A year of painful super growth down the gurgler

Of course if your super money was in your own Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF) and you had invested in gold, the gold component of your fund would be up over 15% YOY, if you went with silver instead it would be up over 80% YOY.

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

FEAR and uncertainty swept global markets yesterday as panic spread about Europe's debt crisis and economic problems in the United States, prompting investors to wipe more than $60 billion from local share values.

The rout stoked concerns of a new global financial crisis and triggered expectations of a cut in interest rates to help prevent Australia sliding into recession.

Within minutes of opening, Australian stocks plunged more than 4 per cent, with oil and mining companies leading the market towards its biggest fall in more than 2½ years. Shares have lost more than 17 per cent from the peak in mid-April. These losses are likely to have wiped out last year's 8.9 per cent average gain in balanced superannuation funds, where most Australians have super invested....read on

Coining Terrorism?

From: RTAmerica | Aug 5, 2011

In response to the US dollar's declining value some citizens and states are making moves to mint their own alternative currencies. At least one has been convicted on counterfeiting charges and labeled a domestic terrorist by the US attorney. More are still trying to get their currencies circulating. With the Fed talking about more quanitative easing and the country facing trillions of dollars in mounting debt - who is terrorizing the US economy and dollar?

Will the US ever repay its debts to China?

Timely words from Max Keiser, from an interview in 2009.

Panic! - S&P downgrades US credit rating

Ok you can panic now. S&P has just announced its first ever credit downgrade of the US, moving the rating down from AAA to AA+. For all the gory details watch the video below, and you thought the markets were "interesting" last week!

For my hundreds of daily US readers let me explain how poorly managed an economy can be and still be classed AAA to give you an appreciation of how truly awful a AA+ rating is. I live in the Australian state of New South Wales, which had until recently been governed by a bunch of self-serving socialists for over 10 years. Two of the three major cites of the state are borderline economic basket cases. The second largest city, Newcastle, only managed to avert total economic collapse by converting its abandoned steel works (the city's former largest employer) into the world's largest coal export facility. Yet given all these factors both Moody's and S&P rate the state's credit as AAA.

On the national level Australia has been governed by a bunch of back-stabbing socialists since 2007 that have dramatically increased the national debt without any apparent long term benefits, and who currently only hold onto power with the support of a couple of Reds who call themselves Green, who are lead by a guy called Brown (its a long story). Yet just like my state, Australia's credit rating is AAA. If Australia, who's economy makes up just 2% of the world's GDP can hold onto AAA, how stuffed does S&P think the US is?

Webster Tarpley on Syria: Beware of fraud and fabrications!

By RussiaToday on Aug 4, 2011

Don't Panic!

Always remember when nursing a quadrillion dollar derivatives bomb, stay calm, don't panic, have some call the Fed's bomb and toxic asset disposal team. If the bomb should happen to go off before they arrive ~ use your initiative.

For those fans of Dads Army who have never seen the alternate full length video sequence of the theme song it is worth a watch, I only came across it a few weeks ago and it brought back good memories.

Weekend Chillout

Wow what a week that was! Gold at new all times highs in US and Aussie dollars, silver getting hit in a drive-by, and global equity markets shooting themselves in the head. It seems the winds of change are blowing very hard.

Against the Wind ~ Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band

The secrets that we shared
The mountains that we moved
Caught like a wildfire out of control
'Til there was nothing left to burn and nothing left to prove
And I remember what she said to me
How she swore that it never would end
I remember how she held me oh so tight
Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then

Against the wind
We were runnin' against the wind
We were young and strong, we were runnin'
Against the wind

The years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone
Surrounded by fund managers I thought were my friends
I found myself further and further from my capital
And I guess I lost my way
There were oh so many roads
I was living to run and running to live
Never worryied about paying or even how much I owed
Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time
Breaking all of the rules that would bend
I began to find myself searching
Searching for shelter again and again

Against the wind
A little something against the wind
I found myself seeking shelter sgainst the wind

Well those drifter's days are past me now
I've got so much more to think about
gold and silver
When to get in, when to get out

Against the wind
I'm still runnin' against the wind
I'm older now but still runnin' against the wind
Well I'm older now and still runnin'
Against the wind

Max Keiser - Standup Rage tour in New York

Do HFT algorithms dream of electric sheep?

There is beauty in the madness ~ art exists at the pico level
(click on image for clearer display)

For those who love their High Frequency Trading (HFT) and computing at the Pico level (Pico is 10^-12) last night's action on the markets resulted in some stunning flash crashes in many stocks. The Qualcomm chart above is my favourite. For more artwork see the ZeroHedge article here.

Silver price update from James Turk and Eric Sprott

Takeaway comment, whilst the price of gold to silver is 40 : 1, current buying in of silver and gold in dollars is 1 : 1, something has to give and it will be the silver price to the upside.