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"I'll give you a couple of things to look for in 2015. Fundamental economic activity as measured in areas such as retail sales, industrial production, housing starts, payroll numbers and the broadest measure of unemployment—all those numbers are going to deteriorate. The economy is going to head down as we get into reporting in early 2015. Along with that will come renewed expectations of action by the Federal Reserve to accommodate the financial system, particularly the banking system, and the combination of those factors will, I believe, help to trigger a massive decline in the U.S. dollar. As a result...

On the teetering economy and possible economic collapse, Dr. Roberts says, “We know something serious is wrong. The only provision of Dodd-Frank that has any teeth is the provision that says if the big banks are going to be casinos and gamble on derivatives, they cannot do that in the depository institution where depositors have their accounts. They have to farm it out into subsidiaries. So, if the subsidiaries get into trouble, the subsidiaries have no access to depositors’ money. This is the only real reform part of Dodd-Frank. Citigroup got put into the recent spending bill, the repeal of...

Mike Bird December 17, 2014 After a brutal sell-off Tuesday, the ruble shot up in early trading Wednesday morning, rising by nearly 7%, from 68 to the dollar to 63.16 at 8:09 a.m. GMT. The rise came as the Russian finance ministry intervened in the currency market, according to Bloomberg. That means it's selling off a chunk of its dollar reserves to buy rubles, driving the currency's value up. By 9 a.m., though, the exchange rate fell back to where it started, and the ruble is falling again: down 0.68% at 68.51 as of 10:15 a.m. GMT. Here's how the...

We all know that the American energy revolution, led by the new technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, has created a flood of new shale-oil and natural-gas production that has overwhelmed world markets and driven prices down by roughly 40 percent. End-of-week crude oil closed near $57 a barrel, and the national average gasoline price finished at $2.60. No matter what the naysayers are trying to sell, the new energy reality is unambiguously good for the U.S. and global economies. There may be some dislocations among countries, sectors, or companies, but the overwhelming impact is positive. In fact, the...

"... if you had a big derivatives bust that brought down JP Morgan or Bank of America, there is no way there is going to be collateral left for the FDIC or for the secured depositors. This would include state and local governments. They all put their money in these big banks. So, even though we are protected by the FDIC, the FDIC is not going to have the money. . . . This makes it legal for these big 30 banks to take our money when they become insolvent. They are too-big-to-fail. This was supposed to avoid too-big-to-fail, but...

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...