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New York, NY (PRWEB): Danny Esposito, co-editor of financial web site and newsletter Penny Stock Detectives, believes India’s recent purchase of farmland in Africa and China’s recent purchase of 1.4 million acres in Venezuela are just the beginning of a rise in commodities, as both countries secure agricultural commodities for the future. According to Esposito, there are compelling entrenched trends in place that make owning agricultural commodities in 2012 essential to every portfolio: 1. Expanding middle class in emerging markets (China, India) 2. Growing worldwide population 3. Bizarre weather patterns “As the economies in Asia continue to develop, a middle...

Out on the campaign trail, Fed head Ben Bernanke is an unpopular guy. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have both said they would replace Bernanke, not reappoint him. Rep. Ron Paul would swap the whole Federal Reserve monetary system for a gold-linked dollar, making the yellow metal legal tender. And it was Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, before he dropped out of the race, who said more quantitative easing by the Fed would be "almost treasonous." Republicans in Washington are equally unimpressed by Bernanke. Rep. Paul Ryan recently criticized the Fed for bankrolling our huge budget deficits and thereby accommodating...

When the economy hit the skids a few years ago, we responded with tactics that have gotten us through previous recessions: We stopped eating out and traveling as much, curbed our discretionary spending and chose generic items for basics like groceries. But then something strange happened: We began to prefer many of those store brands. Increasingly, we’re willing to pay even more for them. What’s going on here? According to the Wall Street Journal, stores have raised the prices of private-label nonperishable food by 5.3%, compared to a 1.9% increase for goods made by national brands. Store-brand versions of perishable...

Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicare payments. The unfunded liability of both programs is already $106 trillion.But not to worry. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it's possible to sustain today's level of federal spending and even achieve a balanced budget. All...

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) has made it official: After its latest two day meeting, it announced its goal to devalue the dollar by 33% over the next 20 years. The debauch of the dollar will be even greater if the Fed exceeds its goal of a 2 percent per year increase in the price level. An increase in the price level of 2% in any one year is barely noticeable. Under a gold standard, such an increase was uncommon, but not unknown. The difference is that when the dollar was as good as gold, the years of...

Does increasing the minimum wage increase GDP? Bloggingstocks' Joseph Lazaro outlined the theory that it might back on 1 August 2009, shortly after the U.S. federal minimum wage reached its current level of $7.25 per hour (emphasis ours): ... the U.S. Federal Reserve will be monitoring prices and costs to see if the higher minimum wage is creating inflation havoc at a time when U.S. businesses least need another concern to deal with. Businesses have enough to worry about; and some are struggling just to maintain operations for another quarter or two -- the recession has been that damaging. But...

Inflation Is Part Of The Plan Economics / Inflation Jan 31, 2012 By: Money Morning Martin Hutchinson writes: Forget about lost decades. Forecasts that we'll be turning Japanese couldn't be further from the truth. Here's why. It's simple, really. Deflation is not in the interest of anybody in power, so it's very unlikely to happen. The U.S. Federal Reserve's policy move to target inflation last week just re-emphasizes this point. That's not to say deflation is a bad thing for everybody. For savers and those living on fixed incomes, deflation would be a very good thing indeed. Their income would...

The Fed's Inflation Target; QE3, QE4, QE5, Etc. Are In The Queue Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing Jan 29, 2012 - 11:26 AM By: David Knox Barker The U.S. Federal Reserve policy announcement on Tuesday, January 25, 2012 marks an important moment in monetary history. The forecast by a majority of the members of the FOMC for interest rates to hug zero until late 2014 was of interest and points to the FOMC conviction extended global economic stagnation at best, reflecting the long wave forces at work in the global economy. However, more importantly, it was the first time that the...

Professor Brad DeLong at University of California at Berkeley has an interesting blog entitled “Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve Is Doing It Wrong…” He argues, like Paul Krugman and James Hamilton, that inflation is TOO LOW. Therefore, The Fed should set higher inflation targets in order to increase employment. In other words, like Madonna from the film “Dick Tracy,” they want the Fed to do “More.” But why is The Fed having difficult creating inflation as Krugman, DeLong and Hamilton would like? Do we need MORE monetary intervention or is The Fed out of ammunition? I would argue that the...

U.S. Economy Waist Deep In The Big Muddy Economics / US Economy Jan 28, 2012 - 02:50 AM By: Peter Schiff With its announcement this week that it will keep interest rates near zero until at least late 2014, the Federal Reserve has put another large crack into the foundations underlying the US dollar. In a misguided attempt to provide clarity and transparency, Ben Bernanke has instead laid out a simple road map for economists and investors to follow. The signposts are easily understood: the Fed will stop at nothing in pursuing its goals of creating phantom GDP growth, holding...

