Free Republic

Calling a secretive government operation to strangle politically out-of-favor businesses “more dangerous” than the IRS targeting scandal, a congressman with a background in banking is preparing to introduce legislation to kill the Obama administration initiative. “I believe this activity is probably more dangerous and more disastrous than that of the IRS scandal because this is running people out of business for no reason and it’s harming livelihoods, incomes [and] families,” Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., said today in an interview with The Daily Signal. Luetkemeyer, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, was comparing the Department of Justice’s Operation Choke...

The U.S. dollar is on a roll. The dollar index, which measures its value versus a basket of other world currencies, is at a four-year high. John Mauldin, best-selling author and chairman of Mauldin Economics says, get used to it. Mauldin believes the dollar is going to keep rising and “get a lot stronger than anyone can imagine.” He says, “We are going to be trading stronger against nearly every currency.“ In other parts of the world, currencies are slipping as the U.S. dollar strengthens. Central banks in Europe and Japan are shifting policies to fight slowing growth and fend...

Allows direct business between Canadian dollar and Chinese yuan, cutting exchange costs. Canada and China have signed a reciprocal currency deal that's expected to dramatically boost exports. The hub will foster far easier trade between the Canadian dollar and the Chinese yuan, also known as the renminbi. It makes Canada the first country in the Americas to have a deal to trade in the renminbi.

Ruble Rout Accelerates as Russia's Central Bank Stands Aside Reuters Nov. 06 2014 18:15 Last edited 21:33 The Russian currency plunged almost 4 percent against the U.S. dollar Thursday amid relentless selling pressure after the Central Bank announced it was limiting market interventions to defend the ruble. The ruble dropped to 46.7 versus the dollar early evening in Moscow, a historical low, while also falling below the mark of 58 to the euro for the first time ever. The declines mean the ruble has fallen over 40 percent against the greenback since the start of the year.

Elena Holodny November 5, 2014 Gold is getting crushed. Again. The yellow metal is at $1,140 per ounce, down by about 2.3%. It got as low as $1,137. This is the lowest level since April 2010. Gold has been dropping to new lows for several weeks as the dollar has strengthened. Oil is another commodity that is tumbling again. WTI crude oil prices dropped as low as $75.84 per barrel shortly after 5 a.m. ET. Brent crude touched $81.63. While this is great for consumers, this is troubling for the oil producers, who may be forced to idle unprofitable projects....

Republicans rode a wave of voter discontent to secure control of the U.S. Senate and strengthen their grip on the House of Representatives in a punishing blow to President Barack Obama that will limit his power in his last two years in office. Financial markets saw the election results as a cause for optimism. Similar situations in the past have often sparked U.S. stock market rallies.

Julia La Roche October 31, 2014The Federal Reserve ended quantitative easing this week. And soon it'll start tightening monetary policy with interest rate hikes. This is coming as central banks in the rest of the world maintain loose monetary policy or even go as far as to loosen monetary policy further. All of this is bullish for the US dollar relative to other major currencies. Business Insider recently asked the smartest people in finance for what they considered to be the "most important charts in the world." Without hesitation, former global macro fund manager Raoul Pal sent us a long-term...

If you go to different websites or listen to certain radio hosts, there is a lot of discussion of "economic collapse", "dollar collapse" or "petrodollar collapse" and so forth. They make it sound like we will end up like the Weimar Republic with people carrying their worthless money in wheelbarrows. I am not an economics expert (nor do I play one online), but are we really heading for collapse or is it all a bunch of talk? I know we have a huge debt problem, but we keep printing money. How long can this keep going? I am confused! Any...

October 05, 2014 Tony_Caldaro Beautiful Indian summer imitation where I’m presently located in western Europe. Good time to start out with an empty sheet of text file (for lack of a better term), and stream some consciousness. Most people must have figured out that things in the economic sphere haven’t gotten any quieter lately. That’s at least something. Stock exchanges in the developed world jumped from a -1%+ loss one day to a 1%+ gain the next. Volatility, nerves, and probably ritalin, have returned. You have to wonder what that means in markets reigned supreme by high-frequency robot traders and...

Maybe the U.S. economy, a weakling for the last six years, is finally starting to flex some muscle. We’re referring to the return of King Dollar. For those who haven’t been paying attention, the greenback is in the midst of a rally not seen since the 1990s. It’s racing past the euro, the yen, and other currencies. Investors worldwide are buying the equivalent of stock in America, Inc. If the rise in the dollar’s valuation is sustainable, it’s welcome news for the stock market, for fighting inflation, and for U.S. growth prospects. Ronald Reagan said it best: A strong dollar...

