Free Republic

The announcement by the United Nations this week that it will license the minting of silver and gold bullion coins bearing the UN logo may be the button that launches metal prices into orbit. In its wide-ranging report this fall, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) stated that the system of currencies and international banking practices within today’s economies were inadequate, and responsible for the present economic crisis. The report advocates that the present monetary system, wherein the dollar acts as the global reserve currency be re-examined “with urgency”. The UNCTAD Report was the first time a major...

GETS FORMER SEQUOIA CO. VP NAMED AS ADVISER TO U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION Earlier this month, Obama made his first official move to corrupt and undermine the 2010 elections. The move consisted in the little noticed appointment of a technical adviser to the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The importance of the appointment was explained at The Brad Blog last Monday. The Official Press Release of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission read as follows: U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION 1225 New York Ave. NW – Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20005 For Immediate Release December...

Just as the year end onslaught on the dollar was spearheaded to a climax by Blankfein’s minions, so did Europe finally decide to convulse under an unbearable lead of ridiculous mispriced “assets” and vomited up a whole load of troubling financial data, which spread from Greece to Austria to Ireland, setting sovereign CDS to multi month highs. Obviously, this did not help the weak dollar case and cost GS traders a few hundred million. A note to traders indicates that while Goldman has not lost the war of intergalactic domination, it too, can lose the occasional battles: Last Friday we...

<p>The popular narrative about the dollar — that it is on a greased banana peel skidding downhill — has been pretty well verified by price action of the dollar versus the euro and other major foreign currencies this year. The more extreme adherents of this view suggest that the dollar is doomed because of U.S. government debt and other indicators of decline and decay. I have never shared the long-term dollar doom and gloom viewpoint, but I do believe that very low short-term interest rates and other government policies have definitely hurt the dollar.</p>

Harder to buy US Treasuries Created: 2009-12-18 0:13:35 Author:Zhou Xin and Jason Subler IT is getting harder for governments to buy United States Treasuries because the US's shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said yesterday. The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, referred to the overall situation globally, not specifically to China, the biggest foreign holder of US government bonds. Chinese officials generally are very careful about commenting on the dollar and Treasuries, given that so much of its US$2.3 trillion reserves are tied to their...

Here is a "blog novel" about the collapse of the dollar, and the consequences to the USA. The writing is at the very highest level. If it was in a printed, published hard copy form, I'd buy it and recommend it. Yet here it is, for free, just click to it and enjoy. (If enjoy is the word.) The link takes you to Part One of "The Day the Dollar Died."

BEIJING (Reuters) - It is getting harder for governments to buy U.S. Treasuries because the United States' shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said on Thursday. The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, referred to the overall situation globally, not specifically to China, the biggest foreign holder of U.S. government bonds. Chinese officials generally are very careful about commenting on the dollar and Treasuries, given that so much of its $2.3 trillion reserves are tied to their value, and markets always watch any such comments closely...

(912 on the mall) The left's anti-American coup d'etat on America, made possible by the first radical Marxist in the White House, calls for distinctly American counter measures. Dr. Jack Wheeler has "a strategy for any Republican wanting to get elected or re-elected to Congress in 2010, and for any Tea Partyer wanting to take individual action now against a government that ignores the Constitution -- Defund and Disobey." Here's an excerpt of "The Double -D Strategy for rescuing America": Let's talk about the Defund D first. The Founders in their usual brilliance place the power of the purse in...

It's often said markets function better when there is gridlock in Washington, D.C. because there's less of a chance for government will interfere in the private sector, creating a sense of security. But in this day and time, that theory applies to the U.S. dollar as well. On CNBC's Dec. 17 "Squawk Box," CNBC Chicago Mercantile Exchange reporter Rick Santelli debated what was causing the recent rise in the U.S. dollar. Santelli, the original inspiration for the tea party movement, squared off with Jim Iuorio, CNBC "OptionsAction" regular and CME trader, about the cause - a weakened European economy or...

China, once a proud holder of United States post-World War II debt, is getting scared. For years the People's Republic has bought U.S. Treasuries, eventually becoming the largest holder of U.S. debt ($799 BILLION to be exact!). Those days are long gone, though. During 2009, China hasn't been buying many Treasuries and has been unloading dollars in a way that makes Geithner shiver at night. And other big U.S. debt carriers like Japan may follow suit if confidence is lost. This presentation, courtesy of RBS, takes a deeper look into China's holdings and associated volumes since 2005. Get ready for...