Keeping interest rates low may have the APPEARANCE of stimulation, but that effect is NOT being passed on by the banks. Interest Rates on loans, even credit cards, have not declined in proportion to the drop in interest rates at the Fed. Therefore, the deflation aspect is shifting profits to banks further bailing them out to make up for their losses in the speculation of mortgages. NOTHING is being done to help the people or the economy whatsoever! They are NOT lowering borrowing costs of consumers or business so the Fed can pretend it is helping the economy, but it...

Well, we got an inflation target from the Fed. Basically, thinking at the Fed has been eliminated. The process has been automated. Bernanke has convinced the Fed board to adopt Core PCE as a determinate of monetary policy. So long as CPCE stays below 2%, Ben is going to have his foot planted on the monetary metal. It’s “full speed ahead” according to the Chairman. He’s pushed things off until 2014 – a very long time from now. My question: “Why is the Fed using CPCE versus another measure of inflation?” The very good news is that there is answer,...

So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (AP Photo) During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent. When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon,...

Southern Europe Permanently Crippled, The Only Tool Left Is Hyper Inflation Economics / HyperInflation Jan 20, 2012 - 11:24 AM By: Jim Willie CB Any perusal around the world these days features Southern Europe crippled, preparing for the inevitable Greek Govt Bond default. It features a crippled US housing market, a mockery of statistical accounting in the US Gross Domestic Product, the plight of the COMEX with established veterans clearing out desks (not trading), the extreme physical demand reported by the London Trader, and the indictment of the SLV iTrust Silver Fund tool used by the cartel. The survey does...

Federal Reserve officials are seriously considering giving the US economy—and especially the housing market—an added jolt with more quantitative easing. Fed officials are likely to discuss such a move at their Jan. 24-25 meeting, when the central bank will issue its first quarterly forecast on interest rates under the new communication policy. Two of the new voting members this year on the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets interest-rate policy, have recently suggested they would support more assets purchases. San Francisco Fed President John Williams said that sustained high levels of unemployment, as forecast by many Fed members, "does make...

How the U.S. National Debt Could Drain Your Savings January 9, 2012 By David Zeiler, Associate Editor, Money Morning Now that Congress has allowed the U.S. national debt to grow bigger than the American economy, it won't be long until the American public suffers the consequences by losing most of its savings to inflation.Figures for last year show the national debt officially exceeded 100% of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). According to government figures, the national debt stood at $15.23 trillion at the close of 2011, compared to a GDP of $15.18 trillion. "The 100% mark means that your...

Without much media attention, thousands of American troops are being deployed to Israel, and Iranian officials believe that this is the latest and most blatant warning that the US will soon be attacking Tehran. Tensions between nations have been high in recent months and have only worsened in the weeks since early December when Iran hijacked and recovered an American drone aircraft. Many have speculated that a back-and-forth between the two countries will soon escalate Iran and the US into an all-out war, and that event might occur sooner than thought. Under the Austere Challenge 12 drill scheduled for an...

Grim Economic Prospects For 2012, U.S. Fed To Overshadow The European Banking System Economics / Global Debt Crisis 2012 Jan 01, 2012 - 11:06 AM By: Bob Chapman Public institutions worldwide are fighting ratings downgrades foremost of which is France, the US and, of course, sovereigns and banks worldwide. Miracles of miracles finally the rating agencies are doing their jobs. The caper they pulled in collusion with Wall Street in rating mortgage securities should have put them all in jail for life. We’ll call these efforts makeup time for their previous sins, which they never were prosecuted for. The complaint...

OUR ultimate risk is that we will lose all our freedoms before there would be hyperinflation. The borders are closing silently. Tax havens are being attacked and every wire coming into the US is being traced to check who owns that account. Government is desperate to cling to power. It is naive to presume that our economic troubles will cause government to see the light and accept gold as the new money supply. The bankers, who really control government like the financial crack dealers, would never allow it. The attempt to manipulate gold during the Panic of 1869 and force...

As tuition costs skyrocket and graduates walk away saddled with ever-rising amounts of debt, American colleges now face a choice: Remain a part of the problem, or begin contributing to a solution. The average cost to attend a public university shot up 8.3 percent this year, while private institutions raised their prices 4.3 percent. Over the past decade, tuition rates have risen 72 percent, and universities are now taking more heat than ever from government officials, education specialists and middle-class families, all of whom think the higher-education sector hasn’t done enough to reverse the trend. If the current trajectory continues,...