Elena HolodnySeptember 19, 2014 David Rosenberg, Chief Economist & Strategist at Gluskin Sheff, surprised everyone when he adopted a more bullish view in 2013. On Friday he released a research note that included a brief and pretty optimistic summary of the US economy. Here's what it said: United States In the US, the economy is starting to fire on all cylinders for the first time this cycle. The strong US dollar is a source of margin support for importers which is great news for many consumer cyclicals. Tack on stepped consumer credit growth, job and wage gains, gasoline price relief,...

If, when in February Victoria Nuland infamously launched a (not so) covert campaign to replace the ruling Ukraine president oblivious to the human casualties, resulting in a civil war in east Ukraine, NATO encroachment along the borders of Russia, and a near-terminal escalation in hostilities between Ukraine, Russian, and various regional NATO members, the US intention was to provoke the Kremlin so hard that the nation with the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources would jettison the US Dollar and in the process begin the unraveling of the USD reserve currency status (as much as Jared Bernstein desires...

There are few truisms about the world economy, but for decades, one has been the role of the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It’s a core principle of American economic policy. After all, who wouldn’t want their currency to be the one that foreign banks and governments want to hold in reserve? But new research reveals that what was once a privilege is now a burden, undermining job growth, pumping up budget and trade deficits and inflating financial bubbles. To get the American economy on track, the government needs to drop its commitment to maintaining the dollar’s...

Money launderers will increasingly move away from the US dollar to the renminbi as US authorities continue to crack down on international banks’ AML systems [says] Freddie McMahon, director of strategy & innovation at Anomaly42, a specialist in AML and terrorist financing. “The dollar is becoming increasingly high risk and it’s a level of risk money launderers are proving less willing to take...the renminbi is off the beaten track and affords a new level of camouflage for criminal transactions." “The irony is that proactively countering the money launderers represents an unprecedented opportunity for the Chinese authorities to make the renminbi...

Aug. 27 will officially go down as a red letter day in the history of reserve currencies and dollar hegemony in how oil and gas are purchased throughout the world. In a new announcement from the Russian business media source, Kommersant, Gazprom has conducted the first sale of oil in a currency other than the dollar, and will henceforth open their purchase window to accept both Roubles and Yuan for the exchange of oil and gas products. Beginning today with an 80000 ton oil shipment from their Arctic fields, Gazprom Neft agreed to new terms on the sale and transfer...

Several months ago, when Russia announced the much anticipated "Holy Grail" energy deal with China, some were disappointed that despite this symbolic agreement meant to break the petrodollar's stranglehold on the rest of the world, neither Russia nor China announced payment terms to be in anything but dollars. In doing so they admitted that while both nations are eager to move away from a US Dollar reserve currency, neither is yet able to provide an alternative. This changed in late June when first Gazprom's CFO announced the gas giant was ready to settle China contracts in Yuan or Rubles, and...

August 24, 2014 By: Money_Morning Shah Gilani writes: This is a warning. I’m not kidding.I heard something yesterday that blew me away. My friends know I like to target shoot. I don’t hunt, because I can’t kill anything living, but I like guns. Maybe it has something to do with wanting to be James Bond when I was a kid… OK, I still want to be 007. As other target shooters know, it’s gotten harder and harder to get ammunition. Fo a few years now, all kinds of stuff have been going around on the Internet about why ammunition is...

The last 3 months have seen Russia's "de-dollarization" plans accelerate. First Gazprom clients shift to Euros and Renminbi, then the UK signs currency swap agreements with China, then NATO ally Turkey cuts ties and mulls de-dollarization, Switzerland jumps in the currency swap agreements, and BRICS create their own non-US-based funding vehicle, and then finally this week, Russia's oligarchs have shifted cash holdings to Hong Kong. But this week, as RT reports, Russian and Chinese central banks have agreed a draft currency swap agreement, which will allow them to increase trade in domestic currencies and cut the dependence on the US...

Russia Delivers Blow To Petrodollar In Historic $20 Billion Iran Oil Deal Russia signed a historic $20 billion oil deal with Iran to bypass both western sanctions and the dollar based western monetary system yesterday. President Putin Admire Gold Bar (London Gold Delivery Bar) Currency wars are set to escalate as the petro dollar’s decline continues. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and his Iranian counterpart Bijan Zanganeh signed a five-year memorandum of understanding in Moscow, which included cooperation in the oil sector. “Based on Iran’s proposal, we will participate in arranging shipments of crude oil, including to the Russian market,”...

Geneva (AFP) - The Swiss and Chinese central banks signed a currency swap agreement in Beijing on Monday, marking an important step in the development of a market for yuan in Switzerland, the Swiss central bank BNS said. The agreement, highlighting steps towards international use of the yuan, ensures that Swiss francs will be available in China and that yuan, also known as renminbi, will be supplied to financial centres in Switzerland. The BNS statement said that the agreement was "an important step" for the renminbi business in Switzerland. The agreement permits the two central banks to buy up to...