Stocks Hit By Dollar, Jobless Claims By Melinda Peer 12/17/09 - 09:44 AM EST NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stocks opened lower Thursday as weekly jobless claims rose more than Wall Street expected and the dollar strengthened. More on C Amazon.com: Analysts' Upgrades, DowgradesBank of America, New CEO Face ChallengesFedEx Earnings Down, but Beat Estimates Market Activity FedEx Corporation| FDX DOWNDiscover Financial Services| DFS DOWNDow Jones Industrial Average| ^DJI DOWNThe Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by 62.7 points, or 0.6%, at 10,378.5 shortly after Thursday's opening bell. The S&P 500 was lower by 7.1 points, or 0.6%, at 1102.1 and...

RPT-GLOBAL MARKETS-Dollar Rises, Asian Shares Steady After Fed Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:02pm EST By Masayuki Kitano* Year-end position unwinding lifts dollar vs euro * Dollar rises broadly, hits 3-mth high vs euro * Calm reaction to Fed's cautiously upbeat statement * Asian shares broadly steady, Nikkei hits 7-wk high TOKYO, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The dollar rose and hit a three-month high against the euro on Thursday and Asian shares were broadly steady after the Federal Reserve voiced some optimism about a stabilising economy. The Fed on Wednesday left the benchmark interest rate near zero as expected and reaffirmed...

The Islamic Circle of North America has been named in "a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends" by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is bent on waging "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." They say they want to encourage dialogue via these billboards. Great. I'll start. The billboard says that Islam is "the way of life of Adam, Noah, Abraham,...

Remember all that pooh-poohing when the gulf states were talking about their own currency? About how silly that would be? That it would never happen? Yeah well, sort of looks like it might. True, there is a deep and very comfortable denial in the United States such that the country can spend anything it wants, pump debt to any level it likes, play whatever games it wishes with the way it counts spending, and still enjoy the benefits of a reserve currency indefinitely. That denial may be just about ready to hit reality: “The Gulf monetary union pact has come...

How Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke are destroying the dollar — and perhaps ushering in the amero First under the Bush Administration and even more so under President Obama, the federal government has been seizing power and spending money as it hasn’t done since World War II. But as bold as the Executive Branch has been during this financial crisis, the innovations of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke have been literally unprecedented. Indeed, it is entirely plausible that before Obama leaves office, Americans will be using a new currency. Bush and Obama have engaged in record peacetime deficit spending; so too...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The dollar rose to the highest level in more than two months on Tuesday as stronger-than-expected U.S. economic reports lifted the greenback and concerns over the potential for European banks encountering a new round of problems weighed on the shared euro. Currency traders also positioned themselves as the Federal Reserve began its two-day monetary policy meeting. The dollar index /quotes/comstock/11j!i:dxy0 (DXY 76.91, +0.63, +0.82%) , which tracks the greenback against a trade-weighted basket of six major counterparts, rose to 77.022, compared with 76.351 late Monday. During the session, it touched 77.092, the highest on a closing...

The Arab states of the Gulf region have agreed to launch a single currency modelled on the euro, hoping to blaze a trail towards a pan-Arab monetary union swelling to the ancient borders of the Ummayad Caliphate. “The Gulf monetary union pact has come into effect,” said Kuwait’s finance minister, Mustafa al-Shamali, speaking at a Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) summit in Kuwait. The move will give the hyper-rich club of oil exporters a petro-currency of their own, greatly increasing their influence in the global exchange and capital markets and potentially displacing the US dollar as the pricing currency for oil...

Leaders are considering a hike of roughly $300 billion to the nation's $12.1 trillion deficit, though the final figure has not been nailed down, congressional aides said on condition of anonymity. Democratic leaders had previously hoped to raise the limit by at least $1.8 trillion, enough to take care of the government's debt needs through the November 2010 congressional elections. What was your first hint the former $1.8 trillion increase attempt was a bad idea? Perhaps this? Or was it China buying a literal zero of Treasury debt in October? Or was it the TIC report this morning (which I'm...

I get more emails and questions about Gold than any other investment class on the planet. With that in mind, I wanted to take a few minutes today to map out my thoughts on this subject. For starters, we need to consider that there are, in fact, two types of Gold: actual physical bullion OR paper Gold (Gold as represented by an ETF or futures contract) While both of these investments are called “Gold” in common conversation, the fact of the matter is that they are very different in several striking ways. I’ve mapped out a few of the differences...