Correcting The Growth Of Human History By Bill Bonner 12/22/11 Baltimore, Maryland – And so, yesterday, the northern hemisphere had its shortest day of the year. In Baltimore, the sun never rose and never set. It was gray all day. Then it was night again. And so the days dwindle down to a precious few. In astronomical terms, the year is already over. We have passed the winter solstice. From here on out the days grow longer. In terms of the Gregorian Calendar, we still have a few more days to go in 2011. Then, we face a new year....

Southern Europe's battered debt markets are basking in a glorious pre-Christmas rally as hedge funds and investors celebrate a blast of cheap liquidity from the European Central Bank. Yields on Spain's three-month notes plummeted to 1.74pc on Tuesday from 5.11pc last month, leading euphoric moves across the eurozone periphery. Spanish 10-year yields fell below 5pc for the first time in two months, with credit rallies in Italy, Belgium, and Ireland. Exuberance lifted Germany's DAX index by 3pc, the French CAC by 2.7pc, and FTSE 100 by 1pc, with ripple effects through commodities and risky assets worldwide. The buying spree comes...

China Economy May Drag World Down Economics / China Economy Dec 17, 2011 - 07:39 AM By: Barry Elias My column of June 24, 2011 ("China Yield Inversion May Portend Economic Slowdown") opened with the following sentence: “The yield on Chinese bonds are inverting at an accelerating rate. This does not portend well for the Chinese economy, and this may have negative implications globally.” China’s contribution to global economic growth this year is nearly 40%.The reason: property construction in China boomed significantly during the previous decade. The Chinese government controls all the allocation of land. Beginning in 1998, Chinese authorities...

Everyone Is Mocking Gold Bugs And Ron Paul Fans These Days Joe Weisenthal Dec. 15, 2011, 12:01 PM Gold bugs are some of the most annoying people in the world, so with gold cliff-diving these days, people loving the chance to mock them. Nouriel Roubini, for example, has been tweeting up a storm about how gold bugs are in hiding. Yesterday, Paul Krugman put up a post pointing out how the hyperinflationary predictions of Ron Paul fans aren't coming to pass, as commodity prices and gold prices sink. Matt Phillips at the Wall Street Journal twists the knife by pointing...

Ranting Andy Hoffman is back on the show to discuss the most recent attack by "Da Boyz" in an attempt to convince the populace that everything is fine and that nothing can go wrong. However, even while the price of precious metals appears to go down, there is no evidence of any physical gold and silver holders are paying any heed. They are holding on to their metals caches and even using the brief dip as an opportunity to load up on more. Perhaps they know something that the rest of the population doesn't. As Andy stated, there is a...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- David Frias works two minimum-wage jobs to squeak by in one of the most expensive cities in America. Come New Year's Day, he'll have a few more coins in his pocket as San Francisco makes history by becoming the first city in the nation to scale a $10 minimum wage. The city's hourly wage for its lowest-paid workers will hit $10.24, more than $2 above the California minimum wage and nearly $3 more than the working wage set by the federal government. It won't put much more in Frias' wallet. But it gives him a sense...

Buy Silver…Now!By Matt Badiali 12/08/11 Silver is an amazing metal…which is why it’s likely to soar over the coming years… You see, silver has more than 10,000 uses. It’s one of the world’s best conductors of heat and electricity. Inventors filed more patents on silver uses than any other precious metal in the world. And when silver is used for most industrial and technological purposes, it is used up forever… It simply costs too much to try to recycle the tiny bit of silver from every cell phone or casino chip. I’m not saying industry is going to use up...

Submitted by Jeff Clark of Casey ResearchStart Thinking in Terms of Gold PriceA young woman – let's call her Andrea – inherited some money from her father in late 1997. She was only nineteen at the time. Not knowing the first thing about investing, she kept the money in stocks and bonds as her father had, wanting to hold on to it until she really needed it. She played it "safe."She got married last year and so began to withdraw the money. She was pleased to see a chart from the broker that showed her portfolio was up about...

Kicking The Can Down The Road Will Officially Stop Working In 2013Sunday, December 4, 2011Bruce Krastering Luis Echeverria became president of Mexico in 1970. These were troubled times for the country. By the end of his term in 1976 every economic variable was running off the rails. Huge inflation, current account, trade and big budget deficits. To keep the economy alive numerous steps were taken to kick the can down the road through the next election. The most dangerous efforts that Mexico took were in its debt profile. The public and private sector was borrowing in dollars. The worst part...

