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Armed federal agents deployed last week to northeast Clark County, Nev., for what can only be described as a major escalation in a decades-long standoff between a local cattle rancher and the U.S. government. .Cliven Bundy, the last remaining rancher in the southern Nevada county, stands in defiance of a 2013 court order demanding that he remove his cattle from public land managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management. The 67-year-old veteran rancher, who has compared the situation to similar confrontations with government officials in Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas, told TheBlaze that his family...

Last week, St. Louis Fed Director of Research David Andolfatto released a presentation on Bitcoin, becoming one of the most prominent central bank officials to study the cryptocurrency. We caught up with Andolfatto to ask him about why he put this deck together, where he thinks Bitcoin is going, and whether he personally has anything invested in it. Business Insider: What was the genesis for this presentation? David Andolfatto: Its genesis was a blog post I'd started, addressing arguments that gold bugs frequently put forth, that gold is superior money. Of course, Bitcoin was in the news — I read...

The fear of deflation serves as the theoretical justification of every inflationary action taken by the Federal Reserve and central banks around the world. It is why the Federal Reserve targets a price inflation rate of 2 percent, and not 0 percent. It is in large part why the Federal Reserve has more than quadrupled the money supply since August 2008. And it is, remarkably, a great myth, for there is nothing inherently dangerous or damaging about deflation. Deflation is feared not only by the followers of Milton Friedman (those from the so-called Monetarist or Chicago School of economics), but...

Janet Yellen REUTERS The monetary policies crafted and initiated by the Federal Reserve are intended to help Main Street rather than Wall Street, Fed Chair Janet Yellen told an audience of grassroots community organizers in Chicago on Monday. In an address that employed a handful of devices reminiscent of a political speech, Yellen made her case for a dovish approach toward raising interest rates. Yellen singled out the plights of several individuals – who she named and whose situations she described in detail – to illustrate labor markets are healing slowly and prolonged accommodative policy is needed to ensure labor...

It's not the managers who are incompetent, it's the organization itself that is incompetent. I received a number of interesting reader responses to my previous entries on the incompetence of the Federal Reserve and the Deep State: The Federal Reserve: Masters of the Universe or Trapped Incompetents? (March 21, 2014) Why Is Our Government (and Deep State) So Incompetent? (March 6, 2014) Some readers thought I was underestimating the power of these institutions to pursue essentially unlimited money-printing and related global strategies. While I understand the apparent power of unlimited money-printing and global Empire, my point (poorly articulated the first...

Make a guess and place you bets – we all know it’s on it way, the next crash is going to happen sooner or later, it's just a question of what the left will try to do to not waste another “serious crisis” Think about it – the Fed is Printing money.. .excuse me “Digitizing” – they can’t even go through the motion of spitting out worthless paper that diminishes our savings, they have to add insult to injury with that sort o chicanery Let’s face it, somewhere in the deep dark crevices of the leftist mind, they have their...

I would like to win the lottery; many others would like to win the billion dollar prize for the one with the perfect brackets for March Madness, some would simply like the year off with pay and a whole bunch of Americans would like a job. Where are the fairy God Mothers when we need them? A large number of our friends and relatives would like to rid themselves of diseases that are holding them back; a large group would like peace in our time; the President would like a computer and internet Guru, too many young girls would like...

The spring of 2014 has not yet begun, but a jittery Wall Street was spooked Wednesday by the prospect that interest rates might rise “as soon as” the spring of 2015. That was the immediate response to Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen’s first press conference since taking office. Yellen’s mere suggestion that the Fed might someday pursue a less inflationary policy has been blamed for a drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and armchair central bankers are jumping on the rookie Fed chief for talking the market down. Fed may raise rates as soon as next spring, Yellen suggests:...

Investors weren't too thrilled by what they heard from Janet Yellen during her first meeting in charge of the Fed. The Dow fell more than 100 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also finished lower. Stocks were relatively stable as Yellen started her press conference. But the Dow fell as many as 180 points before recovering after she said the Fed's stimulus program would most likely be finished by the fall and that a rate hike could come as soon as early 2015. Prior to the press conference, the Fed said it will continue trimming, or tapering, its monthly...

A month ago we reported that according to much delayed TIC data, China had just dumped the second-largest amount of US Treasurys in history. The problem, of course, with this data is that it is stale and very backward looking. For a much better, and up to date, indicator of what foreigners are doing with US Treasurys in near real time, the bond watchers keep track of a less known data series, called "Treasury Securities Held in Custody for Foreign Official and International Accounts" which as the name implies shows what foreigners are doing with their Treasury securities held...

