astrological stock market predictions october 15-19 2012 : Weekly planetary position: During the week, Moon will be transiting in Virgo, Libra & Scorpio. Lord Saturn & Mercury in Libra. Rahu & Mars in Scorpio, Pluto in Sagittarius, Uranus in Pisces. Neptune in Aquarius. Jupiter & Ketu in Taurus. Sun in Virgo. Venus in Leo. Sun will shift to Libra on 17th Oct 2012.
FOLLOWING SECTORS WILL BE GETTING ASTROLOGICAL SUPPORT:
TEXTILE: Bombay Dyeing , Arvind, Alok Industries, Century Textiles, Raymond & Garden Silk Mills etc. This sector was also predicted last week & during the week, Century & Bombay Dyeing moved up by 6 7.6%.
FINANCIALS: PFC , REC, IFCI, IDFC etc This sector was also predicted last week & during the week PFC shot up by 8%.
PERSONAL CARE sector i.e; Hindustan Unilever , Colgate Palmolive (India), Dabur India, Godrej Consumer Products & Godrej Industries etc will also be getting astrological support.
LEATHER: Bata India , Relaxo Footwears & Liberty Shoes etc.
New Samvat 2069 (Hindu New Year) have started from 23rd March 2012. Whenever New Samvat starts, based on planetary position / conjunction & aspect among planets, some new sectors commence out performing & many sectors, which were in momentum during last Samvat start underperforming.
It has been observed many times that investors / traders (not knowing this fact) keep investing /trading in such sectors,( whose astrological support is over) resulting in losses. It is suggested to consult your Financial Astrologer to know about the sectors.
One should trade only in the stocks of that sectors which are getting very strong astrologically support.
Sectors which get very strong ASTROLOGICAL support are not normally affected by downfall in the market.
For the latest updates on the stock market, PRESS CTR + D or visit Stock Market Today
13 Ekim 2012 Cumartesi
astrological stock market predictions october 15-19 2012
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Gold Will Spike Thanks To Europe's Debt Crisis
To contact us Click HERE
There is a big concern about Europe's debt crisis, and will in turn incline Europe to get gold to back their financial system. This I believe is happening all over the world. Gold, silver, and other precious metals have spiked recently because people are losing faith in their financial systems built up by rich international banking families over many decades. Who are we and Europe really in debt too? The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and the Morgans. They are the ruling elite that decide the fate of countries through power through wealth, and power through wars that create huge amounts of money for a handful of people while others are killed. Gold will go through the roof again, as will silver. When more and more people are uncovering the truth about international bankers and what the Federal Reserve is really about, more and more people are going to get their assets converted to gold. Its the safer bet, why invest in the almighty dollar? The dollar like all currency will become useless. We are headed for ruin if we don't realize what is going on, and who we are really in debt with. Its time for this whole world to wake up, before it is too late.
There is a big concern about Europe's debt crisis, and will in turn incline Europe to get gold to back their financial system. This I believe is happening all over the world. Gold, silver, and other precious metals have spiked recently because people are losing faith in their financial systems built up by rich international banking families over many decades. Who are we and Europe really in debt too? The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and the Morgans. They are the ruling elite that decide the fate of countries through power through wealth, and power through wars that create huge amounts of money for a handful of people while others are killed. Gold will go through the roof again, as will silver. When more and more people are uncovering the truth about international bankers and what the Federal Reserve is really about, more and more people are going to get their assets converted to gold. Its the safer bet, why invest in the almighty dollar? The dollar like all currency will become useless. We are headed for ruin if we don't realize what is going on, and who we are really in debt with. Its time for this whole world to wake up, before it is too late.
Share : 
Gold's 1980 High – Think $5000 – No $8000 – per Ounce – or Higher
To contact us Click HERE
15 July 2007 - Updated 18 July 2007, 6 & 10 April & 29 July 2008, 13 & 18 November 2009, 18 January 2010, 13 & 31 January, 15 February & 15 May 2011, 22 April 2012
The following article was originally published on July 15, 2007, so please read this as a historic document. More recent comments are added at the conclusion of the original post.
Jay Taylor has just posted a new inflation-adjusted estimate of gold's peak 1980 price.
As readers of this blog are aware, the price of gold rises in inflationary times.
Readers will also be aware that governments purposely and systematically understate the amount of actual inflation so as to make it possible for debtors everywhere – and governments are the greatest of all debtors – to repay obligations in a devalued currency, thereby enabling the ongoing operations of a debt and liquidity-based economy.
As a reader, you will also be aware that such an economic strategy punishes savers and rewards debtors by making saving unprofitable, thereby fuelling borrowing, discouraging saving, and creating asset bubbles (government sanctioned Ponzi schemes, if you will).
(Inflating asset bubbles entice citizens who would otherwise be savers to invest their devaluing cash in risky assets, thereby creating economic instability as an inevitable correlate of monetary inflation.)
The US government's official figures acknowledge that 1980's peak gold price was not the nominal $887.50 intraday high figure that those of us old enough to remember can recall from that era, but an estimated $1,459.63 US dollars.
Given this figure, we could conservatively expect gold to revisit a price near $1500 per ounce at some point in the upcoming years, based on cyclical fluctuation alone.
However, Mr. Taylor reminds us that the government inflation estimate is in fact grossly understated. According to him, Boston-based money manager Antony Herrey has compiled a chart of the inflation-adjusted gold price using not the government's own CPI statistics, but rather much more accurate inflation numbers compiled by economist John Williams.
Mr. Williams estimates that today’s US inflation rate is closer to 10% than the official (and entirely non-believable) government-reported 2.7%.
Mr. Herrey’s readjustment of the historic gold price based on the actual (non-manipulated, if you will) rate of inflation shows that gold in fact peaked at an inflation-adjusted amount of about $5000 in 1980.
The implication of this recalculation is that by normal cyclical fluctuation alone, it is reasonable to expect the current gold bull market to top out somewhere higher than $5000 per ounce.
Why higher than $5000 per ounce?
Because inflation will continue as the gold price rises.
So at today’s $666.00 per ounce, is gold cheap or expensive?
I think you can figure that one out.
On my advice, do not invest your devaluing cash in the current stock market and real estate bubbles (or other risky assets) presently exciting North America and much of the developed and developing world, but preserve your savings through the time-honoured store of value offered by precious metals – gold and silver.
Gold is up 150% from its 2001 low. But it can grow a further 750% from today’s levels – in real cash terms – before equalling its inflation-adjusted 1980 peak value.
This dollar-value advance would represent a 2000% or more (non-inflation-adjusted) cash gain from the 2001 low near $250.
Another way to think of it is that in true 1980 dollars, gold’s current market price is not $666.00 per ounce, but a reverse inflation-adjusted $113.00 (1980) US dollars per ounce.
The stock market by and large is trading in bubble territory by historic metrics. Real estate in many North American locations is also in bubble territory. Citizens everywhere are borrowing at a record clip and pouring their savings into ever-riskier assets – with today’s fads being hyper-leveraged hedge funds and the privatization of public companies by pension plans and private equity groups.
Do not let official government inflation policies force you into risky assets to preserve or increase the value of your savings.
While asset bubbles are over-valued by definition, gold remains radically undervalued, and will be a secure store of wealth for many years to come.
It is not that the price of gold is rising. It is that we are re-evaluating the worth of gold in terms of the declining value of “paper” (or digital) money.
