Excerpts:
Draghi Is Playing With Fire "The key question of the day concerned the BIS changing the risk weighting on sovereign debt. This is something I have discussed many times and it is critical to the ECB QE program. If the central banks key adviser, the BIS, were to require European banks to haircut the sovereign debt on its balance sheets, the capital costs would cause many European banks to implode because of lack of capital. Draghi and his Vice President, Vitor Constancio are pushing hard for the preservation of the status quo for zero risk weighted assets. Pay close attention to this issue for it can undermine the entire ECB QE program. The most advantageous position for Draghi is that the risk weightings will be influenced by the BIS Financial Stability Board which is chaired by BOE Mark Carney. Governor Carney is opposed to Brexit and will not want to provide any more uncertainty to the U.K. referendum by causing more turmoil in the EU. Draghi has a strong insider to make his case. As I have previously stated: The question for all European debt investors ought to be. Who guarantees the ECB? When the Germans awake to Draghi's trap, the spark may have started the Prairie Fire."
- Yra Harris
LINK HERE to the commentary
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Jim Rickards*: Secret G20 Shanghai Accord Meeting Secret G20 Shanghai Accord; Fed policy; Currency Wars; China hard landing; China devaluation; Yuan/USD peg; SDRs; 100 million cyber attack on Bangladesh; Cyber warfare; War on cash; LTCM; World financial meltdown tempo; Money Market Fund freezes; Money riots; Shadow Gold Standard; and his latest best seller The New Case For Gold .. 38 minutes
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How Long Before The Global Financial System Fails? 
LINK HERE to the essay
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OUTSIDE OUR BOX The Secret To Great Public Speaking Sunday Night Special There's no single formula for a great talk, but there is a secret ingredient that all the best ones have in common. TED Curator Chris Anderson shares this secret — along with 4 ways to make it work for you. Do you have what it takes to share an idea worth spreading? .. 8 minutes
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Catalysts For The Next Crash Are Many John Rubino* explains it turns out that most of it came from borrowing, "which means it's not really cash at all, but simply the asset side of an asset/liability entry that nets to zero. Assuming there's a limit to how much companies can borrow before new debt spooks investors and becomes a net negative, then that point is, if not near, at least closer than ever before." .. concludes: "Add it all up — a strong dollar that hampers exports, already-high U.S. equity valuations, foreign investors souring on U.S. financial assets, corporate debt at five times the 1990 level — and catalysts for another up-leg are scarce. But catalysts for the next crash are many."
LINK HERE to the commentary
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China Markets Are Sending Ominous Signals The Shanghai Composite Index has fallen 3.9% this week, the worst performance among 93 global benchmark gauges tracked by Bloomberg & the steepest decline since January. It's not just the stock market. The yuan is trading around its lowest level against a basket of currencies since November 2014, while yields on corporate debt have risen for 10 of the past 12 days .. 3 minutes
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Negative Interest Rates Are Causing Breakdown
Martin Armstrong asks: "Is Draghi insane? Or is he simply looking at
this from the perspective of his former employer — Goldman Sachs?" "Tensions are starting to rise between Germany and the ECB because Draghi will not admit his negative interest rates are causing an economic meltdown. 'We continue to expect them (interest rates) to remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of our net asset purchases.' Draghi is absolutely clueless and this experiment has no end game. The rest of the central banks are starting to see that Draghi is risking it all for he cannot admit failure. Inflation is a function of interest rates insofar as the rate of interest is compatible with the expected rate of inflation. This is fundamental. Punishing savers and wiping out pensions is not the way to create a future. This will not end very nicely. All Draghi is doing is making the smart banks richer. They don't have to pay anything, but they charge people money for having an account. Yet, if you want to take out a mortgage for 10 years, fully collateralized, they demand 5%. The smart bankers are making the widest spreads in history on a percentage basis between bid and ask. Is Draghi insane? Or is he simply looking at this from the perspective of his former employer — Goldman Sachs?"
- Martin Armstrong
link here to the reference
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Calgary Condo Market Gives Harsh Lessons On Condo Investing Article highlights how Alberta's downturn is negatively affecting the condo investment & rental income market .. increasingly, condo investor landlords are renting their units for less than their costs .. "There's kind of a myth about investing in condos about price appreciation. All of my research shows that the only thing that really goes up in value is the land value .. When you talk about condos, there's very little land involved." .. also the construction boom in Calgary is still continuing, despite a massive downturn in the region's economy tied to oil & gas .. "It's kind of a perfect storm. Too much supply, people leaving, and salaries declining .. All it takes is a downturn in the economy like we're getting now, a few vacancies here and there, and all of a sudden instead of a cash-flow positive investment, you've got a millstone around your neck ..."