Stock markets around the world fell today, led by the 246 point dive, or 1.5%, for the U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average and the 1.9% drop for German stock market index.  Analysts generally pointed to worries about a shrinking Chinese lending and the potential trade war between Russia and the West, but I am more concerned that since the beginning of 2014 food prices have skyrocketed.  The Federal Reserve must be concerned that their international support for “cheap money policies� to stimulate economic growth may be funding commodity speculation that is driving prices higher and creating wide spread misery. If...

America’s consciousness has shifted.  We live in a predominantly unstable and unpredictable world, a situation long accepted as the norm, however,  we also live during the first period of history in which America's prominence in the world and its own vision and notion of itself, has been blurred.  A majority of Americans have adopted self doubt and the confidence America has held through much of its story has been dissipated. Through the fog of apprehension Americans plucked an unknown to take the helm of their governance.  The fog did not lift, and in fact with the unknown’s propagation of envy, the...

Mark Carney, the head of the Bank of England, and other officials from the BOE were put through a five hour marathon of questioning yesterday by Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee covering everything from how long the BOE plans to continue Quantitative Easing (QE), to the potential for Scotland to vote for its independence, to what it knew and when it knew it about the rigging of the Foreign Exchange market by colluding global banks. The bombshell of the day, however, did not occur during the session on the Foreign Exchange scandal, which is stacking up to be a more serious...

The Federal Reserve’s seemingly endless program of quantitative easing (QE) begun under Ben Bernanke, and continuing at a slightly slower pace under Janet Yellen, has some of the punditry and much of the electorate up in arms. With good reason. Implicit in quantitative easing is the horribly obtuse notion that central banks can produce real economic growth through their monetary machinations. If only life were so simple. Back in the world of the reasonable, the sole purpose of money is as a stable measure of value that facilitates the exchange of goods and investment. Quantitative easing, by its very name,...

Article based on excerpts from Baupost Group's Seth Klarman letter. "there is a growing gap between the financial markets and the real economy...and the overall picture is one of growing risk and inadequate potential return almost everywhere one looks..."

Like John Stossel and Thomas Sowell, I’m not a big fan of the Federal Reserve. It’s not just that I’m a libertarian who fantasizes about the denationalization of money. I also think the Fed hasn’t done a good job, even by its own metrics. There’s very little doubt, for instance, that easy-money policies last decade played a major role in creating the housing bubble and causing the financial crisis. Yes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played a big role, but it was the Fed that provided the excess liquidity that the GSEs used to subsidize the subprime lending orgy. But...

Unusually harsh winter weather appears to be behind recent signs of weakness in the U.S. economy, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Thursday, suggesting the central bank was poised to press forward in ratcheting back its stimulus. Testifying to the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen said the Fed would watch carefully to ensure weather was indeed the culprit, but she reiterated that it would take a "significant change" to the economy's prospects for the Fed to put plans to wind down its bond-buying program on hold.

When US money supply measured by M2 stood at $11 trillion in December 2013, I calculate that total broad money of the next largest 50 countries ranked by GDP amounted to the equivalent of a further US$67 trillion at current exchange rates. And that’s only on-balance sheet: we must add in global shadow banking, estimated by the Financial Stability Board to have been an extra $67 trillion in 2011, probably about $75 trillion today, given its recent rapid growth in China. So when we look at US broad money supply, we should be aware there is a further mountain of...

There wasn't a lot of volume, but the market shrugged off an early indecision and rallied higher. The bias is to the upside, and despite a shaky start to the year, the long-term trend remains intact, which is very encouraging. Also encouraging is that the market is moving higher, even as the dollar edged higher as conventional wisdom shifts towards the belief; that it's going to take a universally acknowledged disaster or hiccup in the economy, for the Fed to divert from its unofficial goal of monthly tapering. The market moving higher on less Fed accommodation has been the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. central bankers thought they should get more regulatory powers in return for providing cheap cash to Wall Street banks during the 2008 credit crisis, according to Federal Reserve transcripts released on Friday. Powerful investment banks such as Goldman Sachs (NYS:GS - News) and Morgan Stanley (NYS:MS - News) had access to a raft of measures to prop up markets during the 2008 credit meltdown, but the Federal Reserve had little say over them. "I am just a little worried about being taken advantage of here," Richard Fisher, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said...