If Laws Change, 'Penny Hoarders' Could Cash In On Thousands Of Dollars By NEAL KARLINSKY and MARY-ROSE ABRAHAM ABC News – Fri, Dec 2, 2011If Laws Change, 'Penny Hoarders' Could Cash in on Thousands of Dollars (ABC News … Joe Henry is on a first name basis with bank tellers across his hometown of Medford, Ore., scouring 15 banks a week with one thing on his mind: pennies. Henry is often seen toting around bags of pennies, some he buys, others he changes back in for cash, which seems a little strange at first. He's not a collector, he is...

TUNKHANNOCK — USDA Rural Development offers a subsidized government program designed to assist low income, credit worthy families and individuals in purchasing existing or building new homes in rural areas. To qualify, applicants must be under the low-income limit for the county in which they would live (for a family of four in Pike County, that amount is $54,500), have an acceptable credit history and meet certain debt to income ratios. The current interest rate is 3.5% fixed over 33 years; no down payment is required; and funds for repairs (and sometimes closing costs) may be included in the loan....

Gary Wagner has been a trader and a market technician for over 25 years. In early in 2009 he began to focus his attention on one market: Gold. The yellow metal, gold, began to rally in 2008, but Gary knew the best was yet to come. He believed that gold was poised for an incredible and explosive upside move. Thus the GoldForecast was born. Gary’s daily video newsletter is always interesting and often profitable. He uses a combination of fundamental and technical analysis. We talked about the invention of paper money by the Chinese in the 10th century and their...

An unconventional project by US university students has concluded that China's nuclear arsenal could be many times larger than current estimates, drawing the attention of Pentagon analysts. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Georgetown University students under the instruction of a former Pentagon official have assembled the largest body of public knowledge yet about a vast network of secret tunnels dug by China's secretive Second Artillery Corps, responsible for nuclear warheads. The 363-page study has not yet been published, but has already sparked a congressional hearing and been circulated among top US defence officials, including the Air Force vice...

The Chinese have called it their “Underground Great Wall” — a vast network of tunnels designed to hide their country’s increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear arsenal. For the past three years, a small band of obsessively dedicated students at Georgetown University has called it something else: homework. Led by their hard-charging professor, a former top Pentagon official, they have translated hundreds of documents, combed through satellite imagery, obtained restricted Chinese military documents and waded through hundreds of gigabytes of online data.

Leaping Toward The Keynesian Dream By Jeffrey Tucker 11/30/11 The Fed’s latest inflationary scheme sounds like a technocratic innovation. It lowered the costs of currency swaps between central banks of the world with the idea that the Fed would do for the globe what Europe, England, and China are too shy to do, which is run the printing presses 24/7 to bail out failing institutions and economies. In effect, the Fed has promised to be the lender of last resort for the entire global economy. It sounds new, but it is not. Following the Second World War, John Maynard Keynes...

Perpetual Q.E. Without The Billboard, Hyper Monetary Inflation Interest-Rates / Quantitative Easing Nov 30, 2011 - 08:15 AM By: Jim Willie CB The US Federal Reserve has fooled a lot of people into believing that the grand monetary pump and debt monetization project has been put on hold. The only thing that changed was their talking publicly about it. The money press has been working to the limit, never stopped. The discussion has been kept quiet, but the machinery still makes a lot of shrill noise. The proof is not movement of lips by central bankers, but the data from...

Energy Policy: The same administration that says we can and should get oil from the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska is blocking a bridge needed to get it to market on environmental grounds. In his May 14 weekly radio address, President Obama called for annual lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA), not necessarily out of any conviction that increased domestic energy supply is good for prices and national security, but basically to perpetuate the myth that the oil companies refuse to drill in leased or leasable areas. While he restricts oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and...

CHICAGO PMI BEATS EXPECTATIONS: DOW NOW UP 375 Joe Weisenthal Nov. 30, 2011, 9:45 AM The good news keeps rolling in. The Chicago PMI came in at 62.6, well ahead of expectations of 58.5. The Dow is up 380 now. Stocks were already surging thanks to major central bank intervention, as well as a strong ADP number.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, acting with five other central banks, took steps Wednesday to boost the troubled global financial system by making it cheaper for banks to trade in U.S. dollars. The Fed -- along with central banks of the eurozone, England, Japan, Switzerland and Canada -- announced a coordinated plan to lower prices on dollar liquidity swaps beginning on December 5, and extending these swap arrangements to February 1, 2013.

