Book-Ne…

Jim Rickards, Financial Threat and Asymmetric Warfare Advisor and best selling author joins Gary Franchi to breakdown the war between the Federal Reserve and the BRIC Bank… and who will win.
James’ new book “The New Case For Gold” is available at Amazon:
http://nnn.is/Amazon-Rickards-Book-Ne…

2007 All Over Again, “We Are Outsourcing Our Monetary Policy”

In that deservedly-famous 2006 CNBC debate between Peter Schiff and economist Arthur Laffer (in which the latter manages to be both arrogant and wrong about literally everything), Laffer celebrates the fact that “we are outsourcing our monetary policy to China” (minute 5:17).

Alert listeners probably wondered what he meant by that, and also probably found the idea vaguely disturbing. But whatever it was we were doing, it turned out to be bad because within a year the global economy was in free-fall.
And now that strange, ominous concept has returned — but this time we’ve put our monetary fate in even less-stable hands:

Yellen Outsources U.S. Monetary Policy to the Financial Markets

(Bloomberg) – Fed Chair Janet Yellen told the Economic Club of New York on Tuesday that policy makers had scaled back the number of interest rate increases they expect to carry out this year after investors did the same.She argued that the downgrading of rate expectations in the market had led to lower bond yields, providing the economy with needed support in the face of weaker growth overseas. The Fed then followed suit this month by reducing its anticipated rate hikes in 2016 to two from four quarter-percentage point moves projected in December.
“That’s a good thing,” said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey, commenting on the sequence of actions. “Monetary medicine gets into the blood stream faster if the public can anticipate what the Fed’s response to an economic shock will be.”
There are pitfalls. Investors may become so impressed with their ability to influence Fed policy that they’ll press for more stimulus than the central bank is willing to supply.
Forcing Fed
“The risk is that markets’ perception of such continued accommodation will embolden them even more to try to force the policy hand of the Fed,” Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz SE and a Bloomberg View columnist, said in an e-mail.
Indeed, investors in the federal funds market are betting that the central bank will raise rates just once this year, not the two times policy makers envisage.
The Fed’s experience over the last six months also shows how difficult it can be for the central bank to align investors’ view of optimal monetary policy with that of its own.
“It’s a constant learning process by both the Fed and the markets,” said Joachim Fels, global economic adviser for Pacific Investment Management Co., which oversees $1.43 trillion in assets.
Automatic Stabilizer’
Yellen used her spoken remarks though to extol the symbiotic relationship between the central bank and the financial markets. “This mechanism serves as an important ‘automatic stabilizer’ for the economy,” she said.
Her comments come against the backdrop of continued criticism from Republican lawmakers and economists that the Fed is following a discretionary monetary policy that investors don’t understand and is hurting the economy as a result. They want the Fed to follow a monetary policy rule, such as the one espoused by Stanford University professor John Taylor. It uses a simple equation to link changes in interest rates to movements in inflation and the economy.
With her remarks on Tuesday, Yellen was “implicitly defending the Fed’s approach in the rules versus discretion debate as being one that’s systematic” and understood by the markets, Crandall said.
I’m not going to try to explain (or even understand) any of this, except to say that putting oneself at the mercy of financial market sentiment seems a bit risky, given that Mr. Market is a well-known manic depressive.
It’s also an inversion of the proper relationship between “money,” or more accurately the monetary environment, and the players who act on that stage. Placing monetary policy in the hands of stock, bond, and derivatives traders is like putting the definition of meters and seconds into the hands of Olympic athletes: Within a few years the self-interest of the participants will make past records meaningless.
Some other fun analogies: putting criminals in charge of the legal system, putting kids in charge of the dinner menu, putting car makers in charge of auto safety testing, putting food companies in charge of nutritional reporting. All are recipes for incoherence if not disaster.
Apply the same process to interest rates and currency creation, and the price signaling mechanism of the capital markets will go haywire. And without accurate price signals, modern market-based capitalism descends into chaos.