On Tuesday, new Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen went before Congress and confidently declared that "the economic recovery gained greater traction in the second half of last year" and that "substantial progress has been made in restoring the economy to health". This resulted in glowing headlines throughout the mainstream media such as this one from USA Today: "Yellen: Economy is improving at moderate pace". Sadly, tens of millions of Americans are going to believe what the mainstream media is telling them. But it isn't the truth. As you will see below, there are all sorts of signs that the economy...

In her first testimony before Congress as Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen pledged to continue on the path set by her predecessor Ben Bernanke. “His leadership helped make our economy and financial system stronger and ensured that the Federal Reserve is transparent and accountable,” said Yellen in a remarks delivered before the House Committee of Financial Services Tuesday morning.Speaking about the economic recovery, monetary policy and the financial systems Yellen expressed optimism about developments in recent months, but also made it clear work must be done to meet the Federal Open Market Committee’s objectives for the economy.In a note following...

The Federal Reserve (or Fed) has assumed sweeping new powers in the last year. In an unprecedented move in March 2008, the New York Fed advanced the funds for JPMorgan Chase Bank to buy investment bank Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar. The deal was particularly controversial because Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, sits on the board of the New York Fed and participated in the secret weekend negotiations.1 In September 2008, the Federal Reserve did something even more unprecedented, when it bought the world’s largest insurance company. The Fed announced on September 16 that it was giving an...

<p>U.S. equity markets zipped higher Friday after a round of weak jobs data inspired hopes the Fed may take more time to boost rates and cut its bond-purchasing program.</p> <p>As of 9:32 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 53.3 points, or 0.35%, to 15675, the S&P 500 gained 8.5 points, or 0.48%, to 1783 and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 28.4 points, or 0.69%, to 4084.</p>

Stocks were battered on Monday, with investors fleeing equities after factory data cast a negative light on the economy. Article Link: Stocks unravel after factory report

After a blistering four-month rally that took stocks to record highs last year, January could not have been more different, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell more than 5%. In the first month of the year, traders worried the financial health of both the U.S. and smaller nations meant stocks were too dangerous to continue owning for the time being, especially after a nearly uninterrupted rise that began in early 2009. Those jitters continued on the first trading day in February, driven by weakness in a manufacturing index from the Institute for Supply Management. By the close of...

The gap between the rich and poor continues to grow. The wealthiest 1 percent held 8 percent of the economic pie in 1975 but now hold over 20 percent. This is a striking change from the 1950s and 1960s when their share of all incomes was slightly over 10 percent. A study by Emmanuel Saez found that between 2009 and 2012 the real incomes of the top 1 percent jumped 31.4 percent. The richest 10 percent now receive 50.5 percent of all incomes, the largest share since data was first recorded in 1917. The wealthiest are becoming disproportionally wealthier at...

This is a very educational show put on by Kin Greenhouse of "It's Rainmaking Time". She is one of the very few who eschew the soundbite driven media economy and chooses the long format, deep dive approach. While it may be too long for ADD crowd, it digs deep into a not so simple subject to foster understanding and comprehension. This was a pretty good show with an interesting cast of guests:

Ben S. Bernanke ascended to the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve eight years ago as a little-known — albeit distinguished — Princeton economics professor who had notched just three years of federal public service. When he takes his leave this week, having presided over his final meeting of the Fed’s policy-making committee, he will depart as one of the finest chairmen in the institution’s hundred year history, having played a central role in averting a financial meltdown and lifting the nation out of recession.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday another $10 billion cut in its monthly bond purchases in a statement that attributed the decision to “growing underlying strength in the broader economy.” The statement, published after a two-day meeting of the Fed’s policy-making committee, reflected the optimism of Fed officials that the economy is finally poised for faster growth after years of false starts and setbacks. It was the committee’s first unanimous decision since 2011. The Fed said it would expand its holdings of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities by $65 billion in February, down from $75 billion in January and $85...

The United States has become more and more defensive against China because of its rapid development and the change of the comparison of strength between the two countries. "China Threat" theory increasingly attracts much more attention from the US media. Chinese political and economics author Lei Sihai believes that the United States is actively pursuing a "currency war" against China through a puppetry of elaborate political, military and media maneuvering. Using financial instruments as "direct weapons," Lei claims that the United States is gearing up to engage China in a currency battle come 2015 in his new book The Decisive...

