Free Republic

On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 588 points. It was the 8th worst single day stock market crash in U.S. history, and it was the first time that the Dow has ever fallen by more than 500 points on two consecutive days. But the amazing thing is that the Dow actually performed better than almost every other major global stock market on Monday. In the U.S., the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both did worse than the Dow. In Europe, almost every major index performed significantly worse than the Dow. Over in Asia, Japanese stocks were down...

That is a 3.12% loss in a single day. 5.18% today and yesterday. To put that in perspective between 750 billion and 1 trillion dollars in market value were just wiped out in two days in the U.S. alone. And it isn't even September yet. It is about to get really, really ugly. CNBC is reporting that China's market is now mirroring 1929, and we could see the Chinese market crash a further 9% over just the next 4-5 days. Again I'll ask you: is your treasure in Heaven or on earth? You can't eat your gold, your silver, or...

Dow down over 430 points as of about 2:20 PM CST. Central banks have no more options.  Debt levels are completely unprecedented around the world.  These debts will never be paid back by human effort. Watchers have been saying that we might witness a big crash around this time for 5, 6, 7 years now.  Are you listening?  Are you awake? Is your treasure in Heaven or on earth? Pray. MARANATHA! Update: Yesterday's plunge of the DJI was the biggest point-drop in almost four years.  Today's is even larger.

Senator Jerry Moran discusses dangers of national debt, and entitlements and warns what's happening in Greece may foretell America's fate. When the Gov't teat runs dry, have a SHTF plan.

HSBC chief economist Stephen King is already thinking about the next recession. In a note to clients Wednesday, he warns: "The world economy is like an ocean liner without lifeboats. If another recession hits, it could be a truly titanic struggle for policymakers." Here's King (emphasis added): Whereas previous recoveries have enabled monetary and fiscal policymakers to replenish their ammunition, this recovery — both in the US and elsewhere — has been distinguished by a persistent munitions shortage. This is a major problem. In all recessions since the 1970s, the US Fed funds rate has fallen by a minimum of...

Best-selling author Harry Dent says the stock bubble we have today is the biggest in history.  Dent contends, “Now we’re in a third bubble, and each of these bubbles peaks at higher highs, and then they each crash to lower lows.” “We’ve been looking for the Dow to peak right around here between 17,000 and 19,000.  So, we are right in the middle.  We are looking for an even bigger correction likely in late 2016 to 2017.  This whole thing has been in an artificial bubble” “We’d be in a depression right now if it were not for $11 trillion...

“Most of us are so used to running out to the supermarket or to Wal-Mart for whatever we need that we never even stop to consider what would happen if suddenly we were not able to do that. Already the U.S. economy is starting to stumble about like a drunken frat boy. All it would take for the entire U.S. to resemble New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina would be for a major war, a terror attack, a deadly pandemic or a massive natural disaster to strike at just the right time and push the teetering U.S. economy over the edge.”...

Saudi Arabia and Egypt stand poised to conduct a massive ground invasion of Yemen, and the western media will be full of tales about how “Operation Decisive Storm” is liberating that country from the evil Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. And without a doubt, the Houthis are bad guys and so are their Iranian benefactors. But don’t be fooled into thinking that the war in Yemen is a battle of good vs. evil. The truth is that the conflict in Yemen is actually a proxy war between two sets of bad guys that both ultimately plan for Islam to take over the...

Rip up your euro forecasts. A day after the European Central Bank unveiled its bond-buying program, the single currency still was in free fall, blowing past analysts’ expectations for how low the euro can go. Some investors now say the euro could fall to the point where it is on equal footing with the U.S. dollar for the first time since it climbed above the buck in late 2002. “If you would have asked me a few months ago, I would’ve said that parity could be in the cards in the years ahead. Now, we can’t rule it out anymore...

During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening, Barack Obama is going to promise to make life better for middle class families. Of course he has also promised to do this during all of his other State of the Union addresses, but apparently he still believes that there are people out there that are buying what he is selling. Each January, he gets up there and tells us how the economy is “turning around” and to believe that much brighter days are right around the corner. And yet things just continue to get even worse for the middle...