Governments around the world can create new money through a series of computer key strokes.
But until the alchemists succeed – or until nuclear fusion advances far beyond today’s levels of sophistication – so that we can create gold at will from “base substances” – gold and silver will remain stores of value that are essentially impervious to the irresponsible inflationary policies of our governments around the world.
By the way, commodities generally also look very cheap today in inflation-adjusted terms, despite doubling on a broad measure since 2001. The chart below, from Puru Saxena, graphs commodity prices from 1954 through February of this year, with the inflation adjustment based only on the US government's profoundly muted official inflation numbers.
The Reuters/CRB continuous futures commodity index peaked in 1973 at $1048 in nominal "2007 US dollars." If we are to believe John Williams' inflation numbers, the real 1973 commodity index peak would have been in the $3-4000 range in 2007 US dollars. Today's CRB continuous futures index amount – just above $400 – therefore looks very much like a bargain from that perspective – and signals that commodity prices will run much higher before the world's demand for commodities has been sated.
Addendum - 6 & 10 April 2008: This post is the most frequently visited on my site, so I have added links to related information here, where more visitors are likely to find it. Mr Williams has recently updated his inflation-adjusted 1980 gold price to $6030, in order to reflect recent further inflation of the battered US dollar, which, as you know, is unwinding quickly at this time. Click here for more current information.
If you're looking for current gold prices - right up to the minute, visit Kitco.com. Kitco also has a wide selection of historical charts dating back as far as 1792. Kitco also sells gold in various forms, and can hold it for you, with delivery at a later date - allowing multiple purchases over time with only a single delivery charge.
And if it's technical charts you need, go to Stockcharts.com, though these charts date back only to 1990.
For further study of associated underlying factors, such as accumulating debt and escalating money supply, click here.
For more information about Canadian gold investing, click here.
For information about secular trends, click here.
For information on investment issues that relate to gold mining, click here.
For links to precious metal investment advisories, please view my links section to the right.
Could the price of gold rise higher than $6000? Click here for some speculations about a $9000 or higher gold price.
How should gold be priced today? My October 2008 estimate is in the $1600 range. Click here for this article. Bear in mind that "should" and "is" are two different ideas....
13 November 2009: Like the idea of $5000 gold? I'll be honest with you, any estimate of numbers even a few years in the future depends on countless economic unknowables, including the level of fiscal responsibility of all governments around the world (don't get overly optimistic), cumulative global central bank monetary policy, issues of war and peace, free or impeded trade, etc. So who really knows? Not I.
But here is an unlikely person who likes the $5000 number: Martin Armstrong, a financial theorist, former hedge fund manager and convicted Ponzi schemer (see Wikipedia entry here), likes the $5000 number for the year 2016. I can't tell you much about wave theory, not do I have personal knowledge of Mr. Armstrong's character, but I can attest that his fundamental analysis is not entirely off the mark. He states: "Gold has been among the most hated subjects by the socialists, because with each dollar that it advances, it reveals the delusion that they seek to live within."
However, in my view, Mr. Armstrong's critique, with its focus on the shortcomings of socialism, goes nowhere near far enough.
In correction to Mr. Armstrong, who makes a distinctly partisan argument, let me add that in my view, the fundamental problem is hardly with "the socialists" alone - as this group certainly remain a minority faction in North America and through most of the developed world. Particularly here in North America, it is unlikely that it will be the socialists who do us in....
Basically, every party and faction that seeks to resolve its issues through government rescue of a particular sector of the economy is equally in trouble, and that goes for the belligerent folks at the military-industrial complex, the Wall Street speculators who live for the next government guarantee, policy easing or bailout, the CEOs and executives who award themselves and their cronies obscene salaries and bonuses, the elected representatives who vote themselves comfortable pensions, and the financially reckless at all levels and strata of society from the poorest to the very rich.
Transferring funds from one sector of society to another sector of society through government intervention, exploiting savers and investors to pay off executives and managers, borrowing money we do not have and cannot pay back, billing our present expenses to future generations, and printing money out of thin air, are not sustainable strategies for wealth creation (though all are widely practiced today).
In fact, permit me to restate Mr. Armstrong's words as follows: "Gold has been among the most hated subjects by the financially irresponsible at all levels and in every sector of society, because with each dollar that it advances, it reveals the delusion that they seek to live within."
You heard it here. This is not about socialists. It is about all of us. Let's get our act together and start balancing budgets, promoting savings and investment rather than spending and borrowing, and setting aside reserves for the future rather than bilking our trading partners, shortchanging the purchasers of government bonds, and robbing our children and grandchildren.
I'll say it another way, let's make life easy for savers and investors, and difficult for borrowers and spenders. For a start, let's raise interest rates, not lower interest rates. Rather than taxing those who save, let's subsidize - or at least get out of the way of - private investment in legal and ethical business ventures of all kinds by those who set aside a portion of their funds for other than immediate uses.
That being said, Mr. Armstrong's select monograph on $5000 gold can be found here, courtesy of The Business Insider. Think what you like about his personality or his ethics (I do not condone securities fraud!). But Mr. Armstrong might possibly be on the right side of the trade when it comes to setting future gold price targets.
(More theoretical and critical articles by Mr. Armstrong can be found here.)
18 November 2009: Depending on your preferences, here is another analyst calling for $5000 gold. This time around it's Marc Faber, the Swiss-born trader who has resided in Asia for many years. Mr. Faber is arguing that gold is a better buy now, at over $1100 per ounce, than when it traded at $300 per ounce 6-8 years ago.
Faber states:
"I don’t think that you’ll see gold below $1,000 per ounce probably ever again. So I’m quite positive. Maybe, gold at this level is a better buy than it was at $300 per ounce in 2001.
"At first glance, the idea that gold priced at over $1,100 an ounce is 'a better buy' than when the metal traded at about a quarter of that price seems preposterous. But, when you think about it just a little bit (i.e., what constitutes a 'better buy' and how the fundamental factors have now swung so decidedly in gold's favour), maybe it isn't a crazy idea at all.
"I wouldn't be surprised if, in another eight years - in 2017 - the yellow metal fetches $5,000 an ounce or more which, by my math, would make it a better buy. Gold may not rise as much against other currencies, but, after almost a decade of trillion dollar deficits, that almost seems like a slam dunk when the measuring stick is the U.S. dollar."
-----------
Lots of talk right now about longer-term gold targets. Of course, gold can go to infinity if the US dollar loses all of its value. I'm not predicting that, but the losses in the dollar are striking over the scale of the past century (during which the Federal Reserve has had a license to print money).
Dylan Grice, at Societe General, sets a target of $6300 per ounce. I think he is in the ballpark, though his methodology doesn't make sense to me. He is working out how much gold the US has, and what the price of gold would have to be to back every US dollar in existence. Here's the problem - the US government is not going to give anyone gold on demand in exchange for its currency.
Nonetheless, here is Rolfe Winkler's take on Grice's idea.
-----------
The $5000 figure is now popular. Martin Hutchinson, a market historian writing at Prudent Bear, observes, "The opportunity for the world's central banks to change policy and affect the economic outcome has been lost. The world economy is now locked on to an undeviating track towards another train wreck."
What is Mr. Hutchinson's gold price target? Again, $5000.
An esteemed historian in his own right, Adrian Ash explains: "Hutchinson sees a repeat of 1978-1980 now unfolding, with the price of gold vaulting to perhaps $5000 an ounce by the end of next year."