LINK HERE to the article
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China Is Acquiring Tons Of Gold Before The World's Precarious Financial System Collapses Epoch Times interview March 16, 2016. Jim Rickards*: Federal Reserve policy; looming U.S. economic recession; loss of confidence in central banks; bank bail-ins; negative interest rates; gold trading as money; catastrophic financial patterns; SDR basket; China's gold hedge; China's hard landing; and his latest best seller The New Case For Gold. .. 28 minutes
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Hedge Fund Outright Positions In Silver click to enlarge
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With Stocks Near All-Time Highs, Financial Stress Turns Negative Financial Sense posted article highlights the "stress" in financial markets, as measured by the widely-followed financial stress indicators available in Bloomberg .. "The composite is directionally shaded to illustrate when financial conditions have gone from positive to negative and vice-versa. As you can see, financial conditions were favorable for the stock market, confirming their upward trend, until around 2014. Since then, financial conditions have become increasingly less favorable, diverging from the stock market's higher highs, and finally went negative in 2016. If this divergence continues and financial conditions deteriorate further, this will certainly raise a red flag that we are at or near a major market peak."
LINK HERE to the article
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Biggest Risk For Gold Investors Is To Not Be Invested Palisade Radio interviews Jordan Roy-Byrne who says that at the start of a bull market the miners perform way ahead of the metals & this is what we are seeing now .. People are waiting for a correction in the mining stocks that has really not happened. All the sellers are out of the market, the same is happening in the metals, the breakout in silver is also a very bullish sign. Even if there was a correction that would just create a great buying opportunity
Negative interest rates are key for gold
.. 24 minutes
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"The Chinese Know We're Not Going To Pay Them Back Their Money" 5* A great Peter Schiff classic .. worth repeating from 7 years ago. It would be hilarious if it weren't so true. Excerpt of the Peter Schiff* speech at the 2009 Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture. Recorded at the annual Austrian Scholars Conference, Ludwig von Mises Institute .. 3 minutes
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Dr. Ron Paul* Liberty Report In this report, the myth of a "Social Contract" & the claims from the left that the U.S. is solvent .. 23 minutes
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High Yield Defaults On The Rise Default rates are actually just about normal at around 5% but the number of defaults shown in this charts is consistent with recessionary conditions in the past. The reason for that, obviously, is that the number of high yield issuers has expanded enormously.
LINK HERE to the article
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DiMartino Booth*: "The Federal Reserve Is Fabricating Low Volatility" Boom Bust .. discussion with Danielle DiMartino Booth* – president of Money Strong – to talk about the Federal Reserve .. 1/2 hour total program
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FROM ARCHIVES OF 2013 ... BUT 5* & SO WORTH REPEATING!
100 YEARS OF MISMANAGEMENT "In 1913, on Christmas Eve, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, setting up America's central bank. Only then did economists get their hands on the economy's throat. The dollar was worth about the same thing it had been worth 100 years before .. a hundred years later, it is worth only 3 cents. And only 16 years after economists took their positions at the Federal Reserve came a depression worse than anything the nation had ever seen – at least, it was worse after government economists finished with it. The Great Depression may have been an accident, but debasement of the dollar was not an accident. It was policy. Economists, led by Keynes, had the idea that they could spur the economy forward by creating phantom demand – in the form of additional units of purchasing power. The gold standard stood in the way; it was abandoned like a bad neighborhood. First, temporarily, then partially, then, in 1971, completely. The first consumer credit boom came in the '20s… leading to the Great Depression. By the 1980s, Americans had lost their fear of debt. Consumer credit boomed. Then it bubbled. Economists didn't understand what was going on. They rarely do. But they had created a hundred-year flood of consumer debt."
- Bill Bonner
link here to the essay
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Doug Casey Interview: Gold & Collapse Of The World Economy Casey thinks the metals have bottomed .. printing money will cause a panic into gold .. Casey emphasizes investing internationally .. 16 minutes
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Jeff Gundlach: "Negative Interest Rates Are The Dumbest Idea Ever" In an interview on Swiss Finanz und Wirthschaft, fund manager Jeff Gundlach unleashes his frustration on central banks .. "What you see is that the same pattern has been in place since 2012: Hope for growth in the new year that ends up being revised downwards, over and over and over again. But now we have reached the point at which no one bothers anymore about the comedy of predicting 3% real GDP growth. Even nominal GDP growth isn't probably going to be at 3% this year. Actually, nominal GDP is at a level that has historically been a recessionary level. It isn't this time because the inflation rate is close to zero. But no one bothers anymore and the Federal Reserve has basically given up." .. Gundlach thinks the U.S. stock market is overvalued versus other stock markets .. Gundlach likes gold - "Gold is doing fine. It's preserving capital in the U.S., it's been making money over the last couple of years for European investors. That's why I own gold. Because in a negative return environment anything that holds its value or makes a little is good."
LINK HERE to the interview transcript
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BitGold Prague Townhall about 1 hour - questions & answers on BitGold services & operation.
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TAKE A BREAK? Life In Madagascar CLICK on image to activate the video
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