People often ask today: if the Fed has created so much new money, why hasn’t it produced more inflation? When the Fed creates masses of new money, it initially flows to Wall Street, which profits from it in a variety of imaginative ways, but from there its path is unpredictable. The Fed inserted into the TARP bill in 2008 the authority to pay interest on bank reserves. Of course this interest is paid by creating even more new money, but it provides an incentive for banks to leave reserves idle. On the other hand, the reserves are not as idle...

The Federal Reserve did something completely unpredicted on Wednesday; nothing. So called “tapering” of QE was indefinitely placed in deep freeze………until such time as the U.S. economy is more robust. Most asset classes shot up energetically. Both the S&P and the Dow closed at all-time highs. SNIP The question to be asked is did these asset classes all react rationally. Continuing to effectively print $85 billion per month of new money after months of telegraphing at least a modicum of reduction can only translate that our economy is frail and infirm, languid if you will. SNIP Up until ten years...

Some may have forgotten, or not be aware, that the Federal Reserve system has its own police force. Well, it does: "The U.S. Federal Reserve Police is the law enforcement arm of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States.... Officers are certified to carry a variety of weapons systems (depending on assignment) including semi-automatic pistols, assault rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, less-lethal weapons, pepper spray, batons and other standard police equipment. Officers also wear bullet resistant vests/body armor. On October 12, 2010 President Barack Obama signed into law S.B. 1132 the "Law Enforcement Officers' Safety Act...

"Measures that arbitrarily, or by assumption, assign the bulk of fluctuation in GDP to purely temporary factors may provide poor policy guidance when shocks are more permanent in nature," he said in prepared remarks to the Korea-America Economic Association. ... While gross domestic product growth rose above 4 percent in the third quarter, it has generally stayed closer to 2 percent since the recession ended in 2009, causing some to think that longer-term potential GDP growth is no longer the 3-percent rate to which Americans are accustomed. If that is the case, the Fed's ultra easy policy stance - including...

Arthur Laffer is a legend in Washington, having been the leading voice on President Ronald Reagan's hawkish Economic Policy Advisory Board.  His "Laffer Curve," which argued that there are diminishing returns after a certain point of taxation, was taken as gospel.If his views are not quite as frequent a presence in public debate, it's largely because Laffer's pet issues, regulation and taxes, took a back seat during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.  But Laffer himself still occasionally makes appearances on the public scene.And in June of 2009, he penned an op-ed warning excessive quantitative easing would inevitably lead...

The Democratic Party gained prominence in the first half of the nineteenth century as being the party that opposed the Second Bank of the United States. In the process, it tapped into an anti-state sentiment that proved so strong that we wouldn't see another like it until the next century. Its adversaries were Whig politicians who defended the bank and its ability to grow the government and their own personal fortunes at the same time. They were, in fact, quite open about these arrangements. It was considered standard-operating procedure for Whig representatives to receive monetary compensation for their support of...

It is little wonder that early Democrats garnered such popular support and would demand Andrew Jackson end America’s experiment with central banking. Jackson called it “dangerous to the liberty of the American people because it represented a fantastic centralization of economic and political power under private control.” It’s hard to believe that guy who said that is now on the $20 bill. Jackson also warned that the Bank of the United States was “a vast electioneering engine” that could “control the Government and change its character.” These sentiments were echoed by Roger Taney, Jackson’s Treasury Secretary, who talked of the...

So who really controls the world? The Illuminati? Freemasons? The Bilderberg Group? Or are these all red herrings to distract your prying eyes from the real global elite? The answer, like most topics worth exploring, is not quite so simple. Have no doubt, there are secretive global powers whose only goal is to keep and grow that power. But it really may not be as secretive as you would think. And that is what makes it even more nefarious. But don't take my word for it, we have both science and insider testimony to back it up. We are going...

"The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland; a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were...

(Reuters) - The possibility that the Federal Reserve could finally start to trim its extraordinary stimulus for the economy could make this week an explosive one for financial markets. Though the odds still point to no major policy change when U.S. central bankers meet December 17-18, most of the recent domestic economic data suggest the beginning of the end of their massive bond-buying program is coming sooner than later. If it acts it may reflect as much a growth in confidence in the global economy, for whom the withdrawal of the flow of cheap dollars will be a shock, as...