<p>McDonald's Corp. will start offering breakfast for a buck with the launch of a national dollar menu in January.</p> <p>The breakfast dollar menu will be backed with advertising across the U.S., and will feature five items: two sausage sandwiches, a sausage burrito, a 12-ounce coffee and a hash brown. The menu may feature some variations based on markets.</p>

As one Change to Win labor union blocks a Red Cross blood delivery today, what will a health care system taken hostage by labor unions look like tomorrow? As Change to Win’s Anna Burger is leading her coalition of unions to lobby all around the country “until every man, woman and child has quality, affordable care they can count on,” one of her unions is busy blocking the delivery of a Red Cross blood donation to a hospital and picketing private companies’ blood drives. The Red Cross, which has union workers in various locations who are covered both by the...

The Republican Party, the Party of Reagan has been nearly smothered and suffocated by the RINO-virus which has spread more rapidly than any swine flu pandemic, the GOP has been infected from the top down, and IF it is to avoid the fate of the Bull Moose Party, the principles of Reagan conservatism must be re-established, the fair weather collaborators and Quislings (that means YOU Juan McCain and your butt buddy Lindsey 'Goober' Graham!) MUST be driven out and banished and if they join up with the traitorous 'Rats, so be it. Force them to show their true colors. The...

The Future of Gold, the Dollar, and MoreThe dollar has had a huge effect on the stock market's moves this year. As the dollar has depreciated, many stocks have climbed higher; the logic is that a weaker dollar will boost the bottom lines of companies such as McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Aflac (NYSE: AFL), and Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), all of which derive a substantial portion of their revenues from abroad. The depreciating dollar has also boosted commodity prices and associated commodity stocks such as Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) or Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM), serving to lift the market. As we approach 2010,...

I've cruised the gold posts, not sure where I saw it, but if someone has the photo of the gas station sign posting gas price, sign said something like, "No cash, No credit, Gold or Silver only." I would sure like to have it. Thanks.

Is Rep. Michele Bachmann a “lovable little fuzzball”? Those of us who know her on a more personal basis know that’s a pretty good description of Michele personally, but politically,she’s about as tough as they get. Breitbart TV’s B-cast interviews Bachmann, who brings listeners up to date on Barney Frank’s financial-reform legislation, which dropped on the House last week. It’s 1300 pages long, and the vote will be taken — today. It reorders the entire financial-services industry and vastly increases government control over it. Oh, and ACORN, too. Frank bypassed the committee process, according to Bachmann, and she doesn’t see...

LONDON (Reuters) - Gold prices fell 1 percent to four-week lows in Europe on Friday, giving up the gains which earlier took them above $1,140 per ounce, as upbeat U.S. economic data lifted the dollar. Spot gold hit a low of $1,115.35 and was bid at $1,119.90 an ounce at 3:27 p.m., against $1,130.15 late in New York on Thursday. Earlier it rose as high as $1,141.90 an ounce. The dollar recouped its early decline to turn higher against the euro midafternoon after data showed U.S. retail sales rose more than expected in November, raising hopes of a self-sustaining economic...

And in China, they're slapping tarrifs on our steel, accusing us of dumping. That's right. The rest of the world now views us the way we, for decades, viewed the rest of the world. We complained about them getting our good manufacturing jobs, and dumping cheap-ass steel onto our shores, undercutting ours. The world's so-called reserve currency has weakened to the point that we're regarded as a pesky third-world country, undermining developed mature economies. Keep an eye out for this.

<p>A surprising thing is taking place as Sarah Palin starts speaking out on the issues in recent speeches, internet postings, and in the book tour she is now undertaking for her memoir “Going Rogue.” An outline is starting to appear in respect of the substance of her world view — call it “Palinism” — and it is far more substantive than her detractors suggest or than we gained a glimpse of during the campaign. She has been, in a straightforward way, stepping up on certain issues that her fellow Republicans would do well to emulate.</p>

The deliberate setup for the White House power grab is built into the each of the health care bills and, if they fail, little-known twin bills called “MedPAC Reform of 2009” are waiting in the wings. The bills, S.B. 1110 and H.R. 2718, craftily amend the Social Security Act and transfer the Medicare guideline and rule setting processes, from the legislative branch to the executive branch. These bills offer cover to one another in case one doesn’t pass the House or Senate, respectively. Remember, Democrats need to gain executive branch authority by amending the Social Security Act over Medicare regulations...

With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue. “Climate-gate,” as the e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle -- the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won’t...

Obama is so transparent, petty and small, he is an embarrassment. O's latest Chicago way payback? He has nominated Larry Persily, who writes hit pieces on Palin for the Puff Ho, got that? Obama defines the hatred of the good for being the good. You go Sarah. W'vee got your back. Obama nominates former Palin aide to pipeline job [note lefturd Reuters headline -- as if he was part of her camp /not] WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama nominated Larry Persily, a former aide to ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, on Wednesday to be federal coordinator for Alaska Natural Gas...