This rate of development of the crisis is a little fast for me....
Mr. Hutchinson sees it like this, however, "If expansionary monetary and fiscal policies are pursued regardless of market signals, the US will head towards Weimar-style trillion-percent inflation... As I said, a train wreck. Probability of arrival: close to 100%. Time of arrival: around the end of 2010, or possibly a bit earlier. And, at this stage, there's very little anyone can do about it; the definitive rise of gold above $1,000 marked the point of no return."
Mr. Ash does not oppose or endorse Mr. Hutchinson's one-year $5000 projection for the gold price, but he concludes, "In short, if you think buying now feels a hard decision, what would you think 50% or 100% higher from here....?"
You know, that's worth thinking about! Click here for Adrian Ash's full article at Seeking Alpha.
18 January 2010: More articles on $5000 gold:
"The Five Reasons Gold Will Hit $5,000"
"Gold May Rise to $5,000 on Inflation, Schroder Says"
"Peter Schiff makes the case for $5000 gold"
"Will Gold Reach $5000 an Ounce?"
"$5,000 Gold?"
"$5,000 Gold In The Future?"
"Could $5,000 gold be too low as dollar loses value?"
"Global Stock Market Forecasts - Shanghai Index 30,000, Gold $5000 and DJIA 17,000"
9 May 2010: Gold's next stop = $3000 per ounce in 2012?
Maybe - click here. (Gold Decouples on International Debt Crisis Concerns - Gold Forecast to Reach $3,000)
Mary Ann and Pamela Aden are also currently considering a 2012 peak target in this range, and suggest that a subsequent peak in 2018-2019 could be several thousand dollars higher.
Enjoy!
13 January 2011: Today is my father's birthday, so I dedicate this post to him.... There is now so much material on this topic, I hardly know where to direct you. But for an overview, one diligent researcher has gone to the trouble of tracking down every known gold price prediction (and here I'm discounting those looking for $680 gold in 2014. That is NOT going to happen through any conceivable course of events - apart from the synthesis of gold in a fusion reactor or the earth's collision with a golden asteroid!).
Click here for Lorimer Wilson's unique overview: These 110 Analysts Believe Gold Will Go Parabolic to $3,000 or More! (The link may be somewhat circular, as the present article is also mentioned.) Mr. Wilson's article may be of special interest if there are particular analysts that you prefer to follow.
31 January 2011: Here is an up-to-the-minute gold price estimate - following Alan Greenspan's recent recommendation that we reconsider a gold standard. The US gold hoard - the largest in the world - will back the entire US money supply at a rate of $6300 per ounce. It sounds arbitrary, but if the US were to adopt a true gold standard (every dollar in circulation backed by non-printable, non-inflatable physical gold), that's how many dollars is would take to purchase a single ounce of US gold holdings..... Note that Mr Greenspan joins Robert Zoellick of the World Bank, Howard Buffett (but not his son Warren), Jim Grant and Thomas Hoenig of the Kansas City Fed in making this recommendation. Think about it... a gold standard for our ever-inflating money supply, and $6300 gold.
15 February 2011: The current SGS (Shadowstats) inflation-adjusted price for gold's previous 1980 peak value (based on gold's $850 close vs. its $887.50 peak intraday price) is now... get this, $7824 per troy ounce (courtesy of The Dollar Vigilante). And, of course, as inflation increases towards, let us say 2019, we are likely to move above not only an $8000 figure, but quite realistically, a $10,000 figure as well. Caveat: If Ron Paul can tame the Federal Reserve, this could all evolve differently. However, my best guess is that we will require greater crises than we have so far seen (the 2008 crash included) before the populace can be moved towards financial sanity. My prediction - we will require repeated shocks over the better part of the present decade before we come to our senses about money-printing and debt repayment.
The National Inflation Association has the most extensive collection of charts related to issues of money supply, "real" inflation and debt I have so far found. Click here to view dozens of relevant charts on one page.
15 May 2011: Robin Griffiths of Cazenove, according to Eric King, "one of the oldest financial firms on the planet," is widely believed to be the appointed stockbroker to Her Majesty The Queen.
Mr Griffiths expectations? He is calling for silver at $450, and gold at $12,000. (I have commented before, at such levels, the real determinant is the degree of "dollar destruction.") Click here for Eric King's summary.
22 April 2012: The presently linked article by Stephen Bogner is truly definitive on the topic of where the gold price has been and where it is going. Mr. Bogner gives full consideration to the SGS inflation estimates, which I have often cited.
Mr. Bogner believes we are now on the verge of the most significant upward breakout yet in the gold price, and his arguments are compelling. In brief, this is a very important and very recent article. Read "The Gold Megatrend" here.
Note that another year has passed, and we are now looking at a previous inflation-adjusted 1980 high gold price of $9000 per ounce. It seems that the only remaining question is whether we are facing escalating inflation that can be contained by policies similar to those used by Paul Volcker in 1980, or whether we are on the eve of hyperinflation, in which case a $9000 gold price would be meaningless (it would rise much, much higher, but in this case, because of the final destruction of the currency in which it is valued).
_
The following article was originally published on July 15, 2007, so please read this as a historic document. More recent comments are added at the conclusion of the original post.Jay Taylor has just posted a new inflation-adjusted estimate of gold's peak 1980 price.
As readers of this blog are aware, the price of gold rises in inflationary times.
Readers will also be aware that governments purposely and systematically understate the amount of actual inflation so as to make it possible for debtors everywhere – and governments are the greatest of all debtors – to repay obligations in a devalued currency, thereby enabling the ongoing operations of a debt and liquidity-based economy.As a reader, you will also be aware that such an economic strategy punishes savers and rewards debtors by making saving unprofitable, thereby fuelling borrowing, discouraging saving, and creating asset bubbles (government sanctioned Ponzi schemes, if you will).
(Inflating asset bubbles entice citizens who would otherwise be savers to invest their devaluing cash in risky assets, thereby creating economic instability as an inevitable correlate of monetary inflation.)
The US government's official figures acknowledge that 1980's peak gold price was not the nominal $887.50 intraday high figure that those of us old enough to remember can recall from that era, but an estimated $1,459.63 US dollars.
Given this figure, we could conservatively expect gold to revisit a price near $1500 per ounce at some point in the upcoming years, based on cyclical fluctuation alone.
However, Mr. Taylor reminds us that the government inflation estimate is in fact grossly understated. According to him, Boston-based money manager Antony Herrey has compiled a chart of the inflation-adjusted gold price using not the government's own CPI statistics, but rather much more accurate inflation numbers compiled by economist John Williams.
Mr. Williams estimates that today’s US inflation rate is closer to 10% than the official (and entirely non-believable) government-reported 2.7%.
Mr. Herrey’s readjustment of the historic gold price based on the actual (non-manipulated, if you will) rate of inflation shows that gold in fact peaked at an inflation-adjusted amount of about $5000 in 1980.
The implication of this recalculation is that by normal cyclical fluctuation alone, it is reasonable to expect the current gold bull market to top out somewhere higher than $5000 per ounce.
Why higher than $5000 per ounce?
Because inflation will continue as the gold price rises.
So at today’s $666.00 per ounce, is gold cheap or expensive?