Stock Market Report Hyperinflation! Stock-Markets / HyperInflation Nov 29, 2011 - 01:03 PM By: UnpuncturedCycle I read article after article warning us that excessive printing in the western world is going to produce hyperinflation, and I’ve heard good analysts calling for hyperinflation for almost five years now. Lately the call seems to have morphed into a plea. The Federal Reserve Chairman has pledged to do his part, dropping money out of helicopters if need be, so how could we have deflation given such declarations? We all know that the Fed has created almost US $4 trillion out of thin air...

John Williams Hyperinflation Warning, Preserve Wealth Value With Gold Commodities / HyperInflation Nov 28, 2011 - 01:01 PM By: The Gold Report Among the specters lurking in ShadowStats.com's Editor John Williams' gloomy outlook for the U.S. are the demise of the dollar, hyperinflation and the ongoing lack of political will to take sound corrective measures. Still, as he tells The Gold Report in this exclusive interview, investors have options. Williams contends that turning to gold, silver and strong foreign currencies would protect wealth and position savvy investors to take advantage of extraordinary opportunities likely to flow out of the turmoil...

In 2008, the United States government and Federal Reserve helped bailout European banks to the tune of trillions of dollars.  The reactions to this by Congress and the public ensured that any future bailouts would have to be performed through the use of a proxy institution. It appears that this proxy institution has been found, as the IMF on November 22nd just opened a new credit facility with the primary purpose of providing liquidity to sovereign nations, especially those currently in the Euro Zone. IMF talking points on new credit facility * IMF APPROVES CREDIT LINE PROGRAM CHANGES TO PROVIDE...

British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain. As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible. Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis. The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way. A senior minister has...

Within 24 hours of a US attack helicopters strike inside Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of Mohmand that killed more than 20 Pakistani troops, the Pakistan government has ordered the US to vacate a key airbase in Baluchistan and has closed NATO's supply lines through the Khyber Pass. The Defence Committee of the Cabinet, a Pakistani committee chaired by Prime Minister Yousef Gilani, issued a statement calling for US personnel to leave the Shamsi airbase in Baluchistan province and the closure of NATO's supply chain to Afghanistan.

But one thing is for sure, whenever i hear these days somebody says: “I will not do that if SHTF“ or „I ll do only that if SHTF“ whenever i hear that i feel sick. Wait and see… Truth is: You never know how far you are going to go with some things in order to survive, there is no chance to know that before SHTF, everything else is only talking and discussing in front of PC, in nice and warm room, safe, not hungry or thirsty and not under fire or chance of losing life or that loved ones...

RICHARD RUSSELL: The Gold Skyrocketing Phase Still Lies Ahead Cullen Roche, Pragmatic Capitalism Nov. 24, 2011, 4:41 AM Via Richard Russell’s Dow Theory Letters: “Day after day, everyone asks whether gold has topped out. Nobody ever asks whether the market has topped out. Think about it, we’re in a low inflation, low investor fear environment, a dollar that appears to have bottomed and is now firming, and still gold holds above 1700 an ounce. This is a remarkable performance aided by heavy buying in China, India, and Asian nations. But what happens when we hit the inevitable inflation; when investors...

The Mother Of All Dreads, Global Economy On The Brink Interest-Rates / Global Debt Crisis Nov 18, 2011 - 11:22 AM By: Ramy Saadeh Ramy Saadeh writes: The World is on the brink of a cataclysmic spiral that could make the Greek crisis look like a walk in the park. Interestingly, markets still seem very hushed about the emerging risks ahead; the final bell hasn’t rung yet, can this be it?The trigger of the dreadful events could come as soon as the 23rd of November 2011, as the “Super Committee”, who is expected to set forth a long awaited plan...

Raise or lower interest rates just like the feds and see the results on inflation and employment. A little teaching game. Interesting results

U.S. Dollar Teetering On The Abyss Currencies / US Dollar Nov 15, 2011 - 03:01 AM By: Toby Connor We all better hope I'm wrong on this one, but I think the CRB just put in its three year cycle low in October. I'm also afraid that Bernanke has done irreparable damage to the dollar. If I'm right about both of those assumptions then we are on the brink of a historic inflationary period. I've marked the major three year cycle bottoms in both the CRB index and the dollar index on the chart below with blue arrows. (Actually the...

Crop-Killing Drought To Push Food Inflation Even Higher November 14, 2011 By David Zeiler, Associate Editor, Money Morning A drought affecting one-third of the lower 48 states has hurt several key food crops, driving up prices this year and assuring widespread food inflation well into 2012. According to the National Climatic Data Center, the drought has caused more than $10 billion in losses to agriculture and cattle, a number it expects to keep rising as the drought continues. Meteorologists blame the drought on a La Niña weather pattern expected to last at least through the winter. Crops most affected include...