My country, Venezuela, is on the verge of social and economic collapse. This slow-motion disaster, nearly 15 years in the making, was not initiated by falling oil prices or by mounting debts. It was set in motion by the authoritarian government’s hostility toward human rights and the rule of law and the institutions that protect them. -excerpt- I am writing from a military prison, where I have been held since February as a result of speaking out against the government’s actions. I am one of scores of political prisoners in my country .... -excerpt- ... Venezuela’s road to ruin was...

Jim Rickards, the Financial Threat and Asymmetric Warfare Advisor for both the Pentagon and CIA. Recently, all 16 branches of our Intelligence Community have come together to release a shocking report. These agencies, that include the CIA, FBI, Army, and Navy, they've already begun to estimate the impact of the fall of the dollar as the global reserve currency. And our reign as the world's leading super power being annihilated in a way equivalent to the end of the British Empire, post-World War II. And the end game could be a nightmarish scenario, where the world falls into an extended...

Central bankers think they can keep their economy going by artificial stimulus until they hit escape velocity and grow at normal rates again — but they’re wrong. Here at Dent Research we hold a different view to what drives the economy. And central bankers are in for three big surprises ahead. Their economies are NOT going to grow the way they’re hoping, at least not until the early 2020s, thanks to declining demographic cycles and unprecedented debt ratios. But the surprises I’m talking about are going to come out of left field and slam unexpectedly and so fast into these...

Never in my 30+ year career as a market observer have I seen so many out on a limb which is about to be SAWED OFF. Those who live within the matrix are fully loaded for a recovery which is not and will not appear. Nominally the Main stream media can proclaim ECONOMIC recovery has arrived, point to the rising developed world stock markets, seemingly benign bond markets of all categories: sovereign, investment grade and Junk, Private equity, corporate buy backs and more have priced in “Happy Days are here again”. HFT, unrestrained leverage in a financially repressed world and...

Does the economy move in predictable waves, cycles or patterns? There are many economists that believe that it does, and if their projections are correct, the rest of this decade is going to be pure hell for the United States. Many mainstream economists want nothing to do with economic cycle theorists, but it should be noted that economic cycle theories have enabled some analysts to correctly predict the timing of recessions, stock market peaks and stock market crashes over the past couple of decades. Of course none of the theories discussed below is perfect, but it is very interesting to...

A Dutch former top banker who came under fire for taking a large pay-off after the nationalisation of his troubled bank was found dead along with his wife and daughter on Saturday in what police called a family tragedy. Jan Peter Schmittmann, 57, ran the domestic operations of Dutch bank ABN Amro between 2003 and 2007 and was widely criticised for landing an 8 million euro pay-off after the bank's collapse and subsequent nationalisation.

Plenty of excuses out there for this evening's collosal miss in Chinese exports (-18.1% YoY vs an expectation of a 7.5% rise) mainly based on timing issues over the Lunar New Year (but didn't the 45 economists who forecast this data know the dates before they forecast?) This is a 6-sigma miss and plunges China's trade balance to its biggest miss on record and 2nd largest deficit on record. Combining Jan and Feb data (i.e. smoothing over the holiday), exports are still down 1.6% YoY - not good for the much-heralded global recovery. Exports to the rest of the BRICs...

SocGen: An Economic 'Perfect Storm' Is Brewing Rob WileFeb. 2, 2014, 8:46 PM    Last weekend at Davos, Nouriel Roubini told BI's Joe Weisenthal that it seemed markets had sailing into a perfect storm, resulting in lots of volatility. "...Between Chinese PMI of 50, Argentina letting its currency go, noises coming politically from Ukraine, Turkey, and Thailand … [the] contagion is not just within emerging markets but also affects advanced economies' equity markets. This evening Société Générale says, that, indeed it sure looks like we have. In a note to clients titled "Perfect Storm Brewing As Policy Turns,"...

Celente isn’t suggesting that a massive collapse is going to happen in the future. He says we’re already in it – and it’s taking hold right before our eyes across the entirety of the globe:

From Terry Burnham, former Harvard economics professor, author of “Mean Genes” and “Mean Markets and Lizard Brains,” provocative poster on this page and long-time critic of the Federal Reserve, argues that the Fed’s efforts to strengthen America’s banks have perversely weakened them. First posted in PBS. Is your money safe at the bank? An economist says ‘no’ and withdraws his Last week I had over $1,000,000 in a checking account at Bank of America. Next week, I will have $10,000.