I think you can figure that one out.On my advice, do not invest your devaluing cash in the current stock market and real estate bubbles (or other risky assets) presently exciting North America and much of the developed and developing world, but preserve your savings through the time-honoured store of value offered by precious metals – gold and silver.
Gold is up 150% from its 2001 low. But it can grow a further 750% from today’s levels – in real cash terms – before equalling its inflation-adjusted 1980 peak value.
This dollar-value advance would represent a 2000% or more (non-inflation-adjusted) cash gain from the 2001 low near $250.
Another way to think of it is that in true 1980 dollars, gold’s current market price is not $666.00 per ounce, but a reverse inflation-adjusted $113.00 (1980) US dollars per ounce.
The stock market by and large is trading in bubble territory by historic metrics. Real estate in many North American locations is also in bubble territory. Citizens everywhere are borrowing at a record clip and pouring their savings into ever-riskier assets – with today’s fads being hyper-leveraged hedge funds and the privatization of public companies by pension plans and private equity groups.Do not let official government inflation policies force you into risky assets to preserve or increase the value of your savings.
While asset bubbles are over-valued by definition, gold remains radically undervalued, and will be a secure store of wealth for many years to come.
It is not that the price of gold is rising. It is that we are re-evaluating the worth of gold in terms of the declining value of “paper” (or digital) money.Governments around the world can create new money through a series of computer key strokes.
But until the alchemists succeed – or until nuclear fusion advances far beyond today’s levels of sophistication – so that we can create gold at will from “base substances” – gold and silver will remain stores of value that are essentially impervious to the irresponsible inflationary policies of our governments around the world.By the way, commodities generally also look very cheap today in inflation-adjusted terms, despite doubling on a broad measure since 2001. The chart below, from Puru Saxena, graphs commodity prices from 1954 through February of this year, with the inflation adjustment based only on the US government's profoundly muted official inflation numbers.
The Reuters/CRB continuous futures commodity index peaked in 1973 at $1048 in nominal "2007 US dollars." If we are to believe John Williams' inflation numbers, the real 1973 commodity index peak would have been in the $3-4000 range in 2007 US dollars. Today's CRB continuous futures index amount – just above $400 – therefore looks very much like a bargain from that perspective – and signals that commodity prices will run much higher before the world's demand for commodities has been sated.
Addendum - 6 & 10 April 2008: This post is the most frequently visited on my site, so I have added links to related information here, where more visitors are likely to find it. Mr Williams has recently updated his inflation-adjusted 1980 gold price to $6030, in order to reflect recent further inflation of the battered US dollar, which, as you know, is unwinding quickly at this time. Click here for more current information.
If you're looking for current gold prices - right up to the minute, visit Kitco.com. Kitco also has a wide selection of historical charts dating back as far as 1792. Kitco also sells gold in various forms, and can hold it for you, with delivery at a later date - allowing multiple purchases over time with only a single delivery charge.
And if it's technical charts you need, go to Stockcharts.com, though these charts date back only to 1990.
For further study of associated underlying factors, such as accumulating debt and escalating money supply, click here.
For more information about Canadian gold investing, click here.
For information about secular trends, click here.
For information on investment issues that relate to gold mining, click here.
For links to precious metal investment advisories, please view my links section to the right.
Could the price of gold rise higher than $6000? Click here for some speculations about a $9000 or higher gold price.
How should gold be priced today? My October 2008 estimate is in the $1600 range. Click here for this article. Bear in mind that "should" and "is" are two different ideas....
13 November 2009: Like the idea of $5000 gold? I'll be honest with you, any estimate of numbers even a few years in the future depends on countless economic unknowables, including the level of fiscal responsibility of all governments around the world (don't get overly optimistic), cumulative global central bank monetary policy, issues of war and peace, free or impeded trade, etc. So who really knows? Not I.
But here is an unlikely person who likes the $5000 number: Martin Armstrong, a financial theorist, former hedge fund manager and convicted Ponzi schemer (see Wikipedia entry here), likes the $5000 number for the year 2016. I can't tell you much about wave theory, not do I have personal knowledge of Mr. Armstrong's character, but I can attest that his fundamental analysis is not entirely off the mark. He states: "Gold has been among the most hated subjects by the socialists, because with each dollar that it advances, it reveals the delusion that they seek to live within."
However, in my view, Mr. Armstrong's critique, with its focus on the shortcomings of socialism, goes nowhere near far enough.In correction to Mr. Armstrong, who makes a distinctly partisan argument, let me add that in my view, the fundamental problem is hardly with "the socialists" alone - as this group certainly remain a minority faction in North America and through most of the developed world. Particularly here in North America, it is unlikely that it will be the socialists who do us in....
Basically, every party and faction that seeks to resolve its issues through government rescue of a particular sector of the economy is equally in trouble, and that goes for the belligerent folks at the military-industrial complex, the Wall Street speculators who live for the next government guarantee, policy easing or bailout, the CEOs and executives who award themselves and their cronies obscene salaries and bonuses, the elected representatives who vote themselves comfortable pensions, and the financially reckless at all levels and strata of society from the poorest to the very rich.Transferring funds from one sector of society to another sector of society through government intervention, exploiting savers and investors to pay off executives and managers, borrowing money we do not have and cannot pay back, billing our present expenses to future generations, and printing money out of thin air, are not sustainable strategies for wealth creation (though all are widely practiced today).
In fact, permit me to restate Mr. Armstrong's words as follows: "Gold has been among the most hated subjects by the financially irresponsible at all levels and in every sector of society, because with each dollar that it advances, it reveals the delusion that they seek to live within."You heard it here. This is not about socialists. It is about all of us. Let's get our act together and start balancing budgets, promoting savings and investment rather than spending and borrowing, and setting aside reserves for the future rather than bilking our trading partners, shortchanging the purchasers of government bonds, and robbing our children and grandchildren.
I'll say it another way, let's make life easy for savers and investors, and difficult for borrowers and spenders. For a start, let's raise interest rates, not lower interest rates. Rather than taxing those who save, let's subsidize - or at least get out of the way of - private investment in legal and ethical business ventures of all kinds by those who set aside a portion of their funds for other than immediate uses.
That being said, Mr. Armstrong's select monograph on $5000 gold can be found here, courtesy of The Business Insider. Think what you like about his personality or his ethics (I do not condone securities fraud!). But Mr. Armstrong might possibly be on the right side of the trade when it comes to setting future gold price targets.
(More theoretical and critical articles by Mr. Armstrong can be found here.)
18 November 2009: Depending on your preferences, here is another analyst calling for $5000 gold. This time around it's Marc Faber, the Swiss-born trader who has resided in Asia for many years. Mr. Faber is arguing that gold is a better buy now, at over $1100 per ounce, than when it traded at $300 per ounce 6-8 years ago.
Faber states: "I don’t think that you’ll see gold below $1,000 per ounce probably ever again. So I’m quite positive. Maybe, gold at this level is a better buy than it was at $300 per ounce in 2001.
"At first glance, the idea that gold priced at over $1,100 an ounce is 'a better buy' than when the metal traded at about a quarter of that price seems preposterous. But, when you think about it just a little bit (i.e., what constitutes a 'better buy' and how the fundamental factors have now swung so decidedly in gold's favour), maybe it isn't a crazy idea at all.