A federal judge said Monday that he believes the government’s once-secret collection of domestic phone records is unconstitutional, setting up likely appeals and further challenges to the data mining revealed by classified leaker Edward Snowden. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of metadata — phone records of the time and numbers called without any disclosure of content — apparently violates privacy rights.

A week from now, the Federal Reserve System will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding. Resulting from secret negotiations between bankers and politicians at Jekyll Island, the Fed's creation established a banking cartel and a board of government overseers that has grown ever stronger through the years. One would think this anniversary would elicit some sort of public recognition of the Fed's growth from a quasi-agent of the Treasury Department intended to provide an elastic currency, to a de facto independent institution that has taken complete control of the economy through its central monetary planning. But just like the...

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meets on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. To taper or not to taper, that is the question. Hamlet-to-be-or-not-to-be3 Let’s take a look at inflation thus far. Since 1947, there have been only three periods of deflation where the consumer price index (CPI) has fallen for consecutive months: 1949-1950, 1954-1955 and most recently, 2009. inflationcpi121413 Notice that inflation (as defined by year–over-year changes in the consumer price index) has been declining since September 1981 when inflation hit 11%. The latest measure of inflation is 0.9% YoY for October 2013. At the same time, house...

The Federal Reserve currently purchases $40 billion per month in an effort to keep mortgage rates low and stimulate the housing market recovery (or bubble?). Over the past year, the RMBS index has earned -0.55% in spite of (or because of) The Fed’s $40 billion per month in agency RMBS purchases. And if we compare the BRMBS index to PIMCO’s vaunted total return fund, you will see similar performance until September 2013 when RMBS rallied in terms of price compared to PIMCO’s Total Return Fund. So, despite The Fed’s $40 billion of agency MBS per month, the Bloomberg MBS index...

There are cheers from the media about the latest jobs report. While some speculated that it was so good that The Fed would begin tapering their assets purchases, few noticed that the 10 year Treasury yield actually fell on the jobs report. But let’s look at the longer term picture. House prices are rising rapidly despite declining real median household income. Problem 1: Labor’s share of nonfarm business have been falling for decades, but it’s decline has been accelerating since 2000. laborsharelt No problem, many economists say. The U.S. has been moving towards a service economy for decades. But, …...

The S&P 500 stock market index rose a blistering +1.12% today on positive economic news, albeit much of it seasonal. The run up in stock prices following the collapse in 2008 (both stock market and house prices) has fueled speculation of another Hindenburg Omen event. That is, another stock market correction. But with Ben Bernanke and The Fed supporting asset bubbles with the expansion of The Fed’s Balance Sheet (green dotted line), investors continue to roll the dice on the stock market rising. Likewise, the Elliott Wave is being sustained by The Fed’s Balance Sheet. Let’s see what happens when...

... Quantitative easing has had the intended effect of holding down interest rates, which has in turn encouraged borrowing by businesses and individuals with good credit and stabilized the housing market. But persistent economic uncertainty has dulled the positive impact of the Fed's program. U.S. gross domestic product has broken above a 3 percent annual rate of growth in only six quarters since 2009. Some of the money has instead inflated asset bubbles, to the benefit of mostly wealthy investors seeking high yields. The Fed's "real intention was capital investment would be stimulated, jobs would be created, incomes of the...

The Financial Times reports that “the U.S. Federal Reserve is considering the possibility of arbitrarily cutting the amount of interest it pays on money that it borrows from private commercial banks.” Private banks, of course, make a great deal of money this way. But should the Fed make this decision, banks which have historically paid their customers a small amount of interest for the use of their money may well begin “…charg[ing] private individuals and businesses for the privilege of “parking” their money in an account for a time.” Could such a policy create a bank run? That’s what happened...

The ADP employment report was released today and blew past expectations of 170,000 jobs added with a print of … 215,000 jobs added. Of course, we don’t know the composition of full-time versus part-time/temporary holiday employment, but at least employment increased. Change-in-Nonfarm-Private-Employment-November-2013 In fact, ADP job creation seems to be in a similar point to the previous decade in terms of level of ADP jobs added. Historical-Trend-Change-in-Total-Nonfarm-Private-Employment-November-2013 Here is the composition of jobs added. Notice that is mostly small firms. ADP Dec_0 Will The Fed begin tapering with this “good” news on employment? Well, interest rates are rising this morning...