America no longer needs Chinese money, for now

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: As the Sino-American showdown in the South China and Yellow Seas escalates into the gravest superpower clash since the Cold War, the United States cannot wisely rely on China to help fund its budget deficit for any longer....read on

Ben Davies discusses the Silver Market

Ben Davies and Eric King discusses the recent rise in silver prices and factors that could positively affect the price going forward.....listen here

Have Faith In Gold And Not In Government Rhetoric

By David Levenstein: A little over a week ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote an article for the New York Times entitled Welcome To The Recovery in which he touted the great strides that the U.S. economy was making. But, with unemployment still dangerously high, foreclosures and personal bankruptcies continuing to set all-time records, shrinking manufacturing, burgeoning national debt, massive budget deficits, I can't see any recovery at all. Don't get me wrong, I am not attacking Geithner as I would not like his job for all the gold in Fort Knox, if indeed there is any really left, but, I think all the economic rescue package did was to save a few financial institutions from becoming extinct. "Panicked by the collapse in demand and financing and fearing a prolonged slump, the private sector cut payrolls and investment savagely. The rate of job loss worsened with time: by early last year, 750,000 jobs vanished every month. The economic collapse drove tax revenue down, pushing the annual deficit up to $1.3 trillion by last January. The economic rescue package that President Obama put in place was essential to turning the economy around. The combined effect of government actions taken over the past two years - the stimulus package, the stress tests and recapitalization of the banks, the restructuring of the American car industry and the many steps taken by the Federal Reserve - were extremely effective in stopping the freefall and restarting the economy," Geithner stated in his article....read on

Silver Demand Picks up in India

by Shivom Seth: Festival season in India has picked up pace with Onam, a spring festival celebrated with much gusto and, given the high price of gold, people are buying silver to mark the ocassion.

Good rains have brought good tidings, especially for the silver market.

While demand for gold in India has picked up significantly over the last couple of days, it is the rising demand for silver that has tongues wagging.

Though India is generally believed to have a ravenous appetite for gold, it is also a major consumer of silver. Of the 4,000 tonnes that India used to import annually, around 2,600 tonnes was used to make jewelery and ornaments......read on

The Perils Of Unmitigated Positive Thinking

By Michael J. Kosares: Private citizen, Alan Greenspan, could afford to be blunt. "Our choices right now," he said in early August 2010, "are not between good and better; they're between bad and worse. The problem we now face is the most extraordinary financial crisis that I have ever seen or read about." These comments echo a growing sentiment that Americans are up against something far different from the average downturn. Thus far, according to the Pew Economic Policy Group, the financial crisis has cost the American people $3.4 trillion in lost real estate wealth; $7.4 trillion in lost stock wealth; and 5.5 million jobs. Pimco's Bill Gross calls this change in the national psyche the "new normal" -- an economic environment marked by reduced expectations, slow growth. falling incomes and low returns on investment.

The New York Times' Nelson Schwartz recently lamented: "The new normal challenges the optimism that's been at the root of American success for decades, if not centuries." In turn the new normal has spawned a quantum change in the way Americans view the economy, their future prospects, and how they should employ their capital. The real question facing Americans -- public policy makers and citizens/investors alike -- is not what constitutes a positive attitude, but what constitutes a healthy attitude, one capable of guiding investors through the next, and perhaps even more dangerous, chapter of the financial crisis.

When the financial crisis began to take its toll on the United Kingdom in 2008, Queen Elizabeth at a meeting with financial analysts asked the logical question: "Why didn't anyone see this coming?" Though directed at the London financial community, it could have just as easily been put to the mainstream media, academia, the politicians or the regulatory apparatus of the government. The answer she received would soon become standard fare: "No one saw this coming." The implication, of course, was that if no one saw it coming, then no one reasonably could be held accountable.

For countless private investors on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Queen Elizabeth's question prompted a more personalized assessment: "Why," they asked their financial advisors, "wasn't I advised that this might be coming?" For those completely honest with themselves, the question reduced to "Why didn't I see this coming?" After all is said and done, each of us is responsible for the stewardship of our own portfolios, and to blame anyone else is pretty much an exercise in both futility and passing the buck.....read on

Bullion As An Alternative To Shorting (Part II)

By Jeff Nielson: In Part I, I discussed the world's largest and most obvious asset-bubble (excluding the derivatives market): the U.S. Treasuries market. While I pointed out that this market was an obvious target for "shorting", I also explained to readers why there were simply too many risks associated with shorting this opaque, and highly-manipulated market.

I explained that investing in bullion ("long") was a good "proxy" for shorting U.S. Treasuries, and concluded that this proxy was a safer, superior substitute for that short-position. In this instalment, I will apply that analysis to other U.S. asset-classes: the financial sector, and the U.S. dollar, itself.

When Wall Street's multi-trillion dollar Ponzi-schemes imploded (based upon the U.S. housing-bubble, which they also created), it was common knowledge that the entire U.S. financial sector was leveraged by an average of 30:1. It is a matter of simple arithmetic to observe that with such extreme leverage, it only takes a loss of a little over 3% on the underlying assets to take all "bets" at 30:1 leverage to zero.

Given that most of Wall Street's leverage was based upon the U.S. housing market, and given that the U.S. housing market plunged by roughly 30% (in its first collapse), you don't have to be a "mathematician" to figure out that this was ten times the decline necessary to take the entire, U.S. financial sector to zero....read on

Gerald Celente - on the Greater Depression

Gerald Celente is interviewed on Yahoo Finance TV.....watch here

Appeasing the Bond Gods

By PAUL KRUGMAN: As I look at what passes for responsible economic policy these days, there’s an analogy that keeps passing through my mind. I know it’s over the top, but here it is anyway: the policy elite — central bankers, finance ministers, politicians who pose as defenders of fiscal virtue — are acting like the priests of some ancient cult, demanding that we engage in human sacrifices to appease the anger of invisible gods.

Hey, I told you it was over the top. But bear with me for a minute.

Late last year the conventional wisdom on economic policy took a hard right turn. Even though the world’s major economies had barely begun to recover, even though unemployment remained disastrously high across much of America and Europe, creating jobs was no longer on the agenda. Instead, we were told, governments had to turn all their attention to reducing budget deficits....read on

China's spectacular ascendance begins to reshape the world economy

From the UK Guardian: After three decades of spectacular growth, China passed Japan in the second quarter to become the world's second-largest economy behind the US, according to government figures released on Monday.

The milestone, though anticipated, is the most striking evidence yet of China's ascendance and that the rest of the world will have to reckon with a new economic superpower.

The recognition came early on Monday, when Tokyo said that Japan's economy was valued at about $1.28 trillion in the second quarter, slightly below China's $1.33 trillion. Experts say unseating Japan — and in recent years passing Germany, France and Great Britain — underscores China's growing clout and bolsters forecasts that China will pass the US as the world's biggest economy as early as 2030. America's gross domestic product was about $14 trillion in 2009...read on

UK Government urged to reveal 'true' national debt of £4.8 trillion

From the UK Telegraph: The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has calculated that the national debt is £4.8 trillion once state and public sector pension liabilities are included, or £78,000 for every person in the UK....read on