"I wouldn't be surprised if, in another eight years - in 2017 - the yellow metal fetches $5,000 an ounce or more which, by my math, would make it a better buy. Gold may not rise as much against other currencies, but, after almost a decade of trillion dollar deficits, that almost seems like a slam dunk when the measuring stick is the U.S. dollar."-----------
Lots of talk right now about longer-term gold targets. Of course, gold can go to infinity if the US dollar loses all of its value. I'm not predicting that, but the losses in the dollar are striking over the scale of the past century (during which the Federal Reserve has had a license to print money).
Dylan Grice, at Societe General, sets a target of $6300 per ounce. I think he is in the ballpark, though his methodology doesn't make sense to me. He is working out how much gold the US has, and what the price of gold would have to be to back every US dollar in existence. Here's the problem - the US government is not going to give anyone gold on demand in exchange for its currency.
Nonetheless, here is Rolfe Winkler's take on Grice's idea.-----------
The $5000 figure is now popular. Martin Hutchinson, a market historian writing at Prudent Bear, observes, "The opportunity for the world's central banks to change policy and affect the economic outcome has been lost. The world economy is now locked on to an undeviating track towards another train wreck."
What is Mr. Hutchinson's gold price target? Again, $5000.
An esteemed historian in his own right, Adrian Ash explains: "Hutchinson sees a repeat of 1978-1980 now unfolding, with the price of gold vaulting to perhaps $5000 an ounce by the end of next year."This rate of development of the crisis is a little fast for me....
Mr. Hutchinson sees it like this, however, "If expansionary monetary and fiscal policies are pursued regardless of market signals, the US will head towards Weimar-style trillion-percent inflation... As I said, a train wreck. Probability of arrival: close to 100%. Time of arrival: around the end of 2010, or possibly a bit earlier. And, at this stage, there's very little anyone can do about it; the definitive rise of gold above $1,000 marked the point of no return."
Mr. Ash does not oppose or endorse Mr. Hutchinson's one-year $5000 projection for the gold price, but he concludes, "In short, if you think buying now feels a hard decision, what would you think 50% or 100% higher from here....?"
You know, that's worth thinking about! Click here for Adrian Ash's full article at Seeking Alpha.
18 January 2010: More articles on $5000 gold:
"The Five Reasons Gold Will Hit $5,000"
"Gold May Rise to $5,000 on Inflation, Schroder Says"
"Peter Schiff makes the case for $5000 gold"
"Will Gold Reach $5000 an Ounce?"
"$5,000 Gold?"
"$5,000 Gold In The Future?"
"Could $5,000 gold be too low as dollar loses value?"
"Global Stock Market Forecasts - Shanghai Index 30,000, Gold $5000 and DJIA 17,000"
9 May 2010: Gold's next stop = $3000 per ounce in 2012?
Maybe - click here. (Gold Decouples on International Debt Crisis Concerns - Gold Forecast to Reach $3,000)
Mary Ann and Pamela Aden are also currently considering a 2012 peak target in this range, and suggest that a subsequent peak in 2018-2019 could be several thousand dollars higher.
Enjoy!
13 January 2011: Today is my father's birthday, so I dedicate this post to him.... There is now so much material on this topic, I hardly know where to direct you. But for an overview, one diligent researcher has gone to the trouble of tracking down every known gold price prediction (and here I'm discounting those looking for $680 gold in 2014. That is NOT going to happen through any conceivable course of events - apart from the synthesis of gold in a fusion reactor or the earth's collision with a golden asteroid!).Click here for Lorimer Wilson's unique overview: These 110 Analysts Believe Gold Will Go Parabolic to $3,000 or More! (The link may be somewhat circular, as the present article is also mentioned.) Mr. Wilson's article may be of special interest if there are particular analysts that you prefer to follow.
31 January 2011: Here is an up-to-the-minute gold price estimate - following Alan Greenspan's recent recommendation that we reconsider a gold standard. The US gold hoard - the largest in the world - will back the entire US money supply at a rate of $6300 per ounce. It sounds arbitrary, but if the US were to adopt a true gold standard (every dollar in circulation backed by non-printable, non-inflatable physical gold), that's how many dollars is would take to purchase a single ounce of US gold holdings..... Note that Mr Greenspan joins Robert Zoellick of the World Bank, Howard Buffett (but not his son Warren), Jim Grant and Thomas Hoenig of the Kansas City Fed in making this recommendation. Think about it... a gold standard for our ever-inflating money supply, and $6300 gold.
15 February 2011: The current SGS (Shadowstats) inflation-adjusted price for gold's previous 1980 peak value (based on gold's $850 close vs. its $887.50 peak intraday price) is now... get this, $7824 per troy ounce (courtesy of The Dollar Vigilante). And, of course, as inflation increases towards, let us say 2019, we are likely to move above not only an $8000 figure, but quite realistically, a $10,000 figure as well. Caveat: If Ron Paul can tame the Federal Reserve, this could all evolve differently. However, my best guess is that we will require greater crises than we have so far seen (the 2008 crash included) before the populace can be moved towards financial sanity. My prediction - we will require repeated shocks over the better part of the present decade before we come to our senses about money-printing and debt repayment.The National Inflation Association has the most extensive collection of charts related to issues of money supply, "real" inflation and debt I have so far found. Click here to view dozens of relevant charts on one page.
15 May 2011: Robin Griffiths of Cazenove, according to Eric King, "one of the oldest financial firms on the planet," is widely believed to be the appointed stockbroker to Her Majesty The Queen.Mr Griffiths expectations? He is calling for silver at $450, and gold at $12,000. (I have commented before, at such levels, the real determinant is the degree of "dollar destruction.") Click here for Eric King's summary.
22 April 2012: The presently linked article by Stephen Bogner is truly definitive on the topic of where the gold price has been and where it is going. Mr. Bogner gives full consideration to the SGS inflation estimates, which I have often cited.Mr. Bogner believes we are now on the verge of the most significant upward breakout yet in the gold price, and his arguments are compelling. In brief, this is a very important and very recent article. Read "The Gold Megatrend" here.Note that another year has passed, and we are now looking at a previous inflation-adjusted 1980 high gold price of $9000 per ounce. It seems that the only remaining question is whether we are facing escalating inflation that can be contained by policies similar to those used by Paul Volcker in 1980, or whether we are on the eve of hyperinflation, in which case a $9000 gold price would be meaningless (it would rise much, much higher, but in this case, because of the final destruction of the currency in which it is valued)._
Differential Rates of Currency Decay Explain Europe's Unsolvable Dilemma
To contact us Click HERE
10 June 2012
Quick comment.
Since the nations of the world, led by the example of the United States, aboandoned the gold standard, all of them have allowed their currencies to decay at a steady clip. We call it "inflation," perhaps a euphemism. My suggestion, we should call currency destruction what is is, "currency decay."
If you understand this concept, you will understand the present problem with Europe.
In brief, the Deutsch Mark, if it stil existed, would rise relative to other currencies, as German monetary policy is less inflationary than that of most other major nations. Note - it is still inflationary, just less so relative to the policies of its peers.
In brief, this is why the European Monetary Union is failing. Greece has always permitted a rapidly decaying currency, as Greek citizens have a habit of taking long holidays, retiring at 60, not paying income and property taxes, and not even paying for government-provided services, including electricity. Similarly, Spain, Portugal and even Italy are "relaxed" when compared to the more industrious French and German economies.
So what we are seeing now is currency decay to the point of outright "rot" in Greece, and quickening currency decline in Spain (with Portugal, Italy, Ireland and certainly others "following along").