On Monday, I detailed the Dollar’s recent rally and how I believe we are at the beginning of a significant change for the markets. To recap, I noted that the Dollar has broken above its 50-day moving average as well as the downtrend it’s maintained since May 2009. Both of these developments are major and signal that we are likely at the beginning of a Dollar rally. Looking at the Dollar’s continued strength over the weekend and yesterday, I believe that the “Sell the Dollar/ Go Long Everything Else” trend is in the process of reversing. Bonds and Commodities have...

With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue. "Climate-gate," as the e-mails and other documents from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have become known, exposes a highly politicized scientific circle -- the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen won't...

The gold price dove lower, dropping $23.30 to close at $1,131.25, as investors liquidated all investments tied to the price of gold against the backdrop of a strengthening U.S. dollar. Gold mining stocks were sold aggressively, evidenced by the 4% decline in the Market Vectors Gold Mining ETF (GDX) and the 2.7% decline in Canada’s S&P/TSX Global Gold Index. Both indices declined for the fourth straight day as the U.S. Dollar reached its highest level in over a month as measured by the Dollar Index (DXY). The largest gold producer in the world, Barrick Gold (ABX), declined 4.5% today and...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gold prices extended their decline for a second straight session Monday as the dollar continued to rise. Gold for February delivery slid $5.50 to settle at $1,164.00 a troy ounce, after shedding more than $26 earlier in the session. Gold prices fell sharply Friday after after a much better-than-expected jobs report from the government showed employers trimming a mere 11,000 jobs in November as the unemployment rate ticked down to 10% from 10.2% in the prior month. "We've had a substantial turn in the dollar," said Mark Hansen, director of trading at CPM Group. "People are...

About 18 months ago, before the financial crisis swamped the news and obscured more basic trends, the summer 2008 edition of The Lord Abbett Review published an article titled, “Seismic Shifts.” Among other things, that piece pointed out how the need for households to deleverage would slow the growth of consumer spending going forward, especially compared with the free-spending ways of the prior 20 years. That discussion also described how the dollar’s long-term, cumulative weakness against almost every other currency would make American industry more competitive on global markets than previously. The confluence of both trends, it concluded, would shift...

The Destruction Of The Dollar: It's Nearly Inevitable by: Paco Ahlgren December 07, 2009 "We have experienced asset bubbles, and we now have an economy that is more highly leveraged than it ever has been in the post-World-War II period. Greenspan has been instrumental in bringing about this high leverage." -- Paul Kasriel “A dollar saved is a quarter earned.” -- John Ciardi I have been an analyst, a portfolio manager, and a financial writer for more than 18 years, and until early last year my focus was almost exclusively on individual stocks and value investing. In my book Discipline,...

RPT-GLOBAL MARKETS-Dollar Trims Gains, US Job Data Helps Stocks Sun Dec 6, 2009 10:23pm EST By Susan Fenton* Dollar trims gains as investors pocket profits * Japan shares up, U.S. jobs data underpins sentiment * Gold extends losses prompted by dollar rebound HONG KONG, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The dollar trimmed gains early on Monday as investors pocketed profits after Friday's rally but strong U.S. jobs data lifted sentiment across Asian financial markets, encouraging investors to move into riskier assets. The dollar eased after posting its biggest one-day gain this year on Friday, jumping 2.5 percent on news that U.S....

Ben S. Bernanke doesn't know how lucky he is. Tongue-lashings from Bernie Sanders, the populist senator from Vermont, are one thing. The hangman's noose is another. Section 19 of this country's founding monetary legislation, the Coinage Act of 1792, prescribed the death penalty for any official who fraudulently debased the people's money. Was the massive printing of dollar bills to lift Wall Street (and the rest of us, too) off the rocks last year a kind of fraud? If the U.S. Senate so determines, it may send Mr. Bernanke back home to Princeton. But not even Ron Paul, the Texas...

Investment Profit Vehicles For The Intensifying Financial And Economic Storm Stock-Markets / Investing 2010 Dec 04, 2009 - 01:11 PM By: DeepCaster LLC “A Great Collapse. The U.S. economic and systemic solvency crises of the last two years are just precursors to a Great Collapse: a hyperinflationary great depression. Such will reflect a complete collapse in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar, a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity, a collapse in the U.S. financial system as we know it, and a likely realignment of the U.S. political environment. The current U.S. financial markets,...

Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said on Thursday the world has to accept a weaker U.S. dollar in order to ensure the global economy recovers soundly. "We also have to realize, what is hard to get across, there has to be a global rebalancing. Either the U.S. runs a very long period of recession, which is a really bad idea, or the dollar has to weaken, so that balance of payments can be straightened out," Fischer said in response to a question during a business breakfast in New York. "So we have got to accept, as do other people,...

Deutsche Bank is out with an outlook for 2010, which includes various themes and risks investors need to watch out for. The basic idea, laid out by strategists Jim Reid, Mahesh Bhimalingem, and others is that things look good in the beginning of the year, but that trouble spots loom on the horizon. One in particular they highlight is the possibility of a sovereign default, an issue that's come to the foreground since Dubai. They write: Although we’re positive in the near-term, looking at the world today it’s clear that the current macro environment will be difficult to sustain. The...

During a recent visit to Tokyo, Timothy Geithner, the secretary of the US treasury, said that a strong dollar is "very important" to Washington, even as the American currency continued its noticeable depreciation. This is a very curious statement as it seems to indicate that the US treasury is going to defend the dollar from any further slide in the near future. But this is highly unlikely as the US treasury does not have a history of intervening in foreign exchange markets. It is true that the treasury's Exchange Stabilisation Fund (ESF) can be used to prop up the dollar,...

Andy Xie explains to the Financial Times how the Chinese government is well aware of China's current bubble, and are in fact nurturing it. Maybe because they don't really have any other choice -- Andy Xie likens it to riding a tiger, if you get off it could kill you. When the U.S. dollar bottoms, it will cause money to flow substantially out of China. This is when the correction will come. But... it is probably a couple of years away. China is careful not to prick their bubble, in fact their aim is to prolong it. The government does...

FRANKFURT -- German car maker Daimler AG said Wednesday it will shift production of its best-selling Mercedes-Benz C-Class model from its core plant in Sindelfingen, Germany, to its Bremen and U.S. facilities, as part of a wider move to bring production closer to main sales regions and reduce exposure to currency fluctuation. "This step is essential for strategic and operational reasons, so that Mercedes-Benz remains competitive and can fully utilize future growth opportunities," said Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche. The move underscores a trend among auto makers to ramp up local production to reduce exposure to currency fluctuations and benefit from...

Gold Hits Record Near $1,200/Oz As Dollar Slips Tue Dec 1, 2009 5:53am EST By Jan Harvey LONDON (Reuters) - Gold hit record highs near $1,200 an ounce on Tuesday as dollar weakness fueled buying of the metal as an alternative asset, while investors speculating on further gains were cheered by its recovery from Friday's lows. Spot gold hit a peak of $1,198.70 an ounce and was bid at $1,194.90 an ounce at 1021 GMT (5:21 a.m. EST), against $1,179.10 late in New York on Monday. "The fact that we are seeing the dollar weaken is helping to drive gold,"...

Porter Stansberry writes: It's one of those numbers that's so unbelievable you have to actually think about it for a while... Within the next 12 months, the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term debt. And that's not counting any additional deficit spending, which is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion Put the two numbers together. Then ask yourself, how in the world can the Treasury borrow $3.5 trillion in only one year? That's an amount equal to nearly 30% of our entire GDP. And we're the world's biggest economy. Where will the money come from? How...

Not that it seems to matter to many Americans who lull themselves into a state of denial with sweet sugar plums dancing in their heads, doom looms heavily on the horizon involving the dollar and the debt. The value of the dollar has plummeted to its lowest level in over a generation. This means that creditor nations are quickly switching to other currencies. There is also widespread talk of the value of the dollar going to ZERO, at which point a world currency would be implemented under a 'new world order,' according to one leading economist who appeared on CNBC...

The zero-interest-rate policy of the Fed is sold to the public as a benign economic rescue in the public interest. The stark reality is that this policy is a disguised tax implemented by the Fed. It takes income from savers and hands it as a subsidy to borrowers. It also facilitates and funds the fiscal deficit policies of central government. Such a well disguised tax is a boon for governments. The cruelest tax of all is this 100 percent tax on interest income, disguised and rationalized as "good" policy. The zero-interest-rate policy deserves closer scrutiny. Would a saver willingly agree...

The US government is shouldering a vast $12 trillion debt pile – that's 12, followed by 12 zeros. The trade deficit of the world's biggest economy also remains huge. How much longer can the dollar defy gravity? Last week, America's currency fell to a 15-month low against the euro, cutting through $1.5050. Against a trade-weighted currency basket, the dollar was also at its weakest since July 2008. The greenback plunged to parity with the rock-solid Swiss franc, then hit a 14-year low against the yen. The dollar's weakness is based on fundamentals – not least America's jaw-dropping debt. It's a...