How does one maintain monetary union in such a case?
In brief, it can't be done.
The nations with slowly decaying currencies must continuously bail out those that tolerate more rapid decay and outright decomposition, with Greece being the current poster child.
It's not fixable.
(Thanks to Hookedblog for today's images.)
_
Quick comment.
Since the nations of the world, led by the example of the United States, aboandoned the gold standard, all of them have allowed their currencies to decay at a steady clip. We call it "inflation," perhaps a euphemism. My suggestion, we should call currency destruction what is is, "currency decay."If you understand this concept, you will understand the present problem with Europe.
In brief, the Deutsch Mark, if it stil existed, would rise relative to other currencies, as German monetary policy is less inflationary than that of most other major nations. Note - it is still inflationary, just less so relative to the policies of its peers.
In brief, this is why the European Monetary Union is failing. Greece has always permitted a rapidly decaying currency, as Greek citizens have a habit of taking long holidays, retiring at 60, not paying income and property taxes, and not even paying for government-provided services, including electricity. Similarly, Spain, Portugal and even Italy are "relaxed" when compared to the more industrious French and German economies.So what we are seeing now is currency decay to the point of outright "rot" in Greece, and quickening currency decline in Spain (with Portugal, Italy, Ireland and certainly others "following along").
How does one maintain monetary union in such a case?
In brief, it can't be done.
The nations with slowly decaying currencies must continuously bail out those that tolerate more rapid decay and outright decomposition, with Greece being the current poster child.
It's not fixable.
(Thanks to Hookedblog for today's images.)
_
A Trader's Perspective on the OWS movement
To contact us Click HERE
Brian Rogers of Fator Securities
The average American citizen is quickly falling behind their global peers in terms of education levels and many find the topics of economics and finance far too dense to comprehend. So it’s no small accomplishment that the enormous amount of taxpayer bailouts and Fed monetary injections have finally awoken the American middle and lower classes up to the reality of a terribly unbalanced financial system. This awakening is currently represented by the Occupy Wall Street protests. However, lest you think these protests will simply go away once winter sets in, think again. Even if the official Occupy Wall Street protest dissipates in the next few months, the word has gotten out and the message is finding an interested audience that fails to conform to traditional political boundaries.
How Occupy Wall Street Will Change Things
Suddenly, all over this country students are questioning their economics professors about the standard dogma they are being taught which is visibly failing all around them. How can the PhD.’s preparing tomorrow’s generation of finance and economic leaders continue to teach Keynesian doctrine with a straight face? How can they possibly defend the bailouts and the Fed’s enormous hand in manipulating asset prices as anything even remotely resembling capitalism?
As these students graduate and begin their own careers over the next few years (assuming they find jobs in the first place) they will enter the workforce much more aware of the slight of hand that has taken place whereby organic growth was replaced with extremely dangerous debt growth. Then they’ll stop and think about their own student loans and how the non-dischargeable nature of those loans chain them to the very system they are questioning. These students will be heavily in debt, face few good job prospects and will thus have plenty of time on their hands. Hello political volatility.
And what about the lower and middle classes? It really doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is, if you make less than some magic number defined as “rich”, say the $250k that is currently bandied about, neither political party is really working for you. Both parties have contributed wildly to the overspending that currently burdens our fiscal and monetary accounts. Both parties are deeply in bed with the banking industry. Arguing over who supports Wall Street more is simply a matter of degree. Both parties support the monetary intervention of the Fed and the inflation that has slowly rendered our country uncompetitive since 1971, a role the Fed was never originally envisioned to play.
If you’re unemployed due to your job being shipped overseas, have been kicked out of your house by a robo-signing bank, worry about the tax burden your kids will face down the road, concerned that your public or private pension will be woefully inadequate to maintain your current living standards or have mountains of non-dischargeable students loans owed to Sallie Mae, you should be paying close attention to and likely supportive of the OWS movement.
Repubs vs. Dems: A False Dichotomy
Vote Republican? The Repubs increased debt from around $5.6tr in 2000 to over $10tr by 2008. They also passed the massive social entitlement program Medicare Part D without any mechanism for actually paying the tab. The party of small government and fiscal conservatism you say? Yea, right.
Vote Democrat? The Dems supported the bailout of the banks, the funding of ruinous foreign wars started by the Repubs, the re-nomination of Ben Bernanke as the head of the Fed and appointed to the highest offices of White House influence - the very architects that helped create the global financial disaster we currently face. Summers, Geithner, Rubin and many others have had President Obama’s ear since day 1. You think those guys are advocating a solution which would see the banks actually take write-downs and losses as any other business would have to? Not likely.
Both major parties spend enormous time and money maintaining their own power bases of large, wealthy campaign contributors to try and outspend their competition in the next election. When they win, they serve their campaign contribution masters well with the hopes that this process will be rinse, wash and repeat the next time around. Both parties support no term limits. Both parties support liberal campaign finance laws. Both parties kowtow to Wall Street.
So what’s a disenfranchised, frustrated, out-of-work lower or middle class citizen to do?
Here Comes the Third (And Perhaps Even Fourth and Fifth) Party Movements
The Tea Party was the first threat to the status quo. I happened to be watching Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC back on February 19, 2009. It was brilliant and really captured the mood of those of us who had always imagined our economy to be truly capitalistic. Instead, as soon as the uber-connected banks faced the threat of actually losing money, they called their good buddies in DC (in many cases former co-workers) and demanded a payout or else the world will end. Naturally, Congress feared the campaign contributions would end so they quickly wrote a $700bn check.
Of course the first TARP vote failed, but they needed that cover to save a bit of face. The powers that be were never too worried that they couldn’t scare the financially ignorant in Congress into coughing up some dough. Vote doesn’t pass, market tanks, many pants are wet in DC and ipso facto, the money flows. Many of us were outraged and Mr. Santelli crystallized the moment.
This led to the Tea Party. But for the status quo, the Tea Party was easy to diffuse. Sprinkle in a few right-wing ideologues spouting fire and brimstone and the mainstream voter will be justifiably turned off. The modern Tea Party, just like the one back in Boston in 1773, weren’t inspired by social issues, they were inspired by economic issues. And yet, the status quo and mainstream media has been extremely successful in painting the modern Tea Party movement as nothing more than rebellious right wing Republicans looking for something more conservative than the mother ship Republican party.
Occupy Wall Street, in my opinion, represents a refinement of the original Tea Party rant and the next political movement to be inspired since 2008. This movement represents the point where it’s no longer just financial insiders like Mr. Santelli that understand the graft and corruption that is our current system. No, this movement is solidly being peopled by folks from a broad array of life experiences, political stripes and philosophical leanings. It will be much harder for the status quo to dilute this message. Harder, but not impossible.
Phase II Coming To A City Near You
I keep thinking about Gandhi’s great quote, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” It seems to me that we are at the end of the ‘then they laugh at you’ phase. Watching CNBC lately, the snarky comments from the talking heads have eased off quite a bit and now they are reporting live from Zuccotti Park with a more serious tone. At the same time, the city of NY seems to be reaching the end of its tolerance towards the movement.
Next step is the ‘then they fight you’ phase. This is when things will get interesting. Arrests will be made, traumatic video of cop-on-protestor violence uploaded to Youtube and people you’ve never heard of will suddenly emerge as leaders in this growing movement. How will this affect the upcoming election? It’s impossible to predict but it’s going to be interesting to watch.
The bottom line is this thing is going mainstream and although the message isn’t completely clear or concise, Americans all over the country are beginning to sense the turning point this movement represents.
2012 Presidential Election
Obama recently tried to embrace the OWS movement. I find this extremely hypocritical given his role in sustaining the very institutions the group is protesting against and his frequent trips to NY to raise some more Wall Street money for his re-election war chest.
How about the Republican candidates? Most are dismissing the protestors even though the basic premise of the movement is a more fair and balanced (pun intended) system for all Americans. After vast injections of campaign finance money, the Repubs have come to believe that the banking industry is a much better constituent than mainstream Americans. At least the banks have money to finance their campaigns. They seem happy to ignore the circular argument that the government creates money to loan to the banks at 0% so that the banks can then loan that money back to the US government with interest and virtually guaranteed capital gains and then give some of those interest payments/capital gains back to the politicians in the form of lobbying/campaign finance funds to ensure more no-cost loans and bailouts. What a beautiful business model!
Ron Paul, of course, gets the joke very well. But the media is working overtime to ignore Ron Paul at every turn lest the American public actually start to understand the logic of his positions. So as much as I’d love to see the guy win, I still think Ron Paul is a man ahead of his times. Rather than lead this movement from the front, I think it’s more likely that his philosophies will serve as the inspirational base for future leaders.
The Genie is Out of the Bottle
What eventually became the Arab Spring is spreading and quickly becoming a Western Winter. Protests in Europe and America are growing in size and intensity. Awareness of the unfair and crony-capitalistic nature of our current political/financial system is spreading. Americans of all economic, geographic, philosophic and political stripes are questioning the very foundations upon which our “prosperity” has been based for decades. Slowly they are realizing that they were always playing a rigged game that they were never designed to win. As you’d imagine, this is not sitting so well with them and some are starting to stand up and make their voice heard. Don’t think for one second that this is going to stop. Americans by the millions are losing their homes, their jobs, their savings and their futures.
In their brilliant book about the history of US generations, The Fourth Turning, William Strauss and Neil Howe called the current phase of history we are passing through as a ‘Fourth Turning’. Their characterization of this phase is as follows,
“A CRISIS arises in response to sudden threats that previously would have been ignored or deferred, but which are now perceived as dire. Great worldly perils boil off the clutter and complexity of life, leaving behind one simple imperative: The society must prevail. This requires a solid public consensus, aggressive institutions, and personal sacrifice.” -The Fourth Turning, Strauss and Howe, 1999
Whether the protestors realize it or not, their role in history is an important and necessary one. They are shining a disinfecting light on much of what is wrong with our current economic/political model. Major changes are coming, many of which would have seemed unimaginable only a few years ago. Class warfare, generational warfare and perhaps even military warfare are coming next. As extreme as these views might seem, just study history a bit and you will see that every great empire falls this way. We will be no different. And when it’s all said and done, a straight line will be drawn from Rick Santelli’s rant, to Zuccotti Park to whatever comes next. Eventually a more vibrant, dynamic America will emerge from this chaos and pain. But that’s the ‘then you win’ phase. And we ain’t there yet.
Cheers,
Brian
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-notes-sales-desk-few-thoughts-occupy-wall-street-movement
The average American citizen is quickly falling behind their global peers in terms of education levels and many find the topics of economics and finance far too dense to comprehend. So it’s no small accomplishment that the enormous amount of taxpayer bailouts and Fed monetary injections have finally awoken the American middle and lower classes up to the reality of a terribly unbalanced financial system. This awakening is currently represented by the Occupy Wall Street protests. However, lest you think these protests will simply go away once winter sets in, think again. Even if the official Occupy Wall Street protest dissipates in the next few months, the word has gotten out and the message is finding an interested audience that fails to conform to traditional political boundaries.
How Occupy Wall Street Will Change Things
Suddenly, all over this country students are questioning their economics professors about the standard dogma they are being taught which is visibly failing all around them. How can the PhD.’s preparing tomorrow’s generation of finance and economic leaders continue to teach Keynesian doctrine with a straight face? How can they possibly defend the bailouts and the Fed’s enormous hand in manipulating asset prices as anything even remotely resembling capitalism?
As these students graduate and begin their own careers over the next few years (assuming they find jobs in the first place) they will enter the workforce much more aware of the slight of hand that has taken place whereby organic growth was replaced with extremely dangerous debt growth. Then they’ll stop and think about their own student loans and how the non-dischargeable nature of those loans chain them to the very system they are questioning. These students will be heavily in debt, face few good job prospects and will thus have plenty of time on their hands. Hello political volatility.
And what about the lower and middle classes? It really doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is, if you make less than some magic number defined as “rich”, say the $250k that is currently bandied about, neither political party is really working for you. Both parties have contributed wildly to the overspending that currently burdens our fiscal and monetary accounts. Both parties are deeply in bed with the banking industry. Arguing over who supports Wall Street more is simply a matter of degree. Both parties support the monetary intervention of the Fed and the inflation that has slowly rendered our country uncompetitive since 1971, a role the Fed was never originally envisioned to play.
If you’re unemployed due to your job being shipped overseas, have been kicked out of your house by a robo-signing bank, worry about the tax burden your kids will face down the road, concerned that your public or private pension will be woefully inadequate to maintain your current living standards or have mountains of non-dischargeable students loans owed to Sallie Mae, you should be paying close attention to and likely supportive of the OWS movement.
Repubs vs. Dems: A False Dichotomy
Vote Republican? The Repubs increased debt from around $5.6tr in 2000 to over $10tr by 2008. They also passed the massive social entitlement program Medicare Part D without any mechanism for actually paying the tab. The party of small government and fiscal conservatism you say? Yea, right.
Vote Democrat? The Dems supported the bailout of the banks, the funding of ruinous foreign wars started by the Repubs, the re-nomination of Ben Bernanke as the head of the Fed and appointed to the highest offices of White House influence - the very architects that helped create the global financial disaster we currently face. Summers, Geithner, Rubin and many others have had President Obama’s ear since day 1. You think those guys are advocating a solution which would see the banks actually take write-downs and losses as any other business would have to? Not likely.
Both major parties spend enormous time and money maintaining their own power bases of large, wealthy campaign contributors to try and outspend their competition in the next election. When they win, they serve their campaign contribution masters well with the hopes that this process will be rinse, wash and repeat the next time around. Both parties support no term limits. Both parties support liberal campaign finance laws. Both parties kowtow to Wall Street.
So what’s a disenfranchised, frustrated, out-of-work lower or middle class citizen to do?
Here Comes the Third (And Perhaps Even Fourth and Fifth) Party Movements
The Tea Party was the first threat to the status quo. I happened to be watching Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC back on February 19, 2009. It was brilliant and really captured the mood of those of us who had always imagined our economy to be truly capitalistic. Instead, as soon as the uber-connected banks faced the threat of actually losing money, they called their good buddies in DC (in many cases former co-workers) and demanded a payout or else the world will end. Naturally, Congress feared the campaign contributions would end so they quickly wrote a $700bn check.
Of course the first TARP vote failed, but they needed that cover to save a bit of face. The powers that be were never too worried that they couldn’t scare the financially ignorant in Congress into coughing up some dough. Vote doesn’t pass, market tanks, many pants are wet in DC and ipso facto, the money flows. Many of us were outraged and Mr. Santelli crystallized the moment.
This led to the Tea Party. But for the status quo, the Tea Party was easy to diffuse. Sprinkle in a few right-wing ideologues spouting fire and brimstone and the mainstream voter will be justifiably turned off. The modern Tea Party, just like the one back in Boston in 1773, weren’t inspired by social issues, they were inspired by economic issues. And yet, the status quo and mainstream media has been extremely successful in painting the modern Tea Party movement as nothing more than rebellious right wing Republicans looking for something more conservative than the mother ship Republican party.
Occupy Wall Street, in my opinion, represents a refinement of the original Tea Party rant and the next political movement to be inspired since 2008. This movement represents the point where it’s no longer just financial insiders like Mr. Santelli that understand the graft and corruption that is our current system. No, this movement is solidly being peopled by folks from a broad array of life experiences, political stripes and philosophical leanings. It will be much harder for the status quo to dilute this message. Harder, but not impossible.
Phase II Coming To A City Near You
I keep thinking about Gandhi’s great quote, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” It seems to me that we are at the end of the ‘then they laugh at you’ phase. Watching CNBC lately, the snarky comments from the talking heads have eased off quite a bit and now they are reporting live from Zuccotti Park with a more serious tone. At the same time, the city of NY seems to be reaching the end of its tolerance towards the movement.
Next step is the ‘then they fight you’ phase. This is when things will get interesting. Arrests will be made, traumatic video of cop-on-protestor violence uploaded to Youtube and people you’ve never heard of will suddenly emerge as leaders in this growing movement. How will this affect the upcoming election? It’s impossible to predict but it’s going to be interesting to watch.
The bottom line is this thing is going mainstream and although the message isn’t completely clear or concise, Americans all over the country are beginning to sense the turning point this movement represents.
2012 Presidential Election
Obama recently tried to embrace the OWS movement. I find this extremely hypocritical given his role in sustaining the very institutions the group is protesting against and his frequent trips to NY to raise some more Wall Street money for his re-election war chest.
How about the Republican candidates? Most are dismissing the protestors even though the basic premise of the movement is a more fair and balanced (pun intended) system for all Americans. After vast injections of campaign finance money, the Repubs have come to believe that the banking industry is a much better constituent than mainstream Americans. At least the banks have money to finance their campaigns. They seem happy to ignore the circular argument that the government creates money to loan to the banks at 0% so that the banks can then loan that money back to the US government with interest and virtually guaranteed capital gains and then give some of those interest payments/capital gains back to the politicians in the form of lobbying/campaign finance funds to ensure more no-cost loans and bailouts. What a beautiful business model!
Ron Paul, of course, gets the joke very well. But the media is working overtime to ignore Ron Paul at every turn lest the American public actually start to understand the logic of his positions. So as much as I’d love to see the guy win, I still think Ron Paul is a man ahead of his times. Rather than lead this movement from the front, I think it’s more likely that his philosophies will serve as the inspirational base for future leaders.
The Genie is Out of the Bottle
What eventually became the Arab Spring is spreading and quickly becoming a Western Winter. Protests in Europe and America are growing in size and intensity. Awareness of the unfair and crony-capitalistic nature of our current political/financial system is spreading. Americans of all economic, geographic, philosophic and political stripes are questioning the very foundations upon which our “prosperity” has been based for decades. Slowly they are realizing that they were always playing a rigged game that they were never designed to win. As you’d imagine, this is not sitting so well with them and some are starting to stand up and make their voice heard. Don’t think for one second that this is going to stop. Americans by the millions are losing their homes, their jobs, their savings and their futures.
In their brilliant book about the history of US generations, The Fourth Turning, William Strauss and Neil Howe called the current phase of history we are passing through as a ‘Fourth Turning’. Their characterization of this phase is as follows,
“A CRISIS arises in response to sudden threats that previously would have been ignored or deferred, but which are now perceived as dire. Great worldly perils boil off the clutter and complexity of life, leaving behind one simple imperative: The society must prevail. This requires a solid public consensus, aggressive institutions, and personal sacrifice.” -The Fourth Turning, Strauss and Howe, 1999
Whether the protestors realize it or not, their role in history is an important and necessary one. They are shining a disinfecting light on much of what is wrong with our current economic/political model. Major changes are coming, many of which would have seemed unimaginable only a few years ago. Class warfare, generational warfare and perhaps even military warfare are coming next. As extreme as these views might seem, just study history a bit and you will see that every great empire falls this way. We will be no different. And when it’s all said and done, a straight line will be drawn from Rick Santelli’s rant, to Zuccotti Park to whatever comes next. Eventually a more vibrant, dynamic America will emerge from this chaos and pain. But that’s the ‘then you win’ phase. And we ain’t there yet.
Cheers,
Brian
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-notes-sales-desk-few-thoughts-occupy-wall-street-movement
12 Ekim 2012 Cuma
AMD Q3 Revenue expected down 2012
To contact us Click HERE
AMD Q3 Revenue expected down 2012 : It’s been a brutal year for Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD). Its stock is down about 45% and, unfortunately, a recovery seems far away.
Last night, the company issued a warning for Q3. Revenue is expected to plunge 10% from last quarter to $1.27 billion. The prior forecast was a range of $1.36 billion to $1.44 billion.
Gross margins are also forecast to be about 31%, which is down from an earlier estimate of 44%. And there will be a $100 million charge for inventory.
AMD’s troubles should actually not be a surprise, though. Even large players like Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) are struggling in the PC market because of the continued shift to tablets — a shift that has benefited companies like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
Plus, AMD has been lagging in terms of mobile strategy. And with much fewer resources than rivals like Intel and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), there seems to be little hope that the company will be able find a way to get a meaningful piece of the tablet market.
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Related Post:
Gold Will Spike Thanks To Europe's Debt Crisis
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There is a big concern about Europe's debt crisis, and will in turn incline Europe to get gold to back their financial system. This I believe is happening all over the world. Gold, silver, and other precious metals have spiked recently because people are losing faith in their financial systems built up by rich international banking families over many decades. Who are we and Europe really in debt too? The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and the Morgans. They are the ruling elite that decide the fate of countries through power through wealth, and power through wars that create huge amounts of money for a handful of people while others are killed. Gold will go through the roof again, as will silver. When more and more people are uncovering the truth about international bankers and what the Federal Reserve is really about, more and more people are going to get their assets converted to gold. Its the safer bet, why invest in the almighty dollar? The dollar like all currency will become useless. We are headed for ruin if we don't realize what is going on, and who we are really in debt with. Its time for this whole world to wake up, before it is too late.
There is a big concern about Europe's debt crisis, and will in turn incline Europe to get gold to back their financial system. This I believe is happening all over the world. Gold, silver, and other precious metals have spiked recently because people are losing faith in their financial systems built up by rich international banking families over many decades. Who are we and Europe really in debt too? The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and the Morgans. They are the ruling elite that decide the fate of countries through power through wealth, and power through wars that create huge amounts of money for a handful of people while others are killed. Gold will go through the roof again, as will silver. When more and more people are uncovering the truth about international bankers and what the Federal Reserve is really about, more and more people are going to get their assets converted to gold. Its the safer bet, why invest in the almighty dollar? The dollar like all currency will become useless. We are headed for ruin if we don't realize what is going on, and who we are really in debt with. Its time for this whole world to wake up, before it is too late.
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